#nonsense writes

[mundanenonsense]

my friend told me she’d suck on his ear.

I said before, but I’ll say again, I don’t draw people, I draw other things ON people.

this was done purely for my own guilty pleasure, pls be soft on me. thanks <3

[nonsenseandstuff]

The Parable of the Selfish Woman

So this was inspired by this post.

Warnings: this story deals with the topic of abortion. Nothing is explicit. There is no abortion shown in the text. Implied child abuse and child abandonment. Implied ableism. Everything is implied, nothing is onscreen. 

While this might spark some conversation, please be civil. 

  The Parable of the Selfish Woman, or Her Story. 

  The woman was selfish. That’s what they said.

“What were you thinking? Who is the father? How could you?”

Her father told her sternly that she was dead to him. How dare she? She was going to marry whoever had done this to her. She replied that she was not. She refused to tell who the father was. She was selfish, self centred, good for nothing. Her own father told her she was nothing, worthless, damaged goods. That he would not see any grandchild of his born out of wedlock. 

So, the woman set out to set it right.

She had heard of a Witch, a Woman of the Woods. She lived in a twisted cottage somewhere in the darkness. It was said the Witch would trade. First borns are a good currency, and hers was barely a month in the womb. Surely that was better than an older child, already shaped and changed by well-meaning parents.

She took a cloth and laid it out on her bed, adding a hunk of hard cheese, some apples, dried meat, things that would keep her going. She put on her sturdiest shoes. She wrapped a blanket into a roll and took her warmest cloak.

She was ready.

She walked downstairs on tiptoe, trying not to wake her parents or her brothers and sisters.

Her mother was standing in the kitchen.

The selfish woman froze stock still in the doorway.

“Come on then. You’re going and I won’t stop you.” Mother held out a large waterskin. “Be safe. I will not tell your father where you went.”

“Tell him I am dead, should it please him.”

She shouldered her bundle and tied the waterskin to her belt. She did not kiss her mother’s cheek or say goodbye. She just turned around and walked out the front door.

The selfish woman set off. She walked through the village, empty and quiet as it was at this hour of the night. She walked out past the farmer’s fields. She finally reached the woods.

The woods were huge and the woods were dark and the woods were overgrown. Thorns snatched at her skirts. There was no clear path, but there were clues. Directions hidden all around her. There were stones that meant keep going, and trees grown into shapes that pointed the way. She knew all the signs. 

She kept going.

Eventually, she came across a brook. It was fairly shallow, clear water running over round stones. The woman took off her shoes and her stockings and she paddled across. She almost didn’t notice the duck.

It was a young one, with a hint of down left here and there. It was trapped, tangled, caught in a twist of roots sticking out of the bank and floating flotsam.

The woman’s first thought was of apathy. It was not her problem. She was in a rush. It was just a duck.

Her second thought was that there was good eating on a duck. Rich and fatty, it would keep her going.

It was her third thought that stopped her. She had food with her. Plenty for the journey there and back. The duck was young, the duck was small. It would take more time kill and butcher it than it would to cut it free.

The woman sighed.

She pulled a small knife from her belt and crouched down.

She cut the root off at the tree and tugged it free. It took maybe thirty seconds to get the duck loose and the little creature swam away as soon as it could.

The selfish woman sat down under the willow. She dried her feet as best as she could and put her socks and shoes back on. She ate a chunk of the hard cheese and one of the apples. Light was beginning to shine through the trees.

 The sun was rising.

  The selfish woman walked on. She walked through the trees. She walked through the thorns and the twisting grabbing branches.

Eventually, she came to a clearing.

At the centre of the clearing, there was a cat. It was a small thing, scrawny and ill kempt. The sun was high above the trees, scattering down between the leaves. The selfish woman sat down on the bare ground and took a long drink from the waterskin. She wiped her mouth and took some of the dried meat from her bag. Her father had killed a deer a couple of months ago and they’d eaten happily ever since. Venison dried easy and kept well.

The cat approached her and she noticed it was limping. It’s left front leg was malformed, twisted. As it came closer, she noticed its fur was not brown (as she had first thought), but a collection of different colours from light orange to brown dark enough to be almost black. It was just filthy.

It mewed and came closer.

“I’m not giving you any of my food.”

The cat mewed again. It came forward, then darted back nervously.

“No.” The selfish woman took a large bite of the meat and chewed it viciously. “Mine.”

The cat, ignoring the tone of her voice, padded forward nervously. It put its good front paw on her ankle and mewed again.

She went to push it off. She didn’t need to be getting fleas. It fell, tumbling sideways down to the ground. It mewed again, pitifully, and struggled to right itself. When it finally got upright, it darted away, then circled back to sit just out of her reach.

It mewed. And it mewed. And it mewed.

The selfish woman sighed. She tossed the last couple of inches towards the cat. 

“Fine,” she said. “Just so you’ll shut up.” She pulled an apple out of her bundle and ate that instead. The cat darted forward, grabbed the meat and trotted off surprisingly quickly. “Yeah, little con merchant.” She sat there -ate her apple, drank her water- for maybe half an hour. She listened to the birds. It was peaceful.

Eventually, she stood up, brushed off her skirt and settled her bundle on her back. She walked on.

The selfish woman came across a fallen tree, just as the light began to fade. It was as good a spot as any to set up camp. She gathered some long branches, some from the ground, some she took from trees. She leaned them up against the fallen tree, making a small shelter. As she turned around to grab some handfuls of leaves to lay over the branches, she jumped back in surprise.

There was a little boy standing a few feet away. He was perhaps six years old, with curly brown hair oversized eyes. He was clean and well dressed in neat, if slightly worn clothes. He was obviously well loved with his hair neatly tended and the knee of his breeches carefully patched. The selfish woman glanced around, but there was no family in sight. Just a child standing in the middle of the forest.

“Hello.” She crouched down so she was at his level. “Are you lost?”

The boy said nothing.

“Cat got your tongue?” she smiled. “One of my sisters is shy too. She’s about your age. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”

The boy said nothing.

The selfish woman stood up and brushed her hands together.

“I’m building a shelter for the night. I need some leaves to keep the wind off.” She walked out past him, talking all the time as she gathered armfuls of leaves. “You can help if you like. It’s not safe to travel the forest at night. We’ll stay here for now and in the morning I’ll help you find your family.” She layered the leaves carefully, adding more sticks and branches to keep the leaves in place.

The boy stood still and said nothing.

The selfish woman sat down beside her shelter and pulled her bundle around to her lap.

“I’ve got some food here. Are you hungry?” The boy didn’t respond. “You are a quiet one aren’t you? You are a real boy aren’t you? Not some ghast or haunt sent to scare me?”

The boy giggled.

“Oh, not a ghast at all, I’ve never heard of a giggling ghast!” The selfish woman held out an apple. “Catch!” She tossed it to the boy and he rubbed it on his shirt before taking a bite. As he chewed, he came slowly over and sat about a foot away from her. They ate for a while in silence.

“Do you live near here?” the woman asked. “I am from the village of Redstone, back that way.” The boy shrugged. “Very well. I am on my way to see the Woman of the Woods. You can come with me, if you like, and then we will try and find your home.”

The boy shrugged again.

The selfish woman shared some bread and cheese with the boy, and they both drank some of the water. Then, the woman wrapped the boy in her only blanket and the two of them lay down in the shelter and slept.

When the woman awoke, she was alone.

The selfish woman set her bundle on her shoulder, and walked through the forest. She called and called and called for the boy, but found no trace of him. She had learned tracking at her mother’s knee (while father hunted deer, they would hunt rabbits, hunt mushrooms, hunt berries), but she could find no trace of the child. Her superstitious brain whispered that the boy was unreal, a figment. That he had been sent to warn her from her course.

She searched for hours.

She did not find the boy.

The sun was high above her by the time she turned back onto her track.

She noted the rocks that showed the path through the trees and followed them. It was time to see the Woman in the Woods.

She had heard stories from her early girlhood of the Witch, the Woman in the Woods. Her brothers had painted her as an ancient hag. Ugly, alone, and cruel. She was large and had warts and nasty grey hair. She dressed in rags held together with cobwebs and wherever she went crows followed. Women went to her in their direst distress and came back… different. They traded her their children for vain things no woman really needed. That’s what her brothers said. 

Her sister had told her the story of the Unhappy Prince, as she called him, the son of the Duke who lived up the hill and owned everything nearby. He was a smart boy, but strange. He was not as a son of a duke should be. When he should be standing tall and straight and iron hard and still, he hunched his shoulders and rocked from one foot to the other. When he should be staring down an opponent, his gaze stayed down, darting around the ground. When he should be attentive and listening, he would fiddle and flap and… it was unseemly, her sister sniffed.

Anyway, the Duke had tried everything. He had given the boy the best tutors. He had taken him to a priest. To an apothecary. Nothing worked. The boy stayed as he was. Whispers began. The boy was a changeling. The boy was cursed. The boy was not a boy at all.

So, at his wits end, the Duke bundled the boy into a carriage and took a handful of his men into the forest to seek the Woman of the Woods. His men came back after three days, confused and desperate for food and drink. There was no sign of the Duke or the Unhappy Prince.

Two days later, the Duke appeared, filthy and travel-worn, at the edge of the village.

He returned alone, furious. The story slipped out that he had met with her alone, his men arranged just out of sight, and offered the woman all the riches he possessed if she would only fix his son. She took his gold, and took the boy. She never returned. After a day and a night, he went to his men to find them gone also, driven away by some spell.

He had gone back into the forest several times, looking for his gold, looking for his lost son, looking for his revenge against the Woman of the Woods, but he never found her again and he never found the Unhappy Prince.

The selfish woman came to a river with stones set into it. She pulled up her skirts and stepped carefully across. She wondered if this was a wider section of the brook she’d come across earlier.

On the other side of the river was a deceptively sized cottage. At first glance, it seemed small, neat, with a thatched roof. Then she started to notice darker coloured offshoots and outbuildings. There was a fair sized garden, rimmed with hedges, and she recognised plenty of plants (some food, some medicinal). It seemed oddly quaint. Not the lair of a witch at all.

She took a deep breath and walked down the garden path to the front door.

The selfish woman stood on the front step for a long moment. Eventually, the door opened, just a little, and a woman looked out. She was not ugly. She was not old. She was maybe forty or fifty at most, with some grey streaks through her almost bluish black hair and warm brown skin.

“Yes? What do you want?”

“Are you the Woman of the Woods?”

“That is one of the things they call me. What brings you here?”

“I need help. Please.”

The woman in the doorway examined the woman on the step.

“Well,” she said, “I guess you’d better come inside.”

The inside of the house was exactly what you would expect from a house owned by a woods witch. There were bundles of herbs hanging from the rafters and pots bubbling over the fire. There were no apparent doors, which was strange, as the room was a lot smaller than it should have been judging from the outside. The Woman of the Woods walked over to the fire and began fussing with a kettle. She looked like she belonged here, in this overcrowded kitchen. Her pleasantly round form seemed perfectly in keeping with the warmness of the home.

The selfish woman hesitated, then perched carefully on one of the chairs arranged around a small wooden table with a knife and fire scarred surface.

“Woman of the Woods,” the selfish woman said, after taking a deep preparatory breath. “I am in need of your aid. I have travelled far and-“

“Enough of that. What is your name?”

“My name?” She felt wrong-footed, this was not going the way she expected. “It’s Willow.”

“Hello Willow, my name is Mila.” She placed two delicate cups on the table and poured hot water from the kettle. A rich brown tea bloomed. “Here, drink.”

Mila sat down, took a long drink from her tea with her eyes closed in appreciation, and then folded her hands on the table and looked at Willow expectantly.

“I heard that you took children. I mean, that you, that people sold you children.”

“Did you now? What, you want to be away from your parents, child? You cannot sell yourself, you know.”

“I’m sixteen! I’m not a child.”

“Are you not? Well then, what brings you to me?”

Willow took a long, slow breath. “What do you do with the children you take?”

“Ah, I thought that was it. You come here, no child with you, yet with child.” Mila sipped her tea and leaned back in her chair.  “You have three options. Well, mayhaps you have more than three, but three is traditional.”

“What are they?”

“First, you go home. You bear the child. You marry the boy. You live… maybe not happy, but settled, ever after. This is both the easiest and the hardest option.”

“I don’t want that. I’m not ready. I’ve got so much to do, and I… I’m fifth of nine. And it could have been twelve. I heard her scream in her child-bed. I saw the blood and the pain, and how she suffered for months after, if she didn’t fall pregnant again straight away. And the boy is nice. We have fun. But this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Willow looked down, her hands fidgeting in her lap. “I don’t know that I love him.”

“Very well. The second choice is to stay here. To wait out your time and bear the child. I will take it off your hands and raise it as one of my own.”

To live here, on the Witch’s charity, her generosity? She didn’t want to take advantage. It would be wrong to take her charity, to live her for nine months, to hand the infant over at it’s birth. And could she hand a baby over to a stranger? There were plenty of stories about the Woman in the Woods. That she cooked the children she took and ate them, that she could turn dirt into diamonds, that she was under no man’s control.

“What,” Willow asked, “happened to the Unhappy Prince?”

“The who now?”

“It’s what my sister calls him,” Willow frowned. “The son of the Duke. You took his money and you took him and you wouldn’t give him back.”

“Ah.”  Mila stood up, pressing a hand to her lower back and stretching. “Come on then.”

The Woman of the Woods led the way over to a heavy set of shelves against the wall, full of jars and bottles of all sorts of interesting things. Mila reached out and took hold of something, Willow couldn’t quite see what, and tugged. The whole shelves swung open.

Behind it was an absolutely huge room, filled with light and activity. There were children everywhere. Toddlers with dolls, young kids running around, older ones looking after the little ones, or sitting reading, or… there were so many. And this wasn’t a place of fear and deprivation as Willow had feared. These children were happy and healthy and clearly well loved. As she looked around, Willow saw a boy with clouded eyes being led by another, a pair of girls silently talking with their hands, a child in a wheeled chair propelling themselves along. These were the children sold to the Witch of the Woods.

And they were happy. They were wonderful. And this place was kind.

“Follow me,” Mila said. She led the way into the space, pausing to give the children they passed her attention. She listened to them and hugged them and tickled them and it was clear that they loved her and she loved them. Willow stayed close behind her and she managed to give the children nervous smiles of her own.

“His name is Edvard.” Mila ducked through a curtained archway and into a smaller second room. This room was darker, but full of soft textures and warmth. Again, there were many children and a handful of young adults. Mila led Willow to a corner where a young man was sitting. He looked a few years older than Willow, and he was closely focused on something he was working on. He was knitting, with a thick strand of purple wool wrapped around in a complicated pattern. It looked like he was maybe making a jumper, and he hummed tunelessly as he stitched. There was a cat curled up against him, purring loudly, and a small child was sitting cross legged on the floor, winding a skein of a dark grey wool through her fingers.

Willow and Mila stopped a few feet away.

“His father brought him to me. Offered me gold. Offered me jewels. Offered me wealth and power. He asked me to help his son, to make him better. So I did.” She gestured. “He did not need to be fixed. He is perfectly fine as he is. But he was not fine where he was, with people who only saw a burden instead of a human being. Here, he wears soft clothing and has space and quiet for himself. He is a good boy, he makes clothes for us all. He’s very good at sewing, at knitting, at crochet. He is good with the little ones too.” She glanced over at Willow. “Not what you expected?”

Willow shook her head.

“Can I..?” he gestured around her, and Mila nodded.

“By all means. They love visitors. Come and find me in the kitchen when you’re ready.”

Willow spent some time going back and forth between the two rooms. She built houses with blocks, she hugged dollies tight and sang as she rocked them, she drew pictures on wax tablets, then rubbed them smooth. She saw a little boy with brown curly hair and wide eyes stroking a calico cat with a twisted foreleg, and she was suddenly sure that out in the garden she’d find a duck with traces of down in his feathers. She wasn’t sure what to think about that. 

There was nothing wrong here. The children were loved. The children were happy. They children were cared for. And it was a home not just a place where spare parts were hidden away (she had been to the orphanage up in the city a few times, they sometimes bought a haunch from her father, or clothes from her mother, and she hated delivering there. It was cold and hard and the children were much too quiet).

Willow had no doubts that her child would be happy and safe here.

She went back into the kitchen.

“What’s my third option?”

“Ah. I said going home, having the child there, marrying the boy, that would be the easiest and the hardest. The third option is the the hardest and the easiest.” There was a small bottle on the table and Mila rolled it between her palms. “You drink this, there is no more pregnancy, no more child. You go home and live your life on your terms.”

This… Willow had heard of such things, whispers of herbs you could take, spells you could mutter. She’d heard of dark journeys to dark alleys and tools pushed up inside. It was frightening.

“I just have to drink it?”

“You just have to drink it. If you were further along, it would be more difficult, but at this point there barely is a baby. It’s a thimbleful of flesh, half a cup of blood.” She shrugged. 

“I know. My mother, three times she’s lost one. Two of those times it was just as though her monthly came late, a little heavier than usual, a little thicker. Nothing that looked like a child.”

“Ah.” Mila set the bottle down in front of her. “It is your body. Your life. You don’t have to share it with anything.”

“My father called me selfish. Said I was wrong to do what I did. And maybe I was. But we all do it. Or, most of us anyway. He said the child would just be a drain. That if I refused to marry, he wouldn’t see me anymore. I wouldn’t be his daughter. The child would be nothing but a parasite on the family.”

“Hmm.”

“But wouldn’t this be selfish too? Aren’t I being selfish to want… well, to want.”

“My dear,” Mila said firmly. “Every human being is selfish. From the peasant boy who came here begging me to change his fortune, to the Duke who asked me to ‘fix’ his son. It’s human nature.” She rapped her fingers on the table top. “Don’t let that shape your decision. You have three options.”

Willow sat in thought for a long time.  Three options, all of them wrong. If she took her child home, she was just creating another mouth to feed. If she left the child here, she was taking advantage, she was giving someone else a burden. If she drank the potion, she was putting her own wishes above her child. Selfish, selfish, selfish. Whatever she did, she would be castigated.

She thought about going home. She thought about living here for nine months, her body swelling and changing. She thought about the bottle of potion being offered to her.

Her head came up, her eyes steely, her hands steady.

“I have made my decision,” she said.

[mundanenonsense]

Procrastinating editing the next part of biker!simon x learnerdriver!reader I sketched out a maskless Simon and how I kind of see him, do I post or do I not post…?

I posted

[mundanenonsense]

So as I finished the last part this morning, I got excited and I’m now over 2k words into biker!simon part 5 lol. And this one got a little steamy and I’m giggling to myself like an idiot.

[nonsenseandstuff]

Fairies can’t lie.

AN: today’s warm up writing. If anyone wants to prompt me for these snippets, please do! 

There’s a ring of mushrooms on the grass in our back garden. Me and Katie think it’s a fairy ring. We dance around it, careful not to step inside.

Dad says ‘don’t be silly’. He digs up all the mushrooms with his spade. He says there was probably a tree there a long time ago and the mushrooms are growing on it’s roots.

Mum says nothing. She gives me and Katie a slice of bread each to keep in our pockets. Just in case.  

Sometimes when I’m trying to go to sleep at night, I swear I hear something scratching at the window, whispering at me, asking me to come and play.

Dad says it’s the old yew tree by the front of the house. He says it’s branches scratch the window when it’s windy.

Mum says nothing. She gets a canister of salt from the kitchen and pours a careful line along the windowsill.

 Katie’s not here anymore. They’re saying she drowned, her and her dad. They went swimming and they didn’t come back. Her mum keeps crying. I don’t think she drowned though. Katie is a great swimmer, she’s got her 500 metres,  her dad too. I think they just left.

Dad says I’m a wicked girl and fancy saying something like that.

Mum says nothing. She takes me to the beach. A seal swims right up and flaps its fin. I swear it was waving at us. It dives under the water and then swims straight up to where we’re sitting, even waddles on to the beach to get to us. She leaves a shiny shell at my feet.  A bigger seal came and nudged her away after a little while.

Mum always wears a silver necklace and matching bracelets, thin, delicate chains, covered all over with charms.  I asked where she got them.

Dad says they’re a present from Mum’s mum. I’ve never met her.

Mum says nothing, just rubs at the marks the chains leave on her skin.

Mum never cooks with salt. We have salt in the kitchen and on the table, and on my bedroom windowsill, but Mum never puts it in food. She doesn’t even put salt in the pasta water.

Dad says she just doesn’t like salt.

Mum says… Mum says he should stop lying to me.

They tell me about how they met. I know this story. Dad was playing his guitar under a tree like a dweeb and Mum came over to listen. They tell it differently this time. They talk about how Dad walked between worlds. How they fell in love. How Mum was bound and banished by her own family for not keeping Dad in the fairy world.

How they came here and got married and had me and we all lived happily ever after.

They tell me about the threats. The secrets. The way magic works. By the end of it, my head is spinning. I am not scared.

Dad says not to worry. He says it’s safe. He says I just have to be sensible. Take precautions.

Mum, as always, says nothing.

Hey, if you enjoyed this story, you can read more of my writing here.

[nonsenseandstuff]

So I saw this post about bridesmaids and best men a week or so ago and queued it up, but it wouldn’t leave my head. I had this image of a best man fencing with an evil spirit. It seemed epic enough to deserve a drawing or an epic poem.

So, I wrote a ballad. It’s not exactly what I wanted when I started it, being more comic and silly than epic and I didn’t even really get the sword fight in there, but I thought I’d post it anyway. Mainly to stop myself fiddling with it and to get it out of my head. It’s very long and doesn’t have a title, so if you think of one, feel free to put it in a reply or tag or message me. 

It is a very special day,

A day of hope and joy,

The bride was dressed in all her best,

The groom, her special boy.

 Outside the church a woman was,

Ancient and withered too,

She warned all those who crossed her path,

This day they would soon rue.

 “Begone you hag”, the best man cried,

(The guests uneasy were)

“Today should be a happy day,

Our wrath you shall incur.”

 “Upset,” she said, “is better than

What could occur instead,

You do not know what lurks out there,

That could soon see us dead.”

 The bridesmaid laughed and shook her head,

“We don’t believe your lies,

As old and bitter as you are,

We won’t believe you’re wise.”

 The woman gave a weary sigh,

“I know what you all say,

Believing only what you see,

And in the light of day.”

The groom was waiting in the church,

The doors were open wide,

The pews were packed with people full,

All waiting for the bride.

 And in the shadows, something lurked,

Awaiting for his chance,

The last chance he would ever have,

To take her for a dance.

 The bride and maids were dressed in white,

The priest was waiting too,

The wedding bells would soon ring out,

Ready to say I do?

 The women walked in through the gate,

And into the churchyard,

It was the bride’s most special day,

She was not on her guard.

 They’d barely started down the path,

They were not near the door,

When icy hands reached out and grasped,

The bridesmaid, there no more.

 She screamed out loud as she was dragged,

Across the graves and mud,

She could not run, nor could she fight,

The grip that drew her blood.

 The “man” was tall and he was pale,

The colour of old bone,

He held her close against his side,

As harsh and cold as stone.

 “I have you now,” he cried, no, laughed,

One hand drew back her veil,

He snarled when he revealed her face,

“What is this dark betrayal?”

 The woman there was not the bride,

But one of her two maids,

The decoys there to keep her safe,

And to help her tie her braids.

 The monster threw the girl aside,

And reached again his hand,

He grabbed another dressed in white,

But not the one he planned.

 The second maid spat in his face,

“You’ll never get her now,

Inside the church, she’s nice and safe!”

“And that will stop me how?”

 He dropped the maid upon her friend,

And sauntered through the yard,

He walked along the crooked path,

But the big church doors were barred.

 The best man, with his sharp sword drawn,

Stood in the creature’s path,

“You stop right there, you won’t get by,”

The creature had to laugh.

 (It is the best man’s job you see,

To fight those who object,

Even foul creatures from beyond,

This marriage he’ll protect).

 “You think you have a choice, my boy?

You think you can stop me?

I’ve ripped out hearts of better men,

I’ll eat you for my tea.

 I’ve travelled long and travelled far,

From on the other side,

There is one here who I shall have,

Give me the blushing bride.”

 The best man said, “you won’t get passed-“

He was knocked to the ground,

The creature stepped over the man,

(and neither made a sound).

 The guests all cowered in the church,

The doors were open wide,

The pews were packed with fearful folk,

But where oh where’s the bride?

 The creature stalked along the aisle,

Ignoring all the screams,

Where was the woman all in white,

The woman of his dreams?

 The old priest stepped to bar the way,

The church was his domain,

“You have no business, creature, here,”

His voice cracked with the strain.

 “I am not some petty spirit,

It’s not some petty game,

Bow down your head and stand aside,

And let me at the dame.”

 The creature sauntered down the aisle,

The guests all shook in fear,

It was not good, it was not right,

To see the creature here.

 The groom hid behind the altar,

He loved his bride to be,

He did not fight, he was not strong,

But his one true love was she.

 The creature raised his sharp clawed hands,

And snarled and hissed and groaned,

He loomed over the humans there,

Whilst they all shook and moaned.

 The bride she knew just what he was,

She’d seen him oft before,

And turned him down so many times,

She’d turn him down once more.

 She was hidden from the creature,

Was hidden from his wrath,

Then she, with shaking hands, stepped out,

Into the middle of his path.

  “I was never yours, foul creature,

I always told you no,

And you show up at my wedding?

You know where you can go!”

 “You are,” he said, “the one I love,

I cannot let you go,

You have to see your vast mistake,

I know I’ve told you so.”

 “So what if he’s not a hero?

Or magical like you?

He is kind and he is gentle,

I know he loves me too.”

 The groom stepped up with shaking hands,

And stood at her left side,

“So I don’t know how to stop you,

I know I love my bride.”

 “Then is that your final answer?

For me to fade away?

After all I would have given,

You will so rue this day.”

The old woman (you remember,

The one who sat outside),

She laughed and laughed and said to him,

“She will not be your bride.”

 “This one,” she said, “is truly brave,

With true love too, I’d say,

So begone you wretched creature,

Give her her happy day.”

 The creature frowned and stamped one foot,

Arms folded on his chest,

He pouted like a little child,

A spoiled brat, I attest.

 “But I do so truly love her,

You just don’t understand,

The pain that I feel deep inside,

To see her take his hand.”

 “You’ve loved before, you’ll love again,”

The withered woman said,

“Remember you live far longer,

You’ll blink and she’ll be dead.”

 “What business is it then, of yours?”

The creature growled and hissed,

“A petty, jealous, ancient hag,

You surely won’t be missed.”

 The creature raised his sharpened claws,

(the guests all gave a cry),

The hag stood tall and bared her throat,

“Go on, give it a try.”

 “Onc, years ago, I went with you,

You ate up all my youth,

And now you’re back to try again,

Your love is never truth.

 You take us far away from here,

Into some fairy glen,

Your interest soon it fades away,

Just like all other men.

 The bride she is still young and strong,

Smarter, she is, than me,

And she is true and she’s in love,

So you just leave her be.”

 “So you think that you can stop me,

Old woman that you are?

You’ve seen my powers and my land,

You’re bones I will soon char!”

“You may have gotten bored of me,”

The elder woman smiled,

“Your sister, on the other hand…

You’d better leave this child.”

 The creature flinched and shook his head,

“You’re lying to me,” he cried,

“My sister would not get involved,”

“I’m confused,” said the bride.

 “For all these months you have wooed me,

Despite my clear said no,

You said I was your one true love,

But her too, is that so?”

 “You know to me she’s nothing,

You are the one I need,

Come with me and belong to me,

Or else I’ll see you bleed.”

 “Oh no you won’t,” a voice rang out,

(A bright and warming sound)

“Little brother, what have you done?”

A second creature frowned.

 She’s terrible but gorgeous too,

She stalked the crowded aisle,

“Mabel,” she said, “are you quite well?”

(Old woman gave a smile)

 “Oh brother mine, what have you done?

You know that no means no,

I’m taking you back to our home,

Say sorry now, let’s go.”

 “Sister you cannot understand,

It is true love this time!”

The bride cried out, strong and loud,

“I don’t love you, you slime!”

  “You’ve heard it from the girl’s own mouth,

You’re not her one true love,

You need to leave now, come with me,

You too, Mabel, my dove.”

 “I will not leave, I will not go!”

“Don’t make me get our dad!”

The creature flinched and quickly said,

“I’m sorry, don’t be mad!”

 With that both creatures took their leave,

(and Mabel too, of course,)

And journeyed back to their home land,

By puff of smoke, not horse.

 And as for those left in the church,

All of them gathered near,

They had one question left to ask:

“So what just happened here?”

 The bride and groom, well, they were wed,

It really was true love,

As for the bridesmaids and best man,

None hurt, thank stars above.

 The moral then, of this long tale,

It does not matter much,

It is a story told in fun,

And should be seen as such.

Hey, if you enjoyed this story, you can read more of my writing here.

[nonsenseandstuff]

Ugh.

Ever go reread something you’re working on and realise you hate half the characters? Like they’re supposed to be relatable but they’ve turned into whiny little shits.

And this was supposed to be my fun head clearing story.🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[nonsenseandstuff]

I lost three pages of writing today. 

Even though autosave was supposed to be on. Even though said autosave was supposed to save every five minutes. And yet, three whole pages of writing disappeared. I don’t understand why it’s just gone? It was definitely autosaving earlier in the day. I don’t have the energy to try and recreate it today. 

Maybe tomorrow. 

(My computer overheated, it was in direct sunlight and it was hot today. I’ve dragged out my external fan so hopefully it won’t happen again....)