I was tagged by @scribbledquillz to do myself and the babes in this picrew! And then I cheated and looked up a samurai-themed dollmarker because the WSLB husbands were impossible to recreate otherwise, haha.
Top left is me, with my time-traveling disaster Lily on the right, and doomed soulmates Tadao and Akitaka on the bottom left and right, respectively.
Bonus: Akitaka in his soft puppy mode
Tagging forward to @pchberrytea, @ellenembee, @theherocomplexand, @redmapleleavesonwhitesnow, and anyone else who wants to do this! No pressure, of course! <3
It’s a shame you guys are only getting me crying abt how hard wandersong is bc there’s a lot of charming moments I wanted to cap but didn’t bc of the fullscreen thing and anyway I’m at
I was tagged by @pchberrytea and @lykegenia, and @ellenembee a couple of weeks ago -- thank you all! <3
Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.
From my original WIP:
His fingers still hungered for his touch after Akihide’s night visit to his quarters, but he shook the memory from his head and dropped his closed fist into his lap.
Oh god, apparently that means I'm supposed to tag 30 people. *deep breath* @theherocomplex, @baejax-the-great, @juliafied, @scribbledquillz, @the-rogue-mockingjay, @redmapleleavesonwhitesnow, @tanaleth, @coppermarigolds, @thievinghippo, @ladyeglantine, @a-tear-in-the-veil, @allisondraste, @rakshadow, @pigeontheoneandonly, @memaidraws, and anyone else who would like to do this -- no pressure of course, as always!
Thank you so much for the tag, @pchberrytea! I'm also working on original fiction -- I've spent a chunk of this afternoon re-re-rewriting this one pivotal scene from my novel, so I thought I'd share the latest version. :')
Tagging forward to @redmapleleavesonwhitesnow, @ellenembee, @theherocomplex, @thievinghippo, and anyone else who would like to do this! (Who else here writes or is interested in original fiction?)
He handed the cigarette back to her, and she reached for it between the bars of the temple gate. This time their fingers brushed. The touch released the electric charge building between their bodies and sent a spark running from her hand up her arm, forking down her spine to pulse once between her legs, then exit through the front of her left thigh. Lily thought of lightning and Lichtenberg figures and leafy scars, but instead she felt the skin part: there was no pain, somehow, but she looked down to see a ribbon of blood streaking her tattoos.
No thorny branch, no rusty nail in sight. The cigarette slipped from her fingers and scattered sparks on the grass that grew between the stones at their feet. “Oh,” she said, and the ground slid out from beneath her.
She clutched the bars of the gate; it groaned open, and she was distantly surprised it wasn’t even latched all this time. Tadao stared at the cut on her thigh, eyes wide with horror. The blood curled around her knee to snake down her shin towards the death moth tattooed on her foot.
“What the hell just happened? What did you do?”
Tadao swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, I did not think …” He shook his head. “Here, let me.” He pressed his sleeve to the cut on her thigh, careful not to let their skin touch again. The heat of his palm seeped through the fabric, and after a moment that felt much too short, he lifted his stained sleeve to examine the cut. Crimson beaded again where the skin parted, but the bleeding had slowed, and he wiped the blood off her leg. “You should leave,” he said.
“Not before you tell me what happened.”
His eyes avoided hers under his furrowed brow. Lily reached for his hand, ready to pull it away at the first hint of pain. There was none, though, nothing beyond an ache pulsing deep inside her at the feel of his firm, warm skin under her fingertips.
He blinked at their hands, then heaved a defeated sigh. “Can you walk?”
“I think so,” she said, but she must not have sounded very convincing: Tadao gathered her in his arms, and carried her towards the golden glow of the temple entrance. Their faces were so close now she could smell the smoky, woodsy scent permeating his hair, and she was glad for the night that hopefully concealed the flush blooming across her face.
He climbed the few stone steps leading up to the prayer hall, left his wooden clogs at the threshold, then laid her down on a tatami. Lily looked around. Was she defiling the place by bleeding on the premises? No, that’s Shinto shrines, she recalled, and this was clearly a Buddhist temple. Candles stood tall on wrought-iron stands, though only a fraction were lit; specks of dust danced in their quivering glow, and the scent of old wood and incense tickled her nose.
The statue of a woman sat on the altar with her hands joined, eyes half-lidded under a large headdress. A halo of arms stretched out from around her, holding flowers, prayer beads, and myriad other objects whose purpose she could only guess at. Thin sprays of dried-out flowers and partially burned sticks of incense were scattered before the plinth.
Tadao sat cross-legged in front of the statue, as though in prayer. “Thousand-armed Kannon,” he said when he caught her looking up. “The goddess of mercy.”
He bent to examine the cut on her thigh, still not meeting her gaze. Lily looked at him. “If you’re trying to distract me, it’s not going to work.”
“I apologize. It’s just …”
He stared at his lap, frowning, his jaw working like he were fighting with himself. Lily followed his gaze to his white-knuckled grip on the dark fabric of his kimono. He couldn’t seem to bring himself to move, so she did for him, reaching for the hem with one trembling hand. She lifted it inch by careful inch, revealing the bony ankle, the dark hairs on his shin, the grazed skin of his knee, and then the matching scar on his thigh. A thin silver line just over an inch long, unremarkable except that it was identical to the cut on her own body.
Her heart was pounding so loud he could probably hear it between her parted lips. “What does it mean?” she breathed.
Thank you so much @juliafied, @nerdierholler, and @dafan7711 for thinking of me, and apologies for ignoring my mentions for so long! <3<3<3 I did my best to get caught up but I’m sorry if I missed anything!
I took a long break from writing after Loose Ends and kept myself busy gaming and reading and decorating. I’ve been easing back into it this month by working on version 2.0 of my novel Where Spider Lilies Bloom, so here’s a snippet from what I wrote last night:
Nagao runs.
The other patrons must have been all too eager to make the samurai someone else’s problem. That, or the warriors have decided to crack down on the inn’s illicit goings-on after all. Either way, he’s not sticking around to find out. He remembers too late the pannier full of brews and potions he left in his room, but better to escape with his life than not at all. The samurai is shouting somewhere behind him, hoofbeats getting louder as the distance between them shrinks. The pack runs with him without disturbing the earth or the long grasses lining the rutted road.
Something whistles past his ear. Nagao jerks away from the puff of displaced air on his cheek. Too fast, though. Too far. The momentum carries him faster than his sake-addled legs can, and the ground lists under his feet.
The Salt Road smacks him in the face. His eyes water as pain wades through the fog in his head. The dust tickling his nose makes him sneeze, sending more dust up his nostrils and into his eyes.
Nagao groans. All he wanted was to take a breath of fresh air and a piss.
The samurai reins in his horse just in time to avoid stamping his brains all over the road. “I asked you a question,” he says, slinging his bow on his back before dismounting. “Where is the healer?”
He enunciates each word exaggeratedly, as if talking to a dolt. Nagao spits out a gob of saliva and sand. “You nearly shot me.”
“If I meant to shoot you, you’d know. Now answer my question or I will. My master needs a healer at once.”
Sorry, sir, no healer here, Nagao almost says, tempted to send them on a wild goose chase through the mountains. Except the silken thongs of the man’s sandals alone must be worth more than all his linen clothes combined. He ventures a quick upwards glance. Two more mounted men are approaching at a slower pace, dressed in the deerskin chaps of a hunting outfit and holding longbows bound with lacquered rattan. They must be rich to afford hunting trips instead of dedicating themselves to farming or some other trade. Retainers of high rank, most likely.
A reward would more than make up for his losing streak.
Nagao folds his legs so that he’s prostrating himself instead of merely lying prone in the middle of the road. “You’re looking at him,” he replies, careful not to slur.
Tagging forward to @theherocomplex, @tarberrymentats, @boshtet-juggler, @thehawkewithgoldeneyes, @adventuresofmeghatron, @pchberrytea, and anyone else who would like to do this! No pressure, as always! <3
Thank you, nonny! 🥰 Have a line from my original WIP:
Then he glimpsed a first flash of light among the pines, so fleeting for a second he thought his mind was playing tricks on him―but then he saw another, and another and another, then a shower of yellow-green sparks blinking in and out of sight like sea fires in the offing.
