#((but my own visuals will replace these soon enough

[clumsiestgiantess]

Tserem’s story is actually too long to put all in one sitting, so I’ve decided to split it into two halves with a cliffhanger in the middle. You’re welcome.

(his ref is here btw)

I had his text in a cool font to show his strange accent; kinda sad it doesn’t transfer over onto Tumblr, so just pretend Tserem’s lines are in Caveat font.

I'd only started a rebellion which nearly usurped the King and massacurred his entire bloodline.  I see no need for a death sentence.  It would be the noose for sure — a public hanging to make an example out of me.  I stood patiently in the small courtroom, my arms and legs chained to the cold, stone floor.  Meanwhile, the King, my judge, jury, and soon to be executioner stood haughtily from a podium above me.  Light filtered in through gleaming stained-glass windows above his large wood-carved chair, bathing him in a yellow halo-esque glow.  That visual had to be intentional.

"Filthy rebel leader," the king addressed me, refusing to use my name, though he must know it.  It was by accident that I became a household name.  I hadn't intended for my less-than-ethical ways to spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom.  Then again, it wasn't hard when many were left starving and homeless.  These days people are desperate enough to do just about anything.  Scarlet became an accursed whisper in the wind.  Scarlet like the blood of her enemies.  Scarlet like my own blood which seeped onto the floor from the wounds I'd generously been given on my way in here.  "You will be sentenced to death by-”

The King's advisor quickly pulled him aside; I strained my ears to hear what he said.  "If you hang her in the square, you will have another riot on your hands.  She will not only make a good example of those who do not follow you, she will become a symbol of what those cretins are fighting for."  Damn.  He was right.  I was betting on some sort of trouble to go down during my execution.  I'd even hoped to escape in the chaos.  "It is best you do something more.. secretive."  I tried to tell them that no matter how they killed me, my death would still stand for something.  It has to mean something, right?  However, a metal clamp held my mouth closed, digging into my jaw as I tried to speak.  The King cleared his throat, returning to the podium.  "Rebel, you are sentenced to death… by sacrifice."  

My eyes widened in shock, and my mouth would've hung agape had it not been for the clamp that held it tightly shut.  I strained against my chains.  Death by sacrifice was supposed to be a myth.  Only vague tales claim that the King had tamed the Beast of Shrieking Hill.  And still only rumors claimed that he'd done so with human sacrifices.

"Guards!" the King commanded, "Take her to be readied for the ceremony!"  I cried out in dismay, thrashing in my chains as two armored guards dragged me away.  This time, I wasn't taken to a cell.  They dragged me past the reinforced prison doors to a hallway that came to an abrupt end.  We waited there for a while.  I attacked one of the guards, testing how easy escape would be.  It wasn’t easy enough.  The guard I hadn't attacked cracked the blunt end of his sword over my head, and I crumpled to the ground.  My vision was dotted with black spots, but once they subsided, an old hag stood in front of me.  I flinched, unsure if I was really seeing her or if that guard had knocked the sanity out of me.  The King, followed by his elite personal guard, came up behind the old woman.  My two guards were dismissed, replaced by two of the King's very own.  They held me aside as a third stepped up to the end of the corridor.  They did something to the wall — I couldn't quite see, but it had something to do with rearranging the stone pattern — and suddenly it split wide open, revealing a tunnel straight into the earth.

I was dragged inside first, and the rest of my entourage followed suit.  We walked for what felt like eternity, yet it was over too soon.  The end of the tunnel led into the middle of the forest, where an inconspicuous cart waited.  I was bound tighter and thrust into the back while the rest of the party rode in seats surrounding me.  One of the guards, and the King of course, rode up front to steer.  I was thrown about, jostled roughly every time the cart hit a bump, which was quite often on this derelict road.  

Again the trip was over after eternity, yet only a moment.  The sky had darkened to deep hues of purple and pink.  My stomach dropped as I saw what awaited me.  A long stake lay on the ground with only one small cross-section for me to stand on once it was raised.  I tried to slip away from the guards while they removed my chains, but I should've known better.  These were the best of the best.  I barely made it more than a few inches before their almost inhumanly fast reflexes grabbed hold of me once more.  

Fear gripped me once I was tied to the stake.  My death suddenly became a very real prospect to me.  I would never let myself beg the King for mercy, but I would certainly voice my fear.  Especially once the old hag leaned over me with a bowl of strange liquid between her hands.  She dipped her fingers into it and reached out to put it on me.  I screamed between the fabric of the gag in my mouth, squirming away from the sickly sweet smelling ooze as it dripped off her fingers.  

Despite my best efforts to escape, I could do nothing but watch as multiple guards came to hold me down while the old woman did her work.  The king watched everything from afar, his cold emotionless eyes glaring at me from the edge of the clearing.  First, the woman used the awful stuff to draw markings across my face.  Her long nails were so sharp that she cut into me slightly and I yelped, though it couldn't really be heard through my gag.  Then, she pulled down the neck of my tunic and took another dip of the strange oil.  She drew a symbol over my sternum, pressing roughly into my skin so it was drawn in both oil and blood.  The liquid stung my fresh cuts and I shrieked in pain.

The old hag whispered unintelligible nonsense over me and the guards hoisted me and the stake upwards until it was stuck firmly into the ground.  Now, I was held a good ten or so feet off the earth.  By then, the sky was completely dark and the only light came from the few torches dispersed about the clearing.  The King stepped up to the mountainside in front of me with a torch in his hand.  It was only then that I noticed the gaping hole in the rock face, void black against even the torchlight, like an endless pit.  A similar pit yawned in my stomach as I stared at it in horror.  

"Beast, I offer you tonight another sacrifice!  I hope you may find her suitable, and fill your insatiable appetite."  I retched at the thought of being eaten.  Terror seized my chest as everyone in the clearing proceeded back down the path they'd come.  I cried muffled pleas, begging them to reconsider, but they were soon gone.  Alone in the clearing, I squeezed my eyes shut and hoped for a quick death.

Nothing but the sounds of animals and rustle of leaves on trees in the crisp night air could be heard from the forest.  However, as the sun slid away, another sound started beneath it all.  It was barely noticeable at first.  One moment it was hidden, the next, I was sure I heard it — the tapping of something hard stepping over stone.  Only, it wasn't stepping, really.  The sound was more akin to scuttling, like a massive bug.  This was strange, yet even more terrifying.  I expected the beast to be some awful demon or dragon, maybe a huge hairy monster.  The prospect of something unknown frightened me more than any of those creatures did.  I had to take a look.  

To my relief and disappointment, the torches had all gone out while my eyes were shut tightly.  My heart flew into my throat when I saw the cave — its opening was practically unseeable so that it looked as if it had grown wider in the dark.  A long, snaking body spiraled out of the abyss, spindly legs skittered about its sides as it glided closer.  I wanted to scream, but I couldn't make a single sound.  The very front of its body lifted up, rearing back its head.  I couldn't see what it looked like, but then again, I didn’t really want to.

The creature's creeping body skittered closer, circling the stake once before bringing its head up to examine me.  Dilated snake-like eyes glistened in the dark.  Finally, it seemed my body had caught up with my brain.  I screamed, writhing on the stake in a poor attempt to free myself before the monster could swallow me up.  The creature flinched away from me for a moment before drawing closer.  A forked tongue brushed my chest where the oils were drawn, making my breath hitch in terror, my whole body going cold.

Two massive appenages, almost twice the size of its scuttling legs and far more muscular, lifted from its body from a place a bit below its head.  I thrashed and screamed as the limbs moved in towards me.  At last, I managed to break free of something.  The gag in my mouth fell around my neck.  "Wait!" I cried, "Please!  I'm begging you!  Please don't eat me!  I've done nothing wrong!"  This was a bold-faced lie, but it was all I could think of.  The creature froze in place, pupils narrowing, scrutinizing me from above.  No wonder I was placed on a stake so high in the air.  This monster was as likely as long as the entire castle bridge; its snaking body still sat partially in the cave with no end in sight.  

The creature leaned backwards on its impossibly long body, and for a moment I thought it had somehow miraculously listened to my words.  It was too good to be true — not even my own supporters believed much of what I said.  They only believe in what I did.  Once.  To a few people who really deserved it.  The lengthy creature wound back only to strike at me with lightning speed, ripping me right off the stake.  I shrieked as the shadowy form of the monster overtook me, and I was plunged into darkness.

A throbbing pain in my side startled me awake, and I found myself pressed into a rocky lump of the floor.  Wait.. I woke up.  I'm alive!  My head spun as I sat up and gazed at the room around me.  Glorious light bounced off crystalline structures that grew from floor to ceiling all over the cavern.  It was so beautiful that I was almost certain that I had died after all.  A pristine pool of water reflected the ceiling like a mirror.  My stupefied shock was suddenly overcome by fear as the twisting shadow of the creature that attacked me slid behind the rocky outer edges of the cavern.  I scrambled backwards, searching rapidly for a way out.  

"What do you want with me!?" I cried, standing up despite my dizziness.  "Why don't you just get it over with already?  Stop toying with me and eat me!"  "I thought you said you did not want me to eat you."   I gawked, staring at the creature's form as it stopped moving and gazed at me from the dark.  "Y- You can talk?"  The voice that echoed from the creature's side of the cavern was masculine, and thick with an accent I didn't recognize.  His remark sounded almost amused.  "Why are you-" I suddenly collapsed on the ground, dizziness catching up with me.  I hadn't drank anything over the past who-knows-how-long; I'd probably been unconscious for a while.

"The water in this cavern is for drinking." the creature told me.  I took his words as an invitation and rushed to the water's edge, scooping the cool liquid into my hands and guzzling it as quickly as I could.  I kept an eye on the shadow of the creature the entire time, just in case he tried to attack me while I was turned from him.  Once I finished, I continued my question from before.  "Why are you hiding back there?"  The creature was silent for a moment.  His shadow edged closer, but never came into the light.  "I am hiding because you will be terrified if you see me.  I have tried to take a more human form, but it is not very human."  A more human form?  His shadow didn’t look human at all.  It was twisted around a third of the cavern.  “Well, I’m already terrified of you, so what does it matter?” I replied.  The creature was quiet, slithering back and forth between the columns of crystal.  “I suppose you are right,” he muttered, sliding into the light.

A massive, serpentine body coiled towards me; I followed it with my eyes all the way up to his torso, which faded from scales to tan human flesh.  The beginning of his body — from his torso to his head — looked almost completely human, except for his startling yellow slitted eyes and slightly elongated mouth.  "See, I told you that you would be scared," he grumbled, gesturing to my pale face and horrified expression.  I stumbled backwards, nearly falling into a smaller pool of water behind me.  "Are- Are you going to eat me?"  Panic bubbled into my voice.  I could hear it echo over the stone walls around me.  It was then that I realized that the creature's large body was blocking the only exit I could see.  He grumbled annoyedly, rubbing a hand over his face tiredly.  I backed away further, worried that I'd angered him.  Suddenly, the creature laughed.  His jaw unhinged as he did so, causing me to whimper involuntarily.  I was so sure he'd eat me — that he'd simply swallow me whole.  "Oh, I suppose I should not be laughing," the creature mused, catching himself.  "After all, it is my job to eat humans who are sacrificed to me.  Do not panic little creature, I do not intend to hurt you."

He could easily tell that I didn't believe a word he said by the way I had myself pressed against the back wall, so he continued.  "Look, if I were going to eat you, why would I have waited to do so now?  I could easily have eaten you tied up on the stake."  "I- I don't know!" I cried, "Maybe you like to toy with your food before eating it?  Didn't you just tell me that it's your job to eat me?  Why would you not?"  The being's eyes narrowed in thought for a moment.  "You are rather smart for a human.  I knew I saw something worthwhile in you," he mused.  "Alright, if you wish not to believe me, I do not mind.  You may go free.  I am sure you have family of some sort that are worried about you."  

Shock and sorrow seized my chest simultaneously, mixing into hostility.  "I don't have a family," I murmured as the creature made way for me at the entrance.  "The King's army killed them trying to get to me!  You work for him, and I don't believe a word you say!"  "I DO NO SUCH THING!" the creature roared, scaring me into silence again.  "I work for food.  The King just happens to be my supplier."  He slithered closer to me, leaning over the pool of water, casting ripples over its pristine surface.  His human hand reached for me and I gasped.  The length of it was almost four feet tall.  Thankfully, the creature pulled it back to his side at the last second, re-thinking his actions.  

"I am Tserem.  A being from another world with powers your human mind can barely comprehend, yet I too have what you call family.”  His shuddering sigh made my hair stand on end, but his voice sounded genuine.  “He took yours from you, and he took me from mine."  The creature, Tserem, leaned back like he'd done the night before, though this time he didn't look as though he would strike at me.

His words finally seemed to take hold in my mind.  “You’ve come from another world?  I’ve heard of other realms.. but another world?  What does that mean?”  His foreign accent, devilish appearance, and strange name all made much more sense.  “I have a proposition for you,” he told me, ignoring my questions.  “I have saved your life so I ask you to listen, at the very least, to what I have to offer."

"My name is Scarlet," I replied, "I'm a symbol of a rebellion against the king.  What could you possibly have to offer me?"  "Besides your life?"  He chuckled as my heart nearly beat right out of my chest.  "That was a bad joke, sorry.  You are called Scarlet?"  I nodded hesitantly.  "Come then, I will show you what I mean."  Tserem beckoned for me to follow him, and I cautiously stepped up to his side while he waited for me by the cavern opening.  Nodding brusquely, he slithered into the next cave.  This one was smaller than the other and dimly lit with torches rather than crystalline light.  

Once I stepped in, he gestured to the wall behind him.  An ugly metal clamp cut into the rock wall.  A gigantic, thick chain stemmed from it, coiling across the floor and into Tserem's lower back, digging beneath his snake-like scales.  I can't say I pity this monster, but the metal inside his skin must be horribly painful.  "I could easily go out and kill the King myself.  However, I am trapped here.  I have asked many other sacrificed humans if they wished to help me escape, but none of them have helped me, and some of them I…  could not bother to ask."  

Was it my imagination, or did he hesitate just then?  "I mean, if you give people the option to go free or help a creature like you, I'm guessing most of them chose to get out while they could."  He nodded, a faraway look in his eyes.  "What did you mean when you said you didn't ask some of them?" I asked suspiciously, "Why did you pause for a moment when you spoke?"  I don’t think I’ll like the answer, but for my own safety, I think I should have one. 

Tserem shuddered, "The only things I can eat are animals stupid enough to wander in here, and the humans that are given to me.  Most animals scent me and run long before I can reach them.  Sometimes, when I hear a human writhing on that pole, I am…  I am too far beyond starving to think about sparing a free meal."  "You..  You don't even give them a chance?" I whispered, horrified.  "Those are people!  You can't just eat someone!"  "When you are starving and angry and alone, yes, you can," he spat back.  

"So if I agreed to help you but you got hungry, would you eat me?"  Tserem began to look sick.  "I know you are intelligent beings, but I must do what I can to survive.  I do not want to eat humans, but like my living situation, I have no choice.  The King could feed me anything else, yet he decides to only feed me his own kind."  I stepped down from my argument.  He was forced to live in a cave, forced to eat living ‘sacrifices’.  Like me — forced into becoming a symbol of the rebellion through a few vengeful acts — he became this way through the terrible mistreatment of him by the King, just as I had.  Tserem was a monster by circumstance, not by choice.

I took a deep breath of air, summoning up whatever courage I had left within me.  "Alright.  I'll help you.  Just.. swear to me that no matter how hungry you get, you will not eat me."  Tserem nodded eagerly.  "I would never do such a thing," he replied in mock horror.  At my steely glare, he quickly backed down.  "Yes, of course I will not hurt you.  So, do we have a deal?  You will help free me?"  "You promised me something in return," I reminded him.  "Hmm, I was hoping you would forget about that part.  What would you like?  I can give you riches, power, knowledge…"  Tserem went on and on, listing wishes to grant like a genie in a bottle.  None of his prospects interested me, though.  All I really wanted was my old life back, but that was impossible now.  Out of everything he listed, I supposed I wanted protection the most.  If I'd had protection from the start, I could have saved my family rather than avenge them.

"Protection!" I blurted, "I'll take protection!"  Tserem smiled genuinely down at me.  "Deal!  Scarlet, if you free me, I will owe you a great debt.  I will pledge allegiance to you over the King, and will protect you with my life."  My eyes widened at the thought of having my own personal otherworldly bodyguard.  My mind wandered to the glorious idea of storming into the castle with him by my side, forcing the king off his throne of neglect and deceit.  

"Deal," I replied, holding out my hand for him to shake.  It was a habit, really.  I hadn't expected him to do the same, so it surprised me when his gigantic hand reached for me again.  I flinched away, but soon regained my composure once I realized what he intended to do.  It took all the courage I had to keep from diving into another part of the cave as Tserem inched closer.  Two of his gigantic fingers gripped my whole hand between them.  I expected his grip to be crushing, like a snake coiling around its prey.  However, he was shockingly gentle, delicately shaking my hand with the smallest amount of force.  I could see from the concentrating expression on his face that he was trying his best not to hurt me.

Once he let go, I fell to the floor, exhausted, all threats finally dealt with.  It was daylight outside; I could see it shining from further ahead in the caves.  Still, I hadn't slept all night, and I'd been on high alert ever since I'd been captured.  There’s no food in prison — at least nothing edible.  By now, I’m running off pure fear and adrenaline alone.  Though I was in a strange cave with a creature I barely knew, I got up and searched for somewhere to rest.  I should be safe here.  Not only had Tserem vowed not to eat me, he'd pledged to keep me safe, if I freed him, that is.  I will free him, but not now, not when I'm nearly passing out with exhaustion.  Tserem seemed to notice that I was rapidly losing consciousness at just the right time.  I nearly fell to the floor, but he caught me before my head collided with stone.  I yelped, feeling a sense of vertigo as the gigantic being cautiously pulled me into cupped hands.  In a half sleep, I watched as he slithered off and lay me down in a pile of furrs.  The moment I felt the soft surface beneath me, I fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.

I woke up in a cold sweat, grasping at the furs beneath me.  A nightmare of yesterday’s terrifying events was still fresh in my mind.  Tserem was still asleep when I woke.  He was coiled in a large, scaley heap on the floor, his human torso lying over the top, mouth agape in a snore.  I turned back to the furs and jumped at a strange bristling object I saw nearby.  A whole berry bush sat beside my sleeping place, torn right out of the ground.  This must be my meal.  I’m quite literally starving to death at the moment, so I guess this will do.  While I ate my fill, I watched Tserem.  It was harder to be afraid of him while he was sprawled out across the floor like that.  

Cautiously, I tiptoed past him and wandered the caves, coming to the large opening at the front.  I could see a vast spread of the kingdom lay out before me in the early morning sun.  Clouds caught on the peaks of mountains all around, and light glinted off windows of the houses below.  “Beautiful, is it not?” Tserem asked, startling me.  “I would enjoy living here if I were not trapped here.”  I glanced up at him, watching as his expression sunk to a remorseful stare.  “Hopefully you won’t be stuck here much longer,” I replied.  “How were you planning for someone to free you?”  Tserem slithered back into his cave, and I followed far behind.  I just couldn’t keep up with the sheer size of his winding strides.

At the metal base, Tserem bent down and pointed at the rock face that held the plate.  “I have been working at this wall for many years now.  If you could bring me something as leverage, I will be able to pry myself free.”  I glanced at the opening again.  “What about the stake outside?  Can’t you just use that?”  Tserem huffed, “Do you really think I have spent all these years sitting here but have yet to try that flimsy little stick out there?  It it useless.  It snaps in two before the plate so much as creaks.  I can yank this metal out with my own hands quicker than that stake.”  

“Alright, alright,” I digressed, trying to calm Tserem’s sudden wave of anger.  “What else could we try?”  Before either of us could come up with an idea, the sound of a wagon coming up the path echoed into the cave.  I stepped to the opening curiously, but Tserem yanked me back inside.  “Hey!  What-“  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?!” he whisper-yelled at me, “You are supposed to be dead, remember?”  Tserem peered outside then shot back in, centipede-like legs sliding out from under his skin to create more traction.  “You have to hide!  They are coming to ensure you have died, and report back to the king.”

I looked wildly around the barren rock walls and floor.  “Where?  There’s nowhere for me to hide!” I whispered in a panic.  “Come with me.”  Tserem skittered away into the next cavern, gone in a moment.  I ran after him as fast as I could.  The moment I was inside, gigantic fingers wrapped around my torso, hoisting me into the air with a single hand.  I screamed in terror, but was immediately silenced by a light squeeze.  “Quiet!  They are close enough to hear you!”  “Then why did you grab me, you ass, put me down!”  I shoved at his grip, but it didn’t even budge.  My entire hand just barely fit around the thickness of his finger.  “I grabbed you because you are too small and slow,” he hissed, “Also because I am putting you somewhere safe until they leave.  Oh, I do need this.”   

My overcoat was torn off of me.  I sputtered the angry beginnings of an argument, but Tserem was already lifting me up.  His lanky body extended until I was nearly at the top of the cavern.  He placed me on a rock ledge high above the floor, like a parent placing snacks on a shelf that was too high up for a child to reach.  Lowering himself to the floor, he took my overcoat and placed it between his teeth, shredding it to pieces that drifted to the stone below.  I nearly began to curse at him again, but I realized that if people were coming to check if I'd died, they would easily mistake my shredded garment as proof of just that.

Tserem slithered to the entrance, but not before giving me a final glance over his shoulder.  "Once they leave.. I will not be able to come for you for some time.  Please do not do anything rash on my behalf.  I will return; do not worry."  I desperately wanted to ask him what that meant, but Tserem slithered away at the sound of people at the entrance.  Voices drifted down the rock tunnels to me.  I leaned closer to listen, but I nearly fell off the ledge in doing so.  In the end, I decided clarity wasn't worth the risk of falling to my death.  Tserem would hopefully explain things later.  There were at least two voices I didn't recognize.  They yelled angrily back and forth as a shrieking hiss filled the air.  I could only assume the noise had come from Tserem.  Nothing else would be able to make a cry like that.  Suddenly, a tremendous thud revertibrared through the walls, and shortly after, the sound of clanking armor.  I know that sound all too well.  Street Patrols wore armed plates to protect themselves as they broke up fights, or started them.  

Three people filed into the cavern wearing much heavier armor than the Street Patrols do.  They scanned the seemingly empty cavern as I quickly pressed myself to the wall behind me, afraid that one of them might glance upwards and spot me.  "Hey!  Look up there!"  My heart seized in my chest.  How had they seen me already?  "There are shreds of cloth over here!"  I let out a relieved breath.  The guard, or whoever they were, said 'up there' referring to 'up ahead', not 'hey there's the fugitive that was sentenced to death still alive up on that ledge!'  "Looks like hers to me," someone commented.  "Search the area!" another commanded, "See if you can find anything else left of her."  

I hope my shredded undercoat is enough to convince them I'm dead.  Should I have tried putting some of my blood on it?  Thankfully, the guards weren't too keen on staying here very long.  They took the scraps of my clothing and left.  Once the clanking of their armor dissipated into silence, and I was sure they were gone, I called out to Tserem.  "Tserem!  Are you alright?"  He didn't respond.  I couldn't even hear movement, or breathing for that matter.  His last words to me repeated in my head: 'I will not be able to come for you'.  He said he'd return, but what if something had happened?  What if that cry he made was in pain?  I have to get to him.

The question is how to get to him.  The ledge I'm sitting on is so high that if I stand up, I can touch the cavern ceiling.  Scanning the rocks below me, I internally mapped out a path I might be able to traverse to get down.  However, it consisted of various death-defying leaps from one crystalline structure to another.  I decided to wait and see if Tserem would come back first; the deadly way down would be a last resort.  After about ten minutes, I gave up on waiting.  What if Tserem needed me?  He can't give me protection if he's dead!  

Carefully sliding myself over the side of the rock ledge, I dropped down to the first crystal of many.  The beginning few descents went smoothly enough.  I managed to jump the deadliest gap with only a minor heart attack after nearly sliding off the other side.  It wasn't until the second-to-last jump that I messed up.  My foot landed wrong as I came down, ankle twisting painfully to the side.  I cried out, almost falling off the ledge completely, but I managed to catch the very tip of it on my way down.  Dangling from the smooth crystal surface, my fingers couldn't keep a firm grip.  A few moments after catching myself, I fell the rest of the way down, colliding with hard stone.

Needle-like pain shot through my left arm, which had taken the brute of the fall.  You numb-brained idiot! I scolded myself as I yelled in agony, He told you to wait for him for good reason!  I took a moment to breathe through the initial shock of pain, then moved to sit up and assess just how badly I was injured.  That turned out to be a horrible idea.  I came to a shuddering stop halfway up, then practically fell back to the floor.  A few minutes later, I managed to get my torso upright to see what had broken.

Firstly, my right ankle was already swelling tremendously.  The skin around it began blossoming into an ugly purple.  Next was my left shoulder.  It hung limply at my side, detached from its socket.  I gagged at the sight and tore my gaze away from it.  Besides a few minor scratches and a lot of bruises, those were my most significant injuries.  I half-crawled half-dragged myself over to a large rock formation, using its side to hoist myself up.  It took almost everything I had to get moving.

Despite my injuries, I'm determined to see Tserem.  If I don't, all of my wounds will have been for nothing.  I hobbled into the connected cave.  Tserem's limp tail lay across the floor.  As painlessly as I could manage — which was still tremendously painful — made my way over and followed his body to the entrance.  As I passed the metal clamp on the wall, I realized that the armored men had also tightened his chains so he could no longer leave the cave.  My shocked gasp echoed across stone as I continued on.  A spear was lodged into Tserem’s side, dripping with a strange clear liquid.  I realized with a start that he wasn't breathing, and one word came to mind.  Poison.  The clear liquid on the spear must be a sort of poison, keeping him from taking a breath.

Try as I might, the spear was lodged much too deep for me to pull it out single-handedly.  I tried only once and doubled over in pain as I moved to use my left arm.  Crawling to his head, I lay exhausted in the grass just beyond the rough stone of the cave.  It felt like I'd been poisoned, too.  I couldn't move a single muscle.  I started to wonder if we might both die together, when a raspy gasp tore through my quiet groaning.  "Tserem!" I cried weakly, watching from the ground as he slowly lifted his head.  Relief washed over me, but I hesitated as he hissed angrily.

"Ahh!  Another forsaken spear in my side!  What did they lace it with this time?"  He whirled around and tore the spear out of himself, cursing as the gash gurgled with fresh blood.  Tserem hissed again and turned slowly to head back inside, nursing his wounds.  "Wait!" I gasped as loudly as I could.  It hurt me a bit to hear how weak I sounded.  "Tserem, I-"  He turned around in shock, slithering towards me.  "What in all the worlds..?" he muttered, staring down at me.  "I- I tried to climb down from the ledge," I whimpered, "And I.. fell."  Tserem sighed.  It wasn't a harsh, disappointed sigh, but rather an airy, pitying one.  "I should know by now that humans do not listen.  Come here, let me help you."  

Tserem's hands descended towards me and I flinched, causing pain to ricochet throughout my body.  He hesitated as I shrunk away from him.  "I can not leave you at the front of this cave.  Other humans might find you."  I knew I needed to get back inside, but the thought of being held in the palms of someone's hands was frightening to me.  His size was easier to ignore from a distance.  Here, on the ground, with his gigantic form leaning over me, I felt defenseless.  I am defenseless, even from another person thanks to the injuries I've given myself, nevermind a gigantic bug-snake person.  I squeezed my eyes shut as Tserem reached for me again.  To my immense relief, his touch was shockingly delicate.  He knew just as well as I did that he could easily hurt me further.  A simple pinch of his fingers could snap my arm completely off.  I tried to block thoughts like that from my mind.  He was only trying to help me.  

Tserem carefully carried me back inside, setting me down on the pile of furs once again.  I yelped in pain as my left arm brushed the soft surface.  His slitted pupils slid back and forth, assessing how badly I was injured.  "Well," he murmured, "I will have to fit your arm back into its socket, and you will need something cold to place on your ankle and the rest of your bruises.  If I only had my things, but I left them when I was taken."  "Wait, weren't you poisoned?" I asked weakly, "How are you still alive?  Last I checked, you weren't breathing."  "I got better," Tserem said absent-mindedly, searching for something in the craggs of the rock wall.  "What do you mean, 'you got better'?" I replied, bewildered.  Tserem continued searching instead of answering me.  When he found what he needed, he returned to my side.  A shiny, black piece of stone was placed over my ankle.  It was freezing to the touch, and I yanked my leg out from under it.

"Keep it there," Tserem insisted, nudging my leg beneath the stone again with the tip of his finger.  "The cold will stop the swelling."  "I'll just let it swell, then," I responded, annoyed by the fact that he'd simply placed my leg beneath it again.  "If you let it swell, you will not be able to walk.  Do you want to hobble around for the rest of your life?"  he asked, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.  It sounded almost threatening with his unfamiliar accent.  "If not, I suggest you let it sit for a while."  I grumbled a weak objection, but I have to admit, though not aloud, the coldness was numbing the pain.

"Now, what to do about your arm?"  I shifted nervously as he stared at me.  "I must put it back in the correct place, but you will be very much against this."  Of course I would.  I'm almost certain that he'll ruin my arm further by trying to put it back the way it was.  Most doctors I know would simply amputate the limb.  However, when I relayed this to Tserem, he stared at me, appalled.  "What!?  You do not cut off a limb simply because it becomes dislocated!  Do you humans know nothing about how to take care of yourselves?  No wonder you have such short lifespans!"  I should probably be offended by what he said, but I was curious about something else.  "Why do you know so much about healing?  And why are you not dead?" I asked again, "Wasn't that spear poisoned?"  Tserem sighed, "I can explain that while you recover.  Let me finish this first."  I glanced at my limp arm.  "And.. you're sure you won't crush my arm when you put it back in place?"  "I will do my best."

Sucking in a deep breath to brace for the pain, I watched, wide-eyed as his fingers took my arm between them.  My figure was so small in comparison, he could've been holding a doll.  My entire arm was the same length as his hand.  I shut my eyes again, waiting for something awful to happen.  A loud CRACK split the silent air, and I screamed at the unbearable pain, scrambling out of Tserem's grasp.  It took me a moment, but shortly afterwards, I noticed that the stinging feeling in my arm had been replaced with nothing but a dull ache. 

"I have more of those cold stones.  You should probably keep one over your shoulder too," Tserem mused.  I slowly sat back up, testing my arm gently.  "I- I can't believe it.  Why did the pain stop?  It sounded like you snapped my arm clean off.  For a moment, I thought you lied and had amputated my arm after all."  “The human body is not as vulnerable as one might think.  It is capable of healing itself surprisingly well,” he told me, handing me another stone for my shoulder.  This time, I took it without hesitation.  I was going to ask him how he knew so much about the human body when he himself wasn’t one, but I realized that his top half seemed to be human, and I remembered him mentioning that he tried to take a human form.

“What are you?” I asked once I was settled in with Tserem’s strange cold rocks.  “You look like you’re multiple different things mashed together.  You can offer me things like power and knowledge that most people only dream of, and you can apparently overcome poison like it’s a small illness.”  Tserem nodded slowly, “I suppose I should try to explain, though you might not understand.  I told you that I am not from this world, yes?”  I nodded.  “There are many more worlds out there.  Some are like yours, some are like nothing you will ever know.  My ancestors are not from this world, but I was born here.  I have lived in other places occasionally, but this world is my favorite.  Well, it was my favorite until I was chained here.”  Tserem huffed, tail lashing the floor.  "To answer your questions, the name for what I am is not easily pronounced by the human tongue, but I am an-" he spoke a string of accent-laced syllables that I couldn't dream of repeating correctly.  

"I'll.. just call you Tserem.  That's a hard enough name to pronounce already,” I replied.  "Ah, and about my abilities…  You see, every one of my kind can take the genes of other lifeforms and splice them into our own to help us easily adapt into any environment.  We can take up to three different types before the older ones are replaced.  The only genes we keep constantly are our own.  I could revert back to my true form at any time, though it hurts quite a lot with these merciless metal rods in my back."

I stared at him, confused.  He was speaking my language, but I couldn't understand pieces of what he was saying.  There were a few words strung into his explanation I'd never even heard before.  Maybe they were words from his own language.  "What are jenes?" I asked, thoroughly interested, "What are they and how do you take them?  I.. don't really understand."  Tserem nodded knowingly, "I did say you would not understand.  And it’s genes, not.. jenes."  I couldn’t tell the difference, but I didn’t tell him that.  "Is there a way for you to explain it so that I might?  And what about you recovering from being poisoned?  Does that have to do with genes too?"  He chuckled, "In a way, yes.  Hmm.."  Tserem thought for a moment, brow furrowing in concentration.  "Well, every creature, every living thing from humans to plants, have things called genes, though they have a much longer scientific name, many refer to them as genes, or in shorthand, RNA.  These genes determine how a living thing looks, and even how it behaves, like instructions, if you will, for life itself."  

"Wait, wait…  You're saying that my body has some kind of written instructions inside it somewhere that tell me how to live?" I asked incredulously.  "That doesn't sound right."  "It is.. hard to explain, and I am no expert on this, but in a sense, yes.  The instructions are invisible to the human eye, stitched into the very flesh of a creature."  

What Tserem said barely made logical sense.  How did instructions get sewn into me?  Who put them there?  What would happen if I were to remove them?  "Anyways, my kind can take these.. instructions.. from other living things, and use them to help rewrite ourselves.  This is why I look like, as you said, 'multiple different things mashed together'.  I am made of multiple things; I copied their genetic material."  Suddenly, I saw his figure in a new light.  Tserem wasn't a strange hybrid like other legendary creatures; he somehow stole the instructions for creating other creatures, and built himself from it.  

"So, do you look anything like this?" I asked, gesturing to his mis-matched appearance.  "No, nothing like this at all."  Instantly, my mind ran wild with images of what Tserem might truly look like.  "As for your final, most incessant question: how did I overcome being poisoned?  See, all of my kind have the ability to copy genes and add them to ourselves, but each of us are also born with a more unique ability that comes from our true form.  Some abilities are extremely rare or are considered lucky or attractive, while others are more commonplace, sometimes almost useless.  Mine is the latter, nothing too extraordinary.  My immune system is extremely powerful.  It can cure me of any and all ailments within a few hours."

"Nothing extraordinary!?" I repeated, "You can never get sick!  You’ll never have to die of an illness, or so much as feel affected by it for more than a few hours!   How is that 'nothing extraordinary'?"  Tserem shrugged, "Where I come from, my powers are fairly useless.  With modern medicine, there is no need for a good immune system.  Someone can have my exact powers by simply drinking a salve, or taking a pill."  My mouth hung open for so long, I might have accidentally swallowed a bug.  "You.. Your kind found a way to cure every disease?" I whispered, awestruck.  Tserem nodded, looking thoughtful.  "Yes, the first being to get this ability in my long family history came up with it using their blood.  Of course, these days it is entirely replicated, and not blood at all.  Hmm, I guess I did not realize that something so commonplace to me might be so mind-boggling to you."  

Tserem began talking about more things I didn't understand, but his voice was fuzzy — my head clouded by way too many thoughts.  I finally cut him off when he took a breath.  "Could you just.. leave me alone for a bit?" I asked, only the faintest hints of anger in my voice, "I need to process some things you said."  He paused mid-sentence and gave me a small smile, "Yes, I will be in the crystalline cave if you need me."  The room became eerily quiet once the echoing sound of his skittering legs died off.  

Alone with my thoughts, I tried to sort out the information Tserem had given me.  He was right to say I wouldn't understand it all, but the parts I did understand seemed frightening and slightly wrong.  If Tserem's kind had the medicine to heal any and all illnesses, why didn't they share it with us?  I tried to convince myself there was a valid reason — that maybe the medicine only took effect on their own kind — but I had a sinking feeling that there was a different reason, or rather, no reason at all.  Whatever Tserem is, his kind is so advanced that they have everything and anything a human could want; he'd even given all of it away as offers to me, almost as if they don't matter to him.  Humankind likely seems like one big barbarian tribe to them.  

In this way, I guess it makes sense.  Our kingdom wouldn't offer our grand technology to barbarians.  Tserem's kind just doesn't see us as worth the effort to care.  To them, we’re practically another species of animal.  The pit in my stomach yawned wider; I could sense the nasty feeling of bile rising in my throat.  I didn't like the notion that I was something small and primitive, not worthy of someone's time or effort.  My nerves spiked, and the pain in my ankle came back again, throbbing even beneath the cold rock, which was starting to warm up.

"Tserem!" I called.  There was a tinge of fear in my echoed voice, and I'm not sure why.  He was willing to give me his kind's technology — well, what he has of it.  Nonetheless, I still felt sick.  "Tserem!"  "I'm here!" he called, sliding back into the cave, "What is it?"  "I.. need another cold rock."  He chuckled, "Alright, give me a moment."  I watched numbly as he went over to the notch in the wall and brought me back some fresh stones, taking the warmer ones back.  Tserem's brow furrowed as he examined me for a moment.  "You look ill," he noted, concerned, "Did you get that poison in your system?  Was that why you kept asking me about it?"  In a strange way, it was comforting to see Tserem panic over me.  He did care, but was it only because he benefited from me staying alive to help him?  "No, it's nothing like that," I assured him.  A heavy silence filled the cave as I tried to work up the courage to ask him what I wanted.  "If it is not pain, then what is troubling you?"  I could have waved him off and told him not to worry about it, but there was a genuine anxiousness in his voice and his cautious movements that changed my mind.

"Do you really care about me?" I asked.  My heart raced in my chest; did I want to know the answer?  I was so frightened, when he opened his mouth to reply I began speaking to stop him.  "It's just... When you explained how your kind has everything, and knows so much, while humankind barely knows about itself…"  I struggled to explain, not even sure Tserem would understand.  "We must seem like animals or barbarians to you, because you don't bother to share anything with us.  So, knowing all this, I have to ask you if you really care.  Are you only luring me here with trinkets from your world long enough for you to escape this place, or are you genuinely trying to help me, too?"  Tserem was quiet for so long, I feared I'd figured out his scheme.  Finally, he let out a long sigh and pressed his hands to his temples.

"That.. that was my plan – has been my plan – for a long time now.  Do not be mistaken on my jugement, though.  I do truly believe your kind is smarter than they seem, and can become something incredible with enough time.  Case in point," he added, gesturing to me.  "The truth is, many of my kind do see yours as.. What word was it?  Oh, barbarians and animals and such.  However, that is not the case for all of us, and it is not the case for me."  "But- But your plan.." I stammered.  "My plan was rather rash and selfish due to my imprisonment here for so long.  There was a time when I was more.. desperate.  I have learned my lesson since, and learned that there is more to humankind than I realized.  This is the reason I offered to let you go when you felt trapped here.  In my earlier years here, I would not have let you leave."

"Still, I am being selfish even now by holding the gleaming prize of protection above your head," Tserem realized guiltily.  He turned away from me ashamed, but at the same time, I saw otherwise.  "But you haven't," I said, waiting for him to turn to me again.  "You have been protecting me, even before you said you would.  You saved me from being killed-"  "By myself," he finished, "I saved you from myself.  I do not think that counts, Scarlet, but thank you."  "Hold on, I'm not done," I assured him, "You also saved me from the guards, even when I made a big fuss about it."  "Yes, and now you are injured because of my hiding place," Tserem interrupted.  I gave him an annoyed look, which pacified him some.  

"First of all, it was entirely my decision to try and get myself down after you warned me not to.  Second of all, if you hadn't hidden me there, I likely would've been caught.  So, will you stop putting yourself down and listen to me?"  Tserem's eyes widened a bit and he nodded.  "Good, because I can say, without a doubt, that you've saved my life three times.  I know that you’re trying to help me, I just wanted to know your reasons why."  He was silent for a brief moment.  "My reasons are completely righteous, I swear.  I have no intention to leave you to fend for yourself, or cast you aside once I am free.  As I have said when you arrived: if you free me, I will owe you a great debt.  I will pledge allegiance to you over the King, and will protect you with my life.  I promise I will treat you with respect, like you are one of my own kind.  You just have to trust me."

Tserem cautiously held out his hand to me, and I offered him mine.  I watched amazed, as he clasped my hand, so small in comparison, over the pads of his finger.  "I do.. I do trust you, though sometimes I'm scared to," I confessed.  "But that's nothing new," I added quickly as Tserem pulled away from me, "I don't really trust anyone."  “I am thankful to have your trust, then,” he replied with a small bow, but came up with a pained hiss, gripping his side where the spear had pierced him.  “I must continue healing this.  Can I borrow one of your furs?”  “Sure, I don’t need the whole pile.”  Tserem took one of the larger pelts and offered his thanks before slithering back into the crystalline cave.  I inched myself upward to peer into the room, watching as Tserem cleaned his wound with the fresh water there, making sure not to spill blood into the precious resource.  After patching himself up and tying the fur around his wound, Tserem scuttled back over to me.  “How long do I have to sit here with these rocks?” I asked him.  “Hmm, about an hour more.  You should be sitting with them every so often until your bruises disappear, but if you feel pain in your ankle, or if it starts to swell again, then leave it under a cold stone a while longer.”

I did as he asked, and within a few days I was back on my feet again.  For the most part, I’d gotten used to living with someone who was about the length of the market square.  At least once a day his lanky, snake-like body would block my path and I’d either jump over it or ask Tserem impatiently to move.  He’d always roll his eyes and chuckle; sometimes he’d dare to tease me for my small size.  He’s the one who’s the wrong size, but that was an argument that neither of us ever won.  Once I was fully healed up, Tserem and I began concocting plans to free him from his chains.  A violent storm emerged a few days later.  Both caves began flooding nonstop.  By mid afternoon, the water level was almost up to my waist.  I hated every sopping second, but Tserem relished it.  He told me that where he used to live, the humans there celebrated the harsh rains, and he did too.  

“Well, I hate this.  A lot,” I grumbled, wading through the cave towards him.  My foot hit a rock that was concealed by the murky water, causing me to fall over beneath the surface.  I came up to the sound of Tserem’s boisterous laughter, which calmed to a smirk as I glared at him, my soaked hair falling over my face.  “Come here, let me get you somewhere dry.”  I huffed and turned my back to him, crossing my arms defiantly.  “I’ll find somewhere to sit myself thank you very much.”  Storming off into the crystalline cavern — which was lower down and definitely higher than my waist — I managed to climb on top of an outcropping that rose just above the surface of the water.  However, my dry little safehaven didn’t last very long.  The flooding water soon spilled over the rocks I took shelter on.

“Tserem!” I called annoyedly, “The water’s too high!”  Everything was silent, and for a moment I thought he was ignoring me, but as I peered into the other cave, I realized he was gone.  Ripples brushed the surface of the water, snaking their way in my direction.  I watched the subtle movements, frightened that some water creature had taken shelter in the cave.  A surging wave washed over me as the mysterious creature leaped out of the deep water and fell back with a splash.  It was Tserem the whole time.  I was about to scold him for scaring me, but I held my tongue as I watched him slide gracefully through the water.  On the dry rocks, he was awkwardly bound by his chains, clanking around with a constant scrambling ruckus of his many centipede legs, which echoed throughout the caverns.  In the water, he was entirely different.  His snakeish form glided through the water without a sound as he happily swam laps from one part of the caves to the other.  

“Did you perhaps take the genes of a water snake?” I asked, slightly amused by his eagerness to enjoy a good swim.  “I do not think so,” he replied happily, “I just like the water.  Before I was captured, I lived in a rather dry desert.  I suppose I am in the habit of enjoying so much water because it was scarce for me then.”  “A desert?” I questioned, “I’ve barely been past the outskirts of Farthing.”  “Of what?”  “Farthing, you know, where we live?”  Tserem shrugged, uncaring of the name of his prison.  “Can you put me somewhere higher up?” I asked once he’d finished swimming around.  “If I do, will you try to climb down again?” he asked accusingly.  “No,” I grumbled, glancing at the spot I’d fallen from.  “The rocks are slippery, though.  I still think you will fall.”  “But I’m sick of being soaking wet!” I complained.  “Hmm.. Alright then.”  Tserem slid over to the place I stood and reached for me again.  I braced myself, but didn’t pull away.  Being grabbed was slightly less scary knowing that it was coming.  

Vertigo clenched in my stomach and I tucked my legs up beneath me, gripping Tserem’s fingers for support.  I would have to teach him a more comfortable way to pick me up eventually.  Especially if he’s going to stay around and offer the protection he’d promised.  Using his centipede-like legs, which unfurled from a long pocket that opened beneath him, Tserem clambered up the rocks until he came to a large area far above the water’s surface, created by loosely interwoven crystals.  If he’d placed me here, I probably would’ve fell right through the gaps, but Tserem was big enough to sit over them.  He curled up over the tops of the crystal structures.  Laying out his tail in front of himself, he placed me gently on the wider part, offering me a place to sit.  I sat as still as I could, unsure about the cool, scaled surface I was placed on.  It expanded and shrank beneath me with every breath Tserem took.  “Is this high enough for you?” he asked me almost mockingly.  I answered with a satisfied yes, trying to hide my slightly baffled expression.

The ugly weather forced me to stay in that hidden place for a day and a half until the water finally drained out of the cave.  With every hour that passed I slowly grew accustomed to my temporary living arrangements.  The first few hours I spent practically clinging to Tserem, but by the last few, I moved freely around the space, avoiding the gaps between crystalline spires and lounging boredly on Tserem’s lanky snake body.  At the violent storm’s end, I was brought back down to the cave floor.  I paced around and stretched my legs as Tserem frowned annoyedly at our pool of fresh water, which had been tainted by the muddy rainwater.  “This is the only part I dislike about the rains,” he muttered, “They contaminate my pristine water supply.”  

Later, on Tserem’s urging, I spent an hour and a half lugging a gigantic tree branch over to the cave opening for him to use as a lever.  His excitement over the rain carried into his impatience to be free.  The moment the branch was close enough to the cave, I collapsed to the ground, exhausted.  I watched, unamused, as Tserem easily dragged the gigantic piece of wood inside, after I’d spent ten minutes moving it a few inches.  He lodged it into the crack between the rock wall and the metal plate with terrifying strength.  I instinctually drew back as he threw himself into the column of wood.  His snake body coiled and his human muscles rippled, shoving the wood further and further back while the plate groaned under the stress.

A loud crack echoed through the cave.  “You’re doing it!” I cried, “It’s breaking!”  Moments later the wood splintered down the middle.  I had only a few seconds to recognize what would happen before wooden shrapnel exploded through the cavern.  In a flash, Tserem coiled his scaled body over me like a shield.  Splinters of wood bounced harmlessly off his protective scaly armor.  “Th- Thanks,” I stammered, slightly taken aback by the fact I’d nearly been impaled by jagged splinters.  “Are you alright?” Tserem asked.  “I think so,” I replied, checking myself for any pieces of wood that might’ve embedded in me.  Once I was sure I hadn’t been hit, he turned and examined the half of the log still wedged between the rock and the metal plate.  

“I have an idea,��� he announced, “but it will likely be rather painful.”  I frowned, looking between Tserem and the broken log.  “What is it?”  “If I wrap my chains around the log and pull it back out, the pressure should be enough to bend this plate off the wall.  However, yanking on my own chains will feel like yanking off my own scales.”  I shuddered at the mere thought of that intensely painful feeling.  “I can find something else,” I offered, “I could go see what else the storm blew over.”  

Tserem gave me a doubtful look, “You can barely even stand after dragging this branch, and as of this moment, we have no drinkable water.  You rest, I will try to reach one of the trees.  I might have a bit more room now that my chains are slightly falling off the wall.”  I hadn’t realized that we had no water to drink, and I was already parched.  Stepping back, I watched as Tserem strained against his chains.  I cringed at the painful looking grimace on his face as the metal tugged beneath his skin.  Tserem’s fingertips just grazed a large tree outside, but he couldn’t get far enough to actually grab it.  No wonder there was a misshapen clearing surrounding his cave.  If only I had half his strength, I could easily go out there and push the tree over.  That would be all he’d need to get rid of his ugly restraints.

After a few more narrow misses, Tserem fell back into the cave, out of breath.  I silently regarded the situation for a while.  “What if.. What if you reached outside backwards, with your tail rather than your arms.  Your tail is a lot longer.”  Tserem huffed and sat up, “If I turn around, the chains get shorter, see?”  He demonstrated by turning into the cave.  The chains wrapped around his torso as he shifted, pulling him deeper inside.  “I suppose my tail is longer than my arm, though.  I will try.”  Tserem leaned against his chains once more.  Centipede-like legs slid out from beneath him and began slowly stepping backwards into the open.  I held my breath as it inched along the ground, the tip slowly curling around the trunk of the tree.  It wasn’t long enough to grab it, but it was just long enough to reach.

With as big a shove as Tserem could muster, the tree creaked and began falling over.  Upon hearing the tree bend, Tserem slithered back inside and whirled around.  With the extra distance covered by the leaning tree, his fingers could reach the trunk.  In two swift tugs, Tserem ripped the tree right out of the ground.  I watched in silent awe as he bashed the tree against the metal plates over and over again.  His ferocity was slightly terrifying, and I couldn’t help but imagine what might happen if a person were to be on the other end of his wrath.  With a few more strikes, the metal plate fell off the wall.  An echoing clank rang out long after the plate had fallen.  “I…  I did it,” Tserem said in a hushed voice.  I blinked and he was gone, only managing to see the last tip of his tail zip out of the cave opening.  

“FREEDOM!  AT LONG LAST!”  I watched with a wide smile as Tserem slithered around the clearing.  He was so much faster without having to walk around on multiple small legs.  Tserem slid up and down the forest, dodging through trees at lightning speed, when he was suddenly jerked back with incredible force.  He yowled in pain and I rushed over to his side.  “Tserem, what-?”  I stopped short at the sight of him.  Blood dripped down his back from where the chains burrowed under his skin.  The metal plate had gotten hooked on one of the jagged rocks nearby.  At the speed Tserem had been going, the metal links had almost been yanked entirely out of him.  I stood helpless as Tserem gasped in pain and fell to the ground.   Racing to his arm, I tried in vain to get him up, but he was far too big for me to move more than a few inches.  I stepped up to his face to talk with him, but when I did, his eyes were closed.  He’d passed out.  I thought about bringing him some water to wake him, before realizing the small amount of water I could take in my hands wouldn’t be close to enough to wake him.  There really was nothing I could do for him.  Wait, yes there is.  I raced inside the cave and grabbed one of the large furs from the pile where I slept.  Dunking it in the water, I waited impatiently for it to become completely waterlogged.  Though the dirty water could potentially infect his cut, it wouldn’t be long before his impossible immune system healed him.  Back in the clearing, I stood at Tserem’s side once again.  He was lying face down.  How am I going to get up to his back?  Studying him, I traced a path I could climb from his arm to his back.  I’d just begun hauling myself onto his forearm when the sound of hoofbeats thundered into the clearing.  I whirled around just as someone cried “Halt!”

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s3 ep10: Warlord

Another alien possession episode, this time mixed with a rare foray into castle intrigue, this is also a big Kes episode. Kes was one of my favorites when I was a kid, and I loved getting to see her fighting spirit come out here. Despite not having the strongest plot, this is def one of her strongest eps.

It opens with a shot of Neelix experiencing some kind Talaxian foot oomax that's presumably supposed to be funny, but is actually just truly awkward, and something I didn't ever need to see. They're on the holodeck, and this is the first ep where we see the tropical resort program that the crew will take to playing around in for the rest of the season. (It's kind of cute how the crew goes through fads of which holodeck program is the cool one for them all to hang out in.) Tom and Harry are there, and Harry's wearing his slutty little see-through mesh shirt, which I love, because it's the same one we saw Libby wearing in the alternate timeline in 'Non Sequitur', which means Harry brought it from home when he left Earth. I love little continuity details like that! Plus, he's slaying in that thing, that look is fire! (And then later B'Elanna shows up in a sparkly swimsuit, and it's just like wow. ok. just gonna hit us over the head with half dressed hot people in this ep huh? Rude. And her saucy little 'yeah i'm a bad bitch' wiggle as she walks away is just like, illegal levels of hotness. how it took me until my late 20s to figure out I was bisexual when I grew up watching this show, I'll never know.)

Then we go to the bridge, where Voyager is rescuing a small ship that's going to explode. They beam the three survivors to sickbay, and one of them dies while Kes tends to him. Not long after, Kes's behavior starts to become odd. When she meets Neelix in the holodeck for lunch, she snaps at him, and tells him how annoying he is (valid, tbh, but so not Kes) and ends up breaking up with him rather abruptly. While I admit I wasn't sad at the idea of Kes and Neelix breaking up, it did feel very out of character. We soon learn the reason- Kes has been possessed by the spirit of the dead patient, a bloodthirsty warlord.

The possessed Kes and her alien friends shoot the transporter chief, then hightail it back to their planet. (Though why they shot him when they were already gonna get beamed down, idk!) I gotta say, I love the matte painting of the castle on this planet! They really went with a full on fairy tale type castle, and it looks really cool. I wish they'd have gone with something equally castle-y for the interior set though, because it was just another nondescript grey design without any distingiushing visual identity.

After they retake the castle, all trace of Kes's personality is gone, replaced by the 200 year old warlord Tieran, who changes into a black leather catsuit, and swans around killing people and yelling orders. Jennifer Lien does a great job portraying the evil warlord, making her voice gruff and growly, and sneering and slinking around the castle like she owns the place. Tieran uses her telepathic powers to hurt people, and attempts to seduce people over to his side, including Tuvok, when he came to rescue Kes- they really are determined to make her kiss every man who's old enough to be her dad on this show, aren't they?? Ugh. (But yet, they didn't go for her kissing Tieran's wife- Rick Berman probably said nuh-uh, no gays allowed! But then a few scenes later, no one had any problem with Kes/Tieran suggesting a threesome with the wife and the prince that Kes/Tieran is now betrothed to- I guess gay shit is okay, as long as it's only used to show how depraved the villain is - ugh!! Only allowing evil characters to be queer is worse than zero representation at all. Tbh, that shit is probably why it took me so long to figure out I was bi- growing up, only evil, immoral characters were ever depicted as bi on tv, especially on DS9, where the evil mirror universe characters were almost all depicted as queer. It's pretty hard to think of yourself as bisexual when even Star Trek depicts it as a perversion, rather than an actual normal thing for normal people to be. I know now most of the writers and actors didn't feel that way, and it was Berman's homophobia overruling everyone else, which makes me feel a little better, but still. It's a huge thorn in my side when I watch old Trek, and it makes me want to vandalize Berman's house with rainbow paint. Happy Pride Month, you asshole!)

But we learn that Kes's mind is still there too- that she haunts Tieran's dreams, and fights him so hard she gives him headches. I love the scene where she stands up to him, and assures him that she'll fight him relentlessly, and that he should be afraid of her; and best of all, we see that he actually is afraid of her! Tiny little Kes, spooking the hell out of a gruff, growly guy twice her size! We love to see it!! Kes is the clear winner of their battle of wills- Jennifer Lien brings so much intensity to it, she's truly ferocious, and it's awesome! I remember how happy I was to see Kes finally get her assertive badass moment back when this first aired. Kes was the relatable stand in character for the young girls in the audience- my grade school friend and I both loved her- so it was a real thrill for us to finally get to see her presented in this strong, forceful way, like all the other characters routinely were. One of the reasons she became less of a favorite for me as I grew up was recognizing how often she was infantilized, relegated to being a sex object, or an emotional caretaker, for male characters, or not fighting back when she was treated disrespectfully. So often she was written off as being the naive, softhearted innocent, when she was clearly capable of being more complex and interesting if they let her break out of that mold. I really appreciate that they let her do that here- it's a tantalizing hint at what her character could have become if she'd had more time on the show, and writers who believed in her more.

After Kes successfully fights back against Tieran, the final scene is her and Tuvok back on Voyager, discussing what happened. Kes admits that what she went through was a big deal that changed how she felt about herself and her relationships with her friends, and she wonders how she can go back to normal. Tuvok, ever the good space dad, tells her that she can't, but she can move forward in new directions, building on the strength she found in herself. It's rare to have characters on Star Trek actually talk about how much the crazy things they deal with every day actually effect them, and I appreciate that they did it here. It's a lovely scene, and even though Kes is still troubled at the end, we know she'll have the support of Tuvok, and all her friends on Voyager, as she finds her way forward.

Overall, this episode was a run of the mill 'bad aliens posssesed somebody, we must get them out!' story, with a twist of royal intrigue silliness that doesn't fit well with Star Trek's tone. It felt more like a Xena or Hercules plot than Star Trek. They literally have a Tony award winning actor in the cast- Anthony Crivello was playing Tieran's aide, Adin- but he practically blended into the scenery of this over-the-top, psuedo-medieval fantasy plot that gave him nothing to work with. Nontheless, I appreciated Kes being given an opportunity to take the spotlight, and to show a steely resolve underneath her sweetness and cuteness.

Tl;dr: One of Kes's strongest episodes, despite a weak plot, which marks a turning point for Kes's character on her path to becoming more mature. Essential for Kes fans, and anyone who wants to see her branch out beyond her usual storylines.

[parragone]

I recently did this wip names game too, so I'm not doing it again so soon But gimme the tea on "r610nights2024" and the very eloquently named "document1 (2)" please xD

oh NO I didn't realize ;A; but now I get to go hunting for a post which is always delightful actually

onto the WIPs!

r610nights2024

This one is actually in reference to something I outlined in 2023 but didn't have the time to draft and finish, but I thought it'd be fun to do an Extraction AU what was sort of a mix of shippy and leaning into the existential somewhat eldritch horror. The idea is that they figure out a way to access the Chimera 'neural system' for direct communication, and the ten nights that are detailed each focus on one of ten pairs aboard the Pioneer. How each pair is bracing for what might come when they actually manage to bridge the gap of understanding. For all pairs, there's the question of wha tthe Praetorians really are, and - for one pair in particular - the very personal risk that comes with the experiment.

The pairs highlighted are AshMira, KapGlaz, Thermcher, DocMonty, VigilEcho, SmokeMaestro, CavTwitch, FinkaYing, BanditJaeger, and [ definitely unsurprisingly ] FuseMute. A lot of the focus is on the trauma suffered by REACT operators and how that's handled in their personal lives, along with the heavy question of "when does an operator give up too much", but there's also some theoretical xenobiology going on and some haphazardly tossed together sci-fi fun.

document1 [2]

Oh good god I'm scared, let's see -

oh well this isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was.

dusts it off

It looks like this particular WIP was an exploration of Team Rainbow operators in romantic relationships being interviewed by Harry for the sake of 'team solidarity'. A way for him to assess whether or not it would interfere with their field work while also getting a glimpse into their more domestic lives and who they are independently. I should get back to this, actually - I think it's something I'd enjoy writing now that I have a clearer grasp of how I write our beloved operators.

I seem to have planned a lot for it, but the only drafted part appears to be KapGlaz, so in exchange for my wordy summaries, have a [very unedited] snippet under the cut!

Mornings were Timur’s favorite. Maxim had gotten up nearly an hour before him as he always did on their days off, and the hunter had taken Annika for her daily morning run. By the time Timur would get out of bed, Maxim would have already made breakfast, most importantly, begun making coffee. Which, of course, was the stage the sniper had reached; the break of dawn had banished any chance of staying in bed with sunlight that streamed through the window, so he had reluctantly climbed out of bed.  He paused long enough to steal one of Maxim’s coats from the chair in the corner of the room and tug it on over his undershirt. Timur claimed that his sentimental nature was limited to memories and a near-perfect visual memory, but the smell that clung to the collar of each coat his lover wore on a regular was one he could never get enough of. It was somewhere between fresh rain and well-loved leather, and Maxim continued to deny such a thing followed him. As expected, his partner was halfway through the morning coffee ritual, with Annika curled up at his feet; she was a lovely Brittany hound, though her age meant she did not get to hunt with Maxim as much as she once did. Maxim himself had stripped himself of the sweat-stained tank top he always wore for a morning run and, much to Timur’s delight, was shirtless and on full display; his tattoos suited him, dark ink against pale skin, thin and elegant lettering mixed into delicate line work, though Glaz wished he could replace the tattoos left behind from Maxim's undercover stint. He wore black sweatpants to keep whatever modesty they pretended to have in their own home, and the sniper could see that the man wore the Rainbow-issued watch on his left wrist, just as Timur did. Timur leaned down to pet the old hound's head and give her an affectionate rub of the ears before he stood and placed a hand on his partner’s shoulder, which only made the hunter hum quietly as he turned to look at the sniper. Bright eyes caught the light, the softness in them undeniable and as smitten as the day they had met. Maxim pressed a kiss to Timur’s cheek that was admittedly more smile than anything else before he pressed a proper kiss to his partner’s lips.

[galactipunks]

Alright so update on the situation: I was correct in that I don't have enough time and energy to fully realize this.

Luckily, I wrote down a lot of the non-setting stuff that I had already thought out and could use in regular D&D or other TTRPGs. (I'll go into that stuff in more detail later.) I also made the very enlightening choice to actually look up and read into existing sci-fi TTRPGs rather than go through the entire process of making my own. And my mind has sort of drifted into thinking about another game concept that I want to share in the future. Basically, I'm satisfied with what I did with this concept and am not particularly interested in working on it further for the moment. Let's actually talk about what I have come up with now.

It's important to mention that I've yet to write down a lot of the stuff regarding the setting specifically since that's kind of hard to plan out when I don't know what game I'm working within. I'll get it done soon. In the mean time, I want to talk about some general homebrew game mechanics that you could probably put into regular D&D no problem. For this post, that'll be alignment.

I don't like how D&D handles alignment. It's pretty versatile in how you can interpret it but it's too focused on clear right/wrong to work in realistic scenarios. To remedy this, I've opted to not only overhaul the existing nine alignments but also add two new mechanics to give the system more depth and fluidity. Those mechanics are called Alignment Fluidity and Alignment Quirks and I'll go more into them later. I'll cover over the overhauled nine alignments first.

The New Nine Alignments

These are all designed to fit the grid structure of the original nine alignments as each new one is a direct replacement for an old one. Here's a visual aid for what I'm talking about:

Idealistic Altruistic (IA): Idealistic Altruists act selflessly out of principle for a reason greater than themselves that they may or may not understand.

Transient Altruistic (TA): Transient Altruists act, or aspire to act, selflessly by nature with seldom regard over their reasoning behind it.

Nonsensible Altruistic (NA): Nonsensible Altruists are willing to commit acts they deem immoral if it promotes an ulterior moral cause.

Idealistic Utilitarian (IU): Idealistic Utilitarians prioritize greater practical net positives over adhering to their internal morality or ideological beliefs.

True Utilitarian (TU): True Utilitarians vary wildly in how they perceive morals but share an equal inability to define their own morals.

Nonsensible Utilitarian (NU): Nonsensible Utilitarians operate on very flexible and varied moral codes that they will happily ignore should it become inconvenient to them.

Idealistic Egoistic (IE): Idealistic Egoists act selfishly, potentially with elaborate motivations and beliefs, to benefit themselves or their kind.

Transient Egoistic (TE): Transient Egoists act selfishly by instinct, whether they want to or not.

Nonsensible Egoistic (NE): Nonsensible Egoists act selfishly out of spite due to strong emotions, internalized dogma and/or a hostile perception of reality.

There's a lot I could talk about with each of these. Like, honestly, each one could get its own post in what I exactly mean and envision with it. Problem is that it also means I can't easily summarize my views on each of them, so I won't discuss them in-depth here.

Alignment Fluidity

Alignment Fluidity is meant as an in-game way for characters to change their alignment throughout a campaign. Characters now pick both a "Primary Alignment", reflecting their alignment as their idealized selves, and a "Secondary Alignment", reflecting their alignment at their worst or the alignment that they previously followed. Primary and secondary alignment must be from different rows (i.e. both can't be altruist, utilitarian or egoist) unless it's True Utilitarian, which also acts as the default secondary alignment for all characters as it's meant to reflect an inability to understand your own moral code.

Whether the character adheres more to their primary or secondary alignment is handled through a scale of 1 to 9. Higher values means more adherence to primary alignment and lower values means more adherence to secondary alignment. Characters start at a value between 4 to 6 and will move up or down the scale depending on whether their actions fit more with their primary (higher on the scale) or secondary /lower on the scale) alignment. (In-game, this would be decided by the DM and potentially the player). The difficulty of moving in one direction on the scale would increase exponentially the further you got into it, forcing the character to double down in their alignment if they want to reach either extremes. However, there's good incentive to do so. As reaching a fluidity of 2 or lower lets you turn your secondary alignment to your primary alignment (moving you instantly to a fluidity of 7 in the process) and lets you pick an entirely new alignment to be your secondary one. Likewise, if you stay at a fluidity of 8 or higher for an extended period of time, you get to pick a new secondary alignment.

Alignment Quirks

Alignment Quirks is a mostly optional addition to this system and also the most the most player-controlled. They act as alignment asterisks, letting you add your own exceptions or extra rules to how a character's alignment works. This could consist of amplifying or nullifying the effect of certain actions on alignment fluidity, having characters operate on a different alignment for just one specific thing and more. There's generally no rules here in regards to what you could have quirks be, how many you can have and whether or not they can change mid-campaign. It's just recommended to keep things reasonable as to not make things too hard for the other players. The only real rule with quirks is that roleplay can nullify their effects depending on the context of the quirk.

So what exactly is the point of all this?

The main goal with this system is twofold:

Make alignment much more dynamic and fluid to better allow for moral ambiguity, as well as make it possible for characters to smoothly develop and change their morality throughout a campaign.

To make things that would otherwise entirely rely on player roleplay into gameplay mechanics as to make them easier, encourage players to try them and give them a sense of accomplishment that otherwise wouldn't be there.

Simply put, this is a system designed so you can have an entire character arc develop by happenstance without having to overthink your characters alignment and plan stuff out ahead. Thanks to this system, you could spontaneously have an arc about an antagonist learning to overcome their hatred and strive towards being a nice person, a person experiencing anomy as their perception of morality becomes broken or someone stuck between the past and present learning to meld the two together and find a new identity to live by. All of these things are obviously still possible without this system, but the point is that this systems makes those things into gameplay-mechanics rather than being entirely reliant on roleplay. That's the entire reason why D&D is built like it is

[sonofsaviors]

@deputygonebye

Medicine bottles and a first aid; generosity that wasn't frequent from the hands of the Saviors. Never part of their routine, the haul was heavy in Shane's arms, an offering of peace but not one so sweet. Still trapped was he and all the rest that he called family. Negan and his band of merciless hunters, a pack of wolves that would feast until the entire land was picked dry. Gnawed bones stripped completely of their flesh - retaliation for what had been lost - Rick and the entire group surrounded by overgrown weeds and result of their crimes. But such punishment would not come to pass so soon. Better ideas in mind, yet to be had, yet to be created by the master of all the misery, Logan had provided means to live another day. Maggie would be able to find comfort in her pregnancy. Bound for Hilltop, far away but certain to return to her kin eventually, safe. Judith and Carl soothed from aches and pains by the simplicity of an aspirin. One more day for the whole group who had survived since Atlanta.

But never would a single day replace the memories of what felt like a lifetime. Glenn and Abraham had been killed. Gentle eyes dimmed forever all because Negan had decided so, power and glory stomped out with the ruthlessness of a baseball bat swing. Still could Shane hear the noises as Negan did as he pleased. Splattered blood - cries that had become burned into the foundations of dreams - cracked bone and ragged breath. None would ever be the same. Snapped, sanity and whatever else that could still be clung onto, captured in worn and tired hands. As if it were just mere seconds before, Shane could recall what it was like to have met them both for the first time, Glenn and Abe. Confused and as scared as he, wandering the world, disturbed by the sudden changes. From one corner to the next, Atlanta to the outskirts of the Prison, mistakes made wouldn't be repeated. And an even more dangerous enemy had Logan and his father both made.

Neither Rick nor Negan to be seen, Logan and Shane were the sole contenders to the war between the factions. Houses locked or broken into, vandalized or redecorated, it was the visual of two different fronts forced together and met in the middle. A clash that sounded much like the fire of a gun, the bang of a hammer against nails, the scream of a woman who found herself a widow. But shared was their lives to be. United, bonded as master to slave, traitor to traitor. Logan couldn't escape his side of fate. Married into it by the influence of someone who wasn't of his own person, born and would see death for the cause. A deputy of sorts to the entire game his father played; Shane's alternative come straight from the pages of nightmares. Roles reversed before either could see it coming, the child traded position with the man who had earned his place. Shane knew the signs. Watched as eyes moved from one member to the next, jotted down on blanket notes with black ink, the tip of the pen almost like new. Logan was just as respected as Negan.

An insult just on the tongue, said almost as easily as it would've been years before, the sounds of sirens and the blue and red of lights flashing like fireworks in King County, Shane fought temptation. An urge to say just what was deserved to be said, what Logan and all of whom he called family needed to hear. What Rick couldn't say. What Daryl and Sarah were too afraid to, a dangerous former deputy just crazed enough to make the leap of faith. Whatever it would take to set things right. A rottweiler muzzled for the greater good. "You got no real idea, do you?" Shane spit, the muscles in his face contorted in a look of utter disgust, unspoken rage and tension. "You talk to me about facts, but you don't have a clue about any of this. Whatever your dad says, that's what you and yours go off of. But you ain't got no sense, Logan. This world, what I've been through, what my family's been through, it ain't no comic book. There's no fairytale in this world. Pride don't have anythin' to do with it. You might fool all your buddies around here, but you don't fool me."

Shane stated, the voice of a father present and clear, "your father, he's hurt good people, people that I care for and love. You'll do good to keep that in mind. Take what you will, write down whatever the hell suits your fancy in that notebook of yours, but don't think I won't be keepin' an eye on you. Negan's got Rick, but you don't got me. Not me, not my daughter, not anybody else of mine that the Saviors terrorize. This fire you keep kindlin' is gonna burn by the end. Let me tell you, it won't be us who gets caught in the flames."

Logan gave a slow blink, letting words melt into the air between them and settle thick and heavy, like a cutting fog. Being in Alexandria almost always drew this slow, almost ponderous nature from the young Savior, every action, every movement, every thought, and words - spoken and unspoken - carefully weighed and measured. It wasn't just his own ass on the line when he was here. The other Saviors, and his father depended on him to not show weakness or fear; he had killed, to both protect and defend them. Even if afterwards, he felt sometimes, the blood would never come off.

He was very much aware that Shane had probably done the same. That it very much could be said that they were trapped reflections of the other; Rick and Negan's right hand men respectively. Logan was a deputy in all but name.

Negan's son finally gave a bitter scoff, a sarcastic smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, almost, but not quite rolling his eyes. The Deputy didn't, couldn't know how he felt and what he'd gone through since the Fall. The only people who knew about Mom was down to two, himself and Dad. How they had watched her wither away like a flower in winter until there was nothing left but something wrong puppeting her body after she had died from a long battle with cancer.

"We've all hurt good people. People who deserved it, people who didn't. I don't fucking fool myself into thinking that we're the good guys and you're the bad guys. Please. I'm not fucking two." Another sarcastic snort, and the teenager shook his head, a brief shake that barely took his eyes off of the people in front of him. You didn't take your eyes off your target when it was in front of you. He was only sixteen, but he was already about as tall as Rick and Shane, and steadily filling out with muscle as he got older. "We're just survivors. There's nothing fucking more to it."

And he had promised Mom he would survive.

Even when they were starving and struggling for food, Dad always made sure Logan had something, anything, even if it didn't fill his stomach all the way. He could respect the Sheriff and his Deputy as leaders and fathers in their own right, but that didn't mean he wasn't thinking on the best way to stomp them into the dirt.

" 'The hardest hearts are forged in fire; the weakest bend under their will. And revenge … is wicked sweet.' "

[msfbgraves]

Konmari - specials and other small observations

So guys I didn't do it. Not this time.

I succumbed to the lure of specials one time again this month, though I'd mitigated the damage by donating a third of the coupons so that I could not buy more than three items I had been lowkey meaning to buy for months anyway. (Knowing full well that 'lowkey' means that I could have quite happily done without, but at least I didn't succumb to a fourth item. I don't know what ramekins are even after googling their use but I would have bought them.) I'd only really identified this as a problem a few weeks ago so I still consider this progress.

But as if to test me...

They had a massive amount of specials this week. This is completely against their schedule, and the reductions were even significant for pre-inflation standards.

And I didn't buy any extra of anything that I didn't already need to replace, no 'let's try this out' 'but it really is a steal' 'Who doesn't like chips', zilch. And today when I thought: "Some cucumber would be nice, maybe if I drive over I can get that really nice special on madeleines..." I thought, Fantine, do you hear yourself? Would you have gone for the cucumber alone? No? So you're not going for the madeleines, either, I don't care how good this deal is!

Of course those specials are simply a personal tic, and not a problem anybody else on earth may need to change, but I was only vaguely aware of it six weeks ago, let alone that I could have done anything at all about it. I would have gone slightly mad at this specialfest otherwise, buying plenty of things I don't miss now at all.

Other stray things: my mother, who needs it least of all the people I know, has started to tidy too. Marie Kondo did say visually tidying a space is contagious without having to say a word. Simply doing it will get people going: "since you're going to goodwill anyway..." You don't have to urge anyone to do anything at all. And you absolutely do not have to fight about it, however messy your housemates are.

Round storage containers- why? I'm not a hobbit!

You will find new uses for things you decided to keep, and it'll keep happening. I like to drink a tea that's called 'autumn storm' or whatever, depending on the brand. Well, I've found some aspen spice, and I have a creeping suspicion that's what that tea is flavoured with. I think I can manage that myself from now on (or until the aspen runs out, anyway. Maybe I'll make my own).

Update: aspen is more like 'winter glow'. Tastes nice enough though, I'm just done with winter!

Though I'm still salty about the 'you have to do all the categories in this order' - bit, I still think doing things by category is a good idea, and that is because (and this is important!) you can decide when to stop without feeling you didn't make any headway.

Because you need to stop, specifically to do 'normal' cleaning. Tidying is messy business, and you won't have a chance to determine how much headway you've made until you periodically put your house in 'normal' order. You'll probably notice this takes less time after each category.

All the pain of the 'omg but should I really let go of this thing?' is in the initial sorting. As soon as it's boxed up and labeled for goodwill or readied for recycling or ready to be sold, you will simply want it out of your face.

Something all the konmari youtube films confirm - you become ruthless in yeeting things you don't absolutely love. And that is like regifting - it's fine when done with care, but don't do it in front of people. This can be mitigated by visually cherishing some things they have bought you that you do love. Very unlikely they remember the things that you don't love, but everybody appreciates seeing you use gifts that you do. And then you can yeet to your heart's content, it really is addictive.

However tidy you get, you will forget that you own things. I think doing inventory at the start of each season is smart. I hardly have a warehouse, but a little 'ooh, it's going to be spring/summer/autumn/winter' checkup is fun. Probably will happen anyway when preparing for Easter/Summer vacation/Halloween/Christmas or Purim/Pesach/Sukkot/Rosh Hashana, Ramadan Eid, Diwali or any other markers I don't know about, but first you're going to have a 'Ah, I have this! Cool!' which will give you new ideas and it will save money.

I keep saying this, but no more 'just in case'. Just in case is not now, and right now it is making your life harder by being in it. Of course this does not go for stuff that makes you feel secure to have it, like spare tires or medical supplies or spare keys, or, as is common in Holland, just in case it gets hot enough to go to the beach. I count that as sparking joy. But I'll keep this 'just in case I might take up making sushi', or 'just in case all my good clothes get lost in a fire' 'Just in case I gain 15 pounds'; or, in my case, 'just in case I do learn how to reliably use a drill even though it has been twenty years, I'm a spaz and I have never learnt despite several attempts' sweetheart, you will deal with that if you should get there.

Marie Kondo says that unused stuff gives off sad vibes. But loved stuff gives off vibes too. And the vibe is: "Play with me. Come on, play with me! You'll love it!" And that is 100% awesomesauce, but it makes me even more hesitant to add to things. It will want to get used. Discarding it when unused will feel painful, there is no two ways about that. So must I own it? And I'm not being a minimalist about it, it's fantastic to answer this question with a resounding "hells, yeah!!" But must I, really? Can I borrow it? Simply to get a feel for it? Every purchase has a honeymoon period. But what then? Stores always urge you to buy, have you noticed? "Don't miss out! Limited time only!" You wouldn't buy a pet that way, ideally, you shouldn't buy anything that way, because things aren't dead. They want to be in use, and money is much more lovingly spent maintaining things than replacing them, if, of course, you have the choice. But even on very little money and with low quality things, getting a sense of what you have and where to find it at the very least will save you time and energy, and that energy can be spent on your dreams, your health, or some slightly higher quality items that don't constantly need to be replaced. Stuff wants to be in your corner. Clutter never is.

[godsbox-a]

gone backwards a day ago, a cute gift like that would send his head spinning, mouth on a broken rail exclaiming how it was the type of thing you'd get a girl on a date, that suguru was just clueless, hopeless without him ( hammer in a point, you need me, i benefit you. clingy hands digging up the roots of something he'd never had, may never find again, just to bury them deeper &. pray the weather never ever reached if he bargained the right way. ) the circumstances are less easily divorced now. every word threads through the white noise of a blurred world carrying on around them, of dimness and flickered light dotting the backs of gojou's knuckles when he turns the package around in his hands and starts picking open the seal, a smile stretched &. stuck wide across his face. always good for betraying nothing.

he'd been eager to replace one taste with another, wash over the dryness blanketing his tongue with something definitive and sure, &. mumble out between teeth breaking apart the candied shell, licking stickiness off his thumb, ❝ not scared to fly too close to the sun right now ? it'd be awkward running into anyone we know. either way . . . ❞ holding a happy hum low in his throat, he dusted his fingers together, patted them dry against his own shirt ( but maybe he'd have another anyway ) ❝ i got my loose ends all tied up ─ actually ! it's you i wanted to be considerate of, seeing as it's my idea and all. ❞ an idea born off the back of suguru's unseeing stares, the loosening of an over - washed cotton shirt that'd used to fit his frame just right, sure. all causes and effects and fallen domino pieces weren't of so much consequence in the face of gojou, and the pendulum swing in the severity of his actions. his own hands picking which axe to swing where, freshly headless wouldn't care what'd inspired the thought. just that he'd done it at all.

rearranging the wide bend of his knees, hooking ankles together instead beneath the table legs &. holding a third strawberry close enough to his lips to wet in the condensation, an idle hand snaked through the gapped open zip of his bag, paper rustling, blindly fishing through messy packing pressing out the fabric in odd shaped lumps. ❝ feels too soon to say we're never gonna get blown back this way in a whole eternity, ❞ a grin breaks into the chocolate, white through white, one ankle bobbing at the end of a bouncing knee, ❝ so i don't feel bad even if you do have regrets. i just wanna get started on that part, asap. ❞ a second hum sharpened around the sound of triumph once he'd unearthed a folded stack of pages, glossy tourist trap leaflets &. maps snatched fresh from yaga's classroom printer alongside that ballpoint, the tip dabbing against gojou's tongue for not much reason at all beyond visual effect, like the way they did in the movies. ❝ here, ❞ and he holds out his already pre - bitten strawberry, head down in absent focus. ❝ have an indirect kiss, i gotta double check our route. ❞

if suguru was going to be honest , he hardly had a problem deciding what to take with him . after all , he didn't care much about sentimental fragments from his family , nor did he pay attention to other such items in his room . he'd leave it a bit like a tomb to the man who died , the man who shared his face but with holier , haughtier beliefs in the system he was no longer convinced by . his bag was more traditional , something easy to pack and pick up , slung over the back of the chair that he was currently occupying as he greets satoru with a smile . ( one that was a little easier ... it wasn't such a stretch to force it onto his expression . ) what did he take ? much the same as satoru ; clothes , and one or two things he couldn't part with . ( those things ? movie ticket stubs & his portion of a divided charm between the three . ) there was no need for a letter , some kind of note for someone , the only persons that he'd like to tell were already aware of the plan . his parents ? he didn't care so much about the family by blood , moreso about the family by fire he'd already made at the technical school . let them think he's dead , that he ran away , it didn't matter . he might as well have murdered the sorcerer named suguru geto himself months ago . if it ended up on a memorial tower somewhere , then , all the better . right , suguru had promised him a reward , and he'd fulfilled his duty as needed . in his hand , a red box that he placed into satoru's hands with a slightly amused noise . ( he knew satoru was going to like his reward ; white strawberries . sweeter than the typical red , expensive as hell , and most importantly for someone like satoru , healthier than the red ones . fittingly , they came with white chocolate covered skin , something exceptionally sweet for his partner . his everything , really . a thank you , sincerely , for coming with him , too . )

❝       surprise . twelve of them , all for you . no sharing required , so go wild .      ❞ with that now done , he fully expected satoru to garble them all down at once , but he still rests his forearm to the side of the table they were sitting in front of . ( ever so proper . ) likewise , his leg was folded over his other , looking down at his phone that sits on the table as well , looking at anticipated weather for the next day as the app updated . ( if they were going to okinawa . . . they needed to probably get a flight out of tokyo as soon as possible . they were the strongest , someone was going to no doubt notice that they were gone from their respective dorms in no time . granted : they could fly on their own , but the government probably didn't take kindly to sorcerers just doing whatever they wanted when they felt like it and in front of civilians as well . )

still , suguru watched his device . truthfully , suguru had gone the extra mile to make sure he wasn't tracked nor found unless he wanted to be , which meant purchasing a new phone and sim card . money wasn't an object to him , not when he made more than enough risking his life for well over a two year period at this point , so he could work with anything if he needed to . . . but it was easier to just change than it was to go through concerned messages from yaga & anyone else that had his number . maybe even his parents . he'd rather not have to deal with that trouble if he could help it ; truthfully , his mental state could be worse . . . but it was still shaky at best . ( suguru put through his share of the effort to keep it together though , nails & tape , a shoddy job that would fall apart eventually , but not now . that was what mattered . as long as it was stable for now . ) the two constant contacts ? ★ gojo , satoru & ★  Ieiri ,  shoko . ❝     so , do we head straight to okinawa ? or do we have any detours we want to make ?      ❞ I'll go wherever you ask . ❝     after all , we've got an eternity to ourselves now .     ❞

[oliviajames1122]

Why is my car shaking?

Your car shaking is not a good sign. If left untreated then this can cause harm to the other components of your car. If you drive your car a lot then this could drive you crazy so for you and your car wellbeing, it would be best to get this sorted out. Search for car garages in Reading to book an appointment.

Here are some reasons why your car is shaking as suggested by garages in Reading   :

Tires

Your vehicle shaking is usually caused by worn or broken tires or rims. These issues may develop as a result of a minor collision or just the tire's age. Tires occasionally need to be replaced because they are made of rubber, which ages over time and starts to break. Your vehicle may shake while driving if the tires have bubbles or uneven surfaces caused by ageing and degraded rubber. You may have hit a curb or something similar and damaged the tyre or the rim, which is another typical issue. A thorough visual inspection of your tires and wheels is definitely in order if you haven't changed your tyres in a while or if you're aware of a recent minor collision with a curb.

Brakes

There may be a problem with your braking system if you feel a vibration when you brake. The rotors, which are spherical discs linked to each wheel and rotate along with them, are of particular note. A brake calliper that is fixed over the rotor squeezes the brake pads against it, increasing friction and reducing rotation. The rotor could distort or bend over time. You might feel a vibration when this occurs and the callipers squeeze against them. Search for car services near me to book an appointment now.  

Engine

The first factor is faulty spark plugs, which cause each combustion chamber's air/fuel mixture to ignite. Wearing any of them can prevent them from firing properly. Each cycle of an engine misfiring can result in a tremor.

Spark plugs go through their own filters before air or fuel even touches them, so a shake doesn't always indicate damaged spark plugs. Spark plugs won't get enough of either if your air or fuel filter is clogged, which prevents them from working. This might potentially result in a misfire and a shake.

Additionally, your motor mounts may be worn. If you didn't know, your car's engine is mounted directly to the chassis thanks to something called motor mounts. Fortunately, they often survive for 5-7 years. Beyond this, they might start to weaken and vibrate.

Transmission Fluid

Despite the fact that this is simple to observe, the majority of automobile owners ignore it until the issue gets severe. As soon as the transmission fluid level drops, your automobile will begin to shake. Therefore, be careful to check it frequently and top it out as needed. You risk permanently damaging the transmission system of your car if you keep on driving with low transmission fluid.

[retelling-of-ragnarok]

❆ ᴀᴘᴘᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ ❆

- - ┈┈∘┈˃̶༒˂̶┈∘┈┈ - -

❆ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀʟ ᴅᴇꜱᴄʀɪᴘᴛɪᴏɴ

↳ Gwen is charming, young, individual with darker skin. Two toned hair, white on top, and black underneath, is short at the top; with the longer bits being styled into two long braids. Their face shape is rounded, and like the rest of them is quite feminine. Their eyes appear black, though in reality, they are pure white. Their left eye, if looked closed enough, has a sigil in the shape of Karlheinz’s crest. Though in order to cover their eyes, they wear black contacts, so people very rarely see their real eye colour. To top everything off: There is a light blue diamond at the centre of their forehead.

❆ ʜᴇɪɢʜᴛ

↳ 5’5 — 165 cms

❆ ᴡᴇɪɢʜᴛ

↳ 154 lbs — 70 kgs

❆ ᴇʏᴇꜱ

↳ Gwen’s eyes are normally a dark, lifeless black. and on that leaves them without any visible pupil thanks to the black contacts they wear. Eyes that could be quite unsettling. But in reality— They have pure white, blank irises. Without a pupil in sight.

Their eyes gain pink and gold, hypnotic rings, whenever they glow. Even smaller circles dawn those rings, creating the perfect gaze for manipulation. It’s a familial trait, that allows them to look directly into the souls of others, in order to pull out their deepest desires. Gwen’s gaze in particular though, is much, much stronger. These eyes are a clear sign of the Exicor bloodline.

On their left eye specifically, they have Karlheinz’s sigil engraved. It’s faint, but can be seen vividly when Gwen experiences intense emotions as a result of that man. Or when they are close to him. This is another reason why they cover their eyes, as to not garner any unwanted questions.

❆ ʜᴀɪʀ

Gwen has fluffier hair, that was originally pure white in colour. Though a few days after their eighteenth birthday, they cut it, and proceeded to dye it. It’s white on top, and black underneath. With the top being shorter, and the underside being a lot longer, to which Gwen then proceeds to style into two braids.

❆ ʙᴏᴅʏ

↳ Pear. Gwen has a pear body shape— With their hips being wider than their shoulders and bust. Their legs are also the strongest part of their body. And whilst they cannot build muscle to show for it, if you run your hand along their skin, you can feel just how toned all of their muscles are.

Despite their hard work though, they don’t have much appearance wise to show for it. Gaining very little muscle, and just barely gaining some tone. Their V-line is quite prominent though, as well as their colour bones. Their hands are slim, well taken care of, and with longer nails than you would expect. Their veins protrude sometimes, and their hands are smaller than the average person’s.

❆ ꜱᴄᴀʀꜱ/ʙɪʀᴛʜᴍᴀʀᴋꜱ

↳ Their largest ‘scar’ is on their back. The Nordic rune associated with the god Baldur— and its divination meaning fullness, reconciliation, and persuasion. Protruding outwards in twists and turns from this rune, are mistletoe vines. Symbolising both the legend of Baldur’s death, but also a mimickry of Adalfieri’s death. As they spiral around Gwen’s back, they never fully reach their neck— But specks of vine can be seen from the front, near their ribs.

↳ exicor birthmark tba

❆ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜɪɴɢ ꜱᴛʏʟᴇ

-> ᴄᴀꜱᴜᴀʟ

-> ꜰᴏʀᴍᴀʟ

❆ ɪᴍᴘᴏʀᴛᴀɴᴛ ᴅᴇᴛᴀɪʟꜱ/ᴀᴄᴄᴇꜱꜱᴏʀɪᴇꜱ

↳ they have a black band-like necklace, with a musgravite gem attacked. the gem is held on a golden, embroidered, plate— that has the name ‘angelo’ engraved on the back. and whilst gwen doesn’t know what exactly it means, they guard it with their life, since their grandfather had given it to them.

the Tsukinamis, whilst not actively in search for it— began the chase once they had seen gwen. the jewellery was once used as a symbol of status, by each founding king. however, the actually owner of the jewellery was Adalfieri’s father, who tried to pass it down to his son; however it had fallen into Giesbach’s hands before that could happen.

the jewellery contains memories from Angelo’s days before his time as a demon. And one of the only few pieces of proof to confirm Ragnarök’s events.

↳ they also wear a red beret, to top off all of their outfits. it gives them an artistic air, as reference to their former hobby, and current interests.

[innocent-artery]

Kinktober 7th: If You Could See Yourself the Way I See You

aka mirror sex with Regulus Black

0.9k words

Summary: the title says it all.

Pairing: Regulus Black x reader

For the sake of avoiding spoilers, extensive warnings will not be given. This story includes sexually explicit material. Reader discretion is advised.

While reading, I recommend listening to the altar is my hips, a spotify playlist by me!

~

When Regulus had told you that you should see yourself when you cum, you didn't think much of it. You went about your day, you didn't think he would actually do it.

It appears you had thought wrong.

You and Regulus had a standing date every Friday evening during which you two would hang out at one person's dormitory. This was one of those times. One thing had led to another, and you found yourself naked with him, moaning and sighing as he played with your cunt. He'd been at it for what felt like hours, teasing you mercilessly.

What got your attention, however, was when he turned you around, and there you saw your reflection. You were on your knees on the bed, torso upright with him behind you.

"You weren't kidding about the mirror." You breathed, a trace of a smile quirking your lips.

"Of course not. I want to see every inch of you when you cum, and I want you to watch."

His hand was soon replaced by the tip of his cock teasing your weeping core. Your head fell back as he began to enter you

Regulus wasn't having that. He was quick to grab your hair and push your head up. "I said watch, dove."

His hand still gripping your hair, you watched his dick sink into your pussy, the feeling of being full making the sight even better. You let out a long, drawn-out moan.

"There, see? Look at how gorgeous you are, taking all of me so well." He purred, starting to rock his hips back and forth. A gasp was ripped from your chest at the sensation.

Although you had struggled to watch yourself in the mirror at first, you couldn't look away now. You watched his cock disappear between your legs, his hands grip your hips to keep you flush against him, his brows furrow and jaw fall open when he started to move faster and rougher.

A sheen of sweat had formed on both your foreheads and both your panting moans filled the empty room. Regulus' hair was flopping in tandem with his thrusts and his eyes were glued to the mirror where he could see every inch of you on display for him.

"Fuck, doll, can you get down on your elbows for me?" He grunted, a hand on your back to coax you down into the position. This hit a whole new angle in you, going deeper and pressing that spongey spot in you. Every. Damn. Time.

It wasn't long until you were getting close to your high. The approaching pleasure overwhelmed you, and you almost let your head fall between the arms propping you up- almost. Regulus had taken note of your nearing orgasm and tugged your hair again, ensuring you would see yourself cum.

"Getting close, sweetheart? Yeah? Come for me. Make a mess all over my cock, go on." You could hear the strain in his own voice, suggesting that he was just barely holding back.

Who were you to say no? Just his words alone were enough to have your legs shaking. Your cunt throbbed at the pleasure- his cock slamming into you, balls hitting your clit, strong hands gripping your hip and hair, hearing his sultry voice encouraging and praising you, the spurts of his cum in your cunt and spilling out of you, and a visual of it all in front of you. Your orgasm washed over you and it took everything in you to keep your eyes open to watch- it was definitely worth it. Both of your cum dripping down your thighs, his chest heaving, his lust-blown eyes lidded and trained on you hungrily.

"There we go, just like that. Just like that, sweet thing. Look how pretty you look like this."

You whimpered at his words, head going cloudy and pussy getting overstimulated once the orgasm had faded. Regulus cooed at your reaction. "Is my baby sensitive?"

You nodded, breathing heavily. He chuckled darkly, pulling out slowly. You saw him watching, and you felt his cum gush out of you, dripping everywhere. A few nimble fingers dipped to catch some of it, bringing them to his lips to taste.

"Fuck, you taste so good." He groaned. He reached down for more, this time extending his fingers to you. "Open."

You stuck your tongue out, then wrapped your lips around his fingers, tongue working to clean his digits. He smirked at your obedience, watching you suckle until he pulled his fingers away.

A gentleman as always, Regulus prepared a bath for you. He helped you to your feet, making sure your shaky legs didn't betray you as he helped you into the tub. Once you were situated, he moved to clean the bedroom. You closed your eyes, sinking into the tub so that the warm water enveloped as much of you as possible. The evening's memories played in your head as the sound of Regulus muttering cleaning spells played in the background.

Once Regulus was done, he strode into the bathroom, feeling the water with his hand. He noticed you zoning out, staring at the water knobs with an unusual intensity. He cleared his throat. Hazily, you turned to him.

"Reg?"

"Hm?"

"Can we use the mirror all the time?"

He chuckled at the airiness in your voice, kissing your temple. "Whatever you want, dove."

~

Regulus Black Masterlist

Kinktober 2022 Masterlist

Harry Potter Masterlist

Main Masterlist

[cjgladback]

Well now I know that if I do get facts relating to any of those crafts they might indeed be fun for you! I'm definitely more on the planning side of crafts as soon as I know vaguely how they work--I always want to design something from scratch in a replicable way versus just making A Good Object or (perish the thought) enjoying the process for its own sake. That might have something to do with the different kinds of patience--but has had mixed results with origami and if I'm not careful everything I knit ends up looking like a stitch sampler. (I'm hoping to go to a fiber festival in about a month and considering taking a dye workshop there--to hopefully discover if I have that brand of patience before I have to buy and store that gear.)

I think if there's craftsmanship to a discipline (which I'm going to define as a way to make the resulting product feel or operate better with more intention and skill), then it counts as crafts. So carpentry is definitely a craft! And if you got wild enough with mediums or needed them to fit a specific context, so could drawing and painting be. But maybe I'm just replacing the word "design" with "craft" in that case.

Nice to hear your perspective on the sketch-to-lineart-like writing process! I might just need more practice to be sufficiently comfortable writing that I don't feel like I'm losing connections between things when I go from acting something out in my head to even an animation or webcomic script where there will be a visual element. Or it might just be an unavoidable loss no different from editing out unnecessary exposition and letting the background be implied.

I've recently mostly been learning techniques (regarding specific software, video game optimization, animation, and fiber art) and am not to the point I can share them condensed into fun facts (or fish facts). So instead, if you wish, questions: do you practice any crafts? And do you often have to translate scenes into written form that you think of first or better in another medium?

I am sure you have facts!

But okay, yeah. I do. I'm not great at most of them! But I whittle and I sew a bit and I knit and I throw pots and I work with beads, things like that. I studied weaving in high school but I haven't touched a loom in years. I attempted dyeing I don't have the correct sort of patience. (There are so many distinct types of patience.) I got into spinning as a kid but I'm allergic to wool.

I also draw and paint but I think those are arbitrarily on the 'art' side of arts and crafts. I do a very little bit of carpentry. Is that crafts.

As for translating...maybe a little? Diana Wynne Jones advised that when setting a scene you should fix an image of as much detail as possible in your head and describe that, as if it was a real thing you have under observation, to avoid accidentally retreating into abstracts and gestures and therefore cliches, and she was so right.

And when it's heavily kinetic things like a fight scene, you are at a severe disadvantage if you're not doing your sketch at least partially in the physical.

But it rarely feels like translating, which is a word heavily freighted in my opinion with epistemological limitation; the treason of our minds in that one thing will never wholly become another, that the second version may be a fine thing in itself but can only approximate its original.

I'm comfortable with words as a medium, they're definitely the one I'm smoothest with, and the prior imagined version is only ever of my conjuring, specifically for the purpose of giving me something to set down in text, and doesn't exist in any larger sense, so I mostly experience this transcription process as quite an adequate capturing of the essence of the idea.

Even when it isn't satisfactory, it tends to feel more like when your linework comes out worse than the sketch somehow, if you know what I mean? Not like if you saw something beautiful and then your painting of it was shit. These are two distinct flavors of frustration.

If I was prone to like, tripping out on mushrooms for inspiration I would probably have that problem more. But my cognitive processes don't really run off ahead of me very often in a creative sense, except in terms of how fast I can type and if I lose my thread in the time it takes to get a pen or a keyboard ready.

For the most part, the bulk of the work is situated within the process.

This is also reflected in which crafts tend to work well for me; clay has always been nice because you can feel your way along and figure out the route as you get there, but the clay doesn't tend to have strong opinions about what you can do with it beyond its basic characteristics like plasticity, which is information you can detect with your hands.

[twilight-orchid]

How the Undatebales React After A Fight

Thank you to my friendo @wholelottatiffy ​ who helped me brainstorm this one. I’m only on chapter 19 at the moment, so I haven’t interacted with anyone but Diavolo much. And thank you to everyone who wanted a follow up to my previous post, I did not expect that. Y’all are super sweet!

tw: Fighting (a bit more in depth than my first post), description of panic attack, minor name calling, insecurity, depression, angst with resolution.

Diavolo:

Diavolo doesn’t know what to do with himself. 

To start, we need to talk about how the argument unfolds.

He’s not used to arguing. 

He’s Lord Diavolo, Prince of The Devildom, head of the RAD student council. No one defys him on anything.

So you raising your voice at him, trying to get him to see your way,

It was very overwhelming.

He tried to reason calmly with you at first, but he felt cornered. 

When fight or flight kicked in, his body chose fight.

His wings burst open in all their glory as he screamed back, his towering frame far more intimidating than yours.

The blind rage is slapped out of him when he sees your terrified face.

If you’re at the castle, he’ll order you to leave if you haven’t already. Anywhere else, he’ll turn and leave without a word. 

He wants to put distance between you both for fear of making things worse.

He absolutely cannot believe he just blew up at you. He would have never thought he'd raise his voice at his partner regardless of the situation.

He can’t shake the image of you flinching from him from his mind.

Now, being the prince of hell certainty has it’s perks; He has power, influence, and everything he could want.

But the one thing he wants the most seems to evade him no matter what: a friend.

A real friend. 

He has Barbatos and Lucifer, but it’s Barbatos’ job to accompany the prince, and Lucifer is bound to Diavolo whether he likes the future king or not.

MC was the first person who chooses to be with and around him for no other reason than the fact that they love him.

And now he’s terrified them. Gotten in their face and screamed at them.

He assumes he’s permanently driven you away.

As soon as you leave or he gets home, he rushes to find Barbatos. To explain what happened and hope his butler would know what to do.

He’ll text Lucifer and ask him to check on you as well.

He just feels lost. 

He wanders the palace aimlessly and he can’t focus on his work without his thoughts drifting to you.

He doesn’t feel like going to school or even getting out of bed. He doesn’t want to speak to anyone - to put on a happy face and pretend his world isn’t shaking.

Yet, a prince has his responsibilities. He will go about his normal public appearances as usual, smile and laugh and carry on, but it’s a mask.

Those close to him clearly notice the prince isn’t himself.

After school he visits the spots that you two visit together frequently.  

Anything to make him feel as if you are still at his side.

If you don’t sleep in his bed that night, he’ll take it as proof that he was right and that you don’t want to be with him anymore.

He doesn’t sleep that night. He clutches your pillow that still smells of you and just bawls. 

He will tell Barbatos he feels unwell the next morning and to postpone his obligations for the day.

This prompts Barbatos to seek you out and see if he can help resolve the issue.

Barbatos tries to stay out of your relationship as he doesn't feel it's his business, but his job is to assist Diabolo in any way necessary. And right now, he needs you more than anything.

If you sleep at his side still, it will be a glimmer a hope. That all may not be lost. 

He’ll give you you space that night. He’ll walk around you on eggshells but always watch you from the corner of his eye to gauge the temperature.

He avoids your gaze, stays on the other side of the room as you prepare for bed, and as much as it kills him, doesn’t hug you or kiss you goodnight.

He spends the night staring at your sleeping face and making silent promises that, if you forgive him, he will never let this happen again.

He thinks of how to apologize. What he could say, what he could do. 

Ultimately though, it feels like everything he could think of is too little of an apology. 

He pretends to be asleep when he sees you stir and decides to let you choose if you want to forgive him on your own.

You will have to approach him first. 

He thinks losing his temper with you was unacceptable and feels like he has no right to ask for your forgiveness.

Worse, he’s terrified of not being given forgiveness.

Thus, I feel a fight with Diavolo will take as long as you let it. He’s willing to suffer as long as you need him to.

Barbatos:

Barbatos doesn’t argue. He sits quietly and watches you, his responses calm but absolute.

He’s no pushover, he will defend his side, but he’s not going to enter a screaming match. It’s just not him.

You know you’ve really gotten under his skin when he offers a tight, forcefully pleasant smile.

He finally shuts down the conflict with "It's your right to feel that way just as it's mine to disagree." And leave it at that.

Post argument, he will avoid you and lock his feelings about the fight inside.

He tells himself he doesn’t have time to deal with the terrible feeling clawing at his heart and takes to his duties as an escape.

If you sleep in another room, he realizes that this isn’t a minor disagreement and he’s suddenly very distressed.

His instinct is to use his future vision. 

To scour the timelines and see how the different versions of himself handle it and to replicate the one with the most desirable outcome.

However, he stops himself. He feels it isn’t fair to you. 

You have a right to be upset about things and he doesn’t want to manipulate the situation, and by extension, you.

Thus, he must find another way to cope.

He’s always a devoted butler, but it’s not his whole life. 

He takes time for himself throughout the day and in the evenings. Unless Diavolo needs him, nights are usually his to do with as he wants.

Now, however, his identity becomes Diavolo’s butler. 

He’s constantly asking for extra work and hovering more than usual around the young lord in hopes of being given a task. 

Diavolo finds it odd and asks about it, but he brushes it off. This isn’t anyone else’s business, least of all his employer’s.

Even though Barbatos won’t tell him, Diavolo can clearly tell his friend is off.

In hopes of giving him something to distract himself with, Diavolo requests hellfire mushroom rolled cigar cookies and Barbatos jumps on the opportunity. 

Baking has always been his escape as well as his happy place. Diavolo’s favorite isn’t easy to make, so he looked forward to the task.

And it worked. Keeping track of the ingredients, the steps, and the technique required was enough to occupy his mind.

But then it was time to wait for it to bake. 

He suddenly feels trapped in the suffocating silence of the kitchen.

His mind replays the argument on repeat as he falls down a rabbit hole of what ifs.

He loves you more than anything and the last thing he could ever want is for you to be mad at him.

No, the worst thing would to no longer be able to call you his.

Suddenly, he becomes aware of the sharp scent of burnt food.

He jumps up and runs to the oven. He’d been so lost in thought he hadn’t noticed the timer go off.

He pulls the blackened desert out, puts the cookie sheet on the stove top, and just stares at the burnt cookies.

His sight blurs and a soft sob escapes from the prison he’s created in his heart.

He wasn’t crying because he burnt the cookies, but because they were a visual representation of everything he’s been trying to suppress.

Once he collects himself, he knows he can’t continue like this. 

He doesn’t want to invade your space in case you’re still mad, but he needs a resolution.

He’ll send a quick text and silently begs you to respond. 

“MC, I understand if you are still upset with me, but would you be willing to talk though it? I look forward to hearing from you.”

If you still sleep with him that night, it is a great weight off of his shoulders. 

He hopes it means that it will be easier to make up with you and that you aren’t too mad.

When you wake up, he will be watching you like he has all night with a small, tired smile. 

He’ll put on your favorite tea as you get ready for the day then asks if you’d be willing to talk things over.

Because of how it affects both his job and himself, a fight with Barbados will not last long. He’ll seek a resolution by one, maybe two days tops.

Solomon: 

Lucifer may be the avatar of pride, but Solomon can certainly give the demon a run for his money.

In the moment of a particularly heated argument, he absolutely will not admit he’s wrong. 

In fact, he really doesn’t consider it a possibility.

There’s no point in trying to get him to see your side until things have calmed down. It’s like talking to a brick wall.

He won’t yell, but he gets a pissy, condescending tone and almost talks down to you.

If you really push his buttons, his patience with this “useless” argument runs out.

“Oh please, listen to yourself! You’re acting like a dull child!”

Freezes as soon as it leaves his mouth.

He didn’t mean to say that.

He opens his mouth to apologize immediately, but upon seeing your hurt reaction he becomes flustered and can’t get the words out.

He’ll simply turn and leave. 

He’s absolutely furious with himself. 

Solomon is old and wise. He’s seen many things, been many places, and he knows many things.

Sometimes though, he needs a reminder that he doesn’t know everything.

Even if he still feels he was right, he knows name-calling is unacceptable.

In fact, he doesn’t miss the irony that he was the one being childish. 

His self-fury is replaced by overwhelming worry if you sleep in another room that night.

Of all the treasures he’s come across, none were as precious as you. 

He can’t stand the thought of losing you because of his thoughtlessness.

For once, he feels like an idiot.

He locks himself in his study that night and brainstorms on how to make it up to you.

He decides to approach you in the morning at RAD. He’s terrified that you think he actually meant the insult and wants to clear the air as soon as possible.

He’s afraid of you taking anything less than his highest praise to heart or for you to think that he views you as below himself. 

The thought of how he must have made you feel makes him sick to his stomach.

The more he thinks about it, the more his body demands that he act. 

While he has many virtues, patience is not high on his list. 

Assuming you returned to The House of Lamentation that night, he’ll text Asmo to explain what happened and asks if he’d let him in first thing in the morning.

Thus, when you leave to head for breakfast, be careful not to trip over your sorcerer who’s seated against the wall outside of your room.

He scrambles to his feet, his hair and clothes a mess and bags heavy under his eyes.

“MC! Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. I just- *sighs* I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. Would you be willing to discuss the matter again? The right way this time.”

If you do sleep with him, he’s at least relieved that you don’t seem like you plan to leave him.

Once again, however, he wants to clear the air as soon as he can.

You’ll both be sitting in silence as you get ready for bed. He’s clearly lost in thought, his eyes focused unblinking on his feet and any movements slow and disjointed.

He's not sure how to apologize, if it's too soon, and is afraid to make things worse if it's not an appropriate time.

However, seeing you move about the room he decides to risk it so he doesn't risk losing you.

Suddenly, he stands up straight and locks eyes with you.

“MC, we don’t have to talk about the fight tonight, but I need you to know that I didn’t mean what I said. I’m sorry.”

It’s up to you if you want to forgive him immediately, but he will at least apologize for the insult as soon as he gathers his thoughts.

Simeon:

If you yell at him, Simeon is just gonna sit there stunned

Your relationship is usually as laid back as he is, so he doesn't know what to do with you blowing up at him.

All he knows it that this is bad and he needs to find a way to make you happy again. 

The thought of losing you takes precedence over everything and, though he will not sway to your side just because you’re upset, the argument loses any worth it had to him.

He’ll go to Solomon almost immediately in hopes your fellow human might know better about how arguments are resolved between human couples.

He becomes very distressed when Solomon says everyone handles it differently. He then asks what he should to make up with you specifically.

He doesn't have a defined emotion right now, he's just on edge. He wants to gather information first and foremost so he can figure out what to do from there.

He’s just a walking ball of anxiety and those close to the angel even become concerned. No one has seen him like this before.

If you decide to sleep in another room, the anxiety just takes over. 

His chest feels like fiery chains are crushing his ribs, he can hear his heart is hammering in his head, and his body begins to shake as if he were buried in an avalanche.

He doesn’t realize he’s crying as he struggles to breathe.

Solomon had expected something like this may happen so he made sure to be nearby to help coach him though it.

Once he’s calmed down, Solomon urges him to talk to you as soon as possible.

Simeon isn't sure though. True, he wasn't in a good place, but he didn't want to push you if you weren't ready to talk.

He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t feel like he can think let alone coherently tell you how he feels.

He begins to feel overwhelmed again and decides to try writing down his thoughts in hopes of it helping him sort through the tsunami of emotions consuming him.

While it doesn't completely calm him down, it does help.

He stares down at the messy, tear blotted papee and has an idea.

The next morning you should expect to find a hand-written letter slipped under you door.

The letter is long and and rambling. His usually pristine handwriting is as shaky as his hands were when writing it.

It's not as dense and heartbroken as his original one, but the further it goes the more desperate his words become.

He writes about how much you mean to him and apologizes for allowing things to get that intense. He writes that he loves you and doesn’t want to lose you. 

He reminisces about his favorite memories of you two together more than once.

Finally, that no disagreement you two could ever have is more importantly to him than being with you.

It's really just a collection of everything sitting on his heart at the moment.

That day at RAD he’ll watch you from the sidelines and pray you approach him about the letter so you two can work things out.

If you still sleep in his bed, he’ll be very conflicted about if he should approach you yet. 

He’s afraid of making it worse if you’re still mad.

However, Simeon is an open book when it comes to his emotions so you will absolutely be able to tell that he’s freaking out.

So please, save the man a terrible night and talk it though with him.

He wants you to not be angry anymore, but even if you’re still upset just having concrete information to cling to will help him immensely. 

He’s thinking of all the worst case scenarios and needs reassurance that the relationship isn’t over.

Simeon will try to make up within a day, so however long it lasts after that is up to you.

Luke (MC is his best friend):

Luke will be very, very distressed. 

You’re his best friend aside from Simeon. Friends don’t fight like this, right?

Wait, so if you’re fighting with him, does that mean you’re not his friend anymore???

As soon as the thought enters his mind, he decides that must be the case. 

Real friends don’t fight with each other like this.

Externally he takes a “I don’t need a lousy human like you for a friend anyway” attitude. 

He’s not just testy with you though, anyone who interacts with him that day learns that chihuahuas bite.

Simeon immediately realizes something isn’t right and is very concerned.

As soon as he asks him what’s wrong, Luke's mask of anger is discarded and he tosses himself in the older angel’s arms crying hysterically.

He doesn’t want to lose you for a friend.

I doubt Luke has ever truly argued with someone so this uncharted territory is earth shattering to him.

Simeon, as he tries to calm Luke, he will text you and ask you to come to wherever they are immediately.

Because of Simeon’s intervention, the fight will only go undiscussed for a few hours max.

Again, sorry if I don’t know these characters as well as I’d like yet. Thank you for reading! 

[cookiewrites]

that changbin hate sex 😮‍💨 god damn thats my fucking dream 😭

i see him being such a great dom its not even funny, also i see him big into choking like, hed watch as your eyes roll to that back of your head and love it hehe 😏

love your work btw!! ❤️

thank you!!! ahhh!!! i'm so glad you liked it!!!

and yes, changbin is 100% into choking, he's into the power that it gives him over you. always doing it safely, of course, but he loves being in control of every tiny part of you including when you get the breathe.

plus the visuals of it all, how small your neck looks in his hands, the marks his hands leave next to all the hickies he's definitely left to mark you as his own, and yes the way your eyes roll backwards. even the way your lips are all puffy from being kissed and the way you gasp when he lets go.

10/10, changbin and choking, great combo.

tighter

wc: 0.5k

cw: dom!changbin x afab sub!reader, penetrative sex, choking, dirty talk, pet names for reader (kitten, little one), little bit of dumbification, cliffhanger/no aftercare, consent implied/established relationship

the way changbin's cock filled you up always made your head spin, it was impossible to focus on anything else except the way he split you open. where his cock wasn't the longest, it was more than thick enough to make you feel full to the brink, stretching you in a way that no one else ever could.

he loved when you were on top; when your weight would make you sit all the way down on his cock, making you fill yourself over and over - particularly adoring when you'd get so tired you couldn't hold yourself up any longer and you'd have no choice but sit down on all of him - the way you'd whine at the fullness making him was one of his favourite sounds.

but something he liked even more than that is the face you make when he wraps his hands around your throat. even without pressure applied your eyes would immediately glaze over, head going heavy in his hands, bouncing along with the rest of your body on his cock. the weight of his palms against the column of your neck instantly turning your head to mush.

'hmmm, kitten, nothing going on up there is there, little one?'

'just some hands on your neck and suddenly you can't think of anything but cumming on my cock, needy little thing'

as you try and whine in response his hands tightened, calloused thumbs pressing into your neck, suddenly finding your airway restricted - your pussy clenching in response in a way that makes changbin hiss. your attempts at riding losing any solid pace as you simply try to get off.

'fuck, clenching around me like that, so desperate for me to ruin you like this'

changbin tightened the hold on your neck to the delicious point of lightheadedness, your eyes rolling back into your head as he took over thrusting into you, your tongue falling out of your mouth. changbin using your almost limp body as he egged you towards your orgasm.

'you always get so much tighter when i hold you like this, pretty little pussy basically sucking me in kitten'

'i can feel how close you are, little one, love it when i use your body like this, controlling even when you breathe'

'c'mon, cum for me kitten, make a mess'

and with that instruction you do cum, changbin letting go just as you fall over that cliff, allowing you to cry out for him and let the burning in your chest be replaced with so much pleasure you're not sure if it's the lack of oxygen or the orgasm that's making you dizzy. all you can really place is the way changbin had stopped moving altogether, making you desperately move yourself through the final waves of your orgasm.

soon you settled, breathing steadily against his chest, his hands running up and down your sides as you got comfortable on his dick.

'oh sweetheart, i'm not anywhere near done with you, so catch your breath and start again. i never did tell you to stop riding.'.

[secondhand-trash]

Put a Ring on It

A/N: I started it with the intention of writing a thirst post but it ended up being 1.7k of pure fluff lmao

Pairing: Miya Atsumu x reader

Description: Miya Atsumu had a thing for wearing rings.

Word count: 1772

-

Miya Atsumu had a thing for wearing rings.

Maybe it was how he thought that they made his hands looked bigger, or how the accents never failed to draw even more attention to his slender fingers. Likely, it was just the way how most teenage boys went through a phase of wanting to look stylish and edgy without really bothering to look into having an actual style of their own, resulting in him halting a baggy t-shirt, cargo pants and an unnecessary amount of rings as the peak of men’s fashion. You had your own thoughts on how he was so determined to slip a ring or two into whatever he was wearing whenever he was out of his uniform. You made fun of his sense of fashion none stop, pointing to his bleached hair that has faded from the gold it was supposed to be into a sharp yellow and cheap chunky jewelry as the main culprit.

“You look like a delinquent who smokes cheap cigarettes in parks after school.”

You sniggered when he let out an offended ‘huh’. His chunky silver rings that had obnoxiously prominent carvings on the side brushed dug into the gap between your fingers as he squeezed your hand tighter when he snapped towards your direction. Your free hand, the one that wasn’t in a lock hold by his ring clad one, reached out to brush away his side-swooped bangs. His hair was fried from the boxed bleach he used regularly but as a side perk, the dryness did add to the volume of his hair.

He stood there still as you carefully pushed his hair back, his upper body leaning towards your direction just a little so you didn’t have to struggle to reach him despite his initial protests. You were messing with his hair and he was looking at you, only at you, with his fingers still linked with yours even though you always complained about his rings making it hard for you to hold his hand.

You finally pulled back and your gaze dropped from his bangs to his eyes. Your heart skipped a beat when you met his eyes and they were full of you.

You cursed your weak heart for its sudden moment of swooning when he stood back up straight and his ring scratched against the inside of your finger.

You sighed, “You are so lucky you have a nice face so that people will be too caught up to notice how you dressed.”

Atsumu pretended he couldn’t hear the second half of the sentence and decided to focus on how you said he had a nice face instead.

But then you graduated from high school and he slowly started dressing less like a disastrous teenage boy and more like a proper adult. That athlete money did him well and he was finally able to dress the way he wanted to dress without having to turn into a questionable direction because of monetary limits. The baggy pants were gone from his closet, replaced with pants that actually fit his body and elevate things instead of holding back the visual upper hand he was supposed to have because of his physiques. He finally stopped bleaching his own hair after your many years of nagging but you nearly lost your composure when he showed up in front of your door to pick you up with his new hair for the first time.

“I got the stylist to trim my bangs for me,” he said as he ran his hand through the curl sitting at the side of his forehead and you gulped when you realised that his hair was soft enough for fingers to go through them with ease now, “I’m still trying to get used to not having things over my eye.”

“Oh?” you replied, your voice breathy as you tried to calm down your sea of thoughts at the sight of your boyfriend’s new look. 

You were aware that he was good looking, but everything that he was not born with used to be questionable so it balanced things out. Now he was wearing tight-fitted jeans that made his legs look even more toned as if it was even possible, with a white t-shirt that was tugged in loosely. He had a blazer on too, probably because you made him take you somewhere nice in celebration of his first VLeague cheque, but at this point you were almost certain he had that thing on just to drive you insane. 

And his hair, his god damn windswept fluffy no longer bright yellow hair.

“Do you think I should grow it longer?” he asked as he rubbed the tip of his bangs between the pads of his finger. The silver that sat at the bottom of his digits contrasted starkly with the pale gold and it finally dawned upon you that he stopped wearing the cheap rings you used to make fun of him for a while ago. 

Oh dear, now he was actually hot.

“No,” you blurted out, “it looks nicer this way.”

"You think so?” he asked as you forced your legs to move past your door before shutting it behind your back firmly. You had to force yourself to go out before the urge to make him come in could win, or else you would most certainly end up doing things that would make you miss your reservation.

And you had been excited to leech off of his athlete money.

“Yes, yes I do think so,” you said as you grabbed his hand to pull him along with you. 

You groaned in satisfaction when you realised his new rings did not stop you from sliding your fingers between his like the old ones did.

You started having fewer objections towards his choice of accessaries after his general fashion sense shifted for the better. You even started liking the rings after a while, crediting it to him opting for designs with more simplicity. You liked the way the metal was already warm from his heat when he put his hand on your thigh out of nowhere because he was bored, or when he was at the driver’s seat and the pad of his finger drummed against your skin steadily as he waited for the lights to change. The warmth of his hand always brought you security and he was well aware that nothing called your attention to him like it did. You were not even sure if he was aware, but he had a habit of toying with his rings whenever you were neglecting him because you had your attention on something else. The band he was playing with always ended up off his finger and up yours when you were least expecting it, the feeling of his calloused finger holding your hand as he slid it down always managed to call your gaze back to him.

‘What a child,’ you chuckled to yourself when he looked at you innocently like he could not be having any hidden thoughts, his hand still holding onto yours as he held the ring that was too large for your finger from falling down.

So being the child he was, who always couldn’t fathom the thought of letting you leave his side and was equally eager to let the world know he wasn’t leaving yours, it did not surprise you at all when you were tidying up your drawers one day to find a velvet box tugged all the way back into his sock drawer.

You had a feeling it was exactly what you thought it was, and you laughed at the image of him trying to find somewhere to hide it in the house while you were not around.

Of course, leave it up to Miya Atsumu to hide a ring at the back of his sock drawer because he thought it was the one place you wouldn’t look into unless you were left with no choice.

You giggled to yourself and closed the drawer, letting the box stayed right where it was.

You weren’t looking. You wanted to, but you weren’t. Because you knew he would whine to no end if you didn’t look as surprised as he wanted you to be when he finally showed it to you for real.

He still had no clue that you already knew it was coming when he got down on one knee and took the box out of his pocket with shaky hands. He cried when you said yes and you cried when he started crying, even though you had already rehearsed in your head for a million times on how you would say yes ever since you saw the velvet box inside of his sock drawer. 

He was still sobbing when he realised he needed to get up from the ground, wiping his tears away on the sleeve of his very expensive blazer before clumsily taking the ring out of the box to put it on your finger. Miya Atsumu was an ugly crier through and through and you finally admitted to yourself that you were a whipped fool when you still wanted to kiss his stupid face even though his eyes were swollen and he missed your finger a few times before finally getting the ring in.

“Now we match,” he said with a hiccup, laughing but sounding like he was about to break down into another round of tears as soon as the chuckle left his mouth, “you can’t make fun of my rings anymore.”

He was so dumb, and you felt like crying again when he took out an identical ring from his pocket and put it on his own hand. Who the hell does that? You wanted to laugh at him but you couldn’t, because you knew you would start sobbing again if you do that.

“You’re an idiot,” you said, grabbing his hand to steady him because he was shaking and you were sure he might just drop the ring if he kept fidgeting.

He sniffled, grinning ear to ear through his tears when he saw the ring that sat on your finger.

“So?” he said, happily holding your hand in his to look at how perfectly it fits, the rings and your hands, “You can’t get rid of me now, I got the ring to prove it.”

You huffed, but couldn’t stop yourself from smiling when he rubbed his fingers along his engagement ring like he was making sure that it was still there.

You decided that it would be your favourite ring of his until you get to put the wedding band onto his finger yourself.

[deputygonebye]

Medicine bottles and a first aid; generosity that wasn't frequent from the hands of the Saviors. Never part of their routine, the haul was heavy in Shane's arms, an offering of peace but not one so sweet. Still trapped was he and all the rest that he called family. Negan and his band of merciless hunters, a pack of wolves that would feast until the entire land was picked dry. Gnawed bones stripped completely of their flesh - retaliation for what had been lost - Rick and the entire group surrounded by overgrown weeds and result of their crimes. But such punishment would not come to pass so soon. Better ideas in mind, yet to be had, yet to be created by the master of all the misery, Logan had provided means to live another day. Maggie would be able to find comfort in her pregnancy. Bound for Hilltop, far away but certain to return to her kin eventually, safe. Judith and Carl soothed from aches and pains by the simplicity of an aspirin. One more day for the whole group who had survived since Atlanta.

But never would a single day replace the memories of what felt like a lifetime. Glenn and Abraham had been killed. Gentle eyes dimmed forever all because Negan had decided so, power and glory stomped out with the ruthlessness of a baseball bat swing. Still could Shane hear the noises as Negan did as he pleased. Splattered blood - cries that had become burned into the foundations of dreams - cracked bone and ragged breath. None would ever be the same. Snapped, sanity and whatever else that could still be clung onto, captured in worn and tired hands. As if it were just mere seconds before, Shane could recall what it was like to have met them both for the first time, Glenn and Abe. Confused and as scared as he, wandering the world, disturbed by the sudden changes. From one corner to the next, Atlanta to the outskirts of the Prison, mistakes made wouldn't be repeated. And an even more dangerous enemy had Logan and his father both made.

Neither Rick nor Negan to be seen, Logan and Shane were the sole contenders to the war between the factions. Houses locked or broken into, vandalized or redecorated, it was the visual of two different fronts forced together and met in the middle. A clash that sounded much like the fire of a gun, the bang of a hammer against nails, the scream of a woman who found herself a widow. But shared was their lives to be. United, bonded as master to slave, traitor to traitor. Logan couldn't escape his side of fate. Married into it by the influence of someone who wasn't of his own person, born and would see death for the cause. A deputy of sorts to the entire game his father played; Shane's alternative come straight from the pages of nightmares. Roles reversed before either could see it coming, the child traded position with the man who had earned his place. Shane knew the signs. Watched as eyes moved from one member to the next, jotted down on blanket notes with black ink, the tip of the pen almost like new. Logan was just as respected as Negan.

An insult just on the tongue, said almost as easily as it would've been years before, the sounds of sirens and the blue and red of lights flashing like fireworks in King County, Shane fought temptation. An urge to say just what was deserved to be said, what Logan and all of whom he called family needed to hear. What Rick couldn't say. What Daryl and Sarah were too afraid to, a dangerous former deputy just crazed enough to make the leap of faith. Whatever it would take to set things right. A rottweiler muzzled for the greater good.

"You got no real idea, do you?" Shane spit, the muscles in his face contorted in a look of utter disgust, unspoken rage and tension. "You talk to me about facts, but you don't have a clue about any of this. Whatever your dad says, that's what you and yours go off of. But you ain't got no sense, Logan. This world, what I've been through, what my family's been through, it ain't no comic book. There's no fairytale in this world. Pride don't have anythin' to do with it. You might fool all your buddies around here, but you don't fool me."

Shane stated, the voice of a father present and clear, "your father, he's hurt good people, people that I care for and love. You'll do good to keep that in mind. Take what you will, write down whatever the hell suits your fancy in that notebook of yours, but don't think I won't be keepin' an eye on you. Negan's got Rick, but you don't got me. Not me, not my daughter, not anybody else of mine that the Saviors terrorize. This fire you keep kindlin' is gonna burn by the end. Let me tell you, it won't be us who gets caught in the flames."

The son of the Leader of the Saviors had been standing next to Negan's own black truck, carefully watching Rick and his father talk down the street. Every trip to Alexandria, every tribute taken from Rick and his group of groupies put Logan's teeth on edge, concern for his Dad playing with fire, toying with Grimes when Logan was of the opinion that Rick should have been on the chopping block as well. He respected his Father's decision, but he had decided that his duty as a son and future leader of the Saviors was to keep one eye open, a knife in his hand, and a bullet with Rick Grimes' name on it.

Gray and hazel eyes shifted over as Shane approached, although he shifted his own weight from one booted foot to the other to keep Negan, Rick, and now Shane in line of sight at all times. He was only 16, but he squashed his anxiety and emotions down, keeping his face a calm mask discipline. He was a Savior. He was his father's most trusted right hand man. He would not let them see anything but strength and confidence. He was a Savior, he repeated to himself. And Saviors did not fear.

"Good thing, I didn't ask, Deputy Dipshit." Logan said, narrowing his eyes. He had picked up on Shane's relationship with Rick; saw the other older man almost like how Simon was to his Dad. Someone dangerous, charismatic, but best kept under close supervision. He fidgeted with one hand, holding a slightly worn notebook where he had been keeping a ledger of supplies taken for inventory back home. Dad always appreciated it, always beamed proudly at him as Logan kept stocks and lists and attended all the meetings, sitting on his right hand side. He had also been at the meetings when they learned about Tim's crew and the Satelite Outpost attack. The thoughts of the Saviors lost always sparked an anger in his stomach, but he always bit the flames back by hard earned practice.

Maybe it was good Momma had put him into anger management therapy for a bit before the fall.

"Thirty-four Saviors." Logan growled, managing an unimpressed glower. "And we only killed two of you. And you are bitching to me, 'man'." He gave a sarcastic snort, holding his breathing steady as he could. One, two, three and out. The thought had kept him awake some nights, wondering if it was up to him, how he would deal with losing thirty plus people. Just letting it go wouldn't fly. Not by a long shot. This was the price to avoid war and by fuck Alexandria would pay it. "You should be grateful we don't just fuck you all up and take Alexandria as it is."

Logan glanced over at the same Savior that Shane noticed, eyes flicking quickly over his armful of loot. He gave a short, sharp whistle and the man instantly looked over to him. There was silence for half a heartbeat before the Savior stepped over after a brief pause of hesitation. But Logan's role in the Saviors was well known and well acknowledged. Just like his Father, his commands were to he followed. Logan reached out, selecting a few items; prenatal vitamins, children's aspirin, a first aid kit. He nodded to the Savior and sent him off, watching the man hurriedly rush away. He shoved the pile at Shane, barely even looking at the man.

"But, fucking lucky for you, Da-Negan thinks people are a resource. And I happen to agree with him. For now. Maybe you and Rick should think, and think carefully, if your people are worth more then your pride." He lifted his notebook, finally jotting down what the Savior he had stopped had taken. "Because, let's face facts, Deputy. We wouldn't have fucked with you, if you didn't fuck with us. You're just asshurt we got bigger teeth then you do."

[zodiakuroo]

copycat

18+, eren jaeger x fem!reader

part two of pierced

inspired by the 'big stick' scene from jawbreaker (iykyk)

wc: 3.7k

contains: mild dubcon, light dom/sub, ball play, choking, dumbification, degradation, spit, creampie

Eren can’t help but admire you from the doorway of your shared bedroom. One would think, that after 30 days of edging, you would learn not to be such a fucking tease. But here you are flitting around the kitchen in nothing but one of his t-shirts and a frilly pair of lilac panties.

‘Stop being a perv. It’s hot out.’ You don’t have to say it. The ‘you’ in his head is already chastising him for the lascivious nature of his thoughts.

The ‘you’ in his head is also already bent over the granite top counter, panties long discarded, presenting yourself to him, begging ‘Please Eren. Fuck me.’

He can’t help it. Everyday he’s found himself face to face with your cute little pussy, absolutely begging to get filled and not being able to do anything about it. It’s not his fault that when he sees you wearing next to nothing, he just wants to stick his cock in you.

Except it’s entirely his fault.

That’s why even though you can feel the weight of his stare as you move around the kitchen, you don’t even spare a glance in his direction.

If there’s one thing these last few weeks have taught you, its willpower. And thanks to your newfound self-discipline you’re able to resist the urge to pounce on him when your boyfriend pulls your back against the solid wall of his chest. “Baby.” He rasps. “I’m all healed up.”

The statement makes goosebumps appear on your skin despite the sweltering heat but other than that, you show no signs of exactly how pent up you are.

Eren made you swear not to touch yourself whining about how unfair it would be and how he would really appreciate your support in his hour of need. Yes he used those exact words. You kept your promise but not without intending to receive payback. It was only a matter of how. The idea hadn’t come to you yet.

“Really?” You don’t even bother to turn around, pushing past him. Partly as a way to tease him but also because you don’t trust yourself to be able to resist him once you get a good look at him. From his scent alone you can tell he’s fresh from a shower and that’s when he’s the most dangerous. He smells cool and fresh like his shower gel, spicy and warm like his aftershave and fruity and floral like his your shampoo. It’s hypnotic.

The trance is broken when he pulls you even closer to him, grinding his bulge into your backside.

“Stop buying that 2-in-1 shit if you’re gonna use mine all the time anyways.” You grumble.

Right.

Revenge first. Dick second. The voice in your head reminds you.

You wriggle out of his hold, remembering why you came into the kitchen in the first place. You breathe a sigh of relief as you open the freezer door, the cold air providing a brief reprieve from the near suffocating heat of your apartment. Once you’ve obtained your target; a cherry popsicle hidden behind some ice packs and frozen peas, you finally take a look at your tormentor.

“Babe c’mon.” Eren persists.

He looks good. Unfairly good considering the fact that he’s not even trying. Fresh from the shower, he has on a worn out white t-shirt, stretched around the neckline which gives you a mouthwatering look at his perfectly sculpted collarbones and no more than the top of his pecs that peak out above the seam. His grey athletic shorts hang low on his hips and outline his print a little too well so you know he’s not wearing boxers. Eren hasn’t bothered to tie up his long hair leaving the damp tendrils dangling above his shoulders with a few stray strands framing his handsome face. He’s putting up a nonchalant front but the tick in his eyebrow gives his irritated disposition away.

Surely he didn’t believe that you would let him have his way with you that easily.

Except he did. Because under most circumstances he would. But today, your own stubbornness (only marginally) drowns out your desire for your Adonis of a boyfriend so you push past him into the lounge, plopping down on the couch with a dramatic sigh.

“Later.” You bring the frozen treat to your lips. “It’s so hot.” Again, Eren tries to keep his face expressionless but you easily spot the way he clenches his jaw as his gaze fixes itself onto your mouth.

Bingo

You close your eyes, enjoying the sweet cherry taste and cool sensation that spreads throughout your body.

“On second thought,” You start, as a mischievous grin spreads across your face. “There is something else I’d rather have in my mouth.”

“Yeah?” Eren dons a matching smirk and stalks his way over to you, sitting down so that you can straddle him. “Tempting but honestly, your mouth isn’t what I had in mind.” His voice trails off, large hands moving down to cup your ass, giving the soft flesh a squeeze for good measure. But before he can take it any further you’re already manoeuvring your way between his knees.

“Oh. You don’t want me to suck your cock?” You pout, resting your head against his thigh, trying your best to sound disappointed.

Eren swallows whatever argument he was about to present when he sees your pretty eyes, shaded by fluttering lashes looking up at him with the tip of the crimson popsicle pressed against your sinful mouth. The same sinful mouth he’s been dreaming about for a month.

Fuck.

“Yeah, okay.” He grumbles while you watch him pull his already half hard cock out of his bottoms. It’s so pretty and long, perfectly thick in all the right places, decorated at the tip with a vertical running titanium barbell.

He’s got a hand around his base, waiting for you to replace the sweet treat in your mouth with his aching cock but much to his dismay your attention is drawn a little lower.

The sight of his plush balls all swollen and full of cum proves to be too much for you to resist. He shudders when your cold lips press against the taut skin. You know he’s sensitive from being so backed up. That’s why he starts panting as you leave wet kisses on his sac, leaving your saliva all over it while his shaft grows harder above you.

“Hold this for me.” You pass him your popsicle, that is slowly starting to melt which he takes in his free hand.

“Okay can you just- fuck.” One more kiss, right on the shiny metal of his newly healed piercing, shuts him up quickly.

Your own hands find their place on his thighs. You dip your head down again and take one of his balls in his mouth massaging it with your tongue.

“Christ.” He groans, slowly jerking himself off while you worship his balls.

“Oh poor baby…. so full.” You murmur letting go of the left to suck on the right one, savouring the weight of them.

“Yeah.” His voice is about a whole octave higher than usual. “Hurts.” He scrunches up his face when you let go of his ball with a pop.

“I bet.” You giggle. Eren is now at full mast, veiny shaft resting against his abdomen, dribbling precum which coats the shiny piercing that crowns his angry-red tip. His wrist flicks ever so elegantly as his hand moves languidly up and down, up and down, up and-”

“Princess.” Your boyfriend whines, yanking you out of your daze. “Enough with the teasing. You wanted to suck me off. Do it already.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes, not losing sight of your revenge plot.

“Baby,” You pout. “I really want to but-” It’s so hard to bite back your laugh. “But I don’t remember how.”

“Wait what?” His hand stops right in his tracks, brows furrowed in confusion.

“It’s been so long. Can you show me?”

Eren’s expression goes from perplexed to vicious but you don’t budge, blinking up at him with wide innocent eyes.

“How?” He huffs impatiently. It’s funny actually, seeing him struggle to tolerate a fraction of his own bitter medicine.

Your eyes shift to the frozen treat still in his hand that’s starting to drip down his knuckles. “I’m a visual learner.”

He moves like he’s about to stand up but you won’t make it that easy for him. “Please, Rennie? Please teach me how to suck your cock?”

As much as Eren has you wrapped around his finger, he’s just as whipped for you. So when you look at him with those sparkly eyes and call him the pet name he swears he hates but brings him to his knees when you use it, you know you have him.

Hook, line and sinker.

You use your thumb and middle finger to make a circle around his base, positioning yourself eye level with his leaking slit.

His tongue peaks out cautiously, eyes trained on yours as he flicks it across the tip, testing the waters. Immediately you follow suit, tasting his precum for the first time in so long. His hips buck off the couch, chasing the gone-too-soon sensation but you dig your nails into his thigh, reminding him who’s in control right now.

You quirk your brow at him, making sure he understands what you want.

How many times have you found yourself in this exact position: sitting between your boyfriend’s thighs while he looks down at you, both of you equally as lust drunk as the other. But this time he’s the one panting and whimpering while you have your turn to torture him.

Eren doesn’t like it. Not one bit. He wants to smack that smug little grin right off your face but instead he pulls at your hair, tugging right at the roots and making you yelp in pain. Now you’re scowling. But it’s hard to look at all intimidating sitting beneath him with your head tilted at such an awkward angle. He doesn’t miss the way your thighs clench together either.

Never breaking eye contact, he uses the flat of his tongue to lick a broad stripe up the length of the popsicle. You squirm in place, remembering how it feels to have him lick across your cunt exactly like that.

Fine. He’d play along with your little game. But on his own terms.

You lean forward to copy him but the hand holding your head keeps you in place. Without looking away, Eren launches a glob of spit onto the already drippy ice-cream before licking it away. It’s that simple for him to put a crack in your domineering façade and have you whimpering right at his feet as per usual.

The corners of his lips twitch as a silent challenge to you.

Never one to back down, you use your tongue to trace the vein that runs along the underside of his cock, feeling it pulsate. As you get closer to his prince Albert, you can’t hold back from swirling the wet muscle around the cold metal.

A soft whimper escapes his lips as you pull away, keeping your mouth agape, looking up at him expectantly.

It’s silent for a moment before Eren realises what you’re wordlessly pleading for. “Fucking slut.” He mutters, almost amazed before he gathers more of his saliva to drop into your mouth with a loud khwa pto echoing throughout the quiet apartment.

You close your mouth with a satisfied smile, savouring the taste of sweet, tart cherry and a flavour that is uniquely Eren, letting it mingle with your own saliva before spitting it on to his cock. You use your tongue to spread the wetness all along the shaft, leaving it covered in slick sheen.

“So fuckin’ nasty.” He groans, moving his hand from your head to push his own hair out of his face, not wanting anything to obstruct his view of you right now.

You feel the way his thigh twitches under your palm every time you come even close to his puffy cockhead and your tongue brushes across the sensitive piercing. The idea that you have him like this, desperate and whining, after weeks of him toying with you is exhilarating to say the least.

You have to rein yourself in before you end the fun too soon.

Reluctantly, you pull away and patiently await your next command.

You know what he wants next and so does he but Eren can’t help but feel self-conscious.

Of course, he loves the way you look when you’re going down him. His gallery is filled with pictures of you with your eyes filled to the brim with tears and your lips stretched impossibly wide around his girth. When you’re not around he gets off to the videos him fucking your face, relishing in the way you gag while you try to accommodate him in your throat. He doesn’t think he could ever measure up to how sexy you look with your pupils blown, lips all swollen and your spit dripping down your chin.

But just like you, he’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

Ever so slowly, he opens his mouth and latches on to the blunt top of the popsicle. His plump lips form a perfect O-shaped pout, stained beautiful crimson from the fruit juice. Your gaze is transfixed on his face, the sharp lines and edges tinted with an uncharacteristic blush as his cheeks hollow out, to suck it in deeper.

“So pretty baby.” You breathe out.

He shudders as the cool air fans out across his wet skin.

“Yeah? ‘m pretty?” He smirks, using his free hand to drag his cock across your face, smearing his precum on your lips. “Show me how you treat pretty boys. Please?”

And how could you deny him?

Centimeter by centimeter, you pull him in. Only the first few inches, get to enjoy the warm, slippery cavern of your mouth while the rest of him has to make do with the soft skin of your hand gliding up, down and around.

“Fucking take it inside. Christ.” He groans, frustration evident as he glares down at you.

You simply shake your head a ‘no’, far too content with the taste and the weight of him in your mouth to stop suckling at his cock. If he wants more, he knows what he has to do.

The frozen treat is back between his lips and far too quickly, with not enough thought he pushes it inside as far as it can go until his gag reflex forces him to abort his mission, sputtering out red-coloured saliva.

You pull off of him as you erupt into a fit of giggles.

Eren takes advantage of the fact that you’re unguarded and in a matter of seconds he has you pinned to the floor. The poor popsicle is left in a sad, melting puddle on your couch while his long, sticky fingers circle around both of your wrists, the other hand keeping a harsh grip on your jaw.

Yeah. Not laughing now, are you?

“Was that funny to you princess?” He questions you, almost daring you to hit back.

Knowing when to quit was never one of your strong points.

“Not funny.” You say despite your giddy smile. “My pretty boy just needs more practice.” You snicker.

You’re pushing his buttons on purpose now. At best, you expect some degrading words fitting of your bratty attitude. At worst, you expect the sting of his palm to come down against the side of your face, reminding you of your place.

What you don’t expect is a wry chuckle before he says, “I forgot how bitchy you get when you don’t get stuffed full of cock enough.”

Eren frees your hands in favour of placing both of his on your knees. He spreads apart your legs as wide as they can go, dragging his coarse palms up and up to rest at the apex of your thighs. He flicks up the hem of your shirt to reveal to him the crotch of your panties that's soaked through with your arousal. He pulls them to the side to expose your cunt to him. Eren barely stops himself from tearing the flimsy fabric right off your body and only because he thinks they're pretty and wants to see you wear them again.

He can smell you. But he suppresses the desire to bury his face between your pillowy thighs for as long as you’ll let him. He knows that’s not what either of you really want.

“This needy pussy been missing me?” He coos, keeping his voice sugary sweet and dripping with condescension. He grinds his pierced tip all along your cunt, dipping under your hood to press right against your clit.

You feel it before you realise what’s happening; the burn of his fat head of his cock prodding at your tiny hole, forcing it to stretch around him.

“Jesus fuck- ‘s tight.” He grits out, managing to pop just the tip in.

Tears gather at your waterline as he impales you further and further on his cock, reintroducing your insides to him and his newest body mod. The bulb of the piercing drags deliciously over every bump and ridge that lines your walls. It just keeps going and going until it’s all too much.

Instinctively, your hand flies to Eren’s abdomen, fingers splaying across his tummy. You want to ask him to stop or wait or at the very least prep you. But you’re just so full.

He’s not even all the way in and you’re full of him everywhere. Did it feel like this before?

He doesn't give you a chance to remember.

“Move. Your fucking. Hand.” He grunts before moving it for you and sheathing his cock fully in your spasming cunt.

“Fuck Eren. ‘s big.” Your voice breaks as you utter that last word right one Eren fills you to the hilt. Your arms fly to his biceps, squeezing the muscle so tight that you’re certain it hurts him but he doesn’t complain.

No one would believe that mere minutes ago Eren was the one under your thumb. Not when he’s so quickly managed to turn you into a blubbering mess.

“Where’s that smart mouth now?” He mocks you as if he’s doing any better. In reality he’s keeping himself still, with his pressed against yours trying to regain a semblance of control, not wanting this to end so soon.

Slowly, he starts to rock his hips against you and little by little you open up around him, offering less and less resistance. Hand on the bible, he swears he can feel your gooey pussy sucking him in every time he pulls back, almost like it’s begging him to never leave again. Hand on the bible, he swears that he won’t.

“Huh?” He taunts. “Where’s the bitch who thought she could fuck with me?” He emphasises his point with one sharp snap of his hips that hits the bull’s eye.

“Eren! Right there!” You cry out as you back arches up into him but he forces you to stay down by pressing his palm firmly against your sternum.

“Right there?” He mimics your voice, with a high pitched, nasal tone. You can’t even cringe at how it sounds because the feeling of the rounded metal hitting that squishy patch deep inside you with pinpoint accuracy is too overwhelming for you to think about anything else.

“You want me to fuck you here?” His thrusts start to pick up pace. You’re finally getting used to him again and the slick juices from your pussy let’s him move as fast as he wants, as deep as he wants so you he can use his cock to abuse all of your sweet spots

You can’t exactly speak; only nod, as you dig your nails into his shoulders and back, leaving a trail of crescent shaped indents in your wake. The coil at the base of your belly twists tighter, tighter and tighter still as all your nerve endings work overtime to register the way he fills you up completely, the way the metal rubs along all the right spots and the way Eren rams into you like a man possessed.

“Pleasepleasepleaseplease.” Now you’re begging. It’s impossible to stop the fear bubbling in your chest. You’ve become well-acquainted with this feeling. Absolutely drowning in pleasure and right on the edge of an unimaginable peak before having it ripped away. It’s not unreasonable to be worried that Eren might leave you high and dry once again.

He halts his movements the moment he notices the doubt behind your eyes.

Your pleas become more and more frantic, already thinking the worst. “Don’t stop Eren! Please don’t stop.” You sob but go silent when his hand rests itself firmly around your throat.

“Told you.” He punctuates the sentence with one, deep thrust.

“Fuck. What did I say?” He growls as he falls back into the same brutal rhythm that had you teetering on the very brink of an orgasm before.

God above as your witness, you try and answer but all that comes out is a pathetic squeak of his name before he cuts you off completely by squeezing your neck tighter.

“S-said I was gonna fuck you stupid. Right?”

You nod as best you can, head spinning from the lack of air and your orgasm approaching rapidly.

“Now fuckin’ cum for me so I can keep my promise.”

The second his hand meets your clit, you’re a goner. The calloused pad of his thumb rubs the neglected nub with exactly the right pressure to push you over the edge. Every muscle clenches as that tightening coil finally snaps. The intoxicating pleasure that shoots through your body reaches your head at the same time as the pressure on your throat is released, much needed oxygen flooding your brain and prolonging the high.

You wrap your legs around his waist, keeping him deep inside you as cream around his cock. It’s pointless to hold off his release any longer and with nowhere else to go he spills his load deep in your pussy. The feeling of his hot cum seeping into your pussy has you twitching around him, trying to milk every last drop from him.

You may have blacked for a second, eyes fluttering open as Eren gently taps your cheek. His handsome face, all flushed and sweaty comes into focus. Both of you are wearing equally dopey grins as he asks you, “Did it feel as good as I said?”