(/◕ヮ◕)/ ✧・ﾟ: *✧・ﾟ:*

i've hit a block due to lack of inspiration, feeling of repetition, and a bit of discouragement too. telling myself that it's okay if everything's just a rough draft & that i should focus just on getting something posted has sorta helped. it's carried me through most of the prompts. but i dunno.

Prompts used: Hidden Injury; Forced Reveal Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Word count: 690 CW: Blood

The clatter of sword-on-sword rang out alongside the nocturnal creatures’ songs. Calculated footsteps fell upon grass and dirt with thumps ranging in volume and intensity. The pair of horned warriors were locked in a dance: One of precision, strength, and mettle. 

The younger of the tieflings, Reverence, observed his opponent with narrowed eyes. The suggestion of this spar was to determine where Zevlor was at, both mentally and physically. While the older tiefling had displayed a great show of might back within the Mindflayer colony, his display could have very well been caused by a mere rush of adrenaline. Zevlor was still visibly discouraged by all the events within the shadow-cursed lands. 

Taking the broken paladin within their ranks seemed only the right move. 

Was Reverence’s invitation brought on by some sort of projection? Guilt? He was uncertain—though he knew he saw aspects of himself within the other man. 

Prompts used: Secrets Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Word count: 254 CW: NA

[art credit]

His name upon familiar lips carried across the expanse of the inevitable battlefield. It stopped Theron completely in his tracks. Then finally, after weeks—months—without seeing the Alliance Commander, his tired eyes became alive again as they fell upon his partner. Beyond the breeze of snow, dashing now through an arch of ruined stone, raced his lover. 

Lover. 

Could they still be considered such? He had shattered Altrethir’s trust and abandoned him. No, worse still: Theron had set him up to die. All for the cause. All part of the long-term plan to stop just another madman from getting his hands on just another world-ending weapon. Nearly every waking hour, Theron would try to defend his actions, try to convince himself that the ends would justify the means. But heartbreak, shame and guilt haunted him all the same. 

There was a strong desire to throw everything away, to meet the Twi’lek halfway and hope he would forgive him. But that wasn’t reality. 

Instead, he stared, mouth opened slightly and wide-eyed. The others in the shuttle were reaching for their weapons but Theron’s hands remained at his sides. The Chiss—Valss—moved past him in such a swift blur that Theron had little time to process what’d happened. He was calling after Valss then. Not in concern, but in warning: He would not survive a battle against the Commander. 

Prompts used: Caught in a Net Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Word count: 375 CW: Sleep paralysis

The Barsen’thor sucked in a sharp gasp of air. Pressure pushed upon his skull, around his eyes, as his chest expanded quickly with each shallow breath he could manage. Fingers clutched taught at the fabric of his pillow. A bead of sweat rolled down his brow and he blinked to protect his eye. 

Fen could not move. Could hardly breathe. 

From the shadows swayed dark, smokey tendrils. They made no immediate movement; only shifted, as though they were long leafy plants along the seabed, moving gracefully with the tide. But they loomed ominously. He felt dread, a cold and empty feeling settling in his stomach, a taste of nothing yet everything upon his tongue. He could not feel his hands, his feet. His body felt both hot and cold at once. 

Try as he might to call for his partner, his voice would not project.  

Was Zenith still with him? The Jedi’s thoughts were too erratic, too clouded by the overwhelming sensation of panic, that he could not detect the other’s presence, nor could he feel the weight of his body pressed into the mattress behind him. 

The thing that lurked before him had him ensnared. Trapped in its clutches, whether this all be in his head or physically present, it had wrapped around him a net of agony and despair. 

As though a breeze had passed through, the smoke began to dissipate—until reforming itself closer to the Jedi. Reaching for him. He swore he heard another’s breath, whispering within his head. 

And he saw a familiar crown of horns begin to materialize from the shadows. 

Behind it, a pair of scarlet eyes. . . 

Then there was light. Warm, like a campfire, and comforting. 

Fen found himself rolling onto his back and met with the face of his lover. 

Zenith appeared alert as he searched Fen’s expression, brows drawn together in focus and concern. His lekku slid and fell before his shoulders, across his chest, as he brought a hand to Fen’s forehead to check his temperature. The Jedi could barely feel his limbs still. He tried, and managed, to finally break the paralysis and weakly brought a trembling hand to rest upon Zenith’s forearm. 

Prompts used: Quivering; Phobia Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3 Word count: 551 CW: Arachnophobia

Suddenly Fen was yanking his arm back and out of the crevice with a startled cry, accompanied by the clattering of his staff upon the rocky ground. The tiny arachnid was cast off to the side as he flung his hand, grasping at the wrist with his other, and staring wide-eyed to the eight-legged horror. He could still feel phantom appendages skittering and crawling across his exposed flesh, his knuckles, between his fingers. But the initial startle wasn’t what spooked him the most: It was the implication of who could be watching. 

A voice gentle and calming came from behind then. “Are you hurt?” asked Wyll. 

Fen wasn’t too quick to answer. “No. Perhaps my pride, more than anything else.” 

The drow warily eyed that spider. Why hadn’t it scuttled away yet, gone back into the cracks of the basement walls? The longer it lingered, the more uneased he felt. Yet he could not bring himself to stomp its life out. 

Would it make a difference? To Lolth, he was nothing: A deserter of his House that he wasn’t even certain still stood. To Lolth, he was nothing—but to his enemies, he was a remnant of his House—and Lolth favored those who finished what they started. This was her law over the drow of Menzoberranzan. 

A warm hand was closing around his, and Fen’s attention was redirected to Wyll again. The gesture grounded him, and Fen realized his hands had been shaking. Shit. 

“It’s all right,” Wyll eased quietly. “We all have our demons. And we don’t need to linger here; we can catch up to the others.” 

Cool air swept across Fen’s hands again as Wyll moved to collect the wizard’s staff. “I could have—” 

“You could have.” Wyll cut him off with a faint smile. “But it’s also all right to accept help, and a poor teammate I’d be if I did not offer any.” The man gave a small jerk of his head in gesture toward the rest of their party. “Shall we?” 

Still Fen’s gaze held that of the spider’s. His lips pressed firm, jaw set tight, as he felt a chill run down his back. “Kill it,” he said, nearly a whisper. “I cannot bring myself to do it.” 

Hesitantly, Wyll left his companion’s side to approach the doomed creature. He aligned his rapier to the fist-sized spider—and then the thing took off, into the cracks of the wall. “Ah, damn. I’m sorry,” Wyll said sheepishly. “I’ll take care of any more that pop up, though. Not to worry.” 

Fen tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. Truly, what were the odds this thing had been used to spy on him? Uncertain; for he was raised to anticipate foes lurking anywhere and everywhere. And seeing other drow—corpses they might have been—in the area increased his paranoia tenfold. 

“Let’s go,” Fen said, defeated.  

Prompts used: Self-Inflicted Injury; Dissociation Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Word count: 476 CW: Razor injury; Blood

Slowly the razor dragged across the flat of Theron’s cheekbone, toward his ear, shaving the sideburns that had grown long from months without care. Upon his personal starship, he had nothing but the faint trickling of the faucet and the soft hum of the engine to keep him company. He tried to listen to that and only that. But his thoughts always grew louder. 

His preferred five o’clock shadow had grown and turned into the actual beginnings of a beard. But he left it alone, instead turning his attention just to his hair. Tufts of dark brown fell onto his hand, into the sink. The prickling scrape of razor on scalp became just as ambient as the engine’s hum, the trickling water. As he sculpted and experimented, he realized he barely recognized the man staring back at him in the mirror. 

He’d lost so much sleep in the days leading up to the staged betrayal on Umbara, and his appearance now paid the price for that. Theron remembered how his lover even called him out on his exhausted state. How could he not have? His partner knew, even without any use of the Force, that something was wrong. Dark circles lied beneath his sunken eyes, skin pulled taught around the hallows of his cheeks, lips cracked and lacking their reddish hue. He looked like shit. 

He felt like shit—no, he felt stinging. 

“Fuck.” The razor clattered against the sink as blood seeped down the thin cut on the side of his head. That’s what he deserved for not paying attention, he supposed. He rubbed his eyes, then grabbed a small bottle of disinfectant and applied the liquid to the cut. The sting flared—and he hissed through his teeth. 

When finally the pain subsided, he continued. 

Theron felt his way along the back of his head. The razor swept with more care than before, but even still, he felt his attention faltering. His gaze became unfocused. His shoulders felt heavy, arms beginning to burn from keeping them raised at different angles. But he pushed on, until a stripe of hair remained just at the top of his head. 

He ran a hand along the back of his scalp, feeling the little pinpricks of stubble that remained. He could work in a fade, make it look less half-assed. 

But he wanted to just keep it as is. He was in no mood for any actual styling. 

Copero was still several cycles away, anyway. There was time for that later. 

Theron cleaned up the stray bits of hair from his face, ears and neck then walked sluggishly into his sleeping quarters. The metal frame that held his mattress creaked when he all but fell into bed. He threw an arm across his face. Rubbed his eyes again. Gave in to a shaky sigh. 

Prompts used: Iron Rod Fandom: Castlevania: Nocturne Word count: 533 CW: Internalized homophobia; religious trauma

Upon the hilltop stood the chapel, a slender silhouette now, against the sky painted in twilight’s reds and golds. The sun cast a warm glow from behind the building, illuminating just its edges and contours. The sight reminded Mizrak of how some artists depicted the Virgin Mary or Christ Himself: with a gilded halo resting just behind their heads. A symbol of holiness. Purity. 

His footsteps fell one after the other against the road of pebbles and cobblestone, keeping his sights set forward. Avoiding any eye contact with the few remaining people in the market square. 

And then, at last, solitude. 

His typical routine would have had him gathering his rosary and kneeling before the hanged sculpture of Christ in prayer. Today, to his dismay, was not one of typical routine. 

The shame and guilt of sin weighed heavily upon his shoulders. He had fallen into bed with a vampire—a male vampire—and felt nothing but a burning desire to return. Throughout his life, so often he would pray for forgiveness whenever his eyes and heart lusted after another man. He had confessed to having these unnatural thoughts of impurity. Knelt for hours before Christ in prayer and meditation, praying his heart would change. It never did. 

He had come to unpleasant terms that perhaps it never will. The man so devoted to his faith could only hope that, on the day he was judged for his sins, God would show him mercy. He would, Mizrak thought, as God is full of grace. Yet there was darkness—a doubt that lingered, festered and boiled. A doubt that Mizrak could not shake nor would he ever admit to. 

The lantern’s candles flickered along the hallway walls as he found his way into the courtyard. Training dummies were left set up from the monks’ morning practice. Good; one less thing he needed to do. 

He drew his sword from the sheathe at his hip, the metal ringing out softly, and held it steady with two hands. Attention focused on the middle dummy. Soft patters of his approaching footsteps upon grass. Lips pressed firmly into a thin line. 

The muscles in his arms twitched as he built up anticipation to strike. 

Another step. A pivot—and a single precise swing. 

The blade cleaved a deep, clean cut across the imperfect wood. Mizrak readjusted his position and lunged again for a swipe across its back. His footwork was sloppy, he noticed, and the realization only further frustrated him. He was distracted, he knew and loathed, and no matter how frustrated he was with himself, he couldn’t bring his full attention to the situation right in front of him. 

His eyes kept glancing toward a familiar shaded wall. 

A sudden flare of warmth in his gut, his face, and he shouted as he struck the dummy across the neck— 

—Only to hit the solid iron rod at its core. The reverberation of metal on metal caused his hands to seize, arms wobbling slightly. He stepped back. Breathed, panted. Shook his hand to be rid of the weird, tingling sensation the impact had caused. 

Prompts used: Lost Faith Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic; Medieval-Fantasy AU Word count: 1,394 CW: NA

For once—and not a moment too soon Theron’s smokepowder bomb finally succeeded. There were still tweaks to be made but improvements were the last thing on his mind in the current situation. Swiftly he guided the hooded figure through the loose crowds of Aethel, removing the gag from their mouth as they weaved through and remained low. The elven citizens’ attention was drawn elsewhere, thankfully, allowing Theron and his companion to slip through mostly unnoticed. 

Just before reaching the forest’s edge, Theron pulled them behind a tree to free Altrethir of his binds. He gathered the rope, and they pushed on. Though he wasn’t tiring, he could tell the other man was. “Just a little further,” Theron eased. “Promise.” 

The trees soon shielded the two from the town, Theron angling his head different ways to peer for any gaps in their concealment. But he determined they were far enough in. Finally, beside a calm stream lined with rocks, he guided Altrethir to sit. Theron pulled back his cloak and— 

“Oh, hells,” Theron gasped. Back in town, he wasn’t able to see Altrethir’s face from the tent’s entrance, only the back of his head. Now, to Theron’s horror, his friend’s skin had been littered in cuts and bruises. Theron was familiar with his wounds; they looked to be from some sort of blunt-force trauma. He connected two and two and felt his hatred for the royals become revalidated all over again. He was furious, enraged. 

But the time for those emotions would come later.