self-harm mention – MonstersinBlackSilk

… Can you tell her
we’ll deal with him eventually?

She hears you. She just doesn’t care.

… Why—DEAR GOD!

Ha ha ha… she showed you what she really looks like, didn’t
she? Don’t worry. She’s much scarier than she appears.

… Miss Reyes—

Mrs. McCree, please. Jesse and I are married after all.

…Mrs. McCree. What
does she hope to accomplish by harming him?

Hmm… to prevent this entire base from being demolished by
Talon. You hear that?

… I… the glass behind
you just… just cracked by itself…

Ah. You might want to move him, and keep his hands from the
S.O.S. signal on his wrist.

Modern Day

We stare at the screen as it goes black.

I turn and look at my father, then shift to look at my uncle
over either shoulder; they’re in just as much confusion and disbelief as I am.

The recording continues and flicks back to a picture of my
mother. She’s… she’s dressed the way she was the night attack happened. She
sighs,

“A few hours from now I’ll be dead. Never thought I’d ever
say those words with such certainty. But I have something more I need to say:
I’m sorry I didn’t tell any of you, but I’m not sorry for what I did. You would
have tried to stop me from changing the future, sacrificed yourselves and left
me and Gabrielle alone. Or tried to keep us safe directly and we would have
both watched you die. Gabe, don’t blame Jack for taking our daughter to your
mother’s. She threatened to kill you both if he didn’t. You know how she is.”

My father and I glance at Jack who nods; my mother’s not
finished,

“Gabby,” I turn back to the screen, “… triplets? I know
you’re an over achiever but really?”

I laugh even as my rage begins boiling back to the surface;
before I can scream at the screen she shushes me,

“I know. I know love believe me if I were in your shoes I
would angry too. But if you had to choose between your child and yourself, who
would you choose?” she asks.

She already knows the answer and while I want to stay angry
at her I can’t. She knew she was going to die, knew my father would become a
monster, knew Jack would become obsessed with revenge and knew I would become
resentful of her. I can’t imagine the strain she was under.

“Mama!” I hear.

She closes her eyes, “Almost time. I’m sending this
recording with someone to make sure it gets to the base. He’s going to be using
the upper floors as his base, making sure everything’s up to date. This place
he’s promised not to touch; TinTwo won’t like him snooping and he’s afraid of
the dog. I love you all, and whatever happens, that won’t change. It’s why I never
treated any of you differently; why punish you for things that hadn’t happened
yet?”

“Hon?” My father shouts from the recording.

She smiles at us, “Bye.” She whispers and ends the
recording.

I watch the water and suds swirling down the drain. I think I’ve
used all the hot water by now. Jesse tried talking to me after I left the room,
but I wasn’t in the mood. Jack went to the shooting range in the basement, my
father to the bar, then to his bedroom.

She duplicated everything, including my room… except there’s
no princess blue lampshades, or sparkling, glitter covered decorations hanging
from the ceiling. The bed is adult sized, and the comforter is big enough to
wrap around two people. I don’t know how the hell she found that stupid… blue
princess music box… it looks almost like the one…

I slam my palm against the shower stall. Pain spiderwebs up
my arm and shoots up to my brain. Things went missing from our house after the
tornado. I didn’t think about them because I was just happy to have my parents
and TinTin. I slam my hand again and again as images flash through my head and
my vision blurs with tears. Red mixes with the suds going down the drain.

The color fills my vision and I slide to the floor, gasping
as my head feels like it’s cracking open, and get pulled into a violent vision…
of the past.

I see dancers.
Feathers, jade, gold. Dancing, twirling in torch and firelight. Two forms make
their way through the crowd, one well known, smiles greeting her, the other
also well known, bodies withdrawing. Eyes averted.

La Muerta and Quetzalcoatl.

The feathered serpent
steps up to an alter, stone blades curved and set in stone. He cuts his arms as
the other dancers have; La Muerta joins him, and they bow to the muscians.
Drums and flutes, pipes and voices.

They dance and spin, their
blood mixing with those who worship them; Gods becoming less God, humans
becoming more than human. Quetzalcoatl and La Muerta dance with the others,
blood splattered against the alter and other dancers. The offering of life, the
connection between the living and the immortal, the Gods and those they make.
They live through those who worship them.

The dancers retire.
Their wounds heal, and La Muerta and Quetzalcoatl withdraw. They’ve claimed the
people as their own.

A splitting headache cuts through the vision and I’m left
gasping.

“Brother…” I whisper.

More pain and another vision.

The dancers are dead.
Offered to the gods who devour life. The Dancing Goddess, Goddess of the
People, La Muerta. Dying. Dead. Her bones are bloody, and she continues to
dance, a jaguar pelt her only dress, her long black hair soaked in blood. Hers.
The dancers. The Peoples.

Revenge is born when
the People die. She draws a demon, the Spaniard, to the empty places where her
people once danced offering their life to the Gods, offering Living to the
Gods. The Feathered Serpent has returned, but he people are dead; a young woman
weeps. A dancer has survived both the blood letting and the massacre. Quetzalcoatl
kisses her and draw her close. She’s safe and carriers his child. She’s slept
till his return. She becomes human as The Feathered Serpent cuts his own feathers,
his scales and skin from his body. A cloak of gleaming scales and feathers now
wraps around her shoulders.

He dies, and La Muerta
carries her twin’s body to the underworld. The dead gods sleep. And La Muerta
sleeps.

“You haven’t bore
demons this time, La Malinche.” A man
speaks, blood on his lips, on his chest, pouring from the hole in his chest, “you
won’t revive them. We’ve stopped you—” He collapses.

“Grandfather…”

I gasp, pain lacerating my heart, my head.

The Gatherers… the
brothers who gathered the dead…

ugh my head hurts… I can’t think…

my father, uncles…
they’re here…

La Muerta? What are ?

… Hush… sleep…

Blackness takes me…

@zarcake-writes

Lucinda stared the reflection of her tear stained face, even
while the warm water rippled around her. Tristan had taken her back to his
room, while the others regrouped. He’d told her later that Aidan was awake and,
after vomiting up chunks of bone that weren’t his or food, had started eating
again. Lucinda had given him the blade she would braid in her hair, so Tristan
wouldn’t worry.

Lucinda had tried before but her younger sister always
turned her back. It was those attempts after her sister’s death that had made
her a more powerful Necromancer, as she brought pieces of the other side back
with her each time. Although the first time she had to claw her way out of an
open grave while her mother stood above her, she’d wondered if she really
wanted to come back.

She glanced up as Tristan stepped into that side of the room
wearing nothing but loose trousers, “Ion just went to bed; we’ll see how she
sleeps tomorrow.” He said.

She leaned back against the tub, “Okay.”

He stepped closer, “Are you alright?”

She shook her head, “I thought I had gotten past this. I
thought it wouldn’t affect me like this.”

Tristan motioned to the tub, “May I join you?”

She nodded, “Sure. Just promise me you won’t freak out when
you see them.”

Tristan paused with his hands on the hem of his pants, “See
what?”

“My scars.” Lucinda ran her hand up her leg, feeling the
extensive markings of her suffering as a Necromancer initiate. In addition to a
few others she’d caused herself.

Tristan dropped his pants, and dropped into the water with a
splash, “Which ones? The ones on your legs, or the ones along your back and buttocks?”
He asked.

She glanced up, noticing the pitch-black eye staring at her,
“The dead can’t be fooled.” She whispered.

He moved along the edge until he sat in front of her, “Why’d
you hide them?”

She shook her head, “Most people in my mother’s kingdom can
tell how much you’ve learned by how many scars you have. My mother doesn’t have
an inch of skin that isn’t covered with brands, runes, you name it. She’s been
impaled, stabbed, strangled, poisoned, bludgeoned, but you’d never know it.”

Tristan reached over and picked up her hand beneath the
water, “Some of these look… self-inflicted. May I ask?”

Lucinda shook her head, “Not now. I’m not in a good place
right now.”

Tristan nodded, before moving towards her, slowly; she
watches him crawl between her legs, and placing his arms on either side of her.
He kissed her forehead, before she sobbed and lunged forward, knocking him
backwards into the water. They some up for air, and Tristan gently moves her
wet hair from her face and then his hands gently over the intricate pattern cut
into her skin.

She smiles at him, “I don’t want to think right now and I don’t
want this to be the first real time we do anything, but… I need you. I hate myself for asking this, but i need you.”

He smiles back at her, “I never withdrew my consent,
remember?”

Tears fall down her cheeks, “What should your word be?”

Tristan thought for a moment before saying, “How about
Striga?”

She laughed, “Sure. That would get me to stop.”

Tristan kissed her gently, “Here, or the bed?”

She returns his kiss and whispers, “The bed, please.”

******

He lays her down gently on the covers, and she hiccups; she’s
never been naked, completely exposed like this, before. Tristan doesn’t seem
nervous at all, but then again he’s never had to hide his scars. Expecting him
to begin in earnest, Lucinda isn’t prepared for gently kisses, starting from
the top of her head, down to the place between her legs where a carnal seal had
been burned into her flesh years ago.

His tongue eases its way inside her and she gasps; he’s not
looking away, he’s not closing his eyes, he’s staring up at her, past the
expanse of her marked, burned and healed flesh. His tigerhood has already began
filling with blood when he rises just enough to kiss her stomach; she blinks,
and a glamour fades from his face. Heavy scarring holds the black eye in place,
as if the creature had torn out his original and he’d claimed a replacement.
Part of his left ear was missing, and as he slid up beside her, she noted it
wasn’t part of a finger missing, but the whole digit.

“Mistakes.” He said, his voice gravely. She saw crisscrossing
scars over the front of his throat.

“Why are you showing me?” She asked, watching him bring his
fingers to his mouth to wet them.

“Because,” he whispered, sliding his slickened fingers through
her folds, “I don’t want to hide anything from you either.”

She moaned as he slid a finger inside her, then claimed her
mouth with his; she slid her hand through the fur on the side of his face, holding
him close as his tongue danced and explored with hers. She let out a small gasp
when he inserted a second finger into her, stroking and teasing, until she
clamped her legs tightly around his hand and came.

“Fuck, Tristan!” She whispered.

“Shh… it’s okay. Just ride it out. I plan to make you do
that a lot tonight, so please try to enjoy.”

She pressed her face into his shoulder, taking in his scent,
as he pried her legs apart gently to remove his hand. Making sure she could
see, he licked each finger clean,

“Sweetest nectar in the world I say.” He whispered.

She feels her face flush, and groans as he leans down and
takes one of her nipples in his mouth. Teeth holding it taught, his tongue
torments her soft flesh to the point of near pain. He lets her nipple slip from
his mouth, before his tongue and lips begin stroking the mound. She bites her
lip to keep from moaning loudly; he’s running his hands up and down her spine,
gently massaging the back of her neck.

She feels something inside her loosen a little, a moment
before Tristan slides back down, leaving seering kisses in his wake, and
torments her womanhood with his tongue. She grabs a pillow and screams into it
as he brings her to her second orgasm of the night, then lifts to find him
watching her, chin resting on his overlapping hands, which rested on her stomach.
His tail flicked back and forth lazily, and he was smiling gently,

“Shall I continue? Or should we move on?” he asked.

She took a deep breath and said, “Move on please?”

He ran kisses up her scarred flesh, until his tigerhood slid
across the slick opening between her legs. She tensed, until he kissed her,
sliding his arms underneath her as he pulled her closer to him. She wrapped her
arms around him, as he began his slow entrance into her.

She winced slightly as he stretched her open, “T-tristan… it…
it… hurts a little.”

He sighed and kissed her cheek, “You’re not relaxing. It’ll
hurt if you’re tense, and there’s not enough lube down there. My saliva
hopefully helps, but a lot of this falls to you.”

She hugged him, and whispered, “Okay… I tell you when to
stop.”

He moved another inch into her but she gasped, “Oh shit.”

“Did I hurt you?” He asked.

She shook her head, “It… felt good this time.”

Growling low in his throat, he pulled out and slid back into
her. She took deep breaths as he slowly filled her, wincing as he stretched her
wide. Once inside, he stopped, licking her cheek and shoulder as she slowly got
used to him. Finally, when him moving didn’t hurt nearly as much, she pressed
her nose against his,

“Pound me into the matress.” She whispered.

He rolled his eyes, “Not now, my honeysuckle. Later, when I don’t
have to worry about you pulling something by accident.”

She grunted as he kissed her, then ran tongue down her cheek
to her shoulder, “But I wonder: did you study some of our mating habits?”

She braced herself and almost came as he sank his teeth into
her flesh; she gasped as he began thrusting his hips in short strokes that kept
her on the edge, then shifted to long, hard strokes where their hips collided
and she could see stars.

Digging her nails into his shoulder blades, she groaned at
how good each stroke felt, even the rougher ones that knocked the wind out of
her lungs.

“Tristan… faster…” she said in his ear.

Growling against her shoulder, he complied, thrusting into
her willing body fast enough she stopped counting her orgasms. The fur at his
groin stroked her clit with each thrust and after a while the pain was gone completely.
She was so wet, there was no friction whatsoever.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he changed his
angle; the next few thrusts went deeper than the previous ones, but more than
that:

“I… I can’t… come like this…” she said.

Pulling away from her shoulder, Tristan grinned down at her
with pearly white teeth, “Tiger magic. You’re going to be sore in the morning
for sure, but until we both want to come, neither of us will.”

She stared up at him wide-eyed before glancing down; his
hard cock moved in and out of her rapidly, stroking the deepest parts of her
body, the parts unscarred and untainted. She felt his sac slapping her butt and
licked her lips before squeezing him gently. Growling, Tristan looked into her
eyes, panting as she drew him deeper and teased him more with each thrust.

“Together or never.” He whispered.

“Always…. Oh fuck.” She said throwing her head back.

He slammed into her with one last, harsh stroke that
connected their bodies in the most intimate way; she wrapped her arms around
his neck, panting along with him as the building wave broke and sent both of
them shuddering over the edge. She held him as close as she could as he emptied
himself into her, even as he groaned and pulled her tightly against him.

Minutes passed and they finally came down with an exhausted sigh
of relief. Tristan purred against her, something she didn’t know his kind could
do, while she ran her hands over each scar.

“I love you.” He whispered.

She looked up at him, and smiled, “I love you too.”

****

Yeah i figured it was time for smut. HAVE AT IT PEOPLE.

@zarcake-writes @howtobangyourmonster @karanthos @momolady @terato-imagines @inumorph

Tag: self-harm mention

La Muerta part 21

Tiger by the Heart part 9: Painful Reflections