#//eldritch horror rocks for all

[vishapsking]

They’re handing out spooky silver mineral today. Happy Halloween!

[diejager]

Saccharine and Monstrosity pt.1

Pairing: Eldritch Horror!König x mermaid!reader

Cw: kidnapping, manipulation, DARK FIC, trap, luring, mention of breeding kink, protective König, mention of partial nudity, hunting, tell me if I missed any. Wc: 4K

I got inspired by @konigsblog ‘s post.

You enjoyed the sun as much as any other betta fish mermaid, laying on the warm rocks and bathing under the bright, yellow sun. You lived in a school of fish that moved near the shores of a tropical island a few generations before, building houses under the coral reef and rocks where newly placed branches would grow and work as a natural shield. The world you lived in - the part of the ocean you called your home - was bright and colourful, the shallow waters clear and gleaming under the warming sun.

You liked all things bright and colourful, either big or small, you decorated your part of the cave with things you found while swimming around your territory. Be it a golden coin shining on the ocean floor, or a shard of coloured glass, you picked it all up and stuck it around your room. Sometimes, you found pretty things near the limits of your home, and other times, you ventured closer to the edge of the darkness when something shiny caught your attention. 

Over the ridge of sand that drew the start of the darkness, that deep and menacing slope down to the deepest part of your ocean, where darker, meaner and cruel beings born of cruelty and madness lived. It was somewhere all mers were warned of, to stay far away from the darkness and never stray from the light that fed and protected you. You thrived in the light, your body absorbing the warmth from the sun that made your scales vibrant and feeding from the fauna and flora that lived beside you: seaweeds and small fishes. 

Your kind grew up with stories of horrifying monsters and cruel creatures that lived in that abyss, lingering near the shallow to catch a pretty, little mer for their hoard. Whatever became of the taken was still unknown, once a mer was taken by One, no one would hear from them from then on. Your parents had warned you about straying too close from the shallow, daring fate when you swam over the ridge to collect those pretty gems you fancied so much.

“Don’t worry,” you’d grin at her, fins flickering behind you. “I’m a fast swimmer, mom!”

You were a fast swimmer, slipping between rocks and corals, hands cradling your little shells while you fled from the dark, twisting over the ridge and vanishing between the corals. That’s what you did most days, picking up people’s trash to make it your treasure, fingers cleaning the sand off the holes and crevasses before sticking them to your walls. You also tinkered with metal creations you found, a silver fork or a rusted-looking instrument. 

Granted, you joined in hunts, catching sardines and herrings, claws digging into its scaled bodies and teeth ripping into its flesh, the only other taste being sea salt, or bathed under the sun, but you preferred scavenging for loot. Although mers hunted alone, most found it easier to do it in groups, swarming shoals of fish and catching in a group of a dozen at a time for your little colony. So when you were fed and rested, you were back out, treading the line between the shallow and the abyss.

You swam slowly, head turning left and right for anything that would catch your attention, for that small glint hidden under a thin veil of sand or a long metallic object sticking out from the ground. You already had a few things in your arms, a few shells, human objects thrown overboard or floated into the sea, and small treasures: white pearls. You picked things up from both sides, mind in a comfortable and pleasant space, prideful of your catch so far that you were oblivious of the eyes following your colourful body. 

His pale eyes wandered over your puffy cheeks and sweet lips, those squinted eyes in mirth as you searched for more. He went down the curve of your shoulders and the swell of your breasts, perky nipples covered by pretty shells, over your soft stomach and that bright, colourful tail of yours that first caught his attention. Every scale glistened under the sun, reflecting the light on the sand while you swam, your fins curving with the twist of your tail. 

You were the prettiest thing he’d ever seen, an angel collecting treasure, just like he did. He saw the batch in your arms, clutched between your breasts when you dove to pick something up on his side. You were as adorable and innocent as you were pretty, your action oblivious of his predatory eyes, dipping into his territory without fear of retribution on his part. He liked that bold and daring attitude of yours, fitting for someone so courageously bright and flashing your bold colours to him. 

If he were to drop something closer to him, would you still swim towards it or ignore it for something closer to the ridge? If he hid until you were close enough, would he be able to wrap his limb around you? To feel your soft skin and coarse scales under his slimy arm. He was glad he decided to hunt today, searching for both prey - mer or fish, he isn’t picky about what he ate - and treasure. Hidden under a couple of tentacles, he dropped a golden coin a few feet away from him, his veil and the darkness helping him hide from your sight. 

His heart soared when he saw your eyes widen, a smile curling at the corners of your lips when you saw his little coin, diving towards him with enthusiasm. You were so close to him, hand stretching to grab the object with small, clawed fingers. When you held it in your hand, appraising it, he felt pride bubble in his chest, rising to his mind as he took this occasion to get his arm around you. You flinched when he wrapped the tip of his tentacle around your tail, squirming around in terror. In a panicked struggle to escape him, you dropped everything you’d collected and fled from him with a cry.

He watched you swim away from him through saddened eyes, hearing the thudding from the things you dropped, even the coin he gifted you. His eyes never left your fleeing body until you jumped over the edge, your tail the last thing he saw in that moment of self-deprivation and sadness. He hoped you’d come back, forgetting the fear of his sudden attention and daring fate once more.

He came the next day and the day after that, but you weren’t there, your precious smile and happy eyes were a memory in his mind, a fleeting moment in his gloomy world. He came back every day, hiding in the darkness, on the line between pitch darkness and light shading. He wished you were there every day, his eyes bleeding with optimism and hope for a single smidgen of bright colours. 

He hadn’t seen you in the following week. His shoulders slumped and caved into himself in sadness every time he came by, his blue eyes dulling bit by bit, that hopeful thinking drowning under realistic thinking and a pessimistic mind. Then he caught a glimpse of colour against the white sand. Before long, he saw arms filled with shiny items, trailing nearer to your side than his, but still chasing for treasures. 

If he wanted to approach you, to touch your soft-looking skin and run his arms over your scaled tail, he’d have to find a way to lure you in. He watched you the first few days, his tentacles curling on itself and burying himself in the sand, the hundreds of suckers searching for buried treasures to leave for you. When you turned your back to him, his unwinding arm left the things he found near the ridge for you to find and take. Little gifts for you, courting gifts he left and gifted you in an attempt to woo you. 

You were skittish and fleeing but took all his gifts with shaky smiles and grateful eyes, you knew he gave them to you. Of course, you did, you were his brave and smart little mermaid, approaching his offerings with apprehension - he felt hurt you feared and got nervous around him, but he understood you, his kind ate yours - and scanned the sand around you for any danger before crossing the line. He felt giddy when you added them to your stack, his mind-blowing with dreams and thoughts of you decorating your little cave with the things he gave you. On the ceiling, against the wall and on the ground or surfaces, you would use the things he gave you for your home. 

It sent him up the walls of his caves with joy and excitement, his limbs curling to rearrange his home to prepare for you, to accommodate your arrival to his big, lonely home.

It took a week or two - or so he thought, his perception of time was and had always been warped in some way - before you became comfortable enough to approach him, to let him curl his slimy tentacle around your tail and up your body. He could finally feel you and it made him ecstatic - he was over the moon every time he got to touch you. Little pokes, fleeting squeezes and feathery bites from his suckers on your flesh, all things he let himself taste before your coupling. A coupling between the prettiest and the cruellest beings in the ocean would unwind the seams that made your worlds, pulling the string that separated the beauty and the beast in this cursed universe.

Granted, you hesitated to cross into the pitch darkness of the abyss, dancing just a few inches from his abode with an armful of trinkets from König. Your slow and steady breath, words you blessed him with when you muttered to him, calling out to know if he was there and your grateful grin were a common, yet welcome sight in his daily swim. While a bit reluctant to join him on the other side, you eventually swam across, your eyes melting into the black before you. You were unseeing as much as you were blind, if not for the guiding palm of the Eldritch creature that you befriended and the shine of treasure you saw around him. 

You wished you could see anything but the gleam of treasure and the black mist of the abyss, your hand wandered over his, searching for his body, to feel the one who’s been gifting you treasures. Your fingers trailed upwards, feeling the tightness of his muscles, the curves and hardness of his arms were sinful. You truly wished you could see him at this moment, but you kept at your advance, clawed fingers moving slowly with unbridled curiosity. When you reached his broad shoulders and well-pronounced chest, it rumbled, a purr coming from König. Its deep sound shook you with need, your tail enthusiastically moving back and forth as you listened to him. 

“Are you happy, Schatz?”

His voice was even better than his soft purrs, in a way that made you want to melt into his arms and never bother moving if he kept talking to you, the sound of the creature that gave you gifts and affection. König’s spine-chilling voice seemed like a mix of many voices, both soft and raspy, and both deep and smooth, but it was something you enjoyed, that you found yourself liking a bit too much. 

“Yes,” you breathed, eyes travelling skyward, towards the source of his voice.

Your breath caught in your throat, choking a gasp at the prettiest blues you’d seen staring down at you. They were majestic, gem-like with a pretty sheen that made them glow like a beacon of light. You wondered why you’d never seen them, seeing how bright his eyes were. They lit up his face, or the veil he wore over his face, showing the pale streak of makeshift tears down the incision he made for his eyes. You shamelessly admired him, unbothered by the lost puppy-like stare you gave him in your glowing beauty. 

You’d crossed a threshold, where a creature of light never dared to cross, stepping into the arms of an Old One and embracing their madness. Although you were oblivious to his intentions, the loud proclamation of his courting rituals and attempts of crying out his love - the Old One’s rituals and cultures were much of a mystery to those who didn’t study them, much of a taboo for anyone outside of delusion and greed - he hadn’t refrained from his deliberate show that would be nearly shameful and embarrassing to others of his kind. 

Some wouldn’t bother with such frivolous acts: confessions from the deepest part of their dark soul, proclamation of love and undying adoration, or having to scavenge for gifts - offerings - to the subject of their attention. His kind took and took, reaching for that small glimmer of hope and beauty and corrupted it, bending it to their liking and building something from the ashes. It wouldn’t - would never - be the same as they were before, but that was how the Old Ones liked it: control, corruption, ruin, madness and power.

König wouldn’t do that, he wanted to cherish you, add to what you were and watch it bloom like those bioluminescent creatures in the abyss; even against his creator’s wishes. He’ll put you on the highest pedestal he has, eternally imprinting the image of you as his most precious treasure into his mind. You’ll be a thing of miracles, a thing of blessings, a thing of new beginnings. He wanted all and everything with you, but he’d have to take it slow, to coax you into this redundant pattern that ensured your trust and comfort and have you follow him of your own volition. 

He doesn’t mind waiting, he’s had hundreds of years of sitting and waiting, patience was a virtue he grew to learn, to hold in his giant palm and clutch like a gift from the ever-growing, chaotic universe. He can wait and plan, so he will, König will lay down his plan and wait until he can bring it to reality.

Wait he did, for you to grow comfortable enough to follow him deeper and let him pull you in from your side. It took you a month of back and forth, squirming around your infatuation with König and exchanging trinkets, words and fleeting kisses with him. He adored your little giggles when he traced your sides with a bolt tentacle, curling under your plush tits and the tip sliding under your strap. He loved the pretty shells you gave him, cleaned from sand and any barnacles, it showed him how much time you spent on it for him. His heart bloomed and swelled to impossible heights when you pecked his lips, giving him shy and gentle kisses that he grew addicted to. 

You were so sweet and so soft, your lips the taste of heaven for a creature of madness. Your hands were gentle like a cool balm over a burn, soothing his wild thoughts. Your little gifts for him - reciprocating his affection - were currently the most important things in his cave, a sign of your love and devotion. It made him wonder what would you let him do once you gave yourself to him. Would you succumb to the everlasting pleasures he could give you, or would you demand to help him take care of his own in a mutual haze? He couldn’t help himself, letting his chaotic mind conjure the most absurd and erotic dreams, his body vibrating with excitement; and now, at the peak of your trust in him, he watched his plan - a well-placed trap - come to fruition. 

“Come, Schatz,” he beckoned you forward, his burly arm stretching to coax you to follow him, holding out his open palm to you. “I have something I want to show you. Pretty things.”

Without a thought, to question his intentions or to ask why he couldn’t have bought them for you like he usually did, you took his hand and let his fingers curl over yours, intertwining your smaller digits to his as he pulled you to his chest. His embrace was as safe and pleasant as the last one - yesterday - and caused a flurry of emotions to erupt in your chest, he was warm in the cool darkness, loving in all the ways you could think. You could close your eyes and imagine a smile rippling across his face with joyfully squinted eyes peering down at you. 

Held against his chest, his other arm wrapped around your waist with a firm squeeze of his hand where your skin turned to scales. He whispered sweet promises, words of encouragement to see the way to his home and excited explanations of what awaited you. Pretty things, he said, you knew what he meant - at least you think you did - you shared much in common, and pretty things were something you both agreed on: shiny metals, interesting trinkets, shimmering shells or finely-minted coins. All things humans valued before throwing away; one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. 

How unfortunate that you couldn’t see in the dark, yet how fortunate you wouldn’t know the way back, it was something he relied on heavily to keep you, if you didn’t know how to navigate in this utter blindness, there were no risks of you trying to escape his caring hand. You were smart, you wouldn’t simply venture off without knowing where to go and how to see, especially with how vast his territory was and how dangerous it was. He shared his home with other simple-minded animals, sharks, fishes, eels and any other abyssal creature that lived and depended on the dark to live. 

Your innocent curiosity about the things he deemed pretty enough to hoard made his heartbeat, that addicting feeling he got from touching you, kissing you and speaking to you. Even if the deeper he went, the colder it became, you never once complained, your wide eyes and grinning face were the only thing you gave him. He was truly relieved to know that you were patient and understanding of his home, not one hiss or pout while you shook and clung to him, depending on him for warmth. He liked that, to see you rely on him so much. 

“We’re here, mein Liebling,” he hushed, cradling your face as he dove down, through the entrance of his cave. He shielded your fragile body with his many arms, protecting you from the rush of water current flowing against him. He chose this one to build his nest, using the strong current as a natural barrier against weaker creatures. 

When the waters calmed to a still, he loosened his hold on you, unravelling his arms to let you explore the many passages and alcoves in his home. To accommodate you, he strung up bioluminescent flora, using them as light to find your way around, with silken algae over a few rocks to mimic the beds mers slept in and a few other things that he thought you’d need: a mirror, a few floating plants to add to its mystical beauty and clusters of soft materials in nearly every room. 

He let you wander, your tail flapping back and forth to lead you down the long hall and explore the many rooms. He used a room to sleep, one as a pantry and storage, and another one to hold his hoard, but he had a lot of empty and unused space, more than enough for you and your children to thrive. He wanted to let you roam at your own pace, but he had something to show you, something he was proud of making. 

He pulled you from your little cloud of joy, wrapping an arm around you, his sticky suckers latching onto you as he coaxed you his way. Only then had you taken the time to admire König under blue light, cheeks warm with a burning flush and doe-like eyes staring at the naked expense of his hard abdomen, stomach sculpted to perfection that had Adonis shying away. His arms were big and round, muscles straining the scarred skin with delicious appeal. 

Downwards, following the sharp dip of his navel, were dozens of dark tentacles lined with round, pulsing suckers. Like an octopus, they were covered in a slimy sheen, every limb flexible and able to move independently. The lower ones were thick and soft, acting as a cover for whatever he hid beneath them, while some were thinner, whose source came from under his veil. Those, however, were a mix of normal and horrific tentacles, some had eyes replacing the usual suckers, tinted in the same colour as his irises, that glowing, pale blue. 

It made your body heat up, fingers tingling with nerves - or was it? When faced with something you found appealing, it’d be natural to feel flustered, no? König thought so, that’s how he spent the first days reacting to you, heating up to a bothersome flush to everything you did. He watched your awed stare, that daydreaming haze in your eyes when you looked him over, his whole body clear under the gentle light in his cave. 

“This way.”

Without making your gaze leave his figure, he drew you in, heading towards his biggest room where he caught and strung everything to fit his pleasure and mood. It was somewhere deeper into the system with walls strong and sturdy, and the round ceiling higher than the other rooms. On one side was a pile of golden objects of all shades, light yellow to a darkish gold, nearly bronze; on the other was a mix of pretty silver things and metallic black objects, rusted by age and the salty ocean; and on another, the smallest of them all, comprised of a few dozens of colourful shells and corals frozen in time that you’d given him. 

He saw your chest expand, your smile growing brighter and brighter at the pile of gifts you gave him, your bubbly laugh as you swam towards it, twirling around it proudly. You looked around the room, admiring his large collection and how it seemed to spill down every pile in an attempt to reach the other one, forming a protective ring around your presents, but always coming back to the bright pink, blue and yellow shells. You were happy and appreciative of the time he spent working and arranging his hoard. If he could, he’d preen and purr to you, to show just how much your proud smile meant to him, watching you appraise his work was satisfying. 

He already felt like things were falling into place perfectly, he could see the life he had envisioned with you coming to life, the little intricacies that popped into his mind seeming too appealing. His dreams were slowly becoming a reality, the things that he could only imagine were now tangible to his hands, and the future he salivated at was so, so close that he could sink his teeth into its flesh. 

He knew it. He knew it when he watched you swim to him with that big, adorable smile on your face, that it was in his hands. He could see it now, how his lonely cave would be filled with life and laughter, children with a mix of your beauty and his madness chasing one another between the many openings and your round, swollen stomach welcoming another of your children to the world. That was all he could think of while he cradled you in his arms, his tentacles latching to your tail and back. 

“You’re happy, ja?”

Next

Taglist: @sae1kie @yeoldedumbslut @tallmanlover @distracteddragoness @vxnilla-hxrddrugs @konigsblog @candlewitch-cryptic @im-making-an-effort @0alk0msan 

[alllgator-blood]

I posted these on reddit a while ago and I've gotten multiple messages asking if I had any other social media? Which I didn't at the time, but after years of not bothering to post my art I think that was the boost I needed to finally re-emerge from the rock I've been living under.

ANYWAY uhhhhhh I've drawn these guys so much since I posted this that they might look a little different when I eventually post my newer art of them. Mostly because I don't bother drawing the little crosses on their heads anymore besides on leshy because frankly the antennae are really funny. If anyone has any questions about my hcs or what I intend to do with the characters, my ask box is open and I don't have anything better to do than endlessly ramble about gods that 100% would rip my head off immediately if I ever encountered them!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, the reception I got for these on reddit was way more positive than I was expecting which I am immensely grateful for, but there was definitely some miscommunication about the afab shamura headcanon so I'm just gonna dump about that below the cut if you want to hear me ramble about my nonbinary-ness for a while:

OKAY SO it's canon that the bishops were feral little animals before they found their crowns, right? Leshy and Shamura both talk about it during their follower quests. Feral animals do not have a concept of gender, only biological sex, so if they ascended to sapient godhood they would suddenly have a grasp of gender. My hc is that Shamura was a female feral spider, ascended to godhood, lost their bio sex in the process as with all the other bishops, and was just like "you know what? I don't want to be anything. This is kinda swag actually" so they just became War and Grief and Cosmic Horror incarnate. I am fucking desperate for any relatable enby representation in the media I like, so I just want to clarify me saying they were female at some point just is me going "I am living vicariously through this character who shed their mortal flesh prison to be an eldritch spider war god devoid of any sex characteristics" and not "I'm one of those numerous people who for some reason lumps this canonically agender character in with a binary sex". Anyway thank you for reading this far, here's an unfinished voidpunk shamura from a pride flag color palette thing I did of the bishops:

[hemipenal-system]

eldritch horror girl who looks almost human when you meet her. sure her skin is kinda ashen and her hair moves when there’s no wind but she’s so pretty you can’t say no

so you take her home and she pushes you gently against a wall and your lips meet, and then her tongue’s in your mouth and her slender fingers are trailing up your thigh and you're doing the same to her

and she leans in and presses her tongue forward, but this time it just keeps going, curling around your tongue and down your throat and getting longer and thicker until you're almost gagging on it

and you open your eyes out of confusion and she's staring back at you, all six unnaturally orange eyes focused on you. the same cute smile is plastered on her face but her slim lips are parted just enough to see razor-sharp pointed teeth behind them. her skin is rock-gray and chipped and cracked like aging stonework.

she's so hot.

she pulls back to look at you, about six jet-black inches of her tongue suspended between your mouths, the end still wriggling teasingly inside you, and puts a finger to her mouth in a playful "shh" motion. her joints scrape together audibly as she does.

she leans back in and a second tongue curls out her mouth, then a third - one moving down to lick over your jugular and taste your blood through your skin, the other caressing the folds of your ear. her hands are covering your eyes and wrapping around your throat and holding your hips and moving vigorously between your legs and playing with your nipples all at once.

you get the sense that she's caught you, and if she so desired it she could eat you like a mantis eats a fly. the fires inside her irises dance to an irregular tempo.

open your eyes. become one with her.

...

you don't remember having had sex with her. you were kissing, and then you woke up in your bed and it was morning. there's an old, mossy statue wrapped around you like a lover. it doesn't move, but it's warm to the touch and its stonework is surprisingly soft to lay against, as if its edges were molded for your body. its fingers are clasping yours. you're covered in gentle bite marks.

[goofy-clan]

Heyo! Narrator peep and creator of goofy clan! I wanted to share this fanart I made as a gift to the clan series that inspired this entire series! Enjoy!!

And now it’s time to pair cat with creator! Click more to see notes I left for the creators too!

————————————————

Goldsight belongs to @gray-thistleclan , I loved the way the cats were drawn in this series, and especially how the story progressed! Gold was always my favroite -w-! Even though she has the crazy disease now ;-;.

Eukltna belongs to @loudclan-clangen ! I loved the silly cats in this series, the artstyle actually helped me draw mouths easier! I love our doomed religious kitty, even if she was a bit odd. That crude oil does get everywhere huh…

Longstrike belongs to @juniper-clan ! The fact that the entire series was set in olden times is really neat! I also love the theme of seashells/ cowrie shells being bad, those are spooky! Long was my favroite, I was sad to see him go. So he’s drawn in the cozy sunshine!

Tigertoe Belongs to @circus-clangen ! Circus clan was actually a big inspiration for the puzzles/cipher aspects of my blog! I was always a sucker for finding stuff out, plus clowns are cool! I love tiger with all my heart, she was so fun to draw! Best entertainer :)!

Ravenstar belongs to @fallenclan ! Oh boy where do I start. I think it’s super impressive how far the series is now, even if I picked up halfway through! I love how the cats look, fun fur colors! Raven is such a good villain, evil stinky cat. So here he is with a totally real (and not painted) star!

Kestrelstar belongs to @echoes-in-echoclan ! I love this series, even though I don’t get what’s going on sometimes, it’s still a wonderful read! I also loved the connected universe with circus clan, what a twist! Kestrel is my favorite, he’s such a cool old dude!

Sweetkit belongs to @mourningsbane ! It isn’t every day I see a eldritch horror/spooky clangen series! As an avid horror fan, I love how body horror is drawn and shown in this series! Honey is the best cat :)! But, I drew sweet today! They’re a good protagonist, because who better to explore the spooky uknown than kittens?

NettleIris belongs to @moons-of-dewclan ! I adored the art style of this series, and the fact all the backgrounds are drawn so beautifully! Even though this series tugs at my heart strings, it’s lovely! Makes me wanna go wander in the woods! Nettle is my favorite lil’ peep, best medicine cat. Plus, puffy cats are fun to draw!

ConiferSun belongs to @castaway-clan ! I love the trope of “rebuild and build anew” in clangen runs! Seeing the clan in this series slowly grow in size and for the leader to not be alone anymore was very comforting. Conifer is my favorite simply because they’re blue and just a wonderful cat in the series! They also get to look at the lady bug :)!

And that’s all! Y’all are cool Peeps, keep on rocking!

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

Describing each doctor based on how I differentiate them in my head

One: suspiciously inclined to murdering people with rocks

Two: executed by the state for being a fun little guy (no relation to the rock murder thing, they didn’t really care about that)

Three: if you’re not going to be at least a little gay and dramatic about it, why do it at all

Four: creature who is also a man who should probably not be allowed a space/time ship for the health and safety of the universe

Five: someone test this man for something, no one passes out/falls down that much with out there being something going on there

Six: guy with the worlds worst (best) coat

Seven: if a mouse trap could also be an alien with an umbrella

Eight: your grandma loves him, but he will leave her house and commit at least one atrocity that he never speaks of again (he probably forgot)

Nine: a fun guy who very desperately needs a therapist

Ten: was in love once and makes it everyone else’s problem

Eleven: excitable puppy that may or may not also be an eldritch horror (you get to find out the hard way)

Twelve: punk grandpa who want to stop having moral quandaries

Thirteen: excitable puppy who is an eldritch horror, just not in the way she thinks

Fourteen: man gains ability to talk about his emotions for the first time in his very, very long life

[starks-hero]

Oh, Little Horned One of the Old Oak Tree

Pairing: Steven Grant x Reader

Summary: Becoming the avatar of an ancient Celtic god came with some unforeseen side affects; side affects which you are yet to tell Steven about.

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: language, slight body horror if you squint, Steven is a ridiculously supportive boyfriend in the face of fuckery and we love him for it

a/n: giving the reader a supportive god/avatar relationship because it's what they deserve

It's not that you hadn't tried to clean the blood, you'd done your best. But it stained the tips of your fingers and left the porcelain tiles of the bathroom a dark red.

You weren't entirely sure where it had all come from, but the damp, matted hair surrounding where the antlers had sprouted from your head served as a good indicator.

It shouldn't be happening, not yet. You had at least another fortnight till the next eclipse, (if your notes were anything to go by.) But you knew the moment your muscles began to ache and your bones began to creak that it was indeed happening, and it wasn't going to stop regardless of how upset it made you.

You'd tried to call Jake. Then Marc. But you didn't want to risk Steven answering the phone.

The bathroom was the closest refuge you could find and as it would seem it was far from the most ideal of places. You'd torn down the shower curtain in your haste to hide and all but shattered the delicate tiles beneath your feet.

The mirror had also fallen victim to your havoc, an almost artistically applaudable webbed crack spreading out from the centre of the glass where your elbow had made contact. A handful of rouge shards littered the floor and made quick work of slicing open your palm.

You glared at the offending piece of glass before picking it out of your hand and throwing it across the room with enough force that it was embedded in the opposite wall like a well-aimed dart.

You could still make out your reflection through the broken glass pane. Antlers sprouting from the crown of your head, winding off in all different directions. There was a pale glow to your eyes and ruins and ancient symbols wrapped around your arms and the expanse of your chest. And if your abundance of new features hadn't already qualified you for your own Magic: The Gathering card, you'd also doubled in height.

This would be a fucking delight to explain.

You took a moment to thank the gods for Stevens's late shift at the museum before steadying yourself with a deep breath.

You'd felt every bit of it; the stretching, twisting and growing of entirely new bones. And if the persistent pain in your chest and spine was anything to go by you figured it was far from over.

You could hear the deep, resonant voice of your deity, distant and far off, like rushing water over rock. His words were gruff and shaped by his accent as he apologized profusely; and as ego-boosting as it was having an eldritch being admit defeat and practically beg for your forgiveness, you found yourself in too much pain to truly enjoy the moment.

“Cernunnos,” you cursed the god's name.

Your legs were still crammed uncomfortably against your chest and the bathroom door whilst your antlers continued to do a glorious job of scrapping the paint job off the ceiling.

Another wave of pain hit, burning through your veins and seizing hold of your lungs. You coughed and spluttered, each attempt at a breath snagging in your throat like leaves catching on dead branches. The horrid sensation of shifting bones hit your chest and you doubled over with a hiss.

“Please make it stop.”

“I'm sorry, fia beag,” (little deer) the god said, his reflection appearing in the mirror shards. His antlers filled out the frame, putting your own to shame and his eyes, (despite, like the rest of his body, being those of a stag, which as far as species go aren't the most emotionally expressive–) were almost apologetic. “I've tried my best, I asked Manannan to reverse the tides to change the lunar phase and buy us time but it's too late.”

It was heartwarming really; how Cernnunos cared so much, enough to ask a fellow god to inconvenience the entire ocean all in the name of saving your love life. You were glad to have him, even if he was the reason you were going through pain worse than fucking childbirth.

“I'm sorry.” The god's ears flattened against his head and you wondered if you'd said the last part aloud.

“What's the point of all this again?” You'd shifted before but it was never irregular and never this bad.

“A thousand years ago my worshipers adored when my avatar arrived at Imbolc in this form!” Cernnunos sounded excited.

“So it was to show off?”

“To make the people feel seen and protected,” he countered.

“And it's something I have to go through because–?”

The god was quiet for a moment. “Old habits die hard?”

Cernnunos had off-handedly mentioned (downright bragged) about the pact he'd made with the moon sometime before the construction of Newgrange. That his avatar would be gifted with a godly form the night of each lunar eclipse. You weren't well versed in ancient deals between eldritch beings but apparently, it's not the kind of agreement you can back out of a millennia down the line.

And apparently, another moon-related god had initiated an eclipse two weeks ahead of schedule. (your money was on Khonshu over Artemis.)

“It will be alright, little one,” Cernnunos promised. It was soothing having him near, but he tended to have that effect. With him, you were like a fawn, comforted by the knowledge that it was protected by its elder. “Besides, it's not as though this night could get much worse for us.”

Almost comedically, the struggle of key in lock sounded and then the front door opened.

You and the god stared at each other, quite literally, like deers in headlights.

“Love? I'm home–”

Steven's voice sent your flight, fight, freeze response to full throttle and you beckoned for Cernnunos to leave as quietly and frantically as you could. The god seemed reluctant, but another chorus of a British accent from the other side of the door and he relented.

The glass rippled like water on a lake and then he was gone.

You could hear Steven moving around the flat, carrying out his usual routine of removing his name tag, unbuttoning his over shirt and tossing his bag on the couch.

You held your breath when the floorboards of the bedroom creaked and silently prayed he'd just call it a night in favour of finding you hiding in the bathroom looking like something straight from Pans Labyrinth. When he called out for you again you sent your head back against the wall with enough force to crack the tiles.

“Love, you alright?” There was three gentle raps on the door. “Darling?”

“I'm fine,” the words were unsteady. And had your voice gotten deeper?

There was a beat of silence outside the door then, “You don't sound fine.”

“I'm just not feeling great,” you managed. Just go, Steven. Please just go.

“Oh, darling, are you sick? Here let me–” The terrifying sight of the door handle turning caused your heart to almost hammer out of your chest. You rushed to press your foot against it and watched in horror as the timber split right down the middle. The door was barely clinging to the hinges.

You could hear Steven's shock on the other side of the door, a string of curses followed suit. “Y/N–”

“Just leave it, Steven!” you bit out. You hadn't meant for the words to sound so animalistic, so angry. But the only thing currently preventing your life from crumbling was a splintering door and your refusal to move your foot. You were allowed to be rash, you thought.

“Alright, you're scaring me now–”

The universe really wasn't letting up with its ironies today.

The wooden door panels creaked and splintered as Steven tried to open it from the outside. You kept your foot firmly pressed to the middle, but as the hinges began to groan you felt the sturdiness give way. It felt like you had your foot against a wet piece of tissue paper; you were going to tear right through it.

With one more shove from Steven's side, you were forced to surrender.

The door swung open with truly theatrical measure and Steven stumbled in behind it. Instinctually, you pushed yourself against the back wall, forgetting your new height and putting your head through the ceiling as you did.

Chaos is too kind of a word for what followed.

The sound that left Steven fell somewhere between a startled shout and a scream of genuine terror. You reached out and Steven fired back, his feet tying themselves in knots and sending him to the floor.

You struggled to pull your head out of the crater you'd left in the roof. A fine layer of debris and dust covered you and somewhat important-looking wires were strung across your antlers like poorly hung Christmas lights.

Almost on cue, the bathroom light flickered twice and came away from the ceiling, ending up in several pieces on the floor.

The dark apparently did nothing in making you look less menacing as Steven continued to voice his fears. And loudly at that. He hadn't moved, still frozen to the spot just outside the door.

“Steven, please–” you crawled forward at a snail's pace, each movement purposely slow.

He watched you with frantic eyes, his heart hammering like a rabbit against his chest. You'd never seen him so scared.

As he clambered to his feet, you dared to inch closer, but it was the opinion of the shattered tiles beneath your feet that you weren't moving nearly fast enough. You slipped on the porcelain shards and were all but thrown in Steven's direction.

Your rack broke your fall by all but embedding the tips of each spike in the wall surrounding the door frame. You'd put your head through so much wood and plaster in the past few minutes you were beginning to sympathize with mounted deer heads.

Steven was staring now, expression boarding on mild fear and absolute confusion. Then, his eyes flicked to the broken mirror behind you, and then his reflection in the window to his right.

Marc and Jake had taken their sweet time.

Steven looked between you, the mirror and the window and then back at you. Then it visibly clicked.

“Oh, oh my gods, Y/N you, you're-” he swallowed. “-what's happening?”

“It's my time of the month.” The joke went down like a led balloon. Steven swayed on his feet.

“Steven, are you alright?”

“Yeah, sort of. No, not really.”

You craned your neck as far as your current predicament would allow for. “Are you going to pass out?”

“Maybe.”

“Okay,” you said the word beneath your breath. He hadn't run which, all things considered, meant this was going fairly well. Even from the awkward angle you were stuck in you could feel his eyes on you, shifting from one monstrous feature to the next, lingering on the markings and the fucking antlers and the–

“Love, you have blood– you're bleeding.” And just like that, a flip switched in Steven's mind at the sight of you wounded. This man was a true enigma and a wonderful one at that. “Here–”

He approached and then almost immediately hesitated, bouncing back on his heel the moment you shifted.

You weren't exactly a threatening sight, shoulders wedged in the door frame, covered in dust and splintered wood and head practically pinned to the wall. You looked like a drunk stag that had lost a fight to a tree.

Steven shook himself and stepped close enough that your laboured breaths ruffled his curls. He was doing an admirable job of hiding the fact that he was shaking.

“Alright, bloody hell um–” He regarded the situation and then nodded. “I'll push, you pull.”

Steven braced his hands against your shoulders and you grabbed hold of the door frame. It's not that you needed the extra help; out of all the things you'd conquered whilst serving as an avatar freeing yourself from a plaster wall ranked fairly low on that list.

But Steven was touching you in this form, his palms pressed to your broadened shoulders and you weren't about to jinx it.

The wall cracked and fissured as you freed yourself, several deep punctures left where your antlers had been. You twisted and manoeuvred your way out of the bathroom until you could straighten up to your full height.

Thank god Steven lived on the top floor. Higher ceilings.

“Okay, woah–” Steven took several steps back as you stood. You towered over him, antlers bleeding into darkened shadows against the ceiling. Okay, now 'intimidating' might be a more fitting word.

You lowered yourself to your knees in an attempt to seem less frightening. Now that you were eye to eye, Steven could see the worry in your expression as you regarded him softly.

“It's alright. I'm adjusting,” he said, voice still trembling. “Just need a quick adjustment period...”

You gave him time and let him lead.

And that's how you ended up in the kitchen, legs crossed as you sat on the floor whilst Steven sat on the counter in front of you. He held a wet flannel in his hand, droplets of water creeping down his arm.

A dry cloth sat folded on the counter beside him, as well as a box of plasters with 'good job!' written across each one.

It was as if his rationality was being overridden by his need to care for you as well as his overall steveness.

Steven dabbed the crown of your head gently, his hands shaking as he did. There was still a dull ache where the antlers had sprouted. Steven rung out the flannel over the sink and the sight of the blood running through his fingers and over his knuckles made you feel ill. His hands were always so soft, they weren't meant to be stained with blood.

You blinked as a small trail of blood seeped from your head and trailed down between your brows. Steven diligently stopped the flow with the cloth and cleaned you up. Your nose twitched at the dampness of the cloth and Steven smiled.

The first smile you'd seen all night.

His actions slowed, hand stilling as he watched you. Beneath the pale glow of your eyes there was something so familiar. He smiled again.

“Hiya love,” the words were so soft they made you feel warm.

“Hi.”

You raised your arms, the markings and symbols on your skin catching in the dim light. Your hands circled Steven's wrists gently. He pulled back and for a terrifying moment you thought he'd gone completely; deciding that he'd had enough, that you were too much like this and he was drawing the boundary line here.

Instead, he dropped the blood-stained flannel in the sink basin and held his hand back against yours, palms pressed together. It was an adorable comparison. The tips of his fingers barely brushed the top of your palm, in fact, you were certain you could close your hand over the entirety of his own. There was a moment shared in comfortable silence then Steven asked, “Y/N, what is going on?”

The question was gentle and filled with wonder. There was still a trace of a smile on his lips. It made you feel like you could finally tell him.

“Avatar stuff. I suppose my god is a little more... flamboyant than yours.”

Steven laughed and the sound comes as a relief. “Khonshu didn't want to give me the time of day, let alone a– a bloody godly alter ego.”

A beat of silence.

“Did it hurt?”

It was heartwarming that that was his next question.

“A little,” you answered somewhat honestly. “But I'm alright now.”

He finished cleaning you up in a peaceful silence. He took the time to wash the blood from your hair as best he could and plaster your injured hand, (for the emotional boost more than anything.) It took several plasters to cover the expanse of the wound, each overlapping so the supportive catchphrase now read 'good good job good.'

He sat in front of you now, having spent the last few minutes tracing the spirals and patterns on your arm. His earlier fear had completely given way to wonder; it wasn't easy to forget that the man was a mythology nerd through and through.

A boyish laugh crept past his lips. “I wonder how Marc and Jake will react.” He looked up at you to gouge a reaction and his smile fell slightly. “Oh.”

“Steven–” you scratched the back of your neck. This was going to be a bitch to explain. “-Jake only knows because... well–” you made a vague motion with your hands that the four of you had come to recognize meant 'Jake.'

Steven nodded in understanding.

“And Marc just sort of found out by accident.”

Steven nodded again and you could visibly see the process going on behind his eyes.

“And um– why didn't any of you tell me?” His voice adopted a higher pitch at the end of the question, likely in an attempt to take the edge off.

You took a sudden interest in the floorboards. “I didn't want to– you know.”

It was quiet for a moment. Then Steven gasped.

“Oh, oh love, you didn't think... you didn't think I'd be scared did you?”

A quick exhale of amusement from you. “You seemed fairly scared.”

“I- well yeah, yeah.” He conceded. “But not of you. Never of you.” His hands found yours again, the staggering difference in size almost humorous. “I just wish you could have felt like you could have told me, that's all.”

A warmth settled in the centre of your chest and you felt the corner of your eyes dampen. Any attempt of yours to not cry was immediately foiled as he inched closer and put his arms around your neck. His knees buckled against your crossed legs and he sank against your chest.

“For what it's worth,” you smiled against the crown of his head. “I think your reaction probably ranks highest out of the three.”

“Yeah?” He asked lightly. His curls tickled the end of your nose.

“Yeah. Jake used some pretty colourful language, most of it was in Spanish. And Marc pulled a gun on me–”

“He pulled a gun on you–?!” With the exclamation, Steven shot back to look at you.

“Like I said, you take first place.”

“Well, the bar wasn't set awfully bloody high was it?” He glared at his reflection in the kettle and you smirked, closing your arms around him and caging him to your chest. There was something so soothing, so primally comforting about being able to hold him, hold all of him, like this.

You nuzzled against his chocolate curls and to anyone on the outside looking in the action would have looked downright primal. Animalistic. But it couldn't have felt more intimate.

“I could get used to this, I think.” Steven's words were barely above a breath. “You're just a big teddy bear, really. More of you to love.”

His hands slowly and deliberately retraced your shoulder, then your neck, down the expanse of your chest... “What do the patterns mean?”

“Some of the symbols stand for attributes or characteristics; strength, courage, loyalty,” you regarded your arm, from your bicep down to your wrist. “Some of them are his symbols, some he added when I agreed to be his avatar and others, I've never really taken the time to find out–”

Steven hummed, not in a dismissive sense, rather in a way that showed he'd listened to each word like the gospel.

“I've got a book on ruins and ancient symbols, only bought the thing for the hieroglyphics really but maybe we could have a look? Do some homework?” A playful nudge accompanied the last question and you caved. As if you stood much of a chance to begin with.

That's how you ended up laying on the bed, (well, mostly on the bed. Your back was against the headboard and your legs still hung over the edge. Steven straddled your middle, an open book and notepad to his right, a highlighter between his teeth and a marker in his hand. His glasses sat on the bridge of his nose and his brows furrowed as he traced his thumb over a symbol just beneath your collarbone.

You shivered despite yourself.

He'd mapped everything out, using the marker to gently draw on your skin, making connections and jotting down notes. It was like watching a scholar at work and you were honoured to be his study.

“Sorry about the bathroom,” you said rather out of the blue.

Steven glanced up at you, rebellious curls falling against his brow. His confusion melted into gentle amusement. “Don't worry about it, love. Needed redoing anyways, I reckon.”

Then, as if it were the most mundane thing in the world, he went back to his translations.

In a form that most could only phantom in the darkest corners of their imagination and with a god willing to bend the seas and skies at your will, Steven Grant somehow remained among both the most curious and most cherished things you had.

Key ➳

Cernnunos - Celtic god of wild things, fertility and animals

Manannan - (Manannan Mac Lir) Celtic god of the sea

Imbolc - the Celtic festival that marks the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. It celebrates the return of life and light as it is the time when the ewes come into milk, when the first flowers appear and when the day noticeably lengthens.

Newgrange - famous 5,200 year old passage tomb in Co Meath, Ireland

‘fia beag’ - gaeilge for ‘little deer’

thank you for reading!

tag list: @bakerstreethound @yoditopascal @moonlighy @linkpk88 @spideysimpossiblegirl @noahspector @malaanii @ineedmorejakelockley @drmeowingfangirl @loonymagizoologist @othersideoftheparadise @doozywoozy @mywellspringoflife

[twst-drabbles]

Scarabia 8

Summary: You and Kalim dance. You dance and dance upon a pile of corpses as though they were nothing more than wayward flowers. And all Jamil could do was sit there and be silent.

(I was in a mood for a horror, so I wrote more Eldritch AU. So here it be! Enjoy!)

To acknowledge is to bring attention, and to bring attention is to risk punishment. To risk being corrected simply for the unlucky value of being observant. Jamil, throughout all his years, from the once-tender hands of his parents, had to reduce his presence, dull his potential, and act as nothing more than a rock to Kalim’s polished diamond.

Jamil must be perfect in all the ways a servant must be, but that is the extent of what his life is. To surpass your master in any capacity that isn’t aimed to serve them, is to highlight them in all the ways they lack. And when those flaws have been made bare, anger will enter, and it always the servants that must bear the weight of it.

Kalim’s happiness, no matter how infuriatingly indulgent it might be, must be kept. And if he were to dance himself drunk, naked in the middle of the hallway, all Jamil could do was stand by the door with a blanket at hand and wait for Kalim to tire himself out.

But even so, he must be patient.

Jamil resents, and hates and hold all manner of frustrations, but he cannot act out, because servants aren’t individuals. They are a collective, and the wrongs of one turn into the wrongs of all.

And still, he must be patient.

You had fed Kalim one too many wines and now you both were dancing like fools. Spinning and holding hands as you both laughed as though there was nothing wrong in the world. The moon was full, the skies clear of any clouds and the stars blinking as they always do, but the light was simply too cold. Apathetic. They shine just as brightly upon peaceful towns as they do fields of corpses.

And shine they do, upon the bloodied floor that Jamil had no choice but to kneel on. Braided hair undone, bits of skin scratched off, ribs ripped right open for the golden beetles to consume, broken jaws with lips torn for the simple sin of speaking.

And all of them had his face.

“Jamil!”

If it weren’t for the years spent suffocating all intense emotions into a dull ember, Jamil would’ve jumped and lost his stomach right there. He tilted his face up, but never let this sight out of view. Kalim was waving to him, arm around your shoulder as you stared with that empty, gentle smile.

A gentle smile, with your feet caked with the remains of his heart.

“Don’t you want to dance with us?”

Kalim took a clumsy step forward and broke his hand with his heel.

“No need for the invitation, Kalim,” Jamil replied and lowered his eyes, pinching his knees in hopes that pain will wipe this all away, “I’m simply tired today. You can continue dancing. All I want to do is watch.”

[essektheylyss]

You know what I'm thinking about? That trip to Vergessen.

Not the memorable one. The super innocuous one, in which Ludinus and Trent insisted they'd just dug this weird rock out of the ground weeks ago, it's nothing to them, the Bright Queen can have it. The one where Eadwulf told Caleb he looked good despite having just crawled out of an eldritch horror's sludge and then showed off his super muscular, super tatted arms.

Let's return to Eadwulf's arms in a moment.

The scourgers were helping out with the Assembly's research portfolio, which at the time had included Ludinus's pet project of developing dunamantic super-serum. The scourgers had also previously been involved—in their off time, when they weren't doing their primary duties of torture and execution—with human experimentation of methods of augmenting a mage's personal reserves of magic.

Sound familiar?

(Really, Ludinus, are you too old to test your experiments on yourself?)

Back to Eadwulf's well-sculpted arms. By the time we meet him in 836 PD, whatever might've been done to them in 810 PD has been covered with those pointedly geometric tats. Somewhere around the same time span, an assassination attempt is made on the life of the Voice of the Tempest by assassins using what was likely a prototype of Otohan Thull's dunamantic contraption, which is a kind of harness that uses the distilled dunamis created by Yeza Brenatto from studying the stolen beacons. This attack of course left multiple Ashari dead and beyond the point of recovery, among them Derrig and Will.

Six years later, Otohan Thull of course would kill Fearne, Orym, and Laudna in battle using that contraption, and not long after would also use the same assassination tactic to draw out the Champion of the Raven Queen so Ludinus could press him into an orb.

Still with me?

In Molaesmyr, after the Solstice had been stuck in time, Team Wildemount find a number of interesting items in Gildhollow, Ludinus's forsaken bachelor pad. Notable among them is a chest harness designed to consume various natural sources of power in order to augment the wearer's arcane abilities.

I think it's incredibly likely that the human experimentation component of the scourger program, given its scope, was requested if not designed by Ludinus, in an effort to further his research in the realm of augmenting mortals' capacities for magic. (Mechanically, I imagine this equates to additional spell slots per day, or the capacity to singlehandedly pull off experimental spells beyond the scope of ninth level, i.e. Dunamantic Nap spell, but that's just speculation.)

Primarily my point here is to demonstrate that its entirely possible if not likely that even the minutiae of the Assembly's horrific program to create child soldiers may have been part of Ludinus's effort to release Predathos and kill the gods, in an effort to show how broadly this may touch even other previous campaigns.

Additionally my point is to say that if anyone has reason to lead the vanguard (pun intended) of righteous warfare against Ludinus Da'leth, it's a Liam O'Brien PC, and frankly, at this point, given all of this character reasoning to do so, I do not care which one.

[astrathepasta]

AITA for not realising who my soulmate was?

To preface this, I don't think I'm the AITA, but my soulmate seems to.

So I (M) am in one of those death games, but that isn't really important. In this death game, we are all partnered up with another player. I wasn't interested in finding my soulmate as I wanted to prioritise other things, such as a good base. I ended up travelling with 3 of the other players, J (M), E (M), and G (M). It may be important to note that J and E are soulmates.

After a trip to a pillagers base, I gained a new allay friend (F). Later on, this friend ended up flying away. I had started taking some damage, but I brushed it off as J joking along with others. Then I heard G screaming. At the time, I didn't realise it was due to him realising he was my soulmate. However, in hindsight, I can realise that I should have realised what was happening. G ended up sticking with me after J and E went their own separate way, but we ended up going a different way, too. I ended up finding some pandas that looked identical to my cat (F). Of course, I got attached to these and wanted to keep them. G ended up finding me again and was trying to tell me something. However, the cat-pandas were taking my attention, which G could clearly see. He asked for my attention, which I tried to give him, but those cat-pandas ended up distracting me again. G yelled at me, causing me to pay full attention.

G dropped a rock onto my head. This is what caused me to realise we were linked. G couldn't believe that I had no clue, but I genuinely did not know. He seems to still not be happy with me because of this.

So, AITA? If so, what can I do?

Edit 1: For anyone asking if G would have a reason for not wanting to be my soulmate, I can only think of one thing. In the first death game, G tried to play a prank on a group of me and our friends. However, this backfired and killed me. This put me down to my yellow life, and it was the first death in the server. G felt bad and apologised. He ended up apologising and giving his first life to me (EDIT 2: why is everyone saying this is gay?). I ended up in an accident, which put me down to my red life. We ended up in a war, but that's irrelevant right now. Even after he lost his first life, he stuck with me (EDIT 3: guys why is this also gay) Later on, I ended up killing him, putting him down to his red life. G felt betrayed (rightfully so), so I offered my life to him. He refused to kill me. However, the eldritch horror gods demanded a fight between us. So we ended up fighting in a cacti ring with no weapons, armour, or anything. He won and killed me. He then ended up killing himself. G ended up telling me that he wanted nothing to do with me in the next game. To be honest, that hurt. But that can be the only thing I can think of.

UPDATE: Hi guys. Sorry to say, but this is not a happy update. G had been very distant recently, and I didn't know what I could do to help. I didn't know if it was me not knowing we were soulmates or me slipping up with the paper sales we had been doing.

While on my horse (Horse), I ending up passing G and another friend, whom I will refer to as B (M). They were passing items between each other and were really close. This was odd due to B being a red life. Through the knowledge of some other players, I figured out that G, MY soulmate, was baking bread for another man. G and B were self-proclaimed secret soulmates.

I don't know what to do now. Any advice would be appreciated.

[teriri-sayes]

Reactions to Chaos Creator's Chapter 285

Brief summary: GoC and Blue Wolf fight. Epley and mage chimera dead. DA excited to create new skill. Cale continues to bleed from his mouth.

==========

Lots of stuff happened today. We've got two cute moments with Raon and Lock. 🥰 Lock was ecstatic when Cale relied on him for protection. He was really happy that he had now become a reliable protector.

And Raon sort of acknowledged Cale as his dad today! 🥰🥰🥰

Maren: Your dad will be fine because the Blue Wolf is protecting him. Raon: … M-My human is not my dad! Maren: Is that so? *scratches cheek in confusion* I thought he was your dad. Raon: H-Human is a human, and I'm a d-dragon? Maren: So? Is that a problem? Raon: A problem… It's not! Maren: See? Eruhaben: *looks at the two and shakes his head in disbelief*

DA when excited became a talkative guy that Cale even told him to shut up. 😂 Fortunately, DA did not turn Cale into some eldritch horror eye monster something today. Rather, he simply studied how GoC did it in order to create a new skill for the future.

So why was Cale and DA so greatly affected by GoC's power? Because chaos contained everything, including the core of the beginning, the prime of all things. Primal fear then, was what easily defeated Cale and DA. And one of GoC's attacks even tempted Cale with sweet words, like "Come nearer. You can be anything here." This was primal fascination, and if Raon had not interfered, Cale might have fallen victim to GoC.

GoC and Blue Wolf fought with their auras, and afterwards, GoC created a gray tsunami while Blue Wolf split it with his blue flaming wind. In the process, Epley and the mage chimera got consumed by the tsunami. Those two got a taste of their own medicine as they drowned in the tsunami with faces of despair. What a fitting end.

Who won in the end though? It was Blue Wolf. GoC decided to withdraw after leaving the words, "Eventually, chaos will come. That is the law, the rule." What happened afterwards to GoC was reported by poor GoD. 😂

GoD messaged Cale about what was happening in the god realm. After GoC withdrew from the battle against Blue Wolf, they threw a fit and began destroying stuff in the god realm to the point that GoB was pissed and went mad in anger too. 🤣🤣🤣

GoD also sensed Blue Wolf by Cale's side, and talked about how Blue Wolf should just descend to Aipotu, create a new divine item, and build a new flashy temple. Hmm... a new temple for Blue Wolf? Why do I have the feeling it would have the statue of Lock too? 😂

The Ryan mini-arc ended, but our Cale was already planning on his next move (attacking 3rd Star Exion) even though he was bleeding.

Super Rock: It's good that your body is okay and you did not faint. Cale: *blood continues to drip from his mouth* Super Rock: Well, you overexerted yourself so you're bleeding. Everyone: *eyes shaking as they see Cale bleeding from the mouth nonstop* Cale: *thinking of attacking Exion next* Raon and CH: *shaking eyes* Cale: *sees the two and confidently shouts* I didn't faint or cough blood! Super Rock: For now. You will soon if you don't rest. Cale: *ignores Super Rock*

Cale, this is why slacker life continues to elude you. Tsk, tsk. 😒

Ending Remarks I did not expect to see blood from Cale today. Or Epley to die easily like that. Serves her right. For the next chapter, I think it would be the reaction of the beastmen to Lock and Cale. And Cale fainting if he continues to ignore Super Rock's advice.

[silicon-puppy-pudding]

Danny totally kills the Joker

I have a very specific Eldritch!Danny in my head that, even though I've tried drawing before, I can't really get out of my head if you get what I mean

And as a dead on main shipper and a lover of angst I have him do shit that causes problems

Like kill the Joker in a blind rage after an Arkham break out

So it's like this, after a breakout that obviously requires all hands on deck, everyone is eventually re-cuffed and put back in their cells (including the Joker).

Red Hood and Phantom are doing some clean up in the Narrows and it's hard on them. Seeing some kids whose parents died cuz of the clown nearly broke Hood.

Phantom, now well known as Hood's right hand, picks up some of the burden. Helping more then he normally does with some displaced kids and families cuz he can feel Hood breaking down.

It hurts..

After the night/day/whatever is over, they head back home to their appartment and Jason just breaks. Danny's been helping with the pit rage so without all the extra anger crowding him it just sort of crumbles into pain and hurt.

Danny can't stand it

He can't stand to see Jason like this

Jason was his rock, his shoulder to cry on, his partner in crime. He had always been there for Danny when he had panic attacks and couldn't breathe cuz he saw some guy walking down the street in a white suit. Was always telling him it was going to be okay. Had told him things were gonna be alright. And now the roles had switched. Danny comforted Jason for who knows how long. Held him tight till he calmed down and was able to fall asleep. Once Danny was sure Jason would be okay he slipped out of the appartment...

Phantom would not stand for this.

Phantom flew over to Arkham with the intent to "have a little chat" with the Joker. Just ruf him up a bit. Scare him shitless so he'd rethink ever braking out again.

He didn't mean to bash the guys skull in.

He didn't even realize he'd been beating a flattened pound of meat and skull till Batman showed up and pulled him from his mind.

He looked over to where he'd heard his name and saw Batman and Nightwing standing by the door of the cell. Both were wrapped in bandages, some obviously stained in blood from the damage they endured during the breakout.

Dick covered his mouth and stared in horror at the sight of Danny, who he'd been lovingly calling his future brother-in-law for the past 2 months, covered in the Jokers blood. He looked like a staticky, distorted shadow. Three(3) sets of arm all ending with white clawed hands; one pair around the Jokers barely intact neck, another clutching the inmate uniforms chest, the last frozen mid punch. Bruce, having just the slightest ecto-connection from the pit, fought off the screaming in his chest to run and leave the King be.

Bruce slowly approached Phantom. Phantom on the other hand, slowly realized what he'd just done and was starting to panic.

He'd just killed a man

Sure he fucking deserved it but he just....let himself go. Let himself indulge in his rage, be consumed by it. And now the Batman was here to stop him. Would he send him back to the Realms? Would he lock him up, away from anyone he could hurt? Away from Jason?

Phantom flinches when Bruce touches his shoulder. And continues to try and back away when Bruce calls for someone to get a hold of Jason on the coms. What's he doing? Isn't he going to be thrown into a cell? He's dangerous! He could do this again if he wasn't dealt with! Why is Bruce calling for Jason? Does he want to show him the monster he let into his life? Does he want Jason to be the one to do it?

Bruce is talking.

Not Batman, but Bruce, is saying something to him, his name.

Not Phantom

"Danny? Danny!?"

Phantom disappears and isn't seen for two(2) days

Nightwing is the one to find him. In some warehouse, slamming his head into a support beam, yelling at himself that he can't become Dan.

I don't know how to continue this. It was supposed to have a nice hurt/comfort ending but I'm not a fic writer and I don't know how to do that. So feel free to use this as a prompt or something 👻👉🏾👈🏾

Edit: figured I'd add one of the Danny doodles I did a while back cuz it fits. I already posted it a while ago but it feels appropriate here too.

[justbelievinginmagic]

ariadne's thread ⎯ pt. 7: the wild hunt.

pairing(s): hyunjin x fem!reader, felix x seungmin x minho if you squint, felix x fem!reader, seungmin & fem!reader, minho & fem!reader, bang chan & fem!reader, jisung & fem!reader series summary: when tempted by an intoxicating offer by hyunjin the goblin king of the underground, you fight against him to find your own sense of self once more while in his labyrinth. glimpse: Tumbling far into the Direwoods, you cant help but feel like something or someone is watching you, hunting you, in the never-ending darkness of the forest. will you be caught in their claws or will you survive the Wild Hunt? warnings/tags: inspired by the 1986' movie Labyrinth, follows majority of the movie's plot points with lore divergence, 3rd person POV, use of Y/N, no hyunjin appearance this chapter fyi, faerie lore, wild hunt!, world-building, pain, injuries, blood, bruises, cuts, canon typical violence, pg13 language, fear, anxiety, danger, invading personal space (like a lot), one-sided affection, kisses, licking, suggestive content, uneven power dynamics, magical choking. animalistic minseunglix, felix is down bad for y/n, clingy felix, tatted mINHOOOOO. listen, these boys are feral. eldritch horror felix, eldritch horror seungmin too tbh, werewolfy eldritch horror minho lol., let me know if there needs to be more tags! word count: 11.4k previous chapter <- -> next chapter series masterlist

The Runner’s fall was great.

Unlike falling to the oubliette, she was tumbling and rolling down the hillside violently. Her ribs and back thudded against wet earth and rocks over and over until she came to a rolling stop at the bottom of the gorge. Pain radiated through her body. Crackling dead leaves crunched beneath her as she tried to sit up. Her arms, bruised and scratched, trembled as she struggled to push herself up before, finally, she just flopped back on her back.

“Dammit,” she groaned, her head plopping against the mossy ground.

Her back ached, streaks of blood coated her body from scratches and knicks. Leaves littered her hair. Her ribs heaved as she took a deep breath. She let out a cough, a hand going to press against her stomach as a pain radiated there. Just a bruise but damn.

Everything felt like so much. Each turn of the Labyrinth proved she was alone and each time she was left crawling for her life. The oubliette, the cleaners, this. She was frustrated and in pain. Her arms rose up to cover her face as she took a trembling breath.

“Y/N!” she heard an echo of her name far above her.

Looking upwards, she couldn’t make out anything. It was like all the light from that grand rotunda had been sucked away. There was a strange cloak-like barrier between the woods and the Gardens high above. A darkness that clung like a fog to the tops of the trees, consuming them in a shadowy haze that ungulated like a wave over the branches and foliage. While the Underground was dark before, the Runner hadn’t realized how many false lights there had been. This place felt truly dark. So dark, she couldn’t see the form of Chris as he called down.

“Are you okay?” she heard Chris faintly. It was like the darkness truly was a barrier; even sound was muffled.

“I’m fine!” she yelled back.

There was silence for a moment, overshadowed by the hum of bugs and shuffling of flora. Then, she heard him reply, but it was so distant, so so far away.

“What?” she called again.

There was a noise from Chris that sounded like confirmation. Before… it was quiet.

And that was it. She was alone again with only herself and the murmur of bug-life and creatures of the darkness. She felt hopeless. The feeling clung to her chest like a parasite sucking out any hope as she shut her eyes once more. Wounded hands rose to scrub at her eyes, eyes that burned and a nose that grew heavy in her skull.

Crying won’t do anything except make her feel exhausted. Even more exhausted than she already felt in her bones. She breathed out, her nose burning hot and stuffy-feeling. She can cry later. She can cry later she reassured herself again and again as she bit back the feeling of cotton in her throat. But, God, did she want to cry now.

The Runner pushed herself up, sitting up with moss and mulch clinging to her clothes, and she took in her newest challenge.

The woods were thick and plentiful around her; large oversized plant-life grew here but, unlike the Gardens, they didn’t seem to be infused with magic. They were over-grown and lush – like it hadn’t been touched in millennia. If it wasn’t so cold, she’d think it was a rainforest. But it wasn’t humid here. There was a chill that clung to her and soaked into her dirt-damp clothes. The tall trees around her seemed to sway with their blue-shadowed trunks and twisting branches. It was so dark it was hard to really judge anything beyond a few feet.

Sighing out, she rose to her feet. Luckily, she hadn’t twisted anything falling down to the bottom of the woods. Her body simply ached like she had worked out the day before or… fell down a large hill. After trying to scale her way up the hillside she had fallen from, her shoes slipping through the too-soft dirt and mulch,  she huffed out a sigh and began her trek through the woods. There had to be a way out of this forest. The Runner couldn’t just give up. Not after all this.

Continuing onwards, she carefully walked around plants, climbed over twisting tree roots, and scaled rocks in her way. Footsteps squelching in icy mud. Bird-like creatures whistling over one another in the foliage. Heavy-wings flapped overhead but she could barely make out a blur of a form flying high in the darkness. Deeper and deeper into the woods, she continued on.

The darkness was eerie. The gentle sounds of creatures didn’t reassure her any. Cricket-like scratches of bug legs. Hoots of owl-like birds. An odd humming sound hovering around her. All almost familiar yet decidedly not. Like, they were from another time, their crows sounded deeper, more Jurassic and less modern.

Animals were around her, hidden and ancient. It made her feel gooseflesh climb up her spine. Maybe there were beings like that crimson creature and being of light that had attacked her and Chris here. Fierce and calculated.

She walked quicker.

There could even be people in the darkness, watching her. Was she even in the jurisdiction of the Labyrinth here? Was Hyunjin watching after her (and why in this forest was that almost reassuring?) It made her skin crawl and her thoughts spiral. Ideas twisted with fear in her head. Like a child afraid of the dark believing monsters lived under the bed, she began to see things in the dark. Shadowed figures with swaying limbs. Bulging eyes on her. Flickering of somethings in the corner of her peripheral. Tricks of the eyes making her look behind her every moment now. She paused in her walking and glanced around, holding onto a nearby trunk.

A bug scampered over her hand and she jumped away with a yelp. She tried to see what it was; all she had felt were thousands of little legs. But even with her face to the tree she couldn’t see. There wasn’t anything she could truly see around her. The darkness was too thick. Her mind imagined false forms and ever-watching eyes as if this was a haunted house attraction but… all she saw was dark. It made her shudder out a breath. Hands dragging over her face in frustration. She felt wound up like a toy doll, waiting for something to spring. Either her own self or something around her.

There was a flash of light to her left and she yelped, jumping into the tree. Her shoulders brushed into a fern; its sharpened leaves caressing her arm like talons. She shuddered and scurried faster away from whatever that was. Hoisting herself up another rock in her path, there was a flicker of something in corner of her eyes. Like a lightning flash, a light leak from a camera. She froze and waited, watching to see if it’d appear again. Another flashed by, rushing towards a tree she had touched.

(She couldn’t see in the darkness but it could. Her hand that had touched the twisting tree left a remnant of her. Of rubied blood, staining the deep-blue of the tree bark. Marked. Throughout the entire forest, she had left her trail in the form of iron-blood – powerful and tempting. And it had caught the attention of whatever crept forwards in the shadows of the dark.)

“What’s going on?” she cried out finally as she saw another flash of technicolor-light, closer now to the rock she had just scaled and crouched upon. “What do you want?”

The creature from before – the being of light – was following her. She reached for a nearby stone, nails digging into the rock. She tried to predict where itd be, holding her rock steady in between her fingers. Another flash to her left. The Runner threw the rock into the darkness.

It hovered mid-air, caught as if by a ghost. A whimper left the Runner’s throat as her eyes widened in shock.

“You really are a human?” the voice was unlike anything she ever heard before. Deep as the sea. Deep yet angelic and soft.

He shimmered into existence from the shadows, a whirl of prism light and sparkling magic. Golden tanned skin, constellations of honeyed freckles across his nose and cheeks, and fair blonde hair. For a moment, she swore it was the King, but his face wavered and formed a more heart-shape, softer jaw, a more petite nose upturned. His eyes were so so soft with brown orbs that seemed to swirl a pinkish glow. His smile was bright and made his cheeks glow. He tossed the rock up before catching it again, coyly.

Tendrils of bright blonde hair framed his face, dancing in a non-existent wind that made her look around him for the source. His inhuman light illuminated the darkness and she could see the forest just a smidge clearer. Creatures scurried away under blue-green foliage. The tree beside him crawled with moss and millions of multi-colored bugs. All these things lingering around her unknown, brought to light by the angel of a man in front of her. He looked like an angel, aglow in the darkness. A star of light as he smiled at her from ten feet away.

She couldn’t help but awe, even as her eyes flew to the corners of the forest she could see. He couldn’t catch her attention even while being the brightest thing in this place. He cleared his throat, bashful sounding as he drew her eyes to him finally again.

His smile grew and his chin tilted, pleased. God, he was a beautiful thing and she felt a pull towards him, like a twist in her stomach. Like there was a leash around her lungs pulling taut, urging her to move towards him.

But he beat her to it, eagerly. He crept closer. Lunging forwards with long limbs that if she looked at him from the corner of her eye seemed to elongate and shift. He sniffed deep through his nose, his chocolate-strawberry eyes rolled back. His body shifted with rolling and cracking motions; his back arching and displaying his lean abs as his woven shirt rose up. He sighed out before leaning onto the rock she was perched upon. Arms folded over one another as he looked up at her with an awe in his eyes. He looked enamored with her.

“You are a human - and a woman,” his voice deepened - if that was even possible. “Hello sweet thing.” 

His fingers crept forward onto the rock, playful in nature as they crawled towards her ankle before he tried to swipe at her ankle like an animal jumping upon a prey. He jolted forward, hand reaching out so fast that she flinched and pushed back off the rock. Stumbling to her feet, she put the large rock in between them, only able to see his face and him hers.

He giggled out, the sound higher than his voice, almost hyena-like. There was a fizzle of magic and he was beside her once more. She shrieked and jumped aside to put him in front of her rather to her side.

“So jumpy; I don’t bite, sweet heart,” he hummed. “Unless… you like that?” He flashed his teeth, nothing monstrous about them. In fact, they looked pearly white and straight. Perfect. Everything about him seemed to scream perfection, angelic. Like he was the epitome of beauty – the male version of Venus.

“No.” she replied bluntly.

He pouted a bit before smelling deeply again. He huffed out; eyes bright and rosy.

“Oh, you’ve got magic around you, ancient type – like me,” he giggled almost childlike as he bounced on his feet, teleporting here and there before he was in front of her again with his angelic light.

“I’m not of magic,” she bit out, defensive against him.

He felt wild as he giggled again, moving closer and closer. His billowy white shirt seemed to spill open as he shimmered closer. Magic drifted off him like he was a flower and pollen drifted off him in sparkling dust. His smile was sweet as he leaned in as if he telling a secret. Y/N leaned back faintly. His breath was cold as the night around them, coming out in a puff of condensation.

“You’re a Runner, right?” he queried, his eyes flashed as he raised his eyebrows teasingly. “You’re protected by magic, sunshine. Goddess forbid if you were tainted by little old me while on your quest.”

His hand rose and he brushed a stray hair aside from her cheek, gentle and soft. Fingertips softly caressing her skin as he tilted her chin his way. He waited and she simply stared at him blankly. Brows crinkling after a moment longer. His smile was like sunlight before he cackled, the sound lower than the hyena-esque laugh before.

His visage flickered in and out of existence as he danced away from her. He was excitedly bumbling about. It was like he was a trick of the light as he flickered in between the tall dark trees. His form becoming blurry-like, like a light leak in real-life, before his form rematerialized again and again. He looked like he was made of sweet nightmares with how he frolicked, the only light in the darkness yet his giggles felt foreboding. With how he had prowled after her, she knew he was trouble.

“I am a Runner,” she nodded tentatively. Swallowing, she tried to phrase her sentence how Han had taught. Direct. Ask the right thing. “I need to make it to the Castle. Do you know a way?” That was fine, right?

The fae paused in his celebrations, looking over his shoulder at her. He smiled, all fangs this time, and excited eyes. “Oh, sweet heart,” he beamed as he whooshed to be in front of her. “I know a way.”

His hand reached out to grasp her wrist. He shivered at her bare skin under his hand, and there was a moment of pause as his fingers seemed to caress her skin with wonder. His breath was shaky, eyelashes fluttering. He looked up to meet her eyes again and he saw how she simply stared; a brow raised.

“You are protected; this is so much fun.” The blonde looked electrified.

He dragged her along, his gait fast and animalistic. If she had to think of a comparison, she thought he moved like a deer, swift and erratic at times. He darted this way and that; sharp branches biting into her skin. She let out screeches every now and then as the wood cut into her arms and face. All he did was giggle. He swung her about, waltzing in the dark like it was a dance floor and not a forest. He managed to avoid large bushes and tree stumps, his arms swooping her up and pulling her close to his lean chest.

“I haven’t heard a woman’s shrieks in ages,” he commented, his voice light and airy.

The world down here was dark, full of sharpened branches and tall inky dark trees. It felt like she was in Snow White’s Forest, frightening figures and darkened tendrils reaching out for her. Swirling and whirling in the dark. The fae man didn’t let her get caught, for she was already his prey in his grasp, dragging her along in a wild waltz with a snarl of a grin on his face.

He let a whistle out, high pitch and sharp, as he slowed and placed her on her feet once more. His hair was windswept, fingers grazing over her waist as he slid his hand down to her hand. Fingers intertwining with hers.

“C’mon, a chuisle.”

They were in front of a maw of a cave (not a path, not the Labyrinth she noted bitterly). Fire-smoke tumbled out in big plumes, turning the world hazy. He led her, tugging her inside. The Runner was slow, carefully. The fae man kept glancing back, a smile that felt less reassuring and more tempting engulfing his face.

Inside the warmed cave, there was a living space made of naturalistic materials all around a firepit, lit with an unnatural blue flame. The light painted the cave in long casted shadows. A table of stone with four chairs; a collection of coins, bread, a steaming piece of meat, and dried flowers rested on what looked like an altar in front of the fire. A pile of pelts was layered up in a corner, making up what looked like a large bed-pallet. Crude drawings were on a wall above the mussed bed.

“I really need to get back on the path,” she insisted to the other.

“Sweet thing, you’re a proper Little Red Riding Hood,” he teased, playing with her fingers. “Minus the red hood.”

The look she leveled him was unamused. He smirked, tugging her by her hand. She stumbled forward, her other hand going to press against his chest to keep her balance. His form was lean and firm. His lips pressed against her knuckles; his lips cool as ice.

It was strange how she didn’t feel… pulled in by him. He was attractive like Hyunjin… she had swooned before Hyunjin upon first meeting. But this fae… despite his prettied façade and his pretty gestures, she couldn’t let herself be swept up. She didn’t have the time. She couldn’t.

His lips trailed to the other side of her hand as he hovered over her veins, button-nose pressing against the inside of her wrist.

“Because I’m with the wolf?” she retorted dryl, her words not light and airy like his. “You said you’d help – you know a way to the Castle; I need to get there.”

“Because you were getting distracted,” he replied, nodding towards where she was looking. “Our altar of offerings. I like the flowers the most. My hyung loves meat – but usually something, well, more fresh.”

The meat there looked fresh – freshly-cooked that is.

“Not reassuring.” She said evenly.

“Not trying to be, sweet heart.”

He was still close as he invaded her space, her fingers still held reverently in his grasp. His eyes were locked on her hand in his. Fingertips grazing over her skin slowly. His lips pressing butterfly light across her skin as he trailed up her arm to look at her with those chocolate-dipped strawberry eyes of his.

She was not wooed and it made his neck creak, looking at her like a puppy.

“What’s the way to the Castle?” she said simply. “You’re getting distracted.”

He chuckled lowly. His breath fanned over her cheeks in a whirl of rosewater, coriander, and something sweet and musky. “Distractions aren’t always bad.” He whispered, eyes flickering to the Runner’s lips.

“Please,” her eyes rolled, frustration building in her.

He grinned wolfishly, his other hand going to press at the small of her back. Dragging her closer until his firm body was pressed against hers.

“I like you begging.” He rumbled, eyes dilating like a cat’s. An inhuman pink glow in their pupils caught her attention before she focused back on his sharp smile, pearly white and sweet. No fangs once more. He kept changing.

“I’ll play nice,” he conceded. “I promise to help you; just let’s-” 

There was a rustling of the brush, her head swinging to look towards the mouth of the cave. A creature was prowling closer with reflective blue eyes. He looked like a beast out of nightmares, and there was a frightening thought that maybe these were the faeries that made up bad dreams. The faeries that had centuries of folklore written about to warn silly girls and boys from making wishes, from wandering in woods, from playing in faerie rings.

“What have you brought to our den, Felix?” the creature spoke with gnashing, glowing white teeth. Snarling electric-blue spit foamed and dripped into the mud as it prowled inside.

Like Felix, there was more that met the eye with this monster. The creature seemed to grow and morph until it was bipedal, until it was standing upright, draped in furs rather than being a fur-covered beast. He wore dark linens, blending in with the darkness of the forest easily but, within the blue light of the fire, she could see his features more and more clearly. He had dark-brown hair that fell across his brow, shadowed by the hood of what looked like a bear fur resting atop of his head. Purpled scars of claw scrapes and cuts decorated his handsome face, a long cut on his cheek bone only emphasized his strikingly blue eyes, shadowed by his furrowed brows. His lips were dry of the slobber of the creature he was before and instead revealed a scowled lip, firm and strong, as he stared her and the fae named Felix down.

He was defensive, the epitome of a predator. 

Felix, whom still had her in his embrace, let go of her suddenly to reveal the red-blood on his palm. Blood. Her blood. When had he—She looked over her body trying to find where he’d press his palm against her to come away with a palm coated in red? A scrape down her arm had his fingers imprinted in a bloody scrawl.

His face seemed so innocent as he approached the fur-clad man. His blue eyes seemed to glow brighter at the sight of the red on Felix’s palm. A growl grew in his chest as he grabbed Felix’s wrist to pull it closer to his nose. That was when she saw the dark inky tattoos that decorated the new fae’s skin. Creatures of all sorts – some real and others mythical-looking - crawled up his arm in ink. A wolf’s visage was painted on the back of his hand in elaborate, delicate lines. The wolf’s eye seemed to gleam blue just as the fae’s did.

He took a deep breath against the palm of Felix’s hand.

“A human.” he growled out.

“A breathing human,” the voice that interrupted was smooth and crisp like a cold wind as another fae joined them from the shadows.

This time instead of being a beast he simply melted into existence from the dark. But unlike Felix, who danced between a technicolor-blurred form and a human-form, the fae had shadows clinging to his form like a cloak of never-ending night. She couldn’t see his feet like he was nothing more than a ghost. His hair was pitch-black and curled over his forehead, hiding his brows. His black eyes shone like the stars in the middle of the cold desert. His shirt tunic was made of the night sky, black shadows draping over his shoulders in a transparent-like cloth. His bared chest revealed with the sharp v of his blouse. He sparkled in the dark like his body was made of monochrome diamonds.

He waved with a curl of his fingers.

Her heart raced as his words processed. A breathing human. She needed to get out of here, she decided. This wasn’t good. This wasn’t good. None of the other fae she had met had threatened her so openly.

A shushing. Shh, shh, shh. It was Felix’s voice, her eyes flashing to where he stood only to watch as he warped back to her side in a flurry of multi-color light. His hands cupped her cheeks fondly, blocking her view of the other fae for a moment. Her own blood was slick against her cheek, sticky between her skin and his palm.

“He’s teasing, little sweet heart.” Felix reassured before turning to scowl at the dark fae who grinned wolfishly as he passed by them.

“I’m not.” he deadpanned.

She couldn’t help but shiver as he passed; it felt like he carried a chill of night with him. Even the nearby fire flickered, its blue flames shuddering in a technicolor whirl of sparks before they settled once more.

“Seungmin, that’s not very nice,” Felix chided as he shifted her in his arms protectively. His arms felt cold, a freezing thing despite the warmth of the fire nearby. His sharp chin pressing into a shoulder as he eyed his Sluagh, as if pleading with him to scold the dark-fae.

His voice vibrated against the column of her neck: “He scared her; I feel her heart jumping. Its dancing.”

There was an annoyed grumble that came from Seungmin as he crept into the living space of the den. He didn’t sit. He stood beside the altar, eying the contents.

“Don’t play with your food, Yongbokie,” the beast-like fae scolded the blonde. Yongbok – or Felix.

She wondered if this was like Han’s name situation. Which was Felix’s Jisung? Which was his true name? Was he truly Yongbok or was he truly Felix?

“No, no, I’m not – look at her,” Yongbok chittered in her ear. “Look at her eyes, hyung.”

The creature-esque man prowled forward to look. He hadn’t lost his predator appearance. His eyes looked dangerous as they gleamed an electric blue. His hand reached out to grasp her chin, his fingers curling over his jaw as he tilted her head this way and that. Claws dug into her cheeks. The motion made her throat bare itself to the fae, overstretched and tense.

The Runner was getting tired of being man-handled, moving to shove her chin out of his grasp, and even struggling against Yongbok’s tight embrace. He complied with a giggle and only for a moment before his arms instead went to her waist rather than around her shoulders. He couldn’t keep his hands off her, loving the curves of a woman once more. She felt his hands caress her hips, sluggishly slow dragging over her form before tightening his arms around her middle. He buried his face into her neck, breathing in deep.

“See, Minho.” His voice was a gravelly low whisper. “She’s not enraptured by me. She’s not lovesick. She has ancient magic on her.” His voice was buried in her hair. She could feel his lips grazing the sensitive skin of her neck, all wet tongue and grazing sharp teeth.

“I do see.” Minho breathed, eyes sparkling as his clawed hand caught her chin in his grasp again. His snarl-grimace curled into a smirk. Almost pleased. The planes of his face turned sharp with the change, and Y/N felt her heart race at the sight. 

“I’m trying to reach the Castle. I was in the Labyrinth before I fell here.” She spoke up. It felt like she had somehow been caught when Yongbok, or Felix, had promised aid. Rather than being helped, she was stuck. A fluttering bird in a cage, pawed at by cats.

The Runner didn’t see the wild grin Felix buried into her hair. Minho leaned in, sniffing the other side of her face that Felix wasn’t buried in. Picking at a tendril of hair, bringing it to his nose, he smelled deeply.

“You’re a Runner then. I haven’t seen a human in these parts in—” there was another deep breath and she swore she heard a rumble in his chest like he was purring. His eyes gleamed in the light of the fires beside them.

“A long time,” The one called Seungmin finished for him from his spot behind them.

She moved to push Felix’s arms away, the way they tightened around her waist reminding her of chains.  Minho’s hand left her chin but not before he leaned in and licked her bloodied cheek with a roughened tongue. It made her squirm and jolt in their grasp. In a moment she feared he’d bite a chunk out of her. A squeal was on the tip of her tongue as she squirmed.

The laughter was low in the smokey air as Minho moved away.

“Let her breathe, Yongbokie,” Minho chuckled as he moved away for the Runner, and approached the table. “She’s the King’s; I’m sure he’s unhappy to see her curled up with us fair-folk.”

He grabbed a slice of bread she saw sitting on the altar, sneering at the cooked meat, and turned to watch the others. His leg propped up on a chair as he sat upon the edge of the stone table. He was always in a posture that made it seem like he was one moment away from lunging at her. Perhaps it was his unfeeling blue eyes, even as he smirked at her.

Felix grinned as he swayed her in his arms, “Even more reason to hold her close then.”

“Spoken like a true Gancanagh.” Seungmin’s voice commented. She couldn’t see him in the shadows, but the moving chill of air reminded her he was there.

Felix hummed pleasantly in agreement as he wrapped his arms tight around her waist, turning her around in his grasp. He leaned forward to press a kiss to her once-bloodied, now-saliva-sticky cheek, delicately sweet. She flinched back at the motion, squirming in his grasp as she fought his embrace again.

For a moment, Y/N swore he looked like Hyunjin. The slope of his nose fading into a different shape; his bottom lip plumping. In a blink, Felix was himself once more. He smiled at her sweetly.

“I’m not the King’s,” she retorted. “Let me go.”

“Jumpy heart,” he murmured, his lips against her jaw. “You can be mine.”

His closeness felt suffocating and she squirmed in his grasp, trying to move away. His eyes gleamed in disappointment, fire building in his chest. She rejected him over and over and Felix wasn’t used to it from mortals. She pushed at his arms, firmly.

“Let me go, please,” she insisted, shoving him away and stepping away with a huff.

“You are a brave soul,” Seungmin commented, walking up to the altar with a trail of shadows slinking off him. The dried flowers there wilted in his presence. She turned her head to look at the shadowed fae.

She swore she saw a shadow tendril, curl over Seungmin’s shoulders as if someone was hugging him or clinging to him. But the shadows that seemed to encompass him in a halo of darkness was always shifting, pulsating behind him like a living thing. His eyes hadn’t left her form since he arrived, staring at her with such intensity.

“Or dumb,” Seungmin added after a moment. He smiled; his mouth curled into a humored laugh.  

Felix was back upon her with his affections, a hand moving her hair aside to rest his chin on her shoulder and stare up at her. His gaze burned her cheek like fire.

 “Please, stay for a while?” he whispered.

Felix’s voice was so soft and gentle. Luring. It reminded her of Yeonjun – except Yeonjun hadn’t felt the need to wrap about her like a snake (but he had wrapped himself around Soobin.) While he was handsome, she had bigger things to focus on than a touchy faerie.

“I need to make it to the Castle,” she argued, moving to push Felix’s arms away from her waist. She felt nails dig into her skin as she pulled away from him.

Turning to meet his eyes, she saw Felix’s form shiver and shatter as his face revealed despair. His face merged and flickered; he looked not like himself suddenly. His features shifted and shimmered as they seemed to roll through different faces until they landed back on the freckled-soft features that she had met Felix with. His hair, however, darkened to an oil-slick blue-black, shrinking to a shorter cut, as if his displeasure showed through his appearance like a chameleon. He snarled a bit as he pushed past her to Minho’s side.

“He’s not used to his charms not working,” Seungmin crowed out, his laugh sounding like a black raven’s as he faded into the shadows behind him, tumbling back in giggles.

Minho’s arm slung around Felix’s shoulders as the once-blonde let out a whine deep in his throat. At the other’s touch, it seemed as if Felix calmed slightly, his pink-honeyed eyes that blazed with rejection rose to meet his elder’s. Minho’s lips curled in a smirk, reassuring the blonde silently as they settled their gaze on the Runner once more. Minho brought a piece of bread to his lips, crunching into it.

“I can’t stay,” Y/N reaffirmed steadily.

“How many hours do you have left?” Minho queried casually. “It’s been a long time since there was a Challenge. I remember only one other reaching these parts – and she was the last Champion.”

Now, that flooded her with optimism making her perk up. That was reassuring! She was on the right path somehow and if this other Runner made it, maybe she can too.

Felix buried his face into Minho’s shoulder. The older patted Felix’s bum, reassuringly. His eyes remained on hers.

“A few more hours are on my side,” she replied. “Did you help the other Runner then?”

He smiled with a laugh, the sound huffing out of him like a dog’s bark.

“No. We didn’t. There were others that wanted her though. Fire-creatures.” He commented. “A few hours left, and you ended up here. . .  poor human.”

“I’ll only steal 30 minutes,” Felix promised from Minho’s side, eyes flickering with the firelight. “I can make it feel like hours, a chuisle.”

“He’d steal far more than that,” Seungmin’s voice was damp on her ear. She jolted away, pushing away at his chest (despite the fact he was still half-submerged in darkness beside her). He laughed as he tugged playfully at her ear making it tingle with the feeling of maggots and soil burying into her ear canal.

“You are a cute one,” Seungmin commented, his tone cool and offhandedly before he faded into darkness again.

Felix’s irises were crawling up and down her form as she rubbed at her ear. Minho’s gaze flickered to the darkness and then to Felix beside him.

“I think we should play,” Seungmin whispered in the darkness.

“Can we?” he whispered to Minho. “Hyung, please. She won’t break.”

The shadows climbed over Minho’s shoulder; Seungmin materializing from the darkness to stand beside the fur-clad man. Felix eagerly looked back and forth from his hyung to her in a way that made her feel like prey.

She was prey here, stuck in the wolf’s den.

It was quiet except for the crackling of the blue flames on the floor. Minho’s gaze was steady on hers, like a wolf’s on a rabbit in the brush. He finished his slice of bread, wiping crumbs from his fur and tunic. Large hands went to remove his hood from his head, each move of his was deliberate. He watched as the Runner’s eyes flickered from one action to the next, to him and then to Felix, then to Seungmin, finally back to him.

She didn’t let him speak first. When she spoke again, she was careful with her words.

“Yongbokie,” she began, hoping she used his true name. “Promised he was going to help me.”

Minho’s neck creaked with a violent crack as he looked over at the once-blonde who now edged away from his Sluagh’s embrace and towards Seungmin’s side.

The head of the trio cackled, echoing in the air and vibrating in the darkness.

“Did he?” Minho hummed.

“Yongbok promised.” She insisted.

Felix grimaced at her from beside Seungmin who grinned at his brother.

“I like her,” Minho growled out.

“Clever wean.” Seungmin muttered.

“I need to get to the Castle; if you don’t know the way, let me leave. That’d be help enough,” she reiterated. Her heart thudded in her veins as she looked between the three men. “Promise fulfilled.”

Minho’s cool blue gaze didn’t flicker from her. Seungmin’s stoic expression grazing the once-blonde with disapproval. And Felix who both seemed to be smiling and scowling at once. Impressed but angered.

Felix murmured: “I promised I knew a way. I didn’t say it’d be easy or free.”

“You promised to help me.” She said firmly. “I know what was said and who said.”

He turned away, scowling. Curses were muttered under his breath in a language she didn’t know.

“Play a game with us and we will help. Easy trade.” Seungmin retorted glancing at her. “It’s like hide and seek.”

Minho’s lips twitched towards a smirk.

“You run; we seek,” Felix continued.

“How is that helping me?” she retorted firmly, trying to clamp down the fear that was pounding in her chest like a drum. She had to hold onto what the fae promised.

“Help is subjective, isn’t it?” Minho commented, his voice sounding awfully condescending. “Help could be us keeping you here as your hours of mortality trickle away. Help could be us leading to the path to the Castle. Help could be us summoning the King for your capture. Or – “

“You play with us; we help how you want us to,” Felix chimed, brightening at his Sluagh’s words.

There was a reason they followed after the Sluagh. He was cleverness and instinct all wrapped up. Powerful both in strength and mind, he was ruler here and this was the reason.

“We haven’t had a Wild Hunt in some time, Minho,” Seungmin commented.

“Call it, call it, call it,” Felix chanted, almost demonically.

“How do I win this game?” she asked. “Hide and seek usually ends when the person is found.”

“Should we tell you?” Felix countered, pouting. “You’ve been so mean to me.”

“Yongbok,” he scolded firmly, making Felix’s mouth shut. Seungmin chuckled lowly.

Minho approached her, steps reminiscent of a wolf stalking forward. She stayed still, breath low as she tried to figure out a way out of this. His stare felt powerful and mythical. Like he was more than himself for a moment. There was a shuddering in the air, magic whirling in the air as the camp fire flickered violently. Embers surrounding Minho in a whirl of electric-blue light. He looked like a demon, like a mythical beast as magic flurried around him

Felix grinned and faded into the shimmering-flashy prism of light he could be. Seungmin faded into the darkness.

“Make it to the end of our borders and you win.” Minho instructed. “You’ll know the moment you see it, mortal.”

“And if I don’t make it,” she breathed out.

His lips twitched into a smile. He leaned forward so their eyes met at one another’s level. Blue magic swarmed his eyes until they were fully glowing, making them look as if they were fiery blue coals.

“Depends on who captures you.” He admitted. “Regardless, we will see how powerful that ancient ward is, human.”

Death wouldn’t let her escape the King. She knew that. But she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to be hurt. He could smell her fear and it made his mouth salivate.

“Run, Runner.” He whispered, a low chuckle bubbled up in his throat. “I’ll even give you a head start – out of helpfulness.”

“10, 9, 8-“

She didn’t linger longer to hear anything further.

The Runner ran.

Scrambling out of the warm cave towards the break in the trees, she ran. There were hoots and hollers that were loud in the darkness. Spooking animals and creatures of all sorts. Rustling and croaks and crinkles of wild life echoed around her as she sprinted.

A piercing howl broke through the noise. Her heart sped up and she pushed herself over a rock, faster.

The Runner ran and ran.

Her legs ached already. Her feet hurt from the hours of walking the Labyrinth but still she kept sprinting. The soil beneath her feet was slick and deep. Sinking into the grime as she rounded a tree. Her fingers brushing past the wood as she tried to listen for Minho’s voice. Or was that howl him? Was her extra time up? Where were they? Where was she? She didn’t pause as she continued onwards.

The Runner ran and ran and ran.

There were no hints for a way to go. She was scared this forest was tricked like the Labyrinth was. Was she just going in circles? No, no, she had to hope not. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she hopped over a fallen log.

There were no sounds now – no hooting, no hollering, no yells. She slowed for a moment, panting too loud. Her heart thudded deep in her chest as she bent over as she caught her breath. Her eyes, blurred at the edges with white, from her exhaustion and lack of air. She looked this way and that way, hands on her knees as she breathed in.

There was no hint of a path this deep into the forest. No whisper of living beings. It was quiet.

So quiet except for her panting in lungfuls of air. No birds. No rustling. Too quiet.

She paused. Holding her breath. Listening closely.

A body slammed into hers violently, thrusting her into the ground with a scream. His body writhed against hers for a moment as she struggled against ferns and clovers and dirt. He pulled away as he crouched over her, feet on either side of her body.

“I could track you without shifting,” he commented, squatting over her. Minho’s lips curled up with pride. “Iron-blood is so strong once you catch its trail.”

With flailing limbs and knocked wind, she pushed herself through the dirt and mulch – until her back hit a tree. It didn’t budge against her weight, scratching at her elbows as she tried to use it to hoist herself up. But the creature-esque fae was upon her with a pounce. He smelt of wild grass, rotting animals in the heat, and rain-watered mud.

Minho’s grin was feral. His nose brushed over her cheek as he breathed in. His own breath was ragged, hot like an animal’s against her sweatied face.  

“For a Runner,” he murmured lowly, a corner of his lip rising into a smirk. “You aren’t very fast.”

His claws tightened against her shoulder as he pinned her into the oak tree behind her. He had his prey and like a big cat he took pleasure in playing with his mouse. His eyes flashed blue as he raised his other hand up; the darkened claw-like nails glowed an unnatural blue. His thumb dragged over her throat delicately, slowly. Almost playfully. Scratching back and forth but not tearing into her skin.

“Clever but not fast,” he whispered. “Hm?”

He had arrogance in his tone as he tilted his head at her, faux pout on his lips. She struggled against his grasp again, dirt kicking up.

“Let me go,” she whispered back.

Their words felt loud in the eerie quiet of the woods.

“Humans have always been fair game in a Wild Hunt, written with our blood upon the ancient ruins,” he whispered as if telling her a secret. His eyes were steady on hers. “I wonder if ancient law overrules ancient magic. You’re the first human hunted in so many decades – and here you are cowering.”

His claw dug into her throat and she let out a cry, pushing herself away from him as far as she could. Blood dripped from the fine cut. It wasn’t deep (Minho was holding back, toying with her) but it still ached.

“Your immunity is the only intriguing thing about you. I wonder if you could survive my jaws,” he crooned, his hand rose from her shoulder. His fingers were gentle as they combed through her mussed hair.

His other hand that had clawed at her neck grabbed her by the collar of her shirt, a screech tumbling from her throat now. His teeth bore into many many rows of sharpened teeth.

There was a blur in her vision and she felt the weight of Minho get shoved off her with ferocious power. A body of light tumbled with the half-transformed Minho. An unearthly groan of anger grumbled from the tumbling forms.

“Yongbok!” she could hear the beastly growl that was Minho.

“I want first bite, hyung,”

Felix’s deep rumbling voice was almost poutful. But Y/N didn’t focus on that for long. No, she hoisted herself up and bolted in the opposite direction of the two fighting fae.

Around tree stumps, dark rocks, and hillsides, avoiding anything that would slow her down. Her feet splashed through a puddle of water, making her body jolt with adrenaline. Keep going, keep running. Where was she? She was running so quick there was no way she kept track of what tree or rock she had passed. Was she going in circles? Looking back, she saw no followers. Perhaps they were still caught up in one another.

There were tall trees ahead, made of pine rather than the twisting mulberry trees. She didn’t want to stop, her lungs ached but she feared that the moment she froze that theyd find her again. Turning to follow the path of pine trees, she wove between the large trunks. Stumbling over pinecones she hissed out as she stumbled into the brush.

“Fuck.” She cursed out.

Scraped knees and all, she stumbled to her feet and edged away from the pine needled cover floor. Looking around, the darkness felt like it was creeping into her. Tunnel visioning her. She could hear water, rushing water. It sounded close. She turned towards it and started to run, only for a grand flame of blue fire to burst forth in front of her, blocking her.

“Where are you going, chreiche?” it was growled out in the shadows.

She stumbled back, eyes wide. Her sweat gleamed in the blue light; hair wild as she looked around to find the voice. Her breath escaped in rough puffs as she moved away from the flames that licked at the pine needles and forced her away.

There was no Minho, no Felix. She swallowed, the taste of iron in the back of her throat and the smell of smoke in her lungs. She tried to gather her bearings. Maybe she was on the right path when the fire combusted in front of her. Was she close to their land’s boundary? She didn’t know. It wasn’t like she could win this game – she just had to escape.

There’s a howl in the darkness. She froze. It had to be Minho. She just knew it. Like an instinct hidden deep in her. She ran again, moving away from the flames in front of her. Feet moving before she could even think. Away from the blue flames that seemed to grow, following her to keep her within imaginary boundaries.

Rounding a corner, she stumbled as she came upon a large cliffside, blocking the path. It looked tall, creeping into the dark fog that clung low to the woods.

“No,” she cried out, kicking at the dirt before turning away from the dead-end. She had to keep going even as her lungs argued. She wheezed as she took a step forward. But she couldn’t breathe in.

Her breath was stolen, gone from her throat. Her lungs ached and she tried to suck in air, but she couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? Her hands rose to grasp her throat; it was damp with blood – the scratch from Minho painting her hands red. She felt her own throat muscles contract. A rasped gasp cracking through her mouth. But that didn’t help. Hunching over, she gasped and gasped. Coughing at air as if it was water.

Until she felt a tug on her ear, pulling her up from her squat to press against a firm chest.

An arm wrapped around her waist, a large hand pressing against trembling lungs. He pressed at them firmly.

“Do you wish to breathe?” Seungmin’s cold voice queried.

She nodded, frantically. And like that, the weight on her chest lifted and she took in the deepest breath she could. Sagging against him completely as her face faded from its reddish hue as she sucked in lungfuls of air. Shadowed limbs curled around her, caressing her cheeks, poking at her wounds with curious phalanges.

The shadow-fae hummed lowly, almost disinterestedly as he shifted her in his grasp as he took her weight onto his chest. His skin was icy cold against hers and it felt good similar to the way gasoline smelled good. The shadows licked at her skin, pressing kisses to the wounds. Her heart slowed, thudding steadily as she gasped and gulped air.

“Humans are simple,” Seungmin commented after a moment. Dead man’s lips cold to her ear. “Your fates so easy to manipulate and snap.”

His hands rose into her view, and yet she still felt phantom arms around her, holding her in place with their cold embrace. She felt his smile against her ear as his hands rose to her eye-level. With a twist of his wrists, a fine thin black string materialized tangled about his fingers, pulled taut between his hands. It thrummed and quivered and she couldn’t help but feel her own heart shudder with its vibrations.

“This is you,” he whispered. “Y/N.”

She hadn’t said her name to them and yet he knew. It made a whimper climb up her throat. She tried to move but she couldn’t. Entrapped in his tendrils. Seungmin breathed out a laugh as he thumbed at her fate-string. She felt it. Felt her chest shudder like a guitar’s string.

“Its strong. Even stronger with the ancient magic protecting you from us.”

The thing glowed faintly, shimmering in the nonexistent light.

“I can’t snap it like others, but I can do this.”

He pulled the string taut, and her heart ached. She pitched forwards, the air pushed from her lungs unpleasantly. He giggled.

“Stop.” She wheezed.

“Intriguing, huh?” he commented almost analytically. “How long can it go before it snaps on its own? Can it?”

There was a growl from the brush. Seungmin’s eyes flashed up from the string to the foliage. He looked at the shadowed animal with excitement flickering in his eyes like fruit flies around a rot.

“Hyung,” he chimed, sounding brighter than she had heard him yet. “I caught her.”

There was a growl, a sound in between a bear’s rumble and a wolf’s growl. It was harsh.

Seungmin sighed out. Disappointedly.

“Threads were fair game before!” he complained.

A bark of a snarl echoed out as the creature known as Minho crept forward. Her thread disappeared into the shadows once more as Seungmin’s hands went to grasp her shoulders.

“I found her,” he argued. “I win. Don’t change the rules, Minho.”

The snarl was vicious this time, a thing she imagined only monsters containing the strength of bursting forth from his chest. She could see him now. Minho was a beast larger than the wolf’s façade he wore before. No, he was something that towered high above the overgrown flora and fauna. Raggedy battle-torn fur and large scapulas making his large head fall lower on his body. He looked like a creature torn between the agility of a wolf with the form of a bison. His feet were paws not hooves as he approached with a bellowing growl.

“Sore loser,” Seungmin egged on, like a child.

Were all fae so obsessed with winning? With being the best? These three seemed to want and want and want. Yet humans were the ones who were greedy – ridiculed for wishing and then placed in a challenge? The trio had turned their backs on one another over and over for her. Selfish creatures. Childish.

Minho’s footfalls became faster and faster. He charged at them. Seungmin’s hands rest back on her shoulders, squeezing tight. Waiting until Minho pounced, Seungmin disappeared from behind her and Y/N dodged to the side.

The beast slid in the soft soil, mud matting in his fur before in a blink, the beast was replaced by the humanoid figure of Minho, kneeling and ready to pounce. Not at her but at the shadowed fae who was being tugged into the darkness once more.

“No threads, Seungmin,” Minho growled out, blue eyes flashing at the shadows. “Cheater.”

The shadows shifted and moved like an ocean’s waves. Wiggling annoyed.

“Loser,” Seungmin countered. Minho lunged for the other with a growl aching in his mouth, needing to put the death-fae into his place below him.

Breathing in deep, she watched as their attention focused on themselves, ignoring her as she clung to the thick trunk of a pine. Slowly creeping away, she tried to keep herself small and unseen as she escaped the bickering two.

As soon as she was far enough away, she broke into another sprint. The forest wasn’t as dark now with magical flames of blue licking at the far distance of the woods. Blocking her way out. Water trickled nearby and she turned to follow it. It didn’t sound like a rushing river but more like a small creek. Maybe she’d find a path out of here if she followed it?

She ran and could hear the rustling of Minho and Seungmin’s tussle in the distance. Growls and grunts that she tried to avoid heading anywhere near. Rounding a corner, the pines had melted into large weeping willows with leaves of curtains engulfing her every step. Moving through them, she ducked and brushed through the flora with harsh hands until she was near tangled up in the tree’s long curtains. Pausing to untangle herself, she huffed and puffed. As she turned to continue onwards, she jumped back at Felix in front of her.  

A maniacal grin glowed on his lips as he swung from a branch like a tempting serpent.

“Hi, little sweet heart,” he chimed, voice soft. He hung down from the tree, upside-down face to right-sideup face with her. “You’ve been doing so well.”

Empty praise given like whispered sweet nothings.

She glared and he smiled brighter.

“I should’ve kept you my secret,” he admitted as he let go of the branch with one hand, swinging like a sloth as he eyed her. His head tilted.

“Sharing a human isn’t my strong-suit and neither is it my brothers.”

Their bickering made her feel like a piece of meat between animals, being tugged this way and that as she is torn apart for their selfish hearts.

“You were going to keep me until my hours were up,” Y/N confirmed as she moved to run the opposite direction.

There was a fizzle of magic, a flash of light as Felix blocked her way with his lean-form. “No, no,” he pleaded with a gentle tone. His eyes were puppy-dog sweet as he reached out to her. “I was going to save you.” Empty promises, Y/N. “C’mon, come with me, and I promise you’ll be safe in my arms. Hmm?” he tempted, his words gentle and soft.

His voice was even a different tone, becoming something less deep and more warm. Sickly sweet, sticky. She glared at the oil-slick hair that seemed to glimmer in between dark and blonde in the shimmering light that consumed Felix. He wasn’t truthful. He had lied before. Promised before. And now, here she could see he was nothing but a snake. A chameleon reptile trying to eat her like a bug. Chew her up and toss her aside.

“I’ll take my chances alone,” she muttered as she dodged his needful arms and ran through the brush. Tangling vines, scratching palm leaves, and twisting roots stumbled and pried at her but she continued onwards. There were no forwards, backwards, sideways, or other ways in the woods. It was an abyss, endless except for when flames consumed her path.

Trapping her in this mess of a game board.  

A shadowed figure rush towards her.

“Nothing escapes me!” Seungmin’s shadow hands grazed her waist like the fingers of a dead man – damp and clammy.

A screech left her as she stumbled away, dodging towards another path through briared rose bushes. Thorns scratched and clung to her pants but she pushed through. Flames erupted in her way, blue and whirling up with wild magic.

“I found her first, she’s mine! I want to play; I never get to play with humans fairly!” Felix’s voice sounded like glass as it shattered into a deep monstrous thing. He dove to grab her. His face distorted in the blue light and she realized he didn’t look like himself at all. Too many eyes, too many mouths.

She shrieked and dove to the side, evading his inhuman leap. Flames were hot against her sweatied form, making her arms feel like they were sweltering with the change in temperature. Icy hot to boiling cold. She kept running. The world around her melted from the unending darkness of the woods to this blue-casted jungle. Bright from licking electric flames consuming it all. She slid down a small incline, grunting as she did so.

“I hunted her down,” Minho countered, nearly inhuman in its growled words. There were loud footsteps, his paws thudding against the dirt with bellowing strides. She didn’t look back as she dodged another flicker of flame bursting forth from her right. “She’s mine.”

“No!” It sounded like it was all three of them crying out, different voices mingling into a cacophony of a growled inhuman gurgle. Greedy and selfish, they were still fighting with one another, arguing about rules of a Wild Hunt over the beating of her human heart and lungs aching for more than a second of air.

She splashed through a creek, ankles rolling as she dashed over algae-slippery rocks. The Runner didn’t stop even as she heard a howl, loud and angered. She didn’t stop as she heard the calls of Felix. “Swet heart, stop!” She didn’t stop when she felt the delicate fingers of Seungmin’s play with her heart, making it feel as if it was pulling and pulling and pulling in her chest.

“You’ve won, little mouse,” she heard a yell of a growl from Minho. “Return. Return.”

“Come back, human!” Seungmin’s voice pleaded.

“Leave me alone!” she cried out.

Return? He was crazy. They all were. She turned back from her spot high on a hillside; she saw them prowling at the small bubbling brook. Minho pacing, Seungmin’s shadows stopping at an invisible barrier, Felix… sobbing into his knees. She was free of them; they couldn’t cross the rushing water. She won. But she wouldn’t go back. No. That was a fool’s errand.

“Don’t leave,” Felix cried out, monstrously so.

He sounded unrecognizable other than the deep accent that he had. She swallowed before turning her back on them and continuing her climb. The trees were less overwhelming as she climbed, thin and branchy. Nothing was blooming and there were more half-alive things than alive here. The hill came face to face with a cliffside. Dead-end.  It towered high above her with rough terrain, rocks jutting out this way and that and magic flowing through the cracks of dirt. High above, she could make out the beginning of the familiar brickwork of the Labyrinth’s walls as it was engulfed by the dark layer of shadows.

She was so close, but now there was this cliff. She looked back to hear Minho’s call. Taunting. “She doesn’t know the way. She needs us.”

It made her chest burn. Burn with anger. She didn’t need them, she didn’t need anyone. As soon as she thought that, something magical happened. A rope fell down to her from high above in the foggy darkness. Looking up, there were no signs of who threw it but she needed to get back to the Labyrinth. So, she climbed and climbed. Until a hand wrapped around hers and tugged.

“Y/N?” the voice was familiar and she thought maybe it was a trick of a fae, and it made her want to sob.

“Y/N, that’s you?” he queried again, heaving her out by her arm. She crawled onto the cobblestone path, fingers digging into the stone as she curled her feet away from the ladder. The darkness of the woods didn’t touch her here and she swore she heard Felix crow out, “You’re welcome, sweet heart!”, as the darkness engulfed their voices.

She peered up at her rescuer and her eyes widened.

A familiar face was staring at her with concern in his jewel-toned eyes. He was kneeling beside her, a hand on her shoulder. He wasn’t a trick. No, it was him.

“Han!” she fell into his arms, hugging him close.

She did it. She really did it. She was away from the dangers of those woods. Away from the shadows, flames, and embraces. No, she felt sturdy as she grasped onto the lesser-fae, burying her cheek into the worn vest of his.

“Y/N.” he breathed as he held her close for a moment. She was sturdy, unharmed. Salt-sweat on her brow, hair tousled, warm blood on her skin and through her veins.

Safe nonetheless.

When he had heard her shrieks and tracked her to the edge of the Direwoods, he had feared the worse. He knew the Direwood inhabitants were rowdy folk. Creatures of myth and legend live there. Hyunjin had hated dealing with them – even if Minho was a reasonable leader of his lands. How’d she end up in their borders? It looked clearly dangerous. Why would she go there?

“Why were you in the Direwoods?” he scolded, pulling back to look her in the eye. “Are you stupid?”

“I didn’t—I fell after something attacked us,” she argued back. “I didn’t know it was going to be like that.” She shivered. She didn’t know how to explain Felix, Minho, and Seungmin. She felt like they were true fae – which was funny considering she was amongst fae folk everywhere here. But Han didn’t feel dangerous like they had. Chris didn’t.

It felt like the stories of dangerous fae were written after those in the Direwoods, unlike the dreamy stories told of the Goblin King.

“Those woods are full of shifters and death fae,” he filled in the blanks, his hand going to push her hair away from her neck. Oh god, her neck was bloodied-red. He swallowed at the sight. Poor human. “Minho and his little clan of spitfires.” He spat.

Her ears burned. She had truly ran into the most well-known of all in the Direwoods.

“Y/N,” her name was spoken like a warning. “Did you meet Minho?”

She smiled bashfully up at Jisung. It did little to calm him especially with the half-there blood drawn over her cheek in a rune of old that read ‘mine’, and her body bloodied and bruised. His eyes only filled with horror. His breaths escalated as he went to grasp her jaw in his hands. Examining her eyes this way and that. Thumbs brushed over her cheeks, rubbing away the rune as they searched for a temperature. A fever of lust.

“Who. Did. You. Meet?” he held her head in between his hands still as he demanded.

“Minho, yeah, uh, Felix, and Seungmin,” she listed off.

“Did Felix touch you?” His voice was sharply concerned as he looked in her eyes carefully. “Y/N, you have to think carefully.”

She had yet to see Jisung this fearful – even when he was confronted by Hyunjin, there was never this tremble to his eyes as they took in her state of being.

“He’s a Gancanagh,” he worried. “One touch and you’ll be addicted to him.”

She didn’t seem addicted. He’s seen humans fall head over heels for Gancanaghs, destroyed and driven mad when the fae left. She seemed normal. She wasn’t crawling her way back to the Direwoods, instead her hand rose to cup the back of his own hand softly.

“He couldn’t keep his hands off me actually,” she admitted. “But it seemed like it was only because he said I was protected by magic?” she offered. “I don’t feel any different. Just scared.”

Jisung’s eyes that had danced over her cheeks, worriedly wondering if her flushed cheeks meant a fever, flashed to her eyes at that. She’s scared. What if he could’ve prevented this? The peach in his satchel was heavy as he leaned away. He swallowed softly; fingers gentle on her skin as he pulled away.

“Okay.” he conceded. “Makes sense – Hyunjin wouldn’t want his Runners becoming addicted to another. Okay.”

There’s a moment as he looked over her form. God, she reeked of iron-blood, her skin cut up from branches and claws; her poor throat bore a scratch; there were greenish bruises forming on her as well.

“You’re all beat up,” he murmured, frowning. “Goddess below, why’d you run into those three?”

“Yeah, but hey,” she shifted to show the collection of jewels – his jewels – tied to the belt loop around her waist, safe and sound. “These are still safe!”

“I don’t care about those right now,” he huffed, rolling his eyes as he tore at the fabric of his shirt, the hemming and more tearing away. His toned stomach was revealed, sparkling remnants of magic highlighting his abs. He then tore his hemming into strips of cloth that he soon began to wrap around her wounds. “You’re hurt, stupid.”

His tone didn’t sound harsh as he continued to care for her injuries.

“Where were you?” she queried.

“Trying to find you after you ran towards danger – again. You really need to be more careful!” he scolded her as he shifted her hair to one side.

He went to his belt and pulled a flask made of gator-looking hide. Han poured the contents over a rag before wiping away her bloodied neck before wrapping it in a bandage carefully.

“You’re the one that refused to help someone in danger and ran away from me.”

“If they’re in danger of their own making, it’s their problem – not ours right now,” he countered, leaning back on his heels. His arms rested on his knees as he looked over her form. She looked beat up still. He brushed the dirt, mulch and leaves off her back. Picking leaves and pine-needles from her hair.

“That’s the same thing you said about me,” she said.

“And look where helping you got me,” he huffed.

His hair fell in his eyes and he blew air to push it out of the way as he tied a makeshift bandage on her arm.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she admitted softly as he tied a bandage around her palm. “Friend.”

His fingers slipped against the fabric of the bandage as he spluttered a bit. It made her laugh, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder.

“I—I,” he bumbled out. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”

“Y/N!”

A familiar voice cried out in the distance.

“Chris?” she popped up onto her feet, leaving Jisung on his knees.

“Chris?” he repeated after her, clambering to his feet beside her as he watched a hulking force of nature barrel through the woods towards them. Jisung’s eyes widened as he moved to stand in front of Y/N.

“Y/N, you’re okay!” The voice was joyful as Chris, shirtless still, appeared from the brush. The smile on her face was bright as she shifted from behind Jisung to meet Chris half-way. His smile was bright as he wrapped her up in a bear hug. Her feet left the dirt ground as he hugged her close.

A laugh tumbled from her as he squeezed her close, laughing in turn.

“You’re okay, too!” she exclaimed as she was placed back on her feet. Released from his hug, she could see his bared chest, the injuries from before had formed a shiny-matte-like appearance, healing into the beginning of scabs while they were parted.

“None of these are new, right?

He shook his head, his brown hair flopping about wildly before he hugged her again, burying his face in her shoulder.

“I’m so happy I found you – I can’t believe we got separated.”

“Its okay. I ran into some, uh, some trouble, so it’s probably good you weren’t there. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

Jisung couldn’t help but let the shock cross over his face. Him, getting hurt. Compared to her? He didn’t get it. Y/N was clearly the more vulnerable, the one who needed to be protected here. Yet here she was babying this mountain of a man (despite their heights being comparable if Jisung ever wanted to point out.)

He cleared his throat after the hug continued for a moment too long in his opinion. The pair separated, one with a grin and the other with a cautious look beneath a furrowed brow.

“So, this is your new friend, Runner?” Jisung queried, flicking dirt from under his finger nails. He looked ‘Chris’ up and down. “Hello Chan.”

“Hello, Lord Han,” Chris murmured carefully, bowing his head.

“Lord Han!?” Y/N exclaimed, her mouth falling open in shock.

[captain-mj]

Eldritch Sacrifice

Remember how I promised that I had a separate Korangi idea if SoapGhost arranged marriage one? And then I had you guys do a poll because I had two? Well here's one of them!!

Also, CW: dubcon. Horangi is into it, however he is initially agreeing due to a gamble they're making

König stretched and groaned. His little cult were chanting for him again and he wondered what they could possible be about to ask for now. Money? Food? More warm bodies to lay with? They just kept asking and whether he delivered or not, they always had something wrong. 

Destroy the economy so their money is worth more? Bad move. 

Mutate the crops and trees until they were full of, hopefully edible, fruit? Bad move. 

Make fleshy wooden creatures that were warm and had holes to fuck but weren’t completely human? Awful move. He gave some of them “nightmares” whatever those were. Apparently they were like his dreams. But scary. König thought all dreams were scary therefore separating the two felt stupid. 

“Master.” One of them cried and he winced. 

“Yes…… little one?” His voice crashed and croaked and twisted the boards beneath him. 

The brave one continued to speak. “We have noticed your displeasure with us. You are displeased.”

König wanted them to leave. He had half a mind to obliterate them however they were at most an annoyance. “And you plan to rectify this?”

“Yes. Today, we have brought you something to lift your spirits. A rarity.”

This did not pique his interest very much. Humans considered certain rocks to be valuable because they were rare on earth. He had seen planets that rained diamonds. With sculptures that made their small rings look puny. Universes surrounding shards of glass older than the very concept of bones. 

“Maybe he suit your interests.”

“He?”

A small man. Only a little over six foot, which may be big for a human but was only hand sized to him, lay kneeling. Throat exposed. 

He was… a man. It wasn’t until he locked eyes with König so easily, able to look through the shivering, horrid mass of flesh and tentacles and black dripping darkness and see König. Their eyes stayed locked on each other. 

“An abomination. A man able to perceive that which should not be perceived.” The knife was put to his throat. “Horangi. Tiger. May your blood finally give our Master solace-”

“Wait.” König shouted, regretting it when the man’s face became so pained.

A tiniest of sounds ripped from his throat. A tiny gasp of pain that had König’s thoughts scrambling in a way he could only assume was similar to how human’s did when he messed with them. 

“I do not want his death.”

“You are so right sir! It would be too swift.” They backed away quickly. “Is this a pleasing sacrifice?”

Horangi finally showed a hint of fear. Giant brown eyes staring up at him. König could not hear his thoughts, he was an interdimensional being, not psychic. But he could practically feel the anxiety and see the gears turning as he no doubt imagined what König could do to him. 

Horangi had a gift, sure. An ability to avoid those eldritch abominations and to see them for what they were. But it also meant he did not have the escape of insanity. His mind was meant to take the horrors of König. Unable to go fully mad. 

A perfect plaything. 

König reached down, hand gently grasping Horangi. He picked him up, letting him struggle and writhe as the chains tangling him simply snapped. Not an ounce of pressure sat on his skin, König simply picked him up with ease. Horangi stared at him. Breath quickened.

“What do you ask for?”

The Brave One spoke up again. “We ask for fertility.”

“All of you will have happy, healthy children.”

“....human children?”

“Yes, all human.” König sank back into the walls and back into his dimension, taking his prize with him. 

Horangi shivered and König quickly fixed the temperature, making sure it was optimal for humans. 

A sacrifice. 

Finally, something interesting. 

Dead lambs and black cats were all good and well (all of which he put in dimensions perfectly suited for them) but they were… well. 

Not human. 

Humans were interesting. Attractive. And capable of delicious emotions that most other creatures didn’t bother developing. What use does a bug have for anxiety? Existential dread? 

Horangi shivered in his arms again, clearly not from the cold. König dropped him into a pool of soft. Not material that was soft, but the very idea of softness. 

“What do you think of when you see me?”

Horangi hummed. “What do you want me to feel?”

König… folded. From Horangi’s point of you, it looked like crumbling paper as he sank to Size where they were a bit more level. He was still taller, close to seven feet, but his little sacrifice needed to be able to look him in the eye. His hand cupped Horangi perfectly, able to taste the way his body spiked. Full of adrenaline and hormones that puppeted his emotions. 

“Just like every other human, gift or not. Only able to be subservient. How disappointing.”

Anger. An unexpected emotion that sparked his interest again. “What do you mean by that?” 

König shrugged. “You all seem naturally inclined to worship is all.”

Horangi bared his teeth. “Not naturally inclined to worship. Just do not wish to be tortured.”

“Are you suggesting if there was no threat, you would act differently?”

Horangi stilled and König almost assumed he had been right before pausing and thinking. Why would Horangi admit he would act disrespectfully when König could rip him apart atom by atom and keep him alive?

Would König ever do that? Absolutely not. He wasn’t really interested in cruelty. His fellow eldritch beings may love suspending people in eternal agony, but König didn’t. Honestly, he kinda wanted to be left alone most of the time, but Horangi seemed so interesting and he was already there!

“So you feel no need to fall to your knees? To worship? To use your mouth to whisper ancient prayers to me?” König made his voice clear and honest. 

Horangi moved oddly. Legs twitching. “No. I don’t.”

He was lying. Not about everything, but about something. 

König moved closer, bright blue eyes staring into Horangi’s. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Well. I suppose… I should make you obedient.”

“How? If you tear me apart and remake me, I won’t be the same person. I would be no more obedient.”

Well. 

That was a thought. 

König pouted. He didn’t consider it pouting, but Horangi did. 

“You’re right. If I torture you and break you, it wouldn’t really be you either.”

Horangi nodded quickly. “So you can’t exactly make me obedient.”

König hummed. “Not true. You humans have made dozens of studies on positive reinforcement.”

“And what is my reward? Getting to go back to Earth?”

König fell on Horangi, surrounding him and pinning him between the suddenly hard world. “I’ll show you what your rewards will be. Your punishment will be not getting to finish. I know you humans love nothing more than finishing.”

“F-finishing?”

“Oh. Wait. Consent. That is important. Do I have your consent to try this experiment?”

“If I don’t obey you afterwards, will you return me?”

“Sure.” König thought it was a fun wager. “Just endure and stay surly and mean, and then I’ll bring you home.” 

Horangi scoffed. “As if anything you could do would make me listen to your orders.”

König had Horangi on his hands and knees, face pressed to the pillows and ass up. He used one of his tentacles to fuck him and had been doing so for… well, time didn’t really exist. He just knew that for Horangi, it must’ve felt like a really, really long time. Especially since he had not allowed him to cum. 

Horangi sobbed into the pillow when the tentacle stopped again. He did not fuck him with any finesse or strategy, working intently on one thing and one thing only which was getting as deep into Horangi as possible. That and trying to stretch him out. The slick from the tentacles had started to drip down Horangi’s thighs. His hole clenched hard around him as another sob ripped out of his throat. 

“This is cruel. You fucking-AH.” Horangi cut off as the tentacle pushed in even deeper. His stomach bulged slightly this time and König accidentally brushed the bundle of nerves he had been so careful to avoid because Horangi almost, almost came. König didn’t let him of course. It was super simple, just don’t let his body go through the motions. It had the bonus side of effect of letting Horangi get a taste of the feeling but no physical relief. 

König hummed. “I am preparing you. You don’t need to finish yet.”

“This is fucking prep??” Horangi buried his face in his pillows. “I can’t…”

“You can tap out.” König purred. “We can always try again later.” 

Horangi scoffed and arched his back, trying to let him in deeper now. “Fuck you. I can… I can…”

“I don’t think you can take it, but you will.” König finally, finally, fucking finally, pulled the slick tentacle out of him, watching both the relief from no longer being so filled and the frustration of not getting fucked to completion. 

Horangi didn’t fight when his body was moved around but he did look a little ashamed, especially when he spread his legs a little farther for König to get between them. 

His body felt heavenly. Other eldritch creatures were nice and all, but they were just as cold as he was. Humans were among one of the few that could consent to sex and they were also so fucking tight. A vice. He had to be careful though, despite all of his prep, Horangi still hit him to make him stop pushing in. 

“Too much. Too big. Fuck. Can’t you shrink down more?” Horangi whimpered.

“Yes. But I checked already. I’m the perfect size for you like this.”

“No. You’re stretching me out so much I…” He trailed off as König pushed right in, making himself perfectly at home. Horangi’s cock twitched and started to leak. “Fuck.” There was a beautiful blush on his face that made him look dazzling. Fragile and whorish. 

König felt like he was drowning in Horangi’s unabated arousal. The previous nervousness and protests dying out now. He rocked into his prostate, letting Horangi finally get what he wanted. 

The broken gasp that ripped out of him almost made König lose his composure. Of taking Horangi and fucking him like a toy until he finished. But that would hurt him and he didn’t really want to hurt Horangi. 

Not when he can get those beautiful little punched out noises. 

So he did it again. Feeling him clench and moan around him. 

Slow. 

Steady. Repeatedly hitting the same spot over and over again and this time, he encouraged Horangi to finish. Wouldn’t let him touch himself of course, but he pushed the right buttons in Horangi’s brain and let him focus on just the sensations until he felt him convulse and shake around him. The feeling of him orgasming around his dick was addicting. 

König wanted to feel it again. Technically, he probably could’ve just made him do it again. Or kept him just perpetually there, unable to come down and forced to endure wave after wave of ecstasy until König grew bored of it. But something about making him do it himself, watching Horangi realize he was getting close again just from the sensation of being fucked rather hard by something that barely fit… Too delicious to pass up. He finished inside him, kissing Horangi’s jaw as he did but he didn’t stop moving. 

With Horangi so sensitive, it was so easy to get him to finish again and again and again. Human men could come 2-5 times a day but what were limitations like those in a place that simply didn’t have time? 

Horangi tried to keep count, but the effort it took to do so was simply too much. All he could do was feel. His sensitive only increased until it was an exquisite type of torture. Every touch, every thrust, every time it felt like Horangi would finally break from it all, he’d sob and beg for something. 

“What do you want?” König asked gently, a harsh juxtaposition to the brutal way he was treating Horangi’s body. Cock slamming right into him and tentacles and claws alike digging into him to keep him in prime position.

Horangi considered it. This was a way out. There wasn’t even a caveat. Somehow, they both knew the game was over. Horangi could go home if he asked.

“Keep going.” 

König had zero clue exactly how long in any universe that stayed there. Even after he had finally gotten his fill of Horangi’s fluttering body, he kept him to his chest and still filled. Horangi was dead to the world, limp and twitching from after shocks. With a snap, they were clean, but Horangi stayed bruised and a touch sweaty. It was a good look on him. 

“How about we call it a tie and have a rematch later?” Horangi wheezed out, still visibly out of breath and spent.

König hummed. “I never did get to use my tongue.”

[oncewhenalongtimeago]

love the duality of just like magic. readers living in a cute cottagecore story and hiccup is living in an eldritch fantasy without the horror with powers beyond his comprehension beyond every turn, be it dragon, or the cute girl who just Appeared one day. looking forward to see what you do with it :]

Just Like Magic pt 3

Pairing: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III x Reader

Words: 7,849

Hiccup goes into shock.

Tags: Witch!reader, optimistic/cheery reader, female reader, httyd 1, fluff, unedited

<Previous -

Hiccup... Forger. The Chief’s son?

He was an odd boy, sort of stiff and twitchy, with a red, nearly burned-looking face. 

You thought it could have something to do with the orange light flickering from inside his smith’s hovel. Maybe he’d spent too long by the fire. His hair, too, was decently full of soot, more dark in the front and over the top than by the back, where it stood up brighter than the rest, as if he’d fallen asleep on his face in a pile of soot, which was nearly funny.

You couldn’t tell the difference between freckle or smudge, what with the layer of film on his cheeks and the darkness being so thick- he probably hadn’t noticed it at all, if he was a smith’s apprentice, too used to it. He didn’t look like he did.

You wanted to hum with mirth, fingers threading twine into simple loops over loops in a wide array.

The name barely registered with you at all then and you couldn’t find too much of a reason to mind now. You weren’t even sure if he was the right ‘Hiccup.’ After all, it wasn’t a very uncommon name on Berk.

You sighed as you shifted, the drop in temperature and the feel of running weight the only sign that anything was there, cool liquid shifting over your feet as they rested in the water.

Past the heavy cloth of your waist wrap you felt the many bumpy edges of water-worn rock pressing into your bottom, one rim of a set of very shallow tide pools at the edge of a beautiful blue-green water.

You only carried your net, a comb attached to your belt besides, something you used to untie string occasionally, and the baubles attached to your person.

Your toes pressed lightly into silt-sand as you tied a knot with two fingers, closing the end of your mesh.

You looked down at it, satisfied.

The twine you’d used to make it was perhaps a tad thinner than was needed to make something sturdy, though you were guilty of doing that on purpose. You enjoyed making the nets, weaving strings simply, mindlessly. 

Habitually, you ran your finger along the charms around your wrists, most of which usually spent their time pinned and hugging belts and sleeves until you could find the right hands to hold them and to wear them.

There weren’t so many today, too warm to weight down your wrists with thick numbers of beads and weave, though you carried a few- two lucky pearls securely wrapped in green thread and a tabby-weave twill in the diamond pattern, illusionistic squares in yellows, reds and blues traveling up its length.

One of the pearls- you could gift it to Inga. It might uplift her spirits even if it wouldn’t sell in the markets, or maybe you could give it to Bo, who had gray eyes which took on light in a way that reminded you of it, though you were loathe to give the absurd man such a sentimental item.

You could try Ase, who was never not eager for a precious thing, though she was prone to brag about it, a huge fan of anything Viking-crafted in the special style, with her own rows of necklaces attached to brooches and cloaks resting in her home, hanging from wooden hooks and racks along rafters. It didn’t feel right, though.

Picking at the knot holding the twill to your sleeve, you unraveled it and pulled its loop through one of your net’s. At that moment, you decided- It would be something interesting for the fish. A lure, not that you needed one.

You smiled again as you finished tying the tassel tightly into your net. 

When the Gronkle had rushed him, he hadn’t been thinking- he hadn’t been sure whether he would live or die. He wasn’t thinking of anything more than the fact that the dragon was there and it was rearing, probably the result of one too many close brushes with death.

His whole life had been defined by a run from deadly dragons. He’d gotten more bruises and gashes than he could count. The Gronkle was vicious, angered, bloodlusted-

“Dragons always go for the kill.” They always, always went for the kill. Gobber said…

Boots digging into and flopping out of the sand as he walked, Hiccup grimaced, bringing his hand down from where he’d brushed it past his chin, still quite depressingly free of peachy hair. “Dragons…”

His boots- even if he was careful, he knew he would find sand in them later.

His arm flopped even as he left his other lightly clutching at his elbow so that it rested at an awkward angle as he finally looked up and took a large breath.

He blinked his eyes open slowly, with a slight drowsy, feeling slightly sun-drunk and pleasant despite his troubles.

If he hadn’t known what ale tasted like, or honey mead, he’d have assumed this was it.

“Oh.”

For the second time, he was surprised by his surroundings, though this time his circumstances could not be excused so easily by coincidence.

It was something out of a fantasy- It had to be something from a dream.

He’d known he was on a beach, though it hadn’t been so…. Pleasant-looking the last he’d looked, and he was sure at some point that it had turned back to forest, though he hadn’t yet begun his hike back up.

He was unsure how or when he’d gotten this far at all- he’d just been on recess, and he still had to be back by sundown, before Gobber would gather the lot of them all up at dinner for study.

It was a narrow stretch of beach with a set of tide pools and a sheer cliff face behind, with water that was clear and inviting, moving slowly and without the thick passion of the deep blues that crashed violently against and assaulted the island’s sides.

The cliffs were tall enough to nearly reach the sun, to cause vertigo and to have his neck touching neck and head aching as he peered back and yet it was positioned at the wrong angle to cast any sort of huge, imposing, never-ending shadow. 

It was nice.

He usually felt small in the shadow of such gigantic things, which was always brought to its worst whenever he’d been left to his own in the Great Hall in the times when there was nothing but a single torch to light his way, base longer than his arm and yet still not bright enough to give him more than a few feet of visibility and when it was just him and the statues. 

They were large, staggering, carrying the likenesses of each Chief that had come before his Father. Overcast by their cold, cold shadow, worse than any whipping, violent, snowing night, Hiccup always felt something a little bit like fear and a lot more like dread. 

 Their circular, simplistic eyes, larger than two of his heads turned to one. They seemed the most alive then, the most imposing, the most judgemental, the most soul-seeing- and they always found him lacking. They were guardians of legacy, all part of an array, one Hiccup knew he would never join as a blacksmith’s apprentice.

Berk had a few beaches yet none nearly as nice as this, so beautiful and impossible to find using anything but feeling alone. He was sure there was not a single other Viking who’d ever touched its shores.

Too bad Hiccup wasn’t at all in the mood to enjoy it.

He scratched along his jaw with one hand again, catching painfully on a sore spot there- whether it was a blemish or a burn, he wasn’t sure, but the catch and the dull, full-to-soreness feeling there led him to believe it was a blemish.

It was what he got for spending so long in the forge, though he was not particularly bothered enough to care.

Looking back, where pretty weeds and saturated grasses began to sprout from the sand, there was the forest and a set of ferns a lot longer and fuller than he’d ever remembered passing through, his hands to his sides the whole time. They were large enough to obscure the view back into the forest, with its thick trees and nearly tropical, foreign foliage, with long sprouts and oddly tear-shaped leafed vines. 

Some of these plants shouldn’t have grown all together, he was sure, and yet they did in plenty.

He spotted in the treeline what could have been a Medlar, his eyes drifting as, half crouched, he slowly turned back around, the flat pads of his boots lightly shifting against the sand.

Sprouting from the cliffs where jagged rock and sand touched was a plant which looked like a broom with most of its brussels picked all out of it or a burnt scalp with only a few thin hairs poking from the top. Its leaves looked like they came from the thin stems of  a real vine, with three parts, jagged-looking edges and yellow clover buds at the end.

Hiccup squinted.

He wasn’t so good at naming plants, though he was sure this something began with a ‘t,’ though the name eluded him. It was something ferocious, though its purpose was much more humbling. Tormenter- torment…

Berk’s healers had been very local about the need- he could bring it back to the village for Gothi and the rest. He would not be hailed with honor though he would get a nice pat on the back.

Unlike it should, the feeling didn’t make him feel anything but terrible, something dark doing its rounds in his chest, somewhere between and around where his lungs should be. 

He knew from a first glance that this was one of the kinds of places that should remain untouched, not in spite of any others but for the sake of its own beauty, in respect for its life and in an effort to mitigate any harms he might bring to it. 

He felt slightly selfish for the thought -a good part of him wanted to keep this all to himself- and for the want he still had, the one that asked him to deface such a sacred place for naught but a momentary reward. He didn’t deserve to be greedy after being so shameful, his person not terrible not for the blood crusting on his hands, more instead for the lack of it.

There was some evil in being peaceable, in having regret. Pure things did not belong to pure people, though he had a hard time finding himself to be pure at all.

Hiccup shook his head.

He could see what else he could find, if not for boon, then just for the chance that it might bring him distraction for a short while.

The only thing to do was to start forwards. It really- it really wouldn’t hurt to look.

Hiccup turned fully. The unbalanced feeling that came from being on uneven ground was offset by the solidness of the sand beneath his feet. It became nearly unnoticeable as he began moving again.

The bar of sand only got narrower just as the tiny rock pools lining the difference between sand and ocean only got larger, the only thing visible to him past that being the vast horizon of the sea, different here to any other he’d seen over any other part of the island.

The cliff face began to curve overhead, and while caution said he should stay away from the cliff lest anything crumble or fall, he moved towards it anyways.

He glanced down only briefly as sand became stone beneath his feet and the leftover grains either wedged into the treaded bottoms of his shoes or ground sharply against them, like a bunch of pebbles in a basket but of a higher pitch, all striking against each other discordantly.

He walked along the cliff, one hand on the rock face, leaning against it as the path became narrower, the ocean’s waters lapping at his soles.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a tide pool in person before- It had to be low tide.

He ogled at what could have been a starfish, a lumpy-looking red thing with multiple tentacle-like limbs clinging to one of the rocks in the most awkward, interesting contortion. 

Berk didn’t have too many, all steep cliffs and hungry underwater dragons. The same went for mussels. The only things Berk had in abundance were algae and fish, though all of the above seemed to coexist in this place comfortably.

“Gods, what-...” A very thin, lighter green layer of algae surrounding the starfish, swirling like a thin layer of smoke, the darting of a small, finger size, thin silver-and-baby-cobalt fish darting in a small pool a bit further up, and a blooming bustle of closed light brown and gray mussel shells in the water, which came as a surprise to him- this whole area was lively in a way that the rest of Berk was not. 

He hadn’t been sure that there was anything else to know on this island, to explore, and yet- There was one by his foot where the pool was so shallow and the water so little that it seemed to be nearly invisible. 

He eyed white bubbles, the only tell that anything might have been in there at all, so unlike the sometimes yellowish sea foam by the docks. It was nearly insignificant, and yet the lack of a fishy smell and the gently rhythmic sound of rushing water had his stomach turning, feeling prickly- or maybe it was fluttering. He couldn’t tell. 

Hiccup sighed, his hand leaving the face of the cliff. 

Stepping forwards, he did not at all anticipate the way his boot caught on a sharp, bumpy ledge or rock, or the way his arms shot out in an effort to balance him, his left elbow jabbing quite disconcertingly against solid stone.

You stretched, a sharp noise pulling from your throat, overwhelmed with satisfaction, feeling your wrap pull against your waist as you raised your arms all the way into the air, struggling to keep loose fabrics in place.

You heard something sharp then, a sound half-rasped, shouting perhaps the name Ack, or maybe Ake, or maybe it was just a noise overlaid by the sound of a splash, something thin and sudden as if only part of a hard object had skirted over a shallow liquid’s surface.

Startled, your own shoulders jumped.

A peal of laughter, not at all echoey like he’d have expected with the tall, curving cliffs and the odd rules of this beautiful place- it was tinkling not in the sense that it sounded like metal at all, though it was similar in that it gave the same exact feeling he’d been given by listening to the twittering sound of gentle bells.

It was a sound he’d heard only once, one he could only ever visit through soft, hazy memory- a wizened, tanned hand holding up a pair of delicate balls, small, tiny, quiet, another hand cradled below it in the air as if they were something worth holding, as if it couldn’t bear not to be apart from them for a moment, even as they were being so delicately handled. 

It was something that stuck with him, from a time when he’d had nothing but chubby child’s cheeks which he rested above ginormous baggy sleeves, leaning over a small crate as the flooring bobbed back and forth with the tides, his knees bending with it.

They were nothing anyone on Berk had thought to buy nor were they anything he could afford as a small child with nothing to trade and a pitiful, single allowance of one rune, which he’d spent earlier on a shiny roman coin, one his father later threw into the sea.

Flailing his way free of the vertigo brought on by his clumsy wobbling, he blinked, glancing around for a second, searching for confirmation that he really wasn’t alone before he spotted you, meeting you directly in the eye as you peered back around the corner of the cliffs, instilling in him the idea that at the end of the tide pools wasn’t just a walk-less edge, but also a corner.

Your softer laughter was discernible, more than anything else along that beach, yet light and not at all sharp or grating, a sound so precious and high it was almost nothing, barely smothered by puffed cheeks and a palm to the mouth.

A smaller Hiccup would have yearned to know that he did not have to travel over the seas to find such a pretty treasure- that to hear it, he’d just need to see you.

Fate, Something inside him shouted insistently.

He balked, like something thin and nearly imperceptible had been tugging him by the chest. It was gone now.

In the day, the danger were the forest boars, tall as a man and thrice as strong. Now, to him, you brought to mind myths of fairy circles, traps, magic moss and fungus on purple bark. To him, you were dangerous.

He tried to remember if he’d stepped between anything suspicious past odd flowers even as you’d begun to duck away, something like startle raising your brows and shying your smile, in him, giving way to mild frustration and another thing just as wild in his chest. “Wait-”

It was all a blur as he made to pursue, something he only experienced in flashes, even as he lived the moment.

“Hey-!” The tide rocks below felt stabbing, even through his soles, his imbalance all but forgotten as he stomped and splashed through pools.

He wasn’t sure when he’d fully rounded the corner or when rock had turned back to sand.

You yelped as he pursued and once again as he made quite the similar, strangled noise.

His foot caught and something in his lower stomach dived up his spine, rendering his alarm to physical feeling, his knees’ nerves lit with the same emotion as they ceased function and he tripped face-first into the sand, his chin grinding into grain.

Sand stuck itself to his coat and shirt, his hands pressing flat against it as it rubbed itself into his palms. 

The same moment he felt the tight pull of something holding his ankles closer together was the same moment his torso jerked compulsively in a way that curled him to the side as he skidded, his neck and upper back taking the bunt force of his fall.

He hadn’t realized how hard he’d been knocked until his lungs failed to breathe against themselves as if he’d been assaulted with two punches by a flat hand, palm first in the center of his chest.

He took a pathetic moment to breathe in the sand and to feel it warm against the flat of his arm before he pulled away, spitting and nearly choking on it.

Hiccup cursed his luck. 

He’d missed his step and slipped, falling fully face first onto his knees in the sand with his rump nearly sticking into the air. How embarrassing.

You hadn’t screamed yet- he supposed he could be grateful for your good humor, despite the fact that it looked as if he’d launched himself at you.

After a moment of pause, during which Hiccup had finally come to a stop and had spent some time with his elbows bent, stiff and still, his rapid-fire mind coming to a hard stop for the first time in a very long while, he opened his eyes and looked.

His fall was such that though he lost all of his breath, he had no hurts or sores, the sand cradling him in a way that slid against him, imprinting against flesh and armoring him instead of ripping skin.

His legs and lower back strained slightly as he lifted his feet together into the air, spread slightly apart so that he could give them both a better look. It was all a mess, netting tangled just as if it was a ball of something loosely knitted that had been sitting in a drawer for some while and not a single soul could be bothered to spend the trouble it would take to unwind it. The thin twine wrapped unevenly around his furred ankles in a way that meant that some parts were afforded slack while others were tight enough that he could almost feel them through his boots.

He heard what might have been the light slap of feet against water, though they were not his. It only just barely precluded the sound of water against thatch, which would have told him first what the weighty feel of wet sand did if it hadn't sprayed the back of his head first.

Finding the strength in his fingers and arms, coughing slightly, he could do nothing but look up at you as he pushed himself up, feeling both indignant and a touch forlorn.

“Sorry,” You squeaked.

He blinked at you, astonished.

Hiccup’d never known a fairy to say sorry, though there was a first time for everything, nevermind the fact that he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a fairy, either. 

He was unsure of whatever else he’d had plastered across his face, for never before had his indignation or his forlorn-ness ever been enough to give anyone pause, though he was sure it reflected the scandal he must have felt, if not to a mild degree than a comical one as you let out a startled, slightly nervous laugh, once again clapping a palm to your mouth before the sound had even finished leaving your lips, muffling it to Hel.

As people were prone to do upon hearing the creaking of wooden faces and the scratching sudden tear of metal as a keg burst into smithereens, in that moment, there was a tension so high he felt the need to wince and duck, to clutch at the back of his head and press his nose to the floor.

Instead, a startling moment turned into something else. 

He let out a short, half-choked laugh of his own, a mutual understanding lighting up between the two of you as his fingers sunk deeper into beach sand.

Your lax hand falling to your chest, you were beaming, the slit of your eye and the pull of the side of your mouth to the thick of your cheek conveying a feeling that couldn’t be anything but both mischievous and merry, making Hiccup feel as if he were the sun itself.

Two eyes meeting, a mirrored smile, off by nothing more than a nail, a handshake, the thick, envious tightening of his lungs- of course he’d known what it meant, having always seen it from the outside, and yet to experience it as one member of a two-person fold felt euphoric, a joy that bloomed from just the simple fact of knowing in the most genuine sense that the person he was with felt happy too.

For the first time ever, he felt Viking-brave, as if he’d conquered the world and had been worthy enough to stand before it, his hands gripping the handle of a golden sword, boots iron as a knight’s, resting atop the flat face of a polished marble pedestal. He felt more courageous than he had ever felt standing over a rustled, battered dragon with a dull knife.

He would play your fairy game, and he wouldn’t lose you- to you, against you, you. Not now nor anywhere along this beach, should it begin to stretch forever and trap him here in this place outside of time.

Light seemed to glance off your eye as if drawn, to highlight your mischief.

Whatever he’d gotten from your exchange had also very apparently made you brazen, your features going stiff in a way he could only call impish.

Hiccup glanced down at his ankles for a very brief second, nearly missing as you turned quite clumsily and began trying to finish running your way down the beach.

“Wait- come back!”  He could go for his knife, but- he spent too much time tugging at the twine, thin string digging into the folds of his fingers before he quickly realized he wouldn’t be able to get his boots free fast enough to make after you.

He didn’t know if there was an end to this beach at all, nor did he know where it truly started, and if he stayed, well, he was sure he would lose track of you forever.

His heart was racing as he shoved one boot off with his hand, kicking a divet into the sand, his thumb catching on the ankle of his trouser leg, tugging as he tried to push himself up off the sand, nearly tripping him again as it shifted his balance forwards.

Instead, he used the force of his fall as a crutch as he pushed himself up and, hopping, he kicked off his other boot as he began to run, brushing off his nose and tongue as he went, blowing out tiny bits of sand.

He could see the rest of the beach ahead. There wasn’t much, pools turning to grains then back into stone structure he was familiar with on the land surrounding Berk’s larger stack, one which lined multiple sides of the island, the same island that rendered him -and all the other Vikings- nothing but a small cut off a grain of sand compared to such vast, imposing landmarks.

Hiccup wondered if he’d run to see the other side of them, if he might be able to make out the village, or if he would be able to make out any of the pillars towering tall enough to meet Gothi’s hut on even ground.

  Really, ‘Stack’ or ‘Pillar’ didn't do them any justice- they were more than land, tall rising columns of stone coming up from the ocean which grew larger than the hall, overshadowing a set of geometric plateaus, all making up the exact same shapes in all identical mineral colors.

They occupied a league of the ocean that all men avoided sailing past, given a wide berth so that they looked like nothing but a small pick over a wide horizon, spouting cautionary tales and lectures.

Any boat would be torn to wooden splinters before it could reach even a league from any stem, wider than two huts, the sea below moving quick enough to obscure the shallow rock underneath, a place to which sealife fled and fish prospered, under and around.

Every few generations, when catches were few, tensions were high, and bellies were so starved that ribs were worn more freely than furs, the temptation would grow too much and some lone Viking would be speared to death along its depthless, jagged ends, seeking feed and glory.

Hiccup felt the same in that moment- just another boy who was not worthy of the Viking bloodline, would be culled, stricken from his clan’ records, too weak to do anything but fall in the face of his own whims.

He should have turned back- should have never seen you, should have done his best to unravel whatever trick had ensnared him, and yet he pursued you relentlessly anyways.

Perpendicular columns rose in the shape of a hill like an uneven staircase or a set of shallow walls. You were running up a group of them like they were a particularly shallow set of steps, wide, tall and angled in a way that made it so he couldn’t see the top at all, the closer he got, the less he could see as ledges rose above him, feeling as if they were moving on their own, his motion and the evenness of all the rocks doing something dizzy to his eyes.

He rushed up after you, the soles of his feet slamming painfully against flat stone, his foot’s arch protesting with each landing.

What you made look easy, dancing up as if you were the down on a feather’s stem, being lifted up by the breeze with baggy waist wrap in either hand, was much steeper for him.

“Hey-!” Hiccup started as he nearly tripped again over one geometric ledge, the end of one heel disappearing above him.

Just out of view, you laughed like a mirage during devastating winter, just barely out of reach by some length’s measure, something soft calling through the overwhelming sound of whipping wind and snow, except it wasn’t at all near the time for blizzards or ice. 

You were by the sea, so maybe you weren’t a fairy or a witch- maybe you were a siren instead. A pretty girl sent to lure him to his doom after the Gods had found him lacking.

Hiccup had done his best- so if this was his reward, then he would take it with pride.

As he hauled himself up onto more even ground, fingers gripping and slipping fruitlessly back towards his palms, he expected to meet you face to face.

However, to his surprise, instead he met a split in the columns where the calm sea rushed in like stormy waters, forming an odd, angry impasse.

The water rushed in a way which told him there should have been a storm, pushing and pulling water in uneven waves from  multiple directions, swirling tumultuously, though the sea to his right was still clear and blue. Maybe there was something, some system underneath in its depths that made it act in such a way, though above the water, Hiccup couldn’t see it.

To his left- a cave? His attentions were drawn to it by the sudden, overwhelming waterfall of sound, harsh and ringing in an echoey manner.

It was not really a cave. Though it was deep enough to be called solidly concave, it looked shallow, as if a large hand had just taken as deep a scoop as it could from the side and it had crumbled away into the ground like a scoop of sand from the world outside, yet the waves inside of it were rough, nearly level as they crashed with force into the rock.

Light seemed to bow away from it, slightly darker than it should have been given its lack of depth.

The farthest wall was bare of any platform though on both sides there was something, the cleft on yours much larger than his, a place where some moss grew at the point Hiccup was sure the ground became dryer, farther away from the soak of the rocky ocean world inside, though he was sure it was that same tumult that kept it so green, spray cascading down over it regularly.

From there, he blinked suspiciously up at where you stood on the other side on the opposite end of it, nearer to the ocean where he had been closer to the cliffs.

Meeting his eyes, you smirtled at him with playful smugness, in your arm the vertical length of a small wooden bridge, planks uneven with obvious nails sticking from multiple directions in the place one slab met another. 

Hiccup glanced down where, clearly enough, there was a square-looking imprint in the place where mists of water from the rushing pass darkened the stone in splatters and pools.

“That’s not fair,” He deadpanned, looking up at you again, glancing, searching for a way across- any way.

Shuffling his feet briefly on the top of the plateau, he looked to his left and then back at you.

There was an area in the cave where the columns were close at the very end. He might be able to make the jump.

There was the ocean, too. He had no clue what lay under those currents, though he suspected it would be much the same as in the cave. Really, the cave- it was his best bet.

Water crashed and rose quickly at nearly an equal ground with his pathway, covering it in slippery water, harboring what was surely invisible, wet algae, lining both the faces and edges of each and every stone.

Here, there was no such thing as grip, only balance

Water cracked against basalt columns so even in form it looked almost hand crafted, the sound so loud he thought he might be able to hear his bones whistling and trembling under their might. He was sure he’d slip under its intensity. He might fall, made lighter than air in the face of might.

Rough waters and dark crystal blues under heavy, pure white foam- If he fell, they would shove him completely under and press him towards the bottom of the cave floor with a ferocity that would split him in two.

To be in there was not just to hear it, just as to see it was not to only look at it. To be in there was to bear witness to all of it at once, magnified by itself over and again.

If the beach was peaceful, then this was a terror, beautiful in its own right just as it was ferocious. Like a coin, every face had two sides. 

Hiccup was glad he’d shed his boots as he took his first step forwards, the ground just slightly slicker under his feet, the wet slap of his feet against flat stone, covered in a texture that was not just slimy but also felt like a million soft, tiny arms against his more sensitive feet causing him to shift his shoulders ever as he lifted them higher in the name of balance.

“-ey! Wai-” Hiccup heard something that might have been your voice.

He didn’t look to see if you’d stumbled after him on the other side

He didn’t check to see if you’d laid the bridge down for him either or if you’d chosen to throw it away- No one had ever laid a bridge down for him, not since he was a small child, if ever. He’d accepted that, and now, with a single-minded focus, he was determined to get himself to the other side. 

In fact, Hiccup was impressed with himself, walking with hunched shoulders and bent knees, keeping steady over the slick surface, though the broiling of the ocean water got worse the further he went into the cave.

It made the tumult outside feel like nothing of note- nothing more than something to be vaguely weary of as he teetered along the edge. That was something else, something rapid.

The water swirled, for the most part, not at all synchronous, though every once in a while there would be a large dip in the water level.

He crouched, more determined than he'd been since being rushed by the Arena Gronkle earlier that day. Sure, it was dangerous, but by the end of dragon training, he’d have probably lost his life anyways, so what did he really have to lose?

Hiccup wondered if the ground beneath his feet hollowed out, if there was where water rushed to and from, where such testy currents had been born- fifteen seconds.

Fifteen seconds was how long it took for the water to dip and sway, to make it less than level, to give him room to make it to the other side.

  The length of the leap was no more than perhaps the length of his leg, maybe one half more. 

There was an indent in one of the basalt columns rising from the water made by the place one geometric shape dipped and became another. If he could reach it- if he could leap across, he wouldn’t have to worry about any of it, though if it came down to it, and he had the mind, he could grab ahold there. 

Hiccup grimaced and waited.

He waited until the wave bowed and receded, making way for the next large crash

As he applied force to his foot and lept, his toes slipped, and then his dorsum.

He felt weak as he pushed off as if he’d only accidentally flung back a thin sheet of paper with his launch and now he was just plain falling.

He felt see-through as some sharp ricochet up and down his spine, his mouth opening and as he did- something? He couldn’t hear anything leave his lips, left more than flailing without the surety of his own voice and the absence of his thought.

He’d been more than punched, ribs feeling as if they’d been jabbed backwards into his flesh as his chest made hard contact with stone.

Hiccup couldn’t think as he slid back. 

It was not a full thought that lit his mind with something bright, filling him with a single-minded alarm that had him immobilized for another long moment.

His fingers hurt as he grabbed with as much force as he could, hands dragging slightly, his nails hurt as they pressed against stone, forced back as pressure was applied in the wrong direction, pulling directly from the face of the nail all at once, digging against stone and stuffing algae in the place between fingernail and flesh.

Hiccup tried to wheeze but he couldn’t- it was too wet as he gasped in most as drops of water, not at all fighting against the unpleasant feel of nail skidding against a chalky, blunt surface at the wrong angle as he scrabbled.

As he was pulled back towards the sea and down towards death, something pulled taut around his wrist, pulling, hefting his forward and dismantling his grip all at once with a weak yank.

With his simple thought, he knew nothing but the ice surrounding the lower part of his body, feeling nothing but the clutch of something hot around his wrist and palm.

It tugged you with him for just a moment.

He couldn’t see anything but your face, blurred by the feel of water slapping the side of his head suddenly, though he could feel the give of your body as he jerked back with the waves, full of dread for a moment as he expected to be completely pulled back and drowned violently.

He would have shed his coat if he could, grabbing at your wrists tightly-

You pulled back with your full weight, falling back in a way which must have hurt, landing roughly as he himself was righted, just enough that, despite the water shoving at his calves, the slip of the stone under his knees and his one arm still held by your grip, sleeve tugged by your hands around his wrists, he was able to inch forwards, to a distance and in a way which freed him from the rapids behind and below.

He was able to push himself up as you, albeit at a race that was a measure slower, scooted back to standing, a motion which finally brought him to dryer ground, algae slick giving way to a dryer rock. 

The ankles of his trousers were sopping wet, and half of his coat, too, where the water had slammed into him, yet he did not think of that, even as a drooling trickle of water gathered along the place his sole met stone. 

Everything felt slightly unreal, both fast and sluggish as if he was watching something searching for another under a thick blanket, observing the process yet not truly understanding what was going on underneath. 

Your eyes carried a worry conveyed by the upward cinch of your brows. 

Surely Hiccup was happy to have been snatched from death. He felt that, and yet- maybe his eyes had been dry, or the damp seawater had done something to throw him off, however, he felt as if he was looking at the world through new eyes. 

He felt something growing and grabbed your other hand, to keep you both steady.

His hands- they felt thick at times and somewhat clumsy during others, usually unless he was in the forge, where some things came easier to him than a fish sliding through the water. Though young, he was sure he’d lost most sharp feeling in them.

Really, many blacksmiths and warriors had by his age, rended to pieces by both metal, dragon-heated blade handle and just plain dragonfire. It was practically part of the coming-of-age, and yet, somehow, your palms were soft. Lightly calloused and only very sparingly scarred in a way that spoke of luxury.

In his chest, he knew in that moment that whatever had been meant for him before had been broken.

He’d never thought about it.

 Hiccup wasn’t the time to turn over stones or to ponder the meaning of life. He didn’t pay attention to the measure of warmth in a paw or whether or not he could feel for any heartbeat there, nor did he ever care about the way the lines in a palm might feel under his hand or wonder how the patterns on another’s pads might look.

However, in that moment, he’d never felt anything so truly alive under his fingertips. The feeling blustered past the cold of the sea spray covering the surface of your skin to feel the warmth underneath.

It was all wordless. Nothing you said he could hear over the waves, his mouth parted just slightly as he stared at you, all weird and human and non-human.

After you looked back once again, panting hard and really confirming that you were on dry ground, you fell back again with your full weight, landing tiredly against a moss-cushioned column, its shape wide and tall enough to make a decent stool.

“Really,” You lamented, though you both sounded just as frightened and harried as he had been, “You could have gone around the other way.”

The whole beach seemed to quiet down a measure, or maybe his focus was much too tuned in on you to hear anything else. 

“Uhm-” Hiccup started, still reaching, unable to think of anything coherent, glancing to his side, finishing lamely; “It wouldn’t have been quick enough.”

He felt as if he shouldn’t look, as if he’d caught a glimpse of something vulnerable, though there was not a trace of any emotion hidden on any part of your face.

As his own breathing evened, he looked with half-unprocessing everything, not seeing or knowing much, though something caught his eye, nestled between columns and moss to his back on the side of him absent of you.

Nestled between the rocks was… Hiccup wasn’t sure what it was.

Absently, distractedly, or perhaps in an effort to raise up some sort of real distraction, he reached a hand towards it, fingers brushing past a rotten-looking yellow-green thing at the tip of his nail catching against rough fabric as he grabbed what he thought might be its face. 

Feeling the tug of you against him he grabbed it as you stumbled away with him in tow. 

Its body was a nasty dirty gray-blue, only just large enough to fit into his hand. It felt unpleasant to the touch, algae seeping into and out of its pores, worse than the slime against the rocks and his feet in that this could shift and move easily, so it felt as if Hiccup was touching the bodily waste of something alive.

Examining it, grimacing, Hiccup decided that it had to be a doll, though it didn't feel like much more than a rag. 

He had to wonder what it was doing here.

It couldn’t have been here long, where the moisture should have caused it to rot away into dust and mold, though there was a small part of him that wanted to disagree, recalling how nothing else here worked as it should.

 He had to wonder why you weren't in dragon training, though as he’d found, you were somewhat good at going under the radar.

Past the turmoil in his chest, Hiccup was dazed, though he wasn’t sure if it was because of the danger or just because of you.

He jumped slightly as he felt the light of day over his face again. 

“How are you here?”

“How am I-” Hiccup started, then stopped. He wasn’t actually sure how he’d gotten here. “...What is this place?”

“If I-” gesturing with the rotten doll, nearly flinging it with his loose grip back into the ruckus of the water in the impasse. 

You shrugged, “If you’re here, then it’s something you need. I think.”

“I didn’t mean to be here.” Hiccup said mournfully, after a moment of opening his mouth wide and closing it.

You seemed unsure for a moment, your brows cinching again. It seemed out of order. 

“Hold still,” You smiled, the tips of your front teeth pinning your bottom in a way that looked silly and girlish and very slightly, endearingly stupid. It still seemed unsure, as if you couldn’t decide what to do with him.

He wasn’t sure what you’d done to him- if you’d instilled some kind of mark or charm on his person as you patted his shoulders, though he didn’t care

Breeze past his ear, whistling hard enough to sound echoey against the still hollow of his drum like air blown parallel above the hole in an urn. If he thought about it, he might be able to make out some tune from the noise.

“What’s that?” You asked, looking down.

He lifted the hand with the small, ragged plush with its large stitches, having let it go limp.

“I… found it. Whoever it belonged to… I just had a feeling I should keep it.” Hiccup grimaced.

You smiled, speaking, though he still couldn’t hear much over the roaring of the water to your side as he unfocused by a measure and began to come back to himself, “-always find their way back.”

As he stared, he hadn’t realized you’d gone and dropped down the bridge. “Hurry along, there’s something I think you need to be doing.”

Hiccup furrowed his brows, blinking absently, “You mean you’re not going to keep me here?”

“Isn’t there somewhere you need to be?” You asked again soothingly, guiding him over gentler impasse waters with your hands on his back at the part where his spine dipped just above his hips. “Before the tide rises…”

His legs, which moved with a monotonous evenness despite the uneven creaking of the makeshift bridge below, would have surely been unsteady if he’d realized at all what was happening, his knees shaking with strain and nerves even if he'd had the wits to make the march back over so soon.

 “I-...” If he was fully conscious, he might have protested, not just at the fact that you were touching such a familiar, usually not-thought-about spot, but also the fact that he wasn’t willing to have come all this way for nothing, though if he really thought about it…

There was something in your hands that said quite the opposite. Not for nothing. …Just a little bit more.

Just a little bit longer.

Walking through the forest, a mix of normal neutral greens and browns, he felt rejuvenated as if he’d never had such a harrowing experience to begin with.

It was as if no time had passed at all, the sun still hung strung, punched between the fingers of a God who’d been much too occupied and forgetful to move it.

In the same place as it had been before when he started walking, as if the beach was a sequence in a dream. As if he’d only just taken a short nap and blinked into himself, the only evidence anything had ever happened being the bulk in his coat from an old, moss-covered algae rag.

Hiccup took one large moment to pause and stare at the dirt ground. He wasn’t even quite sure how he’d made it back into the larger forest, leaving much the same way he came.

He didn’t even feel too bothered- not like he had been before it all, when he’d been thinking of… something. Something important.

The dragon.

[justherefortua]

rewrite while changing as little as possible

this is my crack at tweaking some things while mostly working within the bounds of canon, with only 6 episodes, keeping most of the scenes, setting, side characters the same… What would you have changed about my or the original plot’s plan?

Spoilers for all of season 4 under the cut

- first of all. squids. tentacles. body horror with the black goo thingy. fleshy goo monster. decaying the earth. eating the earth up. The antagonist of this season should be THE HORROR, the extra-dimensional creature inside of Ben Hargreeves. This will save money on reshooting cgi scenes plus make it specific to both sparrow and umbrella ben for a Ben-centric season, rather than anyone with Marigold + Jennifer destroys the world

- Maybe it’s made of Durango or something, the antithesis of the Marigold, but Ben’s power is to keep it sealed, and occasionally hold power over it. Maybe it is Durango. Whatever it is, it was made when Abigail made the Marigold, and it seeks to consume and make everyone like it. It exists across all the timelines and over the seasons has become smarter and smarter. Not even Reginald and Abigail can understand or control it—maybe it destroyed their original planet, and snuck into the Reginald marigold release thing and got into Ben somehow. To tie in Season 3, The Hotel Oblivion was maybe built to nerf it/hold it? (I heard this was true in the comics since the hotel was used to keep villians? This could be hearsay, haven’t confirmed.) When Hotel Oblivion got used with the reset button, the protections went too which is why the Horror has more influence and was able to alter the new timeline to have the Keepers and Jennifer to set up the conditions for the Cleanse aka its takeover of the world and all the timelines.

- Jennifer as an agent of the Horror, unknowing or innocent maybe. Or knowing—she already wasn’t normal in that tv squid moment and in the shipping container and as a girl being Truman Showed by everyone else around her. A culmination of everything it’s learned about human nature, a lure of sorts for Ben and the rest of the Academy who generally like to save people. An eldritch horror of a regular girl? That would be so cool, just a normal girl with a normal life until it all turns upside down with the introduction of Hargreeves and Marigold and all that stuff. The acting direction could be good to have her be just a little bit off…

- instead of just Five and Lila, EVERYBODY should get in that subway. The subway is so cool. The other timelines are so cool. No one would be mad at a montage if it’s a family bonding montage. It leaves imagination for the family to grow closer together over a short period of screen time. This could be a whole season in itself and would honestly be a wonderful callback to other seasons and possibilities for the final season.

- AT MINIMUM, I think just adding Diego to the getting-lost-in-the-subway-for-seven-years plot would be amazing. He wants to live larger than life, be cool and rugged, and gets monkey’s pawed. Yeah you’re child-free with your wife doing cool action macho survival things every day but guess what? Subway Rats. He and Lila could hit rock bottom, let out all their anger, and then progressively make up over that 7 year montage and resolve to appreciate their kids, the in-laws, and the life they’ve built together. Alternatively, they could decide that their relationship really doesn’t work out and split up. Either way, it’ll be a mutual decision.

- As for Five, he won’t be going through an apocalypse alone and that is interesting in itself. He could bond more with Diego, find himself losing hope and finding it again, suffer complete burnout but be supported, finally work through Apocalypse-Commission-Handler trauma with Diego and Lila. Face the same choice of going back to The Cleanse (of course Diego and Lila are going back for their kids) or staying in safe Strawberry Land away from everything or until everything ends, true retirement. In the end, I think he chooses family.

- For Lila, I think she’s pretty good and principled towards her family aside from THE THING in the scenes we see her in, I’d like to know more about her family, her relationship with her kids, and develop her relationships with the siblings more as well. We got some moments with Allison as fellow moms, but what about Luther, Ben, and Viktor? I think she needs more specificity on how jarring the switch from assassin life is to family life is. Maybe she can open up in that 7 year montage somehow.

- In at least one of the numerous moments that Klaus died and could have went to the void. A moment with Umbrella Ben is all I ask, acknowledging that Klaus is with Allison and Claire now but also seeing how Klaus has essentially locked himself in and is very afraid of the world. 😭 he’d be so proud of Klaus though. ):: i know he’d punch Quinn in the face so hard 🙏 I’ll leave the aus where he’s totally back for the other than very close to canon rewrites

- Because I actually liked the Five Restaurant scene, I think it would be really meaningful for all those Fives to see a complete whole family and band together to help our Five and our family. Bonus if some of the Fives get hugs and tears and breakdowns because of the horrible apocalypses their siblings and families had to go through.

- this is just an overall thing but I think to help their motivation to save Ben everyone should at least elaborate on their past relationship with him, get to know Sparrow Ben as somebody other than a snarky guy, or make an appeal to him at the end when they’re trying to negotiate, even if it is a mix of Umbrella Ben nostalgia… ok this is getting into wishful thinking territory but i think it would have helped LMAO

- Methinks. I actually liked Luther a lot this season, with the stripper job he seems passionate enough about (yeah my man! own that!) and the run down Hargreeves Boy Home he lives in. (he never left the house… 😭) I feel he should have been given more to do. Maybe bonded with Derek and the non-Keeper people in the CIA, i bet they wouldn’t turn down someone with his powers. Maybe followed Klaus along and absolutely tear the motorcycle bike gang to bits for their not safe or consensual sex work shenanigans in comparison to his job. Maybe bond with Diego’s kids since he and Sloane never got to have kids themselves, a parallel he sets up first episode. Actually help Lila with childcare since she seems to be struggling;;

- Viktor and Reginald were fun. You could also add Luther here and it’d be fun too since they’d both advocate for Ben—Luther in particular was the most inclined to accepting Sparrow Ben.

- actually, Luther and Abigail bonding (she’s very nice and he likes validation) and pulling off a double cross with the Gene skinsuit thing would be a good idea until she double crosses him again with helping along the Cleanse instead of trying to stop it. Betrayed by your dad and your mom YAY

- I realize I didn’t suggest stuff for Allison but I liked her this season with Klaus and Claire, all she needed was to get more one on one scenes with siblings or lila, and that pretty much goes for every sibling i just need them hanging out with other siblings ❤️ actually ideally Sparrow Ben I feel like she’d call him out on stuff and be the one to level with when it came to big mistakes, lashing out, being selfish—and afterwards trying to say sorry and be better moving forward. Maybe she rumors him to stop seeing Jennifer to give more plot room for the siblings while keeping the “I can’t stop thinking about you let’s MERGE” idea but he finds a loophole like the sneaky little weasel guy he is (i love him) or Allison let’s it go in order to let him help her when she’s in danger or something idk

- I also like the keepers, very fun seeing everyday people and places repurposed to just have a bunch of guns. Gene and Jean were great, and Sy, guy pretending to be Jennifer’s dad. Fake Jennifer? Amazing. Bud I loved, what a guy!

- I realize I didn’t suggest stuff for Allison but I liked her this season with Klaus and Claire, all she needed was to get more one on one scenes with siblings or lila, and that pretty much goes for every sibling i just need them hanging out with other siblings ❤️ actually ideally Sparrow Ben I feel like she’d call him out on stuff and be the one to level with when it came to big mistakes, lashing out, being selfish—and afterwards trying to say sorry and be better moving forward. Maybe she rumors him to stop seeing Jennifer to give more plot room for the siblings while keeping the “I can’t stop thinking about you let’s MERGE” idea but he finds a loophole like the sneaky little weasel guy he is (i love him) or Allison let’s it go in order to let him help her when she’s in danger or something idk

- The Cleanse. Sparrow Ben and Jennifer have morphed into Goop Monster. The horror has almost won. It is all powerful, it has taken over everything else. It is just the Hargreeves and them in the former wreckage of the mansion, filling with goop. It fills with goop up to their necks and gets into their brains. All it needs is their Marigold, but they have to give it willingly. Taunt all of them with visions of their birth parents, the normal lives they could’ve had but even better, Luther with Sloane and dog and kids, Diego with Lila and his kids, Allison with Claire and Ray and her hairstylist crew, Klaus with Dave, Five with Delores, Viktor with Sissy and Harlan.

- Instead, family chooses their siblings and also the world. They use their powers at the same time and hold hands with Viktor or something at the center because he deserves to save the world instead of end it, combining Marigold or something in a blast that whites out the screen and presumably saves the world.

- Same sequence of the alternate timelines being destroyed. Same park scenes with all the cameos from previous seasons and the post credit marigold sprouting, except Sparrow Ben and Jennifer are also walking in the park at the end because they are technically also victims of the Hargreeves and the original Marigold fiasco. Boom. They sacrificed themselves. 🙏 RIP the end

OPTIONAL SELF-INDULGENT ALIVE ENDING (because I want them to be happy)

- Umbrella Ben and the family in the void and they get a tearful reunion and group hug.

- Klaus and Little Girl on Bike have some banter before she’s like fine. An exception for you all. She holds out the marigolds since her whole thing is flowers in her bike basket. Klaus gets to save the family yaaay

- Replace the marigold cutscene with a scene of all of them joining the family reunion in the park with Lila’s family and the kids

- Open ending to if they find those perfect lives or not in the reconstructed timeline, (Sloane Sissy Dave Ray etc) but at least they are together 👍

Things That Should Be More Well Thought Out And Go Through Sensitivity Readers And Be Addressed But I Dont Feel Personally Qualified to Address:

- luther and allison after that scene in s3. also the murder stuff but mostly that. delicately executed apology instead of willfully ignoring it

- klaus after suffering very bad relapse and sex trafficking during his arc and also being buried alive🙏 thats a lot.. to handle

- I feel adding Diego to the 7-years-montage plot would make it so that he and others appreciated a healthy weight for him in comparison to going through malnourishment to at least divert the fatphobic jokes a bit?? idk or we could just cut those jokes in general there’s nothing wrong with having a dad bod

- probably other stuff but thats the big ones that stood out to me