Hey, Iâm Tiffany (She/her). I write mostly one-page oneshots that are usually fantasy. The protags are almost always magical in some way. Most of my stories are half prose, because I really like how language can flow. Iâve been writing privately and lurking on writeblrs for months now in parallel, and Iâve finally decided to share some of my work.Â
I accept prompts (nothing NSFW), but it might be a while before thereâs a finished product. I appreciate asks about anything and everything, from my writing (including my established universes) to random comments about life or the world.
Some of the writeblrs that continue to inspire me are @the-modern-typewriterâ, @gingerly-writing, @the-faultofdaedalus, and @morallygreyprompts.Â
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Sorry to bother you, I know I already asked about it! So I didn't want to bother you at all but I really wanted to give you a photo of the work I did, I'm not online like ever so I'm super sorry if I am coming of as rude or invasive to look up your user on a different platform, I have no clue if that's an acceptable thing to do I'm sorry if it's not ( please feel free to tell me so, because I have no genuine clue) but I really just wanted to show you because your fic holds such an appreciated and loved place in my heart, I started making it after the chapter with the AFO fight ( sorry if it's not super good I don't usually paint cats all that often) anyways I hope you like it đŤś
It's totally not a bother at all! I wouldn't synchronize my usernames accross different social media sites unless I actually wanted people to find me. In fact, I'm super glad you did find me, because this is AWESOME! I love your painting style, and the color in this piece is incredible.
(This is a continuation of The Bone Cats, originally a short I wrote based on @deepwaterwritingprompts's prompt #2965)
Warning: This story is centered around self-harm (cutting) and feelings about self-harm. There are also mentions of depression and emotional abuse.
She had done a bad job of hiding the evidence. Bad enough that, had anyone bothered for a second glance, it would have been blindingly obvious. Nobody did.
Oh, she left the vicinity clean enough. She didn't get into dousing things with bleach, but she wiped away the obvious blood from the floor, the knife, and the wall the few times she messed up and got blood on the wall. She even used the scented candle in the bathroom to sterilize the knife.
Her mother wouldn't stand for anything but a spotless house, and Cass didn't want any infections to set in.
No, she did a bad job of hiding the more personal evidence. Haphazardly wrapped cuts, blood showing through the gauze, a barely-there limp⌠but she didn't care. No one cared, and so neither did she. After a while, she forewent bandages entirely. The fabric of her pants from the knee down to about mid-calf was perpetually spotted with blood.
She didn't care. She didn't. And whenever she found herself caring too much, she slipped into the bathroom with a lighter and a knife.
Cass knew for a fact that her mother hated cats. Hated them with a deep and abiding passion, and only partially because she was allergic. However, Cass was sure that, if her mother had to pick one, she'd choose one of the bone cats. Cass was equally positive that the cat would be right at home in her mother's house.
It was a surprise, but only briefly, when Cass swung the bathroom door open and was met with round, golden eyes. Not human eyes, certainly, but also definitely not cat eyes. They were set into a body made mostly of wood, with what appeared to be sand beneath the shifting plates of bark and sprays of lobed leaves. Smoke rose languidly from its back, drifting up into the air in lazy curls.
Cass slipped through the open door and closed it softly. The cat continued to watch her calmly, moving only her head to keep her eyes pinned on Cass.
Stepping around the cat, Cass set her lighter on the counter and flicked her knife open. It wasn't anything special, just a switchblade she'd bought at a corner store when she'd saved enough to stop using cheap razor blades. She glanced, briefly, at the cat.
The cat who was still watching her, sitting in the same place with her head turned almost a hundred and eighty degrees.
Cass jumped, almost dropping her knife, then forced her racing heart to calm down. She had been aware, distantly, that the bone cats weren't exactly alive, and the 'cat' in her bathroom could be nothing but a bone cat. To see her completely ignore things like how spines were supposed to work was something else entirely.
It didn't matter, though. The cat still wasn't moving, and Cass could get on with it. She lit the candle.
A few minutes later, she methodically wiped blood off her knife. The floor was clean already, since she hadn't gotten any blood on it in the first place. She'd found that if she used the knife fresh after being sterilized, it would mostly cauterize the cuts.
She flushed the paper towel she used to clean the knife down the toilet. She couldn't put it in the trash can, not because it would make it clear that something was wrong, but because she was only allowed in the bathroom that any company also used. If someone snooped around and found a bloody paper towel or two, it would look bad on her mother.
As she finished, Cass felt something like sandpaper swipe up her leg, tearing at her new cuts. She spun, knife still in her hand.
Behind her, the bone cat, who had been still and silent the whole time, had finally moved. The sandpaper had been her tongue, swiping at the few dots of blood on Cass's leg. Cass nudged the cat away with her foot, ignoring the sensation of warm polished wood on her skin.
"Just because you're the bone cat of blood doesn't give you free reign over mine." Cass's voice came out soft and hoarse, shaking slightly. It had been a while since she'd said anything. Maybe a day and a half? The cat only gave her a sad, piercing look and turned away.
The cat became a staple after that.
She was nowhere to be found most of the time, which was a blessing in and of itself. Cass had the faint inkling that the cat had been drawn to her, and that would be bad publicity for her mother. Instead, whenever Cass slipped into the bathroom for more⌠selfish purposes, the cat was always there before her.
Every time, the cat would sit as still as a tree in one place, watching her like a hawk⌠or an owl, based on the flexibility of the cat's neck. Then, when Cass was done, the cat would move.
Sometimes she would 'clean' whatever unhealed cuts Cass had, her tongue literally made of sand. Other times, when Cass lingered on the bathroom tiles, the cat would move to sit next to her, leafy tail flicking silently. Rarely she would merely walk out, not looking back.
If Cass sat on the floor and the cat sat next to her, then Cass would absently run her hands over the cat's head and side. Her head was made of thin slats of polished wood, and her back and sides were larger plates of rough bark. Where a normal cat would have had tufts of fur in her ears, on her ankles and elbows, and at the end of her tail, the bone cat had bushy clumps of what Cass had come to recognize as oak leaves.
"Cassandra." Knuckles rapped on the bathroom door, startling Cass out of her stupor. "Open this door immediately!"
Cass scrambled to her feet, lunging for the door and fumbling frantically with the lock until the door clicked open. He mother stood sternly in the open doorway, staring through her special gold-leaf glasses at Cass.
"You need to be ready in five minutes," She said briskly, "The mayor's wife is coming to tea today and you need to look presentable. Do something about your nasty scars, too!"
Cass nodded numbly, still holding the door handle. Warm bark brushed against her leg, and then her mother screamed.
"What is that!? What is that demon creature!?" She stumbled back a step, her face gray with terror. Cass glanced down, confused. There was no way the bone cat was normal, but she wouldn't call her a demon at first sight-
The wood-and-leaves cat Cass had come to know was gone. In its place was a true hell creature made of molten glass and blood-red fire. The calm golden eyes were gone, replaced by burning yellow embers and the cat was spitting blue sparks, her back arched with flame.
Without a second thought, Cass grabbed the cat around the middle and yanked her back. The bathroom door swung shut, seemingly of its own accord.
Cass knew what fire was like. She had an intimate knowledge of how it felt to be burned. Even before she dropped the cat on the ground in a flurry of instinctive wariness, she knew she hadn't been burned. As always, the cat felt only mildly warm.
The cat wound around her ankles, and Cass watched in wonder as she transformed in real time. Flames died slowly, and molten glass hardened and shattered at the same time into grains of off-white sand. The sand simmered and sifted, and the familiar bark and leaves and polished oak wood appeared as though they were driftwood bobbing to the surface.
The cat nudged Cass with her head, and a voice spoke directly into her mind. It was a voice of banked fire and ever-growing always-dying forests.
'Hello,' it purred, 'My name is Sword. I am yours to wield.'
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(This is a continuation of the short I wrote based on @deepwaterwritingprompts's prompt #2965)
I deal in lies. Little lies, big lies, fakes so good they're almost real, falsehoods so slick they're almost true. Almost. The almost is always the killer.
I'm not good at telling the truth, but I do feel like maybe I should. No, there I go again, telling half-truths and white lies. I know I need to. The truth needs to be told, at least just this once.
It began for me several years before anyone else noticed. It is my stock and trade to do things when no one else notices. It began, in fact, with a particularly clever lie.
I'm beating around the bush.
There was a company. It sold magical items. They were all fake. Alright, they were mostly fake. Some of them had magic in them, it just wasn't the magic that was advertised. Some of them actually did what they were supposed to, but I didn't advertise them for what they were. Some of them were useless tchotchke and trinkets.
There was a skull. Its origin was unknown, certainly not human, and it sat on my counter to watch my customers.
Ah. My apologies. The mysticism comes naturally now, I suppose.
I had a cat skull on my counter. It looked sort of arcane, I guess. As mysterious and magical as any skull looks, sitting on the counter of a shop of mystical things.
In the end the skull, like everything in the shop, got sold off. I recall only vaguely; I think I sold it to a blonde woman who stopped into the shop to look around. She was strange, but she had good money, and I, too, am rather strange.
I told her it was the skull of a bone cat, one of Satan's runaway pets. That was before they'd become so widespread, only a rumor on the wind, and she believed me. The next day, the cat was there.
From what I can gather, most of the bone cats have some facsimile of life. Skin made of ice or fur made of fire. This one â the one I would grow to call Scrappy â had none of that. He was just bone, yellowed and worn. Not even a likeness of eyes.
I was skeptical at first, of course. Wouldn't anyone be? I had just been telling tales of bone cats, and one shows up on my doorstep. Before they were anywhere near as widespread as they are these days, too. It must be an illusion, or a construct, or some such thing. What else was I to think?
Oh, dear. There I go again. I'm lying.
I knew, somewhere deep down, that he was truly a bone cat. I tried to pass it off as some sort of trick, but I, at least, knew. I had just been telling false tales of bone cats. Of course one would show up on my doorstep.
Of course I held the door for him. The absence of his eyes almost- ah, nevermind. If this were any other time, I would tell you I felt compelled to let him in. Do something evil or wicked or whatnot. I wasn't. I just have a soft spot for cats, and I learned that day that my soft spot extends to the undead pets of the devil himself.
Scrappy didn't take me up on it. That time.
After that, though, any time I glance out the window there was a good chance he'd be waiting. Watching me with his sightless gaze. After a while, I gave up on letting him in. He didn't want to come in, so I stopped trying.
I don't even know the first time he got into my house. My house, not my shop. He just appeared one day, sitting on my counter while more living cats milled around my feet.
Well, that one's only a little bit of a lie. I didn't know it was him when he first showed up. Honestly, looking back on it, I should have realized. I only learned after I knew him for a while that the bone cat of silence haunts liars.
He came in under a disguise.
It wasn't at all what I would have expected of him, and I say that completely honestly. For one thing, he was healthy. Healthy enough that I couldn't believe he had been a stray for long, though his fur was dirty enough. I gave him food anyway, since I wasn't going to turn a cat away and only the most desperate of strays cared to stick around for the dry brown pellets I dished out.
It was weeks after that when, as I was filling bowls of water, he stopped in front of me. I had gotten used to his false appearance by then, and merely nudged him away with my foot. He bit me. Hard.
He's no ordinary cat skeleton, I can tell you that. Having had a cat skull sitting on my counter for so long gave me a decent working knowledge of how long their teeth are. How he even fit those in his mouth, I don't know.
The instant his fangs hit my skin, I could see through his illusion. That was a bit of a shock, I'll tell you that much. Okay, so I jumped out of my skin and dropped the water all over myself and a few very disgruntled strays that were standing around me.
After I replaced the water, I went to treat whatever Scrappy's dagger-like fangs â and I say this as someone who has a great deal of experience with daggers â had done to my leg. Scrappy came back to me as I was attempting to disinfect the bleeding gouges in my leg. He rubbed his head against my wrist, and his voice spoke directly in my mind.
'Hello,' He said, short and to the point, 'I am Pitfall.'
Text: They say the bone cats were deathâs pets, before they got bored and left. Wicked smart, tough as nails, they are nigh impossible to lure into domesticity, but ridiculously useful once you do.
Whenever Merram can't handle the rest of the gang, he climbs up the wall of the building and smokes on the roof. Without fail, the cat always turns up.
Her bones are so white they outshine the snow, though to be fair, the snow in Wanderdell is typically off-white: a stained cream or gray or minty blue. The rest of her â muscles and fur and the gleaming orbs of her eyes â is made of ice. Thick, dark blue ice for her muscles and shards of transparent ice for her fur. Her eyes are a cloudy white, shot through with bubbles and swirls of silvery crystals.
He often brings her treats and snacks â whatever cat-safe food he can scrounge up or the occasional bag of cat treats he buys special â which she usually eats, despite the fact that she's made of ice. When he forgets himself, he talks to her.
"The guys are getting antsy again." He says one cold, cold morning. Smoke drifts into the air from his cigarette, and she sits above him on the roof and watches him.
"Racer is breaking things. Pete and Lionel are getting in fights." Merram sighs, running a hand through his chair. "They're working themselves up for something. Something big. Dangerous."
He takes a drag on his cigarette, staring distantly into the skyline.
"Everything we do is dangerous, I guess."
The cat flicks her tail, but otherwise remains still. Merram looks at her sideways. She's always been an enigma. The bone cats are dangerous, people are sure. There are rumors that Satan still favors them, even after they ran off. Like any normal cat owner. They've got access to all his power, or so the rumors say.
Merram sighs again and glances around. No one to overhear him, no listening spells anywhere near him.
"It's the governor." He admits to the cat and the cat alone, "They're planning to kidnap him. Or maybe kill him."
She sits down, her icy fur scraping and splintering on the shingles. Merram turns to look at her, and they meet eyes. She's dangerous, he is sure of that. He's never seen her do anything but watch, but she carries the mantle of a threat like she was born to it. If she was born at all. Merram looks away and takes another drag on his cigarette.
"If they get away with it, they'll be rich." He says idly. "But if they donâtâŚ"
He twists his cigarette out on the shingle next to him, watching the smoke trail out of it. Another small black circle to add to the cluster of small black circles beside where he always sits on the roof.
"They won't get away with it." He says softly, staring at the circle on the shingles, "They aren't good enough for that. At best, they'll give up halfway through. At worst, the mayor dies."
He snorts bitterly, "Dunno when I decided that the mayor dying is worse than any of them dying. I think we used to be something like family."
Something like family. What a funny word, for the only companions he's had for years. He's out of cigarettes, and the bone cat is still watching him, unblinking. It's uncanny, her eyes. He's pretty sure she doesn't even need eyes. They're just there for show.
Merram sighs and stands, balancing easily on the shingles. He slides down the roof and clambers back into his room. He tucks another box of cigarettes in his pocket and wanders out the door. Down the stairs, to the main living area. No-one is there, and there are still glass shards on the floor from the cup Racer threw at the wall.
Merram moseys down the street, lighting another cigarette that he grips loosely between his teeth. He loiters outside the sheriff's office for several minutes, hesitating. Just hesitating.
Finally, he stamps out his cigarette and steps inside. He knows he looks suspicious. He's cultivated a suspicious look for quite a while. Dangerous and up to no good. He's only ever seen intentionally, and whenever he is, it's always to draw attention off the others.
"Howdy, sir." The sheriff is in, sitting behind his desk.
"Howdy sheriff," Merram nods, tipping his hat. "I have a tip for you. Anonymous, in a sense."
"A tip?" The sheriff leans forward, taking his boots off his desk to inspect Merram. Merram catches sight of the handgun as he hides it behind the thick wood of the desk. The sheriff's desk is heavy and high quality. It looks like it could survive a shootout.
"Yessir," Merram says, folding his arms to avoid reaching for his own gun, "There's a group of boys comin' to the governor's place, some time in the next week. They aim to take him hostage. They won't succeed."
"Won't they now?" The sheriff of Wanderdell wasn't chosen for being stupid, that's for sure. Merram can see the canny glint in his eyes.
"Nah," Merram says, "They aren't that good. Just⌠give them a warning, would you?"
"I don't suppose these boys are the WanderWitches, are they?" The sheriff says. Under the casual question there's a thread of steel lining his voice.
"Could be," Merram says, "could be. Depends. If they are, will they hang?"
"Not the ones that are underage." The sheriff says, finally leaning back in his chair again.
"All right." Merram says at last, turning to leave the station, "I guess we'll see, then."
He expects, the whole way out, to catch a bullet between the shoulders. It never comes.
Instead, waiting for him on the street is the cat. Merram stops for a moment, confused. He's never seen her not on the roof. It's strange, to meet her in the normal every day of the city streets.
"You know," The sheriff says, standing in the door behind Merram, "they say the bone cat of frost hunts traitors."
Merram does know that. He also knows that the bone cats â or at least the one bone cat he's interacted with â are not entirely like their reputation. That they hate criminals and will kill sinners with impunity. And he knows he's a traitor. He's here for a reason, after all.
He ignores the sheriff, digging in his pocket. Sure enough, he's got a mostly empty bag of cat treats folded up in his pocket. He offers a treat to the cat.
She shifts, and the sound of glaciers cleaving in miniature echoes through her. She sniffs his hand, his fingers, and finally the treat. With utmost dignity, she takes it, crunching elegantly.
'Hello' she says in his mind, 'my name is avalanche.'
âWelcome to Angel Antiques!â Angelina choruses as the door clinks open. Warm wind gusts through the open door, letting in the hodgepodge scent of sunshine, pavement, gasoline, steel, and a variety of pastries and foodstuffs.
The door thumps closed, muting most of the scents again, and footsteps make their way into the store. Three sets of footsteps, all of them heavy and sure. All adults or older teenagers, then.
Angelina leans against the counter and listens idly as they wind through the store, picking up items to make a remark or point something out before setting them down again. They bring the dozens of small scents that people donât realize they have with them when they pass by the register, and Angelina absentmindedly sorts through them.
Dog, dirt, grass, oil, a bit of blood, the cinnamon-sugar from the churro cart on the corner, fancy soap, detergent, sawdust, nail polish, makeup, hair dye.
The scent of sunshine is still lingering in the shop over the background smells of dusty fabric and old wood, so Angelina canât pick out some of the more subtle scents.
The man snaps his fingers and one of the women giggles. The other woman has wandered off to the other side of the store.
âExcuse me?â The man asks, voice directed towards Angelina.
âYes sir?â Angelina tilts her head up so sheâs vaguely facing him, automatically pushing her glasses up to make sure theyâre covering her eyes.
âThis doesnât have a price tag on it, does that mean itâs free?â He waves something absently in the air â it smells like old paper and ink, so Angelina assumes itâs one of their books.
âIâm sorry, Sir. I have the prices of everything on record here if you can just tell me what the title isâŚâ she trails off, standing to reach the records shelf. She runs her hand gently along the spines until she finds the one with âBooks for Saleâ stamped along it. She slides it off the shelf while the man chuckles and the woman still standing next to him giggles.
âSir?â She prompts, propping the book open.
âCanât you see it?â He drawls, gesturing with the book, âJust look right here. Itâs just about the size of your sun-touched head.â
âIâm sorry, sir.â Angelina says, not a hint of bitterness in her voice despite the insult, âIâm blind, I canât see it at all.â
The man goes quiet. The woman goes still. Across the store, Angelina can hear the other woman almost drop the item sheâs holding.
âAhâŚâ The man trails off, seeming unsure how to respond to that. He defaults to pretending it didnât happen. âItâs, er, itâs called âThe Facts and Foci of the Faeâ.â
âAll right, let me look that up.â Angelina chirps, running her fingers down the page. Itâs a book she recognizes as having come in not long ago, so it doesnât take her long to find it.
âThat would be eight hundred and fifty American dollars, sir.â Angelina tells him.
âThatâs outrageous!â he exclaims, clearly gearing up for a rant on the price of books.
âOh my goodness, that cheap!?â The woman across the store hurries up to the register, still absently carrying the item she was inspecting, âAdam if you donât buy that I will!â
âBut- it canât be that expensive.â The man â Adam â protests, turning to her.
âItâs a college-level textbook,â The woman says, exasperated, âthat they donât make anymore, they donât teach the classes for, and itâs illegal to practice what it teaches. Of course itâs valuable.â
Adam surely would have replied to that if the first women doesnât finally overcome her shock enough to speak.
âYou canât be blind!â She blurts, shoving her friends out of the way, âStop lying to us!â
âI assure you, maâam, Iâm not lying.â Angelina says, baffled, âI truly am blind.â
âThatâs bull!â The woman snaps, âBlind people canât run stores!â
âKathy, leave it!â Adam hisses, a rustling of cloth and a sharp jerk from Kathy suggesting that he grabbed her arm and she pulled violently away.
âNo!â Kathy screeches, âYouâre lying, you arenât blind youâre just faking it!â
Angelinaâs temper is fraying dangerously fast, and her mind keeps straying to the small container of dried human blood stowed under the counter. Sheâs in her own place of business, so a transformation isnât automatically illegal, but short of being actively assaulted she wonât be able to convince the Enforcers it was self-defense.
âI am not lying.â Angelina repeats, teeth gritted, âIâve been blind since an accident when I was twenty-three.â
âLiar!â Kathy howls. Before Angelina can stop her she lunges across the counter, fingers scrabbling at Angelinaâs glasses.
Angelina yelps and automatically tries to fend Kathy off. The woman is unmoved, clawing at Angelinaâs face until she has one of the lenses clutched in her talon-like nails. Kathy retreats back to her side of the counter with a self-satisfied âhumphâ, Angelinaâs sunglasses in hand.
Angelina has a hand up to cover her face in time to prevent⌠unfortunate revelations, and she reaches out with the other.
âPlease give me my glasses.â She says, as calmly as she can manage. It isnât very calmly. She can feel the hand over her eyes shaking with rage, and the roof of her mouth aches from holding her fangs up.
âNo.â Kathy says smugly, ânot until you admit that you arenât blind.â
âKathy,â The second woman starts, âI donât think you should-â
âNonsense.â Kathy interrupts her, âShe shouldnât be pretending to be blind if she doesnât want to be called out on her lie, Sophieâ
âI am blind!â Angelina protests, pulling her outstretched hand back to hide it as she clenches it into a fist.
âThen you shouldnât mind showing us your eyes.â Kathy says, âHiding them just makes you look guilty, you know.â
Something in Angelina snaps, and she retaliats the only way she legally can. She obeys.
Angelina knows â vaguely â what her eyes look like. Sheâs seen a few vampires that have been sunscarred, and sheâs seen her own Transformation Lines on her hands and feet and even in the mirror on her eyes. Sunscarring is tragically beautiful. Itâs perfect lines and precise angles frozen in a brand of pain and loss.
Angelina pulls her hands off her eyes and glares â as much as she can glare â through Kathy. She stops resisting her instinctual threat display and let sher mouth drop open and fangs fold down behind her human teeth. The whistling hiss that always accompanied the threat is actually breathing out through her fangs, narrow holes in the bone that allow her to suck blood or inject venom.
Kathy screams. Adam shouts and the book thumps to the ground. Sophie yelps, fumbling the item in her grip again and dropping it for real.
In moments, Kathy is out the door and down the street, letting the chaotic scents of the outside in yet again. The smell of sunlight has only gotten stronger as the sun rose, and it makes every already-tense nerve in Angelinaâs body stand on end.
She can hear each personâs individual heartbeats, even her own thumping slower than a humanâs in her chest. Adamâs breath comes in erratic stuttering gasps and Sophie is hardly breathing at all. Angelina can practically taste the sunshine in the traces of warmed stone, thriving plant life, and hot tar on the air.
Adam stammers something, tripping over his words, and Angelina automatically turns towards him, hissing erratically. His flow of half-syllables abruptly stops and he follows Kathy out the door.
Sophie is still in the store, and every one of Angelinaâs senses is trained to the max. She canât hardly smell anything, not under the overwhelming scent of sunshine that seems almost all-consuming in her panic. She canât see, canât smell, can barely think.
âHey.â Sophie says, calm and collected, and it slices neatly through the building crescendo of panic crashing through Angelina.
âHey,â Sophie says again, in the same level voice, âI donât want to hurt you. I have your glasses if you want them.â
Yes. Angelina does want them. Despite herself, Angelina reaches a tentative hand out, expecting⌠she doesnât know what. Instead of some unspecified terrible thing, Sophie deposits the sunglasses in Angelinaâs hand. Angelina scrambles to put them on so fast she almost stabs herself in the eye.
âThahnk yu.â She manages, fangs blundering her speech slightly.
âOf course.â Sophie says, and Angelina can hear the smile in her voice, âIâm sorry about them. I had no idea they would react so⌠brainlessly, I suppose.â
âIâs finâe.â Angelina says, trying to muster a smile, âIâ used tu it.â
âWell, you shouldnât have to be!â Sophie snaps, abruptly angry, âNo fae should have to be constantly hated like that.â
âIâs finâe.â Angelina says again, straightening the record book in front of her, âDu yu âanât tu âuy that âook?â
âAh, yes, thank you.â Sophie says, though she doesnât sound especially willing to let the matter go, âIâll pay you nine hundred dollars for it.â
âItâs only priced for-â Angelina starts, finally managing to pull her fangs back up to stow along the roof of her mouth.
âI know.â Sophie says, âI figure you deserve it after what Adam and Kathy were up to, anyway. Plus, itâs still an absolute steal at that price.â
âAlright,â Angelina consents, ringing her up with the ease of much practice.
âAlso, uh. I was wondering- well.â Sophie clears her throat, and Angelina can tell she looks away from the way her voice changes, âWell, do you know where I could get⌠more materials like this?â
And just like that it makes sense. The smell of sunshine that hung around the shop when it should have dissipated, Sophieâs strong interest in the book for training wizards, even the way the scent of sunlight surged so strong when Angelina was angry. Sophie is a wizard. She brought the sunlight to the shop, and it spiked when she was frustrated and scared.
âYeah,â Angelina says instead of laying out her deduction and accusation, âLet me get you his number.â
Eli takes a deep breath, hands clasping each other. He looks up, towards the sky, and mourns briefly at the lack of sunlight. The sky spins with writhing, billowing clouds, their bellies full of lightning and their voices full of thunder. The clouds are necessary, though.
Thunder rumbles, and the clouds split open. Torrents of rain pound towards the earth, and Eli can feel the magic in every drop. It isnât the sunshine that his Focus is always crying out for, but it is just what Mara needs to keep the clouds in place.
Beside him, only feet away, Mara sprouts scales. The cheap inflatable kiddie pool theyâd brought for her rapidly begins to fill up with rainwater, and Mara flicks her new tail into the bounds of the plastic rim. Her eyes are luminous, glowing pinpricks even under the torrential rain.
Eli feels the rain shake when Mara opens her mouth, and somehow the sky â already dropping buckets â tears even further apart. All visibility is gone. Eli canât even see Mara anymore, and heâs pretty sure he can only hear her song from the sharp thrill of magic that it shreds into the air.
Eli waits, and Mara sings. The clouds thunder and rain falls, but no lighting shatters the sky. Not a single flash of light breaks through the storm, and Eli would be jumping at shadows if only he could tell the difference between air and water.
He almost startles out of his skin when a hand touches his shoulder. Itâs clawed, black talons tipping the fingers and black lines spreading jagged, geometric lines up the arm almost to the elbow. Eli doesnât want to know how much human blood went into the power overload Nathan has.
Wet fur brushes his leg, and Eli glances down to find Mason, his were-form looking like a miserably wet cat instead of the fluffy arctic fox Eli knows he is.
Eli takes a deep breath of rain-soaked air and sinks slowly to the ground. Nathan crouches next to him and Mason presses his soaked side to Eliâs equally-soaked shirt. Mara watches him, glowing eyes fixed on him even while she sings. Eli ducks his head, focuses on the little flash of magic that comes from every single rain drop, and dunks his hands into her pool.
Effulgence is â according to what little information Eli could get â entirely metaphorical. It still feels real to all his senses, though, when he opens his eyes on the ice floe.
The only other practicing wizard Eli ever met described Effulgence as ropes, hanging from glowing heights. Eli doesnât know if they were making it up or if Effulgence is so metaphorical that itâs different for different people. He does know that â at least for him â Effulgence is ice floes.
The ice floes are white and perfectly cylindrical, like someone took a cookie cutter to a snow-covered lawn, and the water they float on is golden sunlight, gleaming from some unknown source. His own ice floe is the same color, a pure, molten gold that blends so well with the sea that heâs always afraid heâll lose it some trip.
Eli breathes the warm, sunlit air and looks out across the sea of sunshine. There are three ice floes right next to him, each one with a perfect sphere settled in a small divot in the center. He knows them well, but the only way to tell them apart here is by their foci.
Nathanâs focus and floe are black, writhing inside the transparent sphere like an angry snake trapped in a marble. His focus is also huge, larger than Eli has ever seen a focus before. Maraâs focus and floe are blue, a dark gray-blue of storm clouds that sloshes gently inside its orb despite the lack of movement. Masonâs fox sits calmly and patiently in its sphere on his silver floe, the same position Mason had â and probably still has â outside of Effulgence.
The focus sphere that rests on Eliâs ice floe is not actually touching it. Itâs the same gently-waving orb of water that Mara has, and it hovers just barely over the golden surface of Eliâs soul. No man can be two fae at once, and Eliâs golden ice floe marks him as an unchangeable wizard, for better or for worse.
Eli scoops the orb into his hand. In this form, with no one to give it extra power, the orb is only about the size of a tennis ball. The water inside it doesnât move the way it should, slowly undulating in smooth, even waves no matter how carefully or recklessly the sphere is handled.
Eli tucks the orb into the harness hanging from his belt and steps boldly into the glowing ocean. Or, rather, onto. Effulgenceâs ocean has always reminded him of a science project he did in school, where they mixed corn starch, water, and food coloring to make a material that flowed like water most of the time but hardened like stiff rubber when under force. It doesnât take much force to solidify the sunshine sea, but that in and of itself is a terrifying possibility if Eli ever lets himself sink in.
Eli lines himself up between Nathan and Mason, facing away from his own island, and starts off. The occasional ice floe shows up near him, and Eli takes brief moments to rest on them when he needs it, catching chaotic glimpses of who they belong to, but he eventually moves on.
Finally, after an unknowable amount of time, Eli finds what heâs looking for. Itâs a huge gathering of ice floes, drifting slightly in the sun-sea and sometimes clattering against each other. Eli jumps off the surface of the sunshine sea and begins stepping from floe to floe. Itâs much less nerve wracking to step onto floes than it is to dance across the sunshine sea, and Eli manages to relax enough to look for his target.
Vampires are easy to hide in the physical realm. As long as they never drink human blood it isnât hard for a vampire to go undetected for their entire lives. Creating a vampire is also easy, though. Just a vial of blood poured into an open wound is all it takes to make a vampire, and any vampire worth their salt can tell exactly where an open wound â even a tiny scratch â is.
Eli finally spots his target near the center of the crowd. The senatorâs focus is just large enough that heâll have felt his fangs appear and start to put two and two together.
Eli jumps across a dozen ice floes and lands â finally â on the senatorâs. The golf-ball sized focus on the ice floe sits in a tennis-ball sized divot, freshly carved by the introduction of vampire blood into his system.
Eli has done this switch before, but never on a fae so freshly Turned that he barely has his fangs. Itâs incredibly easy. The shadow from the vampireâs blood is small, and not being fed as it should be right after a Turning. The senatorâs soul â for all that his mind objects â wants something to fill the space in it.
One neat, Indiana Jones-style switcharoo later Eli is holding the tiny focus and the senatorâs ice floe has the orb of water in it, waving gently as ever.
Eli barely steps off the floe before the whole thing turns vibrantly blue. Itâs a true ice-blue, like the frozen side of a glacier. The senator must have been drinking some sort of flavored water for him to start Passing Through so quickly after a focus swap.
Eli books it.
He sprints across the sunshine sea in the direction he thinks he came in, not stopping until he sees the trio of silver, black, and blue that marks his friends and his own ice floe. He skids to a stop just long enough to leap the half-step up onto Masonâs ice floe then jumps from there to his own.
In a final flash of light Effulgence is gone, leaving Eli in the real world with his friends pressed around him. Mara is still singing, and the storm is still raging, and Mason is still pressed encouragingly to his side. Eli takes a breath of dark, wet air and it seems to billow and condense in his chest.
Mason barks and Nathan and Mara both turn to Eli. He smiles at them as best he can, but he knows its thin and wan. Heâs never been in Effulgence for so long before, and the sudden lack of sunlight and magic are like a deep, bone-shaking loss.
Nathan hoists Mara into his arms and she finally stops singing. The clouds will still take at least half an hour to clear, which is far longer than they need to get out, but itâs better safe than sorry. Mason shifts from his wet-cat of a fox form to his equally wet-cat of a human form, wearing tight exercise shorts and a tank top. Without a word needing to be exchanged, he hoists Eli into his arms, and they set off.
Theyâre done. They did what they came here to do. Now, senator Turned to a mer and traces wiped from the scene, theyâre going home.
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A good way to find a smuggler, pirate, or poacher in Silthaven is to look for the fishermen who claim to be only fishermen. You canât earn a living as a fisherman in Silthaven, no matter how often you go out or how much you bring in. Most split their ships between fishing and other â more lucrative â careers. If they donât advertise it, itâs typically less legal.
A good way to find an adventurer, hero, or undercover enforcer in Silthaven is to look for the fishermen who claim to be only fishermen. They donât know the docks, donât know how much fishermen really make or what they ought to be doing different.
The tricky part, Dylan knows, is figuring out which one is which.
The port of Silthaven smells like saltwater and fish, pitch and oil. There are ship hands and port workers tromping over the floating docks, carrying crates, ropes, barrels, and nets. One side of the dock is roughly full of charter ships and the other is for working ships. Makeshift shops are set up on the shore, selling last-minute supplies for travelers and always-needed supplies for the workers.
Dylan strides through the crowd, glancing at boats and men propped against the wall. Someone catches his eye, and he inspects them closer.
Heâs sitting on the edge of the dock, boots hanging over the edge. His hand flashes in neat, practiced motions with the netting needle. Thereâs a small knife at his side, unornamented but it looks like good quality. His skill with the netting needle means his canât be an amateur, so probably not an adventurer or hero, and he isnât paying more attention than necessary to those on the dock, so most likely not an enforcer.
Pirates â when they can help it â donât do much actual fishing and poachers use harpoons mostly, to spear larger game like mermaids and kelpies. Dylan settles onto the dock himself, pulling a whittling knife and a chunk of wood that will eventually be a whistle from his satchel. He keeps half an eye on the dock to watch for thieves or trouble and another half eye on the âfishermanâ.
He sits there for about fifteen minutes, whittling his whistle. The fisherman stays too, then stands when his net is mended.
âHo there!â Dylan calls at the fisherman, and he stops and turns behind him. âIâm looking for passage out of Silthaven. Do you think you could help me?â
The fisherman-smuggler watches him with an unreadable expression, âThe charter boats are over there.â He gestures with a rough hand.
âYeah, yeah, I hear yaâ. But thereâs some close scrutiny on the charter boats.â Dylan says, his tone and manner are casual even as he pushes his bangs slightly to the side. The brand on his forehead â a spiraling, jagged symbol that everyone across the continent recognizes as a convictâs mark â is visible for a brief second before his bangs settle back into place.
âIâm Hyd.â The fisherman says, dark eyes flicking back to Dylanâs, âYou will pay me double for the trip.â
âBut of course, captain Hyd!â Dylan says, shouldering his bag, âanything else?â
âI leave at sunset,â Hyd tells him brusquely, âI will not wait for you. I will not fight for you. I will not lie for you.â
âI expected nothing more.â Dylan assures him, âCan I stow my pack on your ship now?â
âYou may,â Hyd says, âSheâs Wave Singer, the mosaic one.â
Dylan gives him a smile and a wave of acknowledgement before turning to the main dock. He saw Wave Singer before, and the ship stuck in his mind as an oddity on the dock. It is certainly a mosaic, as its hull is covered in hundreds of thousands of pieces of sea glass. Theyâre every color imaginable, even ones Dylan hasnât ever heard of being found: green, white, brown, blue, purple, red, yellow, gray.
Dylan hops into the boat, swaying as it rocks underneath him. Itâs like a typical fishing boat, but also not. The decoration encrustment continues on the inside of the boat, but itâs no longer sea glass. Instead, itâs sand dollars, bones, scales, shells, and other things Dylan canât determine the origin of. The sail has feathers and nuts sewn to the bottom of it.
Dylan drops his pack on the deck of the Wave Singer, near the dock so potential thieves wonât see it on a passing glance. There isnât much of a ship to poke around, but Dylan doesnât want to spend any more time on the dock. Docks are full of travelers, and the wrong traveler could recognize him.
Dylan settles down with his wooden whistle.
Hyd leaps into the boat a few hours later, just before sunset. âSit here.â He says brusquely, gesturing to the wall right in front of the tiny cabin âDo not move. I do not need your help.â
Dylan sits. He watches carefully as Hyd brings them out of the port and under way. The boat continues for quite a ways from the port, sailing elegantly over the waves like a fanciful bird. They stop far enough out that land is barely more than a speck on the horizon.
Dylan has been on many boats before, from clunky river rafts to sleek pirate ships, and heâs never seen a ship handle so smoothly. Not only that, but a one-man fishing boat of this size so far from land and so long past sunset would be a difficult craft to control. Hyd handles it just fine, though, with only the occasional tug on a rope or twist of the steering wheel.
âI am fishing here.â Hyd tells him, âIt will be a while. When I am done, I will take you on.â
Dylan nods his thanks and pulls the whistle from his bag. Hyd casts nets and sets a few lines with bait that Dylan doesnât recognize. Even the ropes of his nets are woven of a strange black-and-white fiber that Dylan hasnât ever seen before.
Hyd settles onto the deck after all his nets are cast, watching the moon rise. Thereâs a long span of silence, then Hyd glances at Dylanâs work, which by now looks mostly like a whistle.
âYou a sorcerer?â Hyd asks bluntly.
âOf a sort.â Dylan says, peeling a slice off his whistle, âI appreciate a good bit of magic every now and again.â
Hyd grunts, then heaves himself up to check the lines and nets. Dylan keeps carving his whistle, but he keeps an ear trained on Hyd. Most people that arenât from Nimbus couldnât tell a burglar from a serial killer, but the combination of magic-craft and a convictâs brand leads some to make a very deadly connection.
Hyd is apparently not bright enough to put it together, or smart enough to not let on that he has. Either way is fine with Dylan, as long as he keeps up the façade for long enough.
Hyd knows too much now. Luckily, Dylan knows all he needs about how to sail the fishermanâs boat, and heâs never had qualms about murder.
Dylan stows the whistle in his bag, then draws a different whistle out of it. The one he had been carving was small and weak, a simple thing for starting fires and lighting torches without the need of flint and steel. The one he draws is a war whistle, though its really more of a flute than a whistle. Itâs long and sleek, made of a silver tube with grenadilla keys that form a striking contrast.
It takes Dylan an instant to position his hands, fingers falling into place instinctively after years of practice. The first note he plays seems to still the night air, freezing everything in place. Everything except Hyd.
The fisherman startles, spinning around from where heâd been bent over the wale. Dylan doesnât pause his attack, and Hyd, too, begins to slow down. Only a few measures in, the world is entirely still, with only Dylanâs music breaking the silence.
The wind doesnât blow, the boat doesnât rock, and the fisherman doesnât move from his half-lunged position, even his eyes frozen wide in shock.
Dylan stops playing. The wind slowly picks back up, but just as it took Hyd longer to slow down, it will take him longer to regain his speed. Dylan has a knife drawn and raised to slice Hydâs throat before the man can take a single step.
The knife bounces off.
Dylan stares at the kife for a solid moment, baffled. Itâs a moment too long.
Hyd â not as slow to recover as he had seemed â lunges forward.
Dylan raises an arm over his face and finds it abruptly lacerated by the razor-sharp talons that sprout from Hydâs fingers. The fishermanâs eyes â initially a queer blue gray â have gone a pale, glowing gray with tiny, slit pupils.
Dylan barely ducks under a snap of rows upon rows of serrated teeth and scrambles for his war whistle.
Hyd screams. Itâs a sound like shattering glaciers and too-close lightning, drowning out every sound Dylan makes and replacing the stillness with roiling waves and gale force winds.
Dylan stumbles on the bucking, lurching deck. Clouds swirl overhead in mere seconds, and rain bristles from them in pounding sheets. Dylan canât see, and his balance is completely shot on the suddenly wild boat.
Hyd pauses to take a breath and Dylan hears whatâs truly bringing the chaos. A trio of voices, too perfect to be human, singing a wordless, winding song. Mermaids.
Dylan doesnât get more than an instant to give his realization, as just as quickly as Hyd stops screaming he lunges forward again. Dylanâs hand drops to the deck, war whistle still clutched in detached fingers. Dylanâs body rapidly follows it, and his head a second later.
âââ
Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters rides his ship through perfectly gentle waves, the deck stained with only the faintest traces of blood. His nets are empty and his lines untouched, but he had half expected that when he accepted the magical stranger onto his craft. The ahuizotl and makara he hunts normally would cause far less trouble than a warlock. Better to be done with the later before going after the former.
Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters will make a profit today anyway. The warlockâs war whistle is only one of almost half a dozen high-end whistles he had stowed in his bag. Each will bring Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters more than he could have gotten from a weekâs worth of hunting, and thatâs without the bounty the warlock no doubt had on his head.
Spray, Froth, and Crest leave him as he nears the port, and Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters steers under his own power without their songs to carry his little ship. He has had a great deal of practice, though, and Wave Singer glides to port as effortlessly as if she had carried herself.
Mermaids are not often friends to sirens, the two having a rather predatory relationship, but Hidden-depths-of-cold-waters could admit â and his three friends would very much agree â that arrangements could be made. After all, they got their human corpses to eat or trade, and he got enough gold to last him a lifetime on a yearly basis.
As were-beasts go, Lucy hadnât ever considered herself especially dangerous. She wasnât quite a housecat â no were-beast sheâd ever heard of had been a domesticated animal â but she was pretty much as close as could be. She wasnât any sort of canine, so there was no chance of her bite being infectious. The worst thing she could do was bite someone with allergies.
Sheâs hungry tonight. Sheâs always hungry as the full moon rises, no matter what she eats. She never gives in to what she truly wants to do â go hunting for things with beating hearts and running blood. Even though sheâs a mostly harmless were-beast, her life will be forfeit if sheâs caught outside her house after moonrise.
The most danger her were-form poses is to herself.
Lucy used to have cats. The moon-mad were-coyote that mauled her also killed all three of her cats, and no natural animal has ever liked her since her infection.
The moon rises higher, and Lucy feels it singing in her blood. She has solid blackout curtains â the kind they market to older vampires â on her bedroom windows to block the moonlight and sheâs taken her sleeping pills. The night should be smooth sailing.
Something wakes her halfway through the night. She knows in her blood and bones that the moon has just barely passed its summit. Sheâs always on a hair trigger on full moon nights, and her senses are sharper even in the complete darkness of her room.
The sound comes again, of shuffling fabric. Lucy flicks a sensitive triangular ear she doesnât have, senses strained to the max. Thereâs a hint of chill in the room from the window sheâd left open. The room smells like night air, blood, and â underneath it all but still painfully penetrating â silver.
Lucy is out of her bed in an instant, sliding to the floor on instinctively silent feet. Something in the room moves with the faintest brush of motion and Lucy darts towards it.
A muffled thump of something hitting the floor breaks the tense silence seconds before Lucy reaches the intruder. It sounds light, much too light to be a person. A sharp hiss fills the darkness and Lucy flinches away on instinct. She dances back, away from the snake.
It takes a moment of fumbling to find the light switch, and every second Lucy can hear the steady rasp of scales on hardwood. When she flicks it on her eyes adjust in a split second to the dazzling light and Lucy knows her eyes must be slitted and narrow like a catâs.
It certainly is a snake, but not nearly what she had expected. Itâs barely over a foot long, with a dark brown strip along its back and paler gray-brown belly and sides. The most startling feature are its eyes. Theyâre a vibrant emerald green and seem to take up a solid third of the snakeâs angular face.
The snake is halfway across the floor, frozen by the sudden light. Lucy pounces before it regains its wits, snatching the snake around the throat, close to the head so it canât bite her. Her fingernails, she notes worriedly, are retracting into her fingers under a pale sheath. It looks eerie and wrong on human hands.
Lucy finally stops to catch her breath, strange snake squirming weakly in her careful grip. Her heart is racing with adrenaline and her moon-mind is urging her to kill and eat her prey.
Instead, Lucy props open the lid of the decorative fish tank on her desk and settles the snake into it. She clasps the lid before the snake can slither free and settles into her desk chair. She wonât be sleeping tonight. Not now sheâs woken up.
Lucy types âbrown snake big green eyesâ into the search bar and clicks on images. The second one looks just like her visitor, and a bit more searching reveals that itâs not only incredibly venomous, but native only to Africa. None of the nearby zoos have boomslangs.
âYou must be a were-beast.â Lucy tells the snake. She feels a little strange talking to a snake, but if it really is a were-beast it should be able to understand her.
The snake shakes its head in an incredibly awkward, human way. Lucy raises an eyebrow at it.
âEither youâre not too bright, or youâre really deep in denial.â She tells it, âIn case you hadnât noticed, snakes donât typically respond to questions or shake their heads.â
The were-boomslang sinks down close to the floor of the fish tank, hiding behind a plastic castle. Lucyâs going to interpret that as embarrassment.
âIf you promise to behave, Iâll take you out of the fish tank.â
The were-boomslang rises out from behind the castle. Lucy isnât great at reading emotions, and sheâs never had the pleasure of trying to read a snakeâs, but it looks surprised. Lucy cocks an eyebrow at it. You heard me.
The were-boomslang nods, another awkward, human gesture that doesnât fit its body at all. Lucy unlatches the lid and reaches a hand into the tank, and the were-boomslang readily slithers up her arm just in time for the doorbell to ring.
Lucy looks up. The were-boomslang looks up. With a put-upon sigh, she slides her flip flops on and starts for the door. She flaps noisily down the stairs and into the entryway, flipping lights on with her left hand.
âCome into the mud room.â She says into the intercom system. âI must warn you that itâs the full moon and I am a were-beast. Enter at your own risk.â The door swings open and bangs shut, and Lucy waits for a moment and pulls the door on her side open.
Three people stand in the mud room, each one bearing the dark vest and silver trappings of a Stalker. Two men and one woman, their faces impassionate and their uniforms impersonal.
In the face of Stalkers, Lucy is made painfully aware of her yellow slit eyes and the tapered ends of her too-high ears.
âHow can I help you?â She says, as cheerfully as she can manage just past midnight on the full moon.
âWeâve been tracing a new were-beast.â The man in front â evidently the leader â says almost over Lucy. âWe found a similar signature in this house.â
Heâs looking at the were-boomslang on Lucyâs arm.
âIâm sorry,â She says as lightly as she can manage under the abrupt, crushing realization of just who heâs hunting, âNo-oneâs here but me and Max.â
He watches her steadily for a moment, and Lucy wonders wildly if he can hear how much her heart has sped up. She sure can hear it pounding in her ears, and every part of her screamed at her to run, hide, get away from the threat.
âHeâs Max, then?â The female Stalker asks, gesturing at the snake.
âOh, yeah, sorry.â Lucy holds up the arm with the snake, begging every deity she can think of that this will work, âThis is my friend, Max. He was visiting me tonight.â
âWhy was he visiting you?â The leader asks, staring at the were-boomslang.
âHelps to have a friend.â Lucy makes up on the spot, âTo deal with the moon-mind.â
âHow come heâs shifted?â the third Stalker finally chipps in.
âThe curtains werenât drawn properly in the bathroom.â Lucy says, forcefully resisting the urge to over-elaborate. Sheâs learned to lie very well in her time as a were-beast.
There was a long, weighty pause, and Lucy can tell sheâs being examined closely. She keeps her â now fully feline â ears perked and free of guile.
âVery well then.â The lead Stalker, apparently deciding there isnât anything they can prosecute her for, spins on his heel and strides for the door. Before Lucy has the chance to react, he flings the door wide open, and moonlight floods into the mudroom. The other stalkers followed him, leaving the door hanging open.
Lucy stumbles towards it, one hand reaching out to close it, but itâs far too late.
The were-boomslang drops to the floor with a thump as fur courses up Lucyâs arms and her feet lengthen to the point of uselessness. Unprepared for the transformation as she is, Lucy manages to shuck her flip flops and shirt, leaving her in just her sleeping shorts and a sports bra. The transformation is too fast for much else, and Lucy lets it overtake her.
Lucy drops to her feet, sniffing the air. It smells dirty and stale, but oh! There are many wonderful scents coming from out there!
She turns to the open doorway, tail swishing behind her. Sheâs hungry, and she can smell sleeping night creatures ready for hunting.
Something makes a sound, a dangerous sound, and Lucy flicks her head towards it. It rises up in front of her, tongue flicking, hissing its threat. Lucy hisses back, ears pinning back and spine arching. She darts a paw out, then snatches it back just as quickly when the snake lunges for it.
Lucy spits angrily, batting at the snake again. Itâs unmoved by her attack, staring her down with huge eyes. Predatorâs eyes.
She edges to the side, trying to get around the snake to the outside full of prey. The snake matches her slither for step. It hasnât bit her yet, just hovers and hisses threateningly. Thatâs⌠strange. But Lucy has no time for strange. Thereâs a snake! Between her and her prey!
Lucy pounces forward, claws flashing. The snake sways away from the attack but doesnât retaliate. WhyâŚ?
Lucyâs human mind abruptly rushes back to her, shoving the moon-mind away. She canât go outside. She canât leave the house in this form or sheâd be killed out of hand. The were-boomslang had saved her life. Just as sheâd saved theirs.
Lucy pushed her puffed-up fur back down and stretches, flicking her tail at the were-boomslang. They flick their tongue at her and lower themselves back on their belly. Lucy bounds inside, then waits for the were-boomslang and nudges the door shut. The mudroom will be fine with the door open the rest of the night, and she doesnât want to give the Stalkerâs any ideas by getting close enough to close the door.
The house is still lit up, but Lucy can jump high and the switches only need to be turned down. The door to her room is a lever handle, and Lucy can manage that too. The were-boomslang follows her the whole time, watching with huge green eyes.
The darkness and night scents make her moon-mind want to hunt, but Lucyâs pesky human mind insists on sleep instead. If she hunts anything, even in her house, her moon-mind will take over, and the window is still open.
Lucy curls up on her pillow and nods off. The were-boomslang curls around her. Lucy allows it cause she remembers vaguely that snakes are cold-blooded, but she knows itâll be awkward in the morning when they both wake up as barely-clothed humans.
Legendary weapons always change form to reflect their user regardless of their original designs, with common forms in the past being swords of pure light, spears of diamond and bows of pure gold. The man before you has a rusty butter knife, but it emanates an unmistakable aura of power
Despite what most will tell you, Soulblades are as rare as they are famous. Any shady online website will try to sell you one, and every two-bit blacksmith will claim they forged one, but theyâre just as likely to be telling the truth as the government who claims to have tamed a wild dragon.
Soulblades arenât bought, forged, or traded. Theyâre inherited.
At the time of writing this there are exactly three Soulblades in the world, each gifted from one of the thirteen oldest gods.
The Sword of Strength by Wisdom is sealed deep in a cliff in Scotland, supposedly waiting for the correct wielder. The bloodline it was gifted to must still be alive, but as of yet no one knows which one it is.
The Tessen of Cleft Hearts rests in, of all places, the British Museum. It belongs to an ancient bloodline in Japan, but in most the blood is so diluted and the museum security so strict â despite the fact that none but the true bloodline can touch their Soulblade â that none have yet been able to claim it.
The Arrow of Unerring Resolve was supposedly lost to history. As with most things âlost to historyâ, that is just as much bull as the aforementioned wild dragon story. No, the Arrow has been faithfully passed down through its bloodline, through countless tribal skirmishes and hunts, eventually the revolutionary war, the civil war, and two world wars.
As far as most people know, The Arrow is long gone. As Chroniclers, though, we know things most donât and there is a very important story associated with The Arrow. Our duty is, of course, to share stories.
â
Her name is Alexander, and she is the second least fortunate her bloodline has represented. In a newfound world of plenty and people, Alex is alone on the streets, living out of dumpsters and the occasional kind â or incautious â person. She owns just enough fabric and improvised insulation to keep her from freezing to death.
Most recently, though, Alex has⌠found, so to speak, several expensive watches and bracelets. She herself is unaware that the pawn shop she intends to sell them at is semi-perpetually guarded by a handful of disreputables.
At the moment one named Jake stands at the intersection, waiting for a target to pass him by. He wields a rusty sharpened butter knife and is the lowest his bloodline has fallen since the gift of the Soulblade was settled upon it.
Soulblades, for the most part, care nothing for who has the moral high ground, or who deserves them the most, or even who is most worthy. But Soublades are built of magic and divinity, and they follow their divine calling.
Jake wants a great many things. He wants to live like a king, he wants an endless line of beautiful women, he wants everyone in the world to fall down and worship him. But there is a very large difference between wants and desires, and things that are truly hoped for and decided upon.
Alex hopes for another meal tomorrow and a night not spent shivering under clumsily handmade plastic blankets. She has decided on a course of action to achieve it, and in her determination she makes a perilous mistake.
There can't be much that draws the Soulblade more than Alexâs experience, but only it knows that.
Jake emerges from the shadows, knife in his hand and greed in his heart. Alex stands her ground, determined to escape with her life and her future. The knife changes hands without either of them moving.
Alex stands her ground with a sleek knife, blade of ink-black stone and handle of rough wood worn smooth. Jake freezes, weaponless and unmotivated. Then, he runs, and Alex is the Soulbladeâs bearer, now and forever. It has chosen her, not the other way around, and there is little anyone could do to separate them.
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She has taken the name Alexander, protector of mankind. She feels mankind will need Her soon. Now, though, She follows a new, faithful bearer of Her blessed blood. The sliver of her power She had gifted them â initially an arrow that flew true and saved a life and a hunt â is bound to this one, and She is always interested in Her bearer.
In the modern day Her soul is most often a modern weapon. A golden semi-automatic that fires diamond rounds, a silver taser that lets off sparks of superheated violet, a glowing pastel handgun with rainbow-bismuth bullets, even once a copper canister of bear mace that hisses clouds of lamp-black dust into the air.
This daughter of blessed blood bears not a golden gun or bismuth bullets, but a rough, primitive weapon of discarded parts, wound together by work and dedication and desperation.
This story kind of ran away with me, and it strayed a lot from the original prompt, but I had the prompt in mind when I wrote it, so here it is.
Ainsley stalked through never-ending tunnels and hallways. They snapped into their proper shape at his presence, illusions dripping away like molten glass. Darkness pooled in his footsteps, monsters following murderously behind him, unable to touch him but unwilling to let him leave without a fight.
Nerves rubbed raw,Ainsley finally emerged into the lobby. The Mojave Desert still waited outside the glass doors, and the sun was rising over the scrub. It had only been one night since he had arrived.
There was someone else standing at the doors, someone Ainsley didnât think heâd seen before.
âSorry, sir.â The night man â his name tag says Ciaran, so that isnât his name â bares too many teeth in a disturbing imitation of a smile, âweâre only accepting new guests at this time.â
Ainsley kept walking.
âSir?â There was something wrong with his voice, something that made the solidly human part of Ainsley ache and shiver, âFeel free to⌠check out, Sir, but you wonât be permitted to leave.â
Ainsley knows better. Thereâs more than one meaning to the term âcheck outâ, and if he lost his concentration now, he would be torn apart in seconds.
âI agreed to spend a night.â He managed through clenched teeth, ââAâ here meaning one. I have spent one night. You have to let me leave.â
âVery good sir, but the night is not yet over.â
Ainsley stared at Ciaran, trying to think and keep his shield of âhuman, human, entirely humanâ up. He turned slowly and stared out the window at the sun that had just peaked over the horizon. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the image of the sun and sky started to melt.
It dripped away seemingly at the speed of molasses, revealing the barely-lightened pre-dawn sky. A final illusion, hoping to make him break his word to Oriana and leave before the night was done.
Ainsley shuffled to a bench in the lobby and sat down. Hellhound prowled inches in front of him and basilisks gazed unblinkingly through him, but Ainsley kept his aura high. He didnât know how much time passed, how long he sat there focused purely on brandishing his humanness in a protective layer.
The sun had risen completely when he left the Moonshadow Lodge, magic pulling on his limbs like he was running in a dream. He settled into his car, still waiting patiently in the tiny, overgrown parking lot, and the magic vanished.
The Moonshadow Lodge was gone, vanished to some other lost traveler or wandering fae. It left behind only the old parking lot and the ruined building that had once been attached to it. Ainsley, sitting in his warded, reinforced car, finally reunited with his full arsenal of monster-hunting equipment, found a new goal. He had been hunting aimlessly all this time, wandering from chase to trap with no real aim. Now he knew what he needed to do. He was the only human to ever escape the Moonshadow Lodge, and he would use his newfound knowledge to tear it to the ground.
The ceiling was lined with mirrors. Ainsley knew they were real â unlike most other things in these long, twisting halls â because jingxiang dropped from out of them, reaching quicksilver claws towards him. Ainsley dodged talons that fractured the flickering torchlight and raised his gun to shoot the mirrors above him.
Werewolves howled in the tunnel behind him and murocorrers skittered along the walls. Ainsley could still smell the âpink champagneâ that had signaled the beginning of the hunt. He didnât think heâd ever drink champagne again, not with that image that had burned itself into his mind forever.
Ainsleyâs footsteps muffled suddenly as the bare stone changed abruptly to thick carpet. He almost slowed, almost paused to gain his bearings, but a banshee thrummed her song of death and Ainsley practically stumbled over his own feet to move faster.
A door loomed in front of him, sturdy and thick. With the hallway behind him seething with fae and magik, Ainsley had nowhere to go but through it. If it was a magik door it would be locked no matter what he did, but if it was a fae door or an unused room it may be open, and Ainsley was relatively sure he was near the outside wall. It was hard to tell in the confusing winding hallways that went on longer than they should.
The door was unlocked.
Ainsley shoved through it with barely a shiver of foreboding to slow him. It was ominous for sure, but there was nothing he could do about it. He barely caught a glimpse of the room, but it was enough. Rich red furnishing with darker red stains. Glossy stained wood shining with the presence only real things can have. A circle chalked into the ground, warding the inside from the out and the outside from within.
With no other option available, Ainsley stumbled into the circle. Magiks and monsters spilled into the room, seething and swarming in a ghastly hoard. Ainsley could feel his mind failing looking at the crowd and quickly averted his gaze to the chalk circle on the floor. He knew it was a trap. He knew. There wasnât any other reason for a protection ward to be drawn here. Better the devil you know, though, right? Ainsley knew all the high-ranking devils and demons. His heart wavered then soared reading the name written in the rim of circle.
He wouldnât lose his soul today. The master of the Moonshadow Lodge â for so long sought after and hunted by his associates â was not what any of them have been searching for.
Ainsley gathered himself together, reaching deep into his soul to find what he needed. Every other hunter heâd ever met was special. Grandson of a demigod, blessed by a dragon, unicorn rider, Phoenix friend. None of them would survive here.
Ainsley summoned every drop of pure, true humanness he had. Every incorrect assumption and mistake. Every clever moment and stroke of genius. Every chink and crack in his mind and personality, fear and hatred and guilt and greed and laziness. Every virtue and strength in his soul, courage and love and redemption and generosity and hard work.
Immundus, demon king of corruption â once the angel of purity â canât touch humans. Theyâre perfectly balanced in the middle of corruption and purity, born to be right and wrong, light and dark, good and evil. His servants and guests also canât harm a real, true, untouched human.
Ainsley stepped out of the summoning circle and walked through the crowd. Silver claws skidded off of his skin and teeth shattered on his unprotected limbs. A screech that would have blown out his eardrums faded and died into strangled silence.
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Ainsley stood with his back to the wall, staring hard at the ground beneath him. He knew it was the same scuffed and cratered stonethat the hallways were made of, but the illusions layered so heavily over it that he couldnât actually seeit.
The whole room was imitation and lookalike, smooth marble floor and glossy wood panelingmere thin layers that hid the true purpose of the courtyard. Ainsley didnât know how much was real, where the wood paneling blended with the illusions and where the sky startedand magic ended. He wasnât sure if any of it was real at all.
An array of counterfeit people swirled around Ainsley, their auras and voices and magiks blending together. Some, Ainsley knew, were fae themselves. Shining hooves unhidden by any illusion danced between polished boots and bloodstained claws.
None of the other fae that wandered near him touched him. Ainsley had heard very little of the Moonshadow Lodge â none that entered ever lived long â but from internal reports he had heard that there was a sort of honor among they fae that were permitted there. Ainsley had already been claimed by Oriana, and none would risk the retaliation of the Lodgeâs master if they interrupted the hunt of another.
Oriana herself was somewhere in the throng, and Ainsley could hear her laughter â just a little too wild â cut through the low thrum of noise. When he chanced a careful look up, he caught brief glimpses of beings that had once been human. They glittered now with real diamonds and anotherâs fire, a lost wildness in their eyes that no true human had.
They danced with reckless abandon, whirlwinds of sparkling motion. Some clutched small items in their furious motion, eyes blown wide and trained unmovingly on the item they held. Others clenched their eyes tightly shut, unaware of anything around them yet never once colliding. Both sent chills down Ainsleyâs spine and urged him to reach for his rosary.
He ached with his own memories and the urge to dance them away. Memories of his old hunts, losses and failures. Memories of this last night when he fell prey to the Moonshadow Lodgeâs curse. Memories of his weakness again just before midnight, when he gave into the Moonshadow Lodge once again to follow the alluring voices down the halls and to the dancing courtyard.
âCome danceâ the sourceless music hummed through his veins, âyou are safe and encouraged here, leave your shameful past behind you. The courtyard is beautiful, and those who dance are delighted. Come and join them. Forget your guilt. Never remember again.â
Ainsley pressed his back to the wall and his lips tightly closed. He hadnât danced since his first hunt years ago, and he knew that someone in his profession â someone who chases fae and captures sirens and mimicsâ could never afford to give in to the call of music.
He also knew he wasnât truly welcome here. Not until he let the magic in the music pour through him and danced like the sparkling, perfect victims that flocked to Orianaâs flame. He had no proper piece of etiquette to excuse his refusal to dance, and the fae that saw him braced against the wall would be free to press their magic against his mind in an effort to force him.
He stayed against the wall, tracing lines in the floor with his eyes, and struggled to shrug off the looming pressure of magic and expectation that poured onto his shoulders from sharp, watching eyes.
Her name tag read Oriana, but there was certainly no way it was her real name. She lit a candle with a touch of her fingers, and only in the firelight was her true form visible. Before Ainsley could catch more than a glint of elongated fangs, she had turned away, gliding effortlessly over the pitted, scarred stone.
Whispers echoed across the bare walls, eerie music and inhuman singing. From personal experience, Ainsley could pick out the distinctive notes of a Sirenâs song and the warbling tremor of a mimicâs true voice. He tried to shut out the music, focus on the number of turns Oriana led him through.
Still the unearthly song drifted in his mind, and despite all his training Ainsley couldnât pinpoint where it came from â if it was even still audible.
âWelcomeâ the music tingled darkly in his soul, âyou are welcome here, let down your guard. The building is beautiful, and the people are kind. Welcome. You are welcome. Never leave.â
On instinct, Ainsley put his hand on the wall. The rough stone scraped against his fingertips, helping to ground him in reality. Oriana glided past rows upon rows of doorways, some closed and forbidding and some cracked open ever-so-slightly to let firelight or darkness or soft murmurs into the corridor.
Ainsley trailed behind her, gaze locked on Oriana in a desperate attempt to keep it away from the tantalizing magic trailing from the open rooms and calling voices. He had to focus now. His life and soul depended on it.
Oriana was dressed much better than Ainsley remembered. Diamonds â real ones, as far as he could tell â glinted in the candlelight, spilling down her shimmering silver dress. Her talons clawsnails shone with real gold leaf, and Ainsley couldnât tell if they reflected the fiery glow of the candle lighting the path or if they were heated with their own internal flame.
His question was answered when Oriana finally stopped, turning towards him. Her eyes glowed with blazing desire, and her fangsteeth were stained faintly pink with what Ainsley knew without thinking was the blood of many, many unlucky souls.
He entered the room Oriana ushered him to without a conscious thought to do so, and as the door slid shut behind her, he couldnât help the shiver that ran down his spine. A hunter he may be, skilled and experienced enough to live this long, but he couldnât help but think that he may be Orianaâs next unlucky prey.