haphazardlyparked

[haphazardlyparked]

OH OH HOOOO

i love that winn can never keep his mouth shut hhhhhhah

writing? on this blog??? it's more likely than you think!

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The back of Winn’s head slammed into the wall, and if it weren’t for the hand around his neck, pressing in on his windpipe, he would have slumped to the ground. He choked on blood, reaching up to grab Rembrandt’s wrist. Winn fought for breath from the pressure on his throat and the coppery taste filling his mouth from where he bit his tongue.

“I cannot begin to explain how much I hate you,” Rembrandt whispered, leaning in. He didn’t so much as flinch as Winn dug his fingernails into his wrist. When Winn finally had the presence of mind enough to scrabble at Rembrandt’s face, Rembrandt just grabbed his forearm and shoved Winn’s arm against the wall. Then he slammed a knee up between Winn’s knees.

Like this, Rembrandt didn’t have the leverage he needed to really strangle Winn to death. He slackened off just a little, just to listen to the bastard piece of shit whimper and wheeze for breath.

The bar was empty. Rembrandt reached over to grab one of the bottles from the countertop, taking a quick swig. “I told you to fucking listen to me, Yale.”

Winn coughed as Rembrandt let up the pressure a little more. “You were takin’ too long,” he mumbled. Rembrandt felt Winn’s shaking hand brush against his leg, probably towards his pocket, and kneed him again, making Winn yelp.

“I was doing things the right way,” Rembrandt hissed. “Which gets results. Unlike you.”

“You were just drinking,” Winn sneered, though his voice was a thin, strained whine from pain. He’d at least stopped trying to pick Rembrandt’s pocket. “Not even the good shit -”

His words choked off as Rembrandt jammed the opening of the bottle between Winn’s teeth, tipping it upwards until Winn was choking from the blood, the liquor, and Rembrandt’s weight still crushed against his throat. He struggled weakly; when Rembrandt felt Winn’s hands slip off his wrist, he pulled the bottle away.

Winn retched, or tried to. “Fuck,” he gasped weakly, after a few moments. Rembrandt’s hand and sleeve were covered in blood and spittle and tears. He’d make Winn clean it out later. Coughing, Winn managed, “Let me go -”

Rembrandt slammed the now-empty bottle against the bar, making Winn jump as the end of it shattered, leaving the jag-ended neck in his hand. “I’m over this,” he warned Winn in a low voice. “I don’t need your help to get this done, no matter what they said.”

“Leggo, then.”

Rembrandt snorted. “Not fucking likely,” he told Winn. He pressed the sharp glass under Winn’s jaw, just above his own hand, and not particularly caring about if he cut himself or not. “If I do, you’ll just fuck it up even more.”

Winn went still under the threat to his jugular, fear flashing in his green eyes. But then that fear faded, and, in spite of everything, he grinned.

Rembrandt hated that grin.

“You - You can’t kill me,” Winn rasped shakily, pressing the back of his hand against Rembrandt’s wrist, a casual (relatively) attempt at brushing the bottle away.

Rembrandt’s lip curled, and then he jammed his knee into Winn’s groin for the third time. Winn yelped, scrabbling at Rembrandt’s wrist.

“Can’t believe you even have enough balls to feel that,” Rembrandt seethed, pressing his weight against Winn to keep him pinned against the wall, before the asshole could slither his way free. He shifted, moving his hand from Winn’s throat, but only to replace it with his forearm, and used his hand to grip the collar of Winn’s shirt, working it up just enough to bare a sliver of skin around the other man’s waist.

He trailed the jagged ends of the broken glass along Winn’s stomach, watching him shiver at the feeling. “No one’s here to stop me, Winn.”

Winn laughed - or tried to, anyway. It was a thin, scraping sort of weak ha-ha. “They’ll know,” he managed, still trying to speak through the pressure against his throat. “‘M tagged, ‘member?”

Rembrandt had almost forgotten. He glanced down, the device around Winn’s wrist masquerading as a Fitbit, but also tracking Winn’s position along with his pulse. Rembrandt, of course, didn’t have one - he wasn’t the flight risk, here. 

He also, unfortunately, wasn’t the one constantly in danger of getting killed. He was in danger of revealing that part of himself to the damn feds, though, every second that he spent in Winn’s company.

Tragically, though, Winn was right. Rembrandt stared him down a moment longer, sliding the glass upwards, until he could feel the ridges of Winn’s ribs.

Then he pressed in.

“Ah - fuck!” Winn started struggling again, bucking against Rembrandt as a fresh wave of tears welled up in his eyes. “Shit - Remy!” His voice broke, as Rembrandt dug the glass in, and then twisted.

He could hear and feel the glass twist and break in Winn’s ribs, under the fresh new sobbing and pleading. “S-Stop, fuck, please - pleasepleaseplease -”

“You got into a barfight,” Rembrandt said, his voice cold and flat. He leaned in, his words whispering against Winn’s ear as he spoke. He ground the glass in even more, as far as he possibly could, as Winn’s words broke off into a pained whine that kept climbing in pitch. “We didn’t find out what we needed. I had to pull your ass out of the fire.”

He let off the pressure a little, only to shift the bottle a bit higher up, to a new spot, and then dig in again. “That’s what you’ll tell them. Do you understand?”

“Mikey,” Winn gasped. With a snarl, Rembrandt stabbed him again.

“Do you understand.”

“Yes!” Winn’s voice broke as he squirmed, trying his best to wriggle away from the broken glass - most of which was now embedded and broken off in his side at this point. “Please!”

After a moment longer, Rembrandt finally leaned back, taking his arm away from Winn’s throat. Without the support, Winn slid down the wall, trying to breathe and sob both at the same time.

Rembrandt stared down at the pathetic heap for a moment longer, then tossed the bottle into the trash. “You don’t look like you’ve been in a bar fight,” he said casually, and kicked Winn in the face. The heel of his shoe cut the skin in a satisfying semicircle under Winn’s eye, and he rolled his eyes at the fresh wave of cursing and crying. Rembrandt used the toe of his shoe to ruck Winn’s shirt up again, until he could see the blood streaming from the crushed glass. He pressed his shoe right on the spot, until Winn writhed underneath the pressure.

“You never call me Mikey again,” Rembrandt said quietly. He waited until he thought he’d heard some sort of concession in the midst of Winn’s sobbing and whining, then continued, “You follow my plans from here on out. Understood?”

He cocked his head. He’d barely heard it, but he knew Winn well enough by now to know that he’d just said fuck you instead of the more proper yes, sir.

Rembrandt brought his foot down sharply, and this time he heard more than just glass snap and crackle under his heel. “What was that?”

This time, Winn’s whimpering was unintelligible. That was good enough for Rembrandt. He straightened up, finding a cloth napkin off the countertop to wipe as much of the blood from his hands that he could. “I’ll call your handler in,” he said blandly, already turning away to leave Winn huddled there at the base of the bar. “Fuck this up again, Winn, and I will kill you, feds be damned.”

#writers writin #look at us go #rrrawrf

[haphazardlyparked]

"Yell for help, alert anyone," Thief murmured, as loud as he dared, "and I'll cut your throat before you can disappear."

His threat was met with utter silence. Good.

Thief didn't want to worry about getting caught by the contentedly fed stream of post-banquet, pre-dance party heroes flowing through the hall on the other side of the locked closet door; he had enough problems on his hands already.

Like, had Hana managed to steal a getaway car yet? She must have had a plethora to pick from, but Thief also imagined all the heroes had the latest anti-theft systems installed in their vehicles. And, good god, was someone belching the ABC's out there? What was this, high school?

Actually, now that he thought about it, he didn't know why he'd expected anything different. It was basically a heroes' prom out there, just on the other side of what Thief was realizing too late was a very thin, flimsy door to a very, very small closet.

"Hey." It was the barest hint of a whisper, an exhale that Thief felt just as much as heard.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite constitute a call for help. Thief added just a little more pressure to the knife anyway. Hero shifted in response, head jerking back and lower body pressing forward for balance as he tried to find a little more breathing room for his exposed neck, but the closet didn't have much else to offer. He did end up half-plastered against Thief, who scowled.

Fucking high school, he thought viciously.

"Hey," Hero repeated, still soft, though Thief thanked his lucky stars that there weren't any super-hearers out there. "Um. Don't you think a knife at my throat is a little cliché?"

Thief bared his teeth and hissed. "Take that up with yourself, hero. You're the one that's turned on by it."

"Yeah, well," Hero whispered. "I accepted myself a long time ago, you know? Not my fault you're pressing all my buttons."

"Hero--" Thief bit out the name like an accusation, then shut himself up before he could get any louder.

Hero wriggled closer, somehow without cutting his own throat against Thief's neck. "I mean. All of them."

Thief grit his teeth and tried to think of rotting, failed compost experiments and horrible burn victims and cilantro. "Stop. Moving," he growled.

Hero stopped. But his soft voice took on an entirely different kind of lowness when he suggested, "Shall I teleport us both out of here?"

Thief closed his eyes against even the meager light filter into the dark of the closet and felt every last ounce of pride and self-control shrivel up inside himself.

"Fine."

"Oh, good. Abracadabra!" Hero pronounced his word of power with absolute solemnity. As the teleportation gripped them and began to jerk them away, Thief found he actually had still possessed just the tiniest bit pride.

It got left behind in the closet.

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yoooo haven't been on in forever, haven't talked to anyone in forever, haven't written in forever, not convinced i can actually write anymore so im going to spend some time trawling through prompts and just make the keyboard go clacky clack i guess.

what are the other good prompt blogs these days?

Prompt #3250

“Don’t you think a knife at my throat is a little cliché?”

“Take that up with yourself, hero. You’re the one that’s turned on by it.”

#how is it october 2022 #prompt response #heroes and villains #or thief i guess

[haphazardlyparked]

Prompt #3078

“Knife to my throat? Hmm. Either you’re trying to tell me something, or…” Their smirk ticked upward, sly to seductive. “You’re trying to tell me something.”

#im crying with laughter #my asexual self is so happy #rrrawrf

[haphazardlyparked]

Hey I hope you’re doing well :D also I think? I might have sent in a question that you already answered? If I did I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean to, just that my brain came up with the same question at separate times? I don’t know if I did but I might’ve asked the same thing and anyway again I’m really sorry if I did. Also I really hope you’re having a good time out wherever you are :D

hello friend!!! i am doing well, it's just hot as bALls where i live and i totally break down as a human being. and also some moving decisions and all that jazz have been happening, and i need to sort myself out energy/creativity wise. i've got some stuff half-written that i desperately want to finish but mostly i've been listening to Hugh Fraser put on a terrible french accent as Poirot in endless Agatha Christie audiobooks, interspersed with reading some science fiction and Guy Gavriel Kay...

<3 thank you for checking in! I wanted to reply earlier but i can't find the private option anymore, and then it took me a while because i just have anti-social media periods. I think you had asked that question before about a favorite thing I've written, but tbh it changes as the years go by (I genuinely still cannot get over that 2 years have passed since 2020, I'm mentally trapped in 2020 and it's both funny but also a little worrying). I think right now I might have a soft spot for sad dragon Char because I'm feeling nostalgic and she's a very old character I like trotting out at v inappropriate times and timelines.

i hope you are doing well wherever you are best anon, and that you have crushed exams if you have them or are enjoying work if you are working! and the summer! please be enjoying your summer too!

#best anon

[haphazardlyparked]

"Don't let them forget me," Villain begged. Despite the shadow of pain pale in her face, her grip on Hero's wrist was like a vise, sharp and immovable, holding Hero in place while her dying plea hammered away. "Don't let them forget what I fought for, what I--died--for. Don't let them forget that I was right."

Hero sucked in a sharp breath. Villain's fingers finally began to loosen, and her dark eyes, so bright and intent, went distant.

"I'm sorry," Hero whispered, twisting their wrist to hold Villain's hand in theirs. "I'm sorry they didn't believe you. I'm sorry we didn't come fast enough."

"Hey, 's like I always said," Villain murmured. Her gaze shifted slightly, returning partway from that distant point. Hero leaned in close to hear better. "Heroes are idiots."

Her face twitched, as if she meant to smile--but then it went slack instead, the life gone out of her between one breath and the next.

Hero closed their eyes. I should have been here. Even if the others couldn't be convinced, Hero should have stayed by Villain's side. They should have know she would go out by herself, with only her small crew of devoted minions. She couldn't have lived knowing the Null Guild's labs were tinkering merrily away, nearly ready to seed the atmosphere with their gene-correcting nanobugs.

When their fingers bit painfully into their palms, Hero struggled to unclench their fists. They rocked back onto their heels, away from Villain's body, and sat mechanically, then just as stiffly got to their feet. Their jaw was tight too, wired with tension and that same scraping kind of energy that raked through them. It was like a raw fire that made them want to move, yet left their heart unmoved and cold.

Don't let them forget that I was right.

Villain's dying words rung in Hero's ears.

She had saved them all. She'd had to kill to do it, in that unique and horrifying way that was her only weapon. Hero could see the carnage her illusions had wrought once the rest of her scant allies brought down enough of the nullifying field generators. The Null guild's central development labs were filled with dead scientists who'd been driven to gruesome murder or suicide, or both.

But she'd been right, and she'd saved them all the only way she knew how.

Heroes are idiots.

In Villain's name, they were going to remind the world of everything she'd stood for. Villain had created all-encompassing illusions, laying her visions over reality; Hero made others sleep and walked through their dreams, intruding on their sleeping worlds.

It wasn't the same, but it would be enough.

Prompt #3058

“Don’t let them forget me,” the villain begged. “Don’t let them forget what I fought for, what I died for. Don’t let them forget I was right.”

#gingerly writing #DONT LET THEM FORGET I WAS RIGHT #hot damn what a prompt #writing prompts #prompt response

[haphazardlyparked]

i would like to add that i have been wondering about the line "and then we'll make the gods pay" for three years because WHAT DOES IT MEAN. HOW AND WHY. HOW IS IT SO COOL. i hope one day the reason behind iska's war is solved. i will never stop squealing at that snippet because kalna's devotion is returned, but also SINCE WHEN, HOW, WHY. iska what happened to you. kalna what happened to you. these questions haunt me and they always will :)

❤️❤️❤️ i love each and every one of yours messages and i hope you will have these answers before three more years are up!!

I've basically known where this will go since the end of regret everything, but i've been extremely slow filling in the details 🥲

#best anon

[haphazardlyparked]

Sanokil is frankly becoming just the slightest bit disinterested in--that is to say, pretty annoyed with--the visitations. 

“What do I need to convince you?” the spinning disk of brilliant gold light asks. It swirls in place above Sanokil’s bed, throwing off an occasional shower of rainbow sparks that glitter and die in flashes, and Sanokil has the impression that it is crossing its arms at him. 

Not that a spinning disk of light can have arms, presumably, and yet the being strikes Sanokil as very... human. 

Sighing, he sits up in bed. The light spins and shifts through the air until it’s eye level with him again.  

“Speak, mortal,” the disk commands. “What will convince you?” 

“A bigger bribe,” Sanokil says with cool politeness. Whatever the being is, it isn’t omniscient, but that doesn’t mean it is not powerful. Sanokil tries to keep on the respectful side with it, but he isn’t awake enough now to care about mincing words.  

“Is kingship not reward enough?”

His chin lifts. “We do not have kings where I’m from.” 

The closest king Sanokil knows of is the one here, and Sanokil feels indifferent about him. He does like Jinaya, the king’s daughter and heir, well enough. He admires her focus and drive, and the way her serious focus hides a mischievous streak. He’s helping one of her lords organize a response to the bandits on his lands that threaten the shipments of grain into the lands. Sanokil thinks she should have withheld the throne’s help until the lord in question paid his tithes, but Jinaya disapproved forcefully--and then directed the grain deliveries to various merchant houses scattered around the lord’s lands, which was an effective rebuke that diluted the lord’s influence. 

Akalnai would’ve shared in Sanokil’s appreciation for Jinaya, but Akalnai has his own games in play. Sanokil--well, he’s making his own plans and alliances now. If offering Jinaya his help distracts her and her father from whatever Akalnai’s doing to their holy prince, that is purely a coincidental side effect. 

Sanokil has decided he’s more interested in the way Jinaya smiles when she sees him stride briskly down the halls of her palace, schemes and reports and books for reference balanced in his arms. The way her eyes light up when she hears her language roll perfectly of his tongue. Sanokil could be a king without this shining disk of light.

“Then what do you want?” the disk demands, like it does every time. 

Sanokil sighs. 

And then, almost on a whim, he replies. “Tell me what you know about the Hall of the Gods.” 

The light throws off a deep purple spark, followed by blue and green and red. “Is that all? Then we have a deal?”

It sounds so eager, Sanokil has to make an effort to keep his lip from curling. 

“Tell me what you know first,” he says. 

dear best anon,

i am taking a long time to answer your asks because i just don’t know!! (other than akalnai would see his other-dimensional selves and be like, that’s not going to me, they’re all messed up, and i have a quest to finish...) and i have so many AUs, i know i have a few favorites hanging around but i also feel like the pandemic years have kind of robbed me of my memory.

so have this prompt response i apparently began drafting in 2019. it still fits into the grand scheme of things (somehow?) 

Soooo <3 <3 <3 

Prompt #1833

“What do I need to convince you?”

“A bigger bribe.”

#writing prompts #prompt response #gingerly writing #all right 2019 #look this is a draft from 2019 #jeeeeeeeeez #roundabout answer to an ask #i have so many half written responses to Ginger's prompts laying around in my drafts #i have a problem with finishing things #noki

[haphazardlyparked]

Prompt #2986

The villain paused in front of the wrought iron gates. “Do you ever find it slightly worrying that our triad date night is chasing each other around a museum?”

“The only worrying part is when [hero] makes us put all the good jewellery back at the end.”

“The only worrying part,” the hero corrected, “is either of you ever thinking I would let you keep it.”

#to do list #gingerly-writing #writing prompts

[haphazardlyparked]

quests within quests

“It’s insane, Akalnai,” Sanokil complained, sulking into the tall-backed chair in their guest apartments. “They think he’s a god holding their world together.” 

“At least he has his sister,” Akalnai said, seeming to agree though Sanokil didn’t quite see his point. It seemed Akalnai was always thinking of Niskaya these days. Sanokil could practically see the hearts in Akalnai’s eyes as he leaned against the sitting room’s table peeling a native yellow fruit with his knife.  “Jinaya sees him as human, still.” 

“Well, yes. She seems very level-headed. But the belief they have, that’s what goes beyond the imaginable. It’s just not… very logical, to pin all of your beliefs on one man.” 

Akalnai laughed. “You would frown at the logic—“ 

“—I am not frowning,” Sanokil interrupted. “I’m thinking.”

“With a frown. Because of the logic,” Akalnai soothed, again with that genial tone of agreement while he dropped more fruit peels into a bowl on the table. Sanokil despaired of ever getting a straight answer from him, or of him ever taking a conversation seriously. “I see the human cost. How can one man be expected to bear all of that responsibility? The prophesied hero role is among the worst of the lots out there.” 

Sanokil could have rolled his eyes. “Much rather be a crow, would you?” Only someone born to power could dismiss it so easily. 

Akalnai laughed, deliberately raucous. “I’d much rather be a gifted cartographer, like my mother, but a crow will do.” 

Sanokil did roll his eyes then. “Yes, you’ll just have to make do with a princeship,” he said tartly. “While you weep over that, can you also appreciate how strange this system of belief is?” 

But Akalnai took a big bite out of the finally peeled fruit, and shook his head with exaggerated blankness at Sanokil while he chewed. 

“You are child,” Sanokil sighed. “The Raven Queen has more maturity than you.” 

Akalnai stopped playing with his food. “Do you think our Raven Queen is that much different from what these people here believe? Think about how much we esteem her. She’s just eleven, for pity’s sake, but imagine this going on for centuries more. Each generation we venerate her just a little more… We’ve robbed her of her adolescence already, Sanokil.” Akalnai waved his hand about the room to indicate the entire kingdom they were in. He began pacing, marking out the border of the carpet before turning to do it again the other way. “We could become this too.” 

“There could be similarities, if you think like that,” Sanokil prevaricated. 

“You’re going to call this another of my fanciful delusions, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I don’t believe these people are wrong about their world. I think they’re spot on, in fact.” 

This was one of his fanciful delusions, more combined-world theorizing Sanokil guessed. He couldn’t keep the disbelief from his face. 

Akalnai glanced at him, and kept pacing. And talking. “You already know what I think about the broken mountains and the missing sea. You should also know that I gave Niskaya some of my power. He wasn’t paying attention, but I wanted to see if it would work. It did. I fed him power, and he used it up in a flash.” 

As it did whenever he was passionate, Akalnai’s voice slipped into the deep cadence of storytelling. Sanokil put his head in his hands. 

“Can I have the abbreviated version, please?” he asked. “I’m not sure I have time for an epic tale in full meter.” 

The crow prince froze in his pacing, turned to look at Sanokil with surprise, and then laughed. It had none of the sharp edges of mocking it could so easily take on, and it teased a smile out of Sanokil. 

“All right, all right,” Akalnai capitulated. “The abbreviated version. Let’s see… I think Niskaya uses his power to maintain his kingdom’s existence in our formerly distinct world, my evidence being how the power I gave him was used up instantly. I will collect further proof when Niskaya and I sneak away to find the displaced Greater Sea, the southern one, and see if the rest of our world is still around somewhere. I’m being downright methodical about this, Sanokil. Maybe you’re rubbing off on me.” 

“You are more insane than the people here,” Sanokil summarized. “And you want to steal their god? Over some old stories?” 

“Borrow,” Akalnai stressed. “We are gong to borrow their god, in the name of investigation.” 

“I refuse to be a part of this.”

“But ‘Noki,” Akalnai wheedled, “what if we find the Hall of the Gods?” 

Sanokil scowled. “Don’t trot that out every time you want to convince me to do something stupid. We’re never going to end up before the altar, are we?” 

Akalnai straightened, turned solemn in a flash, eyes steady on Sanokil. “Is that what you really want?” 

Sanokil looked down. They’d talked about what they wanted, before the left. Everyone did. They’d had long conversations about it, so Akalnai knew perfectly well what Sanokil wanted, just like he knew about the thirst for adventure that drove the crow prince.

“I only want to know where we stand now. If you are already sure—sure enough to plan an escape with a god-figure we’ve known for five months… then I need to make my own moves, Akalnai.”

Akalnai was very still. Then he sighed, and nodded. “I’m sorry. That’s your right. I shouldn’t… I like you, ‘Noki, and I think we could be a model couple. You know I would keep my oaths.“

Sanokil waved his hand, as if he could erase those words with a gesture. They were… embarrassing. He’d wanted to win Akalnai over on their quest, captivate him like he’d been captivated by Akalnai. But if that wasn’t possible, he didn’t want Akalnai’s honor. He wanted a partner to share his love and ambition with, not a prince’s pity. 

“I’d probably strangle you within five years,” he admitted. He had watched Akalnai tease Niskaya with the same wild, unreserve that had annoyed Sanokil throughout their travels. Trying to sound as light as Akalnai could, he added, “Besides, leaving with you on a quest and returning without you will make me enough of a name to start with.” 

Akalnai grinned. “You never needed my help to make yourself known. But I’ve been happy to be of service.” 

“You’re happier in love,” Sanokil said, compelled to get the last word in.  

Akalnai frowned at him. “I wouldn’t leave on a quest with just anyone, Sanokil. I love you too. It’s a different kind of love, but I would have you in my life always.” 

Sanokil buried his face in his hands. “I never noticed before how much crows squawk,” he told his palms, and they hid the sudden burning in his cheeks.  

#writing #this was a surprise #dragons and younglings #some more ancient history #look akalnai has some emotional intelligence #kalna has managed to shed it like a snakeskin #i definitely had a better title for this at some point #kalna #noki

[haphazardlyparked]

the worlds tree

Fran is twenty when the Waves of Starless Night first crest upon her world. She thinks she is prepared. They call her blessed, the Bright One and the Brave One. She carries the light of the world to save the world.

When she is nearly thirty, with a decade of lost earth ground into her soul, she calls herself the Burning One. The eternal flame, the last life of her world.

She knows by then she will be the very last thing alive in whatever's left behind. When the Waves of Starless Night drown the world bit by bit, only Fran survives. Only Fran surfaces from the darkness, no trace of even a wreckage behind her. Fran, bright, burning with the lives of everyone she's failed to save. She's terrified of how long she can live. She finds solace only in the black unknowing of deepest sleep.

She wonders, in the last days, when she's closer to forty than thirty and has tasted love and its shattering loss, the way its reverberations shudder through her, thick and smothering at first, then equally thick and smothering, but spread out, beneath the loss of everything else--she wonders, not for the first time but finally with real purpose, if she can end it early. Could it be called a mercy?

When the last of the world's cities waits, watching her, almost hypnotized by her useless light, she wonders--could it be called a mercy now, if she gave in? There are those who throw themselves into the waves, choosing their moment of drowning instead of waiting for it to come.

The ones around Fran always wait. They watch her, and they never see the darkness crash down upon them. Could that be called a mercy?

She waits alone, now. The end has stretched its hand over everything, and even Fran's light begins to fade. She could have been afraid, or even relieved, and always lonely.

She is numb when the Waves take her at last, nothingness upon nothing left.

Is that a mercy?

"I never liked mercy. It was one of those things everyone always asks for, but rarely has to give.”

The voice was cool, critical, and so breathtakingly human that Fran opened her eyes.

She hadn't known she had closed them. She exhaled what she thought would be her last breath.

"And as a friend of mine once observed," a dark-haired man continued in the same voice, "The most merciful people are merciless to themselves. Big ideals are never fair."

The man sat on a large tree root and regarded Fran with pale, intent eyes. They were eyes that didn't miss much, she bet. Eyes that could look at something burning and not look away.

Fran looked down at her feet. She stood barefoot on a moss patch, in the space between two gnarled roots as thick as her ankles.

"Am I dead?"

The man smiled. It changed his face, smoothed a hint of sharpness into a spark. It was a smile that radiated energy.

"Nothing in this place is really dead.” He was earnest and matter-of-fact at the same time, and Fran registered the words and let them slide through the emptiness inside her. “Though some things sleep so deeply, you could think of them as dead.”

The man’s smile faded, but the ghost of it was still there in the pleasant tilt to his face. He stood from his tree root--a root grown into and merged with others, creating a gnarled and knotted carpet, Fran saw on second look--and picked his way through more roots to stand before her.

He was barefoot as well, Fran noticed, balanced with the ease of long practice on uneven root-ground. She looked up again when he stretched a hand out to her.

"I'm the gardener," he introduced himself. “Call for me if you need anything.”

Fran shook the gardener’s hand mutely. The title meant nothing to her, but he offered her a firm grasp, his palm somewhat cool to the touch—like everything about him. A gentle breeze. How long had it been since she’d felt something so real?

The gardener let go of her hand and nodded, taking Fran’s silence in stride. Then he turned and walked across the grey-brown roots to the massive trunk of a many-branched tree.

When she really looked at the tree, Fran had the sensation of looking at something from afar and through a magnifying lens at the same time. The tree was inarguably large, with a trunk that, in one way, might take twenty, or a hundred people to circle; and yet, in another way, it seemed the perfect size to prop oneself up against on one of those long-ago, lazy afternoons of her childhood.

But when the gardener reached for a thin branch and began to climb his way up—the tree was as infinite as the Waves of Starless Night, and not even a world full of people linking arms could circle its circumference.

Fran stared at the tree until the tight protest of her lungs reminded her to breathe. Then she gulped in air and sat down hard on the myriad roots woven beneath her feet. She took a few more breaths, and finally turned her head up away from the infinite tree. To the starry sky above.

She focused on the black space between the stars. It was almost comforting. It didn’t have the flat emptiness of the Waves, the black that was going to steal the earth from under you and everything else from around you. This black was empty but not devouring; a darkness between the stars that waited, shifted, patient. Space enough for dust to gather and gather and gather until, in some distant future, it blazed into life of its own.

Would the dust of Fran’s lost world feed back into the macrocosm? Would her people’s bones become scattered molecules, drifting along the universe to help give birth to stars? Or had the Waves of Starless Night stolen that from their world? Were there any bones anywhere?

Fran turned that question over and over in her head, feeling its weight and pressure, and how the failure could overwhelm her if she let herself think about it for too much. She kept her face turned towards the sky, the stars, staring for so long that she slowly began to see that it wasn't the sky at all.

The darkness was made of uncountable branches whose leaves blanketed whatever sky might exist; and the stars were the infinite tree’s glowing flowers. The tree was everywhere here. Yet the dark, leafy space between the glowing flowers was still patient and expectant. Whatever the Tree was, Fran was sure it had blazing births of its own.

She began to note more of the tree’s shifting properties, the way it played with her sight and perception. Now Fran could make out more clearly the criss-crossing branches that stretched along her imagined sky. It was as though her eyes were finally adjusting to the dark, and she was filled with some weird, jittering energy that made her uneasy.

Rolling over onto her stomach—when had she lain down?—Fran breathed in the deep, woody roots, and slowly pushed herself up to her feet.

There was something sweet in the air. Fran wasn’t hungry, or thirsty, and yet she was pretty well convinced that that had nothing to do with how long she had stared at the tree-sky. She hesitated before following her nose to the trunk of the tree.

It wasn’t curiosity that picked up her feet. She thought maybe it was just the easiest thing to do. No—maybe the easiest thing to do would be to call for the gardener. Or lie back down and stare up at the tree-sky again.

I’ve had my fill of that, Fran thought, decisiveness wrapping her up all of the sudden. She took another step, and found herself already at the base of the tree. The trunk before her was both comfortably sized for climbing up, with useful, low-hanging branches, and unimaginably large. Fran fixed her gaze on the branches above her, which began jutting out from the trunk just within her arm’s reach. She wrapped her hand around the closest one, braced a foot against the trunk, and began hauling herself up into the branches.

It didn’t take her long to reach a place where she could stand comfortably. She reached for one branch above her, braced her foot on another, and pulled herself up. She went for another branch just a little higher, and then another, and suddenly, she had climbed up to a branch so large it might have been its own trunk, growing out sideways from the infinite tree. It couldn’t possibly have been there before—she would have seen something so big from below.

At the same time, Fran was not surprised to see the branch. It rose at a steady but comfortable incline, broad enough for one person to walk along. All around her, similarly large tree limbs rose or descended, crossing each other at enough points that Fran could see how one could make their way from this crossing or that to explore.

She chanced a glance below her and was not surprised to see more branch-avenues, instead of the rooted ground she had climbed up from.

It didn’t worry Fran. The knowledge of how to get back down was with her now, with a foreign certainty. All she had to do was climb down.

She started walking up the gentle incline of the branch, following the sight curves in its path. When it intersected with another path leading up, Fran caught the whiff of that sweet scent, with an almost sickly layer to it now, and stepped onto the new path to follow it. She wandered like that for who knew how long, staring at the glowing lights that graced a branch here and there and whose combined glow lit the tree’s avenue. Whenever the scent grew stronger, she changed paths.

She was meandering her way up towards a dark spot among the lights—her stars, Fran realized—in a circuitous way. The longer she wandered, the clearer the scent grew, and Fran finally understood it to be the mossy, sweet decay of leaves in autumn.

Fran continued climbing to the dead star. She saw the gardener long before she came within hearing distance.

“You’ve found your way well,” he said when she approached. His smile was faint, flashing more in his pale eyes than on his lips.

The path they stood on was more like an avenue, twice as broad as any she’d walked on before. Farther down, the branch split into three smaller paths that stretched in different directions. Fran could see faint, wispy glows along each of those paths.

“I just started walking,” Fran said. It was all the explanation she could give.

“It’s right that you came here first.”

The gardener stood next to a dead flower. Its fruit was round and small, darkened and shriveled at the center. Fran knew when she saw it that the mottled, grey-orange petals hanging limply would have wreathed the fruit in a brilliant white in its bloom. Bright enough to reflect the fruit’s glow, until it was one of the brightest stars of the tree.

She knew what that light felt like. She had lived with that light.

“Yes,” the gardener said. He watched her, and seemed to gather what she was thinking from her face. “This was your world.”

Fran stared at its remains. The image of swirling stardust slowly coalescing into a new birth came back to her again. Death and life. Her world had been old, and there were new worlds growing along this avenue’s children branches.

“So I should have been comforting my people, not pretending I could save them,” Fran wondered aloud. “It was all going to end, either way.”

“How could you have known?” The gardener asked. “You did what you thought was best. How could you assume defeat was in your destiny?”

Fran smiled bleakly. “Maybe someone else could have figured it out, and done a better job.”

“Yes, there are certainly those who think their endings are destined to be bad, but they tend to be very woe-is-me about it,” the gardener said, with a strange amusement Fran didn’t understand. “It’s not very soothing for anyone. When we write the story of our hero, we want her to be a warrior-savior, not tragic doomsayer.”

Fran considered that. In many ways, it was easier to push her life away from her and look at it in this distant way. She didn’t have to think of individual faces, and that always blunted the pain.

“If that’s the story we want,” she asked, “do you think I did help them, a little? Is it better if we thought I had a chance?”

The gardener waved his hand dismissively. “People want a hero, but whether or you were a good one or not doesn’t matter. You did the best as you understood it.”

Some part of Fran—maybe the part of her that first recognized the leaves she’d smelled—was surprised by the gardener’s cool disregard. The rest of her was more familiar, a numb equilibrium that waited for the next hit.

The gardener frowned at her. “I do care about everyone’s suffering,” he clarified, “on the small scale, because it’s never easy living through the end of a world. It’s just difficult to maintain that perspective when you live here. I’m surrounded by infinite worlds—infinite life and death.”

Fran frowned. “How do you keep your perspective?” He didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of it.

The gardener’s smile was sharply amused. “I have some friends,” he said. “The kind that keep you humble. And I’ve assigned myself a personal mission.”

When he didn’t elaborate, Fran felt impatience rise in her. It felt strange, like an old friend she hadn’t seen in so long they had slipped from her mind, and she found herself wanting to indulge it. She wanted to cross her arms and stare at the gardener, so that he knew that she found his explanations lacking.

“And what’s that mission?” Fran asked. Calmly. But trying to keep the impatience from her voice was a struggle that again felt familiar but long-forgotten.

The gardener hesitated, then said, “I pull out the souls of heroes before their worlds end and bring them here."

“I'm here to help you with your perspective?”

“No! Not like that,” the gardener backtracked with some force. “Bringing you here helps me and all, yes, but I mean that as more of a minor tangent. My purpose is to… well, it can sound kind of inane. But I wanted to give you a vacation. A chance to gain a larger perspective on your life, see a bit more of everything." He gestured vaguely around him, at the stars in the tree and the vastness surrounding them. "The prophesied savior role really is one of the worst lots around here. It tends to narrow your vision.”

Fran shook her head slowly. “I think I have a headache,” she said.

The gardener smiled apologetically. “Most stays in the Worlds Tree start this way. I’ve been told my orientation needs some work.”

-----

ive been adding like three words to this one sporadically throughout the past year, finally found a way to finish it.

#writing #they tell me its 2022 #the worlds tree #it's not as random as you think

[haphazardlyparked]

aaaaaaaah a new snippet i'm constantly awed at how you're able to come up with new characters that are all unique and distinctive and i LOVE how you're able to make them feel so alive and real, like they're actually living in a world as real people, with only a few words. thank you thank you thank you <3 i really enjoyed reading it!

<3 <3 <3

i'm so glad to see you are still around best anon, even when i've been massively MIA. thank you for your comments, they help me a lot when i am trying to get back into writing more! you remind me that i've got some things to finish!!

#best anon #thank you

[haphazardlyparked]

Sophia grimaced down at me. “How about you don’t die, then. I always thought it’d be in an alleyway myself, you know? Hunted down at last, shot in the dark style.” 

“God,” I choked out. My lungs heaved, but my throat was choked and it was hard to get the words out and any air in. I corrected myself anyway. “Soph, my god, you are so grim.” 

“Stop talking,” Sophia said, instead of paying attention to my very accurate observation. “You need to conserve your energy.” 

“I’m losing insides faster than even I can account for, and there’s not a toxichocolate in sight, Soph. I want to go out talking to you.” 

“You are not going out,” Sophia said flatly. “Not like this.” 

Not for something so stupid, she didn’t say, because she knew I didn’t think water rights were stupid. 

I cast about to change the topic, and stumbled into a well of memories so engulfing, I wondered if this is what they meant when they said your life would flash before your eyes. 

“Hey, Sophia. Do you remember the first time you said that to me?” 

--------

They truly and honestly thought I was stupid. They all had some sort of obnoxious blindness about it, this idea that since they’d created me, I was incapable of any thinking they didn’t do for me. 

Hooray, yes, I had dark, slightly grey skin and grey hair and grey eyes, but on the plus side, I could eat all the poisoned irradiated food left in the world! On the minus side, I was the only one of twenty-seven to make it through to this stage: the part where I got to keep living while the scientists condescended to me before poking me with more needles, desperate to replicate my freak survival.

The only one who was different came after the rest died. She was unlike the others, who pretended they hadn’t killed twenty-six other kids like me. She was unlike me, who pretended not to be incredibly bitter about this mass and totally voluntary amnesia.  

She was just a junior trainee of some sort, who really didn’t know. She seemed almost naive to me because of that, with her wide eyes and the way she was always taking notes. 

But I caught watching me more carefully than anyone else. She hadn’t said anything yet, but I swear she almost laughed from the observation booth when I kept knocking over Dr. Kohl’s soil samples in the lab. 

It was an especially annoying thing to do because Kohl had to wear a cumbersome, out-of-date hazmat suit because the soil was irradiated and because the research group already had twenty-six failures in cold storage so their financial backers had cut funding. It was  

I, thanks to their science skills and questionable ethics, could sit around in just my lab-issued clothes and play with the dirt. Kohl was the kind of person who deserved every bit of frustration I could make for him, and I was pretty sure the junior trainee knew I was doing it on purpose. 

Which was why I was either going to have to kill her, or get her on my side. 

"What are you doing here, Nina?” the junior trainee asked me again, even though we both knew I didn’t have a good reason to be hanging around one of the research habitat’s airlocks. 

I took the fact that she seemed to dislike Kohl as much as I did as a promising sign. I really didn’t want to kill her.

“So, Sophia,” I said, “What if you just don’t see me?” 

The junior trainee frowned. “Nina,” she said, like a warning, and wrapped up in that was the assumption that it was my name. 

Oh, some of the others called me Nina too, because it was easier than Nineteen (and Nine hadn’t survived to claim the nickname), but it was a tag for them, a number-replacement. 

Sophia called me Nina like she meant it. Like she wanted me to have a name.

I really didn’t want to kill her. 

“I’m leaving,” I announced to Sophia, feeling like I was risking it all even though I knew I was getting out tonight. I had eaten an entire bag of toxic oreos. Nothing in this place could stop me while I was metabolizing all of that. 

“You are not going out,” Sophia said flatly, very unlike an eager junior trainee. “Not like this.”  

“Like what?” 

Sophia held up a finger. As she spoke, she held up more successive fingers. “First, you need the chip out of you. Then you need better clothes, something to hide the fact that you’re literally glowing. And you might not need a safesuit, but I certainly will, and we’ll both need appropriate rations--” 

“--You’re coming with me?” 

“What, you were going to leave me behind with these fools?” Sophia grinned. It was another very un-junior trainee like grin. 

I stared at her. “You’re not actually a scientist, are you.”

“Good god, no.”

----------

cue the post radiation apocalypse feat. human experiments and undercover hero-ish rescuer who may only be in it for the money (lol she wishes)  

Prompt #2975

“I always imagined you being at my side when I died. Just not like this. Never like this.”

#writing #i dont know where this came from and im not editing because it's too late for that #they tell me its 2022 #who are these people

[haphazardlyparked]

Prompt #2918

“But [supervillain] is a gentleman-”

“Yeah, and so is the Devil. Seems like a bit of a running theme.”

#gingerly writing #to do list

[haphazardlyparked]

reminder that you are a hero, rescuing people’s days and introducing smiles and laughter one snippet at a time. <3

<3 <3 <3 found this in my inbox again

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

"Jesus, Joseph, and Mary," Quickdraw drawled, very loudly, over Darkwell's shoulder. Right in Darkwell's ear.

He didn't flinch. "Yes, Kalna?"

"Are you really hanging out at one of the most awful places on the internet?"

"They are comments," Darkwell said, like he still didn't get Quickdraw's concern.

Quickdraw didn't leave it at that. He had a knack for wheedling out what he wanted to know. "Comments on an article about vaccines," he said, pointedly.

Darkwell frowned. "Sometimes, there are some really levelheaded people who have well-reasoned conversations."

"And that makes scrolling through the rest of the flaming garbage pit worthwhile?"

Darkwell didn't answer.

"How did you take over the world?" Quickdraw demanded, tone distinctly whining now. "You believe there’s goodness in online comments.”

#answers #best anon #snippet #kalna #iska

[haphazardlyparked]

Crown hadn’t expected to find any villains in this part of the ship, not so deep past the Laverna’s Luck defenses. If he had, he would’ve brought Quickdraw and Gazelle.

They were the anti-villain hard-hitters; neither one of them batted an eye at going after the captain of the feared and impressively bountied supervillain ship Monopoly. Glory to them. 

In stark contrast to their deadly recklessness, Crown’s job, as Quickdraw lovingly put it, was to tuck in all the little clients and make sure they don’t get their toesies blown off. It was true, too. Client safety topped the list of priorities on their hero contract, and everyone knew better than to trust Quickdraw or Gazelle with that job. 

And yet, on his way to the nearest checkpoint, Crown passed an access panel to one of the auxiliary data banks and stopped in the hallway. 

The alarm klaxons he had already gotten used to abruptly gave way to forcefully calm and intentionally vague instructions for passengers to proceed to their lockdown assignments. The emergency protocol had been drilled into their clients weeks ago, because nobody wanted to give boarding villains free instructions to their targets. 

Traveling the Mirage Run, the long trail of wormhole jumps that connected the two parts of the known universe, was not a wholly unsafe venture--when you averaged things out. The people who had the credits for superhero contracts, the ones that came with a small fleet of well-armed escorts vessels, always sailed right through. Everyone else played a lottery with the heroes they hired, whose ships sometimes included the odd gunboat or extra armed frigate.

Crown and the rest of his crewmates only had their modest, if heavily modified, frigate, the 4CC. It was currently hiding, because the 4CC wasn’t hired for its firepower. 

It was hired for its crew’s ability to drive off the villains’ inevitable boarding parties. It was simple economics, Crown reflected. Most villains weren’t willing to invest all the extra fuel it took to tow a prize back to the nearest port, especially out on the Mirage Run, where passengers could become very desperate and innovative, and thus destructive. No, if the villains wanted to profit from ship and ransom its passengers, they had to board it.  

So if Quickdraw was a little too gleeful about that aspect of the job, Crown wasn’t about say anything. He wasn’t a superhero anymore. Nowadays, Crown just liked the simple idea of providing safety for those who always had to worry about it. It felt like he was finally doing something noteworthy, protecting others in concrete, direct ways, and if that meant unleashing Quickdraw and Gazelle on a boarding party, so be it. 

But he still had those militaristic superhero instincts, and he had stopped in that hallway before the alarm klaxons changed. 

Crown turned silently, as if on a whim, and frowned at the access panel to the data bank. 

What is it, Crown? 

4CC’s voice in Crown’s ear was calm but wary, and reassured rather than surprised Crown. He’d have thought most of 4CC’s attention would be focused on remaining out of the Monopoly’s range, and on Quickdraw and Gazelle fighting, but the ship must have noticed a change in Crown’s biofeedback. 

Not sure, Ship, Crown told 4CC. 

There was an unusual pause before 4CC replied.

Laverna says the room appears empty, it reported. But it doesn’t sound sure. 

Well, there was no harm checking. Crown reached out to silently key in his access. 

The panel slid back to reveal a girl up to her elbows in the data bank's etched storage crystals, blond hair wound into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. Fingers a blur as they flitted across and sorted through the dimly glowing crystals, the girl’s head craned around.

Crown stared. 

The girl's head whipped back around and her hands began moving even faster through the crystals. What in all of space could she be doing with them? 

"Oh dear," Crown said, censoring what he had really wanted to say, which was oh flaming stars, has the universe sunk so low? "Aren't you a little young to be a supervillain?"

She appears to be a human of nine, 4CC reported in Crown’s ear. Another pause. Laverna still cannot see her. 

“Yes,” the girl said, at the same time. “Yes I am.” Her back remained to Crown and she hadn't stopped rearranging the crystals. They were basically bricks of information, you couldn’t build a bomb with them--Crown was pretty sure.  

Are you going to do something about that? 4CC prompted. The ship sounded as professionl as usual, but Crown still heard the reproach. 4CC did not believe in coddling children. 

Golden light flared, brighter than the soft pearly white, blues and purples of the data bank, and when it faded, Crown had the girl bound in light that stretched from her to him. She was frozen in his golden grip but still had enough control to heave a huge sigh. 

Laverna is analyzing its own systems, 4CC said. 

“Is this the part where you throw me out an airlock?” the girl asked, voice squeaking a bit with the effort of speaking through his control. 

“You’re nine!” Crown pointed out hastily. He felt awful.

“Yes,” the girl replied, her back still to him. “Yes I am.”

Belatedly, Crown took slow, shuffling steps around; the girl, mirroring his actions, turned to face what was now his back. Loosening his grip enough to turn and face the girl without her mirroring him back around again, Crown frowned at the girl. And tightened his grip again, when he saw her hands struggling towards the crystals. 

The whole maneuver had taken about ten seconds, each of which had been filled with 4CC’s warning, She’s manipulating you.

Thank you, Ship, Crown thought. Aloud, he said, “Why can’t this ship see you?” 

The girl’s eyes widened with fear. “Because I’m nine?” she suggested, so pitifully that even Crown could see it was an act now.

I don’t like her, 4CC confided to Crown. The ship might have gone on, but Quickdraw’s voice came through instead, loud and clear from Crown’s wrist. 

“Mission completed, good sir knight,” Quickdraw reported. “The sad little crew has been ejected and are fleeing back to their ship.”

“They underestimated us severely,” Gazelle put in.

“I dunno, it was a little strange,” Quickdraw said thoughtfully. “Might’ve been testing the waters. We’ll have to make sure they don’t dog us through the next jump.” 

“Wait,” Crown said. He had to back up mentally. “The boarders left?” 

“Oh no,” Crown’s child captive said, entirely deadpan. All of her doe-eyed vulnerability evaporated into nothing but dust-dry observation. “I’ve been left behind.” 

“Oh no,” Crown whispered. 

“Crown?” Gazelle asked over the wrist com. “Why’s Ship going on about a tiny villain?” 

“Well, looks like you’re stuck with me,” the girl said. “Are you going to lock me in the brig now?” 

Crown hesitated. She looked so young and small... and she had her hands on some crystals again. 

Crown, 4CC said dubiously, I think she’s stealing the data. Without any reader.  

The tiny villain whistled. “Your ship sure is smart.” 

I really do not like her, 4CC complained. 

-----------

to @rrrawrf-writes​

not so much a late by more than a moon birthday gift. more like an offering on the altar of ur neverending patience with my extreme flakiness. <3 <3 <3 

Prompt #2882

“Aren’t you a little young to be a supervillain?”

“Yes, yes I am.”

#crown #char #i dont know why i always think of space when i try to write things for you

[haphazardlyparked]

it has now been two months and i hope by now you have finished your thesis and are enjoying all the jane austen audiobooks you have gotten your hands on <3 i sincerely hope you are happy and healthy and having fun! you deserve the world :)

honestly best anon, you give me life <3 thank you! i have finished my thesis, have started a short contract doing the same old job as seven years ago, so now it's back to life as usual i guess. i've just moved so i'm still working on a good routine. i've got about enough inspiration for some prompts... and maybe another small thing!

#best anon #answers

[haphazardlyparked]

it's been a month and I hope you're doing well!!! :D please take care of yourself, and I hope life hasn't been too stressful for you <3

hello beautiful anon it has been a while! i'm doing very well. i'm back home with my parents for many weeks so i can attend my sibling's wedding and also finish my masters thesis (which is almost done!!!) and i have done very little writing. im filling my imaginative headspace time with Jane Austen audiobooks instead. tis great.

i hope that summer is treating you magnificently!! and if not that you're having a good time anyway! 🧡

#best anon