Strawberry Swisher is a 2000s, red-haired, strawberry loving woman in her early 20s who has an emotionally unavailable boyfriend, a terrible job, and fake friends. She is going through the motions of life, trying to make it go by faster by drinking, working, and sleeping off a hangover. Everything changes when she ends up in the fae world and is faced with new things and an offer too good to pass up. If only she could stay forever.
Content Warnings: Roleplay, boys kissing, implied intimacy
(Origins’ works)
“Seven minutes in heaven?” The words were more of an amused huff than a proper question, and Jasper swallowed back the reflex to defend his scenario choice.
Pushed some of the hair out of his face, saliva pooling in his mouth as he became hyper aware that his mouth and tongue actually had to move if he wanted to speak. “Well- yeah. I figured it’s simple enough, ain’t it?” He rolled the sleeves of his flannel up as he spoke, trying to find something to do with his hands so he didn’t have to look at Matthias. He *knew* he was bad at the whole roleplay thing, he fucked up every scene he’d suggested. And still Matthias humored him. God, Jasper was lucky Matthias had the patience of a saint, because he was beyond embarrassed already.
Matthias’s hand gently wrapped around Jasper’s wrist, taking some of his focus visually even if Jasper didn’t wanna look right at him right now. “We can do that, hun. Sounds fun. I haven’t done that since college.”
- cutting to the closet screw this SCENE CHANGE LALLAlALALALALALALA-
Jasper couldn’t see much, his eyes still adjusting to the dark, but he didn’t mind that. There was something so intimate about it, about just barely making out Matthias’ features. The warmth of Matthias’ body just barely touching his own. He swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth. The sound uncomfortably loud in the heavy silence of the shared space. “God- this is- I can’t do this-” He mumbled, already loosing his nerve. Blindly he reached out, attempting to find the door knob. His fingertips instead meeting warm skin.
“‘s only seven minutes, sweetheart. Can’t you last that long?” Matthias’ breath was warm against his ear. Jasper’s hand pushed forward, wrapping around what he figured was Matthias’ forearm. “ did you set a timer.?” he asked, shifting only for his nose to bump into Matthias’ cheek. He could’ve sworn the closet was pretty decently sized. Did Matthias really have to be this close?
(Para’s works)
Matthias slid his hands up Jasper's sides, the door knob digging into his back. He couldn't let the other man run away from this, not when he had the perfect chance. He didn't care if it was slightly painful, or if the other man wasn't looking at him. It was honestly better that way, more accurate.
With a soft chuckle he motioned outside. "I'm sure the guys did, hon." His tone was deeper, more slurred, mimicking a drunk tone. "Don't worry about that. They'll come get us." No one's coming to get them. Obviously. It was just them two and a speaker playing party ambience. How Jasper managed to find that is not something he's aware of, but it works.
It's sweet honestly, how badly he wants to do roleplaying, either because he knows Matthias loves it, or for his own enjoyment, yet can't complete one scene to save his life. He always ends up giggling and turning the scene into something ridiculous before Matthias drags him into a laughing kiss, or backs out at the last minute. As much as Matthias will try and urge Jasper into playing with him, he wont force him either, and Jasper isn't shoving him away like Matthias know he can or running to the back of the closet. Instead, he was just hesitantly groping around to find the knob, of which he wont find.
Leaning in with a hum, Matthias spoke once more: "C'mon, pretty. I won't make you, but I'd really like to." The words were similar, if not exact, to the ones he used back then, when he was known as Matt, when he was just a frat guy at a party with a pretty boy with raccoontails dye in his hair, and piercings he wondered the freshness of with how sensitive the boy seemed to be at every brush.
His hands slowly brush over the dips in Jasper's hips, his thumbs rubbing the small valleys in his skin. He wants to kiss the other man so damn badly. He was drunk the last time this happened, his lips and body had moved closer before his mind could stop it. Now though, he could control himself. He was no longer in college, barely experienced. He's in his damn thirties now. He could control himself.
Then why was he nipping up Jasper's neck, why was he pulling Jasper against himself. "I'm sure we've only got a few more minutes left. You can last that long in here with me. I'm not that bad, sweetheart." He was... taking some creative liberties with that one, but cut him some slack. He's pretty sure he didn't say much at all after the first few.
(Origins’ works)
Jasper’s breath hitched at the words, a familiar burn coiled in his gut as he blindly felt around. More often than not, his palm pressed against Matthias than any wall. The metal of his piercings bit slightly into his upper lip as he pressed his lips together. “You’re cruel” He mumbled, biting his lip at how shaky the words were. But who could blame him when all he was thinking about was Matthias’ hands on his hips and lips along the side of his throat.
But despite his complaints, Jasper made no move to stop him. Clumsily he felt for Matthias’ jaw, “Sweetheart,” Matthias started, momentarily muted by Jasper kissing the side of his lips. Jasper huffed in frustration, before Matthias’ lips were on his. His shoulder’s relaxed, and he leaned into Matthias. Their chests pressed together, one of Jasper’s legs partially slotted between Matthias’.
There was something especially intoxicating about the moment. Something so dizzying about how Matthias didn’t seem to stumble in the dark. A small whimper squeezed its way between Jasper’s lips, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. His hands strayed to Matthias’ belt, biting on his lip as he looped one of his fingers through Matthias’ belt strap. Tugging him closer, despite there not exactly being much more room between the two. “fuck- i can,” He breathed, lips damp with the other man’s saliva. “can last longer- please don’t stop” His lips were still half against Matthias’ as he attempted to speak. Pleading for something Matthias had made no attempt at denying him.
Hello. I’m sharing something new tonight. I don’t know if it belongs here, in this place of shadows and ink, but I love it anyway. It’s a character study of my main OC. He is me (or the pieces of me I don’t always show). I’d like you to know him.
Spanish version →
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · EVGENY NOVIK · Las cosas que dejamos ardiendo
✨Versión en español de mi character study sobre Evgeny Novik✨
English ver
The Things We Leave Burning
There are people who walk into a room and make everything seem a little quieter.
Evgeny does the opposite.
He walks in, and something catches fire.
Sometimes it’s the stage, sometimes a wall covered in posters, sometimes a song, sometimes simply the patience of someone who would rather not hear what he has to say.
He is twenty-four years old, born in Minsk, and for several years now he hasn’t had a home he could point to on a map. He grew up among squats in Berlin, half-dead theaters, borrowed rooms, and places where there was always someone willing to give him a couch, a stage, or a wall that hadn’t been covered in paint yet.
He says he lives wherever people let him perform and wherever he finds people who think like him.
And maybe that’s true.
Maybe it’s also an elegant way of saying that he still hasn’t found a place he can call his own.
But Evy — because almost nobody calls him Evgeny — seems to have learned to make homes out of other things.
A song.
A protest.
A stage.
A person.
A seed.
He is tall and slender, somewhere between 1.75 and 1.80 meters, although onstage he seems much larger.
His skin is almost porcelain, too pale to hide the small traces the cold leaves behind: pink knuckles, lips that are always slightly flushed, cheeks that color easily. He is covered in freckles, as if someone had splashed ink across his skin and then decided to leave it there.
His jaw and cheekbones are defined, but his face never quite becomes harsh.
That is the first thing that deceives you about him.
He can look serious until he opens his mouth.
Then the rest appears.
The unexpected sweetness.
The crooked smile.
The exaggerated way he speaks, moving his hands as if even an ordinary conversation needs choreography.
He has a sharp nose, though far from perfect, full lips with the lower one slightly fuller than the upper, and thick eyebrows that share the same pale blond color as his hair.
And his eyes.
Sky blue.
But not entirely.
Tiny flecks of pale green hide within the sea of his irises, a partial heterochromia that makes his eyes seem to change depending on the light. They are bright, expressive, and difficult to ignore.
They narrow when he smiles.
Perhaps that is why his gaze becomes more dangerous when he stops.
His hair is light blond, slightly darker at the roots, completely natural, and curled in an imperfect way: not quite defined curls, but strong waves that fall to his shoulders.
He usually wears it loose.
Onstage, he doesn’t.
Onstage, he turns it into something else.
Gel.
Spikes.
Chaos.
Like almost everything else.
He keeps his nails long because he plays instruments, and always leaves them natural. His hands usually have little smudges of paint on them and are covered in rings. He has two nostril piercings joined by a small chain that crosses over his nose, and two ring piercings on his lower lip.
A snake tattoo begins at his shoulder and winds around his neck as if it were trying to strangle him.
I don’t know if that is accidentally appropriate.
Probably not.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
Evy uses his body the way he uses everything else:
as a statement.
He can walk onto a stage shirtless.
He can appear covered in glitter.
He can wear a tuxedo covered in torn sequins, a white shirt full of holes, combat boots, harnesses, and band pins.
Rotten elegance.
That is probably the only way he would describe it.
He has no interest in being pleasant.
He doesn’t want his body to be a surface for other people’s approval.
He wants to turn it into art.
Into protest.
Into something that makes people uncomfortable.
Because for Evy, discomfort is not an accident.
It is part of the job.
“If I don’t make people uncomfortable, I’m not doing my job.”
And perhaps that is one of the best ways to understand him.
Because Evgeny wasn’t simply born punk.
There was no specific tragedy that split him in two.
There was no night when he woke up and decided he would become an activist, an artist, and a creature of the night at the Kit Kat Club.
He built himself slowly.
Little by little.
A decision.
A protest.
A song.
A person.
A disappointment.
A night that lasted too long.
An empty wall.
Another.
And another.
Until one day he realized he no longer knew who he was without all of it.
And he didn’t want to know.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
He can be the idiot putting up posters at two in the morning.
The one who shows up at a march.
The one carrying tape, markers, and NO PLANET B stickers in a battered backpack.
The one who sees an empty wall and thinks it is an opportunity to say something.
Some nights, he becomes another creature.
Onstage, he is seductive, cruel, funny.
He hugs someone and insults them in the same sentence.
He crawls out from the audience with his face painted black and white, like a clown who has been crying glitter for far too long.
He whispers:
“I’m not for everyone.”
And then he gets up.
Suddenly, he takes up the entire stage.
His voice is melodic, slightly deep, gentle even when he says things that should sound like threats.
Between songs, he can stop everything to talk about a protest.
About a forest.
About someone being ignored.
“While you’re applauding, they’re cutting down the last forest outside. Applaud louder.”
And then he goes back to singing, acting, screaming.
Because that is Evy’s fundamental contradiction:
He doesn’t believe art is enough.
But he also doesn’t know how to live without it.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
“I’m not an artist.”
He says it with absolute conviction.
“I’m someone who uses art because otherwise I’d go insane.”
And maybe that’s true.
He doesn’t create because he wants to decorate the world.
He creates because he needs to transform it before the world finishes destroying him.
His activism doesn’t come only from anger, either.
It comes from care.
That is something very few people probably understand about him.
Evy can scream.
He can insult.
He can be unbearable.
He has an almost artistic ability to find exactly the thing that will make people uncomfortable.
But underneath all of that is someone who cares deeply.
About the planet.
About people.
About those who have no stage.
About those who live on the streets.
About those who are pushed out of the places where they should be allowed to exist.
And also about himself.
Even if admitting it is difficult.
Because there is an idea that follows him everywhere:
that he is running out of time.
Not necessarily time to die.
Time to do something that matters.
He is afraid that one day he will reach the end of his life and realize that all that noise meant nothing.
That he ran through the streets.
That he screamed.
That he danced.
That he sang.
That he covered walls.
That he provoked.
And that, somehow, he still left nothing behind.
The irony is that he already has.
He simply doesn’t know how to see it.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
When no one is watching, Evy turns the volume down.
He reads.
He writes.
He fills black notebooks with lyrics, ideas for posters, and thoughts he will probably cross out later.
He allows himself to be sad.
He doesn’t always do anything with that sadness.
Sometimes he simply lets it exist.
Perhaps that is one of the few things being goth really taught him:
that being sad doesn’t mean being broken.
There are nights when he listens to Aurora at full volume because he can’t sleep.
He likes her music for the same reason he likes songs that speak about the earth, humanity, and everything we are destroying.
The Seed speaks to him in a particular way.
Because Evy believes in seeds too.
In planting something even if you won’t be there to watch it grow.
In doing something even when you cannot control its outcome.
In leaving a small possibility of a future in the hands of someone you may never meet.
That is why he wears one around his neck.
A real seed.
Turned into a pendant.
It came from a tree that once stood in a small square.
The square where he used to meet someone.
The tree was cut down to build a parking lot.
Evy saved a seed before they tore it down.
He turned it into a necklace.
“So I don’t forget why I scream.”
And perhaps that sentence explains more about him than all his protests ever could.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
There was someone before the noise.
Owen.
French by birth, moved to Belarus when he was twelve.
Black hair.
Olive-green eyes.
The same age as Evy.
Almost the same height.
And a patience that, in retrospect, Evy probably never knew what to do with.
Owen was quiet.
He read.
He grew tomatoes on his balcony.
He didn’t need to turn every emotion into a revolution.
And yet he never asked Evy to stop being who he was.
He stayed beside him.
He patched up his bruises after protests.
He made him tea.
He didn’t ask questions.
He simply stayed.
And perhaps that was exactly the problem.
Evy loved him.
Very much.
And he was afraid.
He thought that if he stayed, he would eventually drag Owen into his chaos.
He thought he would break him.
So he did what he knew best:
he left first.
Before Owen could leave him.
For years, he convinced himself that what he had done was a form of love.
Maybe it was.
But it was also fear.
And now Evy knows the difference.
That is something he couldn’t do before.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
Recently, he wrote to him again.
To the same number.
After all those years.
Owen had never changed it.
There was no grand declaration.
No perfect scene.
Just a message.
And a reply.
After that, Owen went to see him at the theater.
He wanted to see Evy in his element.
Not the boy he had known.
Not a domesticated version.
Evgeny.
The one who walks onto a stage with his face painted, combat boots on, and the whole world between his teeth.
And he brought hot tea.
Because some things survive time in strange ways.
Sometimes they don’t survive as photographs.
Sometimes they survive as the exact memory of what drink to give someone when they’re cold.
Evy is still afraid.
But this time, he didn’t run.
Maybe that is what growing up means.
Not losing your fear.
Learning to stay while you have it.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
Owen wants him back.
Evy wants him back too.
But neither of them is exactly the boy they knew years ago.
And perhaps that is the most beautiful part.
They are not trying to recover the past.
They are trying to discover whether something new can exist among its ruins.
Owen doesn’t need Evy to stop being himself.
He doesn’t need him to abandon the stage.
He doesn’t need to turn him into someone easier.
And Evy, for the first time, seems to be learning that loving someone doesn’t necessarily mean destroying them.
Sometimes it means staying.
Sometimes it means asking if they’re okay.
Sometimes it means making tea.
Sometimes it means accepting a “I can’t” without running away.
And maybe, if Owen tells him “let’s go” again, Evy will.
Not because he needs to escape.
But because this time, he would be choosing to stay with someone.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
His bag looks like an extension of his mind.
A battered black backpack covered in pins.
A lighter without a lid.
A notebook with pages torn out.
A chewed-up pencil.
Tape for posters.
Black markers.
Stickers.
A bottle of water because protesting makes you thirsty.
Broken headphones that only work on one side.
A small metal tin with painkillers and a little glitter.
An old photograph he never shows anyone.
Rolling papers for his cigarettes.
And the seed pendant.
He doesn’t carry much money.
He doesn’t carry keys.
He doesn’t have a permanent home that needs opening.
He carries useful things.
Tools.
Things to create with.
Things to resist with.
Things that remind him who he is when he gets lost.
“I don’t carry much money. I carry useful things.”
Perhaps that is another way to define him.
Evy doesn’t collect things.
He collects possibilities.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
He has dreams, even if he says he doesn’t.
He wants a theater.
Not an elegant one.
Not one where important people can feel important.
He wants a place where people no one else hires can take the stage.
Displaced people.
People from the streets.
People who were considered too strange, too poor, too uncomfortable, too much of something.
He wants them to make art there.
And then go out together and cover the city in posters.
He wants to plant something.
Something that lasts.
He wants to be useful.
And perhaps his biggest dream is also the simplest:
to wake up one day without feeling like he has to fight for the right to exist.
•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
Evgeny is not perfect.
He is far from it.
He can be impulsive.
He can be exhausting.
He can be selfish.
He can mistake destruction for freedom.
He can hurt the people he is trying to protect.
He can spend so much time thinking about everything he hasn’t done that he forgets to look at everything he has already left behind.
And that is what I love most about him.
I don’t want to turn him into a hero.
I don’t want him to be admirable all the time.
I want him to be human.
Because beneath the smudged makeup, the torn sequins, the cigarettes, the posters, the glitter, and that desperate need to make noise, there is someone who is afraid.
Afraid he hasn’t done enough.
Afraid he hasn’t been enough.
Afraid that when everything finally goes quiet, no one will remember he was there.
But Evy still doesn’t understand something.
Maybe it isn’t about leaving behind a masterpiece.
Maybe it is about leaving behind small things.
A song someone listened to when they needed company.
A poster that made someone stop.
A protest someone dared to attend because they saw him screaming first.
A stage where someone was allowed to be who they were.
A seed.
A tree that doesn’t exist yet.
A person who, years later, still remembers how he took his tea.
Evy believes the world is ending.
So he dances on top of it.
I think perhaps he still doesn’t understand that some things survive the fire.
Seeds.
Songs.
Memories.
People.
And him.
Evgeny Novik doesn’t know how to save the world.
He probably doesn’t know how to save himself either.
But he does what he knows best.
He provokes it.
He makes it uncomfortable.
He fills it with noise.
He forces it to look.
He sets it on fire.
Not because he wants to watch it die.
But because he wants someone, among all those flames, to find a reason to stay.
And perhaps that is the smallest and most stubborn revolution of all:
to keep planting things in a world that insists on burning.
Spanish version →
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 0 · EVGENY NOVIK · Las cosas que dejamos ardiendo
✨Versión en español de mi character study sobre Evgeny Novik✨
English ver
My brain is kinda mushy right now so I may come back later with some more actual helpful stuff but for now have this thing.
@quibble-auk we finally got one.
I did a thing. If it is corny I am so sorry, I tried to fix it-
-
Yoti being young, we all love that.
-
The grass was cooler than it should have been, the cold air curling along it in the spring mornings like a breath of frost half formed. Sarah skimmed along the edges of it which stood in thick swathes, her hand me down coat glistening with dew and braid fighting to stay uniform as the twigs and branches clawed at her. The young teen’s lips twitched with satisfaction at the feeling of the early morning and all its meanderings.
A light nip of cold, a low rustle. Her breathing twisting across the air like the twitching of a low land reptile’s spines. Low and moving with a still stiff stance, she continued along the edge of the field. Tall towering dark trees peered at her in the blue gloom of the final strains of night, the ever so soft puff of sunlight coloring its edges like a porcelain cup. The cleanest blue man could see, was the sunrise and its edging creep. Her favorite color.
Sarah, was trying her best to stay low and quiet. Having to pause and readjust her feet with every few steps, trying her best to move like her Poppa when he walked deep into the woods with his Carry rifle.
Slow.
Another step, her biting her lip and glancing down at her boots.
Quiet.
The twigs under her heel creaked and she could not hold back a wince, pausing and listening to the ever quiet air. Before going on again, going a dozen more paces, easing along and growing more confident.
Easy as a breeze.
Sarah smiled to herself giddily at the ever quicker pace she started to gain, warming up to the almost alien way of walking with every step. But she was still young, the slow almost tortoise like pace grew unbearable after no more than ten minutes. She needed to move a touch faster. Then a bit more. Steps grew wider, the aims of her heels grew less calculated and skipped with a more erratic beat.
With a wide grin she grew more lazy with her steps and path, aiming for rocks that would speed up her trek. Now doing a far too fast of a clip for stalking, she about bounced from every peeping stone that showed itself among the grass. Avoiding the thicket or sticks which could cause noise by dancing above them. Giggles threatened to bounce from her throat as she went. Amusement like a fuzzy mess of dandelions tickled her chest, grey eyes bounding ahead to find more stones to dance across. Soon enough she began to curve along the edge of the field where rocks grew less curious, staying tucked into the dirt as unwilling stepping stones.
Too caught in her almost flying clip, she took a longer jump, then another. Confidence making her bold, choices in footfalls wicked. Leading to her holding out her arms to catch herself when she stepped too fast, her chosen stone one glistening with the teary morning and its dew. She gasped as her balance still evaded her with a flail of her arms, twisting in a wide arc to avoid the ground. Spinning erratically in a fight with the pull of the earth, which went on for an absurdly long moment before Freyda seemingly decided the girl needed to pay for her misstep. The fall was almost deafeningly loud in comparison to the hum of a sweet morning, the crackle and groan of vines in the heaps along the edge of the field.
Thorns scratched her face, pricked her hands, snatched at her hair. Hat gone, eyes wide she laid prone in the angry arms of the vines. For a long moment she laid there, unwilling to move from the nest her fall had made. Not due to comfort, the thorns still dug, but the heavy despair of having to dig herself out and have the bush cling to her. A huff escaped her lips after having plenty enough time to come to terms with her entrapment, arms caught above her and her torso deep into the brambles. Her eyes flicked around, biting her lip in thought. She shakily tried to pull herself up, whimpering as she was poked by her cage. The blonde girl, no older than thirteen, clenched her jaw and stared up at the ever slowly lightening sky. For what felt like a long moment she laid there, unwilling to move. Eventually she relaxed, just sighing and waiting for whatever may come. Someone would wander out this way, surely. Sarah clenched her jaw at that, cheeks flushing. Allowing the soft meanderings of her imagination to pull and tug on faces, green eyes scuffed up men. Dark hair and loud laughter, her heart stuttered thinking of the hats that tipped in her direction. The upticking smiles. She imagined one of them helping her out of the bush, how they may linger… She heard the slow scrape of footfalls. It made her muscles seize, anxiety banishing the daydream out of her mind and now biting at her spine as she froze.
Cheeks burned with embarrassment and fear, and then it spread to her ears as her body was swathed in a deeper shadow. Hiding in the collar of her jacket she blushed a deep red, as a man’s face peered down at her from between her mud covered boots.
“Well looky here! Aw Yoti, that's such a sad sight.” The words were said with a warbling smugness. Sarah bit her lip and felt her eyes burn, “Kale, help me out!” She wiggled her limbs for emphasis, whining as some of the thorns went past her shirt sleeves and nipped her. Her cousin only smirked, eyes glazing over with a meanness. She bared her teeth in response, “No! Nonono! Kale-!” A heavy large hand caught her by the front of her coat and wrenched her upward, Sarah yelped and gasped at the sudden jerk. Clawing at Kaleb’s damp hunting coat as he dragged her up like a carcass. “KALE-!”
His laughter echoed as he pulled her out of the bush, the thorns having snuck up past her hair and scrubbed her neck raw. The vines clung to her, the sudden change in position made her head swim. Sarah whined and wrenched a foot forward, letting loose a hiss and kicking her cousin in the knee when she was about upright. The older boy wheezed with pain, interrupting his cackling and almost dropping her. The girl clinging to his coat and snarling as the combined weight almost dragged them both into the bush. “Shit Yoti! Fuck- You slimy rat I was helping you!” Kaleb’s eyes flared with a mood and Sarah only hung on tight to his own copper toned coat. She bared her teeth and blinked at the dizziness. “You didn’t have to yank me! That HURT!” Kaleb blinked at that, before rolling his eyes as they stood locked in an odd balancing act that had them neither on solid ground nor in the brambled. Sarah adjusted her grip as Kaleb huffed, “Sure, you probably deserved it anyway. I mean you were supposed to be at the house, not out here flirting with some yokel probably hiding out here.” Yoti choked on her breath at the accusation, blushing a deep red. Kaleb smirked, his anger forgotten at finding a soft spot as Yoti stuttered over the very idea. “So that is why you’re out here! Never would have thought that would happen!” He grinned his mean grin, which softened ever so slightly in his eyes. Sarah was not amused, she was closer to frantic. Flashes of the handsome saurboys that had passed through the past couple days, the ones that smiled at her. The very idea made her flounder with useless feelings and a red face. Kaleb knew she was flustered and had taken a shine to a few, he had laughed and ruffled her hair when she had finally admitted it.
“I- No! I wasn’t meeting no boys! I was practicing! Yknow, the walk- Yeah yeah Yoti, sureeeee. You probably got some horsefaced boy peeping around the trees dontcha?”
Sarah bared her teeth as her cheeks only grew warmer, because Kaleb wasn’t being kind. He was in one of those moods, and she wasn’t in her own which could handle it. “I wasn’t! I swear! Don’t go saying that!” Her cousin smiled again before he shrugged, easing backward and making sure she landed outside the nest of thorns. “Ok ok, I’ll believe you. Not like you could get some boy dragged out here anyway.” He chirped it, rolling his shoulders. Sarah dusted herself off and glared at him. The sting flittering across her heart at the one off statement, like Kaleb saying she couldn’t hold a gun for shit when they were shooting. It was flippant, it was playful. She didn’t say a word. Face growing redder.
Kaleb hummed and shouldered his rifle, shoulders now broadened with age, and a thick layer of scruff on his face. He flicked another look over his cousin whose face was still that awful red. Something like awkwardness flickered in his eyes before he tramped back over, ruffling her hair and smiling his apologetic smile. “Aw Yoti don’t get all sulky, I know you didn’t have no boys out here….” She glanced up at him, as he took her shoulder and rubbed a thumb gently into it. “Half the riders think you're a boy anyway.. I won’t tease you anymore.” The last tack was tapped in like he was trying to soothe, a gentle hum as if it would flatten out the utter mortification in her face from earlier. It was once again said jokingly, sweetly. Trying to move past the feelings as soon as he could. Yoti forced a smile, shrugging as her cousin smiled back at her. Her guts twisted, but she ignored it. “Shut up. You’re such a jerk.”
Her lips still dipped with hurt, making Kaleb frown. “Ok I’m sorry, for all of that. I just…” He struggled for a moment, working his jaw as he did. Sarah felt the hurt get washed, the balm a cocktail of love and empathy. She didn’t want him upset. “I’m ok, I do look like a boy sometimes…Is everything ok?” She laced a smaller, rather scarred up and boyish hand into his own gruff calloused one. He squeezed it and shrugged, the two starting to walk. “Yeah its…It could be worse. Always can be.” He tucked the girl into his side, chewing at his bottom lip as he went. Sarah shook her head disapprovingly, letting her other hand ball up in the back of his coat. “That’s bad luck Kaleb, can’t say that.” She teased with a smile, making Kaleb stutter his walk so he tugged her at odd angles as they went down the trail. Earlier tension was forgotten as Sarah laughed and Kaleb hummed, stuttering his step so it almost tripped them both. “Right right,” He released a deep sigh. “ I just got in trouble with Pop again, he and Granny are always so testy…Constantly worried. They don’t wanna listen to me… Do anything different.”
Sarah hummed softly, her grip tightening as she stared up at the dark eyed man above her. She knew Kaleb had been arguing with Pop, things tense and shaky. Pop glaring like a growling raptor, eyes flashing with a loyal pride. Kaleb had backed off, eyes blazing like a branding iron. An odd flickering look in his pupils. “Working the seasons with Doc is like trudging through mud every year, the old man keeps us in contract but he wont send us after anything that will actually pay for new parts for the splitters… Just enough for coffee and cornmeal..” Kaleb spoke like a grindwheel, long and agonizingly crushing every last word like it was grit in his teeth. Sarah blinked at the statement, “Poppa said this season is just slow because the herds are calving, recovering, ughm…The- Yeah, the fucking drought, then the cold flood.” Sarah caught the razor edge on Kaleb’s spatted words, like the natural events spoiled his meat and rotted his wine. His brow furrowed and jaw clenched, Sarah snuggled her cheek into his chest. Trying to understand the bitterness. Kaleb however was done seemingly, tightening his grip on his younger cousin and not uttering a word. She let it sit as they walked, she knew better than to press him.
For a while they walked, the splitter heavy on Kaleb’s shoulder as Sarah watched the sky warm and become alight with the pretty blue of spring. The spots of sunlight burned through the mists that still floated, and Kaleb worked his jaw with every step.
“It will be ok Kaleb…Poppa knows what he’s doing.”
Kaleb softened and smiled, though it looked worn out “Yeah…You’re right..Honey you’re right.. Pop ain’t wrong…” The last word was strung out and thin.
Synopsis
It deals with Aléthia's "normal" life and the dangers of his first day.
Warning
I am not a native English speaker—my native language is Spanish—so there might be some grammatical errors; sometimes translation tools take things too literally. ;[
Notes:
I'm a first-time writer—though I have other projects I haven't shown yet. I'm doing this because I'm not that great at comics and don't have the time to do so much drawing. I'd love to know if you'd like to see more of this in the future! :>
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Ale's POV:
The Mirror of Darkness fulfilled the prediction; my new location is Heartslabyul. Logical. My behavioral parameters, strict adherence to rules, and obvious lineage as the White Rabbit's grandson align perfectly with this.
In the afternoon, following the welcome ceremony and a briefing on the many local rules, the subject known as Cater Diamond invited me to the Mostro Lounge. "For some quick pics for Magicam, #newfriends, #happiness," he said, arguing that my cute aesthetic suited his profile. I decided that analyzing Octavinelle's social dynamics would be valuable, though I voiced none of this outwardly. The establishment is excessively... presentable, featuring endless aquariums filled with an overabundance of colors.
However, the visit was far from peaceful. An unknown specimen—with hair that was either sky-blue or turquoise?—decided I was his new plaything; he might well be one of the "Leech" twins the agency warned me about due to his erratic behavior. He seized me by the neck with that oppressive strength of his. There was no pain, my organism is designed to withstand far more, but his voice... "Ahh, little fishy! Are you going to pop? Hahaha!" How embarrassing. I am not even a marine organism. I decided to test the efficiency of my self-defense techniques. With a subtle, precise strike to a nerve point in his brachial plexus, I neutralized his grip in seconds. To prevent further incidents, I employed a forced regenerative healing technique by injecting a high-concentration formula designed for hybrid species (assuming it might work on him). What I saw in his eyes... his pupils constricting. Wait... they are heterochromatic. HOW INTERESTING—analyzing the nerves, components, and... I need to calm down.
But the formula will regenerate the tissues instantly. The subject went limp, more from the 'healing' process than the blow itself. Interesting; I like seeing his reaction to pain.
Subject Cater witnessed everything from the table. His look of terror was captured on his phone screen. I had to issue a passive threat—wearing the most forcedly sweet smile possible, to silence him, telling him it was "just self-defense." His phone shook in his hand as he held it. Well, at least I posed nicely for the photos later...wearing the most forced, sweet smile possible... though I am struck by the fact that my hand hurts and is now red. Is this stranger's skin really that tough?
Thinking about one of the boss in Holmes’ Canto is gonna be based on Jack the Ripper. One of the things Holmes hate the most, because he couldn’t prevent the deaths that happened and his dad kept taunting him over it. It served as a “lesson” for the young lad that he cannot ever truly understand people, and neither can he control them. That only made him cling onto his ideals™️ even more and became dependent on his father…
So anyway Huin’s gonna get the ripper ID of course. Because it’s hot I mean COUGH because it represents the unpredictable and unfathomable nature of human cruelty. Why not Hyde? Please, he only clubbed one guy. He got the far more predictable murderer ID of Kromer. I want a really evil Huin ID that kills just because he’s capable of getting away with it. In the day he dresses like a human, in the night he becomes a beast… NOT FOR HYDE SHOO GO AWAY.
And plus 👀👀 the implication this has for Hong Lu? Watching the equivalent of Scotland Yard scrambling to find someone to arrest for his elders’ entertainment…
I think Huin’s gonna play a role in Holmes ID because they’re both tools… but Huin’s like “woah hey at least i consent to it, get this kid out of here” while Jericho is like 🤨 he doesn’t know his Canto is just one Hyde away… fucking Hyde stop coming up here shoo.
