#tsiu

For what feels like an eternity, she searches and finds only the ravenous, clattering minds of the infected, devoid of all true sentience, yet converging on their task. And then, deep in the foothills, a flicker of fear. 

Estela. Ellie calls her name loud and unhesitating, and the horde orients to her voice.

Ellie feels Estela’s defenses rise, attempting to close herself off from Ellie’s awareness, but the fear grows stronger, like smoke rising from the trees. Ellie attempts to surge past it, and Estela rebuffs her with force.

Listen, Ellie demands, digging her fingertips deep into the soil as if to find purchase. We want to help you. We have what you need.

For a long moment, Estela is silent. Then, You have nothing.

He has nothing. We have doctors, antibiotics - we have a cure for Cordyceps. A real one, not what he gives you. One dose, that’s all it takes, I promise. Ellie relies mostly on conjecture, still not knowing if Estela’s immunity parallels her own or relies on the ghost plant, but she offers all that she can.

Estela is silent, and Ellie senses her pain and doubt.

How do you think we’re all still here?  Ellie continues. We haven’t lost anyone to infection - no-one. Are you sick? We can help you.

Nobody will help me. Estela’s voice is hollow, fading.

That’s not true. Tommy and Maria knew you once. They helped you when you came through Jackson, remember? You were looking for your sister. Ellie grasps at every thread, increasingly desperate. In the periphery, she feels a third presence, still indistinct, but it can only be Malcolm or some extension of his consciousness.

We have everything you need - food, medicine, shelter. If you can help us, we will help you. Ellie makes one last plea, and then falls silent, cloistering herself from his mind. Estela probes after her, and Ellie withdraws further, but she knows she cannot hide over distances and territory so familiar, nor is there much value in doing so when Malcolm is already aware of their presence. She allows Estela to find her on the bluff.

You know where we are. Come to us. Ellie says, and then severs the connection with the mycelium, gasping. Blood pours from her nose and mouth. The fungus pulses and writhes in the mud, still calling to her. She staggers to her feet and into Joel’s arms.

&&&

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She’s finally writing again rahhhh

Rules: share the first lines of ten five of your most recent fanfics and tag ten five people. I don't have ten fanfics lol so we're just posting the first line of my top 5 fave fics that I've written and posted <3

1)

The Stars Incline Us

the Part II where Ellie gets her chance at saving the world (or at least her little corner of it) and finds out just how loved she is along the way

The sun casts long shadows and low golden light on Jackson’s western front as Ellie and Joel walk the dirt road home. The prairie is singing, crickets thrumming the sound of summer.

2)

The Reaping Song

The Tommy PTSD fic I've always wanted to write, with a heavy dose of found family cuddles and Maria being his port in the storm

Sometime past two in the morning on God-only-knows what day in January, Tommy wakes up in the middle of a panic attack for the first time in years.

3)

Collateral Wounds

A Tommy/Maria fic exploring the aftermath of Joel and Tommy’s conversation in the workshop.

Tommy stands alone on his front porch beneath a star-studded sky. He lifts his gaze to the mountains, familiar sentinels standing stark and argent against the indigo night, and hums low in the back of his throat, tuneless, mournful, hoping it will soothe the vicious ache in his chest.

4)

Nascence

A Tommy/Maria fic, exploring the nascence of their relationship amidst Tommy finding his footing in Jackson and the loss of Maria’s father.

Saw that one coming. It’s Tommy’s first thought as the mare beneath him rears high and hard in the wake of a merciless buck. Despite his best efforts, he finds no chance to recover, and lands heavy, the air forced from his lungs, the back of his head slamming into the packed dirt. A blaze of white light detonates across his vision.

5)

a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking

An ode to New England, to Ellie and Joel, and to the relentless tide of love and loss that brings them together in every universe <3

She tastes the salt spray of the ocean on her tongue as she turns her face into the wind and howls. The wind answers, sweeping away the sound of her voice as it mingles with the cry of gulls overhead. The sky hangs low, brooding over an indistinct horizon.  She is alone.  She prefers it that way.

Realized I never posted this here?? 💀

Ellie and Tommy from an upcoming scene in tsiu 😭