Last Line Game

Last line game

Thank you @jay-avian for the tag!

“You always were such a clever girl. You held a knife so well when you were younger. We were all so proud of you,” her father’s smile dropped. “And then you got the silly notion of being a hero into your head, and you needed to so much correction after that.”

Melody let out a laugh that was closer to a death rattle. “Clearly I still do.”

Her father hummed, tilting his head. He watched her, and then, as if he had found something within her image that pleased him, smiled slowly.

“No,” he murmured. “You don’t, do you, little one.”

Her breath seized.

“Don’t call me that.”

His eyes darkened and that incredible violence—that wrath, surfaced. Melody looked away.

“Yes, you’d rather I call you Melody, wouldn’t you,” he spat her name like a curse. “No matter how much blood you spill, your blood is still mine. You are still mine.”

She was half her mother, too. But she was nothing more than an unmarked grave and a cut off scream.

“I was never yours.”

Her father grinned, and it was feral.

“You’ll be glorious when you’re older,” his eyes glinted. “So much bloodshed.”

“I have questions to ask you—“

“Do you still know how to hold a knife?”

She swallowed, and he watched her like he was waiting for a misstep.

“Yes.”

He leaned forward, handcuffs dragging on the table.

“You finally grew the spine to use it, didn’t you, daughter of mine.”

She stood, and her chair scraped. To hell with these questions. Her father was toying with her. He may have refused to speak to anyone other than her, but he wouldn’t ever tell her anything of use.

Just remarks, as sharp as his knives.

“I am not yours,” she said again, and then she slammed her hand into the table, dragging her father by the collar to whisper in his ear. “And I am already glorious.”

When she let go, she saw something close to bloodlust but even closer to pride in his eyes.

By the time she had exited the facility, her hands had almost stopped shaking.

Almost.

(I know it’s a bit long just roll with it lol)

Anndddd here are the people I’m tagging in!

@oh-no-another-idea @megreads22 @writeblrfantasy @writtentodeath @writingwithcolor @prettyquickpoetry

Hello, I saw from your introduction that you are hoping for an ask and I think I have a prompt for you: A villain who is tasked with poisoning the hero only to realize that the hero is their little sibling. You don't have to write it if you don't want to, but it came to me while working on my introduction and I thought you might enjoy it.

Anyway, have a good rest of your day. :)

This is such an awesome prompt, thank you so much!!

(Edit: part two)

The villain was a lot of things, but they weren’t one to use poison. They planned, they sabotaged, unleashed mind games and carefully tilted domino effects—but they didn’t use poison.

But some ostentatiously rich benefactor wanted the hero to die without the mess of broken buildings and bones, so they had paid off a higher up, who paid off someone else, until an envelope filled with a packet of poison ended up tucked into the villain’s hands.

So here they were, at a party, a vial of something toxic and deadly and shimmering tucked up their sleeve.

Someone bumped into them, muttering an apology, and they straightened their suit. It took two seconds to snag a champagne glass off a waiter’s tray, one to empty the vial into it, and four, to arrive at the hero’s side, grin fixed on their face.

“Having fun yet?”

The hero turned, blinking beneath a masquerade mask—wouldn’t do to reveal their identity, now would it—and smiled, slightly.

“Absolutely loads of it.”

The villain glanced at the table the hero stood at, all but abandoned, and hummed.

“Looks like it.”

The hero did nothing more than sigh, elbows resting on the standing table. Somewhere, the mayor laughed. The hero winced.

“Why don’t you go talk to him,” the hero gestured with their head. “He organized this for us to make peace, you know?”

The villain slid a baleful look at the center of the party.

“He organized it to parade us around like dogs.”

The hero simply went back to studying the half crumpled napkins.

The villain blew out a breath.

They nudged the glass of champagne towards the hero’s hand. The hero didn’t take it.

“Peace offering,” the villain urged. The hero gave something between a grimace and a frown, eyes darting between the villains face and the glass.

“Oh. I mean, uh—thank you, but really, I can’t—” the hero went to rub the back of their neck, and stopped halfway there.

“Too much of a goody goody for alcohol?”

When the hero didn’t rise to the bait and take the glass, the villain clucked their tongue. “Come now, it’s only champagne.”

This time, they took it, fingers hesitant, as if they had never held a champagne glass before.

Too trusting, their hero, with their wide eyes and still soft face.

The villain clinked their glasses, indicating for the hero to drink. The hero downed their glass whole—which they hadn’t expected but made this a lot easier—and coughed.

“It’s champagne, not whiskey,” the villain laughed, and the hero squinted at their now empty glass. “You have to admit this is a relatively nice bottle.”

The hero coughed once more, looking a little green.

“I don’t know, I’ve never had it before.”

“What, champagne?”

The hero shot them an unreadable look.

“Alcohol.”

The villain paused. “What are you, sixteen? You sound like my youngest sibling.”

The hero choked on a breath, face flushing slightly as they looked away.

“Strange comparison,” the hero said, voice slightly strangled, and the villain simply stared at them.

A moment later, they shoved off their elbows. “I should go, mingle or whatever—” the hero stopped, frowning, as they swayed slightly.

They made to raise a hand to their head, and simply stared at it as it shook.

The poison was fast acting, then.

“I—bathroom. I should—“ the hero’s hand dropped, and they took a stumbling step.

A moment later, the villain had an arm around their shoulders, guiding them through the crowd with an easy smile. They were light, shorter than the villain, and for that, the villain was grateful.

They were one step into the bathroom when the hero dropped like a stone, slamming into the side of a stall with violent thud.

“Shit,” the villain murmured. They clicked the lock, leaving them alone together. “They didn’t say it would be this fast.”

Really, they just wanted to make sure the hero’s power didn’t go off, decimating the entire building. The villain knew it could—and under their right mind, the hero would never let it. But while dying…

The hero let out a sob into the bathroom tile, and shadows began to trail their way across the floor, as if desperate.

Control of shadows was an expansive and brutal power, stealing thoughts, forming beasts, sending terror down spines in broad daylight. It was the one thing the hero and villain shared—the shadows, even if the hero was gentle and the villain was brutal in their usage of them.

That’s what made it so, so easy for the villain to scatter them from the hero’s grasp.

The hero shuddered, and managed to shove themselves upwards in time to vomit into the nearest toilet. The building shook around them, and the hero’s mask dissolved from their face.

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t want you to die like this,” the villain admitted. “You deserve a valiant battle.”

The hero heaved again, and those shadows blasted outwards, as if on reflex. The villain tucked them away.

The hero managed an incredulous laugh.

“I didn’t think you would poison me.”

The villain blinked.

“You see too much good in people.”

The hero rested their head against the toilet, face still turned out of view.

“You hate poison,” they offered, and the villain hesitated.

The villain hated poison, yes, but there were very few people who knew that—one person who knew that, bearing the memory of small fingers swallowing pretty colored liquids and the number for poison control. Weeks in the hospital, their younger sibling’s hand clutched in theirs, as the villain watched them recover.

But the hero couldn’t know that; they had made sure nobody knew that.

The hero was just delirious, that was all.

“You seem to be grasping at straws.”

The hero laughed again, and it sounded like it tore something in their chest. “I forgot how much this hurts.”

The hero had been poisoned before?

“Hero—”

“It was never supposed to end like this.”

The villain took a step closer and the hero didn’t flinch, even though they undoubtedly sensed them.

“We’re on opposing sides, someone was bound to get hurt—“

“I never hurt you,” the hero shivered, and then retched once more.

“You’re a hero, you’re not supposed to.”

The villain took a step forward, until their shoes almost touched the hero’s sprawled legs, and the hero slumped further.

“I never caught you, either,” they murmured, and the villain frowned.

Something was wrong. They were missing something, a vital piece of information.

“I was supposed to keep you safe.”

The villain froze.

“Hero, what are you talking about—”

“I’m sorry,” the hero sobbed. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt. If I wasn’t your hero then someone else would be and they would hurt you and catch you, and I couldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t—“

The hero dragged a hand down the back of their neck, as if wiping off sweat, and their hand came away smothered with concealer.

The villain stopped breathing.

There, on the hero’s neck, half covered by foundation, was a birthmark.

A birthmark only one person carried, imprinted into every childhood memory and scrapbook photo the villain had.

The hero was still rambling, half desperate and half broken, but as soon as the villain touched them, their voice fell away.

They hauled the hero up, glancing desperately over their sweaty face, their unfocused and half delirious eyes, body shivering with pain. Those too trusting eyes latched onto the villains face, and the hero smiled. A smile the villain had been looking at for the past sixteen years. A smile that had never had a drink before. A smile that had been poisoned once, by a cleaning product under the sink. A smile the villain looked forward to seeing every day. A smile that belonged to the only person the villain had left.

“You were never supposed to poison me,” their sibling whispered—and collapsed into the villains arms.

(Part two)

Atticus pulled his sleeve down over his fingers,hiding the glimmer of skin twisted beyond recognition by magical backlash and curses.

The mother, horrified, tugged her child away before they could reach out and trace his scars, fingers thick with wonderment.

Sawyer appeared from behind a shelf, hands holding a too bright colored cereal box, in time to watch a mother flee in horror and Atticus withdraw into himself like a soldier retreating from bloodshed.

Three pieces on a chess board playing a game Atticus had never wanted to play. Destiny, they had called it. Fate. They mixed his name with Chosen One until the lines between them blurred, until he was no longer Atticus, yet not quite a savior, and ended stuck miserably between. Never a pawn, never a queen, but still utilized as both.

A bottomless rage flickered in Sawyer’s eyes, a reminder of prophecies and villains and ‘to do what must be done’, and then it was gone.

He laced his fingers into Atticus’s as if he couldn’t feel the places where his skin was warm with magic.

“Do you want to try this cereal?” He asked. Atticus took the box from him, found a wizard smiling up at him.

He wanted to light the box on fire—he could, if he willed it. Just one thought and he could rewrite the atoms of the world.

Magic doesn’t like to leave a host when it’s found a good one, the healers had promised him. They said it like he was lucky, blessed, like he should rejoice that his skin was now marred by ever changing swirls that glimpsed into other universes, like he should be pleased that his body was no longer his but instead a vessel he co-inhabited.

Atticus was not pleased. Atticus was scarred.

He gave a little hum. “Sure. Looks okay.”

Sawyer chucked it onto the shelf without a glance, tightened his palm around Atticus’s, and abandoned the shopping cart.

“What are you doing?” Sawyer tugged them through the sliding doors, feet sure as they slid closed behind them. “We have grocery shopping to do, we can’t just leave—“

The child spotted them and let out a shriek of glee, eyes training on the swirl on the side of Atticus’s neck like a bloodhound. They smiled wide, and innocent, and bubbled to their mother. “Look mom, magic!”

A tone so reverent, that their mom paused as they set a jug of milk into the trunk. Her mouth twisted as she saw Atticus. The child stirred restlessly in the cart.

Blessed one. Savior. Pariah.

Sawyer smiled at the child and Atticus let himself be shoved into the passenger seat of their old SUV.

The engine trilled, and he avoided touching the dashboard.

Technology and magic were two siblings that fought viciously,and he was tired of the squabble.

Sawyer seemed content to let them sit in silence forever. Atticus was all too aware of his scars changing shape beneath his shirt.

“Why’d you have us leave?” Atticus said finally. Sawyer turned sideways in his seat to look at him.

“Because you were uncomfortable.”

He said it like it needed no further explanation. Maybe to anyone else it wouldn’t.

“Right, but I was fine. I could handle some horrified stares. I’ve fought villains before,” he gestured to a mass of glittering stars whorling around the skin of his knuckles. “I can handle a perturbed middle aged woman.”

Sawyer shook his head.

“I know you can. And I do not want you to take this as me disregarding the actions of others—because believe me, they are fucked—but I think maybe somewhere along the way of learning how to handle others you forgot to learn to handle yourself.”

Atticus sat back against the door.

“Sawyer, what the hell is that supposed to mean,” he bit, and Sawyer ran a nervous hand through his hair.

“Atticus, I love you, and this hurts to say, but you hate yourself.”

Atticus blinked. Then blinked again.

“What?”

Sawyer’s eyes bore into him, jade green and love and sorrow.

“You hate your scars. You hate your magic. And somehow, along the way, that started meaning you hate yourself too.”

Atticus tried to swallow around the stab wound in his chest. It felt too hot in here. He turned on the A/C.

“I don’t—“ he tried, and then stopped as the magic purred at the lie. Such a wretched thing, collecting promises, lies, and favors like candy. A petulant child always begging for more.

Sawyer took his face gently.

“Atticus,” he said softly. “I love you. And I want you to love you, too.”

Atticus was certain he did not remember how to breathe. Sawyers callus’s sat soothing on his skin.

“I hate them,” his voice cracked. “I hate it. ”

His scars twisted across his abdomen like they could hear him. They likely could.

Tears threatened to spill down as Sawyer reached down, and took his hand.

Atticus closed his eyes to ward back the onslaught, and then blinked open when he felt Sawyers lips brush over the scar on his forearm. A second later, they glanced over his elbow.

“What—“ Sawyer shoved up his sleeve, and Atticus’s voice broke as he kissed the magic undulating on his bicep. “What are you doing.”

“I love you,” Sawyer murmured against his shoulder. He tugged Atticus over the console. “And if words do not work to convince you of your worth, your beauty, how wonderful you are.” Sawyer lingered on the scar on his neck, before sliding up to whisper the last words into his ear. “Then I’ll just have to show you how beautiful you are, won’t I?”

They didn’t get the grocery shopping done. But somehow during the night, Atticus grew to like the warmth of his magic sliding slick across his skin. Because it was his—it was a part of him as his hair. And really, wasn’t it beautiful to have galaxies contained within your skin?

“I love myself. And my magic. And you,” Atticus murmured in the late hours of the morning, and Sawyer sat back like a house cat, pleased, above Atticus. Sawyer rested his hands under Atticus’s shirt as he lay entirely too flushed and sweaty on their bed.

“You sure?” Sawyer grinned, all reckless youth. “I think you might need some more convincing of how pretty you are.”

Atticus blushed.

“I think you’re right.”

Sawyer kissed him and he made a noise that made Sawyer grin further against his mouth. Atticus was beginning to like this “self love” thing.

Sawyer tasted like summer.

He never wanted to taste anything else.

I want to make a little game. Reblog if you want to be tagged to it. I'm hoping to make it a writeblr-wide tag game. 😁

Hopefully it'll help more writers find each other.

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