#tales from the scrap heap

[anon-e-miss]

The Desert Blooms - 9

“Where’d ya find the moonstone,” Ricochet asked. He and Jazz had not spoken about it but they seemed to be on the same wavelength so far as their “matches” were. Ricochet could not disagree with Ori’s subtle manoeuvring. The prince would suit Jazz better than the hot-helm and Ricochet supposed the hot-helm would suit him better than the stoic prince. Discovering Barricade’s interest in carving was a boon.

“A scrap heap,” Barricade replied. “Someone got a long way in carving a brick before they found a fissure.

“Barricade is forever searching scrap heaps for useful stones,” Prowl replied.

“Ya carve the table ‘n chairs?” Ricochet asked.

“Yes,” Barricade replied. “The Duke sent the granite from Praxus.”

“Did ya wanna see where ya can find some bigger pieces to work wit?” Ricochet asked.

“The private hoard Punch mentioned?” Barricade asked.

“Ori’s been tellin’ tales,” Ricochet exclaimed, with a chuckle. “Ain’t really my hoard. ‘M sure ‘m not the only carver that goes down there.

“Down where?” Barricade asked.

“Caves,” Ricochet said. “Most Polyhexian cities are mostly underground, outta the elements, except for businesses o’ trade ‘n the like. Ya seen how Darkmount is sorta in a bowl? That’s cause the walls o’ the main cavern collapsed. The smaller ones were abandoned outta... convenience? Who knows.”

“I do have something big I’d like to work on,” Barricade confessed.

“Great.”

Ori beamed and Ricochet rolled his optics behind his visor. Barricade was already standing before Ricochet thought he out to offer him a servo. He had been raised in camps and caves cut into the cliffs, not the court and he had no courtly manners. Jazz came to it naturally. His charm would make up for any misteps. Ricochet was rougher around the edges and with none of the charm. It would be Jazz who would lead the way when, eventually, envoys came to call, Ricochet thought he would do less damage if he smiled and nodded. Barricade may not have emerged to the Duke but he had been raised in his home a long time. Though how Praxian manners really translated in Polyhex’s court, Ricochet did not know. He tried to think of something to say but empty prattle had never been his thing.

“This way,” Ricochet scowled to himself as he realized these were the first glyphs he had spoken in the breams they had been walking. Barricade’s red optics narrowed. “Y’re fine. ‘M just thinkin’ I ain’t been much o’ a guide.”

“Oh?” Barricade asked.

“Well I outta be tellin’ ya where we’re walkin’,” Ricochet said. “What all this ‘n that is.”

“I don’t mind silence,” Barricade replied. “I grew up with Prowl.”

“He ain’t chatty?” Ricochet asked.

“He can be,” Barricade said. “If something interests him. You’ll see how he is eventually. When he gets into his own helm, he goes down deep. Whether he’s gardening, painting or just sitting at the same time, he only comes back up in his own time.”

“Ya don’t mind it,” Ricochet said.

“It’s how he is,” Barricade replied. “Enough mecha hate him for drawing breath, I figured as his brother, the least I could do is work with him.”

“How’d he react when the Duke brought ya home?” Ricochet asked.

“He took care of me,” Barricade replied.

***

“They did not even wait for the rent to come due,” Barricade peered up from under the box he was using to shield himself from the rain and saw an elegantly armoured mech, wearing a heavy velvet cloak looking down at him, sitting amongst the trash in the alley next to the boarding house he and his origin had lived, where his origin had died. Barricade scowled at the well-spoken stranger. The way his armour was cut reminded Barricade of his progenitor and he hated this mech on sight.

“What do you want?” He hissed. The stranger knelt in the puddle in front of him and pulled back his hood. Like Origin, the stranger’s faceplates were gold, though his optics were blue.

“I am designated Camshaft; your progenitor was my consort,” the mech said. Everything amount the mech, down to his accent, was so fine, unlike Barricade. “I found the letter you wrote him, telling of your originator’s death. He has passed as well. I am here to take you home, Barricade.”

“Home?” Barricade asked. “They kicked me out.”

“So I see,” Camshaft replied. “I will send someone to collect a refund on the rent remaining for this quartex. No, Barricade, I am taking you to my home, yours now as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Barricade said.

“I will explain,” Camshaft said. He took off his cloak and wrapped it around Barricade before picking him up. “My carriage is close.”

Origin had always told Barricade to be weary of strangers, even well armoured ones, but origin was gone. Barricade wrapped his arms around Camshaft’s neck and his legs around his waist. He shivered, the rains had soaked into his protoform. The strange mech crooned to him as he carried him down the block. Rain drenched Camshaft but he did not seem to care. He only paused a moment to pull the hood better over Barricade’s helm, shielding his faceplates from the rain. Barricade heard a scandalized gasp. Camshaft made no sound at all. Head heard doors creak as they were pulled open. When Camshaft set him down, Barricade pulled back the hood, far too big for his helm and looked around as the stranger climbed into the carriage with him.

“Take us home,” he ordered the coachmech. He turned to Barricade and gave him a soft look. “You are soaked to the struts, poor thing. Turn up the heat.”

“Where are we going?” Barricade asked. Hot air blasted all around him and Barricade was warm.

“To my home,” Camshaft replied. “I live on an estate in Petrex with my mechling, Prowl. You are his brother and thus you are mine so you will live with us now.”

“But... I’m just a bastard,” Barricade said. “I’m not even your bastard.”

“The only bastard in all of this was your progenitor,” Camshaft declared. Barricade could not argue that point.

At first, Origin had just had a little cough, something he had said, he figured, he had picked up backstage. But then the coughing had gotten so bad Origin’s armour rattled with the force of it and at the same time as he had spiked a fever, a rash had appeared on his chassis. His vocalizer had swollen so much he could not speak. Barricade had tried to fetch a medic but Origin had not been paid for his last performance. He had gone to the hall but the manager had said he had deducted fees because Origin had failed to appear for the last few shows. Only after exhausting these avenues had Barricade written to his progenitor, a mech he had only seen three times in his whole life. He had only answered once, to tell him his whore of an origin was not his concern. No matter how much Barricade had begged in letter after letter, he never sent a shanix, or another glyph. No medic had come, no matter how much he had begged them, no priest either, not even when Origin had ventilated his last.

“I am so sorry, Sweetspark,” Camshaft said as he wiped a tear from Barricade’s faceplates.

“They wouldn’t give him Last Rites,” Barricade cried. He wriggled out of he cloak so he could climb off of his bench and into Camshaft’s arms. “They didn’t want to catch it.”

“We will build your originator a shrine,” Camshaft promised as he stroked Barricade’s helm. “And we will light his path to the well.”

“Promise?” Barricade asked.

“I promise,” Camshaft said.

Barricade believed him. There was something about Camshaft, something different than his progenitor, that made Barricade feel like his glyphs were true. He set his helm on the stranger’s shoulder and closed his optics. Camshaft hummed and the lullaby, along with the rocking of the carriage, lulled Barricade into recharge. Sometime later he woke to the carriage rolling to a stop. Camshaft stroked his back and hummed a reassuring note. Soon the carriage was on the move again and Barricade looked out the window to see that they were riding down a long drive. Fields covered in wild blooming crystals stretched further than Barricade could see. When they came to a stop again, Barricade could not see the habsuite but he imagined it was huge. The doors opened and a coachmech stood in the opening.

“I’ll take him to the servants quarters,” the mech said.

“You will not,” Camshaft declared. “Barricade will live in the nursery with Prowl.”

“But that is... scandalous...”

“I am the Duke of Petrex,” Camshaft replied. “This is my estate and my household. I will manage it as I will. Let it be known to my staff, Barricade is equal to Prowl and should I find out he is being treated in any way less, there will be Pit to pay.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” the coachmech said, bowing low. Barricade looked up at Camshaft... highness?

“Good,” Camshaft said. “Come along, Barricade. It is time for you to meet your brother.”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Barricade replied. Camshaft smiled down at him.

“You do not need to address me as so,” he replied. “I am Camshaft. I am your caretaker. I am not your lord. Do you understand?”

“No,” Barricade replied. He really did not.

“That is alright,” Camshaft said. “You will.”

“You are back, Originator,” a new voice spoke. A mech Barricade’s age with a silver face and the Duke’s blue optics stood on the steps of the grandest home Barricade had ever seen. It must have been as long as the whole block Barricade had lived on.

“Yes, Prowl, I have brought you your brother,” Camshaft explained. “By your progenitor. He is designated Barricade.”

“Hello Barricade,” Prowl greeted Barricade. He had a funny tone. His accent was similar to Camshaft but different... almost flat. Barricade stood very still as the Duke’s creation walked down the steps at stops in front of him. Prowl looked Barricade up and down and then looked up to his originator and back down again. “You were caught in the rains, Barricade. I will draw you a bath and fetch some tea.”

***

“Just like that?” Ricochet asked.

“Camshaft said I was his brother and so in Prowl’s processor, it was so,” Barricade explained. “There were servants, of course there were servants but Camshaft mostly had them barred from the nursery. He, we, kept it up. The only servants allowed in were tutors and Camshaft kept a close optic on them.”

“Why?” Ricochet asked.

“Because he could never be sure who might be one of his brothers’ or originator’s assassins,” Barricade explained.

“Assassins?” Ricochet gasped. “They wanted your brother dead so bad.”

“Fratricide is the family business,” Barricade explained. “The first time Camshaft’s elder brother tried to kill him, he was a first tier sparkling and his brother a second tier. It did not get better as they got older and more brothers were added.”

“Fraggin’ Pit,” Ricochet gasped. “The Emperor is okay with this?”

“It’s tradition,” Barricade explained. “The strongest and smartest survives over his brothers to become emperor.”

“That’s insane,” Ricochet declared. “Ain’t sorry to say that… That’s just crazy.”

“It is,” Barricade agreed. “Camshaft stayed in his dukedom, he still does, versus court. It’s been a long time since they tried anything.”

“They don’t think he’s a threat?” Ricochet asked.

“No, they’re all terrified of him,” Barricade explained. “The last time he had to dine with them, he put every one of them into stasis with a bit of poison. When they came back on line, all hungover as Pit, he warned them to leave him be or the next time they wouldn’t wake up. The Emperor was furious.”

“Why?” Ricochet asked.

“Because poison is the coward’s way,” Barricade said. “And if he was going to go and do it, he should have at least done it properly and wiped them all out.”

“But he didn’t,” Ricochet said.

“He doesn’t want power,” Barricade said. “Not anymore than he has as Duke of Petrex. He loathes the court, loathes the tradition. He would have had a whole gaggle of sparkling but he only had Prowl because he didn’t want his creations pitted against each other.”

“He probably thought bringin’ ya home was a blessin’,” Ricochet said.

“That’s what he told me,” Barricade replied.

“He sounds like a good mech,” Ricochet declared.

“I’ve never met a better one,” Barricade replied.

There was love there, as deep and as loyal a love as Barricade had for his brother. Ricochet did not understand why he would not go home but then he supposed in their situation, nothing could convince Ricochet to leave Jazz’s side. Barricade and the prince might not have been twins or even full brothers, they had a powerful bond. It was something Ricochet could respect. He took Barricade’s servo and guided him over the rubble that partially barred the mouth of the cave. Barricade was sure of ped, the doorwings probably did not heard so far as balance went. He clicked his glossa as they descended into darkness, with only their headlights to light the way. Having evolved for low-light environments, Ricochet saw as clearly in the tunnel as he did on the surface, once he retracted his visor. Barricade clicked his glossa and walked along at Ricochet’s side as sure of ped as ever.

“Click,” Barricade clicked his glossa and walked along.

“What’re ya doin’?” Ricochet asked.

“Echolocation,” Barricade said.

“I didn’t know Praxians could do that,” Ricochet replied.

“Most can’t,” Barricade replied. “Camshaft taught us.”

“Sounds like the two o’ ya got an eclectic education,” Ricochet replied.

“That’s a good way to put it,” Barricade said.

“Here we are,” Ricochet replied.

“What am I looking at?” Barricade asked. “Since I don’t actually see anything.”

“Roots,” Ricochet explained. He lit a lamp and held it up. “From the trees that topped the oasis that used to sit above the cave.”

“Nice,” Barricade said. He ran his servos over a broken crystal root. Barricade took the lantern from Ricochet and studied the roots all around him. “Hmm.”

“What’re ya lookin’ to make?” Ricochet asked.

“A cradle for the bitlet,” Barricade said. “So if you have optics for something for a loftier project just tell me now.”

“I don’t,” Ricochet replied. “‘N anyways, makin’ a cradle seems like a pretty worthy purpose for any o’ these crystals.”

[imakemywings]

Asphodel

On AO3

The field upon which their last great blow against Morgoth had been turned aside was a barren expanse of sunbaked mud. Dust blew up from the cracks in the earth and whipped through the air in a thousand tiny storms; heaps of remains, of armor, of weapons, dotted the landscape, and reigning over all, the putrid Haudh-en-Nirnaeth.

Daeron had heard already of the fate of the high king of the Noldor, and he knew this wasteland had nothing for him, yet he came, unable to sever the cord of destiny around his throat. He trudged across the desolate land and each rusting trinket he passed stabbed at his heart, for it seemed to him that the fate of Middle-earth was now written, and no hope remained to them.

Because there was nothing to find, there was nowhere to stop; he only came as close as he dared to the Hill and sank down onto his knees, the gritty breeze stinging his dark cheeks. Had it been here, he wondered? Was this his resting place? It might as well have been.

Daeron had never seen a skull split with a single blow, but his imagination worked wonders in this regard: of splintered bones and rent muscles and ruptured organs, of blood pouring forth onto thirsty soil, of the obliteration of a person.

Daeron bent forward until his forehead touched the desecrated ground and a low moan trailed from his throat; he tried to subordinate these thoughts to the memory of Fingon as he had been at the Mereth Aderthad, how he had allowed Daeron to coax smiles and laughter from a heart wearied of tragedy, but he could not do it. The only other thing on which his mind would focus was his own desperate pleading just before battle: at the edge of the woods he had relinquished any remaining shreds of dignity to grasp at Fingon’s doublet, begging him to forget it, to forget his kingship and his kin and Morgoth most of all, and come into the wood with Daeron, and leave the rest behind.

In a tiny pocket Daeron had sewn inside his tunic, over the left side of his breast, was a loop of wavy black hair which Fingon had given him when he said goodbye in favor of his duty. This Daeron could still remember: How Fingon had smiled when he pressed it into Daeron’s hand, assuring him that all would be well, and when they met again, it would be under a sun which shone not upon the Enemy, and then Fingon would take Daeron to Hithlum that he might partake in the grand celebrations of the Noldor.

Seeing that Fingon could not be turned from his course, Daeron had said no more of it, and allowed Fingon to make his promises and embrace him that he might go to his end at least assured of Daeron’s affections. Now was come the shadow Daeron had foreseen, and there was nothing left over which he might mourn; there was not even a suggestion of the final resting place of Fingon Fingolfinion, prince from across the great wide sea. Once again, Daeron found himself merely tangential to another’s tale, sitting in the ruins of all that had been at the start of the tale and now was no more.

Sitting back on his heels, Daeron turned his face up to the sky, and his tears ran back into his braids.

“What I have done to make you so despise me, I repent of it,” he said to the merciless sky. “I would that you might tell me my proper penance, for I cannot bear this endless sorrow. You made me not with such strength to endure.”

The battlefield was silent; not even the buzzards lingered there.

There was nothing for Daeron in the Anfauglith, it was true: but it was the last place he had hoped to find something. In absence of meaning, of purpose, of comfort, he tore a strip of one of the banners of the Noldor, and told himself it had been the one Fingon had carried, and tucked the scrap into his pocket with the hair.

Where Daeron went when he drifted from Anfauglith none could say, for he vanished then into complete obscurity and the tales tell no more of the loremaster of Doriath and his silent flute, nor does his name cross the memorials of Fingon son of Fingolfin, the shortest-reigning of the high kings of the Noldor.

[inkinthequill]

An Ant at the End of the Universe

A short-story done for a weekly Reedsy contest, for the prompt "Write a story where a character must continue to tell their tale to a listener to avoid unsavory consequences".

The universe was ending.

In truth, that phrasing may be a bit over dramatic– it wasn’t so much coming to an end in an explosive, bombastic fashion (though the supernova from the few stars left certainly made for a beautiful light show), as it was with a slow, sputtering gasp.

More aptly, it was dying.

In a fruitless pursuit to reverse the inevitable heat death of the universe, or really just anything in such a hopeless situation, a lone arthropod had fashioned a humble little spacecraft. Out of scraps of metal and splintered wood it was crafted, rusty nails and wood glue keeping the rattling junk heap fastened together. All signs of life in the universe his species could pick up were fizzling out into radio silence. There was one lone thing that his little radio was receiving now. The only thing left to receive. A ghastly howling of wind, and the quiet dripping of water at the very center of the whole, ever expanding expanse.

His crooked antennae twitched with grief as he witnessed the light of his own exploding star across the massive stretch of space behind him, the encouraging chatter from his in-ship radio descending into deafening silence.

They had been the closest sentient species to the center of the universe, but no one had ever dared to travel this far. Now, at the center of it all, he was the single living creature in the entirety of space and time to witness it in its full glory. A swirling, brilliant white vortex; shimmering, golden fractal patterns swirling out the center, spreading further and further into deep space with every passing second.

Its sheer size and magnificence was mystifying; the view of his planet behind him paled in comparison. Colors he had never seen rippled out in magnificent, concentric ribbons as he approached; all the while, the few stars he could see left blinked out into the all-consuming darkness around him.

This was it.

The last bastion left in space.

And there was no one left to tell how beautiful it was.

With a little chatter of his chitinous jaws, he pushed forward on the throttle, easing himself in slowly. Advancing further and further, the blinding white glow consumed everything he could see, bathing the interior of his ship in alabaster light.

Then, nothing.

He was still conscious– or at least, he could assume as much. He smelled… nothing. He couldn’t feel his mandibles nervously chattering, and neither of his compound eyes could make out anything but a massive, spinning shape shadowed in the blinding light. He could make out the shadow of multiple concentric rings, all whirling in different directions at a sickeningly rapid velocity.

“AND HOW HAVE YOU FOUND YOURSELF HERE, LITTLE INSECT?”

A voice, a voice! A sound! His exoskeleton trembled from the overwhelming bass the voice output– he imagined this must’ve been what it felt like being next to the tectonic plates on his home grinding across each other. He was surprised he could understand it… all his people were dead now.

All people were dead now.

Was he dead? Was this what was awaiting everyone else? A comforting thought, that he might not be alone here– if that was the case. His mandibles chattered with a bewildered mix of both dread and excitement, desperate to have a chat with this new entity.

[I came here on a ship! The universe is in quite a mess right now– and you seem to be all that’s left! Am I dead? Are we dead?]

There was a rumbling, and a violent wind so fierce it was as if a hundred dervishes were colliding into each other.

“YOU ARE IN A SPACE WHERE DEATH HAS NO HOLD. THE CONCEPT IS UNFATHOMABLE TO THOSE WHO DWELL HERE, AS ONLY THOSE WHO LIVE ON THE OUTSIDE WILL EXPERIENCE IT.”

The ant thought for a moment, shuffling his body to become as comfortable as he could make it. After all, what else was there to do?

[So, this is…. a heaven, of sorts?]

“A HEAVEN? NO. A HAVEN, YES. A PLACE BEYOND SPACE AND TIME– WHERE THE UNTHINKABLE IS THOUGHT, AND THE IMPOSSIBLE GIVEN SHAPE. THIS PLACE HAS EXISTED FAR BEFORE THE BIRTH OF YOUR UNIVERSE, AND WILL LIVE PAST ITS DEATH.”

[Ah, yes. That death part is happening currently, I believe. Or, I suppose, it has happened, hasn’t it?]

“IT HAS.”

[That’s a shame. I quite liked what I got to see of it.]

There was a pause. He could feel a hundred, titanic eyes staring at him– he couldn’t see it, but he could feel the gaze of this lone being casting a million curious glances down at him.

“THERE WERE EONS FOR ONE OF YOU TRANSITORY SENTIENTS TO FIND THIS PLACE. HOW ARE YOU THE ONLY ONE WHO MADE IT HERE?”

The ant thought for a moment.

[Well, I don’t know. I’m surprised I was the only one. I sort of assumed you were all knowing to some degree, can’t you tell me the answer?]

The fathomless being paused as well.

“WE ARE AT A CROSSROADS AT THE MOMENT. EVERYTHING THAT EVER WAS, IS SHUFFLING INTO EVERYTHING THAT WILL EVER BE. UNTIL WE SHAPE THE NEXT UNIVERSE, WE ARE NOT PERMITTED THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT HAS BEEN AND WHAT WILL COME OUTSIDE OF THIS HAVEN.”

[That seems so sad.]

“IT IS A FUNCTION. CONCEPTS OF EMOTION ARE MEANINGLESS FOR OUR ROLE IN THE UNIVERSAL CYCLE. WHAT WORTH WILL SUCH FLEETING CHEMICAL REACTIONS SERVE HERE, AT THE END OF EVERYTHING?”

[I happen to like them, thank you. Chemical as they are, they do have their worth and purpose!]

“IRRELEVANT. IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO CEASE TO BE, AND FREE YOUR ATOMS FOR USE IN THE NEXT UNIVERSE.”

The ant assumed a defensive pose with its six legs, shaking one of them toward the being.

[Now, just a moment! I came all this way, so I think I’ve at least earned the chance to say my piece! If you’re as old as you say you are, and I am but a momentary blink in this universe, it certainly wouldn’t hurt the schedule to let me speak, would it?]

There was another fierce gust, another terrible rumble.

“IT SERVES NO PURPOSE.”

[Ah, but knowledge always serves a purpose! Do you at least remember what happens in this little period between universes, so to speak?]

“WE DO.”

[Goody! Well, I’d like to talk about my race for just a moment, if it’s all the same to you. If everything that came before is going to go ‘poof’, it would be nice to talk about it all before I go. Do you mind postponing my nonexistence until I finish?]

“I MAKE NO PROMISES.”

The ant smoothed over his bent antennae, taking a moment to collect himself and gather his thoughts.

[Well, you see, my people haven’t been around for very long. In the grand scheme of things, we’re very young. That’s what all our scientists said, at least. In truth, we barely just learned space travel, and the ship I came here on was pretty slap-dash.]

“WE WITNESSED THE CRAFT, YES.”

[Yes, it’s a bit of a mess. The scientists among my people found out that all the stars were beginning to die, including our own– way ahead of what they initially envisioned. So, as the best space pilot we had, they sent me out to the signal in the center of the universe with the best thing we could put together. We put all our hopes in that little tin can.]

“YOUR UNIVERSE IS DEAD. YOUR PEOPLE ARE DEAD. WHAT USE DID SUCH AN ACT SERVE?”

[A mix of things. There were some that hoped whatever I found could save all of them. Some felt it was the only thing left to do, so why not give it a shot? For me, it was curiosity. If we had nothing to lose, why not go out with one last great discovery?]

“AND WHAT HAVE YOU DISCOVERED?”

The ant tilted his head.

[That space is as scary as it is beautiful. That the unknown is as terrifying as it is exciting. I saw a thousand colors of stars I could never imagine in my compound eyes. I saw swirling gas giants of every size, and moons carved with the most gorgeous patterns. More than that, I found you at the end of all things. On top of it all, I get to be there right before it all begins again!]

“YOU WON’T LIVE TO BE IN THE NEXT ONE. WHAT PURPOSE DOES KNOWING SUCH THINGS SERVE?”

[It makes me happy.]

“A PITTANCE. A FEELING AS FLEETING AS THE UNIVERSE ITSELF.”

[Perhaps, but what a wonderful pittance it is! I can find comfort in it– alongside one other thing, of course.]

“AND WHAT WOULD THAT BE, LITTLE CREATURE?”

[That you’ll remember our little talk. You’ll remember me, and you’ll remember my people. Can anything really be so fleeting, when we’ll exist in your thoughts and memories forever?]

There was a long silence. The rumbling quieted, and so did the wind. For a moment, it was peaceful.

“HOW DID YOUR SPECIES LIVE, LITTLE INSECT?”

[We built sprawling, complex colonies from dirt and sand. Every waking moment we helped each other, even if we had our spats and fights on occasion. We worked together to build wonders out of nothing, all the way until we could come here, to the great black sea– and found out the majesty we got to see on our own world was a drop of sand in the infinite beauty of this cosmos. Oh, the things I wish I could’ve seen! The things I could’ve shown you, friend. It was such a good life.]

There was another long silence, the air starting to ripple and shake. The ant could feel his existence falling apart like sands through an hourglass, relaxing as he began to drift away into nothingness.

“INSECT. THE TIME HAS COME. WE CAN PROLONG THIS NO LONGER.”

[I can feel that, yes.]

“IF YOU HAVE ANYTHING LEFT TO SAY– ANY REGRETS TO AIR, NOW IS THE TIME.”

The ant pondered one last time, as his physical form began to collapse to dust and wash away into nothing.

[No regrets… but…] he chattered, lifting his head and clicking his mandibles happily. [I hope there are lots of eager little explorers in the next one!]

With those final words, he was no more. His atoms scattered like ash in the wind. There was no living creature left. Just the massive being swirling above where the ant stood— alongside more coming to join them in the coming turn of the cosmic wheel.

The universe was entirely dead.

And an untold amount of time later— it burst forth from the smallest particle, spreading gorgeous stars and nebulae of every color across the canvas of the cosmos once more.

************************************************************************

A little girl dashed and rolled around a grassy field, her hair swaying around with every excited step she took. Her older brother chased close behind her, coming to a careening halt as the girl suddenly squatted down next to a muddy puddle.

“Oh no!” she said, “Look at all the ants that drowned…”

Her brother walked behind her, taking a look for himself.

“They are soaked…” he said, leaning down to take a closer look. “But they aren’t dead. Watch this.”

The young man reached down and scooped a bunch of them in his hands, pouring them onto a patch of dry dirt under the shade of a tree. “Take a close look, now….”

The girl walked over and got as close as she could, innocent eyes wide with amazement at what she saw. She watched an ant with bent antennae start to wriggle and move again with the rest of their fellows, flipping back onto its legs and scouting out his new location.

“I didn’t know they could survive in water!”

“Yeah, they’re sturdy little things.”

“Wow….” the girl said, looking up at her brother and beaming. “You think an ant could survive in space, too?”

“Hmm, I don’t know…” her brother said, “I think he’d need a little suit and rocket ship to go out there.”

“True…”

“C’mon, we gotta get back now, Sara. Mom’ll get worried if we’re not back before it’s dark.”

“Fine…” she grumbled, taking the open hand that was offered to her and walking alongside him.

“Maybe I’ll go to space, one day. And I’ll take all the ants with me, in their own tiny suits.”

“I bet you could,” her brother said. “You always were an explorer.”

[saintsofwarding]

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by @trout-scout​

Chapter 15: A Changed Man

The first of the lycans made their appearance halfway down the misty mountain path that led to the village. Green glimmered between the trees, darts of movement, low snarls through the wind. Rose kept her hand on her sword, but Dimitrescu just smirked.

"Let them have their fun," she said. "I'll show them I haven't forgotten when they cowered at my feet."

Donna led them down the path, a long, winding road through lonely forests and over a ravine, so dense with mist only the distant sound of rushing water told Rose it had a bottom at all. Before she left the house, Donna had hidden her face behind the black silk of a mourning-veil, and as the wind blew it fluttered behind her, a dark flag against the stark white and gray of the landscape.

The rickety rope bridge juddered and swung as they crossed it, but Donna stepped from plank to plank like she was walking down the sidewalk, even in her high-button boots. She must have crossed this way hundreds of times in the past, so much it became second nature.

"Here," she said, suddenly, stepping off the path and heading toward a rocky outcropping beyond.

Rose's heart gave a hard knock against her sternum. She clutched her sword strap tighter as she crunched through the snow and joined Donna on the ledge.

Before her spread the village.

What was left of it, anyway. She'd seen glimpses of it in Heisenberg's memories, had hundreds of times imagined what it must have looked like, sometimes a nightmare of blood and crooked houses and horrors behind every door, sometimes a strange fairy-tale place, vines growing over walls, the land trapped under some strange enchantment. A village of shadows, lost in the forest.

The reality was neither. This...this was devastation. Vast, calcified constructs of mold, like crystalline trees, sprouted from the snow, twisting over houses and churches, courtyards and streets. The broken towers of a red-brick fortress rose through the constructs, one side of them blackened and twisted, facing a crater in the landscape.

It looked unreal: a huge burned hole in the world, its edges crumbling stone crusted with ice, circled by crows that at this distance looked like nothing more than scattered scraps of ash thrown to the breeze.

"The bomb," Rose whispered. That was where Ethan had died. That was where he'd be, if Ouroboros was right and his remains were still intact, in some way.

"Indeed," said Dimitrescu, her voice dripping with loathing.

Rose tried to make out more detail in the crater, but they were still too far off. The castle rose beyond, spearing into the low gray clouds, cast in blue at this distance. Against the backdrop of the snowy mountains, its windows dark, it looked like some great, ancient beast laying down before the ruins of its den.

"Oh, no, no, no," Dimitrescu breathed. "What did they do to you?"

"It looks all right from here," Rose said, squinting.

"No." Her voice dropped into a snarl. "No. Something is wrong. I am certain of it, now. Something is terribly wrong."

She turned on her heel and stalked off. With a glance at Donna, Rose hurried after her, breaking into a run to keep up with Dimitrescu's stride.

The mist thickened on their descent. They passed through graveyards, through thick underbrush, through snowbanks heaped higher than Rose was tall. Her pulse strengthened with each step. Growls split the silence. The lycans were coming. Eyes glimmered; teeth glistened. They hung back, still not descending on them. Dimitrescu, her claws half-unsheathed so they looked more than ever like the talons of some vast bird of prey, had to be a pretty strong deterrent, but Rose couldn't get her proclamation out of her head, that something was wrong.

Past an ancient, half-collapsed gateway, a moon-and-sun sigil affixed to its apex, the path opened out into a kind of arena, its rocky walls so thickly knotted and entwined with crystallized mold-vines that it looked like tree roots bursting through the cliffs. A stone pedestal in its center showed a place that must have once allowed something to be mounted there.

Rose's nerves stung. Dread mounted. A baby's cry echoed in the back of her mind.

My Eva...

"She resurrected me...there..." Rose murmured. A pathway led off through the mold-vines, its limits lost in shadow. Still, Rose saw it in her head. The statues of four kings encircling the ceremony site.

The great stone chalice, ancient thing, bubbling with liquefied mold.

And in its depths-

She pressed the heel of her hand to her head as the memories came thick and fast, rising to the surface as if through water. She'd been so close...so close...reaching out, grabbing hold...leaves scars, tears pieces-

Then, of course, she'd been distracted by a magnum shot to the face, her lycan army torn apart by Heisenberg's metal soldiers. That was about where her memories ended. Heisenberg would have taken her, then, or been given her, and that was when he'd fled.

The others were already a ways on. Donna had paused, but she kept darting glances at the circle of lycans, closing in.

One gave a snarl, leaping down from the root mass higher up. Rose drew her sword in a slash; the monster skittered back, snapping, a weapon made from a horse jawbone lashed to a stick clutched in its hairy hand.

"And stay back," Rose spat.

She backed after Donna and Dimitrescu, down a slope. The smell of rot hit her as she approached what through the mist appeared to be an irregular gated archway spanning the path. She faltered as it came into her view. A vast arch of animal parts, rotting or desiccated, lashed together into ghastly form. Antlers and limbs stuck from the arch's upper edge, spikes and juts of broken bones, glistening.

A couple lycan heads were impaled on the points, eyes picked to jelly by the circling crows.

Black flesh dripped gobs of rotting matter onto the gate below, wrought-iron with a pattern in animal bones tied onto the struts. A circular pattern, Rose realized. Six-winged- real crow wings torn off at the joint- and fetal, curled up as if sleeping.

The lycans must have made it. Rose saw that it stretched to either side, forming a crude fence that must encircle the entire village. And they must add onto it with frequency- some of the pieces looked downright fresh.

"Facilis descensus averno," Dimitrescu said.

"Huh?" Rose tore her gaze away from the archway.

"The descent to hell," Dimitrescu translated, "is easy."

Rose wanted to grumble wow, high school English class, much, anything to steady her nerves, but Dimitrescu's description was way too apt. These lycans weren't attacking. They were just letting them walk right in.

Easy. More like too easy.

There was no time to turn back now. They crossed beneath the lycans' archway and into the village itself.

The mists rolled away before them. If it had looked bad from on high, then at ground level, it looked like something from some alien landscape. The crystalline growths- the remains of Miranda's mold constructs- burst from the ground, the walls, the houses, some demolishing buildings, sprouted straight through their foundations and arching over the streets. They formed tunnels, thickets of glittering growths, the houses so deeply trapped within their translucent, milky boughs they looked nearly fused together.

From most hung long charms made of bone and scavenged shiny objects, clacking and chiming with each gust of wind. More evidence of the lycans lingered- the rotting ribcage of a deer or other large animal, detritus dragged from a house to form a kind of lean-to or nest in a hollow between two growths, scratch-marks in the crystal as if to mark territory.

Only near the entrance, though. As they delved deeper into town, Rose saw less and less until they were gone altogether. The carrion crows retreated, circling high above. Nothing was left but the treelike growths, crystal gleaming in the thin daylight.

Even Dimitrescu looked unsettled, her eyes bright, tendons standing out on the backs of her hands. This was her home, Rose reminded herself. The place she'd lived since before her transformation, the place she'd been reborn as the powerful monster she was now.

"Mother Miranda did all this?" she said as they began further down the pathway. They passed the statue of a young girl holding a sword and shield aloft, strangling tentacles of calcified mold twining round her throat and wrists. "Her power was so great?"

"Yeah," Rose said. She paused to duck under a calcified branch. It snagged at her hair, pulling a few silvery strands loose. "Chris told me it was your deaths that allowed her to get so powerful. Your biomass plus all the slaughtered villagers...well, I guess it gave her lots of play-doh to mold into whatever she wanted."

She glanced sidelong at Dimitrescu. "She wasn't your mother. She just wanted to use all of you. You know that, right?"

"I would have done anything for her. Anything."

"Why?"

She smirked. "She made me into this. Would that not be enough for you?"

Rose considered, clambering over a root-growth that burst over the street itself, forming a barricade. "Yeah, I guess you have a point there."

Dimitrescu turned her attention to the castle, stepping over the barricade that Rose had just climbed. "She gave me that. And with it...truth. Of who I was. A legacy, settling upon my shoulders like wings. The means to mold the world at my command. There is something in that castle I need, child, if I am to fight a war for what is mine."

"Oh?"

"My armor," Dimitrescu said. "In antiquity, I learned, the leaders of the great House Dimitrescu would ride into battle at the fore of their army. They never quailed in fear. They defended what was theirs. And they wore the ancestral armor of our house while doing it."

She made an elegant movement with one hand, talons singing against the wind. "As shall I."

"Armor?" Rose's mouth fell open. "No freaking way-"

Dimitrescu lifted her head. "Indeed. Made to fit."

She glanced sidelong at Rose, the edge of her lip lifted from one incisor. "Drenched in blood, I shall cut an...intimidating figure, I think."

Rose did think. Still, she glanced around herself again, watching the lycans as they circled them, leaping and scrabbling from rooftop to rooftop, staring down at them but not advancing.

"I don't like this," she said.

"Mm." Dimitrescu eyed her in turn. "Curious."

"What's curious?"

"Perhaps they smell you."

"Oh, come on," Rose said, in a rush. "They-"

"Stop," Donna whispered.

Rose faced front, lifting her sword. Dimitrescu's claws slithered to their full length. A figure stood in the mists ahead, swathed in a robe, bare feet squelching in the icy mud. Their hands were lifted.

Rose narrowed her eyes. Those fingers didn't end in claws.

"Not a lycan?" Dimitrescu muttered.

"Oh!" The voice wailed forth. "Great ones! You have returned to us once more!" The stranger tottered forward, hands still lifted- in...exaltation? Rose's frown got deeper. "You...you have been away for so, so long...so long...this place has...suffered, yes, suffered without your harmony providing balance to the land-"

"Stay the fuck back!" Rose ordered.

The stranger stumbled with an 'oh!' and collapsed to their knees. Their hood fell back, revealing a woman in her late twenties with a fine-boned, almost starved-looking face. Her head was roughly shaved, covered in tufts of hair and bloody scrapes. She wore a heavy collar of small bones and rocks; it jangled as she knelt there in the mud, her hands and feet blue with the cold.

"I beg your forgiveness," she cried. "Please, please, I am merely the messenger..."

"Messenger for what?"

"To invite you!" One arm swung back, pointing up toward the castle. "To my Great Lord's holy dwelling."

"Your great lord's?" Dimitrescu strode forward, lifting her claws. "I will show you who is the great one among-"

"Wait, wait." Rose hurried in front of Dimitrescu before she could slice the strange woman into lunch meat. "Wait. You live here? In the village. With the lycans?"

"Oh, yes. Since before! Before the Cataclysm." She nodded, her huge, pale green eyes glistening. "I cleaned the blood from the cells in the dungeons. Up in the castle. I was just a fool-headed child. No one paid attention to me. So when the dying started..."

She let out a little giggle. "...I hid, and watched the flames light up the skies, the Black God consumed! Devastation! And then, afterward, when the dark flooded in, I was found, and I was saved. By my Great Lord. He saved many of us. As many as he could wrest from the lycans."

Growls rippled through the darkness around them. The lycans had followed them. Rose's eyes darted from side to side; everywhere she looked shone eyes, teeth, fangs and crude weaponry.

In the distance-

A huge bellow shook the air, echoing through the mist. That sounded a hell of a lot bigger than the other lycans.

"Is your lord keeping them back now?" Rose asked quickly.

The other girl nodded. "It takes much of his power. But yes! He wished for you to be safe during your travels through his village."

"And if we don't accept your invitation?"

Those pale eyes widened. "Oh, please don't do that," she said.

Rose took a slow breath. The taste of rot, barely masked by the cold, burned in the back of her throat.

"Fine," she said. "Take us to your leader."

"He'll be so excited!" the stranger cried, scrambling ahead with a loping, stumbling gait that gave Rose the impression she was about to fall onto all fours. "There haven't been any new visitors for...for a long time! Just the lycans."

She giggled again. "And they aren't very good conversationalists."

Up the path, past the ruins of a tiny, ancient church. Rose blinked at the ornate stone gateway that had once heralded the entrance to the castle, had once borne the carvings of the warrior maiden and a demonic beast.

Now, the entire thing was swathed in a thick coating of glutinous green slime. It pulsated slightly, frog-spawn and membranous tissue, the smell bringing tears to Rose's eyes- worse than the rot, it smelled like when she'd pilfered a fifth of cheap whisky from Heisenberg's stash and chugged it all at once. She'd thrown up for what felt like hours until her mouth tasted like acid and regret. This was that, magnified.

A barrier of the stuff stretched over the gateway, but as their guide approached it melted away into a hissing, writhing pool.

Beyond the gateway-

The entire castle was covered in the stuff. What had once surely been a stream was now choked with the slime, the drawbridge caked in it, the castle walls dripping with a seemingly-endless coating. Through a gatehouse, up a long, curving path hemmed in by sheer stone walls- all was warped under a sea of green slime, plumes of steam rising from its surface to obscure the pale sky behind a muggy layer of clouds.

Inside was even stranger. Through a vast pair of bronze double-doors, shuddering wide at their guide's push, a once-gorgeous entry hall now flickered and hummed with the static from countless televisions.

Rose thought of Heisenberg's workshop under their apartment building, the dozens of televisions there, but these were stuck together with yet more slime. They cast their cold glow over gilt and Baroque fixtures, broken windows and parquet floors. A couple bore not static, but- Rose looked, incredulously, closer- old movies. Black and white.

Ooh, that one wasn't so old.

"Is that-" she started, then let out a laugh. "Holy shit, is that Fifty First Dates?!"

"Impossible," Dimitrescu said.

"I, I mean, unlikely, but-"

"Not that," she snarled. "This. This ruin."

She seemed to crackle with a kind of seething rage. She broke away from the group, approaching a huge painting set beneath a gilded arch. Even through the damp stains, Rose still made out the three young women on it, pretty brunettes dressed in 19th century gowns, their hair curled and set with ornaments.

Now, a particularly large television was shoved in front of them, blocking them from view.

"No!" Her howl echoed through the halls, scraping at Rose's guts. She turned and stalked away, ripping open one of the doors from the entryway with such force it cracked off its hinges.

"Wait!" their guide cried, wringing her hands together. "Wait- please!"

They hurried after her, through dark hallways encrusted in mucus, shattered picture frames and mauled furniture, the walls smeared with dark fluids for which Rose had no name. The stench of stomach acid, rot, and bile grew stronger as they wound deeper into the castle, at last emerging through a set of carved double doors and into a vast hallway.

Dimitrescu stood in its center, between four angelic statues now overgrown with slime, barnacle-like growths sprouting like extra eyes from their pale marble. She breathed hard, staring up a sweep of steps, at the thing waiting for them above.

For a heartbeat Rose thought it was a part of the slime that surrounded them, some mutant mass that had grown straight through the walls, busting open the gilding and gorgeous wood panels to become half creature, half architecture. Great tumorous swells of flesh and goo. Long, ropy tentacles, twisting and writhing slickly against the marble floor. Gills fluttering in random places, exposing incongruously-delicate interiors. What looked like fleshy sacs, pinkish and translucent and webbed with veins, inflated and deflated, and orifices gaped, expelling spills of radioactive-looking liquid that hissed on contact with the floor.

It towered over them, and past them, a vast, ever-moving, ever-twitching wall of fleshy matter, and Rose wondered for a lightheaded moment whether it extended back into the castle, taking up rooms like some fungal growth, propagating itself wherever there was empty space.

Eyes rolled within the mass, gleaming iridescent gold like a squid's, their U-shaped pupils contracting at the sight of Rose and Donna and Dimitrescu at the bottom of the stairs.

"You...you came!" The voice sputtered from one of the thing's orifices, along with a spray of green fluid. "My family...I thought...I thought I would never see you again!"

And Dimitrescu, who for the first time looked like a gust of wind would knock her down, said with blistering incredulity-

"Moreau?"

***

"Yes," Moreau said. "I look a little different, I...I know, but it's me! Are you not...are you not happy to see me?"

"No," Dimitrescu said. "I could never be happy to see you, you...you misshapen wretch, what have you done to my castle?"

She advanced on the thing at the top of the stairs, lifting her talons, pure fury in her eyes. "You've spread your foul rot and filth over my home! You've stolen what is rightfully mine! You've desecrated the tombs of my daughters!"

"Dimitrescu," Rose said, holding out her hand. "Don't- this isn't...this argument isn't worth it right now-"

"You dare," Dimitrescu screamed, drowning out Rose. "You dare to make a mockery of my castle!"

Rose glanced over at Donna, who'd retreated back toward the angel statues. There was another door there, stout and metal. Maybe they could get through it, if all this went to shit, if Lady Dimitrescu attacked Moreau.

But shadows rose from the slime- robed figures, like the girl with the shaved head, who'd gone to stand by the mass of flesh Moreau had become, one hand set lightly on his side, just over a set of gills. The others- worshippers? Devotees? Moreau-cultists?- all held weapons, ancient, corroded broadswords and battle-axes and maces, probably scavenged from the guts of Castle Dimitrescu when Moreau had taken it over.

Rose's hands were slick with sweat on her own sword, her mouth dry as she turned, looking for another way out, some way there wouldn't be a fight, but there was nothing.

They were surrounded.

"You...you aren't the queen bee here anymore, Alcina," Moreau said, from a different orifice. The voice from this one was lower-pitched, more slurred, vibrating in Rose's guts with a sinister note. "It's my turn now. You always hated me. All of you!"

One of the massive tentacles- its suckers barbed, Rose noticed with a white-hot jolt- heaved into the air, then slammed down, shaking the entire room.

Rose stumbled against Donna, clutching Angie, her too-quick breathing audible even through her veil.

"Every! Single! One of you!" Moreau shouted. "Always looking down on me, always making fun of me...I was the one who made the varcolac! I did! I figured it out! And I invited you here, and I was gonna be nice, I was gonna give you cheese and crackers and cookies and tea-"

"What do we do?" Donna whispered, her voice shaking.

"I don't- I don't know-" Rose hadn't planned for this. Salvatore Moreau was supposed to be dead, blown into sashimi and seagull food. How the hell had he survived? Had he regenerated like Dimitrescu? Not important questions right now.

Could they kill him? Maybe Dimitrescu could, but- but that stuff dribbling from him looked like acid, and Rose didn't know, with Dimitrescu's lack of fresh blood, how long her regeneration would hold against that. Without her, against the massive beast Moreau had mutated into, they wouldn't last a minute.

"Can you make him see stuff?" she stammered. "With your hallucinations?"

"No- there aren't any flowers- and it might just make this worse-"

There came the wet sound of blades in flesh; Dimitrescu had thrown herself at Moreau, tearing into the closest part of him she could reach, a blinding storm of blades and anger, snapping black hair and pale flesh and eyes ablaze.

Not for long.

Tentacles lifted, whipping through the air and slapping wetly against her, the ropy masses swiftly winding round her limbs and torso. She roared and slashed out, carving great, pale gouges into them, but they kept coming, and coming.

A tentacle snagged one wrist, then the other, wrenching Dimitrescu's arms straight out to either side. Her muscles bulged, veins standing out against her skin, but she was held in place, completely immobilized.

Donna screamed. Rose whirled as tentacles lashed around her, too.

"Donna," she gasped.

"Go-" Donna shoved her backward as a tentacle struck out, aimed to close around her own wrist. Rose sliced it in half; the pieces tumbled to the ground, splatting into goo on impact.

She dodged another tentacle, another, then tore her hand through the air, summoning a seething mass of mold around her that kept back the worst of Moreau's onslaught. She clenched her teeth against the strain, like supporting a weight over her head; sweat beaded on her forehead, her whole body shaking.

She couldn't hold this for long.

"Moreau!" she yelled. "Moreau, stop! We aren't here to hurt you-"

"Everyone says that," Moreau rumbled, somewhere in her periphery. His slime slithered toward the distant, painted ceiling, closing over the tangle of classical figures, transforming the entire castle hall into a cage of goo and bizarre aquatic growths. Acid seared down Rose's throat with each ragged inhale. White spots swam in her vision.

"Everyone always comes to hurt me," Moreau went on. "Always. Always. Mother said she needed weapons but she was lying, she just wanted...you. Her special child. And she was gonna hurt us all to get you. Ethan...Ethan wasn't ever meant to...he was supposed to be trapped, I was gonna eat him up and then he wouldn't hurt anything anymore-"

"He got out, right?" The strain was unbearable; red crackled in the corners of her eyes, muscles screaming for release. "He got out and he hurt you too?"

"I only wanted to do what Mother said. To protect the flask! But I wasn't important. I...I should have died rather than let her down-"

"No, no," Rose said quickly. "No, you deserved to survive, to...come back, look at all this you made- you were so smart to keep yourself safe in here so the lycans couldn't get you and all these people you helped-"

"And now you." This was the deepest voice yet, a subsonic rumble that ached in the back of Rose's teeth. There came the slick crackle of tearing flesh, and to Rose's horror, a split opened down Moreau's front, widening as she watched with wide eyes into- oh, god, into a mouth. A sawblade tangle of sharp teeth glistened within, broken-glass teeth, tiger shark teeth, dripping with acid and saliva, going down and down the maw forever.

"Mother's special girl," Moreau went on, a mocking twist darkening his childlike tone. "You came back to be like your nasty father. With my family, making fun of me, saying I don't deserve anything."

"No!" This time the word was a scream. Her whole body was on fire; she had seconds, if that. "Moreau, I came back to help you, to help you all, to save everything that was lost all those years ago- I just want to save you-"

"Liar!" Moreau howled. "Just! Like! Mother!"

The tentacles crashed in. Rose had no time to protest, no time to react, no time to cut herself free with her sword before a tidal wave of goo cascaded over her, sweeping her under and in, straight into the toothy maw of the monster itself.

[loveofbots]

Tell me tales of thy predacon oc I beg of thee

Maybe... your predacon oc and my predacon oc could be friends 🥺

I really wish I could fucking draw Sabersplit I REALLY DO. His story has changed a bit since I first created him. As of right now, he’s unsure in his current body. In IDW (the universe I usually use) Sabersplit was called Silverblitz. He was an autobot, about the size of Blurr and a speedster. However was almost killed by Starscream in battle.

Rushed to the nearest Med Bay, Silverblitz was lucky enough to be in the presence of both Wheeljack and Ratchet. TBH I’m not sure how the predacons exist in IDW but this is the story in rolling with:

Tw: mild gore, dead bodies

Silverblitz’s unconscious body was… unrecognizable. If it weren’t for the soldiers identifying him as the speedster, Ratchet would not have been able to tell him apart from a scrap heap. This was by far the worst case of mangling he had ever seen, but he was determined. He would save Silverblitz by any means. Next to him stood the autobot scientist Wheeljack. Who, fortunately, had an alternate idea.

“There’s got to be a way…” Ratchet rasps. Both mechs glance at the flickering spark and overclocked, partially cooked processor.

“There is.” Answers Wheeljack, bringing forth cables and wires. “Hurry, we don’t have long.”

The two Autobots rush to save the young mech, Ratchet doing everything he could to stabilize the fading light in Silverblitz while Wheeljack prepared the… used body. It had taken the scientist months to excavate, rebuild, and rewire the ancient Predacon’s body. It was an empty vessel from a time long past, but one that still had use yet. Wheeljack pushed the larger berth closer, and Ratchet connects the two bodies.

“We have one chance. Are you sure about this, Wheeljack?” Ratchet raises a brow. While his skilled servos were steady, the medic’s voice was not. Wheeljack places a calming servo on his friend’s shoulder.

“Absolutely. We have to give it our all.” He reassures.

With only minutes remaining before Silverblitz’s life gives out and returns to the Allspark, Ratchet finalizes the procedure and Wheeljack hits the switch.

Suddenly the medical room illuminates in an aggressive blue glow. The medic watches in horror as Silverblitz’s small frame, or what was left of it, rattles uncontrollably. Even Wheeljack is unsettled by the corpse, but he continues. Arcs of electricity shoot through the air, making the two mechs dive for cover behind a half wall. The noise in the room peaks, and with one silver-white flash, the room goes dark.

The mangled corpse fades, blue optics dimming to nothing but blank, lifeless glass. All is silent…

Ratchet hangs his head in defeat. “It didn’t work.” With a heavy sigh he puts his tools down, and Wheeljack watches with a look of languish. He knew there wasn’t a good chance of this working. But they had hoped. Wheeljack treads over to the bodies, first looking over Silverblitz, then his project.

“Ratch! Look!” Wheeljack points to the spark chamber of the Predacon. A well of blue light was starting to form in the Spark chamber of the Predacon. Speeding over quickly the Autobot medic stares at the readings on the screen. It shouldn’t be possible, yet with two great minds, it had somehow worked.

Readings rocket, the body jolts and rests once again. Silver body forgotten and past, two bright orange optics open.

“Sabersplit.”

[paigelts05]

Renegade AU Lore Dump: FazFrights edition.

Only select Fazbears Frights stories are cannon in the Renegade AU, and the post ending outcome is generaly greatly different at that.

'Fetch' takes place in 2007 and Greg is the father of Gregory. As of security breach, Greg is comatose in a hospital in Norway and is known as 'the man with the dog bites', whilst Gregory is orphaned in America.

Sarah gets to grips with being a pile of scrap and repairs the disk.

Millie survives, having lost a hand (and later taking FT Freddy's as her prosthetic). She opens an antiques store at 18 and starts dating Sarah. There is a desk flip calendar on her desk labelled with "days since Sarah last ran into traffic to save someone", and it never gets past 7. Sarah gets scrap off of Millie (who hordes the stuff) to repair herself.

The ball pit balls were all handed over to Millie as those who had parts of themselves stuck in the balls kept on walking into her shop whenever the police brought the balls around. So they just leave them with her. One of the balls reversed the body swap that occurred in 'loney freddy'.

'In the flesh' is the story of a stray bullet and actually has nothing to do with William any more than a Scientist, Camilla, saying 'you ordered my daughters death, now feel pain'. Camilla is the mother of Celes, C location's Chica spirit, and Susanna, Y location's Jeremy(guard). Celes (11 as of 87) died, and Susana (22 as of 87) had her head bit by Mangle but survived. The code forces a buffer overflow and uses that to cause 'changes' to a person (Dr Grimm's notes really helped her out). The project this code was meant to be in was supposed to be worked on my the C location manager, but instead wound up getting worked on almost two decades later by some shmuck. The rabbit child was found by Paranormal Responder Cassy Taper, and it imprinted on her immediately, so it's just a slightly odd kid really. The moral is manage your heap and stack bozo if I see one more overflow error I swear.

Yes 'Fazgoo' exists. It's remnant but with a bunch of additives to try and more cheaply contain and use it. Remnant + ONE containing substance (blood, metal) = just remnant. Remnant + silly putty or some shit that remnant does not properly adhere to = 'Fazgoo'.

Due to the instability caused by an unsuitable containing substance, It's a DNA altering biohazard, but it's not AS dangerous as it's portrayed in the books; it only seems that dangerous as when synthesised and curated to the degree Fazbear Entertainment do, it can do very specific things, and naught more than that, like how the disks have to have extensive codes and a form to follow else they won't work right.

Most of the Tales of the pizaplex things did not happen:

Sean, an electrician and police mole, makes sure of that. Half of the areas that exist only in those books were destroyed and had their main attractions destroyed by Sean before construction got anywhere.

Ok, springtrap sweep somewhat happened? Not read that one yet, but the initial crew who laid the foundations were murdered by Afton AND some Faz Ent execs. Sean used this huge vacancy to get in.

'The world parties with you' is an AR game inside a VR experience (hence why there was nobody guarding the off limits thing; 'Maya' was meant to go there to test it). 'Maya' does not really exist. In the real world, she is a 30 year old Fazbear Entertainment executive called Madaleine. The reason why things go to an apocalypse is some latent code left behind by Dr Grimm to make this project crash and burn; by making a harrowing and traumatising bug that'll turn anyone away from Fazbear Entertainment (in part thanks to this 'bug' he made also causing amnesia in those who experience it for too long, taking advantage of the 'fake life' part of the VR simulation).

Madaleine becomes a police mole as a result.

For any given story really, it's either 'Mike and Sean stopped it', 'That was an exec', or 'Damnit Foxwell'.

Maybe the daycare ones will happen? Not read them yet.

But anything that gives a new attraction? 'Damnit Sean you ran over the robot. Sean where are you taking that refuse sack where is the main robot we can't restart construction of this attraction without it.' And Sean burns the robot in the police incinerator.

[fallensnowfan]

Compiling some late Wano and onward(chapters 1036-1096) Okiku thoughts and other oddities:

1036 - Izo trusts Usopp with Kiku's life, and tells her to believe in Straw Hat Luffy.

1054-1056 - Kiku no shows the Ryo fight and feels no need to explain why afterward, implying Momo allowed her to no longer be a retainer. Kin has an excuse for not being there, he was away in Kuri with Tsuru and begged for forgiveness for his absence. Kiku not being at that fight means that Ryokugyu/the Marines are unaware of her existence.

1057 - A silhouette is on the Sunny which, to me, looks a lot like a tall woman with dark hair, who isn't Robin.

1058-1060 - Brook brings tea out of the Sunny's kitchen, which I potentially believe Kiku made, tea being something she knows how to make from her time working at the tea house. Sanji is on the deck and distracted at the time, making me doubt it was him who made the tea/left it alone when it was almost done. Kiku already knows Luffy's & Roger's shared dream, since she has read Oden's journal. And Oden could have told her and the others in the past. Though nothing of Laugh Tale.

Pre-making landfall on Egghead(tin foil hat theory time) - We see Ginny being skilled at wire tapping and communications, and mentions doing so two weeks prior 1096. It has me wondering if the SHs wiretapped one of York's calls to the Elders on the way to Egghead, and knew her true colors from the start. Then decided to play along until an opportunity arose for them to get the jump on her.

On Egghead - A mysterious figure is roaming around the island, messing with the barrier and such. Kiku is good at being stealthy, as we know from the end of Act One that she is the one who gathered the info about the banquet on Onigashima during the Fire Festival.

1090s - The ancient robot in the scrap heap wakes up(mentioning the location for the parallel to meeting Momo in a scrap heap,) which may have some connection to Toki, who may have told the Scabbards about it. Kiku especially would likely have been close with Toki, perhaps looked up to her as a role model.

[jcmorrigan]

Tales from the Scrap Heap: Nothing to Lose but You

I decided to start “Tales from the Scrap Heap” as a little series on my blog for fanfiction ideas that I never got into print. Because my brain is really, really good at coming up with way more long-form plots than I can ever realistically hope to publish. I have to be picky about which plot bunnies I follow and which I don’t. The stories here are the ones that I considered and ultimately didn’t motivate me as much as what I have up on my AO3 account.

For the first one, I’m aware I’m putting myself in the Discourse Box here but it’s a Voltron: Legendary Defender fic. However, it’s for the absolute only ship I have never seen contested, largely because I don’t think anybody remembers these guys: Vakala/Remdax. Something about them really intrigued me (probably that they’re silly x straitlaced, have a size difference, and bicker constantly, which is almost a full row of JCMorrigan OTP Bingo). If you don’t remember, they’re the two aliens who found clone!Shiro on the ice planet shortly after he escaped (this is when we thought he was real!Shiro) and decided ultimately not to eat him and instead to give him a shuttle to escape back to Voltron. Anyhow, one day I just had too much Worldbuilding Juice and decided to come up with a little history for them, and because they’re rebels hiding in a remote location in a seemingly neverending war, it is one of the darkest story ideas I have. There’s a happy ending for our two leading men, but because this is indeed a wartime story, what I came up with to explain why they were on that ice planet and so willing to even cannibalize any Galra who showed up ended up having elements of colonialism, prison/labor camps, fugitive life, and a worldbuild flavoring that implies some noncon happened somewhere at some point. So if these things are not what you want to read in a hypothetical Voltron fanfiction outline, please keep movin’. Anyway, this is the one story I most regret never finishing because I had so much of it fleshed, but my Voltron muse is long gone and I have no enthusiasm, so here’s what I would’ve written, had I the energy.

·      Title is “Nothing to Lose but You” because the point of this story is these two go through the wringer and are literally all each other have. It’s that kind of story

·      I decided to call the planet Vakala and Remdax are from “Taxalai,” and the name for a resident is “Taxalan.” Taxalan society has a heavy emphasis on technology (which is why Remdax not knowing how to work a computer or being able to remember a password is such an oddity and so frustrating to pretty much any other Taxalan), and pretty much everything is computerized to some degree. Screens everywhere.

·      We open on Vakala, who is living in a mansion that used to belong to his family but has since been taken over by an invading Galra general. This was going to be an OC who I could just make nasty, but then I got re-introduced to Morvok, the Galra’s resident black sheep, and I will take any excuse to write Morvok so let’s just say it was he who took over Vakala’s family manor and just sits on the couch all day regaling people with stories of his greatness (none of which are true).

·      Vakala himself is a servant to Morvok, having to bring him whatever he wants and be at his beck and call.

·      One day, Vakala decides he’s done taking orders and declares he is no longer going to be in a position of servitude in his own house. Morvok simply dismissively says to “Take this one away wherever you take the ones that act up so I don’t have to look at him.”

·      And Vakala is arrested by a Galra squadron and brought to a prison camp many, many miles away.

·      It’s night when he’s delivered, so he’s brought right to the cramped barrack where a bunch of Taxalans who have been there longer are stacked in bunk beds. Vakala’s first night there, he screams and claws at the door that’s been sealed behind him, begging to be let out because he’ll follow orders this time.

·      The other prisoners there are veterans, so they all tell him to shut up because they’re never gonna listen. All but one.

·      Enter Remdax. He’s from another part of Taxalai – Vakala’s voice sounds more American to me while Remdax is definitely British, so I assume they have to come from different parts of the planet. They also have different physical structures that may suggest ethnic divides, though their color palette affirms they’re both of the same planetary origin. It’s also worth noting he has both eyes still at this point. This is very important.

·      Remdax is here because he was part of an anti-Galra rebel squad that was largely made up of his friends and family. The Galra found and closed in on their base, and Remdax ran out and got himself arrested for the purpose of slowing down the Galra officers enough that his friends and family could escape – which they did.

·      Anyway, that exposition would come some time later. For now, what’s happening is Vakala is having a panic attack in the middle of the night and everyone’s telling him to shut up because it’s futile. Except for Remdax. Remdax stands up and essentially says, “We’ve all done the same thing when we first arrived. Let him feel what he feels.”

·      And he approaches Vakala to try and calm him down verbally – just by saying his feelings are validated, and yes, it’s really awful, but he’ll survive, and Remdax will do his best to make sure Vakala survives. But he can’t really tell him it’s “okay” because it is quite clearly not.

·      Vakala eventually gives up and goes to sleep, quite depressed and for good reason.

·      The following morning, Vakala is put to work on an assembly line making Galra weaponry. This is what all the Taxalans in this particular camp must do. It’s very mechanically inclined, not many screens, not the way Taxalans usually work.

·      I don’t know if pacing-wise, it would be better to have this happen the first time or later, but Vakala ends up trying to pick up a cooling metal part way too soon and burning his palm horribly. He has to finish the rest of his shift one-handed.

·      Again, the other imprisoned Taxalans avoid this situation, largely because anxiety is high as-is, but Remdax steps forward once more, trying to care for the burn as best as he can. And he has zero supplies, so the best he can do is run a whole lot of cold water over Vakala’s hand and wrap it up in fabric he tore off his clothing.

·      Vakala ends up underperforming because of this injury and receives some punishment later. I didn’t think too much on exactly what – had I fleshed this out fully, I’d at least imply strongly what happened

·      Remdax has a bit of a crisis over this because he invested in protecting this guy, he failed, and there was literally nothing he could do. He’s in here for self-sacrifice in the first place, so he keeps thinking there’s always something he could do to help someone else if he gives something up for himself. But sometimes, he doesn’t even have an opportunity to do so, and it’s driving him into panic.

·      It’s shortly after this that he starts getting into his head that maybe the only way to help Vakala and himself is if he finds a way to escape.

·      There’s a day in which Remdax and Vakala are assigned to work outside on the grounds, and down comes an inspector from another sector on a shuttle. Remdax sees the opportunity and waves Vakala over.

·      They only have one shot, and it will unfortunately mean leaving the rest of their people behind, which is a horrible sacrifice, but it’s either they go on their own or nobody goes at all.

·      Remdax rushes the Galra inspector and attacks him. They get in a physical brawl while Vakala hurries in and hijacks the ship, which isn’t difficult for his technologically-inclined mind.

·      During this fight, Remdax either knocks out or kills the Galra inspector, but in the process, the inspector stabs one of his eyes completely out.

·      Remdax hops onto the ship and they have to go right away or else lose their freedom and maybe their lives forever. Vakala is freaking out because Remdax’s eye is bleeding, but Remdax is trying to act casual and make jokes about it because Vakala needs to be calm enough to drive.

·      They get off Taxalai on that stolen shuttle and land on the nearest planet, which I never named.

·      They’re aware they’re fugitives at this point.

·      They end up in a metropolitan area, where they check into a hotel so they have somewhere to sleep. I hadn’t worked out how they pay for the first night – maybe with favors, because Vakala eventually ends up a receptionist at this hotel and earns good wages, so maybe he gets his foot in the door by saying “I’ll do anything” and the receptionist is already pulling double duty and just goes “Do the second half of my fourteen-hour shift”

·      They have to finish wrapping up Remdax’s eye in that hotel room as best they can. Thankfully, it doesn’t get infected.

·      Immediately their first thought is to go out and find a way of bringing in income. As I said, Vakala makes a good receptionist and is excellent at filing client data on computers, so he ends up with a good-paying job that way.

·      Remdax takes a job down at a garage working with vehicle mechanics and engines, since that’s what he’s better at. Not in the manufacture of those parts (never again), but in fixing up broken vehicles. (I would’ve made it something more interesting than simply cars for this planet because Voltron planets are all about interesting possibilities for new civilizations.)

·      There’s some down-time where they live rather domestically this way, just earning enough to buy simple food and extend the stay in their small and shabby hotel room, but also bonding and becoming better friends.

·      A lot of people assume they already are a couple. Remdax in particular gets asked about his “husband” at the garage and he has to keep denying it.

·      There’s one night where they’re just having a relatively good time, taking a night to relax and appreciate that they can do nothing and be okay, and Remdax very gingerly brings up he wants to ask something of Vakala that might be too much. Vakala agrees to hear him out, and all Remdax wants is to be hugged for a bit while he thinks about how far they’ve come. So they hold each other, just lying on the bed and muttering to each other about the way things used to be, the way things are now, how lucky they are to have each other.

·      It’s actually some time later that they start seeing each other in a romantic light. Before this, they were a lifeline to each other, and in the heat of the worst moments, they couldn’t even really think about romance – they had to be preoccupied with survival. But now that their life is settling down and they’re starting to pack away funds for a small house, they start thinking…we’re basically life partners. Are we attracted to each other?

·      Answer: yes.

·      They kiss one night over a pretty meager dinner spread out picnic-style on their bed.

·      Shortly after this is when the Galra troops come into the city, looking for the two fugitives who attacked an inspector and fled custody.

·      Vakala and Remdax end up having to escape out the window, flee down the fire escape, and hijack a ship from Remdax’s garage.

·      They’re floating between worlds yet again.

·      They are eventually found by another ship, and they fear the Galra have finally captured them – but it’s a ship of rebels who’ve had similar stories. Vakala and Remdax are two of the Galra’s most wanted, and these rebels realized they would make great additions to the team in exchange for some stability.

·      So they work out a plan where Vakala and Remdax man an outpost on the ice planet, one of the most remote they have, that monitors Galra communications.

·      The rebels drop in supplies regularly and also have left a shuttle in case of emergency.

·      Vakala and Remdax both haaaaate the cold and so use the first week or so as an excuse to snuggle a lot.

·      And things go pretty okay. Remdax is still technologically illiterate and Vakala is just like “Are you even a Taxalan”

·      This is where they start bickering, which they like because finally, finally the stakes are low enough where they can afford to just rag on each other and still like each other at the end of the day.

·      They get more physical at this stage, too, but of course I can’t write a lemon to save my soul so it’s just a lot of implications

·      Things start going wrong when a Galra officer finds the base on a planet. This is far too dangerous and they both know it. If this guy gets two steps further, their location is blown and they are both dead. So Remdax kills him.

·      It’s been a while since their last supply delivery. And they figure it’s best not to waste anything…so they decide the Galra they killed has to go into food reserves.

·      Vakala nearly has a full-on panic attack while cannibalizing another person, even if that person was dangerous.

·      Some time later, another Galra shows up, but this one’s different. She claims to come in peace, and introduces herself as Acxa.

·      Remdax is ready to murder again, but Vakala holds him off because he can recognize Acxa isn’t a full-blooded Galra and in fact, he’s pretty sure there’s Taxalan in her genetic makeup based on how her face looks.

·      Acxa confirms. Her grandmother was a Taxalan and forced to be a servant of a Galra commander who impregnated her (here is the strongly implied noncon).

·      Acxa offers to help, swearing to secrecy. Vakala and Remdax deny her help but let her get away with her life, wondering if they’d made the right decision.

·      A month with no contact and they’re fairly secure Acxa didn’t snitch.

·      Then in comes Shiro, and canon events happen. These would be briefly recapped.

·      The important thing to note is that they let Shiro have their only shuttle, and that was a boo-boo, but it’s okay because the rebels are gonna drop off supplies anyway, so they shouldn’t need it.

·      And then the other rebels never show up.

·      I’m not sure if I’d have them literally be dead or leave it up in the air, but their supplies are cut off. They ration out their remaining food for the next few years. There’s at least one more Galra who shows up that they have to eat. And it does last a few years, until the end of VLD canon.

·      They’re starving to death. Skin and bone. And we get them eating their last ration over the fire and since they’re both used to cannibalizing Galra by now, their minds are on the obvious. Each is ready to kill himself so the other can live longer.

·      For dramatic effect I might have let them get close to pulling the trigger before the sound of someone showing up alerts them

·      They go outside, hoping they’re saved and not screwed…

·      And wouldn’t you know. It’s the paladins of Voltron. Also Acxa.

·      Allura has already been exchanged for the restoration of all realities (which Vakala and Remdax have no idea happened because when you’re in a reality that disappears and reappears, that has no bearing on your memory because you literally did not exist and suddenly existed again with no idea of the gap)

·      Altea and Daibazaal have been restored and now the paladins are working on bringing peace all over the universe

·      And Shiro remembered the two who helped his clone out because of…memory merging?...and Acxa brought up “We really need to check on those two”

·      They get Vakala and Remdax on a warm ship, find them food, get them cleaned up

·      And then bring them back to Taxalai, which has just been liberated from Galra control. We see the more unforgivable Galra getting their due punishment. The camp administrators are now incarcerated. Morvok is doing community service scooping poop at the zoo or something horrible because it’s Morvok

·      Shiro is considering his retirement, but first, he addresses Vakala and Remdax, asking if they want to govern the reclaimed Taxalai and help make it a beautiful place where their people can flourish

·      Vakala is trying so hard not to break down and cry, but it’s Remdax who hits his knees and starts bawling first

·      The final line would be about how they were finally “home” for the first time in their entire lives

[merakiui]

Sea Glass

yandere!octavinelle trio x (gender neutral) reader  cw: yandere, unhealthy behaviors/relationship, obsession, implied stalking, blood, murder, mentions of drowning, captivity, slight violence, body modification, memory loss, non-consensual kiss, use of potions, manipulation note - this is my debut fic as a yan!twst writer! (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)و i hope it’s enjoyable!

i. the house on the hilltop is curious. two bipedal creatures enter, but only one ever leaves. as for us, we are confined to the shadowy depths of the sea, bearing silent witness to the tale of unwilling coexistence. 

The leaking faucet drips out a somber rhythm, its gentle plip-plip-plip rousing you from your slumber. You lift your head from the cold tiles and survey the interior of the kitchen, which is spattered in colors of the setting sun. Dust motes are caught in the early-evening light and they seem to float weightlessly in the humid room while you remain there on the floor, pressed against a cupboard. A sudden pressure at the back of your head has your hand carding through tangled locks, fingers tracing over a ghastly area of raised skin. It stings under your cautious touch and you let out a sharp hiss through clenched teeth. 

In the distance, just down the sandy slope of a great, big hill, hungry waves lap at the shoreline. A sandpiper shrieks out its shrill calls and your mind is momentarily filled with images of the bird hopping around in the sand, beak sorting through the grit for useful materials and food scraps. The old grandfather clock in the hall ticks away, joining the sink in its measured serenade. Your soft inhalation sticks in your throat as soon as you smell it—the acrid, metallic stench of blood. 

With knitted brows, you search the kitchen, peering past the wooden legs of the table and chairs, until you locate the source of such a putrid scent. Lying on his back, in a pool of his own drying blood, is a man you’ve never seen before. His face is obscured by the chair and you rise on shaking legs. It’s only a few steps forward, yet the distance grows and grows until you feel as though you’re traversing uneven terrain that’s spotted with ankle-twisting holes. His shirt is torn, matted to his torso and stained with slick crimson, and his arms are lying stiffly at his sides. If it weren’t for his haunting expression—a look of primal fear trapped in the permanence of death—or the puddles of blood, you’d have assumed he was just resting. 

It occurs to you, then, that this man is dead. You pivot on your heel, hands flying to your quivering mouth, and stagger as far from him as you can possibly get in the cramped kitchen space. Your feet knock into something and it skitters across the red-streaked floor, clinking like the distant cry of chains. Your eyes pursue it and the reality of the situation comes crashing down on you, weighing so heavily that the pain at the back of your head spreads to the front. 

Unable to withstand another minute in horrifying silence, where a migraine seems like the least of your worries, you throw the backdoor open and burst out into the open, taking in huge, shuddering gulps of the salty sea air. A calm breeze rustles through the barren beach, synchronizing with the hush-hush of the waves. You swallow rising bile and lurch towards the beach, nearly tripping over your feet in an effort to make it down the slope. Your bare feet kick up heaps of sand, but you’re too busy hyperventilating to realize the twigs and stones that cut into your fleshy soles. 

He’s dead. That guy— You stop yourself just as your wobbling legs give in, and you grab onto the nearest rock formation to steady yourself. There was blood and a knife. And I—my hands!

Looking at them now, you can clearly see the color that has dried along the lines of your palms. There’s even a thin crust of red under your nails, as if you had shoved them into the stab wounds in that man’s chest and scraped out his insides. 

The mental image you’re provided is far too gruesome and you wrap your arms around yourself in a tight hug just as you empty the contents of your stomach on the beach. The water licks at your toes and then your ankles, taking with it the blood and vomit until all that remains is the acidic burn in your throat.

Concentrate. I have to remember. You wipe your lips with the back of your hand. Yeah, remember. What happened? Everything that happened...

Forcing yourself to comb through the many wrinkles in your brain as though you’re a treasure hunter looking for a rare find adds more fuel to your irritating headache. Sighing, you massage your temples. 

I’ll figure this out, you reassure yourself. For now, let’s relax.

Another ragged inhale. Your hands are trembling. 

Think about good things. Sea glass. Wind chimes. Sunny days. Ice cream and— 

Your thoughts are cut short when a sudden splash erupts in the distance. A sandpiper’s startled squawk pierces the air; it’s nothing like the usual calls you’re so used to hearing. And it sounds closer than ever, as if it’s just on the other side of this rough rock. You hazard a glance at the quaint house behind you. It sits on the hill, framed by the golden-orange sunset, and your gut churns again. 

Someone’s in that house. Dead. Because of that knife. 

The bird cries out once more, but this time it’s a choked noise. You tear your eyes away from the perfect-looking abode, appreciating the temporary distraction, and follow the sounds of splashing water and thrashing limbs until you’re under the shadowy outcrop of a lofty rock wall. And sprawled there, locked on the land, is a man.

No, not a man. Half of a man.

Your heart stutters and you gasp without meaning to. The man-creature’s head snaps up to meet your petrified stare; two heterochromatic eyes bore into your frozen stature, as if intending to see through to your very soul. A sandpiper is caught between his arms, feathers strewn about in a mess of broken bones and blood, and serrated teeth flash at you in a predatory grin. He has the torso of a well-built man, but from his waist down there’s a long, curling tail. It disappears into the shallows, so you can’t gauge just how big he is. Instead, you focus on his fins and gills—on the sickly green-grey color of his skin—and your mind stumbles in an attempt to keep up with what you’re seeing. 

An alien? A merman? An undiscovered species?

His attention never strays from you, even when the bird struggles feebly in his grasp. With his gaze set firmly on you, he snaps the bird’s neck and it finally ceases its thrashing. 

“What...did I...” You grab at your shirt, a new sort of panic taking root. “What am I seeing? What is this? What are you?”

The creature blinks owlishly at you, one eye shutting at a time, and a shudder races up your stiffened spine. He slithers backwards, his great body leaving an imprinted trail in the wet sand. 

Without thinking, you hold out your hand. “W-Wait! Don’t go!”

He pauses, head cocked to the side. A playful show of interest. 

“Are you...” You exhale a disturbed breath. “You’re hungry, right?” When that doesn’t land, you point at the bird’s carcass and then at your mouth. You pantomime eating. “Food. Hunger. You need something to eat.”

Sharp claws rake through the sand. He’s dragging himself towards you. 

“H-Hold on! Stay there!” He’s already reaching, one large hand securing around your ankle. It’s too late to run. You’re tugged towards him and the imbalance causes you to fall on your rear. “What are you—hey, stop! Don’t—” Your tongue is heavy in your mouth, unable to form a coherent demand. The creature doesn’t seem to heed your words and instead continues to observe you. His hand never releases you, but his grip doesn’t tighten either. 

He leans forward, pressing his nose into your side, remains there for a minute, and then pulls away. With his other hand, he pushes the bird into your lap. 

“I...have food.” You nod at the bird, hoping he’ll understand the meaning. “For you. It’s—”

You pause. What does he eat? Aside from this bird who got caught up in the food chain, what foods would he consider edible? Fish? Crab? Birds? You don’t have any of those at the ready. 

The creature releases your ankle and, with both hands, tugs your shirt up to reveal your stomach. Before you can register what’s about to happen, he’s leaning in again, lips parted, teeth on full display. 

With your leg freed, you kick out at him, driven on by pure reflex, and his eyes narrow at you. He pulls away and moves with surprising speed, wrapping his arms around your waist and yanking you into his chest. You’re almost pinned under him while he tries to bite a chunk out of you. Having been put in the sandpiper’s position, you have no choice but to flail, hands scrabbling desperately for any sort of solid hold in hopes that you can pull yourself out from under him. The soggy sand is crushed under your weight, fingers raking through it with desperation, and then it finally clicks. 

He’s going to drag you out to sea. He’s going to drown you. And with this monstrous strength and determination, he might just succeed. 

Your hand locates something in the sand; it slices your palm open when you grab it. Shunning the pain, you hold onto the glass shard and count out each second until the perfect opportunity arises. The frigid water is up to your knees now, and once he’s halfway in the sea he’s able to move more freely, unrestrained by the terrestrial nature of the beach. You manage to squirm out of his hold a little, swatting at his face and shoulders, before wriggling your arm free. With the glass poised, sharpened point dirtied by blood and muddy sand, you drive it into his side. It doesn’t breach his thick skin as deeply as you thought it would, but it does capture his attention. His hold on you breaks and you claw through the sand, half-running, half-tripping towards the rock wall. Its grand presence casts an ominous gloom over the water, but the rough, seaweed-infested exterior feels more like home than the cottage you ran from. 

I made it... I’m safe.

A clicking noise resounds from behind you, high-pitched and chittering, before the creature slips back into the water. It comes up to his chin when he spares you one final glance and then retreats under completely. The sun goes with him, now well below the horizon. Your gaze turns skyward and an exhausted sigh falls from your lips. 

Is this how birds feel when they’re caught by a predator they can’t outfly? 

You leave a trail of footprints and the bird’s twisted corpse behind as you trek back to the house.

ii. every other year we receive a gift from that peculiar house on the hilltop. when the debt collector makes his biennial trip to the surface and collects what’s owed, we are permitted to relish in the scraps of what’s left behind. as per the agreement, we grant a single wish to those who can pay the steep price.

Darkness descends upon the kitchen once you walk through the door, passing the threshold into insanity. The smell and sight have only worsened with how long you’ve remained outside. You flick on the light and reach for the knife, securing it in a less-than-confident grip. 

Anyone would know this is murder, you think, eyeing the bloodshed that’s dried along the edge of the blade. But I wouldn’t kill anyone. There’s just no way...

Shaking your head, you reach for the handle of the faucet, turning it on and letting the water run freely over your hands and the knife. You scrub at it with your fingernails, hoping the mundanity of such an activity will present you with a foolproof plan. Instead your blank mind shuts off and you end up staring out the window at the beach and the ocean beyond. 

I wonder what that animal was. He looked human. The faucet squeaks as it’s shut off, the knife now soaking in the filled basin. But he wasn’t human. Not entirely. 

Snatching up a dish rag, you dry your hands and attempt to dab at your clothes. They cling to your body like a parasite, cold and wet and grimy from your tumble in the sand. You glance at the laceration on your hand and frown. Blood is still seeping from it, so you snatch a fresh rag from a shelf and wrap it around your hand to stop the bleeding. It stings ruthlessly, but you’d rather have an injury as minor as this cut than be the next body floating lifelessly in the ocean, being tugged back and forth through rough undertows like a poor rag doll.

“First things first,” you hear yourself mumble. “I need to clean up.” 

You wander out of the kitchen and into the narrow hall, a cramped space that closes in on you with its barren walls. The grandfather clock ticks away the minutes, the only witness to your late-night endeavors. Each solemn tick is a lost second and you work with efficiency, hoping to hide this mistake before it becomes even more of a hassle. The bedsheets are torn from a bed you’ve never slept in, stolen from an unfamiliar room, and you set them down on the dining table in the kitchen. They bunch up in a clump of blue and white, tiny black anchors morphing into unique shapes. Your gaze shifts from the blood on the floor and walls to the man lying dead, and for the first time since you woke up you’re able to get a proper look at his face. 

He’s unrecognizable with his dark hair and sun-kissed skin. If he wasn’t covered in his own blood, you’re certain he would’ve looked quite friendly. Although considering he’s lying dead on the floor, you assume he had entered your house with less-than-friendly intent. Despite these thoughts, you can’t help but feel an inkling of disgust—as if there’s something about this man that’s abhorrent and rotten. Frowning, you reach for the waistband of his shorts. 

The grandfather clock tolls out the new hour and your work begins. It’s not murder. It’s an accident. Self-defense, you remind yourself throughout the elaborate process. A headache persists with each moment spent in the kitchen, undressing the man, wrapping him up in the bedsheets, and scrubbing away at the tiles with a soapy sponge and then wringing it out in a bucket of muddy water. Rinse and repeat, no matter how foul it looks. You’re not sure how much time passes, but the moon is high in the inky sky when you rise to your feet in fresh clothes that aren’t yours and sandals that are a size too big. 

You inhale a deep breath, screw your eyes shut, and listen to the desolate sound of the breeze sweeping over the beach.

It’ll be okay.

And when you open your eyes, you’re heading down the hill, dragging the body with you. Every step brings you further from the house and closer to the shoreline until you’re meters away from the place where you encountered that creature. You cover the distance with a pounding heart, a cool sweat breaking out along your forehead. The man is heavier than you thought and it brings you great relief to pause for a much-needed break. The waves crash in the distance, nocturnal animals whooping and crying out, and the moon casts a spotlight on your heaving form, silhouetted against a rocky backdrop. Quiet wheezes escape into the cool air and you take one more deep breath before grabbing the bedsheets by the ankles and tugging them all the way to shoreline.

Peering out into the shadows, you open your mouth and whisper, “Hey.” The sea seems to still temporarily. “I brought food. It’s right here if you want it.”

You kneel in the sand; it squishes under your weight, a mushy cold that soaks through your pants and chills your bones. You nudge the wrapped corpse closer towards the reaching water and wait. 

And wait.

And wait.

And wait. 

The hours come and go, bringing with them a distinct drowsiness that envelops your foggy head like a thick cloud of smoke. You force your eyelids open, fighting against the heavy pull of sleep.

In your dreams you’re sitting in an abandoned cinema, viewing a bright screen. A countdown plays, going through each number gradually, and when it reaches zero the film begins. The scenes present themselves in a rush of fleeting lights and colors. At first, you see a person sitting in a room, a single lightbulb providing yellowish light, and they scratch at the door. A bored scritch, scritch, scritch that continues on and on, even when they bend down to peer out of the keyhole in the door. There’s a flash of light and the scenery changes. Another person is preparing a fish-based dish, their back turned to you. Their knife glides through the meat, severing the head and leaving a trail of red on the cutting board. Another flash and this time it’s a girl being dragged through the sand, her limp body fighting against the inevitable.

But what is the inevitable? you wonder.

Your eyes shut and open on a bedroom lit only by the light of an ornate seashell lamp. A man sits at a desk, scribbling away in his journal. He writes lines and lines of the same phrase, all while muttering a single sentence. You strain to hear. 

“The final day of the month approaches and so, too, does he.”

You snap awake with a jolt, brain switching between fight or flight at the sudden surge of emotions that overwhelm your entire body. The sun hasn’t risen yet and an eerie silence has engulfed the beach, as if everything here has started mourning. With a yawn, you rub the sleep from your eyes and turn towards the lump of bedsheets. Your heart drops into your stomach as soon as you realize the corpse is missing. 

In its place, a pile of colored glass waits.

Tentatively, you reach for one, fingertips brushing against the smooth, sea-worn surface. You hold it up against the cloudy sky, noting the tiny grains of sand that stick to the foggy glass. A memory sparks at the familiar sight; it’s the reminiscence of a time that has since passed—a scene where you stood under the decorative eave of a café and spoke to a person you can’t quite picture. Hanging from the door, a string of sea glass beads caught your curious gaze. The person gestured to it, mouthing words you couldn’t hear. 

You gather as much as you can and then stand up, cradling the pile in your palms. Your nerves are alight with worry. It’s one thing to be relieved of such a burden, but it’s another when you can’t tell whether the right person took said burden off of your hands. Perhaps the police were walking along the shore and found it. Perhaps a stranger unrelated to the law discovered it. Perhaps that monster came back and took it as an offering. A truce of sorts.

You’re standing in the doorway to the cottage, exhaustion creeping through your skeleton. A long exhalation and you finally enter and drop the pieces of glass onto the countertop. The kitchen reeks of cleaning products—of bleach and soap and spray. It’s hard to tell someone died here, but if you look long enough you’ll know. Anyone would know.

On the way to the spandrel, your feet halt. The door has been left ajar, an indication that someone’s gotten out of the secret space. It’s a familiar sight, yet you can’t determine when you might have seen it or why you feel the need to back away slowly, as if a beast lurks in the shadows, ready to pounce at the slightest sound and rip you to shreds. Instead, you allow your legs to take you all the way to the bedroom. You flop down on the bare mattress and stare up at the ceiling.

You remain like that until sunrise, and just as the first rays of morning light pierce through the slits in the shuttered window you recall your dream from a few hours ago.

The final day of the month approaches and so, too, does he.

“But who?” you ask the empty room, struggling to piece the entire dream together. It’s faded into obscurity by now and only a few keywords remain.

You sit up abruptly, brow furrowed, a realization slowly dawning on you. From the moment you woke up, a certain strangeness had taken up residence in the cottage. It’s as though your existence in this house is wrong—as if you’re a piece in this puzzle that just won’t fit. But no matter how much you dwell on these feelings and thoughts, they only serve to provide you with another splitting headache. Aside from the familiarity of the kitchen, the spandrel is the only other place you’re accustomed to. Even this bedroom is new to you.

So is the framed photo on the bedside table.

It’s in your hands before you can stop yourself. Two teenagers, a girl and a boy, pose on the beach in swimsuits and sandals. The boy has his arm around the girl while she flashes a smile that could rival the sun at the camera. You recognize the scenery but not the people.

They’re standing under the rock wall—the very place where you nearly became a monster’s lunch. You almost overlook the face that peeks out at the pair in the distance, hidden behind a rock spattered with bird droppings. But once you notice it, you begin to focus more on the water and the hands and the eyes, and it becomes clear. These people weren’t just under the scrutiny of a camera; they were also under the intense watch of something inhuman. Something dangerous.

You set the frame back in its rightful place and glance at the desk near the window. A familiar lamp meets your perplexed stare. You’re certain you’ve seen it before, yet you can’t determine when that might have been. Instead, you brush the fragments of your memory aside in favor of approaching the desk and searching it for anything useful. The top has been cleared for the most part and only has a ballpoint pen, the seashell lamp, and a dying aloe plant sitting on it. When you open the drawer, you find that it’s also been emptied, save for the brass key lying inconspicuously in the far back.

Your fingers curl around it and, without another thought, you pocket it. 

It occurs to you that there’s a mystery in this house, one that you feel connected to. From the lamp to the key to your cryptic dream, it’s clear that there’s more to the cottage than what you’re seeing. Perhaps the man knew of this and intended to solve whatever secrets were hiding within the walls. 

Even though you know you shouldn’t pry, your curiosity has gotten the better of you and now you must know.

iii. humans often throw coins into wells and fountains, but such beliefs are rooted in false hope. the house on the hilltop is devoid of such hope, yet its human comes to us with materialistic wishes every two years. perhaps his own fruitless ‘hope’ began when the price for a single wish became the life of his kin.

In the days following the discovery of the photograph and key, you find yourself exploring the main floor, poking your head in and out of the few rooms that line the hallway. You’ve passed the staircase leading upstairs more than once, but you’ve yet to actually climb the stairs for further investigation. Something in your gut tugs at you, a horrible sensation that sits heavy like a stone. The other day you tried and failed to head up there, having stopped at the second stair with a rapidly beating heart and an intense feeling of dread.

Instead you busy yourself with other things. You avoid the kitchen and only enter when you absolutely must. The act of murder has tainted that room; it’s a permanent stain in a place that was once so vibrant and lively. Even the stained glass light fixture emits a bloodied glow, reminding you of your crime. You keep the curtains closed in that room. It’s a bad place now.

With your lunch in a tin box, you set off for the beach. You’re not sure which is worse: the kitchen or the site of the attack. Which is more dangerous—the psychological torment or the physical threat of an unidentifiable beast? Perhaps it’s better not knowing the answer to that question.

It’s been a few days since you last visited. Nothing has changed. The body remains absent, but the memories still cling to you. Under the shade of the rock wall, you lay out a towel and sit down to admire the surf as it crashes angrily against the rocks in the distance. You glance at the area where the corpse once laid. Another pile of sea glass waits and, just beyond that, half-submerged in the water, a pair of heterochromatic eyes. Your blood chills, body tensing. The creature remains there, waiting. Watching.

You reason that he can’t touch you when you’re so far from the water. You’re safe where you are, pressed against the bumpy surface of the wall. He can’t get you unless he truly gives it his all like before, and even if he does fancy a meal you can run away.

Avoiding his piercing stare, you begin to unpack what’s in the box: slices of fruit, a cup of pudding, and a tuna sandwich. You lift the sandwich out of the plastic bag and bring it to your lips, taking an unflattering bite from it. Your gaze shifts from the stripes on the towel to the pile of sea glass.

What is up with all this sea glass? you wonder. Is it meant to be an offering? Maybe payment for something? Is it even for me to take?

Your eyes find the monster’s while you reach for the sea glass experimentally. His head rises out of the water a few centimeters, curious gaze tracking your arm. Your hand covers the colorful pile, fingers curling around a handful of smooth glass, when suddenly something hard pokes at your palm. You retract your hand, confused, before shoving the rest of your sandwich in your mouth and using both hands to swipe the glass away from the mysterious object.

A little glass box is unearthed from the pile. Twine is wrapped around it to keep the lid from coming off, and you pick it up just as the creature slips soundlessly underwater. It’s a terrarium of sorts—only instead of plants there are all sorts of items from the ocean arranged inside. Amidst the thin layer of sand and colorful shells and corals, a porcelain figure of an angel kneels, its chipped, sea-worn wings spread out like a bone-white cape billowing in the wind. Turning it over in your hands, you struggle to comprehend its meaning. It’s a unique thing that was put together with great care, but something tells you this isn’t the time to admire the creativity of an anonymous artist. 

He’s no longer hiding in the water by the time you force the rest of your lunch down your throat. Now that you’re all alone on the beach, you can’t help but wish for some company. It’s far too lonely out here and the only proof that you’re not the last living creature on Earth are the cawing birds that circle overhead. You peer up at them from where you sit, counting each feathered thing as it soars effortlessly through the blue sky. 

This view is a luxury, you think. If anyone knows what I did... If that man is reported missing...

“That won’t happen,” you mutter, gritting your teeth. 

I have to go upstairs, find where this key fits... And then what? What if I find another terrible thing? 

Without thinking, you snatch a handful of the sea glass and chuck it at the water. “Hey!” Your fingers dig into the sand as you secure another handful, readying your arm. “Come back! I need to talk to you!” You’re just about to toss it at the lapping waves when a familiar head of hair pops up, eyes narrowed in an intense, analytical look. 

There you are.

You indicate the terrarium in your other hand. “Did you make this?”

He blinks at you, offering no solid response. Instead he allows the waves to drag him closer to the shore. It’s hard to tell from where you stand, but something about him seems different. He looks nicer than how he did when he tried to attack you. Maybe it really was his hunger getting the best of him and you simply happened to intervene during feeding time. Although despite your initial observations, he doesn’t strike you as the bloodthirsty type. The face he’s presenting now is calm and reserved, half-hidden by the water, and he’s keeping to the shadows to the best of his ability. 

“Do you not like the sunlight?” you blurt, taking note of the way he flinches away from the tiniest sliver of light. “It must be uncomfortable to be all the way up here, away from...wherever you’re from. But I must ask you this—are you the one who took the body from this place?”

His head tilts to the right and then the left. A cryptic smile pulls his lips apart to display a set of cruel, sharp teeth. 

“Did you...eat him?” Your whisper is snatched by the wind. Blood rushes like a river in your eardrums, pulsing and pounding. It’s a drum with a foreboding rhythm. When he doesn’t provide you with an answer, you exhale loudly and throw the terrarium down. “Never mind. I won’t get anywhere talking to you.”

He watches it hit the ground, the angel figure now tipped over and buried under the grit and shells. His expression morphs into something blank and unreadable, but you ignore it as you gather your towel and pack your lunch box. Then you’re storming back to the house, climbing the hillside with determined steps. 

You’re throwing your stuff onto the kitchen table the minute you step foot inside the house. Anxiety rises in your chest like bubbles in a fizzy drink and you force yourself to remain calm. Your hands are shaking around the key as you tiptoe towards the staircase. Frigid fingers wrap around your skull, clawing at your brain and rearranging your thoughts until every one of them is a jumbled, incoherent mess. 

I should turn around. I’m not allowed up there, so maybe I should just—no. No, stop that. He’s gone now. I must do this. 

There’s a part of your body that aches. It’s hard to tell if it’s your heart or your head or even your wrists as phantom pain resurfaces, but it’s definitely there and it’s only getting more unbearable with every step you take. The stairs creak under your weight, as if warning you to turn back before it’s too late. But you can’t—not until you know what’s going on. Not until that man’s murder is explained and your innocence is set in stone. Because there has to be a reasonable justification for all of this. 

The first thing you notice when you make it to the very top is that it’s stuffier up here than it is downstairs. An uncomfortable humidity has taken up residence in every nook and cranny of the short hallway, invading the rooms with a warmth you wish would vanish. Your fingertips graze the flowery wallpaper, searching for something out of place. A clue or a secret compartment. You doubt such a thing exists, but feeling the smooth wall grounds you. It prevents you from succumbing to the splitting pain and the intense grip fear has on you as you traverse the second floor, eyeing the staircase every so often as if you expect someone to suddenly appear on the landing. 

A room waits for you at the end of the hall, the door shut tight. You grab the door knob and twist it, listening to the way it creaks open. You gaze at the key in your hand, pupils flicking to the dimly lit room in front of you. Sunlight streams in from the parted curtains, casting a seraphic glow on the leather journal lying innocently on the bedside table. For a moment you stand there, frozen, as a familiar sensation crawls along your spine. You’re drawn to this journal, even if it’s something you’ve never seen before. 

It’s heavy in your hands, complete with crinkled pages and an ordinary bookmark to separate the most recent entry from the others. You open to the page it’s marking, heart thundering, and skim through the messy writing. It’s dated from last week and only one sentence has been written. As each line goes on, the person’s handwriting gets increasingly sloppier and unreadable until, eventually, it’s devolved into harsh scribbles. You realize with a start that this is the same line from your dream. 

The final day of the month approaches and so, too, does he.

“Who? Who’s coming?”

You flip back a few pages and read through that entry as fast as you can. It’s all about you and your status. About how you’ve been faring in the spandrel and how you’re reacting to the medicine. How your diet has been. What sort of things you say when you’re on the border of consciousness and unconsciousness. You don’t like the way everything’s been articulated with such precision, especially since this is the same person whose notes became a clutter of nonsense in the final entry. With a sinking feeling in your gut, you turn back through the journal, reviewing every page until you get to the very beginning. 

The first entry, dated many years ago, details a boring account of a boy and his day at the beach. He writes a name that’s unfamiliar to you and describes how he and his sister spent the afternoon exploring while their grandfather holed himself up in his room and worked on his model ships. It’s a surprising contrast to the current writings, and when you flip ahead you get the first inkling that something isn’t right. The writer seems to share that sentiment as he explains the strange creatures he encountered that evening. Sharp teeth and equally sharp claws—the mirrored countenances only twins could possess. They were friendly despite their scary appearance, and they beckoned him to play. 

The next entry describes a budding friendship. The next tells of the creatures’ names—Jade and Floyd respectively—and another is all about someone named Azul. Though he hardly knows of their origin or what they are exactly, the boy writes fondly of these creatures. 

You skip through more pages of his childhood, skimming through lines of text, until you happen upon a turning point. The boy witnessed something he wasn’t meant to. There isn’t much detail in the frantic handwriting and the entry ends with an unnerving sentence: We’re alone now. From what you can gather, the boy’s grandfather went away with the intention of never coming back. Even though you don’t want to think about it, the horrifying answer lies in wait at the back of your head.

From then on, the entries are shorter. The boy and his sister grow up in the house without any adults to look after them. Their aquatic acquaintances provide them with company at night, and during the day the siblings roam the empty house, searching for answers to unspoken questions. 

“Jade and Floyd...” You trace their names on the page. “So there’s two of them.”

You’re not sure what went wrong with this relationship. Despite the puzzling nature of the situation, the creatures seemed kind enough based on what you had read in previous entries. 

Until they weren’t.

In the months following the demise of his grandfather, the boy writes about a specific wish he shared with the twins. Shortly after that, it was granted. The price for such a simple desire was a chunk of green sea glass. The next wish cost two pieces of sea glass and then three and then four. It continued like that until the following summer, in which the boy wrote, They told me they couldn’t help me if I couldn’t pay. Sea glass isn’t enough. It has to be something special—something only I can relinquish. I don’t know what they could possibly want. 

“Sea glass,” you muse, flicking through the pages until you’re able to gauge the full story. From what you’ve learned, the boy’s sister fell ill shortly after the first few wishes were granted. Unable to contact proper help, the boy turned to his friends and begged them for a solution. They had told him it was possible, but the price for such a wish would be hefty. A life for a life, he wrote. He offered to catch as many fish for them as possible so that their hunger would always be sated. Surely the lives of enough fish can equal one human life, he reasoned. Content with the exchange, they granted his wish. 

Just not in the way he expected.

It was true that she would live, having escaped the clutches of death and time for but a brief moment. Externally, she appeared fine. But on the inside the illness deteriorated her until she was in an even worse condition than before. Her pain might have subsided, but hiding such obvious symptoms did not remove the illness itself, no matter how marvelous the potion was said to be. She was back on death’s door once more. The boy, who promised to never make another wish again, was forced to confront him—the debt collector as he would later become known—regarding the terms of the deal. 

And that was when his true motive was revealed. To save the life of one human, he required a human soul. To take the life of another innocent human—that would be enough to completely cure his sister of her mysterious illness. With his eighteenth birthday just weeks away, the boy needed to find someone. 

He would later venture into town to play the role of a grieving brother in order to win the sympathy of many unsuspecting people. He was desperate, but not desperate enough to con those he talked to. It wasn’t until he met a sailor with a foul attitude that he came to his decision.

For such a toxic man, he allowed the boy to tip terrible poison into his ears.

And that was how it began. Grand wishes were to be granted with grand payment. It was decided that every two years the house would provide the trio with a human and in return they would grant the boy’s wish regardless of how outlandish it might have been. He could have anything he wanted—riches, health, or power—and all it took was one person’s sacrifice. 

In the end, his greed overcame him and he ended up sacrificing his sister to the sinister forces lurking in the sea. 

You shut the journal at once, feeling sick and bitter and cold all over. He was going to give you up next. The debt collector was going to take you at the end of the month and you’d end up like those before you. 

“I had to kill him. He would have killed me,” you whisper to the empty room, voice on the verge of cracking. “Right. I had to do it. He would have... He was going to...” You swallow your nerves and throw the journal onto the bed. “I had to do it.”

It’s not my fault. 

Even as that thought surfaces, you can’t help but wonder how many came before you. How many people knew of their fates? How many tried to escape? How many dreamed of killing him and were unsuccessful when they were awake? Perhaps you simply got lucky when your blade found its target.

No, that wasn’t luck. You stabbed him more than once. It was deliberate; you wanted to kill him. 

The world seems to shatter under you and your legs almost give out. You move away from the bed and that horrid journal, only stopping once your back makes contact with the doors of a closet. You turn and your eyes focus on the padlock at once.

“T-The key...” You wipe at your glassy eyes. “That’s right. I came up here to find where it goes.”

After viewing the contents of the journal, you’re not quite sure you want to see what’s in the closet. Your stomach churns uneasily as you fit the key into the lock, twisting it until it clicks. Your quivering hands grip the handles. 

“It’s not my fault,” you mutter, a final consolation before you open the doors.

Jars of all sizes line towering shelves and each one is labeled accordingly and filled with color. Dates spanning years meet your troubled stare, and it’s then when you realize that this has been going on for decades. The man who kidnapped you wasn’t the first to take advantage of the prophetic wonders of the sea. 

Amidst the jars of sea glass are containers that house the belongings of past victims. Those jars are also labeled with dates and names. You find yours among the shelves. It’s not nearly as filled as the others, but the items inside are undeniably yours. 

Glass shatters on the floorboards after you knock the jar from its spot. The shards scatter like mice in the presence of a cat. Your mind blanks as it struggles to comprehend just how many people have died on these grounds. You pick up an empty jar that has your name written on it and throw it down as hard as you can. It breaks into dozens of jagged splinters. 

So many innocent people. Missing people. People who didn’t deserve any of this.

Your lip curls in dissatisfaction when you view the mess. 

Facing the shelf once again, you pick up another jar and are immediately overcome with a jarring recollection. A charming smile, an invitation to spend the evening stargazing, and a painful knock to the head—that’s all it took for your life to change. 

The jar is dated for two years. Your name is on it. 

Unable to withstand the truth, you shatter it. Sea glass spills out like multicolored pearls of blood. And even though the floor has become a hazardous wasteland of glass shards, you find yourself reaching for another intact jar. 

iv. the house on the hilltop is blood-stained. a caged angel exists within, hiding claws and fangs. we are not strangers to the food chain, but the carnivorous nature of a once domesticated angel is certainly a curiosity to behold. 

You snap awake with a gasp, muscles sore from the uncomfortable position you assumed while sleeping. Darkness closes in on you from all sides and you sit up to blindly feel around for a light switch. Your palm meets the cold surface of the wall and your heart drops into your stomach. The spandrel is far too cramped for your liking and you scramble off of the old mattress in a desperate search for an exit. Thankfully, you’re bursting out of the door and into the hallway moments later, having fought against the pull of shadows and invisible fiends. 

With a heaving chest, you remain there on your hands and knees, forehead pressed into the floor. 

Calm down. Everything’s going to be okay, you tell yourself, hoping the assurance is enough to ease your frazzled heartbeat. If I leave this place before the debt collector comes, I won’t have to deal with whatever mess that man left behind. 

Your fingers curl into tight fists and you lift your head from the floor to stare down the hallway. 

Right! I just need to remember a little more about this place. 

Despite the stars dotting the sky outside, you flip on all the lights in the house as you go through every room, utilizing the journal as a resourceful guide. You can just barely recall faint memories of the past two years, but the fog still refuses to lift and you’re left trusting the words of that greedy man. At the very least, you can be certain of this predicament and your role as a sacrifice. 

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to stomach, though. 

And when the sun finally takes its rightful place in the pastel sky, you stand in the doorway of the kitchen and examine the footprints leading away from the house and down the hill. You spot a calendar hanging on the wall and frown. A date is circled in blue ink, marking an important occasion for today. 

Your blood runs cold. 

“There’s no way... How is it already the end of the month?” You tear the calendar down and flip back through the months. Every day is crossed out in foreboding red—a horrifying countdown. “No, that’s not right! It can’t be the end of the—”

Three knocks at the front door silence you, ringing out through the hollow house. You drop the calendar and pivot wildly, searching the kitchen for a way out. You can’t leave through this door or else they’ll catch sight of you fleeing towards the beach. And you can’t exactly hide away in the spandrel or upstairs in the room with the broken jars. 

You locate the knife in the drawer—the same weapon that put an end to your captor’s life—and weigh your options with great care. Another set of knocks disturbs your thought process and you grit your teeth just as you come to a decision. The drawer shuts with a slam. Perhaps the power of persuasion is greater than that of a blade. 

The door opens to reveal a man dressed in a black suit. A fedora sits comfortably atop his head, as do the glasses on the bridge of his nose, and a grey coat drapes across his shoulders. As you analyze the matching scarf, you can’t help but note just how out of place he looks when the weather is so humid. He seems unbothered by the heat as he flashes you a charming smile. Gloved hands rest upon the silver handle of a cane.

“C-Can I help you?” Your fingers grip the door with so much force you worry it’ll splinter.  

“I should be the one saying that,” he teases. “If it isn’t too much trouble, may I come in? I find that it’s beneficial to discuss important matters in an appropriate setting.”

“Important matters?”

“I won’t beat around the bush.” He steps past you gracefully and stands in the foyer, admiring the driftwood sculpture mounted to the wall. His turquoise hues find yours. “I’m here to collect what’s owed.”

“What’s owed...” you parrot, brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Where are my manners? Please forgive me.” He takes your limp hand in his and gives it a shake. “I am Azul Ashengrotto. Although I suppose the keeper of these grounds often referred to me as the ‘debt collector,’ yes?”

Having recalled the mention of his name in the journal, you can only muster a mechanical nod. 

“Well, I can assure you that I am a creature of fairness, so long as you’re willing to cooperate.” Azul peers at his reflection in the circular seashell mirror. “Therefore I will fill you in on the conditions of the contract, seeing as the responsibility has now fallen to you.”

“Responsibility? I’m not quite sure I understand.” You follow after him as he struts down the hallway, beelining for the kitchen. 

“I don’t expect you to.”

“Then why are you here? I have nothing to give you. I don’t even know what he owes you!”

Azul calmly leans his cane against the cabinets before pulling out a chair and seating himself. He gestures for you to follow and, even though the last thing you want is to sit here in this foul room with a strange man, you oblige. With steepled hands, he observes you and that unnerving smirk never wavers. 

“On the contrary, there is much you can give me, angelfish.” Before you can question the pet name, he adds, “I’m sure you’re aware of the price for a single wish.”

“A human soul. He mentioned that in his diary, yes. But I’m not giving you my soul, if that’s what you’re getting at.” You fix him with your meanest scowl, arms crossing defiantly over your chest to cement the denial. “He’s gone now, so you should settle for something of equal value instead.”

“And what, pray tell, is the equivalent of a human?”

“I…don’t really know.”

“In any case, while I’m unable to inform you of the contents of his wish—confidentiality, as you know—I will tell you what’s owed.”

“Wait.” You grip the table to brace yourself. “What if I can’t pay it? Today’s the day you’re meant to collect what he was supposed to give you, right?”

“That’s correct.” He takes a moment to think before adding, “Unless you’re willing to find a healthy human specimen within the next twenty-four hours, yes, you will be able to pay me. But if you can’t, you will suffice.”

“I’m not part of this deal. No way.”

He chuckles. “Actually, you are. From the very beginning, might I add. Unfortunately, humans are as unpredictable as the churning sea. I couldn’t have imagined you’d do something so ghastly. It must have been quite the shock for you, having to wake in the middle of a gruesome crime scene.”

Your body goes rigid, knuckles hardening as your grip on the table becomes impossibly vise-like. “You…won’t tell anyone, will you? It was self-defense. I was just protecting myself. You have to understand…”

“The line drawn between self-defense and murder was crossed the moment you fed him to the sea, my dear. How unfortunate for you.” He feigns a look of pity. “Luckily for you, I have no interest in the laws of your world. I’m merely here to grant wishes and collect payment from each of my clients.”

"Why?”

His brow raises curiously. “Why, you ask? Well, I suppose it’s because I’m quite the charitable person. I enjoy helping others in any way that I can.”

An amused breath escapes your lips. Despite the harrowing situation, you can’t help laughing at such an obvious lie. If he truly wanted to help others, he would do so without asking for anything in return. This is not help; it’s business. An exchange with many strings attached—the type of deal that wraps around you no matter how hard you try to evade it until, eventually, you’re tangled in a spider’s web.

“And I suppose your ‘help’ comes at the cost of another innocent person’s life?”

“Sometimes you have to ruin one life to fix another. I’m merely doing what’s asked of me by my client. Is that so wrong?”

Your nose scrunches in disgust. “Well, I’m not going to fetch a corpse for you and you can’t have me either.”

Azul sighs and shakes his head in dismay. “That’s a shame. I was hoping you would comply without any complaint, angelfish.”

“Don’t call me that.” You rise from your seat slowly—cautiously. “I’m not going to pay you back for a wish that wasn’t mine. That’s not fair at all.”

Azul mirrors your actions, his movements deliberate and meticulous. “You’re mistaken,” he says. “It was never fair for you to begin with.”

“You can’t be referring to—”

“Jade. Floyd.”

A quick snap of the fingers and two towering shadows appear in the doorway, their heterochromatic hues fixated on you. Their appearances are so similar and you recognize them at once. From the monstrous nature of their sharp teeth to the way their predatory gazes pin you, there’s no doubting that you’ve encountered them before. In the days leading up to this one, one of them tried to attack you and the other studied you from afar.

Your heart skips a beat. “You—”

One of them flashes you a lopsided, toothy grin. “I missed you, dear shrimpy! Waiting for you hurt more than that glass you cut me with.” His cheery expression darkens like a storm cloud at that moment, tone dropping to an ominous whisper. “You’ll let me bite you this time, won’t you?”

Your back connects with the wall. You’re not sure when you started moving away from them, but now that you’re acutely aware of your existence within this cursed room it makes you feel all the more small and crushed under their petrifying stares.

The other one glances around the kitchen, admiring the decor. “What a quaint dwelling.” His smile is warm and inviting, but his eyes are frosted over with ice. “Although you don’t quite fit with the theme, I’m afraid.”

They cast terrifying shadows that seem to silence any protest you might have wanted to spout. 

“I don’t understand,” you murmur instead, frantic gaze flickering from Azul to the twins to the drawer with the knife. “How are you here? You were... You’re not human. You’re supposed to be in the sea!”

“You are what’s owed, so therefore it’s imperative that you follow through with the terms written up in the contract. Whether you had a hand in it matters not,” Azul says, voice devoid of sympathy. “I’ve finished my research, so I no longer require just any human soul.” He glances at the twins. “You may collect the compensation now.” 

“Just hold still, shrimpy. It’ll be so much easier for you.” 

“W-Wait a moment! What if you took another human instead? I can find someone who’ll take my place. Just give me some time.”

“Time is money and I have none to spare, angelfish.”

That’s as much as you’re willing to hear from him before you’re bursting out of the kitchen, avoiding the twins’ reaching arms. Clouds have gathered in the sky, threatening to weep pitying tears upon you, and you gaze this way and that in a desperate attempt to locate a proper escape. There isn’t a car here, nor are there any other houses in sight. In the distance, past the rock wall and the sprawling beach, you can just make out the silhouette of a lighthouse. It stands tall and proud on an elevated outcrop. Perhaps someone’s waiting inside and will provide enough help and protection from Azul and the twins. 

Your bare feet sink into the gritty sand, kicking up clouds of it as you run. Your eyes remain glued to the scenery ahead, not daring to look behind you. A joyful laugh follows you, every teasing syllable clinging to your backside like seaweed. It isn’t long until you’re under the rock wall, passing abandoned piles of sea glass and chipped shells on the way there. You slow your gait, chest rising and falling with every heaving breath, and the momentary pause brings forth a sense of déjà vu. It’s the raw sensation of fear born from being made prey—the type of paralyzing fright that comes from a chase.

It’s because I escaped the spandrel that he came after me. The sudden thought hits you hard and paints a cruel picture in your head—one of a stalemate in the kitchen, where two figures stood on opposite ends of a table. One was holding a knife, trembling like a leaf in a harsh breeze, and the other had his hands held out in front of him. Lips moved, but the words couldn’t be heard and you’re left wondering what sort of bargain was spoken before the knife found itself buried in his chest a dozen times.

Whistling resounds from behind you and you whirl around to face it. You’re met with empty space.

Puzzled, you take a few steps away from the wall to search your surroundings for the brothers. They’re nowhere to be found and their absence doesn’t provide you with as much comfort as you would have liked. But you can’t stay here. They’ll catch you the minute you hesitate and then you’ll be dragged back to Azul against your will, where he’ll do who-knows-what to you.

So you push all inklings of terror aside and continue onwards. In the back of your mind, you can’t help but wonder how different things would have been had you stayed in the spandrel, blissfully unaware of what was to come. By the time you would have pieced everything together, you reckon it would have been too late. Perhaps not knowing your fate would’ve saved you the anxiety that now courses through your veins.

You’re a few minutes into your uneasy jog when you feel eyes boring into the back of your head. Slowly you turn, expecting to see the twins with maddening grins and wide, gleeful eyes. Instead you’re met with more sea glass. It seems to form a path, having been sprinkled upon the sand so deliberately, and it leads all the way to the shoreline. You can’t tell whether it was there before, but you know that you shouldn’t investigate. It would be safer to ignore it altogether.

And that’s exactly what you intended to do, had you not walked right into his view. He’s there in the water, watching you with a patient smile. All identifying human features have vanished and he’s back to his original form. You have no idea if his name is Jade or Floyd, but you definitely aren’t going to call out to him. Your feet shuffle through the sand and you’re just about ready to pivot and run when a hand catches your shoulder.

“You’re not really that smart, are you, shrimpy?” His heartless chuckle grounds you. “But it was fun playing tag while it lasted! Now you have to come with me to meet Azul. You’ll behave, won’t you? I’d hate to bite all the way through to your bones…”

His arms wrap around you before you can react, holding you in place. He’s stronger than you anticipated and even though struggling does nothing to break his tight grip you still wriggle in an attempt to free yourself. 

“N-No, let go of me!” He’s pushing you towards the sea and his waiting brother, steering you in the direction of impending doom. Once you realize his intentions, you dig your heels into the ground and squirm. “No, no! I don’t want to go there! Let go of me!”

The waves lap at your feet, reaching with liquid fingers. It chills you all the way to your marrow. Try as you might, you can’t break free from his arms. Fighting him only wears you down until you’re just barely able to kick out, weak against his overpowering strength. He seems pleased with your gradual submission, letting out a happy whistle as he shoves you into the waist-deep water. You fall forward with a splash, salt stinging your eyes and invading your nose and mouth. You break the surface with a sharp gasp and turn around in search of him. 

A raindrop spatters on the tip of your nose and you gaze up at the dark sky just as more drops come falling. Waves crash around you, the push and pull dragging your disoriented body back and forth. Between that and the curtain of rain that envelops you, it’s hard to tell where exactly the twins are in the water. Every noise has you on high alert. Something brushes past your leg and you jolt, slipping and landing in the water once again. You force yourself to paddle towards the shore in spite of the choppy current that continuously pulls you under. 

Fingers wrap around your arms just as you take another desperate breath before you’re yanked back under seconds later. Your silent scream is swallowed up by the sea as you’re held firmly in someone’s embrace. You thrash around blindly, eyes screwing shut to keep the salt water out. Cold lips find yours in a sloppy kiss that manages to force an unknown liquid down your throat. You choke on the bitter aftertaste, pushing against someone’s chest in hopes of swimming in the other direction. Your back collides with another chest and it’s then when you come to the realization that you’re sandwiched between the both of them. 

Panic seizes your heart as all of the dangers come crashing down in a terrifying heap. They’re holding you under the water, sharp claws grazing your skin, and it’s getting harder to breathe. Your eyes peel open a sliver and you catch sight of their wicked smiles.  

You’re going to die. This is it; it’s the end for you. With burning lungs and the certainty of death etched into your mind, you slip into unconsciousness. 

v. the house on the hilltop sits serene and abandoned. there is no business to be found inside and we no longer watch from a distance. having freed the angelfish from devious clutches, there is no reason to regard an empty, hopeless place.

An unfathomable ache greets you when you wake from a deep slumber. It exists in your lower body and for a moment it’s all you can focus on as you force yourself to sit upright. Your weightless arms glide through the water seamlessly. Glancing at them, you note the odd clusters of iridescent scales that cling to your skin like barnacles. Bewildered, you follow the length of your arm until you reach your webbed hand. 

What happened?

You rack your brain for any hint as to what’s going on, replaying a blur of scattered memories. All you can recall are vague images showcasing monstrous shadows and a feeling of heart-stopping panic. Your surroundings are shrouded in darkness, save for the occasional light that pierces the tunnel-like dwelling and illuminates sharp stalagmites. Something glimmers in the darkness and you drag yourself towards it, feeling weightless and heavy at the exact same time.

Your reflection winks back at you. You gaze at it, noting features that can’t possibly belong to you. Your webbed hand comes up to feel at gills and fins of stunning colors, and it hurts your heart when you realize all of this is real. It’s not a dream. This is you, yet you can’t recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror. And under the glow of a stray jellyfish, you finally notice the tail. Its coloration reminds you of a fish that you can’t quite name and you run your fingers over the scales. It’s beautiful, in a confusing way, but it doesn’t feel like yours. 

Surely not. After all, you were once human.

“Ah, you’re finally awake.” 

Another reflection appears in the mirror as the person swims up to your side. He’s also like you, albeit his body is longer and larger than yours. He looks more like a predator than you do, complete with razored teeth and sharp claws. 

“Who...are you?”

“I am Jade.” He fixes you with a polite smile. “You were asleep for quite some time. It was worrying, but it seems like you’re in good health. As expected of such an adaptable species.” His hand strokes your cheek, fingers brushing along a group of scales before continuing down to smooth the nonexistent wrinkles in your shirt. “I’m pleased you’ve acclimated well to our environment. Although I suppose it’s an inevitability.”

“I… Um, I don’t think I’m meant to be here. It’s just—” You shake your head. Jade waits patiently, observing you as you struggle to form the words. Eventually you let out a huff of bubbles and mutter, “I can’t remember. Everything’s so fuzzy.”

“Is that so?” 

You nod glumly and turn away from the mirror just as someone else pulls you in for a hug. 

“You’re finally up, shrimpy! I waited and waited, always paying you a visit, but you never woke up. Azul was beginning to wonder if we’d have to bring a prince down here to wake you.”

Jade chuckles. “Gentle now, Floyd. (Name) still hasn’t adjusted quite yet.”

His twin pouts and rests his chin on your shoulder. “It’s no fun when you’re sleeping. It was boring not being able to play with you.”

His arms are like a cage around you, so strong and unyielding. Your gaze flickers between both brothers. And then you look past them at the many things scattered about within the cave. It’s hard to make out what some of the objects are, but most of the nearby things are recognizable. Rusted utensils, a chipped porcelain plate, a tattered scarf. A chair missing one of its legs, a teapot without its handle, a compass on a chain. 

“Hey, let’s play right now! You’re probably not a very strong swimmer, right? I want to teach you! We can play tag again like last time and then we’ll play hide-and-seek.” 

None of these items serve any use down here, you realize. 

“A-Azul,” you blurt a familiar-sounding name without meaning to. “I want to see Azul.”

“Huh...” Floyd releases you from his hold, suddenly monotonous. “If that’s what you really want.”

“I suppose it’s only fair,” Jade says before facing his twin. “Worry not, Floyd. There will be plenty of opportunities to play.” 

His assurance is enough for Floyd, who perks up with a bright grin. Despite his cheery disposition, you can’t help the terror that races up your spine. Both of them are terrifying. You know this for a fact, but you can’t seem to recall why you know this.

A pair of blue eyes find yours in the inky darkness. You reach for him and a tentacle slithers out to meet you halfway, wrapping gently around your wrist. 

“Come look, Azul! (Name) woke up!” 

“It would seem as though (Name) recalls your name,” Jade observes, an odd glint in his dark, mismatched hues. 

“No fair. I want to be remembered, too! Hey, little shrimp, promise you’ll never forget my name, okay? If you do I might have to squeeze you until you remember it...”

You shudder under Floyd’s touch and Azul retracts his tentacle instinctively. Your hand chases after him, searching through the darkness in vain. “Have I always been like this?” you call out to him, wondering where he could possibly be. “Azul.”

It takes a moment before he’s in your sight completely. Like the twins, there’s an inhuman charm to him and you can’t help but feel bewitched by his half-man, half-octopus features. But you know that under all of that glamour, a monster lurks. 

“Of course,” he finally responds, confidence reignited. A tentacle grips your chin and turns your head so that he may look at your scales and gills. “Although you slept for longer than I intended, everything else is perfect. Truly marvelous… It worked like a charm.”

“But when I looked at my reflection… I’m a human, right? I don’t remember looking like this.”

“You’ve always been one of us.” His expression is a portrait of disbelief, almost offended at the mere insinuation of you having ever been human. 

“None of this feels right, though. I don’t belong here.”

“Nonsense. You’ve lived in this grotto with the three of us ever since we first met.” His deceptive eyes flick to the twins. “Isn’t that right?”

“Right as ever!” Floyd’s hugging you again, pressing his body against yours as if he’s blind to the horror that’s scrawled on your face. “We’re inseparable, little shrimp.”

“Despite lacking strength to swim, you still went up to the surface to see the human world for yourself. But as a result of such careless foresight, you hurt yourself,” Jade informs you with a concerned frown, and for a moment it makes sense. That explains why you’re so sore and can hardly support yourself, let alone glide through the water with your powerless tail. “You wouldn’t wake up for days, I’m afraid.”

“Which is exactly why you must stay down here to recover and improve your swimming skills.”

Floyd chuckles. “A fishy who can’t even swim properly... You’ll be gobbled up in no time, shrimpy!” He pinches your cheek and you swat at him. Your glower has him grinning. “How scary.” 

Jade tuts disapprovingly as Floyd backs off. Another one of Azul’s tentacles wraps around your waist and tugs you closer to him. His hands cup your face so that you’re forced to stare into his sincere eyes. 

“You belong down here with us.” He smiles softly as he traces your jaw with his thumb. “This has always been your home. You’re just shaken from what happened up there.”

“I am?” No matter how much you strain to recall a sliver of useful information, everything turns up in a scrambled order. 

I’m human. I know I am. That’s the truth.

“You’re not the only sea creature who wishes to be human. Alas, these are the cards life has dealt us and we have no choice but to remain in the sea.” He sighs. “I hope this has been a proper lesson for you. Fancying human life will only lead to your downfall.”

“How do you know that? You can’t be certain—”

This isn’t right. It can’t be. I’ve always been human. There’s no way I was wishing for it. I am human.

“The evidence is right in front of me. You poor thing. The surface did quite the number on you, but it’s nothing we can’t fix. Jade and Floyd will tend to you when I’m unable to. We’ll keep you safe, angelfish.”

Angelfish? 

“But—”

“Delusion is not a suitable look on you. You’ll stop with your fascination of humans, won’t you? It’ll only hurt you.”

Fascination of humans… Has it always been like that?

It doesn’t sound right, but you can’t say it’s wrong either. After all, you can’t remember much. Even as you submit to him, a sinking feeling tells you there’s far more to the story than you’ll ever know.

“I’m sorry,” you admit, “for going to the surface. I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

“It’s not your fault,” they say in perfect, chilling unison.

That affirmation is so distantly familiar. Somehow it feels like you’re to blame for all of this, despite what they tell you, and knowing that only perplexes you even more.

“If you say so.” A smile forces itself onto your lips. “Thank you…for looking out for me. I won’t cause anymore problems from now on.”

“I would hope not. After all, the human world is just as dangerous as the sea. But you’re already well aware of that, aren’t you, my dear?”

“I am.”

The creeping cold settles under your skin when tentacles and arms wrap around you. Even though you’re trapped between the three of them in a one-sided embrace, it feels more like home than the house on the hilltop from your dreams.

[edenmemes]

horizon: forbidden west starters

❝ it won’t be long before we hit the point of no return. ❞   ❝ every night, i have the same dream. ❞   ❝ i’ve been tracking you a long way. ❞   ❝ you know what they say. if you want something done right, do it yourself. ❞   ❝ what happened next was...not something i like to remember. ❞   ❝ and for a moment, i feel whole. but it never lasts. ❞   ❝ we’ll camp out here until we get our strength back up. ❞   ❝ you know i hate being called that. ❞   ❝ all i have left are the screams of those long dead and an unending rage. show me where to bury it. ❞   ❝ vengeance? no. i wanted devastation. ❞   ❝ well, you may lack sense --- but you don’t lack courage. ❞   ❝ you can’t ignore it forever. memories always come back. ❞   ❝ my world stopped revolving around you months ago. ❞   ❝ i thought soothing the suffering of others would somehow appease my own. ❞   ❝ i'm not much for parties. ❞   ❝ i was thinking we could spar for a bit. when you have the time. ❞   ❝ there is something about you that doesn’t seem natural. ❞   ❝ it’s not like everyone can be born with a sword glued to their hand. ❞   ❝ the last thing i wanted was to worry you. ❞ ❝ any scrap of hope is better than nothing. ❞   ❝ i know what it’s like when your family looks down on you. ❞     ❝ i didn’t think i was that well-known. ❞   ❝ i hope you don’t hold it against me. ❞   ❝ you know that special part of us that makes us warm, kind, welcoming? you were born without that. ❞   ❝ i'm sorry you had to go through that. ❞   ❝ speak the truth. plain and simple. ❞   ❝ you’re stuck with me now --- like bark on wood. ❞   ❝ if the end of the world’s coming, i don’t wanna be sober for it. ❞   ❝ i'm no stranger to hardship. ❞   ❝ ah, nothing...you just look good, that’s all. ❞   ❝ aren’t you a jewel in a junk heap? ❞   ❝ they say the only thing that makes a cold brew go down easier is a tale of times gone by. ❞ ❝ tell me what happened. step by step. ❞   ❝ forget what you think you know about me. ❞   ❝ i dread to think what would’ve happened if you hadn’t shown up. ❞   ❝ you can try to hide it, but inside, you’re as soft as a silk pillow. ❞   ❝ you’re going on without me, aren’t you? ❞   ❝ oh, a feeling? you mean you finally had one? ❞   ❝ we need a lot more than eager hearts to win. ❞   ❝ the company you keep is even worse than i thought. ❞   ❝ you are unhappy. good. ❞   ❝ what about you? will time heal your wounds? ❞   ❝ so this is it? after everything we’ve been through...this is goodbye? ❞ ❝ i’m not here to fight for you. ❞   ❝ you must succeed or this was all for nothing. ❞       ❝ i can't claim to understand. only empathize. ❞   ❝ trust me. i know what i’m doing. ❞   ❝ i got a couple of scrapes on the way here. ❞   ❝ shh now...everything will be fine. ❞   ❝ what’s wrong? is it your injury? ❞   ❝ i hope all is well enough under the circumstances. ❞   ❝ i gotta take a breather. ❞   ❝ i thought we were finally going to get away from this place. ❞ ❝ i can’t believe we actually made it. ❞   ❝ what i have to do...it’s better if i do it alone. ❞   ❝ don’t forget to stand up for yourself. ❞   ❝ can’t tell if you’re shy or scared. ❞   ❝ sometimes a dream has to die. ❞   ❝ i’m alone in bearing the burden. ❞   ❝ well, this is a warm welcome. ❞   ❝ each journey begins with a single step. ❞   ❝ i often prefer plants to people. ❞ ❝ wish i could say i’ve been through worse. ❞   ❝ nobody’s handed me anything or dropped opportunity in my lap. everything i’ve achieved, i’ve done on my own. ❞   ❝ greatness is never easy. ❞   ❝ just try not to get hurt. ❞   ❝ you mustn’t judge me. i had no choice. ❞   ❝ trust me, you don’t want to know. ❞   ❝ why didn’t you wake me? ❞   ❝ everyone makes mistakes. ❞   ❝ how can i say no to that? ❞   ❝ these days, you don’t seem to appreciate anything. ❞   ❝ i won’t be anyone’s second choice. ❞   ❝ you were a great warrior once. ❞   ❝ sounds like you could use a hand. ❞ ❝ i mean, have you ever even had a friend? ❞   ❝ ugh, what’s that stench? ❞   ❝ i'm not saying it’s a bad idea. i’m saying it’s overkill. ❞   ❝ you know better than anyone it’s a dangerous world out there. ❞      ❝ what’s done is done. ❞   ❝ i'm guessing you’ve got a lot of questions. ❞   ❝ is there nothing you can’t do? ❞       ❝ trust me --- you don’t want to go in there. ❞   ❝ the exceptional walk a path of solitude. ❞   ❝ you, sorry? that’d be a first. ❞   ❝ you might want to sleep with one eye open. ❞   ❝ it’s okay. i’ve fought bigger. ❞   ❝ i’ve never heard of anything so selfish. ❞   ❝ seems like you could use a shoulder to lean on. ❞   ❝ come back someday and tell me about your adventures. ❞   ❝ you’ve shown strength and wisdom today. ❞   ❝ false hope is a creeping vine. ❞   ❝ someone’s being awfully mysterious. ❞   ❝ you must think i’m eminently stupid. ❞   ❝ do i smell...ale? ❞   ❝ i'm not looking for any trouble. ❞   ❝ it’s good to see you, but i can’t stay long. ❞   ❝ the burden of your task is written across your face. ❞   ❝ so. that’s my story. ❞   ❝ that’s a little harsh, isn’t it? ❞   ❝ do you really think we can do something about all of this? ❞   ❝ people only follow you because you say so. loudly. ❞   ❝ it's over. i failed. ❞   ❝ i’ve gotten used to seeing impossible things, thanks to you. ❞   ❝ that’s all you’re going to tell me? ❞   ❝ it’s nice to save a life instead of end one. ❞   ❝ you want me to come with you? ❞   ❝ you don’t have to be afraid. ❞   ❝ don’t worry about me. i’ll be fine. ❞   ❝ sorry. you’re not getting rid of me that easily. ❞   ❝ you sure i shouldn’t come with you? ❞   ❝ why are you here? what is your purpose? ❞   ❝ i'm not trying to shut you out. ❞   ❝ if this is too much for your old bones, you can always head back. ❞   ❝ something doesn’t want us here. ❞   ❝ i’m going to make sure you pay for all the suffering you have caused. ❞   ❝ please, just don’t break anything. ❞   ❝ you’re not wanted here. ❞   ❝ your skill with a bow never ceases to amaze. ❞   ❝ you must think i’m an idiot. ❞   ❝ didn’t think i was going to make it. ❞   ❝ a true warrior makes use of every advantage. ❞   ❝ maybe just don’t disappear completely this time? ❞   ❝ what, afraid i’ll stab you or something? ❞   ❝ any kindness we seed, we should also sow. ❞ ❝ sounds like you were a force to be reckoned with. ❞       ❝ it must be urgent since you left so fast. ❞ ❝ this isn’t going to work. ❞   ❝ i’m not getting dragged further into this madness. ❞   ❝ i never wanted any of this to happen. ❞   ❝ if you want, we can talk about it. ❞       ❝ everything feels...unreal. distant. ❞       ❝ as long as you’re honest with yourself, nobody can hold your choices against you. ❞ ❝ you sure know how to fight. ❞   ❝ how many more do i have to kill? when does it end? ❞   ❝ the blade answers only to the hand that commands it. ❞   ❝ i'm not the trusting type. ❞   ❝ i like to make my own judgements about people. ❞   ❝ i knew my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. ❞ ❝ when we are united, we can overcome any threat. ❞   ❝ you fought well back there. ❞   ❝ that wound needs to be looked at. ❞   ❝ what have you done? ❞   ❝ i trust you will point my blade where it will cut the deepest. ❞   ❝ what do you need me to do? ❞     ❝ the world seems quieter when it snows. ❞     ❝ that was an unkind comparison. ❞      ❝ i’m sorry for my unannounced appearance. ❞ ❝ sundown. stars will be out soon. ❞ ❝ no nonsense. i like it. ❞ ❝ one thing’s for sure. we’re not alone out here. ❞   ❝ you made quite an impression that day. ❞   ❝ okay, you got me. i’m curious. ❞   ❝ you’re never one to hold back, are you? ❞   ❝ hold your fire. i’m not here to fight. ❞   ❝ a loss today is a win tomorrow. ❞   ❝ i tried to vent my grief on the battlefield...but i never found comfort. ❞   ❝ maybe now you can tell me what we’re doing here? ❞   ❝ did you hit your head on your way down here? ❞       ❝ you got blindsided. wasn’t your fault. ❞   ❝ true courage means facing those fears with conviction instead of cynicism. ❞   ❝ follow my lead and be prepared for anything. ❞   ❝ this place is really falling apart. ❞   ❝ one of these days i’m gonna shut that arrogant mouth of yours. ❞   ❝ let’s hold off with the ale until it’s over and done with. ❞   ❝ you’re the worst, you know that? ❞   ❝ i will do whatever i can. i promise. ❞   ❝ it’s time for the truth, and it better be convincing. ❞   ❝ everyone thought you were dead. ❞   ❝ i can always count on you. ❞   ❝ nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. ❞   ❝ i’m not gonna kill you, okay? ❞   ❝ you haven’t let me down yet. ❞   ❝ i will not let myself hope just yet. ❞   ❝ i’m glad you’re with me. ❞   ❝ you’ve got guts. i’ll give you that. ❞   ❝ you’re a long way from home. ❞   ❝ i didn’t come all this way to stop now. ❞   ❝ you can be so boorish. ❞   ❝ okay, enough. i’m gonna get emotional. ❞   ❝ no. i am not wearing that. no way. ❞   ❝ i can barely breathe. ❞   ❝ this is what i am now. ❞   ❝ and now you know the truth. ❞   ❝ will i feel different? whole again? ❞   ❝ the road to truth is never a straight line. ❞   ❝ this place is a maze. ❞   ❝ i’m not some legend come to life. ❞   ❝ you look like you have something on your mind. ❞   ❝ you shouldn’t believe everything you hear. ❞   ❝ things were simpler then. ❞   ❝ i’m just stubborn. it’s a good quality to have, dealing with you. ❞   ❝ it’s been a long road. we’ve suffered. we’ll continue to suffer. ❞   ❝ we’re a lot alike, huh? ❞   ❝ you’ve had a hard journey for one so young. ❞   ❝ whatever comes, we will endure. ❞   ❝ what’s so important down there that you’d risk your life? ❞   ❝ are you even listening? ❞   ❝ we can’t sit around wallowing in our sadness. ❞   ❝ yeah, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. ❞   ❝ destiny shines upon us. ❞   ❝ don’t be so quick to dismiss the comfort we can find in art. ❞   ❝ don’t worry. i’ll protect you. ❞   ❝ if you ever betray me again, i will kill you no matter what the circumstance. ❞   ❝ i’ve surpassed every man that has ever gotten in my way. ❞   ❝ feels like the bloodshed never ends. and the pain it causes. ❞   ❝ you’re the last person to act sensibly in the face of impossible odds. ❞   ❝ when it looks impossible, look deeper. and then fight like you can win. ❞   ❝ do more than just survive. flourish. ❞   ❝ i told you i wanted to help you. i meant it. ❞   ❝ i am no threat. ❞   ❝ survival is only a necessity to my greater purpose. ❞   ❝ i see you...a woman who has carved her own remarkable path. ❞   ❝ even when things are darkest, you’re the flame that lights the way forward. ❞   ❝ you have opened my eyes to many things. ❞   ❝ you were part of something bigger once. something good. ❞   ❝ what i wouldn’t give to watch you die. ❞   ❝ it all turned out well, in the end. ❞   ❝ there’s something very powerful somewhere beyond that door. ❞   ❝ i'm sorry i couldn’t do more to help you. ❞  

[tracybirds]

Prompt Generator Fic #12 (Repost)

Gordon + Fischler + Fluff + explosion

A loud, echoing crunch of metal was Fischler’s only warning that the magnificent hovering ferry of the future would be hovering no longer and he could only stare at the controls in shock as she began to teeter in the air, her marvellous balloons and stellar propellers no longer able to hold her weight.

Gordon’s warning of the events about to unfold had been exceptionally detailed and carefully catalogued as one by one, everything that could go wrong did, until he was left alone on the bridge of a nearly evacuated airship with her captain – a man who seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that his beloved machine was in fact a Titanic.

“Get down,” he shouted at Fischler who was standing motionless, gormless face and all, as the engines began to disintegrate beneath them.

He barely had time to register the way confusion morphed into disbelief, dragging the man backwards and shielding him as the propellers burst out of their fittings and ripped through the control room, shredding the metal as they flew.

“BRACE!”

The shock of Arctic waters could never be forgotten and each time Gordon was forced into them, the cold bit deeper into his suit. One day the icy chill would attack his heart instead of his extremities, and Gordon knew that would be the last time he would swim in an ocean.

He jabbed at his flashlight, the water a deep and murky blue beneath his kicking legs.

“I need back up now,” he yelled into his comm, struggling to hoist Fischler above the water. “Somebody get Four to me.”

He scrambled for the floatation device in his baldric, and tucked it under Fischler’s arms heaving a sigh of relief as it inflated without issue and the weight lifted from him.

“Gord… …on”

“There’s noise, Two, tell John to clear it up.”

Silence fell and Gordon chanced a look upwards. There wasn’t a star in the sky, only a flaming scrap heap.

“We can’t see you on our scanners, Gordon,” said Virgil. “John says there’s some sort of interference blocking it.”

“I’m just glad we still have comms,” said Gordon, leaning his head against the sturdy orange nylon. “I have Fischler, he’s going into shock.”

“Hypothermic?”

“Probably. He was not dressed for the Arctic. Four’s our best bet out, the only way clear is down.”

“Okay, hang tight, keep talking to him, we’ll work it out.”

Gordon punched Fischler, jolting him out of his stupor.

“Don’t die on me now.”

“It crashed,” said Fischler, looking around him in amazement.

The sloshing water echoed in the chamber they’d found themselves trapped in, the metal creaking ominously above them.

“Of course it crashed,” snapped Gordon. “Weren’t you paying any attention to us?”

“They never crash,” was all Fischler would say.

Gordon sighed irritably, straining his mind to find something, anything, that he could ask to distract the man who’d pulled them both into this mess.

“How’d you make it?”

Fischler launched into his grand tale, a well-rehearsed speech that mobilised the best of his grandeur and the worst of Gordon’s patience.

“Lead balloons, they said it wasn’t possible, but I showed them!” he exclaimed, just as Gordon caught sight of a faint and familiar gleam.

“That’s her!” he yelled excitedly, surging upwards with relief. “She’s coming now!”

“Eh? Another of your ships?” said Fischler, peering down. “They didn’t do much good the first time, look at my beauty!”

And he launched into another long spiel that Gordon silenced by dragging him underwater, strong kicks pushing them towards his ‘bird.

He ran a loving hand over her controls, leaving Fischler without an audience and despondent for the first time all day.

“We’re in, preparing to surface now.”

“FAB,” chorused his brothers’ voices.

“And good luck,” said John, smirking a little.

“Is that the ginger one?” said Fischler, wandering in with his shirt still half done up. “Such a stick in the mud, very unfriendly to me, you know.”

“I wonder why,” muttered Gordon under his breath as John bid him a hasty farewell. “I told you to get out of those clothes already.”

“I can’t do the buttons, my fingers are numb.”

Gordon looked up sharply, grabbing for his hands. They were red and swollen, twitching away from his touch.

“Hold still, let me help you.”

“Help me? You’ve gone out of your way to destroy my work and you think you can help me now?”

“You did that to yourself,” snapped Gordon. “Your so-called work is dangerous, you’re careless with the lives around you, and you waste our time again and again. Stop complaining and do as you are told.”

Fischler said nothing as Gordon helped him undress and wrapped a blanket firmly around him.

“I can’t see any blisters,” he said at last. “You need to tell me if any develop, I’m not convinced you avoided frostbite that easily.”

“You think I’d deserve it, don’t you?”

“I think it would be fair. said Gordon quietly, refusing to look at him. “Natural consequences and all that. But just because it’s fair doesn’t mean you deserve it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Gordon clenched his jaw.

“I’m not here to justify our actions to you. You needed help. The people who work for you needed help. So we helped.”

“It can’t be that simple, what’s your play?”

“Can’t make you believe me.”

“There’s always an angle. Nobody does things like that for nothing.”

Gordon’s lip curled.

“The lives of others aren’t nothing. Maybe remember that before you build your next project and we have to rescue your sorry ass again. Because you’re right, I don’t think you deserve to be saved time and time again. But International Rescue says different.”

Thunderbird Four surfaced, bobbing up and down on top of the waves and Gordon handed the controls over to Virgil.

“That’s your stop,” he said, scorn falling heavy on his tongue. “See you next time.”

[lantern-hill]

"Resting on the fable of "foreign aid," many are still wont to believe in fairy tales.

Despite the fact that between 1980 and 2009, net transfers of financial resources from Africa to the rest of the world reached the threshold of approximately 1,400 billion dollars, and illicit transfers totaled 1,350 billion dollars, the belief somehow holds firm that the countries of the North subsidize those of the South.

Besides, it seems to count for little that the countries with weak or intermediate GDP have welcomed more than 90 percent of the 65.6 million refugees currently displaced and uprooted in the world.

In this sector, as in others, an era of fantasy and closed-mindedness is upon us.

Old prejudices are constantly recycled from the scrap heap, and in a cyclical process typical of racist discourses, new fantasies are suggested.

"It's both cultural and civilizational," proclaim the erudite pseudo-experts. "They are fleeing because of intergenerational tensions." "The poorer they are, the more likely they are to leave, but as their condition of life improves, their desire to live elsewhere grows." From the depths of the shadows, an old specter returns to haunt people's minds with invasions of hordes from overpopulated lands- countries "where each woman still gives birth to seven or eight children.""

-Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics.

[thaumaturgekitchen]

Halfling Cultures

(For an explanation on how all this works plus some cultures for elves, see here. Other cultures: Dwarves, Orcs)

For today's batch of cultures, we've got a nice little heap of halflings. The first one here is pretty traditional, though I like the idea of other small folks moving in and joining halfling communities from time to time. The fourth one's where things get good and spicy though - after all, if you've got a group of folks who are all but incapable of fear and small enough to ride vultures and pterosaurs as a beastmaster ranger, why wouldn't they get into the storm-chasing business?

Pastoral Villagers

For many halflings, home is a quiet but cheerful place, full of well-cooked meals and good company. Though some such halfling communities have a reputation for being rather private and reclusive, in recent generations many have begun to welcome gnomes and even the occasional goblin or kobold among their number.

Common language: Halfling

Pick two:

Gain proficiency in Animal Handling

Gain proficiency in Persuasion

Gain proficiency with cook's utensils and brewer's supplies

Gain proficiency with one type of musical instrument and one type of gaming set

Learn two languages from among Gnomish, Goblin, and Draconic

Riverboat Migrants

For halflings without a land to call home, the great river beckons. Entire communities of halflings travel together in their riverboats, trading and swapping tales whenever they meet.

Common language: Halfling

Pick two:

Gain proficiency in Insight

Gain proficiency in Performance

Gain proficiency with vehicles (water) and learn one language of your choice

Gain proficiency with carpenter's tools and learn one language of your choice

Learn the Shape Water cantrip

Back-Alley Scoundrels

Life is tough for small folks in the big city. If you're not quick of wit and quicker with a knife, they'll trample you underfoot. But halflings know how to look out for one another, and their goblin neighbors too. Once, they feuded over scraps. Now no one dares touch their new family.

Common language: Halfling or Goblin

Pick two:

Gain proficiency in Sleight of Hand

Gain proficiency in Stealth

Gain proficiency with thieves' tools and one type of gaming set

Gain proficiency with cook's utensils and brewer's supplies

Learn the Message cantrip

Fearless Storm-Chasers

Druids and wizards alike have long known of the power that bottled lightning holds, but only a few cliff-dwelling halfling tribes are brave and nimble enough to snatch it straight from the source. Though their ancient traditions have given way to a booming industry of alchemists and lightning-merchants, those fearless few among them who mount their great birds and dive into the heart of the storm still command tremendous awe and respect.

Common language: Halfling

Pick two:

Gain proficiency in Animal Handling

Gain proficiency in Acrobatics

Gain proficiency with scimitars and hand crossbows

Gain proficiency with alchemist's supplies and learn Primordial

Learn the Shocking Grasp cantrip

[an-anaemic-pen]

Dance of the Little Swan I.iii

Dance of the Harpy

Prelude || Overture

Summary: The Jötnar were thought to be long-since-gone within the mortal realm. Amidst all of her fakery, Mommy Fortuna holds Loki, trapped in birth from and far from what he once considered home, as well as another little treasure: a swan maiden.

(Yes, this is a crossover, but the Last Unicorn is fairly minimal plot-wise and it’s largely a Loki fic)

Relationships: F/M (Loki/Original Female Character, Molly Grue/Schmendrick)

Rating: M (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Sexual Content)

Loki’s skin had returned to its usual color after a few days.

The little girl attracted much attention, and Mommy Fortuna was making quite a profit—not that Ceana even  knew anything about how the hag handled her money. The only thing she knew was that Mommy Fortuna looked something brushing against happier than usual and Ruhk had asked for a raise.

They’d been carted across the land for about a week since she and Loki had last spoken.

One night, Ceana had woken up to find his crimson eyes watching her  far  too intently.

She had not slept as well since.

The carts were rattling down a dirt path between two of the larger towns. Out of nowhere, there was a loud screech.

Ceana’s gaze bolted upward. In the cloudy evening sky, she saw a silhouette; the most terrifying silhouette she could possibly imagine. Of course, she’d heard of the harpy in tales, but never imagined she’d come across one in real life.

She was circling the caravan like a hawk, her eye beedy.

By work of the witch’s magic, the cloak, pinned at the tip of her cage, fell down in one movement. Ceana was left in darkness. The cage rattled more as the horses grew uneasy.

Anticipation was pressing against her being. Her heart was pounding, and she sat frozen, barely able to breathe as she waited for the attack. Harpies had keen senses of smell, didn’t they? Could she smell Ceana beneath the covering?

It did not matter, Ceana knew, because the Jötunn would most certainly find her to be a perfect meal.

The harpy cried out, and adrenaline spiked her system.

Ceana squirmed around the prison, desperately reaching out in an attempt to grab the covering and see what was going on. She was able to lift it up enough to see the front of the caravan was—

Still?

It had halted, her cart stopping not long after. She heard another cry, a loud crash, and the splintering of wood. Ceana rushed to the other side of her prison, looking to the back of the caravan.

The giant creature had landed atop Loki’s cart, her sheer mass breaking the roof of his prison. She spread her wings, knocking the cart over as she lifted off. Ceana covered her cage, curling up in a ball and wrapping her arms around her head.

Smaller prey would surely not be as enticing as the horses, who were far more substantial than she. If she had the luck to escape the harpy alive, perhaps she could escape Loki without losing a limb, as well. Ceana hoped her luck could hold out for that long, especially after being so poor for the period of time she had been imprisoned.

It felt like the horse was attempting to break free of his holds. Ceana’s cage fell from its base, knocking her to the ground. She could feel her body bruising as she slammed against the metal.

The world outside her dark little haven was muffled havoc. She could hear grunts and garbled yells, they were Ruhk’s, she realized, as well as Mommy Fortuna calling out spells. A grotesque squelch entered her ears as the witch’s voice was rather abruptly cut off.

Chills ran along her entire body. Ceana felt faint.

“Awaken, swan.”

Ceana did not wish to. The world of sleep was quiet and warm, and she did not have to deal with the poking hands of those in the crowd. An icy palm touched her shoulder, and Ceana’s eyes flickered open. She lurched away from the freezing touch, banging her head against something hard.

“Stay still, lest you wish to die,” the voice was demanding, yet also surprisingly gentle.

After a few moments of awkward half-staring and much blinking, Ceana was able to get her eyes to focus. The clouds had cleared to reveal the sun. The blazing sunset framed him, the orange a sharp contrast to his blue skin.

Ceana was still inside her cage, and her cloak felt like it had been draped over her form.  He has seen me, then.

She stared at him with wide eyes as he reached through the door of her cage, which looked to have been forced open since the lock was broken, and flinched when he touched her. He had not done so since the ship, and she expected his palm to be cold, but it felt…  normal —if that was the correct phrase.

Ceana did something at least akin to relax when he next spoke. “You are hurt,” he said.

Ceana’s eyes followed his arm to where he was lifting her shin to inspect it. Only now did she notice the large scrape across her skin and realize how much it hurt. Her head panged and she carefully lifted her hand.

Her arm didn’t hurt outside the dull ache caused by a bruise, and she gingerly felt the pain on her head. Thankfully, it was just a bump; her mother had always called them goose-eggs. The memory made her smile softly—she missed her family.

Loki ripped off a large section of the cloak and Ceana yelped in surprise; he flinched at the volume of her voice. She immediately held the remaining cover closer against her.

“Must you  scream  when I am trying to  help you?” He proceeded to grab her leg.

When Ceana attempted to kick him, he simply gripped her tighter. She struggled against him with all of her might—not that there  was  much. So, he grabbed her foot with his free hand, pinning her against the cold metal of the cage.

“Don’t eat me!” Ceana yelped and tried to scramble back. She had been hoping she would sound threatening, or at least defensive, but it came out as more of a plea.

He barked out a laugh. “Perhaps I won’t if you sit still.”

The ‘perhaps’ was all it took for her to be subdued. She hadn’t been eaten by the harpy, so perhaps her luck would hold out.

“Good.” He wrapped her lower leg in the scrap of cloth, tying it tightly enough that it wouldn’t come loose, but not so tightly that it was uncomfortable.

Then, he offered her his hand.

Ceana looked at it, half dumbfounded that she was still alive.

“Would you like me to leave you in the cage to starve?”

Ceana only had half her mind when she answered: “no.”

“No,  Your Highness.”

She bit her lip. He  had just helped her, as he said he would. “No, Your Highness.” She wrapped the cloak around her as best as she could before hesitantly taking his hand. Against his blue palm, her hands appeared even smaller and more delicate.

Loki hoisted her up, one hand holding hers while the other wrapped carefully around her waist. Ceana couldn’t tell whether it was to help support her and keep her body covered by the cloak, or to have an excuse to touch her. Perhaps it was both? She didn’t know much about mortal men, let alone  Jötnar.

Once she was safely out of the cage, Loki released his grasp. Ceana noticed him avert his gaze and she took the chance to rearrange the cloth into a makeshift dress of sorts. She grabbed the covering of her cage, splayed out across the grass in a disheveled heap, and wrapped it around her shoulders as an extra layer.

Then, she heard a quiet sob.

It wasn’t coming from Loki, of course, but from the general direction he was standing in, relative to Ceana. She took a few steps towards the noise, limping slightly as she went.

  “You’re welcome.”

She raised her hand dismissively. Ceana knew she’d probably pay for that later, but she felt a maternal urge rise from somewhere within—gods only knew where—and she  needed  to find what was causing that sound.

She heard Loki not-so-subtly mutter “ungrateful wretch,” but she ignored it.

Ceana attempted to hurry her pace, and her foot got caught in the cloak’s trailing hem. She tripped, tumbling to the ground most ungracefully. The grass swished as someone walked past her. Then, the sobbing grew louder.

By the time Ceana was able to gain her footing again, the Jötunn had wrangled a small being from a cart’s wreckage and was carrying the screaming thing over to her. She realized it was the little girl, who was currently trying desperately to free herself from the tight grasp of the Jötunn.

He shoved the child into her arms and Ceana attempted to comfort her. When the screeching thing wouldn’t relax in her arms, Ceana put her down on the ground. She only had a minimal amount of experience with human children—her younger sisters were in swan form until they fully matured.

“Hey, hey, hey.” She began to shush the child—Annie, she decided to call her—and gently put her hands on the little one’s shoulders. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Ceana glanced behind her. Loki was rummaging through the dead body that once belonged to Ruhk, his hands getting covered in blood as he sifted through the carnage.

Ceana opted to turn Annie around so the already-traumatized child would not see, shifting, so she was still in front of her. Then, she reached out, wiping away the tears streaming from Annie’s big blue eyes. Her hair was strawberry blonde, and she looked as she had before Mommy Fortuna had cast the illusion.

Ceana assumed that the old hag had gotten what she deserved.

“I know I’m not your mamma, but I can take care of you until we find her.” Ceana did not even know if the poor girl had a mother.

Annie seemed to begin to realize that Ceana was not going to hurt her, and ran into her arms, burying her face into Ceana’s chest.

She smiled softly, running her fingers through Annie’s tangled hair and picking out wood chips. The fact the girl had managed to survive with a just a few scrapes and bruises was a miracle, and Ceana found herself thanking the gods.

She glanced at Loki, who had moved on to another one of Mommy Fortuna’s henchmen.

Now that her racing heart was beginning to start the process of slowing down, Ceana realized that she felt…  free.  She had not felt that way since Mommy Fortuna had taken her feather.

Her sisters never told her about their hearts feeling confined after they were married. If she ever saw them again, she would have to ask them.

The feeling of freedom did not last long, however. She could hear Loki looting the bodies as Annie’s sobs quieted and the little one fell asleep. Annie was not at all heavy, but it felt like a moose had settled its weight upon her chest, and Ceana had to catch her breath for a moment.

She turned to the Jötunn. He was smiling.

He held up a woven garment of twigs which Ceana had used to make an armband; a small tail feather had been attached before she turned for the first time. Now, the feather was broken, snapped in two and barely hanging together where it was still held in one piece.

Loki walked up to her. When she tried to take her feather, he snatched it away. “For now, little swan, you are  mine.”

Her sisters had told her marriage was a wonderful thing. It was part of the legend—as long as the swan maiden put her feather out, a good, loving man would find it and become her husband. She would be bound it him, but he would be good to her. It was a fair trade, Ceana had thought. A male counterpart of her kind did not exist, so it was necessary for the maidens to find husbands.

But her feather had not brought her a good husband—it had not brought her a husband at all, and now, she was bound to a Jötunn who claimed he was the God of Lies. The weight over her heart told Ceana that Loki would  not  be good in any way.

“Come, swan, we must leave.” It was practically a purr. He knew the power he now held, dangling it over her head like a piece of bait.

Ceana pulled Annie against her, picking the child up and cradling her as she stood. Loki, thankfully, helped her up, but Ceana tore her arm from his grasp. The little child did not stir.

“We must find a brook to clean your wound. While you were addling about hugging that thing, I found the food supply and packed as much as I can carry.”

“Am I not going to carry it,  Your Highness?”  Ceana wasn’t exactly sure as to where the snark had come from, or why she was asking in the first place.

“You are  weak,  and it would slow us down. Do you recognize this area?”

She did not want to answer him. So, she didn’t. The legend dictated that she could not leave him, but she did not have to obey his every command, either.

“Speak,  unless you want me to make you my next meal.” He bared his teeth.

Her heart skipped a beat, and Ceana held onto Annie a little tighter. “No, I don’t know where we are.”

“Address me with my given title.”

“No, Your Highness.”

“The entire sentence.”

“Are you serious?”

“Do not question me,  swan—”

“Your Highness, you  are  aware that I have a name, correct?”

He scoffed. “Of course, Ǣsbiǫrndóttir. I merely figured you would not wish to grow too…  personal.” He cupped her face with his hand, his thumb running over her lower lip and sending icy relief to it. She could feel how swollen it was near the corner, most likely from accidentally biting herself while tumbling around in the cage.

It felt oddly intimate to have a hand cupping her cheek, so Ceana turned away. He lowered his hand, eyes glowering, and began to walk towards the sun.

Ceana decided to make the best out of a bad situation. “Do you plan on traveling all night? It would be best to remain here until the morning.”

The Jötunn looked at her, pondered, then spoke. “Very well. Find a place to put the child, then set up a camp while I will go collect wood. We leave at dawn.” Then, he walked away.

It was a small fire, but the Jötunn, no surprise, stayed far away. Annie was still sound asleep, curled up amidst one of the covers. Loki had been kind enough to drag all of the bodies into one of the largest coverings, wrapping them up so they were out of sight. He said he would set them alight once they left.

Ceana was unlucky to have seen the remains of the witch. She now stared at the fire, trying to burn the image of the blood and various gore-ish organs out of her memory.

“What do you know of this place?”

Ceana looked up but said nothing.

“It was not a request, swan.”

Her lips pursed and she sighed in annoyance. “Not much, Your Highness.”

“I require the  actual information,  not a rough amount.”

Her eyebrow cocked, and Ceana blinked. “The way these people talk tells me that we are in Scotland. I would say we are somewhere in the highlands.”

“Is there anything else?”

“I know a few tales that are common across the land, if you would like to hear them.”

He seemed genuinely interested. Ceana did not believe him. “What creatures do you know of?”

She thought of every story she had heard while in the colder months, when she migrated south to stay with warmer weather. “I’ve heard of the Loch Ness Monster, Kelpies, and Selkies many times, as well as the Sídhe and spirits known as Fuathan. More uncommonly, I’ve heard of the three Siths, and only a couple of tales of the unicorn and the Sluagh.”

“Tell me of these creatures.”

“The Loch Ness Monster is a serpent-like monster. Not much is known about her other than her location. Kelpies are water spirits that appear as horses, luring their victims to ride them, then taking them off into the waters to drown them. Selkies are similar to those like myself, except they are seals, rather than swans, and the Sídhe are little humans the size of my smallest finger with wings, known for their work of mischief. I believe Fuathan are spirits in general, as I have not heard them be specified.”

“What of the three Siths? Are they something akin to the Nornir?”

Annie stirred and Ceana placed her hand lightly on the girl’s upper arm, soothing her back to sleep. She shook her head when Annie relaxed again. “The siths are three phantoms, unrelated other than the fact they all hail from the highlands. I do not know what their individual names are, but they are malevolent spirits.”

“What do you know of the Unicorn?”

Ceana blinked and followed Loki as he got up from the makeshift cloak he had made from one of the coverings—which Ceana, of course, was tasked with carrying when he grew too hot—and threw a plank of wood on the fire. He hissed when a wayward ember landed on his leg. He flicked it away and stalked back to where he had originally been, settling down on his cloak.

“Unicorns are rare creatures. They can only be seen by other magical creatures and pure-of-heart virgins. They hold rejuvenating magic unlike any other, and even the smallest amount of dust from a crushed horn can cure any illness or curse.”

“And the Sluagh?”

Chills ran down her spine. She had only heard one tale of the Sluagh, from an estranged man at the coast on her first migration being able to turn human. She and her sisters were resting on a beach when she turned into a maiden, walking around and growing more adjusted to her arms and un-webbed toes.

She’d run into the man, who didn’t seem to notice that she was completely uncovered, and he had gripped her by the shoulders desperately. “Beware the Sluagh,” he’d said, “vicious, vicious things, the restless dead coming from the west. You won’t make it out alive—not a pretty thing like you. No, the strongest warriors barely escape their hunger.”

Ceana had taken his shaking hands in hers. “Hunger?”

He’d leaned in so close their noses brushed against each other. “Flesh,” he’d whispered. “Warm, soft, human flesh.” He’d collapsed after that.

Ceana had promptly called her sisters and her mother, who had come with them. She’d pronounced him dead, and they’d flown off after that.

Ceana had not seen any Sluagh. Or perhaps she had and just hadn’t realized it; the man hadn’t exactly told her what they looked like.

“They are vicious flesh-eaters, Your Highness. Only the strongest of warriors barely escape them.”

“Flesh-eaters?” He barked out a laugh. Ceana briefly wondered as to why a supposed god’s laugh was so harsh. “I suppose every land has their legends.”

“You do not believe they are real?”

Loki sighed and lay down on his back. He absent-mindedly played with the broken feather, still attached to her armband. As if on impulse, he ripped the feather from the twigs and threw the woven article into Ceana’s lap. “You may keep that part; I have no use for it.”

“You did not answer my question, Your Highness.”

She barely noticed his crimson irises flicker in her direction. “I am a prince of the Nine Realms, girl,  I answer to none.”

She licked her lips, only then realizing how thirsty she was.  It will have to wait.  She didn’t want to leave Annie alone with the creature who might still eat both of them.  Power in numbers. She settled down, wrapping her cloak around her body like a cocoon and closing her eyes. She tried to ignore the innate and unmistakable sense that she was being watched.

[psychicequalizer]

don’t bite my head off but i know you like all those unknown bands and failed rockstars and stuff (and that’s cool my dude i love seeing you talk about them) but my question to you is: do you see them as a cautionary tale and a warning, or do you just choose to ignore the risks and go on with your dream anyways?

nooo i wouldn’t bite ur head off i love to talk about this kinda shit skdjkdjdks

i guess sort of both? like, yes, i know the risks and shit, i know it isn’t easy, and i know i might end up on the scrap heap of peroxide-washed burnouts. but i don’t let it bother me much. like, even if i don’t make it (which i don’t believe that—i will make it, but i have to know that the slightest possibility of “not” does lie ahead.) but even if something goes wrong and it doesn’t work out, i know i tried. i know i went for it. i know i didn’t live my life not doing what i felt in my heart because i was scared to fail. so i guess it’s a little from both sides—a cautionary tale, but an inspiration all the same. sure, they didn’t go platinum, and they don’t have a million bucks and a gold card. but they live in my heart and in their music they live on anyways, so as long as i have just that much, i will be ok in the end.

[girlwitharabbitheart]

*drops in unannounced to hand you a present wrapped in a bow* *you open it to discover a buddie/Buck centric headcanon and feels you didn’t ask for*

A/N: whoops my headcanon got long. Who wants the full fic? I haven’t written fic in like two years but I might do this one lmao. Buck got to me. I love my little cinnamon roll.

Imagine during the tsunami Chris and Buck do not get separated. Instead, Buck carries him on his back. The water is muddy, and it stings something fierce over every cut. The warm weight of the world rests on his back and breathes steadily into his neck and pushes him forward.

Heart thundering in his ears, he only puts Chris down to help others. Blood gushes down his arm but he barely notices until a man ties a scrap of dirty shirt around it for him. A crowd trudges behind him now, and as they cut a dreary swathe toward the VA Hospital, Christopher urges him on.

“You can do it Buck, I know you can. Dad’s gonna be so proud.”

And his heart leaps into his throat at that, and camps there, until he stumbles into the floodlights of the field hospital. He blinks sweat and tears and blood out of his eyes and goes to his knees. Swings Chris around in his arms. Shakes under the weight of quiet thank yous and shoulder squeezes as people go around him. He is a stone in the river, worn down to the roots sunk deep in the silt. Christopher clings to him.

“CHRISTOPHER!”

That’s Eddie, miraculously Eddie, and he can breathe again. His heart shivers like a love sick puppy, and he almost laughs, blinking up at the light haloed around Eddie’s face—unreadable and stunned.

“Buck, what—”

He throws himself, Chris and all, and melts into a boneless heap in Eddie’s lap. His head ends up somewhere between an armpit and his ribs and the strum, strum, strum of a steadying heartbeat relaxes him.

Of course then there’s the shouting and the floating faces gathered over him and Bobby looks a little bit pissed or maybe worried and Athena looks like she can’t decide between homicide or holding but he’s so tired, and Eddie is the most comfortable place he’s rested all day.

Buck wakes up two days and three transfusions later in the hospital. Eddie is in one of those rock hard little hospital chairs that are literally more uncomfortable than sitting in a hot fire truck in full turnout gear, head lolled back and snoring softly. His heart does that embarrassing little hiccup again and a machine behind him beeps sharply, offended.

Eddie shoots awake and nearly falls out of the chair. But he smiles like the sun coming out after a storm.

“I have a lot of questions, you know. By the way Christopher tells it, you’re a superhero.” Eddie leans forward, swallowing, and lays a hand over his. Circles his knuckles, once, twice, three times with his thumb. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my son.”

Color rises up Buck’s neck. The machine chirps grumpily again. The room shrinks to them, to their hands, touching. “I put him in danger in the first place.”

The thumb pauses, fingers curl viciously around his own. “Nope, we aren’t arguing about this.”

“Eddie.”

“Buck.”

He sighs.

Eddie squeezes his hand. “Buck. Buck. Thank you. You saved my son. You both came back to me.”

“Both?” That stupid chirping is back as his heart does a little dance of hope and joy.

A nurse pokes her head in in warning. “Mr. Buckley, is he bothering you?” Her eyes glance at their intwined hands and she raises an eyebrow.

And honestly he can’t help it. He laughs out loud, which ends up sucking, because he did just get tossed around in a washing machine. “Oh, all the time. But it’s okay. I love it.”

She rolls her eyes, but not unkindly. “Well, behave. The charge nurse is in a huff about the heart monitor.”

Eddie looks absolutely chastised after she leaves but Buck just can’t bring himself to care.

“Maybe I should come back later.” He says, and starts to peel his hand away. “Let you rest.”

Buck squeezes and looks away, toward the door. The nurse had left the curtain open. This hospital is bright and open and he can hear the waiting area from here. Makes out Maddie laughing, and Athena too. Wonders if Christopher is telling them more tall tales. Feels warmth bloom deep inside.

“Just...stay. For a little while?”

Eddie leans closer, the chair screeching noisily, and brings their hands up to his face. “What would you say to forever?”

Buck grins so hard his face hurts. “I’m sure I’ll manage.”

They both laugh, foreheads together and hands braced between them. Soon they will not be alone.

But for now, the moment stretches into infinity.