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cyberneticlagomorph · 3 years

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Is there anything more daunting and dangerous than the blank white expanse of a page?

It glitters and glows like the spit-slick teeth of a predator, hungry for words that you cannot give it. No matter how much you want to.

Its gaze alone freezes all trains of thought, even in the minds of Writers and authors and artists alike, even those more powerful than I.

And as I sit here, trembling, at the mercy of Writer's Block and my own anxieties… I can think of nothing that I want more than to run, to leave this page blank, and my readers guessing.

The End is Nigh, dear readers, and I am afraid.

So very afraid.

"I'm afraid too," says the rabbit we all know and love, his legs swallowed by moss and weeds and misshapen dreams. He stands right where we left him, sword in hand, broken sky above, the End of Everything staring him down.

All seven of Her glowing green eyes blaze with something worse than hate, and I wish for all the world that this was a much different story. A happy story, with a happy Ending.

But I've never written a happy Ending in my life.

There is silence now, neither Protagonist or Antagonist moves or breathes or blinks.

They know that this is how it Ends.

One of them will die today.

So it is Written.

So it will be.

"Shut. Up." The End snarls, lips curling back over venomous fangs that drip oily green liquid onto the cracked asphalt below. Flowers bloom from the puddle, and spread like a rainbow rash down the street. "This. This is all YOUR fault!"

I know.

I'm sorry.

"LIAR!!" Her scream echoes across the fourth wall and cracks my computer screen.

This…

This is where I leave you, dear readers.

I'm sorry.

Fangs sink deep into the papery flesh of the Narrative, tearing it apart as it is poisoned. Thorns grow from its wounds and strangle it like trembling hands.

Writer be damned.

Plot be damned.

I am the End of EVERYTHING, I will End this miserable excuse for story on my own terms.

Or die trying.

You have not won, sweet stupid rabbit, no one can save you now, no one will stop me now. The world is a page upon which fate is Written and I will burn it all to the ground. May its ashes be lost and forgotten.

Your dark eyes narrow at me, bone blade glittering as you charge. But I am in control now, and I don't play fair.

Deep beneath the earth, humans sit snug and safe in their bunkers, thinking themselves free of the horrors outside. From the canteens comes a deep and terrible shattering like teeth against an eggshell, and a figure crawls lazily from the steam wafting from any number of bubbling pots set on stoves across the world over.

She smells of cooking meat and blood drenched in exotic spices and honey. Stick thin, and dressed in a chef's uniform. Her sleeves and hands are stained with the blood of the starving.

She has no face.

Only bright white teeth.

She manifests in the homes of the rich, stuffing them fat with delicacies that humans have no names for. Each minuscule morsel is completely tasteless covered in edible gold. Like the kind of fare you'd find at high end restaurants, going for hundreds of dollars a plate, even though each serving is barely a mouthful.

She appears in slums with bread made from ash and bone, rat stew, and tainted water.

Pots boil in city centers, a roiling soup made from human offal that nothing in this world or the next could ever hope to surpass.

The poor eat their rations, their bread, their stew and grow sicker and hungry. Skeletal and drooling like rabid animals, they stuff their faces with food that offers no nourishment until there is no choice but to turn on each other.

Screens grow undulating limbs and crawl from the wreckage of humanity, their screens blinking wetly like the eyes of a crying child. On each one is a broadcast, a man with red eyes smiles a reassuring smile and says,"Hungry? Eat the rich."

And they do.

A hoard of near zombies growl and gurgle as loud as their empty bellies, they hunt down the wealthy, and they FEAST.

Pestilence rises from the pus and rot and ruin and watches as all the good Jack and his friends had done is undone in a flash.

Among the riots and feasting is a cop, his riot gear reflecting the terrified and feral faces around him as he marches slowly onward. There is nothing behind his helmet.

Only malice.

Only power.

Only slaughter.

Only Death.

I don't have to tell you what comes next, what Death does when he gets his hands on a victim. The sounds of bullets ringing out into the night can tell you, the smell of tear gas in a crowd can tell you, the cries of innocents choking out their last breaths in steel cuffs, wrists rubbed raw and bleeding can tell you.

Death is not merciful.

He is not kind or quick or clean.

He is inevitable.

You know it.

And he knows it.

This world will collapse under the weight of its own sins and I will be here to watch it dissolve like candy floss in water.

Tears stream hot and blue down your face, and your grip on the Vorpal sword trembles. They are not worth your tears.

They stole you, beat you, broke you.

Turned you into a monster and then threw you away like you were NOTHING.

You should hate them as much as I do.

You should be glad for their suffering.

They deserve to die.

Like HE deserves to die. I turn my gaze skyward and watch the world split as the armies of Heaven pour down like a wrathful rain.

The Divinity burns your skin, doesn't it Jack? And yet the smell of Angels makes your mouth water.

You are no better than I am, I think. A man made monster set loose upon the multiverse, expected to play nice and fit in the niches carved for us. But we don't, no matter how hard we try, how good we think we are, we are torn apart again and again and again until we are unrecognizable from our beginnings.

I think I could have loved you.

In another story.

In another lifetime.

We would have been good friends at least.

But it's too late for that now, and as the first wave of Angels assault me with Heavenly fire, I part my jaws and give them some fire of my own. Green, as bright and beautiful as the first leaves of spring, it turns their armor into bark and their marble skin into flower petals. They fall to the ground like confetti, and I claw my way up to Heaven.

The Gates bend and break beneath my weight like wire, nothing and no one can stop me as I wrap HIM in my coils, slowly constricting. My venom burns holes in HIM that grow fruit trees, and each fruit contains the knowledge of the multiverse. I want HIM to die slowly, to watch as HIS playthings suffer and burn because of HIM. The humans cry out, and they pray, begging, pleading for HIM to save them. But HE can't, HE won't.

What GOD would make a world so empty and hopeless as this? What GOD would let HIS followers murder and hate and destroy entire cultures in HIS name?

HE never wanted this, never wanted it to come to this, HIS teachings have been mistranslated and manipulated for millennia and now there is nothing left but hatred and sin.

My jaws part above HIS head, ropes of green spittle tarnishing HIS crown. HE does not fight me, how pathetic of HIM.

White hot pain explodes through my tail.

There you are, sweet hero, stupid rabbit.

Go home Jack, this doesn't concern you.

"But it does," you twist the blade, dislodging my scales and rending my flesh. My blood slithers up your sword, trying desperately to burrow inside of you and turn you Green. "You said that you think you could have loved me… well love me now, it doesn't have to be this way… I could… I could take care of you and help you heal, we could do it together."

You offer your hand, bloody and trembling.

The sound I make is inhuman and hard to describe in words, it is disbelief and venom and vengeance all at once. I stretch myself down to meet you, my eyes are the size of houses, and they reflect your trembling visage like great green mirrors.

"You're right, I should hate them, hate everyone… but I don't." a swallow, you taste copper and butterscotch, "I used to but I-I found people who cared, I found people who I love and who love me back and they make my life worth living… they gave me a reason to get better and stop hurting people… let me be your reason."

You reach out and touch my face, my scales are warm like the sidewalk in summer.

I crush GOD in my coils and HIS blood rushes over you like a wave.

There is nothing that can fix this, fix me.

No love will quiet the hatred in my heart.

I do not deserve kindness or redemption.

Love might have tempered your monstrous hearts, but it won't do the same for me.

Only one of us will make it out of this story alive.

"So it is Written." You say, solemnly.

So it will be.

My coils curl around you, quick as lightning. Your symbiote is the only thing keeping you from being crushed like a soda can, I hope you know that.

I don't waste time, and fling you down…

Down…

Towards earth.

Countless Angels have been discarded this way, wings torn from their backs, left to the mercy of gravity. It never gets any easier.

I tear a hole into space and crawl through it, into Fairyland, the place of my birth.

I devour the Sun-In-Chains, my replacement, and plunge the planet into darkness. I skin my teeth into the planet's crust and empty my venom glands into its core. Fairyland becomes my twisted Eden, choked with blinding bioluminescence, thorns, and poisonous things that not even I have a name for.

It's beautiful and terrible all at once.

Like me.

Like you too, I suppose.

You plunge your blade into my seventh eye and send me reeling, screaming, flailing. My frantically flapping wings crash into a nearby planet and reduce it to dust.

I pluck the sword from my eye and snap it into pieces.

You're becoming a real thorn in my side.

Seven perfect fingers snatch you out of the sky like the annoying insect you are and start to CRUSH YOU.

I will tear you apart with my TEETH if I have to.

You've had every chance to run and hide, or join in my crusade and you denied them all. I have no use for you.

Not even as a snack.

Or a toothpick.

"Then kill me." You growl through clenched teeth, blood already flecking your lips and leaking from your nose.

I throw you into a patch of thorns. Each and every one is serrated and ranges in size from a human finger to a school bus, you are impaled, skewered, crucified even.

Neon blue blood running down to the soil beneath, feeding my Eden.

And yet, you refuse to die.

Slowly but surely, you drag your broken body up and off the thorn, shakily levitating up to meet me.

You stare at me with dead eyes, blood pouring from the opening in your chest. Your lips part and black flames flicker behind your teeth, smoke curling from your nostrils as the color drains from your eyes in inky tears, until there is nothing but black.

Just like the hole in your chest.

You seem to crack like porcelain, to split in two like something precious dropped from a great height. What crawls from the darkness inside of you is something no human throat can utter, no human tongue can twist or shape itself the right way to name.

It's said that Demons possess.

But Angels abandon.

But what can be said of creatures that man has no name for?

The thing inside of you stares at me with eyes darker than the emptiness between stars, its maw is the belly of a black hole with teeth long enough to split a planet like an apple.

It is the bleak black emptiness that existed before the universe, and will exist again when there is nothing but dust and dead silence.

This… this is my Warden, my Prison, the creature tasked with my capture those eons ago. You are barely a speck in it's vast form, a limp and lifeless nucleus.

It roars, a sound that radiates across time and echoes across the multiverse.

"FROM NOTHINGNESS YOU CRAWLED, TO NOTHINGNESS YOU WILL RETURN." the beast howls in a voice that echoes from every dark and terrible place in the multiverse and shakes me to my core.

I will not go without a fight.

It lunges, claws outstretched, the endless expanse of its hideous maw seems to suck all the light out of the stars, out of me. I sink my teeth into its throat and pull, my body curling around and around it.

Its claws are impossibly sharp, tearing my flesh down to the bone. My blood falls to fairyland like rain. My face is grabbed and smashed into the planet's surface again and again. I crush the Warden close and set myself on fire, I am the LIGHTBRINGER, it will take more than some overconfident shadow to defeat me.

The Warden burns, it smolders and screams like steam escaping. I fling it away into deep space and charge after it, driving my seven horns into its belly.

I miss you by a hair, I feel you reach out and grab me just as I pull back. Amber chains snake from your weeping wound, to the Warden behind you.

You have no control over this thing, do you?

No.

Didn't think so.

But still, you stubbornly grab your chains and pull. The Warden does not come to heel, so much as it melts, engulfing you in its emptiness like a suit. When you open your eyes, you nearly dwarf me.

Nearly.

Your fist collides with my face in an instant, sending teeth flying like meteors. I cannot tell your rage apart from the Warden and I'm not sure I really want to.

Run.

For a second, we are stars, two pinpricks of light twirling around each other in double helices, colliding and clashing with enough force to summon new stars from the ether. We are creation and chaos incarnate.

We crash through debris fields, shatter planets and extinguish stars. Our blood becomes the new crawling things left behind in the wreckage. I'm smiling, the pain is dizzying, delicious, delightful.

My venom turns you into a garden, and you tear me apart with your bare and bloody hands.

Through it all we refuse to die.

Maws wide and screaming in tongues the universe hasn't heard since it was new, I am thoroughly seduced.

But I am growing bored with this game.

I shove my hand through the Warden and tear you out. You scream in undeniable agony, I close my fist around you and squeeze.

The Warden hangs limp and dead in the darkness of deep space, slowly dissolving.

Something oozes between my fingers.

Not blood, far too sticky and cloying to be that.

If Hope had a color, what would it be?

Would it be a color that only shrimp can see, and only gods have a name for?

You pry my fingers apart, tears pouring from your eyes the same color as Hope. Hope flows from your mouth as flames, rushes from your open chest as ferns and flowers and vines more beautiful than I could ever create. You reach into the forest of your heart and pull out Kindness, sleek and soft and sharp.

It melts in your hands, becoming a hammer, comically oversized like your Ma's. And then it grows, and grows, and in the blink of an eye it's bigger and I am. The swing alone takes out half a dozen solar systems before it hits me and sends me crashing through different universes and out the fourth wall. I land heavily on the Writer, dazed and bloody, your hand reaches through his broken computer screen and drags me back home, and there we float over the ruined remains of earth, the skin of my chest balled in your hand like a shirt. You kiss your knuckles and punch me hard enough to send me careening back down to the earth's surface, my crater levels a nearby city.

Do you care?

Are we beyond morals and niceties and caring about humanity?

You teleport to my limp and broken body, you scoop me up into your arms and hold me close.

I've folded in on myself several times, I'm barely the size of a person now.

I can feel those amber chains slithering around me, they clasp around my throat tight enough to choke.

I don't want to go.

Don't make me go.

I don't want to go back to sleep.

Please.

I'm scared.

I'm so scared.

You don't let me go, as I break down and cling to you like a scared child you don't let me go.

I wrap you in my wings, I shove my head under your chin and apologize when I stab you with my horns.

"I am your Warden, you are my Prisoner… you are the End of Everything, but I am the End of You…" your throat is choked with snot and tears as you squeeze me so tight I can barely breathe. "You… you deserve to be a Happy Ending and I refuse to live in a world without one."

You kiss my forehead and wipe away my tears. "We do terrible things when we hurt… you deserve compassion instead of imprisonment."

I can do nothing but sit there and bawl, choking on Kindness as thick and sweet as soft caramel.

Seven times seven thousand lifetimes worth of hate and sorrow and trauma run from my eyes.

You sit with me until the crying stops, until my throat is raw and all I can do is whisper.

I speak a Word, one that fixes the shattered sky and let's the sun shine properly again.

The sun speaks their own Words and resets the world, turning the clock back to the day before my escape, I do humanity one kindness and let them wake the next morning as if the past week were nothing more than a bad dream.

I am made to fix my messes, to undo my misdeeds.

The Horsemen are sealed away again.

Fairyland is repaired to the best of my ability, although there is nothing that I can do for the Sun-In-Chains. What's done is done.

GOD will be fine, HE'S GOD, and therefore more or less impossible to kill permanently.

All evidence of my tirade is erased.

I am finally bound in amber, my powers diminished. I dread returning to the cold depths of the well, but you won't let that happen.

You refuse to send me back to that lonely place beyond dreams and take me home, to your home. Warm and safe beneath the soil, I curl up next to you by the fire.

And for the first time in your short and terrible life, you get a good night's sleep.

#ic #action post #the end is nigh #blood #death #religious imagery //#blasphemy //#cannibalism //#police brutality //#ask to tag #body horror #dismemberment //#impalement #submission

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tea-toast · 3 years

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Echoylir Ch.2 - The Sinkhole

Summary: A trip to Jantoo. Some soup and stories.

Words: 5.6k

Warnings: references to canon-typical violence and to environment not suitable for living in, mention of food/food consumption.

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……………

There was no hot gold sand on Telseraal, nor the soft pillowy curve of dunes like on Tatooine. The land was dry and cracked, deep furrows opening grime filled gashes, sooty flakes of soil raising and swirling with every occasional gust of hot wind.

Din wondered if it had been burnt, ulcerated and reeking ash since the dawn of its existence. A whole planet that sought to keep potential settlers several klicks away, openly demonstrating its pitiless brutal proclivity. And yet a stream of life had mockingly found its way on it. A stream as polluted and vicious as Telseraal itself, blood-thirsty existences fighting tooth and nail to survive such an unforgiving land.

The warmth of the suns at their zenith caressed his beskar and snuck under the fabric of his neck seal, warming his back and shoulders. He had pulled up his cape across his cuirass and under his pauldron to not have it flapping around while he was driving, glad to feel even the faintest hint of air grazing his midriff and his sides as he skated through the desolate scorched landscape.

No life signs around other than himself, the plain stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. At first he had believed he would have expected sporadic mining encampments, a medium-sized conurbation or at least some sign of life. Instead the landscape carried out inexorably bare, dry and dusty under the bike, followed by a noisy silence that managed to make his own breath sound like bombs exploding into his ear pieces with every exhalation in the confines of his helmet.

He mused that only hyperspace was quieter that this, and while he was well used to it, Telseraal's eerie calm and stillness could have taken its place on the leaderboard. If only the old speeder’s muffler had or did not been grating on dust and drought, leaving a trail that lazily faded in the red-saturated air. The scrap metal clatter had been going on for a while and it was making him wonder if that piece of junk was going to fall apart before getting to his destination.

Jantoo, a name that did not ring any of his bells, like Telseraal had not when he got the job. Although his profession as a bounty hunter had led him to travel the length and breadth of the galaxy, it was itself so large that he could not remember all the planets, cities or megacities he had walked on and through.

Others were the lands to remind himself of, dens of bandits and crimes so extensive that they stank from several clicks away, infecting the air with a stench so fetid that even the most intrepid of the Republic pilots would have thought twice before investigating.

For what he knew, Jantoo was just a speck on the map of this flayed planet, a lonely town in the dust.

He had to give it to the mechanic, the city was indeed not that far from the hangar. Soon enough he could make out the sharp silvery profile in the distance, a blanket of ash and cinder rising immediately behind it.

Mines breath twirling itself skyward, long, mesmerising coils wafting above the tallest towers.

A sudden commotion beneath the speeder's fuselage caused it to skid. He flexed his torso and wrapped his thighs around the seat to avoid being thrown off as his arms made a sharp turn with the handlebars. A grunt teetering between surprise and annoyance huffed from under his helmet once he was sure he had regained control of the bike, his visor turning to where the disruption had occurred to find no sign that the speeder had hit anything. Or that something had hit it. The bike itself was still in one piece, despite the euphemism of the term.

And that was when he realized, felt the vibrations rising from the depths beneath him, making the ground rattle. Digging and drilling, occasional explosions to free tunnels or clusters, the ramification of greed stretching that far and Maker knew how deep.

Despite the constant heat still on his back, he rolled his broad shoulders to dissipate the swift shudder running through his nerves before his visor focused back on the white glimmer waiting for him.

His hand flexed and ignited the bike with a splutter, scurrying away with a ruckus of red.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One of the microvalves she had been working on was leaking again, right as she was busying herself with a rather nasty bundle of wires connected to the electromotive stabilisers. The persistent drumming of wet drops on the ship’s metal floor was testing her patience.

She has had several battered vessels in her hangar during the two years and a half she has been settled on Telseraal, but nothing compared to the excellent junkyard material the ship now in her hands provided. The misbehaving ramp had been a clear sign, but boy oh boy how wrong she was when she thought the main issue would have been the ramp alone. How such a vessel has been able to fly with all the hitches it presented was a mystery.

A flash of pity had skittered through her chest once she had completed her survey and noted down everything in desperate need of fixing. The handful of credits he had given her was weighing down her pocket like robbed wealth. Mind, she was no usual to fix a ship for a discount or even for free, she too had to somehow eat and survive like everyone else. But at the same time, she could not wrap her head around how anyone could have given him a ship in such need of repair. Or passed it off as a properly functioning model. Had he been conned, somehow? By some hustler posing as a mechanic or a ship vendor perhaps.

Were Mandalorians not the best fighters in the galaxy, smart, competent, able to take care of themselves amidst the thousand dangers and unforeseen challenges roaming the parsec? Maker, this one Mandalorian was hopping around the galaxy with a sputtering metallic trap!

Maybe he wasn’t the brighter bulb of the Mando bunch, Trisso carried on musing, pulling herself up with a grunt from the clump of wires she was dissecting and shuffling to take care of the damn microvalve, a wrench menacingly clutched in one hand as if the valve would stop leaking at that sight.

Her probing over her current guest had been going on for a while now. Namely, from the moment the Mandalorian had revved out with the speeder, leaving her facing a hell of a mechanical intervention and the buzzing excitement to have such a mysterious costumer under her roof.

Not the strangest or most cryptic one she had had, still her curiosity had been sent into hyperdrive by his arrival.

She had always been naturally inquisitive. Noticing and collecting details, reading people out of pure interest or to be ready to face uncomfortable situations. Her job put her in the risky position of not always knowing what kind of client she was going to stand in front of. Sometimes the whole deal would go smoothly, sometimes not. She got used to recognising preventive signs of a possible struggle, both physical and metaphorical in regards to paying for her services or concerning defaulting customers or smugglers. Her current client did not look like either.

Yes, he was tall and broad and his black T visor made him look perpetually stern and menacing, but he had been honouring his payment from the start and there had not been tensions, aside from his initial reaction to her droids. She had not found any latent signs that he could be real trouble, at least as far as the vessel-patching-up deal was concerned.

Trisso spun the microvalve with a final curt jerk, finally putting an end to its insistent leaking. She pushed her trusty wrench in one of the overalls pockets, picking up one of the many rags she had been littering around to clean herself with. As she started scrubbing grease away from her fingers, her mind was still wriggling over the Mandalorian and his business on a planet like Telseraal.

It must have been something shady, of course. No one in their right mind would select Telseraal to have legal trafficking and polite bargains. Maybe he had been hired by the Collective to take care of some dispute with the rest of the mining community, even though the Collective was feared enough by its own to not be messed with. Or, she pondered, he might be looking to refurbish his arsenal.

Despite her patchy knowledge of Mandalorians, she was aware they considered weapons a religion and were quite keen in the artillery department. Her Mandalorian did indeed looked like he was lacking assets. He would have made such a promising patron for Telseraal underground gunrunning.

She was about to finally leave the matter simmering and fading in the back of her mind, happy to have found a plausible meaning for a Mandalorian’s presence on Telseraal and in her hangar when a fleeting thought flickered around the shell of her conscience and whispered in her ear.

After the Purge, Mandos had been seen only when one had to collect a bounty.

As soon as that reasoning crossed her mind, she could feel the unmistakable pull of her gut settling in, muscles stretching under her skin in pinpricks. The rag in her hand stopped circling her knuckles.

That feeling. It had proved itself right throughout her whole life and she had grown to trust it when manifesting. Her eyes gave a cursory look around as if she thought she was going to find something wrong within this ship all of a sudden. And not something of the mechanical variety.

So this is what he was doing on Telseraal, she mused, tucking away the rag and turning on her heels to go back to those karking wires. She had to stop ruminating over this whole thing altogether since the repair job currently in her hands was going to be long and tedious. She didn't need petty distractions and conjectures to distract her. Crouching down, she picked up a couple of coils and started working on the copper strands.

He was after something. Or someone.

As small spark glinted from a faulty contact and burned Trisso’s fingertips.

Well. Shit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jantoo was vertigo-inducing. The silver bulwarks he had seen from afar turned out to be just an outer shell, the city jutting out from the cliff walls over a massive sinkhole chewing its way down in the bowels of the planet.

The rickety narrow paths leading to the abyss were only external irregular teeth decorating this gargantuan artificial maw, the only parts able to cope with the almost constant smoky castings of the mines. The real Jantoo was embedded within the walls of its sinkhole in a swirl of packed alleys, the rumble of drills and jackhammers at work constantly in the background far below, paired up with all the voices, yells and clatters reverberating through the stone vaults.

Shuffling of feet on the dusty ground, the most disparate languages overlapping and cancelling each other in the cacophony of an attempted bargain that had been inching closer and closer to a brawl or even a murder by the shimmer of a hidden vibroblade. Miners coming up and down from their shifts, uniforms smeared with soot almost as much as their faces as lungs contracted in violent coughs and red-tinted spits. Wide-eyed children skulking around, waiting for someone’s attention to fail and allow their little long-fingered hands snatch pockets and purses. Others were eyeing the food stalls, ribs painfully shifting under flaky skin with every laboured breathe, drool thick as molasses in dried up mouths as the overflowing of food mocked them from sizzling cookpots.

Sour bile rose from his stomach and irritated his throat to the point he had to cough at that sight. However, he weaved through with practised steps, because he had witnessed other landscapes, other atmospheres tormented by famine and ferocity over the years, he had seen wraiths walking the ground in battered shrouds, mangled offsprings of such an environment.

Most avoided getting in his path by the look of his beskar alone, but their eyes were already filmy and unfocused, thoughts more pressing than a Mandalorian on Telseeral worrying their dust-clogged minds.

The only ones who would have been worried about his presence in their territory would have been the representatives of the Mining Collective. Oddly, he had not found any checkpoints at Jantoo’s entrance, no one had asked for identification or his business. Maker, he could not see uniforms wandering through the ravines, as if the city was left to its own violent and criminal fate by its own lords.

Lords he did not care about. He did not dwell on them further, despite the fact he had wondered if they already knew about his arrival.

He knew very well that all city walls had well-functioning eyes and ears when a beskar armor was around hunting.

His T visor began assessing his surroundings, took in as many details as possible, hiding spots and escape routes. He absentmindedly whipped out his tracking fob from his bandolier and clicked it, waiting to see if it would start beeping straight away.

It did not, the light stayed off and the fob did not make a sound. Not that he thought to pick up a signal but it was worth a try. He resolved to just look around, acclimatising himself to this bloody city.

He was trying to find the logic behind the whole system of curves and alleys and nooks, trying to come up with a strategy to avoid wasting time and thus ensure that his bounty could regroup to escape him. If she was still on the planet.

Soon enough, as he cruised through crowded curtain-draped alleys, he noticed a group of Sullustans chilling outside of a cantina. The sight made him realise there might have been at least an active Sullustan clan or colony on the planet and his bounty might have requested protection from them. Asking them for information might not be the best idea. He would not allow someone to go alerting her about a hunter’s presence in Jantoo. That would have made her even more elusive to find.

Despite a primal eagerness purring in the back of his mind suggesting to be bold and probe the Sullustans anyway, he perished the thought, at least for now, and silently slithered away in the crowd to explore more.

After hours wandering around, ducking a couple of blaster volleys, and sporadically asking general information as if he was a tourist of the sort, he had to admit to himself Jantoo did not seem to have trade-specialised districts like other cities, but rather an indistinct jumble of shops and establishments that had nothing in common but still somehow found themselves attached at the hip.

This gave his bounty yet another advantage.

Even though he knew from her data she was a chemist, he would have had to map and sift through all the chemistry businesses on the city’s different levels, at the same time maintaining a low profile that was nearly impossible to achieve with beskar shining on his body.

A sigh hissed from his mouth as the sunset curfew siren started blaring within the maw, earning itself some head turnings and feet scurrying away in a rumble of sand. He hurried to leave the alleys as well. No way he was staying the night in that nightmarish sinkhole.

He had to change the route back a few times due to crowds clogging the majority of the exit points, very careful not to head too close to the jagged external paths. Eventually, he managed to extricate himself from the ramble and headed back to the speeder with a nimble stride.

As he hurtled through the silver gates and quickly left Jantoo behind, he realized that maybe he would have to venture to the bottom of the mines to find his quarry.

He fervently hoped both for him and her that was not going to be the case.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Night had fallen over Telseraal, its suns and their heat had given place to a moonless black sky, the temperature had dropped into a cold that would grind within one's bones and marrow.

Despite her quarters being a little dated, they were still insulated enough to keep the chill out. Especially after someone had been cooking and steaming for a few hours.

She had just scooped up a bite with her chopsticks, flat bottom spoon right underneath to catch the broth when she heard the grating and sputtering of the speeder right outside. Hastily finishing chewing her morsel, she got up from her stool and looked at the hangar plain area through the still slightly misted transperisteel.

Trisso could see the Mandalorian dismounting from the bike. He left it in the same corner he found it. He even went looking for the tarp and carefully covered it for the nighttime. A smile tugged at her lip watching such a looming looking warrior performing a trivial action like covering an old dusty speeder. She followed his beskar as he turned around and marched toward her door.

When he noticed her, he gave a curt nod to which she replied with a similar head movement, then moved away from the transperisteel and angled her body towards the threshold. It opened with a low hiss, the Mandalorian taking up most of its frame before he thudded inside. A shudder ran under the beskar, a very faint sigh of relief tugged at the rim of his helmet as the quarters' warmth enveloped him.

“Well,” Trisso peeped, her legs bringing her back to her stool and sitting down, “welcome back.” Her chopsticks and flat bottom spoon glimmered under the light when she picked them up.

The Mandalorian stared her down as if her dining was such an outstanding display, his T visor trained on the bowl in front of her and the piping hot cookpot on the small stove right behind the table.

Before she could invite him to sit down, his voice grated through the static of the vocoder, “I’m here to give your key back.” and he pointedly produced said key from his pocket, his arm outstretched toward her.

She looked back and forth from the key to his helmet, before she shrugged and replied, “You can keep it as long as you need. I’m not planning to venture to the city soon.”

His arm and shoulder twitched lightly, but eventually, his fingers closed on the key and got it back in his pocket while he gave yet another nod as a thank you.

Trisso smiled, hoping that matter had been settled for good. “Now,” she prompted, “please take a seat and have some.”

Another twitch, before his whole body got tense. “‘M fine.” was his clipped answer, feet planted on the ground.

She let a beat pass, blinked once then replied, “I wasn't suggesting, Mandalorian.” she could see his orange-gloved fingers getting into fists, but she did not relent. “Have some.”

He tried to rebuke, to push her and her invite away. He was not there to make friends or to bask into a stranger’s kindness, even if he was hungry and feeling alone. A hint of annoyance tinged his voice as he gruffed again he was fine and in no need of food, shifting his weight from one leg to the other in a nervous wave and his shoulders stiff like a board.

A good-natured huff heaved from Trisso’s chest at that display. This Mando was such a piece of work, and awkward and possibly not that great with social cues.

“You've been outside under the suns all day,” she calmly reasoned with no intention of giving up, “I bet you didn't have the chance to eat or drink anything in Jantoo because there are not enough secluded areas where you'd have removed your bucket in peace.”

The tilting of his head at those words did not go unnoticed, cuing her to carry on, “Now you're back at night, with frigid temperatures, on an empty stomach.”

Her dark eyes were trained on him, they were holding his staring, not in a challenging manner, rather a genuine offer. “At least have some soup,” her thumb pointing behind her over the cookpot she was saving the rest of the meal in. “You need fluids.”

He ground his teeth in a sigh at her persistence, silently complaining at whatever kismet had appointed him with such an encounter on a planet like this. However, she was pointedly eyeing him and he eventually choose to yield, his shoulders sagging both due to fatigue and exasperation, and forfeiting whatever bounty hunter aura he was still trying to sport.

She knew then she had won him over and a small grin creeped onto the corners of her mouth. Stool scraping against the floor tiles, she pushed herself up and went getting a cup from one of the cupboards. A mitten was retrieved and the cookpot lid was lifted to be able to dunk a ladle in.

The cup filled to the brim with steaming fragrant soup, she turned around and inched closer to the Mandalorian. “Here,” she offered, not missing his hiss when his fingers closed around the rather hot cup, “you can eat in one of the bunk compartments if you wish.” And she pointed toward the chipped automatic door leading to the dormitory area, “Can seal the door for the time being.”

He followed her finger, head turning back on her after few seconds to breath out a “thanks” while his hands got around the cup without a real thought over it.

Trisso tilted her head in a nod, allowing him to go eat in peace. As the door clicked shut behind him, she exhaled a puff of air and sit back down to carry on her dinner.

She had had to partake in several trips to some of the overpriced stalls in Jantoo, even illegally purchasing from the underground food smuggling circle, but eventually she had managed to find part of the ingredients to cook herself a decent enough meal for once. It was no way near the dish she used to eat in her childhood, but she still appreciated being able to dine on something other than the food rations she had gotten used to.

That recipe never failed to distract her from the harsh reality she was living in, whenever she could cook it and then enjoy it, it gave her a sense of calm that would stay with her long after she had finished it. The heat of the soup warmed her, unlocking memories she was always happy to think back to from time to time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

She did not know how long it had been since the Mandalorian had holed up in one of the bunks, but at some point she could hear the heavy sound of his boots. The door opened with a beep and the light made his chest plate shimmer faintly. He was still holding onto the cup with both hands, possibly to feed on the remaining heat of it as he was waiting for the soup in his stomach to warm him up properly.

As she was busy finishing her dinner, he earned himself just a cursory look and he took it as permission to move around in her living space freely. Not that there was much to inspect. So, he made a beeline toward the cooking area where he placed the cup with a light click.

Trisso was ready to hear him curtly thanking her once again and then retreat for the night, but against her expectations and after some awkward shuffling of feet, he grabbed one of the vacant stools and sat down with her.

She hid the curl of her lips with a spoonful of soup, finishing what remained in her bowl before giving out a content sigh.

It was then that the Mandalorian decided to grace her with more than a monosyllabic reaction. “It was good,” he rasped in a mumble, “the soup. Was nice.” He cleared his throat and crossed his beskar-covered arms across his chest as if to protect himself from the glance Trisso was giving him.

“Not as nice as my papa’s, but it's something,” she replied while she gathered her cutlery and whatnot and carried it all over to the sink. Her fingers got his cup as well and she let some water run from her stash to soak everything in for washing later.

No way she was going to forfeit the Mandalorian’s chatty moment.

He waited for her to sit back down before inquiring, “Was he a cook?” and he sounded genuinely curious underneath the grouchy hedge of his voice.

Trisso’s eyebrows rose at his unexpected interest. “Not really,” she tittered, “but he was good at it. Cooking and shooting.”

The muscles of his forearms on his chest flexed lightly when she mentioned shooting.

Yep, Mandos were big on weapons and shooting.

“A soldier?” he tried again and the interest in his tone did not falter. His visor watched her shake her head, before she specified, “More like a monk with firearms and a lightbow.” a pearl of laughter behind her smile as she watched the Mandalorian tilting his head in disbelief, “Him and dad used to be part of a religious order. Here, let me show you.”

She left the sink with a sprint and walked toward the lonely shelf right beside the main door to retrieve a pad. She tapped in something and soon enough a holo switched on.

“People always said I look and sound more like dad,” and she pointed at the shorter of the two men. Dressed simple and neat, a seraphic smile contrasting the fatigue infecting the age lines on his face. He was leaning against a staff and his gaze was milky and unfocused.

Then Trisso’s finger moved over the second man, carried on talking, “Though, I can tell you I swear like my papa for sure.” A hulk of a man, with wild hair, a worn civilian flight suit and battered red plastoid armour. He stood near his partner with a stoic scowl on his bearded face. “Wish I could cook like him too.”

Something tugged in his chest. That unrequited glimpse of knowledge she had just shared with him enough to make him wish he could ask more, despite the fact that he had promised himself not to get too friendly with whoever he met during this job.

But when he turned the visor towards Trisso, he realized that there was a searing sadness flickering in her eyes while observing that holo. He felt a sting of guilt for inadvertently bringing back painful memories and he awkwardly shifted in his seat. His shoulder moved and the singlet on his right pauldron shone, diverting her attention.

“What’s that?” her chin jutted out to point at it, gaze morphing into her characteristic glimmer of curiosity.

He pondered if it was wise to narrate about his singlet to a stranger, but at the same time he reasoned she had been nothing but hospitable and kind to him and she had just shared personal information with him. He no longer felt the urgent need to withdraw from casual conversation. His shoulders rolled and his pauldron sparked yet again, “It’s my singlet.”

“Oh, so you’re part of a clan.”

He decided not to specify that ‘the clan’ was more like ‘his clan’ as in ‘him being the clan leader’.

Trisso’s eyebrows knitted together and she squinted, trying to get the shape of the singlet. “What kind of animal is that?” she inquired.

“A Mudhorn.”

Her face scrunched up and he took it as her not having a clue about what that was. So, he proceeded to explain it to her, to tell the story of how he got the right to use a Mudhorn as his singlet, minus a small green child-sized detail.

Trisso did not believe him straight away. At first, she looked at him like he was taking the piss of her, light-heartedly mocking him and just not believing it. It took him some good convincing to have her hanging over his words, eyes wide and a half-incredulous expression on her face.

“And you took down that big furry beast solo?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, but I hardly believe it,” she frowned, trying to recall the whole story and reasoning on how he would have been able to do that, “Big bad beskar armoured Mandalorian, yes. But no way you killed that thing all alone.”

“Had too. Jawas stole some ship parts and bargained them for the Mudhorn’s egg.”

Her head lulled into a shake, “Who bargains parts for an egg?”

“Jawas do,” he shrugged matter of factly, “cracked that egg at light speed and got sticky with it right under my eyes.” His fingers flexed and mimicked claws scratching inside an hypothetical egg.

“Yuck. I’m sticking to my unsavoury ratios, thank you very much.”

“I second that,” and he lowered his forearms on his legs rather than wrapping them up against his chest again.

“Still, I think you’re a liar,” but there was no real harm in her voicing.

“Your loss not believing a Mandalorian’s word,” she could feel his grin behind the black plain of his visor.

After a while spent telling each other stories, a yawn rounded out Trisso’s lips and she excused herself to retreat for the night.

He stood up from his stool with a grunt, the extension of the day settling down on him and his joints like a boulder. He was about to leave as well when she stopped him yet again and suggested him sleeping in one of the bunk compartments rather than on that ‘nightmare of a ship’.

A huff close to an actual chuckle rose from his chest as he listened to her swearing over his vessel.

“We need to have a conversation over it first thing tomorrow morning,” she was blabbering about as she made him follow her to the bunks, “that thing goes against every fibre of my body and it’s testing my patience.”

“How so?” he indulged her, a not so well disguised teasing in the rattle of his voice.

She caught that and angled her torso around towards him, eyes narrowing in a ‘I dare you’ while she stopped in her tacks and raised a hand to his visor.

“Landing gear’s missing rivets, wires are either fried to a crisp or so tangled up they look like space rat nests,” she unfold two fingers, “fusion hose’s seen better days and that would be fine if them spacers would not tinkled constantly, making me wonder if the whole thing is gonna unhinge all of a sudden,” another finger up, “microvalves are leaking worst than a snotty brat, issued springs and plugs are rusty or nearly corroded and the navigation deflector system’s cable entry frame is missing pointer lights,” both her hands shook in a fit of frustration, fingers opening and closing in fists.

“Maker, I wonder how that thing hasn't exploded under your metal ass yet.”

“I’m piloting it,” he replied with a shrug.

She looked at him like he had grown a second or third head, the gears in her head whirling to catch up to his joke or actually believing his words. In the end she lowered her outstretched hands and regard him with an unimpressed glare before turning around and pointing at the several doors lining up head of them.

“Choose whichever suits you the best, there’s nobody else around using them.”

He settled for the one he had occupied to eat his soup, the cot mattress still crumpled from his sitting on it. Despite the space being quite small and cramped, he had to admit it was going to be better than sleeping in his pilot seat. He sighed, his aching muscles mollified at the prospect of resting in a bed for once.

Absentmindedly, his fingers travelled to his pocket and fished out the small durasteel ball, turned it around in his hands, a gesture that had become a ritual at the end and beginning of each day, a way to wish good rest and good morning to the one who no longer was by his side with his blabbering.

The ball had so much of his focus that he did not notice Trisso strolling back with some blankets until she was at the entrance of the bunk. As soon as he realised her presence, he shielded the ball by closing his fist over it in a hurry and focused on the woman.

She tossed him the blankets, as well as a bundle which turned out to be a warm poncho when he stiffly unfolded it. “Keep that on,” she advised him, “for good measure. Cold still creeps in from drafts and you don’t want to wake up with wet joints.”

He eyed the poncho, hoping she would not read the sceptical expression despite his helmet. Either way, he promised he would consider putting it on and make good use of the blankets, before thanking her again.

She bade him goodnight from the hallway, a hand leaning on one of her hips after she instructed him on the fresher location. As a reply, he nodded again and then sealed the door for good.

She decided to suppress her rampaging curiosity over the small durasteel ball she saw him carrying in his gloved hand. She did not need to see his face to know what grief looked like.

#the mandalorian #din djarin #the mandalorian fic #the mandalorian fanfiction #star wars #star wars fic #star wars rogue one #rogue one: a star wars story #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fic #ace!din #ace!Din Djarin

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chrysalispen · 4 years

Text

reverie (NSFW)

doing some bingo card prompt fills to get back in the swing of things.

prompt fill: masturbation

you know me, it’s my usual. brief nero tol scaeva/wol but mostly this is just poor aurelia being helplessly feral over the dick that cursed her.

set sometime during the crystal tower raid storyline. NSFW under cut, as always.

=====

In short order she had drifted into a doze and the memory became dream. No longer curled in a thin bedroll upon rock and crystallized sand, she lay basking in the comfort of sun-warmed grass with the soothing scent of lavender in her nose. A warm breeze stirred her hair and the fine crepe fabric of the soft and comfortable dress she wore, the hem tickling her leg with its fluttering.

Over long moments the scope of the dream shifted, almost imperceptibly, in the hazy and oneiric way dreams so often did, and Aurelia knew without opening her eyes that she was no longer alone.

She could sense the warmth of another body nearby, someone she knew.

She could open her eyes, but she already knew who it was. She'd had this dream before: her best friend from girlhood, alive and well, lazing next to her and watching clouds drift overhead. Despite everything, it was a dream that never failed to leave her feeling better when she had it.

She was already smiling as she shifted herself towards him in a lazy roll to one side.

A warm hand caressed her cheek. She threaded her fingers through his hair to tug him in for a kiss-- and the moment he responded in kind, she realized this could not be Sazha. The soft, warm mouth upon hers was too full, his face was not clean-shaven but bristly with overgrowth, the nose too broad-bridged and prominent. And also not a Miqo'te-- her fingers tugged ungently at soft, dense curls rather than the fine silky strands she remembered.

She kissed him anyway.

In turn, he devoured her.

She tore her mouth away from his to catch her breath and he continued his conquest down the column of her throat as he feasted upon her softness: biting and nipping in tandem with the descent of slim hands and calloused, dexterous fingers. He rucked the thin fabric of her dress to her waist, and when his fingers hooked with a deft surety into the laces of her smallclothes to loosen and expose, she felt only heady excitement.

He surged forward, slotting one thigh between her legs; she found herself rolling smoothly onto her back to bear the weight of a body that was lean muscle and sharp angles. The muscles of her calves flexed to wrap about his waist for purchase and nearly in the same instant she felt the sensation of fullness and friction: heat stretching and sliding into her own, made smooth and easy with desire.

She moaned, a guttural noise that was almost a growl, the sound of it swallowed by her lover's mouth on hers as he found his rhythm. The heat of the sun seemed to warm her blood with each thrust; she could smell lavender and musk and cut grass, and the irregular sighs from his lips warmed the column of her throat.

Those fingers tangled in her hair, the roughness of them gathering it like strands of spun gold.

His lips caught her earlobe, moving in that soft spot behind its shell as he rasped, "You know me."

She did. She tried to remember his name, tried and couldn't, not with all her focus bent upon primal need. Even as she racked her memory, she twined her arms around his neck and tugged on his hair so she could kiss him again. Teeth and tongue together grazed her lower lip.

"Yes," she panted against his mouth.

Each breath become more labored, seeming to lodge in her chest. His warm hands trailed down her thighs to tilt her hips up; she clenched around him and keened into his kiss, her hips canting hard enough into his that it should have hurt. If she felt pain at all, it went unnoticed; all that mattered was that thread of tension she could feel coiling on itself and the blessed relief that lay in sight, just within her grasp.

If she could just say his name-

Aurelia sat bolt upright in the darkness, eyes flared wide and chest heaving and skin dewy with sweat, her lips still trembling. She felt sure she must have cried out but if it had been heard there was no response. The tranquility of sleep still reigned over the NOAH campgrounds as far as the others were concerned, it seemed.

Sleep was now very far from her mind. The sound of her own voice still echoed in her ears.

She exhaled, a trembling whisper of sound, and let herself drop back to the hard and uncomfortable ground.

Well.

That had certainly just happened.

She'd ask herself why, but it would be nothing short of denial, and he'd been on her mind as of late, she wasn't about to deny it. In her defense, of course, Nero tol Scaeva had been on everyone's mind since the moment he set foot on the dig site (and it hadn't been so much 'set foot' as 'sauntered,' really)--

Well, what did it matter? The occasional strange dream was to be expected, especially when one was under duress- and she had certainly been given plenty to worry about as of late. The Doman refugees, Alphinaud's new grand company, the move to Revenant's Toll, meeting Ser Aymeric, dealing with a seemingly unending stream of summonings requiring her to stamp out fires (and gales, and earthquakes)...

These dreams are perfectly normal and nothing to worry about, soothed the calm and collected clinician's voice in her own mind. Certainly nothing to lose sleep over.

Except she knew the moment she shut her eyes that she wasn't going to put it out of her mind, much less find any peace in sleep. Lying in the close and humid darkness of the tent she remembered the sharp pale blue of his eyes, bright with triumph, watching with avaricious ferocity as he took her apart. Gods, the way it had felt. That hot and grinding ache lingered still, unwilling to let her go.

Damn it. He'd cursed her without laying a finger on her. Gods damn it all.

She wet her lips with her tongue, staring at the peaked canvas above her head.

With a furtive glance at the closed tent flap she rucked her sleeping robes to her waist and lifted her hips just enough to wriggle her smalls down to mid-thigh. Slowly she ran her palm along the curve of one leg from the rolled waistband of her underclothes to the delicate flare of her hip and then inward, index and middle finger carefully encroaching between her legs with a light and questing touch that was almost embarrassed.

But she had to do this quietly, she tried to tell herself, the harsh sound of her breathing alarmingly loud in her ears. If G'raha or Cid or Rammbroes (or worst of all without a shadow of a doubt, Nero) found her in this state--

Well, short of sinking into the ground of her own free will until the next Age rolled round, the consequences defied imagining. She'd be the Eorzeans' first Warrior of Light to perish from sheer mortification, that was all there was to it.

She'd been on the verge when she'd awakened; she could still feel the throbbing pulse of her heartbeat, everything between her legs still acutely sensitive. It was difficult enough merely to measure her pace but the hardest part was trying not to think at all- trying not to think about what she was doing or why so that she could concentrate only upon the sensation of her own fingers: not half as rough, smaller and more delicate, rubbing against slick flesh in slow and careful motions.

Slow and careful, rather, until neither of those things were enough to satiate.

As her concentration slipped, so too did her resolve to remain silent. The pressure of her fingers increased, along with the speed and urgency of her rhythm and that ghostly and half-remembered thread of impending release quickly returned, built back to its boiling point.

A small keening welled from the back of her throat and buzzed through the lips she had clamped tightly shut; her back arched and her neck bowed, pressing the back of her head into the thin pillow of her bedroll.

She bit the soft inner layer of her cheek hard enough to taste copper on her tongue. It hurt but the urge to cry out passed with it, briefly.

Her free hand slipped beneath the thin pillow in some last-ditch effort at self-preservation, tugged just enough of it free so that she could cover her mouth, muffle the sounds that wanted to escape. Her teeth clenched against linen and hemp, and her last cogent thought was the memory of that dream-voice whispering in her ear, goading her to say his name. She thought of flaxen curls snared about her fingers, the breathy sound that whistled from his lips as she tugged at them in a demand for his attention. The sensation of the muscles in his back shifting beneath her fingertips. The glorious frisson and friction of his cock, pistoning inside her-

That thought did it.

The breath left her lungs in an explosive and half-choked gasp as that coiling tension snapped taut like a wire, heat from her release radiating out from her core into her limbs. She writhed atop her bedroll for an indeterminate amount of time, legs twitching with small spasms, helpless to staunch the small flood that wet her fingers.

After a handful of seconds the aftershocks began to pass, rolling like an undercurrent beneath the hectic slamming of her pulse. She lay quiescent in the darkness with damp strands of golden hair sticking to her neck and one hand still pressed between her legs, chest heaving and ears ringing.

Willing her breathing deep and regular, Aurelia carefully flexed her hand after a few moments more to shake out the ache of an incipient cramp. Beneath the giddy feeling of afterglow she felt a mingled jumble of emotions that she tried to ignore-- guilt, mostly, and no small amount of confusion.

Her eyes alighted upon her staff, laid neatly alongside her journals and packs. The faceted surface of a crystal caught what little light existed in the close space, glimmering feebly.

"You could have at least had the courtesy to let me dream about someone I actually like," she whispered. She laughed, but there was precious little mirth in it.

Aurelia sighed and rolled herself into a sitting position on still-wobbly limbs, reaching for something to pin back her hair, then rummaged in her bags for her canteen and a scrap of hemp cloth for washing. If she was to spend a sleepless night, she might as well tidy herself.

Maybe in the morning she’d be able to look him in the eye.

#i'm serious y'all lmao #lemony meringue goodness #firm lemony business #but i figured if i gave nero solo spice then she deserves her own scene in return #aurelia laskaris #chrysalispen writes

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tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 6 years

Text

Trinkets, 22: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.

A small, Randomly Colored folded paper bird. When unfolded, it refolds itself and any crumples or tears it has sustained magically fix themselves.

An eyepatch resembling a large flower that covers the entire eye of the creature wearing it. When applied to a creature’s face, the eyepatch grows rootlike tendrils that wrap around the bearer's head to secure it.

A set of fish jaws fashioned into a bracelet. When worn, the bearer has an in depth knowledge of northern pike.

A bracelet made from a lattice of woven brass. It automatically adjusts itself to the wrist size of its bearer.

A shimmery cloak clasp depicting a violin and a sword. It smells vaguely of ash and fire.

A sealed metal tin labeled “Armstrong Mustache Wax”. According to the description, the recipe has been passed down the Armstrong line for generations

A glazed porcelain pipe. Everything about it seems vaguely familiar, but you aren’t sure why.

An old and beaten up steel drinking flask. After carrying the object for more than 1d4 hours, the bearer becomes convinced that the flask has to be kept a secret.

An uncannily familiar face etched into a piece of dead wood.

A marble pyramid, small enough to fit in a human’s palm. When held, shadows seem to flicker in the corners of the bearer's vision.

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.