I DID IT GUYS I FINISHED A PROMPT. Hope y’all are ready for some angst
Ko-Fi
Commission me!
Rain falls, soddening the hard earth to slick mud. The downfall drowns her. She can't breath. Her lungs pull in air, yet she suffocates.
Help...someone help...her breathless voice can't carry the words, but they repeat in her mind like a mantra.
But there is no help. The sound of battle echoes in her ears. They can't help her. Only she can.
Amaranthe's hand slaps the wet mud, sinking in half an inch as she turns over onto her front. You can do this. Just stand. Get up. Get up!
Her hands slip. She lands face down in the mud. The strength flees her body. One sounds cuts through the haze. Footsteps.
Amaranthe raises her head enough to see the heavy chainmail boots. She raises her eyes to the face. A blur of colours.
'Who…' She is so tired. Even speaking is a herculean effort.
They kneel and offer their hand. The sun breaks through the clouds, haloing the stranger.
She weakly raises her hand, eventually reaching it. When she stands, they are gone. Perhaps they were never there. A dream induced by her mind to spurn her body to action. Because the fight is not yet over.
She fastens both hands around her sword, and rallies herself with a battle cry as she runs back into the fray.
There is a part of war all the novels and plays skip over--the aftermath. When the victors stand amidst the remains of the battlefield, searching for other survivors and witnessing the destruction of war. Men and women missing limbs, trying desperately to tuck spilled organs back inside, clutching at their wounds, crying out for their parents or God. But there are no Gods in such a place. There can't be. Battlefields are playgrounds for the demons. Each horror surpasses the last, but Amaranthe forces herself to look at every single one. She needs to see what this war wrought. She needs to be reminded of the cost.
Several hands reach out, grasping at her boots or tail coats, silently beseeching aid. The only help she offers is a dagger through the throat.
She reaches a rise, giving a vantage point over the carnage of broken bodies and abandoned bodies. The rain had long since stopped, and everything seemed to still and silent. The dying were now dead and she stands alone in a sea of ghosts.
The sword slips from her limp fingers. There is no need for steel anymore.
'Are you proud of me?' She whispers, unsure who she asks. Herself, her patron, her parents…
A wet choke draws her attention. Someone still clinging to the vestiges of life. She picks up her sword, limping down the hill to the survivor. A sun elf, fair of skin and gold of crown, mud and blood staining his fine armour. The hands reach for her, even as his emerald eyes widen with horror. She places the sword back in the sheath.
'Traitor,' she says. Her voice lacks venom. She's too tired for hatred.
Theodrin coughs. The gaping wound in his neck bubbles as he gasps for breath.
'No barbed insult? No bigoted slur?'
He splutters something. Amaranthe leans in closer, ready for the customary greeting of "bastard" or "half-breed".
'P-please...kill me…'
Amaranthe leans back. She stares at her Uncle as he hangs in limbo between life and death. She had ghosted her way across the battlefield, killing the dying like the reaper of death. Yet she offers Theodrin neither sword or dagger. She gives him only time.
He wheezes another plea.
'If only someone was here to save you, Uncle.' She brushes his hair back from his bloody throat. 'I was hoping to see you on the battlefield. I wanted my hand to be the one to slay you. But now, given the opportunity, I no longer want to.'
Another wheeze. His gaze is accusatory.
'You always said I was a good for nothing bastard. I suppose in the end you were right. Take comfort in that as you find your way to your grave.'
Amaranthe watches the erratic rise and fall of his chest, the flow of blood pulsing from his wounds until he expires. His chest stills and the wound runs dry.
Her legs give out. She fallsprone, staring up at the grey sky choked in smoke. The sun begins eking out as her eyes slide shut…
The war ends, but its memory clings to her, visiting every dream. The gore, the stench, the horror...she never escapes it. She questions who the true victor was that day. Dying is easy. It's living that is hard. Continuing on after everyone else leaves, learning to live with oneself, and what they have done.
Amaranthe thought for a moment she expired on that battlefield, when her eyes peeled open to the pure, dazzling light. Her eyes, dry and tired mistake blurriness for clouds. The fog clears to the white and gold marble of the palace. Not heaven, home.
'Welcome back, Princess.' The healer smiles over her. A benevolent and gentle man who only sees war through the injuries he heals.
Touched by age in his thinning hair and drooping skin, but not by horror and trauma.
'I'm home…' she mumbles. Voices still roar in her eyes. Her hands are empty. Her fingers twitch, longing for the comfort of cool steel, knowing soon it would grow hot with blood. But it's not in her hands, no by her bed where where WHERE. She has to find it...she needs to be ready…
'Princess, please. You need rest.' He pushes her back against the pillows.
'No, no no. I can't rest, you don't understand--'
'I promise you Princess, I do. The ordeal you and the other survivors endured leaves you restless and paranoid.'
'You can't possibly understand. You haven't seen what I have seen.
'No. I admit. But I have seen soldiers return from war try to adjust to peace. Let yourself be at rest. There is no one left to fight.'
'You are wrong. There is always someone left to fight.'
“Please come home, I miss you” for whoever you'd like :)
Another prompt done! Some post-beckoning Rosary angst. Really short but ehhh
Ko-Fi
Chicago. A city that never sleeps. Even after the sun retreats behind the horizon, another world rises.
Some humans continue on, to their night shifts or looking to blow off steam. It had been a while since Rosary stepped out of the apartment for anything other than a bite to eat. Bartholomew made moving on sound so easy...she told him she couldn't. She warned him. Why didn't he listen? Stupid, stubborn man.
Her phone rings again. Months ago, she would rush to it, desperate enough to hear his voice she dared feel a spark of hope. That spark had long since died. She let's voicemail pick it up.
'Hey, Rose,' Victor's subdued voice drifts quietly through the apartment. 'Been a while...calling to see if you're alright. And if you want to talk, I'm here. That's all. Bye.'
Awkward as always, even after all these years. He's a good kid. Dammit, now she feels guilty. It isn't the first time he called her with concern.
Rosary picks up her phone, laying face down on the coffee table. Her thumb hovers over the dial back option…
She opens her contacts. There is his name, the bold black text seeking to thrum with life against the white background. She closes her eyes. He always claimed he saw strength in her she never herself believed she had. But every night since he left, she disproved that. It always came back to him. Always. His ghost haunts her, clinging to every waking thought, stalking through her every day. She sometimes catches the scent of his cologne on the air, or even hears his voice in her sleepless delirium. It never stops. Never ends. But she keeps feeding into this obsession, not allowing it to end.
She keeps his memory alive once more. He won't answer. But that isn't what she waits for as the line rings. And rings. And rings.
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
Rosary hangs up, holding the phone to her chest. Her heart no longer beats, but it still breaks. A sob rattles through her chest, but she forces it down. Redials.
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘Lies…,’ she whispers. She hangs up. Just once more...
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘You promised me eternity.’
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘Where are you?’
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘Why won’t you answer?’
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘Just one word. That’s all I’m asking! Just one…’
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I will call you back.’
‘Don’t you love me anymore? Did you ever?’
‘I can’t answer the phone right now. Leave your message and I--
‘I can’t answer the phone right now.’
‘I can’t answer--’
‘I can’t’
‘I can’t’
‘I can’t’
‘I CAN’T!’ She screams. Blood-red tears stream down her face. She cradles the phone to her ear, her last shred of composure stripped away. ‘I can’t do this anymore. Please come home. I miss you...Please.’
The metallic yet sweet smell of her vitae fills the air. Her beast stirs from its slumber, rearing its head, starved and furious.
With a scream she hurls the phone across the room. It bounces off the wall with a mood crack, thudding face-down on the tiles floor.
‘Oh, shut the fuck up,’ she whispers, as the beast demands blood.
Rosary stands, wiping away the tears. Just once more, she wants to hear his voice. This would be the last time for real. She needs to move on, and accept Bartholomew would never return. No one returns from the Beckoning.
She calls, for the final time. It rings.
The ringing sound she hears isn’t from the phone. It comes from just outside the apartment door. She pauses, expecting it to be another phantom, another illusion to torture her with what-if’s. The ringing stops as the call is answered.
Combining two prompts for todays D&December prompt, Long Rest
Prompt list found here, first entry is here
Ko-Fi
Amaranthe awakens to rain slashing down from the dark night sky. A bolt of lightning illuminates the intimidating spires of Castle Ravenloft. Darkness. Then another bolt. One of the spires explodes outwards in a shower of brick, stone and glass. A third bolt illuminates a long, large dark tentacle unfurling amidst the wreckage of the sundered tower. The stormy clouds swirl and swell, like a troubled ocean as the rain continues in torrents. The coldness of the water on her exposed skin steals the breath from her lungs. Her fingers claw at her throat as she drowns in the rain.
The tentacle continues its wreckage, lashing out against its confines until the entire castle is razed down to debris. In the midst of it all, the shoggoth rises against the maelstrom stirring behind it, the numerous eyes and mouths on its amorphous form wrenching opening. A terrible discordant shriek shakes the very ground beneath her feet.
The entire world tilts onto its side.
A scream erupts from her mouth as she plummets down towards the large, gaping maw emerging out from the storm-brewed abyssal ocean.
Amaranthe awakens with a jolt coursing across her entire body, her panic soothed by the sight of familiar surroundings. Safe in bed...scared witless, but safe.
‘Bad dream?’ Balthazar asks without turning to look at her.
He stands next to the door leading out onto the balcony, watching the rain patter down against the glass.
Amaranthe takes a deep breath and clears her throat, trying to rid herself of the vestiges of her panic clinging to her breath.
‘You could say that…’ she says, once she has control of her lungs. ‘Why are you awake right now?’
Balthazar shrugs. ‘Couldn’t sleep.’
He offers no further explanation. Stoic and stubborn, as always. But he finally turns towards her, his expression neutral. She wishes her poker face was half as good.
‘Want to talk about it?’ he asks.
‘No. Do you?’
‘Hell no.’
‘You know…’ she stares down at her lap as she speaks. Communication never was her forte, and eye contact just makes it infinitely worse. Some Queen she would be. ‘If you ever want to...talk about things, there’s no shame in it. It might even be beneficial to get some things off your chest.’
‘Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Amara?’
‘Ouch. Touche. But you know, if you don’t want to talk, you could keep a journal. It’s what I do.’
‘I know.’ The smirk slowly spreading across his features fills her with dread.
‘Please tell me you didn’t--’
‘Read it? Oh yeah.’ Balthazar clears his throat, pitching his voice into a mockery of her voice. ‘Dear diary, today I met a strong, handsome man who--’
Amaranthe tosses a pillow straight at his head, cutting off the rest of his words into laughter as he easily catches the projectile.
‘I wrote no such things,’ she mutters as her face burns with embarrassment.
‘Your blushing face says otherwise.’ He pitches the pillow back towards her as her guard is down.
She ends up catching it right in the face instead of her hands.
‘Oh, you have no idea what you just started,’ she says, clutching her weapon in both hands.
‘I think you’ll recall you started it. But I’ll be the one to finish it.’
She grins, feeling the adrenaline and excitement tingle in her veins. ‘We’ll see.’
He makes a run straight towards her, in a dash of unexpected speed. Amaranthe barely has time to swing the pillow forward before he is on her, tackling her back down against the mattress and prying the pillow for her hands.
‘Yield?’
‘Never!’ She grabs his pillow on the bed next to her and smacks him across the face.
‘Oh, you’re going to regret that.’ Balthazar bats her with the pillow again and again, her laughter breathless shrieks under the harmless assault.
‘How about now?’
Amaranthe recovers from her laughter enough to lurch upwards and steal a kiss. The momentary distraction allows her to switch their positions, so she is straddling him. ‘Men...so easily fooled. Now I have all the power.’
‘Is that right now?’
She nods. She then sees the blur of movement as he snatches up on the abandoned pillows, aiming straight towards her. She grabs the other one and counter attacks with a surprisingly loud smack. Feathers shower down on both of them as both pillows burst open.
Amaranthe stares in awe at the surreal yet beautiful scene. As she is distracted Balthazar rolls her back down onto the mattress, drawing a surprised squeal from her.
‘Now who’s in charge,’ he whispers against her skin, kissing down her neck.
Amaranthe didn’t have another nightmare that night.
