#yay plot

[cloudbattrolls]

Bad Blood

“Is there any reason why I oughta not plug you full of holes, mister fish?” drawls the brownblood pressing the barrel of a shotgun to your thinkpan.

“I’m too pretty?” You offer up. Knees digging into your chin as your hands press into the old, grainy wood of the floor, you don’t think making reasoned arguments is going to help you here. Besides, what will you say? 

There is no penalty for killing a man the Empire already thinks is dead.

They give a snort, and you take the act of continued breathing as an opportunity to press your luck.

“Do you really want to kill me? I haven’t done a thing to anyone here. I’m sure we could get along quite well if you weren’t so intent on putting lead into my skull.”

“Now that’s a darn lie.” They drawl, and you try to shift a little before the barrel gets pushed in harder. 

“My legs are falling asleep.” You offer up, and it’s not a lie, either. 

“The only reason you ain’t dead is because I need to know what you are. I can tell it’s something, so don’t bother shoveling crap.”

“I consider myself a troll of many talents. More seriously, I’m not quite sure. There was an incident a little while back with those louses, but I don’t know for certain what that was more than anyone else does.”

If you say ‘horrorterrors’, they’ll either shoot you if they’re superstitious, or they’ll laugh and continue trying to shake the truth out of you.

Their voice hardens into a tone that wouldn’t be out of place at a mirthful and seadweller diplomacy meeting. You’re just so pleased they’re interested, and not looking at the most uncomfortable floor.

“More details, mister fish, or you start losing parts.”

“I grow those back.”

The short brownblood peers around the barrel of the gun that’s about four fifths of their height. They don’t look much older than 8 sweeps, but their voice sounds more aged.

“Just what the heck are you?” They demand, and you roll your eyes. “Also, prove it.”

Obligingly, you use the claw of one hand to rip off another almost to the point where it would be painful, not that such slight discomfort would even register as much of anything these nights. Almost before the break is clean, the keratin starts re-weaving, growing back into a point. 

The lowblood whistles, and you shift a little again. 

“So what, you’re a psiionic violet? They cook you up in a lab? That doesn’t explain what I felt.”

“I started to grow things back a tad too well after the louses came, had a few rare symptoms...”

The floor is so very uncomfortable and so very satisfying to see them sway on as you finally press hard with your foot on one of the loose planks in the floor, giving you the second you need to kick them over and take their gun before standing up as they writhe on the floor.

You’re long gone by the time they so much even manage to push themselves up. 

“Maybe I should just give a quiz.” You murmur to yourself. It’s a silly habit, but there’s so much you can’t talk about anymore. “’What is Thrixe Varzim?’ Your answers can be ‘bored, amused, annoyed, or unimpressed’.”

You take the gun out of your sylladex, the only reason you came to the town, the reason you couldn’t just take the bullets and shrug it off. You’ll return it soon enough, eldritch inscriptions and all.

You push through the flap of the tent, and let your hood down, shaking out your hair. 

The troll you’ve come to see turns around, eyebrows raised expectantly as you clear your throat.

“Now tell me what I need to know, mix Wilhem.”

[house-rogala]

The Horn: I

Their skimmers slid on a cushion of air, over rolling sands.  Brown, square, squat shapes appeared in the distance: a village with flags fluttering weakly across an open, unattended gate.  Desiccated body parts littered the sand-strewn stone pathway leading past the gate into a deserted market.

“The elder is said to remain here,” his companion said as she slid off her own skimmer.  Only her dark, wide-set eyes showed over a tightly wound headscarf. “Feed the beasts.  I go alone.”

He wiped down the skimmers and wetted their rubbery skin while she disappeared into the village’s tallest tower.  Hours passed, though that was no new thing.  Zevra’s negotiations with elders and the dead were delicate at best. He’d learned to not question it over the long years of their travel together.

And so her scream was a shock, as was the sight of her sprinting out of the tower with a wrapped bundle held under one arm.  She looked strangely lopsided, with red slicking her beige robes and plastering them to the armor beneath.  He sucked in a gasp as he realized her other arm was gone, torn raggedly away, with a sash tied around the truncated limb to keep her from a quick death.

He rushed forward to meet her and caught her just as her knees buckled and her eyes rolled back.  He threw her over one shoulder, grabbed the parcel, and ran back to the agitated, keening skimmers.  Ahead, the tower rumbled and shook on its foundations.  Stones tumbled, slowly at first, then in a clattering rush.

“Ai!  Ride!”  He slapped his skimmer’s left fin and the beast leapt forward with its mate close behind.  Zevra was a dead weight over his lap.  The parcel under his arm throbbed with a strange power all its own.  He felt no curiosity, not when Zevra’s lifeblood marked the sands and the tower behind them crumbled into dust.  An enraged, disembodied bellow rippled outward from the deserted village.  Sand spun around them, stinging and furious, but the skimmers were too quick, and he was too good a driver to let them panic.

Zevra groaned.  He set a hand on her back and said, “Hold on, sister.  Hold on. There’s more life in you yet.”

Jovan sat upright, gasping.  Sweat slicked his skin, and he looked around his small chamber wildly as if expecting to see the sands and the tower just beyond his reach.  “Fuck me blue,” he muttered.  Beside him, Alissa slept on.  He set a hand on her soft shoulder and let the warmth of her skin calm his panicked breathing.

Cat’s present, the heavy Elonian horn, decorated his desk.  Gods, no wonder he was having odd dreams, what with Cat brought back to his mind.  Moonlight shone in through the window and lent the horn a silvery opalescence.  Fuck me blue, he thought again before slipping out of bed to grab his pipe and a pouch of tobacco.  Might as well sit in the garden.  He wouldn’t sleep any more this night.

( @alissabryliss-fairfax )

[multi006]

Smol 3

Chara: *sits down next to smol endy*

Sans: heh everything is okay

Chara: *looks on the side of endy's head* huh what the uh guys

Everyone: yeah

Chara: there is a scar on endy's head

Sans: *looks* oh my god their right

But why is it there

Endy: *sleep talks* n o s t o p d o n t h u r t m e

Chara: huh?

Endy: *wakes up* NO I DIDNT MEAN T O KIll YOu gah that nightmare again

Frisk: d-did endy kill someone

[plotholefragments]

#100Fragments day 71

Any additional thoughts were put on hold as Richard ran up to Justine's table. "You're up, Chef."

Knowing she was in the presence of guests, she bit back her witty retort and just said, "Sir?"

Richard motioned with his head back toward the front desk. "We had a family limp in here and they need something hearty." He grimaced slightly. "I know you don't have a lot to work with, but anything you can whip up would be welcome."

Justine looked past Richard and saw the family. They looked human-ish, though the proportions seemed a little off. The mom--or at least who Justine assumed was the mom--was at the desk filling out some paperwork while the dad and the oldest son were keeping two smaller children occupied. And while they didn't look particularly dirty, the parents especially looked completely exhausted.

"How did they get here?" Justine said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen.

Richard walked with her. "It happens every so often. Sometimes the walls between worlds are weak; other times people find a portal. No matter how, though, lost travelers have a tendency to find their way here."

"Really? Sounds like something out of a story."

Richard grinned as they entered the kitchen. "We're in the space between spaces, the world between worlds; this is where stories come from."

[tatumashh]

i have so much school to deal with today, i just want to get finals over with at this point and go on break

welp, i’ll be back after my classes

[everbrilliantheartbreaker]

Tfw characters in your fic are arguing and you get stressed writing the dialogue because no stop I don't want you two to fight stop it right now.

[eafoot-blog]

"What would you say if I was to ask you to restart a certain organization with me?"

"I’d say no possible good would come from that."

[petabyte-utopia-blog]

(I heartily apologize for that, needed to get it out of my system.)