#theflyinghamster

The pool calls for me.

It is not the braying of a kelpie or the song of the sirens. It is the smell of chlorine and the sparkle in the undulating water. It is the bright colours of the lane dividers and the flags that show your progress.

It calls.

I am not a strong swimmer. I had lessons and I can swim but I would never win a race. The pool doesn’t want me to go fast, it wants me to stay. It wants me underwater. It wants me to breathe.

I breathe.

i wanted to draw yuts! izuku so like…there he is…sitting…waiting..being vaguely unsettling…

also the lines are actual pencil because my pen ran out but…aesthetic ok.

took a few days but i did it! Tellru is hard to draw… hope the bg is alright i dont usually do them lol. I think I made Ruru cute enough! her hair was hell to ink tho :P hope you like it!

-theflyinghamster  theflyinghamster

theflyinghamster made this post!!! :D 

i already commented on ao3 but really, you have seduced my multi-shipper heart dude. :)

Elsewhere was not where you found the gentry.

The gentry found you far earlier.

Your garden used to sing to you: ‘Come away child, come away’. Already a child who moves to the beat you wonder if you would be happier if you had Gone. You were but seven when you had to move because Something was killing the chickens.

Your new house had the spirits of humans. They would walk around, trip on the ledge, and peer through the doorways. It was something, but it wasn’t Something. You felt very alone, humans seemed to sense you were only partially in their realm. You got told you were ‘away with the fairies’ so often you wished it was true.

 It would be years later (almost Elsewhere), when you felt It again. No longer beckoning but simply greeting. A caress of your hair, shadows in your eyes, movement in your bed and a warmth on your back. No words would be heard but you would Feel them. ‘Mine, mine, mine’ they said.

It follows you to your dorm immediately. Dance majors go quickly so it had to stake its claim. The iron your mother gave you is swapped for pearls and opals you knew could not be found in the ground or ocean. At least not in this world. Your mother always said opals were bad luck. Your father hated pearls. Iron was safe, everyone used iron. You feel it drape over you when you study and approval when you dance.

Your four years pass without fanfare. You move to a big city made of iron and electricity. You hope that the plants you fill your room with can keep it with you. When you feel a hand on your neck you know you’re not alone.

And maybe, once a jump goes so badly wrong you can never dance like you want to. Once your joints ache and your feet are callused but your face remains youthful and ever so slightly shimmery. If you never come home for Christmas, well, your parents have known you were never meant for this world.

You’ll never have to feel alone again.

She had plenty of knowledge but little caution. She chose the name ‘Lorikeet’ to reflect her nature, this was a popular but unwise choice. Names that reflect the soul are but a step away from True.

She was a theatre major and so she knew and practised all the norm. She was a freshman and so she kept iron and salt in one bag, cream and gifts in another. This was where her caution ended.

She was just too kind.

She would see a girl with hair spun of gold weeping in the sidewalk and take her to the dorm that she no longer shared. She would ask the girl’s story over mugs of honey tea and give advice on whatever the girl would bring up. She had invited her in.

She would linger by the pool, seeing the girls with silver-toned skin lounging and accept their invitation to swim. “Only for 2 hours.” She would say, thinking it would protect her. It didn’t. Her protection came from her demeaner; she’d braid their hair, gossip about the swim team and when her time came the girls would allow her to leave.

She would laugh with the boys with too long nails and off-white sclera at parties. They saw easy prey, no worth to her. She would’ve accepted any offer they put forward. They would pass over her in need of a challenge, someone who would be conquered. She would not be asked to gamble as she had nothing worth winning.

Everybody who thought they knew her thought it wouldn’t be long until she was Taken.

She was not.

It would be a stretch to say that the gentry favoured Lorikeet, but they saw in her a small soul. She would be a side-character for all her life, she would marry a nice normal person and adopt a dog and take in one of her namesakes. They didn’t see the worth in Taking her, they wanted those that would make an impact on the world.

Then the storm happened.

_

She had always been energised by lightning in the air and thunder in her ears. She went to walk the grounds as it was a great time to run.

She ran straight into the Court.

_

The Court looked through her. (They saw her, of course, she was not hidden to them.)

The girl with golden hair, the girls with silver skin and the boys with too long nails and off-white sclera all felt a pull at their chests as their Betters looked upon this girl with not-distain. They shifted their weight as the Court off-handily sentenced her to death, not special enough to be Taken.

‘Wait.’

The Court spins their heads (only their heads, the necks and bodies do not follow) towards the girl with golden hair.

‘She has done many favours for me. Free me from her debt by sparing her.’

‘THAT IS NOT WORTH HER FREEDOM’ The hive-voice of the Court wafts through the air.

The silver skinned girls speak up, ‘She has kept our company for all her time here, bringing us kind smiles and fun stories. We want to know how they end.’

‘YOUR INSOLENCE WILL NOT SAVE HER’

The boys from many a party step forward, ‘She treated us with warmth and acceptance in our Parties, never gambling anything not at her choice but because we did not wish her to lose.’

‘WHY THIS GIRL? SURELY SHE IS NOT UNIQUE AMONG THE HUMANS’

But the Court cannot think of another that has captured the hearts of their kind through so little. How could they, in a place where caution was the norm and the gentry were not to be trusted? All others who had trusted them were Taken or dead. She was neither.

_

Several bargains had been made but that morn Lorikeet was found sleeping in the theatre by her fellow thespians without the knowledge of her near-death.

And if after that day she decided that her new name would be Sonse, her friends didn’t mention it. And if from that day she only really spoke to the gentry (golden hair, silver skin and long nails everywhere around her) and that her eyes now shone pure white whenever lighting struck, well, no one could mention it.

She was still here, but she wasn’t quite Lorikeet anymore.

She is a student of mixed origin.

She herself was born and bred in Australia, only here for a year; her white trainers stained orange with iron and sea-salt spray that reminds her of home in her hair. They never approach her from behind, never give a tap on the shoulder, never blow in her ear. Her path stays poisonous for a few hours at least.

But she would walk towards Them with the curiosity of her mother’s country. While she knew by heart the cautionary tales of her homeland she carried in her heart the wonder of the British countryside. She skips over the faery rings, curtsies to the eyes in the dark and explains “My house back home was haunted, like actual spirits of the dead, it’s just polite!” and you can tell when she recognises a species as she inhales, sits a little straighter and smiles. “It’s just nice to see y'know? Ones’ back home just growl and threaten to rip your spine out and beat you with it.” You think you’re afraid when she sighs nostalgically at that.

_

It really does not help that she is a psychology major. Thankfully, she is not a fool. You tell her tales of the ones who try to diagnose the gentry. 

“Oh man that’s wild. I guess there’d be a few who’d do that back home, but yeah I dunno. I guess it’s coz I’m really big on theatre and dance. Like I considered be a theatre major for ages but figured it’d be too much of a risk.” And you suppose she does carry herself like a dancer, you had never connected the dots but maybe that tapping she did with her feet when sitting down was actually tap dancing, and yes you now recall all the wistful sighs when you mentioned theatre. “We get a lot of artist types though, like yeah you get the ones who see nothing but science but psychology can be under a bachelor of arts.” She grins at that. “I dunno I just find everything so…cool! Of course I want to know everything about it but I know that those costs vastly outweigh the benefits.”

You still find yourself confused at how she holds back when everything about the gentry is so inviting, so tempting.

“It’s just another facade y'know? Back home They tell you They’re different, that They’ve been hurt and want nothing to do with their mob. Or They tell you that you’re strong, you deserve to be one of Them, not some fleshbag that rots in a few years. Here They cloy you with sweetness, draw promises and favour outta you. They make you love Them.” Her eyes now resemble those of the science majors, cautious and guarded.

She is mixed not only in her origin but within herself. Art and Science. Wonder and Caution. 

You think you understand why They stay away from her.