Seven Snippets Seven People - Tumblr Posts
Hey, thanks for the tag! Let's do this! These are from my upcoming debut novel, The Tengu And The Angel, narrated from Kunio's POV:
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I wish I could say that there was a big fight on my eighteenth birthday, where I called her out for all her bullshit and slammed the door, but there wasn’t. My eighteenth birthday was four months ago, on the fifth of May, but I didn’t have enough money to leave yet, so I had to stay at home, and save some more. As soon as I had enough, I quit my job, packed a bag, and left home while she was in bed hungover. I shouldn’t have bothered with the note–It’s not like she would have cared where I was going, or why, but I thought she deserved an explanation. I didn’t want to vanish without a trace.
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“That’s what they say,” he sighs, “Theo is…Difficult, but he saved my life when we were kids. When I was fourteen, I tried to overdose on ibuprofen, because no one loved me, and no one wanted me. He was the one who called an ambulance for me, not our foster carers. They didn’t care whether I lived or died.”
###
Tama rubs her temples. “So you should be. Theo’s a prick,” she sighs, “Layla and I only put up with him because we feel bad for him. He’s had a really rough life, and he doesn’t have any friends aside from Nathaniel, but I’ll be honest with you, he doesn’t have any friends because he’s a whiny fucking manchild.”
###
Layla’s face falls in silent horror, as she realises just how badly she’s fucked up. “You’re right. I’m sorry, Kunio, this was all my fault,” she says quietly, “I never should have touched you.”
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Nathaniel shakes his head. “Theo, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? Because no matter how you say it, you’re abandoning me! You’re leaving me all alone!”
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He loses the courage to finish his sentence, turning away from me, and that’s when I realise that I want to finish it for him. I want to cup his rosy cheeks, and kiss his sweet face. God, I love him. How could I even try to deny it anymore? He’s my everything. He took my cold, dead, bitter heart, and he breathed life, and love into it. He showed me that the world isn’t such a shitty place after all.
###
He lets out a deep ‘mm’, before consulting his clipboard again. “How about I put this another way? If one person drowns in a swimming pool, and another person drowns in the sea, who’s more dead?”
Seven Snippets, Seven People
Tagged by @isabellebissonrouthier !! Thank you bestie <33
All of these are from my current wip FOD, narrated in Emily’s pov.
Tagging for funsies: @owilder @wildswrites @sparrow-orion-writes @macabremoons @wordwizards @pen-of-roses @alinacapellabooks and anyone else who sees this!!
•••
“And what about this?”
My tongue slips onto the open air. In the center of it rests a short gold barbell piercing with a top fashioned to resemble a rose. Without pause, his attention is stolen from my scars. Alarm fades into contemplative interest. He cups my head in his hands, posing me this way and that to savor all angles possible.
“You like?” I tease once he lets go. “It came free with the trauma.”
•••
Before I can think to stand, Cal chains herself to my wrist. The weight of her grip speaks miles for the heat of her gaze. But if I know anything about my sister, it’s that she never holds her anger for very long. It doesn’t quite fit in her hands.
Her voice is lower than a whisper. “You look…”
“Like hell,” Ilya finishes.
“Thank you.” I take out a cigarette from my back pocket. “Anyone got a light?”
•••
Some feet away and still in his chair, Pierre’s head is cradled between his arms. His notebook is open underneath, and his laptop has gone black.
“You’ve been mighty quiet over there, jester.”
He only sighs.
•••
I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to.
I bite my tongue at the sobs surging up my throat. This mask weighs heavy on my face. Tears and feathers make a mess of my vision. I glare through it all, jaded queen on her fucking throne, and face the man sitting next to Pierre.
He wears no costume. No mask. Only a gothic suit with a red carnation pinned to his lapel. His features are a blur as he turns to the other woman attached to his hip. She pokes his chest. He lends her his ear. She wants far more, stealing a kiss from his cheek. My heart falls silent.
She averts her gaze. He catches her chin. Eye contact. Eye contact.
Eyes.
•••
Ilya’s eyes haven’t left me all night. Every breath, every act is tied to his red eyes peering at me through the guise of his cards. I shut my eyes and he’s there across the table, domineering silhouette streaked by a neon sign to his back while the ongoing storm rattles the windowpanes.
Whiskey cries where I left it and hour ago: scantily held and straight from the bottle. I toss what remains over my shoulder with a sigh.
•••
Suppress something long enough and it becomes a religion.
“The act or the suppressant?” Arthur asks in my mind.
I can’t answer.
•••
“Finally got tired of wearing that mask haven’t you?”
My head snaps to the direction of the entrance. Upon seeing who it is, my face falls flat.
“I was wondering when it would slip,” he finishes when there’s only a foot separating us.
I spare him a glance. “What mask?”
He huffs in his side-mouthed grin. Shoving his hands into his coat pockets, he joins me in leaning against the wall.
“You know, little miss angel face. All bloody lips and kerosene doused in cherry and vanilla perfume. That whole getup. I was wonderin’ when you’d get tired.”
Seven Snippets Seven People
I'm catching up with my tags this week after toiling on the first chapters of Enchanted Illusions and Realms of Loss. I was Tagged by @tabswrites, here! Thank you so much!
(These snippets are from the WIP Realms of Loss)
One -
“Do you think the starlight can see us?”
The prince whispered, almost to himself, and Nesrynna frowned, confused at the strange question as she settled down beside him on the hard rock ground, nursing her injured hand. Behind them, the others kept themselves busy setting up camp for the night. “Whatever do you mean?”
TWO -
Her twin blades shimmered in the faint starlight, and Sara traced the edge with the tip of her finger, thinking, her mentor's words echoing in the back of her mind. 'We cannot change what were born as. But we can use it to our advantage.'
She glanced at her reflection on the frosted river, ghostly white hair flowing like an omen in the wind, so much like her mother's. Long ago, Sara had decided, clinging desperately to the hope carried by those words - maybe a monster could save lives, if it turned its fangs towards worse evils.
Three -
Adaria inched forward, leather boots soundlessly sifting through the snow as she stalked, in her hands, her bow and arrow were poised to strike. Moving behind a tree, she waited for the telltale signs of the approaching caravan. The sounds of iron wheels scraping against the frozen forest floor snapped her attention, and as it barrelled into view, her arrow flew, perfectly aimed.
Four-
"Listen, fancy pants."
Gwain growled, marching up to Oryon with such confident anger the wizard stumbled away. The young man grasped the collar of the other's gilded robes, almost lifting Oryon up from the ground.
"I had to do what it took to survive, it’s not a matter of choice. Ever know what starving feels like? No, you don't. I had to use what few broken tools I still had at my disposal, and pray I could make them work - and maybe, just maybe, my siblings and I would survive the Lost Lands' winter. Not everyone has a silver spoon stuck that far up their backside like you do. So don't you dare,"
His eyes burned with such fury Oryon could've sworn Gwain was a Caster like him. The wizard squirmed, regretting making his previous comment already as Gwain continued, staring him down so closely their noses almost touched.
"Don't you dare act like I've ever asked for what I had to do. You wouldn't understand. And if I ever catch you digging around my thoughts uninvited again, my daggers won't be so polite."
Five -
The cold winter chill whipped through his ears, snowflakes clinging to Viktoras’ long onyx hair and wet clothes, as his horse raced through grey road. It had been a long journey from the barracks on the edge of their kingdom, and with the cold seeping from his clothes and into his bones, the young man prayed there wouldn’t be any surprises on the way home.
Beside him, his elder cousin, Prince Hael, led a few of their trusted soldiers, who followed them close behind. The unmistakable clinking of armor echoed through the blizzard, along with the rhythmic hoofbeats of their warhorses. It was a sound he’d grown to know all too well - so much so it was almost soothing, were it not for the blood staining his cousin’s sword.
Six -
He stood at the crossroads between blind duty and doing the right thing. On the one hand, he could become a praised knight, like his adoptive father before him, but it would mean ignoring the lies told to him by the Crown. On the other, the chance to do the right thing and fight for the people he swore to protect - and help a thief commit treason against their ruler.
Kassien knew the choice should've been obvious when it came to traitors, that his Oath to the Queen should reign absolute over any other option. But as his white-knuckled grip on the blade loosened and he moved its tip away from the thief's throat, he found that he might not know himself that well after all.
Seven -
Lucian peeked into the dungeons, the smell of rust and dried-out blood burning into his nostrils and memory.
Father might as well cut off his head if he caught Lucian prowling around here, but as the young man sneaked past the guards, heart thundering in his chest and sweaty hands shaking, he forced himself to ignore all of that. He'd heard the rumors about the outsider locked away behind iron and steel, and they felt all too familiar. They called the outsider dangerous, selfsame as they'd always called Lucian disgraceful.
He'd seen what this person's magic could do. And so, Lucian forced himself to ignore the risk - not out of curiosity. But because this was his one and only chance to meet someone like him.
Tagging (gently): @crowandmoonwriting, @moonluringfrost, @the-mindless, @autumnalwalker, @writernopal, @rickie-the-storyteller, @lassiesandiego