Peanut Butter Week : Metal
Peanut Butter #6. Metal and Soft Serve 18/50 : Pineapple #30. ‘Til Death Do Us Part
with Cookie Crumbs, Gummies, and Malt
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R
Word Count : 1026
Malt Prompt : 2010 Mod Appreciation from Nikki : (Nikki) I'll keep you alive/if you show me the way/Forever and ever/The scars will remain Leave Me A Sign - Breaking Benjamin (mod appreciation)
Gummy Prompt : 500themes #395. The bitterness of mortality
Gummy Prompt : origfic_bingo August Card - Grief
Cookie Crumbs : Happily Ever After and assorted other pieces
Given the 6 element system of my world, I am equating wood with life and metal with death. This is the last of the wedding montage. Rampant spoilers continue.
* In case it's not obvious, Eli is one of Roul's earlier aliases.
1133
“These bonds hold,” Berwyk declares to the tiny congregation. He gives the blade lodged in the blanket tied around his wrist and Mabel’s a jerk, and the bright blue cloth falls away. Mabel is still clutching his arm, the newly placed ring gleaming on her finger.
“We give them voice before witness.” A handful of them anyway, and the dull, stony eyes of the gods. “That none but death may rend them.” He can’t help but lean in and wink and add in a whisper, “And in time death will be no match either.”
1152
Berwyk is not at his desk. Which means he is at her bed. Eli opens the door quietly, but his friend still hears him and looks up.
The rings under his eyes are nearly as dark and deep as those etched across Mabel’s skeletal features.
“She needs a new heart,” says Berwyk. He waves a shaky hand towards her chest, where her dressing gown has been pulled loose, baring ashen flesh criss-crossed with freshly inked sigils. “I’ve been working to build her one.”
1260
Screaming with such force the words are lost, Ski plunges into the ranks of the enemy. Her sword flies in broad, sweeping arcs, side to side about her, and it’s as if its edge turns the very substance of her foes into nothing. Body after body all but melts off her blade, barely slowing its swing. Blinded by tears, shaking with rage, she cuts a path through the melee, wading through the fallen, searching for the point where she last saw her husband.
1260
The inside of the temple is filled with smoke and ash, though there’s not so much as a mark on the stone outside. A lone orange and white spotted cat picks her way over the scorched remains of the floor to the ring around the central altar, pristine as the exterior, and the body within it.
He’s flat on his back, one long, bony arm flung wide, the crumbled husk of his torch a few feet from his limp fingers, amidst the soot. His other arm is as scarred as the temple walls. Shallow, shuddering breaths shake his thin frame.
The cat curls herself against his shoulder, rubs her head against his cheek, and the man breathes easier.
1267
“Momma, you’re telling it wrong,” is the six-year-old’s immediate reaction to what Lyssa thought was a stunning description of the most terrifying behemoth she’s ever had the misfortune to cross paths with.
“Oh? I am, am I?”
“Yes,” Mara insists. “The Red Knight’s not scared of anything.”
Lyssa laughs, and that only has Mara scowling harder. “Well, of course she is,” she says, patting the girl’s shoulder through the covers. “Everyone’s scared of something. Not being at least a little scared is a good way to end up dead. It’s what you do about it that matters.”
After a moment of thought it seems Mara decides to accept this answer. “So what did the Red Knight do?” she asks.
“Chopped it up with her flaming sword, of course.”
1274
“Hold still.” Kairn’s standing over the table, red-tipped iron in hand, trying to ascertain, with gently probing fingers, if the patch of skin on Sethan’s back is properly numb.
“I’m trying,” says Sethan, teeth chattering along with the constant shudder that’s taken hold of the rest of him.
“She’s not back already, is she?”
“If she was, you would know.” He’s gripping the edge of the table with trembling hands. “Would you hurry up before she is?”
“I-it’s going to hurt.” Just thinking about it is making his stomach turn.
“Not half as much as her miserable shrieking. Get on with it.”
“Y-you really should be asking Reida to do this. I mean, she’d probably even enjoy-”
“I’m going to do it myself in a moment if you don’t.” Kairn dodges the hand Sethan pries from the table to reach for the iron.
“All right, all right.” He holds Sethan by the shoulder, grits his teeth, and half shuts his eyes as if that might stop him from really seeing it. Sethan throws his head back with a howl as the metal hits his flesh. There’s a horrid, burning stench, and Kairn barely holds onto his lunch, but when he pulls back, there it is, a perfect seal.
“If this doesn’t hold,” he tells an even more violently shaking Sethan, as he reaches for the salve, “we’re going back to henna. I am not doing that to you again.”
1275
One moment Reida’s crouching in the brush with Rune and the next she’s on her feet, shouting at a beast that can’t really hear her anyway as it goes crashing towards a dumbstruck Kairn.
“Stop it!” she calls, grabbing Rune by the arm. But it’s too late; Kairn’s down.
He whirls around to face her, confused. “Stop what?”
The demon collapses with a spectacular crash. Sethan.
Reida shoves Rune aside as she leaps out from their cover. She’s tearing through her pockets, cloth after sigil-lined cloth passing through her fingers, none of them any use.
“Reida!” There’s a hand on her shoulder, dragging her back. “Reida, stop!”
She spins, ready to strike him, tears stinging her eyes. “He’s dead!”
1278
As if on cue, there’s a girl in Kinari’s doorway, striking a heroic pose. Shoulders squared, jaw set, and knuckles white around the hilt of her sword, she glares at her.
It’s all Kinari can do not to laugh. “Mara, my child,” she says sweetly instead, as if the girl is there for tea.
Mara doesn’t soften in the least. “I’ve come for my mother.”
1278
Kairn can feel the stone bite his flesh even though he can’t see it. He makes another reach, gives another pull, and it’s unraveling all around him, bit by bit. The air hums with the crackle of collapsing magic.
There’s a deafening crunch and he pulls his hand back with a yelp, his fingers throbbing as if they’ve been hit by a brick. He gives the invisible wall a kick out of anger and the hum swells, strands of blues and greens and reds lacing their way through the air like so many tiny bursts of lightning.
with Cookie Crumbs, Gummies, and Malt
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R
Word Count : 1026
Malt Prompt : 2010 Mod Appreciation from Nikki : (Nikki) I'll keep you alive/if you show me the way/Forever and ever/The scars will remain Leave Me A Sign - Breaking Benjamin (mod appreciation)
Gummy Prompt : 500themes #395. The bitterness of mortality
Gummy Prompt : origfic_bingo August Card - Grief
Cookie Crumbs : Happily Ever After and assorted other pieces
Given the 6 element system of my world, I am equating wood with life and metal with death. This is the last of the wedding montage. Rampant spoilers continue.
* In case it's not obvious, Eli is one of Roul's earlier aliases.
1133
“These bonds hold,” Berwyk declares to the tiny congregation. He gives the blade lodged in the blanket tied around his wrist and Mabel’s a jerk, and the bright blue cloth falls away. Mabel is still clutching his arm, the newly placed ring gleaming on her finger.
“We give them voice before witness.” A handful of them anyway, and the dull, stony eyes of the gods. “That none but death may rend them.” He can’t help but lean in and wink and add in a whisper, “And in time death will be no match either.”
1152
Berwyk is not at his desk. Which means he is at her bed. Eli opens the door quietly, but his friend still hears him and looks up.
The rings under his eyes are nearly as dark and deep as those etched across Mabel’s skeletal features.
“She needs a new heart,” says Berwyk. He waves a shaky hand towards her chest, where her dressing gown has been pulled loose, baring ashen flesh criss-crossed with freshly inked sigils. “I’ve been working to build her one.”
1260
Screaming with such force the words are lost, Ski plunges into the ranks of the enemy. Her sword flies in broad, sweeping arcs, side to side about her, and it’s as if its edge turns the very substance of her foes into nothing. Body after body all but melts off her blade, barely slowing its swing. Blinded by tears, shaking with rage, she cuts a path through the melee, wading through the fallen, searching for the point where she last saw her husband.
1260
The inside of the temple is filled with smoke and ash, though there’s not so much as a mark on the stone outside. A lone orange and white spotted cat picks her way over the scorched remains of the floor to the ring around the central altar, pristine as the exterior, and the body within it.
He’s flat on his back, one long, bony arm flung wide, the crumbled husk of his torch a few feet from his limp fingers, amidst the soot. His other arm is as scarred as the temple walls. Shallow, shuddering breaths shake his thin frame.
The cat curls herself against his shoulder, rubs her head against his cheek, and the man breathes easier.
1267
“Momma, you’re telling it wrong,” is the six-year-old’s immediate reaction to what Lyssa thought was a stunning description of the most terrifying behemoth she’s ever had the misfortune to cross paths with.
“Oh? I am, am I?”
“Yes,” Mara insists. “The Red Knight’s not scared of anything.”
Lyssa laughs, and that only has Mara scowling harder. “Well, of course she is,” she says, patting the girl’s shoulder through the covers. “Everyone’s scared of something. Not being at least a little scared is a good way to end up dead. It’s what you do about it that matters.”
After a moment of thought it seems Mara decides to accept this answer. “So what did the Red Knight do?” she asks.
“Chopped it up with her flaming sword, of course.”
1274
“Hold still.” Kairn’s standing over the table, red-tipped iron in hand, trying to ascertain, with gently probing fingers, if the patch of skin on Sethan’s back is properly numb.
“I’m trying,” says Sethan, teeth chattering along with the constant shudder that’s taken hold of the rest of him.
“She’s not back already, is she?”
“If she was, you would know.” He’s gripping the edge of the table with trembling hands. “Would you hurry up before she is?”
“I-it’s going to hurt.” Just thinking about it is making his stomach turn.
“Not half as much as her miserable shrieking. Get on with it.”
“Y-you really should be asking Reida to do this. I mean, she’d probably even enjoy-”
“I’m going to do it myself in a moment if you don’t.” Kairn dodges the hand Sethan pries from the table to reach for the iron.
“All right, all right.” He holds Sethan by the shoulder, grits his teeth, and half shuts his eyes as if that might stop him from really seeing it. Sethan throws his head back with a howl as the metal hits his flesh. There’s a horrid, burning stench, and Kairn barely holds onto his lunch, but when he pulls back, there it is, a perfect seal.
“If this doesn’t hold,” he tells an even more violently shaking Sethan, as he reaches for the salve, “we’re going back to henna. I am not doing that to you again.”
1275
One moment Reida’s crouching in the brush with Rune and the next she’s on her feet, shouting at a beast that can’t really hear her anyway as it goes crashing towards a dumbstruck Kairn.
“Stop it!” she calls, grabbing Rune by the arm. But it’s too late; Kairn’s down.
He whirls around to face her, confused. “Stop what?”
The demon collapses with a spectacular crash. Sethan.
Reida shoves Rune aside as she leaps out from their cover. She’s tearing through her pockets, cloth after sigil-lined cloth passing through her fingers, none of them any use.
“Reida!” There’s a hand on her shoulder, dragging her back. “Reida, stop!”
She spins, ready to strike him, tears stinging her eyes. “He’s dead!”
1278
As if on cue, there’s a girl in Kinari’s doorway, striking a heroic pose. Shoulders squared, jaw set, and knuckles white around the hilt of her sword, she glares at her.
It’s all Kinari can do not to laugh. “Mara, my child,” she says sweetly instead, as if the girl is there for tea.
Mara doesn’t soften in the least. “I’ve come for my mother.”
1278
Kairn can feel the stone bite his flesh even though he can’t see it. He makes another reach, gives another pull, and it’s unraveling all around him, bit by bit. The air hums with the crackle of collapsing magic.
There’s a deafening crunch and he pulls his hand back with a yelp, his fingers throbbing as if they’ve been hit by a brick. He gives the invisible wall a kick out of anger and the hum swells, strands of blues and greens and reds lacing their way through the air like so many tiny bursts of lightning.