Talus Astragalo (Honorary XII)

talus

i fly
over the sun
over the stars
i am led to believe
i am above

astragalus

i come down
crashing down
thank the heavens for the rope around my ankle
from which i hang
let me drip clean of my mistakes

The Stag (Writing Exercise 1)

I bougth Chaotic Shiny's writer's tools to motivate me and I've been doing some fantasy-ish writing exercises. I'll post some of them along with the prompt that inspired them.



Write for at least 700 words about a stag, a person and several runes.

Azvar could not believe his eyes.

Before him, in a clearing lit by fireflies and his own dying torch, stood the majestic creature he'd been looking for for years. His calling, the mission of his life.

It had started as a hobby, hunting the Elderhorn. He saw it in a painting once, from a travelling troupe of artists. They had refused to let him see it twice, claiming no one was allowed to, lest they would be taken in by the curse. He heard the story several times, to the point of having it memorized.
There was in the forests an enormous wild stag, once the mount of choice of a powerful witch. She found him dying by a river as a baby and rescued it. They bonded quickly, with the stag's imposing presence and her strong willpower made them the perfect team. Soon afterwards, villagers started blaming her for the ills of their small town, and she was driven away. She was chased out of every village she set foot on, resorting at last to hide within a cave in the wilderness.
The witch soon came to thrive in the middle of nature, finding the close contact with herbs and animals to boost her powers. The stag found itself at home in the forest as well, and soon the two of them had become the peacekeepers of the land.
Every equinox after she was cast away, the witch would engrave a single rune into the beast's majestic horns, She said that should harm come to her, it would inherit all her magic in order to keep their new home safe. The stag accepted this, their wordless bond reaching their souls.
So they lived for years, shielded from the human world, the stag's horns growing intricate and detailed as the witch's features too grew lines and details, and her hair was white and brittle. However, one day came in which soldiers from one kingdom or another - she kept no record of their  petty battles anymore - stumbled upon her cave in a drunken stupor in the dead of the night. They attacked her, and before she could even react, the stag had tackled them away, making their bones rattle in their armor. They refused to back down and drew iron swords, fully ready to kill, but in the blink of an eye they were killed by the very roots on which they stood. Noting their disappearance, more and more soldiers starting showing up in her forest, and soon enough a myth had grown around her. She never attacked first, it was a promise she had made to herself. She was only defending herself from the attackers that came into her home with the sole intent of harming her. But after time went by of troops and troops coming to take her down, she became a legend, hunted by adventurers and mercenaries. Those too fell before her, paling before her hundreds of years of experience and wisdom.
However, one equinox, while she was engraving yet another rune onto her stag's horns, an adventurer took her by surprise, shooting an arrow right through her heart. The stag, enraged by its mistress' murder, hunted the hunter, enhanced with the magic filling him from the underworld. It was the witch's magic, as promised, the runes on its horns burning brightly. It ripped the adventurer to pieces, and soon took up the woman's role of defending the forest against invasion. It was said that every equinox it went back to its cave, to nuzzle the dried-up body of the witch, from which wildflowers had sprouted for as loon as she had been dead. The years it lived became uncountable.

Which was why Azvar was in utter shock, the silence of his fear broken only by the singing of birds, signaling the coming of dawn. He felt thankful. Daylight could not come soon enough.
Before him was the creature he had hunted his entire life.
Dead.
Its body stood at least five meters above him, looming even while lifeless. Its mane had grown moss, making it seem hair had kept growing even after he had died. And on top of  his head, the horns. The precious horns  he'd been after for ages. Only  he had  expected  an epic fight, and  instead had been treated to a corpse that was no older than a month. Even so, instead of the stench of decay, the clearing was filled with the perfume of fruit, despite no fruit growing nearby.
A note at the feet of the beast caught his attention.

"It would appear I got here sooner. Boring fight. The monster did not even have any treasure to steal. Why were you after this trash? - Merval"

Azvar felt blood boiling in his veins. He was going to murder that rogue.

Sara's Poem

Graykept would crawl out from under my fingernails and my shoulder bones, uncalled but much needed. He knew I masked in hate, and was more than willing to comply, if only for the sheer pleasure he got out of watching me squirm with rage. He seeped through my lips in quiet pants, and sometimes would go as far as to get stuck under my eyelids, forcing me to cry him out. But I was not one to complain, for most of the time I just remained quiet through his whole stay. He taught me something I never knew before: This is alright.

Perhaps it wasn’t alright – Graykept wasn’t the most honest. Or was he? All in all he had no reason to lie. I could not lie to him, that much I knew.  But for the darkness that infected with his touch, was there a reason to hide? Perhaps his own was the only feeling I understood.  Sometimes I doubted, yes, because I was not quite sure of how appropriate those emotions were.
Still, I got satisfaction out of it. I loathed not Graykept but those around me and mostly myself, as was his intention.  His whispers in the back of my mind knew nothing of pity or consideration, they were blunt, harmful, like weapons, and he was teaching me how to get back on all the blows I’d taken.

And Graykept then burned from beneath my ribcage, invading, tearing apart everything, and I begged to release him, yet knew I couldn't. He teased my throat from the inside, tickled, scratched, just enough to show me what I felt, and to prove I was powerless against him.

Graykept meant in fact no harm, as he only made love more intense. I loathed through him traitors and doubts, and perhaps myself as well, but I found the contrasting bliss most soothing.

Oh, was Dís a lady. Isolated yet warm, unlike boreal Graykept, she loathed in whispers, and I sipped her words like black tea. I learned not hate but pity through her, a disgusted frown nevertheless upon my face. She was a warrior, not a princess, yet graceful and imponent, a queen in shining armor, defending yet hateful to the outside. She did not devour me, and for that I was thankful, she merely rained on me, steamy and comforting.

The differences would be so: Dís made me roll my eyes, exasperated, murderous, warlike; and Graykept made me shut them in pain, caught in my own claws, each cut a microscopic layer deeper. Dís hated outwards, Graykept hated inwards and through that I hated those around me. There was an oddity, though, and it was that Dís showed up anywhere, while Graykept would only appear among unpleasant company.

And only through a whisper, disgusted as she was, Dís let me understand. I threw up her words in my mind, the way Terrorsquid would have liked me to.

Terrorsquid was fearsome and brave. He ran and burned through my breath, hitched and uneven, almost a moan but not quite. It was a wonderless reaction, a silent agreement, a most blissful encounter of spirits. He was the most savage of warriors and I had him on my side, for I knew he would not harm me. He deafened me within myself, and thus I remained, disconnected from the world yet longing for a link, dreaming of freedom. Perhaps it frustrated me, as his movement was a constant reminder of my standing still, but his beauty and courage reassured me. He was hope as well, hope that one day I too would run, although I knew quite well I wouldn’t.

Terrorsquid flew through strings and melodies; he shuffled among skilled fingers and whispers of all tones. He sliced Graykept’s red ice and vomited Dís’ unexpecting howls, fearless, inspired, and most of all, friendly. He was not a foe, not lover and not a god; he was by my side, rare and insipid as his presence sometimes seemed in retrospect.

And Almagesto. Oh, Almagesto. The mother of poets, the queen of shivers. My Calliope and my actor’s mask.


Poets, I called them, because it seemed fitting. They were fleeting lovers. They came and went, taking me as they pleased, using my body as little more than a host for a second, then leaving it in the hands of another. They love is colourful and strong, delicious, delirious. Yet once gone I can’t grasp my own feelings. Do I loathe them, for using me? Or do I love them, for giving my life a meaning I can’t find on my own? How far does their abuse go? Are these bruises or love-marks? I just can’t tell anymore, but I find myself smiling each time I decipher another one of their quirks.

When they depart, I forget them, save for their names. What are their voices like, what do their hands feel like, are their lips tinted with lies? Even the feeling I got when they touched me becomes alien while we are apart. Yet at their return, I am once again knowledgeable of their taste, sweet or bitter as it may be.

Through

1- The two young kids exchanged shoves and hair tugs with non-innocent intentions, in an expression of what they would have explained as hate. The redheaded girl scratched unfruitfully her small enemy's neck, while he shook her violently.
Thinking it was a rather cute scene, their mothers watched from afar, without worrying about the violence.
"My God, will you look at them?" exclaims with a smile one of them, who shared her son's prominent nose.
"They love each other!" replies with the same excitement the other one, whose hair was considerably darker hair than her daughter's.

2- The redhead hears a call, but she doesn't know where it comes from. She looks around, but in her backyard there's nothing other than dead plants and some cardboard boxes scattered around, until she finally notices a kid her age behind the small wooden fence, next to a plastic container with old boxes inside. A conversation starts with ease.
"Yeah, we just moved in. My mom and dad aren't married anymore." she comments, with a sad tone to her voice.
"... you wanna come over and play Nintendo?" the freckled boy asks innocently, trying to cheer her up.
Their chat continues - they talk of things that anyone other than a ten year old kid like them would find insignificant - until they reach the videogame, which evidently erases any trace of their social abilities.

3- Walking past her school in the cold winter chill, the redhead had the slight hope that her trip would have no interruptions this time. Wrong.
"Hey, dogface! Yeah, I'm talking to you!" exclaims a boy from the stairway on the front door, accompanying his remarks with barking-like sounds. Two friends are faithfully next to him, one laughing and the other one watching sadly the scene.
The bespectacled young girl exhales trying to contain her anger, and keeps walking.

4- "Ah, shit..." mumbles a boy with an eccentric look - wearing black from head to toe, with tight black pants and a designer jacket, and a well-cared red mohawk - checking his pockets. Nothing; the ID was somewhere else.
A redheaded girl around her age walks by the bar, and stares at him discretely for a few seconds.
"You don't happen to have a fake ID on you, do ya?" he inquires with some hope. She checks the back pockets of her pants - the front ones are just for decorating - and shakes her head.
"Ah... I wanted to get drunk tonight..." he grunts, frustrated.
"Can't help with that, but what about some coffee?" offers the teenage girl, smiling.
The question surprises him at first, but he accepts with a grin.

Presence

Our breathing had finally evened out, but we weren't anywhere near tired.
At least, I known I wasn't.
One of her arms wrapped around my waist, the other one toying with my hair.
Midnight had never been this peaceful.
Her breath tickled the back of my neck, but I didn't mind, because everything was so perfect, it was impossible to notice anything anymore.
A hint of a cello could be heard in the background. I recognized it as my phone and I rose slightly from my lying position. She quickly brought me down again.
"Whoever that is, they can wait." she whispered "Who calls at midnight anyway?"
"Hm..." was my only answer. I was too immersed in the fragrance of her hair and the slightly tickling touches of her fingers around my navel.
The silence around us was, to say the least, awkward. My mind was too full of incoherent thoughts for me to concentrate on anything else. Was I really lying on a bed next to her? No, that doesn't cut it. It's not just that. Had that really... really happened?
"What do you feel for me?" her words made me jump a bit. She hadn't asked do you feel something for me, no, she knew that well.
I felt exposed, and it had nothing to do with my clothes lying on the floor. It was something completely different, I felt as if she had just found a way to read my mind.
I mumbled something incoherent, so nervous I was almost shaking.
She sighed and stared at me with an eyebrow raised.
"You do know I don't swing this way, right?" like a goddamn arrow, those words could have killed me. But I nodded softly, of course I knew.
I was just a game, an experiment, what else could I be? She was just curious. And maybe, just maybe, I was too, because I did get some twisted satisfaction out of it.
"You can leave in the morning. For now, just sleep." she said, then turned her back on me and closed her eyes.
Once her breathing became softer, I rose, the bedsheets sliding down my frame. I would not face my defeat in front of her.
"I'd better get going." I whispered, although I was sure she couldn't hear me.

The way home would be long.
The seat of my motorbike was oddly uncomfortable - I could still feel a ghost of her presence. Even through my scarf, it seemed like the wind could hit the bite marks on my neck, even if I refused to acknowledge them.
The way home would be long indeed.

Five Chocolates [English]

From a list of prompts I found online:
Bitter
Sweet
Semisweet
Milk
I love Chocolate

I Love Chocolate
Lance looked around the classroom. Perfect. Nobody was watching him.
Nobody except for a shy girl many seats behind, but he had never noticed her.
"Great" he whispered to himself, and unfolded the package he had hidden smoothly under his jacket. Chocolate. Brown, sweet, creamy heaven.
He bit it once, then twice. The teacher didn't notice. He risked it with a bigger bite. Still safe. Only a few bites left. A small one, just in case. Nothing.
And right when he was about to pop the last piece in his mouth, the teacher abruptly turned around and saw him. Right in the act.
"Lance!" she shouted, angered.
"What can I say... I love chocolate." was his only defense.

Milk
"What the... heck?" asked Lance in shock when he opened his locker and a small chocolate fell from it. "I don't think we're anywhere near February."
His best friend, Chase, standing next to him, chuckled.
"I think you've got an admirer." he said, making a nearly unnoticeable gesture towards the shy girl hiding some lockers away. The light brunet didn't notice this.
Daniella, not knowing that she had been discovered, just took her math book from the locker and left, blushing.
Later that day, a note hit her head in class.
Tip: He hates milk chocolate.
She looked around, but couldn't find the sender.

Semi-sweet
"Ahhh, summer at last!" Lance shouted right when he woke up. Home alone, a sunny morning, nothing to do...
Scratch the last one, he thought as the doorbell rang, must be Chase.
He opened the door, lazily scratching his head.
"Woah. You should have gotten dressed first. What if I was a pervert?" asked his redheaded friend when he saw the brunet wearing only boxers.
"You are one, and it's too hot for clothes." he retorted, but then noticed a small package on his hands "What's that?"
"I just found it on your doorstep. It seems like your admirer knows where you live!" he chuckled.
"I just hope she's not stalking me." mumbled the brown-eyed teenager "Whoever this is."
He opened the small gift box, and found a chocolate bar. Semi-sweet with nuts.
"She seems to be getting closer to your taste, huh?" the redhead smiled, and his friend nodded.

Sweet
"So, you're the one who's been leaving the chocolates in my locker all this time?" inquired Lance. Daniella blushed brightly, and could only nod. "Well, that's... it's kinda sweet."
Her blush deepened and she tried to hide behind a notebook.
"Eh... this is kind of... awkward, but... would you go out with me?" he asked
Her face lit up. A look that only said "are you serious" invaded her features. He waited for an answer. She agreed.
Later that day, a question popped on his mind.
"How did you know that my favorite's semi-sweet?"
She gave him a puzzled stare. He shrugged it off as luck.


Bitter
The brown-haired boy walked to his locker, only to find the redhead there.
"Hey, guess what! I found out who my secret admirer is!" Lance smiled widely while talking to his best friend "It's this cute freshman, Daniella. And she agreed to go out with me!"
Chase grinned at him, but something inside broke.
"That's great!" he answered, but couldn't quite make out what his brain was telling him.
Before he knew it, he had left.
I shouldn't be so bitter, he thought, after all, I didn't do anything to stop it in the first place.
He clutched the semi-sweet chocolate in his pocket, biting his lower lip and mentally calling himself a coward.

A river, a silver bell, and a lost key. [English]

So I opened one of my favorite writing prompt generators, and got this:
A river, a silver bell, and a lost key.


Fortune hunter groups had gotten quite popular as of late, and no respectable person with such a job would even dare venture by themselves without some company.
They were a rather large team - most had three or four people at most, but they were five, which rendered their quest quicker but also more complicated. More people meant more room for mistakes, and more responsibilities if they found a particularly dangerous situation.
Introducing them would be needed, otherwise it would render this tale quite confusing.
It had been defined, through a tacit agreement, that Sard was their leader: a warrior wielding an axe instead of the more traditional sword, with fire-red hair that had earned him his fortune hunter's name (because, of course, no respectable fortune hunter would use his true name - it holds no meaning). Brave and smart, although sometimes insecure of his own abilities.

His best friend, also member of the team, was simply named Hunter, because sometimes beating around the bush is unnecessary, in his own words. As you probably guessed, he was a hunter, with ungodly skills with whips and a rather sadistic side. Lilac hair - which would be the doom of anyone who dared mock it - covered his face in a rather gloom manner, and no one was sure of his true eye color. Even with a delicate frame, his strength nearly equaled Sard's, and conjoined with his control over different kinds of venoms, it made him a fearsome fighter.

The party was accompanied by an Alchemist - one of the strongest and most respected jobs in the whole kingdom, but also one of the most difficult. Baptized Gold for no known reason (dark hair and eyes, the latter framed by crystal glasses, and ghostly-pale skin, and an attitude that repelled most people), he mastered fire, ice and poison, having ignored the practice of thunder-controlling for reasons known only to him. Although cold to outsiders, his friends and fellow teammates knew he had a simple problem trusting other persons. Rumor had it that his relationship with Hunter was a poisonous hate, although some people begged to disagree.

One of the youngest members of the group was a small girl trained in the art of healing. With Star as a name, she would often stay in the back during fights due to her inability to battle, cheering and curing her friends when needed. She also carried in a large bag many items helpful only to her, since no one else could decipher their use. Her round golden eyes and short chocolate hair would often make their adversaries take the party lightly, but her abilities were envied by even the most powerful mages.

The last member to join their team was a bowmaster by the name of Copper who, although not very talkative, had the aim of Artemis herself. She would make her arrows herself, something not many of her kind did anymore. Keen on the hunt of birds of all kinds, she would take feathers from their dead wings and attach them to her hat, which lead some people to believe she had the souls of thousands of birds helping her. Her long auburn hair would often get in her way while battling, but she refused to cut it for unknown reasons. The rumors, which got quite common once the team reached a high level of fame, said that her brown eyes were in fact the devil's, which she had gotten through a deal, and they gave her her well-known aim. However, these were false, since she was the descendant of a long line of humans which befriended birds eons ago, and were given their eyesight. Ironically, she is allergic to these creatures.


Now that I've bored you with these explanations, I can proceed to the story itself.

When the team was still beginning, they were given a mission "so easy that a child could do it", or so they thought.
A rich woman had been wandering through Silverspring, a meadow known for its aromatic flowers, calm weather and a spring which then became a river, called Argenta. Said woman had apparently left one of her most precious "family members", a Babywolf (a creature which resembled a wolf pup, but never became the ferocious animal, and could live off vegetables instead of red meat), wander through the place, not fearing for its sake.
However, when dusk was settling, she realized that her beloved pet was nowhere to be seen. In despair, she placed a request at the local bar, and it was responded by the aforementioned team, known simply as the Savers. They quickly headed over to the prairie to look for the animal.

Once there, however, it was pretty obvious that it wasn't there.
Even if the meadow was extensive, it lacked trees of any kind, or any other place for the creature to hide. Nonetheless they checked everywhere: in every bush, in the river, they even looked around the underground cave that was nearby, but, as always, its entrance was covered with boulders, with not a single gap.
Sard and Hunter examined the rocks around, while Gold and Copper tried to open the cave with magic and arrows. Star reached them with loud gasping and out of breath, having stayed behind near the river to examine the water.
"You... could... have... waited..." she managed to mumble between breaths. However, before anyone could retort, a soft chiming distracted them. It seemed to come from her leather bag, full of items which could be helpful at any time. She examined the contents to find the source of the noise: A silver bell, small enough to allow her to close her fist around it.
"What does it do?" inquired Hunter, intrigued by the tiny object.
"It detects solatite, a rock used by some ancient civilizations to make keys that could not be imitated." answered Gold before the healer even had time to breathe. "And there is a sort of small lock in the cave's entrance, so maybe these rocks didn't get here by accident."
Copper scanned the grass under them, and noticed a small bump no one else could have seen. Digging it out with her gloved hands, she got out a key, with a dark golden color to it.
"Do you think that... the babywolf is in the cave?" asked Sard, starting to formulate theories in his mind.
"No. The dirt around the key was hard, hadn't been touched in a long time." answered the bowmaster, one of the few times she ever spoke.
"It is still worth checking out." claimed Hunter with a smirk, snatching the item from Copper's hands. Just as he was about to open the "door", a barking sound distracted the whole party, and a tiny wolf-like animal ran towards them, jumping in a failed attempt to "defend his territory". Gold chuckled and then spoke.
"I guess this will have to wait. That woman is very eager to see her pet again."
Star lifted the cute creature and held it in her arms on the trip back, where it fell asleep. They would have to investigate the cave at some other time.

wishes still [English]

Paper stars
paper dreams,
paper wishes still

Paper cuts, paper-deep
in our wars
and our sleep

Paper love:
paper-thin,
pages lost

Two Sides [English]

Lisa barely knew how she got herself in such a problem.
Wait, scratch that. She had no idea of how she got herself in such a problem.
It must have been around ten, she wasn’t sure. She and other friends had agreed to meet in the mall that afternoon, but the others were long gone. Only she and Seth were left.
She felt so awkward – holding him in a comforting hug. But she had to help him.
The story, in case you’re wondering, is something far more common than it should be in a teenager’s life. While both waited for their respective parents to show up and take them home, his phone rang.
Lisa only heard the brunet’s part of the conversation, but it was enough to understand what was happening.
“Oh, hey!” a smile found its way to his face “How are you… oh, sure. What’s it?”
Lisa could only make out a male voice from the other side of the line. Apparently, the other guy was talking. Although she did not understand what he was saying, it sounded serious. After a short while, Seth spoke again. He sounded concerned.
“Wh… what?! No, no… I mean… well… who told you that?!” he stood up violently from his place next to his blond friend, and panic was obvious on his features.
Some more words came from the phone, and Lisa only heard something like “disgusting”.
“Wait! No! But…” but it was too late for the male to say anything, his friend had already hung up. He muttered a curse under his breath, which Lisa found odd. He never cursed.
“Uh…” she somehow felt like she shouldn’t be asking, but it seemed like her friend needed help. He was shaking, for god’s sake! “This isn’t really my business, but…”
She had to stop talking when a big tear fell from his left eye. Then another, from the right eye now. They were soon followed by many more.
“Are… are you okay?!” she asked worried. It her first time seeing a guy cry in a long time. However, he gave no answer.
Well, it’s not my business after all, she thought, and right when she was about to apologize, he spoke.
“It’s… it’s nothing, really.” he clearly looked like he was trying to hold back his tears. To no avail. “But…”
Seth seemed to thing about something for a minute, and then talked again.
“Promise not to tell anyone?” he asked between sobs. His friend nodded. “That call was from the guy I kind of maybe like.”
Lisa froze. She had somehow expected it, what with his attitude being close to the stereotypical gay guy and that, but it was a shock nonetheless. Especially since she had planned to confess her feelings for him that evening.
Oblivious to her reaction, the male continued to tell his story.
“Somehow… he found out I’m gay and…” he couldn’t proceed, sobs escaped his throat, blocking the words, She put an arm around his shoulders, trying to comfort him, As much as the blond teen wanted to break down to tears two, she had to hold back.
“It’s okay. I think I can guess what happened” she whispered in an attempt to soothe her friend’s pain.
“I mean… I knew it would end up like this somehow… he already has a girlfriend, anyways, and…” still sobbing. Not good. “I always knew he hates fags, anyways.”
“Was he rude? What an ass.” she couldn’t help the comment “C’mon, you deserve better.”
A chuckle escaped the brunet’s lips, among the sobs. Still, he couldn’t stop crying.
“I know how you feel.” she finally let out. “I mean, I haven’t been insulted like that, but liking a guy who’s not interested in you is hard. I know.”
He smiled, but some tears kept falling.
“Hey, I’ll treat you to an ice cream. That always helps.” she smiled at him. Crying people made her want to cry too, but he nodded and his tears gradually stopped with the sweet treat.
Certainly not what I was expecting, but I hate seeing him cry.

Cinnamon [English]

You're my cinnamon
my words
the ink of my whispers
the breeze on my thoughts.
You're cruel
you're tactless
you really aren't
but I love seeing you that way
anyway.

Developpement [English]

Three detectives: Luna White, 40 yr old woman, Lucian Starr, 40-something yr old man, Jacob Diller, 20-something yr old man.



"So what now?" the girl grinned wickedly. She definitely had lost it.
"Nathalie, be careful!" detective Luna's attempts to make the her move away from the roof's edge weren't working.
"Pfft, like it matters now. I'm gonna die anyways." she took a step closer to the railing of the twentieth floor of the building.
"Nathalie, please listen!" now the three detectives were in pure panic, but only Lucian managed to speak. "You won't get a death sentence for a single murder, come on!"
She laughed hysterically.
"A single murder? Please, you're so stupid." she stuffed her hands in her pockets, despite the danger it meant. "You don't learn that kind of precision from books."
The atmosphere became thick all of a sudden. The investigators knew perfectly what it meant. And suddenly, the beeping of a cellphone broke the silence.
"Detective, we found around four corpses buried in the forest. All mutilated, like the Talford guy."
The phone fell to the ground.
Before the teenager could say anything, however, the younger detective spoke.
"Nathalie, listen." his voice was calm, but the other investigators could feel the tension. Nathalie, however, couldn't. "You're underage. If this goes on quickly, you won't get a death sentence. Heck, you can't even get jail."
After those words, her eyes opened in fear. Her voice then came out as a whisper.
"I'll be eighteen in a month."
"We'll solve this before that time. I promise." the detective took a few hesitant steps towards the girl, and after a second, she advanced towards him too. "Come here, please."
"No, you come." her voice was still shocked "Say it to my face. Promise I won't die."
Against his fellows' unspoken suggestions, the man got closer to her.
"I promise. You won't get death."
She suddenly grinned again.
"Of course I will."
In a swift motion, she took a small knife from her pocket and attempted to stab the detective. However, Nicholas moved, and she only got his leg. He was forced to kneel in pain.
"You can't control everything." and with those words, Nathalie Columbine jumped from the roof.
Even in the distance, detective Nicholas could make out her body on the floor, destroyed by the fall. It was an image he could not forget.

"Isn't he always?" + a bunch of other little thing [English]

I smiled softly when I noticed the small message. "Isn't he always?" I thought with a giggle. Apparently he noticed the odd laugh, and stared at me. Yeah, I wasn't exactly famous for being giddy.

--

Purposely or not, he was making me wanna kill myself. Too bad it was pretty much impossible right then. Or at any time, seeing my actual situation. You know, already dead and all that.

--
Burnt came out without me wanting to. "Tell him." he whispered, but I ignored him. Oh, how I loved that class. Two hours of being lectured in a language I barely understand.
The soul locked in my head persisted. If possible, I would have loved to bitchslap him. "Him" reffering to Burn or to him. Let's be ambiguous.

--
With a smirk, I let myself fall backwards. English class was no fun without a wound or two. Not the real Wound, of course. She only came here when I was alone.

I had to hold back a loud chuckle when the teacher came running to my place to make sure I wasn't dead. Of course, I was unscathed. I was a pro, after all.

Not in chronological order.





"Don't you get it, idiot?! What the hell will I tell my parents? Oh hi, I'm your dead daughter in the form of a character from a story she fucking wrote?!"
"I get it, but why the hell do you have to stay with me?!"
"Leaving wouldn't only send me to hell. It'd send you too. You don't want that, do you?"
"Damn..." he finally understood his lack of options "Okay, I get it."
I was glad that my newly-obtained red hair was more than enough to hide the bright blush that had taken over my face.

--

"Listen, I wanna know what the hell is wrong with you as much as you do, but you must stop being so fucking violent! Damn, you're crazy!"
I sighed softly and a soft pink color found its way to my face. As did some tears, but I managed to hold them back
"'Kay... I got kinda carried away. Sorry..." I said

--

"ARGH! Out of all the goddamn people in our school- no, in our world, you had to be left with me?!" he clearly wasn't happy with the happenings.
"Do you think I like it?!" It isn't my fucking fault!"
I faked my best angry voice because, honestly, it was my fault. In a twisted, odd way.