You know the best part of troopers having wings? They can do the low key "Ta Daaaa~☆ 🦚" feathers. Just? *casually arranges troopers on either side of the Baby Commander on the ramp of the ship. Ramp lowers. Wings subtly come up, you know, for balance.* 👉✨️🦚✨️👈 behold. Their Commander. Is BABY.
Like? You turn around. "???" Nothin. A sea of professional faces. (≖ - ≖) hmmmm. You look back forward. 👍✨️🦚✨️👌 Best General! Look at him! Look at him FACE! *you spin around. CERTAIN you heard something!* ^(=_=)^^(=_=)^^(=_=)^ nothing but us professionals, sir. What is this "she-nana-gian" you speak of? Never heard of it. I've never goofed in my my life. *professional soldier face. You know... like a liar.*
Plus? The big poofy "I am Big An STROK, DONT MESS WITH MEEEEE 😭😱😭" Feathers when something is new and Too Spoopy. Pls. Let them be peacock chickens. Dramatic and WILLING TO FIGHT GOD. (for a corn chip they won't even eat)
Two battalions walking past each other turns into a dramatic wing flashing competition,
Who can do the best feather displays behind their generals back! Or even get the generals and their flashy robe drops and wind aura moments!!
I love those fics where the troopers gave Obi-wan feathers and sew them into his robes and layers so he can flash the inside and display a pattern or the feathers like the troopers do their own wings!!
Do you think the city from jester jester would look like this? it’s even called the golden city
Very close, actually! In my head, it was more white and gold. Like a citywide harlequin masquerade mask. Banners that glint and catch the eye. Nonsensical skybridges up and down massive, endless towers. A SEA of towers. Built to trap the music and cloying perfumed air, throw it back in your face, no matter where you are.
Visual clutter. Tassels and wind-chime, bobbles and little delights. All of them a gleaming, gleaming Gold.
But! The melting quality of the stone? The almost organic nature? On point! My golden city was just less pointy and more "angles within angles, spirls within swirls". Points let your eye escape after all! Can't have that!
The city itself was a trap. Hypnotic. Cheerful looking, but designed to drag you in and in and In AND IN-! Until you weren't you any more. Every guest, staying forever. The ONLY wise move? Is to never go at all.
All said though? :3c i'ma say this was an early version of the Golden City. After all! We know the Title can be stolen. Who's to say an earlier lord, perhaps the FIRST Lord, in his building, did not have this as his city? An evershifting rough draft! Like bones. Scaffolding. The city can change, after all!
Hi! This is like, the first time I'm sending in an 'ask' like this but I really wanted to say ur one of my top fav yandere writers. Your style is so fun and expressive (sometimes I act it out lol ur mc's be funny) so I wanted to ask what & how your writing process goes? Cuz to me, it's like you just look at pictures of these random guys and suddenly a whole (magnifique!) story just BURSTSSS forward (picture light yagami lol) and it's so AMAZINGGG I WANT TO BE LIKE UUUUU
Xoxo I hope you've doing well pls take care of yourselfff 😚😚😚
Ngl? Been going through it! BUT! I really loved getting this ask, so I am going to answer! No matter what!
Honestly? First step is checking what "Vibe" feels right today. It'll change, person to person, day to day. Cause it depends on your mood, what shows you last watched, who your current blorbo is, etc. Maaaaybe it's a Sci-fi day. Or a historical setting. Magic, maybe? How we feeling about video-game-y? Etc.
Once you capture the First Vibe™. You consider the next: "What pictures of Possible Yandere™ do I got/can i find(that fit my first Vibe)?"
I collect those pictures as I come across them and like getting sent them, specifically for this purpose! A Possible Yandere™ has to have either: "too innocent/cheerful facade face", blank "dead behind the eyes", crazy eyes, or some combination of "yeah... I could see them mentally cracking under immense emotional pressure like a walnut full of crazy".
Once I find a Potential Yandere (possibly after comparing serveral against each other and narrowing them down, in a sort of "Am i getting hotter or colder, Vibe Check") that matches my First Vibe? I look at it.
This is where we REALLY examine the pic.
We treat it like a snapshot.
It's a movie still. A captured moment, an illustration, from a story you haven't read yet. What's happening? Is this Pre-reveal? Masks off and everyone's screaming? Yandere Aura Farming™? What's happening?
Then, if you can, try to match a Yandere One Liner to it. If the failes, a Reader Line that could be responded too. How would this sort of Yandere, in this moment, respond?
Sometimes, you capture the Vibe pre-reveal. Which means, you need to ask "what is their end game?" And "do I want the Reader to find out before it's too late?" -> "will it matter?" How strong are we talking, this Yandere? Call the cops or "....oh honey, God left the room a long time ago..."
Once we got set and Yandere? Reader!
Readers shouldn't actually be perfectly blank slates. That makes them passive. Without agency. Why would a Yandere latch on to someone like that? Readers need to be both You and Someone. A character. Just... non-specific.
What's their skin color? Hair color? Eyes, nose, mouth? Probably have them! But irrelevant! Here's how they feel about their boss! Man this coffee sucks. Hey, why is that guy staring so mu-?
The Reader is our Only Sane Man in this romantic horror movie. They have found themselves in a fucked up situation, beyond there control, and are trying really REALLY hard not to lose their shit about it. They ARE in fact, being hunted for sport. 0 out of 10, no stars.
Readers have a non-specific backstory, parents with faces probably, there may or may not have been a pet at one point. They are people. Which means they have friends, dreams, and fear. Regrets. They have positive qualities that the Yandere latched onto.
What was it?
Did the Reader smile politely at them on their walk to work? Were they co-workers? A chance encounter? See them going about their life and spot, in them, the Yandere's Fixation?
Because each Yandere has one. And to drive a story, to make a Reader, to define their "Voice" as a character? We need to know what it IS.
Yandere WANT something. Inhumanly, unnaturally, "burn the world with me and you in it" NEED Something. It is their greatest Love. Their ABSOLUTE Love. And the Reader? The poor, poor Reader has had that obsession transfer, or begin to bleed over, to them.
Maybe our Yandere doesn't want to be alone. Perhaps, they want to be a GOD; Serve at the foot of one. Wants to own and be owned. Maybe, just maybe, they want to be The Best. Want to be SEEN. A monster beheld, in all of it's terrible glory. There need to be KNOWN, to be NOT ALONE, driving them slowly insane.
Or perhaps...?
The Reader is merely... interesting.
A spark of color. The FIRST spark. In a very, very long time. In a sea of grey and sameness. Monotony and predictable behaviors. Filth and failures. Perhaps our Yandere is merely latching onto the first "interesting" thing that they can find and it is our poor Readers struggles, that drive them to Love and Madness.
What sort of Madness is this? For indeed, all Yandere are very, VERY insane.
Do they hide it well? Can others thell? Do they unnerve?
They are hunters. The Nightmare of this romantic horror movie. There should be dread. Because they are here to ruin lives. Their love story is everyone else's traumatic event. What are LAWS to them? Boundaries and social moors? This is their origin story.
Or worse, this is their trade, and they've been doing this for a very long time indeed.
Now...
It is a normal day. Or perhaps it is the End and we must then move backwards. What is happening? Is the Reader safe? What are they doing? Sprinkle details about the world. Little bits of set dressing: breakfast? Good or bad? Pass any neighbors? We got a uniform? Where are we going and how's the weather? We got any friends(even if they never come into play)?
Add a hint somethings not right. Hide it amongst the other details.
Does the Reader notice it? And if so... do they choose to act or not? Take it seriously or dismiss what their instincts are telling them. More day to day details. Another warning, perhaps bigger. Uh oh, not good. Do we notice? Are we alarmed now? Or do we dismiss again?
More blatant hints that something is amiss.
Undeniable fact, that something is amiss.
What instinct does your Reader have? Fight, Fight, Freeze, or Fawn? Is their plan going to be to bide their time, hoping to escape? Or "fuck secondary locations. We die here."? Do they try and run?
Now? This is a Fight. Your Reader wants to Escape. That is their Goal. Your YANDERE wants the Reader. The story is their battle, their dialog, the build up and confrontation. Who wins? Don't give in. Make the Yandere fuckin EARN that victory. Make them dangerous and clever. Insane and in love. Your Reader is no meek little hothouse flower. They WILL survive. They WILL run if given half a chance.
Your Reader is a Horror Movie Protagonist. The Monster is simply in love with them.
I was legit cheesifn when I saw u replied omfgsfs TEHEHDG
I really hope things turn out right for u, thank u for replying to my silly little ask despite that :’] I love u :’]]] even your explanation is actually so fire and carries that narrative direction I love so much. I'll hang this up on my wall to force myself to remember ur godly advice.
PPS: I especially love the way your MC’s are cuz I can genuinely picture myself in their place. Normally I feel like I can avoid a situation like that easy peasy, but the moment I find out I'm in one of YOUR stories? I'm so dead. Can't trust NOBODY, whether they were part of the “main cast in the game we played” or not. One example I can think of can be seen in Bad End: Kept Safe. Like who even is this guy to the main character 😭 nobody 😭😭 he was our respite in that godsforsaken world, but he's crazy, and we don't even KNOW it 😭😭
ANYWAY YEA. SORRY FOR RAMBLING.
Have a nice day and may your enemies be destroyed. (morally. Nicely. Tehe ^ 3^ !)
Hi! This is like, the first time I'm sending in an 'ask' like this but I really wanted to say ur one of my top fav yandere writers. Your style is so fun and expressive (sometimes I act it out lol ur mc's be funny) so I wanted to ask what & how your writing process goes? Cuz to me, it's like you just look at pictures of these random guys and suddenly a whole (magnifique!) story just BURSTSSS forward (picture light yagami lol) and it's so AMAZINGGG I WANT TO BE LIKE UUUUU
Xoxo I hope you've doing well pls take care of yourselfff 😚😚😚
Ngl? Been going through it! BUT! I really loved getting this ask, so I am going to answer! No matter what!
Honestly? First step is checking what "Vibe" feels right today. It'll change, person to person, day to day. Cause it depends on your mood, what shows you last watched, who your current blorbo is, etc. Maaaaybe it's a Sci-fi day. Or a historical setting. Magic, maybe? How we feeling about video-game-y? Etc.
Once you capture the First Vibe™. You consider the next: "What pictures of Possible Yandere™ do I got/can i find(that fit my first Vibe)?"
I collect those pictures as I come across them and like getting sent them, specifically for this purpose! A Possible Yandere™ has to have either: "too innocent/cheerful facade face", blank "dead behind the eyes", crazy eyes, or some combination of "yeah... I could see them mentally cracking under immense emotional pressure like a walnut full of crazy".
Once I find a Potential Yandere (possibly after comparing serveral against each other and narrowing them down, in a sort of "Am i getting hotter or colder, Vibe Check") that matches my First Vibe? I look at it.
This is where we REALLY examine the pic.
We treat it like a snapshot.
It's a movie still. A captured moment, an illustration, from a story you haven't read yet. What's happening? Is this Pre-reveal? Masks off and everyone's screaming? Yandere Aura Farming™? What's happening?
Then, if you can, try to match a Yandere One Liner to it. If the failes, a Reader Line that could be responded too. How would this sort of Yandere, in this moment, respond?
Sometimes, you capture the Vibe pre-reveal. Which means, you need to ask "what is their end game?" And "do I want the Reader to find out before it's too late?" -> "will it matter?" How strong are we talking, this Yandere? Call the cops or "....oh honey, God left the room a long time ago..."
Once we got set and Yandere? Reader!
Readers shouldn't actually be perfectly blank slates. That makes them passive. Without agency. Why would a Yandere latch on to someone like that? Readers need to be both You and Someone. A character. Just... non-specific.
What's their skin color? Hair color? Eyes, nose, mouth? Probably have them! But irrelevant! Here's how they feel about their boss! Man this coffee sucks. Hey, why is that guy staring so mu-?
The Reader is our Only Sane Man in this romantic horror movie. They have found themselves in a fucked up situation, beyond there control, and are trying really REALLY hard not to lose their shit about it. They ARE in fact, being hunted for sport. 0 out of 10, no stars.
Readers have a non-specific backstory, parents with faces probably, there may or may not have been a pet at one point. They are people. Which means they have friends, dreams, and fear. Regrets. They have positive qualities that the Yandere latched onto.
What was it?
Did the Reader smile politely at them on their walk to work? Were they co-workers? A chance encounter? See them going about their life and spot, in them, the Yandere's Fixation?
Because each Yandere has one. And to drive a story, to make a Reader, to define their "Voice" as a character? We need to know what it IS.
Yandere WANT something. Inhumanly, unnaturally, "burn the world with me and you in it" NEED Something. It is their greatest Love. Their ABSOLUTE Love. And the Reader? The poor, poor Reader has had that obsession transfer, or begin to bleed over, to them.
Maybe our Yandere doesn't want to be alone. Perhaps, they want to be a GOD; Serve at the foot of one. Wants to own and be owned. Maybe, just maybe, they want to be The Best. Want to be SEEN. A monster beheld, in all of it's terrible glory. There need to be KNOWN, to be NOT ALONE, driving them slowly insane.
Or perhaps...?
The Reader is merely... interesting.
A spark of color. The FIRST spark. In a very, very long time. In a sea of grey and sameness. Monotony and predictable behaviors. Filth and failures. Perhaps our Yandere is merely latching onto the first "interesting" thing that they can find and it is our poor Readers struggles, that drive them to Love and Madness.
What sort of Madness is this? For indeed, all Yandere are very, VERY insane.
Do they hide it well? Can others thell? Do they unnerve?
They are hunters. The Nightmare of this romantic horror movie. There should be dread. Because they are here to ruin lives. Their love story is everyone else's traumatic event. What are LAWS to them? Boundaries and social moors? This is their origin story.
Or worse, this is their trade, and they've been doing this for a very long time indeed.
Now...
It is a normal day. Or perhaps it is the End and we must then move backwards. What is happening? Is the Reader safe? What are they doing? Sprinkle details about the world. Little bits of set dressing: breakfast? Good or bad? Pass any neighbors? We got a uniform? Where are we going and how's the weather? We got any friends(even if they never come into play)?
Add a hint somethings not right. Hide it amongst the other details.
Does the Reader notice it? And if so... do they choose to act or not? Take it seriously or dismiss what their instincts are telling them. More day to day details. Another warning, perhaps bigger. Uh oh, not good. Do we notice? Are we alarmed now? Or do we dismiss again?
More blatant hints that something is amiss.
Undeniable fact, that something is amiss.
What instinct does your Reader have? Fight, Fight, Freeze, or Fawn? Is their plan going to be to bide their time, hoping to escape? Or "fuck secondary locations. We die here."? Do they try and run?
Now? This is a Fight. Your Reader wants to Escape. That is their Goal. Your YANDERE wants the Reader. The story is their battle, their dialog, the build up and confrontation. Who wins? Don't give in. Make the Yandere fuckin EARN that victory. Make them dangerous and clever. Insane and in love. Your Reader is no meek little hothouse flower. They WILL survive. They WILL run if given half a chance.
Your Reader is a Horror Movie Protagonist. The Monster is simply in love with them.
There was something... off; about his photo. Little things. Petty things. All the sort that just... added up, you know? Made alarm bells sing. All those little hairs stand on end. Just kinda, you know, vibed wrong. Bad. Dangerous.
Like some part of my brain was saying "this one's a freak. Watch him. WATCH HIM! Look OUT! RUN!"
And, you know, it sucks. Cause you can't just give IN to that voice. It's paranoid and hateful. But at the same time? It's just trying to keep you safe! Warn you there are snakes and pit traps in the grass. And you should watch out for those. So like...? What do you do? Do you listen?
Cause maybe... maybe he's just shit at taking photos. Doesn't do that whole "this is my good side. Also I know not to stare straight into the camera" thing. Or maybe the flash was weird! I don't know! Can't know. We don't exactly... talk.
He just... smiles.
A lot.
Like a creep.
But? It's not like he's crossing any lines, is the thing? And I hate it. Cause, like? Is it me? Am I the crazy person?? All he does is say "hello". Polite, carefully worded, gentlemanly "good mornings". Each and every day.
And that would be FINE! Right? Totally normal! If it weren't through a camera.
If somehow, the guy knew which door I was stationed at. At which time I was stationed. Each and every day. Even before I did! Somehow, that freaks me out the most, because it's especially before I did! Cause, see, the assignments? Random. For security reasons.
This is a high stakes, super special, spooky and mysterious Goverment Lab of Doom™. We have to live ON SITE. Get our everything monitored. Sign, bare minimum, ten year contracts! The pay? Amazing. But you get stuck in the middle of NOWHERE.
He should NOT know who is at what terminal. Which guard is monitoring which door. That is a massive security breach. But the problem is?
No one believes me.
"It's a coincidence", you see, and "Dr. Kurohari is nice to everyone"! My ASS he is! Polite!! The word your looking for is POLITE! Fucker isn't nice to people, he's just not actively and openly a dick. He smiles. He nods at the correct moments. Murmurs pleasantly, sounds that could mean he's agreeing with you, but nothing that would get him in trouble later.
A fuckin mirror reflecting back, whatever you want to see, right back at you.
With something ugly and unstable just underneath. I can feel it.
Maybe that's why he's trying to win me over? Cause I realize he's secretly a dick? Can look at his picture; his carefully calculated, pretty boy face, on the monitors and actually see the dead as fuck eyes staring back? Like voids. As though something rotted away, where the soul was supposed to be. And now he's just pretending.
It's like being haunted by a meat suit. A fucked up, really polite, scientist-shaped "oh gosh, who me~?" Meat Suit. That for SOME REASON? Insisted on talking AT me. Not too me! Is the thing. He can't. There is no intercom. We just buzz them through. So, it's just... at. Talking AT.
Finding the door, looking up at the camera, and smiling.
Like some possessed fuckin doll, that had to look up what emotions were.
Why? Just... is he trying to make friends, ooor...? Who raised this guy? It was kinda driving me insane, you know? Creeping me the fuck out. But also! Kinda insane. What the fuck.
Absently tapping through a few different screens, it was kinda weird he hadn't shown up yet. But who knows? Maybe for once the fucker chose the wrong door! Ha! Not so perfect now, are you Mr. Creepy Doll? Ouji board quit on you? Spirits of the damned not feel like ratting out my work schedule?? Get fuuuucked~☆
I giggled. Okay, more like snorted. But no witnesses! You can't prove shit. Me an Mr. Coffee Cup are tight. He would never betray my confidence!
......God, I hate the long shifts. Only... what? Hour and a half? Til freedom? I am gonna crash so hard.
Leaning back, I half swing back and forth. Keeping my eyes on the screens. Buzz in. Nobody.... nobody... nobody... Buzz in. Again, more nobody. A janitor goes by. How exciting. Truely, action packed cinema, at its finest. Normally Amir has music at least, but his shift already ended. So it's quite.
.....should I bring music?
Can't be a book. Gotta keep my eyes on the screens, so not cross words or whatever. But like... maybe and audio book? There's a thought. Maybe one of those podcasts Jeremy is always reco-.......huh. Glancing at the clock it occurs to me.
Actually?
Where is Jeremy?
I stop rocking and turn to face the clock properly. That's...weird. Not like him. The guy is usually pretty punctual. Early, if he can help it. But his shift started over twenty-five minutes ago and he's not here? Did something happen? Come up, maybe? Pulling out my work phone, I decide to text him.
No reply.
Maybe he's sick? I shoot off a text to Amir. He should still be awake. Possibly in the mess hall. Men's dorms, at worst. He might have heard if something. But... no answer. That's not like him. I try again. Nothing. Call? It... rings out. Okay. So I can't reach Amir! I'll try Jess.
Nothing from Jess. Michael? Silence from Michael. Carter? Straight to voice-mail. He's on shift right now. He should literally be all but glued to his phone. How the actual fuck? Are the phones down?
Something bothers me. About the screens. The hallways look... fine. So what IS it? Nothings happening. Nothing amiss! So what's this...weird... I don't know, dread? The vibe. My eyes dance from screen to screen. What is it? What IS it? Finally... I catch the time.
Shift change.
I should be buzzing people in by now. Letting people out. So... so why are the hallways so silent? Empty? Sitting up properly, possibly for the first time in months, my feet brace against the tiles of the floor. I grip the edges of the desk to ground my self. I'm... I'm being silly. Ha ha... this is silly. Some horror movie bullshit. It's probably just some drill I didn't know about, right? Or... or some email thing I missed. There is a reasonable, normal, rational explanation. Don't freak out.
But I still can't find anyone.
And my calls aren't getting through.
Jeremy's late by over an hour. They would have sent a replacement to hold his shift. And that janitor is taking... taking a real long time to clean that hallway. The cameras I'm in charge of dont cover that far. But i know its a dead end, down there. Four rooms and a closet. So, why...?
The silence... is getting to me. Yeah. Thats it. It's the silence. Heavy and muffling, like hands pressed tightly over my ears. Suffocating and pressed too close. As though the world was holding a pillow over my face. But... BUT! I'm probably just freaking myself out, right? It's nothing! I'm... I think I'm gonna bring music from now on. Because this is fine. Everything's fine. I don't need to go check! Everything is FINE.
It doesn't feel fine.
The hallways are completely still. They shouldn't be. I know they shouldn't be. Something is happening. But the alarms are silent. Just another peaceful day! Ha ha... fuck. I- I have to get up. Check. It's my job to check. B-but... but normally we have partners. Backup. I'm... I'm all alone.
Fuck. Fuck! It doesn't matter!
I'm no coward! This is fine. I'm going to go out there, find everybody, and it'll be a conference or some birthday with catering no one told me about. I'll call everyone a bitch! Steal some cake! Tell them the phones are down. Yeah. That's what I'll do. Because this is FINE. (Please. It has to be.)
(I'm scared)
Nodding to myself, muscles tense, I get up. Go to the gun safe. Punch in my code. It'll log that I've taken things out, but... fuck it. Maybe they should have thought of that before going radio silent. I grab the vest too. Armoring up. Start the process of locking down my terminal. It centers me. Nice, soothing, protocol. Just do this, then do that. No need to think.
The door though... that's where I hesitate. It makes it all real. Am... am I really leaving my station? Just cause I feel a little freaked out? Really?
Yes. I decide. I am. If I get in trouble, so be it. Hesitating on last moment on the door handle, I head out. The security room's door swinging open silently. But in the ominous silence? It feels like it should have creaked. There is some... weight, some quality, to the quite here. Different from the Front. The Back is where the labs are. Researchers. Break rooms, machines, guards and scientists of all kinds.
W-why is it so quite?
My first footstep feels thunderous. The next one a thunder clap. Too loud, in this almost ringing silence. But I pushed on. Heading towards the main security office, where all the cameras connect. Everything is coordinated from there, anyway. So John should be able to tell me what the fuck was going on. It's his job too, after all.
Except...
I slowed. Except, the lights were... off? Maybe? No. No, I see some flickering. Broken, maybe? Down one of the hallways. Shards of glass strewn across the floor. Bits of metal, twisted and glinting sharply, in the brief surges of light. Doors all along the hallway were wide open. Security panels unlit dispite their open state. No green of an unlock, no red of security or lock down. Nothing.
Staring at the eerie scene, the flick-flick-flicker of the broken lights? Unease crawles like spiders up my back. That's... concerning. I tried to understate, as I figure things out. Maybe one of the experiments had some sort of energy surge? That could have taken out the phones, though, right? Yeah... Yeah! That sounds kinda right!
A curl of relief. Like light spreading and diffusing through inky waters. Everyone probably evacuated to the panic rooms. We are a high priority military site, after all. There are protocols in place. If it looks like an attack, seems like an attack, or could be an attack? Panic rooms it is. After all, our "brightest minds of their generations" are irreplaceable, etc etc. (That was on the onboarding packet and protocols list. We roasted the shit out of that in the guard rooms.)
The main security office will have lock down info. If we are in lock down. Or there was a power surge or something. I breathe, reassured by my own thought. Part of me knows it might be a lie. But... fuck it! We lie! Let's not panic until we have too, right? Ha ha... everything is normal and everyone is fine!
I pick up the pace. More broken hallways. Sheesh, the place is trashed. And I can't hear any machines. Which? From what I remember? Is bad. Some of those were never supposed to be turned off. So like... Holy Shit is someone in trouble. This is going to be ungodly expensive to fix. Hope their experiments were worth it...
Turning in to hallway B4 I'm struck by a weird smell. Sweet, sour, putrid, salt. And copper. Lots and lots of meaty, metallic, copper. Like an outhouse and a butcher shop smashed into each other, with an under tone of fancy office colognes and perfumes. Sweat, too. But not... good sweat?
Gagging a little, I slow to a stop. Trying to place what my nose is telling me. Not work out stank. Or "your buddy just got laid, ignore it" sweat. It's more... caught someone where they weren't supposed to be, sweat. When they get all nervous and panicking. And you're not buying a single on of their shit excuses. And they KNOW they're in deep trouble no-
Fear! That's fear sweat! That's what that is!
My momentary triumph at figuring it out, immediately gives way to realization. Wait. Metal? Fear? Shit? The stench is thick in the air. The normal air units still and circulating nothing. It hangs like bodies from a tree, just beyond my sight. And I have to swallow, hard, again and again, just to avoid being sick.
O-okay. So. Maybe not a power outage.
Drawing my gun, I move forward. Slowly. The main security office really is my only option, if I want to know what the fuck is going on. But to get to it? I have to get passed... this. Whatever this is. So... so I move.
At first, nothing. Broken glass and twisted metal. Same as the hallways. But then... then I reach a doorway.
Oh God.
I barely turn to keep from being sick down my own front. Stumbling back, like that will make a difference. Those-! Those can't even be called bodies anymore! Tears and terror, etched forever in dead faces. Hell, made a place on earth. Desecration. Suffering. W-who could!? WHY WOULD YOU-!? I heave again. My body rebeling against the butchery.
Making the mistake of looking up, I nearly choke on the noise that rips out of me, as I see through the open doorway, across the hall. A retch, a sob, a wail? I can't tell. Who would do this?!
They... they tried to bar the doors. Oh god. Those are desks. Filing cabinets. Where the fuck was I? How did I not hear this? T-the people I let in! Did I... oh god. I let them right into a trap! I stumble. Straighten. Mind screaming and howling, yet strangely so very far away. Pushing desperately off of the wall I find myself slumped against, I break into a run.
Horror show. Horror show! Every room a new hell.
I start seeing gaurds. People I knew! Mangled like broken dolls. Dropped like trash where they stood. Hana, with the cartoon lanyard her daughters sent. Andrei with the blue streak his girlfriend put in his hair. Hamza, curled over a rookie, because the old hardass cared so damn much. Fuck. FUCK! God DAMN IT!
Tears burn at my eyes. People I knew. Coworkers, in it for the long haul. Stuck out here for years with me. Not friends, not really, but something more then just fellow guards. Gone. Fucking GONE! And to what? To WHO?! What is GOING ON!?
I try to turn a corner, only to slide. Horrified, I realize the traction on my boots isn't catching because there's just too much gore. The blood, too thick on the ground here. At my feet, Jeremy. I recognize him instantly. Or what's left. The blonde curls he was once so damn proud off, stained, limp and ragged. Limbs at angles they should never be. Eyes unseeing.
Both his gun and radio are out. He... oh god he tried to warn me. Trailing up, along splattered rivers of red, I am met with everyone I know. Rotting and forgotten, inconveniences discarded to the floors. Just beyond them, the doorway to the main security office hangs open. Blast doors twisted open like a flower bloomed. It's almost mocking, how pretty the twisted metal is.
No. It is mocking. They took the time to make it pretty. Not just pry it open. Ha... b-bastards... oh god, y-you bastards...
The guards tried to hold the line. I... I should have been here. Died here. This last stand. How could I hear nothing? Be so thoroughly isolated? Beyond the dead, the main office is in pieces. Screens, computers, generators. Everything. They trashed it ALL. The whole site is completely dark. I... I have no idea how my terminal was even functioning.
"Ah, there you are."
I whip around, gun coming up. Too calm. That voice was too calm. Who the hell?Standing just down a converging side hall, is Dr. Kurohari. His pleasant, empty little grin, still firmly in place. Calm and almost polite looking, really. If he weren't splattered with blood. The air around him twisting and moving strangely, in a way I'd never seen before. Like a heat haze or mirage. Some sort of special effects brought into real life.
"I checked your office. You weren't there. I thought we could get lunch."
What.
The incredulity must shout from every part of me, because his pleasant little nothing smile just gets bigger. As though this is all just ever so delightful. And not a sea of death and horror.
"That's what people do, isn't it? When they are interested in each other? I already know your likes and dislikes. Plans for the future. Social, cultural, and political opinions. You're perfect. So, according to my research, now we spend time together."
Ah. Got it. Insane.
I fire.
The bullets stop midair never reaching their target. Lacking anything better to try, I go for overwhelming force. Empty my clip into him. Or, well, at him. Fuck. The smile doesn't change. He's waiting me out. I gotta fall back! Turning to run, I don't make it more then a single step before my feet wholesale leave the ground.
Like weighted blankets made of air, something grabs me. From every direction and all of me at once. It... it could tear me apart. So, so easily. It feels like one of those dogs, gently holding an egg in it's teeth. I am "thrown" against a wall, yet? All I can think? Is how easy it would have been to splatter me against it. I can't move. Oh god, I can't move.
"Ah~" he lilts a laugh, musing as he strolls closer. "Are you mad I didn't bring flowers? I apologize, it's difficult to find them out here. And I'm still new to courtship, you see. We'll get better, with time. And now that I've gotten rid of distractions, we can focus on us."
What US? There is no US! I try to squirm, but I'm utterly pinned. The doctor stands infront of me, looking alarmingly fond. As though my desperation is... is cute. His hand comes up. Cupping my cheek. Sending shudders of fear down my spine. He misreads it, deeply insane and looking for anything to fufill his narrative.
"So shy." He sighs, something twisted into a mockery of love, coating his tone like bile. His thumb brushing gently over my mouth. "It's okay, darling. I'm new to this too. We'll figure it out together. We have the whole compound to ourselves, after all. For as long as we need."
Of course she did. He was stability. Safety. Comfort, in a world that took and took from her, forever demanding more. A choice she could always count on. The man that would always love her. And compared to that? Really, what could those boys, those rats, offer her?
Excitement? Wealth? "Adventure" or some paltry bits of power?
Ha.
Really, how disgusting and banal. Who did they think they were fooling? Their lustful eyes and covetous hands. Desiring what was not theirs to have. He really should kill them. It would solve so much. But ....ah, the last time he attempted that, she became so panicked. So upset. He could hardly bare it, seeing her tears. That confusion and fear upon her perfect face. He really shouldn't.
Too overt.
Perhaps he'll just frame them? Or pair them off, with those miserable tarts who pant after them like dogs. It could be good, to collect a few favors, here and there. They've proved useful before. Hmmm... What to do, what to do? She'll wake soon. He has to decide.
Every loop, he wakes first. By a few weeks at least. That once with the miserable little rat from the mages tower, non-withstanding. Oh, he thought he was so clever. Killing off his competition. Isolating her. Coveting perfection all to himself. But she showed him, didn't she? His Darling was so clever~! Broke free of those filthy chains and forced the loop to start again.
But, aah, she was so scared. So broken, for so long, after that. Not that he minded, of course! When he swore to love her always, til death do them part. He meant every word!
And they? Oh they will never die.
Can never. Not truely.
This "game" will never end. Not until she finds the "True" Ending. And he? As her beloved husband, her dearest comfort, her REAL one true love? Oh~ He will make SURE that never happens. Not now. Not ever. It's the first thing he does, these days. Each loop. No chances and no mistakes. Certainly no more near misses! Almost catastrophes. The man's already dead, after all. She'll NEVER find him. No matter how long she looks.
He came so close to losing her. Losing everything.
Never again.
She's not allowed to leave him. She can flit and fly, like a nervous bird, between the brutish fools who claim to love her. Loop after loop. Forever looking for something she won't find. Hurting herself, again and again, on their disgusting selfishness and shallow love. But she'll always come back.
Because they can't love her like he can. Don't know her like he does. Shallow, empty vessels. Selfish little boys. They scurry around like they are somehow important. Like their obnoxious braying is something significant. Repeating, again and again. Insipid and blank. Pathetic little props. Toys, who think they're men.
He knows. Knows, he's not her "type". That some part of her clever, clever mind sees him. Recognizes the danger. And truely... he's never been the most... masculine looking gentleman. It was once a source of discomfort. Unease. He was even? Dare he say, self conscious about it.
But... ah~ That was all before Her. Before this. Before the only things that truely mattered.
Now? He relishes his soft appearance. His non-threatening appeal. After all~, he is Comfort now. Safety. The place to lay her weary head. Rest her worn and battered heart. As the loops stretch on and on, out into infinity? Her cute little struggles get more desperate. Weaker. She grows more tired. Craves more comfort.
Isn't it wonderful, then? That I am here?
Perhaps he should pick up her favorite flowers. He could pretend to be lost. Visiting his aunt. She'll wake up soon. There's so much to do! To plan! Ah~♡ they never did go to the coast, last time. Perhaps they could go boating? Walk along the shore?
He's so glad he killed that wretched little duke! The man was getting entirely to comfortable. Putting his hands where the shouldn't be. Pretending to make her happy. Forcing her to smile like she was. His poor, poor Darling. It must have been suffocating! No doubt she'll need him desperately~
There's a lot of different stories, culture to culture, of tiny people. Born of flowers or sprouts, small as thumbs. Dainty, cute little things; Just trying to get by in a big, Big world. But... they never seem to capture, I don't think, just how helpless those poor souls must feel. How wretched it is.
Small and doll-like. Butterfly bones and easy to tear skin. Prey to everything.
Your very existence is unnatural.
Indeed, it was very, very unnatural. Seeing as I hadn't even been born this way, but made this way. Captured off the streets. Taken somewhere. Injected with things, subjected to machines, and put in some great room size device, to ends unknown. At least... unknown, until the pain hit.
And there had been so, so much pain.
Horror, as my body seems to shift and melt. Implode in on itself. Bubble and steam. I woke up... small. But? The fact that I woke up at all? Is a miracle.
I hear them talk. Over my head, as though being reduced to a lab rat has deprived me of all intelligence. And... and I was on the higher end of stabilizer Two dose testing. Stabilizer three had "adverse reactions" that required a deep clean of the chambers. One, apparently, wasn't strong enough to reach "adequate size reduction" and had a high chance of near immediate liver failure.
Stabilizer four? Apparently caused psychosis in most of the "testers". And five through seven were still in development.
The problem, apparently, is that stabilizer Two is "too expensive". How terribly inconvenient. So very sorry! That the horrifying drug cocktail I never wanted in my body, cost YOU lots of money! But hey... at least I know they won't be getting rid of me? Or doing anything TOO invasive.
I'm EXPENSIVE now.
Kept in head researcher Dr. Blankmen's office. Behind his desk, in a fancy ass lil glorified enclosure slash dollhouse. With no sharp edges in sight of course. Everything bolted in place. Can't have his expensive rat hurting herself!
I think... suspect, really, I may be one of their only successful tests. A proof of concept, to show off. The great shrinking device! Perfect for space travel! Minimizing over crowding! Revolutionize farming! Blah, blah, blah....
Unethical bastards. What? Couldn't get grants like a NORMAL scientist? Gotta kidnap peopl-?
My head throbbed. Memories that both were and weren't mine, violently flashed like strobe lights, behind my eyes. I hissed, nauseous, as I leaned to brace myself against the closest plastic bit of furniture. This... had been happening, more and more. Ever since the machine. The shrinking. Obviously, I refused to TELL anyone about it. But...
I would admit, if only to myself. I'm... I'm scared.
The brain is a tricky thing. And those bastards fucked around with my whole bodies chemistry! Who KNOWS what kind of damage they've done? I could be a ticking time bomb. It could be a tumor. Cancer. W-worse....
Crying won't help. I know that. Yet... yet I still find myself curled up in corners of this god forsaken cage, doing just that. Or trying to distract myself, with the touch screen they installed in my cage. After all, can't let their prize specimen go insane from isolation and understimulation! Ha ha...
It feels surreal and absurd. Reading and playing the day away, in a mad man's office, all the while trying desperately to not think about where I am. How I got here. What's happened to my body.
Distractions can only pull you so deep.
Especially when one wall, of every room in your "house", is transparent. Living a life on display? Even if you are mostly ignored? Fucks with the brain. I... ha ha.. I used to keep hamsters, as a kid. Never again. Not ever, ever again. (I say, as though I'm ever getting out of here. But, hey, if I give up hope? What else do I still have? Right?)
Worst part, though, is that "mostly" of the "mostly ignored". Because sometimes? The good doctor will lean back in his chair. Groan or grimace, tsk or huff, some small sound of annoyance; that always seems to echo, in this stiflingly quite office of his. His chair will creak, expensive leather and hidden joints in need of oil, as he turns from his desk. It's not a loud sound. Neither of them are.
But... I have become so very, very sensitive to them.
Hyper-aware, of the monster that controls my fragile little life.
Some people? Keep fish. Beautiful aquariums, full of life, lovingly tended. They can be works of art. Others? Keep mini-ecosystems. Terrariums they tend gently and with a careful eye. But... the Good Doctor? He keeps a woman in a cage. An air tight encloser, with fake grass and a tiny to-scale little apartment. As sterile as any hotel room but somehow twice as uncanny valley, in its presentation.
He stares.
Slumped back in his expensive chair, leaning to one side with his head propped up on one fist, leaning forward with his elbows braced on his knees...
There are so many different positions he does it. The god forsaken STARING. His face utterly blank, sometimes a cigarette hanging from his mouth. Occasionally lit, occasionally not, he doesn't seem terribly pressed one way or another. He just... takes a break, when ever he feels frustrated, and looks at me. Watchs me.
With eyes that are as dead as the void of space.
About as cold, too.
It's like being a bug under a microscope. I... I refuse to look back. Go out of my way not too. Pretending to take a nap, pretending to be engrossed with my reading, eating with my back to him... something, anything! But it doesn't help, that he deliberately designed every form of enrichment (books, video games, what TV I'm allowed) to only be available to me at a ninty degree angle to him.
Gotta sit there on display, if you wanna play!
Bastard.
My head throbs again, harder. I was.. am... I'm starting to get worried. Are they getting closer together? What if this is like the warning signs for a heart attack? Could anyone even TREAT me at this size? They're so focused on perfecting the shrinking technique, I doubt they've studied the reversal at ALL. Could I even TAKE any medication for my heart, if I needed it?
Another throb. More scattershot thoughts that are and aren't mine. Memories, like the flung shards of glass from a window, after a sledgehammer is put through it. The cut deep and easy, as though they have any right to be there. Are... is...?
Looking at my water lines, which lead somewhere I can't see from my tank... I wonder if they've begun to drug me. Ha ha... why wouldn't they? They've done it before.
My head hurts too much to read. I take a nap. It helps until it doesn't. Waking, crawling to get food, drink something, then back to bed. Slowly, it takes longer and longer to move. Harder and harder to think.
The Doctor has noticed. Checks each day. At first he dismissed it. But... now? Now he stares. Longer and longer. Eyes narrowed, lips pulled down at the edges, fingers tight as he grips his notebook. He writes and writes, as he scans my encloser. Tests this and that.
Finally... it's like something... pops.
A pressure finally giving way. Puzzle pieces coming together in a single, easily manageable, piece. Instead of thousand upon thousands of shards. I feel almost... light headed with the relief it brings. Giddy. The tension pain finally dropping from my shoulders, even as the full picture swims forth.
Otome game, huh? The world had always made sense before. Been reasonable and normal, explainable as just the way things were. But... but I guess not. I guess there really was something to that Multiverse theory, wasn't there? Since I certainly remember dying now. Even though I didn't before. Did they... break through? Force my past life's memories back?
That seems like a dangerous experiment.
One I'm pretty sure Dr. Blankmen is NOT going to be happy about.
And... he ISN'T.
Gunshots. Rapid fire. An explosion big enough to shake everything, causing plaster to rain from the ceiling over head. Emergency lights flip on, bathing everything in red. I hear the office door lock. Then, not just the automatic locks, but the seige locks bolt into place. Thick tungsten bars sliding across the opening.
Like a bear trap, two halves of a dome snap up over my encloser, blocking all light and muffling nearly all sound. The subtle hiss of my air supply, stuttering for a second, as it switches to the secondary built into the reinforced cabinet below. My tablet, which is built into the wall, now provides the only glow in absolute darkness.
Outside, muffled as it may be, I hear death.
I never played the game thats native to this universe. My roommate did. All I saw was the fan art over her shoulder. Heard her talk about fan fics. Knew the vague plot line and heard there was an anime coming out. But...? I knew... KNOW, that "Dr. Blankmen" is a dangerous charater. Was living proof of THAT even before I remembered.
Was he a hidden romance option? Rival? Major villian? I can't remember! He showed up in a lot of fan art. There were a LOT of fanfics. But that just means people thought he was "scary-hot" or a "sad little meow meow". I struggle to remember anything useful as the world shakes with another explosion. Something crashes loudly onto the top of the protective dome and slide off it with a screech.
Little by little, the sounds of fighting and killing fade. I sit, in the darkness, and hug the light from my tablet. Feeling smaller then even my tiny, cursed form. I don't know what's happening. Knowing the "plot" of an otome game? Doesn't HELP if this is unrelated.
Mechanical beeping breaks the silence. Someone is punching in a code, casual and unhurried. Hissing as it pulls back, the dome recedes. The light, blinding after hours in the dark. Half the office is simply... gone. Rubble. The expensive leather chair? Crushed. The sturdy and rare wood desk? Splinters upon the ground. Bookshelves are tipped over, frames are smashed, papers everywhere.
Yet Dr. Blankmen looks unbothered.
Staring down intensely, bracketed by two towering androids, he doesn't so much as glance at the carnage that once was his life's work. There.. there is blood on his cheek. His chin. Archs of it, splattering close, yet clearly not his. The androids at his side are behemoths. Built for slaughter and clearly very, horrifically, nightmarishly good at it. They have a triple digit difference in the number painted on them.
H-how many does he have...?
I am frozen. Eyes watering from both fear and the sudden blinding light. W-what do I do? What do I DO!? For all that I try to avoid his gaze, the few times I do catch it? It is like a black hole. Terrible and sucking. Like you would be the worst sort of fool, if you dared to turn away. Afraid to so much as blink.
"Carrier." He orders one of the android, skilled hands making quick work of the locks keeping the transparent wall in place. A metal reinforced cloth cat carrier is held out, already open. The second the wall is unhooked, he is shoving it at the other android, clearly uncaring where the material ends up.
"Mouse, come here. We're going."
He's looking directly at me. Hand down like he expects me to obediently climb right onto it. D-did he name me "Mouse"? Just... just fucking DECIDE to name me like a pet?! Shaking, I force my legs to support me as I stand up. Stiffly, force myself forward. W-what are my options? Damn it! Quick! Think! W-What are my OPTIONS?
Eyeing the distance to the floor... I know I would never make it. I'd break something. And if the grab at me? One way ticket to possibly ruptured organs. Plus those androids. God only knows how many of THOSE are running around. Fuck... that's not even getting into natural predators! Even a housecat or bird could end me! A determined rat! Shit. SHIT! How would even feed myself...
The concept of freedom dances in front of me, even as it mockingly stays too far to reach. Biting my lip so I won't cry, I get on the fucking hand. Like a good little Mouse.
"Good girl." He murmurs, gently dumping me into the carrier, his hand lingering in its grip around me. Thumb rubbing against my arm and cheek, fingers subtly stroking as they pet my back. "Such a good Mouse..."
No praise has ever burned so much. Like swallowing acid. Is.. is this what I've become? What I've been reduced too? I hate myself. Want to break down and cry. Take it back. Run and run and never look back. Who CARES if I die! But... but I know better. Know I have to be smarter then that, if I want to survive this. It... it doesn't make it easier. I feel so weak. Like a coward.
"You, gather my notes." He ordered the android not holding my carrier, before turning towards the door sharply. "You! By the door. Message the others to begin stripping the laboratories for useful components. I want every bit of research. Every research subject. All chemicals and any supplies listed on that list I gave you. Anything else, dispose of. You are to meet me at our new location."
"Now come along, Mouse. This place is filthy. We never should have tolerated it for as long as we did." He stormed off, the android carrying me smoothly following. Leading the way somewhere. His normally expressionless face broken by a furious sneer.
"Filth get ideas, Mouse, when you tolerate their existence too long. They begin to think they're safe. Start to plot and scheme, as though they shouldn't be grateful you even let them keep their pathetic little lives. They get into things they shouldn't. Touch things, that aren't theirs to touch. You end up having to put them all down, Mouse."
"It's disgusting."
He didn't need to call an elevator. The door was already open, blocked by the corpses of several researchers. One, seeming having been desperately trying to reach the elevator itself. And the others, caught off guard, from inside the elevator itself. Shot and fallen outwards.
The Doctor merely looked annoyed. That "trash" was in his way. Or was it "filth"? With a slightly impatient wave, as though shooing away a fly, he called forward a nearby android to drag the corpses out of the way. And I... I couldn't even feel terribly bad for them. I knew I should. But...
Each and everyone of them died as they lived. Monsters, trapped in this hell they had created, with other monsters. Should I feel bad? That a bigger monster had mowed them down? That there were less sadistic fucks, perverting the scientific method for unethical gain? I hoped their gods looked upon them and were sick.
The elevator reeked of copper, cheap cologne, and the bodily release of the newly dead. My captor seethed, his skin clearly crawling at the disgusting environment.
"I'm going to have to burn these shoes. Of course... of course! They can't even die cleanly!" He hissed under his breathe. "Worthless!"
Reaching the roof, I see sky for the first time in what might be years. I-It's beautiful. Blue. A clear and magnificent blue. I press close to the metal mesh screen. Desperate to huff clean, unfiltered air. To see sunshine. To... to experience what I may never again.
T-The Sky Is So Beautiful...
And then it is gone.
We are in a plane. I am boarded up like luggage, carefully sat aside. Some luxury sky yacht of a thing, all fancy couches and indoor amenities. We take off immediately. The doctor disappearing somewhere to scrub the "filth" from himself. The android that carried me looms. Watching. Monitoring. I wonder... does it even recognize me as human?
"Ah, much better." Dr. Blankmen says, as he returns. Wearing a fine suit instead of his usual scrubs. Wandering past decadent built-in bars and on board snacks with nary a glance, he came to a stop in front of me. Looming, more accurately, over me.
"I really should take better care of you, sweetheart, shouldn't I? None of this would have happened, if I had just thought to check your air pumps. My poor Mouse, you could have died."
There is something terrible in his tone. Bleak and empty, like the moments before a city destroying storm. Considering, in that terrifying way a predator might consider if your worth eating or not. Just a gentle, lilting little muse. A small tone, that carries such horrific depths.
"No." He decides. "No, we can't have that."
"You're my little Mouse. My sweet girl. Clean and pure and safe. All nice and neat, locked away. My perfect little girl~" There is a roll to his words. An undeniable husk. Deeper and almost purring, in a way that matches the terrible spark that has lit up in his eyes. "You're my tiny little angel in a box, aren't you, Mouse?"
I... I think I may have stopped breathing. Fear, cold and seeping, spreads like ice in my veins. No. Please, no. God, no! Go back to looking at me as a lab rat! Don't NOTICE me! Stop LOOKING at me like that! Oh god. Oh God! No no NO!
He kneels casually, to put himself at eye level. All the better to observe me. With eyes that no longer seem so cold. Oh god. No, please, God. Go back to cold! Be uninterested! As boring as a fish! Just like keeping a hamster!
It's no use.
"Don't worry, sweetheart. Master learns from his mistakes." He whispers, face too close and eyes too intense. The smell of mint from his breathe burns my nose like the snap of winter. "I'm going to build you much better encloser, where Master can watch you play. Soft and clean, where no one can ever touch you again. It'll be just you and me. No more icky trash. Isn't that nice?"
Do you write fics or you do observation posts? I read your yan aizawa post and it’s fascinating! You mentioned something like aizawa acting much like a cat that lets you mess with it and doesn’t scratch you, because it trust you, but also makes weird expressions to encourage you to keep being annoying to him cause he loves the attention given by you. But tell me, how does he cuddle in bed? (Frankly you now put cat aizawa in my head and now i can only imagine him as the kind of cat that likes to lay on their owners face to suffocate them in their sleep lol)
You are not wrong. And the answer? "Yes. I sure do." He is a skrungly ass cat that COULD be show stopping... if it wasn't out fighting at all hours of the day and night, rolling in god knows what, and would SIT STILL LONG ENOUGH TO BE GROOMED.
He cuddles EXACTLY like that. Just? *wanders up to you doing whatever* *flops on top of or against you* *grumbles something that might be a hello, an I Love You, or a Wake Me in Five.* *passes out*
Casually touching, like that's not a Huge Deal for him. Showing up to do the sleeping equivalent of parallel play. You'd find his ass passed our in your passenger seat as you come out from work. Did you unlock your car? No. Why does he know when you get off work? Memorized it weeks ago. He brought you a vending machine snack and a canned coffee. Don't bother him unless somebody explodes.
You'd wake up in the morning to find his skrungly(♡) ass passed out on your couch. Probably still in his hero gear. Because changing and thumping down on you like the dead weight his body feels like? Would wake you up.
And love is letting you sleep safely. Warm. Content.
Protected.
Does he stop into your room FIRST? Of course. Swaying, exhausted and battered on his feet, eyes feeling like they're on fire. Got to stare down at the love of his life while they sleep. Wish he could... could coordinate his limbs enough to sneak quietly into bed. Get something more then a nap.
But his sleep schedule is shit. Yours probably is too. So instead he just haunts you.
Takes what warmth and company he can steal, between the violence.
Some? Will say it is a contest of Constitution. Or Breeding. That the stronger bloodline always wins. How convenient, I say, that those same souls? Then sigh and say there is simply nothing to be done! They can not win! So why bother trying?
What's the point of training? Struggling? Digging deep and challenging yourself?
Victory and defeat are decided by birth! So we should all just move along and accept our place! What's with all this fuss! Right? Bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. It? Is those same, foul, gods forsaken, cretins; That mock and deride me at every turn. Why the fuck? Would I listen to them? In ANYTHING?
They are fools.
Elitist and pandering, if one dares to study anything but the most narrowly acceptable bits of the Proper Fields? You are derided. Mocked. Not a TRUE Mage. Just some silly little thing "playing" at magic. Or a "hobbyist". Or worse... a "heretic".
A "monster" or "freak".
"Demon".
Some? Respond by desperately contortions themselves into "acceptable", palatable, little packages. Breaking themselves down. Bowing and scraping. Eager to belong, to a place that will never accept them. Chasing the pipe dream of "legitimacy" and the gilded, rotten, halls it might bring.
But the rest? We sneer in return. Disgusted by the circle jerk of the powerful, forever pleasing only themselves. Sucking up to kings and courts. Daring to think themselves scholars, when they produce nothing but pandering filth. Their papers are jokes. Their studies? Bloated and skewed. Filled with personal biases, politics, and favors owed.
Slowly, but surely, the Unspoken Divide? That very thing they mock and seem to believe, in their arrogance, their hubris, seperates the Elites from the Rabble? It is tearing the magical world apart.
The Esteemed from the tawdry, simple minded, Base.
It was... systemic. Entrenched. A cultural rot, so deeply festering, it had long since reached the blood and spread; Poisoning everything it touched. As could be easily seen in the slow decline in quality, of magical texts and scholars. Like a body succumbing to disease. Slow, ugly, and with flashes of defiance. As those few brave souls who saw the situation for what it was? Tried to fix things.
One of my Professors had been one such soul. He was disgraced for it. Cast aside and given the "honor" of teaching "tomorrow's great minds". In a department he didn't even specialize in.
I had still been undecided. Grappling with the standard "do I have an obligation to this world, knowing the Future of it?" Angst that, no doubt, all Reincarnators in my sort of situation face. Watching a man I respected? Struggling futily, in vain, to get the willfully blind to just... see. Something. Anything!
To acknowledge basic facts, without twisting them!
One could say Sisyphus himself, had a kinder struggle. I watched my Mentor beat himself against a wall of ignorance. And I watched it slowly break him. We ALL did.
Ultimately? I decided to let this metaphorical Rome BURN.
Sometimes Empires NEED to end. Old institutions NEED to come crumbling down, at the hands of their own foolishness, with brutal and bloodstained price tags, for the much needed lesson to STICK. I hated it. But I hated the corruption more.
Magic could be GREAT. Beautiful.
Utterly and completely FASCINATING!
And this is what they had reduced it too? A bludgeon? Sickly and insipid party tricks? I could gag. Though...? As ugly and perverse a waste I found their courting of favors and whoring of spellwork? Even I had mercy. Limits.
I wanted the institutions to collapse. For us all to fuckin LEAVE and see how great and mighty they were, without nineteen of every twenty, there to support their selfish asses. Unions and strikes. Collective bargaining. Maybe a few polite (but not asking) take overs of some prime farmlands, and slapping up some Wards. Wait the fuckers out.
Not... this.
There was so little left of them, the poor bastards had to be identified by Resters Ritual. Literal death magic! They had to call in a specialist, from two towns over, to perform it. Calling up the echoes of the dead, to ask "Hey! Who's chunk of meat is this?"
Not "body", chunk. Itty, bitty, bits and pieces.
Which had been spread across half the district.
It may? Have been a few decades ago... but I was pretty sure the manwha series I recognized this world from? Did NOT have a Serial Killer arc. Or at least... not one that specifically targeted The Acceptable Arts™. Those dearly beloved, politically acceptable Mages.
Of which, the Protagonist would join. With his super, special, rare (and therefor acceptable, because it was USEFUL to the Temple) Saint's Magic~☆.
(How is it any different from Light magic? Or the less common, but still studied, Holy Magics? Fuck if I know! But apparently it's special~.)
Powerful people were, rather predictably, losing their shit. Murders? Of people they actually CARE about?! It was an "attack on mages!" And suddenly, "an offense against Magic ITSELF!" Because, after all, we were CLEARLY all in this TOGETHER, they insisted. This threat was to ALL of us! Not just them, they cried.
None of my colleagues felt much sympathy. And in the face of it all... I had to wonder...
When... had we all become so cold? So angry? Vicious and mean spirited, in our pain and exhaustion. As we just tried to get by, day by day. Was this what we'd come too? What we'd become?
Tired, I turned away. From yet another crime scene. This one by the bakery. Poor Mrs. Amaretto was beside herself. Her pride and joy, the Lovely Loaf, turned into a gruesome sea of nightmares. All she'd ever wanted to do was bake. Had saved up for so long. This might ruin her. I... I could only hope it didn't.
I really liked her bread.
Shouldering my way out of the hissing, muttering, and generally uneasy crowd that had gathered, I straightened my cloak. Readjusted my robes. Mage wear may look cool, but sometimes? It can be a pain. Too many flowy layers. They get tangled and catch like you wouldn't believe. Or, at least, they used to. As my mastery improved? I either discovered or personally invented spells to fix that shit, as one does.
Gods bless "Women's" magics. Which, I will add? Is a shitty, terrible, and obnoxiously vaguely dismissal of a HUGE swath of the magical field! It's like calling everything everything in the fucking ocean a "fish"! Then refusing to study any of it further because "everyone knows what a fish is! What are you, stupid?"!
Condescending, bigoted, sexist, mother FUCKERS.
(Me? Mad? Filled with anger and spite? What ever gave you THAT idea?! Why would I be FURIOUS that JACKASSES continue to dismiss some of the coolest shit I've ever seen?! The single most CONVENIENT uses of magic ever!? God damned LITERAL "CLEAN YOUR ROOM FOR YOU" SPELLS! Not like we've all been dreaming of that shit since we were kids!)
(My breathe has never been fresher, my house never more beautiful. My clothes are dirt proof and damn near indestructible. I fucking smell like starlight and dreams. You WISH you knew half these spells!!!)
(.....okay.... So I MIGHT be a bit mad. Shut up, maybe?)
According to the whispers? That was the fifth... no, wait, holy shit seventh? One this month. I can't really be certain, though. Haven't gone out much. Since the last year and a half was spent slowly, painfully, translating that old person grimoire. Worth it, obviously, but it did turn me into a bit of a hermit. Ever since I managed to it buy off that estate (idiots, who sells a Matriarch's personal Grimoire? Just because they cant read it!?) it's been slowly but surely paying dividends. Still, good fuck if projects like this don't kind of swallow my life for a bit, you know?
So now? I have no idea what's been happening.
Apparently, (at least according to what I'm hearing) (and what little i've seen) a fuckin' serial killer. Which is just fantastic.
Just... great. Perfect. Absolutely fuckin WONDERFUL. Just what we all needed, really! And how fuckin THOUGHTFUL! To dump their shit right infront of my favorite bakery! Like an ASSHOLE.
Stalking down the streets, in what I will insist is not a huff, I grind my teeth. A terrible habit, but it's better then opening my mouth and accidentally Cursing someone. Or lashing out physically and blasting something to atomic non-existence. You... pick up, certain habits as a Mage. You have too.
Because if you DON'T? You're a threat to not only yourself, but everyone around you.
It is hell on my teeth though. I usually just try to throw pottery, since I have spells that can repair it. Breaking things helps. Except when I'm not at home. Because I decided I needed to go out and be sociable. Like an IDIOT! Fuck this, fuck sociable, I want to go home!!!
Tucking myself to the side of the road and out of the flow of foot traffic, I try to get my agitation under control. Nothing is going right today. Or is it that everything feels... off? I don't know! Something is wrong. Like an itch. A painful little prickle, prickle, poke Poke POKE, that's rubbing my nerve endings raw.
Except... Except nothings there!
My body is fine!
So... is it magical? Am I sensing something? No one ELSE seems to be. But, then again, how many Homestead Mages are even IN this province? Three? At BEST? And Agatha is old. On the other side of Gleamsweep. Her granddaughter is barely started training, wouldn't be able sense shit.
Fuck.
The irritation feels... alien, the longer I try to nail it down. Like it's not coming from me. Simply inside my skin. Seething. Furious. Trying to distract me. Cautiously, I feel along my necklaces. Each of the charms there, all of the medallions, are cool and nonresponding. Which means it's nothing common. Nervous, now, I slowly reach for my waistline; And the dangling protection anchors I keep there.
Nothing... nothing... nothing...
PAIN.
Burning hot. It's a small miracle my hand hasn't brushed it before. The white jade is like touching glowing steel. Only the fact that all my clothes are heavy enchanted, has prevented my upper thigh from being branded by it. My eyes snap down to stare in horror.
I.. I think the cord might be smoking.
That's... one of my strongest protection wards. It... it took a DECADE to finish. Every spare coin I had, since I was a child. My first great masterpiece. Charged, day in and day out, with every drop of magic I could give. For ten years. I-It looks ready to break. Straining against some unseen weight, as it struggles desperately to protect me.
Fear spills like ice water down my spine. Mixing poorly, with the false anger someone is trying to force upon me. Like sour milk. What I know I feel and what's being forced to happen? Create a sickly slurry in my veins. But... I am not a journeyman Mage for nothing. I am no novice, struggling, I nonetheless push past it.
Pushing off the wall, on which I was leaning, I run. Unsteady on my feet at first, my adrenaline helps to steady each step. To hell with propriety. With polite society and how I should act. I am in danger. In broad daylight no less. Someone is attacking me. Someone powerful. Worse? I do not even know who.
People scramble out of my way. Crying out and cursing. Offended. Exclaiming at my back, as though that will make any difference at all. Still I run, scramble, like a fox fleeing the hunt. My lungs burning, legs on fire. Tiring far faster then I should. As... as though someone is quietly siphoning my strength away. No... no, no, NO! Oh god.
Skidding around the corner to the street my house is on? The trees, that line the road, cast unnatural shadows. Darker and deeper then the day should allow. Still, in a way that the shifting branches above should dispell. Sunlight paints a perilously thin path through them. Weaving like a strand of light through the waiting jaws of some great beast.
I freeze. Barely catching myself before I stumble into this obvious trap.
My house... looks so bright and cheerful. As it sits, far, far out of my reach. A bastion of safety and warmth. Should... should I risk it? Looking down. Where my foot almost-but-not-quite landed on those perilous shadows before I could stop myself... I oh so carefully, lift my foot... and move it back.
Like gently and slowly, removing the limb that damn near set off the bear trap, you had not noticed, until almost too late.
No... sudden... movements...
But where do I go? My workshop is IN my house. A friend's house? The closest is three train stops away. I'll never make it. The guild? Ha! They'd have me fill a report and send me on my way! Act shocked when I promptly died on them. Fuck. FUCK!!
My house really IS the only safe place I can go.
I... I have to reach it.
There's no other choice.
Shaking, I try to examine the ground. Where the shadows do and do not touch. It's clearly magic... but what kind? I've never seen the like. At least not in this life. It reminds me...? Of shadow manipulation? Kinda? Is that even a thing? It MUST be. Light magic is. So... so it stands to reason...
I try to remember the candlelight spell. The hearth spark won't work, since that's fire. But the candlelight? That's heatless. Just light. It's a minor application, but it's still, technically Light magic. And what is House Magic, if not the great melting pot of different fields? After all! Light and fire magics save on firewood! So... so I GOT this!
Flickering lights hug my skin, pushing back the shadows... some. Like a narrow high bar, I have to put one foot in front of the other, arms hugged close to my side, to pass along the meandering path of light.
Still... I refuse to let my panic take me. Slow and steady, I move.
But of course, the gods laugh, at the plans of mice and men. At the sheer hubris of any mortal, that thinks they can avoid the inevitable. Halfway down the road? Once I am far, FAR to faraway, to jump to safety or run for my life? My ears catch the distant noise just before it hits. The rustling sigh of trees. Whooshing of branches.
The shadows dance.
It's already too late, the second the wind picks up. The light disappearing under me as the branches overhead move. Before I can so much as shift forward, to perhaps run for my life, ink black limbs shoot from below. My ankles. Shins. Legs, then wrists, dragging me roughly downwards. Pressure at the back of my knees, forcing my legs to buckle. I am brought to my knees.
They have me by the waist. I struggle. Trying desperately to flare any Light magic I know. But it's not bright enough. I am against a master. The shadows are swarming. Alive. Terrified, I wonder if this is it. Is this what they all experienced? Those poor bastards? In there final... no! NO!
I throw as much magic into my few Light spells as I can. Like firecrackers popping against my skin, the overload again and again. It hurts. But... but for brief moments? The shadows push back.
My knees are sinking.
Into the ground.
Where are they taking me!? WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME!? No! No, no, NO! Get off of me!! Get OFF! I drag at them with my nails. Burn myself with overloading candlelights. But it only seems to slow down the inevitable. Drag it out. I am sinking, even as I struggle. The shadows up to my shoulders. Pinning one of my arms. Grabbing at my remaining limb, as I struggle and bite and scream.
Creeping up my face. I am hip deep in ground that should be solid. Something cracks in my arm, as the shadows non-to-gentlly seize my last remaining limb. Pain lances through me. Still I thrash. Snarl and fight. Biting at the immaterial and trying to summon light bright enough to burn it.
My world goes dark, as it swallows my head.
Quiet.
Empty.
Cold, in a way that burns.
Then? I am dumped on the floor.
I gasp for air, despite full lungs. Feel breathless, despite not feeling the lack of air I know I just experienced. As though I had been dragged through the void of space and made to forget about it. Unmade and made whole once more. My wide, panicked eyes, shoot to the arm I KNOW I felt break...
Only to find it scarless, undamaged, better then before.
The walls are moving.
A near hysterical laugh bubbles out of me. Oh gods. Oh Gods. What is-?
"Sunbae~ long time, no see." Senior? Who in THE GODS would be calling me-‽‽ looking up, I feel all the blood drain from my face. "Did you miss me, sunbae? All alone, for so, so long?"
At the heart of the writhing, brain breaking, rend in the world? Sat my creepy, little underclassmen from the Academy. The kid who stared too much. Awkward and didnt talk much. Studied... magic... the...
My brain tripped violently over the final levers, connecting full picture at last. But... but it couldn't be. The Meta knowledge in my head said on thing. But...! But!! God please let me be reading things-!! Gods, I HAVE too be wrong! We barely even SPOKE!
"Ah, did you figure it out already, sunbae? I bet you have~" he crooned, his hands lazily moving through the air as though conducting an orchestra. The shadow limbs writhing and seething along, like incomprehensible puppets on damnedable stings.
"You always were so incredible like that. So clever and smart~♡" his half lidded gaze had the lazy, predatory energy, of a tiger that's been eyeing you and licking its lips. "I really did have to keep you from noticing til now, you know? I bet you would have been able to stop me."
"Don't worry, that stupid little Saint boy is almost in position. Once he's gone? They'll all eat each other like dogs. And we can finally have that rebirth you wanted! Everyone studing what they want, because they want, when they want! It will be beautiful~♡"
The antagonist. Oh gods. No. It can't be. How had I never recognized him?! Why, of all schools, did his unknown background Academy have to be MINE? Shadows curled around him. So far beyond merely answering him, it was as though he had become their god.
"Best of all? We can finally be together. I can court you properly this time~♡!"
"I can't WAIT to get married sunbae. You'll make a magnificent bride. Then I can give you a proper house. The jewels and gems my love deserves~♡ And isn't that great? Wonderful? Just a few more annoyances, then? I'm done! We finally start our life together~"
I have captured you, probably even imprisoned you, have LITERALLY all the power here.... so now? NOW? You can't escape. You HAVE to...
Let me serve you.
Cause like? The fucked up power dynamics~! Yandere over here? Wants to be their servant. Their dog! Crawl at, for the HONOR of, messaging their feet. Yet? They also? Have their Darling by the fuckin THROAT.
This is THEIR house now. They get what THEY want. Not you.
Darling? Does NOT get to ignore them anymore. If Yandere wants to brush their hair and make them tea? While being God Death King of the Multiverse? Whose going to stop him? You?
You're in a CAGE.
A pretty one, of course. A soft and lovely one, because he could never subject you to cruelties! But like... the door still locks... from the outside.... on the OTHER SIDE of those iron bars.
But aren't we happy? It's all his dreams come true~! Just you n him. Your most trusted servant. Just the two of you. Alone. Together. Forever.
The answer was still "No", he still can't fuck me.
(But that won't stop him trying to persuade me. How long have we been in this limbo? How long until I give in?)
Overbearing cologne and cigar smoke seeps, like smog, into the room. Just as dirty and cloying as the chuckle that follows. It's a deep sound. Sleazy, masculine, and with a hint of growl. The drawling amusement of a man who knows he's the biggest threat in whatever room he stands in.
And enjoys it.
He's an absolute bastard. I hate him. I'm scared of him. He wasn't even the Demon that was supposed to show up. But? What's done is is done. And now I have to figure out a way to escape... somehow.
Because I Refuse.
Refuse! To let him eat me. In any sense of the word.
When I was... not so much "reincarnated", as that would require my memories be lost, but? I guess, Reborn? I found myself inside a story. It had just come out, before I died. So I never got to finish it. But I had seen play-throughs. Spoilers. Watched the trailers. I recognized everything, and realized what "role" as it were, someone wanted me to play. A frankly? Near psychotic, bully of a girl.
I refused. Utterly.
Not only because the Protagonist was, frankly? Just a child. But because the girl's end was a horrifying one. My character, dragged to hell. Tortured and tormented forever. Granted, they didn't call it hell. No, no, it was the "Shadow Dimensions". You know... where Demons come from. But, come on, it was clearly hell!
Instead? I trained. Ate my veggies. Did my homework. I went to fantasy church each Sunday, and dutifully prayed, to the fantasy Otome Gods. The very picture of a perfect child. Frankly? I aimed for obnoxiously so.
Just so I could get through the plot, then get the hell out of dodge.
But then? THEN? The Protagonist crashed into my life. And made me a horror story. Suddenly I was pushing innocent girls down stairs and into ponds. Spreading rumors I'd never spoken. Taking things I'd never touched. Sending men to do unspeakable things, from which she must be saved. The monster in her fairytale. From which? Her knights must surely protect her.
I'd done none of it.
Had witnesses to prove that.
But what use was the words of my friends? When the sons of powerful houses were forming a mob? For Justice, of course. Because I was Evil, obviously. I deserved it, they howled. Terrified... I ran. My friends helping break out. Smuggling me as far as they could. We split up. Them, running to their parents for help, and me? Simply running.
All the while... wondering. Horrified. Did She? The original? Suffer the same? Was the Story equally so twisted? Distorted truths and inconveniences erased? Had... gods, had she ever even been the villian? I would never know.
None the less, I fled to the one place I knew the Protagonist couldn't enter. Not yet.
Her ancestors cursed Manor. Where the final act would reveal how our families intertwined. History repeating itself, etc etc. I couldn't remember. All I knew? Was that my character met a Demon there. Some secret romance-able. But if I could convince him first? Maybe... just maybe? I could protect myself from that psychopath in pink.
What I didn't count on? What I SHOULD have remembered? Was that spells depend on material, power, and payment. The difference between getting a cup of water and a lake? Can often be how much you sacrifice to get what you need. What chalk or ink you use. How much POWER you pour in to the spell.
I don't know what the Original did. But the materials were likely the same, given I found them there. High grade, if old. However...? However? I was panicked. Foolish. Did the one thing our magic instructors told us never to do. I Cast with emotion, instead of a clear head. Poured bucket of power into the spell, like a hemorrhaging wound. Did not prick my hand for mere drops of blood, no... no I dragged the blade shallow but long.
Spilling FAR to much. Paying FAR more then the Original ever dreamed too.
Would ever DARE.
Fear makes people stupid.
What answered? Was NOT who I expected. Who I expected. It was like the house, and everything in it, was suddenly under the crushing pressure of some great boot. Walls groaned. Pillars creaked ominously. Dust rained from the ceiling as windows popped and cracked. My back, forced to bow, under the mountainous pressure. Face pressed to the blood and ink stained floor. I could barely breathe.
Pressed to the filthy floor, it was like I was being ground into it, for my audacity. Even as space itself warped and imploded, into the shape of a man. A hole in reality. Emptiness, that stepped forward into being, as casually as others go for a strole. I could barely see... but... but...?
W-was...?
Was he wearing a fucking suit‽
Lazily, cigar smoke drifted through the air. Thick cologne commanded the room. A moment, as whatever I summoned considered, whether or not to humor me. Before just like that? The pressure released. Like a bubble popping or a joint, cracking backing into place. I gasped for air. Desperately filling my lungs. Light headed from my still bleeding arm.
Weakly, I dragged my fingers along the edges and muttered a healing spell. It wouldn't be pretty, but... fuck it. I had other concerns right now.
It was only when I looked up, managing to lever my self into a sitting position, that I realized I fucked up. Really, really, fucked up. Even as I watched, classic ram horn whisped away, clouding the demon's head in a mocking halo of smoke. His thick whip of a tail, lazily coiled back and forth, before passing once more behind his back, to seemingly disappear. Leaving only black tipped claws behind. Teeth, far too sharp.
An old school Demon.
One of the Classics, as they called them. Old, strong, and impossible to kill. Notorious. The so called kings of the Shadowlands. The came from the generations before the great Demon Wars. The ones that basically slaughtered the entire existent demonic population for about twenty or so generations. Classic Demons didn't have to rapid evolve to survive like the rest.
They were just too god damned powerful to kill.
Fuck.
The Demon's vaguely bored expression oozed into a deeply amused, wolfish grin. My horrified realization must have shown on my face. And, really, what was more amusing? To a Demon. Then that moment of terror and awe? Seeing them realize that you are the Big Nasty here? Ha ha... apparently, nothing.
"Well aren't you cute, bitty Meat? I could eat you right up." He drawled.
FUCK.
There... there was no way to fix this. I could reverse the summons... but that? That only works if he decides to go quietly. Normally, you can firmly enforce these sort of things, if they refuse to disperse, but... but-! Ha ha... oh fuck. There was no way in hell, my will could possibly win out. That I could force him through a metaphorical doorway. At best, I'd be letting him free as the summoning broke down.
Shit. Okay. S-Seal a Dea...?
No. That's an incredibly fucking stupid idea.
No one has ever, on record, survived making ANY deals with an Elder Demon. The Classics were both fucking vicious and effectively Demonic warlords! Bad idea. Very Bad Idea! But it's not like I can just wait him out. What's a few weeks to is effectively an immortal? Maybe I could...?
"Aaaw, bitty Meat. Are you... panicking? How cute." A claw tipped hand holding his cigar brings it up, to meanly grinning lips. To be trapped, like prey, between predator sharp teeth. Freeing his hand, even as the other never leaves its place, casually, arrogantly, tucked into his pants pocket. "Gotta say, it's not often I get such an adorable little meal."
"Certainly adds a bit of... spice to things~" he chuckled. A deep, curling sound. Like smoke in the lungs and terrible drunken mistakes.
Then? The horrifying. Holding my eyes with his. Smirk growing, wider and wider, as the terror set in and the reality of my situation unfolded, he casually... reached out. As though it was nothing at all. No spellwork, no barriers. No thousands of years of safety measures going up in smoke. As though the breaking of cardinal rules meant nothing, and it was as simple as a breeze.
He reached out. A Demon, before any Deal was struck, past every layer of containment and protections, to ever so lightly? With those lethal, empire ending claws... grip a few strands of hair, that had escaped my careful up-do. Hanging wild, in front of my face. His finger pinched the strands. Deadly. Just in front of my eyes. Close enough to nearly feel the heat of his skin. And..?
Yank!
Sharp points of pain on my scalp. A few stands of hair, plucked free.
I all but stop breathing. It was one thing, to be powerful enough, ancient and experienced enough, to shrug off an inexperienced Mage's restrictions. After all, I was no Demon summoner. Had never studied the dark arts or Forbidden ways. It was entirely possible my restrictions were mediocre. Complete shit. But...? But-! Even I‽ knew there were certain inalienable RULES. Enforced by Reality itself. For all intents and purposes, God.
He shouldn't be able to hurt me. Not directly.
No Deal had been made. I hadn't tried to send him back and failed, thus allowing him to break free during the "you are no longer needed" portion but before completing the "Now go home". The most he should be able to do? Is threaten my environment, mental state, or emotions. Indirect attacks. Not... not direct...
Desperately I look down at my work. Looking for where I fucked up. But... but there's nothing. How? S-So, HOW?! Any harm to me, should-!
Oh.
"Well look at you, itty bitty~! Figure it out so fast, did you? What a clever little Morsel. That's right~..."
He can tank it. Even returned a thousand fold. What mortally wounds a human? Inconveniences a Demon like him. He could be down right atomized and he'd walk it off. That... that's why there's so many warnings. To keep them from ever setting foot in the Human realm. Old school Demons are all but impossible to get rid off and... and the last one that got through? Nearly wiped out two seperate Holy Orders. Took five hundred years to send back.
Finally... I let myself cry.
God damn it. I.. I messed up. This is all so fucking messed up! I just... I just wanted to travel! Visit the coast with my friends. Cute little shops. Those flower fields I'd heard about. How... how the fuck did I-? Why did I have to..? What was the POINT of all this!? If I was just going to end up HERE!? Curling into myself. I sob. Fuck it all. I'm... I'm done. Enough! I can't anymore. E-Enough...
"Hmmm..." the worst mistake of my life says, humming like he's considering something. Grinding my spellwork to smears and ruin, beneath expensive boot leather. As he strolls past me to consider the room at large. Lazily circling me like a shark.
"You know... I think I recognize this wreck. Hmmm, oh yeah. Big tits, terrible attitude. Too many bows. She tried to play the damsel in distress card, like she wasn't just as guilty as the rest. Thought I burned this place down..."
"That bitch was a real arrogant piece of work. Some Saintess. Ha! I've met actual Demons more holy." My tears had faded, dispite myself. Curiosity dragging my attention to hang on every word. The actual, original, Tragedy At The Manor had never really been revealed. As far as I knew.
"So, let me guess," his voice as he circled behind me, was sneering as he spoke of the Protagonist. Like he'd stepped in something that been left to rot. "Greedy little shit, who wants more then she deserves, and was willing to take it from everyone else. No matter the cost. Because she is the victim. The pretty little princess, forever to be saved. And fuck whoever she has to destroy to get it."
I stare up at him with shocked, tear reddened eyes. Face a mess. Uncaring how pathetic I must look by now. Covered in dust, blood, and tears. Was... was the pink horror's behavior... fuckin genetic?! This had happened before!? Oh God.
Glancing down at me, the Demon's face shifts from annoyed disgust to amusement. Something curling through the expression I can not possibly hope read. Deeper. Darker. No longer just the surface flickers of passing fun. As though settling back on his heels, from where he had been balanced on the balls of his toes. Ever ready to move.
"Shit." He breathed out sharply through his nose, a near silent snort. Grin spreading like a beast baring its teeth. Eyes dancing with something I couldn't name. "A cute little snack... no, a sweet lil Treat~ and a fight? Happy fuckin birthday to me, huh? Don't I just get all the fun? Might even decide to keep you, sweet Treat. Make you a lil pet. We could make a Deal~"
"I eat you up, you get all you could ever dream off. It'll be great, itty bitty! Power, prestige. Wealth beyond your wildest dreams. Sex with the hottest fucking demon to ever live~ C'mon, Pet. Let me get a taste~"
The smell of smoke lingered in the air. Clung to his hair and skin, even after bathing. Because no amount of scented oils, scrubbing, could erase his sin. The scent of iron and cooking flesh. Cruel scents of ancient houses ablaze. Innocent people being slaughtered. For... for the crime of trying to help me.
It was all my fault.
Last time, I had escaped alone. Or... more laughably, he had let me escape.
So he could hunt me through the forest like a brightly colored deer. Some pretty prey to stalk and torment. Letting me exhaust myself. Run and run until I could no longer, before casually strolling up to come collect me. As though letting me get it out of my system. A man, merely humoring his wife's tantrums and overly dramatic, willful ways.
I never should have accepted help. No matter have lonely I was. How desperate my despair. Because... because-!
"I'll get you new ones. Don't be upset, Love." The monster that was my husband, said idly. His voice a low rumble like thunder, his so called 'sweet' tone. "Servants that can't obey their lord, can't be trusted. Shouldn't be kept. They were scum. I'll get you better ones."
Ha ha... more like, servants that obeyed him. Feared him. Had no shred of mercy or honor, left in their bones. Gods... I... I had condemned thirteen good souls. All for trying to help me. Save me. Just for trying to get me out of this hell and away from this man.
I would never forgive this life's sperm donor, for handing me over. Because... because after a betray like that? After I had begged? Begged and screamed, rioted and tried to run? And STILL he handed me over? He was no kin of mine. I had no family.
Not in this life.
My family may not have been perfect. May have been flawed. But they would never have handed me over to a psychopath. Sold me to the highest bidder, like chattle. And... and honestly? I would take them at their worst, over these bastards at their best.
I never should have read that STUPID book. Yeah, maybe, it had nothing to do with anything. Maybe, all it would have done is left me ignorant on top of being stranded. But? I had to blame something. Or I'd go insane. So it was the fucking book's fault.
Recommend by an internet friend. Historical fiction. Lots of complex characters and some spicy yandere. How FUN. Court intrigues! Poisonings! Bastards and hidden births! Great to read... literal hell to live through. Everyone wanted everyone fucking dead, and all I wanted? Was to marry far, FAR into the countryside. Live a boring ass life.
But apparently I blinked funny. Or was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Wore the wrong fucking dress (well, not dress, but you get the idea). Because next thing I knew? Yandere Sr., of Yandere and Yandere, is looking at me! And not in that "oh, what an interesting bug" sort of way! Look looking!
I didn't know shit about him! Yes, his son. But him? Nothing!
Well... aside from the fact he was a VERY convenient Widower. Like... the SECOND he got a kid out of his arranged wife. It was all very "everyone suspected but no one could prove shit" Sort of thing.
And? Said son? Becomes a major antagonist in the book. Until he "embarrasses" his Father by going too far. Implied gruesome end to follow. Plot moves on. Which? Is all well and good FOR THEM. But what about me?! I had nothing to go on! Aside from "Aaah ha ha ha! Run." Which? Didn't fucking help, in the end! Still... s-still ended up married.
Though, my new "son" ended up dead, in relatively short order. Apparently wasn't too pleased to have a step-mom. Tried to do something about it. Disappeared between one day and the next. And now no one is allowed to so much as talk about him. But hey! It's apparently fine! Because at some point? We're gonna make a better one!
"Your thoughts are far away, Love. Should I help you concentrate?" Husband muses, from the edge of the bed. I jerk back as I jolt violently to the present, focusing on the threat. He looks pleased. "Better~, this wife should focus only on her Lord. And yet... once again she's wandered. Tried to run. This lord wonders what he should do, hmm?"
Scrunched up in a ball on the bed, I hoped the answer was fucking "nothing". Or maybe, perhaps, "leave". Inching backwards, like the hunted animal I felt like, I wasn't fast enough to avoid the hand that shot out. Capturing my ankle in shackle strong grip.
It wasn't crushing. Left no bruises. Yet the touch felt scalding, as his hand imprisoned yet cradled my ankle. Dragged my leg free of my curled up little ball of self. I froze, as I felt his other hand gentle running the tips of his fingers up and down my shin. Up and down, up and down. As though just feeling my skin.
"Should he make sure his wife can not run?" This grip tightened, nearly bruising. His other gripping farther up my leg. As though casually preparing to snap bones. "Or perhaps, he should chain you away? Hmm? This Lords wife is a troublesome girl. Causing trouble as she does... ah~, what to do with her..."
Terrified, sat froze. Mind numb. Please. Gods. Please, please, please! D-Don't. I was shaking. Could feel tears starting to build. Watched, helplessly, as he examined me. Something pleased, satisfied even, creeped into his expression. And without breaking eye contact, he lifted my leg towards his face, to gently kiss the skin right above my ankle bone. It could have been tender... if it didn't feel like a threat.
"This wife is so very lucky, that this Lord loves her so. That he would never."
It was almost mocking, in how sweet the words curled. As though suggesting that because this one thing was too far, he was a good man. As though suggesting that he would do far worse to others, in my place. But don't worry. You won't be hurt. See how benevolent he is?
"But come, let us not discuss your punishments tonight, hmm?"
Like a predator, stalking his prey, he crawled up onto the bed. Closer and closer. There was no where to run. Was this it? W-was this the day he... he-? Looming, on his knees, above my curled up ball of fear, he effortlessly worked his arm in and around my waist. Dragging me closer. All but into his lap.
"You are tired. Upset. Have made such messes for this husband to clean." He murmured, face pressed close. Breathe ghosting against my neck, my ear. All I could smell was rich soaps and smoke. "We can deal with this tomorrow. For now, it's time for bed. So go ahead, rest sweetly in my arms, Love.
A nice thought. Yet here I stood, as cold and empty as the rain. I was a widow, now, and yet I could not... my mind would not... It did not seem real. Not yet. How could it possibly be? So soon? When it seemed only just the other day, I was nervously getting married. A modest but beautiful dress, made together with my in-laws to be. A humble church. Simple celebrations.
Our whole lives ahead of us.
Andrew was... was no one significant. But he was mine, and I was his. And though he couldn't give me a life of dreams and roses? He loved me earnestly. Picked road side flowers to bring me bits of beauty. Sang silly little songs, to wake me each day. Ate every bite of my, frankly, mediocre cooking, as though it were the greatest meal he'd ever had.
I loved him. I... I truely, actually, l-loved him. H..How can he be gone?
Where is my silly little man? My songbird? My best friend? H-how... WHY-‽ I don't understand. For days now. Since that final, terrible, wheezing breathe. I don't... I can't... Nothing feels real. I don't want it to be real. Please.
Please, Andrew. Darling. D-Don't do this.
The grave does not respond. It can not. Because... he is not there. I know he is not. Nothing but meat and soil remains. Empty shells and emptier houses. Like a punishment from God, for not following along politely. Bowing my head sweetly, and accepting my Fate.
It's my fault. Isn't it? Andrew would still be alive. Happy and in love. Married to some other woman, perhaps. Making her the luckiest wife in the world. Chatting over breakfast and giggling together as they joke their wake to work. She would get to admire his beautiful eyes and riot of freckles. He would write her terrible poetry.
They would be in love.
Alive... and in love.
But I ruined it. B-because I'm selfish. Right? That has to be it. Surely. It must be! B-because what else could it BE? He was healthy! It happened so fast! And now... now he is... is...
Sobs rip their way out of me, uncaring of the witnesses. My legs buckling under the weight of my grief. Who cares? Who CARES? So what if I kneel in the mud? He's gone! My best friend is gone! And it's all my fault! I deserve this! It should be ME!
I already lived once before. This was always borrowed time anyway. If it had to be one of us? It should have been me!
Someone kneels behind me, a shawl draped over my shoulders. An umbrella brought forward to shelter me from the rain. As though I don't wish to drown. Almost everyone else has left, now. But I can't. I just... I just can't. Leave me. Leave me to my grief!
This world was a Story to me. I escaped it. Selfishly thought there would never be a price for that. That quitely bowing out of my antagonists role to live quitely, humbly, with a good man, would never... would never...!
"Shhhhh....shhhhh.... It's okay. It's over now."
Over? Ha ha. How can it BE OVER‽ He's GONE! Another sobs wrenchs free. They seem unending. But oh, that voice. That cool, smooth, aristocratic voice. How is he even HERE‽ When I fled, I all but cut ties with my past. Traveled nearly two countries away. I am no longer the wretched, trouble-making daughter of a well to due man. The infamous leech, clinging to the grand-dukes unfavored first born son.
I am a bookstore owner's widow. Nothing more, nothing less. No royal dramas. No court intrigues. No otome game paths or thousand characters to remember. Why would he even look for me? How could he possibly have the time? With his brother the favorite to inherit and his father a cold hearted bastard. I was little more then arm candy. Vicious and childish arm candy at that.
Remebering, the person I was, before I remembered? I was a terrible, lonely child. And I took it out on everyone around me. I coveted the stars, because everything inside me felt empty. Because my family was cruel. Because the coin brought treachery and gilded chains.
Because I was terribly broken and hateful about it. Greedy for what I could not have.
I was indulged. Enabled. By this man, most of all. It only made me worse.
Of course I left. It was the only way to heal. To grow. And in the end? It made all the difference. Yet... he is here. How? Why‽ What part of that terrible brat of a child did he come for? That horribly broken thing? Our shared history is a shame to me. And it's not as though we were lovers. For all that the world certainly assumed as much. Did he actually consider us frien-?
"I always promised, I would marry you. When I became Grand Duke. Now we finally can."
The words seem to hang in the air like nooses. Full of unseen bodies that swing and creak, like silent horrors in the day's mild wind. Around us, the world was filled with a terrible hush. Rain muffling everything to distant, dull grey. And for a long moment... everything was cool, quite, and far away.
All at once, the world crashed back in. Like a wave crashing back in, after the tide receding before disaster. A tsunami of tiny things.
We were the last two here, I noticed. My in-laws, the neighbors, our... my social circle. All had left to give me privacy to grieve. The rain was cold. So much colder then it had seemed. I hadn't noticed. The wind whistling eerily through the near silent grave yard. As we kneeled at the foot of my husband's grave, the dark earth muddy. He... was he wearing cologne?
Kneeling in a wide open field... I suddenly felt cornered.
That expression. That... that was not the expression of a man who's feeling sorrow for an old friend. Not distant memories and what could have been's. That... that was hunger. A predator's patience. Was...? No. No, it could not have always been there. Right? I would have...
"You shouldn't kneel in the dirt, love. Not for him. He wasn't worth it." He murmured, soft and sweet as a lover. Eyes almost kind. "I'm here now. Here to make everything better, all right? No more worries. No more struggles. All the riches your heart desired. I got them for you. Isn't that nice? Let's go get you warm, hmm?"
I.. God, I wasn't an idiot.
What Did You DO?
You bastard. What did you do to my HUSBAND?! Ignoring the hand, softly held out, as though he had any fucking right, I grabbed the bastard by the front of his jacket. To shake him? Slam him down to punch until my fists break and bleed? I couldn't tell which impulse was stronger. It was like all my howling grief had turned to RAGE. As though my blood had filled with fire. My bones ropes made of live wires.
He has the audacity to smile. Fondly. Even as my white knuckled grip drags roughly at the fine fabric of his clothes, threatening to tear stitches. As I bear my teeth, unhinged like a mad dog. Wild around the eyes. I drag him closer. The bouquet, now made cruel mockery, that he brought, goes tumbling into the mud. Filth that he is, he sucks in a shuddering breath. Leans towards me.
"Ah, my love, you were always so magnificent in anger. You wear it like a queen."
Whispered towards me. Each word made obscene by the waver in his voice. The way he dares to roll it off his tounge! Another man's wife. You sick bastard, I was ANOTHER MAN'S WIFE! But you couldn't have that, could you‽ The shriek that howls free of me would put hawks to shame. I lunge. Hands clawing as I try to claw his fucking eyes out.
Shameless, he dares to have a laugh that is charming. How utterly practiced it must be! Effortlessly, he keeps my hands from his face, as I curse him. Holding my wrists as I struggle to maim. To avenge. Killer. MONSTER! I struggle to rip my hands free, so I can wrap them around his fucking throat!
The world spins. No longer am I pinning my husband's killer. The grey sky distant witness as I thrash like an animal. I have nothing left. NOTHING! He took everything from me! Andrew. My songbird. My everything! I won't let him get away with it. I WON'T. If it's the LAST THING I FUCKING DO. Screaming, thrashing, I try to get him off me. Clawing at the mud I can feel seeping into my back.
"Look at you... so broken." He said softly, like a confession. With an unholy reverence. "We always were so beautifully matched, weren't we? Two perfect little monsters."
His grip tighten. Painful at last. Bones grinding and bruises starting to bloom.
"But then you tried to run away, darling. Why would you do that? Were you scared? Afraid of loving me too much?" Furious at his audacity, I bucked and writhed. Get off. Get OFF! I'LL KILL YOU! "Shhh shhh shhh, it's okay, it's okay. I forgive you. I forgive you. My wildfire. My bride."
In the distance, the day's storm, long building, finally arrived. Thunder rolled as the rain picked up. The air biting.
"I'll take responsibility, of course. Who else could handle you? Knows you as I do?"
"Dont worry darling, my wildfire, my monster~ Ours is a lovestory~♡"
People call them "Contracts" but few, if any, ever read the fine print.
Maybe it's because of all the media from my first life; the horror stories and tales of deals gone wrong. Yet it seems like I alone, remain cautious. Careful. It feels like I alone, even understand the concept of "a deal with the devil". Though granted... not by that exact wording.
There are no devils here. IS no Christian Heaven or Hell. (As far as I can tell.)
But... but oh, there is so much more. And all of it is dangerous.
There are demons, yes, but they are creature made of malicious Energies. So too, exsist spirits. Minor and major Gods. It is a full and complete fantasy set up. They whole package. A wonderland of world building. And? A horror story to live in.
Those self same demons? Eat people. Attack travelers. Trains. And those Spirits? Fight for dominance in some sort of ever shifting court intrigue, using mortals as power sources and pawns. Are just as, if not more, destructive then the demons!
But, oh. What of the Gods?
What OF them? Do you think they care?
Beneath the glamorous adventures and magical veneer of the Story, this world was a rotten thing. Barely holding together. Yet... yet it was all I had, now. And that terrified me. Because I could not protect... anyone. Could I? Not.. not a single soul.
In the Story, the Protagonist (bless his empty little head) went to a magical academy. Met friends and foes. There was a love story and eventually? He saved the day. Huzzah. Good for him. But... here was the problem. The one which haunted me so.
That Love story? The "girl" he fell in love with? A nice, if proper, young lady from a house far above his station. But, oh! It was a turn of the century magical fantasy! He became famous! Wealthy! Saved her life with his incredible power! Of course her family approved in the end.
I did not want to BE his love story.
He was... a nice young man. Really! But... but it was like talking to, well, a high school student. Which he effectively was. And I? Had already been in college. Damn near graduating! (Not that I was bitter. No. Of course not. Perish the thought!) Only to then? Reincarnate and go on to live over a decade more.
I was at least twice his age.
The day I'd look at him as a romantic prospect? Is the day I'd gouge my own eyes out. That is a CHILD. My whole class is full of children. It's... exhausting. Ha! "Mature one", indeed. "Class mom", indeed! If only they knew.
But now? Now‽ The school wanted us to make Contracts! For a fucking GRADE! It was horrifying. Ill conceived and frankly? A GREAT way to push kids to over reach themselves. Try and Contract with a more powerful Being then they could handle. Get burned up or used.
"Mandatory". Ha! Mandatory my ass. I should refuse. If I was sane, I was refuse. But the problem was?
The school was fronting the Contact materials and safety arrays.
It was the safest chance I'd ever get. Fuck. Damn it.
So I read. I read and I read. Research til my eyes cross. Practice writing until my hands cramp. Splurge on the highest grade calligraphy instruments and inks I can afford. And with my allowance? And years of saving up? I'm literally buying alongside royals.
But it's the CONTRACT that takes the most time. I have to research law. Act under the assumption that I will be faced with some sort of malicious genie. It... gods, it can only end poorly. I know this. Yet? Here I stand.
Doing it anyway.
(I am a fool... aren't I?)
Unlike my fellow students, I don't do a vague Call All. While yes, the odds are higher for a response (due to it being basically an APB), you will have no control over what responds. Better to call for something specific and fail, in my mind. Then at least? You can plan ahead.
Besides, with the sheer quality of the materials I'm using? Someone will answer. They won't be able to resist. It's like leaving a box of diamonds on the sidewalk.
It takes all day, slowly, carefully writing out the hundreds of thousands of sigils and qualifiers. The "if X then Y, except when Z unless AB" of it all. I magically drain myself twice. Have to eat trail mix on the floor then nap in the corner. I rented the hall for the week, but... once begun? Only an IDIOT would open the safety arrays to leave.
Great way for foreign influences to completely fuck up your spell work. Either try to harvest the building Energies or, more likely, sabotage the Contract for a friend or ally, so they get more then they should. Fuckers.
After nearly two days? It's done. Still, I wait. Even as the air nearly burns with power. The scent of Green so over powering it's like someone dumped a cologne aisle on the floor. Wood and moss and old growth. Deep dark, pitch black earth. Petrichor. All humming, Humming, HUMMING like a bow string pulled back as far as it can. Straining, shaking, desperately ready to release the tension and STRIKE.
But I am no fool.
I wait for my energy to refill. Wait for a nap and some food to clear my mind. For all my papers to be nicely in order. I have called upon you, not the other way around. You can wait. (Because, frankly? I haven't even called you yet!)
Contract ready, I step into place. And each step, as it lands, is like the falling of trees and the baying of hounds. Thunderous in the sudden silence. Crashing as they fall. It is not me, whoever does this, the heraldry is both dramatic and not something I've ever even practiced. The scent of Green is thick enough now to choke. I'm genuinely surprised that the scent alone has not inspired plant growth.
My meticulous work surges to life, like it was a beast, only barely holding itself a bay. Like it can no longer. Roots and vines, made of then thousand shades of green-Gold-GREEN light shoot forward and up. Restrictive and choking. I am consumed in seconds.
I have to remind myself not to panic. To keep my feet still. As long as I don't move? I am safe. It is all for show. Like a cat, arching it's back. They can't truely hurt me. Bruise? Yes. But true, actual injury? No. It would hurt THEM too.
"Well, now, what have we here?" Mused a voice beyond comprehension.
It was eons of growth, beneath aliens skies. The cries of animals long lost and longer dead. Things that weren't and have never been, but could have. Growth, growth, GROWTH. Hunting and savagery and Death. Trees so tall the eclipse the heavens. Roots so deep they consume the world. Each leaf a tapestry. Decay. Growth from the rotting.
My... my ears were bleeding.
The vines-roots writhed in agony and pleasure under the weight of those few words. And... and that wasn't right. S-something was wrong. Very, very wrong. A spirit wasn't supposed to be that... that powerful.
I could FEEL the Safety arrays all but screaming under the weight they were trying to hold. Like toothpicks trying to hold up a mountain range. W-what? What was happening? I picked an earth spirit! Statistically, the calmest and mildest out of all available options! So... so why...‽
"Not going to bargain, kid? Plead for power and wealth?" The next sentence was no less agony then the first. Like being slammed by a wall of power. "Or are you here to make demands? Hmmm? I'm curious, honestly, to see where this one goes. It's been a while, after all."
The world had a pink tint. I... I tasted iron. Ha ha... oh god. Shit. I fucked up. I knew I should never have agreed to this stupid fucking-!
Wet dribbled down my face. A wheezing gurgle rattled my lungs. My heart was racing... but... but I could get enough air. I tried to suck in more. But the wet gurgle only got louder, as pink tinted foam worked it's way up my throat. Filled my lungs. I couldn't breathe. Something wet trickled from my ears. I Couldn't Breathe!
"Ah. I forgot about that. Fragile little creatures, aren't you?"
Unhurried steps casually strolled closer. Iron flavored foam clogged my air ways, as muscles spasmed, and creeping tendrils of darkness began to work their way closer, around the edges of my dying eyes. The world was muffled yet I could hear him perfectly. My sense were burning out, yet he imprinted himself beyond that. What had I summoned? Oh god... what had I done? W-what had I-‽
A calloused, treebark colored hand (the shade ever shifting, just ever so slightly) passed through the vines. Rather, the vines parted for it. Sun warm. Glowing as though containing that sunlight itself. Big. It... it was a strong, gardeners hand. A hunter's. Yet at the same time... unmistakable for anyone but that of a powerful man's.
Casual in it's impropriety. Sliding through my hair to grip the top of my head like it was simply his due. His skin... buzzed against me. Was almost too hot. Like standing near a live wire. And...? Then...
Then everything was gone.
My lungs free and clear. My eyes sharper then they'd ever been. Hearing so crisp, the silence of the room around us was nearly vertigo inducing. It was like my body had been reset to factory settings. Upgraded. I shuddered, eyes clenching shut. Because even with the pain gone? The horror was still there. The memory of the taste still lingered in my mouth.
"There we go, good girl. All fixed." There was a condescending lilt to his voice. His hand didn't move. Just tightened lightly and dragged, forcing me to tilt my head up, if I didn't want my hair pulled. Making me look him in the eyes. They were shifting, lazily, between hawk and wolf gold even as I watched. "Now, you were trying to be clever, yes? Had your little plan and every thing. Come on, let's hear it. I'm curious to see where this scheme goes. You always think your so creative, after all. So bold and new."
I wanted to send him back.
Now.
Fuck this. Fuck, grades. To hell with "mandatory". I'd drop out if I had too. Gods damn it, I'd go be puppy boy Protagonist's Love Interest if I had too! This was insane. I... I fucked up so bad. Earth spirits don't glow. Light spirits glow! For obvious reasons. But you know who does‽ Who FUCKING DOES‽‽ Gods.
"Ah, ah~." He chided, all but curling over me as he loomed.
There was laughter threatening to escape his control, hidden in his voice. Mocking amusement in the deliberate non-smile that kept him from baring his teeth in a grin.
"Don't go running now. Not when you've already invited me in." Phrasing. Horrifying phrasing! "You wouldn't want to be rude would you? There are Rules, after all. And you know better. Don't you, little thing?"
I wanted to laugh hysterically. Cry a bit. Fuck. God DAMN IT. FUCK! He's right. Of course he is! He mocking me with it! Shit. Oh god. Fuck, damn it! O-okay... I... I can... I just-!
Fear? Truely is the mind killer. For long moments, I could not move. Could barely bring myself to breathe. My mind, a horrible static. But... like slowly forcing yourself to unclench a white knuckled grip. One finger at a time. I... I made myself focus. Tried to bring my arm up. Miraculously, the vines let me. I held the Contract I had written out.
"Oh? And what's this then? Deman-?"
I could feel the pages leave my hand. Hear the rustle as they were flipped. The ringing silence, as he registered what it was he held. But my eyes were closed. I... I didn't want to see the end coming. Maybe I was a coward for that. But damn it, gods damn it, I was scared!
Crashing of horns against horns, the bray of dying beasts. Cracking growing and the fall of mighty trees. Mycelium surging through deep dark soil. Ripping flesh. Hunting cries. Green and grow. GREEN AND DEATH. Green Green Green Green Green Gree-!
"Audacious little pet! Aren't you? Oh, you do think your clever!" Amusement sang like venom and traps yet to be sprung. Dying, dying, DYING-! "Oh dear. Again? My poor thing. Hold still. This 'spiritual partner' will make it all better, hmm?"
The hand was back. Cradling my lolling face. W-when had I? G..Gone limp? I can't feel my legs. Can't feel... can't feel.... c-cant f...feel...
GREEN.
I gasp in air, like a drowning man final breaking the surface. My face is sticky. Blood? Tears? Gore? I am terrified to know. Don't have the strength to lift my own head. My magic is being all but ripped out of me. Faster and faster. Like it's being drained into a bottomless pit.
Something beyond sunlight, beyond growth, is reaching back. The very Concept of nature made manifest. What did I summon? What creature? What GOD?! Did I SUMMON?! Please. Forgive me. I.. I didn't mean too! I swear! Please! P-please!
"You know? It's been far too long, since I've had an excuse. I needed a good vacation. And to think," A second hand comes up to cradle my face, with a terribly deceptive gentleness. Tilting my head this way and that, as though to inspect me. "It comes with a free pet. Oh you're going to be so very amusing, I can already tell."
"But don't worry, pet." He nearly crooned. Clearly warming up to his own idea. "I take care of my things."
