okay so I didn't actually wind up finishing any of the stuff I wanted to for @rosebird-week but I can at least post snippets of what I was working on:
“All right, if that’s how you want to be.” Kite smirks. “A girl can have her secrets, after all.”
Raven dramatically rolls her eyes, covering up her sigh of relief as exasperation, and turns to go get her own drink of water. At least, there better be water —
Slam. Something soundless and strong collides with the backs of her knees so hard they buckle instantly, knocking her back down to the ground. Her arms flail out reflexively to catch her, and she does, her open hands smacking against the hard earth.
Both her palms and her pride smarting, she spins around and rushes her. “Kite!”
Kite doesn’t even look at her as she thrusts a palm out into her forehead and shoves hard, sending her stumbling right back onto her ass. She’s too busy inspecting the photo she’d snatched out of the air, her boot innocently toeing at the dirt. “Don’t yell at me, you’re the one who turned your back.”
Her heart pounds far harder than it ever does in battle as she scrambles back up. Another charge might actually piss Kite off, or worse, let on just how badly she wants her to take her eyes off that photo. She’s not worried that her leader will destroy it. No, the indulgent smile slowly spreading on her face is much more terrifying.
“Aww…” she purrs. “Is this your little partner?”
Raven bites the inside of her cheek hard, trying to look more angry than scared as Kite turns the photo around to face her, thumbnail pressing into Summer’s bare neck.
“She’s so cute. Did you pick her out yourself?”
The silver jewelry hadn’t been enough to throw her off the first time she’d laid eyes on Summer. Maybe a greener hunter would have been fooled, but she’d been taught to notice how all the little chains and trinkets never actually touched her skin, but rested on long chains and shirts, thick sleeves, broad belts. How she moved so deliberately, so carefully, as if they’re a treacherous weight.
Well. If that hadn’t tipped her off, the way she never ate or drank, always hid herself in that giant hoodie, and never, ever showed all her teeth when she smiled. Not even when it was genuine.
It’s a far cry from the creature in its pitch-black cloak before her now, paler than a corpse and veins dark as midnight with the blood of a creature far older and crueler. In other words…
“You look like shit,” she says, tearing off another bite of garlic bread.
Summer’s lip curls, revealing fangs already straining to grow. “And you’re still an animal.”
for...well, I wasn't sure which day I could fit this into if I did make any progress on it, but it's the one where Summer's face explodes in front of her entire team:
Across the clearing, Summer was sprawled face down in the dirt, motionless as a corpse. Half the Hydra’s heads and legs were just as rigid — and grey, and brittle, and stone, what the fuck — but the other heads were still waving and screeching, more furious than ever.
Raven was moving before she could think, on pure instinct. She was so accustomed to swinging Omen to open her portals that the loss of it threw her entirely off, and all she could do was run, run, run.
She dove and rolled past stamping clawed feet, ducked the tails swinging through the air with a force she could hear. One of them flew just a hair too close, and a spike grazed her forehead. She was aware only of her skin splitting apart, of warmth dribbling down her face. She felt no pain. All she knew was the senseless blur of the world around her, the hard and frantic pounding of her feet against the ground.
The only thing that was clear, standing out in sharp relief against everything else, was the white cloak in a heap in the dirt. Summer’s image seemed to flash, larger and larger in her sight with every step, until Raven was skidding to a stop and dropping to her knees at her partner’s side.
“Summer?!” Raven rolled her body over, and the feeling of completely limp flesh turned her blood to ice. “Summer! Can you hear me?!”
Not even a moan or a whimper answered her. Summer’s mouth had gone slack, and what she could see of her eyes behind their drooping lids was as dark and dull as the stone behind them. She jabbed her fingers into her partner’s neck, pressing for a pulse. It was there — yes, there, but getting weaker. Or was that just her frenzied imagination? She couldn’t comprehend anything over the shrieking ring in her ears, the pounding of her own pulse. The only thing she could feel was Summer’s warm body in her hands.
Still warm. Still breathing.
