The Great Dark One Had Terrorized Isheazar For Time Immemorial. When Sanson Had First Climb From The

The Great Dark One had terrorized Isheazar for time immemorial. When Sanson had first climb from the egg the elders had spoke of how the Great Dark One was the world ending beast. It was predator without equal, eldritch in all things, and took great joy in tormenting those it deigned to hunt. Be they Dwarf, Dragon, or God. Unstoppable and evil it had no name for any name would to be too confining, cause too much complacency in the hearts of those it hunted. Some of the oldest spoke of a great battle, of all the thinking species of the world aligned against The Great Dark One. Emess, the Eternal One, oldest dragon in all the lands, still spoke with haunted craze about how The Great Dark One had fun felling their legions. There were whispers, rumours, that pieces of The Great Dark One had come of it. Had slipped between dimensions. 

Sanson would not have cared beyond a passing fancy if not for what he’d seen when he looked across dimensions. He’d expected to find entire realities striped bare. Species without end gone at the claws and hunger of even mere pieces of The Great Dark One. The first five realities he found exactly what he expected. However, his Dimensional Magics thesis required ten sources of evidence so despite his weary heart he continued. The seventh dimension, one with magic so weak as to be non-existent, he found something trouble. And confusing. And frankly so horrifying the thought had led him to drink Deep Ale. He didn’t remember what happened after. 

After remembered him. Sanson woke to on of these strange beings, a human, poking impatiently at his cheek. Sanson froze with terror so deep his very stomach chilled to ice. “Hey,” the human said. “Last night was fun and all, but I got work on Monday and I need some Advil.”

Sanson blinks. 

The human points at a dimensional spell circle. A dimensional spell circle that is etched in Sanson’s floor with Sanson’s writing. “So, are you like, gonna send me back now?”

Sanson’s mouth drops open in shock. “I summoned you!” Sanson squeaks out in tight throated surprise.

“Yeah duh,” the human says. “I was there. Here.” The human sighs. “Look, of all the reasons to be summoned to another dimension a week long bender was pretty awesome. No regrets, right. But Mr. Wayne’s probably getting hungry and every single thing here is made for people at least a foot smaller than me. I slept on the floor. I haven’t done that since undergrad. So I should probably be getting back pretty soon.”

Sanson mind is reeling but for some unremembered reason ‘Mr. Wayne’ stands out of the human’s weird speech. “Mr. Wayne?”

The human laughs. “My cat,” she explains. “It makes sense if you’ve ever read Batman comics.”

Sanson only knows what one of those things mean. My cat. He swallows heavily. Sanson doesn’t remember this specific human but he does remember a dance of horrors. Seeing household after household welcoming and catering to small pieces of The Great Dark One. His first thought was that they were slaves but a closer look showed him they were willing servants. A whole race domesticated by these ‘cats’. His terror and disgust must be palpable to the human. Had he told her? Had he spoke at all of The Great Dark One?

Sanson licks his lips nervously. “There is,” he says slowly, mind racing, “one last thing I’d like to show you. Before you go.” He’s pretty sure this is crazy. Or he’s gone insane. But there were a large number of humans living and surviving in proximity to pieces of The Great Dark One. Where Isheazar itself is collapsing, consumed bite by bite. He has to try.

“Sure,” the human shrugs. “If you throw in that magic sword with the bag of holding full of gold you promised me.”

Sanson nods his head eagerly. Why this human wants such a soft useless metal and magic that will barely work in her home reality he doesn’t care. It’s a matter of minutes for the human to pack a bag full and a couple more for Sanson to etch a minor spell of transference. The pop into existence far too close to The Great Dark One for Sanson’s comfort. It’s magical interference made targeting accurately impossible within a horse’s tire of it.

 The human gasps and her eyes widen. Sanson’s unfamiliar with humans but in his own species he’d say that look a lot like ‘I just saw a cute baby’ face. The human coos. “Hello, kitten-”

Sanson looks on with growing distress as the human obliviously approaches The Great Dark One making little clicking noises in the back of her throat. “Ummmm… human sir? That is an eldritch being.” His warning is ignored. The human holds up a hand, rubbing fingers together in a beckoning motion. “Not pet. Do not touch.” 

“Look, it’s fine. If it looks like a cat, it is a cat.” The human dismisses his warning. Sanson regrets his decision so much. He didn’t want to watch someone he brought here get killed. He should have realized that the domestication of humans had left them brutally unprepared to face-

Eldritch purring causes the foundation of reality to shiver in fear. The human is petting a slow stroke down The Great Dark One’s spine and scritching behind it’s ear. The Great Dark One leans into the touch with eyes half-closed in pleasure.

“Whose a pretty kitty?” The human coos. “You are. Yes you are.”

The Great Dark One tilts it’s head back and allows the human access to it’s vulnerable throat the way only the truly immortal would dare. The human rubs softly under The Great Dark One’s chin. Sanson determines that he will see this human on her way before he returns to finding the bottom of Deep Ale. He may never come out again, after all.

“Hello, kitten-“ “Ummmm… human sir? That is an eldritch being. Not pet. Do not touch.” “Look, it’s fine. If it looks like a cat, it is a cat.” eldritch purring sounds

i am too in love with life, i don't want to die (i cannot fathom the absence of living)

arthoesunshine | sunlightafterdark | joseph cambell | mary oliver | amy krouse rosenthal | joseph brodsky | unknown | gregory orr | colette, tr by matthew ward | anaïs nin

I see the “hottest 100 guys” list and I go, “okay? I guess. Who makes these lists?” Then I see the “hottest 100 guys digitally genderbent” list and oh fuck, no, I get it! They *should* be on that list. Oh god is this what straight women see in them? They *should* sell out movie theatres. 

why are you into girls? ....

have you seen them

nt writers are always like "aha this character who has super hearing is probably vulnerable to really loud noises!" but like, i mean yeah, those suck but, have you considered other people chewing

Now picturing this but with Ava as Aphrodite and Beatrice as Hephaestus.

I’ve noticed this revisionist Greek myth is common wherein Persephone loves Hades and eats the pomegranate seeds in order to evade her overbearing mother, and that’s all well and good. You know, sometimes I’m in the mood for it and sometimes I’m not. But hear this: as long as we’re doing this, why is no one wondering whether Aphrodite might really love Hephaestus? 

Think about it. All the gods in their immortal splendor are lining up to marry her, doing everything in their power to impress her, the goddess of love and beauty, and she choses…that guy. A god in technical terms only, a social reject who’s ugly and malformed and um, no fun. Always slaving away in his workshop when everyone else is quaffing nectar and having their eternal beach party up on Mount Olympus. They can’t believe she’d give up all of them for that. 

So, because the gods do not take rejection well (looking at you Apollo), eventually they start to say to each other, well, we all know Zeus made her do it anyway. He’s gotta feel guilty for throwing Hephaestus off Mount Olympus that one time. And it quickly becomes that poor girl, stuck in that workshop full of sweat and dirt and cyclopses when she could have had one of us. Because of course they’ve got love all figured out; it’s entirely technical and dependent on who’s the most charming and good-looking and not at all variable and strange and notoriously unpredictable, right?

Meanwhile Ares, only the most arrogant and brainless of the crew, can’t take a hint and is still showing up wherever Aphrodite goes trying to hit on her, so eventually she and Hephaestus decide to rig up an elaborate mechanical trap for him, using her as bait. When all the gods have laughed at him for getting caught he huffily attempts to regain his dignity by telling them, whatever, guys, you want to know the truth, I was meeting her for an assignation. And they all kind of know he’s full of it but they just accept it as the unvarnished truth from thereon in, because they’d love to believe she’d cheat on Hephaestus with Ares. They’d love it. Come on, Aphrodite, get off your high horse and admit you’re just as shallow as the rest of us. 

So they talk, but Aphrodite doesn’t really care about their collective jealousy because she dotes on her misshapen genius of a husband with his sooty hands and his sweaty brow who always takes her seriously and is always so hard at work inventing astonishing new things to make her happy, and she loves the volcano they live in with its internal pressures so conducive to the formation of precious stones and its passages lit with glowing lava that so gorgeously offsets her cheekbones, and all the cyclopses worship her because even with one eye apiece they’ve still got more depth perception than most men do where she’s concerned. True it is that as a couple the two develop a reputation for not getting out much, because all those Olympian parties bore them to death and they’d rather spend time with each other (poor Aphrodite, she’s such a vivacious young thing and her husband is so grasping and insecure that he won’t let her go out and have fun), but they do all right. 

No you won’t ever be exactly the same again and that’s fine, actually.