lifesver

[lifesver]

rae’s right though we should just take tcsm out of our pinned posts like wym this is my oc that i raised as a hardworking single mother,

[lifesver]

next on the list is my fallout drafts and that’s a threat

[lifesver]

@t4mpered said: two bleeding hands, a crest of suffering. danny takes in the carved image of ilmater on the worn book beside them. amongst leland's backpack of scrolls and trinkets. one of the clerics had slipped it into danny's hands, not unkind when they said he looked as though he needed ilmater. in turn, he'd given the book to leland. curious, idle, his fingers graze over the insignia now. leland's quiet god. whatever answer he thinks he knows, danny reaches that same hand to brush hair from leland's cheek and asks: "you believe you're worth more than just suffering for others, don't you?"

a hum, and leland turns his cheek closer into danny's palm, gentle warmth to his eyes.

❝ it's... my duty, ❞ he says. his ilmatari paladin answer. how could he possibly explain that taking his oath — shedding his identity as some sheltered prince — has been the only choice that has ever mattered. the one that has led him here, to him. to connie, and maria, all of their companions. his eyes lower; ❝ my... gift. ❞ he continues, more quietly. that's what his mother called it. ever since he was very young, healing birds and field mice in his palms.

standing across from the portraits of ilmatari saints, a cleric of the church had once told him he was meant for this path. fated. that his hands could do true good in this difficult world. it felt like an impossible pressure coming down on his shoulders. but it felt important. it felt good, when he thought he knew the way forward. his path.

as he looks around the streets of rivington — the displaced refugees, the beggars in the alleys of baldurs gate — he can’t help but feel their pain. their loss. if he were to take each bruise and blister, how much of their pain could he withstand? could he alleviate enough suffering for it to matter?

he remembers staring at the open wounds in his palms as the bird flew away. it had mattered, hadn't it?

maybe once, he had thought himself, or willed himself, to be the perfect example of his oath. the divine sword and shield of justice. and when that divinity — that meaning — was stripped away, his friends had taught him what he was without it.

they put their trust in him. they did not think less of a paladin with a broken oath. they gathered gold without understanding his commitment to his god's silence. they remade his oath, reformed its meaning. he knows danny does not always understand him. and despite it, he still listened. placed his selune necklace in leland's hands, when ilmater’s absence left him feeling cold and abandoned.

tells him now, how he is more than what he can do for others.

❝ i know, i do. but... ❞ leland takes a measured breath.

then, he takes danny’s hand gently, brings it to rest over the place at the center of his chest — where he bore danny’s scar. from the spear. from withers’ magic. from a worthwhile trade. one he would make again, and again.

❝ … believe me when i say it is my greatest honour. ❞ he smiles, eyes crinkling gently at the corners. protecting you, protecting all of you.

[lifesver]

@fcused said: ❛ do you trust me ? ❜

it seems like just yesterday that they had made camp on the steep cliffs, baldurs gate sprawled out before them; its familiar pillars rising through the misty trees below. distant little speckles of light — of home — blinking in the night. the quiet glimmer of hope, maybe, finally. leland thinks about everything that’s happened since — how much further, still, they have to go.

they have been watching the still surface of the pond for some time now, in silence. by the edge of camp, feet in shallows. minnows swirl in the reeds, between their bare ankles. connie feels tense at the small point where their elbows brush, and leland’s brows knit in quiet concern when she finally speaks. he turns his head slightly to answer her;

❝ you're my friend. of course i do. ❞

this answer comes easily. naturally. she turns her eyes to him with a soft frown.

“ that’s not what i meant. ” she drops her eyes, “ our… promise. ”

leland looks away, looks out beyond the treeline, gives a hum of acknowledgement.

❝ i remember. ❞

he can guess that she’s going over the events of the day. thinking of the emperor and the dragon — an ill-fated love story, and its cruel end. seeming proof of what they all secretly feared. that everything — all they have been through together, will end in tragedy. that love will not be enough, one of these times.

none of them had felt good after what they’d seen in the prism. what they’d agreed to do. as though there was even another choice but to be complicit. to learn that there was no power of will. no reason they were special. instead, a prince, chained within a lonely plane, used for his magic. the real reason their minds had not succumbed to the tadpoles wriggling in their heads. the emperor had spoken of inevitability. of evolution. and leland watched connie’s face twist with pain as she fought the influence of the astral tadpole. he had felt it, too. maybe less — but it was there. that pulling sensation, at the fraying threads of his mind. that sick feeling — when he threw the horrible thing into the dark void below. it had made his chest squeeze.

he understands connie’s sentiment, now. her uncertainty, and deep-seated fears. and he had made her a promise, after the prism, after the astral plane;

that if it came to it, he would make sure she would not hurt anyone. he would do what had to be done.

he can still see the grymforge. after they lost danny. connie’s eyes, alight with cold anger, sawing, and sawing against nere’s throat. horrible sound of knife against bone and sinew and muscle. until head severed from neck.

then — was it so different from the countless enemies struck down by his hand? cleaved, screaming horribly by searing light of holy blade, eviscerated by violent, radiant fire — not the wrath of the gods, but his own. how much more blood had to spill for this to end? weren’t they still doing the right thing?

mindflayer. monster. you’ll kill everyone you hold dear.

you have a violent heart.

it’s your nature. it’s evolution.

no — leland would not believe it. if he did, what would be left? they have not come this far to give up on their humanity.

❝ it won’t come to that. ❞ he says, suddenly. quiet, and sober in his conviction. leland meets her sharp green eyes with certainty in his own.

because — when he looks at connie, he sees only their unfaltering ranger. bringing to mind a powerful swirling mass of black hole that ripped to shreds anything in its vicinity — but not him. never him. a volley of arrows that struck down the monsters surrounding him on all sides. precise and deadly. her hand reaching out through the dark corners of his vision to help him to his feet — keep fighting, i’m with you.

their steady, calculating protector on high. their strange, prickly girl from the wilds. the girl who speaks to pigeons — and would likely pickpocket the gods, if given the chance.

their friend. their connie.

how could he ever not trust her?

❝ … i just know... you’re not like him, con. you will never be like him. ❞ he bumps her shoulder with his wing gently. a soft, fond look. ❝ you’re not alone, you have us. whatever we face, we face it together, right? ❞ he glances down at the water again, smile fading just a touch. he feels more clarity than before. ❝ and, if… if we win, or if we lose. hells — if we… turn into mindflayers. i’ll be with you, until the very end. i promise. ❞

[lifesver]

thinking about leland's love for his friends today. thinking about his scars being the roadmap of his devotion to them. how his healing powers so often come at a cost to himself, but to take on half of his friends' pain is to love them and protect them. and that is the most important thing in the world to him.

[lifesver]

why are you so baby. why are you kicked puppy coded

[lifesver]

i luv our bg3 campaign so much i luv our kids i love playing this campaign w my friends TT--TT

[lifesver]

i think leland's team would be like this

[lifesver]

leland crosses his arms, frowning. ❝ i would've been totally fine without your help. better off, i bet. ❞ another probable lie — but leland’s stubborn. hearing his prison guard shifting in the shared space, he glances up. more than a little surprised to see the raider has left the tray, along with a canteen on leland’s side of the room, before he makes his way to the opposite side to sit and look real brooding. leland eyes the boy, and then the offering. it seems like a gesture of good faith — he thinks. but leland doesn’t move, yet. instead, he looks down, turns his little slice of fruit between his fingers. it’ll probably make him sick, anyway. like everything else.

❝ — what were those things, anyway? the… ones that attacked. ❞ leland clears his throat uncomfortably, as another realization dawns on him. he’s heard stories about the effects of severe radiation on the human body, before — but to see it? brown eyes widen a little. ❝ — oh god. were they… were those people? ❞ a pang of something like shame, or guilt drives through him like a cold wind — he remembers, in the moment, he had only seen monsters. mindless, violent, and scary. how far away was he really from becoming something like that?

leland’s eyes flick up soberly, and hold on the figure across the room — or someone like him? there’s nothing else to do but listen to him talk about surviving, and doing what it takes. but leland knows he means hurting people.

he’s probably done this to plenty of people before you.

or worse, his mind echoes, again, unhelpfully. things could be, and could get worse than this. everything on the surface is worse. because maybe they were never supposed to leave the vault at all. maybe it was all awful, up here — but it’s not like he had a choice in any of this. fleetingly, leland wonders if he had a choice in where he’d ended up — the other boy.

when he finds his voice again, it’s oddly calm; ❝ ... is that what you’re gonna do? kill me? ❞ — or was it going to be the worse thing? leland stares at the other boy unflinchingly now. but his own line of questioning is unsettling him. so he lets the uneasy silence hang between them for a little, and brings the fruit slice to his lips. he’s been procrastinating eating it, and he tries not to make a face at its immediate sourness, but doesn’t succeed. it feels acidic in his empty stomach.

❝ … well, our food gets pre-selected for most meals, actually, so — ❞ stop talking — he’s just making fun of you, again. he clearly already thinks of him as nothing but an idiotic, spoiled vault-dweller — and leland doesn’t know how to prove him wrong. face warms with his embarrassment, and he huffs out, defensive; ❝ i can’t change that i was born in a vault. ❞

"a li'l more— hah! you ain't dead, are you?" danny's retort is immediate and clipped, rhetorical in nature because it's obvious where he could be right now; tossed and left for hounds, ghouls, scavengers. danny's mouth sets into an automatic sneer. an expression he dons more often than not because it allows him to be taken seriously. his father runs this whole operation, but his lot aren't a forgiving sort. his dues must be paid and earned, not hand-fed to him by the coat tails of a man who raised him into this brutality. they don't respect him because his father says so, they respect him because his father molded him into some thing respectable. bait. a lure. a hidden blade. initiating conversation has never been his strong suit and now even less so. this shouldn't be his duty. this is the sort of guard duty given to those that have left a bad taste in the collective factions' mouth. the buzzards, they're called. big ugly birds that haunt the mountains, hovering over the dead.

he sucks his teeth, resigned to a blistering silence as he watches the boy move. like a cornered animal. complete with rattling chains. something knits itself tight at the center of danny's chest, but he ignores it. rubs at the sensation with the back of his hand and slices another piece of fruit. and another. pit and skin left to the wayside. watching his hands feels like the safer option, but he keeps his eyes on the captive instead. he's cold. he's hungry. exhausted, because who wouldn't be? but there's still a fire burning there. snagged in his voice. glimpses of it catch in the dark room, illuminating in his brown eyes.

there's something to be said about the human spirit. he's seen the looks in peoples' eyes seconds before their life is taken. how sometimes they hold that similar fire as this boy does now. and sometimes they've given up, look hopeless, look like they're waiting for the inevitable end.

what will he be forced to see this time?

the raider loses his appetite easily, and so he's left leaving the sliced fruit on a small silver tray between the two of them. his - the other boy's - for the taking. coupled with the canteen of water he's meticulously left beside it, too. and then danny takes three steps back to sequester himself to his own corner of the shared room, away from the vault dweller. away from his eyes. eyes that are downcast. eyes that he finds he doesn't want to meet when he snorts. ( eyes he wishes to see neither judgement nor pity from. ) he could pretend he didn't hear the question. almost does.

"doin' what?" he lets his own question linger for only a second, maybe two. "survivin'? i dunno if you've noticed just yet... but if you're not willing to do what it takes to survive up here, you're gonna be killed. killed. eaten." a beat, his shoes scruffing against tile. snide edge to a rough voice. "worse." worse. there's always something worse out there then being given the release of death. if you get caught out there, you make sure they kill you, son. you hear me? his father's voice rattles at the back of his mind, provoking him to clear his throat. snuff the thought. he shifts, dragging dirty fingers across his scruffy jawline in a lazy scratch. a dry laugh follows. "bet the worst you had to deal with in your comfy vault was being picky about what food you wanted to eat that day and brushin' your stupid pretty hair, huh?"

[lifesver]

sorry that fallout au will get me to write but also thank god,

[lifesver]

thinking about how out of the mckinney kids sadie and april are most like cecil and willa and leland are most like lorelai. but also every single mckinney kid is never going to grow up to be shit like their dad is. but april is like yeah i have oldest daughter issues and helped raise all my siblings. and sadie is like yeah im my father’s daughter unfortunately and i hate that so im going to act out. willa is weird and emotionally psychic like her mom and leland is just like, all of lorelai’s softness but as a goofy jock.

[lifesver]

cranky

[lifesver]

the leland fallout 76 mutation if i've ever seen it

[lifesver]

his silly little firefighter fit ft connie. they always be sitting there afk

[lifesver]

leland walking into various vaults and both seeing the shady shit vault tec was up to and researching but also seeing what some of the fucked up people that took over them did,

[lifesver]

doing the dumbass brotherhood of steel quests in f76 (all my homies hate the brotherhood of steel) but regrettably i think fresh out of the vault leland would see The Illusion of power armour dudes with names like paladin whatever jumping around taking out ~bad guys and be like wowwwwww cool. but rn he's getting into every type of argument with shin bc leland wants to help people and shin is giving even more narc energy than him, a vaultie.

[lifesver]

leland makes a derisive sound, tilting his head back against the wall; ❝ am i supposed to be a little more grateful? after you tricked me, and threatened to kill me, and then took me hostage? ❞ eyes roll to scan the ceiling, bored. not to mention it feels like they’d walked for three days straight to get here, and he’d been yanked along like a dog on a leash the entire time.

so leland kind of hates him; the guy sat in front of him, watching as if leland's going to go anywhere. looks about his age, rough and mean looking like most of these people, with sharp grey eyes. but he had seemed nice — when he was pretending to help. it makes leland feel stupid for blindly trusting him, to begin with. only to get surrounded by the rest of them. with their makeshift weapons and guns, who had grabbed him and shoved him down, and then casually deliberated over the worth of his life. leland was clearly secondary to the shiny technology locked around his wrist, though. and worse for probably everyone involved — that technology was locked to his biometrics; not easily used without its owner. vault-tec’s anti-theft measures hadn’t accounted for the sick creativity of people like this, he’s sure.

leland shifts his knees up to his chest, stares back with a petulant look, brows furrowed over stinging eyes. ❝ ... i’m not hungry, ❞ he lies. he’s exhausted and hungry, actually. most of the scraps he's been given have just made him feel sick — and made the geiger counter on his pip-boy tick violently in warning; dangerous! — like basically everything, up here.

again, he's offered a ration of the unspecified fruit. which looks a little more appealing than the unspecified meat from earlier, admittedly. his stomach gnaws insistently again, and he shivers slightly as cold air passes through the building. the sounds of the night filter in, too, terrifyingly unknown to him. the raiders laughing outside sound like they could be just normal people. like people from his vault. if he didn't know better, now.

god. he misses home. but he can't find out what happened to it, if he doesn't survive this.

after a long moment, chain clinks against the tile, and leland shifts to cross the distance — to scoot himself just close enough to pluck the slice at the end of the boy's knife. careful to retreat back to the wall after. eyes stay trained on his own hands, and leland goes quiet; ❝ ... why are you doing this? ❞

blade relatively clean, danny shaves off a portion of mutfruit skin, still warm from the fire. grey eyes focused on the task at hand, he glances up at their captive when he slices a sliver of the fruit free and extends it out on the end of his knife. mutfruit to supplement the roasted radroach that was offered before. a slim rationing. the camp is quiet, all things considered. laughter and rough housing just outside where the bonfire still blazes hot. whispers and gunfire further beyond the scope of their purview. the fire should've been put out an hour ago, but it stands as a beacon for anyone daring enough to come disturb their camp. nestled in the ruins of an old building before it spills out into the tents they have set up outside. a generous place to rest after three days of brutal travel.

the winds sing through the appalachian trees and a whistle follows from the growing darkness.

danny's been given babysitting the captive duty. tucked away in the dustier parts of the abandoned medical building, the boy's ankle tethered by chain to a metal pipe. he can move, but he can't get far. the vault dweller who had found himself in a sticky situation with only danny coincidentally available to help. a sticky situation comprised of ghouls intended to corral unsuspecting travelers right into the raiders' hungry maw. this time, like all other times, it had worked like a charm. the prize was prettier, too. worth more, danny's dad had said.

everyone eyed the device caught around his wrist.

"so sorry it's not up to your liking, princess." he wiggles the end of his knife again, the fruit not budging either which way. and then decides to pick it free with his own teeth and pocket it in cheek before he slices another piece. again, he offers it out on the end of his blade. "eat or starve, s'your choice." @lifesver, just some raider boy and vault boy things.