Last Day here
Nov. 24th, 2023 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cornerofmadnessMajor accomplishments: dyeing my hair and realizing for 2 weeks I've forgotten the write up on both my sabbatical proposal and the conference I went to. Stellar.
I did add in everything I wrote this month to my nano we'll get her to 50k
Carved up my two halloween pumpkins for their seeds. The white one was easy but the one called a candy cane (yellow and orange) was a bitch. The yellow was tough but the orange was steel, diamonds maybe. Dad carried them out for the deer and squirrels. He threw the candy cane to break it. It rolled down the hill unbroken. He had to smash it like a cave man about 20 times against a tree before it broke. I'm now a little terrified to try and eat these seeds.
I wrote a thing forspikesgirl58
Title: Red & Blue
Summary: Hunter is a bundle of nerves about this particular palisman’s ‘birth.’
Notes: Written for spikesgirl58’s 6 word challenge. The six words are Panoramic, Selection, Poison, Fierce, Unsuitable, Red.
Hunter couldn’t settle his heart. In spite of deep breathing exercises, his pulse flew faster than him on derby days. Today was the day; he could sense it. Everything had been perfect. He’d walked the Palistrom forest for days before making his selection of wood for this carving. He was pretty sure Dell had been snickering at him and his ridiculous level of obsessiveness in spite of knowing exactly how Hunter felt about what he was about to do. This wasn’t just any palisman. She was his. He didn’t know her yet; she had still to wake but he sensed the little blue jay he’d set in a nest to wait was going to be a feisty female.
She’d be as fierce as Flapjack. She’d have to be in order to put up with him. Hunter was as unsuitable a witch for a palisman as one could be unless they were Luz the human. He smiled at the thought of his sister. She and he were two weird peas in a pod, as Mom would say, minus the weird part. Not witches, not really, and yet magical, nonetheless. Flapjack had forcibly made Hunter his, by sheer determination and love, wearing him down quickly enough. Luz always said Hunter was soft and sweet in his center. He’d spent a lifetime considering that a weakness. It took wonderful friends like Luz, Willow, Gus, and Amity to show him his worth, that kindness wasn’t a character flaw.
It had taken him a long while to drive Belos’s poison from his mind. He’d felt unworthy of a new palisman so he had spare no thought of carving one for himself. Also, not enough time had passed for him to process his grief. He needed to mentally shift from truly believing he was replacing Flapjack to accepting he was doing what his soul needed, what Flap would have wanted. Whoever she’d be, she was no replacement. She’d be her own palisman.
A hand skimmed over his back, making him jump. Hunter twisted and stared into Willow’s big, pretty eyes. She leaned in and stole a kiss from his lips.
“It’ll be wonderful, Hunter.” She nodded to the nest. “You did a beautiful job.”
“I couldn’t do less. I keep expecting to see red. I think about the journals we found from Evelyn and Caleb and what they wrote about the joyous riot of red when Flapjack would do zoomies around them.” He smiled. Oh, they hadn’t called it that but it was exactly what it was. Flap had done it to him several times. “But I couldn’t make her a duplicate. She needed to be who she is. I wasn’t even sure I was going to carve another bird until my hands started working.”
“So you’ve said.” She sat next to him in his small patio. Hunter had decided to strike out on his own, a little bungalow outside of his workshop that he shared with Dell. The Clawthornes were just next door so he wasn’t alone or lonely but if he listened to Darius, he’d set up house on the moon and no one would ever see him again. Maybe he was too young to be on his own but Hunter didn’t feel like it. He’d been born an almost-adult, quite literally. “I’m not sure you Clawthornes can have anything other than birds.”
He laughed. “Maybe not. Honestly, I thought I’d carve a wolf pup but I knew she was a blue jay the moment I took up the chisel.” He rubbed the Flapjack tattoo that covered his coven sigil. He had originally thought to leave it as a reminder of all he had to make up for but his scars did that for him. He’d hidden away his source of shame. “I miss the red sometimes though.”
“I do too.” Willow tipped his chin up. “Flapjack’s red and the red of your eyes. I know they marked you as what you are, Hunter, but they had been so pretty. Not,” she kissed his brow. “That they aren’t warm and wonderful now.”
“Sometimes I wish that hadn’t changed but I think of it as Flapjack making me a little more…real? Not quite the right word but you know what I mean.”
After plucking a curl of wood shavings from his hair, Willow slipped an arm around him. “I do. Hunter, look.”
He turned his attention to the nest. It shuddered a bit. Leaning forward, he tugged it closer to him on the table.
“Dell!” Willow called. “It’s happening.”
Of course, they had been waiting for this too, even though he had planned to go it solo. They were ready to support him if he got overwhelmed. Dell crossed the yard and sat on the low wall alongside the patio. They waited in silence, Willow’s hand entwined with his. Does she even know she’s called some vines in for support? Hunter let his attention drift from the palisman to his hand now barely visible through sweetrough blossoms bursting in color and fragrance from where Willow had called it in from its space along his home.
He flicked his gaze back to his palisman. Will she want me? What if she decides I’m not her witch? What if she doesn’t want a Grimwalker? Will it matter that I carved her with all my heart? What if she flies away to the Bat Queen’s forest to wait for someone better?
Dell got up and patted Hunter’s back. “Breathe, son. It’ll be fine.”
What if you’re wrong?
She shook herself into life. Amber eyes opened and sparked upon seeing him. Rustling her feathers, she made a sound like an iron gate opening and closing. He shouldn’t be surprised. Jays didn’t have the prettier sounds of a cardinal. Spreading her wings and bobbing a little, she swept herself into the air and caught a lock of his hair, giving it a tug so like Flap.
Hunter burst into tears as she let go and settled into his hands, now freed as Willow realized she’d trapped him. She sang him a loud tune he could barely hear over his own ragged breathing. She brushed her head against his wet cheek before taking flight again to land on his head. Willow tucked against him and Dell rested his big hand on Hunter’s shoulder.
“Her name is Waffles,” he said between sobs. “She’s absolutely perfect.”
“She’s beautiful, son, just beautiful. We’ll give you time to get acquainted,” Dell said.
Hunter barely noticed he and Willow retreated back to Dell’s home. He only had eyes and ears for Waffles. He told her how happy he was to have her in his life. He told her of her big brother, Flapjack, and how he didn’t expect her to fill that void. She was free to be who she chose to be. All she wanted was to cuddle close to him for now. Just a few hours old and she had made her choice clear: she was his. The sun had begun to set when Willow returned.
“Do you think she’s ready to go for a flight?” she asked.
“What do you think, Waffles? Are we ready to fly?” He stroked her head.
In answer, she transformed. Her staff fit his hand like it had always been there. Clover followed suit and he and Willow took to the sky. Waffles wanted to run. They went so fast, the air sliding chill around them. Willow kept up because fast flight was her element too. They didn’t try anything too tricky yet. That would come.
Finally, Waffles slowed and flew abreast of Willow and Clover. Hunter reached out and took his girlfriend’s hand. Before them in purples, blues and golds, the sunset painted their panoramic view. He’d missed this so much. Being on a staff behind someone, borrowing a staff simply wasn’t the same. Waffles sealed the hole inside him. For the first time in a long time Hunter felt whole.
“Want to go back home or should we check out Apple Lake by moonlight?” Willow asked.
Thinking of silvery light glimmering on dark water, Willow at his side and Waffles on his shoulder - in your hair more like it - Hunter made the only choice he could: “Moonlit lakes are very romantic this time of year.”
“And that’s what I was hoping to hear.” Willow grinned.
Hunter smiled back. Waffles had no protest. They flew toward the setting sun. He couldn’t wait to show her off to all his friends but tonight he’d share Waffles with just one person. It would be a night worthy of one of the best days of his life.
The Owl House
Pumpkin, Witch and Bloody Gore
Popular
Tales From The Grove
Love Potion.
From The Ashes
Worlds Collide wip
Torchwood
Wake-Up call
Better Late
Various
Companions Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Massage Our Flag Means Death
Meat and Nerves Ironman
Endure Oxventure (Web Series)
The Roller Rink on the Edge of Forever Eerie Indiana
Days of Future Past Buffy the Vampire Slayer wip
Under the Weather FAKE
We Like All the Colors Barbie (art)
Snippet - She walked back to the office she shared with the other TAs and gathered up her laptop. She’d already reported to her thesis advisor so the rest of the day was hers. Running her finger over the sticker on the back of the computer reading I hope you step on next to a tetrahedron Dungeons and Dragons dice. Having stepped on them in the past – and students making her wonder if this had been a wise life choice – the sticker felt appropriate.
43930 / 50000 words. 88% done!
I did add in everything I wrote this month to my nano we'll get her to 50k
Carved up my two halloween pumpkins for their seeds. The white one was easy but the one called a candy cane (yellow and orange) was a bitch. The yellow was tough but the orange was steel, diamonds maybe. Dad carried them out for the deer and squirrels. He threw the candy cane to break it. It rolled down the hill unbroken. He had to smash it like a cave man about 20 times against a tree before it broke. I'm now a little terrified to try and eat these seeds.
I wrote a thing for
spikesgirl58Title: Red & Blue
Summary: Hunter is a bundle of nerves about this particular palisman’s ‘birth.’
Notes: Written for spikesgirl58’s 6 word challenge. The six words are Panoramic, Selection, Poison, Fierce, Unsuitable, Red.
Hunter couldn’t settle his heart. In spite of deep breathing exercises, his pulse flew faster than him on derby days. Today was the day; he could sense it. Everything had been perfect. He’d walked the Palistrom forest for days before making his selection of wood for this carving. He was pretty sure Dell had been snickering at him and his ridiculous level of obsessiveness in spite of knowing exactly how Hunter felt about what he was about to do. This wasn’t just any palisman. She was his. He didn’t know her yet; she had still to wake but he sensed the little blue jay he’d set in a nest to wait was going to be a feisty female.
She’d be as fierce as Flapjack. She’d have to be in order to put up with him. Hunter was as unsuitable a witch for a palisman as one could be unless they were Luz the human. He smiled at the thought of his sister. She and he were two weird peas in a pod, as Mom would say, minus the weird part. Not witches, not really, and yet magical, nonetheless. Flapjack had forcibly made Hunter his, by sheer determination and love, wearing him down quickly enough. Luz always said Hunter was soft and sweet in his center. He’d spent a lifetime considering that a weakness. It took wonderful friends like Luz, Willow, Gus, and Amity to show him his worth, that kindness wasn’t a character flaw.
It had taken him a long while to drive Belos’s poison from his mind. He’d felt unworthy of a new palisman so he had spare no thought of carving one for himself. Also, not enough time had passed for him to process his grief. He needed to mentally shift from truly believing he was replacing Flapjack to accepting he was doing what his soul needed, what Flap would have wanted. Whoever she’d be, she was no replacement. She’d be her own palisman.
A hand skimmed over his back, making him jump. Hunter twisted and stared into Willow’s big, pretty eyes. She leaned in and stole a kiss from his lips.
“It’ll be wonderful, Hunter.” She nodded to the nest. “You did a beautiful job.”
“I couldn’t do less. I keep expecting to see red. I think about the journals we found from Evelyn and Caleb and what they wrote about the joyous riot of red when Flapjack would do zoomies around them.” He smiled. Oh, they hadn’t called it that but it was exactly what it was. Flap had done it to him several times. “But I couldn’t make her a duplicate. She needed to be who she is. I wasn’t even sure I was going to carve another bird until my hands started working.”
“So you’ve said.” She sat next to him in his small patio. Hunter had decided to strike out on his own, a little bungalow outside of his workshop that he shared with Dell. The Clawthornes were just next door so he wasn’t alone or lonely but if he listened to Darius, he’d set up house on the moon and no one would ever see him again. Maybe he was too young to be on his own but Hunter didn’t feel like it. He’d been born an almost-adult, quite literally. “I’m not sure you Clawthornes can have anything other than birds.”
He laughed. “Maybe not. Honestly, I thought I’d carve a wolf pup but I knew she was a blue jay the moment I took up the chisel.” He rubbed the Flapjack tattoo that covered his coven sigil. He had originally thought to leave it as a reminder of all he had to make up for but his scars did that for him. He’d hidden away his source of shame. “I miss the red sometimes though.”
“I do too.” Willow tipped his chin up. “Flapjack’s red and the red of your eyes. I know they marked you as what you are, Hunter, but they had been so pretty. Not,” she kissed his brow. “That they aren’t warm and wonderful now.”
“Sometimes I wish that hadn’t changed but I think of it as Flapjack making me a little more…real? Not quite the right word but you know what I mean.”
After plucking a curl of wood shavings from his hair, Willow slipped an arm around him. “I do. Hunter, look.”
He turned his attention to the nest. It shuddered a bit. Leaning forward, he tugged it closer to him on the table.
“Dell!” Willow called. “It’s happening.”
Of course, they had been waiting for this too, even though he had planned to go it solo. They were ready to support him if he got overwhelmed. Dell crossed the yard and sat on the low wall alongside the patio. They waited in silence, Willow’s hand entwined with his. Does she even know she’s called some vines in for support? Hunter let his attention drift from the palisman to his hand now barely visible through sweetrough blossoms bursting in color and fragrance from where Willow had called it in from its space along his home.
He flicked his gaze back to his palisman. Will she want me? What if she decides I’m not her witch? What if she doesn’t want a Grimwalker? Will it matter that I carved her with all my heart? What if she flies away to the Bat Queen’s forest to wait for someone better?
Dell got up and patted Hunter’s back. “Breathe, son. It’ll be fine.”
What if you’re wrong?
She shook herself into life. Amber eyes opened and sparked upon seeing him. Rustling her feathers, she made a sound like an iron gate opening and closing. He shouldn’t be surprised. Jays didn’t have the prettier sounds of a cardinal. Spreading her wings and bobbing a little, she swept herself into the air and caught a lock of his hair, giving it a tug so like Flap.
Hunter burst into tears as she let go and settled into his hands, now freed as Willow realized she’d trapped him. She sang him a loud tune he could barely hear over his own ragged breathing. She brushed her head against his wet cheek before taking flight again to land on his head. Willow tucked against him and Dell rested his big hand on Hunter’s shoulder.
“Her name is Waffles,” he said between sobs. “She’s absolutely perfect.”
“She’s beautiful, son, just beautiful. We’ll give you time to get acquainted,” Dell said.
Hunter barely noticed he and Willow retreated back to Dell’s home. He only had eyes and ears for Waffles. He told her how happy he was to have her in his life. He told her of her big brother, Flapjack, and how he didn’t expect her to fill that void. She was free to be who she chose to be. All she wanted was to cuddle close to him for now. Just a few hours old and she had made her choice clear: she was his. The sun had begun to set when Willow returned.
“Do you think she’s ready to go for a flight?” she asked.
“What do you think, Waffles? Are we ready to fly?” He stroked her head.
In answer, she transformed. Her staff fit his hand like it had always been there. Clover followed suit and he and Willow took to the sky. Waffles wanted to run. They went so fast, the air sliding chill around them. Willow kept up because fast flight was her element too. They didn’t try anything too tricky yet. That would come.
Finally, Waffles slowed and flew abreast of Willow and Clover. Hunter reached out and took his girlfriend’s hand. Before them in purples, blues and golds, the sunset painted their panoramic view. He’d missed this so much. Being on a staff behind someone, borrowing a staff simply wasn’t the same. Waffles sealed the hole inside him. For the first time in a long time Hunter felt whole.
“Want to go back home or should we check out Apple Lake by moonlight?” Willow asked.
Thinking of silvery light glimmering on dark water, Willow at his side and Waffles on his shoulder - in your hair more like it - Hunter made the only choice he could: “Moonlit lakes are very romantic this time of year.”
“And that’s what I was hoping to hear.” Willow grinned.
Hunter smiled back. Waffles had no protest. They flew toward the setting sun. He couldn’t wait to show her off to all his friends but tonight he’d share Waffles with just one person. It would be a night worthy of one of the best days of his life.
The Owl House
Pumpkin, Witch and Bloody Gore
Popular
Tales From The Grove
Love Potion.
From The Ashes
Worlds Collide wip
Torchwood
Wake-Up call
Better Late
Various
Companions Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Massage Our Flag Means Death
Meat and Nerves Ironman
Endure Oxventure (Web Series)
The Roller Rink on the Edge of Forever Eerie Indiana
Days of Future Past Buffy the Vampire Slayer wip
Under the Weather FAKE
We Like All the Colors Barbie (art)
Snippet - She walked back to the office she shared with the other TAs and gathered up her laptop. She’d already reported to her thesis advisor so the rest of the day was hers. Running her finger over the sticker on the back of the computer reading I hope you step on next to a tetrahedron Dungeons and Dragons dice. Having stepped on them in the past – and students making her wonder if this had been a wise life choice – the sticker felt appropriate.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}