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#The Jackal of An-Nadr
yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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Cold, Cold, Cold - VIII
1,744 words. Original work, The Jackal of An-Nadr
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Content Warnings | UNREALITY, fever whump, very vivid hallucinations, nightmares, fear of drowning, hypothermia, anchored to the bottom of a river, used as bait, crying into your captor's arms, gorgeous & incoherent begging
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump @whump-queen @scoundrelwithboba
The thready, unraveling world had stopped making any sense to Nadeem so very long ago. He didn't know how long he'd been drifting. Only that night had now come, and the cold had, too.
Silt pressed between his toes as he strained toward shore, just barely brushing the tops of the muckweed with every kick. His hair drifted out in a raising and dipping halo around his shoulders, frost crusting the strands everywhere it touched the water.
He could count on one hand the number of times he had ever gone swimming at night, especially alone. No matter how much he had always trusted the river during the day, it was a game with death to be out here after the sun had set. The rivercats that lazed at the glinting heat of the shore would have returned to the river by now. The ones that couldn't even be bothered to roll an eye in a human's direction during the day would be out hunting for cattle that wandered too close to the blackness of the shore—and they were much more difficult targets than him. And even if the alligators didn't kill him, The Purratu's cold northbound waters were enough to. 
The motion of the current had already wicked away any of the heat his body had to offer. Shivering against the steady onslaught of water was useless. He knew with a creeping sense of dread that worsened with every minute; I'm dying.
Still he tread water, trying to keep his chin above the surface. His wrists had been bound behind his back, the anchor tied from them to the depths far too heavy for him to lift. He had spent all of his strength and energy trying to drag it closer to shore, but now his violent shivering was beginning to slow. His body was failing. He didn't know when the stranger was coming back to him, only that he was running out of time.
A sharp, shuddering breath rattled his shoulders, sweat seeping into the pillows as he tried to curl deeper around himself, chasing the warmth that was quickly seeping out through the bottom of the canvas bed. No matter how much he shivered, the draft from below took away all heat faster than he could make it.
Was this his punishment? Were they not coming back?
I can't do this.
He gave a frustrated sob as he tried, one last time, to saw his hands free of the rope. The fibers cut deeper and deeper into his skin, succeeding in doing nothing more than spreading more blood into the water.
He twisted his hands weakly in the leather strips tying them to the head of the bed. His fingertips had long since turned a worrying shade of frigid grey, and it took all his focus to get them to gradually flex to try to keep life in them.
The ladder creaked as one of the creatures came down the steps. He caught the flash of eyes, metallic silver pools of light that glinted in the blackness like those of a hyena. The predator shifted through the small space, the sound of lanterns tinkling against its shoulders. Then a second set of glinting eyes joined it soon after.
"Come back!" he cried in a fog of breath into the empty night. His voice was hoarse from clattering teeth, weak with the only shallow gasps he could still reach from the surface of the water. The lights of windows flickered orange against the dark landscape, glittering like embers in the wind.
He knew this man could outwait him. He could remember nothing of the stranger's face, but a deep well of rot in his chest told him he was facing something worse than freezing to death and drowning. He was bait. Even as the shouts grew closer and he saw the distant silhouettes of his townspeople pass, he bit back his sobs and kept himself silent.
If they come for you, I’ll kill them before you have even a chance to scream.
But now he heard his sister's voices in the distance. He had been a constant for their whole lives. They knew him. They knew him well enough that he knew the river was one of the first places they would look. He could do nothing but cry as he ran out of time.
"Come back and take me," he wept breathlessly, "Pl—please." His leg spasmed with a cramp of pain, and with a gasp of shock his mouth dipped below the surface. It took him a few long, terrifying moments to kick again strongly enough to break the surface. The redoubled cold of the night air washed over his face. He sputtered and coughed from the shock of it, feet sweeping back and forth over and over to try to buy enough air.
He let out a breathless sob as claws brushed slowly, carefully back through his hair. He shuddered, shying away from the touch, and held his breath as he felt it pause. Then a warm hand slid down the curve of his jaw and cradled his face. Please, please. "...please."
Please, warmth. "I'll...do...." anything. I'll do anything. Don't let me spend another night like this.
I'll never make it to the oasis if I don't find warmth.
I have to make it. I don't want to die alone like this.
I don't want to die in this forsaken place.
The hand traced his face, soothing over the sweat-drenched mess of his forehead. His eyes lidded as their warmth slowly seeped into his skin, exhausted sobs slipping through clattering teeth.
"I'll do it," he sobbed into the hum of the locusts.
Please don't let them find me like this. Please, don't let my family be the ones to find me.
Baba, Maaman, his sisters—
"I'll do it!" He yelled, and immediately sank back under the surface. In the moments after he surfaced again he was left coughing so hard he almost couldn't catch his breath. 
More lanterns had been lit, glimmering out beyond the high grass like guttering candles. They were still so far away. The wildlife that sang in the banks of the river gave way to the sound of distant cries for a moment before their orchestra breathed over them again.
The creature pulled the blankets away, unwinding him from the tangle of furs. He whined aloud as the cold night air washed over his skin, barely aware of the "Please...no....no," that streamed from his lips.
Talons pulled him out of the blankets, lifting him like he weighed no more than a doll. Then they moved warm over his sweat-drenched clothes, pulled him close against the creature's chest, and continued combing through his hair as arms wrapped around his back. He almost began weeping with relief when warm, bare skin pressed into the numbness of his cheek.
Something writhed beneath his toes in the muck. He jerked his foot away and instinctively kicked at it to keep it at bay, but it wasn’t something he could sustain if he still wanted to breathe. Moments after he was forced to return to his treading, slimy sandpaper scales brushed along the arch of his foot as it persistently returned. 
He braced himself for the needle-pain of teeth, drawn to the smell of the wound in his foot. He let out a near-hysterical whine as he felt those mucousy scales twist up between his toes and wrap around his ankle. Then its body once again pressed cold against the bottom of his foot, slicking over the burn, and kept him from dislodging it even as he returned to his desperate treading.
Lengths of bandage turned slowly round and round his foot, gentle hands working around the wound. 
His fingers curled against its chest, heat radiating against his cheek as he sunk further into the crook of its arms. The air he breathed was tinged with the incense-burn of smoke, huge hands warming the back of his neck. A wordless murmur echoed by his ear, warm breath ghosting over his skin.
Maybe the creature wouldn't... Maybe...
Wait...
No, he couldn't...it couldn't....
Something rustled in the reeds. Something brushed over his hair.
Which was reality?
"Make it stop," he pleaded breathlessly.
"Nadi!" his sister's voices cried from downriver. "Where are you?"
He coughed on more water, breath blooming in silver clouds around his head. Droplets flicked out around him as he turned his head and desperately searched the dark for any sign of the dark figure from before.
A warm cloth wiped across his forehead, washing over feverish skin. A rumbling voice soothed him as he twisted his face away from the contact.
A man's silhouette shifted, so faintly visible against the reeds that he couldn't even be sure he was there. He kicked desperately to try to raise his head from the water enough to call out, but suddenly found, for the first time, that he couldn't reach the surface.
"Õ̵͜d̸̰̆r̷͈̒ä̸̦i̸̻͋!̷̩̌ ̴̯̌G̷̨̊e̴̙͗t̵͚͂ ̴̼̃m̷̖̆e̶̬͊ ̶̑ͅs̷̠̾ȁ̸̝n̵̪͠d̷̠̽b̷͓̆a̷̳̒g̷̩̽s̸̢̊,̵̤͒ ̶̗̽n̴͓̒o̴̗̚w̴̥̉!”
He cast pleading eyes toward the figure, gasping on a breath that was as much water as air. Please. Please.
That...that was no language he knew. And some resigned sort of dread told him that his mind couldn't have come up with it on his own, not even in the fever of dreams like these.
"Nadi! Where are you?"
He struggled to crack open his eyes, but he could see nothing more than incoherent colors swimming beyond his lashes. They lidded as an ember-warm hand brushed back the small hairs at the edges of his face, relief coursing down his spine with a shudder.
He was either drowning or falling asleep. He could no longer distinguish one from the other any more than he could make sense of either of the realities from dreams.
The man on the shore was going to get what he wanted after all.
The creature at the bottom of the river curled its body slowly up his calf, fins fluttering against his skin. Its body tightened around him. Then it pulled him slowly deeper, and Nadi's vision wavered as the water closed over his head one final time. The muffled roar of the insects went silent. He turned his eyes once again up toward the night sky, empty breath clawing at his lungs.
He had no more strength to fight. His trembling, exhausted muscles finally went lax with one last, burning exhale that blossomed to the surface. Then he was no more.
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me who’s already not good at anatomy:
these motherfuckers with FOUR arms:
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secretwhumplair · 2 years
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What are some of your favorite whump series?
A selection!
Kane & Jim by @whumpsday
Everything by @whumpzone (Linden & Colton is currently in progress, Tomas & Rowe is completed)
Of Vampires and Men by @whumpy-writings
Angel on the Wall by @emmettnet
Weapons Don't Weep by @wolfeyedwitch
The Jackal of An-Nadr by @yet-another-heathen
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What are some of your favorite whump series?
Hi. :D The list is slowly but steadily growing.
Kane & Jim from @whumpsday. I love their characters, and the way the story fleshes them out from multiple angles. We see the titular characters grow, how they interact with their families and friends, and what motivates them. The devastating whump makes the comfort all the more satisfying. (Check out whumpsday's other series with mers and demons too.)
The Fighter by @hold-him-down. The premise behind this series, and the sort of quiet menace whumpers like Parker or Ivan exude gives me chills. I also love the themes touched on by Luke, a U.S. senator, having to get involved with the system he's trying to dismantle in order to help a person trapped in it, Leo.
Do No Harm by @peachy-panic. Like hold-him-down's writing, the ideas behind the series make it stand out, as well as how real the characters feel. It takes fascinating looks into a BBU-type system, showing us characters involved in keeping the whole horrific thing running.
Hart and Prey by @the-blind-one-speaks. As if you couldn't tell by now, characters and world-building/premise are aspects of a story that draw me in. I love the mysterious fantasy setting and the gradual clues we pick up about how it and its characters work. Poor Hart, the imp whumpee, makes a lot of progress thanks to the Eye, Reuben, and his murder of crows. It's fun to experience the story through magical or inhuman characters too.
Blue Monday, Kosta the Purring Vampire, the so-called "Fun Swamp Vacation" and...well, everything by @thecyrulik. Vampires who are just lil creechurs, vampires who are trying their best in a bad situation, vampires who are nice enough to wait for your soup to finish cooking before biting you, plus a lady whumper who should be drawn and quartered based on her pet naming choices alone. There's nothing here I don't love.
Self-Sharpened Fangs by @redwhump. People sure do think of some scary uses for silver. Like all good stories from talented writers, these got me thinking about what sorts of Situations I can put my own OCs into in the future.
Basically anything by @deluxewhump. I admit I've only read bits and pieces, mostly her vampire stuff (I'll get to everything eventually though!), but each one was amazing.
Of Vampires and Men by @whumpy-writings is pretty much required reading for vampire whump, and she also has a fantasy whump series, Blood of Magic, which does exactly what I like with magic: makes it look cool and exacts a terrible price for using it. I look forward to reading her published works outside of Tumblr as well.
The Jackal of An-Nadr by @yet-another-heathen. Oh, hey, one of the rare ones without vampires. Seriously, though, I love the setting, the details, the writing, just everything about this. Stop listening to me and go read it now. Go.
Honorable Mentions (aka your series/stories are on my to-read list and I will get to them, promise): Multiple series by @bloodsweatandpotato, And Then You Kill Me by @thewhumperinwhite, yet more cool stuff by @blackrosesandwhump, and vampires + more from @bluewhumpcrew.
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yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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The First Ember - IX
1,921 words. Original work: The Jackal of An Nadr
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Content Warning | unintentional drug overdose by captors (bad side effects but not life threatening), fever whump, the very first signs of pneumonia, undressing while unconscious (medical reasons), heavy bruising, evidence of past noncon, wound/scar reveal, mention of unsanitary bodily fluids, [Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings]
Tag List | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-ghost-writer @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump @whump-queen @scoundrelwithboba @suspicious-whumping-egg
The human looked like it might not survive the night.
Yeezumon had been cradling it for the last fifteen minutes while Odrai climbed down the side of the ship to gather sand from the dunes. It was already several hours into the night, but below the topmost inch of sand, the dunes were nearly as warm as they had been during the day. He returned to the deck and passed the bags down to Ifyaa. As he did, he cast a somewhat worried glance at the human. "How bad is it?"
"...I don't know yet," Ifyaa admitted, creating a nest on their cot with the bags. "It's running a bad fever, and...." He paused, sharing a worried look with Yeezumon. "And I think we may have overdosed it on the eadh."
The little thing was showing every sign of it there was. Breaths clouded with heavy mist, despite the warmth of the cabin. Excessive tears. Cold sweat. Everything across its body that could produce water was doing so in abundance. On its own it wouldn't have even been that concerning; eadh overdoses weren't fatal. But with the fever already ravaging its system? That changed everything.
Odrai seemed to realize as much. But all he could offer was, "If anyone can save it, it's you."
Ifyaa said quietly, "Thank you, Odrai."
"We'll call on you if we need anything, but you should go," Yeezumon said gently. The human was starting into another fit of incoherent crying. "It isn't safe."
Odrai just nodded, giving the human one last, lingering look. Then he was gone, the trap door shut behind him.
The Husbands shared another look, then turned their attention back to the human. It was clinging onto Yeezumon like a lifeline, face pressed flush against the heat of his chest. Every inch of it was violently shivering against the cold. Its clothes were nearly soaked through with sweat, even to the outermost layer of its robes. Long hair had come loose from its braids and gotten tangled from tossing and turning beneath the sheets. Tear tracks, snot, and saliva smeared parts of its face. It was entirely a mess.
It was crying. Sometimes letting out incoherent jumbles of words as it dreamed, but mostly just crying. Every whine sent waves of glowing, orange pain through their chests like embers being caught by a breeze. It felt like a barb tugging on the wrong side of Ifyaa's sternum, as sharp as it was disturbing. 
He sat down on the edge of the cot, wringing out the cloth in warm water. Its eyes barely opened at all, and when they did there was no coherent thought at all behind them. Drifting, unseeing. Wherever it was in its dreams, it was lost there. And still, when Ifyaa brought the cloth to gently dab at its face, it immediately twisted away. Gasping. Taking in deep, clouded breaths like it was struggling to breathe.
There was every chance it was. The only time that an eadh overdose could be dangerous was if the lungs began to fill with fluid. That usually took weeks of constant overuse before it became a problem. But Ifyaa could hear the crackling of its lungs when it breathed too deep. Just because something was safe for the ifrit didn't necessarily mean it was for a human.
It took a while for the wave of crying to pass, the human already so burnt out that it simply couldn't continue. Yeezumon continued murmuring reassurances against its temple, running hands over it to try to give it more warmth.
Both of them were worried. But the look on Yeezumon's face was heartbreaking. 
"Habibi, if I've killed it—"
"No. No, love." Ifyaa laid a hand on his cheek. "It won't be because of the eadh. If it doesn't make it, it will be because of the fever. You haven't done anything that can't be fixed with time."
"It might not have time."
All he could do was manage a small smile. "Have you met this thing? Don't give up on it just yet."
That managed to get a huff of air in lieu of a laugh. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
"Here. Help me get it out of its robes."
They moved it to the bed, Yeezumon settling in behind its back. His fingers started on the lacing of its robe. The little thing barely even stirred, boneless aside from the rhythmic strain of its breaths. 
They worked its clothes off in effortless tandem. First the burnt sepia-orange of its outer robes. Then the long pants it wore beneath, and finally the soaked-through fabric of its kurta. 
Both of them stopped entirely when they saw what was underneath. 
Bruises, mottled all across bronze skin. Across its stomach. Its knees. Rope burns spun around its wrists and ankles. A massive, red-purple blotch colored its hip most of the way down one thigh. But they were nothing compared to the dozens of bruises along the inside of its thighs and encircling its upper arms. Many the still-recognizable shape of hands.
Its chest had been wrapped with a long length of bandaging, nearly covering its entire ribcage. Just beneath its collarbone on the side of its heart, an angry red brand lay scabbed and broken. The symbol was nearly the size of the boy's own palm. It looked like calligraphy, the kind that the Qa'imrani merchants along the east edge of the desert used for trade. 
Ifyaa recognized the script before Yeezumon did. 
"The boy has been branded a thief."
It took several long moments for the implications to sink in for both of them. The horror of it wasn't even that it was a criminal. They were on a pirate ship, after all. It was so much worse than that.
"So that's why we found it all alone out there." Yeezumon wiped a hand down his face. "Its own people left it out there to die."
Over something that as an ifrit would, at worst, have lost a hand over. The two of them already knew what little regard humans had for each other's lives, but staring down the evidence of it was sickening.
"The mark can't be more than a week or two old."
"No wonder it reacted to the iron as badly as it did. And all this...." He was still staring at the bruises that disappeared all the way up under its innerwear. "It didn't even show other signs that it was hurt."
Ifyaa probed gently over the bandage on its chest. "Help me lift it up a little. I need to see how bad the wounds are." 
They readjusted, and Ifyaa began unwinding the linen starting at the bottom of its ribs. He was careful not to press too firmly, no idea what he was going to find. 
But with every unwound coil, he found only more unbroken skin beneath. A few mottled bruises, but no cuts. And his gentle probing only produced the faint winces that he'd expect of tender bruising. Nothing that indicated broken ribs. 
Ifyaa's eyebrows furrowed. And then with one more undone loop, his face lit up with surprise. "Oh."
The jackal wasn't hurt. 
It wasn't a bandage. 
Beneath the soft, brown waves of chest hair he'd been expecting, there were breasts. It was clear they'd been intentionally softened and made flatter over time, either by the repeated compression, or by hand. The boy wasn't hurt. He'd been binding. And by the looks of it, he'd been doing so for a very long time.
The Husbands made a flash of eye contact over the top of him. Then after a pause, Ifyaa's hands moved to carefully check over the rest of its ribs. It had a rather spectacular bruise on its shoulder to match the one on its hip, but aside from that he found nothing.
"Well....that's far better than I'd expected to find. At least nothing is broken. Here, lend me your hands."
Yeezumon helped him to work off its innerwear. He'd been planning to do so anyway, it needed as much skin-to-skin contact as possible for warmth. But it was the final confirmation of what they both suspected. While he certainly was a man now, he hadn't been born that way. He was one of the Inan.
And there was even more evidence of what had been done to him all the way up his thighs. Layers of bruises, in addition to scratch marks on his hips. This couldn't all be the work of one man. It was brutal. 
"Gods..." Yeezumon whispered. "No wonder it's so terrified. If its own people did this, imagine what it must think is coming for it now."
Its shivering had badly worsened with its skin exposed to the air, and its unconscious sounds of distress were as sad as they were painful. Yeezumon spent a moment working down his own pants, then lay down and drew it closer against his chest. 
He was careful to keep it away from his own bandaged shoulder, but was able to position a sandbag between its thighs where the arteries ran beneath. Then he wrapped it up in all his remaining arms, a loose embrace that it sank into immediately. A few more tears raced down its cheek. But its breaths were already coming easier now that the pressure of the binding was gone. And soon what sounds it was making were ones of exhausted, boneless relief.
Ifyaa spent a while longer cleaning the worst of the sweat from its skin, then undressed and joined them. Half his arms braided themselves between his Husband's, while the other set about gently teasing the tangles back out of the boy's hair. 
"It's going to be so angry with us in the morning," he said.
Yeezumon chuckled. "Without even the faintest doubt." A moment of quiet. "I'm almost afraid to give it more eadh at all, come tomorrow. Is there anything in the infirmary we can use as an alternative?"
"Nothing with so few side effects. We'll just have to start in much smaller doses, and see how it tolerates it." 
"Mm."
He fit his hand into one of Yeezumon's, and gave a small squeeze. They'd been married for three centuries. He knew the sound of his husband's guilt. "He's going to be alright, Habibi. Don't spare your regret on something that hasn't happened yet."
Yeezumon sighed, but gave a small nod.
Softly, "I'll take first watch. Get some sleep."
Another nod. Then as was their way, "I love you always."
"I love you longer still."
They lapsed into silence. Ifyaa spent the time carding gently through the human's hair. He enjoyed the feeling of loose waves that were so different from the curls he was familiar with. And though his mind drifted, he continued to listen as the human's heart evened out and slowed. It was falling into deeper sleep at last. 
....but after a while, something caught at the edge of his senses. The rich smell of incense, edged with a coppery tang that made his head start to spin. Pheromones as familiar to him as the number of his hands. His mouth twitched up. 
He knew exactly what his husband was thinking about—because he'd been thinking it, too. "Don't get too tempted," he said, not bothering to hide the amusement in his voice. "I know full well how you get when you're around them."
Yeezumon didn't open his eyes, but his mouth twitched. "You're just as guilty as me."
A chuckle. Yes, that he was. “We're still selling him.”
“Wouldn't even dream otherwise.”
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yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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I'm SO excited!! I just finished and queued the next brand-new chapter in the Jackal series! This particular one is the single most important addition to the story that we've had yet. Soooo much happens. And I finally, FINALLY get to drag you all into an element of the story that I've been hiding for years. It's been agonizing not to spoil this part. I genuinely can't wait for you to see <33
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yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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Steps - VII
2,645 words. Original work, The Jackal of An-Nadr
For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, worlds that are as vivid and alive as the characters, and the agonizing loss being dragged away from home into a life you never asked for. Slow-burn monsterfucker fic.
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Content Warnings | defiant whumpee, aphrodisiac used as a sedative, sleeping with your captor (non-sexy)(...mostly), an unsuccessful escape attempt turned into a murder attempt, stabbing, a bad fall down some stairs, noncon touch (oh....yep. there's the aphrodisiac), xenophobia, mention of food
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump @whump-queen @scoundrelwithboba
It had been one long, cold night since Ifyaa had taken the iron to the boy's foot, and Yeezumon had had the mercy not to leave it alone with the dreams that followed. The sobs that prickled with the smell of ozone had long since gone quiet, and the deep pain the curse inflicted in his chest was finally fading out to a bruise-like ache.
The glow of pain behind his ribs would have given him away, had there been anyone to witness it. But it was only him and the Son, and the latter was in no state to judge the extent of Yeezumon's stupidity.
Still, Yeezumon barely slept.
Ifyaa had wanted to be there, but after cauterizing its foot he couldn’t get within five paces of the human without it panicking so badly they feared it would hurt itself all over again. It had taken some convincing, but Ifyaa agreed to sleep in the infirmary nook and leave Yeezumon in their cabin with the boy, under repeated promises that he would come to get him if anything were to happen to it.
The boy spent that night tossing and turning, clothes tangling in the sheets as it plunged from dream to dream. The eadh had kept it calm enough before, but even that couldn't ease the feverish restlessness which came with that much pain. 
It trembled from head to toe in the cold night air, and yet every inch of its bronze-brown skin was flush with sweat. The eadh tinged his breaths in clouds of vapor, a visible trace of just how deeply drugged it was. It mumbled foreign words against his chest, and shuddered with relief every time he pulled it closer to his warmth.
He watched it dream, small sounds occasionally falling from its lips as he traced soothing fingers between its braids. 
He had no doubt it would have fought him if it were awake to witness this. But here? Now? It leaned into his hands like they were the only thing rooting it to reality. It was almost hard to imagine such soft features distorted into that snarl. A splatter of freckles across the bridge of its cheeks and nose where the sun had touched its skin above its litham. The feathered edges of what would one day deepen into smile lines, given the chance. Long, downturned eyelashes that veiled its eyes more than framed them. Calloused hands that curled limply against his own when he worked over them with his thumb. None of it lended itself to the scowl it had worn since the oasis had given it to him.
It didn't feel like a Son of Solomon. It just looked like a boy.
Maybe the others were right. Maybe that did make him a fool. And yet as the dawn was breaking, the human slept atop his chest with heavy limbs, matching each of his slow breaths with its own. And Yeezumon couldn't bring himself to believe them.
The light outside turned from grey to pink, and then the first rays of the new dawn cast themselves upon the near wall in the same perfect circle as the window. Dust motes drifted through the column of light between, dancing slow and golden on unseen eddies of air.
His secondary hands brushed over the human's cheek, explored the stubble along its jaw. Its braids lay loose in a cascade across Yeezumon's shoulder, cheek pressed against his chest. 
The ship had already begun to stir to life outside the silence of their quarters. Familiar shouts echoed back and forth, the occasional thump of wood on wood as cargo was lifted and moved. The Quartermaster's voice rose into the air, calling the dawn to prayer.
Yeezumon glanced down at the human, and then slipped ever-so-carefully out of bed. The morning meal would begin soon, and he knew the boy would be hungry when it finally awoke. He smoothed a hand over its forehead, murmuring reassurance as it leaned into the warmth of his palm. It was still sound asleep when he closed the deck hatch behind him, quietly sliding the bolt shut.
The galley wasn't far, and even though it was only just past sunrise the table had already been nearly cleared by the crew who had come before him. He brushed hands with the people he passed, giving barely more than a tired smile and a few murmured words to those who asked after the human. Others watched him from afar, and found reasons to pick up their own meals and leave when he neared.
He didn't blame them. After all, it was because of him that the dirtblood had ever come aboard—the reason it was still aboard now. The entire crew had received the Quartermaster's orders that no fights were to be tolerated, and most chose to leave rather than be tempted by that risk. Even in the light of the promised gold, some only barely could contain the contemptuous fear of news that another Son had been discovered—let alone have it surviving here under their own roof.
And so he didn't linger. He gathered enough food for himself and the boy, and made his way back to the cabin before the tension had the chance to become anything more than that.
But when he opened the deck hatch, the bed was empty.
Yeezumon paused above the trap door, staring at the empty tangle of sheets for a long moment before he sighed. It must have woken when he left. The eadh would still be clouding its mind, disguising the pain in its foot. Maybe even enough to stand on, briefly, even though it shouldn't. 
If it had torn open its foot again...well, it wouldn’t be a fun morning for either of them. 
Yeezumon muttered a small curse beneath his breath, then called out a gentle, "I'm coming down, little one."
It had probably hidden itself around the corner near his desk and scrolls, or slipped under the cot. He would hopefully calm it down enough to come out again. To still eat. The ship's ladder creaked beneath his feet as he began to descend, still balancing the plate of food in one hand.
He only made it to the third step when something slammed hard into the back of his knee, buckling his leg. His eyes flew wide as his other foot caught nothing but empty air, and all four hundred pounds of his weight stumbled and crashed down to the wooden floor below.
The human was only a blur of movement out of the corner of his eye. It whipped around from its hiding spot behind the ladder. 
It had been clinging to the back side of the steps. In a heartbeat it had found its footing on the right side of the ladder and was scrambling up the last few rungs toward the deck.
It was on instinct more than anything that Yeezumon grabbed it by the very hem of its robes, and yanked it back down into the cabin before it had made it more than halfway out of the hatch. It scrabbled against the wood and fell, bony limbs knocking the air from Yeezumon's lungs as it came crashing down on top of him.
He coughed and wheezed out a string of curses, clutching a hand to his side where he had taken the brunt of the fall. His mind was still reeling and trying to make sense of what had happened.
And then fiery, splitting pain stabbed down into the sinew of one shoulder. It ripped a shout of surprised pain from him before he even saw the glint of a blade, his own blade, from the sword belt he'd left by the bed, driving down a second time straight for his skull.
He caught the boy's wrist only a split second before it met its mark, deflecting the clumsy aim of the dagger and burying the blade in the wooden floor just beside his head. 
It tried again to draw the blade, only for Yeezumon to slam its back into the floorboards as he flipped it and pinned it down beneath his weight.
The human thrashed and twisted in his grip, still trying for a few moments in vain to escape before it sagged back against the floor. It let out a guttural, sputtering explosion of frustrated curses, teeth still bared as both their chests rose and fell with ragged breaths.
Yeezumon stared down at it, his mind absolutely blank with shock.
It had...
The human had...
It had stabbed him with his own blade. He was bleeding. 
He was bleeding. A sluggish path of mercurial, silver blood was circling down the length of his arm, dripping to the floor in a growing tempo of pat pat pat. The muscle beneath it was aglow with pain.
It had been waiting. It had been planning this. How long had the boy been lying awake in his arms, while Yeezumon had thought he was still—? 
He clasped one hand to the gash in his shoulder, still not letting go of the boy's wrists.
"You little shit," he hissed. The human went rigid when he wrenched the knife out of the wood, trapped against the floorboards. "Where did you think you would go if you got out?"
"Yeezumon?" someone called from outside, "Are you still alive down there?"
It huffed out pained breaths, and then reared back and spat at him. Yeezumon's gaze went black. He seized the boy by the back of his hair and wrenched him upward, almost dragging him off the floor. He held up the blade, making the human look uncomfortably close at the length of the dagger it had so desperately tried to end his life with.
"Those men would tear you to shreds in an instant if you'd managed to use this properly. Do you understand me? Limb by limb."
It looked from the blade up to him, dark-eyed and trembling and still trying to muster some semblance of a glare. It hissed out the beginning of a bitter insult, but its words cut off the instant he lifted the blade, screwing its eyes shut. 
The voices from above grew closer. Blood continued to trickle from between his fingers. And Yeezumon just stared down at this reckless, drugged, conniving human that had, by sheer luck, come closer to killing him than any ifrit had in years.
"Yeezumon?" 
"I'm fine," he called up, "I'm fine. Just...." his gaze never left the boy. "...just slipped on the step."
Whomever it was muttered their assent, and left him be. 
The human slowly cracked its eyes open once a long while had passed and still it hadn't been struck, breathing hard and only just daring to meet his eyes. And when it did, Yeezumon let out a sigh.
Under his breath, "...you stupid boy."
Its eyes widened when he lifted it and dropped it unceremoniously back onto the bed, leaving it to flinch away from him as he reached up and slammed the trap door shut. 
He tossed the bloodied dagger aside, and then reached for his sword belt and dropped it on the floor too.
"I," A short dagger from beneath the edge of the table, "am not trusting you," two swords from the ceiling beams on either side of the trap door, "with anything sharp, ever again." His mother's shamshir from the side of his desk, while he muttered more about poor decisions and suicidal strays. Two khanjar sewn into the underside of the canvas of their cot, and a third hidden in a crook in the floorboards. “And you had better hope for your own sake that we don’t encounter any night raids while unarmed because of you.” Then a round of leather strapping that he and Ifyaa kept beside the bed, for good measure. And the last...
...the last was not where it should have been.
His eyes turned back to the human.
"You slippery little..." he growled under his breath.
Its eyes flew wide as he reached out and grabbed its arm. He dragged toward him in spite of its clamoring protests, and he began tugging open the ties at the front of its clothing. 
He could hear the spike in its heartbeat, small hands locking around his wrists and trying frantically to push away. The veneer of anger crumbled. It started speaking in rapid fire Q'aimrani, a stream of sharp words that only rose in pitch when the first of the ties pulled loose.
And then it reached abruptly into its own robes, pulled out Ifyaa's dagger, and shoved it roughly into Yeezumon's hands.
It…
He...
They sat there staring at each other for a long moment. The boy's chest rose and fell in shaky, terrified breaths. One of Yeezumon's hands lingered at the second tie that he had already begun to undo, not moving any further.
Oh. That…
He slowly took the scabbard from the boy's fingers. Two clammy hands pressed as hard as they could against his chest, trying to keep him at bay.
...that was interesting.
His fingertips remained at the edge of its collar, over the ridges of simple embroidery that lined the hemmed linen. Just above his collarbone, close enough that he could feel the gravelly pounding of its heart.
He found himself wanting to run his fingertips down the edge between clothing and skin. And in his temptation, he lifted the clawless, soft fingers of his secondary hand to do exactly that. The human’s skin was soft and cool, that rich bronze-brown a beautiful contrast to his own black. The boy let out a shudder, eyes lidding as the eadh rewarded the touch with a full-body wave of pleasure.
Oh, gods that was a temptation. 
But slowly, so slowly, he let his hand fall away. He sat back upright, and sighed.
His shoulder was still throbbing, the orange glow beneath his skin spreading down his arm and into his chest as the inflammation spread. Blood was getting everywhere.
The human blinked as if dazed, realizing where it was again. Yeezumon rose to his feet, gathering the weapons he had collected. He kept one eye on the boy as he strapped on his sword belt.
"You have a lot of nerve, for such a fragile little thing," he murmured, reaching down to pick up the leather strapping. "I can't decide if I'm offended or impressed."
His shoulder was throbbing, one hand still clasped to his wound, and he was careful as he began to uncoil the bindings loop by loop. The sight brought the anger back to its eyes.
"You can look at me like that all you want, but I'm not blind, little jackal. I know what I saw."
It backed away across the cot as he came closer. Yeezumon leaned down, looming into its space as he leaned against the bed.
"But now isn't the time. And you will not be getting the best of me again."
---
Two minutes later, the human lay there squirming and seething through a makeshift gag, the length of its arms bound and hands tied to one of the hooks that held up the bed. It fixed him with a scathing glare, and Yeezumon gave a little scoff before shutting the door to the cabin behind him.
He turned back to look out over the deck, watching the crew. They were working to tame the rigging, calling back and forth to one another as they pulled the main sail tight against the lull of the wind.
He turned his gaze down to the ivory handle in his hand, light catching over the edges of detailed engravings as he turned Ifyaa's dagger over in the morning sun. A thoughtful look passed over his face. And then he cast a single glance back toward the deck hatch, let out a quiet, “Hm,” and turned away.
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yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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Drinking Tag Game
I was tagged by @mysticstarlightduck to create a drinking game for one of my WIPs, The Jackal of An-Nadr! Honestly, if anyone wanted to actually play this drinking game with me, I'd be very down. So without further ado:
Take a shot when:
an ifrit's body part glows from pain
Nadeem thinks about his sisters
Yeezumon tries to comfort Nadi by purring (sir it does NOT. WORK.)
Nadi threatens his captors with something they all know he very much cannot do
The Husbands refer to each other as Habibi
Hard Mode (please for the love of the gods Do Not):
drink every time Wick mentions hands
----
Thank you so much for the tag! Passing this along to @secretwhumplair @burnticedlatte @coyotehusk @demondamage @ashintheairlikesnow @starlit-hopes-and-dreams @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @brutal-nemesis @whumpsical (as always, with zero pressure); and anyone else who wants to join, tag me with your addition! I'd love to see.
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yet-another-heathen · 2 months
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Memories from Beneath the Palms
1,339 words. Original work, The Jackal of An-Nadr
For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, worlds that are as vivid and alive as the characters, and the agonizing loss being dragged away from home into a life you never asked for. Slow-burn monsterfucker fic.
Author's Note | Flashback takes place about five years before Nadeem's capture.
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Content Warning | emotional whump, implied/referenced parental death, grief, fear of losing another parent (another very light one)
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump @whump-queen @scoundrelwithboba
The clay-rich soil crumbled between his toes as he stepped off the path, making his way up the shallow hillside where the reeds grew thinner and the trees grew thicker. He clung to the shadows as he walked, dappled sunlight falling over his eyelashes as he took the path home. 
“Can we go back to the river tomorrow?” Fahime murmured from somewhere near his ear, chin resting on his shoulder. Thin rivulets of water raced beneath his shirt where they’d soaked through, her feet leaving little droplets of water behind them. 
“You’ll have to convince Maaman,” he replied, readjusting her weight against his back. His basket hit his thigh with every step.
“Hasti says we have to ask you, too.”
“Does she?” he asked, glancing at their sister as she picked her way between patches of scrub ahead. He lowered his voice conspiratorially, “Look who's playing at bazbya.”
“I can hear you, you know!” she called back. “And they’re Maaman’s words, not mine!”
“You still said it!” Fahime snickered.
Hasti huffed, switching her basket of damp clothes to her other hip. As the ground flattened beneath them and the ground grew firmer with each step, Nadeem stooped to let Fahime off his back. She took off almost before her feet had touched the ground, racing past them and down the other side of the crest where their home was waiting. He caught up with Hasti, and offered his help as they carried both baskets the rest of the way into the shade.
From down the path toward the village he caught the sound of voices. Two girls raced around the corner, each playfully pushing and shoving at the other to get there first. “Hasti!” they called out, laughing and breathless. “Hasti! You’ll never believe—”
Both of them slowed their approach when they saw who she was with. The taller of the two opened and closed her mouth for a moment, looking as if she might start blushing at her supposed impropriety. The younger girls always seemed to forget he was no stranger to the feeling.
Then they glanced back at his sister. Hasti was already looking up at him with an expression of guarded hope. He gave her a look, then tossed his chin their direction.
“Go on. Just be back before asr,” he said. Her face split into a grin.
“You know, sometimes you’re not the worst.”
He rolled his eyes. She set the basket on the ground and took off toward her friends, only to groan loudly when he called back, “Take your sisters!”
But within moments she had gathered up Kheyri and Nasrin from inside and convinced Fahime that it would be more fun to play in town, and with a cautious smile and flushed cheeks her friends led the way back, chattering excitedly about their younger brother falling into the irrigation well.
He watched them round the corner, and the smile slowly fell from his face. 
He set the laundry outside near the back door, shrugging off the straps and straightening out the ache in his back before ducking inside. 
“Maaman?” he called, eyes adjusting to the light. “I’m home.”
He found her bowed over near one of the windows, and placed a hand on her shoulder before leaning forward to kiss her cheek. She glanced up from her work, the underside of her nails tinged yellow-green from where she’d been prying the green skins off of pistachios.
“Alu, azizam,” she said, eyes crinkling at the edges as he settled on the floor across from her. “You sent your sisters into town?”
“With Bahareh’s girls,” he replied. Finally in the privacy of family, he reached up to unwind the saffron-gold turban from his head and expose his face. He ran his fingers through dark braids of hair where the roots were damp with sweat. He spent a moment tying them up into a loose bun, and pulled the basket of unshelled pistachios toward himself. “There are new ships in the harbor. I saw them landing at the east end, unloading crates by Nakmun's house."
"That's a good sign," she said, giving him a knowing look. "I'll bet Kaveh is already planning a feast."
The corners of Nadeem's mouth twitched downward, eyes dropping to his work. The movement was practiced, his thumbnail leaving crescents as he pried off the skins.
Her voice softened, "What's wrong?"
He glanced away, then lightly swatted at her wrist when she reached again for the basket. "Ay! No more. You'll hurt your hands."
"They're not that bad today."
"They will be if you don't quit while you're ahead."
She gave him a wry look. "Nadeem…"
"Please, Maaman, let me do this."
She sighed, but pressed the issue no further. She'd been putting up less and less of a fight about it these days, which had only confirmed his suspicion that it was slowly getting worse.
He didn't know what they'd do when she couldn't use them at all, anymore.
"Zizi, I know when something's bothering you. What is it?"
He didn't know how to answer. She watched him, voice turning teasing when he didn't reply.
"Did Kazem try to kiss you again?"
He snorted, the sound coming out as an offended little laugh. He tried to pretend it didn't make him feel worse. "No, he did not."
"Then what is it?"
Her gaze was earnest, searching. He found it hard to meet her gaze, struggling over what he didn't know how to say.
Finally he swallowed, trying to pretend his voice wasn't hoarse.
"Baba promised he'd be home before Sahji," he murmured, turning over a loose shell between his finger and thumb. "It's only four days away, now."
Her expression softened. "I know."
"What will we tell them? The twins have already started asking questions, and I feel I'm running out of excuses."
She took his hand.
"We'll tell them the truth."
He could only look into her eyes for a moment before he had to turn away, biting his lip as his throat tightened. But when he spoke his voice was still steady, if barely. "Maaman...what if he doesn't…?"
"He will."
"But—"
"Nadeem, he will."
His throat closed with the sudden and forceful burn of tears he'd been pushing down for days. The smile he put on for his sisters broke all at once.
"We said the same thing when...when dad didn't—"
Finally he met her eyes, chin beginning to tremble. He felt his shoulders hitch, and his mother's gaze went soft. 
"Oh, zizi..." she held her arms out for him. He quickly pushed aside the basket, nearly scattering pistachios across the floor, and buried himself in her arms. Like he had when he was just a kid, the last time he'd realized his father was never coming home.
As soon as she was holding him, everything hit him all at once. He was already almost blind with tears.
"I miss him so much," he whispered, scarcely able to breathe against the burn in his throat. "Maaman, I...I miss him so, much—"
He wasn't even sure who he meant. The father he had lost so long ago, or the father that had raised him—who might be about to lose, too.
"I k-eep, keep wondering if—if he's gonna—"
"Shh, baby, look at me," she tilted his head up. "He's going to be alright. Kaveh wouldn't—"
"Yes he would! In an instant he would, if he thought—"
"No, azizam," her voice cut him short. Then more gently, "No."
He looked up at her, face crumpling.
"I can't go through this a-again, Maaman."
Her expression softened once more, and she pulled him closer. He sank into her arms, feeling like he was on the verge of falling apart.
"Shh," she murmured. "It'll be okay, just—"
---
"—b̰̏͝r͚̚͝ȩ̬̐a̱̒́t͚͊͡h̡̼̄e̡̠ͣ, l̸͚̽i̟͂̕ṱ͑͠t̍̕ͅḽ̢̍e̛͖ͮ ̠ͤ͡j̓҉̱a̪̔͡c̘ͪ̀k̛͈̒a̩̾́ḽͧ́.̷͎ͮ ̠ͦ̕T͊҉̙h͙ͦ͟ȅ̡͔r̼̈́́e̬͋͜.̷̮ͦ.̖̋͟.̛̯ͤI̮ͬ͡'̢̩́v̵̦̉e̸͔ͥ ̡̱ͦģ̼̄o̖̽͝t͙̜̿̎͘͘y̤̅́o̭̐͜ṳ̴͗." 
Warm hands carded through his hair, holding him close as he clung to its chest. Gone was the sound of birds. Gone was the dappled light beneath the palms. 
He sank into its arms, and wept.
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yet-another-heathen · 9 months
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Under the Cover of Night - III
1,506 words. Original Work: The Jackal of An-Nadr.
For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, found family, and handsome men who long for nothing more than home. 
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Chapter Warning | environmental whump, desert whump, initial capture, ancient demonic pirates that are both beautiful and terrifying (in an "oh. I'm being hunted down by a predator" sort of way. my beloved fellow monsterfuckers, you're going to love this), defiant whumpee, existing foot injury, xenophobia, language and cultural barriers, veiled whumpee having their face forcibly exposed, suggestive taunting (non-explicit), kidnapping/rescue (you decide)
Author’s Notes | This chapter shows our first instance of Q̷͚́ŭ̸͇r̵̥͝u̴͚̍r̶̠̈́a̴̰̋q̶̹̀, the language of the ifrit, as seen through Nadi’s lens. If this causes any problems for my font-sensitive readers, please reach out and I will gladly send you a translated copy! And thank you so much to @secretwhumplair, whose incredible series, No Warrior, inspired this format of language barrier whump!
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpvp @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump
When night came and the last of the light had sunk beyond the dunes, Nadeem inched his way out from the edge of the riverbed. A large fire burned at the heart of the ifrit camp, casting ripples of false warmth out across the water like embers. The ifrit had spent the dusk bathing in its flames, washing themselves in glittering cinders with all the eerie joy of dust bathing doves. It was more of a distraction than he could have hoped for, and he wouldn't let the chance get away from him. 
He moved slowly, careful not to disturb the surface of the water lest someone see the reflection against the flames.
It was a slow crawl up the embankment as he kept to his hands and knees, clinging to the cover of the banthum grass. His thirst had been sated, but his body was still horribly weak. The climb wasn't an easy one, and his wet clothes clung to his limbs and made silence across the grass all the more difficult. 
When he finally made it to the crest and slipped down the other side, he closed his eyes and let out a breath that felt like it had been stuck in his lungs for days.
The night over An-Nadr was moonless and dark, and the stars cast little light on the landscape around him. Shadows welled beneath the wild date palms, shifting with the movement of their fronds. 
He gingerly made his way to his feet, ankle angry and swollen beneath his weight. Every step was a gamble to keep it from collapsing, and he forced himself not to think about what that would mean for his ability to survive out here. Especially if it got any worse. 
He was careful to keep his head low, following the edges of the rock bed. He kept his hands spread to catch himself in case he stumbled.
He had no recollection of the path he’d taken into the trees, but he knew he’d eventually find sand the further he got from the water. He followed the lowest path he could between the outcrops of stone, moving silently between the dense patches of cover.
Ahead the grove thickened, creating a canopy of fronds under which the ground was beginning to soften. He headed for their shelter, eager for the promised safety that would calm the feeling of ant bites at his nape. Breaths clouded against the back side of his litham, the fabric keeping them silent from the world outside. He'd take the chance of stumbling into the shelter of coiled snakes and other wildlife over the chance of being seen.
The light of the stars was distant and faint through the leaves. Away from the familiar paths and eddies of his home, Nadeem's progress was slow through the dark. 
No animal walked in steady, even tempos but men; and so he kept his pace faint and hesitant to disguise the sound of his footsteps through the littered clay. Often he stopped to listen and observe the shadows around him, picking the path least likely to catch on sticks and twigs. Behind him followed an uneven trail of single bloody footsteps, meandering back through the dark.
There was nothing he could do about it. He just had to hope that neither the ifrit, nor anything else, would find it. The shifting of the sand would cover it once he made it to the safety of the desert, and they would lose the trail there.
That was where his mind lingered as he watched through the leaves for the lighter gray of the dunes. And soon he caught glimpses of the open desert far beyond the trees. He slunk low between patches of cover, keeping the distant sound of the fire to his back.
His mind continued to race with thoughts of how to avoid being tracked, preoccupied with the beginning of a plan to circle to another part of the oasis. Then something pricked at the edge of his hearing. 
He stopped in his tracks, straining to listen as ice flashed through his limbs. 
For a long while the night answered him with nothing but the roar of crickets, stretching out the moment to eons. And then he heard it again—about thirty feet to his right, the sound of something in the dark. He lowered himself into the shelter of the surrounding bushes, crouching to listen.
Then he saw it. The blue-abalone reflection of eyes from the darkness. Like a hyena's, stalking him through the grass. But as he watched, they rose out of the darkness to a nearly impossible height. Fixed on him.
Then a twig snapped somewhere in the darkness right behind him, and Nadeem forgot how to breathe.
He whipped around, searching the blackness. His heart pounded as something in the shadows behind him moved, leaves shuddering against their branches.
A massive figure stepped from the shadows, melting into the starlight. 
The ifrit towered above him and inclined its head. The glinting of eyes, the flash of teeth bared in a predatory smile. Something else moved behind it, emerging from the shade by its side.
—No.
Nadeem tried to run, not a single thought given to the pain in his ankle. He only made it a few steps before he collided headlong into another body.
Enormous hands grabbed him, breath leaving his lungs from the force of the impact. He gasped and struggled, trying to yank free as the monster locked all its hands around him.
He clawed and shoved, “No no no no, no—” falling from his lips. The ifrit from before, with the black sash across its chest, called something into the night.
With an effortless twist of a hand it pulled his head back, nearly lifting him off of his feet by the back of his turban. He gasped, staring with wide eyes up into its face.
“Let go of me,” he gasped, “Let—”
Dark eyes smiled down at him, teeth glinting.
He cut off into a tight whine as it reached up and took the cloth of his litham between its fingers, so close to his face that he felt the heat pouring off its skin.
"H̴͎̆e̶̙̅l̷̤̿l̷͓̍o̴̖͋,̸̨̕ ̷̭̀ḹ̸ȋ̶͈t̶̩̆t̶̼͑ĺ̴͓e̸̮͐ ̶͍̒j̷̮́a̷̢̍č̵͉k̶̬͆á̴͜l̸͔̔.̴̪̚"
The ifrit purred something in its rumbling language, leering down at him.
"S̸͎̅ọ̸̀ ̵̙̎g̶̣̋ō̸̺ȯ̴̲d̶̐ͅ ̶̪̀o̷̖̐f̴͍̓ ̵͈̍y̴͉͠o̷̱̿ư̴̦ ̴̲̇t̸͎͠ŏ̸̺ ̷̡͐f̵̛̲i̷̥̎n̸͕̿a̶̯̿ḷ̶́l̵͜͝y̸͂ͅ ̸̦͝j̶̣̃ō̵͕i̴͈̎n̶͇̔ ̶͙͘ű̸͓s̵͈̄.̶̟̓"
---
Ifyaa glanced up when the sound of struggling edged into the camp. Two of his fellow ifrit emerged from the shadows, followed by Yeezumon and the thrashing, clawing human he was dragging with him.
Every set of eyes fixed on the dirtblood as it cast wildly around the camp, dragging a bloody foot. Its clothes were muddy and torn. Yeezumon forced it to its knees.
From the other side of the fire, Adrsiae inclined her head.
"So we do have a visitor,” she mused. 
It strained away in Yeezumon’s grip as she stood, the boy watching her through narrowed eyes. It flinched when she reached out and took its chin in her palm. 
“You found it at the end of the blood trail?”
“Near there. The damn thing was playing clever: had it been only ten minutes sooner it probably would have slipped past us back out into the wastes,” Simntii, another member of the hunting party, muttered. She grunted softly as she knelt at the edge of her tent, adjusting the leg of her pants, “Gave us one hell of a fight on the way back.”
“Hm.”
It leveled the captain with a scathing glare when she turned it by the jaw, and then tugged down its face cloth to see its features in the light. 
Dark eyes narrowed under thick, winged brows, the domed bridge of its nose crinkling with its snarl. Cracked lips and bared teeth, jaw lined with overgrown stubble. 
It was rugged but...an undeniably pretty face. Her claws left indents in its cheeks as she turned it in the firelight, appraising.
Then she released it, and it gave a full-body shudder as she turned away. 
She reclaimed her spot by the fire. “Yeezumon, you were the one who tracked it down?”
“I was.”
She leaned back, tearing into the soft flesh of a date, “Then it’s yours. Do with it as you wish.”
Their eyes didn’t leave the human, whose smell of fear was tangible in the air even as it glared back at her. Each of them nodded in deference to their captain, absently touching their thumbs to their temples.
“Careful Yeezumon,” one of them teased, flashing his canines in a mockery of the human’s bared teeth, “It looks like it wants to bite.”
A ripple of laughter broke through the camp.
“It's handsome, for a dirtblood,” another admitted.
Both Yeezumon and Ifyaa smiled, sharing eye contact across the camp. Then Yeezumon lifted its face, making it meet his eyes.
“So it is,” he grinned. “And we’ll put it to good use.”
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yet-another-heathen · 4 months
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is there a fun and delicious drink (not water) that's popular in the desert where Naddy's from?
The first that pops into mind is Arak! This is a real-life drink, a milky white liquor made flavored with aniseed. The base fermentation process is done using grapes, and sometimes dates and figs for additional flavor. It's strong stuff, often up to 60% alcohol by volume. Nadi's specific region is known for their unique take on the drink, flavored with cardamom and a small quantity of salt in addition to the aniseed.
Other popular drinks include izjen, an alcohol made from fermented mare's milk; coffee, made by heating the bean and water mixture by moving its thin-walled vessel across hot sand; and a non-alcoholic drink made from the soft insides of the silk fruit, popular amongst children. Nadi practically grew up on the stuff!
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yet-another-heathen · 9 months
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Under the Cover of Day - II
899 words. Original Work: The Jackal of An-Nadr.
For new readers, The Jackal is an ongoing whump series set in 1,200 BCE, where pre-Islamic fantasy meets the love of bloody sword fights, found family, and handsome men who long for nothing more than home. 
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Chapter Warning | environmental whump, desert whump, epic worldbuilding, hiding in an attempt to evade capture, ancient demonic pirates and the sandships they sail, being tracked down like a wounded animal (which, let's admit it. right now you may as well be)
Taglist | @killtheprotagonist @secretwhumplair @ink-and-salt @kixngiggles @brutal-nemesis @thebewilderer @whumpsical @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whimperwoods @shydragonrider @pizzasthengym @thecyrulik @ceph-the-writing-spook @mylifeisonthebookshelf @ohwhumpydays @redwingedwhump
The sun was beating down on the water, glinting and blinding and sharp. Nadeem hadn't moved an inch from where he'd climbed down beneath the spines of the thicket, save to drape his waist sash over his head to disguise the yellow of his turban.
Strings of algae wormed between his toes like grass, flowing with eddies of water beneath the dappled light. Across the oasis, under the blue of their sail, the ifrit had set up camp. 
Open tents spread out along a sandy stretch of embankment, while the women and men milled back and forth to the pond with buckets and canteens. Long, darkened limbs reached as far out as they could to collect water from the dryness of shore. Feet traced carefully around the water's edge, never touching the surface. Their voices rose and fell in a way that was melodic and foreign.
Patrols had been venturing out into the oasis since dawn, groups of three or four disappearing into the underbrush only to emerge from some new part of the clearing. He’d counted twenty-two in all, with tall figures occasionally calling into the ship where he suspected there may be a handful more. 
He watched the camp carefully, searching for any indicator of how long they’d stay. He knew the human caravans that traversed An-Nadr would sometimes linger for weeks at any oasis they found in the wastes. He had no idea what that would mean to the larger sandship. 
So far they had unloaded very little save for their tents, and he was holding to the last of a prayer that meant they wouldn’t stay for long.
He’d seen enough wildlife that there had to be some kind of foragable plants, and if he was lucky—very lucky—it would be enough to get him though a few more weeks in hopes that another human caravan would pass through. If he could stay out of sight, he still had a chance. 
There was only one problem.
Even under the stifling heat of the afternoon sun, the water that bubbled from the earth was so cold that his limbs had gone numb where they were buried in the sucking depths of the silt. With the night fast approaching, he knew he couldn’t stay where he was.
But there was nothing between him and the ifrit camp but open water. 
So Nadeem did the only thing he could do. He planned. When night fell he would slip from the bank under the cover of darkness, where he could pick his way over the stones back out into the safety of the dunes. He knew the sand, heat-baked by day, would be enough to keep him warm. Having nearly drank his weight in water, he figured he could make it another night or two before he’d have to find a way back.
The desert bought him time. He just had to wait. 
He wound his fingers through the roots buried in mud beneath him, and leaned his head back into a crook between branches. He watched the world through his lashes, biding his time as the wind sifted through the thorns.
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Ifyaa had spent the morning unloading the ship, the sun beating down on him until his shoulders had begun to smolder in the heat. Wisps were still rising from his skin as he made his way through the camp, side-stepping bedrolls and limbs as he made his way toward his tent.
Several of the others had just returned from patrol. Among them he spotted his husband, trailing behind the rest. Yeezumon’s eyes were cast out over the oasis, scanning the trees as if he was expecting to see something move.
Ifyaa finished securing the side of the tent flap, then slipped between the other ifrit and made his way across the beach. Yeezumon didn’t glance back when he approached, but he automatically reached out for Ifyaa’s hand.
They brushed the tips of their fingers down each other’s palm, settling in at one another’s side.
“What is it?” he asked.
Yeezumon glanced at him, distracted. He passed something over, silent as Ifyaa took it and held it up to see. A jagged stone half as long as his finger, the pointed tip covered in red-brown blood. 
“Hm. So I wasn’t seeing things,” he murmured. He turned it over in the light, then handed the stone back, “What’s it doing so far south?”
“I don’t know. I had my patrol check the horizon, but there’s been no sign of other ships.”
“...a stray? This far out?”
“I’m not sure.”
He sighed. Ifyaa slowly unwound his turban, stepping forward into the water. He felt Yeezumon tense as he waded out into the ankle deep silt, the sound of splashing turning eyes from the camp before they realized it was only him. He tugged his turban free, running fingers over the waves of his hair before stooping to run the fabric through the water.
“Well whatever it is,” he wrung the cloth, “I don’t fancy a mercy killing.” He scanned the edge of the pool. “Have you told Adrsiae?”
“She knows.”
Something in the tone of his husband’s voice made him glance back, and he found those dark eyes following him with just the barest trace of a smile.
“Habibi, how do you feel about taking on a new pet?”
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yet-another-heathen · 3 months
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Nobody: You know? Eight foot tall, four-armed, burly, surly, murderous, (literally!) smoldering demon women deserve love, too.
Spring, popping up over the edge of the railing and scaring the shit out of the Oryx crew:
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@whumpsical this popped into my head while you were sleeping and would NOT leave me alone
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yet-another-heathen · 9 months
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Active Series Masterpost
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The Jackal of An-Nadr - [X]
Set in 1,200 BCE. The Jackal of An-Nadr follows the capture of Nadeem, a date-farmer turned thief who was abandoned in the wastes of the desert when he tried to steal from the wrong ship.
Stranded and alone, he is found and enslaved by a crew of ifrit—towering demons that roam An-Nadr in ships that can sail the sand. Will he become a plaything of the creatures from his nightmares? Or is there something more for him waiting in the hands of his would-be captors?
Content | epic worldbuilding, defiant whumpee, environmental whump, monsterfucking, slavery, desert pirates, pre-historic fiction, LGBTQ+ fiction. Adult themes, with occasional NSFW content [including dub-con and non-con]
Cast | Nadeem, Yeezumon, Ifyaa, Adrsiae, Hidhialial
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Liliholm and Page - [X]
This series follows Wesley Page, a daring vigilante best known by his alias, Deimos. When he steals and exposes a massive library of blackmail owned by one of the city's worst villains, their entire criminal world goes on a manhunt to track him down. Captured and alone, Deimos is subjected to the revenge and torture of not just the man he stole from, but every villain whose crimes he exposed.
Does he have it in him to withstand their torture long enough to escape? And if so, will he still have the strength afterward to heal?
Content | sci-fi, cyberpunk setting, superpower whump, kidnapping, very brutal torture, gore, repeated noncon // PTSD, an old friend (who just happens to be the city's most powerful villain and a renowned psych professor) turned caretaker. LGBTQ+ fiction. Frequent NSFW content, almost exclusively noncon.
Luca and Garcia
An offshoot of Liliholm and Page. A dynamic duo of bastards that you absolutely hate to love.
Content | EXTREME GORE, VIOLENCE, whumper POV, all hurt no comfort, character death, incredibly brutal whump, painful healing, immortal whumper-turned-whumpee, agender protagonist, villains that are so human you want to strangle them yourself. Aro/Ace friendly!
Cast | Wesley Page, Henry Liliholm, Yalom, Luca, Garcia
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Writing Prompts
All my writing prompts are free to use and can be found under the tag #words of a heathen.
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The Hare Trap Chronicles - [X]
This story is not one of mine, but one submitted to me in series by my beloved 🐇 Anon. Follow the story of Ignacy, a hedonistic young aristocrat-turned-vampire, and his many lifetimes of misadventure as he lives out his centuries as the 'black sheep' of his family's estate.
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yet-another-heathen · 9 months
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Alright everybody, Jackal update!
I have a newer and fuller version of Nadeem's story that I've been rewriting on the side, and it's finally time I published it! This doesn't include any entirely new chapters, but there is a lot of depth and story building that I have added into the current story that so many of you have told me you want to see.
So, today I'm going to be posting these rewritten chapters for the first time! My plan is to create a new master post for the updated versions, which will become my new pinned post at the end of the day.
I WILL NOT BE DELETING THE ORIGINAL VERSIONS OF THE STORY. The "Old Masterpost" will still be available, it will simply be unpinned from the top of my blog. The reason being is that some of my most beloved comments and interactions live in these original posts, and nothing in the world could convince me to get rid of those memories.
If ever you want a link back to the Old Masterpost, just let me know and I'll be happy to send them to you!
Note that there will be one or two chapters that I will keep as the original version for now—I'm still making my edits to those parts of the story and will weave them back in later once they are complete. But in general, you can expect to see a lot of bonus content especially in those first few chapters of Nadeem's story!
I hope you enjoy <3
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yet-another-heathen · 9 months
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oooh, what is this a new big reveal?? Are we going to find out what a son of solomon is?
It's going to be a surprise! Only one person knows the secret, and he's keeping it under lock and key 👀 But I will tell you that it has to do with Nadi's identity, and plays a part in why he was stranded in the desert in the first place!
As for the Son of Solomon part, I actually plan to include an epigraph in this version that might shed a little more light on it. And if you still want more after you've had a chance to read the new version, I might make a separate post explaining the history of it in more detail <3 Just let me know!
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