#kutah

[isanyonetoknow]

local man gets possessed and starts calling his possessor his sibling.

“the way i see it,” local man says as the ghost that is now his sibling is half sunk into the floor, “is that if i am going to be possessed, then whoever tries to possess me is stuck with me now. i was an only child and i think i’m too young to have a kid, so free sibling it is.”

the ghost, when offered the chance to comment, only gave a screech that shattered the windows.

[isanyonetoknow]

[isanyonetoknow]

The sky was starry before them, but the stars were distant and piercing to the eye. The line of their mouth, once kept so perfectly still, wavered, and then there was a small gasp. Their mouth clamped shut again, but the dam was broken, and the tears came flooding out.

They had come here for some comfort, for the ghost of an embrace, for something to soothe them and give them hope for the future.

They came here for silence, to find an escape, and yet it was them who had broken that quiet, them who had dragged their thoughts from the deep confines of space back to this wretched planet.

It was them, them, them... and it was their fault, fault, fault.

Their head snapped up at the sounds of commotion—not loud enough to be near but not quiet enough to be of no concern. If they strained their ears, they could almost make out the words.

They bit their lip and then, in a moment, that hard line was back, and that face was blank. They stumbled back to the place where they had to stay, the dreams they had once held no longer able to comfort them.

They left the next day.

[isanyonetoknow]

hey ash! here's a prompt i'd like to have your take on: remembering something that never happened. have fun :3

(Thank you for the ask! I *kind* of changed the prompt to misremembering something that happened. I hope you enjoy it!)

Unlike the others, he never liked to think about what his life could have been. He had memories of a life before, and though the memories were faded by time and few in number, they were still his and far more substantial than any fantasy could be. But just because he had memories didn’t always mean he was content with them, even if he wished he could be.

He didn’t like imagining a life he would never have, but that never stopped him from imagining a life where those memories just... continued on.

He usually shut the thoughts down soon after they started. It was too painful to think of a life that could have been, especially when it had been so close.

*

He used to live with his family. He had parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins... more people than he could possibly hope to remember.

His young childhood had been filled with happy times. Like the time he helped a caterpillar grow into a butterfly or when he discovered secret havens in the forest.

The most vivid and recent memory was when he was taken.

It went like this:

His mother was screaming. The rest of his family was yelling, screaming out his name over and over again.

Chanu, Chanu, Chanu!

He had tried to fight the hands that were pulling him away and that tossed him into the toofulltooconstricting cart, but he was just a small child. He couldn't do anything, not with the gag around his mouth and the ropes that bound his small, small hands.

The horses started to move after he was tossed in, and beyond the sound of hoofsteps, he could still hear the distant cry of Chanu, Chanu, Chanu! becoming more and more like the lulling sound in a lullaby than something distressing. 

And that had been it. 

He didn’t like to think about that memory. He didn’t like to think about what came after--forced labor, extortion of his magic... he didn’t like to think that perhaps, just perhaps, he would have been better off if he died.

He didn’t die.

He grew his wings and escaped instead. 

*

Chanu wasn't especially close to any of the people he was traveling with, but he did have a soft spot for the boy who stumbled along with them, perpetually red-eyed with tears, anger sketched onto his face.

"We're resting for the night," Hiro said, pulling the mules to a stop, and the boy scowled.

"We can move farther," the boy argued, and Hiro just sighed, ignoring him to set up camp instead.

"Resting is important," Chanu told the boy when no one else paid attention. "We'll move farther tomorrow than if we push on today and collapse."

The boy frowned, but said nothing. The yawning crevasse of silence irked Chanu, and he rushed to fill it. 

"I didn't catch your name when you joined.”

"I didn't give it," the boy said. After a pause, he continued: "It's Fao."

Chanu nodded. "Mine is Chanu."

Fao frowned but said nothing of it.

The evening passed in relative silence.

*

Time, like the funny thing it was, passed. They went through conflicts and went through triumphs, until they were back at the beginning again, around a fire, setting up camp, traveling to some unknown destination. 

Chanu couldn’t shake the feeling of unease, though. The story, but all rights, was over, but there was something not quite right. 

Chanu, Chanu, CHANU!

He was reviled by so many, but he had importance that kept him alive. Why had it kept him alive? There were so many others with the same level of skill or magic. And that name… it felt wrong, somehow, like a puzzle piece pushed into the wrong place. 

“Are you alright?” Fao asked, coming up behind him. 

“I’m fine,” Chanu said. Then he snorted. “Was thinking about my name, actually.”

Fao looked like he was considering whether to speak or not. 

“Well?” Chanu asked, too curious to let it go. 

“Who gave you that name?” 

Chanu frowned. “My parents. Why?”

Fao was quiet for a long time. What came out next was so quiet, it could have been a whisper. 

“Because it means monster.”

Suddenly, everything clicked into place. 

And suddenly, everything fell apart. 

[isanyonetoknow]

“So it’s been a good year for you,” their mother said. “Next year, we can pile up a bit more—”

“I was really busy this year,” they interrupted. “I don’t think I can take more.”

“You had it very easy this year,” their mother frowned.

They clamped their mouth shut and politely excused themselves. As much as they may have loved their mother, she never seemed to understand that the results and grades they brought out were the result of work. She never seemed to understand that even though she hadn’t seen them struggling, that didn’t mean that they weren’t. She never seemed to understand that not everything came easily to them, and that in order to master something, it took time and energy, two things they were in short supply of.

They let out a frustrated sigh. She never seemed to understand so much and they hoped that they would gain the courage to speak out, despite the fact that she might belittle them. They hoped they would be brave enough to do that, but if not, they couldn’t wait till they turned eighteen.

[isanyonetoknow]

You’ve spent your whole life falling; how does it feel to finally fly?

[isanyonetoknow]

The box you pick up is unusually heavy. When you leave the store, you can almost hear the employees sigh in relief. What do you find inside, or, to put it better, what finds you?

(Answering this in story format because you know, whatever)

They were told nothing about the package they were meant to retrieve. Only the fact that a yellow post it note would identify it and that it contained a safety hazard. They did not ask for more information; it was a well paying job and those who asked questions often ended up… missing. 

The package was located in a grocery store, which was uncommon, to say the least. Still, they walked in, as professionally as they could muster, and asked about the box. The employees, almost with desperation, pointed them over. They lifted the box, grunting at the unexpected weight. They simply bit their lip and made it outside, putting the box in the trunk and heading back to the station.

They would have been deaf if they hadn’t heard the employees sighing in relief as they left. 

Whatever. They were being paid well for this. 

That mindset grew harder and harder to maintain as noises came from the box. True, it was coming from the trunk, but nothing else could warrant the cracking noise, so it had to be from the box. 

They told themselves it didn’t matter. They were almost to the station at any rate. 

The cracking grew louder, and soon enough, it was followed by a mewling and by scratching. 

It’s fine, it’s fine, they chanted in their head as they parked the car. Nothing will be broken, everything will be normal, they told themselves.

They hurried outside, opening the trunk and saw the box was shredded to pieces. And there, sitting in the middle of the scraps, sat a baby dragon, shrieking to be fed. 

I did not get paid enough for this, they thought as they were surrounded by individuals dressed in black. Not. Enough. At. All. 

[isanyonetoknow]

Sometimes frogs want to fly, and we should let them. What would be a frogs fav way to fly?

It was hard, being a Frog Caretaker. Not only was there inane backlash for the seemingly useless job, but the frogs themselves were rather fickle. The Handbook on How to Not Die, Retain At Least A Little Bit of Your Sanity, and how NOT to Capitalize things (Cause I’m an eXpErT you know?), AlsohowtodoyourjobIsuppose said it best:

“Sometimes, frogs want to fly, and we should let them. Of course, this comes with the presumption that frogs are under our control and that they express desire to consciously fly. Both of which are incorrect. Frogs are and have never been under the control of man, and their want to fly is not so much of a want but a necessity. Much like how when we do our business, it is usually not because we actively want to do it, but because our bladder is yelling at us to hurry the heckity-feckety-fuck up. 

“Of course, we involve ourselves anyways as we are humans, and humans believe that they must be involved in everything as they are the ‘superior’ being. Not to mention the fact that frogs, with their spontaneous levitation and sonic leaps, greatly disturb life, those little grenouilles.

“In this handbook, I will have to cover stuff like: how not to go insane, how to act like you have a normal job, how to act like a normal human being, how to hide all the frogs that are going to sonic-leap to you, and how to not get decked one such frog and get a concussion and get so indebted by medical bills that you have to turn to other jobs that you hate to cover the cost. I will have to cover this stuff, and if you care about living then you’re gonna have to read and learn because apparently I’m the only person on the planet who knows anything about frogs.”