#What the tide spits up || Open Starter

[royalreef]

"Let me be clear, there are two types of people: those whom have caught the Merkingdom's attention, and those who have not. Do not get it mixed up."

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( so i had a dream last night and this is one of the few things i recall from it #(( so. lets listen to my dream and put it on this blog. #(( for funsies

[full-of-mercy]

starter: desert rain

There are things that just don't happen in No Man's Land, this ball of dust spinning around two suns.

Case in point:

It's raining.

Sort of.

There was an earthquake.

Also sort of.

The clank and clatter of industry gave way to rumbling, to furrows and fissures appearing in sandstone streets. The populace only started to scatter out of Little Ticaboo's colorful central bazaar when the fry stall started spitting and spilling hot oil across the cobbles, igniting a blaze in the adjacent basket weaver's wares. That wasn't all, of course, but that was what prompted the first of many waves of confusion and panic.

Running toward the fire, running from it.

All of this coincided with deep chthonic cracking, a guttural wrench. A sidewalk split from its adjoined avenue, toppling awnings one after another in a drape of reds and blues, blurry smears amid rising smoke. It was all they could do to help people cross the widening, trembling gap, to keep the earth from swallowing them up.

Suddenly as it began, the shaking stopped.

Only to burst in a peal of thunder.

Muddy, burbling, and then fluting, trumpeting past the town's well-pump scaffolds, an unstoppable elemental force. The eruption soared in a plume of mist, drenching everything beneath it, scattering prisms in the cloudless sky.

Wolfwood ascended a stable building, perching on the slant of a tiled roof to watch the chaos unfold.

And here he stands, looking up, looking out. A stampede (ha) to escape debris and sinkholes has become a rush to open cisterns and barrels and every possible vessel to capture the falling bounty—a race to cap and control the flow, stem the tide.

Water scours dust from stone and skin, making streams of the streets, a benediction to upturned faces and open hands.

(And a bane to lit cigarettes. Damn it).

#verse: wayward wolf

[pumpkinsadlatte]

Flame and Fortune - Chapter 2

Welcome to Circus Salem. Beyond its gate, you will find a strange, exotic world of wonder and intrigue. From its collection of sideshow performers and living oddities to the incredible feats only witnessed under the big top, you will surely find something that terrifies and amazes you.

Or, in Emerald Sustrai’s case, someone who you just cannot stay away from.

cross-posted on ao3

"Mel," the white-clad twin with the longer hair, wasn't much of a talker, it seemed. She'd led Emerald into the main tent, then perched on the wooden bleachers. She popped open a compact mirror to fix her mascara, otherwise ignoring Emerald's existence. Emerald herself took the time to glance around, take in her surroundings.

There wasn't much in the tent at the moment, some half-destroyed hay bales, a few ropes hanging from support poles. Certainly nothing she could use to help further her illusion of being a fortune teller. What could she say to convince whoever she needed to that she wasn't a fraud: wouldn't someone looking for a job bring their tools with them? She looked down at her hands, and it hit her. Palm reading! Fortune tellers read palms all the time, and most of those readings were so vague to start with that she was sure she could work with it.

Alright, time to think. Best case scenario, she fooled whoever she needed to, and joined the show. The worst case was she was discovered as a fake, and turned away. And then she'd never see the fire dancer again, because she would be almost certainly "dealt with" in some way if the barker caught her again after this.

"--not the only talent scout we've got around here, y'know."

"Well, you're not busy."

"Actually, Miltia, I was busy!"

The two voices drifted in from just outside the tent, causing Emerald to look up and toward the flap. Her babysitter snapped her compact closed and rising gracefully to her feet. She rested a hand on her hip before calling out to them. "Torchwick! Maybe stop complaining and just come get it over with!"

The shorter-haired twin finally wandered into the tent with an irritated-looking man on her heels, and once he caught sight of Emerald, he waved the twins off. "Alright alright, you two go back to whatever Junior has you doing for the afternoon. We open at five tonight."

"Why five?"

"Why not five?" the man countered. "Now scram."

The twins scowled, but turned and left the tent. Now that Emerald had a good look at him, she didn't think she'd have much of a problem fooling the man. This "Torchwick" was a tall, redheaded man with a white jacket draped over his arm and enough smudged eyeliner on his exposed green eye that Emerald was almost sure he'd taken a marker to his face. The messy state of his hair and makeup, and the ruffling of his clothes, told her he'd been interrupted somehow.

"Fortune teller, huh?" he greeted, eyeing her suspiciously.

"I didn't choose the gift," she recited. It was a line she'd once heard a fortune teller use in a movie that she'd snuck into. "It chose me."

He glanced toward her empty hands, and his visible eyebrow raised. "What do you use?"

"I can use playing cards, or anything reflective, but my bag with my tools in it was stolen. So, I'll have to read your palm, if that's alright."

Torchwick still looked skeptical, but he nodded a little bit. He turned one hand over, holding it out to her. She studied the lines and the callouses, though she could tell that he did, apparently, make every effort to reduce those. Moisturizing, if she had to guess. But working here, she could imagine that everyone had them to some degree. If this went well, she'd have to get a book on palm reading, it seemed like the easiest trick to have on-hand.

"... I see many dark tidings," she started. "... in the past, you suffered a grave injustice, because of greed and jealousy. ... I see a woman. An overbearing presence... she's dark, and demanding... your mother?"

When he gave no response, merely shifted in place, she cleared her throat and continued.

"... she sabotaged every relationship you ever had... because she was jealous of those girls. She couldn't stand the thought of you marrying one of them. But now that she's gone... I see another woman. She's tall and elegant, everything your mother always wanted to be." Emerald looked up at him with a practiced smile. "You'll find love, despite everything she did."

Torchwick was silent, and for a blissful few seconds, Emerald was sure she'd done it, tricked him into believing even a word of what she'd said. But then he pulled his hand away and brushed his fingers through the hair covering his eye.

"... You're not foolin' anyone here, kid."

At Emerald's confused look, he leaned back, producing a cigar and a lighter too fast for her to see where they had actually come from. He lit up and tucked the lighter away, blowing smoke politely away from her before he continued speaking. "For starters, that overbearing mother you talked about? Well, I'll have to hand you that one: that'd make a hell of a movie. If it hadn't already been done."

"... what?"

"Psychosis is a pretty iconic movie, kid. That plot point's usually overlooked, people are a little more focused on the murder and all, but it's still a pretty big part of the movie."

"I-I..."

"Secondly, my mother never actively sabotaged my relationships. Can't really picture her caring whether I was seeing someone or not. And she's probably not dead, I'm not that lucky."

Emerald held up both hands, sighing and looking down. "... alright alright alright. Fine. You caught me. Just... please don't tell anyone about this, I'll leave..."

"Not so fast, kiddo. You're no real fortune teller, but with a little practice, you might even make me believe it someday."

She blinked, continuing to look him over suspiciously. When she didn't say anything, Torchwick shot her a winning smirk, gesturing toward the entrance of the tent with his cigar. "... we might have a spare tent for you, it'll take a while to find it in the supply car. No time to set you up to debut tonight, but that'll give you time to head home and uh, pack up whatever you'll need to travel with us. We're here til the middle of next month, then we head to Mistral."

"... wait, I got the job? I thought you said I wasn't a real fortune teller?"

"Oh, you aren't. Not in the slightest. But after about a week of work, you'll do just fine trickin' the masses out of their pocket change, at least. Couple tips, though, don't spit movie plots up thinking they're what people want to hear, and not everyone's looking to hear about love. And speaking of tips, as for your pay, how's... hm... forty percent of whatever you bring in sound? On top of the minimum pay rate of course."

"... they're paying me, don't I get to keep all of it?"

Torchwick chuckled. "I respect that, kid. But they're paying the show. And the show pays you. At least half of what you make during show hours goes to back into the show. Call it supplies, and room and board. But looking at you, I bet a tent out of the rain, three square meals a day, and access to the mess tent whenever you want sounds pretty appealing on its own, don't you think?"

Emerald's mouth worked in silence.

"I'll take that as a yes." Torchwick simply dropped his cigar, crushing the burning end under his heel to put it out as he stood up. He offered out a hand, one that Emerald took and shook hesitantly. "Got a name?"

"... Emerald. Emerald Sustrai."

"Alright, we can work with that. Welcome to Circus Salem, kid. I'll show you around."

#emerald sustrai #cinder/emerald #cinder fall/emerald sustrai #chaos emerald (rwby) #cinder x emerald #flame and fortune #roman torchwick #circus au #melanie malachite #miltiades malachite #miltia malachite #malachite twins #fake fortune telling #blatant american horror story references #palm reading #faking it #pumpkin writes #rwby #rwby fanfiction

[royalreef]

      “Every time you complain about something which I have done, I kill another hostage!”

#Glory and Gore || IC #Many fish in the sea || Misc. IC Content #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #Bony eared Assfish || Crack

[royalreef]

      “Die slowly, I beseech you.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( mmmmm havent done much today so have a short and sweet open starter-

[royalreef]

        There’s a soft pop! against Miranda’s gum line, and an abrupt void where once there was something solid. She can feel the displaced mass, now freed, migrating down and against her tongue, loose inside her own mouth.

      Huh. Normally, she can feel them wiggling in their sockets, spending a good day or so poking them with the ends of her tongue before they come out — but it’s not that unusual. It’s just that, ordinarily, she’s better at recognizing when one of her teeth gives up the ghost.

      Her hand lifts up to her mouth, dropping the triangular, semi-curved, serrated tooth onto her palm. It’s a smooth, perfect ivory color, unmarked, with no roots to speak of, and only a slight scratching on the very bottom where the replacement tooth was already grinding against it. Pretty big too, big enough to perfectly fill someone else’s palm, and sharp enough to be a useful weapon if wielded. There’s no blood, no pain, only Miranda migrating it to her outer thumb and last finger, rubbing it against a napkin to dry it off.

      Of course she’s not phased by this. Why would she be? She’s only dropped a good hundred teeth already in all her years, and there are plenty more ahead of her to grow, then drop, then grow again. Nothing to get very attached about — something that she makes very clear.

                                                     “Do you want this?”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #mouth horror #mouth trauma #(( on technicality- #(( but its been a while since miranda has given away one of her dropped teeth. who wants one-

[royalreef]

      “What could I burn out of my skin? What parts of myself could I give you to love me? How much? How much blood do you want? How much of my skin? How many of my bones? How much of myself do I have to tear off and sacrifice to you until I can be loved, until I become a loveable thing? How much of myself do I have to destroy for you?”

#Glory and Gore || IC #Many fish in the sea || Misc. IC Content #What the tide spits up || Open Starter

[royalreef]

       “What else are you supposed to do? How else are you supposed to get out?”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter

[royalreef]

       “'Gummy’, I think, is the word that I would use to describe a lot of the fluids going on in here.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( today i offer you: what the fuck is this saved quote that i have

[royalreef]

      “Inside a body there is no light. A massed witness pressing in on itself, shapes thrust against each other with no sense of where they are. They break in the crowding, come unmade. You put your hand to your stomach and press into the softness, trying to listen with your fingers for what’s gone wrong. Anything could be inside.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #Many fish in the sea || Misc. IC Content #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( posts this quote with zero context and leaves-

[royalreef]

       “You are a vessel, no more than that; to be anything else would be in excess of your own nature.

                      Come. Bear me a gift, and I shall leave you something in return.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( yeah im tsv posting again. what of it- #(( this line just lives rent free in my head.....

[royalreef]

      “I bet you will not even join me in the lagoon!”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( now for something unrelated

[royalreef]

      “I mean, we could blow up the trees.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #Many fish in the sea || Misc. IC Content #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( thinking thots.......

[royalreef]

      “Bite this onions.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #Bony eared Assfish || Crack

[royalreef]

Christmas 2021 Event : Start.

                            There was a ripple.

      It was not the kind of ripple that could so easily be felt. It did not move across the ground, nor did it shift in the air. It hardly could have even been noticed at all. Someone would have to be looking for it, have to be reading the charts and waiting for the fine parallel lines of a waterdrop falling into a still pond, to ever notice it was there. But it was.

      Slow it spread. Waves, pushing out and into the unknown, shifting and moving what had been, what was, unmovable. 

       Something had moved. Ripples did not come from nothing, after all. A hand had cast that stone, and deep it pushed into the surface it had sunk into, forcing it to accommodate itself. Realignment came slow, then sudden, then slow, rising and falling with each and every wave, gaining weight and momentum and reach. More, it pulled itself to attention, more, it demanded to be shoved aside to make way for its unnatural entrance. Up, then down, up, then down. Rise and fall. Push and pull.

                                                             Like a heartbeat.                                                                             But only just like one.

        This was not something that was living. This was not something that slipped forth into the world with hot blood and sharp cry.

        It plunged deep, deep into the surface of what was, sinking lower and lower and shoving itself in like a blade. Steel-cold, not knowing the touch of a place that it had not ever been a part of, though it filled it out like a mold. The anomaly gathered weight and presence with its movement, but tore through what tried to hold it, so antithetical the action was to what defined it.

       It was a hole. A hole, punctured through in the shape of something else. An emptiness, a void that could not be touched nor filled, and so sucked in heat and life with its gravitational pull, stretching it out before its event horizon like permafrost to press every second into eternities to keep in memoriam forever.

      Frost formed. At first, mere crystals, pulling water in from the atmosphere to form a fine glittering coat. But more layers grew, forming spars like towers and encasing everything the anomaly tried to pull into itself in sheets of ice. Cloth to render solid, breath to cloud in the air, mist to pour from the form that was trying to recall all that it was, that it had been, tracing the edges of the hole it had been made in the shape of. Curls the shade of dried blood. Scales like rusted armor. A dress — formal attire for a position no longer held, dripping in jewels long past their prime, draped in furs that would never be motheaten. Crown that still did not tilt nor dull no matter the years it had missed, form like spires stretching up against the sky to challenge the stars for all they held.

       A body that was not. A body that gleamed at once as flesh-and-blood, but then turned and one could glimpse the bones entombed far away that were what she was, would be, had been, belonging to a world distant from here. A body, tall and frightening as the day that she had died, regal as heat-death.

      She was awake. For the first time in too-many years, Nsh’atf’rr knew she was awake. She knew she was not breathing, that what beat in her chest was not a heart and it was not pumping blood, and she knew she was not the same Nsh’atf’rr who had died, so many years ago.

       There was also the slow-then-abrupt realization that she was not underwater. This, she had never visited when she was alive and breathing, though she had heard stories of it and seen it through the eyes of those sent to show her what it was like. It was strange, to walk without weight, ice casing over the floor behind her to show her footsteps. It was stranger still, to watch how the world frosted over by her presence.

      She knew she had been made for a reason. There were always reasons for these things, but this one came clearer than the others, as deep a compulsion as the aberrant thing that she had been created from, arising with a clarity that no other thoughts held.

       There was an audience to be held with the Queen. Time was short, and Nsh’atf’rr could not linger, but she had not skirted from her duties before, and even death could not deter her now.

#Glory and Gore || IC #someone is still here and furious || Christmas 2021 Event #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #WAVE HIGH THE FLAGS IN HONOR OF OUR QUEEN || Mother

[royalreef]

      “ ..................                  I could buy you.”

#Glory and Gore || IC #What the tide spits up || Open Starter #(( COUGHS.