Some sneakpeeks :]

So, guess what. I haven't finished the sexy shorts-- the mood eludes me when I'm sick as a mule. (I'm fine-- what started as a sniffle didn't go away, but I only really get sick like once a year, at most, so I'm just happy to get this over with, pfft.) Anyway, here's some little bits and pieces for you until my brain cooperates and finishes one thing instead of working on a hundred different stuffs :}

friendmance!M!Leith, haunted (the pathfinder is female in this one, I started writing it that way and then it just. stuck. Sorry, or congrats, about that, sksksk)

The sound of the river was lulling him into a relaxation he hadn’t had in months. The scouting mission, an adventure of the gastronomical persuasion --of finding new edible flora and fauna-- was wearing on him. His stomach was sore, bloated beyond belief, and his skin was itchy and patchy with rose-tinted irritation. All those new meals they were trying did not set up for a romantic scenario-- he’d held the pathfinder while she vomited up an experimental dinner more than once. And yet. And yet. His eyes sought her time and time again, quietly, like the forest's hidden streams gravitating back towards the river.

The pathfinder sat by the fire, pouring over her maps. Her sketchbook sat in her lap, splayed open to a half-finished page on the creatures they had come across the dawn before- nautilus shells that floated in from high in the atmosphere, trickling down between branches and leaves. The pathfinder had insisted they climb a tree to observe, and he had obliged, only to be tortured by her nearness as she used his arm to steady her sketchbook. Hold me so I don’t fall off this damn twig, she’d said, when they settled far out on a major branch, hundreds of feet into the air. He still remembered the heat of her breath on his neck as she used his arm for leverage for her notebook, her waist beneath his splayed fingers.

The fire snapped and crackled, and his awareness returned, only to follow the path of a cluster of embers as they floated up past the pathfinders legs, chest, eclipsing her lips for the briefest of seconds (and how he mourned) -  then the embers mattered no more. He watched her lift a piece of dried fruit to her mouth, and watched her lips part to taste it. And then he was imagining her lips parting for other reasons.

He looked away. Had it really come to this? Annihilation by the mere suggestion of her body? The movement of her mouth? It was torture, no two ways about it. He dreamt of knocking her off the waterlogged branch she sat on, pressing her into the soft moss, parting her legs with his--

Instead, he watched her quietly. Sitting there in the dark, it was almost as if they existed in a hidden, in-between world, a liminal place that would fade from memory by tomorrow. Here, beneath the sagging canopy of trees, the leaves wore their fatigue from a sun-soaked day, drooping under the weight of the hours of sunlight they'd devoured, and the grass seemed softer, more pliant, under his restless fingers. They were different people here in this quiet, enclosed space, as if they might be forgiven for acting out of character and without inhibitions.

He thought of kissing her, hand at the nape of her neck. Without knowing, his gaze returned to her, weighted with want.

He wanted to be closer to her. He wanted to see her. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to taste her.

“Leith,” she teased, without looking up, “what is it?”

He swallowed, not knowing how to respond. How could he tell her what he wanted when it felt like admitting a truth that neither of them were ready to hear? He was scared—scared of the way she made him feel, and scared that she might not reciprocate the same feelings if he just put it out there in plain words.

“What are you drawing?” he asked instead.

She picked up the sketchbook, turning to the pages in question. “Just some sketches of those… cirri floaters,” she said, pausing for a second. She pressed the pencil to her mouth. “Might have to find a new name, though. Any ideas?”

He couldn't focus on her words. All that mattered was how beautiful she looked in the dying light of the fire. How it softened her edges, pooling in her depths. His eyes lingered on parts they shouldn’t have, and he caught himself,  only because his mouth had started to water.  He cleared his throat. "Errh-" he said, trying to sound casual and failing monumentally.

She raised an eyebrow, still looking at him with that same calm expression. “What has gotten into you, Leith? Is it the arras-leaf we tried? I still have some char-”

“No, don’t worry,” Leith murmured, dragging a wide palm over his face. He prayed, he prayed that she couldn’t see the way his pants tented.  “I think I need to go wash myself off.” He stood up, snatching a towel to carry over his crotch.

“But the water is so cold! I can wash you if you bring a buck-

Leith's eyes widened, his back stiff. The thought of her hands, warmed by the surge, washing his body was just too much. He almost groaned. The first step towards the river was like wading through quicksand. “The cold will do me good,” he muttered, not seeing how the pathfinders brows furrowed.

A random sneakpeek from the new demo, from within the forest:

...the leaves slap against you like a million hands trying to snatch your ankles, trip you, keep you from your destination. You keep running. Ducking under a branch, sliding beneath another- you vault yourself over the next one without second thought; your old training kicking in. All that matters is the beat of your breath. You are nothing, but a mechanism of movement.

Something replies.

Your heart doesn’t thunder, it coasts. You pick up your step, just to make sure you’re alive, that you’re awake. Your hands follow, picking through your inventory without prompting. Two grenades, one sonic charge, four pins out of five for locators- where did you drop the last? At the fight? After? After. After, you decide, dropped right before you passed the barrier, lodging itself into moss beneath a coiled leaf. You remember the red light blinking on-- or you decide to. It doesn’t matter.

Your legs move, arms bent, swinging like pendulums. Swerve left, duck right, slide--hop-- run. Keep running.

Keep running. That is all that matters.

A draft of the WORST codex entry in the world, written by a fictional scholar that I just cannot find the voice for.  (I'll keep trying though) (Apart from the painfully stilted writing, there is some fun world-lore in there!) (also, yay, Oakwerthian propaganda. You loove to see it)

The Ormr was the only man made god, the godsbane, the eater of gods. Millennia back the people lived amongst the gods of mended clothes and broken bones, whereas the echelon of deities-- the cycle of water, the spark of fire, the tectonic titans, shied away from society, huddling to their regions, caring for their domains without paying heed to the needs of the People. When Oakwerth first discovered the dew and started the industrial revolution, the deities of mountains refused to offer resources, not a single mine nor a refinery of its loose gravel and rock. The deity of cloud, rain and river retracted the gift of its dew, and threatened to have the god of nine plagues take domain over Oakwerth. The People decided for their crusade, rightfully taking what was theirs to use, collecting enough material to build a deity of their own. The beast, a serpent, was built by grafted human parts, slab after slab of carved muscle and flesh, and beneath, a spine of steel and stone chattered with every turn of its torso.

The Ormr snared the world within its embrace, constricting the deities' right to move. Where one escaped, the Ormr devoured. One after another, until it fed itself full, and until this day sits on a sleet of rock in the sun, digesting that which hindered us. Praise the Ormr. Praise the People.