Category: Histories of the World

A series of one off chapters about different people, mostly historical figures, though some are backstories of main series POV characters. Featuring a lot of lore and history and a variety of relationships.

Written by Irritated Penguin

Even Time Itself Is No Barrier For Two Souls Seeking Each Other

Cal had a small cut from climbing down the ravine, but it was just a small one and he didn’t care overly, because he could see what he was looking for.

The Involuted Clock was so mysterious it was practically a myth, and plenty of people looked for it without ever finding it. And Cal had found it—and in just a few weeks of tracking its last supposed location. Considering he’d only been at this artefact hunting business for a few months, he thought that was pretty good. He was definitely going to be awesome at this.

The Clock was about a half-metre wide and maybe that tall, though it wasn’t a square. It had a face like clocks had, though with way more hands than any of the ones Cal had seen even in the hands of the most ostentatious sailors, and some of them were moving the wrong way. All the pieces and gears and bits that made clocks work were on the outside, but the more Cal looked at them, the more he was struck with the fact that they couldn’t possibly all be moving together, and yet they were.

“You’re a big fucker, aren’t you?” Cal asked it, getting closer. He looked up the ravine walls, then back at the Clock. It was sitting there innocuously on top of some rocks as if it belonged there, as if it were waiting for him. “How the fuck am I going to get you out of here?”

He didn’t recognize the metal the clock was cast from, and it was probably heavy as fuck, but Cal was determined to make the Clock his. He’d put it in his bag and get it out of here, then hike to Endwan and sell it to his employer. It was too bad he couldn’t get on a boat and take it up north to Merket, where he could get a higher price, but he couldn’t break his contract…

As he thought through all of this, he reached out and tried to lift the Clock. Instead, the Clock lifted him.

Written by Irritated Penguin

Under Every Name and Costume Is an Actor Trying to Survive

Names, Winston learned when he was young, were just costumes. They could be put on or taken off when one needed to be someone else. People wanted to believe what was in front of them, so if someone was dressed up like a king they would believe that person was a king, and if someone told them a name, they would believe that name.

It was why actors existed, to let people believe things they normally wouldn’t. Winston could be a prince one day and a scullion the next, or a stablehand at the beginning of a play and a wolf at the end. Usually he was an errand boy, since most plays didn’t call for a part for someone his age, but he liked acting, and he always asked if he could go on the stage at least for a few lines.

Especially when mom was on the stage. Winston liked acting with his mom. They did it all the time anyway, so they were good together. He didn’t have any problem on the stage pretending that she was the weaver’s daughter or the handmaid or the bandit queen to his cow, pageboy or cupholder. They acted together all the time. Sometimes they were Winona and Winston, sometimes Giselle and Grant, Hope and Harry, just costumes that they wore when mom decided it was time to move on to a new troupe of actors.

At this point, Winston was old enough to realize that the sudden changes in their background cast always came whenever mom came into a lot of money very quickly.

Written by Irritated Penguin

Whisper Terror into the Minds of Children Who Dream

“She’s going to have the same birthday as you. That’s a powerful sign.”

“What does that mean?”

“Being born on the same day as someone else means that you two will have a bond—souls aligned with one another.”

“Oh.”

“You’ll be able to do great things together, things that you might not have been able to do by yourself.”

“Even though she’s a baby?”

“She won’t always be a baby, James.”

Written by Irritated Penguin

The Funeral Dirge for the World’s First Martyr Is the Most Beautiful Song Ever Sung

She could see the city from here, on the hill facing downwards. She could see its gate, down the road from where they were some distance, the belltower of the Temple of All Gods, built to provide a meeting place. She could see the tall obelisk not far from there, white against the grey of the city’s stone. From up here, Amy could see most of the city, being as it was downhill from them, nearer the lake at the bottom of the waterfall. Building a city downhill seemed silly to her, but she supposed the cliffs made attack from the west difficult anyway.

Amy could also see the armies camped outside the city at intervals, just far enough from each other. She could see the Hound Company and the Flame Company, their standards clear even at this distance, and the Lord Bedriel’s army and the fighters of the Lady of the Morning. There looked to be eleven different armies already here, and the Crab Company wasn’t the last to arrive, she knew. Amy didn’t pretend to know about everything in the world, but the total number of soldiers, of commanders, of gods who were coming to this summit was at least twice if not more of what was gathered so far.

She just hoped that the peace summit did what it was supposed to do. She was tired of war. They all were. But Amy was selfish, and she wanted the war over less for the war’s sake and more for what it was doing to her brother.

Written by Irritated Penguin

Concerning the Matter about Which You Wrote

Grace be to you and to your walls, O blessed citizens of God’s kingdom and of the city of Three Towers. Unto you let there be blessings and favour eternal, and may you all the Gated Land see once more as you live your lives in the sight of God. Amen.

The letter which you sent to me brought to my heart great sadness, for I see from it that you have strayed from God’s path and into the hands of demons. So little time not in my presence and already you fall from grace! Like impatient children you cry for me, never thinking of the others to which I must minster elsewhere. Can not the people of God’s grace be trusted to keep His faith without the presence of His messenger?

Written by Irritated Penguin

The Turning Point Comes in the Empty Tomb of a Child Soldier

The spider was hesitant as it dropped from the ceiling, lit by a beam of falling sunlight from a break in the rock face. Klaus watched it get lower and lower until it was just above his arm. When it touched him, the spider’s colouring started to change, from the light brown of the rocks to the paler colour of Klaus’s bare arm. Slowly it skittered down him, from his forearm to his hand, off onto the blackened ground where it changed colours to match.

Watching it, Klaus wondered if it would turn red as well when it reached the pool of blood slowly spreading out from where he was sitting. But the spider stopped at the edge of the pool and moved back, back up Klaus’s arm, and started spinning a web immediately.

Written by Irritated Penguin

Tell Me My Truth, My Future with You

“And prosperity…onto your house…for generations to…come,” Jesse gasped as he felt the man finally finish inside him. The man, a young military official, tensed, his face screwed up in quite a stupid-looking way, as he spilled his seed. He pulled out from Jesse, panting.

“Thank you,” the man had the decency to say, and suddenly he looked even younger. Jesse wondered if that had been his first time. He certainly hadn’t had a lot of stamina.

“I’m pleased to have delivered the gods’ plan for you,” Jesse said with a mysterious smile that he’d been practicing. He stood, carefully not shuddering as the man’s cum ran down his legs, and picked up the white gown he’d been wearing, stepped into it again.