#wilt's writings

[wiltking]

Pairing: Peter Parker / Wade Wilson Word Count: 7,593 Rating: Explicit

"Wanna see it?"

Peter’s head snaps up. "... You'd let me look?"

"Don't see why not. What've I got to lose? My dignity?"

- here's my T4T spideypool fic where i gave Wade phalloplasty! huge emphasis on the 'idiots in love' tag. i wrote this as a break from my more serious wip, and it shows. i hope you have as much fun reading this as i had writing!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Synonyms for "wilt"?

Wilt—to lose turgor from lack of water; to become limp; to grow weak or faint

Dehydrate - to lose water or body fluids; to deprive of vitality

Desiccate - to become dried up

Devitalize - to deprive of life, vigor, or effectiveness

Droop - to sink gradually; to become depressed or weakened

Dwindle - to become steadily less; shrink

Emaciate - to cause to lose flesh so as to become very thin; to waste away physically

Enervate - to lessen the vitality or strength of

Etiolate - to deprive of natural vigor; make feeble

Hang - to fall or droop from a usually tense or taut position

Languish - to be or become feeble, weak, or enervated

Loll - to hang loosely or laxly; droop

Parch - to become dry or scorched

Sag - to droop, sink, or settle from or as if from pressure or loss of tautness

Sap - to weaken or exhaust the energy or vitality of

Shrivel - to draw into wrinkles especially with a loss of moisture

Slouch - droop

Slump - to assume a drooping posture or carriage; slouch

Wither - to shrivel from or as if from loss of bodily moisture; to lose vitality, force, or freshness

Wizen - to become dry, shrunken, and wrinkled often as a result of aging or of failing vitality

Yield - to give way under physical force (such as bending, stretching, or breaking)

Hope this helps with your writing. Do tag me, or send me a link. I'd love to read your work!

More: Word Lists

[crownedinmarigolds]

"You'll be like Him." He says through gritted teeth, a lump firmly lodged in his throat as he held back his real anger. "I will be." She agreed, smiling serenely. The kind of smile that could only mean true satisfaction. Real happiness. Has he ever seen her look this way before? Envy made his hands ball into fists at his side. "It's really going to happen, He promised me. I'll become a miracle-maker, just like Him." "Fuck that." It's practically a snarl. He couldn't believe the naive shit coming out of her mouth. "He's going to kill you. You're going to be changed forever. No more Noa, just a body being puppeted by a demon while the real you gets thrown to the void." A lamb to slaughter, meat for the grinder. She looks up, her eyes nearly black even in the light of the foyer. She's so much younger but it always looked like she was some old soul underneath that beautiful face. It made his stomach twist and his breath catch. Her lips, red with their mother's lipstick, thin as her expression shifts to utter disappointment. He wanted to throw something. "You don't know anything." Her raspy voice says simply. He feels a snap in the back of his head, "Took the fucking words right out of my mouth."

[wiltkingart]

I just wanted to thank you for your book arts and rec list that made me find so many incredible m/m books! (İ have a huge folder of them now, hyped to read) honestly i mistakenly thought almost all m/m books were teen lit or y.a slice of life/light scifi so im glad to find some adult recs !!(also ur art is amazing)

so happy that you like my book arts!! but so so sad to hear about the second part :( the current book market is absolutely saturated with YA but i promise there are still queer adult books (not even in a smutty way) that are out there waiting for you all to read! i recently made this new list for my favorite queer books published pre-2010 if you want to take a look at that too. though i will say i tend to be drawn toward stories with difficult themes, so look up cws if you need them and make your own choices.

older (and obscure) books can also be much harder to find, but i'm always happy to answer questions to help narrow down anyone's options/search efforts. happy reading!!

[unforth]

Prefacing this TGCF post with: people can draw and write however they want forever and I support them and this is about my personal view of these characters.

Anyway.

I saw a post today that had Xie Lian singing "when will my life begin" from Tangled and it drove home what really bugs me about a lot of fan casts of Hualian onto popular media (see also my Howl's Moving Castle take). It's this idea that Xie Lian is, well, waiting for his life to begin, and Hua Cheng swoops in and makes it exciting, when this is imo so utterly antithetical, and in fact opposite, to canon.

Xie Lian has lived and lived and lived. He was a prince, he fought in wars, even during his 800 years fallen the whole book is an exercise in showing that he WASN'T just waiting around, he kept doing things the whole time - Fang Xin Guoshi and General Hua and and and. AND he also cultivated to the point of ascending again. Xie Lian is a fucking bad ass idealistic martyr who doesn't know when to quit and at least to me that's the whole point of his character and I love that about and for him so to see him inserted into existing franchise AUs as the wilting flower waiting for a moment to shine is utter character erasure and it makes me insane enough that I'm writing this post about it even though I think I shouldn't and even though I genuinely don't want to rain on anyone's fandom parade. But like. That's not him!

You know who it is?

It's Hua Cheng!

Hong Hong'er lives in Xianle, a kingdom where all this stuff is happening, and he just watches from the sidelines. He's an observer at the parade. He's just some kid. And then he falls (or jumps, or is pushed, you pick your interpretation) and he's caught by literally the coolest guy in the entire kingdom. He's the nobody who gets swept off his feet! And it changes his whole life! Like I think it wouldn't irk me so much to see Xie Lian get typecast that way if Hua Cheng wasn't right there literally living his "I met God and it changed my whole life for the better" fantasy. He seriously deserves to get recognized for this. I get that he's the loud flamboyant one so that makes it seem like he should get cast as a Howl or a Flynn or whoever, but like. He was waiting for his life to begin, and it does, when he meets Xie Lian.

And like. I get that these are kinda competing interpretations that depend on when you look at canon - I'm looking at the original 800 years ago events, others are looking at Hua Cheng coming in 800 years later - but still the "present" in TGCF isn't imo about Xie Lian having waited to be saved, he hasn't been in a hat shop for his whole life boredly making hats, he's never stopped moving and never stopped adventuring and never stopped striving to change the world. Hua Cheng is living out his "you saved me now I save you" fantasies but fundamentally they save each other over and over and over again and that's beautiful and I hate seeing it erased to make Xie Lian into the wilting flower. Like. The one who basically hasn't done anything that whole 800 years is ALSO Hua Cheng. We don't hear about him going off and having idealistic adventures. Everything we know of that he's done was directly related to Xie Lian (ie burning the temples). Other than that he seems to sit around in Ghost City chilling with his ghoulies. So again, finding Xie Lian is what pulls him out of his funk and prompts him to start acting for good, whereas Xie Lian has been acting for good the whole time.

Ugh. I should shut up now, just, I've been in this fandom for four years and this has become such a pet peeve of mine because it reflects such a huge disconnect between how I perceive these characters and how much of the rest of fandom does. And that frustrates me, cause I wish there was more content in line with my perception.

[sledgehammer-to-a-discoball]

Fun Quest Ideas for BG3.

A secret task: What in the hells?

If playing as the Durge and in pact with Gortash we

1. Go to Flynn's Cobblers and use Illithid power on the parents to learn about his past.

2. Go to the house of hope and talk to Nubaldin about Gortash

3. Kill Raphael in the House of Hope and Save Hope

I think we should be able to tell Gortash we killed Raphael and get a reaction out of him. That would be neat. Not necessarily exposition as that would be ooc, but it would be neat to make Enver think Durge remembers something about him, personally?? or cares enough?

You do with your parents to thy will babygirl, your personal assassin took care of the threat.

Bonus points for conflicted/disgusted (depending on her approval) Karlach dialogue along the lines of 'You're not doing it *for him* are you?!'

[paperxcrowns]

i am genuinely tweaking over the fact that macgyver (2016) practically glosses over the fact that Mac was straight up!!! Lying!!!! to bozer for YEARS.

this would have been such good material to use to explore Mac and Bozer's relationship, and how complex the situation was bc YES it feels like a betrayal but it's also Mac simply protecting Bozer from his dangerous life and still keeping him close despite the danger, despite the very real possibility of bozer accidentally finding out or simply using bozer to get to Mac.

NOT TO MENTION. Boze was Mac's only link to something not remotely related to his job!!! the only bit of normal in his chaotic life!!!!

both of them having to find their footing again after the reveal bc nothing can go back to normal. like. bozer thinking back to all the weird injuries mac returned home with from his think tank business trips, all the lies, all the secrecy, all the time. justified hurt on bozer's side as well as understanding bc if the roles were reversed wouldn't bozer also lie to keep his closest friend safe? understanding the reason doesn't make the years of lies hurt any less.

adhjfkglgl i have. so many thoughts about this. i am clawing at the walls.

[wickjump]

art block is fine for me because sometimes i just can���t draw. chill. whatever. i don’t draw often, it’s fine.

writers block feels like the one thing im good at has DIED and i am the remnants LEFT BEHIND grieving over my SHATTERED SOUL and NOTHING WILL EVER BE OKAY AGAIN!!!!!!!

[divorcedtom]

Kendall: I mean, why is Greg here? Roman: I always ask that question. Tom: *immediately starts shouting across the yacht because he will die if he goes one minute without Greg's attention*

[ozclxwn]

Y'know I think there needs to be more Candy Diver angst in the world

[ollieofthebeholder]

And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA Fanfic

Also on AO3 and my personal website

Chapter 1: Love, strong as Death, is dead

“…Statement ends.” Gertrude sighed and removed her glasses, massaging the bridge of her nose. “Well. That was a waste of time and effort. Promising at the start, but nothing to it. I think this one can go in its proper place.”

She tucked the useless pages back with their unsatisfying fiction back into the file and carried it over to one of the shelves. After a moment’s pause, she reached for a rather thick file, removed several pages from the middle, and tucked them into the false one before shelving it. That statement would do well to be spread out a bit. She took the last few pages out as well, moved the original file to another shelf, and went in search of somewhere to hide the end of the statement.

Hunters. They had their uses, of course, although there was little a Hunter could do that a liter of petrol and a good kitchen match couldn’t do just as well. It was one of the few points she and Adelard had seriously disagreed on—that and the impending emergence of the Extinction.

Gertrude paused and pressed a hand to her chest for just a moment. Contrary to outward appearances, carefully cultivated ones at that, she did mourn the loss of her assistants and allies alike. She just couldn’t afford to let it show. Caring and trust were weaknesses, ones that those she stood in opposition to would be keen to exploit. Not that there was much they could do now, but still, she owed it to Eric to keep his son alive. Or so she told herself.

But Adelard’s death still hurt. It was too raw, she told herself, too fresh a loss to have begun to heal over properly, so it was understandable that her memories of him were still a minefield, needing careful navigation to avoid them blowing up in her face. After all, it had been less than a month.

She missed him.

Gerard wasn’t the same. Among other things, she hadn’t fully brought him in on the truth; he was mostly concerned with Leitners and the man himself, someone she was even more careful to keep from him. And she knew he was only helping her out of a sense of obligation, really. She still hadn’t decided if he would help her take down the rituals—should she ask him—because he wanted to stop them or because he hoped it would pay off a debt she hadn’t bothered to talk him out of thinking he owed.

She probably ought to feel guilty about that.

With a sigh, she stuffed the file carelessly onto a shelf and turned to the door between the Archives and the rest of the Institute. She could do with a cup of tea. While she did have an electric kettle in her office, meaning she never had to interact with anyone else in the building if she didn’t particularly want to, it never hurt to check in with Rosie from time to time and see if anything unusual was going on with…Elias. Not that Rosie had the slightest idea what was actually going on, but she was nosy and Gertrude knew how to use nosy people to her advantage. She loved to gossip, had a habit of picking up information and either hugging it to herself or whispering it in choice ears, and tended to prattle on about seemingly inconsequential nonsense that nevertheless turned out to eventually have a kernel of extremely useful information in it. However clever Elias might be, or might think he was being, Rosie would often drop an innocuous comment about his movements or meetings that revealed startling depths.

She sensed it as soon as she emerged on ground level. Someone with a statement had crossed the invisible boundary that marked what, for lack of a better term, she thought of as her hunting range. Likely just someone walking past, but possibly a visitor actively approaching the Institute for one reason or another. Normally that would be her cue to go back downstairs until whoever it was came to her, departed on their own business, or passed by without stopping. However, the disappointment of the earlier statement was still keen and the hunger was sharp. On an impulse, she found herself veering towards the front door of the Institute without consciously commanding her feet to do so.

Just as she reached it, it swung open, flooding the little entrance hall with daylight. Standing on the threshold was a young man, older than she had been when she became Archivist, but still young—in his early thirties, if Gertrude was any judge. He was good-looking, with cerulean blue eyes and dark hair with auburn highlights, dressed in a crisp white dress shirt and somber black tie beneath a tailored heather tweed jacket, but what caught Gertrude’s attention was the faint pink tint to the whites of his eyes. Either he hadn’t been sleeping, or he’d been crying. Possibly both.

“Timothy Stoker?” she asked.

The young man’s eyes widened briefly, and then he made an attempt at a grin. “I guess you don’t get a lot of visitors here, huh? You must be Rosie Zampano.”

Gertrude mentally kicked herself for an idiot. Sloppy. She knew better than to address people she’d never met by their names before proper introductions were made. Fortunate for her that he had actually called ahead.

“This way, Mr. Stoker,” she said, without acknowledging his assertion.

He followed her docilely enough. They were halfway to the steps leading to the Archives when cold awareness swept over her, accompanied by a prickling on the back of her neck. A cultured voice called from towards the stairs. “Ah, Gertrude—”

“Busy, Elias,” Gertrude interrupted briskly. “I’ll be there when I have finished this discussion.” Without giving him a chance to respond, she hustled her inadvertent guest down the steps and into the Archives.

Stoker looked around as they entered, then, to her surprise, nodded grimly. “Manuscripts? Or research?”

“Statements, actually.” Gertrude studied Stoker with interest. “Encounters with the supernatural, that kind of thing. I imagine you know what is meant by that.”

Stoker shivered, but merely said, “You’re damn right I do.”

Gertrude hummed. “This way.”

She led Stoker into her office, gestured for him to take a seat, and reached for the tape recorder. “You don’t mind if I record this, do you?” she asked. It wasn’t really a question, especially as she’d apparently hit the appropriate button without even realizing.

“Uh…no?” Stoker frowned at her. “That’s…fine.”

“Excellent. Well then.” Gertrude set the recorder on the desk between them. “Statement of Timothy Stoker, regarding…?” She lifted her eyebrows at him, prompting him to continue.

“The disappearance of—of my brother, Danny,” Stoker said, his voice catching slightly.

Gertrude pretended not to notice. “Gertrude Robinson recording, fifth September, 2013.” She nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready, but…sure. Here goes nothing.” Stoker took a deep breath and began speaking.

Gertrude kept her eyes on his face as he spooled out the story. It was quite interesting, on a number of levels. The fact that Stoker was an older sibling who’d lost his younger sibling to one of the Fourteen was hardly unusual and merely fit into a pattern she’d noticed long ago; regardless of what specific fear they preyed upon, the terror of standing by helpless while a person you’d always sworn to protect was utterly destroyed by something too horrifying to comprehend that you couldn’t defend them from added an extra seasoning that They seemed to relish. What was unusual, though, was that Stoker, unlike most of the older siblings she’d heard or read statements from—at least the ones who had lost their siblings later in life—genuinely seemed to love his brother still rather than tolerate at best or even outright resent him.

On top of that was the statement itself. When Stoker first mentioned urban exploration, she expected it to be the Dark or the Buried, and she certainly knew Robert Smirke would be involved, but something…drew her in. And she certainly sat up and took notice when he mentioned the Covent Garden Theater.

A lead? At last?

Stoker’s voice cracked with emotion as he began describing the scene beneath the Royal Opera House, and that really caught her attention. For the most part, people’s emotions…didn’t precisely fade, but at least seemed to be placed on the back burner when they were giving their statements. Stoker wasn’t stammering and stuttering the way even the ones with genuine encounters often did when she wasn’t there to…influence them, but he was aware of what he was saying and feeling it in a way she hadn’t witnessed in a long time—not since the earliest days of her time as Archivist. He had a good grip on himself. She wouldn’t call it a resistance to the Eye, per se, but there was a strength to him she found intriguing.

“The next thing I remember was the cool night air on my face, as the opera house patrons pushed past me to get into the evening performance of Tosca,” Stoker concluded. “In my hands I held an old black and white circus flyer. It was written all over in Cyrillic, but in the bottom left corner was a certain clown’s face, leering out at me, billed as the guest performer. As I watched, it crumbled to ash, and floated away on the breeze.”

Gertrude felt a small pang of regret at that. She did not herself read Russian, but it still would have been nice to have the confirmation. “I don’t suppose you still have your brother’s drawings.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Here.” To Gertrude’s surprise, Stoker reached into his suit jacket and withdrew a manila envelope. He extracted a few sheets of paper, flicked through them, and withdrew one, then handed it to her.

As he had said, it was a series of simple drawings of the same clown’s face. It was an amazingly skilled likeness, considering it had been done in darkness and distress with a cheap ballpoint pen. There was no mistaking it for anyone else.

“Do you know who this is?” she asked, not expecting a reply.

“Joseph Grimaldi,” Stoker replied unhesitatingly. “Didn’t take long to find a picture that matched up, once I knew what I was looking for.” He gave a short, bitter laugh. “Three weeks ago I would have said there was no way it could be the same one, even if the pictures were identical, but then again three weeks ago I’d have said there couldn’t be a stone theater underneath the Royal Opera House, or a monster that steals people’s skins. Compared to that, a zombie clown is almost mundane. Or ghost or whatever he is.”

"I’m not altogether certain myself,” Gertrude admitted. “It may not be Grimaldi at all, merely something wearing his face.”

“In the clown sense, or in the Appalachian folk horror sense?”

Gertrude blinked, momentarily startled. “I beg your pardon?”

Stoker met her eyes without flinching, which was rare enough these days. “There’s a legend in the Appalachian mountain region of the United States about a monster who lost—”

“I’m familiar with the legend of Skin Tom. What do you mean by ‘the clown sense’?” Gertrude interrupted.

“Oh. When you become a clown, you’re supposed to register your makeup so no other clown can copy it. Some might get passed down when a clown retires, maybe, but the name has to go with it. You wouldn’t catch a clown named, I don’t know, Bonzo wearing a face registered to Grimaldi.”

“You’ve done your research.”

Stoker shrugged. “The egg register is right here in London, and it’s open to the public. I figured it would be a starting place. It’s only really been a thing since the forties, but they do have a historical exhibit with a few of the really high profile faces, and when I went in, there he was. You know, minus the blood. From there it was just a matter of asking the right questions of the right people and they were telling me things they probably didn’t even realize they knew.”

Gertrude studied him sharply, but, no, as she’d rather suspected, he hadn’t been Marked by the Eye. Not yet, anyway. His ability to get people talking and get answers from seemingly innocuous questions and mundane responses was purely down to his charisma and social skills. He’d never be an Archivist, but he would make a remarkably able Assistant.

She caught that thought and suppressed it ruthlessly. No. Not after Emma’s betrayal. She couldn’t trust like that again…

“Well. Thank you for your time,” she said instead. “If you’ll leave your name and contact information, I will be certain to let you know if anything comes of it.”

Stoker huffed out what might have been a very soft, bitter laugh and may have just been an attempt to clear his throat as he handed over the remainder of the papers he had pulled from the envelope. “No offense, and this is probably going to hurt my chances, but this is the strangest job interview I’ve ever had in my life.”

Gertrude froze. She looked down at the papers Stoker had just handed her and realized that she was holding his CV. He hadn’t come to the Institute looking to make a statement—he’d come looking for a job.

The correct thing to do would be to take this upstairs to Rosie and get her to match it with an open position. At the very least, she should ask what department Stoker had meant to interview with. Actually, the correct thing to do would be to lie to this young man and then set fire to his CV as soon as he was out of the Institute, because if he stayed here, he was going to get killed.

On the other hand…

On the other hand, she thought, Elias had clearly been expecting him, and even if she burnt the CV it wasn’t without the realm of possibility that he would call Stoker personally to offer him a job—to trap him in the Institute. If he was in one of the other departments, he wouldn’t know what was going on, and Gertrude wouldn’t be able to warn him thoroughly—she’d been trying with Sasha, and a bit with Rosie, and neither of them really seemed to get it. And with the Stranger having Marked him this deeply, his next encounter would be fatal if he didn’t have some form of protection.

She shouldn’t care. But she did. And she could use the help.

“We tend to do things differently here at the Institute,” she said slowly. She laid down the papers and met his eyes levelly. “Why do you want to work here, Mr. Stoker?”

“Because I want answers,” Stoker answered promptly. “I want to know what it is that killed my brother, and I want to know how to get revenge on it. The Magnus Institute is the only place I might get those answers, and I’m not going to find them just poking around on my own, am I?”

“Not likely,” Gertrude agreed. “This is a salaried position, not hourly, and there would be times I would need your assistance outside what are normally thought of as ‘business hours’. I expect my instructions to be carried out, even if the reasoning behind them seems obscure or unhelpful; I know what I’m doing and I do not give orders lightly. And most importantly, Mr. Stoker, if you accept this position, you will not be able to quit. An appointment to the Archives is an appointment for life. Do you understand me?”

Stoker shrugged and nodded. “Quite frankly, Ms. Robinson, what have I got left to lose?”

Gertrude knew that feeling, far too well. “Well then, Mr. Stoker—”

“Tim. Please.”

“Tim, then.” Gertrude stood and held out her hand. Stoker—Tim—rose and shook it. “Welcome to the Magnus Institute.”

[wiltking]

Pairing: Geralt/Iorveth Media: The Witcher 2 Word Count: 7,166 Rating: Explicit

In the crumbing hot springs above Vergen, Geralt and Iorveth come to a few understandings. Stories are laid true, truths are exchanged, and a temporary solace is wrought within an unexpected embrace.

- here's something that i wrote in a frenzied daze across 3 days when i realized no one has written a trans geralt / iorveth fic before. its melancholy, its raw, it haunted by lost memories tinted by lost sorceresses and wounds that cant heal. its also very, very horny.

[the-millennial-tree]

As I try not to spoil my own comic, you get some fun facts! [ That also may be spoilers if you think about them too much, I am just impatient ]

- The current Soul Jam wielders all can hear their specific predecessors. Hollyberry often hears Eternal Sugar, which leads to some days where Hollyberry takes her suggestions and just lays about, while Pure Vanilla gets to constantly hear anything and everything from Shadow Milk, be it scripts for plays, teasing, or what he will do whenever he is freed.

- The only Ancient who does not have this problem is White Lily, as Silent Salt is Silent in every way. None of the others brought it up directly as they just got used to it, though it was mentioned in passing. White Lily just never got the quips or noticed.

- Normal cookies cannot use the power of the soul jams, but the other Ancients *can* use each others, so long as they are in physical possession of it. The original wielder is the only one able to use it's abilities fully, but that doesn't stop them from using each others soul jams. One Hero holding all the Soul Jams has never been done, as they get a bad feeling the more they have.

[ The Beast's communication follows similar rules to that of the Soul Jams power, always able to speak with the main wielder but are only able to speak with others if said other is in physical possession of the soul jam ]

- The Beast are kind enough with the Ancients, more so playing mice until am opportunity to escape arises. At most they try to persuade the heros to give in to corruption when viable.

- Lastly, Fun Fact! Pure Vanilla originally had a surprisingly lighter blue left eye than now, just barely counting as blue instead of white. Only after receiving his Soul Jam did his left eye darken to a more baby-blue shade, but he remains blind in both.

[ Funner Fact! Shadow Milk is able to see perfectly fine through this eye, albeit his depth perception becomes a little off due to only being able to see through the blue eye and not the yellow ]

If you figured out what was/is being spoiled, tag me! I'm curious to see if there are any other interpretations that could be made from this.

[lunarriviera]

HAPPY BDAY HEI-YE MY HOT MESS OF A LOVE, if i'd known you were celebrating today i would have written you a fic. this weekend, i promise. you're my most favorite.

[apathetic-dry-rot]

Wilting Nerium- Chapter List

Chapter 1: Back to Black

Chapter 2: DEATH

Chapter 3: Sex, Drugs, Etc.

Chapter 4: Kill Bill

Chapter 5: It's Called: Freefall

Chapter 6: Possibly In Michigan

Chapter 7: Vampire Empire

Chapter 8: Hayloft II

Chapter 9: Where Is My Mind

Chapter 10: SPIT IN MY FACE!

Chapter 11: Dream Sweet In Sea Major

Chapter 12: Daylight

Chapter 13: Dark Red

Chapter 14: Why'd You Only Ever Call Me When You're High?

Chapter 15: Choke

Chapter 16: Dear Arkansas Daughter

Chapter 17: Gilded Lily

Chapter 18: Me and the Devil

Chapter 19: Bad Idea, Right?

Chapter 20: In The Woods Somewhere

Chapter 21: The Night We Met

Chapter 22: Body

Chapter 23: Oleander

Chapter 24 (Epilogue): No Children

[thesixthplaneteer]

Here is my entry for the Masquerade Breach zine!! I have been hitting that word limit like a brick wall for the past month, and I am too excited to keep it to myself! My piece is titled Hell-O-Ween! A Masquerade Breach Story because we like cheesy horror in this house. Thank you for reading!

It’s the late 1980s in Las Vegas, Nythanel, and Noa are attending a Halloween party being put on by Don Jacob Rothstein. Held in a mansion in the desert far away from the city, so the more illicit activities don't fall under unwanted scrutiny, and only those in the know are supposed to be there. One person slipped past security, an ancient enemy of the Giovanni whose true motives are unknown, but their eyes are set on Noa tonight. What can a neonate necromancer and waterblooded sorcerer do when things really start to go bump in the night?

The green makeup of his Audrey Two costume hid the redness but Nythanel still felt the warmth of embarrassment and anger on his face. Fighting back tears he side stepped between costumed guests, tray toting servers, and did his best to fight the urge to bull them over as he went back to the ballroom. Don Jacob Rothstein's Halloween party was in full swing. The dance floor was lively, the bar was packed, and the live band seemed like they could go all night long.

He wanted to make his problem everyone else’s problem but held onto his senses, making a scene at the head of Clan Giovanni’s party wouldn’t make his night better. Noa’s bright red hooded dress and silver devil mask were easy to spot, but seeing her didn’t bring the ease to his mind he wanted. A tall figure in an elaborate red Venetian masquerade costume with a matching laughing mask loomed over her, holding her wrist.

The party-goers near them shuffled away and gawked. No doubt they thought some crass couple brought their backroom fun to the front. A wall of bodies formed to watch, but over their shoulders Nyth could see another masked person grab Noa from behind. Nythanel shoved over a woman in a peacock dress and jammed his elbows into the sides of two clowns to get through.

Noa struggled to get out of their grasp, but Red Mask jerked her arm the other direction. The snap was audible over the music, a pained scream erupted from Noa, a jagged peak shot up from under the sleeve of her dress. The crowd around them gasped, some retched, some clapped for what they thought was some Halloween entertainment, some quickly fled, others watched on unsure what to make of the display.

Nythanel burst free of the crowd and charged them, seeing that the second assailant's costume was also Venetian - though far less elaborate and the color beige. Red Mask noticed his approach and abandoned Noa with a leap backward as Nythanel slammed into the tussle, bringing them all down to the floor hard. Noa’s silver mask clattered to the ground while Beige’s mask was knocked askew but stayed on their face. The thin fabric of their costume tore as Nythanel gathered a fistful of it and pulled, the other fist delivering a hard blow to the back of their head, forcing them to surrender Noa in order to defend themselves.

The surrounding crowd was now comprised mostly of individuals thinking this was simply a show for the party. Some clapped, some cheered for who they picked as their favorite, while a few pulled their partners away.

Moving with trained agility, Nythanel threw his leg over Beige, pushing them onto their back, gaining control of the situation. Flesh exposed itself, the torn collar of the costume revealing their throat. Nythanel gazed at the sight for a moment. He had no Beast. There was no voice demanding he feed, no inner monster begging to kill. This desire was all his. He opened wide and lurched forward, his fangs breaking skin. Any scream to come was cut short by the crushing of their windpipe beneath teeth. Fresh warm blood cascaded into his mouth. Mortal, musky, the sting of alcohol, and a wine-like sweet finish. Sanguine he thought to himself as it empowered his own weak vitae.

Nythanel didn’t see where the sawed-off shotgun came from, nor notice how Beige was able to pull the concealed weapon, he only heard the deafening bang that brought him back to reality. A shower of blood and bone poured from a bystander’s face. Screams of terror erupted from the crowd, they slammed into each other in their mad scramble, going toward the back of the manor to get away from the no longer entertaining brawl. The band abruptly stopped, the gunshot ending the revelry. Not wanting to risk Noa or himself being the target of the next round he twisted and wrenched, flesh and inner tissue tore until he ripped free the section of throat seized by his vicious teeth.

More yells of fearful confusion came from the guests, the handful of them brave or drunk enough to think they could stop a gunman turned and ran as Nythanel spit the chunk of meat onto the floor. Suddenly, he felt pressure build in his ear drums, his heart became heavy with dread despite the flood of passion from the blood. He'd felt this before, when Noa had shown off her necromantic powers in their rare moments of being able to be alone together since arriving in Las Vegas. Nythanel had thought he’d become accustomed to it, or at least shouldn’t be caught off guard by it. Still it numbed the hot anger and hatred he felt. A curtain of wispy, incorporeal figures began to fall from the ceiling. They manifested into the material world like shadows cast into the air itself as they drank in the light, only allowing a dim glow to illuminate the room. Recognizably human, yet completely otherworldly. One such shadow fell over the victim of the beige thug’s gunshot. The body began to twitch and jerk, a sickening gurgle came out of its throat as the air pushed out of its lungs. Nythanel reeled back from the corpse shambling back to its feet, and turned to see Red Mask holding a black stone.

Noa moved to stand, and for a moment she was awestruck at the blatant display of Oblivion's power. Her already dark eyes turned black like a starless night. She wiped her palm across Nythanel’s chin, wetting her hand with the blood of his victim. Willing forth her vitae through the protruding wound in her arm, she let it drip down and mix with the cooling blood before taking hold of the locket around her neck. The air around her became humid and cold. A shiver went through Nythanel as he felt an icy touch trace his spine. The rose on his lapel wilted, and the few mortals that tried running past them collapsed, their eyes went dull, skin turned pale. Sapped of life. She waved her hand out in front of her and took measured steps forward, like a priest performing a sanctifying prayer, and the wispy shadows began to retreat.

The sound of wet choking reminded Nyth of the reanimated corpse, and as his head turned back, he saw it rush past him. His body at first couldn't move as a deep and primal terror seized him. It was walking death, but not his kind of death. True death, the kind even the undead feared. He didn't want to go near that thing, but as it closed the distance between itself and Noa, he knew he had to act or he would lose her. Grabbing hold of his dying lapel rose, he squeezed hard along its thorny stem to draw blood, calling upon the sanguine power within him. He mumbled the incantation and the rose revived in his hand, more vibrant than ever.

Nythanel willed the rejuvenated plant to grow, attempting to whip it towards the corpse to stop it in its tracks. With perhaps more luck than skill, the branch wrapped around the creature's throat, barbs digging into dead flesh. Nyth pulled hard, managing to stop it mere inches from Noa, yet the body remained upright as it struggled to fulfill its goal of reaching her.

Noa didn’t waver at all, either completely confident Nythanel would help her, or far too focused on taking control of the descending wraiths.The room was a thunderous cacophony of horrified cries and screams of dismay, the shattering of glass on the ground, the panicked stampeding of a mob with no direction to go in. Those who had witnessed Nythanel's attack and the arisen corpse tried to run away, but those who hadn't seen pushed back to try and reach the front exit. Spirits accosted various bystanders, forcing themselves into unwilling bodies to inflict more fear onto those surrounding them. Poltergeists scattered plates and knocked over chairs, some managing to even drop a large chandelier on top of the crowd. In the confusion, they didn't care who was trampled. The guests desperately lashed out at anything impeding their own escapes. Jewelry, costume accessories, blood, and bodies all dropped to the floor and were stomped on without a second thought. The wraiths were erratic, but Noa fought, countering the incantations of Red Mask as the shadows ebbed and flowed around them like a turbulent ocean. To an unknowing observer, the two appeared to be simply standing in place and muttering strangely, but Nythanel knew they both were manipulating the thin fabric separating the land of death from the land of the living.

The rose Nythanel turned into a weapon was also being sapped of its life and desperately it drank from him to stay alive. He shifted his weight and pulled as hard as he could to try and bring the corpse to the ground. There was little hope in killing something that was already dead. He forced his will onto the rose once more, allowing it to drink even more of his vitae. It expanded rapidly in response, sprouting more branches that ensnared the body and sawed into its skin with mutated spikes. Despite it being controlled by a spirit, it was still limited to the strength of the muscles it still possessed, or so Noa had previously explained. The writhing and wriggling vines continued to tear, severing the veins and nerves and rendering the wretched thing immobile for good.

His vision started to blur, his head swimming as his vitae was near exhausted. The rose had taken root in his arm and now it threatened to drink him dry. With nearly all he had left, he willed the passing of seasons on the flower, advancing its life cycle to the point it began to wither and decay until it too became immobile and dead.

The two necromancers were still locked in their strange duel, fighting for control of the spirit current that flooded the manor. Nythanel knew he had to help Noa, something better than running headfirst into a death dealer but his options were limited. His eyes went to the floor for answers, and sure enough there was: shotgun. Hurriedly he picked it up and aimed, hoping it had the promised second shot, though the room spun in his hungry near-delirium. With a squeeze of the trigger the weapon thundered, sending its payload into the shoulder of the Red Mask. Crimson exploded from their wound as they stumbled back, their concentration breaking enough for Noa to gain the upper hand. Her good arm raised higher, and the undulating ceiling seemed to calm as the wraiths obeyed her. The shadow over the ballroom lifted slowly as she brought them to heel.

The Red Mask despite all of the trouble and their fresh injury seemed to have accepted their defeat. With only a glance to Noa and a dramatic throw of their cape, a cold silence surrounded them as they simply walked away. Despite the chaos of the still frightened crowd, they were swallowed within the mob as if they had not even been there. Nythanel at first made a move to follow, but stopped himself as Noa began to buckle. Good riddance, he thought sheepishly as he turned to her, relieved the death dealer decided to just leave. She was more important to him, anyway.

As the full brightness of the lights returned and the pressure lifted from his ears, the distinct sound of Italian leather stomped across the floor towards them from behind. A ham-handed man took hold of his collar and jerked him into the air, the shotgun crashing loudly onto the marble.

"You're gonna wish you were fuckin' dead when I'm through with you, Warlock." Growled Adolfo Puttanesca, right hand of the Don.