#this one is actually a piece from the 4th book that I haven't gotten to yet

[spacetimewraithwrites-archive]

quiet

(content warning: suicide)

Quiet

The silhouette at the window had his chin tilted upward slightly, just enough to expose the clean line of his jaw. His face turned to the glass, a patch of condensation growing and shrinking as he exhaled, silent. His chest rose and fell steadily, no one would know he was breathing if it couldn’t be seen firsthand. Eyes sharp and focused, pinned to something in the distance, pinned to nothing but the trees that went on for miles into the mountains.

Fat flakes of snow curtained the dismal sky, peppering the porch and accumulating on yesterday’s layer of white ice. And on the offering from the day before that, and the day before that. No wind, not a single branch waving in an uninvited breeze or the flap of a bird’s wings to rebel against the outside stillness.

Warren watched this as he gave up his posture to the cushions of the couch and kept a tight grip on his own hair. He bored through Thrive’s darkened outline with his gaze, his mind a blank slate, dropped to the curve of his throat, stuck there for quite a while. What a cruel god it was that gave him that throat with a body that wasn’t even authentic. And who was Warren to claim it? What manner of fate gave him that right?

The false doors in the cabin promised freedom they hadn’t seen in days. At that point, probably weeks. Thrive told him to stop counting and he heeded him immediately. Shadows lurked in the corners of the house and they couldn’t be shaken away. Bulbs couldn’t scatter them and they swallowed the light, rippling into fine mist if agitated.

The times they couldn’t bring themselves to speak reeked of failure, of bone-chilling misery no amount of quality time could dissolve. Warren watched Thrive stand in silence by the window. Obhelian spine straight and rigid, bathrobe over the form suit in such a way that hinted at how much he was afraid that getting truly comfortable would cost them their native reality. Lumping the responsibility onto his own shoulders again, dragging himself through a swamp of guilt.

“What is it that we’ve supposedly failed?”

At the sound of Warren’s hoarse voice cutting through the hours-old ringing quiet, Thrive let his eyes fall shut. The condensation shrank and his chest rose.

Hours of quiet. A search of the doors and windows for cracks, daily and always futile. Blasts of force from Thrive’s hands unable to make any sort of crack or a dent, daily and always futile. Sheets wrapped around fists, human and otherwise, jabbing into the glass in an attempt to create a shred of respite from captivity, daily and always futile. Thrive’s knuckles reddened from trying without the sheet. Daily. Taking knives to the wood of the walls. Always futile.

Stop counting the days, Thrive had advised, but it had been months.

Warren did note with a heavy heart as he combed his fingers through his beard in the bathroom and fought through the post-traumatic bog of being locked up again that he wasn’t even sure taking Thrive to bed while in the cabin wasn’t a desperate necessity in order to cling to sanity anymore. He ripped himself to shreds for that notion, stuffed a hand towel in his mouth to muffle the anguished sobs he tried very hard to suppress, wouldn’t allow the tears to actually leave his face. It didn’t matter; Thrive’s superior hearing paired with the close quarters of the cabin practically guaranteed his cover being blown.

Thrive took up stroking his hair to lull him to sleep every night. Unspeaking, eyes glued to one another until Warren couldn’t stay awake. It stopped the nightmares, anyway.

The next time Thrive stood at the window in his form suit and bathrobe, Warren got up from the couch, removed the terry cloth garment and peeled the skin-tight black suit from his shoulders. Draped the articles over the desk chair and watched him stand, naked as all, still unmoving from his spot.

A few times Warren had to bathe Thrive himself. Then Thrive would get embarrassed, snap out of whatever made him borderline comatose and refuse to let him care for him further. He stomped out of the bathroom and pretended to brainstorm ways to outsmart the Emmuli, to get them out of that cabin once and for all. But they both knew he gave up a while ago.

Warren wished he was back in Alaska. The real Alaska, the genuine cabin, with bitterly cold air he longed to breathe again. He had glimpses of it in his dreams, walking through the tranquil forest, Thrive close behind, guarding, ever vigilant. Unintelligible whispers passing their ears. He wondered at times if those weren’t dreams. He couldn’t bring himself to ask.

This was supposed to be a dream, too. A nightmare. Anything but reality. But what did reality even mean?

“I have a theory.”

Warren would’ve jumped ten feet out of his skin if he cared anymore. He addressed Thrive at the window yet again, his inhale deep and audible. “Yeah.”

A long enough stretch of even more of the quiet passed before Thrive opened his mouth to speak again. He still wouldn’t meet his stare.

“…You’re not going to like this.”

“Get me the fuck out of here, Thrive,” Warren blurted. “Please. Please. Just…anything. Fucking save me. Get us out of here.”

Thrive swallowed, jaw clenched. He smoothed his robe over his form suit, bracing himself.

The tension was immense.

“I think we’re going to have to die.”

Warren smiled. Not a trace of humor within it, not an ounce of happiness or pleasure. Irony, of course, but no mirth. He shook his head as if it would do anything against his utter disbelief. “What?”

“It…may be our only choice.”

“A suicide pact? That is so dark. Even for me. Even for the fucking survivor of an actual suicide attempt, that is fucking dark.”

“I think….” Thrive’s eyes flashed with a poor attempt at disconnect. “…The Emmuli will remove us of this hellscape if we beat them at their own game. They know the worst thing for either of us is watching each other suffer as much as we already have. They’ve been doing it this whole time, Warren. Everything from here to all of the constructs they’d built for us before, all of their illusions and their trickery. It was all to mentally manipulate us. If we show them we’d rather die than live like this….”

“What if that’s exactly what they want?” Warren snapped. “Huh? What if throwing in the towel is exactly what they want us to do? Don’t they want us dead, anyway?”

“They want us to hurt,” Thrive said, more loudly than he possibly intended. “They need us to feel what they’re doing, that’s what keeps them in power. They’ll try to keep us alive for as long as they can. They’re not going to let us die. And it may weaken them.”

Warren rubbed his hands on his knees. “And then what? They just bring us right back here to start this bullshit all over again?”

Thrive didn’t reply. He did meet Warren’s worried stare eventually, and the seriousness was staggering.

It began to dawn on Warren that this lethargic behavior, Thrive’s despondency, could not have been incited by their imprisonment. It started before this. Before they even woke up in the cabin again. After the last constructs, after they were last separated.

“…What did you see?” Warren asked tentatively. He didn’t want to know but his mouth asked before his brain could catch up. “What was the last thing they showed you?”

Thrive sighed.

Warren leaned forward, voice hardening. “…Thrive, how did you come up with this theory?”

“I’m not telling you now,” Thrive muttered, facing the window again. “…It wouldn’t do you any good. I’ll tell you…another time. When we leave this place.”

The quiet outside bled into the inside yet again. Warren began to doubt his mind for the five hundredth time. Wondered if it was really Thrive standing in front of him, if it was really his hands on his head every night, cupping his face or smoothing his hair down. If this version of him existed, the one that couldn’t contain what happened on Zliyagi within his body and poured it out of himself in torrents. If his walls were really breaking down, crashing around him, dropping massive chunks of material into oceans of grim thought.

“I can’t do it for you.”

Thrive nodded carefully. “I know.” He gritted his teeth. “…I’ll do it for both of us.”

Warren swore, dialing back his visceral reaction just in time to avoid upending the coffee table completely. He did manage however to scrape it across the floor, overwhelming the room with the grating sound of metal on wood. He disappeared into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him as he searched and pleaded for ways to stave off the manifesting panic attack. He resorted to an old favorite—cloth in the mouth. No tears, just gasping.

Thrive caught him that time. The door swung open and he stared at him from the threshold, eyes wide as Warren sat on the edge of the bed with a pillowcase dangling from between his jaws, in the midst of hyperventilation.

In the quiet, Thrive marched over to him, gathered him tight against his chest, squeezed him. Fingers digging into his shoulder, the back of his neck. They clutched painfully at each other, both shaking, one more violently than the other. Wordlessly agreeing to spend one final night together before they did anything else.

But when Warren’s eyes opened in the dark room in the middle of the night to the sight of Thrive fast asleep for the first time in months, he smiled.

Maybe this would work. And maybe it wouldn’t. But he got to spend the sunrise watching the peace on Thrive’s face. A serenity he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen. It possibly predated him.

And when he opened his eyes for the second time several hours later, half-collapsed on the floor of the Ganymede bridge once again as Thrive blasted the door off its hinges from the corridor, he caught his breath and regarded his frantic obhelian in stunned silence. His neck was fine. Thrive used the doorframe to keep himself upright at the sight of Warren unharmed by the window until he couldn’t anymore and sank down onto the plush maroon carpet. They were both alive and intact. Breathing, pulses racing, alive.

The ship sailed on in quiet space, oblivious.

[witchycassandra]

The Witches Moon Monthly Box

So, I've been subscribed to The Witches Moon from CrateJoy for 4 months now. I just got my 4th box today so, I figured I would share. I haven't been disappointed by any boxes I've received.

The box it is all in (which is packaged in a blank shipping box) is really pretty. I actually keep these boxes to store my witchy stuff in because they are a nice size and I like the way they open.

And then we have to contents (after I took all the packaging material out).

So the contents this month: A Triple Goddess Book of Shadows artwork. There's always a BOS artwork included to fit the month's theme. A personal Oracle reading, also included every month. In the purple velvet pouch, we have an amethyst cluster

Very pretty and definitely good quality. There's been some sort of stone in every box.

In the purple jewelry box, we have a Crescent Moon Goddess necklace

Last month was actually the first time I got jewelry and I was happy to see another one this month. It's definitely going to be hung on my alter as I don't wear necklaces.

This month I got 3 different herbs, there is usually at least 1. We have Raspberry Leaf, Jasmine and Queen of Flowers.

Then there's the Sacred Spiral Goddess alter statue. Heavy and high quality.

Another staple of the box is the Sacred Salt. This month it is The Maiden Goddess. They always smell PHENOMENAL.

This month came with both an Anointing Oil AND an Aura Spray. The anointing oil is "Freyja", for enhancing the passion that flows through your life. The aura spray is "Come to Me" for attracting positivity into your life and surroundings. I've gotten anointing oils and aura spray before, but they're not an every month thing.

And then there's the last 2 staples of the box. The first is incense. This month's is called "Wisdom of Amber", to inspire your magickal state-of-mind.

The second is the spell candle. I LOVE their spell candles purely because of their design and smell.

The candle is a rolled candle. I'm not sure why, but I just LOVE that. And the texture of it is super weird but I adore it. This month's spell candle is "Goddess Within", to awaken the goddess within and connect to her power.

And the only other item included are 3 pieces of parchment paper. The first 2 are a detailed list of all items included and the third is a blank piece for personal use.

This box is definitely worth the money. And it's nice to have a constant supply each month of new magickal items to try without having the hassle of finding or making them yourself. A great way to get accustomed to using them.