I MAY BE DIRT. BUT YOU’RE THE ONE WHO LIKES TO ROLL IN IT, SLAYER. insane line they put in this insane show. help. help im. help?????????????????? anyway im combusting
also ummmm again with the – ‘last night was the most perverse, degrading experience of my life’ .. 'yeah. me too :))’ . spike both reveling in and shuddering in the experience of being profane. something so vulnerable-achy abt him identifying himself as dirt of his own volition. something so queer and freed about him taking buffy’s description of perversion upon himself. the layers. the layers the layers the layers :)))
ok maybe it’s about like. the idea of being 'dirty’ as not being intrinsically bad – actually being good, being delightful. but also that feeling butting up against the fact that he knows she doesn’t perceive dirty as a good thing, despite how much she likes and wants and craves it. what is it to be both yourself divorced from the idea of shame and desire and also to have someone else enact their feelings of shame and desire upon your body . for that person to desire your body and despise it because they desire it. ummmmm.
Ahhhh it’s done! Had this idea that before Spink and Forcible got to be actresses in the theatre they had to start out with more menial theatre work like usherettes and cigar vendors
The forearm bulged in a ghastly color, smooth pale skin turned into a bulbous balloon of purple that split apart the scab before it had a chance to form, oozing blood and fluid from a small cylindrical puncture a couple ilms below the wrist.
“You’re lucky it’s not worse than this.” A bead of sweat slipped down the side of Shandrelle’s noise, and her spectacles threatened to spill with it. But she didn’t dare let go to adjust them, one arm locking her patient’s shoulder in place while her other hand clutched her wand. The tips of the rosewood twigs, tapering into thin leaves, glowed with a pure restorative blue, transferring but a droplet of the forest’s blessing as the air hummed in her ears like Nophica’s breath.
Her patient laughed thinly, the wiry Wildwood lancer’s face distorted by puffiness. Despite the coolness of the autumn breeze his forehead shone with sweat. “It got me when I wasn’t looking. I was too busy trying to drive off the hog, and… it came as a bit of a shock”
She’d seen the wreckage of two of the hives well enough when she arrived, honey smeared across shattered wax and wood splinters. By now smoke thickened the air with the subtle sweetness of oak, cast off from rapidly built fires. And the bees, rendered docile, ambled around the yard in meandering clouds as the beekeepers performed a hasty triage on the hives’ remains.
But the peaceable river of fat insect bodies pouring in and out between the cracks belied the specter of violence looming just a handful of yalms down the road in a slumped black hill. The hog, sprawled in a coagulating pool of blood. Even in death it looked lethal, its tongue slithering from its open mouth and flanked by two massive ivory tusks- easily the size of Shandrelle’s arm. Thick fur coated its warted hide, broken here and there by the ravages of the fight. Purloined honey smeared over its nose, the golden amber mixed with blood. Whether it was the hog’s or a victim’s, Shandrelle couldn’t say- but the handle of a spear protruded from its throat, sheared to splinters at the end.
“I can only imagine,” Shandrelle said with no exaggeration. “But it’s going down, see?”
So it was- the swelling had begun to slacken, settling into some semblance of normal shape. Her patient loosed a sigh of relief, closing his eyes.
“I’ve never been stung before,” he said distantly. “I didn’t know this would happen.”
“It happens to the best of us. You’re going to be all right- though you’ll probably be sore and tired as all hells for a few days, hah!”
At last Shandrelle dropped her hand, and she released the pull of the forest from its call- the soothing glow cast off her wand winked out. “There- that’s good enough for now, but you’ll want to scuttle back to the Fane and they’ll take care of the rest.”
With a quick nod her patient shot off with as much haste as he could muster, and Shandrelle turned to survey the scene. A few conjurers dotted the field here and there, seeing to the wounded lancers, but as her eye roamed for those yet untreated she found none. Exhaling, she planted a fist into her hip, fully intending to take a pause upon the upturned crate at her feet, but as she turned away a figure came into view, standing apart beneath a large ash tree.
It was the Duskwight- the same one she’d seen now and again in the last couple moons on trips to the Lancer’s Guild. Her complexion alone would have made her strikingly memorable, between her slate-toned skin and even darker hair, but nothing about the way she bent forward diminished her height, her broad shoulders straight. She frowned as she stared into her hand, gingerly picking at her upturned palm.
“Need some help with that?” Shandrelle asked as she approached.
The Duskwight looked up, and against her deep grey skin her eyes stood out almost shockingly bright, like two pale blue slivers of eyes. They narrowed slightly, and Shandrelle stopped short as a faint prickling rippled beneath her collar with the niggling sense that she was being studied. A breath later it relented, and the Duskwight nodded, proffering her hand.
“My spear wasn’t quite sturdy enough, it seems,” she said. A jagged line sliced through her palm, the skin around it peppered here and there with tiny protrusions.
Shandrelle made a noise, and she promptly yanked her kit out of her pocket. Flipping the leather cover open, she slipped a pair of tweezers free from its slot. “That looks rather uncomfortable there.”
The Duskwight eyed her palm. “Worse for some.”
Seizing the outstretched hand at the wrist, Shandrelle pulled it closer, angling it towards the haze of light that slipped through the canopy. The Duskwight’s long fingers splayed wider, pushing the bones of her palm on display. “It’ll pinch a bit.” The edge of metal caught the light as she attacked the closest splinter.
A slight flinch twitched in the back of the Duskwight’s hand, but nothing more.
Without lifting her eyes, Shandrelle asked, “That wasn’t your spear in the boar’s neck, was it?”
“Mine? Oh- no.” The Duskwight turned her head towards the boulder of the boar’s body, now circled by a few spare lancers as they gestured to and fro. “Mine broke off in its side.”
“Ah, well there’s the pity- I was going to tell everyone I healed the great boar slayer, hah!”
It was a joke, but the Duskwight didn’t laugh- instead she simply jerked her opposite shoulder in a small shrug. “It was- something to see. I’ve- hunt hogs before.” She stole a glance at Shandrelle, who looked up only briefly as she slid a three-ilm long splinter from the pad just below the second finger. “But it’s a risky business. They’ll run up your spear if you’re not careful, and maybe it’ll kill them but they’ll take you with it.”
“So I’ve heard,” Shandrelle said, but a shiver ran down her spine.
“Well- Lafienne didn’t have a hog spear. None of us did. It’d already trampled the one we’d brought. But she stood in front of it anyway, and it charged. I thought for certain she’d die, but she just- stared it in the eye and braced for it. It was only at the last moment that she jumped away. Turned out, she’d planted her spear in the ground, and the hog charged straight into it.”
“Lafienne did that?”
The Duskwight nodded.
“I’ll be damned,” Shandrelle breathed. “I didn’t know she had it in her- not that I’d be the expert anyway, but I hear things often enough.
Out of the corners of her eyes, the Duskwight shot her a glance, but whatever lay within their icy depths was unreadable. A low affirmative noise rumbled from the back of her throat, but no more.
“I’m Shandrelle, by the way.” The ends of the tweezers paused mid-dig in pursuit of a particularly stubborn fragment. “I’ve seen you a couple times but- I hadn’t had the chance to talk.”
“Ojene,” the Duskwight said simply.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you properly. Though I can’t say I haven’t met most of the lancers this way, hah! But usually they’re in the Fane and not the other way around. Ah- there we go!” Releasing Ojene’s hand, Shandrelle clacked the tweezers together. “Did I miss any?”
A quick feel around the palm revealed two more tiny slivers which were quickly extricated, and then Shandrelle drew upon no more than a small bit of aether to soothe the cut down her palm. Nothing more was needed. She would have made more conversation perhaps, but as soon as it was done Ojene reclaimed her hand, and with no more than a quick thank you she slipped away.
