Synecdoche

I'm Synecdoche – call me Syn. Gonna try to write something every week, even if it's small.

[unpromptly]

no. 258

They had been in the city for sixteen hours when the Telepath strode through the doors of the cafe on the block by their hotel. They had their coffee in one hand, and their change in the other, and raised all of it in mute protest when the Telepath grabbed their chin, lifted their face, and stared deeply into their eyes.

“What,” the Telepath snarled, “are you thinking?”

Nobody said a word. But at list six people had whipped out their phones to take pictures.

[linafication]

here’s your reminder to let yourself create. not create ‘well’, just create. draw badly. write shitty poems. sing stupid songs. make whatever you want & have a great time doing it. that’s what creation is for. it’s self expression, not perfection

[writing-prompt-s]

The Demon Lord and the Holy Goddess are so bored of the hero cycle that they change the genre of their world from adventure fantasy to romantic comedy spontaneously, with some very weird side effects. Your life just made an abrupt left turn.

[writing-prompt-s]

Every year, a superstitious village abandons a human child in a nearby forest in exchange for divine protection. In actuality, an old hermit adopts the children and teaches them to ward off intruders. This year, the hermit’s best apprentice happens to locate and escort the abandoned child.

[dycefic]

Stupidity that no-one knows is stupidity, that’s repeated often enough to become a habit… that’s what tradition is.

At least, that’s what tradition is here.

The first time was different. The first time was an accident. A child not abandoned, but lost, wandering into the forest on sturdy little legs, too young to be wary. He wandered far enough to be found by… well, he calls them ‘teachers’. What they were, I don’t know. Spirits, perhaps, or beings from another plane, or sorcerers, or mystics. He won’t say. But he swears it was chance that ended the drought after he disappeared. The teachers didn’t do it.

When they brought him back, they found the little bones scattered in the dark wood. Found the lost spirits still calling for mothers and fathers who had abandoned them.

The first, the Hermit, has been here ever since. When his teachers could not make the people stop what they were doing, when children returned to the village were taken out into the woods again, the Hermit settled in the heart of the forest, and began what has become his life’s work.

Every year, another child is abandoned in the woods, left as a sacrifice by superstitious people who think it pleases whatever gods or powers they worship.

Every year, that child does not die.

We know when it will happen – Midsummer’s Day, every year. So it’s not difficult to set watchers in the trees around the village, to see who creeps out and follow. I sit watching, concealed by skill and by spells, as the grey light slowly brightens and Midsummer Day’s dawn approaches. There are other watchers at other gates – it’s almost a small town, this village, big enough to need more than one gate.

I was an infant, I’m told, when I was abandoned. Newly born, and the death of my mother, from the whispers the Hermit’s spies heard during the Choosing Time. Whether my father hated me for killing her, or simply didn’t want the burden of an infant with no woman to tend it, he offered me readily. He was the one to carry me out, leaving me on the outskirts of the Deep Forest, where the sun still showed between the trees and the trees did not move of their own accord, because a babe could hardly find its way back.

The Hermit took me up, of course, and carried me home. Back then, he was still strong enough to be the one who watched and waited. He carried me into the heart of the Deep Forest, and gave me to two of the others who had come before me… Elsa and Rolf, who had grown up in the Heart, and had a babe of their own. They raised me as their own child, brother to their daughter, and so I feel no particular anger toward my father. He did not love me, but he found me parents who would, even if he didn’t know it.

Only the ones who aren’t angry can watch. The ones who don’t remember the village. No-one talks about why, not openly, but I’ve heard whispers of blood on the leaves and brother turning blade against brother for a grudge held too long.

Keep reading

[unpromptly]

no. 250

“You! But I killed you!” 

“Oh yes, you absolutely did, how could I forget. Five gold stars for execution.” 

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re classified as a villain in the eyes of the government. The truth? You’re actually just a therapist for villains who refuses to break patient confidentiality by giving out the villains true identity.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

You’ve never been a particularly social person so it takes you a while to leave the house long enough to find out that you’re on the Villain List.

You stare at the TV behind the counter from your place in line. You nearly drop the cup of gummy worms you’re trying to buy as your face flashes up next to the news anchor’s again.

“—considered extremely dangerous. This new villain is confirmed to be in contact with Ripper and the Wreckage, both S-rank villains who’re notorious for –”

You twist out of line, chin ducking to your chest before anyone can turn to look from the screen to your face. Fuck. You need to get out of here. You shove your gummy worms onto a shelf filled with granola and try to walk as casually out the door as possible.

You don’t need to ask how this has happened. You know what’s happened. You told your clients that they could choose the spot for their appointments, assuming that they had even a modicum of sense between them. Or, at the very least, expertise.

It’s not completely their fault, you think as you scuttle across the parking lot towards your car.  I could have vetted the location myself. In the future, I’ll establish that boundary between us.

You still kind of feel like this is completely their fault. They’re villains! Good ones who don’t get caught! Shouldn’t they be better at hiding?

They should definitely be better at hiding.

Keep reading

[witterprompts]

“I’m not exactly the person to come to with these things. I’m, like, super evil, you know?”

[caffeinewitchcraft]

You don’t think Juniper is listening. Behind his leafy, green mask, his eyes are very far away and his lips are pressed into a thin line. His curling vines are swaying gently in the breeze and are barely wrapped around your ankles and wrists. If you wanted to you could very easily escape, but, somehow, Juniper’s sudden openness has you frozen to the spot.

Maybe this is some sort of ploy to keep you contained until his teammates arrive?

“It’s not like I want to keep secrets from them,” he continues, seemingly ignoring your objection. “But what can I say? Oh, sorry, I have to go stop Discus from cancelling gravity at the Mayor’s birthday party? My dad could barely deal with me missing Superbowl Sunday to have my appendix removed.”

“Oh geez,” you say, “you’re sure giving me a lot of identifying information here.” You refrain from pointing out that your power doesn’t let you cancel gravity, only manipulate the forces already being exerted on an object in space. It’s never served any villain well to give power specifics to a hero. 

“Or,” Juniper continues, leaning against the cedar sapling that’s been slowly thickening behind him, “like that time when I had to take my AP tests on the day my grandparents came to town? And then I had to stop you from levitating all that money out of the bank? So I got home super late? Mom totally melted down. It’s not even hero stuff at this point, it’s just life stuff. Is that too controlling? It definitely feels too controlling.”

“Maybe you should avoid giving me dates and locations that your secret identity can be traced to?”

“I mean,” Juniper says, “they know about all this-” he gestures to his costume and his plants that have burst through the asphalt “-but I just don’t have time to walk them through all the responsibilities the mask gives me.”

You look at the sky, wishing his vines would just drag you through the asphalt and out of this situation. You had enough teenage angst in your youth and, at the age of 26, you’re really not looking for more.

Juniper sighs, sagging further into his plants. “And even if I did explain, they wouldn’t be able to understand.”

Oh for fuck’s sake, it’s like listening to a more positive and less evil mini-you.

Without meaning to, you say, “How would you know they won’t understand if you don’t explain it?”

Juniper shakes his head, frowning as his eyes finally focus on you. “What?”

You’re not going anywhere fast so, if he’s so intent on telling you all this, this might as well happen.

Keep reading

[quillwombat]

when an author sets up a narrative choice where all the options are scary and bad and the protagonist chooses kindness and it changes everything because it opens doors that shouldn’t be possible and every single time i go FERAL

[sashayed]

You guys, you must stop doing this. You must. We cannot keep yelling at you about it because it makes us so angry, and we are already angry all the time, about real things, like how our lives are turning into a real world Handmaid’s Tale, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haha ha ha ha ha ha. We cannot keep spending our energy being mad at mediocre men for writing mediocre books that inexplicably win awards and that people tell us to read, for some fucking godawful who knows reason.

So men. My guys. My dudes. My bros. My writers. I am begging you to help me here. When you have this man in your workshop, you must turn to him. You must take his clammy hands in yours. You must look deep into his eyes, his man eyes, with your man eyes, and you must say to him, “Peter, I am a man, and you are a man, so let us talk to each other like men. Peter, look at the way you have written about the only four women in this book.” And Peter will say, trying to free his hands, “What? These are sexy, dynamic, interesting women.” And you must grip his hands even tighter and you must say to him, “ARE THEY, PETER? Why are they interesting? What are their hobbies? What are their private habits? What are their strange dreams? What choices are they making, Peter? They are not making choices. They are not interesting. What they are is sexy, and you have those things confused, and not in the good way where someone’s interestingness makes them become sexy, like Steve Buscemi or Pauline Viardot. Why must women be sexy to be interesting to you? The women you don’t find sexy are where, Peter? They are invisible? They are all dead?” He is trying to escape! Tighten your grasp. “Peter, look at this. I mean, where to begin. ‘She could have been any age between eighteen and thirty-five?’ There are no other ages, I guess? Do you know what eighteen-year-olds really look like, in life? Do you know what thirty-SEVEN-year-olds look like, god forbid? And not that this is even the point, but why are these supposedly sexy and dynamic and interesting women BOTHERING with your boring garbage ‘on the skinny side of average’ protagonist? Why did you write it like this, Peter?” 

And maybe Peter will say at last, “I don’t know.” Maybe he will be silent for a long long long time, and then maybe he will say, “I guess it’s scary and difficult for me to imagine the interiority of women because then i would have to know that my mother had an interiority of her own: private, petty, sexually unstimulating, strange: unrelated to me and undevoted to my needs. That sometimes I was nothing to my mother, just as sometimes she is nothing to me. That I was not at all times her immediate concern.”

“I know, Peter,” you can tell him gently.

“I don’t want to know that my mother was a human being with an internal life, because to know that would be to risk a frightening intimacy with her,” Peter will say, maybe. “Because to know that would be to know that she was only a small, complicated person, no bigger or smaller than I am, and I am so small. To know how alone she was. How alone I am. How alone we all are. That my mother survived with no resources more mysterious than my own. And yet she gave me life. My God: she gave me life. How can I pay her back for that? And how can I forgive her for it? How can I ever repay her for the good and the evil of it, my life, every day of my life?” He will be sobbing probably. “I am frightened of her. I am frightened of loneliness. I am frightened of dying. O God. My God. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Drool will run from his mouth as he cries. The way babies cry. He will be ashamed. You must hold him. You must say, “Shh, Peter. Shh.” Wrap your man arms around him. Hum into his thin hair as your own mother hummed once into your own sweet-smelling baby scalp. Kiss him gently on his mouth. There. You did it, men. You fixed sexism. Thank you. You’re the real hero here, as always, you men, and your special man powers, for making art. 

[caffeinewitchcraft]

“I’ll be missing out on my revenge today,” she admitted easily. She bent to pick up the shield the fight had driven into the earth. It took too much strength to pull it out and she frowned at the dents in the metal. “That’s true.”

“There won’t be any revenge,” he snarled. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

She almost smiled at that and turned away to hide it. She started to collect her fallen party’s weapons, piling them into her bag.There was no guarantee any of her friends would be able to use them again. “You used your own party as human shields. That’s against the guild’s rules.”

“I won’t be convicted,” he said. “It’s your word against mine.”

If he didn’t know her friends were still alive, she wasn’t going to tell him. “That’s true. No matter what I report, you’ll walk away a free man.”

“That’s right,” he said. “Because I didn’t do anything wrong. They owed me their protection.”

Owed. This time she didn’t bother to hide the small, mean smile that curled her lips. “Do me a favor. Live a good life after this. Collect your reward for your measly contribution to this mission and settle down. Maybe find a lover. Have some kids.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Because,” she continued like he hadn’t spoken, “when I come for you, years and years from now, I want to be sure you have a lot to lose.”

He didn’t believe her, but something in her tone made him shiver anyway. “You—you can’t touch me. I’m the next in line to be Duke—“

“Live happily,” she said and dragged the bag of weapons onto her back. She turned on her heel and offered him a jaunty wave over her shoulder. “I’ll be seeing you.”

He stood in the woods alone for a long, long time.

[gingerly-writing]

Prompt #624

“You know how this ends.”

“In a tragedy.”

[lux-scriptum]

( @gingerly-writing here’s ur introduction to Ean)

“You know how this ends.” The dragon leaned against the doorway of his cell, nails tapping on her arm as she considered him. He stared back, biting back the instinct to mock her for showing up in her human skin. There was no reason to antagonize her, not now

“In a tragedy.” His grin had never lost its cockiness. “For all involved. I’m too pretty to be hung.” His hands fisted, but he didn’t pull at his chains. He had to play the arrogant captain to the last. What else did he have left in this life, except his image? “Tell him I’m sorry, would you?”

The dragon jerked, violet eyes widening. Her full lips pressed into a thin line, but she gave a slow nod. “Is there anything else you want me to tell him?”

Ean licked his lips, before shaking his head. “No.” He took a deep breath. “I changed my mind. Don’t… let him think I went with a laugh. With a smirk. Make him hate me, Aure. It’s easier that way. For all of us. No less a tragedy, but maybe he’ll find something better if my ghost isn’t hanging over him for the rest of his life.”

“Hayle,” she said, stepping closer.

“Keep him away, Aure, if you have any respect for a dead man’s final wishes. I got you out, you and your marked and Tobi, I got you out. You owe me, dragon, feud or no feud.” He bared his teeth into his trademark grin, little more than a flash of teeth. His eyes were flat as he said, “You owe me. I don’t want him to see this.”

“Hayle, I-”

He stiffened. “Someone is coming.”

In the next blink she was gone. Not that she’d ever really been there. Raw magic had its perks, he supposed; why she’d chosen to contact him was beyond him, but who knew what went on in a dragon’s mind. Maybe it was just to torment him one last time. Maybe she pitied him. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

His cell door opened, and three elves filed in. He snorted, once. Three was a bit much, but he appreciated that they thought he had the energy anymore to cause trouble. His snort earned an ear flick from the nearest elf, which only brought a mirthless smile to his face. Pretentious bastards. Nevermind he was mostly elf himself. Didn’t mean he couldn’t dislike most of them on principle.

He thought walking to his death would scare him, maybe just a little. He thought maybe there’d be a weight, or regret. All he felt was tired, and a little sore, and both of those wouldn’t be a problem much longer. No, wait. He did feel something. He regretted that they took his coat. He at least should have been able to go out wearing his best coat, if nothing else.

Arrogant and vain until the last.

He smiled a little, chin high as they led him out to the courtyard. Ean took a moment, as he walked, to decide if he was bitter that the sun was out. No, he thought, it was good to die on a day as pretty as he was.

There was no point in resisting when they slid the noose around his neck. “You’re awfully quiet,” he said to the elf who was doing the final adjustments. That only earned him a yank on the noose before the elf was retreating.

He knew it shouldn’t be a stroke to his ego, but he couldn’t help being pleased at the crowd gathered. At least this was a lot of elves he’d managed to piss off. Getting on this many people’s bad side was an art form, thank you very much.

A final glance over the crowd had him relaxing. He wasn’t looking for Tobias, but it helped to know that Aure had managed to keep the man away.

The elf finished checking that everything was as it should be, her silence as damning as anything she could have said. He was a little disappointed that there was no one listing his crimes, no announcement. He could have assumed that meant everyone here knew who he was, but he knew that it was more an affront to his vanity than anything else.

At least he could say he came by the arrogant ego honestly; elvish pride had to be hereditary.

The tension in the air shifted. Ean refused to close his eyes, and that was why he saw a familiar brunette head bobbing and weaving through the crowd. His throat tightened.

No, no, no, no-

The platform they’d placed him on vanished, and Ean dropped as a Tobais’ voice rose, achingly familiar, shrill with panic, and ultimately too late.

“Ean!”

[caffeinewitchcraft]

Wow this is amazing

[writing-prompt-s]

At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.

[inkskinned]

“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.

tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”

“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.” 

“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.

now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing. 

they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids. 

“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”

“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”

xxx in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too. 

shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.

you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.

“you should be,” you say.

her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.

“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”

she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”

“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”

“where do we get the tape?” 

“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”

she throws a pillow at you. 

you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.

she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.

in the morning, they are gone.

xxx

squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them. 

tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.

xxx

at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.

tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.

“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”

you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”

he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.

“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”

xxx

twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at. 

long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something. 

the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet. 

“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”

“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses. 

well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”

you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.

when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath. 

he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.

xxx

squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.

shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you. 

you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.

“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?” 

“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.

she sniffles.

“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.

her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for. 

“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”

she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”

“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”

she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”

xxx

you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.

you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends. 

“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”

she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”

you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally. 

“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”

you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.

“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”

and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.

xxx

“you’re squadron 905?” 

“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.

this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.

the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.

the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.” 

inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.

shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.

you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. youq erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?

she doesn’t read it. you close the tab. 

and you put your head down. and work.

xxx

it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.

the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.

the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying. 

then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.

“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”

there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.

“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”

“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”

you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.

someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing. 

but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.

tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.

the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.

xxx

“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?” 

hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.

“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”

“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”

you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”

“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”

your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.

hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”

“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.

“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”

the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”

hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.

at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.

one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.

xxx

you’re eating ice cream when you find him.

behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.

he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.

“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”

the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.

“hey tim?” you say. 

“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse. 

“can i help?” you ask.

he eats a spoonful of ice cream. 

“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”

xxx

later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.

the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.

you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.

you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.

“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.

“beat you to it,” you say. 

“i see that,” she tells you. 

you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.

“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”

“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”

“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”

xxx

it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.

“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot. 

“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”

“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.

“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”

“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.

the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on. 

“somebody’s home,” i grin.

tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.” xxx squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.

what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.

[gingerly-writing]

Prompt #1736

“I have to marry the most powerful mage in the land. I won’t have any legitimacy as queen until I do.”

“But he’s evil!” her haidmaid fretted. “You can’t marry him, you’re supposed to be defeating him!”

“If I must marry evil to subdue it, so be it. I will have my crown no matter the cost. My country demands it.” Her eyes narrowed. “And if he thinks to try and take it from me, I will show him where the true power in our marriage lies.”

[gingerly-writing]

for @rrrawrf-writes and @haphazardlyparked -because you deserve magic and soft things <3

The wedding bells were ringing when she first touched him. Gloves saved her hands from his skin, but all brides must kiss their grooms. 

The most dangerous lips in the kingdom were soft, no taste of gunpowder despite the fire they could rain down, no crackle of power, no metallic taste of blood. Just lips. Unchapped, gentle, and soft. 

The whole court held its breath for the split-second of contact. This was the time he would rend her in two, would take over her mind, would suck out her soul. This was when the dark Archmage of Delcore Heights would destroy the rightful queen and take her kingdom for himself. 

Instead, he leant back, dark eyes unfathomable, and offered her his arm. Queen Carys checked herself, but found no aberrations, no strange emotions or thoughts that were not her own. She was no mage, could not be sure, but she felt fine. That would have to be enough, at least for now. 

She took his arm, and together the queen and her kingdom’s greatest enemy walked out of the holy shrine, bound together in the eyes of the gods for all eternity. 

Keep reading

[writing-prompt-s]

You are a small god, with very little power or influence. But you are happy, and take care of your few worshippers as much as you are able. An extraordinarily powerful being stumbles bloodied into your sacred place, and cries “Sanctuary.”

[gingerly-writing]

thanks to @writing-prompt-s for this prompt!

—–

I sense them coming from a thousand miles off. They move like a tear through the fabric of reality, stitching and unstitching, leaving a trail of fifth dimensional embroidery in their wake. Lots of Great Ones pass this way—Death is not so far over my horizon, and many seek their lands for rescues and redemptions and respite. Few return. But that is not my concern. 

What is my concern: this Great One is not heading down the well-trodden path to Death. They are heading towards me. Towards my little temple, safe and sequestered at the edge of all things. Defensible. But not particularly escapable. 

Ten minutes later and my acolytes can feel it too. The few temporarily sheltering here cluster around my altar. They are all too well-practiced to tremble or cry, even as the approaching onslaught threatens to pop their ear drums and crack the marrow from their bones. Instead, calloused hands curl around favoured weapons. “Boss?”

“Yeah, this one’s not for you guys. Not sure it’s for me, either, but I have a slightly lower chance of going ‘pop’. Get your butts to the catacombs and prep for evacuation.” I scrabble together enough power to materialise, so I can look each of them in the eye. “Which means if you feel me die, or flee, you run. Got it?”

A chorus of affirmatives that only half of them mean fill the cloister, the echoes still bouncing as they file down through the secret passages in the floor. I lock the trapdoors behind them. It won’t keep them out forever, but hopefully it’ll hold long enough to keep them from doing anything completely stupid. Like coming back to rescue me from certain death. 

Like they haven’t done that before. 

The Great One hits the foot of my mountain, brushing through the meagre wards like fragile spider webs. They jerk up the rockface, not quite walking, not quite climbing, just…moving upward. Raking pitons and claws and wings through the fabric of space-time, and sealing it behind them in flares of sunlight and gold. Still, they don’t clean everything. I can feel their blood splattering my domain. 

It tastes like an offering. Like a sacrifice. 

Hmm. 

Keep reading

[writing-prompt-s]

Your classmate is convinced you are a superhero and acts like a fangirl around you. There is only one problem: You are actually the supervillain. And she is starting to get in the way of your work.

[unpromptly]

no. 162

"Who are you?"

"Well," said Death Herself, "how dramatic would you like this whole thing to be?"

[erdariel]

I was bored so... this happened, I guess. It’s not really a part of any story I’ve planned or am writing, I haven’t written these characters before and know little of the universe beyond what that text reveals. Might write more about these characters one day. Maybe. Dunno. Probably not, actually, cuz I’m lazy and never actually get around to writing anything I plan, but whatever. So there I was, kneeling in the mud beside Vilma – Vialan, as she was called by everyone else here. She was bleeding out and for all that I tried, I couldn’t help her. I knew a little first aid, but nothing had ever prepared me for this. I don’t remember it very clearly, anymore. Just the rain, and her weight as I lifted her into my lap, and the mixture of panic and disbelief that I felt. It’s almost funny; I can’t tell if she said anything, or if she just cried until she went unconscious. You’d think I would, last words are always so important in stories, but I can’t.

And then, suddenly, everything became very calm and clear. Everything I just told you I felt, I still felt just as intensely, but I still understood and remember what happened next with perfect clarity.

I looked up, and I saw a woman. She looked old, but strong. Her grey hair was in two braids long enough to reach her waist. She was cloaked in deep midnight blue, and there were leather pouches, a sickle, and a dagger hanging from her belt. And her eyes – her eyes were filled with dancing flames that changed color every time I looked at them. She looked gentle, and kind, but she also looked very sad.

In hindsight, I should have recognized her instantly, but I didn’t.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Well," said Death Herself, "how dramatic would you like this whole thing to be?"

“I don’t care”, I said. “Just tell me who you are. And… please. Can you help her?”

She smiled, a little. “Not in the way you’re asking me to. I cannot help anyone that way. To answer your earlier question: I am Shillorna. I am Death.” 

“She’s your champion, then. It’s your duty to protect her, to aid her, like it’s hers to fight for you and do your bidding.” My voice was flat. I was angry at her, more angry than I’d ever been at anything, but I remember distinctly that I somehow could not get that anger into my voice. It just stayed in my chest, burning like dragonfire, and it didn’t come out. Maybe that was for the better.

“I know. I am sorry, child.” I do not know whether she said that to me or to Vilma. “I am sorry I could not warn your allies of this in time. But it is not in my power to decide the moment of any mortal’s death, not even of my champion’s. Come, Vialan. A reward waits for you in my halls.”

I saw no visible change, and I never saw whatever remained of Vilma pass on to Death’s realm. It is not for the living to see, unless they are her champions. But at that moment Vilma shuddered, and drew her last breath, and her body went limp in my arms.

Shillorna knelt on the other side of her body. She said nothing to me, she did not even look at me, as she reached for Vilma’s sword belt. 

I can’t tell you what made me do it. Maybe it was my anger, some kind of wish for vengeance. Maybe it was a sense of duty, that I didn’t trust the next champion she’d choose by whatever logic she used to succeed and I wanted to see the whole affair finished. Maybe fate exists after all and it was that. Maybe it was something else. Maybe it doesn’t make any difference what my reason was.

One way or another, I grabbed the hilt of Vilma’s sword before Shillorna could take it. She looked at me.

“That sword is only for my champion to bear. It is forbidden for anyone else to touch it. I will take it now”, she said.

“Tough luck. I’m taking this, and I’m going to see her mission finished. And I’ll need a weapon for that, you know”, I replied.

“You have no powers, Jenira. No sane god would make you a champion, and I am among the sanest. You have no right to the sword. Give it to me”, she commanded.

“No. I frankly don’t care whether I’m your champion or whether I have any right to that sword. My only real friend in this entire world just died and I am not letting her death be for nothing!” It was then that I finally forced all my anger to the surface, and before I knew it, I was yelling at Death, defying the will of a literal god. “I don’t even know if she cared about this whole stupid thing or if you just gave her no choice, but she died for this and I will not let someone who doesn’t care about her, who never even knew she existed, replace her! And don’t call me Jenira, it’s not my name and a bloody god should know that!”

She said nothing more to me. Instead she rose and turned her back and then, really, just vanished. When she’d gone, things became unclear again. Grief and anger and disbelief overwhelmed me and I knelt there in the mud, holding Vilma’s body in my arms, clutching the hilt of her sword with one hand, and the cold, merciless rain beat me and soaked my clothes through. I might have cried. I probably did. I can’t tell for sure. 

I don’t know how long I was there, either, how long I waited before Rael and Marren and Jorra found me. When they did… that is when it stopped being Vilma’s story and became mine. 

[unpromptly]

no. 26

“Are you a fairy?” the child asked, solemn and concerned.

I looked down at my costume, and then at the kid. “Sure,” I said.

“Oh. I need your help then. I think one of you just murdered my parents.”

“What the fuck now?”