the parent's guide to the young conduit @noisesfrombeyondtheuniverse @nonbinary-octopus

"Sometimes I just want to be blunt with her, just- It’s not your fault you were being bullied, Lydia. But I’m not sure that would help.”

“And you think learning more about ghosts will?”

“Yes. Yes I think it will,” Charles says. He’s been hesitant around decisive decisions concerning Lydia lately - he went back and forth on the school move a hundred times before he ever mentioned it to her - but he’s doing his best to be certain now.

“Then of course I’ll learn to do an exorcism with you.”

it's not me @zyrafowe-sny @somefishycat @whimsicalmeerkat @auburnlaughter @asha10100101010

He looks like he’s going to elaborate, but he doesn’t. Nimona furrows her brow.

“What?”

“I’m not sure if it would be too much.”

“Just spit it out, Boss. I can’t deal with being out of the loop right now.”

He nods. “Right, yeah, that makes sense.” He pauses again, and then continues slowly, choosing his words carefully. “Nimona, am I right in thinking the rabies symptoms are… interacting with your trauma responses?”

Nimona squints. The hand on her forehead moves up to comb through her hair. After a few moments, she pulls her other hand away from Ballister’s to join it.

“I don’t- maybe? But it’s not just- History repeats, Ballister. Things happen over and over.”

He doesn’t reply for a long moment. Probably just shocked that she used his actual name.

from the back of a blood red mare @phantom-z0ne @kallisto-k @thefandomlesbian @oriharaizayadividesintoslytherin

“That puts a real hitch in the plan…”

“That’s what I thought!”

“We can’t confront her in front of them, and if I try to go out there and speak to Ambrosius I’m sure she’ll find some way to make me look worse.”

“So you need ‘em alone? I can do that, just lemme know which one you want first.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Hey, why?”

“The look on your face kid. Don’t trust it as far as I could throw you.”

“That doesn’t really mean anything, I’m sure you could throw me pretty far if-”

She’s cut off by the sound of the bell over the door, and whips her head around to look. And of course, it’s him. Standing there with his infuriatingly neat hair.

the book in the birdbath @dreamed-for-not @twyrewolf @tamsinswriting @combeferres-mothematics

Skye giggles, but doesn’t say anything in reply. For a long few moments the two of them just lay side by side in the quiet and look up at the ceiling tiles.

“...I think he really cares about you,” Skye says after a while.

“Huh?”

“Your dad. The stuff I overhear, I think he cares about you a lot. My parents are overprotective sometimes and sometimes it gets on my nerves but it’s only because they care a lot. It’s not their fault.”

Lydia continues to stare at the ceiling, thinking. Maybe it’s because of the late hour, maybe because she’s already told this kid so much, but either way when the thought comes to her she admits, “I wish he’d say it more.”

“Huh?”

“My dad. I just… I wish he’d outright say that kinda thing, the ‘I love you’ type stuff. He did start saying it more while I was in the coma, but… Y’know.”

so has the gospel @eriquin @akumteir

“Oh, um- Okay.”

It shuffles closer and they arrange themselves into a circle, Clémentine listening intently to Kingsley’s instructions; “It’s clap, right, clap, left, shoulders, elbows, rock the baby - you’ll pick it up.”

It takes them a little while to get into a rhythm, with the four of them. That just makes it a better distraction. And so too does the continued lyric debate.

In Case of Emergency, Break Glass (4/6) @whimsicalmeerkat @aparticularbandit @combeferres-mothematics @tamsinswriting

A ghost they didn’t even want to try to force her to capture.

She can’t shake the sickening feeling that it’s her mother.

It’s a possibility that’s haunted her since she learnt what Juno and Otho were really doing. What if, before they took Lydia, they captured her mum? Squashed her down and locked her in a jar to keep in the basement? And now, what if she’s evaded capture the last three years only to be taken now? Her hands tremble as she sets the jar on the table. Otho is pulling on his gloves.

“Otho?” she asks quietly. “Please?”

“Mouth shut, Lydia,” Juno snaps.

Otho slips a hand through the hatch in the soul box and lifts out a dazed, miniature rabbit. And then he puts his other hand in, and pulls out a mouse. It takes Lydia a moment to understand it. Two ghosts at once, and they didn’t even try getting her to catch them.

“Is that- Barbara! ADAM!”

She tries to lunge towards Otho as he drops them into the jar. Juno catches her by the hair.

“You wanted to see, Lydia, and you saw.”

Bugebroph @dreamed-for-not @eriquin

 She can already see Adam cracking.

“Well… If we can’t do it ourselves…”

“You’re sure you can do this carefully?”

Lydia nods enthusiastically.

“She won’t harm a hair on their heads,” Beetlejuice confirms. “Hell, you can sit in on it if you want. They aren’t gonna see you, evidently.”

bj/nimona crossover woo @twyrewolf @zyrafowe-sny

It occurs to her that it probably shouldn’t be a surprise that Nimona is just as interested in the only person her age as she is, but years of school canteens have taught Lydia otherwise. Nimona flashes her another grin, but is quickly distracted by her fork.

“Nim,” Ballister whispers again. “Don’t chew that.”

“I’m being gentle.”

“That’s not-”

He’s dragged back into the adults’ conversation before he can finish his point.

The Parent's Guide to the Young Conduit @kalira @noisesfrombeyondtheuniverse @tamsinswriting @meggiejolly @stonemaskedtaliesin

“I suppose that makes sense… Adam, did you catch that?”

Adam falters in his latest attempt to posses Delia’s arm. “Catch what?”

“Lydia doesn’t know we’re doing this.”

“Oh. Well, if I’m being honest, we’re currently not doing too much for her to know about.”

“Delia, dear, does your arm feel at all possessed?” Charles asks. Delia flexes the arm experimentally.

“Not particularly.”

Barbara rests her chin on her hand. “May I have a go?”

“Be my guest.”

Adam steps back, and Barbara steps forward. She takes a deep breath - not for any need for oxygen, but just to steady herself. Raises an arm.

Be Right Back @auburnlaughter @tamsinswriting

She’s sure Ballister can tell, when he asks if that’s okay with her, that her acceptance is begrudging. “I’m still going to be sleeping here,” he says. “I’ll be coming right back here after work. It’s just that Ambrosius can do some parts of his job remotely, and I can’t.”

“What, they haven’t invented remote controls for horses yet?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Bummer.”

Ten Paces @zyrafowe-sny @dreamed-for-not @tamsinswriting

Lydia stays in her little shelter for hours. There’s no point going out and pacing, the ropes will trip her up the moment she stops focusing on them. So instead she lays on the thin bed of straw and slowly picks at bone marrow. Her body still aches from all the running in circles the day before. The rope itches.

It’s sometime around noon when the rain starts.

It’s just a drizzle, to begin with. A light patter outside, the occasional drip through the gaps in the roof. Lydia doesn’t react much more than shuffling further back from the door and grumbling to herself. But it only gets worse. The noise gets louder. The air gets colder.

Netherborne ch17 on @dreamed-for-not @twyrewolf @eriquin

“Right,” Beetlejuice says, clearly eager to move on, “now that’s out of the way. We’ve got other shit to figure out.”

“Other shit like what?”

“Other shit like how you’re gonna insist on coming with me when Rigel introduces me to Maxie Dean, aren’t you?”

(omitted chunk I’d already written)

“We can do that.”

He reaches into his jacket and pulls out the same notepad he wrote the house rules on. Rules for social events, he titles the page. And just like the house rules, he divides it into columns and labels each with a name.

“So. You gotta call everyone ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’,” he says as he writes.

In Case of Emergency, Break Glass (11/6) @dreamed-for-not @auburnlaughter @kalira @tamsinswriting

“Aw, what’s wrong? Was the nasty lady mean to you again? Poor little wizard.”

Lydia grips her oversized sleeves tight. She wants to bite back at him, tell him exactly what Juno just did, but she knows he doesn’t actually care. It would only lead to more mockery.

“Shut up, jar boy,” she says instead.

“Oh, you really got me with that one. I’m wounded.”

“You wanna be shaken again.”

“You’re not scary, kid.”

Lydia glares at him for a long moment, and then looks away. It’s an empty threat, really. Her shoulders hurt too much. She hears quiet tapping on the glass as he paces about his jar.

“...So. What was all that with Otho?”

The Book in the Birdbath @dreamed-for-not @kalira @tamsinswriting @meggiejolly @whimsicalmeerkat

Before he has time for further thoughts on that, Skye is clambering onto the bench beside Lydia. She sticks out one small hand, the other twisting in her hair.

“Hello Mr. Deetz, it’s nice to meet you!”

Lydia can tell her dad wasn’t expecting that, but he readily accepts the handshake. “It’s good to meet you too, Skye.”

“We’re neighbours on the ward,” Lydia explains. “Skye’s in the next bed over.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I have a congenital heart disease!” Skye eagerly adds. Lydia’s dad’s eyebrows raise slightly.

“Right. And you and Lydia have been… hanging out?”

“Yeah! We go for walks in the garden and we talk about ghosts and we do our schoolwork together!”

The Running Iron @dreamed-for-not @stonemaskedtaliesin

Oscar’s hand hammers against the wall. She groans, hiding her head in her folded arms.

“Come on, get up! We’ve got a railway to build!”

“You’ve got a railway to build,” Lydia grumbles. “I still don’t see why that’s my problem.”

“Less complaining, more eating. I want you up and harnessed by the time I come back.”

this is the week i started doing my fills in a notebook or on my typewriter, and i was going to post scans or photos, but i do not have the time right now. maybe sometime when ive got the time i will do it for another set of prompts.

From the Back of a Blood Red Mare @twyrewolf @somefishycat @zyrafowe-sny @batteredrugosa @tamsinswriting @violet-prism-creatively @kalira @thefandomlesbian @oriharaizayadividesintoslytherin

“And what exactly did they see?”

Nimona grins. “Exactly who they were hoping to.”

Boldheart groans, head in his hand.

“You never specified what I should look like!”

“Why didn’t you just go and pay for another night while he was still there?

“Where’s the fun in that? And hey, it worked, didn’t it? It worked perfectly, they’re definitely not gonna go running off now!”

He sighs. “I suppose not. But from now on, no looking like me. I don’t want to know what you might do to my reputation.”

“Respectfully, Boss, your reputation is ‘murderer’.”

“And yet I have faith in your ability to make it worse.”

The rest of that day is spent with Ballister hiding in various shady spots around town, and the kid simultaneously playing lookout and spying on the gang. He doesn’t see her for most of that time - she hides well - but at twilight a reddish-brown bird swoops down and finds him behind a tack shop.

“They’re staying at the same place we did,” she reports. “Heard them talking in there over dinner.”

“Were they drinking?”

“All aside from the lady and your fancy man. How the hell does his hair stay that neat, by the way?”

“I don’t know, he insists it’s natural. But anyway, if the gang is drinking they’ll be up for a while, she’ll definitely be the first to head upstairs.”

“Giving us the perfect opportunity to strike!”

“In a way. But she’s not to be harmed, understand? Intimidated, maybe, if necessary, but not harmed.”

“You’re still no fun.”

The Book in the Birdbath @twyrewolf @nonbinary-octopus @kalira @meggiejolly @stonemaskedtaliesin

Lowering her camera to hang around her neck, Lydia grips her walker tight and hauls herself up onto her feet. She doesn’t have the balance to stand with both hands on the camera, and she doesn’t have the arm strength to have one on the camera and one on the walker, and so her solution has been kneeling with her elbows on the walker, and it keeps her steady enough. She gets herself balanced on her feet again just in time for her dad to reach her. It’s a little embarrassing how warm she feels, seeing the pride on his face. He looks like that every time she manages to stand. She’s wondered if that was how he looked when she learnt the first time.

“Hello, Pumpkin,” he says, putting an arm around her and kissing the top of her head. “It’s good to see you up and about.”

“Hi Dad. Honestly I could probably do with sitting down again, unless you really wanna go on a walk.”

“No, no, we can sit,” her dad insists. So, they make their way over to one of the garden’s picnic tables.

“No hat today?” he asks as they walk.

“I’m trying something out.”

“Right, right. And I see now why you wanted your sewing box.”

Lydia glances down at her shirt.

The Running Iron @dreamed-for-not @eriquin @zyrafowe-sny @tamsinswriting @thefandomlesbian

She’s seen that kind of thing before, with the amount of travelling centaur labourers that passed through the small town she was raised in for the last four years, but she’s not aware of any details beyond it just being something those kinds of taurs do. Before he answers, he sees him look over her brand new harness, only accented with white stitching and small metal studs.

“You’re new to this, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright well, to put it simply, ribbons are people, trinkets are wins.”

“Ribbons? The wraps on your traces, you mean?”

He snorts in amusement. “The wraps are just wraps. These are ribbons.”

He flicks at a ragged scrap of blue fabric knotted tightly to a ring on his hames.

“So if ribbons are people,” Lydia says cautiously, “who’s that?”

This could be a tactic, she reasons. Sure, he could lie to her, but still if she has an in to make him talk about himself it’s a chance to assess her safety. She finds herself once again incredibly aware of the second straw mattress in the room she was made to sleep in. If the backstory to one of those ribbons or trinkets is going to be enough to make her demand Oscar let her spend her nights outside, she’d rather know that now.

“Eh, some fling,” is all he says about that particular decoration.

Netherborne ch17 on @auburnlaughter

“Are you sure you’d be comfortable doing that?”

That’s Barbara’s immediate response to being brought up to speed. Lydia rocks slightly where she’s sat watching the oven, considering her answer carefully.

Ten Paces @asha10100101010 @batteredrugosa

It was slow and thorough, and soothing. She remembers after her tears dried up, leaning heavily against her dad with her eyes shut, the familiar feeling of the comb running through her hair the only thing keeping her tethered to reality.

So their probably-last real conversation was an argument, and their probably-last grooming session was on one of the worst days of their lives. Figures.

From the Back of a Blood Red Mare @twyrewolf @somefishycat @oriharaizayadividesintoslytherin @stonemaskedtaliesin

By the time Nimona - now an unusually pinkish rat - emerges back onto the street with the well, there’s a man pushing open the batwing doors of the saloon. Just a little too late for plan A, then. Good. Plan A was boring.

The pinkish rat follows the man into the bar, sticking to the edge of the room and watching like a hawk. It’s not the nemesis this time, it’s another one of his gang, a guy with a face that Nimona would very much like to punch. He strolls up to the bar with an air of importance, leaning an elbow on the countertop the barkeep is wiping down. If the barkeep is annoyed, he doesn’t show it.

“Something I can help you with today, Sir?”

He grins, somehow becoming more punchable. “As a matter of fact, there is. You see, me an’ my boys are looking for someone.”

The barkeep goes back to cleaning. “I’ve seen nobody.”

It's Not Me @zyrafowe-sny @whimsicalmeerkat @sarostheghostcat @tamsinswriting @eriquin @auburnlaughter @kallisto-k

No. No, bad. Wrong. He’ll turn. You know he’ll turn. He’ll turn and you’ll have given him all the power. She presses her hands hard into her temples, fighting herself for the ability to think. She needs to be okay with this. If she can’t trust him, she’s got nothing.

“I wanna do it,” she forces out, trying to ignore how much it feels like a lie. “I wanna do it and you’re gonna need to get on it fast because I am losing it, Boss. You think I’m losing it, you’re right, I- I can’t deal with this, I-”

“It’s okay, Nimona. Breathe.”

She shuts her eyes tight, trying to follow his steady breaths. It’s hard.

“Are you sure about this?”

She nods.

“Alright. We’ll make sure it gets done quickly. I promise I’m going to look after you.”

“You’ll make sure I don’t hurt anyone?”

“Yes.” His voice breaks a little over the word. “I promise.”

There’s still a few hours before the doctor is supposed to arrive. Nimona is more surprised than she knows she should be when Ballister agrees to spend them with her. He even moves to sit on the bed with her, apparently perfectly fine with being right beside a sweaty, feverish kid with toxic spit.

The Running Iron @phantom-z0ne @meggiejolly @tildeathiwillwrite @dreamed-for-not

Beetlejuice wakes the next morning in an oddly still boxcar, arms stiff, mouth dry, and really fancying a smoke. He’s eaten enough of the hay already that the rest has slipped out of the string and scattered around his feet. Shuffling over to one side of the car, he presses an eye to a gap between two planks. Nothing much going on out there, and no indication of where he is. Figures.

It must be an hour at least before something interesting happens. Beetlejuice’s ears are pricked by footsteps, and another peek through the planks reveals that damn guard walking towards him again. The sound of the door unlocking and opening is jarringly loud.

“Out,” the man barks.

“You taking me somewhere nice, handsome?”

That gets him a jab in the flank with the rifle. “Get out and keep your goddamn mouth shut.”

Beetlejuice snorts but does as he’s told, more than ready to be off that damn train.

The Book in the Birdbath @combeferres-mothematics @brucethegirl @campfire-octopus @nonbinary-octopus

“It’s just this one,” Lydia says quietly, hauling herself up into a sitting position and picking up the shard. “Or this… bit of one.”

“It came off a piece of amethyst that kept falling off your bedside table. I never did figure out what was going on, there.” 

Lydia shifts the amethyst around her palm with her thumb. “I don’t actually believe it does anything,” she feels the need to clarify. “I just… I know this isn’t the first time you’ve come to see me alone.”

“Oh. Yes, um, I know you heard some things while you were… Asleep. I didn’t know when would be the right time to ask. Or if I should ask.”

Lydia drags her fingernail along the irregular edge of the broken crystal. “Well now you know.”

Bugebroph @rainy-weather-supremacy

“Well I don’t know if we want to go-”

cw for book in the birdbath: discussion via implication of a suicide attempt

bitb2 @kalira @asha10100101010 @edisacornball

“I fucked up,” she almost whispers. “I really fucked up.”

“Huh?”

“My head, and my legs and everything. I fucked up, Skye.”

“You had an accident, that’s not your fault.”

Lydia turns her head towards Skye, who’s staring at her with big eyes.

“Trust me when I say it really is.”

Skye looks down, thinking. “Sometimes… Sometimes I do things I’m not supposed to."

dorm 4 @whimsicalmeerkat, @friend-shaped-but, @oriharaizayadividesintoslytherin, @lizhly

Whatever her dad says next is nice and muffled. He gets louder, but not loud enough. She continues to ignore him. And then he tries the door handle, and knocks again, a lot harder. Lydia doesn’t move until her music is interrupted by her phone ringing. Her dad, of course. She picks up, just so that she can put all the venom she can muster into a “What do you want?!”

“Lydia, move whatever you’ve blocked your door with right now.”

“Why should I? I’ve had my privacy invaded enough, thanks.”

“I-”

“Why did you tell Delia everything that happened at school? What made you think that was okay?”

She can hear the hurt breaking through the anger in her voice, and tries to swallow it down.

ten paces @eriquin, @quietly-sleeping, @tamsinswriting

Eventually she takes a breath and tries to just - walk. This is fine. They’ve got no reason to crash her into anything. It’s fine. She’s fine.

The feeling of a hand on her back again makes her flinch, but after a moment of panic she realises she’s being pet again. It’s not much of a comfort.

Lydia is stopped by a hand against her chest, just as she hears a gate shut somewhere behind her. She immediately tries to back away from the contact. But the rope catches her there, and then it’s tugged down on again.

its not me @somefishycat, @zyrafowe-sny, @auburnlaughter @sourb0i, @1attheedge

And now she’s shaking.

Hating the feeling, Nimona shifts down into a rat. More legs, not such a long way to the floor. That feels a bit more stable. And like that, she paces. To the door, to the window, back to the door. Rats don’t move this slow. She shifts again. Tortoise. Still low, still sturdy, but now she can pretend she’s just in-character and not exhausted. She plods to the window again. Back to the door. Not enough.

Needing the precision of hands, Nimona cracks open the door as a small monkey. She can hear the indistinct hum of the TV from down the hall. They’re distracted, then. That’s fine. She just needs to move, she can do that quietly.

blood red @twyrewolf, @thevagabondepress, @spindoctor3875, @stonemaskedtaliesin

“Innocent men don’t run, Ambrosius.”

Ambrosius doesn’t look up from his horse’s ears. It’s barely past dawn, and they’re already well on their way to the middle of nowhere. They’ve got time to make up; Ballister didn’t have to deal with a body, or a carriage driver who wanted nothing more to do with any of this, or the incompetent sheriff of the nearest town. But now they’re on the hunt, with some unexpected company. Ambrosius had expected the surviving lady to make arrangements to return home, but no. She bought herself a horse and a saddle and insisted she accompany the band of bounty men. So now here she is, posture perfect in her side-saddle as she rides alongside him.