#✦ › DYN : THE WIZARD

[westfae]

TAG DROP : characters

[astrophysician]

I'm Skye, and my commissions are open!

Pricing Original fullbody character design sketch - $100 Add prop - $20 ($15 Sonic) Turnaround - +50%

Extra info (transcribed) - While these prices are designed for character designs, I will accept ref sheets and am open to negotiate for other types of work. - As shown in the above images, I am open to drawing furries, other anthropomorphic designs, and some kinds of robots. My background is in D&D and Sonic characters, so take that as you will. - Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Disclaimers, image links, and character names under the cut

Will take payment via PayPal invoice or Ko-Fi

ADDITION i'm now also offering character portraits on my ko-fi :)

Stelmaria, tabaxi barbarian

Dyn, belonging to @iwhoneverbelievedinwar

Zephyr Vaeli, air genasi paladin an Storm sorcerer - staff is based on another work

Ceti, belonging to @lexo-dog

Sciva Rendarr, fire genasi Samurai fighter - mask is based on another work that is not my own

Quart the Brash, earth genasi, Founder of Petra (no link, sorry)

Ether

Nala, dragonborn/elf barbarian

Ayla, gloomfey Bladesinger wizard

Starr the Maned Wolf, belonging to @silvers-starrway; Tails, Trace the Wolf, and Trick the Wolf; Metal Jayd/Trace; Sunbeam, belonging to @pastelspindash; Tails again

[ceescedasticity]

Unforsaken, 12e

(All sections on tumblr)

(AO3, lagging behind but more polished)

Major takeaways from this round of practice:

Yes, it's even more impressive in stone.

And even louder when not in a hole in the ground.

The ear protection they've come up with is probably good enough, at least for everyone besides the swan-twins.

Legolas somehow ends up trying to explain the history of explosives to the swan-twins. He has no idea what he's talking about.

A stick of Wizard's Clay will not explode if you drop it from thirty feet up. They aren't supposed to, but it was still nerve-wracking.

Nobody likes being under a rain of little rock fragments but there isn't really anything to be done about that.

They might want to leave the oxen farther away next time.

Estimated sticks of Wizard's Clay left behind to threaten the peace of Middle-earth (counting the 25 left in Emyn Arnen): 5495

Following Alphlîn and Alphsîr's continuing success in practice, Glorfindel is ready to sketch out a very rough battle strategy (which hopefully won't be needed since they still aren't 100% certain there's a Warden).

Alphlîn and Alphsîr will be attacking from the air, with power. (If they get grounded, they should change shape and run out of the way rather than try to take off where they are.)

Glorfindel, with Asfaloth, will be fighting with sword and power.

Maglor and Celeborn will also be ahorse. Maglor will be Singing and using the battle-harp. Celeborn has a bow of Lórien and a sword from Eregion.

Turgon and Celegorm will be on foot. (It would be possible to convince horses to bear them, probably, but the horses would be nervous and distracted and they aren't used to it anymore.) (Celegorm kind of wishes he had a warg for this.) Their weapons are dwarf-forged steel, and their own wills.

Whiterot has a crossbow and doesn't plan to get close. Sharlinnu isn't sure how well she'll be able to fight with the noise-generating Warden right there. She wants to, but she also doesn't want to get in the way — more discussion needed there.

That leaves the children Third-Age-born contingent, and here there is some disagreement.

Zuste, Zena, and Dyn readily agree that they are not up for demigod-fighting, either in capability or interest.

Khitwê and Risyind make it clear they are ready and willing to fight! Khitwê in particular would be happy to avenge his family's suffering on the Warden. (Risyind doesn't think it would make her feel any better than the Warden going down without her direct involvement.) But this isn't the kind of fight they're trained for, and even in areas they are trained for they are perfectly adequate, not outstanding. If Glorfindel says it's better for them to hang back they won't argue.

Legolas and Gimli — you don't want to make Legolas and Gimli think you're slighting their abilities, but they're not going to insist on pushing into a fight above their pay grade. They won't argue that this (hypothetical) fight isn't above their pay grade.

…So really the only disagreement is about Elladan and Elrohir.

This fight is above their pay grade, yes, but it's above all of their pay grades. It might have been within Glorfindel's right after he was sent back to Middle-earth, or Maglor's at the height of his power and skill before being ground down by time and grief for over six thousand years, and Turgon or Celegorm's before being ground down by being orcs for over six thousand years. It's not now.

Celeborn has over two Ages of experience more than his grandsons, and they have over two Ages of exhaustion less than him.

The best Glorfindel can extract from them is an agreement to hang back and stick to bows as much as possible.

******

Maglor finally gets up the nerve to approach Celegorm the day before they are expecting to arrive at the site of the Crucible.

"I know what I need to tell you," Celegorm says, before Maglor can ask. "It's just… Just don't interrupt, all right?"

What being an orc is, according to Celegorm:

Being bound by fetters on your soul.

Everything in you is warped to some purpose outside you.

Certainty that you are damned and there is nothing you can do about it.

Certainty that you can do as you're meant to willingly or you will be forced, and it will hurt.

Telling yourself it doesn't matter. Just do what you want — anything that brings a moment of relief —because nothing matters.

Hating yourself for everything you've done and every mistake you made to get into this situation.

Hating your fellow condemned for everything they do that's the same as you and everything they do differently.

Hating everyone not condemned for not being condemned.

Hating and hating and hating because it's warmer than despair alone.

It's all the worst days of living bound by the Oath of Fëanor, back to back, forever.

"I've said before it wasn't as different as it should have been," Celegorm concludes at last. "And that's true. But what I don't like to say is sometimes it wasn't different at all. Well, except elven hröar aren't as miserable, so being an orc is more physically painful unless something's gone really wrong, but— I know this has been easier on me because I've lived this already. At least this time I didn't do it to myself."

Maglor has to take some time to think about this.

It's coming together for him, though. He knows — he thinks he knows what he needs to say, now.

******

On a lighter note, Maglor has an idea about trying to get a better idea of Sharlinnu's noise — what if the orcs do some singing?

—This takes a while to explain as people are varying levels of informed about orcs' tone-deafness and well-established tradition of singing anyway. (Also the Hirnedhrim and the swan-twins have never heard of tone-deafness before.)

The orcs, meanwhile, are trying to pick a song.

Whiterot: "And then there were none", maybe?

[A ‘and then there were none’ backwards-counting song of elf-princes, some verses inspired by real events]

Celegorm: And then there was one!

Turgon: Two. And no, I don't think so.

Celegorm: I wish I was back in Goblin-town?

Turgon: If we must—

Sharlinnu: What about the Prince of Cats song?

[A prince of cats got his ass kicked by a girl and a dog, definitely not inspired by real events, honest, but also definitely not to be sung in Mordor]

Turgon: Definitely that one.

(Other noteworthy subjects of orc songs:

Fear Us We are doing a task [which isn’t very interesting and this at least livens it up] We are going to kill you and destroy everything you love and have fun doing it We’ve been marching a long time and it’s annoying The Sun is a bitch I Fear Nothing Except The Sea Which Is Fucking Terrifying My warg is the best warg, she’s eaten lots of babies Behold my gruesome trophies My body is the most fucked up and uncomfortable but I make it work There’s Something In These Caves (It’s A Dragon And Planning To Eat Us) These Orders Indicate Our Senior Leadership Has Shit For Brains Today Is A Terrible Day To Die But I Guess That’s What We’re Doing )

The orcs end up singing most of the day.

It does not sound very good, but it's nice to see them enthusiastic.

[shrimplie]

Enjoy a drawing of my first proper D&D party! From left to right we have Michael the Wizard, Amber the Fighter/Sorcerer, Dyn the Rogue (thats me) and Zander the Paladin. I made this for when the "campaign" kind of officially ended (aka we all got busy and weren't super pumped with the current story and decided to leave it mutually) Also we never could come up with a real party name but I once, while brainstorming, came up with DICC (Dumbasses in Constant Chaos) and once we ended the campaign it became their party name.

[govindhtech]

Accessible: Azure Elastic SAN simply moves SAN to the cloud

What is Azure Elastic SAN? Azure is pleased to announce the general availability (GA) of Azure Elastic SAN, the first fully managed and cloud-native storage area network (SAN) that simplifies cloud SAN deployment, scaling, management, and configuration. Azure Elastic SAN streamlines the migration of large SAN environments to the cloud, improving efficiency and ease.

A SAN-like resource hierarchy, appliance-level provisioning, and dynamic resource distribution to meet the needs of diverse workloads across databases, VDIs, and business applications distinguish this enterprise-class offering. It also offers scale-on-demand, policy-based service management, cloud-native encryption, and network access security. This clever solution combines cloud storage’s flexibility with on-premises SAN systems’ scale.

Since announcing Elastic SAN’s preview, they have added many features to make it enterprise-class:

Multi-session connectivity boosts Elastic SAN performance to 80,000 IOPS and 1,280 MBps per volume, even higher on the entire SAN. SQL Failover Cluster Instances can be easily migrated to Elastic SAN volumes with shared volume support. Server-side encryption with Customer-managed Keys and private endpoint support lets you restrict data consumption and volume access. Snapshot support lets you run critical workloads safely. Elastic SAN GA will add features and expand to more regions:

Use Azure Monitor Metrics to analyze performance and capacity. Azure Policy prevents misconfiguration incidents. This release also makes snapshot export public by eliminating the sign-up process.

When to use Azure Elastic SAN Elastic SAN uses iSCSI to increase storage throughput over compute network bandwidth for throughput and IOPS-intensive workloads. Optimization of SQL Server workloads is possible. SQL Server deployments on Azure VMs sometimes require overprovisioning to reach disk throughput targets.

“Azure SQL Server data warehouse workloads needed a solution to eliminating VM and managed data disk IO bottlenecks. The Azure Elastic SAN solution removes the VM bandwidth bottleneck and boosts IO throughput. They reduced VM size and implemented constrained cores to save money on SQL server core licensing thanks to Elastic SAN performance.”

Moving your on-premises SAN to the Cloud Elastic SAN uses a resource hierarchy similar to on-premises SANs and allows provisioning of input/output operations per second (IOPS) and throughput at the resource level, dynamically sharing performance across workloads, and workload-level security policy management. This makes migrating from on-premises SANs to the cloud easier than right-sizing hundreds or thousands of disks to serve your SAN’s many workloads.

The Azure-Sponsored migration tool by Cirrus Data Solutions in the Azure Marketplace simplifies data migration planning and execution. The cost optimization wizard in Cirrus Migrate Cloud makes migrating and saving even easier:

Azure is excited about Azure Elastic SAN’s launch and sees a real opportunity for companies to lower storage TCO. Over the last 18 months, they have worked with Azure to improve Cirrus Migrate Cloud so enterprises can move live workloads to Azure Elastic SAN with a click. Offering Cirrus Migrate Cloud to accelerate Elastic SAN adoption, analyze the enterprise’s storage performance, and accurately recommend the best Azure storage is an exciting expansion of their partnership with Microsoft and extends their vision of real-time block data mobility to Azure and Elastic SAN.

Cirrus Data Solutions Chairman and CEO Wayne Lam said that we work with Cirrus Data Solutions to ensure their recommendations cover all Azure Block Storage offerings (Disks and Elastic SAN) and your storage needs. The wizard will recommend Ultra Disk, which has the lowest sub-ms latency on Azure, for single queue depth workloads like OLTP.

Consolidate storage and achieve cost efficiency at scale Elastic SAN lets you dynamically share provisioned performance across volumes for high performance at scale. A shared performance pool can handle IO spikes, so you don’t have to overprovision for workload peak traffic. You can right-size to meet your storage needs with Elastic SAN because capacity scales independently of performance. If your workload’s performance requirements are met but you need more storage capacity, you can buy that (at 25% less cost) than more performance.

Get the lowest Azure VMware Solution GiB storage cost this recently announced preview integration lets you expose an Elastic SAN volume as an external datastore to your Azure VMware Solution (AVS) cluster to increase storage capacity without adding vSAN storage nodes. Elastic SAN provides 1 TiB of storage for 6 to 8 cents per GiB per month1, the lowest AVS storage cost per GiB. Its native Azure Storage experience lets you deploy and connect an Elastic SAN datastore through the Azure Portal in minutes as a first-party service.

Azure Container Storage, the first platform-managed container-native storage service in the public cloud, offers highly scalable, cost-effective persistent volumes built natively for containers. Use fast attach and detach. Elastic SAN can back up Azure Container Storage and take advantage of iSCSI’s fast attach and detach. Elastic SAN’s dynamic resource sharing lowers storage costs, and since your data persists on volumes, you can spin down your cluster for more savings. Containerized applications running general-purpose database workloads, streaming and messaging services, or CI/CD environments benefit from its storage.

Price and performance of Azure Elastic SAN Most throughput and IOPS-intensive workloads, like databases, suit elastic SAN. To support more demanding use cases, Azure raised several performance limits:

Azure saw great results with SQL Servers during their Preview. SQL Server deployments on Azure VMs sometimes require overprovisioning to reach disk throughput targets. Since Elastic SAN uses iSCSI to increase storage throughput over compute network bandwidth, this is avoided.

With dynamic performance sharing, you can cut your monthly bill significantly. Another customer wrote data to multiple databases during the preview. If you provision for the maximum IOPS per database, these databases require 100,000 IOPS for peak performance, as shown in the simplified graphic below. In real life, some database instances spike during business hours for inquiries and others off business hours for reporting. Combining these workloads’ peak IOPS was only 50,000.

Elastic SAN lets its volumes share the total performance provisioned at the SAN level, so you can account for the combined maximum performance required by your workloads rather than the sum of the individual requirements, which often means you can provision (and pay for) less performance. In the example, you would provision 50% fewer IOPS at 50,000 IOPS than if you served individual workloads, reducing costs.

Start Elastic SAN today Follow Azure start-up instructions or consult their documentation to deploy an Elastic SAN. Azure Elastic SAN pricing has not changed for general availability. Their pricing page has the latest prices.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[coreius]

Tag drop 2.

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

i just think P03 and the lonely wizard from inscryption should smooch actually

[consolationem-moved]

𝐂𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋, 𝐁𝐔𝐓 𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐄𝐃𝐀 𝐒𝐔𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐒 𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐄. her sister had long been estranged from her, why should safety be a priority to her now? should andromeda fear for her life or should she give in? she was never one to suddenly fall at her sister’s feet. she had seen her grow to be an esteemed woman, yet, with age comes bitterness. although not necessarily bitter, andromeda has more contempt, for she realized that her marriage made her family disconnect — they would have never seen her become a mother. now, she is ALONE. it was a curse, wasn’t it? for openly defying her family, for loving one like her husband, for having a child with him — A PRODUCT OF THEIR LOVE. 

❛    i’m afraid you must. the damage has been done. your lord and his allies have murdered them— THEY TOOK THEM AWAY FROM ME. our own sister killed her niece! YOUR NIECE! how dare you show up to my home — caring for me all of a sudden? i won’t let you. i’ve managed fine on my own before.    ❜   

narcissa malfoy sent in      :      ❛      i’m not leaving you here.     ❜

[asinusxasinorumxhortus]

@xmagicalmusesx liked the thing!

Green eyes scanned the Great Hall, casually scrutinizing every face they landed on. While he probably couldn’t recite most of their names, he could perfectly identify what each and every one of them meant to him. Some were pawns. Trusted puppets. Others were subtly classified by how much of a threat they could be. Several of them were even listed in his twisted mind as potential victims. To the untrained and blissfully ignorant eye, the curly-haired boy was simply people-watching over an early breakfast, but Tom Riddle never did anything idly. Even as he magically and seemingly absently stirred a lump of sugar into his mug of otherwise black coffee, there was a slow, deliberate, elegant movement to it. His mind was continuously working, taking in information and using it to plan potential next moves.

His machinations were interrupted, however, by the arrival of Lilith Luma Graves. What a bright young witch she was, and incredibly loyal, to boot! She’d recently become his favorite puppet, having witnessed one of his more...unsavory moments. Most girls would have run away screaming from the sight of their so-called ‘friend’ writing a warning on a wall in someone else’s blood. She had stayed. Promised not to expose him. He could always practically smell the fear radiating off of her, now, when they were together. It was intoxicating. Perhaps she had some delusion of being able to save him from his own darkness. If that was indeed the case, then he would surely take even grander pleasure in corrupting her.

He smiled pleasantly at her when he saw her enter the Great Hall, and briefly beckoned her over to his table, which was somewhat scarcely populated at such an early hour. “Good morning, Lilith,” was his ever-so-charming greeting. “I must admit, I didn’t take you for a fellow early riser, but I see I am mistaken. Did you sleep well?”

[fromsolaria-archived]

random tags i forgot about

[ceescedasticity]

Unforsaken, 12d

(All sections on tumblr)

(AO3, lagging behind but more polished)

The next day Glorfindel has Alphlîn and Alphsîr practicing launching attacks from the air at a (slowly) moving target, specifically a bundle of a grass tied to a (very) long rope tied to the back of the rearmost wagon. They have to replace the target after each successful hit.

After a few hours when they've gotten pretty good at it, Glorfindel tasks them with working on precision — hit the target, and not him and Asfaloth, who will be riding along. He starts out a couple wagon-lengths away, but wants to see how close he can get to the target before he has to start dodging or blocking.

Celeborn has pulled himself together enough to sit in the rearmost wagon and try to provide moral support/encouraging commentary.

Up at the front of the caravan, Maglor falls in beside Whiterot's wagon.

"I've been thinking about what I should say," Whiterot says. "It's hard, because I was in Angband for years before my first death. And that was— I'm sure there are many former thralls who would say being an orc is worse. Being an orc is wretched. But for me, being an elf in Angband was worse."

…Huh. "Do you… want to talk about that, then?"

"Absolutely not."

They ride in silence for a time.

(Or not talking to each other, at least. Elvish hearing being what it is, Maglor can clearly hear Zuste and Dyn in the next wagon worrying about whether the magic crates would protect the Wizard's Clay if the swan-twins miss really badly. Also Elladan having a one-sided conversation with some of the relief oxen who are trying to wander astray, and Risyind explaining something about causeways, and even Turgon offering Glorfindel unsolicited and unneeded dodging advice.)

Whiterot finally asks, "Did Bellow and Screech talk to you about multiplication duties?"

"Turgon did some," Maglor says carefully. "Sharlinnu talked about — childhood, for lack of a better word, but not… how that came about."

"The obvious subject, then, I suppose."

(An incomplete description of 'the obvious subject':

No one likes multiplication duties. It makes you aware of your body and it makes you vulnerable and you have to take your clothes off and the itch is annoying and no one likes it at all.

But it's harder on the ones who have to do the bearing.

It would kill an elf, to bear nine children in five years. Even in Angband with the Dark Lord's will keeping slaves from death, there just wouldn't be anything left. Orcs aren't precisely bearing children, it doesn't drain their already-battered fëar or break their hearts, but it is still physically grueling. It's painful and exhausting and the amount of food you have to get through every day is absurd.

The suckling period is at least brief, only about a month. But it's deeply uncomfortable, and worse—

Most of the time, your heart is too dead to bond with the thing while it's suckling — but the miserable hröa may still try.

And everyone says it's just five years at most after you mature and by the time you're fifteen your job is killing, and you can forget about it, or convince yourself it wasn't so bad. But if you survive long enough — live past a defeat, live through the Shadow ebbing for a while, live until the Shadow seeps into you again and calls you back — you will be called back to multiply for another few years.

("I am never going to fully understand how Straw and Squint could stand to have Mist and Rain. Both of them had appalling childhoods in their first lives, which I think explains how they could think it was an acceptable situation to bring a child into, but I don't understand how they accepted the — vulnerability of it. No amount of walls in the head could make it seem safe.")

It never ends.)

"Nothing about being an orc ever ends," Whiterot says. "Thralldom didn't end either, for me, but— Being an orc, you have to walk the same terrible road over and over and over again. You're born, you grow, you remember you're a person just in time to fully appreciate it as your body is turned against you. Multiplication duties, and then death, death, torment, death, death, until finally it's your death but you're just right back in the Crucible. Over and over and over."

(Maglor carefully does not ask what she went through in Angband, that the totality of being an orc still is not worse.)

*****

They arrive at the Large Explodable Rock.

—It might also be described as a small steep hill with little plant life, but really, it's a cracked boulder the size of a house. The black stone is incongruous among the grasses and flowers.

Maglor says he doesn't like the look of it.

Gimli says regardless of how it looks he's puzzled how it got here. He's never personally done any excavating in the Grey Mountains but he doesn't think the stone there looks like this, and anyway they're leagues away now! There aren't any similar landforms in sight…

They check the rock over. Glorfindel, Celeborn, and Elladan and Elrohir agree that while it does feel vaguely sinister somehow? it isn't actually dangerous. It's just been sitting here in the middle of nowhere for ages, being a rock.

Maglor grudgingly ventures close enough to poke at it. "Does anyone else think this looks like—" He stops. "Celegorm, does this look like a piece of Thangorodrim to you?"

Turgon rolls his eyes dramatically but doesn't dispute that Maglor and Celegorm saw considerably more of Thangorodrim than people who spent most of the Siege in Gondolin. (Let alone Celeborn.) Although, actually—

"It doesn't look much like the lower slopes," says Whiterot.

—Those who were orcs in the First Age also got a pretty good look at some parts of it. Whiterot is right. It doesn't look much like the lower slopes.

"No, it looks like the cliffs higher up," Celegorm says. "But you're proposing, what, a piece of Thangorodrim just… suddenly appeared here? Fell out of the sky?"

Well, yes.

Very few orcs survived being in the open in the vicinity of the end of the War of Wrath long enough to get a clear idea of what was going on. So, quick catch-up.

Between Ancalagon falling on Thangorodrim and various high-power assaults from both sides, the mountains were breaking apart and shifting around.

Some of the pieces looked like they might be about to shift down onto the attacking Elves, Men, and Dwarves.

Eönwë and the other maiar present helpfully prevented this; some balrogs or other umaiar tried to encourage it. After some push and pull Eönwë evidently decided to remove the hazards from the battlefield by launching them up and away.

And honestly most people on the battlefield promptly forgot about it. There were other things to worry about.

But! They found out later that, at around the same time, at about the latitude of the Grey Mountains but well east of the Sea of Rhûn, a giant ball of fire fell out of the sky and created a gulf where there hadn't been one before. (There may already have a been a depression inland? But there was definitely not water there before.)

Also Pelnûru scholars believe a rain of stone was one contributing factor to Cuiviénen as it once was not existing anymore.

Zuste whistles. "Ooops."

"That's," Screech starts, then stops. "That's—" She turns to Khitwê and Risyind. "Adjuration Abridged, the lines that repeat—"

"That's gods for you," Khitwê and Risyind helpfully chorus.

"Thank you, you'd think it'd let me vaguely insult — things."

"We definitely weren't complaining at the time," Maglor says. "I'm inclined to call Cuiviénen an acceptable loss, even, given the stakes. I don't know what used to be where this Gulf is—"

"Maybe Straw's home village, but that was definitely an acceptable loss," Whiterot says. Turgon snorts.

Anyway, since pieces of Thangorodrim were definitely falling out of the sky even farther away, there's no reason a smaller piece couldn't have ended up here.

With that question answered, it's time for Wizard's Clay practice, with stone this time!

(Celegorm to Maglor, as Gimli is setting up: Do you think if I said Noldor tools are better I could get Celeborn to defend dwarves and make that face again?

Maglor: Don't insult Gimli or his tools with pointless comparisons.

Maglor: …I'm not sure it's true anyway.

Celegorm: Neither am I, and I bet neither is Celeborn, and that's what makes it funny.

Maglor: …It would be funny, but still don't do it.

Celegorm: This is why everyone says you're boring.

Maglor: You are the only one who says that.)

[cvertures]

BETH JOHANSSEN + instagram ft. lucy artz / @residuex

[medaowes]

rules to come soon, now have a tag dump

[dear-evanrosier]

Theme Parks

translations at the bottom

Masterlist

This is a modern AU with no Voldy, they are 22, still wizards 

Translations are at the bottom :)

“Can you tell me why the bloody fuck we decided to go to a theme park in November?”

“James, mate, you’re scaring the children.” Sirius scolded, and James huffed in response. 

"I can see my bloody breath! And you aren’t cold cause you’ve got your bloody boyfriend to warm you up. And Pete couldn’t come, no matter how much he wanted and unless your brother-” 

“Don’t even finish that sentence, Potter.” Regulus bit, and James made a disgruntled noise when Remus laughed. 

“Oh, don’t you even start, Remus. Sirius is practically drowning in your jacket. No wonder neither of you wankers are complaining!”

“Language!” 

The new, higher voice came from behind them in the line, and they turned to see a middle-aged woman covering the ears of a little boy, no older than ten, with a mix of shock and amusement on his face.

“Is there a problem, ma’am?” James asked politely, and the woman huffed. 

“Yes. I don’t want you talking that way in front of my son.” 

“I’m not allowed to say wanker?” 

“Hey! What did I just say? I am behind you, and I want you to stop speaking in those disgusting words.” 

 James was confused for a second before his face was plastered in a shit-eating grin. 

“Je parle une langue. Français, pour être exact.” 

“What? Speak english,we’re in America.” The women snapped, and Sirius snickered from behind James while Remus groaned, and Regulus looked torn between bewilderment and amusement. 

“Quid de latine? Nec?”

The woman was obviously growing frustrated, and James took full advantage of it. 

“ A yw'r Gymraeg yn well? Dyma fy hoff un. Ddim mor rhamantus â Ffrangeg, chi'n gweld, ond gan fy mod i'n eithaf unig ac nad yw'r person rydw i mewn cariad ag ef yn gallu siarad Cymraeg, rydw i'n mynd i'w siarad. Y dyn y tu ôl i mi, rydych chi'n ei weld, y gwallt brown, mae'n fy neall i, wel efallai ddim bellach, mae wedi bod yn amser ers iddo ei siarad, ond dydy'r ddau arall ddim. Rydw i mewn gwirionedd mewn cariad â brawd ei gariad. Ie, y bachgen arall. Y gwallt du byr. Mae'n hollol anhygoel. Mae'n edrych fel ei fod wedi curo'ch asyn, ond ni fydd - wel, efallai'ch un chi. Ond mae mor felys a charedig ac mae fy Nuw ei wên yr un mor ffycin hardd mae'n gwneud fy niwrnod cyfan. A phan mae'n chwerthin, sy'n achlysur prin, mae hi mor goddamn hyfryd sut na allech chi garu'r bachgen hwn. Nid eich bod chi'n gwybod beth rydw i'n ei ddweud. Ac rydw i'n rantio yn Gymraeg i ddynes ar hap sy'n wallgof arna i. Rhyfeddol.”

Someone further back in the line yelled “Mynnwch y bachgen!” but James didn’t pay it much mind, instead staring the woman who was almost red in the face with her anger. 

“Well,if that’s all.” James gave a polite smile and turned back to his friends. "Happy birthday, Sirius." 

Sirius let out a bark of laughter and pushed closer into Remus, pulling the jacket tighter around them. Regulus looked at James with amusement and confusion. 

“What?” 

“You speak Welsh? And French and Latin?” Regulus asked, and James nodded.

“I mean, obviously. What else could I have been speaking?” 

Regulus rolled his eyes and turned back around to the front of the line, pointing forward. “We aren’t too far from the front. Maybe five minutes.” 

After they had ridden the roller coaster (James screamed, Regulus laughed at him) they decided to get some food before getting on another ride, the ride being a carousel. 

“Why a carousel? Sirius, you’re turning twenty-two, not two.” Regulus reasoned, though they were already in line and it didn’t do much. 

“Because I can. Besides, I’m not acting like I’m two. ” 

“Yeah? Well look at James! He’s acting like he’s five!” 

  “Hey!” 

“Oh, you are!” 

“It’s cold, okay! I’m trying to stay warm!” 

“You’re a bloody wizard!” Regulus whisper-shouted, careful to not be overheard. “Use a damn heating charm!” 

“Remus took my wand!” James whispered back, and Remus smiled from in front of them.

“If you say so.” 

James huffed and continued the small dance he was doing, now bobbing his head back and forth in front of Regulus’ face to annoy him. Regulus rolled his eyes and turned him around, shoving him forward in line. James stumbled, but regained his balance and turned around again, repeating his dance and head motions before Regulus turned and pushed him forward again. 

This continued a few more times until Regulus grew tired of it, gripping James’ shoulders to get him to stop. 

“Quit it, Potter.” 

“Make me, Black.”

James started bobbing his head again, and then Regulus’ hands weren’t on his shoulders.

They were on his hips, bringing James closer until Regulus was kissing him, and James was kissing back, Regulus’ fingers digging into James’ waist, reminding him that he was awake. There was grumbling somewhere behind them, but James couldn’t care less, now that he was finally kissing Regulus, and Regulus was kissing him back, after what was almost seven years of pining and secret plans that never worked. 

James brought his hands up to Regulus’ face, cradling his cheeks and angling his head as he deepened the kiss.

“Oi!” Sirius shouted from somewhere, though it was hard for James to focus on anything except for Regulus surrounding him and filling every one of his senses.

 The only thing he felt was the scratchy stubble on Regulus' face, and Regulus' hands holding on to his hips. The only thing he could taste was the mango chapstick Regulus used religiously. The only thing he could smell was Regulus' cologne, which smelt like whiskey and old books, something that reminded him of Hogwarts. The only thing he heard was Regulus' breathing, and the almost non existent moan that came when James opened his mouth to willingly let Regulus in.

 "Stop snogging my brother and get on the ride." Sirius' voice came, and James broke their kiss, still holding Regulus' face, to face Sirius. 

"No." 

And he turned back around, reconnecting his and Regulus' lips.

"Fine then. Come on, Moony. Leave Prongs to defile my baby brother." 

Translations 

“Quid de latine? Nec?”------- “What about Latin? No?” 

“A yw'r Gymraeg yn well? Dyma fy hoff un. Ddim mor rhamantus â Ffrangeg, chi'n gweld, ond gan fy mod i'n eithaf unig ac nad yw'r person rydw i mewn cariad ag ef yn gallu siarad Cymraeg, rydw i'n mynd i'w siarad. Y dyn y tu ôl i mi, rydych chi'n ei weld, y gwallt brown, mae'n fy neall i, wel efallai ddim bellach, mae wedi bod yn amser ers iddo ei siarad, ond dydy'r ddau arall ddim. Rydw i mewn gwirionedd mewn cariad â brawd ei gariad. Ie, y bachgen arall. Y gwallt du byr. Mae'n hollol anhygoel. Mae'n edrych fel ei fod wedi curo'ch asyn, ond ni fydd - wel, efallai'ch un chi. Ond mae mor felys a charedig ac mae fy Nuw ei wên yr un mor ffycin hardd mae'n gwneud fy niwrnod cyfan. A phan mae'n chwerthin, sy'n achlysur prin, mae hi mor goddamn hyfryd sut na allech chi garu'r bachgen hwn. Nid eich bod chi'n gwybod beth rydw i'n ei ddweud. Ac rydw i'n rantio yn Gymraeg i ddynes ar hap sy'n wallgof arna i. Rhyfeddol.” ------------------------------------- Is welsh any better? It's my favorite. Not as romantic as French, you see, but since I'm quite lonely and the person I'm in love with can't speak Welsh, I'm going to speak it. The man behind me, you see him, the brown hair, he understands me, well maybe not anymore, it's been a while since he spoke it, but the other two don't. I'm actually in love with his boyfriend's brother. Yeah, the other boy. The short black hair. He's absolutely amazing. He looks like he'd beat your ass, but he won't - well, maybe yours. But he's so sweet and kind and my god his smile is just so fucking beautiful it just makes my entire day. And when he laughs, which is a rare occasion, it's just so goddamn gorgeous how could you not love this boy. Not that you know what I'm saying. And I'm ranting in Welsh to a random lady who's mad at me. Wonderful.

Mynnwch y bachgen!-----Get the boy!

[secret-engima]

So, I'm working on editing something and a thought pops into my head: What would happen if Blood of my Blood Noct and Dyn tripped into Saving the world for Fun and Profit? preferably before Noct makes it home, but anytime in the Saving the World timeline is interesting. Noct meeting Oscar, and these two princes pause as they assess one another and find someone who can really, truly understand them, (1/2)

shadowdragongem

said:

(2/2) because both of them have too many memories (that are, largely, not theirs), too much magic (that wasn't originally theirs), trauma related to corrupted ... relatives? Enemies? Estranged cousins? and too many responsibilities with too little safety to relax into. They've also both lived these lives before. and I think it would be interesting to see them interact with each other.

Me: *stares* That ... that would be really interesting. REALLY interesting. Noct and his tiny son tripping into another world, and Noct is familiar enough with the sensation to know it and Panic™ because NOT NOW WORLD. But he’s lucky and encounters the Emerald City circus almost instantly, possibly wakes up on the outskirts of wherever they are performing and wanders in cautiously and well- Oscar can sense Noct’s magic, sprawling and passive but not HIDDEN and not SALEM’S or Ozpin’s and he’s curious. He slips out to meet it and finds a scared teenage father and his tiny son. A father who feels like age and too-much-power and unwound time.

Oh.

“You appear to be a long way from home,” he says pleasantly, adjusting the edge of his top hat and leaning on his cane.

Noct startles warily, but the magic threading against his, while just as deep and powerful as his, is calm and friendly and comes from a too-young-too-old child with calm, understanding eyes. Noctis looks at this boy in his circus finery and his fancy cane, with magic that chimes with old clocks and gears and whispers of far off rain and ... relaxes slowly. He doesn’t know this boy or his story, but he knows the feel of a soul like his, “Yeah. Very.”

The boy smiles and wiggles his fingers gently at the curious little Dyn in Noct’s arms, “I’m Oscar, do you want to come in for a bit? The little one looks hungry. My group is a bit strange, but I promise none of us will lay a hand on him.”

Noctis studies the boy, wary and cautious by habit but ... there is a familiarity there with this stranger. And understanding. These two are more alike than they seem on the outside, they have spilled blood for the same reasons and picked up pieces shattered by the same kinds of pain. And there is still kindness singing in Oscar’s magic despite it all, so he adjusts his grip on Dyn and nods, “I’d ... appreciate that.”

Oscar leads him to the backstage tends and gives them food, and when his Gremlins make curious noises Oscar smiles and says that Noctis is visiting from far away. Noctis flinches and almost reacts poorly to Sondor, but the Grimm just placidly wags his tail from his spot at Oscar’s feet and Noctis reminds himself that this is another world. That ... dog ... is probably a perfectly normal pet around here. Not a daemon.

Oscar totally wows bby Dyn with harmlessly little magic shows right there in the tents, little card tricks and such mixed with real magic that makes bby Dyn coo in wonder.

And yes, I can see Noctis and Oscar getting along very, very well. Neither of them talk about it, about their traumas and similarities and the way their magic is both too-big and too-old for the bodies they have now, but then, neither of them need to. They can feel it in the air, in the soft push and pull of their respective oceans of power. They can feel the understanding and shared pain, the similar little flinches and ticks and the whisper of old clock gears. They share their silence like others share secrets or fine wine, and they smile as Team MEOWN gleefully dotes on Dyn until it is time for Noctis to wander home.

“It gets better,” Oscar tells him right before they leave, “It’s never the same, but it gets better.”

Noctis, brittle and wary, already dreading going back to the wilds and the daemons and the danger of a past that doesn’t know him, takes a deep breath. He lets it out slowly, “Even when your ghosts don’t know you anymore?”

Oscar’s smile is too-old and edged with loss to be a happy one, “Even then.”

Noctis huffs. He knows this too old child is right, “...Thanks.”

Oscar tips his brightly colored hat, “Safe journeys, King of Crystal.”

Noctis does laugh, short and sharp, because he has not told Oscar he was royalty, or a king, or connected to the ancient Crystal of the Lucis Caelums, yet he’s not surprised that this boy wizard somehow knows, “Fair winds and good fortune, Prince With a Thousand Enemies,” he returns with the same solemnity, for even though the title is form a storybook, it is one that fits perfectly to the bend of Oscar’s shoulders. They share a mischievous smile before Noctis and his son fade back to Eos and his magic signature disappears from Remnant’s air.

[asinusxasinorumxhortus]

Send in sexy pictures to my submit box, and see how my muse reacts.

“Hello, Gorgeous. You look like an angel, especially in the light of early morning. Did you sleep well?“