@belatedbeliever1127 / belatedbeliever1127.tumblr.com
DnD character commission for @belatedbeliever1127's lovely satyr ranger. She's cuddling her cute badger companion, and I had so much fun with this one. So adorable! Thank you again for commissioning me, Believer!
Look at this beautiful piece! I couldn't be happier with how it turned out! Thank you so much!!!!!
Y'all should blame @terrible-miraculous-ladybug-aus and @heizerux on this
Day 7: AU of choice
Hey, here’s my last thingy for Starco Week 5!
Star and Marco as Ladybug and Cat Noir from Miraculous Ladybug!
Idk, I thought it would be a good idea, and a cute one too. Hope you like 💘
i’ve been trying to upload this FOREVER TUMBLR BLEASE LET ME POST MY STUFF
hheheheh………… bebop
It’s about time someone did this
The Old Gods are dead. New Gods must be chosen, so Death and Life have designed several trials for hand-picked individuals to see if they are worthy of becoming New Gods. You have just been plucked from your school to stand as one of the candidates.
A few had already been selected when she was introduced, the power they held setting them apart from the candidates that still waited. First boredom prompted her to speak to them, before curiosity took over and she found herself enraptured with conversations, learning exactly who had become part of the New Gods.
War was a young girl taken from the ruin of her village, her skin still streaked with the blood of her family. Her people killed by those who sought only power, she now pushed her rage and her sorrow towards those who fought for justice. Her footsteps echoed with the beat of war drums as she spoke of her fight with those who fought cruelty, who sought to end the horrors of those whose humanity had fled. She knew the injustices of the world all too well and she would do her best to fuel those who battled against them, seeking retribution for the innocent lives that had been cut down too soon. Her voice rang with the clash of steel and thousands of battlecries. She knew war was inevitable for some and so she carried on.
Earth was a mother, children already gone and living their own lives. Her hair was streaked with grey and her face was marked both by lines of stress and lines of love and laughter. She knew the burden of loving a child, knowing that they would be hurt and there was nothing to be done that could change it. But she knew also when to comfort, to protect and to soothe, and she would look after all her children of the planet as best she could. She knew they would make mistakes and she loved them all the more for it. She would care for them as best she could, smiling with them, and shedding tears when they felt pain. Her eyes glowed with the warmth of her love, and when she spoke it was with the voices of millions underneath her soothing tone, her connection to each living being she watched over. She wandered through the candidates, offering support and kind words to any who needed them, already looking after her charges.
Knowledge was an old man, bent with age, his body tired but his mind sharp. He had spent his life learning as much as he could of the world, seeing any situation as an opportunity to better his mind. Now he was old and wise, and carried all the information the universe had to offer. He was in charge of the Library, where all the information one could possibly need was stored. He spoke with excitement of getting to read and experience everything it held, for though he subjectively knew what they contained it was another thing entirely to experience it and he couldn’t wait to begin. He shared his stories with those around him, speaking of his many years on the Earth that had gotten him to this point, and he hoped that everyone could see a chance to learn in a new situation instead of simply problems they might have. During their conversation he had grasped her hand tightly and assured her that all would be well. She didn’t need to ask how he knew, though the twinkle of his eyes told her he guessed her thoughts.
It had been many hours since she had first started speaking with them, barely noticing how the crowd of people had dwindled until only she and the chosen Gods had remained. But soon even they departed, promising that no matter what happened they would see her soon. War saluted her, while Earth embraced her and Knowledge simply nodded at her kindly. With that she was alone, waiting for her turn to face whatever trials awaited her.
She didn’t know how much time had passed before the doors of the chamber opened again, revealing two figures as they entered. One was a man, who seemed to glow with light and life, the other a woman whose face was sallow and eyes were black orbs that seemed to hold nothing at all. They smiled kindly at her and approached. They stopped just in front of her and seemed to assess her, simply watching her in silence together. She stood still in face of their judgement, and finally they both smiled.
“This one certainly has potential, don’t you think my love?” The woman, surely Death said to her partner, who nodded as he appraised her. “A good fit for Balance I think.” She continues, raising a hand pale as bone to tilt her face towards them, staring into her eyes as though searching her soul. She smiled again, as though happy with what she saw, and looked to her partner.
“Yes I see it too, my soul. But let us see what the trials say, yes?” Life replied, tone rich and playful as he winked at her, offering her his arm as they walk to the open doors. His partner agreed, taking her other arm as they make their way to what she assumed was the testing area. As they entered a new chamber Life waved his arms as though introducing them to a large crowd, despite the emptiness of the room. His voice, filled with excitement and laughter, started what would soon be the next chapter in her life.
“Let the trials begin!”
(Here is pt 2, thank you for all the requests for it I was very surprised!)
Adra had learned many things since then, though she knew it was only a portion of what was to come. The trials had taken many months to complete, testing her mind and her body as she could never be sure of what the tests were trying to prove. She knew her strengths but also her weaknesses, and she had only hoped that the latter wouldn’t outweigh the former too much. She had answered their questions, she had worked out their puzzles and learned about the universe, and now she sat in the empty room, as she had all though months ago, waiting for the final assessment from the two Beings behind it all. She had learned about the couple as well during her trials, and now as she sits in wait, she ponders just who it was who had chosen her.
It is Life who bursts into her mind first, naturally. He is as lively as his title suggests, constantly bouncing around and experiencing the wonders of the world. He was always excited to see something new, and his laughter was a constant sound in the halls of the facility, often matched with a grin that seemed to hold no sorrow. He had laughed quite hard when he had learned her name, though he said he couldn’t explain it yet. His dark skin glowed from within with a light completely his own, and his eyes were filled with the stars and galaxies as they slowly went about their long lifespans.
But life was not only happiness, and he would feel every other emotion just as strongly. He would rage at the state of the world and his anger shook the very ground as he screamed in fury. When his anger lessened it would be replaced with sorrow, the world becoming less colorful with it as his tears flooded the skies and caused rain to fall in torrents. For while life was a gift to many that brought joy to those alive, it could also be a prison, forcing those who suffered to keep going even as they cried out for their pain to end. He could see everything that was felt by those who had given life, and Adra simply supported him whether his mood was bright or dark.
After him Death seemed to creep in like a shadow to her husband, though she was a force all her own. She was quiet in her emotions, faint smiles or frowns usually all that betrayed her inner thoughts. She moved with a grace unlike any other, without hesitation and smooth as silk. She wondered at her husband’s creations and was always ready to greet them at the other end. Her pale skin was that of bleached bone, smooth and without flaws, her features shifting constantly as death came in countless forms. It was a great contrast to her eyes, black voids that not even light could penetrate, the only part of her that never changed.
She could be gentle or cruel depending on the person who she greeted, for not all creatures her love had made used his gift for good. Some used their lives to hurt those around them, and those people were greeted with harsh words and swift action to the next life, where they would feel all the pain they had caused in life before they could move on. In those times she was terrifying, cruel and angry, often drawing out their suffering before she welcomed them into her realm. She was most gentle with those for whom death was a mercy, whose suffering was finally at an end after the misery of life. She greeted them with soothing words and a warm embrace as she smoothly escorted them into the beyond. She would cry when children were her charges, holding them tightly in her arms as she whispered quiet apologies and sweet songs that followed them when they passed on. Death often came to Adra after such times, soothed by the presence of someone so young still living. She said nothing, for nothing needed to be said, and simply stayed as long as she had to.
She had learned that each of them was kind and cruel and she cared for them deeply as they shared their hardships and their victories with her and with each other. It had only been the three of them during her trials, and she had questioned Life why they were spending so much time on her. He had laughed, and told her how the role they felt she would fill was of terrible importance, and thus the time was well spent. She can’t imagine what the role would be, but as she listens to the footsteps coming towards her, she can only hope that she had proven worthy. Her heart races as the door is thrown open, unsurprisingly with Life standing behind it as he all but throws himself forward, Death smoothly gliding in behind. Both are smiling and hope fills her chest.
“Adra! It has come to our attention that you have completed your trials. First, I must say congratulations! Not many would have gotten this far, let alone passed. So truly, well done! Second, I believe that it is time that we tell you the role you shall fill going into this new Age. The others have been waiting for you to join them. My love?” He turns, still beaming, to his wife, who had been rolling her eyes at his antics. At his prompt she smiles, wider than any she had seen on her before.
“Adra, it has truly been a wonderful time teaching you of the forces that run our universe, and I am quite honored to say that you will be working with us to keep it running smoothly.” She brushes a pale hand against her cheek, filling her with warmth, before continuing. “It was clear from when we first chose you that you are a levelheaded girl, never one to think rashly or act without thought. You have seen good and bad in your time here, short though it may seem, and you proved wise in your choices when faced with them. Not many can remain objective when faced with the wonders of life but you have done your best, and it is that which drew us to you.” She glances at Life and he nods. “My dear, it is time to begin if you are ready.” She looks to Adra, who nods. The two each clasp one of her hands in each of theirs. Life speaks, his voice lined with age and strength as he seems to direct a glowing light in his palms.
“From the Living comes power, great and terrible, given to the one who knows its weight. It is to her I grant it with my blessing until the end of days comes for us all.” As he speaks the light seeps into her skin, causing her veins to glow through her arm and spreading through her body, curling deep into her heart and mind. As the glow briefly blinds her, Death grips her hand tighter, her own words almost a whisper yet still ringing out in the small room.
“From the Dead comes power, awful and kind, given to the one who will carry it knowing its touch. I give it freely with my blessing to her that knows its meaning, until the endless night comes for us all.” A darkness fills her hands, an endless void that seems to envelop them in its shadows, as they glide to her and steal into her veins, hiding in the darkness opposite from the light as it settles itself deep into her very soul.
“By the Old Laws we grant it, and so it is so.”
The last part is said together as they pull their hands away and she is left to simply feel… everything. She is filled with blistering heat and biting cold, chaos and order, joy and sorrow, calm and panic. There seems to be a bit of everything that made up the universe and for a moment she is overwhelmed by it all, falling to her knees and barely stopping the scream rising in her throat. For a time it is all she knows, until everything seemed to settle slightly, enough so that she could focus once more on her surroundings, pushing herself to her feet as she faces the two worried expressions above her. As she does the worry changes to relief, and Life lets out a whooping cheer. She smiles at him, before pushing her words out with her harsh breathing.
“Care to explain what the hell that was?” While she no longer was overwhelmed, she could still feel the forces raging within her, constantly growing and lessening with each passing breath. Her words caused both Beings to smile as they take her arms and lead her through the halls of the facility. As they walk, Life begins to explain.
“You see Adra, we have chosen those who will fill the role for every deity we need. Light, Darkness, War, Peace, Earth and her sisters, and so on and so forth. But with deities come problems, and we cannot always be there to help settle them. The universe is balanced in a sense, and with too much power one can quickly throw that balance off. Or something might randomly shift and it would need to be dealt with before imbalance occurs.” He gestures to his wife and she continues, as they walk deeper into the center of the building than she had ever gone before.
“Balance is what allows the universe to keep going, it is the force that ensures that everything works as it should and nothing goes awry more than it should. There have been instances in the past that resulted in imbalance, and even when only momentary the results were not pleasant.” Her face grew pinched as she seemed to remember such instances. “Therefore, since we can’t always be trusted to watch over this balance, we have chosen to delegate. That is where you come in.”
“You can sense the shifts in our universe, feeling how everything is in relation to each other. You will be our top advisor in these matters, our eyes and ears in the places that we cannot be. More than that, you will be able to shift the balances themselves, which is why we spent so long with you. This power is incredibly dangerous, and though you are young you have proven that you are worthy of it.” Life smiles as he speaks, opening a door to a great hall she had never seen before. It stretches long and wide, filled with warm light and loud voices. It is filled with people, all speaking to each other as they ate, though they fell silent at the opening of the door. She could recognize Earth and War, and realizes that these must be the rest of the New Gods.
Before they join the group, she is led to one of the walls that are lined with mirrors. She stops suddenly as her reflection meets her gaze, stunned by the changes that greet her. Her skin is filled with shadows and lights that seem to swarm each other, though as she watches she sees that neither are ever truly winning. Her left hand is filled more with the glow, her right swarmed more with shadow, but each are equal as they dance beneath her dusky skin.
But what most shocks her are her eyes, no longer the deep brown she knew. The left is filled with the galaxies like Life, seeming to be filled with all the glowing lives of the universe. Even when closed her eye shines brightly, as though laughing at her attempt to stop its glow. However the right is the eye of Death, a deep void which traps all light within and extinguishes it. It seems to sink into her socket, though she knows it is only the effect of the darkness it holds. They are horribly different than before, but they are the eyes of those she had come to care for and it is that thought that keeps her fear at bay, for all that they were the last sign of her fleeting mortality. She stares at her face for a few seconds more, and smiles. Life and Death step up behind her, each once again clasping the hand filled with their gifts. Death speaks once more, her voice filled with pride as Life simply grins.
“Welcome to our interesting New Era, Balance.”
Love it! Thank you <3
A powerful witch runs away after the villagers try to execute her, couple years later children randomly start disappearing. She’s taking abused children away from their parents and raising them in the woods. But once they grow up and leave, they forget how to get to the witch’s house and their memories of her become blurry.
The town was evil. But the children? They were still pure, there was still good in their hearts, trickling out of their mouth and ears and gentle hands.
She stayed there for years, trying to protect them as much as she can. Even after the villagers had enough of a witch living amongst them, she still took in the lost children.
Every parent’s worst nightmare is their children growing up. The witch was no different.
Her kids, they called her mama once. And now when they passed her as adults, they didn’t even give her a second glance. As far as she figured, they didn’t remember her at all.
(She’d tried talking to Benjamin once, one of her favourites, because he had been a clingy child who couldn’t bear to leave her side. He was thirty when she tried visiting him. When she approached him, he treated her kindly, but the kind of pleasantness you show to strangers and not someone you call your mother.)
The witch was sad, of course. But there was nothing she could do; they had to go, sooner or later.
One of her boys entered her room. “Mama?”
It was Peter, her oldest. He was turning eighteen in a couple of days, and soon it would be his turn to leave.
It hurt her to see him already.
“Yes, love?”
“I am leaving soon,” Peter said. A statement, not a question. “But I don’t want to.”
“You have to, love. None of your siblings wanted to leave,” she answered, simply. “But the hour you turn eighteen, you’ll forget. And you’ll wander off, and then you’ll never find your way back.”
Peter looked sulky. “Isn’t there some way to make me not forget? I don’t want to forget you, ever.”
She almost laughed because of how close she was to crying. Her boy. Her sweet, sweet boy.
“I’m sorry, love.”
He slammed the door behind her when he left. Peter had always been a fiery one.
When she opened the door on the day of Peter’s eighteenth birthday, she expected him to be gone by then.
Instead, her boy was sitting on the bed cross-legged, holding an empty bottle.
He had drunk a potion. An anti-aging potion.
“I found a way, mama,” he said, his eighteen-year-old hands clasping here, firmly. “I don’t want to forget you.”
He left, too, when he got bored of being cooped up in the house with no company. But he visited her every few years, bringing her stories of how he visited children, following in her footsteps.
They called him Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up.
Check out the story tag for more short stories
So cool.
CHIIIIIILLLLLS
OH MY GOD. I am CRYING
My heart TT
Whenever you come across a moderate size decision, you have the ability to message any of your future selves and ask them what came of their decisions. One day, the doorbell rings and there is a girl-scout waiting outside. Your phone chimes, it’s a message from yourself; it reads “Please, don’t open it”.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been able to communicate with the future. As a little boy, I’d written letters and placed them in the creek out in the back of my house, and gotten replies back the next day under my pillow. As I got older I began to suspect my parents, but the more I questioned them, the less likely it seemed. So i continued to write, asking about how I’d look, or who I’d marry, or how many children id have, or if the girl I liked liked me back.
“Handsome, a little too arrogent.” “You won’t marry.” “One.” “Yes”
And it guided my life. Successfully. Letters turned to emails, emails to texts, and so on. Bigger life decisions needed more specific answers. How big of a downpayment do i need for my first house?
“Don’t buy a house yet, wait until after you’re fired from this job”
“The next job is double your salary, prove yourself, and you can do it.”
“Don’t date him, he’s married. You’ll get dragged into the drama.”
I became very successful, with a cozy home, with exactly the two bedrooms id been told to get, with a big backyard Id been talked into, planning for a family I was still unsure about. My parents had passed in my mid 20s, and I was an only child, a little spoiled for that fact but still lonely. Which I supposed helped me to continue corresponding with my future guide, stubborn to accept bad outcomes and desperate for familiar contact, despite their mysteriousness, and distance. They never spoke first, only answered questions…which is why it came as a surprise one autumn sunday morning, when my phone alerted me to the first unprovoked message they’d ever sent me. I was shocked, staring for eternity at the confusing message.
“Please…dont answer it. ” The vaguity concerned me. Whilst pondering it, the bright chimes of my doorbell sounded. My stomach sank and my hands shook. I couldnt resist peering out of the peephole. Shock after shock today, the caller was a small girl, with an impossible cloud of curls suspended around her freckled face, her deep brown eyes staring up into what she had no clue to be my own eyes.
It was a little girl. A headstrong little girl, from the way her chest was puffed out and the straightness of her back and the loft of her head and the fire I could almost feel. Her little blue tunic was too big, obscured by the comically large pen board she carried.
Against my better judgement, I opened the door. The tiny spitfire wasn’t the only one there, to my amusement. Six more tiny girls were huddled behind a tall, primly dressed woman. She waved apologetically as one shrieked at my presence and began to cry.
“Sorry, you’re our first stop,” she laughed as she comforted the sobbing girl.
I shrugged, “Girl scouts?”
She blinked. “Oh, I suppose we look like them, don’t we? No no, we’re the-”
“WE’RE SELLING COOKIES FOR OUR HOUSE. BUY EM, KID.” The little one at my feet sure knew how to sell. I laughed a gestured to her clip board, and she enthusiastically chucked it at my chest. “THEYRE SO TUMMY. ”
The woman laughed again. “You mean yummy, Naomi.” The girls eyes sparkled and she just nodded, affirmatively. I looked the sheet over. “Ross District Girl’s Home”. I glanced at the woman.
“Are you a…”
“Foster care, yes. There’s also a boys home as well, about a mile south from here. We do a fundraiser every six months or so, and split up by age, I’ve got the first graders out today. You’re new to the area yes?” I nodded.
“Great, well we do lots of bake sales, little fundraisers, door to door, things like that to keep our house running and to get the kids out of the house for a bit. We do a carnival in December too. ”
“Impressive. ” I looked back down, and Naomi had vanished.
“Shit.” The woman clapped her hand over her mouth as the girls laughed and acted scandalized at her swear. “Did she run inside? Could we..?”
I extended a hand, “Be my guest, I dont have much but some granola bars you kids are welcome to.” Five little girls rushed in as their gaurdian rolled her eyes. The sixth held tight and they entered.
As the children chowed down, she thanked me. “Thats very sweet.”
“Nah, I love kids. Love to have some myself eventually.” I marked a few things down and handed the board back to her. “3 of each, the office will love these.” She gaped at me.
“Thats…over three hundred dollars…are you sure?” She sputtered.
I shrugged, and pulled a carton of milk and some glasses down. “Kids are expensive. I’d be happy to help more if you need it.” She raised an eyebrow at me and extended a hand.
“Charlotte.” I took it and shook.
“Wilber.” And she couldnt begin to contain her laughter.
“No kidding!?” She howled, “Oh you and me are going to have some fun, Wilber.”
“Will is fine,” I winced. She shook her head. “Nope, you’re my new best friend. Wilber. Great name.” She sat the girls in a row and began to call for Naomi.
“Sweetie?”
We searched the house, easily finding her in my office. My office was my pride, the wall covered in pictures and maps, red strings tacked all over, souvenirs from other countries, plane tickets from where id gone. This tiny girl was stared in awe of it all. I was flattered. “Hey.” Charlotte said softly.
There was such a calm over her. Like she’d had an epiphany. She looked twice as small in the dark room, her entranced faced illuminated only by the rather dramatic lighting I displayed my treasures with.
“This is the world, huh?” She said quietly.
“A lot of it, sure.”
“My mama said she was gonna find a way to give me the world. You went and got it, huh, kid?”
“Not all of it.”
“My mama couldn’t give it to me…she had to go. So I gotta find someone else to help me. Huh, kid?”
“Its a wonderful thing to have.”
I was compelled. I sat side by side with her in that little room, weaving stories about China, and Africa, and Mexico, and Europe and all the places I’d seen, all the places I wanted to see. Eventually all of the little group was there, snacking and listening. I showed them the lunch I’d had at the Eiffel tower, the brightly lit streets of Tokyo nights, the majesty of Machu Picchu, the castles of Scotland. I told them to go and see them, no matter what it takes. And suddenly, they were leaving. Time to go, time to return back to reality, time to return to a spouse that probably shouldn’t know Charlotte took seven little girls to eat a snack inside a strange man’s home. I caught her by the wrist and stared. “I want in.” She laughed nervously, “What?”
“How do I do what you do?”
“Well you have to be a social worker for one…but we do let potential parents volunteer during the adoption process.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You..you what?”
From that day forth I committed my whole heart to that foster home. I broke my back playing with the kids, cooking meals and loving them. I showed up to work more sporadically. I didn’t care. These kids were so smart and wonderful. Kaya loved to paint and she was amazing at it. Elizabeth sang, and Martina knew math even I couldn’t do. And Naomi was loud and boisterous and loved everything about the world and learning about it. She and I became best friends, and I gave up my cushy office job to return to teaching English. We spent so much time together, even Charlotte got sick of me. So sick in fact that one day, she got to joyfully hand me a thick stack of approved paperwork to declare that she was officially kicking both me and Naomi out of her home.
And that was that, my life began to revolve around this little devil child who tore up my house the first day she stayed there as we celebrated by eating way too much ice cream and blasting the music way too loud. This spitfired seven year old who told ghost stories to her stuffed animals under the covers and pretended to not notice as I listened intently, as she’d make her dolls scream in response to the twist. This tiny, wide eyed wonder, who began to sob fat tears the day I handed her a ticket and a passport and told her that we were going to Peru. The girl who traveled with me all over the world and brightened every corner of the earth, and brought meaning to my spoiled, lonely life.
Naomi loved mangos, and the beach, and she would spend nights staring at it when she was older, on the coast of Hawaii, or Jamaica, or wherever we were. She pretended not to notice me watching, admiring the young lady my daughter was becoming. She drew every shoe she ever owned, and she drew it in the country she got it in. That was always my first gift, shoes to show where she’d stepped foot.
Naomi never brought up her mother, or that she died from breast cancer. She wouldn’t have known, and couldn’t have thought to remember the day that the love of my life was told at 15 that she had less than a year left to live. Naomi, my crybaby was silent, and comforted me as I wailed for my child who it felt had just come into my life.
“If I have a year, we better make it a great one, huh kid?”
That year we climbed Mount Everest. That year, we visited every Disney resort in the world. That year turned into three, and when my baby walked across the stage of a graduation of strangers, she was so beautiful, even through the sallow, sunken cheeks and paled eyes, and smiling despite her oxygen mask as she took a diploma she’d earned outside of the high school her peers attended, by living life. She went into the hospital that night, smiling.
“Dad…I think you did it.” She crooned, spreading her shoe drawings over her lap, her ‘sketchers’ she often joked.
“What’s that? ”
“You gave me the world.”
My daughter died two weeks later in the hospital, surrounded by her friends from all over the world, who had come to see her graduate, and stayed when her condition worsened. I sighed and pressed my cheek to her still warm face and said my wet and shaky goodbyes. I tapped my phone, the first message in years to them.
“I answered the door. It was worth it.”
Beautiful story ❤️
Holy shit
You are a space traveler from Earth. One day you land on a seemingly advanced planet where the aliens are friendly. You decide to live there and learn their language, and with their technology it takes barely a day. However, you soon offend the wrong person by accident and become arrested. It is decided that your punishment is death, and you are brought a vial of liquid that you are told is of the deadliest kind. Terrified, you drink it only to find out it’s water. Turns out that the very substance keeping you alive is deadly to these creatures. Write what happens following this discovery.
Explorer’s log. Cycle thirty, Day 12, 0800 hours by Earth time.
Today, I was scheduled for execution in the high court for something I have not been told. As far as I can figure, I must have insulted a very important person in the Kathraxian society. Unlike Earth or any Earth -order planets, this population is a kind of hive with a strict hierarchy. I wasn’t given a trial, just escorted into the chamber before a row of judges, made to sit, and then given one of their liquid containment spheres. Unlike the normal ones which are colored depending on what hyper-concentrated gaseous element they used in making it– I was a bit alarmed as I’ve only seen them use it for industrial chemicals and rocket fuel– this one was clear.
“Drink!” the honor guard holding my chains commanded. I took notice that they were each a good two meters away from me, rubbing their mandibles together nervously This was going to be how I died then.
With my heart thundering in my ears, I bit lightly at the membrane of the pliable sphere, sucking at the section between my teeth until it burst. I jolted when it hit my tongue. Instead of burning acids or bitter base fluids that might have seriously harmed or killed me, the flavor was neutral, cool and clear and familiar. My body knew even if my anxiety drowned mind didn’t; this liquid wasn’t harmful. I drained the whole container until the sphere was only a deflated plastic-like skin between my fingers. My thirst only partially quenched from three days in confinement; I was severely dehydrated and sleep deprived.
While the sudden quart of water rushing into my stomach did make me a bit nauseous, I was able to stay seated and observe the nervous looks around me. They were waiting for something.
We all sat in silence for nearly twenty minutes before one of the judges hissed, her frill fanning out in frustration. “Guard, how could you fail to bring the correct poison?!”
“Your eminence,” he clicked in alarm, “I swear by the great queen I have brought the dihydrogen-monoxide distilled, as you asked!”
I laughed. What should have been an intimidating display was hilarious to my addled mind, my wits slowly returning to me. “Water? You gave me water?” I grinned through my laughter momentarily forgetting that baring teeth was considered a threat in most of the universe, I was well out of it. “Water!” I howled at the closest guard as if it was the funniest thing in the galaxy, and for me at the moment, it was.
“Terran!” the judge boomed ”I demand you explain this outrageous behavior this instant!”
As my giggles subsided, and with the thin atmosphere finally passing through my lungs enough to get the proper amount of oxygen to my brain, I coughed and stood. The guards moved back, abandoning the chains, which I now realized were made out of a hardened crystal like salt. With a quick tap on my wrist mounted relay, my retinal scan implant informed me that this was indeed a sodium chloride crystal array. If I twisted my writs around like so- and they were broken right off with ease.
“My dear matriarch, you are the paragons of an advanced collective, but in your advancement, you have not studied the other races around you. My world and my people are suffused with water. We inhale oxygen regularly and water vapor is in our breath. Earth,” at this point the reader in my artificial eye created a hologram with a live feed from one of the older space stations back home, “is a blue planet. What you call poison, we call necessary for biological life.” I couldn’t hide the smug look on my face any more than I could hide my obvious survival.
She clicked in alarm, frills flattening to the sides of her wide head. In a quiet voice, she hissed, “What are you, foul creature?”
I assumed the typical space federation stance I had seen in so many movies since the explorations core began. “A Human, your eminence, habitant of the third planet from Sol. Designated: Explorer One of the United Earth Celestial Forces, Explorations Core.”
“There are more of you?” her disgust was palpable. I resisted the urge to damage any further interracial relations.
“Approximately twelve billion including the Venus and Mars colony efforts. If successful, our scientist project our numbers to rise into the triple-digit billions by the next millennia.”
There was a moment were they debated among themselves in High Speech, not something I could mimic with ease, nor was permitted to learn. It seemed really heated, though I did catch words like “War” and “Foolish” in the same sentence, so I only hope they wouldn’t try to wipe us out. They might have advanced technology, but they weren’t a warrior race so weapons technology wasn’t that far ahead of Earths, nor did they seem to focus on projectiles so much as heat weapons. If they tried deploying water as a weapon, or if they were counting on it as their version of the H-bomb, well…
“Terran,” she finally broke up the argument among her fellows, rising from her seat on four of her six limbs. “You are to leave this planet immediately and inform your people’s queen that we would like to negotiate a treaty of nonaggression with your race in exchange for a pact of minimal contact. The facts remain that your very presence on our world is a bio-hazard and we will not jeopardize the safety of our hives any further.”
I nodded, was escorted back to my ship, and given fuel to leave. Their scientists had been waiting for my execution to reverse engineer my ship, staring at the readings for oxygen levels in pure horror as I walked by. Once cleared for takeoff, I radioed my satellite jump station in the planetary orbit. As soon as the AI returned signal I knew I could leave safely. It’s a bit odd they didn’t try to confiscate the data I collected during my stay or any of the tech they’d gifted me while in the three months on their world, but I wasn’t complaining. I wondered what the other explorers had found on their trips while entering hyperspace.
Worth the read!
Holy fuck
You are born with the ability to see whether people listen more often to the angel or the devil on their shoulder, based on the opacity of each- if they listen more to the angel, it’s more solid and the demon is more transparent, and vice versa. You recently met a guy online and you’re finally going to meet. You go in for a handshake and glance at his shoulders, but you can’t see the angel. Only a solid demon.
Run. That’s my first thought and it keeps playing in my head over and over again. Run!
“You OK?” asks the man before me.
I realize I’ve been standing frozen, probably looking spooked. “Yes,” I fake what I hope is a convincing smile. I look back at his right shoulder, there’s nothing there, then to his left shoulder where a solid colored devil rests.
As he turns to our table I glance over the restaurant to make sure my powers are still working. There’s a woman one table away with a transparent devil and a translucent angel, she listens to the angel more. The woman across from her has a devil that’s translucent, she listens to it a little more than she should.
I’ve had this power my whole life, to see which side one listens to, but never before have I seen a completely solid devil, never before have I seen the angel completely gone…
Run!
Turning back to him I seen he’s pulled my chair out for me, watching me expectantly.
I could run now but what if he follows? Maybe it’s best I don’t tip him off, assuming I haven’t already, and sneak out while he’s not looking.
“Thank you,” I sit down.
He sits across from me and looks down, pulling on his long sleeves. “Order whatever you want,” he mumbles, “don’t pay attention to the price.”
“Oh, OK thank you.” I can barely pay attention to the menu. I glance over the restaurant, planning an escape route from the restroom.
“It was at 5:50,” he says, picking right up from where our last conversation online left off.
“I watched that video a dozen times and couldn’t see it.”
As we talk he seems just like the shy sweet boy I met online but then I glance at the devil on his shoulder and remember to be scared.
I’m looking at his shoulder so often that he glances back to see what I’m looking at. Worried about it I glance down and gape; on his arm a cut peeks out from under his sleeve.
He sees me seeing it and panics, pulling his sleeves down.
My gaze falls to the table and we sit there in silence.
This whole time I’ve been avoiding the people with the more solid devils because they listen to them more, I never questioned what the devils were saying. His devil isn’t telling him to hurt me, it’s telling him to hurt himself, that he’s worthless and doesn’t deserve me; and me acting scared of him isn’t helping.
“Don’t listen,” slips out before I’ve finished getting my thoughts together. I take in a long breath and speak slowly. “Don’t listen to the voice that tells you you’re useless, that you’ll never make a difference… You’ve made a huge difference to me.”
I risk looking up and see him teary eyed. “Thank you,” he whispers, and beside his head a barely visible angel fades back into existence.
Thank you so much for doing this prompt @hannahcbrown!
To all the amigos out there, know that you are loved ❤️
reblog because this is important and beautiful
Long before you were born, your father promised his firstborn to otherworldly beings in exchange for power. In a twist of fate, your mother also promised her firstborn to dark gods.
It was definitely the worst eighteenth birthday ever.
“You sold me to who?!” I shouted at my father, who stared back at me calmly over his morning coffee, as if we were discussing breakfast rather then him making a dark deal with supernatural beings.
“You know I hate repeating myself, Donald. “ He answered irritably, “Before you were born I promised the dark spirits of Opes my firstborn child on their eighteenth birthday. I honestly thought we weren’t planning on having children at that time, in my defense.”
I stared at him open mouthed, even the misty dark creatures hovering over the kitchen chair across from me seemed slightly surprised at his nonchalant tone. “So you guys own me now?” I asked them, my voice squeaking slightly at the last word, a bad habit I’ve had since my adolescence began.
They didn’t have eyes, but were facing my general direction, their voices low and rough, like gravel being poured onto a fresh grave. “Technically, just your soul. You should be fine, really. Plenty of people are soulless.”
“What did you even get for my soul?” I pointed a finger at my father.
He sighed, “There was this really great Porsche I wanted, but couldn’t afford.” Shrugging he added “It seemed like a good deal at the time.”
I couldn’t believe it. “You traded that car when I was five! You traded the car you sold my soul for!”
“Honestly, Donald, stop making such a big deal about this. It’s just your soul.”
I turned to my mother, who was reading the gossip/society section of the paper through this whole conversation. “Don’t you have anything to add?”
“Listen to your father, dear.” Was her helpful addition. She didn’t even glance up from her reading.
Thanks, Mom. I turned to the tall fiery beings silently standing in the corner.
“Are you guys part of the ‘dark spirits Opes’ too?”
The tallest one shook his head, his voice was high pitched liked the scream of an infant.
“No, we are the dark gods of Venustas. We are here to collect your soul as well.”
I threw up my hands “Dad! You sold me to TWO dark beings? Isn’t one enough?”
For the first time my father looked upset. “That wasn’t me! I only sold you once.”
Again my mother chimed in without looking up. “That was me, I’m afraid. Sold off my firstborn many years ago for youth and beauty.” She checked her makeup briefly in a compact and then met everyone’s disbelieving stares. “What? You think looking this good is NATURAL? I wasn’t planning on having children. If I hadn’t forgotten about that deal and Mary Jane down the street hadn’t been flaunting her nursery designs everywhere, I wouldn’t have agreed to have one.”
There was so much wrong with that. I really didn’t know where to start. The two supernatural groups were staring at each other hostilely. I braced myself for the upcoming fight.
That was when the Devil appeared in a burst of flame. He was a bit too big to fit into our kitchen, his horns broke a small crystal in the chandelier above and his two hooves were scratching the hardwood floor. My mom was going to have a field day. Although, she did technically sell my soul away so my sympathy for her was pretty low.
“I am here to claim your soul, mortal!” He cried, holding up his fist in a threatening manner. He then seemed to notice the general chilly atmosphere of the room, as well as the multiple groups of dark beings. “What I’d miss?”
My father sighed. “Wasn’t me.”
My mother shook out her paper, returning to her reading. “Wasn’t me either.”
Everyone stared at eachother in astonishment, and after an awkward amount of silence I slowly raised my hand.
“Actually, that one was me.”
The dark spirits laughed. “YOU sold your soul to the Devil?”
I crossed my arms defensively. “You think getting an all-expense paid scholarship to Harvard is EASY? Besides, it’s not like I KNEW that my parents had already sold my soul twice.”
My father chuckled. “Like father, like son, I guess.”
I glared at him. “Shut up! I’m still mad at you.”
The Devil, the dark spirits and the fiery gods all faced off in the corner of our kitchen.
“It seems we are at an impasse.” The Devil growled, his spiked tail snapping in irritation.
The fire surrounding the dark gods grew brighter. “So it would seem.” They screeched in reply.
“We submit that we settle this in the Ancient Tradition.” The dark spirits spoke in unison.
The Devil laughed in response. “An old fashioned approach, huh? I like it!”
The tension in the air grew thick as silence settled among the three. I stared worriedly into the group, wondering if I should try to move out of the way of whatever supernatural fight they were starting.
The three groups of beings crouched in unison on the kitchen floor, facing each other. They each raised a fist.
“ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS, GO!”
Omg
You’re a regular office worker born with the ability to “see” how dangerous a person is with a number scale of 1-10 above their heads. A toddler would be a 1, while a skilled soldier with a firearm may score a 7. Today, you notice the reserved new guy at the office measures a 10.
You decide it’s best to find out what you can about this person. Cautiously, you approach his desk. He’s a handsome man, tall, but with a disarming smile. How could such a friendly guy with such cute, dorky glasses be dangerous?
You extend your hand. “I noticed you’re new here. What’s your name?”
He shakes your hand warmly. His gaze is piercing, as if he’s looking right through you. “The name’s Clark,” he says. “So, how long have you worked for the Daily Planet?”
This one wins.
It’s been a few weeks, and one of Clark’s friends shows up. She’s pretty and all, enough muscle that she must work out. First thought would be that she should be maybe a 6.
Clark’s introducing her around. “This is my good friend, Diana, she’s in from out of town.”
You blink, and take a step back in fear. You’ve never seen an 11 before.
The day Bruce Wayne shows up for his long promised interview with Lois Lane, you can’t help it, the mug your holding drops from your fingers and sends a shock of hot coffee and ceramic shards across the floor.
Clark stops a few feet away and squints at you worriedly from behind those ridiculous glasses you’re 99% sure he doesn’t actually need, and asks tentatively, “Everything all right?”
You ignore him in favor of staring at the inky dark numerals hovering over the beaming fool gesticulating some fantastic yacht story for a gaggle of secretaries and minor columnists.
That’s it. Your gift has officially gone haywire. There is no other explanation. Because there is absolutely no way that Brucie Wayne is a 10.
At this point, you’ve seen it all. Miled manner reporters and billionaires at a 10 and a model-like woman at 11. You were really starting to doubt your power. The day you really stopped believeing in it was when Bruce Wayne came for another visit, and this time with a kid. The kid couldn’t be more than 10 years old, a bit on the short side.
He was an 8.
The day you started believing in it again was when you saw on tv the formation of something called the justice league.
There were those same numbers over superman, batman, wonder woman and robin. That’s when you put two and two together. You wonder how nobody at the daily planet noticed that Clarke was Superman with glasses. You wonder why you didn’t notice. You wonder why nobody put two and two together that Diana Prince and Wonder Woman looked exactly the same. You look in the mirror as the realization hit you and you see your own number change from a 3 to a 9.
IT GOT BETTER
Despite this, you go about your life. You don’t talk to Clark – Superman? – and kept out of his way. His girlfriend Lois Lane – she was a five when you first met, but now she’s a nine just like you – tries to get you to interview Bruce Wayne, but you refuse. You meet other people in Clark’s group of friends with high numbers. The daughter of the police commissioner from Gotham. The forensic scientist from Central City. More and more people to avoid and worry about.
Meanwhile, your paranoia gets to you. You start working out. Training in self defense. Studying the Justice League, trying to find its members. Finding out all their identities so you can be ready.
One day you wake up with a ten above your head.
That day you get a call. You recognize the area code. Gotham. Your heart is in your throat. You should throw the phone away, run. They’ve found you. You’re doomed. You might be a ten, but you can’t beat them all.
You pick up the phone anyways.
“Hello?”
“Hey, this is Clark Kent. I was wondering if we could talk.”
Your mouth goes dry. “About what?”
Clark’s voice goes quiet. “Well. About the Justice League.”
You stiffen in your seat. Your adrenaline kicks in, and your eyes dart around the room. You can hang up, pack, grab a plane ticket to wherever and disappear. Your passport hasn’t expired, and you’ve been talking to Perry White about a vacation anyways. You could say it’s a family emergency and never come back.
But they’d find you. You know they’d find you. They’re goddamned superheroes. They can carry buildings. They could probably manage finding you.
“Hello?” Clark’s voice returns, tinged with concern, and suddenly you stop. Calm down. They’re the good guys. At least they’re supposed to be.
“Yeah, sorry, just a little shocked you–”
“Caught up to you?” Clark asked. He laughed a little, but it wasn’t teasing. His voice had his regular ease, the same casual tone he would employ to talk about the weather in the break room. “Yeah. Lois noticed your odd behavior, actually. We didn’t realize it was linked to the League until you refused to interview Bruce, and then we knew something was up.”
“Speaking of Bruce Wayne, are you using his phone? Your area code is Gotham, not Metropolis.”
Clark laughed. “Damn. Lois wasn’t kidding when she said you were the best investigator working for the Daily Planet.”
“I just notice things is all.” You laughed nervously. You still can’t shake your general unease. This guy could kill you without any effort. You’re no match for him, or for any of his friends for that matter. Hell, Batman didn’t even have powers and he’d still fuck you up.
“Yeah, and that’s a skill we could use around here. Would you like to talk about joining? Bruce can send you a car, bring you here–”
“No,” you say, sharper than you intended. “Sorry. I’d rather meet in public, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course. Lunch or coffee? It’s still early, but it’s a bit easier to cram all of us in a restaurant than a coffee shop.”
“Lunch, I guess. And no superhero stuff.”
Clark pauses, then sighs sadly. You’ve heard this sadness before in rare amounts. When bad things happened and fear and greed overtook people, he’d always frown and sigh, like someone watching their best friend self destruct, unable to help or save them. “You’re afraid of us. Aren’t you?” His voice is concerned and hushed.
A pang of guilt starts to replace the fear. “You can throw around buildings like a sack of potatoes, Clark. Your friend is powerful on an impossible level, Bruce’s kid is a fucking eight–”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Clark said, the sadness disappearing. “You have a number system for us?”
“Look, it’s a whole thing. I’ll talk about it over lunch.” You grab your laptop bag. “Where are we meeting?”
Clark said something to someone else. “Got any restaurant ideas? They want lunch.”
Bruce Wayne – you’ve heard enough interviews to recognize his voice – said, “Saffron’s pretty good.”
“Jesus,” someone else said. You’ve heard the voice, but you couldn’t place it. “I keep on forgetting you’re rich.”
“You don’t think it’s a little much, Bruce? The pay at Daily Planet is good but not that good,” said Clark.
“I’ll cover their tab.”
“Okay…” Clark returned to the call. “Saffron, in…thirty minutes? You’re downtown, right?”
“You can get a table to Saffron in thirty minutes?” said the strange voice. “Boy, am I glad I made friends with you guys.”
“Yeah, that works.” You’re a bit hesitant, but you swallow your nerves. At least for now. Your thoughts about threat levels made you forget that Clark is a decent guy. All you could do is hope that he thinks you’re decent, too. “See you then.”
“See you then. Be safe. Bye.” Clark hangs up, and you’re left in your room. The worry is starting to turn into something different. Excitement.
You shove the phone into your pocket, grab your keys, and head out the door. You’re so full of restless energy you walk the whole way there. Once you arrive, you catch your reflection in the mirror and notice that you’re starting to suit that ten above your head.
KEEP GOING!!!!!!!
The hostess takes you to a hidden corner of the restaurant. It’s mostly empty, as though it’s only just opened. Sitting at a long table, chatting politely, was the Justice League.
They aren’t wearing masks or uniforms, no bright colors and costumes. Clark Kent is in his usual office wear, Bruce Wayne is wearing a tailored suit, Diana Prince dons a nice blue dress, and Oliver Queen wears a nice button down. You don’t recognize two of them – a twenty something in jeans and a hoodie, a man in a green shirt, and a burly guy in a baggy t-shirt and old jeans who looks like he had just washed up from the sea. All of them, aside from Diana, are tens, of course.
Clark Kent stands, shakes your hand when you come in. “Glad to see you made it.” He introduces you to the others, and they all shake your hand quite happily and greet you like a friend. You learn that the guy in the hoodie is Barry Allen, the dude in green is Hal Jordan, and the beach dude is Arthur Curry. Waitresses, all ones, twos, and threes, come in with drinks, and one plops a mug of coffee in front of you, along with a small menu. Clark Kent gives you a knowing gaze.
Once the waitresses clear out, Bruce sits up straight. “Clark, would you rather I do the honors?” His silver watch glitters in the light from the windows.
“No, no, Bruce,” Clark says, setting down his glass of water. “I think it’s best if I ask them myself.”
Within a moment, you piece it together. “You want me to join the Justice League?”
Clark Kent cracks a smile. “How’d you guess?”
“You call me out of the blue, mention the Justice League, invite me to Bruce Wayne’s place, and then here, where you introduce me to a group of people who all look strikingly similar to the members of the Justice League.” You take a sip of coffee. “Subtlety is hardly your strong suit.”
Barry Allen laughed. “They got you there on that one.”
“Well, you’re right. At first Bruce wanted to handle the situation himself,” – you’d rather not think about what handle was a euphemism for – “but I insisted we do some more digging. We did, and what we found was…surprising. To say the least.”
You look at him oddly. You aren’t normal – no one else saw numbers floating above people’s heads – but you weren’t surprising. Your parents were the only ones who knew about your ability, and they’re long gone. You’ve got no checkered past, no odd history–
“You have powers.” Clark’s voice was clearly impressed.
“How did you find out about that?” The fear comes back, forming a knot in your stomach. “I’ve never told anyone else about it.”
“It’s not hard to notice,” Barry Allen says in between sips of soda. “Most of the information we got we got from Lois after she’s hung out with you.”
“I’ve never her told her anything about the numbers, though.”
Oliver Queen sits up, flashing you a confused look. “Numbers?”
Okay, something’s not right here. “The number I see over everyone’s heads,” you say, keeping your voice low. “It ties into how dangerous everyone is. Usually it’s just a one or two, maybe a three or four or five if they’ve got some kind of training or if they work out or whatever. Almost everyone at this table has a ten.”
“Almost?” Diana furrows her brow.
“You have an eleven,” you add.
Diana nods, smiling with a bit of pride and making an “I told you so” face to Bruce Wayne, who rolls his eyes. Oliver Queen clears his throat as Bruce and Hal pass him a couple bills.
“Ignore them,” Barry says, rolling his eyes at the three of them. “What you said was interesting – I might have to ask you a few questions on that later – but it wasn’t what I found. Remember the sensory and memory study you did when you were ten?”
You do remember it. Your parents were contacted by a scientist friend of theirs who needed kids to run a study on memory and stimuli. You remember it clearly. The large sterile room, the tests, the person conducting them, a handsome woman with a four above her head, the questions, the smell of latex gloves and fresh bleach. But you don’t remember the results. You were never told the results, other than that they were good, though with a test like that it was hard to say.
“Well, I found the tests. And they were superhuman.”
Oh shit this is the best one!
An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home.
It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned—from exhausting Halloween party pranks in abandoned barns to more legitimate (more exhausting) ceremonies in forests—but it has to admit, this is the first time it’s been called forth from its realm into a claustrophobic living room bathed in the dull orange-pink glow of old glass lamps and a multitude of wide-eyed, creepy antique porcelain dolls that could give Chucky a run for his money with all of their silent, seething stares combined. Accompanying those oddities are tea cup and saucer sets on shelves atop frilly doilies crocheted with the utmost care, and cross-stitched, colorful ‘Home Sweet Home’s hung across the wood-paneled walls.
It’s a mistake—a wrong number, per se. No witch it’s ever known has lived in such an, ah, dated, home. Furthermore, no practitioner that ever summoned it has been absent, as if they’d up and ding-dong ditched it. No, it didn’t work that way. Not at all. Not if they want to survive the encounter.
It hears the clinking of movement in the room adjacent—the kitchen, going by the pungent, bitter scent of cooled coffee and soggy, sweet sponge cakes, but more jarring is the smell of blood. It moves—feels something slip beneath its clawed foot as it does, and sees a crocheted blanket of whites and greys and deep black yarn, wound intricately, perfectly, into a summoning circle. Its summoning circle. There is a small splash of bright scarlet and sharp, jagged bits of a broken curio scattered on top, as if someone had dropped it, attempted to pick it up the pieces and pricked their finger. It would explain the blood. And it would explain the demon being brought into this strange place.
As it connects these pieces in its mind, the inhabitant of the house rounds the corner and exits the kitchen, holding a damp, white dish towel close to her hand and fumbling with the beaded bifocals hanging from her neck by a crocheted lanyard before stopping dead in her tracks.
Now, to be fair, the demon wouldn’t ordinarily second guess being face-to-face with a hunchbacked crone with a beaked nose, beady eyes and a peculiar lack of teeth, or a spidery shawl and ankle-length black dress, but there is definitely something amiss here. Especially when the old biddy lets her spectacles fall slack on her bosom and erupts into a wide, toothy (toothless) grin, eyes squinting and crinkling from the sheer effort of it.
“Todd! Todd, dear, I didn’t know you were visiting this year! You didn’t call, you didn’t write—but, oh, I’m so happy you’re here, dear! Would it have been too much to ask you to ring the doorbell? I almost had a heart attack. And don’t worry about the blood, here—I had an accident. My favorite figure toppled off of the table and cleanup didn’t go as expected. But I seem to recall you are quite into the bloodshed and ‘edgy’ stuff these days, so I don’t suppose you mind.” She releases a hearty, kind laugh, but it isn’t mocking, it’s sweet. Grandmotherly. The demon is by no means sentimental or maudlin, but the kindness, the familiarity, the genuine fondness, does pull a few dusty old nostalgic heartstrings. “Imagine if it leaves a scar! It’d be a bit ‘badass,’ as you teenagers say, wouldn’t it?”
She is as blind as a bat without her glasses, it would appear, because the demon is by no means a ‘Todd’ or a human at all, though humanoid, shrouded in sleek, black skin and hard spikes and sharp claws. But the demon humors her, if only because it had been caught off guard.
The old woman smiles still, before turning on her heel and shuffling into the hallway with a stiff gait revealing a poor hip. “Be a dear and make some more coffee, would you please? I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Yes, this is most definitely a mistake. One for the record books, for certain. For late-night trips to bars and conversations with colleagues, while others discuss how many souls they’d swindled in exchange for peanuts, or how many first-borns they’d been pledged for things idiot humans could have gained without divine intervention. Ugh. Sometimes it all just became so pedantic that little detours like this were a blessing—happy accidents, as the humans would say.
That’s why the demon does as asked, and plods slowly into the kitchen, careful to duck low and avoid the top of the doorframe. That’s why it gingerly takes the small glass pot and empties it of old, stale coffee and carefully, so carefully, takes a measuring scoop between its claws and fills the machine with fresh grounds. It’s as the hot water is percolating that the old woman returns, her index finger wrapped tight in a series of beige bandages.
“I’m surprised you’re so tall, Todd! I haven’t seen you since you were at my hip! But your mother mails photos all the time—you do love wearing all black, don’t you?” She takes a seat at the small round table in the corner and taps the glass lid of the cake plate with quaking, unsteady, aged hands. “I was starting to think you’d never visit. Your father and I have had our disagreements, but…I am glad you’re here, dear. Would you like some cake?” Before the demon has a chance to decline, she lifts the lid and cuts a generous slice from the near-complete circle that has scarcely been touched. It smells of citrus and cream and is, as assumed earlier, soggy, oversaturated with icing.
It was made for a special occasion, for guests, but it doesn’t seem this old woman receives much company in this musty, stagnant house that smells like an antique garage that hadn’t had its dust stirred in years.
Especially not from her absentee grandson, Todd.
The demon waits until the coffee pot is full, and takes two small mugs from the counter, filling them until steam is frothing over the rims. Then, and only then, does it accept the cake and sit, with some difficulty, in a small chair at the small table. It warbles out a polite ‘thank you,’ but it doesn’t suppose the woman understands. Manners are manners regardless.
“Oh, dear, I can hardly understand. Your voice has gotten so deep, just like your grandfather’s was. That, and I do recall you have an affinity for that gravelly, screaming music. Did your voice get strained? It’s alright, dear, I’ll do the talking. You just rest up. The coffee will help soothe.”
The demon merely nods—some communication can be understood without fail—and drinks the coffee and eats the cake with a too-small fork. It’s ordinary, mushy, but delicious because of the intent behind it and the love that must have gone into its creation.
“I hope you enjoyed all of the presents I sent you. You never write back—but I am aware most people use that fancy E-mail these days. I just can’t wrap my head around it. I do wish your mom and dad would visit sometime. I know of a wonderful little café down the street we can go to. I haven’t been; I wanted to visit it with Charles, before he…well.” She falls silent in her rambling, staring into her coffee with a small, melancholy smile. “I can’t believe it’s been ten years. You never had the chance to meet him. But never mind that.” Suddenly, and with surprising speed that has the demon concerned for her well being, she moves to her feet, bracing her hands on the edge of the table. “I may as well give you your birthday present, since you’re here. What timing! I only finished it this morning. I’ll be right back.”
When she returns, the white, grey and black crocheted work with the summoning circle is bundled in her arms.
“I found these designs in an occult book I borrowed from the library. I thought you’d like them on a nice, warm blanket to fight off the winter chill—I hope you do like it.” With gentle hands, she spreads the blanket over the demon’s broad, spiky back like a shawl, smoothing it over craggy shoulders and patting its arms affectionately. “Happy birthday, Todd, dear.”
Well, that settles it. Whoever, wherever, Todd is, he’s clearly missing out. The demon will just have to be her grandson from now on.
this is so sweet. it made me want to hug someone.
i had to
I WOULD WATCH SIX SEASONS AND A MOVIE
Okay but she takes him to the little cafe and all of the people in her town are like “What is that thing, what the hell, Anette?” and she’s like “Don’t you remember my grandson Todd?” and the entire town just has to play along because no one will tell little old Nettie that her grandson is an actual demon because this is the happiest she’s been since her husband died.
Bonus: In season 4 she makes him run for mayor and he wins
I just want to watch ‘Todd’ help her with groceries, and help her with cooking, and help her clean up the dust around the house and air it out, and fill it with spring flowers because Anette mentioned she loved hyacinth and daffodils. Over the seasons her eyesight worsens, so ‘Todd’ brings a hellhound into the house to act as her seeing eye dog, and people in town are kinda terrified of this massive black brute with fur that drips like thick oil, and a mouth that can open all the way back to its chest, but ‘Honey’ likes her hard candies, and doesn’t get oil on the carpet, and when ‘Todd’ has to go back to Hell for errands, Honey will snuggle up to Anette and rest his giant head on her lap, and whuff at her pockets for butterscotch. Anette never gives ‘Todd’ her soul, but she gives him her heart
In season six, Anette gets sick. She spends most of the season bedridden and it becomes obvious by about midway through the season that she’s not going to make it to the end of the season. Todd spends the season travelling back and forth between the human realm and his home plane, trying hard to find something, anything that will help Anette get better, to prolong her life. He’s tried getting her to sell him her soul, but she’s just laughed, told him that he shouldn’t talk like that. With only a few episodes left in the season Anette passes away, Todd is by her side. When the reaper comes for her Todd asks about the fate of her soul. In a dispassionate voice the reaper informs Todd that Anette spent the last few years of her life cavorting with creatures of darkness, that there can be only one fate for her. Todd refuses to accept this and he fights the reaper, eventually injuring the creature and driving it off. Knowing that Anette cannot stay in the Human Realm, and refusing to allow her spirit to be taken by another reaper, so he takes her soul in his arms. He’s done this before, when mortals have sold themselves to him. This time the soul cradled against his chest does not snuggle and fight. This time the soul held tight against him reaches out, pats him on the cheek tells him he was a good boy, and so handsome, just like his grandfather. Todd takes Anette back to the demon realm, holding her tight against him as he travels across the bleak and forebidding landscape; such a sharp contrast to the rosy warmth of Anette’s home. Eventually, in a far corner of his home plane, Todd finds what he is looking for. It is a place where other demons do not tread; a large boulder cracked and broken, with a gap just barely large enough for Todd to fit through. This crack, of all things, gives him pause, but Anette’s soul makes a comment about needing to get home in time to feed Honey, and Todd forces himself to pass through it. He travels in darkness for a while, before he emerges into into a light so bright that it’s blinding. His eyes adjust slowly, and he finds himself face to face with two creatures, each of them at least twice his size one of them has six wings and the head of a lion, one of them is an amorphous creature within several rings. The lion-headed one snarls at Todd, and demands that he turn back, that he has no business here. Todd looks down, holding Anette’s soul against his chest, he takes a deep breath, and speaks a single word, “Please.” The two larger beings are taken aback by this. They are too used to Todd’s kind being belligerent, they consult with each other, they argue. The amorphous one seems to want to be lenient, the lion-headed one insists on being stricter. While they’re arguing Todd sneaks by them and runs as fast as he can, deeper into the brightly lit expanse. The path on which he travels begins to slope upwards, and eventually becomes a staircase. It becomes evident that each step further up the stair is more and more difficult for Todd, that it’s physically paining him to climb these stairs, but he keeps going.
They dedicate a full episode to this climb; interspersing the climb with scenes they weren’t able to show in previous seasons, Anette and Honey coming to visit Todd in the Mayor’s office, Anette and Todd playing bingo together for the first time, Anette and Todd watching their stories together in the mid afternoon, Anette falling asleep in her chair and Todd gently carrying her to bed. Anette making Todd lemonade in the summer while he’s up on the roof fixing that leak and cleaning out the rain gutters. Eventually Todd reaches the top, and all but collapses, he falls to a knee and for the first time his grip on Anette’s soul slips, and she falls away from him. Landing on the ground. He reaches out for her, but someone gets there first. Another hand reaches out, and helps this elderly woman off the ground, helps her get to her feet. Anette gasps, it’s Charles. The pair of them throw their arms around each other. Anette tells Charles that she’s missed him so much, and she has so much to tell him. Charles nods. Todd watches a soft smile on his face. A delicate hand touches Todd’s shoulder, and pulls him easily to his feet. A figure; we never see exactly what it looks like, leans down, whispering in Todd’s ear that he’s done well, and that Anette will be well taken care of here. That she will spend an eternity with her loved ones. Todd looks back over to her, she’s surrounded by a sea of people. Todd nods, and smiles. The figure behind him tells him that while he has done good in bringing Anette here, this is not his place, and he must leave. Todd nods, he knew this would be the case. Todd gets about six steps down the stairway before he is stopped by someone grabbing his shoulder again. He turns around, and Anette is standing behind him. She gives him a big hug and leads him back up the stairs, he should stay, she says. Get to know the family. Todd tries to tell her that he can’t stay, but she won’t hear it. She leads him up into the crowd of people and begins introducing him to long dead relatives of hers, all of whom give him skeptical looks when she introduces him as her grandson. The mysterious figure appears next to Todd again and tells him once more he must leave, Todd opens his mouth to answer but Anette cuts him off. Nonsense, she tells the figure. IF she’s gonna stay here forever her grandson will be welcome to visit her. She and the figure stare at each other for a moment. The figure eventually sighs and looks away, the figure asks Todd if she’s always like this. Todd just shrugs and smiles, allowing Anette to lead him through a pair of pearly gates, she’s already talking about how much cake they’ll need to feed all of these relatives.
P.S. Honey is a Good Dog and gets to go, too.
the last lines of the show:
demon: you’re not blind here – but you’re not surprised. when…?
anette: oh, toddy, don’t be silly, my biological grandson’s not twelve feet tall and doesn’t scorch the furniture when he sneezes. i’ve known for ages.
demon: then why?
anette: you wouldn’t have stayed if you weren’t lonely too.
demon: you… you don’t have to keep calling me your grandson.
anette: nonsense! adopted children are just as real. now quit sniffling, you silly boy, and let’s go bake a cake. honey, heel!
honey: W̝̽̂̿͂͝Ọ̮̹̲̪̋ͦͅO̸̘͔̬͊F̜̫͙̟͕͖̙̋ͫ͌͗
that addition is a+ :)
THE ONLY ENDING I WILL EVER ACCEPT FOR THIS
Every time this post shows up on my dash, it gets better (and more heart wrenching. Y’all! Stop cutting the onions okay?!).
If ever don’t reblogging this, I’m either dead, dying, or buried under cat.
NEW FOE HAS APPEARED !
Challenger approaching !
Request from:
And LOOK WHAT I FRIGGIN’ DID FOR YOU GUYZ HUH??
So after having worked in an actual animated feature, I’ve never felt more confident about my animating skills. Mind you I’m still a noob! But I realized I was better at it than my insecurity wanted me to believe. I got past that HOW-DO-I-EVEN barrier and now I finally feel like I got the hang of it.
You guyzz. I’m an animator. TTvTT
@suthnmeh is superb guys. I have her art work on my wall. Follow her. She’ll be doing awesome things in the future! (She already has.)
