Stray Cat Reads That

a telepathic superheroine part of 4CC and a super functional super hero-ing team. her tale starts when she meets Rex, villain who rapidly becomes not-really-one. featuring Quickdraw, who’s very bad at being a superhero; Gazelle, who’s done with everything; and Crown, who tries very hard. 

intro arc: 

part one 

part two 

part three 

part four 

part five 

part six 

Sincos Tan arc: 

part one 

part two 

part three 

part four 

some amorphous future:

you’re my regret 

breaking the seal**

snippets:

rex & sincos ||**

rex and darkwell (post intro-6) ||

in darkwell’s world ||

rex’s bad ideas

rex, no 

rex, no pt 2 || 

post-sincos tan (dogs) ||

the 4CC intern || featuring leiter 

what about Q || featuring leiter, quickdraw, & monopoly**

the dangers of unrequited love || ft. quickdraw & crown

AU snippets: Monopoly and Char have an adventure (with @rrrawrf-writes​)

Crown does not need therapy: 

part one 

part two 

“Poor little sailor,” the pirate mocked. “Trapped all alone on the ship with the big, bad pirate captain and his motley crew. Whatever will you do?”

“Join you. What?” they asked in the face of the captain’s surprise. “I was press-ganged by them, now I’ve been press-ganged by you. Not much difference, really.”

“Shame there’s no spare hammock for you, else I might take you up on that.”

The now ex sailor thought fast. “I could buy one at the next port. You can dock the cost out of my share of whatever plunder we capture.”

The captain raised an eyebrow. “And until then?”

The Tasak had been plaguing Samra’s coasts for years, and Noki had known just from its success that the ship had to be well-run, with a smart captain (or an incredibly lucky one, but Noki didn’t believe in long-lasting luck like that.) Now, however, the evidence was before him: the crew of the ship barely paid attention to him, and the few who did glance over at him and shake their heads just smiled or rolled their eyes skyward and moved on, never losing their quick efficiency as they scampered across the ship’s deck. On the whole, they were good with their lines and well-disciplined, and nothing looked out of order nor disorganized to him.  

Which only made things worse, of course. A well-run ship was that much hard to sneak off. Noki closed his eyes against the glare of the sun over head, and tried to formulate some kind of plan that didn’t involve jumping overboard and drowning himself at the first chance.

“Poor little sailor,” a drawling voice mocked.

Noki opened his eyes. The pirate standing before him had to be the captain, though Noki had no idea where he came from–he hadn’t been there just moments ago, and Noki hadn’t heard anyone come from behind him. He was a large man too, broad-shouldered with a square jaw and a gleam to his green eyes that Noki didn’t trust. He didn’t look like a man who could move quietly. 

“Trapped all alone on the ship with a big, bad pirate captain and his motley crew. Whatever will you do?” 

Noki swallowed once, noticed that still none of the others were paying (overt) attention to them, and strove to sound blasé. “Join you,” he suggested. And then to the captain’s surprised look: “What? I was press-ganged by them, and now I’ve been press-ganged by you. Not much of a difference, really.”

The captain tutted, tapping his fingers speculatively against the sword hilt at his hip. “I might take you up on that, little sailor,” he said, now in mock warning, which Noki saw as an improvement from plain mockery. “If only we had an extra hammock.” 

The now ex-sailor thought fast. “I could–I could buy one at the next port.”

“With what money, pray tell?” 

“You could always dock it from. From my share, of whatever plunder there is.”

The captain threw his head back and laughed, the sound loud and booming. That did catch the eye of the others, but those closest–the closest that Noki could see from his hobbled vantage point, at any rate–looked bemused more than anything else. Noki took courage from that. 

“Say I agreed,” the captain said, while his laughter was still echoing in Noki’s head. “It could weeks before we make port. Even longer before we find another ship to plunder. What will you do until then?”

Noki swallowed his nerves, stared straight into the captain’s dancing green eyes, and tried not to think of how stupid he was being. Needs must and all. “I don’t suppose there’s room in yours?” he tried. 

The captain grinned, stepping in towards Noki, and it was only then at Noki realized how much space the pirate had been giving him. “I’m a large man,” the captain said, and still he was moving in close, almost pressing Noki against the mast now, and his arms went around Noki’s sides. Noki felt smothered, truly caged in now. “I kick in my sleep.” His voice lowered, deep and rough, and Noki swallowed again nervously. 

When the captain next spoke, his breath brushed against Noki’s ear. “If there’s no room in my hammock, little sailor, were you planning to make the same offer to any other of my crew who’d accept you?” 

Noki stiffened. 

“No,” he bit out, outraged, before he could stop himself. “How dar–”

The captain stepped back, and Noki felt his breath come easier and looser as the ropes around his chest slackened. The captain had untied them.  

Slowly, he unwrapped the ropes from around Noki’s chest, coiling it over his arm as he went, and winked, all laughing ease again. “Good to know I warranted an extra-special offer.” 

Noki knew his eyes were wide and that he was probably gaping like a fish. 

“So that–that’s it? I can stay?” He didn’t ask if he really was going to have to share the captain’s hammock. He had only so much courage (or thoughtless stupidity) for one day. 

The captain grinned. “If you can get the rest of yourself unbound. I’ve already done the hardest part,” he added, patting the coiled rope on his arm. “Then go find the Dowager, and if she likes you, she’ll rustle up something suitable.”

“I–thank you,” Noki said, polite relief winning out over his shock. “Captain. Sir.”

“Don’t thank me yet, little sailor. The Dowager might very well toss you overboard herself. But until then… you can just call me Kan.” 

Noki leaned back against the mast, hard, his knees going weak with realization. Kan. If he was who Noki thought he was–if he was Prince Isokai’s betrothed, who’d disappeared years ago at sea–

“Yes,” Kan said, guessing at the new source of Noki’s shock and laughing. This time, his laugh had a bitter edge. “That Kan. If you’re smart, little sailor, you won’t think about it too much.”

The captain turned and walked away. 

“But the prophecy–”

part 6 of the seven…part… story challenge, a few months late but. Better late than never, eh, @straycatreadsthat?

(previous parts here)

-

“All right,” says Ena. She says it slowly, thoughtfully, and then quirks a smile at Alina.

Surprise and disbelief arch Alina’s brows, and then they narrow in silent question.

“I’ve been observing you for enough time,” Ena explains. She speaks carefully. She watches Alina closely. And she tries not to think at all. “And I read as much as I could, with the resources I have access to, and now… Now I’m ready to join you.”

Alina schools her face back into that distant, superior cast. “Yes, well, since you left Fariah, you probably couldn’t do any really effective research.” Her voice is cool and dismissive, but Ena thinks she sees—no, Ena knows she feels Alina’s excitement, a hot undercurrent that belies her attempt at cold reserve. “You might not have taken so long to see the light.”

Ena doesn’t grit her teeth. She makes a rueful noise, and then she smiles and puts her whole face into it, eyes and all. Alina takes her hand and pats the back of it, and then tucks Ena’s arm into hers and says, “Now, let’s talk about your initiation night.”

-

Desiree doesn’t look at Ena when she joins them at their next meeting, barefoot and dressed in the white of an initiate as Alina had told her to be. While picking out the dress—a simple shift, easy to move in, with none of the fancy waistlines or tight goth bodices of the other women—Ena had tried not to think disparagingly of all the witch cult movies Alina’s probably watched in the past three years since cobbling together her own cult. In the now, approaching the circle of torches dressed in pure, virginal white and feeling the grass and the cool earth and the occasional pebble or stick beneath her bare feet, Ena thinks of nothing again.

It’s not easy for her to do, not always, but she breathes in a slow, deliberate pattern and routine does the rest for her, sweeping her up into a count of breaths that drives everything else away. Breathe in one, out two, in three, out four, in five, out six, in seven, out eight, in nine, out ten, in one…

“A new sister joins us today,” says Alina, though Ena isn’t really new. About half the women turn their heads to her anyway; Desiree isn’t one of them. Desiree and a handful of the others look resolutely towards the imagined center of the circle. If Ena were thinking, if Ena were doing anything but breathing out six, in seven, out eight—Ena would probably recognize the glazed, unfocused looks in their eyes.

Desiree isn’t the only one of the sisters trapped with the daylight of bad dreams, Ena might have thought. She might have asked herself, how many of them has Alina lost over the years? How many more could Alina kill before she realized it was her fault?

In three. Out four.

“I am Ena, and once I was of Fariah, and I come now to your circle and beg the love of your sisterhood,” Ena says, without thinking, because these are Alina’s words, and all Ena needs do is speak them.

“Come, Ena, and we will love you as a sister,” says the circle, as one; a medley of voices high and low and eager and intrigued, and under them all the foundation of Desiree’s and the others’ monotonous voices, perfectly in sync, their eyes still focused on the center.

Ena steps forward, into the circle, and takes up the empty space between Desiree and another of the blank staring ones. She stands across the circle from Alina. 

“This is the end that justifies the means,” Alina says.

The unlit torch in front of Ena bursts into flame. Ena flinches from the sudden flare of light, but doesn’t move. “This is the end that justifies the means,” she replies.

As she had the first night, and every night Ena has seen them since, Alina raises her hands up to the sky, up to the sliver of the moon there, to the bright nail clawing at the sky. “This is the end that justifies the means!” she calls, and the black smoke curls from her fingertips, rises to choke out the fires of each torch. One by one by one by one.  Out four, in five, out six, in seven.

Ena’s torch goes out, and she’s not thinking still, but suddenly she’s not counting either.

She sees.

-

The light of each torch as it goes out does not disappear completely. It hovers, so well dispersed it could be gone, it could be a flash of moonlight, but when the halfway point in the torches is reached and Ena’s torch, directly across from Alina’s, goes out, the light leaps back into place as a thin line connecting the two. Running from Alina to Ena. 

Then again—the second torch, throwing out its connection to the one across from it in a thin, fiery light. And again, and again, until air above them is crossed with fine, burning lines of light and at the center, transfixed into place a few feet off the ground by the dozen-odd lines—

is Fish.

Naked, eyes closed, head lolling forward so her thick, wiry black curls cover her face, but it’s Fish. 

“This is the end that justifies the means,” the women chant, and Ena’s voice is among them, maybe, but all Ena sees is Alina’s triumphant smile.

“This is the end that justifies the means,” Alina says, with awful gleeful knowing.

The premise of the second part of Don Quixote is that the protagonist is on a quest to beat up a guy who wrote an unflattering fanfic about him

The Tale of Genji contains a chapter with no text to reflect the fact that the viewpoint character has just died

“This is it. The end of the road. The closing curtains. The–”

“I get it. We’re dying.”

regret everything part twenty-two (part twenty-one)

The deadline for the next Congress’s proposals comes and goes, and nobody except the review department pays it any mind. When Kan and Sem should have begun sequestering themselves away to begin combing through the cases and the citizens’ suggestions, they instead shut themselves in Kan’s small audience study with their grief.

regret everything part twenty-one (part twenty)

Noki begins coming back later and later at night, and his absences correlate directly to the impending deadlines for Congress proposals. Noki comes to bed when Kan’s already asleep, and by the time Kan wakes up in the morning, he’s already up and about. Kan spends a lot of his brand-new alone time thinking about the Exchange, and how he can best dismantle the group without mortally offending Noki.

regret everything part ten (part nine & nine point five)

The Exchange isn’t scheduled to present until the last day of Congress, because Kan’s treat to himself for making it through all five days is Noki and the full glory of his keen, proud intellect. Unfortunately that means Kan does have to make it through four days without seeing hide nor tail of Noki, in the new suit or otherwise.

regret everything part twenty-one (part twenty)

Noki begins coming back later and later at night, and his absences correlate directly to the impending deadlines for Congress proposals. Noki comes to bed when Kan’s already asleep, and by the time Kan wakes up in the morning, he’s already up and about. Kan spends a lot of his brand-new alone time thinking about the Exchange, and how he can best dismantle the group without mortally offending Noki.

“Don’t touch, don’t- don’t put that near me, don’t you dare, don’t-”“Now now, I don’t know why you’re struggling. All this is going to do is make you feel blessed.” The goddess’ devotee smiled with blue-stained teeth, eyes pearlescent and empty. “Holy. Beloved.”The ex-devotee writhed in their bonds, desperate to dodge the shimmering powder. “Not it won’t! It just dulls you, lowers your inhibitions, destroys your wisdom and I will not, can not-”They were silenced as the powder bowl reached their face, and the devotee blew on it with a smile.

—–

“And it will go like this.” The fae spun, cape whirling. “You will bow before me. You will ask for my forgiveness. You will plead to be permitted back into my service, and you will beg to be allowed to partake in nectar and fairydust once more.”“Or?”“Or I will go into that hovel you call a home, murder your father, partake of your mother, enslave your sister and addict your new beloved so that they may take your place.” Fury radiated from them in sheets of bone-sheering wind. “You should never have forsaken me, my knight, but most of all you should never have allowed me to track you home.”

—–

“Take it.”The hero took the needle with shaking fingers, expression torn between revulsion and desire.“Press it to your arm.”The motion was too easy, finding a vein, holding the needle steady. They looked up at the villain from their knees.The villain smirked. “Now ask me. Ask for permission.”“No.”“That wasn’t a request, hero. Ask me to make you ruin your life again.” Their smile broadened. “You know you want to.”

—–

addendum: decline

part five of the writing challenge with @straycatreadsthat… poco a poco, eh. 

In her dream, Ena walks through the forest. The moon shines brightly above her, unlike the last time she was here, when it was new and dark and Alina’s spell polluted the air.

“I thought those lists would take you a lot longer to work your way through,” Fish says when Ena reaches the edge of the Sisterhood’s clearing. She’s standing in the center of the circle of torches, and she smiles at Ena, who stops just outside the line made by the circle. “I’m glad you’ve lived up to your reputation.”

Fish wears a dress like Alina’s, though hers is silvery instead of black, and it contrasts luminously with her dark skin. Her dark, round eyes are as big as Ena remembers, and she looks up at Ena with the air of playful knowing that Ena remembers. Her smile still says, I know everything about you in the kindest way possible… Yet if Ena looks at her the wrong way, Fish appears as insubstantial as the moonlight.

“I promised you I would be better than any of your apprentices,“ Ena replies, lifting her chin proudly. She curls her fingers into her palms, ready to dig her nails in and draw blood if it comes down to that. She knows that if Fish is here, this can’t be any normal dream.

"It’s not a normal dream,” says Fish.  “And it’s not one of those things you can learn from my library. This is a hands-on kind of magic.”

"It’s really you, then?” asks Ena–not hopefully, but cautiously.

Fish grins and spreads her hands. “The first day we met, you followed me around campus half the morning while trying to pretend you weren’t, argued with me after my lecture on uncontrolled magics, then burst in on my dinner to demand the honor of studying with me.”

Ena considers this. This is all true–but they’re also things Ena remembers. Is she can be pulled into a dream-that’s-not, who knows what else could be pulled from her mind?

“Why did you say yes?”

It was a question Ena had asked herself many times.

“No on else could teach you except for me,” asserts Fish. “I knew that even before I visited Fariah’s campus.”

But you haven’t even been teaching me, Ena thinks for the briefest of moments, before she can push away the wave of petulant disappointment that sweeps through her.

The playfulness in Fish’s eyes dims, and her smile takes on a more serious cast. “I know I haven’t,” she admits. “But some things are more important than a witch’s obligation to her apprentice. Things that are too dangerous for a young witch just out of school, with barely any real-world experience.”

“Then why am I here?” Ena demands, trying not to sound hurt.

“Because you’re ready now,” Fish replies, without any pity or any attempt to console Ena. “You know enough that I can call on you for help. Now I can really teach you, Ena, and we don’t have any time to waste. Do you know where we are?”

The question has an immediate effect on Ena. For the first time in years, she has a teacher again, and Ena has always been an excellent student.

“It’s a forest,” she says promptly. “A dream of one. But there’s something strange about it, isn’t it? Not just here, but in the real world too.”

“Yes,” Fish says, almost approvingly. “I thought you would notice it. The world turns slowly here, within this circle of torches. The power of magic declines week by week.”

“And?”

“And we’re going to find out why.”  

or becomes as insubstantial as moonlight