#》 honori writes ◇

[honoriotsusuki]

🎨𝙎𝙏𝙊𝙋 𝙃𝙄𝙏𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙊𝙉 𝙈𝙔 𝙈𝙊𝙈-🎨

Fyodor x reader

Hard crack and fluff

DESC: Dazai had always hoped his mother would find someone again after his father left her when he was young. However he was not all to pleased to find out she found a FUCKING TERRORIST

WARNINGS: Mentions of terrorism. Everybody begrudgingly tolerates each other as opposed to outright killing each other. Probably ooc Fyodor. Suggestive but it's played for laughs. Kinda spoiler for Fyodors ability if you squint.

Dazai never knew his father. And he never wanted to. He had walked out on his mother when he was less than a year old. And yet his mother did it all for him. She tried her best to help him in any way she could despite her struggles and lack of child support. So as Dazai got older he had hoped his mother would find someone worth her time. A guy that treated her well and made sure she was well taken care of. This is not what he meant by that.

[NAME] stood there happily. Elated to finally introduce the two. Dazai had to fight back the urge to gag, scream, and strike the rat all at once. His eye slightly twitching. Fyodor. His mom was dating a fucking terrorist and she hadnt the smallest clue. His sweet, loving, passionate mother. This was ridiculous. His mother was young, she had him in her late teens so she was in her mid to late thirties, early forties. DAZAI HAD NO FUCKING CLUE HOW OLD THIS RAT BITCH WAS. I mean really- for all he knew he predated the fuckinf dinosaurs. He could've had a drinking contest with Christopher godamn Columbus and he would be none the wiser.

Fyodor- wasnt taking this all too well either. I mean, really - how the hell was this your son!? When Fyodor first met you, he saw you as yet another good person who had to live in a world of tainted ability users. However, he began to see you more frequently. Whether that be by coincidence or subconsciously going to places he had seen you before, he didn't know. But it all led in him, eventually asking you out. Fyodor never considered himself a romantic. He had plans - big ones! He couldn't risk distracting himself. But it was something about the way you spoke, your gentle demeanor and sweet mannerisms. How your coat was slightly stained with bright paint. So, of course, he wasn't risking losing you. When you stated dating, you had laid out immediately that if your son didn't like him, it couldn't happen. You valued his opinion over all else. And Fyodor admired it. You were a loving mother. But if he knew your son was the living embodiment of the "'hang' in there!" cat posters, he would have hired an assasin to take him out. (Not that it would've worked anyway. Dazai never seems to stay dead.)

So now here they both sat, at a cute brunch spot eating together. Anytime you looked their way, their smiles would be back. But the moment you left for the bathroom, they both began openly debating.

"Stop fucking my Mom." Dazai grit his teeth, his fork slightly scratching against his face. Fyodor rolled his eyes, "we haven't performed coitus as of yet you imbecile." He scoffed. Dazai visibly recoiled, relieved and yet disgusted. "Who the hell calls it that?" He gagged. "I would rather adress it as such than with vulgar language-" Fyodor argued. "Oh my god. You sound like a fucking Victorian man. What do the sight of her ankles get your rocks hard my guy?" Dazai groaned. "If you keep this up I will make love with her to spite you." Fyodor glared. Dazai paused. Turning to him in disbelief.

"You wouldnt-

"Watch me, cretin."

@HONORIOTSUSUKI

[rcksmith]

Untouchable - Five Hargreeves

You can find the 2 request here: anonymous 1, anonymous 2.

Resume: The villain falls in love with the girl.

Trope: “ Who did this to you?” “Touch her and you are dead.” “i´ll find you in every lifetime”

Couple: Five Hargreeves /Fem!Reader.

Warnings:  A LOT OF ANGST, swearing,  mention of death, blood,  fight between the Hargreeves and the Sparrows,a little enemies to lovers in the end,  fluff, SMUT, degrading talk.

Word count: 15k.

A/N: Spoiler from season 3.

OMG THIS IS HUGE JAHHSHDAHSDJAHDHND it turned out bigger than i expected. 

Because I have a lot of requests in my box, I compile orders that are similar and put together, but I took care to added all the elements that were asked for individually, and made sure that all ideas were respected and written down.

We not tolerate any pedophilia here!! I write about Five with their 20s. I write the same about the characters of Harry Potter, MHA and others fandoms.

English is not my first language, so I so sorry if have a mistake.

Requests are OPEN. Love you ❤��

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Honor comes from the Latin honoris. Indicating a person who lives with honesty and probity, basing their way of life on the dictates of morality. A principle that leads someone to have a righteous, virtuous conduct, which allows to enjoy a good reputation in society.

Five Hargreeves thought of himself as a callous man with no honor and, somehow, able to drown out the voice of morality in his head. He was very knowledgeable about literature and history, and his physics and math skills could surpass Tesla's, but philosophy for him was a bunch of weak principles and dictated by people who didn't really know the world, who didn't pass 1% of what he passed by, who did not see what he saw. Not even Socrates, Plato or Machiavelli had known the worst of humanity like him, the truth about realities.   A big part of his existence came down to surviving, fighting, winning, crushing everything that threatened his life.

His cynical outlook on life led him to pragmatism, and he knows that if he wants something done, he will have to do it himself.

His actions were more about getting things done than about displaying a display of rebellion or power. However,  Five was not afraid of pain or even killing. He didn't mind being the author of the worst massacres if it meant going back to his family.

Five Hargreeves don't give a damn about being the villain of the story. He did what had to be done.

It was why, when The Handle ordered him to carry out the death sentence of a Duke and Duchess in 1730, Five did not question or hesitate.

Even though in the back of his mind, in a very small part of his brain, the question arose as to why people from such an old and outdated date, he did nothing about it,  much less pulled the thread from the ball of yarn that would trigger a series of questions in a row. His job was not to ask why, to investigate step by step, to go through file by file. Five wasn't on The Commission to know the reason for each death, he was on the execution.

So he went, letting the suitcase unfold before his eyes an ancient era, from a faraway time, introducing him to carriages, flowing dresses, gigantic balls. And, as much as some people considered that era poetic, Five never liked lack of practicality.

So he killed the couple as quickly as possible, determined to escape from the need to spend more hours in that old-fashioned place.

It was like any other murder he had committed over the years on The Commission; he came, killed, and left. No looking back, no questions, no hesitation. Drowning in the deepest wave any second feelings that might have submerged, ensuring his emotions were chained very well at the bottom of the ocean.

It was easy, normal, routine. He was once again the villain, and could sleep very well the night with that.

But something began to change gradually in the atmosphere, in the air.

On some mornings, it was as if Five's hands were tingling for no apparent reason, eager to catch up something he had no idea what it was. On some afternoons, his heart vibrated in his chest, like a ground being punished by an earthquake, shaking his balanced state of mind. And, on some dawns, Five's mouth was as dry as the Sahara desert, thirsty for something that not even the coldest water could appease.

Wherever he was the air stayed suddenly thin, stuffy. And sometimes, in the middle of a mission, the wind seemed to blow in only one direction, hitting Hargreeves' back as if pushing him to go in a path. At those moments, his heart returned fluttered in his chest, as if he knew that one north was calling him and was that where he needed to go.

Everything inside Hargreeves began to be affected by strange reactions, spurred by banal, mundane events.

An in a few seconds, if Five stood completely still, silencing his thoughts and hollowing out any inner voices, he could hear something in the wind calling for him. Small seconds that swept away any balance that one day he ever had.

Five Hargreeves was going through a peripeteia, and he had no idea what was causing it.

What hell is going on?

It was wen, on an afternoon where the sun hid with shame among the dark gray clouds, The Handler gave him another murder.

In 1750.

His soul shuddered inside him in that second, echoing through his bones, keeping Five's egyptian green eyes fixed on the paper in his hands, unable to look away from the bold numbers that indicated the date of his next mission.

The icy breeze ruffled his dark hair, but he didn't move. There seemed to be something important and unspoken in the air, and this time, the voice calling his name on the wind grew softly louder. Now, it didn't seem to come from the back of his mind anymore, but from a place far away.

Five looked around, in an instinctive movement in the pathetic and vain attempt to find the source of that voice.

Nothing. As always.

“Five.” The Handler snapped her fingers in front of his face “May I have your precious attention?" The irony didn't go unnoticed, but his eyes flickered to hers. “As I was saying, the time and place of this mission is strictly important. Viscount Sebastian needs to be killed in his office at midnight, in the middle of his daughter's debut ball, not a minute less and nowhere else.”

Hargreeves gave a nod. Not because he had devoted all of his attention to her, just because he wanted her to stop talking. Much of his concentration was still on the way his body and the hemisphere around him behaved. Mission times and places were standard, no need to focus on this nonsense and listen to someone reiterate the rules as if Five were a child. He was 26 years old, a child was the last thing he was.

Something seemed to be happening, occult like a current that rattles under the sea. And the knowledge that he couldn't see the bottom of the ocean unnerved every cell in his body. Hargreeves couldn't stand things he couldn't perceive, understand how it works, take it apart and put it back together again.

This time, when Five returned to the eighteenth century, with 20 years having passed in that time after his visit and only 2 weeks for him, what hit him first was not the impracticality, the carriages, the big dresses. But the wind. Strong, cold, bringing with it the voice who called his name for weeks, now loud and clear.

The dark strands of his body prickled, and he could feel his heartbeat in his throat. Suddenly, anxiety snaked through his body like venom, stirring every fiber in his body, pumping something into his veins that made his blood heat like lava. An emotion he couldn't name what it was.

In the last mission, Five had a string of complaints about the  way the black waistcoat squeezed the white linen shirt over his abdomen, and how heavy the straight-cut coat felt heavy under his shoulders. But in this time, he wasn't bothered with the clothes he had to wear so as not to attract attention and go unnoticed. Now, with his heart pounding in his chest, his throat dry and the constant feeling that he had to be somewhere urgently, his clothes were the last things on his mind.

It was an emotion that squeezed the pit of his stomach, made his hands itch and his body shot with an adrenaline that screamed that he needed to move. That he had a more important place to be. All the sensations he'd felt leisurely over the weeks now came back with absurd force, as if he were getting close to the source of it all.

What was happening?

The moon in that far away era shone sovereignly in the sky, blessing the houses, carriages and large mansions with cascades of distilled light in the purest color of silver.

Las time, the feeling that came over Five was to get out of there as quickly as possible. But now, looking around in search of the source of the voice calling him in the wind, the last thing on his mind was leaving.

His watch still read eight o'clock, but the sensation  was like he was already late.

The most practical plan was to stay hidden somewhere near the mansion where the ball was being held. Avoiding crowds, witnesses, minimizing risk and being a shadow. As always did. The most rational thing to do was to stay away from that place at all costs, until the inevitable arrived and he was forced to enter through one of the windows.

He should have done it. But he didn't.

Just as a sailor follows a siren's song on the high seas, Five followed that voice on the wind. His brain screamed for him to seek a hiding place, but his soul rebelled with an absurd ferocity, ricocheting tremors through all his bones and ordering his legs to follow a path his conscious did not know. His whole mind was confused, but his soul carried a certainty that no other living being had ever had in they life.

With no other option, stunned by the sensations in his own body, he found himself walking towards the front door of the only place he was supposed to avoid until midnight.

If Five Hargreeves had to describe what was happening to his five senses, he would say that his vision was mildly blurred, as if were searching for focus. The smell was of climax and the ambient sounds were drowned out by his own heartbeat. It was like being there in flesh and blood, but not in soul.

He didn't focus on the details of the world around him, but he knew when he finished climbing the front steps. He couldn't focus on the conversation around him, but he knew that a few people were walking beside him.

His mind saw everything, but processed nothing.

It was a mistake not to be 100% aware of the environment, not to study each individual's body language, not to constantly calculate the odds of a move going wrong. But... it was as if something prevented him from emerging to the surface.

Five didn't respond when the butler greeted him at the entrance to the great hall, but looked around as the wind from outside hit his back and his name rang in his ears once more.

It was a female voice. Now he could tell.

Going deeper into the hall, the melody of the orchestra invaded his ears while thousands of people, talking, dancing and drinking, took his view. Everything resembled a blur on a painting, the sounds were still muffled as if Five were at the bottom of the sea, and the smell transitioned between flowers, feminine perfume and poetry.

Five Hargreeves was a pragmatic, cynical and austere man. Everything that made up his being was based on rationality, laws of physics and mathematical concepts,  he wasn't oscillated  by tender things and he certainly wasn't carried away by things of the heart or soul. He always followed what rationality dictated. Until now.

Until now.

Like a violin string that ruptured, Hargreeves was gripped by the feeling that something very important was about to happen. Something that would not only change his existence forever, but change him for eternity. This fact stared him at back, bold, warm and as inevitable as the setting sun. And very hair on his body stood on end at once while everything inside him pulsed with a brutality that could shake his bones.

Now, the sound of the orchestra was drowned out by the soundtrack of his life, which was coming closer to apex by the second. It was like being submerged in a slow-motion, in a moment that preceded an momentous event.

As magnets are pulled one by the other in an impassable way, his eyes, as if they already knew where to look, were drawn to a figure among the others who danced in the middle of the hall.

You.

Was like an explosion. Loud and brutal. He suddenly submerged from the bottom of the sea, bewildered, desperate, out of breath. The stupor released itself all at once, bringing his mind back to the reality. Instantaneously, nothing was blurred anymore, sounds weren't muffled, and he abruptly returned to his conscious state. But his soul was not so lucky. Like being whipped by live eels, his heart pounded in his chest with such fury that he leaned over forward millimeters, his throat was drier than the Egyptian desert and now his hands itched in a hellish, bestial, uncontrollable way.

Five Hargreeves has released himself from a wave of numbness only to be hit by a tsunami of sensation.

His eyes were seeing everything clearly now, but he couldn't take his attention away from the female figure dancing in the middle of the room, her bouffant gown swirling gracefully across the floor as if deities were blowing the fabrics.

There were a lot of people around him, in front of him, behind him, but Five Hargreeves only had eyes for you.

In an insane, magical and inexplicable logic, Five had the purest certainty that it was your voice that called him in the wind, that was by the desire to touch your skin that his hands itched. Five would never be able to explain it to other people, but at that moment, there was nothing more concrete on Earth, in physics and science, than the certainty that was because of you that his soul felt, so many times, that he should be somewhere else.

Like the indubitability that you need oxygen to breathe, touching your skin has become just as indispensable. It was a matter of needing, something that now not only itched his hands, but corroded the bones in his fingers.

There was no reason for all those absurd feelings, Five had never even seen you before. But rationality had no space in that moment.

There, in that rift between the past, future and parallel realities, there was no discernment, lucidity, judgment. It was a hideaway free of any cohesiveness, with the smell of romance, an atmosphere full of emotion, passion and poetry. A distant era that allowed, for the first time in many years, that the soul of Five Hargreeves to take control of his body.

He moved, one step after another, his focus petrified on you. With each centimeter closer to your body, the more he felt able to breathe again, relieving the brutal anxiety that had been beating him for weeks, giving a truce to the martyrdom that  lacerate him day after day without even him even knowing why.

You had finished your dance, clapping along with the other guests for the orchestra that started the new melody, this time more lyrical.

Your hair, the tone of which seemed to be the personification of poetry, of art, was tied in a bun that allowed a few strands to fall under your neck, the skin of your bust was speckled with a few little droplets of sweat, the perfect amount to glisten under the yellowish light of the candles in the chandelier, making a divine, almost celestial aurora radiate from you. The dark blue gown referred back to the night sky in its greatest splendor, highlight your full breasts at the straight neckline and opening at the hips in a skirt that preached the illusion of you being floating across the hall. Your lips were a red that Five had never seen in his life. A red that seemed to exist only to serve you, enhancing the color of your eyes.

You were like a mirage. An oasis in the farthest desert. One of those paintings that people come from all over the world to see in person, capable of sweeping, taking they breath away, making they cry for having to live with the burden of never having the possibility of knowing you in life.

The romantic period was going on in that century, society was tired of trends in intellectual thinking, rationalization, industrialization and the veneration of science. People longed for an escape into emotionally charged images and fantastical fiction in the visual arts and literature. And Five Hargreeves was certain that you were one of the greatest inspirations of this movement. It was so clear that you were the influence of John Waterhouse's paintings, sweeping the hearts of artists and illuminating poets. Lord Byron was thinking of you when he created the short lyric poem “She Walks in Beauty”, completely fascinated by you.

That thought shuddered Five's soul even more. And an acidic emotion rose in his throat and burned his eyes. In his chest was injected the feeling that he was facing one of the greatest beauties in history, the person the poems and paintings were based on, the inspiration for so many names of literature and art that would become renowned.

There, in front of him, was more than a person. It was a piece of history, art, literature, a beauty that was immortalized and that would be admired even after centuries. Five had already gone to different times in the past, but nothing touched his soul as much as now. As much as you.

Five Hargreeves went in your direction like a sailor following a siren's song across the seven seas.

You were relatively distracted when he got to you. Lungs catching breath from the last dance, body preparing for the next, your mind was on that ballroom but your heart was far away. It was universally true that girls your age should revel in balls like this one. Full of potential husbands, dancing and music, governed by a perfect night for falling in love. You came to like it in the past, but now, after so many similar events, everything didn't have the same magic anymore. 

You've heard enough stories - filled with adrenaline, pirate ships and dangerous waters - to crave adventure in your life. It was also noticed that you spent too much time with your books, and that the consequence of spending so many hours in the fictional world brought you very high standards for men and love. The whispers through the darkened streets were that you would end up a spinster. Since you took no interest in any gentleman who courted your hand.

In your defense, it wasn't your fault. The men in your reality were terribly...tasteless.

That was until he showed up.

You don't know where he emerged, or what lineage he was from, much less his name. But he came towards you like that was more important than breathing. In a virile, perfect posture. As if he knew all the secrets of the world and was able to show you them.

One of the first things you noticed were the eyes. The room was partially dark, lit only by the flickering candles in the candelabra, but the darkness only made his eyes clearer. Intense greens. Of such a pure emerald tone that it shone like a mystical cat, calling you to sink in his greenish sea. The stranger had hair as black as midnight, which fell softly and romantically over a face with firm features; jaw as sharp as a razor and a nose full of masculine personality. Although was well dressed, all his clothes, with the exception of the white linen shirt, were as dark as the strands of his hair, something unusual among the sophisticated gentlemen who were invited.

Looking at that gorgeous face, you were left speechless. The deities had been generous to this man, gifting him with bold, aristocratic features and iris as green as Egypt's most precious jewels. The mystery and secrets contained within in those eyes were a fascinating contrast.

“Can I have this dance?” Just a sentence.

He didn't introduce himself, he didn't say who he was. He just dropped that sentence as if it was the only thing he really cared to say.

The gravity of his words made your heart flutter. What a beautiful voice that man had. With a provocative huskiness, a touch of superb, as if he were an oracle at his peak in ancient Greece. The sound seemed to seep into your body and run through you like warm honey.

The truth was, you had reserved the dance for another gentleman, but in that second, you couldn't care less.

“Of course, milord.” That's what you said, accepting the hand he extended to you.

Never taking his eyes off yours, an unfamiliar sensation washed over your mortal body and engulfed everyone around you. You wondered if it was just the stuff of your imagination or if he too felt the electricity whip through his body as he positioned you closer to dance.

Single women weren't allowed to touch men's hands if you weren't wearing gloves, and that rule had never bothered you. Until now.

Until be affected by an insane, visceral desire to feel that man's skin. Of experiencing the heat radiating from his hand against yours, of feeling those white fingers, slender and pale, holding your denude skin. You've never been touched by a man without a layer of clothing intervening. No brushing of elbows, no bumped of fingers, no errant caresses. And you wondered what it was about that man that made you aware of this deprivation. That stranger radiated secrets in an inexplicable but extremely palpable way in the air and you wanted to feel the touch of mystery on your skin more than you wanted to breathe. A will as strong as fear, as intense as hunger.

Your soul screamed in frustration because of the dress when his hand cupped your cover waist. In a touch so firm it only existed in the romance novels you read. Your heart raced, your breath disappeared, and you didn't notice when you rested your hand on his shoulder and your feet began to follow the rhythm of the waltz.

It was pathetic the intensity of your emotions for a man you had just met and didn't even know his name. But, it was like you'd found something didn't even know you'd lost.

Well… if it was the lack of knowledge of his name that was making things a little difficult…

“Aren't you going to tell me your name? Mine is Y/n”

Your voice, sweet as molasses, velvety as suede, made the hairs on the back of Five's neck stand on end. He recognized the timbre now, he had already heard you calling for him in the wind, but nothing surpassed hearing you from inches away.

This was one of those moments where, if you asked Five why he was doing this, he couldn't answer. He couldn't find any logical answers to his actions, reactions, thoughts. But, once again, this rift in space and time was an environment free of rationality. He didn't need this here. He felt he didn't need to. Not when had you in his arms.

A name…

Five Hargreeves was the name of a villain. Someone who would carry on his shoulders to the grave the weight of the thousands of souls he killed. Someone whose hands were marked, eternally, with thick, hot blood. A proof that his destiny was traced directly to hell. His name was the personification of a freak created to be a hero, an orphan in the apocalypse, a man who belonged nowhere in the timeline, someone without family for many decades.

He looked at the hands that held you. The hands of a serial killer. And then he looked at you, full of beauty, life, happiness and innocence. It was like committing a crime against nature to hold something so pure in such infamous, disgraced, death-scarred hands. And something inside he twisted with something like pain…disgust, for the fist time.

His soul didn't want to hold you in the hands of Five Hargreeves.

Five Hargreeves was the villain. And he didn't want to be that man right there.

His mouth, which looked so beautiful yet so dangerous, softly approached the foot of your ear, while the body of you two continued to follow the steps of the waltz. "We don't need names here."

A current of electricity slammed into your body like a whiplash from a live eel, raising goose bumps on parts of your skin you didn't even know you had. My goodness, it was a sin for a single man to have that much charm.

Sensible young women would have turned away at once. Practical girls who appreciated rationality, sincerity and transparency, who had no estimate for games, mystery and sensuality, would have rolled their eyes. But you were not sensible, practical or appreciative of the good customs of the epoch.

You were romantic, hungry for a good charade, adventure. And that man seemed to be built by those two things.

The world was just a shapeless blur, other people were no more than wandering silhouettes, and the atmosphere was enraptured by the flickering orange light of the candles in the candelabra. The smell was of poetry, romance and freedom, which intoxicated the brain and alcoholize any common sense. Was like a magical place in the middle of space and time, a rift that allowed just being. Time passed slowly, as if dancing together with you two.

 ‘One second can change many things...’

Just as Five could hear his father's voice saying 'I told you so' during his years in the apocalypse, he could hear his words now.

‘you can crumble empires, win battles...’

Five swirled you around before pulling you into his arms once more, his heart pounding with each passing moment. Neither of you realized it, but every second you spent together, every step, more messed up the timeline.

You smiled full of romance and magic as he leaned you back, his hand firm on your spine, bringing you to the surface and returning to dance around the hall with the waltz that dandle yours bodies.

‘you can fall in love.’

With every strong step the two of you took on the floor, in an apocalypse dance, realities were immediately misaligned. With each spin, lines of events were exploded into other universes. With each look shared, with each smile, with each heartbeat full of romance, people were erased, born, disappeared.

An apocalypse was brewing somewhere because of his hands on your body. A mystical waltz that brought the ascension of chaos in other timelines.

Neither of you two knew about it. But if Five knew, he wouldn't keep his hands off you anyway. Five Hargreeves was the villain in many realities. And he would accept the burden of being in a few more if it meant having you in his arms.

In an inexplicable and irrational way, what was happening now had more importance than everything he had ever lived and would live through in his entire life.

"You dance very well." You praised him, and his hands on you tighten a little more.

"No more than you". Then he gave that smile.

The half smile that lifted only one corner of his mouth. Malicious, sagacious, sphinx. Who promised to know all the mysteries of the world and show you all the sins of life. What man was that? So full of charm, sensuality, beauty. He seemed out of this world and you found yourself wishing that time would freeze in that moment, that you could hold onto your chest and live in that dance for the rest of your life.

There was something different in the air. A soul-deep feeling that whispered that your life would never be the same again.

Not after this man.

“It is not difficult to find women who dance.” You joked. "You've certainly danced with others to know."

Yes, with his mother and Allison.

But even if he had been dancing with all the women in the world, they would have disappeared in that moment. No memories memory experiences with other women could stand out at that moment.

"If I danced, they all disappeared the moment I waltzed with you." He realized he might have said the right thing, because he could see the breath go out of your lungs and cheekbones flush deliciously.

God in heaven… this girl was breathtakingly beautiful.

Five led you around the hall masterfully, committing your features to his mind like the tattoo on his wrist. Permanently, eternally. Suddenly, he was struck down by the insane desire to know more about you. To hear more of your voice, to taste the way the words flowed from your lips like the purest honey.

You were like a drug, an obsession. An addiction that had stuck with him since the first time he came into that century, since he breathed the same air as you, since he coexisted under the same night sky as you. There was insane logic in the fact that his soul felt your presence without even seeing you on that first mission. He would never be able to explain it, but somehow it made sense inside in him.

Five Hargreeves didn't think about what would happen when he had to leave. He didn't think about the withdrawal his body would suffer when he was away from you. Much less noticed the way there seemed to be something important in the air. If he had been in full intellectual faculties and grounded in rationality, he would have managed to understand that that something was the temporal lines collapsing, an apocalypse forming elsewhere, pure and perfect chaos destroying parallel realities.

But he was not being led by rationality. And even if he was, he wouldn't have minded a few worlds burning if it meant having you next to his body. He didn't care. But The Commission was a different case.

But Five Hargreeves wasn't thinking about any of that.

He conducted a conversation with you the way he conducted that waltz. He discovered that you liked the high seas even though you were never allowed to be on a ship. You loved nature and enjoyed good books. He heard your eagerness to know the world and learn about different cultures, that you wanted to unravel the mysteries of Egypt, see the architecture of Greece, visit Spain and wanted to go swim in the beaches of Brazil. You were an adventurer, and Five's heart skipped a beat for it.

But in a corner of his soul, deep down, he felt an ache reverberate through his bones. The urge to tell you about the world came with overwhelming force, and something inside him died when he realized he could never tell you the truth about the subjects you cared about.

He could never tell all that the world already knew about Egypt, about its tombs and its pharaohs. He could never be able to show the beauty of Brazil's beaches that become famous tourist spots, and he reserved a note in his brain that you would have loved to visit Genipabu in Brazil, a beach with huge sand dunes that seemed to be the junction of a huge desert whit a beach.  He could not tell you what science, oceanography and marine biologists already knew about the oceans. He could never say about the cruises that roamed the seas in all the luxury and comfort, much less about the planes.

Five Hargreeves would never be able to show you the world. And his soul decided to torture itself even more thinking about what it would be like if you were from his time. The things you would do, the freedom you could enjoy.

He could show you anything you wanted, tell you the secrets of the universe…His secrets.

When the waltz was over, on a note as dramatic as the situation, you couldn't say goodbye to him. Your soul, enchanted and completely enraptured by the man in front of you, vehemently refused to remove your hand over his. It seemed that every molecule in your body, every corner of your spirit, every fiber of your being, had defined that it was with that man that they wanted to stay. Forever.

What was foolish.

The truth was that the sensation of poetry, romance and magic that surrounded you two throughout the dance, had evaporated from the air like mist in the sun. Now the sure that you two weren't meant to be together hung in the air like a black cloud, thundering and flashing. This feeling oppressed you with an overwhelming force, so tangible it was possible to cut it with a razor.

No words needed to be said, but it was stamped into the environment, filling every millimeter and gap, putting that magical dance into a category that would never go beyond that: a dance.

A feeling of melancholy jabbed your throat like a scorpion's sting, injecting an emotion of sadness and helplessness into your blood like distilled poison. You didn't want that to be the end. You didn't want to say goodbye. Even with everything in the air indicating that whatever existed between the two of you, ended here, now.

Five's eyes seemed to exude the same as you. Feeling the end heavy and resounding in the air, reverberating like thunder, as every corner of his soul roared the opposite. The green sea of his irises looked like it was in the middle of a storm. Full of pain, anger. With colossal waves and revolts, which promised to destroy everything they saw ahead. Just like the oceans did in the apocalyptic events in the era of Younger Dryas.

Somehow, without having to utter a single sentence, you both knew you were feeling the same thing. Wishing, with all their might, that this wasn't the end, that they were able to hold time against their chest in a tight, desperate embrace, an attempt to freeze the pointers.

At that moment, Five clamored, to any god who would listen, that you not be taken from his arms.

However, like the evil joke that was his life, his thoughts were cut short by the chiming of the clock. 11 chimes. That echoed in his soul like the trumpets of hell, laughing at him, mocking him, making fun of a murderer thinking he would be graced with something like you.

Five Hargreeves was a villain. And he was destined to have the things villains deserve. And none of this things included someone like you.

In that sadistic moment, Five finally understood a sentence from one of the books Grace read to them at night; ‘If I were to kiss you then go to hell, I would. So then I can brag with the devils I saw heaven without ever entering it.’

Yes. Now he understood. Five Hargreeves leaned in, bringing the back of your hand to his lips, laying a kiss that, however much it was impeded by the muslin layer of your glove, he prayed that this kiss could transmit all the feelings he could never say. This are the only kiss he could give you. That sentence echoed in his head like a fact, as sure as the sky is blue, as true as the salt in the oceans.

And when he went to the core of hell, paying for all his sins, he would brag to the other demons that he had been to heaven without ever having entered it.

You wish you'd said something, asked where he was from, stopped him from going. But none of that happened. This was one of those moments that we regret forever, that are branded in a red-hot iron in the soul, in the mind, in the body. Everything inside you was screaming to go after him when Five turned arund and walked into the sea of guests. But he disappeared in the waves before you could even move your feet.

No one had to tell you, but you knew you'd never see him again. And your heart would never beat for another.

-----------

Five Hargreeves has had to do a lot of horrible things over the years. Actions he wasn't proud of but he knew needed to be done, nights awash in blood and the smell of death.

But nothing has wobble him as much as you have.

His soul, body and mind, trained since he was a child not to develop any weakness that would prevent him from being a perfect hero, then perfected and aggravated by the Commission to be the unbeatable assassin, were rarely stirred by feelings.

He was cynical, hard-nosed, crotchety and arrogant. He never got carried away by emotions and, as much as his desire to save his family is pure, he will cross any ethical lines for the greater good. And all of that made him the Commission's best weapon.

Until now.

Until his emotions messed up not just one, but thousands of timelines. Created catastrophes, formed apocalypses, killed people. Hargreeves meeting you was something that could never have happened. Repudiated not just by nature but by the gods. Having you in his arms was like a crime against the timeline, against the balance of the world.

And heavens and hells would make him pay. With work, blood, or his heart. Promising to take not only the soul, but any hope of laying eyes on you once again. As Icarus had his downfall for the sun, so Hargreeves had for you. In a triumphal ruin.

“Do you have any idea what you caused ?!” It was the first thing The Handler said as soon as Five returned from his mission, seconds after he had killed his target.

Her voice was loud, suffused with anger and rage and… despair. Five frowned, soul still aching from having to leave you, your warmth still in his arms. He didn't have the head to deal with her right now. Not when he had so much to process.

“A death.”

“Don't play smart on me!” Her roar was loud enough for Hargreeves to realize that something really serious was going on. The Handler was many things, but she never got worked up without good reason.

The clatter of her heels echoed through the room as she walked towards him, her eyes full of fierce emotion.

“You had only one job to do! One! Kill the man and get out of there. Like always!" Her voice was as rough as desert sand. “But not only did you mess up entire timelines,  but created apocalypses on thousands of worlds that were to happen only thousands of years later!"

Five's mind was racing like a Catarina wheel, spinning at full throttle as it tried to put the pieces together. He blinked once, twice, his heart starting to race with the feeling that something devastating was about to be revealed.

He looked at The Handler, who understood his look. "That's right! Your little feat of dancing with that girl shattered thousands of timelines! People were killed, disappeared, events took a completely different course because of your little impertinence!"

She pulled his arm towards the thousands of screens that monitored infinite realities. And what he saw was chaos. Pure and perfect. Some worlds succumbed to fire, others to water, others to war. But they had devastation as a resemblance.

Five can hear the voices of other Commission workers in the background, in another corridor, other rooms. Some sounded desperate, others irritated, and others helpless, but all seemed concerned. He couldn't even say that he didn't know that little things had chain reactions. Because he knew. There was nothing to justify his actions, for he didn't even have a good reason for himself.

But the truth was, even staring the apocalypse in the face across nine different monitors, he felt no…remorse. There wasn't a part of him that would have done differently, that wouldn't have touched you, that wouldn't have known you. Deep in his soul Hargreeves knew he didn't care how many worlds he had destroyed just by touching you. He was going to hell anyway, it was better to have a memory of you to remember for eternity.

"...we'll have to kill her." It was just that sentence that Five's messed up mind paid attention to.

Then everything stopped.

The weather, the conversations. The world seemed to have held their breath, suspended, staring at Five. Everything inside him fell silent into scary silence, and he turned slowly toward The Handler, all his senses heightened, heart still, mind clear.

She seemed to notice his state. "What did you expect?! You know how things work. Causers of apocalypse get killed, that's our job! And because of that dance of yours, this girl has caused nine different apocalypses.”

There was a kind of insane, evil logic to the situation. The last riddle of gods and life to see Five Hargreeves on his knees. Broken, empty. To punish his sins, taking from him what he took from so many people. They engineered his downfall perfectly, writing with a red-hot iron on his soul the sentence that he could never be happy. His curse, the price to pay. Cosmic fit.

What the fucking hell.

“I'll send some agent to kill her immediately and...”

But Five Hargreeves has never been one to accept sentences imposed on him with his head down. Limitations, rules. He made his own destiny, no matter what he told him, and lived with the consequences. No god, destiny or universe dictated his life.

Everything inside him roared like a beast. Exploding, bursting, sending any control flying away. In an action without any hesitation, delicacy or ambiguities, his hand closed on The Handler's arm. In a firm, strong, tense grip that started hurt her very soon.

She looked at him in a mixture of shock and annoyance. There were very few people in the world willing to face a woman on her level, some too fearful, others who value life too much. But Five Hargreeves was none of those things. He'd never known any predator he should fear, everyone knew he was capable of anything and everything. Maybe there was no line he was able from crossing, or plan he wasn't capable of executing.

Five Hargreeves was the predator she should fear.

And The Handler realized that. For in that pair of eyes she saw danger, rage, pure and perfect hate. His sea of green gave way to red, glittering waves, shining with all the blood he had already spilled. And with a warning that he wouldn't mind spilling more.

“Stay. away. from. her. ” he guided each word with a tighter grip on her delicate arm, sure to leave marks that won't go away anytime soon.

Bewildered, she looked at him like a man possessed, filled with a rage that could fuel hell all by itself. The Handler had never seen him in that state, he was always angry, annoyed, acidic, but that… that was hatred, a bloodthirsty hate.

Five Hargreeves promised to go to hell and drag anyone with him without saying a word. 

For the first time in her life, The Handler was afraid.

“Five...you know her need to die...”

"Listen to me" He vociferate, shaking her by the arm. “I don't give a fuck what you have to say. I swear, for all that exists in this world, that if you lay one finger on her, there will be nowhere on earth you can fuck hide from me.”

Five Hargreeves was a tall, masculine man, wrapped in a macabre and sinister aura when he wanted to. He pulled The Handler closer, his face filled with colossal rage being etched like a tattoo into her soul.

“I don't give a fuck about how many worlds are ending, I don't give a fuck if fucking people are dying!  You won't touch her until the day I'm dead!  And you can bet that, even seven feet under the ground, I'll find a way to take you with me to hell if you do fucking something to her."

You were untouchable.

All of his work on The Commission was about killing a number of people to save even more. But he would never, ever, sacrifice you for the greater good. Not even if it meant millions of dead people. 

It didn't matter as long as you weren't one of the dead. 

Without waiting for further discussion, he led The Handler towards the exit door, leading her out of the room and locking the door when he returned. Five wasn't stupid or naive to think that she would follow his orders. The handler might be afraid of him, but she knew how to get what she wanted, no matter how long it took. And now that he'd bruised her ego, Five knew she'd make it her primary mission to kill you.

Something he would never let happen.

If someone asked where so much anger, so much sense of protection came from, Five Hargreeves couldn't say. Because he didn't even know. In the same way that he still didn't understand everything that had happened, everything that he had been feeling, he still hadn't reasoned where such primitive, territorialist impulses came from. He had no idea where it all came from, but he was sure he could never let anything bad happen to you.

In a twisted and somewhat obscure way, you had gained a villain as a protector. A fallen angel who didn't promise to do good to people, but only to you. Who swore allegiance not to humanity, but solemnly, exclusively, to you.

It was a sensation that filled his entire body like boiling lava. And Five put his hand in the fire for the certainty that he would never be able to get rid of his feelings for you again.

His soul said that, as long as he was alive, he would be yours.

Making his mind work faster than it ever had before, Five Hargreeves concluded that every record of you had to go. There could no longer be documents proving that you were part of humanity. That once you had a name, a house, a reality. Five would have to erase you from any and all records. Forever. The only way to keep you out of the hands of the people who had access to every form of terrestrial existence, was to erase you from the world. Only then, hidden from the Commission, could you live happily. Fully.

But throwing all your documents away was signing the sentence that he was took the risk of never getting to see you again. Without them, finding someone was nearly impossible, much less accessing their reality. Five could start a calculation to find you one day, but that could take years, ages, and even if he memorized your documents number by number, did the calculations and managed to get to you without any side effects, The Commission could follow him and find you. 

And finding a civilian's documents was much easier than finding a special agent like him and throwing them away too.

Once again, his life was a cruel joke of the gods, which served as entertainment for any higher power. Five strongly believed that, if there was anything above or below him, they designed his life for they own amusement.

Five Hargreeves spent hours in the file room, locked in that cubicle, not letting anyone in, not getting out. Once he disappeared with your documents, he would be declared a traitor and deserter, where his punishment would not only be more years of work, but death.

The world was spinning. Head ached. A sound gnawed at his mind, a scratch without melody, like a rustle of paper. Someone had taken a scream, a memory and a fear, crumpled it into a jagged ball, and used it to stuff  Five's skull. He need to think of a plan that covered all the rough edges, but his eyes were bombarded with futures he didn't want to think about. Every time he blinked he felt the tragedy lurking in a dark and dismal corner, ready to catch him in their sharp mouths and take him somewhere he feared to go.

A place where the worst had happened to you.

Suddenly, the world was filled with secrets, fears and terror. Just as his soul took control of him in that night, it was the same in this moment. Five Hargreeves wasn't someone to get carried away by anything, but the feeling that something very bad was about to happen to you haunted him to the bone. That would be the perfect ending to his sinful life story; having the one person who touched his feelings so powerfully killed in the same way he killed so many other people.

Life was taking its toll on all the things he had done. For a second, he was afraid of that reckoning. Because the worst is not the bullet hitting yourself, but someone you like.

The feeling outside of being torn apart. All the patches and pieces of what it was to be Five Hargreeves - which he had been painstakingly piecing together throughout his life - were coming loose again, all at once. The clock was ticking, the hours were ticking, and he knew that just as he was coming up with a plan, so was The Handler.

It was a macabre race against time, in which if he lost, he had the feeling he would never fully recover. Not without a part of his soul dying along with you.

When he found your documents, the photo they had of you was a portrait made in that last century, a small painting of your face, eternalizing your smile. Suddenly, the memory of how you'd smiled at him like that gripped him like a demon. And when the memories of you intensified, they brought no comfort, just only fear and dread. Five Hargreeves could not live with himself if those memories were tainted by the knowledge that he was the cause of his tragedy. He would never be able to remember those tender moments again if memories of you were vandalized by images of how you were killed.

It was too late to remedy the consequences of what he had unleashed. The macabre possibilities of what The Handler could do to you were there, tattooed on his brain, as if they would snap open and bolt to reality at any moment. So, as panic rose, Five Hargreeves' mind slammed shut like a heavy book. He wouldn't let any of that happen. Never.

After scheming and checking all the plans in his mind, Five decided that he had already orchestrated the almost perfect scheme. He would destroy all of your documents and, when he had done that, he could no longer remain on the Commission. Thus, he would steal the mission from one of the agents about killing John F. Kennedy, the time that most closely matched his calculations to return to the family in 2019. Then Five Hargreeves would evade The Commission and deal with them without being an employee anymore. And even if they went after him, they would never find you.

Not even Five.

And so it was done.

-----------

Five Hargreeves went through the reunion with his family, faced the commission agents coming after him to kill him, dealt with The Handler and put up with his siblings drama.

In a matter of weeks, he had already gotten himself into so much trouble and confusion that sometimes he didn't even have time to breathe. Processing events and digesting them had become a luxury he no longer had, and saving the world from one apocalypse and falling into another had seemed to become a family pastime.

But there were nights. Cold, when the moon reached its apex in the sky and the rain poured down on the ground, when he was finally able to be alone and clear his mind. In those rare moments, the only thing on his mind was you.

Always you.

His point of peace, his refuge from his constant stress and pressure was in the images of you. In the way your body fit perfectly in his hands, in the way your gaze, enchanted and completely shining, did not leave his. Five Hargreeves felt that, like him at that moment, there was no other place you would rather be.

Twenty years could go by, but he would still feel what it was like to have your warmth in his arms, in the smell that your perfume exhaled and in the way the candles in the candelabra glowed on your skin. You were like a goddess, dancing at that ball as if the world would never be graced with such beauty again.

When Five Hargreeves closed his eyes, he could see you perfectly. Swirling around as if the ground were your clouds and everyone there were mere mortals, watching what the angels in heaven looked like.

It was like a dark paradise. He managed to slake some of that suffocating tightness in his chest whenever he returned to those memories, but it resulted in more flagellations in his poor, tortured soul. The notion that he would never have anything but memories, dreams, and mowed wishes, would skin him alive until his last days. Five would forever be haunted by the notion that, even when he died, you wouldn't be waiting on the other side.

You would be in heaven. And he belonged in hell.

But, it was worth it.

All the pain, all the desperation his soul struggled with, all the shortness of breath that coiled in his lungs, all the feeling of being stabbed with a dagger knowing his would never lay hands on you again, it was all worth it when he reviewed your face in his memories.

Five Hargreeves didn't clamored for relief from his pain, balm for the cuts deep in his soul, a minute's mercy. No, he accepted all of his fate with his head held high. He clamored for you to be okay. Safe, happy. Free from any worries or tribulations. He wished you had forgotten about him, erased that night from your blood, because it would be impossible to live if he knew you were suffering just like him.

Five Hargreeves had never given you a single kiss, tucked your hair in his fingers and tasted your tongue, but he didn't need it. His soul didn't need that to fall madly in love with you.

Yes, pure and perfect passion. It was the only logical explanation for how he felt about you.

Even though he never tasted your skin in his mouth, or touched you without the interference of a piece of clothing, Five Hargreeves was in love with you.

And it would be for the rest of his life.

-----------

All the Hargreeves siblings thought all was well when the Commission was defeated and they got a briefcase to take them back at home. The nightmare of the second apocalypse had already passed and now the feeling that invaded their bodies was one of relief. For a second, Klaus thought that everything would now be back on track; with the family together, stronger ties and improved relationships.

Everyone thought so, actually.

The shimmering blue flash engulfed all the brothers, passing through the barriers of space and time, leaving the Hargreeves in the mansion where they grew up and spent most of their lives. Everyone looked happy, relaxed. And Five also shared the same relief.

Until that fateful moment.

Until a draft of wind enter through the window behind him and hitting his back, bringing a feeling that immediately made every hair on his body stand on end. In a matter of seconds, all sense of relief, calm, and peace were shattered, exploding one by one with the same aggressiveness of a nuclear bomb. The world seemed to stumble and stoped, the colors of the hemisphere fluidized into a vintage orange, flickering, almost as if the lighting came from candles.

As much as his siblings were laughing and making noises, everything for Five was quiet, in a tacit silence. The sound of cars on the streets did not exist anymore, the conversations disappeared, and, little by little, the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat. Increasing in tempo gradually, like a soundtrack.

Then, in the apex of silence, when Five could already hear the blood rushing through his veins, he listened.

Five.

Your voice in the wind, almost like a whisper. Calling for him. Just like you did a long time ago.

His soul gave a scream that shook him to the very bones, and he didn't notice when his eyes widened and his breath hitched. Suddenly, his whole body came back to life, being pulled sharply from the bottom of the ocean, submerging, desperately, breathless, astonished. Abruptly, the heat returned to his hands, to his cheeks, to his heart. Five could feel warmth coursing through his body as if they had rekindled the flame of his soul.

Was like resurrect.

He looked back in one jerk, spinning in place, heart pounding in his ribcage, his frantic, frantic eyes darting around every corner.

Nothing.

“Hey, are you okay?” Klaus looked back, focusing on his brother, but Five didn't respond.

He walked past Klaus as if he couldn't hear him, his eyes and hands trembling visibly, his step tight. Five chased the wind current as if he were chased his life, oblivious to anything or anyone.

His siblings, finding the situation strange, followed him without hesitation, accompanying the owner with green eyes entering more in the house. They had no idea what to expect, or what to think, but they stopped behind Five as he froze in the middle of the living room, eyes petrified, wide, fixed on a very specific spot at the top of the stairs.

But nobody noticed what he saw.

While all the Hargreeves were taken aback by Reginald's appearance in the outer corner of the room, stunned and petrified, growing more and more stunned as their father went on to explain the situation, Five couldn't take his eyes off the top of the stairs. Nothing in the world would have made him look elsewhere.

You.

You.

Fucking hell...you.

There, standing next to people he didn't care to find out who they were, looking down, observing at the people who had just entered.

Suddenly, everything inside him was whipped by currents of electricity, as if he'd been struck by lightning. An argument seemed to be brewing in the background, but Five Hargreeves didn't fucking care. May the world explode, may everything end up in dust, fire or water. He didn't want to know.

You were there. With the sunlight coming through the large windows behind your back, and illuminating your silhouette as if you were a deity, a goddess, a muse. You shone. Like the gates of heaven. At that moment, the soul of Five Hargreeves fell to his knees in front of you. For you.

An extremely strong emotion invaded him without asking permission, destroying everything he once was. Five felt like crying.

As a war in the background unfolded, the people who were beside you started to descend the stairs one by one. But he couldn't take his eyes off you.

“Five. Five.” Luther seemed to call out to him in the background, but he didn't care.

You walked down the steps the same way you glided through that ballroom, as if the floor were your clouds. Yours robes were uniform this time, but Five was pretty sure that behind that high collar, your skin harbored a birthmark on your collarbone. Your hair was down, but he knew how you looked with your strands tied up.

With each step you took, more his pulse quickened. It was like a dream, a mirage, his oasis in the scorching desert. At some point in the battle against the Commission he had died, and that was his dream.

However, Luther's hand gripped his arm, forcing his green eyes to meet his brother's.

“Dude, what's wrong with you? Didn't you hear dad saying that we're in another reality?”

“I am not your father.” Reginald countered. “Not in this reality.”

Five frowned, rationality slowly returning to his body, his brain taking over once more. A parallel reality. That explained a lot. A reality where…you existed.

Holy shit.

Someone said the Hargreeves had better go, and Five would have laughed out loud if he hadn't submerged in thoughts. If they really was in a parallel reality, that meant you didn't remember him. You didn't even know him. The version who have danced with him was still in another century, in a timeline far, far away.

But…Five looked up. You radiated the same beauty of the romantic period as before, your skin still looked feather soft, your lips still where able to take away his complete self-control, your eyes still have… the same glow that he remembered so many times during so many nights.

You didn't know him, but that didn't matter. Because Five knew you.

He suffered the worst of martyrdoms all this time, and now that he'd finally, finally found you once more, he wasn't going to leave. Even if it meant having to make you fall in love with him all over again. In fact, Five Hargreeves would dedicate his entire lives to making you fall in love with him all over again in every reality there is. He would have as many times as necessary a first dance with you.

He didn't realize it, but his lips lifted in a smile. In a snap of fingers, everything reached a apex, higher than the buildings, higher even to the clouds. All the problems evaporated like mist in the sun, and being in a parallel reality, with a father that wasn't his, in a house that wasn't the one he grew up in, seemed to be extremely insignificant.

For the first time in a long time, Five Hargreeves was happy. And nothing would change that.

That's when, amidst all the arguing the Hargreeves and Sparrows were having around, your eyes met his. And for him it was like coming home after an excruciating winter.

You cocked your head slightly to the side, intrigued by the way that man was looking at you so…surrendered. You understood the gravity of the situation, of those strangers breaking into your home and trying to claim everything as theirs. You were also irritated just like your siblings.

But... when you looked at that man… with eyes so green and hair so dark, something inside you caught your breath. A shiver went up your spine. And maybe you were crazy, but you can swear that felt your soul heave a sigh of…relief. A strange, emotional feeling reverberated through your spirit as if…somehow you'd just found what you've spent so long waiting to met again.

It don’t make sense.

As the confrontation unfolded between the two families, you couldn't help but notice that, minute by minute, you found yourself wanting to look at this man more. As if it were never going to be enough, as if the second you turned your head, you were overcome with an insane urge to see more. You should be focused on trying to get those strangers out of your house, not admiring one of them.

But Five realized that. A spark inside him vibrated with hope, and he delighted in being able to relive the feeling of what it was like to be looked at by you again.

But before he or you could even do anything, the physical feud between the two families broke out with astonishing speed, spreading like the plague. Diego, as usual, was the first to go into battle, followed by Luther and Allison.

See, you didn't consider yourself a confrontational person. Your peculiarity was to manipulate the natural elements and, although that made you one of the strongest figures among your siblings, you had a more adventurous spirit than a fighter. There was no such homeric thirst in your blood to be the best, the strongest, the most brutal. Ben said that was the most unattractive thing about you, but Sloane saw this feature with good eyes. Like you, she wasn't much inclined to brutality.

The fight drove you and Five away from each other, separated by rooms, siblings and war. You saw your family appeal to brute aggression very quickly, while, if you're honest, you didn't want to hurt anyone. Is trut that you were irritated by the way they claimed your house as theirs, but you didn't think they were bad people.

Or all this bland resolutions were for the fact that you didn't want to hurt him. Because, in some way you couldn't explain, you knew he wouldn't hurt you.

But that's when Alphonso yelled at you from upstairs. “Y/N! Do fucking something too!”

Everyone was scattered around the house, but you still remained downstairs, in the living room, arranging a way to help without being very aggressive like your siblings were being. You had no intention of killing or seriously injuring them, but you also weren't willing to put up with the scolding your brothers would give you if you continued to be omitte.

So, when one of the strangers came running to get away from something, the tail of his dark overcoat dancing in the air and his black hat toppling along the path, your reaction was to do the one thing that couldn't seem to do any real damage. In a wave of the hand, the windows were shattered by large, sprawling tree roots, that came out of the garden earth like thick snakes and entered the house in a steady stream.

The man gave a high-pitched scream, but his feet were already entwined by the roots and he was knocked to the ground. The roots, which spilled earth over the floor and exhaled a forest smell, wrapped themselves around the man's body up to his chest, with the only purpose of immobilizing him.

You weren't putting force or brutality, and you were sure the roots were just putting considerable pressure on, like a bandage around an injured arm. But the man didn't seem to notice this, because he kept screaming.

The fear should still be clouding his senses, and you revealed the situation. For it wasn't often that someone was wrapped around by giant roots that moved of their own accord. In your place, you would have reacted that way too.

“Hey, hey” you tried to get closer “It's ok, they won't hurt you and…”

But your speech was interrupted by shrill hum, which cut through the air with force and passed like a bullet in front of your face, shaking a few locks of your hair. The speed were frightening, and for a second your heart stopped in your chest. The fright made you take two steps back immediately, but in a matter of seconds any feeling was replaced by a very strong burning in your left cheek. In the same second, a hot liquid began to ooze from your injured skin like water in a current, spreading pain wherever went.

Two seconds that were able to put you face to face with death. Because that attack was not joking.

The bearded man ran to help the one who was lying on the ground, forcing his freedom between the roots that were now weak due to your distraction.

Unlike you, Diego didn't care about the things he had to do to save his family. He was willing to injure, inflict permanent damage, even killing if that was the only way out. He would have a guilty conscience later, but in the heat of the moment, he wouldn't hesitate. Diego did this to the Commission agents hours ago, and he would do this to you if he had to. As sure as the sky was blue, the Sparrows were the enemy. And he was the hero. Thats it. Two polar opposites, destined to face each other into the death.

And that was why he didn't hesitate to attack when he saw Klaus lying on the floor, screaming as if he were being killed. After getting a small taste of the kind of things your powers were capable of doing, it was pretty clear that you were one of the first ones that needed to go down. So Diego didn't hesitate either when he pulled Klaus off the ground, and wielded yet another dagger. Aiming not to hurt, but to kill.

But love could drive even the smartest minds crazy.

Because when the dagger was thrown in the air, a blue flash invaded the scene and a male body enveloped yours, pushing both of you aside in a rough, protective, intense gesture.

Five Hargreeves was on the stair railing, fighting Jayme, when Klaus's screams grab his attention. He didn't have much time to process what he was seeing, but the moment one of Diego's daggers slashed across your cheek, the primal, visceral instinct he'd felt so long ago, with The Handler on  The Commission, roared through him like an angry beast. So when another dagger was wielded and thrown into the air, he didn't think twice, didn't hesitate, didn't blink.

Dropping everything behind, Five Hargreeves dove into the blue flash, having you as the only focus in mind.

As soon as the crash of his body with yours caused you both to leave the deadly path, the arms, masculine and wide, wrapped around your back as if he were holding the only anchorage on the high seas in the middle of a storm. His heart was pounding in his chest, and as much that adrenaline, primal instinct and rage were bubbling through his body, he still managed to feel his soul sighing in deep relief when felt your warmth again in his arms.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

Diego's angry roar seemed to shake the walls, but didn't stop the obstinate, angry look that swallowed Five's expression.

“Diego…” his voice didn't match the situation the Hargreeves found themselves in. His tone was serious, steady, so calm it was terrifying, like the warning of darkness to the light. “Stay away from her.”

His brother's confused and perplexed look couldn't have been more accentuated. And even Klaus, known for being the least serious about situations, looked completely astonished. Five Hargreeves didn't held you like he was preventing a murder. No. He held you like Cerberus should have held the only person he was ever loyal to.

"You are fucking crazy?!" Diego gestured with his hands “Let go the enemy now!”

The Hargreeves have been through a lot, seen a lot. Many of them being absurd, beyond any rationality or law of physics, moments in which they had to deal with situations that were not possible to be of this world. But nothing, and no one, could have prepared Diego and Klaus for what they heard from Five;

"Never."

The moment was dispersed when Viktor appeared in the room, shaking, hurt, out of his mind. His head fell back in a single gesture, his arms opened up and the fists closed, as white lights began to shoot out from within his eyes and chest.

Five Hargreeves knew what that meant.

He didn't think twice before running to the side,  hiding you behind the bar counter and lowering you two bodies to the floor. His body in front of yours, blocking access to the roughest impact in you.

You two had three seconds, three seconds to look into each other's eyes before the flash explodes. And in that three seconds, the only thing that passed in the soul of both of you was the feeling of finally being where should be.

-----------

"They're stupid villains who think they're smart!" Ben was furious in the kitchen, pacing back and forth.

The last few days had passed like this. With Ben angry about the invasion, Ben angry about the fight, Ben angry about Marcus disappearing, Ben angry about... well... he was always angry.

Of all your siblings, he had the worst temper. Fei and Christopher were practically his dogs, going along with all of Ben's stupid plans just because... you really didn't know why they followed him so fervently, but had a theory that it was because they both thought they would have more power when Ben's plans came to fruition.

A hierarchical system that filled the family with toxicity.

On the other hand, there were Jayme and Alphonso. You never really understood the two, but you described them as bullies. A duo who liked the power they had and how they managed to exert it over people.

The only one you could relate to more deeply was Sloane.

"It would have been better if Y/n had made an attack." Alphonso brought your name up in conversation, his gaze full of rancor.

"Fuck off, asshole" It was the only thing you deigned to say, because you didn't have the patience to deal with his comments at the time.

The truth is, since the invasion, you couldn't get him out of your mind.

It was like a drug, an addiction, that had seeped into your blood from the first time you laid eyes on him. There was something there, something you could never explain. He should be the enemy. Your enemy. But…

The way he saved you from the knives, the way his arms wrapped around you. Almost like he already knows how to hold you. How to protect you.

Your heart couldn't slow down whenever your thoughts returned to that man. From the memory of him placing his body in front of you, standing at the forefront of the explosion.

He saved you. Everytime. And there was something that told you he would save you every chance he got.

The truth was…you wanted to see him. Know his name. Talk with him. There was no longer a fiber of your being that saw the situation as your siblingsdid, your body was facing the complete opposite north.

You wanted to touch him, not fight with him.

When time passed, and Luther showed up at the mansion as someone who was kidnapped, you, again, did not see the situation as a beneficial opportunity for your family. But for you.

Suddenly, your entire soul was gripped by a completely unsettling anxiety that made your hands itch, stomach churn, and your legs unable to stay still. Then you were swept by a feeling of deep sadness, as if you'd already experienced what it was like to spend your whole life wanting to see that man and never getting.

There was no more logic, rationality or coherence to what you were feeling, but finding him was as indispensable as breathing.

That's why you volunteered - more like an imposition - that you would be the one to escort Luther home the moment Ben said he could leave.

“It was kind of you to accompany me” The blond man smiled at you, as the two of you walked through the night streets.

"It was nothing." You tried to sound casual, but with every step toward your destination, the more your hands itched, the more your heart was racing, and in a moment, you found yourself picking up the pace to get there faster.

“I have to confess that you were a topic of discussion between my brothers.” Luther laughed, his odd way of bringing up the subject and not mincing words.

But that got your attention. "What do you mean?"

“A-ahem…well…from what I understand, Diego wanted to kill you, but Five stopped him and…”

Five…Five

His name was Five.

Something inside you stirred. An unfamiliar emotion, but one that made a smile rise to yourcheeks.

“Five” you tried to say aloud, and his name just… felt right on your lips.

You went the rest of the way not being able to pay attention to a single syllable Luther was saying. You don't wanted to be rude, but you just… couldn't stop thinking about Five.

“How long before we get there?” you cut off something Luther was saying about Sloane, and the blond eyebrows drawing together in strangeness.

“Actually” he looked at the big hotel in front of him “We already arrived and…”

But you couldn't stop yourself. All of your muscles felt like they had undergone countless electrical discharges, your heart was faster than any living soul has ever been, and your blood was rushing through  your veins like marathon runners. You increased your pace considerably, quickly climbing the steps and opening the doors of that building as if you had just walked through the gates of paradise.

You needed to see him.

Luther came up behind you, giving you a suspicious look and walking towards a bar, where the outlines of several people were talking.

-----------

"I returned." Luther's voice brought Five out of his thoughts, and a part of her brain tried to remember the time his brother had left.

And he didn't find any answers.

To his defence, Five's mind had been elsewhere these days. Moments when he rewound in his mind once, twice, three times. Not even the impending new apocalypse knocking on the door seemed to have any effect on Five. To be honest, he… saw no point in trying to save the world this time. Meeting you once was a miracle, but meeting you again, in an entirely different reality and without The Commission making things difficult, seemed like too much of a luxury for him to ignore.

The truth was that in the first attempt to escape the apocalypse he ended up sending the family to different times, with intervals of years between each one. And, deep down, he didn't know if he could handle trying to take you with him to another reality and end up losing you too.

Five had been through this once before. He knew pain too well not to be willing to risk it.

“What is the enemy doing here?!"

Diego's voice snapped Five out of his thoughts, and an electric current shot through his head and reverberated down to his toes. Immediately, without any hesitation, his eyes flew away, finding not just Luther - whit several bags in hand - but you beside him.

You.

Something inside him ignited, his heart raced and, for a moment, the whole world around him fell away.

But just for a moment, because Diego was already getting up from his seat.

“Hey. Hey!” Five teleported away, once again placing the body in front of you . “What the hell do you think you are doing?”

“What would anyone do to the enemy! What are you doing? Defending a stranger again?!"

“She is not a stranger, Diego. Now be quiet in your place before I have to do it for you.”

"She is not?" Klaus and Viktor said in unison

"I'm not?" Your voice, the only one that mattered to him, came from behind his back, quieter than the others but loud enough for him to hear.

Five turned towards you, turning his back on his siblings. Unlike how he looked at Diego, his eyes held all the softness and attention in the world when they met yours. A small smile appeared at the corner of his left mouth, a secret smile, hidden from the world but revealed only to you.

"It's a long story," he admitted, having no idea how to start. How to tell something that even to him don't make sense.

“I came to see you.” you rewarded his honesty with another truth, a gleam crossing his eyes like shooting stars. “I have time to listen.”

A smile blossomed on his lips, and Five was overcome by the purest feeling of happiness. Without saying anything, or giving anyone satisfaction, his hand laced into yours, and he disappeared with you in the blue flash.

-----------

Any sensible, practical, centered woman, would have laughed at what Five had just told you. Anyone who didn't get carried away by matters of the heart and didn't believe that two people, when destined to be together, are helped even by the wind, would have turned around and walked away.

But you weren't a sensible woman, nor practical, much less centered. Your being was composed of romance, adventure and magic. You fervently believed in destiny, soulmates and that some loves are capable of overcoming the barrier of space and time.

What's more, if all that wasn't enough, you also felt, from your soul to your bones, sensations that couldn't be explained. Feelings he was also saying he felt too. You believed in him. And that fact came as soft as the droplets of dew, as the brightness of the moon.

After his account came to end, with him letting himself be vulnerable in telling all the thoughts that ever crossed his mind about you, the urge to say just one thing screamed your blood rumbling. “You’re no the villain in my story” your words hung in the air.

“I am,” Five's voice brimmed with a liquid honesty that was able to chill your bones, but nothing in his words hinted at remorse for the things he'd already done. “But i'll be the villain for you. Not to you. I'll let worlds burn again if it means keeping you alive. In a problematic way, that I'll never be able to explain, I don't feel guilty about doing something if it means your safety.”

Five Hargreeves expected many things. Many different reactions. Many words of contradiction. But never what happened next.

Your mouth, without any hesitation, joined his in a kiss that was capable of making his world explode. His body was ignited by a fire that swallowed even his soul, washing away all his sins and giving a demon a taste of heaven.

So what was it like to kiss a goddess? An angel, a muse.

If before, without even touching your skin without the interference of clothing, Five would have happily accepted going to hell, now, with your hot mouth melting into his like warm honey, he would accept the torture of eternal fire with a smile on his face.

And when the small kiss intensified into something much bigger, his hands, warm and masculine, wrapped possessively around your waist. There was no going back. There was no turning back. Five would keep you for himself in the same selfishness that a villain steals a princess. And there was no hero in the world capable of pulling you away of his clutches.

“Are you sure that’s what you want?” He found the last bit of strength to let you know when your hands untied his tie “I could really hurt you.”

But all good intentions evaporated when your eyes, eager and full of desire, blinked at him. There was an addictive sweetness in that look. The way your lashes fluttered against your cheeks, the way your eyes held tinges of delicious submission but hid an incendiary fire behind them.

Fucking damn. He wanted you so badly.

"I don't care." Your breathless whisper invaded the room. But he didn't know if you understood the seriousness of the situation.

“Y/n.” his hands cupped your face. “I spent a lot of time contenting just for the way you looked at me. Spending sleepless nights reliving what it was like to feel the contour of your waist in my hand.” His voice was serious, deep, rough like sand scraping against stone. “Do you have any idea of the things I'm going to do to you now that I can finally, finally, have you?” his pitch lowered a few notes, like a predator talking to its prey.

You didn't know it, but only imagination made yours thighs tighten.

“I can destroy you.” his lips went to the foot of your ear, down to the curve of your neck, inhaling  your scent and tasting you. “I can leave your body purple, your breasts bitten, your hips marked by the aggressiveness of mine whenever I enter on you.”

A moan escaped your mouth, fingers tightening on his arms, head lolling to the side.

Oh lord, please he do that.

Five's hands went up to your shoulders, in a touch that became more and more possessive, gluttonous, as if he wanted to swallow you.

“I can spend hours fucking you.” his fingers lowered the straps of your dress, letting the fabric fall unceremoniously to the floor. Five pulled his face away enough to be able to look at your body fully, and a husky growl followed right away. “I can kill you.”

Here, in that moment, Five Hargreeves was giving you one last chance to give up, to make him tame the villain he was and who would destroy you for any other man.

If you slept with Five Hargreeves, you would never stop being his.

"Do it." but you didn't have an ounce of self-preservation in the inner body "please."

You didn't have to beg twice. His hands pulled your legs up, making you place your feet on his hips and hug him with your legs. Your back hit the closed bedroom door as Hargreeves' mouth claimed all it could of his. Twisting your tongue around his, biting and sucking on your bottom lip, he was beginning to mark you as his in a single kiss.

“You have no idea how much I want you.” his confession was more of a hoarse groan, hands fumbling with his belt and lowering the waistband of his pants.

Under other circumstances, he would have sucked you until drive you unconscious, pushing your walls with his fingers until you begged for his cock. But he didn't have the presence of mind to do that now. Not now. Not today. He warned of the consequences of wanting to continue at that moment. But you wanted, you begged, and now he was no longer afraid of being able to fuck you with all the vehemence he needed.

Your moans invaded the room very quickly, your waist, even if limited by the door, moved in his groin, exorcising any common sense and control that Five once had.

He pushed your panties to the side impolitely and entered you in one single, glorious, primal thrust. His cock slid in with extreme ease, being completely soaked by the way your pussy was so slick.

“Oh fucking hell” his growl sent even more waves of pleasure to your uterus, and you pressed your mouth to his neck to keep from screaming.

That's when he withdrew and pushed himself into you. Strong, brute. Hitting until found the bottom of the well. His thrusts began relentlessly, thrusting in and out of you aggressively, possessively, almost animalistic. Five's hands were all over yourbody, fingerprinting every bit of your flesh. The nails digging into your waist when you contracted and squeezed him within your plush walls.

“Fuck. fuck.” his groans mingled with the attrition of the bodies of you two against the door, which sent loud, telltale noises throughout the  hotel.

But you would rather die than stop.

His cock suddenly hit a place that made your moans come out too loud. Tears began to pool in the corner of your eyes, and your toes curled.

“Oh do you feel this, baby?” Five teased you, digging himself as deep as possible anatomically and rubbing the tip of his cock there, eliciting sly, desperate cries from you  "That's your cervix."

Then he went back to fucking you aggressively, this time pulling his chest away from you and digging his hands hard into the flesh of your hips, pulling you towards him at a intensity that could only be described as animalistic.

This was better than anything he had ever tasted in his life. Better than any sin. Better than any whiskey.

His cock desecrated your pussy like it was the only thing that mattered in the world, pulling thick liquids out of you that enveloped him in pasty white rings. Five Hargreeves would ensure that whenever you thought of any man, your mind was invaded by the way he fucked you.

"I will… I will…" your tearful voice blended with the noise of the door slamming and your bodies bumping into each other.

“Thats right, baby” his mouth covered your “cum for me. cum so I can fill that gluttonous pussy with my cum.”

If the way he thrust in and out of you wasn't enough to make you come, his lines had done the job. You came in a glorious explosion of stars, colors and sensations. Your body contracted with absurd force and relaxed like the best of massages. Your arms went limp around his neck, and you could feel his cock tremble and the hot, thick liquid fill your entire pussy.

The noise of the door stopped, his moans calmed down and now the only thing that could be heard was the heavy breathing in the air.

You thought it was over, until Five climbs a hand to your neck and lets out  a broken growl "'You look so good with my hand wrapped around your throat, baby."

His cock moved inside you, moving in and out smoothly, pushing his cum even deeper inside you. Make sure you gobble it all up.

“Did you think we were done, princess?” he chuckled evilly, his lips moving closer until they were inches from yours. "I'm just getting started. I'm going to show you how much I've wanted you this whole fucking time.”

[generalsmemories]

Ginkgo leaves

✧ jing yuan x gn!reader

✧ based on the ask: Since reqs are open, you think you could write jing yuans reaction to his lover being Mara-struck? Thank you! - requested by anonymous

✧ contents: established relationship, angst, hurt/almost no comfort lmfao, implied character death, mentions of other characters, pov mostly written in jing yuan's pov, still usage of 2nd pov (referring the reader as you), mayhaps ooc because jing yuan is an emotional wreck.

✧ a/n: when i tell ya'll i legit struggled to be able to write this entire thing. there's been like 3-4 scrapped drafts because halfway through writing i would just NOT be satisfied with the result. to the anon who requested this, i'm so sorry it took this long - but i hope the upcoming trainwreck makes up for it! a trainwreck im still not actually satisfied with LMFAO. but it's better than the other 5 scrapped works. also not beta-read so fellas if u see a spelling error - no you didn't.

p.s: some mara-struck information i give here are totally fanmade for the purpose of this fic alone, as such don't take whatever i write about mara here as what actually happens canonically to characters (then again most of the playable characters have different symptoms of mara themselves).

"Benefactor, am I correct to believe you're asking me if the general has any specific interests?" Tingyun asks with a snicker, the trailblazer looking away from her prying eyes while mumbling a quiet yes.

"Some of the younger... Can I call them younger? Anyway, some of the younger Xianzhou citizens are very infatuated with the general. Seeing as I've been announced as his honory guest, they do often come and ask me various things to try and gain his favor. So yeah, anything at this point will work - so please!" the trailblazer hurriedly explained, clasping their hands together in a desperate attempt to get anything from the foxian amicassador leaning back with a quirked eyebrow.

"Ahh, love truly makes someone go blind doesn't it," she muses out loud, the trailblazers' eyebrow furrowing together in confusion over the foxian's lady choice of words, "... You're not entirerely wrong with that statement..."

"Do you want to know what his favorite flower is?" Tingyun asks, ignoring the confused question that had been uttered to her, snapping her fan open to hide the cheeky smile that spread across her lips - but anyone could still tell that her eyes were gleaming with mischief as the trailblazer nodded their head.

"He doesn't have one."

"Then why did you even-"

"But he likes ginkgo leaves."

The trailblazers' eyes widened in shock, and rightfully so because the very thing ginkgo leaves are associated with are after all...

"He had a lover once, and as far as I'm aware, his last moment with them while they still had their consciousness intact was surrounded by ginkgo leaves."

Jing Yuan whilst having forgotten almost every single moment with you, does unfortunately remember the exact details of the day that your descent into madness started. Because what he witnessed wasn't a futile struggle you had with yourself to not to destroy everything within your vicinity. Instead, he witnessed the slow process of your bright self becoming an empty shell, only capable of uttering a few words.

It's comical really, even when faced with a curse that struck everyone mad - he found out that it oddly fit your character to not go mad, but instead become the complete opposite of your gentle self. A hollow shell of the person he fell in love with all centuries ago.

Jing Yuan knew he had to end your suffering right then and there when you first started to show signs.

But he couldn't - This wasn't something that had to be immediately dealt with, his hand wasn't forced like it was back when he had to slay his own master down before she took more lives.

No, this was a normal afternoon on what would've been another normal, mundane day in both of your lives. But everything went wrong the moment Jing Yuan heard the breaking of glass, and how there was a lone gingko leaf inside the palm of your hand - a ginkgo leaf that you were staring wide-eyed at with a trembling hand.

You were too far from the veranda to have a ginkgo leaf in your hand.

General Jing Yuan would've ended your suffering the moment you turned around to lock eyes with him, your own face twisted into one of utter fear.

General Jing Yuan would've reported you the to Ten-Lords Commissions as the law had stated. But Jing Yuan couldn't - because Jing Yuan knew that the moment he did, he would never see you again.

So he decided for once he would be selfish. Jing Yuan rarely made choices lately that was based off of his own feelings, but his time with you was cut too harshly, so once again he chooses to be selfish. Even if that meant that it would prolong your suffering just a tiny bit more. "... We can figure something out," was the only thing he could muster up the courage to say with a shaking voice. You didn't say anything, your mouth wobbling a tiny bit and your breathing getting harsher by the second.

But still you indulged him - you always did. So with an equally wobbly smile, you only nodded your head slightly, "... Sure."

That wobbly smile and expression of utter fear was the last genuine expression that truly came from yourself.

The descent to becoming fully mara-struck is usually a fast process, the curse able to completely overtake someone's mind within the same day the symptoms appears - rendering the person completely vulnerable with the only alternative to either hand themselves in to the Ten-Lords or wait for the Ten-Lords to come to them personally.

Your usual easy-going smile was gone, in its stead was eyes that kept going in and out of focus. Almost as if you were desperately trying to keep yourself grounded - a battle you both knew would end with your defeat.

Jing Yuan didn't dare to venture outside of the house. One step out and every Cloud Knight would've been on you within seconds to subdue you. He had first initially resorted to just holding you within his arms for as long as he could, to be able to remember how you felt like after your death.

But with the minimal strength you had left, you had wobbled to the garden, every step taken only making you pant heavily. But even with heavy breaths of air leaving your lips, you had refused to take Jing Yuans hand or offer to even carry you out to the garden. When you had managed to reach the ginkgo tree standing tall at the center of the garden, Jing Yuan was sure you were going to collapse in front of it, taking a quick step to catch you.

But instead you had merely reached your hands up, the falling leaves fluttering gently down onto your palms. And while you were in indescriable pain for the last couple of hours - Jing Yuan could only see a serene expression when you looked up at the ginkgo leaves that were continously falling down.

"... They're beautiful... aren't they... Jing Yuan? It's almost a pity... that these beautiful... leaves are associated with our doom," you said softly. Jing Yuan could feel his breath hitch in his throat when you uttered his name.

You're obviously struggling to convey whatever thoughts you still had to him properly, taking a moment in between words to catch your breath, eyebrows furrowed slightly as you fought against the searing pain that was spreading through every nerve in your body.

There's a sudden gust of wind which causes the pile of leaves in your hands to flutter away from your grasp. Your hand stretches out slightly, almost in an attempt to reach out for them - stumbling a bit in your step. The limp causes Jing Yuan to take a quick step forward with his arms outstretched. Perhaps seeing him in your peripheral vision causes you to stop the futile attempt to catch the escaping leaves, arms going limp against your side as you turn to face him - your once blank expression turning into a somber smile instead.

Jing Yuan thinks that it's unfair how normal you look in front of him - almost as if you haven't been becme mara-struck. Like nothing has happened to you aside from the ginkgo leaves fluttering from your lips whenever you cough. The same cough that causes the general of Luofu to flinch every time - without fail.

And perhaps you can see his inner turmoil, the way he tries to make eye contact with you, but is unable to after a few seconds. The way his hands clench too hard into fist to the point droplets of blood fall down to the grass and stains it a deep red while he bites his own lips to not say a word - lest he says something that he will regret.

And you truly wish that you could tell him everything is okay like you usually do.

But for the first time since the day he lost his friends, you can't.

"... I'm sorry," you finally say, the apology making him whip his head up to you again. Mouth opening to say something to comfort you, to tell you that it's not your fault. But the words are unable to leave his mouth when he sees your arms slightly outstretched towards him with a small smile.

And he can't hold it in anymore.

It only takes him a few wide steps to reach you from his position before he cradles you within his arms. The grip is tight, unbearably tight to the point it hurts, but you don't complain. You're limp in his hold, and if this was any day he wouldn't comment, but the fact that you're not moving a single muscle terrifies Jing Yuan to the core. "... Please," he finally manages to whisper, the rustling of ginkgo leaves around you almost drowning out his quiet plea.

"Please don't make me do this again."

He doesn't ask if the tensing of your body is caused by the pain that's rapidly increasing or if it's caused by his silent confession. He can however feel the gentle hand that rests against the lower part of his back and your head resting against the side of his own. The reassurance you try to give him does nothing to help because he's aware that it probably brought you unmeasurable pain to try to move those limbs - instead the general buries his face closer to your neck and squeezes you tighter.

"... You won't." you whisper quietly.

It takes a moment for Jing Yuan to process the meaning behind those two words.

But it's a moment too late, because before he can get his phone out to usher a command, a few resounding knocks can be heard throughout the quiet mansion.

"General Jing Yuan. This is Xueyi of the Ten-Lords commission. I've gotten information that there's currently a mara-struck within these premises."

Jing Yuan feels his blood run cold, he pulls himself away from you to stare at you properly in disbelief.

You're still staring at him with the same somber expression, however he can tell there's a small pitiful smile grazing your lips, "I'm sorry," you whisper once again.

"I asked her... personally," you start, finally letting yourself rest now that the end is near, slumping down onto Jing Yuan's chest, your ear settling itself against his heart to hear his rapid heartbeats.

Jing Yuan loathes the fact that it's at this moment, with the Ten-Lords commission outside of your door and with him completely broken do you actually look at peace - like your battle against time has finally come to its conclusion.

And naturally, the one who lost is you.

"Half a day... with you. Then she would come and bring me there. You won't have to... do this again."

You're not able to see Jing Yuan's face - and Jing Yuan wouldn't want you to see how he looked like right now. The arms around you is trembling, his mind is racing - trying to come up with anything to give him a bit more time with you.

But for once, the general that had a plan for every situation had nothing in mind.

He's lost. And the prize of the loss this time is losing you forever.

"General, I apologize for the rudeness of what I'm about to do, but this is for both of your safety," Jing Yuan hear Xueyi mutter from outside of the door, before he hears the rattling of the door frame start to slide open.

"Wait- no," it's a quiet request that gets ignored as Xueyi strides in alone, the lack of company making Jing Yuan's eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"... Their last request along with the request for my late arrival here was for the Cloud Knights to not see you like this. Naturally I won't tell anyone of what I've seen today."

Jing Yuan doesn't care about that, he could care less about his image right now, pulling you closer to him while his eyes are downcast - he makes no move to hand you over to the judge.

The puppet judge before him does not say anything - nor does she make a move. What she does however is wait, wait for the general before her that has been utterly crushed and broken by the person in his arms start to accept the harsh truth once again.

If he doesn't handle the mara-struck himself, someone else would - but the end result only serves to punish him in the end, the one left behind.

Xueyi hears a silent breath be let out by the general, her once closed eyes opening up to see the general pull slightly away from you, one hand reaching up to cradle your cheek. Your eyes have long since closed, and you're most likely not even conscious to hear what he's about to say.

"My dear... I'm sorry I couldn't do more for you. But I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit longer before we can meet again," he whispers, bumping his forehead against your own gently, "I hope you won't fault me for that."

A long ginkgo leaf flutters right between the two of you, eventually settling down on your chest.

Jing Yuan sucks in one last deep breath, "I'm sorry I kept you here for so long - I'm sorry you had to be in pain for so long because of me," he leans in to slot his lips one last time over your own, whispering something that Xueyi can't hear before he rises up, your body limp in his arms.

"Thank you for your service Miss Xueyi, please see them off appropiately." Jing Yuan says, voice sounding eerily calm - almost like his usual self.

When he turns around to finally face her, the puppet's lifeless eyes seem to grow a bit in surprise. Before her is the general of Luofu, his usual easy-going smile present on his lips.

Like he wasn't carrying his mara-struck lover in his arms.

"As much as I would want to accompany you to see them off, I'm afraid I have some urgent matters to attend to," he informs, handing your body over to Xueyi - she doesn't comment on how his hands are still slightly trembling or how he immediately turned a bit to the side to ignore staring at her head-on.

Even though Xueyi doesn't want to ask, she still asks either way, "What are your plans from here on, general?"

Jing Yuan only gives her a close eyed smile, turning his gaze towards the large ginkgo tree with his hands behind his back. He gnaws a tiny bit at his lips, finally breathing out.

A couple of seconds passes by before he opens his mouth.

"I think I'll meditate a bit under this tree before heading back to the Seat. I can't leave Luofu without me for too long after all."

5 SCRAPPED WORKS AND I'M STILL NOT ACTUALLY THAT SATISFIED BUT IF I KEEP THIS PIECE LONGER IN THE WORKS THE MORE I'LL BUTCHER IT SO HAHA - THIS IS THE BEST WE CAN DO AFTER 3 MONTHS OF CONSTANT BACK AND FORTH FELLAS. I HOPE IT SQUEEZED YOUR HEART A TINY BIT NONETHELESS.

[peachysunrize]

Condal & co. think this is a very feminist show and that they have empowered Haelena, when in reality 1) she is a good rider in the book, but only TB women can be riders in the show I guess 2) they want us to believe she is upset about Aegon's condition, but they never showed her to his bedside 3) she mourned Jaehaerys for what? One day? And then she didn't care anymore 4) she helped Daemon (you know, the man responsible for her baby son's death…….) through the vision???

But, as long as she refuses to help Aemond, people see this as good writing I guess.

Oof nonnie the facts you just said oof I LOVE THEM

MY. EXACT. SAME. THOUGHTS. The moment Rhaenyra opened her mouth and said Helaena doesn’t like riding her dragon I wanted to punch my screen SO BAD. Why is it that the writers are trying sooooooo hard to show it’s only TB who deserves their dragons that they are the only ones who are pure Valyrian (not even Rhae Rhae is pureblood lmfao) and Targtower siblings deserve nothing. NOT TO MENTION HOW GRRM WROTE IN THE BOOKS THAT HELAENAS GREATEST JOY IS TO FLY ON DREAMFYRE. But guess this feminist show only cares about one woman…

See that’s what I’ve been saying. The writers are TELLING us what’s happening in the story. We never see if Helaena ever visited Aegon, or she even thought about him, because they WONT SHOW US. They’re just empty words!!!!!! The same happened with Jaehaerys’ death but WORSE. SHE WENT FUCKING CRAZY IN THE BOOKS AFTER HIS DEATH!!!! Now because she’s autistic she can’t mourn her children??? WHO EVEN TOLD HER THAT COMMONERS’ CHILDREN DIE LEFT AND RIGHT???? AND THATS THE REASON SHE SHOULDNT MOURN HER SON??

Her helping Daemon was so cringe and stupid and it made me sooooo sad like girl that man ordered your son to be killed in HIS OWN BED NEXT TO HIS SISTER STOP TF ARE YOU DOING😭😭😭😭😭

As long as every character takes a step towards Blacks’ glory they are okay THEY ARE “HONORY BLACK”

[shining-gem34]

👫 hook and bao ( dan ) heng.

Relationship Headcanons || Accepting @memovia

1) Reading Time (Study Sessions)

Whenever Hook stays on the Astral Express, Dan Heng already knows when she'll drop by the Archives to borrow a book or two to read. He has several books ready that are suitable for a child at Hook age to read and easy to understand. It definitely evolved into a study session where Dan Heng doesn't mind reading a book outloud to help Hook understand how to pronounce the words and learn the terms. Any questions she had, Cold Young Dragon is ready to answer them. C:

2) "World Domination Team" (Adventures)

Dan Heng is now an honory member of Hook World Domination Team (The Moles). What do they do? Anything Hook wants to do which includes:

Helping the residents of the Underground.

Playing hide and seek with The Moles.

Earning their candy money (by helping people).

Playing Aetherium Wars.

Teaching The Moles (and other kids) how to read and write.

Collecting "treasure" outside of towns (under Dan Heng diligent supervision so Hook and the kids don't get hurt AND they don't go near any monsters).

And more to come!

See, Cold Young Dragon? You won't regret joining Hook and her quest for World Domination!

3) Dan Heng Vidydhara Form

When Dan Heng is comfortable enough to shift into his IL form, he can be found napping in his room. :D Like super cute sleepy dude hugging his pillow and tail curled around him. That's how Hook found him in one of her visits to see him.

If she's like super cool with it and excited to see more, Dan Heng doesn't mind keeping the horns and tail out. In fact, he lets Hook (and Bailu/others) take a nap on his tail. He'll even create mini water creatures and flowers to entertain Hook too. :3

4) Souvenirs

For Hook, Dan Heng usually brings her candy from the other planets the AE visits. Well, enough candy for her to share and more if she wanted to. Sometimes, he'll even bring a toy or trinkets for her that is entertaining for kids at her age.

But what makes the souvenirs extra special are the stories Dan Heng (and Astral Express) brings whenever he visits Hook after visiting other planets. He won't go into the dark/gory details since Hook is still too young for that. At best he'll censor it or exaggerate it into something more light-hearted. The point of the stories are the joys of adventure, like the fairy tales of Heroe's going on a journey!

[pikmin-stw-au-ask-blog]

Actually, Pom, I’m impressed you immediately recognized the Lunarlie writing. Did you study it as a pastime, or was it a requirement for joining the Rescue Corps?

Pomona: oh uh... okay I can't lie about that... I was a prisoner, but the leader saw how helpful I could be and I was um a "honory Lunarlie" for a huge chunk of my childhood... I was even taught in their schools as the only female... the males didn't lay a finger on me because of the bodyguards...

The leader's maids treated me very nicely.. but they helped me escape one day and now I'm here...

No family and now a rescue corps rook with the title called "the lucky prisoner"

[pep-the-artemis]

AutoMemoriam (part 1)

It is with deep sadness and reluctance that I am today writing this journal, I hope someday it may bring me solace. The idea of putting this into writing is wicked; it brings absolution to the events I wish to deny but it must be done for thinking all this to be delusion will mean I will be truly forgotten, even by myself. Last week (March 15, 3071)—while searching through the deep catacombs of Exo-planet Copper9—I Tessa James Elliot, daughter and lone heir of Sir James Elliot, died.

I am not a spectre nor do I believe in such frivolities but I must assure you that I have in fact experienced death. Now I shall bring forth the events that transpired, no matter how much traumatic pain it may induce. Underground, in the mines, we (myself, two of my allyship, and one friend) arrived at a cathedral; gothic in design yet inhuman in its details—its creation still eludes me. Out front, in the graveyard, ensnared in thick metal chain lay resting two sentinels with their jagged teeth tightly wrapped around a dismembered arm. It was best if they were left unbothered. The front door, locked, or quite possibly too heavy in its heavy oak build to be moved even with the support of my strongest allies; Carved into the hardened wood read the message:

non est locus iste honoris. Diabolus hic dormit.

We took it to find an alternate entrance, I prohibited damaging this relic believing we could find a secondary entrance or broken window large enough to allow myself and my allyship to climb through. Outside, the harsh scent of incense burned, my allyship unaware at the time but I found it utterly dizzying  and soon I lost all sense of direction or awareness collapsing to the ground. I assure the reader at this point this was not my near death experience, that was still to come. Eventually I did awake, much later than anyone would desire as I felt myself to be well rested and my companions had set up a fire—what were they burning, I hope nothing of importance. The stench of incense had now at this point died down to a manageable extent but that wasn’t the last of my bothers, the once resting guards now were howling aggressively pulling against heavy chains relentlessly. If they could not kill us, they’de give us no peace. Did they forget that I, as a human, am there superior?

Examining around I found I was connected to the emergency ventilator, it seems my respirator had broken (or tampered) leading me to intake the more harmful chemicals in the air, the incense smell was ever hallucinogenic or coincidental to the cause as I had been to many chapels before without much of a reaction. My vibrant energy reassured that I'd suffered little permanent damage although that was still an impossibility. Continuing my line of good fortune, that friend I mentioned earlier had found a loose rock, engraved with vivid imagery of burning angels, which when moved uncovered a small tunnel seemingly leading into the heart of the cathedral. They made sure to wait for me before advancing to which I was grateful but I can still not trust that girl; her eyes have the glimmer of a demons, in the corner of my eye I’m sure she transforms. If the devil lays dormant, it is within the girl—but I cannot kill her, she has caught the fancy of my allyship and has a mind unlike anyone else.

Being the most nimble and disposable, I made sure the girl took the lead with myself following behind alone; my allyship too large in stature to fit in the crevice so told to stay behind. The crevice was—to put it lightly—a cesspit for rats, not that any of those vermin had been down here in decades, the droppings had notably whitened from age but remained sludgy from the incessant moisture. The tunnel was impossibly long or witchcraft was afoot, again I am not one for superstition but I must say the warning Diabolus hic dormit began eating away at my most common of senses. Things only gotten worse when I fear hallucinations were coming over me, the sounds of a organ echoed around (slow and rhythmic with subtle errors implying the ill-practised hand); it wasn’t until the girl, who to put it light—who being polite only in the contemporary forms of media—began to complain. Her whining had never made me want her dead more.

Soon, we had made it free, entering the central hall we found the central floor had collapsed into a deep cavern below full of thick black stalagmites which in the flickering candlelight appeared to be pulsating like the entrails of a suffering beast. I truly felt that I was staring into the depths of hell. Across, on the other side of the cavern, sitting at the organ slumped was a person I recognised immediately, the local one eyed foreign girl, a native of this planet. When I first landed, it was she who first found me and my allyship, she speaks not a word of English even though her understanding is superb; I took aid from my allyship who were far more polylingual to keep translation. Bleeding out of her shoulder where once her arm was attached, she seemed to be in great pain yet continued to play; she made no indication that she had seen us but for reasons which will be made apparent shortly, she was well aware of our presence.

Not yet. 

I had a job to do and even Heaven would not deny the fact that this girl, the spawn of satan she is, was valuable; more so that if Doll (the strange character mentioned earlier sitting on the chasms other side—I speculate Doll is a cruel nickname relating to the button strapped over her missing eye) was to attack me alone, I would have no chance. The girl lives for now.

“Don’t stand too close” I warned as she approached the edge.

What was my duty here? That girl wished to learn the truth; Doll wished to know her mother; my allyship were down here on my command alone; in truth not one knew why we were here. All I knew was something here was desired by the Sin and so I was here on a path of destruction, the Sin cannot win again. Said object (or perhaps it was a place or even a metaphor) could be activated with a key, said key last seen being in the possession of Doll… what is she doing? Had she found what the Sin was looking for? Was she disappointed?

[nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos]

Oh you know I wanna spam all the emojis but, alas, I will restrain myself;

🗣️

🔍

💗

1. For sure Hearing Problems. I very much enjoy writing Char x Reader fics, but my OCs are my BBs and I just love working with them so much. It's literally KILLING ME that it's going to be several chapters down the road before I get to write Janx or Lyon. Janx is in my head twenty-four seven and does not know how to shut up. He's such a complete idiot lunatic and I adore his dumb ass so much. First time I wrote Lyon he would have been in his very early twenties and he's grown up SO much since then because of all the shit he's been through and I'm dying to dive into writing him. It is FRUSTRATING.

2. This should be interesting....hmm.

No further context.

3. The look on Mihawk's face when he discovers, upon taking Luffy's wanted poster to Shanks, that Karimi was (and technically still is, in an honory sense) a member of the Red Hair Pirates for two years. He's going to be so stinking annoyed about it. He very much dislikes not knowing things. And I get to write Shanks and Beck which I always enjoy. And the following morning—pretty much everybody got good and drunk the previous afternoon/night, including the warlord and his associate...and they both wake up the next morning, hungover as hell, to discover she's using his coat as a blanket and has her head on his shoulder. And Shanks is already awake and has absolutely no intention of allowing either of them live it down.

[hoursofreading]

In a remarkable and little-commented-on phrase in one of his letters, Dante refers to Christ the syllogiser, as though the peace which marked the birth of Christ could somehow be understood as the completing of a syllogistic argument (Epistle v 9). Although it is difficult to be sure exactly what Dante had in mind, he seems clearly to be implying that a syllogistic pattern could be detected in the broad pattern of history as well as in individual human actions. Dante is not the only medieval thinker to write as if syllogisms can be perceived in places where we would not normally think of looking for them. The twelth-century monk Honorious of Autun tells us that syllogisms lurk in the Bible: syllogismi latent in sacra Scriptura, ut piscis in profunda aqua (“syllogisms lie hidden in holy Scripture, like a fish in deep water”). The syllogism, with its three-in-one form, is a structuring principle perceptible to the medieval mind not just in formal logic but in sacred texts and in the broad pattern of history.

Prue Shaw - Reading Dante_ From Here to Eternity-Liveright (2014)

[sefaradweb]

Jacques Derrida

🇪🇸 Jacques Derrida (nacido el 15 de julio de 1930 en Biar, Argelia) es considerado uno de los filósofos más influyentes del siglo XX, especialmente conocido por ser el fundador de la teoría de la deconstrucción. Su pensamiento se formó en gran parte durante su traslado a París en 1949, influenciado por pensadores como Emanuel Levinas, Jacob Jabs, las teorías marxistas y las ideas de Heidegger. En 1967, Derrida publicó sus obras más influyentes, "Escritura y diferencia" y "De la gramática", las cuales fueron un hito en la filosofía contemporánea. A lo largo de su carrera, Derrida desmanteló la metafísica occidental y cuestionó cómo se construye el conocimiento y el significado, acuñando el término "diferánce", que mezcla las nociones de diferencia y diferimiento, para describir cómo el entendimiento se construye de manera relacional y contextual. Derrida también fue conocido por sus trabajos sobre el Marxismo en su libro "Espectros de Marx" (1993) y su análisis de los ataques del 11 de septiembre con los textos "El concepto del 11 de septiembre" y "Matón". A lo largo de su vida académica, enseñó en prestigiosas instituciones como la Escuela Normal Superior de París y la Universidad de California en Irvine, recibiendo numerosos honores, incluido un doctorado honoris causa de la Universidad de Cambridge en 1992. Derrida falleció el 8 de octubre de 2004 debido a un cáncer de páncreas, dejando un legado filosófico profundo que sigue influyendo en muchos campos de estudio.

🇺🇸 Jacques Derrida (born July 15, 1930 in Biar, Algeria) is considered one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, especially known as the founder of deconstruction theory. His thinking was largely formed during his move to Paris in 1949, influenced by thinkers such as Emanuel Levinas, Jacob Jabs, Marxist theory, and Heidegger's ideas. In 1967, Derrida published his most influential works, "Writing and Difference" and "Of Grammatology", which became milestones in contemporary philosophy. Throughout his career, Derrida dismantled Western metaphysics and questioned how knowledge and meaning are constructed, coining the term "differánce", blending the ideas of difference and deferral, to describe how understanding is relational and contextual. Derrida was also known for his work on Marxism in his book "Specters of Marx" (1993) and his analysis of the September 11 attacks with texts like "The Concept of September 11" and "Hoodlum". Throughout his academic life, he taught at prestigious institutions such as the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and the University of California, Irvine, receiving numerous honors, including an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University in 1992. Derrida passed away on October 8, 2004, due to pancreatic cancer, leaving behind a profound philosophical legacy that continues to influence many fields of study.

[prashasconsulting]

What is an Honorary Doctorate? Knowing the significance, meaning and procedure.

Today, in the world of academia, receiving a doctorate degree is the top level of education. It's also a highly coveted option. It doesn't require studies, years of research or dissertation. The honorary doctorate is a title. Honorary doctorates are awarded to those who made a significant contribution to the community as well as the arts and the business world.

What exactly does an honorary doctorate mean? What is the procedure to earn such an enviable title? What are the advantages associated to it and how do they impact you? This blog will answer these issues. The blog will increase your knowledge of this prized honour.

What is an Honorary Doctorate?

A doctoral honorary degree (honoris causa meaning in Latin, "for the sake of honor") is an honorary distinction. The award is given by colleges and universities to individuals who are exceptional in their respective fields. A honorary doctorate is different from a conventional doctorate. This type of degree involves years of study as well as research and writing dissertation. Honorary doctorates recognize individuals' lifetime achievements. The honorary doctorate recognizes their contribution to the community and also the sciences, the arts as well as business.

Doctorate Requirements for Academics: Honorary doctorates do not come from the academic process or through research. They are honorary and are purely symbolic.

Do not call someone "Doctor" unless they have an advanced degree. The honor recognizes the recipient's accomplishments and contributions to the community.

Types of Honorary Doctorates

The universities award a variety honourary doctoral degrees. Every type of honorary doctorate recognizes distinct achievements.

Doctor of Humane Letters (DHL) for work in the field of social sciences, charity or charity. * Doctor of Science (DSc) for researchers or scientists who have advanced knowledge of science.

Doctor of Arts (DA) The award is given for outstanding achievement in the fields of literature, art or in the fields of culture.

Doctor of Laws (LLD) The title is typically given to judges or legal scholars. It recognizes those who have made significant advancements in the field of legal and judicial knowledge.

Doctor of Business (DBA) This is a designation designed for entrepreneurs and business leaders who have significantly influenced it.

What is the procedure for receiving the honorary degree?

In contrast to a conventional doctorate You are not able to submit an application to be awarded an honorary doctorate. These awards are awarded by universities in their sole discretion through a lengthy selection procedure. This is how it typically is carried out:

Nomination: The university's officials or alumni, faculty or students generally nominate someone. In certain instances, groups could also nominate names.

The university committee reviews the contributions of the person being considered and their impact on the society. It is usually based on volunteer work and humanitarian activities, as well as cutting-edge research. This could also be due to outstanding work done in the area of expertise.

Approval: Following the assessment is completed, the board of the university determines the decision.

Awards Ceremony: Most universities offer honorary doctorates upon graduation, or at other important events.

The most important thing to remember is that honorary doctoral degrees aren't available for purchase or transferable. They are granted to honour extraordinary accomplishments.

Benefits of Receiving an Honorary Doctorate

Honorary doctorates do not carry the academic value that comes with the traditional degree. It does have its own advantages:

"Recognition of Achievement The award acknowledges your efforts as well as your achievements, thus boosting your reputation in the industry.

The recognition of a respected institution increases your reputation and opens up the door to new possibilities.

Networking: Honorary doctorate holders frequently get invitations to social gatherings. These can include business, academic and social occasions. They allow access to important networks.

Recognition of Others: This appreciation will encourage others to follow in your footsteps. This can motivate them towards making positive contributions towards society.

Real-Life Examples:

In 2005 In 2005, in 2005, the University of Pennsylvania gave an honorary doctorate Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc.

Oprah Winfrey is a business mogul as well as philanthropist. Duke and Harvard gave her honorary doctorates to recognize her service to the world.

Criticisms and Controversies Surrounding Honorary Doctorates

Although they are highly regarded the honorary doctorates do not come free of controversy. The argument of critics is that

A few institutions offer honorary doctorates or awards to prominent personalities or to donors. This is done to get attention or gain financial support.

The convenience of obtaining an honorary doctorate lowers the worth of doctoral degrees earned.

Rarely, recipients may have misled people by claiming honourary titles. They induced people to believe that they have a doctorate in the traditional sense.

Many institutions, however, adhere to strict guidelines. They seek to recognize only those who have made important achievements.

[honoriotsusuki]

"Opposites attract"

Veritas Ratio x reader concept

The notion was one Ratio found himself rolling his eyes at regularly. The idea was wish fulfillment, nothing but sentimental dribble. And while he had nothing against romance, he didn't like the air of well- romanticaztion that surrounded it. Rose tinted glasses and holidays that served no purpose except for companies capital gain.

However he had come to understand the concept when he met... you. There was nothing specifically eye grabbing, no fancy clothing or commanding presence- but a genuine artist that felt passion for their craft. An artist who worked for different clients to paint portraits. And though your occupation was strictly portraits- your personal work dripped with meaning at every brushstroke. It was mesmerizing. Ratio had always held respect for the arts. But this... he had never seen it in such stunning rose tinted glasses before- wait

And so. Ratio began his descend into madness and denial. Refusing to admit he had a crush on a painter he had never even spoken to.

@HONORIOTSUSUKI

[elysianpens]

"Crafting Worlds with Words: A Literary Journey with Dr. Sujoyita Pal"

Dr. Sujoyita Pal has written more than 50 anthologies. She lives in Kolkata at baranagar. She has completed graduation in English from calcutta university and after that she has completed masters degree in English from Rabindra bharati university and then she has completed B ed in English from wbuttepa university. She is an internationally certified writer. She has got many awards in this writing field. Her name is featuring on google, if anyone do search in the google by her name then anyone will get the details about her. Her name is featuring on 45 plus Google sites, she has got doctorate award, it's honoris causa which award is govt and niti aayog certified. Recently her 13 write ups in the 3 anthologies has been published and had launched at the world book fair in new delhi at pragati maidan. She is an English teacher, spoken English trainer as well as corporate grooming trainer. She is a certified soft skill trainer. She has written 50 plus anthologies.

Her achievement

1. India fame award 2021 from the quidditch ink publications

2. Atal swarna samman 2022 a national level award from iconic brand network

3. Swami vivekananda rastriya swarna samman 2022

4. Bharat bhusan ratna samman 2023

5. Best writer award 2023 from drop of change publication house

6. Poet of the year 2023 from drop of change publication

7. Naari samman sheroes award 2023 from priya's wisdom publication

8. Iconic indian personality winner from priya's wisdom publication house

9. Rajendra prasad excellence award a national level award from priya's wisdom publication house

10. Global achievers award 2021

11. Karwa chauth award 2021 from R k publication

12. Have got Honorary Doctorate Award ( it's honoris causa) on 15.5.2023

13. Awarded Charles Dickens Award ( it's Google featured) on 12.9.2023

Sujoyita Pal is very versatile writer and has co-authored more than 50 anthologies.

[phobos-vii]

The Senate

The Senate is the ultimate force of governance within the city, only superseded by the Dominus, who generally cares little for the minutiae of the day to day. The body is empowered to write and enforce laws, impose and collect taxes, appoint and recall officials, and serve as a judiciary for cases it deems worthy of attention. Its body is made up of one hundred members, each a head of a Patrician household. It is a democratic assembly with no ranks or official seniority among its membership. All decisions are made by vote, requiring sixty affirmations for any measure, though the Dominus may unilaterally demand or reject any measure should they deign to do so.

When a senator dies or retires, their seat will be granted to their chosen heir, who will serve as the next head of their household. Should a seat be left vacant without an heir, or should a senator be expelled from the assembly, the body will elect a new senator from among the Patrician households. Tradition dictates that there be exactly one hundred senators at any time, but there is no requirement. The Dominus is empowered to elevate anyone to the Senate at any time, or to expel any senator should they wish.

While nominally every senator is equal to every other, and each should vote according to one’s own conscience, the stark realities of politics has led to the development of factions. These factions act as nigh uniform voting blocs, scrambling for the unaffiliated. Many Patricians outside of the Senate subscribe to one of the factions. Most every issue is debated through that lens. In the current years the two major factions are the Antiquiores and the Honori.

The Antiquiores are the conservative faction of the Senate, generally slow to act and concerned about maintaining traditions. They value education, generational virtue, and enshrining the dictates of the Senate in a manner that will protect its current membership, especially older, more distinguished families. Though Antiquiores may seek offices for themselves and their patrons, they reject payment from stipends, with the belief that wealth earned through office or through mercantile interests is unclean. The Antiquiores seek to codify the patronage relationship into enforced laws of fealty, and make appointed offices hereditary for their Patrician client households.

The Honori are the aggressive faction of the Senate, quick to use the power of the state to enrich themselves and their allies. They value demonstrated competence, extravagant displays of wealth, and direct intervention in any manner that catches their attention. The Honori exist to enrich themselves and their patrons, and have no qualms targeting their enemies with specific laws or taxes, and are happy to shower patrons in appointed offices with grand stipends. The Honori seek to expand the Senate, filling it with loyal households. They also seek to elevate rich plebeians into nobility. Both proposals are aggressively antithetical to the Antiquiores.

Regardless of faction, it is very difficult to lose money as a senator. Every single member of the assembly is among the wealthiest elite of the city. This is simultaneously a consequence of generational wealth and the opportunities afforded for self-enrichment both.

[letusbebitter]

And maybe in the end we are all broken people

Playing like we’re whole while our hearts fractal from the inside out

I imagined adulthood would feel like something more tangible than this hollow state of mind

But my construction is cardboard thin, and my mask is paper

And maybe I would be okay with waking up somewhere else

In another bed, in another skin

Because none of us are really guaranteed we'll wake up the same person tomorrow anyway

[autobot-scout-riella]

🌀

Send “🌀” to find my muse, injured and alone after being beaten up | Selectively Accepting

The world is hazy and swirling from a combination of too much high-grade and one slightly cracked optic, but Riella’s pretty sure she won that fight. She’s still standing, after all–at least, she thinks she is, the lights wouldn’t be above her if she’d fallen down, right?–and she can’t see the other mech, so that means she won and he’s gone.

Probably. Maybe. She hit him hard enough, it might have knocked him out. Or hurt him enough he had to leave. There are more options, but her processor is too foggy to come up with any coherent ones, so she decides to go with what she’s got. It’s the best-case scenario.

She’s not usually that optimistic. It’s a nice feeling.

“Okay, kid, time to go.” It takes her a moment to figure out who’s talking to her, and she almost falls over trying to turn around to see him. It’s the bartender, twice her size and three times as broad–or at least, he looks like he is through blurry optics–and not happy. What crawled up his tailpipe? She’s already paid for her drink, it’s not that he’s yelling about. “Let’s go. Out. You’ve had enough.”

No she hasn’t. She’s not at all close to finished–

–and then suddenly she’s outside leaning against the wall, with no idea how she got there and without a drink. That’s not fair!

“I suppose there’s not much point in asking you what happened?”

Huh. She knows that voice. She can’t put a name to it, but she’s pretty sure it doesn’t belong in the less-than-legal end of Iacon…

She looks up to see a pair of red legs, and then up, and up, and up–Primus’ sake, how tall is he? She didn’t think he was THIS tall–until she finally recognizes Sentinel Prime. His features seem to blur and distort under the influence of her cracked optic, but the beard is relatively distinctive.

Oh, right. He asked her a question, and he’s waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, well…” she slurs, waving a hand in his general direction in what she wants to be an emphatic gesture. “You should see the other guy.”

Sentinel, or what little she can see of him, doesn’t look nearly as impressed as she’d hoped. Why are the lights flickering? Who’s screwing with the street lighting? 

The last thing she remembers is the world being apparently turned upside down and spun in an industrial car wash.

When she wakes up, the first thing she notices is the horrible throbbing helmache that seems to have spread beyond her helm and into her neck and shoulders. Fireworks explode behind her optics when she tries to open them, sending stabs of agony directly into her processor, and for a moment all she can do is stare at the unfamiliar ceiling above her and groan. At least it’s plain metal, not something hideously brightly colored, but the slightest movement makes her head spin so badly that she clutches the blanket against her chest and tries to will herself back into unconsciousness.

It doesn’t work, and after a few minutes of huddling under her blankets and wishing she could just stop existing until the helmache goes away, she’s still awake enough to take another cautious look at the dark metal far above. It’s a remarkably high ceiling with no markings to tell her where it originated–

Wait.

Where is she?

With a startled squawk of pain, she jerks upright, finds herself tangled in too much fabric to move, and flails, desperately hoping not to either black out or purge her tanks. Instead of freeing herself, she finds herself falling sideways and helps in panic, only to land in a heap on the floor in a pile of blankets. “What–where–WHERE THE FUCK–”

“My office. Stop shouting before the clerk down the hall assumes someone is being murdered and contacts law enforcement.”

Riella jerks around, rubbing frantically at blurry optics, until she spots the source of the voice–Sentinel Prime, seated calmly at a massive desk in front of a stack of paperwork. He doesn’t look up at her, apparently absorbed in whatever he’s reading, though he pauses briefly to take a sip from a cube of warmed mid-grade. The cube would probably be very tempting if it weren’t for the splitting ache still tearing through her helm.

“How–who–what’m'I doin’ here?”

“Apparently you spent your night punching people.” Sentinel adjusts the tiny magnifying spectacles in front of his optics and finally pauses long enough to look at her. “You passed out on my feet, and as I found the idea of leaving you to recover in the street distasteful, I brought you here. You’re welcome.”

She blinks again and keeps rubbing at her optics, hoping that things will start to make sense if she can just get her head to stop hurting. “A fight? Di’ I win?”

“I have no idea. You thought I should have ‘seen the other guy’. Unfortunately, I did not.”

She should ask more questions, like why he has a couch and blankets in his office and if she can have some mid-grade and what the hell he was doing in that part of town in the first place, but she’s dizzy and she hurts and everything is blurry. Dragging the tangle of blankets with her, she crawls back onto the couch and curls up into a ball, half-buried in blankets with a pillow wedged under her throbbing helm. “Y'mind if I just…go back t'sleep till things make sense?”

“Be my guest, as long as you do it quietly.”

If Sentinel has anything more to say, she doesn’t hear it, drifting off to sleep again as the helmache mercifully fades.