Pretzel Heart
Afterimage of Broad Daylight
Always wanted a 1x1 thread but too wet noodle to post one...until today. I'm looking for 1-3 partners, that's probably about as much as I can handle. Will keep obnoxiously bumping this thread until I get my fix.
Check in the towel section for updates / ect.
If you're like me you'll just scroll down to the plots and skip all this chickananny lmao, but in case you decide to scroll back up...
I'm a groovster studying in EST at a uni that places barbed whips in profs' hands instead of pencils. When I'm not fighting for my life I like to practice writing. I just got back from living in Japan and if I seem like weeb trash and drop some まさかs or さすがにs it's only because I am weeb trash. I abuse emoticons like there's no tomorrow, am easily distracted by colors, have a terrible sense of humor, curse in front of children, babble more than Babylon, and am in general just a giganticloser dork. I've been RPing for ~10 years and I've been a newb the entire time. Don't try to guess how old I am. It's not too old, but old enough.
I tend to vary depending on what / who / with whom I RP, so it's hard to say what a "normal" length is. What I feel I need to write, I do. But it's kinda cool to know what you're getting into, so if you called shenanigans on that answer here's something more concrete in the form of...
Long Post // Male // Drama
Long Post // Female // Dramedy
Medium Post // Male // Dramedy
Medium Post // Male // Comedy
Short Post // Female // Drama
Check in the towel section for updates / ect.
Who is the Coon?
If you're like me you'll just scroll down to the plots and skip all this chickananny lmao, but in case you decide to scroll back up...
I'm a groovster studying in EST at a uni that places barbed whips in profs' hands instead of pencils. When I'm not fighting for my life I like to practice writing. I just got back from living in Japan and if I seem like weeb trash and drop some まさかs or さすがにs it's only because I am weeb trash. I abuse emoticons like there's no tomorrow, am easily distracted by colors, have a terrible sense of humor, curse in front of children, babble more than Babylon, and am in general just a gigantic
I tend to vary depending on what / who / with whom I RP, so it's hard to say what a "normal" length is. What I feel I need to write, I do. But it's kinda cool to know what you're getting into, so if you called shenanigans on that answer here's something more concrete in the form of...
Starter Post Starter Pack!
Long Post // Male // Dramedy
Long Post // Male // Dramedy
Saphir couldn’t keep his eyes off of Rolf’s hand as he led him into the tavern.
“Hans, get this man what we talked about!”
Hans...hands...Hans
Rolf’s old barkeep friend.
As his ruddy-haired companion persuaded Saphir onto one of the worn barstools and said barkeep began to pour a thick, glinting liquid into a mug, the knight remained transfixed on the hand that had once been entwined with his friend’s. There seemed to be a sort of warmth, lingering there. Though why it fascinated him so was beyond his ability to understand.
“There you go, so drink up.”
From staring darkly at the appendage, Saphir slightly lifted his eyes into the blackness circling the tin Hans had set before him.
“What’s this?”
It was only now that he was face-to-face with the mysterious alcohol that the knight realized how unawares and distracted he had been. But even that luxury, the fact that he could afford to lower his guard, to be blindly directed as Rolf was likely planning to do for him throughout the evening, felt unusually pleasant in a strange new way. Following the death of the late king in an unfortunate hunting accident, the queen had been exceedingly paranoid about the safety of herself and her young son, always keeping her most trusted soldiers close at hand. Thus Saphir had scarcely registered the meaning of the words Iksel, the Captain of the Guard, had said when he told them of the queen’s intent to let them partake in the festivities. Iksel alone would oversee the organization of the guards and make sure there would be no problems for the party's many noble visitors. Of course, as a truly knighted knight, Iksel could afford luxuries whenever he pleased and had plenty of nights off to enjoy himself far from the needful queen on his own estate, so Saphir hadn't found his sacrifice exceedingly magnanimous. Still, he was the type to appreciate the little he was given, and Saphir couldn’t even remember the last time he had heard such words as, “Go enjoy yourself.”
The freedom had left him feeling restless; useless. How to 'go and enjoy himself' was something he seemed to have long lost the vocabulary for. Thus Rolf, predicting his closest friend's turmoil, had dragged Saphir past the castle walls as soon as they had finished putting on their dress uniforms, bringing him to his favorite haunt in the town nestled below.
“That, Saffy, is our evening.”
Casting his longtime friend a sharp sideways glance at the obscure answer, Saphir lifted the drink, taking in the strong, but not distasteful, odor. His quizzical expression was enough to launch Rolf into a more useful explanation.
“I don’t want you looking so puckered when we’re supposed to be celebrating. Haven’t you tried our kingdom’s specialty?”
“No, and I don’t need to,” Saphir replied, slightly perturbed that Rolf had asked him what he well knew the answer to, given that his failures at alcohol consumption was a frequent point of teasing. Replacing the mug on the table, he flagged down Hans for some simple mead. Among the swarming farmers and merchants, the two finely dressed knights were impossible not to notice, and more so, as a friend of Rolf's, Hans' service was quick.
“One of our top cultural exports, and you won’t even try it?”
What Rolf was referring to was a particular brew of balsam that had made their small kingdom famous. Perhaps too much so. Many of the ingredients that composed the recipe grew thanks to the special nutrients of the exact same contested lands that had given them so much trouble in recent years. The shadows of war hung like dim reflections upon Saphir’s memory, as it did for many of the queen’s squires and knights.
“Waste not, want not.”
Shrugging Rolf slid the mug over to himself, lifting its swarthy form and downing the ominous drink in a single, fluid motion. Saphir could only watch, amazed at his friend’s ability to so handle a beverage renowned for its incredibly high alcoholic content.
But what really entranced him were the rippling pulsations of Rolf’s throat as the liquid cascaded down...
“Come now, Saf, what’s up with you today?”
Although it was typical of the young knight to brood, he realized that his expression must seemed especially harrowed despite the joyous coming of the young prince’s 11th birthday. Certainly when juxtaposed against Rolf's now satisfactorily smiling face, already beginning to gleam with the liquor's flames.
“Keep that up and the queen won’t want you around. Bad omens for the kid.”
At this Saphir threw his friend back a smirk, “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
Rolf laughed heartily, thudding the blonde on the back with just a little too much strength. The knight's wide, fluid motions seemed to already be alcohol-tinged, making Saphir wonder what he had been up to earlier that morning. Surely someone like Rolf wouldn't feel even the infamous balsam's effects so swiftly...?
“Right, you’d better not let her near you tonight. Then we won’t have any fun at all.”
Saphir grimaced. Iksel's words had automatically drawn his suspicion, thinking of the ulterior motives that had toppled through the queen’s mind when she had given the orders for her “younger knights” to have an evening off. As her guard, Saphir would have been compelled to remain dutifully by her side. But as a fellow guest...
Then they would be free to dance.
“Well, it’s not like we would be the only ones not having fun...”
Saphir’s grimace withered into a deep frown as he nuzzled his mead. The sounds of coughing echoing through his memories.
Rolf, having been beside him for so long, finally could see what was the matter.
“It’s Santa, isn’t it?”
As one of the kitchen workers, Saphir’s sister was not only unable to enjoy the party, but had been working doubly hard to ensure there would be ample vittles prepared for the copious guests. Any small mistake on the eve of her son's most important day would surely be enough to throw the queen into a panic, and the Lord's wrath in such a case would likely be even worse than the struggle the servants were going through to put up as many countermeasures to such a catastrophe before it could occur.
After the king’s death, the queen’s younger brother had stepped up as their humble kingdom’s patriarch, and though the siblings remained friendly, the entire castle was aware of a sense of tension and unease flowing between them, like an ongoing game of tug-of-war played over giggles, retracted statements, and coarse smiles. Even as he “kindly” fretted over his sister’s spasms of worry, the lord seemed to be secretly playing them up so as to ensure undermining his sister's rule. But even as a widowed monarch, the queen was reticent in relinquishing any portion of her domain.
“Santa’s just tired from all the cooking, she’ll be fine soon as she’s had some rest.”
As he said this, Rolf assumed a particular kind of smile which Saphir hated. As much as he adored his friend and everything that he had come to stand for...perhaps even because he treasured Rolf so greatly, when he wore such an expression Saphir couldn't help but become irritated. Though, again, he could never quite tell what it was about the smile that bothered him so. Was it the smug assumption that knew his own twin better than himself? The feeling that the two of them were sharing a secret moment that he had accidentally peeked in on?
Either way, the private world the three of them had carved out for each other from the throes of desperation seemed these days to be increasingly a space only large enough for two. And perhaps Saphir’s discomfort came from having the uncanny realization of who would be left on the outskirts...
“It would be better for her to enjoy herself. She's the one who belongs out dancing, not me.”
“Ah, loosen up,” Rolf signaled Hans for another round of the balsam, “don’t you think she’d want you to have some fun?”
“She would...”
But instead of his friend's words, it was the reverberations of coughing that remained trapped inside Saphir's mind.
Things that Rolf, for all his wisdom, did not know.
"Look, you don't have to worry about her anymore. I promise, as your friend, no harm will ever come to Chrysanta."
When the balsam came this time it was Saphir who swiped Rolf’s mug, mimicking him in lifting the frothing liquid to his lips and pouring it in an uninterrupted stream to his mouth. The alcohol burned, causing a ripple of flames to tremble all the way down his throat, but Saphir stubbornly continued to swig, the strong taste, mingled with the remnants of nuts and berries, at once attracting and repelling him.
Passing his hand over his face to wipe it, the knight couldn’t refrain from offering up a dark grin.
“Right then, let’s go and enjoy ourselves.”
Rolf’s eyes were wide with delight, slapping Saphir on the back once again. This time it was even stronger.
“That’s the spirit, that is.” He then proceeded to finish off both his friend’s mead and yet another round of the balsam, "don’t worry `bout Santa. We’ll bring something back for her to capture the moment.”
To capture the moment...
By the time the pair made their way back to the castle, the sun was already low in the sky and the alcohol had sunk all the way through to their steps. Although Saphir's told himself, over and over, that even as a miserable lightweight he couldn't possibly be more than slightly tipsy after a single drink, the strange actions the knight kept catching himself in hinted at something worse. Such as the sound of his laughter, loud and hollow, appearing after everything Rolf said like an obnoxious, uncontrollable echo. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had laughed so hard, or such foreign sounding noises coming from his own mouth.
Not wanting to upset the long, tedious procession of noble guests or run into someone important in such a state, the two friends snuck in through one of the servants’ entrances. The queen and lord had decided to forgo the rituals of a banquet for their son's celebration, providing their guests with an open table of constantly refreshed plates against the background of the castle's elegant wide window and mirror-lined ballroom. As the sun began to bid farewell the sky, its reflection onto the glassy walls created an infinity of light intermingling with the merrymakers and tastefully cheerful music.
Standing in a recess near the entrance where they could peer at people as they walked in, Rolf and Saphir were deep into a fit of laughter that seemed to fit them most oddly, being two of the queen's personal guard. As part of this inner circle of seven brave men whom, Iksel disregarding, she had been keeping wrapped tight around her fingers since the end of the war, Saphir and Rolf both had proven themselves on the field of battle, and, despite their relatively young age, should technically have been knighted. But due to the high costs of the ceremony, Saphir had been unable to afford it, silently saving up his meager allowance, and Rolf, in his loyalty, had decided to wait for him. And so even as two of the soldiers most recognized by the queen and the lord (despite the slight grudge he bore Saphir for being “indecently favorited” by his sister), both of them officially held a position of no real merit or power.
For Saphir, it was all to be blamed on the queen.
Neither friend could remember when they had first noticed it, but Saphir was sure it had been Rolf, for he never lost an opportunity to tease him. The way Her Majesty always wanted Saphir to be closest to her, the long glances she would cast him and the round giggles that multiplied whenever he was near.
It would be one thing if she had intentions towards marriage, but Saphir knew that even a headstrong woman like his employer would never deign to marry someone of his status, even the one he had fabricated so many years ago. And without marriage, such a relationship could only be a hindrance. Marriage, particularly 'marrying up,' meant stability, wealth, and land ownership. But what Saphir suspected the queen had in mind for him was more akin to the excitement of having someone squirreled away somewhere that she could secret to her heart’s content. Such a relationship, constantly cut off from his sister and Rolf, left completely at the queen's whim and fancy and the lord's wrath were he to catch wind, would be more than unbearable.
And so Saphir had continued to hide behind the mask of courtliness, and as the queen hadn’t yet picked up the courage to move beyond those coquettish glances, nothing more had come of it.
Still, the young 'knight' couldn't help but be bitter to think of it. If she didn't find him so convenient to have around, then perhaps she would be willing to fund his knighting ceremony in accordance with his military honors. Certainly it was an absurd system, to have stranded him with the meager payment of a squire but the duties of a full-fledged knight.
The only thing standing between him and the likelihood of being landed, of having his own estate, his own income, his own sphere wherein he and Chrysanta would never have to want for anything ever again...was a mere title.
And so, day by day, month by month, Saphir had continued to save. He wouldn't mind it so much, if not for the dread that at any moment some disaster could come that would sweep away the years of progress and hard work, landing him back at the far shore of an unfair and corrupt system that had sentenced him as a child to die.
Even something as small as a cough.
The light reflecting from the mirrors and refracting through the countless diamonds decorating the ballroom's chandeliers created a shimmering spectacle that began to blend with the mobbing nobles and incessant speech of his friend. The effect was so dazzling that Saphir almost felt the need to shield his eyes.
He was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
"Oi, there's the queen."
Saphir's spinning eyes could scarcely follow Rolf's pointing finger to a magnificent figure draped in a towering skirt decorated with thread like glistening jewels. She seemed to have just made it to the ball from down the showy staircase on the opposite side of the room, flanked by her equally shining son, her brother, Iksel, and a slew of servants.
"You'd better find someone to dance with `fore she gets here."
"That won't be for some time."
The way that the woman seemed to keep continuously glancing in the shadow where they stood made Saphir think that she had somehow spotted them among the crowd, but even as she attempted to wade through the growing throng of partiers she was stopped every few feet to conduct some greeting or another.
"I think we're safe, for now."
"Think again, look who just came in."
Rolf elbowed Saphir until he turned back towards the entrance. A dark-haired noble finely dressed and with a proud brow had just stepped through the door. Saphir let out a groan that, he was sure, would never have been vocalized if not for the balsam. Rolf responded with a barking laugh.
"Not Lord Windermere."
Having been left in charge of a decently wealthy manor at a young age, the Windermere heir had raised himself with a haughtiness found only in a very special breed of noble. Every time he came to visit, which was all too frequent thanks to his domain’s closeness and the trade they conducted as such, there was always some stirrup. Last time he had caught Rolf and Saphir on guard duty, dragging them over to his precious horse to groom it as if they were common pages, far below their hard-earned rank. And even after they had dutifully bowed to his will, he had the gall to lecture them on their "shoddy" performance afterwards.
Safe to say, the prissy lord had become fair ground for both knights' private jokes.
"Yes, Lord Windermere. Why don't you go make him your partner for the night?"
This time it was Saphir's turn to laugh, taken by surprise by his friend's audacious suggestion. "Could you image? Asked by another man to dance? With his temper, he'd rip off my head and feed it to that stupid beast of his.”
Even saying this proved difficult, Saphir giggling so hard he had to lean into Rolf. The party had just barely begun and he was already feeling ridiculous. And perhaps too tipsy to really care.
"I'll give you a pfennig if you do it. If you ask him."
Saphir looked up from Rolf's shoulder into his face incredulously.
"Are you serious? A pfennig?"
"Sure. My inheritance won't suffer the loss. I'll even give you two. Better than Her Majesty coming over here and monopolizing you all night."
"If I'm thrown out for tempering one of the guests, isn't it just as bad?"
"If he tries to tell on you the queen'll laugh harder than anyone. Look, he's right over there. Go!"
"You'd better give me three pfennigs for this," Saphir managed to sloppily get out, wondering if the joke had gone on a bit too long, before he was stumbling towards the entrance, pushed by an overly-eager-for-fun Rolf. He offered one last look back towards his friend, but he had already crept further into the recess's shadows to watch, hand covering his mouth to quiet his guffaws. Watching him thus gave Saphir a terrifying realization. He knew that, for Rolf's sake, he would do quite literally anything, go through any humiliation, break any law, if only he asked him to.
After all, Rolf was his closest friend. And he owed him his life.
With these thoughts on his mind, his face melted into a sheepish smile and Saphir strode towards Lord Windermere. Imitating the courtliest of gestures, he stood before him.
"My Lord, may I entreat you to the first dance of the evening?"
With bowed head Saphir sunk to a single knee, his hand held out delicately in a motion that he was surprised reached a state like elegance, even as studded with alcohol as he felt. Still, he didn't dare raise his head for fear that he might break out into more stupid laughter at the lord's surely horrified face.
“Hans, get this man what we talked about!”
Hans...hands...Hans
Rolf’s old barkeep friend.
As his ruddy-haired companion persuaded Saphir onto one of the worn barstools and said barkeep began to pour a thick, glinting liquid into a mug, the knight remained transfixed on the hand that had once been entwined with his friend’s. There seemed to be a sort of warmth, lingering there. Though why it fascinated him so was beyond his ability to understand.
“There you go, so drink up.”
From staring darkly at the appendage, Saphir slightly lifted his eyes into the blackness circling the tin Hans had set before him.
“What’s this?”
It was only now that he was face-to-face with the mysterious alcohol that the knight realized how unawares and distracted he had been. But even that luxury, the fact that he could afford to lower his guard, to be blindly directed as Rolf was likely planning to do for him throughout the evening, felt unusually pleasant in a strange new way. Following the death of the late king in an unfortunate hunting accident, the queen had been exceedingly paranoid about the safety of herself and her young son, always keeping her most trusted soldiers close at hand. Thus Saphir had scarcely registered the meaning of the words Iksel, the Captain of the Guard, had said when he told them of the queen’s intent to let them partake in the festivities. Iksel alone would oversee the organization of the guards and make sure there would be no problems for the party's many noble visitors. Of course, as a truly knighted knight, Iksel could afford luxuries whenever he pleased and had plenty of nights off to enjoy himself far from the needful queen on his own estate, so Saphir hadn't found his sacrifice exceedingly magnanimous. Still, he was the type to appreciate the little he was given, and Saphir couldn’t even remember the last time he had heard such words as, “Go enjoy yourself.”
The freedom had left him feeling restless; useless. How to 'go and enjoy himself' was something he seemed to have long lost the vocabulary for. Thus Rolf, predicting his closest friend's turmoil, had dragged Saphir past the castle walls as soon as they had finished putting on their dress uniforms, bringing him to his favorite haunt in the town nestled below.
“That, Saffy, is our evening.”
Casting his longtime friend a sharp sideways glance at the obscure answer, Saphir lifted the drink, taking in the strong, but not distasteful, odor. His quizzical expression was enough to launch Rolf into a more useful explanation.
“I don’t want you looking so puckered when we’re supposed to be celebrating. Haven’t you tried our kingdom’s specialty?”
“No, and I don’t need to,” Saphir replied, slightly perturbed that Rolf had asked him what he well knew the answer to, given that his failures at alcohol consumption was a frequent point of teasing. Replacing the mug on the table, he flagged down Hans for some simple mead. Among the swarming farmers and merchants, the two finely dressed knights were impossible not to notice, and more so, as a friend of Rolf's, Hans' service was quick.
“One of our top cultural exports, and you won’t even try it?”
What Rolf was referring to was a particular brew of balsam that had made their small kingdom famous. Perhaps too much so. Many of the ingredients that composed the recipe grew thanks to the special nutrients of the exact same contested lands that had given them so much trouble in recent years. The shadows of war hung like dim reflections upon Saphir’s memory, as it did for many of the queen’s squires and knights.
“Waste not, want not.”
Shrugging Rolf slid the mug over to himself, lifting its swarthy form and downing the ominous drink in a single, fluid motion. Saphir could only watch, amazed at his friend’s ability to so handle a beverage renowned for its incredibly high alcoholic content.
But what really entranced him were the rippling pulsations of Rolf’s throat as the liquid cascaded down...
“Come now, Saf, what’s up with you today?”
Although it was typical of the young knight to brood, he realized that his expression must seemed especially harrowed despite the joyous coming of the young prince’s 11th birthday. Certainly when juxtaposed against Rolf's now satisfactorily smiling face, already beginning to gleam with the liquor's flames.
“Keep that up and the queen won’t want you around. Bad omens for the kid.”
At this Saphir threw his friend back a smirk, “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
Rolf laughed heartily, thudding the blonde on the back with just a little too much strength. The knight's wide, fluid motions seemed to already be alcohol-tinged, making Saphir wonder what he had been up to earlier that morning. Surely someone like Rolf wouldn't feel even the infamous balsam's effects so swiftly...?
“Right, you’d better not let her near you tonight. Then we won’t have any fun at all.”
Saphir grimaced. Iksel's words had automatically drawn his suspicion, thinking of the ulterior motives that had toppled through the queen’s mind when she had given the orders for her “younger knights” to have an evening off. As her guard, Saphir would have been compelled to remain dutifully by her side. But as a fellow guest...
Then they would be free to dance.
“Well, it’s not like we would be the only ones not having fun...”
Saphir’s grimace withered into a deep frown as he nuzzled his mead. The sounds of coughing echoing through his memories.
Rolf, having been beside him for so long, finally could see what was the matter.
“It’s Santa, isn’t it?”
As one of the kitchen workers, Saphir’s sister was not only unable to enjoy the party, but had been working doubly hard to ensure there would be ample vittles prepared for the copious guests. Any small mistake on the eve of her son's most important day would surely be enough to throw the queen into a panic, and the Lord's wrath in such a case would likely be even worse than the struggle the servants were going through to put up as many countermeasures to such a catastrophe before it could occur.
After the king’s death, the queen’s younger brother had stepped up as their humble kingdom’s patriarch, and though the siblings remained friendly, the entire castle was aware of a sense of tension and unease flowing between them, like an ongoing game of tug-of-war played over giggles, retracted statements, and coarse smiles. Even as he “kindly” fretted over his sister’s spasms of worry, the lord seemed to be secretly playing them up so as to ensure undermining his sister's rule. But even as a widowed monarch, the queen was reticent in relinquishing any portion of her domain.
“Santa’s just tired from all the cooking, she’ll be fine soon as she’s had some rest.”
As he said this, Rolf assumed a particular kind of smile which Saphir hated. As much as he adored his friend and everything that he had come to stand for...perhaps even because he treasured Rolf so greatly, when he wore such an expression Saphir couldn't help but become irritated. Though, again, he could never quite tell what it was about the smile that bothered him so. Was it the smug assumption that knew his own twin better than himself? The feeling that the two of them were sharing a secret moment that he had accidentally peeked in on?
Either way, the private world the three of them had carved out for each other from the throes of desperation seemed these days to be increasingly a space only large enough for two. And perhaps Saphir’s discomfort came from having the uncanny realization of who would be left on the outskirts...
“It would be better for her to enjoy herself. She's the one who belongs out dancing, not me.”
“Ah, loosen up,” Rolf signaled Hans for another round of the balsam, “don’t you think she’d want you to have some fun?”
“She would...”
But instead of his friend's words, it was the reverberations of coughing that remained trapped inside Saphir's mind.
Things that Rolf, for all his wisdom, did not know.
"Look, you don't have to worry about her anymore. I promise, as your friend, no harm will ever come to Chrysanta."
When the balsam came this time it was Saphir who swiped Rolf’s mug, mimicking him in lifting the frothing liquid to his lips and pouring it in an uninterrupted stream to his mouth. The alcohol burned, causing a ripple of flames to tremble all the way down his throat, but Saphir stubbornly continued to swig, the strong taste, mingled with the remnants of nuts and berries, at once attracting and repelling him.
Passing his hand over his face to wipe it, the knight couldn’t refrain from offering up a dark grin.
“Right then, let’s go and enjoy ourselves.”
Rolf’s eyes were wide with delight, slapping Saphir on the back once again. This time it was even stronger.
“That’s the spirit, that is.” He then proceeded to finish off both his friend’s mead and yet another round of the balsam, "don’t worry `bout Santa. We’ll bring something back for her to capture the moment.”
To capture the moment...
By the time the pair made their way back to the castle, the sun was already low in the sky and the alcohol had sunk all the way through to their steps. Although Saphir's told himself, over and over, that even as a miserable lightweight he couldn't possibly be more than slightly tipsy after a single drink, the strange actions the knight kept catching himself in hinted at something worse. Such as the sound of his laughter, loud and hollow, appearing after everything Rolf said like an obnoxious, uncontrollable echo. He couldn’t even remember the last time he had laughed so hard, or such foreign sounding noises coming from his own mouth.
Not wanting to upset the long, tedious procession of noble guests or run into someone important in such a state, the two friends snuck in through one of the servants’ entrances. The queen and lord had decided to forgo the rituals of a banquet for their son's celebration, providing their guests with an open table of constantly refreshed plates against the background of the castle's elegant wide window and mirror-lined ballroom. As the sun began to bid farewell the sky, its reflection onto the glassy walls created an infinity of light intermingling with the merrymakers and tastefully cheerful music.
Standing in a recess near the entrance where they could peer at people as they walked in, Rolf and Saphir were deep into a fit of laughter that seemed to fit them most oddly, being two of the queen's personal guard. As part of this inner circle of seven brave men whom, Iksel disregarding, she had been keeping wrapped tight around her fingers since the end of the war, Saphir and Rolf both had proven themselves on the field of battle, and, despite their relatively young age, should technically have been knighted. But due to the high costs of the ceremony, Saphir had been unable to afford it, silently saving up his meager allowance, and Rolf, in his loyalty, had decided to wait for him. And so even as two of the soldiers most recognized by the queen and the lord (despite the slight grudge he bore Saphir for being “indecently favorited” by his sister), both of them officially held a position of no real merit or power.
For Saphir, it was all to be blamed on the queen.
Neither friend could remember when they had first noticed it, but Saphir was sure it had been Rolf, for he never lost an opportunity to tease him. The way Her Majesty always wanted Saphir to be closest to her, the long glances she would cast him and the round giggles that multiplied whenever he was near.
It would be one thing if she had intentions towards marriage, but Saphir knew that even a headstrong woman like his employer would never deign to marry someone of his status, even the one he had fabricated so many years ago. And without marriage, such a relationship could only be a hindrance. Marriage, particularly 'marrying up,' meant stability, wealth, and land ownership. But what Saphir suspected the queen had in mind for him was more akin to the excitement of having someone squirreled away somewhere that she could secret to her heart’s content. Such a relationship, constantly cut off from his sister and Rolf, left completely at the queen's whim and fancy and the lord's wrath were he to catch wind, would be more than unbearable.
And so Saphir had continued to hide behind the mask of courtliness, and as the queen hadn’t yet picked up the courage to move beyond those coquettish glances, nothing more had come of it.
Still, the young 'knight' couldn't help but be bitter to think of it. If she didn't find him so convenient to have around, then perhaps she would be willing to fund his knighting ceremony in accordance with his military honors. Certainly it was an absurd system, to have stranded him with the meager payment of a squire but the duties of a full-fledged knight.
The only thing standing between him and the likelihood of being landed, of having his own estate, his own income, his own sphere wherein he and Chrysanta would never have to want for anything ever again...was a mere title.
And so, day by day, month by month, Saphir had continued to save. He wouldn't mind it so much, if not for the dread that at any moment some disaster could come that would sweep away the years of progress and hard work, landing him back at the far shore of an unfair and corrupt system that had sentenced him as a child to die.
Even something as small as a cough.
The light reflecting from the mirrors and refracting through the countless diamonds decorating the ballroom's chandeliers created a shimmering spectacle that began to blend with the mobbing nobles and incessant speech of his friend. The effect was so dazzling that Saphir almost felt the need to shield his eyes.
He was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
"Oi, there's the queen."
Saphir's spinning eyes could scarcely follow Rolf's pointing finger to a magnificent figure draped in a towering skirt decorated with thread like glistening jewels. She seemed to have just made it to the ball from down the showy staircase on the opposite side of the room, flanked by her equally shining son, her brother, Iksel, and a slew of servants.
"You'd better find someone to dance with `fore she gets here."
"That won't be for some time."
The way that the woman seemed to keep continuously glancing in the shadow where they stood made Saphir think that she had somehow spotted them among the crowd, but even as she attempted to wade through the growing throng of partiers she was stopped every few feet to conduct some greeting or another.
"I think we're safe, for now."
"Think again, look who just came in."
Rolf elbowed Saphir until he turned back towards the entrance. A dark-haired noble finely dressed and with a proud brow had just stepped through the door. Saphir let out a groan that, he was sure, would never have been vocalized if not for the balsam. Rolf responded with a barking laugh.
"Not Lord Windermere."
Having been left in charge of a decently wealthy manor at a young age, the Windermere heir had raised himself with a haughtiness found only in a very special breed of noble. Every time he came to visit, which was all too frequent thanks to his domain’s closeness and the trade they conducted as such, there was always some stirrup. Last time he had caught Rolf and Saphir on guard duty, dragging them over to his precious horse to groom it as if they were common pages, far below their hard-earned rank. And even after they had dutifully bowed to his will, he had the gall to lecture them on their "shoddy" performance afterwards.
Safe to say, the prissy lord had become fair ground for both knights' private jokes.
"Yes, Lord Windermere. Why don't you go make him your partner for the night?"
This time it was Saphir's turn to laugh, taken by surprise by his friend's audacious suggestion. "Could you image? Asked by another man to dance? With his temper, he'd rip off my head and feed it to that stupid beast of his.”
Even saying this proved difficult, Saphir giggling so hard he had to lean into Rolf. The party had just barely begun and he was already feeling ridiculous. And perhaps too tipsy to really care.
"I'll give you a pfennig if you do it. If you ask him."
Saphir looked up from Rolf's shoulder into his face incredulously.
"Are you serious? A pfennig?"
"Sure. My inheritance won't suffer the loss. I'll even give you two. Better than Her Majesty coming over here and monopolizing you all night."
"If I'm thrown out for tempering one of the guests, isn't it just as bad?"
"If he tries to tell on you the queen'll laugh harder than anyone. Look, he's right over there. Go!"
"You'd better give me three pfennigs for this," Saphir managed to sloppily get out, wondering if the joke had gone on a bit too long, before he was stumbling towards the entrance, pushed by an overly-eager-for-fun Rolf. He offered one last look back towards his friend, but he had already crept further into the recess's shadows to watch, hand covering his mouth to quiet his guffaws. Watching him thus gave Saphir a terrifying realization. He knew that, for Rolf's sake, he would do quite literally anything, go through any humiliation, break any law, if only he asked him to.
After all, Rolf was his closest friend. And he owed him his life.
With these thoughts on his mind, his face melted into a sheepish smile and Saphir strode towards Lord Windermere. Imitating the courtliest of gestures, he stood before him.
"My Lord, may I entreat you to the first dance of the evening?"
With bowed head Saphir sunk to a single knee, his hand held out delicately in a motion that he was surprised reached a state like elegance, even as studded with alcohol as he felt. Still, he didn't dare raise his head for fear that he might break out into more stupid laughter at the lord's surely horrified face.
Long Post // Male // Drama
Rune winced at Daxton's muffled shoutings on the other side of the door. He had been made to sit guarded by an impatient-looking servant to await his turn in the bathing room, and the struggle that seemed to be happening inside filled Rune with a sort of dread...what horrible things were going on in there? Then again, Daxton, although like him in his newness, was most unlike him in his proneness to shouting, so the cause may have been anything at all. Between the two of them Rune was certainly the quiet one, content to absorb things into his large, round eyes.
For so many years he had been running. Running without end. Without even an end in sight. Blown from town to town, city to city, given nothing but false hopes...
Now that he was here, finally captured and sold off, there was a certain comfort in it. The relief of never having to run again. The ability to just...rest...
If only Elma were beside him.
But where Elma was, at the moment, Rune had no way to know. And so he would just wait. For for his 'true master' to return...
So it shouldn't be too bad if I'm a bit curious, right?
It was a chance to glimpse into the life that, while on the run, he had never known. Though he suspected that such thinking was odd, the sort of thing Elma would admonish him for, he couldn't help his fascination with the daily workings of a slave. This is what would life have been like for him from the beginning. If he had never met Elma.
Never had someone to pull him forward from the dark...
At last it was his turn, and Rune was all too quickly ushered into the bathing room and summarily stripped. Even ordinarily he preferred to cover himself as much as possible with layers of clothes, so being thus exposed made him feel especially embarrassed.「Vulnerable」Like his entire being was on display for just anyone to walk by and snatch.
Due to the nature of his powers, the servants dealing with him were all wearing gloves, long clothing, and masks to protect themselves. Otherwise bathing might have been impossible. Though he wondered what it would feel like, for them, if instead of this strange, unknown boy they were suddenly running their brushes over the person they most wanted to see. Maybe a lover. A child. Even servants in such a place surely had someone like that.
Everyone had someone they wanted to be with, hidden in their deepest fantasies. A secret wish that only Rune could grant.
He suspected that's why the slavers he had woken up to had told him that, when Lord Harrison was coming, they were positive he would be picked.
If applied by a skillful tactician, surely his powers had many uses, but none of these seemed particularly helpful to himself, and so he had never truly understood them. Elma had, time and again, tried to explain...why it was so important no one ever caught them, ever touched him...and though Rune had done his best to commit those abstractions to memory, they always seemed to carry themselves off like flotsam in the tide...
Though even Rune could understand the weight of the sound of coins as they had landed into the slavers' outstretched hands. While various things he could not bring to mind...such as their names, their words, Lord Harrison's expression...he had been taken in by the dazzling sunshine that had illuminated the transaction. With a flash of silver the coins had made a melodical heap clinking together like the bells he remembered from a small village they had stopped in, once. Wedding bells, was it? Or was that just a「Fairy Tale」? In either case, he could still feel the chirp-like ringing of both bells and coins in his mind, and thought that the juxtaposition was rather beautiful.
But such musings made him feel guilty. He probably shouldn't think such things about the coins that had bought his freedom.
「Freedom」
It was such a bright, golden word and so naturally Rune shied away from it.
「Freedom」
And yet, it was into the impenetrable sunlight of those two syllables that Elma had been so desperate to run towards. Always dragging him behind...
Like a babe the Arcane made no motion to assist the servants as they prepped him, allowing himself to be lifted into the bath, sat down in position. One of the women set about refreshing the bandages wrapping his head. From her noises he could sense that the wound was almost healed. It made him sad, in a way. The passage of time. Out of the corner of his eye a subconscious flash of a date just a few days ago hung in the ether. The day he had first been brought to Lord Harrison's domain. The other servants began to wash him, and despite the unpleasantness of being so naked before them...if he closed his eyes, he could almost remember his mother's hands...
As they lifted up his arms to scrub him, he felt the glittering wet chain of the bracelet slide down arms too thin to support it at his wrist tip.
It was silver.
Also just a few days old.
At the time he hadn't been sure what was happening, couldn't possibly know the significance as the glistening links were fastened together forever around his arm. Rune had been more preoccupied with the fact that they had tried to take his rings. He couldn't allow that, and cried and cried so hard that one of the servants sick of listening to him told the others that they were made of worthless iron anyways and so they might as well give them back. The traveling cloak that had been his companion for so long had not been as fortunate...It was so tattered and worn that Rune probably shouldn't have felt anything to watch it taken and thrown away, but inside of that cloak were the last remains of Elma's warmth. The way they had wrapped themselves inside of it together. Huddled for life against the frigid sands of the desert at night.
At least now he had a bed. A proper bed. Sure, it was a small, thin mattress shoved into a wooden box, but for him any mattress at all was a long withheld luxury after so many nights spent outside on the ground. Even this bath was nice...despite the harsh bristles of the brushes. He could feel years of dirt, fear, exhaustion being wiped away. But it was unsettling, too. The layers of grime that had marked his years with Elma...now lost to the murking water.
Piece by piece, year by year, scrubbed away...
No. He wasn't ready. He couldn't lose him. He couldn't lose Elma.
And so Rune kept his dark amber eyes transfixed on the iron rings for the remainder of the bath, playing dramas of long-ago memories on constant repeat in his head...holding fast to the last remaining remnants...
Next he was lead to room stocked with endless wardrobes out of which each of Lord Harrison's dolls were being fitted and dressed. He remembered someone saying something along those lines...that Harrison made sure to dress them up for every show, though Rune hadn't really understood what that meant.
「Dress up」
The suit that was laid before him made his eyes go wide, trying to take in every shimmering detail and committing it to his memory. He had to keep these new ones, of all these new experiences, somewhere safe, at least.
"I really...get to wear such a thing?"
He shouldn't be smiling, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Dressed in the deep navy tailcoat defined by fine fabrics and silvery trim, he would look just like a prince.
「Prince」
No, that wasn't right. Princes were golden. And white.
Something about that felt important, and far-off in the distance, Rune thought once again that he could make out a number. A date.
Is it...finally returning...?
Ever since getting the「concussion」, the spatial awareness of time he had so greatly relied on seemed off. Fuzzy. Wrought with missing links. He stared hard, trying to make out the date that his mind was trying desperately to supply him with...
But one of the servants took his vapid look for mere vacantness, and with an exasperated sigh set about getting him dressed. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he could scarcely believe what he had become. Like a glittering jewel. For a strange second, he imagined he could see what he had been constantly told others saw in him.
「Allure」
The temptation and beauty of the Arcane.
He's going to have to meet with the guests tonight, can't we do something about that bandage?"
The servants began to talk above him as Rune remained transfixed by the mirror. He almost wanted to reach out and hold that image of his face. So smooth and pure...
"Janis mentioned a hat...?"
"Ah, right."
In moments Rune's still reflection was rippled by one of the women pulling him back to place a silk hat atop his head. It was loose enough to fall in just the right way to both hide the bandages and not irritate his wound. He thought that such a touch was surprisingly thoughtful.
「Thoughtful」
Not the sort of thing one should think of a slavemaster...
Elma would be disappointed.
But he had to remain positive, for his sake, so what was the harm in taking inside of himself the materiality and influx of senses and emotions of this new life? There were so many things he had left to learn, to see, to experience...
If only Elma were here to share it with him.
One day, soon, they would be reunited, right...?
Seemingly finished, Rune found himself wandering over to where a familiar face stood, white suit in hand.
"Is something the matter, Daxton?"
Seeing the boy staring with distaste at the fine clothes he had been given filled Rune with confusion. But he liked Daxton. Because he was also new, and so also knew nothing.
When he had been told that he would have to do「face to face meeting」with some of the guests, Rune had been filled with unsurety. He had never been around so many people before. Well, notwithstanding the endless faces that had existed like prop sets to the scenery he and Elma had shared. In those instances, Elma was always there to do talking, however. Rune didn't think he could excel in being put on conversational display...he was sure to say something off...to get lost...But having Daxton and Valentina there would surely help. Even if Valentina didn't seem to like him, he admired her spirit, and would do his best to follow her lead.
For so many years he had been running. Running without end. Without even an end in sight. Blown from town to town, city to city, given nothing but false hopes...
Now that he was here, finally captured and sold off, there was a certain comfort in it. The relief of never having to run again. The ability to just...rest...
If only Elma were beside him.
But where Elma was, at the moment, Rune had no way to know. And so he would just wait. For for his 'true master' to return...
So it shouldn't be too bad if I'm a bit curious, right?
It was a chance to glimpse into the life that, while on the run, he had never known. Though he suspected that such thinking was odd, the sort of thing Elma would admonish him for, he couldn't help his fascination with the daily workings of a slave. This is what would life have been like for him from the beginning. If he had never met Elma.
Never had someone to pull him forward from the dark...
At last it was his turn, and Rune was all too quickly ushered into the bathing room and summarily stripped. Even ordinarily he preferred to cover himself as much as possible with layers of clothes, so being thus exposed made him feel especially embarrassed.「Vulnerable」Like his entire being was on display for just anyone to walk by and snatch.
Due to the nature of his powers, the servants dealing with him were all wearing gloves, long clothing, and masks to protect themselves. Otherwise bathing might have been impossible. Though he wondered what it would feel like, for them, if instead of this strange, unknown boy they were suddenly running their brushes over the person they most wanted to see. Maybe a lover. A child. Even servants in such a place surely had someone like that.
Everyone had someone they wanted to be with, hidden in their deepest fantasies. A secret wish that only Rune could grant.
He suspected that's why the slavers he had woken up to had told him that, when Lord Harrison was coming, they were positive he would be picked.
If applied by a skillful tactician, surely his powers had many uses, but none of these seemed particularly helpful to himself, and so he had never truly understood them. Elma had, time and again, tried to explain...why it was so important no one ever caught them, ever touched him...and though Rune had done his best to commit those abstractions to memory, they always seemed to carry themselves off like flotsam in the tide...
Though even Rune could understand the weight of the sound of coins as they had landed into the slavers' outstretched hands. While various things he could not bring to mind...such as their names, their words, Lord Harrison's expression...he had been taken in by the dazzling sunshine that had illuminated the transaction. With a flash of silver the coins had made a melodical heap clinking together like the bells he remembered from a small village they had stopped in, once. Wedding bells, was it? Or was that just a「Fairy Tale」? In either case, he could still feel the chirp-like ringing of both bells and coins in his mind, and thought that the juxtaposition was rather beautiful.
But such musings made him feel guilty. He probably shouldn't think such things about the coins that had bought his freedom.
「Freedom」
It was such a bright, golden word and so naturally Rune shied away from it.
「Freedom」
And yet, it was into the impenetrable sunlight of those two syllables that Elma had been so desperate to run towards. Always dragging him behind...
Like a babe the Arcane made no motion to assist the servants as they prepped him, allowing himself to be lifted into the bath, sat down in position. One of the women set about refreshing the bandages wrapping his head. From her noises he could sense that the wound was almost healed. It made him sad, in a way. The passage of time. Out of the corner of his eye a subconscious flash of a date just a few days ago hung in the ether. The day he had first been brought to Lord Harrison's domain. The other servants began to wash him, and despite the unpleasantness of being so naked before them...if he closed his eyes, he could almost remember his mother's hands...
As they lifted up his arms to scrub him, he felt the glittering wet chain of the bracelet slide down arms too thin to support it at his wrist tip.
It was silver.
Also just a few days old.
At the time he hadn't been sure what was happening, couldn't possibly know the significance as the glistening links were fastened together forever around his arm. Rune had been more preoccupied with the fact that they had tried to take his rings. He couldn't allow that, and cried and cried so hard that one of the servants sick of listening to him told the others that they were made of worthless iron anyways and so they might as well give them back. The traveling cloak that had been his companion for so long had not been as fortunate...It was so tattered and worn that Rune probably shouldn't have felt anything to watch it taken and thrown away, but inside of that cloak were the last remains of Elma's warmth. The way they had wrapped themselves inside of it together. Huddled for life against the frigid sands of the desert at night.
At least now he had a bed. A proper bed. Sure, it was a small, thin mattress shoved into a wooden box, but for him any mattress at all was a long withheld luxury after so many nights spent outside on the ground. Even this bath was nice...despite the harsh bristles of the brushes. He could feel years of dirt, fear, exhaustion being wiped away. But it was unsettling, too. The layers of grime that had marked his years with Elma...now lost to the murking water.
Piece by piece, year by year, scrubbed away...
No. He wasn't ready. He couldn't lose him. He couldn't lose Elma.
And so Rune kept his dark amber eyes transfixed on the iron rings for the remainder of the bath, playing dramas of long-ago memories on constant repeat in his head...holding fast to the last remaining remnants...
Next he was lead to room stocked with endless wardrobes out of which each of Lord Harrison's dolls were being fitted and dressed. He remembered someone saying something along those lines...that Harrison made sure to dress them up for every show, though Rune hadn't really understood what that meant.
「Dress up」
The suit that was laid before him made his eyes go wide, trying to take in every shimmering detail and committing it to his memory. He had to keep these new ones, of all these new experiences, somewhere safe, at least.
"I really...get to wear such a thing?"
He shouldn't be smiling, he knew, but he couldn't help himself. Dressed in the deep navy tailcoat defined by fine fabrics and silvery trim, he would look just like a prince.
「Prince」
No, that wasn't right. Princes were golden. And white.
Something about that felt important, and far-off in the distance, Rune thought once again that he could make out a number. A date.
Is it...finally returning...?
Ever since getting the「concussion」, the spatial awareness of time he had so greatly relied on seemed off. Fuzzy. Wrought with missing links. He stared hard, trying to make out the date that his mind was trying desperately to supply him with...
But one of the servants took his vapid look for mere vacantness, and with an exasperated sigh set about getting him dressed. When he looked at himself in the mirror, he could scarcely believe what he had become. Like a glittering jewel. For a strange second, he imagined he could see what he had been constantly told others saw in him.
「Allure」
The temptation and beauty of the Arcane.
He's going to have to meet with the guests tonight, can't we do something about that bandage?"
The servants began to talk above him as Rune remained transfixed by the mirror. He almost wanted to reach out and hold that image of his face. So smooth and pure...
"Janis mentioned a hat...?"
"Ah, right."
In moments Rune's still reflection was rippled by one of the women pulling him back to place a silk hat atop his head. It was loose enough to fall in just the right way to both hide the bandages and not irritate his wound. He thought that such a touch was surprisingly thoughtful.
「Thoughtful」
Not the sort of thing one should think of a slavemaster...
Elma would be disappointed.
But he had to remain positive, for his sake, so what was the harm in taking inside of himself the materiality and influx of senses and emotions of this new life? There were so many things he had left to learn, to see, to experience...
If only Elma were here to share it with him.
One day, soon, they would be reunited, right...?
Seemingly finished, Rune found himself wandering over to where a familiar face stood, white suit in hand.
"Is something the matter, Daxton?"
Seeing the boy staring with distaste at the fine clothes he had been given filled Rune with confusion. But he liked Daxton. Because he was also new, and so also knew nothing.
When he had been told that he would have to do「face to face meeting」with some of the guests, Rune had been filled with unsurety. He had never been around so many people before. Well, notwithstanding the endless faces that had existed like prop sets to the scenery he and Elma had shared. In those instances, Elma was always there to do talking, however. Rune didn't think he could excel in being put on conversational display...he was sure to say something off...to get lost...But having Daxton and Valentina there would surely help. Even if Valentina didn't seem to like him, he admired her spirit, and would do his best to follow her lead.
Long Post // Female // Dramedy
It was the strangest thing, filtering into Tau’s vision. Somewhere, neurons hooked to her cerebral cortex plinked like harmonics on a violin, notifying her that the strange phenomenon, encompassing both a mental-visual structure and, yes, a pleasant feeling of warmth, was “light.” But it was light unlike any she had experienced in such a long time that the awakening membranes of her consciousness were surprised that her language functions could even recall such a term. For this light wasn’t snaking it’s way from a flickering street lamp in dying hues of twilight reds, nor shaded by a greenhouse effect that had made stars little more than theories in all the places she had lived since birth.
This light was pure.
Free.
The feeling was so nice and foreign to her that, even though awareness of the fact she was lying half-conscious on the edge of a deep sleep had occurred to her, she felt it better to remain comatose, enjoying the rawness of the connection. The thing that she had fought for for so long...and yet here it was, waiting within her the entire time...
Then, as if to remind her why such sentimental feelings were only distractions pumped out by corporations, a sound rang out, causing her eyes to flick open automatically.
It was a gunshot.
While a younger version of herself, growing up with the neighborhood street urchins might have played with fireworks and not known the difference in sound, gunshots were very much a real thing in Tau’s line of work.
At least, her old line of work.
A line of work that hadn’t done her much good when it had all, literally, gone up in flames.
Sitting upright, Tau was instantly aware of a few more things, such as the burning fire in her temples and a coolness settling around her shoulders. And the fact that the light hadn’t been a mere hallucination of her brain. It was coming from above, filtered by trees of an impossible height...
Finally her groggy head zoomed through the events of the past weeks, landing her on some random kid’s spaceship in a desperate attempt to flee the wrecked Earth into the unknown future. Luckily Alphy, despite her familial ties, had also made it onboard. Tau had never quite gotten the full story on that, only assuming that Alphy, being a logical being such as herself, had finally gotten it in her brain that there was no point remaining on a dying planet. She was glad for it, though. Not that Tau was one to get depressed, but the haunting uncertainty of your life’s work adding up to plumes of smog and screaming infants had put a strange twist on her mood and a heavy weight on her shoulders.
Wait.
Rolling said shoulders, partly just to check if they were safely in their sockets, Tau realized that the weight of the world wasn’t just in her imagination. There was something.........
It must be the gravity on this planet. It’s less than Earth’s.
Well, at least her brain seemed to be functioning at its normal, excellent pace. But this planet...
Ah, right. While she had tucked away near the cargo hold treating herself to the rare use of her violin (a treat because even an idiot could see that the ship’s power resources were running out, and only a selfish asshole would take from that supply for something as meaningless as a violin solo...though, Tau could also argue, there was nothing more important than a violin solo in such a time), suddenly there had been a power outage, manly screaming, not-so-manly screaming, and a feeling of sinking into an abyss.
Shit my violin!
Frantically Tau jumped to her feet...perhaps a bit too frantically as her head instantly reminded her. She would have to be more cautious about this gravity issue until her body properly adjusted, especially as she had been conked out for who knew how long.
Casting about, she was relieved to see the violin and bow not twenty yards from where she had fallen. Lucky. Oh so lucky, she realized as the situation came into full view of her mind’s eye. The ship had crash landed and somehow, though she hadn’t the faintest idea how, she had sustained no major injuries and had fallen in such a position that she was almost in the appearance of sleep. Back against the plushy forest floor, head facing the fresh dappled light, and legs neatly propped up on a---
As Tau had made a single step to retrieve her precious instrument, she realized something that made her freeze.
At first the shock was enough to almost make her laugh, until she recognized what had cushioned her fall was, in fact, a corpse.
Licking her lips nervously, Tau wasn’t really sure how to respond. Anyone could see that the young man was no longer living. But just to make sure, she pressed a cool finger where she thought his pulse might be. Nothing.
Putting her hands into her jacket pockets (and feeling the familiar coils of her laptop and violin chargers), she turned her back to him, unsure of what else to do or think. Logically speaking, it was likely that this man had somehow sacrificed his life to cushion her fall. Who he was, she could not say, having made it a point to be as antisocial as possible while trying to figure out what best to make of her new life. Why he had been anywhere near her, she also could not say. All she could say was that she was very thankful to be alive and functioning. And that her violin seemed to be as well...
Until Tau actually reached the spot where said violin lay.
With a deep, shaky breath, she bent down to pick it up.
It can still be played, it can still be played...
She repeated over and over to herself, hoping that it was true. Unlike herself, the instrument hadn’t quite been as lucky in the plummet. Some of the strings had been snapped, and there were several major dents and nicks in even the fine, high-quality gloss that the body had been constructed of. Worst of all, the bow had been hit in such a way that it was nearly snapped in half.
“Shhiiit!”
Was all she could ultimately say, being unable to contain her disappointment. And then she realized how much more heartbroken she felt over a human tool than a human life, and checked herself. But that man was dead. He could have lived a useless, meaningless life for all Tau knew. Hell, he could have been one of the corporate bastards who, through a long series of causes and effects, had broken her violin. Said violin, on the other hand, was her future.
With another sigh she reached into her inside jacket, checking on her laptop. She hadn’t used it in some time, after all, there was no point in hacking a ship that was already trying to save her life, and no Internet in the voids of space. By some miracle even greater than her own safety, the laptop remained unscathed, save for a large impression on its lid.
But what use was a laptop and all the programming skills in the world on a foreign planet? Holding the two instruments, one in each hand, Tau’s eyes kept sliding back to the violin again and again.
And then she smiled.
Just like that, the uncertainty of the past few days vanished, as she knew what she had to do. There was no purpose for her old self, so she’d just have to invent a new one. She had always been very partial to that violin, and finally she had an excuse to dedicate the rest of her life to it. Hell, she could be a proper connoisseur. She imagined herself in a tailcoat under a line of lights. Someone would have to build those lights, of course, create that stage. Fill it. Damn it all, she should be jumping for joy! After all, her goal had been to help save the Earth, now she seemed to be on a planet that didn’t need saving, so she could do whatever the Hell she wanted.
“And finally I can have real food,” she mused, subconsciously putting a finger to her lips as she did whenever in deep thought. She was all for noodles, but if she never tasted spaghetti again in her life, it would be too soon.
Walking back over to the dead man to pick up the headphones that had been yanked off her head in the fall, another thought entered her mind.
“Crap I should really go find Alphy.”
Remembering that her friend was almost always to be found in the ship’s garbage hold, Tau made a mental note of where that might have ended up, judging by what intel she could gain from the wreckage. As she surveyed, a random thought as to what the site may look like, if left undisturbed for a few decades, passed through her mind. She imagined moss covering the cracks, undiscovered acids eating craters and holes into the once touted alloys.
Somehow the thought was comforting, though she couldn’t place why.
Slipping her laptop back into her pocket and keeping a firm grip on her violin, Tau finally took off, leaving the dead man to lay in the creeping shadows of the forest alongside the abandoned hull of the once mighty ship
This light was pure.
Free.
The feeling was so nice and foreign to her that, even though awareness of the fact she was lying half-conscious on the edge of a deep sleep had occurred to her, she felt it better to remain comatose, enjoying the rawness of the connection. The thing that she had fought for for so long...and yet here it was, waiting within her the entire time...
Then, as if to remind her why such sentimental feelings were only distractions pumped out by corporations, a sound rang out, causing her eyes to flick open automatically.
It was a gunshot.
While a younger version of herself, growing up with the neighborhood street urchins might have played with fireworks and not known the difference in sound, gunshots were very much a real thing in Tau’s line of work.
At least, her old line of work.
A line of work that hadn’t done her much good when it had all, literally, gone up in flames.
Sitting upright, Tau was instantly aware of a few more things, such as the burning fire in her temples and a coolness settling around her shoulders. And the fact that the light hadn’t been a mere hallucination of her brain. It was coming from above, filtered by trees of an impossible height...
Finally her groggy head zoomed through the events of the past weeks, landing her on some random kid’s spaceship in a desperate attempt to flee the wrecked Earth into the unknown future. Luckily Alphy, despite her familial ties, had also made it onboard. Tau had never quite gotten the full story on that, only assuming that Alphy, being a logical being such as herself, had finally gotten it in her brain that there was no point remaining on a dying planet. She was glad for it, though. Not that Tau was one to get depressed, but the haunting uncertainty of your life’s work adding up to plumes of smog and screaming infants had put a strange twist on her mood and a heavy weight on her shoulders.
Wait.
Rolling said shoulders, partly just to check if they were safely in their sockets, Tau realized that the weight of the world wasn’t just in her imagination. There was something.........
It must be the gravity on this planet. It’s less than Earth’s.
Well, at least her brain seemed to be functioning at its normal, excellent pace. But this planet...
Ah, right. While she had tucked away near the cargo hold treating herself to the rare use of her violin (a treat because even an idiot could see that the ship’s power resources were running out, and only a selfish asshole would take from that supply for something as meaningless as a violin solo...though, Tau could also argue, there was nothing more important than a violin solo in such a time), suddenly there had been a power outage, manly screaming, not-so-manly screaming, and a feeling of sinking into an abyss.
Shit my violin!
Frantically Tau jumped to her feet...perhaps a bit too frantically as her head instantly reminded her. She would have to be more cautious about this gravity issue until her body properly adjusted, especially as she had been conked out for who knew how long.
Casting about, she was relieved to see the violin and bow not twenty yards from where she had fallen. Lucky. Oh so lucky, she realized as the situation came into full view of her mind’s eye. The ship had crash landed and somehow, though she hadn’t the faintest idea how, she had sustained no major injuries and had fallen in such a position that she was almost in the appearance of sleep. Back against the plushy forest floor, head facing the fresh dappled light, and legs neatly propped up on a---
As Tau had made a single step to retrieve her precious instrument, she realized something that made her freeze.
At first the shock was enough to almost make her laugh, until she recognized what had cushioned her fall was, in fact, a corpse.
Licking her lips nervously, Tau wasn’t really sure how to respond. Anyone could see that the young man was no longer living. But just to make sure, she pressed a cool finger where she thought his pulse might be. Nothing.
Putting her hands into her jacket pockets (and feeling the familiar coils of her laptop and violin chargers), she turned her back to him, unsure of what else to do or think. Logically speaking, it was likely that this man had somehow sacrificed his life to cushion her fall. Who he was, she could not say, having made it a point to be as antisocial as possible while trying to figure out what best to make of her new life. Why he had been anywhere near her, she also could not say. All she could say was that she was very thankful to be alive and functioning. And that her violin seemed to be as well...
Until Tau actually reached the spot where said violin lay.
With a deep, shaky breath, she bent down to pick it up.
It can still be played, it can still be played...
She repeated over and over to herself, hoping that it was true. Unlike herself, the instrument hadn’t quite been as lucky in the plummet. Some of the strings had been snapped, and there were several major dents and nicks in even the fine, high-quality gloss that the body had been constructed of. Worst of all, the bow had been hit in such a way that it was nearly snapped in half.
“Shhiiit!”
Was all she could ultimately say, being unable to contain her disappointment. And then she realized how much more heartbroken she felt over a human tool than a human life, and checked herself. But that man was dead. He could have lived a useless, meaningless life for all Tau knew. Hell, he could have been one of the corporate bastards who, through a long series of causes and effects, had broken her violin. Said violin, on the other hand, was her future.
With another sigh she reached into her inside jacket, checking on her laptop. She hadn’t used it in some time, after all, there was no point in hacking a ship that was already trying to save her life, and no Internet in the voids of space. By some miracle even greater than her own safety, the laptop remained unscathed, save for a large impression on its lid.
But what use was a laptop and all the programming skills in the world on a foreign planet? Holding the two instruments, one in each hand, Tau’s eyes kept sliding back to the violin again and again.
And then she smiled.
Just like that, the uncertainty of the past few days vanished, as she knew what she had to do. There was no purpose for her old self, so she’d just have to invent a new one. She had always been very partial to that violin, and finally she had an excuse to dedicate the rest of her life to it. Hell, she could be a proper connoisseur. She imagined herself in a tailcoat under a line of lights. Someone would have to build those lights, of course, create that stage. Fill it. Damn it all, she should be jumping for joy! After all, her goal had been to help save the Earth, now she seemed to be on a planet that didn’t need saving, so she could do whatever the Hell she wanted.
“And finally I can have real food,” she mused, subconsciously putting a finger to her lips as she did whenever in deep thought. She was all for noodles, but if she never tasted spaghetti again in her life, it would be too soon.
Walking back over to the dead man to pick up the headphones that had been yanked off her head in the fall, another thought entered her mind.
“Crap I should really go find Alphy.”
Remembering that her friend was almost always to be found in the ship’s garbage hold, Tau made a mental note of where that might have ended up, judging by what intel she could gain from the wreckage. As she surveyed, a random thought as to what the site may look like, if left undisturbed for a few decades, passed through her mind. She imagined moss covering the cracks, undiscovered acids eating craters and holes into the once touted alloys.
Somehow the thought was comforting, though she couldn’t place why.
Slipping her laptop back into her pocket and keeping a firm grip on her violin, Tau finally took off, leaving the dead man to lay in the creeping shadows of the forest alongside the abandoned hull of the once mighty ship
Medium Post // Male // Dramedy
As the forecast had predicted, the weather was miserable.
In the apartment's living room there were only a pair of windows flanking either side of the firmly bolted door. From the flickering light hovering over the computer area where Jared now sat, the window nearest him showed a mass of white through which buildings, adrenaline-seeking passersby, and the grime of New York were all blurred together in a single poetic mass of impenetrable frost. A blank slate on which any history could be writ.
The mere fact that they were having such a blizzard in November seemed unprecedented; at least from Jared's experiences in his short time living in the city. Savit had mentioned being confused by it, too, but chalked it up to global warming, the inevitable downfall of man, world cycles, and such and such and such...
Having lived on the East Coast all his life, Jared was no stranger to cold winters, but it didn't mean he enjoyed them. Even the sparse snow days of his childhood had come to symbolize an unpleasant sense of unproductivity; instead of receiving the glistening knowledge handed down through his teachers, large snowfall meant being cooped up inside re-reading old books or watching his siblings sled and throw ice at each other. Or him. Usually him, now that he recalled. He hadn't been very skilled at returning the favor.
As an adult, the symbol of snow as an irritating barrier to progress had accurately translated into boring days without work.
Normally Jared would be going into the clinic by now, preparing for his early session. A missed day was a long time in an unstable life lived by the types of people he treated. Not being able to check in with them was making Jared even more antsy than usual. As their therapist, even in a group circle held at a struggling non-profit, he felt a certain moral duty to keep what little positivity they could cling to in the saga of their desperate lives afloat.
Though at the present, the threatening of the snows' endless whiteness made him wonder if perhaps he shouldn't be focusing on bolstering his own positivity...
After clicking the 'refresh' button on his e-mail page for about the thousandth time that hour, Jared absentmindedly toyed with his rubber "Self-Compassion It" bracelet. Flipping it inside out. Inside. Outside. No matter which way the rubber flexed, the message was always the same. If only he got an article request, it would give him something useful to put his mind to, rather than fruitlessly worrying over his patients.
Outside the foreboding windows, in that confusing haze of the storm, all sorts of things were happening under the secret guise of the cold. All sorts of exciting things no one would ever e-mail or call him to write about.
The page made no progress other than a continuously spinning circle in the corner. It was taking excruciatingly long to load this time. Maybe the blizzard was interfering with the Internet.
Jared's eyes flicked up helplessly to the only other tab he had opened: Dago's Daily News. He read it merely because Naomi Watts often submitted articles, and he couldn't help himself from a jealousy-tinged awe of following her career. If he kept working his hardest, wouldn't Dago's Daily one day seek him out as well?
This installment included another article about the Compass Killer. Despite their inhuman actions, the killer was, like him, a human being, living somewhere out there in the storm. Jared briefly pondered what a serial murderer like that would do while cooped up from the weather. Plan another assault? Surely even someone such as that would have other mental pursuits...other memories to sift through while staring out their own living room windows into the white.
The notorious murderer, if it really was the work of one man, had been operating for nearly a decade. Perhaps he was getting on in years...had a family of his own......
Thoughts more chilling than even the gruesome temperatures outside.
Without realizing it, Jared's gaze was once again lingering on the frigid window. He was sure that it was freezing, but if he wore several layers and his thickest winter jacket---
Just as he was about to make a suggestion, Sativr, as usual, beat him to it.
"Don't you think we should be spending this time more wisely?"
A puff of grey smoke began to intermingle and blur with image of the blizzard outside. Except that it was inside, spiraling around Jared's head. The would-be journalist let out a few meager coughs.
"Savit, do you think that you could maybe..." he searched for the most positive way to spin the situation. Given his training and prolonged exposure to his roommate's ways, that was usually the best way to approach requests with him, "...leave a bit more clear air for us? Especially if we're going to be locked up here..."
Upon hearing the broadcasted warnings, Jared had rushed to the store to gather up on provisions expecting a day or two trapped inside. The panic of the grocery store had solidified his expectations that it would be at least a few days before they could freely walk about.
"Nonsense. Even in a run-down shack like this, air circulation in these old New York buildings is superb."
Jared wasn't so sure about that, but he trusted Savit's knowledge of all things enough not to question it.
"Besides, a smokey atmosphere is good for the mind. Have you never read anything of Holmes? Dupin? One can only think when one's brain is freed from the burden of sensory perception."
After this musing Savitr took another long drag of his cigar, leisurely letting the smoke out in well-practiced rings, bubbling towards the dim, warm ceiling light only to change their point of invasion to disperse over the computer desk.
Per usual, the aesthete was sitting in his antique armchair that never failed to look out-of-place and too big for their dinky apartment. His feet propped up on the accompanying footrest, it was as if the man had not a care in the world. In fact, this snowstorm was a welcome reprieve for Savitr. He had spent a good two or three nights out earlier in the week. Nights blending into mornings. He couldn't even really remember, anymore.
But trapped indoors in an untimely blizzard-- How romantic! Perfect for a turn of the pen. And a recovering hangover.
With a sigh Jared waved his hand in front of his face, deciding not to argue. After all, it was his roommate's way of enjoying himself, and if this storm continued to rage, they would need every trick in the book to keep their minds sharp. Despite the fact that the two of them got on reasonably well, Savitr tended to be a bit moody coming down off of one of his benders. And Jared, bored and restless, was easily swept away by the man's pointless philosophizing.
"Do we have any Poe laying around?" He gave up on his e-mail, not that he would have gotten any requests, anyways, and paced over to a nearby bookshelf crammed to the brim with well-worn spines. Despite their furnitures' less-than-ideal appearance, the two roommates were orderly at heart, and kept their tomes well organized into genres, authors, and alphabetized title order.
"Used to, but I lent it out last week. But perhaps we should use our time not to distract ourselves with the geniuses that have come before us, but rather our own intellectual propensities."
Jared sat back down in the swively second-hand computer chair that, no matter how many times he'd tried to fix, was permanently stuck on its lowest setting. His eyes were wide on his roommate as he patiently awaited his next words. Despite what anyone said, Jared could listen to Savitr's ideas for hours.
And it seemed as if this snow storm was going to afford him just that chance.
In the apartment's living room there were only a pair of windows flanking either side of the firmly bolted door. From the flickering light hovering over the computer area where Jared now sat, the window nearest him showed a mass of white through which buildings, adrenaline-seeking passersby, and the grime of New York were all blurred together in a single poetic mass of impenetrable frost. A blank slate on which any history could be writ.
The mere fact that they were having such a blizzard in November seemed unprecedented; at least from Jared's experiences in his short time living in the city. Savit had mentioned being confused by it, too, but chalked it up to global warming, the inevitable downfall of man, world cycles, and such and such and such...
Having lived on the East Coast all his life, Jared was no stranger to cold winters, but it didn't mean he enjoyed them. Even the sparse snow days of his childhood had come to symbolize an unpleasant sense of unproductivity; instead of receiving the glistening knowledge handed down through his teachers, large snowfall meant being cooped up inside re-reading old books or watching his siblings sled and throw ice at each other. Or him. Usually him, now that he recalled. He hadn't been very skilled at returning the favor.
As an adult, the symbol of snow as an irritating barrier to progress had accurately translated into boring days without work.
Normally Jared would be going into the clinic by now, preparing for his early session. A missed day was a long time in an unstable life lived by the types of people he treated. Not being able to check in with them was making Jared even more antsy than usual. As their therapist, even in a group circle held at a struggling non-profit, he felt a certain moral duty to keep what little positivity they could cling to in the saga of their desperate lives afloat.
Though at the present, the threatening of the snows' endless whiteness made him wonder if perhaps he shouldn't be focusing on bolstering his own positivity...
After clicking the 'refresh' button on his e-mail page for about the thousandth time that hour, Jared absentmindedly toyed with his rubber "Self-Compassion It" bracelet. Flipping it inside out. Inside. Outside. No matter which way the rubber flexed, the message was always the same. If only he got an article request, it would give him something useful to put his mind to, rather than fruitlessly worrying over his patients.
Outside the foreboding windows, in that confusing haze of the storm, all sorts of things were happening under the secret guise of the cold. All sorts of exciting things no one would ever e-mail or call him to write about.
The page made no progress other than a continuously spinning circle in the corner. It was taking excruciatingly long to load this time. Maybe the blizzard was interfering with the Internet.
Jared's eyes flicked up helplessly to the only other tab he had opened: Dago's Daily News. He read it merely because Naomi Watts often submitted articles, and he couldn't help himself from a jealousy-tinged awe of following her career. If he kept working his hardest, wouldn't Dago's Daily one day seek him out as well?
This installment included another article about the Compass Killer. Despite their inhuman actions, the killer was, like him, a human being, living somewhere out there in the storm. Jared briefly pondered what a serial murderer like that would do while cooped up from the weather. Plan another assault? Surely even someone such as that would have other mental pursuits...other memories to sift through while staring out their own living room windows into the white.
The notorious murderer, if it really was the work of one man, had been operating for nearly a decade. Perhaps he was getting on in years...had a family of his own......
Thoughts more chilling than even the gruesome temperatures outside.
Without realizing it, Jared's gaze was once again lingering on the frigid window. He was sure that it was freezing, but if he wore several layers and his thickest winter jacket---
Just as he was about to make a suggestion, Sativr, as usual, beat him to it.
"Don't you think we should be spending this time more wisely?"
A puff of grey smoke began to intermingle and blur with image of the blizzard outside. Except that it was inside, spiraling around Jared's head. The would-be journalist let out a few meager coughs.
"Savit, do you think that you could maybe..." he searched for the most positive way to spin the situation. Given his training and prolonged exposure to his roommate's ways, that was usually the best way to approach requests with him, "...leave a bit more clear air for us? Especially if we're going to be locked up here..."
Upon hearing the broadcasted warnings, Jared had rushed to the store to gather up on provisions expecting a day or two trapped inside. The panic of the grocery store had solidified his expectations that it would be at least a few days before they could freely walk about.
"Nonsense. Even in a run-down shack like this, air circulation in these old New York buildings is superb."
Jared wasn't so sure about that, but he trusted Savit's knowledge of all things enough not to question it.
"Besides, a smokey atmosphere is good for the mind. Have you never read anything of Holmes? Dupin? One can only think when one's brain is freed from the burden of sensory perception."
After this musing Savitr took another long drag of his cigar, leisurely letting the smoke out in well-practiced rings, bubbling towards the dim, warm ceiling light only to change their point of invasion to disperse over the computer desk.
Per usual, the aesthete was sitting in his antique armchair that never failed to look out-of-place and too big for their dinky apartment. His feet propped up on the accompanying footrest, it was as if the man had not a care in the world. In fact, this snowstorm was a welcome reprieve for Savitr. He had spent a good two or three nights out earlier in the week. Nights blending into mornings. He couldn't even really remember, anymore.
But trapped indoors in an untimely blizzard-- How romantic! Perfect for a turn of the pen. And a recovering hangover.
With a sigh Jared waved his hand in front of his face, deciding not to argue. After all, it was his roommate's way of enjoying himself, and if this storm continued to rage, they would need every trick in the book to keep their minds sharp. Despite the fact that the two of them got on reasonably well, Savitr tended to be a bit moody coming down off of one of his benders. And Jared, bored and restless, was easily swept away by the man's pointless philosophizing.
"Do we have any Poe laying around?" He gave up on his e-mail, not that he would have gotten any requests, anyways, and paced over to a nearby bookshelf crammed to the brim with well-worn spines. Despite their furnitures' less-than-ideal appearance, the two roommates were orderly at heart, and kept their tomes well organized into genres, authors, and alphabetized title order.
"Used to, but I lent it out last week. But perhaps we should use our time not to distract ourselves with the geniuses that have come before us, but rather our own intellectual propensities."
Jared sat back down in the swively second-hand computer chair that, no matter how many times he'd tried to fix, was permanently stuck on its lowest setting. His eyes were wide on his roommate as he patiently awaited his next words. Despite what anyone said, Jared could listen to Savitr's ideas for hours.
And it seemed as if this snow storm was going to afford him just that chance.
Medium Post // Male // Comedy
Tattatattatattatattatattata---
Salome had hoped that the sound of his fingers drumming against the magazine-covered coffee table would distract his thoughts from his beating heart, but, as with most of his plans, it failed- instead causing his heart to dance faster alongside the rhythm.
---tattatattatattatattatattata
Suddenly he could take it no longer, curling his hand into a fist and jamming it into his lap. Luckily the little office was surprisingly empty, which meant he didn’t have to worry about ‘controlling’ himself, on top of everything else. Any more straining and his nerves would probably shatter from the weight of what lay beyond the ominous metal door.
This is it. The Grand Finale.
At 18 a ‘child’ is at once an adult, no longer a ward of the state. At 18, anyone in the foster care system who hasn’t had the luxury of being adopted is told ‘Good luck, see ya never!’ as they’re waved out the door with the suitcase of crappy belongings they’ve been tugging behind them their entire life and, likely, a much larger sack of emotional baggage to take with them to the cold shoulder-lined streets.
Considering, Salome had actually had it pretty easy. A cable TV in every home he had ever been in, and not much abuse outside the normal neglect expected when you were in care of someone --- usually not quite there on their own haunches to begin with --- who had opted to take a bunch of random little strangers into their home. He had had a good run of it, only getting kicked out every couples of months or so. At least he had somehow escaped being shuffled off to a house. He had no idea what went on in there, but just something about the idea made him think of a horse looking into a glue factory, pondering what might be causing the flowing clouds of smoke to color the pastel skies.
Salome was also lucky in that he had actually turned 18 before graduating high school, meaning that he could dredge up a few more months of freeloading before the ‘Great Unknown.’ Which had translated into getting possibly the crappiest apartment fathomable a lovely ninety minute bus ride away from the community college he had somehow weaseled his way into. The one that, thanks to a less-than-swimming registration, he was now taking a whopping 2 worthless classes at, giving him a whole lot of free time to sit despairingly in his room, trying not to think about the inevitable.
The last. Government. Check.
A few times his shaky hand had ruffled through a newspaper for the ‘Classifieds,’ thinking that somehow inspiration would leap from the tiny black letters into his heart and show him the way...
...And hopefully cure the mental illness he felt morally obligated to tell any future employer about. Yeah, the one that made him want to eat people.
And even if he somehow managed to keep his socially awkward trap shut, it wouldn’t be long before one quirky customer let the cat out of the bag. After all, history had shown that Salome was not very good at controlling his slip-ups. Not that he had ever truly hurt anyone...just...freaked a lot of people the heck out. He couldn’t blame them. No matter how hard he tried to live up to NPH, somehow his “Barney Stinson” always came off as “Jeffrey Dahmer.”
So days of class had passed while Salome slowly whittled down the checks the government sent him every month just to exist.
He didn’t even know why he was bothering with the whole “junior college” scene, anyways. A way to prolong the inevitable. He kept telling himself that this psychology thing could work out, even if he would have to find some way to not only get through community college, which, at this rate of registration, was going to take a decade, but then also pay his way through normal college and graduate school. Which would mean working, and dealing with people, and going to classes, and dealing with people, and living, and dealing with people. The same people his teeth couldn’t seem to keep themselves off of.
No matter how he cut it, there were a great many years of dealing with people in his future. After all, what was it that a mental health professional did? They saw people.
Well, Hannibal Lecter had been a psychiatrist before he started his murder spree. Maybe he could incorporate that into his tagline: Salome Tobias, Lecter prodigy, specialist in mental health and fine human cuisine.
Ah yes, he could see it now. Flocks of people streaming into his practice. Hopefully bringing their children, to boot.
“Mr. ...Salome Tobias?”
The secretary had at last sprung forth from the metal vault. Even focusing on how the primly astute woman couldn’t help from stumbling over how the heck to pronounce his foreign name wasn’t enough to distract Salome from the way her low-cut suit and swept-up hair left her long, tan neck exposed, just so, in the light.
Steady, boy.
He chastised himself, passing his tongue imperceptibly over his lips and trying to focus on the fingernails digging into his hands. Even the fear of this last confrontation wasn’t enough to stifle his goddamned tic.
A cruel god had definitely been laughing when they made him. And if memory served correct, that person was a hideous haggard woman with cucumber nose cackling over a boiling pot. Strange, he hadn’t thought about those distant ‘memories’ for such a long time...why were they cropping up now? Was this the meaning of seeing your “life flash before your eyes?” Maybe the second the person in charge of his case handed him the check, he would simply drop down dead, the world would end, and it would all be over and done with just like that. Nice and simple. No need to drag the comedy out any longer.
As he passed by the secretary he could feel his stomach lurch. The combination of nerves and desire was working his brain like taffy, and it irritated him.
Can’t you just let me destroy my life in peace?
He helplessly asked his body, but it seemed that his body didn’t give a damn about what his brain demanded, as the lurching sensation only grew stronger. In fact, the guitar plucking of his nerves was starting to effect his visual spectrum, as the world began to fade and blur and stretch in all sorts of weird patterns and shapes.
Feeling dizzy, Salome tried to blink it off, only to open his eyes to a dazzlingly blinding light.
What the ---?
He groped around in his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, fumbling them on as a collusion of thoughts jammed around in his brain.
I’m not high, right? Did the secretary spike the coffee? Is this a conspiracy? I was just joking before...but, is the government really going to kill me?
Before he knew it he was on his knees, groping around for the glasses that had somehow fallen off his face. The floor beneath him was not the clinical carpeting of Child Protective Services, however. It was...wood. What?
Putting a hand to his head, Salome finally found within him the strength to stand up, the sunglasses dangling from his other hand as he frantically cast about the room. There was a.......gathering, of sorts; the first person he saw could only be described as magicy-looking with a...a nice pair of...animal legs?
Jesus Christ. Is this some sort of Satan ritual? They summon a demon and I popped out?
He had to admit, that’d be a pretty funny one from Life. Touché. But, as wild an explanation as it seemed, he honestly didn’t have any better ideas. And with that his brain started to swoosh around in his head. No sense trying to make sense when he couldn’t even think straight.
Making his way pathetically to the corner of the room, Salome sat against the wall, hunching his knees up to his chest, his eyes darting around helplessly as he waited for his body to start working with him again and his brain mentally prepared itself to deal with so many strangers. Where even to start. Where even to flipping start.
Outside the cosplay furry, the others at the gathering included LARPers, a lost boy, some prissies, and an Asian girl retching into a bucket. So even cultists could party too hard.
Delightful.
He really hoped that he wouldn't be in these peoples' company long. After all he had to get back to---
Wait.
I wonder if this means I get to go a little longer before my last check?
It was the only small comfort he could muster. Procrastination, it seemed, was still ever in his favor.
Salome had hoped that the sound of his fingers drumming against the magazine-covered coffee table would distract his thoughts from his beating heart, but, as with most of his plans, it failed- instead causing his heart to dance faster alongside the rhythm.
---tattatattatattatattatattata
Suddenly he could take it no longer, curling his hand into a fist and jamming it into his lap. Luckily the little office was surprisingly empty, which meant he didn’t have to worry about ‘controlling’ himself, on top of everything else. Any more straining and his nerves would probably shatter from the weight of what lay beyond the ominous metal door.
This is it. The Grand Finale.
At 18 a ‘child’ is at once an adult, no longer a ward of the state. At 18, anyone in the foster care system who hasn’t had the luxury of being adopted is told ‘Good luck, see ya never!’ as they’re waved out the door with the suitcase of crappy belongings they’ve been tugging behind them their entire life and, likely, a much larger sack of emotional baggage to take with them to the cold shoulder-lined streets.
Considering, Salome had actually had it pretty easy. A cable TV in every home he had ever been in, and not much abuse outside the normal neglect expected when you were in care of someone --- usually not quite there on their own haunches to begin with --- who had opted to take a bunch of random little strangers into their home. He had had a good run of it, only getting kicked out every couples of months or so. At least he had somehow escaped being shuffled off to a house. He had no idea what went on in there, but just something about the idea made him think of a horse looking into a glue factory, pondering what might be causing the flowing clouds of smoke to color the pastel skies.
Salome was also lucky in that he had actually turned 18 before graduating high school, meaning that he could dredge up a few more months of freeloading before the ‘Great Unknown.’ Which had translated into getting possibly the crappiest apartment fathomable a lovely ninety minute bus ride away from the community college he had somehow weaseled his way into. The one that, thanks to a less-than-swimming registration, he was now taking a whopping 2 worthless classes at, giving him a whole lot of free time to sit despairingly in his room, trying not to think about the inevitable.
The last. Government. Check.
A few times his shaky hand had ruffled through a newspaper for the ‘Classifieds,’ thinking that somehow inspiration would leap from the tiny black letters into his heart and show him the way...
...And hopefully cure the mental illness he felt morally obligated to tell any future employer about. Yeah, the one that made him want to eat people.
And even if he somehow managed to keep his socially awkward trap shut, it wouldn’t be long before one quirky customer let the cat out of the bag. After all, history had shown that Salome was not very good at controlling his slip-ups. Not that he had ever truly hurt anyone...just...freaked a lot of people the heck out. He couldn’t blame them. No matter how hard he tried to live up to NPH, somehow his “Barney Stinson” always came off as “Jeffrey Dahmer.”
So days of class had passed while Salome slowly whittled down the checks the government sent him every month just to exist.
He didn’t even know why he was bothering with the whole “junior college” scene, anyways. A way to prolong the inevitable. He kept telling himself that this psychology thing could work out, even if he would have to find some way to not only get through community college, which, at this rate of registration, was going to take a decade, but then also pay his way through normal college and graduate school. Which would mean working, and dealing with people, and going to classes, and dealing with people, and living, and dealing with people. The same people his teeth couldn’t seem to keep themselves off of.
No matter how he cut it, there were a great many years of dealing with people in his future. After all, what was it that a mental health professional did? They saw people.
Well, Hannibal Lecter had been a psychiatrist before he started his murder spree. Maybe he could incorporate that into his tagline: Salome Tobias, Lecter prodigy, specialist in mental health and fine human cuisine.
Ah yes, he could see it now. Flocks of people streaming into his practice. Hopefully bringing their children, to boot.
“Mr. ...Salome Tobias?”
The secretary had at last sprung forth from the metal vault. Even focusing on how the primly astute woman couldn’t help from stumbling over how the heck to pronounce his foreign name wasn’t enough to distract Salome from the way her low-cut suit and swept-up hair left her long, tan neck exposed, just so, in the light.
Steady, boy.
He chastised himself, passing his tongue imperceptibly over his lips and trying to focus on the fingernails digging into his hands. Even the fear of this last confrontation wasn’t enough to stifle his goddamned tic.
A cruel god had definitely been laughing when they made him. And if memory served correct, that person was a hideous haggard woman with cucumber nose cackling over a boiling pot. Strange, he hadn’t thought about those distant ‘memories’ for such a long time...why were they cropping up now? Was this the meaning of seeing your “life flash before your eyes?” Maybe the second the person in charge of his case handed him the check, he would simply drop down dead, the world would end, and it would all be over and done with just like that. Nice and simple. No need to drag the comedy out any longer.
As he passed by the secretary he could feel his stomach lurch. The combination of nerves and desire was working his brain like taffy, and it irritated him.
Can’t you just let me destroy my life in peace?
He helplessly asked his body, but it seemed that his body didn’t give a damn about what his brain demanded, as the lurching sensation only grew stronger. In fact, the guitar plucking of his nerves was starting to effect his visual spectrum, as the world began to fade and blur and stretch in all sorts of weird patterns and shapes.
Feeling dizzy, Salome tried to blink it off, only to open his eyes to a dazzlingly blinding light.
What the ---?
He groped around in his jacket pocket for his sunglasses, fumbling them on as a collusion of thoughts jammed around in his brain.
I’m not high, right? Did the secretary spike the coffee? Is this a conspiracy? I was just joking before...but, is the government really going to kill me?
Before he knew it he was on his knees, groping around for the glasses that had somehow fallen off his face. The floor beneath him was not the clinical carpeting of Child Protective Services, however. It was...wood. What?
Putting a hand to his head, Salome finally found within him the strength to stand up, the sunglasses dangling from his other hand as he frantically cast about the room. There was a.......gathering, of sorts; the first person he saw could only be described as magicy-looking with a...a nice pair of...animal legs?
Jesus Christ. Is this some sort of Satan ritual? They summon a demon and I popped out?
He had to admit, that’d be a pretty funny one from Life. Touché. But, as wild an explanation as it seemed, he honestly didn’t have any better ideas. And with that his brain started to swoosh around in his head. No sense trying to make sense when he couldn’t even think straight.
Making his way pathetically to the corner of the room, Salome sat against the wall, hunching his knees up to his chest, his eyes darting around helplessly as he waited for his body to start working with him again and his brain mentally prepared itself to deal with so many strangers. Where even to start. Where even to flipping start.
Outside the cosplay furry, the others at the gathering included LARPers, a lost boy, some prissies, and an Asian girl retching into a bucket. So even cultists could party too hard.
Delightful.
He really hoped that he wouldn't be in these peoples' company long. After all he had to get back to---
Wait.
I wonder if this means I get to go a little longer before my last check?
It was the only small comfort he could muster. Procrastination, it seemed, was still ever in his favor.
Short Post // Female // Drama
Especially in the gloomy light, the infinite vertical lines defining branch after branch were beginning to blur together. Even stalwart Urha walked in an odd cycle, as if he had crossed the boundary of exhaustion long ago and only the steady motion of placing hoof before hoof was keeping him standing.
But the tiny party could not stop. At least something inside Eydis forced her forwards - a mad faith that their quest was nearly at an end, small whispers of light pulling her magnetically, deeper into what the locals called 'The Whispering Woods.' Something about the cold air of that name had remained with her, and so she hadn't forgotten Uryva’s words their last conversation.
“Edvyn has gone beyond the Whispering Woods.”
Which meant, just past these endless trees...
Uryva...
Eydis narrowed her eyes. Not long ago the two of them had been carrying on their usual fruitless banter. But there was no time to dwell on their fallen leader now. It was hard enough to try and wrap her mind about how she felt about him normally without being fatigued and shadowed by the threat of death.
And there was just something about these woods...
When the brave duo had made the decision to press on through the night, knowing that the area was thankfully sparse on Tarosian soldiers, Eydis hadn't given it much thought. But it was hard not to feel some tendrils of apprehension now that they were in the thick of the trees, barely able to see and faced with only Ord could tell what dangers.
She couldn't say that the strange sensation settling into her was fear. It was...more of a nostalgic feeling. If anything, the foreboding forest was home. A call back to the aura of darkness that had imprisoned Eydis for so many years. And that was fine. Yes...being used to the dark, there was nothing that the night could do to shake her. Especially not now. Not when her soul flickered with the brightest of all lights.
"It's no good. We'll just have to risk being seen. If we keep traveling like this we soon won't be able to find ourselves, let alone Tactician Edvyn."
Withdrawing the Magelight from a small collection of staves fitted onto her belt, Eydis closed her eyes, imagining for a second the hallowed altar of the church where she had first seen the Light. When she opened them, the golden glow in her mind was echoed by the staff's magical stone, burning a path for them. The rest would be up to Ord, and she fully entrusted Him to lead them to their goal. Travel would at least be much easier this way, but, of course, the brightness was also a flare, alerting others of their presence.
Others...
Urha made one of his strange sounds- halfway between a whinny and a whine -as he stopped his rhythm to take an uncertain step back. He wasn't very intelligent, for a horse, but he could sense danger better than any.
"Fridith, there seems to be some kind of monstrous creature just past those trees," Eydis said in a low but firm voice. After all, Fridith was a knight, and for anything they came across, the healer had little choice but to leave extermination to her companion.
Not that she could do nothing to help. For her own part, Eydis's free hand darted to her belt where the small pouch holding her explosives hung. She may not be able to wield a sword, but even the weakest can ignite a bomb.
But the tiny party could not stop. At least something inside Eydis forced her forwards - a mad faith that their quest was nearly at an end, small whispers of light pulling her magnetically, deeper into what the locals called 'The Whispering Woods.' Something about the cold air of that name had remained with her, and so she hadn't forgotten Uryva’s words their last conversation.
“Edvyn has gone beyond the Whispering Woods.”
Which meant, just past these endless trees...
Uryva...
Eydis narrowed her eyes. Not long ago the two of them had been carrying on their usual fruitless banter. But there was no time to dwell on their fallen leader now. It was hard enough to try and wrap her mind about how she felt about him normally without being fatigued and shadowed by the threat of death.
And there was just something about these woods...
When the brave duo had made the decision to press on through the night, knowing that the area was thankfully sparse on Tarosian soldiers, Eydis hadn't given it much thought. But it was hard not to feel some tendrils of apprehension now that they were in the thick of the trees, barely able to see and faced with only Ord could tell what dangers.
She couldn't say that the strange sensation settling into her was fear. It was...more of a nostalgic feeling. If anything, the foreboding forest was home. A call back to the aura of darkness that had imprisoned Eydis for so many years. And that was fine. Yes...being used to the dark, there was nothing that the night could do to shake her. Especially not now. Not when her soul flickered with the brightest of all lights.
"It's no good. We'll just have to risk being seen. If we keep traveling like this we soon won't be able to find ourselves, let alone Tactician Edvyn."
Withdrawing the Magelight from a small collection of staves fitted onto her belt, Eydis closed her eyes, imagining for a second the hallowed altar of the church where she had first seen the Light. When she opened them, the golden glow in her mind was echoed by the staff's magical stone, burning a path for them. The rest would be up to Ord, and she fully entrusted Him to lead them to their goal. Travel would at least be much easier this way, but, of course, the brightness was also a flare, alerting others of their presence.
Others...
Urha made one of his strange sounds- halfway between a whinny and a whine -as he stopped his rhythm to take an uncertain step back. He wasn't very intelligent, for a horse, but he could sense danger better than any.
"Fridith, there seems to be some kind of monstrous creature just past those trees," Eydis said in a low but firm voice. After all, Fridith was a knight, and for anything they came across, the healer had little choice but to leave extermination to her companion.
Not that she could do nothing to help. For her own part, Eydis's free hand darted to her belt where the small pouch holding her explosives hung. She may not be able to wield a sword, but even the weakest can ignite a bomb.
I have gone shorter and I have gone longer so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Those long ones are important tho, cause, if it freaks you the flip out, then...IDK what to say, cause that's an actual length of a post I might spring. So if that sort of thing bothers you then thanks for reading this far and well wishes on the journey to finding your match. Otherwise I don't really expect anyone to write the next Great American Novel or anything. Just do your best to make a fun RP, and I will do the same. (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
Now that that's out of the way...
Now that that's out of the way...
What am I Looking For??
- I’m open to pretty much anything, though I like to have lots of room for creativity, world-building, and complex long-term plots so usually modern slice-of-lifey stuff is out (not that I haven't done it nor will not do it again if the circumstances catch my fancy). Unless you have a really good dick/PI RP idea because I've been dying to do one my entire fkkn life.
- Most important thing I'm looking for is someone who is willing to put their all into their storytelling. It would be cool to have someone who is on the wordy side (though if our posts don't mirror I won't crack a jack). But since I want to improve / experiment with my writing, anyone else who just wants to do the same is totes alright. (And yea, I do experiment...so sorry if some of my writing is cringey =coughs=.)
- A penchant for getting dark. like. really dark. is not a necessity, but a BIG plus. B) I'm always itching to open the locked chest of grim imaginings. I will guiltily slip some in whenever I get a chance, so it's nice to know I have a partner that will be hokke with letting me do my thing.
Don't let this cheerful coding fool you, I am one fkkd up pup - A sense of humor would also be jammin ninja because camp and dark comedy is my jive and I don’t think I can have a good RP if my partner isn’t willing to have fun. This is fun...right?
- As you likely are able to tell I'm a chattster. xD So, again, OOC isn't a dealbreaker, but my brain is unfortunately hardwired to think that radio silence means you're not enjoying the RP and then I start showing up at your workplace with flowers and coffee and candy and you're happy, right? right? right?
- Also be able to put up with my awkwardness, Haha. Ha ha. Ha.
Rururules?
- I tend towards male characters because back in the day there seemed to always be a dire need for the **** and eventually I just got used to that line of thinking, but I don’t really care either way as long as I have a good idea for someone (my female characters are precious treasures). But you will see that most of the red characters are male. I'm trying to rescue as many kids as I can from the Child Broiler.
- Years of mostly doing M x F and I'm kind of
sick of this hetero shteager to work with something different. (M x M and F x F and whatever other ! x ? you can think of). Currently I am not taking any more M x F RPs unless you have something that really sparkles. I am just getting worn out on them and don't want to disrespect the partners I already have.But you can always try me because I'm the world's biggest pushover.There are some plots I'm more willing to do M x F than others. - I try not to be picky about how much you write as long as you're willing to put up with my posts and can spin a good yarn. However, extremely short responses (like the infamous "one liners") will stress me out and send me spiraling into an existential crisis. Which sounds ridiculous, but if I get really short replies I'll become paranoid that mine will be bothersome if they're too long and that you're not having fun then I'm not having fun and it's just a big stupid mess.
- Posting once a day or two would be nice. I'm pretty understanding, but also thirsty af for a good RP. Also time zones are kind of a b**ch. There might be times where I faze out because of school n stuff but I will come back for you. To be clear, I will almost always put my HP and Group RPs before 1x1, but that doesn't mean you aren't loved. It's just a responsibility thing, ya feel? Communication is swaggigity. Nothing gives me blueballs more than getting hyped up for an RP coming up with all these ideas and plot bunnies and then POOF, partner-chan is inexplicably never heard from again. You know the feel.
- On that note, please for the love of Furbies everywhere, do not message me only to poof out. Do not message me, then get me to make a CS, then poof out. Do not message me, then get me to make a CS, then get me to write an OP, then poof out. This really gets the jimmies rustling, I have to admit. If you're not feeling it I completely understand, but I put a ton of effort into my RPs and it breaka me heart when this happens. :''') My time is kinda limited so...I prefer for it to be well spent. :''''''3
- I try to be as open and welcoming as possible (and I'd like to think I'm one of the more chillax people out there), but I am highly trope-sensitive. I can be picky when it comes certain cliches, especially romantic ones. It's not that I don't love me a good romance but if it's two pieces of cardboard trying to figure out how to position their stiff cardboard arms around each other then I'ma get hella bored and that's not good for either of us. I'm sure you can find someone less picky about that stuff than I am, so go to them. Make them a happy home. But I need meat on my relationships. I just know myself and what will get me to lose interest. it’s okay for me to say that in my own thread, right? Btw I am a huge slut for star-crossed love though.
- HARD LIMIT (I only have one, here it is): I really don't like one-way male -> female violence (Why? It's done way too much in fiction -damsel in distress anyone?-, not to mention depressingly enough IRL, and just makes me unhappy no matter which role you want me to play), so if you wanna do a grittier RP, yes, but please let's do anything but 'males' abusing the bejesus out of 'females' (I put quotes cause I'm not binarist, I swear). I'll only do it if I have a damn good idea or think it's absolutely necessary to further the RP. Truest true here, I get a kind of creepy feeling from these kidnapesque plots with female chares looking for some sketchy dude to dominate them.
If I write torture porn it's going to be to get my own socks off not somebody else'sFor me reciprocal ('cat and mouse' type) relationships are best. BBB)
Ideas
- As for ideas, some of these are quite old, gathering dust in the idea bin, and some are hot messes. Please feel free to make suggestions, comments, changes, whatever. I will only be intrigued. B) The most fun 1x1’s I’ve had have started off with a simple idea and built into something awesome tailor fit to both partners. Also I love spitballing, though I might be shy about it. (⸝⸝•́દ•̀⸝⸝)
- Things that I tend to like for whatever reason are princes, knights, policemen, gangsters, historical settings, and anything involving Japanese mysticism (like youkai, onmyouji, ect). Anybody that wears cool clothes, basically. And nice hats. And things related to water. I was an oar fish in a past life.
- Current Cravings: Something set in Japan (from Meiji to Heisei), Space Opera
- So yeah I’d love to bounce ideas off people in PM but in the clickable accordion below I’ll throw out some stuff I keep in my pocket for kicks.
Red is if I already have a character in mind for that role, but I might be flexible. If it has a * it means I would like to have more than 1x1 (such as 1x2, 2x2, or NPCs). ! is for higher levels of thirst.
Again, if you want to poke around or change some things feel free to ask. Ideas are most excellent.
Again, if you want to poke around or change some things feel free to ask. Ideas are most excellent.
-
Demon x Priest -
Setting: Fantasy
Characters: Demon and Priest
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: Demon has some sort of curse that the Priest sorta knows how to fix, but they must go to the “Holy Capital” or Priesthood Headquarters or somewhere to meet someone or get something to actually fix it. In return Priest demands that the Demon stop being a derk to people or release their slaves or whatever. Both secretly (or not so secretly) plan to take over the other once the curse is released: The Priest plans to make the Demon a familiar, and the Demon plans to make the Priest a slave (or whatever it is that Demons do). Fantasy-esque journey to the Capital ensues, with hopefully world building because world building is the shitz.
-
Genius x Biggest Fan * -
Setting: Any (Historical, Modern, Fantasy)
Characters: Person of Repute and “Greatest” Fan
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: Person A is someone of reputed talent; they could be a world-famous author, poet, actor, musician, scientist, philosopher...anything, really. Perhaps they have fallen on hard times, or are out of the public’s good graces. Or not. In any case, they have done something substantial with their life. Person B calls themselves Person A’s greatest fan. They have somehow gotten close to Person A without being too noticeable; maybe they work Will Call at the theater Person A is known to perform at, maybe they share literary circles. Person B, however, thinks that Person A is capable of so much more, and is willing to do anything to get one last great accomplishment from Person A, even if this means psychological manipulation...or worse. This idea is loosely based off of an existing historical fiction, so I was thinking that Person A could be based off of a real person (ie: Hans Christian Anderson, Michelangelo, Sappho, whoever) or a made up person, but I think that the historical aspect of it could be fun. Since character death is a likely thing, if you decide to be Person A you have to be willing to be flexible. We could switch off with every incarnation, too, or maybe Person B is part of an organization so we could switch that way. Who knows?
-
Noble x Spy *! -
Setting: Fantasy (or Historical Fantasy)
Characters: Infiltrator, Warden, Noble
Pairings: MxFxF, MxFxM, MxMxF, MxMxM, FxFxF, FxFxM, FxMxF, FxMxM
Plot: Infiltrator has been captured / kidnapped by Warden due to a family feud / war / whatever (Infiltrator doesn’t necessarily have to be very involved in said conflict, their family name is enough to warrant attention). Warden offers Infiltrator a chance to save their life / free themselves by performing a mission: They must infiltrate a mansion / castle / ect. belonging to Noble and pretending to be a servant / biographer / ect. Warden cannot do this mission themselves due to plot device, (such as Noble has taken a fancy to having only people of Infiltrator's sex work for them, they recognize Warden by face, ect.). In fact, many mysterious things have been happening around Noble, but that’s not exactly what Warden cares about. Instead, Warden wants Infiltrator to secure something for them in Noble's home (it could be an ancient artifact, blackmail material to use against Noble politically, ect.). Maybe even someone important to Warden went missing in connection with Noble. In any case, Warden wants Infiltrator to do their dirty work, and since Infiltrator doesn’t want to end up imprisoned / starved / tortured / killed, they’re willing to go for it. To ensure their loyalty Warden uses a plot device (such as a magic ring that will poison them if they don’t do xyz, or holding a companion of Infiltrator hostage) that might also allow Warden to track Infiltrator or keep in contact. Thus Infiltrator goes to Noble's home to investigate what’s going on, needing to get closer to Noble in order to learn about whatever it is Warden wants. There are many mysteries surrounding Noble’s history and past and rumors and legends about the mansion, so Infiltrator can investigate these all. Not to mention the possible war / political conflict involving all the characters on the outside. And perhaps Infiltrator and Noble become romantically attracted towards each other, or Infiltrator to Warden, or even Warden to Noble, who knows? Anyways, if you’re thinking I have some overreaching idea for this, I don’t, but if you’re interested in that kind of framework, let’s build something together. :3
-
Thief x Rebel * -
Setting: Post-Apocalyptic / Far-Future
Characters: Sheep Heir, Rebellion Heir, Possible Sheep Siblings
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: This one actually has a whole shit ton of lore dedicated to it that I can dump which explains backstory / setting because my friend and I developed this just never actually did anything with it (I got permission from her to reuse it don't worry xD), but basically it’s about this family of thieves who are battling a cult in trying to regain an ancient artifact. Rebellion Heir is from the rebellion (yup) and ended up with the artifact, and Sheep Heir is from a disgraced family kicked out of the cult and trying to regain the artifact to get back in. In the past we doubled on characters since there were 3 Sheep Siblings and 1 Rebel, which would be the ideal but is not necessary. Don’t be thrown off by all the characters / family lore stuff because if you’re not comfortable with it I’m totally cool with re-writing all da shiz...also my friend is the one who made the site so there’s nothing I can really do about it, but it explains some world building / lore so here it is:
-
Scion x Con Artist ! -
Setting: Fantasy / Modern / Modern Fantasy
Characters: Scion and Con Artist
Pairings: MxF, MxM
Plot: Scion is born of a wealthy family, but is determined not to be seen as someone who just gets by on name alone. Wanting to make something of themselves for themselves, they decides to run away to establish their own company to rival their parents. Being extremely overprotective, those same parents end up hiring Con Artist to track down Scion and down and bring them home, no matter the tactics nor the consequences. Hijinks ensue...
Got some juicy lore for this one and would love to see how it plays out.
-
Queen x Opposing General * -
Setting: Fantasy / Historical Fantasy
Characters: Queen, Fiancee, General, (Potential) Child
Pairings: FxMxMxF, FxMxMxM, FxFxMxM, FxFxMxF
Plot: Queen and General come from opposite sides of a long-time war. Despite this, as children, they fell in love, promising each other to be together forever. However, Queen became engaged to Fiancee instead (Fiancee could be male or female we could get progressive fantasy setting here). Feeling betrayed, General completely turned his back on her, taking advantage of Queen after a battle, causing her to later have an illegitimate child by him. Now the child is growing up, the war continues to rage on, and General has been given an important task to infiltrate enemy lines, bringing everyone back into contact with the painful memories of long ago...
RP Credit: Eevee_lover101
-
Homicide Detective x Murderer ! -
Setting: Modern / Historical
Characters: Homicide Detective and (Serial) Murderer
Pairings: MxF, MxM
Plot: No exact plot for this one...I just really, really like detective fiction. And this pairing idea.Sadly I have not seen the Hannibal TV show, though everyone tells me that I should.
-
Jack Frost x Winter Lover *! -
Setting: Modern
Characters: Jack Frost and Winter Lover (Muse), (Possibly other Seasonal Spirits like Father Frost and the Snow Maiden and Winter Lover's Partner)
Pairings: MxF, MxM (For this one I kinda do want some hetero shit but eh)
Plot: (Based off of the Rankin Bass movie with some Russian folklore). Muse has always loved winter time, especially the legends of the playful trickster Jack Frost who brings the snow they so love. When Muse says that they "love" Jack Frost, however, he takes it a bit too literally. In fact, Jack Frost is also in love with Muse, and has watched over them every winter. Thinking that Muse has seen him and now loves him back, Jack begs the Ruler of Winter for a chance to become mortal and make a life with her. He is given this chance, but only under special conditions. What he doesn't know is that Muse is already in a committed relationship...and the other Spirits of the Seasons aren't too keen on having the long-held Balance of Nature be upset.
-
Summoner x Summoned -
Setting: Fantasy
Characters: Summoner and Summoned
Pairings: MxF, MxM
Plot: Summoner comes from a world with magic. An important rite of passage is when a mage summons their first familiar. Instead of something useful, however, Summoner accidentally sucks Summoned away from our world into theirs. Now they must discover the reason why Summoned has been called to Summoner's world, related to an ancient prophecy or sense of disruption. Unluckily for Summoner's world, however, Summoned has no intention of becoming a hero, and instead is already planning to take over the world and become its greatest villain---!??
RP Credit: Developed with AmethystRose
-
Prince(ss) x Guardian * -
Setting: Fantasy
Characters: Prince(ss), Guardian, Fiancee
Pairings: FxMxF, MxMxF, MxMxM, FxFxF, MxFxF, MxFxM
Plot: Prince(ss) and Fiancee come from different magical kingdoms. In Fiancee's kingdom, they have the ability to see other people's soulmates in the form of red Strings of Fate. Because of this, they know they are fated to be with Prince(ss). However, Guardian has been by the Prince(ss)'s side their entire life, helping them to deal with plot conflict (could be cross dressing, a mysterious illness, political intrigue, who the heck knows). Because of this, Guardian has slowly fallen in love, but they know that the Prince(ss) cannot be with them, as their soulmate is their Fiancee and they need to marry in order to join their kingdoms (perhaps there's some sort of conflict going on as well which the marriage will hopefully put an end to). While trying to keep their feelings hidden from Prince(ss), Guardian must also be careful never to be seen by Fiancee, terrified of what their powers might show them...
Depending on which role you'd like to play I do have a few more ideas to develop this.
-
Mercenary x Companion !!! -
Setting: Fantasy
Characters: Mercenary, Companion, Lady, Demon Lord
Pairings: MxMxFxM, MxMxFxF
Plot: In a world on the edge of disaster, humanity isn't fairing well in the struggle to survive. Humans never fully recovered from a war between the races (Demons, Humans, and Beasts), and still remain subservient to the Demons who lord over them. But even in such desparate times, there is hope. Like a young romance between the children of two poverty-stricken families, who promise themselves to each other for the rest of their lives. But circumstances separated them, and they grew up alone. The boy discovered in himself a "bad habit," find himself increasingly attracted to other men, but not wanting to break the promises of his youth. When he and his Lady finally reunite, however, it is revealed that her family already promised her to a powerful and mysterious Demon Lord in return for wealth, and she is spirited away. But Mercenary, feeling responsible towards his childhood friend, isn't about to give up so easily. He decides to take on the hopeless quest to find the Demon's secret lair and defeat it in combat, struggling with his own apprehensions the entire time. Along the way he finds Companion, who is dealing with their own problems in this society. For various reasons, they decide to team up, and when Mercenary starts finding himself attracted to his (male) Companion, his purpose and drive are once more brought into question...
(This is one where it kind of has to be MxM...cause...that's the plot lmao. In an ideal world I will be playing the Merc and his Lady. There is quite a bit of lore developed for this, but we can change it around based on whatever. The most important thing is a sense of desperation and a world on collapse, because I'd really like to set a tone of hopelessness for this RP. I can let you know the ideas of the person who initially worked on this for inspiration, and I have more for world building and potential plot bunnies...but mostly I would just love the chance to develop this RP.)
RP Credit: Developed with A Guileless Fable
-
Atheist x Angel / Helper * -
Setting: Modern
Characters: Atheist and Angel, or Atheist and Human Helper
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: Atheist was born of the unlikely and somewhat sinful union of the Archangel Cassiel and a human woman. Orphaned at a young age, they grew up knowing none of this, and developed a very realistic, logical mind which doesn't believe in the empty foolishness of religion, especially not fantastical beings like angels. However, on their coming-of-age birthday, it is decreed that, as a half angel, Atheist must fulfill their duty to God, and so Angel has begun to track them down in order to drag them back to Heaven. Likewise, Atheist could be running from Angel and run into Helper, an unwitting bystander who has just been dragged into Heaven's mess...
-
Assassin x Bystander -
Setting: Any
Characters: Assassin and Bystander
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: Assassin is pretty confident in their work, having been at the career for long enough to have earned a reputation. However, while going after an important target, they are observed by Bystander. At first Assassin doesn't see them as much of a threat, and ignores them. But what if Bystander has ideas of their own, and is willing to use their newfound knowledge of Assassin against them? In this game of cat and mouse, it's a constant exchange of who has the upper hand.
-
World Hopper x Other Worlder *!!! -
Setting: Any
Characters: World Hopper, Other Worlder, Chaser
Pairings: MxFxF, MxMxF, MxMxM, MxFxM
Plot: World Hopper has been blessed (or cursed!) with the ability to teleport between worlds. On one occasion, (or, likely, more than one occasion), they got mixed up into some serious trouble, gaining the unwanted attention of Chaser, who also has the ability to go between worlds. Ever since Hopper's been on the run. Enter Other Worlder, and we could make this go however we'd like. Maybe Other is part of a resistance, maybe they are solving some mystery about their past, maybe they have some artifact that others are trying to get. Other could be from our world or somewhere completely made up. Whatever it is, when they run into World Hopper, they believe they've found someone who holds the key to their life success, and aren't about to let them get away. World Hopper develops a fondness for Other, or decides it's to their mutual benefit for them to stick around. Just hope that Chaser doesn't catch up too quickly...
(Yup this one needs a lot of work depending on your interests, but it sounds fun! I also have quite a bit of lore ideas mashed from other failed RPs / ideas from the past, so I'd be really excited to see where it could go!)
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Mythical Beast x Human !! -
Setting: Fantasy / Historical (Pseudo-Rome)
Characters: Griffin, Human
Pairings: MxM, MxF
Plot: I'm not a furry I swearThe Griffin (or could be some other mythological beast) is an ancient, magical being that lives in a magnificent cave full of riches and gets their kicks preying on any humans who pass their road, consuming their hearts then stealing their merchandise. Warriors, villagers, merchants, scholars...many have tried to subdue the beast, but all meet the same end. At a loss of what to do and wanting to pass by the road unharried, the humans prayed to the Gods for assistance. Thinking to teach the Griffin a lesson, the Gods decide to turn him into the thing he despises most - a human. Now the creature has to navigate the human realm and try to find a way to reverse the curse without being found out for being the terrible beast that has taken so many lives and caused so many woes. Your character could be literally anything, from a gladiator recruiter who decides to use the scrappy Griffin as their prize fighter to a Demi-God trying to discover the mysteries of their own parentage...honestly up to you. But my character will be manipulating yours every step of the way to get back to feasting on those delicious human hearts ASAP.
RP Credit: Persimmon
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Sleepwalker x Bystander -
Setting: Any
Characters: Sleepwalker and Bystander
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: At precisely the same time every night Sleepwalker finds themselves outside the house of Bystander as if in a trance. The next morning they wake up covered in dirt, knowing nothing about their nightly trips. Eventually Bystander catches on, and begins to wonder about this mysterious person who continues to show up every night. What ensues is an exploration of an ages-old mystery...
RP Credit: This RP was not my original idea, but I can't for the life of me remember where I read it. If you are the OG owner of this RP and want credit / for me to take it down then that's no problemo.
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Mercenary x Prince(ss) ! -
Setting: Fantasy
Characters: Mercenary and Prince(ss)
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: Mercenary is the last descendant from a royal line which was decimated and dismantled by Prince(ss)'s family. However, this was not done with entirely malicious intent. Mercenary's family was corrupt, irresponsible, and causing much misery in their domain. Nevertheless, Mercenary, who was smuggled away during the attack, deeply misses their fallen family and has sworn to avenge them. Raised in secret by trusted friends, Mercenary has honed their skills, waiting for the chance to get revenge. However, for one reason or another, they are captured while on a mission and are impressed to fight alongside Prince(ss) as part of their guard or in their army. On the plus side, Mercenary is now closer than ever to the object of their ire. On the down side, they are being watched extremely closely. While trying to conceal the true extent of their heritage, Mercenary will do their best to get into Prince(ss) good graces in the hopes of one day betraying them. Or will Prince(ss) convince Mercenary to forgive and put behind the past...?
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Princess x Princes ! -
Setting: Modern / Historical
Characters: Princess, Prince, Childhood Friend
Pairings: FxMxM
Plot: Childhood Friend comes from a criminal family, his father being accused and executed for plotting against the king. However, in a demonstration of magnanimity, the king decided to take on the now orphaned Childhood Friend and his family as servants in his castle. There Childhood Friend met Princess, and despite their differing pasts, the two grew quite close. However, while trying to show off, Childhood Friend accidentally got the Princess hurt, and him and his entire family were henceforth banished from the castle as a result. Now, many years later, the kingdom is in decline. The king has decided to try and betroth his daughter to one of the princes of the much more powerful neighboring kingdom, despite the prince's renowned bad attitude, especially towards women. Hearing such rumors, Childhood Friend decides to sneak back into the castle, disguising himself as a foreign noble, to try and save the fate of his one-time friend. But will he be able to pull off such an escapade without being recognized, and what will even come of the pair if he succeeds?
RP Credit: Developed with Jordichan
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Demon x Angel !! -
Setting: Modern / Historical
Characters: Demon and Angel
Pairings: MxF, MxM
Plot: Angel and Demon spend their eternal life on Earth, same as the others from Heaven and Hell, trying to influence humans. Angel attempts to make them do acts of good, while Demon tries to convince them to sin. They keep running into one another, somehow always going after the same target. Eventually, they make a fun game out of it, trying to influence one another. However, the game becomes more serious when Demon finds themselves having less bad thoughts, and Angel becomes a fan of less than angelic habits.
This RP has lore heavily based on Christian demonology. Should be fun! I do love cat-and-mouse. B)
RP Credit: Aykimra
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Priest x Vampire !!! -
Setting: Historical / Urban Fantasy
Characters: Priest and Vampire
Pairings: MxF, MxM
Plot: Yes this is different from the Priest x Demon plot lmao. If you like twisted / abusive relationships then boyo do I have the plot for you! I had some really fun ideas for this kind of setup that I would love to explore. But it's more conceptual than, like, an actual plot I guess.Which automatically means no one is gonna wanna do it lmaoThe basic premise is that Vampire, a narcissistic atheist / megalomaniac / ect., for some reason gets interested in Priest, and basically seduces / forces them to the dark side. Some of the concepts I wanted to explore would be things like eternity, beauty, faith, love, passion, guilt, pleasure ect. I was thinking it would be more like an Anne Rice type Vampire setup, but honestly I don't really know too much about Vampire lore or care too much so go wild. Honestly I wouldn't mind playing the Vampire too much, but at the moment I have more ideas for the Priest, so I think I'll try that first. Potential more "plotty" ideas could include getting involved with the Vampire community at large and how they play into this relationship. But yeah, mostly I am looking to develop an intense, unhealthy relationship as an excuse to explore some themes. But hey got some more weird ideas / kinks? Lay em on me. xD
(These next three could probably be combined with something else)
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Childhood Friends -
Setting: Any
Characters: Friend 1 and Friend 2
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot: So this is the loosey goosiest plot of them all. But I've been re-watching movies from my childhood and recently had the painful treat of The Fox and the Hound. And I love the idea of two people being friends in their youth and innocence, not knowing that one day they will be forced to be enemies. Since I don't really RP animal characters, I'm not sure what kind of context we could come up with to repeat that narrative for more humanistic ones, but I would love to try. I guess it could be anything. But it would be super awesome if we could keep the "one day I'll have to kill you" aspect. Raising the stakes. (And maybe create some sort of Chief-like character who dies in the scuffle to heighten the moral dilemma, IDK). I'll be happy if anyone decides to work on this with me though, lol.
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Fish Outta Water (Time Traveler?) x Native *!! -
Setting: Any
Characters: Fish and Native
Pairings: MxF, MxM, FxF
Plot:I'm too lazy to write up something coherent right nowI'm a sucker for this kind of story, Character X is inextricably pulled into Character Y's world and has to figure out how to survive and get home, or if they even want to. I know they're a hot mess but I love time travel scenarios for this, especially because so few fictions out there have really fully explored how incredibly friggin amazing time travel is. But if Character X isn't a master of time that can also be kinda exciting because they have to figure out what the heck happened to send themselves back. One of my favorite manga is about a boy who is sent back in time to take his grandpa's place essentially and figure out the trigger that will send him home, and it's great because everyone thinks he's his grandpa and just suffering a mental break when he tries to tell them he's the grandson and he has to juggle all these pressures from being teleported plus his own crazy life plus his grandpa's crazy life plus the new friends he's making while acting as his grandpa. It's set in Taisho Era Japan which is one of the coolest periods ever so...I kinda got on a side rant there but you get the point. I like history and historical periods but this could just as easily be fantasy with magical portals or science fiction with aliens and planets. The role of Native can be parallel to Fish as in they are both working together towards a common goal and Native acts as Fish's guide. Or, like in the manga example, if Fish is taking the place of someone actually from that period, Native could deal with the fact that someone close to them has changed forever and they may not be able to get them back, ect. Native could also be involved in the method of the "out-of-watering" itself, maybe they are part of a time traveler's guild whose macguffin is now broken so they are stuck with Fish in Ancient Egypt. I wouldn't mind hopping about to different locations too. We could have just those two characters and create NPCs around the places they visit, entangling their ties and making things more difficult when it's time to leave. Yeah this sounds like a lot of fun. Okay I may just be sort of obsessed with time travel alright?
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Yandere x Yandere *!!! -
Setting: Any
Characters: Yandere, Target, Bigger Yandere
Pairings: MxFxF, MxMxF, MxFxM, MxMxM, FxMxF, FxFxF
Plot: This idea is complete and utter trash, but I really wanna do it lmao. If you don't know what a 'Yandere' is, that's okay, because I use the term extremely loosely anyways. But basically a bully/stalker/possessive type character. Got it? Good. So Yandere is obsessed with Target and enjoys bullying them every chance they get, basically just making their life a living Hell (Yandere is sort of a prick). But when Bigger Yandere finds themselves attracted to Yandere, the tables are turned, and Yandere just might have met their possessive match.
(We could set this literally anywhere, yo. The more creative the better, though school would be fine, too. And I'd totes be willing to spin more specific lore based on what kind of genre you'd wanna set up.)
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I like your mercenary x companion plot and would love to role play that with you.
