Ending and Beginning

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

Not really whumpy, takes place after Abandoned.

contents: character death, terminal illnesss, lady whump, immortal whumpee, redeemed whumper.

~~~

“You can leave soon, dear. When I’m gone.”

Karita nodded, staring out the window, her gaze blank, as it had been for the last several years. She flinched when Iris was sent into a coughing fit, which sounded even worse and more strained than the previous ones. Time was running out, Karita’s freedom was drawing near, and yet she didn’t know how she felt about it.

Yes, Iris had tortured her at first, used her as a test subject, a power source, but then… something changed. They were both lonely, and Karita was still in mourning after being betrayed by the people she considered her friends at one point. Iris needed someone to spend time with, and Karita didn’t need anything - and so she stayed, even when she was allowed to leave the tower.

A Lesson in Cooperation

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, captivity, a lot of dying, torture, asphyxiation, cutting, implied surgery, briefly mentioned eye gore.

~~~

Every time someone called Karita the immortal, it was terrible news.

She tried to be secretive, and usually she succeeded, but every once in a while someone would find out. There were people strongly attuned to magic of all sorts who could sense something strange about her and piece it together; there were those who simply saw her come back to life; and there were the most mundane ways, finding her old photographs, mentions of her in documents, because no matter how hard she tried, she could never fully erase her existence from the records.

Which meant, of course, that those in power were the most likely to find out about her secret.

"So, you're the immortal I've read so much about," Princex Yari drawled with a sly smile, looking down at Karita, who answered with her best look of confusion.

"Excuse me?" She frowned. "I-I think you got the wrong person. Your Highness," she rushed to add, her eyes widening as she put her entire heart into playing the part of a confused, intimidated mortal.

It rarely worked, and judging by the princex's laughter, this time it did not.

Thunderstorm

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

Alternate prompt for Day 4 (Captivity Whump) of @whumpawoman's Whump Girl Summer event.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, past captivity, death, starvation, isolation.

~~~

Karita woke up to new sounds.

Well, maybe not entirely new. She knew this sound, but she hadn't heard it in ages. Maybe it was a sound from an era long passed, like many. It was always startling to realize that some sounds and smells and flavors had disappeared completely after being present in her life for years, but… this sound was different. She could swear she used to hear it constantly, no matter the decade.

An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist

Read on AO3

A collection of short stories about Karita, an immortal living in a world where magic and space exploration meet.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, fantasy and space whump.

Abandoned

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

Day 3 (Team Whump) of @whumpawoman's Whump Girl Summer event.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, betrayal, drugging, strapped to a table, implied lab whump, death.

~~~

Pain was always an effective wake-up call.

Karita's eyes snapped open and she gasped, not yet conscious enough to process what was happening and scream. The brief pain instantly passed anyway, and she was left confused, her mind shrouded in fog, her breathing uneven.

"Take it slow, dear. We have nothing but time." The voice was vaguely familiar and its tone was warm, but it filled Karita's heart with fear. Still groggy, she tried to move, only to discover that she couldn't, that there was something keeping her limbs pinned to whatever she was lying on. Restraints. She was strapped down, but why? She had been with the others, sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest, leaning her head on Brin's shoulder. They were relaxing, drinking mulled white wine, and hers tasted a bit strange, but she didn't dare bring it up. It was still alright, it was warm, and she didn't really care about anything else.

And then she must have fallen asleep.

She finally managed to focus her swimmy gaze on the person standing next to her, and her blood ran cold.

Stargazing

[An Immortal Among Stars Masterlist]

A new story for the Whump Girl Summer event hosted by @whumpawoman, Day 1: Environmental Whump. I probably won't be able to fill too many of the prompts because of a lack of time, but I still wanted to share at least this short piece, even though it's mostly introspection.

contents: lady whump, immortal whumpee, imagined death.

~~~

Centuries too late, people gathered to see a dying star.

The explosion had wiped out some nearby planets, but that was back when most of the universe was out of reach. Several diviners attempted to establish a link to the area, and found that among the debris that was left behind there was nothing hinting at previous life, or even at the planets being able to sustain it at all. No guilt was involved in enjoying the spectacle, and everyone treated it as such.

There were vendors, music, laughter, mouth-watering smell of food permeating the air; those were contained in a smaller area, while the rest, a huge open field, was left for the crowd to gather, to stand or to sit down, and watch the clear night sky.

"Incredible, isn't it?" Daria's eyes reflected the stars. "It happened so long ago, long before any of us were born, and we only get to see it now."

Karita nodded. She realized that the arm she'd wrapped around her partner had tensed up, and she forced herself to relax her grip, not wanting it to become painful. Her gaze stayed fixed on the burst of light.

"It's weird," she said, "that there's a whole festival around it. It feels wrong."