Writing Things

❣︎ What is the point of being if not to create art? I write original work and sometimes fanfiction 23 | Queer | Canadian

[sheavesandbounds]

Writing Masterlist

Original Work Pomegranates - (greek mythology, poetry) The Rules - (faefolk, short fiction) Cashier - (chronic pain, poetry) Grandmother - (queer venting, poetry) Home - (complicated familial relationships, poetry)

Fanfiction “You Won” (Secret Life/Life Series, GoodTimesWithScar) Before Stardew Valley (Stardew Valley, Farmer(s))

[sheavesandbounds]

Before Stardew Valley

Rose entered her apartment with a heavy sigh, tossing her keys on the table and dropping her bag beside her as she sat in one of the mismatched chairs her and her sister scrounged up from a few secondhand stores. The headache pounding at her temples didn't let her have even a moment of respite before it somehow flared up even stronger than before, and she groaned, burying her face in her hands.

"Drugs, take 'em." Her sister's voice was unwelcome, no matter how pragmatic her advice was.

"I am dying, Rain, simply falling apart and you-" Rose's lamenting cut off when the rattle of a bottle of pills hitting the table firmly made her lift her head and glare at her sister. She met a gaze identical to her own, Rain glaring back as she also set down a half-empty water bottle. Rose wrinkled her nose.

"... You didn't backwash in that, did you?" She asked cautiously, and Rain shrugged nonchalantly before the corner of her mouth tugged up teasingly.

"Guess you'll have to find out when you take some of those painkillers." Rose pretended to gag as she opened the bottle of pills.

"You are truly the most disgusting person I've ever met."

"Aww, you mean it?" Rain cooed, as if that was the sweetest compliment she'd ever heard. Rose tossed back two pills with a swig of the water and then threw the pill bottle at Rain's face. She just started laughing, catching it. "I'm touched."

"You're in a remarkably good mood for having just worked." Rose said, somewhat suspicious.

"Oh, yeah," Rain hummed as she spun another chair around to sit on it facing the backrest. "I quit today."

Rose choked on her own spit.

"You what? Have you been looking for other jobs? Do you have anything else lined up? Rain, we can't afford-" Her panicked questioning was stopped by Rain physically covering her mouth with a hand.

"That is exactly the shit I'm sick and fucking tired of. Aren't you? I don't want to have to worry about paying for this shit apartment with a shit job anymore! I'm so fucking done." Hot rage spiked in Rose's chest and she slapped Rain's hand away.

"Well that's a wonderful epiphany to have! Why don't we just uproot our lives and move away with money we don't have?" She spit. "Why don't we just give up on capitalism? Who needs food, right? Who needs a roof to live under? Surely not us! Surely not you! This isn't- this isn't just about you! I live here too and I can't afford to take care of us alone, Rain!"

Rain quietly reached into her pocket and took out a creased envelope. Rose recognized it immediately, the previously pristine purple wax seal with their family crest. Her throat tightened.

"... You opened it?"

"Yeah. He... I mean, he told us to open it when we got 'crushed by modern life' or whatever, right? Don't you think this counts? You coming home every day and taking meds to handle stress headaches, my symptoms getting worse-"

"Your symptoms are getting worse?" Rose cut in, and Rain glanced away.

"I can't live like this anymore, Ro. This is what the letter was for." Rose didn't respond to that, simply staring at her sister for a long few moments. How could she have missed it before? They had the same face, she knew what stress creases between their eyebrows looked like. She knew the dullness that took over the brown of their skin. She knew that the notable bags under Rain's eyes meant something must be wrong.

Perhaps she'd gotten so used to seeing those details on her own face in the mirror that she had forgotten what they looked like without them.

"... What does it say?" She finally asked, and Rain slid the paper over to her.

"He left us the deed to the farm. It's ours if we want it." Rose's breath caught.

"The farm? All the way on the coast? The valley is so isolated, so far away, I-"

"Please, Ro. Aren't you tired of this?"

It had been a long time since Rose had seen Rain be so serious about something. She was much more prone to joking about bad situations than approaching them with sincerity. Rose had also decided a long time ago that she didn't like when Rain got serious.

"... Of course I am. Please, don't misunderstand me, of course I'm tired. It's just... so much to take in at once. To imagine living out there, somewhere we haven't even been since grandfather died. Do you think anyone there will even remember us?"

"Probably not, but that's kinda nice, isn't it? Entirely fresh start and all?"

"I suppose." Rose murmured, reading through the letter again as silence fell between them once more. A minute passed. "Have either of us ever kept a plant alive in our lives?" Rose finally asked, and Rain burst out laughing.

Rose couldn't help but smile.

[sheavesandbounds]

"Scar, behind you, seriously!"

The blood was roaring in Scar's ears, his heart beating so powerfully he could almost feel it shaking his hands as he loosed his arrow. Pearl fell out of sight, stumbling back into the pit behind her as the arrow pierced her shoulder. The roaring grew louder for a moment, filling his mind with chaotic noise. He shook his head to clear it and locked eyes with an approaching zombie.

Huh.

She hadn't been lying.

Well, no matter. She was waiting for him down there.

"Pearl? I'm comin' for ya! Where'd you go?" He called as he began to make his way down into the pit, sword at the ready, a grin stretched wide across his face. Where was the banter, the fun? Was he just supposed to make this final battle interesting all on his own? That was hardly fair—

A soft voice drifted past his ear, past the blood and the flesh and the bone, and his heart seemed to stop.

"She's dead, Scar." His hands were shaking harder now, and he couldn't blame it on his heartbeat. "You won."

He knew that voice. The whisper of an ally, a soulmate, a victor.

A friend, once. A long time ago.

But if he was hearing that voice....

"Oh." His own voice was quiet, distant, nearly as ethereal as the hand he could just barely feel on his shoulder. "... How did the guy with no friends win?"

The shaking was in his voice now too, his mind finally clear for the first time in... how long? Weeks? Months, now?

He had done it.

He won.

Thunder rumbled as — surrounded by the spirits of those who were killed to get him there, tears slipping down his cheeks — Scar began to laugh.

[sheavesandbounds]

Home

I lay here in my bed after 3 hours of sleep, and I think about a lot of things. I think about the pains in my shoulder and feet and behind my eyes and how maybe it's my fault that I'm hurting. I think about the garbage piled up in my room that I haven't found the mental energy to get rid of yet and how I could have had it cleared out months ago. I think about how I have less than $100 in my bank account, how I haven't been able to work for a month and a half, how all I have to eat is rice and buttered noodles. My mother keeps asking why I don't just move back. Pack up everything we put the effort into moving across an entire province and onto an island and just live with them again.

Just come home.

I think about my sister and how I held her while she cried after a fight with our parents, and how I was unable to hold her again when she felt unwelcome in her own family, the two of us separated by a phone and a thousand kilometres. I think about my brother and how I was told that he would fall quiet whenever our father entered the locker room, and how I never talked to him about that as much as I wanted to, back when I could pull him aside for a private conversation in person. I think about myself. How I see twisted aspects of my own insecurities and self-hatred in my parents. They shaped me, they formed me with their own hands and I now bear the burdens of that formation. They gave me a comfortable life and all the love they could give and pieces of their very selves to give me the wonderful things I have.

They gave me a home.

And I don't want to return to it. Still, somehow, alone in a tiny basement apartment surrounded by months old garbage and laundry and half-unpacked bags from trips back there, I don't want to move back. I think about if living here is any better than living there. I think about fresh-cooked meals, diet plans, financial stability, familial expectations, my siblings, my friends, my parents, myself a lot of things.

I think about home.

[sheavesandbounds]

"And how does that make you feel?" It's been two years now, since you found out. Since my mother told you my name in a restaurant and you asked her that question instead of turning to me. I ran to the bathroom crying. I'm told that she talked to you about respecting my name. I find that ironic. "Merry Christmas, sweetie." It's been a year and a half now, since that Christmas. Since you handed me a gift bag labelled with a name that is not mine, and every piece of the present plastered with it too. I couldn't manage to eat the chocolate letter you gave me. I gave it to my sister, and she understood immediately. I find that funny. "I want you to explain it to me." It's been two weeks now, since I managed to speak up. Since I asked you with a shaking voice why you don't use my name when nearly everyone else in our family does. We both ended up crying. I'm glad that in the end you have decided to respect my name. But. It took you two years. It took everyone else in our family beginning to use it and you willfully ignoring that. It took your relationships with your son and daughter-in-law straining under the weight of your disrespect. It took me being the one to finally bring it up. And you tell me that all you wanted was an explanation. An explanation that you never asked for, and that I did not owe you. I am lucky to have a grandmother who uses my preferred name. It took you two years. I find that cruel.

[sheavesandbounds]

[Image ID: The following poem is handwritten in small letters on a square, pale yellow post-it note. Beside the post-it note is a black barcode scanner. Both are resting on a smooth dark blue surface. /. End ID]

I sit at the till. I was given a chair to use between transactions. I think that is very kind. Part of me says that it is the bare minimum. I sit at the till. I feel guilty because my feet aren't that bad. I feel them ache. Part of me says that they should not be aching. I sit at the till. I wait for a customer to break me out of my thoughts. I prepare to stand and smile and suffer through the pain. Part of me says I can't do this forever. I sit at the till.

[sheavesandbounds]

When Father came home that day, he was running.

He looked scared, I think. Mother said he was scared, anyhow, though I thought it looked more like he was trying not to smile.

My brother laughed when he was scared sometimes though, maybe Father was like that.

Then I noticed that my brother wasn't with him.

Where was he?

Where was my brother?

Mother cradled me in her arms as Father explained that he was stolen.

By the Faefolk.

They are evil and cruel and dangerous, and they steal children in the early hours of the evening, taking them away from their Mothers, their Fathers.

Their twin brothers.

Never speak to the Faefolk.

Never seek out the Faefolk.

And above all, never make a deal with the Faefolk.

Those were the rules.

Mother said my brother was never good at following rules.

Quietly, I thought about how he would always pull me back from the forest's edge when I tried to run into the trees to collect flowers.

My brother knew how to be safe, when he had to be.

And he still got taken.

I was quiet, and Mother gently stroked my hair while Father took my hand.

They told me that it would be okay, that we would move on and the pain would fade someday.

I nodded, then.

But when I was old enough to ask for a wooden training sword, when I was liked enough to ask the village guards how to fight, when I was strong enough to wield a metal one properly...

I thought about rules, and iron, and the Faefolk hiding in the forest.

Stealing children.

Stealing brothers.

I thought about revenge.

Mother said my brother was never good at following rules.

I suppose it was time for someone else to take up the role.

[sheavesandbounds]

Pomegranates

Not much more can be said about pomegranates. It feels like every poetic thought, every scientific fact, every possible story about pomegranates has been documented already.

But I still yearn to find a way to make the pomegranate my own. I feel there is something inside me that could do the impossible and write something new about pomegranates.

This is, of course, ridiculous.

I've never even eaten pomegranate seeds before. Maybe I wouldn't like them even if I tried.

But I know why I'm drawn to them.

I know why I'm determined to find meaning in the existence of this fruit I've never tried.

I want to understand her.

I want to know if when the Queen of the Underworld ate those seeds, she knew what it meant.

I like to imagine she did.

I like to imagine that she wept at her wedding, overflowing with joy.

I like to imagine that she wept when she missed her mother, and that her husband comforted her.

Yet all of this is about me.

Not her.

Perhaps she isn't anything like I have imagined her.

Perhaps she was just a maiden, resigned to her fate.

Perhaps she was fooled by the pomegranate.

The pomegranate.

Would the pomegranate have been necessary if she planned on returning?

Does her husband's love for her frame the fruit as a part of their vows, or does his fear of losing her frame it as a trick to ensure she returns?

I like to imagine she knew what the pomegranate meant.

Perhaps she is the only one who ever will.