thewhumperinwhite - Tumblr blog

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Text

WKW: The Truth, Carefully Chosen

Masterpost // previous

@annablogsposts @whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @favwhumpstuff @the-monarch-whumperfly @iboopsstuff

TW for: minor character death/murder, decapitation; referenced beating/caning; abuse of power, basically an interrogation under threat of death/torture; temporary paralysis; noncon touching (nonsexual); possible/threatened brain and heart damage, nosebleed.

gonna ride this unexpected burst of motivation as far as it will take me. thanks for the positive response to last chapter, it was a surprise!! hope you like this one too.

----

The Winter King seems to have burned through most of the incandescent rage that animated him back in Thorne’s quarters, barring the occasional flicker in the depths of his black eyes. Morden has entered the Healer’s parlor carrying a small golden chest under one arm, which he sets gently on the floor. Then he settles into the chair beside the Healer’s operating table; Andry lies there, able to keep his eyes open- but little else. The cane Morden did not quite finish beating Andry to death with is not in evidence.

“Tell me about your sister,” Morden says.

Andry feels his heartbeat, already rabbit-fast, stumble a little faster. A long night of being dragged back and forth across death’s threshold has wrung all the fear out of his mind, but evidently there is still room for it in his body.

“Wait,” Morden says, when Andry has managed to convince his mouth to open. “Before you begin. Insurance.”

He lays his hand on Andry’s shoulder—Andry feels the muscles in his back spasm slightly as try and fail to go tense at the touch—and a faint jolt of energy shoots from Morden’s palm, branching down Andry’s arm and in towards his fluttering heart.

For a second it doesn’t feel like much at all; and then it reaches his ruined arm and explodes back upward like lightning hitting a dead tree. White spots burst across Andry’s vision; he hears the thunk of his own head hitting the table as his back arches on its own. His head doesn’t hurt until a few seconds later; by then his heart is pounding hard enough that his chest and temples feel hot and sore. His head has snapped to the side, so that the new stream of blood from his nose is dripping down the side of his face. There is blood in his mouth, too; he must have bitten his tongue.

He tries to swallow, and winces. The back of his throat feels like broken glass.

Morden is watching him closely, though he seems focused on something other than joy at Andry’s suffering, for once. Andry wishes he could find that comforting. The air between his face and Morden’s has taken on a faint purple shimmer that he realizes a second late must be magic. The pain in Andry’s arm settles slowly into an almost-bearable background hum, though the muscles in his bicep keep jumping, making the metal cuff clatter against the table.

“If you want to live, Highness,” Morden says, “don’t lie.”

Andry tries to nod, and realizes that he can’t; the muscles in his throat and back have stopped responding to his commands. He blinks once, rather slowly, instead.

Morden nods to show he understands. Andry hates him. “Who is your sister?” Morden asks, his tone firmly neutral.

Andry—breathes in. His throat is cracked and dry and tastes like blood; it takes him three tries to make any sound at all.

“…inth,” he manages. Closes his eyes, breathes, tries again. “Hya… cinth. Of… Rose.”

Morden nods again.

“Very good. There’s a start. How about this, then: describe her.”

Andry swallows, and is immediately sorry; the shudder that runs through him afterwards is weakened by exhaustion, but still hurts the wrung-out muscles of his back and stomach. He feels as though he has tried to swallow his Father’s sword. Or one of Karya’s antlers.

“Faster, Little Prince.”

It took all the energy Andry had to move his arm to stop the Healer from killing herself; at least he does not have to fight to keep from making rude gestures at the Winter King.

“…Blonde,” he manages, after he wrestles past the bloody-tasting lump in his throat.

Morden’s black eyes flash, and for a moment Andry thinks that he has finally done it, finally reached the threshold of the Winter King’s limited patience, and without being ready for it this time. Then Morden raises his hand again, and presses two gloved fingers against the side of Andry’s throat.

Andry closes his eyes, since he cannot back away. He can feel his heart fluttering against Morden’s fingers, like a bird in a cat's mouth.

The air shifts as Morden gets to his feet. Something soft brushes Andry’s cheek. When Andry opens his eyes, Morden is leaning over the table, his face very close to Andry’s, the long black curtain of Morden’s hair hanging around them both. His fingers are still pressed just under Andry’s jaw, palm now resting lightly across Andry’s voicebox.

“Your heart is running itself ragged, little Prince,” Morden says. Andry can feel Morden’s breath on his cheek. “I don’t know if it will take another jolt, but I can make the experiment, if you’d like.”

Andry breathes out, thinly, past Morden’s fingers on his throat. There’s little enough else for him to do.

“Describe Lady Hyacinth of House Rose, Prince,” Morden says. His voice is soft, as though speaking to a lover. “Not her hair. Her heart, if you please. What kind of woman is she?”

Andry wants to shake his head. Perhaps it is fortunate that he cannot; he doesn’t know if Morden’s spell will count feigned ignorance as lying. He blinks again, instead. Morden sighs, sounding indulgent, if anything. His hand on Andry’s throat—the implicit threat there, and Andry limp and unmoving under it—seems to have calmed him; he looks almost affectionate, now.

“Surely you don’t want me to be cross with you again already,” Morden says, a smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Andry is very aware, this close, of Morden’s beauty; fear is starting to lick at the edges of Andry’s mind again, like fire catching on paper. “Come, Prince. Talk. I’m sure you can think of some simple words that won’t hurt your poor pretty throat too much.”

Andry does not close his eyes; that would mean dropping Morden’s gaze, and he doesn’t have the strength left to do that.

“She's... clever,” he rasps, after a moment. He can’t think of anything else that isn’t a lie.

Morden stays where he is for another long, torturous moment. Then he sighs and sits back the Healer’s chair, crossing his arms; Andry breathes out, feeling limp and wrung out with relief.

“Yes,” Morden says. “I got that impression. And is your sister kind, Prince?”

Andry stares at him. It is—it is unfair of the Winter King, to lay traps like these so soon after trying to kill him. If Morden had given him another hour or two to gather his thoughts, he would not feel so much like he was walking beside a very long drop with no light by which to see the edge. Andry tries to push aside the childlike anger that is threatening to make his eyes well up; it is more difficult than usual.

“I don’t know,” he says. His voice is still a burnt-dry rasp; now it is also trembling. He feels his face heat up with a nonsensical embarrassed flush.

Morden shakes his head, gives one huff of mirthless laughter. “Fine. Better question.” He leans forward, watching Andry’s face closely. “Does your sister love you, Summer Prince?”

Andry stares at him.

He still cannot see the edge. But he knows what is at the bottom of that long drop: that the wrong answer will hurt him, will hurt Asher, as every wrong step in this House has always threatened to do—might hurt Cinthy, the last safe unthreatened thing he has.

Andry cannot move. But that is nothing new; he is used to this House binding his hands and breaking his back; he has never been able to move freely. Andry closes his eyes, gathers what he has, all the skills he has learned after all these years in his Father’s house, and thinks, instead.

He thinks of Cinth’s face, of the arrogant lift of her chin, of her mouth twisted in disdain at Audoine’s back; of her the speed with which she could slap Andry’s hands away from a coveted book or toy without their mother seeing; of her sharp words and her sharper elbow aimed Andry’s ribs under the table; of the fierce narrowing of her eyes as she corrected his posture, and her own. He thinks of Hyacinth, her cleverness, and ambition, and anger. It has been months, now, with no word from the Rose Trellis; who knows what plans she might have made, if she has decided to give him up?

“I don’t know,” Andry says, and it is true exactly long enough to matter.

Morden watches him, waiting—the same as Andry is—for his spell to tell him that Andry is lying. When nothing happens, Morden hums thoughtfully, and then bends down to retrieve the little golden chest he brought with him into the room. He sets it on the table, where it sits coldly against Andry’s aching ribs.

“Lady Hyacinth has sent me a gift,” Morden says. “It’s a—oh, what would the word for it be, in your tongue? A dowry.”

Andry does not know what expression he makes, but is an honest one; he doesn’t have time to hide it. Surprise is too mild, probably. Maybe horror. It seems to satisfy Morden, either way. His eyes are no longer flashing; they have simmered down to their customary amused twinkle.

“It’s rather extravagant, Highness. Here,” Morden says, “I’ll show you.”

Andry will never forget what his father’s head looked like, when they threw it at him on the balcony, and Thorne held it up for everyone to see. This is—both better, and worse. It has clearly been longer; time and travel have not been kind to Cinthy’s gift. It takes Andry a long moment to recognize the face of Cinth's grandfather, the Rose Count.

“Custom dictates I reciprocate, I believe,” Morden says, though Andry only half hears him. “What do you think your sister has asked for in return, Summer Prince?”

----

“I am begging you, Lady,” General Amara says, while Lady Hyacinth is drafting her letter, two weeks before it arrives, battered parcel attached, on the Winter King’s desk. “Ask for something else.”

Hyacinth does not look up from her desk, where her quill is moving swiftly along the current parchment sheet, half-hidden among a small graveyard of balled-up rejected drafts. Her mouth is pressed into a tight line, and a few strands of hair have come loose from her elaborate braid. If she knew her Lady even slightly less well, Amara would believe her wholly unbothered. Lady Hyacinth’s hands are still pink from over-scrubbing, but she is clean of blood.

“You cannot do this, my Lady,” Amara says, not for the first time.

“I’ve already cut it off, General,” Hyacinth says, tearing this sheet of parchment free from the pallet and throwing it over her shoulder. “It would be a waste not to send it now.”

Amara shakes her head, strides up to stand behind the Lady at the desk, shuddering slightly at the sight of the gold box perched upon it, looking neat and innocent now that it has been shut and locked. “No, my Lady. I have agreed to this—plan; I have not tried to steer you from this course; we have gone too far to turn back now. But I must counsel you, please—ask for something that will be of use.”

The Lady’s expression does not change, but her quill snaps in half mid-stroke. She sets it down on the desk, her movements calm and deliberate.

Amara winces. “Sorry, Lady. I didn’t mean—you know.”

The Lady takes a visible breath, and squares her shoulders. Then she turns in her seat to meet Amara’s eyes. Amara wilts under her gaze. Even now—eyes shadowed from lack of sleep, hands clasped neatly on the table to keep them from shaking—the Lady is very beautiful. Amara feels, not for the first time, that she would be much better at her job if the Lady were plain.

“General,” the Lady says. “Do you trust me?”

It isn’t as simple as that, and they both know it. The Lady is an excellent liar, and Amara is better at seeing her tells than most, and is almost sure that what Cinth has told the officers, that the Count’s death was natural, and to her great sorrow she has no choice but to make use of the opportunity, is a lie. So, in point of fact, she does not trust Lady Hyacinth; it is just that she has—begun following the Lady, and keeps letting the Lady have her way, and doesn’t seem to be able to stop.

“…Yes,” Amara says, reluctantly, and has the unsettling impression that the Lady knows exactly what she means.

“Good,” Lady Hyacinth says. “Then fetch me another quill.” She turns her back on Amara, and Amara sighs, and does as she is told.

#the winter king's ward #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #truth spell #exhaustion #magical torture #minor character death #beheading

7 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Text

WKW: Spine

Masterpost // Previous

@annablogsposts @whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @favwhumpstuff @the-monarch-whumperfly @iboopsstuff (also: i finally added a taglist to my main wkw doc, so please send me a message if you wanna be on that list)

TW for: back injury; burns; Magical Injury/painful healing; guilt; Injury To The Degree That It Is Kind Of Body Horror; potential/partial paralysis; referenced past abuse/murder; referenced noncon; nonsexual nudity (brief/implied).

----

Night has barely fallen when they bring the dying Prince to Feira’s salon. By the time she has stitched him together enough to leave him sleeping on her table, his face shadowed and aura flickering but death no longer crouching on his chest, the sun is streaming through the salon’s single window and directly into Feira’s eyes. She collapses back into the single chair that sits opposite her table, wiping sweat and stray strands of grey hair from her forehead with the least bloody part of her sleeve.

It should not have taken this long.

Spines are delicate things, and the care with which she knits one back together will mean the difference between a Prince who someday walks again and one who doesn’t; but she has studied the inner workings of the spine extensively, ever since she put the Prince’s back together from whole cloth after his botched execution. This was never going to be easy, but it should certainly be possible.

It takes her twenty long, harrowing minutes to identify the problem, as she has never encountered anything quite like it before. The iron manacle, clamped to the stump of the Prince’s wrist, is drinking in her magic. Sucking it up like a rag in a puddle. By the end of that first twenty minutes, she is sweating with effort, the Prince is still writhing with the effort of each breath, and when she happens to brush the manacle with the back of her hand, she draws back with a hiss. The metal is hot enough to burn her skin.

Feira is familiar with iron as an insulator against magical energy, of course. Magic-resistant armor is always made of iron; one of the earliest ways to recognize magical aptitude in a child is a rash-like reaction to the touch of iron. But she’s never seen anything like this before. She takes hold of the Prince’s wrist to examine the manacle—seeing, now, the way his skin is already reddening from the heat—and sees the unfamiliar rune welded into the metal. It can be no accident: it must be an intentional damper on the Prince’s magic.

There are—implications, there. About the fall of Fourshield House; about claims that the White Crane has made. None of which Feira has time to think about now, while the Prince is dying on her table, and she does not have the key to his cursed shackle.

It is—not an insurmountable obstacle. But it does mean that Feira must dig deeper into her Patron’s magical reserves than she ever has before, must strain her own aura to the point of pain and dig deeper into the Prince’s soul than she would ever have done given the choice—and must close her eyes to how the skin of his arm reddens and then blisters. The Prince slips in and out of awareness throughout the night; sometimes he is even awake enough to beg for mercy, though he never seems coherent enough to know who his torturer is, and Feira is shamefully grateful for that.

In the end, he still—has an arm, however useless it is without a hand attached. It is a horrible sun-scorched red up to the elbow; the place where the manacle once touched skin has burned down deep into the flesh beneath; in between the skin has bubbled and blistered in ways that make Feira have to stop in the middle and waste seconds she doesn't have gulping air and trying not to be sick. And even then—a spine is a finnicky thing. She may have twisted his arm beyond repair without even returning the use of his legs. She doesn’t know. Certainly he will be well within his rights to hate her to the end of his days, for these hours of torture if not for the years of neglect that preceded them.

But he does not die.

----

Thorne does not expect to fall asleep, not even when he gives up on pacing the hallway and sits down outside the Healer’s door with his forehead pressed to his knees and his eyes squeezed shut. Andry is not screaming as much, by then. Thorne doesn’t know if that means the pain has lessened, or the Prince’s throat has simply given out.

He doesn’t know how long he sleeps; he doesn’t even know it's happened until he hears his Master’s voice—he knows it immediately, even in sleep, and is halfway to his feet before he is fully awake or his Master has finished the sentence—say, “What are you doing here?”

Thorne snaps to attention, though he has to grab the wall to keep from falling over while his vision clears. Morden is looking at him with blank surprise but no anger, thank the gods. Morden looks like he hasn't slept, either, and for some reason there is a smudge of blood near one corner of his jaw, like he has tried to wipe it away and not quite succeeded.

“Master,” Thorne says, his mind blessedly blank with relief. “I was—” Part of him knows he is not being careful enough, that he is too tired and wrung out to pay attention to what he says, that he must no better, by now, than to speak to his Master without thinking first.“Someone—I wanted to—they almost killed him, Master,” he blurts out. He sounds like a child to his own ears; high pitched and near tears.

Morden blinks at Thorne. Thorne cannot read his Master's face. That sends an immediate spike of panic into Thorne's guts that brings him halfway back into his body, thankfully. He pulls himself together, with a mighty effort, and bows his head properly, like he is giving an ordinary report, and his voice is almost steady, this time.

“There was an attempt on the Summer Prince’s life, Master,” Thorne says, without lifting his head. “I was—absent from my quarters at the time. I apologize for not taking more care with your gift.”

He should say more. He should tell Morden about the guards. Even if... they were enlisted men, not officers, but Morden might still notice their absence. Thorne didn’t even think to look around the Healer’s room' their bodies might be right inside the door for all he knows. He should tell Morden.

(The word "gift" shouldn't make his mouth fill up with bile, like he's going to gag on what his Master has given him. He should be anticipating his Masters needs and striving to meet them. He shouldn't be thinking about his Master's needs and feeling—feeling—)

(Morden, for his part, is afflicted with a strong desire to laugh. Thorne, his head still bowed, does not see this. Morden schools his features carefully before Thorne meets his eyes.)

“…I see,” Morden says. “And was that attempt successful?”

Thorne shakes his head.

“No, Master,” he says. “No, he—he’s alive. But—I—they—” The words do not want to come. But his Master is watching, so he makes them. “His back is broken, I think,” he says, though it comes out thin and whispery and wrong.

Morden raises his eyebrows. Thorne looks at the blood on his Master’s jaw. His Masters next words are muffled by the sudden buzzing in Thorne’s ears.

“I imagine he'll be fine,” Morden says, and brushes past him to open the Healer’s door.

----

Andry knows the ceiling of the Healer’s room as soon as he opens his eyes. It is decorated with vines and fruit and beehives, sculpted out of white plaster, cracked a little with age.

He feels cracked that way himself. He doesn’t try to move his arm, but even in stillness it feels

(like it is filled with crawling insects who are eating it from the inside like old wood like it is in a sleeve of struck matches like it has swollen so far that the skin has split like rotten meat left in the sun)

bad.

The door of the Healer’s room opens. Andry does not see who has entered, at first; he only sees Lady Feira, the old Court Healer, leap to her feet, placing herself bodily between him and the intruder.

“No,” Lady Feira says, in thickly-accented Leisevan. “No visitors. Get out.”

“Now is a bad time to be in my way, Madam Healer,” the Winter King says in a soft, gentle voice. His Craetan is very good, as always.

Andry feels his heart stutter painfully in his chest, but it has been a long, long night, and he is too tired to feel properly afraid.

Lady Feira is shaking her head. “No. It is enough. You have done enough, you will do no more, I will not—”

Andry takes hold of the Healer’s wrist with his good hand. She stills, though he can feel that she is trembling slightly.

“It’s alright, Feira,” he rasps.

Lady Feira turns to look down at him, over her shoulder. She looks—stricken in a way he has never seen her look before, even when his fever came back a few weeks after his back had begun to heal. He might feel sorry for her, in a few hours. He is too tired for it, just at the moment.

Lady Feira removes her spectacles and rubs her eyes, letting her shoulders sag and not looking at either Andry or Morden.

“Fine,” she says, after a moment, in Craetan. “Fine. Speak, Winter King; but do no more or you will waste the hours I have just spent keeping the Prince alive.”

Andry can see just enough of Morden over the Healer’s shoulder to see him cross his arms and raise his eyebrows at her expectantly. The Healer swears under her breath. She turns back to Andry.

“Don’t try to move,” she says curtly. Her expression seems more under control, though her eyes are still tight with misery. “I won’t go far.”

It’s—kind enough, as a sentiment. Andry knows she can do less than nothing against Morden, any more than he can. It’s nice that she's—thinking of him, he supposes.

Morden watches her leave. When she has closed the door behind her, he turns to look down at Andry, narrowing his black eyes.

Morden pulls up the Healer’s chair and sits down beside the sickbed. The Healer has draped a blanket across Andry's chest; it is the only thing between him and the Winter King. Andry tucks his ruined arm underneath it.

“Alright, Summer Prince," Morden says. "You've got my attention. Tell me about your sister.”

#the winter king's ward #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #broken bones #magical healing #painful healing #guilt #manipulative whumper #brainwashing and manipulation #<-it's not like Being Done in this chapter but thorne is. Feeling Some Cognitive Dissonance and he Doesn't Like It #back injury tw #burns tw #referenced noncon

19 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Text

I can't remember if I ever posted this here?? And if so it is Impossible To Find On My Blog lmao so. Have some swan princess au

#wkw swan princess #sketches #oc: thorne #oc: andry #honestly the purpose of all wkw aus is.#to engineer situations where thorne and andry can kiss with Less Emotional Baggage #(not None obviously. but. yk. Less)#anyway watch the low budget 90s animated film the swan princess. Its Good #the amount of thought i have put into this AU For No One. is. its significant #wkw extras

3 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Text

Whumpee and Whumper ask game

Because new ask games are always fun

Whumpee

🐶What’s the meaning of their name? How/why did you pick it?

🐰Do they think there’s any way their situation could get worse?

🐯Roles are reversed (they are now the whumper), what do they do?

🐺What’s something nice they could say about whumper?

🐱What would they do if whumper died?

🐻In an alternate universe where whatever caused the whump didn’t happen, would they and whumper get along?

🐼If you met them and they didn’t know you were the author, would you two get along?

🦁Are they proud of any of their injuries?

🐗If they could say anything to whumper without getting punished, what would it be?

🐵If whumper could read their mind, how damned would whumpee be?

🐹If they got to choose how they would be whumped/punished, what would they pick?

Whumper

😃What’s the meaning of their name? How/why did you pick it?

😱How would they react to whumpee having a nightmare?

😜Roles are reversed (they are now the whumpee), what do they do?

😇What’s a line they won’t cross?

😭What would they do if whumpee died?

☺️In an alternate universe where whatever caused the whump didn’t happen, would they and whumpee get along?

🤗If you met them and they didn’t know you were the author, would you two get along?

🙃Would they be willing to “share” whumpee with another whumper?

😶Do they have any regrets related to whumpee?

😎What’s a song they could jam out to while doing their whumper-ly things?

#This One Too. hello #spare an ask monsieur

340 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Text

70 whumpy questions: for the whumper

🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪🔪

---------------------------------------------------

disclaimer: this is directed towards your ocs, not you.

cw: torture, creepy questions, probing questions, abuse, yadda yadda

---------------------------------------------------

1. What about [Whumpee] made you feel drawn to them?

2. What do you think of [Whumpee]?

3. Do you hate [Whumpee]?

4. What was your childhood like?

5. How did you capture [Whumpee]?

6. What made you like this?

7. Are you a sadist?

8. Why do you do this?

9. What is your favorite weapon to use?

10. What is your relationship with your parents like?

11. Do you suffer from any psychiatric conditions?

12. Are you lonely?

13. Does this make you feel powerful?

14. Who do you think you’re fooling?

15. What is wrong with you?

16. Has [Whumpee] ever tried to escape?

17. How long have you been doing this?

18. Favorite punishment method?

19. Least favorite punishment method?

20. What do you like about p[Whumpee]?

21. Have you ever thought about letting [Whumpee] go?

22. How many people have you done this to?

23. Do you have a favorite [Whumpee]?

24. What are your thoughts on [Caretaker]?

25. Do you feel insignificant?

26. Did you not get enough attention as a child?

27. Do you think that you’re superior to others?

28. Do you ever feel guilty?

29. Do you ever comfort [Whumpee]?

30. Do you think that you deserve forgiveness?

31. Do you think that you deserve to die?

32. Have you dealt with traumatic situations in your past?

33. How do you cope?

34. How do you sleep at night?

35. Do you think your mother would approve of this?

36. Has [Whumpee] ever scared you?

37. How did [Whumpee] escape?

38. Are you stupid?

39. Favorite method of restraint?

40. What’s the worst thing [Whumpee] has ever done?

41. Has [Whumpee] ever hurt you?

42. Have you considered hurting [Caretaker]?

43. Would you ever replace [Whumpee]?

44. What would you do if Whumpee died?

45. Have you broken [Whumpee] yet?

46. How do you condition your captives?

47. Do you see [Whumpee] as human?

48. What made you want to hurt [Whumpee] so much?

49. If you were to be forced to face the consequences of your actions, would you accept them?

50. Do you think your friends and family could ever love you after this?

51. How do you relieve stress?

52. What is your relationship to [Whumpee]?

53. How could you do this to someone?

54. Why?

55. Are you aware that you’re an abomination to this earth?

56. What do you look for when selecting a target? Certain traits?

57. Have you ever considered just putting [Whumpee] out of their misery?

58. Do you enjoy hurting [Whumpee?]

59. What do you enjoy the most about hurting them?

60. Are you afraid of getting caught?

61. What would you do if you got caught?

62. Who is your least favorite captive that you've had?

63. Who was the first person you've ever intentionally harmed?

64. Do you regret it?

65. Do you know where [Whumpee] is now?

66. Would you recapture [Whumpee] if you could?

67. Can you live without [Whumpee]?

68. Have you ever taken things too far?

69. Have you ever considered stopping?

70. Do you think [Whumpee] will ever forgive you?

————————————

taglist:

@shywhumpauthor @painsandconfusion @thoughtsonhurtandcomfort @astralrunic @gottawhump @writergirl135 @tavecincertum @wolfeyedwitch @tastes-like-melonade @wild-selenite-caffine @badluck990 @appleejuice @void-fireworks @kim-poce @dragyouthroughthewhump @rainbows-and-whumperflies @shooting-star123 @whump-is-my-second-name @equestrianwritingsstuff @thelazywitchphotographer @bleeding-letters @gendertit @msiai-is-a-fool @heart4brains @whumpasaurus101 @cain-writing @starliight-whump

#fuckin around with wkw again finally so if you wanna send Falconer Asks nows a good time lol #srb #spare an ask monsieur #why when i started this blog did i make my ask memes tag a word i Barely know how to spell. sigh

703 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 1 month

Photo

The Winter King’s Ward

After three weeks of siege rations, it is all over in less than an hour.

Andry, with the House’s magic in his hands, holds back what he thinks must be a respectable number of soldiers—kills what must be a respectable number of men—before a sharp blade he does not see swings suddenly down from the side and takes his sword hand, and time slows so that he can watch the sword of his fathers arc through the air, the cacophony of his father’s men dying around him suddenly silent, a split second where he sees the sudden gout of blood in the air before he feels any pain. Then it comes all at once, his arm on fire, and he goes to his knees, the screams of men he has known since birth crashing back so loud he will never know afterwards whether he actually screamed or not when they took his hand.

Teaser 1 / Teaser 2 / Presentable / The Lion’s Mane / To Bid You All Welcome: Part One / Part 2 / Part 3 / A Single Bed, A Door With No Lock / Sword Of My Fathers / Flashback: Little Bird, Part One / Little Bird Part Two / Stained Glass, Candles, Empty Stone / Magic Lessons: Part One / Magic Lessons: Interlude / Magic Lessons: Part Two // Endure / The Wolf’s Grace / The Voice that Shakes the Stones / The Rose Queen: Part One / Part Two / The Voice That Shakes The Stones Part 2 / The Healer’s Shame

#reblogging the masterpost bc i just realized the latest update wasn't on there #srb

51 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 3 months

Text

Soulmate AU part 3

Part 1 / Part 2

Takes place immediately after Part 2, before Eye Trauma. Could not tell you why i suddenly had both inspiration and ability to write this today after what tumblr tells me is somehow three years since the last part, but that truly is Just The Way It Goes Sometimes.

Tagging the people I tagged for part 2, on the off chance all of you are still active: @whumpitywhumpwhump @burtlederp @gottalovethemwriters

TW for: suicidal ideation, self-harm, hospital whump, implied child abuse, underage whump (Kent is 17, Sol is 19 and Pax is 21). There's no gore in this one but Kent does briefly Consider Something Very Gory Indeed.

----

Once he's out of the recovery room, and awake and can (kind of) think again, the nurse tells Kent that the bad news is they have to keep him for a little while, for a psychiatric evaluation, but the good news is that his dad is paying for his transfer to a private facility upstate.

Which almost could be good news, because Chase is already there, but only almost. They’ll protect Chase, at a private facility, because his dad will pay them too, because his dad loves Chase. There won’t be for him; he was enough trouble before this, but after it he’ll be all trouble, with no reward to make it worth it.

The heart rate monitor is still connected, because of how close he came to getting away before they stopped him. The nurse hears the beats spike, hears them get twice as fast as they were before, and pats his knee gently. Tells him its natural to be nervous.

Kent almost feels like laughing. Almost.

----

Not many people find their soulmates this early, one of the nurses tells Sol, kind of dreamily. They’re all so lucky, she tells him.

His wrists aren’t tingling anymore. Not really. The residual tingling is his imagination. Probably. It’s kind of hard to tell, since in a very real way it was all in his head to begin with.

“Uh-huh,” he tells her. “Let me in to see him, then.”

“Sorry, hon,” she tells him, without any real apology, like it’s no big deal. “He’s still a minor, and visits on that floor are restricted to family only. Just be patient; you’ve got your whole lives together to look forward to, right?”

Sol stares at her. He thinks about arguing. There’s got to be exceptions; don’t people say these marks are from God, doesn’t that mean anything; when they called the ambulance the reason he said they couldn’t was that his father was home.

But Sol knows better than most that just because the rules will kill you doesn’t mean people will break them, especially if those people are wearing some kind of uniform.

He narrows his eyes, but he makes himself nod.

He doesn’t know his soulmates yet, not either of them.

But he hasn’t seen very many people not wear a uniform as thoroughly as Pax doesn’t wear one.

----

Sol explains the issue like it’s an insurmountable obstacle; like a scared kid. Pax does laugh. In fairness, Sol doesn’t know what Pax does for a living. Pax doesn’t tell him, yet. They can figure out how to cross that bridge later.

Kent doesn’t have his phone; it’s presumably still at his house. So they can’t contact him yet. Pax does have theirs—has both, actually, grabbed the burner on their way out of their apartment; so no obstacle is insurmountable.

Sol’s face cycles through surprised, into relieved, and settles on impressed. Which—if he’s their soulmate. Pax guesses it would be silly to pretend not to like that.

----

Kent is—tired. His arms don’t hurt yet, but they do feel—weird and heavy, like they might not really be there. They’re wrapped, so he doesn’t have to sit here looking at the stitches. Which is good, because if he could see them he wouldn’t be able to stop.

His father isn’t here. But Kent doesn’t have any doubt that he’ll come. It would look bad if he didn’t, to other people. It will already look bad. Kent’s already made him a man with a crazy son, again, without even earning the sympathy afforded to a man with a dead one.

He’s going to be so angry. And it’s a private room, because even though hospitals say those are limited, if you have enough money you can get whatever you want. The nurses have been by a lot, to check his IV site and squint at his stitches and check the blood pressure cuff that tightens every ten minutes, but they won’t stay. When his dad tells them to leave, they will. Kent doesn’t even know if there’s a camera in here. Probably not, right? His dad will be able to do whatever he—whatever—

There’s nothing in here. And the window doesn’t look like it opens. He could try and break it, if he wasn’t so tired. Maybe if he pulled the stitches out, he’s still got his teeth—

The door opens; his vision goes white with terror for a second, but then he knows it isn’t is father even before he can see again; his father would never open the door so timidly.

----

Sol is trying to be both fast and quiet; it should have occurred to him that Kent would be scared.

“Hi, baby,” he finds himself saying, and is surprised by his own voice; he isn’t used to letting it sound soft like that.

Kent blinks, lets out a little scared-animal gasp. Then he sags in relief. Sol has to fight a little to keep from doing the same.

“Listen,” he says, “I don’t have a lot of time.”

----

“They’re going to send me away,” Kent says. “I don’t know where.” Which is a lie, even though that’s stupid; they won’t let him write, but he does know where Chase is.

Though, he guesses he doesn’t know for sure that they’d send him to the same place. His dad might think that was a reward. And there’s got to be plenty of different holes you can drop your sons into, if you’ve got the money, and all you need is to make sure they’re never found.

“Is that what you want?” Sol asks him, searching his face. Sol is—Kent knows now, why his mark is a sun, and it’s not just because of his name. It hurts to look at him.

“No,” he says, before he can decide whether that’s the smart thing to say or not.

Sol nods, like that isn’t a surprise, like it means something.

“Then no,” he says, gripping the rail on the edge of Kent’s hospital bed. “They aren’t.”

----

Pax doesn’t waste favors; they hoard them like gold, because they’re worth way more than money, and they never know when they’re going to need one, and they especially never know when it’s all going to go wrong and they’re going to need all of them at once.

They didn’t know it, but maybe this is what they were saving those favors for all along.

They don’t know anyone who works in this hospital. But they know plenty of people who know people. Who can tell them which nurses will understand, and which won’t but can be convinced not to care, with a little money or the right call from the right friend (or “friend,” more often than not).

(In another life, they’ll need those favors a few months later, and it’ll be themself they’re smuggling out of the hospital, down an eye and on the run. That’s coming in this life, too, but they don’t know that yet, of course.)

Sol wants them to wheel Kent out themselves, doesn’t want to let Kent out of his sight even for the few minutes it’ll take the two nurses Pax can get (one of them compassionate, one of them corrupt) to unplug him from his monitors and wheel him out to the parking lot. Pax talks him around without too much trouble, though, since they’re right: two nurses wheeling a patient through the halls aren’t going to be questioned (much); two people who look like Pax and Sol very much are.

“We could just carry him out,” Sol says, looking physically sick with anxiety again.

“You know enough about medicine to do that safely?” Pax says, and Sol folds, because the whole point of this is not to get Kent killed.

Sol still fidgets himself practically to pieces waiting in the car when it takes longer than it should. But they do come, two nurses wheeling him up to the curb, looking furtive but not caught, and they help load him into the back seat. There are probably cameras here, but there definitely are in the parking garage, and Pax doesn’t see how they could have gotten the gurney out there, anyway, so this is the best spot they’ve got, probably.

The better nurse—the one who agreed to do this for her own reasons, rather than a thousand dollars Pax doesn’t really have, and a promise of a better job somewhere else when they get caught—is explaining the next steps to Sol: blood pressure medications, how long until Kent can shower again. Sol asks about the stitches; the woman pales, and bites her lip, and then tells Sol to give her his address, which he does before Pax can stop him.

Which is—fine, okay. They were never going to be able to do this without trusting somebody, they guess.

Pax is driving, since they’re the only one with a car here (which isn’t theirs, they remember, their stomach sinking; whatever, Vic has more than one, he can live without this one until this all cools down a little). They turn around, look down at the boy stretched out in the backseat, who is looking up at them with very big eyes.

“Are you sure,” Chaucer Kenton Graves croaks, in a small voice, “Are you sure you…” Want me? he doesn’t ask, but Pax hears it anyway. “…Don’t mind?” he finishes instead, and looks embarrassed about it.

Part of Pax wants to reach for his hand. They’re saved from this impulse by the thick dressings around the kid’s wrists.

“You saw that’s guy’s face, right?” Pax says, jerking their thumb in Sol’s direction. The nurse is handing him several prescription bottles; even from the back, Pax can tell how seriously Sol is listening. “You wanna ask him if he’s sure?”

Kent—shrinks in on himself, a little. Like he wasn’t small enough already. Pax thinks back over what they just said, hears the omission of their own thoughts on the matter, the way it must sound to a kid with slit wrists and big, scared-animal eyes.

All Pax’s instincts are telling them—what they generally do, which is: if you care about this, no you don’t. Caring is the enemy; letting people know you care is like handing the enemy a gun.

But there’s no hiding those blue circles around their wrists; not for long, anyway. And considering the marks around this scared kid’s wrists—maybe, this once, it’d be better not to hide everything.

“I don’t do anything I don’t want to, kid,” Pax says, and—since his hands still seem like dangerous territory, but he still looks so small back there, Pax reaches back and drops their hand on top of the kid’s head, ruffles his soft pale baby-chick hair.

The kid gasps quietly, but doesn’t move away from Pax’s hand.

Sol nods firmly, thanks the nurse, swings his legs in and slams the car door. The other nurse—the shady one—shuts the back door and turns quickly to hurry back indoors. The better nurse makes searching eye contact with Sol through the window, and tries to look in at Kent too, but Vic’s back windows are tinted, thankfully. Then she nods back, and turns to wheel the empty gurney back into the hospital.

“Okay,” Sol says, and starts climbing over the center console into the back seat instead of opening his door back up; Pax rolls his eyes. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, huh?” This is directed more at Kent; Pax can tell by the way Sol’s voice goes soft when he says it. Pax answers anyway.

“Fuck yeah,” they say, grinning, and they hit the gas.

#next day reblog #srb

5 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 3 months

Text

Soulmate AU part 3

Part 1 / Part 2

Tagging the people I tagged for part 2, on the off chance all of you are still active: @whumpitywhumpwhump @burtlederp @gottalovethemwriters

----

Kent almost feels like laughing. Almost.

----

Not many people find their soulmates this early, one of the nurses tells Sol, kind of dreamily. They’re all so lucky, she tells him.

His wrists aren’t tingling anymore. Not really. The residual tingling is his imagination. Probably. It’s kind of hard to tell, since in a very real way it was all in his head to begin with.

“Uh-huh,” he tells her. “Let me in to see him, then.”

But Sol knows better than most that just because the rules will kill you doesn’t mean people will break them, especially if those people are wearing some kind of uniform.

He narrows his eyes, but he makes himself nod.

He doesn’t know his soulmates yet, not either of them.

But he hasn’t seen very many people not wear a uniform as thoroughly as Pax doesn’t wear one.

----

Sol’s face cycles through surprised, into relieved, and settles on impressed. Which—if he’s their soulmate. Pax guesses it would be silly to pretend not to like that.

----

There’s nothing in here. And the window doesn’t look like it opens. He could try and break it, if he wasn’t so tired. Maybe if he pulled the stitches out, he’s still got his teeth—

The door opens; his vision goes white with terror for a second, but then he knows it isn’t is father even before he can see again; his father would never open the door so timidly.

----

Sol is trying to be both fast and quiet; it should have occurred to him that Kent would be scared.

“Hi, baby,” he finds himself saying, and is surprised by his own voice; he isn’t used to letting it sound soft like that.

Kent blinks, lets out a little scared-animal gasp. Then he sags in relief. Sol has to fight a little to keep from doing the same.

“Listen,” he says, “I don’t have a lot of time.”

----

“They’re going to send me away,” Kent says. “I don’t know where.” Which is a lie, even though that’s stupid; they won’t let him write, but he does know where Chase is.

“Is that what you want?” Sol asks him, searching his face. Sol is—Kent knows now, why his mark is a sun, and it’s not just because of his name. It hurts to look at him.

“No,” he says, before he can decide whether that’s the smart thing to say or not.

Sol nods, like that isn’t a surprise, like it means something.

“Then no,” he says, gripping the rail on the edge of Kent’s hospital bed. “They aren’t.”

----

They didn’t know it, but maybe this is what they were saving those favors for all along.

“We could just carry him out,” Sol says, looking physically sick with anxiety again.

“You know enough about medicine to do that safely?” Pax says, and Sol folds, because the whole point of this is not to get Kent killed.

Which is—fine, okay. They were never going to be able to do this without trusting somebody, they guess.

Part of Pax wants to reach for his hand. They’re saved from this impulse by the thick dressings around the kid’s wrists.

All Pax’s instincts are telling them—what they generally do, which is: if you care about this, no you don’t. Caring is the enemy; letting people know you care is like handing the enemy a gun.

The kid gasps quietly, but doesn’t move away from Pax’s hand.

“Fuck yeah,” they say, grinning, and they hit the gas.

#evening reblog #srb

5 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 3 months

Text

Soulmate AU part 3

Part 1 / Part 2

Tagging the people I tagged for part 2, on the off chance all of you are still active: @whumpitywhumpwhump @burtlederp @gottalovethemwriters

----

Which almost could be good news, because Chase is already there, but only almost. There will be protections for Chase, at a private facility, because his dad will pay for them, because his dad loves Chase. There won’t be for him; he was enough trouble before this, but after it he’ll be all trouble, with no reward to make it worth it.

Kent almost feels like laughing. Almost.

----

Not many people find their soulmates this early, one of the nurses tells Sol, kind of dreamily. They’re all so lucky, she tells him.

His wrists aren’t tingling anymore. Not really. The residual tingling is his imagination. Probably. It’s kind of hard to tell, since in a very real way it was all in his head to begin with.

“Uh-huh,” he tells her. “Let me in to see him, then.”

But Sol knows better than most that just because the rules will kill you doesn’t mean people will break them, especially if those people are wearing some kind of uniform.

He narrows his eyes, but he makes himself nod.

He doesn’t know his soulmates yet, not either of them.

But he hasn’t seen very many people not wear a uniform as thoroughly as Pax doesn’t wear one.

----

Sol’s face cycles through surprised, into relieved, and settles on impressed. Which—if he’s their soulmate. Pax guesses it would be silly to pretend not to like that.

----

There’s nothing in here. And the window doesn’t look like it opens. He could try and break it, if he wasn’t so tired. Maybe if he pulled the stitches out, he’s still got his teeth—

The door opens; his vision goes white with terror for a second, but then he knows it isn’t is father even before he can see again; his father would never open the door so timidly.

----

Sol is trying to be both fast and quiet; it should have occurred to him that Kent would be scared.

“Hi, baby,” he finds himself saying, and is surprised by his own voice; he isn’t used to letting it sound soft like that.

Kent blinks, lets out a little scared-animal gasp. Then he sags in relief. Sol has to fight a little to keep from doing the same.

“Listen,” he says, “I don’t have a lot of time.”

----

“They’re going to send me away,” Kent says. “I don’t know where.” Which is a lie, even though that’s stupid; they won’t let him write, but he does know where Chase is.

“Is that what you want?” Sol asks him, searching his face. Sol is—Kent knows now, why his mark is a sun, and it’s not just because of his name. It hurts to look at him.

“No,” he says, before he can decide whether that’s the smart thing to say or not.

Sol nods, like that isn’t a surprise, like it means something.

“Then no,” he says, gripping the rail on the edge of Kent’s hospital bed. “They aren’t.”

----

They didn’t know it, but maybe this is what they were saving those favors for all along.

“We could just carry him out,” Sol says, looking physically sick with anxiety again.

“You know enough about medicine to do that safely?” Pax says, and Sol folds, because the whole point of this is not to get Kent killed.

Which is—fine, okay. They were never going to be able to do this without trusting somebody, they guess.

Part of Pax wants to reach for his hand. They’re saved from this impulse by the thick dressings around the kid’s wrists.

All Pax’s instincts are telling them—what they generally do, which is: if you care about this, no you don’t. Caring is the enemy; letting people know you care is like handing the enemy a gun.

The kid gasps quietly, but doesn’t move away from Pax’s hand.

“Fuck yeah,” they say, grinning, and they hit the gas.

#original whump #soulmate au #angst with a happy ending #hospital whump #rescue #escape #cafe extras #oc: kent #oc: sol #oc: pax #suicide tw #self harm tw #underage whump

5 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 4 months

Text

i saw this post and couldn't not make it about Andry

individual images below the cut bc tumblr makes me lower the quality so much :'(

#the winter king's ward #whump #whump art #oc whump #fantasy whump #gore #blood #whipped #possession #underage whump #humiliation #public execution #(that's what it ended up being. i don't think the sentence was actually death #and idk how much audoine was thinking about Intentionally Killing Him. i think audoine was mostly thinking about Not Looking Soft #but it. yk. Did End Up Being That. Even if it didn't take it did very much end up being a public execution #and then he had to be like. i'm so fucking normal right now. for like four years afterwards lmao #also bonus points for like. listen karya's intentions were good. but she has probably not been hanging around humans recently enough #to realize that the Actual Possession Part would. probably have been traumatic all on its own lmao #like! probably the least traumatic part of this whole situation! But!#still!!!#OH ALSO: the Audience in the first panel is a mob brush from the clip studio assets store #anyway.#sketches #...i should really come up with. a new art tag lmao #winter king's ward #wkw extras

25 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 4 months

Text

WKW: The Healer's Shame

Story Masterpost Here // Continued directly from here

@whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi also please dm me if you wanna be on the taglist, since i take so long between updates idk who's still active

TW for: broken bones (incl. ribs and spine) (and its gross); punctured lung and difficulty breathing; guilt and self-hatred; past parental abuse; implied/mentioned alcoholism; pretty sure Thorne is having a full panic attack at the end there also.

----

Feira has been the Healer at Colomur Castle for nearly 30 winters now, not including the two years she spent under the apprenticeship of her predecessor, back when she had lived through barely twenty winters and still considered the position one of great honor. She was here when Audoine became the Lion, after his third or fourth great victory on the battlefield; she mixed the ointment the old man rubbed into his battle-scars until the very week of his death. She put the old man’s shoulder back in its place when the third boar he insisted on tilting with nearly tore it from its socket; she kept the old man’s limp at bay for nearly ten years before she finally told him to swallow his pride and walk with a cane. And, of course, she delivered the old man’s children, both; placed two healthy babes into the Queen’s arms and sent a servant each time to congratulate the King on the birth of a son.

And when they brought one of those sons to her, brave and beautiful and barely fifteen, after his father had rent the flesh of his back to the bone, after the Lady had tangled her aura up with his and moved his body and spoken with his mouth, after he was no longer dead but lay on her table as still as a corpse and nearly as cold from all the blood he had spilled on the dirt of the castle courtyard, Feira—stayed. She did not hand in her Patronage and look for other work. She let the guards bring in the body of the babe she had delivered, and she bound it back together with cloth and tree sap and the scant bit of magic her predecessor’s Patron allowed her. In the same mortar where she mixed soothing ointments for an old warlord’s aches and pains, she mixed new ones that might allow his son to lift his arms without tearing his slowly-scarring back wide open again, someday. And when he could walk again, she let him—let him walk back into the halls of the man who had killed him; let him eat across the table from his murderer; let him kneel at his killer’s feet and swear fealty again as the Lady’s bearer.

There was a time—this was after Audoine broke the prince’s wrist when he was ten but before he knocked out half the prince’s hearing with a thrown stone paperweight—when Feira successfully convinced herself that she was—mitigating harm. That there might still be kindness in remaining; that she might hold the princes together better than whoever they would get to replace her if she left. She may even—this is embarrassing to think of, now—have believed for a few years that perhaps if she healed a cracked rib or a bruised collarbone well enough, the Lion of Colomur might not break it a second time.

Feira is too old to believe any of that now, of course. She knows herself too well. She knows that she possesses just the wrong amount of kindness, and of bravery, and of honor. Too much to ignore the princes’ bruises; too little to stand before the King and demand that he no longer beat his sons; too little to storm out of her cushy little salon and declare that if all the rest of the staff wish to turn a blind eye they may find another Healer. Just enough to sit here, to watch the Summer Prince grow, survive his father, stand straighter and prouder and braver every summer, and end all her days in town drinking enough bad whiskey to fall asleep without worrying about what the Lion will do when he realizes that his son is outshining him.

As Fourshield House is falling, Feira holes herself up in her salon, glad she keeps an extra whiskey bottle under her desk. Perhaps, she thinks, the Lion will be victorious; certainly no one has succeeded in killing him thus far, and many better men have tried. If the White Crane triumphs, she thinks, he may well wish to employ a Healer. The devil Feira knows is bad enough; there is only so much worse the devil she has not yet met can be.

When they bring Prince Andry back to her, his lungs are filling up with blood, and he is dying.

----

When Thorne stumbles through the door of the Healer’s room, for the second time in as many days, the old woman is sitting at her desk, and snaps her head up to glare at him, looking tired and immediately disgusted.

Then she sees the stretcher he and Heron are carrying, and she leaps to her feet.

“What have you done?” she wails, in her own language; in Andry’s. She is not angry, this time. Her immediate, horrified grief is even worse.

“Well go on, put him down already,” Crow snaps from behind him, unnecessarily. Thorne is shuffling the stretcher through the doorway as fast as he can, nearly dragging Heron, who is watching the tortured arch of Andry’s back with too much interest to carry his weight. Crow steps into the Healer’s room after them and closes the door, primly.

Andry is still breathing. The sound is worse, now; there is a bubble at the end of every breath that is making Thorne taste vomit in the back of his throat. But Andry isn’t dead.

(“Thank you,” was what Andry said to him. After Thorne had left him alone with three guards, because he was too much of a child to think that might be a bad idea; but before he immediately left him alone again. Thorne—thought he had locked the door to his rooms, before he left Andry asleep in there. Like he was learning to think, and not to be so bloody stupid all the time. “Thank you,” Andry said, before Thorne left him alone again.)

(But he isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.)

“You’re a Magician, too, aren’t you?” Crow says to the Healer, as calm and arch as ever, as if he wasn’t speaking over the sound of Andry dragging air through his bruised and swollen throat and into his flooding and bubbly lungs. “Orders from the White Crane are to save him, if you can.”

They have set the stretcher on the Healer’s table. The Healer has been looking at Andry, her face white behind her thick spectacles; she snaps around to look at Crow, now, and for a second there is hatred in her face like Thorne has never seen; not on Raven, or the Lion, or on all the children who threw stones at him when he was small; like if she could tear Crow’s heart out with her hands she would do it. Then she sets her face—Thorne thinks she might literally bite her tongue, hard—and turns back to the table where Andry is dying.

“His back is broken,” Heron tells her cheerfully, “look here.” And he puts his hand on Andry’s hip, and pushes down. Andry’s hip rolls easily, with no resistance at all; something grinds audibly with a stomach-churning crunch.

The Healer drops the bandages she has been reaching for and slaps Heron so hard that he stumbles backward, his mask sliding back over his hair to reveal his wrinkled, plain, utterly gobsmacked face.

Crow laughs once, too loud. There is a long moment of silence; Thorne’s heart has dropped into his stomach, and Heron and the Healer are staring at each other in what seems to be mutual surprise and alarm.

Andry’s next breath turns into a violent gagging cough at the end, and that snaps the Healer out of it.

“Get them the fuck out of here, Dog,” she snarls at Thorne, in Craetan. Thorne’s heart stutters in his chest; the idea of even trying to tell Crow and Heron to do anything—

The Healer bends over Andry to put her ear against his breathbone; he makes a horrible sound, an awful choking wail.

Thorne has grabbed the back of Heron’s cloak before he even realizes he is moving. “We’ve got to go,” he says, and Heron is still startled enough to let himself be bundled out of the room. Crow follows, and he is laughing again.

When they are in the hallway, and the door has closed on the sound of Andry’s terrible gasping breaths, Thorne feels for a moment as though the floor is slipping away from under his feet, his knees weak with relief and horror. Crow and Heron are both looking at him curiously, and that is enough of an emergency for Thorne to blink his vision halfway clear again. He tells them a lie he won’t remember later, about where they are needed now instead of here. Heron’s face is unreadable behind his readjusted mask; Crow’s is visible and full of disbelief, but they do leave him. Thank all gods.

When he has sunk to the floor beside the door to the Healer’s room, and is sitting there in silence with his hands over his face, the hallway is silent enough that Thorne can just barely hear the sounds from inside—Andry’s harsh breathing, sometimes punctuated by a thin whine or a sobbing cry or, once, a throat-scraping shriek that makes Thorne tremble down to his toes; and, under that, the Healer’s voice, repeating something over and over. It’s too low for Thorne to be sure, but he thinks it might be: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

#srb #next day reblog

13 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 4 months

Text

WKW: The Healer's Shame

Story Masterpost Here // Continued directly from here

@whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi also please dm me if you wanna be on the taglist, since i take so long between updates idk who's still active

----

When they bring Prince Andry back to her, his lungs are filling up with blood, and he is dying.

----

Then she sees the stretcher he and Heron are carrying, and she leaps to her feet.

“What have you done?” she wails, in her own language; in Andry’s. She is not angry, this time. Her immediate, horrified grief is even worse.

Andry is still breathing. The sound is worse, now; there is a bubble at the end of every breath that is making Thorne taste vomit in the back of his throat. But Andry isn’t dead.

(But he isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.)

The Healer drops the bandages she has been reaching for and slaps Heron so hard that he stumbles backward, his mask sliding back over his hair to reveal his wrinkled, plain, utterly gobsmacked face.

Andry’s next breath turns into a violent gagging cough at the end, and that snaps the Healer out of it.

“Get them the fuck out of here, Dog,” she snarls at Thorne, in Craetan. Thorne’s heart stutters in his chest; the idea of even trying to tell Crow and Heron to do anything—

The Healer bends over Andry to put her ear against his breathbone; he makes a horrible sound, an awful choking wail.

#srb #evening reblog

13 notes · View notes

thewhumperinwhite · 4 months

Text

WKW: The Healer's Shame

Story Masterpost Here // Continued directly from here

@whump-cravings @whumpitywhumpwhump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi also please dm me if you wanna be on the taglist, since i take so long between updates idk who's still active

----

When they bring Prince Andry back to her, his lungs are filling up with blood, and he is dying.

----

Then she sees the stretcher he and Heron are carrying, and she leaps to her feet.

“What have you done?” she wails, in her own language; in Andry’s. She is not angry, this time. Her immediate, horrified grief is even worse.

Andry is still breathing. The sound is worse, now; there is a bubble at the end of every breath that is making Thorne taste vomit in the back of his throat. But Andry isn’t dead.

(But he isn’t dead. He isn’t dead.)

The Healer drops the bandages she has been reaching for and slaps Heron so hard that he stumbles backward, his mask sliding back over his hair to reveal his wrinkled, plain, utterly gobsmacked face.

Andry’s next breath turns into a violent gagging cough at the end, and that snaps the Healer out of it.

“Get them the fuck out of here, Dog,” she snarls at Thorne, in Craetan. Thorne’s heart stutters in his chest; the idea of even trying to tell Crow and Heron to do anything—

The Healer bends over Andry to put her ear against his breathbone; he makes a horrible sound, an awful choking wail.

#winter king's ward #the winter king's ward #original whump #fantasy whump #royalty whump #past abuse #guilt #angst #broken bones #broken spine #picture feira as like. mid-fifties lady; round glasses; fully gray ponytail #she and russ from cafe are forming a. cynical gay alcoholic doctors support group

13 notes · View notes