[Excerpts] Moments In Time - Changeling & Death

[Excerpts] Moments in Time - Changeling & Death

[these segments were little studies into how to describe death and the aftermath of waking up in a new lifetime, dazed and dissociated. i also toyed with having each death take a toll on clara's body, losing fingers and eventually an eye with each failed attempt. there were also plans to explore the pathologic 2 meta-worldbuilding of the events being a play, but i went in a more overt paradoxical manner]

Death was a peculiar experience. Peculiar was a good way to describe it, as “harrowing” or “traumatizing” would be too little on a bad day, yet “panic-inducingly nightmarish” or “soul-shattering” is a bit much on a more pleasant day. Waking up from death was disorienting and a small bit horrifying, but she’d still come back up. The mere ability to stand up after such events was already significant enough to put them a peg down in the “mildly upsetting events to once-in-a-lifetime debilitating horror” scale.

Sometimes, she would run into the Bachelor in alleyways where one could try and fail to sort the shades of shadow between light and dark; or encounter the Haruspex on the edge of town where the steppe would lap at the fragile order constructed by the people of the settlement. Even less times, during those encounters, she’d be pensive, murmuring aloud the experiences of death and rebirth as if to make them somehow more real, spoken into lucidity. The men would listen, awed, enraptured, or disturbed, perhaps even bored, as she droned about horror and numbness, footsteps too light for a corporeal person, but too heavy for a ghost.

“What ho, did I see over yonder, I say? I welcome blades into myne bodies but somehow the cut still hurts like an intrusion, I suppose the skin was still broken into. How could I open my skin without it being a wound? No doors, only walls. Skin. Stranger still that when I grow accustomed to the pain it numbs and fades, cruelly depriving me of what I had made friends and peace with.” She kicked a pebble, the sound disturbing her into looking back at Burakh, who sat still, silently listening to her on the abandoned railway. He was picking away at a clump of grass. “No, not grass, swevery. Why, all grass has a name, and yet we only call upon it when it suits us. ‘Come, Clara, do us a miracle’, ‘Step aside, little Changeling, you’re in the way’. Names are what carry legacy, reputation, without a name I am only a different apparition with the same face. How could they know it was the same body if they did not see where I left to, where I came from? No name, no reputation, no recollection. What name did I hear in the darkness of the earth as I lay on my gravesite, waiting for my return? The dirt has no use for names…”

“A name given could be abandoned, yes. Who did give me my name? I cling to it still, like a child hugs a toy from a parent long gone, not even remembering their mother’s face. Tragic, tragic. Tragedy is meaningless to who dies, it is only a tragedy to Medea, yet her children see none of it, as only the living fear death. Medea? Who is Medea? Am I living or dead? Where have I heard that name? Is it latin?” The street was cold under her fingers, but they were too numb to notice. Dankovsky paused his rummaging of pockets from nearby, eyes darting to her before cutting the hum of the night stating “...It’s greek, actually.” Yet she did not acknowledge him as he sighed. “The time between death and awakening is always infinitely small, like waking up without knowing I was asleep in the first place, disorienting, yes, disorienting. Was I even oriented in the first place? Dreams happen stretched into the time we sleep, taking up time that does not exist when we are awake, yet we retain the memories. No memories, some memories, yet not of the past, of the present, and memories of the future still. Yet they don’t always match, a match that does not catch, yet it still burns away, to ash, to ash, to ash…”

~+~

The Changeling was without an eye. She could feel it, or the lack of it, as it were. Lacking an eye, two fingers, three doctors. What a sore sight. Literally.

– The cost is too high. I've played this too many times. I can no longer bear the brunt of such a toll. The Tower will fall. The Town will be leveled. My Bound will be sacrificed. Is it too selfish of me to wish to perform the ultimate miracle? Is it selfless enough of me to desire to save them all? I am the Devotress, my last wish every time is that I could've found a better way. I wake up as a Changeling after my death throes. 

Clara ran. She didn't know why, but there remained a sinking feeling of dread, alongside the stinging of the harsh breeze, cold. Her legs carried her to the theater, where the Changeling stopped at the lip of the stage, boots almost escaping its domain. The director turned towards Clara, away from the winded girl onstage, frozen in a moment of desperation. 

A theatrical sigh, befitting a man such as he. “You're downright terrible at meeting your cues, Changeling. Which is it this time, too early? Or too late?”

She passed by him with nary a glance. “I'd prefer my arrival to be too early, if it's all the same to you.” Clara reached out to the Changeling onstage, breaking the barrier between them and taking her own warm hand.

I'm so mad at Elon Musk that I'm actively going through all my Tumblr posts and retroactively sorting them in tags because i know I'll be using the good hellsite more now that the bad one is nigh unusable and I've heard of the wonders of sorting a blog's posts by tag

resulting from that is my writing being tagged ZapphAtext and my art being ZartAttack because i use social media to amuse myself. my reblogs will also get tags since I'm bored at the airport

i'm back at it again to butcher the wonderful japanese culture just because the kabuki frogs gave me inspiration

i would make it look better if i had the patience. bless

kitty clara pathologic!!! (warrior cats au)

Have a lot to explain for this one. Just like in Pathologic, she showed up in Steppeclan seemingly out of nowhere. All med cats have the -heart suffix there so she called herself Miracleheart. But everyone calls her Ratheart (deliberate insult) instead cause she's weird and lanky. She's a teenage kitty but is really tall. In Pathologic Clara is just a little taller than Dankovsky btw. I tried to lean into that with this drawing. She's a dilute calico thing. The bones are like a part of her body but she covers that up with all these red leaves and flowers around her chest. She has two sparkles in her eyes to represent the two miracles: the polyhedron (moonspire) and the earth/abattoir (bullplace), as well as a star on her forehead. The little scar on her leg is actually a steppe rune. If you look it up on the wiki it says it "denotes a connection with death". Her single yellow leg looks a little like it's made of bone when it's dark. They don't trust her but let her heal cats anyway since no one knows how to deal with sandcough. When the clan splits into three over their disagreement on what to do with moonspire, she becomes the sole healer of Humbleclan. If she gets her way and becomes a mistress (they're called queens in this au) her name is changed to Miraclesight (Ratsight for some). Also I thought I wouldn't name her Ratpaw cause she's already taken the healer/prophet role within the clan and it's not like Bullheart and Snakeheart are mentoring her. Click here for kitty Daniil and Artemy!!!!!

two guys chilling on the ground, not at all distanced (it’s the gay month)

is the world really such a terrible place? yesterday i asked if oat milk was extra and the barista said yes so i said ok just regular milk then and when she gave me my chai latte she whispered “i used oat milk ;)” doesnt that make u want to live another day?