HEARTBREAKING: friends who i should be going to the movies and playing dnd and watching anime and cosplaying and going to the mall and having sleepovers and exploring the woods with live one hundred trillion miles away
immediately after an interaction: i have GOT to get more normal oh god i need to get more normal immediately i have to get more normal or they're going to hunt me down they're going to hunt me down and flay me for sport
during an interaction: and why not put a little spin on it? why not add some conversational zest?
scientists are trying to discover something harder than getting out of bed to go to work in the morning. and dont make a fucking penis joke ok they already checked everyone’s dick and it doesn’t even come close
Survival is made infinitely harder in the woods when the woods bites back.
.
“Oh, fuck.”
Gulping down a shuddering deep breath, Essätha looked from the gaping wounds on her side to the animal laying sprawled out in the dirt. Its form was motionless now; blood welling up from its open maw and eyes glazed over. The matting of its mangy patched fur and skin was coated with streaks of red against the prominently protruding outline of its ribcage.
She looked back down to her hand as she applied pressure over the injury. The same color red that splattered the dead creature and the ground swiftly welled up around the span of her fingers.
“Essie? Are you alright?”
Her mouth felt dry. She staggered, and felt a firm grip just beneath her opposite arm. Against the ringing of her eardrum, she could swear she heard a barely-uttered curse as the shock wore off her to leave a numbing, cold sensation.
“Yeah- Yeah I’m fine,” she grit out between her teeth. Shaking her head, she looked over to catch the dark cloudy blue-gray gaze of concern that swept over her. Darkness edged her vision, and she swallowed deeply.
“Pinch me.”
The creases of concern bunching Amon’s brow deepened. He looked down at the spot she was pressing down on to attempt to lessen the blood flow, but it was staining her clothes slowly and weeping between her fingers to run down her knuckles.
His eyebrows shot up as his grip grew more tense. He grabbed her; admittedly a bit roughly, and pulled her in closer to his side to support her weight.
The movement shook away some of the fuzziness that lodged like cotton in her skull. Pain blistered up from the wound, taking with it the detached feeling the sorceress had that made her feel floaty, enough to consider closing her eyes. But now she hissed, well aware of the throbbing sensation of her heartbeat that followed the ache of her body.
“You need to sit down,” the nobleman urged in a pressing tone. “I’ll grab my med-kit.”
She groaned against the nausea that followed her attempt to take a step. “S’not gonna be enough.”
“It has to be.”
She wanted to argue, but the desperation in his voice making it shrill and crackle doused her into silence for the moment. Her eyes blinked; the usually sharp shade of gold dulled with pain as she looked around the ground, spotting more and more splashes of crimson wherever she looked.
Normally she wouldn’t mind being pressed against every inch of the rugged, handsome shape of the Lord of the Emerald Expanse. He was well-built; sculpted from hunting and horse-back riding and exercise, and deliciously warm. Not to mention all the body hair, and the well-groomed beard. He knew how to keep himself in great shape for all types of fitness, and had well-rounded flexibility considering the toned buff nature of his muscles.
At the moment though, Essie was not interested in being against anyone. She didn’t even have time to argue with him; he gave no warning as he slid down to hook an arm around the back of her knees and haul her up with the ease of a child’s toy to scoop her right up into his chest.
His usually comfortable, cozy chest. Which as she was jostled, did not feel particularly good as her spine objected; refusing to curve into a nestled ball against him. She arched as the world flashed beneath her eyelids too brightly; the pain of the animal’s jaws still felt like they were upon her. A ghostly memory, clamped tight to her flesh and tearing through her unceremoniously.
Finally after a moment of thrashing and jolting, her body obeyed enough to slump down, panting and shivering in his arms. Her fingers had hug into the shreds of her shirt where the material now wove into strips of torn muscle tissue and skin.
Her stomach rolled and knotted.
“I think I’m gonna throw up,” she warned in a rasp.
“We’ll get you on Maestro and make for Boar’s Tusk,” he promised; desperation clinging to the notes of his heavy voice. “Just hold on for me, okay?”
Every step he took radiated up into her; rattling her teeth and bones. She jostled in his arms as he ran through the undergrowth and treeline. He tried to shove his shoulder through any of the understory growth to keep branches, vines, and leaves from whipping her already bruised and bloody body, but not all of them were so easily persuaded.
“You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay, I’ve got you.”
Every note of panic that laced his usually calm, gruff voice was like ice spearing through her veins. He was usually so collected; even in unsettling situations he held himself to certain standards. When he let himself go, usually, it was around only those he trusted the most; when he softened up and let go, when his tone felt like water rushing down a stream, cool and refreshing and most of all, relaxed.
There was not an ounce of that in him, now. Not from his words, not from the tension in his body, not from the panic that had been drawn into his face from the pull of the lines around his mouth and eyes. The flood of terror was especially so; his pupils were pinpricks, and the whites of his eyes reminding her of when she first saw him as a bear instead of a man. Whale-eyed and frightened.
“M’fine,” she lied like a wisp upon the wind. Her stomach rolled and pitched. The jostling helped keep her alert, however, as she hissed: “Nng- just- just clean it-”
“Essätha-”
“- ‘n cauterize it,” she finished, ignoring his interruption. “Slow the bleedin’ first. Then we- we can go.”
The nobleman’s breathing was already labored from dashing through thicket. It wheezed out of him though, the moment she suggested sterilizing and burning the wound.
“Too dangerous,” he huffed.
“S’no way to tourniquet, or pack it out here,” Essätha objects in a slurred mumble. She is all but too aware of the way that the world was spinning and tilting dangerous around her. With all of her deceptive abilities, she tries to force herself to believe it was merely from wild charge of Amon rushing past trees and in shrubbery.
“It’s not up… for debate… Essie,” Amon puffs. “The shock alone- could make… you pass out… You could seal… infection… inside of the wound.”
A helpless moan tumbles out of her, well aware of the subsiding of her consciousness and the pins-and-needles jabbing sensation moving through her in the background. As Amon nearly tumbles over a slope in the ground, her stomach heaves and she retches. The bile ends up on the Bearmaster’s boots and splatters on his trousers, with some ending up on her arm and side as she shudders violently.
Even as Amon curses, she knows it is not to her, or about her. He was scared. She could feel it in the grip he had on her; tight enough to actually be somewhat painful as his fingers dug into her. He was scared of losing her.
“M’sorry.”
“Don’t… apologize, Ess’-”
He didn’t understand what she was apologizing for. Her eyes blinked; out of sync and sluggish. She blinked again, not knowing how long it took, but it felt slower.
The third time, he looked down, but his face was just outlines of shapes and colors. Splotchy; inconsistent, veiled with blackness edging her vision.
“Essätha?”
No one had ever said her name in a way that made her run cold with a chill. No one had ever said her name with so much panic before; boiling over with desperation.
“Stay awake… stay awake for me… Please. Please. Please… I need… you, Ess’… babe… darling…”
The urgency of his tone was gradually lost into a void. It was the last of her senses to be taken from her; as the feeling of his rough hands grasping her faded, and she could no longer open her eyes to see the shock of black locks and dark blue eyes. The dry, metallic taste in her mouth disappeared, and then too so did the smell of sweat, faintly spiced cologne, and the fauna and dirt being forced through and kicked up by Amon’s boots.
Her heart-rate began to scatter and fall with shallow, uneven breaths. She tried to reach for him numbly; taking her hand off the wound and slathering blood on his chest as her head lulled to the side.
Oh she was going to miss that beckoning voice, pleading for her to stay with him. If only it was not so distressed. She wanted to tell him not to be afraid; everything was going to be alright. She’d come back to him. She’d return for him, every time.
Darkness swallowed her, and the last hoarse cries of her name echoing in her eardrums with it.
I love that four different people on my feed scheduled this joyous person to reblog by 8am on June 1. I look forward to seeing this a dozen more times today.
You are an unreliable narrator because your coping mechanisms for your deep-seated trauma forbid you from acknowledging the reality of the situation. I am an unreliable narrator because I sincerely have no idea what the fuck is going on.
the wisdom ive learnt is that becoming part of a friend group 1) takes a long time and 2) involves a lot of feeling awkward and left out at first. there’s nothing terrible about this but if you grew up chronically lonely or have any kind of trauma relating to social isolation this likely feels Really Wrong and activates danger signals. but both fortunately and unfortunately it’s just how becoming close to new people works most of the time
another thing that was not intuitive to me as someone who grew up an autistic loner: basically everyone on the planet is starved for connection all the time and almost everything people do is an attempt to reach out to another. most seemingly illogical interactions and behaviours can be explained by this. you have to take as many of these invitations as you can. even if you're wrong you still attempted to bring more warmth into the world
What would you do if you were scrolling through recommended tumblr posts and one was from someone you don't know and it was just a picture of your dad captioned "fucking hate this guy" and it had hundreds of notes
theartofmadeline
vaporwave
gummygunk
yousharknotpass
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
