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etherealvibespls · 3 years

Text

till the stars fall out of the sky

Hi. It's been almost two years but I hope you enjoy this short + messy krii7y piece :)

The thing about it being the end of the world is how little time there is to prepare. No matter how many people seem ready with their canned foods and underground bunkers, or even the discarded pamphlets scattered throughout the streets filled with government advice as if, maybe, those in power had an idea of what was to come, no one is actually prepared for what they’re faced with; the end of everything.

And it’s terrifying.

Smitty had so many plans. A few weeks ago those plans held some dread, had his heart skipping at just the mere idea of change, and yet now his heart only aches.

In front of him the website mocks him. The screen is dim to preserve the little battery he has left in his laptop, but the floor plan of the apartment is still too bright, painting a pointless fantasy for his eyes to gaze longingly at.

He should have moved by now, but his fear kept him back. Rooted him in what he’s familiar with.

Now it’s too late.

A quiet ding snaps him out of his haze and the second his eyes settle on the notification the knot in his chest loosens, smoothed out by the person miles and miles away.

John (10:02): so it turns out the world really is ending

Smitty snorts. To his embarrassment, there’s already a smile stretching across his face.

Smitty (10:03): you’re just now realizing?

John (10:03): i mean can you blame me? how was i supposed to know all those youtube videos were real? but today i actually left the house for the first time in like, two weeks and it looks like i’m in hell

John (10:04): at first i thought i was dead because what the fuck, right? the sky is fucking red, but then i saw someone walking their dog as if it were normal so now i’m assuming this is what everyone’s been talking about

Smitty (10:04): have i ever told you i hate you

John (10:05): uh hello? what the fuck

Smitty (10:05): i’ve been stressed out of my fucking mind and you’ve been clueless this entire time?? go fuck yourself john. like actually take that dildo you thought i forgot about and fuck. off.

John (10:06): HELLO ? you said you’d never bring that up

Smitty (10:07): the world is ending dickhead. i’m allowed to embarrass you one last time

Smitty bites at the inside of his cheek, suppressing the urge to laugh as he waits for his friend’s response. It takes longer for John to reply this time but he’s probably writing a paragraph that makes absolutely no sense and only serves to insult Smitty whichever way he can.

After a quiet minute, John finally responds.

John (10:08): don’t say that

Smitty blinks, not expecting such a short reply.

Smitty (10:08): don’t say what?

Half of him is still expecting this to lead into a snarky remark and he prepares for John’s little ha-ha, got you, but by John’s next message, it’s clear he’s no longer joking.

In an instant, the mood has not only shifted into something serious, but into pure heartbreak as well.

John (10:09): “one last time”

John (10:09): it makes it sound like you’ve already lost hope

Smitty (10:09): john…there’s nothing left for us. they’ve done all they can but there’s no fixing something so completely destroyed, and at some point you just have to accept that it’s over

John (10:10): this isn’t the end

A pause.

John (10:10): i still haven’t met you yet

Smitty releases a long, shaky breath. He’s tried so hard to not think of the mistake he made those weeks ago, yet it seems like there’s always something to remind him of it.

It’s possible John isn’t even mentioning it now, but Smitty is so consumed by guilt that his mind wanders there regardless. The end of the world hanging over everyone’s head has only made it worse, dug it up again and shoved it into his every waking thought, constantly reminding him of what could’ve been.

Mocking the opportunity he ruined.

Smitty (10:12): i’m sorry. i should be there.

John (10:12): you don’t have to keep apologizing, smit. you had your reasons

Smitty shakes his head in disbelief at the message, biting down hard on his lip the moment his eyes begin to burn, blinking back unshed tears.

He hates how nice John is. How even as they face down their last days on earth there isn’t a part of him that’s angry, or at the very least, disappointed.

Smitty (10:13): my reasons were selfish and stupid and it’s because of them that we have to message each other as the world literally crumbles around us

John (10:14): being alone does suck, and it would’ve been nice to have some company, but i still don’t blame you

It probably isn’t supposed to come across as tragic as it does, but Smitty’s shoulders sag with grief anyway.

Briefly his eyes flick over to the corner of his laptop, locking onto the battery life. His heart twists painfully, constricting tight as it flashes, down to its remaining minutes of life.

John (10:16): you know...i still look at it sometimes

John (10:16): it probably sounds so lame but sometimes i imagine how it would’ve been. i’m not a morning person but i think you could’ve made me one, and you hate staying up late but i think i could’ve shown you why sometimes i never fall asleep

John (10:17): i even imagine how it would’ve been decorated. like, from the pictures you’ve sent me of your place it looks so plain and i think about all the trips we’d have to go on before we could agree on some simple shit just for the living room. but i wouldn’t want you to feel bad about your taste or anything so i’d probably let you pick out a bunch of things anyway

Smitty presses his face into his shoulder for just a moment, overcome by so many emotions. A part of him can guess where this is going and his chest nearly caves in at the thought, knows why it’s happening now, of all times.

Smitty (10:19): ... i look at it everyday, imagining the same

Smitty (10:19): i was looking at it before you messaged earlier...can you believe it’s still available? how has no one else wanted it?

John (10:20): because it was always meant to be ours

Ours.

His gaze drifts back to the floor plan still on the screen, and not for the last time, he yearns. He thinks even after everything is said and done, his longing will ripple through the endless void of space.

Thinks heartache as great as his can never die, instead linger like a mournful ghost that will haunt even the brightest stars.

Smitty (10:21): i’m sorry i ruined it

John (10:22): i’m sorry i didn’t try harder

Smitty (10:22): john, none of this is your fault. it was my idea and i couldn’t even go through with it

Smitty (10:23): we had so many plans and i shattered them all because i was too scared to leave

John (10:24): but i wanted it more than i ever admitted, and instead of fighting to get you here i didn’t say anything

Smitty (10:24): i wanted this to happen more than you think, believe me. but we know how my thoughts can get, so i don’t think there was anything you could’ve said that would’ve change my mind

John (10:25): what about i love you?

Smitty startles, but he would be lying if he said he didn’t expect this. His stomach still does a silly little swoop, the butterflies that are always present when he talks with John suddenly coming to life, fluttering rapidly.

Smitty (10:25): john?

John (10:26): if the world is going to end no matter what, then fuck it right? i’ve been keeping my mouth shut for over two years and even if now is probably the worst time because i can’t see your face and my laptop is about to die, i can’t go out without telling you i’ve been in love with you for half the time i’ve known you

John (10:27): and the time before that i really, really, really liked you

Smitty chokes on his tears, stopped caring about holding them back the second he saw i love you.

Smitty (10:27): me too

Smitty (10:27): i think i’ve been in love with you since you first messaged me that stupid one-liner about artists

John (10:28): oh god, i forgot that was the first thing i sent you

John (10:28): in my defense i was extremely bored and your page was filled with memes, i thought you would’ve enjoyed it

Smitty (10:29): i fucking loved it

John (10:30): i regretted it the moment you sent me a pic of yourself for the first time, though

Smitty (10:30): what? why?

John (10:31): because you were prettiest person i’d ever seen and i hated that the first message i sent you was about dicks

Smitty laughs, the sound croaky and awful and usually he’d be embarrassed about the noise but he sits alone in his living room, completely consumed by the messages and the guy sending them.

Smitty (10:32): who would’ve known that would be the way into my heart

John (10:32): after about a week of talking to you i knew

John (10:33): i think that’s when i started falling in love

Smitty (10:33) god, i hate that we’re saying this now. i wish both of us said something sooner

John (10:34): yeah...it would’ve been nice to finally hold you, but i’m happy you finally know

John (10:34): and no matter what happens from now till...the end, i want you to know i love you

John (10:35): i always have, and i always will

i love you-

The screen flickers once before it fades to black, the battery completely drained. Smitty’s fingers hover over the keyboard, his pinky so close to hitting ‘enter’.

It takes longer than it should to register in his brain, and for a few minutes Smitty sits and stares at the screen. He blinks rapidly through his tears, can still see i love you every time he blinks but his heart beats wildly, aware of the inky darkness surrounding him and the deafening silence, no longer interrupted by the quiet dings of messages.

Like a dam finally unleashed, his tears fall at once and a sob racks through his body, forcefully pushed out of his quivering mouth. With his legs curled to his chest and his face buried in his bony knees, he cries out in anguish, fingers clutching his sweatpants like a lifeline.

He doesn’t move, stays curled in the corner of his couch long enough to see the last bits of sunrise fall over his furniture, and stays even longer to hear the shouts of panic outside his front door, aware but uncaring, of everything ending around him.

--------

Based off the prompt: “So the sky is still raining fire and meteors, and my laptop is running low on battery, but I wanted to say that I like you, a lot. Even though we haven’t ever talked in real life, if this is the end of the world then I’m really happy that I got to meet you.”

#krii7y #i was going through my old documents of fic ideas and prompts #and came across this one #and for some reason i couldn't stop thinking about krii7y #so even though i'm not really in this fandom anymore #and i haven't written a krii7y fic in actual years #i couldn't resist #this is also my first time writing angst in many #many years #idk what was going through my head #sorry #i don't think it was too bad though since it was pretty messy #but that's what happens when you don't write in forever #anyways #if you read the story #and you're reading these tags #i hope you enjoyed the story #writings

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crystalxfrost · 3 years

Text

To Live or To Die

I gripped my steering wheel tightly, knuckles bone-white with tension, shoulders bunched up and sore. The road spun out endlessly under my tires, a strip of slick black silk painted with bold yellow lines. My eyes noticed and then promptly ignored the beauty of the dark-washed scenery around me; there was only one room for one thought in my mind.

I had been at the end of my rope for some time now, but still too much of a coward to just turn out my own lights. I had tried therapy, only for the bitch to laugh and tell me I was beyond help. I had tried talking to the people in my life, but my own parents just shrugged it off. I had even tried drugs and alcohol to drown my depression, but I had found out the hard way that it wasn't the right road to go down. I had been debating over the best method of my execution when a friend of mine I hadn't heard from in years messaged me out of the blue.

After some very emotional pouring out that left me feeling drained but somewhat relieved, my friend gave me some information that had led me to where I am now, driving down Route 236 in the middle of the night. She had told me to come to the beginning of the highway and just drive and think about my feelings and my depression, let it really take me over. Then, she'd said, that's when SHE would come and make it all better.

I remember pressing her on who SHE was, but she wouldn't tell me. She just said that SHE would come only when I was at the very very end and couldn't stand it anymore and that SHE would take all the hurt away. She had made it abundantly clear that for the entire time SHE was with me, I was not to look at her or I would belong to her. As long as I kept my eyes away, I would be fine...I would be healed. Desperate for any relief from the impending shadow of my own death, I had agreed.

I scoured the shadowed landscape around me for any sign of movement but saw nothing. My fingers clenched even tighter as hot tears prickled behind my eyes and my chest hitched, and suddenly I was bawling out loud, great big gasping sobs that racked my body and forced me to struggle for breath. I pulled over blindly on the side of the highway, threw the car in park, buried my face in my hands and just openly sobbed. It was like expressing poison from a snake bite; an enormous weight lifted off my chest in a flood of emotional downpour as I cried out every bit of hurt I'd ever struggled to push down.

In the midst of my sobs, the temperature in my car dropped noticeably, and even in the dry heat of the desert summer, goosebumps rose to prominence on my arms. A cold chill wormed its way up my spine and between my shoulderblades with an icy fingertip and my breath hung in the air like frozen crystal vapors. Then the voice spoke from behind me, murmuring soft things I could almost hear.

Immediately my hair stood on end. The voice, which I had been somewhat expecting to be deep and powerful, was little more than a high-pitched whisper of breath that drifted to my ears from somewhere beyond my vision. But it felt...wrong. My entire being screamed at me to not turn around, not to lay my eyes on whatever was currently occupying my back seat because to do so would mean the instant loss of whatever sanity I had left. And all at once, I knew that SHE had come.

As if in response to my mental acknowledgement of the heavy presence, a soft breath drifted to my ears, but with it came the sickening stench of a thousand rotting corpses under a blanket of desert sun, and I was unable to stop myself. I threw open the car door and emptied the last three days worth of food from my stomach in a splatter on the pavement.

After my stomach had settled, the voice came again. "I can taaaaaste your paaaiiin." Then a hiss like an indrawn breath. "What issss it you waaant from meeee? "

I had had a million things to ask, a million points of hurt I wanted to spill, but that all vanished in an instant, leaving only white hot honesty. With tears threatening to fall again, I sighed brokenly. "I want it to stop hurting."

There was silence, followed by a darkly throaty chuckle that made me want to scream. "Isss that all? Coommme. I want to shhhhooowww you sssomethinnng." The back door of my car opened then and I physically felt the oppressive presence leave my aura. Careful to keep my eyes averted, I followed the voice over to the side of the road. I sensed rather than saw her raise an arm and point down into the darkness. "Look theeerrre."

I squinted out into the darkness and was able to barely make out a pair of glowing taillights far down below. With horror I realized that there was no footing there, only an endless void of darkness down a sheer face. I stepped back, a lump in my throat, and turned back for the comfort of my car, but when I turned around, my car was gone.

Sputtering and stammering, I nearly forgot myself then, turning in the general direction of the voice. I managed to catch myself just as a flash of white flickered into and back out of my view. "Where is my car?"

Again I sensed her point down at those suddenly damning twin spots of flame red so far down in the darkness. "That is yoooouuuu down theerre. You drove yourssssself off the cliiiiffff."

"No, no, no, no..." I pressed my hands hard against my ears and squeezed my eyes shut in a weak attempt to block out her lies, but all at once, freezing cold hands were on mine, forcing my hands down to my sides and unblocking my ears, and her rancid breath flooded my nostrils with the odor of rot. I swallowed my gorge and forced my eyes shut even tighter, my friend's warning standing out in stark white against the blank whirling fury of my mind.

"You wanted to die, did you not?!" The voice was no longer a breathy whisper, but a deep roar of monstrous proportions. The force of the voice blew my hair back and showered my face with foul-smelling spittle. I felt the cold hands move up and grip me by my upper arms, and suddenly I knew what was coming next. I struggled to twist away from those freezing cold hands.

"No, please..."

The voice boomed again, "You wanted to die. So DIE!" And with that, I was thrown violently out off the cliff and into the void of darkness. I snapped my eyes open and screamed, covering my face with my arms and fighting to brace for impact, and when it finally came...

...I crashed against the surface and plummeted down underneath the freezing cold water. Disoriented, sore from the impact and still screaming, I clawed my way up to the surface, my scream choking off when I felt the icy hand grip my ankle and pull me down, hold me down under the water. I kicked at the fingers that dug into the tender skin of my ankle but it was like kicking stone. My lungs burned in my chest and I felt myself start to gray out. My vision went dark, and I opened my mouth to scream. The water poured down my throat and into my lungs, and just as my lungs felt like they were about to explode...

...I was hauled out of the water by more hands I couldn't see, which pulled me to my feet none too gently. I was surrounded by yammering voices, some men and some women, and was soaking wet and gasping for air, but the invisible hands that gripped me forced me along anyway to a wooden pole standing upright all by itself. The voices around me began to clear up even as I felt more hands press my back up against the pole. My hands were then tied behind me with thick rough rope that dug deep and scraped my wrists raw. It was then that I heard the chant begin spreading.

"Burn the witch...burn the witch...burn the witch..."

"Wait...what?!" I cried out, fighting to get free of the ropes that lashed me fast to the hard post behind me, to no avail. "I'm not a witch!"

"Tha's wot they all say," an invisible woman's voice jeered in my ear. "But yer a witch just as clear as I c'n see ya. 'n guess wot? Yer goin ta buuuuurn." The voices around me melted back into a wordless clamor...and then I felt the heat and looked down in horror. A flame had already been drawn to life in the pile of wood that now surrounded my feet, and the yellow-red tongues climbed higher, licking at my feet hungrily. I screamed in pain as my pants caught fire and my skin began to bubble and char as the fabric seared to my very flesh. In mere moments I was reduced to helpless agony as I felt my flesh melting off of my bones, leaving huge exposed sections of sinewy muscle and bone for the fire to take. And still the voices clamored on.

It was when my hair caught fire and my face begin to first grow warm, then melt into liquid puddles of pulpy flesh, that I found a new voice, carried on new waves of fresh pain. The flames consumed my entire body, and as I felt myself dying and was ready to give in to the sweet release of death...

...the car blared its horn as it missed me by a hair, goddamn asshole city drivers. I was no longer wet, nor on fire, but I was terrified nonetheless. I scanned my surroundings wildly but saw only a busy street filled with the hustle and bustle of the city's nightlife. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so I took a few seconds to prepare myself for whatever horrible thing might happen next.

A footstep next to me made me jerk wildly, and I glanced up to see a large man in a mask staring down at me where I was sitting. That in itself wasn't terrible. What made it much worse was the dark empty tunnel of the gun barrel that was pointed directly at my forehead. The man pulled the hammer back slowly, and when I heard the bullet enter the chamber, I froze.

"Please..." I breathed, every muscle as taut as wire. "Please...don't kill me."

The man's eyes remained locked on mine. His breathing came heavy and ragged, and when he spoke, his voice was deep and gravelly. "Do exactly what I say and I'll let you live." I let out a shaky whimper as he gripped my arm and forced me to my feet, then propelled me into the nearest dark doorway. The next thing I knew, he was on me then, grunting like a beast in heat.

The hand with the gun stayed pointed at my head while the man pushed me down with the other hand onto the hard concrete floor. I struggled to get away, but the icy hands once again gripped me by the shoulders and pinned my legs apart, through the floor somehow, and I found myself powerless to move. The man straddled me then, dripping sweat onto me as he fumbled clumsily for his knife. Almost teasingly, he snapped the blade out, turning it back and forth a few times so the light caught the silver blade's edge. Then with a few unskilled cuts, he cut through my shirt, my bra and my pants, leaving me only in my underwear. And still the hands held me down, that breathy voice now laughing wickedly in my mind.

The man turned the blade then even as I screamed and fought against the hands that pinned me down and slid the blade underneath the bottom of my underwear. With a sudden sharp jerk, he jabbed me lightly with the blade on the inside of my thigh and I bit back a sob of fear. Then he simply turned the blade again and cut through my underwear, leaving me now fully exposed and powerless to escape.

Thankfully, I blacked out before the man was done, but the torture and abuse was something I'd only ever heard about or read in books. I was used several times in several different ways as the man acted out every one of his depraved fantasies on me, and when he was finally finished and was pulling up his jeans, I looked up at him through swollen eyes from where I lay on the floor, bleeding and bruised, and he returned the look, not one of pity, but of disgust. "You probably liked that, didn't you, you filthy whore?" he growled.

Too weak to move, I simply lay there shivering and aching, and he clicked his tongue in disgust. My vision grayed out even as I felt myself fading out, but was brought back swiftly and in sharp relief by the sound of the gun cocking back. I managed to look back at him again to see that the gun was once more trained on my head.

With all my strength, I whispered through battered and cracked lips, "You said...you...wouldn't kill me...if I did...what you wanted."

The man shrugged. "I lied." I somehow found the strength to scream once more, squeezing my eyes shut.

"Nooo! Please, that's enough! I don't want to die anymore!" The gunshot was deafening in the tiny room and I tensed, waiting for the bullet to tear my skull apart...

...but instead, I found myself standing back on the edge of the cliff in the darkness. I was whole, and not naked, or drowned, or burned, but most of all, I was alive, and never before in my life had I been so happy to be on solid ground. I stumbled back in relief, sobbing openly again but with celebration of my life, and felt the familiar and welcome smooth texture of the door of my car.

The voice came then from somewhere in the darkness, once more that terribly wrong high-pitched whisper. "You no looonnngggeer wish to diiiieee?" Unable to answer, I could only keep my head down. "Tell me noooowww!" the voice whispered demandingly. "Will your life become miiiinnne? Make the chooooiiiccce!"

I shook my head back and forth furiously. "No! Never! I want to live! I want to live!" Sobbing harder, I dropped to my knees, and I felt the icy hand touch me gently on the top of my head.

"Then live you shaaaalll. But jussst know that I will allllwwaayys be watching you. And should you eeeeevvveer decide to taaaakkke your own liiiifffe again, I will be theeerre, and you wiiilll belong to meeeee." The hand drew back. "Now goooo. Go and never eeeevvveer come back!"

I needed no more coaching. I leaped into my car, shoved the key into the ignition and slammed my foot down on the pedal, spinning my tires wildly as I peeled off in the direction I had come earlier that night.

I have heard some say that their guardian angel saved them, sat on their shoulder and protected them from some danger. But what about when all the guardian angels are busy? I still say it was a demon that saved my life that night, that pulled me back from my dark thoughts and made me realize that my life is worth it. And who knows? Maybe if someday another one like me happens to feel like their life is as worthless as I thought mine was, maybe they'll find Route 236, and maybe they'll meet HER too. And maybe, just maybe, they'll be braver than I was.

#spooky #creepy #horror

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breakingsomething · 4 years

Text

and a day

brief summary: jackie has to stop marvin from making a terrible mistake.

trigger warnings: none

jackie had never been more scared in his entire life. not because of the monster sitting on a tree branch a foot or so above him, not because of the looming trees and empty, ominous forest, not because of the swirling, colourful vortex filling the void of blackness in front of him, but because he might be about to lose his brother for good.

marvin stared at him. there was no expression on his face, nothing to indicate that he was feeling anything apart from the way his fists clenched and unclenched, and he blew at his hair out the corner of his mouth. jackie had lived with him long enough to recognize his nervous habits, and took them as a desperate sign that there was a chance he could save him, a chance he could get him back. “marvin,” he pleaded, taking a small step forward, hand outstretched. marvin stepped back with him, towards the portal he’d conjured. “this isn’t you. please, don’t listen to him, he’s been influencing you, what he’s saying isn’t true-”

“you goddamn idiot,” marvin said quietly, and somehow it was the most painful thing he could have said in that moment. “you don’t get it, do you.”

he didn’t phrase it as a question.

“no, i don’t!” jackie cried. marvin said nothing. he could hear the monster laughing up in the tree, but jackie refused to look at or acknowledge him. don’t give him power. don’t give him power. “explain it to me, please!”

marvin chuckled dryly. blood dripped from his nose and onto his torn purple shawl. he tilted his head, his hands still opening and closing. “i’ve tried explaining it to you, jackie. you don’t listen, you never fucking-”

“you’re being reckless and stupid-”

“and there you go again!” marvin suddenly shouted, and the change of tone in his voice made jackie jump, almost stumbling back into a tree behind him. marvin took a step, his boot crunching the leaves that were somehow dry despite the rain pouring down. “you think you’re the only one who knows anything!”

marvin’s eyes glowed, white light seeping from his sockets like smoke and disappearing in the portal, like it was consuming his energy. “you’re always so- so- you’re such a fucking know it all! just because you’ve been in this world the longest doesn’t mean you know more!” his voice was getting higher and higher pitched, at some points not sounding like his voice at all.

jackie stayed still, remaining on his guard. “marvin.” he said calmly, despite the fear making his heart pound in his ears. “marvin, please-”

“no!” marvin screamed, and his eyes lit up with an endless black before turning white again. magic dripped off his body like candle wax and burned the leaves at his feet like a flame. “no, i’ll-”

“i’m going to listen to you!” jackie shouted. marvin went silent, blank eyes wide.

jackie took this as a good sign. “i’m going to listen to you,” he murmured, calmer now. “tell me whatever you have to.”

for a moment, marvin was silent. then he said “i know and understand things that you could never even begin to comprehend.”

jackie had so many things to say, but he said none of them.

“i’m tired of playing pretend.” marvin’s voice broke, and for a moment he was just a young man, lost and terrified out of his mind, with no memory of a life outside of his brother. “i don’t want to be used anymore. i don’t want to be a prop, a toy not taken out of its box in case it’s damaged, a puppet.” he spat the last word out with venom. tears were welling in his eyes, and for a moment jackie could see the blue through them. still he said nothing. he let marvin speak.

open, close, went marvin’s hands.

“he fucked us over.” he said flatly. he blinked, and the tears were gone, as was the blue in his eyes. “left us to die once we were no longer needed. he didn’t even give me a name, jackie, for over a year after i was created. you never even got a name. you just took his, and you were content with that. well, i wasn’t.

“anti made mistakes,” marvin continued. “but isn’t it you who always said people can change? no one is stuck one way forever.”

jackie couldn’t stay silent a second longer. “he’s killed people, marvin!”

“so has henrik,” marvin said without missing a beat.

jackie spluttered. “that’s- that’s different!”

marvin laughed again. blood was starting to seep from the corners of his eyes as well. he didn’t notice. “how? how is it different?” a grin with no joy behind it spread across his face. “are you mad cause you know i’m right, you know anti is no different from us?”

“marvin!” jackie sobbed. he threw all caution to the winds and rushed towards his brother, intending to- what? what had he been intending to do? he’d never find out, because marvin threw his hands out and blasted jackie onto his back, knocking air out of his lungs. his head landed square on the base of a tree trunk and he groaned in agony, his vision blurring as black spots swirled in front of his eyes.

“very good, marvin!” came anti’s voice. jackie startled, and frantically tried to scramble to his feet. anti had glitched down from his treetop perch where he’d been listening and was making his way towards marvin, who had turned to him with an empty expression.

anti lay a hand on marvin’s shoulder and grinned.

“don’t fucking touch him!” jackie exploded, rocketing up despite the pain, and threw a punch at anti without thinking. something blocked him, something held onto his hand tightly, forcing it away from a smug looking anti, forcing it back down to his side. marvin, using ropes of magic to restrain jackie. he no longer looked angry or sad, just concerned.

“jackie,” he said softly. “jackie, you don’t understand. i get it now! i get it. he was using us all along!”

“he’s using you!” jackie screeched, pointing at anti, who mockingly gestured to himself with a fake look of shock and hurt on his face. marvin glanced at his younger brother, who dropped the act to smile reassuringly at him. that infuriated jackie even more. “please-”

“jack didn’t want us.” marvin interrupted. “but anti can become more powerful than he is, he can take control of our storylines and fix them!” he looked jackie right in the eye pleadingly. “don’t you want chase and henrik to be happy again, to see their kids and stop drinking and live fulfilling lives? don’t you want what’s best for them, jackie?”

something heavy settled in jackie’s stomach. he felt like his heart was tearing itself apart, and he struggled to get out the words inside of him for the lump in his throat.

“not like this.” he whispered, tears rolling down his face. “please, marvin, you can fight him off, you’re more powerful that him, you can fight him, he’s manipulating you, he’s-”

marvin lifted his arm and in one swift motion, shut jackie’s mouth with a band of magic.

“i can make my own decisions.”

and jackie was wrong, that was the most painful thing he could have said.

there were tears mixed with blood on marvin’s cheeks. jackie couldn't see his irises or pupils anymore. his eyes were blank, yet somehow contained all the pain of a nameless young man who had no recollection of ever existing before the moment an oblivious youtuber used him as a prop in a stupid skit for views.

anti sighed. “ok, can we wrap this up? places to be, people to see, you know?” he grabbed marvin’s arm and pulled him backwards. “come on, mag, let’s fucking go already-”

“i love you,” jackie sobbed suddenly. the magic wasn’t holding him back from saying the words he most needed to say. “so goddamn much.”

anti huffed and looked bored, inspecting at his reflection in his knife. marvin stared somewhere past jackie, scarlet red staining his face.

“and no matter what stupid decisions you make,” jackie said, reaching forwards to touch marvin’s arm gently, “i will always love you. i will always care for you. i would always give up for my life for you, whatever the situation. until the day the fucking moon explodes, ok?”

marvin looked straight at him. jackie didn’t know how he could tell, but he did.

open, close, open.

“forever and ever,” marvin said.

jackie smiled through the physical and mental agony that was destroying him from the inside out.

“and a day.”

marvin and anti were gone.

jackie fell to his knees and screamed, a guttural scream of agony and grief, a sound he didn’t think possible for a human to make.

overhead, the rain fell, but not on jackie. the thick treetops make it impossible for anything to get through, including the light of the moon.

jackie wished he could see the moon.

#jacksepticeye #marvin the magnificent #jackieboy man #antisepticeye #boop writes #this hurt to write....so badly #arc one: before the storm

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scartissuesoul · 4 years

Text

Terrible Dawn

a work in progress. call it fiction.

This is the first part in a series i hope. Try not to take it too seriously, even though i consider it ‘real’, it is anecdotal only.

----

I couldn’t tell you what year it is. I couldn’t even tell you what universe. It’s a dream, or at least, i really want it to be. I sit at the beginning of eternity, just outside the unreality of the infinite singularity that shines everywhere with a light unlike anything that has come before it, at least in this causal timeline. It isn’t ‘light’ as I understand it, but it IS bright. So bright. Like sitting in a unlimited white void. There are no shadows, but there IS a sense of ‘other than brightness’ to some of the shapes i see. Yes, there are shapes here at the beginning of everything. In fact, sitting cross legged right in front of me is a strange looking person. Hard edged, like i’m not quite seeing them right, they have an odd blue tinge to them, as though they are suffused by a sky-blue light, coming from nowhere and everywhere that they exist. I cannot quite describe it, it almost looks like they’ve been outlined in blue pencil, like a drawing made for an image scanner.

They face away from me, sitting slightly lower than i do. I cannot tell who i am, now can i move, i can only stare unblinkingly at the back of this mystery person. Small, lightly built, they look almost like a pre-teen, but i feel strongly that they are possibly billions of years old, as though someone is speculating in my mind as to how they can exist here, in this non-place, non-time that nothing can *quite* exist in. It is not a voice, but it does have presence of ‘other’ that signals to me that these are not my thoughts, but the thoughts of another being seeing through my eyes. I am briefly afraid, but my own personal ‘self’ is being minimized somehow, as though i am something to be ignored by all parties, including myself.

My senses focus on the stranger before me once again, and i am drawn into a kind of narrative, as though the ‘other’ is telling themselves (certainly not I) a story. They begin by pointing out that the person in front is empty, void of living thought, much as i was before i awoke here (-wait, before?-) and have sat in this exact ‘spot’ since before matter and energy existed, in a time before time as it were. The mind ‘thinks’ again, now the only source of information i have as it has completely subsumed who i was before it started speaking, as though my own mind has been crowded out, squashed against the boundaries of thought; it remarks in a self reflective way that this person still sitting motionless in front of me, will sit here, watching time and space unfold for endless eons, until the last stars wink out and the darkness eats it’s own sense of itself and time stops. They will sit here, motionless, thoughtless, unable to think, move, react or feel anything, yet sensing everything that can or could happen from this one, singular perspective, remembering events without ever truly contemplating them, like a recording machine made into a person. Yet it was the opposite, as i am now learning. This person is being punished.

There is no obvious reason given for this, yet i sense a deep hatred for them, as though these two people have known each other for a long time. The enmity feels almost sadistic; i find it deeply petty, the ravings of an abuser convincing themselves of the righteousness of their actions. I don’t sense any actual crime, other than perhaps being simply too much of a bother in some previous conflict.

As this occurs, my ‘eyes’ (-are these eyes? am i seeing?-) are drawn past the seated figure, to the brightness beyond, toward the horizon. There before us, a strange off-white ‘fog’ is just barely visible against the unbelievable brightness of the background. It undulates like some strange cloud, and strange shapes appear as barely darker silhouettes, a kind of ghostly mirage of shape and shadow amidst the bleakness. I don’t understand what i’m seeing, there simply isn’t enough detail in these flat colored silhouettes, and they constantly fade in and out even as they move across my field of vision, until i see a familiar shape; a frond sitting at the top of a tree. A strange tree to be sure, but a tree....and there, other trees with strange leaves and huge fronds. i can’t make out enough to identify even the region these trees might be from before they ghost away to be replaced by other strange shapes, some truly terrifying in their implications; for there, striding into view is what i can only describe as some sort of sauropod. Huge, neck like an arch, standing easily half again as high as the trees, it too fades away before i can even register my shock, let alone understand. My mind is an iceberg, and i cannot think, but the answer is supplied for me. ‘This is not the past, but instead, Possibility. That which can happen, and indeed will, but remains but a line, a vector in a greater whole.’

As the presence, the ‘mind’ if you will, withdraws somewhat from my own, i am given just enough room to think, ‘Why show me this?’ before the scene gains a sense of imminent location shift. Someone out of my vision places a chained metal collar on the neck of the seated person ahead of me. As i watch, my mind a wooden dummy unable to even feel shock, the other mind firmly grasps ‘me’ and we move forward into the mist. The scenery blurs around me as, with an almost vindictive anger, the other presence guides us toward even move unfamiliar shadows and shapes. I get the strong sense that once we arrive, it will no longer be Possibility, but reality, as we move not through space but ‘time’.(-they lie, enough of me remains to know this. causality doesn’t work like that.-). But as we move, a terrible chill moves down my ‘spine’ (-what spine? i can’t even tell if i have a body here-) i realize that i am no longer surrounded by some ancient forest, but strange and terrible shapes. some so confusing my mind rejects them as noise, a few actually look to be made of static in places. And a few, soul crushing shapes are all too familiar. I am allowed to feel fear.

One, huge, black silhouette (-when did they get darker? what happened to the brightness?-) which i can only describe as a 10foot tall preying mantis with ‘feathers’ (-filaments? hairs? they don’t ‘move’ right-) stands upright before me, staring down. As i watch the last of the brightness fades and the sky turns completely black above a plain of flat obsidian. The horizon shrinks away and becomes a distant, dim line of light, illuminating nothing yet giving a sense of spacial awareness, without it total disorientation sets in. The shape before me gradually fills in, shadow becoming more and more detailed until with an almost electric pulse the color arrives, and i find myself faintly disappointed to see that it is mostly green with few accents. I am also coldly terrified.

The ‘feathers’ of earlier resolve into what looks like movable strips of chitin covering it’s body, like a fan cloak. It’s head and ‘face’ are covered with them, and they begin to shift to either side, as though parting. What i can only hope is a mouth reveals itself behind them, and opens wide. I feel a distinct sense that this being wants to eat me, not for sustenance, but for hate’s sake alone. My fear spikes as my minds eye sees it lunge toward me in a vicious strike, yet the being doesn’t even move, except to start shaking, a kind of whole body vibration. A terrible atonal buzzing fills my ‘ears’ (-i can hear?!?-) and the strange movable chitin strips wave about the beings mouth as it’s torso bobs in a strange dance. The other presence in my mind (-it’s more a voice now, less a thought-), in hateful satisfaction informs me that it is laughing. And indeed, even now i can ‘feel’ it’s thoughts, it’s intentions. It HATES me. I wants me dead a million times over, but i will never see death. I will suffer for eternities yet unimagined. It finally has me, and i will never leave/die/live. It’s victory is complete. I understand none of this, only feeling certain that i have in some way interfered with this being and it’s plans, and for that there is no forgiveness. I shall be made an example for all to see, and yet i shall remain alone, forever. As the terrifying shape before me fades back into the darkness, the other presence delights in reminding me of what i have forgotten (-fled from? been removed?-), what i have been fleeing from my entire life, a truth so terrible i cannot even comprehend it without panic overtaking reason and leaving me catatonic; that person who i saw earlier chained at the beginning of time, their mind and body a prison that will see them to the end of all existence and leave them there....

Was me.

Sheer panic unlike anything before overtakes me, and i REMEMBER. I remember terrible, unspeakable things, things done to me and things i have done, people lost to me and others in ways that cause a distant yet all too familiar shrieking to start up. I remember fighting and losing my first battle at 5, as my own mother is eaten alive by the dismantlers (-TERRIBLE NOISES THE SCREAMING I CANT-), i remember my world being consumed. I remember BEING consumed, a feeling like no other, a feeling that brings back another memory, a kind of state of being that is half sense of self and half need to die at any cost, and with that memory comes yet another terrible revelation; that was only the beginning. I remember going insane for millennia as the swarm consumes world after world, living person after living person, tearing through the stars with a hunger like a scream in the night. I remember ‘eating’ people, plunging my ‘arms’ and ‘hands’ into their bodies, hearing those mind destroying screams erupting from their lungs as their bodies are literally striped down past the radius of the proton, to the subatomic level, where the mind and the body interconnected. I remember screaming along with them, the direct connection between techno-organic machinery and mind causing complete and total empathy with the destroyed. I scream a scream that cannot be heard without damage to ones mind, as their agony and fear pours into me, and my insanity and terrible new ‘self’ pour into them. I am but one tiny part of the swarm but my agony is as personal as if i was vivisecting my best friend. I cannot stop myself, nor can i turn away, i can only watch and feel as i do things that can never be undone (-a distant thought reminds me that the survival rate for post deconstructed is near 0% while the suicide rate has a 1 and another 0 in front of it-). I remember a triple star system being consumed, something unlike any thing else arising from the 30+ suns worth of star material being consumed. A being who ‘CALLS’ with the sound of a terrible bell. And with that sound, my mind shatters, and i remember the most terrible thing of all. I deserve to be punished.

For in those last moments of this nightmare, with their hateful taunting laughter echoing in my mind, i remember trying to kill every living thing i the galaxy all at once. I remember closing my fist with a terrible finality, bringing about the Noosphere collapse of the entirety of the galaxy (-which one, there are so many-), destroying not just the living, but the very possibility of life beyond the micro scale for hundreds of millions of years. I remember why i did it.

I didn’t do it for vengeance, such things were long gone. I didn’t do it to save anyone, i no longer cared. I didn’t do it to save myself either, my insanity had progressed to such a point i could no longer conceive of self-preservation, there were more important things at hand. No, i remember that i did it simply to die, even if it meant killing everything anyone had ever loved. I did it to end my millions of years of suffering in a body that couldn’t die and a form that consumed all it observed. I did it knowing the consequences, and i did it without even a blink. Everyone died, and i felt every single one. Every single thing, from crying children to post ascension multi-mind entities died a singular death, simply so my suffering would end. And yet i live. And now they have me. The ones who started this techno nightmare by deploying the dismantlers in the first place. The ones who taught me what suffering was, now promise me an eternity of it, simply for trying to die. It seems i pissed them off, killing all their fuel for that terrible fire. But at least everyone is dead now....at least that nightmare is over....perhaps i will retain enough of my self during the coming night to appreciate that no more will die, that my selfish act at least brought an end.

More laughter. ‘Oh no ##### (-redacted? why cannot i hear my own name?-), you misunderstand. You failed. Yes, you destroyed the project here, in our local galaxy, but there are many, many others (-so many-), and the pressure of life returns to fill the void, and even here, life returns.’

A terrible smile fills my mind, and i feel i can almost recognize it...tantalizing..

‘The project has reset, and from your unique vantage point in space/time/possibility you will have a front row seat as we start anew. You will watch, unable to even voice complaint, as we start again.’

The screams of the dying fill my ears all around, and as the last of my sanity flees to the far corners of my mind, i feel the weight of that collar upon my neck, i feel the mental prison they have built my body to be take hold, as though i exist in a waking coma, my thoughts a prisoner and my body a statue who’s eyes never close, nor who’s mind ever rests. I cannot describe my panic.

Distantly, i feel a hand upon my neck, it is warm. Human. (-am i human? i don’t remember-). A smokey voice whispers near my ear, ‘We are going to have such fun with you.’

I awake screaming hours later. I don’t know how i can tell, but i know i didn’t awake immediately. I am 11, and my TMNT sheets are so wet i wonder if i peed in bed again. As i lay trembling, my mind reeling in every direction, soaked and scared, i hear that same voice again, and a face pops into my mind (-i don’t recognize it, but perhaps that’s because it looks like a cartoon, all hard lines and flat colors-). It chuckles in a deep throated way (-there is no sense of gender or sex, only a faint hint of a kind of cruel dominance-), and says something i have since forgotten, but which has convinced me to this day it was real and not a dream. Even now it is as vivid as reality to me. In seconds it is over, and i am once again alone. An otherwise normal child in an otherwise normal world trying to make sense of a terrible nightmare that refuses to fade. But i am not normal. not anymore. this experience has changed me fundamentally, i can feel it.

I can feel that there is more to this, and i wonder if there will be more dreams.

There will be, but not tonight.

#personal stuff #things i don't tell family #story of the child demon #proof reading comes later

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cptdarkmoon · 4 years

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The Nature of Freedom

To my darling wife, Coral Cays, and our beautiful children Angel and Atlas. You are the wind in my sails that keeps me going every day.

Preface.

What do you beleive happens when you sleep? Do you simply, rest and see memories of the mind's imagitions, or is it something more divine? Perhaps you learn to travel out of your body, into new realms seeking new adventures? And what of the animals that serve beneath you, or the wretched simpler life, like that of Goblins? Delving further what of the magical mechanations we've created? Do constructs dream of magical sheep? When I was a boy, I often found myself staring at the stars and asking myself these questions, so full of wonder, looking up into the endless twinkling black thinking of the gods that must be looking down at me. Now, through the world's history I've witnessed, the truths of our natures, when I see stars that's all they are. When I dream there is no mystery. This was no accident, these were blatant choices I've made that have ended up in mythical places. Is such happenstance fate, or something more chaotic? From womb to tomb, are we destined to walk a certain track, a destiny written in the sky, or are we something more sincere, pearls amongst stars? If you'd ask a Nexus priest, I'm sure they would happily inform you of Light's divine plan for us, and how everything happens for a reason, if you dared ask a priest of Tempesta, I'm sure they would inform you that life is painful and pointless chaos, swirling around the void until we meet a bitter and angry end. Gods truly are black and white. I wish to inform you of what I've dicovered not as a priest of a mighty god, or as a king of a noble country, but as the son of a farmer, who reached farther than he ever imagined. My hope is to inspire young adventurers, create true debates, and advance our way of thinking beyond the gilded cage we seem to love.

Musings on Society and Government.

I have spent many years studying why we as creatures restrict ourselves to certain laws and orders. The simple term is to create peace between many different peoples, to create an aura of safety in groupings. Then why does not all of nature do such things? Nexus demands order in our world, while the conflicting Tempesta demands chaos. Birds have no laws to live together with squirrels, fish need no government to swim with the ocean's tide. Why is this that nature can seem to flow in chaos yet survive regardless of our struggles? This is the question I have sought to answer for over five hundred years, but have only found debate. Now regardless of our debates on whether or not a magpie is flying, or swimming through the sky, do not effect what truth is, it will still soil our heads. I have seen the tyranny of nobles and kingdoms, and the theocracy of great churches, in my life I have witnessed as well a great experiment performed by The Good King Henry the 21st called Democracy. A small town that began as Picket was given priveledge by The Good King to choose it's own local noble. Each person was allowed a vote in who ruled them, which at the time was unheard of outside of bandits and pirates. It was one of the most fascinating things I've witnessed take place, but even that had a flaw. There is one revolving factor in each of these systems and their offspring that makes them weak, and top heavy. Knowledge, or rather a great lack there of. For a person to look to a leader, elected or birthed, and follow blindly it will undoubtedly end in following off into the grave, even with doubt against the ruling class, the general masses will ostracize them and carry them there regardless of struggles. Simply put, ignorance will weaken a society, I've witnessed it in every form, from friendships to Kingdoms. This ignorance is nurtured in several ways, either in a "Trust in your leader, and they will carry you to victory!" creating a reliance on those above you, so you never have to take responsibiliy for your failings, or attempt to think for yourself in a grander fashion than "where should I EXPLETIVE today?" Next, is a more Clandestine form of ignorance, that in which leaders will use lies and manipulation to make the masses beleive they know what is truly happening, in certain cases this will embolden your subjects to make them fight harder, but it has the same risks that all Clandesta followings do. Temples built on lies will soon collapse under the weight of them, once a simple brick is overturned, the entire structure collapses, the seed of doubt is the poison to this form of ignorance, and soon leads to rebellions. A much kinder form of raising ignorant masses is the illusion of education. Whatever power structure you find yourself under will offer education, if you simply seek it, pursuing the officials for pieces of information, but never quite making everything known, if this act were father, apathy would be mother. One cannot care enough to jump through the hoops and obstacles to discover what needs to be known, so they simply sit back in an apathetic and angry shell and await the choices that will be made for them. This form of Ignorance is something I am deeply familiar with, and have witnessed for most of my life. I've seen this happen due to something that I've come to refer to as the Falconer's Law.

Falconer's Law Explained.

Falcons are great and mighty birds, hunters in the sky, as fast as lightning and deadly as a dragon to their prey. They know no greater where they take flight, never looking up for they fly the highest. So ask yourself this, how do Falconers tame such mighty creatures into servants who work for scraps? A wild Falcon must find it's own roost, hunt it's own prey, make it's own path in the world alone, at risk of failure, of lonliness, of death. But the clumsy and soft Falconer will offer safety, companionship, and an easier life, in return for a life barred in a guilded cage. The Falcon will sacrifice it's pride, it's freedoms, and it's strength, for an easier life, where it needs no responsibility. Much of the intelligent world has followed in suit.

In a perfect world, one where greed and doubt did not exist, and our own personal Fiends did not sail our ships to comfortable shores, we would have no need for government, or law in general. A well educated populace will develop it's own sense of morality to fit it's habitat, such as mice will eat their young to survive, but will rarely be shunned for an act. They will survive and protect, perserve their homes, and come together under threats. Many fear such things, because this means equality, and that word strikes fear into the hearts of nearly every living being. I have yet to meet a soul that is free of greed, and megalomania. Those in power wish to force their will onto others, for their own percieved benevolent purposes, and those under heel wish to take whatever they can in hopes to reach the top of the ladder, to force their boot on anothers neck. Equality rids us of such a cycle, no need for whips to cause toil in fields, no need to beg on streets for coin. Imagine if you will, a city devoted to itself in equality. Spies couldn't thrive, their subterfuge would be rooted out by anyone that caught wind of it, lies and untruth would wither looking for shelter. Sickness would soon find no safe harbor inside of it's walls, for each and every individual would take steps to prevent such a thinning of their herd. In times of war, an entire province uniting under arms, trained by eachother in powerful hit and run tactics, it would be a nightmare to conqeur, it's very culture would repel those who wish to oppress it. A city built in Chaos, and finding order amongst it, a balance of things, not built by some juggernaut of the powers that be, but by simple and honest free folk. Unity is terrfiying to those wishing to destroy. Such a system I have dreamt of, and only achieved once. It's most common name that I have found is Anarchy, but that implies something sinister, a rebellious cause looking to consume. I find the word Liberty, to be much more fitting. A form of existing without a Government, with personal freedoms and equality being what holds the unity of the masses together. After all, whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own lives.

The Three Paths of Life.

I have found, that regardless of upbringing or faith, we will all see three choices stretch out before us, and these will dictate our life indefinetly without us ever even knowing it. The Path of the Many, the Path of the Few, and the Path of the Self. Each of us have picked from these since birth, and have been shaped by the results, they are not exclusive, rarely will one be able to follow one path consistently throughout their lives, but undoubtedly will a free thinking being juggle between these three paths until their eventual death. These paths are not simply exclusive to one another, they cross at many points creating unique experiences and choices that we may enjoy, or deeply regret.

The Path of the Many. This is a beautiful and terrifying path to choose, like that of a hurricane, or tornado on the horizon. A volcano erupting in a flash of brilliant color. This path is made to satisfy the greater good, the survival of the whole, of existence, of the gods. Normally spurred on by a will higher than your own, be it a king or a god, it requires sacrifice and vigilance, but will ensure that others will be able to follow along, continuing the story. It is selfless, rarely recorded in history the names that followed this path to the bloody end, but known in the root of every tree, the drops in every ocean. They exist due to those few who follow this path, and ensure we all have a world to survive on, a city to thrive in, a chance to see the sun rise over the darkest night. While this is by far the noblest and most story book path, almost none are able to truly follow it, sacrifices too great to make, many follow this path but for a moment, and then resent the results of an uncaring world simply happy to carry on without knowing how close it was to truly ending. The ego prevents us from following this path for very long, save in the rare indivdual who finds calling in this. I have been lucky enough to meet at least one individual with such mentality, and I seek to show him that his work is not going unnoticed.

The Path of the Few. This path is commonly mistaken as the Hero's path, one that ensures the survival of a town, a group, a limited populace. It is the most common path for those wishing to do good to choose, it is foolhardy with good intentions, clumsy but loving, imperfect but easy. I have known many who walk this path, seen its effects, the fame that follows. It's cause stems from selfishness, political gain, and pride. Even selfish actions, done for others, can have positive effects, it creates adventurers who seek out glory, but defeat a mob of orcs threatening a mining town. In other cases, it pushes a politician to usurp power from corrupt politicians by empowering the poor and downtrodden. While they gain benefit and power from their actions, they aid those around them in the process. This is one of the more common choices people end up making, and some of the more famous choices.

The Path of the Self. This is a path of necessity, and yet it is the darkest path of all. if the Many represents light, then this would be Dark. Yet despite it's inherent inclination for horrid actions, it is necessary for our survival. This is the path that serves those that enslave children for cheap labor, but ensures that we will kill while our lives are threatened. In a much less dramatic sense, it is what allows us to look past the killing of animals for food, or in some cases, the killing of free thinking creatures for food. An act that allows us to thrive yet at the cost of life around us. Refusing this path for too long can be dangerous, forcing you to indulge in it at great excess. Dark followers most often follow this path exclusively, choosing an easier path of caring only for themselves, but ensuring the world does not get lost in selflessness. One must be selfish to ensure your own survival, or we'd be buried in the bones of martyrs. If we live solely for the purpose of others than we have only lived as slaves to them. Truly do we not deserve to enjoy the fruits of our own labor? To see the sweat of our brow water our own fields instead of those above us?

Now to those who do not beleive in the freedom of our choices and actions, the paths we walk are predetermined, however hard it may be to see, our destiny has us going down a series of events with a set outcome. I like to think we are less restricted than that, that we choose our own actions regardless of their noble light, or cruel intent. We are our own heroes, or villains. I have travelled down all 3 of these paths in my life, following closer to the middle and bottom than I'd like to admit, but without honesty, there can be no change. Undoubtedly though, we each have the freedom to choose what steps we take, what path we follow and what consiquences we accept. Not all choices are clear however, and seldom are they ever easy to make. Those stuck in the most hopless of situations may hear these words and argue "How can I ever choose anothers life over mine? How can I change the path that I have been set on!" and I truly do understand, in a situation where a blade is held to the one you love, and words demanding of you "Obey or they die" what path is the best to follow? What truth will you discover in yourself when that moment comes, and can you percieve the changes that it will have on you? Sacrficing freedom for survival of others, The Path of the Few is painful, however Sacrificing your loved one to defy the enemy and prevent their victory, The Path of the Many is all too crippling

#larp #character thoughts #character writing #freedom

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booksandtea · 5 years

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Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin Genre: Fantasy | Horror | New Adult Length: 336 pages Published on 2nd April 2019 by Titan Books Purchase*: Amazon | Wordery | Blackwells *these are affiliate links Sarah Maria Griffin: Instagram | Twitter | Goodreads Received for free from publisher in exchange for an honest review + bought 2 copies myself

Synopsis: The house at the end of the lane burned down, and Rita Frost and her teenage ward, Bevan, were never seen again. The townspeople never learned what happened. Only Mae and her brother Rossa know the truth; they spent two summers with Rita and Bevan, two of the strangest summers of their lives… Because nothing in that house was as it seemed: a cat who was more than a cat, and a dark power called Sweet James that lurked behind the wallpaper, enthralling Bevan with whispers of neon magic and escape. And in the summer heat, Mae became equally as enthralled with Bevan. Desperately in the grips of first love, she’d give the other girl anything. A dangerous offer when all that Sweet James desired was a taste of new flesh…

Screams into the endless void about how this brilliant book with a theme of obsession is my current obsession. I first finished reading it on a Saturday night in March, I started re-reading it again the next morning.

I am not okay.

I love this book. [hi look at me being a mess on twitter 32 times]

I first heard about Other Words for Smoke when I attended an Waterstones Q+A Event of Sarah Maria Griffin and Christina Henry. Hearing these two talk was so much fun and I knew I’d have to read some of Sarah’s work because she had me awe-struck ok.

I reached out that night to Lydia about a review copy of OWFS and the rest is history. I’m history. I’m dead.

It’s like returning home, there’s a comfort I find in this book. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it.

OWFS follows twins, Rossa and Mae, as they spend two summers with their Great-Aunt Rita, her teen ward Bevan, and a larger than life cat Bobby. In a house that is strange than meets the eye with a Sweet James, an owl living in the walls demanding his hunger be quenched.

There are two main sections to the book; the first Summer where the twins are 14 and get sent to avoid family disrupt. And the second Summer when the twins are 17 and return to Rita’s to escape their family divorce, older and more prepared to face the different type of horror that Rita’s house holds.

“How strange was this mutual, silent agreement that maybe something was badly wrong in Rita’s house, that they’d seen something awful there that they couldn’t quite name, but somehow they felt more able to manage that wrong than their parents.”

There are also some inbetween chapters which give us background development and the history of Rita, Audrey, Bobby, and James. As well as some key scenes from the twins in their years between the two summers.

(Its in this part that there is forced outing which I wasn’t a fan of, but its addressed and I’m happy with how Mae stood up for herself)

Rita is the best authority figure I’ve read about. She’s both motherly and caring but also a power to be fearer. She nurtures Mae’s exploration with magic and tarot reading, she helps shape Rossa into a more confident being.

“…if this thing was evil, then he was good, and he must be able to overcome it. He just had to find the courage – he knew it was in their somewhere, but he couldn’t grasp it.”

Rossa is the character I struggle most to talk about as realistically, I think I’m most like him. Or I would be in that house, faced with that danger and horror. I can’t see me ever being brave, I can see me struggle to keep a float, wanting to keep my sister safe, but not having the courage to face it. And feeling a bit of an outsider to the others in the house who’ve all formed a strong bond.

I think he is at his strongest when he’s not at ends with Mae. The two together have a great dynamic together in the book and I lived for the two supporting each other through the toughest times, and their sibling banter.

“A troupe of sunflowers, standing tall and there – there suddenly like a jewel on the lawn, Bevan sprawled out under the sun on a tartan blanket, her flat stomach to the sky. Her legs a hundred miles of tan.

Oh no.”

Bevan’s blonde hair and “her unfair, impossible legs” help Mae develop the strongest and ever-consuming of crush’s. Mae’s chapters were honestly my favourite to read because SMG has nailed down that First Crush obsession, how it engulfs your every fibre, and you want to do everything to leave a good impression – even allow them to pierce your ears, which terrifies you.

Bobby is a good soul whilst Mae battles with all these feelings engulfing her. He is larger than life, and more than what he seems. But his secret is something earned when the twins are ready and it takes Rossa a little longer to be welcomed into the coven.

“Love is the realest thing, Mae. The world around you will become realer the more you feel it. Doesn’t music sound better already? Isn’t there more meaning? There’s a reasons you had that song on loop. It’s deepened.”

Bevan is also a storm. Mae knows this, accepts it, and both loves and fears her. Bevan is ready to set the world on fire with her anger, confidence, and naivety. Her misplaced trust in Sweet James for a share of his power and “affection” is the moving force of the plot for OWFS.

You can’t read this book and not pick up on how Sweet James is a representation of toxic relationships. He manipulates and controls Bevan to cause harm to others, and later hopes she can set him free from his chains. He is nothing to be desired.

I found it very therapeutic to be able to reflect on how abusive he is as an outsider, whilst reading about how enticed and dependant Bevan is on him and his power. How broken she is when he’s stolen away. It really is terrifying.

“…and you thought you understood all the way that he could scare you, bargain with you.”

But I wouldn’t have wanted their relationship to have been portrayed any differently as they really hooked you in. To be honest, all the characters do in this book.

The only character I haven’t spoken about yet is the queer and forever young Audrey. Her path is one we are introduced too in the second half of the book mostly. Her role is so very important, not only because it contextualises the story with the Magdalene laundries, but also she’s very interwoven with Rita and the separate paths they are both on to be hopefully be together.

I really could talk about my love for this book all day, in fact in real time I have. But honestly this is the perfect blend of fantasy and horror which I’ve been highly recommending to everyone who will listen.

I’m almost done with my second reread (I had to limit myself) and I will be annotating Beth’s copy later on. I also have my another copy going around my USA friends who’re annotating it for me.

Like I said this is pretty much my life right now.

This review probably isn’t good enough. I don’t do my intense feelings enough justice. I don’t do Sarah’s amazing writing justice.

Please read this book. Also, message me when you do.

“You lonesome?” she asked absently. “Are you? replied the cat.”

5 stars / 5 stars

Review: Other Words For Smoke by @griffski | #Gifted @lydiagittins @TitanBooks Other Words for Smoke by Sarah Maria Griffin Genre: Fantasy | Horror | New Adult Length: 336 pages…

#Audience: New Adult #Author: Sarah Maria Griffin #Book Review #Books #Books for Review #Genre: Fantasy #Genre: Horror #Publisher: Titan Books #Rating: 5 stars #Recommendations

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phantomoftruth · 6 years

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An Aspiring Coven Shares the Coin: Quinn’s Flip

The third and final flip is finished! It was a tough project, but I had a lot of fun doing this! It’s been good practice with developing habits and working on bits each day. This is actually the longest thing I’ve worked on in a while, with the three parts together coming in at just under 5.5K words

I would like to do more with these monster girls in the future, especially since I didn’t really get the chance to show off all their stuff yet, and I could realistically see each of these girls getting their own little section as well if I wanted to keep going.

If you would be interested in seeing more of that, please, send me asks or messages, I’d love to hear from you! In addition, one thing I could use for stories like that is interesting victims to give me some extra ideas, so feel free to send me little character ideas you might like to see get preyed upon by some monster ladies :D.

Read the first part right here

Read the second part right here

NOTICE AGAIN, THIS SEGMENT RAN +1600 WORDS, SO PLEASE CLICK BELOW TO READ THE ACTUAL THING.

EDIT: As always, credit for the coin goes to bigboobiesthatwrite

“Shouldn’t you just-”

“I VOTE DICK!” Both Janice and Quinn turned as Nessa cried out. Loudly. She was currently sitting in a frog squat, pickling some alien cucumber that had burst itself out of the growing garden that was Janice’s dorm room with her syrupy snatch. Each bounce of grey-green hips made Nessa’s overripe ass slap against the floor. As Janice’s room was on the third floor of the building, things were shuddering a bit.

Janice spoke up again, voice full of authority, and Quinn swiveled her head back to face her. “Going out now means the coin is here. I’m not leaving the coin alone, and there’s no way in Hell it’s leaving this room before the flips are done. And given that getting Nessa out of here isn’t really happening right now without people freaking, going out to play means bringing people back here. People you’d have to get fast. People that would be in the same place as the coin. It’d be a nightmare to make it work.”

Quinn looked back and forth between Nessa and Janice, one masturbating in a growing garden and tall grasses, the other tall enough that she had to look up to see more than her stomach, and ultimately let out a sigh. “I guess you’re right.” Her face immediately brightened up, however, transfixed with a smile. “That gives me an idea though! Here, give me the coin, I’ll do my flip right now.” After being passed the coin, Quinn played with it, expertly running it along her jointed doll-fingers.

So clearly, this,” she said, while wildly waving her free hand at Janice’s overgrown dorm room. The motion caught Nessa’s attention, and she pulled herself off the fat greenery she was fucking with a gooey plop. “This isn’t going to work for us. We’re magic. We’re monsters. We need a home base. A hunting ground. A lair. That’s what I’m gonna flip for!” Fixing her posture, standing straight as she could, pale arm fully outstretched, Quinn readied the coin to flip.

“Hey coin, here’s my flip. If heads, make this whole school our domain, us running the show and everyone accepting us and our benevolent rule. If tails, then give us a lair, for the three of us that we share together, where we can really live like monsters.” She flipped, and the coin rang slightly as it spun before Quinn caught it out of the air, slapping it on the back of her hand with a clack.

It was tails.

The effect was immediate. Janice’s dorm room faded away, becoming indistinct before vanishing completely. There was a single moment where the coven of monsters stood suspended in a colorless, soundless void, then reality resumed, rebuilding itself around their new location, their lair.

The sounds of society were gone with the campus, giving way to the music of a lonely, midnight wilderness. The lake was quiet, but the forest was alive with bugs and birds and frogs and things that weren’t quite what they used to be since Nessa made it her pleasure garden paradise. The forest was not the same either, invaded by a wild legion of strange fruits, vivid fungus, and unnamed plant life that only accelerated it’s transformation into a wet, fragrant swamp. But it was a pretty playground, and hard for a human to just stumble through, Of course, a little magic helped with that. There was even a grotto Nessa loved to use for a bit of extra privacy, and plenty of room in the depth of the lake.

Though she preferred the swamp and starlight, even Nessa couldn’t deny their manor was right where it belonged, in the heart of the swamp, looking over the lake, complete with secret underwater tunnel. The one she’d used to meet up with her coven sisters in the foyer they were standing in now. It was old and musty and spooky, but the mood was just right, all faded and elegant, with fancy stone floors and lots of double doors that made it easy to move around. Not to mention the big dramatic staircase in the center for the second floor. There weren’t any lights, and it wasn’t like they needed them, but there were debates about getting internet going somehow. Well, Quinn wanted it anyway.

New memories formed as the coin’s magic shaped the house to match it as a monster’s lair. Janice claimed the master bedroom on the second floor, less because of any kind of leadership and more to have a room and bed that accommodated her statuesque frame. It being connected to a study certainly didn’t hurt though, and evidence of her practice and experiments in magic and witchcraft came into existence at the same time as the memories of those experiments. The kitchen and the space outside as well showed signs of experiments, with the kitchen becoming a makeshift lab, and a large cauldron resting over the ashes of a wood fire outside. And then there was the library, still bearing a few weathered books yellowed with age and damp. It wasn’t haunted yet, but Janice was working on it, along with filling those shelves herself.

Quinn’s bedroom was smaller, but as sleep wasn’t really a thing for her anymore, with anything approaching rest just being collapsing into a creepy doll-slump, she didn’t mind. Especially given the rest of the house was more or less hers to romp around in. There was a studio that quickly crowded with her projects. Costumes and mixes of pigments, accessories and even puppets dangled from stings from the ceilings. The ground floor hard a large, ruined ballroom, complete with an aging stage. With her and Janice working on it though, she was sure they could come up with something enchanted~. There was even a little gallery with enough room for sculptures, not to mention paintings on the wall. It wasn’t originally her thing, but she was just bursting with energy now, and it gave a little variety over just costume work all the time.

Several sets of stairs going down were peppered into existence around the house, leading to a stony basement layer. Rooms for servants, humble even before time wore away at the few bits there, came into being, along with a cellar and places where the former inhabitants would have worked and lived, doing laundry, a second kitchen, and cunning slits for ventilation that endured. It was fairing fairly well considering the encroaching swampiness consuming the forest, with a bit of dankness that made it feel like a dungeon.

The coin’s magic moved like a tide, pulling away from the newly formed lair, taking root in the three monsters as it set about completing Quinn’s wish for the three to live like monsters. The former college friends were stunned, unawares as the magic dug deep, transforming them all in will and soul to match their new bodies.

Quinn felt her sight expanding, her spirit flying as though it were freed from gravity as her human grip on reality loosened and fell away. She was innocent, and careless, as only the Fae could be. Everything in the world was for her amusement, and boredom the only sin left. She understood now, mortality was something that could just be brushed away, just a thing that happened on the stage. Play. it was all an endless play, with the world as the setting and all the people in it hers to take and change and trick and terrify, outlets for her arts and crafts, pets for her fancies. Fear and awe were the bare minimums she was due.

Nessa quivered as her self melted, touching at something massive and countless and primordial. She was fucking the earth. She was the earth. She was life, wet, squirming life that was around before humans were a blink. They were just another kind of animal to embrace. Whatever taboos she had dissolved. All that mattered was her breeding, her pleasure, her flesh, her children, whether by adoption or birth, until they covered the whole earth. Everything would be green and quivering and alive, and they’d all eat and fuck and breed and birth and sleep and be reborn to doll it all again and again and again and again and again forever and ever until her blood was the one blood and everything was one again, united again in an everlasting dance of life.

Janice felt her hair embracing her body as the darkness that had changed her body before seeped down, staining her soul with haggish wickness and sadistic pleasure. The weight she had felt when blessed with that forbidden knowledge was gone. It wasn’t a burden, but something to embrace. Power. Power was something to revel in. Whether her flexing, steely muscles, her towering black-skinned body, or the witchcraft that suffused her with knowledge forbidden to mortals, power was a delight. And the only thing better than being powerful, was using that power. Not bullying the weak. No, that wasn’t quite right. To deprive others. Yesssssssss. Just the thought of it made her sex clench. To take everything they were, and leave them with nothing. To taunt them, toy with them, twist them about and humiliate them. Drink them down to the dregs until they were dull-eyed little dredges that would debase themselves to lose even more. Her black tongue slid across her sharp teeth, as her face split with a wicked grin as she took control of her hair, teasing herself to her new, sadistic desires.

At last, the magic completed, the coin vanished, leaving the three monsters with their new lair, new minds, and new lives, all thoughts of the coin gone.

Quinn giggled and straightened her dress.

Nessa slobbered, fresh growth growing from her needy body.

Janice picked at her claws, and looked at the former college girls, full of evil intent as she leaned forward.

“The night is still young. NOW, what shall we do for fun~?”

#coin flip #mind control #corruption #monster girl

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redditnosleep · 6 years

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O is for Olivia

by OnyxOctopus

It wasn’t even snowing when I left for work but by the time I was halfway there, the roads were coated in ice. People were sliding around like real-life bumper cars and there were accidents blocking every path to the office. With all roads blocked, I decided to just give up and turn for home.

I was being cautious, creeping along in my little Echo at about 15 miles per hour. Down the road a stretch, I spotted a Toyota truck coming towards me around a curve, fast. He had to be going at least 70 miles per hour. He seemed, at first, to be flying by on my left. Then, he was sliding sideways in a long, silver smear.

It’s true that time slows down when you are about to die. I saw the clock click from 7:25 to 7:26. I looked at my hands, noticing every vein, every line. Heard the words of the Imogen Heap song I was listening to, “Where are we? What the hell is going on?“ I thought, “I can get out of this.” Looked right: cement utility pole, ditch, looked left: silver pickup truck. I thought, “I really can’t get out of this.“ I saw particles of dust seeming to glow, suspended, in the air.

Then there was crunching and spinning and glass and spinning and pain and then - suddenly darkness.

I was alone in the darkness for a while, and then I wasn’t alone. Darkness, heavy but awake, consuming me. I somehow was the darkness, and yet I was still very much myself. Or, I should say, I recognized myself in the darkness. Then I heard a rush of whispers and long low whistles. As the sounds grew louder, waves became particles and two forms started to appear. Mine, and hers. A shifting, swirling woman was standing in front of me. Like blowing smoke into a sunbeam that’s coming through a gap in the curtains. Smoke all around, but only seen as it swirls through the sunbeam. She was like that. I could see that she had shoulder length brown hair, and she was wearing a light blue shirt and white pants. She appeared to be rather tall, but not as tall as me. I was watching her patterns shift and swirl when she spoke.

“Olivia?”

“I’m…I…yes, I… Who are you?” Not too eloquent, but that’s what I said.

“You can think of me as Mora.“ I could hear her, even though her mouth wasn’t making noise when she spoke.

“How…?” I gestured around us at the endless, swirling black.

“Everything is happening at once. All at once, right now. The leading edge is the same as the very end of the line,” she answered. The more she spoke, the more she seemed to be slowly unraveling.

“I don’t know what that means.“

“That’s ok.”

“But, I mean, what’s going on?“ I was getting dizzy trying to focus on her as she shifted in and out of form. It was making me impatient.

“The universe itself is afraid of its own end. Consciousness in form is the universe’s way of awakening to its own immortality. In the silence of the void, there is a voice. The voice listening to itself. The voice realizing it IS the void, and the void is alive. There is circle after circle of understanding. Do you understand?”

“No.“

“That’s ok.”

I waited for her to say something else, but she was silent. She was evaporating into a horizontal mist. Looking down I saw that I was starting to do the same.

“Why are you telling me these things?“ I asked, distracted again by the swirling particles.

“Because we need you. So I need you to wake up.”

As soon as she said, “wake up,” I felt myself being pulled like a yo-yo on a string. Snapping backwards in the darkness. I watched my own particles blowing away from me like dust. Leaving a mist trail in what appeared to be a long, dark tunnel. Then the darkness shifted to the familiar darkness that lives behind my eyes. I felt my body, my real solid body, and then I felt the pain. Next, I noticed I was suffocating. Warm, humid, air was breathing itself for me through a respirator. I must have started to flail around in my panic because I was given a shot and then I fell asleep.

When I woke up again, the doctor told me I lost consciousness after impact. I was rushed to surgery for internal injuries. Apparently I ‘died’ on the operating table. They “shocked me back” and put me on life support. The accident broke my sternum, three ribs, my right knee, and resulted in severe closed head trauma. Because of my internal injuries, they had to remove a nice chunk of bowel. I mimed, “I want to write", by using a finger to scribble over the opposite palm. The doctor pulled a pad and pen out of his pocket and handed it to me. His eyes were a dusty shade of blue, the color of cornflowers.

“When can I go back to work"? I wrote.

“That’s tricky", he said. “We’ve left you with essentially what we’d call short gut syndrome which can result in intermittent incontinence. Head injuries such as yours often result in severe migraines. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves though. You’re going to get stronger every day, I promise. Let’s get you off this respirator and take it one step a time. Sound good?” No. It did not sound good. With no family of my own, my job was my life. Still, I nodded. What else was there to do?

I was on the respirator for two more warm, wet, and suffocating days, then I was moved to the room that would be my home for the next seven weeks.

A few days after moving to the new room, I was lying on my bed, feeling loopy from the morphine drip and thinking about drinking orange juice. The cup was just out of reach on my bedside table. I remember feeling a wave of injustice and anger come over me. Not about the accident, or my injuries, or being stuck in a hospital unable to work, possibly forever. No. I was angry about not being able to reach the orange juice. I was fucking furious at the orange juice. I was glaring at it, with everything I had, and then- BOOM! It exploded. Orange juice flying absolutely everywhere.

That was the first time I used my mind to blow something up. Honestly, it was exhilarating. I spent the next seven weeks popping gauze pads, glycerin swabs, any little thing that wouldn’t make too much of a mess.

The first person I looked up after I got out of the hospital was the driver of the silver Toyota. He was picked up for felony reckless driving, but let go on a technicality. I did some digging. I was a paralegal before my injuries forced me to take long-term disability so I knew my way around court documents. It also didn’t hurt that I was good friends with a few of the clerks at court. It turns out I wasn’t the first person he’d seriously hurt. His connections just kept finding him loopholes to skip through.

I decided I should find him in person. Maybe this guy just looked bad on paper? Maybe he’d apologize? I was hoping for any redeeming quality. Nope. When I told him who I was he laughed and said, “were you this ugly before I hit you?” Then, he dropped to the floor, holding his head and screaming. He got what he deserved, a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage from an aneurysm exploding in his brain. Nasty things, those. So sad.

Three days later, I let myself into my apartment only to find a man sitting at my dining room table. He was wearing an expensive looking suit and smoking a cigarette. He had obviously been there a while because smoke was swirling around him in a thick haze. I suppose I should have been shocked or terrified. The truth is I was expecting it.

“Can I help you?”

He looked up from a mess of open folders and said, “Olivia, come here, I need you to take a look at this.”

I blinked, hard, and then I walked over to the table.

“Can I ask your name?”

“Mr. W. Olivia, take a look at these pictures.” I looked over his shoulder at four open folders with pictures splayed out in piles. I can’t, no, I won’t, tell you what I saw the people in those pictures doing. Imagine for a moment the worst abuse to the most innocent of victims, and you might have a pretty good idea.

“Olivia, What I have here is a four-way split video call. You’ll see that our agents have these four suspects in custody. Can you positively match the person on each screen to the pictures on the table in front of you?”

I looked from the pictures to the screens one at a time. Carefully. There were three men and one woman. Each of the agents was wearing the same blue shirt and white pants Mora had worn.

“Yes.”

I haven’t mentioned my childhood, and I won’t go into detail about it. What I will say is that the woman on the screen bore a striking resemblance to my mother’s best friend, Marie. Same red hair, freckles, green eyes. Marie hurt me, just like the woman on the screen had hurt the child in the pictures spread across her file. The child who bore a striking resemblance to me: blonde hair, brown eyes, freckles.

“Ok, Olivia. Please understand that these people have not been convicted of any crime. In fact, they aren’t being tried. These pictures were obtained illegally so they are not admissible in court. They are innocent until proven guilty. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

I looked back at the monitor and watched as each of them fell like marionettes being cut from their strings. One after the other, until all four were lying on the floor clutching their heads, screaming.

Mr. W looked up at me, his eyes squinting in a genuine smile. “Welcome to Moirai, Olivia. We are so happy to have you.“

That was seven years ago. I’m 33 now, and I’m getting better every day. More precise. I’ve been practicing. Mr. W tells me that they will be needing me more than ever in the days to come. I’d ask you to wish me luck, but I don’t need it. I have been getting stronger every day.

I’m strong enough now.

#creepy #horror story #supernatural powers #author: OnyxOctopus #alphabet stew series

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laur-rants · 6 years

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Steady the Sword - Ch 1

Fandom: Dishonored Pairing: Corvo/Daud [eventually] Rating: Mature Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence Notes: HERE IT IS!!! FINALLY!! I’M STARTING TO POST THE FIC. Please hang tight there is so much more to come and I’m real excited to share it all with you aaahhhh. AO3 Link Previous :: Next

Chapter One: A Sentence Of

Perhaps it was a side effect of enduring six months of torture in one of most deplorable prisons in all the Isles. Perhaps waking up to cold walls and unrelenting bars after another day's beating had steeled him, had prepared him for what was to come. Perhaps fate had a way of knowing his life would lead to this: to a land of cold isolation that stretched for kilometers in every direction. There is nothing to see or enjoy when looking out over the expansive white backdrop of Tyvia almost blinding in the sun that hung overhead for months at a time.

Yet it is here, in this frozen world that most men would see as their doom, that Corvo Attano is counting his blessings.

For starters, it isn't Coldridge, and that alone is enough to have him laughing with relief. This land may be cold, far colder than anywhere else in the Empire of the Isles, but it wasn't the wet, damp, endless misery that he had woken up to every day inside that establishment. It wasn't hot brands onto sweating and shaking skin, trying to pry a confession out of him that didn't exist. It wasn't the sadistic smile of a man who enjoyed his job too much as he hummed his favorite tunes, all while ripping out Corvo's nails. It wasn't going to make him go temporarily mute from the pain, his vocal chords tearing from the constant screaming.

It isn't Coldridge. Thank the Void, it is not Coldridge. If Corvo could survive the most deplorable prison in Dunwall, he can survive this icy death trap known as Utyrka. He is sure of it.

“That settles it, then. I sentence you to freedom, Corvo Attano.”

Emily's small chin remained propped and her gaze remained true, though Corvo did not miss the slight tremor to her lip, the pout she wore. Corvo did not break her gaze, just nodded in understanding. She followed his action, holding composure until everyone else left the court, leaving the two of them at the throne, together and alone. As the door finally closed behind Curnow, Emily lunged forward, sobbing into Corvo’s clothes, clutching his heavy coat. His heart throbbed painfully in his chest as he held her small body close, making no motion to pull the girl off.

“I don't like being Empress, Corvo,” she said through the sobs. He made a small noise, a cross between an exhale and a laugh. It had only been two months since Emily had been reinstated to the throne, the one left empty for nearly a year in the wake of her mother's death. It had been a dark time for the city of Dunwall and it was going to be a long time before everything was back to normal.

Corvo had not made the city's road to recovery any easier; after escaping Coldridge prison, he had shown no mercy to those who had wronged him, had wronged Emily, and had conspired to kill the previous Empress. Given a mask of Death upon his freedom, Corvo had embodied the symbol, cutting fear and awe into the plague-ridden city. He had left a cryptic trail of red, with those of guilty conscious fearing that the sting of the masked assassin's blade would reach their flesh next. He left no deserving body standing.

Nobody, except…

Except.

“Why’d you have to kill all those people, Corvo,” she cried, voice muffled by the fabric she pulled to her face. He squeezed her and held on, until finally pulling her away. She looked up at him, eyes shining, all semblance of royal grace washed away in the tears of the ten year old girl who didn't yet understand the complications of the world. He knelt down on a knee, wiping her tear away with a thumb. She sniffed, grabbing his left hand, tracing the Mark branded there like a prayer.

“I did what I had to do to protect you. I couldn't let those people live. Not after everything they'd done.”

“Even those guards? Even those sick people? Or those people on the streets, who just wanted to…” she blinked, the tears gracing her lashes before running down her cheeks again, small rivers on a girl who had seen too much and knew too little on what it all meant.

“Emily…” he sighed as she looked away, squeezing his hand.

How could he explain to her the evils of men, of what those people had done with smiles on their faces and laughter on their lips? How could he tell her of the man who had hidden the bodies of the beggars he had used, or tell her of the woman who had drowned her children in the Wrenhaven, laughing about it the next day? It was not for her ears, not when she had grown up loving the people of this city, just as her mother had taught her.

It was not her burden to bear.

“Hey,” he started, having no defense, no regrets of trying to help clean the city of its guilt and corruption. Even now, the whispers either curse him or praise him, the masked phantom of Dunwall. “This is why I'm not mad with you, you know that, right? I think this is the right thing, too.”

“Did you think killing those people was the right thing to do, too?”

“Yes.”

She worried against her lower lip.

“I just…” her voice was so soft, so innocent. He hoped he would never see her lose that innocence, that wish to preserve life at all costs. “I didn't think I'd lose you too.”

Corvo had smiled then, gripping her shoulder, meeting her eye.

“Hey, you'll still hear from me. I won't disappear forever. I'll still be allowed to write.” When she didn't look convinced, he gave her tiny shoulder a small shake. “I'll tell you all about the bears and wolves I'll have to battle in the Tyvian wilderness.”

This caused a sparkle in her eye, a grin playing on her lips.

“You know, Anton said nobody’s ever escaped Tyvian prison. It's impossible .”

“Well,” he whispered. “You shouldn't listen to everything Sokolov says. I'll serve my sentence, fair and square.” But even as he said this, he winked at her, the curtain of his hair barely hiding his smirk. She grinned broadly, and he pulled her in for a tight hug.

“I still love you, Corvo.”

“I know, my Emily. I still love you too.”

Curnow came in after that, still stiff in his new Royal Protector duties, to usher Emily out of the throne room as they came to collect Corvo and ready his ship to Tyvia. She had been stricken, but Corvo had nodded to her and her face hardened. She nodded back, eyes shining and she turned, head held high, fitting of an Empress.

And Corvo had let the city guard take him, giving no protest as they lead him away from the home he had known for the last 22 years.

Utyrka is different from the rest of the prisons on all the Isles.

For one, there are no walls surrounding the complex or keeping prisoners sent here inside. Unlike Dunwall’s security, this prison is a vast, open expanse, where the prisoners mill about, fulfilling their day-to-day duties. There are buildings, to be sure; there are quarters for sleeping and bathing, watchtowers, a mess hall, and an underground expanse of tunnels that lead in and out of the salt mines. There is whale processing, there are warehouses for equipment and storage, and the North Tower, which sees over the entire compound.

Past the collection of buildings and tunnels to the labor-intensive salt mines of Tyvia, the wild frontier sits patiently and waits. Nothing but frozen white extends for kilometers in every direction; truly, the weather, location, and wilderness are walls enough to this camp. However, the open space is inviting and enticing to anyone who has 'had enough’; every year at least one or two prisoners try to break from the camp, sick of the salt mines and mad from the endless cold, the consuming darkness.

Those who break away are never stopped, are never chased; the guards know all too well what the wolves and the bears will do to those who flee. There are some that return, terrified, coats ripped wide open, hot blood seeping out, tears freezing to their face in the icy winds. They never try to escape again, and they don't live long after.

Most never come back and are never accounted for. If the guards are asked about it, they simply tell the other inmates that they 'earned their freedom’.

Corvo listens and watches and learns just what 'freedom' means here. It is open walls but oppressive wilderness, it is no chains but instead a torturous lack of time. It is an ending destined to occur in a salt mine, or in the mouth of a huge Tyvian wolf. There is nothing else to be offered. Freedom, here, is beyond madness.

Corvo does not dream of escape. To dream of escape is to be driven to that madness. Instead, he listens, he watches, he waits.

And he plans.

“You know, I ain't never seen a Serkonan face before you showed up here, pretty boy.”

The man reeks of the salt and sulfur of the mines, but Corvo is unphased, both by the smell and the comments. He simply continues to quietly poke at his food, hungry after working on unloading whale oil for the compound all day. The sun is circling lower in a perpetual state of twilight; soon the months of darkness would be upon them, and even the Tyvian labor camp of Utyrka needed it's power supply. Things were already unbearably cold, and if reports were anything to go by, it was only going to get colder and lonelier.

“Hey, Southerner. Did you hear me? Or are you deaf as well as mute?”

Corvo scratches at his chin absently with his wrapped left hand, wondering when it'll be his turn to be allowed to shave. Or if he should even shave, considering the extra face protection is always a plus, and he never did like the cold.

A huge hand slams down on the table next to his elbow, the sound and feel of it reverberating through the thick wood under his plate.

“HEY! You think you're better than me? Look at me when I'm talking to you, you Serkonan piece of trash!”

Corvo sighs. His hand pauses on his chin and, hidden by his wrapping, a deep, burning itch crawls just under his skin. His does his best to ignore it. Instead, tired dark eyes raise to look his harasser in the face, wishing he could just ignore this man and finish his dinner. Or is it his breakfast? Time has no meaning when the work hours are endless and the sun doesn’t rise in the morning.

The man in front of him is large, burly, a huge nose and small eyes hidden under a mess of wiry hair. A Tyvian man who's been here for a while, by the looks of it. Corvo wonders absently how the man has managed to maintain his girth, but decides immediately that he doesn't want to know. There are a lot of… coercive deals that occur in the compound that the guards look the other way to.

“Can I help you?” Corvo asks, eyebrows raising. The graveled and worn words tumble out, his throat still recovering from the last prison he had been in almost a year ago. The man reels back, eyes widening.

“O-ho, so you do talk! And I thought everyone down in Serkonos was dumb as a heap of blood ox shit!” The man laughs, as if his statement is in any way humorous, as if he in any way can garner an audience. Nobody rises to the bait, however, which only aggravates the man even more. Corvo doesn't miss the subtle movements of the others present in the room, how they avert their gazes, how they shuffle further from the commotion.

Corvo takes a moment to wipe his mouth and hands with his napkin. A smooth motion; open, nonthreatening.

“I'm not sure what you're looking for, but I assure you, you aren't going to find it here. Now, if you'll excuse me-”

“I want you to show me some goddamn respect, you little street brat-”

The next moment happens fast, too fast for the other man to process. He might even state later it happened unnaturally fast, in the blink of an eye, but the guards will just roll their eyes and move on. Without a witness, nobody cares. And Corvo works too fast for second opinions.

Corvo clenches his fist. The man had lunged across the table towards him, leaving him wide open. He only needed to stop time for a breath, lining up he shot perfectly, ducking and aiming between the ribs. The moment time resumed not even a second had passed, but the man found himself winded, coughing, fighting for the breath in his lungs. Corvo pulls back again, smashing his palm into the man's solar plexus, sending him reeling away and onto the floor. Corvo sighs, grabs his last forkful of food and gulps it down, ignoring the coughing mess of a man on the floor.

“I'm guessing you've been in the mines for most of the time I've been here,” Corvo says conversationally as he finishes his meal. “I'm Corvo Attano. It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

With that, he wipes his mouth again, getting up and taking his tray back to the front, where the dish rack waits. Behind him, he hears the low voice of another prisoner helping the harasser to his feet.

“Sorry nobody told you, Kushner. But nobody messes with the Serkonan.”

The Serkonan . That's how they know him here in Utyrka. It follows Corvo everywhere, like his own shadow. The Karnacan. The Southerner. The Foreign.

For anyone else from Serkonos, banished to a land of ice and snow, this place may have been a real threat. Any other Serkonan would have gone mad from the cold on day one, their bodies unattuned to the freezing temperatures the extreme north can produce. They would have lost their sense of self from the constant sun that holds no warmth, or the endless night that makes even the most iron-willed slowly succumb to hysterics. The Serkonan people were a people of warmth, of song, of sand and sea and spirits. They were not a people made for the endless winter that grips the depths of Tyvia. They would all surely die here, frozen, eaten by the waiting packs of wolves.

Yet Corvo continues to to persevere, to plan, and to count his blessings.

“I sentence you to freedom, Corvo Attano.”

It's as if he hides in plain sight, here in Tyvia. Nobody knows him or what he has done for the Empire at large. Nobody has seen his face, so far removed from the rest of the Isles that the prison was. Nobody looks at him and asks about Dunwall, or the crown. They don't ask about how many people he killed avenging the Empress, nobody goads him by asking how it felt to have his own daughter send him to prison.

He is simply the Serkonan , with his nice features and his olive skin and his long dark hair and obsidian eyes. He wears the title like armor, hiding his past and his deeds under it. These Tyvian inmates grunt out his foreign name like it’s a curse and he simply smiles, hearing it and adding it to the wall that he has built around himself.

If anything, it's the slander and the prejudice given to him that keep him sane, reminding him who he is. It gets him through the deepest part of the Month if High Cold, where storms wrack the compound and lesser men lose their wits, crying for the sun. It gets him through the work around the compound and in the mines, where time crawls and loses all meaning. Every so often he sees a body slump and fall from either exhaustion or madness. The guards pull them away, still or struggling, and Corvo watches, silent, his head down, clinging to his identity.

He is the Serkonan. He is the Southerner. And he will be the one to finally beat Utyrka.

The Mark helps. Wrapped and hidden away, it remains Corvo's trump card in a world where weapons aren't allowed. Nobody asks about the wrap, and nobody who glimpses the Mark thinks of it as anything more than an old tattoo. For the sake of appearances, he simply tells the guards that he suffers from a stiff wrist, and this was the only way to stabilize it. It was easy to buy into and an easy enough explanation that no further questions followed. So his powers slip by, unnoticed, giving him an ability to escape the creeping madness of the north that no one else has access to.

At first, he barely uses his Mark, mostly out of fear. He had arrived during the light months in Tyvia, and due to heightened visibility and outdoor work, Corvo couldn't risk being spotted and penalized for such obvious heretical behavior. But as the sun skimmed the horizon and the endless night loomed, he started getting more adventurous, and for the first time in months, he felt for the power of the Void. It had flooded his whole body, bathing him in a hot energy, begging to be used. First, he had extended his vision, watching the guards and their patterns of coming and going. He had observed the other men and women, watching them as they made their ways through the mines and the chores around the encampment. He then watched the perimeters, making note of the hungry wolves and saber toothed bears lurking in the distance.

Soon after, Corvo had a complete mental map of the compound and roughly everyone in it.

Spurred by success, he then proceeded to push the boundaries of his blink. Calling the Void to his palm, he grabbed at the very fabric of reality, letting go with enough force to propel himself forward a short distance. With effortless aiming, he could climb his way over the rooftops of the compound’s buildings, even making it to the top of the North Tower. It gave Corvo an aerial view of the whole camp, but it had its limits; it was tiring to constantly use the power, to constantly throw himself through the space between the Void and the real world. He had forgotten how much mental energy such an action demanded and he found his reserves depleted much faster than normal.

It meant making any kind of escape from the compound by blink impossible; he'd be too tired to stand by the time he hit the deep wilderness. Stopping time around himself was even worse ; he could manage a moment or so of suspended time before he had to let go of his grasp on the Void. It left him panting and shaking, despite the exhilaration that coursed his veins at such a feat.

The Mark helps, but it is not enough to give him an escape, not yet. Even if the guards never looked towards those who tried to flee, Corvo's powers would only get him fractionally farther than the average person. But with every passing day and every power practiced, he found himself getting a little bit stronger, and little less maddened by the never-ending darkness of the Tyvian winter.

Dear Em,

It was good to get your last letter. It can be so hard to tell time here in Tyvia during the winter. I will have to second what Sokolov said about the state of the weather here: it truly is dark for five months of the year. I guess you could say my special gift keeps me from going insane, but between the mines and the lack of sun, the days become harder and harder to count. I think time moves in strange ways here in Utyrka.

If your last post date is anything to go by, the Month of Hearths will be ending which means it is nearly the Month of Seeds… Have I truly been gone over a year and half already? I miss you so much. I hope your studies are going well, and aren't too boring. I know that not everything can be as exciting as hearing about the harrowing tales of bear fights from the far north, but Callista means the best. Don't make her worry more than she already does.

I'll end my letter here for now. I hope by the time your next letter arrives, the sun will be showing its face here in Tyvia again, and warming the gardens your mother loved so much back in Dunwall.

All the best,

Corvo

He should have known he would attract unwanted attention eventually. He should have known that suspending time for milliseconds to quickly end fights would get him into trouble with the wrong people. These prisoners and miners weren't just work hands; they were murderers, spies, and traitors of the state. All of them have high crimes; they are dangerous people who don't like being laid low by a foreigner who barely breaks a sweat when dispatching his enemies.

Even with no walls, Utyrka is still a prison, and there are only so many blessings to count.

“Been skating along too easily for a while now, Serkonan,” Kunshner growls as he punches Corvo straight to the gut. Two other men hold Corvo’s hands behind his back, the angle painful as Kushner’s fist twists Corvo's body with the force of another blow. A woman looms over Kunshner’s shoulder, sneering as Corvo heaves, doing his best to not lose his lunch.

He only vaguely recognizes their faces, partially obscured by scarves or hats. Corvo's protective gear has already been tossed aside; his goggles lay shattered from Kushner's first hit, which had been hard enough to daze Corvo, giving the others a chance to hold him down. It had all lead to this moment, with laughter and jeering as Kushner punches Corvo hard enough to cut. The biting cold that slices into his skin with each hit is simply the anguished insult added to injury.

The cut on his cheek bleeds freely and his eye swells but still, he takes each hit. He had learned long ago, in the endless agony of Coldridge, Back then, he had learned to endure the blistering heat and searing brands the torturer gave him; the bone-chilling cold is as special sort of punishment, but these punches are nowhere near as bad as Coldridge was.

Nothing will ever be as bad as Coldridge was for Corvo.

That doesn't make each blow hurt any less, any sneer or verbal jab any less wounding. It just makes all of it that much easier to outright ignore .

“Got nothing to say this time, eh Attano? No snarky one liners? No smart quip coming from that pretty mouth of yours?”

Kushner's fist hits Corvo's jaw and spots form in his vision. He shakes his head, doing his best to stay awake, not wanting to know what will happen to him if he blacks out. The blood pools in his mouth; he coughs and spits and can't stop the desperate laugh that bubbles up. He can feel Kushner pause, thrown off by the sound, foreign even to Corvo's ears.

If he can stall a little longer, he can get the guards, get someone over here, get his hand free, something...

“You so badly wanna be on my hit list, don't you?” Corvo manages to spit out, eyes growing dark with anger. “Keep going then. I'll see you in the Void, but only because I'll send you there myself personally.”

It is worth it just to see Kushner's face contort, to see his rage mutate into something far more sinister. Corvo can't calm the laughter in his ravaged gut and mouth, even as Kushner's buddies join in, doing their best to shut him up, make him stop, just shut him up already!! But they can't, because it's all he has left, and still even then it's not the torture for six months he endured. “Do your worst, you cowards,” he hears himself think, or maybe say aloud, he can't tell anymore.

Suddenly, there are different voices yelling and a different set of hands holding him, coming between Corvo and the other prisoners. He can feel his nose gushing blood, and is pretty sure it's broken. The cold air rushes in and stings against the gashes on his face and he really wishes he still had his hat and scarf because damn more than anything, that hurts like the Outsider--

A hand grasps his and pulls. Over the ringing of his ears he can hear the guards yelling, bringing back order, telling inmates off and to get back to work lest they be thrown out to the wolves. Another voice, much closer to his ear, cuts clearly through Corvo's fogged mind.

“Sorry about that, Attano. Heard you laughing and would have brought the guards faster if I had known…”

Corvo looks to his right to focus on the owner of that voice, surprised to see a thin Tyvian man, face hidden behind a thick scarf and hat. His dark beard is longer than most, and Corvo vaguely realizes he doesn't recognize it, or it's owner. He stumbles, tries to hold himself up on his own feet.

“Easy,” the man says. “Those cretins did a number on you.” His voice has the same accent as Sokolov, Corvo registers, and he can't help but wonder if he is a man of the same Tyvian region, perhaps the same age even.

“Thanks,” Corvo manages words garbled by the blood. “For grabbing the guards.”

“Not a problem, Royal Protector.”

Corvo stiffens in the man's grip. For a hot second, he feels nothing but the burn of the cold on his open wounds. He turns to focus on the man more closely, the blood rushing in his ears.

“How do you--”

“The name’s Zhukov, Attano. I used to work for Burrows, once upon a time, and I know that you definitely don't deserve to be here.”

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httplovecraft1890 · 6 years

Text

Friends Like These

A rather aimless drabble done in preparation for a crossover fan fic I’ll be writing in the future for Junji Ito’s Souichi and Tomie series, this is a writing exercise to get a feel for Tomie’s character. She’s such a great villain, isn’t she? I feel she’s probably Ito’s most terrifying creation because she’s ultimately so fundamentally human in how rotten she is.

Without further ado…

"Sorrow found me when I was young. Sorrow waited, sorrow won.” - The National, “Sorrow” (2010)

Tomie hates the In Between Place.

It’s what she’s come to call the plane of existence after whatever idiot she’s decided to ensnare inevitably does her in – a long list that includes stabbing, choking, dismembering, beating with various objects, electrocution, hanging, to name a few things – before she is reborn. The In Between Place is nothing more than an inconvenience but one that Tomie isn’t sure how long will last. Sometimes her regeneration takes hours; other times days, even weeks. There are no gods to judge her misdeeds. There’s just the void, an endless gray mist that stretches out before her as far as she can see.

At one time Tomie had been afraid of the In Between Place. The brief respite she had been given due to her miraculous recovery from being pushed over the cliff deep in the forest had only made things worse when every eye that had leered down at her had been as cold and distant as those she fixes others with now. When she had been murdered by Takagi, Yamamoto, and every other boy in class 1-B she had awoken scared and lost in the now familiar purgatory. She had cried herself hoarse unable to understand or comprehend her fate. Her mind had felt as if it were swirling endlessly, a shaken snow globe that had been unable to stop, as she had gone through varying states of consciousness before she understood that each piece of her was growing anew. Eventually, though, she had been drawn back through the membrane between the In Between Place and the world of the living. She doesn’t even understand after all this time what she is exactly. A demon? A witch? A ghost? There’s no one around to ask and Tomie isn’t sure she cares enough to know even if there were.

What matters is that she’s mastered death, conquered it in a way that no one else has. Tomie is special, just as her father had promised her from multiple lifetimes ago now, when she had been small enough to sit on his lap, the smell of sake on his breath as he read her a bedtime story, even if sometimes he never managed to finish them before passing out. The Western ones had been her favorite with their princesses waiting to be rescued by brave knights in castles. She had been ignorant then as to how boys truly were but she can’t completely scrub her father’s soft voice or his gentle kisses goodnight to her forehead from her mind.

“You can have anything you want if you try hard enough, my lily.”

That had been one of the first lies ever told to her by a man.

If that had been the case, she would not have found him on the floor having drowned ingloriously in his own vomit one morning at the age of five. Nor would she have been left at the mercy of her mother, a shrill harpy of a woman, jealous of Tomie’s beauty (just as all the others are, of course), who always had her brought back by the police when she tried to run away from home. Mother is another reason she can’t stand the In Between Place. It leaves her alone with her memories of people and places that no longer matter, of bruises that she had to hide underneath school uniforms or black eyes that were explained away from falling down the stairs.

Yet to say she is alone isn’t accurate. There are shapes within the ‘fog,’ twisting and turning about, faces that are so stretched in agony they barely resemble the human beings they once were. All the girls she has ever absorbed, everyone who Tomie has devoured to help regain her strength, anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with her are all here like an enormous extended family. At a time when Tomie couldn’t control them they terrorized her. They had swarmed as if they were an angry nest of hornets buzzing about and howling into the nothingness that she had no right to keep them against their will. But the more souls she accumulated the softer their voices had become until at last the hellish choir had died just as so many of them had.

All but one.

Time is frozen in the In Between Place; she can’t feel its passage and there would be no way to tell even if the laws of the outside world applied here. At the very least it keeps her stroll through her personal fiefdom a leisurely one. The spirits flee from her in fear as she walks by them, dancing away from the expensive pair of couture heels her lover had bought her days before he’d run her over with his sports car in a fit of rage. It had to have been a record, Tomie is sure. They had lasted an entire six months together though she is sure his love of verbal abuse had something to do with it. They’d connected via a dating app after all. He hadn’t even minded that she’d been unable to keep up appearances in her profile’s photo. He’d told her that he’d been into special effects when he was younger and that it was “wicked cool” she could do makeup like that.

Gag.

When at last she comes upon the being she’s sought, sitting in a ‘clearing’ hundreds of steps away from where Tomie arrived, it takes everything within her not to let her normally barbed tongue slip. Somewhere in the corners of Tomie’s mind, or in her shriveled, blackened heart, there is an ounce of compassion that still exists for the poor figure in front of her. Stuck with the ugly bob cut (a poor decision she’d warned her against even at the time), clad in clothes that are over a quarter of a century out of date, sits her only friend. Tomie lowers herself down next to her, subconsciously being careful not to crease her long and expensive blue dress her idiot had bought for her a week ago.

“Do you try to make it difficult for me to find you on purpose or…?”

Silence.

That’s normally how their one-sided conversations go. Reiko Mizutani has long since given up speaking. She had always been a girl without much of a backbone and her time in the In Between Place had ground her into less than nothing. Sometimes she even sits so still that her ghastly companions all about them act more lively than she does.

“Always the same with you, Reiko. Why the cold shoulder? I’m doing you a favor, you know.”

She had never intended it to be this way.

It hadn’t been Tomie’s fault that the one piece of her that had not reconfigured itself as fast as it should’ve, the heart that Reiko had dropped tearfully off of the bridge on the way home from school they’d once taken every afternoon, and had found its way out to sea and then to the town where Reiko had moved. Tomie hadn’t had much control of her powers then. The hunger that had gnawed at her had been so all-consuming she had barely registered she had pounced on Reiko until she was halfway through sucking the marrow out of one of her femurs just who her victim had been.

Tomie knew she was not a good person, even before her transformation. She hadn’t cared what others thought of her and saw no reason not to play with her vapid peers’ thoughts and feelings. Yamamoto was nothing more than a passing curiosity as interchangeable as anyone else in their year was. Takagi had been a fling just to see if she could destroy a marriage, though admittedly the decision not to use a condom had been his idea, not hers. Her fellow students had called her so many different names behind her back that they had drowned together in a sea of white noise. Whether Tomie was called a whore at home or at school didn’t matter.

“This one wasn’t so bad looking this time, was he? Foreigners do tend to have bigger bank accounts…”

Foreign. That’d have been the way to describe what she had felt as she had looked away from Reiko’s unseeing eyes by the tide that day. Reiko may have had awful fashion sense, a childish view of romance, and an assortment of other personality flaws that had seemed grating when they’d been in class together but it hadn’t mattered in that moment. When the deed had been finished the sensation of truly having severed the last connection to her old life had hit Tomie. There would never again be phone conversations late into the night to complain about the latest test, what universities they were considering, or anything of the sort. In a way she’d died for the second time that balmy afternoon.

“…Bigger dicks too. I told you if you stick with me you’ll never be disappointed.”

Reiko simply stares at her feet, utterly unresponsive to her attempted camaraderie, and Tomie is more than fine with talking to the wall her companion has erected between them. It is an infinitely preferable fate than being railed against for what she has done to her. Better that than being forced on the defensive for the events of the past 30 years.

She reaches over, taking one of Reiko’s small hands in hers, giving it a squeeze so gentle she surprises herself. “What about you, though? I never can tell what you like or don’t like when we’re out fishing together. Surely you’ve got a type, Reiko.”

The other girl’s glass eyes remain unfocused, staring out into the expanse just as they always do whenever Tomie asks her questions. This is all that’s left of Reiko – a dying ember that must be tended to prevent it from being snuffed out. Tomie stretches out her legs, leaning comfortably against Reiko’s shoulder.

“I’ll get the answer out of you sooner or later. We’ve got all the time in the world here.”

She hadn’t cared at first whether or not Reiko would suffer when she first returned. She had been so consumed with hatred at the fact her so-called friend had not fought harder for her, to tell her classmates off for murder. Instead Reiko had done what she always did: clammed up at the first sign of trouble and tossed her heart away as if it were yesterday’s garbage. It was only her attempt at going to the police in the end that Tomie had decided to spare her mind from being broken at all.

“I have to admit I’m getting tired of foie gras and caviar… it might be easier just to find a chef. It is fun watching some of them when the check comes, though.”

Reiko stiffens at the contact between them, her back ramrod straight, and while she has no need to breathe Tomie can feel her diaphragm shuddering against her. She never fights or crawls away; Reiko is nothing but a broken-in horse at the stable now. It doesn’t offend Tomie either. She’s used to those around her recoiling in horror when they get a glimpse underneath her carefully maintained façade.

“Something wrong, Reiko? You know I don’t bite much.”

Tomie can’t help herself. The joke tumbles from her mouth before she can stop them and Reiko takes the opportunity to press her forehead against her knees. Despite not talking Tomie is sure that prayers are being mentally sent to anyone that will listen to free her. A curious mixture of contempt and regret settles in her. She doesn’t need to allow the link between them, their souls becoming one when she chooses, to let her breathe fresh air with her lungs, to taste the foods and drink that she consumes, or allow her to experience whatever lay she has found. Then again perhaps expecting gratitude from finding a man desperate or pathetic enough to withstand her and then allowing him to have his way every so often to keep him strung along might not be something in her favor. She usually finds a knife entering her gut a more satisfying experience than being under a sweating pig whose idea of ‘passion’ is generally limited to a few minutes of grunting before emptying his seed inside her without even the minor courtesy of pulling out.

But Reiko does not experience the trauma of dying again and again. If Tomie wanted she could let the girl’s mind embrace the cool nothingness of the In Between Place every time the inevitable occurs. It is the quirk to her dark magic – to have her fate be replayed ad nauseam by those around her – that she protects her friend from. Once was enough for Reiko.

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

Tomie finds she means it too.

“I’m just an awful tease. That’s what you told me when we were younger. Guess I never did grow out of that, did I?”

It’s not quite an apology but Tomie knows that this minor peace offering will suffice. There’s nothing she could say or do to make the situation worse than it already is. She pulls away from Reiko’s side, hands on her knees as she stares out into the In Between Place, watching her slaves drift in their eternal torment. She wishes she knew why she’s gone to such lengths for Reiko, why it matters so much that she keeps a token reminder of the girl she’d once been around. Even back then Reiko was someone who only made her look more beautiful by comparison – the girl next door versus a woman. There is no need of that now. All she has to do is so much as look at a man and he will follow her to the ends of the earth.

“We’re all rotten deep down. I’m…”

She’s what exactly?

“…Glad you’re not like that.”

Her eyes roam over Reiko. The schoolgirl’s features have frozen in time just as much as hers have, whether crystallized by Tomie’s own willpower in the In Between Place or if this is a side effect of dying itself she doesn’t know. That damned jumble of emotions washes over her again as they both sit now in the uneasy quiet that fills the air between them.

“Tomie…”

There are very few things that can surprise Tomie. Any eventuality is one that she has either experienced or tried to prepare for. But in all the years that have passed since that day on the mountain there has never been a word between them; all she has gotten in return for her efforts at keeping Reiko ‘alive’ has been her refusal to flee from her presence, probably more out of terror than loyalty. But this is fresh, almost exciting in how unexpected it is. Reiko’s head lifts itself up and the gaze she is fixed with is hard enough to cut through a diamond.

“Yes?”

“…You’re wrong. You’re not a tease at all.”

Tomie can feel her one of her perfectly manicured eyebrows raise ever so slightly at that remark. She is never wrong; her ability to read others and stomp their dreams into the dirt is what she prides herself on the most. There is no good in her, if there ever was any to begin with, and even assuming there had been at all is self-pitying charity. Surely there is no way that Reiko after all this time forgives her for what she’s done.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re a monster.”

Oh.

This will not stand.

Memories of her mother threaten to wash over, an angry, spiteful hag who couldn’t stand the thought of her own daughter not being as miserable as she is, punching and kicking whatever part of Tomie is not tucked into her fetal position in whatever room she has found her in. Nor does she care to remember the growing pain of finding out that she will never be able to have a picture taken for fear of revealing what she’s become. Almost involuntarily, she reaches over and grips a handful of Reiko’s hair, forcing her friend face to face with her.

“Reiko, I think you and I both know that you’re better than that. Words hurt – especially when friends turn against on one another. All those special memories together can become the nastiest kind of rumors imaginable.”

Reiko’s bravado seems to fizzle out in just as much time as it emerged. She barely struggles against Tomie’s grip on her pixie cut. Why did Reiko find it necessary to make things so ugly? After all that Tomie has done for her, her nerve astounds her.

“I think that you owe me an apology.”

The spark of rebellion isn’t quite put out as Tomie’s little flame looks at her again as a small smile graces her face. Her eyes leave her shoes and glance out towards the purgatory that surrounds them before she shrugs.

“You owe everyone here an apology first.”

If there is one thing that Tomie hates it’s rebellion. Every man who has ever been able to resist her charms, every girl who couldn’t put two and two together to get out of her way, they’re all as tedious as the last. She offers them nothing but her presence, something alone that should suffice, but this is a slap in the face on an entirely different level than what she’s used to dealing with.

No matter.

If mother taught her anything it’s that if a message is drilled home enough it’ll stick.

“Apologize?” Tomie tilts her head in amusement. “I don’t really think I’d have to. After all they made their own beds to lie in and they understand their mistakes. They’ve atoned for what they’ve done.”

Releasing a hand from the side of Reiko’s face Tomie snaps her free hand’s fingers. All at once the world around them changes. Dozens of the phantasms that haunt this realm begin to swirl about them, faster and faster, as they shriek and moan in despair. They’ve long ago lost their individuality; the only way she could identify them now would be to focus on their tormented faces (not that she cares to). Gripping the side of Reiko’s face once more Tomie watches as Reiko’s eyes dart wildly about them, unable to press her hands against her ears to make the voices stop, unable to prevent the dizzying whirlwind of her fellow prisoners from giving her vertigo.

“I sacrifice so much for you, Reiko. All those dates with men, every weak compliment, every kiss with awful breath, every passionless evening… I’ve tried so hard to find someone you’ll enjoy. Yet you’re still ungrateful.”

Reiko only whimpers in response and Tomie is sure she is regretting ever standing up for herself now more than ever.

“What more is there I can do? We’re friends ‘till the end, aren’t we? I remember you telling me that when we were younger.”

Reiko’s jaw is working back and forth, almost as if she is about to cry, but Tomie knows just how little tears mean. She’s done it on more than one occasion herself to get out of a situation that looks bad enough. Tomie is sure that Reiko hasn’t forgiven her yet, isn’t truly sorry. It’s just another trick to get her to stop her assault.

“Even when we were in school I’d try to find someone who could stand you like I could. You rebuffed them all. ‘I’m waiting for university to get serious,’ wasn’t it? I believed you then; you didn’t have many social skills. The more I think about it, however, the more it sounds like… an excuse.”

Tomie truly is the worst. She can’t help herself. Her mind now runs with every possible thing she can do to make the situation as cruel as possible for her friend. She’ll pay for finally speaking up with nothing but a slap in Tomie’s own gorgeous, perfect face.

“Was it because you didn’t think you could keep them around for long? Scared that you’d look like a complete amateur next to me? Or maybe something else…?”

Releasing Reiko’s head at last, Tomie plants a finger on her chin, rhythmically tapping it as she ‘ponders’ in thought. She’s decided already how this will end between them. Tomie loves nothing more than to push boundaries after all.

“Perhaps you actually weren’t interested in all those boys I tried to bring around. That would’ve been embarrassing, after all, to admit that they just didn’t cut it for you. Really, I think that maybe it was me who you had a crush on.”

It is in that moment that Tomie can begin to feel some part of herself beginning to drift away, as if her mind is beginning to shatter into a dozen different pieces. She will be leaving the In Between Place soon; she’ll have to keep this little charade shorter than she’d like.

“I wouldn’t blame you, of course. Being around me for so long, it’d only be natural that envy turned into something else, especially if you thought you could use your friendship to leverage it.”

Reiko’s eyes are confused, scared, and Tomie takes a moment to revel in the liveliness she sees in them. This is what she’s been missing all this time – a companion that she can call on in her thrall who will never hurt her.

“N-no, that’s not– I never–!”

She has practically forgotten about the countless spirits spiraling about them. Her attention is on nothing now but Tomie herself.

As it should be.

“Shh…” Tomie whispers gently, bringing a finger to Reiko’s lips. “It’s okay. You don’t have to hide it, Reiko.”

The pull towards the world of the living is stronger now, insistent even. With her free hand Tomie snaps her fingers once more and all at once the souls she’s collected scatter to the non-existent wind. It is just her now and Reiko, sitting across from one another, in the gloom.

“You don’t have to forgive me. I forgive you.”

She leans forward, inching slowly toward her target, as she places a chaste kiss to the other girl. She can feel Reiko sputter, choking and spitting as the other girl violently pulls herself away from her, spastically scrambling backwards.

“W-what the hell was that?!”

Tomie rolls her eyes, barely even containing the urge to break out laughing at the overreaction. Perhaps she will do this more often, both with Reiko and without. Men are awful but women are a riot to watch squirm.

“A kiss.”

“Why would you ever think–”

“You’re a bad liar, Reiko. You always have been.”

She doesn’t particularly care if her poking is anywhere near the mark. But Tomie has found something at last that gives Reiko life, animation, and if it means she has to do it again…there are worse fates Tomie can think of that she’s sure Reiko would beg her not to unleash.

Reiko says nothing, her eyes flashing and angry, as she hunkers down once more into her resting position. With this Tomie knows she has won for now. She has tended to her little spark for so long that she’s managed at last to make it into a small fire. The only thing left to do now is to keep adding more kindling to its blaze.

As she leaves the In Between Place behind, her mind drifting back across the void she gives one last glance to the small, shaking girl near her. For a moment the anger she felt earlier dissipates and in its place is something Tomie can’t identify. It is a strange, murky thing that she’s never experienced, as confusing as what she’d felt on her initial search for Reiko. Tomie doesn’t dwell on it – self introspection is not something that matters – but at last she settles on ‘longing’ to describe it. Perhaps Reiko will forgive her someday.

Perhaps Tomie will learn to not be selfish.

#tomie #junji ito #drabble #junji ito collection #fan fic #unintentionally femslash if you squint #tomie kawakami #horror #manga

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ohstardust · 7 years

Text

Still Wish You'd Speak Your Mind

A/N: I just want to write a short drabble before bed, she said. Only something short to keep the account active, she said. 1848 words later I’ve finished it and I’m so bloody shattered. My bad. Go big, or go home. Clearly. This is A N G S T with the slightest fluff in there if you squint extra hard. I had to get some real angst out there. I’m not 100% happy with the ending but I’m just going with it anyway. Also not a reader fic, I’ve written an OFC. Title: We Need A Word by We Are Scientists (Strongly recommend listening to this whilst reading) My Jack playlist can be found on Spotify (x)

“What are you doing here?” All it took was the rhythm of his footsteps and his presence, at this stupid party, to know it was him. She hadn’t dared to glance back him. Her eyes focused on the setting sun of the late summer’s evening, the horizon a bold fusion of multiple pink and purple hues. It would have been beautiful if she wasn’t tired, pissed off and frustrated.

Amber placed the cigarette between her lips and inhaled, her eyes unfocused before softly closing and she exhaled. Jack’s throat cleared and she could hear him nervously licking his lips, mouth dry and nervous, sounds she was all too familiar with, “Tom invited me, I’ve just finished filming.” His voice stuttered out small and it made her heart clench slightly until she quickly reminded her heart that he was to blame, he was the one who ruined everything. “Right, it’s probably me who shouldn’t be here,” she flicked the ash onto the ground below her and settled firmly against the railing on the building’s communal roof terrace. “I didn’t say that.” “You thought it though, didn’t you? Thought how I shouldn’t be encroaching into your personal life anymore than I already have done, thought that I should have cut ties with all of our friends because you knew them first?” She began chewing on her thumb, a horrible habit she couldn’t shake when nervous, just another bad habit in her ever-growing list. Like smoking, a habit she’d picked up from Jack many moons ago. “You know I’d never expect, or even think, of that.” “I’m not sure what I know anymore, everything I thought I understood, and believed, turned out to be utter shit, didn’t it?” “I never lied to you.” His hands scrubbed over his face, missing his beard that he’d shaved off yesterday and feeling bare without it. “The whole thing was a lie Jack, it had to be. You couldn’t just do that to someone you loved.” “Don’t make it past tense.” Amber’s voice raised in annoyance, sure that there must be some hidden agenda or he was just playing with her for fun, because this was beyond cruel, “Don’t you dare, you didn’t mean it then and you don’t mean it now.” “Will you at least look at me?” She wasn’t sure whether she was too furious to face him, or if she knew herself too well, knew that her resolve would break and she’d crumble. He’d always had that effect on her. Amber had known him for eight years and she caved every time he asked her to do something, or say something, or to even look at him. Her problem had always been being unable to say no to him. Blinking out into the diminishing skyline she took another drag, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, her teeth working furiously over the skin around her thumb and she was so sure she was going to throw up. She didn’t want this, not today, not after a few glasses of wine, not when she’d spent all evening chain smoking his favourite cigarettes. Her heart was pounding in her ears, so loud that she jumped at the contact of Jack’s skin touching hers, his footsteps unheard. Amber’s first thought was to snatch her hand away from him, perhaps slap him and bruise his face like endless nights of crying and heartbreak had bruised her everything. Leave him with marks that matched the purple beneath her eyes that came from lack of sleep some months ago. It was the least he deserved. Instead she left it there for a few moments, curled with his and she gripped tight, those feelings flooding back to her of happiness, of her world that was once so consumed by him. Jack nudged her with his shoulder, unsure, and she briefly turned to meet his gaze. Amber’s first observation was how utterly tired he looked, she knew what long filming schedules looked like on him, the toll it took, but this seemed different, he seemed wrecked. And she despised how much she wanted to wrap him up her arms and hold him, let him rest on her for a while, because in this light, on this night, he looked like the Jack she first knew, the one she fell in love with. He looked so young and definitely not all of his twenty-seven years. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, if she hadn’t been paying such close attention, she’d have missed his words. “What are you apologising for?” “Us - everything. I’m sorry for being selfish and thinking I was making the right decision.” “And wasn’t it?” “We both know it wasn’t.” “I really don’t know that, it was your call to make. I didn’t ask you to choose, you gave yourself an ultimatum and you chose the outcome. I was the innocent bystander who got her world thrown upside down in the process.” “I know that, I really do.” “What hurts me the most is that you clearly didn’t trust that I’d stand by you. You thought I’d run at the first sign of trouble, you stupidly thought that I - what? Didn’t love you enough? Was me thinking that I was going to marry you not enough commitment and faith? Because that’s what I thought, I was so fucking naive Jack, I thought one day we’d be a family, we’d expand and we’d be happy.” Amber’s voice choked on the end of her sentence, her eyes were watering yet she refused to acknowledge the few tears that had slipped. She wanted him to know how much he’d hurt her, because apparently he didn’t realise how much she’d valued their relationship, and him. He raised his hand to her face, thumb jutting out to wipe away her tears, but she turned her head away from him. She wasn’t ready for that. “My parents have been asking about you,” she bitterly laughed, “think we’re still friends, didn’t have the heart to tell them otherwise. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that you didn’t choose me, that I wasn’t good enough.” His heart shattered as he heard the sobs she was trying so hard to suppress, “You were always good enough, too good. I was failing and I couldn’t give you what you deserved.” “Yet you thought I deserved all of this? C’mon Jack, that’s the oldest line in the book.” “I’m so fucking sorry,” he didn’t care that he was crying on his friends roof, or that he was breaking down in front of his ex-girlfriend, he couldn’t cope with what he’d done, how he’d absolutely ruined her. “You didn’t deserve any of this.” “Then why did you do it? I keep asking myself the same question and every time it’s my fault because I can’t imagine why else you’d have thrown four years away. Was I just good enough to keep the bed warm for the beginning of your career, until you’d advanced enough to get an upgrade?” Jack shook with his hurt, his tongue licking away his tears and he grabbed hold of her hands to make her face him, he had to tell her, “That night, the one before It all ended, the dinner and candles and everything, I was going to propose to you -“ a strangled sob escaped her throat, and if Jack hasn’t been holding her, she’d have buckled. “I was going to ask you to spend the rest of your life with me.” “I don’t understand, you just - you don’t - you don’t go from being ready to settle down with someone to ending the relationship twenty four hours later. Why didn’t you do it?” He’d spent countless nights going over this conversation in his head, over time there were multiple outcomes, some he could foresee and others not, right now he had no idea where he was going with this, or how she’d respond. He just knew that she had the right to hear this. “I received a film offer that day, and you had been telling me how nice it was to have me home for a while, and how much you’d missed me. I was so close to turning it down for you, and I suddenly panicked, I realised that I’d turn down any role for you, I’d end my career if you asked me to, and that terrified me. I’d worked so hard to get where I was and it felt wrong to view my career so flippantly.” “That’s not fair, I’d never have asked you to do those things, all I did was support you!” Jack flinched as Amber banged her hand down on the railing in anger, or rather frustration, she wasn’t quite sure how she was feeling at this moment, but whatever it was, it was strong. “I know! But what if more offers came through? If I spent more time away from home? If I hardly saw you? You can’t say that you wouldn’t resent me for that.” “Be that as it may, I loved you and that would have been enough for me. Now I just resent you for choosing your career over me, for thinking that we couldn’t all co-exist together. You and acting are a package deal, that’s what I signed up to the moment I met you.” The Scot audibly swallowed and lowered his tone, ashamed, “I thought it was the right decision for both of us.” “You never should have made a decision on my behalf, you didn’t have the right to do that when it concerned my future too.” Jack was exhausted and he reluctantly rested his forehead on her shoulder. Against Amber’s better judgement, she raised her right arm to loop around his neck and pull him closer. She hated how he’d made her feel the past eight months, how wretched life without him had been, but her mind couldn’t stop playing out all their best times together, the laughter, the kisses, the sex, the love. Every positive thing their relationship had created in her mind. “I wish I could turn the clocks back and stop from making the stupidest decision of my life, but I can’t and I have to live with that.” “You do, and so do I,” her sigh was weak and void of any weight but she was tired of fighting, tired of hating him, or at least convincing herself that she did. Slowly she was beginning to understand why he did it, even if she didn’t agree, and it still infuriated her, “but maybe we can live through it together as friends.” “We’ll never be just friends again.” He briefly pressed his lips to her neck and dropped his head down again. “We can for now, I’m not saying you’re forgiven or that we can pick up where we left off, but we can be friends. If the future has different plans then so be it, but for now we can at least try to gain some semblance of normality because I really fucking miss you Lowden.” “I really fucking miss you too, Thorne.”

#jack lowden imagine #jack lowden #dunkirk imagine #dunkirk cast #dunkirk imagines #jack lowden angst #jack lowden x ofc

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totallyrhettro · 7 years

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Adrift, chapter 1

Word Count: 2036 Rating: This chapter: PG; overall story: explicit Warnings: Depictions of drowning Summary: After almost drowning in the Cape Fear River as a young man, Rhett can't seem to get over his fear of swimming. Link is a swim instructor who offers to help. Notes: AU. Rhett and Link have never met and are in their late 20s. Based on the events described in GMCL 24, but Rhett was there alone.

First there was darkness. Not like the dark of a moonless night, or a lightless room without windows. This was pitch blackness, a darkness only known to those totally blind or those completely dead. Rhett felt like he was both. He could hear, but the sounds entering his ears confused his aching head. A rolling sound, rumbling but dull and indistinct. A bubbling, low and deep, flowing all around him, and the constant thrumming of his heart beating in his eardrums louder than anything else.

Rhett opened his eyes. A spectral glow dappled down from above, an aura that was quickly swallowed up by the abyss below. He felt weightless, his arms stretched out, his legs splayed. There was nothing around him. Nothing but the cold enveloping grasp of the endless void. There was a strange, surreal tranquility in the void. He felt calm, peaceful, and for a long while he just let himself float there, watching the translucent aura of light slowly begin to fade.

A sharp pain in Rhett’s chest shook him from his complacency. His lungs were burning, aching for air but he couldn’t bring himself to take a single breath. He tried to move his arms and legs, but he couldn’t; his body wouldn’t cooperate. Panic surged through him, the pulse in his ears grew louder, and a red haze passed over his view. Just when he thought he was going to fall back into that darkness, his mouth snapped open and he breathed in deep.

Water.

The freezing liquid flooded into his lunges and after only a moment he couldn’t tell if he was breathing in or out as his body vainly tried to take in the life-giving oxygen it desperately needed. Somehow his limbs began to flail, his chest and throat convulsed violently. Still the light above grew dimmer as he sank slowly down, deeper and deeper. The red haze melded to grey and the end was fast approaching.

Then... a blinding white, a pure as the freshly fallen slow; an absolutely clear and all-consuming white. It pushed out everything else until there was nothing but the white and the ever-present hum of Rhett’s heart beat in his ears.

Rhett sat up, his chest heaving, his skin soaked with sweat. He gasped for air, feeling like he couldn’t breathe despite the huge gulps he managed to take in. His eyes still burned from the imagined salt water, tears clung to his eyelashes. It took him a minute to realize he was home in his bed. Glancing at the clock he saw the time- 3:27 am. He shoved the offending timepiece onto the floor, wishing it was lying.

Third time this week. The dream had always been relatively frequent, but it had been a long time since he’d had felt it so intensely. Rhett had hoped that getting away from that town, that river, would clear his mind, help him forget, but it was no use. The memories still dogged him, the dreams still haunted him. Somehow he had survived that river but in a lot of ways he was still there, being pulled under with no hope of escape. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure if really had gotten out. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t.

Pulling back the covers he swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stretched. There was no use trying to go back to sleep now; he had learned that years ago. As he slumped out of bed and trudged toward the kitchen, and grabbed the coffee pot. It was too early for coffee but that didn’t matter.

As the dark liquid ran down his throat into his empty stomach, he could almost feel the caffeine soak into his brain, waking him up. After dreams like that last one, he never fully felt real until he’d had his first cup of joe. Leaning against the sink he stared off into the other room, afraid to close his eyes for too long. The darkness behind his eyelids reminded him too much of the watery void.

Running his fingers through his dirty blond hair, still slightly damp, he let out a slow sigh. Dwelling on the dreams never did any good. Finishing off his cup, Rhett went into the living room. It was a humble apartment, perfect for a freelance musician playing songs in coffee shops and the occasional bar. The second-hand furniture had been gifted to him by his brother ages ago when he first moved in. He had promised to pay him back when he had enough money but work was hard to find and no ‘big break’ was anywhere in sight. Frankly he owed his brother, Cole, a lot more than some money. So much more.

During the weeks following his near-death experience at the Cape Fear River, Cole had been the only one who knew what had really happened, how it had deeply affected him. Every night, when Rhett woke up terrified that he was drowning, Cole had been there. When he didn’t know where he was, when he was shaking from fear and drenched in his own sweat, his brother was there to make things right.

Then, after college, when Rhett told him he had to leave, had to get out of his hometown and move clear across the country, Cole helped him. He didn’t tell their parents, he just helped Rhett load up a truck so he could escape. Rhett would never forget what his brother had done for him.

Their parents thought Rhett had gone off to become a star, which wasn’t far from the truth. He was trying to make ends meet playing the guitar; mostly covering old country songs. If he was honest, he never had a real plan, he just need to get gone. Finding a cheap apartment in Southern California, far from the beach, was easy. Finding one without a pool was hard, but somehow he managed. Now he just seemed to be living day to day, trying to get steady work. With a degree in engineering he thought getting a job would be easy, but after living here for years he still had few prospects. Fast approaching thirty and he still felt like he was adrift, in more ways than one.

Settling down in the living room, Rhett grabbed up his guitar. It was the only thing keeping him sane these days. Letting his fingers fly over the strings, sending notes streaming off into the air, half listening, half feeling them fill the room. There was serenity in the music, if not happiness. He could lose himself for hours just playing random melodies. For a long while there was only him and his instrument and he forgot all the problems in his life. Eventually, however, the sun came up and he was harshly reminded that there was actually a world outside his small apartment.

Groaning, and making a mental note to purchase darker curtains at the first opportunity, he set aside his guitar and shuffled into the bathroom. His fears weren’t so bad that he couldn’t take a shower, but after the nightmare of last night, he did give slight pause before stepping under the water. Most of his life was unaffected by his terror of drowning. It wasn’t a fear of water in general, just large bodies of it. Pools, ponds, rivers and (of course) the mighty ocean were all things he wanted to avoid like the plague.

It was after six when he walked out of the steam-filled room, drying his water-curled hair and headed into his bedroom. While it was too early to be awake in California, it was three hours later back in his home state of North Carolina. Late enough that he wouldn’t be waking his brother’s family with a phone call. It had been awhile since he called; he was rather due, and after last night he really needed to hear a friendly voice.

“Long time no talk, Bro,” Cole commented.

“Hey, bro,” Rhett greeted, dodging the fact. “How’s Teresa? The kids?”

“All fine. The kids are getting so big. I think they miss their uncle.”

“I want to visit, believe me.” Mindlessly running his fingers through his damp hair, straightening his curls, Rhett sighed. “I can’t really afford to right now.”

“Mom and Dad miss you, too,” his brother continued. “You could at least call them, you know.”

“Yeah,” Rhett nodded. “Yeah, I know.” It’s not like he never did, just rarely. It was always hard to dodge the tough questions, the questions he wasn’t ready to answer. Why did he move so far away? Was he doing okay for money? When was he coming home?

“They worry about you,” Cole was saying. “I worry about you.”

“I’ll try to write them a letter.” That should be easier. “I’m going okay, though. Really.” ‘I’m actually gonna make my rent on time this month.’

“How’s the job search going?” It was a fair question so Rhett tried to hold back a groan, but failed slightly. “You know I have to ask.”

“Yeah. It’s- it’s going, you know?”

“Black and Veatch is looking for engineering consultants in Cary,” Cole prompted.

“You’re not sly, man. I- I’m good, really. No where near rock bottom,” he added, trying to sound like he was joking. Cole managed a half-hearted chuckle, understanding the truth in that statement.

“Hey, I had to try.” There was a moment of awkward silence before he changed subjects. “You sleeping okay?” Rhett wanted to say yeah, or brush off the question, but it would be a lie, and a terrible one at that. Cole knew full well why his younger brother was calling him this early.

“Mostly,” he skirted.

“That bad, huh?” Cole guessed. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this-”

“You’re probably right.”

“-But maybe you should talk to someone.”

“I can’t afford therapy.” ‘Not if I want to eat.’

“Well, I did have another thought. I did some searching online and there’s a gym just down the road from you.” Confused, Rhett tossed his now-damp towel to the floor and rubbed his eyes.

“You think working out would help?” He looked down at his robed body. “I’m in okay shape.”

“They have a pool.”

“No way,” was Rhett immediate response. Whatever his brother’s suggestion was going to be, he already hated it.

“Just hear me out. They offer swimming lessons there.”

“I already know how to swim.” It was true; being unable to swim isn’t what caused him to almost drown.

“I just think some professional lessons might help you get over your fears.” Rhett almost hung up the phone, but not out of anger. It was more of a fear response than anything. The very idea of getting back into the water, any amount of water, made him squirm. Then again this was his brother and he always wanted what was best for him. He owed him to at least listen.

“I know how to swim,” he repeated, stubbornly. Listening didn’t mean being cooperative.

“But you don’t know how to not be afraid.” Rhett didn’t know how to answer that. After a moment Cole cleared his throat. “All I’m saying is you are a full grown man. You can’t let this fear rule you forever. It’d just be worth a chance, don’t you think?”

“Maybe.”

“Good enough.” Rhett could almost hear the smug grin on his brother’s face. “Look, I gotta go. We’re taking the kids out to lunch. You need me to call you later?”

“I won’t be home ‘til late. Thanks,” he added, quietly.

“Any time.” After hanging up the phone, Rhett sat on his bed a while, thinking about what Cole had suggested. It wasn’t a terrible idea. He hated it, but it wasn’t a terrible idea. As he started picking out his clothes for the day he figured his brother was right. He wasn’t excited about him being right, being perfectly happy to live with his fear for the rest of his life. Then again he was sick of these damned dreams still haunting his nights. Maybe dealing with the problem might just actually help.

It was worth a shot.

Chapter 2

More Fics

#rhett #link #rhink #fanfic #adrift #drowning tw

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neuxue · 7 years

Text

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 7

Nynaeve casually challenges authority structures, Rand tries to delegate, the Aiel continue to live the story of Rhuidean

Chapter 7: The Plan for Arad Doman

Poor Ituralde.

“A storm is coming,” Nynaeve said

Very observant, Nynaeve. Has there been any point in the last eleven books or so when there hasn’t been a storm coming? Hell of a time to have meteorology as a superpower.

The weather was always there, in the back of her mind. She could sense the rain, sun, or snow in the wind’s whispers.

Lately, however, the sensations hadn’t been like whispers at all. More like distant shouts, growing louder.

Between Nynaeve’s symbolic weather sense and Mat’s brain-dice, we’ve pretty much got alarms ringing 24/7 (er, 24/10?). No wonder these people are on edge.

Daigain says okay fine there’ll be a storm we’ll get wet it happens, and Nynaeve’s like no you don’t understand, the rain symbolises endless tears and the lightning is the actual end of the world and the dark clouds represent the all-consuming nothingness of the void and—

And now Daigian is no doubt wishing she had a better umbrella.

Her name is really hard for me to type, for some reason; I always end up writing it as Daigain.

Nynaeve could still remember the sheer joy – the awesome euphoria, strength, and sheer feel of life –that had come from drawing that much power.

So I know this is absolutely me nitpicking the prose excessively, but this keeps happening, where a non-trivial word appears twice in the same sentence (In this case, ‘sheer’). It’s not the end of the world or anything, but it catches my attention every time it happens and I’m trying to figure out why it’s suddenly a thing, as seems more like an editorial issue than an authorial one. Was there a deadline on the publication of this book that caused the editing process to be rushed?

(For the record, I tend to notice and occasionally get irritated by this sort of copy-editing-level stuff in just about any book; it’s not just me being unfair to Sanderson. I promise. It’s part of why I have such a love of beautiful prose, and why reading Twilight was like having an unanaesthetised root canal).

(Yes, I know these liveblogs are full of typos and sentences that go nowhere and enough other errors to make any editor cry. I’m a hypocrite, what can I say?)

She was glad the ter’angreal she’d used to touch that power had been destroyed. But the male ter’angreal was still intact

So that’s good. I mean, barriers to unity between the two halves of the Power have always ended well, right?

The Choedan Kal, as we have been told a number of times by even those who desire power over the entire world and everyone in it and are working towards chaos and destruction, allow one to channel enough power to potentially destroy the world. Rand spent several books terrified of even touching the ter’angreal. And we’ve seen what he can do with just half the power of one. Or with Callandor, for that matter.

He and Nynaeve used the Choedan Kal to work a miracle and give the Light probably its greatest victory in three thousand years. But the whole underlying point of that was that it was accomplished with saidar and saidin together, unified for the first time in millennia, cleansing one half of that whole so that they could be unified in truth.

Now, only the male half of the Choedan Kal can be used. Which means torrents of unbalanced saidin, in the hands of a single person rather than a link. And that, given how important unity and balance are in this story and how many problems result from division and discord, seems like a recipe for disaster.

So that’ll be fun.

She’d told Rand that he needed to forget about the access key.

I mean. A for effort?

Daigian is still grieving for Eben Hopwil, which of course makes Nynaeve think of Lan, which…

Lan would be fine. Only at the end of his journey of thousands of miles would he be in danger. It was there he intended to throw himself at the Shadow like a lone arrow

It’s hardly even simile. He does quite literally intend to throw himself at the Shadow. He always has. And he has always intended to do it alone, knowing full well what the consequences will be. Knowing that there is no way to win, that all that awaits him is an unmarked grave in the Blight, in the land that has always been his inheritance, his burden, and his home. One last, lone strike from the ghost of Malkier, falling forty years late and ultimately accomplishing little but fulfilling what he believes to be inevitable; he will fall as Malkier fell, standing against the Shadow and fighting to hold back the tide until he is overwhelmed.

Of course, Nynaeve has other plans, and I am so very excited to see how this plays out. Last stands in almost any variation are well up there when it comes to my favourite tropes, and this adds in an extended march towards death, a final journey, likely a steadily gathering army, the potential sort-of-resurrection of a nation…and then something that is both conflict and cooperation between two characters of phenomenal though differently-manifesting willpower, working towards this end. One embracing death, one doing everything to ensure a chance for life.

Nynaeve has accepted that Lan must go, that he has to do this. Now it is perhaps time for Lan to accept that Nynaeve is right, that he doesn’t have to do this alone, that Malkier still has something to give, that his war against the Shadow maybe does not have to be unwinnable.

Tl;dr: I am here for every single aspect of this. In… case that was somehow ever in doubt?

Nynaeve’s constant struggle with authority continues. Her own, other people’s, entire institutions of heirarchy – you name it, she struggles with it.

Oh, interesting. Daigian’s teaching her the hundred weaves of the test for Aes Sedai. I know the main set are all Aes Sedai by decree or technicality already, but I do hope we get to see at least one of them take it. Maybe Elayne, since we didn’t get to see her Accepted test.

Nynaeve waved an indifferent hand, repeating the weave exactly. “Honestly,” she said, “that one seems the most useless of the bunch! What is the point of all of these?”

Someday when this is all over, Nynaeve, you should go find Thom Merrilin and ask him to explain the idea of the ‘party trick’ to you.

The problem was, this placed Nynaeve in a situation where she was all but treated as a student again. She did see the use in knowing the hundred weaves – she’d spent far too short a time studying them, and virtually every sister knew it. However, by accepting the lessons, she hadn’t meant to imply that she saw herself as a student!

*shakes head fondly* oh Nynaeve. She is in a bizarre situation in terms of how she fits into the Aes Sedai hierarchy, and it combines so well with that aspect of her arc as a whole. Not entirely unlike how she was regarded by many as too young to be Wisdom, and then how she left her village and entered a world where being village Wisdom meant very little. So much of her path and her growth as a character has related to figuring out who she is and where she fits in, balancing exceptional power and intentions with insecurity and stubbornness. How she can grow and change and learn and still be herself, how she can be village Wisdom and powerful Aes Sedai and sometimes even uncertain young woman, how she can both surrender and command – in essence, how she can trust in and remain true to the core of herself, even while everything changes around her and she changes and grows with it.

Bah!

I challenge you to find me a single Sanderson character who hasn’t said this at least once.

Nynaeve is barely thinking about the weaves she’s copying, and Daigian is thinking a lot about Eben.

A youth of only sixteen, Nynaeve thought, dead. Did Rand have to recruit them so young?

Rand wasn’t all that much older himself, when this all started. And Egwene was what, a few months past sixteen? Blame the genre, Nynaeve, not Rand.

“This pain you feel, it has to be an effect of the bond, and therefore something to do with the One Power. If the Power causes your pain, then the Power can take that pain away.”

“And why would I want that?” Daigian asked, in control once again.

“Well…well, because it’s pain. It hurts.”

This reminds me of one of the many times she tried to heal the wound in Rand’s side – “How can it be enough when you’re still bleeding?” Nynaeve is a healer to the core; this is what she does. She sees pain and she wants to ease it, wants to fix it, and hates it when she cannot. “At least let me Heal you,” she said to Rand, when she had no idea what else to do, or how to help him. And then with Lan, she saw how it was tearing him apart to remain here, and so she took him to the Borderlands, because that was the only way to even possibly heal him. And so many others. She can’t see pain and not want to help.

“It should,” Daigian said. “Eben is dead. Would you want to forget your pain if you lost that hulking giant of yours? Have your feelings for him cut away like some spoiled chunk of flesh in an otherwise good roast?”

[…]

would Nynaeve want that pain taken away? She closed her mouth, suddenly realising the honour in Daigian’s words.

She is a healer, but she can absolutely still understand the value in some kinds of pain, in grief. It’s as if wanting to heal is her instinctive reaction, but this is a more conscious degree of wisdom. Which says something about her, really.

“There is something wrong with this system, Daigian,” Nynaeve said absently.

Back to Nynaeve and systems of authority. I’m with her on this one; it is absurd that someone like Daigian has effectively no opportunity whatsoever to rise from the very bottom of the rankings. She seems experienced and intelligent, and her extremely low strength in the Power has likely made her resourceful in how she uses it, but she’ll always be little more than a servant to other Aes Sedai. Which is kind of bullshit.

“With the testing? It seems appropriate that there should be some kind of test to determine worthiness, and the performing of difficult weaves under stress strikes me as fulfilling that need.”

Not what Nynaeve is talking about, but Daigian’s point is reasonably sound. The problem is…they aren’t difficult weaves for someone at Nynaeve’s level of strength. Likely even someone at Egwene’s. Various Forsaken have derided the Aes Sedai of this time as half-trained children, and while they’re perhaps more dismissive than they should be, they’re not exactly wrong. Having a test isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but is this test going to stand up to stronger candidates? Or even to weaker ones, who have less strength in the Power but more strength in other ways?

I could almost see Nynaeve just demonstrating the hundred weaves in the same offhand dismissive way she’s learning them now, not even in the test but as reasoning for why she shouldn’t have to take it. She can do the weaves without difficulty, and she’s proven herself in any number of situations that most would agree meet the criterion of ‘stressful’.

“There you sit,” [Nynaeve] said, “knowing as much as any other Aes Sedai – knowing more than many, I’d wager – and the moment any Accepted just off apron strings gains the shawl, you have to do what she says.”

Daigian’s blush deepened. “We should move on.”

It just wasn’t right. Nynaeve let the matter drop, however. She’d stepped in this particular pit once before in teaching the Kinswomen to stand up for themselves in front of Aes Sedai. Before long, they’d been standing up to Nynaeve too, which had not been her intention. She wasn’t certain she wanted to attempt a similar revolution among the Aes Sedai themselves.

And yet, she’s Nynaeve, so no one is going to take that bet. I do love that she’s bringing this up so un-subtly, though. She is one of the strongest Aes Sedai in centuries, and she hates it when people challenge her authority in general, and here she is, going off unprompted about how this system is fucked. Which it is.

Sure, she’s in this weird position where she doesn’t actually gain much rank or advantage from her strength, because the Aes Sedai around her don’t actually see her as one of them, so the whole notion of authority and heirarchy is on her mind already. But still, she just goes ahead and calls it like she sees it, even if in all likelihood it could easily end up the way her talks with the Kinswomen did. But someone has to do it, because again, this system is so many kinds of ridiculous. And it’s just so classic Nynaeve that she would be the one to point it out this way (and in all likelihood have it come back to bite her later).

Cadsuane’s going somewhere so Nynaeve immediately assumes there is a Secret Meeting with Rand and leaves to go join in. As you do.

Ah, the clan chiefs have arrived.

She would have thought that after all this time, [Rand] would have realised the importance of getting advice from someone a little more experienced than he. How many times now had he gotten himself kidnapped, wounded or imprisoned because of his rashness?

Well, she may have a point there.

But mostly I’m laughing because, while she does have something of a point, he does have people with more experience giving him advice. Bashere. Cadsuane. Also sort of arguably Lews Therin Telamon (though that facebook relationship definitely merits a solid ‘it’s complicated’). Sometimes he even deigns to listen.

All these others in camp might bow and scrape and dote on him, but Nynaeve knew that he was really just a sheepherder from Emond’s Field.

The fact that she still sees him that way is one of the most important things about her dynamic with him, even as it can also blind her to some things. Rand can no longer afford to ‘sit, and remember a shepherd named Rand al’Thor,’ but Nynaeve does remember, and holds stubbornly to that memory, even when he cannot.

(It reminds me of Elayne, thinking ‘there had been a boyishness about him sometimes, but it was gone as if burned away. She mourned that for him. She did not think he did, or could.’ He has lost or left behind so much of himself and who he was, but those who love him hold on to some of those pieces).

Only now instead of flustering the village girls he could throw entire nations into chaos.

I love this.

The way it’s presented, it becomes both a similarity (he’s still the village boy who could get into trouble) and a striking contrast (he was harmless, and now he is a force of devastation). And it almost seems to emphasise how young he still is, and how quickly this happened, and how much has changed. How much he has changed, though she still sees him as Rand, still draws these similarities rather than looking at him as a different person, even as she does see what he has become. She just doesn’t see his current state in isolation; she sees it through the lens of memory and of love, and even perhaps of faith that he is still Rand, that the boy she knew is still there.

It’s also an excellent line, just on its own.

She doubted that Aviendha would be with the group

Maybe stick to the weather in your predictions, Nynaeve.

Nynaeve still felt guilty for leaving them, but somebody had needed to help Rand cleanse saidin. That wasn’t the sort of thing you left him to do alone.

Nynaeve al’Meara: casually performing miracles since TGH. “but I didn’t mean to Heal Logain!” “but someone had to cleanse the taint!” “I didn’t know what would happen, but I fought one of the Forsaken and kind of captured her, I’m sorry.” I love her.

Rand stood inside, wearing black and red

Red and black, hmm? Dyeing your hair black and trying to save a man from falling off a building wasn’t enough for you, Rand? What’s next, a sha’rah board?

When had he started looking so much like a Warder, with that instant glance of assessment?

Somewhere mid-TDR, I would say. Possibly as early as TGH, though at that point he was mostly faking it.

But…yeah. He has changed, and she can see it, but even so he is still Rand.

I should never have let that woman take him from the Two Rivers, she thought. Look what it’s done to him.

He is still Rand, and she hates what has been done to him, hates how much pain he has suffered. She doesn’t dismiss him, or decide that he is no longer Rand and therefore no longer someone she can or should care about. She wants to help him.

And she also recognises very quickly that her thoughts about Moiraine there aren’t fair or rational.

If Moiraine hadn’t come for Rand, he’d now be dead. With him would have gone the light and hope of the world.

She has come a long way.

“I was about to send for you. Rhuarc and Bael are here.”

Nynaeve raised an eyebrow, folding her arms. “Oh?” she asked flatly. “And here I’d assumed that all the Aiel in the camp meant we had been attacked by Shaido.”

His face hardened at her tone, and those eyes of his grew…dangerous. But then he lightened, shaking his head, almost as if to clear it. Some of the old Rand – the Rand who had been an innocent sheepherder – seemed to return.

She is one of the few who can bring that out in him, it would seem. Probably because she still sees that Rand in him, where so very few other people do. Where even he doesn’t always, anymore. It’s why he needs people like her, and people who see him as human, and people who will to speak honestly and bluntly to him, and people who are unafraid of him, and people who love him,.

Nynaeve eyed him, surprised at how tight her own nerves had become. He was just a wool-headed villager, no matter how much influence he’d found. He was.

But she could not shake away that look in his eyes, that flash of anger. Holding a crown was said to change many men for the worse. She intended to see that didn’t happen to Rand al’Thor, but what recourse would she have if he suddenly decided to have her imprisoned? He wouldn’t do that, would he? Not Rand.

These moments, when she can’t help but see how dangerous he is, and can’t help but feel a little bit of fear, much as she doesn’t want to, are so sad. She still sees him as Rand, and holds stubbornly to that perception, but even she can’t keep it perfectly. He has gone too far for that. She doesn’t want to be afraid of him, or to doubt him – she wants to protect him – but there are these flashes of moments where some element of her subconscious mind betrays her. Rand al’Thor would never hurt her, but the Dragon Reborn…and she can’t quite banish that hint of fear and uncertainty, and it’s just a little bit heartbreaking.

(And then there’s Lan referring to him as ‘al’Thor’ that one time; I am still not entirely over that).

Semirhage should have been stilled the moment they captured her…

It’s a shame no one talks to anyone, or they would know that Semirhage is the third Forsaken who has been captured in the last year or so, and thus this is not a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get information. It is a valuable one, but how much are they realistically going to be able to get from her, that Rand didn’t get from Asmodean – or the memories in his own head – or Egwene and the others from Moghedien? And at what potential cost?

Of course, it’s a moot point because Rand won’t let her be harmed, and it’s ALL GOING TO END IT TEARS, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST.

Well no, you probably read the books and therefore actually know how it ends, but that is beside the point.

Hi Aviendha. Still being given shaming punishments, I see.

“Tell me of your work in Arad Doman,” he said to Rhuarc. “My scouts inform me that this land is hardly at peace.”

Rhuarc accepted a cup of tea from Aviendha – so she was still considered an apprentice – and turned to Rand. The clan chief did not drink. “We have had very little time, Rand al’Thor.”

“I don’t look for excuses, Rhuarc,” Rand said. “Only results.”

In which Rand takes a level in CEO. Seriously though, let’s have a chat about realistic expectations and demands, shall we?

Rhuarc himself displayed no anger, though Nynaeve did think his hand tightened on his cup. “I have shared water with you, Rand al’Thor,” he said. “I would not think that you would bring me here to offer insults.”

Does it feel cold in here to anyone else? Rhuarc may not be displaying any anger, but…yikes. He’s been one of Rand’s strongest supporters and allies for a long time now; he hasn’t just shared water with Rand but stood by him at Alcair Dal, administered a city and fought battles for him, and went to Dumai’s Wells to rescue him with little hope of surviving. Not to mention advised him, taught him, and befriended him.

Bael is rather less subtle about his irritation.

“This land is broken, Rand al’Thor,” Rhuarc said, his voice calmer than Bael’s. “It is not making excuses to explain that fact, and it is not cowardice to be cautious about a difficult task.”

Have I mentioned lately that I love Rhuarc? He’s great. He’s one of those solid, utterly dependable types. 110% badass, but not flashy or reckless about it. Just…there, unafraid and unflappable and steady like a brick wall.

“We must have peace here,” Rand growled. “If you can’t manage—” “Boy,” Cadsuane said, “perhaps you want to stop and think. How often have you known the Aiel to fail you? How often have you failed, hurt, or offended them?”

Harsh, but all too true. It’s not just that they haven’t failed him, with the exception, I suppose, of the Shaido. They have also given up so much for him. They have left the Three-fold Land, following a man prophecy says will destroy them. Many have been destroyed already, either fighting his battles or lost to the Bleakness. Even the fall of the Shaido could be obliquely attributed to him; he caused the schism as much as Couladin did.

And he knows all of this. It may not all be his fault, exactly – prophecy makes blame difficult, sometimes, and they made their own choices – but he knows full well what role he is set to play here. He knows he will be their destroyer, much as he does not – did not? – wish to be. Because of that, he knows he has a certain responsibility to them. And usually he recognises and remembers this. It’s hard to know for certain what’s going through his mind here, since we’re not in his POV, but I do wonder. It seems Cadsuane’s words have hit home, at least.

“I apologise, Rhuarc, Bael. It has been a…wearing few months.”

Well. I mean. That…yeah. You could say that. Oh, Rand.

It seems a rather Sanderson thing for Rand to say, but I’ll happily take it. It’s easy to criticise a lot of what Rand’s doing, and to see that he’s on a dark path right now, and that he needs to come to terms with some things and deal with others, and all the rest. But he’s also just so tired. He’s exhausted, and he’s desperate, and he’s just trying to hold himself together, literally and figuratively, long enough to hold everything else together. And of course things slip, and pieces get left behind, and he stops caring about anything he doesn’t see as absolutely essential. Of course that view gets distorted. Of course his path looks dark, because he has nothing left to give and everything left to do, and it’s too much and there’s no time. His demands of others may be unreasonable, but the demands on him aren’t any less forgiving, and too few characters see that. Which doesn’t necessarily excuse him, but it does make a lot of what he says and does very understandable.

So anyway, Arad Doman is a mess.

Rand starts musing about Graendal and Nynaeve’s disturbed by the familiarity with which he speaks of her. I suppose I, too, would be slightly worried about anyone on first-name terms with Graendal, because she’s terrifying, but I don’t think that’s exactly Nynaeve’s issue.

Rhuarc just wants to fight Ituralde. Rand’s like this is not the time for a pissing contest.

“Not while I live, at least.”

Yeah, so, ‘over my dead body’ statements tend to sound a lot less flippant and hit rather harder when most people – including Rand himself – expect him to die in the very near future.

It reminds me of when he said that, after he dies, everyone can go back to fighting the Seanchan to their heart’s content if they want to. It’s a sad kind of resignation and something almost like despair, fighting so hard for peace and stability now, and having little hope that it will last, even as he plans to die to give it the chance.

How thoughtful Bashere seemed, as if he were indeed considering engaging this Ituralde. Men!

Damn it Bashere, not you, too!

Offer [men] a challenge, and they’d be curious, no matter that the challenge would likely end with them spitted on a lance.

This from Nynaeve “nothing is impossible” al’Meara. Bless.

“There are few men alive like Rodel Ituralde,” Bashere said. “He would be a great help to our cause, for certain. I’ve always wondered if I could beat him.”

Guys. Everyone. Please. If you could all just set aside your massive crush on Rodel Ituralde for a moment, while we figure out a strategy…

Though on a more serious note it puts me in mind of last chapter, when Ituralde and the Seanchan general exchanged genuinely respectful words and advice, despite the fact that one had just defeated the other, and one was dying. Turan wanted to talk tactics with Ituralde, find out how he had done what he had done, rather than rage at him for defeating Turan’s army. This is what they do, and who they are, and there’s a sense of ‘may the best man win’ about it all. So it’s not surprising – and is in fact rather entertaining – that everyone wants their turn at Ituralde.

But still.

Rand repeats that NO ONE IS FIGHTING ITURALDE, that means you, Bashere, and you, Rhuarc, and you, Gareth Bryne; you’re not here but if you were you’d probably be asking for a shot at him too.

Instead, Rand wants them to kidnap the Council of Merchants. White Tower style?

“IF Graendal really has taken Alsalam, then getting him back will do us no good. He’ll be so far beneath her Compulsion that he’ll barely have the mind of a child. She’s not subtle; she never has been.”

Er. I hope you just mean she’s not subtle when she decides to use Compulsion heavily, because otherwise you have made an error.

“We are not kidnappers,” Bael said, frowning.

“You are what I say you are, Bael,” Rand said quietly.

“We are still free people, Rand al’Thor,” Rhuarc said.

Oh.

Okay, that is excellent. Wow. Chills.

Such hard words, such strong statements, spoken so very softly.

And this is the core of it, isn’t it? He will take you back, and he will destroy you. They have given themselves to him, knowing destruction is fated for all but a ‘remnant of a remnant’, and they have accepted that fate, but they are still free. And this comes down to the whole concept of identity, which is such a central part of their history as a nation. It has changed drastically over time, but at each point… “I am Aiel!”

“I will change the Aiel with my passing,” Rand said with a shake of his head. “I don’t know what you’ll be when this is all through, but you cannot remain what you were.”

And so their story continues as it has since they left Paaran Disen. Change, and breaking, until they are all but unrecognisable. Already this could be another chapter in the story Rhuidean told. But, while they cannot remain what they were – and it’s such a beautifully sad statement, especially because Rand and the clan chiefs know it so deeply as truth, having seen the past – they can hold to the very core of that identity. They are still Aiel, even when everything changes but the word itself. It is theirs, and their identity to claim, and he can change everything but he cannot change that.

In other news, the Rhuidean story is clearly still A Problem for me. Who’d have guessed?

Of all those who follow me, I trust you the most.

Rand’s trust is both a gift and a burden.

“Once you take the Council of Merchants,” Rand continued, apparently unconcerned about their worries, “move the Aiel into the cities where those merchants ruled. Make sure those cities don’t degenerate. Restore order as you did in Bandar Eban. From there, begin hunting bandits and enforcing the law. Supplies will soon arrive from the Sea Folk. Take cities on the cost first, then move inland. Within a month’s time, the Domani should be flowing toward you, rather than running away from you. Offer them safety and food, and order will take care of itself.”

Well. Uh…at least he’s learned to delegate? Is all I can really say about that. No pressure or anything.

Actually, what I can say about that is that it sounds almost exactly like what the Seanchan have done. They have taken cities in turmoil, established order, and offered safety and food. They came as invaders, and there are certain Issues with what they do, but they did bring peace as they conquered. It’s a large part of why the ordinary people don’t seem to resent them.

Now Rand is sending the Aiel to do almost the same thing. The Aiel may not come from a half-forgotten continent, but they’re widely seen as foreign and threatening, and they are being sent as essentially invaders, to take over cities and establish a new order. From that perspective, it’s eerily similar. Which is kind of interesting to think about. I wonder if Rand sees it.

“And what of Ituralde?” Bashere asked, looking back at the map. “There won’t be peace for long once he realises we’ve invaded his homeland.”

Just as the Seanchan did. And to Ituralde, how will this be any different?

Rand tapped the map softly for a moment. “I will deal with him personally,” he finally said.

Poor Ituralde. He was ready for anything…short of the Dragon Reborn appearing in front of him…

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