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isleofdarkness · 7 months ago

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Chapter 7 FINAL DRAFT

Warnings- medical procedures, near-death experience, medical info, gun pointed at child, blood, murder, slight body horror, war, swearing, gang violence, trauma, flashbacks, slavery, chronic pain, selling souls Implied/referenced; genocide, starvation, character death, noncon, minor noncon, childhood prostitution, child sexual abuse, child abuse, torture, grievous injury, massacres, terrorism, gang violence

Part one

Sultana Jasmine was pacing.

That was what struck Li Shang first. Before he even noticed the books stacked on the table or the pale, drawn look on Aladdin's face, he noticed that Jasmine, eternally unshakeable Jasmine, was pacing.

Whatever they had been summoned for, it was going to be bad.

A glance around the room confirmed that suspicion. Everyone was there- Heracles, Megara, and Hryhoriy, King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, Tiana and Naveen, Kida, Milo, Sweet, Audrey, Vinny, and Whitmore, Aurora and Phillip, Snow, Rose, and Florian, Esmeralda and Phoebus, Ariel, Eric, and Melody, Elsa, Kristoff, and Anna, Moana, Merida, Ella, Christopher, and Anthony, Jabari and Dahlia, Anita and Roger, Hank McCoy, Logan, Kurt, and Charles Xavier, Alma Madrigal, even Oliver Warbucks. Everyone was there, even those who rarely came to these meetings. Something was very, very wrong.

Jasmine spotted them and stopped, hijab swinging as she whipped to face them. "Welcome to Jahannam! Please, don't linger in the doorway, come in and suffer with the rest of us!"

Ancestors protect them.

"What's going on?" He asked, stepping further into the room. There were a few murmurs of assent- everyone else was just as confused as he was.

Jasmine gestured sharply to the beaten books on the table. "The Isle kids snuck these across the barrier and had Jabari deliver them to us. These books are all about the Isle." She grabbed one and tossed it to Mulan, then one to him. "Shan Sarangerel, daughter of Shan Yu, and a written record of Shan Yu's efforts to keep the Isle alive with one bottle of medicine a year." She tossed one to Heracles. "That one's all about the suffering of Hades. I would advise you not to read it on a full stomach." She tossed a massive book to Naveen. "That's about the efforts by Doctor Facilier to help the children of the Isle." One to Kida. "Would you like to read about Rick, the son of Helga? He's a lot like Kaldur. And this-" She threw one to Anna, "Is about a little girl named Anna, daughter of Hans. Don't read it on a full stomach. The good done by Madonna Tremaine-" she tossed one to Ella, "The life of Anthony Tremaine II," to Anthony, "The life of Mal," to Aurora, "And our dear Claudine," to Esmeralda. "And more! Any requests?"

None of them had the nerve to answer.

"Diego de Vil, Belle LeGume, Harriet Jones, Jay, Riah, Harabolos, Evie, Uma, Yzla, Mischa, Reza, Sammy, Davin- prostitution, torture, abuse, rape, death, and more!" She held out to Rapunzel. "This one's on your daughter, Ginny. She's doing well, even has her own EMS- well, except for the fact that she's been raised by Mother Gothel, not by Cassandra." Rapunzel gasped, but Jasmine wasn't done. "You're about to be a grandmother, because she's nearly due with a baby. Of course, that's not mentioning the two children one of her loves already has-" she whipped to face Anthony, "Possibly the children of Anthony Tremaine the second! Congratulations.

"Riah," she continued, whirling to face Aurora, "Got that limp and all of those broken bones when he was ten, when six grown men broke into his house, raped him, and tried to beat him to death. He was only saved because Hades had a gut feeling and managed to escape a session with Maleficent halfway across the island. They had to do surgery where all he had was half a bottle of whiskey. Claudine," to Esmeralda, "Has been sexually and religiously abused her entire life, to the point where Ginny is almost certain she has dissociative identity disorder and to the point of permanent, irreversible damage caused by trauma she doesn't even remember! And just you wait until you read what her older sister has done to try and protect her!" Jasmine threw another book to the table. "Meet Lydia Snoops, who sold her soul at the age of five to save lives and has been turned into a monster. She's been sexually abused her entire life, she started her period when she was three, and she has to regularly go back to the cult that abused her to keep Claudine from getting hurt, even though it means taking the abuse herself. Our dear Mal," back to Aurora, "Is asexual, as fae tend to be. Her mother knows this. Maleficent has been selling her asexual daughter to a brothel whenever Mal fails her impossible explanations, she's been doing so ever since Mal was ten. It's to the point where the brothel is checked every night just in case. And Jay-"

They were spared her horror by Jasmine slipping into Arabic, but her fury and horror were catching even with the language barrier. It took nearly an hour for Jasmine to cut herself off, spinning on her heel to face one of the mirrors and pulling out a tube of eyeliner. Oh, she was beyond angry.

No one dared say a word as Jasmine wiped off and reapplied her flawless makeup, calming herself down. Her rage was gone when she turned back to them, replaced by grim determination. "I've already spoken to Fairy Godmother about my concerns, but she refuses to listen. We'll have to take this into our own hands." She grabbed a large stack of paper and dropped it onto the table. "Julieta was kind enough to send the files she collected on the six and Katherine Pulitzer has conducted multiple interviews about life on the Isle. Charles, would you be willing to conduct more extensive exams, as most of these six are genetic variants?" Charles nodded. "We should also conduct psychological evaluations. Ginny has assumptions but, without any proper medical training, nothing is certain. A word from you or Dr McCoy may be enough to petition for these children to be allowed regular and unrestricted contact with a therapist and a psychiatrist. These records are not to be released until Beast does something truly stupid and only within reason. I'm starting to look to remove children from the Isle." Woah- "I'm setting up a system here, but shelter and food will not be enough to help these children. I will need doctors, psychologists, paediatricians, medical specialists, and childcare specialists. If any of you are willing, I would readily welcome your help. If you are unwilling," she shrugged, "You may leave. No grudge will be held."

None of them left.

"Thank you."

Two weeks later, Riah started the worst day of his year by falling down the stairs.

October twenty-ninth was the anniversary. Not just the weeks surrounding it, when his symptoms built up and eased back, but the exact day It had happened, the day he'd nearly been killed. The day six men had broken into his home and made him know he would never be safe anywhere. The day... The day. He hated the day.

With his sixteenth birthday coming up in two days, his curse was getting worse. He'd woken up to spots dancing in his vision and thick fog filling his mind. It had taken a hellish fifteen minutes for him to remember where he'd hidden his oxygen concentrator, then another fifteen for him to get to it with how he was wheezing and coughing. The machine did its job, but just barely. It was a day where he absolutely needed the machine's help, but there was no way in hell he was letting the others or the Auradon kids see him relying on a machine to breathe. If he was lucky, he might have been able to get thirty minutes between each use. He just had to properly time a few bathroom breaks throughout the day. Unlike he would on the Isle, he made sure to wear it under his shirt, using a jacket to further conceal it. His brain protested not using it, but he wasn't letting anyone figure out he needed a stupid oxygen machine.

On top of everything else from the date, it was a bad pain day. A storm was rolling in on a cold day and his bones let him know about it. Even the bones that weren't usually a problem, his arms, good leg, ribs, jaw, and pelvis, ached. His skull felt like someone had buried a knife in his temporal hard enough to crush the side of his head. He could barely move his hands, couldn't even properly hold onto his cane. And his bad leg? His bad leg hadn't hurt this much in years. Hell, it had only hurt this badly when it was actually broken.

And he had class.

On the Isle, a day like this would be a day he wouldn't get out of bed. He wouldn't mind Hades and Seph worrying over him, and he wouldn't worry about them thinking he couldn't do anything for himself. This should have been a day where he curled up under the warm blankets and went in and out of sleep, his parents waking him every time a nightmare started to take hold and making sure he ate when he couldn't even walk. A day where he wouldn't mind who saw him relying on his dog for even the simple stuff. A shitty day, sure, but less shitty than it could have been. A day where he didn't have to do anything, because he couldn't find it in himself. But not in Auradon. In Auradon, a day like this meant class. And class meant walking down thirty stone stairs.

He knew he was going to fall. It was just a matter of how bad the fall would be. He'd hoped his arm and leg could at least hold out to the middle of the staircase.

They didn't. Not even two steps down, his bad leg collapsed. His bad left arm, his cane arm, folded when he put too much weight on it.

He went down.

His foot slipped out from under him as he lurched back on reflex, putting his elbow behind him to take the impact on it instead of the back of his skull. His bad leg caught on one of the stairs as he slid, forcing him into a tumble, and he tried to curl in on himself to protect his face and stomach from the worst of it, just like he would on the Isle.

Of course, that had been a routine for a simpler time, when he didn't have two very snappable bones coming out of his skull.

His horns were the first crack he heard. But they weren't the last.

Horns hand fingers leg skull-

He wasn't sure who screamed when he fell. He was pretty sure it wasn't him.

Spine leg leg hands-

He hit the ground hard enough to wind him and slammed into one of the heavy, cushy chairs. His head cracked back against the side table and he saw stars, going limp.

When he blinked the darkness from his vision, his first instinct was to scream. His second was to start swearing. He managed to refrain from both. He still had shocked scared tears in his eyes when he looked up to see his friends racing down the stairs. And to feel the gaze of every Auradon kid in the building on him, concerned gazes cutting into him like knives. Fucking fantastic. They were all going to see him as weak and helpless just because of a bad day, his friends were going to see him as weak and helpless because of a bad day, Jay and maybe even Ben were going to see him as fucking weak and helpless and he had to show that he wasn't-

Refusing to show weakness, he forced himself to his feet, putting weight on his bad and now-broken left leg in the absence of his cane. The smile he gave his concerned friends definitely looked more like a snarl or a grimace, but he didn't care. "Fucking... just tell Fairy Godbitch I'll be late to class. I'm gonna see the nurse cause I just broke my leg in three places. Where's my cane?"

"How'd the ground taste?" Jay joked on what had to be reflex, holding Riah's cane out to him before withdrawing. Riah saw red. "Wait, you shouldn't-"

"Shouldn't what, Jay?" Riah snapped. Gods, his day sucked absolute dick and he'd only been awake for an hour. He needed to get to the nurse so that everyone wasn't staring at him like he deserved pity or something. "Walk with a broken leg? Newsflash, my leg's been broken for five fucking years and I got along just fine without someone carrying me to and from like I'm some kinda princess. Give me my godsdamn cane or I swear on my father that I'll be removing it from the hands of your corpse."

His eyes went black to prove his point, but none of them were impressed. Mal was giving him a shocked, worried, pitying look and Riah's blood boiled. "You shouldn't walk on a broken leg, cane or not, so-"

"I'm going to be walking out of here with or without my fucking cane so you'd best give it to me if you're so concerned." He reached out his hand, using magick to pull the cursed metal in his cane out of Jay's hand and into his. "I can manage by myself, I don't need help. I especially don't need pity. Stop acting like I'm fragile or some shit." He turned sharply, levelling a murderous glare at the Auradon kids between him and the door. "Is there a reason you guys are in my way?"

The Auradon kids practically dove out of his way. He stormed past them.

Just to prove his point, he forced himself to walk without his cane. The rage gave him enough fuel to walk sort of normally, but the fading adrenaline meant that he felt every. Single. Step.

The second he ducked around the corner of the building, he folded, leaning hard on both his cane and the wall and trying desperately to breathe on his own. Stupid leg and stupid curse and stupid everyone who thought he couldn't do anything and stupid Auradon and fuck, he was going to pass out-

There was no way in hell he was letting anyone see him like this after what had just happened. Fuck it. If Fairy Godbitch wanted to throw him out of school she could. He wasn't getting across campus without it but he sure as shit wasn't going to let anyone see it, so he had to. He whispered a spell, calling on magick from his grandmother, to make himself invisible to those he didn't want to see him. Once he was sure that was done, he pulled the flattened plastic mask out of his shirt, fixed the metal edges over his mouth and nose, and pulled the elastic bands over his head to fix it to his face. He didn't bother to lift his shirt to see the buttons on the machine hidden at his side, just flipped the power switch and sighed in relief as the oxygen concentrator started working.

Fucking sixteenth birthday. Bitchass spell couldn't even wait two days to kill him.

Claudine was a lot stronger than Mal thought. When she and Jay started after Riah, Claudine held them both back without effort. "Don't. You'll only make it worse."

"What are you talking about?" Riah had fallen down the stairs and was walking on a broken leg without his cane. How could they possibly make that any worse?

All too aware of the eyes on them, Claudine dragged Jay and Mal back up the stairs, leading the gang to the closest of their rooms and locking the door behind her. Wasn't she supposed to be Riah's friend? How could she be so calm? Mal would've lost her shit if Jay tried what Riah was currently doing. "You can't try to help him. It's not a good idea in general and it's definitely not a good idea today." Claudine bit her lip and sighed, clearly trying to figure something out. "I can't go into too much detail, but today is the anniversary of when his leg was broken. There was a lot of stuff that happened. Those breaks are all from today, as well as most of his scars. Have you guys seen the scars on his arms, collarbone, and jaw?" They were hard to see but yeah, they'd all seen them. "There's more of those across nineteen of his ribs, on his spine, on his pelvis, and down his good leg, and those are from where they managed to operate on his to put the bones back into place. He was awake during that and that was five years ago today. That's why he's been so touchy these past few weeks and he's going to be touchy for a few weeks after this, he always has been. Today is always a bad day for him, he usually doesn't even get out of bed. And it's a bad idea to try to help him in general, but it's one of the worst things you could do today."

"If he needs help," Mal argued, "Why's it so bad to try and help him?"

"Because none of you know how to ask and none of you ask anyway," Claudine explained patiently. "If you want to help Riah, you've got to ask if you can help him, not if he needs help. And if he says no, you have to respect that. Riah tries to be independent, he hates when people assume or act like he can't do something. It makes him feel as though people see him as less than and when you do that, he goes overboard to prove you wrong. I've seen him scale a brick wall using just his hands to prove that he could get up the stairs and I know Hades has seen him do a great deal more. Riah is very capable of a lot of stuff and he's usually really good about sticking to his limits, but he'll push himself too hard if he thinks people are going to think less of him for what he can't do. Riah was probably extremely embarrassed about falling down the stairs in front of everyone and I probably didn't help by screaming and drawing attention. What he needed us to do was act as though someone like Jay had just tripped. When he falls down the stairs, unless he's saying something is wrong, it's best to make a joke like Jay did and move on. You give him his cane and if he puts his hand out, you help him to his feet like it's no big deal. Don't even put your hand out to help him. I know you meant well and you just didn't know, so I'm telling you guys now so that this doesn't happen again." Huh. Claudine could definitely be a nurse. "Never, ever, try to take his cane away. That would be like taking Agony's arm or leg-" There was a collective wince. They'd all seen what happened when someone did that and how severely upset Agony had been. "Because that is like Riah's arm or leg. Plus, he can walk without it. He can run without it. And he will. Believe me, I've seen him do both and the aftermath of both is never pretty. If he doesn't have his cane he will hurt himself. He'll walk and run on that leg and if the bone breaks the wrong way it's an emergency trip to the hospital and several blood transfusions from the three people he can receive blood from and who aren't in Auradon."

"What about his breathing?" Evie asked. Shit, was there something wrong with how he was breathing? Mal hadn't even noticed. She was supposed to notice this stuff to take care of her crew. "His lips and fingernails were blue and he was breathing too fast and not deep enough."

"His curse." His fucking what? "Riah has a curse trying to crush his lungs, he's had it for his entire life. He wears an amulet to keep it from killing him, that blue stone he doesn't take off, but..." Claudine gave Mal a nervous look. "It was cast by Maleficent and you know how her curses are. They kill on the sixteenth birthday. And Riah's sixteenth birthday is in two days."

"Hold the fuck up," Mal raised a hand to cut Claudine off. "Are you telling me right now that Riah is cursed to fucking die on his sixteenth birthday, which is in two days, and neither of you told me or any of the gods know how many magical beings we have access to?"

"He thought he could handle it and I thought he could, too. Mal, Riah wasn't cursed to die when he turned sixteen, he was cursed to die before he turned thirteen. He's lived with a spell trying to kill him for three years. He thought, with the magic he would have access to here, he would be able to keep fighting it. But..." Tears started to glitter in Claudine's eyes. Claudine never cried. "He can't. He only has so much left to use and once it's gone, he's going to die. But he won't take more. He can't. He would rather die."

"Take what?" She needed someone to draw a diagram so she could keep track of the punches. Riah was going to die in two days. Great.

"Life." What?! "I don't know how it works. Riah drained the life energy, the souls, out of four people almost fourteen years ago. That's how he's stayed alive. With that abundance of life magick, he's been able to extend his own life. But it's been so long, he's running out, and he can't get more."

"Can't he just drain someone else?"

"And get us all kicked out of Auradon?" Good point. "Even if that weren't a problem, he's not capable of it. He's got something keeping him from using it. Someone would have to willingly perform magick to transfer their life, their soul, into him, knowing that they would be destroying themselves. Their lives would be gone and so would their souls. Their souls would be destroyed, taken apart for magick, and they would cease to exist in even the afterlife. No one would be willing to do that. There's... there's no way to fix it."

No. No, Mal refused to believe that. Her crew had survived dozens of things that couldn't be fixed. If Evie's heart could be fixed, if Carlos's lungs could be fixed, if her brain could be fixed, if Jay's spine could be fixed, Riah could be fixed. They just had to think outside of the box. There had to be a way and they were going to find it. "Claudine, I need you to stay with Riah today. Don't leave him alone. We'll get you excused from class." Think think think, there had to be someone or something that could help. "Jay, get Jordan to bring her dad to talk to us. Evie, get Adam Constantine and see if Snow White can get us in touch with Aurora. Carlos, see if Audrey can get us an audience with Kida, or if Kida has any kids we can talk to. I'll talk to Jane and Doctor Sweet. If you have the chance, ask if they can get us in touch with Maui, Elsa, Heracles, Te Fiti or Moana, Rapunzel, Sofia the First, anyone who knows a lot about magic. No Merlin and no Fairy Godmother. There's an answer to this, we've just gotta find it."

They had to try.

Thank God Doctor McCoy had been visiting. If he hadn't been, Julieta was almost certain the Isle boy would have died.

The boy with the cane- Riah, she remembered- had only just managed to stagger through the doorway before he had collapsed, clumsily throwing a hand out to catch the edge of the desk and slow his fall. Julieta, as fast as she was, had barely managed to get to her feet before Riah's hands went to his chest and spread out just under his neck, pushing down slightly. It was a strange sign, almost like a failed attempt at a choking sign, but his intention became clear when she got a look at him.

His lips and fingertips were blue. Each tiny exhale came out as a strangled grunt. His chest was falling far too deep, as if his body was trying to suck his ribs to his spine. His nostrils were flared behind his oxygen mask and he was mouthing something as he curled in on himself. He went down before Julieta could kneel in front of him.

"His lungs!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and laid him on his back, undoing the magnets in the shoulders of his shirt to undo the magnets of his binder before starting chest compressions. "He's in respiratory arrest-" she wasn't doing any good, only forcing more air out of lungs that couldn't expand. "Take over chest compressions so I can call 911."

"It won't do any good," he argued, handing her his phone as he took over. "An ambulance won't get here in time. Call Kurt and tell him he needs to teleport to your office and that there's a medical emergency incoming. Cecilia needs to set up the life support machines for respiratory arrest."

The three rings of the phone were the longest few seconds of Julieta's life. She didn't give the person on the other end of the line time to speak. "This is Julieta Madrigal we need Kurt to come to my office at Auradon Prep immediately and we need Cecilia to prepare McCoy's equipment for respiratory arrest."

"Charles!" The voice on the other end shouted, accent thick even in one syllable. "Tell him what you know, I will be there in two seconds."

Another voice started to speak. She didn't give them the chance to. "The patient is a fifteen-year-old transgender boy in respiratory arrest. He has a curse constricting his lungs and his lungs cannot expand. He's on oxygen but it won't do good if he can't breathe."

"Slow down," the man ordered gently. "What do you know about the curse?"

"It crushes his lungs. He has an amulet to create a barrier between his lungs and the spell but the amulet doesn't always work. He wouldn't say much about it."

"So the spell is a physical thing?"

"The way he explained it, yes." She knew nothing about this kind of magic. The Encanto was a blessing, a miracle, not a curse. She didn't know anything about curses.

"They'll be there in one-" There was a strange sound as three people appeared in a puff of smoke. "Moment."

The older of the two women, a Latina woman with brown locs pulled back in a bun, knelt next to Riah and put her fingers to his neck. "No pulse." She pulled the shirt and binder off the rest of the way, making access easier. "McCoy, move on three. One, two, three-" McCoy jerked back and she quickly got his clothes off and pulled the strap for his strange oxygen machine over his head. "Resume." McCoy went back to chest compressions as she tore the corners from the wax paper covers on the electrodes and poured a clear gel into her hand. "McCoy. One, two, three." He moved back again and she quickly applied the gel across Riah's chest, then applied the five electrodes. "Resume."

The young woman with red hair put her fingers to her temple, brow wrinkling. "I can't move it much, but I've given him maybe an inch of room. There's something really wrong with the shape of his lungs. I've never seen anything like it. It looks like some kind of ILD, but I can't find an exact diagnosis."

McCoy frowned. "We'll have to do an imaging scan." He didn't say it, but the way the atmosphere was quickly turning grim told Julieta how dangerous the situation was becoming.

The machine came to life, showing a pulse that was far too slow and far too shallow. But it wasn't a flatline. Cecilia let out a small sigh of relief, turning over his arm and quickly finding a vein and swabbing the skin. "Julieta, Jean, hold him down. McCoy, in one, two, three-" McCoy stopped compressions again as Cecilia pressed a needle into his arm and injected it.

Riah jerked hard, eyes flying open for just a moment as he gasped and choked. He wasn't awake for long, only a few seconds, but the added space gave his heart and lungs a chance to start working again. When he went back down, he was breathing.

"Keep him down," Cecilia ordered. She quickly set up the ventilator she'd bought with her and got a breathing tube down like it was easy. No one dared to breathe as they waited a few minutes, making sure Riah wasn't going to back into immediate danger. He didn't. "He's not stabilized yet, but he's fit for transport. Call his parents and Kurt can bring them back to the institute."

"His parents aren't available." It was horrifying to think about. Riah had nearly died and they couldn't so much as call them to say what had happened. "He's one of the Isle children. I can contact his friends and the family taking care of him here."

After a beat of horrified silence, Cecilia nodded. "Do that. Hopefully, we'll have good news to send to his parents."

How had none of them noticed? That one question played on repeat in Jay's head as everything kept getting worse and worse.

How did we not notice he's cursed? He'd wondered as Claudine explained Riah's situation. They all knew Riah had an issue with his lungs, but he'd brushed it off as some lung condition, said it was no big deal. And they had all believed him. How could none of them have noticed that his "condition" was a curse, a curse that had been actively trying to end his life for three years?

How did we not notice him dying? The thought had been agonizing. Jay took it upon himself to notice everything about his friends. If Evie looked a bit too thin or perfect, if Mal looked a bit too desperate, if Carlos was just a second off- Jay was supposed to notice this stuff. He was the one who watched out for the crew even if Mal already was. If something got past Mal, he was supposed to catch it. How had he not caught the fact that Riah was dying? How could anyone hide something so well, knowing they were going to die in just a few days? Had there been something he missed? Had he overlooked something? Had some sort of negligence on his part led to this getting this bad?

How could he hide this from us? Yeah, they hadn't known him for long, but this wasn't something you hid from your allies. Why would he do that? How had he been able to? How the hell could someone be so good at lying that he could hide a curse and his impending death from them?

What else is he hiding?

What if he dies?

Considering how often his mind went to worst-case scenarios, Jay was no stranger to praying he would be wrong. He could count on one hand the amount of times he'd been hoping it this hard. Riah was tough, after all. He wasn't going to let some stupid curse kill him. When the blue demon (he would worry about that later) grabbed him by the shoulder and made them appear in some sort of hospital room, Jay had almost convinced himself he was going to be wrong.

The second he saw Riah, that growing hope died.

How the hell had he gotten so bad without any of them noticing?

He knew Riah was thin, they all were, but the lack of a jacket and long pants let him see that Riah was skeletal. He had some muscle, sure, but it was all flat and dense and right underneath the skin, as though he didn't have even the thinnest layer of fat. His skin was clinging to his muscles and bones. What Jay had thought were just high cheekbones and a sharp jawline suddenly became evidence of severe starvation- how had this guy managed to get out of bed, let alone walk the quarter-mile to the nurse's office? He had picked Riah up, how had he not noticed the guy being a bag of bones? How could Riah, who easily ate more than any of them, be so skinny?

The paper gown revealed just how bad his leg was. He'd known the bone was curved, but thick jeans had hidden the worst of it. The skin on his left thigh was bumpy, as though the bone had healed in spikes under it. His leg wasn't merely bruised, it was almost entirely painted in shades of black and blue. Bruises painted his thigh entirely in patterns that meant breaks, and most of those bruises were old. His knee was bent in a slightly weird way, as though the lower part of the joint had turned a bit, and the swelling and bruising showed both dislocation and breaks. There was even a slight but unnatural indent to his calf, with bruising that looked like it had broken a few weeks ago- the entire leg was an emergency on its own. How had Riah been able to put any weight on that leg, let alone walk on it without his cane?

The third thing he noticed was the least important, but somehow it surprised him the most. They'd all been wondering why Fairy Godmother insisted on calling Riah Rhiannon, a girl's name, and why he'd been put in a girl's room. Despite everything, he felt a hot flash of anger. What was wrong with this place? Riah had made it abundantly clear that he was a guy, so what did it matter if his body didn't match? There was no way they hadn't known about him being a boy. Were they trying to make some kind of point? Allah, that was so messed up.

Claudine wasn't surprised. She darted to Riah's side as the rest of them paused, squeezing his limp hand. "How bad is it?"

Another one covered in blue fur, this one built like a gorilla, shook his head. "The damage is too severe to be fixed and his blood type makes a transplant impossible. There's no way to make his lungs function again. I'm so sorry."

No.

Jay nearly staggered under the weight of those words. Riah... no, Riah couldn't die. He'd been fine yesterday. They'd been joking and complaining just like normal only yesterday. Riah had been a bit stressed, yeah, but he'd been fine. And now he was going to die. He was going to die and Jay would never see his smile or hear his laugh or trade insults with him ever again. He was only fifteen and he was going to die. And they would have to send his body to the Isle with the barge as though it was garbage, and there was no guarantee Hades would get his body before anyone else because Hades wouldn't even know Riah was dead-

Claudine jolted, face going hard. "There is. We need to get him to the Isle. Right. Now."

"What're you talking about?" Mal asked. Was it something about letting Riah die with his family?

"He's had transplants before, his heart and kidneys. A lung transplant is possible, but we need to get him to the Isle for that to happen." She shot to her feet. "Mara Winchester is a complete universal donor and her tissue changes to match whoever it's transplanted into."

"Winchester?" Jay shared a confused look with Mal. Mara Winchester as in that weird girl who lived in the forest? The one who smoked, drank, swore every three words and insulted someone every five? The firstborn daughter of Madam Mim and the Horned King, with the-

The pure white skin, curly black hair, and glowing red eyes.

Holy shit.

"He's Matilda Mim," Evie whispered. Matilda Mim the Third was a bit of an urban legend on the Isle. The secondborn kid of the Horned King and Madam Mim, born three months premature, cursed, and left to die at only a few hours old. Legend was that Matilda had actually survived and was still alive-

"Don't call him that," Claudine corrected. "His name is Riah. But yes, he was."

Holy shit!

"We're wasting time," she continued. "The longer we wait, the more damage is done. If we get him there within the next hour he might be able to survive long enough for the transplant-"

"What's going on?"

Jay's.

Heart.

Stopped.

They all whirled to Ben standing in the doorway, Aurora and Audrey with him. His eyes were tight with worry, his muscles tensed and ready to move. He looked worried, but there was no way he would let them take Riah back to the Isle at the drop of a hat-

"We're taking Riah to the Isle to save his life," Claudine said, squaring her shoulders and giving him a look as if daring him to argue. "And we're taking him there right now."

"You'd better believe they are."

As if this couldn't get any more confusing-

The man who stepped out of the shadows was Isle, it was obvious even if Jay hadn't known who she was. The scars on her skin and across her face- he could match so many of her features to Riah's- the tattoos painting her arms, her light turquoise hair, buzzed at the back and sides but long at the top in a way no one on Auradon used, her black armour-

Maverick fucking Mim.

She gave them a crooked smile, just like Riah's, and stepped further into the room. She was only a few inches taller than Ben, but she seemed to tower over him "Let me make this clear, Benny Baby- if Riah dies, everyone dies. Riah is not supposed to die yet and if he does, it fucks the natural order sideways in a way that reality really can't afford. I ain't in the position to kill myself so that his death wouldn't upset the natural order, so you're going to take him to the Isle so that I can continue playing cleanup for the absolute fucking disaster your daddy created. Now." She turned back to them. "There's a specific way you have to do this."

"How the fuck are you here?" Mal asked, finally finding her tongue in her shock. Maverick Mim didn't have any way to be in Auradon. She was powerful with magick, sure, but if she hadn't broken the barrier yet, she wasn't going to. So how had she gotten to Auradon?

"Technically I'm not," she shrugged. Yeah, because that made sense. "I'm astral projecting so that I can talk to you because I don't want the world to end. And, by the way, ask King Beast how I know Riah's dying because that fucker knows, and he also knows why Riah's death before my death would upset the natural order of everything. We ain't got time to unpack all that. Now, are you gonna listen to me or are you gonna let him die so that the world ends?"

If any of them had a response, she didn't give them enough time to say it. "As I was saying, you guys need to follow directions because there's a certain way this needs done. Get him to the barrier but don't open it and I'll take care of the rest. You're going to need to drive."

"The Blackbird can get there faster," some bald guy in a wheelchair said.

Maverick shook her head. "Not gonna work. Number one, the hospital is underground-"

"Since when?" Mal sounded frazzled. Well, it was nice to see he wasn't the only one who had no clue what was going on.

"If one of you idiots interrupts me one more motherfucking time I swear to the gods," Maverick snapped. "We moved it because of I'll explain later. Point is, shit's underground now. There's no way for an aircraft to get to it even if we could get an aircraft through the barrier safely. So, you need to drive to where the bridge breaks. I'll handle everything else. I'll explain once the world is no longer in danger of ending. Get my little brother to the barrier and bring Benny Baby with you." She turned again, giving Ben a grin that was all teeth. "We need to talk."

"Who are you?" Ben managed.

"That answer will have to wait until we're face-to-face, golden boy, and none of you are allowed to tell him. I think a demonstration will drive it home better than me just saying it." With that cryptic statement, she turned back to the five. "Just get my brother to the barrier. I'll explain everything once he's stable. You guys willing to do that or do I have to do something that's going to bring Auradon's fist down on thousands of innocent children?"

Jay was so confused he was practically dizzy from it- he was almost certain he was physically swaying from it. Mal grabbed his hand, squeezing hard to try and ground him. "We'll get him to the barrier. Everything else can wait."

That was why Mal was the leader. She had a gift for keeping her head in even the worst situations.

Maverick nodded. "I'll be waiting. And, no matter what, you guys need to not interfere with what I'm going to do unless I tell you to. If I don't tell you to do anything, you do nothing. That goes for the X-Men, too." She gestured at the adults so that there was no question who the "X Men" were.

"I'll keep them in line," Mal promised. With one final nod, Maverick stepped back into the shadows, melting into them. Just as inexplicably as she had arrived, she was gone. "Let's get moving, fast. If she's involved, we need to believe her because she never gets involved unless it's the apocalypse."

"Who was that?" Ben asked, struggling to sound composed. The poor guy looked as confused as Jay felt.

"That," Mal gestured at the shadow Maverick had vanished into, "Was our sign that the world is going to end and a way to keep it from ending. On the Isle, her word is law. If she orders you to jump, no matter what gang you're part of, you say 'How high?' If she's saying we need to get Riah to the Isle, we're getting Riah to the fucking Isle. Now let's get moving before he dies."

Ben had no idea what was going on. It turned out that the Isle kids didn't, either.

The entire journey in the X-Van was spent listening to Claudine explain everything. No matter how bad Riah's physical conditions had seemed, they were only the surface of the issues. Riah had been born nearly three months premature. He'd been blind when he was younger and had needed surgeries and different treatments to fix this, but his eyes were still sensitive to light and he struggled with processing visual information. He'd needed multiple organs replaced- his heart, his kidneys, his intestines, and even two vertebrae. He'd had brain surgery when he was three to lessen severe epilepsy, but he was still epileptic and had seizures triggered by stress (which he was on medications for, but still.) His left femur wasn't simply broken, it had been eighty-five percent shattered. Fixing it had been impossible for reasons Ben never got but they all seemed to know. He had chronic pain from dozens of broken bones and this pain was sometimes so severe that he couldn't get out of bed. Today had been one of those days, and Riah had still forced himself out of bed and tried to walk down the stairs.

The only area Claudine didn't know much about was his lungs. That was where Doctor McCoy stepped in.

"Getting an imaging scan was far easier than you think. Equipment for mutants with ice, fire, and electricity abilities worked like a charm. This is why these six must see a provider used to working with genetic variants- if this had been detected earlier, we would have been able to act before it was an emergency." So they needed mutant doctors. He would have to see if the Xavier Institute would be willing to treat them moving forward. "Riah's lungs are extremely malformed. If I had to guess, I would say they were the size of an eight-year-old's lungs, and a small eight-year-old at that. Their growth has been severely restricted by the curse. As a result, they've grown into an extremely dysfunctional shape. The walls of his lungs are inconsistent, some parts are far too thick while some parts are as thin as tissue paper. The insides are almost eighty percent scar tissue, I suspect due to the way they've been forced to grow. It appears he's had some sort of laryngotracheal reconstruction surgery, surgery to fix his windpipe, at least twice in his life, but there's still a great deal of damage and malformation with his windpipe."

"He shouldn't be alive," Audrey whispered, eyes wide with horror. "How can he still be alive?"

"It appears he has some minor form of immortality. His body seems to adapt to any issues that put his life at risk. I noticed in the scans that he has scar tissue across his intestines, right under the scar across his stomach. An injury like this should not have been able to heal and should have required removal and a great deal of medical intervention, but his body was able to heal the damage and restore function. Scans of his brain, stomach, heart, liver, and spinal cord reveal similar scars and similar healing. If I had to guess, I would say the tissue in his lungs has mutated to function despite the damage. The real question is why this ability suddenly stopped." The Isle kids shared a minute, knowing look. "I hope to speak to someone who knows more about his medical history."

"Hades should know," Claudine whispered. "He's been taking care of Riah for Riah's entire life. He knows everything there is to know about Riah's medical issues and he'll probably be at the hospital."

"Fantastic." McCoy looked almost like a child at Christmas.

"We're bringing his dog back with us," Aurora said. Ben looked at her, puzzled. Since when did Riah have a dog? And why did they need to bring a dog with them to Auradon? "He has a service dog, Lydia, and he wasn't allowed to bring her with him. He needs her."

"She does a lot," Claudine added. "She helps him get around, grabs stuff for him, keeps him from falling or helps him get up after a fall, opens and closes stuff, wakes him up from nightmares, alerts for his panic attacks, meltdowns, shutdowns, flashbacks, and dissociation, and she helps him feel safe. She can even alert them to his seizures before he has one, sometimes an hour before they happen. I've seen how much she helps him. She's as important to him as his cane, maybe more."

"If she's so important, why wasn't he allowed to bring her?" He'd never said anything about the Isle kids not being allowed to bring pets, and he'd certainly never forbidden service dogs. If Riah had a service dog, he should have been allowed to bring her with him. And why hadn't he been told about this? At the very least he should have been made aware that Riah had an essential service dog he'd been forced to leave on the Isle.

"She's a Tibetan mastiff." A what? "According to Hades, her breed qualifies as giant, like a Newfoundland or Great Dane. She's heavier than Riah by around twenty pounds and when she stands on her hind legs, she can put her front paws on her shoulders. She looks like some kind of lion, too, or a bear. She's just a massive dog, and I guess they thought that her size made her dangerous." Claudine gave him a pleading look. "But she's not. She's so gentle, she doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She's not friendly, yeah, but she's not aggressive. I swear, she won't put anyone in danger. If anything, she'll keep bad situations from happening."

"If he needs her, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to have her. I had no idea he had a service dog that he wasn't allowed to bring with him." Maybe not having his dog would explain why Riah seemed to have gone downhill so fast in Auradon. He was the only one of the Isle kids who had lost weight, and he'd lost a lot- maybe the dog reminded him to eat, or helped relieve stress so he could eat? If she kept him from falling, his leg probably wouldn't be as bad as it looked. Maybe she could have calmed him down before he snapped under his anger or anxiety. Maybe a lot of his anxiety was from not having his dog- not having the comfort, not having an early warning for seizures, not having something that could remind him to listen to his emotions and take care of himself- it would make a lot of sense. He couldn't believe this had never been brought to his attention. "Do any of you have service animals you left behind? We can collect them while we're here."

Mal shook her head. "But I know I've got some stuff I left at home, and I know the others probably do. Would it be okay if we went home and grabbed some things we forgot?"

"Absolutely. Just don't bring any weapons." He felt stupid saying it. The Isle kids might have been rough, but they weren't dangerous. They weren't going to bring weapons into the school.

Jay snorted into his hand and Evie bit her lip to keep from laughing. Mal elbowed both of them, but it was clear she was trying not to laugh. "No problem."

With those plans made, Ben looked back at Riah, still unconscious in the gurney that had fit perfectly into the X-Van. He was so thin, far thinner than he'd been when he first came to Auradon, and covered in black bruises. It was hard to believe he'd been in Auradon for two months. While the other five had healed up and gained weight, he'd lost weight and gotten injury after injury. "Has he been eating?"

"He eats more than any of us," Jay frowned. "Sometimes I think he eats more than all of us put together. I don't get how he lost so much weight."

"Maybe we should ask Mara." Who was Mara and where did she come into this? Seeing Ben's confusion, Mal went on. "She's his biological sister, around a year older than him, and they look like they could be twins. If anyone knows how Riah managed to lose this much weight, it's her. Maybe she'll even know how to help him get back to normal... Well, normal for his weird ass. She'll be the one he's getting lungs from, so she should be there."

"His sister is really going to die for him?" That was a very impressive amount of sibling dedication, but God... How could they talk about that like it was no big deal? How were they supposed to talk to this girl knowing she was going to die so that Riah could live?

"What?" Mal gave him a strange look, then seemed to understand. "Oh- Mara's immortal. She sold her soul to the woman you saw earlier because Mara needs to be immortal for now. She'll just regenerate her lungs and she'll be fine."

"There isn't any magic on the Isle." If there was no magic, how could anyone sell their soul to anyone? How could they become magically immortal and get to magically regenerate without magic?

"There's names," Mal explained. "If I were to ask someone to give me their name- never have, by the way, except in emergencies when someone won't be able to live unless I do it, and I always free them the second they aren't in danger- and they were to say their full name, I would own their soul. It's a rare practice, but people do it. Some people use it in very bad ways, but some people, like the person from earlier, use it to help people. Mara's currently the only thing keeping some of the adults in check, so she sold her soul to M- that person from earlier, because she needs to be immortal for everyone's sake. For what it's worth, she's has never forced any of the people who've sold their souls to her to do anything they don't want to do. Actually, I know at least two of them are freed from their contract if she tries to order them to do something they don't want to do."

Back to the mystery woman from earlier. Even the memory of her made Ben feel small. He could still feel her bright turquoise eyes piercing his soul, seeing every wrong he'd ever done. She had obviously been a lot older than all of them, twenty-one at the minimum, but he couldn't tell which villain she was. Of course, he hadn't been able to identify anything about her. If not for the Isle kids, he wouldn't have even known she was a woman. "Who is that woman? How do you know her?"

"Don't call her a woman. She's fine with she/her pronouns but she prefers titles for a guy or gender-neutral- so she'd be a man, not a woman." That didn't make any sense to him but he wasn't going to police how someone identified. Okay, M was a guy... ish? "As for who she is, she's..." Mal shook her head. "If she said we can't tell you who she is, we won't. When that one gets involved, she's in charge. When she gives us an order, we listen. We know her as Destiny, basically." Destiny as in Destiny of the Endless? The oldest of them, with a chronicle of all time chained to his arm? The most powerful being on the planet? "She's not, obviously, but we treat her like she is. She knows everything, knows what'll happen if something else happens. She has a really good intuition, or some kind of magical schooling, and we listen because she's never been wrong. And she rarely gets involved. Usually, she stays on her part of the Isle, doesn't interact with anyone outside of her gang. When she gets involved, it means something extinction-level needs stopped, and she knows how to stop it. If something is bad enough that she gets involved, we listen to her because she never gets involved."

"She's the Pope of the Isle," Claudine said. "She doesn't give orders often but when she does, her word is absolute law."

"How is she going to get us onto the Isle?" Ben felt like he was trying to put together a billion-piece puzzle with no edges and no picture. He wasn't going to let himself dwell on anything, just learn what he could so that he could figure out the bigger picture.

Mal shrugged. "No idea. But if she said she's going to get us onto the Isle, I believe her."

Ben glanced out the window, at the wide expanse of blue ocean, then at Riah.

Whatever happened, he hoped it happened fast.

#chapter 7 #descendants #descendants au #isle of darkness #original character #descendants oc #swearing

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broadcastarchive-umd · 1 year ago

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#PBSwednesday American Playhouse was an anthology series on PBS, offering works by distinguished American writers. Michael Learned (left), Aidan Quinn, and James Whitmore starred in the 1987 presentation of Arthur Miller's classic All My Sons. The American Playhouse series ended in 1996 after 13 seasons.

Photo: Richard Howard

Special Collections in Mass Media and Culture | Tumblr Archive

#PBS #Arthur Miller #1980s #public television

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ao3feed-brucewayne · 6 months ago

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I Was Lightning Before The Thunder

read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/OxklATw by WingsOfTheDamned Another place to dump my Billy Batson-centered drabbles, one-shots and ideas. Most of them identity reveal fics bc there's not enough identity reveal fics out there Words: 7722, Chapters: 2/?, Language: English Series: Part 2 of Lightning In A Bottle/Endless Drabbles-One-Shots Fandoms: Shazam! | Captain Marvel (Comics), Shazam! (Movies - Sandberg), Justice League - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: F/M, Gen Characters: Billy Batson, Clark Kent, Diana (Wonder Woman), Bruce Wayne, Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Arthur Curry (DCU), Barry Allen, J'onn J'onzz, Shayera Hol, Oliver Queen, Dinah Lance, Freddy Freeman (DCU), Tawky Tawny, Mary Batson | Mary Bromfield, Eugene Choi (DCU), Rosa Vasquez (DCU), Victor Vasquez, Darla Dudley, Pedro Peña, Courtney Whitmore, Cissie Sommerly, Zatanna Zatara, John Constantine, Nabu (DCU), Shazam the Wizard | Mamaragan Relationships: Billy Batson/Courtney Whitmore, Billy Batson & Justice League Additional Tags: Billy Batson-centric, Billy Batson Needs a Hug, Good Sibling Billy Batson, BAMF Billy Batson, Let Billy Batson Swear, Billy Batson is Captain Marvel | Shazam, Identity Reveal, Secret Identity, Identity Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Not Beta Read, Family, Friendship, Protective Diana (Wonder Woman), Justice League Family Feels, Some Humor, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Angst and Feels, Homeless Billy Batson, Shazamily (DCU), Misunderstandings, Drabble Collection, One Shot Collection, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Protective Justice League, Caring Justice League, Thavma and Billy will sometimes be two different beings, References to Marvel bc I never waste the opportunity to do so read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/OxklATw

#IFTTT #bruce wayne #batman #the caped crusader #the dark knight #dcu #ao3 #ao3feed

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fallen-down-slowed-down · 6 months ago

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(warning: 90+ f/o’s)

❤️‍🩹books

found families ⊹₊ ⋆

The Weasley’s – Harry Potter saga ( books + films )

parents/guardians/caretakers ⊹₊ ⋆

siblings ⊹₊ ⋆

children ⊹₊ ⋆

other ⊹₊ ⋆

❤️‍🩹films/series/tv shows

found families ⊹₊ ⋆

The 6 heroes – Big Hero 6

The hotel family – Hotel Transylvania

The Madrigal’s – Encanto

Teen Titans – Teen Titans

The Teenagers + Star – Wish

The Watterson’s – The Amazing World of Gumball

parents/guardians/caretakers ⊹₊ ⋆

Athena + Triton – Disney’s The Little Mermaid trilogy ; parents

CASE + TARS – Interstellar ; caretakers

Cass – Big Hero 6 ; caretaker / motherly figure

Clay Calloway – Sing 2 ; dad

Crobar – Pil ; caretaker

Dr. Delbert Doppler – Treasure Planet ; caretaker

Eli La Bouff – Disney’s The Princess and the Frog ; dad

James Wilson – House, M. D. ; dad

John Silver – Treasure Planet ; fatherly figure

Kalique Abrasax – Jupiter: Ascending ; caretaker

King Frederic + Queen Anna – Disney’s Tangled ; parental figures

Kirsten Stevens – Set It Up ; adoptive mum

Klaus – Klaus ; dad

Klaus Kickenklober – Sing 2 ; caretaker

Linda + Rick Mitchell – The Mitchells vs the Machines ; parents

magic carpet – Aladdin ( films ) ; guardian

Merlin – The Sword in the Stone – mentor / caretaker

Phil – Disney’s Hercules ; guardian

Queen Amaya – Wish ; mum

Rafiki – The Lion King trilogy ; guardian

Sarah Hawkins – Treasure Planet ; caretaker / motherly figure

Sebastian – Disney’s The Little Mermaid trilogy ; caretaker

siblings ⊹₊ ⋆

Aaron + Katie Mitchell – The Mitchells vs the Machines ; siblings

Adella + Alana + Andrina + Aquata + Ariel + Arista + Attina – Disney’s The Little Mermaid trilogy ; sisters

Bobo + Cooky + Ralphy + Speedy + Sunny – 7 Zwerge trilogy ; brotherly figures

Charlotte La Bouff – Disney’s The Princess and the Frog ; twin sister

Johnny – Sing duology ; brotherly figure

Maleficent – Maleficent duology ; sisterly figure

Prince Average – Red Shoes and the 7 Dwarfs ; twin brother

children ⊹₊ ⋆

Márgu – Klaus ; daughter figure

Miguel Rivera – Coco ; son figure

Nimona – Nimona ; child figure

Pectine – Astérix: le Secrete de la Potion Magique ; child figure / protégé

Pil – Pil ; daughter figure / protégé

other ⊹₊ ⋆

Archibald + Daisy Suchot – Arthur and the Invisibles ; grandparents

Arthur Montgomery – Arthur and the Invisibles ; cousin

Gregory House – House, M. D. ; uncle figure

Melody – The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea ; niece

Preston B. Whitmore – Atlantis: the Lost Empire ; granddad

❤️‍🩹videogames

found families ⊹₊ ⋆

The Subway Surfers – Subway Surfers

parents/guardians/caretakers ⊹₊ ⋆

Aisha + Salim Alnazar – The Arcana ; parental figures

Constantine – Alchemy Stars ; guardian / caretaker / fatherly figure

Death – The Arcana ; guardian

Glamrock Freddy – Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach ; guardian / caretaker

Soroz – Alchemy Stars ; guardian

siblings ⊹₊ ⋆

Shadow – Speedy Ninja ; brotherly figure

children ⊹₊ ⋆

Areia – Alchemy Stars ; protégé

Clover – Alchemy Stars ; daughter figure

Dove – Alchemy Stars ; child figure

Enlightener – Alchemy Stars ; daughter figure

Pasolo – Alchemy Stars ; daughter figure / protégé

Wendy – Alchemy Stars ; daughter figure

other

❤️‍🩹other type of source

found families ⊹₊ ⋆

Hundred Acre Wood inhabitants – Winnie the Pooh universe

Miss Bustier’s class – Miraculous universe

parents/guardians/caretakers ⊹₊ ⋆

Bill Woodward – Hatchetfield universe ; dad

Caline Bustier – Miraculous universe ; adoptive mum

Carmilla Carmine – Hellaverse ; motherly figure

Duke Keane – Hatchetfield universe ; adoptive dad

Mr. Chu – One Small Step ; adoptive dad

Panoramix – Astérix universe ; mentor

Sabine Cheng – Miraculous universe ; motherly figure

Tony Green – Hatchetfield universe ; fatherly figure

siblings ⊹₊ ⋆

Adam + Benjamin + Caleb + Daniel + Ephraim + Frank + Gideon Pontipee – Seven Brides for Seven Brothers ( musical ) ; brothers

Luna Chu – One Small Step ; foster sister

children ⊹₊ ⋆

Mike + Roger – OCs ; children figures

Octavia – Hellaverse ; daughter figure

other ⊹₊ ⋆

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fragmentsofemelia · 9 months ago

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Original Short Story - Chastleton House

National Trust: Chastleton House File

April 2005:

During the examination of Chastleton House a series of letters were found within a wall cavity in the Cavalier room. The letters were bound together in twine, with a crimson wax seal. The letters detail the first stay of Florence Whitmore-Jones (born Florence Clough) at Chastleton House. Although much of Florence’s early life is undocumented we can assume that she is between nineteen and twenty one at the time of writing. Florence would go on to marry John Henry Whitmore-Jones in the spring of 1830 and in the autumn she had her first child, Arthur Whitmore-Jones. Unfortunately Florence passed away during the birth of her third child, Willie Whitmore-Jones.

August 2016:

The letters were handed to the National Trust in the autumn of 2007 and were displayed within the property up until 2016, when the living relatives asked for them to be removed.

LETTER I

27th November 1829

Dear Mother,

It gives me the greatest pleasure to assure you that I arrived safely at Chastleton House in the late evening last night. The journey was exceptionally long, however, Mr Whitmore-Jones graciously sent a carriage to collect me from Cirencester station. Upon my arrival at Chastleton it was nightfall. I was resentfully rushed inside by the groundskeeper who took great care to tell me how late in the season it was and that Mr Whitmore-Jones is due home a week from now. Mother, I am so excited to meet him! Alas, I shall attempt to stifle my excitement with my letters to you.

The next morning I was made tea by one of the kitchen maids and was shown around by the miserable groundskeeper. This house is a labyrinth of secret rooms and passageways, with multiple staircases and a gallery full of Mr Whitmore-Jones’s collection of paintings and busts. I am sure that I will fit in here, Mother. The groundskeeper informed me that I am to stay in the snug Cavalier room. The walls are lined in a complex pattern of rose wallpaper, which looks rather wondrous! However, when I laid my bag down I saw a puckered scrape of the original wall where time had eradicated the paper. I fingered the loose parchment and watched as it disintegrated. I ran my hand across the harsh oak bed frame, where flecks of the wood submerged themselves within my palm. The groundskeeper assured me that I am the first inhabitant of the Cavalier Room since Mr Whitmore-Jones was announced the rightful owner. I hope that my stay here will prove to be rather wonderful, and if not it will not matter as I won't be gone for long!

Later that afternoon I was shown the grounds, which are entrapped by large shrubbery, with an intricate maze marking the centre of the gardens. The groundskeeper appeared rather excitable when we came to his rose garden. However this excitement soon turned to despair once he saw how the sharp air had bitten the petals from their buds and spat them upon the floor! I felt an acute pity for him and his dismissal of the winter. Mother this felt strange to me – our groundskeeper at Watlington Manor understands so much of the changing in season and never becomes disparaged by the wilting of his crop. The groundskeeper did not speak again unless it was to tell me of the history of the grounds or to complain of the bitter weather. We walked the entirety of the gardens until the night fell upon us.

Still, I am not quite sure as to why Mr Whitmore-Jones requested my presence so close to Christmas - perhaps he has heard of my talent with oils and hopes to add my work to his collection! Oh Mother, how wonderful would that be? Perhaps he will pay me handsomely and I may finally dedicate myself to artistry.

Your adoring Daughter,

Florence

LETTER II

1st December 1829

Dear Mother,

The sky has grown pregnant with white and grey, I'm sure it shall snow again soon. Chastleton has been coated with thick snowfall since I last wrote to you. On the first night of the snowfall I overheard the maids anxiously babbling about how early in the season it was for snow and that they do not think that Chastleton shall cope in these conditions– I can not say that I myself have been made anxious by this snowfall, I think it to be rather exciting! Although I do regret not asking Elizabeth to pack my warmer clothes. I am yet to fully understand the maids’ anxieties of Chastleton’s ability to withstand the winter, however as the days have rolled by it is becoming more apparent that it is in great need of a loving hand.

Last night on the west staircase I heard the furious cry of the Groundskeeper, protesting to a poor maid that Chastleton is in no position to allow guests– this made me ever so nervous and I rushed back to my room. Since my arrival at Chastleton I had noticed the derelict nature of the house, with the rooms coated in debris from the summer; there are even little birds nesting in the parlour, which I cannot bring myself to tell the groundskeeper about as I am sure they will meet their end. I have gone to great lengths to avoid the groundskeeper since last night.

During my days at Chastleton I have been resigned to sitting in front of the window and watching as the flakes turn the garden into a barren landscape of white. Unfortunately, the maids refuse to let me use my oils, over fear that I shall create some sort of unfixable mess! Otherwise I would take great pleasure in painting the trees that have been kissed with frost and the lawn that sits idly under the untouched blanket of twinkling snow. My candle illuminates the growing iciness upon the window pain as I sit and write this letter to you! There is something remarkably calming in the stillness of winter. Yet, I have become agitated by the impending nature of the spring – it stirs a fear within me that I am unable to place.

I have heard nothing of Mr Whitmore-Jones’s whereabouts. In vain I have tried to pull information about him from the maids, yet they refuse to speak of him. I think they have decided to keep me at a distance from them, as they retreat whenever I enter a room.

How are you and father? I do hope that you are well and that I shall hear back from you soon! I long for when I will be back with you again.

Your loving Daughter,

Florence

LETTER III

7th December 1829

Dear Mother,

I am restless at your absence, Is there a reason as to why you do not respond? I am sure there is a delay due to the snow but my heart longs to hear from you.

Since I last wrote to you I have found this insatiable urge rising within me to clean, as if I were a housemaid! I lay awake at night preoccupied with thoughts of dirt lining my nails and debris piling on the floor. The walls breathe iciness upon my skin as I feverishly clean this house in preparation for Mr Whitmore-Jones’ return. My days have become obsessive and tiresome at the sheer magnitude of work that Chastleton requires. Yesterday, during one of these fits of cleaning, the parlour became encapsulated by a rotten, festering aroma. The scent trickled down my throat which my body rejected as I violently wretched. I found the perpetrator of the odour whilst cleaning the fireplace. Underneath the cobweb ridden logs I made out the cream plumage of one of my house sparrows. I threw the logs into the centre of the parlour to reach her rotting body. As I picked up her wilted frame I felt her twitch and writhe as maggots pierced their way from her insides. Oh mother how horrid it was! I screeched as I saw them burrow out of her and retreated to my chamber. Yet this incessant urge within me to clean brought me back to her body. I held the poor thing in my palm and wept. I took her into the garden and buried her in the snow. Mother I do not know if I shall cope if that same fate falls upon the other sparrows!

My distance from Mr Whitmore-Jones upsets me so, as I believe he became quite fond of me. Mother, do you remember those lovely letters he would send me over the summer? I can still picture the crimson crested wax seal and the beautiful twine he would bind them in. He was enthralled at the mere idea of me visiting Chastleton– yet, where is he now? Still the maids refuse to tell me of his whereabouts and I am still forcing a distance between myself and the groundskeeper out of fear that he detests me! In fact, Mother, I haven’t seen anyone in days– The maids retreated with the growth of the snowfall, so I have been left to clean and long for Mr Whitmore-Jones to return.

I do hope to hear from you soon!

Your worried Daughter,

Florence

LETTER IV

8th December 1829

Dear Mother,

I know it has only been hours since my last letter – yet, nights at Chastleton cause me to question what I know to be true. At night the house eradicates my tender hours of labour. It toys with my spirit and forces me to start anew in the morning. My slumber is interrupted almost nightly, as of yet I do not know what it is, but there is a damp warmth in the air that suffocates my dreams.

Last night, in the haze of my dream, a thick dampness fell upon my chest, expelling the air from my lungs. I felt a gouging asphyxiation trickle down my body. I yelped as it curled up on my stomach causing my abdomen to gurgle and throb. My mind has become forgetful since my arrival; so I began to question if I were still in that lucid dream I had only encountered mere moments before, or if this horror was truly happening. My abdomen relentlessly groaned as my thoughts became wilder. I retreated from the Cavalier room, forcing myself down the west staircase to the Old Kitchen. A kitchen maid fixed a cup of tea to ease my mind and the pain eventually subsided. I told her at length of the damp horror that torments me so, and a brief glimmer of terror shone in her eyes. She held me as I walked back to the Cavalier room. The maid urged me to not only return to my slumber but to not tell the other maids of this damp horror.

This morning when I woke my chambermaid had drawn a bath for me. I thought this to be quite wonderful as the water was lusciously perfumed and warm. It reminded me of the baths Elizabeth would run for me! My hands began to shake as I worked the soap bar into my damp skin. I attempted to hold myself still and hoped that the stillness would rid the events of last night from my mind. The shaking softened and momentarily I felt as if I had never left Watlington. I felt as if I were only twelve and Elizabeth had run my sunday bath, the scent of freshly baked bread flitted about my nose. I lazily opened my eyes and continued to scrub at my skin. A hue of deep red sat tauntingly underneath the milky film of bath water. I jumped from the bath and this is when I saw the talons of the night marked upon my skin. The lacerations buried into my abdomen right where I had felt that terrible pang! I ran my fingers over the scratches, my skin rising where the ripping had taken place. I dressed quickly so that the chambermaid would not see my mangled form. I fear that the maids know more about Chastleton than they seem; Mother, there must be some awful secret they are hiding from me – something so ghastly and vile that lurks through the halls. This is why they have kept me at a distance, surely Mother? I am fearful to sleep again tonight in case the labourious pain rises again and I become a more mangled form of myself in the morning.

Your frightful Daughter

Florence

LETTER V

10th December 1829

Dear Mother,

The house has once again spat out all of the hours of labour that I have so tenderly afforded it. The grime oozes by night and the putrid odour of the little sparrow haunts my nose, inspiring an acute nausea to overcome me. The great parlour I once spent my days sat in has become littered with grime and sparrow excrement. The chill of the winter beckons me to retire from my insatiable cleaning; yet that same urgency grows and becomes unrelenting at the absence of Mr Whitmore-Jones. The longer he is kept from me the larger my desire to cleanse this house becomes. Upon my arrival the groundskeeper said he shall only be gone for a week– and how long have I been at this house now Mother – with nothing but cleaning and torment to pass the time!

I have thought about slipping away into the night, leaving Chastleton and never returning. However I lack transport and the journey is far too dangerous on foot, especially in this bitter winter. The silence of Mr Whitmore-Jones causes a scepticism to writhe within me. I fear I do not know when he shall come back to Chastleton, or if he shall come at all. I have tried in vain to find the groundskeeper and confront him about the whereabouts of Mr Whitmore-Jones but he has become ellusive. I see his figure in the gardens, traipsing large wheelbarrows from one place to another, but in the thick of the winter I do not understand his exertion, as surely there is nothing left to do?

In this isolation you must think that I have become hysterical, but this is all true! Mother, this house– it breathes with me– these walls like damp flesh that hold my body here. I do not know when I shall be able to see you again.

I still await your response – Mother, if you receive this letter please send our carriage to Chastleton so that I may come home!

Your nervous Daughter,

Florence

LETTER VI

12th December 1829

Dear Mother,

The damp torment that woke me many nights ago has metamorphosed into a curious, childlike anguish. Last night my chambermaid dressed me for bed and I fell into a deep slumber. I awoke to the curious patter of footsteps outside my room. I am the only inhabitant of Chastleton during Mr Whitmore-Jones’ absence, aside from the maids but they continue in their aloofness. The haphazard pounding of feet manifested outside my door. The beating of my heart rang in my ears. I swung the door back and a sharp chill hit my body. There was no being that explained the sound, I was met with the emptiness that I have grown accustomed to. I turned myself back to my slumber when a faint patter of feet echoed down the west staircase. I lit my candlestick in the fireplace and cautiously followed. The floorboards of the hall creaked with my impending steps. The groaning almost caused the patter that woke me to become indistinguishable. The familiar gripping pain penetrated my abdomen but I continued down the stairs, clutching at my already bleeding body. The echo faded as I entered the ground floor. I searched every room on the ground floor in vain, yet the purporator of my dream was nowhere to be found. I began to feel faint at my loss of blood and, to my own recollection, collapsed.

This morning I awoke in the Cavalier room and the scratches that had sunk deep into my skin were gone. There was no sign of blood on my nightgown that I had only clutched to my skin hours earlier. My candlestick sat back in the holder, its wick white as if a flame had never touched it. I grasped the wax stick and threw it into the fireplace. I caught sight of my deterioration in the mirror. My once plump cheeks concave, a grey tinge takes over my skin. Only my hair remains somewhat similar to the girl that entered Chastleton. My frame has been decimated with bruises and frailty bites at my bones. In my inspection of myself in the mirror, my abdomen began to bulge. Something groans and writhes within me, something most horrid and detestable. I fear it is too repulsive to imagine. Mother, I do not remember how I got back to the Cavalier room last night but I feel my condition worsen as I write this to you! The maids must not find out about this thing that thrashes inside me. I weep once more as I do not believe that you are receiving these letters, this house intercepts all of my desire and destroys it.

— Florence

LETTER VII

20th December 1829

Dear Mother,

My cleaning of this house has become relentless – every waking hour I feel the filth creep between my fingers and burrow its way into my mind. I wash my hands until I feel them crack yet the muck stains my palms. My sparrows have passed away, their little bodies pile in the fireplace by night and cause the most foul odour to hang in the air. My condition worsens with the hour as the cancerous thing grows inside me. I have asked my chambermaid, the only one of the maids who still allows herself to come near me, to discharge herself temporarily until Mr Whitmore-Jones returns. I am too fearful of her seeing the wreck I have become. I only leave the Cavalier room to clean or eat in the parlour.

My appetite has become engorged and peculiar; the smell of my once favourite pheasant causes my mind to reanimate the detestable stench of the rotting sparrows. The grotesque rot hangs in the air and suffocates my mind. Only the sweetest treacle keeps this rising hunger satisfied. My mouth salivates as I write this letter and think of the thick tar dribbling down my throat. I have taken to teaching myself how to cook in the dead of night, when the maids have retreated to the opposite side of Chastleton.

Last night the hunger awoke me. I hauled this growing form to the Old Kitchen. I felt the tumorous entity writhe within me as I began to crack eggs upon the cast iron contraption. The transparent slime hissed as the heat ate away at its clarity. My sweat-ridden hands furiously opened a jar of treacle. I grasped a spoon from the counter and heaped the syrup upon the spoon. I threw it upon the eggs, where the blackened treacle bubbled and curdled with the eggs. I heard the familiar patter of feet echoing down the west staircase. This sound startled me and the jar slipped from my grasp. It shattered, spreading treacle and fragments of glass across the stone floor. My body contorted and I fell to my knees, shovelling handfuls of the treacle into my mouth. The concoction scratched as I swallowed it down. I felt a frenzy overcome me as I consumed the mixture. My body convulsed as I coughed and blood sprayed across the Old Kitchen tiles. The patter became louder as the thing tore down the stairs. I sprang back, a chill of terror gripping my body. The wretch inside me squirmed with the rising sound of footfall. The door to the Old Kitchen swung back and a figure stood in the doorway. I felt my chambermaid grasp my shoulder. She pleaded for me to follow her. I obeyed and ran with her through the groundskeeper’s room, through the pantry and the Old Dairy. The incessant patter rang in my mind as we clambered up the east staircase. My chamber maid forced me through a door that the groundskeeper emitted showing me on that very first day here. Through the door was a narrow pathway, with a slanted wall that took up most of the space the room had to offer. On the floor was a mattress and a singular lit candle. My chambermaid encouraged me to lay still on the makeshift bed where I fell, once again, into a deep sleep.

– Florence

#dark academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #short story #writerscommunity #writing #author

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empiredesimparte · 5 months ago

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Some photos of the Coronation Gala of Their Majesties, Napoleon V and Charlotte of the French.

⚜ Le Sacre de Napoléon V | N°4 | Francesim, Versailles, 27 Thermidor An 230

Beginning ▬ Previous ▬ Next

⚜ Guests at the coronation

TIM, Emperor David I and Empress Katalina of Pierreland (@officalroyalsofpierreland)

HRH, Prince Oliver, Duke of Rothsey (@officalroyalsofpierreland)

HIM, Queen Viviana II of the Ionian Union (@funkyllama)

TM, King Arnaut and Queen Lorraine of Uspana (@nexility-sims)

HM, Queen Anastasia of Carrington and HRH, Prince Hisirdoux, the Duke of Clois (@royalhouseofcarrington)

TRH, Crown Prince George, Duke of Everton and Crown Princess Anne, Duchess of Everton (@crownsofesha)

HRH, Margaret, the Princess Royal of Corrilea (@theroyalsofcorrilea)

HM, Queen Diana and HRH, Prince Gerhard of SimDonia (@bridgeportbritt)

HRH, Madame Royale Eleanor de Thornolie (@theroyalthornoliachronicles)

TM, King Giovanni and Queen Consort Cassandre (@royalhouseofcardsleyts4)

TIM, The High King and High Queen of the Presean Empire (@stthomaspalace)

TM, King George I and Queen Elizabeth of Illyria (@the-lancasters)

TRH, the Duke and Duchess of Marseille and Saint-Lyon (@sosa-royals)

HM, Rosalind II, Queen of the Armoricans (@armoricaroyalty)

HM, King Arthur of the United Kingdom of Prydain and Voltadelmar (@prydainroyals)

TRH, The Prince and Princess of Belen (@housekonig)

HIH, The Princess Imperial Eliana of Alexandria (@thealexandrianroyals)

TM, Queen Najwa and King Abeni of Oasis Springs (@hrh-the-royals)

TRH, Crown Princess Emeline and Crown Prince Cedric of Whitmore (@whitmoreroyals)

TM, King Oliver and Queen Charlotte of Cedoria and the Isle (@thebaillieroyals)

TM, King James II and Queen Alibhe of United Kingdoms of Great Briton and Ériu (@trhor)

Her Majesty Queen Irene and HRH Prince James (@albanyroyals)

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vortexhq · 1 month ago

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anonymous asked: mw marvel / dc?

from marvel, we would love to see any avengers, guardians of the galaxy, fantastic four or x - men, but some specific favourites would be: felicia hardy, miles morales, ganke lee, steve rogers, tony stark, bruce banner, thor odinson, natasha romanoff, clint barton, scott lang, amadeus cho, riri williams, cassie lang, kate bishop, daisy johnson, shuri, peter quill, gamora, nebula, logan howlett, eddie brock, carol danvers, luke cage, danny rand, scott lang and johnny storm!

from dc, we would love to have barbara gordon and bruce wayne to join our batfam here! we would also love to have: wally west, barry allen, iris west, hal jordan, oliver queen, dinah lance, connor hawke, victor stone, rachel roth, garfield logan, clark kent, lois lane, conner kent, kara zor-el, lena luthor, courteney, whitmore, arthur curry, diana prince, jinx, terra markov, komand'r, artemis crock, zatanna zatara, cassie sandsmark, helena bertinelli, pamela isley, and harley quinnzel!

ADMIN ARDEN is… online! — replies within 5 - 25 minutes.

#multifandom rp #discord rp #dc rp #marvel rp #comics rp #crossover rp #panfandom rp #vortex.mw #mw.characters

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shoque · 4 months ago

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Realms of Whitmore - Of Love & War (Cycle 6)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, It all depends what city you were in. In the Republic of Tartosa, love flourished. The eastern empire, left unnurished. And in the Duchy of Henford, unrest skirmished.

~ Cycle 6 in the History of The Times, unknown historian and poet.

Tartosa

Through hard work and frequent trips to Henford, Tybalt Rathbone amassed enough wealth to expand his jewelry making business. The fledgling jeweler even managed to find time to meet a man, Chance Sparague and the two got engaged.

Unfortunately, unrest developed in Henford towards the end of the year. Tybalt took this time to expand his company's presence in Tartosa. Opening a storefront and constructing a rental home near his workshop.

Love was also flourishing across town, where Doge Miranda's son, Arthur, found enough free time between apprenticing for his father to woo another handsome lad, Victor Laws.

Unbeknownst to him, however, his sister Rossana had his eyes on the same boy. Victor would have to make a choice, but would he do it before or after the siblings discover his secret?

Komorebi

Meanwhile, rumors were abound in Komorebi that Ayumi Midori was abducted by the lights through the leaves. She returned the following day. Her concerned husband Ichiro requested a response from the twin Emperors regarding the incident. They declined his petition, and the quietly left their farm in the middle of the night.

The village was thrown into upheaval as the rumors spread that both the farmer and his wife were abducted by the lights through the leaves. Empress Kamira turned to meditation to find a response to the unrest.

Meanwhile, her son began training for his rule in peace keeping for the empire.

Henford

In late Cycle 6, the Bramblewood Bandits, led by Furghus Darkmoor, planned an attack on Castle Hopewell. They celebrated the whole before as a rallying cry.

The raid of Castle Hopewell lasted only six hours. Despite the use of explosives, the bandits never breached the first wall of the castle. It seems the partying the night before impaired the bandits' abilities. The explosives however, did set one of the exterior buildings on fire.

The Founding House sustained considerable damage. Luckily, despite being told to hide during the battle, young Prince Basileus, bravely rescued the many masterpieces located in the building from the flames. Some of the paintings, however, went missing during the battle, along with Marcus Wellborne, the adopted son of Lady Hopewell.

Will the cold hearted Tybalt Rathbone actually get married? Will the Miranda siblings find out Victor Laws's secret? Who will Victor choose? How will the Twin Emperors deal with the sudden lack of a farmer? Where did the old farmer and Marcus Wellborne disappear to?

Catch up to date gameplay of the Realms of Whitmore on Twitch @ StandbyEntrance - Twitch

#sims 4 #bacc #realms of whitmore #the sims 4 #thesims4 #mt komorebi #henford on bagley #tartosa

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isleofdarkness · 1 year ago

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Black Magick ch7 p1/3

Warnings- (implied/referenced- rape/noncon, CSA and CSE, cult abuse, forced prostitution, childhood prostitution, religious abuse,) PTSD and trauma, medical issues, character is going to die (or at least thinks he will,) internalized ableism, broken bones (severely,) near-death experiences, tell me if I need to add more.

Sultana Jasmine was pacing.

That was what struck Li Shang first. Before he even noticed the books stacked on the table or the pale, drawn look on Aladdin's face, he noticed that Jasmine, eternally-unshakeable Jasmine, was pacing.

Whatever they had been summoned for, it was going to be bad.

Jasmine spotted them and stopped, hijab swinging as she whipped to face them. "Welcome to Jahannam! Please, don't linger in the doorway, come in and suffer with the rest of us!"

Ancestors protect them.

"What's going on?" He asked, stepping further into the room. There were a few murmurs of assent- clearly everyone else was just as confused as he was.

Jasmine gestured sharply to the beaten books on the table. "The Isle kids snuck these across the barrier and had Jabari deliver them to us. These books are all about the Isle." She grabbed one and tossed it to Mulan, then one to him. "Shan Sarangerel, daughter of Shan Yu, and a written record of Shan Yu's efforts to keep the Isle alive with one bottle of medicine a year." She tossed one to Heracles. "That one's all about the suffering of Hades. I would advise you not read it on a full stomach." She tossed a massive book to Naveen. "That's about the efforts by Doctor Facilier to help the children of the Isle." One to Kida. "Would you like to read about Rick, the son of Helga? He's a lot like Kaldur. And this-" She threw one to Anna, "Is about a little girl named Anna, daughter of Hans. Don't read it on a full stomach. The good done by Madonna Tremaine-" she tossed one to Ella, "The life of Anthony Tremaine II," to Anthony, "The life of Mal," to Aurora, "And our dear Claudine," to Esmeralda. "And more! Any requests?"

None of them had the nerve to answer.

None of them left.

"Thank you."

Two weeks later, Riah started the worst day of his year by falling down the stairs.

And he had class.

He knew he was going to fall. It was just a matter of how bad the fall would be. He'd hoped his arm and leg could at least hold out to the middle of the staircase.

They didn't. Not even two steps down, his bad leg collapsed. His bad left arm, his cane arm, folded when he put too much weight on it.

He went down.

Of course, that had been a routine for a simpler time, when he didn't have two very snappable bones coming out of his skull.

His horns were the first crack he heard. But they weren't the last.

Horns hand fingers leg skull-

He wasn't sure who screamed when he fell. He was pretty sure it wasn't him.

Spine leg leg hands-

He hit the ground hard enough to wind him and slammed into one of the heavy, cushy chairs. His head cracked back against the side table and he saw stars, going limp.

When he blinked the darkness from his vision, his first instinct was to scream. His second was to start swearing. He managed to refrain from both. He still had shocked scared tears in his eyes when he looked up to see his friends racing down the stairs. And he could feel the eyes of every Auradon kid in the stupid building staring at him. Fucking fantastic. They were all going to see him as weak and helpless just because of a bad day, his friends were going to see him as weak and helpless because of a bad day, Jay and maybe even Ben were going to see him as fucking weak and helpless and he had to show that he wasn't-

Refusing to show weakness, he forced himself to his feet, putting weight on his bad and now-broken left leg in absence of his cane. The smile he gave his concerned friends definitely looked more like a snarl or a grimace, but he didn't care. "Fucking... just tell Fairy Godbitch I'll be late to class. I'm gonna see the nurse cause I just broke my leg in three places. Where's my cane?"

"How'd the ground taste?" Jay joked on what had to be reflex, holding Riah's cane out to him before withdrawing. Riah saw red. "Wait, you shouldn't-"

The Auradon kids practically dove out of his way. He stormed past them.

Just to prove his point, he forced himself to walk without his cane. The rage gave him enough fuel to walk sort-of normally, but the fading adrenaline meant that he felt every. Single. Step.

There was no way in hell he was letting anyone see him like this after what had just happened. Fuck it. If Fairy Godbitch wanted to throw him out of school she could. He wasn't getting across campus without it but he sure as shit wasn't going to let anyone see it, so he had to. He whispered a spell, calling on magick from his grandmother, to make himself invisible to those he didn't want to see him. Once he was sure that was done, he pulled the flattened plastic mask out of his shirt, fixed the metal edges over his mouth and nose, and pulled the elastic bands over his head to fix it to his face. He didn't bother to lift up his shirt to see the buttons on the machine hidden at his side, just flipped the power switch and sighed in relief as the oxygen concentrator started working.

Fucking sixteenth birthday. Bitchass spell couldn't even wait two days to kill him.

Claudine was a lot stronger than Mal thought. When she and Jay started after Riah, Claudine held them both back without effort. "Don't. You'll only make it worse."

"What are you talking about?" Riah had fallen down the stairs and was walking on a broken leg without his cane. How could they possibly make that any worse?

"If he needs help," Mal argued, "Why's it so bad to try and help him?"

"Because none of you know how to ask and none of you ask anyway," Claudine explained patiently. "If you want to help Riah, you've got to ask if you can help him, not if he needs help. And if he says no, you have to respect that. Riah really tries to be independent, he hates when people assume or act like he can't do something. It makes him feel as though people see him as less than and when you do that, he goes overboard to prove you wrong. I've seen him scale a brick wall using just his hands to prove that he could get up the stairs and I know Hades has seen him do a great deal more. Riah is very capable of a lot of stuff and he's usually really good about sticking to his limits, but he'll push himself too hard if he thinks people are going to think less of him for what he can't do. Riah was probably extremely embarrassed about falling down the stairs in front of everyone and I probably didn't help by screaming and drawing attention. What he needed us to do was act as though someone like Jay had just tripped. When he falls down the stairs, unless he's saying something is wrong, it's best to make a joke like Jay did and move on. You give him his cane and if he puts his hand out, you help him to his feet like it's no big deal. Don't even put your hand out to help him. I know you meant well and you just didn't know, so I'm telling you guys now so that this doesn't happen again." Huh. Claudine could definitely be a nurse. "Never, ever, try to take his cane away. That would be like taking Agony's arm or leg-" There was a collective wince. They'd all seen what happened when someone did that and how severely upset Agony had been. "Because that is like Riah's arm or leg. Plus, he can walk without it. He can run without it. And he will. Believe me, I've seen him do both and the aftermath of both is never pretty. If he doesn't have his cane he will hurt himself. He'll walk and run on that leg and if the bone breaks the wrong way it's an emergency trip to the hospital and several blood transfusions from the three people he can receive blood from and who aren't in Auradon."

"His curse." His fucking what? "Riah has a curse trying to crush his lungs, he's had it for his entire life. He wears an amulet to keep it from killing him, that blue stone he doesn't take off, but..." Claudine gave Mal a nervous look. "It was cast by Maleficent and you know how her curses are. They kill at the sixteenth birthday. And Riah's sixteenth birthday is in two days."

"He thought he could handle it and I thought he could, too. Mal, Riah wasn't cursed to die when he turns sixteen, he was cursed to die before he turned thirteen. He's lived with a spell trying to kill him for three years. He thought, with the magic he would have access to here, he would be able to keep fighting it. But..." Tears started to glitter in Claudine's eyes. Claudine never cried. "He can't. He only has so much left to use and once it's gone, he's going to die. But he won't take more. He can't. He would rather die."

"Take what?" She needed someone to draw a diagram so she could keep track of the punches. Riah was going to die in two days. Great.

"Life." What?! "I don't know how it works. Riah drained the life energy, the souls, out of four people almost fourteen years ago. That's how he's stayed alive. With that abundance of life magick he's been able to extend his own life. But it's been so long, he's running out, and he can't get more."

"Can't he just drain someone else?"

They had to try.

Thank God Doctor McCoy had been visiting. If he hadn't been, Julieta was almost certain the Isle boy would have died.

"Charles!" The voice on the other end shouted, accent thick even in one syllable. "Tell him what you know, I vill be there in two seconds."

"Slow down," the man ordered gently. "What do you know about the curse?"

"It crushes his lungs. He has an amulet to create a barrier between his lungs and the spell but the amulet doesn't always work. He wouldn't say much about it."

"So the spell is a physical thing?"

"The way he explained it, yes." She really knew nothing about this kind of magic. The Encanto was a blessing, a miracle, not a curse. She didn't know anything about curses.

"They'll be there in one-" there was a strange sound as three people appeared in a puff of smoke. "Moment."

The younger of the two women, a Latina woman with brown locs pulled back in a bun, knelt next to Riah and put her fingers to his neck. "No pulse." She pulled the shirt and binder off the rest of the way, making access easier. "McCoy, move on three. One, two, three-" McCoy jerked back and she quickly got his clothes off and pulled the strap for his strange oxygen machine over his head. "Resume." McCoy went back to chest compressions as she tore the corners from the wax paper covers on the electrodes and poured a clear gel into her hand. "McCoy. One, two, three." He moved back again and she quickly applied the gel across Riah's chest, then applied the five electrodes. "Resume."

The woman with red hair put her fingers to her temple, brow wrinkling. "I can't move it much, but I've given him maybe an inch of room. There's something really wrong with the shape of his lungs. I've never seen anything like it. It looks like some kind of ILD, but I can't find an exact diagnosis."

McCoy frowned. "We'll have to do an imaging scan." He didn't say it, but the way the atmosphere was quickly turning grim told Julieta how dangerous the situation was becoming.

After a beat of horrified silence, Cecilia nodded. "Do that. Hopefully we'll have good news to send to his parents."

How had none of them noticed? That one question played on repeat in Jay's head as everything kept getting worse and worse.

What else is he hiding?

What if he dies?

The second he saw Riah, that growing hope died.

How the hell had he gotten so bad without any of them noticing?

He knew Riah was thin, they all were, but the lack of jacket and long pants let him see that Riah was skeletal. He had some muscle, sure, but it was all flat and dense and right underneath the skin, as though he didn't have even the thinnest layer of fat. His skin was clinging to his muscles and bones. What Jay had thought were just high cheekbones and a sharp jawline suddenly became evidence of severe starvation- how had this guy managed to get out of bed, let alone walk the quarter-mile to the nurse's office? He had picked Riah up, how had he not noticed the guy being a bag of bones? How could Riah, who easily ate more than any of them, be so skinny?

The paper gown revealed just how bad his leg was. He'd known the bone was curved, but thick jeans had hidden the worst of it. The skin on his left thigh was bumpy, as though the bone had healed in spikes under it. His leg wasn't merely bruised, it was almost entirely painted in shades of black and blue. Bruises painted his thigh entirely in patterns that meant breaks, and most of those bruises were old. His knee was bent in a slightly weird way, as though the lower part of the joint had turned a bit, and the swelling and bruising showed both dislocation and breaks. There was even a slight but definitely unnatural indent to his calf, with bruising that looked like it had broken a few weeks ago- the entire leg was an emergency on its own. How had Riah been able to put any weight on that leg, let alone walk on it without his cane?

Claudine wasn't surprised. She darted to Riah's side as the rest of them paused, squeezing his limp hand. "How bad is it?"

No.

Claudine jolted, face going hard. "There is. We need to get him to the Isle. Right. Now."

"What're you talking about?" Mal asked. Was it something about letting Riah die with his family?

The pure white skin, curly black hair, and glowing red eyes.

Holy shit.

"He's Matilda Mim," Evie whispered. Matilda Mim the third was a bit of an urban legend on the Isle. The secondborn kid of the Horned King and Madam Mim, born three months premature, cursed, left to die at only a few hours old. Legend was that Matilda had actually survived and was still alive-

"Don't call him that," Claudine corrected. "His name is Riah. But yes, he was."

Holy shit!

"We're wasting time," she continued. "The longer we wait, the more damage is done. If we get him there within the next hour he might be able to survive long enough for the transplant-"

"What's going on?"

Jay's.

Heart.

Stopped.

"We're taking Riah to the Isle to save his life," Claudine said, squaring her shoulders and giving him a look as if daring him to argue. "And we're taking him there right now."

"You'd better believe they are."

As if this couldn't get anymore confusing-

The woman who stepped out of the shadows was Isle, it was obvious even if Jay hadn't known who she was. The scars on her skin and across her face- he could match so many of her features to Riah's- the tattoos painting her arms, her light turquoise hair, buzzed at the back and sides but long at the top in a way no one on Auradon used, her black armour-

Maverick fucking Mim.

"The Blackbird can get there faster," some bald guy in a wheelchair said.

Maverick shook her head. "Not gonna work. Number one, the hospital is underground-"

"Since when?" Mal sounded frazzled. Well, it was nice to see he wasn't the only one who had no clue what was going on.

"Who are you?" Ben managed.

That was why Mal was the leader. She had a gift for keeping her head in even the worst situations.

"Who was that?" Ben asked, struggling to sound composed. The poor guy looked as confused as Jay felt.

"That," Mal gestured at the shadow Maverick had vanished into, "Was our sign that the world is going to end and a way to keep it from ending. On the Isle, she gives the orders. If she orders you to jump, no matter what gang you're part of, you say 'how high?' If she's saying we need to get Riah to the Isle, we're getting Riah to the fucking Isle. Now let's get moving before he dies."

Ben had no idea what was going on. It turned out that the Isle kids didn't, either.

The entire journey in the X-Van was spent listening to Claudine explain everything. No matter how bad Riah's physical conditions had seemed, they were only the surface of the issues. Riah had been born nearly three months premature. He'd been blind when he was younger and had needed surgeries and different treatments to fix this, but his eyes were still sensitive to light and he struggled with processing visual information. He'd needed multiple organs replaced- his heart, his kidneys, his intestines, and even two vertebrae. He'd had brain surgery when he was three to lessen severe epilepsy, but he was still epileptic and had seizures triggered by stress (which he was on medications for, but still.) His left femur wasn't simply broken, in had been eighty-five percent shattered. Fixing it had been impossible for reasons Ben never got but they all seemed to know. He had chronic pain from dozens of broken bones and this pain was sometimes so severe that he couldn't get out of bed. Today had been one of those days, and Riah had still forced himself out of bed and tried to walk down the stairs.

The only area Claudine didn't know much about was his lungs. That was where Doctor McCoy stepped in.

"Getting an imaging scan was far easier than you think. Equipment for mutants with ice, fire, and electricity abilities worked like a charm. This is why it's important these six see a provider used to working with genetic variants- if this had been detected earlier, we would have been able to act before it was an emergency." So they needed mutant doctors. He would have to see if the Xavier Institute would be willing to treat them moving forward. "Riah's lungs are extremely malformed. If I had to guess, I would say they were the size of an eight-year-old's lungs, and a small eight-year-old at that. Their growth has clearly been severely restricted by the curse. As a result, they've grown into an extremely dysfunctional shape. The walls of his lungs are inconsistent, some parts are far too thick while some parts are as thin as tissue paper. The insides are almost eighty percent scar tissue, I suspect due to the way they've been forced to grow. It appears he's had some sort of laryngotracheal reconstruction surgery, surgery to fix his windpipe, at least twice in his life, but there's still a great deal of damage and malformation with his windpipe."

"He shouldn't be alive," Audrey whispered, eyes wide with horror. "How can he still be alive?"

"It appears he has some minor form of immortality. His body seems to adapt to any issues that put his life at risk. I noticed in the scans that he has scar tissue across his intestines, right under the scar across his stomach. An injury like this should not have been able to heal and should have required removal and a great deal of medical intervention, but his body was able to heal the damage and restore function. Scans of his brain, stomach, heart, liver, and spinal cord reveals similar scars and similar healing. If I had to guess, I would say the tissue in his lungs has mutated to function despite the damage. The real question is why this ability suddenly stopped." The Isle kids shared a minute, knowing look. "I hope to speak to someone who knows more about his medical history."

"Fantastic." McCoy looked almost like a child at Christmas.

"She does a lot," Claudine added. "She helps him get around, grabs stuff for him, keeps him from falling or helps him get up after a fall, opens and closes stuff, wakes his up from nightmares, alerts for his panic attacks, meltdowns, shutdowns, flashbacks, and dissociation, and she helps him feel safe. She can even alert to his seizures before he has one, sometimes an hour before they happen. I've seen how much she helps him. She's as important to him as his cane, maybe more."

"If he needs her, I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to have her. I had no idea he had a service dog that he wasn't allowed to bring with him." Maybe not having his dog would explain why Riah seemed to have gone downhill so fast in Auradon. He was the only one of the Isle kids who had lost weight, and he'd lost a lot- maybe the dog reminded him to eat, or helped relieve stress so he could eat? If she kept him from falling, his leg probably wouldn't be as bad as it looked. Maybe she could have calmed him down before he snapped under his anger or anxiety. Maybe a lot of his anxiety was from not having his dog- not having the comfort, not having an early warning for seizures, not having something that could remind him to listen to his emotions and take care of himself- it would make a lot of sense. He couldn't believe this had never been bought to his attention. "Do any of you have service animals you left behind? We can collect them while we're here."

Mal shook her head. "But I know I've got some stuff I left at home, and I know the others probably do. Would it be okay if we went home and grabbed some things we forgot?"

"Absolutely. Just don't bring any weapons." He felt stupid saying it. The Isle kids might have been rough, but they weren't dangerous. They clearly weren't going to bring weapons into the school.

Jay snorted into his hand and Evie bit her lip to keep from laughing. Mal elbowed both of them, but it was clear she was trying not to laugh. "No problem."

With those plans made, Ben looked back at Riah, still unconcious in the gourney that had fit perfectly into the X-Van. He was so thin, far thinner than he'd been when he first came to Auradon, and covered in black bruises. It was hard to believe he'd been in Auradon for two months. While the other five had healed up and gained weight, he'd lost weight and gotten injury after injury. "Has he been eating?"

"He eats more than any of us," Jay frowned. "Sometimes I think he eats more than all of us put together. I don't get how he lost so much weight."

"There isn't any magic on the Isle." If there was no magic, how could anyone sell their soul to anyone? How could they become magically immortal and get to magically regenerate without magic?

"There's names," Mal explained. "If I were to ask someone to give me their name- never have, by the way, except in emergencies when someone won't be able to live unless I do it, and I always free them the second they aren't in danger- and they were to say their full name, I would own their soul. It's a rare practice, but people do it. Some people use it in very bad ways, but some people, like the woman from earlier, use it to help people. Mara's currently the only thing keeping some of the adults in check, so she sold her soul to M- that woman, because she needs to be immortal for everyone's sake. For what it's worth, that woman has never forced any of the people who've sold their souls to her to do anything they don't want to do. Actually, I know at least two of them are freed from their contract if she tries to order them to do something they don't want to do."

"She's..." Mal shook her head. "If she said we can't tell you who she is, we won't. When that one gets involved, she's in charge. When she gives us an order, we listen. We know her as Destiny, basically." Destiny as in Destiny of the Endless? The oldest of them, with a chronicle of all time chained to his arm? The most powerful being on the planet? "She's not, obviously, but we treat her like she is. She knows everything, knows what'll happen if something else happens. She has a really good intuition, or some kind of magical schooling, and we listen because she's never been wrong. And she rarely gets involved. Usually she stays on her part of the Isle, doesn't interact with anyone outside of her gang. When she gets involved, it means something extinction-level needs stopped, and she knows how to stop it. If something is bad enough that she gets involved, we listen to her because she never gets involved."

"She's the Pope of the Isle," Claudine said. "She doesn't give orders often but when she does, her word is absolute law."

Mal shrugged. "No idea. But if she said she's going to get us onto the Isle, I believe her."

Ben glanced out the window, at the wide expanse of blue ocean, then at Riah.

Whatever happened, he hoped it happened fast.

#descendants #descendants au #isle of darkness #original character #descendants oc #zachariah darhk #swearing #descendants jay #descendants evie #claudine frollo #descendants mal #mal briar #carlos de vil #descendants ben #maverick mim

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