I was tagged by @i-can-even-burn-salad to find an excerpt which matched the vibe 'Leave me alone' - thank you!
This is from an already-posted part of my ongoing longer story, because I don't currently have anything that matches this vibe in the in-progress part (that'll be the chapter after next!).
The sorcerer’s mind jolted back to the bridge as a hot, firm weight landed on his shoulder. He flinched instinctively, and turned to see Radomil standing next to him with a hand outstretched. He looked worried.
‘Is Iesto’s ankle alright?’ Mures asked.
‘Fine. Rhedyn’s just waiting for the herbs to steep. We’ll probably give them a while to work and then set off again.’
‘Ah.’
Mures didn’t want to talk to the other man - with his imminent departure so close, it hurt too much - so he nodded at him and then turned back to the river in the faint hope that he’d be left alone. For a minute, he thought perhaps he had been, but then the spellsword stepped up to stand beside him at the railing.
‘The red leaves are quite striking, aren’t they?’ Radomil asked.
Mures mumbled an agreement. The lack of enthusiasm didn’t appear to deter his companion.
‘Just enjoying the view? Or did something else bring you out here?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘Hm.’ The spellsword picked up a half-grown acorn that had lodged in a chip in the stonework. He leaned on the railing, extending an arm out over the rapids below, and let the acorn fall. It tumbled end over end, vanishing in the shadows long before it struck the water.
Mures swallowed back a wave of sudden nausea. He wished Radomil would go away. Squeezing his eyes shut, he took one hand off the railing and curled it into a fist at his side, twisting his robe around his fingers.
‘What kind of contract are you planning to look for once we reach Phaenglane?’
The sorcerer gritted his teeth. Of all the things they could be discussing, this was the worst. ‘Probably something this company wouldn’t dream of touching,’ he spat. ‘Dirty work always pays better.’
He wanted to look at Radomil even less than he wanted to talk to him, so he kept his eyes closed. The spellsword didn’t respond immediately; Mures wondered if he’d feel disgusted enough to leave. Given that he’d been wishing Radomil would go away since he’d arrived on the bridge, that thought shouldn’t have been as painful as it was.
Tagging @whumpinthepot , @cryptidwritings , @quietly-by-myself , and @blood-is-compulsory - if you want to and have something that works, no pressure at all. :) Your vibe is 'I have to choose.'
I’ve seen a lot of great posts about tiny whumpees lately, and it got me thinking about how that might work with another trope: using people as objects. Obviously a tiny whumpee is not going to work as standard furniture, but there are plenty of small everyday items they could replace - some painful, some humiliating, some rather silly. For example:
Stand for a phone, tablet, or mirror
Coaster (for a hot beverage? Either way, they’d have to balance the drink carefully)
Dishrag
Pencil, pen, or paintbrush holder
Pin holder (or pincushion…)
Paint stirring stick
Whiteboard or blackboard eraser
Boot scraper/brush
Duster (especially if they have allergies)
Candle holder
Potholder
Ashtray
Very approximate thermometer (yes, there’s a theme here)
Drain plug
Lawn ornament
Keyring
Hair accessory
Water bottle holder (on a bicycle for extra danger?)
CWs for things that happen in a dream: Graphic eye injury, graphic self-harm, emotional abuse, body-shaming I guess, non-graphic vomiting. This is one of the nastier chapters. It is SFW, however.
Words: A tad over 3K
‘Then it’s settled,’ said Radomil. ‘After the university, we’ll either know where to go for further research, or we’ll head straight north to the next-closest centre of learning. Either way, we’ll do it as a company.’
And just like that, it was settled. Mures had no idea how to feel about this, or how he currently felt about anything, for that matter.
After their discussion in the alley, he and Radomil had taken a walk out past the border of Habrseng. They hadn’t spoken much, just found a sunny spot in the pine forest and sat there for a while, watching the trees shiver in the breeze. When Mures had gotten cold, they’d returned to their room and spent a few hours reading together until Catha came back.
It had been… nice. Very nice, actually, although it didn’t seem entirely real yet. Without the awful anxiety about having to leave hanging overhead, Mures felt bizarrely light. There’d been a twinge of dread when Catha had joined them in the room, but it had faded when Radomil casually confirmed with her that they planned to continue as a trio.
He still couldn’t quite believe they wanted him to stay. After what Radomil had said, though (not everything he’d said; he’d clearly been a little overly emotional and had used terms he would’ve avoided otherwise, but even the fact that he’d been so emotional said a lot), he couldn’t disbelieve it either. He really would get to remain in the company for the foreseeable future. It didn’t make sense, and he didn’t deserve it, but absurdly enough it seemed dying would cause more harm at this point than continuing to live, so - he wasn’t going to die.
Before the conversation in the alley, Mures had felt mostly numb, having made up his mind to leave of his own accord rather than wait for the others to send him away. He was pretty sure that after the maelstrom of emotions which had resulted from the incident, he was now so happy his feelings had looped all the way around back to numbness.
This was gradually beginning to wear off. Traces of emotion were trickling back in around the edges of his mind, although they were too faint and muddled to identify yet. He hoped the numbness would linger until the others were asleep, because it would be a shame to make them immediately regret their decision to keep him around by dissolving into an incoherent puddle of tears.
‘Who gets a bed to themself, then?’ Catha asked. ‘I tend to kick when not confined by a bedroll, but you’re already well aware of that, Radomil. I have no objections to sharing, as long as you don’t mind the risk!’
Radomil hummed and then glanced at Mures, eyebrows raised questioningly.
‘Do you mind sharing?’ he asked. His tone was nonchalant, as though he didn’t care much and just wanted to get a better night’s sleep, but Mures thought there might be something else behind his words. Since they’d hugged in the alley, Radomil had stayed close to him and often been in physical contact, keeping an arm around his shoulders as they sat in the woods and leaning against him slightly as they read. It was like he thought the sorcerer would suddenly vanish into the ether if he let go of him for too long.
‘I don’t mind.’
‘That works well,’ Catha said. ‘Less cramped than with both of us, Radomil. Though you’ve passed up a chance for practising combat.’ She smirked at her old friend.
‘Do you know, I think I’d rather do that while awake.’
‘Ach, coward.’ She tossed a sock at him half-heartedly - it landed on the floor halfway between the beds - and lay down, pulling up the blankets. It had already been past sundown when she’d returned to the room; while Radomil had proposed they stay an extra day in Habrseng, so there was no need to rise at any particular time, they were all still used to sleeping and waking early.
Mures summoned the floating spell-lights he and Radomil had been using to read; they settled on his palm, and he closed his hand to snuff them out. Setting his book aside, he slid down to lie beside his companion, who had already gotten comfortable in the soft inn bed.
The warmth of the hearth in the inn’s main room was more than adequate to ensure not even Mures was cold, but Radomil put an arm around him anyway.
‘Alright with this?’ the spellsword asked softly.
‘Sure.’ He was glad he had an excuse to speak in a whisper, because the numbness had mostly worn off by now, and his throat felt tight. He shifted very slightly nearer to his friend and placed a hand on his back; while there was no actual reason for them to hold each other, he hoped the other man wouldn’t mind since he’d been the one to initiate it. In response, Radomil pulled him right against his chest in a significantly closer embrace than usual.
Mures had fully expected to cry himself to sleep, but hadn’t thought he’d be smiling at the same time.
***
The fact they were standing in his old tower should’ve told him something was wrong, but with the easy acceptance characteristic of dreams, he didn’t even notice. He was more concerned with his two companions, who were regarding him with worrying solemnity.
‘Catha and I have talked it over,’ said Radomil, ‘and we’ve decided there’s no better alternative. Jameivird’s only a few days away, and everyone will be better off if we address this before getting there.’
Mures was silent. He didn’t want to think the others would kick him out after everything they’d said, but he wasn’t sure what else this could be about.
‘Your eye is the problem,’ said Catha, bluntly. ‘The one that appears to be marred by a curse.’
‘It’s just a cataract,’ said the sorcerer.
‘I know.’ Radomil looked faintly regretful. ‘Can you see anything out of it?’
‘Not much. Er, light and motion, and it helps with my depth perception.’
‘Right.’ His friend sighed. ‘The issue is, whether or not it was actually damaged by a curse, that’s what people think when they see it. Visiting the University of Kaldleth with you in the company is already going to be tense; we need every advantage we can get.’
‘Unfortunate as it is, you’ll have to pluck it out,’ said Catha. ‘Perhaps it’s for the best; to tell the truth, it makes me quite uncomfortable to feel that gazing at me.’ She shivered.
‘I wasn’t going to mention it before, but now there’s another reason to - yes, it is rather unpleasant,’ Radomil admitted. ‘So this is actually convenient, in a way.’
Mures tried to tamp down his dismay at the knowledge he’d been inadvertently unsettling his companions. While he’d certainly known he was anything but attractive, his unpleasant appearance rarely caused trouble. Perhaps this was only because other things about him usually caused it first.
‘I could cover it with a piece of cloth,’ he suggested. ‘For the university and - all the time, I suppose.’
Radomil shook his head. ‘We’d still know it was there. If you’re covering it up all the time, it’ll be useless anyway, so you may as well just get rid of it.’
According to the dream’s strange logic, this made perfect sense. Mures nodded miserably.
‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll just… I’ll get it over with, then.’
‘Thank you,’ said Catha. ‘We truly appreciate it.’
Her expression of gratitude consoled him a little as he shakily washed his hands and located a small knife, one he usually used for blood-related magic. He was scared. While his eye wasn’t especially useful, it was still part of him - attached to him - even if he didn’t like it much. He’d undergone a lot of torture in the past, yes, but had never lost a body part before. Besides that, it was doubtless going to hurt a lot.
It made sense, though, that he’d have to pay a price to stay with the company. There weren’t any folktales about evil wizards travelling with knights or other heroic figures as actual comrades, as far as he knew, but he’d read a few where an antagonist would form a temporary alliance with the heroes after suffering a setback. It never lasted - the villain still came to a bad end, usually after betraying their allies - but it was the closest thing to his current situation he could call to mind.
Mures just hadn’t encountered the setback yet. Well, now he was about to. His vision blurred slightly as he twisted the hem of his left sleeve into a sort of rope and bit down on it, using that hand to hold his right eyelid open. He slid the thumb and middle finger of his right hand to the corners of his eye, the vague outlines he could make out wavering as his hand trembled.
His breathing had sped up. He forced it to slow down, then inhaled deeply, exhaled, and dug the two poised fingers into his eye socket. And pulled.
It did hurt a lot. Worse, it made him feel dizzy and sick in a way he hadn’t anticipated, though probably should have. With a quiet whimper, holding back the urge to either scream or vomit, he let go of his eyelid to grab the small knife he’d set aside.
Involuntarily, it shut, closing on the optic nerve still connecting the back of his eye to its former resting place. This also hurt a lot, though it was nothing next to the sensation of the blade slicing through the nerve a second later.
Mures let go of the knife, hearing it clatter on the floor as if from some distance away, and pressed the back of his wrist to his bleeding eye socket. He was still holding his - holding his eye in the other hand, and oh, now he felt really sick. Stumbling over to a bucket he used to dispose of spell components and other garbage, he dropped the eye inside and then crumpled onto his knees.
Unfortunately, the eye had turned in the air and was now staring up at him from a cosy nest of crinkled papers and dry herbs. He gagged, hiccoughed, then bent over the bucket and threw up. The increased strain on his body made his empty eye socket throb horribly.
A hand made its way into his (now somewhat narrower) field of vision as he straightened up with a groan. It belonged to Radomil, who was very kindly offering him a cup of water.
‘Here you go,’ the spellsword said, giving him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. ‘Nice job, Mures. Thanks for that; you’re a good friend.’
‘Sure,’ he choked, taking the cup in an unsteady hand. ‘So - so are you.’
***
There were fresh tears streaking over the dried salt tracks from last night when he woke up. Quietly, taking care not to wake Radomil, he extricated himself from the tangle of arms and blankets and sat up in bed. The dim light glinted orange and pink in the hoarfrost on the window; it was sunrise.
Mures dragged the sleeve of his shirt across his face, noting irritably that the edge of the cuff was fraying. The dream had put him in a bad mood. It was thoroughly unrealistic, of course; even if the logic his companions had used made any sense, he was reasonably certain neither of them would really ask him to put out an eye for the sake of convenience.
He wasn’t worried about the prospect, anyway. What was more upsetting was the realisation that if it ever did come down to a choice between leaving the company or doing something to hurt himself at his companions’ request, he’d probably act very much as he had in the dream.
What had happened to his self-respect? Well - admittedly he’d never had much of that to begin with, but what had happened to his self-preservation? He’d always suspected he would come to a fully deserved bad end, but had previously tried his best to avoid this - had assumed once he’d seen what he wanted to in the world, he’d kill himself as painlessly as possible and be done with it. He’d never meant to drag it out or get into the kind of terrifying emotional entanglement he was in now.
To be fair, this was at least partly because he’d assumed such a situation wasn’t possible for someone like him. Now time had proven that assumption wrong, he had to acknowledge the current circumstances made him a lot happier than he’d ever been before he’d had a friend.
He glanced down at Radomil, who was still asleep, one arm casually resting across Mures’ kneecaps. Having a friend also made him much sadder at times, the sorcerer reflected, because it meant he had something worthwhile to lose. That was new. Before, the only things of value in his life were immaterial - hopes, wishes, memories of legends and folktales. Friendship was immaterial too, but unlike thoughts, which existed only in his own mind, it lived in the space between two minds, and would die if cut off at either end.
It wasn’t a balanced connection, either. He knew Radomil wouldn’t put out his eye if Mures asked him to, because he had a healthy amount of self-worth. Mures didn’t, since in order to have self-worth, he’d need to be worth something, and he wasn’t. There were similar imbalances across many aspects of their friendship; it constantly reminded him of how easy it would be for Radomil to hurt him, and how probable it was this would happen.
But it was worth it - more than worth it, really. Maybe it eventually wouldn’t be, if over time Radomil started treating him less and less like a regular person and more like what he really was. For now, though, he’d gladly put up with the twinges of sadness and anxiety and occasional terror that came with having a friend, and a companion who wasn’t unfriendly either.
He looked over at Catha, who was just beginning to stir. Quickly, he rubbed at his eyes again and picked up the book he’d started reading last night. While Catha had been remarkably tolerant thus far, he doubted she’d be pleased to see him creepily staring at Radomil as though envisioning him as an undead thrall, or something similarly disagreeable.
***
Since they’d picked up most of the supplies they needed yesterday, the company spent most of their second day in Habrseng meandering around aimlessly. Radomil did buy some yarn, having been distracted from that by the incident in the alley, but afterwards they headed out of the merchants’ section of the city to watch the ink-makers at work.
Mures thought it was fascinating. He’d used ink his whole life without ever knowing exactly how it was manufactured, and now learned the process was quite involved. Even the simplest inksticks required careful blending of soot, water, and glue, followed by extensive working of the resulting dough and then years of drying in a closely-monitored warehouse. More complicated inksticks included coloured pigments, or were pressed into ornamental shapes, or incorporated water from a rune-carved dish so the ink would carry subtle magical effects.
The others seemed to be enjoying their impromptu vacation as well. Catha was inspecting some of the completed high-end inksticks while Radomil spoke with an elderly man painting a desert landscape in shades of grey. High above, the sun was shining among wispy clouds. The air was significantly warmer than yesterday.
Mures took a seat on the rim of a fountain, currently frozen over at the edge, and watched the activity in the square around him. Some of the people walking past veered away to avoid coming near him, but not everyone did so. Apparently he wasn’t alarming enough to merit universal concern.
The sunlight beaming down struck his black robes and sent comfortable heat seeping from his shoulders and back through to his chest. It made him slightly drowsy, though his less-than-restful night probably had more to do with that. Still, it was nice to relax somewhere that wasn’t freezing, where he could hear people around him but didn’t need to worry much about potential danger. The residents of Habrseng seemed mostly genial, and his comrades were nearby as well; Catha had wandered into a warehouse, but Radomil was still in the square, now attempting his own ink painting under the instruction of the elderly artist.
A thought occurred to Mures, winding lazily through his mind, half-formed, as he watched his friend. It wasn’t just that Radomil wouldn’t ask him to hurt himself without a good reason; he had an odd feeling the mercenary wouldn’t actually want him to be willing to comply with such a request.
This was an absurd thought, and at first he dismissed it as the product of idle reflection and possibly too much sun; but the feeling didn’t go away, so he tried thinking it through. He knew Radomil cared about him to some extent and didn’t want him to die. Based on the incident in Glevium, he guessed his friend also didn’t really like it when he got hurt. And months ago, just after they’d completed their first contract together, Radomil had said he didn’t want to hurt Mures himself, either.
The idea that this unprecedented concern for his well-being could override anyone’s desire that he do something else they wanted was where he ran into a wall. The concept itself wasn’t inconceivable; he just couldn’t imagine it applying to him, specifically. It made perfect sense if he flipped it around, so it was about how he felt towards Radomil.
If it could apply to him as well, that… changed things, he thought. Or at least it might. It definitely made everything messier. He wasn’t the kind of person who deserved a friend like that - one who wouldn’t turn around one day and deliberately hurt him enough to balance out whatever happiness their friendship had brought him (if that much hurt was actually possible to inflict); honestly, he didn’t deserve any kind of friend whatsoever. But if he’d somehow ended up with one anyway -
There was no clear balance of right and wrong, here, and none of the roles made sense. Still, if the picture his disorganised thoughts were attempting to assemble reflected even a cracked, only approximately accurate version of reality, it seemed distantly possible his current situation would continue to be worthwhile indefinitely. Not infinitely, or with any amount of certainty, but also without an inexorable end.
He was too tired for this. Getting to his feet, Mures leaned over the fountain and reached past the border of ice to stick a hand into the freezing water. The shock of cold drove off his disorganised thoughts, but the feeling which had come with them remained, barely recognisable without the exhausted desperation that usually accompanied it. He suspected it might be hope.
