I start my internship tomorrow! I’ve not been writing much as I get settled in Paris, but here is a little snip I wrote yesterday set in my rule 63 intrigue shadowghast fic, a spy in the house of love !
“That’s you finished, Lady Thelyss,” the healer says. “Esteemed visitors-” this aimed towards Zahra and Bren “Allow me to go and get the potions you inquired after. Excuse me.”
She bows out, and before Essek can bend over to put her slipper back on, the stranger drops to a knee and slips it on for her, lacing it up carefully.
“You’re not careful enough, honestly. Such a squishy wizard.”
Essek’s face goes blank, and she responds by kicking her square in the chest with her newly healed and shod foot, sending her sprawling. The woman’s eyes go wide and watery, and she opens her mouth in protest.
“Hey!” she yells, and hauls herself up. “That hurt! Look, you hurt my finger.” Indeed, she raises a hand, and there is a slight abrasion on the skin of her finger from being pushed against the stone floor.
“Grow up, Vechke,” Essek says.
Vechke, apparently, pouts, eyes still bambi-large, and she extends her finger to Essek. “Kiss it better.”
Bren prepares herself for the sight of Essek blasting this woman into the wall, already smug in anticipation, and then finds her jaw dropping when Essek rolls her eyes and tenderly takes the hand in hers, presses the smallest kiss to that scraped digit.
@wanderingbasilisk said: no idea if youre still doing this 😂 your ask box is closed. (If youre not, feel free to ignore!) But im curious about what wildemount 68 is? (Is that a reference to smthing? No idea 😂) Also cant not ask about this single dad essek? ??
Hi, first of all, I’m a moron and I’m fixing this as we speak! ^^;
So, a brief topos of both these AUs, and then I’ll post snips under read-more :)
a) Wildemount 68 is a deeply self-indulgent AU set in a pseudo-20th century Wildemount based on the student revolts of 1968 in France and Germany. (I am French) I think that it’s a really fitting setting both for the quasi- Cold War setting of the Empire and Dynasty after the end of the war (racing for technologies, etc) and because I think that Caleb as a character really fits into the attitude of what is called the Long March to the Institutions, where a subsect of the 1968 student revolutionnaries decided to move into a path of reform and enter positions of government, etc. (Most of those politicians became less and less radical as time went on. There’s a good German teen film called Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei! which deals with this.) I also just think that I want to see the M9 chainsmoking in a Parisian café or lecture hall as they plan their revolt. (In this au, also, Fjord is a theatre major.)
b) Single Dad Essek Au is born out of my urge to always give uppity fictional men a baby to slobber on them and knock them down a peg. In this AU (and in all of my fics, actually) there is a character called Cousin Misphi, who is Essek’s cousin and is on her second lifetime and is overall a bad, but down to earth, influence on him in formative years. In SDEAU, she dies during the first skirmishes of the war - and because Essek traded away the Rosohna beacons, the one nearest the Ashguard Garrison was moved to Rosohna, and Misphi won’t be reconsecuted. Essek, experiencing Guilt and The Consequences of His Actions much earlier than in canon, takes the first step of repentence by taking in her 3yo tiefling daughter, Sokoya (his second cousin, for those following at home). This will tint his interactions with the Nein and change the way that things develop during the Rosohna arc. (This will also make him less suspicious, because the Dynasty sees him harried and stressed and not sleeping and go “ah, yes, the terrible threes”.)
Snippets now!
a)
“Ach, scheisse, I’m running out,” Caleb says, pulling his last cigarette from the case and tapping it against the table. “Does anyone have rolling papers?”
“I’ve got you,” Veth said immediately, digging through her purse. “Do you have tobacco? How are you on money?”
“I’m fine, maman,” he smiles, not rolling his eyes only out of affection.
“Don’t you maman me, I’ve had my tongue in your mouth,” she scolds.
“Come here, Caleb,” Jester interrupts, and Caleb leans in to press his unlit cigarette to the burning cherry of hers, breathes in deep. He has not kissed Jester Lavorre in any way that matters, but this will have to suffice him. He leans back and blows a smoke ring.
“Very cool, dipshit.” Beauregard drops into a chair next to him. “Are we actually here to talk about plans, or is this just going to devolve into an orgy? Because there’s only so many times we can be libertines ‘ironically’.”
“I’m preparing web of fire and catapult tomorrow,” Caleb says.
“I still think we should use fluffernutter,” Veth grumbles. Jester cheers.
“You are all so intense,” Fjord despairs. “What’s wrong with just throwing a rock, or a bottle? By Melora.”
“She’ll be there, don’t worry,” Caduceus says over his cup of tea. “I’m already anticipating that this will go terribly wrong.”
“Maybe it will only go somewhat wrong? Does that make you feel better?”
“That does not, Yasha, but thank you.”
b) Sokoya is a stubborn child - “You were much worse,” says the Umavi, fondly - who loves to chatter, even if little of what she says is coherent. At least thirty percent of Essek’s day, court notwithstanding, is spent nodding and making affirmative noises, saying “No, indeed?” and “Quite” whenever she pauses in her stories. She rarely forgives the moments when he leaves to answer Sendings, both the mundane and the confidential, and will chase after him to smack at his ankles and knees. “I wasn’t done,” she will whine, and Essek will be struggling not to lash out in agony.
It takes a few months for her to learn that no, we don’t hit Cousin Esse in the legs, that isn’t acceptable behaviour because he is injured and it hurts.
“How would you like it if I did this?” Essek asks, and rubs his knuckles into the top of her head roughly, and she shrieks, trying to bite at his forearm with her fangs, which are still baby-sharp.
“Ow! Ouchie!” she yells.
“Yes, ouchie,” Essek says sternly. “We don’t hit people. Not only is it painful and rude, it’s also tacky. We’re not middle class. We are a ruling den, and we act like it.”
Sokoya lashes her tail back and forth, short as it is, and then toddles over to press a kiss against Essek’s shin.
“Better?” she asks, and he can’t help but laugh.
“I’m not sure what clerical discovery you’ve just made,” Essek says, and picks her up to great cheering. “But it was truly innovative. Groundbreaking stuff. Are you sure you didn’t cast cure wounds?”
“Cured,” she repeats smugly. “Kiss it better and it’s cured.”
“That doesn’t work for anything else, so we’re clear,” Essek says. “If you hurt yourself, come find me or get help.”
“Cured,” she insists, and Essek sighs.
“Let’s call this one a learning experience and move on, shall we?”
For the wip game: Having read the drafts you posted for Killing Virgins, I am very curious about the ‘we need to talk about Leylas’ and ‘world’s worst meeting’ fics.
a) "world's worst meeting" is the meeting scene from killing virgins draft 1, that i'm reworking to fit into the larger bhh canon (the bhhanon, or perhaps the bhhcu, if you will) and it hasn't grown much since it was posted there, so i'll just give you a long snip for leylas!
b) we need to talk about leylas is about deirta, abrianna, quana and probably some OCs as well preparing to oust leylas kryn after she lost it from too much reincarnation soup. yes i know the comic is coming out yes i know that's not what happens but i've had this idea for months and you can pry it from my cold dead hands
Abrianna Mirimm’s fingers are gnarled and clawed, weighed down by the ancientness of her bones for all that she is not even a century old, in this life. When she pushes needle and thread through tapestry, the movements are slow and telegraphed, each gesture exactly what is needed. Deirta appreciates it more than she can say - her own stitches are smooth and fluid, never stopping, a river bubbling through a forest and singing all the way.
“To think that there are still things you can teach me,” she says with a smile.
Abrianna cackles with no teeth. Her humour, too, is new to this goblinoid lifetime of hers.
Deirta remembers when they first met - the brusque smuggler who never smiled, who transported cargo and refugees alike through the labyrinthine tunnels of the Spider Pits without fear. She had been terribly intimidated, then, still clad in her spidersilk raiments.
And to think that here they sit, two biddies spinning the fate of a civilisation between their fingers, elven and goblin hands moving in time. The loss of spider imagery is logical, given who they are, but this aspect - the spinning, the industry - is something that the Luxon, alas, lacks. Oh, they make up for it with potentiality, rebirth, the cycle of perfection, but there is something about hands and textiles that touches Deirta deeply.
“It’s been some time since we spun together, Dee,” says the Skysibil, and Deirta nods, fingers ever moving.
“Longer still since we sat we three, no?”
The gap between them where Leylas Kryn should sit looms empty.
“Something will have to be done about that one,” the Skysibil breathes, mournful.
theknittingjedi’s latest fic (which i reblogged yesterday and you should all ABSOLUTELY go read!!! go!!! now!!!) lit a fire under my ass to return to shadowghast and i wrote a little bit more of bhh4, which i now bestow upon thee
who knows if this makes it to the final cut or of it’s banished to a conversation between fashion and death, never 2 be read except for maybe like three people!!! not me!!! either way shoutout 2 jess ily
have a little snip of my rule!63 shadowghast fic, a spy in the house of love
for the anecdote, i wrote this while exceedingly drunk at the jazz bar with my mom, and the editing process so far has been... rough.
preview:
"Let me," Bren pleads meaninglessly, and once again in Undercommon, "Let me."
"Am I not letting you?" Essek retorts, flushed dark indigo and her hair perfectly mussed. It suits her so much more than the plaits ever did, and Bren tells her so with a nipping kiss.
"Let me," Bren pleads meaninglessly, and once again in Undercommon, "Let me."
"Am I not letting you?" Essek retorts, flushed dark indigo and her hair perfectly mussed. It suits her so much more than the plaits ever did, and Bren tells her so with a nipping kiss. Essek turns her head away, sulky, but she wraps her arms around Bren all the same, long fingers toying with the soft baby hairs at the nape of Bren's neck, under the loose coil of her chignon.
Bren thrills at it, and lets her hand trail down the side of Essek's neck, tugging her collar down as she goes - the damage she could do, she thinks, pressing a kiss to her pulse point and feeling it rabbit-quick beneath the scrape of her front teeth, she could slit that slender throat and have Essek bleeding out before she could cast a single spell, could do a thing to stop her. Instead, Essek tilts her head with a whine to give Bren better access, and Bren indulges her, sucking a dark violet mark into that fair skin, unscarred and untouched, sensitive after a lifetime of going covered by high-necked robes. Essek shivers and gasps and Bren chuckles as her hand trails lower and lower, teasing over a protruding collarbone to paw at her breast through her blouse.
It feels like a victory, for every time that she felt her gaze drawn south when Essek was out of her mantle, had to forcibly drag her eyes back to a pair of disapproving pink irises that would glare frostily at first - a glare which over time melted into exasperation, and then acceptance, fondness, and finally a burning heat of their own.
That rosy gaze is searing now, a brand on Bren's skin as she fondles Essek through her robes, the other hand stroking against a dusky violet cheek as she presses kiss after open kiss to Essek's mouth, chin, throat, uncaring of the slick, shiny traces she leaves.
Bren tugs Essek’s shirt collar down lower. She’s of the opinion that too many hickeys make one seem like a possessive nineteen-year-old virgin, but that description isn’t necessarily too far off when it comes to Thelyss. She smothers a laugh at that and nips at the newly-exposed skin again, and pulls away to un-tie the ridiculously loose ribbon holding the front of Essek’s robe shut and help her out of it. Essek blinks hazily and attempts to help, but her hands come up fast to grasp at Bren’s wrists when she goes to untuck Essek’s shirtwaist from the top of her skirt.
“Enough,” she gasps, swallowing roughly. “Enough.”
have a little snip of our girls! from a far future chapter
Beau doesn’t know who moves first.
Yasha surges up from her seat at the bench, Beau crashes forwards to hold her close, and they’re kissing. Yasha grasps her waist with her broad, warm palms. Beau keeps her fist clenched tight, brings her other hand up to grab a broad shoulder, and loses herself in the kiss.
By all rights, it shouldn’t be good - besides the blood and uncertainty between them, Yasha’s lips are cracked and dry, and Beau is flustered by their height difference and doesn’t know how to take charge while being the shorter woman. But it’s perfect somehow, Yasha melting against her as her lips part. How fucking fitting that they’re in the Fade, because this has to be a dream.
I recently (last night) scrapped my entire draft for and to thy glory 3 (when I decide what stays and what goes, and post the new one, I’ll update convof&d) and wrote this in a fevered state at 1am after my shift, and I’m very pleased with it - it’s a completely different air and tone than what I wrote originally. Looking at all my missed drafts for bhh3 reminded me what I want from the series, I think, and reminded me that nobody wants wilted flower Essek, least of all me, who finds it very boring to write.
This is NSFW, my beloveds.I’d rank it an M, personally.
What Essek mourns the most, more than his peace of mind and delusions of safety and a long life, is the innocence of his fantasies. He used to daydream about clasping hands and gazing into Caleb’s eyes, of taking him out to concerts and restaurants and cocktail bars (remember, this was before Essek liked wine). He would think longingly of sneaking Caleb into the Marble Tomes and watching his face light up with glee.
Essek finds that most of those fantasies fall flat now, soured by the realisation that he is not as in the clear as he’d hoped. The time for dinner parties and study dates has passed, although apparently messy drunken handjobs are in.
He was never one for masturbation, finding the exercise unpleasant and base, primly thinking himself above his peers who surrendered to their animal instincts. Just goes to show that you can always fall lower. Since the night with Caleb, Essek finds that when his thoughts turn to the other wizard, if they aren’t outraged, they’re outrageous; he will sit at his desk and think wistfully of an experiment in his laboratory that swiftly descends into an experiment of another kind.
Time and again Essek will picture it perfectly: Caleb pushing him against a wall, or Essek dropping into his lap with his aching knees cushioned just so, or the two of them tumbling into bed. Even when the gestures are familiar to that shared night, hands on cocks and sloppy kissing, the context will be inherently foreign. Essek summons the spectre of Caleb leaned over him in worship, hands roaming with reverence, dropping kisses wherever his mouth reaches and grinning boyishly where his mouth does not. In the theatre of his mind, Caleb wears his soft purple Rosohna-fashion jacket, or sleeping clothes, or nothing at all; Caleb calls him sweetheart with fondness instead of whatever facsimile he spoke on Essek’s stripped mattress.
Time and again Essek will let his cock swell and take it in hand with a beleaguered sigh, biting his lip as heated blood wars between rushing to his cheeks or somewhere further south. Often, he disallows himself climax, and releases his fevered skin just as it gets good, not out of any masochistic feeling, but one of self-reservation. The times that he does tumble off that cliff are uniformly bad, the ecstasy of finishing overwhelming, leaving his bones hurting and his head throbbing and his teeth buzzing as nausea churns in his belly. He sits in his own filth afterwards, distant from himself and drowning in the unpleasant feeling of being normal, and toys with the dream of it being good for once. He had hoped that Caleb would embrace him after, would hold him and whisper sweet nothings. Maybe it would not be so harrowing, were he to have a beautiful crooked nose brushing against his in a butterfly kiss, were he to have a sweet crooked smile pressing pecks to his cheekbones and blocky-square fingers tracing across his waist.
Or maybe Essek is cursed to never have a good orgasm, ever, in his entire life. That feels like it might be fitting, somehow; some curse for his apostasy and atheism, perhaps.
