It has been a big week here at the Smomestead! Or at least what passes for a big week when you’re like me and avoid all social obligations. Did some spring cleaning, survived some severe Midwest thunderstorms, did a little painting and a lot of writing, and laid in supplies for our epic-quest World of Warcraft feast tomorrow! Oh, it’s going to be glorious. Herb-baked eggs and conjured mana buns for breakfast, dig rat stew and Mulgore spiced bread for lunch, a viewing of the Warcraft movie accompanied by buzzard bites and crunchy spider surprise, and a late dinner with firecraker salmon, topped off by Delicious Chocolate Cake!

Achievement Unlocked! World’s Biggest Nerd

We’ve done this in the past for Harry Potter feasts, Lord of the Rings feasts, even Peter Wimsey and Cadfael feasts (because our Nerdism knows no genre limitations), but as we were doing our last-minute shopping today, my sister came up with a pretty spanking awesome idea: Next time, we should theme the feasts around one of our books.

Can’t you just see that? Garden rolls, sticky pies, slow-cooked meat and spicy Farasai sauce served on trenchers…foraged greens, wildlands stew, roasted marrow and Dumaqi tea…towers of honeyed peaches, blood pudding, roasted vegetables brushed with herbed butter, lemon cake…

Of course, at the moment, my WIP feast would be mainly pizza and cupcakes made in an Easy Bake oven, because I’m still hard at work on my FNAF fanfiction, Everything Is All Right, Part IV: New Faces, Old Bones. In fact, the new chapter just went up, so if you’re reading along, why don’t you head on over to archiveofourown.org or fanfiction.net and check it out?

Achievement Unlocked! Flawless Segue

Ana had no dreams as she floated, drowned and lost forever at the bottom of the lake, fifteen years ago. As Mia Rose had promised, there was no heaven, no God and no forgiveness at the end. All was black and comfortably empty.

She rested, in peace.

Then the hand came down—rotten gold satin stretched over metal and bone. It caught her, pulled her up through the black water, up through the plastic doll bodies floating with her, up and out of the cardboard box marked Lost and Found. Springtrap Bonnie had her now.

His body twitched and shivered, the distorted image on a damaged tape, and yet his hand was real enough as he pulled her into his world—a world where Freddy’s had never been open, where it had always been burnt out, broken and haunted.

He threw her down on a desk and pinned her there, leaning over her. Blood and oil trickled through his grinning metal teeth, shiny and black in the flickering grey light of the security monitors.

“Welcome home,” he said. He had no voice, only static crackling through his speaker in the shape of words. “Oh, I missed you, baby girl.”

She did not struggle, did not scream. She’d missed him too, after all. She’d loved him then and love doesn’t die. It festers and rots, it goes mad and bites, it can even kill, but it never just dies. Ana knew this. She knew monsters. She had lived among them and knew their ways. But she did not fight this one. When he kissed her, she kissed him back.