The "Lavender and Sage" post got me thinking... what if one loses a friend that one genuinely believes is a true friend, but they are not? Y'know, someone who is, wholly unbeknownst to their victim, manipulating them for some sort of personal gain? (After all, not only the Good Neighbors can be cunning and cruel to naive souls for the sake of selfish purposes.) If one seeks aid in finding such a friend-who-is-not-a-friend... what aid is that person given, if any?
Original post!
I think it’s likely that, unless whoever you ask for help is either involved in the situation already or has a vested interest in your wellbeing, then the answer is probably ‘just enough rope to hang yourself’. Why you have come to them doesn’t necessarily matter, although the kinder ones may try to offer a word of warning (while still going ahead with the deal, of course. Business is business).
Rating: Teen
Relationship: Female Lich x MTF Trans Reader
Additional Tags: Reader Insert, Exophilia
Content Warnings: MTF Trans, Pre-HRT, Dysphoria
Words: 1536
I got a request from @chaoswolf1982 for a fem trans reader and a Lich lady, and managed to knock it out in a few hours! This was a fun one, since the Elsabet is from the 1600s and speaks all fancy, and I haven’t done a MTF trans woman before now, so that was a new experience, too! Please enjoy!
I accept requests, but they are limited to 1500 words. Anything more than that, and I’m afraid I’ll have to charge.
The day it happened was actually your first day on the demolition site. It was a shame; this crumbling ruin must have been glorious when it was first built. You could see the structure of the fallen parapets and towers in your mind’s eye. There weren’t many real castles in your country, and even though it was the job you’d been given, you thought it a pity to get rid of it.
The other construction guys had been looking at you sideways all day. You hadn’t started hormone replacement therapy or undergone any surgeries yet, so even though you’d grown your hair out and despite wearing black jeans with flower embroidery and a feminine-cut button-up shirt with thin, pink pinstripes and a half sleeve, you still had a five o’clock shadow and a tell-tall adam’s apple. You knew you didn’t quite pass yet, but you didn’t care. You’d spent too much of your life hiding yourself and you just plain refused to do it anymore.
At least they had enough consideration to hold their tongues while you were in earshot. Not that it mattered, of course; you were the only explosives expert within a hundred miles that they could hire, so what they thought about you and your life choices didn’t make a difference either way.
“Okay, so, that tower that’s leaning,” You said to the tear-down team. “It doesn’t need explosives. If you take out those three support stones underneath it, it’ll come down pretty quick. The main hall is the one thing I’d say we’d need to rig up, but we’ll work inward toward it and leave it for last.”
“Okay, boys,” the team leader said. “You heard the…” He paused, side-glancing at you. “Start on that tower. I want to have at least half of it cleared out by dark.”
You shook off your annoyance and started mapping out the plans for the main hall. You heard distantly the sound of the supports being smashed away, looking up to make sure the men got out of the way before returning to your measurements.
Then a blood-curdling screech shattered the atmosphere around you. You stood up straight and saw the men scattering, yelling and cursing.
“What the hell is that?” You asked the men as they ran past you like rabbits from a fox. They all jumped into their trucks to flee.
“Wait!” You called, but they were gone, kicking up dust as they sped off. “It was probably just a coyote, you fucking cowards!” You shook your head and growled at them, as they left you here. You reached into your own truck and pulled out your high-impact airsoft rifle. You weren’t really a fan of guns, but you worked in the country a lot and predators were a common problem, so at the very least, a non-lethal deterrent was necessary.
You approached the fallen tower with your rifle up and ready, whistling loudly.
“Alright, whatever is in there needs to fuck off! I have a job to do here,” You said loudly, your voice echoing off the stones. You grimaced at the sound of it. You didn’t have a lot of body dysphoria, but your voice was one thing about yourself that really bothered you. You didn’t know how to make it sound more feminine without feeling like you were pretending.
You didn’t see any movement inside the main structure, so you called out again. “I’m serious! Get out of here!” You even cracked a BB off of the nearest rotting wooden window pane in warning, which you assumed once had glass.
To your immense surprised, a largish rock came sailing out of the darkness in your direction, and you ducked with enough time to avoid getting brained.
“Begone!” A voice inside said. It was a rasping, crackling voice, as if whoever it belonged to hadn’t used it’s own voice in quite some time. “Let this accursed woman rest! I have paid your infernal tax well into the next decade! Get thee hence and vex me no more!”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” you said, lowering your rifle but stepping tentatively into the main hall. It was still pretty solidly standing. “This place has been scheduled for demolition. You can’t stay here.”
Another stone was lobbed at you, and you dodged it.
“Dost thou intend to eject a lady from her own dwelling? Bought and paid, I have! This land and all that exist within is my own! I shall not suffer thee! Darken my doorstep no further.”
“Ma’am, please,” You said. “This property is owned by the state. They’ve plans to turn it into a resort. You can’t stay. If I have to call someone to get you out of here, I will.”
“Threats?” You saw two pinpricks of light in the dark, moving around the room, and froze. “I should like to see thou maketh good on thy foolish promise. Come, then! Come and see that which you so blithely provoke.”
The person to whom the voice belonged stepped into the sunlight, and you immediately pulled your gun up again.
It was… a corpse. A walking, talking corpse made of tanned leather skin stretched over a skeleton with no muscle or organs beneath. It’s lips were drawn tightly back, leaving it’s long teeth exposed. The lights you had seen were coming from the sockets of its eyes, deep in the darkness of it’s skull. It was tall and wore a tattered, ill-fitting dress; old-fashioned, perhaps centuries old.
“Dost thou comprehend now?” It asked. “Dost thou see what it is you seeketh to expel from her own domicile?”
“What are you?” You asked in shock, your rifle forgotten in your hands.
“I am an undead thing, bound to this castle,” It said. It peered at you curiously. “What is thou?”
“I… I am a woman,” You replied, your heart skipping a beat. It was the first time you had ever said that sentence out loud.
The lights of it’s eyes dimmed, as if it was squinting. “Lookest ye not like a woman.”
“Neither do you,” You retorted, bristling.
You expected a barbed reply, but instead it said, “Thou dost not speaketh a falsehood,” It--she--sat on a moldering wooden chair. “This curse hast robbed me of much. My womanhood is but the smallest facet of the jewel that I once was.”
“How did this happen to you?” You asked, setting the rifle aside.
She waved a bony hand dismissively. “Money and power breedeth hostility. Any number of the vulgar rabble would revel in my misfortune. I am the last of my damned line. The curse hath fixed me so that no further children of my blood would be born, but that my house and name continue in death for eternity.”
She waved her skeletal hands at the remains of her castle. “All that you see is the remnants of my home and my prison. Eternally shalt I pay for the sins of my forebears, though no such sin did I commit.” She looked introspective, her angular shoulders hunched. “Perhaps, if thou dost breaketh down these walls, I shall crumble with it. Perhaps I, too, may fade.”
You knelt down. “How long have you been trapped here?”
“What is the year?” She asked, and you told her. She gasped softly in surprise. “Has it really been so long? I had grown melancholy that I thought to sleep for only a few years, just to pass the time. I have… severely miscalculated.”
You had the strange urge to reach out to her and take her hand, and you did. She looked at you in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” You said. “I can’t stop the demolition. It’s not up to me. You scared off this crew, but they’ll hire more.”
She shook her head, the wisps of hair still left on her scalp floated around her ears like dandelion fuzz.
“No,” She said. “What must be done shall be done. I shan’t stand in thy path or interfere in thy work. The time has come for the end, as all things must.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “What will happen to you?”
“I do no know,” She said. “But circumstance will be different. That shall be well enough.”
“What’s your name?” You asked her.
She frowned, thinking. “It… it is Elsabet.”
The next week, you began planting explosives around the main hall. Elsabet had retreated to the treeline to watch from a distance. The other workers hadn’t spotted her; the faded green hue of her clothes and tan of her skin made it easy to blend in with the foliage.
You twisted up the charges and set it to the trigger, calling for the team to clear the area. Once it was free of people and everyone was behind a blast shield, you glanced in Elsabet’s direction, and she nodded once. You pushed the plunger down, and the entire main hall blew out from the bottom and fell straight down, shooting dust and debris across the forest floor.
That evening, after spending at least twelve hours cleaning up the wreckage, you made it home and sank onto your couch with a groan of exhaustion.
You felt something push the hair away from your brow, and your eyes jerked open with a start. Elsabet knelt in front of you.
“This place hast not the grandeur of which I am accustomed,” she said. “But… it doth retain a… charm. Perhaps, if thou wouldst enjoy my company, I may stay with thee? I shall endeavor not to be troublesome.”
You smiled at her and touched her cheek. “Only if you want to.”
Since my work is no longer searchable, please do me a favor and reblog this story if you enjoyed it. Help me reach a wider audience! To help me continue creating, please consider buying me a Kofi, becoming a Patron, or donating directly to my PayPal!
Have you seen Game Theory's newest video, "Why Eevee is the Missing Link to Pokemon Evolution!" ? It immediately reminded me of your work at examining Pokemon evolution from a biological perspective.
I did see it! The concept was right up my alley. It was interesting to see a more real-world science-based take on a similar concept.
I would love, if possible, to see you turn your werewolf drawing talents upon Samus Aran, if only to see what a Power Suit adapted to a lycanthrope form might look like... Loving all the artwork - besides the wuffers, your Sylvaina and Widowtracer work really grab my attention (particularly the latter as, at least as far as I’ve ever been able to determine, I first coined the name “Widowtracer” for that particular pair, so seeing how various folks put a spin on it is always entertaining to me).
Samus would be cool, but I wouldn’t know what to do with all that armor. Maybe I’ll try to tackle a Zero Suit Woof one day. Ugh I would like to draw more Overwatch in general, I just have 0 ideas for anything these days.
Is it somehow “lazy” or “cheating”, in your opinion, for someone to create a “language” that is less of a “made from scratch” thing and more of something such as would be done for a font? Basically, something that is a letter substitute sort of thing, I guess. Not the best with words, so I hope what I’m trying to ask is clear...
You’re asking this question the wrong way. The question is if you’re substituting the letters of an existing language, what are you doing? The answer is you’re creating a cipher. A cipher is a kind of code where you swap letters in a more or less systematic way from one language with something else. It’s not cheating to create a “language” that way, because you’re not creating a language (a cipher isn’t a language). Calling the result a language (or, specifically, a language that is different from the one it’s encoding) is merely dishonest.
I’ve seen more than a few fanfiction/fanart AUs and such that transplant the sisters into full-fantasy D&D style settings - and invariably, they stick with Anna as some sort of human fighter or monk (because punching) and Elsa as a sorcerer (because innate magic), sometimes human but more often elven. That’s boring, overdone. Imagine what a dwarven Anna might be like, or an orc Elsa. Be imaginative, folks! Humans and elves are stale. Try new things!
I love the “because punching” haha
I suck at D&D classes but I do agree, originality for the win!!!!
chaoswolf1982 replied to your post: REMINDER THAT LENA OXTON IS A TINY CHEERFUL...
Slightly puzzled here - how is she disabled?
She doesn't have the hold on time most people have, her body does not hold within the bounds of linear time, which is why she needs to wear the Chronal Accelerator.
She's specifically mentioned as being a disabled character by the creators in this video (it's long) http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1024266/Thinking-Globally-Building-the-Optimistic
