#6cious

pop  pop  pop  /  electric  blue  and  starlight  sparks  in  her  eyes   you’re  a  jinx!!!   things  rot  in  the  undercity,  stripped  back  and  peeled  away,  but  too  many  leave  bones  for  her  to  trip  on;  scars  that  ache  when  all  she  wants  is  silence,  and  the  dead  don’t  talk,  but  gods  above  do  they  know  how  to  scream.

stupid  kids  /  crash  bang  boom.  everything  is  ashes  and  charcoal  in  her  mouth,  the  taste  of  copper  on  her  tongue  that  bleeds  into  her  throat   (  she’ll  never  taste  anything  but  iron  again.  )   not  powder  anymore,  but  powder  still  rattles  the  cage;  she  claws,  fights  and  screams,  and  jinx  can  only  let  loose  the  cries  in  a  cacophony  of  explosions  that  never  seem  to  destroy  it  all  /  blast  it  all  away.  she’s  not  a  child,  no,  but  she  can  pout  like  one;  this  tantrum  that  transcends  years  /  threatens  all  of  piltover  when  it  reaches  the  crescendo.      just  …  believe  me  when  i  say  i’m  sorry.         and  fuck  /  so  is  she;  that’s  powder,  always  sorry  /  always  crying.  can’t  let  ghosts  crawl  back  into  the  living.

𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐒  |  @6cious​  .

she knows a thing or two about change: the kind that creeps up quietly and the kind that pushes through you like lake water, leaving nothing of your old self behind. she has been twisting the two in her hands for years, teetering and swinging back. someone said this to her, once: why do you fear the strike? for a while she thought she was nothing but strike, and then he said that.

in her own home, with her own mother, there is still a girl she is supposed to be and she is not that person. it’s nothing her mother ever says—proud of you is what she says most of the time—but it is hard to fit yourself back into a space you are too big for. clothes she can’t imagine ever having worn hanging in the closet. and there is the world, her world, glistening, and the underworld glistening brighter.

it’s no kinder here.

the sad answer is none hdsfgh. the slightly more honest but equally sad answer is playing video games, though those tend to be less a hobby and more something i do to procrastinate and escape the stress of my thesis - writing struggles.

i'm in a bit of an ehhhhh space rn in my life, but once i've graduated and moved back to my home city i'm planning to pick up ttrpgs again! until then i'd really ought to at least get some more activity and outdoor air in my life and start taking walks, if nothing else.

@6cious​   //   ❛ why does it feel like this is goodbye? ❜   —   hit me where it hurts.

“goddamn. i know what you’re doing.”

they’re on the landing outside the bedroom they share with powder and the boys, whispering so low and so intently that even the walls can swallow the sounds of their voices. chatter from the last drop trickles down the stairs through a barely cracked door, which brings with it the promise of privacy. it’s something v couldn’t have gotten away with, sneaking out like they had with their old stuffie and a hand in powder’s hair; the twins read each other easier than anything, know when the other is hiding something. and this is too big to keep down.

“and why you’re doing it. you think you have to; i thought about doing it myself. but you don’t have to, you shouldn’t, i—i can. they need you.” vi steps forward and punches v’s chest, hard, letting her arm go loose the moment she makes contact. “you don’t—” fist against v’s chest “—have—” and again “—to do this.”

she wants to ask, aren’t you scared? but it’s a silly question; of course he’s scared. and it’s a stupid question, because it’s hard enough to talk about things like that, even in snatched moments, when v’s shoulders aren’t so tense you could light a match off them.

vi can’t stop them. not just for their stubbornness, though that would be enough to settle the matter on its own, but because a few yards away powder is depending on them. because vander sat the two of them down and told them about responsibility, and things could go so wrong if topside doesn’t get its due.

“asshole,” she says instead, emphatically.

she pulls v into a hug, deeper and tighter than any hug she can remember. she breathes the undercity stink of him, feels the brush of their hair against her cheek, and curls her hands into fists as they’re wrapped around his back. part of her wants to say don’t go—most of her does—but he is trying so hard to be brave and she doesn’t want to crack that. be safe, she could say, but it’s hollow in the back of her throat.

not long ago, karen would have denied it all—the bags under her eyes deep enough to drown an army, in her pajamas, her clumped hair making a birds’ nest at the back—with a simple and vehement i’m fine. i’m fine at the end of the world, i’m fine with the world hanging on her. i’m fine with nothing but the aftermath, the endless quiet of the flat she can barely keep on top of rent for.

vi had chosen a bad day to swing by. the radio had broken, and outside all the little sounds of day-to-day life had grown cacophonous. there were monsters everywhere. karen had moved the kitchen block onto the table beside her own knives and was playing with the handle of the largest blade, which wasn’t weighted properly for stabbing. vi had had to let themself in, and had found karen with a bowl of soggy cereal and a few new blade marks on the table, half risen and wild with a knife in her hand.

when she’s lowered the knife, stabbing it deep into the table with a shaking hand, karen says, “you can’t. you can’t,” because it is one of those days and she believes that. “i’m just... fucked up always. i’m supposed to... deal with it. i’m good at dealing with it. dunno what you can do.” she yanks the knife out of the table and sets it down with a small chime. she slides it and the whole block toward vi.