Medical Meccanica
Banned
So, I've been doing this prompt challenge based in a LJ community called Runaway Tales. I plan on doing a different story for each 'flavor' (set of prompts), but so far all I have is one story for the Mango challenge (which I haven't even finished). I have others planned, though.
A quick legend-sort of thing:
Mango - Untitled1: A world based on Japanese myth. Oni, gaki, tsuchigumo and tengu are the main 4 races that live in the world.
Cranberry - "Bayacrux": A post-apocalyptic world where humans must make pacts with creatures to survive. Much changed over the old version, if you've seen it.
Bubble Gum - "Ghost Dolls": An original story inspired by a sort of "what if" regarding a certain Pokemon. Dolls who have souls live together in groups of strictly 5 under the command of the human Doll Lord.
Okay, so the stories.
MANGO #1 - WHAT'S THAT?
Ganymede had never seen a spider-person before. He had never been out of the city for that matter, but that was a different thing alltogether.
Ganymede also disliked spiders. No, scratch that, he HATED spiders. Every spider he saw either met with the palm of his hand of the bottom of his foot.
So seeing a creature who looked like an oni with peachy-colored skin and the lower body of a spider in his mother's palace was quite the experience. It wasn't the same as, say, the time he and Daijiro were cussed out by a gaki worker who was then taken to be executed, but an experience nonetheless.
"Ganymede", Daijiro whispered, "you've never seen a tsuchigumo before?"
Ganymede shook his head. He glanced over at the visitor and sighed. This was going to be fun. He walked up to the tsuchigumo boy, who looked about his age, and extended a hand for a handshake.
The boy took a look over at Ganymede and turned his head back to the throne where the Empress was talking to a servant. He looked again, and seeing Ganymede's hand, extended one of his spindly lower legs to shake it.
Ganymede smiled, delivering a purposely-crushing handshake. The tsuchigumo looked back over, brows furrowed, and smiling, bared his fangs.
This was the start of a beautiful friendship.
MANGO #2 - LOOK BEHIND YOU
The rain came down hard. The fine dust that had settled on the floors of Kagami's roofless house was dissipating into the air, leaving the slight smell of coal.
She walked out, carrying a paper-like umbrella. Not that it helped. Maybe the wishful thinking would keep the rain away.
Kagami arrived at the meeting place in front of the mines, looking around, her eyes moving from location to location. Today was Sunday, the workers' day off.
An unmistakeable smell, the smell of wet feathers and mountain air, hit Kagami's nose. She turned towards the scent and saw Karasu perched on the top of the mine entrance.
"You don't have to make an entrance like that. I can tell when you're coming", Kagami said.
Karasu snorted. "Kreech- I like high places. I have good balance, too"
The tengu man hopped down, shaking out his feathers and leaving Kagami even more soaking wet than before. She wiped the water droplets off of her horns.
"So, the invasion will start tommorow, correct?", she said.
"The poison has been made. We begin tommorow, skree", the bird-man said.
Kagami smiled. "Very good. And about the reinforcements?"
"They're here already. You will hide them?"
Kagami nodded. "I will". Her face then took on a more serious look. "You haven't told me what kind of reinforcements we have, though"
Karasu grinned, or at least the closest you could come to it with a beak. "Trust me. Just...". He paused. Kagami stared at him, and during that long silence, Karasu's smile grew wider with each second.
"Just don't look behind you"
MANGO #3 - WAIT FOR ME
After several hours of begging, Karasu had allowed Daijiro to make one phone call.
"Please", he had said, "I need to talk to my brother". Karasu sighed. He had hoped to capture the future emperor later, but certain circumstances made him kidnap him as a child. In Karasu's visions, Daijiro was a cold-blooded killer who ruled the world with iron claws, but this kid was different than he had expected. Although he was an expert fighter (for his age), he showed little resistance to simply being held against his own will. He was... calm. Nothing like Karasu had seen.
"Fine, skree. You call your brother, then we'll take you back to the cell", Karasu said. If only he knew the oni language better! The tengu dialect was a simple variant of the oni language, but the two had their differences, and that was enough to make Karasu slip up his words. His voice didn't express his intellect well enough.
Daijiro spun the dial around and waited several seconds. He then greeted the person on the other end. Karasu's ears could hear a very faint voice from the reciever.
"Yes? Daijiro! What happened? Where are you?"
Daijiro looked over at Karasu, who gave him a nasty look. "I can't tell you. But I'm safe. Don't worry about me"
"Daijiro, we're coming to save you. Don't worry about it. Wait for me"
"Ganymede, don't. I'm fine"
"Wait for me, Daijiro. I'm going to kill whoever did this to you. I'm going to make that bastard pay"
Karasu concentrated deeply as the brothers continued their conversation. Cloudy images appeared in his mind of past visions, and he pulled from the back of his thoughts the vision of the corrupt emperor brutally murdering his own brother. Suddenly, his mind blanked out, and his head began to ache. Another vision was coming.
"I see two brothers", Karasu began, seemingly deep in a trance.
"I have to go", Daijiro said, hanging up the phone and looking over at his captor.
"Yes, keke, I see two brothers fighting. I hear the sound of steel against steel and smell the odor of sweat."
Daijiro listened intently as Karasu described the scene of the brothers' fight. It sounded very similar to the palace where he lived, down to the elevator where he was captured and the kamaitachi statues surrounding it.
"One brother strikes down the other. He is talking to his sibling. He is saying something... SKRAAAA!"
Daijiro lurched back as Karasu let out what to him sounded like a tengu war cry. The bird-man slumped to the floor, several of his feathers flying around the drafty room. About five minutes later, Karasu woke up.
"Daijiro", he said.
"Yes?", the boy said. "What did you hear?"
"Go to the bridge outside of the village. Wait for me. Wait for me. Wait for me..."
Karasu repeated endlessly as Daijiro left the room to wait for him at the end of the bridge. All night, nobody came. Finally in the morning Daijiro was escorted by a large cowbird tengu back to the room he had been put in. He knew better than to run away that night. He knew there was something not right about the entire situation.
When he passed by his captor's house that morning, he distracted the guard and peeked inside. Karasu was asleep on the floor, surrounded by bottles and a single black and white photograph of a female tengu in a heart-shaped frame.
MANGO #4 - THE LAST TO KNOW
"You do know...", Aoi began. Madara swallowed hard. This couldn't be good.
"You do know that I saw Ganymede and Kagami... well, how should I say it... kissing the other day?", she said. Madara's cheeks flushed red and he backed away from the tengu girl.
"That's... that's not possible!", he cried. "Kagami told me..."
"Forget what Kagami told you, that girl's a dirty liar", Aoi said, flipping her hair out of her eye and leaning in to face the tsuchigumo boy. "L I A R, liar...", she whispered.
Madara slapped her away. Aoi held a hand to her beak where his hand had made contact.
"You act so normal around everyone else!", Madara yelled. He hoped Ganymede was telling the truth when he said he was a heavy sleeper. "Stop teasing me!"
Aoi chuckled. "You're always the last to know, Madara. You're so cute"
The tengu walked away to her futon, leaving Madara's usually pale face bright red with anger... or something else?
MANGO #5 - IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT
A single figure stood in the middle of the rickety bridge in the night air. A second figure approached it, treading lightly in the dewy grass and onto the bridge.
"We have to talk", the first figure said. She held up a lantern, lighting up her delicate red feathers and crest.
The other figure looked over. His feathers were pitch black with a blue sheen in the light from the lantern. The night was cloudy, blocking off the moon and stars from reaching the couple on the bridge.
"What about?", the male figure said. "Kree- Why'd you bring me out here?"
"Karasu. I'm just going to be up-front with you on this... my mother arranged our marraige"
He reached out to hug her, but she blocked with one winged arm.
"You still love your baby crow, skraak?", Karasu said, tilting his head to one side.
"I... I never loved you, Karasu. It was all an act. My mother only wanted me to marry you to gain control of your followers", she said.
"Not true! SKRAA!", Karasu screamed. In an act of impulse, he shoved the tengu girl away from him. She tried to brace herself, but the bridge tilted in the wind, and too startled to fly, the cardinal tengu was flung off the bridge and into the chasm below.
Karasu looked down, but all he could see was darkness. All he could feel was the darkness, enclosing his mind. But this wasn't a vision. This was real. He gripped his head in his claws, stumbling backwards across the bridge and back onto the grass. Collecting his thoughts, he ran onto the bridge, crying his former lover's name.
"AOI! AOIII!"
Like her feathers, his pleas were swallowed by the black night.
A quick legend-sort of thing:
Mango - Untitled1: A world based on Japanese myth. Oni, gaki, tsuchigumo and tengu are the main 4 races that live in the world.
Cranberry - "Bayacrux": A post-apocalyptic world where humans must make pacts with creatures to survive. Much changed over the old version, if you've seen it.
Bubble Gum - "Ghost Dolls": An original story inspired by a sort of "what if" regarding a certain Pokemon. Dolls who have souls live together in groups of strictly 5 under the command of the human Doll Lord.
Okay, so the stories.
MANGO #1 - WHAT'S THAT?
Ganymede had never seen a spider-person before. He had never been out of the city for that matter, but that was a different thing alltogether.
Ganymede also disliked spiders. No, scratch that, he HATED spiders. Every spider he saw either met with the palm of his hand of the bottom of his foot.
So seeing a creature who looked like an oni with peachy-colored skin and the lower body of a spider in his mother's palace was quite the experience. It wasn't the same as, say, the time he and Daijiro were cussed out by a gaki worker who was then taken to be executed, but an experience nonetheless.
"Ganymede", Daijiro whispered, "you've never seen a tsuchigumo before?"
Ganymede shook his head. He glanced over at the visitor and sighed. This was going to be fun. He walked up to the tsuchigumo boy, who looked about his age, and extended a hand for a handshake.
The boy took a look over at Ganymede and turned his head back to the throne where the Empress was talking to a servant. He looked again, and seeing Ganymede's hand, extended one of his spindly lower legs to shake it.
Ganymede smiled, delivering a purposely-crushing handshake. The tsuchigumo looked back over, brows furrowed, and smiling, bared his fangs.
This was the start of a beautiful friendship.
MANGO #2 - LOOK BEHIND YOU
The rain came down hard. The fine dust that had settled on the floors of Kagami's roofless house was dissipating into the air, leaving the slight smell of coal.
She walked out, carrying a paper-like umbrella. Not that it helped. Maybe the wishful thinking would keep the rain away.
Kagami arrived at the meeting place in front of the mines, looking around, her eyes moving from location to location. Today was Sunday, the workers' day off.
An unmistakeable smell, the smell of wet feathers and mountain air, hit Kagami's nose. She turned towards the scent and saw Karasu perched on the top of the mine entrance.
"You don't have to make an entrance like that. I can tell when you're coming", Kagami said.
Karasu snorted. "Kreech- I like high places. I have good balance, too"
The tengu man hopped down, shaking out his feathers and leaving Kagami even more soaking wet than before. She wiped the water droplets off of her horns.
"So, the invasion will start tommorow, correct?", she said.
"The poison has been made. We begin tommorow, skree", the bird-man said.
Kagami smiled. "Very good. And about the reinforcements?"
"They're here already. You will hide them?"
Kagami nodded. "I will". Her face then took on a more serious look. "You haven't told me what kind of reinforcements we have, though"
Karasu grinned, or at least the closest you could come to it with a beak. "Trust me. Just...". He paused. Kagami stared at him, and during that long silence, Karasu's smile grew wider with each second.
"Just don't look behind you"
MANGO #3 - WAIT FOR ME
After several hours of begging, Karasu had allowed Daijiro to make one phone call.
"Please", he had said, "I need to talk to my brother". Karasu sighed. He had hoped to capture the future emperor later, but certain circumstances made him kidnap him as a child. In Karasu's visions, Daijiro was a cold-blooded killer who ruled the world with iron claws, but this kid was different than he had expected. Although he was an expert fighter (for his age), he showed little resistance to simply being held against his own will. He was... calm. Nothing like Karasu had seen.
"Fine, skree. You call your brother, then we'll take you back to the cell", Karasu said. If only he knew the oni language better! The tengu dialect was a simple variant of the oni language, but the two had their differences, and that was enough to make Karasu slip up his words. His voice didn't express his intellect well enough.
Daijiro spun the dial around and waited several seconds. He then greeted the person on the other end. Karasu's ears could hear a very faint voice from the reciever.
"Yes? Daijiro! What happened? Where are you?"
Daijiro looked over at Karasu, who gave him a nasty look. "I can't tell you. But I'm safe. Don't worry about me"
"Daijiro, we're coming to save you. Don't worry about it. Wait for me"
"Ganymede, don't. I'm fine"
"Wait for me, Daijiro. I'm going to kill whoever did this to you. I'm going to make that bastard pay"
Karasu concentrated deeply as the brothers continued their conversation. Cloudy images appeared in his mind of past visions, and he pulled from the back of his thoughts the vision of the corrupt emperor brutally murdering his own brother. Suddenly, his mind blanked out, and his head began to ache. Another vision was coming.
"I see two brothers", Karasu began, seemingly deep in a trance.
"I have to go", Daijiro said, hanging up the phone and looking over at his captor.
"Yes, keke, I see two brothers fighting. I hear the sound of steel against steel and smell the odor of sweat."
Daijiro listened intently as Karasu described the scene of the brothers' fight. It sounded very similar to the palace where he lived, down to the elevator where he was captured and the kamaitachi statues surrounding it.
"One brother strikes down the other. He is talking to his sibling. He is saying something... SKRAAAA!"
Daijiro lurched back as Karasu let out what to him sounded like a tengu war cry. The bird-man slumped to the floor, several of his feathers flying around the drafty room. About five minutes later, Karasu woke up.
"Daijiro", he said.
"Yes?", the boy said. "What did you hear?"
"Go to the bridge outside of the village. Wait for me. Wait for me. Wait for me..."
Karasu repeated endlessly as Daijiro left the room to wait for him at the end of the bridge. All night, nobody came. Finally in the morning Daijiro was escorted by a large cowbird tengu back to the room he had been put in. He knew better than to run away that night. He knew there was something not right about the entire situation.
When he passed by his captor's house that morning, he distracted the guard and peeked inside. Karasu was asleep on the floor, surrounded by bottles and a single black and white photograph of a female tengu in a heart-shaped frame.
MANGO #4 - THE LAST TO KNOW
"You do know...", Aoi began. Madara swallowed hard. This couldn't be good.
"You do know that I saw Ganymede and Kagami... well, how should I say it... kissing the other day?", she said. Madara's cheeks flushed red and he backed away from the tengu girl.
"That's... that's not possible!", he cried. "Kagami told me..."
"Forget what Kagami told you, that girl's a dirty liar", Aoi said, flipping her hair out of her eye and leaning in to face the tsuchigumo boy. "L I A R, liar...", she whispered.
Madara slapped her away. Aoi held a hand to her beak where his hand had made contact.
"You act so normal around everyone else!", Madara yelled. He hoped Ganymede was telling the truth when he said he was a heavy sleeper. "Stop teasing me!"
Aoi chuckled. "You're always the last to know, Madara. You're so cute"
The tengu walked away to her futon, leaving Madara's usually pale face bright red with anger... or something else?
MANGO #5 - IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT
A single figure stood in the middle of the rickety bridge in the night air. A second figure approached it, treading lightly in the dewy grass and onto the bridge.
"We have to talk", the first figure said. She held up a lantern, lighting up her delicate red feathers and crest.
The other figure looked over. His feathers were pitch black with a blue sheen in the light from the lantern. The night was cloudy, blocking off the moon and stars from reaching the couple on the bridge.
"What about?", the male figure said. "Kree- Why'd you bring me out here?"
"Karasu. I'm just going to be up-front with you on this... my mother arranged our marraige"
He reached out to hug her, but she blocked with one winged arm.
"You still love your baby crow, skraak?", Karasu said, tilting his head to one side.
"I... I never loved you, Karasu. It was all an act. My mother only wanted me to marry you to gain control of your followers", she said.
"Not true! SKRAA!", Karasu screamed. In an act of impulse, he shoved the tengu girl away from him. She tried to brace herself, but the bridge tilted in the wind, and too startled to fly, the cardinal tengu was flung off the bridge and into the chasm below.
Karasu looked down, but all he could see was darkness. All he could feel was the darkness, enclosing his mind. But this wasn't a vision. This was real. He gripped his head in his claws, stumbling backwards across the bridge and back onto the grass. Collecting his thoughts, he ran onto the bridge, crying his former lover's name.
"AOI! AOIII!"
Like her feathers, his pleas were swallowed by the black night.
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