For @jackdaw-sprite, and for @ectoberhaunt 2025 Isekai Weekend: Another Place, Another Time
CW: Cosmic Horror, Body Horror, Existential Horror, Imagery of Phanon-Typical Dissecc, Lost Time (but make it fucked up)
Word Count: 269
ao3 | ffn
*~*~*
Danny doesn't know how much more of this he can take. His body and mind are broken beyond belief, stretched and twisted and changed in ways he can't ignore. He feels as a million million stars are born, lighting his mind with pinpricks of fire and heat. He senses their deaths, too—the way those stars dimple his everything, slowly pressing against his skin like his sister's finger poking him, like sitting on a crochet hook left on the couch by his dad, like his mom's scalpel against his flesh—pushing into him until they break against him, or until he breaks with them, leaving heavy cold dark in their wake.
Hadn't he wanted this?
Only, he doesn't know what want is. How can he, when he has-is-was-will be everything?
Purple and blue and deep red churn their way into his awareness, and a binary star system creaks and groans. A purple-gloved hand made of time itself brushes against the center of his attention, and a galaxy shudders. The hand takes a moment to strum the galactic filament to which the galaxy belongs, the shudder rising to a resonant frequency as time gives voice to space.
"Clockwork...." Two galaxies crash into each other, swirling like red and green on the floor of the lab, star systems flung in broken sobs of chaos and destruction.
Time smiles, gently caressing the surface of a star, and it blasts into supernova.
"It's alright, Daniel." A star system full of life weeps and screams and mourns as it is slowly, inevitably stretched and twisted and pulled into a black hole.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Orin's never been more beautiful—splayed out, wide-eyed and quivering, and entirely on display for them, showing the parts of her no one else ever gets to see. The strongest of Bhaal's Unholy Assassins now a tender, shaking thing, as vulnerable as the first day Kallian ever held her in their arms, a newborn babe that knew nothing but who she belonged to. If Bhaal's altar lies in the sanctuary, the operating table is Kallian's, and they've never had a more perfect offering.
Orin lets her sibling vivisect her.
Quick little Horny Vivisection fic I wrote for the Very Normal Siblings.
A PETTY LINE OF WHITE NOISE
PACK UP YOUR BAGS AND THROW OUT THE TOYS
THREE STRIKES, AND "HONEY, I'M HOME!"
THREE VOICES COME FROM THE GRAMOPHONE
A VIVISECTION OF ME
YIELDED THE START OF A MYSTERY
THREE STRIKES, AND "HONEY, I'M HOME!"
THREE VOICES COME FROM THE GRAMOPHONE
THIS DRABBLE IS OUTDATED. IT WILL BE REWRITTEN AND RECYCLED FOR THE NEW STORY "DOCTOR DREAMS".
Juno hadn't seen the figure for a while. They'd only go to his cell to give him that weird mush. He could sense the figure was plotting something and he spent several days and nights trying to figure out what they were planning. Even when he tried to talk to them, they wouldn't respond.
While Juno was panicking over what the figure might do next, they were fixing some things in a part of the lab made for surgeries. Cleaning a metal table stained with blood from who knows long ago, brushing away glass shards and dirty needles with some mystery disease, making sure the scalpels were sharp, making sure the restraints were tight enough and making sure everything was sterile.
Once everything was prepared the last thing they needed to do was sedate Juno. A chloroformed cloth should do the trick.
Juno was scribbling in his journal. The drawings weren't coherent, but at least there was something distracting him of the anxiety plaguing his mind. He went to the next page and thought for a moment. Maybe he could write down escape plans, the abandoned lab wasn't that far from civilization, right? And even if it was, it'd be better to die from dehydration or eaten by wolves than to be tested on.
He heard footsteps. Then he heard someone opening the basement door. Then he heard keys jingling. Then he heard more footsteps. He felt a cloth cover his mouth and nose. He didn't try to resist, he knew it'd be pointless. After a while his vision started fading and his eyelids felt heavy. And then he saw no more.
When they were certain Juno was sound asleep, they strapped him onto a gurney and carried him into the surgery room. It'd take a while for him to wake up, so they made some last minute preparations before restraining him onto the surgery table.
Juno slowly woke up. His head hurt, his vision was blurry and he didn't know where he was. He tried to move his arms but he couldn't, and he couldn't move his legs either. As his consciousness was returning he noticed he was strapped onto a surgery table. A Y shape was drawn on his torso and to the left of him was a tray with several scalpels. Seems like his intuition was right.
"Hello again, Juno." The figure said as they were putting on latex gloves. "Hope you slept well. Don't try to break the restraints, it's not gonna work."
"What is this..?" Juno mumbled.
"Just your standard vivisection."
The figure picked up a scalpel and approached Juno, who was breathing heavily. He screamed as they sliced his flesh and begged as they pulled back his skin, exposing his organs. His heart was beating intensely, he was hyperventilating, and the figure was examining his insides like a doordash order. His eyes darted across the room, trying to find an exit.
Oh, how he wished he could be somewhere else. How he wished he didn't need to endure this pain. How he daydreamed of being next to a fireplace with a trusted someone tending to his wounds. How he daydreamed of finding the masked figure once he escaped, beating them up into a paste and killing them once everything was over. How he dreamed of being anywhere but here.
The figure walked away from the surgery table and returned with a needle and string. They stitched up Juno's wounds whilst he shivered from being trapped in that cold room for so long. At least it was over. They covered his mouth with another chloroformed cloth and strapped him onto the gurney.
He woke up again in that same cell he was in for the past few months. Maybe this all was just an extremely realistic dream? One look at his torso said otherwise. Those stitches were definitely real. What else would the figure do? What other ways would they dissect and experiment on him? When would they stop, when he was on death's doorstep begging for mercy? They could probably resurrect him if so.
And what if he managed to escape anyways? Would anyone believe him? Could he have a chance to witness his own funeral? Could he pretend he was an old friend of his, walk up to the casket and see there was no body inside it? How would his friends and family feel if they found out they were mourning someone who was still alive?
things i think about a lot: in very early editions of dnd, menzoberranzan drow wizards were explicitly targeted for a loyalty test as soon as they reached a certain level of power that sometimes involved lolth personally inspecting you
like......do, they still do that?? is it just a Shared Experience menzoberranzan drow wizards have, you and your buddies being tortured by the clergy and sometimes one of you sees the god of your city and she vivisects you??
(this is from the first?? book of war of the spider queen)
What’s something they’re expected to enjoy based on their hobbies / profession that they actually dislike / hate?
weirdly specific headcanons ; accepting
OH PLENTY. there are a lot of things that are entirely expected of him as archmage that he either hates, or outright refuses to engage in. theres a lot he will do to fit into the unseelie court, but even valeriu has his boundaries. one of the things he refuses to engage in is flesh gardens -- grotesque sculpture-like displays created using depraved magic and the flesh of other creatures. its like bonsai, but if youre absolutely fucked up and have absolutely fucked up magic. granted, even among the dokkalfar, its considered a pretty extreme thing, and most 'flesh artists' only present their sculptures and 'art' to those who are already...in the scene. its a secretive sort of thing, but people still know the flesh gardens exist, and fear one day becoming apart of them.
another thing vali refuses to engage in is some of the things the most gluttonous aristocracy of dokkalfar eats. he likes the decadent things in life -- but he draws the line at foods that are outright cruel. hes no vegetarian, he understands that the act of killing is nessecary to consume meat, but he cannot excuse outright cruelty in the preparation of food. a notable example is edible dormouse drowned in honey. and thats not just a saying, the poor dormice are literally drowned to death in a pot of honey before they are cooked and served.
theres even a dokkalfar saying that goes along the lines of 'like a dormouse in honey' which is kind of akin to 'like a pig in shit' aka to describe someone who is very self-satisfied, but it also has a deeper, more sinister meaning -- someone who is so self satisifed they do not see their oncoming doom, likely at the hands of the same thing they take great pleasure in. contrary to the idiom, though, those poor dormice are not gaining any pleasure or self-satisfaction from being drowned in honey, and he refuses to eat it. granted, hes not the only noble that has reservations about such foods, but they are still popular enough to persist on the tables of dokkalfar nobles. he would have a similar opinion of fois gras, ortolan (basically a wild bird that is force fed until it doubles in size and then is drowned in a type of sweet cooking wine. yeah. its. yeah.), and basically any other 'delicacies' that require cruel and unusual cruelty in order to achieve the 'desired' results.
something vali once had to engage in, in order to complete his education within the lyceum, was preforming vivisections. you know, cutting open live people and animals to study their insides. hes not at all unfamiliar with it, he knows his way would the internal innards of most common creatures and humanoids from his years of studying anatomy and physiology within the lyceum. and he understands that a lot is learned from the medical theaters of the lyceum. but again, the cruelty of it all, he cant stand it. vali even takes measures to make sure *bugs* are humanely anesthetized or euthanized before he starts cutting them open, much less something much more complex. but...if he has to...he will. he just will hate every moment of it, if he can he will do what he can within his power to reduce the suffering of that of which he is cutting open, and then afterwards likely excuse himself to go throw up. its a thin tight rope to walk. needless to say, he doesnt teach apprentices in the medical theater of the lyceum much anymore.
you know theres A LOT of things about vali's society he doesnt agree with and either does everything within his power to avoid engaging in it, or engages in it EXTREMELY begrudgingly. he begrudgingly engages in the sharp edged drama and titillating gossip of the unseelie court, for if he does not stay on top of it, those sharp edges could be used against him just as easily. he begrudgingly has to appeal to the sensibilities and rationale of his peers, even if they are wrong, even if they severely look down on him because of his past, because if he doesnt, it will just be another way they discredit him. he begrudgingly engages in all the lying, and the scheming, and always appearing like hes truthful and never up to something, else the facade that kept him alive for so long will crumble. hes gotta play by their rules because despite his position as archmage, as a member of the tribunal, hes on very thin ice, and he needs to keep up appearances and be accepted into the fold just as much as he needs to appear like an untouchable object of fear and desire.
@ 👽💫🕶️: I love you too. I know in essence I'm just a small part of a bigger 'me', and each part acts, reacts and thinks kind of independently, but you're kind and good to me. And that's what I need. That said, had we somehow met at the time I probably would've tried to vivisect you, which is maybe not great. But maybe we could've been friends? What matters is now, though. Thank you. You're one hell of a guy. - #🍬👿
