fiction_drabbles | Entries tagged with author: ap0cryphal

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: technofables. woot. as before, apologies for cut tag wonkiness.

~

Title: "Damned"
Challenge/Prompt: #173 / Depravity
Summary: Regret is a weakness
Notes: :|
( read 173 )

~

Title: "Insomniacs"
Challenge/Prompt: #174 / Restless
Summary: We went to war.
Notes: :|
( read 174 )

ap0cryphal

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: sages, scholars and spymasters. i'm rollin' in once-upon-a-time fabletowne vibes with these, i guess. also apologies in advance if cut-tags are wonky, dw cuts are being frickin' weird for me lately.

~

Title: "Reconstruction"
Challenge/Prompt: #170 / Puzzle
Summary: Can't aim right anymore.
Notes: :|
( read 170 )

Title: "Uninterred"
Challenge/Prompt: #171 / Star
Summary: You, a Sage? Then I'm a Lion!
Notes: :|
( read 171 )

Title: "Ouroboros"
Challenge/Prompt: #172 / Invitation
Summary: A noble, righteous soul
Notes: not a fan of monarchies, fictional or not...so. yeah.
( read 172 )

ap0cryphal

Title: "The Fall"
Challenge/Prompt: #169 / Melancholy
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Trauma.
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: You betrayed him
Author's Notes: bad romance, eschatology edition

~

"What was it like?" the finch asks, perched between hollow ribs. "Tell me please tell me."

"Like a sun, asunder," she says, wings wrapped in dust, arm stretched skywards. Dark sky, no stars. Her eyes dim. "That terrible, engulfing light. All those ashes."

"You betrayed him," the finch chirps, skipping bones. "Broke your covenant."

"We were his children, first," the angel says. "He betrayed us too."

Oh, little bird, she doesn't say, if only you remembered the reach of your wings, the light you promised. Oh, little bird, you were always the brightest of us.

Remember, little bird, please remember.

ap0cryphal

Title: "Cartography"
Challenge/Prompt: #160 / Scar
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: violence and femslash, i guess? there's nothing explicit.
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "I need you alive."
Author's Notes: 8| i really need to find a better way to frame romance than hurt/comfort...because this is not comfortable, at all.

~

"There's a map on your skin," The oracle says. Her fingers trace the aftermath of stray bullets and lit cigarettes and inkstained needles. "I want to read it. Everywhere you've been. Everything you carry."

"Why?" The soldier asks, inhales slow then sharp as the oracle's lips find her palm. Her other hand twitches, bandaged and bloody. Phantom pain for a phantom weapon, paranoia digging into her bones. "I'm still on-mission..."

"Mission's scrubbed, you're in the dark. But I need you alive. I want you alive."

"Why?" Her voice is brittle, hollow.

"...sentimental reasons," the oracle says, leaning in, murmuring nothings.

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "Teeth, To Pray With"
Challenge/Prompt: #159 / Sky
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Violence, Violence.
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Her hunger is red and black, overwhelming and vertiginous."
Author's Notes: 8|

~

A solemn goddess and her surly companion, traversing a field of corpses.

"This amuses you?" The ghul hisses, scratching her throat. "Dragging a thirsty woman to a saltwater lake?"

Her hunger is red and black, overwhelming and vertiginous. It leaves her teeth loose, her bones howling and hollow. Her mouth tastes of spoiled blood, undrinkable filth.

"Need you hungry," the girl motions skyward. "Firmament weeps, guardians descend to avenge fallen."

The ghul listens distractedly, plucking teeth and juggling eyes to hold back the hunger. But the punchline leaves her weeping blood, joyous, thankful.

"Angels. A feast of angels, for you."

ap0cryphal

Title: "Soft Targets"
Challenge/Prompt: #157 / Youth
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Language
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Sometimes people just want killing."
Author's Notes: 8|

~

"There's an angle we're missing," he says, shaky fingers, shaky voice. "Leverage we haven't applied."

"Sorry, scrub," she says, between loading magazines and reassembling field-stripped handguns. "Sometimes people just want killing."

"Children," he snaps. "Women and children. I'm not a fucking murderer."

"Women and children," she echoes coolly. "But not civilians. Combat veterans and child soldiers. Queen bee likes her toys fresh from war zones. Victims, Survivors. Malleable, moldable toys. Ultimately, fanatically loyal."

"I've read the briefing," he says.

"Believe the briefing and plan accordingly," she says. "Don't bring pity, scrub. They sure as shit won't bring none for you."

ap0cryphal

Title: "Peregrine"
Challenge/Prompt: #153 / Sweet
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: She used to train as a boxer.
Author's Notes: insert crime / pulp cliche here.

~

"I'm good for it," the man says. "Please. I just need a week."

She hits him. Punch to liver, jab to solar plexus, open palm to nose. She feels cartilage give way before he crumples, whimpering. She exhales. The rush fades.

"Two days," she says, looking down.

She used to train as a boxer. Her comrades were other discarded, forgotten children, feral and ever hungry. They're scattered now and she's in purgatory, working muscle for dumb gangsters.

She used to have a sweet tooth. Now she has this.

"Two days," she says. "Then I'll take your knees. And your fingers."

ap0cryphal

Title: "Blasphemy"
Challenge/Prompt: #151 / Champion
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: -
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "They deified her once."
Author's Notes: been away, playing catch-up.

~

They do not name her, now.

They deified her once, with sleek wings, osprey eyes, desert bronzed skin. They deified her with with an ocean's temerity, a locust swarm's hunger. Sixfold wings, woven from muslin and dragonskin. A gaze that portends typhoons, a whisper that cleaves mountains, a sword that holds gods at bay.

Mere flesh, she only ever outwitted emperors and routed armies. Only ever ended pogroms and fostered insurrection. Her deeds they wrote to history, then legend, then myth.

They have new gods, now. New rulers, ever hungry.

They do not name her, now. They do not dare.

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "Last Rites, Recurring Epitaphs"
Challenge/Prompt: #143 / Forgotten
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: -
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Help us," the wraiths plead, and the players do not listen.
Author's Notes: :| i have never played silent hill but this might be a silent hill homage. erm. yeah.

~

A creaking theater in a missing, fog-drowned town. An annual, secret performance, the audience a pinch of ashes.

"Help us," the wraiths plead, and the players do not listen. "We've forgotten."

Not the dancer with dazzling teeth and lupine form, bullet holes sizzling over his heart. Not the sombre violinist, her steel-toed boots keeping pace with calloused, nimble fingers. Not the twins, nomads from some other desert, their voices like smoke and honey and their eyes so cruel.

"Save us," the wraiths howl as the players conclude. "We remember."

"All your sins, come home to roost," the violinist says. "Suffer."

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "The Penitents"
Challenge/Prompt: #141 / Battle
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Language
Disclaimer:  Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary:  "The priests wade through the embers."
Author's Notes: 8|

~

At dusk, the caravan burns. Come daybreak, the caravan lies in ashes.

Priests wade through the embers, bare feet trailing blood and soot, offering benediction to the weary and oblivion to the dying. Blood taints their saffron robes, marks their wooden masks. Smooth black masks, no slits for eyes or lips. Their satchels hold water and their hands hold sickles, stained mottled red.

"Why didn't you fight?" a swordswoman curses, refusing their blessing. "I've seen your sickles fell armoured pikemen, and these were just fucking raiders!"

"Forbidden," they reply in unison, a chorus of sombre jackals. "We are not kinslayers."

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "Payback"
Challenge/Prompt: #140 / Soul
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence,
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Her prophecies are poisonous, her words like shards of glass."
Author's Notes: ehm, its been awhile. had to use frickin' shears to chop this down to 100 words...so, a bit rough around the edges, this one.

~

The oracle holds court in a decaying marsh. Her prophecies are poisonous, her words like shards of glass. By night her flesh is cast to stone, a boon from a sorcerer-king for foretelling the death of his only son. Decades later, a princess offers to unchain the oracle's soul from her father's boon.

"Little heart, keep your charity," the oracle says, "Princess, Queen, Empress. Your sword will break nations. You will surpass your father, blazing sun to pale star. He will never forgive you for it."

"...but..I..."

"Learn strength, little heart, learn survival," The oracle smiles. "Empress, Patricide, Regicide."

~

ap0cryphal

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: murder non-mysteries and relationship dramas

~

Title: "After The Fire"
Challenge/Prompt: #126 / Burn
Summary: "We know how," he says, frowning. "Tell me why."
Notes: :|

~

( after the fire )

~~~

Title: "Principles Of Restraint"
Challenge/Prompt: #127 / Vanilla
Summary: "I can't hurt you"
Notes: :|

~
( principles of restraint )

~~~

ap0cryphal

Title: "The Politics of Ascension"
Challenge/Prompt: #125 / Cold
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence,
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Beautiful deceitful child, ice in your veins, ice in your heart."
Author's Notes: backstabbing as a family tradition. with kink. i continue to be a terrible person.

~

A princess and a chained angel, an ivory tower on a moonless night.

"A barter," the princess says. "My mother's life, for your freedom."

"Beautiful deceitful child, ice in your veins, ice in your heart," the angel replies, edging closer, dessicated wings scraping dust. Her hands reach to cradle the princess' throat, thumbs gently catching the contour of her jaws. The princess inhales, slowly. "I will tell you the same I told your mother, doe-eyed matricide, nine and twenty years past."

The princess cradles the angel's hands and blinks, expectant.

"Murder, for a kiss," the angel whispers. "Say yes."

"Yes."

~

ap0cryphal

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Language, Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: not particularly happy stories, as per usual.

~

Title: "Post / Traumatic"
Challenge/Prompt: #123 / Imagine
Summary: "I don't like dreaming tragedies for my friends, but it's instinctive now."
Notes: -

~

( Read: 'Post / Traumatic' )

~~~

Title: "The Runners"
Challenge/Prompt: #124 / Sublime
Summary: "We were real, and now we're not."
Notes: -

~

( Read: 'The Runners' )

~~~

ap0cryphal

Title: "Monsters"
Challenge/Prompt: #122 / Question
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Girl, you're worse'n I ever was."
Author's Notes: n/a

~

The woman spits blood and demands a drink.

The girl ignores her and lights a cigarette. Smoke trailing past her cheeks, she feels the heft of an ugly black pistol. Checks for a chambered round, flicks the safety.

"Idiot girl, you think bullets'll make me regret what I done?" the woman says. "Your hands'll still be bloody, forever. Call me a monster? Girl, you're worse'n I ever was."

"Sure," the girl says. She inhales and smoothly fires twice at the woman's knees. The woman howls and the girl's eyes flutter, a little.

"Guess you're right," she says, taking aim again.

~

ap0cryphal

COMMON TAGS
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Language, Violence
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
General notes: Sometimes, slow afternoons at work are wonderful things.

~

Title: "Feeding Time"
Challenge/Prompt: #118 / Stress
Summary: "They should not take our dead too."
Notes: -

( Read 'Feeding Time' )

Title: "Not Quite The Good Guys "
Challenge/Prompt: #119 / Comfort
Summary: "Gratitude doesn't buy me bullets."
Notes: A maybe-what-if continuation of #115 / Bullet Therapy, looks like.

( Read 'Not Quite The Good Guys' )

Title: "Prey"
Challenge/Prompt: #120 / Reach
Summary: "When the feather is ashes, an angel dies."
Notes: -

( Read 'Prey' )

ap0cryphal

Title: "the prince, first verse"
Challenge/Prompt: #118 / Regret
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "My dead do not shout, you see. They whisper."
Author's Notes: finished Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood over the weekend and now i am sadface and melancholy. hence...this. whatever it is.

~

I have been walking forever.

Hooded eyes, bloodstained hands. Boots treading frost, ears ringing with echoes. My dead do not shout, you see. They whisper.

Lost loves, betrayed friends, cheerful suicides. Soldiers in shadow wars, priests of dead religions. Mentors and pupils, felled by blades and poisons and venomous pretty things.

Together we deceived empires, stole cities, extinguished wars. Our names are dust now. But the works endure. As must our legacy. So I walk, and remember.

And if you follow our signs, know true: changing the world is an unwinnable war.

Know true: nothing is true, everything is permitted.

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "The Sins We Kept"
Challenge/Prompt: #116 / Beloved
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Trauma
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: ...my cracked lips to her stone hands.
Author's Notes: one of these days i will actually write a love story that doesn't end or begin in tears.

~

I pray in the shade of her wings.

My forehead to her feet and after, my cracked lips to her stone hands. My lips sting. I taste ash and I paint her fingernails bloody beautiful red to match her shining eyes and crawl away in tears.

We cry, bleed, and cannot die. Our wings torn, swords dimmed, feet chained to a city of tombs.

And her, my mourning star, my love cast to stone and her light extinguished for daring to lead us to war.

Yet I pray. To callous firmaments, fickle goddesses. For wings, that she might fly again.

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "Bullet Therapy"
Challenge/Prompt: #115 / Excitement
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Language
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: She stole secrets, traded sorrows, kept me sane.
Author's Notes: These characters are....unpleasant people. Also, it's totally

sterling 's fault i'm posting here again when i was busy being a hermit. so, uh, thanks. :P

~

Lazy afternoon.

I whistled Watchtower and threw darts at a photo. Forehead dead center.

"Creepy," her highness said. She stole secrets, traded sorrows, kept me sane. "Didn't you used to worship that girl?"

"Tried to kill me, remember?"

"Crybaby."

"I keep forgetting. You're both crazy."

"Practical. Pragmatic," she grinned. Pristine teeth, viper smile. "Not crazy."

"I must be, working with you again."

"Babe, killing's therapy for you. Me, I just want a decent payday. Win-win!"

"Peachy. Just... peachy."

I threw another dart, imagined bullet trajectories and splatter patterns. Ignored the itch in my fingers, the razor tripwire in my brain.

~

ap0cryphal

Title: "A Gentleman's Game"
Challenge/Prompt: #108 / Anticipation
Original Fiction or Fanfiction: Original
Characters/Pairings: N/A
Rating: PG-13 / K+
Warnings: Violence, Language
Disclaimer: Original work, my own stuffs, etc.
Summary: "Savages, the bloody lot. Savages"
Author's Notes: Postcolonial kick. Blame Anno Dracula and Sea of Poppies.

~

"A crafty one, your da," The lady in gray says. Her companion scowls, adjusting a cuff-link.

"Didn't save him," He says. "Hurting a fair man like that. Savages, the bloody lot. Savages."

"Hmm," the lady replies, eyes distant, expectant. "Your guards are dead now, by the way."

"...what?"

"An example, yes? She spat on your father's name and works. So you made an addict of her husband and a joke of her name. As an example."

"I haven't the faintest..."

"Oh, poor sweet prince. She has brothers and sisters in the shadows. And you, little brat, will be our example."

~

Fiction Drabbles: 100-Word Challenge Community

war stories / late response #173, #174

three fables / #170, #171, #172

"The Fall" / #169: Melancholy

"Cartography" / #160: Scar

"Teeth, To Pray With" / 159: Sky

"Soft Targets" / 157: Youth

"Peregrine" / 153: Sweet

"Blasphemy" / 151: Champion

"Last Rites, Recurring Epitaphs" / #143: Forgotten

"The Penitents" / #142: Battle

"Payback" / #140: Soul

Two by Two (#126 / #127)

"The Politics of Ascension" / #125: Cold

Two by Two (#123 / #124)

"Monsters" / Late Response for #122 Question

Three by Three (#119/#120/#121)

"the prince, first verse" / #118: Regret

"The Sins We Kept" / #116: Beloved

Bullet Therapy / 115: Excitement

A Gentleman's Game / 108: Anticipation

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