#blacksandship

kiss 47: "I've had a terrible day at work, so just kiss me."

It is an eternal night in space when Sandy calls him on the deck of a vast star-liner ship bound for Earth. Pitch seeps up like an oil-leak in a water-tank, glossily viscous, painting over the sterile walls in veridian, indigo, scarlet, all the colours of the darkness, toys the cruiser between the raking teeth of his fingernails like he’s planning to swallow it whole, Dreamer and all.

It is now ten years (WHOA) (and a couple months) since I published my first fic on Archive of our Own. At the time, I uploaded all eleven chapters over the course of like, an hour, and in the middle of the night, I think, like I was trying to get away with something.

Now, I want to make a post for each chapter, week by week. Because ten years is a lot and should be celebrated.

Without Contraries There Is No Progression is a Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie (Rise of the Guardians) fic. Total word count: 31,443. Rating: M. At the time, it was the longest story I had ever completed, and it was the first story I'd written that strangers were able to read.

Summary:

He doesn’t know why Sandman comes to him after everything he’s done, after everything that’s happened. He doesn’t know why, but he thinks he doesn’t mind.

(Pitch and Sandy slowly build a relationship; Pitch figures out what he's supposed to be doing and discovers why he hadn't been doing that.)

“No, I’m not the one you’re looking for,” groaned the tall, dark, and austerely gorgeous man standing in the doorway of the cottage in the forest. "Why does everyone think that just because a person lives alone and prefers dusk and shadows to sunshine, they must be a witch?"

He extended his long, graceful, black-clad arm and pointed deeper into the woods.  "It's that endlessly chirping woman with the thousand fledglings you want." And with that the door was slammed in your face.

So you had no choice except to wander further down the path. Eventually you came upon what looked to be a house built into the trunk of a tree, with impossible turrets and balconies ascending higher than your eyes could see.

The petitely lovely woman who leaned over the sill high above you titters at your inquiry.  “No, I’m not the one you’re looking for.  Why does everyone think that just because a person has wings and an eidetic memory, they must be a witch?”

She fluttered down to your eye level and pointed to a hummock in the middle of a field, just short of the horizon. “That’s where you want to go, as long as you don’t mind eggs on legs.”  And with that she took to the skies and was soon out of sight.

So you stumped along for far longer than you expected towards the hummock, with the forest at your back.  Eventually you found yourself not stumbling over a hummock, but sliding down a tunnel into what surely was a completely unknown world underground.

A ridiculously elegant rabbit sat on a riverbank, mixing paints on his palette. He looked at you with a humorous glint in his brilliantly green eyes. “Nah, mate, I’m not the one you want.”  He scratched his chin thoughtfully.  “Too warm down here for witches, for a start.  You want somewhere cold.  Head into the mountains and stop at the first castle on the left.  Happens that’s the only castle on the left.  But she’ll be apples.”

So, after a long haul back to the surface, you turned in yet another direction and trod up and up and up and up steep slopes thick with fir trees.  Eventually you did indeed spot the only castle on the left, which made up for its solitude with attitude, built right into a cliff face.

The burly, bearded rake who answered your bell-pull greeted you by lifting you off your feet, crushing your ribs with a hug, and offering you fruitcake in the space of fewer seconds than it would take you to write a sentence full of those actions.  He shook with laughter when addressed with your question, and replied, “Nyet, you seek one who is not me.  Just because I  am big and intimidating and can leave toys for every child on Earth without being seen, for this people think I am witch? Nyet.  You want to go where trees meet sky and call the Wind to you.”

So, without any real notion of how to find such a place, you let your feet lead you and let your mind wander.  Eventually you ended up by a half-frozen lake which indeed reflected the ring of birches surrounding it and the blue vault about it.

That blue was repeated in the old, old eyes of a twig-limbed youth who leaned against a slender trunk, holding a shepherd’s crook in one hand and the Wind in the other. “So you’re looking for a witch.  Cool.  It’s not me, by the way, but I can definitely introduce you.  Think you can keep up?”

And with that you found yourself running, and laughing as you ran, and your fleetness on the ground matched his fleetness in the air, and you somehow did not tire or stumble, even as the trees grew taller and stood more thickly together, and you found yourself back in the same wooded glade where you had first started your journey.

A trail of gold dust on the forest floor led straight to a familiar cottage.  The flying boy bid you adieu.

The door was flung open in response to your timorous tap, and the tall, dark and austere man first glowered, and then closed his shining eyes and pinched the bridge of his mighty nose in exasperated resignation.  A gleaming dapper figure of a shorter man, garbed in cloth of gold with a waistcoat fearfully and wonderfully made, shot through with metallic embroidery, appeared at the side of the gangling and gorgeous hermit.  He waggled his fingers at you in a friendly way.

The hermit looked down at the shorter man, then at you.  He spat out, “For the 269th time, I am NOT the witch.  He’s the witch!”

And then he sighed.  “You might as well come in for tea.”  They both stepped aside to let you pass.  As you entered, you heard this exchange behind you.

“You know, there’s worse things than being a hermit with friends.”

“Oh, hush, or I’ll nail you in the back with another harpoon.”

The great black wyrm shines in the torchlight like spilled oil, slick and iridescent. Its coils slither over each other with a sound like silk rasping. In the dark cavern, Sandy can’t tell how large it is; its scales seem to swallow up all but the smallest circle of light.

He swallows hard, himself, feeling his mouth and throat growing strangely dry.

“Forgive me,” he whispers. Like a cathedral, this cavern seems impossibly high and vast; like a cathedral, too, it seems wrong to speak above a hush. “I - I didn’t know anybody was - um.”

The wyrm, that great creature straight out of a myth Sandy had never believed in until this very moment, makes a dry rattling noise that makes Sandy jump before he realises it’s a laugh. One great eye, black and liquid as ink, sweeps into the torchlight, glittering with mirth. Sandy wishes he could reach out and find out what those scales feel like.

That enormous eye looks down at Sandy, a strange and ancient intelligence glimmering in its depths. Sandy stares back, entranced. The rest of the cavern could have disappeared for all he knows.

not so much of a halloween pic, but we all knew it would come eventually so might as well be right now, tho of course, after all the clownfoolery that is happening, lets better go at it on a subtle way with some veryyyyy old style clowns blacksand, a pierrot pitch and a harlequin sandy!

ROTG Favorite Ship Week Day 2: Mythology

My first piece for the RISE OF THE GUARDIANS 2021 Bingo Challenge @rotgbingo​

Square: A3

Prompt: Hermit In The Woods AU

Pairing: BlackSand [Pitch Black / Sanderson Mansnoozie]

[More notes at the end.]

-----------------------------

“No, I’m not the one you’re looking for,” groaned the tall, dark, and austerely gorgeous man standing in the doorway of the cottage in the forest. "Why does everyone think that just because a person lives alone and prefers dusk and shadows to sunshine, they must be a witch?"

He extended his long, graceful, black-clad arm and pointed deeper into the woods.  "It's that endlessly chirping woman with the thousand fledglings you want." And with that the door was slammed in your face. 

So you had no choice except to wander further down the path. Eventually you came upon what looked to be a house built into the trunk of a tree, with impossible turrets and balconies ascending higher than your eyes could see. 

The petitely lovely woman who leaned over the sill high above you titters at your inquiry.  “No, I’m not the one you’re looking for.  Why does everyone think that just because a person has wings and an eidetic memory, they must be a witch?”

She fluttered down to your eye level and pointed to a hummock in the middle of a field, just short of the horizon. “That’s where you want to go, as long as you don’t mind eggs on legs.”  And with that she took to the skies and was soon out of sight.

So you stumped along for far longer than you expected towards the hummock, with the forest at your back.  Eventually you found yourself not stumbling over a hummock, but sliding down a tunnel into what surely was a completely unknown world underground. 

A ridiculously elegant rabbit sat on a riverbank, mixing paints on his palette. He looked at you with a humorous glint in his brilliantly green eyes. “Nah, mate, I’m not the one you want.”  He scratched his chin thoughtfully.  “Too warm down here for witches, for a start.  You want somewhere cold.  Head into the mountains and stop at the first castle on the left.  Happens that’s the only castle on the left.  But she’ll be apples.”

So, after a long haul back to the surface, you turned in yet another direction and trod up and up and up and up steep slopes thick with fir trees.  Eventually you did indeed spot the only castle on the left, which made up for its solitude with attitude, built right into a cliff face.

The burly, bearded rake who answered your bell-pull greeted you by lifting you off your feet, crushing your ribs with a hug, and offering you fruitcake in the space of fewer seconds than it would take you to write a sentence full of those actions.  He shook with laughter when addressed with your question, and replied, “Nyet, you seek one who is not me.  Just because I  am big and intimidating and can leave toys for every child on Earth without being seen, for this people think I am witch? Nyet.  You want to go where trees meet sky and call the Wind to you.”

So, without any real notion of how to find such a place, you let your feet lead you and let your mind wander.  Eventually you ended up by a half-frozen lake which indeed reflected the ring of birches surrounding it and the blue vault about it.

That blue was repeated in the old, old eyes of a twig-limbed youth who leaned against a slender trunk, holding a shepherd’s crook in one hand and the Wind in the other. “So you’re looking for a witch.  Cool.  It’s not me, by the way, but I can definitely introduce you.  Think you can keep up?”

And with that you found yourself running, and laughing as you ran, and your fleetness on the ground matched his fleetness in the air, and you somehow did not tire or stumble, even as the trees grew taller and stood more thickly together, and you found yourself back in the same wooded glade where you had first started your journey.

A trail of gold dust on the forest floor led straight to a familiar cottage.  The flying boy bid you adieu.

The door was flung open in response to your timorous tap, and the tall, dark and austere man first glowered, and then closed his shining eyes and pinched the bridge of his mighty nose in exasperated resignation.  A gleaming dapper figure of a shorter man, garbed in cloth of gold with a waistcoat fearfully and wonderfully made, shot through with metallic embroidery, appeared at the side of the gangling and gorgeous hermit.  He waggled his fingers at you in a friendly way.

The hermit looked down at the shorter man, then at you.  He spat out, “For the 269th time, I am NOT the witch.  He’s the witch!”

And then he sighed.  “You might as well come in for tea.”  They both stepped aside to let you pass.  As you entered, you heard this exchange behind you.

 “You know, there’s worse things than being a hermit with friends.”

“Oh, hush, or I’ll nail you in the back with another harpoon.”

“Promises, promises.”

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Author’s note: Inspired by this tweet from author Johannes Evans.