#a black veil. a countenance fallen. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

azureashes · 3 years

Text

Mess Her Up

NSFW 18+ ONLY, Minors DNI Summary: Levi Ackerman is just an ordinary gang member who receives an order he knows well. To mess her up. Only things don't turn out as he expects.

Pairings: Levi x OC, (Levi x Reader if you squint) Word count: 6.9 K Trigger warnings: Noncon, Dubcon, Blood Play, Knife Play, Gang Activity, Beatings, Masochism (?), Torture (?)

A young woman traipsed through the abandoned, yellowed stone alleyways, the sun shining high illuminating their surfaces and leaving deep shadows under the overhangs and archways. The buildings here were built out of stone centuries ago, in what must once have been an applauded endeavor in stone masonry but had since been abandoned for nearly as long. The beige tint of the stones set the image of a sepia landscape and was interrupted only by the flash of green of a rare tree or shrub in the area. It was a place that would look beautiful in pictures but was eerie in its abandoned echoes in person.

Her long hair trailed behind her and she smoothed down her skirts, clutching her cross-body purse as she climbed in her black flats lightly over the large stone steps that were clearly built for humans more intimidating than herself in size.

Spying a handsome young man leaning against the wall of a darkened alleyway, she marched towards him with renewed determination. His black hair was parted to the side falling loosely into his aloof face that looked displeased with the world in general. His stormy grey eyes were intent on the knife in his hand that he polished to a shine, glinting in the afternoon sunlight.

As she approached, his gaze flicked onto her, like a jaguar whose prey had fallen into his line of sight when he wasn’t interested in the hunt. A warning to back off.

“Excuse me,” she called, her voice ringing sweetly off the abandoned stone walls. He frowned at the young woman, irritation sparking in his eyes that she had disregarded his unspoken warning. “I’m looking for someone,” she continued obliviously.

Rummaging through her purse, she withdrew a photograph of a smiling young man with hair the shade of her own. “This is my brother. He hasn’t come home for three days. An elderly gentleman told me he had seen him somewhere around here. Do you think you could help me?” Her pleading tone of voice and wide, innocent eyes were met with a hardened, unmoved expression.

When he spoke, she was equally as surprised by the soothing quality of his voice as she was by the harsh, irritated tone he chose to speak in.

“Get lost, brat.”

She was taken aback by the rude rebuttal but, biting her lip, refused to back down. “Please,” she voiced, reaching out for his arm to convey her urgency, her eyes turned up to him desperately. He flinched at her touch and turned a livid glare in her direction. “Please,” she repeated, “He’s my only brother. I’m so worried about him.”

“Get your hands off me,” he hissed, his hands stilling in their movements where they were polishing the knife. She was suddenly struck by the realization that the gleaming switchblade in his hands was only a whim away from embedding itself in her flesh. That surely, him cleaning his knife meant it had recently been in use? Hesitantly, she withdrew her hand. “Can’t you help me?” she entreated again breathlessly.

“Is there something wrong with your ears? I said fuck off.” The scathing retort, clearly meant to scare her away, only served to have her dig in her heels in response. He hadn’t claimed not to know the young man in the photograph.

“Hey, Levi,” came a raspy voice from the shadows, “Who’s the visitor?”

When she turned her gaze towards the darkened alleyway, she found a tall, rugged blond standing there, his countenance partly veiled by the shadows, despite the brilliant sunlight.

“Tch.”

For whatever reason, the man’s sudden appearance served to irritate the black-haired man and he shot the strange girl a disparaging glance. One that seemed to read, “You brought this on yourself.”

Casting a wary glance at the raven-haired man - Levi, apparently, was his name - she sidestepped him to approach the blond man towering over her in the alleyway. Up close, she could see a thin scar running from one temple, down across the bridge of his prominent nose.

“Excuse me, sir,” she began, holding up the photograph, “Have you seen this man? He’s my brother and hasn’t been home in three days.”

Levi averted his gaze as the stupid woman made her stupid plea. Fools with no sense of danger could only blame themselves for whatever followed.

True to character, the blond took one look at the picture in her hand and laughed aloud, a deep, rumbling sound that grated against Levi’s ears and made the young woman hesitate uncertainly.

“Why, Levi,” the man chuckled, ��it’s rude to leave a young woman standing outside like this. You should have shown her in.”

The long-haired woman looked from one man to the other nervously as she clung to the strap of her cross-body purse. Levi came up behind her with an irritated expression, as if she were severely wasting his time. Caught with the muscular man towering over her in front of her and Levi approaching from behind, all routes of escape were cut off. She swallowed nervously as Levi met her eye with a bored expression. “You heard the man,” he drawled, nodding towards the alleyway.

With apprehensive determination, she nodded and stepped into the darkness, bypassing the taller man who was still chuckling ominously to himself. Unable to see in front of her for the darkness, her footsteps slowed, and Levi, pressing a hand to her back, shoved her forwards. “Keep moving,” was the gruff command. His hand on her back felt warm – larger and stronger than she would have expected - and in the darkness, his low voice sounded as if he spoke directly into her ear, sending chills up her spine.

At length, he pushed open a door that was invisible to her in the darkness and she stepped into the light on the other side, blinking.

She had entered what appeared to be a large common room with mismatched sofas and tables in various states of disrepair scattered across the sprawling space. A generous refrigerator hummed loudly in a corner and a pool table with worn-out green felt stood off to the side. A single lightbulb flickered in a green lampshade that hung oddly, almost comically, to one side.

She noticed now, that the room was filled with people equally as intimidating as the man she had left behind, absorbed in drink, games, or tobacco and talk. Their muscular bodies implied that these were men who depended on their strength to survive, and the scars that decorated what she could see of their skin were evidence of the lengths they would go to, to do so. In comparison, she was small and insignificant, less than a morsel to the fearsome men in front of her. She clutched the photograph to her chest and stepped backwards, looking from one terrifying face to the other. When she bumped into a broad chest, she spun around in surprise, only to find Levi closing the door behind them, looking at her through unfeeling gray eyes down the bridge of his nose.

She backed away from him, intimidated, and found herself in the center of the room surrounded by the watchful eyes of men whose intentions she failed to read.

“Well, well, well...” voiced a gruff voice from the back of the room, With a gasp, she saw a tall, gangly man lying on a sofa hidden from view. His face was concealed by a cowboy hat but as he rose to his feet now, he replaced it on his head, covering his long, straggly gray hair. His low chuckle and his self-assured smirk confirmed what the silence in the room implied – this was the leader of the group.

“What do we have here?” The man marched right up to her and caught her chin in an unforgiving grip, as he lifted her eyes up to him. “Pretty little thing you brought in, Levi.”

Still, the raven-haired man behind her was silent and unmoving. The man with the cowboy hat suddenly caught sight of the photograph and with one fluid movement snatched it out of her hands. His eyes lit up in recognition and he lowered his head as a deep, sinister chuckle rumbled from his lips. “Well, isn’t this precious?” he barked with a laugh.

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he waved the photograph in front of her face mockingly, “Who is this?”

“That’s-,” she took a deep breath for courage, “That’s my brother! If you know anything about his whereabouts, please tell me!” She lifted entreating eyes to the man, despite the sadistic amusement apparent on his features.

“Well...” he drawled, “We might know something.” He laughed, turning around and holding the picture up for the men gathered there to see, “Don’t we, boys?”

Raucous laughter erupted in the room at the girl’s poor fortune. “Listen here, girl,” he leaned in close until she could smell the unsavory mixture of tobacco, coffee, and alcohol on his breath, “Your brother has been our guest for the last couple of days. And he can’t leave here until we’ve shown him the full extent of our hospitality. That’s just good manners, isn’t it?”

“Is- is that so?” she stepped backwards, her eyes darting from one harsh, unforgiving face to another, “Well, then, I...”

“Oh, no you don’t,” the man had a lazy, laidback demeanor, but when his hand shot out to catch hold of her wrist, it was fast as the strike of a viper. He held her hand high, so that she had to stand on tiptoe to ease the pressure on her arm. “Now that you’re here, we can’t just let you leave. You’re our guest, too, aren’t you?”

He whirled her around and faced the men who had abandoned their card games and drinks to give their leader their full attention. “Who wants to show our princess here a good time? No one should be able to say that we treat our guests poorly, isn’t that right?”

A hum of agreement and low chuckles met his words as more men than she could count shouted back volunteering statements.

With one last burst of strength, she tore her hand free and made a mad dash for the exit only to come up against the chest of the raven-haired man once more. He stood with his back towards the door and lifted his eyebrows, unimpressed by her attempts to escape.

“Well, look at that,” the man in the cowboy hat jeered, “I think she likes you, Levi.”

Raucous laughter erupted in the room as Levi narrowed his eyes at the girl, irritated that she was causing this uproar and dragging him into this.

“Is this really necessary, Kenny?” he complained, turning narrowed eyes onto his boss.

“Oi. Go on, then. Show her a good time.” A shiver passed through her as she turned her eyes up to the raven-haired man who was pointedly ignoring her.

“It’s not her fault she has a piece of shit for a brother, and unlike you sleazy bastards, I don’t have a thing for brats,” his arguments fell on deaf ears, but his eyes dropped to the girl in front of him in surprise, when he saw that she had taken hold of the hem of his shirt between her thumb and forefinger, her head lowered, expression unreadable. Her action was invisible to the men behind her, but confused Levi, even as Kenny barked further orders.

“Birds of a feather, Levi.” He jerked a thumb at a door behind them, “Mess her up. That’s an order.”

“Tch,” irked beyond expression, he grabbed hold of her wrist and dragged her down through the living area to the jeers and catcalls of the men, pushing open one of the closed doors and pulling her through before pressing the door shut behind them, muffling the vulgar statements of the men beyond.

He eyed her calculatingly, his grey eyes walled off from her as his gaze wandered over her form from head to toe, his sharp mind mulling over a definition to the words, “mess her up.”

The resounding click that met her ears informed her that the door had been locked, and she was stuck with this enigmatic, terrifying man. He approached her slowly, annoyance still lingering in his eyes as he muttered, “I told you to get lost.”

Her eyes darted from one corner of the dimly lit room to another, shoulders trembling. An armchair and a tattered sofa stood haphazardly in the room, a beat-up old table with scratch marks stood tossed to the side. Light from a single, boarded up window strained to get inside. Telltale signs of struggle were visible in every corner of the room.

“You brought this on yourself,” his voice was deceptively soft and the skin at the nape of her neck prickled in response.

“I –“ she faltered, “Do you really want to do this to me?”

He drew closer as she retreated, backing up until her legs came up against the worn-out table. Her fingers traced its edge as she leaned backwards, trying to put every possible inch of distance between them. “Not my call,” he answered easily, towering over her now. She sucked in a breath, summoning mindless protests, but his closed fist slammed into her abdomen before she could utter a word, causing her to double over in pain.

“I’ll make this quick,” he offered, no touch of emotion lacing his voice. An unfeeling hand took hold of her long tresses and he tossed her carelessly backwards, the clattering sound of her falling against the table and the wooden legs skidding against the stone floor loud enough for the gathering outside to hear. She struggled back to her feet, and the next blow landed on the side of her face, leaving a large bloody bruise but carefully avoiding her nose. Women were vain about their noses.

She staggered towards him, disoriented, confused as to which direction was the one required to escape and falling unintentionally, straight into his arms. Using his grip on her, he kicked upwards into her stomach with his knee, causing her to cough up bile and fall to her knees. From there, she was at his mercy and he aimed one kick after another at her, his expression impassive and unchanging. A last kick to the face flung her to the side where she lay on the stone floor exhausted and beaten.

“Tch,” rolling his shoulders, he approached the young woman lying prone on the floor. Every move of his was calculated. He knew well enough which injuries would heal in a matter of days and which would leave lasting damage. The assignment was clear enough - “mess her up”. As long as she left here in a state that would make the group outside think she had duly suffered, it did not matter how much actual pain she had been in, or what he had done to her. It was all about appearances, after all.

He crouched down and, sliding a hand into her long, thick tresses, pulled her up from the ground, he turned her face this way and that and, seeing the blood leaking from her nose and the bruises blooming to life on her face, he determined she was injured enough to be allowed to leave without further hindrance.

“On your feet,” he muttered, rising and pulling her up with him. She stumbled to her feet and clung to the table for balance. He noted with satisfaction that her arms and legs were also bruised and battered, bruises large enough to satisfy the audience outside, but shallow enough that they should heal in a few days’ time.

He lifted a hand and indicated towards the door with a nod and a jerk of his thumb. “Get out of here, brat. Before I change my mind.”

She coughed and spat out the blood that had collected in her mouth. Levi blinked, veiling his surprise. The naïve, innocent, feminine impression she had carried into this room with her disappeared as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and narrowed her eyes at him.

“What?” she ground out, “Is that it?”

He only returned her glare with a blank stare of his own, nonplussed.

“Is that all you’ve got?” she continued, looking up at him defiantly, “And when they said ‘mess her up’ here I was, thinking you were actually going to do something to me.” She scoffed, and gave him a disappointed look, as if he wasn’t quite up to scratch.

What the actual fuck?

“Oi,” a dangerous spark flared in his otherwise cold grey eyes as he grabbed her by the collar and pulled her up to face him, “Take a look around you before you start talking shit. Are you asking me to break your legs right now? That what you want?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she taunted, “But is this what your boss meant when he said ‘mess her up’? It’s not, right?”

He glared at her, unable to believe his ears. She should have been cowering in gratitude that he was letting her go without touching her. She should have been scrambling for the exit.

“They wanted you to fuck me, right? Or was I the only one who understood it that way?” The sarcasm that laced her voice, so sweet and innocent when she had approached him outside, now low and almost sultry even in its indignant anger, confused him.

He released her as if burned. What was wrong with this woman?

“So, what happens if I tell them out there you couldn’t get it up?” She indicated towards the group outside with a jerk of her chin as she leaned back against the table. He narrowed his eyes at her. Of course, he knew precisely what would happen to her, it wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before. Men get beaten, girls get defiled. Those are the rules of the game. The price for rubbing up against their group the wrong way. There was no such thing as mercy. Levi knew that better than anyone else. He had learned that the first time he had tried to allow a woman to escape unharmed. She had turned grateful eyes to him before trying to leave, only to be caught by one of his brothers and then passed around until she lost consciousness.

He had been made to watch. She had been made to thank him for his kindness, for sparing her – words that meant nothing as tears streamed down her face and the group stood in a circle around her. “It’s great that you’re so fucking nice, Levi,” someone had hissed into his ear. He couldn’t for the life of him now remember who had spoken. He had swallowed half a bottle of painkillers, but his body had recovered in no less than 48 hours, just to spite him.

He learned not to show any misplaced sympathy. He learned it was better to have a woman screaming and begging for mercy beneath him, than to have her be literally torn apart by the men outside. He learned how to tune out their cries. He learned how to have a heart that felt nothing. But it didn’t change the fact that he hated sex. He hated having to use it to break their wills. To punish them. He would much rather have just broken an arm or two. He hated the fact that he could not remember the last time he had had a willing woman beneath him.

With time, he had learned how to fake it. Learned where to leave bruises, where to tear clothes so that no one would stop and question them. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do it. He was just fed up of it. Fed up of playing this ridiculous game. Fed up of using intimacy as a weapon. It wasn’t like he was into that kind of shit.

But this brat.

He narrowed his eyes at her, but she returned his gaze unabashed, shamelessly – demanding, almost.

“Are you asking to be raped right now?” he growled, stalking towards her. He was not going to let himself be intimidated by this slip of a thing.

“If that’s what you want to call it,” she shrugged.

“You tell them out there I didn’t touch you and you might not ever be able to have children. So, if you decide to open your mouth that’s on you,” his tone was devoid of intonation, but his narrowed eyes expressed his irritation with her.

“Are you gay?” she asked, blinking up at him inquisitively.

He only glared at her in return, he wasn’t about to play this game with her.

“Alright, sure they’ll have their way with me instead. But what about you? Does nothing happen to you if you don’t follow orders?” She seemed genuinely curious, and unbothered by the bruise swelling on her cheek or the blood seeping out of the wound above her right eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Would nothing happen to him? He had been loyal to the group since he was barely more than a child. If it got out, however, that he had taken to sparing women again, it spelled trouble for whoever else they sent his way after this damned frustrating brat. If she wanted him to fuck her up so badly, then she had it coming.

“What do you want, brat?” he seethed.

“I don’t want you to harbor any illusions of having done me a kindness when I leave here,” she answered, her voice dark and unforgiving. “If you’re going to mess me up, do it right and let me curse your name for the rest of my days. Wallow in the guilt. Don’t deceive yourself into thinking you’re some kind of good guy.”

The irritation vanished from his face, only to be replaced by a deadened apathy, he placed one hand on the table on either side of her, leaning forward, inadvertently forcing her to lean back as her chest brushed against his. He leaned in close, his lips brushing against her ear as he spoke, his voice as soft as it was dark, “The things I’ve done? Wouldn’t dream of it.”

She shuddered at the close proximity, at his warm breath against her ear, but those soft words were all that was gentle about him. She had asked for it, and he wasn’t kind to the point of being foolish. He could break a stupid woman as good as anyone. He pulled back, looking her coldly in the eye as he took hold of her collar and, without warning, tore her shirt open. She blinked, scarcely able to understand just what had happened as she stood there in the tattered remains of what was once her shirt.

She watched the buttons roll off into the corners of the room and was still wrapping her mind around this sudden change of behavior when his hand found purchase in her hair again and jerked her head mercilessly back, exposing the smooth column of her throat. His mouth instantly closed in on her pulse point, making quick work with his teeth, sucking on the sensitive skin there before biting down mercilessly. She gasped at the painful sensation that made one thing terribly clear, this encounter was not designed to provide her with any pleasure.

He tore off her cardigan, quickly followed by the torn shirt, leaving her in nothing but her skirt and the lacy black bra she wore. It did not occur to him that her choice of undergarments was alluring. He did not think to question whether that had been intentional on her part. Her eyes flew open when she felt cold metal between her breasts, before she could look down to see what it was, his knife had cut through the lacy fabric of her undergarments, inadvertently cutting her in the process. Knowing his skill, she could only assume that it had been intentional. Blood trickled down her chest over her abdomen, the stinging pain of the weeping wound rushed to her head. Exhilarating her.

She sucked in a cold breath of air, only moments before his hand closed around her throat, pinning her against the table. Her hands flew up in reflex, closing around his arm, gentle fingers pressing into the corded muscles of his forearm, she blinked up at him as her mouth opened helplessly for breath that would not come. She gaped at him, trying to word something with what little breath she had.

“What’s that?” he murmured calmly, his eyes cold and expressionless. “I can’t hear you.”

Her eyes fluttered shut as she arched her back, pressing her breasts up against his arm. Was this an involuntary reaction? Or... what the hell was she doing?

When he felt her convulsing from lack of oxygen, he released her with a grim expression. Something wasn’t right. Something about the balance of power between them. That unimpressed look in her eyes still irritated him. As if she had no sense of the actual danger she was in, even though she was in this state, literally bruised, battered, and bleeding. Now, coughing for breath. So, why did it feel like she was the one in control?

He let his knife fall to the floor as he unbuckled his belt, watching her eyes turn towards him, wide with something akin to terror - or was that anticipation? Had he become one of those lecherous swine who imagined they saw willingness in the eyes of a woman who wanted nothing more than to escape them? Had he really fallen to a point that he had begun to justify his actions?

He slid the belt out with one smooth action and, binding her wrists, turned her roughly on her stomach before he hung the buckle from a hook screwed into the wall. Her front was pressed roughly against the harsh surface of the wooden table and her arms were extended further than was comfortable, bound by the rough leather. From this angle, he could not see her face and that was certainly for the better.

“You asked for this, didn’t you, brat?” He placed one booted foot between her own black flats and pried her feet apart. His hands slipped under her skirt and found the curve of her bottom and kneaded roughly, his fingers greedy and bruising. The hair on the back of his neck rose in alarm when she moaned in response.

“Oi,” he responded, “What the hell?”

She bit her lip, not allowing another sound to escape her mouth, and he lifted a hand to flip up her skirt, tossing it carelessly over her back. She had, quite literally, asked for this. When he lifted a hand, the resounding slap echoed throughout the room. Her skin quickly flushed red, and knowing that he had not held back, would likely be bruised as well. She had asked him not to hold back. No illusions of mercy.

One resounding slap after another echoed throughout the room and could likely be heard in the common room as well. He wanted to punish her. For being so stupid. For coming here at all. For not just leaving when he had given her a chance to. By the tenth slap she could not take it anymore and a husky moan escaped her lips.

“Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this,” his voice was dripping in disbelieving sarcasm. “Is it just some kind of shitty coincidence that this kind of shit turns you on?” Indeed, there was no denying it now. Her moans were proof enough of that, not to mention the fact that her panties were positively soaking. Did this crazy bitch have some kind of abuse kink?

Hooking a finger into her waistband he pulled her lacy black underwear down to her knees. “Tch, look how wet you are.” It sounded like a complaint and her face burned in response. “You’d almost think you wanted this.” When his fingers stroked her slit, she bucked her hips in response, chasing his touch, instantly wanting more.

“Oi,” he blinked at her, “Calm the fuck down, will you?” With a flick of his wrist, he unhooked the belt from the wall and brought her to her knees with a single kick at the inside of her knee. He held on to the belt with one hand and angled her head backwards with a firm grip on her hair with the other. When she lifted her eyes to his, they were dark with lust and he swallowed, realizing the situation had curiously grown out of his control. He had never seen a bloodstained face like that looking up at him with such desire. Tugging on the belt, he brought her forward as he regarded her through apathetic grey eyes.

He unzipped his trousers and pulled out his engorged length to her wide-eyed surprise. “Well, go on then,” he muttered coldly, with a curious edge to his voice, “Since you’re so fucking eager.”

She wasted no time in closing her bound hands around his length and long-lashed eyes fluttered elegantly shut as she brought her lips to his tip. She began with a chaste kiss before dragging her tongue over his slit lapping up the precum gathering there. She closed her lips around him, using her tongue to heighten the friction as she took him in as deeply as her gag reflex allowed. She bobbed her head back and forth, wanting to drive him to the brink as he had done with her. He closed his eyes, despite himself, enjoying her mouth on him more than he thought he would allow himself to. He stifled a moan rumbling to life in his chest as her warm, wet mouth worked magic on his erect member.

Why not? She was his assignment. She was willing. She was undeniably attractive. If she truly wanted him to have his way with her, then why the fuck not? She would have only herself to blame at the end of all this. Gripping her hair more tightly, he thrust into her mouth, more deeply than she had been willing to take him at first, but helpless to resist him all the same as he fucked her face, his length thrusting into her throat and her muffled sounds indecipherable. Were they protest or pleasure? Damned if he knew.

At length, he released her. Having made up his mind to make the most out of this encounter, he was far from done with her. His eyes roamed over her nearly naked form now, as if seeing her for the first time. The full swell of her breasts, the dip of her thin waist, the curve of her hips. The short, pleated black skirt that pretended to cover her. Her almond eyes, darkened with lust and her long, silky hair. She was a sight to behold.

He tugged her to her feet and threw her onto her stomach on the table before thrusting without so much as a warning into her wet and aching cavern. She released a throaty moan, one that was undeniably of pleasure. He could not for the life of him explain why that sound made him feel more guilty than protests would have. All the same, he reached up to knead her breasts as he thrust in and out of her, quickening his pace, eager to reach his own release. His ears perked as her moans intensified, growing louder and more insistent.

“Oh, more... Just like that, don’t stop...”

Was she hearing herself?

“Harder, Levi... hurt me, please...”

This was far from the words she was supposed to be saying. She was supposed to be cursing his existence. Wishing him a slow and painful death.

“Oi,” he hissed, slamming into her with increased force, “Shut the fuck up, will you?”

Her answer was another desperate groan, and with a frustrated groan of his own, he reached up to fill her mouth with two fingers. It was the fastest and most effective way to gag her. His conscience could not take her pretending to enjoy this. But he was equally as ill-prepared for the way she began sucking off his fingers. He was nearing his climax but literally every thing she did was infuriating him.

In the span of one thrust, he pulled out of her, flipped her over and reentered her without missing a beat. But was that a mistake? Now that he could look into her lust-filled eyes with his own frenzied, grey irises, he was sure she was not pretending. She seemed to be genuinely enjoying this. No matter, she would have time enough to regret it when it was over. For now... for now, he just wanted to reach that climax that was fast approaching.

If she could just keep her mouth shut for two minutes, that was all he needed. “Oh, Levi...” she whined. Having a complete stranger call his name that way sent shivers down his spine. It was unnatural. He closed his fingers around her throat again. He just needed her to shut up. For just one goddamn minute. Her large, expressive eyes fluttered closed and her terrible sounds stilled as he squeezed her airways closed as he slammed into her, faster now, harder, chasing the sensation he knew was close.

She came first, first convulsing from oxygen deprivation, then trembling from the intensity of her orgasm, her back arching off the table as her walls clenched around him, providing him with the last push he needed to reach that height. He squeezed his eyes shut as the sensation tore through him, leaving him breathless. With a low growl, he pulled out of her to spill his seed literally anywhere else. The last thing he needed was to father a child with a nameless nobody. He hovered over her still. His hands resting on either side of her. Catching his breath, both their chests heaving as they came down from their mutual high.

What had they just done? Could that truly have been considered non-consensual? Well, perhaps that would be what she decided it was, given a day or two to think it over. They stayed that way for a minute, catching their breaths. A smirk crossed her face, unbeknownst to him as he pressed his eyes shut, calming his racing heart.

At length, he drew back, and she pulled herself up to a seated position. She held her hands up to him expectantly and he wordlessly unbound them, before looping his belt back into his trousers, watching her out of the corner of his eye as she scanned the room for her clothing, only to see her note with a distant smile, that most of it was unusable. Foregoing the torn shirt and slit bra, she reached for her cardigan, wrapping it tightly around herself, using the belt to wrap it tightly closed as a makeshift shirt. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing it away from her face and Levi could only stare at her with awe.

She had, at some point wiped the blood from her nose, her face was still undeniably battered. Her arms and legs were severely bruised and yet- and yet – why the fuck did she look so content?

“You didn’t kiss me,” she voiced, lifting her eyes to his. Was that a complaint?

After everything else he had done, a kiss was the least he could offer her, wasn’t it? He stepped forward, taking hold of the back of her head gently. Here was something he didn’t do often and when he did, he only ever did it the way he wanted.

So, that was what he did now, angling his head to claim her lips. Kissing her slowly, deeply, intently – as if he meant it. There was only one right way to kiss someone. When he drew back, she released a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of her soul.

“Thanks, Levi Ackerman,” she breathed.

As he buckled his belt again, he lifted stormy grey eyes to her, taking in her dazed expression. “You should get that head of yours checked out,” he commented, “Something isn’t right with you.”

She giggled at that comment from her perch on the table, kicking her legs back and forth cheerfully as she waited for him to finish dressing.

“There’s nothing to be so fucking cheerful about,” he reprimanded, “Look at your face.”

“It hurts,” she agreed, but with a smile on her face that disturbed him. Shaking his head, he took hold of her elbow and led her out of the room. The men in the common area fell silent at her battered appearance.

One of them released a low whistle, “You’ve outdone yourself, eh, man?”

Levi froze in his tracks, pausing to deliver a deadly glare over his shoulder. “I’m not quite done yet, though. Should I just take your tongue out next?”

The man blinked up at him before quickly turning his gaze back to the card game in front of him. That Levi was not one to be trifled with was well known among them, with exception of their leader.

He led her to the exit and tore open the door, he hesitated only for a moment, regarding her for a second. She had been beautiful, before he had “messed her up”. She still was, if you asked him. But for the entire duration of her short stay in their hideout, every thing she had said and did had only served to confuse him. He did not even know what he should say to her, if anything at all. She nodded in parting and turned to leave, and he let her go.

He supposed he would think back to her, in dark, contemplative nights. Wondering if he should perhaps have done this differently. How it would have been if he had not had to hurt her. He watched her disappear into the darkness before shaking his head and closing the door behind her. Whether he had actually fulfilled his assignment was anyone’s guess.

He moved past the common room to a hallway behind it. He needed to see Kenny. To get some actual work done and take his mind off of the ridiculous encounter. He followed the sound of screaming and found their boss with relative ease. A brown-haired man tied to a chair was screaming profanities as one of their men carved intricate designs into his flesh with a knife.

Kenny sat nearby, his feet propped up on another chair as he dragged on a cigarette. Catching sight of Levi, he coughed, and rasped, “Back, are you? You sure took your sweet time.”

Levi said nothing to this, nodding at the man instead, clearly the young man from the girl’s photograph. “Still nothing?” he asked, turning grey eyes on to Kenny. “Not yet,” Kenny commented, but turned towards the screaming man.

“Hey, that reminds me. You won’t believe who was just here.”

The dragging of the knife stopped, and the man caught his breath before turning incredulous eyes towards them.

“What a coincidence that she would come all this way looking for you, eh?” Kenny barked a laugh, “But don’t worry, Levi took good care of her, didn’t you, Levi?”

Levi did not respond, letting his silence serve as his answer.

“The fuck are you on about?” the man hissed, breathing raggedly from the hours of unabating pain.

“Why, your sister, of course,” Kenny remarked, bringing his cigarette back to his lips. “She was here looking for you.”

The man blinked at them incredulously before releasing a weak laugh, “I don’t have a sister, you sick fuckers! You bastards raped an innocent girl!”

Levi felt the blood in his veins run cold as Kenny turned towards him with a raised brow.

His mind raced - the way she had approached him, clung to his shirt, insisted he not let her off easy, the way she had looked at him, the way she had left without so much as asking about her brother again, and most of all ... Thanks, Levi Ackerman.

Where had she learned his last name? No one had used it in the short time she had been there. Levi turned on his heel and stalked out of the room, down the hallway, back through the common room, tearing open the door before bursting back out onto the stone-laid roads beyond. No matter where he turned, she was nowhere to be found.

Turning back, he froze at what he saw, and realizing what it meant, a sickening feeling crept over him. He felt used, exposed, and somehow violated. He felt sick to his stomach. He had been sent to force himself on her but, recalling how forward she had been with him, how she had insisted he finish what he started, which of the two of them had truly been taken advantage of?

When Kenny came out after him, ducking under the archway, he turned to look at what had caught Levi’s eye. His boss and uncle released a low, amused chuckle.

“Looks like she had a thing for you.”

“Well, fuck.”

“You catch her name?”

“Of course not.”

He blinked at the wall, at the red graffiti emblazoned on it.

“Thanks for a good time, Levi Ackerman.” And beside that, a ridiculous red heart.

He should have known she was fucking crazy.

#levi smut #levixoc #levixreader #tw noncon #tw dubcon #snk #levi ackerman

107 notes · View notes

ringmyheart · 3 years

Note

Hi! Could you maybe write a love triangle between Jake and Samuel when they were together in Big Deal. Like the s/o is really kind and catches Sam off guard but also has a fiery side which really intrigues Jake? (And maybe Sinu in the background cheering for Jake bc he's biased??) Thank you, sorry if it's too much❤💜

“Hey, are you going to sleep all day?!”

The calf of your foot became a blur of (s/c) when you kicked the kid before you’s chair, placing your hands on your hips. A screeching noise resounded as the legs of his chair jerked to the side a little, and you saw him stir.

At this school, you saw yourself as at the top of the hierarchy. Wether or not everyone else saw you as the same was… questionable, but your gait expressed your feeling of superiority.

So when you saw the new kid, you veiled your curiosity of himself behind a tough exterior, and approached him when you first saw him - which was sleeping at his desk in a classroom - alone. He grunted out a sigh before lifting his head from his folded elbows, and blinked at you from a lowered angle of his head.

Your face went blank. Shoulders rolling back and stiffening pensively, he could see the gears in your head turning while you just stared.

“... What?” He asked after an eternity of silence, watching your expression gradually grow more surprised the longer you ogled at him. He cocked a brow at you. “Well? Did you just wake me up for the fun of it?” He wasn’t offensive, just curious.

You turned on your heel, and shook your hand dismissively, shoulders still rigid. You waved him off as if saying he was off the hook. “Whatever, I’m not leaving you alone because I think you’re cute, or anything, I’m just feeling especially nice today. Consider yourself lucky.” You said, a dead giveaway of your real intentions.

He blinked slowly at your retreating self, lingering on you for an extended amount of time amusedly before he put his head back in his hands, and resumed his sleep. From the other side of the classroom, he could feel your stare fixate on him up until he drifted asleep again; and from behind black eyelashes, (e/c) optics observed the rise and fall of his shoulders before your eyes fluttered to a close as well, and you lost consciousness.

That was technically the first time you met Jake Kim. But the time he finally noticed you, was only moments after.

When you woke up again, rather than seeing a classroom devoid of people aside from the two of you, your eyes flitted open to see a sea of knocked out students surrounding your seat. Your mouth fell agape, and the shock of it all cleared away the sleepiness in your system.

‘What happened while I was asleep…?!’

You lifted yourself up on your elbows with wide eyes scanning the room around you, when the kid you’d disturbed from sleep earlier turned the corner to enter the classroom. He seemed taken aback at the fact that you were finally awake, and leaned against the doorway, observing the room.

“Did you do all this?” He asked. He knew you didn’t - in fact, he had done it, and he wasn’t sure what had become of him when he asked that. He just felt inclined too. Upon seeing him, you seemed flustered, and defensively leaned back, striking a pose with your arm.

“Y-yeah… yeah! This was all me.” You jabbed a finger to your chest in pride, “I’m a pretty tough person, you see. The guys in this school kind of suck, but don’t worry, ‘cus I can take ‘em if they try and mess with you! They basically cower when they see me.”

Why you answered that way - why you lied, neither of you could really say exactly. As soon as the words had left your mouth, you saw him narrow his eyes, before he smiled almost exasperatedly - like you were a hassle in and of yourself.

None could tell why you’d fibbed, but the way you’d ended the sentence was undeniably your bashful declaration of friendship, and “protection” - as though you were an important part of this school, and he took it.

“Okay, I’ll take you up on that. You’ll need to know my name if you’re gonna be helping me out, right?”

You nodded vigorously, and he pulled himself off the frame of the door. “I’m Jake Kim. You?”

“Uhh…” for whatever reason you seemed starstruck, and had to collect your thoughts before finally responding, “(y/n).”

That was how you had officially met Jake Kim, and how he officially met you.

From then on, you were glued to his side. You swore it was the other way around, but it was clear to see you were the follower here. But regardless of who played what role, it was clear as day that you and him were attached by the hip.

It was only natural that, when he joined Big Deal, you followed suit. You followed him everywhere he went - and it was expected you’d go there, too.

And that was the first time you met Samuel Seo.

Technically, the very first time you and him met was when you and your friendship group as well as him and Alexander Hwang had lied about being Big Deal to an opposing gang. You’d furiously insisted that you guys weren’t a part of Big Deal, in an attempt to save your asses, and had a huge ‘X’ over your chest as the other gang approached you all - and when you all had ran from the scene, you were the first to bolt - the others following. It wasn’t much of cowardice, more like knowing how you could take on. You talked big, and seemed airheaded - but truth was you weren’t too dull in your senses. But neither of you noticed each other.

You and Samuel knew of each other, but the first time you really met was after you’d all become a real part of Big Deal, and you were pulled your weight by joining the ladies who worked in the shops lining the street. He was always complaining about how you and the ladies were slackers, and skeptic on whether or not you all actually did anything.

You tended to a clothes shop, and he entered with the air of a boss or CEO coming to inspect how well you were working. He had clearly came in ready to accuse you of doing nothing, and with somewhat good reason, as when he entered the clothes were unkempt and you were idly hanging around.

A dress had fallen from a hanger on a rack, and he eyed it, before turning to you. “Do you do anything in here?”

You crossed your arms across your chest with a ‘hmph’. “Uhm, yes!” You said matter-of-factly.

Clearly not satisfied with your answer, he gestured to the dress on the floor.

“Then why is this here?”

“What is this, an interrogation?!” You guffawed, “you know, this job is harder than you think! It isn’t that easy.”

He raised a brow as if saying, ‘oh, really?’, before he bent down and picked up the dress in one motion, saying, “you’re right - it isn’t that easy.” Hanging it on the rack, he then turned to you. “It’s this easy.”

He seemed arrogant, knowing he’d proved you wrong. You felt like a shriveled up sponge underneath his stare, and froze. A squeak of embarrassment left you, and the two of you engaged in eye contact for a prolonged amount of time. It had lasted for so long, he began to view his reflection in the black of your pupils, and the silence was only interrupted by your sudden and stifled, “pfft!”

You covered your mouth with your hand, but that couldn’t hide your chuckles, or the way your shoulders hopped up and down humorously. He blanched.

“What in the world is so funny?”

“I don’t know,” you smiled, “something about you is just funny.” His demeanor was still cold, but you had began to warm up, like melted butter. The edges of your lips turned upwards naturally, taut into a smile by strings of glee, and your smile ran all the way to your eyes. Samuel’s shoulders slumped, and he seemed somehow offended.

Taking a step closer to you, he glared at you. “I’m not funny - I’m the new leader of Big Deal, and your superior.”

You kept your giddy expression. “No - you’re funny, and inviting, aaaaaaand my friend?”

Samuel Seo was always conviniently good at separating beauty from the person. When he saw a pretty girl, or a handsome guy, and liked them - they were beautiful, but he separated their looks from the person. But the source of your beauty came from your person - and you weren’t beautiful, but beauty became you. His eyes widened a fraction at what seemed to be a proposal of friendship, and he blew air out of his nose frustratedly, not sparing you another glance as he left your little shop. You watched his leaving form with a delighted countenance. And that was how you and Samuel Seo truly met each other.

When it came to the receiver of love, it could be hard to tell if someone was expressing camaraderie or wanting of something more. However, from an outsiders’ perspective, it was rather easy to pick up on - and in this case, that outsider was Sinu Han.

There was a look of adoration like no other in your eyes when you’re in love, and that twinkle of endearment was in Jake’s eyes every time he turned to you. The smile on his lips formed itself when you were near, chatting away at him endlessly, and he would merely nod and listen - absorbing your words with a contented look. Like being with you was living a long, fulfilling life in every conversation.

You were crouched on the floor and spooning at the Chinese food from one of the shops in the neighborhood when Sinu’s line of vision spied Jake approaching you, and he grinned, recalling what he was like young and in love - and deciding to give Jake a push, quite literally.

Sinu’s hand pressed against his back, his foot shifting in front of Jake’s to force him to fall. His expression grew panicked as he fell, and a shocked cry left him - causing you to turn around just in time to readjust yourself further back - albeit not back enough. He tumbled down atop of you, one hand breaking his fall and keeping him levitating over you by your head, the other by your lower body.

“Ah - sorry,” he apologized flatly, like his voice and the need to talk was forgotten, the two of you staring at eachother intently. You nodded, mumbling an “it’s okay” plainly, eyes darting back and forth to match his. His face blanched, and then grew red, and the stammer of words lost as soon as they met your lips was your tell of flustered ness. You’d get up - had his hands not caged you on the floor, and you just engaged in eye contact until Sinu slapped him on the back encouragingly.

“Atta boy, Jake!” He said teasingly, simpering. “I didn’t know you were so interested in (y/n). But get a room!”

This seemed to break your shared trance, and he pulled himself up off of you cleanly. “Sorry, (y/n),” he apologized, sending a glare to Sinu behind him, who gave him a non-discreet thumbs up. He could say Sinu tripped him and let you know he didn’t fall on top of you, but that could risk revealing his feelings if you inquired why he’d tripped him over you, so he resorted to a little white lie.

“I didn’t mean to fall on top of you. My bad.”

You shook your hand dismissively, “it’s fine, it’s fine. No harm done.” You said, immediately moving onto another topic - inviting him to eat with you, though it was more like you telling him he would, and he nodded an ‘okay’.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be right back, (y/n).” He excused himself briefly, unaware of the two narrowed eyes following the two of you, who’d seen the whole thing.

Samuel didn’t like the way your name rolled off Jake’s tongue.

He didn’t want to hear it coming from him again.

Samuel had come into your shop indignantly after noticing you and Jake, and sat on the couch by the window without saying a thing to you. When you’d noticed him, you’d greeted him casually, and sat besides him on the couch - noticing two golden knuckle-bracelets caching the light of the sun filtering through.

Absentmindedly, you grabbed his hand and played with the golden accessories, namely the one on his left hand. He hadn’t noticed you pull out a marker with a head full of air when he opened his mouth and began to talk, enjoying the way you fiddled with his fingers.

“Your relationship with Jake. What is it?”

You didn’t pause whatever you were doing with his hand, “we’re best friends. Why?”

He soaked in that information, brooding, pensive. “...” He was hesitant to say what he was going to say next, and whilst the first half of the sentence fell out of his mouth his eyes drifted to your hands and his, “and what are w- are you coloring my ring with marker?”

You snapped up at the furious tone in his voice which he kept controlled, filtering it through hard and impactful words forced out through gritted teeth. Immediately your hands stopped, and you recoiled a bit. “Is that- bad…? I thought it was just a little accessory…”

His brows furrowed downwards angrily, “of course it’s bad, this is a knuckle ring! It’s for fighting! What opponent is gonna be intimidated by someone with a knuckle ring which says-“ he paused to read whatever you’d wrote on his knuckle ring with squinted eyes, “-which says (y/n)!”

You shrunk back into yourself. “Does it wash o-“

You didn’t get to finish your sentence as he began to rub against the marker, the ink not budging. “No! It doesn’t!”

You seemed to be consumed by guilt, “I’m so-“

“Being sorry doesn’t do you a thing.” He cut you off coldly, slumping back against the couch in furious thought. You could see he was absorbing the situation, and he was breathing heavily in anger - so you just sat silently, lips forming an uncertain line.

After a few breaths, he seemed to cool down - and spying the expression on your face which was ridden with regret, he sighed. “... it’s fine.”

Your eyes widened. “Really? But you were so mad.” You frowned.

“I can always buy new ones if need be. Plus, if I have someone’s name on my ring… it makes my opponent think I have a significant other, or something and it-“ he coughed awkwardly, “well, it makes it seem like I have someone to fight for. And that makes me seem all the more dangerous, right?”

You chuckled, the sun pouring in highlighting the side of your face and bedecking your smile, your hands clenched into fists at your knees, still shaken from his small outburst. “... You know how you’re always going don’t interrupt me to people, and hate being talked over?” You asked, standing up to look over his sitting person, “well, you interrupted me, you know. Twice. While you were yelling.” You had a cheeky, playful grin, “what a hypocrite.” You were clearly joking, the sun setting you alight.

He blinked slowly at you, before chuckling. “... You’re right. I did.”

Specks of dust became stagnant under the sun’s glare, making the scene between the two of you dreamy, and time felt like it had come to a standstill. The clock stopping for you two.

He grabbed your hand which rested at your side, and lifted it to the side of his face. “You get two free hits, then,” his eyes never left yours despite his movement, “you can hit me twice.”

You leaned in closer to him, crouching slightly. “No, I don’t want to do that,” you said, trance-like.

“I don’t hit people when I’m mad.”

That was a direct critique to his ways and habits, and he seemed hypnotized, both of you luring the other closer. “Oh? Then what do you do when you’re angry?” He asked, leaning in. You mirrored the action.

“You wouldn’t get to know right now, because I’m not angry at you.” You said.

“Then what are you at me?”

Your noses nearly brushed against each other, and your eyes nearly blinked close in unison before you pulled away abruptly, tapping his nose. “You’ll never know.” Like the teetering push and pull of waves on an ocean against a boat, you and him got closer and farther with each interaction, and it felt like the next time, the boat would rock forwards, and be submerged by the waters entirely.

—

“We’re both in love, so I should be the leader of Big Deal. I’ll follow more closely in your footsteps.” Samuel’s words were unconvincing, and Sinu Han blinked languidly, amused.

“You’re in love?” He said, as if hadnt been able to tell already. Samuel felt superior to Jake in this, it felt like him and Sinu had something Jake didn’t - but unbeknownst to him, this feeling was just as close to Jake as it was to him.

“Well, watch out - because you’re not the only one.” He chirped, and Samuel paused.

“... What?”

The incentive to hate Jake had never burnt so passionately, and Sameul let his words process in his mind before he formed a response. “Jake may be in love with whoever, but as for me, I’m in love with someone who’s in love with me as well.” He felt there was a sense of kinship between him and Sinu thanks to this, but the man wasn’t moved.

“Being in love has nothing to do with being a leader. If anything, it makes it harder, wouldn’t you think?”

Samuel’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “I have something Jake doesn't - isn’t that enough?! I’ve bested him in this. I’m one step closer to you!”

Sinu shook his head with a dry laugh. “Don’t get too cocky about that - what you’re prideful about is gonna end up being your downfall.” Sinu has no idea how right he was.

Samuel’s lips formed a frown as Sinu began to walk away, cutting off the conversation abruptly, but he still felt a sense of superiority to Jake.

Jake had everything. Sinu’s favoritism, Samuel’s rightful dad, but what Jake actually wanted Sameul was sure was his - and he wanted it, too.

Jake Kim had everything Samuel Seo wanted - besides you. (At least, that’s what HE thought).

Upon the arrival of Goo and Gun, and the rush to gain money fast, time with you wasn’t as often as before. The rest of Big Deal, unaware of the relationship growing between you and Samuel, weren’t giving you any leniency when it came to the need for money - and pressed for you to do whatever it took to gain come cash, ethical or not.

This pressure for you to pull your own weight was carried on behind your back, too. Since it was unbeknownst to them of your budding relationship with Sameul, there was the illusion of free speech when it came to anyone not immediately present. Two nameless faces talked of you whilst you were absent, facing eachother.

“Does (y/n) do anytning? I get the ladies don’t do much, but they’re barely pulling a few cents in weekly. They’re either a horrible salesman, or just slacking off twenty four-seven.”

“They really need to start earning their keep…”

One of the two gossiping of you chortled, “the only way they could finally catch up to how much they need to make is if they whor-“

A face suddenly planted itself between the two, obstructing their view of eachother. Both swallowed dryly at the familiar intervener. “Samuel-“

He smiled uncharacteristically sweetly, a saccharine tug on his lips that was sickeningly artificial. “Who are you two talking about?”

“Uhh,” they struggled to find the words, but one of the two gossipers gulped down and grew the courage. Surely he felt the same - they saw the way he talked about the ladies behind their back, and what they should start doing to earn money, and surely you were no exception. “(Y/n). They run the clothes shop that barely makes anything.”

The lines on the edges of his lips twitched. “What were you saying just no-“

“Oh, we were just talking about how they need to start earning more. Maybe selling into pro-“

THUD

With a pained cry, one of the two bad-mouthers hit the floor; looking up with a wince to see Samuel’s fist clenched where his face one was. A brass knuckle coated his fingers, another one on his resting hand displaying a name engraved.

Your name.

“One. Don’t interrupt me.” Samuel sent them a glower. “Two. Never say (y/n)’s name again.”

It was that day he realized he truly hated your name falling off anyone’s lips but his. His smile was long gone, an indifferent look now across his facial features.

From that day on, Samuel Seo gained two quirks - of sorts; he hated people interrupting him.

And he hated people saying your name.

In his frustration, the next time he was offered a break, he chose to utilize it to the fullest - and visit you.

The small walk to your shop wasn’t time consuming in the slightest, and he was there in an instant. But he wasn’t greeted by the sight of you, alone, tending slowly to the clothes and hanging an assortment of shirts and tops on hangers. Instead, he came across you. And Jake.

Laughing.

He should’ve known - for whatever reason, he’s thought differently. Maybe it was the sunrise always entering through your large glass display which made his thoughts blurry and incoherent, or the way he didn’t dwell on unpleasant things when around you that he wasn’t able to realize you didn’t only ever smile like that to him. He’d convinced himself it was reserved for him, but you playfully judged Jake’s shoulder and batted your eyes, and he drew a conclusion which was far from correct. He thought the two of you were in love. But now, it was glaring at him in the face.

You were in love with Jake.

How he came to this decision for you, who knows - but the first thing that came into his mind when he saw how you and him looked at eachother in this sunset was love, and he told himself that was the case - the truth. Like a drug, love drives you crazy; and when divided into three, it’s a natural-born killer.

He felt betrayed, for whatever reason. You hadn’t promised Samuel Seo a thing, and yet it’d felt like that day in the pretty sunlight you and him had given eachother your lives. It felt like it was staring him in the face the whole time - of course you loved Jake; you guys were friends for longer. Sinu Han cheered him on in his pursuits of you, and it seemed blatant now that Samuel reflected on it. He wondered if Sinu cheered Jake on because he knew you liked him, or if he just liked Jake better.

Whatever it was, he realized one thing.

Jake Kim had everything Samuel Seo wanted.

In a fit of anger, and confusion, Samuel scouted the nearest girl in the vicinity - the one wearing a leopard print over a pair of overalls, with a short hair cut. His hands gripped her shoulders, and only one thought ran through his mind as he did what he did next - he wanted to make you feel as bad as you’d made him.

He wanted you to feel just as betrayed.

And then, his lips met hers; with a struggling gasp from her. The action was dramatic enough to draw the attention of you and Jake, and you froze in place, shoulders rising in shock. A million emotions swirled in your eyes at once, and your brows arched upwards sadly, like you’d come to a horrible yet uncertain realization. Your mouth still formed a small frown as it fell open.

“Samuel-“ your hands reached out to him despite being afar, like you wanted to wrap him into your palm and close your fist on him. “-what are you doing…?”

From the tone of shock and utter confusion in your tone, it was clear that you both had believed you had something going on between the two of you - to Jake’s chagrin. He narrowed his eyes at Samuel and angry lines formed between his eyes.

Your voice was like a hand which pulled him off from her, and Samuel stood to full height - the girl he’d kissed stumbling aback in surprise, and huffing angrily; turning tail the other way. You were too focused on Samuel to notice how the kiss wasn’t even consensual, and when he locked eyes with you, he leaned back tauntingly.

“What?” He asked, tone as cold as ice.

“I thought we were…?” Your expression was indecipherable. He laughed humorlessly.

“What are you talking about?” His eyes squinted at you, jeeringly. “You think I’m just tied down to you-? It’s just like my dad said. A real man loves his ladies.”

By your side, you could feel Jake go rigid; and his lips formed a scowl briefly. The words he hated, which were directed to his mom, someone he loved - were now directed towards you; and he swallowed a sense of dread, which dropped in his stomach like a weight. He wouldn’t let it happen again. Especially not to you - never to you. He wouldn’t let you be told those words ever again.

You wouldn’t be told the words he told her.

Wasting no time, Jake leapt onto Samuel, tackling him to the ground. He grabbed him by the cuff of his collar.

“What the fuck is your problem?!”

A loud smack resounded, and Jake fell to the side when Samuel’s fist collided with his face - his right hand lifted in the after motion. A sick grin crawled onto his face, “you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that, Jake!” He exclaimed.

“You’re no man,” Jake wiped the specks of dust which collected at the side of his mouth from impact with the floor with his wrist. Without any hast, Samuel climbed on top of him and a series of thuds revertabrated from below him as he sent punch after punch rolling to his face.

Jake’s arms crept up along the sides of Samuel until they landed on his torso, and he flipped the two so that he was on top of him. From behind, you could see drops of blood fall from Jake’s face, and felt a fear instilled in you.

“What?! You’re fighting me to defend that whore?” Samuel asked with a laugh. “Well, whatever! Enjoy my sloppy seconds!”

You were flabbergasted. “But we never-“

“Shut up!” Jake’s fist raised high and came descdending down to Samuel’s face, and you decided you couldn’t stand to watch any longer - wishing you’d had the resolve to do this the moment the two began to brawl.

“I hope the two of you live a happy li-,” Samuel said condescendingly, as if he were looking down on the two of you, and you ripped Jake off of him, him stumbling aback while you bent over Samuel, turning furious eyes to him.

“What’s going on?! What is going on with you?”

Samuel stood to his feet, lifting himself up with a propped elbow, and his hand raised above his head. “Don’t-“

You knew what was coming next, reciting the phrase in your head. Don’t interrupt me. Was he really going to hit you-?

Jake watched with horrified eyes as his hand was brought down to you, and moved to intervene as you braced for impact; yelling a “don’t touch them,” but rather than a punch, he just landed his hand on the side of your face gently. You blinked your eyes open confusedly, seeing the sunset paint his sorrowful smile a despairing orange.

“- interrupt me.” His left hand stayed on the side of your head, and you stammered.

“Wha... what even- what’s with that look?! You just-!”

“I…” he started, a sad glimmer in his eyes, “don’t hit people I like when I’m angry.”

“Wha-“ you were getting whiplash from the sudden change in temper, when a hand wrapped around your shoulder from behind - and you looked back at Jake. He nodded at you, gesturing for the two of you to go - and you spared one last look at Samuel before following Jake, who spared him one last glare before leaving with you.

It was an odd thing to notice, but Samuel’s left fist was unscathed - as was the brass knuckle around it.

You didn’t see much of Samuel Seo after that - and until the end, Jake Kim got everything Samuel Seo ever wanted.

Not soon afterwards, things began to get confusing for you, and in a sudden turn of events, Jake was appointed to be the leader of Big Deal. And despite being up in the hierarchy now and meant to keep his lips shut under lock and key, that didn’t stop him from confiding in you.

“Sinu Han lied about selling Big Deal… and sold himself?” You recited what he’d just told you as a question, and he nodded, watching your eyes straiten in disbelief.

“That freaking bastard! Why not just tell us what happened?” You voiced your frustration, blowing out a steam of air through your mouth. He simply nodded again.

“...Yeah.”

You looked down at your feet, thoughts clearly racing; and he took a chance. The pads of his fingertips lifted to yours, as if testing the waters, and you looked back at him from beneath lidded eyelids. He pushed his hand further, until your fingers intertwined.

You blinked as if asking what he wants to say, and he leaned in a little bit. “... You know, I’d never sell Big Deal.”

You puffed air into your cheeks, ignorant to his serious air. “You better not.”

He leaned in closer, fiddling with his and your fingers. “And you know, I’d never sell myself.”

You were somewhat taken aback by how much closer he was getting, and just hummed in response this time. Taking a leap of faith, he leant in one last inch closer to you.

“And you know… I’d never leave you.”

Then, he closed the only distance between the two of you.

That was how you and Jake Kim finally got together.

—

Years later, rumors floated around that you began to attend J High. Your boyfriend was apparently in Juvie for the time being, and you seemed to be carrying on alright without him.

These rumors weren’t exempt from reaching even Samuel Seo - who was now a part of the workers.

Before him, a student sat. Daniel Park. The interview he was conducting with him was certainly interesting to say the least, and after asking if he’d somehow insulted the bespectacled boy before him, he noticed Daniel’s eyes linger on his name tag.

“Your name is… Samuel Seo?” He asked, and Samuel nodded as a response, hands folded together professionally.

“Yes. Wh-“

He shook his head, as if trying to brush off a memory arising. “Oh, nothing, there’s just this student at my school who’s mentioned you before… (y/n). I thought you were their boyfriend in Juvie from how much they mentioned you.” He smiled bashfully, but Samuel’s eyes went bloodshot. A dark shadow swept across his expression, and Daniel leaned back when Samuel rocked forward intimidatingly.

“Don’t interrupt me. And don’t say (y/n)‘s name.”

The rest of that day, after that mention of your name, Samuel was unusually distressed.

And it felt almost nostalgic to his Big Deal days when a handful of days and nights later, Daniel was before him - the large, taller Daniel, and the two were both in ready positions to fight.

Samuel slid his brass knuckle onto his right hand, his hair falling back into place like how it was styled during his Big Deal days. “Why do you think I’m not getting their approval?” He asked Daniel, “what’s the reason they won’t approve of me? That they both chose Jake?”

Immediately, a punch was sent to Daniel’s face with the hand wrapped in gold, but Daniel got back up. “So, it was a brass knuckle… that thing I saw in that place was a knuckle. I wondered why it had (y/n)’s name on it, but that also let me know it was undeniably yours. I knew it… I’m smart… it’s a good thing… that I…” Samuel watched as Daniel lifted his left brass knuckle, and slid it onto his fingers, your name displayed across the indents in the brass with permanent marker from al” those years ago. “...kept it.”

Daniel continued, “So then, let’s-“

Samuel cut him off. “What the heck. I was wondering where the other one went! Hey, my only other rule around here-“ he grinned maniacally. It seemed like Samuel Seo only had two rules, but it was actually three - three things which you don’t do around or to him.

You don’t interrupt him.

You don’t say (y/n)‘s name.

And-

“-you don’t touch my left knuckle!”

(Unedited)

This ended up so long, I rlly hope it was what you wanted LMAO if it wasn’t go ahead and shoot me another rq saying how u actually wanted it. Thank u sm for requesting!!!! 💘 also sorry of the format is weird, I copy and pasted to tumblr and that oddly enough made the indents in paragraphs wonky...

#Jake Kim x reader #Samuel Seo x reader #Lookism x reader #Webtoon x reader #Jake Kim #Samuel Seo

397 notes · View notes

webcricket · 5 years

Text

Winter’s Eye

Pairing: Apocalypseverse CastielXReader Word Count: 1170 (Ch. I) Summary: Season 13 canon tells you how AU!Castiel’s story ends, this is how it begins. The deranged and damaged iteration of Castiel we met in the apocalypse universe - an obedient soldier to Michael’s cause barely in control of his vessel’s frayed and erratically firing nerves whose inherent kindness toward humankind appeared entirely obliterated - wasn’t always an unfeeling angelic weapon of interrogation. Once, he sympathized with the plight of humans; one, he loved. A/N: Multi-chapter origin and love story. No happy ending here, folks; just a bittersweet illustration of an angel’s devotion and the sacrificial ends he pursues to protect the object of his affection.

Series Masterlist

I. Stillness, an eerie shroud of silence, and new-fallen snow blanket the surrounding forest in a solid sea of white as far as the hindrance of heavily moisture-laden flakes - floating so slowly downward to rest upon the scorched earth as to seem to swath a sparkling curtain across the grayly apocalypse- lit sky - allow perception to penetrate. The purity of this storm subdues the smolder of destruction resulting from another - that of the end of humanity. In the all out fratricide between Lucifer and Michael, then the further lust of the latter victorious archangel for power in the absence of God’s guidance or intervention, what wasn’t destroyed in felling the devil for the final time, survived only to burn: A divinely wrought and prophesied Hell on Earth.

The silhouette of a soldier, squarely plodding an unseen path through the white-wash wilderness with black-gloved hands shoved deep in the pockets of a dark woolen overcoat, pierces the blizzard’s veil; ice crystals mantle the thick hood of lashes shielding eyes that shine in bright blue defiance of the colorless landscape.

Castiel cares little for the bitter wind blasting the handsomely hewn countenance he wears. Howl mournfully lamenting the fate of the world as it careens through the leafless canopy of trees to hurl up frigid walls in every direction of his stiffly-gaited step, the incorporeally frozen blockades of breeze bite at his vessel’s stubble and frost coated cheeks; the relentless buffeting tints the exposed tanned expanse of skin with a pale wash of pink. Like the beige military uniform stretching broad shoulders, the body is borrowed - a prison for the celestial being entrenched within fighting his own battle.

The angel’s focus lies inward; he ruminates over the reasons for his exile - banished with wings clipped as punishment to walk these woods for openly sympathizing with humans, for defying Michael’s orders to murder them en masse, and for inciting rebellion amongst his brethren by daring to question the righteousness of his brother’s actions toward their Father’s favored children when they were supposed to be their protectors.

Castiel - too much heart, crack in his chassis, loyal to the last to his Creator’s purpose - led his garrison, and others who would join him in the early chaos, against Michael’s uprising army; the defeat against such a foe who held the high ground of Heaven’s gate as its first son was as swift as it was absolute; but Castiel hoped the stand itself would plant a seed - would nurture the idea in his kin that they have a choice, that they can wield free will and direct fate to right an immense wrong just as readily as a blade. Shepherds do not slaughter sheep.

Angels, however, have a fatalistic tendency to be drawn like moths to flame, blinded by demonstrations of raw power; power, which on Michael’s side reigned supreme over a stolid soldier’s mere words championing them to keep their faith.

Michael considered death - the eternal Empty sleep promised to Heaven’s kind - too peaceful a punishment for the sort of disloyalty exhibited by the likes of Castiel. Wiping out the entirety of Castiel’s garrison one by one with a snap of his fingers, forcing the angel to watch each of his brothers and sisters expire in a smote of swirling dust, and knowing he was the direct cause of their demise, Michael left the broken being alive to serve as an example to others harboring disloyal intent, and more so to let the angel who claimed to feel dwell painfully in personal doubt and guilt over the nature of his defeat.

Castiel might not notice the coolness of the air, yet he nonetheless feels numbed to the celestial core of his being.

You ceased to pay any concern to the cold a very few minutes ago, too, albeit for a different reason. Warmth - nay, intense tingling heat - sparked in your fingertips and gradually spread to your frozen limbs compelling you after a time to drop the damp kindling which you were trying unsuccessfully to coax into a fire by sheer will and friction.

Roving angels seeing signs of surviving human life be damned, an impromptu swim in a not as frozen as it looked river and losing all your supplies as you made your way to a supposed encampment of refugees at the forest’s edge had forced your hand.

Ceding consciousness over to the pervasive soothing seep of warmth, mind too lulled by the temptation of sleep to question the fact it’s physically impossible to get warm in the midst of a blizzard when your clothes are soaked and wicking what remains of your body heat and life away, you sink sideways onto a bed of snow.

It’s there, lying beneath a bare branched oak on the bank of the river, palm upright inches from a pile of branches indicating you endeavored to start a fire, a final flutter of breath and a stubborn beat or two of the heart away from forfeiting your life to the storm, Castiel finds your figure slumped, snow-covered, and at the precipice of perpetual quietude.

The unexpected sight, the first sign of anything living besides himself - a situation that bears a likeness better akin to existing, rather than living - he has seen in months abruptly surfaces him from his darker thoughts of self- loathing.

A test, he suspects; squinting homeward, snowflakes spatter and melt upon the furrow of his upturned brow. Strings of protective instinct thread through his heart, tie into knots, pull taut on the organ, and tighten his chest until it threatens to burst. Even if this is a test, he knows he doesn’t belong there anymore; and he knows he doesn’t want to belong there if being an angel means destruction.

His gaze drops to you; he has nothing left to lose. You, you do.

Moving to crouch beside you, he peers closely into your pallid features. A subtle smile twitches your mouth as some pleasant memory ferries you toward oblivion; another second passes as he stares and relaxation floods your features. He removes the glove hugging his right hand and reaches out. Grasping the top of your shoulder, he rolls you onto your back; your water- logged clothing crackles - an icy sheet beneath his gentle grip. Shifting his touch to your forehead, he closes his eyes and sacrifices enough of his limited reserves of grace to keep your soul from shuffling off its mortal coil.

There’s shelter nearby, a place he goes when the monotony of wandering through these woods wears on him. He lifts you without effort; cradling you carefully, he sets off for the cabin. A sense of purpose and haste lengthen his stride.

For the moment, his sole thought lingers in the realm of awe for the tenacity of humans toward survival. Even in bleakness, in the face of no certain future, no possible stability, alone, and with nothing except the clothes on your back, you tried to create a light by which to survive. Hope lives.

Next Chapter: II

#castiel x reader #au!castiel #au!castiel x reader #castiel x you #castiel reader insert #spn x reader #reader x castiel #cas x reader #cas x you #you x castiel #castiel #castiel imagine #castiel fanfiction #spn fanfiction #cricket writes cas

62 notes · View notes

lord-archon · 5 years

Text

“Where..”

This post is in response to another event, detailed here! https://thesuncouncil.shivtr.com/forum_threads/3121945

..The Archmage asked rhetorically, after she’d answered the knock on her door, and being none too thrilled by it either since she’d just returned her wife and child home from their daughter’s appointment at the clinic as a follow up, now that she was coming up on a month in age. “The Violet Hold, Archmage,” the veiled Kirin Tor Guardian responded, slinking backwards ever so slightly in response to the shadowy venom lacing the one worded inquiry. “Did you get a name.. on the Silver Covenant upstart?” she asked now, stepping forward and closing the door behind her, so as not to perturb her family as they settled back in at home. “Belthin Dayforge, ma’am. Cleric, Priestly type. Was one of those a bit more enthused to partake in.. well..” the Guardian began, of course alluding the infamous Purge of Dalaran following the Horde’s use of their portal network in order to abscond the Divine Bell during the War in Pandaria.

“..That’ll be all.” Shakiena said, dismissing the Guardian with a wave of her hand, before returning back inside to continue spending precious time with her family before she’d tend to matters involving this.. Belthin Dayforge. The Archon knew there were some in the Silver Covenant that were all too thrilled with being given anything resembling justification to oust their elven cousins from the Violet City.. Shakiena herself having been Quel’dorei prior to her transition was all too aware of how many of her ilk at the time felt for the Sin’dorei and their ‘fall from grace’ following the events of the Scourging of Quel’thalas at the hands of Arthas Menethil, whom resorted to pragmatic means in an effort to survive and stave off withering into shambling shells of their former selves.. begging for even the tiniest source of magic, or going so far as to extract mana from the very bones of their healthier brothers and sisters.

Several hours later.. dusk had fallen, and only the luminescence of lamplight glittered across the Violet City’s skyline and streets, mostly just.. Guardian’s of the Kirin Tor and shopkeepers closing up for the night, with some less sightly denizens of the flying city creeping their way towards the entrances to the Underbelly to partake in whatever vices could be bribed out of sight of the less favorable and more corruptible Guardians stationed below with a currency that had incredible underground and black market value; namely: ‘Sightless Eyes’. Shakiena, to her own unspoken fortune, had partaken in several bouts in the Underbelly herself, garnering herself the moniker ‘Shackle’ by those unfortunate enough to have crossed blades and contested with her in magical duels when she was off duty, and in dire need of blowing off some steam in the form of her second favorite pass-time prior to her engagement and subsequent marriage to her beloved student, Luella Lightwhysper. The Underbelly, however.. was not her destination this eve, however. No.. this.. Belthin Dayforge.. was a problem. No doubt there’d need to be questions of the Sin’dorei involved in the confrontation, especially since it involved a very specific faction of Sin’dorei that partook in the political intrigues of Silvermoon. The Sun Council, headed by the Magister Bey’ron Everblaze, whom she’d had the fortunate and equal misfortune to know all too well to be a cunning and all too devious practitioner of Fire and Fel magics. She loathed the fact that he and his party were a part of this.. whatever it was, and the Archon had already begun mentally preparing that particular conversation she’d assuredly be having with the Magister following the events that would transpire this night. Station to station did Shakiena teleport to throughout the City, collecting any and all information on this particularly zealous agent of the Alliance’s former denizens of the Silver Enclave; now aptly named the Greyfang Enclave now that the Silver Covenant was no longer the primary representative of the Alliance’s interests in Dalaran. She was able to collect far more than she expected, and far more quickly just as well, what with the Silver Covenant’s storied history in Dalaran following the rebuilding of the fabled magical capital of Azeroth. Belthin Dayforge, as per most zealots, was not a particularly careful individual. Cited numerous times for instances of Disturbing Neutrality among Sin’dorei whom still resided in Dalaran, and kept in holding cells on several occasions for other disorderly conducts. Alas.. this made it all too easy for Shakiena to sort out his location, and he was still very.. very close to home here in Dalaran. Residing in a small alcove of Greyfang Enclave dedicated to what few Silver Covenant decided to stay following their fall from favor among the Kirin Tor elite.

He was home, too, the fool. She could smell incense burning from several yards out from his front door, and with her alert elven ears she could hear him speaking. “Prayers.. how quaint..” the entropic Archon mused aloud at his front door, before rapping her knuckles against the heavy wooden surface.. before slipping into a veil of invisibility as the doorknob turned, and the heavy planks of the gateway into the home of Belthin Dayforge creaked open..“Hello..? He- hello?” his typical musically inclined elven vocals asked to what appeared to him as empty air, but was in fact to the voiceless specter of Archmage Shakiena Stillwater, shrouded in the arcane.. as she slipped past and into the former Silver Covenant’s safest space.. his home. Carefully she traipsed about as the buffoon stood in his empty doorway, clearly puzzled by the absence of anyone actually present to consider trickery and deception. Room to room she went, perusing his studies, his kitchen and living areas where all traces of his livelihood here gave the impression that aside from his grievances with the City State of Dalaran, he seemed to live rather comfortably for someone making habits of ignoring the neutrality of the governing authorities. The sounds of a door closing and dragging footsteps echoed throughout the abode, then trailed their way back towards a particular study Shakiena hadn’t yet peered in to. A religious cove dedicated to his following the Light. The Guardian did say he was a Clerical type, a.. ‘Battle Priest’.. as they were sometimes called. As Shakiena stood now as a Ren’dorei, this particular individual would likely view her being anywhere near this holy place as a desecration, and that.. oh.. that did bring a smile to her masked lips. She waited.. waited until the cleric returned into his little holy alcove, waited for him to kneel at his candlelit altar to begin his prayers anew.. before snuffing the candles out with a mere wave of her hand.. stripping the entire household of it’s illumination via curtains of shadowy sorcery, immediately sending the cleric into a state of surprise, and panic!

“I would hold.. very.. very still, good sir..” the Archon said aloud at last, revealing her presence verbally at least, and dropping the shroud of invisibility, allowing only her eyes to be a source of light in the shadows that mirrored a modicum of her intent.. The elf stumbled, clearly far too startled by the presence of another in the darkness, and startled furthermore by the presence of the Archon’s glowing cerulean orbs, before his eye would be caught by the illumination of arcane rings forming around Shakiena’s hands and wrists as she raised them palms facing up to be level with the height of her chest.“IN the name of the HOLY LIGHT, I DEMAND THAT YO-!” the male started, before being abruptly cut off as Shakiena’s right palm jutted out, and slammed into the cleric’s larynx, silencing them before they could utter a spell that could even remotely contend with the Archon’s modestly carefully planned out approach, or reveal her full countenance via some form of illumination to the zealot that would give away her allegiance as a Kirin Tor Archmage very deliberately invading the home of one of its citizens. “Have a seat, sir,” Shakiena said, jutting out her left deftly, emitting a wave of force that buckled the Silver Covenant’s biggest fan’s knees, forcing him into a kneeling position before her as he grasped at his throat, wheezing his breaths out as he attempted, but failed to speak. “Belthin Dayforge, you have been found guilty..” the Archmage started, allowing a moderate amount of light to lift up through the artificial darkness she’d created to stand in contrast with her coy inflection, while maintaining the shadows directly adhering to her personage and keep all but her eyes obscured from view. “..Of breaking the Laws of Neutrality set forth by the governing Council of Six established and cemented during the Burning Legion’s Third Invasion and opening of the Tomb of Sargeras.. and.. of smuggling dangerous magical artifacts among its citizens..” she said, crouching down in front of the struggling cleric, and slipping into one of his pockets a very particular package.. laced with shadow -and- fel magics.. rectangular in shape.. the exact item she’d been handed a few days prior by another Guardian of the Kirin Tor, but.. with a slightly altered magical signature, so as not to appear completely identical. “I.. Archmage Shakiena Stillwater..” she started again, this time lifting the veil of shadows adhering to her to bring forth her true self in -every- sense of the word: her Kirin Tor allegiance, the shadows natural to her as a child of the Void that coiled around her fingers in harmony with the arcane rings still ever present. “..Place thee, Belthin Dayforge under immediate arrest.. by the powers vested in me by the unanimous trust of the Council of Six.. under arrest, and sentenced to immediate imprisonment until a proper trial by a carefully select forum of peers can be assembled.” Belthin’s eyes widened, he was.. shocked! Appearing flabbergasted and utterly betrayed by the setup taking place as he stared angrily into the Ren’dorei’s cerulean irises, attempting to sputter his rage but unable to through his paralyzed vocal chords. “But.. considering the fact you’ll miss your appointed date..” she started again, caressing the tear dribbled cheek of the enraged elf with the back of her hand, giving an avenue for the shadowy tendrils surrounding her fingers to lacerate the supple and soft flesh. “..A warrant will be put out for your arrest.. and you will be held accountable.. for ALL actions! Past and present, in violation of the Violet City’s laws!” she hissed out, leaning forward to let the stinging words slither into his elven ears, which perked up as he sensed the sudden and overwhelming presence of cold, dark magic manifest at his feet.. before he slipped into nonexistance.. of Light.. of reality..

“Oh.. oh dear..” the Archmage said aloud, with a heavy helping of sarcasm, “Seems we’ve another one meddling with dark magics beyond their control again.. real shame how some fall so fast when attempting to control what they do not understand..” she said, sealing up the void rift she’d conjured beneath Belthin Dayforge, and through which he fell to float in the purgatory of darkness that made the Void what it was. “Let it be known, dear Belthin Dayforge..” she said to the final traces of dark magic dissipating from the ground where the Quel’dorei had once knelt, “That.. an ill fate befalls those.. who never.. ever learn..” And with those parting words.. Shakiena Stillwater exited the way she came, cloaked in invisibility until she was well out of sight of the unknowingly disappeared Belthin Dayforge’s home, before slipping back into the Tower where she and her beloved family resided, where she would go and lay with her wife.. and fall fast asleep. @lordbeyron @thesuncouncil

3 notes · View notes

askthecivilian · 5 years

Text

Splint Ends

(or Laptop’s official story submission this semester and thinly veiled Omega/Civilian fanfiction)

Christa hadn't realized she liked girls until she met Alex.

Perhaps “met” is too simple of a word.

Christa hadn’t realized she like girls until, on an early morning in Brooklyn, she bulldozed straight through an unsuspecting woman, mid-stride, after not looking where she was going and knocked them both flat on the slightly damp concrete.

She had apologized profusely, helping the other woman to her feet. A quick smile, then off she ran, ignoring the fluttering feeling in her chest. Couldn’t be late. She had barely gotten this secretary job as is.

The next day she promptly almost did it again, but the blonde woman quickly side-stepped and winked, humor lighting up her countenance. Christa just about died of embarrassment but ran on, the heat in her cheeks mixing with the pink flush the chill air whipped up. How the other woman was wearing shorts and a t-shirt in the autumn chill, she had no idea.

It took her a month of running past her on the same route to work up the courage to talk to her. “Alex,” she learned.

It took another month of casual talk and quick meet-ups on the street to agree to meet more often.

Three months later, Christa realized she was completely and totally in love.

The moment her boss realized, she was quickly and quietly fired from her job.

Christa hadn’t realized that her existence was a dirty thing that needed to be kept secret until she met Alex.

----

Love had always been a strange but familiar concept to Alex.

She loved to run. She loved to live. She loved fresh snow and warm drinks and good cuts of meat.

But she didn’t usually apply love to a person. She wasn’t even sure if she loved herself.

She did like herself. She was scruffy and that was that.

She was sure that her love could be given to anyone if she liked them enough too.

She also knew people thought that was wrong.

Alex had learned from a very young age, in a very small family, in a very small town, in the middle of New Mexico that being a woman, liking women, loving women, and being scruffy were all considered bad things.

Alex decided from a very young age that people were the worst.

Not Christa, though.

---

Christa was good in a way most people never were, Alex thought. She was the type of person that learned your favorite food just to take you to lunch. She’d run odd errands for people with only their gratitude as payment and give what money she made as a secretary at the local publishing house to those who had even less.

Alex thought she was a Woman, with a capital W. Tall and willowy, blue eyes and a shy grin and short black curls that she pinned back behind her ears.

Alex thought she was beautiful and everything she wasn’t.

Christa still had her parents and still had her choice. A choice that Alex’s parents had made for her.

That was fine, though. She would wait for Christa to make her choice.

So when Christa came home one day with a broken look and told her- “I lost my job,” Alex felt horribly furious and horribly guilty and horribly selfish.

---

Alex was bad in a way people never embraced, Christa thought.

She took glee in breaking norms and rules and expectations, but never in a harmful way.

She was the type of person who shoplifted bread and water bottles to take to a friend she’d made living on a street corner. She fed crumbs to pigeons and crows, pet every stray dog or cat she could find and constantly went barefoot in establishments, all with the same rascally grin.

She was unkempt and kept her hair in long golden tangles that Christa gently chided her over. She hated the constraints of “women’s clothing” and had shunned bras and dresses alike altogether. She embraced the new age with open arms and eagerly took to New York and the chaos it enveloped and the change it promised like a mutt to a muddy puddle.

She was so comfortable in being herself that Christa envied her. She was a wild force of nature.

And Christa didn’t know how she had gotten so lucky to have her.

---

There were worse places to live than New York.

Sure, the weather was usually awful and traffic was hellish and the concrete jungle was generally underwhelming to fault. But Christa knew the streets of Brooklyn like the back of her hand, and the rough calluses and contours of Alex’s hand as well as her well-trod paths of the streets.

Snow was heavy this year and their walk back to their apartment from a rare breakfast out was cold and slushy, both women bundled up, Christa significantly more so than Alex.

“I don’t get it,” Christa complained, blowing on her fingers. “You were born in New Mexico. How are you not cold?!”

Alex grinned up at her, breath misting around her face, and stole one of her mitten-ed hands, letting the warmth seep back into the cloth and chilled flesh as she held it.

“Warm blooded, I guess.”

Few people were out, most of them sensible and avoiding tramping about in the middle of December. The paused on a street corner, a newspaper stand close by, making Christa’s face pinch a bit in a bad memory before smoothing the bitterness away.

“Did you hear about the APA ruling?”

Another pair was out, two young men leaning around the newspaper stand, shuffling feet and making small talk to keep warm. Christa absentmindedly listened in as she scanned over the days headlines.

“The one about homos? Yeah. What a load of shit, huh? Faggots will be breeding like crazy now.” The taller one laughed, making a crude hand gesture through his neat leather gloves. “Not a mental illness, my ass.”

Christa’s heart stuttered. She stared at the blurred black and white paper in front of her, familiar pain bleeding up her throat. Alex’s hand froze in her grip as she went still as well, tense energy running down her arm.

“It ain’t natural,” the other agreed, nodding. The tips of his blonde hair curled over his coat collar. “They gonna ask us to fuck dogs next?”

Their dual laughter was raucous and chilling in their genuine amusement.

Alex moved just as the original speaker began his next story, of the “she-male” he’d “shown the light to” behind the bar on 5th. She pulled Christa onwards with quick, seething strides, away from ignorance and hatred that she couldn’t truly protect her from, no matter how hard she tried.

Christa had cried on the day the ruling came out, in their local gay bar, filled to the brim with exuberant cheer and good friends as they celebrated the small victory. Now, she felt like crying for an entirely different reason.

She felt small and afraid.

Christa didn’t hold Alex’s hand the rest of the way home.

---

“Have you ever thought about putting a little more effort into how you look? Lean your head forwards.”

Alex hummed noncommittally as she complied. “What, beyond this haircut? Nah, not really. How short is it going?”

Christa chewed her lip thoughtfully, winding a thick golden lock through her fingers before gently snipping the dry and harsh ends.

“I was thinking to about here,” she said to Alex’s reflection, marking a spot on her mostly-bare collarbone with a light tap. The sun highlighted the movement of her fingers, streaming through the minuscule glass window. Early morning birds could be heard, including the old demanding crow that lived on the roof next to theirs and had learned to tolerate them because of the snacks they plied his favor with. “Long enough to pull back but it shouldn’t get in the way too much. And maybe you should.”

Alex snorted and twitched at the feeling of the comb running through some unchecked tangles.

“I’m serious! I’m not talking about getting dolled up on a regular basis. That’s not you, and I’d never try to change that.” Christa brushed a few fallen clumps of hair off of the towel and let them fall to the floor to be swept up later. Alex really had a thick head of hair that practically overtook her small frame when allowed to roam free and wild as per her usual style.

“But-” she hesitated, lowering the scissors momentarily and resting her hand on Alex’s head. “I know that sometimes it's hard to be yourself.” She ran her fingers through her own thick black curls and met Alex’s eyes in the spotty reflection of the old mirror they shared in their apartment. “Especially when the world doesn’t want us to be ourselves. And sometimes… well it makes me feel better to change to person in the mirror when it feels like I can’t change anything else.”

Alex sighed and caught Christa’s hand as she raised the scissors again to return to her work. “I’m not going anywhere, Bambi.”

“I know! I just- I don’t want to lose you.”

“Hey,” Alex twisted in the chair, reaching up to gently embrace Christa’s face, frowning when she bit her lip and glanced away. Alex’s voice was low and almost feral as she said her piece.

“The world can go fuck themselves. I love you. And you know me,” she huffed wryly for a moment. “ I don’t say that lightly.”

Christa nodded silently, gently turning Alex’s head back to the front so she could tug some more snarls out of her hair, the roughness of the strokes betraying her tumultuous feelings on the conversation.

“Do you ever regret it?” she asked. Her voice was barely above a whisper, the broad tones of her home city mingling with the stillness of outside. Brooklyn and New Mexico were an odd mix, but Alex thought they were fitting.

She and Christa were like that. The hustle and bustle and the vast spaces of nothingness, intertwined. City and wilderness. Christa, on one of the very few times she had let Alex get her drunk, had compared the two of them in that way.

“You’re like my wolf,” she had giggled, barely remembering to speak English through the cheap vodka Alex had stolen from a friend of hers. “My pretty blonde wolf, hunting the poor little deer. You caught me so… so fast!”

“Does that make you a literal Bambi Lesbian?” Alex had cackled in return. And Christa had laughed, tossing her head back, the soft pale skin of her neck and shoulders exposed and gleaming in the dim fluorescent lighting of their apartment.

It had not been the first, or the last time Alex had kissed her, but it perhaps was one of the more memorable.

“It’s 1973, Alex. We’re living in the modern day and-” here Christa’s voice cracked, a hairline fracture in her steady speech “-and I’m terrified. I’m afraid of what could happen- to me, to you, to anyone else we know. Jane got in a fight last week on the way home because someone jumped Ludwig on his way home. And you heard about the murders further down south.”

Her hands slowly gripped through the hair on Alex’s scalp, just shy of painful.

“Why is it wrong to be us?”

Alex hesitated, taking care to gently form her words before releasing them.

“Well, what do you believe?”

Christa’s fingers stilled.

“What?”

“What do you believe?” Alex asked again, trying to keep the steel out of her tone. She hated the world sometimes, hated that religion was so often used to justify hatred over differences. Hated that being different because of who and how you loved was something they saw people being killed over. “You’re Jewish. What does your faith give you about homosexuality?”

The silence was palpable, filtered only by the occasional rough caw out the window.

“We believe that we all deserve love,” Christa whispered. “And that we are not responsible for that in which we had no choice. Everyone deserves that much.”

Faith is difficult. You are not always what you believe. But, maybe sometimes you can believe in who you are.

Alex turned in her seat, ignoring the wet sheen in Christa’s eyes as she wrapped her arms around her, trying to put all the emotions that she didn't know how to word into that simple touch.

“I guess it’s easier for me,” Alex admitted into the shoulder of Christa’s shirt. “I only see the world as plainly as it appears.” She pulled back momentarily and gestured at the sunlight making dappled patterns on the faded tile. “I see the sun and the sky, the trees and the animals, and I see us in them. And if they exist, why can’t we? How could loving you-” she gripped her girlfriend tighter- “be wrong?”

Christa’s head was bowed, dark curls brushing Alex’s nose as her breathing hitched quietly with all the emotions she was swallowing.

“I… don’t understand your God,” Alex admitted rather awkwardly. She shook her head, mussing both her hair and her thoughts. “ But what about Jeremy? Or V? Jessica? We’ve gone to parties with them. I’ve had way too many drinks with Illystria and caught pigeons with Joseph and watched Mari punch and kiss her husband in the same minute. We’re just people, Christa. We do exist. We’ve found our people here.” She bit her lip, wistful smile creeping its way up her face. “Maybe today is not the best. But… there’s always tomorrow. Look how far we’ve come from Stonewall. From just this year!” Alex pulled Christa closer, gently pressing their foreheads together. “The world is what it is. I’m just grateful I’ve found a place to be myself in.”

Because it’s with you, was the phrase neither of them needed to say.

Christa’s laugh was watery.

“I haven’t ever told my parents yet.”

“When you do, I’ll be here right besides you.”

And just like that, the tension in the bathroom broke and washed away like the icy runoff that spilled from frozen rivers after spring had spread her warm wings over the mountain’s peak.

Christa’s hands were warm and solid on the small of her back.

Quick fingers momentarily tugged Alex’s shirt before sweeping her hair off to the side.

“We really do need to get you some non-shredded clothes, though.”

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Schatz, there's holes in everything. Didn’t this shirt use to be pink?

Alex pouted theatrically, earning a slight giggle from Christa as she ruffled the blond bangs still falling unchecked into her face. “You’re picking on me today…”

Christa pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, smiling.

“What, me? Never.”

---

It took time. Change and acceptance are precious gems that are to be cherished and allowed to grow.

But then there was one Hanukkah in a small house in Brooklyn.

“Chag Urim Sameach, Mama und Papa. This is my girlfriend, Alex.”

People mentioned in this story! Because I couldn’t resist.

The Civilian: mine

The Omega: @teamfortressaswell

The Pilot (Jessica): @jessicapilot

The Contractor (V): @marveloustf2

The Helper (Illystria): @askhelper

The Pigeoneer (Joseph): @gwalleyvv

The Melee and the Mafia (Mari and her husband): @tangy-original-sunny-d

#civilian #omega #fanfic

13 notes · View notes

rigelwrites-blog · 5 years

Text

Book Concept: Chapter 1

A proud, navy flag, emblazoned with intricate volute designs stitched from a garish, silver fabric, somnolently undulates in the gentle gust of a dying breeze. A polished wooden pole is tightly fastened to a single edge of the rippling flag and, unperturbed by the tepid wind, remains unwavering, staunchly affixed to the ground amongst a gathered pile of crumbling rubble and broken shards of ceramic roof shingles. Journeying defiantly past the tethered flag, an abandoned thoroughfare, comprised of compacted gravel and saturated clumps of rust-colored mud, is laden with deep impressions of overlapping, sunken footfalls that are disparate and inharmonious with respect to both direction and stride. Innumerable holes of varying diameter and depth punctuate a low, stone wall that borders the quiet path, staining its cracking surface with a thin dusting of leaden powder. Bound along its perimeter by the chipped wall, an unoccupied, venerable residence, once a testament to the hospitable grandeur exemplifying prestigious, old country retreats, rests in a pitiable state of plaintive solemnity. On its front face, a single splintered shutter somberly hangs, pendulous and limp, from a rusted iron hinge beside the shattered panes of a window’s dust riddled glass. Fragmented pieces of an exploded shell have bored into the eastern side, vehemently tearing painted bricks from their mortar and listlessly casting them down upon the fastidiously tended garden beneath, crushing its contents. In the stillness evinced in the wake of the passing destruction, the remaining gabled roof mournfully creaks and bows in protestation of its own weight. Reticulated vines are badly singed, though still gracefully cling, with evident insouciance to the unsettling melancholy that has befallen their surroundings, to the scarred remnants of the building’s aged facade. From the open fields of knotted, wild grass that span the valley receding into the distance, the lifeless remains of provincial homes arise like decaying headstones in an ancient graveyard, heavily silhouetted against the vibrancy of the red hues of the setting sun. This diffusion of light from along the western horizon drifts with tranquil lassitude like a pall across the gnarled foliage and sporadic buildings, tinging all it settles upon with an almost preternatural glow of vivid, resplendent ruby. The tones of the pervading, languid haze are reflected in the luster of two black, inscrutable eyes, as an animated shadow is cast from the fretting flag along the lower portion of narrow, handsome lineaments belonging to a gentleman around forty-five years of age.

The man brushes untamed strands of thick, black hair out of the way of his austere gaze, before cuffing and rolling the sleeves of his loose-fitting collared shirt cinched beneath a buttoned, tattered vest. The elevated bones and veins of his thin, calloused hands prominently protrude as he tightly grasps the leather strap of his heavy knapsack, which has been closely secured in a diagonal fashion across his lithe frame. He heads east, towards the inexorable advancement of the muted blue shades of dusk, leaving a bold trail of his shoes’ markings atop the bevy of cacophonous imprints pressed into the surface of the dirt path. Clouds of swirling smoke rise and dissipate above the verdant canopy overhanging a sparse grouping of bent, prodigious trees that emerge from amongst the vast emptiness of farmland and sweeping plains nearby. Deferring to the guidance of the smoke, the man resolutely trudges forward, soon finding himself on the outer reaches of the forest where the thin smattering of trees gradually capitulates to a flat clearing along the banks of a spirited river. Nestled against the woods, a row of white canvas tents neatly interspersed with few constructed cooking pits constitutes the edge of a meager encampment. Unhitched wooden conveyances and wagons dispersed throughout the site are burdened with crates of unloaded provisions, consisting of an assortment of guns, bladed weapons, salted meats, dried vegetables, unworn pairs of boots displaying a dull sheen, folded uniforms dyed in hues of silver and blue, and various cooking implements. Squinting through the harshness of the direct, low-angled rays of the crepuscular sun, the man notices shallow trenches dug beyond the tents, which he has rapidly ascertained from the festering swarms of flies and undeniable smell wafting from their depths to be the latrines. The furthest end of the bivouac from the tents houses a line of horses that are each tied with a fraying rope to a wooden post driven into the soggy, amenable ground. At the middle of the encircling encampment, a recognizable navy flag of gaudy decoration is situated ostentatiously, where it rests, unmoving, upon its pole. An air of subdued jocularity settles amongst the men and women seated around the fires of the pits as they play songs of great evident popularity, draw protracted drags of cigarettes, and surreptitiously deal cards outside the ascetic watch of their superiors. In the uninterrupted blackness of the encroaching night, even the low-burning light of the shrinking flames shines luminously. Upon determining the lateness of the hour, a soldier of apparent status gruffly commands her subordinates to retire. Reluctantly, the jovial melodies and rhythmic interludes elicited from the euphonious unity of instrument and voice immediately fall silent, while the waning embers of the dying fires are unceremoniously extinguished. Few stragglers slowly head to their respective tents. Lowering himself into the shade formed from the elongated shadow of an ancient elm lain across the clotted, muddied ground, the man awaits, with calm, stoic anticipation, the muffled sounds of sleep to permeate the otherwise still expanse of unlit dwellings.

***

The shade of the crooked trees thrown from the sinking sun spreads and blurs, disappearing into a morass of shadows as the last vestiges of the striking red hues fade from the sky. Reposed against the grooved trunk and twisted roots of the elm, the man reaches beside him for a hand lantern that harbors a tiny, blue flame flickering within its glass and surveys the camp for indications of activity. Nothing moves save a few mounted, armed sentries. Enshrouded by the cover of the moonless night, the man crouches behind patches of dried brush and cautiously steps around fallen branches while heading towards the assemblage of tents and their sleeping residents. Kneeling quietly behind the row, he carefully sets down the lantern and unfurls his left-hand. His wiry fingers twitch almost imperceptibly as they trace, with mechanical precision, along the seams of the taut fabric.

The insuppressible smell of smoke and burning cloth thickly disperses through the unremitting darkness.

An unintelligible clamor reverberates through the camp as soldiers, dressed in their bedclothes and encumbered with the grogginess that often succeeds an abruptly terminated slumber, clamber to wrest their supplies from the path of rapidly spreading, deep blue flames. Dirtied pans and bowls still encrusted with the scraps from the evening’s meal are hurriedly carried back and forth from the bank of the neighboring river and poured frantically upon the voracious blaze in desperate attempt to stifle its devastation. Contented with the extent of the ensuing raucousness capturing the attention of the terrified soldiers, the man perambulates with assuredness around the periphery of the camp towards the kept horses. He bends down beside the prosaic, brown mare resting at the furthest location from the demarcation between woods and the clearing, and fixates upon the knot tethering the horse in place.

His fingertips are barely able to make contact with the braided rope.

Slicing swiftly and soundlessly through the dense, ashen air, a bladed weapon with a jagged, serrated edge is pressed threateningly against the pallid skin of the man’s vulnerable neck. An unrepentant grip intertwined amongst the unruly tangle of his black hair virulently forces his head backwards as a whispering voice, quivering and breaking with unrestrained derision, rhetorically asks, “This is your fault, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” His accentuated throat vibrates against the stiff metal as he responds in a tone inexplicably calm and unemotional.

With the employment of a single, deft maneuver, the man pivots his body clockwise while his left-hand clasps with fervid intensity the wrist that steadies the blade, separating it from his body. The effulgence of the fire ravaging the landscape behind the soldier causes an obscuring veil of darkness to drape over her face as she and the man breathe synchronously in stunted, shallow gasps. An ethereal blue light flashes with sudden immediacy, and in its brilliant illumination, the soldier is seen violently convulsing and recoiling in abject terror at the sight of the man’s visage. His irises are alighted and emanating an imperturbably solid blue glow. Glaring into his eyes and brutishly thrashing against the pertinacious malice of his grip, her face becomes transfixed in a grotesque contortion of features, eliciting a countenance of both shock and execrable agony. An oppressive stench, nauseating and acrid, rapidly overwhelms the pair, forcing them to steady their bodies against the insuperable urge to heave and retch. The man’s grasp, however, refuses to be relinquished. The soldier’s horrible expression slowly changes, and her lineaments soften into a pleading look steeped in despondent resignation that is, curiously, numb. The ardency with which the two stare into the other’s eyes remains unabated, and neither display cognizance nor react to the dull, wet thud of the knife dropping to the ground. From afar, few, impassioned footsteps are heard in succession scrambling in their haste to descend upon the intruder. In recognition of the approaching predicament, the man returns his eyes to the cold blackness of their previous state and pries, with discernible difficultly, his uncompromising fingers away from her skin. Blackened chunks of charred flesh cling to his hand during its removal as underlying muscle tendons are stretched taut before snapping and slipping off sections of exposed bone. The soldier staggers backwards upon her release, wracked with pernicious tremors that propagate her weakened frame. Her jaw seizes and her mouth is struck agape in a soundless scream of realization as she instinctually cradles the tenuous fibers and scarred bits of bone that form what little remains of her forearm. The man hurriedly turns from the sickening image left in his wake and sprints to the anxiously braying mare, his eyes soon regaining their unnatural, luminous coloration. A slick coating overspreads his left-hand with a smoothness like poured oil as its surface is ignited in the wild ferocity of deep blue flames. The worn threads of the rope tying the startled animal in place are instantly set ablaze, crackling and curling until their ashes scatter upon the trampled, dead grass below. The man mounts the liberated horse and spurs it into maintaining a frenzied gallop alongside the turbulent flow of the river crashing against the stagnant, immemorial stones that lie in its path.

The clangorous echo of indeterminate cries slowly fades into the distance.

#DiscardedWriting

1 note · View note

unsettlingshortstories · 3 years

Text

The Fall of the House of Usher

Edgar Allen Poe (1839)

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was — but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me — upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain — upon the bleak walls — upon the vacant eye-like windows — upon a few rank sedges — and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees — with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium — the bitter lapse into every-day life — the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart — an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it — I paused to think — what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down — but with a shudder even more thrilling than before — upon the re-modelled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country — a letter from him — which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness — of a mental disorder which oppressed him — and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said — it was the apparent heart that went with his request — which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other — it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the “House of Usher” — an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment — that of looking down within the tarn — had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition — for why should I not so term it? — served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy — a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity — an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn — a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me — while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy — while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this — I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality — of the constrained effort of the ennuyé man of the world. A glance, however, at His countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence — an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy — an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision — that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation — that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy — a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect — in terror. In this unnerved — in this pitiable condition — I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth — in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated — an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit — an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence.

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin — to the severe and long-continued illness — indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution — of a tenderly beloved sister — his sole companion for long years — his last and only relative on earth. “Her decease,” he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread — and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother — but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain — that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.

For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why; — from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me at least — in the circumstances then surrounding me — there arose out of the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvass, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli.

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled “The Haunted Palace,” ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:

In the greenest of our valleys,

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace —

Radiant palace — reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion —

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair.

II.

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow;

(This — all this — was in the olden

Time long ago)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A winged odor went away.

III.

Wanderers in that happy valley

Through two luminous windows saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunéd law,

Round about a throne, where sitting

(Porphyrogene!)

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate;

(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)

And, round about his home, the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

VI.

And travellers now within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows, see

Vast forms that move fantastically

To a discordant melody;

While, like a rapid ghastly river,

Through the pale door,

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh — but smile no more.

I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher’s which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for other men have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent, or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones — in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungi which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around — above all, in the long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence — the evidence of the sentience — was to be seen, he said, (and I here started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him — what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.

Our books — the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid — were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorium , by the Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and œgipans, over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic — the manual of a forgotten church — the Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead — for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house.

And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue — but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified — that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch — while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room — of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened — I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me — to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan — but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes — an evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me — but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

“And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence — “you have not then seen it? — but, stay! you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this — yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars — nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.

“You must not — you shall not behold this!” said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. “These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon — or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement; — the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall listen; — and so we will pass away this terrible night together.”

The antique volume which I had taken up was the “Mad Trist” of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher’s more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he harkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:

“And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the forest.”

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment, paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) — it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story:

“But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten —

Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;

Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.”

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement — for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound — the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast — yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea — for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:

“And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.”

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than — as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver — I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words.

“Not hear it? — yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long — long — long — many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it — yet I dared not — oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! — I dared not — I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them — many, many days ago — yet I dared not — I dared not speak! And now — to-night — Ethelred — ha! ha! — the breaking of the hermit’s door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield! — say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!” — here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul — “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!”

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell — the huge antique pannels to which the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust — but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold — then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened — there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind — the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight — my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder — there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters — and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the “House of Usher.”

1 note · View note

aminth-elnonore · 6 years

Text

A Rocky Start

The Inky Lady wasn't the most famous of tattoo shops, but that was for a reason. It wasn't meant to be. It catered to a certain type of clientele. Exclusive in their...line of work, which was less than legitimate. Ash'alar was usually the only one in the store, finding that employees usually did more damage than granted benefit when working in establishments like his. On the furthest wall back was a door, locked, with an Employee only sign hung upon it.

It was a rather quiet evening, not many walking through the doors. His patrons came after hours, as they mostly functioned beneath a curtain of darkness, so he had a bit of time to kill. His paperwork had been surprisingly finished, and he owed that to a spur of boredom. It left him sitting upon one of his tattoo chairs, legs crossed at the ankles, a cigarette between his lips, and a restless mind unable to occupy itself. He needed some sort of stimulation, but he couldn't lock up his place and leave. Forced to deal with the mundane situation, there was nothing to do but hope for something exciting to happen. He didn't enjoy relying on fate and circumstance to liven up his day, but there wasn't much else to do.

The author stood outside, the Farstrider's Square fairly empty as mid day approached.The tiny, pink haired elf stood in a lunged position, her right arm cocked back and a hefty rock squeezed into her palm. Her eyes narrowed behind her spectacles before she unleashed the rock with a loud - and unnecessary - growl. The rock flew from her hand, flying almost comically slow through the air toward the dummy... And an unsuspecting Forsaken that happened to wander by at the most unfortunate of times. The rock smashed into the skull of the Forsaken. His body jolted, reeling backwards from the force, before righting itself like the corpse it was. Dark black ichor oozed from the wound on his exposed forehead and glowing amber eyes locked onto the she-elf. Her mouth agape, she began to launch into a series of apologies and explanations although it seemed the undead was hearing none of it. As he prowled closer, she began to grab her bag from beside her, hoisting it onto her shoulder before taking off before he could get too close. She sprinted off, her bag and pouch of rocks bouncing with every harsh step that echoed across the cobblestone. Blinded by her need to escape and will to live, the innocent woman turned into the Row. Quite a horrible idea for one seeking help for her life but it was the best she could think of.

"H-He-Help!" She cried, her eyes watering with the same fear that grappled at her heart, making it beat such an erratic rhythm it was sure to kill her before the Forsaken ever could. "S-Som-Someone!" Shadows of figures hardly even jostled at her requests of assistance, unmoved by the clearly frightened girl. Her eyes spotted a few shops and she turned toward them, speeding toward them as quickly as her little legs would carry her. "Please, sir! I-It-It was an acc-acc-cc-accident!" Heaving breaths followed in the slight pause before... "I don't want to d-d-ddd-dieeeeeee~!"

Finally, solace from the marsh of boredom that threatened to suck him in and trap him with the muds forever. It wasn’t uncommon to hear cries of help within the Row, but this one had a slight difference than the common yells. It wasn’t recognizable nor did it seem to belong to anyone who would frequent the area. High pitched and stuttery. Feminine. Yet loud enough to pierce through his walls and reach his ears. Intrigue grasped at him, and he quickly shifted from his seat and climbed up his stairs to peek outside. Day had given up to its darker counterpart, and Fel Green eyes would quickly land upon the woman attempting to use night as veil and run for her life— while screaming. She was down the street by the time he was up there, and he watched her. Closer and closer, she approached, genuine fear upon her expression. It was a split second decision, one that he made not out of concern for her well being, but for selfish desires to see his night’s problems eliminated. A hand would instantly reach out the moment her figure would cross his store, grabbing onto her wrist. She’d be promptly and quickly yanked within, through the red curtains that acted as faux doors. She’d be quickly twisted, and her back pressed against the nearest wall. His free hand rose to quickly seal her lips, pressing with enough firmness to silence any further cries or yells. His lips hushed her with the noise, yet his eyes didn’t meet her yet. They were focused on outside— waiting, for her threat to pass.

Tears wet her cheeks as she tried to regain control of her breathing as the man was pressed against her and a 'shh' came from his mouth. Her body shook like a leaf as she waited for the bloodthirsty Forsaken that was chasing after her. Wide eyes peered with unabashed fear at the figure that had either saved her life or put her in an even more dangerous situation. Shadows covered his figure and concealed his face from view. Her heart still beat fast paced and she was acutely certain (odd given the circumstances) that this stranger could hear it given their proximity. If the woman’s cries didn’t betray the silence he forced upon her, he feared her heartbeat would. Thankfully, rage driven forsaken seldom paused to hear faint noises, and the man of bones continued his skeletal march down the Row. Finally, once the enemy was out of sight, Ash would slowly begin to lower his hand from the girl’ls lips, and his eyes met her own. “Quiet now, he’s still not too far.” He’d warn, before releasing his press on her hand all together to allow her proper breath and voice. He seemed a mix of a pirate and a playboy, dressed in a slightly opened swashbuckler shirt and comfortable leather pants. “What the hell did you do?” He finally questioned, an amused smirk finding its place upon his lips.

"I-I--I-I was practicing my ro-roc-rock throwing and th-the-th-t-the Forsaken, he...." Her soft, mint green eyes flickered up to her savior now. "T-the-the rock hit h-h-h-him-mm instead... In the h-he-head..." Her countenance shifted, several ambiguous emotions flying across it so quickly it was undoubtedly hard to keep up: sadness, disbelief, that flash of fear from before, and.... Was that a little bit of pride? "I do-d-d-dd-don't have good aim..." Her hand flew up to fix the glasses that sat precariously on her small nose. "T-th-h-thank you for s-sav-saving me, though." Her small form dipped into a very low curtsy at the man. "I o-owe you."

A bark of a laugh suddenly escaped him, and he crossed his arms in disbelief. “All this because you nailed him with a rock?? Darling, all you had to do was nail him again. You know how easily their bones fall apart?” He mused, leaning down to pick up her fallen backpack and rocks. “You’re an emotional mess...come inside, have some water. Wait till you’re sure he’s gone.” It was a suggestion, but he was already walking down the stairs with her bag anyway.

Once inside, he’d place her bag on a counter top and walk a little further in. A bar was placed in the back to entertain people as others got their art done, so he walked behind it to reach for a glass. She seemed too much of a mess for a joke, so he passed the vodka and actually began to pour some water, assuming she’d follow at this point. As she stood, attempting to regain control, she caught a glimpse of the man making his way back up the Row, heading toward the shop that she'd taken refuge in. With a startle, she ran down the stairs after the man. When she finally burst into the room, she saw the glass of water and hopped onto a barstool farthest from the stairway entrance. "H-He-He's doubling back..." She explained quickly.

"Worry not-- men without skin, or skin that falls apart, don't frequent tattoo shops often. The needle doesn't hold-- and rotting flesh? Doesn't tattoo well." He smirked at that, almost as if he was speaking from experience. "But I am curious as to why a...small and soft creature like yourself decided to take shelter in the one alleyway in Silvermoon where the Forsaken could kill you and no one would give a shit." He pondered, raising a curious brow at her as he slid her the glass, hoping it would calm her down, or at least give her something to fidget on.

"I just r-ra-ran..." Her mint green gaze finally flicked back to him. Eyebrows raised happily at the offering of the glass of water and her hands gratefully clasped it. The beads of water that had already moistened the side of the glass spread about on her palms. It was as if the cool dampness reached all the way into her heart, calming it.

#a rocky start #ash x aminth #about me

6 notes · View notes

art-n-stories-of-alien-gods-blog · 6 years

Text

Under A Multicoloured Sky

Summary: lesbian couple on an alien planet enjoying scenery and each others company Under a multicoloured night sky, two girls sat by a glimmering lake, their skin bathed in the deep purple and blue hue's cast but the three moons over head. Red dust made up the ground beneath them, and uniquely shaped rocks covered in blue moss and vines stood around them like trees in a forest. An endless ocean of stars and constellations shone down at them, twinkling captivatingly.

"Astra, look!" A hand wrapped tightly around the girl's wrist, pulling her attention away from mesmerising sky. Astra looked back down to her companion, who's eye's were set upon the shimmering water in front of them, her other arm outstretched to point it out to her.

The beauty of the sky, it's moons and stars, reflected off the water creating a beautiful kaleidoscope of colours and light that danced about on the stone tree's that surrounded them.But that was not what the girl beside her was focused on.

The water was crystal clear near the shore, clear enough for them to see the fish that begun to swim about. They glowed a soft pink, lighting up the water even more, and had long veil like fins that billowed beautifully behind them as they swam.The way they swam about, gliding around each other in an effortless waltz was hypnotic, but Astra couldn't help but glance back up at her companion.

The lights danced across the girl's brown skin, and reflected off her deep brown eyes, wide open in wonder. An awed open mouthed smile was spread across her freckled face. Her black hair was held loosely in a pony tail that was slowly falling from its perch high on her head, and bits of her bangs had fallen around her face. She was so taken by the sight before her, pure childlike wonder captured perfectly in her countenance.

Astra found herself almost reeling at the sheer unyielding force of undeniable love the washed over her entire being. She couldn't help the fond smile that made its home on her own face, and couldn't ignore the uptick in her heart or the fluttering inside her stomach.

She placed a hand gently on the one still clutched around her wrist, "Juniper?"

The girl glanced up at her, excitement and awe still present in her gaze, even as she tilted her head in question at her companion.

"Yeah?" She spoke softly, preserving the quiet around them.

Astra felt like she was seconds from being actually run over by the unquestionable love she felt for the girl in front of her. She reached out, tucking a bit of Juniper's hair behind her ear and rested her hand against her cheek gently.

"I love you... so, so much," She whispered, gazing into her partner's beautiful eyes.

Juniper flushed, voice cracking as she let out a little 'Oh' and then began to giggle cutely. Astra's smile grew as her girlfriend stuttered and giggled for a moment before pressing her face into the space between Astra's neck and shoulder and mumbled something.

Astra laughed along with her, wrapping her arms around Juniper's back, "What was that?"

Juniper pulled her face away from her girlfriend's neck after a moment, wrapping her arms loosely around her shoulders instead and looked at her, still blushing.

"I said I love you too," She spoke clearly.

Astra beamed brightly, heart singing happily at those words, and swooped in to place a lingering kiss on her love's lips. After a few long moments, which in both the girl's opinions, weren't nearly long enough, they pulled apart.

"Glad we're on the same page then," Astra joked. Juniper rolled her eyes and laughed, before pulling her girlfriend into a warm embrace and another long kiss.

Soon after, they wrapped their arms around each other and turned their attention back towards the water and watched the fish swim as they conversed softly and both thanked the stars, that the other was there.

#Skye Story #original writing #wlw #original story #i don't know how to tag this #lesbian space explorers #writing

6 notes · View notes

starspatter · 6 years

Text

Saving Today

Title: Saving Today

Fandom/Universe: Wonder Woman/Justice League (DCEU)

Summary: For two people, the time that froze slowly starts to move again.

Rating: PG

Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Friendship/Romance

Word Count: 2,519

AO3 and ff.net links. I read in an interview that Henry Cavill thought Superman's answer to the kids' question at the beginning of the movie would be "Love", which fits well with the theme of WW. (Personally I expected there to be a bookend of Superman's response at the end of the film, and to be something along the lines of "anyone can be a hero/take his place", but I accept that it was left open to interpretation and so did the same here.)

“What’s the best thing about planet earth?”

Superman pauses, taken aback. Deliberating deep, he meditates off to the distance, squinting at the sky. Into infinite blue space, the place where he once came from. The sun and source of all of his strength, of life and warmth and cheer. Soaking it in as he ponders, selecting his words carefully, then smiles.

Diana switches off the recording, leaning back from her laptop as she peers towards the photo propped on her desk. Her fingers extend out, ghosting over the glass, running faint along the gray and grainy faces of ghosts long gone from this world. Longingly.

“What do you think, Steve? Is he right?”

In lieu of an answer, her phone starts to ring. Glancing at the Caller ID, she sighs at such inconvenient timing.

It’s true what they say about little boys: Once you share with them, they won’t ever leave you alone.

“I want to show you something.”

She trails behind as Wayne guides her through the entry hall of the old, abandoned building. A cathedral-esque monument, stone worn and sagging with the weight of age on its foundations, yet still standing proud as a testament to time. Her echoing heels click across the concrete, littered with dust and doves taken roost amongst shattered chandeliers, sent aflutter as soon as the grand doors fling open wide to its central atrium. Feathers float down from the few decorative hangers still suspended above, dangling crystal shards and stars overhead as they refract shafts of light streaming through the curtains, filtered red and white and gold.

“Must be 100… 150 feet.”

Her host declares with gusto, gazing eagerly around the empty room like a child opening his presents on Christmas day. An artist before his blank canvas, envisioning masterful brush strokes of an image yet to come into being.

“Must be.”

The butler beside resounds the obvious, with all the clearly learned patience of humoring his master’s many whims.

“Big round table – six chairs – right there.”

Bruce indicates vaguely before him, as Alfred sports an unsurprised smirk, merely grunting softly in acknowledgment. She struts between the two, chiming in with the words on all their minds:

“…But room for more.”

Later, by the lake. Where they walked before, and she spoke of the Motherboxes, of the history of mankind, and their ancestors’ alliance with Amazons and merfolk – and more. Where he told her not to count on the “tribes of men”, but instead to ask people they didn’t know to risk their lives, and battle beside them for the fate of the world. To place her faith in the hands of total strangers. To lead again, after what happened to…

“Did you want one?”

“What?”

Diana startles out of her reverie. She sees Bruce pointing at an ice cream cart by the park path, predictably surrounded by a crowd of kids clamoring for their parents to purchase them frozen treats. Compared to the peaceful environs of their prior private conversation, a part of her prefers the bustling scene during peak hours, as an energetic jogger sprints past, followed by a couple happily holding hands…

“Probably because they’re together.”

“You were staring at it for a long while. I’ll buy you one if you want.”

Diana shakes her head.

“No, that’s all right. Thank you.”

“Please, allow me,” he insists, reaching for his (no doubt overflowing) wallet. “As an apology, for the things I said before…” He hesitates. “About Steve Trevor.”

She gives him a sidelong glimpse, gauging sincerity.

“You already apologized, Bruce. You don’t need to do anything more. Besides,” she breathes a low exhale. “You were right. I’ve been using Steve’s memory as a crutch, preventing me from doing the thing I came here to do: Make the world a better place. Even now,” she confesses quietly, “I have my doubts about returning to be a part of a ‘team’ again. To step back into the spotlight after all these years…”

She looks out over the still surface of the lake, hugging arms to her breasts in conflict as Bruce heeds her air uncertainties (understanding perhaps all too well).

“You know, I bet an ice cream will make you feel better,” he quirks a grin, coaxing gently. “C’mon, my treat.”

Admittedly, she can’t help but be amused by his persistence. Thus despite her reservations, she relents.

“All right,” she agrees at last with a laugh. “But only if you join me.”

Bruce blanches a bit at the reverse requisite, backpedaling.

“Oh, I uh-” he coughs, belatedly recognizing his own hypocrisy. “I don’t really eat sweets.”

She doesn’t need to ask to know the answer why. She can tell just by looking: From the beginning, it was evident that this was a man who’s denied himself the simple joys in life for so long, ostensibly as part of his dedicated crusade for “justice”. But even underneath that strict self-disciplining façade, a pristine pretense of devotion to one’s trade – the “mission”, as he calls it – it’s easy to discern the raw regret buried deep down; no Lasso of Truth necessary to reveal that much.

“To be honest,” he muses, marveling as if in awe at his own self-realization, “I don’t think I’ve eaten ice cream since I was eight years old.”

“And I haven’t had it in over 100 years,” she rejoins, teasingly rolling her eyes. “Your point being?”

Bruce rubs the back of his neck, unable to argue with such effective (if extreme) logic being thrown back at him.

“Guess this’ll be a renewed experience for both of us then,” he chuckles, conceding defeat.

They take two scoops: vanilla for her and chocolate for him. As promised, he pays for her fare.

Etta would be proud, Diana thinks to herself as she tentatively ventures her tongue to taste the delicacy, daring but a delicate dab at first. If only she were here to see as well. Bold and ever-buoyant despite the loss of her own beloved employer, the bubbly redhead had unabashedly invited her many times to partake in parfaits (no doubt as a benevolent effort to brighten her spirits, albeit framed as but an affable gesture between friends), but she’d always declined, feeling such indulgent fluff forbidden while the wound in her heart was still fresh. Perhaps now, after all this time, she could stand to stomach the superficial associations and permit herself pleasure for once instead of sorrow.

As soon as she bites into the savory snow-white sweetness, rich and airy as a cloud of cream, the dizzying memories melt in her mouth. Of swaying under a flurry of flakes as people laughed and sang around them, safe and sound after their town had been liberated by a band of heroes. Of hands grazing tender across her cheek, his lips on hers like the heat of a match spark, kindling tinder in their hearts. Of a pinned paper princess, watching her steadfast tin soldier go up in flames, wishing to dance with him just once more…

She stops, swallows sugar mixed with salt. Peeking over at her partner, she observes his own hand halted, cone hovering far from his feeding orifice as dark brown droplets drip down the sides.

“You haven’t touched yours.”

“Huh?” He blinks. “Oh… Sorry, guess I got distracted.”

She traces the direction of his sight, sensing it focused on a particular familial pair nearby: a small boy and his father, as the former tugs on the taller’s sleeve, begging for his favorite flavor. The man obliges, ruffling his son’s scalp as he gleefully laps up the goodie. Diana notes Bruce’s grip tighten on his own confectionary, contemplative wrinkles written on his countenance. A visage veiled with wistful mist. His eyes are remote, ruminating; like black moons eclipsed by smoke, seemingly somewhere else.

Diana knows that look. She’s seen it in tears of Lois Lane as she cradled her lost love in her limbs (reflecting her own when she witnessed the explosion that took Steve Trevor away from her), crying and kissing his cold skin repeatedly as if it could somehow bring him back to life. In Martha Kent’s grief at Clark’s – not Superman’s – funeral. …In the mourning of mothers and fathers whose sons never came home from the war.

She knows, he’s lost someone dear to him as well. It’s forecast in his features, the heavy hunch of his shoulders, bearing an invisible burden on his back. In the way he watches the two amble away, reuniting with a waiting woman by the water, who welcomes her young with open arms.

It’s no wonder who it was. She saw the suit in the cave, tailored to fit someone of slighter stature. A costume further customized to fulfill some clown’s sick idea of a joke, defaced with gratuitous graffiti to taunt its presumed maker. Memorialized in its case (or perhaps more accurately a casket, in this case) like an artifact in a museum. Doesn’t take much guesswork to connect the gaps, and she deals with historical analysis of such findings on a daily basis. She doesn’t know the details (nor does she desire to pry), but she can conclude there was another presence there to fill it, once. …And then there wasn’t.

And yet… He continues to fight. For Gotham, for the world, and for his fellow comrades – fallen though they may be. While a part of her was paralyzed stiff by the all too painful parallels of Superman’s heroic sacrifice, he didn’t let that deter him either, spurring to action instead. To honor his memory by stubbornly seeking out and recruiting those that could take his place. (…Granted, guilt got to him eventually, to the point of attempting something so implausible that she could hardly believe it even worked.)

…Meanwhile, what has she been doing? Hiding away in the shadows for a century? As much as she correctly pointed out Bruce’s personal agenda to absolve himself of blame, he’d retorted right back at her how she’d been holding herself back out of remorse. …And he was right. Loathe as she was to announce it aloud, if there was one thing they apparently shared in common, it was their mutual inability to move on.

Maybe it was time to change all that.

She taps his elbow to draw his attention, smiling as she suggests:

“Why don’t we bring some back for Barry?”

Bruce bats his lids in confusion, then seems to light up at the proposal.

“That’s a good idea. Kid’s like a trash compactor. I swear he ate almost everything in the manor when he was there. Alfred complained about having to order more food when he just went grocery shopping. Speaking of which, remind me to install a fridge at the site. We’ll need to have supplies handy in order to keep up with his metabolism.”

He approaches the snack stand again, and while its vendor is somewhat stunned by the volume of the request, nevertheless can’t say no to the number of bills being waved in his face and hands over a whole carton. Bruce beams in satisfaction as he carries it in the crook of one limb, the other still occupied with his original serving, leaving the delighted peddler to count the (many times over) earnings from his secondary sale. They resume their stroll along the promenade, enjoying their well-deserved desserts whilst Diana listens to her companion carry on about his plans for the “Justice League”, as they’d decided to dub themselves. There’s a fevered enthusiasm to his tone that she’s sure must have been absent for a long time, and while he’s still a man of many mysteries to her, she finds she doesn’t mind being in the close company of a “stranger” again. …No, not a stranger. A teammate. Someone she’s stood beside in combat (against a conqueror of planets no less), whom she can trust to have her back – and vice-versa.

Who knows. Perhaps someday he’ll even tell her his story.

And maybe one day she’ll tell him hers.

Morning. Across the pond. She wakes up. Has breakfast. Reads the paper. There’s a major front page headline that catches her eye, about a recent string of museum robberies all across Europe, having now just hit the Louvre. Hitting home. Before, she wouldn’t have bothered a second thought, believing it none of her business. (Or rather, not worth garnering too much awareness from the public eye over.) It was only petty theft after all. Nothing the Paris police couldn’t handle. …But then again, priceless antiques were her business, weren’t they? She had a duty to protect the precious works of art she and others had worked so hard to preserve and maintain. Besides, as a man once chided her when she temporarily “borrowed” one of his toys: “Stealing’s not polite.”

She places the parchment down, and pupils slide pensively towards the framed picture once again. Her lips spread as she presses her palm to them, passing fondness on to his behind the pane.

“We saved the world, Steve. And now I’m going out to save the day.” With a wink, she turns to fetch her sword and shield.

“Wish me luck.”

“Look, it’s Wonder Woman!”

The warrior rotates as a group of youngsters gather excitedly around her, expression widening warmly as she gingerly restores the carved effigy back to its box. Behind her, uniformed authorities diligently jot down dictation of the already apprehended culprits as they recount exactly how they stole the statuette – amongst numerous other rare and exotic items. Coming completely clean to every single unresolved crime their gang was behind, courtesy of the compulsion of the radiant rope binding them – even up to and including the minor sin of pinching biscuits from grandmother’s jar at age nine.

Meanwhile, the animated adolescents similarly interrogate their idol, keen interest abundant as they bombard her with an assortment of rapid questions.

“Can I please have your autograph?”

“Is it true you come from an island of all girls?”

“Are you really over 100 years old?”

“Have you ever fought a dinosaur?”

“Um, what’s your favorite ice cream flavor?”

At the last inquiry, the lady’s eyes lower to meet those of the auburn-haired lass, shining up at her with cat-like curiosity. Her crest is crowned with a black band like a tiara, and a pair of cute kitten ears aptly poke out from her curls, ringlets reminiscent of someone from long ago.

The hero mulls over the query for a moment, considering it with as much momentous import as any other. It was a tough decision after all, what with so many options to pick from. (But then “variety is the spice of life”, as they say. Who would she even be if she stayed the same always, and never tried something new? To see the beauty of this planet and everything it had to offer with her own eyes, meet and get to know its inhabitants? Strive to both inspire and learn from their forever changing society, love and cherish and defend – no matter how scared she was of losing them in the end.)

…Finally, she makes her choice – and smiles.

26 notes · View notes

vantelieth-blog · 7 years

Photo

Prologue Chapter XIV: The Cleansing Canvas

Albus would act before all else, lunging upon Regnal and driving his own fangs into the inflamed flesh of the Ideal God's left wing.

Then followed Madcow with a gallant charge from the front, pressing his head against Regnal's belly and forcing him aback with his own might.

Last was Constius in all his fury, brandishing his ornate, elongated broadsword and severing Regnal's head from behind in one swift motion.

Astot had observed it all with a look of anxiety, perhaps knowing as well as Enlenia that Regnal could never be so easily slain. And indeed, all efforts proved meaningless as Regnal's body, along with his severed head, erupted into an expansive vortex of sentient black flames, disintegrating the ground where Regnal once stood and threatening to do much the same to the trio that had dared a preemptive assault.

Constius, having already stood a distance afar, took a prompt step backward and eluded the danger.

Madcow, acting purely of instinct, so it seemed, retreated a moment before the flames emerged and observed the spectacle apparently unharmed by it.

But Albus would not be so fortunate, for by the time he had loosed himself from Regnal's wing and gained a safe distance away, the flames had already claimed from him his lower jaw, foreleg, and left eye.

“Regnal!” Enlenia shouted in protest as the flames condensed into a gentle orb hovering in the sky.

“So by your hand be it,” Regnal's scathing, disembodied voice echoed through the winds as the orb began to reshape. First from its sides spouted the shape of a delicate pair of arms; then from its crown formed the shape of a human skull; and finally, from beneath fell a woven fabric like the skirt of a ballgown, long enough to reach the cratered ground. And so hovered the shade of a skull-faced woman in a long dress, her right eye blue and her left eye not unlike Albus' own.

Enlenia stood pondering Regnal's uncanny facial expression from a moment prior. Never until Regnal responded to her words had she observed something more than hatred in his eyes. As a being with uncountable faces and forms, did Regnal seek to claim all power as his own or was his own power but a veil for his true identity? Perhaps he could see reason if only Enlenia knew how.

The dirt of the land, beckoned by Regnal's influence, filled the crater beneath his feat before he returned to the earth once more, his form now an amalgam all his own. He—or rather, it—glanced at Albus with its mutated eye as if to make a taunting gesture to the wounded guardian before turning to Enlenia once more. In the midst of it all, Constius flailed his blade savagely upon Regnal, his every attempt at cutting the Ideal God thwarted by an unseen obstruction that responded with a clanging noise as though one blade were clashing with another.

Astot stood between Regnal and Enlenia. “So be it if we are to become as enemies,” he muttered, “but I pray you cease this bloodletting until you have answered me this: do you stand willingly in our way to Old Halia?”

“I will cast all you are and desire unto my own being; you know this already,” Regnal replied, its voice now hoarse and genderless. “We will all go to Halia as one and the same.”

Astot gave Regnal a threatening glare. “Do with us as you please… but you will not have Enlenia.”

“You were ever a being subordinate to his faith in others, Astot,” Regnal spoke slowly. “Your final moments will be in condemnation of that very faith.”

“Albus is to myself a partner and a brother,” Madcow said as he stepped between Astot and Regnal. “I will raise your head in account of his suffering. And Enlenia I consider my salvation embodied; ne'er could I allow the ruination of your greed befall her. Though I bear no grudge against you for our differences—and you do not care to even hear my name—if by your hand my friends are to perish here, then I would wish to join them in their final resistance.”

With Enlenia and himself concealed behind Madcow's leg, Astot gave Enlenia a prolonged look as if to speak to her through his stern expression; but Enlenia could only speculate his expectations. Was it to say all fell upon her to stop Regnal here and now? Was she expected to run and abandon everyone to their deaths so that she alone may live to challenge Regnal another day?

“Tis' not that I wish not to know your name,” Regnal responded to Madcow, “but that I would choose to know it first as one of my own. I can offer for your bravery no recompense greater than a promise that you will be first to forfeit your existence and be spared the grief of playing witness to the slaughter of those so admired and beloved by you.”

As Regnal finished its speech, Constius' blade finally cut into the ground as far as Enlenia could hear, her vision still obscured by Madcow's standing. Panic seemed spread amongst the Chariots and their allies before Enlenia could so much as look behind herself, beckoned by both Astot and Cygna's frantic glaring in that direction. And there the Ideal God now stood, black flames rippling through the ground from beneath its feet.

“Run, Enlenia!” Astot finally shouted.

But the time to act had already come and gone, and Enlenia only managed to grasp Cygna's arm; then commenced Regnal's foreseen retribution. A deafening explosion flung her violently through the air. She felt no pain—she had survived unscathed. But with her senses thrown into disarray, she could not tell where Regnal had gone, nor if it had already killed her companions. She was left confused and frightened with only the comfort of Cygna's flesh against the palm of her hand as she fell to the ground. But she could not even tell if she was still grasping a living being.

Enlenia had landed soundly on her back, engulfed within a vast bed of tall grass. She had fallen upon the Garden of Mercy. From a distance away, a cloud of dust coated the plateau where she once stood, a giant portion of it having been rent apart.

A woman's scream sounded closely alongside her. Enlenia quietly crawled in that direction until she stood in front of where Cygna lay, her body under the shroud of a brilliant glow. So it seemed her own powers had saved her life.

“Cynga?” Enlenia whispered.

But Cygna responded with only a cry of pain.

Enlenia stood up to examine her closely. “Cygna!” she shouted frantically at the sight of Cygna's severed legs. The Halian had already lost much blood from her wounds—from what Enlenia could tell, she would not survive alone.

“Leave us be, Enlenia,” a wavering voice called out to her in another direction. “Save your life, and leave us be.”

From the distance Enlenia stood, the source appeared as an oddly shaped rock. With each step closer could she gradually recognize its true form. “No,” she whimpered. “Not you too.”

All that remained of Madcow was his head. Enlenia waited anxiously to hear his voice once more, but the beast would not respond, and his eyes were sealed.

“Madcow? Madcow!” Enlenia shouted.

And miraculously, Madcow answered her desperate cries, forcing his eyes open with what little strength he still possessed. “Why live at all if we are to die?” he murmured. “To die would be to forfeit the meaning of my existence, to cast myself aside into an everlasting void. I know it well—I have died before, only to be reborn. T'was such a lonely, empty state I found myself in… so why would I condemn myself to it for time eternal?” He looked at Enlenia with a complacent countenance. “But finally—now that I am to die eternally such as any mortal could—I finally understand. Though I may die, it is as such I find more appreciation for having lived at all and having learned all I have… and knowing a friend I could pass unto my wisdom. Though I may die, I will not be forgotten.”

Madcow would be interrupted by the coming of an ominous black cloud of smoke in the distance. And from that cloud soon emerged the form of Madcow's headless body, comprised of the Ideal God's black flames.

“Live, Enlenia, lest my words be wasted,” Madcow pleaded as his own stolen body pressed its leg against his head. “And should you one day find the might to stand against your foes… please, save my soul.”

Enlenia could only grieve as Madcow's head crumbled unto dust in the wind.

“Farewell, Madcow, O advocate of wisdom,” Regnal spoke through its now completed effigy of Madcow, its unmistakable eyes gleaming through the head it claimed from him. “For you I now declare a promise anew, that I will be all-knowing in honor of you.”

Now Enlenia knew hatred and fear—fear that she could do nothing to save her own friends, and hatred of the betrayer that would be as their executioner. But she could not run; she could not fight. All she could manage was to stare into Regnal's eyes and pray for an end to its madness. She had become no different than a human against a tainted.

“Do you feel disdain for all I have done?” Regnal asked quietly. “Rejoice that I have spared from him a fate far worse. What that fate holds for all us tainted deviants, I leave you to discover beyond the cradle of your ignorance. Know the truth with your own body.” It lowered its head closely in front of Enlenia. “You are not yet ready to part with your soul. To allow it would be to stanch the growing power of your vengeance. Forget not the cries of your fallen brethren as you venture to surmount my overcast shadow. And when comes that day you may stand against your foes… I will stand before you to proclaim my greatest prize.”

A sudden surge of Regnal's flames incinerated its surroundings, but Enlenia, having already lost the will to resist, noticed Regnal's deceit only too late. The flames engulfed her, throwing her to and fro like a speck in the wind, before leaving her on the ground with the wounds of despair.

“Until then, I claim this arm as my token,” Regnal continued as its flames condensed upon its body, revealing Madcow's form with the addition of a slender arm protruding atop its forehead.

Enlenia looked down where her right arm once existed, now but a gaping wound seeping dark blood. “Regnal… stop,” she breathed feebly.

Regnal stared blankly at her for a moment. “I will soon be as everything that is. No, Enlenia, I will stop not for aught less than that.”

Then a familiar sword came soaring through the air, impaling Regnal's back and pressing him to the ground. A triumphant roar ensured far behind Enlenia. She turned to see Constius alive and well, holding in his hand the wounded Albus.

“You will not be rid of me so easily!” Constius declared while advancing to Regnal's location.

“Forgive my knowing not how to die by your hand, Constius,” Regnal spoke behind Enlenia, slithering past her uninjured as a massive snake before she could turn to face it.

“You are a Chariot by my decree,” Astot's spoke in a muttering tone, his voice resounding from all directions. Constius and Regnal promptly halted in acknowledgment. “'Regnal' may be a name of your own choosing, but mayhap my guidance is to blame for your wickedness. I alone will annul this living fault of my foolishness.” Astot's form finally appeared before Regnal. “I am Astot, leader of all Chariots! I will prove with fitting might my RIGHT to your obedience!”

“I declare this on behalf of all Chariots, Astot: we do not serve you, we do not care for you,” Regnal retorted before attacking Astot.

So continued the brutal battle without Enlenia's participation. Enlenia merely watched the duo of Constius and Astot in their gallant struggle for survival, managing to keep Regnal at bay in an even bout. The opportunity had come to escape to Old Halia as Astot required of her, but she would not go alone.

“Let us journey to Old Halia, together,” Enlenia quietly urged in front of Cygna.

“There's nothing I can do,” Cygna groaned.

Enlenia quickly glanced at Cygna's legs, noticing she had managed to stop her own bleeding. “You will not survive here.” She extended her hand to Cygna. “Please, I wish to help you.”

As Cygna took her hand with some reluctance, Enlenia held her body in her remaining arm and carried her along as she hovered above the meadow toward the lake of Old Halia without looking back. Their journey was silent and more lasting than Enlenia could recall. Both she and Cygna remained lost in thought until its end.

The lake beyond the meadow, as expansive as a sea, hummed gently before the sway of the quiet winds. A persistent fog loomed above its space, but Enlenia could see a ruined city beyond it, a hodgepodge of half-sunken, dilapidated buildings and domes tinted rustic white.

Enlenia gently lay Cygna before the shore and gazed resolutely at the source of every answer she sought. She could faintly sense the presence of a tainted amidst the Halians' light. The Blade of Humanity was still alive. “What do they seek of the Blade of Humanity?” she asked.

“I was only told the answer would be made clear to me if I could reach her,” Cygna replied. “I guess I'll have a chance after all. I can't believe I really made it this far.”

“In some way, perhaps… nor did I,” Enlenia murmured, contemplating her past. “Never did I fully believe I would live forever—that I would live to be the one to destroy the scourge.” She solemnly placed her hand upon her chest at the thought of Astot's wishes. “And discover our creator foremost.” She raised her hand to halt Cygna's speech. “Come, let us act quickly.”

A single leaf flew past Enlenia's sight as she took a step forward. In its wake came several more—the leaves multiplied until they were innumerable, fluttering and dancing around her in a circle under an unseen influence. But Enlenia did not fear, for the spectacle resonated with a presence she knew well. And as she turned to face it, she gave a nod of recognition. “So you had returned to the meadow after all,” she whispered.

In the middle of the meadow stood a lone tree—the Garden of Mercy's lingering guardian, the tainted tree from whose defeat all began. It had grown massive in the days that followed, tall enough to tower over many buildings. But what remained unchanged was its hollow presence, as though Enlenia were staring into the eyes of a corpse. Its appearance was celebrated by only a shift in the once gentle breeze.

“Do you know me?” Enlenia asked the tree. “Could you sense me all this time?”

But the tree acknowledged her with only an ominous hum rolling from the bark of its decrepit branches. Such was the calling of its lingering instinct, to stand alongside its wonderful meadow as its sentinel for all eternity—no matter what.

Enlenia cautiously drew closer as she spoke, “We seek only a path to the ruins of Old Halia. Will you not forgive our trespasses?”

“You've got to shitting me,” Enlenia heard Cygna mutter behind her back. “We don't have time for this!”

“Who are you...”

Those words manifested as a foreign whisper in her jumbled thoughts. The tree had spoken to her.

“You tell me,” Enlenia responded, venturing to test the tree's awareness.

“Who are you… to transgress within this acreage?”

What was once a foreboding hum erupted into a deafening screech. From its repetitious melody spawned a shroud of crimson fireflies parading in a circle around the space the tree established as its own—an augur of its retribution.

Enlenia shook her head with disappointment, walking ever toward the tree with inexplicable bravery. “So, you do not know me,” she murmured. “Such is from the scourge which condemns you to this graveyard.”

“Our garden is their grave; I am their voice. My word alone… will beckon forth their wrath against the scourge of your sacrilege.”

And from the ground beneath it did the tree's roots extend and lash out against Enlenia, but the Painted Woman diverted them with but the influence of a hand gesture. She kept her hand outstretched as she strolled ever forward, causing every root before her path to crumble unto ash. Her body felt as though it were acting on its own.

“Humans suffer the Scourge as it threatens their existence, and tainted, still, must suffer its maddening embrace,” Enlenia continued. “Your reign as guardian ended as it began. There is no flower here seeking haven from a phantom—no presence beseeching this graveyard's sanctity. I must set you free from these lies.”

“And so, by my word… your blood will nourish our soil.”

For the tree's final act of defense, the fireflies set themselves ablaze with crimson flames. They circled before the tree in unison, blanketing it within a glorious storm. But Enlenia needed only to divert their course with her outstretched hand, and she continued her path unhindered.

“I will grant to you the rest you so deserve,” Enlenia whispered as she touched the tree, “but first… let us save this world, together.”

The garden fell silent before her words. The numerous fireflies fell dead unto the earth as the tree flaked quietly away into the atmosphere; but its power and spirit would live on within Enlenia as the rigor of her rebellion to follow.

“Fear not, child, for I have mercy on your soul. You are already forgiven.”

Enlenia bowed her head solemnly in acknowledgment of its parting words before retrieving Cygna and setting off for Old Halia, hovering steadily above the waters of the lake.

Cygna tightened her grip on Enlenia's shoulder. “What are you?” she asked.

Enlenia hesitated to answer, “I am as naught without the memories of the fallen.”

As Enlenia traversed the density of sunken buildings, bundles of light grew apparent in the air, centered above a circular space still afloat over the lake amidst the rubble. A closer look revealed Halians with wings of light, observing what appeared to be the well-maintained ground of a giant stone altar, along with a single woman kneeling at its center—the Blade of Humanity. The Halian's did little more before Enlenia's arrival than to quietly observe her descent onto the altar.

The Blade of Humanity lifted her head. “You finally made it,” she spoke in a gloomy tone. “I see you made it out with a bit more than just a scratch.”

“Sorry,” Cygna laughed wryly.

Enlenia drew closer to the Blade of Humanity, noticing no obvious signs of mortal injury. But as she drew close, she met with a chilling cold—the scourge within the nameless woman had grown frighteningly unsettled.

“Where's Albus?” the Blade of Humanity asked. “Don't tell me these fanatics got to him.”

“He is—”

Cygna interrupted Enlenia. “He's just staying behind to keep the Halians at bay. We wouldn't have made it here without him.”

The Blade of Humanity glared at Enlenia. “And what brings you here, O faceless one? It's a little too late to have a change of heart. Just look at me; I'm already done for.”

“We were waiting for you,” a Halian woman spoke as she descended to the altar directly behind the Blade of Humanity, a glint of curiosity in her emerald eyes as she lay them upon Enlenia and Cygna.

The Blade of Humanity forced a grin on her face. “Oh, great. Well, you could have at least left me something to be hopeful for.”

“Do you refer to me?” Enlenia asked, examining the Halian woman carefully. Aside from wearing an identical robe to the other Halians, the woman clearly presented herself as a figure of authority, standing tall, well-postured, and with kempt white hair framing a softly-aged visage.

“I am Caevin,” the woman introduced. “If you seek to forever rid the world of the Scourge, than fear not, tainted one, we are not your enemies. We have awaited this moment for so very long—awaited the day you would return to us, to fulfill your destiny as designed by your creator.”

“What do you know of my creator?” Enlenia sternly asked.

“Do you believe your creator to be a god? He was but a human with a gift worth more than the man himself. Alas, he has long parted from this world, and much of his past is unknown to me.” Caevin narrowed her eyes. “Now pray tell, why have you come? Have you come on behalf of this tainted in front of me? Is it merely the destruction of the Scourge you seek?”

“I will save her and destroy the Scourge,” Enlenia declared.

Caevin chuckled. “'Tis funny of you to say. There is naught to suggest that with the death of the Scourge, all tainted will not soon perish along with it. Surely you have pondered this, have you not?”

“Yes, I have. The Scourge must be destroyed so that we may all finally rest for eternity.”

“Such is your purpose—to bring forth that change. The question is, what will you sacrifice to that end?” She pointed to the Blade of Humanity. “Tell me, what is this creature before my pointed finger—a human or a tainted?”

“She is a human who will lose her identity and become a tainted.”

“Are you to save her as a human or a tainted?”

“She is an innocent who has suffered of circumstances beyond her control. She does not wish to be as a tainted, and so I wish to uphold her humanity.”

A slight smile crept upon Caevin's lips. “Well and just, tainted one; but surely you are now aware that some tainted such as you do oppose the Scourge, and some may even share similarities with humans. What is to say it is wrong to live as a tainted with the power to cling to one's own goodwill?”

“Yet not all tainted are so fortunate and wise, and I will abide by her own wishes.”

“Does your respect of human will—the desire to save humanity—proceed the wishes of your own friends?”

“Should I destroy the Scourge, my friends will accept their fate.”

“But first, a meeting with their creator, no? As I have said, your creator lived and died a man—never will you chance upon this meeting you desire.”

“Could a mere man create a being such as I?” Enlenia retorted. “Even so, is it wrong to believe that such a man, in death, could prosper as a tainted?”

“If he is a tainted, you may yet find him; but who can say how long you must wait? How many more sacrifices must be made to appeal to his favor and earn his audience?”

Enlenia shook her head. “Ne'er have I taken a life in his name.”

Caevin crossed her arms. “And yet you do naught to stay all slaughter by the hands of your companions; you are no less guilty than they. Constius has led many humans to their deaths with the act of deception; Inguis alone has killed tens of millions in the name of your so-called creator, to say naught of the many more lives he had claimed afore that. Even the hands of Astot have been stained with human blood. And the bloodshed will go unhindered for as long as they remain unknown to their creator. I ask you, when will enough be enough? Will you allow them to be as they are for eternity, ever in pursuit of an entity which may well not exist?”

“But I...” Enlenia spoke timidly before lowering her head, struggling to ponder her response.

“Don't listen to a single word she says,” Cygna growled.

Caevin glared at Cygna. “And what of you, exile? Is your own life so precious that you would do naught before humanity's downfall to sustain it?”

“You haggish bitch!” Cygna roared, struggling to free herself from Enlenia's grasp. “Everything I've done was to SAVE mankind! I would have given my life away at any point for their sake!”

The Blade of Humanity sighed. “Give it up, Cyg. None of it matters at this point.”

Caevin breathed deeply. “Yes… for once, this woman speaks true,” she spoke in a placid tone. “At any rate, you come to us for three purposes, tainted one: to destroy the Scourge, to seek your creator, and to save this one tainted woman. We cannot provide you the answers you desire, and killing us will not stay the spread of the Scourge. Knowing this, how are you to act?”

Enlenia lifted her head. “If you cannot stop the Scourge, then so be it—I will save these two and be on my way.”

“Do you hope we could simply leave them be? Cygna is the daughter of an arrant rogue and must be put to death in retribution for her mother's sins. The Blade of Humanity possesses power beyond our comprehension, and should she lose control of it, we may face a calamity far greater than the Scourge alone. And try as you may to restore her humanity, you cannot take that power away.”

“I will not allow you to claim their lives,” Enlenia boldly declared.

“Are these two lives more worthy of your salvation than humanity whole?”

“I will save them because they are the future of mankind.”

“All the while leaving other mortals to their deaths? If they are our future, then you are to be as their greatest foe. To save them is to forgo the pursuit of your creator. Even your own Regnal is well aware of this. So you must decide what you find more important: enlightenment or heroism—your creator or our humanity. There is no standing amidst good and evil—you cannot but confront your own moral chaos.” Caevin lifted her hand in the air, conjuring within it a radiant blade of light. “Make your choice, Enlenia: you will either free these women from our grasp and dirty your hands with our innocent blood, unite with us to stand against the Scourge and the Chariots… or leave us be in the name of your creator.“

“I will not leave them,” Enlenia breathed.

“Then will you slay us?” Caevin asked.

“No.”

“Will you stand with us against the Chariots? Will you abandon your creator and his deluded followers?”

“No!”

“I'll kill them all myself and make it easier for both of us!” Cygna declared.

“NO, Cygna!” Enlenia shouted.

“Decide your choice or I will decide it for you,” Caevin growled. “I will put these defilers to death and enslave you, I swear it.”

“You've done all you can,” the Blade of Humanity murmured. “Just forget about me, all right?”

Enlenia froze, visions of her whole life flashing before her. She cherished nature; she valued all life beyond her own. She sought a means to end her undying existence for mankind to reclaim this decaying world. But she had long become an individual with selfish desires—she shared Astot's yearning to understand her own existence before casting it aside. And beyond that, Astot had proven himself as her friend, a guide that without, she would never know what it meant to dream. She would have strongly condemned her own existence had she foreseen the trial of this very moment, but there would be no escape from her own accursed life. A decision had to be made, no matter the outcome.

Enlenia gently lowered Cygna to the ground and extended her hand to the Blade of Humanity, forcing her own words with what little will remained of her, “Please... take my hand.”

The Blade of Humanity widened her eyes. “What are you going to do?”

“My decision is made—I will save your humanity. But I choose to do so in the name of my creator. And by your hand will I accept my punishment, not only for the sins of my fellow Chariots, but as well for the sins I will soon commit myself.”

The Blade of Humanity grasped her hand without hesitation.

“For now, let us exist as one,” Enlenia continued. “Allow me to bear the burden of your corruption; I will conquer it. And when I am pure, I will pass unto you your humanity—an existence to call your own. You will one day be reborn anew.”

The Blade of Humanity smiled. “Not sure I completely understand, but I like how that last part sounds. I could use a rest if you ask me. And, who knows, maybe we won't need to be enemies in the future?”

Enlenia kneeled in front of her. “What is your name, Blade of Humanity?”

“Why ruin the fun of finding out yourself?”

Alas, the deed was done before Enlenia could insist. The Blade of Humanity faded away, and nothing remained of her but the will she passed on.

“I know it now: your hands, as well, are stained with the blood of innocents,” Enlenia grumbled with her head lowered. “Madcow gave his life on behalf of my ambition; I cannot but walk away and pardon your misdeeds.”

“Enlenia?” Cygna called out.

Enlenia stood up and lifted her head, revealing tears flowing from a pair of silvery eyes, a face wrought with guilt and anger. “I must kill you all. Forgive me.”

So began her retribution. Decayed branches spouted upward from the center of the altar, high as the clouds and burning bright with flame. From that flame emerged innumerable fireflies. From within the waters around the altar spawned grotesque and gigantic branches and roots lashing in every direction. In mere seconds, everything had become smothered beneath insects and rotted wood.

“Use the painting!” Enlenia heard from one of the Halians. Before long, they could let out only screams. Many Halians died by impalement of the shifting branches; others were torn apart by the rancid roots or set aflame by the ravenous fireflies. Enlenia soon grew deaf to the uncountable cries.

She was Enlenia, the Painted Woman—a name gifted to her by Astot of the Chariots. She sought enlightenment and aspired to save humanity.

Caevin had decided upon retreat in the midst of the chaos, gaining a safe distance from the isolated onslaught. But Enlenia had not been oblivious to her survival, and with a pointed finger, she directed a sunken branch through the Halian leader's torso, before her entire body was incinerated unto ash.

She was Enlenia—a name gifted to her by a man known as Astot. She sought enlightenment.

“We must retreat!” One of the Halians managed to announce. He, too, was quickly silenced by impalement.

She was Enlenia—a name whose origins she could not quite place. What did she seek? Why did she exist?

“Enlenia?” called out a woman lying next to her. And although she did not recognize her voice, Enlenia could not bring herself to kill her as she flew away.

Enlenia? Why had that name been mentioned?

What was it? Did it exist?

Unplaced hatred. Uncontrolled power.

Blackness, and nothing.

#iwrite #story #novel #poem #poetry #fantasy #scifi #book #literature #original #writing #abstract #EPWChapters #tragedy #conflict #battle #conviction

2 notes · View notes

atundratoadstool · 7 years

Text

Aw look! Yet another barely supported candidate for the origin of the Count’s physiognomic features

“The Devil flung back his mantle, and stood in a daring and majestic attitude before the circle. His fiery eyes sparkled from beneath their black brows, between which malice, hatred, fury, agony, and scorn had formed themselves in thick folds. These furrows were sunk in a smooth, clear, high-arched forehead, which contrasted strangely with the fiendish marks between the eyes. A finely-formed aquiline nose inclined towards a mouth which seemed to have been framed only for the enjoyment of immortal things. He had the mien of a fallen angel, whose countenance was once illuminated by the Godhead, but which was now obscured by a gloomy veil.” (Description of Leviathan -who seems to be subbing in for Mephitopheles- in Faustus: His Life, Death, and Doom, a book listed as being in Bram Stoker's possession at the time of an estate sale following his death)

“His face was a strong – a very strong – aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years.” (Description of the Count in Chapter II of Dracula)

#Bram Stoker #Dracula #Faust #The Count #vampires #liveblogging Dracula 2017 #I'm just going to make fun observations in whatever order I please this year #...because I have embraced that doing this on the right days probably is not happening

12 notes · View notes

im-not-a-what · 7 years

Text

The Witch Doctor on Main Street, Ch. 6

Title: The Witch Doctor on Main Street

Summary: Mr. Gold runs Storybrooke’s herbal shop. He sells remedies that some people consider miraculous, although he’s earned suspicion from florist Moe French and distrust from professionals like Dr. Whale. When Moe’s daughter Belle moves into town, she gets caught up in the rivalries and mysteries surrounding Gold’s line of work. Little do any of them know the true power of Gold’s “magic touch.” But a warlock making herbal medicine may not be the only extraordinary secret hiding in Storybrooke.

Rating: G

Genre: Friendship, drama, modern-day with magic AU

Chapter: School Scuffle [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

AO3 link

Neal tried not to think on when he might get the word that Principal Nottingham was, in fact, going to suspend him. He checked in with Lily on the bus to see if her mom had gotten further word. Ms. Vincent hadn’t heard anything, or hadn’t shared anything with her daughter. Lily and Neal agreed to keep their heads down. Apprehension over a run-in with August at school petered off when it became clear he wasn’t in attendance. That still left the fallout of fellow classmates, who watched the pair like they were wild animals. Some sympathy, some unease, mostly perverse curiosity, like the students half-wanted another fight to break out. Neal wouldn’t have been surprised if some were thrilled to know a fight had happened at their school.

There was one person who didn’t look happy about the fight or his part in it. As he got out of fourth period for lunch, a blond girl swerved up to him from the other side of the hall.

“We need to talk.” Her green-blue eyes punched him in some place Neal didn’t know he had.

“And you are?” he asked.

“A friend of August’s.”

Oh, crap. Maybe she was sweet on August. Maybe she was the type of girl who would throw down anyone who hurt the boy she liked. Neal cleared his throat. “Look, I know I shouldn’t have fought him. I’m sorry. That’s what you want me to say, right?”

Her glare didn’t soften. Instead, she grabbed his arm. He wanted to extricate himself, but the moment he hit August flashed in his mind, as did the embarrassment that followed facing Nottingham and his father. His body stiffened, a semi-voluntary paralysis while the blond girl pulled him down the hall to a small alcove, a window facing the courtyard. The light of day only added a burning glint to her gaze.

“Why did you hit him?” Her voice, though rough with anger, stayed level.

“He shoved Lily into a table,” Neal said, not giving thought to the words. They came as a reflex.

“I heard she punched him first.”

“Yeah, but he said something he shouldn’t have.”

Her head tilted, briefly intrigued. “What did he say?”

“I’m not going to repeat it. It’s not . . . appropriate.”

The implication caused her face to scrunch and her cheeks to redden. Then it relaxed into grim if reluctant acceptance. “I know August can be an asshole.”

Neal’s brows popped up. He hadn’t taken her for a cusser. He smiled. “I don’t know him that well. From what I’ve seen, I won’t disagree.”

“Then I’m sorry for that. But you still kicked the crap out of him. He’s not here today. Was he suspended? Hospitalized?”

“Hospitalized, no! Suspended, I’ve no idea. If he were suspended, Lily and I would be suspended, too. Nottingham made it clear we were all to blame.”

The blond shuffled on her feet. “I heard your dad and Lily’s mom are . . . tough customers.”

He frowned and squinted. “Whereas August’s dad is a decent man. So that must mean . . .”

“I’m not trying to judge, but I don’t like people getting away with something when others have to pay for it.”

“So, you’re protecting August.”

“You could say that.”

“I was trying to do the same for Lily.”

“Then you won’t object if I end up punching you in the face?”

Probably not the wisest thing to laugh, and Neal did try to resist out of politeness. A half-stifled chuckle got through. “You would’ve done that already, or you don’t want to get suspended yourself.”

The girl harrumphed. “Don’t tempt me. I wouldn’t mind getting away from here.”

“Why?”

She sharpened her stare. “Why would anyone want to get out of going to school? You a nerd?”

“That’s neither here nor there. You know a suspension goes on your permanent record.”

“Obviously you weren’t worried about that when you punched August.”

“Neither were Lily and August. We all make mistakes when we’re upset. Look, if you want to punch me, go ahead. I wouldn’t blame you.”

She scanned him over. Neal’s stomach clenched in preparation. The stomach would be the ideal target. His mouth and jaw tightened, too. Just nothing below the waist, he prayed.

A sigh blew out of the girl’s mouth. “Relax. I’m not gonna hit you. Not with so many witnesses.”

“That’s a relief,” he said dryly.

“I haven’t decided about Lily yet. She did hit August first.”

“Yeah, but—”

“I know. What I really want is to know he’s okay. You’re not gonna go after him again, right?”

“Not with Nottingham on our backs. And when I said I’m sorry for what happened, I meant it.”

“Okay.” She inhaled, a little shaky and baffled. The crease between her frowning eyebrows turned her intimidating expression into an endearing one. She was kind of cute. Not the best time or circumstances to notice that fact.

“Um, I don’t think I caught your name,” Neal said.

“Because I didn’t throw it,” she said with a quirked eyebrow.

“Right. I’m Neal, in case you didn’t know.”

She chuckled. “I’ve been in this town barely a month and I know who you are. Everybody does.”

He couldn’t help the frown, but he pushed it away along with the comment. “And you? Or does that need to be secret?”

The girl shook her head. “Emma. Emma Nolan.”

“Nice to meet you, Emma. Still planning to go to lunch?”

“Yeah. On my own.”

“Okay. Mind if I walk with you?”

She considered before shrugging. “It’s the same route for us both, right?”

He took that as a speck of hope. With a subdued smile, he strolled down the hall just a step behind Emma. As they got close to the cafeteria, she slowed so he could match her pace. He thought about asking how she knew August, why be friends with a kid most everyone knew had a bad habit of getting drawn into trouble. The questions never came.

Both he and Emma stopped, stiff with shock, at the sight of Cora Mills. She was walking and chatting with Principal Nottingham. He was doing his best to appear charming and confident. At least his hair looked washed today. Her pantsuit was so black you couldn’t see the texture from where the kids stood. The only color was her button-up blouse—blood-red.

“Is that the mayor?” Emma asked.

“Yeah,” said Neal.

“What’s she doing at our school?”

“No idea.” The only thing Neal knew for sure about Mayor Mills was that she shouldn’t be trusted. He didn’t have much confidence in people in authority, but there was something about the way the woman talked, walked, carried herself that was too neat, like a well-made mask. What most bothered him was that she found occasion to drop by Pop’s shop. He’d only seen her twice; both times, she wasn’t there to buy anything. His father had either escorted her to the backroom or asked to take a short walk with him outside. The man wasn’t warm with strangers, but he reserved a wary countenance for certain individuals, and he advised Neal to stay away from them. Ms. DeVille, a fancy-dressed woman who lived only part of the year in Storybrooke, was one. The Millses fell in the same category. Cora’s daughter owned most of the property in town. Neal had seen Regina Mills around enough, often glaring or dicing someone with words, to spot a temper that shouldn’t be tested. Even her smiles made him want to dash out of her path. But Regina didn’t alarm him the way Cora did. Maybe she wore her nature more openly; Cora was harder to read.

“She’s Regina Mills’ mother, right?” Emma asked.

“Yup. The mayor and the landlady. Dad says the Millses think of Storybrooke as their little kingdom.”

Seeing as how the mayor and the principal were crossing the cafeteria straight toward them, Neal gently nudged Emma and wordlessly directed her to a nearby empty table. They slipped out of the way just as the adults passed. Cora’s gaze dropped from Nottingham to Neal—or maybe to Emma—for half a second. It felt double the time, like the world was slowing just to make the kids feel the mayor’s prying yet veiled glance for as long as possible.

Cora and an oblivious Nottingham kept walking. When the two were out of sight, Neal sputtered out air. Neither he nor Emma needed to comment. Judging by her scowl, Emma knew enough about Mayor Mills or Principal Nottingham. Her question about Regina pointed to Cora as the source of unease.

“You know the Millses?” Neal asked.

“Not personally. Just heard about them.”

“Like you’ve heard about me.”

Emma laughed shyly. “Not exactly the same. People have mixed feelings about your dad. No one likes the Millses.”

“That’s quite the compliment.”

She chuckled more confidently, but her smile dropped when she looked up.

Neal followed her eyeline. Oh, Lily was coming over, laden with her backpack and a tray of food. Nothing foreboding about that, unless Emma hadn’t forgiven her part in the fight. As Lily approached, Neal realized why Emma was frowning and darting her eyes up and down. Lily widened her eyes and rapidly examined both Emma and her oldest friend.

Neal waved and made sure to smile. “Hey, Lily!”

“Hey.” Her tray came down with a forceful clap, plastic on laminated particleboard. “What’s going on?”

“Uh, this is Emma. She’s a friend of August.” Hard to say that without it sounding like a criticism or a warning. “She wanted to know how he’s doing.”

Lily aimed a hard but still uncertain stare at Emma. “No idea. Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“He’s not answering my calls.” Emma spoke with a steely edge that could’ve fallen in a reprimand, too. Maybe she wanted to blame someone other than August for his silence. Or she wanted to be sure Neal and Lily hadn’t bullied him into it. That thought made Neal’s nerves bristle. They weren’t like that!

“Maybe he’s embarrassed about yesterday,” Lily said. She took a seat, unapologetic.

“Are you?” Emma asked.

Lily turned her head to show her bruises, brown-purple blotches with yellow coronas on the cheek and chin. “Does this look like the face of embarrassment?”

Emma rolled her head, acknowledging yet unfazed. “August looked worse last time I saw him.”

Lily nearly tore open her soda can. Its pop sent a shudder through Neal like a tiny gunshot. “I’m not gonna waste my breath defending myself or apologizing for what I did to him. He had to learn some manners.”

“Yeah, I’m sure punching him taught him a lesson.”

The wry, withering tone warmed Neal’s face, but he also felt a weird tickle of repressed laughter in his throat.

“He knows not to cross me again,” said Lily. She smirked before taking a sip, then popped a fry in her mouth.

Emma leaned in. “If you punched me, I’d hit back harder.”

The remark that reasonably caught Lily was obliterated by laughter. Genuine, unfiltered laughter. Neal almost giggled, too. Emma didn’t appreciate it. Her face flushed. Her shoulders locked. She looked ready for a fight this time.

“Hey, I believe you,” Lily finally explained. “You might make it a worthwhile scrap. Believe it or not, I don’t go looking for fights.”

“You just start them when the mood takes you.”

“So I lost my temper.” Lily threw up a hand, then put it to better use by delivering more fries to her gnashing mouth.

“That’s all you have to say?” Emma scoffed. “You’re unbelievable! You learn to control your temper!”

“What is this, a Disney life lesson? When people talk shit, they get hit.” Lily emphatically brushed crumbs and salt off her hands before picking up a bleeding meatball sandwich.

Emma shook her head. “Forget it. I’m getting lunch.” She pushed herself up like she was trying to rocket herself into space, as far from these two kids as possible. Off she jogged to the cafeteria hot-lunch line. Neal sighed, zipped open his backpack and pulled out a simple, black, thermo-sealed lunch bag.

“No Round 2 in the lunch room, after all,” Lily said between marinara-filled bites. “Okay, Neal, you’ve got to convince your dad to give you money for lunch.”

“Nah. Dad’s lunches are better.” They were relatively simple, too—today, a bagel with cream cheese, a cup of soup, a thermos filled with herbal tea, baby carrots. And a sprig of sage. Not for eating, just to make the inside of his bag aromatic. Neal was careful to not let anyone except Lily get a decent look at his bagel as he unwrapped it from the wax paper. It look freshly toasted, despite sitting in the bag for the last four and a half hours.

Lily smiled, bittersweet. “My mom can keep things warm, but even she can’t make a toasted bagel hold up. She usually burns it.”

Neal nodded. “Just as well Emma didn’t stick around.”

She frowned at him. “Don’t sound so disappointed. She’s not our friend.”

“I know that. She grabbed me in the hallway. I thought she’d deck me.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t she? Too chicken?”

“She realized it wasn’t worth it. But I don’t think this is over.”

“Ooh, I’m shaking.” Lily giggled while wiping her mouth.

“Lily, please, just be smart about this.”

Her levity evaporated. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours! Which includes keeping you from getting into more trouble.”

“I’m not getting myself into trouble on purpose! And I’m not some poor girl you need to rescue.” With a squaring of the shoulders that said, ‘We’re done talking,’ she set herself on ingesting the rest of her lunch.

Neal had little choice but to do the same. When she got like this, it was best to let Lily boil off. He used the silence to reflect further: was he treating her as a damsel in distress, or a problematic pet that needed leashing? Being a friend didn’t mean condoning fights. It didn’t mean snarling off anyone who had a legitimate issue with Lily’s actions. He sure hoped it didn’t mean those things. Lily was his best friend, but sometimes she boxed him in, made him feel he had to be on board when she wanted to skip class or start an argument with her classmates or teachers. Lily didn’t have a sparkling record. Even so, the fistfight crossed a line, and a part of him wished he hadn’t followed her. But maybe he had to break some of his own rules to understand how much her friendship meant to him. It still mattered. He still cared about her. He just hoped sticking by her wouldn’t take him down a path of no return.

When the bell for the end of lunch period rang, Lily all but bolted from her seat with her tray. Neal closed his lunch bag and gathered his own trash to toss out in the same can.

“See you later,” Neal said as Lily walked off.

She said nothing. She didn’t even make eye contact.

“Lily!” Neal called.

She spun around. “What?”

He waved to her—a simple motion. A retreat and an olive branch.

Lily held his eye as she resumed walking. She broke it off when she reached the hall and took a sharp turn.

Neal’s hand dropped like an anchor. With a headshake, he turned around. Off to his next class. Are they all like this? he wondered. Maybe his pop could give him tips.

#nealfire #lily page #swanfire #emma swan #ouat fic #the witch doctor on main street

1 note · View note

inleaguefc-ffxiv · 7 years

Text

eels

Cast: @emerydell; @thepiratesdaughter-ffxiv; Kitty Dell; @inleaguefc-ffxiv

Emery

The lunch rush at the small alehouse just off the Limsa Lominsa ferry docks had ended about an hour ago. Now it was time for that long, long afternoon lull. The place was nearly empty, in fact. A few sailors huddled around one table, drinking and quietly conversing. The main source of action was the man behind the bar. He paced back and forth casually as he held his hand to his ear, communicating via linkpearl. “What’s that about? Eels? You know we got perfectly good eels here in Limsa…” The sailors rose from their table. A tall Highlander, who seemed to be in charge of paying for the round, dropped a bag of gil on the bar, and Emery’s face broke into a cheerful grin. “Great doin’ business with ya! Take care and don’t be strangers, now!” And then it was back to the conversation. “I don’t buy for one bloody minute that they’re special eels. Probably just some tripe to justify hikin’ the price.” Pause. “…What? Raw? You’re bluffin’, K'lani. Pullin’ me tail, if you’ll pardon the sayin’.”

Now that the place was cleared out, Emery drew himself a mug of ale and emerged from behind the bar, setting up shop at a table where he could see the door. “Alright, alright. Place the order. Just make sure they’re kept fresh. I don’t want a repeat of that pufferfish incident. I was cleanin’ up puke for a week! Oh, K'lani, doll. Remember to bring back some of those rice-sweets they make out there, yeah? Kitty’s a big fan. Aye, over an’ out.”

Then there was silence. Just Emery Dell, wedged in a booth, watching the door and sipping his ale. Sometimes it was nice to have a little peace and quiet.

Saoirse

The silence didn’t last long. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, there was a creak in the hinges on the alehouse door, and in past it swept – well, it wasn’t as much a sweep as it was a few distracted footsteps – a petite creature with her ski-slope nose in a book and an empty ale growler in her other hand.

“Emery,” she murmured, having noticed neither the proprietor’s parting customers nor his momentary oasis. “Father sent me with his ‘jug.’” Instead, she continued forward until the bar’s counter stopped her with a startling jut. The book dropped out of her line of sight so that she could blink storm-cloud eyes at the thin air where normally a wild-haired, warm-eyed culinarian usually stood. “… Emery?”

She slid her book onto the counter, then began to walk around it, fingers trailing the wood-grain behind her. Indigo skirts danced around her booted ankles as she moved.

“Where is that piss-poor pirate, now?”

Emery

Ah, now what was that coming through his door? Just his favorite sight in the entire town, thank you. When they had been young she had been so skinny and knobby-kneed, but well, Twelve bless puberty. The ale had only been about halfway finished by the time Saoirse showed up, and it was his weakest blend to boot, so there was no drunkenness, no clouding of his eyes, no question of it being a daydream. Nope, that was her. And she had just taken a counter to the gut.

“One of these days you’re gonna walk right off the dock if you don’t put the book down for a hot second.” Emery slid out of the booth and gently tapped the book’s cover, bright blues skimming the title. His gaze then flickered to the growler, lips pursed in a slightly annoyed expression. Everyone else came to the alehouse, where he could keep an eye on their drunken antics and call in the Yellow Jackets before somebody got hurt. Old Byrne, however, had other prerogatives. “Aye. So I see.”

The growler was taken up in a warm hand sporting just one too many gold rings to be strictly within the realm of good taste. Should Saoirse put down the book, she’d see him there, moving behind the bar with his usual catlike swagger, dressed in a loose-fitting cream-colored shirt and black trousers, his hair as messy as ever. “What’ll it be for him today? The usual? And you think he’ll mind if you kill a little time here? Can always pretend business was boomin’.” That was followed by a sarcastic snort. “Yeah. Boomin’.”

Saoirse

A sharp about-face presented the scholar with an eye full of her quarry just as he lowered his to spy the title of her tome. It was A Semi-Comprehensive History of Nym, vol. 83 for the record; her favorite topic since the tender age of eleven, or so her memory insisted. Her brow contorted with the kind of annoyance that always melted into amusement in the instant afterward while Emery chimed in with some sage advice that probably would have served her well if she were in the habit of taking advice from other people.

“There you are.” Saoirse relinquished the growler when he came for it with very little fanfare. She was glad to be rid of it for a moment or two, truth be told. Old Byrne had developed a torrid love affair with grog and spirit in the years since the Beacon had gone down in a tussle with the Rhotano Sea, taking the lower part of his right leg with it. He was no longer the man she recalled from childhood dockside homecomings. She pretended that it didn’t break her heart. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve walked off of a dock, you know. I can swim.” Her teeth pulled at her bottom lip, devoid of artificial colorant as it nearly always was. “Though, then my book would be wet.”

Studious fingers crept up into her golden hair, scratching idly at a scalp hidden by a romantic braid and a practical top knot. How on Earth she managed to embody both of those things was a question many a young Lominsan had probably asked themselves after being thoroughly and quite accidentally spurned by her utter ignorance of social rule.

Her scratch followed a path along the curve of an easily-appled cheek and a delicate jaw as she helped herself to one of the stools in front of the bar, planting her elbows on the counter.

“The usual will do. I’m not sure he cares what it tastes like, anymore.” She turned her head to confirm for herself that his business was, in fact, booming. Sarcastically. So, not booming at all. Satisfied, she turned her gaze back on Emery, letting her fingers roll a cadence across the cover of her closed book.

“Do you know what you need, Emery Dell?” A pause stopped her long enough for there to have existed the suggestion that she might actually wait for him to ask her what, but she wasn’t going to.

“Dancing girls. All of the popular alehouses have dancing girls.”

Emery

Now, Emery was a man who loved a good book. Indeed, one of his favorite things to hunt for in distant lands was rare manuscripts. The rules had been established years ago when he had taken to the seas, following his father’s footsteps. First Saoirse got to read them, but then she had to give them back so he could do the same. After all, what good was reading a book if you didn’t get to discuss its finer points with somebody afterwards? However, 83 volumes of history were a bit too dry for his taste. He’d leave her to it.

The growler was given a cursory scrub-down in the wash bucket and wiped clean with a rag before it was…set down on the bar and temporarily ignored. Emery was no fool. He knew that the sinking of the Beacon had been a turning point in both of their lives, and he knew that her father had fallen into his cups. He had mixed feelings about it, all bad. Sorrow for him, sorrow for Saoirse, frustration about how the poor girl’s home life must have been. Of course, every refill of that growler was a reminder that his father had never made it back at all, still at the bottom of the sea.

As always, the temporary veil of sadness was lifted by her words. His mouth was open to ask what she thought the place needed, but then the answer came, and with it came his laughter. “Is that so? Now don’t tell me you’re volunteerin’.” Leaving the growler behind, he hopped over the bar with a grace born of years at sea. He settled onto the stool beside her, gently bumping his shoulder against hers. “You never struck me as the dancin’ kind.” The last few months, whenever he sat beside her, something in his countenance softened, went from bright and wild to a warm, comforting glow.

Saoirse

“Absolutely not,” came her swift response, and with it, the wrinkle of her nose.

She hadn’t come from particularly respectable origins; the daughter of a whore and a pirate. Saoirse didn’t have a single bone in her body that bore any harsh judgment for the former, so dancing girls hardly offended her, but the idea that she might could ever be one, well… she was no gyrating Miqo'te in clothes smaller than smallclothes. Tinyclothes.

“I can dance, too, but unless you’re about to lose the deed to this pisshole,” which she said with as much affection as anyone ever had for a low-rent alehouse, “… don’t count on it.”

In truth, she quite liked to dance, but those were moments best described as solitary whimsy or occasional drunken carelessness.

She let her left elbow jab at Emery’s ribcage as he leaned in to bump up against her shoulder in some valiantly half-hearted attempt at jostling free what ever dourness her comment as to the state of the Byrne household had left stuck inside him. When his expression dimmed from mid-day to sunset, a gentle smile tugged at the left-hand corner of her mouth.

It was strange, the creeping, crawling desire to stay close when he came close that she’d come down with some moons back. The ease with which it snuck up on her was still a surprise.

“Is K'lani about?”

Emery

“You can dance? Can you, now? You know I don’t believe things til I see ‘em with me own eyes. It don’t have to be one of them salacious dances, no.” Alright, so the thought of her in those “tinyclothes” was beyond alluring, but ol’ Richard Dell didn’t raise his boy to be a lecher. He had settled down with that pretty little cook from the Bismark after two years of wooing her with treasures and tales from across the seas. Emery knew better. Not that he had a distaste for occasionally paying for company. “I picked up a couple steps at this thunderously borin’ party I got stuck attendin’, tryin’ to broker a deal for that treatise on arcanima you wanted so badly.” His hand rose to gently bump her chin. “If I didn’t like you so much, I’d’ve walked right on out the second they put away the wine and started with the prancin’.”

As Saoirse leaned into him, Emery leaned too, until they were all but supporting one another. “No, she’s off East-ways for another few days. Get this, apparently they don’t cook their damn eels there! They just wrap 'em up in rice and seaweed, slap some savory sauce on 'em, and eat 'em cold! She swears it’s delicious but I got my doubts, so I got her bringin’ back some samples packed with some good ice cores. Why, you got a request for her?” Not only did his facial expression change, but that booming baritone of his dropped to something lower and more intimate. “She’s bringin’ back those rice candies Kitty likes, too. Maybe you can get a few afore she eats 'em all, the little piggy.” It was a running joke. Kitty weighed about 98 pounds dripping wet and could pack away half a rack of lamb.

Saoirse

“You’ll just have to hope you catch me after the next time your sister and I polish off a bottle of your Lowland red, if it’s a show you want,” she offered lightly. The warmth of a tease lingered in her throat, on her tongue, in her eyes, and there was where it settled as Emery reached across to bump her chin up a tick. There was where it stayed.

“I’d like to think that ‘thunderously borin’ party,’” and yes, she mimicked his seafarer’s accent with what was probably dead-on accuracy, “… was worth the prize. Aside from that, there wasn’t a silly girl in Limsa what could keep her knickers straight when tale of your prancing hit the streets. If only silly girls made up the bulk of your business; you wouldn’t have time to sit on your laurels trading words with the likes of me.”

Saoirse watched Emery’s expression change with a curious angle in the way she held her head. Softer and softer, he seemed to get. Oh, he’d always been gentle enough, not like so many of the marauders she’d spent the better part of twenty-five years scolding for their various inclinations toward violence that she had to clean up after, but this was different. It was new. Her volume quieted to match his.

“No,” she confessed of her previous inquiry. “I can’t hear her, and I was just trying to make small talk. Now, what’s this about raw eel and rice? That sounds highly questionable.”

Emery

“I’ve seen enough of Kitty prancin’ around half-dressed an’ screechin’, thank you. Y'know she’s started drinkin’ sailors under the table for pocket gil? Tells 'em she can beat 'em, makes 'em put money on it, and next thing y'know there’s some giant axe-weildin’ brute laid out on the floor and Kitty heftin’ up her tankard for a refill.” The skepticism in his eyes regarding those silly girls was all but palpable, but he let it slide. Emery Dell wasn’t exactly the type to go about trying to get girls to melt out of their underclothes. If they did, however, he wouldn’t complain. Too bad Saoirse’s stayed firmly on.

His eyes lingered briefly on hers. The undercurrent of their small talk lately carried something primal, something akin to the aetheric currents that ran through the city. “Aye, it’s how they eat their fish there. I heard tell of it, but never quite found myself willin’ to put it in my mouth. Fish is for cookin’.” He thumbed over his shoulder towards the blackboard with today’s special. Seared fish fillets, cooked in butter with fresh garlic and herbs. “But K'lani’s got a good palate. If she says it’s worth tryin’…” The words petered out as his eyes came right back to hers.

“So.” It was abrupt, but soft. “Want me to show you the dancin’ I had to do to get you that book? Y'gotta do it with me, it’s for two people.” He’d danced with a statuesque Elezen woman who had found him hilarious, with a rather handsome young hyur, and the third round was with a drunken Lalafell who just wanted to be on his shoulders. He could’ve gone without that last part. For the first time, his hand dropped down to cup Saoirse’s. “May I have this dance?” There was no music.

Saoirse

The thought occurred to her that maybe the razing of Doma in the Far East hadn’t been the Garlean Empire’s way of quelling rebellion in the year prior, just then. Maybe they were just trying to cook fish. Maybe they were terrible at it. It seemed at least semi-plausible, to her. Much more plausible than the idea that someone might eat raw fish for enjoyment’s sake. And much less an unpleasant story to tell.

Unsurprised laughter twisted her smile, which had always sat just a little bit cock-eyed on her face.

“I’ve heard that, too. The boys who come in from the Drydocks leave the city-state proper none too amused with her, but it gives me a reason to look up every now and again to spy what burly fool thought his size was any match for her constitution.” Saoirse’s favorite place to sit and read, after all, was the shipyard. High above the docks, hidden away in an alcove made of the ivory brick that Limsa Lominsa was forged from, she could see, and hear, and ignore… everything.

“Kit must cost you a small fortune in complementary ale. I – …” Before she could finish her thought, she was pulling her gaze out of Emery’s eyes and dropping it onto the combination of their hands. When she looked up, again, it was with some question in her eyes that never made it out of her mouth.

“I… ah, okay…” The heel of her right boot caught the bottom rung of the stool she was sitting on, allowing her to step down off of it rather than having to hop. Or fall. With her wrist extended and her palm cupped in his, she waited, and she watched his face for answers.

“What sort of dancing is this, exactly?”

Emery

“I’m tellin’ ya, she learned that in Ul'dah. It’s gotta be some kind of dark magic. I can’t even keep up with her. I took away her winnings last time 'cause I needed to tax her for the ale. Don’t know how she 'spects to keep this place in business if she goes drinkin’ up our profits.” The nineteen year old was a hellraiser to be sure, but hey, family was family. Besides, she waited tables during those rare moments when the place got busy, and he’d promised his father he’d look out for her every time he’d left shore. He wasn’t about to go back on that vow.

Hand in hand, Emery lead her from the bar. He stepped away just long enough to shove a couple tables towards the wall, opening up a little more space. “It’s that courtly kind of dancin’. Y'know the kind. Where they do all that fancy shite that ain’t so much dancin’ as circlin’ one another like two moons.” One hand again took hers, while the other slid to the small of her back. It wasn’t like they had never touched before. They touched each other all the time from childhood on. But this was different. He could feel the heat of her skin through her clothes like those sun-warmed bricks outside.

“Step left,” he instructed, moving with her. “Or maybe it was right? Then you step back, I step forward, like…this?” Funny, Emery had memorized that dance. He could do it in his sleep. He had taught Kitty, who thought it was a laugh riot and refered to him as “milord” for the entire day. He had taught K'lani during the whole three weeks last year that he dated his Miq'ote first mate. But he couldn’t teach Saoirse.

“I…forgot.” How had he gotten so close to her, anyway? The last two syllables were brushed against her lips. “But somethin’…like that. Yeah.”

Saoirse

Ul'dah was probably Saoirse’s least favorite place on Hydaelyn. The desert had never suited her, not even in a visiting, vacationing sort of way. There were two reasons she went willingly: The Ossuary’s collection of bizarre manuscripts and the regular need for healers who could afford to spare their services for the area’s refugee population. Whether or not she could actually afford to spare her services was arguable. Her expression betrayed her dislike of the region for a split second. It was gone in the next.

“She’s young, yet,” was her estimation of Kitty Dell. “Young and full of piss and vinegar, like her brother was, not so long ago. I hear he thought himself an honest-to-Twelve pirate, once.” The tease had crept back into the tone of her voice.

That this courtly kind of dancing meant moving furniture gave her pause. Still, she stood precisely where she’d been left until Emery returned for her by hand and waist, which gave her further pause. A malm’s worth of it, even. The blonde’s first step was a distracted fumble. He was so much warmer than she seemed to be able to recall him having been in the past. As though he were bundled up too tightly, wearing too many layers of wool and fur and… but he wasn’t. It was just cotton. Her free hand’s fingers dug in to the musculature of his upper arm and shoulder in an effort to steady herself.

“Two… moons,” she breathed. She was breathing, wasn’t she? Was the plane of her belly rising and falling? Could he feel whether or not her heart yet pounded behind her breast? Two moons. That was a foreboding little comparison, given the events of the Calamity just five years past. One of the moons they once knew exploded, after all.

Surprise opened her eyes just a little wider than normal when her eyelashes fluttered past his and his lips grazed hers. Accidentally. Accidentally, she was sure of it, and she even repeated it to herself somewhere inside the unsettling riot of silence in her head.

“I, ah… I think I know it. I think it was one that Mother knew,” she all but whispered.

Emery

Emery wasn’t a fan of Ul'dah either, really. The dry air gave him nosebleeds, his aunt pinched his cheeks even now at age twenty-seven, and that scorching sun was enough to wilt even the hardiest of adventurers.

“Y-yeah? Maybe you, ah, maybe you ought to give me a lesson, then. Seems I…” Her hand tensed on his arm and he was sure she was leaving behind searing fingerprints. “Aw, hell, Saoirse. I can’t keep my head on straight when I’m 'round you anymore.” It had always been this sort of push-pull in his heart, pulling him closer to the studious little blonde, then pushing away because really, what would she want with a damned pirate? And yes, he was an honest-to-Twelve pirate, thank you. He’d sailed and everything and even slit the throat of a man in a back-alley fight. Of course, he’d gotten pretty badly wounded himself in the process and had to be hauled off to the healers leaving a trail of his own blood behind, but hey, he had killed a man who had menaced him, dammit.

But he wasn’t sailing with pirates anymore, not since the Calamity. Now he sailed for ingredients, ideas, literature, and artifacts. He sailed for the pretty porcelain teacups that were on display behind the bar and the fragrant, heady tea that went in them, for the rare spices that went into his lamb stew. His crew was made up largely of merchants like K'lani. Maybe he didn’t have to push anymore.

His nose brushed against hers. Emery’s usual gift of gab failed him, which was just as well. It would’ve been quite difficult to speak when his lips pressed to hers, gentle but insistent.

Saoirse Byrne

She was probably kept unawares of the throat-slitting. Old Byrne had never thought well of troubling his daughter with more than the perfunctory 'it’s dangerous out there’ 'boys are evil’ 'trust no one’ lectures, and when word of a pirate in their relative circle getting themselves into trouble as pirates so often do came trickling in from the water, he did his best to put a brick wall between it and her. Even in his current state, he kept things from her. Especially in his current state.

Opening her mouth to attempt a feeble protest in response to Emery’s confession was a waste of a caught breath. Saoirse’s parted lips received his. Like the rest of her, they yielded to him for a dizzying moment of confusion that was more instinct than sound decision-making.. A hum – a sound she’d never made, before, not like that, not for him – gave her vocal cords a heady tremble as the fingers on the hand he held curled into his knuckles. She was definitely not breathing, just then.

Her shoulder-grasping hand pushed past the texture of his cotton shirt to find the back of his neck and the curls behind his head, where it took up a cloying, tugging residency until she could no longer forget that she was kissing Emery Dell. Emery. Dell. Her father was going to kill someone.

As quick as her unconscious response to him had been was her conscious response. Saoirse pulled away, wide-eyed and shaking. The palm of one of her hands shot out in a quest to leave a swift crack against the side of his face. The heave of her chest screamed bewilderment.

Emery

For one moment, one heady, glorious, soaring moment, he had her. Her hum was answered in kind with a breathless, aching sigh. He had kissed women, he had kissed men, he had kissed plenty of times and he’d enjoyed himself plenty. It wasn’t like this. It was nothing like this. He’d give up sailing, never set foot on a ship again, if it meant he could have this. The hand at the small of her back tugged her closer, against him, so that hammer in his chest could meet hers. She smelled like old books and sweet skin and things even his culinarian’s nose couldn’t identify. For one brief moment, he had it all.

Then she pulled away, and Emery had literally half a second to offer her a pleading, confused expression before her hand wiped it thoroughly off his face. He looked stung, bewildered, and then composed himself. “Right, then. I…” Had it coming? “H-had it comin’. I’m…” Sorry? “Yeah.”

His eyes lowered to his boots, then slowly his gaze made its way across the wooden planks of the floor. To her shoes, to her legs, to her heaving chest, to her face. “Saoirse, I…since we were knee-high, I…” Loved her? See, this was why he hadn’t tried. What would she want with a pirate? Even a former pirate? The gears in his mind were turning and not getting anywhere. “I, ah, s'pose you’ll be wanting your dad’s ale.” Oh, Twelve, please don’t let her tell her father about this. Please don’t let him come thundering in here drunk and furious that the Dell boy put the moves on his daughter. And then it came out. “I’m sorry. That…wasn’t the right way to go 'bout things.”

Saoirse

Saltwater had collected along her lower lashes in twin lines of gleaming light in the eternity it felt like it took him to find his words.

Saoirse’s jaw trembled. Her wrist trembled. Her slim shoulders threatened to lurch forward in order to protect the swell and ache of the heart caged by her ribs, but she pulled them back and kept her chin level, somehow.

She didn’t say a single word more, but fixed a normally placid stare on Emery that rivaled any peal of sea-storm thunder. A gale wind may as well have lived in her heels, the way she backed away and mindlessly fled for the alehouse’s front door… without her father’s growler.

One way or another, a visit from Old Byrne come the morrow was inevitable.

Emery

“No, don’t…don’t!” But she was gone. And the growler was still there, clean and empty, sitting on the bar. Emery took after her for half a second, but only made it as far as the door. He flung it open only to be blinded by the afternoon sun gleaming off Limsa’s bricks. “Please…” There was nobody to hear that part, which was just as well, because he would have died before he’d ever admit the way his fingernails dug into the wood of the door’s frame, as though he needed its support to stop his knees from buckling.

Light footfalls coming down the stairs signifed the arrival of somebody significantly smaller. The pop of chewing gum ripped through the silence like a gunshot. “I’m trying to study, Emery,” Kitty wheedled, though she cut herself short at the sight of her brother. “What the hell happened?” She glanced about, eyes falling on the growler. “Hey, isn’t that Old Byrne’s? Was Saoirse here? I wanted to see if she could help me with this stupid pattern and–”

“Kitty, mind the bar.” Emery’s terse words cut off his sister’s. “I’m takin’ a break.” And he was out the door in sudden, stony silence. There was going to be hell to pay.

#ffxiv #roleplay #mateus #limsa lominsa #the kraken's maw #in league #romance

0 notes