Curate, connect, and discover
im writing a book.
i dont think its very good, but heres a snippet if your intrested:
Light poured in through the windows, the checkers red curtains nullifying the light as it came, giving it a healthy bit of colour before hitting the floor and table.
The floors idly creaked from abundant use. The oak wood they were made from growing older throughout the years. Still as beautiful in its creation though, even if a little bit weathered.
Throughout the silence that enveloped a room there was a disturbance to this tranquil peace, the sound of someone waking up startled, then promptly rolling off the table they were placed on accidently.
.
.
.
Stevan fell off from table he was placed on top of when he was unconscious, it was more a counter then a table but that wasn’t his main concern. His main concern was that he woke up in a house he didn’t recognise, and he didn’t know if he was alone.
His eyes scanned the room, trying to see if there was any semblance of a memory he could bring up, from the floor he looked out the window above him on the wall, though he just saw sky.
That was strange.
Stevans head throbbed as he lifted his hand to it, he grimaced as he realised it was bandaged. He managed to pull himself into a sitting position as he exhaled a sigh of relief, but said relief was short lived as he felt a sharp pain through his chest and looked down.
His torso was covered in bandages. They were way too tight, crusty on the outside because they were drying there but wet against his skin as he shifted to tug at them, attempting to rid himself of the offending garment. It proved futile, whoever did these knew how to do it properly, and both ends of the bandages were probably somewhere around his shoulder blades, so he couldn’t undo them if he tried.
He grabbed the table side and gritted his teeth as he managed to pull himself up, pain racking through his body as he managed to his feet. He leant heavily onto the table, the only thing keeping him up at the moment, besides the adrenaline. As he attempted to stand on his own, he realised his mistake immediately.
His bare feet pressed against the wooden floor at full weight, which was fine. But his knees buckled when his muscles tensed, due to the fact that he was currently very injured.
Stevan managed to fling himself back onto the kitchen wall, probably not the best idea but he managed to stay somewhat upright as he grabbed the counter he had previously rolled off. Although he didn’t have time to properly regain his balance as he heard footsteps walking into the room, his head warily looking forward, his eyes fixed on the door.
He was incredibly surprised at what stood before him. A woman. She had long black hair, a deeply tanned skin, rectangle body shape, she was bloody tall, and a sharp face.
Which were all fine traits, until you factor in the feathers going up the backs of her arms, meeting and covering her shoulders and then climbing up her neck all the way to the back of her head and just behind her ears. The talons thar replaced nails, longer and sharper than a human as if they were made to slash and tear. The fact that the whites of her eyes were pitch black, the colour of her eyes was a bright amber and her pupils were slits. The biggest thing that caught him off guard though? The massive black wings protruding from her back.
She smirked at him, obviously amused by something. Stevan shivered a bit at that, it was intimidating, and he could very well see that the canine teeth were slightly bigger than a human.
“Hey Alex?” she called back into the hall, not taking her eyes off Stevan till she continued her sentence exiting the room.
“Your dumbass humans awake.”
Stevan bristled at that last comment, he personally did not appreciate being called a dumbass. Especially when he was injured and confused. He heard a voice start to respond to the women’s voice but did not manage to catch what was being said, already too preoccupied with looking for something to defend himself with, snooping through draws and looking in cupboards.
He was sure the woman was a threat; he had never even seen anyone that looked like that. He knew he had no prior evidence to suggest she was someone bad, but she gave him the creeps.
A new person entered the room. A male this time, he looked like her. Same wings, except he had some grey feathers. Not due to age, he looked younger than her, shorter too. Same hair but it was down to his shoulders with a grey streak in the front on the left side. Same skin tone and eyes almost exactly, except he had freckles dusting the bridge of his nose, and his skin was a tad darker than hers. Stevan would’ve been enamoured if he cared to take a better look, but he had more pressing matters on his mind at the moment.
The other man looked at Stevan, not hostilely but not entirely transparent either. He looked just as guarded as Stevan, but for varied reasons.
Stevan was guarded because he was scared and did not know where he was or why he was here. The other man was guarded because humans are inherently stupid and impulsive, and he had not interacted with many without them going hostile. So, he had to be careful not to spook the one in his kitchen.
“Hello human. Please do not be alarmed, my name is ale- “he stated before he stopped seeing the human grab something from his draw, the stupid human had found a knife.
Stevan tightly gripped the meat cleaver he had found in both his hands, clearly inexperienced. His hands shook slightly as hr gripped the handle; he silently cursed them.
“Stay back… you. I will not hesitate to defend myself if necessary.” Stevan warned, making a stabbing motion with the meat cleaver.
“You can’t stab anyone with that type of knife.” The man said, gesturing to the meat cleaver’s point. Stevan did not get what he was pointing out.
“I-. what?”
“You can’t stab anyone with that thing.”
“Wait why not?”
“It is a meat cleaver; it’s meant for slicing. If you want to stab someone you need one with a point, otherwise you’re hitting someone with a blunt object, the big one right there would be more effective.”
“Huh- “
Stevan paused, looking down at the knife and turning it in his hand. The man did have a point. He looked at the other man, refusing to break eye contact as he put the knife on the counter and slowly grabbed a chef’s knife instead.
The other man’s eyes widened a little actually, he was trying to educate and offer the knowledge to the human trusted him and learned. Not so he could be on the other side of the knife, it was strange how humans thought processes worked.
“Could you refrain from turning that on me?”
Stevan was perplexed, the guy told him how to use a knife then asked not to be stabbed after giving him the right advice to do it? Ridiculous.
“Uh, why should I?”
The man did not react badly on the contrary. He placed his finger on the knife and lowered it down. For some reason, Stevan let him. The man took a step back once he did, looking back up at the other.
“The woman you encountered earlier before was my sister, the tall intimidating one. I don’t think she’d be pleased if a human stabbed her brother.”
That did pause Stevan. Of course that was the case. He had two kidnappers, not one. This made it harder to fight back, escape, anything like that. And it didn’t help his captors didn’t look human.
“Where do we go from here then?” Stevan asked, slightly raising the knife to keep a distance between them. He was still on edge, and very wary of the other.
“You could start by the knife down and telling me what you remember. like your name, I’m Alexander.” Alexander said, nodding his head slightly and gesturing for Stevan to go.
Stevan lowered the knife slightly, but he didn’t let go, he wasn’t going to be doing that for a while.
“I don’t feel secure enough to put this down, but I’ll meet you halfway and lower it.” Stevan said, Alexander smiles slightly and nodded. His canines poking out slightly.
“And, now that you mention it, I can’t remember… anything. Not just in the past few days but, in the past, - well forever, I’m not entirely sure what my name even is.”
This was the realisation Stevan came to as he spoke, he hadn’t given it much thought before this, but it was just blank.
Like trying you search for a book you accidently lost, or trying to find something you long since got rid of.
“I see.” Alexander said cooly, not unfriendlily instead like he was deep in thought. “Well, its lucky your shirt is labelled, it said your name was Stevan. With an A. unless you stole or borrowed this shirt but I’ll assume Stevans your actual name.”
Stevan slowly nodded. He knew one thing at least. “Why am I here?” Stevan asked quietly, whenever he tried to think back his head hurt. And in all honesty? He was scared. He was a scared wounded man, in a strange house with people who aren’t human.
Alexander tilted his head to the left, his eyebrows knitting together sympathetically as he stared at the other. He sighed, running a hand through his hair and closing his eyes for a moment before looking back and facing him.
“I found you; you were passed out face down at the divide, you had managed to get yourself caught on the rocks, blood was dripping all over and pouring down the river. I wasn’t just going to leave you like that, even if you are a human.”
“I have…. No recollection of that, at all.”
“That’s… not a good problem to have.”
Alexander said concerned, he walked forward, ignoring how Stevan’s grip on the knife tightened and looked at his head. “I didn’t think your head injury was that bad, it wasn’t cut up as bad as your chest. I have to assume head trauma. Come, sit. I need to check redo that chest bandage, I’m sure it’s not comfortable.”
Stean didn’t even get a chance to respond as he was led to a couch in the next room, it was a nice forest green, like the trees outside. Well, he assumed like the trees outside, it was odd though, the back of the couch was missing its bottom. Which confused Stevan till the other sat down and put his wings through the part on the bottom so he wouldn’t sit on and hurt them. Stevan actually enjoyed that a little, it was very clever.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I swear it. Just please let me fix the bandages, I’ll need you to give me the knife, its going to hurt and I don’t want you to hurt either of us if you accidently flip out.”
Stevan didn’t like that idea at all, clutching the knife tighter and leaning back slightly. Alexander saw the issue and sighed; it was understandable for the human to be nervous.
But it was a little annoying he wasn’t listening to important information.
“Ok, I understand your hesitation, but how about we compromise? You put your knife down on the table while I fix that? Then ill get you a Propper dagger and a sheath so you can feel safe, but not without kitchen utensils?” Alexander offered, trying to make the human feel safer.
Stevan slowly placed it on the table although he was slightly tensed up. He didn’t really want to or feel comfortable with doing so, but things would go nowhere if he didn’t.
even so, as he placed it down a knot formed in his stomach, he still had that irrational fear he was going to get hurt, by the stranger who had shown him nothing but kindness. In all honesty? He felt a little bad.
Alexander saw this, and he got it. He didn’t want to make the human feel uncomfortable, but again he had had limited interaction with humans, and they were normally hostile. Even if this human didn’t appear to be, from what he’s gathered? Humans are just plainly hostile in nature.
Alexander sat closer to Stevan, huffing a little that the other pulled away. That wasn’t going to help anyone, he started by getting a good look at the dishevelled bandages, assessing what needed to be done.
They were discoloured and sticky by now, being dark crimson and a bit brown. It proved they were quite old, and definitely needs replacing before anything else, or before the wound gets infected.
He slowly cut and peeled away at the bandaged, but he thought having sharp metals and objects around the human would frighten him, so he used his talons instead.
He had sharp talons instead of nails, the talons carefully cut away the sticky bandages, avoiding skin and wound area, being incredibly careful as to what he cut. From what Stevan had saw, his talons looked more maintained than the other woman’s talons, his were slightly shinier.
Stevan slightly flinched as the fabric was pulled away, did it hurt?
Well slightly, it was peeling slight scab off the still bleeding wound, but it was more uncomfortable than anything. The crunchy wet sound that he heard made him gag.
As he worked on it, Alexander informed Stevan that the bleeding had not fully stopped, but it had slowed very much to a snail’s pace. Which was better than how it was gushing at the divide at which he was found.
As Stevan stared at the gaping wound he kind of wanted to touch it. It made sense, it was something new. And he was only human, after all. And he had never felt anything like that before. He slightly raised his hand, intent on picking at it before Alexander caught his wrist, giving him a disbelieving look. Stevan avoided eye contact, yanking back his wrist softly as Alexander stared at him.
“Hey- “
“Don’t pick at your wound. It’s already really bad.”
“……ok?”
Stevan was surprised at how worried he sounded, and was left to muse on that as Alexander used some wet cloth to clean the wet and dry blood that had dripped on his stomach either now or had dried there when the wound was first made.
Alexander looked away to grab dry clothes to dry the disgusting sight, and Stevan reached down and tried to wipe off some of the water mixed with blood covering his chest. It was so sticky; he took a deep breath as he looked down, knowing it would make him slightly sick. He regretted it almost instantly, gagging. He decided to look up and instead saw that Alexander was distracted grabbing a set of new bandages. So, being human, Stevan seized his chance and touched the wound. Instantaneously he yanked his hand back, a gasp escaping his lips as he felt a sharp sting he hadn’t felt before.
Alexander, who was rummaging through draws, heard the gasp from the kitchen and groaned. He grabbed the bandages quickly and turned on his heel, rushing over and grabbing a wipe.
“Stupid, stupid humans. Always impulsive, never even try to think.” He ranted, muttering under his breath as he shot a look over at Stevan, who had the decency sense to try to look sorry, but lacked the common sense to not snark back, which he did.
“If all humans seem to be the bane of your existence, with through your words you’ve made abundantly clear, why’d you go into your own trouble and out of your way to try save me?”
Alexander froze, halting his unwrapping of bandages as he looked at Stevan with pity? Disbelief? Whatever it was Stevan didn’t like it.
“Because I’m not going to let some idiots die, I don’t want the fact that I could’ve saved you but didn’t to be petty on my conscience.”
“I’m not an idiot.” Stevan tried to protest, going to sit up and attempt shove the other, but feeling a huge jolt of pain through his body, he fell back against the couch, making a sound between a gasp and an ‘ompf.’
Alexander stopped doing what he was, sighing. As he put down the bottle, he was about to pour onto the rag he was going to use to clean Stevans wounds.
“You’re probably not ready to try use rubbing alcohol on that wound? I mean that’s just my assumption; we can always try-”
He didn’t even get a chance to finish. Stevan didn’t bother to answer with words, just making a very intense noise of disagreement.