Tumgik
#side inlet
anbi-group · 19 days
Text
Tumblr media
Upgrade your bathroom while saving water and enjoying hassle-free installation. Get your ANBI Toilet Repair Kit today! 🚽💦
https://anbisolutions.com/shop/plumbing/plumbing-consumables/flush-fittings/anbi-toilet-repair-kit-universal-dual-flush-bottom-inlet-italy/
1 note · View note
novantinuum · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
jesus christ my hand wants to fuckin die
63 notes · View notes
terrorbirb · 3 months
Text
We have something called a "Siamese connection" referring to a connection with two mirrored sides that you can plumb into.
This sounds like an inappropriate name. Is it?
4 notes · View notes
aziraphale-is-a-cat · 7 months
Text
DPXDC A Voice In The Pit
Danny had his accident much younger, he was cleaning out the lab when it happened and landed on a button activating the portal.
But since the machine was incomplete, he was unable to pass to the Infinite Realms in his death, and while Danny became a halfa he was instead transported to an ectoplasm rich environment in the living realm.
~
Damian had heard something calling from the Lazarus Waters. A young voice not unlike his own, crying for help. Grandfather had said that those who asked for help were weak, but something about the voice had him feeling pity and sorrow rather than disgust at the clear display of weakness.
Turning the corner through the tunnel system linking the League of Assassin's base he found himself at the narrow inlet he had found years ago, a ventilation shaft unsuited for the larger bodies of the adults in the compound, but perfectly sized for his small frame. Pulling himself through the dusty path, Damian eventually came out the other side at the back of the Lazarus Chamber on the far end away from the heavily guarded doors.
As he climbed down the wall of the stalagmite covered pits the cries for help got louder and clearer than they had been in weeks. Edging closer to the shore of the Pits, he cautiously reached his hand out to the waters. And something reached back to gently hold his hand.
"Are you here to help me?"
1K notes · View notes
fannyliu14887 · 2 years
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
1 note · View note
alkali1 · 5 months
Text
Fantasy Maternity Ward
It had been a relatively quiet day at the maternity ward, but all of Dr. Ixia's hope of going home on time vanished when she heard the anguished screams of the petite elven woman being carried into the delivery room by her hulking orc husband. Half-orc deliveries were almost always a drawn-out, tortuous affair, and with the three-year length of elven pregnancies, the mother would surely need a lot of time and assistance to squeeze out the 60-70 pound toddler currently cramming its way through her overdilated cervix.
The nurse briefed the goblin OBGYN on the patient's status: "She's carrying a singleton, half-orc 163 weeks pregnant, and nearly fully dilated." The doctor's eyes widened at hearing how long the pregnancy had been. Elves usually couldn't handle bearing interspecies babies the full three years, but this woman had gone severely overdue. She shuddered thinking about the sheer size of the baby, and whether her body could even stretch enough to accommodate it.
The patient was helped into the birthing bed, her feet strapped up into the stirrups. Her breasts, sagging low with milk, were pushed up into her face by the enormity of her womb, which dominated the rest of her body. From Ixia's low angle it looked like it could be the size of the rest of her combined. The elf's straining, barrel-sized belly shifted back and forth as the strong, overdeveloped child confined within writhed, desperate to be born.
The doctor reached into the patient's swollen pussy to examine her cervix. She found her to be fully dilated, with the baby's watermelon-sized and colored head battering against the elf's hopelessly tiny pelvic inlet with each desperate push.
"Huff...huff...stuUUUUUUUUUCK!" was all the poor elf could say as another contraction made her strain desperately to squeeze the colossal head through her unyielding hips. "We're going to give you a little something to help you stretch", said Dr. Ixia, loading up a syringe with a clear potion.
Ixia made three careful injections into the ligaments holding her pelvis together, one in the front and one on either side of her delicate tailbone. She wrenched the strirrups back, bringing the elven woman's feet almost parallel to her head. The patient let out a desperate scream as she reacted to the burning sensation of her pelvic ligaments stretching like taffy.
With her hips finally widened enough for her pushes to slowly start squeezing the overdue toddler downwards, the patient writhed underneath the suffocating boulder of her belly, clinging desperately to her orc husband's burly arm. Each push brought a few agonizingly slow millimeters of progress, and with it an unimaginable searing pain that made her scream and wail that her hips would split. Though this was one of the most disproportionate births she'd attended, it was nothing the veteran doctor hadn't seen before. Ixia squirted some lubricating oil into the now bulging cunt of her patient, working it in around the brow of the child to hopefully ease its passage somewhat.
After a few hours the head was just barely starting to approach the elf's bulging lips. With a sliver of green skin visible, each push made her swollen flower distend just a bit more, until it formed a sickening bulge several inches wide. Her perineum was pulled so tight that it dragged her anus open with into a teardrop shape.
Ixia sighed, realizing that the elf's hole was just too small and tight to stretch around the colossal toddler head. She gently ran her fingers around the taut rim, testing its pliability and trying to stretch it around a little more of the huge skull. There was just no way it was going to fit without splitting the poor elf wide open.
"Ready the traction forceps," Ixia said to her assistant. As the device was being assembled, she rubbed a sticky potion into the elf's vaginal lips and perineum. "This will help you stretch wide enough to deliver." she explained.
With the ointment taking effect Ixia was just barely able to wiggle the curved metal faces of the forceps into the patient's birth canal and secure them into place around either side of the head. She locked them together and hooked the apparatus up to a chain, then turned a crank to create constant pressure against her patient's stubborn cunt.
"IT'S RIPPING MEeeeeeee!" screams the poor elf, struggling to stay calm with the burning sensation in her overstretched cunt suddenly multiplying tenfold. "Calm down, you're not tearing. Just breathe and push when you feel a contraction." Privately, Ixia had her doubts. The doctor prided herself on rarely having to cut her patients, but the sheer size of the grossly overdeveloped half-breed could easily prove too large for the extra capacity provided by the stretching ointment.
Over the next three hours the elf's grotesquely stretched pussy gradually stretched around the baby's boulder-like, fused skull. The doctor periodically ratcheted up the tension, and reapplied more ointment to the patient's vulva and perineum. But just before it reached its widest point, it stopped progressing.
The red-faced elf gasped as Ixia explained that the shoulders had become stuck on her tailbone. "Brace yourself, this will be quite uncomfortable." said the doctor as she pulled on an elbow-length surgical glove.
Ixia carefully squeezed her hand into the gaping maw of the elf's rectum. She faced severe resistance from the stretching and squeezing being exerted on the hole by the massive obstruction lodged in the birth canal. Every square inch of space in the moaning patient's pelvic cavity seemed to be taken up by the baby, but finally the doctor was able to get some leverage on the shoulders.
With the next push she attempted to rotate the anterior shoulder, but it wouldn't budge. It was completely wedged against the unusually prominent bone. With a sickening pop, the fragile spur gave way. Ixia quickly withdrew her arm from the patient and provided counterpressure as the unstuck baby surged forward.
"Try to pant through the urge to push. If it comes too quickly you're going to tear yourself badly." But the agonized elven woman was far too deep into the throes of labor to resist her body's desperate signals. With the next contraction the head finally popped free from her gaping cunt with a gush of fluid. Ixia disengaged the forceps and gently guided the shoulders and torso out. With one more quick push the gigantic toddler fully emerged from the elf's blown-out birthing hole.
Ixia needed help from her assistant to lift the child onto the mother's chest. As the new parents cooed over their firstborn and the nurses cleaned him up and did their examinations, she supervised the delivery of the placenta and stitched up the shockingly minor tears in the elf's loose, swollen-purple hole.
"76 pounds 15 ounces!" announced one of the nurses after weighing the chubby newborn boy. "One of the largest I've ever delivered" thought Ixia to herself. With the ordeal largely over, the doctor advised the patient to stay on bedrest for at least six weeks while her tailbone healed and alchemically stretched body parts slowly returned to normal. Finally, hours after she expected, she could go home.
452 notes · View notes
togrowoldinv · 1 year
Text
The Sweetest Con
Wanda Maximoff x Female Reader
When you are put in charge of the volleyball team, you have a very interesting set of interactions with a mother at the church
Warnings: Smut! 18+ please! Kissing, cursing, fingering, etc.
Note: Milf Wanda hehe. This is inspired by Lizzie in the Love and Death trailer. Enjoy!
Wanda Maximoff Masterlist, Main Masterlist
Tumblr media
When you were asked to spearhead the volleyball league, you accepted immediately. You’d been looking for a way to get more involved and volleyball was the perfect inlet.
The first few practices went well. You had a good amount of players, but there was one player in particular that caught your eye.
Wanda Maximoff. The gorgeous woman is an absolute born athlete. She’s captivating as she makes perfect passes and hits like she’s been doing it her whole life.
After practice today, you decide to ask Wanda to stay afterwards.
“What’s up, coach?” She says the last word with a silly grin on her face.
“I’m assuming you grew up playing ball,” you say.
She nods. “I played at the middle and high school’s here, yes.”
“Me too. I’m surprised coach never talked about you.”
“Oh, well I am a bit older than you, honey,” Wanda says. The term makes your heart skip a beat.
“Right, yeah,” you agree, feeling a little flustered as you watch her take a drink of water.
You should not be watching the way her neck looks as she sips the water.
“I have to be getting home to my kids. I’ll see you next week?” Wanda asks.
“See you next week, Wanda.”
You watch as the woman walks away. Her shorts hug her just right and you internally scold yourself for checking her out in a church. And you’re pretty sure she’s married.
The next week does nothing to ease your crush. One of the players can’t make it, so you sub in and scrimmage with the team.
Wanda remains the captain of the A team and you let her do her thing.
It’s down to set point when you and Wanda both go for a ball. You both dive onto the floor and collide with each other. Wanda ends up underneath you.
“Oh, I’m so sorry Wanda,” you tell her. Her arms are pinned to her side and your entire lower bodies are touching. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says with a chuckle. Her eyes seemingly glance to where your breasts rest over her.
You stand up and hold a hand out for her to take. She takes it and you lift her off the ground. Wanda smiles at you before she returns to her position.
Your team wins the scrimmage and everyone cheers.
Wanda calls after you before you can leave the gym. “I’m having everyone over to my house if you want to come,” she tells you. “It’s a Bible study slash team get together.”
You’re proud of the way the team is bonding.
“I’m there,” you tell her. “I just need to get changed.”
“Alrighty. It’s casual,” she says. “We’ll see you there.”
You go home and get ready for Wanda’s get together. Thinking about her calling it casual, you slip on some pants and a button up shirt. Maybe you leave one extra button than you should undone.
When you get to Wanda’s house, there are people in the yard throwing a football around and you notice her husband grilling.
“Y/n, glad you made it!” Another player, Monica, greets you.
“Hey y’all,” you greet everyone.
You walk inside to greet everyone else and that’s when you see Wanda in the kitchen. She’s hard at work, but when she sees you she stops in her tracks.
“Hey Wanda,” you say. Her eyes fall directly to the open buttons of your shirt.
“Nice to see you,” she comes back to reality to say.
“Do you need any help?”
“You can help Natasha grab the ice,” Wanda says. You nod.
You see the redhead waiting by the door for you to join her. Natasha leads you outside and you two spark up a conversation.
You like Natasha. She’s not like the other stuffy church members and you’re pretty sure she’s dating her friend Maria.
For most of the evening, Wanda is running around and doing her host duties. Before you leave though, you decide to go find her and say your thanks for the invite.
You find her inside tucking her sons in. Respecting her space, you stand in the hallway a few steps from the bedroom. But Wanda knows you’re there.
She kisses her boys goodnight and comes into the hallway.
“Hey, sorry I just wanted to say thank you for the invite,” you say quietly.
She takes your hand and pulls you into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her. Wanda sits on the edge of her bed and invites you to join her. You sit a respectable distance away from her.
“I’m glad you came,” Wanda says.
“Of course, yeah. I wish we could’ve talked more tonight,” you admit.
“Me too, y/n. I’d really like to get to know you better.”
She looks you over again and you feel a chill up and down your spine. Wanda scoots a little closer. Your eyes glance down to her lips.
“I’ll see you next week, Wanda,” you break the silence, knowing this is nothing but a bad idea.
“Yeah, okay,” Wanda says, a slight pout to her voice.
You leave her there in the bedroom and go back home. For the entirety of the next week, you think about how Wanda seemed disappointed that you ended that moment at the get together.
Wanda shows up early for practice this week. You’re sitting in your makeshift office when Wanda comes through the gym doors.
“Hey, I’m in here,” you call out to her.
“Hey, I was just going to hit the ball around a bit before practice.” She stands at your office door.
“Okay, great,” you say. But she doesn’t move. “Is everything okay, Wanda?”
“Yes,” Wanda says, but then she steps in and shuts the door behind her. “No.”
“No? If this is something with the team, we can talk about-“
“It’s something with you, actually,” Wanda says.
“Oh.”
Wanda walks to your side of the desk and leans against it. You look up at her from your chair. Her legs threaten to cloud your mind completely as they flex against the desk.
“Do you like me?” Wanda asks, her lips are turned into a pout.
“Of course I like you, Wanda,” you say nervously. “We’re friends.”
“No, not like that,” she says.
“Like what then?”
“Forget it,” Wanda mumbles.
She tries to leave, but you stand up and grab her hand. Turning her around, you pull her close but stop inches from her lips.
“Tell me you want this,” you say to her.
“I want this so bad,” Wanda says. “I’ve wanted you since the day I met you.”
You take her face in your hands and kiss her soft lips. Her hands pull you closer with one on your hip and one on your neck.
Wanda turns her head to deepen the kiss and you allow her to take control. She kisses you until you’re both breathless.
“Fuck, I’ve never done that before,” Wanda says.
“Kissed a woman?” You ask. She hums in agreement and kisses you again. “So you definitely haven’t been fucked by a woman?”
“No,” she says against your lips.
“And you’d like to?”
“God yes,” Wanda says.
You smirk against her lips and move your hands under her shirt. She gasps as you take the material over her head. You kiss her neck and she moans when you bite her softly.
“Harder,” she says.
You take her instructions and bite her harder as you slip your hands down her stomach to her waistband. Slipping off her shorts, you admire her lacy panties.
“Fuck Wanda, you’re not such an innocent church girl are you?” You say. Her knees buckle, but you hold her up.
“Please fuck me,” Wanda says.
You slip off her sports bra and her panties. When your lips go to her nipples, you can tell she hasn’t felt this sensation before.
“Oh god,” Wanda moans out as your tongue circles her nipples.
You slip your hand down to her center to be met with her wet folds.
“All of this is for me?” You ask her.
“Yes, honey, yes,” Wanda says.
“You’re so wet, Wanda. Does fucking me here turn you on that much?”
Wanda nods and her eyes close in pleasure as you slip your finger into her.
“Fuck you take it so well, Wanda.”
Her head falls onto your shoulder as you add a couple more fingers and slip in and out just as she needs.
“God, this feels so good,” Wanda moans against you. She lifts her head to look you in the eyes. Her mouth is parted slightly and you kiss her perfect lips.
“Come for me, Wanda,” you tell her. She keeps the eye contact as her hips shake and she lets out the prettiest moans you’ve ever heard. “Good girl.”
It’s quiet as Wanda comes down from her high. You kiss her neck and cheeks as her breathing resumes.
“You gotta get dressed, babe,” you tell her, noticing the time.
“But you didn’t-“
“We can finish this later,” you say. You hold her cheeks in your hand and admire the way she’s so flushed. “We have to practice right now.”
“I wanted to make you feel this good,” Wanda says. “Or at least try.” She adds shyly.
“Oh you could definitely make me feel good, Wanda. You already have,” you tell her. She smiles. “But I’m perfectly fine with pleasing you first.”
“Oh, okay,” she says. You can tell she’s not been told that before.
You kiss her deeply and she chases after your lips even once you’ve pulled away. Reluctantly, she gets dressed. But before she leaves your office, you pull her in for a hug and kiss her forehead.
“Do you have plans after practice?” You ask her.
“I do now,” Wanda says with a smirk.
She takes the initiative to kiss you this time before she straightens her shirt and walks out of your office.
Wanda Maximoff is definitely your standout player and the woman you can’t help but be captivated by.
2K notes · View notes
yeyinde · 11 months
Text
WILLOW TREE MARCH
John Price x Reader | Fae!AU
Tumblr media
"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go."  "Why?" You asked, blinking at her.  "Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 
—WARNINGS: 18+ | SMUT fae shenanigans, mythological nonsense; unsafe sex, smut in random places, slight exhibition kink if you squint; Dom-ish Price, soft Price, pining Price; fae trickery (dubious consent on account of the trickery but not really); unreliable narrator; ahhhhhh, body horror (??????????) —TAGS: Fluff, AU, mythology —WORD COUNT: 8,5k —Based on this ask
There's a thick forest at the edge of your town. It curves along the coastline, breaching the yawning maw of the inlet—the last safe haven before the open ocean—and can be found almost nowhere else in the entire world. A unique ecosystem comprising vaguely familiar flora and fauna. Brown and Black bears. Wolves. Sitka-black-tailed deer. Ravens. The waters that crest through the forest are full of salmon, steelhead, and river otters. On the coast of the inlet, you can find whales, sea lions, seals, orcas, and porpoises swimming offshore. 
It's protected, in large part, by its sheer vastitude. Spanning a massive chunk of your home, it stretches far north with curling fingers cutting through the granite of the crumbling coast, and as deep south as its knobby knees can reach. 
From above, it looks like a child curled on its side, knees tucked to its chest. It's this pose alone that makes others revere it as some sacred being, slumbering mindlessly until the day it cracks open its eyes, and awakens to the new world. A child god made of conifers, red cedar, spruce, fir, pine, birch, and hemlock. Mossy caves of granite and limestone. Thick colonies of moss, liverworts, plume moss, and common haircap. 
The forest is linked to your town only by a small strip of land that juts out from a raging ravine with currents too dangerous, too deadly, to try and traverse. An archipelago all on its own, untouched by greedy, human, hands because of its placement. 
It's insulated by the vast ocean on its front, and a series of insidious looking mountains ready to swallow wandering mountaineers whole if they get too close to the sleeping child. Protected and safe by anyone who might try to harm it. 
You used to dream about the forest. A nightmare dredged up about whispers and calls. Lured close to the edge of the river where a man would hand you his heart—sap-stained, and charred; a brittle piece of Bristlecone pine that felt fragile and worn—and told you to come back for him. To wait for him. 
You'd wake in a cold sweat each time, heart pounding so fast that it almost felt like you were dying.
(Maybe you were. Maybe you did.)
You don't know if you believe the stories told about people wandering into the gaping chasm of the forest and never coming out. It's not uncommon for people to get lost, after all. But it feels distinct and archaic. Old. Something about the way the wind howls sounds different from the other woodlands scattered around your home. 
It sounds like a beckoning call. A mother calling their child home for dinner. Come to me, the Chinook bellows. Come home now, dear. 
You never venture too close. You know all too well what happens to children who do.
Tumblr media
His name is—was now, you suppose—Kyle, but no one called him that. To everyone in town, he was simply known as Gaz. 
Newcomers to the isolated archipelago are a rarity—so much so that news of the new family's arrival sent waves through the community, making Gaz an instant star overnight, all without him even setting foot on the shores. 
None of that mattered, though. He fit in with an ease that seems almost preternatural when you think about it, as if he was meant to be there. And maybe he was. Maybe the soft rolling valleys were destined to be his home where flowers bloomed in the spring, and Arctic tern trilled from the branches. 
Gaz was unique, different. 
He picked dandelions with the same intensity that picked fights with the bullies in the neighbouring town, the ones who tried to pick on the smaller kids in the community. 
With his fists always covered in dandelion oil and bruises, face caught between a grimace and a grin, like he was never sure if he wanted to spit at their feet or tell a joke, he stood against the onslaught with an anger that seemed to crackle in the air like fireworks. Ready for battle. Thirsty for blood. 
His anger never waned even when he turned back to the group, eyes cresting in satisfaction, and body trembling with adrenaline, and you could scent the rage in his smile, hear it in the soft words he muttered to the kids, telling them everything would be alright. 
Gaz was everyone's friend. The person you told your deepest secrets to, the one you planned adventures with. He was a rock—always armed with snappy jokes to make you smile, and advice when you needed it. 
He was everyone's friend—yours especially—but you can't remember if anyone was his best friend. He was polite. Distant. 
It started in the summer. His hands were always cold, and he kept them shoved deep in his pockets, clenched tight around the latchkey his parents gave him. 
He started to seem almost liquid then. Temporal. You'd reach for him, brushing your hands against his arms or shoulders just to assure yourself that he was really there.
You noticed that his eyes would list sideways, head tilted, slanting toward the forest. It looked to you as if he was listening to something. To some unheard noise or call that only he could hear. 
When you asked about it, he'd always blink, surprised, as if you'd woken him up from a dream quite suddenly. Then, he'd smile, and shake his head. 
"Don't worry about it," he'd say, shrugging. "Just the wind."
He'd bend down and pick a dandelion for you, holding it out between pudgy fingers with a grin that seemed to mimic the cresting moon. 
"For you."
He picked them for three springs before he, too, became another victim of the endless forest. Another empty tomb in the overcrowded graveyard.
Missing, they said, but not forgotten. 
You think about him often. 
(Even more so when you, too, begin to hear your name echoing through the forest.)
Tumblr media
Beware the woods, your grandma says. Especially when it calls your name. 
(You never understood why something that sounds so comforting, so sweet, could ever be dangerous. It sounds like an old friend calling you over to play. 
"Never go," she snaps, her hands lashing out to grip your arms tight. You feel her knobby fingers digging into your bones. "Never listen, and stay away—"
"You're hurting me, gran—"
Her rheumy eyes burn into yours. "Stay away—!"
(You wisely never speak about the whispers in your head, keeping them to yourself. A secret just for you.)
Tumblr media
You leave town when you're old enough, when the hisses in your head grow too loud to ignore, and it feels as though they're scratching at your skull. 
(Clawing at the walls.)
"Crazy weather, eh?" The first mate mutters nervously, eyes tilted upward as the sky darkens into an angry grey. "Came outta nowhere." 
You leave, and you don't look back. 
(But oh, how the forest screams.)
Tumblr media
She calls you back several years later with a phone call. Your gran has passed. 
You think you should mourn, but it's been so long since you thought of home, that you don't remember what she looks like anymore. The sound of her voice is a whisper in your head—the cadence gone, the tone flat. 
But you don't cry, and you don't grieve—she's been dead for a long time now, after all. Ever since your mum went missing all those years ago, she's always seemed more of a ghost than a person. Living as if her body hadn't realised her heart was long dead. 
You go back only because you think your mum would have wanted you to. 
(And pretend it isn't because the silence in your head is suffocating. Without the whispers, it feels as if you're missing something. A part of yourself forever lost in the forest.
You wonder if anyone has found it by now.)
Tumblr media
Nothing has changed since you turned your back on the town that raised you, the forest that stole from you. 
It's the same buildings. The same market. The same roads. The same houses. 
The people, too, seem largely unchanged by the years that have passed. 
The friends from your childhood who stayed meet you at the graveyard, eyes filled with sympathy as they ask how you're doing. 
She'll be missed, they lie sweetly to you. Everyone loved her. 
She was a hermit, you want to scream. A woman driven mad by ghosts and fairytales and terror. 
You nod, instead, and let them lead you around the town on a grand tour as if anything about this beautiful, haunting place had changed since you ran away. 
It gets easier to force a smile when they ask if you're okay. 
"Fine," you murmur and wonder if your voice even carries over the whispers. "Just—yeah. Fine."
Tumblr media
North of the town is where the river separating the lonely forest carves a path, not at all dissimilar to an idyllic trough, through bedrock and sand, and flows into the sea. 
The estuary is dangerous in high tide when the rapid ascent of water on the sandy shores hides the rip current that is known to form when the two bodies of water meet. 
It's a dangerous place to get caught in. 
This beach was impressed upon you as deadly from a young age, almost in equal—if not greater—measure than the rapacious forest across the river. You know the dangers of standing on the slippery bedrock. 
But as the sun glows a burnt orange in the distance, and the endless ocean before you darkens into an almost unfathomable black, you can't help but find the view from the cliff's edge to be the most mesmerising thing you've ever seen. 
It looks like a painting. A brush stroke of tigers eye in the centre of the cresting sun that gradually fades out into xanthous, and rings of hazy peach; the light of diminishing star smears coruscating rings of persimmons into the indigo water. The gradual fade into gradients as the waves lap closer to the shore is reminiscent of liquid sapphire and smelting amethyst. 
The picturesque view is more befitting of a pastel postcard, an ethereal pastiche of the Ninth Wave—a moment of life imitating art, or—perhaps—the same view Ivan Aivazovsky stumbled upon when he set out to render the haunting beauty of the ocean in oil. 
The cresting waves arch into curled petals of white before setting upon the sloping beach with frenzy. It's the roar of those hungry waves that seem to, if only for a moment, drown out everything in your head. 
There are no whispers. No songs. No screams. Vengeful hissing can't climb to a higher decibel than the frothing waters slamming against jagged bedrock. 
All is quiet—except the sea. 
You lean into it. The closer you get to that precipice, the quieter everything in your head goes. Sounded sucked into the vacuum of the ocean. The endless song of the sea. 
Another step. Another. 
For a moment, you're free. 
The forest doesn't scream for you. Your grandmother doesn't dig her teeth into your gyri, hands clawing at the space behind your eyes. You don't think of her, or your mother, or Gaz, or anyone else unfortunate enough to get consumed by this damnable place where fairy tales split the seams apart, and merge with reality. 
It's peaceful. 
You take another step—
A hand curls over your shoulder, tugging you back. 
Anger pools, thick and acidic, on your tongue, but the flash of your ire, your vexation, is dashed by the sound the waves make when it slams into the spot you were just standing. 
It slashes across the concrete as the stranger pulls you into his broad chest, heat nearly liquifying your spine. 
He sucks in a breath. You feel his chest expand with it. When he breathes out, you taste gunpowder on your tongue. 
"Gotta be more careful n'that, love." 
You've had near-misses before. Flirted with the reaper. Ripped yourself from the jowls of death himself. 
This isn't anything new.
And yet—
Your eyes drag up, meeting flat black boring down at you. His hood is pulled over his forehead, casting shadows down to his jaw. 
"You—"
Your teeth sink into your tongue. Emotions lash through you like the flick of a bullwhip, shredding your skin until it's raw and oozing. The tail pulls away whenever you try to wrap your fingers around one of them—relief: you're not dead; embarrassment: how could you be so stupid; shame: saved by a stranger; and—
Visceral terror. Panic. 
It bludgeons its fist down your throat, barbed knuckles clawing at the soft tissue of your esophagus until you taste blood on your tongue. 
Panic tastes of ozone and leaks, thick and warm like molasse, down your throat. 
"Hey," he murmurs, and the sound of his voice, his low timbre, is porous, calcined. The rough scratch scours through the haze of fear threading through your sternum. "C'mon on, now. Gotta breathe, yeah?" 
It's his hands on your shoulder—hotter than grenade fire—and the thick scent of musk, of stale smoke and kerosene sweat, that break through the gossamer of your acrid panic. He spins you around to face him, eyes fixed on your face. 
"That's it," he says, soft, soothing. "Keep breathin'. You ain't dead yet." 
You come to yourself in pieces. The world bleeds with startling clarity around the blurred edges. Home, you think. Maybe.
Once upon a time. 
You blink. Blink again. 
The hand still on you—heavier, you find, than an anvil—lifts, his thumb brushing over the curve of your jaw, swiping over the sweat-stained skin.
You can't see his eyes through the shadows cast over his face. A stranger. You've never seen him before. 
They didn't say anyone new moved to town. 
"Who are you—?"
"You don't know?" 
And then his hand is gone, taking all the heat in your body with him. 
It lifts to his vest, thick fingers, gloved in yellow, curling over the butt of his cigar. 
You must make a face. A grimace. A whisper of bemusement. Whatever it is, it makes his lips twitch under the shorn burnt umber of his beard. 
"I'd share," he mutters, teething sinking into the hilt as he pats himself down for a lighter. "But I ain't got the time."
"Shouldn't be smoking in a provincial park, anyway." 
The words are dragged out of you. Numbed, gritty. 
It makes him snort. "Maybe—;" he cups his hand around the end, thumb striking the ignition of the lighter. He inhales, and the red circle at the tip illuminates the cerulean blue tucked away into the folds of his hood. The plume of smoke curls over him like a shroud. "But I doubt a cigar is gonna bring the whole forest down, mm? 'sides, we all have our vices, don't we?"
With that, he leaves you standing in the tendrils of smoke that billow out from his caustic mouth. No goodbye. No name. Nothing except the hum of his touch buzzing through your veins. 
Your head is numb. Thoughts congealing into hardened clay. 
Yeah, you think sluggishly, eyes dropping to the drenched pavement where the ocean narrowly missed you. Swallowed you whole. We do. 
(Yours is bad decisions that reek of napalm. 
Men who scour your hands raw when you touch their coarse surface.)
Tumblr media
You find him again in some desolate pub on the fringes of town a few days later. It looks like it's one strong gust of wind away from blowing down. Dilapidated. Rusted from the harsh salt of the ocean to the north. 
He lifts his head when you slide into the empty chair on the left, but says nothing about your unexpected company. 
Instead, his lips curl over the cigar sawed between his teeth. A grin, you think. 
You wonder if he was expecting you. 
(Wonder, then, with a touch of something warm gnarling in your belly, if you surprised him.)
The barkeep wanders past, brows lifting at you in question. 
"Um, a vodka soda—"
The man, Price you learned from the locals with a great of digging, snorts. 
"Ain't got none of that here, love. Two scotches. Neat." He leans over, thick fingers grasping the middle of the cigar, an inch away from the bristles on his upper lip, and pulls it away, ashing it in the tray in front of him. "And a bottle of spring water." 
"Scotch?" You echo, leaning your elbow on the sticky counter. He reeks of smoke. Sweat. Blood. Gunpowder. You veer closer, soaking in the astringent tang of him. Everyone on this island smells of daffodils and cotton; clean and neat and innocent. He reeks of danger. Everything inside of you screams to stay away. "I don't drink scotch."
The cigar burns in the tray. He pulls back, shifting in the chair. His elbow rests on the counter, the other arm is slung over the back of his seat. The picture of appeasement, of a satiated tiger eying a little mouse sniffing past it. There's no immediate danger, and his posture is relaxed. Open. But his eyes—
Price turns to you, then. His legs are spread, knees notched apart, taking up more space than you offer him. A looming presence. Dominating. Confident. He's not doing it on purpose, you don't think, he's just—
Big. 
His legs are too long. Thighs are too thick. 
Something gnarls behind your ribs when you take in his bare face. It's different, smaller, without the bulky black hood thrown low on his brow. His hands bare, leaving him in only casual clothes that stretch taut around his broad body. 
The beanie on his head, pulled low on his forehead, makes him look roguish, rough. The picturesque presentation of a bad boy down to the pelt-brown leather Levi jacket stretched taut around his broad shoulders. 
He looks older, somehow, without the tenebrous of night shading him in dark indigo. Aged like a fine whisky. All burnt umber and ivory. 
The charcoal colouring brightens the heavy blue of his eyes—crushed bluebonnets and powdered graphite; a black hole centre—and the frame of his brown lashes dusting over his clean cheeks makes something pool in your lower belly. 
(You wonder if he'd taste of whisky sour.)
"Well," he murmurs, brow lifting. It makes the skin on his forehead crinkle. He has laugh lines cresting around the corners of his eyes. They stand out to you, now. Void of the shadows you're used to. "You do when I'm paying."
The scotch, the cigar, the dingy pub that reeks of stale cigarettes and is perfumed in a dusting of nicotine that films every surface coalesces into incipient vice. 
His hand moves from where it's loosely curled around his glass, and rests, heavy and warm, on your thigh. 
When he leans in, you taste calcine on his breath. 
The acrid tang is a balm to the blisters in your raw esophagus. You meet him in the middle, smaller hands curling over the wool lapels of his jacket, tugging him into you. 
"Never thanked you for saving me," you murmur, his beard grazing your lips. A tickle. A brush. 
Price sucks in a deep breath, eyes liquifying into an intense azure. "No need to thank me, love. As much as I love the ocean, you don't belong there, do you? No," he adds, decisively. Sure. "You belong on land. The earth. You're wild, like the forest, aren't you?"
It's an out. An escape. An option to flee from the cosm that folds around you like a nebulous cloud. 
You could take it. Back up, away. Walk out of this dingy pub on the wrong side of town, and forget the man who reeks of nicotine, smoke; who leaves ashes behind on your skin when he touches you. 
The only one who stares at you from the unfathomable black of his eyes, lashes shrouded in tenebrous, and makes you falter. Makes your heart lurch, jumping to sit at the bottom of your throat.
You should pull away. Stay away from the man who leaks ethanol and nitroglycerine. From the man who smells of acrid smoke. Gunfire. 
You should. 
But your fingers tighten in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer. Closer. 
The bridge of his nose is warm when it presses against your own. 
His eyes spark, wildfires. A blazing forest. 
"You said something about vices." His chest rumbles in response to your hushed words. 
"So I did." 
Smoke singes your nose when you brush your lips over his. Warm. Chapped. Dry. You taste ash. Humus. The bitter tang of dandelion oil. 
"Got some time tonight?" 
"Thought you said I shouldn't be smoking."
"We're not in a park, near flammable trees," your hand falls to his chest. His heart thuds beneath your palm. Thick, full. Your eyes lift to his, lidded and heavy. You gaze at him from under your lashes, coy. Demure. You wonder if he can see how eager you are beneath the sly cut of your lids. "Are we, Price?"
The use of his name makes his lips quirk. A small, secretive thing that you can't read. 
"No, we're not." His hand slides down, curling over your knee. "Don't know what you're gettin' into, love." 
"Oh, no?" You taunt, breathless. Even through all your layers, you still feel his searing heat on your skin. His eyes drop when your tongue lashes out, wetting your lower lip. "And what's that?" 
A frisson shudders over his face. Lashes fluttering. He leans forward, resting the rim of his beanie on your forehead. 
When his eyes slide open, all you see is arsenic white pooled around Prussian blue. "More than you could ever dream of." 
Your trembling fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes. 
And so, you kiss him. 
A messy punch to the mouth with your sun-blistered lips. 
His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. And then—
He devours you. 
It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss, but it feels more like a homecoming than stepping off the boat, and you tuck that inside your pounding chest. 
(The whispers in your head seem to sing when his lips touch yours.)
You taste bark on your tongue when it slips over his. Loam. Moss. Something earthy and rich. His beard scratches your chin, your lips, but you pull him closer, hungry for more—for the taste of wilderness on his tongue, for the respite from the whispers, the screams. Like the ocean, he, too, is a vacuum, swallowing everything whole until just you remain, stripped down to nothing but sensation and want. Bare, raw. 
Your teeth ache when you pull away, fingers curling into the coarse hair along his chin. The whips of his wry curls scratch your palm. 
You never want to let go. 
Price's eyes are noctilucent clouds; a storm over a rainforest. He'll ruin you. Devour. Destroy. Take, and take, and take until there is nothing left. 
Your lips tremble when you speak, words tremulous with your desire, your eagerness, when they slip past your bruised mouth. 
"I can think of a few that are better than smoking." 
Price shudders. 
Tumblr media
"Where did you go?" Your friend asks, eyes swinging from the cards spread out in front of him—the Idiot, Solitaire—to you. They burn into the side of your face, the same place Price touched with bare knuckles, and said you belong to the forest, don't you? "Missed dinner."
You ate Doro Wat in a small shop after Price fucked you stupid in the dingy bathroom of the pub, face scraping against the waterlogged wallpaper that chipped with each brutal thrust of his hips. 
Like that, hmm? Can barely take me, love, but you're so fuckin' greedy for it, ain't you? 
You're sure the barkeep heard your moans as they bounced off the jaundiced walls. 
(You still hear him hissing in your ear. Still feel him splitting you apart.)
You try not to shiver. 
"Ate already," you shrug, bundling your sleep clothes tight in your trembling hands. When you stand, his eyes follow you. "So. Um—"
"You okay?" 
"Yeah," you say, shifting on the balls of your feet. "I've—" You think of his eyes, gyre white, and wonder if this is what it feels like to get swallowed by the sea. "I've never been better."
"Good," he says, smiling. "I worry about you, you know?"
You nod. "Yeah," you say. "Me, too."
Tumblr media
You break apart in the shower, falling into pieces as you make yourself finish, thinking about nothing but the phantom stretch of his cock seated deep inside of you, the taste of his come pooling on your tongue.
It balms the residual burn in your esophagus, and you know, then, when you throb, still wanting his touch on your skin, that you've always been terrible at telling yourself no. 
It can't happen. It can't.  
Tumblr media
There's a strange magnetism about him—an uncanny sense of mystery and familiarity sutured together. 
It feels a little bit like staring at the looming maw, the event horizon, of a black hole. Unfathomable black. No way out. 
There's something that feels a bit like forewarning inside your chest when he brushes against you, and presses his lips on the skin behind your ear—a secret place only he knows, where only his fingerprints have ever been. You feel his touch even when he's gone. Haunted by the memory of his rough hands and rasping tenor. 
Running would make sense, you think, watching the ferries come and go. You have enough money for a ticket, and you've yet to even unpack your bag. 
You don't know who he is, but you've given him everything. All of it. There's nothing left inside of you to hand over, but he keeps looking at you as if he's waiting for more. 
"Waiting for a ride?" 
You glance back at the operator with a divot between your brow and cotton inside your ears. 
You want to say yes, but you shake your head instead. 
"No." I can't leave. "Just enjoying the view."
Tumblr media
You find birch branches stripped of leaves, juniper berries, maple leaves, spindles of dogwood, bushels of fir, and bouquets of bog rosemary, northern bluebell, fireweed, and wintergreen on your doorstep each morning, laid gently against the old welcome mat. 
You should toss them out, and throw them away. How does he know where you live, anyway? It would make the most sense; be the wisest decision. 
Instead, you tuck them inside your notebook, pressing them against the pages where they'll be safe. 
(You try not to think too much about why they never die.)
Tumblr media
It happens again. And again. Again—
It becomes a ritual for the few months you're back in town. The leaves, twigs, petals, pines, and seeds all show up at your door each morning and come nightfall, you're drawn to him like a moth to a flame. 
He finds the nastiest looking pub in the city, and you find him there after dark. 
He sits, smokes a cigar. Orders two scotches, and a bottle of spring water. Teaches you how to drink it properly—none of that sugary cocktail shite; just pure whisky, love, as it should be—and lets you puff on the damp end of his cigar, eyes gleaming in the soft yellow light above as he takes in the way your lips curl over the wet tip.
He stares at you like he's indulging you. 
Like he knows. 
And maybe, he does. 
Maybe he sees the way your jaw works, tongue lashing over the tip just to chase his taste. The heat in your cheeks, your eyes, as you gaze at him, open and raw and wanting. The way you list toward him. Eager for it. For him. His touch, his smell. 
He must, you think, but he's a right bastard. 
He doesn't give it until the end of the evening, when everyone has gone home. When it's just you and him and the barkeep that glowers at you something ugly when you stand on shaky legs, and whisper you're going to the washroom. 
Your fingers curl over the chipped porcelain, back arched as you stare at the face in the mirror. 
You can't remember if it's you. 
Whisky has polluted your synapses. The thick scent of smoke, the tobacco from the cigar, has congealed into resin over that little bundle of axons and nerves that control your impulse, logic. 
Stupid. 
You stare at the thing in the mirror, and wonder if the basal want on your face was so apparent to him as it is to you. If he saw the dark gleam of hunger, greed, impatience, swimming in your ink-smudged depths. 
The door rattles. Clicks. 
The squeak of the hinges is the only warning you get before Price is there, liquified in the doorway and clouded in smoke. 
His hand curls over the worn, peeling frame. Eyes dance with the same hunger, same want, as the ones that flicker across the surface of the mirror. 
"Couldn't wait for me, eh, love?" He breathes, his chest expands with his exhale. Scenting you, you think. You wonder if he can smell the slick pooling in your panties. The desperation brimming in your veins. "Wanted it that bad, huh?"
He moves. A mountain of a man now filling up the entirety of your gaze until all you see is him. 
You used to want to climb mountains. In training, they always warned of summit fever. Of that little part of your head that just wanted it to be over, to reach the very top of the precipice. Impatient, it couldn't wait. It made you spring up, and climb higher and higher before you were ready, prepared. 
You think of it now when your hands lift, curling over his broad shoulders. 
("Summit fever will get you killed," they say.)
"Just shut up and fuck me, Price." 
His eyes flash. "Greedy little thing, aren't you?"
You are. Painfully so. 
It etches in your ribs like a sickness, festering in your mouldering bones. Rotting you from the inside out. 
A crutch in the searing heat of skin, sweat, and sin. The feeling of him taking you apart, breaking you down into atoms and molecules that bubble in the lining of your head becomes so commonplace, so often forget who you are when you're pushed up against a wall, being filled to the brim by him.
He leaves madness behind when he goes, and the world that divides fantasy from reality begins to crack, to splinter. 
You hear his voice in your head late at night when the wind blows through the window, carrying the scent of the forest.
"Come home," he rasps in your ear. 
The scratch of his beard seems to scrape against the little thread keeping you tied down to reality. It's frayed and worn by his hands. You wonder when he'll sink his teeth in the silk, and snap the line. Untethering you from your binds.
Come home to me. Come back to where you belong—
Tumblr media
Price takes you out to dinner three months after this—whatever it is—starts. After your house becomes more of a garden, writ with the wild remnants of the forest, after each passing day. Full of bushes, and branches. Twigs and precious gems. He gives you raw gold, and open geodes full of amethyst, and sapphire. Canopy leaves, and bark from the trees. 
He leaves a whittled deer made from the red wood of a giant sequoia, and the likeness of the little fawn makes you believe that one day, it'll come to life in your living room.
(You leave a dish of water near the doorway—just in case—and wonder if you're becoming just as mad as your gran.)
He shows up at your doorstep, the bleached antlers of a great pronghorn in his hands. It's decorated with vines and moss weaved over the ivory in intricate braids and knots that you can't even begin to unravel. You marvel at the gift as he tells you he's taking you out for dinner. 
There is no discussion. He doesn't ask, he just—
Does. 
"Found a spot," he says, arms crossed over his broad chest. The cable-knit sweater pulls, stretched taut over his bulk. "Think you'd like it."
You don't know what to say. The antlers feel heavier in your hands, and warm to the touch. You try not to shiver when you set it down beside the little fawn.
"Oh," you say, but know you've never turned him down yet. It's all—
So much. 
Your home is slowly becoming one with nature, with vines growing on the walls in great blooms of wisteria and lilac; the old floor boards under your feet shudder and creak as little saplings sprout through the cracks. You wake up at night and taste earth in your throat, feel the grass beneath your fingers. The breeze in your hair. The call of an arctic tern. 
You dream of running through the forest. Of being chased. You breathe and feel the little seeds inside of your lungs start to take root. Soon you'll bloom with dandelions.
"Okay," you say, and wonder if the madness rummaging around your head will turn into a beautiful sequoia in the end. "Let's go."
Tumblr media
The tavern is busy on a weeknight, crowded with a swell of mainlanders who'd ventured out for a camping trip over the long weekend. 
You sit with your back straight, and listen to him talk about a hike he wants to take with you in the morning. Through the woods, he says, and you don't ask which one. You know. You know. 
(It's time. It's time.)
There are alarm bells ringing in your head, but they're drowned out by the crooning whispers. 
But the line is only frayed and worn, and despite the lure in his voice, the itch in your head to say yes, you hesitate. Falter. 
The woods are dangerous. 
You don't want to go. 
He seems to sense it. His brows knot together. 
"You want to, don't you?" 
You fiddle with your napkin and try not to meet his arsenic stare. "It's… dangerous."
"I'll keep you safe."
"It's probably time for me to leave, anyway." 
The air in the room turns frigid all at once. You think you can see white plumes of condensation when you shakily breathe out, teeth chattering. 
"Price—"
"Didn't wanna do this, love," he says, voice hushed. Barely a whisper. His eyes are lavascapes. "But you ain't givin' me much of a choice, are you?"
"What—?"
The words die on your tongue when movement flashes in the corner of your eye. A man weaves, liquid, through the mindless crowd, cutting a path like the parting red sea. 
His eyes are honeycombs. In his hand, he holds a limp dandelion. 
It takes you a moment to make out the strange man who looms in the background. A splash of colour among sfumato. 
It's Gaz.
The childish swell of his cheeks has sunken into angled, sharp bone. Slender fingers twirl the flower around, around, around—
It's hypnotic. You stare, horrified and awed—a strange amalgam of emotions that slip down your spine: worry, elation, panic, comfort—as his pink lips part into an easy, familiar grin. The cresting sun breaching the horizon. Eyes slanting in playful derision. 
He looks like he's torn between telling a joke and spitting vitriol. Making you laugh, and then making you cry. 
It buzzes in the air, electrified fingers dancing down your spine, and then just as quickly as the boy who disappeared reemerges into the land of the living, into this bastardised reality, he gives one last sharp, fanged grin, a mordant wink, and then he's gone.
He slips through the door, and without hesitating, you give chase. 
Price says nothing when you go. Or maybe he does, but you can't hear anything except the rustling of leaves in your head. 
Gaz, it whispers. Gaz, Gaz, Gaz.
(It's time for the lost little boy to come home.)
Tumblr media
The rocks sit in a zigzag pattern through the frothing waters, a deceptive bridge that connects the valley to the coast. You feel the tremulous rattle of the water slicing against the hollow cavern beneath your feet. A ledge chiselled from the blunt erosion of the rapid currents below. One day, they say, the granite shelf will give and a massive hole filled with howling water will fill it. 
Try not to be the idiot standing on the ledge. 
You feel the power of the currents even on the peat-covered edge. 
The water in front of you is deceptive. A calm, rolling surface at the shoreline almost seems to beckon you inside. Come take a dip in the cool waters. Grow fins and gills and chase the river otters through the currents. Feast on the wily salmon, and see if your feet can touch the sandy streambed. 
But the river's fatality is nearly assured. No one has survived a dip in these waters that act as a serrated knife, carving chasms and channels through the granite below. The currents will rip into you, pulling you until your body is crushed against the wall, or into an unsearchable cave. 
One slip, you think. Just one. 
But—
The man in the bar flickers through your mind. His honeycomb eyes, fanged grin. Ethereal in his beauty like a painting of a god in oil and raw canvas. Carved likeness of a Stygian prince. 
It was Kyle. It was Gaz. You know it. Know it deep within your bones, your marrow.
Taking the first step to the jutting slate that peaks just a few precious inches from the raging waters is easier, then, when you think of the boy who plucked a dandelion from the earth, and tucked it behind your ear. It makes the risk less daunting when it's for him. 
For his parents who sunk into themselves, into the crater his absence left behind. A deep depression into the earth that swallowed them whole.
They moved last year after laying down a bouquet of flowers at the mouth of the forest. 
You toe your shoes off, leaving them at the embankment, and then you leap. The perch is slick with waterlogged moss, slimy. It wobbles under you, but you catch yourself, stabilising. Steady. You huff. One down, four more to go. 
Up close, they look so far apart. A chasm between each rock. An endless abyss that will rip you into pieces. 
Still. Still. You have to find him. Have to. 
You step, toes sliding in the algae. The rock beneath is stained green. It wobbles again when you bring your other foot down on top of it. The loud clack of rock scraping against rock is heard, unmuffled by the roaring water that tugs on the stone. You feel the push against your feet. 
Two more. Two more. 
You take another step, and then—
You fall—
Tumblr media
The world drips into focus, a steady trickle of cognisance that paints the world in shades of greens and browns. An eagle soars above the canopy, their shadow swooping through the thick tangle of conifers reaching to the heavens.
The bed of moss beneath you is damp—lush with dew and softer than your mattress at home. You sink into the ground when you breathe, caught in an embrace. The vines curl over your wrists, your ankles, as if refusing to let go. 
It should scare you—and maybe it does—but there's something against your head, fingers digging into your temples, and you feel nothing except a warm serenity leaking in. Thought spool into liquid gold, threads that weave together in a knotted clump. Indistinguishable from each other, and unreachable when they slip deeper into the honeyed-thick fog that curls around your mind. A temper from logic, from fear. Anything that isn't pure, artificial comfort is filtered through and cast aside. 
You don't know why you're here. 
One moment, you felt the coils of the raging currents sinking its claws into your flesh, pulling you under the deep waters, and then—
Heat on your face. The sun's desperate attempt to filter through the corded canopy and touch the forest floor. The shrill call of an eagle on the prowl. The tender caress of the moss below cushions your body. 
You should be underwater. Pressed tight against the side of the rocks until you were swept downstream and spat out in the inlet, waterlogged and dead. 
You draw humid air into your lungs until it swells against your ribcage. The steady thud of your heart tells you that somehow, somehow, you're alive. An empty brag—thud, thud; thud, thud—that seems to call out to the birds in the emergent layer, the ones nestled in their branches as they watch your feeble attempt to reconcile how you survived. 
It's strange, you think, but the soporific warmth coursing through your veins does not let you panic. 
You are—
"Foolish." 
The warmth turns molten. You try to sit up, but the vines tighten around your limbs. If you weren't so vulnerable, you think it would almost feel like a hug. 
The soft crunch of the moss tells you the voice—the man—is moving forward, toward you. You want to scream, but your tongue is thick, and your mouth is numb. 
"What you did there was stupid," he says, and the forest around you seems to come alive in his anger. Pulsing. The branches sway and the leaves rattle without any wind. The trees bend down, coming inward. You hear the scream of a fox in the distance. The chuff of an agitated brown bear. 
Primordial signs tell you to run.
But you're trapped. 
Price steps closer, falling to his knees beside you. You can see him now, and suddenly you wish you'd been swallowed by the waves. 
His face is writ with anger, brows tightening together in displeasure. 
He seems imbued with the forest. One with the lush green that swells around you. Burnt umber and icy blue. Ethereal, unnatural. Something in your hindbrain tells you to run from that man that looks as if he could swallow you whole.
"Tryin' t'die on me, hmm?" 
His hand lifts, and you feel his warm knuckles graze your temple. Soft, gentle, despite the ire in his eyes, and the irritation clenched in his jaw. 
"Gonna hav'ta try harder than that, love." 
You weren't trying very hard at all, you think, dazed, dizzy. You weren't trying at all. 
"You're mine," his eyes flash, and you feel the press of gravity against your skin, pulling you down to the soft earth. Your fingers twitch. The fog inside your head clears. 
Blinking up at him, you catch the scattering supernovae echoing in the corners of his eyes; galaxies of pine and cedar, humus and tussock. They bloom from the black hole in the centre, surrounded by sapphire blue. He's not human, you think, but it doesn't surprise you because you already knew. Have known, really—ever since you asked around for his name and watched the same strange fog seep into their eyes as they struggled to remember a man they claimed to know. 
Ever since you found bushels of figs on your doorstep. 
A crown of pine needles and crow feathers. 
Price leans over you, brows knotted together like the gnarled, weaving trunk of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. 
There's a forest fire in his eyes. "You're mine, aren't you?" 
You think about the trinkets left on your doorstep. The whispers, the screams. 
"Did you ever give me a choice?" 
The tension in his brow snaps taut. Agony frissons through the spaced canyons; whet from ire and slick from sorrow. He bends down, and shakes his head. 
"I've always given you a choice," his words are smouldering logs, crackling with his pain. "I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?"
Tumblr media
Price takes you on the mossy forest floor, fingers digging into the peat as you sink, down, down, down—
His hand under your head, cradling the back of your skull, keeps you from getting swallowed by the grass knoll that breathes and trill against your spine. 
Fire licks in the crevasses of his eyes, molten desperation you can't ignore. He rages above you, quivering in the fading glow of the sunset struggling to slip through the canopy. No longer a man but a myth. He hangs over you with his canines bared, and flashes of anger and sorrow scorch the path his teeth leave behind on your skin. 
You're becoming unmoored. Each touch, and brush; each sweep of his tongue soothing the indents of his razor-sharp teeth all seem to loosen the ties that thread through your soul, anchoring you to the world that stands in full bloom before you. 
The forest shudders with his frantic pace; each piston of his hips leaks his fervent anguish and makes the trees croon, and creak as they bow their foliage in sorrow. His pain lashes through their roots, and rent the air in two. A fox mourns his loss in the distance. A wolf yowls in agony. His brethren lifting their muzzle to the sleepy moon, and howling out the melody of their despair. 
It's too much, too much, and you fall into pieces in his hands, shivering beneath him as the woods around you tremble and quake. It's a mesmerising dance. 
He finishes with a grunt that makes the world shudder anew, spending himself as deep inside of you as he can, as if he could overwrite your empty spaces with himself. Fill you to the brim until you are bursting with him, with life. Tulips for your eyes. Furze for veins. Moss for hair. Peat soil for blood. 
When he speaks, the world falls silent. 
"You don't know it yet, but you will. You've always been mine. Always belonged to the forest, to the earth. To me."
Tumblr media
Despite his words, he lets you go. 
And you run, run, run—
Tumblr media
Your toes dig into the wet soil near the stream. The desperate catapult across the ravine halted at the very last moment, leaving you winded and shaking. Hands clenched into tight balls by your side. Quivering with fear, with the adrenaline rush still roaring in your veins. 
You don't know what you're doing. 
The whispers in your head go silent. 
The absence of sound makes you mourn, and you think about his agony. The pain when he took you, the resignation when he let you go. 
You think of him, and you know. 
I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?
You scent napalm in the air, cloying despite the acrid burn that scalds your lungs when you breathe in deep, holding it there. 
You think of the chest inside your closet. The pieces of yourself you left behind. The way he fits you like a puzzle, like he was made for you. Designed with your rough edges in mind. Softening your hard lines; scouring your gritty surface it was smooth and shiny like fire Opal and precious gems. 
Ever since you felt his hand on your shoulder, you haven't been able to let go. 
(You don't even think you ever really tried.)
Tumblr media
Come to me, the forest says, honey in your ears. It sounds like the rapid beat of a million birds' wings, ready to take flight. Pulsing and alive and full of wonder, childish glee. 
The earth blooms in your chest. You feel the soft, tender caress of the leaves against your skin, the moss sinking between your toes. Clinging to your flesh, desperate to get inside, and take refuge in your heart. Come home to us.
Your grandmother warned you to stay out of the forest, that it was dangerous. Deadly. Wrong. But how can it ever harm you when it touches you so sweetly? 
The branches curl around your ankles as you walk, leading you, guiding you, to the place where you belong. The forest opens around you, spreads apart and makes room for you to pass, touching you as you go, taking little pieces of you. Strands of your hair, the salt from your tears. Pieces of clothes. Parts of your soul. 
You pluck your heart out of your chest, and leave it beneath a gnarled sequoia. She will protect it forever. 
Moss grows inside of the empty space. A tern makes a nest inside of it, filling it with a bed of pine needles, and twigs from the junipers. You feel a mouse make a home in your rib cage, burrowing between your bones. You place your hand over your side, and feel her nuzzle against your palm. 
"You're safe now," you say. "We're almost home."
Tumblr media
It's Gaz who greets you with a crown made of sugi. When he cups your face, you feel raging rivers and streams in his palms, and now that you are home. 
"Missed you, dandelion," he breathes, and his voice turns into a Chinook that crests over the mountains. "But there's someone who wants to see you."
His hands slide down to your wrists, and you feel the sun grazing your skin when he spins you around, around, around—
"Now," he leans down, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. You hear the Falcons nesting in his chest, and smell pine in his breath. "He's been an impatient bastard, you know? Just moping about ever since you left—"
A scoff. You lift your head and feel the swell of the earth beneath your feet. Dizzying. Wanting. 
He waits for you in the thicket, eyes made of sapphire and stone. When he breathes, the forest swells with his breath, and you taste loam when you swallow. 
"A sorry sap, thinkin' you were runnin' away, and all. But you won't, will you?" Gaz pushes you forward, and his laughter rings in your ears. "Not anymore."
Price meets you in the middle, his eyes sparkling embers. A baptism in fire. You feel the heat on your skin, and shiver. 
You used to be afraid of forest fires, but you know, now, that sometimes trees need to burn before they can truly grow. 
Lodgepole roots bud under his skin, rippling veins across a ravine. He rests his hand against your cheek, thumb brushing the dawn redwood needles that bloom under your skin. 
"Welcome home."
Tumblr media
"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go." 
"Why?" You asked, blinking at her. 
"Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 
You don't tell her that you already have. You don't mention the sticks and precious stones that always ended up on your windowsill. The whispers of the forest calling your name. 
You nod sagely instead, fingers tightening around the sap stained heart chiselled from Bristlecone Pine. The charred ends are warm in your palm. You feel it pulse. 
Will you accept this? My heart? Will you keep it safe for me? 
"I will."
Tumblr media
This was meant to be light and fluffy and smutty but now it's. This. And um. Oops. I hope you enjoyed it!
JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION PART THREE OF COD X MYTHOLOGY ⁞ SOAP ● DRAGON PRICE
703 notes · View notes
Text
The family of an Inuk man who went missing in Ottawa but was found dead last week in Gatineau, Que. is criticizing the Ottawa Police Service for what they say were failures in searching for him.
Tommy Agnetsiak, 30, originally from Pond Inlet, was reported missing in Ottawa in February, his father Robert Agnetsiak told Nunatsiaq News.
On April 6 at around 11 a.m., police in Gatineau, Que., across the Ottawa River from the nation’s capital, received a call from someone who reported seeing a body on the Quebec side of the river, the department’s spokesperson Officer Patrick Kenney said in an email. [...]
“He was missing for a long time and nobody ever saw him ever since. Nobody took it seriously,” Robert Agnetsiak said.
Tragedy has hit the family hard in the last few years. Earlier this year, his daughter overdosed while lying on a couch in an Ottawa apartment and another daughter took her own life a couple of years ago. Tommy was Robert Agnetsiak’s last living child.
Robert said he wants what happened to Tommy to be a warning. Indigenous people are being killed, overdosing, and there needs to be a change. [...]
Continue Reading.
Tagging: @newsfromstolenland, @vague-humanoid
Note from the poster @el-shab-hussein: Please avoid scrolling down to the comments. A lot of victim blaming going on there.
107 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
This 2020 house in Inlet Beach, FL is so gorgeous, I don't even care that it's all white. 5bds, 6ba, $11.25M + $898mo. HOA and a sale is pending already.
Tumblr media
I mean, it has to be white, look at the community. Can you imagine the HOA going apeshit if someone painted the house a color?
Tumblr media
There are beautiful architectural features throughout.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I love the neon light following the curves in the ceiling.
Tumblr media
On one side off the living room is a dining room.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
And, on the other side is the kitchen.
Tumblr media
A built-in hutch is done in a soft gray. I'm thinking that there are refrigerators behind the mirrored doors.
Tumblr media
A pantry immediately off the kitchen has a double wine fridge and two extra ovens.
Tumblr media
What a lovely sunny alcove.
Tumblr media
A TV is in a closet.
Tumblr media
On the opposite wall there's bar.
Tumblr media
Even the elevator is mirrored.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Lovely bedroom with a terrace.
Tumblr media
A nice walk-in closet, and it's a secondary bedroom.
Tumblr media
The primary bedroom has a fireplace.
Tumblr media
And, it also has a terrace.
Tumblr media
There's a hall of closets rather than a walk-in.
Tumblr media
On one end is a dressing table.
Tumblr media
The en-suite is stunning.
Tumblr media
Large rooftop deck with a fireplace is great for entertaining.
Tumblr media
There's a lovely pool in a courtyard. You can choose to use your own pool.
Tumblr media
Or go to the community pool.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
It also has a gorgeous park.
Tumblr media
The community is on the Gulf of Mexico, so there's also a sandy beach.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/214-N-Charles-St-Inlet-Beach-FL-32461/205741411_zpid/?
116 notes · View notes
companionjones · 11 months
Text
His Little Secret
Pairing: Elijah Mikaelson x Witch!Reader
Fandom: The Originals (The CW)
Summary: When things got bad in the French Quarter, Elijah would make his way out to you.
Warnings: Talk of sex at the end
Tumblr media
*******
    When things got bad in the French Quarter... Well, things were bad all the time. When things got too much for Elijah to handle, he would make some BS excuse about how he had a meeting or something and make his way out to his little secret.
    You lived by the water, a little inlet of the Mississippi. You built your little house yourself, about a thousand years ago--before you had even met the eldest male Mikaelson. 
    That day, he spotted you tending to your garden barefoot, as he pulled up in his car.
    “Your visits are becoming fewer and further apart,” you stated as Elijah got out of the expensive black car. You kept your back toward him as you straightened up with your basket and headed indoors.
    Elijah smiled, just at the sight of you. “Only to make our meetings more special,” he responded.
    “Are you just going to stand there and look pretty, or are you going to come inside?”
    Elijah used his vampire speed to open your door for you. He teased, “You think I’m pretty?”
    You rolled your eyes at him and hid a smirk, but Elijah caught it.
    “So, what is it this time?” you wondered aloud as you set your basket of fruits and vegetables on the counter by the 1950s fridge you had. “Werewolves? Vampires? Or is it trouble from my own kind again?”
    Elijah replied as he threw his folded suit jacket over one of your chairs, “I have always insisted that you are the brightest witch of your age...or any age, for that matter. It still escapes me why the others can’t be like you.”
    “That’s because no one is like me, Elijah. You know that.”
    He looked you over. “Believe me, I do. But that doesn’t make these witches any less insufferable.”
    “What did they do?” you inquired simply.
    Elijah sighed, “They believe they have been neglected up to this point, tossed to the side. They have bound all supernatural creatures inside the quarter until Niklaus grants them a leadership position within its limits.”
    “How did you get out?”
    He shrugged, “Davina owed me a favor.”
    You chuckled, “I assume Klaus has been welcoming to this protest?”
    “He’s holding one of the witches captive in the compound as we speak--He’s not hurting her.” Elijah added when your eyes sharpened ever so slightly.
    “Well,” you sighed. “There’s a spell I can give you. You can use the witch you have to completely undo this binding curse.” You made a quick trip to your small library and returned with a page with the information Elijah needed. “But I do want the witches to have a seat at the table when making decisions in the quarter. Tell Klaus that I’ll know if he doesn’t allow that.”
    Elijah smiled at you.
    “What?”
    He straightened his stance.
    “That’s not the only reason you came out here, is it? I swear, these visits are just transactions. You get something from me, and I get sex in return.”
    Elijah looked hurt. “I give you my word that I would never use you. The sex is just as beneficial for me as it is for you.” He finished with a smirk.
    “Oh, shut up.” You pulled Elijah in by his tie to kiss you.
*******
Author’s Note: Thank you for reading! Fill up that heart and reblog if you liked it. I would also really appreciate a comment, if you have the time. If you would like to read more, you should check out my masterlist. Have a nice day, night, or whatever time it is for you! <3 <3 <3
581 notes · View notes
thatsrightice · 6 days
Text
Before the war, Harry Crosby had started school for his master’s degree in literature at the University of Iowa. He was regarded as a very smart guy, “borderline genius” by some of the others he served with and yet infuriatingly humble.
On one particular training mission with the Just-a-Snappin’ crew, the weather was good and Crosby knew where they were at every second of the fight, so he pretended to be a tour guide of sorts.
"Navigator to crew, if you look out the right window you can see The Wash."
“Waist, here. What's The Wash?"
I told him. "It's that huge inlet on the coast." In a few minutes I hit the button again. "Now if you look on the port side you can see Robin Hood's hometown, Nottingham. That's Sherwood Forest right by it."
A string of Rogers.
And later on in that same flight…
I tried to keep the crew entertained. I pointed out some places with funny English names, like "Ribble" and "Barrow-in-Furness." I showed them Balmoral Castle, Gretna Green, and Newcastle.
The best part is, only Crosby was allowed to do such a thing during the flight. Blakely would get rather miffed if anyone else tried to initiate any funny business over open-mic.
84 notes · View notes
epiclamer · 10 months
Text
(Memoria)
Part 2
Tumblr media
Air Supply
The hero didn’t know how long they had been trapped in the alley for. The minutes they were sure of felt like hours and the hours they felt they endured seemed longer than months. Struggling and struggling before they would black out again, only to wake to struggle some more.
When the Agency had caught word of the Supervillain’s gas bombing downtown, the hero was the very first to respond. Trading out their regular mask for a respirator in order to charge head first into the mess.
In the end, they had counted seventeen civilian lives saved—by their own hand—and two structural collapses safely avoided. Only once everything had settled had the hero allowed themselves to start their walk home, when they were interrupted by a pair of villains who seemed to have other plans in mind.
Each time they woke they grew weaker, a pair of arms keeping them up by their armpits was the only thing keeping them on their feet anymore. It was humiliating, degrading and most of all exhausting. They just wanted to give up, to give in, but some survival instinct inside kept them fighting as best as they could before their inevitable collapse.
The villain had only caught a glimpse as they fled from the previous crime scene, but it was enough to stop them dead in their tracks. They didn’t recognize their hero at first, they didn’t need to. Two villains laughing and torturing anyone down the side of a dark street was interesting enough for a pitstop.
They hesitated, just to get a feel for the situation, before curiosity took over rationality and the villain headed down the alley, stopping a few feet from the attraction. The other two villains stopped their messing around at the sight of the other, Villain recognized them as Other Villain and Thief, and in the back of their head they calculated their chances of winning this fight.
“Am I interrupting?”
The other two exchanged looks, the villain noticed the Thief was holding up their victim and was keeping them restrained, meanwhile Other Villain was covering the inlet valve on the captive’s gas mask. Villain tried for a look at the rest of them, but between the two criminals they could barely get a peek.
“Figures you’d want in.” Thief sneered, tightening their grip on the other. “Who told you, hm?”
Villain shrugged, “was just passing by when I noticed.”
The masked individual twitched, arms flailing for a second, before the two restraining them shared a glance. Some type of understanding passing between the two of them, they didn’t waste anymore time, releasing their holds and the figure fell to floor in a heap.
“They’ve already passed out, what?” Other Villain looked to their partner, both of them dusting themselves off as they approached the villain. “Well, at least a few times now, but have your fun while they last.” Thief smirked at the villain and Other Villain patted them once on the shoulder as they passed each other.
“Oh and, be thankful we took care of your pathetic little problem. Considering it was taking you so long anyways.” In unison the pair laughed as they disappeared down the street. Villain didn’t even bother to turn around, their eyes were glued to the person on the floor.
They recognized that suit.
“Hero…”
As the other’s voices trailed further and further, only when they were quiet whispers did the villain make a move—and a brash one at that. Rushing forwards and hauling the hero off their stomach and to their knees, Villain pulled them tight against their chest. Practically ripping off the gas mask when they were steadied and immediately they could hear the other gasp for air.
The villain watched patiently as their nemesis coughed and hacked and choked on nothing. Air filling their lungs in a flush was too much for the dizzy hero.
If what the other two criminals had said about the hero passing out multiple times already was true, then the villain was satisfied with just seeing that they were breathing. Suffocation had too many terrible side effects that the villain couldn’t handle to think about at the moment, seeing the hero be alive was enough to help them calm down.
“Hey, hey, hey, take it easy… easy now, you’re okay.” They tried to be comforting, but the hero was out of it. Their eyes were unfocused, blurry and bloodshot, while their mouth blabbered incoherent nonsense and their limbs flailed wildly at no one in particular.
Villain made sure to support the other’s weight, letting them fall against them, sliding down the criminal’s body until the hero’s head landed in the villain’s lap. Too tired to keep up the fight of holding their head high, Hero stayed collapsed against the villain’s thighs.
“Deep breaths… deep breaths, Hero…” the other whined in response, feeling the villains hands slowly unzipping their suit from the back. If anything was a possible deterrent to the hero’s air intake, Villain was getting rid of it. Stripping the crime-stopper down into their under clothes and maneuvering their limp limbs out of the holes of their suit was definitely a task in itself.
Let alone dealing with the villain’s racing heart and matching head. Filled with first aid procedures, fears, anxieties and filthy thoughts, the villain was overwhelmed. All they could think to do while they worked was shush the other gently, hoping it was reassuring in the hero’s delusional state.
“All done, Hero… Good job, shh, you did so well…” the villain cooed, helping the hero back into their lap as they began to breathlessly sob.
Once they were both settled comfortably, the hero hyperventilating and the villain rubbing soft circles into their back, new plans began to form in the villain’s mind. They needed a safe space to go for the hero to rest and heal, all the while Villain continued to work in peace.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t much of a question, Villain knew exactly where to take the hero and they knew exactly what would come of it.
383 notes · View notes
shibaraki · 1 year
Text
BE STILL MY INDELIBLE LOVE ┊ CHOSO
Tumblr media
tags: GN reader, shark mer choso, mating behaviour, accidental acceptance of courting, fluff, interspecies relationships, blood + mild gore (fish death), biting (plenty of it), fluff, forbidden love vibes
wc: 1K+
↱ for the mermay collab hosted by the teahouse server — written using @petrichorium’s prompts: “This is… food? For me? I can’t eat this” and “A cloud of blood billowing from a thrashing creature” ↲
Tumblr media
Curiosity is just shrouded gluttony. The need to see more, know more, devour as much of the world as you can. Your village elders impressed fear on the young to keep them from treading far afield. They punished those that set foot beyond the borders. Do not leave the boundaries. Do not enter the woods.
You always had been an insatiable child. Restless and unhappily kept in your four walls. The hunger never settled. It drew you to stories of eldritch creatures cast away by God, tales woven with drunken mariner whispers, pages in books quickly torn at the spines and burned. A travelling scholar once told you that the Earth was covered in salt. The sea. The monsters you sought resided there, finding home in the briny depths.
There is a vein outside the village where the salmon run upstream to complete their life cycle. Every river led to the ocean, that much you knew. The first time you crept out of the village had been on impulse. You walked for miles, closely following the sounds of free flowing water until you stumbled upon the inlet. You recall how your feet sank into the mud, grit of silt and icy embrace, and how the oppressive current worked against you as you trudged downstream.
That is where you found Choso.
Where the treeline flanked the narrowing river on either side and rose to create a tapestry of foliage that obscured the sun, in a palatial veil of gold, you saw him; large and angular, a shadow moving on the riverbed. Half fish half man. A long dark tail and a pale belly that blended into skin. Torqued fins, caudal and pelvic, another beginning at the base of his spine, standing proud and tall. Black hair plumed around a gentle face, markings cut across the bridge of his nose. Serrated teeth hidden behind soft lips that tore into your ankle and unearthed a merry scarlet waterfall when you came too close.
Monsters are defined by their aberrance. Monsters are unnatural, wicked and ugly. On your second visit you quickly learned that Choso was none of those things, watching in awe as he drug himself onto the banks and cradled your injured heel. A long tongue too rough and dextrous to be human lapped over the scabbed wound in apology, his saliva numbing the residual pain.
Monstrous? No. To you, he is about as threatening as a limpet. You returned to his neck of the river every day since— rather, every day possible. He is the one to receive your first and last words. With each sun cycle and mark left on your skin your neighbour’s expressions grow more sour. Monstrous are the grating whispers, louder still, the eyes pinned to your every move; endured, only if it meant seeing Choso once more.
A cloud of blood billowed from a thrashing shadow in the dark crevasse. You wait in the mud, cushioned by dry grass pressed flat under your thighs. The surface ripples violently and eventually settles into foam, fizzing out in broad rings. The stillness breaks where a head rises from the water. Red rivulets paint Choso’s chin, running down the column of his throat and staining his gills as he drags himself ashore.
You hold a trepid breath. One swing of his large, muscled arm and there’s a severed fish carcass hauled into the dirt. It comes apart like wet paper, viscera spilling out in a streaming tide. “Eat,” he states firmly.
Choso doesn’t speak often. When he does it is usually just to demand something of you. Give when he needs to tend the thin wounds his teeth leave. Come when you’re too far from him. Watch when he wants you to pay attention as he dives deeper to perform strange, intricate dances for you.
Eat is a recent addition to his verbal repertoire. For some reason he is intent on feeding you. “This is… food? For me?” you smile ruefully, apprehensive as you poke at the dead eyed fish head at your feet. “I can’t eat this, Choso.”
He huffs. The currents break around a too-big tail as he crawls to your lap. You fall back on the soft earth, knees parting to accommodate his breadth. The fins on either side of his pelvis press into your navel. You reach out to cup his face in your palms without much forethought, drying blood now chipping under your fingers.
Something warm and pleasant coils in your chest when his whole body shudders. His gills flutter around a long exhale. You laugh quietly, relenting when he nuzzles his head against your midsection, blood smearing your clothes. Sometimes it felt as though he was trying to dig into your bones.
Head whipping to the side, he takes the flesh of your forearm between his jaws with just enough pressure to pierce skin. The flat of his rough tongue rolls over the wound, blood congealing. Satisfied, he noses at the sensitive skin of your wrist before returning your hand to his jaw. You barely flinch. Choso has done this so many times now you’ve lost count. He steadfastly refuses to tell you why but there’s never any malice in it.
A thought crosses your mind. Your arm falls limp to the side where his own lies. You feel him seize when your fingers enclose around his forearm. Choso stares unblinking while you bring his wrist to your mouth. Pliant, allowing you to shape him as you please.
His skin is thick and tough and so unlike your own. A rumbling purr begins to resonate in his chest as you sink your dull human teeth into him, biting down harder than you’ve ever tried, eyes clenched shut with the effort. Your jaw locks, a soft pop rattling around your skull when the scales break.
You reel away as his blood fills your mouth, sticking to your gums. The taste of copper pervades your senses. Hare brained, your elders called you. Foolish glutton. But in that moment, when Choso braces himself over your body, pinned back to the verge, he dubs you something new.
Crowding close to nip at your cheek, he murmurs, “Mine”.
Tumblr media
487 notes · View notes
bonefall · 6 months
Note
the cats of the park is just frostpaw finally getting some therapy
tbh tho I feel like them being separate from clan life would help her immensely. They’re not so wrapped up in this culture of battle so they have a new and refreshing perspective (and also frost doesn’t have to worry about ulterior motives because they are STAYING AWAY from THAT trainwreck that is the clans)
RE: Nothing in BB!ASC is set in stone until the arc is done BUT
One excellent thing ASC has done with the Park cats that is commendable, is that they're treated as legitimate. Not inferior or malicious. They're just another culture that Frostpaw is going to learn from. The bar is UNDERGROUND but we've finally hopped over it.
So I'd want to keep and acknowledge that.
I think I might have an interesting idea for Frostpaw's journey. Also, side note... I'm thinking BB!ASC will rename every book because these titles are actually awful, im sorry. So I'd call this one ASC: The Source of the River
Gonna jot these down;
So, to begin with, Frostpaw calls the human. While being heavily sedated, she has her first vision of Riverstar.
FROSTPAW DOES NOT HAVE A SPECIAL CONNECTION TO STARCLAN.
She NEVER would. Screw that. Instead-- learning to connect to this vision of Riverstar, to her ancestors and their wisdom, is a SKILL she would learn.
Frame the journey less as Riverstar's Side Quest and more as Frostpaw chasing the Revelation she had while anesthetized.
So when she wakes up, she's thinking about how incomprehensibly VAST Riverstar was. She can't even imagine how there's enough space in the world to contain such a being.
Even the Lake itself... the lake is just a droplet, being suckled like a kit on the teat of the Southern Inlet river
For a second, her troubles seemed like a small flea on the nose of a great, cosmic being. But as she reconnects with the mortal plane after her dream, the flea becomes an infestation. She doesn't know where to begin, or how she can save her Clan.
She thinks back to Riverstar. The river that feeds the Lake. Was that what he was trying to tell her? That she has to follow it to the source?
STOP 1: RIVER WARD
The BB!Tribe is massively overhauled. The Tribe of Rushing Water defines themselves as three Wards (Cave, Mountain, River), connected by living on the same stretch of river.
From them, she learns about connections. They are simply able to call upon each other for all they need, there's no need to "appoint" someone to manage everything.
Families and friends hold each other accountable, networking and negotiating constantly. When the group must act as one, it casts stones.
Their Stoneteller is a religious leader, but all cats connect with their ancestors by personally interpreting omens, even without needing to go see him.
(Contrast to BB!Clans, whose Clerics are the KEEPERS of holy knowledge, and it is a sin to interpret StarClan's will on your own)
Yet, there are downsides. She can see ostracised cats who skirt at the edges of the Ward, especially the descendants of a particular group (called Flicks) that she learns once tried to invade the River Ward.
Though they welcome travellers and have a positive view of Clan cats as "family," she learns that they freeze out those who break taboo. Even for smaller offenses-- social faux pas and personal disputes have caused rifts within the Ward.
And the personal omen interpretation means that two cats can try and justify their feelings with religious commands, leveraging any "soothsayer" (particularly religious cats) connections they have like a social pissing match, unless they're both willing to get dragged to Stoneteller.
From all this, Frostpaw learns that she CAN connect to Riverstar and her ancestors, even if she can't speak to them... and that she must LISTEN. Not allow herself to twist her ancestor's words.
And all the Wards are connected, by the source of a river. Suddenly she answers her question.
"How could the world be big enough to contain a being like Riverstar?" Because water isn't all in one place. It's everywhere. It pools where it can and flows where it cannot.
And yet-- a single people is connected by its water. Three wards, one River. Five Clans, one Lake... three siblings, one belly.
Her heart aches thinking about Curlfeather.
She thinks of when quarreling Tribemates are brought to Stoneteller to arbitrate, and be taught the truth. Brought up the river, to its source at the waterfall.
That has to be it! The source, the BEGINNING.
Stop 2 would be WarriorClan as she heads south, but I'm not sure what they'd teach her yet lmao. Monkeystar says "Hi! Do you want to learn how to play a kazoo"
STOP 3... I'd want to rename the Park Cats. Maybe the New Park cats.
(evil brain: "Neopark. Make terrible petsite joke. Be reincarnated as a lotus flower)
There would also be a BIG recap of Ancient Park culture, and the River Kingdom. Frostpaw knows they had KINGS.
And a lot of aspects that modern Clan cats have-- ceremonial sparring, mentors and apprentices, the Law of the Deputy... those came out of the River Kingdom, before its collapse in the Code Era.
But these cats are NOTHING like the glorious tales of a Kingdom warrior. In fact... this is THE park!
THE park that was destroyed, which King Arc-of-Park lead his people away from. How could it have been ruined if it's still here?
(Reality: the Park was shrunk and landscaped. It was destroyed in that time to the perspective of cats. Maybe she'll have some visions of the past through meditation...)
But the survivors, and those who chose not to follow their King... they remained. And they continue to thrive.
Like canon, have them teach her the ability to meditate. Unlike Tribe cats, meditation is about SIGNS, not OMENS. Omens are physical. Signs are psychic.
(Also i like Bee so im probably gonna keep him as Frosty's yoga coach)
She sees Riverstar a few times, has details of Curlfeather's scheme revealed to her in enough chunks to piece together,
but is eventually bowled over when her best, most productive meditation yet... results in a black shadow.
He has a shining pearlstone adorning his head, and deep, wet pools for eyes. Very few other features can be made out, besides his paw, which is shockingly normal compared to his wraith-like body.
Somehow, Frostpaw understands she is looking at a Patron. But she doesn't know who he is until he tells her, he is King Arc-of-Park.
Though remembered, he is not invoked often. The details of his appearance are lost. All that remains of him is his paw-- carried on in a few expressions and the -paw suffix. The one which Frostpaw herself currently bears.
Since Riverstar, his beloved son, so rarely speaks in straightforward terms, he has come to give Frostpaw her answers.
But before she speaks, trembling with desire for finally FINALLY getting the truth, almost frozen by the sheer volume of things she needs to know, he stops and tells her,
"You have earned the truth, Frostpaw. Be not afraid to ask for what you are owed-- but we only have time for three questions, and I shall ask three in turn."
Question 1: "What did you need me to learn?"
"Many things. How to find your own answers. The perspective of the thousand eyes you've met. The wisdom that only a pilgrimage can bestow. I, too, was no leader before I brought my people up the river, and now you too must save RiverClan. Have you learned what we sought to teach?"
She feels unsure... "I don't think I can know if I have, until I go home."
Even though he has no mouth, she can hear his smile, "That is a yes, child."
Question 2: "What am I learning about RiverClan and its history, if these New Park cats are nothing like my Kingdom ancestors?"
He hums, "You have come to the source of the river, and are vexxed to not find the water that is already swirling downstream? No cat stands in the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and they are not the same cat. Are my people gone, Frostpaw, or do they live on?"
Stunned, her jaw hangs open ever so slightly. She thought she knew the answer right away, but his simple question becomes a riddle on her tongue.
He tells her not to worry. She does not need to answer his questions immediately, as they're running out of time. Ask your last.
Question 3: "...did my mom love me?"
IMMEDIATE, "she did. Child of my distant blood, she loved you like a king loves his prince. Ferociously, ambitiously... selfishly."
He cradles her face in his one, massive, silk-soft paw, like he's reaching out of the shadows, across time itself. His last question, "She put you in a terrible position, didn't she?"
A lifetime's worth of love and agony bubbles out of the kid, "SHE DID. She DID and I never did ANYTHING to deserve this, I did everything she told me, and I just wanted to make her happy, and... and i miss my mom."
When she returns from her trance, she's crying.
But her companions are here to help her unpack all of what she just learned.
Will probably end up letting her recruit a little DND party lmao... maybe one cat from each pit stop. Heartstar shouldn't be the only girlie who's allowed to get expansion packs.
Make a little found family here that Frostpaw returns home with.
RE: NOT. CONFIRMED YET. NONE of this is BB canon yet. Just thoughts I need to get down.
146 notes · View notes
Text
Isle landmarks
Port - divided in between three crews, heavily regarded as a very unpleasant area by, well. Almost everyone else. (Important to note: this goes for every single area of the Isle.) Lives at night a lot.
Jolly Roger of Captain James Hook
Scattered Hope of Captain Harriet Hook. Comparatively safer to be around, you might find some goods "accidentally left out" if the Captain's feeling it.
Lost Revenge of Captain Uma Triskelion. Safest of the pirate ships unless you are allied to Mal or insult Uma. (...You know what, I take that back.) Also, it's a cult.
Chipp Shoppe. Firmly under the rule of Lost Revenge.
Hook's inlet. That's a fancy name for a building that port adults go to pass out in by the morning at that brings substantial money to Captain Hook. (His kids are not allowed to work there. They kept stealing from the counter more than they sold.)
Serpents prep, aka the school Captain Hook was forced to fund after dr F refused to deal with two if his children at once. They've got sea ponies and surprisingly good curriculum.
The centre. Counts as, well, semi-neutral territory?
Tremaine salon. The only actual neutral territory on the Isle. You see, if you fight by the Tremaines, you won't get your hair done. (this works because the Villains and their kids are vain as fuck and value their style over their lives. Literally.) Also, Tremaines treat most of their customers as particularly annoying cats.
Mad Maddy's Apothecary. This could count as neutral territory but Mim's are playing favourites. One rule: Do NOT make out in the Apothecary.
Rose Garden of the Queen of Hearts. Yeah no. Do not go near if you like your life.
Dragon Hall, AKA the school Dr Facilier funded for very innocent and inconspicuous reasons that have nothing to do with the other Villains owing him for babysitting their brats and molding the young minds to his picture, how dare you even suggest that.
The Arcade. Funded by Dr F too and operated mostly by his daughters. Also no ulterior motives on this one. (If little kids don't come to school, they're at Arcade. It's always good to know where the kids you're paid to keep alive are.)
Storm Hall. A mostly abandoned building slightly off-the-centre that Isle kids use for official gang meetings.
Frollo's church. Later, it's ruins. The building has suffered from entirely natural structural instability ever since the first Isle kids learned what matches are. While Frollo's alive, it's unsafe to be around if you're a girl, person of colour, or of magical heritage.
Yes, there is a problem of Frollo's being entirely too close to Dragon Hall. Dr F had it under control! Really!
The Market. Yeah. Market. With very reasonable prices that are not theft at all.
Maleficent's Bargain Castle overlooks the market and her goblins provide security for shopkeepers who are willing to pay a steep price. No one's sure why Maleficent tolerates the market so close, she hates people.
Jafar's Junk Shop. If you lost something, there's like seventy percent chance it'll end up there. I've got nothing else to add.
Gaston's Duels Without Rules, slightly off the main market. And yes. It is without rules. Do not ask about the blood under the dumpsters please.
Hell Hall. Few streets down but still close enough, you'll know by the screaming. Close enough for Cruella and her minions to get the finest fabrics whenever she wishes.
Witches Academy. Yes, it is entirely too close to the market for how flammable the stands are. However, the Mims are doing what they do best and being bitches on main.
Landmarks
The End Of The World. Steep cliff on the off-side of Auradon, favourite hang-out spot for Isle kids. Who says they hadn't spent hours there looking into the waves and contemplating life, they're lying.
The Skull Rock. On the Isle for Reasons. Y'know, a generation of kids robbed off their childhood? Magic banned off? (The Isle of the Lost is Neverland and it's your problem now.)
The Jungle. No. Do NOT. You do realise that's where all the tigers and snakes and lions and wolves dwell. Also called the Zoo by kids who like dark humour and/or have a deathwish.
The Caves. There's an entrance to Hades' cave somewhere. Do not try to find it (unless you are Celia Facilier), he's on vacation and doesn't wish to be disturbed.
Other
Castle Across the Way. Is not close to the centre or the market to be counted as such. That's because the Evil Queen refused to interact with the commoners and looked substantially scarrier than Lady Tremaine while communicating that.
The Hun camp. Do NOT attempt to find it.
63 notes · View notes