Halfway to my base goal!
Vanilla Malt Custard #4. be whatever you're too frightened to be
and Blueberry Yogurt #16. the upper hand with Hot Fudge
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R (violence and profanity)
Timeframe : Book 7, Goddess!Kairn arc
Word Count : 1500 (I feel accomplished!)
As part of my rewrite, I've decided to rethink names for the gods. After much searching (my apologies to Olram for dragging her into my indecision) I think I've settled on calling Death Nekka (though I'm still debating spelling - Nekha, Nekah?)
This takes place some time after the previous one. I'm not sure yet if the circumstances under which Kairn becomes a god will remain the same, but the fact that he does will. This follows right after this I still like this piece and the gist of it is right, but the dialogue needs some tweaking to fit the new version of the gods.
Kairn watched as Cheva, in her sigil-covered artificial body, hopped, gracefully as a bird, from the bough of one tree to that of another. He could feel the burning of Nekka’s ire as she looked through his eyes as well.
“Come down here at once,” she called, using his mouth as though it were her own.
“Gladly,” called Cheva, in her sing-song tone. “Then I shall be rid of you.” From one branch to the next, she glided down. She caught the last as she headed for the ground, tearing it from the tree as easily as if the wood were paper.
“Not so fast,” said Nekka. “My puppet here helped build that body of yours. I know just how useless it is.”
He hated hearing himself voice her words, hated being her puppet. But all his anger got him was the sound of her laughter within his head.
“It’s not completely useless.” Cheva twirled the branch idly before her and it began to quiver. Slowly, it worked itself into a perfectly straight rod, its end twisting and turning until it had been honed into a perfect point. “I’ve got more than enough of my strength to take on the pathetic sack of skin you’re calling home these days.”
“We’ll see about that.” Nekka was gathering her magic. Kairn could feel it growing warm and heavy at his middle, quickly becoming so intense it felt as if his whole body might burst like a dam beneath a flooding river.
Cheva charged and the gathered magic tore along Kairn’s spine and raced down his arm with a force that left him breathless as Nekka let loose a blast meant to stop her heart, but the goddess didn’t so much as miss a step.
She laughed at Nekka’s consternation, made obvious on Kairn’s face, as she pressed forward. “Sister, dear, this body is fake. Did you really think you could take a life that’s not there to begin with?”
Kairn felt his hand curl over the hilt of the knife at his belt, and Cheva halted her advance as he drew his weapon. “No matter,” he said, still struggling for breath, “there are other ways to destroy you.”
“How does that saying go?” Cheva cast a teasing look at him over the tip of her spear as she toyed with it. “More than one way to skin a cat?”
Kairn was charging then, knife slicing the air in broad, vicious strokes before him as the goddess in him fumed.
Cheva caught his blade with the shaft of her spear, forcing him to a halt. The notch the knife had cut quickly refilled itself as she withdrew. “Temper, temper,” she scolded.
“I’d like to see you spend three hundred years chasing mice,” Nekka spat.
Cheva’s eyes narrowed, and the sight of her furrowed pink rubbery brow might have been comical had she not been pointing an incredibly sharp, and quite possibly living, spear at him.
She jabbed. His body now fueled by Nekka’s anger, Kairn neatly sidestepped the blow. The two settled into a slow, circling dance, each taking swings and retreating in turn, not a single blow finding its mark.
Every step, every dodge, every swing of his arm felt at once both like something he was watching from a distance, detached, or like a memory, and incredibly, painfully real as Nekka willed his body into place. Even breathing had begun to feel unnatural.
Pathetic, Nekka called him.
You picked the wrong body if you wanted a fighter, Kairn shot back.
I might as well have had one of your ridiculous constructs instead. Godslayer indeed.
She barely caught his balance for what must have been the third time since the fight began, and made yet another fruitless swipe at her opponent.
You could have just stayed a cat.
His muscles ached from their forced use and his lungs burned, but the goddess kept pressing him to fight on. She raged in his head, her anger growing with every foiled attack. Her aim was becoming less sure and Kairn struggled to even think amidst the barrage of her curses. Cheva’s desperation was just as clear in her expression and her increasingly careless movements. Yet neither would back down.
Finally, Kairn did stumble, falling to his knees in the grass. He barely deflected the blow that followed, only because Cheva was nearly as tired as he was, and she stabbed the dirt beside him. Much to his relief, Nekka took the opportunity as Cheva recovered her stance to put a bit of distance between them.
Cheva hefted her spear and glared at him. Her whole body heaved as she forced a series of slow, deep breaths into its papery lungs. Her hands tightened around her weapon and she tensed, ready to spring.
Kairn felt a tingle, like barely suppressed magic, down his spine and through his limbs, as Nekka wormed her way into every part of his body in preparation for the next clash.
Spear lowered before her, Cheva charged at him with a loud cry, throwing all her might into the strike. If he could escape the blow, she would be at his mercy while she tried to recover her footing. Lyssa would have been able to do it with ease, step aside and bring her blade up into the goddess’s unprotected belly all the space of a breath. Of course, Lyssa would have ended this fight as soon as it began.
He could feel the goddess readying herself to make just such a move. His legs tensed, his grip on his knife tightened. If she succeeded, the body would be dead and Cheva returned to her former realm. What would she do then? She’d given no sign she intended to leave his body once she’d met her goal.
The seconds it took Cheva to reach him seemed an eternity. Kairn gathered every bit of strength he still possessed, his attention focused on the deadly point hurtling toward him, waiting for Nekka to make her move.
He could feel her will throughout his body, her hold on his muscles as she forced them to obey, bringing his knife up under Cheva’s arm. The charging goddess had no time to correct, and the blade sliced across her ribs, tearing a sharp but shallow gash in her pink flesh.
Nekka was caught as much off guard as Kairn slammed his will into hers. Every muscle burned, every joint threatened to buckle, as if he’d tried to force his whole body to contort beyond its capabilities. His feet felt like stone as he fought to lift them and the air like a wall as he pushed through it. She screamed in outrage at his defiance, pushing back against him until he felt as if his bones would snap, but it was too little too late and Kairn lurched towards Cheva rather than away.
He clung with all his might to the hilt in his hands and forced the blade deep between Cheva’s ribs, even as the white hot pain in his own side told him her blow had hit home too.
Cheva stared at him, horrified, her mouth open wide, though whether she made a sound, he didn’t know, for his head was filled with the shrieking of his own goddess. His vision blurred and his legs shook, but he continued to drive the knife into her body, tearing through the lungs and bones he’d helped build, reaching for her heart.
There was no blood, no gore, not even the snap of dissipating magic that came with felling a demon. His blade sliced through the body like rubber and as it cut apart her artificial heart, her eyes simply went vacant and the abandoned shell slumped to the ground. Kairn let go and the knife fell with it, still buried deep in its chest.
You fucking stupid little bitch! The pain must really be getting to him. He swore he could hear Reida yelling at him in the goddess's place.
You were mine, she wailed, her voice starting to crack. I should have known you’d pull something like this.
Panting and trembling and struggling to stay standing, Kairn finally dared to look down. He regretted it immediately. Protruding from his abdomen, just above his hip, was the shaft of Cheva’s spear. From the look of it, it went clear through him, but he wasn’t about to check that. Seeing it from the front was unnerving enough.
Kairn wrapped both hands around the wood.
What are you doing? You’ll bleed out!
Kairn didn’t answer. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and pulled. Nekka’s shrieks rose to a deafening level, even as her voice grew cracked and distant. The world around him took a turn for the dark and blurry and the ground was rushing up to meet him.
With the last of his strength, he hurled the bloody pole aside as he tumbled into a heap beside the empty body.
The screams of the goddess in his head ceased abruptly, only to be replaced by those of Sethan, frantically calling his name.
Kairn forced his eyes open to see his friend rushing towards him. He opened his mouth to answer, but the darkness overtook him before he could make a sound.
and Blueberry Yogurt #16. the upper hand with Hot Fudge
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : R (violence and profanity)
Timeframe : Book 7, Goddess!Kairn arc
Word Count : 1500 (I feel accomplished!)
As part of my rewrite, I've decided to rethink names for the gods. After much searching (my apologies to Olram for dragging her into my indecision) I think I've settled on calling Death Nekka (though I'm still debating spelling - Nekha, Nekah?)
This takes place some time after the previous one. I'm not sure yet if the circumstances under which Kairn becomes a god will remain the same, but the fact that he does will. This follows right after this I still like this piece and the gist of it is right, but the dialogue needs some tweaking to fit the new version of the gods.
Kairn watched as Cheva, in her sigil-covered artificial body, hopped, gracefully as a bird, from the bough of one tree to that of another. He could feel the burning of Nekka’s ire as she looked through his eyes as well.
“Come down here at once,” she called, using his mouth as though it were her own.
“Gladly,” called Cheva, in her sing-song tone. “Then I shall be rid of you.” From one branch to the next, she glided down. She caught the last as she headed for the ground, tearing it from the tree as easily as if the wood were paper.
“Not so fast,” said Nekka. “My puppet here helped build that body of yours. I know just how useless it is.”
He hated hearing himself voice her words, hated being her puppet. But all his anger got him was the sound of her laughter within his head.
“It’s not completely useless.” Cheva twirled the branch idly before her and it began to quiver. Slowly, it worked itself into a perfectly straight rod, its end twisting and turning until it had been honed into a perfect point. “I’ve got more than enough of my strength to take on the pathetic sack of skin you’re calling home these days.”
“We’ll see about that.” Nekka was gathering her magic. Kairn could feel it growing warm and heavy at his middle, quickly becoming so intense it felt as if his whole body might burst like a dam beneath a flooding river.
Cheva charged and the gathered magic tore along Kairn’s spine and raced down his arm with a force that left him breathless as Nekka let loose a blast meant to stop her heart, but the goddess didn’t so much as miss a step.
She laughed at Nekka’s consternation, made obvious on Kairn’s face, as she pressed forward. “Sister, dear, this body is fake. Did you really think you could take a life that’s not there to begin with?”
Kairn felt his hand curl over the hilt of the knife at his belt, and Cheva halted her advance as he drew his weapon. “No matter,” he said, still struggling for breath, “there are other ways to destroy you.”
“How does that saying go?” Cheva cast a teasing look at him over the tip of her spear as she toyed with it. “More than one way to skin a cat?”
Kairn was charging then, knife slicing the air in broad, vicious strokes before him as the goddess in him fumed.
Cheva caught his blade with the shaft of her spear, forcing him to a halt. The notch the knife had cut quickly refilled itself as she withdrew. “Temper, temper,” she scolded.
“I’d like to see you spend three hundred years chasing mice,” Nekka spat.
Cheva’s eyes narrowed, and the sight of her furrowed pink rubbery brow might have been comical had she not been pointing an incredibly sharp, and quite possibly living, spear at him.
She jabbed. His body now fueled by Nekka’s anger, Kairn neatly sidestepped the blow. The two settled into a slow, circling dance, each taking swings and retreating in turn, not a single blow finding its mark.
Every step, every dodge, every swing of his arm felt at once both like something he was watching from a distance, detached, or like a memory, and incredibly, painfully real as Nekka willed his body into place. Even breathing had begun to feel unnatural.
Pathetic, Nekka called him.
You picked the wrong body if you wanted a fighter, Kairn shot back.
I might as well have had one of your ridiculous constructs instead. Godslayer indeed.
She barely caught his balance for what must have been the third time since the fight began, and made yet another fruitless swipe at her opponent.
You could have just stayed a cat.
His muscles ached from their forced use and his lungs burned, but the goddess kept pressing him to fight on. She raged in his head, her anger growing with every foiled attack. Her aim was becoming less sure and Kairn struggled to even think amidst the barrage of her curses. Cheva’s desperation was just as clear in her expression and her increasingly careless movements. Yet neither would back down.
Finally, Kairn did stumble, falling to his knees in the grass. He barely deflected the blow that followed, only because Cheva was nearly as tired as he was, and she stabbed the dirt beside him. Much to his relief, Nekka took the opportunity as Cheva recovered her stance to put a bit of distance between them.
Cheva hefted her spear and glared at him. Her whole body heaved as she forced a series of slow, deep breaths into its papery lungs. Her hands tightened around her weapon and she tensed, ready to spring.
Kairn felt a tingle, like barely suppressed magic, down his spine and through his limbs, as Nekka wormed her way into every part of his body in preparation for the next clash.
Spear lowered before her, Cheva charged at him with a loud cry, throwing all her might into the strike. If he could escape the blow, she would be at his mercy while she tried to recover her footing. Lyssa would have been able to do it with ease, step aside and bring her blade up into the goddess’s unprotected belly all the space of a breath. Of course, Lyssa would have ended this fight as soon as it began.
He could feel the goddess readying herself to make just such a move. His legs tensed, his grip on his knife tightened. If she succeeded, the body would be dead and Cheva returned to her former realm. What would she do then? She’d given no sign she intended to leave his body once she’d met her goal.
The seconds it took Cheva to reach him seemed an eternity. Kairn gathered every bit of strength he still possessed, his attention focused on the deadly point hurtling toward him, waiting for Nekka to make her move.
He could feel her will throughout his body, her hold on his muscles as she forced them to obey, bringing his knife up under Cheva’s arm. The charging goddess had no time to correct, and the blade sliced across her ribs, tearing a sharp but shallow gash in her pink flesh.
Nekka was caught as much off guard as Kairn slammed his will into hers. Every muscle burned, every joint threatened to buckle, as if he’d tried to force his whole body to contort beyond its capabilities. His feet felt like stone as he fought to lift them and the air like a wall as he pushed through it. She screamed in outrage at his defiance, pushing back against him until he felt as if his bones would snap, but it was too little too late and Kairn lurched towards Cheva rather than away.
He clung with all his might to the hilt in his hands and forced the blade deep between Cheva’s ribs, even as the white hot pain in his own side told him her blow had hit home too.
Cheva stared at him, horrified, her mouth open wide, though whether she made a sound, he didn’t know, for his head was filled with the shrieking of his own goddess. His vision blurred and his legs shook, but he continued to drive the knife into her body, tearing through the lungs and bones he’d helped build, reaching for her heart.
There was no blood, no gore, not even the snap of dissipating magic that came with felling a demon. His blade sliced through the body like rubber and as it cut apart her artificial heart, her eyes simply went vacant and the abandoned shell slumped to the ground. Kairn let go and the knife fell with it, still buried deep in its chest.
You fucking stupid little bitch! The pain must really be getting to him. He swore he could hear Reida yelling at him in the goddess's place.
You were mine, she wailed, her voice starting to crack. I should have known you’d pull something like this.
Panting and trembling and struggling to stay standing, Kairn finally dared to look down. He regretted it immediately. Protruding from his abdomen, just above his hip, was the shaft of Cheva’s spear. From the look of it, it went clear through him, but he wasn’t about to check that. Seeing it from the front was unnerving enough.
Kairn wrapped both hands around the wood.
What are you doing? You’ll bleed out!
Kairn didn’t answer. He gritted his teeth, closed his eyes, and pulled. Nekka’s shrieks rose to a deafening level, even as her voice grew cracked and distant. The world around him took a turn for the dark and blurry and the ground was rushing up to meet him.
With the last of his strength, he hurled the bloody pole aside as he tumbled into a heap beside the empty body.
The screams of the goddess in his head ceased abruptly, only to be replaced by those of Sethan, frantically calling his name.
Kairn forced his eyes open to see his friend rushing towards him. He opened his mouth to answer, but the darkness overtook him before he could make a sound.