#wol things

[druidocelotwrites]

Its really cute when a guy starts coughing up blood before going really pale and collapsing in a heap.

[aethernoise]

So in trying to reconcile Alyx’s personal love & hobby of learning languages with the ... extreme convenience presented to us in canon re: the Echo, I have settled on a hc that it DOES help her auditory comprehension...only. So it helps her to understand a spoken language, but does absolutely nothing to help her speak, read, or write it, hence why she has to do the work anyway.

It also doesn’t help with codes. Those she also has to figure out herself. Which she is fine with, because she is a huge nerd.

[druidocelotwrites]

The oneshot is complete!!!

It's essentially The Drive: Captivity chapter 5.5, but seeing as the events that led to Thancred being the specific kind of weird he is about C'oshta have no bearing on the fic itself, it's getting siloed off into its one oneshot as a sort of bonus/extra.

It is a vanilla-ish one night stand with anal. Its also the farthest thing from non-con I've written, though C'oshta absolutely regrets his poorly made decisions while tipsy. I did something "fun" with the formatting. I did some playing with work skins to double down on the difference of opinion in how things went.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/77990541

The plot demons have been exorcised.

That's uh. One goal for the year done and dusted.

Yes it's logged in users only like always.

[druidocelotwrites]

CHAPTER 6 IS READY AND LIVE

My thanks for the patience, read it here at your own pleasure.

This chapter is lovingly dedicated to my beloved medical whump enjoyers, gore fetishists, lovers of bacula, incest shippers, and yandere fans.

[aethernoise]

#1 - in terram fatali

[…] Parvus, parvus pulsus  Cor mortem ducens  Vita mollis in stellam redeunt  Animam sacrificare necesse est?  Cur in gremio haeremus?  Cur veniam petimus  In terram fatali? 

- “The Promised Land,” Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children

The land breathes.

She breathes it in, letting its breath into her lungs. Her eyes flutter closed and she can see the stars, hear the wind, feel the trembling of the ground beneath her feet. In and out, in and out, lungs squeezing gently, until the sound of the wind is her own heartbeat, her blood rushing into her fingers and toes.

The land bends.

She bends with it, becoming whatever shape it needs. Her body is a conduit, bridge built of flesh and bones, a river of aether. Her muscles ache and her joints protest, struggling beneath its weight, until she finds her balance, the place where the two are one. When she finds it she can see for malms, she can smell the life and the decay in tenuous harmony.

The land burns.

She burns brighter, pulling the fire through her veins, into her throat. The heat leaves in whispers, in murmurs, in screams; a gift and a curse to those who hear, to all who would seek to snuff it out. She crackles, she roars, she sighs tenderly, and the warmth of the land caresses her as it burns from the inside out.

The land breaks.

She breaks upon it, begs its forgiveness, begs its relief. Her hands shake and her voice cracks in the dark, shattering like ice under heavy footfalls. Voices cry out, damning, shaming, pleading, thousands of weightless souls crushing her all at once, only to disappear into the smoke. Fragile specters remain behind her eyelids, urging her tears, demanding her to look upon them when she sleeps.

The land bleeds.

She bleeds, and she bleeds, and she bleeds. Steel and flesh are one, and the taste is bitter, spat onto the ground with a laugh. Her blood is red and it is black, purity and sin flowing from a single wound; it mingles and mixes with the land until she can no longer see the divide, no longer distinguish whose voice leaves her lips. She gives in, but she takes, and holds with white knuckled hands, with the only strength she has left.

The land scars.

She scars in its stead, her shoulders weary from the weight. She wears them inside her clothes, inside her mind, and on her tongue when she speaks. She holds her arms open to them, welcomes them as she curses them, smiles as her eyes fill with light.

[druidocelotwrites]

Another pot of tea for writing-

This time its the "perfect date" tea.

It came out tasting pretty dang close to an old fashioned, in spite of having 0 burn due to having no actual alcohol in it. (If I was still drinking, it'd be a prime contender for hot toddy duty, it just meshes THAT well.)

[druidocelotwrites]

The cookies and tea definitely worked.

These sections might not stay in this order... but uh... 1,572 words across all of those is good for an evening. (and its definitely gonna get expanded and trimmed, and one of those sections might end up in ch 8 rather than ch 7, it depends on how things go.)

[druidocelotwrites]

I'm calling this "a suprise tool to help me later", since I'm so very close to the end of the STB bits of The Drive: Captivity.

At which point I will have to start working on the SHB bits, so just uh... call this a tonal preview (It's been ... well... not made, but I've had the tracklist ready and sitting in my one-note for the fic series for a WHILE, and having been reminded just how few fans Ardbert has in the English-speaking side of the fandom... I figured I'd go ahead and port it in and get it ready since... ya know)-

There's also an Ardbert Tea, because ya know... I DO LIKE HIM.

Rejoined Generosity Tea

He was the better man.