#AND I think later on when they work together Cross helps Dust center and aim his magic (because Dust is just used to dealing with its chaoti

[spotaus]

New Age AU (Cross' Spy Adventures)

Hi guys! I'm back! This one has been eating at me so forgive me if it's a bit rougher than the others, but I hope you still enjoy! (And if plot details don't seem to line up? Remember Cross has no clue what's going on yet :] )

Context: Cross has been asked by Dream to do recover information on his brother's next plans of attack. He's not a very good spy.

(Hi to @ancha-aus @papiliovolens and @mutzelputz !!!)

Stars this place was big.

He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be on a castle grounds after so many years roughing it with Ink. Inns and taverns and tents. He wasn't sure how much he enjoyed being back in the throes of the rich and powerful's estates.

The cart-ride with the other new recruits had been pleasant enough, they were all decently friendly guys. A few were putting on that tough-guy facade, but none of them could've been older than 25. Fresh off the press, practically. Perfect soldiers to be brainwashed.

Cross had laughed and joked with them about what life in the castle might be like. How different it would be from the old daily grind. How maybe they'd pick up a hot partner in town on their patrols. How they hoped they'd eat like kings.

Though, Cross noticed that each of them got cagey when word of the King resurfaced. One birdish-monster mourned that she couldn't have served the last King, Nim, before she passed on to join the gods. Another spoke of the honor it would bring for him to serve the blood of Nim.

They seemed averse to even acknowledging King Nightmare's existence. Aside from his connection to Nim.

Now, the chatter was all silent, and Cross was among the many new soldiers who were ogling the castle as they passed around its outer wall and entered through a side gate.

It was, admittedly, impressive.

His own home kingdom had less of a castle, more of a monolith. It had been dense, and tall, and impossibly smooth. His father couldn't stand imperfection.

This castle was almost the exact opposite of what Cross had always known. The walls imperfect and overlapping, rather than brick it looked like it had burst straight up from the ground. Bumpy and imperfect and natural, and yet beautiful and structurally stable. He didn't linger on it, but he wanted to so badly.

Instead, he drew his attention ahead. To where a man stood, his armor decorated in the marks which indicated him as a reporting officer.

This man, a human with a crooked nose and a thick, black, beard held up a hand, and the driver of the cart tugged at his reigns, the horses pulling to a slow stop.

One by one, once given the signal, the soldiers filed out. Stating their rank, their camp of origin, and their name.

Cross was middle of the pack, and saluted the human as Dream had taught him and as everyone had done before him.

"1st Year Guard, Pierson Camp, Z." He reported.

He was not proud of his code-name. It physically hurt to say it with a straight face, but when he'd been talking about needing a new code name, Ink had excitedly suggested it.

Z, he'd said, Like 'X' but not! And Cross hadn't been able to shut the idea down when Dream had giggled and tapped his cheekbone, the spot just under his eyelight that held is scar.

Dream had called it fitting, and it'd been settled in a heartbeat.

Cross managed to say it aloud without any hint of suspicion and was waved off to join his fellow recruits.

They lined up haphazardly, but didn't dare to do more than grin and snicker between eachother at. Well. Anything, it seemed. They were taking this very casually compared to what Cross had been expecting.

Though, the moment the captain was done looking to the cart for any stragglers, he turned. The soldiers all went still and aligned themselves.

Cross wondered how they survived training if they goofed off like that so readily.

He watched as the cart which had brought them circled away, and he listened carefully as the man introduced himself.

"I am Captain Rogers. Your platoon will report to me for any and all management. I control your training schedules, your mealtimes, and your work hours." He called out to them, right there on the lawn "you are here today to serve the blood of the gods, and by Nim's watch you will not slack on your oath. No matter how much you loathe it here. Understood?"

Such a bold declaration of... unrest.

The soldiers, one by one, gave affirmative nods and salutes, Cross making sure he wasn't the first. He didn't want to seem too eager.

The captain led them about.

He asked for them to stay in formation, and Cross ended up towards the middle of the pack yet again, just close enough to hear the explanations of their duties, places on the grounds they were allowed to go, and what their daily routine was meant to be like.

Near the stables, they paused briefly, and the Captain was taking an extra long time explaining that the horses in the stables were not to be ridden without explicate orders from him or another commanding officer.

Cross couldn't help but notice the guys ahead of him whispering about something, and Cross followed their miniscule gestures off to the left.

A black cat, wirey and short-hair. It was standing in the shadow of a fence, and he didn't think he would've spotted it if it weren't for its big, green eyes. They were like little saucers in its head.

It was staring straight at him. Tail flicking. One ear twitched.

Cross tried to ignore it, but when he'd glance back, it was still there.

Until, suddenly, it wasn't.

By the time they moved on, it was nowhere in sight.

His old home hadn't had many animals, especially not roaming cats. He wondered if it was a 'barn cat'. Blue had explained the concept to him once.

Regardless, that thing was freaky.

Finally, after what felt like hours of walking, the Captain announced that their last stop of the night would be to their quarters.

He could practically feel the relief rolling off of the guys next to him, and it took am effort to let his shoulders sag even an inch in imitation. The guy next to him looked like he might fall over, and Cross shared none of that exhaustion.

They would start their assignments bright and early in the morning, each of them would have a more experienced guard join them as a guiding measure before they were left to the duties themselves.

A much kinder grace period than Cross had been expecting, honestly.

The Captain escorted them down the halls, long and twisting. Each one held soldiers out of uniform, turning in for the night, going through their routines. As well as some moving out for the night shift. They ignored the rookies as they kept to their own business.

The Captain swung a door open, only to immediately block the soldiers in front from entering the space of relaxation beyond.

"Ah, Ccino, I was worried we'd missed you." The Captain spoke up.

"Soldiers, back up. Stand at attention." Came an order next.

Cross was faster than the others in recognizing the order, but forced himself to wait until the others stumbled into him to start moving. He wasn't sure why they were getting into this stance, but he knew better than to start asking questions.

They all stood in the hall, and Cross caught a few snickers from nearby lounging guards as the rookies stood there.

"The King called upon me, so I wasn't able to meet you where we had planned," a softer, calm, voice rang, "I figured I would run into you here before you turned in for your first night."

The Captain stood before them, and beside him, exiting the barracks, was a monster.

Cross tried not to stare, but he couldn't deny that this was odd. He'd never known a captain to bend to anyone but a higher up. But...

This skeleton was dressed in a servant's uniform. Granted, it was made of a thick, soft-looking brown and tan fabric, with an apron with more embroidery than he thought he'd ever seen in his life, but it was nothing too out of place.

Surely it wasn't a Knight. No, he'd been told they wore masks. He could tell this skeleton was not a Knight. He could see the full skull, soft and gentle, calm eyelights, and a body Cross swore had never seen a single battle.

No. Cross, stop that.

He didn't tear his eyes away, but he forced himself to look back to the skeleton's shoulder. No eye-contact, but still facing him. Good.

"Soldiers, This is our Head of House, Ccino." The Captain gestured to the skeleton at his side.

The soldiers all remained silent, and the captain nodded.

"If Ccino ever gives you any sort of order, you listen." The Captain's voice was harsh with this, the same way he'd spoken about the horses, and the kitchen, and the private training rooms they'd passed. "No questions, no hesitation, no disobeying. You understand?"

The squint of the Captain's eyes were more than enough for Cross to know better than to ask. Something like this was unfamiliar, for sure, but he knew when a soldier was saying something he truly believed in. Lived by. For better or worse.

None of the other recruits seemed to speak up. Cross certainly didn't. He tried not to let his nerves show as this skeleton, Ccino, let's his soft white eyelights skim softly from one soldier to the next. When they came to him, he desperately avoided the gaze, practically staring a hole into the soft fur scarf wrapped around his neck, hiding his spine from view.

"It's a pleasure to meet all of you," That calm voice again, "As you heard, my name is Ccino. I manage the Castle, it's grounds, and the people who stay within our walls. This includes all if you, as of tonight."

He seemed rather put-together. Pleasant. Cross didn't feel any unease. He was positive, now, that this was not a Knight. Yet, he couldn't figure out why such a monster would be held in such high regard, unless, of course...

"As you heard, our King trusts my decisions regarding these matters, which is why he asks you listen to my requests. However, I don't abuse this privilege, and it shouldn't dissuade you from coming to me if you have any problems." Ccino pulled his arms to cross infront of him, and once again looked over the recruits. "You may be our guard, but that does not mean you shouldn't recieve help as well. If you cannot find me, ask another servant and they will get word to me."

Ccino seemed... kind. That had to be it.

The sparkle of admiration in the captain's eyes. The way some of the soldiers watched. Maybe Ccino was the golden light in this dark place? Though, that didn't seem quite right.

"Stick to your duties, remain diligent, and you will be cared for here." He said softly. "Now, stand down and go rest. Your training tomorrow will be thorough, and you will need the extra sleep."

Oh.

Cross recognized the order, and his body moved a bit before his mind could catch up. He relaxed, as much as he naturally could, and took a step. Toward the barracks. Then paused and glanced like a deer in the headlights to the Captain and the Head of House.

Ccino just smiled, and the Captain seemed stoic.

"Seems Z gets first dibs on the cots!" The Captain announced, and with his approval, humor seeping into his tone a bit, and laughter echoing from the older guard who'd been observing?

Cross made the quick duck into the room and grabbed for the first cot he saw. Bottom bunk, closest to the door, the easiest way he'd be able to leave the long room of bunk beds.

The others hurried in after him, some laughing, others cursing jokingly at Cross having noticed the test first.

The test.

Of course it'd been a test. A test to see if they'd recognize Ccino as an authority figure. A test to see if they took the warning seriously. Cross just listened to the superior officer. And... put himself in the limelight of excelling new recruits.

If there was one good thing, though it was mortifying, the others didn't seem to notice what it was. They were too busy teasing Cross for the grape blush that enveloped his face the moment he sat to think it over. The others assumed he'd just slipped up. Listened to the prettiest person in the room.

Once again, Cross wondered how they'd made it through training. Though, it was good they just thought he was a stupid lover boy. Better than them realizing he was following orders on instinct.

It'd been a hard sell, getting to sleep, but he'd managed somehow.

.

The morning was much easier than the night prior. He woke up before the sun, before a lot of the others even showed signs of stirring. It was good he got up so early, sneaking off probably wouldn't be much of an issue.

Tomorrow, then. He'd do his sneaking tomorrow, after he got a lay of the land today. From what they'd been told, he'd be supervised today. Everyone would. It was different from what the Prince had told him, but it didn't matter. Policies could change, and Cross knew better than to disobey new policies.

The castle inside felt like a maze yesterday, he'd hopefully have routes inside, so he'd be able to memorize at least a few escapes. Orient himself. Worst case he could break a window.

He didn't want to leave any trace, though. The best scenario, as Dream had explained it, was that he'd get in, get the information, and get out. A week, maybe a week and a half tops. Cross wanted to spend as little time here as possible. He didn't want to fall into whatever mind-control he'd been warned of. He didn't want to run into the Knights. He certainly didn't want to see Dream's twin.

Though, he was curious. What he looked like. If he could see the sibling resemblance between the Prince and his supposedly brainwashed ruler of a sibling. It was honestly none of his business. If the King never saw his face, that would be all the better. He shouldn't know Cross was ever here at all.

The thoughts swirled in hid head as he stared at the bottom of the cot above his. Wood slats, the whole thing was sturdy wood, with decent mattresses and blankets and pillows resting on its support. It didn't creak at all, which was good. And surprising. Everything in the castle seemed so nice.

Mm, must've been a thing for the people here. Serve the 'gods' and live in luxury. It certainly seemed that was how the Prince's camp had run as well.

Cross couldn't be sure how long he was awake, examining the room and sitting still, but the sun managed to rise into the sky by the time he'd heard the slamming knock on the door to the barracks.

It was easy for him. When the Captain swung the door wide open and announced, in a hardy shout, that they were to be in the hall in 5? Cross rolled out of bed the moment the door closed again.

It pained him to move so slowly. He couldn't be the first one out again. Couldn't be the first one dressed. He didn't know why it took so long for the others to change to their uniforms and rub the sleep from their eyes. Monsters and humans alike! They hustled, some of them, and Cross was grateful a cat monster seemed to gather herself more readily than the others. An orange striped cat, her nose and the tip of her tail a stark white. Cross only noticed her when she rushed for the door, and he let himself trail her a moment later.

Thinking back, she'd been at the back of the group yesterday, joking with some of the others. Cross wondered what the energy change was all about.

He didn't get time to worry about it, though. The hall outside the barracks was busier than it had been last night, and Cross found himself facing, not only the Captain, but also several guards. They each seemed to be in full uniform, different than Cross' or the cat's which marked them as trainees. They seemed stoic before their captain, and Cross almost felt a moment if relief. Maybe this was a decent show of artillery?

No, wait, strong soldiers would be bad for the Prince. He'd have to get through these guys.

He shook away the thought, listening in as he stood awkwardly in the hall, another recruit lumbering out to stand where he'd joined the cat already.

The Captain looked them over, before nodding.

"Harper, you're with Jenna." The Captain ordered, pointing from the cat before gesturing towards one of the guard directly behind him.

Cross tried not to let his eyelights give away his observance as the guard stepped around her captain. She seemed to be a bunny monster, lots of fur and long, floppy ears tied behind her head. She, Jenna, saluted the cat, Harper, and Harper saluted in return.

"Listen to what your mentor tells you, got it?" The Captain asked, and Cross saw a few others exiting as he said this.

Those who started moving down the hall, and the Capatin looked to Cross. It was a kick glance, one look-over, before he turned and looked over his shoulder.

"Z, you're with Shep." And a gesture guided Cross towards whoever his mentor for the day would be.

From nearly the back of the crowd, snaked a dog monster. Black and white, short-trimmed fur. His eyes were brown and intense, and after a moment Cross realized this guard was shorter than him. He didn't like that when Shep saluted, he had to peer down to salute back.

He hardly even registered that they were already moving off, not unlike the two before them had done, until he'd taken a few steps to follow this small royal guard.

"So, you're Z?" Shep asked him as they stopped a few halls away. This one was largely barren aside from a few servants. Along each wall hung a huge tapestry, woven out of heavy threads and hung by a long piece of metal along the top edge.

"Yes, sir." Cross responded shortly. Not giving himself a moment to stammer.

Shep looked at his quizzically, before he leaned forward and sniffed. Actually just sniffed at Cross. It was still a few inches away, they didn't make contact, but suddenly he worried he was stinky. He's bathed before hopping on the cart, and he hadn't been exercising much, surely-

"Ah, you're not from this Kingdom! Not originally, at least." Shep said then, leaning away just as quickly as he'd gotten close.

Cross blinked, and he was sure his skull didn't hide his shock as well as he'd hoped. "I can smell the pollen on you, newbie. We don't have those kinda plants in this kingdom." He explained, and Cross internally cursed himself. Would he have to run? Would he have to-

"You know, I'm not from this kingdom either, I was born to the west." Shep admitted then, easily, using a paw to gesture loosely at the space between them, "I bet we'll get along just fine, newbie. C'mon. I'll show you around your route."

Cross didn't even get a spare second to defend himself, or puzzle at why a foreign monster would choose to come here. Shep was already on his way, back turned and hurrying down the hall at a brisk pace.

"As far as I know You're gonna be taking over my old route, inner portion of the castle." Cross listened, but orders were his second nature. As they walked, he eyed the tapestries hung along the wall. Long and intense, and yet, there was a moment where Cross could see the colors were more faded and worn.

"You'll mostly just be patrolling, watching out for anything out of the ordinary, waiting to see if you're needed for any specific duties." The images showed monsters, humans, monsters again. Depictions of complex circles and red splashes dripping from weapons and hands. And he noticed a trend, eventually. These must've been the previous rulers. The past Kings.

"Your patrols will be alone, the rooms in the hall aren't too important, and it's mostly servants that pass through that way." Cross almost lost his rhythm as they drew to the end of the tapestry, though the hall kept moving. There on the tapestry was a depiction of two little skeletons, one which seemed strikingly similar to Prince Dream, even in his adulthood. Beyond, the tapestry simply stopped. It was odd that King Nightmare hadn't bothered to get it finished with his own visage. Maybe his puppetmaster was waiting to put himself there instead?

"Still important, anyways. The servants halls are the easiest ways in and out of the castle, so we can't slack off." They turned a corner, and Cross pried his eyes away from the tapestry and back before him.

They passed a few more halls, before Shep stopped dead in his tracks, and Cross reacted quickly, spotting the way he peaked around the next corner.

Across the way, Cross spotted that they'd run into another pair who had also stopped. Only when Shep saluted did Cross think to follow his lead.

From the hall he couldn't see, emerged a figure.

Cross kept his eyelights to the ground, but the steps, the shoes, the heavy cape, and especially the dark and slimey tendrils which snaked along in his wake? That was the King. The one Dream had been so particular about not running into at all.

Two sets of feet followed him. Closely. He didn't have to look up to recognize that they must've been Knights. The easy weight of their steps, how close they stuck behind the king, the weight of the one's magic? Surely. He didn't risk a glance until after Shep lifted his head again. Cross only caught a glimpse of a tiger mask turning another corner before the three figures were gone.

In the tense silence, Cross swore he could hear his soul beating. He wasn't sure if it was fear, or indignance, or something else, but he knew being so close to the King had not made him feel good. Dream had been right, something about that guy was wrong.

Shep glanced around, and his ear twitched, watching down the hall where they'd left to.

The group across from them was already moving, towards the hall Cross had just cone from.

"You know, you kids are lucky Newbie." Shep voiced then, eying up the human rookie who was passing by. "When I first joined the guard, the King cut my tail off to prove my loyalty."

He said it so easily that Cross was speechless. What did he mean? Was. His tail was docked, but...

"What?!" The panicked whisper came from the passing humans who had obviously been eavesdropping. He expressed the concern coating Cross's soul and freezing him in place.

"Yep. I heard he used it as a cat toy for the strays." Shep confirmed loosely.

"Shep." Came the snap of his name from the other trained guard, though they didn't move to deny his claim.

Cross hadn't heard anything about that from Dream. Of course, he also hadn't heard about this introduction process either. He was flying blindly here, and suddenly he feared for his limbs.

Shep simply shrugged and kept moving forward. Cross wanted, badly, to excuse himself right this moment and go back and claim he couldn't do it. But he was here now, and he had a Prince to help. And a whole lot of people relying on him to prevent more tragedies.

The training wasn't hard. Shep stood with him, made small-talk, told him all the tricks to ensure he knew when someone would switch off with him, and then they had lunch.

He hated to admit it, but the food was delicious. He hadn't had something so filling in... maybe ever. He couldn't put his finger on it, not quite, but for monster food, it felt solid. Warmer. He felt less hungry after, and a part of him wondered if that was how they did it. The mind control. Was it the food?

But, no, surely not. He was still set on his mission when he went right back to his rounds. The food was just... strangely good.

The rest of the rounds were easy. Simple. And there was at least an hour after where Shep willingly guided him through the rest of the building. At least, anywhere he could.

Cross noticed, once, that Shep broke a rule. He ducked into the kitchen. Returned to a surprised Cross with two pieces of bread and handed one to Cross before tearing into his own. Apparently, from what Shep said, the main kitchen wasn't off-limits. Not really. Just the private one.

He didn't ask about the difference, he wouldn't need to know, after all. He doubted plans of attack were stached in the cupboards of a pantry.

And just as swiftly as it had begun, it ended. Shep said he'd be around the training grounds tomorrow if Cross needed him, and released him to dinner. After Dinner, Cross went back to the barracks.

Many of the rookies were talking all about their routes, others complaining that they had gotten cleaning duties for being the last out of the barracks that morning. They'd start training tomorrow. Cross tried not to contribute much, but he liked listening in. Understanding more about the place. The people.

It sounded like the King had crossed quite a few of their paths as well, and they didn't seem happy about it. Discussing in hushed tones how weird the King was compared to the last. Dark, secretive, hardly even a ruler. Cruel. He heard the human from before shamelessly telling Shep's tail misfortune to the gathered group, who all seemed to be riled up by it, exchanging other horrible speculations.

He needed to get this information. He just... he couldn't do anything until the others were asleep. So. Morning it would be.

.

Cross was a coward.

He knew as much, deep down somewhere, but as he woke up early again, he thought through his plan. He didn't know where he'd find any of this information he needed, he didn't know anything beyond his own route. He didn't even know what he'd be finding. He'd know when he found it, he was sure, but the last thing he wanted to do was get caught

He should've excused himself during dinner to go search around, or chosen a buddy to go wandering with. Shep had told him some things, he knew the room where the Knights trained was the indoor room, and he knew some areas no one went to. He knew the hall where the Knights and King stayed, Cross found it interesting they all stayed nearby, and he'd promised himself he'd avoid the space like the plague. He knew so much, and so little, all at once.

And he waited, thinking, so long that he... he just got up as the others did. Moved to his station to rotate shifts with the night guards. He just... did his duties again.

Well, they weren't his duties. He had no obligation to be here, not really. But the Prince had told him a week. A week and a half. That would make the most sense for an in and out. So, he wanted to respect that. And he had orders now to act out. Surely if he slacked off it'd be noticed, right? Yeah. He'd just slip away before dinner and say he went to train a bit more. Peak into some doorways. No biggy. Surely.

He worried about what he'd do to pick up a slack he hadn't even lost, all day. All through his rounds. If he showed it, his replacement at his last post said nothing, and waved him off.

Cross wanted so desperately to go searching. But. Before he could pass by the hall which would lead to the mess hall for the servants and guard? He glimpsed them from down the adjoining hall.

Two of the Knights.

One with a hood obscuring his face, casting a heavy shadow over everything, his eyelights a dull white. Though he didn't see a mask at first glance, Cross had to make some assumptions based on the one beside him that they were both Knights.

The other had on leather training armor, and a tiger's mask, red ribbons hanging from it, swaying with weight. He could see the skeleton's grin peaking from beneath the mask, and noticed how the tiger draped an arm over the other and laughed.

Cross didn't even give them a second to notice him, swiftly stepping out of the corridor and towards the dining halls after all. He didn't want to get in the way. He didn't want to be on their radar.

He needed to know when they trained. When they'd all be occupied so he wouldn't have to worry about them catching him off-guard.

Off guard. Ink would be having a hayday with that one if he'd made that joke back at camp.

Cross just kept moving forward, ducking into the dining space before the Knights even reached that hall.

.

Three days. It took him 6 whole days to learn more. To learn where the information might be. To learn where the Knights usually were at any given time. To learn how to navigate the place better. To not worry about getting caught.

He'd gone back to Shep one day, to test if he'd be told to go off the dinner or if he'd be sought out. He was not, so he had his proof that no one cared so long as he was doing his rounds.

He'd sat and talked. Asked about the Knights. (Shep had little to say that Cross didn't already know). Asked about training. (Shep said he was always out here now, running routines.) Asked about the king.

And Shep was interested about him asking on the King. Cross almost fumbled, but said he'd heard a lot of rumors. Shep had been here a while. What was true?

And Shep told him stories. In a low voice. Of the King breaking spines, of throwing objects with his tendrils, of sentencing folks to death over minor transgressions. Of his ruthless rule and cruel first. How he brought in servants and guards by force. Ripping them from their homes. How the king would declare traitors and have them hung.

Eventually, Cross asked him to stop. He'd heard enough.

Some of those things he'd heard from Dream, or the folks back at that encampment. Others were new. Insider information. Things he'd never dreamed of.

It was informational, and Cross decided that he'd keep learning more, until he was sure he had the perfect moment to strike.

.

He wasn't the smartest, okay?

Cross had done his rounds, and the moment he was done, he scurried off towards his destination.

He paid no mind to servants or guards, and used a servant's hall to arrive in the location he needed. The hall where the King's Study was located.

Yesterday he'd investigated the war room. Entering and closing the doors behind him, the room had been a mess of papers and figures and notes. The maps of each neighboring kingdom alone were strewn on walls, like the ravings of a mad-man. None of them had plans of attack, though. The light from his eyelights had been enough to illuminate each one as he approached. Every single one was a new defensive plan. Ways to deploy troops if they were attacked. Not one seemed unprovoked which was... strange.

Cross was almost unable to find any sign of the King's next route of action for his destructive feats, so he was resigned to search the study tomorrow. His only solace was that exiting the War Room had only been met with a servant a ways down the hall, and a cat pacing by, paying him no mind.

The cats in this place were many. Cross had never seen so many cats in one place, and when he'd asked at dinner, it seemed that everyone thought they belonged to the Head of House, Ccino.

It would make sense, Cross had seen the embroidery along his apron, plenty of paws and cat-like figures along the hemlines, between the branch and tree motif the entire building seemed set on holding tight to. But, it amazed him that there would be so many, allowed to run free. The King must've been very lenient with his Head of House, to allow so many creatures free-roam.

...then again, the Knights wore masks decorated with Big Cats. Cross had finally caught a glimpse of the Lion, out on the lawn while he was talking to Shep. He carried an Axe twice the size of Cross' torso, and he seemed to wield it with hardly any problem. Cross just hoped the little beasts weren't being sacrificed. He'd heard about the barbaric practices from Ink once when he had his head on straight. He hadn't had the guts to bring it up to the Prince. Or Shep. Fearing the answer.

And so, now, he moved for the study. When he knew no one would be around, when no one would see him or bother him. He could dig through the information, tuck it away in his ribcage, and get out of dodge.

It was mid-day. Apparently the Knights tended to have training about now, and the King always supervised. So the forbidden hall, as the others called it, was dead and silent.

It wasn't hard to determine which door was the study, the door was carved carefully with a beautiful tree, and the handle was a shining gold, as though it got less use than the other rooms. He tested the handle, it moved, and he slipped inside.

Of course it wouldn't be locked. Who would have the guts to go snooping around in the private spaces of murderous tyrant kings? Well. Cross would, but that was besides the point.

The inside was lit by a few stray candles, and Cross tried not to marvel at the luxury of the room. Everything was carved out of dark wood, with golden fabric lacing the cushions of lounge seats and the curtains which covered the windows. It was darker, used, but still gorgeous. The daylight filtered in through an open window, giving it a warm ambience. Cross didn't know how a room used by such an unpleasant man would be so calm and soft.

There was a case along one wall, large and long. Hung inside were masks of all different shapes and styles. Some were decorated with swirls and gems, but most resembled animals. A crane, a swan, a horse, a sheep, a hawk, a wolf, they all stared out at him with blank, empty, sockets. He wondered if these were used or not, but they seemed untouched.

And beside that case, in the far corner, sat a heavy desk, with bookshelves filled to the brim tucked just behind it.

The desk was heavy, and it looked to be covered with papers, letter drafts, just a quick glance over the contents told Cross this was just what he needed.

He stood behind the desk, unable to stop himself from lifting the papers up into his hands. From here he could see the door, as well. He'd know if someone was coming.

The first paper he looked at seemed to be the draft of a letter, addressed to someone by the name of Crop. The handwriting was beautiful, and Cross was lucky Ink knew how to write in so many dialects, or he'd have trouble deciphering exactly what this was saying. The cursive was precise. And... it seemed a half-finished letter asking about plants. The state of a harvest? No, that's strange.

Cross lifted the few pages which had been tucked beneath the first, confused. These ones seemed to be written in a much more unsure writing, but they held what he could only call sketches. Showing clouds and plants and... fields? Cross wasn't familiar with farming, but he could recognize a field anywhere. The paper had a few words underlined and circled, and they seemed to be later additions, added overtop by someone else. The words seemed to be mentioned again in the letter draft? It was completely innocuous. If this was the King's letter, he was just asking about the wellbeing of a farmer's harvest. Asking about improvements.

He moved them hastily into a stack and set them aside, reaching for the next haphazard bundle of paper. That couldn't have been right.

The next piece he scooped up was in that same pretty cursive, but this time it wasn't a letter. Instead it was some sort of list. Locations, some crossed off, and some untouched. Was this what he was searching for? Surely this was it.

He moved to grab the next page that had been beneath it. It held more context, it seemed. Notes scribbled down about how these towns needed changes. Action. Cross looked to the first crossed-off name, one he recognized from one of the woman at Dream's encampment.

The paper read of a faulty justice system, a lawman who needed to be checked up on for counts of bribery and false accusations. She'd said the Knight, the tiger, had arrived and asked for their head of city guard, the one who enforced rules and kept peace in their small village. Two days later he was killed, replaced by someone the King installed, and he started jailing innocent folks.

Cross looked to the next one, a pass where travel had been haunted by the royal guard. He'd been told they'd done it to halt people from mining in the area, a crop of wealth the King wanted to hoard. But this said that it was a mountain pass with frequent and dangerous rocks lines thanks to a sudden increase in storms since his rule. Notes reminding of supplies, and pay, and signs. Signs.

The next was not crossed off. An issue of bandits ransacked the town when people would enter or exit. Notes in messier scrawl seemed to pose solutions. Ideas. One that was circled said 'Send Horror, Autumn'. It was nearing the end of summer now.

This did seem to be the list that Dream had suggested existed, my twin is organized, he'll have a list with extensive notes, but he'd said nothing about the way the list wouldn't actually contain anything incriminating.

He skimmed again, but it seemed like nothing harmful. One lower down even acknowledged a damage caused during some sort of raid and to divert funds to someone. A random shopkeep in an outer city. This didn't add up at all.

He folded the paper silently and stuffed it into his armor, but kept looking. No doubt there would be something else. One of the lower pieces, something hidden away.

But the papers atop the desk seemed just as helpful in nature. Even ones like drafted decrees or laws to impose later were not unreasonable. One even seemed to propose a ban on child labor. What kind of tyrant would pass up a chance for easy workers?

Digging through the drawers revealed nothing more, just an impressive collection of quills, ink, and more books it seemed didn't fit on the shelves behind him. He wouldn't find anything more useful than these documents, he was sure. He... he just hoped the Prince would be able to see whatever evil Cross was obviously missing here. He scooped up another piece, one of the decrees, and then the letter draft to that Crop. Maybe they could speak to him? No, the planning was up to Dream. He was just here to get the information and go.

And now that he had it...

Cross sighed a bit, he couldn't understand why these were the things in here. In this innermost sanctum where only the trusted went. Everyone feared this King so much, Dream claimed he and his master were such a threat. And yet all Cross could find was a record of damages, and a plan to enact damage control. It...

"Having some trouble finding the dirt?"

Cross felt his entire soul freeze up as the voice cut through the silent room. It was quiet, and deep, and a bit gravelly. He didn't recognize it, but that didn't matter, because he knew he had been alone.

Almost all at once, a wave of presence crashed over his awareness. That damp static that had passed by once in the hall. Trailing the King. He didn't have to look up to know it was one of the Knights somewhere before him.

"Our King isn't usually one to make a mess." The voice said again, calmly.

Cross dragged his eyelights up, hands tentatively hovering at his sides. There, sat comfortably on one of the chairs, was the hooded one. Dust, Shep had told him.

Now, despite the shadow cast by his hood, Cross could see the faint details of his panther mask, black and hidden away in the darkness of his cover. He seemed entirely at-ease, not a care in the world, watching Cross. If his soul hadn't been sinking into his gut, Cross would've even thought Dust found the situation humorous.

He steeled himself, watching. Could he try and bluff his way out of this? Somehow? How long had Dust been there? How much had he seen?

"Any chance you'd believe I was looking for a good book?" Cross asked, though the bold humor he'd attempted to channel in the way Ink had done so many times before fell flat. Maybe his growing panic was clouding his mind, or maybe he'd never been much of a comedian.

Dust just stared at him, tilting his head a bit. By the way his eyelights changed shape, Cross imagined his sockets had drooped to give an unamused stare. Not a great sign.

"Are you going to try and run, or can I catch a break today?" Dust just asked across the room.

Mm. Cross didn't have much of a choice here anymore. Dream had told him, drilled it into his skull, not to get caught. Especially not by the Knights. They'd torture him. Kill him. The stories of what they did to traitors... Cross couldn't let this knight get hold of him. Couldn't be trapped. He had to get out of here.

He promised Ink he'd be back.

With that thought, his sword summoned to his hand in a flash. It was big, and bulky, and not the best for an indoor fight, but he'd make due. He just needed to get away from this guy. That was all.

His summons was clearly a declaration of intent, because he heard Dust scoff over the rush of adrenaline running through him and roaring through his ears. All at once, the electric charge in the room seemed to up itself. Bones, blue, cracked downwards from the rafters and planted themselves sturdy before the door and the window. His two possible exits. Dust stood up and stretched his arms before him.

"Alright, let's get this over with." Dust voiced, then.

Cross nearly let his guard down in the first moment. He felt a charge of energy coming from his side, and narrowly vaulted over the desk to avoid the spiked and jagged bones which rose where his feet had just been planted.

Momentum carried him now, and his sword was already poised for attack before his mind quick processed it. He slashed at Dust, growing rapidly closer. Hid swing was met with pure white bones that stopped his swing, just enough for Dust to avoid the hit with a split second to spare.

He was quiet, as they fought. As Cross lunged and spun and threw himself forward with grunts of exertion. It was unsettling, how the only noises were the cracks of his magic ripping into existence or Cross's sword cracking them to pieces like a lumberjack's axe.

He kept his attention on Dust. The magic had a pattern. The room was buzzing ambiently, and right before an attack it was like being too close to a fire. Just briefly. Cross barely managed to avoid spearing his ankle thanks to the crackle. He wished he could be a bit faster, though. Cross couldn't feel where an attack was aiming like he normally could. Dust gave no indications as to where an attack would be channeling either, almost like he wasn't controlling them at all. He didn't like it, it was unpredictable, and was wearing him down fast.

Dust kept dodging his swings, no matter how fast he moved, and eventually Cross stumbled. His shoulder connected with one of the random jutting bones. Dust stepped back just before it pierced upwards, and Cross grunted in distress as it drove him back a step as to not get impaled.

That was apparently his mistake. The moment he wasn't close to Dust, bones seemed to crop up all around him, gutting at different angles, just barely piercing the bone, little cracks forming with the force. Cross could feel each one jab a bit deeper than the last. Each time he reversed to get away from one or break away an incoming volley, another would arrive behind him at a new angle.

He hated that Dust stood back. Watched. The only sign that he had even broken a sweat was a slight heaviness to the up and down of his shoulders, and while Cross hadn't lost much HP yet, he was starting to feel the exhaustion creep closer, and each little wound and crack seemed to be draining him. Was this the strategy? Play with him like a living pin-cushion? Was this it's own sort of-

Cross shifted his stance and unsummoned his weapon as he jumped up and out of the quickly growing ring of spikes. He had to act fast. He had to get out of here.

He grumbled a bit under his breath, he didn't like trying to do this, but...

The moment his feet landed, Cross summoned up his other piece of magic. The part his father had embedded into his soul early on in his life which made him so powerful. He was sure his normally white eyelight changed shape in the split second it happened. Red, bright red.

It only took a moment, a tug at the very being, hidden away in the Knight's chest. For a split second, he could feel the control of foreign magic slip into his own hands.

For a moment, it worked just as he knew it would. His fist trembled under the effort, keeping an eye on Dust as the other seemed to stare at him. The bones he'd summoned all seemed to sink away at once, recalled faster than Cross could've hoped. Dust seemed to feel his magic stop responding to him.

Cross just needed to get the Knight downed. Not dead. He just needed out.

He shifted stiffly. One, concentrated blast of bones at the Knight. He seemed like he didn't want to risk taking any damage. That was all Cross needed then. Some damage. And he'd be free to escape back to the camp. Away from these weird monsters with their weird magic.

He let his palm open, directing the force like he'd done so many times, channeling another monster's magic against them. Controlling it against their will.

The feeling of electricity rose again. It spiked. It. It gathered in his hand, that burning feeling he felt when an attack had been about to hit him.

What?

It was too late to recall the intent once he'd released it. The moment he tried to command the magic, he felt it all roll back over him. Bones meant to be aimed at their owner came jolting straight at his front. And though he stumbled back, he couldn't escape the searing pain of a fire too hot to process escaping his bones and immediately rushing up his arm, into his chest, down to his feet.

He had to imagine, with the loud sound like a cracking whip, that that was what being struck by lightning felt like. Molten metal in your veins.

Cross laid sprawled, dazed, on the floor as his control magic puttered out. It hurt to breathe. To see. To exit. He was half-convinced his arm was completely splintered apart after the pulse of raw magic that had filtered through it, but he didn't bother to look.

His soul begged him to move, to get up and run again, but darkness danced in his vision as he stared up at the ceiling. He failed his mission.

He hated to see as the Knight rounded into view, standing cautiously over where he was laid. Floored by the backfire of his power. If the knight said anything, he couldn't hear over the loud ringing invading his head.

Though, instead of stabbing him through like Cross had expected, the knight seemed to duck down. A cool feeling encased Cross' wrists (so the other hadn't broken apart) and his soul suddenly felt exhausted. He felt exhausted.

No matter how much he wanted to stay awake, to escape, he lost this fight fair and square.

[gloves94]

Sunburn [Prince Zuko] 28

Warnings:   Rating: PG-13   Pairings: Zuko/OC   Summary:   “You have everything you’ve always wanted.” “No.” He said softly. “Not everything…”  His golden eyes looked at her with a melting intensity she had never witnessed before. “I guess not.” She responded with glassy eyes as tears welled up threatening to break the dam of her eyes.

My fanfiction: M A S T E R L I S T

"Just where do you think you're coming from?" Katara was waiting awake with her arms crossed in the middle of the courtyard. Her angry eyes glared at the younger girl.

"I went to see Zuko," she sighed growing annoyed.

"Her I understand!" Katara glared at Tsai who was just about to walk into the courtyard. "But you?"

"Nice to see you too," the red head muttered sarcastically under her breath before stalking over to her sleeping bag.

"I just wanted to talk to him. I think he can be helpful to us. So, we talked, I think maybe we could work something out. He really is willing to do anything to join our group." Toph explained bored.

"Andthem?" Katara narrowed her eyes to the Fire Nation girl who was laying down to bed. "What were they doing?"

Toph felt the nausea creeping up her esophagus at the sappy duo. "Ugh, don't remind me."

Xxx

"Wake up!"

Tsai opened her eyes and they immediately composed into a deep scowl. That voice. "Wake up!" Katara repeated again. "It's bad enough your snoring didn't let any of us sleep last night." She hissed both hands on her hips as she looked down at the girl. Talk about a rude awakening.

"What could possibly be so urgent?" She spoke through gritted teeth rubbing her sleepy eyes.

"What are you and Zuko plotting?" She sneered still glaring.

"What are you talking about?" The girl sat up.

"I know you're up to something," Katara warned menacingly.

"I just woke up. I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about?" She said groggily as she stood up.

"Oh yeah? What is this then!" Katara pulled a paper from her back. It was a note with some writings in it.

"'Tsai, pretend like you are their friend and infiltrate them. Let them let their guard down. ThenIwill attack when the time is right. - Zuko'" She read the note.

"What?" The other retorted. Let me see what, she wanted to snatch it out of her hands.

"Tsai is that true?" Asked Aang sounding hurt as he stood next to Katara.

"I have never seen that note in my life!" She said eyes wide.

"Then why was it in your stuff? Katara challenged with a slight smirk. "You were looking through my stuff?" The girl roared. "Only because I suspected something was wrong and of course I was right!" She clenched the note in her fists.

"That is not mine," she shook her head. "First of all, why would he give me a note if I literally had a conversation with him last night? Second that's not even his handwriting and third if he had actually written that he would've said"We"not "I""She said sternly both fists clenched at her sides angrily.

"Zuko is still clearly dangerous." Sokka stated without second guessing his sister as he pulled out his boomerang ready to go after a rumble "We're gonna have to go after him."

"You're right Sokka." Aang agreed with a disappointed shake of his head, "After this, I don't think we have a choice."

Tsai's mouth opened as she looked at the three of them in aghast in disbelief.

"Zuko's crafty, but we'll find a way to capture him."

"She's telling the truth." Toph suddenly said. "She has no idea about the note."

Both Aang and Sokka looked at her confused. "Then why is the note here?"

"It really doesn't make any sense," Toph said. "I saw them together last night. There was no conspiration or any of that. I don't understand why they would exchange notes."

"We should invite him back here. Whack him and take him as our prisoner!" Sokka said smashing his first into his palm.

"Stop! You all are insane!" The red head roared in frustration.

Suddenly, the ledge above the fountain exploded. Katara gasped and swung her arms, bringing the water from the fountain up to shield the group from the falling rocks. Tsai, Sokka and Aang and Toph quickly retreated, but stopped when they heard Zuko's voice.

"Stop! I don't want you hunting the Avatar anymore."

Zuko ran towards a massive muscular man he looked like a bounty hunter. He was standing in front of him with his arms spread out to keep him from attacking them.

"The mission is off!" Zuko shouted at the man, further shocking the group by the fountain, "I'm ordering you to stop!"

"It's Combustion man!" Sokka said.

Combustion Man shoved him to the side and fired another blast from a third eye in the center of his forehead. The blast hit the top of the fountain destroying it. Aang, Sokka, Katara, Tsai and Toph ducked behind the fountain's edge and covered their heads from any incoming debris.

She looked up just in time to see Zuko rush towards Combustion Man with his hand pulled back and covered in flames.

Zuko charged towards the Fire Nation assassin with his flame-covered fist pulled back, "If you keep attacking, I won't pay you!" He shouted as he ran.

Combustion Man didn't even glance at him as he grabbed the prince by the shirt. Zuko grunted and threw the fireball in his hand but missed. He struggled against the assassin's grip on his shirt, "Alright! I'll pay you double to stop!" He quickly swung his arms down, finally breaking Combustion Man's grip.

Zuko turned on his heel and slammed his foot into the assassin's gut just as Combustion man fired another shot, knocking his aim off and pushing Zuko away with the force of the kick.

Aang peered over the edge of the fountain and stared at the incoming shot with fright the blast hit the pagoda below the fountain, destroying it.

"We have to help him!" Tsai looked at the group who had no reaction to her words. She looked at the man with determination and leaped off from her hiding spot running towards them.

Zuko grunted as he landed on in a crouch and he whirled around when he heard the assassin step towards him, staring at him in shock. He lurched to his feet and turned fully, creating a shield of fire in front of him just as Combustion Man fired a blast at him.

The blast hit the shield and exploded, pushing Zuko across the ground and over the edge of the platform where he vanished. Combustion man was approaching the group walking across a thick cloud of dust and debris ready to terminate them with an explosive blow when he felt a hard blow to the back of his head. It was then that the dust cleared. He winced and snapped his head to the side to see a teenage girl with red hair bouncing a medium sized rock in her hand.

"Hey!" She called as she threw a second rock at him this one hitting him on his temple. The man's head moved back an inch and he glared at her seething. A string of blood ran down his temple. "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" She shouted out a teasing laugh. A smug expression on her face. As she threatened the man from a safe distance.

The man then looked at her furiously.

"Woah!" She said as she was barely able to dodge one of the man's sudden blasts.

"Uh-Oh.." She said as she saw him angrily leap from across one ledge to the other.

Aang leapt to his feet and ran towards the edge of the courtyard, executing a quick spinning back kick that kicked up the dust around him and jumping straight up just in time to whip a whirlwind of air that made the man stumble on his stance. The man turned his attention to the Avatar who avoided a blast as he spun in mid-air and airbended a mini-tornado then kicked it directly at him.

Combustion Man leapt over the tornado and fired another blast at Aang as he descended.

Aang grabbed Tsai by one of her sleeves and hurriedly rushed over to their friends, all of them watching as Combustion Man slowed his fall by catching a small ledge with his clawed, metal hand. He landed on another ledge and rolled forward, launching another blast at the five friends a moment later.

They tried everything against this man earthbending, waterbending icicles which he simply shook off his body. It was useless.

"What is that thing?" She panted heavily with her back pressed against a large pillar where the five of them were hiding behind. She flinched when a pillar a few feet from them exploded and she turned her head away from the explosion.

"Combustion Man," Sokka repeated simply stating the facts.

Katara peeked out from behind the pillar and recoiled quickly when another blast struck the ground, exploding mere feet from them. She shook her head slightly, "I can't step out to waterbend at him without getting blown up! And I can't get a good enough angle on him from down here."

Sokka paused and thought furiously then he grinned, "I know how to get an angle on him!"

He gently pushed Katara aside and pulled out his boomerang, pressing his back against the pillar. He peeked out from behind the pillar just as another blast caused the ground the explode a little bit a ways. Sokka furrowed his brow in determination and the pillar again as smoke billowed passed him then he watched as two more blasts of energy shot out from behind another stone pillar and hit the ground in a loud explosion.

Sokka raised his boomerang towards the source of the blasts and mentally calculated the blasts' trajectory.

'There is no way in hell that's going to work…'

He smirked when he figured out the right angle and pulled his boomerang back, "Alright buddy, don't fail me now." He threw the boomerang forcefully and watched with his sister and friends as it flew through the air and curved behind a stone pillar.

Standing on a different platform, Combustion Man inhaled deeply and prepared to fire another blast when a sound reached his ears. He turned towards the sound and the boomerang hit him in the middle of the forehead. He grunted and stumbled back, falling to the ground.

Sokka cheered and darted out from behind the pillar with a triumphant grin with the other following him. His boomerang flew back towards him and he jumped, catching it happily, "Yeah, boomerang!"

He and Katara looked up with wide grins that quickly turned to frowns when they saw Combustion Man struggling back to his feet, his hand to his forehead. Sokka looked down at his boomerang disappointedly, "Aww, boomerang..." Sokka said sadly as the group began to run away collectively.

Combustion Man growled silently as he swayed slightly on his feet. He turned towards the fountain courtyard and reared his head back, his vision blurring. He inhaled deeply and tried to fire another blast of energy, but sparks began to fly from his forehead then a small explosion erupted from his head. The assassin put his hand to his forehead.

A massive explosion filled the air and she peered around the pillar, gawking as the pagoda Combustion Man had been standing on fell into the misty chasm below the temple. A glint of light among the falling debris and smoke caught her eye and she watched as the assassin's metal arm flew through the air, landing at the edge of the courtyard with a clang. Behind the group, Teo and Haru peeked out from behind a pillar with perplexed expression while the Duke poked his head out and stared in awe.

"I can't believe that actually worked!" She looked at Sokka with awe. "I can't believe you took out that thing with a boomerang."

Sokka smiled smugly, "Never underestimate the boomerang," he said cockily.

It was then that a sound made them all turn their attention to the upper platform. Zuko was currently hanging on to a vine climbing back to safety. It took him a couple of moments before he approached the group which was waiting for him.

"I can't believe I'm saying this..." Aang commented as he lifted his head and stared at Zuko gratefully, "But, thanks Zuko."

"Hey," Sokka whined slightly and gestured with his arms, "And what about me? I did the boomerang thing."

Honestly Sokka deserved an award.

Zuko stopped a few feet from the group, "Listen, I know I didn't explain myself very well yesterday. I've been through a lot in the past few years, and it's been hard. But I'm realizing that I had to go through all those things to learn the truth. I thought I had lost my honor," He bowed his head slightly and closed his eyes for a moment, "And that somehow my father could return it to me. But I know now that no one can give you your honor. It's something you earn for yourself, by choosing to do what's right."

"All I want now is to play my part in ending this war." Zuko said sincerely and he stared at Aang with an earnest expression, "And I know my destiny is to help you restore balance to the world."

Aang stared back at Zuko for a moment and his expression softened.

"I'm sorry for everything I have done to you all." He bowed lowly to her then straightened, "You must master fire before you can face my father. Fire can be dangerous and wild. So as a Firebender, I promise we will be careful and control our bending well so nobody gets hurt unintentionally."

Aang blinked in surprise and he stared at Zuko in realization. He looked over his shoulder at Tsai who looked her heart was melting. A small smile on her face as she looked at the prince with a dazed love-struck look. Aang cringed a little at this his eyes averted to the ground intently for a moment then turned his gaze back to Zuko.

"I think you are supposed to be my firebending teacher." He said and he took a few steps forward, "When I first tried to learn firebending, I burned Katara. After that, I never wanted to firebend again. But now I know you understand how easy it is to hurt the people to love." He walked up to Zuko and bowed, "I'd like you to teach me."

Zuko smiled warmly and bowed back to the young Airbender, "Thank you. I'm so glad you've accepted me into your group."

"Not so fast. I still have to ask my friends if it's okay with them." Aang said. "Also, what about the note?"

"What note?" Zuko responded just as confused. Sokka who was standing next to Katara took it from her belt and read it out loud.

"Did you write this? Or did you not?" Sokka said accusingly.

"I didn't write that," he said after a moment.

"He-He's telling the truth as well," Toph said surprised. The group exchanged a confused look between them. And then it all clicked.

"I know who wrote the note," Tsai suddenly said her teeth clenching in rage. "Who else can't even stand the sight of me? Next time try putting a little more effort into your little ploy Katara!" She stomped over to Sokka and snatched the note from his hands tearing it in half dramatically tossing the papers over her head.

"Katara wouldn't do that!" Aang said defensively. He looked at then hesitated. "She wouldn't… Right?" He looked at her with questioning eyes.

All eyes were now on Katara, guilty as charged.

"Fine," she admitted bitterly. "It was me."

"Why?" Aang asked more hurt than either Fire Nationer in their presence.

"I can't stand the sight of ONE Fire Nationer in my presence. I don't know what I'll do with TWO."

"Boo-hoo! Cry me a river!" The red head rolled her eyes. "You know what why we don’t solve things the old way?" Tsai began cracking her knuckles. "Hand to hand?"

"No," Zuko suddenly said. He placed a hand over Tsai's balled fist and lowered it. "No more fighting. This has to stop. If we want to defeat my father. We have to work together. Put all of our prejudices behind." He spoke wisely.

She looked at him almost in awe. When had he become so wise? How much had he actually grown during all of this and why did he suddenly look a thousand times more attractive? Embarrassed the girl lowered her hands and tugged them behind her back.

"He's right." Aang suddenly spoke. "We all have to work together. Like it or not. What do you guys think?" He turned to look at Toph first.

She simply shrugged tugging her hands behind her neck casually. "Fine by me," she said. "Go ahead and let him join," she grinned.

"Sokka?"

"Hey, all I want is to defeat the Fire Lord." Sokka replied with a dismissive shrug after a moment of thought, "If you think this is the way to do it, then, I'm all for it."

Aang nodded and approached Katara cautiously. He was so disappointed in her for doing what she had done. "Katara?"

The Waterbender glared at Zuko for a moment and then her eyes bounced to Tsai who was still glaring at her. Then answered reluctantly, "I'll go along with whatever you think is right."

Aang smiled weakly at her then turned to face the girl from the colonies who stood next to the prince. "Tsai? I have to ask." He asked even though he had a feeling he already knew what her response would be.

"I think we should look for another teacher. Maybe a better looking one," she laughed slightly an edge of flirtation to her voice.

"I won't let you down." Zuko said excitedly as he took a few steps towards the group, "I promise."

All the other stood up swiftly and quickly dispersed as well. Leaving Zuko and Tsai alone in the ruined courtyard. She turned away walking away just the same but stopped halfway and turned to face him. He smiled at her slightly. She hesitated if to engage with him or not.

She shouldn’t give him half the time of day but after that stunt he pulled. There was something ardent about the diplomacy and leadership she had just witnessed.

"Don't worry they'll warm up to you," the eternal optimist said kindly. "I am so proud of you!" She turned approached him with a sly smile. "I gotta say, I'm really impressed."

"R-Really?" He beamed and then proceeded to hate himself for stuttering.

"I know Uncle would be too!" She said her smile matching his own. "Come on, I’ll get some tea ready," she nodded her head towards the center of the courtyard both of her hands held behind her back as she lead the way.

Xxx

"So here you go," Sokka drawled uncomfortably after leading Zuko to one of the rooms in the temple. He gestured towards the inside of the room and Zuko walked inside, "Home sweet home, I guess. You know, for now. Unpack...lunch soon." He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, "Uh...welcome aboard?"

Zuko turned towards him and smiled slightly. Sokka returned the smile awkwardly and shuffled out of the room. He walked over to where Aang was leaning against a pillar a little bit a way from the room, "Yeah, okay, this is really, really weird."

Aang smiled in amusement and the two walked away, heading back to the courtyard for lunch.

Zuko sat on the bed in the room and rummaged through his pack, pulling out the small portrait of his uncle. He stared down at the painting for a moment then closed his eyes.

With his eyes still closed, Zuko smiled down at the painting in his hand, nodding his head in agreement. A soft scuffling sound caused him to snap his eyes open in alarm and he turned his head towards the door, staring in surprise at Katara leaning against the door frame.

He stood up and faced her, opening his mouth to say something but she cut him off.

"You might have everyone else here buying your 'transformation'." She spat venomously as she glared at him, "But you and I both know you've struggled with doing the right thing in the past." She stalked over to Zuko and leaned towards him threateningly, "So let me tell you something right now. You make one step backwards, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang...and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore."

"Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right there."

xxx

AN: Phew, alright, nothing too exciting happened in this chapter. (I'll admit it was part of the other one but it was waayyyyy too long so I split it into 2.)  We are nearing the end of our story and I've been writing some chapters ahead but boy are they long. So I think we have 5-6 more to go (since I'm splitting them in half ) before we reach our conclusion.

As always thank you so much for reading and all the love and support. - x G

xxx

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CHAPTER MASTERLIST

[iscribble]

by aim, not arrows

pairing: kwon soonyoung x fem!reader synopsis: you start to think that maybe the King and Queen traded their wisdom with majesty when you pick up a life lesson from your archery instructor instead of them, your own parents. genre(s): royalty!au, archery instructor!soonyoung, more milieu-of-poverty themed in this one word count: 2,108 part: 1 | 2

He was indelible, like a permanent ink jotted down on paper, impossible to erase. The image of his beauteous visage left traces all over your shambolic thoughts, not wanting to be put out like fire resisting rain. His scent resembled the morning after a thunderous night, crisp air that wafted down the pasture, leaving you breathing for more.

But he was not yours, no. He was not yours to think of, not yours to touch, not yours to feel. He shouldn’t be confined to the depths of your mind, and certainly not to you.

“Your Highness,” a small voice called out, “your archery instructor is waiting.”

You found yourself smiling. Smiling at the thought of his sterling eyes piercing right through yours, his tender hands guiding you so meekly, like not wanting to bruise any part of you. You found yourself excited to pick up with where you left off the previous week, curious of versions of him he might fortuitously disclose, of how a nonpareil archer like him does what he does, and how it is even possible to feel all sorts of sensations from only having met him once. You found yourself asking, what is his secret?

“I’m ready.” You disregarded the knots that assembled in your stomach.

The atmosphere that led up to your meeting was electrifying, which had your system teeming with the jitters. 

Soonyoung was getting the equipments ready when you slipped in a civil greeting.

“Princess,” he spoke, “lovely to meet you again.”

Soonyoung was dressed more unpretentiously today, donning only a simple navy tracksuit. This time, his locks were well hidden beneath his cap. As much as you ached for the sight of his black locks dangling just above his eyelids, his new flair still jetted butterflies inside you.

“I’ve been practicing,” you avowed proudly, although not wanting to come off as vain, “on my own.”

Soonyoung lifted an eyebrow, impressed. “You wanna show me, princess?”

You took the bow from him, perfected your posture and released the arrow. You missed the center by a few inches but the manoeuvre seemed fulfilling enough to Soonyoung. “Princess, I think you’re qualified to advance.”

“There is more to this?” You let out a groan, “For a second I thought I mastered it all.”

Your utterance gained a sweet chuckle from Soonyoung. “You are good, though, princess.”

It was bound to happen. How your eyes would always chance upon the nigh invisible trails of sweat that sank to his chin. The way his hand would sporadically travel up to fix his cap. How his Adam’s apple bobbed to the the erratic rhythm of the wind. It was bound to happen that you were going to fall in love with Soonyoung. Not now, not yet, but you knew.

“Come walk with me? I'll show you the palace.” You thought the words had coiled in your head, but remnants of the spittle you felt in the tip of your tongue convinced you differently. Your words were brutally honest, and worst, you were out of control.

“Are you offering to take me for a walk, princess?”

“Yes,” you caressed your nape in disquietude, “I just did.”

“What about our archery lesson?”

“It can wait,” you nudged the bow he was holding, “besides, you told me I was good enough already.”

Soonyoung's dicey pause was trouble to you, but it did bring you to suss how profoundly reckless you were. With the palace void of the king and queen for the time being, you couldn't help but be enthralled by the thought of taking Soonyoung with you about the palace.

“I suppose it won't hurt.” He flashed a toothy grin.

Your nerves tingled with vim and vigour as your lips slowly stretched out into a smile. You were ecstatic. “Follow me.”

Nature seemed to succour you, for every time your head turned in random angles, the willows always seemed to stand tall in its milieu of catkins, the sphere looked a tad bluer than it was yesterday, and the scintillating rays irradiated the faces of the palace in all the right ways, almost as if the universe permitted you and Soonyoung to spend time around the palace.

“So, tell me about your family.” You suggested. 

“My family?” He rubs his nape in dubiety. “There are four of us, I have a younger sister.”

“Are you close?” You hesitated, but blurted out the question anyway.

“We are, we spend much time together, and we do social work every week,” Soonyoung revealed, wearing a smile, “and it makes us happy.” 

“Social work, like?”

“We teach children, give them food, clothing, all sorts of those, princess.”

You have never felt how it was like to do a good turn for the impoverished, because every time the king and queen does, you were left to succumb to your books. Of course, you loved reading, and mostly if not always, feel aversion toward being outside the palace. But you did love welfare, especially of those in penury. 

“I’d love to play a part,” you confessed, admiring Soonyoung’s proclivity for charity, “that’s, of course, if you don’t mind.”

You had no knowledge of this, but Soonyoung had a penchant for anyone with a strong social conscience, like you. He would love for you to join him, but in view of the circumstances, he had no idea how you would execute it together.

“Princess,” he began, “I reckon you aren’t allowed to step foot outside the palace grounds?”

He didn’t mistakenly remember, but your obstinacy has never dwindled into something less. You were determined to help the poor — and as much as it sounded awry — especially because it was with Soonyoung. So when the earliest sun flaunted itself over the horizon and a scant shaft inched toward your bedroom window the next day, you knew better than to remain in your never-ending string of dreams. 

You slowly slipped into the still halls of the palace, refraining from waking anyone up or running into one of the servants.

There was a secret passage that connected the library to the grounds outside. It has never been used, to the point where you suspected they might have forgotten the structure existed. You absconded through the tunnel, making sure not to resonate any sort of jarring noise. The morning air greeted you right as you arrived at the end of the passageway. The passerine birds crooned a melody of their own the same time you admired the brilliant colours of the sun toning gracefully with the cerulean skies. 

The lively market was where you would find Soonyoung, struggling with the boxes behind a line of stalls. You observed how his chest heaved upon placing down each box, his bare arm glistening with sweat, his eyes always trailing to another one as he trudged back to the pack of boxes that never seemed to pare down. 

“Need a little help with that?” You offered. Soonyoung flinched at the unexpected surfacing of your voice.

“Princess!” He gasped, but later toned down his voice after he realised you weren’t supposed to be here. “Princess, you’re here.”

“Just as we concurred.”

A whiff of panic crossed his features almost very noticeably. You understood that it was too much of a risk to come to the market, considering anyone could recognise you were the princess. But there was something so enticing about the way Soonyoung spelled out the plan to you in the garden yesterday, that almost instantly dispelled your doubts. 

Soonyoung had to act fast. As the alarm blazing in his eyes slowly ebbed away, he quickly took hold of your wrist and drew you behind a tall Silver maple tree.

“Stay put, princess,” he whispered, “after I finish organising those boxes, we’ll go to the children.” 

You did as he told, although not really used to taking commands from a commoner. But he was Soonyoung. Soonyoung wasn’t a commoner, he was the very man who put you in internal debate of whether he owns your heart, or you just happen to be in a fleeting moment of attraction. 

The market continues to bristle with rustics and more commoners as you hid behind the old trunk. As soon as Soonyoung was finished, the two of you hurried to shelter where the children were, through the thin brume that still lingers in the morning air. 

The shelter sits between a small aged school and a vacant health clinic, its walls already forming plain breaks. The place is fairly dim and distant from the rackety locale you were in before, although you can still hear the obscure blethering coming from there. 

You noticed the nimble twinkle that manifested in his eyes as Soonyoung smiled, cuddling the children that came running to his arms. Buoyant and spirited laughters were exchanged, a sight you scarcely ever see. Soonyoung introduced you to each of them, beginning by divulging you were a real princess. You watched as some of them left their jaw hanging open — so open that they must’ve swallowed a fair amount of invisible dust — some of them asked you if it was true and confessed that was why you looked so charming.

“Of course she is,” Soonyoung blurted, “her heart is really charming too.”

Although you hadn’t been in a romantic relationship before, the phrase isn’t all that alien to you. You hear people tell you you’re lovely every time. Some for the purpose of flattering you, perhaps flirting with you, but it was contrasting coming from Soonyoung. You didn’t know if he meant it or was just pleasing the children, but the words that travelled from his mouth felt genuine. 

The first light advanced just like that, with you and Soonyoung amusing the children, catering to all of their childish needs. You felt closer and more intimate with him now. You stole glances when he wasn’t looking, admiring how gentle he was with the kids, how absolutely fetching his features were now that you were able to stare at him longer, and cherished all the times your fingers would brush against each other. Little did you know, he did the same. He could see your endeavour to blend in with the children at first, but you ultimately started to open up to the sundry questions they asked. Soonyoung loved that. He loved seeing you like this, in your truest form, he believed. You were finally able to do what your heart really yearned for. 

You were relishing your time with Soonyoung and the children, until your dread eventuated.  

“News is being spread from the palace that you’re missing.” Soonyoung announced, a frown appearing across his face. 

“Then I have to get going,” you sighed weakly, “are the guards near?”

Soonyoung peered outside to confirm. There was a commotion near the market, but he couldn’t tell if it was about you or the trade occurring there.

“I’m not sure, princess,” he spoke while observing the situation outside, “but it is best if you go back home.”

You nodded understandingly. You said your final goodbyes to the children and witnessed as they immediately went sullen, some whining about why you have to leave so untimely. You settled a sweet kiss on each of their head and smiled at them for the last time. 

“Do you want me to take you there, princess?” Soonyoung offered.

“No,” you muttered, “I don’t want to get you involved.”

Soonyoung looked broken as he couldn’t do anything to help you, but you were okay, knowing that he unequivocally savoured his time with you, and you did too. He placed a gentle peck on your cheek that lingers for a bit before he retreated.

“Be careful, princess.”

You were beyond grateful for Soonyoung that he showed you how the milieu of poverty looked like. The children were happy despite not having everything you had, and that was how Soonyoung was like too. He seemed content with what he had, and you found yourself falling even harder for him.

You feared that this was going to be the last time you see Soonyoung if your parents found out, and if that was the case, you knew he was never going to know how you felt about him. So you pulled him closer, planted a demure kiss on his lips, and stayed there for as long as the heavens allowed you to. 

Because although Soonyoung loved you as much as you loved him, you did not belong to each other, no. You weren’t each other’s to think of, each other’s to touch, each other’s to feel. He shouldn’t be confined to the depths of your mind, and certainly not to you.

[descendantofthesparrow]

Harry Hook x pan! reader Oneshot - quartermaster?

requested by @lowkeyaesthvtic

May I have a request where the reader is the daughter of Peter Pan (the OUAT one that was a villain) and she wants to get closer to Harry (they’re already dating) but can’t do that unless she convinces Uma to be a second “first mate?” Harry could help too if you want.

the daughter of peter pan, that’s who you were, known to be the daughter of one of the evilest villains in history, and when Auradon had been created, beast, aka Rumplestiltskin, and belle, who looked awfully similar to the blue fairy for some reason. Had banished Pan to the isle of the lost, along with many other villains, including the once pirate villain “captain hook”, forcing him to leave his wife and his children were forced to follow him.

The people of Auradon forced rumples hand and he regrettably sent Killian, Hope, Harrison, and Calista Jane to the isle, the youngest only a couple months old.

“We can't have the children of villains here, they'll kill us all!!” the people of Auradon cried

Fools, rumple was a villain once upon a time and they seemed to have conveniently forgotten that.

Though now he called himself Adam and cast a permanent illusion that made him look different.

So now you sat in the caves near the crocodile shores, leaning against a midsized croc, named Gorvan, the spawn of tick-tock. (for some reason the crocs from the Disney version of peter pan were also on the isle, no one really cared, they were mostly chill unless you purposely aggravated them)

Waiting for your boyfriend Harry Hook.

Now you might be thinking

‘hey? Aren’t pan and hook enemies?’ and you would be correct, Captain Hook and Peter Pan were enemies, but Hook had killed Pan only a couple of months after arriving at the isle, as the demon-like boys magic no longer existed, so he died from his wounds, and the barrier, which prevented death (unless from old age), had not cared to resurrect pan.

so your mother, who was eight months pregnant with you, asked Killian to not hold the fact of who your parent was over your head, and he had agreed, never referring to you as pans daughter, but your own annoying but tolerable person.

A person that loved his son, he had been slightly weirded out when he discovered your relationship with harry, before shrugging, he had no room to talk, he married the daughter of snow white and prince charming.

“lassie?! You in here?!” Gorvan popped his head up, recognizing Harry's voice, and stood, making you fall back when your pillow left and trotted to where Harry was standing at the entrance, too afraid to enter the den of the crocs.

“nonononon stay away!!! You beast get back!!! (y/n)!!” you sighed and stood, going to where you heard Harry's panicked babbling.

“really harry?” you groaned, patting the scaly head of the teen croc, gorvan seemed to snicker and trotted into a corner, giving harry space to climb down from a tree just outside the cave entrance.

“You can come down now, he's in the corner”

“but he's still watching” Harry whined, tightly clutching to the heavy branch he was on.

You sighed, nodding at your shadow, who nodded back, walking over to where Harry's shadow was being cast and picked it up, making harry float up from the branch, he yelped, wriggling around.

“h-hey! Do yeh have teh do this every time?!” he screeched, your shadow dropping his next to you, making harry plop down on his butt at your feet.

“well if you actually came down I wouldn’t have to” you smiled down at him, he grumbled standing up, wiping the back of his jacket, dust falling.

“whatever” he crossed his arms pouting at you. “so hooky” you cooed, still grinning, stepping closer to the pirate. “got any new plans to help me get into the crew?’

Harry sighed “no, uma is adamant on not letting yeh on the crew, even as a low-level member.”

“ugg” you groaned, whyyyy? Harry's place as the first mate prevented the two of you from bonding more, as boyfriend and girlfriend at least, you two had grown up together, knowing almost everything about each other, but still umas crew took a lot of Harrys time, and you understood! You had the lost kids to worry over, a lot of which had asked a while ago to join uma nad you let them, uma was an amazing leader, you weren’t really thinking of the fact that they preferred her over you, you were more worried over their protection.

And plus they still bunkered down at the campout a lot so it's not like they completely abandoned you.

“do you know why?” you asked, messing with the thin material of Harry's sleeveless hoodie. Harry sighed nodding.

“aye, she finally gave meh the reason, instead of just ransom reasons”

You peered at Harry, raising your brow “oh, do tell”

“she thinks that if yeh join we would distract each other from our duties, shed rather our relationship be a factor in the crew”

You rolled your eyes “seriously! Im like the best at separating relationships from work! You know that! She should know that!”

Harry nodded, he had seen your ability to do that himself. awhile ago mad Maddy, who had been one of your best friends at the time, had stolen and hurt Fiona, Felix's daughter, and you had separated the relationship you had with her and gone after her, forgoing your relationship with her to do your duty as leader of the lost kids.

You had told her it was nothing personal, but she didn’t care. and after the split of the vks after the shrimpy incident, the two of you split, you siding with uma, while Maddy sided with mal.

You sighed, you couldn’t force uma to let you onto the crew, she was captain, it was up to her.

“fine” you mumbled, letting your weight go and bumping your forehead onto Harry's torso/shoulder, pouting into his skin “whatever”

Harry sighed, wrapping his arms around you, “don’t worry lass, we’ll figure this out”

You nodded, rubbing your face into his jacket.

----

Uma sighed, one of her newer members was an absolute idiot, stealing from pan. Her and (y/n) had an agreement, you don’t bother me I won't bother you, and the new idiot, kyle, son of Hans, wanted to prove himself, choosing to steal something important from pan.

A small bottle, filled with dust, pixie dust, now kyle didn’t know what he stole, he just found the bottle in a locked box, thought It was something her mother or peter gave (y/n) before dying and stole it. Thinking it would get him points with uma.

It didn’t.

Uma paced the deck, harry front and center, she hoped that Harry's relationship with (y/n) would convince her to back down, and simply ask for the dust back.

Oh, boy was she wrong.

(y/n) had arrived, three lost kids for each pirate crew member, glaring them down.

“uma” you called, flipping your blade in your hand, drifting your eyes over umas crew, locking eyes with harry for a moment, who gestured to kyle. “I believe you have something of mine, I want it back”

Uma was willing to back down, but her crew yelled out in protest, and she sighed, well, can't disappoint the crew, that would also ruin her reputation, she drew her sword, staring into the girls (e/c) eyes.

“then take it”

The sound of pirates and lost kids clashing sounded across the cove, you started toward uma, leader vs leader.

Harry hopped in front of her, grinning at you, hand on his sword and hook pointed at you.

“Hello love” you smirked, cocking your hip.

“hey hooky”

“would yeh mind stepping down, for meh~?” he gave you that grin, the one that usually could melt you into a puddle.

Not today, you had a mission. A duty.

“Sorry dude” you raced forward, taking advantage of him not drawing his sword, stealing his hook, tripping him, and rolling him off your back and into the shallows.

“duty calls”

Uma stood surprised, she thought that a simple wink from harry would make you back down, not wanting to hurt him due to your relationship.

But you straight up just dunked harry into the water.

Umas sword clashed with yours, and you fought, a fast-paced dance between blades and uma somehow got the upper hand, flinging your sword away and knocking you back.

You fell with a grunt, seeing a certain someone behind uma. You got out your crossbow, opening the bolt bag at your side, and loading it.

You looked up, seeing Fiona pushing uma down, her larger stature easily overpowering ume.

You aimed the crossbow, the shot lining with umas ribs.

“(y/n)! don’t!” you heard harry scream, obviously thinking you were about to shoot uma, but you ignored him, Fiona shoved uma to the floor and pinned her.

You took the shoot.

The blot flew thought the air soaring past where uma stood only a moment ago, landing in kyles arm, he screamed in pain, releasing his sword, kneeling down and clutching his arm.

“AHHH!!!!” you stood, closing the bows of the crossbow and swinging it to lay on your back, stepping over umas arm and kneeling next to kyle, face blank.

“ill have that bottle you took”

Kyle nodded, tears and snot running down his face, digging into his jacket pocket and bringing out the small bottle of dust and fumbling to hand it to you.

“good boy” you muttered, taking the bottle and ripping the bolt from his arm, kyle crying out in pain again.

You stood, walking over to uma, and shoving Fiona off of her “sorry uma, but this stuff is not to leave my person, your crew member violated our agreement as well” uma took your hand, letting you pull her up.

“I know I know” she sighed, picking up her hat from the floor glaring down at Kyle, who was still whimpering on the floor, “I tell every single crew member to leave your territory alone, and this idiot steals” she gestures to the bottle “that”

You laughed, your lost kids now backing off from the crew, talking to the ex lost kids now on the crew. If their leaders got along, no reason to fight.

“yeah, so see ya later cap’n” you saluted to her, turning and walking off the ship, waggling your fingers at harry, who winked back.

“ see ya later hooky, sorry bout dunking ya!”

“at least there were no crocs” he yelled back with a smile, seeing you laugh, walking off with your lost kids to head to the hideout.

Harry sighed, staring after you, he wants to follow, but uma probably needed him here.

Uma walked up, seeing Harry's look.

“so harry?” she started, waiting for Harry to look at her “do you think (y/n) still wants to join?”

Harry's jaw dropped, “wha? But I thought ye said-“

“I know what I said, now tell (y/n) that the position for quartermaster is open”

“quartermaster?” Harry repeated, confused.

“yes quartermaster, now go get her! And tell the lost kids they are welcome to join”

harry grinned, nodding and racing off the ship, calling your name.

---the end---

[raging-violets]

Stargirl: At All Hours // Rick Tyler

By: Rhuben

Words: 2,829

Note: Kind of a character study for Rick Tyler. This all came together after noticing that Rick walked everywhere.

Also found on: AO3 and FFN

Summary: Rick Tyler has the weight of the world on his shoulders. A weight he never asked for. Managing his grief and anger over his parents' sudden death, his schoolwork, fixing his car to have some sort of reliable transportation, and the nightly calls to pick up his unruly uncle from the bar always had him on the move.

--

Rick settled back in his chair, one arm draped over the back, and peered up at Principal Bowin unperturbed. His stomach growled. Principal Bowin’s eyebrows lifted. Letting out a humorless laugh, he parted his lips and said, “It’s a stupid box of candy. Barely anyone in this school likes it, let alone buys it.” He used his index finger to jab at the desktop. “It’s on that cart, day after day, and no one touches it.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just take it. Nothing in this life is free, Mr. Harris.”

“Whatever.”

Principal Bowin pursed her lips. She crossed her arms over her chest. A moment later she clasped her hands together in front of her. A tight smile came to her face. She wasn’t going to press the issue any further. It never made a difference. “Maybe you could use this time to think about your actions today.” She then turned on her heels and strode out of the detention room.

Sighing through his nose, Ricky slumped down in his seat. Tilting his head back towards the ceiling, he placed his hands over his face before he pushed his fingers into his hair. A stupid box of Nutty Buddys. That’s what this was all about. He was hungry, didn’t want a stupid room-temperature pre-made “for the kids who can’t afford a lot” sandwich that’s been sitting out all morning. So, he took a box of candy. Big deal. He’d think about his actions all right. He’d think about how he had little money after buying his lunch in the first place, and no one would think twice about a box of candy just sitting out in the open.

It’d last him until the morning, at least. At most, until the next time his uncle Matt could pull himself together long enough to get to the grocery store. Even then, however much he’d manage to get was dependent on how much he spent at the bar each night. It wasn’t the healthiest option, he knew, but it tasted good. The chocolate, the peanut butter, all wrapped around that layer of wafer. Absolutely mouth-watering.

And, it was a nice change from another bowl of ramen. They were even running out of that.

Pulling his gaze from the ceiling, Rick leaned forward in his seat and folded his arms on his desk. He stretched his lower back as he settled his chin on his arms. He flickered his eyes towards the trickle of students coming to serve their own detention, before setting them back onto the chalkboard at the front of the room. Bring your schoolwork. He snorted. As if anyone could focus on their schoolwork when just about everything else was so much more important. Like getting something to eat. His stomach growled again, and he pressed his fist into his stomach.

His days always started about five in the morning. Climbing out of bed, first thing he’d do was pack his bookbag of all the textbooks and the homework he half-finished the night before that lay strewn about his bed. Maybe a pen would be stuck to his cheek. A page ripped out of his notebook from where his leg was strewn across it. A textbook laid across his chest, heavy. It was better, he came to understand, to come to school with some of his homework done than to not bring it at all. It lessened the disappointed stares, and the “I know you can do better” head shakes he would get in response to his mumbled explanation of doing his best. When he bothered to give an explanation at all, anyway.

Quietly stepping into the living room to make sure his uncle was still sleeping, let alone still breathing, Rick would pick up the half-eaten plates of food, crunch over the chips that lay strewn across the carpet, and jostle the cans of Red Bull that sat atop the coffee table – at some point in the night, it had been shoved out of its usual position. Once the mess was cleared away, he’d set out a new, clean glass of water and some aspirin before shaking his uncle awake.

“Wha-whatsgoinon?” Matt asked, managing to lift an eyelid with what Rick could only guess was with great effort.

“Get up,” Rick would reply shortly, swinging his arm out of the way to avoid the slap or punch Matt would aim his way. He had learned to anticipate some aspect of retaliation over the years after showing up at school with a black eye and a cut cheek on a handful of occasions. Most times, Matt usually managed to succeed in a swing and a miss, knocking himself to the floor. Rick had also learned to keep his distance between himself and the nauseous smell of unbrushed teeth and stale alcohol breath…and whatever Matt might have possibly thrown up in the middle of the night. “Get in the shower.”

“Don’ tell me what to do,” Matt grumbled, tucking his arms underneath his chest to push himself up into a seated position. “Get out of my way.”

“Aspirin,” Rick said, indicating the white pills on the table, “Water. Knock yourself out.” Then, he would turn and leave his uncle to his own devices. After taking a quick shower, while there was still warm water, he’d throw on a pair of jeans with faded oil stains (though, he wasn’t sure he even owned anything that wasn’t oil stained by now), grab his shoes that seemed to soak up every inch of water whenever it rained, and throw on a long-sleeved shirt that was starting to stretch out at the collar. He’d step outside to continue his, seemingly, never-ending work on his car.

The very same car his dad had given him a model of the night he died. The model that sat in the center of his dresser. That was clutched tightly in his hand during his funeral. Often he wondered how far he’d be in restoring the old car by now if he had his father there to help him.

It had taken him ages to save up the money to buy the parts he needed. Whenever his uncle remembered to give him allowance for the chores he did around the house, he was able to slowly accrue the parts bit by bit. Luckily, with Blue Valley’s junkyard he was able to get the parts at a decent price – as long as the right sizes and pieces could be found. Even with the fancier cars driving around town, it could be hit or miss at times. With his own interest in fixing cars, he at least didn’t have to worry about the cost of labor – and the occasional library book helped him whenever he got stuck enough (always returned on time to avoid any overdue fines).

He could work for an hour or two before his uncle really managed to get himself up for the day.

Once it was clear his uncle Matt was awake and ready for the day, in the shower or changing in his room, Rick would slip back inside in search for something to eat for breakfast. If there was anything at all. Sometimes there were cold leftovers he could scrounge together. A potato or half-eaten two-day old pizza or something. Sometimes they even had enough milk for a bowl or two of cereal. Toast wasn’t out of the question; the bread was pretty good at settling his stomach from how long it had been since he had last eaten anything.

When Matt was ready to leave for the day, Rick would already be back working on his car. Trying to stay out of the way as much as possible. The car never talked back, at least not with words. Whatever sound it decided to make when he attempted to start it was a pretty good indication of what the next step was in his attempt to bringing it to life. Or lack of sound as the case may be. But all parts had a place, working together to give it motion.

So much unlike the two of them.

Rick was never even offered a ride into town to get to school. And he learned not to ask for it lest he wanted to get the same scathing look he had received every day since the funeral. It was Rick’s fault Matt wasn’t a billionaire. Rick’s fault they weren’t living within their means. Rick’s fault that Matt had to leave whatever it was he was doing to talk to the principal, again, about his anger. The reason why life was hard. The reason why he drank. The reason why he had to go into town every single day in an attempt to find a job lest their $50,000 run out.

If he’s even looking for a job, Rick would think with a roll of his eyes as he watched dust kick up from the rotating tires of Matt’s truck. He’d watch him disappear down the long dirt driveway, a small part of him hoping that it wouldn’t ever return. But, with the house finally his, he’d clean up the living room, remove as much dirt and grime from his face, hands, and clothes as he could, (and when he couldn’t he’d don his dark jacket), and leave to start his long walk to school with his backpack hanging loosely off his shoulder.

Maybe he’d make it to school on time. Maybe he’d show up a few, ten, or fifteen minutes late. Maybe he’d never show up. Maybe one day he could walk right past that tree. But for now, he’d always stop to pay his respects. To mark off another day on this earth without his parents. Another day where his anger churned and roiled so deep inside him, he wasn’t sure if he would ever learn what it was like to just be normal. To not feel like punching out the lights of the first person that looked at him sideways. Or even worse, that pitied him and still did nothing to help. No one ever asked how he was feeling. If he was alright.

He wasn’t. He never would be.

School wasn’t anything he ever really tried hard at. He tried hard not to fall asleep at his desk, sure. He tried hard to stop his stomach from growling so loudly. If he got to school early enough to buy what was left of a breakfast, usually a piece of fruit, it helped a little. There just wasn’t anything of interest he was studying – math was never hard for him, not with how smart his dad was. Blue Valley was a small town, one that most people never really left. And most people didn’t expect him to get into college, anyway. So, why even bother?

Lunch time wasn’t any better. Between forcibly being sequestered at the “Singles” table, listening to Beth Chapel blather on and on and on about whatever to her parents (and she could talk about anything), and Yolanda Montez who would just sigh every few minutes while mindlessly spearing at her salads, it was enough to drive anyone crazy. Still, day after day, he took his usual seat and sat in silence. (He trained himself not to look at the good food Beth seemed to bring in every day –perfectly portioned for herself, not enough to share; not that he’d ask – but through it.) Even if they didn’t talk to each other, there was some comfort in not having to sit by himself anymore. Not that he’d say that out loud. Ever.

Then after school, if he managed not to get a detention that day, he’d start the long trek home, stopping by the local general store for a soda. An energy drink. Anything with enough sugar or caffeine to wake him up long enough to attempt to work on his homework as soon as he got home. However much he could get through with their crappy Wi-Fi. When it got too much, he’d take a break and work on the car again. Dinner was spent by himself. And the people on the TV greeted him with a new episode of whatever hit TV show was airing at the time. Whichever shows he could get on the basic package of cable they could afford. Still, Rick would just flip through the channels, letting his mind wander.

Waiting.

Then he would get the call. “Hey, man, you need to come pick-up your dad. He’s not doing well.” Not doing well. Got into a fight. Threatened to have the police called on him. It didn’t matter. That meant he had to make another trek back into town. Another trip where no one would stop long enough to see if he wanted a ride. Once in Blue Valley he’d have to fight to pull Matt away from the bar, forcing the keys out of his hand, and drive him back home where he would only make it as far as the couch before he passed out. Or the call wouldn’t come, and he’d get back to his homework, trying to stay up, making sure his uncle returned safely only to be jolted awake by the front door crashing open and Matt’s grumbling as he managed to stumble his way inside.

Wash.

Rinse.

Repeat.

But today, there was a small change in his day. Enough to pull him out of autopilot and take notice. Not enough for him to care. Just notice. Today, there was a new girl at school: Courtney. He didn’t know who she was, but the whole school seemed to know she was new. After all, they had all grown up in Blue Valley together. They knew who a familiar face was and who wasn’t.

She wasn’t familiar. She was …too blonde? Too cheerful? Definitely the cheerleader type. And she wanted to join them. At their lunch table. And she was another one that wanted to talk.

He wasn’t about talking. He wasn’t about explaining to anyone knew why he was at the table, why he was considered one of them, the “losers” as Beth had called them. He wasn’t about getting that “I’m so sorry” look of pity again. So, he left. And he grabbed a box of candy on the way out. He was just freaking starving.

Think about my actions? Rick thought with a smirk. Yeah right. Why didn’t everyone else just stop and think for a minute as to why he could possibly do something like this? Then again, everyone thought he was a delinquent, so why not play into that? Be the guy they all thought he was. He knew he had a good reason for all of it. Even if no one else agreed with him. Or even wanted to hear it.

It was one thing in his life that he could control. He didn’t necessarily like detention. But it was quiet. It was an hour after school where he only had himself to worry about. An hour away from any and all responsibilities. An hour where he wasn’t Rick Harris. Not really.

He was just Rick.

Finally.

[suddeninklings]

Update!

Hide Your Fires. A little over a year after the events of the Dover-Birch case, Detective David Loki has a chance run-in with a former classmate. Equally lonely souls, burdened with pasts they would like to forget, the two reconnect in ways neither expected. Detective Loki x OC. Romance, Thriller, Comfort.               

(Part 1)

Tuesday. 

Helen Abbott-Howser. The fourth of twelve victims. Between October 1997 and March of 1999, the incongruously named Roadside Ripper had been active across the counties of Centerfield, Cambria and Conyer’s own Middlesex. A round dozen, the killer had proclaimed in a typed letter posted in rest stops across the state in the early hours of April 1st, 1999. Some called it a manifesto. In it, he attempted to rationalize the attacks. At the time, there was no word for a man like the Ripper. With the turn of the century and the rise of the internet, there now was. All of the victims were women between the ages of 25-40.  In the letter, he cited years of rejection and humiliation as proper cause. It wasn’t until 2012 that similar attacks brought the Rippers killings back to light and gave him a more suitable label. He was an incel.

One of many men who practiced what they called “voluntary celibacy” due to the lack of romance or sex in their lives. In their minds, women were to blame and many of them believed that women should be made to suffer. As they had. To most, they were angry young men, dangerous and ruled by hate, but heroes to some. Sixteen years had passed since his last victim had been found off the interstate, ten miles outside of town. Despite the PSP and the FBI’s involvement in the case, there was no evidence other than the circumstantial. No leads. The few suspects the police had managed to find had all of them been disproved by DNA. The case was open, but practically dead in the water. 

David could remember his foster mother, Teri (or was it Denise then? They all blurred together in his memory) watching the story play out on the news with equal parts disgust and fascination. Women were told to take caution driving on the highway alone. Some police departments advised against it altogether. Even after the manifesto had been found, in which the killer claimed he had been absolved of the shame and pain of living as “subsidiary male in a society that set him up to fail,” people were on edge for many of the years that followed. It wasn’t until the string of missing child cases grew more and more frequent that public focus shifted and the Ripper was more or less lost to time.

Shit. David thought, the weight of his offense still weighing on him. Maybe it’s too early. I should come back later. 

He stood on the Howser porch, fighting the urge to pace. Sleep had not been easy to find that night and the lack of it made him restless. He blinked, his grip on the paper wrapping in his hand tightening. He had been up before dawn trying to craft an apology in his head, but anything he managed to come up with felt hollow on his tongue, lacking the sincerity he knew he owed her. It was a problem he had dealt with since childhood. Even now, he still struggled to engage with people outside of work. He couldn’t interrogate them. Couldn’t order them about or adhere to their orders. There were no such hierarchies in life, or at least, if there were, there shouldn’t be. 

He took to observing from a young age, desperate for social cues and leads. He attempted emulation, but as a child often failed, leading him from home to home. Shuffled through a broken system that neither liked nor cared for him. Those years were not ones he wished to linger on, but he couldn’t deny that they had helped him build an arsenal of tools that allowed him to excel at his work. Being guarded and watchful were gifts professionally. But personally? So many relationships were shot before they could even properly begin. He convinced himself it wasn’t troublesome. That it made life easier. Easier to push through life from one day to the next. 

He lifted his hand, to knock on the door one last time, when he picked up the sound of light footfalls behind him. 

“Are those for me?” 

David turned. Grace stood at the bottom of the small staircase leading up to the porch, having just returned home from a morning run. Her cheeks and forehead flushed red and a thin sheen of sweat covered her face and neck. She wore a loose grey t-shirt and leggings, a thin hoody was tied around her waist. Strings of loose hair clung to her temples or floated like a strange crown around her head. Small clouds of smoke escaped her lips as she slowed her breathing. He looked down to his hand, where her gaze was focused. An early morning drive, to help better his thinking, had resulted in, not the right words, but flowers. The market on the corner of Main and Bradshaw had been stocked full at opening and he had had his pick. It was a small bouquet; sprigs of white daisies and purple hoary stock in place of olive branches. He nodded, opening his mouth in hopes that the right words would just tumble out. 

“I’m an asshole-” He felt his own cheeks go hot. 

Grace shook her head, hitching her hands on her sides with a breathy sigh. She looked towards the ground. “David, it’s fine-”

“No really, I-wasn’t even...My head’s be so full of-”

“David!” She laughed this time.

He stopped, blinking twice before daring to look her in the eye again. They were light, almost amused. Yesterday they had looked hazel, but under the glow of the early morning sky they seemed almost green. She smiled and stepped up to meet him, snatching the flowers from his hand and holding them up to her nose. 

“They’re nice,” She said, whole-heatedly.  “I can’t remember the last time someone gave me flowers.”

David dodged her eye, the heat spreading from his face down his neck. A mixture of relief and nervous energy still broiling. It seemed too easy. All the officers at the station, they talked about their wives and girlfriends as if apologies were impossible. 

“You…want to come inside? I have coffee.” Grace said, her voice lilting as she placed her hand on the door and pushed it open. 

-

David settled into a chair at the head of a small oval table off the kitchen, waiting for Grace to return. After ushering him through the narrow front hall, passed the steps to the upper floor and into the family room off the kitchen, she had brought him a cup and excused herself to change. Out of habit, he began to appraise the home. It looked as though no work had been done to it since it had been built. The formal dining room across the hall had been converted into an office; stacks of papers and books were littered across a small folding table that doubled as a desk. A computer that looked to be older than anything he had come across in the precinct was already sitting in a box. The kitchen was small, with bulky walnut cabinetry and aging appliances. The family room was equipped with a small television, couch and recliner that seemed to have labored through the most use. There were few photos on the walls. A watercolor painting of a marina scene hung over a small electric fireplace in the corner next to screen door that led out to the backyard. There was a stale scent in the air. Dust. He could see it floating slowly, as if practically frozen in time, catching the light of the morning sun as it filtered lazily through the glass. 

“Looks like you have your work cut out for you,” He said when she returned. She nodded, her eyes rolling back as she settled into the chair across from him. Simultaneously, they reached for their cups and drank. The coffee was black as night. Just how he liked it. Apparently how she liked it too. 

After a moment’s quiet, Grace said softly, “I feel like I’m the one who should apologize.”

David sat up straighter. “No, Grace, I shouldn’t have-”

“It’s alright, really. I don’t know why I reacted that way.” She lifted the mug to her lips again, but paused before taking another drink. “I mean that was one of the reasons I left,” she took a sip and continued. “...And didn’t come back. Some people, that’s all they want to talk about. Martin never seemed to mind it but...I couldn’t stand it. Being the dead woman’s daughter. All that pity and nosiness...disguised as niceness. People I never knew would approach us about it. As if they had any right or reason other than morbid curiosity.”

David understood the feeling. It wasn’t often that he dated. Or even met with friends. They all wanted to talk about his work. Especially after the Dover case. He could sense when they were about to bring it up. Their eyes would take on a strange light. He could practically see the gear in their heads twisting and turning, trying to find a way to steer the conversation towards the case. 

Grace set her mug down, exhaling. Her shoulder dipped down as if they had been pushed by some invisible weight. “I’m sorry, you don’t need to hear all of this. Hell, I don’t have time for it. The junk company is coming tomorrow and then the realtor and-”

“I can help.” David said. 

Grace stopped, fixing him with a look of confusion. “What? No, I can’t ask you to do that.”

“No, really.” David said, leaning forward. He thought of his empty home across the road. The lack of errands. He thought of his desk at work and how he had been more or less banned from returning to it until the following Monday. “I know it won’t make sense, but...you’d be doing me a favor.” 

-

It didn’t take much convincing, despite the oddity of the request. Once he was able to convince her that he wasn’t aiming to help simply out of guilt, they began to rifle through each room of the house. Boxes were filled, piles of papers tagged for lawyers, furniture pushed towards the center to account for the painters coming later in the week. To David’s relief, the day didn’t drag and before they knew it, the evening had home. Endlessly grateful and thoroughly exhausted, Grace put in an order for pizza. At David’s suggestion they crossed the street over to his house, where a refrigerator stocked with cold beer and a welcoming deck were waiting to be taken advantage of. They sat outside, watching a thin bank of clouds drift slowly over the lake, their colors shifting from a soft white to a pastel yellow to an alarmingly vivid shade of orange as the sun drifted further and further down. 

“I wouldn’t have been able to do this all without you.” Grace said, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “But...I have good news and bad news.”

“Bad news?” David asked, reaching for his beer. 

Grace squeezed her eyes shut, the corners wrinkling as she indulged in a playful wince. With a shake of her head, she buried her face into her knees for a moment before continuing bashfully, “There’s a basement.”

He smiled. It was small and fleeting. He wasn’t sure if she had seen it. They remained outside, talking softly and long into the night, until the all manner of sunlight dipped down below the treeline and the sky above became an inky blue sea of stars. As though they were, and always had been, old friends. 

-

Wednesday.

David wandered over to her house at 12:15, after he saw the realtor pull out of the drive and drift down the road, out of sight. She opened the door at first knock, wearing a smile that was quickly becoming familiar to him.

“Afternoon,” She said breathlessly. She hitched one arm against the door, her hip jutting out in the opposite direction. A large box, filled with books and bearing the label Goodwill sat at her feet. Her hair was piled up on the top of her head, wisps and strings falling loosely around her face. 

“Look at that, you have arms.” She joked, with a nod of her head. David looked down, feigning a laugh. The day was uncharacteristically warm and humid. A silver sun glared down through a layer of paper thin cloud cover, coating the land below with an odd, muted shadow. He left his jacket and button ups at home this time, instead sporting a jersey t-shirt and ravaged pair of jeans he pulled out when working on his own house. She was dressed similarly, wearing the same leggings as the day before and a cutoff shirt with thin, horizontal pinstripes. 

“How’d it go?” He asked, following her through the narrow front hall. 

“Oh, fine,” She said, making a hard left. “His dad was friend’s with Martin’s, so he’s going to cut me a deal which is nice. Now, I’m almost completely sure that everything down here can be trashed.”

She opened the door to the basement, absentmindedly pulling at a string of ribbon hanging just inside the doorway. A small bulb flickered on with a crackling snap, but it did little to properly light the wooden steps that led down. 

“I’ve been too scared to look, but hopefully there’s not too much do-Ah!!”

A creak and a crash, followed by several smaller thumps and finally a sickening shatter, sent David rushing around the corner after her. 

“Grace!?” He barked, bracings his hands against the frame of the door. 

“Fine! I’m-I’m fine.” Came a garbled response from the shadowy depths below. David reached for the handrail. 

“Wait! Stop!” She called, halting him in his tracks. “There’s a faulty step. I...forgot.”

“Are you alright?”

“-fourth one down, be careful.” She continued. “Ouch. Fuck me.”

He leapt passed it, taking the next few two at a time until he reached the bottom. 

“There’s a switch. On the wall.” She mumbled, looking more like a mass of black shadow as David’s eyes attempted to adjust. He pressed his hand to the wall, flicking it on. A bank of old fluorescents buzzed to life. Grace was hunched over on her knees, her hair having fallen loose from the scrunchie. 

He tried again. “Are you hurt?”

“Uff,” She breathed, pushing her hair away from her face. “I mean, my pride is yeah...and maybe my knee. Ow!”

She hissed, drawing her hand away. The tips of her fingers were coated in blood. 

“God...dammit.” She said, shifting up so that she could sit on the last step. The unmistakable sound of glass scraping against concrete filled the room. David knelt down in front of her. 

“Language, Abbott, please.” He tutted, with a wry smile. Grace huffed a laughed, her teeth gnawing on her lower lip as she tried to shake off the shock and the embarrassment. God, I hope he didn’t see. She thought, as the fall played back through her mind. She was fairly certain she had looked as graceful as a penguin tottering off to sea. She watched as he assessed the damage, trying to push the image far away. 

“Looks like you landed on something.” He said, finally, his fingers gingerly pushing at the now flattened box that sat where she had fallen. It felt necessary, if not useless to state the obvious. 

“Looks like it.” Grace said, her hands hovering over her knee. Sure enough, a few bits of grainy glass had torn through her leggings and looked to be embedded in her skin. 

David stood, offering her his hand. “Here.”

She looked up, her face flushed red. She took it and he pulled her up, winding her arm around his neck so that he could better help her hobble up the stairs.

-

Grace sat atop the kitchen counter next to the sink, situated so that David could tend to her knee. He pulled a chair in from the living room and set it in front of her. She watched quietly as he rifled through a first aid kit. Where he’d managed to find it, she didn’t know. It must have been older than the pair of them. He still looks so young though. She thought, her eyes drifting down past his face to his neck. Except for the tattoos. Did he have those in high school? I can’t remember. That she recognized him, or anyone, was a surprise to her. Her senior year and been a blur of grief and determination. Conyers felt more like a prison then. A barrage of whispers and glance she was desperate to escape. When she couldn’t sleep she studied, earning herself valedictorian status and a full ride ticket out of town. She promised herself she would never look back. It meant losing touch with long kept friendships and starting from scratch. But it felt worth it. Now it seemed a little dramatic, but she was a teenager then.

Maybe it’s because he seems...the same, in some ways, She thought. Quiet and sedate. Many girls in her grade had spent some time nursing a crush on David Loki. He was the ‘new kid’ after all. A broody boy from the outskirts of town. No one had known him before he showed up on the first day of school. He was a loner. A mystery. Grace understood the appeal then, but never enough to act on it. Very few of them had. Even then, as an underweight, seemingly insomniatic teen, he had a strange air about him. As if he were haunted. Or the one doing the haunting. Grace had never been sure which. He had filled out since those high school days, but he still looked saturnine, as if a good day’s rest eluded him entirely. 

She leaned back, her head hitting the cabinetry behind her. She looked around the room, feeling suddenly impolite for staring. The kitchen felt so small, smaller than she remembered. Her legs dangled off the edge of the counter, her feet swaying gently from side to side, as if caught in a breeze. She felt very much like a child, having tripped in the backyard and come bursting through the door with tears streaming down her face and crying for a parent. She could practically feel the heat of the tears, the wobbly path they would make before drying against her skin. She had been holding them back. Fighting them really. Since entering the house after so long. Despite her best efforts, there were still memories here. Small signs of her mother that Martin hadn’t willed away. 

“Grace? Do you mind if I-?”

“Oh! No, I can-” Her hands went to her leg, fingers pulling at the torn fabric of her leggings, until she gathered all of it above the knee. She winced as she could now clearly see the bits of glass, tinged scarlet. 

“This might sting,” David said softly. With surprising tenderness, her carefully pulled loose the pieces of glass, before pressing a damp cloth to the torn skin. Grace’s hands balled into fists as the antiseptic sunk into the shallow wounds. He let it sit for several seconds, before pulling it away and letting it fall into the sink at his right side. 

“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Grace said, trying to fill the silence. 

“We all go through some basic training at the academy.” He explained as he began to wrap her knee with a thin layer of bandage. She felt his finger brush the back of her leg and deftly lift it slightly. Quite strangely, she thought of Cinderella with her leg poised to receive the infamous glass slipper. 

Christ Grace! She thought to herself, feeling her neck grow warm. You are no put upon damsel and he’s no...daring prince…

She looked down at him again, her eye catching sight of a small divot just above his left temple. Were it not for the closeness of his cut, she may not have noticed it at all. 

That must be...She thought. “The bullet wound.”

“What?”

Oh shit. Grace thought. Did I...say that out loud? 

With a heavy sigh, she shook her head. I just keep digging myself deeper. Well...what is it they say? In for a penny... 

“I may have, um,” She flushed, leaning her head back against the cabinet again and gazing up and away. “-looked you up. Last night.”

He didn’t seem surprised.

She shrugged her shoulders. “The Dover-Birch case? That’s...quite a story.”

Dammit. She thought, eyes flicking shut as she prepared for the backlash. Why’d I say that?! I’m going to scare him off. As if he wasn’t wary already. Being a cop and all. She had seen the way he’d blanched at the bar. It wasn’t much more than a blink but it was all she needed to draw the proper conclusions. She had enough dealings with cops to know how they felt about her work. It didn’t bother her if they despised her. But David was...well, not a friend but...he was something. 

He exhaled, long and low, but the breath didn’t carry the disdain or annoyance she expected. He almost sounded amused. That can’t be right. She looked back down at him. Surprisingly, a wry shadow of a smile ghosted across his face. 

“Force of habit?” He said, almost teasingly as he tucked the remaining wrappings back into the kit before snapping it shut. 

“I guess, yeah.” She said, sheepishly, feeling well and truly chastised. 

He paused a moment, a far away look in his eye before standing up. Instead of moving away, he leaned towards her, bracing his hands on the edge of the counter, each one positioned a respectful distance from her legs. His face was level with hers now. And close. Almost uncomfortably so. At least it should have been. But it wasn’t. 

His eyes. She thought, pressing her lips together in a thin line she could only hope was unreadable. They were deep and dark, as blue as oceans. She could see fleck of brown in the irises. He was close. So close. But not close enough. She swallowed hard as the realization came slowly. She wanted him closer. Needed it. 

“Your exposé on the DWP was good.” He said, finally. “Really something,”

Her brow shot up. 

“I...looked you up, too.” He said, a knowing smile flashing across his face. 

Grace reciprocated. “Really?”

“Really.” The smile remained, tugging at one side of his mouth. Grace felt the yearning in her chest begin to churn and warm. 

“Guess we’re both a little too curious, huh?” She said, lifting her hand up. “...May I?”

He tipped his head down. Ever gently, her fingers brushed the longer lengths of his hair up and back so she could better see the scar. Instinctively, he drew closer as her legs slid further apart. She could feel his breath, slow and warm against her neck. Her own breath hitched as she took in the angry, craggy line. It had mostly healed over, but she knew enough about these sorts of wounds to imagine what it had been. He tilted his head up again. She could feel his hands dragging across the counter, drifting closer and closer to touching her. Almost. But not quite. She let her fingers slide through the tendrils of his hair. Back and down until they could more easily cup the back of his neck. It was all the encouragement he needed. He leaned in, his lips pressing against hers. Softly at first. Her fingers tangled in the hair and pulled. Closer. They thought, almost in unison. She could feel his hands on her thighs now, clamping down and drifting upwards. Her hips rocked against him. Once. Twice. The next thing she knew she his hands were underneath her, pulling her up easily. Her legs wrapped around him tightly. Her arms reached around his shoulders and pulled at his shirt. His lips pulled away from her mouth for only a second. Enough time for her to whisper the question they both knew the answer to. 

“Bedroom?”

He drew her off the counter and her legs unhooked, but his arm stayed tight around her waist, keeping her mouth in line with his. Her toes barely made contact with the floor as they moved down the hall. He paused just before the doorway, spinning her round. Her back hit the wall. He muttered an apology as he peppered kisses up her jawline. His hands were splayed on either side of her shoulders, his body pressing up against hers. She could feel the hardness of his form, from his chest all the way down. 

“Don’t be-” She heard herself whisper, her breath ragged and raw. “Just keep going-”

She fumbled with her shirt, trying to loose her arm free. He was there, his hands pulling it up over her head. She followed suit, gripping the hem of his shirt and pulling it over. 

They disappeared through the door, unable to wait any longer, the basement well as truly forgotten. 

-

Just a little tease this time around, but there will be more soon! It’s been a while since I’ve written these kinds of scenes. I feel out of practice. >.< Thanks for reading! Hope to update very soon. 

[penwarrior11]

If I Had a Heart

(Been sitting on this post-FNV Lucy/Ulysses oneshot for a year and a half.  It’s about time I posted the damn thing)

Lucy Decker leaned against the rocky wall of the trail, arms crossed, one booted foot propping her in place.  Her hazel eyes focused on the man sitting several feet away.  His back was to her while he worked and the wind coming off the Divide tugged at his dark braids.

It'd been three years since the battle at Hoover Dam.  Three years since she'd bested the might of both the Legion and the NCR, finally taking the Dam, New Vegas, and the Mojave at large for herself.  But that hadn't been the end of things, no.  Nothing in her life ever ended so easily.

The first time she returned to the Divide had only been two months after the battle.  She'd found him up on the cliff's edge overlooking the Divide.   He'd tensed as she approached, and she guessed that he hadn't expected her to come back.  Still, he hadn't said a word as she sat herself down next to him, just listened as she recounted what went down at the Dam.  Lanius, General Oliver.  The aftermath.

"Not what you expected," he'd said after a stretch of silence so long she thought it might go on forever.  It wasn't a question.  He knew.

Still, Lucy hadn't been able to help but reply, "Never is."

Since then she'd found her way back to the Divide countless times.  When she could spare a moment.  Or when she needed one.  Honestly, she needed one a lot.  Power was what she'd been gunning for, going in.  More power than some poor girl whose only home was the dusty road could've ever dreamed of.  Power didn't come so easy, though.  Once you had something, you had to fight tooth and nail for it, lest it slip from between your fingers once more.  Lucy knew that particular lesson all too well.  She'd lived it so many times.  And, as they said, uneasy lay the head that wore the crown.  So she kept coming back to that canyon, to his cliff-top, again and again and again.  Just for a bit of perspective.

Somewhere along the line Ulysses stopped referring to her as "Courier" to her face.  She was "Decker" now, the dual syllables often spoken as a curt acknowledgment of her presence.  But not Lucy. Never Lucy.  Not once in the three years she'd known him as more than the ghost lurking over her shoulder had she heard him say it.  Got a good look at him without that mask of his on occasion -- another thing she'd also thought impossible -- but never that.  Shame.  Would've been something to hear it said in that voice of his.

"I'm still not so sure this is a good idea," she called, the words carrying despite the wind.

Ulysses was preparing for a foray down into "The Courier's Mile," that patch of Hopeville they'd blown to hell with the Ashton missile.  An irradiated deathtrap filled with the worst sorts of marked men and deathclaws. Lucy'd thought the name was pretentious from the first time she'd heard him say it.  The Courier's Mile?  Really?  Then again, this was Ulysses they were talking about.  Despite his grim nature, the man had a flair for the dramatic to rival her own.  Besides, she hadn't been able to think of a better name, so it'd stuck.

"Never asked for your help, Decker," Ulysses replied as he shot her a brief glance over his shoulder.  "Could stay behind."

She snorted.  "And let you have all the fun without me?  Not a chance.  Besides, the Mile's just as much my fault as yours.  You aren't the only one who should be going down there."

Lucy already knew the "Why of it," as he would put it, for his trips down there.  The marked men in the Mile were getting antsy.  He couldn't risk letting them make a break for the Mojave.  And, frankly, neither could she.  There was too much riding on it staying intact.

Pulling her rifle off her back, Lucy double-checked the stabilizer.  The last thing she needed while she was down there was an inopportune tremor ruining a shot on a deathclaw.  While she worked, she kept talking.

"Brought some stims and Med-X if the sonsabitches decide to get a little too friendly.  Rad-X, too.  Better pop some before we head in there.  Don't want to glow in the dark by the time we get out."

Ulysses made a noncommittal noise in response. He was checking over his anti-materiel rifle now.  Good. They'd need something that packed that kind of a punch with those damned deathclaws lurking about.  She propped her own rifle against the face of the cliff behind her.

"Found some .50 MGs on the walk over, by the way. I figured you might be running low," she said, tossing a clip in his direction.  He caught it and loaded it into his rifle in one fluid motion.

Evidently satisfied, he slung the rifle across his back. Grabbing the battered old flagpole he used as a weapon from its place on the rocks beside him, he used it to push himself to his feet.

"You good?" Lucy asked once he was standing, quirking an eyebrow.

He nodded.  "Time to go."

"Right.  One second."

Holding a tie in her teeth, Lucy gathered her chin-length blonde curls as best she could before pulling them back into a short, ragged ponytail.  With that finished, she snapped her goggles into place, pulled a mask much like his own over her mouth, and picked up her rifle.  Then she gave him a thumbs-up.

Together, they headed down through the silo bunker toward the canyon floor, passing the bodies of old marked men and destroyed heaps of bot parts.  Reaching the end, they stepped out into the ruins of Hopeville.  The wind was stronger there than it was from the cliffs. It howled in Lucy's ears and whipped dust around her face as they headed to the right, circling the edge of the destroyed buildings.  Their path curved up around the rocks and onto a destroyed stretch of road. Upturned, rusted vehicles littered the cracked pavement.  They picked their way around them and stopped at the top of the hill overlooking to the Mile.

It appeared just as it had the several other times she'd ventured down into it since the missile hit.  Massive chunks of broken metal and cement were strewn about, shaping the ragged landscape.  The air had a faint misty quality to it, hovering as a sick cloud over the destruction. Reaching into her bag, Lucy pulled out her bottle of Rad-X.  She cracked the lid and poured the pills inside out onto her gloved palm.  Moving her mask aside, she popped a couple into her mouth.  Then she nudged Ulysses and held out the remaining couple to him.  He took them from her in silence.

They both stood on the hilltop for a few moments, waiting for the effects of the pills to kick in.  Peering through her binoculars, Lucy examined the ruins for any sign of their quarry.  There was no movement as far as she could see.

In an undertone, she told Ulysses, "No sign of them yet."

"Further in," he replied.  She lowered her binoculars again with a nod.

They began to pick their way through the Mile. When he gestured to one of the crumbling towers, halfway sunken into the ground, she silently followed him toward it. The two of them climbed up over the broken bits of concrete scattered around it to reach the upper floors, careful not to shift any of the rubble as they did.  Even the slightest noise could alert the residents of the Mile to their presence and ruin the element of surprise they were relying on.

Reaching the top, they both crouched down on either side of one of the empty windows.  Ulysses pulled his AMR off his back and got into position.  For a long time, he silently watched the ruins through the scope.

"Fifteen marked men," he finally muttered. "Legionnaire leading.  No deathclaws."

"What's he using?" Lucy asked.

"Gatling."

She sucked a breath in through her teeth.  A marked man wielding a Gatling laser was the last thing they needed at the moment.  He was going to be their primary target, then.  Lucy readied her rifle and waited.  She watched as Ulysses clicked the safety off on his own and took aim. The still silence was broken by a sharp crack as he fired.  Peering around the edge of the window, Lucy saw what was left of the marked man in question crumple, his head little more than red paste.  One down, thank god.  Then the others all turned in their direction.  Lucy picked off another of them, then another, but the rest were coming up on them too fast.

"Time to move," she said.

They scrambled back down the ruined tower to put some distance between them and the swarm of marked men.  Bullets whizzed overhead or struck the concrete around the two of them.  Sooner or later they'd hit what they were aiming for.  Cover was scarce at the moment, so the ghouls needed to be stopped. Fast.  Fishing a grenade out of her jacket, Lucy pulled the pin and looked at her companion.

"Ulysses!"

He turned at her shout and she tossed the grenade in his direction.  With a solid swing, he hit it with Old Glory, knocking it straight into center of the group of marked men.  It exploded, splattering bloody chunks of the flayed soldiers all over the nearby crumbling walls and kicking up a massive cloud of dust.

Lucy grinned at him from behind her mask. "Nice hit!"

Ulysses said nothing, but she thought she saw one scarred eyebrow quirk a little.

Any further celebration was cut short by a loud clanking from behind them.  Through the settling dust came another marked man, carrying the Gatling laser.  He must've picked it up off his dead comrade. The barrel was aimed right for them. Lucy saw the thing whir to life and felt her blood run cold.  She took a couple steps backward.  Almost unconsciously, she reached out for Ulysses.  Her fingers barely brushed against the edge of his duster before the gun went off.

All Lucy could hear was the scream and the rat-a-tat as the lasers fired.  She wasn't sure where the strength came from -- adrenaline, the remnants of those implants from the Big Empty, or some combination of both -- but she grasped Ulysses' coat and yanked him down to the dirt with her, out of the path of the beams.  When she hit the ground, it was hard enough to knock the wind out of her.  Her head swam.  Her right leg was practically screaming.  Gasping, she rolled over to assess the damage.

She hadn't been fast enough.  One of the beams had hit her thigh, tearing through the leg of her jeans and taking a solid chunk out of her flesh.  Worse still was the big hole she saw singed into the front of Ulysses' threadbare shirt.  Past that, burned flesh and a gaping wound.  She heard a muffled grunt of pain from behind his mask.

"Shit," Lucy gasped, wiping at her dusty goggles to get a better look. "Shit."

There wasn't much blood; the laser'd cauterized it almost instantly.  Beyond that it was hard to get a read on how much damage it'd done.  How far had the shot made it in?  All the way through?  Was that bone?  She'd seen guns like that take out full-grown deathclaws.  The fact that he was still breathing at all was a fucking miracle.

The Gatling laser shrieked to life again and she had to duck to avoid the renewed shots.  A quick look back over her shoulder told Lucy the marked man was still coming up on them.  Slow, to keep firing the Gatling, but steady nonetheless.  Her first instinct was to bolt.  Jam a stim into herself and hope her leg didn't slow her down as bad as she thought it might.  If she was lucky, she'd get to cover before the ghoul reached her, then pick her way through the ruins and out of the Mile.  There was enough of a head-start to make it if she didn't outright collapse on the way.  A sharp intake of breath turned her attention back to the man beneath her.  Behind the breathing mask his face looked ashen. Ulysses might be dying, and he would definitely die if she left him now.  The thought set a raw, gnawing ache tearing at her insides.

Damn him.

She looked back over her shoulder again.  The marked man was too close now for her rifle. She pulled Maria from the holster at her hip and fired twice at the ghoul.  A spray of red blossomed from the back of his head as her shots impacted and he crumpled to the dirt.  With the immediate danger out of the way, she pulled a stimpak out of an inner pocket of her jacket and jabbed it into Ulysses' arm.  She heard the familiar hiss as it injected.

From somewhere in the ruins around them came a series of low, garbled growls.  More marked men, by the sound of it.

"Not now," she muttered.  Slinging her companion's arm across her shoulders, she looked around for a bit of shelter from the impending attack.  "Like I said before, I've got some Med-X if you want it, but we've got to get to cover first.  I -- Ulysses?"

Something was wrong.  His grip on her was much too weak and, despite what appeared to be his best efforts, he was losing the fight to stay conscious.  His head thumped against her shoulder, and his skin felt cold against hers.  Her breath caught in her throat.  The stim hadn't worked.  They were still deep in the Mile, and the nearest auto-doc was in the Hopeville Missile Base.  There was no way she'd be able to get him out of there and fight off the marked men that'd be on them at any second.  Not with him barely conscious and her busted leg.  At the rate he was fading, Ulysses would be gone in minutes, and there wasn't a single goddamn thing she could do about it.  Unless...

Frantically rummaging around in her bag with her free hand, Lucy pulled out the Transportalponder.  She stared uneasily at the device in her hands, blue and crackling with energy. Trying to use it this far from the Big Empty, and with this much interference from the radiation?  It was a long shot at best.  All she could do was hope for a miracle.

She adjusted her grip on Ulysses, wrapping arm around his back and clenching a fistful of his duster to pull him tight against her side.  Aiming the device at the sky, she fired.

Currents of electricity hissed and snapped around her, and she held tight to the man next to her.  For a second everything was static.  When her vision finally cleared, they were both sprawled on the balcony of the Sink.  Staggering halfway up to her feet again, and stumbling when she put weight on her injured leg, Lucy headed for the door.  It hissed open at her approach and she pulled him through.

"Sir?" the Central Intelligence Unit called over to her as soon as they'd passed the threshold.  "Is everything all right, sir?"

Lucy didn't answer.  There wasn't time.  Her feet slid on the smooth floor, slipping out from underneath her, and she sat down hard. Wincing, she crawled back over to where Ulysses had fallen.  With a start, she saw that his eyes were closed now.

"No, no, no, no, no."  She fumbled with his breathing mask, trying to get it off.  Her left hand was shaking so bad it was all she could do to try and get a grip on the thing.  "Shit. Come on!"

Lucy finally got the straps undone and she cast the mask aside, sending it skittering across the floor.  The other personalities that made up the Sink babbled at her in the background.  Voices of confusion and concern.  She ignored them.  Ulysses wasn't breathing.

"You son of a bitch, we're five feet away!" she shouted at him.  Grabbing the back of his duster again and gritting her teeth, she continued to drag him across the room.  "Doc, incoming!"

"Get him in here," the auto-doc told her as its door opened.

When she finally reached the other side of the room she practically ripped off his duster and what was left of his shirt before shoving him into the machine.  Once he was inside, the door slid shut again, blocking him from view.  A second later she heard the muffled but distinct sounds of the tools whirring to life.

Silence.  It was all Lucy could do to just sit there, gulping in deep breaths while blood pounded in her ears.  Her leg gave a horrific twinge.  Gritting her teeth, she took another stim from her jacket and stabbed the needle into her thigh.  That'd have to do until Doc could look her over, too.

She then yanked off her goggles and her own breathing mask, casting them aside.  Her eyes stung.  When she touched her face, her fingers came away wet.  Fuck, she was crying.  Why was she crying?

"Ma'am?"

She looked up at the machine.  "Talk to me, Doc."

"Well, I got him breathing again and most of the damage can be patched up, but there's a problem."  It paused before explaining, "The wound -- laser-made, by the looks of it -- it goes right through the sternum.  Punched a hole in his heart that I can't fix.  And with the Think Tank gone I've got no more replacements.  I can keep him going for a little longer, but..."

It didn't need to finish.  Lucy already knew.

She lurched to her feet again and started pacing, even when her leg screamed in protest.  Back and forth, back and forth, with short, unsteady steps.  Her hands tangled up in her curls almost by themselves. She wanted to break something. Instead, she slammed her fist against the wall before slumping against it and closing her eyes.

Three years since she'd first tracked him down to the end of that canyon, three years of heading back into that death trap again and again just to see him, only for him to die because she'd been a second too slow to pull him out of the line of fire?  Pathetic.  Absolutely pathetic.  And what about Doc?  It could rip her own heart out on Dala's command and shove it back in again, but it couldn't fix this?

Her eyes snapped open.  That was it.

"Use mine," she whispered.

"What was that?" Doc asked her.

"Use mine."  She spun on her heel and ran back over to the auto-doc.  Reaching the terminal on the side, she began frantically searching through the options.  "The tech implant my heart was replaced with when I first got here.  I know you've still got it, so use it!"  She'd kept it in the back of her head as a "just in case."  Well, now she needed it.  Finding the right selection, she punched it in.

"It might not work."

"Try," she begged, and she took a step back from the machine.  The voice sighed, but seemed to relent.  There were a thousand ways this could go wrong.  She knew that.  But the alternative was even worse.

For a long time, the only sounds came from the auto-doc.  The dull hum of the sensors, the metallic buzz of a saw.  Lucy stood there, watching, waiting, her clenched fist pressed against her mouth.  She barely dared to breathe.  Even the other personalities had gone quiet for once.  Finally, the door slid open with a sharp hiss.

Ulysses sat slumped down on the floor of the auto-doc. His head lolled to the side, temple pressed against the inner wall of the metal tube, eyes closed.  A long red gash ran vertically down the middle of his chest, marred by the round, puckered mark from the laser.  Lucy could see they were both already partially healed from stim injections.  It'd leave one hell of a scar.  She would know.

Crouching down in front of him and holding her breath, she checked his neck for a pulse.  There it was, beating steady under her fingertips.  She let out the breath as one long, shaky sigh.  For now, at least, the transplant worked.

His eyes half-opened then and he looked up at her. His voice wasn't much more than a hoarse rasp as he said, "Decker..."

"You're not checking out on me just yet," she murmured.  On instinct, she pressed her lips against his forehead.  When she looked down at him again his eyes were closed, but his breathing was steady.

Leaning back, she shouted, "Muggy!"

The miniature securitron rolled in from the other room.  Despite his display not changing from its usual image of a cheerful cartoon coffee mug, he started in a snide voice, "I don't know what you expect me to do--"

"You're the only one in here besides me who can move, so you're the only one who can actually help," she said, slinging one of Ulysses' arms over her shoulders.  "So help."

Lucy wasn't sure how long it'd been since she last slept.  She dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, further smudging whatever remnants were left of her makeup.  Not that that really mattered at the moment.

Together, she and Muggy had managed to get Ulysses from the AutoDoc into the Sink's bedroom and lay him down.  She was currently sitting on the metal crate by the wall, chin resting in her hands, keeping an eye on him.  He had yet to wake up, but at least he was still alive. That thought in and of itself unsettled her.  The amount she'd come to rely on him over the past couple of years... frankly, it was terrifying.  Sooner or later, that man would be the death of her.  She was sure of it.

With a sigh, Lucy got to her feet.  Her leg wobbled a little, but she figured she was steady enough to walk a couple feet to the balcony and get some air.  It wasn't like she planned to go fight a deathclaw or anything.

Stretching, she said, "Muggy, watch him, would you?"

"Sure," the robot grumbled from the other side of the room.  "Not like this is keeping me from my real job or anything."

"You can go back to that once there isn't a man half-dead in here.  Let me know if anything changes."

He continued to mutter half-hearted threats as she walked through the Sink's main room and out onto the balcony.  Most of the Big Empty was dark and indiscernible on the other side of the shimmering blue forcefield.  The only other point of light was the Forbidden Zone, its distant red glow shining like a beacon in the crater's gloom.  Lucy leaned against a nearby metal post holding up the balcony roof and checked the time on her Pip-boy.

4:15 am

She tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes shut.  It was a godforsaken hour, and her head was just about swimming, but she finally had the time to breathe.  To think. Probably too much time, knowing her.

House rotted in his crypt, the Legion was headless and bleeding out somewhere east, and the NCR was too busy licking its wounds to do much for the time being.  New Vegas was hers.  The Mojave was hers, but it wasn't enough. It was never enough.  She always felt like she was still reaching for something. For a shadow, maybe.  For a ghost.  For a man, half-dead and comatose in her bed of all places.  Alive because a heart that'd once been hers now beat in his chest.

Lucy's eyes snapped open as the door to the Sink let out several loud clanks.  Looking over, she saw Ulysses standing in the doorway.  Though he'd pulled his duster back on, his shirt was still gone.  It'd been so burned up by the Gatling laser that she couldn't exactly blame him.  The incision scar on his chest looked better than it had when Doc had finished with him, but not by much.  Behind him, she could see Muggy trying to squeeze past his legs.

"You said to come tell you if anything changed," the robot called to her.  "This enough for you?"

"Muggy, go back inside," Lucy said.  Her eyes never left Ulysses.

"I told him to stop, but no.  Nobody ever listens to poor Muggy.  Why would they?"

"Muggy."

The little securitron stopped ranting.  He shot a quick look between the two of them before turning and rolling back into the Sink, mumbling, "Yeah, okay. Back inside I go."

The door clanked shut again behind him, leaving Lucy and Ulysses standing alone on the balcony.  For a while there was only silence as they watched each other.

"You shouldn't be out here," Lucy eventually told him, if for no other reason than to break the quiet.  "You've still got a ways to go before your chest heals over."

"Got questions."

"I bet you do, but they can wait until you're--"

"Saved my life," Ulysses said, cutting her off. "Why?"

She looked away and licked her chapped, dry lips, which only made them sting.  The lipstick coating them was almost gone.  Worn away like so much else back in that canyon.  What could she even tell him?

"'Cause I can still see the edge, I guess," she whispered, as she stared out across the darkness of the Big Empty. Ulysses stayed silent, but she hadn't expected him to say anything.  That's just the way it was with him.  All or nothing, thunder or dead quiet.  Shaking her head, she said in a louder voice, "Since you pretty much saved my life, I figured I'd return the favor."

He didn't respond for a long time, long enough that Lucy almost thought he wouldn't at all.  Then, "Never asked for your help."

She rolled her eyes and let out a small snort of laughter.  "You've said that already.  Look, if you want me to just zap you back to the Mojave right now, fine.  You're still pretty busted up, but it's your choice. I can't stop you and, frankly, I don't really care at this point."

"You're lying."

Lucy was taken aback by his abrupt reply.  She stared at him, dumbfounded.  "Excuse me?"

"You care, Decker," he told her, his voice full of far too much conviction for a man who'd just been at death's door.  "Could've run.  Would've, it was anyone else.  Know that much about you by now.  But you stayed, risked death in the Courier's Mile even when you had an escape. Something more than debt kept you."

Lucy felt something in her chest give a tight squeeze and quickly turned her eyes away again.  There were footsteps across the metal floor of the balcony as he walked over to her.  She didn't look at him.  Hell, she wasn't sure if she even could.  It wasn't until he spoke again that she realized just how close he'd come.

"And in that machine... you kissed me.  Can't help but wonder what that means."

Shit.  She'd hoped he'd been too out on Med-X to remember that.

"It didn't mean anything," she retorted with a harsh laugh.  "I've kissed a lot of men, Ulysses, and plenty of women, too.  You weren't the first, and you sure as hell won't be the last."

She could still feel his eyes on her, boring a hole into the side of her head, but she kept her own resolutely fixed on the black sky in the distance.  No, it hadn't meant anything.  It never did. So why did those words sound hollow, even to her?

"It was different.  You know it, too."

Lucy closed her eyes.  Different, he said.  He'd always been different.  Benny -- who should've had a fucking army ready when she came for him -- barely thought twice about being within arm's reach of her once she'd batted her lashes at him.  Elijah'd thought he could toy with her like she was some puppet whose strings he could pull.  Dean had, too, in his own way.  He should've realized something was wrong when he waltzed into Vegas and she was already there, waiting for him.  The Think Tank let her have free run of the Big Empty to do their dirty work, never once thinking she might find a loophole and come back for them.  Every one of them underestimated her, and every one of them paid for that mistake in their own fashion.

But not Ulysses.  He'd known exactly what she was capable of from the start, had been ready for it.  He saw right through her.  Lucy was sure he was seeing through her then, too.

When she woke up in Goodsprings, alive and angry, she'd been standing near some sort of metaphorical cliff.  By the time she followed Ulysses' transmission into the canyon, she hadn't just been walking toward it.  No, she'd been running, ready to throw herself off the edge and take anyone else she could manage down with her.  She'd wanted revenge on the man who shot her.  She'd wanted power when it got offered up.  Not once was she able to see past all the blood in her eyes.  Then she saw the Divide.  Everything she'd loved had been destroyed in that blast.  Being there again woke her up, showed her exactly what would happen if she kept going down that road.  Now Ulysses kept her off it.  Had been keeping her off it for the past three years.  She needed him.

But that wasn't it, though, was it?  The reason. The why of it all.  Not if she was being honest with herself, which was getting so much harder to do.  This wasn't about need so much as want.

Did she want him?  Oh yes, she did.  She wanted the way he made her feel.  Longed for it.  There was a comfort in his quiet she'd never known from anyone else.  And, if she was being really honest, she'd wanted him since that first fleeting glimpse of him back before the Divide went to hell.  A glimpse that'd almost made her hesitate. Almost kept her from going to the NCR to bring back the package that doomed the home they'd unknowingly shared.

She hadn't stopped then, but she'd managed to find her way back to him anyhow.

Lucy shook her head once to snap herself out of it. What was she thinking?  She couldn't be having this conversation. Not there.  Not with him.

"You know what?" she snapped as she put up her hands.  "Fine. If you won't go inside, I will."

She started to push past him, heading for the Sink's door.  Her head buzzed.  Her heart pounded.  Going outside had been a mistake after all.  Frankly, she'd rather fight a deathclaw -- or, hell, why not seven of them? -- than face whatever this was turning into.

"Lucy."

That made her stop.  She lurched to a halt and stood there, frozen.  When she tried to swallow, her her throat felt tight. Slowly, she turned back to face him. Ulysses' dark eyes were still on her, unblinking and far too focused.  Lucy could only imagine what she looked like at the moment.  Dark circles beneath her hazel eyes, lipstick rubbed to practically nothing, blonde curls hanging around her face in tangles. The Divide always knew how to unmake her, strip down her pretty defenses to the raw places that lay underneath. Or maybe that was just him. Either way, whatever he was seeing right then, it wasn't what the rest of the Mojave did.

"Means light," he went on.  He seemed to be mulling over the words as he spoke, considering them.  "Suits you."

A small frown tugged at her mouth.  She took a few slow steps toward him and asked, "Why's that?"

"Lights can blind.  Told you, once."

Lucy's frown deepened into a scowl.  If he was just going to berate her again -- for Vegas or her methods or whatever else he could think of -- she wasn't exactly in the mood at the moment.  But he wasn't finished.

"Lights can also make you see," he told her. "Made me see.  Took a long time to realize anger wasn't meant to be the answer -- not yours, not mine. More than that, too.  Tried for years to understand, and only now begin to grasp the why of it.  Spent too long chasing each other for all this to mean nothing."

It finally dawned on her that this wasn't an accusation.  It was a confession.

"You're a hard woman.  Hard to kill.  Hard to love."  He went quiet again.  Then he brushed the loose curls away from her forehead.  His fingers traced the scar that ran along her hairline and the puckered spot beneath it where Benny'd put a nine-millimeter into her skull.  In a solemn voice, he added, "Might try."

"Which one?" Lucy asked, feeling breathless.

"There a difference?"

The soft edge of a laugh escaped her. Ulysses' fingertips hadn't yet left her face, she'd noticed.  Instead they traveled down her jaw to curl beneath her chin.  She got the feeling that he was holding back, waiting, but when had she ever been one to hesitate?

Lucy grabbed the edges of his duster to pull him toward her and rose up onto tiptoe to kiss him. Even stretched out to her full height, it was barely enough.  Their lips barely brushed.  That is, until he gripped her thighs and hoisted her up into his arms, silencing her surprised gasp against his mouth.  His lips were chapped, but still.  Still.  He kissed her with enough hunger, enough fire, that it threatened to burn her from the inside out.  And she was more than ready to let it.  She wrapped her legs around his waist and reached up to hold his face between her hands. Her fingers scraped against the stubble along his jaw.

Was this what she'd been reaching for all this time?  The end of the road, the center of the spiral, the point of collision.  A light.  A ghost.  Two sides of the same goddamn coin, too caught up in their own trappings to face reality. A pair of Couriers with too much history to burn or to bury.

"Didn't walk through ash and hell to lose you now," Ulysses murmured.  His words held the rough edge of a promise.  Lucy knew he was big on those.

So she didn't mean it lightly when she answered back with, "Good luck getting rid of me."

She felt his heartbeat thundering in his chest. A heart that'd once been hers. Figuratively, literally... didn't really matter.  He'd stolen it from her, sure as hell, too long ago now to be certain of when it happened. Too quietly for her to notice it even happened at all.  That fact alone surprised her.

The bigger surprise was that she didn't care. Not if it was him.

[dcarsi-95]

Karate Krane

After quite a while of procrastination, how about I start with a project I’ve been meaning to get out there for a while? This one I named Karate Krane originally started out as a written novel, but as I began making illustrated pictures on what some of the characters look like, I later decided that they’d look a lot better in a comic of some sort — it was also supposed to be a single story, but I’ve lately been leaning towards making it a series instead.

The story owes it origin to a Kung Fu Panda fanfic I found some years ago called Within Her Grasp (the first second chapter should give ya’ll the gist of my story’s inspiration). With Tigress in said fanfic believing that “winged balls of feathers on stilts [aren’t] the stuff Kung Fu Masters [are] made of”, I couldn’t help but imagine Tigress and Crane in a similar situation as this moment here between Master Shifu and Po in the first movie, with Tigress shaming Crane on how scrawny he is where Shifu shames Po on how overweight he is; it was there that I thought it would make an amusing story to have a crane placed under the guidance of tiger martial arts master (much to the tiger’s chagrin) by said tiger’s master.

In a way, it started out pretty similar to the first Kung Fu Panda movie (I even had the idea that there might’ve been an antagonist similar in some ways to Tai Lung), except instead of Kung Fu, the crane was learning karate, and instead of taking place in ancient China it was to take place in a more modern time like the 1970s, though I’ve lately been considering making the timeframe even more modern for reasons I will delve into later.

The crane in my story is Chris Junichiro Kato, who is mostly whooping crane but has a heritage originating in Japan.

He’s, in reality, not as confident as he’s depicted in this here pic, at least, not at first. He’s actually quite timid and not the most assertive and even has a bit of a geeky side. In the story, he ends up applying or getting applied to some hardcore, heavy-duty martial arts academy, where most everyone is pretty muscular, which is why few of them see Chris as cut-out for it since he is so skinny, but he’s later able to make up for his lack of thew with his amazing reflexes. Not sure exactly how he ends up in this academy; probably either encouraged by friends and/or family who take notice of his remarkable reflexes or is assigned to a teacher there by another teacher who perceptive enough to see Chris’ potential, or is taken into the guidance of his assigned teacher under the request of said teacher’s daughter, who also sees Chris’ potential — I thought it would be a bit too much like Kung Fu Panda if it was because he was some prophesied “chosen one” destined to combat some former student who’s aiming to take revenge for some wrong done unto them like in the case of Tai Lung.

His teacher, of course, is a white tigress whom I’d originally named Master Hung Ga (because some sketchy research I did years ago on Chinese martial arts made some association with the tiger in a certain martial art by that name), although if she is teaches karate, I might want to make her of a more Japanese background, since karate is Japanese and the name Hung Ga is more Chinese in origin — I dunno, really… *shrugs* Although I’ve lately come to imagine her being Russian; I can easily picture her with a thick slavic accent.

Then there’s her daughter Michelle, a classmate of Chris’ on whom he has a crush on.

(Yeah, I know; she’s an orange tiger, whilst her mom is a white tiger, but y’know, her dad might’ve been orange as well) Originally, I pictured her being initially like how Astrid was to Hiccup in the first How to Train Your Dragon movie towards Chris, though not as cold and unattached and—at times—downright mean, more like pompously dismissing him in a typical high school popular girl kind of way. Lately, however, I’ve come to envision her more being a lot nicer to Chris, always willing to stand up for him when he’s unable to do so himself, and even encouraging him to do things most others would doubt he has the competence for (much like how Mei-Ling encouraged Crane to volunteer for the Lee Da Kung Fu Academy), and supporting him all the way. Personality-wise, she can be a tough cookie who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and while she does show some interest in girly things from time to time, she also has a tomboyish side, and even takes interest in things that would conversely gross Chris out; they sort of fall into the “Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy” trope that way — I’ve even imagined her trying to teach Chris how to spit, much like in that scene from Titanic! XD

She’s also got a number a friends including a snow leopardess, a kangaroo and a doberman pinscher, but those—along with Chris’ friends—are more minor characters that I’ll cover in future posts, though I do imagine the snow leopardess (I believe I named her Amy) also has a pretty nice personality and is also willing to lend support.

A couple of other characters I’ve recently thrown into this mix include an earthly manifestation of God in the form of a tricolored tetrahedron who goes by the name of Joe (for Jehovah, which, if I’m not mistaken, is an alternative to Yahweh) and a conical, bluish-purple/purplish-blue manifestation of the closest thing to the Devil (although I’m not sure he truly is the Devil) who probably goes by the name of either Stan (for Satan) or Lucie (for Lucifer). Again, I’m not sure he’s really the Devil or if him and Joe are just two manifestations of the two side of God’s nature (in the universe this story takes place in, I guess God has two natures: one’s more firmly adherent to what is absolutely moral, and the other isn’t afraid to bend the rules a little), two sides of the same coin.

Originally, it was going to be just Joe, who hangs around Chris, as well as other characters, as sort of a conscience and life coach, but I later decided to add Stan/Lucie (can’t quite decide which name) so that the two of them would be like Chris’ shoulder angel/devil duo, where Joe—though not all preachy and all that—advises Chris to “do the right thing” and gives advice with chiefly altruistic implications, whilst Stan/Lucie tries to tempt Chris to pursue somewhat more self-centered gratifications that may or may not slightly deviate from what is completely moral, and whilst the two of them do often butt heads with each other when it comes to guiding Chris’ actions they do sometimes call truces and work together — ultimately, while they usually don’t agree on how to do it, they both have Chris’ best interests at heart.

I designed Joe as a tricolored tetrahedron or three-sided pyramid as sort of a reference to the Holy Trinity, with his white fourth face symbolizing a unity between all three aspects of said Trinity, but also because his more angular shape symbolizes his strict adherence to the moral code, to do things “fair and square”, in contrast to Stan/Lucie, who of course is of a conical shape, and thus more circular in cross section, and tends to be more deviant. Of course, not wanting to be religion-specific, I do aim to make symbolic references to other religions to make Joe seem more unitarian, like I might have him and Stan/Lucie come together (if they really are but two sides of the same coin) and form a star of David, and sometimes even a yin-yang taijitu in reference to Taoism.

Although my story originally lends a lot of inspiration from KFP and was set in the 70s, lately, as I’d been also pondering on the depiction of his daily life of regular teenage pursuits, and as I listened to songs like Hey Mickey, Mony Mony, Another One Bites the Dust, Addicted to Love, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and all other sorts of songs from the album Rhino Instant Party Disc: Regular Strength (for those who don’t own the album, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is not included) as well as a number of more recent pop songs, I’d come to consider maybe pushing the story’s timeframe to a more recent date like the 80s or 90s, maybe even the 21st century, and that maybe instead of being about Chris’ struggles and trials in karate training, maybe it should instead focus more on his daily life in high school. There might still be a side plot in which Chris tries out some sort of activity in which physical strength is a standard, but instead of martial arts it might be something like rugby football (even though Chris is really not much of a sports kind of guy) because Michelle is involved in such a team herself, or maybe the school has a gym that includes a kick-boxing program, or maybe it also includes a karate program — whichever way, I think this story is going to focus a bit more on Chris’ teen life and a tad less on whatever physical he gets involved in, but I still think the latter’s still going to have some significant role in it. I dunno, I’ve run it all by my mom and she seemed to agree that this was a good change in direction, and we both agreed that the original storyline was a bit of a ripoff of KFP, but what do you guys think?

Do you like the changes I’ve made so far? Are you more in favor with the original storyline and think I’ve given it a sufficiently original twist? Do you like the characters I’ve shown so far? Have any ideas of your own that you’d like to add? What are your thoughts on it all? Please share your opinions with me, as I’d love to hear them. Thank you.

[rrrawrf-writes]

european mi

@gingerly-writing i’ve had this sitting in my wip folder for a while. it’s crap but whaaaaatevvvssss i’ll do some more later

“‘Team building exercises,’ Kit?” Eli asked, leaning against Nicolas’ desk as the door finally swung shut behind Heinrich. The first thing Kawai had done was announce that they all needed to go home and rest. With only three people manning this office, they were all clearly running short on stamina. Eli shuddered to think what their paperwork looked like right now. Apparently they had an intern who came in to organize their files, but it was only every few days, and anything truly incriminating or devastating had to be cleared away before they showed up. And the brunt of that seemed to fall to Heinrich - the poor kid had explained that Nicolas used to help, but when he got tired of Celeste not doing her fair share of paperwork, he stopped, too.

But - team building exercises. “You almost murdered Mickey last time director made us do something like that.”

“Yeah.” Kawai shrugged as she dropped into Celeste’s chair and started rummaging carelessly through her things. She shed her painfully fake country accent as quickly as she had taken off the hat and thrown it in a trash can. Eli picked it back out and stuck it on the back of a chair. “It’ll be hilarious, watching them go at it. Who actually needs this much makeup?”

“Your mom,” Eli said absently. He bumped his hip against Heinrich’s desk accidentally as he squeezed between it and the wall, shaking the mouse; the computer screen lit up from its screensaver. Eli hesitated when he noticed a little green light on the webcam attached to the top of the monitor

He laughed. Heinrich had been reluctant to leave, right up until Kawai started yelling at the three of them to get out or stay here and shred six months’ worth of documents. Eli leaned over and turned the webcam so that it pointed at Kawai. “Smile, you’re on candid camera.”

Kawai looked up, sneered, and flipped the webcam off. Eli disconnected it and shut the computer off. “You think they got anything else watching us?”

“Probably.” Kawai hesitated, scowled a little more deeply, and added, “Does this mean I have to ‘y’all’ it up while they’re gone?”

“I’ll give you a two percent raise for this job if you do.”

Kawai considered this for a moment, before remembering something. “Oh, screw you, Eli, you’re not in charge so you don’t get to add pay.”

He grinned at her. “And you can’t give yourself a raise as team lead, either. Suck it up, K-dog.”

“Do not call me that ever again.” Kawai leaned back, propping one of her boots up on Celeste’s desk. She had complained about every aspect of her outfit except the cowboy boots, Eli had noticed. He decided it would be better for his health and well-being if he didn’t mention that. Maybe he could get her to wear spurs. “Heinrich -” she pronounced the name easily “- seems solid. We could probably leave him out of all this crap, give him a break.”

“That’s mighty decent of ya, Miss Torres,” Eli said, trying out his Terrible Texan accent. He couldn’t quite manage it; he had spent most of his life in the states around the middle of the country, or up north. That was easy to mimic. No one really had an accent in Colorado (well, when you compared them to the rest of the US). “Dang. Maybe I should just speak Spanish.”

“Your Mexican Spanish is even worse than your Texan,” Kawai informed him. She’d always had an easier time with accents and languages, even if that was a talent she didn’t seem to care about. “They’ll peg you as a Spaniard in a second - speaking of which, why are you even bothering?”

Eli shrugged and grinned at her. If any of them bothered to check his employee record, they’d find out he definitely hadn’t been born in America, even if he had citizenship. “I figure if you have to suffer, then I can suffer, too.”

Kawai rolled her eyes and tapped away at Celeste’s keyboard, trying to guess her password until the computer kicked her out of the login screen. “You’re not suffering at all.”

“Nope.”

Heinrich had been told not to come back to the office until noon the next day, but he didn’t completely trust the two Americans not to have already burnt the place to the ground out of sheer incompetence. The chance to rest was a lot more welcome than he was willing to admit to anyone, but even so, he showed up at the cafe across the street two hours early and skulked about. Their building looked fine, so far, but maybe they had cracked the foundation, or shorted out their entire computer system.

He was still irritated that Eli had turned off his webcam.

It was eleven-thirty. Heinrich sighed, threw his fourth cup of coffee away, and gave up. No one was there behind the receptionist’s desk to meet him, but they hadn't had a secretary for a year now. Heinrich reached over the counter to press a button on the underside, letting himself into the main office.

The Americans had changed everything.

All the desks had been rearranged, the two empty desks from the corner dragged out into the center of the room, taking over Nicolas’ usual spot. Heinrich’s had remained, fortunately, untouched; the back third of the room was about six inches higher than the rest, and he had converted the entire spot into his own personal area. To Heinrich's dismay, though, the third empty desk from their storage closet had been dusted off and dragged onto the dais next to his.

Nicolas' desk had been shoved over, so that it was touching Celeste’s. They would have to sit face-to-face. And that was when Heinrich realized that the Americans wished to die.

He didn't see Kay anywhere, but Eli he found lying on the floor, feet up in an empty office chair, listening to ABBA, of all things, playing from his phone. The man had shed his hat and jacket, and Heinrich stared for a moment at his bright pink hair and the intricate flowers and vines tattooed down his thick arms.

Heinrich cleared his throat. “Mr. - Mr. Montoya,” he said, and was wondering whether he should nudge the man awake when Eli slit open his eyes.

Eli yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Shoot. Sorry, man, what time is it?”

“Eleven-thirty-six.” Heinrich moved back anxiously as Eli stood up, turning off his music. “Mr. Montoya, sir, you have to fix it -”

“Please don't call me sir. Or mister.”

“Uh - okay, mister - Eli,” Heinrich corrected himself, as Eli nudged his chair-turned-footrest back under one of the empty desks. “You can't do this.”

“Do what?”

Heinrich waved a hand helplessly towards his coworkers’ desks. “You can't put them together.”

Eli glanced at the desks, quirked a crooked grin, and lifted one shoulder. “That was Kay’s idea.”

“Well, it’s a terrible one,” Heinrich said. “I told you, they're not good together -”

“Aw, they’ll be fine,” Eli said carelessly. “It can't be that big a deal.”

Heinrich stared at him, but before he could explain why Eli was literally courting death, the harbinger of said imminent doom sailed through the door, twenty minutes early.

Celeste froze for a moment, coffee cup to her bright pink lips, one perfectly manicured pinky raised. Her eyes darted around the room, and Heinrich felt his stomach sink with every passing second of silence.

“What,” she finally said, her voice cool, crisp, and as sharp as her red-painted fingernails, “is this.”

Heinrich hurried himself to the relative safety of his desk. Eli, the idiot, leaned against Nicolas’ desk, his head tilted slightly to the side, eyes hooded, and a tiny little half-smile that suggested he not only expected this, but thought he was ready for it.

Well, he was wrong.

“It’s easier to work with your partner when you aren’t all the way across the room,” Eli said, and was about to go on when Celeste interrupted him.

“Put it back.” Her words were just as wintry as her smile, and neither of them had any effect on Eli.

“No.”

Celeste took in a long breath, but then the door opened before she could even get started. Kay entered not from the door that led outside, but the one that connected their main office with the back half of the building. Celeste’s eyes raked over the fitted blue jeans and the loose black shirt with a cow skull on it, framed by roses. It paused on what Kay held in her hand.

“What is that?”

Kay looked down at the gun in her hand. “I believe this is a Colt M1911A1,” she said blandly. “Or, in layman terms, what is known as a gun.”

Nicolas followed Kay into the room, scowling. Celeste narrowed her eyes at him; Heinrich was willing to bet she was irritated that she hadn’t turned out to be the first one back at the office, after all. “They’re having us take a shooting test,” Nicolas said in clipped tones, his hands crossed over his chest. Eli yawned and dropped down into a spare office chair. His momentum carried it halfway across the room. “Miss Torres, apparently, is unsatisfied with our recent firearm evaluation scores.”

“You bet your boots,” Kay said. Heinrich frowned; he thought he’d caught an undercurrent of self-loathing in her words. But maybe it was just disgust at their scores.

“But we all passed ours last time,” he said uncertainly.

Celeste sniffed and waved her hand. “Never mind that,” she said. “Nicolas, do you see this?” She flicked her perfect fingernails at the paired-off desks.

Nick gave a heavy sigh. “Don’t bother,” he said, “they won’t change it back.”

His words were perfectly calculated, Heinrich noticed, to prime Celeste for a tantrum. He almost regretted it, but at least this time, Celeste’s fury would be aimed towards a common enemy.

“I,” she seethed, “will not be seated next to that incompetent buffoon. I work best when I have privacy. Removing the careful balance of this room that we have cultivated over years will - why aren’t you listening to me!”

Eli looked up innocently from his phone, which was beeping softly with some kind of game. Kay had set her pistol down and was idly flipping through a sheaf of papers.

“When the two of you can beat me in a shooting contest,” Kay said, setting the paper down and tossing her hair over her shoulder, “you can sit wherever the hell you want. Until then, y’all are gonna get to work on the eco-terrorist paperwork. Henry, kiddo, it’s your turn.”

She pivoted neatly on her heel and stalked out of the room, while Celeste stared after. Heinrich hesitated, then shot her an apologetic shrug and followed. Nick sighed.

“Give it up, Celeste,” he said wearily. “You won’t be able to beat her. I’ve been trying for an hour.”

Celeste pursed her lips in one tight line. “Just watch me, ros bif.”

[badly-drawn-piplup]

Happiness Overload Chapter Fourteen

″So there's this village. I don't know where. Like Ireland, or something. It's gotta be Ireland because it's like a community in the forest and everyone believes in fairies. In fact, fairies ARE real. Everyone knows that, but only the children can see the fairies. When children play around outside, fairies are often there with them, playing along as well. Some pull tricks, some are quite nice and helpful.

″Every morning, the kids play and their fairies accompany them. It's, like, tradition, and tradition is everything in this village. Well, one kid, a wily brown haired kid. I'm not sure what his name is..Taz? Let's just go with Taz. It's easier. What? Why Taz? Look, I'm not good with making up names. It's not like there was a name given in the story.

″Anyway, this Taz kid was quite the troublemaker. Every other kid knew that. He was also a bit of a clown. Everyone expected him to do something funny. Pull some prank. And his accompanying fairy, an equally mischievous girl, was always inspiring him to do some thing or other. One day while the kids where chasing each other with sticks, Taz's fairy whispers in his ear.

″'hey everyone will be impressed if you can steal the large diamond from the museum'.

″So that's where we're at. He really wants to impress the other kids. What? Look, I don't know. There can be museums in an Irish village. Please stop interrupting.

″Okay, as I was saying: he decides late at night he'll go into the museum and capture the diamond. Seems like quite a feat, right? A kid stealing a diamond when there's lasers and security cameras. What? There can be lasers and security cameras in a village. It's not exempt to that. This isn't so rural that that stuff doesn't exist. Anyway, the fairy helps Taz steal the diamond by diverting the attention of the cameras. The fairy creates these illusions, little specks of dust, but in a single moment, they look like humans.

″Maybe the alarms should have gone off if the cameras saw something that looks like humans. But no, that's not what cameras do. You know that already, don't you? It's the lasers that trip the alarms. The cameras just watch things. It records it and later there will be a record. Now the trouble with the lasers is another matter entirely. I don't actually know how it was done. Probably careful calculation or something. The fact of the matter is, Taz stole the diamond and walked out scot-free.

″The next day, Taz went up to all the other kids and showed off the diamond. The fairy cackled while Taz reveled in his short burst of fame, unknowing that showing off the large diamond was his downfall. Just as soon as he showed it off, a police car came and arrested him.

″'Please help me get out of this situation!' He begged his fairy. But instead, the fairy shook her head and grinned.

″'Sorry, kid, but you're on your own. Shouldn't have gotten caught.'

″So just like that, the kid gets thrown in the van and gets sent to juvenile hall.

″No. That's not the end of it. It's not over. Just wait.

″After years of serving time in juvie, the kid gets out and instead of learning his lesson, becomes a full fledged thief. He has no home to go to and instead moves to a city far away, where he can hone his skills. Living off of stolen food in the day time and going for higher end things in the night.

″The city where he moves to is one where at any given time, it's a different season. Time works on a different axis than most places, and it could be hot and snow within the same hour. It's a place which gives him a purpose, this Taz kid. He lives for such an adventure.

″As for his fairy, which as you know, when a kid grows up, they can no longer see fairies. For some reason this doesn't apply here. Taz can still see his. His fairy has a name, her name being Euphoria, but he calls her Euphy, for short. Euphy travels with him, stalking items to lay claim to day by day.″

″What? That's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard,″ I gave my honest opinion of Blanc's whole dream story. Light constructive criticism goes a long way. ″When you're telling a story, you don't want to go in first person, first of all. It just breaks the narrative. You're the narrator. Just let the story be told.″

″It's a dream!″ Blanc shot back. ″What do you expect?″

″That's no excuse. Just because it's a dream doesn't mean you have to make it sound so bad. Exaggerate! Elevate it! Make it something better!″

Blanc groaned.

″Hey! What's with that groan?″

″It was your idea in the first place...″ they replied, arms crossed, head turned.

″It was okay for a first try,″ I tried to reassure, lift their spirits up.

″I thought it was pretty cool!″ Art chimed in. ″It probably meant something! Maybe it signified your past or your future!″

″Shut up!″ I pointed to Art. ″What kind of name is 'Euphoria', anyway? Let alone 'Euphy'? Such a terrible name for a fairy.″

Blanc looked startled. Hurt for some reason. Right on the spot, I regretted what I had said.

″I take that back. It's unique. I doubt I'd have come up with a name for a fairy like that. I'd probably have given it something like 'Basil' or 'Clover'. Those are stupider names. I'm already cringing and those are names I made up!″

″Let's see you do better, Satin!″ Art egged. He thought he was being so clever, putting me on the spot, but I saw it as a perfect opportunity.

″Yeah, show us how it's done,″ muttered Blanc. I thought for sure I would have cheered them up. I think they cracked a smile, but it was hard to really say. I was in my zone. I cracked my knuckles a bit and stretched my arms, although I worried of elbowing someone. Couldn't be too rowdy in this car.

″With pleasure,″ I announced.

″Three friends attended high school together, going about their day to day wondering what might come of their future. At the start of the day, they would take their seats next to the window during homeroom. One particular day started just as most did. All the students shuffled into the classroom, their noisy little selves, and sitting where they always have. The homeroom teacher took attendance.

″'Blanc Slait?' She read.

″'Not here,' Blanc replied.

″'Conrad?' She read next, and for some reason didn't read off a last name.

″Conrad didn't respond at first. The teacher called again.

″'Roll call is a fundamental obstruction of student rights and aims to oppress us all,' Conrad finally responded with.

″The teacher sighed. 'I'll take that as a 'here'.'

″Velvet was the last of the three friends, but the teacher only had to look at her to know she was here. That was because despite sitting next to the window, she sat toward the front of the class, and not in the back.

″'Now that that's out of the way, the teacher began with a sigh. 'I'd like to introduce our new student, Violet'

″Violet was stunning. The most beautiful girl to ever step foot in that high school. Hell, the most beautiful girl on Earth. She walked in wearing a tuxedo, leggings, and a top hat. It was reminiscent of those magicians' assistants. The kind that got chopped in half, but they weren't really chopped. They were okay. Every. Damn. Time. Kind of a ripoff, really. But you're glad in this case because damn it, Violet had the air about her that just screamed 'you deserve not to be chopped.' Yeah, she was that kind of dream girl, alright.

″Violet took a bow. 'Nice to meet you, everyone!' She then did a little thing with her fingers that entranced the audience, and out of nowhere, a ball of water danced across her fingers, forming different shapes before dissolving and disappearing. She grabbed a tissue out from her pocket just to point out that her hands were dry. It was amazing.″

″After everyone was speechless, minus the teacher who just whispered under her breath 'fuckin' showoff', Violet took another bow and walked toward the back of the class. But not toward the window, but instead the only open seat available: in the middle of the back row. It was as if even in the back, she was the center of attention.″

″'Impressive, but I'm going to have to ask you to not wear your hat in the classroom,' the teacher scolded Violet. She just smiled and shrugged, picking her hat off from her head and placing it under her desk. From underneath, her long purple hair could be seen by all.″

″During lunch, all the kids would try to gather around Violet, some wanted to hit on her, some wanted to see her do magic tricks. The idea that she could manipulate water like that, it seemed like it came straight out of a fantasy novel. She paid no mind to advances, and made no friends. Although she was the center of attention, all she wanted to do was put on a show and nothing more. She never revealed her secrets to anyone.″

″Of course, the three students next to the window, Blanc, Conrad, and Velvet, were also interested in her. Well, not Conrad. He couldn't care less. He rambled on about how he couldn't trust her and how she was probably an agent for the Illuminati or some shit like that. But Blanc and Velvet? They were head over heels. The two wanted to make friends with Violet they wanted to know what she knew.″

″And guess what? Violet already knew this. Call it psychic powers or intuition, but when Blanc and Velvet approached Violet, she was already prepared. She stuck her index finger up into the air, then pointed at the two of them. 'I can tell what your intentions are!' She declared. 'You two want to know my secrets, and you already know that I can't reveal them!'″

″Blanc and Velvet sighed in unison. They had been caught. However, Violet continued her spiel.

″'That's because there is no secret! I can teach you what I know, but there is nothing magical about it! Water is everywhere, in everything. You cannot control it, but you can learn to work with it!'

″Neither Blanc nor Velvet understood Violet's words, but they nodded anyway, too enchanted to argue.″

″Thus, every day at lunch, it was settled that the three would meet at the fields and Violet would teach the two the ways of water. She insisted on meeting up with them individually, so it would usually be that Blanc would get 15 minutes, then Velvet the other 15 minutes. As things went along, the two practiced and practiced, competing with each other to have a better grasp over the water utilizing techniques and one day hope to impress Violet.″

″More so Velvet, even. It could be said that Velvet was in love with Violet. No, scratch that. She was definitely in love with Violet. No 'could' about it. She decided that no matter the outcome of this competition, she had to tell Violet how she really felt about her. 'Tomorrow, I will,' Velvet vowed.

″But that day never came. The next day, Violet was nowhere to be found. There was a black armored truck parked outside of the school. As Blanc, Conrad, and Velvet, along with the rest of the students took their seats, the teacher had to break the news.

″'Class, I regret to inform you that Violet was assassinated by the FBI. They haven't given the cause, only that she had to go.″

″Wow,″ was my initial reaction. Not because her dream, or her story, whatever it should be called, was good, but because I was left speechless. ″Why did she have to die?″

″Tragedy is a recurring theme in my life,″ Velvet retorted.

″Yeah, but it was a dream!″ I protested. ″There was no reason for that! I thought you of all people would have had her live!″

″I didn't want to stray too far from the dream. Otherwise you two wouldn't believe that's how it happened. Sure, I'd love a happy ending, but that's not what happened in the dream, now is it? We're not telling stories we just made up, we're talking dreams, here, people,″ she tried to explain. I wasn't satisfied, but I didn't want to argue the point further. I huffed and crossed my arms.

″I liked it!″ Art commented. Of course Art liked it. Something told me Art would have liked any story. Not that that's a bad thing, but it really rubbed me wrong when he dismissed me trying to describe Euphoria. ″Who were you in it, Satin?″ He continued, asking a question with an obvious answer. ″Conrad? Blanc? Violet herself?″

Velvet laughed and fanned herself. ″Oh my! I think I was probably the teacher! Or maybe I was a student with no role in the story!″

″What? Really?″ Art asked. I would have asked the same, but there would have been a different connotation if I had asked it.

″Now that I think of it, I probably wasn't even a character. More like I was an all seeing God, looking in. Watching the whole thing unfold. All seeing, but powerless to change things.″

″That's so deep!″ Art gasped.

If I never encountered Etna I would think you're the biggest bullshitter alive, the thought crossed my mind. How Velvet could get away with saying all this was beyond me, and yet...I was a little amused. I couldn't help but smirk, just a little.

″You know, I'm glad I'm taking this trip with you guys. It's really relaxing!″ I told the others after letting out a sigh of relief. My feet kicked around a bit under my seat and hit a box. I looked down to see that it was a box of fruit snacks. Something came over me, a flurry of emotions in the air. Contentment was fine for just a moment, but this was something else altogether.

″Whoa! Art, you got fruit snacks?″ I asked, my excitement getting the better of me.

″Yeah, help yourself!″ Art encouraged, and so I opened the box and took out a small bag.

″Gee, I haven't had these since...″ I didn't finish the sentence, remembering that I was a clone and all and that my memories were not my own. ″Well, I haven't had these in forever!″ I exclaimed and grinned.

″Look! This one is in the shape of a strawberry!″ I showed Velvet, then threw it in my mouth. I chewed it a bit and it actually tasted like a strawberry in jelly candy form, or at least what I thought strawberries tasted like.

″Okay, dude. That's a little weird. They're just fruit snacks, kid,″ Velvet dismissed.

Velvet just didn't understand. Truth be told, neither did I, but it's like when there's strong emotions, it's best to ride the wave.

″HEY, MIND IF I HAVE SOME?″ A voice beside me asked.

I didn't even look over, I just smiled and passed some over.

″Sure, help yourself!″

When Blanc opened the box of fruit snacks, I felt a darkness envelop the car. We must have gone through a tunnel, except there were no tunnels. It was an open highway with little to see on either sides. But it was in the day time. The only darkness was inside the car, and the source of the darkness was emanating from this mysterious girl that appeared in the backseat next to Blanc with no explanation.

At first it was just a little weird how excited Blanc was about something that would have made up my diet on any given day. I looked over when they showed me the strawberry shaped jelly, then looked ahead. It was only when I heard the voice when I looked back again.

″HEY, MIND IF I HAVE SOME?″ The voice yelled, but in that voice you might have heard from a squad of cheerleaders at a high school football game.

I turned around and this blonde haired figure in some cheap angel costume was acting all buddy-buddy with ol' Blanc here, patting their head and grinning. She reached her hand and fished some fruit snacks, munching on them and chewing with thunderous fervor.

″THESE ARE SO GOOD! IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY! I'M SHARING FOOD WITH YOU!″ She cheered, food in her mouth, not yet swallowed.

I was just left to stare, not able to reach any other reaction.

What if I opened the car door right now? What if I jumped out, but held onto the handle? Would I enjoy the thrill, the rush? What kind of dangers could it cause? These thoughts raced with no explanation, let alone control.

She turned her head, locked eyes with me. Her eyes piercing, even if her expression should have signified some sense of calm or peace. Bright, glowing, wide, toothy grin.

Yeah, I should. I think I would like that.

I clicked and held on tight, a rush of air shot in just as I did so. Such an act was so unlike me, but I already started and something was telling me that this was what I wanted.

″Velvet! What are you doing?″ Art or Blanc yelled, but despite the difference in their voices, I couldn't make out who from who. My mind was elsewhere, wherever it was.

The hinges tore off and the door, along with me, were sent flying. Whatever came over me was starting to leave, as I tucked my legs in just before the door hit the ground. I couldn't stop what I had already done, but I could try to lessen the damage.

With each skip and bounce off the road, the metal frame of the door dented and I felt every impact. My ankles felt the scrapes against the metal sides, tearing through my flesh. Funny to think that could have been the thing to do me in. Everything I've ever dealt with and it didn't compare to something so simple as flying off with a car door.

It all came to a halt. Short rolls away from the damaged door, into the soft dirt. I was alive, but if I were to live for another day, I would definitely be feeling it the next morning. With a trembling, barely able to move, I inched myself up and saw my surrounding; the car not too far from where I had left it. No longer were we in the plains of the Nevada highway, however, and instead in a dense forest. One that I was unfamiliar with.

″Just what are you?″ I whispered, and buried my face back into the ground.

″Whoa! A real life cryptid! My life is complete now!″ I was astonished to see this, this thing, whatever it was. Well, it looked human enough. Sounded human enough, but no human just appears in the back seat of my car without my knowledge. It must be some otherworldly sorcery.

″Really? You think this is the right time?″ Blanche snapped. ″Velvet just hurtled herself out of your car! We should check on her!″

″Velvet? Don't you mean Satin?″ I puzzled over.

″Fuck! Never mind that! Just stop the damn car!″ Blanche roared. I never thought someone so easy going would be in such a rage.

I should have done it then and there, but nothing else mattered. If that made me irredeemable, so be it, but I was fixed on this specimen.

I can finally die happy, those were my thought, echoing. In response, another thought emerged.

But what death would make you happiest?

I would like to see a tree again. I would like to be surrounded by trees and meadows. Begone with the road, I want the air of pines and bark.

SYCAMORE!

Blanche's shape jumped out of the way just in time. I wished they could have stayed, shared the experience with me. My last moment was a moment of impact: my car and I meeting with a sycamore tree, head on. Just before, I thought just a little more.

This is it. I have reached euphoria.

[weisswinds]

my final submission for @owbigbang, partnered with @aiqaire!

mirrored on AO3, A Beast’s Gift

summary - The world has been corrupted, lost to a plague of beasts. Humanity has been driven back to a few scattered cities, desperately searching for a cure. When Amelie is lost to the plague, Lena must race against her own clockwork heart to save what she can of the one she loves.

Lena inched forward on her stomach, her progress to the edge of the stone outcropping painfully slow. She looked over the edge, gaze falling on charred ruins, the ashes long cold. A pack of beasts prowled the area. She silently counted a dozen Wolves, lithe and powerful as they stalked on all fours. Tarlike saliva dripped from gnashing teeth.

“Where oh where?” she murmured into the grimy yellow scarf about her mouth.

A group of this size had to have a Packmaster, a greater Beast binding the others’ will to their own. Before long the Packmaster revealed itself, a hulking humanoid covered in coarse bristles and emanating a dark mist. Tracer clicked her tongue in dismay. She had hoped for a smaller target.

“Never lucky,” she grunted, pushing herself into a crouch.

Lena began the routine check of her gear. A boltcaster hung over her shoulder, a long silver gun resembling an alloy crossbow. Its limbs were swept back and angular. The steel bolts it fired were accelerated along the length of the caster by a series of electromagnets. There was a low powered scope atop the weapon, and a rectangular bolt magazine on the underside. Beneath the barrel was a sturdy, short blade. It was immensely powerful, a common weapon for hunters and town guards alike. She had a sidearm holstered, a pistol version of the boltcaster. Two broad daggers were sheathed at the small of her back, under her long coat. She had throwing knives at her ankles, and an assortment of bombs in various belt pouches. A lance of pain through her chest made Lena pitch forward suddenly, steadying herself with a hand on the ground.

Lena winced as she always did when her hand went over the device strapped to her chest, under all her layers. She patted the center of her chest gingerly before undoing one of her shirt buttons to reach inside. After a moment of fumbling with the device she undid a small latch and began twisting. The muffled sound of clockwork mechanism came with relief from the pain. There was a slightly louder report as the winding mechanism she turned locked into place, task complete She hadn't noticed her breathing quicken until it slowed.

“Clock’s a ticking,” Lena muttered with a bitter smile.

Lena looked through the scope, lining her view with the Packmaster. The beast swatted casually at a pair of Wolves that wandered too close. She took a calming breath and held it, preparing to fire. The crosshair lingered briefly on its head before Lena targeted lower, aiming for its knee. Lena exhaled slowly. Her trigger finger twitched. The sound of the shot cracked the relative quiet of the gloom. Lena’s aim proved true, with devastating effect. The Packmaster’s leg was severed, and it fell roaring with pain. Tar-like blood oozed from the wound. The other Beasts flew into a connected rage, responding to their master's anguish with bloodlust. Lena didn't waste time, already lining up another shot. A crack, a Wolf fell. As the leaderless pack began to scatter, Lena started missing shots.

“Patience, cherie .” A memory of a voice, unbidden, reminded her.

She clicked her tongue in annoyance, flicked the safety on and slung the rifle back over her shoulder. Lena turned to the steep hill that led to her vantage point, surefooted on the treacherously craggy ground. She made her way quickly, and turned as the path led to the village ruins. The huntress armed herself, one of the twin daggers in her left hand, boltpistol in her right. As she approached the burnt buildings, the fallen Packmaster spotted her through the remains of a house’s foundation. It loosed a piercing howl, freezing the scattered Wolves in their tracks. They turned their heads in unison at Lena. An unbearably long second later, the pack howled as one and sprang into action. Lena set her eyes on the closest Wolf, the distance between them closing in a heartbeat. She ducked under its initial pounce, firing two shots into its belly as it sailed overhead. The beast fell hard, and rolled to a stop. Lena dispatched the next with a single shot, much more confident in her aim at close quarters.

Another howl met Lena’s ears, the remaining wolves stopping suddenly. Lena’s heart sank when she saw the Packmaster walking towards her, eyes glowing red with bloodlust. Its wound was completely healed, the severed limb appearing completely unscathed. She took full measure of the hooked claws tipping each finger, and the rippling muscle. A single hit from the Packmaster could be the end for an unwary hunter. It roared again, and the Wolves slunk into the shadows, clearing the way.

Lena struck first, firing as quickly as the pistol would allow. The Packmaster was experienced, already having locked its broad forearms together to block. She fired until the weapon was empty, discarding it and reaching towards her boot with one motion. When the Packmaster parted its arms, Lena flung her throwing knife. The beast slumped forward, the blade buried in its skull.

“Never lucky,” Lena muttered, watching from a short distance.

The flesh around the knife began to twist, pushing back against the weapon. Before long it clattered to the ground, and the beast rose with renewed fury. While it roared, Lena threw another knife. This one found its mark in the middle of the Packmaster’s throat, silencing its cry. It made a stricken gurgle as Lena sprinted forward, wielding both broad daggers and a fierce glint in her eye. She jumped forward, sinking the blades into the beast’s chest on either side of its heart. She clung with a tenuous grip as the Packmaster fell backwards, landing hard and rattling her teeth. Job incomplete, Lena set to work quickly. She carved at the Packmaster’s chest, hacking through the dense flesh to reveal a still beating heart. Lena cut carefully around the organ, took a firm hold, and ripped it out. As soon as the heart was removed, the Packmaster’s body began to disappear, drying and cracking to dust.

After watching to ensure the pack scattered, Lena examined her prize. The heart looked normal for the most part, but growing from its surface was a jagged black crystal. The mineral generated an immense amount of energy when processed, and served as the primary fuel for every Coil. Lena removed the crystal, discarding the rest.

“Good find,” she said with a grin, “And one less nasty out here.”

She felt a sudden lonely pang, and heaved a sigh. “And a step closer to finding you, Amelie.” As she spoke Lena reached towards the boltcaster, wishing again to have its owner by her side instead.

Lena set off towards town, letting her mind wander to happier times, before she’d lost Amelie. She had a faint smile on her face, letting herself be swept along in the memory. The dusty, barren landscape gave way to warm weather and pleasant company.

Lena reached up as she entered her room, fingers barely brushing the door frame. She left the door cracked as she removed her gear. The desk in the far corner, empty when she entered, was soon covered in blades, belts, and various weapons. She ran a hand over her buttoned shirt, feeling the ticking device strapped underneath. A heavy sigh escaped her. Lena was used to the clockwork heart Winston had devised to save her life, but the constant reminder of her failing was a heavy weight to bear.

A knock at her window snapped her to attention before the melancholy could set in. Lena couldn't help but laugh; there was only one person who would knock at a third story window. She crossed the room quickly, unlocking the window and flinging it open. Just below, Amelie hung by one hand, checking the nails of her free hand nonchalantly.

“Going to let me in?” she asked without looking up.

Lena hunched over, elbows on the windowsill and her chin in her hands. “Oh, let me think about it.”

“Don't hurt yourself, cherie.”

“No promises,” Lena said, grinning as she stepped away from the window.

She hastened to tame her wild hair into some semblance of order before Amelie pulled herself up, ever graceful. Amelie took her cheeks in both hands, kissing the top of Lena’s head, then her lips. Lena wrinkled her nose at Amelie. She tossed herself into bed, laying on her back and watching Amelie.

“You wanna use the door next time, weirdo?”

“And walk up those stairs? What do I look like?”

“Someone who climbs buildings for fun won't take the stairs?”

“You leave my building climbing out of this,” Amelie mocked a stern tone, hands on her hips. By then she had covered the other half of the desk with her boltcaster rifle and other gear. She laid her coat over the back of the chair, next to Lena’s. Lena pulled her legs up as Amelie approached the bed, clearing the way for her to sit down. She gently put her legs on the other woman’s lap, hoping for-

“You’re not getting a leg massage, you know?”

Lena made a vague noise of distress, “What’d I do?”

Amelie held up three fingers. “Three times! Three times you got in my shot today.”

“Well, shoot better!”

“Shoot...better…?”

Lena mimed holding a rifle, ‘firing’ at Amelie with sound effects, “Yeah, ya know. Better.”

“Goodness, Lena, I never once considered improving my skills. Where did you get that idea?”

“The sarcasm is not pretty, love.”

“Oh hush, you know we’re both pretty,” Amelie stretched her hands for a moment before setting to work massaging Lena’s calves. She turned towards Lena, keeping one foot on the ground and the other folded beneath her as she worked.

Any response Lena had coming was lost under the sigh of blissful relief. Amelie smiled and continued, working the muscles with well practiced ease. Within minutes Lena was beginning to drift off, and Amelie’s smile turned into a mischievous grin. She moved her hands up Lena’s thighs, rubbing them up and down slowly and methodically. Lena let out a barely audible moan, which only served to make Amelie’s grin widen. She sighted her target, a small exposed strip of skin between Lena’s shirt and belt, and prepared to move in for the kill.

“Lena?” she said, layering as much sweetness into her voice as she could.

“Mm?” Lena didn’t even open her eyes. She was making this far too easy.

In a flash Amelie thrust her infamously frigid hands up Lena’s shirt and onto her stomach. She yelped and practically flew out of bed and across the room, staring at Amelie breathlessly.

“Why are you like this!” her tone was exasperated, but playful as she sat down facing Amelie from a safe distance with her legs crossed.

“You chose to love a building climbing, frozen handed temptress, not me.”

Lena crossed her arms and turned up her nose with the most indignant “Hmph!” she could muster. Amelie scooted closer to Lena, putting her hands on her knees and leaning close.

“Come now cherie, you can’t stay mad for long or I’m no huntress.”

Lena’s frown was already breaking, as was her will to look anywhere but at Amelie mere inches away.

“Full massage!” Lena blurted suddenly.

Amelie blinked, and pulled back. She left her hands on Lena’s legs, tracing idle patterns with her thumbs.

“What?”

“I will forgive you after a full massage,” Lena explained, finally looking at Amelie with a toothy grin.

“Are you sure?” Amelie raised one hand and wiggled her fingers, “You did call me Icefinger for a week.”

Lena’s cheeks reddened, immediately flustered by the memory. “T-that was different! Anyway, that’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”

Amelie appeared to consider her options. And considered. And considered. She spent almost a full minute internally ‘debating’ until Lena’s patience ran out, and she pulled Amelie into a sloppy kiss. Amelie laid her on her back gently as they kissed, then planted a trail of pecks down Lena’s cheek, jaw, and neck. She laughed lightly, looking down at her partner.

“What? Why’d you stop?” Lena asked.

“I told you you wouldn’t stay mad.”

“You just have to say it, huh?” Lena rolled her eyes and hit Amelie with the nearest spare pillow.

“Well if I don’t, how will you know?”

“Shut it, love,” Lena muttered, pulling Amelie back down.

Lena snapped back to the present as King’s Row came into view. It was one of a few cities humanity had been pushed back to. With the beastplague corrupting the land itself, cities like this one were all they had left. From a distance one could see the towering Coil, a massive spire with metal rings running up and down its length. Arcs of electricity danced their way along it, and even from her distance Lena could hear it’s constant thrum of power. Smaller coils dotted the city, supplying power to surrounding areas. Lena walked faster towards the walled city.

Before long, she approached the heavy gate, opened wide enough to allow one person through. A sleepy guard waved her through, a little annoyed she’d bother to check in at all. She entered the city, humming quietly. The buildings were tightly packed, and tall. With such limited space, they had to be constructed to fit as many people as possible. Lena waved to a few people she recognized on the street as she hustled through the residential district. The constant thrum of the coils always put her off when she returned from a hunt, but it quickly faded into background noise. Soon, she hoped, she’d be able to do the same with the ticking of her clockwork heart.

She made her way through the narrow streets to an industrial zone. Large warehouses, factories, and labs dominated the landscape, along with several extra coils for the additional power they required. The lab she was looking for was nondescript enough, somewhat smaller than the ones it nestled between. Even so, the coil atop its roof spoke volumes of the lab’s owner. Standing outside her destination, Lena absently touched her coat pocket where she kept the crystal won from the packmaster. She reached into her shirt, giving her heart’s dial a small twist before opening the heavy door.

The entry hallway was separated from the lab proper by another door, which Lena knocked on. A moment later she knocked again, insistently. She stopped when she heard heavy footsteps approaching. The lab’s owner was speaking as the door opened.

“You only have to knock once, how many times have I told you?”

The scientist standing in the doorway was hunched over, but still much taller than Lena. His face, probably handsome once, was disfigured. Half of his face was fine, the skin of the other half seeming too tight for his skull. His skin was discolored, ranging from stark white to mottled dark grey. His eyes were blue, one cloudy and nearly blind.

“Winstoooonnnnnn!” Lena hopped from foot to foot, unable to hide her excitement from her friend.

“Oh, come on in I suppose,” Winston remarked, Lena already having ducked under his shoulder to enter the lab.

Winston’s work areas were pristine, all of his complicated looking machinery kept in perfect condition. The hum of energy was constant. Lena made her way to a nearby table, carefully pushing a rack of flasks out of the way for her to sit. The multicolored liquids within wouldn’t be volatile, she reasoned, otherwise Winston wouldn’t have them just out like that. The scientist had long since learned to keep anything remotely dangerous far from anywhere Lena was likely to be.

“I think I’ve got it this time!” she spoke quickly, reaching into her pocket for the black crystal. She held it between her thumb and index finger.

Winston carefully took it from her, letting it rest in his palm and running a nail along its surface. He took a long moment to sniff it, while Lena watched with a distasteful look.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Winston said without looking at her.

“I wasn’t!”

“You always are when I do this,” Winston continued, then turned to a free desk.

He set the crystal down, and Lena watched  him work with a sad frown. Winston was, by all accounts, the most brilliant scientist in King’s Row. Perhaps the world, but there was no way to find out with how isolated they were. After an accident exposed him to the beastplague, he somehow managed to halt his own corruption. It left his body wracked with problems, but his mind was as sharp as ever. When Lena was at death’s door, he devised the clockwork heart that let her keep going. He was the only one that might be able to help her save Amelie. The crystal she brought, Lena hoped, would be the final piece.

“This is remarkable quality,” Winston said after a long examination.

Lena grinned, drumming on her thighs excitedly.

“Good enough?”

“As good as we’re going to get, I think,” Winston looked at Lena.

He stared until she finally asked, “What?”

“You know this is an insane plan?”

“You’ve told me that every time I bring you a stupid rock.”

Winston seemed taken aback, “They aren’t stupid rocks these are-”

Lena let her eyes glaze over as Winston launched into an explanation of the complicated forces behind the crystals. She snapped back to attention when he cleared his throat.

“You weren’t listening to any of that,” his tone made his words into a statement of fact.

Lena grinned and shook her head, “Make it more interesting, maybe.”

Winston pointed at the door as he spoke, “Go take a walk or something. Come back later and I’ll be done with this ridiculous idea.”

Lena hopped down from the table, huffing indignantly. “No more ridiculous sounding than stopping a plague in your own body! Maybe if you tell me that story, I’ll listen.”

“Go on,” Winston gestured to the door again, the annoyance in his tone betrayed by his half smile.

Lena left the lab with a newfound resolve, a confident bounce in her step. She set out towards the local hunter’s building, planning to get some rest while Winston worked. As she approached the large building, a broad shouldered man with white hair and scars exited. A heavy boltcaster hung across his back, and a pair of swords at his hip. Lena waved at him, calling out.

“Heading off again 76?”

He nodded almost imperceptibly, then spoke in a quiet rasp. “Excuse me.”

Lena watched him go, and shrugged. That was about as much anyone expected from him, so she wasn’t put off by his terseness. He was something of a living legend. He headed out alone on a weekly basis, returning for one day of rest before leaving again. He claimed to refuse to return until at least 76 Packmasters fell to his bolts or blades.

Lena entered the building. The ground floor was a tavern of sorts, with tables and other furniture scattered around. Hunters at rest usually made their way here. Some, like Lena, paid for the privacy of one of the upstairs rooms. After exchanging greetings with a few fellow hunters, Lena made her way upstairs to her room. She hesitated a moment before pulling the door open. A sigh escaped her as she removed her jacket, tossing it on the back of the desk chair, and began setting her weapons on the desk. She kicked her boots off, and fell into bed, asleep almost immediately. As she drifted off, her mind played the usual nightmare.

“You’re sure?” Lena murmured, squatting next to the prone Amelie.

Amelie looked down the sights of her boltcaster through a magnifying eyepiece, and nodded. The two were a short distance inside a dead treeline, looking at the ruins of a small outpost. A packmaster walked between the buildings alone, with no other beasts in sight.

“They’re never alone,” Amelie muttered. “But I don’t see any others.”

“Sleeping in the buildings?” Lena offered with a weak laugh.

Amelie gently punched the side of Lena’s thigh.

“That’s my running leg, how could you,” Lena said with mocking dismay.

“I put a great deal of effort into not shooting you, cherie . You wouldn’t want my focus to slip, would you?”

Lena thought back to the many ‘warning shots’ Amelie had sent within a foot of her, and shook her head. “No thank you.”

“Make another circuit of the outpost. Just make sure there aren’t any hiding in the buildings,” Amelie said cooly.

“So you do think they might be in there? Why’d you hit me then?”

“Beasts don’t sleep, don’t be stupid. Are you gonna go or not?”

Lena stood up straight, muttering, “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Thank you dearie.”

Lena set off at a brisk run, circling the outpost while staying mindful of where the Packmaster was. She dropped into a crouch, continuing slowly when she saw it emerge from between two buildings. Lena was on the opposite side of the outpost now, directly across from Amelie with the Packmaster between them. She froze when it stopped, turning its gaze straight at her. It loosed a piercing howl, cut short by Amelie firing. Her bolt took a large chunk from the Packmaster’s stomach, and it fell temporarily dead.

Lena wasted no time on a stealthy approach, running towards the Packmaster. Her plan to fully dispatch it before it rose again was cut dismally short, as a dozen Wolves began clawing their way up from the ground.

“Oh that’s just unfair,” Lena exclaimed, drawing a bolt pistol and one of her daggers.

Amelie was already firing as fast as the boltcaster would allow, but more and more Wolves clawed their way up from the barren earth. Lena set to work, firing and hacking her way through the Wolves. Many died before even emerging fully, falling dead like the most grim plantlife. Lena ran through the bulk of the Wolves, cutting across the outpost towards the still shooting Amelie. They seemed directionless without a Packmaster, but that was only temporary. The large beast was already healing, sure to be almost done by then.

“What’s the plan!” Lena called over her shoulder, standing with her back to the treeline.

“The same plan as always,” Amelie called back, punctuating the order with another bolt shot.

The packmaster’s howl came again, and the Wolves suddenly moved with purpose. They advanced on the pair of hunters quickly, leaping back and forth to make themselves harder to hit. Lena stood her ground as one leaped at her, aiming her bolt pistol briefly. It might have less power than Amelie’s rifle, but at close quarters it packed more than enough punch to pierce the Wolf’s brain. It fell dead, only for another to swipe at Lena in its place. She ducked the swing, lunging with her dagger. A gout of black blood fell from the Wolf’s throat when she pulled the dagger back. Amelie and Lena continued like that until the Wolves numbered fewer than ten, their numbers nearly broken.

Suddenly, another howl, and a dark shape passed rapidly over Lena. Lena blinked in shock and horror as she realized what had happened. The Packmaster, in a single leap, crossed the outpost to attack Amelie. It held her hip in a large clawed hand. She struggled in its grip, arms pinned to her side. Saliva like black tar dripped from the Packmaster’s jaws as it breathed noxious fumes onto Amelie.

“No!” Lena cried out. In her distraction, a Wolf pounced on her from behind.

She woke with a start, sitting bolt upright in a cold sweat. Lena covered her eyes with one hand, using the other to wind her ticking heart. More often than not when she slept, Lena relived the same moment. She had seen Amelie infected by the Packmaster, then fell to another beast. It had been pure chance 76 was nearby and rushed to her aid. When she had come to, she was on Winston’s operating table with a new mechanical heart.

Lena walked the nighttime streets of King’s Row after her fitful sleep. The streets were light by the coils themselves, and lightposts. She walked slowly towards Winston’s lab, hoping his work was done by now. When she opened the first door, she saw a package in front of the door to the lab itself. The note was addressed to her, and she read it with a grin.

“Lena, you’re insane for thinking this is going to work. I’m not sure I’ve made that clear enough just yet. But, beating odds seems to be something you’re good at. Have Amelie, whatever she’s become now, drink the concoction in the container. If there’s anything that’ll bring her back to her senses, this is it, and you’re the one to do it. Good hunting. - W

P.S. the container is sturdy enough even you won’t break it. Twist the top to crack the seal.”

Lena opened the cardboard box, gingerly picking up the large glass cylinder. Dark purple liquid swirled within. She stared at it for a long time, in disbelief that Amelie’s salvation was finally in her hands. She set out that very night, heading for the last place she saw Amelie.

Her stomach clenched in a tight knot when she saw the ruined outpost where things had gone terribly wrong. She took a deep breath to steel herself, and pressed on. A full moon beamed down on her, bathing the landscape in white. There didn’t seem to be any beasts around, but she wasn’t about to lower her guard as she entered the outpost. She drew a pistol and a dagger, ready to fight.

She looked around the edge of a building to the clear center of the outpost, nearly gasping at what she saw. Lena took a few seconds to calm herself, winding her heart. If the mechanism could pound, it surely would have now. She peered around the corner again, slowly.

There was a large, purple beast, and it seemed to be eating a Packmaster. It’s long maw was buried in the Packmaster’s black innards, blood spattered along its entire lithe body. It walked on all fours, with claws longer than Lena’s daggers. Leathery wings were folded against its narrow body. Lena saw none of that, staring at the beast’s eyes. They were unmistakable.

“Amelie,” she breathed, half in relief, half in horror.

Before she could act, a rough hand covered her mouth, a strong grip pulling her out of sight. She was turned quickly around, ready to throw a punch at her assailant. Lena let her fist drop upon seeing 76’s scarred face.

“Why are you here?” he growled.

“Why are you here?” she asked as hotly as she could manage in a whisper.

“Killing a beast. My job. Out of the way,” 76 made to move past Lena, but she stretched her arms out, shaking her head.

“No chance. You don’t understand, I can save her.”

76 barked a gruff laugh without mirth, “You what?”

“Winston, you know him?”

76 nodded, crossing his arms. “Half plagued scientist, what about him?”

“He stopped his own corruption years ago. If this works,” she unclipped the canister from her belt, holding it in front of 76, “At least Amelie’s mind will be restored.”

76’s brow furrowed, frowning deeply.

“Ridiculous,” he stated flatly, and shoved past Lena.

He drew both swords as he walked towards Amelie, silently approaching her as she continued eating.

“Ame!” Lena shouted.

Amelie and 76 both snapped their attention to her. The hunter was livid, but turned to charge at Amelie. She screeched at him, a piercing and painful sound. Lena dropped to one knee, covering her ears as 76 was forced to drop his blades and do the same. Amelie walked towards Lena, paying 76 only enough attention to bat him aside with the unfurling of a wing. He crashed unceremoniously through a wall.

Lena froze when she opened her eyes. Amelie stared at her with a piercing yellow gaze. She opened and shut her jaw several times, a painful rasping sound escaping her each time. The sharp report of a bolt pistol rang out, the sharp projectile hitting Amelie in the side. She roared in pain, turning to look at 76, emerging from what used to be a home. He fired again, but Amelie had already turned to hide behind another building. Lena stood, walking towards 76 and shouting.

“She’s still in there, can’t you see that?!”

“I see a beast, and I see a stupid hunter,” 76 coughed, clutching his side. “If I have to, I’ll kill both.”

“Just let me try, dammit!” Lena stomped in frustration. “You’ve got, what? Two broken ribs there? She’d kill you anyway.”

76 heaved a sigh, then waved dismissively, “Do it then. I won’t save you like last time.”

Lena nodded, and walked towards Amelie slowly with the canister in hand. The beast looked at Lena fearfully, and seemed to be trying to make herself as small as possible.

“Easy, Ame,” she murmured, twisting off the top of the canister. The smell it gave off was oddly sweet.

Lena discarded the top and held her hand out towards Amelie, inching closer and closer. Amelie’s nostrils flared, and she stuck her head forward slowly.

“Up,” Lena said gently, pointing, “And open.”

She mimed pouring the canister with her free hand, hoping Amelie could understand her. Amelie complied, looking up and opening her mouth. Rows upon rows of needle-like teeth lined her jaws, giving Lena brief pause. After a final calming breath, Lena poured the canister’s purple sludge into Amelie’s waiting maw. Amelie convulsed immediately, and Lena jumped back to watch with bated breath. 76 stood at her side, trying to remain stoic, but clearly fascinated.

“You know what this means if this works?” he murmured.

“No, on account of me having no idea how things in general work,” Lena answered sarcastically.

“Touchy,” 76 grumbled.

Lena didn’t answer or look away from Amelie, instead throwing a light jab at 76’s ribs. After that, he stood out of reach to watch. And watch they did, as Amelie continued to spasm. The worst of it seemed to have passed, but neither was sure what to do but wait. Amelie’s eyes shut, and she was still for a full minute of agony. When Lena took a cautious step forward, her yellow eyes snapped open, and she took rapid breaths. She stood again and shook her wings, looking at Lena with wonder in her eyes.

“A-ame?” Lena ventured.

Amelie roared and darted forward. Lena flinched and nearly brought up one of her blades. There was no need, as Amelie simply stuck out her long tongue to lick Lena’s face.

“Le...na,” her voice rasped, and Lena’s heart soared.

Lena cried joyfully, throwing her arms around Amelie in the best approximation of a hug she could manage. 76 watched, openly blown away.

“Unbelievable,” he said, collecting his fallen swords.

Amelie glared at him, swatting harmlessly with her tail and snorting.

“Just doing my job!” he said defensively.

“Badly,” Lena said.

“Yes, I should have known your impossible plan would work. Stupid me.”

“Or you could maybe work on trusting others?”

Amelie, while they spoke, was running laps around the outpost to test her newfound agility. She flapped her wings, but found them too weak to lift her. Instead, the beast took a running leap, using them to glide in a slow circle overhead. Her landing was shaky, but Lena laughed.

“Wild day,” 76 sighed.

“The best day!” Lena insisted.

Amelie, at her side, made a gentle noise of agreement.