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thewhumperinwhite · 5 months

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WKW: The Voice That Shakes The Stones (Part 2)

Continued directly from this, but will make more sense if you've also read The Rose Queen parts 1 and 2.

This one follows part one in terms of getting some plot stuff out of the way up top and then some Really Heavy Whump in the back half lmao

TW for: broken bones (including ribs and spine), blood, aftermath of beating/caning, past/referenced child abuse, referenced parental death, referenced decapitation, Again Broken Bones To The Extent That It Is Essentially Body Horror.

----

Morden raises a sculpted eyebrow at Tern. “Been opening my mail, have you?”

Tern looks at him; or at least Morden assumes he does. Tern wears an elaborately constructed mask sewn out of feathers and leather and bone, and removes it very rarely.

“I open everyone’s mail,” Tern says.

Morden knows this, of course. He has no secrets to keep from his own Falconers, and if and when such secrets do arise, he will simply have Thorne deliver them. If Morden feels—caught off guard, set on edge, it is no fault of Tern’s, and snapping at his own Scout will not help him feel more in control, anyway. Morden arranges himself more casually at his desk with a bit of effort.

“What do you think of the Lady’s proposal?” he asks, forcing his voice back into its usual light and airy register.

Tern tilts his head. The mask makes him the most actually-birdlike of all the Falconers, a fact Morden usually finds endearing, though he is struggling not to be annoyed by it at the moment.

“It’s my job to know things, not to act on them,” Tern says finally. Which is a letdown after such a long thoughtful pause, even though it is also true. Morden does not roll his eyes, but the temptation is there. “What do you think, Mord?”

Morden sits up straight and brushes his hair from his face. What he thinks is, she must have eyes in the Castle that Morden can’t see, to be able to time this missive so exactly. But that thought is uselessly paranoid—Tern would know, and Tern would tell him—so he is not entertaining it. Or vocalizing it, either.

“I think she’s audacious,” he says instead, which is true. “And I think I had better consider carefully before I think anything much else.” He folds the letter back up, so that he will not keep reading it uselessly over and over, and looks up at Tern, pretending to make eye contact through the mask. “In the meantime, make sure the Prince doesn’t die, will you? I may finally be able to put him to some use.”

Tern nods, and stalks out silently, still in his soft-soled scouting boots.

Morden makes it, optimistically, another five minutes before he unfolds the letter to read it again.

“Your desires have aligned neatly with our own, dear Crane,” reads the now-familiar script, “and the appropriate sacrifices have been made.”

Morden has not yet opened the accompanying jeweled and gilded casket, but the size and heft of it—and, more importantly, the smell—makes him fairly confident he knows what will be inside.

“A healthy partnership ought be reciprocal, however,” the letter goes on.

Morden chews his thumbnail, a nervous habit he does not often indulge. He scolds himself; he is only now realizing how he has begun to enjoy his exchanges with the Rose Queen, how they have begun to feel so like a game of chess against an interesting opponent as to make him forget the stakes. It has left him feeling—exposed, now, at best; trapped if he is not careful.

He needs to make a plan.

----

This is not part of Crow’s job.

It’s all very well for Tern, who relays Crane’s instructions—“Fix up the Summer Prince; the White Crane had his fun and now wants not to play with broken toys”—and then scurry off with the excuse of some Important Scouting Duty, which Crow suspects is probably bullshit.

When Morden introduces the Falconer’s, he says that Crow’s job is “Throatcutter,” the one who makes sure everyone’s theatrics have resulted in actual corpses at the end of every ambush and skirmish. And although that isn’t all he does—far from it—that is certainly part of his job. If the White Crane had said, “I’m too busy to finish killing the Summer Prince, finish that up for me, will you?” Crow would have done it, and with a whistle and a spring in his step.

Crow is built for ending lives, it’s truly what he’s best at. He doesn’t prolong pain on purpose; he isn’t Raven. Once a creature is past a certain threshold of injury, keeping it alive becomes—boring and sad, and little else.

The Summer Prince flops slightly at Crow’s feet, as if hearing him think this. He is moving like a deboned fish. Sounds a bit like one, as well.

Morden is going to owe him, and Morden doesn’t enjoy owing things, even to his own Falconers. So at least, Crow thinks, there is that.

“I don’t suppose you can walk,” Crow says. He slides the toe of his boot underneath the writhing shape of the Summer Prince, meaning only to nudge him slightly.

There is—more give in the ribs than there should be.

The body at his feet spasms violently as the Prince tries to curl in around himself. He manages to twist his torso in a way that makes Crow’s gorge rise a bit in spite of himself, his handless arm flopping over and up to haphazardly cover his face. His legs don’t move at all.

Crow contemplates, very briefly, the idea of picking the Summer Prince up off the floor and carrying him to Heron’s quarters, or more probably to the Castle’s Healer. He doesn’t mind blood, as a rule. The blood would not be the problem.

The Prince heaves in what must be his first full breath since Crow entered the room several minutes ago. It scrapes audibly against his throat; the effort of taking it arcs his back up off the floor, except that his legs still haven’t moved. Something—either ribs or spine, Crow isn’t sure which—grinds audibly inside him and he loses whatever air he has managed to take in in a single quiet, bubbly-sounding wail.

“Eugh,” Crow says, and turns his back on what is rapidly becoming the corpse of the Summer Prince. Where has that bloody wolf pup got himself to? Cleaning up Morden’s messes is literally that kid’s whole job.

----

(Andry can’t see. He can almost breathe, if he tries very hard. It feels like lifting a very heavy weight, and at the height of each breath there is a sudden stabbing pain in his back, just left of the center, that makes him twitch. He is in—water, maybe. Or anyway his face and shoulders and ears feel wet. His lips feel wet, too, although the inside of his mouth feels very dry indeed.)

(He must have hit his head, he thinks. He knows that burning cracked-egg feeling well enough, in his temple and below his right ear and on the high point of his opposite cheek. And his back is cracked open that way too, not sharp and bone deep like the whip but broad and blunt and shattered like his father’s cane.)

(His father is—dead, he thinks, around the buzzing in his head, like bees tangled up in cotton wool. The White Crane cut off his father’s head, and Andry could not catch it when it was thrown. And now he cannot even tell if he is sorry. His father did kill him once, after all.)

(He had known where he stood with his father, though. His father was not elegant and smiling, like the White Crane.)

(Although the White Crane was not smiling this time, was he, Andry thinks; no, this time he was angry, and the worst part is that Andry does not even know why.)

(…Andry thinks that is the worst part. Then he tries to move his legs.)

----

Heron is the Falconers’ battlefield medic, and he is not a healer. He has smelling salts in his bag that will get a man to his feet and into the fray with an arrow through the stomach; and skill enough with a needle and a bandage to patch up even serious punctures well enough to heal on their own. He even knows the basic alchemy needed to keep a wound from going septic about seven times out of ten.

In this situation he is useful only in that he has a stretcher he is willing to bring to Thorne’s chamber in exchange for the privilege of seeing a mutilated body.

Crow returns with Thorne and Heron after about five minutes, and it is clear as he nears the threshold and begins to hear the Prince’s breath whistling in and out, like wind blowing across a broken bottle, that the boy has not done him the great favor of dying in the interim.

One of the Prince’s eyes is open when Crow stands over him again, but it is rolled back in his head far enough to hide all but a thin ring of blue-purple iris. The other eye is already swollen too far to open more than a crack. Every time he takes a far-too-audible breath he shudders, violently, exactly twice. His torso is still twisted at that odd angle, as though he has tried to roll over onto his side without lifting his hips.

Thorne has been helping Heron carry the stretcher. When he enters the room he drops his end of it with a loud clatter.

Heron does not seem to notice, though he gamely drops his end of the stretcher, too, so that he can dart closer to the body, his pale eyes glittering behind his physician’s mask.

(Tern and Heron are both masked more often than they aren’t; both masks, as far as Crow is concerned, are products of paranoia. Tern is convinced some authority or other is going to discover his identity, as though that would matter now that he is at the right hand of the conqueror of a whole damned country. Heron is concerned about inhalants. This seems sensible sometimes, even to Crow; Heron takes apart something like a half-dozen cadavers a week in pursuit of his craft. However he also wears the mask when it is just the eight of them alone in the Nest or in their rooms here at the castle, and that seems like overkill to Crow.)

As always, Heron’s hands are light, and clever, and ruthless. He pulls the Prince’s fluttering eyelid up and peers closely into his eye, tipping his head back quite gently. Then he presses his fingers against the Prince’s shattered ribs with slow, deliberate pressure, using his hand in the Prince’s hair to keep the Prince from curling up in a ball at what must be excruciating pain. Heron’s face is quite close to the Prince’s answering gasp. Crow, a safe distance away with his arms crossed, thinks to himself that perhaps Heron wouldn’t need the mask if he was willing to do his job without getting so very close.

When the Prince has relaxed out of his pain-spasm, Heron taps twice on the sharp edge of the Prince’s sharp recently-starved hip bone with a gloved fist. The Prince’s gasp this time is much quieter, more of a hiccup than an airless scream.

When Heron stretches out a booted foot to give the Prince’s calf a not-particularly-gentle kick, the Prince doesn’t react at all.

“That’s interesting,” Heron says, his voice dark with things Crow finds professionally distasteful.

----

Thorne left Andry—what, thirty minutes ago? An hour? Surely no more than that. Thorne left Andry asleep on the couch at the foot of his bed, wrapped in Thorne’s borrowed sheets, curled up like a child with the stump of his missing hand tucked under his chin.

Thorne’s bedsheets are in disarray, now, on the floor in front of the couch. There is blood on them. There seems, at least to Thorne’s suddenly spotty and blurred vision, to be blood more places than there isn’t.

Heron’s hand is on Andry’s throat, now, prodding narrow deep bruise that is forming there. Heron is hovering over Andry with the same excited twitchy over-interest with which he treats any sick or injured person. Thorne is familiar enough with Heron’s attention to remember the growing unease and sick, crawling discomfort it inspires.

He usually finds it easier to look away.

“Well go on,” Crow snaps at him from where leaning against the wall, looking mildly disgusted but little else. “Get him on the fucking stretcher already.”

Thorne’s instinct to obey is honed sharply enough that he moves to follow the order without thinking. So at least there is that relief.

#the winter king's ward #whump #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #beaten #caning #broken bones #whumper pov #broken ribs #broken spine #parental death mention #parental abuse mention #...man its been a long time since ive posted regularly i dont remember how tags work 😭#i will TRY and remember who the taglist was for this by the time i do a next day reblog

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soulmissed · 3 months

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@sorrowsick, cont.

the boy’s expression struggles. (right eye twitching. like those questions physically pained him. because they had.) his pile of stones forgotten, he squirms restlessly. sunlight dapples his hands with straw white slants.

grief thrums underneath his ribcage. as if it were a second heartbeat. “ ‘m an orphan, cross. ” sharp inhale. “ my daddy died protectin’ me from a robber. ” a narrative detail shelled out. since august knows the next ask may involve how?

#sorrowsick #story of a boy.#two friends talking The Grief. :(#sorrowsick: cross.#death mention #parental death mention

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carnation-damnation · 4 months

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Oh boy, it's that time again! Now, it's pretty tradition for me to get pretty sappy talking in my art summaries, so if that isn't your thing, I put it under a readmore.

So...Not much art this year, huh? Maybe those who've been recent followers didn't notice, but I usually draw a whole lot more than I have this year. The reason for this is obvious...I got a lot more busy!

I got a new job (which has been the first full-time job in my life!), dropped out of college, and gone through a lot of life changes (Like going on Testosterone). This year has also held a lot of grief; I became an orphan in late April and have had to adjust to a lot of "firsts" without my Mom, and gone through a lot of really low points this year about it. It's hard to make art while experiencing that, lemme tell you.

It's hard for somebody who's used to drawing just about every single day to spreading pieces entire months across.

I couldn't be more thankful to the Sonic community and the new friends I've made in it for giving me a healthier coping mechanism than I would have, otherwise. I also have to thank my most beloved friends on the 'net and IRL (The latter can't read this but lol) for being incredibly gentle with me and comforting after my mother's passing.

I'm not sure where I'd be without them all, but I'm so so thankful to be involved in such a creative and friendly community here. I've learned so much more about art-making and Sonic than I think I have in quite a while. I'm so happy that I've been introduced to so many different ways people draw this one little blue dude. It's made me a lot more confident in the things I enjoy, and I've gotten a lot more benefits than I'd thought I would! Sonic is definitely Coming Back in a sense, or at least it has a different public perception than it did 10 years ago.

Now, for next year...

I don't know.

I'm still changing, physically and emotionally, all the time. I've become very wrapped up and invested in the changes that Testosterone has given and will continue to give me, as well as trying to adjust to routines that've changed when and how I make my art. My full time job is less mentally draining than when I was working in retail, but it comes with its own challenges and I don't have as much free time as I used to. Which is alright! This job is one I actually really enjoy doing, and I don't hate most of the folks I work with like when I worked fast food, lol. College is a no-go for the time being and I'm late on a lot of my personal life goals I set for myself, but I think that giving myself more activities/things to do outside the internet has been more beneficial to me than if I were here 24/7 after April 27th.

So...will you see less of me?

I don't know.

I still want to make more art and share more of my sonic and non-sonic related stories, but fanart is fanart and the lack of engagement on original work will always be a point of insecurity for me. For now, I'm going to play it by Fuck It We Ball rules and go back to doing what I was doing before I started writing this post! Making art when I have the time and engaging with the Sonic art I enjoy :)

#art summary 2023 #parental death mention #Shout out to lovelyn's au stuff that are on this LOL #I basically use these art summaries as a vessel to talk abt me. Very parasocial moment /j /NOT BEING SERIOUS #Anyway yeah.

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dandydevildog · 6 months

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Today would have been my dads 73rd birthday. Enjoy one of my favourite pictures of him from when he was young, rolling a joint

#Maxine talks #parental death mention

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goldieclaws · 5 months

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I really shouldn't be surprised at this point bc I've seen my fair share of dark material in kid content but finding out there's an antagonist in Wings of Fire who looks like this on their respective cover with what I keep reading as a soft expression (how the eyes, brow and mouth look is what does it for me)

only to find out he forces his father to disembowel himself through mind control is bonkers to me what the hell are these books even about bro

#i only really know of WoF bc a few ppl i follow post animation memes for it #I either see warrior cat memes or WoF memes #sometimes there OC memes but yeah #goldie speaks #i cannot stop thinking about this lmao #i think i discovered this character like back in july or something idk #and that fact and this cover feel like such a major contrast lmao #parental death #parental death mention #i do like some of the dragon designs tho ngl #but considering how certain characters are called i think it would be too childish for me to read lmao #fuckin f in chat boys kid me would have loved this

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hold-him-down · 8 months

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Leo do you know if your dad is still alive

this ask game

"I have no idea," he says. "There used to be a database of everyone in the system that would give some details about their whereabouts and like, basic information... name, date of birth, origination location, stuff like that. I think it was used sometimes to reunite workers with their families when they wound up in relatively well-intended situations, so pro-system politicians started taking a really close look at its value.

"They slowly started removing information from it, until all that was left was 'living status.' They discontinued use of the database fully when I was ten, but at that point, he was..." He swallows, his gaze shifting toward the window. "He was alive then, at least according to that database. Although it was pretty commonly suspected that there was no merit to the information there, so it's... it was impossible to know.

"The odds of him still being alive now, though, are not great." His voice is soft as he speaks.

#parental death mention #institutionalized slavery

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falseimmortalities · 26 days

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01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

√ Hello! I am Novae, a service Rotom for Valentin! I also provide other resources, like as you will see, translating and providing a transcript for the following video! √

It begins with the camera, focused on Valentin, as he sits at a lab desk. In the background, Professor Sycamore sits silently, hunched over his own work. Val, meanwhile, has a corded landline pressed against his ear.

√ All speech Translated from Sinnohan √

"Hello Maman, what did you want to talk to me about? I am at work right now."

Val goes silent as the person on the other line speaks. His face twists into one of confusion, before slipping into concern.

"Maman! Slow down, slow down. What are you talking about? Maman... Maman, what do you mean you're having tea with dad?"

There's a soft voice of an older woman that can be heard as the camera moves closer. Stifled laughter can be heard as well.

"Valentin, dear, let me send you a picture! I'm having tea with your dad."

The camera buzzes as a photo appears on screen. It shows an older woman sitting outside in a soft yellow kimono. Next to her, sits a faux Halloween skeleton dressed in a white kimono. Between them, on a small hand painted floral table, sits two teacups. Val looks over at the phone to look at the photo, sighing softly as he presses his hand against the bridge of his nose, pushing up his glasses. There's an eruption of laughter on the other line. He does let out a soft chuckle, before speaking again.

"I see now, Maman. I hope you enjoy your tea date with dad."

"Oh I will, my little star! But all jokes aside dear, how are you? I heard through the grapevine that you've caught yourself a new partner! Do tell me all about it! Oh, and I'll have to visit them sometime."

"Mamannnn," Val teasingly whines, grinning. "You're just going to tell him embarrassing stories. But, he's lovely, Maman."

After that last sentence, Val sits up a little bit and looks back at Augustine, grin widening.

"But don't go immediately telling him everything if I set up something, okay? I'd like to keep my job."

There's a pause on the other side of the line.

"Valentin, my little star."

"...Yes Maman?"

"You should know better than to expect me to not tell the embarrassing stuff first! And what do you mean that you'd like to keep your job? My little star, who in Sinnoh's green earth are you with!?"

"Ah, I'll tell you later Maman. Au revoir!"

In a quick motion, Val presses a button, cutting the line. His face immediately reddens as he clears his throat and runs a hand through his hair, exhaling loudly. He then looks up and over at the phone, eyes widening in shock.

"Novae!"

The video then abruptly ends.

√ Video Transcript End! If you notice an error in my transcript or translations, reach out to Roto.Tech! I am actively trying to improve! √

#pkmn irl #pokeblogging #☄️.txt #☄️.answers #death ment tw #parental death mention

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guzmapkmn-archive · 1 year

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Coping by imagining oswald wishing he has been the one to kill ryans dad. Ryan wishes oswald had been the one to do it too tbh

#cat.txt #been feeling bad bc of some stuff lately #and maybe im a bad person but this is helping 😔✌️#parental death mention #<- jic

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homestuckshipcesttournament · 2 months

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in relation to that one recent anon, I think a lot of the draw of alphacest and of anything involving Alpha Rose and Roxy for me, aside from loving Roxy as much as I do, is that I also really relate to her (NOT ON THE HYPOTHETICAL INCESTUOUS CRUSH PART) in terms of just, sheer desperation to get to spend a moment with my mom. Dreams of her still being around, multiple daydreams every day of a conversation you SHOULD be having with her, getting to say something you SHOULD be able to, and then the crushing understanding, every time, that no matter how much you wish she was, and how much she SHOULD be a part of your life, she's not and can't ever be again.

you are free to not post this if you want I am SUPER sorry if I killed your vibes with this, just like, explaining the appeal of anything exploring Roxy and her relationship to her mom. :D

ngl you do got me tearing up but I think looking through this lens is also important

Because like... Roxy *doesn't* get to see her mom. She gets to see an alternate young version of her mom, but the person she longs to see has actually died 400 years ago and while Rose is a nice addition, she's not a replacement

I'm really sorry this is something you have to deal with, but I'm glad you have Roxy to relate to. Seeing yourself in characters is super important

#ask jax #Anonymous #anon #jax yacks #not a poll #parental death mention

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angstyaches · 11 months

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A scene that comes before an early-days Shayne/Charlie hunger-related request. It became very long and plot-heavy, so I decided to split it in two, at least for now.

Takes place during the prologue, sometime after Shayne confronts Charlie’s demon and before Shayne visits Charlie at home for the first time. (Note for die-hard readers: “Rin’s Exposition Inquisition” is basically being retconned and no longer canon, because I want to develop her character and story a bit more slowly in the rewrite.)

Hunger/whump happens in part two (hopefully posted later today; if not, it’ll be next week because I’m travelling again this weekend).

CW: mentions of death, anxiety, insecurities, childhood trauma, food mention, horror elements (mentioned).

___

“Hey, Charmander.”

Charlie had been peacefully eating his ham and cheese sandwich when Rin Johnson swept up next to his desk. It was rare to see her without her band of pals these days, but she was alone.

Before he could even open his mouth to question her choice to call him by a Pokemon’s name, she pulled up the empty chair from the desk in front of Charlie’s, spinning it around to face him.

As she sat, she drew a couple of glances from some of Charlie’s classmates who’d formed little groups throughout the room. It wasn’t against the rules for students from other tutor groups to eat in another tutor group’s base classroom, but it was a little unusual. If people wanted to mingle, they went outside, or to the canteen, to eat. Rin usually went to the latter.

There was also the fact that as far as secondary school social hierarchy was concerned, Rin was considered royalty. Not quite a queen bee, but perhaps a princess.

“Charmander?” Charlie asked.

Rin smiled secretively, propping her lunch bag on an empty corner of Charlie’s desk. “We’re officially friends now, and I have a whole bunch of nicknames I want to try out on you.”

Her floral water bottle was placed on Charlie’s desk, too, while Rin rummaged in her lunch bag. She started tearing into the wrapping on her sandwich.

She hadn’t bothered to tie her hair in its usual space buns today, and it fell in fiery-orange waves around her shoulders. She had a small streak of pink glitter drawn across each eyelid, and she didn’t seem to have noticed that a speck of it was stuck to one of her glasses lenses.

She looked up at him, chewing. “You don’t even want to question me on the ‘us officially being friends now’ thing? I was getting ready to bribe you. I brought Tucs!”

In case he thought she was bluffing, she put down her sandwich, reached into her lunch bag again, and pulled out a snack-sized packet of salted crackers.

“You don’t have to bribe me, Rin,” Charlie smiled. “I already thought of you as my friend.”

She smiled in what seemed to be relief, which was a bit confusing to Charlie. What exactly had she expected to happen?

His gaze was drawn back to the packet of crackers she’d put on his desk. He remembered taking them to primary school to have as a snack, and he was suddenly in the mood to relive his youth. “Although, I do kind of want to open those.”

“Go for it! A bribe’s a bribe, even if it was unnecessary.”

Charlie picked up the packet and split the side of the wrapper. “Share them?”

“Sure.”

“When you really think about it,” Charlie said as he opened the packet, “I’m the one who should have been begging you to be my friend.”

Rin frowned.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Charlie grinned. “You’re so much cooler than I am, Rin. And even if you weren’t… I mean –” Charlie pulled a cracker out and used it to gesture all around him. There were about fifteen other students in the room, all convening at different points and at a considerable distance from Charlie’s desk. “I can’t exactly afford to be picky, can I?”

Rin bit into her sandwich and glanced around too, though she seemed to be looking for somebody, rather than following Charlie’s point.

“Well, we do have something essential in common, you and I,” she said around a mouthful. A conspiratorial look crossed her face as she swallowed and leaned in closer. “Something that binds us.”

Charlie bit back another smile, not wanting her to think he was laughing at her. He adored the way Rin could romanticise the mundane, or make a lunchtime chat feel like he was being indoctrinated to a secret society.

“Okay, well now I have to ask,” he said, crunching down on his Tuc. “What is it?”

“Rejection.” Rin wrinkled her nose, as though the word tasted bad in her mouth. “From the same boy.”

All of the heat, along with the remnants of his smile, left Charlie’s face. What the hell kind of rumours were going about now?!

“What – I haven’t – what are you talking about?”

Rin gave a thin smile and touched the back of Charlie’s hand. “Shayne Devine rejected my friendship, too. Only that was about… wow, I guess it was about twelve years ago.”

Charlie barely had time to settle his frantic heart – friendship, she’s just talking about friendship – before his head started reeling with this new information.

“You knew him twelve years ago?”

“Well, yeah. We went to primary school together.”

Charlie nodded, battling a sudden wave of despair. Of course. That made sense. Rin and Shayne had grown up in the same town. They knew each other from way back. Meanwhile, Charlie had never been in one place long enough to hold down a friendship for longer than a year, let alone know anybody from way back. The only people he knew from way back were family members, most of whom he wouldn’t have anything to do with if he wasn’t forced.

“I tried so hard to get him to be my friend, but he would never even come to my birthday parties.” Rin dropped the remnants of her sandwich back into her lunch bag and pulled a pot of yoghurt and a spoon.

Charlie nodded again. The birthday party thing was a big deal. Ingrid had insisted he go to every party he was invited to, even if he didn’t know the birthday kid for very long. Charlie had always suspected there was a political force behind children’s birthday parties. Like the more birthday parties your child attended, the better it reflected on you as a parent. He tucked that thought away for later interrogation.

Rin peeled the lid from her yoghurt pot and began licking it clean. Charlie realised he wasn’t even remotely surprised that she was the kind of person who did this.

“So, Shayne was always… the way he is?”

Rin tilted her head to one side. “Well, he was always extremely shy…”

Charlie struggled to swallow a mouthful of his food. After the number of insults he’d been handed by the person in question, he wondered how anyone could ever describe him as shy. He took another bite of his sandwich to keep himself from making a shady remark.

“But he wasn’t always so…” Rin glanced towards Shayne’s empty desk, as though it might be listening in and would report back to him later.

“Cranky?” Charlie suggested sheepishly.

Rin flinched. “Sure. Let’s go with that. That only happened after his parents died.”

Charlie nearly dropped his jaw, and a mouthful of his sandwich along with it. Nobody had ever mentioned this before. Charlie had known Shayne was adopted, but he hadn’t known that Shayne had once lived with his biological parents.

“They… died?”

Rin frowned. “You didn’t know?”

Charlie shook his head.

“Oh. Crap. Um, sorry, babe! I’m used to everybody knowing everything about everybody. But, yeah, they died when we were, like… I guess nine or ten.” Rin’s eyes became unfocused for a few seconds. “Well, let’s see. We had Miss O’Rourke as our teacher that year, I think… yeah, we were ten. It messed him up really badly.”

“I can imagine,” Charlie whispered numbly. Judging by the way she had started staring blankly into her yoghurt pot, Shayne’s parents’ death had probably affected Rin in some way, too. “Are you okay?”

She nodded and cleared her throat. “I guess what I was trying to say is that I get it. He acts like he doesn’t want anything to do with you, but he still sort of… pulls you towards him, doesn’t he?”

Yes. He didn’t trust himself to say it out loud, certain that he’d betray the depth of his feelings if he did.

He nodded.

“I guess I always thought it was just me.”

Charlie was entranced by how much this conversation seemed to be affecting Rin’s mood, like it was sucking her entire personality away from her. It must have been an extremely sad story...

Charlie stiffened as goosebumps rocketed up and down his body. No. No, it couldn’t be… Someone would have told him…

Right?

“Uh, Rin?”

She listlessly picked up a Tuc and popped it in her mouth. “Uh-huh?”

Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to. Charlie swallowed the fear in his throat. “Shayne’s parents weren’t involved in that… that tragedy that happened at Mulberry, were they?”

Rin’s eyes took on that glassy, faraway look again. Charlie thought she was going to slip into the habit that most people had, of avoiding that particular topic at any cost. He half expected her to tip her yoghurt all over his desk, exclaim about how clumsy she was, and run off to get some paper towels, only to never return.

“They…” She seemed to swallow with some difficulty. “They were kind of unusual, from what I remember. Shayne’s mum was… She was so beautiful and kind, but always carried this air of, like, sadness. But her pies were always the best thing at the school bake sales. I didn’t know much about his dad, but my dad got along well with him. I… I don’t think I stopped crying for a week after they…”

Charlie felt a lump in his own throat. He’d only been able to stomach reading a few details about the incident; he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to be a kid growing up in a town with a story like that attached to it.

But beneath his sadness, there was a pit of anger bubbling. How had no one thought to mention this to him before?

“Anyway.” Rin drew a circle in her yoghurt with her spoon. “Have you… Have you been out in the woods since you moved in?”

“No,” Charlie croaked. “They give me a weird feeling.”

Rin looked up, her spoon stilling. The absent look fled her eyes, leaving behind what could only be described as... desperation? Like she was teetering on the edge of a cliff, and the only person who could grab her and pull her to safety was Charlie.

Charlie was just relieved that some of that furtive intensity was coming back to her.

“What kind of feeling?” she whispered.

“I…” Charlie’s heart sank as he tried to gather the words. “I don’t know. It’s…”

Careful. The voice insisted. She doesn’t know.

She might know, Charlie thought, examining the interrogative look in Rin’s eyes.

She doesn’t.

She… kind of acts like she knows.

Charlie…

“It’s kind of like… I’ll walk up to the edge of the garden feeling normal, and as soon as I think about putting my foot over the line, it’s like this huge wave of nausea crashes over me. I look through those trees and it feels like… like I’m staring into the ribcage of some huge… decaying… corpse.”

Rin put down her yoghurt with an air of finality.

“Sorry,” Charlie muttered, placing the last section of his sandwich back in its box.

“No, no, you’re good.” Rin drummed her fingers against the table. “You know, everyone says there’s something weird about Mulberry, but as soon as you start getting into detail, they just...”

Charlie’s heart skipped a beat. Does she know? ... Maybe she knows.

“Crap! I have to go,” Rin exclaimed, glancing at her watch. “I completely forgot there’s a yearbook meeting today.”

She gave Charlie a pleading look, like she wanted to be rescued from something, as she packed away her lunch.

Charlie grimaced. “Um... sorry this turned so dark.”

“Oh – no, don’t be sorry for that.” Rin’s eyebrows knitted together. “You have any idea how much of a relief this was?”

“It… was kind of a relief,” Charlie said. This was the first time in weeks that he’d been given new information, either about his house or about his desk neighbour. He also hadn’t mentioned how much the woods at Mulberry unnerved him to anybody else, and he could feel a new lightness where it’d been weighing on his chest.

He didn’t really know what made it a relief for Rin, but that was what he liked about her company. They seemed to understand each other’s emotions, even if it wasn’t clear how they’d arisen.

I’ll tell her, he realised. I’ll tell her everything. Another time.

“You have my number, right?” he asked.

“I – yeah, I think so.”

“Do you want to come over this weekend?”

Rin raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Please. I’ll text you.”

“Cool.” Charlie watched Rin scoop up her bag. “Have fun at your meeting.”

“With a room of self-obsessed control freaks? How could I not have fun, Charlie Bear?” Rin tilted her head as she stood up. A hint of her smile crept back. “Hey, I like that one.”

#StW Rin #StW Charlie #Swallow the World #OC stuff #plot stuff #death mention #parental death mention #horror #horror mention

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