mer d'écume

Laure's writing side blog | main | pieces and fragments of writing | references | vocabulary tips | language lab

[laure-writes]

There's something I want to put into words, something big and a little magical. It's just those steps into one night in particular that can crystallize who you are, that makes you add all the years you've spent on earth and sum it up into one place and time. It's like stepping into a portal, a tunnel, stepping past the looking glass and once on the other side knowing who you are fully, in more detail, a more acute knowledge of yourself. It's all those layers scattered apart, adding up, condensing to make a true vision of yourself spring up from the dark. It's those magical nights when you're out, having fun with friends, walking around the city you grew up in, catching glimpses of yourself and what your life had been, seeing all your former faces and realizing that there is permanence in their perpetual shifting, recognizing lines amidst the blur of yourself, meeting people from different moments of your life and you're still there, but you've changed and they have changed, but it doesn't matter because they carry the image of your former self and reflect it back to you; so you glimpse for the first time in years who you've been, you acknowledge that person and what she's done that ended up making you who you are, that end up in you being you, and you're grateful for everything because as it turns out you're a pretty damn fantastic person.

[laure-writes]

I love angst:

“Riley, it’s gonna be okay-”

“No it’s fucking not! It’s not okay! It’s not gonna be okay! Because I am in debt! Because the future is bleak! Because I don’t even know if half of my friends like me! Because- Because- Because I fucking love you and I can’t tell if you like me or not! Because you ghosted me when you realized who I was! Because you avoided me for weeks! Because you did not even look at me, you did not even think about sparing me a glimpse, a thought. Because I thought you liked me and turns out my presence is unbearable to you! Because I can tell you’re ashamed of me! Because you made me hope- You made me fucking hope, Tara and that’s the fucking worst! I was fine in my despair! I was fine getting used to the doom and gloom of my life! I was fine being miserable but you came with your big kind nerd eyes, and your nerd lips, and your fucking tenderness, the care and gentleness that I love about you and you gave me hope and I was scared but so long as I was scared with you it was worth it! It was fucking worth it! Get it, now? It was worth it because it’s you and I never expected to-” To truly fall in love with you, to see you not in passing but in keeping. “But then you withdrew! You just withdrew and ignored me like I don’t even matter. So no, Taraneh: It’s not gonna be okay!”

[laure-writes]

Bronwyn's grief:

Brownyn wanted to kill, to ravage, to slaughter; to make a desert, to make a sea. She wanted them all dead, and she would only stop, the battlefield barren and ruined. Her heart had shrank, her rage taking its stead. Her eyes coated with darkness, she slithered onto the paths her magic opened to her, felt the magic pulse beneath her feet, laughed, and cackled and madly screamed, taking mind after mind, corrosive and destructive, using the warriors as puppets to kill those whose minds she did not reduce to rubble. Laying waste around her, a murder of her own crows flying overhead to feast on limb after limb, she suggested: ‘chop your friend’s arm’, ‘eat your ally’s leg’, ‘pry your friend’s heart’, ‘destroy. Destroy yourselves.’ ‘Good puppets, now kill. Kill.’, gentle whispers, almost coaxing, almost soothing, a dark lullaby of darker intents. ‘There goes your reward, my darlings. Eat yourselves. Kills yourselves. The more gruesome the better.’

‘Kill yourselves for my beloved’s death.’

“Die,” she seethed, her voice hoarse and dismal. “Die. All of you die!”

It was a feat of scattered brain, of bowels on display, of screams of pain and vain cries for mercy. It was Bronwyn’s mad laughter, her cruelty revived, scalding hot in her veins. It was death in her voice and worse in her design. It was Einar’s fear she felt from a battlefield away. It was the despair, the helplessness. Because Aelys had given her something that meant more than life itself. Because she had been kind and true. Because she had seen her and made her see a new road that had vanished, wasted, with her death. Because Aelys had been hope, had been love, had been life for a vertiginous moment, and Aelys was dead.

Bronwyn had nothing to lose. Not anymore.

She pried her way into skulls, cracked them open like one cracks open nuts, mashed the brains, the spirits, the intents. Everything she destroyed. Like wildfire she destroyed.

She wasn’t concerned about the world-tree anymore. Let it rot. Let the world burn so that she burned with it. Who wanted to live when Aelys was dead?

A tear ran down her cheek.

“Die! All of you die!” she roared, on the verge of madness. “Worms! Ants! Dogs! I will put you down!”

‘Good puppets. Good puppets. Now there goes your reward, my darlings. Now, there you can die,’ she cajoled.

[laure-writes]

In which my boy's shy as fuck:

Tancred stiffened beside her, a coldness on his face. “Are you dissatisfied with my brother?” he growled more than he asked.

Mariam laughed. “Far from it. I am as satisfied with him as a woman in my predicament may be, but…” She looked at him, and Tancred swore he saw some tears slowly running down her cheeks. “There are things… Things I think only you might understand. I think I want to speak boldly but cannot. I think I want you to understand without the need for treacherous words. I think you know, because I see something in your eyes akin to some sentiment I might be sharing.”

“I am afraid I don’t know what this is you are talking about.”

Mariam swallowed a sob. “Oh.”

Tancred scratched his nose in embarrassment and stood up. Discarding his cloak, he gently wrapped it around Mariam’s sharp frame, something like grief thrumming in the tip of his fingers. “But I am here. This bench is yours to vent, those ears are yours to use, those words are yours to console. Speak without fear or remorse. Some things I might not share with you. Some I might. And if you want to cry, my shoulder is yours.”

Tancred wanted to kick himself. Was this a suitable way to address his sister-in-law? Were those words pretty enough to grace a woman’s ears? Were those soothing promises or were those instincts long blunted by too many nights spent in brothels, dented by Mariyam’s flight and broken with the need to be more than a smooth-talker? Tancred was past the age for straightforward and amorous poetry. Tancred was at the age to raise children, to drink ale and watch his hairline recede inch after inch after years after years. Tancred was already old. Already wasted.

[laure-writes]

Elle rêve de poésie. Elle rêve de langues, elle rêve de création.

Elle mesure ses rêves à sa vie, sa petite vie dans une petite ville, elle, fille d’un petit forgeron et de sa petite femme. Adelise a les dents longues, plus que celles de son père, lui qui ne voudrait pour elle qu’un petit mariage avec le petit boucher du coin. Son père ne l’aime pas beaucoup, pense souvent Adelise. Elle ne compte plus le nombre d’invectives l’incitant à se taire, le nombre de reproches quant à sa tenue, les comparaisons avec sa tante grommelées dans sa barbe, la désaprobation générale des membres de sa famille quant à ses fréquentations.

Son père lui souhaite un mariage en accord avec sa basse extraction. Sa mère lui souhaite beaucoup de fils. Son frère lui souhaite de passer à autre chose. Sa sœur lui souhaite de se satisfaire de sa condition, satisfaite de la sienne.

Adelise le savait à dix ans: cette vie qu’ils lui envisagent ne sera pas la sienne.

Alors son regard se pose, s’effrite, sa mémoire se délie et les mots fourmillent sur le bout de sa langue. Lors, elle compose des adieux, des regrets qui sonnent faux, des souvenirs embellis par le temps, des louanges à la beauté de la pierre, mais surtout une vérité: celle qu’elle était, cette vie, sa famille allaient lui manquer.

[laure-writes]

In which Imad and William are planning murder and flirting (well... Imad is flirting):

“Godless country!” Geoffrey grouched, his fair features twisted into some kind of snark, his hair sweat-soaked and his skin red with the sun’s mild heat. “Godless country! Not a single shrine! Not a single chapel! Desert and steppes and sand and nothing for fucking days!”

William breathed through his teeth.

He was complaining again. One morning of respite had apparently been too much for Geoffrey to bear and he was now foisting his foul mood upon the whole company. And what a foul mood indeed! cursing, a litany of profanities teeming on the tip of his tongue, words thrown here and there in angevin, in norman and his briton when he managed to. Hearing him, you would have thought a pig-selling fair was being held and that the whole west of Frankia had gathered there - rather, the whole western peasantry, seeing that most of his profanities were the stuff William had heard his mother seethe under her breath.

William tilted his head in Imad’s direction. “So refined, so delicate. Truly, I don’t know why Emma did not want to wed him. I’d have married him in a heartbeat.”

Imad nearly choked with the words uttered in Arabic. “He’s as handsome as his words indeed.”

“I’m going to kill him.”

“Spare yourself the effort. A gag will do.”

William laughed, the sound clear and light, and Imad looked at him, leaning on his horse, chin his hand, a cryptic smile etched on his lips for an answer.

Upon noticing it, William slyly cocked an eyebrow up. “What? You were funny.”

“It’s the first time you’ve laughed in days. Actually, to be more accurate, this is the first time I’m hearing you laugh so care-free, so loudly, so genuinely in days. I was afraid I’d lost that sound. I was afraid your joy was truly gone.”

Giving it a thought, William said “Perhaps. Or perhaps you tell nice jokes.”

Imad dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “It can’t be. My jokes are terrible. Samar says I am as funny as a lecture on important surates.”

“Knowing you, that must have been a blow.”

Imad raised his hands in the air. “My own sister! I don’t know what I did to deserve such cruelty.”

“It was probably stealing my mother’s cat and letting her escape.”

Imad bit his lips, his eyes lost far away. Wistfully, he whispered, “Or maybe something else.”

And there was something sad about it, something sorrowful in the lilt of his voice, something distant as if expanses away, as if he was speaking from a realm William did not know, somewhere he could not go. There was some kind of pain in his eyes, something William knew to be regret and suddenly William felt a throbbing squeeze in his chest.

[laure-writes]

In which Eirik tries to come onto his dream-man:

“You’re so strung up, your highness,” the varglid jeered, a lewd grin about his lips. “Clearly an expert eye can see you haven’t been fucked properly in years.”

Aldebrand’s face darkened. “Then I suppose you are to be the remedy to my ailment.”

“Of course!” he exclaimed, his grin widening to reveal his teeth. “Ah, your highness, I am overjoyed to hear you say such words. Such a kind offer!”

The prince scowled. “Conceal your excitement.”

“How could I, when one of the finest warriors of Austrasia has just accepted a night between my legs?” He stepped closer, and gently took the prince’s chin in his hand - though brazenly. “Wouldn’t you be excited in my stead? Say the words, prince and I’ll make sure you spend the best night of your life.”

[laure-writes]

In which Eirik meets his dream-man:

Eirik seemed to notice him suddenly, a light as bright as it was dark with menace rising in his eyes, the corners of his mouth cocked into an appraising smile. Giving his sword a flourish, he bent backward and eyed him over with an interest hardly concealed. Bit by bit, piece by piece, Eirik undid him, scanning for strengths and beauty such as was his habit.

The tip of his sword went to Aldebrand’s chin, almost digging further in his flesh, much to the prince’s irritation. “And who might you be, Austrar?” he said in the speech spoken on the coasts of Austrasia.

“He’s an ally,” Aelys replied. “I’ll explain later. Time is of the essence. We must go. But- Eirik. If you see Magnhildr. Or Agnar or any of the others- Tell them not to die. Please. Don’t die. It’s almost over.”

With an impetuous shrug, Aldebrand dislodged the blade that had almost killed them mere minutes ago, and already the roaring, roiling clamor of the fray intensified, as though the time for retrouvailles was passed.

Eirik followed him with his eyes, quite agape - though from admiration or amusement none knew - as he walked past, appreciating, it seemed, the riling outrage he produced in the prince. “I'll remember you, Austrar,” he rumbled. “I’ll be watching you, lest you slay me first.” He chuckled, one eyebrow defiantly cocked upward, a low sound that stiffened Aldebrand’s spine. “Come to think of it…”

But he could not finish as he was suddenly besieged by some of John’s forces and disappeared, laughing and chanting into a sea of heads he was careful to crack open.

[laure-writes]

It's about the acts of service:

Alarm suddenly arose on Aelys’s face. “Bronwyn! Bronwyn and Einar,” she said in haste yielding to a terrible dread. “Where are they? Tell me they are still alive! Tell me they did not do anything to Bronwyn!”

“In the vanguard. Bronwyn thinks you dead. Her fury is unmatched. She is unleashing dark forces as we speak.”

A lovesick smile blossomed on her face. “Really?”

[laure-writes]

In which William discovers gay desperation:

Imad came that night. Always he did, his shadow, dark and sudden in the doorframe. Unbothered by the rats and the grime, the stench and the filth, his steps were light and he walked with the composure, that poise, that William had seldom beheld, him, usually so warm, so imperfect, now wrought in an ice-like silver. His features, sharp under the moonlight seemed to have been carved in marble, a marble warm in color but cold with touch.

William made out something in his dark eyes, and perhaps this was that sudden, wrecking coldness, or perhaps this was contempt, perhaps this was hatred, something only shadows could reveal; a dark shroud illuminating the deepest recesses of his mind.

There was something in that rage, something beautiful and William reached for his cheek, and he wanted to stroke it, to touch it, to graze it, to caress it, to linger there, in the taut of his jaw, to dwell in the moment, in his hatred - so long as he looked at him.

So long as he looked at him, William was kept from wreckage.

His hand hovered in midair, his lips silently uttering a plea.

“Let me touch you,” he said, though no sound came. “Look at me. Tell me everything.”

But Imad did not reach back. For the first time in their lives, Imad did not reach back.

[laure-writes]

Medieval gays flirting over their respective weddings (featuring William being DENSE AS FUCK HOLY SHIT!!!):

“Are you rueing Tancred’s absence or are you missing Emma?” Imad asked playfully and William felt a burst of laughter blooming in his chest.

“Neither. I was wondering how much better this journey would have been had your grandmother agreed to come.”

Imad grimaced. “She would have killed you already. No, we can’t have that.”

“At least she is able to keep naughty children in line.”

“Please, do not speak further. I went to escape her throes! She’s already speaking of marriage! She told my father that I was too old already! Too old! Me! You’re not even married yet!”

“Are you waiting for me to get married first?” William chuckled. “In such a case you might remain celibate the rest of your life.”

A shadow passed over Imad’s eyes, his smile taking a sadder edge, but like that it was gone and an unknown spark lit up his eyes. “Are you planning to be a monk, then? I seem to recall young knights ought to have wives to bear them sons. Would you foil tradition?”

“Not so much. I do need to marry, but this is a matter my father ought to have begun thinking about when I was twelve. Brides aren’t easy to find in the area and I am under the impression that he has not yet found a suitable match.”

“Who would marry you indeed, Your poor wife, having to bear the smell of your days wrestling in the dirt.”

William laughed. “And you’re so fair and pristine your wife will wither with jealousy! Imad, you cannot possibly tell me you will be a better husband than me. I have seen you woo Emma, did you think I didn’t notice? Your poor wife, her hair will be gray by the time you secure her hand in marriage and it will be too late for your children.”

A redness colored Imad’s cheeks and William was afraid he had offended him. “Your poor wife, having to bear your stupidity every day!”

“Stupid? Remind me who picked his nose and who - yes who - thought it would be a good idea to try and fight with real swords? A chance my mother found us-”

Imad lifted his eyebrows, head bent in his general direction. “It was your idea.”

[laure-writes]

In which Imad and William are ruined for one another :

“I dreamt of you,” William said. “In the cell. You haunted my dreams, my thoughts, engulfed me with the excess of you within myself.”

Imad reddened, a glad grin on his lips. “Oh. And what did I do in those dreams?”

“You consumed me.”

At once Imad blanched, his face falling from his customary glee. “I- I cons-”

“You ate me, to put it bluntly. Pried my heart and ate it piece by piece. You were ravenous. And so was I, to see you consume me night after night. I thought I was going mad, but in hindsight…” He shrugged. “But perhaps I was mad. Perhaps I am, even thinking about what I am thinking.”

Imad gripped him by the collar, pulling him to himself, his mouth warm against William’s cheek, his breath all over his skin, the scent of him invading his nostrils, too lavish to ignore. William felt his fingers tighten, coil around the ragged fabric of his shirt, watched, in a state of agony, his friend’s eyes travel from jaw, to throat, to lips. Mouth ajar, yearning so suddenly for him to put an end to the ordeal, William watched, feverish, the glazed desire brimming in Imad’s pupils. There was a moment of silence there. A moment plangent and loud, almost vibrating, so tense William felt it press against his ribcage, cave in and squeeze his heart. It raced in his chest, and William accounted it to be the cause behind the throbbing in his ears.

A low growl rose from Imad’s chest. His mouth grazed his cheek, trailing up to his ear.

William wanted to be kissed. Hell! kissed! He wanted to be devoured. He wanted Imad to take him right here and now as they were and he wanted his mouth to mark him as fully his. He wanted to be bruised, to be cherished, to be loved. But instead he felt the phantom touch of Imad’s grin against his skin.

“Oh?” he murmured, voice heavy with intent. “And what are you thinking?”

A myriad rebuttals danced in William’s mind, from the crudest to the softest. What was he thinking? What was he thinking indeed? Oh, William was not thinking. Not at all. By all account this was folly and the vilest of sins and yet… William did not think because there was no need to. William felt. And this sensation had become so overwhelming that it hindered reason itself.

“That you are driving me mad. That I am tired of being your Leila. That perhaps all along I have been Majnun.” William took his hand in his, freeing himself from his grasp, and as he recoiled, locked his eyes into his. “I think I would be fine with that. Being lost for you. Being consumed by you. Does it make me mad?”

“A bit,” Imad said, a lovesick smile on his face. He leaned into his chest. “I am fine being your Leila. I have been Majnun far too long.”

[aesterea-archived]

more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl

- hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves - they also like to collect pins and brooches - we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased - common questions include: - “not even water?” (referring to fasting) - hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) - “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) - “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) - “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)

- “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) - people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead - long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up - hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing - that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) - henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun - henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing - henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings - there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet - five daily prayers - most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively - muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran - there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book - muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience - don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously - Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) - Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) - Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework - In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)

- Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” - Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) - when i say we use them casually, i really mean it - teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah - our version of “amen” is “ameen” - muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi - the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”

[missandaei]

As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.

[leaping-hare-witchery-deactivat]

I’ve reblogged it before but honestly this fucking post touches me so much. To see how intrinsic Allah is to followers of Islam and how ingrained He is in their daily lives is so beautiful.

Also, can we just talk about the fact that there aren’t like 100 different versions of the Quran? Because I didn’t know that and that legit AMAZES me.

[fredrickthepig]

LEARNING

[jenniferrpovey]

Reblogging this again because I am sure some of my writer followers can use it and it’s been a while ;).

[el-shab-hussein]

Muslim here! Just wanted to add a couple of things:

- If you want to write mostly irreligious young adult Muslims, it would be humorous to make them literally follow nothing about the religion except making them very averse to eating pork cuz it’s haraam. You have no idea how many Muslims I know who’ll party, get drunk, smoke weed, and engage in, ahem, certain activities, but the one thing they’ll refuse is to eat pork.

- While it’s true that we are very loose with the way we mention God at nearly every occasion, we never make fun of the Prophets, God, or generally the religion. We take the sanctity of the religion and its figures very seriously because it’s blasphemy to insult them. I’ve found it’s very different from the attitude that most Christians and christianized atheists have on their religion / the religion they were raised around (easily making fun of Jesus, the concept of God, making jokes like “snow is god’s c*m”)

- People get surprised when a non-hijabi girl tells them she’s very devout and practices often, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

- Aunties are nosy and gossip way too much, even though that’s a sin.

- Most Muslims believe in djinn because it’s part of our religion, but this belief oftentimes seems or looks to border on superstition, and a common activity amongst Muslim kids, especially cousins, is to tell djinn stories like ghost stories.

- Also, there is no ‘Muslim food’, we are 1.8 billion people that come from different cultural backgrounds with different food and culinary culture, and we all eat things that are more or less similar, so the dietary habits of the character(s) you’re writing will depend on their cultural heritage(s) instead of their religion.

[aesterea-archived]

absolutely the best addition to this post (hi, it’s OP)! thank you!!

[youneedjesus01]

Yay! Knowledge!

[laure-writes]

William and Imad: 

“Have you always known?” William asked, the question easier in the darkness than in broad daylight.

“Known what?” came Imad’s voice, hoarse and tired.

“That you loved me.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps the process was slow or perhaps it was an evidence. Perhaps it was both.”

“When did you know?” pressed William, his heart in his throat, all of himself drawn, ready to leap.

Imad chuckled softly. His hand found a strand of his hair that he coiled around his finger. “For a while now. It was admiration at first, then respect, then a deep sense of belonging. It was friendship set ablaze and I burned and burned. For a year, I think I burned. And when my heart was about to give its last piece to ashes, it beat again, with a rhythm anew, and I no longer doubted it. For I knew, habibi, that you were the one it beat for. I knew my heart. I knew what I desired, and true - i confess - that many nights I longed, I ached, for the simple pleasure of the flesh. I gave in, what can I say, but my soul did my shame flay.”

“Are you ashamed now?” William asked, a breath caught by the heavy air. His voice had that lilt of worry, that brittle edge as always when his heart was concerned - that edge he showed no one but the closest to him.

Imad turned his head to his, his smile bright like the stars above. “No. There is no need.”

“Why?”

“Because I know your heart. I know your eyes. They speak of no disgust, no hatred and only those eyes do I trust.”

“You are so young,” William sighed. “So young and naive for all your wisdom. How did you know I would come to love you? How did you measured my affection? How do you know this won’t come to bite us later?”

Imad steeled himself. “I knew. I know your mother and I know your father. I know your sister and I know my heart. I know you and I was afraid once, that be they discovered, my feelings for you - for men - would have me cast away in shame by both father and mother and - worst of all - by you. To be cast away by you, to be looked at with so much as disapproval… that would have meant death for me. I would rather burn than refuse myself the blessing of knowing my heart. I would have gone, perhaps, gone to Mecca or Medina, spend the rest of my life vowed to Allah. I would not have troubled you. I would have cherished you.

“But then you kissed me. You looked at me and for your eyes only do I breathe. I saw them hard on others, gentle on your family, tender to me. I have suspected - hoped even - that you would come to love me. And now, finally I breathe to my heart’s content. You were my friend first, William. I trusted that bond more than anything.”

[laure-writes]

And just because I like angst, have this:

“You cleave me in half!” Imad shouted. And it came out almost shrill, taking that desperate edge, that edge heavy with grief, with anger, with powerlessness. “You skin me alive! You probe my faith, torture it with each of your smiles! How long have I kept myself awake, scourging my soul for the mere loving you? How long have I groveled before God because I love you? How many nights have I convinced myself that I was still in God’s arms? How many tears have I shed because I love a Christian man? And you’d expect me to forget it all in a heartbeat, to turn a deaf ear to my doubts and follow you blindly? Even if you loved me I would not! I would doubt! The tether of my heart does not deprive me of the agency of my faith! I am myself!” His eyes grew somber, his hands fell slack at his sides. “And I am also yours,” he croaked, a sob marring his velvet voice. “As always I deal with myself in halves. And I am tired of it.”

“Then take me entirely. Make me yours. I give myself to you, Imad, the whole of me.”

[laure-writes]

William could not sleep. Not here. Not now. Not in a tent filled with warriors he had known all his life. Not when his mind relentlessly tortured him with battles fought; with his father and with Jerusalem. His father once said the slain came back as wraiths to haunt those who prevailed. He said it for his first kill and he had said so ever since.

To his mother he had said this too, when they were younger, the deed swallowed by an enchanted forest.

But to William, wraiths did not haunt. They screamed. Their faces bearing ghastly wounds, either ravaged, either recognizable enough that William saw Imad’s face.

He shuddered, hoping his friend would never discover the truth of it. He had slain countless of Saracens already. He was a killer, a murderer. His hands forever soiled. Whereas Imad’s softly played with a pen.

William was a killer. His ghosts said so.

[laure-writes]

I wrote this and honestly I don’t know which story to put it in so have it:

“Keep holding me like that and I’ll break your spine,” she murmurs against his ear, hoping to hide her fear under the venom.

He doesn’t heed. His fingers dig into her flesh, unbidden and it hurts when he touches. She feels soiled at once. She squirms but it does not stop him, far from it. His arousal heightens, and he claws her tighter, until she feels a crack on her hip-bone. She whimpers in pain but he takes it as a moan and he grins, wider, until his hot breath feels damp against her skin. His grip is of iron, his breath smells of the dead, his hands are slimy crude things, stained to the obscene. His shaft against her feels like the knife he will murder her with. His face takes to red and to her he transforms. From hideous shape to hideous shape he turns, the bones bulging, the eyes dripping in their swollen monstrosity, his lips moist and purple, his nose, vile and green, his tongue a leech, his hair bald and crusted with infection.

He revulses her. And she hates him enough that her hand moves on its own and grabs the knife on the counter-desk. Her fingers furl around it, steady, vengeful.

She did warn him.

And she had always known she would come to slay a beast.

It’s easy, all things considered. It takes her knee to his groin. It takes her fist on his nose. It takes a foot to his stomach. It takes her leg across his crouched body. It takes her anger and fury and she wants him dead and she wants to kill and kill and kill and reduce him to what she knows he is; a shapeless thing, barely human, barely beast. It takes his first sputter of blood and her vengeful satisfaction. It takes her grin and an unbidden cackle as she feels his teeth break against her stilettos. 

It takes her hand around the kitchen-knife; white and quivering. It takes him laying on his back, catching the light against the edge of the knife, his eyes opened in terror while her own face is a mask. It takes his own fear, a pale mirror of her own. For a moment she wonders if the fear she has ignited in him will cut deeper than the knife.

And she knows it will not. It will not eat him deep enough. Centuries of agony will not be enough. She craves that vengeance. She’s ravenous.

Her tongue runs against her teeth.

And she carves him. Slowly she carves him, straddling him like he had straddled her so many times, slow movements, almost gentle, merciful. He screams, of course, and she tempted to cut that slug of a tongue but instead she gags him with his tie.

“Shhh,” she says. “Shh.”

“Shh,” he had said, all those years, “Shh,” they had told her: quiet know, or you would make a scene.

She’s done and she wants to scream.

He does not do her the favor of crying. In his eyes she sees that he believes himself above her. He has won and he wants her to know. For her it will be jail and her word will be nothing. It pours gasoline on her rage, and she digs the blade deep in his throat, until he squirms, until he dies.

Slowly she stands up, the knife red, her hand shaking, feeling cold and hot at once, set on a maddening fire while the room spins around her. It’s done. She’s free, but then the tears start to roll down her cheeks, pouring to meet his blood below. She’s crying, sobbing, and wipes her eyes red. 

She releases the knife. Her hand has lost its grip and she feels drained.

“I warned you,” she says, her voice brittle and choked up with tears. “I warned you!” she shouts, as if he could still hear her. As if all of it can be undone.