#prompt10

Several long minutes apparently had stretched out into finishing out the bell, given the chimes shattering whatever focus had remained in the roegadyn’s head. And in that time no new marks had made their way onto the page in front of her. The day was getting long in the tooth and while she’d handled the proper matters of business thus far, this last personal note was still escaping her. With an under-her-breath grumble, Brem reaches into the vest she was wearing, fishing out a flask from one of the internal pockets. 

There were times, so so many times that Gabriel just wanted to grab T’iolo by the shoulders and pour out all the feelings he had towards the surly miqo’te but Gabe knew it would not avail him any. Gabriel had said his piece on the subject several times in the past and Tio knew well where they stood with each other and just pointedly, stubbornly, ignored it.  

He watched his best friend carrying the boxes of cargo back and forth along the long ramps of the Kugane docks, smiling and laughing with his co-workers. Gabe felt a small pang of joy in his chest at every easy, carefree smile he gave. It wasn’t something Gabe got to see too often and he often wondered if he had just kept his thoughts and feelings to himself if Tio would smile like that more often for him? 

In the distance, a dog is barking,

a silver moon slips across the sky,

chased by wispy clouds that glitter in

a ring of rhomboidal crystalline stars.

A dark figure waits, contemplating

death, hunting for the unblessed.

Garbage cans knocked over

by a drunken alley waif break

the spell of silence with the chattering

of cold teeth behind innocent

bloodless lips.

Instantly the formless wraith

makes its move with a silent swoop

and swish-  and another lost soul

slips from sight leaving behind 

a pool of curdling gray.

Somewhere in a lonely room, suddenly

gone deathly quiet, an entangled soul

weeps and shivers from a bone

deep sense of loss while the walls

close in, unrelenting; yesterday’s

unspoken premonition has

come to pass.

Outside, the clouds give up the ghost

to a dying moon, as the undead

thing returns to the fold,

parting the darkness like black

curtains on an empty stage,

hunger slaked, content to wait,

Concoction #23: Spicy water

Loose leaf chai tea steeped in iced water (3 ice cubes per cup of water).

Steep for 3 minutes.

Add a table spoon of honey.

2 shots of Colombia Santa Maria espresso.

Concoction #44: kitchen sink, deconstructed

1 part water from the tap, 2 parts any and all household spices in your spice drawer/cabinet/lazy susan/rack. Apply generously.

“Fifty years ago, we were eating better bananas…[until they were] declared commercially extinct due to the disease...leaving no other choice but to burn them down.”

It lay silent, deep in the soil: Tiny Fusarium clamping bony fingers On Michel’s yellow throat,

The fruit’s lips split, tongue parched And seizing between thin rows Of clenched, starchy teeth.

---

The plants collapsed, kneeling to the soil: Varnished a deep brown by the tropical sun, Their gasping roots unable to drink.

So one by one, they lit the fields, The crooked fruit cooking inside, The skins blistering as they burned.

---

In Nampula, they hoed the ashen soil And planted Cavendish in long rows, And the trees sagged with abundance.

But they would not ripen under the hot sun, The green fruit stubborn, Clenched in bunches like fingers to a fist.

---

The plantation fenced in the soil, As if the iron posts would house the trees Or cradle them in their thin arms.

The workers washed the equipment, The great aluminum teeth shining With fungicide spray in the setting sun.

Tsukishima ran a hand down Kuroo’s back, the other resting on the his neck, and pressed their bodies together. He pressed his lips to Kuroo’s ear and breathed, “Move those hips of yours, Kuroo.”

“Oh I know I’m on tonight, my hips don’t lie,” Kuroo sang with a huge grin, resting his hands on Tsukishima’s hips and shifting their weights. He pouted when Tsukishima practically jumped away with a scowl, pushing him away.

“Really?” Tsukishima asked, disbelievingly and incredulous. Kuroo whined and tried reaching for him. “Tsukki, come on.”

Tsukishima kept him away with two hands on his shoulders and Kuroo yielded, stepping back. “Did you really just sing that.”

Kuroo cleared his throat before singing with a shit-eating grin, “Oh baby when you talk like that, you-”

Tsukishima slapped his hand over Kuroo’s mouth, rolling his eyes, as he smacked the other’s shoulder with his free hand. “That wasn’t a go ahead and continue.”

Kuroo laughed behind his hand before pulling him closer by the hips. He let it happen, dropping his hand to rest on Kuroo’s shoulder. Kuroo nudged a knee between his legs and he automatically arched his back to press their chests together. Kuroo smirked, nudging Tsukishima’s nose with his nose. “There we go, now you’re getting into it.”

“Whose fault do you think it was that I wasn’t,” Tsukishima grumbled, placing his other hand on Kuroo’s side. The other hummed, rocking them from side to side. Tsukishima followed his movements, relaxing into the other’s hold. “You should do this in high heels.”

Kuroo sputtered, tightening his grip and drawing his head back to stare at Tsukishima. Tsukishima leered at him and he couldn't help the heat that spread across his face. “You’d be taller than me with heels. It’s not like you can’t dance in them.”

“I don’t need to be!” Kuroo weakly protested. Tsukishima snickered but said nothing else, body easily lowering into the movement of their practiced routine. Kuroo quickly followed along, though not without the faintest hints of an embarrassed blush on the bridge of his nose.

The two of them flowed together, familiar with the routine, arms and legs hooking each other and pulling and pushing the other whenever needed. Tsukishima fluidly undulated his hips as he straddled Kuroo’s thigh, Kuroo effortlessly matching his rhythm as they lowered themselves down.  

Once they straightened up again, Tsukishima backed away and ran his hands down Kuroo’s arms to entwine their fingers. He pulled them into the steps for a salsa and Kuroo followed his lead without a hitch, not minding the sudden change.

Though there was no music, Tsukishima easily led them through the dance, going to an tempo only he could hear. He spun Kuroo around before restarting the dance once again and fluidly handed the lead position over. Kuroo picked it up just as fluidly and led Tsukishima through a series of footwork as they danced around each other, at times both hands clasped firmly together.

The moment Kuroo led them into their finishing pose, Tsukishima immediately twisted so that he had one hand in Kuroo’s hair and pressed his back into the other's front, his other hand bringing their clasped hands to his waist.

“I think we had a good enough practice,” Tsukishima stated, short of breath. Kuroo brought them closer together and buried his face into his neck with a laugh. “Is this why you went through the dances so fast?”

“We practiced them all, we can leave.”

Tsukishima threw a heated look over his shoulder and tugged the hair his fingers were buried in. He then rolled his hips, his entire body flowing with the movement, and grinded back into Kuroo. Kuroo’s breath hitched even as he reflexively reacted to Tsukishima’s movement from years of dancing together, his free hand coming to grab at Tsukishima’s side- encouraging the movement.

As was something of a tradition with family dinner running all the back to when his children were all still actually children, Abylnpfef sweeps through the main room of his restaurant with the last dish being brought to the table and pulls back the lid with an overdone flourish. It was a stew they'd all had countless times, but playing into being a bit silly always made at least him happy, even if most of his daughters and a few of his grandchildren groaned at the shameless display of 'Dad'. He detours long enough to press a kiss to his wife's brow before taking a seat at the head of the table. All three daughters were in town and free, and that was a rare enough event for him to close up the place early and have a night just to the family. The spouses were all otherwise occupied, but if the man was being truly honest it didn't greatly bother him that particular night.

As the clink of ladles into pots of stew and then on into bowls started to ring out as mothers saw to putting enough food in front of their children to get at least a few minutes without another 'but why?' question, the Sea Wolf's eldest daughter and newest grand kid were a few paces away as she tried to appease the tiny boy. Alvin was riding the line right between sleep and crying because too much he didn't like was going on, held at bay only by gentle bouncing and cooing promises of high flying adventure someday in his future. By the time the rest of the family had calmed down enough to let him finally settle on being sleepy, most of the bowls were half empty and Brem's own was threatening to start to chill. As the pale woman sat back down, a breath weighed with equal parts relief and exhaustion falls from her. "I know he's not even two moons old yet, but some days it feels like it's been a hundred years already."

The statement's met immediately with a derisive snort from across the table, quickly paired with a sneer from the middle child sat next to her own boy and girl, the eldest of the grandkids. "You think -you're- tired? You've barely even started this, AND you have two other women helping you full time for ONE kid." Mytethota's tirade was paused by one of the only forces capable of doing so, sending another mouthful of red wine down her gullet. "One that you didn't even carry or have to go through labor with, I might add. Come cry about being tired when you're getting your nipples gnawed on while the next one's ready to pop out and their father's busy keeping a roof over your collective heads."

"Forgive me, little sister. I hadn't possibly considered that someone could maybe be -more- tired. I'm glad you were here to remind me so suddenly all this fatigue will fly right out of me that I must have been making up this whole time." There's a dramatic flick of her gloved hand in the air as a heavy lidded natural eye turns to the younger Sea Wolf. "It must be the three different ways I bring my money home that doesn't leave me time for both childcare AND considering how much harder it would be if I had to spend half my day marinating myself in mediocre wine so that new flavors of insufferable bitch could rise to the surface."

"Girls, that'll be enough of all that. We're here to enjoy a night with our family, so pour another helping and start enjoying." The patron of the family let his voice fall somewhere between an actual chiding and 'girls will be girls' to try and keep things light with a few notes of parental threat. It'd worked wonders for him a few decades ago when they were still growing up, but there admittedly wasn't nearly as much testing for it as adults. The snarling expressions of his two oldest weren't making him overly hopeful.

Mytethota gave a lazy toss of her hand as if she was discarding the argument like a used napkin, even while mulling over how to toss another barb out. It was her favorite tactic with her husband, and one of the few ways she kept a hold snared on him. "I'm just thankful you don't bring the little.. lizard kitten thing here while the business is actually open. It's bad enough I still get questions about how my man-dyke big sister is doing these days.." At that moment the old man at the head of the table almost felt like he was watching an explosion happen in slow motion, unable to get his head on fast enough to do anything to stop it. ".. imagine if I had to explain to them 'Oh, she has this foster kid she's raising for her two miqo'te girlfriends and pretending it's her's like some sort of female cuckold.'"

"Myteth-" Harsh fatherly scolding was swiftly put on hold as Abylnpfef caught a pale blur of motion, his eldest girl taking things immediately into her own hands as she was oft want to do. A leather bound hand snatched up a handful of wavy green strands with the sort of roar she normally reserved for the arena. The whole family of Sea Wolves watched in silent shock as the yelping frame of the middle daughter was yanked up from her seat, half way over the table they were sat at. Drug a few fulms by that hold in her hair, Brem got her younger sister parked over a half-empty pot of stew and let her linger just a heartbeat or two long enough to realize what was coming before slamming her hard down into the remnants of the meal. Her heavily made-up face when straight into the thick mess while the edge of the pot drove hard up into the woman's throat, enough to leave her without breath temporarily. The yank back up and out flung some of the mess out over the table before the pale woman throws Myte backwards hard enough to send her reeling over her seat and crashing to the floor.

"BREMWYDA!" Abylnpfef's outraged voice jumps over the absolute chaos that just broke out, standing above worried matrons and screaming children that just watched their mother and/or aunt just get stew-bombed by a family member. "What in the Navigator's name is wrong with you! Doing that to your sister!"