When the memory begins, your brother is talking to you.
Which is to say, Mithrun’s brother, sitting at an angle to him in a matched pair of delicately-carved garden chairs, is talking to Mithrun - though, nobody would likely guess the relation by looks alone. He looks nothing like his younger brother (which is to say, like you), with his unruly straw-blonde hair and drooping blue eyes.
That lack of resemblance really does seem, at the moment, to stick out more than whatever he’s saying. Maybe your attention span would be better if it weren’t for the mostly-empty wine bottle sitting on the crystal table between the two of you, but does it matter? It’s not like he’ll have anything to say worth listening to.
Accidentally tuning in again only confirms that. His tone is infuriatingly gentle. “You’re meant to get leave every few years, aren’t you? I’m sure there’s a lot you’ll want to do then, but you’re welcome to stop by. We’d love to… see you…” His smile falters as you reach for the bottle to refill your cup again, but he doesn’t stop you.
Good. He had better not.
Not when you're being sent away for his shortcomings.
Maybe that thought showed on your face; even though you don’t say it, that fading smile disappears altogether. He shifts in place, adjusting the crutch resting against his seat. He’s fidgeting, and that means he’s changing topics, and you can already feel irritation prickling at your skin. You try to knock it back with your drink as he starts talking.
“It… really doesn’t seem fair.” Of course it doesn’t. Because it isn’t. “I know Mother and Father are worried about how it will look if they don’t send either of us to the Canaries, but…”
He trails off. You both know how that thought ends.
It was always going to be you. Of course it was going to be you.
He should have just left it at that. Instead, he speaks again.
“If it was possible for me to go, then--”
“Well, it isn’t!” You slam the cup down on the table, sending the sharp sound of metal on crystal reverberating around you. Your brother flinches, blue eyes going wide. “Of course it isn’t! That would be an insult to the Queen, wouldn’t it? So it falls to me, like how everything that matters falls to me, what I want be damned-- because it’s either me or my stupid, worthless brother!”
You stand up, steadying yourself with a hand on your chair, before he can reply, and pull away sharply when he reaches for you. You’d rather fall than have him try to help you - but, by chance, you regain your balance.
(( title comes from this song; relevant pages if you wanna see those (with an added warning for a single panel of a sheep carcass being butchered): 123 ))
You stand in a crumbling, ivy-riddled room, a sword at your hip and your uniform heavy against your body. You're in front of a mirror, and Mithrun is staring back at you - though not the Mithrun those in the simulation know now. The man here is younger, with two silver eyes and pointed ears fully intact. He's wearing the same uniform here that he still does now and then.
The mirror.
You should look away from it. You know that - it’s basic dungeon investigation. Don’t spend too long looking at any mirror you didn’t bring in with you.
Before your better judgment overpowers the exhaustion weighing you down, though, a thought occurs to you - and, while it’s still just half-formed, the image on the mirror ripples and changes.
You see two elves, sitting at a table together; one is beautiful and sharp-featured, and your heart leaps with sudden, aching fondness at the sight of them. A sly smile that you’d give anything to see in person again flits across their features, and they say something inaudible to their dining partner--
--to your brother.
Your hands are on the frame of the mirror before you realize you’ve moved, gripping the wood as if you can change what you’re looking at - what must have happened, in your absence. You knew he also had feelings for them, but you never thought--
Your heartbeat pounds in your ears, your throat tight and chest aching.
You let go of the mirror, and your hand goes to your sword.
It only takes one strike of the wooden sheath for the glass to shatter - to explode, and when the pieces fall away there’s no backing behind them, as if the glass were only a thin layer over an endless expanse of nothing.
There, from the “nothing”, steps a young goat. It stares up at you with dark eyes, soft and stable against the anger and despair surging through your blood, and it speaks.
“If only you hadn’t joined the Canaries, you could have been together.” The goat takes a step closer, unflinching as it walks over the broken glass. “But you can still see that future, if you’d like?”
It knows your answer, and you know it does.
You drop to one knee and cradle its muzzle in trembling hands.
You want that life, and something inside you changes.
Edited 2023-10-30 06:48 (UTC)
PASSERINE; [SPOILERS]; CW: psychological horror, manipulation, unreality, implied death
(( title comes from this song; relevant pages if you wanna see those: 12 ))
You can't be sure how long of a period the memory that flashes into your mind spans. It could be hours as easily as minutes. Days. Months. Time may as well collapse and unfold around you for all you can gauge it - and, in the moment, you don't really bother trying. There's always more to plan, to account for, to patch and repair and defend and request.
That the goat always by your side is able to grant those requests so easily should be a boon - but it feels like little assurance as those wishes pile up in your mind, flowing into place faster than you can ask for their fulfillment. You have to think, to decide what needs to be next. You can't think. So the goat makes suggestions, and you follow them.
You think there used to be more people here. You convinced some of your friends to stay, didn't you? Of course you did. None of you ever wanted to be Canaries, to suffer and die over and over in overgrown dungeons; of course they'd be better off here, with you, in this world that you can make perfect.
There are always more intruders. More and more and more, these days-- is that what happened to some of your friends? You almost remember, but the thought is gone as soon as it starts to form.
Where is Mikepas? Sita was upset about something, last you saw her. You didn't have time to get into it. You never seem to, recently.
The needs of the dungeon throb in your skull. At least the goat is here. It guides your reinforcements and defenses-- you start to wonder if the dungeon is growing too large. Didn't this used to be easier? Maybe you should try to condense things again. The goat nudges reassuringly against your cheek, and that thought fades.
You need more monsters, and so they're there. You hear Coyote mutter something about a prison, which is stupid. Prison is where he would be if he weren't sent to the Canaries. You've saved him from both.
The twisting corridors are no harder to navigate than the simple halls they used to be. They're yours, after all - yours, just like your beloved, waiting for you whenever you can get a moment's rest. They don't needle you about your choices, or accuse you of trapping them. The others had some doubts about their form, but you did what you had to - they're enough like the person their upper half was modeled after, and a serpentine lower body was just more practical as thieves and invaders became a greater risk. Most days, you can't even tell the difference anymore.
They're probably close enough.
This maze of towers and tunnels is probably close enough to where you're from.
Your friends have disappeared completely, now. But you're not alone.
After all, the goat is still here.
TAKE MORE THAN YOU NEED; [SPOILERS]; CW's below because there's too many to list here
(( CW: psychological horror, body horror, eye gore, mutilation, sexual assault imagery, brief mention of suicidal ideation; title comes from this song; relevant pages if you wanna read them, mind those cw's: 12 ))
You can't sleep.
That isn't anything new, by the feel of it; your body is heavy with the bone-deep exhaustion of a lack of sleep stretching out for...
How long has it been? You don't know. Every time you try to think about how long it's been since you slept, or ate, or much of anything other than managing your home, your thoughts seem to branch off and wander down another path. There are more and more intruders lately, always more to patch and reinforce and defend until your mind is buzzing with thought.
You can't actually keep working forever. So you're lying down now, the closest you can get to a moment's rest, with your love watching over you in silence.
But you aren't asleep.
You see the light shift, through closed eyes, when a shadow stretches over you. Your vision swims as you open your eyes to see the figure looming over you: A creature several times your size, with the head of a goat set on a muscular, humanoid body, its form covered in coarse fur from head to hoof.
"Goat...?" There's no twinge of alarm at the sight of the thing; it's simply there, a familiar fixture of the home built up around you.
It reaches down, picks you up in a hand larger than your torso. The goat snuffles at your chest before dragging its tongue up the front of your tunic. You still don't flinch.
Not until it bites in.
There's no blood, or tearing of flesh - the goat's muzzle simply sinks into your body as easily as into water, where its teeth and tongue find
something.
You don't know for sure what it is that the goat has found there in your chest - but every instinct you have is screaming that it's something that should never be touched.
You brace a hand on one of the goat's horns, cold sweat beading on your forehead as fear rises in your throat. "Wait-- what are you doing?"
It pushes in deeper, and a bolt of sickening wrongness rolls up your spine, some intangible loss worse than pain.
What were you doing here to begin with?
What had you wanted?
That hint of fear gives way to panic, and you push at its muzzle, thrash against its grip with what little strength you have left after how long has it been-- all the while, something is falling away, bit by bit, deep inside you. You want your love to help you, not to just watch without without so much of a ripple of their scaled coils, and then you don't care. You want to see the person they were made to resemble again, and then that thought fades with another snap of the goat's teeth. "Stop!"
Pieces of yourself, chewed up and swallowed one at a time. Lingering questions about your missing friends, the few plans you'd held onto for what you could do with this place once you figured out a better way to keep intruders out-- for a brief instant, you want to curse your family and superiors for putting you here, leading you to this thing to begin with. And then you don't.
"What-- what part of me are you eating?!"
Your struggling isn't enough to break free - not by a long shot. But it's enough for your attacker to adjust its hold. The "goat" pins you down to your own bed, one massive hand cradling your head, another gripping your thigh. Its hold could almost be mistaken as tender, if it weren't for how it drives a thumb thoughtlessly into your eye (a flare of physical agony that barely stands out against what you can feel yourself losing with each passing moment), if it weren't for how its other hand wrenches your body open, keeping what it's after open and exposed while you keep struggling and begging and screaming until you can't even hear yourself anymore.
At some point, pain shoots up your ears. At some point, something stings in your remaining eye. At some point, you stop caring what the goat is taking. You're just waiting for it to finish off whatever scraps of you are left behind, so this can all end.
That moment doesn't come.
You're alone just long enough to feel like an eternity, days or a lifetime of lying discarded in the ruins of what you thought you had built.
You eventually hear distant footsteps. The memory ends.
Edited 2023-10-20 15:10 (UTC)
STRANGE DAYS; [SPOILERS]; CW: blood/violence, death
(( title comes from this song; relevant pages if you want to see them are here (added warning for more gore!): 12345678 ))
Mithrun is - which is to say, you are - lying on the surface of the ocean. The water is firm under you, repelled by a layer of magic wrapped around your person, and the dark water is staining slowly darker as blood pours from a golf ball-sized hole through your thigh.
It hurts, of course, but that’s of less consequence than the loss of mobility. You still need to scale the crumbling tower standing over you, still dripping as if it just rose from the sea; you need to get to the oddly-dressed woman standing on its balcony.
You need to stop her or kill her. If you don’t, everything will end. If you fail, there will be no reason for you to have lived this long.
“Getting pierced through by an undine sure is painful, isn’t it?” The woman stands tall, but you recognize the strain in her posture and expression. “It was pretty painful when you stabbed me in the belly with that horn, too.”
You set a hand over the hole in your leg, mumbling an incantation while she speaks. Mustering the energy to heal it pulls at your veins and aches in your lungs, but you can still do it. You stand.
When you take a step toward the tower, the woman raises a wooden staff with a jolt, shouting down at you. “Just leave us alone! Surely you don’t have the strength to teleport any more!”
Paradoxically, you smile. A quiet, dry huff pushes from your overtaxed lungs. You keep walking. “You’re nothing more than its puppet now.”
The woman hesitates, just for a moment, and you continue.
“The demon has stoked your desires, and is now in full control of you. You may think that you’re acting under your will, but you are being manipulated.” You glimpse something moving behind her, and anger burns in your chest at the sight of it: A golden lion, with broad wings and curved horns. It whispers something to her, and you see her glance suspiciously over her shoulder at it.
Good. She shouldn’t trust it.
“Even if one of your desires is fulfilled, the next one will make you suffer. You’ll experience horrible thirst and hunger… and what’s more, those feelings can never be sated.” You point at the thing lurking behind her. “Your shallow desires are nothing but delicious snacks to that demon!”
You may have said the wrong thing - assuming there was ever a right thing to say. The woman bristles, floating orbs of water like the one that shot you before swelling and bubbling around her. There’s no option to back down. You have to see this through, even if you already know how she’ll answer.
You pick up a sharp, spiral horn from where you dropped it on the water’s surface, and extend your free hand, palm up. “Now, choose. You can die here and now, or you can relinquish your power to me!”
The woman leans over the balcony railing, gripping the stone under her free hand. “Relinquish my powers?! If I do that, then what’s going to happen to my friend? Are you guys going to bring her back to life instead?”
She keeps going, but the rest… it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you say to her, what you promise or argue or prove. There’s no more discussion to be had here, and there probably never was. “I see.”
You breathe out, and in again. You fix your good eye on the woman. “So you have chosen death.”
You take off at a run, aiming for the tower. The undines floating around it rise and fire again, bullets like that that had hit you before converging on you before you focus and cast, setting off one final surge of mana to teleport directly behind and above her. You drive the unicorn horn down toward her for what should be a lethal blow--
--And, instead of flesh, it meets feathers.
The winged lion’s eyes lock on yours as your one weapon - your one chance to take down the mage before you, and the lion with her - lodges uselessly in its wing. The fury you should feel at the sight of the thing dies in your throat, sinking into resignation.
After everything you’ve done, it still won. And… “I’ve failed.”
The woman screams, and magic crackles up her staff.
You hear the beginning crack of a concentrated explosion - and the memory cuts short.
Edited 2023-11-01 05:18 (UTC)
THE GOLD; CW: implied ableism, forced restraint/confinement, self-harm
The way the Canaries arrange your return to your family falls somewhere between the way a warden on leave may be brought to their hometown, and the way they may deliver the remains of a deceased soldier who couldn’t be revived.
Your brother treats it more like the former, albeit with a tinge of quiet, confused sadness. He kneels by the bed you’ve been set in, his crutch propped on the wall and the warmth of his hands closing around yours.
Your parents... you would say they treat it like the latter, but it might be a little more like a third option. You suppose (distantly, without investment) that they may have looked at you the same way if you'd been returned healthy, intact, and dishonorably discharged. They step outside to speak with the commander, and that’s the last time you see them.
Your brother does come back. You hear him speaking to some people; he presents them with a schedule, a rate of pay. You hear him listing off foods you used to like, your favorite books - "I'm sure he's still in there," he says. You’re not sure if he’s right or wrong; you can hear him. You recognize the suggestions he’s giving. You don’t care about any of it.
For a year, that's all there really is.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. The caretakers your brother hired come in as scheduled. They clean you, feed you, change your bandages and bedclothes, read to you. You recognize some of the books they read. They're following your brother's advice. It may as well be white noise.
Sometimes, your brother comes by, and his voice means nothing more than any other. You can tell he hopes that you'll speak, at some point. You never have anything to say.
Most days, your caretakers take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. Once, a shepherd passes by while you're there, and the bleating of sheep cuts through to a part of you still raw and angry, and you need to find it-- then there are hands pulling you back, overlapping voices shouting and soothing in turns. It feels longer before they next take you outside, and this time the height of the sun feels different.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. They bring you back inside, wash you, and lay you down. And it repeats.
You remember something you need to do, but you can't focus. Someone comes in, a plate in hand, and feeds you whatever is on it, and your mind is still lost in what you're forgetting and how to bring yourself back around to it. The person feeding you leaves the plate and fork by your bedside while they go to retrieve a book to read to you. When they turn around, they shout, and two more come running. There's a commotion, hands pulling the fork from your hands and pushing you down when you struggle against them, holding you down with a whisper of magic that makes your body go slack while they wrap bandages tight around the fresh points of pain scratched along your thigh.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. They bring you back inside, wash you, and lay you down. They take your dishes out as soon as you're finished eating now.
Most days, nothing much happens. Your brother stops by. He tells you about people you both know, and you can tell he's hoping for a response. You have nothing to say.
Your caretakers take you outside. The grass rustles, and you catch a glimpse of scales glinting by your feet. You lunge, and then there's shouting and hands and soothing and they take you back inside. What you need isn't here. You try to leave again, and this time they tie you down. Your mind wanders, and, after some time, they untie you. You lie in bed. You try to focus, the one way you remember. Someone comes in and sits you up to wash you. There's no more screaming, when they check you over and wash blood from under your nails and wrap bandages around your arm and leg. When they're finished, they tie thick, soft cloths around your hands before lying you back down.
Sometimes, that anger flares up on its own, when you remember what you have to do - that you can't do it here. They push you back into bed when you try to leave. You try again, and they tie you down again. You scream and thrash against your restraints, and they come running with more bandages and another whispered spell. You lie in bed. Nothing much happens. Someone comes in to feed you. They untie you. You lie in bed.
When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They feed you, take your dishes out as soon as you're finished, and you lie in bed. Eventually, they take you outside again, and this time you don't see any snakes. They take you inside. You lie in bed. There was something you needed to do. You can't think. Someone sits you up. You feel fingers in your hair, hear the quiet slicing of a blade through the strands. A gentle voice asks you a question, prodding for an answer, but you don't hear the words-- you see the glint of a mirror, and its light cuts through to that raw, angry core, and you snatch it away and crack the glass in your hands. The soft voice becomes a shout, and you grip the handle of the scissors with bloodied palms until more people come in and hold you down and magic slackens your hold. They wrap fresh bandages around your hands and arms and tie you down.
Most days, nothing much happens. You lie in bed. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. Your brother stops by.
They try feeding you something they haven't yet. You recognize it, but it doesn't really matter. Your hair is long enough now that they have to tie it back while you eat.
You try to leave, and they tie you down. This time, it's long enough until someone comes back in that you can get free, and you start walking. You don't know how far you get before someone catches up to you, and you aren't sure how they did it until they tie your arms and pick you up and you glimpse your own bloodied footprints. They take you back home, and you can't make your body move any more.
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orbicularis) wrote2023-10-19 06:47 pm
THE MOTH ; CW: alcohol abuse, ableism
When the memory begins, your brother is talking to you.
Which is to say, Mithrun’s brother, sitting at an angle to him in a matched pair of delicately-carved garden chairs, is talking to Mithrun - though, nobody would likely guess the relation by looks alone. He looks nothing like his younger brother (which is to say, like you), with his unruly straw-blonde hair and drooping blue eyes.
That lack of resemblance really does seem, at the moment, to stick out more than whatever he’s saying. Maybe your attention span would be better if it weren’t for the mostly-empty wine bottle sitting on the crystal table between the two of you, but does it matter? It’s not like he’ll have anything to say worth listening to.
Accidentally tuning in again only confirms that. His tone is infuriatingly gentle. “You’re meant to get leave every few years, aren’t you? I’m sure there’s a lot you’ll want to do then, but you’re welcome to stop by. We’d love to… see you…” His smile falters as you reach for the bottle to refill your cup again, but he doesn’t stop you.
Good. He had better not.
Not when you're being sent away for his shortcomings.
Maybe that thought showed on your face; even though you don’t say it, that fading smile disappears altogether. He shifts in place, adjusting the crutch resting against his seat. He’s fidgeting, and that means he’s changing topics, and you can already feel irritation prickling at your skin. You try to knock it back with your drink as he starts talking.
“It… really doesn’t seem fair.” Of course it doesn’t. Because it isn’t. “I know Mother and Father are worried about how it will look if they don’t send either of us to the Canaries, but…”
He trails off. You both know how that thought ends.
It was always going to be you. Of course it was going to be you.
He should have just left it at that. Instead, he speaks again.
“If it was possible for me to go, then--”
“Well, it isn’t!” You slam the cup down on the table, sending the sharp sound of metal on crystal reverberating around you. Your brother flinches, blue eyes going wide. “Of course it isn’t! That would be an insult to the Queen, wouldn’t it? So it falls to me, like how everything that matters falls to me, what I want be damned-- because it’s either me or my stupid, worthless brother!”
You stand up, steadying yourself with a hand on your chair, before he can reply, and pull away sharply when he reaches for you. You’d rather fall than have him try to help you - but, by chance, you regain your balance.
You don’t look back.
RABBIT HEART; [SPOILERS]; CW: manipulation
You stand in a crumbling, ivy-riddled room, a sword at your hip and your uniform heavy against your body. You're in front of a mirror, and Mithrun is staring back at you - though not the Mithrun those in the simulation know now. The man here is younger, with two silver eyes and pointed ears fully intact. He's wearing the same uniform here that he still does now and then.
The mirror.
You should look away from it. You know that - it’s basic dungeon investigation. Don’t spend too long looking at any mirror you didn’t bring in with you.
Before your better judgment overpowers the exhaustion weighing you down, though, a thought occurs to you - and, while it’s still just half-formed, the image on the mirror ripples and changes.
You see two elves, sitting at a table together; one is beautiful and sharp-featured, and your heart leaps with sudden, aching fondness at the sight of them. A sly smile that you’d give anything to see in person again flits across their features, and they say something inaudible to their dining partner--
--to your brother.
Your hands are on the frame of the mirror before you realize you’ve moved, gripping the wood as if you can change what you’re looking at - what must have happened, in your absence. You knew he also had feelings for them, but you never thought--
Your heartbeat pounds in your ears, your throat tight and chest aching.
You let go of the mirror, and your hand goes to your sword.
It only takes one strike of the wooden sheath for the glass to shatter - to explode, and when the pieces fall away there’s no backing behind them, as if the glass were only a thin layer over an endless expanse of nothing.
There, from the “nothing”, steps a young goat. It stares up at you with dark eyes, soft and stable against the anger and despair surging through your blood, and it speaks.
“If only you hadn’t joined the Canaries, you could have been together.” The goat takes a step closer, unflinching as it walks over the broken glass. “But you can still see that future, if you’d like?”
It knows your answer, and you know it does.
You drop to one knee and cradle its muzzle in trembling hands.
You want that life, and something inside you changes.
PASSERINE; [SPOILERS]; CW: psychological horror, manipulation, unreality, implied death
You can't be sure how long of a period the memory that flashes into your mind spans. It could be hours as easily as minutes. Days. Months. Time may as well collapse and unfold around you for all you can gauge it - and, in the moment, you don't really bother trying. There's always more to plan, to account for, to patch and repair and defend and request.
That the goat always by your side is able to grant those requests so easily should be a boon - but it feels like little assurance as those wishes pile up in your mind, flowing into place faster than you can ask for their fulfillment. You have to think, to decide what needs to be next. You can't think. So the goat makes suggestions, and you follow them.
You think there used to be more people here. You convinced some of your friends to stay, didn't you? Of course you did. None of you ever wanted to be Canaries, to suffer and die over and over in overgrown dungeons; of course they'd be better off here, with you, in this world that you can make perfect.
There are always more intruders. More and more and more, these days-- is that what happened to some of your friends? You almost remember, but the thought is gone as soon as it starts to form.
Where is Mikepas? Sita was upset about something, last you saw her. You didn't have time to get into it. You never seem to, recently.
The needs of the dungeon throb in your skull. At least the goat is here. It guides your reinforcements and defenses-- you start to wonder if the dungeon is growing too large. Didn't this used to be easier? Maybe you should try to condense things again. The goat nudges reassuringly against your cheek, and that thought fades.
You need more monsters, and so they're there. You hear Coyote mutter something about a prison, which is stupid. Prison is where he would be if he weren't sent to the Canaries. You've saved him from both.
The twisting corridors are no harder to navigate than the simple halls they used to be. They're yours, after all - yours, just like your beloved, waiting for you whenever you can get a moment's rest. They don't needle you about your choices, or accuse you of trapping them. The others had some doubts about their form, but you did what you had to - they're enough like the person their upper half was modeled after, and a serpentine lower body was just more practical as thieves and invaders became a greater risk. Most days, you can't even tell the difference anymore.
They're probably close enough.
This maze of towers and tunnels is probably close enough to where you're from.
Your friends have disappeared completely, now. But you're not alone.
After all, the goat is still here.
TAKE MORE THAN YOU NEED; [SPOILERS]; CW's below because there's too many to list here
You can't sleep.
That isn't anything new, by the feel of it; your body is heavy with the bone-deep exhaustion of a lack of sleep stretching out for...
How long has it been? You don't know. Every time you try to think about how long it's been since you slept, or ate, or much of anything other than managing your home, your thoughts seem to branch off and wander down another path. There are more and more intruders lately, always more to patch and reinforce and defend until your mind is buzzing with thought.
You can't actually keep working forever. So you're lying down now, the closest you can get to a moment's rest, with your love watching over you in silence.
But you aren't asleep.
You see the light shift, through closed eyes, when a shadow stretches over you. Your vision swims as you open your eyes to see the figure looming over you: A creature several times your size, with the head of a goat set on a muscular, humanoid body, its form covered in coarse fur from head to hoof.
"Goat...?" There's no twinge of alarm at the sight of the thing; it's simply there, a familiar fixture of the home built up around you.
It reaches down, picks you up in a hand larger than your torso. The goat snuffles at your chest before dragging its tongue up the front of your tunic. You still don't flinch.
Not until it bites in.
There's no blood, or tearing of flesh - the goat's muzzle simply sinks into your body as easily as into water, where its teeth and tongue find
something.
You don't know for sure what it is that the goat has found there in your chest - but every instinct you have is screaming that it's something that should never be touched.
You brace a hand on one of the goat's horns, cold sweat beading on your forehead as fear rises in your throat. "Wait-- what are you doing?"
It pushes in deeper, and a bolt of sickening wrongness rolls up your spine, some intangible loss worse than pain.
What were you doing here to begin with?
What had you wanted?
That hint of fear gives way to panic, and you push at its muzzle, thrash against its grip with what little strength you have left after how long has it been-- all the while, something is falling away, bit by bit, deep inside you. You want your love to help you, not to just watch without without so much of a ripple of their scaled coils, and then you don't care. You want to see the person they were made to resemble again, and then that thought fades with another snap of the goat's teeth. "Stop!"
Pieces of yourself, chewed up and swallowed one at a time. Lingering questions about your missing friends, the few plans you'd held onto for what you could do with this place once you figured out a better way to keep intruders out-- for a brief instant, you want to curse your family and superiors for putting you here, leading you to this thing to begin with. And then you don't.
"What-- what part of me are you eating?!"
Your struggling isn't enough to break free - not by a long shot. But it's enough for your attacker to adjust its hold. The "goat" pins you down to your own bed, one massive hand cradling your head, another gripping your thigh. Its hold could almost be mistaken as tender, if it weren't for how it drives a thumb thoughtlessly into your eye (a flare of physical agony that barely stands out against what you can feel yourself losing with each passing moment), if it weren't for how its other hand wrenches your body open, keeping what it's after open and exposed while you keep struggling and begging and screaming until you can't even hear yourself anymore.
At some point, pain shoots up your ears. At some point, something stings in your remaining eye. At some point, you stop caring what the goat is taking. You're just waiting for it to finish off whatever scraps of you are left behind, so this can all end.
That moment doesn't come.
You're alone just long enough to feel like an eternity, days or a lifetime of lying discarded in the ruins of what you thought you had built.
You eventually hear distant footsteps. The memory ends.
STRANGE DAYS; [SPOILERS]; CW: blood/violence, death
Mithrun is - which is to say, you are - lying on the surface of the ocean. The water is firm under you, repelled by a layer of magic wrapped around your person, and the dark water is staining slowly darker as blood pours from a golf ball-sized hole through your thigh.
It hurts, of course, but that’s of less consequence than the loss of mobility. You still need to scale the crumbling tower standing over you, still dripping as if it just rose from the sea; you need to get to the oddly-dressed woman standing on its balcony.
You need to stop her or kill her. If you don’t, everything will end. If you fail, there will be no reason for you to have lived this long.
“Getting pierced through by an undine sure is painful, isn’t it?” The woman stands tall, but you recognize the strain in her posture and expression. “It was pretty painful when you stabbed me in the belly with that horn, too.”
You set a hand over the hole in your leg, mumbling an incantation while she speaks. Mustering the energy to heal it pulls at your veins and aches in your lungs, but you can still do it. You stand.
When you take a step toward the tower, the woman raises a wooden staff with a jolt, shouting down at you. “Just leave us alone! Surely you don’t have the strength to teleport any more!”
Paradoxically, you smile. A quiet, dry huff pushes from your overtaxed lungs. You keep walking. “You’re nothing more than its puppet now.”
The woman hesitates, just for a moment, and you continue.
“The demon has stoked your desires, and is now in full control of you. You may think that you’re acting under your will, but you are being manipulated.” You glimpse something moving behind her, and anger burns in your chest at the sight of it: A golden lion, with broad wings and curved horns. It whispers something to her, and you see her glance suspiciously over her shoulder at it.
Good. She shouldn’t trust it.
“Even if one of your desires is fulfilled, the next one will make you suffer. You’ll experience horrible thirst and hunger… and what’s more, those feelings can never be sated.” You point at the thing lurking behind her. “Your shallow desires are nothing but delicious snacks to that demon!”
You may have said the wrong thing - assuming there was ever a right thing to say. The woman bristles, floating orbs of water like the one that shot you before swelling and bubbling around her. There’s no option to back down. You have to see this through, even if you already know how she’ll answer.
You pick up a sharp, spiral horn from where you dropped it on the water’s surface, and extend your free hand, palm up. “Now, choose. You can die here and now, or you can relinquish your power to me!”
The woman leans over the balcony railing, gripping the stone under her free hand. “Relinquish my powers?! If I do that, then what’s going to happen to my friend? Are you guys going to bring her back to life instead?”
She keeps going, but the rest… it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you say to her, what you promise or argue or prove. There’s no more discussion to be had here, and there probably never was. “I see.”
You breathe out, and in again. You fix your good eye on the woman. “So you have chosen death.”
You take off at a run, aiming for the tower. The undines floating around it rise and fire again, bullets like that that had hit you before converging on you before you focus and cast, setting off one final surge of mana to teleport directly behind and above her. You drive the unicorn horn down toward her for what should be a lethal blow--
--And, instead of flesh, it meets feathers.
The winged lion’s eyes lock on yours as your one weapon - your one chance to take down the mage before you, and the lion with her - lodges uselessly in its wing. The fury you should feel at the sight of the thing dies in your throat, sinking into resignation.
After everything you’ve done, it still won. And… “I’ve failed.”
The woman screams, and magic crackles up her staff.
You hear the beginning crack of a concentrated explosion - and the memory cuts short.
THE GOLD; CW: implied ableism, forced restraint/confinement, self-harm
The way the Canaries arrange your return to your family falls somewhere between the way a warden on leave may be brought to their hometown, and the way they may deliver the remains of a deceased soldier who couldn’t be revived.
Your brother treats it more like the former, albeit with a tinge of quiet, confused sadness. He kneels by the bed you’ve been set in, his crutch propped on the wall and the warmth of his hands closing around yours.
Your parents... you would say they treat it like the latter, but it might be a little more like a third option. You suppose (distantly, without investment) that they may have looked at you the same way if you'd been returned healthy, intact, and dishonorably discharged. They step outside to speak with the commander, and that’s the last time you see them.
Your brother does come back. You hear him speaking to some people; he presents them with a schedule, a rate of pay. You hear him listing off foods you used to like, your favorite books - "I'm sure he's still in there," he says. You’re not sure if he’s right or wrong; you can hear him. You recognize the suggestions he’s giving. You don’t care about any of it.
For a year, that's all there really is.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. The caretakers your brother hired come in as scheduled. They clean you, feed you, change your bandages and bedclothes, read to you. You recognize some of the books they read. They're following your brother's advice. It may as well be white noise.
Sometimes, your brother comes by, and his voice means nothing more than any other. You can tell he hopes that you'll speak, at some point. You never have anything to say.
Most days, your caretakers take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. Once, a shepherd passes by while you're there, and the bleating of sheep cuts through to a part of you still raw and angry, and you need to find it-- then there are hands pulling you back, overlapping voices shouting and soothing in turns. It feels longer before they next take you outside, and this time the height of the sun feels different.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. They bring you back inside, wash you, and lay you down. And it repeats.
You remember something you need to do, but you can't focus. Someone comes in, a plate in hand, and feeds you whatever is on it, and your mind is still lost in what you're forgetting and how to bring yourself back around to it. The person feeding you leaves the plate and fork by your bedside while they go to retrieve a book to read to you. When they turn around, they shout, and two more come running. There's a commotion, hands pulling the fork from your hands and pushing you down when you struggle against them, holding you down with a whisper of magic that makes your body go slack while they wrap bandages tight around the fresh points of pain scratched along your thigh.
You lie in bed. When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. They bring you back inside, wash you, and lay you down. They take your dishes out as soon as you're finished eating now.
Most days, nothing much happens. Your brother stops by. He tells you about people you both know, and you can tell he's hoping for a response. You have nothing to say.
Your caretakers take you outside. The grass rustles, and you catch a glimpse of scales glinting by your feet. You lunge, and then there's shouting and hands and soothing and they take you back inside. What you need isn't here. You try to leave again, and this time they tie you down. Your mind wanders, and, after some time, they untie you. You lie in bed. You try to focus, the one way you remember. Someone comes in and sits you up to wash you. There's no more screaming, when they check you over and wash blood from under your nails and wrap bandages around your arm and leg. When they're finished, they tie thick, soft cloths around your hands before lying you back down.
Sometimes, that anger flares up on its own, when you remember what you have to do - that you can't do it here. They push you back into bed when you try to leave. You try again, and they tie you down again. You scream and thrash against your restraints, and they come running with more bandages and another whispered spell. You lie in bed. Nothing much happens. Someone comes in to feed you. They untie you. You lie in bed.
When you're awake, you rarely look away from the ceiling. They feed you, take your dishes out as soon as you're finished, and you lie in bed. Eventually, they take you outside again, and this time you don't see any snakes. They take you inside. You lie in bed. There was something you needed to do. You can't think. Someone sits you up. You feel fingers in your hair, hear the quiet slicing of a blade through the strands. A gentle voice asks you a question, prodding for an answer, but you don't hear the words-- you see the glint of a mirror, and its light cuts through to that raw, angry core, and you snatch it away and crack the glass in your hands. The soft voice becomes a shout, and you grip the handle of the scissors with bloodied palms until more people come in and hold you down and magic slackens your hold. They wrap fresh bandages around your hands and arms and tie you down.
Most days, nothing much happens. You lie in bed. They take you outside, and set you on a chair on the hill for a time. Your brother stops by.
They try feeding you something they haven't yet. You recognize it, but it doesn't really matter. Your hair is long enough now that they have to tie it back while you eat.
You try to leave, and they tie you down. This time, it's long enough until someone comes back in that you can get free, and you start walking. You don't know how far you get before someone catches up to you, and you aren't sure how they did it until they tie your arms and pick you up and you glimpse your own bloodied footprints. They take you back home, and you can't make your body move any more.
You lie in bed.