Creation time! Today you get a word or phrase for a creation prompt, use it as your inspiration in whatever way you see fit: How did you get in the bloodbath? Why do you have a bloodbath? And most importantly, because a lot would forget to ask, are you enjoying your bloodbath?
Or jokes aside: Whose blood is that, stuck to their hands? A friend's, their own, Whumper's... Was it revenge or a horrible accident? Was it supposed to happen like this?
You can reblog this post with your prompt fill (gifs, art, writing, etc.), or make your own post (there’s a banner available on our blog at #wijbanner if you’d like)! Make sure to use the tags #whumpmasinjuly2026 and #wij26day6 so that others can find your post, and be sure to check out the tags to see all the awesome works this month! Make sure to tag @whumpmasinjuly-archive so your works can be featured on our official archive blog!
Day 9 of @whumpmasinjuly-archive ; Writing prompt "Burning"
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TWs; chronic pain
I'm reposting an older one because I a; I am too tired to write a new thing and b; it didn't get much interaction and I crave validation.
Gawain's POV;
Gawain scowled at the page before him, covered in half written verses and scribbled out lines. Reading and writing was a rarity among the Fey, but he was one of few who knew how- taught by a learned man in Byzantium many years ago.
Poetry had quickly become not only a way to practice these skills, but to soothe his mind.
It was doing anything but that right now.
The never-ending pain burning within his spine was too persistent, too distracting, too forthright in his mind to focus.
"Curse these blasted vines!" Gawain hissed, rubbing his lower back with an ink stained palm against the low, itching ache of Nimue's magic. It kept him walking despite a shattered spine, at the cost of his sanity, apparently.
Gawain hummed softly, an idea beginning to form. Brushing the parchment he had been writing on aside, he pulled a new leaf from a pile beside him, dipped the quill again and began to write. Late did he persist by the light of a candle, until finally, at the darkest part of night did he set his quill down, cap the ink and lean back in his chair, satisfied.
Day 3 of @whumpmasinjuly-archive ; Writing Prompt: "I'm Sorry"
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[Previous; Day 2] [Next; Day 4]
TWs; death, resurrection, near death experience, injured, pain
Prompt: "I'm Sorry"
1,168 words, Fandom; Cursed. Minor spoilers for my Cursed fic, Horizons to Battlegrounds.
Gawain's POV
------}- ● >--‐---->
Everything was grey, grey grey when Gawain awoke after sunrise.
The hills were cast in low hanging clouds that blocked out the whole horizon in dour shades; and the grey monk's cloak, his eyes, his skin. Even his lips had taken on a deathly pallor, pale and sickly.
Like the clouds that blotted out the sun and soaked the moors to their bitter bones, the scent of sickness hung as close to the Ashman as his ever-present cloak, Gawain had noticed.
No. Not sickness…
Something far, far darker.
Dread settled in the pit of Gawain's stomach and he leapt to his feet, in an instant he knelt at Lancelot's side.
Where normally the Weeping Monk would have stirred at the movement, Lancelot didn't react. He did nothing at all, nothing, no movement--
"Arawn, No…" Gawain whispered, horrified at what he'd found, reaching out to touch his face.
The Weeping Monk's skin was cold to the touch, his broken ribcage still and silent. A quick look to his left told Gawain that Squirrel, the boy, was still fast asleep- snoring softly.
"No. No, no, Ashman, please don't do this…" Gawain shook his head, that dread in his stomach already igniting into something more potent whilst he searched for a pulse, signs of life, anything.
How would he explain this to the boy? A boy who'd already seen so much of death, but not again, please, not again…
"Arawn, help me!" Gawain begged as loudly as he dared without waking the boy, feeling the bloom of warmth within himself feeding on his panic, already willing, already ready to harken his desire.
The magic of the Hidden was not a thing to use recklessly. There would be a cost, he knew. The Hidden whispered it into his ear, voices on the wind growing restless.
"I don't care! He will not… he will not die today!" Gawain swore under his breath, closing his eyes, willing the magic to awaken.
And awaken it did.
Gawain found himself falling into darkness, chasing the pull of the Hidden, dragged along by the endless tides that he somehow understood to be Lancelot, or what was left of him, his soul, his fire.
Suspended in nothingness in the depths of Lancelot's broken body was a firey thread, flickering like a dying ember that refused to be snuffed out.
This glimmering thread tethered him with all that it had; even as the cage of ivory bone rattled with the last echoes of the life giving air that had long since died down, even as the silence was deafening in the absense of the thrumming drums of a heart that should have sounded.
Gawain did not give himself time to question what he was doing. He simply reached out and plucked this thread that held it all together.
Vines blossomed from where he'd touched it, surging up like a tangled spiderweb of knotted living veins, weaving, winding, growing faster and faster and faster and--
Drumbeats in the dark.
Winds howled through broken branches of Ash.
Crimson leaves ripped from them and scattered across the barren earth, and more twisting vines sprouted from every place they landed.
Grey, tear marked eyes flew open wide and bloodstained teeth snarled a stolen breath.
Agony exploded in Gawain's spine and he cried out, a flash of green blinding his vision before it faded to black once more, slipping back down, down, down into the darkness.
Gawain could do nothing, dragged under by those terrible vines as they turned on him; he, the tresspasser in another's domain, coiling around him as the ribcage did a heart and consticting him like a snake, hissing and biting. He couldn't breathe as the air was taken from his lungs and given to another, the pain in his still healing spine growing stronger and stronger yet he'd no breath left to scream.
So he simply closed his eyes and let them take him.
"What did you do?!"
Gawain was sure he ought to know that voice but he couldn't understand what it meant, nor could he quite recognise who it belonged to.
"Gawain? Gawain!"
Gawain. That was his name, wasn't it? He wanted to sleep. Just five more minutes...
"Don't you dare..."
Yes. He'd rest a bit more. Oh that darkness was so, so enticing... And it called his name too, he thought.
"Green Knight?"
A new voice. A young boy. A terrified one. A sense of urgency suddenly welled up within him, to reach that boy who he knew he must protect. Gawain; The Green Knight, for yes, that was his name; fisted his hands through the vines, clawed his way up to the surface and broke clear of them like breaking through ocean waves, sucking in a breath of air above the watery depths that had tried to claim him.
He too opened his eyes.
"What? I wanted a nap..." He felt himself say.
Two very concerned looking faces changed to one of relief and one of annoyance.
The relieved boy, Squirrel, darted forwards and hugged Gawain tighter than even the crushing vines had.
"Easy, boy. Let him breathe."
Gawain watched Lancelot pull Squirrel back, though that annoyed look on the man's tear marked face was tinged with genuine fear, another unreadable emotion creasing his brow and flickering in the depths of grey, tired looking eyes.
"You shouldn't have done that." Lancelot told him, quietly, sternly, still frowning deeply.
Confusion gave way to recognition when Gawain realised exactly what it was he had done. He frowned right back, anger flaring up in his chest that this man should be so bloody ungrateful for Gawain's gift, as if it wasn't his to give. Shouldn't have- as if he'd done something wrong.
"What, do you want me to apologise? To say what, that I'm sorry?" Gawain hissed vehemently, fury lending strength to lean up, and the way Lancelot's jaw clenched as he averted his gaze only made him more irate.
"I'm not sorry for saving your bloody life!" Gawain seethed, collapsing right back down with a gasp of pain and a whimper when his spine retaliated brutally to the movement. Lancelot started to move forwards, then hesitated and glanced away, throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly, hands hovering near Gawain's shoulder as if he wanted to do something to help but wasn't sure what.
It was a look long enough for Gawain to realise what was hiding in the Weeping Monk's eyes… guilt. Yes, it was guilt that Gawain could see…
Forgive me, I'm sorry. The words Gawain refused to say with any sincerity screamed themselves out upon Lancelot's angular face- flushed with colour again, no longer cold and grey.
Gawain wasn't entirely sure those unspoken words would have been misfounded on Lancelot's part, had he dared to speak them aloud. He hissed through his teeth at the waves of pain that had begun to tremour through him. They both knew it well, and it haunted them both; for to save Lancelot's life, Gawain had crippled himself again…
Creation time! Today you get a word or phrase for a creation prompt, use it as your inspiration in whatever way you see fit: what kind of restraints are we talking? Metal cuffs, rope, zipties... Physical or mental ones? Are we securing them or are we yanking on them with all our might to escape? Are they uncomfortably digging into the skin or are they barely more than a reminder?
You can reblog this post with your prompt fill, or make your own post (there’s a banner available on our blog at #wijbanner if you’d like)! Make sure to use the tags #whumpmasinjuly2026 and #wij26day3 so that others can find your post, and be sure to check out the tags to see all the awesome works this month! Make sure to tag @whumpmasinjuly-archive so your works can be featured on our official archive blog!
