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sellenite · 1 month

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cw: afab reader, kinda dubcon, mentions of blood, vampire venom (?) as aphrodisiac, thigh-riding, fingering, Suguru is a sexy vampire and he bites you, Suguru calls reader “bunny”, reader described as wearing a dress

MDNI | 18+

Vampire Suguru Geto would have such ethereal beauty that he would use to his advantage in seducing you into letting him drink some of your blood.

“Will it hurt?” You ask him, your eyes cautiously finding his deep amber ones. They look molten in the dim candlelight of the room, warm and honeyed.

“Only for a moment, but it will fade quickly,” Suguru soothes in that silken tone of his. The tips of his fingers glide up the backs of your thighs, beckoning you closer as he sits in his armchair in front of you.

“Might make you a little light-headed though. You should probably sit down.” He pulls you down into his lap after that. You squeak in surprise as he presses you to himself, your legs clumsily straddled around his thigh and your hands braced on the broad expanse of his shoulders.

Suguru bows his head into the crook of your neck, inhaling your scent lightly as he runs the tip of his nose over your beating pulse point. You swallow the lump in your throat, breath hitching when you feel the plush of his lips ghost over your skin.

“Why so timid, bunny?” He purrs softly to you. He smiles against the skin of your throat before the sharp poke of his fangs pricks at your ear. You think of them sinking into your skin, the excruciating pain of them piercing your vein.

“Promise it won’t hurt too much?” Your words tremble more than you hoped they would. You pull back to look at Suguru once more.

The pupils of his eyes appear larger now, darker and dilated with hunger. The tips of his incisors poke out from the seam of his lips, the light paint of drool across them catching in the light.

You can see the hunger in how he looks at you (the need), feel it in how his cold fingers grip into the sides of your thighs. But his voice remains ever so smooth and composed as he pulls you closer to his body with a hand pressed to the small of your back.

“I promise,” Suguru echoes to you, saccharinely sweet and all too charming as he smiles at you, fangs bared and glistening. “Don’t you trust me?” He asks, his hand reaching up to brush a thumb over your cheekbone.

“I trust you,” you say softly, and he rewards you with that easy smile that you fell for in the first place.

“There’s my good girl,” he purrs to your as he takes your jaw in his hand, urging you to tilt your head to the side as he dips his head into your skin once more.

“Relax for me, bunny.” Suguru presses a kiss to the pulse of your neck and you only have a second to breathe before you feel the sharp cut of his incisors piercing into your flesh.

You gasp at the cold sting of his teeth, your hands instinctively balling his shirt up in your fists. The pain bites into you quickly, burning cold under your skin, into your veins, making unspilt tears well in your closed eyes.

But as quickly as the cold sting spreads, it is replaced almost instantaneously by… Warmth. Slow. Heavy. Spreading through your veins, languid like dripping honey. Honey like the color of Suguru’s eyes. Suguru.

“Suguru.” You moan his name out breathlessly, like a prayer from your lips as you begin to float in some liminal bliss.

He lets out a deep growl against your skin. You feel the warmth of his tongue licking out under his teeth, sucking up the blood that spills out from your neck. You hear him moan at the taste of you, feel him suck harder into your flesh. The warm heaviness seeps into your body more, down into your stomach where you burn from the inside.

Your limbs feel heavy in his grasp—weak. Your head is light and mindless as you melt into his touch, the feeling of him enveloping you. You feel his smile against your skin before his tongue laves sloppily against your skin, wet and hungry.

You don’t even realize you’ve been grinding yourself mindlessly into his thigh until you feel his large palm slide to the front of your body to cup around the mound of your cunt underneath your dress.

His fangs sink into you once more, but the sensation is instantly warm—instantly pleasurable—and you moan involuntarily. Suguru goes back to mouthing at your neck, all tongue and lips as he drinks from your delicate skin.

His fingers push aside the gusset of your panties, slip effortlessly into your wet heat and you whimper at the press of him inside of you. You roll your hips into his fingers slowly, rhythmically, unaware of how you move in sync with Suguru’s breath, with every curl of his fingers inside of you. He groans deep and low against your skin, and the sound vibrates through your body in waves of pleasure.

“Just like that, bunny. Make yourself feel good for me.”

an: I’M SORRY IF THIS IS SLOPPY 😭 but I had this idea in my mind and I haven’t posted writing on here in forever so I thought maybe I would try 🥲

#cw: dubcon #tw: dubcon #cw: blood #tw: blood #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen smut #suguru geto smut #geto suguru smut #geto smut #suguru smut #suguru geto x reader #geto suguru x reader #geto x reader #suguru x reader #suguru geto x you #geto suguru x you #geto x you #suguru x you

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crossroadsfossil · 3 years

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May I Have a Name

Atsuhiro Sako was not the name he was born with. Nor was it his second name, the one he chose to wear and parade around. His third and fourth had come and gone so quickly he didn’t remember them. During his few years, he’s had many names, changing them out when they become too heavy a burden to bear. His family may have a lineage he cannot escape but at least with his name, he can run from it, just for a little while.

When it is all over, the war, the drive, the energy to fight, everything that had given their little family life and fire had died down, he takes them to see the witch. They are tired and aching, lighter of limbs and organs and ideals. They have lost so much and gained so little in comparison. He thinks it’s time for them to seek out something else. There is no shame in starting from scratch.

He has never done this with others. He was brought the first time, brought by a man who loved his brother and took on the weight of a promise to keep Atsuhiro safe when he could not. He did not remember his brother’s lover. He recalled a warmth and a deep affection, a warmer palm on a shoulder blade and a mask pressed into his hand, carrying the mark of his brother. That man was many years dead, vanishing into the night after ensuring Atsuhiro was cared for.

She called herself a witch, playing into the stereotypes with vigor and zest for the tacky theatrics. He respected it greatly, even if her style clashed horribly with his own. The name he knows her by is Faetrader. It is the only name he has ever known for her.

She tilts her hat high upon her brow, looking long and hard, first at him and then at those he has brought. Tired eyes return her gaze, and she must see something, for her eyes soften at the edges and she welcomes them in with no trickery or haggling. Everything in his pockets stays in his pockets, although there are a few hard candies where they weren’t any before. She gives him a pleased wink when he notices.

They sit in her parlor, and she gives them tea and sweet things to eat and savory soups that are light on their stomachs. She looks over their wounds and slowly, stories spill out. She says nothing throughout the storytelling, yet with nothing more than a glance or a twitch of a lip, they tell her all that has happened to them. He assumes it’s part of her quirk. She hears of their trials, of missing limbs and deep scars, of betrayal and love and loss and all the little and large things in between. She listens as things familiar to him and not are aired to the room, watches as the other’s jolt in surprise at what escapes them. Not quite dark secrets, but things that wouldn’t normally be aired to strangers.

Faetrader is and isn’t a stranger. She is a liminal space shaped like a person.

When Atsuhiro finishes all that he has to tell her (at least, all the new things she has yet to hear), he gets up and takes a seat on the pillow before her. It’s old and threadbare, carrying the ages and ghosts of all those who have sat upon it before. He knows the routine. Knows the process required for her quirk to work. He sits before her, gloves and mask set in her waiting hands. They are the things that he will not change, cannot let them be changed.

She smiles at the familiarity of it. He mirrors her expression and clears his throat.

“My dear Faetrader, may I have a new name? Mine is heavy with deeds and stories and my remaining limbs are weak and weary.” He feels the edges of her quirk sink into the broken parts of him, probing and testing like an insects’ antenna. He feels it move up to his face, holding him still. Her hands are still in her lap, fingers curled around his mask and gloves as she examines his features carefully. She leans in, cheek brushing his as she whispers in his ear.

He laughs, caught off guard by the name she has given him. It’s startling enough that he doesn’t feel his old name, his old self being tugged away from him, like stray threads being pulled free. He can feel the change beginning. It’ll take a few weeks for it to fully settle, but already he knows he will not recognize the man in the mirror when he looks later that night. Her smile grows wider and she offers him back his mask and gloves. As he takes them, she turns to the rest of the group, smile sharp and predatory as the unspoken question hangs in the air.

Who is next?

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Sako watches the others as their new names and identities slowly settle around them, some settling like cloaks and others as hoodies or blankets or something else. Dabi is the most at ease with it; not a surprise since he is well versed in shucking old lives and taking up new ones. He walks the house, exploring and sticking his nose into the near-endless rooms which are eighty percent closets. At least, that is how the house presents itself to him. Rooms upon rooms of closets, with half-picked apart identities, hung up on a rack, waiting for Faetrader to weave them into something new. He hears the distant sound of a door sliding open. It seems something has piqued Dabi’s interest.

Toga lets out a frustrated whine and runs a hand through her hair again. It doesn’t look different to him, yet, but she keeps fidgeting with it. Shigaraki is similarly discomforted by the sensation, although he hides it better. The neck scratching has returned, and Sako worries.

His worries seem to ring loud enough that Faetrader shows up, bringing more tea and snacks and followed by several cats. A dog lurks behind her, not quite right in the shadows of the hallway. Too-human eyes peer in at them before blinking out of existence.

Dabi returns shortly after, anger and confusion broiling under his skin as he brandishes a garment bag at their host. She looks at it and smiles. Sako watches as she takes the bag, unzipping it and pulling out long red feather after feather. They are achingly familiar. She offers one to Dabi.

“Why do you have these?” He snarls, reaching out with his hand. A pale blue fire flickers up, catching the edge of the feather before sputtering out. Surprise streaks across Dabi’s face as he looks down at his hand. Another weak blue flame flares up and then dies as quickly. Again, Faetrader offers him one of Hawks’ feathers.

He doesn’t take it.

“Curious.” Sako muses, “It seems Hawks also knew of this place, correct?” Their host nods, putting the feathers back into the garment bag.

“How long ago was he here?”

Three fingers slowly rose.

“Three days?” She shook her head.

“Three hours?” She nodded, grin turning predatory again, her eyes sliding to watch the expressions morph on Dabi’s face. Dabi noticed her glee and he snarled, fist opening and closing, old motions for calling fire no longer working for him. He turns on a heel and stalks off down the hallway. Faetrader lets out a silent laugh and folds the garment bag over her arm. She pauses, thinking better of it. She gestures with it to the room, an invitation for them to take it.

“No, my dear, I don’t think any of us would like that mantle.” She shook her head again and tucked her hands under her armpits, flapping her elbows like wings. “I don’t think any of us would like wings, either. Or the quirk that comes with them.”

She sighs as if saying ‘as you wish’ and left, going down the hallway after Dabi. Sako sincerely hoped that Dabi wouldn’t do anything to piss Faetrader off. Their identities were still forming and Faetrader could be quite malicious if you spurned her goodwill.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

By the next morning, Sako feels his new quirk. Well, it’s an old quirk that’s been massaged to fit his new identity and name. It will take some time getting used to, but he’s content. What was more enjoyable was watching Shigaraki trying out the quirk associated with his new identity. Toga was frustrated with hers, something to do with paper folding and she was on the verge of tears when Shigaraki sat down next to her and started combing through her hair with his fingers.

It was like Toga’s strings had been cut, she slumped against him, purring in calm contentedness. At least until Toga and Shigaraki realized she was quite literally purring. It startled both of them out of their seats. For the last hour, he had been watching Shigaraki test out his ability. So far they had puzzled out that he could purr, people he touched could purr, and the purring seemed to imbue the space within hearing range with a sense of calm and contentment.

Dabi returned late last night from his exploration of the house, gently escorted by the human-eyed dog that Faetrader had. It waited patiently for Dabi to settle down to sleep before closing the door and walking away. Sako had watched as the shadows on the screen wall changed from dog to something almost human, but not quite. It didn’t have the right proportions. He caught Dabi’s eyes in the dark. It seemed he wasn’t the only one who noticed the oddity of the dog. Dabi silently shifted so his back was to the wall, despite Sako whispering that they were quite safe in this house.

Dabi was still pressed against the wall now, eyeing his hands, no doubt trying to summon the fire he had spent his life with. Slowly, something else began to manifest. It was faint, but Sako felt his lips twitch into a grin as various colored strings appeared around Dabi’s fingers. They faintly reached out to everyone in the room. He met Dabi’s eyes and, much to his delight and amusement, Dabi flustered, face flushing as he crossed his arms, hiding his hands and new quirk.

Faetrader appeared at the door, a mug of coffee in one hand and her bathrobe loose around her shoulders, sleep shirt and pants overly-large. Her hat was perched on her head, and Sako knew it was time for them to leave. There were bags at the front door, filled with everything they would need to start over again. Identification cards, paperwork, bits and bobs of a life someone else lived. He knew the drill. Take your bag and live.

As they left, she caught his arm. It was the first time that she had done that. She held an envelope out to him, and waited as he opened it. Inside were two photos. They were of young men and they looked vaguely familiar. Names were scrawled on the bottom, along with tiny doodles. One was of a theater mask, smiling and crying. The other was a feather drawn in red ink.

Oh.

“.... How?” He asked. Faetrader gave him a small, sad smile. Unable to tell him the details. This was as much as she was able to do. She squeezed his hands and left him and his little family at the doorway, disappearing into the darkness of the house.

He cleared his throat.

“Well then. A quick reminder- once we leave this house, we aren’t the people we were before.” Sako said, pocketing the envelope and picking up his bags. “You won’t be able to use your old names easily anymore, and well, I’m sure you’ve seen the other changes already.” He gestured to his own changing facial features. He still had his dark hair and charming good looks, but it was just slightly off, not the Atsuhiro Sako they had known. They were new people now, ready to live new lives, free of the burdens of their past.

He knew this song and dance quite well, but this time, he had others with him. He patted the pocket with the envelope.

And, it seemed, direction on where to go to get the others.

#My fic #bnha fic #2k words #maybe post to a03 later #faelore shenanigans #because some part of me wants everyone to retire and be happy

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panticwritten · 6 years

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A Study in Morals

So. I hit my follower milestone. And I told myself that when I did, I would start posting this. It came sooner than I expected, and I should have done this a couple days ago, but I was putting it off.

The place this starts is a facet of a daydream I try not to think about. It’s not my parame’s perspective of the daydream, it’s Jay’s. It’s only this scene in this to take place in that daydream, but it’s referenced throughout the whole thing.

Nothing in this is particularly graphic, most of it is implied, but the point still stands that the triggers are listed for a reason.

I’ll be posting this in parts, probably one every day until it gets to the end, all in reblogs of this post. Let me know if anyone wants to be tagged in the updates.

Word count: 1,693

Triggers:

Rape

Sex trafficking

Sexual abuse

Child abuse

Human breeding

Human cloning

May, 2010, age 21

Today feels wrong when I wake up. Sticky, hot, the same as every morning. Hands, everywhere, the same as every morning. Still, I manage to push it all down and feel nothing, exactly the same as every other morning.

Today’s a lab day.

I don’t have to stay in the crowded room long, with the fingers digging in my skin and the searing breath on my neck, my chest, my thigh. I stare at the ceiling with glazed eyes and wait. It’s a lab day. They’ll come for me soon.

The time between the grip on my hips, shoulders, ankles, wrists waking me up and the door opening to tell my visitors that I’m needed elsewhere is liminal. I know there are tracks of tears down the sides of my face, the liquid pooled in the shells of my ears. My eyes sting with the rest of me when I’m allowed to rise to my feet and follow the escort out of the room.

The feeling that something is wrong follows me out.

Distant shouts that I recognize ring in the halls. The compound is never quiet. I don’t normally hear it, but certain things jump out at me. Yells I can’t understand, a tune I swear I’ve heard before. It’s distracting, at least, from the imprints I still feel on my throat.

I stop noticing these things when we reach the lab.

Tchaikovsky lounges against a counter—

—my workspace he’s waiting for me—

—with his son standing ramrod straight beside him. The young boy looks at me once, then averts his eyes. If it was just him, I would say something. I know better than to do that with his father around.

As it is, Tchaikovsky pushes off from the counter to meet me and my escort in the center of the room. I turn my eyes down, noting the coat—

—my coat—

—gripped in his fist.

Something pings in the back of my head, this also feels familiar, but I have to push it away. I can’t let his voice turn into the garbled mess everything becomes when I stop listening. I can’t risk that.

But he’s not talking to me. Not yet.

“Has she eaten?”

“No,” the escort answers, clinical. “We have her working a few hours before feeding, it’s a good motivator.”

“Well?” Tchaikovsky’s voice shifts, and I lift my chin slightly with eyes still downcast. “Today’s your deadline. Are you confident that you were motivated enough?”

I breathe in through my nose, and when I speak my voice is soft.

“I am. It should—”

—too uncertain course correct—

“—it will work. We tested it, Sir. It works.”

He makes a sound, one I recognize as approval. Pride fills my chest, but I resist the smile threatening the corners of my lips and keep my gaze trained on that lab coat. I know, I know from the books, that it’s an endorphin response. It’s not real, none of it is real.

But the pride still sits like a warm stone in my chest. The machine works. Tchaikovsky’s pleased. The others in white coats that I work with will put me on a new project and the cycle will start again.

I see the hand an instant before my chin is jerked up, eyes flashing up to see Tchaikovsky’s pale eyes boring into me. He’s too close for me to read his expression, his body language, and my throat closes up.

I feel his chuckle, dark and syrupy. I want to step back but I know better than that. His eyes flick away from me, to the escort, and back.

“Bring her back to my office after second feeding,” he purrs, narrowed eyes in conflict with his tone. “Special reward for the hard work.”

He releases me and brushes past, letting my coat fall to the floor. I don’t move. I find myself staring into the middle distance until I know he’s gone. Before I can even think about kneeling to retrieve the coat—

—my coat—

—Dominic holds it out for me.

I blink at it, then at him. I meet the child’s eyes, and the ghost of his father’s face throws my eyes directly down to the floor. I take the coat, mouthing a grateful platitude before moving to my work station.

And I still can’t shake the feeling that something about this is familiar.

I listen for the boy’s footsteps to leave, but they don’t. I hear nothing from him while I pull my clothes from a drawer. Nothing while I struggle through the stiffness to get dressed. Nothing when I shrug my coat on.

I turn back, eyes narrowed and back straight. Dominic doesn’t look at me, eyes trained on the floor, waiting for something.

The escort is gone. I sweep my eyes through the lab to see him checking on one of the children on the opposite end of the room. Alone with Dominic, then.

There are worse people to be alone with. I knew him before he became who he is. One of the many children to be born in the compound, a few years after they moved me with the others, when they started having me work in the lab.

“Did you really make a time machine?”

I force something I think is close to a smile. “Yes, Dominic. We did.”

It’s wrong.

Those words, I’ve heard them before.

I’ve seen this day before. I’ve watched it. Watched the scary man wait in the white room. Watched the sad lady walk in with another man. All of it, I’ve seen it all before.

Dominic asks if I’m okay, I think, but I can’t hear him right.

I turn my head to see a young girl, aged eight, staring at me from a cot. Her lank hair nearly covers her eyes—

—gray eyes—

—and she looks like all of the other clones. She stares at me rather than the book held in one hand. One of many, scattered across the bed.

The book in her hand, it’s a text on the applications of cloning complicated organisms. It’s one of the books sent back from whoever has the machine we made in a distant someday. I remember, the eyes on the cover made me uncomfortable.

Before I can move, one of the men in coats matching mine stops by her bed, and she looks away. I don’t dare move, not wanting to be reprimanded for doing nothing.

“Put the books in here. You’ll get them back.” He drops a cardboard box on a bedside table. “It won’t take very long.”

“It’s today,” I murmur.

I look back to where Dominic was, but he’s gone. That’s just as well. A thirteen year-old likely shouldn’t be here. Especially not today.

The girl and I make eye contact again, most of her books already packed away, and I remember what happens next. I know what I have to do.

I make a break for the door, ignoring the shouts following me. Pounding steps follow, but they change focus when the first explosion rocks the compound.

I don’t know where I’m going. I only know that the third explosion will hit the lab, and that the girl will be shunted into the machine before she can see what comes of it all.

I round a corner and bounce off of a black shape as the second explosion hits.

I land on my back, immediately staring into a black circle. A circle, a circle, a gun pointing at my head. A voice behind the gun screams something I don’t understand. I don’t know if it’s an unknown language or if my ears have decided to stop working and I don’t care.

I don’t know what to do, so I slam my hands over my face on instinct.

When nothing happens, when there isn’t a flash and an end that I’ve seen happen to the ones that try to run, I peek between my fingers.

The gun still points at me, but it’s further away. A woman I’ve never seen kneels in front of me, wrapped in a bulky black vest. She looks back at the one holding the gun. I try to focus on her voice—

—it shouldn’t be this hard idiot—

—and I’m relieved when it starts making sense.

“… much older than the rest, but she’s not acting like this ring’s goons. They’d sooner take a bullet than risk being taken in alive.”

The third explosion sends dust drifting through the air from the direction of the lab, dusting the woman’s helmet. The one with the gun lowers it a fraction.

“I’ll keep going. You take her back to the others.”

The woman nods and pulls me to my feet. The instant the other one troops past us, she wraps her fingers around my wrist and pulls me down the hall. My skin screams where she touches it, bruised and tender as it always is, but I don’t say anything.

Behind us, gunshots ring, and I try not to think about it.

We stop when we enter a room full of children.

Children with gray eyes and blonde hair. Most look more-or-less average for young clones in the compound. Frail, bruised, and clustered into a few groups scattered throughout the room.

“What are you—oh, you found another one.” A man sitting next to a stretcher looks up at me and the woman in the vest. He stares at me for several beats, then shakes his head and returns his gaze to the girl in the bed.

The woman looks at me and releases my hand. She says something, but I’m not listening anymore. Too busy watching the girl in the stretcher. Her glazed eyes stare at the ceiling, and her mouth moves in subtle patterns. Muttering. A common habit here, one I still haven’t broken.

But I recognize her. It’s Alpha, the one the clones all came from. She has a room on her own and we draw her blood on every lab day. Her head lolls to the side and her eyes focus on me with a delirius smile.

“Had. Drew. You should get used to past tense.”

#tw: rape #tw: abuse #tw: human trafficking #madd #maddart #my writing #the scientist #the original #jays unreliable autobiography #i wasnt going to start this here #but this is probably one of the most important scenes when it comes to understanding their behavior in the future #the collective

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theonyxpath · 7 years

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Hi, folks, Rose here. ^_^ Today, I’d like to share more about the fundamentals of the Changeling setting through an excerpt from Chapter 2, covering the Hedge and the beings who live there.

Without further ado….

The Hedge

The Hedge is always around the edges of the mundane world. In the lonely places, where yours is the only breath stirring the air; in the uncanny places, where fear quickens your step; in the liminal places, where you hang in the balance between here and there. An abandoned office park, weedy grass breaking through broken asphalt; a graveyard, Spanish moss hanging from the low branch of a tree; a cold beach at dawn, succulents dangling over the lip of a sandy cliff. It doesn’t always rip you away from the world, briars catching you and tugging you into some dark hollow of Hobgoblins and malevolent Fae. Sometimes a fairy glen is lovely and mild, with soft places to tread, or lay down your head.

Traversing the Hedge

The Hedge shapes itself according to need, presence, and the available terrain. There are some constants. Its paths are always labyrinthine and confusing. Time passes according to different stars, and the land beneath you to according to different earths. The character of the obstructions that you encounter there will vary according to what you carry with you into it. Including, and especially, what you are carrying in your heart. The thoughts, desires, or memories that shape you will skew the landscape you navigate. The Hedge will collaborate with your mind to deceive you.

Objects you carry into the Hedge may continue to work, but modern devices will become temperamental and whimsical. A flashlight may throw light, but as a lantern or a candle or a cold flame cradled in your palm. A phone might make contact, but to the person you last told a secret or with your voice translated into a forgotten tongue. An object may choose to obey the letter of the law rather than the spirit, or interpret your actions as metaphoric desires. A lit path may glow with a sudden beam of sunshine, or become alight with flame. A sword might become a serpent in your hand, poised to strike the warrior as well as the adversary.

Once

Sweet wisteria and jasmine vines wrap around an archway to a part of the garden you don’t quite remember. It’s dusk, and the park is closing, but you aren’t quite ready to leave. It couldn’t hurt to have a look, maybe sit a moment on the bit of stone glittering just past the archway. The statue next to it is curious, though. Lifelike, but so modern in dress, with a startlingly expressive face. You could almost swear it shifted slightly to glare at you. The scent of flowers is so heavy and distracting that you didn’t notice yourself walking closer. The statue keeps seeming to shift along the other side of the arch. Facing towards you, then away. Angry, then sad. Hands loose, then fisting. You’re almost close enough to touch it through a spray of flowers when you hear your name being called behind you. As you turn to look, a stone hand wraps around your wrist and pulls sharply.

You stretch out on the steps that lead down to the river that divides your city, and watch the seaweed bob and wave just under the surface of the water. It looks, for just a moment, like hair billowing in the current. You fancifully imagine mermaids and sirens, and elementary school daydreams of fishtails and seashell bras. But, was that an eye blinking at you? The face is obscured by silty water and long algal threads suspended in it. Surely that smooth arc was a stone, the eye a bottle glass pebble floating over it. Even so, you crawl closer to the waterline, which helpfully rises towards you. The seaweed drifts between your fingers expectantly, like softly clasping hands.

You’re sure you’ve hiked this way before, you should have hit the trailhead by now. Of course, trails are a little easier to track in daylight, and night came on so fast. Maybe you stepped off somewhere along the way. Your watch stopped hours ago, that must have been how you so thoroughly lost track of time. The headlamp battery held out for a few hours of darkness, but now all you have is the strands of moonlight filtering through branches so thick they’ve clasped over your head. There’s a rushing, grinding sound ahead, and hopefully it’s the service road, not the sea. The rocky hillside begins to slide underneath you, sending you stumbling down too fast. As you duck to avoid a spiderweb as wide across as your arm, everything goes quiet. No water, no road hum, just a bassoon purr close enough to heat the back of your neck. In the distance, you hear a horn.

Three handfuls of dirt, a stolen grave-flower, a torn hymnal; words you knew from a voice in your dreams. As you threw each into the fire, a door cracked open in your mind. When you spoke, you could hear the wind howling in your skull, rattling your windows. The lights went out, the fire went out, and there was a rustling at your threshold. When you opened the door, the air was filled with ozone, and something rushed past you, riding on the wind. The downed power lines formed a golden spiral, and in the center was a living spark that beckoned to you. The air was heavy as you walked between the cables. Tightening around you until you gasped. When you opened your mouth, the spark leapt in, and burrowed under your skin. A way was opened before you of light and scorched earth with no trace of shadow.

When you first walked into the Hedge, it didn’t resist in the same way it would when you tried to leave. Walking forward, across even the sketch of a path was easier than trying to place where your feet had just been behind you. It’s never easy, exactly, to move through a space where your perception of reality is constantly working against you. Most mortals don’t intend to enter the Hedge. They stumble in, through misadventure or deception, and never find their way back out.

Now

Why would it let you go?

When you first escaped, each step that took you back home bled the soles of your feet and raked at your skin. Each thorn tore a bit of you away. Hopefully you made it through with enough of yourself still intact. When you return (for reasons practical or sentimental), you feel that pain all over again. The parts of you that tore away, trying to find the parts of you that escaped. And that ache in your soul is the least dangerous thing to be found in the Hedge.

Your keeper, for example, and all the hunters and hobgoblins they have to hand.

[REDACTED: DREAMING ROADS]

Dwelling Betwixt and Between

You came to the Hedge by accident or guile, less immigrants to Arcadia than its captives. But the Hedge has natives, too. Hobgoblins are made of the very stuff of Arcadia, but have identities more fixed than that would suggest. They live lives of interest to themselves and their families, and have goals which you might help or hinder — as they might for you. Ghosts are what remains when there’s nothing left of a person but a feeling or a memory. When something that’s been torn off of your soul goes unclaimed too long. Not everything that dies in the Hedge comes back as a vengeful spirit, but to die in the Hedge is to immerse your final emotions in a wood shaped by thought and desire. Many do come back, and have a variety of feelings about having died. Much as you would.

Goblin markets sit somewhere squarely between tourist trap, devil’s haunt, and county fair. What you might find there rather depends on the regional specialties, the frequency of appearance, and the esoteric qualities of the land upon which it stands. Pottery cups glazed with the ash of burnt hedgewood, which give you terrifying visions if you over-steep your tea? Strings of bottle glass beads, which turn black in treacherous water? Booklets of single-use paper banishment charms? Very nice roasted corn with crispy cricket flour? You can find lots of things at a goblin market.

Once

You both served as footmen to a prince of wolves. Throwing yourself over roots that his carriage not be jostled. Sweeping aside dishes flung from his table. Cleaning the long white hair from his many fine suits. Brushing out and delicately trimming the mane he was so vain about. She was turned out for having dirty gloves. You tried to escape after her, but were caught by a lazy hound that had run too slow to catch her as she tried to clear the border of his lands.

You worked hand in hand with goblin maids, sewing and mending the skins of her dancing dolls. He fashioned wax heads, each one a replica of one of her living heads. She liked her dolls to match her face whenever she thought to change it. Your hands brushed twice, and he made a new head that looked a little like you. She had him put to death the next day. Or at least, staged a false trial so persuasive that he winked at you when you tried to take the blame.

You kept the giant bees from which she harvested a silvery wax. The statuettes she made were miniature and lovely, and writhed convincingly when subjected to flame. Your Keeper quite liked them. After a steady rhythm of alluding to other lives, you thought perhaps she might help you escape. She betrayed the plan to your mistress, and she shrugged slightly as you were beaten before the court. Someone collected the wax for her after that.

You were your keeper’s shining jewel, the most lovely of his bird wives, with a cloak made of the very heavens. The goblin who carried your train learned somehow of your real name, and taunted you with the knowledge night after night. Threatening to tell you, and break the spell that hid you from your witch king when he had fallen into a mood. Threatening to never tell you, and let you die with the knowledge that he could have freed you, but wouldn’t.

You were a treasured, if unwilling pet. They were just as unwilling, but less prestigious an object for your keeper to possess. You hated each other a bit, and tried to see each other when no one else would meet your eyes. It was dangerous for them to be too familiar with you, though. Lest they gain too much of your mutual owner’s attention. Most erred on the side of deference, paid to the air slightly to your left. As though nothing was there, but the nothing that was there was also a dangerous monster who should be attended to without quite acknowledging.

Now

But they don’t have to be nice to you now. Now you need something from them, and they get to set the rules by which you receive it. Not every Hobgoblin means you particular harm, but neither do they all wish you luck and fortune on your journeys. If you can find a way to tell them apart, you have quite a few friends and co-travellers who would love to know the trick. Some resent having been expected to be subservient to a creature that’s not even from Arcadia. (That’s you.) And they want someone to take that anger out on. Some sympathize with having been an object to someone else’s whim, and having found the strength of desire to flee. Perhaps you can continue to help each other.

Mara Starcatcher wants a hundred first kisses, and a child’s drawing of a family. In exchange she’ll tell you where your first love has gone, and when they will next think of you. For an actual child, she’ll tell you the words that will shatter their heart.

Toru wants to put his wife’s ghost to rest, or at least help her settle into her new identity as a spirit. If you can find her and bring her home, he’ll tell you where he picked the apple flowers that soothed away the confusion that brought you to his doorstep.

Nutmeg caught you fair and square, and she’ll drain the marrow from your bones if you can’t come up with a riddle she’s never heard before. Maybe she’ll do it anyway.

Most goblins are more interested in managing their own affairs than yours, but an opportunity for a nasty trick is hard to pass up. Contracts are always a little dangerous, but goblin contracts are more like predatory loans. In the moment, they can be powerful and helpful, protecting you when you desperately need the strength they can provide. The costs are higher than you imagined, but in the moment, need is greater than caution.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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