pls go

YES HELLO THIS IS ZEKE this is my writing blog and I'm using redux for lack of a better theme/the energy to fix it up right now

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

ok this is for avery

You take a moment to do so, alcohol still working its languid way through your bloodstream though it’s been ten minutes since the last bottle’s contents were emptied. You’re sitting in bed with the aforementioned bottle on your lap, Bec is asleep next to you, and… well, a little nostalgia every once in a while certainly wasn’t a bad thing (though perhaps nostalgia wasn’t the right word, because while the past was great the present seems pretty damn cool too).

It wasn’t all that long ago that the two of you first met. 

Well, alright, it was kind of long in Dualscar years, which were significantly longer than Bec years or Doc years or anybody else years, which may have been the copious amounts of booze pumped into your system. No matter. By standard time it had been three hundred and sixty-five days - give or take an hour or two - since the two of you first stumbled into each other.

==> Dualscar: Be the old man. Have the flashback.

the old man…. HASS the flashback.

Or some kind of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff reference, if that actually is one. You think it is. Not that you frequent the comic, because you don’t! You are a distinguished older gentleman with distinguished older tastes and oh my fucking god who are you kidding just have the goddamn flashback already everyone knows you keep a tab open with it on your computer et cetera et cetera.

When you had first moved into the apartment complex, it certainly wasn’t for love, or… really for any reasons that could be discussed among good company, namely a lack of money and a girlfriend with a kid or two that happened to look suspiciously like you. Back then, rooming with your beloved son-nephew had seemed a splendid idea because he, oops, paid the rent, and that was pretty much where the benefits had ended. (Finding your younger brother in the same country nearly outweighed the free housing costs, for instance.)

And then you found him, or, rather, bashed into him in a narrow stairwell one afternoon when you were trying to head out for a drink. The alcohol content currently coursing through your bloodstream was negligible at best - it was an excuse to get out of the apartment while Eridan was… taking care of some business… at any rate. Walking in on that twice was already six times too many, if you asked him!

Which nobody did. Sigh.

But that’s a story for another day. Back to the flashback at hand: you remember vaguely thinking about how to tell your nephew that you’d just walked in on him again when—

“WHAT THE FUCK D’YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” You found yourself sprawled on the ground amidst a pile of groceries and a very pissed-off… guy. (No, you were not going to comment on his eyes, or hair, or the way his eyebrows furrowed when he was angry in the really hot way.

…Not yet, at least. Sorry to disappoint.) “Decided to take a nap on the sidewalk. How about you pipe down, pipsqueak?” you retort, struggling to your feet and that totally wasn’t a smirk when you saw you were a good bit taller than him nope not at all.

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

never actually got around to posting this on here so

you run your fingers down a hip, a thigh perhaps to make sure that it is all still there, still familiar, if not to your liking though perhaps you marvel at how complex the human body is

how your brain and – you hesitate to say your heart, knowing that it is just an organ that beats ever on --  soul (heart, too, you think) defy this opus claim it as your own then reject it

what other animal has this right? to bite the hand that feeds their very being what is a soul without a body what is a brain if it no longer holds purchase within the system it calls home

(that is a name it fabricates for the shell it so despises, at times sentimentality has always been its weakness or so it seems)

you run your fingers over a dimpled knee a bruised ankle the things that you would never give up; your memories, etched so soundly into your being that they may well be your soul

and you think perhaps there’s hope for this body yet

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

IQ

this was one of five short stories for school

i'm not posting all of them

They tested you for your IQ in the fourth grade.

At the time, you weren’t exactly sure what that meant. You knew it was something to do with the place most of your friends went every week, and that excited you; for years, you were a little left out, and if you did well enough you could maybe be with them! The man who administered the test was very nice, and parts of it were easy enough. (There were some math problems, though, and those you didn’t enjoy as much.)

About a week later, your parents got the notice that you would, indeed, be accepted into the gifted programme. Miss Riggin’s IQ was a whopping 139, the letter read - obviously not verbatim, but regardless. One hundred thirty-nine is a pretty large number for someone with an age not yet in double digits. 

Not that you’d see the score just then, actually. You were only shown it in ninth grade, and that was only because you found the paper when cleaning. You think that maybe your parents didn’t want you to get a big head about it. For a long time, that didn’t matter, because you already had a big head about it.

Totally not your fault, though. (At least, that’s how you rationalise it.) Schools tell gifted children that they are more special than everyone else, and that they deserve more than everyone else, even if they don’t come right out and say it.

As you’ve aged, you’ve stopped thinking of yourself as special. It’s not so cool when people call you a genius. Nor is it a compliment to be compared to someone else to have someone say that they’re dumb just because you scored better on a freaking test.

For that matter, the look on one kid’s face - more than a year ago, now, though you still get a little upset over it - when you got a question wrong in class, not to mention his incredulous “but Mia’s the smartest person in here! How could she get something wrong?” sucked.

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

shit lets be mermaids WIP!!!!!

Being the son of the King of the Sea is hard.

Er. Well. Not really. It is kind of the opposite of hard, what with the luxury and the grandeur and the really hot merbabes hanging off one's every word. The little pleasures were the best parts of anything, after all; even you have to admit that. Coming home rumpled and - only if the girl you were with liked it rough, mind - scratched to high heaven is totally worth it!

Totally worth the snarky attendant, constantly whispering insults in your ear as he sets out to fetch your lunch!

Totally worth said attendant's dirty looks!

The way he sneaks food from your plate!

The way the girls look at him!

Him!

...He makes your blood boil, he really does. Two years younger and exactly seven hundred and fifty-three percent more annoying, the grandson of a duke in some near-Artic reach of the ocean, Bec Noir seems perfectly content with making you miserable. This particular day he hasn't done anything wrong (yet), though you find yourself quite irritated anyway.

You watch him bustle about your chambers, both your brows furrowed (though you sort of attribute his to the nasty smell radiating from a corner of the room). It's hot and boring and you have lessons in twenty minutes and for some reason you find your eyes wandering, tracing the curves of his back and down a little further to the dark blue of his tail, which looked rather well-kept if not as magnificent as your own purple one and --

"Cy. Cy. Cy Jesus Christ will ya get your head outta the clouds." Or, more appropriately, your eyes off a certain someone's ass; you jump a little, a scowl setting in. "Will you stop leavin' your cod dam scales lying around? Do you know how gross that is?"

"Prince Ampora," you mutter. "And I'll do whatever I please, thank you, you insolent basshole." (Shit shit shit if Seymour got wind that he had insulted Bec he was going to tell oh fuck better smile better say something.) "...I'll make sure to clean it up next time."

"Dam straight you will," comes the reply; he bends over and FUCK it's like he's daring you to stare. "And while you're at it how 'boat you get your own lunch tomorrow, hm?"

"...That's your duty..." Keep cool come on Cy you're better than him! And this! And damnit!

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

this is bad and a wip

Boredom?

The King of Earth is no stranger to boredom; it flows through him, his veins, his soul - though some schools of thought would contest that he has none - even that over which he is ruler. Every second of every Satan damned day, he is doomed to live in a never-ending Hell, staring blankly out into Gehenna.

...Or is he?

Amaimon feels the tug and at first ignores it. It's nothing he's hasn't felt before, though in a... less savoury form. (Look, demons were nice when you wanted to get a job done, but when one that smells suspiciously like ass calls you into Assiah six times in one night to water it? Might as well be useless, not to mention detrimental to the beauty sleep he didn't need.) He might be bored, but at least all is calm.

"Brother."

Oh. Damnit. A silky voice, near-tangible in the chaotic plain, winds its way around him; the tug grows stronger.

"Brother, listen to me. Are ya listenin'?" It quickly loses all pretence of distrust, instead opting an informal tone. "I need a favour."

"Oh, no 'hello'?" Amaimon, by contrast, is all rumble and hellfire (though he figures that's just the freedom talking, really). "Mm, dearest brother, I do believe you're being impolite."

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

new oc information????

Ignore my general lack of art skills and how incredibly shitty those doodles are. The one on the left is a better idea of what Lukas looks like but I included the one on the right to give an idea of what he wears (and yes, the little black wispy thing's name is Angelo).

Name: Lukas Weber (also goes by just Luke) Age: 26; DOB: no fucking clue yet

Appearance: 

Light brown hair that comes a few inches above his shoulders

Scraggly-ass goatee

Pale, with a couple of freckles across the bridge of his nose and blemishes and moles here and there

Lanky

Total fucking hipster (SEE TOP-RIGHT PIC...)

Really I haven't got much past that developed yet because I've just been messing around with him here and there but where Angelo comes in is sort of a long story?

TL;DR the poor dumbass sold his soul for the funds to make his life perfect. Perfect job (owner and operator of a bitchin' coffee shop), perfect girlfriend (which is generally up for debate, considering the fact that she's sort of... not human. Oops), et cetera, et cetera. In return, he's saddled with Angelo, this little black ball of negative energy that feeds on negative emotions and, if none are present, the life force of Luke and those around him. 

Luke, in turn, becomes a Grade A Life Ruiner to keep his good looks or whatever. If he sees a customer looking a little down, he makes it worse. He also tends to hang around old folks' homes and morgues and that sort of place to catch any residual life force.

If Angelo goes unfed he alerts Luke's patron Demon (which is part of a whole thing that's also a vague idea in my head right now) and it just doesn't end well!

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

blue lips, blue veins

The bow is taut beneath his skilled fingers. It's interesting, really, to see his handiwork; the piece itself is an exercise in elegance, so tiny against his striking form, and yet it conveys the power ever-present beneath his own muscle; the engravings along its length told the tales of old. Not a sound reverberates through the string as the arrow (a bright blue, like that of his own blood) is placed against it.

(And so the stage is set, the b100-blood thinks, suppressing a frown as the crowd begins to gather.)

The trolls bustle around the flogging jut with a sort of hivemind excitement - of course, many of them are highbloods, so it's no wonder. The execution of the one who sought to overthrow them and their almighty sovereign? Glorious! Fantastic!

(He takes a moment to inspect the gathering of dirtbloods, their battered, sad expressions almost painful to him.)

Inhale, exhale, twitch - the arrow nearly goes flying, and he slaps himself mentally for the could-have-been hanging thick in the air. Had he killed one of the innocents, he would certainly be removed from his position, stripped of rank and privelege and everything that made living his accursed life bearable --

-- he shakes his head, inhales, exhales, and lowers the bow for a minute, because it is time for the Empress to make her speech and one does not point a weapon within the Empress' location without her consent, lest they possess a certain lack of value for their head.

(Darkleer, assuredly, does not. He treats every inhale, exhale pair as if it is his last, and with a day as important as this one mistake and it very well could be.)

She steps out, inarguably gorgeous and deadly and a mixture of all things good and evil with troll society; for some reason, he's able to see this only now, the blood staining her grey fingers a rainbow and the way the light shines through her tyrian eyes and her hair, untamed and almost with a mind of its own, dragging behind her like a veil of shadow. When she opens her mouth to speak the chatter ringing around the arena stops, and with it stop Darkleer's certainties. His breath catches in his throat.

"My subjects, it is with most humble of intentions that I am before you tonight."

(A scoff can be heard from the lowblood group, followed by the sickening shlick of a knife.)

"As you can see," and here she gestures to the flogging jut and the body hanging from the string with posture painfully tensed, "here is chained the leader of the lowblood revolution. A traitor, a heretic, a... a madman, in the simplest of terms.

"It is here that he shall learn his lesson." She is given her trident from a jade-blooded troll, using it to prop up the chin of the heretic. "He bleeds already for his sins, and yet..." The trident is driven upward - just enough to draw blood - and he lets out a shuddering breath.

"Have you any last words, my dear, dear Sufferer?"

It is with her last words that he stirs, and when he does it is almost explosive. Where once he lay compliant, he becomes all tooth and flailing limb; the crowd and even Her Majesty rear back from the sheer force of his onslaught. The anger radiating from him is evident.

Even more so when he begins to speak. 

"LOWBLOODS AND HIGHBLOODS ALIKE, YOU'D BETTER HEED MY FUCKING CALL. THERE WILL COME A TIME, FAR, FAR IN THE FUTURE, AFTER PRETTY MUCH EVERY ONE OF YOU SHITSTAINS IS DEAD -" he pauses for a second, gaze fixed on the pissblood he once called his right-hand man - "INCLUDING MYSELF, FOR I'M TO DIE HERE - WHEN OUR WORLD WILL BE DESTROYED. YOUR GOD DAMNED DEATHS WILL HAVE BEEN IN VAIN, BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE LIKE THE LITTLE BITCHES YOU ARE. 

"WHY, YOU ASK?

"BECAUSE YOU REFUSED MY MANIFESTO IN FAVOUR OF YOUR PETTY CASTE." He falls silent, chest heaving, looking defeated in a way which previously he had not. 

His next words are far quieter. "...Because you failed to accept my creed, none of my visions can come to pass."

(Darkleer raises a brow behind his glasses.)

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

in which cystenian is a decent brother

Seymour didn't understand his older brother, sometimes.

He could barely remember when they would get along - he knew that they had, of course, because mum had showed him the pictures of the two of them actually playing together semi-civilly, but it seemed kind of far-fetched. Cystenian was, for lack of a better word, an ass.

A huge one, and not all that nice-looking either, if you asked the eight-year-old.

So, as one might guess, the two Ampora children didn't exactly have the best of relationships. In all actuality, there was very little communication between the two of them if it could be avoided, and so the night Seymour waddled into his brother's room, red-faced and holding a fistful of slightly soggy sheets, the elder was more than a bit surprised.

Even more so because it was three AM, but mostly the fact that he was in his room at all. 

Squinting through the darkness, not to mention through a curtain of fine blonde hair, Cystenian muttered something approximating a greeting and 'what-are-you-doing-in-here-squirt'. His eyes hurt. And his face, because he'd been laying weird in bed. Fuck, what did he even /want/--

"...Brother, I, uh..." It almost pained Seymour to say anything at all, and as it stood his eyes were screwed shut in concentration and just a general unwillingness to look at his brother. "I... ah..."

"Wet the bed /again/," came the damnably smug finish. "Seymour, this is becoming a problem..." Oh, how much the younger just wanted to fucking punch him, wipe that look off his face - or, rather, what look there would be if he could see it - it... fuck. Everything was so frustrating, and for an eight-year-old who'd just pissed the bed and come to what amounted to his worst enemy for advice he'd been taking it remarkably well to that point.

He flopped on the bed, springs creaking and a silent curse shooting through his head (because he'd hit his hip on the footboard, poor kid). "Could you just..." Seymour hid his face in his hands for a moment.

"Brother, you're not very good at finishing your sentences at the moment." An eyebrow quirked, Cystenian raised himself on his elbows. "Could I just...?"

"Help me wash these?" If their nanny saw, she'd be livid, and if nanny was livid then she complained to mum, and if she complained to mum then mum would get a migraine and when mum got a migraine it was all a mess and--

"You do realise that neither of us know how to wash clothing, yes?" 

"...But--"

"Tonight's as good as any to learn, I guess," Cystenian grinned, sitting up fully and slinging an arm around his sibling's shoulders. "C'mon, let's go... see if we can figure this out, mm?"

---

Two hours and one very heavily pill-depressed migraine on their mother's part later, the boys were perched on a myriad of towels and practically soaked in suds. Of course, it was only to be expected that with the amount of noise htey were making and the fact that they'd nearly burnt down the laundry room (/how/ was beyond the both of them, but it had happened). Cystenian's arm was slung around Seymour's shoulder, and every few seconds he'd say something that would make him laugh, or shake his mop of hair out like a shaggy dog.

Seymour didn't understand his brother sometimes, but that was okay when he wasn't being a douche.

Rare enough, but still good.

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

headcanon: solcestor

back when the Ancestors were still alive, pitting lowbloods together in various dangerous (and often deadly) sports was common - andslaves could participate to gain their freedom if they survived

Solcestor was taken as a small child and sold into the slave trade and was eventually apprenticed to… some sort of hard labour job. He worked there until he was uh… okay I’m too lazy to convert to sweeps so around twenty human years old, when he was given the option to start fighting for his freedom

one specific battle (also the one in which Aradia’s ancestor was killed) was orchaestrated by Mindfang; Aradiacestor was a peasant girl who had gotten on her bad side through some very lengthy shenanigans I’ll not go into here. Solcestor had had a redrom crush on her for years because they worked in adjacent shops, and her death terrified him.

the next battle was particularly bloody and left him near-dead

Fefcestor took pity on him and rescued him, making him her personal librarian. from then on he studied and devoted his life to making himself a little bit more comfortable and on the research of the caste system and how the different tiers operated.

oh and he has a redrom fling with Fefcestor (though she’s just toying with him really; sort of like a pet I guess??? her charity project) and a blackrom/redrom flip thing with Dualscar

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

this needs a better title [sam + elise]

You’re pretty sure it can officially be classified as ‘too early’ the moment your - girlfriend? quick fuck in the bathroom after fifth period junior year because you were desperate that just so happened to turn into something else? no fucking clue really - waltzes into your dorm, looking slick as shit and more than a little bit tipsy. The smell of alcohol’s wafting off her black dress (hugging those curves in all the right places, heh—) and you’re half-tempted to turn off Law and Order to ask her what the hell she’s doing here.

Instead, you flick bespectacled eyes in her direction, welcoming the background drone as an excuse to not hear her little slurs and endearing ‘you slobbering dickhead’s. (You do, however, pick up the rasp in her voice, that quality that only alcohol can give her that’s… slightly disturbing, to be quite honest.) Behind you somewhere, a church clock chimes three in the morning.

“…Elise?”

As usual, your tone is smooth, casual if not a bit condescending and it’s enough to trip her up. Her deep blue eyes meet yours (an admittedly more muted shade of green, if you’d cared enough to look in a mirror every once in a while) and an almost cute confusion sweeps across her expression. “Sam? You’re - errh. You’re still awake.” 

“Well, yes,” you retort, tugging at the collar of your sweater idly. “I’ve gotta work in three hours and I just… couldn’t sleep. Mind telling me why /you’re/ up, sweetheart?”

(She recoils at the nickname, and you can’t help but grin at that.)

“‘S not important.”

“Which is why you’re here at three in the morning, drunk off your ass.” And now Law and Order is muted; you’re on your feet, taking her hand and examining it. “Shit, you’ve been biting your nails again. I thought you kicked that last time we got together.” Which had been a month ago, and that had worked out very well on both ends because too long in the same room with each other and bad things always happened.

“I’m… fine,” Elise says, forcing the slur out of her words with considerable difficulty. “Just a little tight on money again, you know…”

“You’re here for charity?” You raise an eyebrow at her, allowing a modicum of the surprise you’re actually feeling to be shown. “From the way you smell, you just spent about two hundred big ones on a crate of shitty beer, and you’re telling me you need money?” From a college kid working at Starbucks just so he could afford the expensive coffee he liked to buy at Starbucks, no less.

A long moment comes and goes before she replies, and Law and Order is starting to look mighty tempting. “I… didn’t pay for it.”

Another long moment as you begin to work out what she’s said, and why she has this horribly scared look on her face, and then suddenly it all hits you and your cheeks are - fuck, they’re actually flushed, with anger or embarrassment on her part or maybe because you’re ninety-nine percent sure your significant other of almost five years sold herself for some /really/ shitty beer.

Calm down, you think, save the bitching for her hangover tomorrow. (A headache coupled with five years’ worth of gripes and groans about why /exactly/ she was the biggest cunt to have ever lived and why she should die in a fire had to be enough to teach her a lesson, after all.)

So it’s with a cool, almost comforting air about you that you ask, “Was it worth it?”

She shakes her head, pale fingers curling around yours, and it’s just now that you start to notice how haphazardly her dress was thrown on and the smell of sweat and sex and quite possibly shame hidden beneath the beer. Disgusting.

(Says the just-barely-not-a-virgin self-proclaimed dork who’s had exactly one girlfriend. Oops.)

You run your free hand through the aforementioned ginger mop of hair, wondering how exactly to word any of this without becoming the hugest /dick/ to have ever existed. “You’re sorry, yeah?”

“Yeah…” Oh, she’s crying now - you wipe a tear from her face, musing that her large eyes and small figure are just so /childish/ and oh, how ironic.

Juxtaposition was always a favourite of yours, though now you’re not so sure.

[kneehigh-pilgrim-blog]

lollipop

Your name is Eridan Ampora.

You are nine sweeps old, in love with someone nine sweeps old, and pulling a knife out of the back of someone eight sweeps old.

One of these things is entirely irrelevant to the story at hand, and spoilers, it’s the middle one.

You smile as the blade slides through the muscle and bone and flesh and whatever else there had been in that particular spot, note the way the blue blood shines in the Alternian moonlight - for a moment, you wish that you had a camera to better document this wonderful kill.

A moment, and then your perspective flips. The blood drips off the knife in slow, steady beats, sliding down her now-ashen face, and you remember that the body at your feet was once a she, not an it. Not a thing.

Not dead.

Not.

Her name was Vriska Serket; for a time, she was your kismesis.

No longer, of course! Now she’s nothing, really, no more than dead weight.

You sink to your knees, cringing at the smell of her blood and the feel of it on your hands. (You almost hope that it will stain them. Light blue fingers was a small price to pay to remember some you had once… cared for.

Yes, you had cared for her. Shut up.)

The aforementioned fingers - grey, if covered in the also aforementioned blood - press down on her chest, trying to stop the bleeding.

It’s too late, a voice in the back of your head tells you. She’s gone.

But fuck it all if you’re not going to try.