#[ INFECTED FILE: MUSINGS ]

[acowardinmordor]

My brain won't shut up about this, so maybe if I write it my brain will let me finish working and get this massive work project off my plate.

Warning for Accidental Drunken Pregnancy

Fandom loves, correctly, the idea of Girl!Steve Harrington, either as an 'always a' or trans, we're a fan. And that's good. No arguments from me there.

But I was thinking about Always a Girl Eddie. And the impact that would have. Because see, Eddie is already Wrong in a lot of ways. She's poor, she's loud, she's a freak, she sells drugs, and starts shit with bullies. She's too much in every way, and she refuses to be a girl properly. Has ever since she was old enough to express an opinion.

She didn't want to play with dolls or play house. She wanted to run through the park chasing dragons. When her parents fought, she wanted to run away and get found by the Addams family where no one would be mad at her for liking black and reading about blood and fights and monsters.

By the time she's in high school, everyone's decided she's a lesbian. She isn't. She thinks she isn't, but she doesn't get a chance to try or test or find out before the whole damn town has made it Known. Eddie doesn't wear skirts, and she doesn't style her hair, and she doesn't listen when the counselor sits her down to talk about her behavior and how she needs to try to be a bit more like other girls if she wants to get married one day. That's her junior year, which is when she snaps and, true or not, goes on a rant about being a carpet munching butch who never wants to have a husband.

Her friends don't care. They've talked to her and agree its all bullshit. Her only regret about it is that her outburst becomes fodder for the kind of bias that makes her fail two classes her senior year. It makes her fail four her second time around. PE is one of them. The teacher won't let her participate if she isn't 'dressed appropriately' which suddenly requires that all the girls have their legs shaved. Surprise surprise, Eddie is the only one that has an impact on. Wayne gets into a shouting match over it, and he wins, but not in time for Eddie to pass.

And every time someone pushes her to be more ladylike, Eddie doubles down on being a freak because she's a lot of things, but she's not a quitter. The one good she knows she manages is that barely any other girls in Hawkins get bullied all that much. Eddie pulls too much attention, and Eddie is so far off the end of the scale, it makes the minor mistakes easy to ignore.

All her friends are guys because the girls of Hawkins are scared of the witch/lesbian/succubus/whatever bs they came up with this week. There are some girls who Eddie thinks want to come talk to her, thinks she'd be friends with if she could, but any girl willingly hanging around the Freak is going to get painted with the same brush.

She showed up to every single class in her third go around, daring her teachers to fail her again when she was getting perfect scores on anything with a straight answer, and doing so well on the subjective stuff they were giving her passing grades. She had a new flock of sheep who didn't care about the rumors because she ran Hellfire for them.

After Spring Break, after they accuse her of seducing and murdering Chrissy, after Eddie walks into Mordor and is dragged out the other side. After Eddie gives everything she has for a town that hates her, the school gives her the diploma. Maybe its just because they're terrified that she'll come back for a fourth try if they don't, but she has the damn thing.

Or maybe they don't want the new freshmen to start crying when they see her scars.

After the hospital lets them all leave, and after El and Will do whatever it is they do and promise it's over for real this time, Robin, Eddie, and Harrington sit around and watch crap movies and talk. It's still June when Robin comes out to her, and Eddie has to awkwardly explain that she isn't. Supportive, in favor of it, but not sure if she's like Robin.

"But everyone heard about what you said to--"

"Yeah, she was telling me I should start curling my hair and wearing makeup so I could find a husband."

"She did not."

"Yeah. I kinda snapped."

A few minutes tearing apart that kind of thinking later, and Steve asks, "So you like dudes?"

Eddie shrugs, because she's never tested that either. A bit of leftover enmity from when he was the King and she was the Freak keeps her from admitting she's a virgin. Instead she gestures to her face and neck, the part of her chest visible around her tank top.

"Don't think that's going to matter, Stevie, not now that I look like the Wicked Witch midway through melting."

There's nothing either of them can say about that. Between her status as a murder suspect, the infection from Upside Down dirt, and how efficient the demo bat fuckers were, her scars are ugly. Not the sort of thing she's read in books that a hero learns to take pride in. Just a mess. Her smile is jacked up on the left, and while she does have both of her nipples, the one boob is significantly smaller, and lumpier than the other now.

But they're friends, and its nice. Robin didn't find a fellow lesbian, but Eddie can understand the way she feels, and they bond over it. Where Robin goes, so goes Steve, so intentional or not, Eddie and Steve get close. Help each other with scar cream type close. It would be weird if there was any universe in which Steve would ever be interested in her. Instead they're good friends, and co-conspirators against the gremlins.

Robin is starting college in the spring semester in Chicago. Steve is going with her. Obviously. Eddie hasn't agreed to anything, but she's considering it.

They have one last party at Harrington's place. The kids leave around seven. The Hellfire guys leave around nine. By eleven, all three of them are plastered, and Robin is lamenting that she's leaving Hawkins and still hasn't kissed a girl. Eddie rolls her eyes and smacks one on her. Get it over and done with, right?

After an hour of Robin flustered and babbling about 'yes, yes, yeah, I do like girls! Kissing! Kissing girls is great! Steve! Steve-o! Did you know kissing girls is great?" she passes out on the couch.

Steve and Eddie, just sober enough to know that they're all going to be hungover in the morning, close blinds and lock doors. They leave water and asprin by Robin, then chug down a glass each.

"So, did it help you figure it out? Kissing my Soulmate with a capital P? Did you figure out if you like kissing girls more than guys?"

Eddie giggles instead of answering.

"I know Rob's not kissed anyone, but if you liked kissing her you probably could tell, right? So if you liked kissing her as much as you like kissing guys, or if its not like kissing guys, then you know!"

Steve's not a dumb as the kids joke. When Eddie doesn't answer, he puts it together. "Oh. Oh shit. Eds. You and Robin were each others' first kisses? Thats so -- you didn't have to do that! And now you don't know if you like kissing girls or guys or both or neither or -- Oh!"

Eddie watches Steve come to his decision and turn, and she decides to let it happen. Steve is the only guy her age who doesn't wince looking at her face. This is probably the only chance she's got until she's old enough her skin gets all wrinkly and no one can see the scars are there anymore.

It's better than kissing Robin. There's a lot of reasons why that might be true, but none of them matter, because after that first one. After a few seconds pause. After she leans a little closer like she's asking, they don't stop.

She wakes up naked and sore, with a blinding headache and the tight-skin pain that comes from forgetting the scar cream.

Awkward doesn't cover it when they look at each other in bed. When Robin trips on her way to make coffee, it gives them an excuse not to talk about it. It's bad enough that Eddie keeps thinking about it, and excavating the fragments of memory she's got. Probably the only chance she's going to get, and she remembers barely half. She does remember liking it, and Steve liking it, and neither of them being weird about the scars because they've been helping each other with them for months now.

Once they're sober enough for it, they talk, both of them apologizing, but not really. Neither of them regret it, even if it wasn't their best idea, and Eddie starts quoting Robin's rant about antiquated concepts of virginity when Steve tries to apologize for that. It's definitely weird, but they're not going to freak out about it.

By Wednesday, when Steve and Rob are loading up the beemer to drive north before the holidays, so they could get a place with a rental discount, everyone turns out to say bye. Eddie winks at Robin again, because it still makes her blush, and it still makes Eddie and Steve laugh when she does. She gives Steve a hug, and a promise to make a decision soon about moving up with them.

Six weeks of scheduled phone calls with them, and uncomfortable talks with Wayne, Eddie has finally, finally decided to go for it. She'll still be a freak, but according to Steve, no one in the city will bother her about it unless she asks them to. He's working at a diner, and swears the bookstore across the street will totally hire Eddie if she applies. Robin loves her classes, and her part time hours at the library on campus.

It's while Eddie is looking around and opening drawers, trying to plan how to move with more detail than 'throw stuff in the van' that she notices. There's a box of pads, mostly empty, in the corner of the bathroom cabinet. It's been mostly empty since November. And yeah, her period has never been predictable, and this isn't the longest its gone, and Eddie has never cared since she wears black all the time -- but. This time she had sex.

The odds are tiny, and the image of it is ridiculous. Eddie isn't any kind of a mom. Harrington is more a mom than she is. Anyway, all that shit in sex ed about it only takes once is crap. And she remembers Steve getting out the box of condoms. She doesn't remember anything between that and getting fucked, but she definitely remembers how concerned he was about opening the foil. So there's no way. No chance. Absolutely none.

The test comes back positive, and the nurse at the planed parenthood in Indianapolis asks if she wants to hear about her options.

It's pretty easy to choose as it turns out. Easier than quitting smoking cold turkey is for sure. Hell of a lot easier than telling Wayne. It's not something she ever wanted, ever thought about or considered, but Eddie knows this is the only chance she's got. Well. Sperm donors maybe, not that she'll ever have the money for it, unless she paid a guy to keep coming around until she got knocked up.

At first, she keeps it quiet because the nurse told her about the potential problems, especially with how much Eddie drank and smoked. It's not certain, so she stays quiet. Stalls the topic of moving up. She waits an entire day for the doctor to slip her in between appointments to get an ultrasound and check. Everything looks good. Healthy. and Eddie gets on their weekly scheduled call, hears Robin and Steve laughing as they tell stories, and Eddie breaks it to them.

"What do you mean? You said you were going to move up here. I thought you said you -- Eds, what the hell? You're going to leave me alone to watch Robin's attempts at flirting? You - I thought you promised."

"Excuse you, Dingus, she needs to come up so we can watch your attempts at flirting. I'm great."

"Fun as that sounds, me and Wayne are getting out of Hawkins. Wayne has some family in West Virginia, and I can't leave him at the mercy of all those spinsters. I'll still have a phone, you know."

They move before she's showing, and Wayne never asks, and Eddie never tells, but her uncle knows who it has to be. They land in Summersville, which is a damn lie since its a blizzard when they arrive. It isn't hard to use moving as an excuse to cancel a few phone calls. Then uses a boss moving her hours working at motel as an excuse when hormones means she knows she'll start sobbing if she gets picks up the phone.

Steve gets accepted to a community college. Robin aces her exams. Eddie finds out she's having a girl. She wouldn't have spent the money to find out since it wouldn't change anything, but the planned parenthood was still worried because of the alcohol at the start.

Wayne brings it up. Eddie considers it.

Steve gets a girlfriend. Eddie stalls.

Robin calls solo because Steve is on a one month anniversary date.

Eddie abandons the idea.

She never makes a choice to hide it from anybody. It's always one moment at a time, needing to get through one more thing, one more problem, one more checkpoint, then she could say it. By the end of July it's been too long, and it would be too weird. They didn't have some great tragic romance. They were good friends who got drunk one night. And Eddie is just living up to the warnings all the guidance counselors scribbled down about her.

She's never going to be anything special. She's not going to go chase her dreams and become the Joan Jett of metal music. She's coming up on eight months pregnant, can't hide it or pretend its something it isn't. She's still loud and obnoxious. She still wears all black and chained pants and refuses to style her hair in anything more complex than a ponytail. She's still mauled by monsters and scarred.

She's never going to be marriage material, and never wanted to be anyway. She can be a good mom though. Not a normal mom. Or a traditional one. She's probably going to end up punching someone at a pta meeting. But she can be a good mom for her daughter, whoever her daughter wants to be as she grows. And if that means she has to learn about ballet and glitter and my little pony, then she will.

Steve and Robin ask about a visit before their classes start since they'll have to do calls every other week now. They offer to drive to West Virginia, or buy Eddie a bus ticket. Eddie manages to dodge that bullet.

She dodges another when she starts contractions while on the phone with them, and plays it off like she has heartburn. She cries when she holds her daughter thirty hours later, smiling broad enough that the scars on her face hurt nearly as bad as the rest of her.

She gets good at sewing together a patchwork lie. Gets Wayne to take Lulu out for a walk during calls. Swallows the guilt when Steve talks about his girlfriend, Amy, who wants to have kids. Stares down the pediatrician who raises an eyebrow at her daughter's name.

It's awful. It's wonderful. It hurts more to do it alone than Eddie could have imagined, but she still can't bring herself to say it. Not because she thinks Steve would hate her for it . He wouldn't. One look at Stephanie Luthien Munson -- Lulu -- and Steve would know. And Steve would stay. And Steve would give up his classes and his girlfriend and his hope for his perfect family. Eddie has always known she's not what anyone is looking for.

So Eddie gets good at dodging questions, and explaining away noises in the background, and finding very reasonable excuses not to come out to visit. Very good at it.

She makes it to June of 1989, when her best friends decide it's been too long, and show up for a surprise visit.

Eddie was right though. It only takes a glance at the toddler on Eddie's hip as she opens the door for both of them to know.

[infectati]

ɪ ɴ ꜰ ᴇ ᴄ ᴛ ᴀ ᴛ ɪ (ɪɴꜰᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ)

(ᴏꜰ ᴀ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴ, ᴏʀɢᴀɴɪꜱᴍ, ᴇᴛᴄ.) ᴀꜰꜰᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ᴅɪꜱᴇᴀꜱᴇ-ᴄᴀᴜꜱɪɴɢ ᴏʀɢᴀɴɪꜱᴍ

[ʀᴇꜱɪᴅᴇɴᴛ ᴇᴠɪʟ ᴍᴜʟᴛɪ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ ɪɴꜰᴇᴄᴛᴇᴅ ʙʏ ᴊ ᴇꜱᴛ ᴀᴜɢᴜꜱᴛ 2022 ꜰᴇᴀᴛᴜʀɪɴɢ ᴄᴀɴᴏɴ ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴄ ᴍᴜꜱᴇꜱ]

【ＣＡＲＲＤ　　ＭＥＭＥＳ 　ＨＯＭＥ】

graphics made by geoff using this template

[angel-of-the-moons]

Ballet dancer reader x khonshu who tries to be his mysterious scary self and the reader just WHIPS her leg up to uppercut his head and crack his skull. Khonshu grabs her leg at the last second and he’s VERY surprised as she looks him DEAD in the eye, “I will FUCK you up. My ballet teacher has been a Russian matriarch since I was 5. You can’t scare me, bitch”. And khonshu’s just “Well mark me down as nervous AND horny!!”

I fucking cackled at this it's so fucking gorgeous

I changed it up a bit for comedic effect but asfghhkkll

Old Birds and New Tricks

Khonshu x Fem!Dancer!Reader

TW/CW: Attempted mugging, reader is a badass, Khonshu pops a boner for the first time in like ever, but nothing explicit happens :)

A/N: I figured you'd get a kick outta this one @drinkingwithkhonshu @juneknight because I'm on the floor with it lmao

🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

You were walking home after a long practice session, your toes and legs ached from straining to stay on your tippy toes for so long, your arms cried for relief from the strain of holding the bar, performing so many sweeps and graceful flares alongside your troupe and mentor.

Your mentor, Katja Ivanov was a good teacher and a harsh mentor. She was a hulk of a woman, roped with muscles built over her long period of performing dance (you yourself thought she must have been in prison at some point, too but when you shot the question as a joke she merely laughed; but didn't deny it).

Katja was a woman who took no shit from rude people, and she instilled that in all of you, her dancers, her "baby birds" she called you. She made sure that all of you knew that just because you were dancers, people couldn't take you for granted.

So, after "official" dance practice had ended... Katja taught all of you how to use your strength and flexibility to defend yourselves as well as perform graceful maneuvers.

And it came in handy. Really, really handy.

London was dangerous after dark, the empty streets crawling with bad things in the shadows, like an infection beneath the skin.

That was how you found yourself in an alley, a large drunk man between you and freedom.

You were no quitter, no coward, and instantly, like a computer scanning a file, your brain recollected each one of Katja's lessons and put them into action.

Your body flushed with fresh adrenaline, your heart hammering within the confines of your chest as you whipped around on one foot, your other flying out to kick your assailant in his gut, knocking him back and making him dry heave with the strain.

"I told you, asshole." You hissed, bringing your fists up to guard your face.

"All I got in my bag is my gear. Now piss off before I break your jaw."

"Fuckin'... bitch." The man wheezed as he stumbled out of the alleyway, leaving you behind and feeling the high of victory.

You pick up your bag where you dropped it and slipped the strap back over your chest, the band squishing a bit between your breasts as you tightened it.

"Amusing." A deep, raspy voice mused.

You whipped around, trying in vain to locate the source of the voice. It came from nowhere, but at the same time... it came from everywhere.

"I was merely passing through when I thought to aid you, human." It spoke again, your very bones trembling as the voice bored into your very brain.

"But you seem to have been able to handle that threat on your own."

You pressed your ears hard beneath your hands, gritting your teeth at the invasive feeling the voice left as it crawled in and out of you.

"God! Just--get out of my head!" You say through your gnashed teeth.

You hear an exasperated sigh, and you feel the air shift around you as you lift your gaze, your eyes trailing the body of someone who just appeared in front of you.

He looked like a cliché monster from one of The Mummy movies, draped in linen and flowy robes and everything. The freakin' bird skull completed the freaky visage.

"The hell--" You sputter, dropping your hands from around your ears, taking a step back from the... the thing in front of you.

"Seeing you handle an opponent so large was amusing." He--and you were most certain that he was a he--chuckled grimly. "A tiny little waif like you."

Okay, you didn't care how big and imposing this otherworldly bastard was, the fact he was jabbing at your stature and visual "weaknesses" irked you. You could swear you heard Katja's voice from over your shoulder.

"Kick his ass, да, маленький?" She would jeer.

"You... think I'm... small?" You say slowly, your eyes narrowing to a dangerous glint as he leans in, the smell of the spices clinging to his body wafting into your nose, heat radiating from his lithe body as he bent to your level.

You were giving him a chance to walk it back, maybe apologize for being a judgmental prick, so you wouldn't have to prove once again that you were just the opposite.

He did not.

"You are not as weak as you appear... Little one." He huffed, his head moving in a slight jerking motion, indicating his amusement.

Yeah, no. You had enough of big assholes thinking you were easy pickin's tonight.

You smiled sweetly up at him, your expression completely devoid of any innocence behind the mask of charm. You could see his shoulders drop and head tilt in confusion, but he was given not another moment longer to ponder why you would be smiling.

He expected you to retort, to snap, to--his thoughts were immediately cut off, as you moved in a blur.

Because you effortlessly raised your leg with lightning speed brought on by years of practice, and curled your foot in the classic ballerina's stance and kicked him in his stupid ass beak.

When your shoe made contact, you swore you heard the dry bones crunch as he stumbled back, almost falling flat on his ass before he caught himself with his staff, a grunt coming away from him.

Your hands gripped your bag strap as you looked down at him indignantly, a sense of smug superiority washing over you.

"Not as weak as you thought, now, huh?" You huffed victoriously, before turning on your heels and storming out of the alley.

Khonshu, the god of the Moon, dispenser of Justice and protector of those in the night...

...was just kicked in the face by a tiny woman.

And she actually did manage to crack his bones. They healed almost instantly, of course, thanks to his divinity.

But what didn't heal was his pride as he kneeled in the dirty alley, leaning on his staff for support as he watched you leave.

The look in your eyes, the power behind your legs... It was like the sun came up early and rose with your kick, to wash out the cool light of his moon with the harsh burning rays of daylight.

And it left him stunned. Stunned in a way no mortal has ever been able to.

And, frankly, he found his body responding in... other ways, too. Ways he hadn't indulged in what felt like... eons.

He was a god, yes, but divinity doesn't automatically grant piousness; and he found himself imagining you using your legs in a different way.

Had Khonshu a human mouth, he would be smiling.

He needed to see you again.

🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

да (pronounced da) = Yes

маленький (pronounced malen'kiy) = Little One

(Forgive me if it's butchered, I used Google translate for it asdfghjkl)

[the-letterbox-archives]

file (0)0-53-000: writer questionnaire

thank you @the-golden-comet for the tag! this one's a writer questionnaire, super fun to do as well :)

how long have you had your writing tumblr/writeblr? a fast and loose estimate is fine!

coming up on two months now!

what led you to create it?

i wanted a place to share stories that i felt wouldn’t become novels, and i just wanted to share my stuff regardless.

what’s your favourite thing about the writeblr community?

how nice everyone is, and how fun the discussions are! i love talking about my characters/wips, and i love hearing about my mutuals wips as well! it’s just a great place to do everything writing-related!

what’s one thing you’d like your mutuals to know about you?

PLEASE talk to me i love being talked to, love sharing about my stories, and i’m a pretty good listener so it doesn’t have to be one-sided either. either way, love having those conversations!

is there anything you’d like to see more of on your dash?

admittedly i don’t browse my dash often, but what i do see is great! writing, positivity, some memes and fandom content, wouldn’t wish for anything different.

which wips or writing projects are you noodling about, lately?

i’ve actually been considering a brand new story to the archives, but from my released content i have to say sunny (school rules) is rotating in my mind right now, as well as the dumaresq kids (the dumaresq poems)! of course, all of my wips are always rattling around in my brain all the time.

how long have you been working on them?

all the stories have been released at stagnated times, i think the first was the prologue of tales from a dying heart and prologue of the rockdove promise, about 2 months ago, and the most recent is the dumaresq poems, the first edition (set of 5) released a couple days ago.

do you remember what inspired them/what got you started?

inspiration comes from anywhere for me, i just tend to get an idea, write it without thinking, then plan it from there. hindsight is 20/20, but it tends to go ignored for me haha

how much time, in your best estimation, do you spend thinking about them?

all the time. there is never a moment one story or another is not in my brain.

when someone asks the dreaded, “what do you write about,” question, what do you usually say?

that’s tough, because i don’t exactly stick to genres; but i guess i would say i write speculative fiction, with themes of family, purpose, and society, to put it very generally.

name any characters you created. side characters, protagonists, antagonists, characters who’ve never been written, the first original abomination you ever pulled from your ass; whomever you’d like!

i’m gonna stick to characters that have been featured/mentioned in the archives, to keep this list somewhat short;

(tales from a dying heart) lady, sweetheart, crow, winter, pyre, dancer, rook, vex, chalice, hunter, hornet, dove, maestro, muse, opal, aegis, mouse, seeker,

(the rockdove promise) laszlo kriska, danareth, yaromyr kriska, knox penderghast, ezune penderghast, andrei,

(insincere.) ven, sissy, sinon,

(on kingston alley) faye o’callahan, daphne kanelos, missy o’callahan, crayton “old man” bell, arthur blackwood, eleanor blackwood, beau blackwood, gwen blackwood,

(school rules) sunny finch, darcy spencer, johnnie rhodes, angel salvatore, viola alderman, sasha dmitriev, eloise dolores, katherine “kath” fairchild, marion lorraine, imogen parker-blanche,

(dulcinea is dead) sasha beatrix, dulcinea beatrix,

(the dumaresq poems) alistair dumaresq, willow dumaresq, eira dumaresq, austine dumaresq, theophania dumaresq.

who’s the most unhinged?

i think they all are, at least a bit.

… but the answer’s faye.

who comes the most naturally for you to write?

sunny. that evil creature has infected my brain. it doesn’t help we have a very similar sense of humour.

do you ever cringe at them?

i don’t think i cringe at any of them. sure, sometimes the events of the story or their actions upset/annoy/disappoint me, but that’s for the sake of the narrative, and i don’t find that cringe-worthy.

how much control do you feel you have over your characters? do they ever “write themselves,” refuse to cooperate, or do things you didn’t expect? to what degree? are some less cooperative than others?

it depends, i take parts of myself for each aspect of myself for characters, so when those parts of the given character shine through, it’s much easier to write, and much easier for them to ‘write themselves.’ however, my writing style usually feels like the characters writing themselves regardless. so yeah, stuff can get off the rails in that way, but i wouldn't call that disobedience or uncooperativeness on the character's part.

do you enjoy people asking questions about your characters? and do you have a preferred means of receiving said questions? for example, as asks, as replies, as reblogs, as tag notes, as comments on ao3, etc.

YES GIVE ME ANY QUESTION ANYWHERE THEY ARE MY LIFEBLOOD IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY (pardon my rabid dog mentality here, i am very passionate)

what makes you want to follow another writeblr account? do you follow ‘em as you see ‘em, or take time scoping out the blog to make sure you align with its content? do you follow based on wips, or vibes?

when the archives first opened, i followed anyone who liked any of my posts. nowadays, i’m a bit more stingy because sometimes being involved in such a big circle (120 mutuals strong now, i think) can be overwhelming. but generally, i check out blogs that have interacted with my posts or are often tagged in my mutuals stuff, and decide to follow based on that (factors within the blog are usually what wips they do, if they participate in tag games or chat about their characters/wips, and vibes). i also proudly follow-back anyone who follows me.

what makes you decide against following?

people who discriminate/are hateful to minorities/etc., certain political ideologies, and factors like that. i don’t want to judge, but i tend to get weary due to experiences with hate speech and other discriminatory things in my real life. and human rights aren’t up for negotiation, people don’t deserve hatred because of a fundamental part of them, like nationality / gender / sexuality / age / poverty / neurodiversity / etc. i’m a queer, neurodiverse(coded), youth, and that plus my general demeanour can attract the wrong crowd. luckily that hasn’t happened on writeblr.

do you interact with non-mutuals often?

not really, but that isn’t on purpose. i tend to get distracted with archival work, so i don’t check things i’m not tagged in or otherwise privy of, which really is a shame, i should interact with more of writeblr.

do your mutuals’ characters occupy space in your noodle?

yes, sammy. @ominous-feychild knows that bastard is too squishable for my psyche to handle.

tagging @introchasingstars, @honeybewrites, @paeliae-occasionally,

@noxxytocin, @moltenwrites, @tc-doherty, @the-ellia-west, @theverumproject,

@thecrazyalchemist, @laylathewordwitch, @dragonedged-if, @leitereads, @autism-purgatory,

@gioiaalbanoart, @drchenquill, @fenmere, @leahnardo-da-veggie, @melpomene-grey,

@yourpenpaldee, @corinneglass, @agirlandherquill, @willtheweaver, @nczaversnick,

@davycoquette, @glassfrogforest, @princeofhags, @wyked-ao3, @fantasy-things-and-such, + open tag!

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Dancing 'til the break of dawn - Pt1

(TWST zombie apocalypse au for all your crack-fic needs)

Yuu would like to make one thing very clear: he did not start the zombie apocalypse on purpose.

In fact, he would like to argue that it – probably – would have started even without his help! Yeah, so he might have accidentally fed and housed a zombie cat because he had mistaken it for a very unfortunate stray on its last legs, and the zombie cat had bitten his parents, turning them into zombies, which kickstarted the apocalypse… but how did that zombie cat come to be? Hm? Hm?

The apocalypse was inevitable! He swears!

But, uh… he would admit that maybe taking in Grim was not the brightest decision he had ever made.

Or maybe it was an amazing plan. He hadn’t yet been attacked by a zombie. He was pretty sure that the zombies were a hivemind of sorts, and since he was nice to Grim they were all cool with him… or something. Maybe he was just uniquely disgusting to the point where no one wanted to eat him. Which was a weirdly insulting thought to have, so he preferred to believe that Grim was doing him a heck of a solid.

Which had its own problems. Had he accidentally sacrificed the entire human race for the sake of saving his own skin? Because that would be, at least, the tiniest, littlest bit messed up, he thought.

He rubbed his weird zombie cat’s head. Grim was a strange looking thing, with green skin and a face that was visibly on the verge of rotting. However, Grim was still a cat, Yuu was pretty sure, and therefore he deserved all of the love. He opened his arms, smiling when Grim readily hopped into them for the sake of pets. The texture was close to that of a hairless cat, save for a tiny patch of moss on the end of its tail, which looked soft, but Yuu had no intentions of touching it. Not right now, at least. Maybe if this zombie apocalypse survival stuff got too hard he would give in to temptation despite the very high likelihood that it could end in him getting infected.

Maybe tomorrow would be the day, he mused absently. After all, he was running low on supplies. He’d need to leave the safety of this random apartment and find a convenience store or something of that nature sometime soon, otherwise he’d starve to death.

But he didn’t wanna. Do you know how hard it is to find a store that hasn’t already been ransacked? Would you want to have to evade groups of humans who had taken to cannibalism way too quickly? Do you think it’s easy to explain to people that, actually, the zombie cat isn’t parasitic and lying in wait until it can kill you? How good would you be at ignoring the screams of people being eaten by zombies? Like, really, his life was so awful. You would think it was karma or something! He would like to reiterate that he does not deserve this! The zombie apocalypse was not his fault!

He groaned and flopped down in bed with Grim, burying his face in a pillow. It smelled off, slightly dingy, but he wasn’t going to complain. It wasn’t like the old owner had known they were going to have the most uninvited of guests. And he couldn’t file a complaint, anyways, because chances were they were dead already.

He huffed and pressed a kiss to the top of Grim's head.

"Make sure to get a good night's sleep, we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow," he mumbled. He wished he could say it was more to himself than anything, since he was aware that it was very weird to talk to a cat (a zombie version of a cat, no less), but... no. He was talking to Grim.

And Grim, to his credit, purred like he understood and settled down to sleep.

Yuu continued to stay awake for only a few moments more, his eyes remained trained on the ceiling as he pieced through his plan for the next day.

He ended up drifting off out of pure boredom before he had even finished planning his route.

It wouldn't matter anyways, though, surely tomorrow would be just another day.

~

Yuu sighed lightly as he trudged down the street. Zombies were avoiding him, as usual. He liked not being eaten, so this was nice.

The summer heat was not nice, though. He glowered at the orange skies above him as if he could will the sun to leave him alone already. It did not listen to him, which was disappointing, but he would live.

Probably. Hopefully.

He’d have an easier time living if Grim didn’t insist on being carried everywhere like the diva he was, because Yuu had seen him walk a few times, the lying prick, but fine. Whatever. It wasn’t like the ability to use his hands was necessary during an apocalyptic scenario or anything.

He was left to grumble incoherently as he continued on his search for a store that was still stocked enough to bother breaking into.

He found one… far sooner than he’d thought he would.

Suspiciously fast, actually.

He looked at Grim.

“What do you think, buddy?”

Grim blinked his one eye at him lazily.

This was practically a glowing endorsement! No zombies inside!

He deserves this, really.

He looked around for something to break the glass. It wasn’t difficult. He set down Grim despite the cat’s whining so he could pick up an abandoned brick. There was a dark red stain on the corner of it.

Ewwwwwwww. It was sticky.

He threw the brick at the glass door to the convenience store with probably a little bit more force than was entirely necessary. But, in his defense, it was gross to touch.

It wasn’t even worth it in the end! Because, the second he stepped towards the door, winding the cloth of his shirt around his hand so he could widen the hole enough for him to step through without injuring himself, the automatic glass doors slid open.

Yuu blushed. “Good thing no one saw that, right?” he said to Grim.

Grim, who he was beginning to suspect might actually know what he was saying, gave him what one could only describe as a raised eyebrow. Considering the cat only had half a face, making this expression was actually quite the feat. Yuu wasn’t sure how he felt about the effort the zombie put into making sure that he could accurately interpret how unimpressed he was.

He sighed, picked up the zombie again, and stepped inside.

The place looked like… well, just about any place in the apocalypse. Blood stained just about everything, rendering the food labels largely unreadable. The emergency lights still worked, but only barely, flickering more than the lights in a B-list horror movie. What had almost definitely once been a person was slumped in a corner, though it was almost unidentifiable now, its clothes missing and its guts torn out.

Yuu set down Grim so the zombie could go and have a snack.

Grim didn’t leave his side, instead he stayed close to his heels.

This, really, should have tipped him off that something was wrong. Grim never turned down the opportunity to eat.

Yuu, though, was too busy rubbing his thumb on a canned food label, trying to figure out what aisle he was currently in, to notice.

No, it wasn’t until Grim started growling lowly that he looked up.

A boy with a shock of messy red hair and clothes that were painted with way too much blood for it to only have been his own had been trying to sneak up on him. He had a knife out, and Yuu didn’t think that there was anything that needed cutting anywhere nearby.

Yuu shrieked and threw the can of beans at him. The redhead stumbled backwards, cradling his head, mumbling curses under his breath.

And then his expression twisted into a scowl. His grip tightened on his knife.

He took a step forward.

Grim hissed, baring fangs.

The redhead only spared a halfhearted glance down at the cat before turning his attention back to Yuu, who was scrambling for another can to throw.

And then the redhead did a double take.

He screamed and backed up a few steps, only barely stopping himself from dropping his knife in his surprise. “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOUR CAT?!”

Yuu hesitated for just a moment too long. “Uhhhhh nothing is wrong with him.”

“THEY'RE GREEN?!”

“And you’re white but I wasn’t going to say anything about that,” Yuu sniffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

The boy spluttered. “First of all. I’m Japanese. Everyone here is Japanese. We’re in fucking Japan. Second. Of. All. Humans can be white! Cats can’t be green!”

“Explain Grim then,” Yuu argued.

There was no response. The boy was too stunned to speak. Because he had realized that Yuu’s logic checked out perfectly, no doubt.

Slowly, the redhead ran a hand through his hair. He pulled on a few strands, hard, seemingly trying to make sure he wasn’t asleep, or in some weird fever dream, or that he hadn’t been bitten and was now going insane… he didn’t seem to be all that glad to realize that everything in front of him was actually very real.

He sunk a little in defeat, leaning against a nearby shelf and eyeing Yuu warily, but at least he was no longer openly hostile. “What is wrong with you?” he asked, somewhere between exasperated and genuinely curious.

Yuu frowned. He was not sure he liked this line of conversation more than discussing Grim. Grim was green, after all! Out of the two, surely Grim should be getting all of the attention.

But he was pretty sure that saying that out loud might be considered ‘hypocrisy’, and despite the fact that this guy had definitely tried to kill him, he didn’t want to seem like a hypocrite in front of him!

Wait a second.

“I’m the weird one?! You were trying to kill me!”

Grim didn’t look particularly happy upon being reminded of this fact.

The boy didn’t seem happy that Grim wasn’t happy, because he immediately paled and rushed to say that, “No, I wasn’t!”

Yuu looked at the knife in his hand.

He cleared his throat and dropped it. He tried for an innocent smile, as if that would somehow make Yuu forget what he had literally just watched happen. “You know, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Because you tried to stab me,” Yuu said flatly.

He stuck his hand out. “C’monnnn, what’s a little stabbing between new friends?”

Now, Yuu should absolutely not take that hand. Someone that had almost stabbed him once would almost certainly attempt another stabbing in the future.

But he had started talking to a cat, as of late. A zombie cat that you could argue (to much success) that he had made the much worse decision to befriend in the first place. And that had turned out fine. For him, at least.

So, he jumped at the opportunity for a new friend. He grabbed his hand in both of his own, shaking it with what was almost definitely way too much enthusiasm.

“I’m Yuu.”

“Ace…” the redhead said. He tried to pull his hand away, but Yuu was half convinced that he would turn tail and run if he did that, so he held strong. Ace looked mildly bewildered by the entire situation. He looked at the zombie cat at Yuu’s feet for a few moments. The cat did not seem all that pleased by this newfound friendship – the way he eyed the pair’s interlocked hands spoke volumes. “I don’t think that they like me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone,” Yuu said, shrugging.

Ace hesitated, briefly. His eyes flicked over Grim a few more times.

Realization sparkled in his eyes as he realized what, exactly, Grim was.

He looked at Yuu again, something appraising in his gaze. Something wary.

Without looking away from Yuu, he reached his free hand into his pocket. He pulled out a scrap of mystery meat and dropped it on the floor for Grim.

Grim sniffed it, once, before eating it.

Ace breathed a sigh of relief when the cat gave him what was unmistakably a nod of approval.

(And then visibly had a crisis over the fact that he was, apparently, looking to a cat for approval.)

~~~~~~~

Pt2>

[mokagachas]

share with me your great wisdom of of snake gal and water gal for I have not played arknight is a bit

hm okay alright ( muses )

I’ll say right off the bat I’ve mentioned on this blog before that while I don’t dislike romantic ships by any means I find myself very rarely “shipping” characters by pure definition of the word I mostly just enjoy their dynamics and parallels and My Goodness ho’ol and mumu have that in droves with one another

The vast TLDR oversimplification of the two of them: Ho’olheyak and Muelsyse are the last/some of the last of each of their respective races, Ho’olheyak being the last of the K’uk’ulkan and Muelsyse of the elves. Both are long life species naturally, but Ho’olheyak has gone through a torturous ritual at a young age that all K’uk’ulkan go through where she is implanted with the memories of generations of K’uk’ulkan before her. The procedure cuts her life short, and while we don’t know exactly HOW short, its presumably not very long to go

Muelsyse and Ho’olheyak both go on quests to find out what remains of, or what happened to, their people. They both have rather different approaches to it, however, with Muelsyse holds out hope that she’ll find other elves still alive, going on a lone quest to hunt down what remains of them and ultimately discovering that yes, most have died out, partially due to their weakness to originium. Despite this, she herself stays in densely populated city areas and interacts with Infected people frequently, enjoying being a social person while also feeling agonizingly alone. Muelsyse is decidedly a Good Person.

On the flip side, Ho’olheyak almost agonizingly relies on using other people to get the information she wants, seeking less about the specificities of what happened to her race and moreso their purpose and affect. She infiltrates secret organizations, double and triple crosses whenever it suits her whim, and is an utterly self-serving person who has no qualms in committing atrocities to get what she wants- though this is not to be confused with commiting atrocities for the pure joy of it. She ultimately finds a “god” robot thing (long story) that more or less tells her that everything she’s been working for is more or less worthless and she doesn’t necessarily fall to despair, but she does become incredibly languid and passive, though she keeps her trade mark asshole-ish ness.

Muelsyse flat out says it in Ho’olheyak’s files: “We each have what the other lacks.” They’re characters that are Definitely built to be the inverse of each other despite having rather sparing direct interactions in events but being littered in each other’s files. It’s really interesting to me!

But while their long life parallels (or robbed lack thereof in Ho’ol’s case) and relationship with their ancestors are the most obvious connections to be drawn between them, what fascinates me the most is their social parallels and how their experiences have changed how they interact with the world.

Both of them feel incredibly alone in one way or another. For Muelsyse, this comes near to breaking her at times. Despite the people around her that she cares for, and who care for her, she has such a different life experience than everyone else that she feels a disconnect that cannot be bridged. Despite this, she does her best to form genuine connections with those around her, even if they fail to give her what she wants.

Ho’olheyak is alone and at least Thinks she doesn’t care about it. She doesn’t respect many people, if any at all. She shatters every possible connection she could have with a shrug, pursuing only what could benefit her and seeming impartial to what she does to have her way. She is alone yet clearly wants for more: why else would she be seeking for meaning in the K’uk’ulkan so desperately?

These are two people who have had such violently different lived, yet the closest either of them can get to finding someone who can even begin to comprehend the life they’ve led and the struggles they’ve faced is in the other person. They acknowledge to themselves that the other person share similarities, but have trouble crossing that final step due to how the other has acted is so contradictory to their personal motives.

They’re both drawn to and reject the other… I like it :)

[gaemms-chamois]

random unorganized darknights trio + paprika musings bc sometimes i'm hit with like a pang of Brief Worry that i'm completely misinterpreted blabla that usually doesn't last too long bc i then go back to my state of I'm Just Vibing but ig at some point i just gotta let it out publicly once and be done with it lol

this is messily written Please Understand this isn't meant to be a grand thought piece

fuuuck ok well this is like very specifically abt the w, ines & paprika part now

like don't get me wrong on this. i joke abt wines moms and stuff but i dont genuinely mean it in the way of wahh wow littol family for reals kinda deal?

less on wines 'adopting' paprika, moreso paprika imprinting on them like a duckling after she was saved by them. paprika adopted them lmao. i cannot possibly interpret either w or ines as Maternal in such a way.

it's moreso that i think it's nice that this little sarkaz merc became part of the story, a girl who all her life since she was infected at a young age, was presented with becoming a mercenary being basically the only option for her.

and then, as annoying as w can be, being shown that she does have different options.

i just think it's sweet that paprika, judging by her voicelines, clearly looks up to w and ines. which is just amplified by the fact that w and ines are notoriously not the most popular people on rhodes lol. and she calls w annoying but still keeps knitting stuff and wanting to gift food to her. like if she often seeks out w and ines to tell them how well she did on something, when they are on the ship, etc. that'd at least indicate that those two humor her.

ALSO IT'S UNOFFICIAL BUT SHOUTOUT TO THAT LITTLE CHUZENJI ART WITH PAPRIKA AND W, INES & TOTTER WEARING KNITTED HATS SO CUTE

OKAY WOO DARKNIGHTS MERCENARY TRIO AND STUFF

cool yeah obviously i fucking love them. i'm not very good at words though and i tend to keep my more elaborate thoughts to just discussions between friends who know how i tick djsfhdfs

just the other day i was smiling to myself during a walk bc holy shit all three are actually playable now and that's not just wishful thinking anymore. anyway chapter 13 also happened and more stuff with the trio happened and Cool Lots of things Happening and my brain is full

they're so found family to me, like in an utterly unconventional way. i mean c'mon with how they act sometimes like- ykno. but like have y'all seen the new furniture set and descriptions that came with hoederer's release it made me go insanse.

but i think especially in ines' case it just kinda highlights that best. considering ines' arts can figure people out (putting that in rather vague terms), it truly means something when someone with her capabilities and temperament has people she chooses to stick by and actually trust. even if she pretends she doesn't by verbally denying it.

like waugh Okay they have a lot to unpack and shit but with them being reunited (take that, W file that said W needs companionship but her friends aren't around anymore) and having a COMPARATIVELY more ""relaxed"" life than before (that one Hoederer file where he just has rather regular days on rhodes), it's just nice to imagine they can finally have something better and figure stuff out. as complicated as the three of them are.

with that said i think it's a given that i despise a nuclear family treatment of the three (aka mom ines, dad hoederer, daughter w).

for one with me being highly doubtful w was a kid/teen at the start of darknights (young? sure, but not that young), which just seems like such a...widespread belief that i really do not get? arknights always put a LOT of emphasis on when a character's story was about them being a kid, 0 of that with w. like something about her expression and big cloak just gave people some different impression, even though she literally keeps looking the same aside from a change of clothes. only instance of w being called a kid during that time i can think of is that one boiler worker in her files but that seems way more like any typical old guy calling anyone on the younger side a kid. hell, even hoederer was called young in darknights, like in a sarkaz's lifespan i can believe that.

and also...hoederer had somewhat of a mentor-like role for w, but if anyone tries to tell me ines ever acted maternal towards w i will chew through your walls. read through darknights memoir and actually pay attention to ines, both w AND ines were pettyass women and they made that so very clear. cannot fathom how anyone can see ines as having been motherly towards w

seriously just feels like a case of Well there is man and there is woman....and this other character so clearly these are mom, dad and kid.

that's not even me being biased towards w/ines, just how i objectively see it. hell, i even ENJOY ines/hoederer, but my enjoyment of it is limited bc for some reason ppl like to make it weird by shoving w in as some daughter. i promise it's completely possible to like ines/hoederer without trying to fit in w as a kid figure

anyways yeah like cool i like these characters I Guess. Look at them

[imtryingmybeskar]

Come Home Chapter Nine

Joel Miller x F! Reader

Overnight in the clocktower with Joel. But you're not alone in the town.

Word count: 4,982

Come Home

Chapter Nine - The Tallest Height

A little over a week later, once the snow has receded somewhat and there have been a few days of uninterrupted bright winter sunshine, you and Joel head out beyond the walls of Jackson one early morning. The saddlebags on the horses are full – of food, first aid supplies, wind up torches and blankets. Not all of it is for your use, of course. The clock tower will serve both as outpost and beacon – a way for the people of Jackson to communicate over longer distances. That is, if you can reach it.

The apprehension you feel has been honed over the past few days, sharpened into something almost painful. But you’d be lying to yourself if you said that it was entirely to do with the prospect of facing a town potentially full of infected. You had done that before – silently sneaking around clickers, using whatever means necessary to escape from runners. It wasn’t fun and you were very aware that a misstep led to certain death, but it was expected. It was familiar, almost comfortable, this far into this brave new world.

What was decidedly less comfortable were the glances you catch yourself sneaking at Joel more and more often, the daydreams that you had found yourself immersed in as you stared into your fireplace instead of concentrating on your book. The constant “Why?” that had plagued you since Maria had told you that he had requested that you ride out alone together. Clearly, he had taken your words that day on your porch on board. He now trusted – at least outwardly – that you were more than capable of a journey like this, that you had experienced enough of life out in the wilderness that you wouldn’t shy from what had to be done. When you were making your plans and preparing yourselves for the journey, he had mentioned in a matter-of-fact way that this kind of scouting lent itself better to a small party, so that if anything did go south casualties would be minimal. But why you? There were a hundred people in Jackson, many of them accustomed to going outside the walls. Hell, you were pretty sure that he generally went out with Tommy, and who better to rely upon for something like this than his own brother?

The prospect of being alone with Joel for an extended period of time made your stomach fill with…well if they weren’t quite butterflies, they were certainly moths, and you weren’t sure if it was because you found him so physically attractive or it was a hint at something deeper. You found yourself hoping for the former. No good ever came of being attached. You had found that out the hard way. Twice.

And yet…

You found yourself soothed by his very presence, his voice, unable to look away from how his coat strained across his broad shoulders the times he took the lead across terrain that necessitated the horses walk single file. Part of you trusted him completely already – in his clear strength, his abilities. Even that was disconcerting after having known him for such a short length of time. And now…now you would be on your own with him for a couple of days at the very least. It was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure.

“Robert Smith.”

Joel’s gravelly tones break into your musings and you glance up at him as he rides to your right, blinking your confusion.

“Huh?”

“I’ll bet he survived.”

The peal of laughter that escapes you is irresistible, and his own dimpled smile is glorious as it matches yours.

The sun is high when you reach the designated crossing point over the writhing serpent of the river. At one time a bridge spanned its churning rapids, and you can still see the twisted metal bones of it far to your right, a yawning chasm now separating one side from the other. The water in front of you is more gentle here, twisting streams flowing and gurgling around raised points of earth and silt.

Before you cross, Joel calls a halt and retrieves the map that was sketched on a previous recce from an inside pocket of his coat. You draw your horse closer to his and examine it together.

“We’ll come into the town here,” he says, jabbing a finger at the point in question and then tracing a path. “We’ll ride along this road, avoidin’ the main street for now. It will lead us straight to the clock tower, and we can try to spot any infected that might be out in the open. This place was too small to warrant any kind of bombing campaign, but they did evac the residents. The last coupla groups that came found a few pockets of infected – some runners, some clickers that were probably responsible for the runners. They cleared some of the shops that they raided for supplies – pharmacies and the like – and they didn’t get swarmed afterward which is reassurin’. But we have to think that they probably didn’t get ‘em all. Stay alert.”

He didn’t need to tell you twice. The towns that you and Chris had raided over the years had tended to the small side. This was twice as big and therefore twice as dangerous.

A barricade that has been noticeably forced open and then put back together in a more sparse and higgledy-piggledy way is your welcome into the town. A large sign in red and white that you recognise very well despite its faded and broken appearance is off to one side.

MANDATORY EVACUATION NOTICE

All residents of STONETOWN and all outlying areas are required to evacuate by 8pm on 10/14/13

PLEASE FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS OF DESIGNATED AUTHORITIES

All evacuees will be asked to provide identification and may be subject to onsite medical testing.

Any evacuees resisting official directives will be detained.

The cracked concrete of the streets are still being reclaimed by nature, bare dead sticks that would surely be green and lush in a few months poking through the manmade layer over them. The houses either side of the street you ride down are quiet and brooding, no sense that anyone is still present within. Cars lie rusted and derelict in driveways and upon the roads. The sound of the horses’ hooves are mercifully muffled by the snow that still overlays all and no footprints, no blood mar its glistening purity. Its everything you would expect and the best you could hope to find in a place like this. Still, the tension is thrumming. Your muscles are tightening in the saddle as you ride, and you have to constantly remind yourself to consciously relax, to drop your shoulders and unknot your stomach. You are glad for the machete at your hip, and unconsciously caress it as you follow Joel’s lead, happy to fall in line behind him as you progress to your destination.

The town is located on a slight incline, the mountains in the distance beginning to make themselves known in the terrain underfoot. Consequently, you catch more and more frequent glimpses of the heights of the red bricked, snowy roofed clock tower as you progress silently through the ghostly suburbia. It looks remarkably undamaged to your eyes, standing tall six storeys high and the passage of time marked only by the incongruous splash of green as twisted ivy ascends its side. Even the glass in the clockfaces that you can see appears intact.

The chipped, white planked building that it towers above also seems unscathed as you draw up beside it, and Joel bids you wait with the horses as he dismounts and goes inside to investigate. You pat both horses soothingly as you sit in the saddle, listening to the birds that trill happily to each other from their perches, and finding peace in the dappled primrose sunlight that slants through the trees.

Soon, Joel is emerging from the doorway again, and by the relaxed expression on his face you know that the short period of time that it took to explore is a good thing. Sure enough-

“All clear,” he confirms, quietly. “Let’s bring the horses inside.”

The racket their hooves make upon the cracked lacquered floor as you enter would surely be enough to rouse anyone, living or dead, nearby. But all remains still and peaceful, and you are grateful for the seeming adherence to the evacuation order you saw at the entrance to the town. The space was clearly some sort of church hall at one time or another and had been used as a refuge before evacuation took place. Abandoned camp beds are set up in squashed rows - about forty in all - luggage and clothes and soft toys and personal knick-knacks strewn around them. Disturbed dust moves through the soft winter sun that valiantly streams through the dirt and cobwebs across the windows.

He leads you past all of this to a set of double doors set right at the back, the horses forced single file once more. You leave them there, safely enclosed at the bottom of the large and dimly lit stairwell, and relieve them of their saddlebags before beginning your ascent into the clocktower itself. Small, thin windows of four panes of stacked glass are set at regular intervals within the brick, and the light they permit is enough to see by as you climb. Four storeys up there is another door, and the way Joel opens it with blithe confidence tells you that he has already checked that it is safe.

The room beyond is formed of plain, red bricked walls with three large, arched windows set into one wall. Boxy shapes covered with dust sheets lie here and there and it is obvious that this place had few visitors, even before the infection. The dust overlaying all stirs as you enter and you stifle the sneeze that tickles your nose.

Joel sets down his backpack and the saddlebag and approaches the window before beckoning you over.

The town is laid out before you, the main street wide and very obvious even from up here, clusters of houses fanning out from it in all directions. The sun is beginning to wane, and its golden rosy glow is reaching through the buildings to flare against the windows that aren’t broken and slide like honey across the snow.

Movement catches your eye at a point you estimate to be half a mile away and north east from your current position, and you lightly touch Joel’s arm to get his attention, nodding toward what has captured yours. He rummages through his saddlebag and retrieves a pair of binoculars, focusing on the area you have indicated.

“Clicker,” he says shortly. “And-“ he pauses for a moment, sweeping his gaze slowly from side to side. “Another clicker just beyond.

You draw out a small notebook and a pen from an inside pocket of your coat, an item you retrieved on some supply run with Chris that hadn’t yielded much more than that.

“What they wearing?” you ask, and Joel breaks his observance to give you a quizzical look, one eyebrow arching in an unspoken question. “If we have a way to keep count and confirm which ones we’ve killed when we’re down there, there will be fewer surprises.”

His face clears and he nods, giving the descriptions that you have requested as he resumes his vigilance over the streets below, panning the binoculars in a methodical sweep over everything. The two clickers are the only things moving out there, and even with your naked eye you can see them staggering around with their distinctive juddering movements as they disappear and reappear among the houses.

“Here,” he offers after a few minutes. “See if you can spot anything I haven’t.”

He hands you the binoculars and goes over to the covered boxes attempting to lift each of them until he finds one light enough that he can begin to move it over to your position. You realise that you have been staring at what he is doing – how his jeans bunch around his thighs and backside as he tests them, the tendons in his neck standing stark as he lifts, and you gulp and hurriedly press your eyes to the binoculars before he can catch you in the act. It was all very well looking at him in Jackson - at the bar, or as you walked together or as he sat in your living room. But here…that kind of inattention to what was important might get you killed.

Fucking tighten it up, you tell yourself. Fucking concentrate.

You also make a sweep of the town, starting from left to right. Houses. Rows upon rows. Snow. Trees. Fenced yards. Cars. There, one identified clicker. More houses. More snow. A child’s playset, it’s primary plastic colouring showing clearly against the white of the ground it was on. There, the other clicker. The main street. Some windows broken, some items dragged out into the street and now covered with a layer of snow too. And beyond, not too far from where you must have entered, a large store, its warehouse type structure by far the biggest of its kind around. You wonder if previous groups had searched it already.

“You see Jackson?”

His voice so close behind makes you startle, makes the moths in your stomach set to fluttering once more. But not as much as when his arm brushes your shoulder as he reaches around you to point ahead, somewhere beyond the circumference of where you had been looking. You don’t dare look up at him as you press the binoculars to your eyes again, searching until you see those strong walls that you have come to rely on, smoke rising in little patches from the town as the inhabitants keep warm in their houses.

“Y-yeah. Yeah, I see it,” you reply, hoping you didn’t sound as wrong-footed as you felt.

“What about the outpost we visited the other day?”

How does his voice sound even deeper than it usually does? You concentrate on the task he has set you, working out the vicinity of the outpost from the spectacular view of this town that you had taken there. But you’re flustered, jittery. Half your brain is screaming at you to BE NORMAL, the other half already lost in the proximity of Joel. Can you feel his chest brushing against your back? His breath against you? Or are those imaginings, the ghost of yearning? A low chuckle comes from behind and you wonder too if he knows the effect he is having on you.

“This way,” he says quietly, and then his large, warm, gun calloused hand is covering yours and pushing it softly to the left and you blink rapidly behind the safety of the binoculars as you allow yourself to be gently guided into position. It feels like an effort to breathe, and while you have faced that particular problem more often recently, this time is quite different. A warmth cascades through you, starting from the top of your head and landing somewhere deep within.

“You see it?” he asks again and you desperately try to focus on the view in front of you. Trees, trees, an ocean of trees. And there, peeking between them, finally a concrete bunker surrounded by fences and wire.

“I can,” you breathe, your own voice much softer than you had intended. He drops his hand from yours, and your skin cries out for the loss of his warmth.

“We ain’t so far from home,” he remarks, and you wonder if it is supposed to be a comfort to you or him.

“W-what about that big store down there,” you stutter, trying to reclaim some equilibrium within you. He’s still so close though, so close that as he moves you catch a wafting smell of soap. “Could we go and check it out? Looks pretty intact from here. And it seems like its near to where we came in.”

“May I?” he asks, and you finally turn to him to hand him the binoculars, not quite daring to meet his eyes as you do.

He takes your place, looking out over the space you had indicated.

“Does seem intact,” he confirms. “The first team checked it out, but not thoroughly. Made sure there were no infected left in there. Took a few bits and pieces.” He breaks his concentration to look down at you again. “Might be a good idea. Maybe I’ll find somethin’ to give Tommy for Christmas. You’d think gift givin’ would be easier now, but that man is fussy,” he adds with a smile. You return it and are just about to ask what he had gotten for Ellie when further movement catches your eye.

You drop down out of sight of the window, dragging Joel down by the sleeve of his coat and he falls in with you immediately.

“What is it?” he hisses, all trace of humour and softness subsumed by the alert tension in his face.

As you open your mouth to reply, you hear the pop of muffled gunfire from the town beyond.

“Ah fuck,” he whispers to himself, and you’re inclined to agree. At least one person was left alive out there and either they were desperate enough to not be worried about drawing attention to themselves at this precise moment, or they were in great enough numbers that it didn’t matter.

More gunfire. And then the tell-tale scream of infected.

You glance over at Joel and he nods before you simultaneously risk peeping over the lip of the window frame.

A small group of people are inching slowly backward up the main street, sparks erupting from the ends of their guns as infected run toward them. You see five living, six or seven dead with a few scattered here and there, blood sprayed across the snow and finally at some kind of rest. The sun is fading fast and its now-ruby rays only serve to accentuate the blackness of the liquid surrounding the fallen. One of the living is blindsided by a runner to their left, the raging infected upon them before they can react. The rest of the group keep retreating, their only mercy to shoot both attacker and comrade in their heads.

The battle continues, passes further from the clocktower and out of sight until only the faint sounds of gunfire can be heard. Then that too ceases.

Joel and you exchange a dark look.

“At least they’ll have drawn out all the infected in the area,” you murmur. “We can keep watch on the situation, see how many are actually left to deal with.”

“Can we risk runnin’ into them though?” queries Joel. “At last count I saw four. If we get the jump on ‘em, fine, but what if there are more?”

You had been thinking much the same and had no good answer for him.

“Well,” he says, creeping away from the window before standing and stretching. “Let’s get to the work we can do.”

He bids you sit and keep watch with the binoculars while he unpacks the supplies you are to leave here. Some of the crates are prised open with the crowbar he has strapped to his pack, and he distributes the blankets, torches, food and first aid kits among them, covering them back with the dust sheets when he is done.

Meanwhile, you see nothing particularly noteworthy. Both clickers you took note of earlier are down, along with three runners and the man who had been on the side of the living until very recently.

By the time Joel takes his turn with the binoculars, the light is almost gone and you’re not sure how much he will be able to see. Still, you head downstairs to take care of the horses’ needs. They’re placid, unbothered, merely wanting to be fed and watered and you also make sure their blankets are secure about them before creeping back into the main hall.

Most of the camp beds are in a terrible state, rotting and useless after so long but eventually you find one that you deem useable, though it stinks of mildew. You also find a stuffed rabbit that you think Anna might like once its been thoroughly washed, and a few more books to add to your collection. Still no Keats, but there is a copy of Les Misérables that will keep you occupied for a while, as well as some Agatha Christie and Terry Pratchett novels too. You decide against the Stephen King and Clive Barker stuff – horror wasn’t so fun when you lived it daily – but you do also find a copy of A Game of Thrones which you take to give to Joel. You also double check the security of the doors that lead outside and quietly stack some chairs against them, just in case.

When you come back up to the clocktower, its to find that Joel has also been busy. He has rigged a curtain from the dust sheets, and the room is now softly lit by the low, welcoming glow of a lamp as it rests on the floor far from the window. He has lined up the wrapped sandwiches and slightly shrivelled winter store apples on the crate you had been sitting on earlier, an echo of shop displays from days gone by. His outer jacket lies neatly over his rucksack, but he has kept the fleece underneath on as the room is still pretty cold even with the windows now covered.

“Hey,” he greets you. “Horses okay?”

“All good,” you confirm as you deposit the camp bed beside a crate. “I’ll check on them again in the night. I assume we should probably take turns on watch?”

“I reckon that would be best,” he agrees. “I haven’t seen anything move out there, but I’d sleep much better knowin’ someone was keepin’ an eye on things. What’s that you got there?” He nods toward the bed and you begin to unfurl it.

“Figured it would be slightly more comfortable than the floor. Its not the Ritz, but it’ll do.”

“It’ll do,” he echoes with a smile.

The two of you talk quietly as you eat – about everything and nothing. How Ellie is progressing with her art, how Tommy came to meet Maria, how Maria managed to build Jackson with her father, your life in the Helena QZ, the similarities and differences with Joel’s in the Boston one, your favourite holidays, favourite places to travel in times past. And then-

“What do you miss most from before? The small things, you know. Not the obvious,” you enquire.

He draws up a little, crosses his ankles and raises his knees and rests his arms upon them. You recognise the defensive body language and hasten to reassure him.

“Hey, if that’s getting too personal I understand-“

“No, no,” he replies, voice calm as ever. “Its just one of those questions I’ve tended not to think about. Not out loud anyway. It all seemed kinda…pointless most of the time.” You nod your understanding, having felt the same way on many occasions. “But in Jackson I realised I got back some of those things that I hadn't even known I'd missed because I thought they had already gone forever. Movie nights with popcorn. Hot showers. A good steak, on occasion. Lazy mornings. Those ones when the sun would wake you, not an alarm. And you’d go downstairs and open the refrigerator and make breakfast and actually sit and enjoy it rather than runnin’ out of the house to work. Even managed to have some of those recently.” He huffs a laugh, but it’s tinged with sadness and you begin to regret this particular choice of topic.

“Sorry,” you say. “Didn’t mean to stir up bad memories.”

“Naw, its not that. Its just…the differences between those mornings then and now, ya know? The food you took for granted – orange juice and bagels and avocados. The radio.” A pause, and you see sadness in his face as he looks away from you. “And the people.”

A beat of silence as you work out how to take the conversation from here. “Well…here’s to the people,” you eventually say, holding up your water bottle toward him in a toast.

“The people,” he echoes dully as he swigs from his own bottle.

You look at him a moment longer, the light casting shadows upon his face and making it seem even craggier than it was. You wouldn’t push him of course. But you’d bet actual rations that he was thinking of Sarah, whomever she was.

“Well…I was going to confess something horrific, but I think I’ve lowered the mood enough for tonight,” you say, trying to bring a little levity back to the atmosphere.

He glances up at you, a smile beginning to twitch at the corners of his mouth again.

“You can’t just dangle that in front of me and not follow up,” he insists, taking another bite of his sandwich.

“I miss…good wine and art galleries and the smell of stationary shops and visiting craft fairs and…ok you are definitely going to judge me for this.”

He relaxes, sits cross legged and leans toward you with a questioning yet amused expression, inviting you to continue.

“I fucking miss the taste of mushrooms.”

“Ooooof,” he huffs, jokingly. “Yeah, don’t go tellin’ that to everyone. They’ll think you’re some kinda degenerate.”

“Right? I mean if I was actually presented with a plate of mushrooms I think I’d shoot six rounds into it just to be sure. But man…sometimes I miss the harmless ones.”

He laughs, properly this time and you’re struck by its loveliness, the sound adding to the protective layers keeping out the cold and the dark and the violence outside and you feel a sudden urge to share something real with him, to keep this moment going for as long as it can.

“And-and I miss getting drunk with friends at the shitty bar down the street and coming home for more drinks even though its such a bad idea and putting on music to sing along to and waking up with a head like a buzzsaw and a mouth like the desert on my couch with-“

You stop abruptly. Press your lips together. Exhale hard through your nose. Maybe not.

“You miss hangovers?” His eyes are kind and his face soft as he teases you, gives you an out for the awkward and abrupt stop in your story. “You know…there’s always the winter dance. If you really wanna experience drinkin’ too much. I promise, I’ll make sure you get home.”

You can’t quite stop the widening of your eyes, the way your mouth falls open slightly. Was Joel asking you to go? And did you imagine that his eyes flicked down to your lips for the briefest of moments? A heat suffuses your face and you try your best to keep your voice neutral as you reply.

“Sure, why not. Sounds like fun.”

“Well, alright then,” he says in a low tone and it might be more of your imagination, but you think the sides of his mouth quirk a little wider.

You cast around for something to say. Anything to quell the spark of excitement that has begun to travel from your stomach out to your extremities. Suddenly, you remember.

“Oh! I found something for you.”

His gaze is curious as you stand and grab the book you had nabbed from downstairs from inside your backpack, and as he takes it from you his evident delight at the gift sparks your own grin.

“Hoo, boy. I won’t be much of a watchman if I’m readin’ this all night.” He raises his eyes from the cover to your face. “Thank you. And just for that, you can have the first sleep.” He holds up a hand to quell any protestations and then jerks his head toward the camp bed, now furnished with a sleeping bag upon it. “Go on now.”

You obey, trying and failing to keep the broad smile from your face.

The sleep you fall into is dreamless and actually restful. Joel wakes you at the allotted time, ready for the inevitable jump you give when he gently touches your shoulder and quietly reassuring you that all is well, both outside and with the horses, before you swap places. You blearily wipe the sleep from your eyes as he sighs in contentment as he shuffles down into the sleeping bag, clearly grateful that you have warmed it so thoroughly. Within a few short moments he is snoring softly.

You study his face for a while, no shame or apprehension holding you back now that you are unobserved. He looks younger now he’s relaxed and you can see the foundations of the man past within. The grey has started to encroach on two fronts of his beard – from his cheeks and chin and soon it will be more salt than pepper. The hair on his head is luscious and thick, one loose wave falling across his forehead and this too is greying, though not at the rate his facial hair is. He has a crease in the middle of his forehead, too deep to be banished by mere rest, and the ghosts of laughter lines reside at the corners of his eyes, too lightly reinforced of late you don’t doubt. His lips are open in a delicate pout, their Cupid’s bow framed by his moustache and you give yourself a shake as you realise you were imagining how soft they would be.

Pulling Death on the Nile from your rucksack, you settle yourself with your back toward a crate and begin to read in the lamp’s low light.

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Next chapter

[bonjourxrenae]

Some .hack//YGO AU thoughts under the Read More, bc if I don’t breathe it into existence it will NEVER BE………

I'm drawing self-indulgent arts and strips about it... might make it a fic someday...? idk

My partner Quill (@themadcaptain) and I are putting characters in situations again, and we’re here in the hit online MMO The World

*Yuki Kajiura's The World playing softly in the background*

We've really only ever seen .hack//SIGN and between us, we've maybe played 3 out of 4 of the PS2 games (we started replaying .hack//Infection a while back) so our knowledge of the series is vague and limited at best... I'll look into the rest, but .hack is just a large multimedia franchise with SO MUCH BACKGROUND STUFF HAPPENING

anyway, BACKGROUND STUFF (assuming you know nothing of the .hack series):

The World is a fairly standard VR-enabled MMORPG, but otherwise functions as any other MMO does. It was originally created by programmer Harald Hoerwick under the name Fragment.

The story behind The World itself is largely based on an epic poem known as the Epitaph of the Twilight, written by fictional poet Emma Wieland. Hoerwick was infatuated with Wieland, and when she died, he created Fragment in order to immortalize her work. Fragment, and subsequently The World, contains a secret black box project he had been working on: the ultimate AI named Aura. In universe, this black box data exists within the game, but it is unable to be analyzed. CC Corp, the company that buys Fragment from Hoerwick, beta tests it (with beta testing ending early for unknown reasons), and releases an upgraded version known as The World.

Because of the presence of this Ultimate AI, a lot of mysteries crop up in game, and some players are met with disaster as a result (ie. many fall into comas, have their consciousness trapped in game, etc etc.) and CC Corp is trying to cover up these disasters by deflecting responsibility. However, the AI has been aiding hackers within the game in stopping the mysterious corruption in the game's files.

...SO WHERE DO THE YUGIOH DUDES COME IN?

The parallels between Harald Hoerwick and Pegasus are obvious. It would also be really cool to have his dead fiancée have more of a role other than being Pegasus's muse and motivation. (Also, if you've played the .hack games and seen the creatures in game, then you know this is something he would have absolutely created.) I don't know much about Wieland, but it's implied that she was using Hoerwick's research and talents for her own ends, which is fascinating.

I like the idea of Kaiba Corp collaborating with I2 on this game, with I2 selling it to KC... I also imagine KC still having Gozaburo and The Big Five who would be dismissive of the players' concerns about the comas and such, going so far as to delete forum threads and accounts just to save face...

Then we have Seto Kaiba. The future CEO of Kaiba Corp. Current leader of the Cobalt Knights (group of admins in The World working for KC), and this AU's stand in for Balmung of the Azure Skies Eyes (hehe). I imagine he has NO IDEA what's going on behind those closed doors, but eventually learns what role KC is playing in regards to all of this, and vows to put an end to it on his terms. I also like to believe Mokuba is also part of the Cobalt Knights, and is one of the victims who gets his consciousness trapped in the game, very much like Tsukasa from .hack//SIGN.

And Noa Kaiba? Big Morganna Energy... In .hack//SIGN, Morganna was created to oversee the birth of the Ultimate AI, but would ultimately rebel from this purpose, stalling the development of the Ultimate AI and setting off a lot of disastrous events. I imagine Noa would also be, like, the consciousness uploaded into the system - the one who could access the black box data - but could not export it to KC. With his own father abandoning him within the mainframe, Noa is working to destroy the game from the inside out... and he's responsible for trapping Mokuba in-game.

I feel like if one's consciousness can be uploaded into the MMO, I think it could stand to reason that ghosts and spirits can exist there too...

Alright, so there's some background info... and sadly we're a bit intimidated trying to tackle it all, and also trying to keep up with the different continuities between the different anime and the video games... one day, we'll figure it out... and one day I won’t be too intimidated to tackle this story from Kaiba’ POV…

I’ll probably make a separate post about what everyone else’s role is in The World a bit later!!! owo;;

[buddy-arc]

⏰ one more because i'm evil - J giving him the virus

send in ⏰ to witness a muse's memory...

[ ERROR. FIREWALL BREACH. ]

N stares dumbly at the chit in his chest. huh. his knee joints give out, the disassembler falling to the ground. J speaks, and he barely registers it, but he understands enough.

i messed up.

he gives shaky acknowledgement to his superior as his antivirus software fights the infecting program. J deserves a thanks, after all. she put up with him for this long. N spasms, rolling over on the floor with a thud.

[ ERROR. FIREWALL BREACH. PURGING . . . PURGE FAILED. OVERRIDDEN BY JCJENSON ACCESS KEY. DEACTIVATING DEFENSE PROTOCOLS . . . ]

sensor detections in his limbs slowly begin to shut down. he tries to move his hand, but his tail twitches instead. motor signals are scrambled. hah. that’s bad… mhm… there goes UV visuals. program files are being moved and sorted and destroyed. he can’t exactly do anything about it.

J has been waiting to do that, huh? so… she really was tired of him…

why does knowing that feel so awful? it’s not like his usefulness outweighed anything else. it’s not like he’s allowed to ask questions. he should have known.

…it still hurts. or maybe that’s just his core slowly being corrupted.

visual sensors pick up on movement in the corner, and his target indicator locks on his previous prey. she’s safe, though. he couldn’t change into hostile mode even if he wanted to.

he apologizes. it’s the least he can do before his OS is wiped. she responds in that sharp way he half-expected, and they exchange a little banter before she tries to leave. she doesn’t, though. it’s a second before she turns back to him and the banter continues. N can’t really comprehend too much through the static as his audio processing system begins to corrode, so he just offers a smile as the worker nears him with her wrench.

…

[ OVERRIDE TERMINATED. SYSTEM CLEANUP INITIATED. PURGING . . . PURGE SUCCESSFUL. SCRUBBING CONNECTION . . . ]

audio processor online. visual sensors online. motor signals are restored. system connection established. N twitches his hand. it responds. the eyes on his screen blink, and glance over at the worker. she’s staring at him with an unimpressed look, spinning the chit on her finger before tossing it and catching it in her palm, crushing it.

a swift kick is then delivered to the side of his head.

“ow,” he squeaks, slowly propping himself up on his elbows.

“yeah, get up, idiot. we have a mess to clean up,” the worker huffs, then points at the ceiling. “help me get into those shafts. and keep those claws to yourself.”

N sheepishly nods, rising to his full height. it’ll be easy enough to track his teammates… they aren’t exactly subtle, after all.

[myths-of-fantasy]

Year of the Rabbit - Ch1, Rebirth

When a woman dies and becomes a warrior bunny, only shenanigans can ensue. Or, that time Rimaru got a rabbit bodyguard that immediately declared war on a demon lord.

Chapter Directory | Next Chapter | Ao3 Link

When she opened her eyes, she was momentarily confused. She could swear that she wasn't supposed to be doing that - actually if she remembered correctly, she was supposed to be laying on the ground of a cold alley, bleeding to death from the two bullet wounds in her stomach while Araya made it to safety.

Still, when she stared up at the crumbling dirt ceiling above her, she didn't feel the slightest bit of pain, not the chill of the world as the warmth slowly leeched into the cold, unyielding stone beneath her nor was her mind as fuzzy as it was while her mind went blank. She decided to try sitting upright, only to squeal as she toppled over.

This is not the configurement I remember for my limbs, she thought to herself dumbly, reaching out one of her arms. Then she froze immediately, twisting it around in open disbelief at the short, four toed limb coated in silken black fur with a white sock. A glance to her other side confirmed a similar situation. She flexed the fluffy little digits, inspecting the tiny, needle-sharp claws at the ends of her fingers - or would it be toes now?

She chose to sit up again, this time listening to the underlying instinct conveying how to do that correctly. She was made aware of the long, powerful legs she was now in possession of as she slowly rose herself into a more upright form. It felt right and wrong at the same time, kind of like she was squatting on her thighs. She curiously examined her lower body, the same fluffy silken black fur coated her belly, even forming a gentle collar of fur around her neck. Despite the fluffy softness of her paws, she noted a distinct lack of pads and there was a dewclaw attached to her arm… or foreleg… she twisted around once, peering down at her backside as the thought ran through her mind, the short little tail giving a slight wiggle under her direction.

…am I-

Something twitched atop her head, confirming her suspicions.

“I am a rabbit,” she confirmed aloud, tilting her head in reflexive curiosity. 

[Skill Created - Observe]

Observe? she recognized, her ears perking up immediately. There had been a really popular web-story, The Gamer that she'd been periodically interested in but more importantly, spawned fan works she had been even more interested in. She'd devoured the various works that she'd come across and all the different forms the ability adopted in the hands of different authors.

“Does that mean I'm the Gamer now?” she mused to herself. If that was all there was though, why did it apparently change species - moreover, she doesn't remember anything about the main character dying to acquire his powers. In fact, in the source material the main character specifically was trying to avoid dying as his primary reason for growing stronger during the first arc. But then again, when the ability was used in different fan works, it would change in minute ways to best fit the world - perhaps when she died, she'd entered a world where the default variant of ability didn't fit this universe's rules?

Well, given her ambiguous status as recently dead, it wasn't like she had anything else to do but experiment.

“[Observe],” she said aloud, focusing on herself. Much to her pleasure, a semi-transparent teal screen appeared in front of her.

[Observation - You are a Dire Rabbit. Danger Rank - E]

“Okay,” she mused, filing the information away as she mentally closed the screen. She presumed the use of ‘dire’ in this circumstance was like a ‘dire wolf’ - so a scarier, much more dangerous version of a rabbit. It would be good to keep that in mind - ordinary rabbits could be dangerous all on their own with their powerful incisors and the dirt beneath their claws could easily result in bad infections and sicknesses. She couldn't imagine what a dire rabbit could possibly do to humans. Though… she was still a rabbit and based on the media she'd consumed, 'Rank E' was never very high.

"Let's try… [Status]?"

Name: N/A Title: None Blessing: None Age: 2 weeks old (24 years, mentally) Gender: Woman (She/Her) Race: Dire Rabbit Rank: E Intrinsic Skills: [Haste] [Warren Map] [Sense Danger] Unique Skills: [Prodigy] [Plush] Common Skills: [Observe] [Sense Motives] Resistance Skills: [Pierce Resistance] [Cold Resistance] Direct Subordinates: N/A Equipment: N/A

“I've been alive for two weeks?” she blinked, a bit confused. But she doesn't-

A very quick flash of memories flowed through her - of squirming bodies surrounding her, drinking something warm and rich, grumbling as her body ached and ached-

So dire rabbits grow quickly and I've lived my entire infant years in 2 weeks? That doesn't sound right.

The implication was that Dire Rabbits were native to… wherever she was at the moment. Two weeks didn't sound right, even for a species that had so many babies. They still needed a few months to grow up, learn to recognize and defend against predators before venturing off on their own. Maybe it was because she'd died before?

[Observation - Status Updated: Classification ‘Otherworlder’ added]

She would take that as confirmation. Being an ‘otherworlder' must've sped up her growth dramatically for some reason.

It also implies that it's not… an uncommon thing to be? She supposes that explains why none of her nest-mates had noticed her rapid development. Huh, perhaps this was some kind of inevitability? That this was a form of afterlife? She had to admit, becoming a Rabbit had not been what she was expecting from her death and rebirth but it wasn't this. 

Still, it wasn't all bad. She wasn't in any pain after all and these skills already seemed pretty interesting.

Araya, I hope you made it to safety. I promise you, I'm safe.

 | | | |

Much to her equal parts fascination and mild annoyance, it took another two months for her to escape what she had eventually deciphered to be some form of nursery. It wasn't all bad - she spent most of the time compelled to sleep, only waking up when the nurses brought what she assumed was milk. She was semi-aware as time passed, absorbing the so called ‘magicules’ floating through the air. The more she absorbed, the more aware she became of just how rudimentary her initial senses had been.

She had less read [Observe] and more, had the information interpreted by some kind of strange instinct because her sight had been so blurry (though having needed and rarely received glasses in her past life, she had hardly noticed) and despite acknowledging she was a rabbit, her sense of hearing didn't seem any better at the time. Now here she was, three months old and realizing truly for the first time that everyone had been able to properly see this whole time. It was sobering to realize that teachers hadn't been just harassing her when they asked her to read things across the room nor was it usual for her to have strain induced headaches from trying to interpret signs.

Moreover, her sense of smell had increased dramatically. She hadn't expected that - smell wasn't what one thought of when rabbits came up. But now here she was, keeping track of the various scents placed throughout the room as she'd begun to master the odd combination of quadrupedal and bipedal movement that rabbits shifted between so smoothly. The combination of scents, sights and sounds were so overwhelming, giving her migraines so awful she was happy to sleep the pain away. 

At what she assumed was her first official two months alive, the caretakers had begun demonstrating what she'd learned were the most basic of Skills for her species. 

[Haste] was one of the most important skills she had, increasing her speed to a ludicrous degree. The first time she'd used it, she slammed headlong into a wall with a frightened squeal that had quickly summoned a caretaker. She'd been quickly escorted back to her little nest, her experiments done for the day to recover from the scare.

It made her feel better to see one of her nest-mates doing the same. 

Sense Motives had been doing a lot of heavy lifting as well. While she was slowly beginning to decipher the words being used, passively absorbing the language being spoken, being able to generally intuit the meaning of requests and commands. It amused her to see that the skill treated all situations with equal importance, alerting her to not quite malicious intent from her den-mates.

 [Notice - Mischievous Intent Detected]

Ah, speak of the devil, the rabbit mused to herself with amusement. With a smirk, she stepped neatly to the left watching her nestmate go crashing into the floor, having tried to pounce on her.

She snickered to herself, the licked her paws drawing them across her face in a fashion that had become habitual since her transformation. She gave herself a little shake, releasing a little squeak and gesturing towards the entrance to the nursery den to clarify her intentions before quickly bounding out into the hall. Another so called intrinsic ability called [Warren Map] came up in her mind the moment she passed the border, a mental pathway appearing in her head when she decided she wanted to head out to the garden again. It was the one place in the twisting, misleading maze that she had begun to call her new home that was permanently open to the sky, allowing for the various delicious crops growing all the sunlight they could eat.

“Going to raid the garden again?” teased a recruit, raising his little spear in greeting as she bounced into view of the garden entrance. Being so open to the sky, predators and opportunist adventurers often tried to cheat by assaulting their home through this opening - seeing as the Warren still needed food however, the solution created by the Warren Lord was to simply assign guards to ensure that the hole was guarded. She glanced around, a bit curious that she couldn't see his partner in the immediate area.

She reached into herself with a giggle, “The tomatoes taste good.”

She tried not to be perturbed by the memory of distinctly disliking the texture and taste of tomatoes in her previous life. She supposed it made sense that her taste buds had been realigned to better suit her now herbivorous body lest she starve but it was annoying that she'd have to experiment and see what other preferences of herself had changed. 

“The gardeners will be happy to hear that,” laughed the recruit, waving her inside. 

She bounded inside, thoroughly delighted by the vibrant green stems reaching high into the sky, plants decorated with various fleshy fruits of various colors dangling from the branches or resting on leaves. She felt her tail give a little wiggle as she sat back on her haunches, reaching up for one of the blessed cherry tomatoes glimmering in the light.

She bit down, the rich juices exploding in her mouth and a bit of it dribbled down her chin. She hummed happily, thumping her foot happily.

“Those are so good,” she sighed happily, patting her belly. She glanced towards the rest of the vine longingly but she'd spent the last three days gorging herself on them and had promised herself (and others) that she would try something else today. “Farewell lovely tomatoes.”

Dropping back to her paws, she scampered over to a new box. She sniffed around at the rich, earthy soil below her, a series of thin vibrant green stems sticking upright with tiny green leaves decorating them. She'd read somewhere that carrots weren't good for rabbits but she wanted to try them all the same. 

She grabbed the stem with her tiny paws and gripped tightly. Spreading her hind-legs and planting her paws firmly, she counted then yanked hard. 

“Woah!” she yelped, nearly falling over with a giggle. The carrot she had yanked from the ground was as big as she was! Long and orange albeit a little bent, as if it has been searching for water. “Huh. So this is a wild-er carrot huh?”

It was really scrawny compared to the ones she was used to - longer than she was tall but thin, delicate looking. Hmm… hadn't she read someone that domestic carrots didn't produce seeds anymore? And it was the same problem with bananas. These thinner, smaller carrots must've been the result of either underdeveloped farm culture or a culture more based around sustainability, without stupid patents and lawsuits against innocent small time farmers for using their own crop seeds. 

[Observation - Wild Field Carrot. A delicious bitter treat often eaten raw by the Field Warren.]

Nice, she approved. One thing she'd noticed was that [Observe] was remarkably less useful than she remembered it being in any of the media she had consumed - rather than providing her lots of information she didn't know, it seemed to be building off of her own observations until she actively felt a need to use the skill. She couldn't use it as a form of information gathering like some character could - it was more like a mental journal. That said, she'd also noted that the skill had needed to level up quite a few times before it was the weapon that she'd always viewed it to be. Even in the source material, it had started getting snippy with the main character for trying to level it up with basic, everyday items like rocks and bricks - so perhaps she would have to find some way to level up the skill before [Observe] was useful in that way?

Still, the warning that the carrots were bitter was appreciated. 

“Oh!” she said, blinking as the thin root crunched in her mouth. ‘Bitter' was right, it felt like her entire mouth had dried up on the spot. Swiping around her mouth, each bite honestly just made her aware that this world had yet to require her to brush her large incisors. It wasn't a bad taste really, but she probably would only eat these if there weren't already tomatoes. 

How disappointing, she remarked to herself as she pushed the carrot into [Observe]'s Inventory. 

“It seems my theory was correct,” She remarked, looking at the little bubble that contained the three stacked tomatoes she'd collected on her first day. As far as she could tell, they didn't show any signs of decaying or wilting even though the Warren was incredibly warm and the deeper tunnels in particular were awfully humid. It would only take a few days for an ordinary cherry tomato to start going visibly bad in the current climate.

 Which meant that Inventory did indeed have some form of preservation qualities. 

[Observation - Sub-Skill, Refrigerate Identified.]

She shook her head with amusement for a brief moment, “That's another update - let's see my [Status].”

Name: N/A Race: Dire Rabbit Identity: Woman - She/Her Blessings: None Title: Black Bunny Rank: E Type: Otherworlder (Reincarnation) Magic: N/A Arts: N/A Intrinsic Skills: [Haste] [Warren Map] [Sense Danger] Unique Skills: [Prodigy] [Plush]  Extra Skills: [Earth Manipulation] Common Skills: [Observe] [Sense Motives] Resistance Skills: [Pierce Resistance] [Cold Resistance] Direct Subordinates: N/A Equipment: N/A

“Show me [Observe],” she commanded, pleased when the skill list obliging came up.

[Skill - Observe

Careful analysis and deductive reasoning opens up the world for you and allows you to identify things at a glance!

Subskill: Inspect - known information about an object or being, currently only covers personally known information

Subskill: Status - a personal assessment of your strength including skills

Subskill: Inventory - special use of spacial magic for storage purposes

Subskill: Resource Flag - automatically identify and note known resources at a glance]

The longer she stayed in this world, the more certain she became that this was a completely different system than ‘Gaia.’ She'd scrolled through The Gamer for a while and she was reasonably sure that [Observe] had never adopted subskills like this, instead the system would make the decision to simply form a completely new skill. And she was pretty sure that Inventory had never been any sort of skill, but rather simply an aspect of Gamer's Body. Although from the way the skill phrased it, it was more like these subskills had always been part of [Observe] but she had to discover them through personal experimentation to do so.

And [Observe] is a mental skill. Wouldn't it make more sense for it to have adopted Gamer's Mind instead?

[Subskill Identified - Thought Acceleration]

“Are you serious?” she said aloud. Making new skills was far simpler than she was expecting. She shook her head - she would think about skill acquisition later. For now, she needed to focus on the abilities and talents she'd already acquired, plus there were a few things on her Status that she needed to try and decipher.

There were a few skills she didn't know how to use yet - Prodigy seemed to require some sort of serious situation, a fight maybe before she could use it and until she used it, [Observe] wouldn't tell her what it did. Haste wasn't hard to use, though the Soldiers had kindly asked her to stop using it in the more narrow halls after she almost crashed into someone for the second time in a row.

"[Inventory]" she invoked, watching the slots come up in her vision. She added her newly acquired carrots to an empty slot, watching the little number in the corner go up with every carrot she pressed in. It was good to see that at least the smaller objects stacked rather than taking up several individual boxes like she knew some games did. One thing she had over the original gamer from what she could tell though was files - she could organize her inventory with labels, something she suspects is a side-effect of the subskill Resource Flag. Her eyes flitted over the small collection of foods she'd assembled for her food selection - cherry tomatoes, field carrots, blackberries and celery. None of them seemed to have rejuvenation effects like most video games - another loss from not having Gamer's Body she presumes.

Maybe it's a skill I have to develop myself here, she mused to herself, shuffling towards the next plot of vegetables. It would make sense given Inventory was now a subskill of [Observe] rather than anything inherent. She reached out to the rows of green onion, unwilling to eat them plainly no matter what species she was though they smelled good. She was adding them to her inventory, reaching out for more when the mental equivalent of a red-alert flashed through her head.

[Notice - Predatory Intent Detected!]

What? 

She immediately went rigid, her eyes darting around for where the threat was coming from. The alerts usually came in before the source could be readily seen, coming through the moment the skill deciphered the energy was directed at her. She scanned the garden, dire rabbits nibbled on the grass growing around the plots crunched through the vegetables having little conversations. A few of them were sprawled out on the large, smooth rocks placed in the sunlight for sunbathing and drinking from the puddles shimmering in the sunlight. If the threat had been another carrion mole (and wasn't that a rude awakening for this world) the soldiers would've been alerted and already on the defense.

Which means…

A well-known predator of rabbits are-

A screech revealed the hunter as just as its shadow passed over them.

“Terror Hawk!” a soldier cried, rushing into the room as the beast swooped towards a rabbit on a sunning stone.

The frightened bunny had chosen ‘freeze’ as its defense, seemingly hopeful that the hawk would overlook it and target a different creature if it was still enough. As the massive brown feathered creature extended its lengthy, glinting talons towards the trembling rabbit she struck. 

The bird released a cry of confusion and affront as the rabbit slammed into its chest using [Haste] at full speed. It toppled over, off balanced and seemingly more than a little frustrated that its lunch was fighting back so aggressively. 

With a glare, it whipped around towards her and began moving with shocking balance on the ground. This was clearly one of the birds that was more than comfortable running down prey like a grounded hunter.

Crap! Aren't bird wings part of their respiratory system? 

It was time for an experiment.

As the hawk came charging across the grass, the tensed grasping for the magicules she could feel floating through her body and concentrated it in her hind-legs like she was going to use [Haste] again. When the bird of prey leapt towards her, talons outstretched she Bounced.

She landed with full force on one the creature's pulled back wings, the momentum creating a loud snap!

The bird shrieked, falling tail over head to the ground as the weight of its broken wing distracted it.

[Notice - The skill Haste has become Bounce]

She prepared to strike again, ready to launch herself directly at the bird's chest this time when something warm filled her. She would've ignored it if it hadn't advanced rapidly from noticeably warm to uncomfortably hot in a mere instant. Despite that, it didn't hurt - she watched the world grow the slightest bit smaller while she felt her joints begin to shift. She stopped feeling like she was performing a squat, the familiar feeling of a properly bipedal stance washing over her as she instinctively adjusted her stance. It didn't hurt thankfully but she didn't hesitate to [Observe] herself the moment she could move again.

[Observation - You are now a Killer Rabbit (Recruit)!]

Did I just evolve? Like a Pokémon?

Well, that was something to finish analyzing later. She glared at the Terror Hawk slowly adjusting its position and drawing its injured wing closer to itself. Much to her surprise, it seemed to have lost its aggression, now watching her warily but not making an attempts at attacking.

[Notice - Frightened Intent Detected]

Oh-! It was a hunter - with a busted wing, it would struggle to hunt. So it was probably no longer interested in hunted but rather escaping.

Which is can't because now it can't fly.

Well, despite being rabbits she'd caught some of the more evolved warren-mates chewing on small chunks of jerky and even fresh meat so despite a greater preference for vegetables, she had remained an omnivore. But then again, if the Terror Hawk was no longer hostile, she didn't want to kill it when they only ate meat sporadically. Hmm… if she could sense motives then surely she could communicate her own right? Emotions would be clearer and less easily misinterpreted than words - and that was assuming this hawk spoke the same language or even spoke at all.

It felt like she was staring at the wary predator for eons trying to scrounge together her emotions and find some way of projecting them. Emotions were more slippery than thoughts, just acknowledging them could cause a subtle change that made pinpointing them even harder. Finally, she felt the emotions being directed towards herself that her skill was reading in the first place - wariness, a desire to flee - radiating from her opponent like ripples in a pond. and tried to increase that awareness.

Using Status had required her to focus on unfolding the abilities unique to herself so she already vaguely had a grasp of her own energy, something she figured would probably be useful in the future. She fumbled for a moment, grasping the emotions she'd identified and began directing them towards the hawk specifically, carefully gauging its intent.

[Notice - Subskill 'Project Motives' has been identified]

Son of a-

The hawk gave a soft cawing noise, cutting off the impending swearing she was about to do over the uselessness of her skill. It was like [Observe] was more of a pocket book than an in depth analysis tool. Fine, that was fine. She could work with it. She'd gotten this far.

"I don't want to hurt you anymore," she voiced aloud for the benefit of her now fellow killer rabbits. It wouldn't help the situation if they attacked while she was defusing the situation. She did her best go project a desire for communication while tilting her head in a questioning manner, "Can you understand me?"

It took a moment but the creature nodded slowly.

Thank goodness

"Good. If someone leads you out, could you make it on your own?" she asked, continuing to project her emotions.

The hawk nodded again, this time more firmly.

She glanced at her fellow killer rabbits that had approached slowly, loosely surrounding them.

"Is that alright?" she inquired.

"Better than fighting it," chuckled one of the Soldiers with a gesture to summon the others. They moved to surround the hawk which adopted a greater air of nerves, beginning to prod the bird towards the tunnel. "Thanks for that - Terror Hawks even with broken wings can be awfully fierce."

"Yeah the Commander will be happy to hear it," said another soldier, poking the hawk along. "Can't wait to see you in training!"

"If she's this good, she'll be a soldier in no time!"

She greened at the praise, bouncing after the escort group. She had to make sure they kept her promise after all.

| | | |

She found herself in a proper training group the very next day. Being a recruit was far more exciting than being a Dire Rabbit she discovered - for one, she was now able to enter the Training Room, a place dedicated specifically for Recruits to work on their Skills and strengthening their bodies. It was nice to have a dedicated place to practice with her newly created Skill [Bounce] without the risk of slamming headlong into someone.

She wasting graciously given a long blade with a lightly rigid edge that honestly reminded her of a sandwich knife to train with as a sword - not that she could complain. Although it wouldn't be cleaving through blood or earth anytime soon, it was still a decent enough way to defend herself against most basic creatures. It was especially revolutionary when she realized she could use it as a long ranged weapon, flinging it the best she could to land tip-first into her targets.

The best thing yet however was finally being exposed to [Prodigy].

She dropped to the ground as her opponent thrust his own knife-sword in her direction, rolling quickly onto her hands and toes to dodge before lunging forward. She lashed out in the way that her previous sparring partner had done, watching him dodge as if he was moving in slow motion. It kind of felt like she was watching one of those behind the scenes stunt breakdowns from an action movies except when she went to mimic the moves, she instinctively knew whether her movements were correct or not. She found herself adjusting both slowly and rapidly at the same time, progressing into more and more fluid movements with every spar she performed.

[Notice - Basic Warren Fist Acquired!]

Finally! A Skill that can do damage!

When he tried to lash out with another direct thrust, she met him with one of her own. Their sword clanged together loudly, the shock of the impact radiating up her arm in a distinctly uncomfortable way. Instinctively she adjusted her grip, Prodigy informing her of the new way to position her wrist as she slipped around his guard and jammed the sword-knife just directly beneath his armor.

"Ouch!" he cried out, dropping his sword to clutch at the spot.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized, immediately lowering her weapon. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I just wasn't expecting that," he said, ruefully rubbing his side. He chuckled, picking up his weapon but sheathed it instead of entering another spar with her. He extended a fluffy paw with a slight grin, "The commander said I was helping a fresh recruit. When did you start training?"

"Oh just this month," she giggled.

"Wow! And you're already that good?"

"What can I say? I'm a quick learner."

She waves as her opponent wandered off, either to let the bruise heal or to find another opponent for sparring. She took that as her dismissal and decided she would attend her second, self assigned phase of training.

She followed the path that [Warren Map] helpfully informed her was one of the few main tunnel pathways to the overground world, her nose twitching lightly as she followed the subtle scent trails and magicule tugs.

She froze briefly, instinctively freezing before the entrance of the burrow with her ears pricked nervously. [Keen Ear] only picked up on safe sounds - the grass blowing in the wind, the rustling of rodents bounding after fallen seeds and the tell-tale crunch further off of the current Scout taking the time to check the area. With a gentle breath to soothe her more prey-like instincts, she leapt out of the burrow and onto the solid earth beneath her.

She took in a deep breath of the fresh air, stretching her her arms to the sky. She flexed her fingers a little, rippling them as she bounded out into the field.

She glanced up at the brilliant blue sky above her, lightly dappled with wispy white clouds and speckled with little seed bird monsters that roamed the sky. She twisted her ears carefully as the wind changed directions, still searching carefully for the target of her attention. Eventually, a shadow passed over her and she grinned.

She thumped her hind-leg a few times while waving her paws to flag down the creature.

The Terror Hawk circled for a moment, likely using its own Skills to identify her before beginning to spiral down from the wide open sky. She'd been a bit surprised at how quickly the bird had healed from its broken limb, having assumed they would've needed to protect it a bit longer but it seemed that a couple weeks and a low-grade potion generously granted to her by her commander had been all it needed.

"I'm ready," she declared as it landed before her. It gave a firm nod and bounced a little ways away from her, preparing its wings.

She quickly raised her paw towards one of the tall dirt structures made and abandoned adventurers at some point, knowing what it was asking her to demonstrate.

"[Gust]!" she called out at the same time that the Terror Hawk released a piercing shriek and gave a thunderous flap of its wings.

A powerful explosion of air burst to life in front of her very eyes, slamming into the earthen tower. It cracked under the attack, whittling away furiously like months of erosion was happening in mere seconds before her eyes, crumbling and tumbling into the grass before them.

"I told you I'd practice," she said, flashing the bird a wink. It rolled its eyed at her, but it nudged her with a wing.

[Notice - Instructive Motives Detected]

"Oh, something new," she remarked eagerly.

The hawk puffed out it's chest, clearly pleased with the attention she was giving its considerable strength. It adjusted its stance, spreading its legs a bit wider and planting it's talons in the earth like an anchor. She felt the magicules around her begin to speed up, condensing in the vortex space in front of it while it raised its wings. She got the feeling the hawk was intentionally building the power slowly, giving her the chance to really understand what it was doing and she appreciated it.

She tilted her head as it angled towards another clay pillar then released another shriek, giving a single sharp flap of his wings. Rather than the powerful burst of wind that made up [Gust], a quick single condensed bit of wind raced out, slicing clean through the tower.

"Woah," she said with amazement, watching the upper half of the clay drop go the ground and begin to roll away.

It reminds me of air cutter or silverwind from Pokémon.

The Terror Hawk released a prideful shriek before motioning for her to replicate the move.

"Alright, let's try it."

Loathe as she was to admit it, [Observe]'s generally useless setup had its benefits. Without [Observe] telling her how skills worked or even what some would consider basic information, she'd been forced to learn how to do things the effort and practice way.

By now it wasn't all that hard to focus on the magicules around her and began to concentrate on the energy around her. She gripped the hilt of her little sword - the hawk had proved that the ability was possible without a conduit but she had learned rather quickly that it was easier when she had a form of reference.

Finally with a determined cry, she drew her sword and swung it in quick succession. She grunted a little from the recoil - it was light but she hadn't expected it - as a single sharp blade of wind launched forward. It didn't cut down her pillar, only leaving a large scar in the surface which made her frown but that was fine - she had plenty of time to practice.

"How was that?' she asked her tutor.

The Terror Hawk gave her a pleased nod before gesturing towards its own bisected tower.

"Yeah, yeah I know," she said rolling her eyes in good humor. That damn hawk was so cocky sometimes. She re-sheathed her blade and began to focus on the latent magicules on the air again. "Let's work on it."

| | | |

It was surprisingly easy to fall into a new rhythm.

As a Recruit, her job centered primarily around guarding the easiest pathways and acting more as an errand runner for the higher ups. When she wasn't sending a message or fetching a snack for someone, she was usually ushered into the training room to practice her Skills and hone her physical capabilities with her sword. Occasionally in her travels she'd come across the odd adventurer or two wandering the tunnels, often providing her some basic sparring experience against various kinds of fighters.

Once she and the other Recruits had proven to have their paws beneath themselves came training in what she'd learned was an Intrinsic Skill of theirs: [Earth Manipulation] with their first skills being [Liquidize] and [Earth Lock]. Learning to use those two skills in tandem with [Warren Map] was honestly a game changer and suddenly she understood why casualties were so low, even among recruits. Being able to reshape and redesign the warren at will based on where you needed to be only further built up the maze.

In her honestly abundant free time, she practiced the skills being slowly taught to her by the Terror Hawk. She wanted to learn as much as she could before he left for good, returning to his home on the farther end of the Jura Forest. After mastering [Gust] and then [Wind Blade], she'd been introduced to her first defensive Skill - Wind Protect.

Honestly, it felt like her mentor just wanted an excuse to throw pebbles and drop sticks on her but it worked so she was letting it slid given the three skills had combined and became [Wind Manipulation] almost directly afterwards.

Using [Observe] on herself had felt great when she noted that her threat ranking had advanced from E to D - still not especially high she will admit, but it was still more than what she was before. It was a tangible example of her Skill progression and power.

It was also a good indicator that the rankings applied to individuals rather than species or groups, so if she could get [Observe] to give her a more accurate first reading she could rely on the ratings for planning.

She hadn't had many goals or ambitions in her previous life, satisfied with making it through the year happily and supporting her friends. She'd known from the moment her father was too weak to fight against her step-mother that any dreams or aspirations of going to college were likely dead in the water. She'd adjusted her expectations accordingly, focused on graduating high-school and picked up a part time job in preparation for her father's death inevitably leaving her homeless. She had gotten lucky with turning 18 before he finally passed, meaning she was able to skip the complicated legal mess of emancipating herself and her father had been smart enough to fill out his will in secret before he could be declared no longer sound of mind. They small bit of inheritance she received had been more than enough to rent out a small apartment with Araya and survive until she could pick up a full-time job instead.

She'd been a mostly happy person despite it all, content with the little bit of fortune granted to her in the form of meeting her best friend Araya. She took the time to volunteer and donate to soup kitchens which satisfied the part of her that wanted to help others in her position, her job hadn't treated her as poorly as most did and her landlord while not a great person at least adhered to the laws and had never tried to rip her off. Really all she could've hoped for was more time to spend with Araya after her best friend had realized she held romantic feelings for her when she was human.

She'd had three days of bliss before she was killed but she couldn't find it in herself to regret that either. Araya was safe, hopefully having gotten to the police before that damn stalker and his friends could've done anything to her - she wouldn't struggle for money, she'd been aware enough of her situation to create a will of her own when she started renting the apartment and specifically worked out a clause to continue paying for the place with her savings by default unless Araya chose to move out. She would have enough money for therapy, hopefully find another girl who loved her as much as she had and maybe she'd be privileged enough to see her again when she passed on.

But here she was in a new world with an opportunity to… plan, to dream again. There wasn't an adult in her life that would hold her finances hostage, preventing her from training up her own skills. There were no biases against her age either, most of her warren-mates honestly seeming thrilled and impressed that she was becoming so skilled so quickly. There were no barriers, no people to work around - this time around, all that stood in her way was how hard she was willing to work. If she wanted to achieve the rank of commander, all she had to do was focus on training, learning and adapting to this new world and she would do it.

Araya had always said she liked a woman with power - and where was the harm in becoming one?

"Hey."

She looked up briefly before straightening up fully when she realized who was addressing her.

"Sir!" she saluted the commander immediately. It was slightly intimidating to look upon the larger rabbit, a solid two heads taller with short, well groomed brown fur. Sometimes she thought he looked more like a hare than a rabbit and she wondered if she would ever become as large as he was. She felt a bit inadequate in her simple green tunic, a simple leather satchel draped across her chest for errands when he was properly dressed in leathers, wearing a spiffy little hat and adorned with a large hilt containing the short-sword he used.

"At ease recruit," he said and she quickly dropped her paw. It was nice that her body came with instincts regarding ranks and addresses, so she wouldn't have to struggle through memorizing them manually. "I'll cut straight to the chase - its been agreed that you're ready for your first Scout post.."

Her ears perked up, "Sir?"

"We've been watching you," he says, answering her unspoken question. "You've displayed a sort of drive and ambition not usually seen among the masses. It's neither bad nor unreasonable for some to evolve to Recruits and be satisfied with this status - but you're different. You have a light of determination that we want in the Soldiers."

She almost couldn't believe her ears - she knew that traditionally Scout jobs were low level duties without much prestige but that was different here. The Scouts were the Warren's first line of defense, the ones who were targeted by assassins, hunted down by roaming predators and were meant to defend the entrance. They let the Warren know when invaders came around and even escorted others who wished to see the surface around - they were the face of the Warren, speaking with merchants and those who live requested to see any individual commander. It was amazing that she was being granted the opportunity to take such an important job only a few months into her newly claimed status as a Recruit.

"I will honor you all well sir."

That first scouting mission was the gate opener to a whole new world of opportunity. It was uneventful thankfully, not like in some of her favorite shows back on earth, and she hadn't seen anything more dangerous than a dust flurry but the symbolism of being trusted with such a job had caused noticeable ripples.

Despite only being a recruit, she was being invited to more and more training sessions involving the Soldiers. The difficulty curve of her sparring lessons spiked a bit but she was watching herself grow stronger and stronger, using [Prodigy] to make the most out of every lesson. She took up agility based skill lessons like The Pillar Race, learning to activate [Earth Manipulation] as a series of platforms while she bounded across them, attacking her opponents with mud balls and defending herself from theirs.

It was easily the most fun she'd had since being reincarnated.

She'd had friends among the Recruits sure but mostly, she took up the role aa a defender, carefully monitoring the area rather than participating in any of the games they made up or lounging after the initial hawk attack. The Recruits didn't mind, thanking her for her focus and dedication to their safety, but it was nice having others who had a similar desire to grow and progress. Not just given praise and gratitude, her demeanor was met with pride and respect.

She'd even started being referred to as "The Twelfth Commander" by her cohort for her fierce dedication to improving her skills and talents. It was a title she wore with pride, their voices void of sarcasm or malice layered in their tones, only admiration and praise.

"Hey, Twelfth, there's something up ahead."

She lifted her head quickly, perked ears swiveling slowly in an attempt to identify whatever her companion was worried about. She could feel her nose twitching furiously in tune with her attempts at catching even the faintest scent on the breeze but with the clouds beginning to obscure her vision and the wind blowing away from her, she couldn't see anything really off.

"Wha-"

A howl broke out on the wind that made a chill run down her spine instinctively. If this world followed game mechanics there was always one creature that made it a point to feature in almost any game.

[Notice - Aggressive Intent Detected!]

She barely moved in time, flipping backwards in time to see a massive dark gray wolf's fangs clack together loudly where she'd been standing a moment ago. She landed a short bit away with narrowed eyes, glaring menacingly as the lone attacker was joined by two others.

"D-dire wolves," stammered the Solider. He moved a nervous paw over his knife-sword, gripping the hilt as his dark eyes darted from wolf to wolf. "But they live in the forest, not in the meadow!"

<The Alpha seeks wider lands,> a voice, gravelly and low echoed through her head, unaffected by [Keen Ear].

Huh? Dire Wolves can use telepathy? It can't just be because they're pack animals right? We rabbits are group creatures too - maybe it's random chance? Or maybe it's just because we already have [Keen Ear], [Sense Danger] and [Warren Map]?

Whatever she didn't have time to be thinking about this right now. There were enemies standing before them with their teeth bared and growling ready to attack at a moment's notice.

"This land is not yours, leave peacefully," she tried, keeping her chin high and put a paw on the hilt of her little sword. "I don't want to have to evict you by force."

<Ha!> laughed the wolf, the volume of his snort echoing painfully in her head and seemingly the heads of his companions. The wolf fixed her with a self-satisfied expression. <What can a pair of little rabbits do? You should lay down and let us eat you now - we'll make it painless just for you.>

"We should go back to the Warren," her companion murmured, trembling.

She shook her head - fear was clouding their minds, returning to the Warren after the wolves had already confessed the desire raid and destroy everyone in it. All running would do is lead them down the right tunnels, destroying the main advantage that twisting and winding tunnels gave them. Instead, she promptly shifted her weight and began rapidly thumping her foot in the pattern used to communicate.

Serious Threat - Dire Wolves, Requesting Assistance.

<That one is sounding the alarm!> one of the wolves asserted.

<It's too late!> claimed the leader, leaping forward with a howl. 

She jumped back again, promptly summoning the wind beginning to whirl furiously around her.

"[Wind Protect]!"

She smirked to herself, watching the wolf growl and begin pawing his muzzle with a new braise on his muzzle, tiny little bleeding cuts on his mouth and on the tip of his nose. She released the energy when the wolf placed distance between them - it was a good defense but the continuous drain on her magicules would be a disadvantage she couldn't afford. 

She lunged forward herself while the wolf attempted to recover, lashing out with her sword. It yelped and snapped at her as she made contact with its flank. She dodged again going for its muzzle only to be grabbed from the air.

"Ah!" she shrieked - right, there was a reason wolves were such a problem on video games. Their tendency to attack as one even in turn based games was dangerous. She didn't give it time to bite down on her fragile body, crushing her bones and instead drove her sword directly into the beast's face. It howled in horror, dropping her to the ground with a pained grunt. 

<You shouldn't have tried that rabbit,> The first wolf snarled, spit flying from its mouth. She shuddered - the wolf had already been radiating a painful presence when it showed itself but now, it seemed the very energy of its presence was beginning to press down in earnest on her chest. <You'll regret that you didn't let us kill you to start with!>

W-what is this? It feels like an anxiety attack…

[Notice - Observe has evolved to Appraise! Appraisal - The Dire Wolf is using the skill 'Coercion']

Coerc- they're trying to intimidate me into dying?!

She doesn't know if she's ever been so offended in her life. Sure her step mother had harassed her and some people in school had tried to pressure her into doing their work for them as kids but never before had anyone ever thought they could pressure her into dying! Her eyes drifted towards her Scout partner who was laying on the ground, trembling while gripping the grass beneath their paws.

Hell no. I've stared a gun barely in the eye and didn't so much as flinch, I won't let some stupid aura bully me into giving up!

[Notice - Skill Created: Defiant!]

"[WIND BLADE!]"

She lashed out before the wolves could notice the shift in her demeanor, drawing her sword and channeling the energy around her into the most powerful lance of wind she'd made since she'd started training. The gale rushed forward, slicing open the wolf's throat. 

<Argh!> it gargled, staggering away from her.

She didn't give it time to get away through, she directed the wind to swirl violently around her blade before plunging it into the wolf's skull. 

"[Wind Drill]," she growled and watched emotionlessly as the flesh was torn apart, throwing the chunks of blood and fur all over the grass. It sprayed her a bit but that was fine - [Appraise] seemed to be a better skill than [Observe], having made an account of what Coercion worked and how to use it. She tried her best to focus on the memory of the pressure on her chest, the crashing weight on her mind, the empty nausea rolling through her stomach. 

[Notice - New Skill Created: Pickpocket!]

As the new skill settled into place, she felt the gears of 'Coercion' click into functioning order, like she'd always had the skill. She dragged the magicules from the air, pushing it towards the remaining wolves while planting a blood stained white paw on the headless corpse laying in front of her.

"I'm giving the rest of you until the count of three to get out before you join your friend!" she thundered at them, taking a bit of pride in the way they whimpered fearfully. "Tell your Alpha we have no intentions of just rolling over for him!"

The wolves whined once last time before turning tail and running, leaving only her and her companion. 

"…t-that was so cool 12th," stammered the soldier, slowly standing up again. "You were so brave."

"Thanks," she said. Her nose twitched a little, checking to make sure the patrol was really gone. "We should go straight to the commander though. Somehow, I don't that's the last we'll see of Dire Wolves.”

| | | | |

CURRENT STATUS

Name: N/A

Race: Killer Rabbit (Soldier)

Identity: Woman - She/Her

Blessings: None

Title: Black Bunny, The 12th Commander

Rank: E

Type: Otherworlder (Reincarnation)

Magic:

Wind Elemental Magic - Wind Protect, Gust, Wind Blade, Wind Drill

Earth Elemental Magic - Liquidize, Earth Lock, Earth Pillar

Arts: Warren Fist (Intermediate)

Intrinsic Skills: [Bounce] [Warren Map] [Sense Danger]

Unique Skills: [Prodigy] [Plush] [Pickpocket] [Defiant]

Extra Skills: [Wind Manipulation] [Earth Manipulation]

Common Skills: [Coercion] [Appraise] [Sense Motives]

Resistance Skills: [Pierce Resistance] [Cold Resistance] 

Direct Subordinates: N/A

Equipment: N/A

Pickpocketed Skills:

Dire Wolf - [Coercion]

[infectati]

[ TAG DUMP INCOMING ]

[myraelvira]

Karen Roberta Stanley

Karen Roberta Stanley

If you’re a fan of Steely Dan, then you’re familiar with Walter Becker. If not, I’ll summarize briefly. Walter Beker was the second half to the duo that made up Steely Dan. Walter and Donald Fagen were the minds behind the music, the composer, the conductors, the two with the vision behind it all.

There is a lot of Steely Dan Lore that goes around, and most is easy to find proof of. One subject that intrigued me was the story of Karen Roberta Stanley, who was Walter’s girlfriend at one point.

One wikipedia, there is a small blip about her on Walter’s page, stating that she died in his apartment on January 30th, 1980. Karen was an employee of ABC Dunhill Records, and was the personal manager for the band. After her death, her parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Walter. Only one source is cited for this, the book, Steely Dan: Reelin In The Years.

It’s hard to find out more information on this subject, but I tried my hardest to look.

On the national news.com, it states that Karen Stanley died of a drug overdose in 1978. The Guardian says that Karen died in January of 1980, “following a drug overdose in his apartment, on the upper west side.”. The following years, Stanley’s mother attempted to sue Becker for 17 million dollars, claiming that he introduced her daughter to cocaine, morphine, heroin, and barbiturates.

A judge found in Walter’s favor, and the case was settled. Walter is quoted:

“I could barely understand what was going on with her, really. If you’ve known anyone that’s chronically depressed like that, it’s hard to appreciate what’s going on: You’re looking straight at it and you still don’t get it, because you’ve never gone through that.”.

This same article says that a month after Karen’s death, Walter was seriously injured when a taxi drove into him in Central Park.

An article from The Independent stated that in some versions of the story, Karen was underage, though this is untrue. Karen’s name appears in the liner notes on early Steely Dan records. They also wrote that a year after Karen’s death, her mother attempted to sue Walter; Walter threatened to counter sue, and the case disappeared.

One source says that it took Walter six months to recover from the car accident. Rolling Stone states that Walter ended up in a wheelchair, while the rest of the album ‘Gaucho’ was recorded. The stress from the sessions strained his relationship with Donald Fagen, and Walter succumbed to a growing drug habit, being Heroin. In January of 1980, Karen overdosed in the apartment that she have shared with Walter.

Another source states that during Walter’s six month recovery, he collaborated with Donald over the phone. The crash shattered Walter’s right leg. The accident also led to multiple fractures, a lengthy rehabilitation, which was made worse by secondary infections. This source also says that Karen’s family lost the case, though the whole process put everyone through a tortuous proces..

Music musings and such states that Karen overdosed in 1978, and soon after, Walter was hit by a minicab in Manhattan, being forced to use crutches.

With this information alone, the story is confusing and rather incomplete. I could not find a Karen Roberta Stanley that passed away in 1980 on find a grave. This doesn’t mean that her death didn’t happen, it’s just likely that Karen may not have a find a grave page at all.

An article from The Philidelphia Daily News, dated January 20th, 1981, mentioned the accident that injured Walter; but nothing about Karen, or the lawsuit. Many articles from early 1981 were like this, talking about the car accident.

One small blip of the lawsuit was mentioned on January 27th, 1981, in the Detroit Free Press. It stated that Walter was being sued for 17.5 million dollars by Lillian Wyshak, who claimed that Walter introduced Karen Roberta Stanley to dangerous drugs like “heroin, morphine, cocaine, and barbiturates in order to achieve control of the person, mind, and spirit of the woman.”.

In an article from the Corpus Christi Times, the attorney for Lillian Wyshak stated that the medical examiner’s office indicated that Karen had died from “acute mixed drug intoxication”.

An article from the Daily Record states that Karen’s age was not available. It also stated that Karen’s mother claimed that Walter “induced and pursuaded her daughter to lived with him in an intimate relationship in California and New York.” She stated that Walter introduced and addicted Karen to dangerous drugs.

I saw in one article, and nowhere else, that the suit also claimed that Walter “negligently and maliciously violated the person of Stanley, after assuming responsibility for her care, and getting her a job with Steely Dan; in addition to persuading and encouraging Stanley to take drugs, Becker in other ways assaulted and battered Miss Stanley until the time of her death.”. This was from the Thousand Oaks Star, January 23rd, 1981.

Post 1981, there doesn’t seem to be any more info about the court case, at least, nothing mentioning Lillian Wyshak. Through the rest of the 80’s, the name “Lillian Wyshak” appeared in the news, but only as part of realty adverts. I’m unsure if this was the same person.

There is an article from April 7th, 1988, where a Lillian Wyshak was mentioned. She was a 59 year old attorney and real estate broker.

An obituary from April 15th, 1993, shoes that a Lillian Wyshak, formerly of Los Angeles, passed away. A record on family search shows that this Lillian was born on December 15th, 1927 in Boston, Massachusetts, and passed away in April of 1993.

Another record on family search shows that Karen Roberta Stanley died in January of 1980. She was born on September 4th, 1948, in Hollywood, California. Her parents were listed as Edwin Stanley, and Mary L Worthing.

I’m unsure of whatever happened to Karen’s family. There are still many missing pieces to the puzzle. Despite my best efforts, I could not find any obituary or burial details for Karen. I’ve never seen any pictures of her face.

There’s a divorce record, from February 1977, where she divorced a man named Stephen M. Poe. Beyond that, I have no other information on her, as it just could not be found. I’m sure that there’s a 1950 census record out there somewhere, with Karen on it.

It’s strange to me that there was the rumor that Karen was underage. I think that stems from the one article that was written, and hinted that she was. Ironically, she was older than Walter, who was born in 1950.

[lunarxdaydream]

♡ Ven asking Lucia

( send me a ♡ for my muse asking yours to be their valentine )

Sloppy work is all one could describe the scene. Inexperienced hand wielding a weapon that by any rational should have been discarded. Unless ... there is chance that the fingerprints would result in an entirely different identity to whatever the database might possess -- if they were even on there.

There is an endless list of witnesses to interview. Names crossed off one by one from a chart tucked away in her files but there is only so much she can do without breaking protocol. The only updates came discreetly from Rosalina and yet even that did not feel sufficient enough. What if they were out there somewhere, waiting for another chance?

"You shouldn't be moving around so much."

With each passing day it appeared he was recovering well -- or well as one can after that sort of attack.

How many times has the memory haunted her now? Her mind unable to help but wander off, pacing her office whereas most simply shrugged it off as a work habit. She would have been lying if Lucia didn't admit to considering the option of taking on extra cases to forget everything. The sweet relief of guilt momentarily staved off but the silence was a punishment in itself.

Glass is set beside the bottles of medication prescribed from the staff. Probably to reduce the pain and prevent infection.

Bitterness returned with its icy grip. An apology burning against the back of her throat but what good would it do? The damage was done, his blood spilled and --

"Let me grab you some food.", she manages before turning to explore the kitchen. Frankly anything to stop the suffocating despair from clawing its way back up. She was barely two steps away when he spoke. A brow raised in confusion to look back, unsure whether her mind had played a trick on her amid racing thoughts.

Silence hangs as violet gaze met his. Where mischief glimmered is now ... something she cannot comprehend. On any other day, the lack of it might have been a relief or at least it should have. Instead her heart stills itself. Warmth and dread twisting -- fear cutting off the words she wanted to ask.

Did she mishear him? Did he even know what he was asking? Is this some new way to humiliate her? A new game to get his kicks and laugh if she actually admitted that --

It was like walking on a tightrope. Even now as she cleared her throat, Lucia could feel her nerves on the verge of fraying. Maybe it was better not to ask. Better not to know. He ... he was probably just joking around to liven up the situation ...

"... can you ..." But she wanted to know. Needed it like a breath of air to tired lungs. "Can you ... repeat it?"

|| @arcxnumvitae ||

[snake-eyes-11]

۞

send me a "۞" and I'll introduce you to one of my other muses || accepting || @vyrulent

Jesse Faden: Control: Discord Exclusive

Jesse flicked through the files in the cabinet, reading over each date until she found it: 2002. Scooping it up, she slammed it down on a nearby desk and began running her index finger along the allocated number system until she landed on 24.

Ordinary, Maine. AWE-24. August 30 - September 14, 2002

It didn't take her long to skim over the words, for the file was much smaller than she'd hoped, giving reference to other documents and folders stashed away within the Bureau Archive System.

"Dammit..." she whispered, shoving the file to one side and heaving a sigh. "...why is everything so...complicated here? I guess a few departments had to be working on this case, but...why are there so many files? It's so...disjointed."

Before she could muse any further, a blaze of red light distracted her and she looked up to witness five Hiss Infected Rangers now standing outside the glass windows in the hallway of the Archive Room, guns at the ready.

"Crap," She drew the Service Weapon from its holster and began edging out of the room. "No rest for the wicked, Jesse."

[mostlydeadallday]

Lost Kin | Chapter IX | One More Disappointment

Fandom: Hollow Knight Rating: Mature Characters: Hornet, Pure Vessel/Hollow Knight Category: Gen Content Warnings: flashbacks, referenced torture, amputation, body horror, dehumanization, mild self-harm AO3: Lost Kin Chapter IX | One More Disappointment First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter Notes: Hornet cleans the knight up and plans her next move. Hollow panics when their sister asks the impossible. This update was originally supposed to only be the bit from Hornet's POV, but I felt bad about posting something so short, plus I couldn't resist the opportunity to finally upload a landmark moment for Hollow. They speak! But only when ordered to! (It's a start.)

○

It took Hornet the span of the entire afternoon to restore the knight to cleanliness, starting with the dried void that proved surprisingly difficult to scrub from their shell, then moving carefully on to the mess of tacky orange stains near their shoulder. The soap stolen from the long-abandoned cabinets was light pink, floral-scented, provoking odd memories of her suites in the White Palace: the heated tubs filled with water from the city’s hot springs, the files and brushes the servants had used to smooth any chips or catches in her shell, the perfumed oil they had rubbed in afterward, the garlands of silver chains and pale flowers that had been draped over her horns. Feral child that she had been, she had no more belonged in the Pale Court than a dirtcarver, but she had needed to look the part, to fill the role of the king’s daughter, and so she had walked into her first appearance in clothes that fit too tightly and a shell so polished that it no longer seemed like her own.

She hadn’t needed another reason to envy the Pure Vessel, but she had seen their self-possession, their reserve, the way they seemed to inhabit their armor like a second shell, and wanted it, longed for their quiet and their stillness and the way the world seemed to flow like water around them.

Do they remember? she wondered as she wrung out the rag and went back to scrubbing at their shoulder blade. Had the sight of her stirred as many specters of the past in them as they had in her? Or were vessels incapable of memory, besides what was necessary to follow their orders? Did they muse? Did they dream?

She supposed not. But the knight had known her, countless years and uncountable horrors after they had last seen her. No matter the ruin of her kingdom, no matter what rags she was clad in, a knight recognized their princess.

The pieces of armor that still clung to their shoulders had to be pried off, coming away in plates of rust that barely held together. The shell beneath was warped and twisted, growth ridges smashed into ugly shapes by the confinement. She ran a thumb over it, wondering if anything could be done about it, if the plates would re-form at their next molt—if they molted. Perhaps the mangled chest- and shoulder-plates would as well, given enough time.

They raised their head when instructed to, allowing her to unwind the shabby cloak from their neck. Besides that, they lay as still as the dead, even when she lifted their hand from the rug to scrub the last of her blood from their claws. The experience was more like preparing a corpse for funeral rites than tending to an injury, and Hornet found herself wishing for something to break the silence. Despite her usual solitary tendencies, the knight’s silence had an unsettling quality, like a body laid out on a bier—any moment, you expected them to sit up, to move, to speak, but they did not.

She blinked away a vision of her mother’s body on her bed, resting in state, surrounded by the corpses of the weavers who had been tasked with tending her—they had succumbed to infection, and Hornet had put them out of their misery one by one, until the chamber felt more like a battlefield than a bedroom.

Then she knelt next to the bed, reaching out to take her mother’s cold, lifeless hand, and stayed there in the silence until hunger drove her away.

She had returned only once since. And that was to find the bed empty, the dream-seals hanging slack and dark, her mother’s memory torn away by an unknown hand.

Something had nagged at her, then, something that had only returned to her that moment in Greenpath, when the world turned upside down: the knowledge that something in the kingdom had changed, despite all her efforts to the contrary.

She had not been there when they prepared Herrah for her final sleep. She had not been there when the seals were cast, when the dream descended. She had not been there when her old nestmates and nursemaids went mad, when the Den sank into silence. And she had not been there when the magic fell away, when the last Dreamer was struck down.

What use was she, if she was never there when it mattered?

Hornet shook the buzzing thoughts away. Herrah had been gone for a long time. She had gone to sleep, slipped into the dream, and Hornet had kept on living, the distance between them growing ever more final.

Hallownest needed her more than her mother had.

But the kingdom, too, was falling into slumber—a slumber she knew it would never wake from. Soon her home would be a ruin, a wasteland where only shadows and echoes lived, ghosts dwelling in the shell of a civilization that had long since gone cold.

One desperate creature could not prevent that. One desperate creature could only ease the pain of its passing.

Absently, she helped the knight onto their back, starting over with a clean rag and a new kettle of water, ignoring the burn of exertion in her arms. The work was welcome, if tedious—a bit like sharpening her needle or winding bobbins of silk. She rarely had the chance to restore something, to see it emerge fresh and new from disorder. A fairly large portion of her life consisted of standing by and watching things descend into chaos. She could not rebuild the fallen spires or repair the broken tramways, but she could do this, and for now, it was enough.

At last, exhausted and hungry, she dropped the rag and sat back on her heels, staring down at the once-filthy shell that had become her whole world for a few hours. It shone damply, smooth and clean, returned to the glossy black that she remembered. But now nail-scars cut across the knight’s chest in shades of cloudy gray, and the infection almost seemed brighter, harsher, in contrast.

Hornet’s gaze flicked to their face, only to find their eyes shut, the milky overlay of their outer eyelids concealing the void beneath. She hadn’t marked a change in them, but she saw it now, the subtle difference between their stillnesses. They had fallen asleep while she worked, lulled perhaps by the warm water or the repetitive motion, and she moved carefully when she stood, loathe to wake them.

The incident this morning had derailed her plans somewhat, and she turned the thought over while she chewed on some jerky fetched from the makeshift pantry. She still needed to know what had happened at the temple, if they were able to tell her, but her urgency had dimmed; whatever catastrophe had occurred, the mansion didn’t seem in danger of falling down around her horns. And her ability to care for them would improve with communication, not to mention that she would feel more comfortable if she knew they could understand her orders.

She returned to the doorway, caught between a question and an answer, not even sure where her indecision had come from. Two days ago she would not have hesitated; they were a vessel, after all, and it was her birthright to command them.

That claim suddenly seemed shakier, faced with the gravity of the command she was about to give them. They had followed her orders so far without fail, but what she was about to ask went against their very nature.

The Pure Vessel did not speak.

The time she had spent in their presence before the Sealing had been minimal, but she had noted it even then. Aside from a soft chink of their armor or a stray snap of their cloak in the breeze, they were so quiet that she occasionally forgot they were there—not an easy thing for her to do, and unnerving when it happened. She had thought herself slipping, lulled into complacency by the influence of the White Palace.

She had been told that vessels were voiceless. But were they voiceless from birth? Were they born able to speak and then ordered not to? It seemed like something her father might do: why bother changing their anatomy when a simple command would suffice?

Before yesterday, she hadn’t even been sure that they possessed a throat or lungs or any of the normal anatomy for breathing and speech. But she had heard them inhale, exhale, struggle for air, heard their breath flutter like a broken wing, and she knew now that they were like her, at least in that regard.

Beyond that, she could only guess.

Perhaps they would be able to tell her.

After they woke. She hadn’t the heart to ask now, when they looked so peaceful, when they had endured her attentions so patiently, when their shoulders had finally relaxed onto the moldering carpet. Even a vessel required rest, it seemed.

She would wait.

They would need whatever strength they could gather.

○ 

It had not meant to fall asleep.

This thought sparked reflexively as it woke, as if the speed of the penance could atone for the crime. And for a moment, when its eyes flared open, it thought the punishment would be finding itself alone once more. But its sister had not left; she had merely settled near the fireplace, the folds of her cloak tented over her knees, her horns resting against the slate as she watched over it.

How long had she been waiting? And why? If she had need of it, all she had to do was issue a command. She did not need to sit and wait for it to rouse. She need only tell it to wake.

And she had not needed to kneel on the floor like a servant, dirtying her hands with the filth and void on its shell, but she had done it anyway. It had seemed unlikely, fanciful, even as it happened: the princess of Hallownest, elbow-deep in soapsuds, tearing her cloak to shreds to clean the wounds of a dishonored knight.

It was not its place to question her. Its place was to obey.

“I know it’s comfortable, but the floor’s mine.”

Even if she did make no sense sometimes.

She reached forward, rising to her knees, to put her hand under its shoulder. “Up with you. Back into bed.”

Her assistance was barely noticeable, the thin thread of her strength vanishing in the tangled knot of effort it required to move from the floor to the mattresses. Yet it had to resist the unseemly urge to lean into her, had to push back the longing for her to lay her hand on its cheek again the way she had the night before.

It did not know why it wanted this. Only that it was forbidden.

This was another weakness. It must be. A Pure Vessel would not want to be touched. A Pure Vessel would not want anything.

It crawled, slowly, back onto the mattresses, moving with its sister’s efforts as best it could. The fluid in its shoulder shifted as it sat up, sparking starbursts of pain across its vision like swarms of charged lumaflies. It could not help a shaky sigh as it sank its weight into the linens, and its sister’s fingers tapped lightly where she held its good arm, a reflexive attempt at comfort that it should not need.

She climbed over the bed and rearranged the cushions, pushing them into place along its spine to keep the infected shoulder from touching the mattress. As it relaxed, the throbbing eased, ebbing back to low tide, waves of pain lapping steadily at its consciousness.

The room was quiet while it caught its breath, but it could nearly hear its sister thinking, her jaw working under her mask, one fang catching the low light with a pale glint like a pearl.

She did not look away this time as it stared at her, and it nearly flinched, driven toward weakness by the gleam of purpose in her eye.

It had so little left: no nail, no honor, no purity, not even both hands. What could she possibly want that it could grant her? What use could she find for a shattered bowl or a broken window? Even at its strongest, it had never been enough, and now it was little more than a whisper of what it had once been.

She didn’t know, yet. She hadn’t guessed. Somehow it had fooled her, the way it fooled its father, fooled an entire kingdom, and the roiling shame of that lie was outstripped only by the fear of what would happen once she learned the truth.

It had pretended as long as it could. She would see, soon, what it was really made of.

She sat straight now, cool and intense as soul-fire, more intimidating than a creature of her size should be capable of. “Hollow Knight,” she said, and it nearly flinched again at her use of a title that no longer belonged to it. “I revoke all prior commands you have been given regarding this matter. If you are able to speak, speak to me.”

What?

What?

The bed beneath it suddenly seemed very cold. It lay there, capable of nothing more than shocked stillness, and stared back at her, even the ever-present pain fading to a dull murmur beneath the building roar in its head.

Speak?

Was this a trap? Was this some kind of trick, some test of loyalty? After everything it had done, everything it had failed to do, every oath broken, every expectation fallen short of—after all of that, this was what she asked?

It had been ordered not to think. Not to hope. Not to break.

It had failed.

But this, at least, was one promise kept, one order obeyed. One thing it could hold to. One single scrap of purity.

It did not speak.

It could not speak.

Of that much, it was certain. It had never had a voice, never shaped a sound, never held a word or song or whisper in its throat. It had never moaned or cried or screamed, not with the burning weight of magic in its body, not with the slow poison sizzling through its veins, not even with the final tearing horror of plates cracking void hissing skin splitting gone, its arm was gone, gone, gone—

The dizzy flashes of terror and memory tangled, twisting in its vision, and it clenched its hands—hand—at its side, palm slippery with void once more. That—that was over. That was done, finished, and this was now, and its sister was asking the impossible.

She was still watching, mask tilted forward expectantly, unaware of the clamor ringing through its head, and it almost wished it could speak, if only so it did not disappoint her. It could wish that—it had no way to act upon it, no means to fulfill the temptation, and the desire was only one more rebellious thought among thousands. But after all its worry, all its dread, what she wanted from it was something it had truly never been capable of.

Yet in obeying the long-ago orders from the king, it was defying what she asked of it now, disappointing her by being what Father had always wanted—a voiceless knight, a hollow vessel, a perfect child.

It could not answer.

And yet, for her, it tried.

For other beings, sound came effortlessly, air given tune and timbre by some trick of anatomy, some mysterious magic it had never learned the shape of. It drew breath and then exhaled, pushing at the confines of its throat, at the limits of its form, searching for some way to give her what she wanted.

What emerged was a rough-edged sigh, hoarse and meaningless, trailing off into a sickly rattle as the effort scraped past the infection in its chest.

Its sister looked surprised, head held straight and still, fingers clenched, her whole body quelled to quietness in case she might startle it. She was waiting, it seemed, for more, for something else, for a miracle it could not grant her.

It had nothing more to give.

Its silence had never seemed more achingly futile. Now, when everything else had left it, when it had given up on all it had been, when it had failed at what it was created to do. What did it matter if it spoke now, or cried, or pled, or sang? But this had not changed: it had no voice.

It had never needed one.

What would it say to her now, given the chance?

I’m sorry I was never what you thought I was.

I’m sorry that I failed you.

I’m sorry for everything.

But wishing didn’t change what Father had made it.

And Father had made it to be silent.

She gave up listening, finally, sitting back, glancing out the window at the eternal rain. “I suppose that’s a no, then.”

A gentle mockery threaded her tone—not for it, but for herself. Not suited for a princess, perhaps, but fitting for the creature she had grown into: the lone warrior, the watchful sentinel. She would have been wasted in the Pale Court, among the woven plans and tangled schemes of the nobles, sharp-toothed traps camouflaged by ritual and courtesy. It was in the sunset of this kingdom that she truly shone, an evening star in the dimming sky, defying the darkness as the light slowly sank away.

A new pain burned in its barren throat, not like the other sensations it had names for, not like dread or shame or fear. It was hot and tense and heavy, but with a strange lucent sweetness that cut like a scalpel.

It should not be thinking of this. It should be trying not to think at all.

It had been better than this, once. Perhaps its body was not the only thing that had broken under the strain. Every instant of suppression was a fight now, every moment of stillness hard-won. Something vital had collapsed, some keystone of its control had crumbled, and it had lost the absence that once defined it.

It could no longer trust itself. Perhaps… it had lost its mind.

It should not have had a mind to lose.

“Very well.” Its sister spoke suddenly, and this time it did jump, but she was still looking out the window, frowning at the rain, until her shoulders straightened and she rounded on it again with a new spark in her eye. “Give me your hand.”

It obeyed almost instantly, but the gods-damned thoughts were faster, curiosity and confusion arcing through its mind like lightning. It pushed them back, focusing only on her, on the warmth of her shell, her light touch under its palm, her little curved claws a third the size of its own.

She adjusted its fingers into a cupped shape, palm turned up toward its face. With her free hand, she copied the gesture, then lifted them both, their hands rising in unison as she guided its arm upward.

“This is ‘yes,’” she said, repeating the motion once more, then removing her hand and nodding at it. “Your turn.”

It froze, fingers hanging motionless.

This is ‘yes.’

She stared expectantly, waiting for it to repeat the sign, for that simple motion that was not simple at all. It knew what she wanted. Knew it could do it.

And yet it couldn’t.

Do not speak.

She had not ordered it. She had not commanded it to obedience. Not yet. It could still shy away, retreat into the comforting constrictions of its training, wait for an explicit command that would mean it had no choice any longer.

Hadn’t it just been longing for release? For a way to make her happy? For a way to break its own silence?

This was different than wishing for something it knew it couldn’t have. This—this was disobedience.

It had already broken its oaths. It was already a traitor.

But abandoning its nail had been a single, reckless act, a slip of rationality, an instant of feverish weakness. This simple sign—this one gesture, this few inches of motion—was a doorway, a threshold, crossing into a place it knew it should not enter.

And it did not feel reckless now, or feverish, or irrational. It could not blame this on its shade. It could not pretend this was anything but open rebellion.

It was a failure. It was nothing like what it had been created to be. It had lost the Radiance, thrown away its oaths and its title, given itself over to impurity.

Father would have no more use for it.

What was one more disappointment?

This is ‘yes.’

Slowly, shakily, it moved. Its hand rose, cupping the chilly air. The end of all its silences, the beginning of everything it would ever say. Its fingers shook so badly that anything else they held would have spilled over, but they could hold a word. An answer.

Yes.

An intake of breath at its side made it stop, but its sister showed no sign of disapproval, either at its use of the sign or at the sloppiness of it. When she spoke, her voice held excitement carefully in thrall. “Good.” She raised her own hand again and reversed the sign, moving it downward toward her waist. “This is ‘no.’”

She did not prompt it this time, and that made it harder, even knowing the expectation was there. Void swirled deep inside it, the act of responding unasked pushing shame like acid through its gut.

She had revoked its former orders. It had given itself over to her, forsaking its prior purpose, knowing it had nothing else left to it. And still, its hand quavered as it followed her lead, damnation screaming in its head like the voice of the Radiance herself.

The tumult could not, however, drown out its sister’s praise—not completely. “Very good.” She looked pleased with herself, fingers clasped tight on her knees, body pitched forward as if to launch into flight. The bitter scorch of shame and the sweet high of her approval were a nauseating combination, and it might have been sick had it eaten anything in recent memory.

Wouldn’t that have confused her. And put her effort to waste, after she spent all afternoon cleaning it up. It could only be glad she had not thought of feeding it.