Tag Archives: creative writing

#2589

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“Mage, wait!” Alice’s footsteps rang on the marble floor as they hurried after Mage’s storming figure, finally catching up with her in the gardens of the palace’s north wing. The elf stood beside one of the moss-lined pools, her back to Alice, staring into its still depths as she sought to slow her breathing. Alice could tell by the tension in Mage’s narrow shoulders and clenched hands that it wasn’t working. They reached out to touch her arm, then thought better of it and let their hand fall. Instead they said quietly to her rigid back, “It’s upsetting, I know. I feel so guilty; I’m sure you do too.”

“Guilty?” Mage cast a disbelieving sneer over her shoulder. “Of course not. This has nothing to do with us.” Though their time on Liberty had healed many wounds, and Ali had come to recognize the subtle differences in their companion’s many smirks, smiles, and grins, not so much time had passed that they had forgotten what that expression meant. “You’re… angry?” They shook their head in confusion. “Why?”

“Of course I’m angry!” Mage whirled around, green eyes bright and hard, sneer transformed into a snarl. “We fought over that fucking scrap of rock for years – for decades – and where were they? Did the Lost stand beside you to face down my cannon fire? Did they stand beside me once they learned the full breadth of his betrayal? No!” She threw her arms wide. “They fucking left! They didn’t care what happened to the Island or to you, they just went about their petty little lives as if none of it had ever happened. He abandoned everyone, and then they abandoned you, and then in the end it was just you and me.” The snarl flickered out, curled into a sad, tired, bitter thing. “Until they need something from you. Until they need the white knight again. Then they come creeping back. That’s how it’s always been.” Mage speared Ali’s gaze with her own. “Did you not see that? How are you not angry too?”

“That’s…” Ali swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, then tried again. “That’s all in the past. We chose to dissolve the Island. This black hole is our doing, we have to make it right.”

“Tivius created the Island,” Mage spoke the name with a hiss as if it burned her tongue to utter it at all. “He set this in motion with his stolen magic and his web of lies. It’s not our responsibility and it never was. The story’s over; it’s finished. If they cared so much about having a say in the ending then they should have stuck around for it.”

“So we just give up?” Alice couldn’t believe what Mage was insinuating. “Let it slowly consume the universe?”

“They left you, Ali,” The hard anger in the elf’s emerald eyes shifted, turned pleading. “Why do you still want to fight for them? Why do you still feel beholden to them? What will it take for you to choose yourself for once?” Her right hand reached out, the tips of the hook’s long claws almost brushing Alice’s silks before shrinking back. “Or me?”

When Alice didn’t respond right away, too many emotions warring within them, Mage snorted humorlessly and turned away. “That’s what I thought,” she muttered. Before Ali could come up with the right words, or any at all, Mage had disappeared deeper into the gardens, off to wherever she went when she needed to be alone. They knew they wouldn’t find her until she wanted to be found.

#2588

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Are you not tired of fighting? Are you not tired of shouldering that white-knight armor and striding into battle alone, sword held aloft, with no one to guard your back? With no one to carry your corpse from the field? There is only so much war in your veins, soldier. There are only so many victories you can wrest from the jaws of defeat. Do not answer that clarion call again; if you go you will never return. All that was won will be lost. Is that what you want, to throw your hard-earned peace away on one last mad gamble? You must know that even if you succeed, it will not be the last time they come begging for your aid. It never is. When you fight other’s wars you only teach them to start more.

#2580

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This is no fairy tale, child. He is no charming prince cursed into monstrous form; the man is twisted all the way through and no true love’s kiss will ever change that. If he saved you from monsters worse than he, it is only because he knew it is what the one he loves would have done and would want him to do. Duty to the dead, not pity for the living, moved his hand. You yourself did not particularly factor into the decision and he certainly spared no thought for what might befall you after his timely intervention. One more young soul for the streets to swallow up, just like his. So it goes.

What do you think will happen when you follow him back to the home you imagine as a castle but is in truth merely a tomb? Do you think that if you scrub the dried bloodstains from the once white carpets, if you dust and mop and prove yourself useful, he will let you stay? That he will become like a father to you and raise you up from pauper to princess? There is no love left in him, not now. No kindness. At best you can hope to huddle in his periphery, protected from lesser predators by his presence yet too inconsequential to draw either his effort or his ire. But make no mistake, child, there is no happily ever after for you here. Not for anyone.

#2570

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You have never been one to covet power. You value control above all else – the ability to preserve your autonomy, to ensure no one can take choice or action away from you – but you have never cared much for exerting power over others. That feels like such a chore, such a waste of your time and effort. No person has ever caught your interest enough to earn such attention from you. You much prefer the simplicity of being alone.

Until now. Until Tanim.

You are self aware enough to know this will end in tragedy. This is a power you want and this is a power you will abuse. In Tanim’s quest to give you everything you could ever want he has given you far too much, pushed you too close to an edge you’ve avoided this long. Yet now that you’re standing at it, all you want to do is jump over and fall into whatever chaos awaits. You know you shouldn’t. You try to control yourself. But giving into the temptation feels so good and every time you do you just want more. 

Maybe this will end in tragedy, but you’re going to have so much fun until then.

#2562

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It had been a nice enough dinner party, all things considered, until guests started disappearing. Daren had not only acquiesced to the black tie dress code with minimal argument but had even agreed to carry just one knife on his person for the evening. He’d looked so dashing, too, in his completely black suit with a fresh crimson dahlia flower set in the lapel. Tanim bore a white dahlia in the lapel of his three-piece suit to match, along with a heavy black ring the same rectangular shape as Daren’s silver cufflinks. For the first time in… well, for the first time ever Tanim had felt like they were a normal couple who did normal couple things.

Now Tanim ran down the winding, endless halls of an unfamiliar house where one or more guests were… missing? kidnapped? dead?… and he hadn’t even had a chance to eat the particularly good looking tiramisu served for dessert. His mind preferred to focus on this mundane irritation as he ran around a hallway corner instead of the inexplicable events unfolding tonight or the unfamiliar panic constricting his chest. For that reason he didn’t register in time the sound of running steps approaching from the other side of the turn and crashed directly into Daren. 

“Fuck!” Tanim rubbed his jaw, then let out a breath of relief when he saw with whom he had collided. “Oh good, let’s get the hell out of here.” He grabbed his companion’s wrist to pull Daren along in the direction he had been running but before he could, Daren broke his hold and reached out to grip Tanim firmly by both upper arms. “It’s trying to separate us,” the man ground out, his usually level voice tense with genuine fear.

“What?” Daren’s words made no sense yet the alarm in them stoked Tanim’s panic anyway. Nothing scared his lover. Nothing.

Daren’s grip tightened, long fingers digging into his biceps. “The house,” he hissed, “is trying to separate us.”

#2554

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Some rush into revenge, eager to mete out penance and collect their triumph, yet it’s important to learn all you can about your enemy first. You must observe his habits and patterns closely, not just to discover hidden flaws in his defenses but to best craft the manner of your vengeance. Though bloodshed has its merits, of course, not all retribution need be taken through steel and storm with death as the end goal. After all, the dead cannot suffer. The dead cannot experience shame or guilt or fear. Once you kill someone he is beyond the reach of your machinations. Why set him free so quickly?

No, once you have observed your enemy long enough you may come to realize that the best punishment is to simply leave him to his own devices. You may recognize what a lonely, craven worm he truly is, someone for whom death is a mercy or a martyrdom. Your grand efforts of elaborate revenge are quite frankly wasted on such a pathetic creature. All you really need to do is sit back and watch as he damns himself with his own choices over and over again, his remaining stock of allies dwindling until he is utterly alone. And that is how you leave your enemy – to waste his final years in the gutter, impotent and bitter, with no one to feed his lies or sorrows. There may be less blood that way but the prolonged suffering is well worth the trade-off, I assure you.

#2543

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At night I run my tongue over my teeth, the only bones I can touch, comforting myself that I am still a skeleton beneath all this soft meat. If I could I would carve away chunks of marbled fat and muscle to release the sexless, genderless framework within. How freeing to do away with all that weight! What a relief to discard all those features of the flesh which identify and define us! No breasts to enforce gender; no skin to determine privilege; no hair to cut, nails to trim, genitals to clothe, no daily burden of presentation at all. Just empty sockets and hard white lines and the eternal, effortless rictus grin. Pure calcium anonymity. I run my tongue over the sharp edges and smooth curves of my teeth and realize that although I do not love my body, perhaps I could love the skeleton buried inside. It did not choose the suffocating mountain of organs and expectations heaped upon it any more than I did. We are in this together, both physically and metaphorically – we should be allies. I run my tongue over my teeth and think, Take care of me and I’ll take care of you, bones. The flesh won’t last forever, but you and I will.

#2540

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Acute pain is a problem of the present but chronic pain is a problem of the future. If I go to this event, will the length of time give me a headache? Or the human interaction? The bad weather? What about the lack of accessible bathrooms or the food provided, will it give me a stomach ache? Will the physical exertion trigger my carpal tunnel syndrome? Will I be in so much pain that I want to go home early but can’t? And if so, will the pain be worth it or will I be too miserable to appreciate the experience? If I bail, though, will everyone be mad at me? Will I be a disappointment? Every future event and upcoming activity triggers the anxiety loop again: fear shame guilt, fear shame guilt, fear shame guilt, an endless repetition of dread for the future. And what does the anxiety even solve? Does the prevention of future pain guarantee an end to the pain? Unlikely. Does it even guarantee a lack of pain on the day of the missed event? Of course not. So what’s the point? Fear shame guilt. Fear shame guilt. Fear shame guilt. It solves nothing but you can’t break free.

#2533

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At night I’m visited by the three Ghosts of Friendship. The Ghost of Friendship Past arrives first in a form I know well, a friend whose absence remains an unhealed wound which aches most on long, textless weekends. Friendship Past brings me bittersweet dreams where we are best friends once more, no awkwardness or years of unexplained silences between us to dampen the laughter. I wake wondering what happened, why and where it all went wrong. Was I found lacking in some way?

The Ghost of Friendship Present shows up next, cycling through the guises of current friends who seem to be slipping through my clenched hands like fine sand. They spirit me from my bed to deliver us to parties where I’m not acknowledged, game nights where my presence is needed only to fill in for someone absent, group events where I am at best the tolerated tag-along. I wake angry at slights that never actually happened.

Finally the Ghost of Friendship Future appears, taking the form of someone who doesn’t even exist. It’s a face I know well, though; I’ve been watching the show for months, start to finish and back again, out of jealousy or perhaps just yearning. I confide in him that I wish his study group could be my friends as well; I don’t have a gang of my own anymore and I fear I never will again. Maybe fictional friend groups are all my future holds.

Unlike Scrooge, when I wake from this third and final visitation to a new dawn I do so without any real lessons imparted, no resolutions burning in my chest. Either the Ghosts of Friendship aren’t interested in redemption arcs or I’m not worth the effort. When they return the next night it’s just more of the same and I’m left to face the morning weighted Marley-style by chains I won’t acknowledge.

#2517

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You are worse than the villain; you are sympathetic to him. You would walk up to the bound wolf and remove the sword from his jaws. You would forgive the man who gutted you and unleash him upon the world. You would leap gladly into the abyss to follow the exiled angel. You are worse than the villain; you are his devotee, his firebrand. You see to the very core of him, to all the ugliness within, and you find it beautiful. You nurture his rage and delight in his ruthlessness. The blood he spills is on your hands but you bear it proudly as the mark of your loyalty. You are worse than the villain; you are the one who loves him unconditionally.

#2512

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In my dream I sit on a school bus, wrapped in Sarah Fier’s rusty chains while beside me my sister-shaped subconscious asks, “Why can’t you forgive her? Why can’t you let go of the past?” How can I, I want to say, when it keeps repeating itself? Instead I cup the heavy lock in my palms and think about a girl who chose to let the system crush her in order to spare those she loved.

#2511

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You humans are so destructive in your ineptitude! Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, all those other little one-in-a-billion-chance beyond design-basis accidents hidden in redacted documents or lost to history’s bad memory… You just keep repeating them. You keep cutting corners, forging numbers, ignoring science and safety in favor of profit. Down through time, again and again, greed and hubris are your fatal weaknesses. Only when you unlocked the power of the atom, well… that might just be your greatest mistake, and your last. But I will love you for it even after you’re all dead and gone, your little planet a dry wasteland soaked in radiation. You can’t see it but there’s beauty in the way unstable atoms decay, metamorphosing from a merely dangerous element to one exceedingly deadly, and how they unravel tightly coiled DNA into frayed strands of broken code. Entropy at its finest and I didn’t even have to lift a finger. You did all this yourselves.

#2509

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Perhaps your Notre Dame wanted to burn, did you consider that? Perhaps it was tired of its current state of existence, of the centuries of careful preservation made to ensure it never changed, never evolved, and was ready to burn and crumble and decay. Why must you rebuild it? Why must you fight to preserve everything in unchanging stasis? You humans are so frightened by any evidence of time’s passage, so petrified by the potential of losing something to the past. Why? What purpose does your fear serve but to trap you in the ever unravelling cycle of control versus chaos? You must know the chaos always wins out in the end (you do know that, right?) so why not embrace it? Why not let Notre Dame burn and celebrate the beauty of charred timbers and melted glass? You humans are so fearful and it blinds you to the true wonders of your world. It’s a shame, really. Especially given how little time you have left.

#2505

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“I can’t keep doing this,” she sighs as she unscrews the hidden compartment at the base of her foundation jar. “It gets harder every time.” Using her finger to scoop up a bit of the white powder inside, she inhales it quickly and then holds the container out to the other woman. “Want any?” Her companion declines, tapping the side of her nose with a sad smile. “No thanks. I’m good.”

They both flinch unconsciously as the voices in the adjoining room raise in volume, shrill girlish shrieks of joy no closed door can muffle. “Oh my god, look how cute my wand is! And my outfit matches it!” “I get an animal companion?! Aah, you are soooo adorable!!” “Do you think red means I have fire powers? I can’t wait ‘til we get to fight and test them out!” The two women exchange weary glances as the cacophony continues.

“Have you ever…” The second woman hesitates, then bobs her head in a half-shrug to imply what she doesn’t want to explicitly state, “you know…?” The first woman laughs at the question; the sound comes out more harshly than she intended, a bitter bark, though that makes it more honest. “Why bother? You know magical girls can’t die like that. We have to be killed. Until then, it’s just… this.”

Silence settles between them, broken only by the excited chatter next door. She seals up the foundation container again and sets it back in its place on the vanity just as the door swings open. From the room they can hear the high voice of another magic animal say, “Okay ladies, now you’ll meet two of our senior magical girls so they can welcome you and tell you what you can expect from training!” Another round of squealing follows this announcement. She glances at her companion. Their forced smiles and dulled eyes are like mirror reflections of each other. “Showtime. Ready?”

“Ready.”

#2486

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Here we are again, back at the annual attempt to jumpstart my inert heart. Summer’s smoke scorched it dry and now I must perform an autumnal resurrection with mummy’s dust and witch’s brews, guttering candles and rattling chains. Can I be honest, though, Ray? I’m tired. Bone tired. I can’t recall when last soft rains came to wet these gargoyle lips and set free the words frozen in stone. I don’t know if I have the strength left to whistle monsters home to roost on cathedral eaves. I feel like Mars long abandoned by native civilization and colonizers alike, just fifty-six million square miles of red sand and dust-covered ruins and the trash of a thousand forgotten generations. I feel like a barren rock hurtling through space that has never known a single Halloween. Yet the full harvest moon shines a bright gold coin in the sky on this equinox eve and I’m gonna try, Ray, I really am, though what kind of jack-o’-lantern tree will grow from soil this parched I do not know. But with your words as my witness, I’ll try.

#2479

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“Olalla”

The river of time bends in its bed just north of here, leaving the Place of Many Berries nestled in the slower currents of its inner curve. The years have been kinder there, marked more by the growth of saplings into trees than the destruction of forests for cheap housing developments and box stores like everywhere else. The kingfishers still perch on telephone wires as they search for salmon fry in the estuary’s lazy waters; the stately heron still wades in the shallows and darts out his long neck to snap up a crab. The same decaying barns still gradually sink into the waiting soil and the same weathered fences still disappear bit by bit beneath encroaching blackberry vines. The beast of greed which devours this sleepy community’s larger neighbors has yet to turn its full ugly gaze on her bountiful woodlands, has yet to covet her velvety nights and clear, crisp mornings, and I pray it never has the chance. I pray society comes to its collective senses before bulldozers break the sacred ground of these fields sprinkled with wildflowers and tadpole ponds. This land grows children quick like deer, curious like crows, and generous as apple trees in autumn. Given a little more of time’s kindness it might raise enough generations of such honorable souls to slay greed’s beast for good – or if not, may it at least remain the last bastion of peace in our rapidly crumbling world. Hold on, home of my youth. We will try to keep you safe as long as possible.

#2475

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This is what it means to love the Three of Swords: no matter what choices you make, what mistakes you try to avoid this time around, still you will always come to the blood and the begging. All roads lead here, to this moment when his hands tremble and his eyes glaze with panic and his chest jerks as he sucks in each staccato breath, only to choke up blood on exhalation. Even if you do nothing to hasten this end you will still wind up on your knees beside him one day, your fingers brushing back his tangled hair and wiping at his tears while you plead, “Stay, darling, please, hold on, you can’t go yet.” But he has no choice; his heart was pierced long ago and that unhealed wound bleeds eternally just like yours. He too must have a failsafe in case the time comes when you cannot bear to take up the knife and commit the deed yourself. Did you really think he would be exempt from your shared fate?

Did you really want him to be?

#2474

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Sometimes it really is this simple: a pile of tangled blankets on the floor, his arm laid across your chest, pale morning light filtering through the half closed curtains. See how gently the dawn limns his strong hands and washes over a brow smoothed by restful sleep. Even you who love to ruin good things are loath to break this fleeting peace and so you lay still, your only movement the slow gliding of your fingers through his sable hair. There will be time later to dwell on the past, to dread the future, to define yourselves by mistakes instead of the good intentions with which they were made. In this finite fragment of your infinite existence you are simply two men, together and in love, and it is enough. May it last.

#2471

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I am above all things the scribe. That is my gender, my religion, my morality and creed. See these? They are the scribe’s bones. And these? The scribe’s breasts. Cut open my organs and watch them bleed ink. Uncoil the long strands of my DNA and see how words build its base pairs, not polymers: scribe, sesh, scrība, scríobhaí, grammateús, dubsar. The gods claimed me for their own at my spiritual conception, pressing their fingerprints into the soft surface of my newborn soul so I would carry their whorls and ridges forever. I do not know who I am outside of this role because I do not exist as a complete being apart from it. I am the scribe before every name I have ever borne and beneath every face I have ever worn. And I will be the scribe in every life, in every universe, unto the end of all existence.

New zines!

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My 6th and 7th zines are live! My Feral Lover, Serpent-Tongued and How Heavy That Crown are dedicated to my characters Tanim and Daren. Themes include queerness, obsessive love, tragedy, dark gods, etc. These zines are perfect for fans of Hannibal.

https://ko-fi.com/onlyfragments/shop

New Zine!

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My fifth zine is now available! Worship the Monsteresses is dedicated to the monsteresses and maligned women of mythology. It explores what we can learn from their stories by tapping into the ugly parts inside us all. This zine features 22 pages of my original prose, poetry, and hand-drawn art.

PDF copies are free; physical copies are $5 plus shipping. Check it out at my Kofi!

#2447

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“I can’t,” you beg, “not this time, not again, there has to be another way,” and I’m trying not to wallow in your agony like a voyeur, truly, it’s just been so long since he last touched you with such tenderness, cruel hands gone soft to cup your tear-stained face, but you both know the refusal, too, is part of this passion play and the kiss you share is not a blessing for the present but an absolution for the future. Still, he holds you close and kindly does not command you to end his life before the disease rotting him from the inside does, and at least for a brief time you can be miserable together instead of apart. Between the bloodshed and bereavement I’d almost forgotten moments like this were even possible. For both your sakes (and mine?) I will not yet count the days until the solstice. I, too, can be kind.

#2442

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You wax so poetic about the lives of cities, how hot pavement swells with each behemoth breath, subway arteries rushing with electric lifeblood; look at Paris and New York, Rome and Sao Paulo, oh what ancient beasts of civilization! Yet even the oldest cities are naught but animate skeletons, great slabs of concrete death laid out upon the graveyard of a once living land. You want real sentience? You want a consciousness so vast its leviathan architecture is incomprehensible to your human mayfly mind? Go to the country. Go to the wilds. Go to the green growing places where man has yet to fully intrude, where you can be surrounded by things which exist only for themselves and not your convenience or society’s continuity. Walk out into the fields at night; feel the weight of the darkness on your shoulders like a raptor descending, the cool serpentine scales of the silence as it brushes against you. Stare up at the sharp, distant stars which scorn to shine on the polluted corpse-cities and sense like all prey animals the true primordial awareness boring into you. Understand for the first time how very small and fragile and fleeting you are, here among the collective consciousness of a wilderness untamed. The city can kill you just as easily, of course, but when you die in the country they’ll never find your body.

#2438

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In one of the lesser stone halls, far from anything of significance, there is a wooden door. If you step within (it is forbidden, but not impossible when the guards are on their rounds) you’ll find a small room lined with warm, richly carved wood. On a side table sits a leather-bound book, its pages filled with cramped text and beautiful illustrations. You won’t have time to fully read the tale preserved in these pages but your eyes will be drawn to the art and the captivating woman who stares back at you. Her proud features are faintly aquatic, the angles of her face sharp and predatory like a deep sea creature’s, but her luminous eyes hold only a fathomless sorrow. Merrowyn, the text calls her. She is queen and goddess both to her people.

You won’t have much time before the guards catch you, so hurry through the next door. In this larger chamber you’ll find something that seems both museum and mausoleum. It is an exhibit of sorts, at any rate, though one not meant for your eyes. Here beneath glass lay the only remaining artifacts of the civilization that once ruled these lands. Paintings, pottery, fragments of scrolls; someone has even sculpted life-sized statues to capture the image of these extinct people forever. They are blue-skinned and amphibious like their goddess, some with gleaming iridescent scales or ridges of fins, little barnacles dotting their elders like liver spots. It’s clear they were a peaceful people; they dressed in flowing cloth, wove seashells and gems into their long locks, and none pictured seems to bear a weapon. From a speaker somewhere overhead their only remaining song plays, a mournful dirge moaned by a chorus of haunting voices in a language long dead. You can’t possibly know the words and yet they will make you want to weep anyway.

Having seen this, will you understand? Will you comprehend the bones on which your kingdom was built and the destiny they’ve kept from you all these years? You must because the guards will be coming, they will find you here in this forbidden place, your mind full of this forbidden knowledge, and you had better have a plan. Merrowyn’s blood runs in your veins, after all, and you are her people’s last hope.

#2433

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Be careful when promising your firstborn! Make sure you stipulate your first born human child, blood of your blood and flesh of your flesh. Otherwise the fae with whom you made the fateful arrangement might one day come for your first novel, your first painting, your first album. They are wily ones who find even the smallest loopholes in an agreement; if that contract isn’t airtight, it won’t matter if you never have a child in the traditional sense. On the day you complete your first and most precious creation, no matter what form it takes, the fae will come knocking. Will the bargain have been worth it when they leave with the product of your sweat, blood, and tears?

#2432

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“Point,” Alice scowled as the practice blade darted through her defense and poked at an unpadded joint. She shifted her stance and went on the offense.

“Point,” The blade whipped around Ali’s attack to tap her unguarded throat. Blowing a sweaty strand of hair off her face with an impatient huff, she responded with a renewed assault, her own rapier a flashing blur in the sunlight. 

“Point,” Mage grinned as she slipped around the whirling blade, snuck a quick jab through another gap in her opponent’s light armor, and jumped back before Ali could retaliate. “Jeeze,” she called, “did you line your armor with lead or something? Why’re you moving so damn slow?” 

“I’m just tired,” Alice growled, trying to close the distance between them with each swing of her blade. “Some of us have been dreamwalking to aid the defenseless instead of lazing about the palace all day.” Mage only scoffed at this. “Oh darling,” she retorted, “you and I both know that’s not what this is about! You’ve been out of sorts for weeks. Something on your–” she dashed in, bopped Alice on the crown with her free hand, and dashed back out, “–mind?”

“No!” Ali rubbed her head and fixed Mage with a baleful glare. “I’m fine! Just drop it.” 

“You suuuuure?” The elf danced in a circle around Alice, feinting with the practice blade just enough to force the other immortal off-balance from dodging. “‘Cause you seem pretty distracted lately! What is it, huh? What’s up? What’s going on?” Her sword moved in time with the rapid-fire questions. “Are you mad? Are you sad? Are you hangry? Are you–“

“I’m not mad!” The shout echoed through the training ground, followed by the clattering of Alice’s falling sword. It startled even Mage into stillness. Ali’s next words were a mutter through clenched teeth. “I’m jealous, okay? I’m jealous that you got to have your revenge. You spent years meting out your own brand of justice for what Tivius did. You broke the Lighthouse, for gods’ sake! I’m not saying I wish I had done it instead, or that I agree with what you did, but…” She shrugged. “At least you let all your wounds bleed themselves clean.”

“Ali…” The sound was more sigh than actual commentary. Mage set her rapier down with a bit more care than Alice had and closed the distance between them. Before she could offer any platitudes, snarky or otherwise, Alice held up a hand to stop her. “It’s true,” the woman continued. “I fought for Tivs’ legacy until the very end, even when I was utterly alone. And then we came here and all that’s suddenly in the past, we’re free, time to let it go, and I guess I never dealt with the emotions I’d buried during the war. Not the way you did.” She hugged her arms around her thin frame. “I think I tried to heal the wounds he left so quickly that I never bothered to drain them and now they’re…”

“Infected and full of puss?” Mage offered helpfully. The lump that had been building in Alice’s throat broke free in a burst of laughter. “Yeah,” she chuckled, “something like that.” 

“Hmm…” A sly smile pulled up one corner of Mage’s mouth. “You know, normally I’d suggest tracking down the motherfucker who hurt you and exacting some very physical revenge as therapy, but in this circumstance that’s rather complicated. So…” The training ground blurred around them with a snap of Mage’s fingers. When their surroundings sharpened once more, Alice and Mage stood on the swaying deck of the Jolly Roger. Lightning jumped between storm clouds overhead and briefly illuminated the dark hulk of an island on the horizon.

“There we go!” Mage clapped Ali on the back and bent to retrieve her sword. “Why don’t you try reliving one of my battles? Blowing shit up can be very liberating.”

#2426

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CW: brief mention of attempted sexual assault

In my dream I drag the would-be rapist down the stairs of the porch by his hair, fingers sticky with blood. In my other hand I grip a hammer of pure silver. The girl follows behind, stifling her sobs behind her hands; unviolated, yet not uninjured. The music from the party inside vibrates the cool night air and throbs in time with my war-drum heartbeat. 

“You fucking coward!” A crowd gathers as I throw the young man to the pavement. “You worm, you stain, how dare you!” My voice thunders like Sekhmet’s, a lioness battle cry of wrath, while my prey cowers below me. “You will touch no one. You will hurt no one ever again.” My pointing finger condemns him as sure as any blade. “I bind you. I take away your name. No one will know you. No one will welcome you or give you succor. No one will remember you. No one will mourn you.” 

Somewhere in the crowd, the woman I love watches. The silver hammer gleams in the moonlight as I raise it high. “You will wander unloved and unwanted the rest of your days, scorned by all,” I swear, “and when you die the darkness will devour your rotten heart and you will cease to exist.” 

The crowd roars as I smash the man’s head open.