Mx Female Literary Nonsense: An Assemblage

[Erit of Eastcris]

My manner of conversing will, perhaps, come across to some as intimidating. This is regrettable but not entirely without its own merit. I do not choose my words purely on the value of sophistication; it is on many levels how I think, and how I will quite often write.

I am Erit, known elsewhere as Crow. Either form of address is effective. I am a fairly dour person frequently prone to waxing lyrical and wading into metaphor so deeply as to seem pretentious; it's habit, and I am by now used to repeating myself in more rational terms when the circuitous nature of my usual grammar and predilection for archaisms evades understanding. That said, someone who can—at least mostly—follow the trail of my eclectic and haphazard mind would be most appreciated.

Contrary to what my iconography and general tone of behaviour might suggest, though, I'm not here to develop tales focused on the magnitude of human depravity; I'm not interested in a work whose drive is to explore depths of grimness and woe. I am needlessly familiar with unpleasantness, and can write it quite adequately when a narrative calls for such adversity, but I am dour by nature and have no compulsive need to explore the darker recesses of my psyche; I have made peace with my shadow, and so I'm here in search of something that is, at its core, at least aspiring to positivity. People making the best of a bad situation, at the least; overcoming odds and earning an "ever after" that is more sweet than bitter. I have experience enough first-hand with angst that I don't need to delve into it farther for recreation. Ideally partners will be more interested in something more optimistic in concept; there's no reason such things can't also be thought-provoking and contemplative, after all, and adversity need not always take the form of ponderous suffering.

So for the shitloads of you interested in "dark" fantasy where everyone is always just barely hanging on and everything is unfortunate, this is your stop. The brutality being realistic is irrelevant.

All that said, a little about my writing and not just my whinging personality; I have been told I'm quite competent at the task when I care about it, and with time and patience on the part of my partner I don't really have upper limits on my word counts—though I make my minimum for a standard response as two paragraphs that do something to carry the story's momentum, and if I'm given something particularly inspiring to jump off of I can produce quite meaty scenes. I tend to use a very poetic and frequently euphemistic, many say flowery, style and focus more on emotions and feels to things than hard, pinpoint details; I save my mathematical descriptions for system-based play where every number can matter. I like to make use of repetition for emphasis over the course of several posts to make certain aspects of a thing stick, and I can and will skip over chunks of time where nothing interesting or useful happens—or skipping chunks of time where things did happen for dramatic effect, if that might make things more interesting.

Prospective partners are not obligated to match my word counts, post lengths or even general manner of writing. I'm not a fan of extraneous yammering that conveys nothing save a desire for the author to pad their proverbial resume, and firmly believe that a single line, properly constructed and timed, can do far more for a story than an entire page might have in its place. Just don't expect me to consistently write novels in return.

I'm fond of planning general concepts in advance, things we'd like to see happen somewhere or vignettes that come to our minds, and letting the roleplay spin itself between us. I've learned to abandon any real pretense of control over my muse, though; my current solo projects have made quite sure of that.

Speaking of solo projects, I do have some. Fanfiction, mostly. Ask, if you'd like samples, I'm not posting them here because the better ones break ten thousand words or touch on themes that are dicey for this board.

This is normally the place where others, and once upon a time my own self, would put up a tidy numbered list for terms of engagement that inevitably get ignored anyway because most of them are the bloody same, but over time I've found I don't hold a lot of the ones I once did anymore. Perhaps I've simply fallen into a kind of nihilistic zen, but here are the few things you will do well to know.

• I do not share a lot of the fandoms you'll see mentioned elsewhere on this board, because I am the pop-media equivalent of a hermit.
• The things I write are not, necessarily, things I personally believe; perspectives and mentalities I do not hold can—and for the sake of a good story, will—appear. Forget this at your own peril.
• I loathe doing longform stories over any form of instant messenger or chatroom. I am part of this site's Discord server if you want to coordinate, but actual play is reserved for threads or PMs. Email or Docs are a very reserved maybe.
• Contribute. Even if it's just ideas for twists, or suggestions for direction, put some effort in. I will give you far better posts if I'm not saddled with every iota of legwork
• You'll find my F-List may be a slightly exhaustive read, but it's thorough for a good reason. TL;DR I'm a very sappy Dom, and I do in fact practice BDSM.

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Now, on to a variety of prompts and ideas, accompanied with some genre tags for clarity of intent. A lot them are deliberately vague, because part of the fun is seeing where others might take them. And in case it isn't obvious, if a role is underlined that means it's the one I would prefer to play, but I'm willing to try alternatives if something strikes you.

The Miracle Of Defiance [Sorcerer and Apprentice]: He was not expecting an apprentice to all but fall into his lap; she was not expecting a simple burglary to be so life-changing. Nonetheless, there they were, the world now at her fingertips... And the End within his sight. [Adventure, Fantasy, Whimsy]

The Collared and the Courtly [Noble and Slave/Pet]: He was bred to lead, she to follow. Him, to command; her, to obey. When he is called upon to serve his King, she is of course brought to serve her Lord; but Court is never a simple thing, and they'll need her wits about her to survive its machinations. [Intrigue, Romance, Suspense]

Powder And Salt [Pirate and Any]: The seas are vast and fathoms deep, the great blue expanse hiding a thousand secrets 'neath every ripple, a thousand tales no dead men tell... Except for this one. [Adventure, Flexible]

Sins are a Contract, Blood a Covenant [Mage and Familiar]: When a Mage is the child of a maid and a butler, born to the service of aristocracy, they do not expect much of life; certainly not for their Familiar to be a powerful demon, less so for said demon to be the scion of the family they serve. Will this shift in power be met with chafing, or acceptance? [Flexible]

Iron And Fire [Engineer and Pilot]: He created, she destroyed. A brilliant engineer who made weapons of war, and the goddess of battle who he made them for. [Sci-fi, Flexible]

A Long Road Home [Prince and Lady Knight/Attendant/Escort]: His first campaign ended in failure wrought of betrayal. In what should have been a shining victory, the third prince and his most trusted confidante are instead imprisoned, whisked away to the enemy's seat of power and bidden rot in cells until aught can be planned to more publicly ruin them. Escaping and fleeing towards their Homeland will not be a simple, clean, or easy affair... But maybe that's for the best. [Romance, Intrigue, Adventure]

Stars for the Sky [Dragon and Rider]: They made a daring pair, with their death-defying stunts and frequent heroics, bringers of justice defending the meek and innocent, heroes of their kind and time. [Flexible Genres]

Silver and Onyx: Inextricably were they bound together, like the moon and the sky. Conjoined at the soul, ever-present in the other's mind and shadow alike, even in their world of perpetual night. [Romance, Folklore]

Not Created Equal [Actor and Pet]: Argyle Genetics is a household name. Not because of revolutionary medical technology or gene therapy treatments, not because they heal the sick or even enhance the rich. What they provide, instead, is custom-tailored company you can never find in nature. The kind a certain actor and dilettante finds himself being awarded for his birthday, courtesy of powerful parents with a... lackluster grip on personal boundaries. Oh well; she looked cute at least. [Modern, Romance, Humor, Furry/Monstergirl]

Alternatively: It happens occasionally that I find myself stuck with a stillborn or derelict story. I'll post those starters here in the interest of not having the effort entirely wasted; if someone would like to try their hand at carrying them on, I'd be quite happy to. And if the people I originally wrote them for take umbrage with my doing this, well, that sounds like a "you" problem from where I'm sitting.

This one was based in Skyrim, but my erstwhile partner decided my style wasn't compatible with theirs. Their choice, my loss, someone else's gain.

Well Wyrm Weary

Marce the Breton had slept poorly. Not because the bed he'd rented was uncomfortable—it was certainly that, but was still leagues better than a prison-cart—or because Riverwood was a particularly busy place, but there'd remained in the back of his mind a kernel of unease that chased good rest from his room and left him jumping at every errant thump and scrape outside the door. Mixed feelings of panic and worry that someone would come back for him, either the shrew captain who'd held some queer vendetta against him, or... that thing. He was reluctant to acknowledge it as a dragon, still; they weren't much more than just stories anymore, had been extinct for centuries now, so why would one just show up out of a clear sky and interrupt his wrongful execution?

Legends don't burn down villages. Stormcloak's words, and much as Marce might dislike the man he'd spoken sense on that occasion. So either it wasn't a dragon, or things were about to get much, much messier in Skyrim—and probably the rest of Tamriel. He had more immediate concerns, though. Like crawling out of bed and getting something in his belly, and so Marce the Breton did exactly that, pulling on the furred boots and gloves that were part of the variety of things he'd looted during his escape, alongside the rough-sewn mage's robes he resettled on his unimposing frame, hissing as they disturbed the bruises from when he was knocked away from the headsman's block, then coughing when the hiss agitated the rawness of his throat from generous doses of lighting courtesy of Helgen's warden. Slender, dexterous fingers more familiar with ink-stains than blood combed through matted black locks that disguised flakes of soot and ash all too well. He'd never been an especially pretty man, but the sweat and grime and singe certainly couldn't be doing him favors, nor the bags under brackish-blue eyes and the slight limp he still had after one of the rebels grazed his thigh with an arrow.

He left a pair of bags in his room after belting one of the imperial-steel swords to his waist; the rest of his scavenged and looted treasure that he'd need to barter away for coin and things he could actually use before departing this sleepy hamlet. Ralof and Hadvar—they'd screamed at each other enough on the road down from Helgen that their names were bluntly forced into Marce's memory regardless of his wishes—both seemed keen on informing the relevant authorities about the situation, which meant guards and soldiers coming to Riverwood and Marce didn't trust his luck around those types at the moment; not so soon after the first wrongful arrest.

He stumped, grimacing, to the counter where a woman was tending bar, maybe the wife of the big fellow Marce had dealt with when he stumbled in the night prior. "Bread and cheese," he coughed out raspily, reminded too late that between now and the last drink he'd had there had been a lot of smoke, fire, running and perhaps a bit of undignified squealing he couldn't remember through the haze, "and... what's the cheapest drink you've got, ale?" The woman gave him an unimpressed look, nodding sharply and without much patience for him, "An ale, then."

The clanking and thumping wasn't very subtle warning, leaving Marce the Breton trying not to tense—this was Skyrim, people were different in this province, sitting so close to him didn't have to mean anything—as the stranger spoke an accompaniment, a simple order of "Make that two" that implied things he just wasn't up for that morning.

"No, no, make that one." He clarified, trying for a stern-yet-polite tone around the scratchiness in his voice that left him sounding more like a particularly urbane Khajiit than a scholar-come-vagabond. He turned to face the interloper, not quite face-on but enough to meet their—her—eyes, "I'm afraid I don't have coin to spare on a drinking partner this early in the day." He coughed into a fist, a furtive glance at the door to his room now behind this inconveniently-placed stranger, "Not after what the last couple of days have seen me through."

This one's basically an Isekai, but it's actually derived from Magical Kingdom For Sale Sold! and there was a whole lot of planning behind it that I'd be happy to share.

A Crown Of Thorns

The steady pitter-patter of rain on the street below made an odd sort of ambiance with the radio quietly chattering on one side of the desk at which he sat, sorting through sheets of notes and stacks of books and occasionally turning to a computer screen for other sources. He'd just barely come up short on the exam, and he was determined not to fail a second time... God only knew how his parents would take it though. As the talk show between songs went on he barely listened, knowing already that the news would be about the riots on the other side of the country. Whole world's going to hell... he thought quietly to himself, leaning back and rubbing his temples as his concentration faltered. He needed a break. Or more coffee. But preferably both. So the man stood up to his full six foot height and on bare feet padded his way out to the kitchen to start brewing another batch of what his father called "morning juice". Well, adoptive father; Anthony was very clearly not his parent by blood, as Shandra was not his mother and Derek wasn't his older brother. But they were his family, all the same; he was the youngest of the Hamfords, oddly named "Tyrus" by the card left with him on the doorstep of the inner-city apartment they had lived in for a little over twenty years.

As Tyrus Hamford stood waiting for his coffee to finish filtering through, however, his phone rang; his mother. He barely had time to get out the obligatory "hello?" before she started carrying on as she was wont to do, saying how proud she was of her baby boy, of her Tyrus the lawyer and how far he was going to get in life and how happy she and daddy were for him to be making his way up in the world. He wished, just a little, that he could be struck by lightning rather than need to break her the news.

"Ma. Ma! I'm not a lawyer yet... I failed the bar exam..." He scrubbed a hand through his hair and looked down as his feet, as he usually did when he was anxious. "By three points, but I still failed it... I'm sorry ma, but—"

"Now now, you hush your mouth honey. You can always take it agin, can't you?"

"Yeah, but not unti—"

"Then you can jus' keep takin' it until you pass, Tyrus. You're a lawyer in everything but name, and your daddy and I are so proud of you fo' it. Has Jeanne called you yet? She tol' me she'd be talkin' to you today."

"No ma, she hasn't yet. It's only seven in the morning, she probably won't even be awake for another hour..."

"Well, I'll leave you to yo' studyin'. You'll knock that test on its ass next time, Ty, I jus' know you will."

"... Yeah. Thanks, ma."

The dull click signifying the end of the call was met with a sigh, an expression of mixed relief and despair. He'd need to break the news to his fiancee, as well, at this rate...

"Jeanne deserves to hear it in person, though." He said to himself, pouring his mug of coffee and mixing in the cream and sugar before leaning back against the kitchen counter and sipping while his mind spun and turned. He'd proposed to her just a month ago after he'd come home from law school, and now it was looking like their plans would need to be put on hold for a little while until he could pass the exam and properly start his career. She deserved to hear it in person. And she would, he decided.

He changed out of his pajamas and slid on his old, worn-down tennis shoes—the same ones he'd been wearing when they'd met, and when he'd proposed. He locked the door to his small one-bedroom apartment behind him and went down the six flights of stairs between home and the ground floor, popping open his umbrella as he passed through the doors onto the street and shivering slightly in the gentle rain and brisk winter chill. It had been raining in some capacity for the past week, the season seemingly clinging to life, digging in its heels and gnashing its teeth in defiance.

The trip from his apartment to Jeanne's wasn't that long a trip—twenty to thirty minutes depending on traffic—but over the course of it the weather became increasingly inhospitable, the rainfall going from a gentle shower and gradually ratcheting up to full sheets of water pouring down in waves, wind ripping at the edge of his umbrella and his sweater. The streets quickly emptied out as people fled indoors to avoid the storm, and the distant sound of thunder rolled through the air from far outside the city limits in promise of a very long day, nearly drowning out the chirping of the crosswalks that were meant to signal the visually impaired on when to go. It certainly obscured the traffic lights, and made it difficult to make out the headlights of the truck that came hydroplaning down the street.

He heard it honking though, and when Tyrus looked up to see it careening straight towards him without any way of stopping he saw, quite clearly, the look of panic in the eyes of the driver. He imagined his own were full of confusion more than anything else; confusion as to what was happening, then as to why. Why him, he might have wondered, why now? But he never made it to that stage; he saw, rather than felt, the grille of the engine make contact with his side. And then, he saw nothing. Heard, felt, smelled, tasted, sensed... nothing.

Briefly he wondered if he was dead, if this vast dearth of outward awareness was what awaited at the end of everything, if he should have taken up religion after all. Only briefly. Then... things began to come back; the strange, clean smell of unpolluted air in the middle of spring. The taste of the season on his lips, the feel of all-natural grass rather than astroturfing. Things he had never known being born and raised in the city. The sound of a calm breeze whistling over the earth tickled his ears, then a feminine sigh and a sound like someone slumping over in exhausted consternation. He couldn't seem to bring himself to speak, and only barely cracked open his eyes, groaning slightly at the stiffness that overtook him as though he'd just had the most enjoyable sleep and didn't want to get out of bed yet.

The vague outline of a face, blurred and distorted, greeted him, and all at once his body came crashing back into working order, jerking him upright with a yelp of surprise as he turned to face this unknown. "Wh-wh-wha..." He blinked , squeezing his iron-hued eyes to try and force them back into focus. When he opened them, it was to a much clearer, and far more bizarre, scene; a woman, behind her an expanse of grassland with gently rolling hills, and at the far end stood a castle braced against a bluff overhanging the sea. "I..." And again he blinked, holding up a fair-skinned hand in a piteous attempt to ward off whatever would soon befall him, "I don't know what you want, but I know I don't have any of it!"

This one actually got a bit somewhere before my partner got fed up with me. If'n she's reading this, I am sorry for forgetting things.

Never So Simple

"Six hundred thousand crowns, in silver, for all the blood of the House of the Baron Pebony."

Kythe Orien was grateful that he wore his mask, but had to strain to stop the widening of his eyes, amber tinged with sovreign violet, from giving him away; with six hundred thousand crowns he would be wealthy enough to buy half the Baron's holdings out from under him. Instead, he leaned back into his chair, projecting an ingrained aloofness while he contemplated the offer; he was not a man of singular physicality, being average in his height and the breadth of his body, but he had long ago learned how to manage his presence. Certainly, the Baron would be an easy mark; he was old and had been weak of body since birth. But six hundred thousand crowns... he must have pissed in the eyes of some very petty people if that kind of money had been pulled together.

"Surely the vaunted Grave Orchid is not frightened by this prospect?" The stranger across from him questioned, an irksome nonchalance to how he spoke the public name of the world's best killer. Granted, nobody outside their table could hear a word being said, but still; if Kythe hadn't discretely arranged the bounded field when he'd sat down, this man would be in quite a bit of trouble. "Eight hundred thousand, then, with six of the hundreds in advance."

The Grave Orchid raised a leather-clad hand, its first three fingers of fair toned skin exposed to the mild air of the autumn afternoon. "There is no evidence to suggest the good Baron has blood to put down, mind you." He pointed out in his even-paced baritone that filled the air with a viscous presence. "Even his alleged wife, nobody has ever spoken if having seen her in the flesh." Indeed, it was unlikely that the Baron of Pebony had a wife at all, let alone one as heartachingly beautiful as the creature supposedly wedded to him, for Cyrus Pebony was a weasely shitehawk of a man possessed of an odious spirit and a plainness of appearance that would render even princes difficult to marry off. As crafty and craven as a viper in the grass, the Baron's life only persisted for two reasons: his vast fortunes and influence afforded him greater defenses than a typical hired blade could hope to penetrate, and Kythe Orien was not one to do things for free. His own disgust and annoyance with the good Baron meant little compared to the likelihood that he would be contracted for the same job in good enough time... But it did mean he could take a modicum of pleasure in accepting it.

"Naturally, yes; of course." His erstwhile contractor gave a conciliatory smile, "We will consider our contract fulfilled so long as the end result is the collapse of the Baron's line. Should his wife happen to be real and simply be spirited away..." A shrug crossed the man's shoulders as Kythe arched a brow, "Well, who am I to begrudge the Grave Orchid his bedwarmers?"

It was a considerable act of patience—that Kythe oughtn't have had—to not stab the man in that instant, but he was nothing if not professional, and that meant not murdering clients just for being annoying. "Consider them all to be dead and buried, then." He said tightly, folding his arms and curling his fingers around the opposite bicep. "I assume you have the funds at hand?"

"Just upstairs, in fact. My associate should be bringing it down shortly... Ah, to speak of the man."

Indeed, there approached another man, mild of mien, bearing a latched and hinged case, which he set upon the table at a gesture from Kythe's newest employer and opened, revealing neatly arrayed and tightly packed rows upon rows of silver coins. He couldn't say if it was a full six hundred thousand crowns' worth at a glance, but it was enough money for easily sixty years of rent at a comfortable boarding house if nothing else.

"We have a contract, then."

So it was he'd prepared his implements. A pistol, knife, esoteric paraphernalia for his more specific techniques, and his field attire: a hand-stitched leather vest of a deep enough brown as to be black, woven with skeins of charmed silk, with boots to match and grey cotton trousers. The Baron he dispatched first, of course, stealing into his house of state under cover of night and in the form of smoke. Opening the old bat's neck before hurling him into the roaring hearth, adding his own will to the flames to make Cyrus Pebony's last moments that much more memorable. That would teach the rat of a man not to harangue him at his day job, or rather it would have if Kythe had shown his face from under the hood and mask. Regrettably, the Grave Orchid was a consummate professional, and that meant no faces or names. Rarely even words, in fact; in and out with none alive the wiser 'til the morning, naught in his wake but his namesake calling card—a pressed orchid.

It was the second phase of this most lucrative of operations, late into the next day just before the news woukd break, that things took a turn. The Baron himself had been child's play because he, for all his power and influence, could not govern from afar, so his house of state had been on the mainland. His rumored bride, however, was a different story; held in a proverbial dragon's tower far off the coast, on the Isle of Vaas, in a fortress of wrought iron and wave-pounded rock that was impregnable to any without invitation. Well, any not named Kythe Orien, who held the keys to any lock devised by Man and many more besides. Crossing the water had been a trial, eventually conquered by commandeering a supply barge he'd the fortune to stow away on, but once his feet hit the pier of the island the job was as good as done. He lit a pipe full of ghostweed and simply walked right on through the iron fence, passing through the bars as soon much smoke, and past the guards and servants hopelessly blind and deaf to his presence.

The Baron's private estate was, in a word, excessive. Where one inch was needed, instead was used a full yard; nothing was done about the architecture that was not inflated to the point of ridiculousness, enough so to make Kythe question if the late Baron had indeed been a man rather than an insecure eunuch. Richly carved wood was not enough, not where gold tracings could fit; every painting frame chased in silver, silk drapery around every interior doorway, rich colors and fabrics anywhere the eye could fall. At the very least it was tastefully arranged, but the absurdity of lavishness fit to strike kings dumb with envy simply made Kythe shake his head and keep walking the seeming miles of overwrought halls and corridors. Eventually he was forced to admit defeat to the labrynthine architecture, snuffing out his ghostweed and hypnotizing a passing maid into showing him the way to the lady of the estate. Naturally, it was the centerpiece of the whole affair, set upon the highest floor. But what surprised Kythe, who was not a man prone to being off his guard, was the door. It was not richly decorated or lavishly ensconced or even cleverly hidden, nor was it even heavily guarded. Here stood the door behind which laid the Baron's prized bride, yet Kythe could be convinced he looked upon the plain iron portal to a cell or kennel instead.

When he sent the maid off, though, bidding her awaken from the trance after an hour more, the Grave Orchid relit his ghostweed and passed under the heavy metal slab between the Baroness and the estate, and then again he was given pause for the second time in as many minutes. It was, indeed, comparable to a cell; austere walls bereft the warmth of hearth or home, bars upon the window framing the rising moon, and no creature comforts save a cushioned mat upon which lounged the Baroness... Who looked directly at Kythe and graced him with the sweetest smile he'd ever have the pleasure of having still his heart. In that singular iota of time, all things ceased to be; for the briefest instant between seconds, all that existed laid within that most beautiful of expressions, and behind his mask the Grave Orchid, a man of decent height and respectable build, felt himself share in that smile.

Then he noticed she was smiling at him, who was supposed to be indiscernable to the naked eye. Then he noticed the bushel of furred tails that pooled around the Baroness' legs, folded in a submissive posture as though she were awaiting an order.

Oh.

Oh, bugger.

 

[Erit of Eastcris]

Humbledybumblebee.

 

[Erit of Eastcris]

[Incoherent humming]