Storytime [Read Only] - Printable Version

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RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 06-25-2017


She'd been planning it for months.

It took months, when she had nothing but the contents of one farm to work with. No Internet… Her great-grandparents had never really seen a need for it. Too risky to have around her, in any case. They had a phone, a land line. She had no friends, so she had never been taught how to use it. She had never been taught a lot of things, but she learned quickly from TV and books and context. For fifteen years, in fact, she had lived on this farm, and never left. She depended on her view through the lens of the media she consumed to piece together what the rest of the world was actually like. What other people might be like.

Books, for example, had taught her that there were words for locking a child up, isolating them. Words for locking them outside at night. Words she hesitated to even think, because she wasn't really a child. Not all the time. And no one got mad when you locked a dog outside.

She waffled for a long time, between thinking her family was right and hating them. Eventually, hate won… or perhaps just the desperate need to see something else. Someone else. To live. Maybe she just realized there would never be a “when you’re older,” they would never not be scared for her.

Planning her escape was difficult, because she was capable of very little at night. But during the precious summer months, the sun rose early and so did she. She studied the phone book. She studied maps. And, one afternoon when her great-grandfather mowed the grass and her great-grandmother stitched in the living room, Bree snuck upstairs to use the phone in their bedroom. She called the bus station, the number she memorized. Shakily, with words she practiced thousands of times, she asked for bus times. Prices.

Once she got them, there was a clicking clock.

It was a multi-day affair. She snuck her things out, hid them at the very edge of the farm, in a hole she'd dug and covered with a huge, heavy rock she liked to lift and throw. The moisture was certainly not good for her books, but she kept them in a backpack and was bringing so few. She packed only a single change of clothes. Space was precious.

Monday night, she snuck into her great-grandparents bedroom again. This time as a dog. She'd loosened the vents in both their rooms; she'd been exploring them for years, in any case. With careful agility, she knocked her great-grandmother’s purse over, as she had a hundred times before. But this time, instead of snapping it open with clumsy paws, and stealing the money within, she stole the whole thing. And her great-grandfather’s as well, kept on the bed stand. She stretched her mouth painfully around them and dragged them back through the vents.

Now the hard part.

For obvious reasons, they had never installed a doggy door. But the vents lead into the crawl space under the house. She had a few, uh, eight foot vertical drops to get there, mind.

Somehow, she didn't kill herself in the process, probably because she'd had the foresight to drop pillows ahead of time. It was terrifying and painful. But those were things she could deal with, as long as her spine was intact. Halfway through the vents, she paused to steal the money out of her great-grandparents’ wallets, leaving the wallets themselves in the vents. She could only hope that the lack of cards and identification would slow them down in their pursuit. They’d certainly never find their wallets here.

Down the vents. Into the crawl space. Under the house. Push aside the board whose nails she'd carefully pried out weeks before.

And then she was outside.

It was the first time she'd been outside at night and not been confined to the backyard.

It was goddamn fucking terrifying.

It was huge. Ludicrously huge, pants-wettingly huge. It was so infinitely goddamn dark, something she hadn’t really considered, because she was used to light from the porch light. It had always seemed so dim, before, barely able to keep the oppressive darkness at bay. Now she realized just how much it had done for her. Only her desperation to be free propelled her forwards through the black night. It was almost impossible to navigate from this smaller size, even without barely being able to see. She kept thinking that she'd somehow gotten lost. But she'd spent 15 years on that farm, and she knew every blade of grass and the shape of every tree. It felt like an entire saga of her life, but she found her way to the rock and waited.

The sun rose at 4:54 A.M. She had 6 minutes before her great-grandfather’s alarm went off. They normally didn't bother her until six, but her great-grandfather sometimes checked in on her. When there was no response to their knocking, they might assume her asleep. Maybe. It wasn't as though she had a lock. They could open her door any time.

The clock ticked faster now.

She threw on a sun dress, not because she liked it, but because it was fast and easy and technically a full outfit. She threw on a sun hat and hopped into sandals as she threw on her backpack. The sun hat could tie around her chin. She was so scared of it coming off, so she’d selected it on purpose.

She didn't even spare a glance at the home she was leaving behind as she bolted down the country road as fast as her legs could carry her. She ran through fields and along back roads, terrified with every footfall that she'd hear her great-grandfather’s truck coming along the road. Every car made her jump.

A man in a pickup asked if she needed a lift. She thanked him, but declined.

She had watched television, after all.

It was past seven when she finally reached the bus station. She lined up to buy her ticket with the cash she’d stolen from her grandparents’ wallets. She shook the whole time, convinced she would be found out instantly. She kept pulling nervously at the edges of her hat, as if it might come flying off, revealing her nature to the world.

The woman behind the counter didn't even look at Bree as she ordered her ticket.

Bree hid in the bathroom until it was time for her bus to arrive, convinced great-grandparents would appear in the 42 minutes before the bus arrival. If they did, they weren't there when she emerged, shaking, to get on her bus.

It wasn't her first time in a vehicle. It was, however, her first time in a vehicle going over about 10 miles per hour.

It was terrifying.

It was exhilarating.

She watched more world than she could imagine speed by behind glass. People left her alone. She'd been worried… teenage girl, traveling alone, et cetera. But no one seemed to care. They barely glanced at her. She was invisible. It was incredible.

The bus took her to Portland, where she waited for another bus.

It took her to Valesport. She purchased a map of the city there in the bus station, and with great difficulty managed to find the street from her mother's address. It was a long walk. She should still be able to make it before sunset.

Valesport was… insane.

It was huge. It was intense. There were so many people and buildings so, so tall, which she'd seen, of course, on a tiny little TV screen, but not like this. A strange man asked her for change. She practically threw some at him as she ran away. Not her finest moment, but she was several hundred miles out of her comfort zone.

The bus station was on an old side of town. She could have taken another, smaller bus across town, but the routes confused her and the stops were much more crowded than the large station had been. So she walked, nose buried into a map.

She walked from worn down old houses to the finest and grandest she'd ever seen, though they looked just as old. Many had meticulously maintained gardens. One was covered in roses, growing wild over the old stone walls. It wasn't what she expected.

Then she crossed the river, into downtown. It was more what she expected. Several men leered at her. At the first, she shied away. At the second, she looked away uncomfortably. At the third, she glared, growing tired of the tomfoolery. One asked her if she needed directions. She pointed out--fairly obviously, she thought--that she was literally holding a map. He called her a bitch.

It was the first time someone had called her that, but she knew what it meant.

She kicked him between the legs, not with her toes, because she was wearing sandals, but with her heel, from the front. It was perfectly reasonable, because her hands were full. And then she ran. She was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to give chase.

She was wandering through downtown streets when the overcast skies finally began to let loose with their promised rain. She was forced to put her map away, but didn't take shelter, too scared she wouldn't make it to her mother's before sunset. She wandered the streets on sandals and a sun dress, very glad for her hat, which at least kept the pouring rain off of her face.

The rain stopped in a second--er, no, it was still pouring. But not on her. She looked up to see an umbrella at the same time a much taller man stepped into sight.

“I might be a bit late,” he said, crooked smile and a crooked nose. “But you should at least not get any wetter.”

“I don't need an escort,” Bree said shortly, wondering if all men were transparent and single-minded.

“Agree to disagree,” the man said with a smile. “But at least take the umbrella, little neighbor. You'll catch your death of a cold out here.”

She eyed him, warily, then gripped the umbrella’s handle, her hand just below his. He let it go with a wink. “Don't get lost,” he advised her. “Downtown is an ugly place, especially at night.”

“Yeah, got it,” she replied sarcastically. “Thanks.”

“Oh, you're quite welcome,” he said with a smile, and then wandered off into the rain, hands in his pockets, humming a tune she swore she'd heard on her great-grandmother’s lips.

She walked a little faster.

She did manage to find her mother's before sunset… assuming her mother hadn't moved. She knocked on the apartment door, checked the address, and then knocked again, nervously.

The door opened. There was a man there, and Bree was at once certain she had the wrong address.

“O-o-oh, sorry, I'm looking for Angela Corey, I'm--”

“ANGE!” the man bellowed back into the apartment, making Bree jump. “Some kid here for you!”

“...do you mean, some kid?” Bree heard, as her mother came around a corner and into sight of the open door. The large man stepped aside, and Bree waved sheepishly. She hadn't seen her mother in two years.

“...Hey, mum,” she managed, after the silence had stretched too long.

“...Bridget?” she said, voice dumbfounded. “How in the hell--”

“It's um… kind of a long story. Can I come in?”

Her mother looked, for a second, as if she might say no. A possibility Bree had never even considered. But then…

“Er… yeah. C’mon in.”

Relief in her steps, she crossed the threshold into her mother's apartment. Into what she hoped would be her new apartment, too. Because she wasn't going back.

She was never going back.

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 07-04-2017


“Fuck, oh god, please, fuck, ah, I can’t, please, god, yes, please, ah, FUCK!”

Ren’s fingers clawed uselessly against the skin of her ‘roommate’s’ shoulders and neck as he bounced her up and down on his cock, one hand on her left thigh, bending her leg upwards, and the other wrapped partway around her hips. His larger-than-life hands on her thin body were a constant reminder of his size in comparison to her, an utterly unnecessary one when a much more vivid reminder was splitting her in half. A scream of pleasure that was partway to a broken sob wrenched out of her as he thrust harder, harder still, pulling her whole body down to meet the thrust of his hips, and then–still, the first burst of ice inside her signaling his completion.

She shuddered around him still, body a limp, trembling puddle in his hands. He purred, hips giving a few aborted half-thrusts as he finished coming inside her, his face lowering to rub against her hair. Her eyes were half-lidded as he lifted him off of her, picking her up high enough that his cock fell out, a steady dripping of glittery come following it out. Unconcerned with the mess, as always, he dropped her right back into his lap, wrapping first his arms around her, then his wings. She pressed herself happily against his chest, exhausted but satisfied, the thrums of his purring vibrating against her.

She would be hard-pressed to pick any one thing that she and the gargoyle did together as her favorite–she enjoyed too many of them. But this was definitely up there, the little stone prison he made for her with his body. It may have kept her in, but that wasn’t the point, wasn’t the purpose. It kept everything else OUT. She was safe in here, the safest she would ever be in her life, surely. Nothing bad ever happened to her in her sanctuary. And in his arms, she was safest still. To get through him was a logical impossibility; it simply could not be done.

The safety would have been enough, she suspected, but she got the closeness, too. They both did. She’d long since suspected he liked her for her softness and her warmth, which was fine, because she liked him for his rigidity and his strength. But they liked each other, for this closeness. Touch starved, the both of them, starved for affection and kindness and love. And look at the weird little place they’d found it, in this run-down church that served as his prison, made into a home by their shared presence.

She drifted off there in his arms, perfectly safe and perfectly warm and perfectly used and perfectly loved. The deep rumbles of his purring thrumming against her ears like a lullaby, the impermeable membranes of his wings like a blanket, and she slept better than she ever had in a real bed.

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RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 10-18-2017


She saw him, unexpectedly, at the art show. Jean didn't really leave the house much, even now. He took homebody to something of an extreme, but Bree liked that about him, because it was the single and only reliable thing about him.

Her heart skipped a beat when she saw his profile in the crowd, suddenly training on him like a hound that's spotted a rabbit. Then it tried to beat three times at once, an arrhythmic series of pounding that made her chest ache. She flooded with a low flush, a creeping and immediate happy pleasure just at the sight of him. She was drawn towards him like a magnet, didn't even notice herself taking steps. But then, he had that effect on everyone, didn't he.

He seemed to catch notice of something, perking like a dog that's caught a scent, and scanned the crowd. Her, she realized. He smelled her, or tasted her, or whatever it was he did, precisely. Her emotions, the burst of pleasured happiness. He'd recognized her, perhaps, just from the taste in the air of her sweet painful puppy love.

The reminder that he could tell, that he could taste that on her as surely as she could taste red, red wine on his tongue, served to turn her cheeks from a flush of pleasure and joy to one of intense embarrassment. But he could taste that too, which only served to frustrate her. She got a little furious with herself all at once, for doing this, always, with him, why was it always him, how had he sunk his claws so deep under her skin. And how could she get him to sink them deeper.

It was an interesting and frustrating little avalanche of feeling. She probably tasted like a goddamn hotpot.

And then he turned a bit more, and she saw the woman on his arm right as his eyes fell on her.

The emotion all drained out of her at once, her ears flattening down against her head and her expression going flat and dull. She took the woman in, briefly. A beauty of pale skin and dark hair, like a color palette swap of Bree herself. Long straight hair and a thin build helped cement how very unlike Bridget Corey the woman was. Some model, perhaps, or a supernatural something, or maybe just the most recent woman Jean had decided to destroy. Either way, Bree flatlined at the sight of her.

She turned away, already hating the steps she'd taken towards him, eyes hitting the crowd again as she wandered off, away. She wasn't the type to go up to Jean when he had a date, to make a scene or a fuss or even just make the woman feel insecure. She knew what he got up to, knew who he got up to. He did it enough when she was there, some nights, so he could enjoy the mixed bouquet of pleasure and utter broken agony.

She'd like to say she didn't let it get to her, but that was such a lie. It had gotten to her a long time ago and set up permanent residence in her chest. Now it was old and familiar and she knew how to deal with it. By being somewhere else, with someone else, and not letting him lick the pain off her like a lollipop.

She found Axel in the crowd, obvious by his dark skin and the inappropriate way he was staring around, unabashedly enjoying himself in a place for reserved aristocrats to try to have appropriate reactions to things that had no set response, not really, but people were always sure they did, that there was a right answer.

She tucked her arm around his, much the way the beautiful woman had been tucked around Jean. She was glad he was there, and not just because of Jean. She hadn't wanted to come to this dumb thing alone.

He was warm to the touch, a little space heater of a man who warmed her skin and cauterized the bleeding of her heart with his sheer earnestness, the honesty with which he moved through the world. Nothing like Jean. Nothing like other pretty little liars who'd slid in and then out of her life. Easy to think of him as stupid, in comparison, and maybe she did, but maybe that was part of what she liked. It was hard to feel threatened by an idiot.

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and he looked surprised but happy, clearly unsure what had brought this on, but not complaining.

Jean didn't get jealous. She knew this. But actually she could swear he did, sometimes, over the silliest, pettiest things. Not this, though, never this, because he was more willing to share her than she was to be shared, and Axel was too much a good hearted fool to break his toy.

But apparently he didn't have the little stopgap, like she did, to keep him from coming over when she was hanging off another man, trying to take comfort in the existence of someone who she could hurt more readily than he could hurt her.

The woman was still hanging comfortably off of Jean's arm. The sight caused Bree to tighten her own grip on Axel. Wishing she could turn around and steer them away, but lacking the force of will to do so. Not when Jean was headed straight for her, eyes locked with hers, faintest smile on his lips. He was about to hurt her. Bree knew he was about to hurt her. But she was as frozen to the spot as any little prey in the path of something determined to eat them.

If she wasn't feeling so dull inside, she'd probably be mad at herself for being so generally enthusiastic about the eating, honestly.

"Why, Miss Corey!" Jean said cheerfully, setting the tone for what was bound to be an intensely unpleasant encounter for everyone involved except him. "How unusual, to see you at such an upscale event! And looking so put together, as well!" he added, his eyes tracing briefly up and down her gown. Which he most likely recognized, as he was the one who bought it for her, but there was never any telling what he would consider worth remembering. Then his eyes traced over to Axel, to whom she was still clinging like a lifeline, and his lips curled into a finer grin. "Oh~! And who is this handsome young man? I do not believe I have had the pleasure of his acquaintance."

Axel, of course, seemed perfectly comfortable with this turn of events, and was smiling in as friendly a manner as ever. Bree suspected he picked up on her tension, but his default reaction to things that might threaten either of them was to smile and laugh.

Bree, meanwhile, was managing to punch through the intense desire for this not to be happening and latched on to something familiar. Being as much of a bitch as possible to Jean, and damn the consequences. "Jean!" she said, not nearly as warmly as him, but certainly trying, with a smile that almost definitely failed to reach her eyes. "So nice to see you out of the house and dressed!" Very dressed, very finely, but she didn't need to think about that right now. "This is Axel. Surely I've mentioned him before?" she mused. "He lives with me, after all... Surely I've had you over to my apartment since he moved in?" His apartment, the apartment belonged to Jean, and no, he certainly had never once come over.

"Oh, do you like it?" he preened, pressing a hand to his own suitcoat. "Not as well as you would like nothing, I am sure, but this is not that kind of show." Her cheeks flushed slightly, and the only retorts coming to mind were more pickup lines than retorts, because he was very much not wrong. She forced her eyes over to his date--who didn't look any more pleased than Bree about this turn of events--to remind herself of why she was cross with him. Of course, he just followed her gaze.

"Ah! So many things slip my mind. You have not yet met my lovely friend, have you? I do so enjoy having an elegant woman at an elegant event, do you not agree, Miss Corey?"

That got her. Anger and hurt flared despite her attempt to keep a lid on them, sharp claws into a wound that he kept to fresh to allow it to scab over. A classy woman, not like her, someone who was expected to be at an event like this. Axel gave Bree's arm a squeeze as her grip tightened, but even that wasn't enough to calm her.

"I don't believe so, no!" she replied, voice trying to keep its cheer. Before she'd been pulled back into Jean's gravity, she would never have been able to do this, plaster on a fake smile and keep her biting metaphorical. She'd been given something of a crash course. "It can get a bit confusing for me, trying to keep them all straight," she added with a thin smile. "I'm sure if this flavor lasts longer than a month, I'll be able to remember her name."

Jean looked mildly amused, which was annoying. The woman looked lowkey furious, which was also annoying. Bree tried not to pick fights with Jean's dates, knowing they had as little say in the situation as Bree did. But she was always really shit at not picking fights, in general. Jean opened his mouth to reply, no doubt with something elegantly crushing, but the woman spoke up before he could. "A classy flavor fits the event, Miss Corey," she said icily. "Much more so than..." She tilted her head to the side, glancing Bree up and down. "Fried chicken?" she suggested mockingly, and Bree stiffened even more, even her fake smile vanishing into what was almost certainly a potent glare.

More dangerously for everyone involved, however, the trace smile was also gone from Jean's face, his lips curled downwards in a displeased frown as he regarded his date with a much less fond expression. His grip shifted on her arm, causing her to glance over, and the woman's victorious expression faded at the sight of the one Jean was wearing. A single raised eyebrow, and Bree knew that look. She got a little tremor herself, despite it being aimed at someone entirely different, because she could remember it being aimed at her. He barely even had to tilt up his chin to look down at someone, tall as he was, and he could pack enough disdain to make it feel like a physical blow.

"Please, excuse Miss Johnson," he said, voice less icy than his expression as he glanced back over to Bree, who was somewhat pleased to see the woman demoted from "my date" to "Miss Johnson," despite the anger she still had in spades towards both of them. "Talking is not one of the better skills her mouth possesses."

Axel found his hand with hers, intertwining their fingers. A much-needed distraction from the both of them. "A shame she can't make up her shortcomings to all of us in such a way," Bree snapped, no longer finding the situation worth putting up with for the sake of... whatever it was she'd been putting up with it for. "If you'll excuse me--this isn't a modern art exhibit, so I didn't come to look at trash that was someone's idea of attractive." She tightened her grip on Axel, practically dragging him away as she turned and stormed off.

She wished very much she could leave, but she was at this goddamn event for a reason, and so she had to stay and sulk, fuming while Axel peppered her with question, the way he always did. It was the first time he'd met Jean, but he'd certainly heard of him plenty. Bree, however, was very much not in the mood to talk about Jean Cernunnos anymore.

It was probably due to her state of sulking that it took her so long to realize that the ambiance had gone from "art murmurs" to "concerned murmurs" to "active shock." And even then, it was Axel who noticed first, and began tugging on her arm, curious to see what all the fuss was about.

Really, she should have guessed that Jean would be at the center of it. When was he not?

She certainly hadn't expected this, however. Somehow, he'd gotten into a room--a room that almost had to have been locked, and likely still was judging by the fact this was still happening--one that had been previously projecting a live feed of a bowl of fruit. She hadn't really understood the point, despite the fact that learning that shit was like the only reason she was even here.

Had been was an important word, for right now, the only art anyone was staring at was a live feed of someone getting a blowjob in front of said fruit.

Bree, of course, instantly recognized both parties: the face of the woman she'd just spat with... and, of course, she would unfortunately recognize Jean's dick anywhere.

"Oh, Christ," Bree groaned quietly, running a face over her hand. "Seriously?" There was literally no way Jean hadn't done this on purpose. Did the woman know? How did one miss a camera? Was this just another fucking way to rub it in, or was Jean just enjoying horrifying and/or arousing an entire crowd? Both, probably. Jean did love to multitask these things.

"Is this part of the art show?" Axel whispered, staring with the same idle curiosity as he had stared at everything else in the gala, including half the people.

"Only if you consider a massive prick to be a work of art," Bree growled, knowing damn well the double meaning would be lost on him.

"More fun to look at than half of the stuff so far," Axel suggested. "But they should have gotten someone better at it."

"We're leaving," Bree declared. She'd rather lose her extra credit than watch as this stupid--awful, unskilled, racist bitch utterly fail to perform in a satisfying matter. Not that it would have been more fun to watch if she'd been the master of cocksucking... but as it stood, it was just fucking awkward. She was trying to make up for her lack of skill with enthusiasm. It was not helping as much as she probably hoped it was.

"Why do you always want to leave when interesting things start happening?" Axel whined.

"Because your definition of interesting involves mortal danger!" she snapped, knowing damn well he was still sour about her dragging him out of that fae party.

"We're not in danger now," he complained. "Can't we watch the art show?"

"Axel, I swear to god--"

"Oooh, something's happening!"

Bree glanced over her shoulder, against her better instinct. The something that was happening was, apparently, the money shot. Great. She definitely hadn't seen him coming on someone else enough, and she had certainly needed to see it projected against a wall in high definition. For sure. Bree scowled. "This is disgusting. We're leaving," she repeated.

"Is this one of those weird human hang-ups?"

"Axel, if you ask me one more question, I am going to make you sleep in the bathtub," Bree promised darkly. She had no real intention of following through on that threat--there was literally no point in him sleeping anywhere but her bed. It's not like she used it.

"You can't threaten me with that anymore," he whined. "The bathroom locks from the inside."

Bree fixed him with a look not dissimilar from ones Jean had given her. "So if I tell you to stay in the bathroom, you won't?"

"...I might not," he said sullenly, looking away, cheeks darkening with a blush that made her feel slightly better.

She was distracted long enough that when she glanced back up, Jean’s dick was no longer in the picture. Small blessings. But she was still intent on leaving, knowing that if she did not, Jean would no doubt be by shortly to rub glass into her wounds and enjoy the bouquet of her suffering. But she paused, watching. The woman seemed confused. Then she glanced in the direction of the camera, eyes widening.

Ah... so she hadn’t known.

Against her better judgment, Bree watched idly, expression muted, arms crossed, as the woman seemed to yell something. It was interesting, to watch her expression grow crushed without the benefit of knowing what was being said.

She wondered how many faces Jean had put that expression on. Hers was certainly on the list. Despite that, she felt no real sympathy for the woman who’d so recently maligned her, instead watching with a dull sort of lack of interest as she furiously wiped her face off, come and tears.

Jean had never done that to her. Nothing so bad. Humiliation, certainly, but not...

The woman scurried off camera, and murmurs hit the room again until, expectedly, she emerged from the hallway towards the back of the gala. Bree’s eyes traced over her with detached curiosity. A mess, makeup smearing and come in her hair and wiped against her dress, staining it. Trying very hard not to make eye contact with anyone as she sped towards the exit.

“Brutal,” she muttered to no one in particular. “Even for Jean.”

“Can you explain what just happened?” Axel whispered, clearly lost to the intricacies of human culture once again.

“Not worth explaining,” Bree murmured, her eyes on the hallway still as people began to mill about again, talking to themselves in shocked tones. Not particularly interested, it seemed, in whose cock had just been the star of the show.

It had been brutal, even for Jean. Because he’d been annoyed by her? ...Because of what she’d said to Bree...? The dulled, dead feelings inside her couldn’t quite bury the little bloom of curious satisfaction at the idea. Hurt someone for her, like when he’d murdered the werewolves out to kill her. Because of her, because she was his. A plaything, but his plaything.

He emerged from the hallway, looking absolutely unruffled, no sign that he’d just been the recipient of a remarkably sloppy blowjob. His eyes fixed onto hers effortlessly from across the room, lips twisting into a grin with the smallest hint of pointed teeth.

“Do you still want to leave?” Axel asked, and her eyes didn’t leave Jean’s as she replied.

“...Might as well stay. We’ve made it through the worst part.”

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RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 11-09-2017


This is so long that it lags when I try to edit it. It's crashed twice. Please just do yourself a favor and read it on Ao3 here.

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RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 01-06-2019


It's so long oh god please just read this on Ao3

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RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 03-14-2019


Laelia was about fifteen minutes from securing a meal.

It wasn't like, a difficult one, or anything, but it wasn't like she put absolutely no effort into these things. She wasn't grabbing people off the street. She could have. But she preferred not to. She had a method. She would never call them rules, because she broke them essentially whenever she felt like it--she had people to keep off her trail, at the very least, and also things got boring.

But it wasn't like the universe was just dropping scuzzy but attractive men on her lap! And she'd been just a few minutes to dropping a "your place or mine" when someone sat down at the table.

It was a testament to Laelia's distraction and the amount of sheer stank at this bar that she hadn't noticed the woman when she'd entered. Her face was somewhat unfamiliar. Age changed people in a heartbeat. Literally, in some cases, it seemed. But the smell was unchanged and unmistakable.

"Laelia," she said, and that was all.

"Sorry, I think you've got the wrong--" began the man Laelia had been a few hours from eating whole.

"Trent," Laelia said with a thin smile. "Sorry, I've got to take this."

"What do you mean you've--"

"Don't worry," she said with a sigh, standing up. "I'm sure we'll run into each other again." She fixed Julie with a steady look, sturdier than she was feeling right then. "Walk with me?"

Julie stood to follow her out the door, and Laelia wondered vaguely if Julie was getting smaller. Was that even possible? She hadn't been that tall to start with. Then again, Laelia was eating a lot better now than then when they'd been in school. It was probably her. Probably.

"...This is what I get for walking around like this," Laelia joked awkwardly, to try and break the tension, after they'd walked half a block side by side. "And here I thought it was safe."

"August's with the kids," Julie said, answering the question Laelia had been skirting around.

"...How old are they now?" Laelia wondered.

"Hannah's graduating college in a few months."

"Holy shit, that's so old!"

Julie snorted, then began to laugh. "I know, right? I swear she was starting high school last week."

"Does August know where you are?"

"Right to the point, huh."

"That wasn't even close to the most pressing question I have," Laelia said with a pained smile, cautious not to show teeth.

"Yeah, he knows. He wasn't super happy about it."

"No, I can't imagine he would be," she said with a snort. He'd always been right about her. Laelia had told her as much many, many times. "What made it worth fighting with the loverboy?"

"August's been talking about moving back to Korea..."

"Please don't tell me you wanted to keep me abreast of your family's location."

"What if I did?!" Julie snapped. Laelia rolled her eyes, and Julie gave her arm a shove. It was like rice paper hitting a brick wall. "You're practically their godmother."

"I'm nothing of the sort."

"Yeah? And when Hannah was attacked?"

Laelia made quite the fuss of being distracted examining her nails, painted a deep blood red. "I was in the neighborhood."

"You weren't even close to the neighborhood."

"And besides, I always do that. Also, you know, most people wouldn't be super happy to have someone who slaughtered a teenager near their kids."

Julie shrugged. "I'm not convinced August wouldn't have done it if you hadn't gotten there first," she said, and it was Laelia's turn to laugh. She wasn't wrong. None of them had grown very far from their roots, she supposed. "Look, you can fuss about it all you want, but we both know that if anything happened to us, you'd keep an eye on the kids. And if we vanished, you'd panic."

"I never panic," Laelia lied. "And I definitely wouldn't about that. What surprises me is that you haven't yet." Any sane person would have left that town. Also, any sane person wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that she knew where they lived. She'd stopped checking in after what happened with Hannah. Home wasn't like it used to be. These things made the news. And besides... it wasn't good for her, or anyone.

Her moods were so fickle. Obsession wasn't a good look on someone who could barely tell curiosity from hunger on a good day. August knew that. That was why he was the smart one.

"It's just, Hannah got into Seouldae--"

"Holy shit, really?" Laelia asked, mouth cracking into a wide grin despite her previous caution.

"And August's a bit worried about the culture shock."

"And so you decided to come here and let me know your entire family was going to pick up and finally leave Michigan?" Laelia snorted. "That's a long-ass way to come for that, Jules."

"We're thinking about selling the house. I thought you might..."

Laelia blinked. "Why would I ever?"

"Old time's sake? Retirement? Summer home?"

"None of those things you just said apply to me in the slightest. Is this a money thing? Because--"

"No! I just thought you might want it!"

"There aren't any more bodies in the backyard, I took care of that like thirty years ago--"

"You have good memories there!" Julie protested. "Lots of them! That was the last place we were..." Her voice drained away. "You know," she said quietly. "All together."

"It's also where August shot me point blank with a shotgun."

"You startled him!"

"People can't shoot me every time I startle them! I'm spooky, it fucking happens!"

"You were fine, though."

"That doesn't mean I enjoy it! I hate shotguns," Laelia whined. "You know I hate shotguns. I was spitting up shrapnel for like three days."

"There were good times! You got blessed by an angel in the backyard!"

"It's really telling that you consider that a good memory."

"You don't?"

"I don't think about those times much," Laelia said with a frown. That was the truth. She was a different person now. In a very, very literal sense. "They happened to someone else."

"That's just the PTSD speaking."

"You need a human brain to have PTSD, Jules," Laelia said, rolling her eyes. They'd had this argument a lot.

"Your brain is humanish!"

"It's really not," Laelia sighed, despite the fact she knew Julie never got it. "I'm not buying the house, Jules. I hate Michigan. It's too fucking cold."

"Fine," Julie said with a sigh. "I just thought I'd ask. And maybe catch up, before..."

"Mmm." Laelia made a left into an alley, Julie followed, because she always did. She'd been fearless when they were teenagers and she was fearless now. But unlike Laelia, her skills had served their purpose and left. "Then I've just got one more pressing question."

Quick as a flash, she had Julie against the wall of one of the buildings, hidden from view of the street. She pinned the smaller, older woman in, one hand against the wall and one casually on her shoulder, a grip that could break any human in half in a blink. "How did you find me."

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 10-27-2019


Ren had literally never completed an assigned task so quickly in the whole time Gareth had known her.

There had been no explosions. No fuel leaks, no crashes, no fires. Her rats, normally a force of chaos all on their own, had spent the day quietly fetching her tools without her so much as opening her mouth to request them or look up from her project to claim them. She just held out her hand a tool was dropped directly into it. Sometimes by five rats working in tandem if it was particularly heavy. It was honestly kind of unsettling.

Gareth had dragged a phonograph into the workshop at her request, and it played off-tempo jazz. She hummed along to it, generally with a completely different tune. Gareth should probably have been taking advantage of the uncharacteristic silence--relative silence--to finish up some paperwork, but he kept catching himself watching the increasingly bizarre sight of Ren working peacefully... if frantically. And to think, he'd been trying to get her to take the day off to rest. How she could possibly be so active after everything she'd been through the day before was a mystery for the ages. She couldn't even sit properly--she had her legs folded under her on the stool, which was extremely padded to boot.

Three hours before the end of the day, she stood up, eyes glinting. "They're done." She gestured to the diving bell, which practically glistened. He'd been watching the whole time, so he knew that she had, in fact, done the repairs and little else. Not exactly as she was supposed to, but the little improvements she made here and there were ones he was familiar with by now, like signatures on her work. This was also so uncommon as to be suspicious. He would be paranoid by now if not for the fact he knew exactly what was causing it.

Ren had been to see the King yesterday. They had gotten to talking about orphanages. She was supposed to draft up a proposal. Despite everything else that had happened--or perhaps because of it--this was what she chose to fixate on. She'd never drafted anything in her life, and was determined to hit the library--her! The library! What!--and tear through every book on economics and social services they had. She'd made Gareth promise that if she finished her work early, they could spend the rest of the work day there. He'd agreed immediately; it was rare that she asked for anything that didn't require a week's worth of paperwork and arguing with several different departments.

The project she was working on had been scheduled to be finished in three days. Or rather, that's what he'd told her, because it was due at the end of the week and she was never on time.

"Look over them," she demanded impatiently. "I wanted t'send Ralphio to the library to get started but he can't fuckin' read." Ralphio being a rat, this made perfect sense. "Let's go already."

Gareth shook his head, and she scowled, expression turning murderous. "I can look over them later," he said, instead of whatever she had been expecting. "Let's get to the library."


Normally, Ren couldn't be bothered with books. Despite her regular complaints of boredom, she never read anything he gave her for her off-hours, regardless of the subject. He'd learned early on that if anyone tried to force the matter, she'd shred the books like a pissed-off cat.

Watching her increasingly frustrated expressions as she tried to focus through even a single book out of the ambitious stack she'd gathered, Gareth wondered if maybe he hadn't overlooked something obvious.

She was brilliant, he justified to himself. She could do frightful things with diagrams and her mind was like a whip, if someone had tied the whip to a ceiling fan. She knew what fish were good for cleaning rivers and what solvents would react with what compounds in a way that didn't just suggest book-learning, it demanded it. That was why it hadn't occurred to him. But it was just that: justification.

Of course, if he tried to deal with it head-on and sensibly, revealing that he'd realized she had an issue, she'd probably be right back to shredding books before he could blink. For someone they'd dragged in half-starved off the streets, she had a completely impossible amount of pride. Just pinpointing exactly what the issue was would take time.

For now, he settled with distracting her with snacks whenever she looked like she was going to give up, cry, or--most likely--set the books on fire out of spite. Then he haggled with the librarian, who knew Ren and did not care for her, in order to let Ren take several of the books back to her room.

"Can I take one of the charcoal pencils and some parchment back to my room?" she asked as they left the library. It was several hours after he would normally have left for home. He was concerned she may have missed dinner. Her arms were full of the books she'd deemed worth struggling through. Gareth had tried to convince her to let him carry them, as she was walking with a significant limp and probably shouldn't have even been on her foot at all. No such luck, of course. No more than he'd had in trying to suggest she take the day off in the first place.

"Wouldn't a quill and ink work better?" he suggested.

"I'm not allowed to have quills. Too sharp," she said dryly. This was particularly ironic, given that he knew for a fact she kept getting daggers that she was very much not supposed to have, somehow. Probably the rats. Also, it seemed like too long after her acquisition for her to still be on the high risk list. To his knowledge, she'd never attacked anyone... Well, other than him, but he kept that to himself, since the attacking was somewhat mutual, in a sense.

Maybe it was the incident with the snake. Ren, or Ren's rats, if such a distinction mattered, had killed one of Grilka's snakes. There had been quite a dust-up about it. Grilka was generally even-handed, but Gareth could certainly imagine em imposing some slightly more stringent rules as punishment, or even out of spite. Ren's rats were, after all, an ongoing issue that the King's Guard were still struggling to deal with, and he felt as though he was always doing damage control in relation to them. They were absolutely key to keeping Ren functioning even slightly, however. They'd tried early on to keep them from her entirely. Not only had it not worked, as no building was entirely rat proof, what rats had come under the effects of her influence had been violent and dangerous. Now, they mostly just stole food.

They stole so much food.

"Are you going to be alright for dinner? It's late," he asked, concerned. She was a voracious eater, despite her naturally slight frame.

Ren gave him a long look that he couldn't decipher, then snorted. She was mad about yesterday, perhaps, although which part was anyone's guess. She'd been quite happy with all of it at the time. "Yeah, I'll be just fine. I'm not hungry anyway."

Ren was always hungry, but he suspected she was right back to claiming she never was, as if the prior day had never happened. For the best, really, if they both pretended it never had.


Dinner that night, for Gareth, was slow-cooked ribs. It was fortunate that Ren didn't know that, because dinner for her was a small amount of pilfered bread--an end-crust that one of her rats had managed to get all the way to her room without being caught--and water from the tap. She ate it over a book that was giving her a headache as words blurred into each other. She'd read the same paragraph three times, and she was ready to throw it across the room.

With a frustrated growl, she scribbled some things down on the parchment awkwardly with a charcoal pencil not designed for such things. This proposal was going to be perfect. It was going to be the most sensible proposal the King's politicians had ever seen. It was going to account for everything. It would be sustainable and it would get the girls out of the King's castle and it would ensure that no matter where they came from, they wouldn't wind up right back into the exploitative traps the King's whims had rescued them from. His whims couldn't relied on for anything.

It would be perfection, a flawless solution, and the King would approve it and she would finally have some external evidence that she wasn't insane, that the way she thought the world ought to be had merit.

She spent the night pouring over books like a woman possessed. And possessed she was, possessed of a need for vindication. She would not waste the opportunity she'd let the King fuck her into. She would be perfect. And in that perfection, she would perhaps find the value to not be hopeless.


Jeremy shifted from foot to foot anxiously outside cell 13C. This wasn't his normal position, but Devin had just had a kid. It was a high-security wing, but mostly empty. And high-security really only meant there were no windows, since the building really hadn't been intended to be a prison. They'd done what they could with the old barracks, and honestly, most of the work-release folks adjusted just fine and about all was required was locks on the doors. Even then sometimes not.

This hallway had only one resident, and she was going to be late for check-in. This had never happened before, and Devin hadn't said a thing about the possibility. The whole week Jeremy had been here, she'd been out the door the very second the magical locks clicked automatically to 'open'. But that had been ten minutes ago, and her door was still shut, room still dark.

What if she'd escaped? What if she was about to? Oh, god, what if she'd died?! He needed to call this one in, immediately.

Something stopped him, however. No, not some mysterious 'something,' he knew exactly what was making him hesitate. Ren was on lock-down back here, and had been basically since she'd come in. They treated her like their most dangerous inmate: limited down time, *no* yard time--which he hadn't even known was a possibility--a permitted objects list so short it was basically empty. To look at her file, there was nothing she couldn't turn deadly, and Devin had said that while it had been a while since an incident, he should keep his weapon ready whenever she was around.

Which was why he was so surprised the first time he'd seen her, and she'd turned out to be about five feet tall and so thin that a stiff wind would blow her right out a window. Oh, sure, there were the rats--disgusting, feral things--but if it weren't for them, she'd look like the kind of girl you'd give sweets to.

Because she was on so many punishments already, if she missed check-in or caused an incident, he was a bit worried about what her punishment would be. It was stupid, he knew, but he wasn't used to Sir Colin and the whole thing made him uncomfortable.

So instead, he rapped nervous knuckles on the door.

"Ren? You awake in there? You're going to miss breakfast."

Silence. No, the sound of scrabbling feet. He shuddered. What if he opened the door and a wave of rats hit him and tore him apart? He ghosted over his panic button, then swallowed. He could already see her ice-blue eyes locked on him while she dealt with whatever punishment got dished out. Worse, what if he had to do it?! Swallowing, he turned the doorknob and pushed the door open.

There was no rush of rats; there was no rush of anything, actually. The room was dark, and he once again had the terrible fear that he was about to see a corpse. He entered slowly, fumbling for his flint and tinder to see about lighting a candle or something. There were two on the desk near the door, one burned down to nothing. A few strikes, and he managed to light it, dim light flooding across the floorboards. Casting light and shadow over a small, curled up form on the ground. It moved like there was something crawling under it's skin, and he almost screamed, jumping backwards. It twitched, and he drew his sword as fast as he could.

"He doesn't--" The voice sounded strained, mumbling. "He doesn't understand us--"

Oh god this was the stupidest way to die. He took quick steps back towards the door, but stepped on something that shrieked. He almost dropped his sword, and when he looked down, he saw a rat streak across the floor.

The head of the corpse-thing turned, catching his eye, and its eyes caught the light like a rat's. Then the glint of light passed, and he saw blue.

"Gareth?"

Ren's voice sounded thick and tired. Had she been... asleep? Her skin moved again, and he realized it wasn't her skin at all as a white rat poked its head out around her collar. She'd fallen asleep in her uniform. On the floor.

"Y-you--" he squeaked. "You're uh, gonna... miss breakfast?"

"What? Aw, fuck!" she exclaimed, rubbing at her eyes. "Shit! Fuck, if I miss check-in, I'm gonna be toast." She stood up, then wobbled dangerously. He dropped his sword, unthinking, and took a few steps forward to catch her. Stupid. But no rats swarmed, despite the fact that he realized now that he could see them shuffling around the edges of the candle's light.

"Don't fuckin' touch me," she snarled, despite the fact he was the only thing keeping her from falling over. He let her go, and she fell over. "Fuck."

"Are you, um... okay?"

"I'm fine. Jus' tired. Fuck, no time to change--"

"Here, I'll, uh... I'll tell Sir Colin that you checked in with me and don't feel well enough for breakfast."

"Really?" her eyes lit up. "Aw, thanks, Jer, yer a peach. I fuckin' hope the other guy never comes back." She stood up again, slower this time, and stretched. "I'll head straight t'work, I promise. Yer doin' me a favor; I won't burn ya on this. I jus' gotta get changed and get a few things together." She rushed to her desk; there was a spattering of mechanical parts and wires and tools he was certain she wasn't supposed to have. He bit his lip, but said nothing.

"I'm goin' to see the King today," she told him, as if reading his mind. "Got a summons. Whatever yer thinkin' you ought to do to me, I can promise he'll do worse, so don't worry yer lil head about it." She picked up a small box, and shoved it into her work bag. "I'll change in front of you if I gotta," she told him flatly, turning to look at him, putting a hand on her hip. "But I really don't wanna."

"Wh-- Oh! Right. I'll just, um. Go. Tell Sir Colin." He took a step back, and then another one, and then just turned to scramble out of the room in as dignified a manner as he could, closing the door behind him.

...He was really going to need to report at least some of that, he thought, regretfully. She definitely wasn't allowed to have screwdrivers.

"Yer in the third room on the first floor, yeah?" came a shout through the door. His whole body tensed. "I'll make sure th' rats stay outta there! Thanks again, Jer."

...Someone else could call it in. He wasn't waking up to rats in his room because someone decided she could kill a man with a screwdriver. She could barely stand, they kept her so weak. It was fine. It'd be fine. She wasn't... that... terrifying.

He quickly walked down the hall to report in to Sir Colin that she was skipping breakfast and heading right to work, on account of her meeting with the King.

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 11-11-2019


Ren let out a muted sound of pain as the whip connected with her skin, tearing a painful but thin line. It hurt, it hurt, it did, but she wouldn't give the satisfaction of screaming. Gareth knew her reaction to the stick, and no one else had bothered working in a carrot. Still, her eyes were glazed over with pain as her captor approached her from the front.

He had someone else to whip her, one of the guards. The one that was normally assigned to her; she didn't know his name. No, her actual in-house manager, she rarely ever saw. Apparently this had been a particularly egregious breach of the rules. Or maybe it was just because he'd already stripped everything away from her and, like Gareth, was running out of things to do. If his dick came out, she was going to be sick, but she halfway expected it.

"Ren, Ren... You never seem to learn," he said with a sigh. "No one enjoys this, you know. Just fall in line. Stop it with all of these disgusting rodents and just do what you're told, for once."

She glared at him. "Go tell it to yer mum the next time yer in bed with her," she snapped.

He sighed. "As foul as the vermin you call comrade. I suppose that's why you have them infest the kitchen."

"They're in the kitchen," she snarled. "Because I'm fucking hungry, Colin."

"Your caloric intake is calculated--"

"Fuck the calculation!" she shrieked in rage. "You're full of it! You just get off on starvin' me, you sick fuck! Nothin' funnier than managin' to make life worse for a homeless bitch! Jus' like when you fucks left out that poisoned shit!"

"That was for the rats, obviously."

"Oh fuckin' sure, just a poison sandwich for the fuckin' rats! I'm not an idiot! I know--"

Her manager raised his hand, and the whip came down on her back. Mid-yell the way she was, she couldn't stop the enraged, pained shriek.

"It doesn't matter what you think. If you'd learn that, then maybe we wouldn't have to keep repeating this-- Wait, yes, actually. Let's see if you can learn as well as a toddler. You can leave and go to bed just as soon as you repeat this to my satisfaction..."


It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter what I feel. My life belongs to the King's Guard. My will belongs to the King's Guard.

Ren stared blankly at the far wall across from her bed. She couldn't lay on her back; the pain was too much despite the medical attention she'd gotten. Bandages with cooling ointment lay criss-crossed across her back, and a small meal of warm bread rested in her stomach, to help the medicine go down. See how good life could be when she let herself break?

To distract herself from the self-loathing, she thought of tomorrow, and thought of Gareth, who had only ever struck her on her ass, for sex stuff--she was pretty sure--and would be reduced near tears before he ever had her whipped.

Maybe tomorrow, she would ask him for some kind of help. She wasn't supposed to, and she knew smuggling things in for her might get him in trouble, but stealing as much as she had been wasn't feasible. She needed to find some other method to get what she needed, and some weakness to exploit to escape, and he was the only thing she had found in this place that wasn't completely hostile to her existence. The idea of taking advantage of it made her feel sick. But Sir Colin wasn't giving her a lot of options, here. If she kept getting hurt like this, she was worried that eventually she'd believe what she'd said.

And what would be left of her then?

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 11-14-2019


This was going to be Bridget Corey's year.

She'd wanted to participate in the Royal Games ever since she was a child, held aloft on her grandfather's shoulders so she could see from the sidelines. Everyone was so fast and so strong and there were no rules that kept commoners from entering the general ranks. It was an even playing field, she thought, unlike any other in Aeris. Sometimes, the King even selected from amongst the winners a few choice souls to join the King's Guard. Bridget had no dreams of knighthood, but she did have dreams of being able to compete and be admired and show those rich knights with their fancy diet that there was nothing like good, honest work to make the strongest and fastest around.

But unfortunately for her childhood dreams, while there might have been no rules about commoners competing, there were rules about monsters, and when Bree was nine, she became a monster.

She'd never given up on her dream, but it was mostly due to the unique determination of a child. She was never going to get to be in the Royal Games, and no King was ever going to cheer for her.

That was, until a monster became King, and such rules suddenly started seeming very silly.

Bridget, who lived on the outskirts of Aeris where land became wilderness inhabited by elves who weren't overly fond of the spread of industry, had been largely unaffected by royalty to begin with. She wasn't too worried about a dragon king, and thought the whole thing was kind of funny. At sixteen, the whole thing smacked of a good story, and when she heard the story of the King eating the gentry, she laughed. Why not? She'd been raised on a steady supply of isolation and elven stories of the human King's foolishness and greed. The only reason her family was allowed to farm so far out towards the wilderness was because of their Uncle, and the nearest Baron had hated that the elves allowed the Coreys to do what they wouldn't allow his people to do.

Never mind that the Coreys had been there longer than the Kingdom had, or that they took care of the land that kept them alive in the face of cold winters.

So when the Baron died, she laughed, and when things had settled down at the King declared there would be the first Royal Games of his reign, she begged her family until they scrounged together enough gold for her to travel to the capital and try to compete in the Games.

And now, here she was! Oh, sure, her tail was getting a lot of looks, but she was allowed to compete. She'd signed up for every race and contest of strength they'd allow her to. It was going to be an interesting Games... she wasn't the only non-human in the ranks, from the looks of it. Even the King's entourage was colorful! She could see them, a bit, when she looked up and squinted. It was kind of hard to pay attention to literally anything other than the King, who was huge and white and shimmered in the harsh summer sunlight. But if you looked there, in his shadow, there was a great hulk of a man, with horns!

She couldn't stop her tail from wagging as she stretched. The first of the races was going to be starting soon. It was a relay, and she was in the first group, so her opportunities to shine were somewhat limited. It was a glorified sprint, and one where she didn't even control whether or not she won. But it was just the first of the races, just to whet everyone's appetite and give the maximum number of runners a chance to show off. She'd wow the crowd early, and become a favorite by the second race. Oh, sure, she was nervous--she'd never raced anyone other than her family and a myriad number of elves--but she wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste.

The starting canon sounded, and Bridget took off. For a few seconds, there was nothing in the world except for an expanse of grass ahead of her and the distant hand of the person she had to hand off to.

And then there was a scream. Several screams. Lots of screams. A gust of wind, and the runners up ahead scattered, bolting off the field. A shadow passed over her, as if something was blotting out the sun. Still running, she looked up.

Ah.

The King had taken flight.

And was currently flying towards the field.

...Fuck!

Most other people had the good sense to scatter, splitting up and looking for cover. Not Bridget Corey, who had been gifted with an excessive amount of book smarts but had the instincts of an apex predator combined with a brick. She ran straight. She ran as fast as she could, clear down the field. When she hit the edge of the field, she launched herself over the hedges and kept running. She got just a little bit further, running through a wildflower-strewn meadow that seemed out of place this close to the castle, before the shadow fell over her again, and then something hit her from the back. It knocked the air clean out of her, something she'd only ever experienced once before when she got knocked clear into a tree by a furious bison. She smashed into the ground, and then rolled, tumbling ass over end with whatever had hit her still clinging on. She tumbled to a stop an alarming distance later, stained by grass and covered in wildflowers, dazed and unable to breathe.

When the stars in her vision cleared, she was looking up at a very excited man, whose grin was broad and full of sharp teeth. His hair was long and black and fell in whorls around them, and his eyes were the most striking, beautiful shade of blue she'd ever seen. This was very unusual, but more unusual because she had been about to be eaten by a dragon, who was now nowhere in sight.

Later, Bridget would blame shock for the amount of time it took her to figure this out, despite being a shapeshifter herself.

"I won!" the man said, so visibly pleased as to be almost vibrating.

"That's... not really how relay races work," Bridget replied, dazed and possibly mildly concussed. He'd hit her with such force that she suspected someone other than her might be genuinely very injured.

"Of course it is. You were running, and I caught you," the man said, pouting. "I even did it like this, which makes it very hard to aim, so that you would be uninjured." He preened. "I was at a disadvantage."

"You caught... wait, are you the King?" Bridget asked, belatedly catching on.

"Of course I am. Just look at me. Who else could be so beautiful?"

"...A fair point, your majesty," said Bridget, who was slow on the uptake with most things, but very quick with others.

It was at that point that a man came bursting through the hedges. He was tall; Bridget could tell from even this disadvantaged angle, and--oh! It was the man with the horns she'd noticed earlier, standing near the King's massive form.

"Your majesty," he exclaimed, panting. "You can't just take off in the middle of--oh god is she dead."

"Obviously she's not dead!" the King said, sounding offended.

"Horribly injured?" the horned man asked cautiously.

"No," Bridget assured him. "I'm very sturdy."

"There are skid marks," the man said, looking back over the torn-up grass and flowers.

"I'm sure it looks worse than it is," Bridget promised. "I can move and everything!" She attempted to move, then frowned. "I'm confident I will be able to move when the King lets go of my arms."

"Oh!" the King said, glancing down at his hands, which had her wrists pinned against the grass. "I didn't even realize I was doing that." He hadn't stopped. "Well, it doesn't matter! I won; I can do whatever I want."

"That's not how a relay race works, your majesty."

"That's what I said," Bridget agreed.

"It is if I say it is," the King said, pouting. "It's like you don't even understand how royalty works, Gareth."

Gareth, who must have had a very difficult life, ran a hand over his face.

"But she came in second! To me!" the King said happily. "That's almost like winning! What should we do with her?"

"...Let her go?" Gareth suggested hopefully.

"No!" the King said, pouting. "You're always saying, you know, about useful people."

"That's not what I meant."

"She's so fast and very strong! And sturdy, look, all of her bones are intact!"

"Are we sure they are?"

"I'm pretty sure," interjected Bridget.

"I'm sure we can find a use for her," the King continued.

"I don't... She's not interested in being useful, your Highness."

Bridget, who had been sat on by a fairly large man for a while now, after running faster than she ever had in her life, chirped in, "I could be persuaded to be useful if I were given back full use of my lungs, your Majesty."

"Yes! I knew it!" the King crowed. "You heard her; she wants to be useful!"

"Your Majesty please," said Gareth, with the air of someone who said it a lot.

"What are you, anyway?" the King asked, returning his focus to Bridget. He released one of her arms to run the tip of a claw over one of her furry ears. She shuddered underneath him, and he looked closer, with renewed interest. "Are you a human? Cursed? A werewolf? Faerie?"

"Don't just ask people that, Avi, it's rude."

The King pulled at her ear slightly, and she barely managed not to squeak. It wasn't getting any easier to breathe. "My! Genealogy is somewhat complicated, your Majesty."

"Oooh."

"But the short answer is human and werewolf and also some elf... Um, is it relevant?"

"That's so many things!" the King said, seeming delighted. "I don't know I've ever seen an elf werewolf before. I thought they were immune." He shifted his weight up somewhat, but didn't get off her. It was even harder to breathe as he investigated her, running his hands through her hair and then down to her jaw, tilting it this way and that.

"The elf blood is very diluted," she told him, before a claw went between her lips. She opened her mouth, unthinking. He opened it further and tilted it this way and that.

"Oh! Those fangs! Look, Gareth, they're almost as nice as yours! An elf-blooded human werewolf. I wonder what all you can do!"

"I didn't bring my resume," she said, regretfully. She had a very nice resume. She worked on it a lot. She didn't think she could recite it all while being sat on. "I've just learned that I'm the fastest--er, second fastest runner in all the land; I can lift... Well, given your permission, your Highness, I could pick you up?" She could have also picked up Gareth. She might, if he'd let her. The King was strong enough to keep her very pinned down, but he didn't seem that heavy.

"See, your Majesty?" Gareth interjected. "She didn't bring her resume. Let her go--"

"No! I want her to pick me up!" the King exclaimed excitedly.

"There are still... we have to do so much cleanup. People stampeded."

Bree, being very aware of who called the shots here, was already putting her hands on the King's waist to pick him up as soon as he released her other wrist. "No offense, but does the King do cleanup?"

Gareth narrowed pure black eyes at her. "He has to be there for morale."

That sounded weird, but what did Bridget know about Kingly things? "Alright, well..." She went ahead and lifted the King up by his waist. It wasn't particularly difficult, but it felt nice. "We could schedule something?" she suggested. "I have to go back to the farm eventually, though. It's summer."

The King clapped gleefully in the air. He reminded her a bit of one of her nieces or nephews or niblings, who loved being picked up and tossed in the air.

"Your core strength is very impressive, your Majesty!" she praised, genuinely impressed. He was straight as a board up there, and clapping to boot. "Most people can't maintain that kind of rigidity while being held by the waist!"

"Yes!" Avi agreed. "I'm very strong!" He glanced back towards Gareth, and then back to her. "I want her."

"...She can schedule a job interview. Where she brings in her resume," he said, sounding pained. "Assuming she even wants to work in the castle. She might prefer her farm."

"Oh, but she doesn't need a farm! I can give her free meat!"

Bridget perked up at this, despite herself. They never had enough meat on the farm. She wound up hunting almost every single night to bring enough in to sate her appetites. Seeing her interest, the King continued.

"All the meat she can handle!" he decided, smiling.

"Oh... A lot of high quality meat sounds very good," she said, waffling uncertainly. "But they really do need me for heavy lifting on the farm. I'd need wages to send back home, so they could hire someone, or buy meat from the hunters." Or, well, spend the money on other things so they could have stuff to trade the hunters, who were all elves. "Maybe hire some help..." Or build another house so they could have more babies. That was the Corey way.

"As I've said before," Gareth said, looking exhausted. "You cannot pay people in meats, or related goods and services."

"My family's very elven," she promised him. "Meat is a valid currency."

"Currency! Yes. I have all the currency. But, of course, if you'd like a high wage and high quality meat, we'll have to figure out what you're good for first."

Gareth buried his face in his hands, for reasons Bridget couldn't decipher but wasn't worried about. Hadn't she wanted to win fame and success? She'd done it with only one race!

"I'm good for a lot of things!" she promised excitedly. "I'm very strong and very fast and I've--god I wish I had my resume, I read every single book I find so it's really--I've had apprenticeships! I've got a lot of qualifications, I promise!" Her resume was extensive despite the fact she'd never had a single real job.

"Come back tomorrow!" the King decided.

"That's very short notice," protested Gareth.

"No, it isn't."

"Okay. Okay. I'll find someone to do an interview with her tomorrow."

"Yes. Absolutely, we'll do that," the King agreed, and Bree nodded excitedly.

"Okay! I'm staying at the Gold Lion Inn, I'll just extend another night!" She couldn't believe it. She was going to have a job interview for an unspecified job in the castle! She could move to the capital! Oh, sure, it would be culture shock, and she'd miss her family, but a job in the castle! Everyone was going to be so proud of her! Unthinking, she hopped right up while still holding the King aloft. She might have even spun him around. She was just very excited.

"Tomorrow," the King decided. "Will be delightful."

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 11-17-2019


Weeks later, Ren and Gareth still hadn't mentioned any of the events that had occurred the day they'd found themselves on the List and met with the King. Gareth hadn't brought it up and Ren had avoided it, going off of a seemingly shared decision that they simply wouldn't discuss it and would pretend it never happened. But it was difficult. Thoughts of that day filled both her waking moments and her sleeping ones. She'd had precious little stimulation for months on end, to the point where the time had slipped away like water going down a drain. Then it had all been blown open in a blur of sharp teeth and orgasms and terror and flying and revelations.

Out of all of it, though, she found herself most frequently coming back to her brief glimpses of who Gareth was when he wasn't around her. She told herself it was because it so ludicrously idyllic as to be almost comical. It was like a stereotype of what she fantasized about when she closed her eyes. Particularly the lake. A lot of her fondest childhood memories were all tied up with the lake she'd been taken to as a child, so vast as to be almost like the ocean--or so she'd been told, since she'd never seen the ocean.

To live right next to a lake as big as the one Gareth's cabin was near seemed ideal. You could go out boating or fishing or swimming whenever you wanted. There were probably smaller ponds nearby that froze over in the winter, allowing for skating. Somewhere, there was surely a creek or a river to splash in and set crawdad traps in. Fresh water, always, an unlimited supply.

Ren, being from the city, had never given much thought to farming, but she had to admit that the flowers had been beautiful. And there could be an apple tree, a huge one, in the backyard, one that would produce a ludicrous excess of apples. All you could eat, and then more, for pies and canning and cider, cores and peels collected for flavoring moonshine. And there would be eggs from chickens and milk from a goat and it would all be fresh and plentiful. She didn't really know how to cook, but she knew Gareth did, because his lunch every day was brought from home, and he'd gotten into the habit of bringing her extras. The inside of her mind was filled with delicious tastes and warm homes and a million everyday pleasures.

These fantasies could stretch on for hours, even entire days. They distracted her from her work, both on the clock and off it. She filled endless stretches of parchment paper with idle charcoal drawings of Gareth's goat and sheep and hilarious fluffy chickens and Byron and the other rats in the stable and what Gareth would look like chopping wood now that she knew what he was hiding under his shirt. Then when she realized what she'd done, and how much no one could ever see them, she'd burn them with the candle, filling the windowless room with the smell of smoke and collecting the ashes to mix with water and a bit of gum arabic she'd swiped from 'work'. With this improvised paint, she moved from paper to walls, painting murals of the countryside she'd glimpsed in shades of gray.

More than a few mistakes, accidents, and one particularly memorable fire were caused by her new tendency to drift off into absentmindedness instead of remaining in the then and there.

"Ren, for fuck's sake, we've talked about this!" Gareth snapped, tossing a fire blanket over the arm that she hadn't yet realized she'd set on fire. "Just because you're wearing safety equipment does not mean you can light yourself ablaze."

She blinked owlishly, readjusting to being someone in welding goggles in a workroom and not, as she'd been thinking about, someone taking a nap in sunshine on the back of a giant wolf. The wolf wouldn't have liked her in reality--dogs never did--but she was learning not to let that stop her.

"Oh, oops, sorry," she said absentmindedly. Gareth stopped batting at her fire-blanket draped arm.

"...Why don't you take a break from that. I need you to come work on this diving bell."

"Sure," she said, not having actually registered what he said at all.

"Actually," he decided. "Why don't we go for a walk."

"Yeah, I'll get right on--did you say a walk?" She looked up, blinking with confusion, certain she'd misheard something.

"Yes, a walk. That thing you do with your legs," he said sarcastically, then paused. "You can walk fine now, right?" he added guiltily.

"It wasn't broken," she told him for the millionth time. Her ankle had been sprained pretty badly from kicking the King, but despite Gareth's fears, she had recovered quickly. Frankly, the sodomy-related pain had stuck around longer. The King had gone in completely sans lube, not long after he and Gareth had done their best to replace her internal organs with their dicks. "I'm fine."

"I've seen you say that under clearly un-fine circumstances," Gareth pointed out. "Pardon if I find your testimony suspect."

"You'd hardly be the first," she said, rolling her eyes. "The hell d'ya wanna go for a walk for? Don't we got work to do?"

"As your manager, it's my job to ensure your time is used effectively," Gareth informed her. "And you just set yourself on fire and then agreed with me when I gave you an order."

She blinked. "...Isn't that what I'm supposed to be doin'?"

"The fire is absolutely not what you're supposed to be doing."

"I meant the second part."

"Yes, but you've never done it before, without extensive persuading."

"Is that what we're callin' yer dick now? I thought it was 'workplace accident.'"

"You seem to be feeling better."

"D'you call it 'extensive persuading' with the King?" Ren mused it. "Because that seems to be what y'use it for."

"Never mind, you're clearly fine," Gareth said, rubbing his hand over his face.

"Where would we walk, anyway?" she scoffed. "Through the fuckin' hallways? Down to the cafeteria?"

"Outside, obviously."

Ren froze in place, then turned slowly towards Gareth. "...I'm not allowed outside."

"Not out of the complex," he said with a sigh. "Just around the grounds. There's a walking path for a reason." Ren had never seen the walking path with her own eyes, but was aware of its existence thanks to extensive rat recon.

"I'm not allowed--" she began again, but Gareth cut her off.

"I know it's not your recess hours, but it's fine. I'm your manager; I can take you wherever I want as long as I think it's safe and necessary for your work ethic."

Ren tilted her head to the side. Recess hours? Was that one of those privileges he kept saying she'd earn if she just worked hard enough? She supposed the other prisoners must have something to fill their time with, while she was locked in her room.

"But as you're clearly feeling much better, we can just get back to work," Gareth was saying. Ren shook her head furiously.

"No. Y'brought it up, now I want to," she insisted. "Let's go for a walk."

Gareth let out a long sigh. "Fine. But when we come back inside, you're going to focus on your work and be more careful."

"No promises."

"Yes, promises! That's how this works!"

"Fine, fine, let's go!"

She hadn't actually seen the outside of the complex. She'd had it described to her by rats, but it was impossible to get a sense of scale doing that. Plus, you couldn't just send rats scurrying across open fields. They'd get snatched up by something. And a lot of Grilka's snakes liked sunning out here.

Ren stretched, pausing to enjoy the sensation of sun on her face. There was a nip in the air that made her wish she owned a jacket, and also that they had settled on something other than shorts when renegotiating her uniform. Well. Renegotiating was a strong point; she'd just kept the shorts from the other one and kept wearing them instead of the skirts. As they were one of her only articles of clothing that she'd shown no inclination towards destroying, Gareth had been letting her get away with it. Or, possibly, it was because he could still admire her stockings in them. She was never sure how he made his decisions, which always seemed completely random and arbitrary to her.

Still, even chilly, fresh air was incredible. She had been breathing in smoke and paint fumes all night lately, and the workshops always smelled of machine oil. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs. There was a bird singing. Why could she never hear these details from her room? Well, most of the actual complex was underground; that probably had something to do with it. What they were in now was probably technically a courtyard of the castle or something, but it wasn't anything she was too familiar with. Her range didn't extend far enough for her to gather information about the surrounding environs. What she did know, from what she'd seen before when she'd been dragged to the castle, and what she saw now, was that she was not nearly so far from the King as she would have liked. This King's Guard complex was basically his shitty backyard basement.

She didn't know what the King's Guard had done here before the current King's rule. Gareth probably knew, but she hadn't asked... He had gotten a weird look on her face when she'd asked if he'd been in the King's Guard before, and inexplicably, she didn't want to pry. He hadn't looked angry or proud or anything she might expect. If she didn't know any better, she would have said he looked scared.

She brushed the thought from her mind and started following Gareth as he ambled down what definitely was a walking path around the courtyard. It looked well used and they kept passing things like benches or odd looking exercise equipment or even a stone garden that appeared to be populated mostly by snakes. The whole thing was still very enclosed by the tall walls she'd gotten so used to, and definitely had the air of a prison despite being so close to the castle.

"Oh!" she said, pointing. "That's the tree." She'd heard about this tree. It was on the east side of the courtyard, and was the one thing her rats had managed to impart on her. It actually was pretty big; she'd thought they'd just been being rats about it.

"Please don't climb it," Gareth said, and she scowled.

"Why not?"

"You'll fall out."

"I don't fall!"

"The last time you said that, you fell off a dragon and almost drowned."

Ren stiffened, momentarily thrown by his sudden break from the rule of no discussion, and for so petty a jab. Or maybe she'd broken it earlier, just by mentioning the King.

"Given that no one's used their dicks to hollow me out lately," she said, after too long a pause to pass for natural, "I should be fine."

"How about instead, we sit under the tree like normal people who don't have climbing fetishes."

"If I had a climbing fetish, I'd want you to climb the tree," she snapped.

"Are you implying you find me attractive enough to be the subject of your numerous fetishes? Because thank you, but we already knew."

"Ugh," Ren replied, shoving at his arm. He leaned exaggeratedly away from her, as if her push might knock him over, and she rolled her eyes. "Dick."

"Is that a request or--"

"Shut it! Oh my fuck, yer impossible to deal with. I need a nap." To emphasize her point, she plopped down in the grass under the tree. It felt nice, but it would have felt nicer if she wasn't comparing it to the grass by Gareth's cabin, which had been longer and softer and less spiky and had wildflowers, which were completely absent from the King's Guard courtyard, which struggled to grow much of anything, resting as it did in the shadow of the castle and surrounding walls for most of the day.

Now that she was laying down, she was aware that she did kind of need a nap. It was funny to think about, since she used to do nothing in her room but sleep. But she'd been busy lately, with her proposal and painting and secret projects and escape plans. It was nice to have something to fill the days with, even if most of it just gave her headaches. She'd been working so hard on managing her rats lately that she was starting to worry she was going to break something in her brain. Trying to keep a hold on more of them for longer, so she could use them to escape, but the strain it put on her was enough to give her a migraine even without the added issue of trying to read.

She heard Gareth plop down next to her, and opened one eye to glare at him. He had already settled in with his back against the trunk of the tree. She was about to say something bitchy about getting grass stains on the uniform when she realized he'd actually put down his jacket--designed to catch stains--down first and sat on it. She didn't normally get to see him without it on. The tailored shirt might seem to leave little to the imagination, but she knew now that he was hiding a wonderland under there, selfishly refusing to share it with the world. He had a book, and she realized belatedly that it was one of hers, one which she hadn't bothered to take because the text was tiny and dense and she had no hope of reading it.

"The hell are y'readin' that for?" Ren demanded, which was a good question as it was a book entitled "The Socio-economic Status and Socio-emotional Health of Orphans in Crithe and Abroad."

"It's interesting," Gareth replied. Ren squinted at him. She wanted to say he was a bad liar, but he delivered everything with such matter-of-fact flatness that it could be genuinely hard to fucking tell sometimes.

"I'm callin' bullshit," she decided.

"And yet, I continue to read."

She frowned at him. "I guess it's possible," she admitted sourly. "Tha' one was the most boring, impossible-to-read book outta the whole stack. Maybe that's what ya like in books." It genuinely seemed like it might be, but lately she'd been imagining him reading gardening quarterlies and farmer's almanacs and the like. Definitely not a thick, unreadable tome on foreign orphanage economics.

"It's not so boring. Listen--'The link between socio-economic status and health status (both physical and mental) has been well established, although causality is still being debated. For instance, a range of studies has shown a relationship between lower socio-economic status and higher incidence of mental health problems Mental disorders occur in persons of all genders, ages, and backgrounds. No group is immune to mental disorders, but the risk is higher among the poor, homeless, the unemployed, persons with low education--"

"You find that interestin'?" Ren interrupted.

"Don't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm the subject of study," she said with a snort. "And I'm tryna build an orphanage, remember?"

"Well, I'm not lending you the book. If you're interested too, I'll just keep reading out loud."

"You'll what."

"The functions of learning are very important in all fields’ life. Education can influence noteworthy better results in the lives of vulnerable as well as orphan children’s..."

Ren squinted at him in obvious suspicion, but he was ignoring her. She had no idea what his game was. However, if he wanted to spend their work day outside under a tree reading a book, she wasn't going to be the one to stop him. Ordinarily, she would have been, since it felt dangerously close to a waste of her time, but she actually did need the information out of this book. Having him read it out loud would be much faster than trying to struggle through any of the books herself, not that he knew that.

Also, it was kind of nice. She hadn't had this much fresh air outside of the trip with the King, and this was prime daydream material right here. It wouldn't take much effort at all to pretend this was a tree on a hill outside his cabin, overlooking a rolling field of flowers. She curled up on the grass and closed her eyes, imagining, but not so much that she'd not pay attention to what he was saying.

He had a nice voice, so maybe she let him go for longer than was reasonable. And maybe her neck got a bit stiff, so she shifted her head onto his leg. It was fine. He probably didn't even notice. No one was out here to see, anyway.

His lap was, as always, very comfortable, but this was the first time she'd laid her head in it, rather than being thrown over it or impaled onto it. She thought maybe she could have gotten used to this, but she knew she'd never get the opportunity.


Gareth managed to get all the way through the first three chapters before Ren dozed off. It was just as well; his throat was getting a bit hoarse. He paused, hesitantly, waiting for her to shift or protest. She had, halfway through the morning, laid her head in his lap. He hadn't commented on it, because it felt extremely fragile. She shifted slightly, but just to nuzzle up against his thigh, curl up tighter, and continue sleeping.

If she fell asleep in the middle of the day, she was probably in bad need of a nap. He could easily see her up all night, struggling through economics tomes by candlelight. No wonder she'd seemed so out-of-it lately. He'd let her sleep for about forty-five minutes, and then he'd wake her up and they could get lunch.

He probably couldn't get away with making reading research papers to her a regular part of their day, but if he could sneak it in there now and then, maybe she'd spend less time nearly chewing on library books in frustrated rage, and more time sleeping.

It occurred to him that this was his first time seeing her asleep. Obviously. He only ever saw her at work. She seemed even smaller, somehow, curled up and without any yelling or scowling. He wouldn't go so far as to say she looked peaceful; even asleep, her mouth seemed trapped in a frown. Unthinking, he ran his fingers through her hair, pulling it back from her face. He traced a thumb along the back of her ear, and her lips parted slightly for a breathy little noise of appreciation. Face heating up, he quickly pulled his hand away. Her hand chased his, and he thought for certain she'd woken up to him fondling her, but she caught his wrist and brought his hand back to her head before letting her arm drop again and continuing to drowse.

Oh god. That was adorable. He rubbed her head gently, and she let out a quiet, sleepy hum. He was fairly certain she was still asleep, because he couldn't imagine her doing any of this while conscious. Still, he left his hand on her head, playing idly with her hair, and she made no more fuss.

Carefully, with one hand, he managed to get a bookmark into the economics book, and pull from his bag what he was actually reading at the moment: After the Wedding. Not normally something he would risk reading at work in front of Ren, what with the mockery and all, but she was asleep and he wanted to know what happened next.

Well. They'd live happily ever after, obviously. It was a romance novel; that was the law. Still, the author was really making him work for it, and it was a strain to put the book down and get a decent night's sleep every evening. He'd even tried reading it on the way to work, but Nighthoof had almost run him into a branch, and he had been getting motion sick to boot.

Ren shifted, rubbing her face against his leg, but remained asleep. He thought that maybe he could get used to this, but he would never have the opportunity to.

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 12-29-2019


I don't deserve sympathy. I want to make that part clear.

I know the instinct in these sorts of situations. People naturally want to sympathize with the poor, unfortunate woman, abducted and taken advantage of, or whatever else you're imagining. But me? I volunteered. Most of the subjects were volunteers, I think. Employees who agreed to testing and then experimentation, each for our own reasons. And yeah, maybe I was young when I started, but I wasn't that young. Not like him.

No, if you're going to have sympathy, I want you to have it for him. What they were doing to him, it was wrong. Yeah, maybe what they were doing to all of us wrong, and maybe I had my doubts part of the way through, but it was too late for me to have second guesses for myself. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. But with him it was... different. I couldn't just sit back and let it happen.

Why was I even letting them do this to me, if not so that I could stop this exact sort of thing?


This hadn't been Emma's first plan.

Or second, or third. This was something like plan thirteen. Her original intent had just been to lay low, somewhere far away from home. The world was a big, mostly empty place. There were a lot of places to hide, and she was strong and intelligent enough to deal with at least some of the threats that lurked between societies. No monster in the woods would ever worry her as much as what they were running from.

For a while, it had really seemed like that could be that. They'd hole up in a cabin somewhere increasingly rural, far from the reach of their pursuers, and Julian could grow up fairly normal. As normal as things allowed. When that first plan fell through, due to her having strongly underestimated the monsters in the woods, more plans followed, and she really thought they'd found a safe haven with some of the traveling elves of this continent. They were so completely unlike the elves from which she fled, but they still looked the same. A few new names and new mannerisms, and they could blend in no problem. It was perfect, and Emma took very well to the traveling life.

Unfortunately, none of their plans could last more than about three months, and that was about when Julian's... issues... had started. The elves had some resources for dealing with the magical problems of the young, but it quickly became clear that no one had resources for dealing with magical problems of the type and scale Julian was having. Least of all Emma. But what could she do? She couldn't leave him.


I'd already heard about the Dragon-King of Aeris. We traveled around that area, you know? It's not exactly something that people would neglect to mention. And yeah, it was weird, but I never gave much thought to it. If a dragon wants to be King, who's going to stop it? Rule for eternity if you damn well want to, it's none of my business.

Or, well, I didn't think it was ever going to be any of my business. Maybe I'd pass through Aeris sooner or later, because it has a lot of spare space and a lot of elves, but I never really thought the King would become relevant. Silly me. My life is seemingly defined by an ongoing Occam's razor style curse, and the flavor of the month was Occam's dragon.

But then I heard stories of dragons turning lead into gold, and as I've mentioned, I was running out of options. Julian was only getting worse. If anyone could help, maybe it was this King.


"I don't wanna!" came Julian's cry, sharp and full of fear, making everyone else in the throne room's antechamber turn to glance in the manner of people about to be annoyed at a child.

"It'll only be for a few minutes, love," Emma assured him, squatting down to be at eye level with her seven-year-old ward. "And you wouldn't be able to read in there, anyway. Wouldn't you rather stay out here with your book?"

"No!" Julian insisted. "I wanna see the dragon!"

"The King," Emma emphasized. "And you'll get plenty of chances to see him later. This is going to be all boring and formal. You'd hate it."

Julian pouted dramatically, arms crossed. His lower lip wobbled dangerously. "No! What if he tries to eat you? I need to be there!"

Emma did not go with her first instinct, which was to inform him that if the King decided to eat her, there was certainly nothing he could do about it, and that if he wanted her to have any chance at all of running, he'd need to be out here, relatively safe and easily grabbable. She wasn't very good at this whole parenting thing, but she was at least getting that much better. Instead, she pulled him into a hopefully comforting hug.

"The King's not going to eat me, Julian," she promised. "It will be dreadfully boring and involve a lot of bending and scraping. You'd have to kneel and be perfectly quiet the whole time."

"You hate kneeling," Julian pointed out.

"So do you," she said, gently bopping his nose with one finger. "Which is why you should stay here."

"What if he wants to see me?"

"Then I'll come and get you, and you'll get to see a dragon and be terribly bored," she told him, giving him a kiss on the forehead. "Stay here?"

"...Fine," he said with a dramatic pout, sitting back down on the window seat with his arms still crossed. Emma picked up his book, which he'd thrown to the floor in a fit, and placed it next to him on the seat.

"Thank you," she said, and wanted to say more, but at that moment, a voice called out,

"The next petitioners may enter!"

That was her cue. She stood quickly, adjusting herself as best she could, and turned to enter the throne room.


I'd stayed around the capital for as long as was reasonable, trying to balance gathering information with the risk of Julian breaking something important. Time was not on my side, but I managed to learn enough to get at least a half-assed plan going. I was pretty sure I knew what to do to avoid getting eaten, at least, but I was less sure I could get the King to agree to what I needed.

Honestly, if I had realized the castle was overflowing with brats at that point, I would have just brought Julian in with me. But no one had really mentioned it. The men had mostly complained, women had been a bit more split, but most telling of all had been how universally adored he was by the prostitutes. You, uh. Wouldn't really. Expect that. Of a giant dragon. But hey, I'm not one to judge anyone's predilections.

I was no prostitute, unfortunately, but hopefully my skills would be enough to win the King over. Otherwise, well... I didn't even have a plan fourteen yet.


"Rise, Miss Emma, and state your petition before the King."

Emma stood, and took a moment to take stock of herself. She'd thought she would have been a lot more nervous in this situation. She'd never seen a dragon before either, but she'd had more trepidation than Julian's youthful excitement. She genuinely wasn't sure what she would do if this didn't work. But then, the King probably got that a lot. He probably wasn't a lot of people's first choice. But she wasn't shaky at all. When she spoke, it was with measured confidence.

"Your Majesty," she began, starting in on a speech she'd practiced in her head dozens of times. "My name is Emma. I've come to Aeris with my brother to seek your aid, aid that I have reason to believe may be something only you may grant."

"Brother?" the massive dragon interrupted, tilting his giant head to the side. "But I see only you."

"He is outside, your Majesty. He's very young, yet." The King hummed noncommittally, a strange noise from a giant dragon, if only in how loud it was, and Emma pressed onward. "I am here to offer you my services, in exchange for a safe home and tutoring for my brother. I've heard you have many such children here in the castle; he would simply be one more among them." Well, sort of. She'd get to that part if he didn't deny her outright.

"And your services would be...?"

She'd been just about to get to that. She stood up a bit straighter, readying herself. "Endless, your Majesty," she said, projecting confidence in her words. His eye ridges rose, but he said nothing, so she continued. "Currently, the only pressing risk to your reign is one of social uprising, although even that is relatively unlikely given your, ah... comparative strength compared to your population. Mass strikes are more likely, and even then, it is primarily the male and religious demographics that would be at risk. It could easily be headed off by a royally-backed labor union, although that would turn the merchants further against you, and to be frank, they almost all universally loathe you already. Of particular note, one Holy Seer Lucius--what a name--seems to be something of a ringleader of discontent. Far from the only one, but concerning inasmuch as he's bothering to do it quietly. In a country full of men who speak their mind about their King with little prompting, his lack of volume does him a disservice. Whatever he is building, however, it is likely still in its early stages, and easily headed off now that it has been brought to your attention."

"I've been in the capital city for less than two days. That's just some of what I've learned," Emma continued, mentally thanking her voice not for shaking under the intense stare of the dragon atop his mountain of treasure. "In addition, I speak five languages and am skilled at picking up new ones. I'm a deft hand with codes and ciphers. These are only a few of my talents. I have compiled as complete a listing as I was able in my resume, which you and your people are welcome to peruse at their leisure.

"For the cost of protection, education, and a place to call home for myself and my brother, I will pledge myself into your service, to be used as you see fit," she finally finished.

The King considered her at some length. Somehow, her spine and her legs held up under the long gaze.

"With such skills," the King said finally. "You must have had many options. I doubt you found these talents amongst the elves here in Aeris. Which means you must be from further abroad. What brings you all the way to my doorstep?"

"My brother," Emma replied. She'd have to get to this part eventually, anyway. "He has... special needs. He's... touched, magically. He has a gift. Magic is among my many talents, but not the way it is for him. I'd heard of dragons'--and specifically your--skill with innate, inborn magic. I can use magic. You are magic. My brother is... more like you than me, in this."

"I will need to see him," the King decided, and Emma winced.

"...Very well, your Majesty."


I love Julian. I might not like admitting it out loud, but I think that anyone who watched us together would be able to figure that much else. It's not... it's not easy for me, doing what I do, but I can do it if it's for him. I can do anything if it's for him.

One day, I'll probably have to.


Julian stood just as proud and straight-backed as Emma had before the King, although she could tell by the little tremble in his hand, gripped firmly in hers, that he was just as nervous as she'd been. The King's gaze traveled between Emma, pale-skinned and freckled with thin copper-red hair and her 'little brother', with his sepia brown skin and dark, thick hair. Both would-be siblings held his gaze evenly, similar in personality if not in appearance.

"Quite young," the King mused. "Especially for an elf."

"Indeed," Emma agreed, holding tight to Julian's hand. "He has a lot of growing to do, and I would like for him to do it in safety."

"Let me see his magic," the King requested.

"No," Julian said abruptly, followed quickly by Emma's more tempered explanation.

"It's not safe here, your Majesty, there's the risk of damage--"

The King's tail flicked, and a golden shape flew quickly through the air in an arc towards them. Julian dropped her hand to reach out for it automatically, but Emma snatched it, single-handedly, from the air before he could. It was a wine glass in shape, solid gold.

"See what you can do with that," the King instructed.

"He doesn't know any spells, your Majesty," Emma said through clenched teeth. "Which is why I've come to get him instruction. He--" Emma's words cut off with a quiet hiss of pain as the glass she was holding began heating up. She would have tried to hold onto it, to avoid undue damage to the rug, but it was quickly searing through her gloves, and she released it automatically. It went from a wine glass to dripping, molten gold, and then fluttering ash, before it even hit the ground. "Seriously, Julian?" she hissed quietly. The young boy just shrugged, looking sullen.

"Hmm," the King said, and stood from his perch curled around the mound of gold. Emma watched with increasing trepidation as he took the relatively few steps across the throne room to reach them. It would have taken them significantly longer to go to him, but then, they had much, much smaller legs.

Emma gripped Julian's arm again, ignoring the flare of pain from her hand, the glove all scalded through to reveal red, burnt skin. She barely resisted the urge to pull him behind her as the King approached. If she didn't even trust him near Julian, the whole thing was a moot point. But she didn't know much about dragons. There might be... instincts. Whatever the opposite of paternal was. Filicidal.

This sensation didn't exactly decrease as the King loomed over them, his massive head bowing down to come stressfully close. Emma couldn't help but note that his muzzle, such that it was, seemed more than large enough to fit a fully grown man inside it without much difficulty. To say nothing of two young elves. Her grip on Julian tightened. The King's massive nostrils landed right in front of Julian, his hair and clothes fluttering back and forth as the King breathed in and then out.

The King opened his mouth, breathing in.

Emma was between them in a flash, hand still on Julian's arm pulling him back away from the King, her other, still-gloved hand landing gently but insistently on the tip of the King's nose, and she pushed against it--nothing happened--inserting herself physically between the two of them. The King's nostrils flared again, sending thin strands of liquid copper hair fluttering loose from her braid.

"Odd smelling," the King decided, his voice loud and rumbling this close, consonants sibilant and strange. With her hand on his nose, she could feel the vibrations travel through her body, "for an elven boy."

Emma looked him dead in the eye, as much as she could from this angle. "So you understand why we've come to you."

"I understand why," the King agreed. "The story as to how is one I am very interested in hearing."

"I have many for you," Emma said agreeably, "and once you promise our protection, I will even give you the true one."

"Our protection now, not just his?"

"For him, I need protection from everyone, including and especially himself," Emma said firmly. "For myself, I require protection only from you and yours. Beyond that, I will be yours to use as you see fit."

"Emma..." Julian said, voice uncertain, pulling at her sleeve. Emma didn't respond to him, still focused on the single most intimidating stare-down of her life.

"And for that, the truth?" the King said, almost sounding amused.

"Indeed," Emma said, and then sighed. She breathed in, and when she spoke again, while her voice hadn't changed, her words felt charged in the wide throne room, echoing in all the empty corners. "For so long as this boy has safe haven, home, and family with you, I will never speak to you a knowing untruth, nor seek to mislay or mislead you."

The King's head withdrew slightly, then tilted to the side in unmistakable surprise and curiosity. "And you," he declared, "are odd smelling for an elven girl."

"Indeed, your Majesty."

"Very well," the King said, and the charged, ionized feeling in the air cleared abruptly as Emma felt the energy snap closed around her shoulders instead. "I accept your oath of loyalty and honesty. Now! Let us see what can be done for the boy."


I had never before been in a geas. To be honest, I was only sort of sure it would work before I did it, and had no idea what it would feel like. It worked. And it felt like... it felt like the tie that binds.

I'm pretty sure this was not what anyone had in mind when they came up with me, and I'm pretty sure that the mere concept would offend, just, so many people. But if I'm being totally honest, the idea of how many people I managed to theoretically piss the fuck off with that one, single action... is one of the absolute best parts.

Not the best part, though. The best part was that for the first time since I'd taken responsibility for him, I felt like Julian would actually be safe.

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 01-12-2020


The King was in his garden.

It was much nicer then what had been had been here before, but it still needed quite a lot of work. These things took time. Delicacy. Fortunately, the King had plenty of both. His days were certainly much more full than they used to be, but it would surely pass just as quickly.

He was smaller, at the moment, despite the ceaseless itching at his skin, because some things were simply easier with smaller, more dexterous claws. Also, he’d wanted to give the gardener a reward for their hard work. It was easier to do these things all at once, and minimize the amount of switching back and forth he had to do. The flowers he was working with right now were special, and he didn’t feel it wise to trust them to anyone else, regardless of whether or not they were half dryad.

“Don’t you have people to do that for you?” a familiar, amused voice came.

One moment, Kari had been standing upright. The next, he was on the ground, with the King sitting on his stomach. Kari would have been reminded of an over-excited, very large dog, if not for the fact the King was always pale beauty and sharp edges. He was still a little reminded.

“You!” the King exclaimed. “Where were you? You didn’t tell anyone. You’re supposed to report these things to me! I’m your King!”

“I wasn’t expecting to be gone for so long,” Kari admitted sheepishly. “I just... you know, wanted to go find an adventure. Just a little one!”

This was an ongoing issue. Kari had thought he wanted nothing more than to retire and lounge about being pretty, but once he had that, he... well, he got bored. He got wanderlust. He wanted to go... save princesses. And no princesses ever needed saving in Aeris, because there weren’t any, unless you counted Cara. And clouds above help anyone who tried doing anything to her.

“Grilka thought you died,” the King huffed. “I am very upset with you.” Grilka probably wasn’t too happy either, if ey really thought he’d died. Kari winced at the thought of how many apologies he’d be giving, and the kinds of apologies that would be required, specifically.

“Don’t you want to see what I got you?”

The King huffed, very clearly aware that Kari was trying to mollify him, but probably still wanting to see.

“I’ll need access to my pockets,” Kari told the King.

“I’m not stopping you.”

So much for being able to get up. Kari sighed, but reached down around the King’s legs to try and fumble around in his belt pockets. There was a fair bit of accidental ass-touching. The King didn’t appear to mind, but then, he wouldn’t. Finally, he managed to pull the little locked box out. It almost looked like something one would use to stash an engagement ring, so it was probably just as well that he was on his back instead of kneeling. He fiddled briefly with the lock, and then opened it for the King.

Inside were nestled a baker’s dozen of large, glittering opals, one considerably larger than the others.

“...They’re very pretty, Kari, but I don’t see why you needed to take ten months to get them,” said the King, frowning. He had opals. He had plenty of them.

“These are special. Or they should be, anyway. Supposedly, these are the thirteen Divine Opals.”

“Divine?”

“Mmm. They were spread out over the seven kingdoms.”

The King paused, considering this. “There are far more than seven kingdoms.”

“There were seven when they were lost,” Kari said, exasperated. “Honestly, that’s not important.”

“What makes them divine?”

“Well, the legends say all kinds of things. Enchanted by the gods, that sort of thing. There's even a prophecy. Maybe two, I wasn't clear on that bit. They’re supposedly indestructible.”

The King picked one up, and crushed it in his fist. Kari let out a strangled noise of protest. But when the King opened his hand, the opal was unharmed, and Kari let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank the clouds.”

“Didn’t you test them before bringing them to me?” the King asked, amused, tilting the opal this way and that to watch it shimmer in the sunlight.

“Well, yes! But with, like, hammers! Nothing’s as strong as you, I was afraid you’d fucking powder the damn thing and I’d feel like an asshole.”

“It is somewhat impressive,” the King admitted.

“They’re legendary,” Kari insisted. “It’s tribute. You should be the one to own them. Besides, there was some very interesting legends about them on the subject of dragons that I thought was pretty interesting.”

This caught the King’s interest, so Kari continued. “Apparently, the woman who made them was a magic jewelcrafter of ancient lore, Rhodes. She had something of a feud going with dragons, on account of how several of her pieces had been turned to lead by them.”

"Well Rhodes should know that if you don't want jewelry to be turned to lead, you shouldn't make it out of magical metals," the King sniffed.

"Ah, yes," Kari said dryly. "Everyone loves iron jewelry, bedazzled with mudstone."

"Keep sassing, and we'll find something better to do with that mouth," the King warned, and Kari flushed slightly. He kind of hoped they would. It had been ten months, after all, and even though the King had plenty of lovers to keep him entertained in the interval, Kari sure didn't. Away from the King, he still lacked the confidence in going after the things he wanted.

"...Don't distract me," he said, trying to kill his blush. "I'm trying to give you a present." The King smiled, smugly. "Anyway, apparently she spent most of her life trying to discover a way to craft jewelry that couldn't be destroyed by a dragon. All of that research brought her to stories of the Divine Gems, rocks said to be touched by the gods, or the fae--legends vary--and very magical, but with totally unharnessable magic. She managed to track down a few, and have them refined into a more glittering form that could be set into jewelry. These were here magnum opus... the divine opals, a full set of thirteen. Originally, they were supposedly set into gilded armor, but the armor itself has long since been lost. All that's left are these... because they're indestructible, arguably."

"Unharnessable..." the King considered, turning the opal this way and that between his fingers. "In other words, I cannot access their magics for use in my own."

"But it also means you don't have to worry about ever accidentally turning them to lead," Kari pointed out. "They're pretty stones that are just pretty stones. Legendary, divine... pretty stones. I thought you could... I dunno, put them in a crown or something." As it stood now, his crowns were as easily and often replaced as any other kind of jewelry, but Kari thought a crown ought to be something special.

"You brought the stones crafted by a woman who loathed dragons, to a dragon king, to use as a crown?" the King said, sounding amused.

"Well, it sounds weird when you say it like that," Kari said, looking embarrassed. "I just thought they were neat. And you deserve something unique, something that no one else in the world--no one else in history--has had. A crown of divine opals, as beautiful and eternal as you."

"Ooh," the King said, stretching out to lay his body against Kari's instead of merely sitting on it. "I did miss that tongue of yours, so talented at singing my praises." He ran the back of a claw against Kari's jawline. Kari shivered underneath him, something the King probably felt along his whole body, sprawled out on top of Kari as he was.

"I'll have a jeweler look at these," the King decided, putting the opal back with its siblings and closing the box. "Perhaps we'll have them set in a crown. It would be nice to have something more permanent." As it was, the crowns were somewhat superfluous. He mostly wore them for the effect. "Besides... Elder Dragon of the Divine Opals..." he mused. "It was a ring to it, doesn't it?"

"Yes," Kari agreed immediately. "But I might be a bad judge. Everything you say sounds amazing to me."

The King laughed, and then tangled one clawed hand into Kari's hair, petting him and jostling his head about. "Oh, you. As much of a flatterer as always." He nuzzled up against Kari's neck, nose nestled under his jawline. "I did miss you, you know."

"I was desolate without you," Kari responded. The King flicked his nose, a somewhat dangerous thing to do with claws and extreme strength. Kari let out a pained noise of protest.

"Liar. You wouldn't have left, if that was the case."

"I felt the call of adventure," Kari protested.

"You hero types are all the same--"

"--and then I heard about the opals and I thought, well, that would make a good winter solstice gift..."

"It's the summer!"

"It took longer than I thought it would!"

The King huffed, hot breath against Kari's neck. "You," he decided, "are an idiot."

"...Little bit, yeah," Kari admitted, and the King chuckled again.

"You'll have to make it up to me," the King decided.

"The opals aren't en--"

"No." The King bit down, gently, where Kari's neck met his shoulder. The reaction was instantaneous and full-body, every muscle stiffening abruptly and then relaxing, melting limply underneath the King. Well, except one particular muscle, which the King could feel stiffening very abruptly indeed. He hummed cheerfully, pulling the loose collar of Kari's top to the side to reveal more of his shoulder... and revealing something unexpectedly pink and lacy in the process.

"...Kari," the King said, although the shade of red Kari was turning answered his question ahead of time. "Did you get changed before you came to me?"

"...Well... I... I'd been adventuring. I smelled bad," he mumbled.

"You're in luck," the King announced. "I've decided to have you right here instead of in the dungeon."

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 01-20-2020


The car rocked Ren back and forth in a steady rhythm, bumping her shoulder against the door she was leaning on, half-asleep. She wasn't accustomed to long car rides yet, and napping took the edge off of the carsickness that she was still occasionally plagued by.

She drifted in and out of hazy sleep, time slipping by like syrup. Between blinks, the scenery outside changed, from buildings to billboards, from plains to forests, flat to hilly, oaks to pines. There was a misty rain, the sound of small drops against the windshield joining the sound of the engine and tires on the road in a hum of white noise, punctuated regularly by the clunk of wipers across the windshield.

There was quiet music on the radio, something indistinct with acoustic guitar, something Gareth liked. She could listen to any kind of music and be happy, but she liked the music he liked best, the music he had on brightly colored vinyls throughout his house. Any music that made him relax or smile was automatically the best music in the world.

She had kicked off her shoes early on in the trip, and her feet were tucked in bright blue socks with tiny gray rats embroidered on them, little pink noses and black eyes. She had them up on the seat, even though Gareth didn't like her to sit like that in the car, her knees tucked against her chest as she drowsed. Still half-asleep, her hand groped out towards the stick shift. Gareth's hand left the wheel briefly to tangle with hers, hand larger and warm and calloused. Her hands weren't as bony as they'd once been, and felt less fragile in his.

She recognized an old church as they drove by, and yawned. Old and off-white and wooden, a familiar landmark amongst the pines. A sure sign that they were moving through time and space, as sure as the way the road tilted up as they headed into mountains. They had never stopped at the church, because why would they, and she had no idea who it could possibly service, what houses might be hidden in the woods. But it represented a fixture of the escape from city to country. It was relaxing and exciting all at once, the reminder that they had left their lives behind, briefly, to be in a long-weekend stasis.

She stretched with her yawn, dropping Gareth's hand so he could focus on driving. The sound of tires on cement shifted to the sound of tires on gravel. Soon, it would just be tires on dirt and mud. Despite the steepness and lack of quality of the roads, Ren was confident that Gareth and his unreasonably large truck could handle the muddy roads. Ren appreciated those roads, even if her tendency towards carsickness didn't. They indicated a kind of lack of travel, a sort of isolation. There weren't any big mansions up in the mountains, just cabins spattered here and there, like the kind she and Gareth were traveling to. Up there, it would be quiet, quieter than you could really get in the city.

They pulled up one final dirt path, coming around a copse of trees and into a tiny clearing. Gareth pulled up to the end of the path, close-ish to the a-frame cabin. There was just enough space in the little natural meadow for the cabin itself, the rest of the plateau being taken up by their tiny garden, wrapped in chicken wire fencing to keep the rabbits and deer out. The trees were mostly pine, but there were a few still to drop orange and red and brown leaves onto the ground. Ren jumped out of the truck without remembering to put her shoes back on, and when raindrops and dew from the grass soaked through her socks, she just pulled them off rather than stick wet socks into shoes. Dead leaves crackled under her bare feet as she ran towards the cabin without stopping to help Gareth unload.

She breathed in deep of the crisp mountain air, rushing up the steps to unlock the front door and then flinging it wide open, letting sunlight trickle into the cabin. The cabin was small, in a sense, just big enough for the two of them. But Gareth was a very big man, and everything inside reflected that. Big chairs and a big couch and a kitchen with very tall counters and step stools hidden in every room. Ren pulled the curtains back from the windows, pausing only to watch Gareth out the window as he grabbed all of their bags and both of their suitcases to drag them to the cabin in one trip.

They had stopped along the way at a farmer's market, and Gareth had picked up all number of things to cook while they were here. Later, Ren would check on the garden and see if there were any vegetables there that needed to be eaten. They left the little garden mostly to itself, tending it only when they were there, so it grew free and wild and disorganized and they simply ate what was available when they were there. Ren mostly kept it as an excuse to get her hands into the dirt. Most people, she’d learned, abhorred weeding, but to her, it was the best part. She always appreciated a way to get her destructive tendencies out in a productive manner.

Ren scurried through the rooms, turning on every faucet, ostensibly to make sure they were working but also just because she enjoyed the chaos of a house with every single faucet on. Gareth would inevitably trail along behind her and turn them all off again.

The bathroom was small, but the sink came up to her chest. The bathtub was similarly huge. Ren felt like an afterthought here, a mouse in a world built for dogs, but she didn’t mind. She had a lifetime of feeling small in many ways, and the way she felt small around Gareth didn’t bother her in the least. Ren knelt down to shove her bag of fancy bath supplies into the cupboard by the bathtub. Foaming, deep green bath bombs and delicious smelling soaps and reusable bubble wands that would stain the inside of the tub until Gareth--inevitably Gareth--scrubbed and rinsed it clean. Just baths had felt luxurious enough for a long time, but once Ren had been introduced to the concept of fancy bath products, well, it was all over. She was very much looking forward to their use; the bathtub they had at home wasn’t really big enough for both of them, but this one was. She had brought all her favorite products in enthusiastic preparation; both bath products and a small bottle of silicone-based lubricant that wouldn’t merely rinse off in the water.

Gareth had entered the cabin by the time she finished stashing it all away, flicking the lights on as he did. For all she tended towards disorganization--faucets on and cabinets left open and scattered messes on her work desk--Gareth never had to remind her to turn the lights off. In fact, he normally had to remind her to turn them on in the first place. She would work by the dim light of a window half a room over, forgetting to turn on the lights until it was fully dark out.

Gareth unpacked their food into the kitchen as Ren wandered through what passed for a living room. The cabin itself wasn’t really large enough to be said to have rooms, but they had an area round the fireplace with an over-sized armchair and a couch that could be pulled out into a bed, not that they’d ever really needed it. On the back of the couch were two afghans: one a beautifully crocheted, multi-color affair, the other one smaller and awkward in shades of gray. As metaphors for their relationship went, the mismatched afghans on the couch worked admirably. Ren was better with machines than yarn, but it had been fun to try.

On the floor between the furniture was a ludicrously soft, long-furred rug. It was real fur, though she wasn’t sure what animal it was from. Either a very big sheep or a very small wooly cow, she supposed; she didn’t know enough about animals to say and had never asked. It was decadently soft, and she buried her bare toes into the plushness. She had in the past and would no doubt again fall asleep on it in front of the fire.

Ren was distracted from her thoughts by a clattering of bowls in the kitchen. Glancing over, she saw Gareth already pulling out ingredients. Eggs and sugar, though she saw cream cheese and butter softening on the counter. He was getting everything ready the way he liked to, baking trays and baking paper pulled out of their assigned places, measuring out everything so that it would be easy to use later. Mise en place, he called it. Everything in it's place.

She approached quietly, bare feet on wood floor, as he pulled out a whisk. No electric mixer here; they had very few gadgets. Gareth seemed to prefer it that way: a break from shortcuts, for better or worse. She watched closely as he broke the eggs and separated the yolks from the whites, then began to whisk them steadily. There were much worse things in the world than watching his arms while he did so, sleeves rolled to his upper arm.

He glanced over at her as he pulled the whisk up, checking the texture of the meringue, one eyebrow rising. She approached wordlessly, catching a stool against one ankle and pulling it along with her. She scrambled up next to him and grabbed the caster sugar, adding slowly as he whisked. They'd done this dozens of times before, and it was a comfortable task. Ren wasn't much good at baking on her own, but there were certain tasks she could be trusted to do well.

Piping wasn't one of them, so she left him alone to neatly form line after line of little meringue roses on the baking paper. While he did, he set her to grinding up lavender buds in a mortar and pestle, which she applied herself to with gusto, sitting at the counter with her feet pulled up onto the stool. The smell of lavender filled the small kitchen, making her fingers itch for her bath supplies.

She didn't know how he could beat meringue and then go right to beating cream cheese and butter together, without his arm getting tired. Well, she did know; she was intimately familiar with the strength in his arms. But it was still impressive. Once again, she helped by adding sugar a little at a time. He covered it once it was done, and there was nothing to do but wait for the meringue to bake.

Well. There were a lot of other things to do.

While Gareth was still cleaning up, Ren scampered up to the loft. The majority of it was dominated by a massive bed. It was a monstrously huge affair covered in mounds of pillows and blankets, pressed right up against the windowed wall of the A-frame cabin. Above it on the slanting roof was another window, a skylight that let them watch the clouds during the day and the stars at night if they turned all their lights off. It could get a bit cold, with all those windows, which was probably the reason why it was so covered in blankets of all types and colors.

She liked to sleep on the inside, next to the windowed wall. With Gareth on the outside, she was boxed in. A lovely, safe feeling, although arguably less lovely for Gareth when she had to pee in the middle of the night and resorted to scrambling over him to get to the ladder.

For now, she ignored the bed and went to the wardrobe, shoved into the corner that didn’t contain the bed. She pulled it open, ignoring mothballs and sweaters, to rummage in the bottom storage. There she found what she was looking for, a stack of old jigsaw puzzles. She picked them up, now and then, from thrift stores and the like, but never did any except for here. Because of that, they tended to pile up. She rummaged between them now, staring at the faded pictures on the front and contemplating.

The one on top had a picture on the cardboard box of a white dragon, all pale opalescent rainbows where the sun hit it, flying through blue skies and white clouds. Beneath it was one with an ancient-looking Gothic-style church, as dark and ominous as it was beautiful. The third was a tableau of a bakery through a window, cupcakes all in the windows in a riot of pastel colors. Each one was a delight in its own way, and Ren was looking forward to working through each one, one at a time, and losing herself in each picture.

For now, she picked up the bakery one, smiling down at the bright colors. It almost seemed alive, with the smell of baking rising up from downstairs. She put the other two back in the wardrobe and closed it up, coming back down the ladder with her prize. She spread it out on the coffee table while Gareth pulled out the things he’d make for dinner. She poured out all the pieces and set the box lid up so she could look at it while she worked.

Later, there would be food and baths and the things that happened in baths and out of them. But for now, Ren hummed quietly to herself, harmonizing with the sound of Gareth in the kitchen, and relaxed into thoughts of a little bakery in a little city.

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 02-08-2020


It was over. And it would have been nice, if it had been as simple as that.

She wasn't a captive anymore; no one was going to torture her unless she asked them to. She should have known that. Her mind, at least, should have known. She was loved and that should have been that. She'd earned her happy ending. This was the part where stories ended.

But no. Neither her mind nor her body could be relied on to remember her new truths. Towards the end of her captivity, Gareth had noticed how unhinged she was coming. As it turned out, that damage didn't vanish overnight. Her mood swings had settled, but with more sleep came nightmares. It upset Gareth so much when she woke up screaming--he knew why, or could guess, now--that she'd stopped going home with him, opting to stay in her her new room, a room at the top of a tower with a lock on the inside of the door. It had a balcony which overlooked the garden. It was full of toys and tools and spare parts, books of puzzles, a chess board, and a small walk in closet she was slowly filling with clothes that weren't her uniform. The whole tower was full of rats, and there were so many stairs to climb that she'd know that someone was coming five minutes before they arrived.

It was a beautiful room, everyday proof that the King was, in fact, sorry. It should have been more than enough. She didn't understand why it wasn't.

She hoarded food terribly. She knew it pissed off Cara, who didn't need any help hating her, but she couldn't stop. Food security had never been an aspect of her life, and the last year had left her almost as aggressive about food as a stray dog. She couldn't stand the sight of swords anywhere near Gareth, which was kind of an issue when they both belonged to the King's Guard.

Sometimes she delighted in the King's touch, in proving to herself over and over that no matter how much he hurt her, she'd survive. He had no interest in killing her; a cat who kept a rat around just to play with. Other times, when he reached for her, even innocuously, she flinched. She lived in fear of a moment where Gareth startled her and she flinched. She was terrified that if she ever did, he would be too hurt to ever touch her again.

She'd wanted to see the King's dungeon, for sex purposes, and asked him to take her down there. She'd asked, and yet she'd seen an iron cross and had a panic attack on the spot. Needless to say, the King had been unamused, and repeat visits were out of the question.

She knew she was safe. She repeated it to herself like a prayer. But no matter how many people said it and how many more proved it, she couldn't make herself believe it.

She still looked in the mirror and saw something that happened to other people. Dangerous. A monster. A lifetime of being told, and it had taken Colin, Avi, and Gareth, together and in their own ways, to make her believe it. Her breaking point had been found. It looked like the scar on Gareth's chest, tasted like blood in her mouth, and came back to her like bile when fingers laced between hers.

It was over. Wasn’t it over? Why didn’t it feel over?

It had been Grilka, ludicrously, who had first suggested talking to someone about it. Not just any someone, which was what differentiated Grilka’s suggestion from Gareth’s many. Gareth wanted her to talk to him about it, wanted to fix all the damage all on his own. But he was too tied up in the whole thing, and Ren was too scared of hurting him to ever really be honest. Despite her determination to stop hiding things, she’d started again almost immediately once it became clear that he was hurting nearly as much as she was.

Grilka, instead, suggested she talk to a particularly empathetic statue.

That wasn’t a really kind way to put it, Ren was pretty sure, but it was the best she could make of the situation. He, or it, or they, was some sort of sentient statue thing. Grilka said it could help with “ailments of the mind” which wasn’t helping Ren’s confidence going into the situation. But she couldn’t deny that she felt like something was wrong with her head; it was like she couldn’t believe what she knew she knew. Maybe dying twice had broken something in her head. Maybe it could help. She was trying to go to doctors more.

So, maybe it was a dumb idea, and maybe she hadn’t really thought it through, being desperate for something to help, but she went to where Grilka had instructed her to go and knocked on a door that looked much like any other.

“It isn’t locked,” was the reply that came. The voice sounded unusual, but if it was coming from a living statue as Grilka had described, that would make sense. Tentatively, she opened the door. Whatever she’d been expecting, it wasn’t what she got.

It was a statue, arguably. More like a ball jointed doll, but big. Like an animatronic, a lot, and a little uncomfortably close to an aesthetic match for the bird she'd made for the King, all whites and gold and delicate joints. Apparently, she'd guessed well at his tastes, if he kept something--someone--like this around.

Unfortunately, she also had to process the fact that it was sprawled out on a chaise, one leg hooked over the back, covered in naught but an ivory half-cape--so basically not at all--one arm trailing loosely on the floor, and a confusing two more arms resting between their legs in what would have been a highly suggestive way if there had been anything at all down there.

Mm. Alright. Okay.

Ren stood blankly in the doorway for a moment, just taking in the scene. She had been expecting a sort of doctor-ish persona, when told to go to a person who "helped with illnesses of the mind." Not... what the fuck this was.

"...Welp," she said finally, having finished processing. "I jus' got pranked by a snake. Alrigh'. I'll leave y'to yer, uh." Sexual lounging. "Whatever this is."

"I was trying to lounge sexually," the thing confirmed helpfully, although it had no mouth so she had no idea where the voice was coming from. "But I don't think it's working. Do you have any grapes?"

It had six eyes, all blinking owlishly in what might have been confusion if there was a rest of the face to match it. As it was, it just looked alien.

"No, it's workin', that's definitely what you were doin'," Ren informed him in a manner that might have been helpful if not for her whole demeanor of vaguely affronted confusion. "I don't have any grapes, but also y'don't have a mouth, so I guess we're both comin' up short."

“To be clear, I wasn’t going to eat them. For some reason, I... hmm.” The statue thing sat up, for a limited definition of the words. Its body was definitely upright, but it had too many limbs for “sitting” to feel like an accurate description. Also, who sat cross-legged on a couch, anyway? “I thought maybe grapes in the floor hand would work. Floor grapes.” Ren’s eyebrows rose wordlessly. “Now that I’m saying it out loud, it seems like a waste of food, or possibly a needlessly complex method of feeding the rats.”

“Yer definitely overthinkin’ it,” Ren said, a bit amused despite herself. “Which comin’ from me is really sayin’ somethin’.” Although underthinking was as much of a problem for her as overthinking, some days. “Also, th’ rats only eat from designated areas now anyway.” This was important for her to remind people, since no one was particularly happy about the increase in rat traffic in the castle now that she’d moved from “the shitty backdoor basement” into the castle proper.

She couldn’t just forbid them from eating, was the thing. She’d been spending a lot of her time wrestling out compromises from a very unhappy castle staff who didn’t want to accept that “no rats” was not an option. It didn’t help that “playing nice” was not a card traditionally held in her hand, or even put in her deck at all. She didn’t think any of them appreciated how kind it was of her to try to work with them in the first place, when she could have just done whatever she damn well pleased. If it hadn’t been for Gareth’s helpful mediation, she would have stopped trying already.

“Look,” she said to the statue with a sigh. “Yer obviously expectin’ someone very not me, an’ also, again, I did absolutely jus’ get punked by a snake, so.” She gestured to the door behind her with a thumb. She was ready to get out of this weird, awkward situation. Maybe she’d go talk to an actual statue. It seemed as likely to help as anything at this point.

“I clearly wasn’t expecting anyone,” the statue protested. “Why would I invite someone to view my lounging before I had it right?” It stated this as if the logic was unimpeachable. Ren was briefly distracted by the way they interlaced the fingers of four hands in sequence. It made a sound like a nest of rattlesnakes, a sound she was too familiar with, these days. “...I suppose it might be helpful for the lounging prototype process,” the statue capitulated. “New perspectives. But the experts are also the intended audience.” Its voice picked up speed as they contemplated the issue, giving Ren no space to interject. “Complicated. That tends to be the way. With the meaty set.”

“Ah,” Ren said, interrupting as she instantly understood despite the ridiculous implausibility of the situation. “Yer practicin’ to seduce the King.”

Ridiculous. Even the statues in this place were horny as fuck. The King’s effect was truly infinite.

He didn’t even need seducing, but Ren understood that half of everyone in the castle was consistently trying to get him to ravish them anyway. He was spoiled for choice, but Ren still wasn’t particularly smug about how often she managed to catch the attentions others envied. For one, he could go all day if you let him, so if people were just better at being fuckable, they wouldn’t have a lick of difficulty. For two, when Ren wanted to have sex with him, she just waited until he looked slightly bored and then instigated what could best be described as a game of tag. It wasn’t difficult.

“If you don’t make the effort to seduce him, his attitude becomes either petulant or aggressive. He’s easier to manage when the dynamic suggests he is pursued, rather than pursuer. As such, it’s... easiest.”

This flew strongly in the face of Ren’s personal experience, which was that he fucking loved pursuing, but to be fair to the statue, the King’s fun seemed to be found in how much she wanted him, despite the fact she obviously shouldn’t. He seemed to find no more satisfaction than when he’d cornered her into a degree of wound-up that left her all but completely senseless. And this statue didn’t have the advantage of being... prey shaped.

“I’m aesthetically pleasing,” the statue was continuing, “so I hadn’t anticipated the present difficulties.”

Ren snorted. That wasn’t the words she would have used, honestly. It was aesthetically pleasing the same way art was. She couldn’t imagine wanting to fuck it, or seeing at as a sexual object--literally--at all. But then again, Avi did seem like the kind who would rub his dick on art if it were an option.

“Have y’tried just runnin’ past him real fast?” Ren suggested. “It works every time fer me, but I am real small and prey-shaped.” If this guy ran by really fast, there would probably be screams of “OH GOD WAS THAT A FUCKING GIANT MARBLE SPIDER PERSON,” which did sort of ruin the mood, sexually speaking.

“I have not. I think you’re proceeding from the premise that I want to successfully seduce him, rather than simply reassure him he is worthy of being seduced.”

Ren blinked in confusion. “Does he need reassurance that--”

Oh no, were things with Gareth that bad? She worried at her lip. She was trying so hard in that area, even if she suspected it was just to assuage her guilt at 'stealing him'. Maybe she should be getting seduction lessons, in that case.

“This is a distraction from your intent. Which may be purposive, on your part.” It manifested a set of eyebrows, and raised them. Ren wondered if it was because of how high hers were at this point. “Why are you assuming you were given poor advice?” it asked. “Did someone refer you to me as an authority on recumbency?”

“No,” Ren said with an irritated sigh. “Ey referred me t’ you as an authority on broken brains.” She couldn’t quite articulate why sexual lounging precluded being a medical expert, but she felt very strongly that it must. Doctors couldn’t just go around lounging in front of patients. It gave off the wrong image. Dr. Karek would agree with her, she was sure.

“Patently incorrect,” the statue said, and she nodded, but it kept going. “I’ve never encountered a broken brain, with the exception of blunt force trauma. And if you had a skull fracture, you’d be less coherent.”

It stood, and took a step towards her, before pausing, letting their hands come rest at roughly waist height. She supposed her supposedly prey-like demeanor was helped along, lately, by the fact that her flight instincts had become hair trigger. She blamed Avi for much of this, but some of it had to be her ongoing... issues. It was too tall for her liking, too close. She took a half step backwards automatically, only stopping when it did.

“May I approach you?” it asked. “For clarification, I do not intend to be seductive in so doing.”

“Sure,” she said warily. “Although if yer not intending to seduce, I’m not sure why. I’m lookin’ fer medical help, not recumbent seduction classes.”

It stepped closer, black, pupil-less eyes meeting hers. There were too many of them, but they were otherwise un-alarming. She was used to the sight, used to reading intent from eyes with no pupil or sclera to assist. But it came too close, closer than she’d expected, and her feet shifted into an unconscious fighting position, her focus spreading outward. It took her hand--softly, as if cradling an egg, but still, without asking--and pressed once cold, ridged thumb to the underside of her wrist, as if taking her pulse. This was almost medical, so she could almost excuse it.

“You have avoidant tendencies,” it informed her. She knew that. “Reasonable, under the circumstances.” She also knew that. She was about to be confused about how it knew that already, when its head... unfolded, that was the only word for it, the top of it opening like a blossoming lotus, and collected into a fog of cottony tendrils, twining and untwining. She flinched back, startled by such an implausible sight. A year ago, she probably would have screamed, but the instinct had been broken out of her.

“What th’ fuck,” she began, but before she could finish the thought, its third and fourth hands rose to cup her jaw. “But you are no longer a prisoner; as such, being a fugitive is not wholly rational.” It was watching her intently, and she didn’t like any part of this.

“How th’ fuck d’you know--stop that!” She batted at one of its arms with the back of her own, teeth bared in a tiny snarl. The collision hurt, because she was hitting stone, but it didn’t really bother her. She was used to hitting the King, who was even more solid.

It stepped back, folding its hands together again, though its head was still open and... swirly. Misty. Swirly misty. It was unsettling.

“My apologies; I didn’t mean to startle you. You could think of this as my... medical hat. Sometimes uniforms are helpful.”

Ren was skeptical of most things, but stopping when told wasn’t a trait commonly found in Aeris, in Ren’s experience, so the actual ceasing of its curious assault was a relief. She didn’t think rats could fight a statue effectively, and doubted it had a soul for her to grab onto. She was seriously lacking for living people willing to let her practice that, anyway, and therefore dubious of her own skills.

“I jus’ never seen a head unfold before,” she said, grumpy and still guarded and yet embarrassed at having been so obviously startled. It was rude to panic at people’s anatomy.

“I may have wanted to determine how you react when startled. It was slightly unethical.” Ren agreed, but it was hardly the first to test her in such a manner. She got it. She was a dangerous criminal. People wanted to test the waters. That didn’t mean she liked it. “I fear my moral fiber is degrading from exposure to heathen sexual practices. I shall pray on the matter.” Ren snorted, for a multitude of reasons. Pray to what? she did not ask.

“On the subject of the King’s reassurance... no, he doesn’t need it,” the statue informed her, jumping back to a conversation she’d thought dropped. “He wants it, however, insofar as I can tell. For reasons of ego.” She nodded at this, thinking of how much her begging seemed to please the King, and how satisfied he’d seemed when she pledged herself back into his ownership. She hadn’t thought he’d be so satisfied to have her, and it had done good things for her own ego, as well. Being owned because she was wanted was a much better feeling than being owned because she was a thing too dangerous to be left alone.

It was something. She was relaxing into it.

“Admittedly,” the thing continued, “we have not spent much time in each other’s company.” It raised a hand to where its mouth would be, and one formed. She wished it would stop doing that, but was starting to understand it as a form of bizarre, temporal expression. “Still less have I kept company with you,” it added, pressing two fingers to newly formed lips. “But I am... a good listener. People talk.”

It paused a moment, considering. “Or moan loudly. In some cases. Discretion is not an Aeris value.”

“I really hope no one’s been moanin’ about me behind my back,” she snorted, aiming for levity and also distraction. “Be a weird thing t’moan about.”

The statue smiled wolfishly--that is to say, it smiled while manifesting fangs. The result was fucking awful. She wished she could throw a rat at it, but she was trying not to do that anymore.

“The previous statement was insincere; I am usually sincere, but not incapable of irony. I find it best to clarify up front.”

“I wound have been surprised if anyone was actually moaning about me,” Ren pointed out. She wasn’t incapable of recognizing sarcasm.

“There are, yes, much better vectors for moaning on the premises. We have a sex dungeon, for one.” Ren managed not to flinch at the unintentional reminder of one of her most bitter recent failures.

“I guess I would be th’ talk of th’ castle,” she admitted sourly. There had been a pretty big dust-up thanks to her, although she’d kind of hoped the ‘thanks to her’ part had been lost in the mix. But she supposed it must make good gossip, especially when people already tended to look down on the King’s Guard, as she was quickly learning. One of those rehabilitated criminal types, a program that was barely even known, having been tricked, tortured, kept in captivity, under everyone’s nose? It could be seen as evidence of their failure. It was, but since “their” included her boyfriend, and also now her, the whole thing chafed. How dare they gossip, as if they had a right to her story and how it was told. As if they could pass judgment, when they’d never cared a lick for her before and certainly didn’t now. Re-pledged into the King’s service as she was, she was now an inconvenience to them all.

It tapped its chin with a finger, and a finger, and a finger, and a finger. The result was sort of like a number of very small horses clopping across a tile floor. “Everyone is the talk of the castle. Talking is the castle pastime.” It returned to the chaise, sitting rather than sprawling out again, then motioned to a chair. Which wasn’t a ‘chair,’ per se, so much as a cushion storage area. It looked appealing, vaguely nestlike and eye-searing in aniline purple velvet.

Ren considered both the chair, as it were, and the thing in question.

“I know it’s not rational,” she informed it. “Nothin’ about it is rational.” She ought to be fine. She ought to be better than fine. She ought to be reveling in her victory every second of every day. Several impossible things had become possible, and now she was quite literally living the high life, a beautiful room and a beautiful boyfriend. She wasn’t even a criminal anymore. She just still felt like one. Any second, the curtains would be pulled down and the joke revealed. “I feel like I’m goin’ crazy because of it.” She absolutely was going crazy. So crazy that she’d go to talk to a statue just because she was told, that she’d go to sit in its nest of pillows just because it indicated. Unstable, unstable enough that she’d do that and still glare at, still have the walls nearby swarming with rats.

She was dangerous all the time, but particularly when she was unstable. She felt like even she couldn’t predict what she’d do or how she’d react, anymore.

“Now,” the thing said, “as to your actual reason for visiting, i tmay reassure you to know that sanity is a construct and rationality, the first of all lies.”

Her glare sharpened. “I dunno why y’think that would be reassurin’,” she informed it. “’Don’t worry, yer not goin’ insane, technically you an’ everyone else has just been insane th’ whole time’ ain’t exactly th’ heartwarmin’ message I was hopin’ for. I don’t want reassurance. I wanna fix it. I jus’ wanna stop...” Acting like a lunatic and alienating the people who cared about her. Hurting Gareth. Being paranoid. The ceaseless flashes of memories she’d sooner forget. She waved her hand vaguely, unable to find the words. “I jus’ want it to stop,” she repeated, this time with a full stop.

“Because you aren’t alone,” the statue said, softly, solid black eyes blinking slowly. “Which isn’t to say you aren’t unique. You are one of so, so many people, and things, that is hurting. And who want it to stop.” It leaned forward. “It won’t, completely. ‘Stop’ means dead. ‘Fixed’ means dead. You won’t ever be done with it, and you should know that.” It opened all its hands, a gesture of helplessness repeated. “Because I will not lie, that is what I am telling you. That you will not be fixed.”

Ren clenched, fists and teeth. She’d suspected, but she didn’t like hearing it. She knew she wasn’t alone. Gareth was hurting; Avi was too, in his own way. Not being alone didn’t mean it wasn’t a problem she needed to fix. Something that needed to be repaired, like any machine of moving parts. She’d been starting on their hurt, or been trying to, before she realized that hers was getting in the way. She couldn’t be like Gareth, focusing on everyone else so she could ignore herself. Not if she wanted him to be different.

“I don’t, even,” she spat out bitterly. “Stop at death, I mean. I been dead twice, an’ look at me.” She gestured sourly to herself. If anything, the dying just made it worse, and she doubted she’d stop at two. Doubted she’d be able to. Already, she wanted to try more things; it was only Gareth’s concern and Avi’s watchful eyes that kept her firmly ensconced within her own body.

“Apologies,” it said. “I should have realized there would be individuals here for whom non-existence was complex.”

Ren nodded. Death was non-existence for most people. Gareth didn’t even remember being dead. But she remembered for them both. The taste of his soul haunted dreams and nightmares both, like the copper taste of blood that won’t ever leave.

“There was a time before,” she insisted. Before she was broken. “It feels like I should be able to... I dunno, get back to that. Everything’s fine now. I’m in a better position than I coulda dreamed of. I should be fine.” She should be better than fine. Why was this happening now?

“The help that I usually offer involves bringing memories. Calling up.” It gestured in the air, a gleaming white letter forming in the air following its traces. She watched it, idly, wondering if they were really there or just something she could see now with her sight that didn't come from her eyes. “I don’t think that would work for you, yet.” It scratched at the gold base of its skull, an oddly human gesture. “Maybe... yes.”

It smiled, not with fangs, but kind of worse. The smile started gentle, but stretched too far, ear to ear, before retracting. Someone should tell it that it was doing it wrong. It wouldn’t be her.

“Could you bring me a rat?”

Pff. Could she ever. Wordlessly, she reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out Phoebe. She was never, ever without rats, and she never would be again. She needed them, but she didn’t like the feeling in the back of her mind that she was carting them around like fuel.

It gently took Phoebe into cupped hands, looking to Ren for approval. Ren was watching sharply, her eyes daggers of promised threats. Phoebe could handle herself, but one day, someone would push good sense for the sake of seeing what Ren would do. She was sure of it.

Today didn’t seem to be that day, however. The statue carefully supported Phoebe’s back legs, tentatively scritching behind her twitching nose. Phoebe was more comfortable with the situation then Ren was, because of course she was. She’d had to get used to Avi, someone she considered to be fair worse, and Ren hung out with him all the time, screaming. She had survived Ren dying twice. Phoebe, at this point, had nerves of steel.

“As for going back... to the best of my knowledge, time moves only one way. And... hm.”

It raised one hand and held it up, motionless, like a mime forming an invisible wall. Another hand shot up and pushed against it, frantically, while the first hand remained wholly motionless, as if they belonged to two different entities.

“Imagine you are pushing against a stuck door. Pounding against it, ramming it with your shoulder. You are putting all of your muscle into it.”

It formed a comical little bipedal figure with the fingers of the moving hand, running them back and forth, illustrating.

“Then the door comes unstuck. What happens?” It blinked in sequence, an odd round-robin of marble eyelids.

“You go flyin’ through th’ door,” Ren said, bemused and uncertain as to where this line of thought was going. She knew from personal experience about locked doors.

The statue worked a fingertip along Phoebe’s spine, slowly, seemingly inattentive. “You are now in a better position than you could have dreamed of. The door has come unstuck.” It leaned forward, slowly, and breached Ren’s personal bubble again to boop her softly on the nose.

“Why do you expect be fine, and not flat on your ass?”

Ren blinked, considering this at some length.

“Hmm.”

She considered it some more, taking her time to prod at the metaphor, which was regretfully holding fairly sound. She sighed.

“Well. How do I get up, then? Cause I can’t jus’ stay on my ass, an’ it’s causin’ issues.”

“First: time. Second:” It unfurled every hand that wasn’t currently supporting a Phoebe. “...you need a hand. I am making a visual pun,” it added, helpfully.

The face she made reflected both her opinion of puns and the sensitive topic of ‘time.’ Technically speaking, she had tons of time, and had for a while. Yet she somehow seemed to have none at all, with a million things she wanted to get done and a million more she wanted to start, and then things like this, getting in her way. She had lost almost a full year to her captivity, which wasn’t a lot in the grand scheme of things, but she was still young, and felt its loss keenly.

The statue traced over the letter in the air again, making it flare between itself and Ren, then added lines around it, a looping, circling thing like knotwork. Magic, she supposed. Not any she’d seen before, but that wasn’t saying much. Her research into that area was only just beginning, and had been focused on demonology thus far, as it had seemed the most pressing.

“First, however,” it said, “I would prefer to address your self-loathing, so that you feel worthy to request help.”

“Self-loathin’?” Ren asked with a surprised snort. “Yer th’ first person to ever accuse me o’ that.” Her self-confidence was her biggest flaw, historically. “People line up t’tell me how overblown my pride is.”

Although. Most of those people, the ones whose opinions had mattered, had been lining up when she was in captivity. The assumptions made about her then were mostly incorrect, made by people who hadn't known what was happening and regretted the things they’d said about her now. So maybe it was a shame that before they’d had a chance to regret, she'd started believing them.

“Perhaps I should be more precise; I would like to address what you feel you can, and should, receive from others.” It reached forward and pressed a fingertip to Ren’s forehead. “I think that you... take a lot of pride, yes. But you take pride like you take meals. It enters you and then it leaves you.” It paused. “I am not implying that you shit pride. That would be weird.”

“Sounds like yer implyin’ I shit pride,” Ren pointed out, amused. It wasn’t wrong, though. Or, well, maybe it was, since she couldn’t really understand what it meant. But her sense of pride had been... weird, since the King’s Guard. She was a lot less confident... not in her own abilities, but in the worth of those abilities. She’d been treated like a cog in a machine, and told her ideas were bad, dangerous, wrong. She could do amazing things, she supposed, but now she wondered if they were even worth doing. Even her bird, a marvel of modern engineering by any stretch of the imagination, she just felt vaguely neutral about, as if anyone could have done it.

Ren became, slowly, aware of a sensation like when she shoved her way into a rat’s mind. But she was still firmly in her own mind, was the thing, and her own body. It was a bizarre feeling, like a veil over her senses. Like having both of her hands somehow occupying the same space.

“Are you doin’ that?” she asked, interrupting the statue’s protest that it had definitely not been implying she shat pride. She asked, because it was entirely possible she was the one doing it, on accident. She was constantly figuring out new things she could do.

“Yes, I am doing that. May I have your consent to continue? I think it may be instructive for you.” It signed something new in the air, but didn’t quite connect the two ends together.

“Sure.” Ren shrugged. “It feels weird, but jus’ because I’m used to bein’ one or th’ other, not both at th’ same time.” It didn’t even have the headachey sensation of the feedback from multiple rats, shared together in her mind. At least not yet. And she’d been practicing that anyway, now that she knew headache medicine existed and would not be withheld from her out of spite. “Can she feel anythin’?”

“Only what she ordinarily does. And that is what is important. Her, and the rest...” It completed the symbol in the air.

Slowly, Ren was filled with sensation. It flowed from only Phoebe, perhaps, but rats were communal and Phoebe was a very special rat. Her mind was sieved from the multitude of ratkind nearby. She could communicate with them the way Ren could, a purified version of that connection without the heritage that Ren now felt as baggage.

It was a slow build, but utterly overwhelming. It felt like warmth on a cold day, like being small and curled up in an alleyway, one body in the middle of dozens. It felt like connections forged and never doubted. A pure and absolute trust, amounting to love. It radiated through Phoebe’s mind and into Ren’s like a hall of mirrors, a thousand memories compressed like a palimpsest of a single sensation. A voiceless voice, a meaningless meaning: trust you trust you hold hold hold ours ours ours.

“I remember that,” Ren said, voice quiet and dazed and more than a little wistful. She was staring off into the middle distance, eyes full of unshed tears not seeing what was in front of her. Back when the world had been simple, when there had been a “them” and an “us” that made sense to her. Back before everything in her life was hierarchy, back before gods and masters, when she’d been, what had she called it? A hive of like-minded individuals? Before others owned her, and she, in turn, had begun to fear what she did was own.

“It is happening now,” the statue informed her. “I am able to access the present, as well as the past. And, these...” It gestured towards Phoebe. “...Are the individuals that know you best. Their estimation of your character is therefore likely most accurate. And they have granted it to you without assessing a... reciprocal price.”

Ren was choking on the feeling as if it were a fist in her throat, but it began tapering away, slowly, fading into the background, drifting into echo. The statue held its hand out, and Phoebe scampered from its palm into Ren’s lap. Ren’s fingers wrapped gently into her warm fur, one thin digit scratching under her chin, where Ren knew from years of muscle memory she enjoyed being touched best. Phoebe nuzzled her nose against Ren’s thumb, a sign of affection that Ren had known for long enough to forget learning.

The sensation was fading but it was there. Her same emotions recycled through the eyes and mind of a hundred rats and one who loved her best; she had always sought them out with a sort of mindless certainty that they were hers. It felt very good to have confirmation that they, as well, knew she was theirs.

“You have pushed away that sense of yourself as a thing connected. I am not certain why.”

Because she had hurt them through that bond, and in so doing, learned the truth of why she was the way she was. She was no rat; she was a scavenger of souls. Their connection to her spelled a kind of danger; anyone’s connection to her spelled a kind of danger. The more accustomed she was to a soul, the easier it was to touch.

“Not just to them, but to everything,” it informed her, as if reading her mind. The statue folded its arms and released the magic, letting it dissipate. “I do not know why, but I am willing to help you discover the answer.”

Ren stared down at the rat in her lap. Without the sensation filtered through Phoebe, Ren was left with just the knowledge of rats in the walls, waiting for her. Thinking their own ratty thoughts, contemplating dinner, but there if she needed them. Was she there if they needed her? The absence of the knowledge of trust left only guilt in its wake. She glanced up at the bizarre and, frankly, creepy statue.

“It can’t hurt,” she said, finally.

“It might,” the statue told her. “Emotionally. Pain like the setting of a bone.”

Ren laughed, a hollow sound. “Better than leaving it broken.”

“Very so.”

“I’m Ren, by th’ way. Not sure I said.”

“I am called Taus,” they said, and Ren nodded, reaching out a hand, which was clasped between two cool, marble hands, ball-joints pressing against her skin.

“See y’next week, Taus.”

---

RE: Storytime [Read Only] - SolitareLee - 02-10-2020


Xotll’s task had been easy. Round up everyone waylaid by snakes. It had been more time consuming than anything, really! A lot of them had been large and pretty heavy, so she was glad she’d had help.

Her office, an off-shoot of Grilka’s, had been the last place to check. She hadn’t really expected anyone to be there. No one would be stupid enough! Which was why she was very surprised when she opened her office door and found a grown man, a small child, and a large constrictor snake.

The grown man was on the floor, taking up a lot of the real estate in the fairly small office, which she kept decorated with potted plants and terrariums on the shelves in a somewhat excessive quantity. It helped her feel more comfortable, deep in a castle which itself was deep in a city. The large constrictor snake was also on the floor, wrapped around the man in tight-but-not-squeezing loops from shoulder to shin. The little boy was sitting on top of both of them, looking a bit bored.

The man had something sticking out of his left eye socket. There was a pool of blood seeping into the rocks of the floor around his head.

---

There were protocols in place, sort of, for when emergencies happened. Or at least, Julian assumed that was what was happening. Emergencies didn’t happen a lot when there was a dragon in residence, and this was the first real crisis that Julian had experienced in the two years he’d been living in Aeris’ castle.

The kids would go with their assorted guardians to assorted safe places. Julian had been in the library, so he should have gone to find Miss Bridget, probably. A good gambit; most children would be hard-pressed to imagine being safer than they would be with a pissed-off werewolf guarding them.

But Julian had his own protocols. He had learned lessons from people other than his tutors. He knew what to do in a crisis.

Also, the problem was rats. Rats weren’t even a crisis. They were just rats. Weird rats, behaving weirdly, but it didn’t take a genius to notice they weren’t attacking people and, in fact, would scatter if attacked, rather than swarm.

If the issue was rats, the solution was simple: go where they wouldn’t. And Julian knew a place absolutely chock full of snakes.

He didn’t actually go all the way into Grilka’s office, but only because ey didn’t seem to be there. Ey didn’t scare him; in fact, he rather liked his big sister’s boss. Ey was cool, and not just because of all the scales. But when ey wasn’t in residence, there were normally a number of guard snakes who were, and Julian didn’t feel like getting trapped by a constrictor again when he was just supposed to be hiding. So instead, he stayed in the front room, where Xotll’s desk was. Still an area with plenty of snakes. The rats would stay clear, and if something else went wrong... if, say, this was all a smokescreen to cover up some other plan... Julian wouldn’t be where he was expected to be. And no one would be stupid enough to go where there was normally a large and extremely deadly naga.

It was a good plan. He stood by it. He really hadn’t been expecting anyone to come in, let alone notice him under the desk, but well, he had protocols in place, sort of, for when emergencies happened.

---

“Julian?” Xotll said, recognizing him quickly as Emma’s little one, who was always trailing around behind Avi or Grilka.

“Hi, Xotll,” he said evenly. He was very good at staying calm, so it wasn’t too surprising, but she might have guessed that any nine year old would be upset by the presence of a corpse.

“Why aren’t you with the other children?” she asked, which didn’t seem, in retrospect, like it should have been her most pressing question.

“Emma told me that during an Incident, the most dangerous place to be is where everyone expects you to be,” he replied, eyes serious and earnest despite all the blood splatter.

“What happened?”

“He came in and was rummaging around in your desk,” Julian explained, kicking against the dead man’s hip with his heel. “I expected him to go into Grilka’s office, but I guess he knew there were snakes in there. He’s wearing the King’s Guard uniform, after all.”

“That’s not what I... I meant the... wait, is that my parcel opener?”

“It was on your desk.”

Xotll gasped, a horrifying image popping to mind. “Oh no! Did he threaten you with it?” This poor child! A wonder he wasn’t more shaken.

“No,” Julian replied, as even as ever.

---

The man who had come into Xotll’s office was armed.

It was just a sword, but he had it drawn. It made Julian glad that he’d swiped Xotll’s parcel opener off her desk when he’d come in. Most adults didn’t want you to have a sharp object, but Emma had taught him how to handle knives when he was seven.

Julian appreciated adults who didn’t treat him like a baby.

Still, it was a big man with a big sword and Julian was a very small man with a very small blade. Not great odds, but he kept it clutched close and crouched in a back corner of the darkness underneath the desk.

The man bent down, maybe to get something out of a drawer. Julian didn’t like his odds for remaining undiscovered. He also didn’t like his odds taking on a grown man with a sword who’d come to the spymaster’s office while dressed in the King’s Guard uniform. He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wouldn’t appreciate being witnessed.

Emma had once told him that it was better to ask forgiveness then to ask clarification, in certain circumstances. Julian strongly felt that this was one of them.

Most people might have given off a savage little battle cry, but Julian was silent as he launched himself out from under the desk at the man, who was bent over in such a way as to make swinging his sword unpractical.

He was a small boy with a small blade, but it didn’t need to be that long if it was sharp and you knew where to stick it.

---

“You stabbed him in the eye?”

“I mean... obviously.” Julian gestures over towards the man’s head, the parcel opener still sticking out of his eye socket.

“Well, yes, I meant... just...” Xotll wasn’t sure what the appropriate thing to say in this situation was.

“He had a sword,” Julian reasoned. “He might have stabbed me. Emma says that if a strange adult grabs me--”

“No need to say what Emma says,” Xotll said wearily. Emma was one of Grilka’s spies. Xotll really shouldn’t have been surprised at all. He was just so small and cute, though! It was hard to connect the boy she’d seen trip and fall on his face while chasing lizards with this small, serious fellow who’d just killed a man. Unless the snake...?

“The snake came later,” he added, pouting at the snake as if he was worried it would get all the credit. Or perhaps he was just sour that it was late. “And wrapped him up even though he wasn’t moving at all.”

Well. That probably answered that.

“Well. Why don’t we go to where the other children are, now that the danger is passed, and--”

“If the danger was passed,” Julian said, rolling his eyes, “you wouldn’t want me to go be with the other children.”

“I’m not going to just leave you in here with--” With a corpse. Xotll sighed at the stubborn set to the tiny boy’s jaw. “Alright. Well, why don’t we go find Grilka, then?” She needed to check back in with em anyway.

Julian’s expression brightened at this. “Ey're not busy?”

“A little. You’ll have to stay quiet and out of the way.” Ey was already babysitting one of the King’s children. Another would hardly hurt. Probably.

Julian nodded seriously. “Sorry about your parcel opener,” he added. “It’s really stuck.”

“That’s... fine. I’m just glad you’re alright.” She reached down, and Julian reached up, lacing their hands so she could lead him away from what was, technically, his first and hopefully only murder.

He didn’t seem particularly traumatized. She’d just have Taus keep an eye on him. It would be fine.

---