Jan 19
“… Good ‘den, young fellow. Might thou be lost?”
little g/t species/world I’ve been cooking up..
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“… Good ‘den, young fellow. Might thou be lost?”
little g/t species/world I’ve been cooking up..
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Adora/Glimmer (She-Ra) Characters: Adora (She-Ra), Glimmer (She-Ra) Additional Tags: Modern AU, you guys like it when i post insanely specific in-joke fics so here you go, youtuber adora Summary:
While bored during quarantine, Adora starts a YouTube channel. She dabbles in a few different things, before something finally resonates with her viewers—making really disgusting food.
Footpaths, Parallel ( 948 words)
(NEXT)
You thought it was the wind, when you heard it at first. Until the vast, incomprehensible swirling of air, shaking every leaf to shush against each other solidified into a pattern. You listen as you walk down a narrow sandy path in these vast woods. For short stretches of time you shut your eyes, so at peace are you with the sun laying a beam across your nose, the sound of the shushing leaves and the birds’ conversation. You listen to the pattern, growing stronger, so consistent and strange. What could it be, you wonder, pausing to move a caterpillar off the pathway. A nearby industrial project? The distant dregs of a drumbeat? A thunderhead booming an even staccato? It sounds like none and all of these things.
You have walked these woods many times, though it has been years since you've been back. Still, you know it well, and you are unafraid of the staccato- whatever it may be.
You are unafraid, in your woods, walking down your path. Until the pattern is growing louder, or maybe closer, and something in the back of your head kicks up, sending nauseous chills down your shoulders. The sound pulls away from the din of the forest, now louder than the shushing and the birds. A distant drum, thunder, the din of construction all coalesce into a noise completely familiar, alien only in that it is amplified to a horrible degree.
Footsteps.
g/t july day 25: overgrown
cw: vomiting, fear, death mention
[read on ao3]
[size shifter identity reveal... -_0]
Arlo wishes he had picked anything but camping. A road trip, a casino, a water park, anything with doctors. Or service, he'd settle for service. He rubs a hand over his friend's back, muttering platitudes even he isn't listening to. Kalind, propped up on one shaky elbow, leans over the side of the cot and retches painfully into a garbage bag already stinking of bile. He heaves a few more times until he collapses into coughs, his elbow giving out beneath him. Arlo is quick to catch him, pulling him until he is laying on his back again. He should have known that something like this would happen eventually, he's been nagging his friend to see a doctor about his declining health since Junior year. Arlo trembles with the need to do something, but Kalind will not let him leave. The screaming and the begging not to call for help stops him every time. It would take him an hour just to get to the car, and then he’d have to find service to call someone. How far would he have to go? To the closest town? Would Kalind even be here when he got back?
“Here, drink some water,” Arlo mutters, holding a plastic bottle to his friend's mouth. “You're alright.”
Kalind's flailing hand wraps around Arlo’s wrist, yanking him closer, spilling water down the hollow of Kalind's throat. He doesn't seem to notice, fixing Arlo with a look not bright with fever, but terror.
“You have to get out of here,” He rasps, the hand not clinging to Arlo's wrist scrabbling at the cot, his eyes frightening in their wildness. “Run, get-”
“What?” Arlo worries, trying to push his friend back down onto the cot. “Kalind, everything is okay, it's fine, I'm-.”
“No, please, God, God. Leave. Arlo, leave.” Kalind lets himself be pushed, but his eyes are still burning wildfires, his hands are still scrabbling at the cot, at Arlo, like he can't control them. Arlo leans over him, grabbing his face, bringing it close to his own.
“Everything is-”
Kalind screams like an explosion, and nothing makes sense. He knows movement, a creaking, shifting sound he's never heard before getting louder, the tent is filling with skin and body heat and rich colored fabric. Agonized groans are getting louder and deeper, whines of pain cutting through the chaos. The cot collapses into useless metal shards, sending Arlo tumbling backward onto the floor of the tent, which is rapidly disappearing under a growing body. He stands to run, but by the time he does enormous limbs and curled spine block every side, he can't even try to cut his way out. He tries, he has to try, to slip by them, to free himself before he is crushed under an errant limb. He doesn't make it two steps before hands as large as his torso wrap around his ribs and pull him hard to a beating chest, pressing over him inescapably. It's all Arlo can do to go limp and wait for the shifting, creaking sound of expansion to cease. The pounding in the chest he's pressed to is rising in volume, deepening in base until it thunders through his whole body like a war drum. The heat of blood surrounds him, the growing hands large enough now to cup like a shell around him.
When Arlo feels about the size of a large mouse, the expansion slows, then stops. The chest’s shallow, unsteady breathing evens into labored, but steady breath. The heart slows.
Arlo lays, eyes open, staring at nothing. He cannot bring himself to move.
Is it over? What happened? Where is Kalind?
The body moves, a massive, echoing breath hitches. The heart speeds up again, until it's faster than before. A sound buzzes the wall of flesh, a cough, jarring his whole body, petering off into an agonized, whining cry, loud like a landslide, but Arlo can't move his arms to cover his ears. The hands, just one of them bigger than his whole body, close around him tighter, until there's room for him and nothing else, and then they start to shake.
Then, a whisper, loud and echoing above him.
“Arlo?”
Vivarium
Trapped.
Like some animal.
A dirty thing, undivine. Unconnected to anything.
The fake world spreads out under his feet, soft white sand pure of dirt or broken shells, shining, hollow plants that form a spotty, unnatural canopy. And the walls. Four glass walls on every side of him, flat, impenetrable panes that look out onto the human’s endless “living room”. It's empty. The humans that had put him in this glass box are gone, but that's a cold comfort. Where did they go? What are they doing? What are they going to do to him? Milo cannot hold himself up any longer, not without anyone watching, and collapses to sit upon the unnatural sand.
God, his breathing. He needs to… stop doing that. Milo clutches his head, hot and heavy in his hands, and sucks in deep, strained breaths that whistle through his throat and hollow chest. It doesn't help him, but the black spots popping in front of his eyes fade.
Trapped. Didn't you say you'd never let it happen to you?
Milo snarls sharply against the voice that needles his mind.
“Shut up fucker,” He groans, curling his body to better hold his aching head. They'll be back, the humans. Jac, who Milo thought he had a handle on- who he thought he had a handle on, God dammit, he will be back and he'll bring his friend. The one with the bag that strained under the weight of her shiny-black machines. The one who was listening for his voices and his tricks. The one who found him while he was distracted, stupidly distracted you never let your guard down when you're out here nevernever- she was not as slow as Jac, and she was far more discerning.
Whatever they'd expected to find in the walls, it wasn't Milo.
This is what they wanted for you. The voice insists, prodding with sharp claws into his thoughts. They knew your fate when they threw you out-
“Stop.” Milo hisses.
They knew that you are too stupid and weak and impatient to survive. They knew you'd be caught, loudmouth sleepless wreck-
“I'm better than those lifeless, joyless old sprites.”
Better to become someone's pet?
Milo’s stomach lurches, his jaw flexing. The words fill up his mind, crowd out all other thoughts with it's dark weight. He swallows back bile and stands to lurch along the edges of the glass box, stumbling over the chalky sand, running his desperate fingers along the impossible walls, looking for a gap, a crack, something he can widen and slip through. The four walls are perfect, solid planes of evenly thick glass, too smooth to scale, without so much as a scratch or dent on one. The bent corners are welded as if by fire, melted into one piece without a gap big enough for Milo's fingers to slip through. It seems made to hold him. Or things like him
Little pets.
Panic burns like white fire over him. He can't be trapped. Not him. Him.
Stars, please. What can he do? Once, he could have flown up to the mesh metal grate over him and lifted it off. Once, he could have blown this box into shattered pieces of molten crystal. Once, he could have needled his way into Jac's mind and made him lock himself in a glass box!
That was taken from him with his wings. With everything else. He's beyond helpless now.
Beyond worthless. You can't even help yourself.
He can't make any plans, he doesn't know what's going to happen. What do they want? They'll be able to make money off of him, he knows it. Or maybe they'll just kill him.
Milo grits his sharp teeth against the thought. He will not be dying to any hands but his own, he won't be their pet. He has to do something. He has to be able to do something. He can trick them, offer them a deal and double cross them somehow, but he has no time. He senses vibrations, below his hearing, rumbling deep within his inner ear. He can hear their gargantuan bodies shifting outside the towering door. Milo swallows, taking his fishing hook in hand, steadied slightly by the meagre protection it provides.
Whatever happens, he will remain himself.
Footpaths (6)
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (Ao3)
[CW. blood grossness, non-consensual drug use]
The hands around you jerk in what feels like surprise, squeezing around you and forcing out a yelp of pain that you're sure goes unheard past your own ears.
“Anita!” The giant holding you exclaims. Their voice is high and nervous, no longer whispering. “I- I didn't think you'd be coming! I figured you were busy with the fundraising project…”
“I was,” the new giant’s voice says darkly. Outside, everything has stilled, but you cannot stop your heart from pounding like a terrified war drum, sending blood cascading, hot and slick, over your lips and chin, dripping down your neck. “Put them down, now.”
“Anita, wait, I can't, they’re injured-”
“Let me see.” The voice strides closer, and the hands open to reveal you- like a child with an insect. When you manage to blink the sun out of your eyes, you see another, far larger set of eyes staring back at you, dark and shining like tinted glass. You can only try to press yourself further down into the hands, though there's nothing you can do to escape from this new giant's view. Their eyes widen as they take you in. Surely you can't look all too impressive, shaking like a leaf with your face covered in blood. Someone, another giant that you hadn't yet seen, gasps in a sharp lash of wind, branches breaking far below as a massive, unseen figure steps forward, blocked from your view by massive cupped hands.
“Oh no, what happened to them?”
“Is it bad?” Caelum’s hands seem to cup around you tighter, pulling you closer to a massive, beating chest.
“Did you squeeze them around their middle when you grabbed them? If it's an internal-”
“Rafael. Give us a moment, alright? Caelum, sit down. Carefully.”
A hand, one that could be considered delicate only in comparison to the ones you're in now, reaches so slowly over your head and grabs Caelum's wrist. With force that could surely level entire buildings, she draws the giant to down to sit on the forest floor. Caelum's hands, and by you, by extension, dip below the canopy, pass through the cool, wet leaves and back into the shaded greenery of the woods. Your woods. You can see a glimpse of your cabin, your garden, for just a flash before it is again hidden behind a wall of skin. The giants are sitting now, in a lopsided circle around you, all three staring down at you with dark, focused expressions. You peek over the ridge of Caelum's index finger, seeing that you are now only about 20 feet off the ground. Still not something you'd be willing to jump, but you'd only have a few broken bones if you fell. Joy.
“Hello human,” The apparent leader, Anita, whispers to you. “We mean you no harm.”
You say nothing, but you feel something in your blank expression twitch.
“Truly, we don't. I know it may not seem that way, and I am deeply sorry that I was unable to prevent my associate Caelum from injuring you.”
“The other humans were going to kill them-”
“Caelum. Anything that we need to discuss can be discussed back at my office. And for fate’s sake keep your voice down. We clear?”
“Yes ma'am.”
footpaths 10
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) (8) (9) (Ao3)
When you were a child, living with your family in a house that no longer exists, you found a mouse living in your pantry. It was young- grey and soft, the size of your palm; holding it was like holding a puff of smoke. Your mother said that your choices were to kill it or take it far away where it couldn't ruin your stores, but you had begged her to let you keep it. She had obliged, though that seems strange to you now. She was so unyielding on so many things, but she caved for that mouse. You kept it in a wire cage and fed it dried corn and grains and bugs and you named it a childish name. You kept it until it got sick and stopped moving, until your eldest sister walked you out into the woods and told you that everything has to die. She told you that if something dies on the inside it dies on the outside too.
You didn't understand her until long after the mouse was buried. You never knew what exactly killed, just that it died because of you.
You think about that mouse while you sit against a padded wall; you think about the brisk forest walk when you’d conversed with your sister, and the funeral with the little glass jar to bury Stormy in.
“Whenever you're ready.”
The ambassador had said to you. Whenever you're ready you can press a black button set into the wall and begin the checkup. A medical one; which you've had in the past once or twice- with other humans, of course, with people you had known. What does medicine entail for giants, you wonder. A human doctor can do nothing for a mouse. You lean your temple against the wall and shut your eyes; you hold the image of Stormy in your mind, alive, a breathing body nestled in your hand. Safe, for now. It is a cold comfort, it always is.
It's been many hours since Beech had left and the clear frame had reverted to black glass. No one else- human nor giant, has come to bother you since. The drugs have left your system by now, your head is clear enough to run circles around itself, tripping over thought and memory. If Stormy had escaped you, he might have lived. Yes, he might have been torn apart by hawks or foxes the moment he left your sight, but he would not have twitched until he stopped moving in a wire cage.
You wish that Stormy had escaped you; you’ve wished it since you found him curled stiffly into himself.
Before you can think about it any longer, you slam your fist onto the button. It makes no sound. No giant footsteps shake the ground. When you look up at the black glass there is a clear panel and a dark human shape behind it.
“I’m ready to see Rafael.” Your voice doesn’t sound like yours when it echoes back to you. Beech inclines his head, and steps into the room, the glass having vanished as if it were never there.
“It’s good to see ya feelin’ better,” Beech says with a white smile. “I’ll keep Raf on track, make sure the checkup’s quick.”
You ignore his inane attempts at communication, letting out an even, shuddering breath as the man moves closer.
“How are we getting to the medic?” You ask.
“He’s comin’ to us.” A warm hand encircles your wrist and holds fast when you try to jerk away, your neck and shoulders burning at the sudden movement. You turn, snarling, to scratch and beat at Beech’s arms and chest- and freeze when the wall across from you jerks with an alien hiss and starts to split down the center. You redouble your efforts to get away from the man, ignoring the pain as the wall folds into itself, you wrench your arm back, kick his shins hard enough to leave bruises, but he doesn’t let go. By the time the wall disappears into itself with a stony thud your body aches and you are still held close to the side of a stranger. You squeeze your eyes shut and turn your face towards the ground, all too aware of massive predatory eyes locked onto you.
“…hello.”
g/t july 26: survival
cw: animal death/gore/blood
[read on Ao3]
The giant, the one who had been so still that it may have been mistaken for a part of the mountain it sits against, lashes out suddenly. A hand that must be six feet wide strikes out into the dark woods, and tears back with a screaming animal caught in its grip. The stag bellows, it thrashes its wild head where it juts through the gap between the giant’s thumb and forefinger. Then, with a merciful, terrible snap- one ineffable, humongous motion, the deer’s wild head falls into the shadow of the giant's closed hand, its terrified baying silenced forever. Dead before it knew what had grabbed it.
Arlo cannot tear his eyes away from the deer’s dead face, the eyes that had rolled with so much terror, its red mouth hanging open. It would barely take anything for the giant to do the same thing to him.
“Arlo?” A soft voice whispers, so high above it might be a night breeze. Arlo swivels to meet the giant’s eyes, his tearful eyes, spilling what must be gallons of water down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, I'm sorry, God, I tried to make it quick. Please don't be scared-.”
Shame crashes down on Arlo, buzzing down his limbs in restless energy until he is balancing himself on the trunk of the tree he'd stashed himself in, standing up to be just a bit closer to his friend. “Don't be sorry Kalind, don't be sorry,” Arlo raises his voice for his friend to hear, hating the pained, guilty expression twisting his face. “We’ve gotta do it. I asked you to do it. And- and we eat meat from stores, this is not really… much worse?”
Kalind’s wide tearful eyes fall from Arlo, back onto the deer, dead in his open hand, its wild head thrown back like a TV cadaver.
“I guess,” His voice rumbles through the dark canopy. “I guess.”