First Day 08:17, Carriage Four, Lounge
Something strange was afoot on this train.
Theora couldn’t quite shake off that feeling. A lot of little things just didn’t add up… Why, for one, did they have to ‘buy’ tickets? It didn’t quite make sense. Especially considering—
“Yeah, using it on me would be a bit of a waste,” Treeka said with a somewhat bitte...
2025-01-04 14:45:04 +0000 UTC View PostNew arc!! I'm really excited for this, I won't lie. I've been working on this for quite a while and I'm looking forward to sharing it ><
I really would like tell you all the tagline of the arc — I often have taglines, like the "Bigger Fish Arc" for the one with the big devourer, or "Reality Arc" for the one where they got isekai'd into modern earth. Sadly, revealing th...
2024-12-27 16:38:10 +0000 UTC View Post
CN: Mention of Injury
We live in a world of magic where many things are possible. For example, it is possible that one day your friends decide to chop you down in one fell swoop.
Half of me falls to the ground, twigs and branches breaking on impact like fingers. It is something I have learned: To make people care, you have to pretend to be li...
2024-12-06 17:38:44 +0000 UTC View PostHi!
Updates have been a little slow lately — partly due to irl factors (e.g. I'm moving soon, hopefully, and apart from that I find myself swamped in paperwork due to some recent personal changes).
But also because I have been prepping the next big arc. It's a pretty exciting storyline to work on but it admittedly takes some time to get right. I appreciat...
2024-11-29 17:10:56 +0000 UTC View Post
“What’s up?” Dema asked as she approached, then came to a halt when she saw what lay before Theora’s crossed legs. “What the— Is that…” She swallowed. “A Fragment of Time! Where’d you get that?”
Theora opened her mouth to respond but her first words got stuck in her throat. The hall may have been filling with air slowly, but her brain was still only just wak...
2024-11-23 16:42:56 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Loss of Home, Passage of Time
Theora woke up to Bell’s outer dome shield breaking, and let go of what she’d been hugging. She was already on her feet as the first crack appeared, and made it to the cabin in a fraction of a second as the shell crumbled above.
On her way, Theora noticed a few things. First: the inside of the dome was se...
2024-11-11 17:06:30 +0000 UTC View PostTheora realised she was dreaming when Dema’s tail twitched in her arms.
Dema didn’t have a tail. Much less one so thick Theora could use it as a body pillow while the rest of Dema was sprawled out across and beneath blankets and Theora’s legs.
It was a true bummer. Theora gave the tail a squeeze and then a kiss. Dema moaned a little, all sleep-drunk, but didn’t...
2024-10-25 15:54:10 +0000 UTC View PostIt turned out that the devices really did create a breathable atmosphere. Bell was still hesitant to let go of hers, but after Dema went back to patch up the hole they’d made to get down here, and after about an hour of Dema running around outside the bubble, she relented and stopped trying to absorb her back into it as much as possible.
Bell still kept her own bubble intact, though. Sh...
2024-10-22 13:37:55 +0000 UTC View PostHi! Going to post 2 chapters today! Have fun reading C:
“Turns out, the Protans were busy, huh!” Dema exclaimed, joining their side.
“It was them?” Bell asked, her voice laden with wonder.
“I would assume so, considering they are the only spacefaring people we have records of.” Isobel shrugged and clacked dangerously close to t...
2024-10-22 13:37:40 +0000 UTC View Post“Bad news, Bell!” Isobel’s voice rang out in the dome.
Almost half a day had passed since Theora had woken up. She stopped doing laundry for a moment to throw a glance inside the cabin and found Bell nodded off in a chair while reading Iso’s mission reports.
Theora absentmindedly threw the last piece of wet laundry into a basket, to carry everything away to hang it up....
2024-10-07 15:10:05 +0000 UTC View PostAll of Bell’s Skills, as well as her Levels and stats, had been reduced to nothing upon polyping. But Skills were inherent to people. Thus, she expected to relearn many as she got older and remembered her past. Theora gleaned at Bell’s sheet from the party screen — currently, it listed 21 Skills.
[Calcification], [Encapsulation], [Venorosity] and [Sheen] seemed useful in a scu...
2024-09-27 15:01:46 +0000 UTC View PostThe next time Theora was awoken, she found herself surrounded by the lush mosses of the ‘greenhouse’.
It wasn’t a house, but it was green. A dome-like barrier encased a rocky patch of landscape, overgrown by Isobel with vegetation. Dema had erected terraces, ridges, and ledges, pillars and cliffs, to increase the surface area of this little pocket of air on an otherwis...
2024-09-23 09:28:11 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Body Horror
Theora took a glance up at Dema, who sat on a ledge overseeing the cavern, a safe distance away, letting her thin legs dangle down the edge. Dema gave her an encouraging smile, her demonic eyes gleaming in the dark.
Then, Theora took a glance at Bell, also a safe distance away, sitting on a small rock protrusion next to the exit from the chamber. Bell...
2024-09-20 14:01:13 +0000 UTC View PostHi y'all! Thank you for being here I appreciate it a lot! 💕
I'm working on the beginning chapters of book 3 right now, hopefully I'll get a chapter out by tomorrow.
For today I wanted to ask around how things are going! Specifically – this is my first Patreon ever, and admittedly I haven't been subscribed to many other Patreons before. Tbh I don't really know what's what. So I...
2024-09-19 05:34:58 +0000 UTC View PostDema had fixed things.
Brought everything back to its former state; or rather, to what she remembered of the former state, which, truth be told, was not a lot, but she had done her best. During their absence, Isobel herself had fallen into disrepair too, so Dema patched her up as best she could. Dema also played card games with little Bell for hours — always pretending to ...
2024-09-18 09:51:11 +0000 UTC View PostShap, snap. Iron chafed over slate.
Snap, snap. Isobel smiled at the small group assembled on the yard in front of her.
Dema had made good on her promise to make the area easier to traverse. Paths of crystallised blood snaked elegantly around the large tree trunk in the centre. They glittered under the spots of sunlight shining through the leaves up in the canopy, ...
2024-09-17 14:12:49 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Self-Harm
“Alright!” Isobel said, with a wide smile. “So—”
She pretended to take a look around, leaning forward with a hand held above her eyes. They were standing in the valley of a desert.
“We’re in a safe spot! Nothing around that could get swept into collateral damage. And!”
She reached over to Theora and dumped her hand into the m...
2024-09-14 11:05:10 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Description of Injury, Blood
Surges of dense black smoke billowed into the sky as hot blazing tongues of fire licked up, fanned by the warm spring breeze. The flames loved it here. Heat pulled at the skin on Theora’s face, dried her eyes.
She wanted to rush in. Fetch Dema’s remains and hug them tight. But Dema was too scattered inside, too broke...
2024-09-13 12:35:55 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Death
A little cut in the world remained behind Theora as she emerged back from the Miasma.
She was fairly certain she’d returned not too far away from Dema’s house, but the journey had still messed with her head quite a lot.
She did a massive stretch. Her body was lighter now. Her bones didn’t crack like she’d gotten used to in ‘Reality’ — instead her...
2024-09-12 18:36:49 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Discussion of Bodily Autonomy
Theora stood in front of Amanda Dupont’s grave. It was a cloudy day with a soft breeze and the occasional sunrays making it through to the ground — the forest gleamed up every now and then, rocks shining and leaves glittering.
Serim kneeled further back, in front of the large boulder by the path, where they’d placed a smaller g...
2024-09-10 15:20:00 +0000 UTC View PostHey – before we get into today's chapter, I wanted to share something with you. The thing is; I've been trying to write an accompanying piece of music for this chapter. There are still things about it that might change, and I'm not sure if I will end up sharing it in the official public chapter once it gets out (initially it was just a fun idea that I thought I could learn how to ...
2024-09-09 16:12:55 +0000 UTC View Post
I woke up at the hospital two days later. Invent One was already there, sitting next to my bed, staring at the wall again.
It had placed a phone next to my pillow, playing quiet music. There were other patients there, all asleep; it was deep at night. When it saw me awake, it nodded, handed my phone to me so I could check in on my friends, then gave a curt account, like a report. Traversi...
2024-09-06 16:24:50 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Death, Loss of a Loved One, Hypothermia, Fire
The day Dema died, she barely managed to hold herself upright at the grand piano.
“We can stop if you want to. Continue another time,” I told her. We were in a music studio I’d reserved for the day, to record one of Dema’s songs for one of her schemes or whatever, but she was so weak these days, I wished Theor...
2024-09-05 13:04:43 +0000 UTC View PostSixteen days left. Serim had managed to get them an opening slot for a band she met at the festival, and it aligned perfectly with the last Friday before the end of the self-imposed deadline. Obviously, finding out about Dema’s circumstances turned what was a foregone conclusion into an actual choice Theora had to make.
Dema was sick. At the same time, the world was sick, because Theora...
2024-09-04 14:46:20 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Discussion of Death
After returning from the festival full of fresh ideas for how to finetune their program, Dema spent a lot of time brooding over new songs. Meanwhile, Theora spent a lot of time leaning against Dema’s soft body draped against her, listening to her her hum in her raspy low voice while trying to figure out lyrics.
Theora couldn’t, howev...
2024-09-04 14:45:31 +0000 UTC View Post“Are you sure we should be here…?” Theora asked, looking around all worried to make sure they wouldn’t bother anyone. Meanwhile, Dema was advancing stealthily through backstage to get a peek at the crowd.
“It’s gonna be fine as long as we make sure we’re not bothering anyone,” Dema proclaimed, her hand tightening around Theora’s. Technically, Dema did have permission —...
2024-09-03 16:25:34 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Discussion of Death, Abuse, Jealousy
That evening, they left the dancing area still hot and breathing hard, with Theora carrying Dema halfway over her shoulder to give support. The stuffy atmosphere and smoke faded into a cool autumn drizzle.
“I wanna go somewhere up,” Dema mumbled, dragging her shoe over the curbside. “Up.”
Theora lo...
2024-09-01 07:45:26 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Discussion of State Violence and Criminal Activity
“Okay, well. I can’t guarantee that spots will open up at the last minute, but if you want to play at this festival, I will need your names.” He fetched a list and wrote a few notes, then looked up expectantly.
“Theora Napkins.”
He nodded, and jotted it down. His gaze went back...
2024-08-29 14:29:35 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Chronic Illness, Blood, Hospital Stay, Discussion of Death
When Theora arrived at the hospital, Dema was asleep.
She lay in a bed by the window, in a two-person room, with the other bed being unoccupied. Tubes plugged into her body pumped her blood through a machine with circling buttons while an IV led a clear liquid into her wrist.
Not wanting to dist...
2024-08-29 14:28:34 +0000 UTC View PostCN: Discussion of Death of a Loved One
Invent One tried, for the fifteenth time, to play the melody of Dema’s volcano song, but finally stopped with a disgruntled but held-back moan. It looked at its hands — the skin was peeling, the strings had left deep cuts.
“I apologise. I read several books on the topic, but this Shadow is not following my wishes.” 2024-08-29 14:27:40 +0000 UTC View Post