Original fic - question

[icarus_chained]

Okay. I have four pieces of original fic, all sketches/openings for larger pieces. I want to work on one, develope it out, but I can't decide. Working on all tends to mean that I end up working on none, you know? Maybe you guys could help me pick?

Rating:  Pg-13, for concepts. One graphic aftermath of violence.
Wordcount:  about 4000 words overall, between the 4, but 2 are longer, and 2 shorter
Genres:  sci-fi, steampunk, crime, fantasy, supernatural, fairytale, horror, mixed and matched between the 4 

Title: Cheelin

Genre: Sci-fi/Crime

Wordcount: 810

 

The chitterling lay on her back, her body slumped around the shattered segments of her spine, her limbs spread sprawling and broken, twisted out of true and splayed as if to best demonstrate their fractured nature. There was no ichor, no scrap of blue to mar the rich brown of her fur, but that hardly decreased the grisly horror of it. It was as if someone had done it on purpose, a test, a demonstration of skill, that he could break her so totally, and not spill on drop of her life-ichor, not break that fragile surface in any way, despite the utter ruin of everything beneath it.

I crouched over her, eyes taking it in, everything around her, the soft cushion of moss-weave laid beneath her, an odd gesture of gentility in the midst of brutality, the soft red tones of the room, and the view beyond the tilted glass up the green malachite flank of the tower across the road. So normal, all of it. Not like the other thing, the one I did not look at, the last horror perpetrated here. The worst. I had seen it once, and would face it again in the crime scene photos, no doubt countless times before I was done. I did not want to look again. But ... No. It must be done.

I let my eyes follow the line of her chest, the silken fur lying flat and still over shattered ribs that would never move again, and then up. To where her head was flung back, deliberately forced into an unnatural curve, to bare the fragile, delicate flesh of her throat. The one unfurred area of a chitterling's body, the pale, vulnerable line that was never, ever shown, never revealed except in moments of great intimacy. The heartplace where, had she been yet living, the delicate luminous pulse of her lifeforce would have shone gently with her breathing, her emotions, her life.

This thing, this great secret that to any chitterling was the most precious an individual could have, had been laid bare, the ultimate sacrilege. The killer's final display of power, his demonstration of what he had the power to take, and to give. Look. See her. See what I can take from her, her power to move, her limbs, her very life. See what I can take, and yet even then, what I can force her to give. Her life, her soul, to all it pleases me to see it. To you, who would look upon my work. My gift. My power. For you to see, and understand, at her final expense.

It horrified me. To my very bones. Such a taking. Such a violation. It horrified me, and yet told me so much of the creature that did this, that took this from her. And I hated that there was a part of me that could use this, even this, in the course of my job. In the course of catching this monster.

There was a burr of sound behind me, a whirl of movement and a flash of limbs, and I shook myself free of my malaise, looking back to see the crime scene official secreting his equipment away into their multitude of compartments, three of his arms folding amongst themselves in that complicated gesture that only CSOs could accomplish. I had once tried, while drunk, to emulate it, but apparently it required serious training, or at least a degree of sobriety, to manage it without damaging the delicate equipment stowed in the process, and I had almost lost myself my best glass set.

"Finished?" I asked, calmly and patiently. It did not do to hurry a CSO. They were a slow and cautious breed, and most had a certain flare for slow, exactly plotted demonstrations of displeasure. It paid to be careful around them, and grant them the respect they were due.

"Aye," he answered, musingly, and then he looked at her, and up at me, something that might have been pity in the fathomless black depths of his eyes. "She's yours, Caltra. Take care of her, aye?"

"Aye," I answered, slowly and delicately. And he was right. She was mine now, and I could do right by her.

He stood back, standing quiet and respectful, as I collapsed myself down beside her, folding myself up into a crouch by her shoulder. I reached forward, wrapping one arm in a bunch of moss-weave, and laying two more on her head, on the fractured, soft-furred dome of her skull. And then, as gently as I knew how, I raised it, tilting her forward a little, resting the moss beneath her head, so that her fur flowed forward to cover that painfully bared vulnerability. So that she rested more gently, covered and decent, no longer exposed even to our pitying eyes.

Pity means little to the dead. Only to the living who care for them.

---
 

Title: The Prince and the Judge

Genre: Fairytale/Fantasy

Wordcount: 1224

 

 

The young man looked around him in boredom, until something caught his roving eye. "Grandad, what's that picture over the fire?"

The old man looked up from his contemplation of the fire. "Hmm? Oh, that. That's the prince."

"The prince?"

"Yes. You see, a long time ago, there was a great town where now there are fields, and a great palace where this house now sits, and that man you see in the portrait was the prince of that town, and its kingdom."

The boy looked unimpressed. "Why only a prince? Wasn't he a king too, later?"

"Yes, and no. You see, there was a prince, and then there was a king, but the man who became king was not the man in this portrait." The elder leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice and casting a wary look over his shoulder, as if imparting a great secret. The boy leaned into him, eyes brightening.

"Someone stole his kingdom?"

"Oh no." The old man shook his head gravely. "Much worse. Someone stole his soul."

"His soul?" There was a thrill in the boy's voice now.

"Oh yes. And then the man who had been the prince went on to become king, but he had no soul, so he was not really a man, and he was not the man who looks down on you now. I don't know what he was. A creature without a soul, who sat on the throne of a kingdom until it crumbled to dust beneath him, and all the kingdom fell to ruin and faded around him, and his people spat on his shadow and cursed his name until they too either died, or left the kingdom forever. That is why there are only fields now, when once there were streets teeming with people, and only this old house where once there was a magnificent palace. A man who has no soul cannot rule a people without bringing them to ruin." His voice throbbed slightly, as if there were a personal pain in this. The boy looked uneasy for a moment, then affected scorn.

"So why didn't they get rid of him?"

"Because that is not how things were done then. The king was the king, for good or ill. And besides, people were afraid of his curse, so they daren't kill him."

"What curse?"

The old man's eyes gleamed in the firelight, somewhere between pride and fear. His voice rose in an ancient passion. "Ah, now that is a long story. A story of pain and betrayal and lessons learnt too late. A story of the death of innocence, and the stealing of souls, and the pain in a monster's heart. A story of glory and ruin, and the illusion of love, and the truth of a man's soul. A story of fear and jealousy and cruelty and faith, where the villain and the hero are never who you believe them to be, and where the path of righteousness is a twisted thing in a labyrinth of human failings. And most of all, it is a story of despair, the brute beauty of that darkest and most profound of human emotions. A dark tale indeed, with never a happy ending."

"Tell me!" He was practically a-quiver with eagerness, with a child's bloodthirstiness, and it seemed to shock the old man out of his fit of dark remembrance.

"Oh no, I won't indeed! You're too young yet to know about that."

"Oh, tell me! Please? I promise I won't get scared." The boy edged forward in his seat, voice taking on that wheedling cast that is the hallmark of an artfully spoiled child. The old man's features twisted in contempt.

"Scared? Scared? Pfft! Fear is a palour trick, a petty quiver! We are talking of despair! Fear is the knowledge that something is coming that might hurt you. Despair is the knowledge that nothing that comes means a damn thing, because there is nothing left of the person you were to still be hurt! You may be scared all you like, my boy, and there are parts of the tale where you will indeed thrill with terror and anticipation. I don't care about that! I'm afraid that you'll lose something far more important than control of your bladder, young man!"

"What, my soul?" The scorn was rich in his voice.

The old man paused, and his figure drew an aura of menace around it from the shadows and red wash of firelight. There was grim appraisal in the hoods of his eyes. "I would not be so cavalier about that, were I you. No. I would not be so confident at all."

The boy quailed back. " ... Grandad ... What do you mean? Grandad, stop it! Tell me!" His obvious fear seemed to calm the old man, and the looming menace faded from his stooped shoulders.

"Shhh. I'm sorry. But you shouldn't laugh about it. Your soul is a far more fragile thing than you might think. And no, I don't think a story can steal your soul, though you can never be sure. There are more things in this world than even I know about. It isn't your soul I fear for, not yet."

The boy edged forward again, now that the threat appeared to have passed. "What then?"

Where before the old man's shoulders had straightened with power and menace, here they bowed, as if all the sorrows of the world were weighing on them. His voice was very soft. "Your innocence, my boy. I'm afraid for your innocence. So precious and fragile a thing. Such a very easy thing to lose." And there was such a sad certainty in his voice, such a quiet despair, that the boy didn't argue, though he didn't understand. And they sat in uneasy silence for a long time.

Finally, as he heard the rattle of keys in the door, as his parents came in to collect him, the boy looked up at his grandfather, chin jutted determinedly. "Grandad?" There was a measure of respect now, in his voice, to replace the earlier scorn. Something in the old man's sadness had touched him, despite his young arrogance.

The elder raised his head, a shadow of humour about him at the boy's tone. "Yes?"

"Promise me something?"

The old man looked wary, but nodded. "If I can, certainly."

The boy looked him in the eyes, firmly. "Promise me, when I'm older, and I don't have so much innocence to lose, that you'll tell me about the prince?"

A shadow passed over the old man's face, but he nodded, wearily. "Yes. When you're older. That I'll promise, alright. When you're older, you'll need to know." And his voice stumbled a bit on the words.

The boy nodded, gravely, recognising that something heavy had settled over them both, an obligation on both sides. "I promise I'll be ready, when it comes," he offered, softly. His grandfather nodded, respect in his air as well as the sadness. And the boy stood up, and left to go with his parents, greeting them with childish arrogance and reassuring them, with all the innocent guile that is the preserve of childhood, that he'd had a wonderful time with old grandad.

And the old man sat in the firelight and listened to the car pull away, his eyes on the prince, while his silent despair gathered in the shadows on the edges of the light, and in the darkness beneath his hooded eyebrows.

---
 

Title: Skinstitch

Genre: Supernatural/Horror

Wordcount: 1383

 

There is a version of the werewolf myth, from the French mountains, that says you may know a werewolf because he lacks all body hair. His fur, you see, is inside his skin, and comes out only when he transforms, so he has no hair on the outside. That is the werewolf myth. But we, we are not werewolves. We are the Skin-Stitched. And where those poor men carry their fur inside their skin, ours is stitched through it, a curse for all to see. The Skin-Stitched cannot hide.

I am Pierre Martinique, once a writer of some renown. I wrote mysteries, supernatural thrillers, that kind of thing. But this, what I am writing this moment, this is something different. An autobiography. A science-fiction creepshow. A history of a plague. All at once. There are those among us, we who are about to die, sitting next to me, who tell me that this is the end of days, that I write of humanity's last moments. That the skinstitch is a sign of Judgement and the Apocalypse. Perhaps they are right, though I confess I have never heard of a biblical plague like this. Well. Leprosy, maybe, but that only because of how society treats us. Not that I blame them, exactly.

I should frame this. I should tell a perfect tale, draw on all my skills to weave something heartbreaking for you to read. I should offer you words to wring tears from your heart, explain this, make this torture mean something. That is what I should do. I should weave a myth of Judgement Day, and guide you safely through the skinstitch horror to whatever waits on the other side.

I should do this. But I cannot.

There is no meaning to this. None that I can see. There is nothing special about we who were chosen, no sin, no virtue, no choice. It was accident, mindless fate, the clumsy fumbling of beings in pain and fear reaching out, desperately, and dragging all they touched down with them. Maybe they knew what they were cursing us with, the first to fall to the skinstitch, maybe they didn't. Maybe they didn't care. Maybe they just wanted one last human touch, and didn't care what it would do. Maybe it was worse than that, more innocent, more cruel. I don't know. I don't know anything, and there is no-one to tell me. We are all as blind as each other, the one characteristic we do share, sitting here in the death pits.

I could blame you, if I wanted. You out there, back in the world of the living. I could find some hate inside me, throw it out at you. Rant and rail at you for putting us here, for herding us away to die, sitting, never touching, isolated and alone beside each other as we watch for the first to fall. I could blame you. But ... I don't, I think. Not really. I don't know what choice you had, in the face of the skinstitch. I don't even really care. I have my own pain, my own guilt. I let you keep yours, unburdened by mine.

Oh, forgive me! I just thought of something. Maybe it wasn't you. Isn't you. Won't be be you. After all, I do not know who I am talking to. Who is reading this, if anyone. It is not as if I can send this to anyone, not as if anyone will come. Not now. Maybe you are years from me, whoever you are. Maybe you deserve no part of my hate, or their guilt, or our pain. Maybe skinstitch means nothing at all to you, a plague lost to history, forgotten.

Maybe we are forgotten already.

Should I tell you, then? My distant friend. You do not mind that I call you friend, do you? I should like it, if you would let me. It is ... so long, since I have known friendship. Not even the strange, corrupted version that flares here or there, in the colonies. I am ... I cannot countenance that, that particular horror. I have been invaded once, irrevocably. I shall not invite it again. But you, distant, unreachable, touched only by my words and not the plague that has taken me ... you are a worthy friend for my last hours, I think. I hope. So forgive me the liberties I take, if you please? Indulge a dying man? Only listen, a little while, until I can speak no more, and then I will let you be. Forever, most probably.

Do you, now that I think of it? Do you know of the skinstitch, at all? I do not know what you would call it, if you do. But if you know it, you will never forget it. If you recognise the horror I describe, by whatever name, then I cannot see how you could ever forget.

It has been nearly a year, since I met it. Since the skinstitch took me. I didn't know what it was, then. No-one did. No-one really does, even still, but the name ... now the name is cried in panic where once it was nothing more than a whisper. A whisper I had not heard, even, when I fell beneath its power. I do not even know how I contracted it. A touch of infected skin in the street. I don't know. That is what I mean by purposeless. Senseless, accidental infection, destruction of lives hinged on the barest brush of the hand. Can you imagine it?

It was that night, before I felt it, before I understood. The itch, beneath the skin of my fingers. The black, wire-like growths that spun from beneath my nails. That night, as it spread through me, as I screamed in terror, I understood part of what the skinstitch is.

Have you ever looked at your hand? The skin? Have you ever focused in, on the pores, the tiny cracks, the minute lines that crisscross you in your entirety? Ever traced them with your eyes, noted the places where tiny hairs sprout, the pores like gaps in the weave of a cloth? Have you ever thought what it would be like to take a needle and thread, and stitch along those lines, pore to pore, the black lines of thread diving in and out, in and out, pouring across your flesh, weaving a black web over and under and through it? In, out. Over, under. Threads, thin and thrusting and alive, breaking your skin, over and over, invading you, pushing forwards across you, drowning you beneath their weight. Smothering you, strangling you ...

Skinstitch, they call it. No-one knows what it is, exactly. They know what it does, they know what it affects, though that's all. Mammals. Living mammals. A parasite, or maybe a symbiont, forcing its way onto your body, weaving through your skin, like the werewolf's fur, like the stitch of a cruel seamstress. It feeds off the host, of course. There are no fat Skin-Stitched. Hah! The ultimate diet plan. So it takes something, nutrients, water, who knows. It feeds. But that physical sacrifice, that is a pittance, compared to what it truly takes from you. What it steals ... But later for that.

It doesn't touch inside you, doesn't go beneath the surface, beneath the skin. Doesn't touch the nose, the eyes, the mouth, the entrances to the body, the sensory organs. In some, maybe, it finds its way inside the ears, just far enough to mute the sound of the world, but not really enough to damage what's inside. It needs its host alive, healthy, with all that it takes from us. It needs us to move, to feed, to sleep. It acts, in some ways, almost like a covering, like a living fur. There are ... advantages, maybe. I do know that it stops piercing force, knives, bullets. Nothing gets through the skinstitch, once it has you. Nothing may cut you, and you can never bleed, not from the skin. But inside, yes. And a concussive force can still break bones, cause internal bleeding, even kill you. But despite this, in its way, it does still make you a little bit invincible. Not least because anyone who touches you is infected. There are few who would willingly risk that.

---
 

Title: Thistledown

Genre: Steampunk/Sci-fi

Wordcount: 785

 

 

The wind was humming today. She could feel it snatching gently at her, watching as it scurried and eddied through the dust. It was humming, the hollow singing of the distant Flute, a whisper through her bones, a song she knew to her marrow. The Flute was calling, on this day of all days, and her heart leapt and sang within her. The Flute was waiting, and it was ready to embrace them. There could be no better omen.

She looked out across the airfield, across the giddy expanse of playful dust, past the gleaming brass Windwings that hulked like impatient beasts, out to the entrance and the cloud of flyers that waited there. Thistles, come for the Last Flight of their general. Come to fly above the Flute, and watch it take the Crow to her death. Matia smiled, a strange, lopsided smile, her eyes glowing with a mischievous serenity. Today, the greatest of the flyers took her funeral flight, and the wind sang in the Flute. Today was a good day.

"Ho, Mattie!" a voice called from behind her, and Matia turned into the shadow of her 'wing, waiting for her eyes to adjust so they could pick out the figure leaning nonchalantly against her bird.

"Jonas," she greeted, warmly, and grinned a little as he came forward to catch her hand and bow over it, his ridiculous hat slipping over his eyes as he did so. Shaking her head, she propped it back up on his head, and brushed aside the wispy bits of red hair that tickled his nose. He tipped his head to the side in gratitude, and almost lost his hat again, catching it hurriedly while she chuckled at him. "You flying today?"

He nodded, his eyes cutting towards the waiting Thistles, and for a second something darkened in him, some shadow of apprehension, and Mattie remembered. His nephew was flying today, one of the many youths who would risk their lives for fate and courage and the Flute.

"The Flute is singing today," she told him, quietly, seeking to reassure, as much as possible. "I feel it. Today is a good day to fly, Jonas."

He looked at her for a long minute, fear and gratitude tangled with something deeper, with the memory of the Flute and his own fierce and almost final flight, of the rush of wind and the ache of fear and the gleam of glass. You could always see it, she thought. In the eyes of everyone who had flown the Flute. The terror and relief and longing. It was in Jonas in that moment, a clear and vivid thing, almost alive. And then, quietly, it slipped away, and he was smiling at her as if he knew a joke she did not.

"For you, Matia, every day is a good day to fly," he noted wryly, and she punched his arm. He only grinned, reaching out around her testy fists to pull her into a one-armed hug, awkward and grinning. "Thank you," he whispered, softly, against her cheek, and Mattie stopped fighting to smile softly to herself, her heart singing again, happily.

"Of course," she said, quietly. "Every day a good day to fly, and none a good day to die." She laughed, cheerful and vicious. "I'm the fastest thing in the skies, Jonas. None of the bastards are ever gonna catch me." He nodded, grinning a little, and stared out at the wheeling skies above them, blank and distant, watching something far away.

"Think they'll come?" he asked, musingly. "Think they'll attack today?"

She followed his gaze, out to the darker skies beyond and the harsh windsongs of the Valley, the home of the enemy. She listened to the wind as it rushed singing through the Flute to pour laughingly into the Valley, thinking of the rains of Thistles that had flown with it time and again to fall on the battleships of the enemy, thinking of skies full of the tumbling white cloudsilks and the white beams of their weapons. She thought of the vengance of a weary people, and smiled fiercely into the dust.

"They'll come," she answered, soft and sure. "It's the Crow's last flight, the end of an era. Their last chance of the Cycle. They'll come." She turned to look at him, her eyes unblinking, the light of battle shining in them. "They have to." And he looked down at her, his only arm still wrapped around her shoulders, and nodded. No smile from him. Not from Jonas. Never from him. But his eyes met hers, and the Flute rose within them in a dark, hollow singing, and she leaned into the void he carried in his heart, and laughed.

Today was a good day to fly.