#two for mirth

[muskegged]

redesign

[willowiswriting]

Finally started writing Two for Mirth tonight, randomly. This is the very opening of the book, possibly a prologue. Enjoy! Taglist under the cut at the bottom, ask to be added/removed!

There exists in this beautiful world many, many types of love. There is the love of two young children, hands clasped, running along the dirt path that wanders delicately away from their houses and towards a small copse of trees, where they will whisper secret spells to each other, dirt smudging their faces and fistfuls of dewy grass in a pile before them. 

There is the love of a young woman, clear-faced and wild-eyed, looking into the eyes of another, feeling her heart catch in her throat for not the first time in her life as shaky hands grasp at layers of rusty linen clinging to skin she’s still learning how to touch. 

There is the love of a mother, of course, her eyes just beginning to settle into tired bones and her fingers just starting to ache as she scrubs dirt and grass and dew from little blouses and little dresses. 

Everything is magic, her heart muses in her chest. Even the simple act of scrubbing clean your child’s clothes fills them with a protection energy that no witch can replicate. She whispers these words to her husband as they lay awake at night, holding each other. And that love, too, is yet another kind. The love between two people who fit together like puzzle pieces. Even when the frantic young lust has softened, they simply can’t help but stay up at night, tired as they may be in the morning, looking at each other in wonder. Wonder that they found each other, wonder that they had been born into the same world at the same time. But then, that in and of itself was magic, too.

Two for Mirth taglist (send an ask to be added/removed):  @writing-is-a-martial-art​ @bentypes​ @viskafrer

[falsehood-and-deceit]

Probably terrible Sanders Sides headcannons: #6

The day Virgil left the dark sides, he woke up to one single crow sitting on his windowsill. (oh wow this turned into angst real fast, nice going theo) The day he first heard one of Patton’s dad jokes, he saw two crows, and the day he realized he had feelings for Roman, he noticed seven crows outside the window, all staring intently at him

[othercat2]

Hi! So let me start by saying I'm loving your fic! I hope you're still doing request and prompts for it, so, could you write about David's opinion about Karkat before vs his opinion on him after the talk they had over pesterchum about Dave's future? If you someday also write the discussion David had with Dave right before that conversation I would owe you my life.

(Oh sheet I forgot to say WHICH fic I was talking abt in my last ask, sorry about that! I was talking about two for mirth)     

TotallyValid Concern

Dave is an okay kid. (Okay he’s in his twenties, butstill. He’s a goddamn kid.) You aren’t at all sure what you expected when you startedtalking to him, and later, met him at the airport for his visit. You’d seen himon TV and online, but TV takes off a few pounds and most of your actualpersonality. (You wish you’d reached out to him sooner.) Dave is smart,apparently shares the family sense of humor and is really, really good at aswordsmanship style that seems vaguely European. (No katanas shitty orotherwise here.)

You were maybe worried the kid would be some kind ofbasket case outside of TV appearances and comments on social media. You’d metrepatriate activists, and while they never went into too much detail, it was alwaysenough to make you uneasy and angry that anyone had gone through the shit theyhad. (It was also pretty shitty they were still going through shit.) But heseems okay, if also really nervous.  

It is pretty much not Striderly to take notice of such things,so you spend a lot of time distracting him until he relaxes. He’s impressed byyour penthouse and immediately feels the need to text about it to the Emissary.He laughs about whatever the Emissary texts back and tucks his phone away.

You…really don’t know how you feel about that. It becomespretty clear that Dave likes the Emissary, and frequently texts him, or sendshim pictures. Framing it as some kind of survival thing or something didn’treally work. Dave acted exactly like someone in a relationship, not someonepretending to be in one for their own survival.

There’s a lot of discussion over dinner, the three of youfeeling Dave out, Dave trying to figure you out. He doesn’t talk about Bro,which you aren’t really surprised about. You wouldn’t want to talk about Broeither. He does talk about having been a gladiator, and a little about havingbeen sold to the Grand Highblood. He also gives Hali a little lecture abouttrying to get him in trouble. “It’s not just rude, it can get someone killed,”Dave says. “You don’t set people up like that. If you get caught, everyone’sgoing to be against you, when you could have had allies instead.”

Hali taps his chair leg with his heel. “It’s not like hewould have done anything to you,” he says.

“Yeah but you didn’t know that, did you?” Dave pointsout. “It’s the principle. Karkat’s an Emancipationist so I wasn’t in any dangerbut if I had been, it would have been your fault.”

The conversation goes on to other things, but you can’thelp but thinking about the Emissary. About what the guy was actually like.Dave seemed pretty fond of him, but you weren’t sure you could trust that. DidDave have the frame of reference to know whether someone was “dating material”?Was the Emissary actually as much of an “Emancipationist” as he talked upbeing? (Did it even mean the same thing?)

So you worry. You have completely valid concerns.

Dave talks up how the Emisssary, “Karkat” didn’t want aconcubine. He also talks about “trying to get his seduction on” and some of thetraining he went through. “I really liked the dance lessons. The other classeswere kinda dumb though,” he says, dismissing them. “I ended up meeting a bunch offacilitators and sex workers online, and they liked my dancing, so that waspretty great. I got reblogged a couple times by actinicFlame who’s a well-knowncourtesan who blogs about dancing, mostly.

Mona wants to see the dancing, because she’s a traitor.(Mona: “David, it’s obviously something he’s proud of, and enjoys doing.” You:“It’s some kind of sex thing. I do not want to see my nephew doing some kind ofsex thing.” Mona: “David, it’s clear the dancing is an art thing, not just a‘sex thing’ let him show off.”) You do not want to see the dancing, but areover-ruled by the boys, who are also traitors.

The kid takes it out to the roof. Under Mona’s directionyou and the kids have dragged up a few of the chairs that usually live out bythe pool. Dave performs a dance with a lot of leaps and spins with his sword, asecond slow dance with a lot of posing, and then something he refers to as his“victory dance,” which involves a lot of strutting around and posing andswinging his sword.

You can’t help but be impressed. You think he couldprobably do the dancing professionally, in the UPT. You think he could probablygo to school for it, and make your suggestion for it a few nights later. Hecould probably get into one of the modern dancing troupes, or maybe start atroupe of his own. The kid gives you a skeptical look.

“I didn’t really get an early enough start, Uncle David,”the kid says.

“I don’t necessarily buy that,” you say. “I think youhave the chops to go on and have a really successful career at dancing. I didsome research about schools you could go to, with good dance programs.”

“Karkat already has me enrolled in classes,” Dave says.“Mostly a bunch of literature classes. At school feeding institutes in theEmpire.”

“The ones you talked about him signing you up for out ofthe blue?” You ask. “That you complain about?”

“Like the dance programs you want me to sign up for?”Dave shoots back. “Which are in the UPT, not the Empire, where I actually live.With my master.”  

“Is the story about you being rescued by the GrandHighblood and put in the custody of the Emissary not true?” you ask. “I mean,that the concubine thing was completely fake, like the fake married trope?”

“It was a joke, which is different from being fake,” Davesays. “At least as far as I can tell from what the Grand Highblood thinks. Andwhat he thinks is what matters, and what he thinks is that I belong to Karkat.”

“So you belong to Karkat, but you also belong to theGrand Highblood, and you have to put up with what they want,” you say. “Wheredoes what you might want come into play?”

“Well, I want tobe able to fight in the ring, but that’s not going to happen,” Dave says withconsiderable amusement. “And you can’t exactly offer me that.”

“Hey, fencing is a thing,” You say. “Hell, there are allkinds of sword competitions out there. I’m sure we could find you something.The sky’s the limit, kid.”

“I still belong to Karkat,” Dave points out. “Who doesnot live in the UPT.”

“But you don’t have to,” you say. “Even with this GrandHighblood hanging over your head telling you where you have to be, if Karkatcared about you, he’d let you stay here, right?”

“There’s no ‘if,’” the kid says, a little angry, but alsostrangely amused. “I know he cares about me. He’s so careful it’s almost alittle annoying sometimes.”

“Well okay,” you say. “So say I buy you from the GrandHighblood.”

“No,” the kid says.

“What, you don’t think I got the money? I bet I could buyhim out a couple times.”

“Yeah, but then I’d owe you,” the kid says, glaring atme. “And I don’t know what you want.”

“You’re family,kid,” you say, feeling a little frustrated at this point. “I want to know you’resafe. I want to make up for not being around to call CPS on that asshole. Jesuskid, you got raised by my asshole brother and sword and sandal epics I have aconcern!”

The kid flushes red at that. “I’d still owe you, UncleDavid. You can’t just–argh!” His hands go up in the air, form a gesture, adiamond with the first two fingers of either hand. You know that symbol is theone for moirallegiance and “pale” feelings in general. “It’s appreciated UncleDavid, really. Don’t offer to buy me, don’t make an offer to the GrandHighblood for me. It will not go well.”

“Kid–” you start to ask if he is actually in danger buthe shakes his head.

“Nope, look,” he says, lowering his hands. “I can’t giveyou a reassurance you’d actually believe,” he says. “You don’t have anythingthe Highblood would want that would be more than making his moirail happy. Hethinks I can make his moirail happy, and I really care about his moirail. But Ican’t give you a reassurance you’d believe, because you don’t know any of the signs and I keep forgetting.”

“Signs, huh.”

“Codewords and handsigns,” Dave says. “Which I shouldn’tbe telling you about. There’s ones for ‘yes I really am safe,’ and ones for ‘noI am not safe’ and ‘can I trust you’ and things like that.” He gives you asour, irritated look. “And I can’t reassure you, so you need to talk to Karkatyourself.”

“Okay,” you say. “Kid, I really am sorry about Bro. If I’dknown the asshole had somehow reproduced…”

“You cut off contact, right?” Dave says. “How would youhave known?”  

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” you say. Maybe Bro had cared about you in his own way.After all he named his kid after you.

“No, fuck that,” Dave says. “Don’t even think of feelingguilty about it. I would have cut him off eventually if he hadn’t died. I won’tsay it didn’t mess me up as a kid, but as an adult I can say he was a shittycustodian, and the cutting off contact was the only thing you could have done,okay?”

You want to argue that, and you do, a little. But the kidis pretty definite about what he thinks about your guilt. There’s some morearguing about the Grand Highblood, going to school in the UPT and the like, butthe kid eventually argues you into talking to Karkat.  

[muskegged]

the a

[willowiswriting]

Hello hi tell me about one of your WIPS?? - Dreamswithadashofspice

HI! Thanks for asking <3 (PS ORRY @dreamswithadashofspice THIS HAS BEEN IN MY DRAFTS FOR WEEKS OOPS) I'm gonna talk about my newest fantasy WIP, Two for Mirth, because it's the one I'm working on the most right now.

I freaking love this premise, and I am SO excited to get into writing it. The plot is basically that a young woman was cursed fourteen years ago and found, thought to be dead, in a field just outside of town. Her husband, one of the most renowned healers in the world, cannot bring her back from wherever she is for the life of him, and pumps so many healing spells into the ground that the field around them grows almost instantly into a dense, flower-filled woods. Now, fourteen years later, the woman's daughter happens across her mother's body, still perfectly preserved, and reopens the case with the help of the Grim Reaper, who appears before her to convince her not to attempt more magic to undo the curse. It's a sweet, sapphic, murder mystery and I have so many fun things planned for it.

The aesthetic I'm shooting for is great too. Think frequent juxtaposition of death/skulls/soil and flowers/sun/life. I want the whole thing to feel like a more gritty/new adult Disney Princess movie. Mood board images and more under the cut~

[othercat2]

fic: two for mirth 49/?

Coming back up is slow. Everything is a blur, soft focus. The walls of a hospital room appearify, white-beige, and no window. He can hear footsteps, voices outside the room but it feels like he’s under water. There’s an entertainment screen that’s showing some wiggler progam that he has just enough wit to feel vaguely indignant about. There’s a chair by his bed, and curled up in it in a way that can’t be comfortable, there’s…

“Dave,” Karkat says. His voice rasps and he can’t seem to do more than a creaky little whisper.

Dave stirs, seems a little confused himself, then almost falls out of the chair as he scrambles upright. “Karkat,” he says, voice too loud, and also painfully relieved. “Hey, you’re awake,” Dave says in a more even tone, obviously trying to cover for almost falling over. He moves in closer, caresses Karkat’s cheek. “You’ll do anything to avoid meeting the family, huh?” Dave smiles a slight, shaky little smile that makes Karkat’s bloodpusher stutter with entirely flushed pity.

“That’s exactly what happened,” Karkat says, smiling in return. “Water?”

“Why settle for water, when you can have AJ?” Dave says, and comes up with a sealed bottle of apple juice. He raises the bed a bit, opens the bottle. With some fumbling and some assistance from Dave, he’s able to take a sip.

“Is Jade all right?” Karkat asks after taking another sip.

“You took most of the bullets,” Dave says. “One went right through you, and got her in the gut, but she’s otherwise okay. Apparently has a subjugglator girlfriend now, but fine.”

Karkat makes a confused noise, not quite able to wrap his mind around it, or form words to question it.

“Yeah, I don’t know either,” Dave says. “I literally don’t know anything at all, except for what’s on the news, since I’m not actually next of kin or a quadrant and the only reason they let me stay in here was because they thought I was going to fly off the handle otherwise. Want me to call the doctorturer?”

Karkat hums at that, then gathers together enough of his scattered brain cells to reach up, and pap Dave on the cheek. “No flying off handles,” he says, and frowns.

Dave’s laugh has a decidedly watery sound to it. He presses Karkat’s hand to his cheek, then kisses Karkat’s palm. “Okay, sure. I can do that.”

“News, then doctortur,” Karkat says.

“You sure you’re going to be able to be awake for it?” Dave asks.

Karkat hums and frowns at Dave. He glances meaningfully at the screen, and Dave laughs and comes up with the remote. It takes some searching before they find a news segment handling the assassination attempt. The news reports that the snipers had been caught, and that his moirail was on his way. He tries to tell Dave to get a hold of Eridan, but he’s asleep before he can put the words together.

He’s a little more clearheaded when he wakes up. He learns from the nurse and the doctor that he’d been shot several times in the in the back and the gut. His aeration sponge had been hit; two had gone through his digestion tubes, and one lodged itself in his hip. He’d lost a lot of blood, and there had apparently been some problem finding him a donor. (Absolutely no surprise there.) A subjugglator named Leonis Myrmic apprehended one of the shooters; police caught the second five days later. Karkat had been out of it for more than a week. It seems that Jade had been targeted by a racist group with an intense hatred for the repatriated. Aside from informing the police, Jade hadn’t done anything about it.

Awake, things become extremely busy. He has to talk to the police investigators, and then Ampora. Eridan is shaky, angry and swearing to cull the (human) security detail, who had missed the shooters. “I’m pretty sure culling is illegal here,” Karkat says.

“I’ll have ‘em extradited,” Eridan says immediately. “That is, if Makara doesn’t go after ‘em first.”

“Gamzee isn’t going to cause a diplomatic incident,” Karkat says.

“He flippin’ is a diplomatic incident!” Eridan shouts.

Eridan’s moirail, expression serene, reaches up and quite brazenly paps him. Eridan’s fins flutter win embarrassment, but he settles. “I’m sure the Emissary knows his moirail’s mind better than you, love,” Gernuk says affectionately.

“What mind,” Eridan and Karkat accidentally chorus.

“Seriously, Eridan,” Karkat says, half a beat after that. “He’s grown up a lot.”

“To be the whimsical head of a cult of murderpranking loonies,” Eridan mutters. “All right, it’d be a bad idea to keep him away, anyway.” He glares. “But if he culls me because of this outrageous fuckery, I’m haunting your ass, is that understood?”  

“He won’t cull you,” Karkat says, a little exasperated.

Later he hears from Jade, and strangely enough, Leonis Myrmic. They come to visit from across the hall, Jade in a four wheeled device being navigated by Leonis It’s a little strange seeing a Subjugglator pushing a four wheeled device, let alone seeing one with diamonds in their eyes for a human academic-activist. “So, make up dinner, to make up for being my meat shield?” Jade asks after talking around the situation.

“Well, for not telling me you’ve been getting threats,” Karkat says. “Or might be in danger of getting shot by crazy human ‘racists’.”

Jade waves her hands in an exasperated gesture. “Crazy racists are a thing that happens!” she says. “I can’t cave and let them take over my life!”

“You woulda lost yours, sugargrub, if the Emissary hadn’t played ‘meatshield,’” Leonis says.

“You were there too, Lee!” Jade says. She tries to twist around to look at Leonis, and then freezes with a distressed sound, arms cradling her abdomen. “Owww.”

Leonis immediately squats down at the side of the chair. “So I was. You need me to get a doctorturer?” She asks.

“No, just sore,” Jade says. “Stop fussing at me, you’re worse than Dad!”

“Knew there was a reason I liked that damn dog,” Leonis says.  She rises to her feet, and smiles, at Jade, and then oddly at Karkat. “With all the arguing we do, I never expected to come up pale as bone for Jade. I guess he was let to see a punchline when the Mirthful said, ‘Bitch, someday you’re gonna fall in some quadrant with a heretic and Imma gonna have the biggest damn laugh about it.’”

“I’m just glad you didn’t get shot yourself, though honestly, who wears bioarmor to an academic conference!” Jade says, patting Leonis on the arm with a fond little grin. The affection definitely appeared to go both ways.

“Ninjettes who are ready to throw down for the faith,” Leonis says immediately. “And a good thing too.”

Leonis gives a thankfully unrhymed account of directing someone to call 911, then hunting one of the shooters down. (“One motherfucker was already out of range, but I set loose a most holy terror and got the other.”)

The conversation wanders for a bit, and then Jade says. “Okay Lee, you actually have to tell him. ‘Cause he definitely doesn’t remember you!”

“Well damn,” the Subjugglator says.

“Tell me what?” Karkat asks with a frown.

Leonis sighs. “So, a long time ago, I was all being schoolfed on the old Highblood’s flagship. And I was pissed off that the Highblood surrendered to some heretic who was in a moirallegiance with a jokeblood mutant. And I caused shit with the little motherfucker and he near put me through a wall and I gotta strip tore off me afterward, not for losing, but for fucking around like that at all on account quadrants are motherfucking sacred serendipity, even if it’s a fucking joke, especially if it’s a fucking joke. Then I got sent on a most mirthful and holy quest to learn shit and talk about what I learned and made friends with another jokeblood heretic who followed the Signless Cult. And I meet you again and I think, aight, Imma make up for being a nasty little bitch, and I’m sure you’ll know me on sight and fucking hate me but my sister goes, ‘I bet you it’s all in the past for him and he doesn’t remember,’ and now I owe her dinner and a movie, my treat.”

“Oh, you can afford it!” Jade says.

Karkat laughs a little. “Well, I remember a lot of fights, but not necessarily with who.” He tries to remember the face, and the makeup but can’t quite. The clue is the little gap between her front teeth and the arched nose. And yeah, he remembers her now. He isn’t angry, and he doesn’t hate her. He remembers putting up with her bullshit and the fight and someone coming in to mediate. “You changed your face a bit,” Karkat says, meaning her ‘holy face’ or the paint she was wearing. “You thickened the eyebrows and added opposing crescents under your eyes.”

“The face I was using when I was a kid was pretty basic,” Leonis says. “I changed it up while I was wandering around like the do-gooder mendicant from an adventure serial except all scholarly.”

“Well, I’m not sorry you got in trouble, but I don’t hate you,” Karkat says. “And even though I was pretty pissed at you then, it was a pretty long time ago. I’m glad you were on hand to provide back up and help, so we’re even, I guess.”

“Good, now shake and let bygones be bygones!” Jade says.

She is very insistent that they shake on it, so they do. 

==>

<==

[othercat2]

TFM Dave: How'd you get the nurses to let you stay when Karkat was down for the count? Or was it literally just they looked at you and saw a disaster waiting to happen if they made you leave?

pretty much that second thing i was kind of a mess and pretty loud and frustrated it helped that captain egbert backed me up on letting me stay in Karkat’s room or Karkat would be considering whether or not to bail me out of jail