#? perhaps ??

[tennessoui]

You feed us so well, you spoil us rotten!

I’ve loved every single one of the little creations. My absolute favorite is kenobi’s trial. I’ve been thinking about it the whole evening after reading. If you ever think that it needs a continuation, I am so here for it.

Also, reverse vaderwan had me frothing at the mouth. Which is not surprising since I love throat fic so much.

If you have more, then #29 or 30 for the ask game? 🥺

i am a simple woman, you tell me you like reverse vaderwan i give you more reverse vaderwan (though a slightly different flavor this time)

[from this list of prompts]

[5. 'are you jealous' - 14. 'hey, i'm with you, okay? always.' - 18. 'this is the stupidest plan you've ever had. of course i'm in.' - 24. 'you're the only one i trust to do this' (LATEST) - 27. 'i'm pregnant' - 28. 'marry me?' 32. 'i think i'm in love with you and i'm terrified' - 37. 'wanna dance?' - 44. 'if you die, i'm gonna kill you' - 41. 'you did all of this for me?' - 46. 'hey, have you seen...? oh']

29. 'i thought you were dead.'

Darth Tyranus puts his teacup down onto his saucer with a small clink. "Ah," he says, turning his head to examine something in the Force that Solence is unable to feel. His eyes stare unseeingly out at the storm currently battering against the castle's walls. "Yes, I wondered when it would be time."

"Master?" Solence says, placing his own untouched piece of toast down onto the plate in front of him. "What is wrong?"

Tyranus blinks at him, mouth tightening for a moment as he seems to weigh his words and his options carefully. Darth Solence has only been apprenticed under Tyranus for six months, but he understands the importance of such care in choosing one's plan of action. His first master never was able to teach him such things.

His first master, when he was called Obi-Wan--when he was a Jedi padawan, when Anakin Skywalker was his master--

"It seems my former master has sent his new apprentice to kill me," Tyranus tells him. "Retire to your quarters for the morning."

Solence blinks. Automatically, his hand clenches and unclenches in his lap, jerking towards the hilt of his lightsaber. "What? No."

Tyranus sneers as he stands from the table. "You are no match for Vader, boy. He would kill you in a heartbeat."

"You said I'm powerful in the Force," Solence argues, standing as well and rushing after Tyranus' form. "That you were impressed by my control of the Dark side--and you saw me neutralize the whole legion of Imperial troops we encountered on Fielen!"

"No, Solence," Tyranus' voice leaves no room for any further argument. He stops short of the door to the grand hall, turning to look down at Solence with a severe expression. "Though your control of the Force is impressive for someone your age--" Solence is twenty-two, not exactly a youngling-- "and though your control over the Dark side is commendable for someone as Light as you once were--" Obi-Wan, padawan, little star, focus on me, alright? Your katas were sloppy today, let's work on them... "--your power is that of a vibroblade compared to Vader's ion cannon. Now go."

"Tyranus, two Sith are--"

The back of Tyranus' ringed hand connects with a smack across Solence's upturned face. He can feel the instant split of his bottom lip as Tyranus' ring cuts it open.

"No," Tyranus' voice is final, the hit a punctuation mark and a warning all in one. As he turns away from him, Solence lifts his hand to press it to the stinging skin. He has had worse. Endured worse at the hands of this master. The Dark side cannot be taught to an apprentice as delicately as Master Skywalker had once taught Obi-Wan Kenobi the powers of the Light.

And yet...he frowns as he watches Tyranus stroll through the open doors, out of the safety of the fortress, presumably to meet Sidious' apprentice--Vader--at his ship. To catch him off guard? To negotiate? To die?

Perhaps if Tyranus had not told him the truth, the reason behind his sudden dismissal, Solence would have gone to his quarters none the wiser. But he can't leave now, can't stand to watch another one of his masters die, even though the respect he holds for this one is a tiny spark compared to the love Obi-Wan Kenobi once nurtured for Anakin Skywalker.

Darth Solence grabs his dark cloak from the side room and pulls the hood up over his face before following Tyranus out into the storm.

It does not matter if he cannot win a duel against Darth Vader. He must try. He must try, not even because of his respect for Tyranus. Not even because he does not want to lose another master.

He must try because Tyranus said that Vader is Sidious' apprentice, and there is nothing in the galaxy that Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Solence, hates more than he hates Darth Sidious, emperor of the galaxy.

It had been this hate that had led him to the Dark side. Hatred and grief at the death of his master in the final days of the war. Sidious had burned the Jedi Order to ash and from its corpse built the empire, and Obi-Wan will die with hatred in his heart for the monster who killed the Jedi. For the monster who killed his master.

He'd been on his first solo mission of the entire war, the day the Order fell. Anakin had been so stubbornly against it, so wary of having his padawan out of his sight during those last few months. Obi-Wan thinks of it now, though it's always painful, and he wonders if perhaps Anakin knew that something terrible was going to happen. His master was always so in tune with the Force.

Perhaps if Obi-Wan hadn't been so insistent, so eager to prove himself as a man, as his master's equal--perhaps if he'd been just a little less obsessed, just a little less in love--

It matters not. In the final days of the war, Obi-Wan had gone behind his master's back and requested a mission from the Council themselves. Stretched thin as they were, they'd agreed in a heartbeat, and Obi-Wan had been sent to Mandalore.

Then the clone troopers on his ship had turned their weapons onto him. Then the Jedi Order had fallen. Then the training bond between his master and him had broken, snapped in two by the weight of the man's demise.

And Obi-Wan, broken and bleeding and grieving and full of poisonous hatred, had found himself on Serrenno, at Darth Tyranus' feet. Tyranus had explained it to him. All of it. How Sidious had manipulated the Order, the galaxy. How he'd consolidated power during the sham of the war effort. How Tyranus had helped him until the moment that Sidious had another younger and more powerful apprentice in his claws. The day Darth Vader had risen, Tyranus had fled. "There can only be two," Tyranus had told Obi-Wan. "One sith master and one apprentice."

It had been so simple, so easy to look back at Tyranus and ask him to take him as his apprentice. A new Sith lineage with only one goal in mind: revenge. Freedom in revenge, power in it.

As the empire rose from the ashes of the Order, so did Solence rise out of the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi--out of the ashes of his hatred.

He'd sworn the day his eyes turned gold that he would dedicate the rest of his life to Sidious' demise. It would not bring his master back to life, but it would feel good to kill the monster who had taken him in the first place. It would feel right.

Tyranus should have known better. He should have known that the moment he'd mentioned Sidious, Solence would throw aside every shred of logic, every bare thread of a plan.

Vader is Sidious' apprentice, not Sidious himself. But Solence thinks it would be so sweet to kill Vader. It would be like practice for the day he faces the emperor.

The rain beats down on him as he follows Tyranus to the shipyard, rocks turning slippery beneath his feet. Tyranus' saber is already lit, a dull red in the darkness of the storm.

As they close the distance from the castle to the yard, Solence can make out another beam of red light, standing still--waiting. Vader.

Tyranus does not attempt to negotiate. The moment he is within striking distance, the old man has his saber above his head, bringing the blade down upon Vader's with all the force he can muster.

And yet, Vader deflects the blow as if batting away a fly. Solence inhales sharply as he ducks beneath the engine of a ship and peers out at the two sith lords. Vader is--Tyranus was right. His presence in the Force is like an ion cannon. It is like a miniature sun, though without any of the warmth.

Tyranus stands no chance.

Obi-Wan wouldn't either, not if he fought with honor and integrity as the Jedi taught him. But Solence is a sith in his own right, and Vader is not expecting two sith. He has the upperhand of surprise. If he can ambush Vader--stab him in the back while he is focused on Tyranus--

Vader's voice is mechanical through the black mask that covers the expanse of his face. "Pathetic," he tells Tyranus as he extends a black glove through the air. The Force bends to his will, and Tyranus is thrown back into a different ship. "Surrender, and your death will be quick and merciful."

Tyranus spits onto the ground before him. It is perhaps the most uncouth thing Solence has ever seen the Count do. "I do not want your mercy."

"Then you shall feel my wrath," Vader intones and he tightens his fist. For a moment, Solence isn't sure what the sith is doing, until Tyranus' hands come up to scrabble uselessly at his throat. He's choking him, Solence realizes, legs tensing beneath him. He's choking him with the Force.

"Goodbye, Grandmaster," Vader says, and Solence isn't quick enough to mask the gasp that the word draws from his lips.

Grandmaster. It--there is something there, something that doesn't make sense because Tyranus was once in the Jedi Order, once had a padawan who had once had a padawan of his own, but how could he be Vader's---

Vader's mask is staring straight at him.

Before he can fight back, the Force is wrapped around his arms and legs, pulling him out from beneath the star jumper. He lands on his hands and knees at Vader's feet, head pushed down so that the edge of Vader's boots is all that he can see.

The Force eases around Tyranus, though the bonds around Solence's wrists hold so strong that Solence is unable to even twitch. "You have an apprentice?" Vader asks, derision dripping from each word, and Solence wishes he were able to speak. Wishes he could spit at the sith the same way Tyranus had.

"Not a very wise one," Tyranus gets out, voice thin and gasping from the strangulation.

"Then I will end this lineage before it has a chance to grow into a problem," Vader decides, and the Force flexes around Solence, screams as it tightens along his throat. Solence makes a noise, small and automatic. Even as he tries to push against Vader's control, he cannot move. He feels like a piece of prey caught between a predator's locked jaw.

This is how he dies. He sees it now, understands. He'd survived everything else, but this--Vader is what kills him. Anakin, I'm sorry, Anakin, Obi-Wan thinks as his eyes darken from the lack of oxygen. I couldn't do it, I couldn't avenge your death, I'm sorry

"Don't," Tyranus yells, and the sound is so distant it feels as if it has come from a past life. "Look at him, look at his face, Vader!"

The Force loosens its grip marginally, and Obi-Wan gasps for what little air he can get. Around him, the Force--Vader--sways. Curious. Vader is curious as he looks at the top of Obi-Wan's hooded head.

But what reprieve Tyranus thinks this will grant them, Obi-Wan doesn't know. After all, Sidious killed the entirety of the Jedi Order. Why would Vader, his apprentice, refrain from killing one former Jedi padawan? His hands are probably darkened with the blood of many.

It is useless to fight the press of the Force as it yanks his head back, forcing his hood to fall and his face to be exposed to the pouring rain. Instead, Obi-Wan musters the power to glare at the downturned, monstrous slopes of Vader's black mask as it stares back at him.

"E chu ta," he spits, because his master, Anakin, used to curse the same way, and it makes Obi-Wan feel warmer in the face of his certain demise to take something of Anakin's and make it his own.

Vader stares down at him, wordless. Even the Force has frozen in the air around them, binds still tight against Obi-Wan's body but loose enough around his throat that he can breathe.

He can't look away, though he wants desperately to look at Tyranus, to see if Tyranus has managed to free himself in the face of Vader's distraction. Perhaps that had been his plan all along.

"What is the meaning of this?" Vader finally says. His voice is flat through the vocodor. Mechanical, but loud. The Force unfreezes and begins to whirl around them. "What is this trickery? Who are you?"

The mask swings around to look at Tyranus, and the Force grows darker with Vader's fury. Obi-Wan glances at his master as well, but Tyranus has done nothing but struggle to his feet. His saber is still several paces away.

If he is to survive and mount a counterattack, Obi-Wan needs to distract Vader again.

He doesn't understand the sith's reaction, but that doesn't mean he can't use it against him.

"I am Darth Solence," he declares, pushing up and against Vader's control of his body. "Tyranus is my master--"

"Is it a clone?" Vader roars, striding through the mud of the shipyard until he has reached Tyranus' side. His physical hand wraps around Tyranus' throat and lifts him into the air, even though Tyranus is not a slight man. "Tell me!"

Obi-Wan pushes himself to his knees, though he is powerless to do more than watch. "Master!" he hears himself say, even though he never calls Tyranus that. Even though the word is reserved for one man alone, one man who will never hear him say it again.

It feels right in the moment, and it must mean something because both Tyranus and Vader's heads snap to him.

"He is dead," Vader growls, and the leather of his glove creaks with the force of his fist clenching around Tyranus' neck. "What--"

"He survived," Tyranus grunts, hand scrabbling at Vader's arm as he tries to take in oxygen. "Sidious lied to you--he came to me, I have been training him, for you, to give to you, to--"

The words cut out as Vader's lightsaber ignites and cuts through Tyranus' throat. Obi-Wan yells out before he can stop himself as he watches the body of his master, his second master, fall to the ground.

And he can do nothing but kneel there, frozen, as Vader turns around to look at him.

The sith is breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling with the Force of it. In his hand, the still-lit saber trembles. "You are dead," Vader tells him.

Obi-Wan can't disagree. He is dead. Vader will see to that in a moment. He has been dead since the moment Vader's attention caught on him beneath the star jumper. He will be dead shortly. He will--at least he will rejoin Anakin. He has missed him so terribly.

He does not even realize that he's begun to cry until he feels the fingertip of a rough glove touch his cheek, catch one of his tears and lift it away from his face.

"I don't understand," Vader says. The Force is whipping itself into a hurricane around them, but if Vader doesn't understand then Obi-Wan doesn't understand either. "I thought you dead."

Vader must have known him then, Obi-Wan realizes. When he was a Jedi padawan. He must have been an older Knight or Master, the way Tyranus was once Yan Dooku before he Fell. But in the face of Vader's confusion, the pain that lances through his Force signature at those words, Obi-Wan shakes his head, unable to bring himself to agree. He is dead. Obi-Wan died the day his master did.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead," he says. "I am what remains."

Vader takes a step away from him, hand tightening around his saber. Obi-Wan closes his eyes braces for the blow, prays that it will be quick and painless and that when he opens his eyes once more, he will see his master again.

And--and he does, though he feels no lightsaber connect with his body.

Yet when he blinks open his eyes, Anakin Skywalker's face is staring down at him, Darth Vader's mask held in his hands.

Obi-Wan opens his mouth, but no words come out in the face of the impossible. It is impossible.

This is impossible.

And yet--

And yet, Anakin Skywalker is there before him, red saber tossed to the side and mask dropped at his feet so that his hands are free to grab at Obi-Wan and pull him closer, pull him into his lap.

"I thought you were dead," Anakin is muttering as his nose runs along the planes of Obi-Wan's face, as his hands grab at his hair and then his cheeks, then further down, along his shoulders and chest. "Sidious said you were killed, I thought the worst--"

"No," Obi-Wan whispers, nonsensical. Nothing makes sense. This does not make sense. Obi-Wan's master is dead. Obi-Wan's master is here, holding him. But he can't be because he is dead. He died when the Temple fell. He died. His master is gone.

His master pulls his face away from his neck so that he can stare at him fully, hand stroking along his cheek, thumb rubbing at Obi-Wan's split lip. "Little star," his master murmurs. "You've come back to me, my pretty little star."

His master's eyes are golden, dark and crazed, and his Force signature is dangerous, possessive and heady. A firestorm, a hurricane. A black hole. Something that seems intent upon swallowing Obi-Wan and never letting him go again.

But he calls him little star.

And Obi-Wan throws his arms around his master and begins to sob.

[mywifeismothman]

I haven’t read a single fanfic in my whole life, it this point it’s mostly me being stubborn and seeing how long I can go. but EVERY SINGLE ONE of my favorite ships are doomed and I’m this close to breaking before I need to see them happy.

[scramratz]

Definite banners and possible bumper stickers for the shop

[diminuel]

AU in which the Monkey D. family has three brain cells between them when it gets to recognizing people and Dragon got all of them in the divorce.

[sennenrings]

after the full moon, circa 1976

do not repost my art.

[1nk-ling]

Some rottmnt movie aftermath angst with a side of disaster twins anyone?

*Never do that again*

...

*I'll try.*

Or: Leo copes with dark humor and Don is not amused. Even a little.

Friends, the ammount of fanart I've wanted to draw since I saw that movie is not even funny. Some of you may know that my creativity is fuled by two things: beauty and angst. In short I was shot full of hyperfuel and promptly given no time to draw.

[the-adventures-of-dave]

Resisting the urge to argue with internet strangers when they say incorrect cat facts. I am Gods strongest soldier.

[sunderwight]

Shen Yuan who glitches in his transmigration, but the original Shen Qingqiu still dies of a qi deviation.

So the System still needs someone with narrative relevance to throw Luo Binghe into the Abyss. In a fit of desperation, it contrives circumstances after Shen Qingqiu's death to move Luo Binghe to An Ding Peak (not that difficult), and then the System makes Shang Qinghua be Luo Binghe's new scum master who casts him down.

Airplane's thrilled, really. Cultivators aren't supposed to get ulcers but damned if he doesn't come close to one anyway. Between Shen Qingqiu and then just a while later Liu Qingge both dying from qi deviations, and Shang Qinghua looking like a stiff breeze could take him out any day now, poor Mu Qingfang is also just about at his wits' end.

But it's not all bad news! On An Ding Peak, Luo Binghe actually finds himself surrounded by the kinds of people who are accustomed to being bullied by the rest of the sect. So they're pretty sympathetic to him, and it's easier for someone with basic laboring skills to advance on that peak too. His chores don't decrease too much, but he actually gets rewarded for doing them well, and no one tries to kick him out of the dorms or anything. Shang Qinghua doesn't either go out of his way to bully or praise Luo Binghe, correctly reasoning that his best shot at not getting a gruesome death is to just be a more forgettable bad guy than an abusive dirtbag or a heart-wrenching betrayal. He doesn't sabotage Luo Binghe's cultivation (no point, and it would just farm resentment later) but he also doesn't go out of his way to help him improve (not gonna arm his inevitable maybe-probably-murderer with better weapons!), so Luo Binghe's situation sees an overall improvement but not the zero-to-hero treatment he'd have got with Shen Yuan either.

When Shang Qinghua shoves Luo Binghe into the Abyss (he just full on picks him up and tosses him like a sack of beans, better to rip it off quick like a bandage), LBH is upset, but he's not especially surprised or dismayed about Shang Qinghua's part in it. Later on he'll be kind of confused, because he just assumed that of course the righteous sect cultivator would abhor the demon, but it turns out Shang Qinghua has been working for a demon since before Luo Binghe even came to the sect? But then it still kind of makes sense because a Heavenly Demon would definitely pose a risk to Mobei Jun and to Mobei Jun's rule. Shang Qinghua, he supposes, is just really loyal to his specific demon.

Luo Binghe's subsequent revenge quest is also somewhat mitigated by the Abyss actually not being that bad.

The Abyss is not actually that bad thanks to the glitched out Shen Yuan having been camping there for several years now.

So when Shen Yuan's transmigration failed it failed because he "woke up" during the process, realized where the System intended to put him, was like no way in goddamn hell am I being that guy about it, and actually kind of won the ensuing tug-of-war. The System couldn't put him in Shen Qingqiu but Shen Yuan didn't want to go back to his dead body either, so he ended up stuck in the nearest available space for lost interdimensional beings. Which was the Endless Abyss.

Luckily Shen Yuan's quasi-transmigrated imparted an equivalent cultivation level as Shen Jiu's to him, and the glitch made him able to sense and manipulate certain extra-dimensional energies, so he manifested as this weird godlike being able to manipulate and control aspects of the Abyss. So he set about transforming Airplane's Torment Nexus into a viable ecosystem (the current version would not be anything approaching sustainable were it not for divine/narrative intervention, and is constantly on the verge of destabilizing into unlivable ruin that would only be fit for some particularly hardy microorganisms).

It's still like, a monster land full of demonic creatures and terrifying phenomenon, but with Shen Yuan's assistance it becomes something more like a demonic wildlife reserve than a dimensional horror plane. Though it is still a dimensional horror plane, and Shen Yuan is its chief dimensional horror. He treats it sort of like those dungeon building or wildlife park sims, figuring out how to keep everything in balance while still preserving all the interesting parts. A lot of the extreme survival issues of the Abyss are more of a result of it being environmentally unstable than a result of its actual denizens, and once he smooths out a lot of the messy dimensional edges and creates stable vents for the fluctuating energy run-off, the demonic inhabits start behaving less like horror movie monsters and more like animals. They're still wild and dangerous and prone to killing one another, but also more cautious, and able to access enough stable resources that they can even start to be picky about what they pursue.

Turns out that a lot of creatures in the Abyss actually don't like fighting and dying and being brutally injured on a regular basis, even if they can heal from it!

Shen Yuan has even discovered that some like chin scritches (he's not terribly worried about habituating them to people, given how rarely any people actually access the Abyss, but also because he's not really all that people-ish himself these days).

This means that one of Luo Binghe's first encounters with the horrible creatures of the Abyss, is in fact a pack of wolf-like monsters thoroughly avoiding an actual fight with him. In fact most of the denizens of the Abyss just avoid him. They can smell the Heavenly Demon energy rolling off of him, and given the current abundance of alternatives to dealing with that, virtually none of the monsters actually choose to challenge him. There are still a few that will go after anything that's bleeding, but that problem stops once Luo Binghe's physiology heals his wounds, which takes like... a couple hours, max.

Despite the stories he's heard, Luo Binghe is relieved to find that the Abyss is not quite so terrible as all that. Normal survival skills suffice for seeing him through much of it. He's able to hunt for food, scavenge for tools, and even finds potable water fairly easily. After a few weeks, he also comes across a ruin which seems to be inhabited.

The being inhabiting it is plainly a god, although he demurs and refutes such assertions whenever Binghe is too frank. He's a strange being, at turns looking like some queer approximation of a human, at other times blinking and winking in and out of existence, in patterns of strange lights and oddly geometrical fire. But he's surprisingly not hostile, letting Binghe rest in his residence, and even directing him towards points of interest. Accompanying him, too, though he seems to think that Binghe doesn't notice the odd almost spiderweb-like patterns that appear on things which he's influencing. The god calls himself The Peerless One, or at least that's what Luo Binghe infers from some writings on the ruin. The Peerless One offers instruction, seemingly without thinking about it, and gets flustered at being addressed by title, so Binghe also begins to refer to him as Shizun after a while.

[pinkiepig]

Baal and Aym for the soul

[cosmique-oddity]

Starlight - Blurr and Swerve

Ooooohhh it was a long project !

It all started with my will to make a playlist for every pairing/group of this AU i found/hj. Starlight was an epiphany for me, because i could find a meaning for ALL THE LYRICS with Blurr and Swerve.

This Video is a lot of love for the ship AND certainly for YOUR A.U. Keferon, and your brain, and your style, and Tapa.....

All of these hearts and love are presently tapped together with my non existent animation skills (i just make comics lmao...some of my dearly beloved friends teached me how to edit. And its ugly)

*slap the animation* look how much hyperfixation this bad boy can fit in !!

I’ll credit basically all the people who send asks and arts about the gay bartenders, because I took references and ideas of a lot of them :))

Like the shockwave part or at the end, where we see the ‘real’ (?) Swerve.

I’ll credit @keferon because that’s his AU hehe but also @somerandomcockroach who fed me with their incredible artstyle, it’s so incredible the job you guys do, I’m amazed….!

Some cuts I like behind this one !

This scene is based of the ‘I see you Jake’ scene from Avatar (movie with the Naavis) because it’s kind of them for me. Blurr is even Blue !

Shockwave. Make a short appearance but I love his character. And I love drawing him. He is terrifying.

And finally swerve…..Ah swerve……I loved drawing his bedroom hehe. I never draw Background !

Im stupid because what do you mean I wanna try animation and go straight for the 3:00 minute song ???

And I learned how to make the characters slide like PowerPoint half way HAHA

I don’t care, I loved doing that ❤️

[mythals-whore]

If i had the power to draw i would draw Davrin in regency wear with his fancy tie undone and his shirt all unlaced/unbuttoned okay bye

[froaklown]

PEARLIE POP!

[baeshijima]

imagine being a baker stationed in marmoreal market, okhema.

it has been a few months since you first started the business. as is with most, it was a slow start. in the beginning only few took interest, probably curious about the new the dessert shop popping up from seemingly nowhere. you’d garnered a loyal set of regulars, however, who always came for either something sweet to kickstart their day before work, or to treat themselves before they went back home.

in between those times? sparse. but you made it work… somehow.

what it did allow for, however, was the trial and error of new desserts! you can’t always be following the same recipes as everyone else; you have to put you and your craft out there!

…which brings you to now.

“so?” you prod, fiddling with the hem of your apron as you watch mydei chew a piece of the freshly baked golden honeycake. “how is it?”

having mydei in your shop is nothing new. he was the first to know about you wanting to open this shop in the first place, after all — back when you were an aspiring baker and he a runaway crown prince trying to find refuge for his people in okhema. despite his duties as a chrysos heir, he still manages to pop in every day when not away for a mission. how? well, you chalk it up to his sweet tooth and appointed position as your official taste tester.

a pleased hum escapes him; the soft clinks of cutlery rings out once more.

“i prefer your version of the golden honeycake compared to the traditional one,” he comments, taking another bite of the pancake. lifting his gaze to meet yours, a fork is outstretched towards you, a neatly cut square of the golden honeycake skewered on its prongs. “what made you want to change the recipe?”

“oh, that?” arms braced against the small two-person table, you lean towards the fork. a soft sweetness coats your tongue as you concoct a reply. “well, i wanted to make something you would like as a little thank you. you’ve supported me to pursue this dream for a while now. if it weren’t for you…” your voice tapers, eyes softening and lips spreading into an appreciative smile as you meet his slightly widened eyes. “if it weren’t for you, i doubt i would’ve had the courage to make it this far. so thank you, mydei, for being with me during this time.”

“it’s… it’s no problem.” mydei responds after a brief silence, the words briefly interrupted by a swift clearing of his throat as he glances away. “think nothing of it.”

save for your pleased hums, idle comments on new recipes you want to try, and the bustle of marmoreal market just beyond the walls, tranquility befalls your space.

when mydei calls out your name, you halt at the unusually resolute tone. “your efforts will come to fruition. i will make sure of that.”

---

well. sure enough, his words came true. the sight of the shop filled with customers and the long queue trickling into marmoreal market is evident proof of that.

when faced with the sudden influx of customers just two weeks ago, you thought it might’ve been a hallucination concocted by zagreus themself to torment you.

it was only after the thirteenth order of golden honeycake did you start to suspect zagreus wouldn’t waste their time on such a trivial matter on a speck of dust such as yourself. the real nail in the coffin was when you overheard some rather telling chatter between two ladies.

“wow! this modified version of the golden honeycake really is amazing! no wonder crown prince mydeimos loves it!”

“i wonder how they managed to get him to promote it…”

…if you knew having mydei say a few good words about your baked goods would boost your sales exponentially, you would have asked if he wanted to be a part-timer back when you first opened! looking at his withering stare and rather prominent frown as he waits for you to finish your closing shift, however, has you rethinking the choice.

(well, even with him being a prude, mydei would still undeniably draw in customers, so maybe asking him wouldn’t do any harm…)

unbeknownst to you, mydei’s down-trodden mood has to do with the very customers you’re trying to draw in. maybe if he wasn’t so weak to your dismayed gaze and kicked puppy demeanour when a less than satisfactory number of customers came into the shop every now and then, he wouldn’t be feeling so neglected by the attention you’re giving to the crowds of customers now barging their way into your shop.

a subtle grimace flashed across his features. what are they, a bunch of starving dogs fighting to get their meals? don’t they know basic manners? etiquette?

seriously, just until recently it was always quiet in the mornings. it was always just you baking and getting the store ready, and him watching you do your craft, helping out wherever he could — namely in taste-testing said baked goods.

in spite of the part of himself which regrets spreading the word of your talents and having them hog all your attention, the larger part of himself knows you deserve all of this at the very least.

he has witnessed your dedication and continuous efforts to make this dream of yours come true throughout the years you’ve known each other, and it certainly would be no lie if he said you’d weasled your way into his heart. from that day you’d offered him and his people baked goods and drinks upon their arrival in okhema, mydei should have known there would be no escape from seeking you out, ultimately causing this all-consuming fondness for you to grow by the day.

leaning back with a heavy sigh, mydei glances over at the counter where you’re still hard at work. really, your closing hours are soon. should he perhaps stand menacingly at your side to shoo away the customers? no, maybe just directly making them leave would be the most efficient. and—

a torrent of warmth engulfs him, clinging to his skin. mouth slightly agape, he can only gaze wordlessly at your joyful interactions.

…perhaps a few more customers would do no harm. just a few, though.

(curse that heart-melting smile of yours. it truly is the bane of his existence.)

[rhizzoph]

History class doodle. I had a vision

[manchesterau]

something is missing from this pic......perhaps....a ring....