Karmic Rapp (OC) - Tumblr Posts
Strands
Augusnippets Day 2: platonic bathing | hair care | makeup
Word count: 500
Trigger warnings: none
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"Are you done yet?"
A nearly-inaudible, long sigh came from behind Brier, before Karmic said, “Say that again, and I’ll cut your throat instead of cutting your hair.”
“Young lady, do not make me turn this car around!” Brier said, dropping her voice low, then giggled. “That’s what you sound like right now.”
“Young lady, do not make me stab your carotid with these scissors,” Karmic immediately deadpanned back. Said scissors made a snick-snick noise, slicing through more of Brier’s hair.
“Ha, see—? Oh no, shh, shh, I’m sorry, Sor, sorry, sorry, rest your tired eyes,” Brier sang, fingers running over Sor’s fur. The touch of magic in her words made the cat settle down again, his eyes sliding closed. Brier hummed a few aimless notes, slowly stroking down the length of Sor’s spine, before she reached out from under her protective cape for the half-made straw sandal she’d abandoned to placate Sor.
“You—” A yawn interrupted Karmic’s sentence—it was silent, but Brier could hear his jaw creak, could picture the one eye Karmic always kept open when he yawned. “You’ve done that … three times now? You’re putting me to sleep, dirthead. You’ll end up lopsided and laughed at because you enforced naptime on your hairstylist.”
“I can’t help it!” Brier whispered, starting to weave a careful distance from where Sor was dozing across her lap. “Don’t move while a cat is on your lap or you’re the worst human in the world, that’s the rule. You know that, that’s why you put him there to begin with.”
“It’s for your own good,” Karmic said, unrepentant. “Every time I thought about your sheer amount of split ends, I fantasized about freezing you into a giant block of ice except for your head and giving you a haircut. You got off easy.”
“I guess I did,” Brier sighed. “Honestly, who can blame me? He’s trapped me, but he’s the cutest trap in the world.”
“Correct answer.” The tug of the clips in her hair released, and a comb glided over her scalp without meeting any resistance. “Okay, now I’m done.”
“Yaaay!” Brier quietly cheered, now having the freedom to turn her head. Karmic was leaning back a little to inspect his work—his face was as severe as ever, but there was a softness to the corners of his eyes, and a jaunty, almost triumphant trill had risen out of the quiet, mellow tune his emotions had become.
“Thank you!” she continued. She tilted her head, and said, “Is there something you want help with for your hair?”
A beat, as Karmic went still, both in body and emotions. Then he huffed, the meditative tune coming back, and as he turned in the direction of their broom closet, he said, “I think Sor’s got you occupied at the moment.”
As he walked away, Brier smiled, eyes catching on the tufts of hair on the floor. After all, she’d learned how to listen for the ‘later’ implied, how he’d never said no.
Moth and Taxidermist
Augusnippets day 4: amputation | degloving | vivisection
Word count: 497
Trigger warnings: violence, injury (exposed bone, collapsed lung), blood, implied/referenced vivisection
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Karmic fights, he swears. The moment he’s certain that the hostages have been freed, those viscera-stinking shadows slinking back to—to his father, he attacks. This man hasn’t seen him since he was small; he has no idea how quick Karmic is, how sharp his claws are. If he can strike first, fast, then—
At the same time his hand swipes a chunk out of the side of his father’s face and neck, there’s a familiar pain piercing his chest.
His father had demonstrated what his bloodmist could do to someone if they breathed it in, during the ‘negotiations’ that led to Karmic going with him. It felt like Brier had punched him in the solar plexus, any breath-based magic immediately beyond him as he wheezed for breath, except it went on and on until a negligent wave of his father’s hand let him breathe fully again. It had not been a fucking pleasure, to say the least.
It is still not a fucking pleasure.
He stumbles, and that’s his undoing. One moment, he’s looking at the pale mandible his claws exposed; the next, pure black floods his vision as shadows knock him flat on his back, punching whatever air he has left out of him. He tries jackknifing back up, but can’t—the shadows have stayed, keeping him pinned down.
The swears that pour out of his mouth come loud and vehement, courtesy of his father as he heals Karmic’s lungs.
There’s a sigh as his father walks into view. Shadows are vanishing from his cheek, leaving him unblemished. “It’s the brain you have to worry about, little one,” he says.
“Fuck the shit off,” Karmic spits.
“Our brains are our only fatal weakness,” his father continues, ignoring him. “Everything else is restorable, but if we lose the organ that knows how to restore things, that means our death. Make sure to adjust your defensive combat to account for this, yes?”
“Oh, so that means your ears are full of shit, too! Makes sense, since you’re not fucking listening!”
“We’re not worrying about brains today, though,” his father says, still going on. His hand goes up, pointer finger aimed at Karmic, eyes narrowing. “We’re worrying about that crutch in your chest.”
Karmic has enough time to register his father’s finger turning black before it blurs, and there’s a ripping sound. Too late he realizes that his clothes have been sliced open larynx to navel; too late the words ‘crutch in his chest’ click together with why his torso is free of shadows;
too late he knows what his father is about to do to him.
"No," he says.
“Yes,” his father counters, kneeling gracefully. “Your heart is what killed you last time. I was happy to supply my own, but you should’ve learned how to replace it ages ago. We’re fixing that now.”
He smiles. It’s a lovely, loving, terrifying smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
The first guiding cut slides over Karmic’s sternum.
Break Rocks; Breaktime
Augusnippets day 5: drunk caretaking | concussed caretaking | feverish caretaking
Word count: 495
Trigger warnings: implied/referenced vomiting, injury, minor blood, implied/referenced slavery
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“Wakey wakey, eggs ‘n bakey!” Brier chirped quietly.
With a jolt, Karmic finally came to, eyes snapping open wide and pupils … probably slitted to nothingness, since she couldn’t see them. His thin sleep cocoon raced away in a rush of frost, but his instinctive attack stopped, the consequences of how he’d twitched catching up. He didn’t do anything so loud as groan or curse, but his face said everything about how heavily he regretted waking up.
“Brier,” he said after a strained moment. He was starting to categorize all the bumps and scrapes he had—she saw his fingers flex subtly, then a cascade up his limbs as he made sure all his joints were in working order. She also saw when he got to his twisted ankle, judging from his obvious wince.
“Hi, Karmic!” Brier murmured. “Checked you for internal, spinal injuries, you’re good. No breaks in your ankle, just sprained. No lumps on your head. Your pupils are the same size, too! You’re not gonna vomit or kill the sun, right?”
“No,” Karmic said, rolling his shoulders, then stared sulkily at his turtleneck, which was slightly torn, spattered with blood, and covered in rock dust. His gaze flickered over to Brier for a split second. “Fun fact about your head, though.”
“I think I slammed head-first into the ground,” Brier admitted. Nothing else would make ol’ reliable earth damage her so much. The concussion would go away in two days, sure, but it was impressive that she was concussed at all. “We got off lucky.”
(A sprawled, unmoving form; blood seeping into the river. Yes, they’d been lucky.)
“I’ll say,” Karmic muttered, now staring up the slope they’d tumbled down. “How did we get down here? And how am I …?”
“… Um. The metal mage could conjure magic-canceling shackles,” Brier said. One of her hands curled into a fist. “Another slammed you with a sleep spell instantly after.”
“Fuck,” Karmic spat. His hand aborted a movement towards his deep, obvious eyebags.
“We’ll fix it,” Brier said. Hopefully they could. A weakness to sleep spells because of lack of sleep aside, those eyebags really weren’t healthy. “The teleporter tried grabbing you when you dropped. And I ….”
(A burn, starbursting and charred on the side of a pale neck. Nightmares, hostility; a newfound hatred for small, locked places.)
“That’s a telling skill range,” she said. “So I threw a boulder. And accidentally caused a little rockslide.”
“A little rockslide, she says,” Karmic mocked, fingers ghosting up to make sure the collar of his turtleneck was intact. “Those fucking slavers”—his lips peeled back to reveal fangs—“better be alive.”
“Waiting for the guard to pick’em up!” Brier confirmed, pointing at three lumps of rock, then turned her sway at the motion into a turn, presenting her back. “Up! I’ll be your legs, you’ll be my brain.”
There was a mutinous pause. Then arms circled her neck—she hefted him up, wavered, then started walking.
Another Good Day
Augusnippets day 8: reunion | found family | friends
Word count: 500
Trigger warnings: none
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“Honey, we’re ho-ome!” Brier trills, and doesn’t dodge the cloth snapped at the back of her head.
“Who are you talking to, there’s no one inside,” Yolotli grumbles, probably rolling their eyes. They start trundling forward; Brier steps aside in a practiced motion so her toes don’t get crushed.
“Maybe I’m talking to the house, Li-li! It’s my baby, I built it with my own two hands!” Brier says, stepping in after Yolotli. Rui, Piri, and Tal trudge quietly in her wake, with Karmic bringing up the rear guard—always so protective, especially of the young lives living under their roof.
“And I designed, wired, and warded it with my own two hands,” Yolotli deadpans, reaching under their chair for the bag there and depositing it on the dinner table as they go past it. “I am this house’s genetic donor just as much as you are.”
“And I furbished and powered this house with my own two hands,” Karmic drawls, gently settling Sor into a cat hammock. “My goodness, Brier, stop hogging all the credit of this designer baby for yourself.”
“Is that how babies work?” Ruika says, apparently still with enough energy to have interest in their conversation, instead of immediately flopping into his bed. Tal, at least, is going that direction—beelining for the shower first, though; good, his body would thank him for it later.
“Nice try, firefly,” Sym says, somehow managing to talk clearly around the bag handles in her mouth. She spits them out once she’d dragged the bag next to Yolotli’s, and continues: “None of these three are going to feel comfortable explaining that to you until you’re at least thirteen, so you’re in for a wait.”
Ruika’s eyes glisten, bottom lip wobbling tragically.
Sym only snorts. “Not even if you make that face, Rui.”
Ruika’s attempt to make his face even sadder is interrupted by Karmic casually ruffling his hair as he passes by. “You can improve your ‘woe is me’ face while you’re doing cooldown stretches,” Karmic says. “Follow along with what Piri’s doing.”
Piri glances up from the pretzel-like contortion she’s pulled her body into, and grins. “It’ll be fun, Ruika!” she chirps. “I don’t bite. Well, I don’t bite friends.”
Ruika stares at her for a long moment, then slowly turns to Karmic and very seriously says, “I think I might die.”
Brier bursts into giggles at that. “You don’t have to follow her completely!” she says, taking out another stack of containers from the picnic basket and setting them in the sink. “Just go as best as you can! You already did cooldowns at the park—this is just to kill time until you get your turn in the shower.”
Ruika pulls a face, but heaves a great sigh and edges around Piri’s toothy smile at his approach, plopping down and eyeing how she’s twisted herself with some trepidation.
Brier turns away, hides her dopey expression as she starts running the water. As the house sings of warmth, she hums along.
Hare and Kit
Augusnippets day 9: hypothermia | overheating | dehydration
Word count: 496
Trigger warnings: implied/referenced death, description of corpses, implied/referenced child death
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“You,” Archaios says, “are not just shivering from pain, are you.”
The child, predictably, shivers in response.
“Fuck,” Archaios says, and picks up speed. “Look, in my defense, you were getting shredded from the inside-out by curse energy, I had other things on my mind! Like keeping you un-shredded! I forgot that humans are—squishy! Don’t like being cold! Fuck!”
Because he’s reveled in blizzards before, only to come across blanched, stiff corpses, squirreled in little snow-dens that they thought would save them. He’s tried to save ones that were still breathing by feeding on their cold, hoping that drawing it away would help keep them warm. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
“I hate doing that on children, you know?” he murmurs into the child’s forehead. “It’s filthy, feeding from the young. And you shouldn’t have to be so close to death, anyways. You should—”
Be with your parents, laughing and loved, free of curse marks, not small and alone. Be warm.
Too many things this child should have instead of some inhuman hermit that came upon them by happenstance; it all crowds Archaios’ throat and clogs there.
His next step echoes, warps; his own wards welcome him as he slows his run into the cave to a purposeful stride. He has pelts stored away, despite his best efforts to foist everything he hunts on humans that actually need it. Humans always bundle themselves up in the cold, surely those will help.
He has two pelts … well, one is a cloak. He wraps that first around the child, then the second, until only the child’s pale face and baby wisps of their white hair show. Then—and this is the hard part—he sits back until only a comforting hand is touching the swaddled child.
“Fenn always told me my skin was icy,” he tells them. “I don’t think holding you will help, no matter how it’ll make me feel better. But ….”
He’s bundled up the child, stopped touching them with his cold hands. Is there anything else? How will he know this is helping? How soon? He’s always known his knowledge on humans is essentially a dark, unknown chasm, but never has it yawned deeper, faced with a child he must save.
“Maybe,” he starts, then looks at the black marks crawling up the child’s cheeks, and stops. Bringing this child to humans, to anyone that knows better, will only get them killed.
Then a realization clicks, followed by his heart dropping.
“Fire,” Archaios says. “You need fire. Except I … I don’t know how to light one.”
He’s never really needed it—he needs cold, not heat. And he’s never committed to saving a cold victim like this child, so he’s never thought of it before.
Wait, no. He has.
He sighs and heaves himself up. “I hope Tiana forgives me,” he mutters. “And you. For using a practice meant to invite ambient magic to light funeral pyres for you.”
He goes to find sticks.