#alt writing

[smallerthantherain]

Supernova

I put my hands on you and it burned to the touch-- charring like fire but no, never enough

I’d rather have hands of coal and burnt up blood than to forget how your skin sang beneath my fingertips

Just like the brightest stars, we grew too hot; left a black hole where our memories rot

[doriandistortion]

Why do I feel so dirty?

I can never quite wash off the insanity.

I can never be without this horrifying sickness.

- Dorian 12/02/23 12:34am

[write-as-rains]

No blood-moon hunt

to raise the hackles.

A beast of lesser names

tries to reincarnate

past chases

Little satisfaction found

when things

give

a fight not forgotten

nor won.

[pettyelves]

apex; astrid

“What do you think? He the same man you worked for?" Astrid’s ruse had lasted less than an hour, she was here under false pretense and Cichol did not strike her as surprised.  “Yes, and no," he finally clicked out, "He is the same. But not man. Men..." His head slowly anchored behind him. prompting him to recline back, "Though one might dispute even that they are both men. Surely I needn't go into you about the 'us'es there are to all of us." Those other faces. He called her a liar when she told him she didn’t think she had another. It was the sensation of a massive maw about to descend upon her throat. The smile Cichol wore spread across his face and Astrid recognized it now-- a beast far more clever a hunter than her. “Suppose that's where our spar ends for the night. But before I go: who do you think won?" He asked it, just as inconsequential as anything else they’d said that evening.  "If this were a spar, I didn't land a single mark. So if this -were- a spar. You'd be the victor." “You suppose? Now I wasn't the one coming in with premeditated questions. If we are going by 'points', maybe consider yourself the victory. But my goals aren't just answers..." He lifted himself gracefully from the chair, stepping as lightly as a gliding specter, "My idea of a 'win' is seeing any of those other 'persons' of one being. I can't rightfully say if I got into one..." There it was, a small crack in her stone face. A hollow tone that stretched ad infinitum, “I did warn you that this face might just be the only one, Cichol.” He still didn’t believe her.  "... If we talk again, I want to win." He was gone.  Astrid should have taken this as a sign. Just go home, sleep it off. You lost this one. If she’d listened to that, she would have ended up in bed instead of curled on the sofa in her office--a pile of papers her only pillow.

Body of endless coal, so matted black that it could smear onto her like rubbed mascara. Ethereal, weight hardly noticeable even as it twists on top of her, between her shivering limbs. Breath of smoke, wisping and invading into her lungs, filling them with lies of ash and shifting shadow. Trespassing in airways, intruding into bloodstreams, weaving into the circulatory. Electrochemistry stands as the door greeter as the sympathetic nervous system screams. Astrid inhaled, a thin sheen of sweat settled on her brow. She could not open her eyes, but the sensation was unmistakable-- like something looming over her as she slept.  'This is the primordial enemy'. Ancient Azeroth hangs above them, swollen and inches away from crushing them. Its presence is voyeuristic and overwhelming. Across its vast surface, the predators hunt the prey. The strong abuse the weak. The cunning exploit the simple. Women poison men. Men cripple women. Chaos defiles order. 'This is the ender. This is the calamity.' From the primitive conflict, a single cloud forms in the azure outline of the troposphere. It darkens and billows, growing and swirling into a spiral that envelopes the entire globe. Choking and snuffing the planet until it, too, turns to crumbling, pitch coal. She became aware, though her eyes still wouldn’t open. Wake up. Her hands tightened inward, her heart kicked against her ribcage. Whatever was above her was coming closer.  What was between her legs and arms now vanished. Smudges of its lingering predation dot clean with circles as pattering of water cleanse her skin in droplets. A shower in the forest that manifests around her. This is the wild. This is the homeland. Is she anywhere on that planet? Is she above or beneath? Is she before or after? Was it possible to have two dreams at once? A better question was could a dream kill her. Pain shot from her heart out toward her fingertips. And then nothing, as though she was dissolving into stardust.  'It's gone again. Slipped through your clumsy, knobby-knuckled paws once more.' The void of contact grips her. Her pulse quickens alongside drums of battle in her chest and wrists. A tingling surges down to her feet. A dilation expresses her pupils. A hunting horn sounds across the forest. 'Chase your quarry, ancient hunter.' 

Parchment papers scattered into the air like feathers. Wide-eyed she stared beyond her office, across a vast ocean, through the thickets of Ashenvale. Terror dipped in a thick coat of excitement, a sensation that written in her blood stream.  [ dream writing and Cichol dialogue belong to @bad-rper​ ]

[aaronpullinteeth]

[meangreenlee]

Particular Inquiries

[ between Lee and @killerkyara, my alt ]

Perhaps word had gotten out that amongst the frequent population of freehold’s privateers, men brash and hostile to outsiders -- for good reason, one could argue, considering how many arrived only looking to ignorantly climb their way through the ranks and make some quick gold -- was a man called Lee, hard to find, usually in the back corner of bars and alleyways enjoying a smoke, but significantly more open to those who had recently arrived in Kul’tiras.

Or perhaps, he thought, Kyara had simply lucked out in deciding to talk to him.

When he made out the approaching rogue in his peripherals, there was not a doubt in his mind that she must have wanted something, his conclusion soon affirmed as she pushed over a small sack of gold across the bartop toward him. She was a fierce looking woman, as he had noted during their last idle conversation, and he talked to her accordingly.

“Can I be helpin’ ye, Miss Grey?”

“I’ve got a very particular inquiry,” She says, in that foreign accent that made him curious. “What do you know about these mists? The kind that ships don’t often come in or out of, perhaps?”

Lofting his brows a moment, Lee gestures for the desert born to take a seat beside himself, at the far corner of the bar. Sliding the pouch of gold against his chest, it was only when he was sure their words were between them only that he starts talking.

“Lass, out ‘ere it can be hard to tell which instances truly be just the waters, and which be...More.” His lips twitch. “Wot ye describe, though...Have ye been hearin’ whispers bout the missin’ Kul’tian fleet? How it wos hidden by twisted dark magic an’ corrupted sages in the mists? Don’ know where in particular yer talking about, but lass, wouldn’ mess with it if I wos ye. Jus’ wouldn’.”

“Sages...” Kyara starts after a moment of thought. “Like shaman, you mean?”

“Nay lass.” He shakes his head. “Tidesages be a beatin’ ‘eart to us. They bend the sea to give our ships calm water and speed. The way ye folk be believin’ in the light, ain’t that right? We believe in the tides. And sages, they’s can see everything we be needin’ to know in them.”

The scarred woman glances over toward him then, offering, “So it must be quite troubling to your people, that dark magic has touched some of these sages?”

Lee offers a quick nod. “Even more so than the threat of the horde, I would say,” he admits. “Knowing somethin’ evil is hidin’ in the deepest reaches below yer ship, even some of us here be weary to go far from port.”

Certainly explained why a larger force wasn’t sent out by the locals to this island of their interest, she thought, despite it’s importance for it’s watchtower to detect for hostile ships on the horizon. 

“Let’s say, if it’s necessary to know the source of these mists...Is there any safe way to get through?”

“Not by water,” He says immediately, mirroring what she had heard from the man who’d given them the job the night before. “By air, maybe, but it’ll be much easier to be dropped off then it will to be picked up again. If yer sure about this, lass, you better ‘ave a backup plan to get out of there. When ships ‘ave already been lost, I wouldn’ count on bein’ rescued.”

She nods, then more fully tips her head to him. “My thanks, then. You know, my comrades could certainly use someone who knows this area as well as you do, if you were ever looking for more permanent work.”

Chuckling lowly to her, Lee muses around his joint, “I’s just a sailor, lass. ‘Ave a feelin’ yer folk be doin’ much more than tha’, but should ye ever need knowledge or strong ‘ands, I ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

[ @blackbay-wra ] relevant: @quai-mason, @brian-wellson, @ephriza-dawnblade, @mycoronervinny

[wildco]

Everything turns into poetry, When you are in love.

The days will be long, more painful than the “long day” at work. The nights will become short. You will secretly pray that she must stay a little longer. Her hair will play the dances. You will see the cosmos through her eye. She will become everything you could think about.

You will notice the smallest acne in your ignorant face. You will forget things. You will notice good in everything. You will relate to every song. You will forget the past leaving them in dust. You will dream with your eye wide open. Your ex will be in void. Your dad will be sweet. Your cringe worthy people won’t bother you anymore. Your home will never feel the same. Your tolerance for your colleague would have gone high. Your mouth will go dry. You will feel you have found someone you have always searched. Mate, you are falling in love. You will never be you. God damn it. Don’t stop. Don’t stop yet. Love her more.

There will be days to fight. Get over it together. Don’t hold your ego high. Your friends make fun of you in the worst possible ways. Everyone around you will stay for, say 15, 30 years. She’s going to be with you, your whole life. Don’t hold your ego high. Telling her a sorry, will not make you less of a man. Show her you are man enough by handling your life & problems thrown at you. Drench her in your love. Not just today, not tomorrow. Drench her in your love through all life.

Insecure?? She’s yours, forever. You are her man, remember. Break her free from the insecurities, her scars, sadness, lucid dreams, and everything that haunts her. Hand her the freedom she deserves.

Maximum effort duck face. Maximum effort. Show her she’s worth more than the effort you put on your work for appraisals & promotions. Show her she’s worth your effort more than your final exams. To the moon and back? Fuck you, buddy. Love her to the edges of universes and back. Love her everyday like no tomorrow.

[knitted-thoughts]

And I think to myself what a shame it all is.

How you let flesh in but people you love(d) become ghosts.