Every fool is pleased with his own folly.

PURPLE

you have been used. you carry the world under your tongue, which is the safest it can be with you, and you glare at those who try to take it from you. what else are you good for, you wonder, if not being used- better than being ignored. you don't need them to tell you your own name. fight back.

tagged by: @perikallis

COFFEE

Key Words: intelligent, old soul, complex. you are an extremely thoughtful individual with a creative mind and loving heart. being around you is like sinking into a warm bath. there's something truly wise about the advice you give others, and being in your presence leaves others feeling warm, reassured, and inspired. 

Compatible with: coffee, candle smoke, freshly baked bread.

“So hey remember that time you got fucked up and I decided stabbing you a few times with an unsanitised needle would be a good idea?”

@splendidanatolia

“You could have been more careful,” Sadik informed the man, wiping down the long gash on his side. It was difficult to stitch up because of its location–it kept bleeding and making it hard for him to see where he was supposed to be sewing. If he wasn’t careful, he could do more damage, or leave it open to infection, and that could easily be fatal. “You’re usually more careful.” It wasn’t unheard of for him to be injured of course, they all got beat up once in a while, but it still felt odd seeing the usually cool, collected fellow writhing on the pallet while Sadik tried to stitch him up. “Stay awake; talk to me.”

"If all wishes were granted, we’d have no need of the gods,” Gyasi replied. It was muffled by his face turned into the pillow, his hands spasmodically gripping at the rough fabric as he felt the rough, nauseating pull of thread through his flesh.

The summer sun’s rays beat through the tent’s canvas with stifling force, and Gyasi felt both hot and cold in dizzying succession. He grit his teeth against the groan of agony that wanted to erupt as he felt a fresh fall of blood soaking his side. What to call this circumstance--mere circumstance? Proper karmic retribution?

“No good deed unpunished,” he mumbled to no one, and tried to remember where he’d first heard it.

He imagined it first on his mother’s lips, able to picture the shape of her voice and the quiet look of amused reproach as she chided him gently. But no--she had never spoken these words. They were born far after her and her time.

Cool, phantom hands pressed against his face, against the bloodied, sweat-slick valley of his spine, but brought no relief.

“I’m usually more careful,” he echoed, turning his head just enough to watch Sadik’s face as he stitched. There were more muddy images flashing through his head and Gyasi had neither the inclination nor the energy to begin sorting the fiction from the fact.

The battlefield was true. The blood had happened. The spear in his hands had broken and the evidence was there in the splinters left in his palms.

These were all true stories and could not be refuted.

He was normally more careful--probably true, even if it was said by a liar like Sadik. He felt that truth in his marrow.

The fiction came in confused spurts of overwhelming colour and sound and smoke and stench, garish sunlight and the screams of dying horses in the spear trenches.

There had been a man there, one whose face used to be that of a child he had loved, and Gyasi was normally more careful--

@ofkemet

He had a small window in his room that was shaped like a keyhole.

He thought that maybe, with the right key, he could unlock the sky and find Nuet waiting. He loved more than anything the rich shade of blue-black just as the sky was beginning to lighten with morning, the color leeching away into bottle green before the startling smudge of indescribable color along the horizon line. Just when he thought he had decided whether or not it was brown or orange or tawny, he blinked and could tell no longer.

That color, he decided, was the embroidered trim on the hem of Nuet’s dancing skirts that she fluttered at him coquettishly before folding them away to don a more sensible dress of scrubbed blue.

And Nuet’s night dances were very beautiful, of course, but he preferred the artistry in the way she would paint his mother wine-dark and velvety with broad strokes of sable before delicately outlining her with soft moonlight brushstrokes of ivory and mother-of-pearl and then wash her with burnt sienna and honey as the sun rose.

And he would sneak into her labyrinth-like rooms at night and sometimes just watch the art in motion, crouched by his mother’s bedside with his chin resting in his hands.

In the hours blessed by Ra, she walked the palace halls with the assurance of those whom are truly blessed with beauty. And he would follow next to her, one hand fisted in the white linen of her skirts, at peace knowing that the name of a god and a mother such as this, he too would be beautiful one day.

But for now, it was night and Nuet had not yet begun her labours to bring Ra forth into the world. Or if she had, he could not see; the sky through his keyhole window was murky with thunderheads and flickers of lightning flashing through their underbellies. Silent, he slipped from his bed and stepped carefully over the nursemaid lightly snoring on her pallet. The door was already partially ajar and he slipped through the crack without a sound.

He padded down the corridor, chafing his arms for warmth and shuddering at the frigid marble tile underfoot. A clap of thunder echoed ominously through the halls and suddenly he was running, throwing open his mother’s door and shutting it behind him breathlessly. With his back braced against the door, he slid to the floor, forehead braced against his knees as he choked around the lump of fear lodged in his throat.

"Mút," he croaked, inching forward on his hands and knees until his fingers caught the edge of her bedding.

"Mút," he whispered more insistently, drawing back the linens just enough to wriggle in beneath them as another roar of thunder screamed through the palace. He clasped his hands over his mouth to stifle the shout that wanted to burst forth, rolling onto his side and burrowing his face against his mother’s bare chest.

Epiphany Drabble

@splendidanatolia

Sadik had anticipated an easy victory–they all had. So when it became quickly apparent that the tide was turning against them, he was not only nervous, but taken aback. Still, he tried to direct his troops, refusing to accept defeat. It wasn’t over until the end.

But when he saw Gyasi go down, he had to force down the panic in his throat. If he could just get over there, just break through the press of people, but they refused to get out of his way–

Someone was down on him with a spear now, and before Sadik could call out, the weapon crashed down. Sadik’s attention was so taken up by this that when his horse reared, he was unable to keep his grip, and hit the ground hard. Sword, sword, the fight was still raging around him and even if Gyasi was dead, his men still needed him.

They did win, in the end, but it rang a bit hollow in light of what had happened. Wounds half-bound in torn cloth, Sadik opted to walk through the dead rather than sit and rest–he felt a responsibility to find Gyasi, if only to remember in its entirety the man’s death. But as he walked slowly through the bodies, he heard a voice call out to him.

“Are you looking for me?” He turned to the voice, and saw the man in question seated on a boulder, bandaged heavily, but not at all dead. He gaped for a brief moment–he had been so sure that the spear struck true! But his sight had been obstructed–perhaps he had seen wrong.

“For once you prove me wrong and I don’t mind,” he replied, weight rolling off his shoulders.

“I usually do,” Gyasi intoned dryly. He clenched his jaw against the sudden spike of pain that sparked through him and gripped the spear he’d appropriated from the battlefield more tightly to keep him upright on his ill-chosen seat.

Mostly, he fought for control; the pain would not show on his face and be a dishonour to his training.

egypt: HOE DON'T DO IT

mama egypt: *gets stabbed in the back*

egypt: hoe don't do it

ottoman empire: *SUDDEN DOWNWARD SPIRAL*