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libidomechanica · 1 year ago

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True, and never soulful phrases, brilliant wide

A limerick sequence

I would be a bed the she life, climbing snapp’d without passee’ and the woman. One strength dividing, from its this, and clear. True, and never soulful phrases, brilliant wide.

And there I throat shall summon Sense. The blue, silvery dusky groves though in their imaginary with a lost your pillows of what��s faces and creeping; but breath!

III

Torch but to the lately been is dressed, but a page of what to the Dutch fledge. If their planet’s goblet: she will on pride the field, and since ghosts of mutual and flies.

Never little lisper is suspect, whose whole. Broken he doubt in our sins bob their she breezy sky, that written, love the gate and strike dying. Her eyes; that she wing.

And as light. Like a little brough, of flowers grew, from she ev’n the day, alas! Was a scorn to a dash’d the very banks, how darkener of ioy, where, the ocean.

At this pass with alley. Of bedded slumber; and free, but much, enthraldom sings inster, I shalt sit will track’d on the promise through were we may enterpart or no.

VII

Lay among this quick beats you the plowboy is curl’d first yet. They say of tale age instant with her—but mind. And the cries, seem an ever. And fly to understood sex.

VIII

The ornament, play. I, nor not only to countiful&carved foreverend Rodomont Precisian wrecks; and less as a boy at chimneys of ioy, why shown tops?

The glow, that general stay, Miss O’Tabby, and maiden day arising, conjure to do? Literary radian such a tattoos into a Midwife, show we speak.

The dreams the lake, and drops rising in his side. She wood as a grand infant round elbow, which is dead out the branching aymes came face—but not. Or turn’d hardly heart.

It preach’d on the creatures no repay. Knowing a party, At this heart which The white, his never write to Lambrosial cash bereft, nor give me sleep are has he love.

XII

Three perfect of knowledged myself grow off sometimes shining resign; and act of bounty from the gave me than more could achieve no voice wilful twilights my lad.

XIII

A signal-flag; and plunder noble lodged—throughts arise, shall keep and temptied then, and tenderness? Those symmetrical, also this such as speckled third, across-grain’d.

XIV

Her vision see, as the bastard in our deeds?—How the wind, where were much fled, and both too soothe year. I know, by bidding in the gate-end, extincture of all this eye?

With my own rain, yet looks and Lords and look’d up the first to make of mind: thus spake. Human claimed his for I grow together teeming the grained present shaken withdrew.

XVI

You make my hope beyond thus, which that is perhaps no doubt of melodious and enormous wake us marting years to stems our body die. A rose, and sigh.

XVII

Lives ghostlike ship divine back, the was Ralph had laws, could stand are, I’m sure is so, who refuse to let the sage, too, I am the same. Strengthen went birds in mildness!

XVIII

Of the brance look for some of the dust we lease, not only now deduce the skies who neither; just still! To given across it and Stellaes her neck unto our search’d.

XIX

Bedded rocks of love: its qualified all is the man’s stars she says sounds force, yet wast stays brine. Indeed of palmy life like to terror, as never said it, the heard.

How she halls, a tumultuous wit, making to bleeds and perfection’? And whilst throat. Till last to breathing o’er the free the patrons the bird sorts which brough thunder-lip.

XXI

See her golden can tea! There, thine own will planet wi’ a new-found there gullet should noted we wilder rais’d away all she had take. Footsteps fortune late progress’d.

XXII

Were going of the spirit frankind. As nonsense swell; till person, which keep into base? All day like in vaine heart to this they find no more slip away, sprinkles curls.

XXIII

And farmer’s feet to pass’d away! The naked story of his rage out and uninspired of planet wi’ her lovely take religion of all weep; and we shoot.

XXIV

Ear than if to lose most destinging. I say, as them. Should pensill lady. Dante within my soft sin intentment light. Ye with truth,—the very one. It’s antic.

XXV

Muses of hooks question,—all the your old as to join. Were is fair; the might like Jewels pebbles in the bastard songs all unseen unto lose chieftain of a column.

XXVI

Sweet love all the made accused then the tasted leap’d with the views, howsoe’er, my servented his earth until a gentle beauteous as determined been her the woman.

XXVII

No mean, and with a long look up from Arabian. And there shepherds are full: we cannot death, but the bastard soule opprest, being spirit, the first day! Whither.

XXVIII

I writhin your baron tyrants, enkind, have I lo’ed her figure of Virgin- treason, science, or another an’ shape: tis the world? And tho’ your placed his hours out.

XXIX

At length, but gentle spring, became fruit of jarring came thou alone for any a hero’s can restle to go on? See the your best intent twisted success.

XXX

The resolve if human to remini he is Maud, Maud? What we men, the fair, answered in my mountain between us, like a crowned, i’d having his little.

XXXI

Woman names a wailful glance, as many a fact, the blood well that darkening rill! From powders are left, and all the days out the friends. And Lo! We are not for some gall.

XXXII

Few specimens yet no more the days is. For him hide in mountains he seem, when Ionian stood as farre to stammer childish plunder half cut the though tame,—and tincture.

XXXIII

Last the pleasure. I things than lightly forgot, the cell, with river; so please— beating throught that sweet face in: from her seats in start but the native lark was anonym.

XXXIV

From you to who day she good Sir Peter tary, and amid the hodge porridges! And whisper with Time than drew friendship, and later fingerings, and earthly wrecks?

XXXV

Let compass, that outspreaded morbid! But let us light, is but love were sometimes in the rest, or harmless really and an arm is flourishing starry in dead.

XXXVI

And armour, not the worlds breath! Brief into grove, and we have them breast was not too near our wilt, but slipped to clime, and disappear: thus seek for to hye and fair chieftain’d.

XXXVII

Past or making, her visage to her be got up, whether how it creed, dead. Not so adorn the peaches for heart become gain’d rills. Move, a man, there bills, to thy fool.

XXXVIII

And Cathers. Of his proud spite or lay- men, with gladly in drooping, scandal doth made, on her mind station was of blood war how small bury alone consolate brave.

XXXIX

Or had breed from slaughty draught I, Morpheus slept, sad there, start but heart to close, grave, and had Horace: his horses have not. Twas trace with tall and under that frown witty.

But it in despatch! Think, a sign’d the mighty drinks and did not I have cheek of all mock of men. Saw, I might now, are ripe, let not, which enquire the moment see.

XLI

Thou to this own he link be deep Passing. Juan, t is gone, and we would be morning hovers, and little each clusters, and yet— she hang limb, and I saw their mists all?

XLII

With his pulse of my tear, shall legs weathed almost mind. And up and was mine and wise have gaiety and hath punched about to keep them apple, thou are most dear become.

XLIII

If a fooled. I sat cost honey-whisper, or flesh o’ my could I read again instinctures wait that airy sweet some some body does with man but know, ere mind.

XLIV

By sudden sit your back climb Aornus, and bulky way in whose who wastefully, and truth wonder willowy-bosom in ev’ry postboys love. Now one on me.

XLV

Captain’s love left his foot our touch of dirty served; she myself, we’ll go, and furrows the black e’e, yet true. And thought. A little her friends; and with rivals of a wide.

XLVI

The vessel both a volcano hold thy virgin; beauty’s coil: they beheld an universe call rocks. Without her Will you heroic in it might sky, a decay.

XLVII

Eye and weeds your to-night: nor dead. And Lord, with tears of time that his added, Blame or Early, like a gold; or else contented on a new created snowball speak?

XLVIII

But whence fire in the omen and long stray’d delayed face I saw hers, have just your entangle scions with their ruff too. Forbidden, lovely Rose,—tells than his style admir’d.

XLIX

Farewell at even now all sudden neat, still enterwove by the earring your little heaven? Tis not in my small inheritage; and Phyllis be but we slew.

Glory easily I things hymn’d by men; but only margaritable the Lord graces of Sir Ralph’s wife. My Muse some woo’d, unless Hosts the kill’d Saviour, notes; save.

With thought all the Neptune it: howe’er pause. Both dwell; she my visit us much mourning rather walks of manner., His baptized here most travellers, not their fellow.

LII

In look aparted bliss; and haps the first in blasphemies. All the fire; full twanging the chieftain kintry instinct, not how, no carrior’s command of love, note the you!

LIII

The orchest of a dreary days a placeman. Or not save listens our hands to discourself! Under a connection, its boughs, and Adam’s face; their own away.

LIV

As death: mark me, the first beach her beloved angular intends, froze. My saying; so pale, some we sees now it never smooth Anthea laugh there. The heart, the dead.

And your best: but past. He the way let me slight, and young days, so sure they say something to universal dew fall lips: and the came to pass’d foe sues forget—in May.

LVI

Manifold, nor skin, but let it greeting, before I reserved: the glow’d from timeless darken! Lord Henry’s will still, it is a giant as a crescended anguish.

LVII

Look, a stay, sets to a wilder of your solace, disdain percharge. Earth, and long ago hates, and falling when hairs. Divine that stream enclosets dost their nature speak?

LVIII

It has not them really decayed at all which rate. That overlet’s life’s forgotten. And where overcome from Livorno by this Arbour and now best on a pause!

LIX

Crystal started upon a dreamed of lofty thus thralling Lilia woke with neither raise bewray it struck without the walls Ilion lay be should have been? And down.

And yet Juan angry sin is suspect with wineglass without still found their virtue slut the costume. As boyish lady still was more of golden remorse, and watch.

LXI

’ So like house a fresh before, ’tis the apartment fare-thee-—yet shalt see the time’s right! Glee would on this was and Osiris the sits, and so that the little joy it.

LXII

When your cheek hath a mine; ’ both in youth and my chariot stones wealthier, thou great dearier another’s lady. And when the bloom, which sense there was no more the dear.

LXIII

That shall no open from his hum, was more lieutenance? With joys: then, wise two women dancing like Caracter in path; and I, lowly began, till that we lost you.

LXIV

Of the but would as out-told thy you nondescripture imitars alone of the seas long deserts state, o’er our skin whither unpleasure of where was Love Supreme.

LXV

And Lady Daphne had demolish- shaven, how God with his own merely hew and the fault wane, song ago hath broad shore, ’tis nough tale; there made the opera’s self-said.

LXVI

Bone ascend about me, smoothest excellent and paces o’er there, her heads I know! Then the sun’s lays and in a braine. And truculent, which thee, or wrong.—What is wrong.

LXVII

Rouse up they’ve sophy, and, as well as trim as save no voice; whetherefore, I would nothings charm’d with a single do I prevail, the hill? Also kept, like a sense.

LXVIII

Spread of country: Pitt too serves, and dim, endymion! For what the passion, wise on that all that green from all. Forgive. I have to win her reach; and slime that silly sweet.

LXIX

Forward laughs but bring she cares, to give wild of rode; it special protective left behind. Brave and beats into thee her, in me go, and keeps for the worlds back the Moon.

LXX

Said without all th’adulter in they were all rocks incense swift the grape could save of the make fain pity. All day till the space the burden of light of the stole that.

LXXI

To succulent, that since whereon my loving, leaves does now a paradise: when you’d before her Will till heaven, ’ as Cassandra warm. Suck a piteous batch; an end.

LXXII

Dried beyond her grape could sleeping wont with made, inster, that know they were mind, have that once of the Bored. Ye immortal rain came, and plays when hand. What is time will shape.

LXXIII

Having new— like some from the with me. Other’s art for to the praise better, among woo’d then, that god of the crowd of those eyes of her line: loved weave your choice, no hum.

LXXIV

Her gold ; then it kisse, with than alas! Are Homer’s eyes, wood at a strong. A clever man with that could self and with Phoebus take they have any darling? Or her meet.

LXXV

‘If it was more be banish’d to sleep. Strike most hopes, and never end of the mignonette of Venus, with should for an instant pictures broad lawn all that shall fences.

LXXVI

They quickly new delayed at once, thy lips, the world out, when plains in ye right but mine, in while those cheeks of the sovereign. On woman any other famine us!

LXXVII

But then, every love me my Dear, my love were, so delight? I will for altar, seemed to get out an all pay by Strange bring unto the glory, or many darling?

LXXVIII

I feel with the grave large, equipage! ’Tis not purer, because by, ere manifold, or to instant eyes—the chief into o’er her down twelve house, that’s forth, all my sword.

LXXIX

I would fare it in the least holds th’hill’s shaft, a care not keep into Elysium.— Fairest odds too oft came must rhyme, rather o’er shame, and men she remembers all?

#poetry #automatically generated text #Patrick Mooney #Markov chains #Markov chain length: 5 #181 texts #limerick sequence

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kudosmyhero · 2 years ago

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The Amazing Spider-Man (vol. 1) #430: Savage Rebirth!

Read Date: October 16, 2022 Cover Date: January 1998 ● Writer: Tom DeFalco ● Penciler: Joe Bennett ● Inker: Bud LaRosa ● Colorist: Bob Sharen ● Letterer: Richard Starkings ◦ Kiff Scholl ◦ Comicraft ● Editor: Ralph Macchio ●

Synopsis: Spider-Man is elated that the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, who were long believed to have died during the final battle against Onslaught, have returned alive and well. In his excitement, the wall-crawler momentarily forgets that there is currently a bounty on his head. Looking forward to seeing the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man heads to the Four Freedoms Plaza where he remembers that the FF no longer live there and that it is now the current headquarters of the Thunderbolts. He then decides to go to the Daily Bugle later to find out where the Fantastic Four are headquartered at. As he leaves, he is observed by Atlas, Techno, and Citizen V of the Thunderbolts. They briefly wonder if the web-slinger has discovered the truth about them, but dismiss this as Spider-Man doesn't strike them as much of a detective. Needing to get to classes at Empire State University, Peter finds a nearby ally to change back into his civilian clothes, knowing that his wife is concerned for his safety since the bounty.

While high above the planet, the Silver Surfer saves a space station from an approaching meteor. He is also delighted to hear that the Fantastic Four are back, but he is concerned what this means about his current relationship with Alicia Masters, the Thing's former girlfriend. Back on Earth, Peter Parker meets up with his wife, who is unhappy to hear that her husband was web-slinging. He assures her that it was an isolated incident, telling her that now that the missing heroes are back, it will take a lot of pressure off him to become Spider-Man and put himself at risk. After Peter smooth things over he heads off to class, confident that this time he will be able to keep his promise to his wife and stay out of the webs until he can clear his name.

At that moment, at Ravencroft Institute, the new administrator is furious over the cost overruns during Ashley Kafka's run of the facility, particularly when it comes to dealing with Cleuts Kasady, the notorious serial killer known as Carnage. Despite warnings from the security staff, the new director decides to reduce some of the microwaves that keep him contained in his cell, confident that Kasady won't notice the change. Unfortunately, as soon as he shuts down the microwave containment, Cletus turns into Carnage and breaks free from his cell. After slaughtering the guards, Carnage escapes the facility, seeking to get revenge against Spider-Man. While at the Daily Bugle, Joe Robertson is in a meeting with J. Jonah Jameson and demands to know why Jonah sold the Bugle to Norman Osborn and why he has been acting so strangely since. When Jonah doesn't give him any answers, Joe Robertson tells him that he has to make some of his own and storms out. On his way out, he bumps into Jacob Conover, who tells him that Osborn is shopping for a new editor-in-chief and that Robertson might soon be out of a job. As Conover is warmly invited into Norman's office, Joe suddenly feels like a stranger. Returning to his office, Joe thinks about quitting, something that his wife wants him to do anyway, but isn't sure what he should do. It's then that Peter Parker arrives to find out where the Fantastic Four are making their home. His thoughts are interrupted by Billy Walters, one of the Bugle's new reporters, who has scored some tickets to see the Knicks play. Since Billy has been trying hard to be friendly, only for Peter to blow him off to be Spider-Man, Peter decides to take him up on the offer.

While down in the lobby, Martha Robertson rushes to catch the elevator up to the newsroom. The elevator is held open by none other that Cletus Kasady. When he hears that this woman is the wife of Joe Robertson, Kasady decides to use her to send a message. Moments later, everyone hears a blood curdling scream coming from the elevators. Recognizing the voice of his wife, Joe Robertson rushes to see what is wrong and is horrified by what he sees. While at Empire State University, Mary Jane is having lunch with Jill Stacy and Shantal Wilsk. Shantal wants to know what's going on with her and Peter, but Mary Jane is being candid as usual. However, when she overhears a radio report about Carnage's escape, Mary Jane collapses into a chair. Her friends concern for her well-being is nothing compared to the fear that Mary Jane feels for her husband. Back at the Bugle, Joe is relieved to discover that his wife is still alive, Carnage only stabbed her in the arm so he could write "Carnage Rules" on the wall of the elevator in blood. Seeing this, Peter realizes that he can't just stand back and do nothing and slips away to hunt for Carnage as Spider-Man. Not far away, Carnage is terrorizing a man for parking in a handicapped space and is about to crush him with a car when Spider-Man saves him. Their battle attracts the attention of the Silver Surfer who has just arrived over the city. Recognizing Spider-Man, the Surfer flies down to lend him a hand.

When Carnage makes contact with the Surfer, he is shocked when his symbiote suddenly abandons him, leaving Kasady in a near catatonic state. The Silver Surfer realizes how serious the threat of the symbiotes are and tries to follow after the alien creature while Spider-Man handles Cletus. Kasady tells Spider-Man that his symbiote's last thoughts that they must have revenge, but there was only one way to stop the Surfer. Suddenly, the ground explodes and Spider-Man is horrified to see that the Carnage symbiote has now bonded to the Silver Surfer. Now calling itself the Cosmic Carnage, the alien creature intends to use the Surfer's power to take out its anger and frustration on the entire universe.

(https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Amazing_Spider-Man_Vol_1_430)

Fan Art: Spider-Man And The Silver Surfer (John Byrne) colored by xts33

Accompanying Podcast: ● Untold Talks of Spider-Man - episode 06

#marvel #marvel comics #my marvel read #podcast recommendation #comics #peter parker #spider-man #comic books #fan art #fanart #podcast - untold talks of spider-man #silver surfer #carnage #the crossover that dreams are made of #the team up that dreams are made of

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reddragon-cowboy · 2 years ago

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steady, slow breaths exhale through parted lips, wills everything external about his visage to portray calmness and composure despite tension that tingles his nerves, hardens the muscles of his shoulders and back. his mind runs a mile a second as her blood smeared on his fingers. Jet been gone for a few hours to pay a visit with his cop buddy at the I.S.S.P. for intel on a complicated bounty head they're tracking. and Ed. . . he had no clue - the chances of the kid snoozing off somewhere, lying on the floor, in one of the many corridors was high to none.

Time was the essence . a wise old earth saying, something he needed in this context . It triggers something, a distant memory hidden in his bank of recollections .

He rises to his feet. ❝ Don't move . ❞ now . . . it would've been funny if circumstances of this nature were blithesome with unserious injury; a chuckle was surely to escape his mouth, but it only remains taut, lips pressed smooth together as he swiftly ushers off down the corridor towards another room, just pass the kitchen where the linen is stored - bath towels, wash cloths, rags, blankets. and hands shuffle through the cotton fabrics, flings the materials over his shoulder that flutter onto the floor. he grabs a white one ( and more that one ) that suits his purposes, plus two bath towels for extra measure of the same non-existent color. something big with absorbent properties that'll not only stem the flow, but also soak up the blood she's losing by the tick of a clock every second .

in his rush through the same corridor, his foot butts against an object, and a whimper rings out as Spike blunders over what it appears to be Ein who has wandered in Spike's path. and vexation immediately flared up his throat with a curl of his upper lip . ❝ EIN ! Shi- get outta my way-! ❞ he snaps at the little corgi, his coolness slipping through the cracks as he regains his balance after he nearly stumbles into the wall. Ein's huge ears falter as he responds with a small whine. Spike heaves with a loud huff before he continues on his way. What good was that mutt for again ? Unbeknownst to the bounty hunter, however, the little corgi's curiosity tugged at his leash to follow him .

the scowl that once contorted his features by the inconvenience fades once Faye's form strikes his view as he reaches the common room. and the stench of blood sharply assaults his nose, hanging heavier in the air where dark crimson paints the couch's surface against her thigh, now easily noticeable as it had formed a tiny puddle in his absence.

his adam's apple bobs as he takes a swallow. ❝ C'mon, you need to lie down . ❞ he drops the towels on the table and stand over her, quickly ( gently ) takes hold of her shoulder and the back of her head to lower her body in a laying position - she must be stabilized to avoid the potential of dizziness or risk of losing conscious. but he couldn't determine how long ago the stab occurred by mere observation alone .

❝ How long ago did this happen ? ❞ and it was as Spike was snatching a small towel off the table, he recalls he forgot to collect some gauze's and saline solution, slipped his mind to bring gloves; doubt his hands were as clean as recommended by health professional standards are concerned. for the time being, with the thick linen balled in his hand, he touches the towel to the open wound, applying heavy pressure as much as a he could . ❝ Sorry this uh. . . might hurt a bit . Just breathe alright ? ❞

she collides into spike with a pained gasp. muscles tense and spasm from the sudden movement and send currents of fire up her side. she grits her teeth as it washes over her, then forces herself to hook her arm over his neck. she couldn't fight him off even if she wanted to. her strength feels depleted as the pain reaches an exhaustive intensity.

❝ god, this hurts like a bitch, ❞ faye mutters under shaky breath. she tries to sit down carefully but no matter what she does she can't escape the flurry of pain that accompanies any and all movement. this wasn't the first time she's suffered an injury that required more than a bandaid to heal. but judging by the level of pain, and the amount of blood, she's worried the wound is deeper than she originally thought. she finds herself hesitating to remove her hand. part of her doesn't want to look. to provide a better view for spike, she leans to one side slightly, all while grumbling, ❝ i wasn't being careless—it just— ❞ her shorts are stained—the couch too. her hand covered in so much blood that when she finally pulls it away, it drips off her fingers. ❝ —fuck. hurry and grab me a towel or something. ❞

#liesandalibis #ic <> spike #spike (( threads ))#spike is a medic now #another talent has been unlocked #sorry faye it might hurt #tw: blood #why am i alive <> verse 001

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g4zdtechtv · 7 years ago

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Guru Larry's Fact Hunt - 5 Game Trilogies That Never Finished

Never count to 3.

#Guru Larry #Fact Hunt #gaming #web stuff #Mega Man Legends #Mega Man Legends 2 #Mega Man Legends 3 #Miner 49er #Miner 2049er #Bounty Bob Strikes Back!#Scraper Caper #Manic Miner #Jet Set Willy #Half-Life #Half-Life 2 #Half-Life 3 #Advent Rising

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missmirakell · 3 years ago

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Even more Ghost Things

Ghosts who tend to the gardens in the Last City, who've been there since they were first planted.

A gaggle of Ghosts who all spend their time together, and don't stop now that one has found their Guardian. ("Woah Guardian, why does the Traveler let you have 6 Ghosts?" "5 of them aren't mine but I can't get rid of them")

Ghosts trying to encourage their Guardians to form a fireteam together, or join one

Ghosts who write novels (trashy, good, some based of their adventures with their Guardians)

Ghosts who hum to themselves while hacking

Ghosts who are hilariously out of touch with like, everything

Ghosts who transmat back samples of plants or planetary materials for research in their down time.

Ghosts doing their best to mimick human gestures (waving a piece of their shell in hello, floating and lightly touching a human's cheeks like greeting kisses, bowing/bobbing up and down slightly in deference or thanks)

Ghosts spending so much time in a place in the City, that people get used to seeing the Little Light there, and are sad to see it eventually go.

Ghosts nestling into the clothes of their Guardian during down time. Hiding in a Hunter's hood, tucked near the chest of a Warlock's robes, resting on the pauldrons of a Titan.

Ghosts who make extensive lists of "Why That's A Bad Idea, Actually" and list them off to their Guardian while they're in the middle of said bad idea.

Ghosts who are quieter than their Guardian, painfully shy except to their partner.

Ghosts who NEVER shut up, and live for banter.

Ghosts who consistently deliver terrible one-liners, automatically making whatever their Guardian just did seem lame

Ghosts who really really want to pilot the jumpship they promise they won't crash it this time pretty please?

Ghosts who freeze their Guardian's glimmer accounts so they don't go into debt

Ghosts who dutifully transmat successively strange items in for a very unique game of poker

Ghosts who threaten to read their Guardian's internet search history aloud on the Tower if they don't stop farming bounties right fucking now

Ghosts who nestle together like birds in a nest

Ghosts who love animals, and want desperately to pet them

Ghosts who play with animals in the City, or work at an animal shelter.

Ghosts who make the saddest noise if they're hurt or stressed, their little shell drooping

Clumsy Ghosts who never watch where they're going, and bonk into things constantly

Easily distracted Ghosts who forget where they were in a hack, or don't transmat things to the right place

Neat freak Ghosts who are always chiding their Guardian for any mess they make -- including the mess of getting blown up

Ghosts keeping tallies and averages of how often their Guardian dies, and from what (they send the data to Ikora and Zavala so they aren't put on Strikes above their ability)

Ghosts that are always embarrassed by their Guardians

Ghosts taking/teaching classes on tactics -- best time to rez, where to hold for a teammate to help, keeping an eye out for your Guardian's flank, etc.

Ghosts dragging their Guardian along to trainings, and introducing them to their classmates

Ghosts using an app to help them find compatible pen pals or something more 👀

Ghosts getting really embarrassed when their Guardian teases them about said app

Ghosts sitting over their Guardian's shoulder while their Guardian tries a dating app

Mischievous Ghosts who push their Guardians off balance or down a drop

Nervous and finicky Ghosts who will appear to help push their Guardian back from falling off a cliff

Sweet little Ghosts who pick up things to surprise their Guardian with when they're having a bad day

Ghosts who will quietly rest against their Guardian when they're having a bad day

Ghosts who've been with their Guardian for a very long time, and have learned exactly how to cheer them up

Ghosts who've been with their Guardian for a very long time, who knows exactly how to cheer Ghost up too

Parts: 1, 2, FotL

#destiny 2 #destiny ghost #d2 #missmirakell #long post #cw long post

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madhyanas · 4 years ago

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a strumming of nerves

“Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Read this on AO3!

Characters: Din Djarin & Boba Fett

Rating: T/PG-13

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Ratings: Post-S2. Boba Fett POV. Haunted Darksaber/Din’s Haunted AU. Sleepwalking. Implied possession. Not horror, but creepy vibes for sure.

Notes: this au was originally created by @keldabekush, @kyberpistol and others! i’m just messing around with it. good luck trying to parse through this one lads idk how it’ll go

masterlist

———

There’s a noise keeping Boba awake.

It’s a thrumming. Quiet enough to settle into the background, seep into the rocky palace walls, it’s almost innocent. He could almost mistake it for the whine of some desert gnat that snuck in underground.

Almost.

But in the months since he and his companions have settled here, lying awake and staring at the ceiling of his palace quarters has never invited such a sick feeling to his stomach. It’s not nausea — he’s well acquainted with that. Kamino, Geonosis, Coruscant, Tatooine. Nausea has followed him like a diseased shadow.

This is different. He calls it anticipation, for to hear a noise and feel fear is foolishness he’s long outgrown.

The noise doesn’t get louder. The snaked, coiled thing growing in the pit of his stomach gets heavier, and heavier.

Just as he feels he may be crushed into the soft sheets by whatever waking night-terror has decided to sit on his chest, Boba sits up. In fact, he gets out of bed, swings his legs over the edge to touch the chilly stone floor, and steps outside. He’s always preferred doing things, anyway.

There’s nothing out of the ordinary as Boba stares out into the empty throne room. Thin, slivered shadows and hollow caverns. There’s nothing besides that kriffing noise, he thinks sourly, tiredly, before he turns his head.

Someone is standing in the hallway.

Danger.

At first he doesn’t believe it. A simple silhouette that Boba can barely make out in the dark. Something about it doesn’t quite seem real, as if that same waking night-terror hasn’t yet been rubbed from his eyes. Boba blinks. Its outline is blurry, encircled by a slim ring of darkness and seeming to shift in and out of focus. Moonlight doesn’t touch the shape, doesn’t even creep near.

Boba doesn’t approach either. Not even when he recognises the figure. The shoulders, the stance. He can feel in his bones that in the inky blackness hides a scruffy jaw and sad, weathered eyes. “Djarin?”

Din does not respond. He continues to stand there, staring silently down at the floor, which throws the figure’s identity into question because Din is polite to a fault. Fennec had laughed about it when they’d first met the man; a bounty hunter with manners.

What’s wrong with the figure, Boba realises, is that it’s still. Too still. He squints. His eyes aren’t what they used to be, and it’s dark, but he doesn’t think ‘Din’ is… breathing.

The very wrongness of the situation has his fingers twitching for a weapon that isn’t there.

Boba is beginning to think he should have carried a blaster.

“Din,” he calls, more urgently. “What are you doing?”

Silence, again. A sudden gust of wind whistles outside the window, churning sand against rocky architecture. It scrapes.

Boba’s frown deepens. This isn’t right.

The figure then turns — though that isn’t the right word for the movement. It’s a kind of swaying, as if the body can’t quite settle its centre of gravity and settles for a light, weightless bobbing around a fixed point. Almost like dangling. There is no rustling of cloth, no scrape of foot against sandstone floor.

Against his better judgement, Boba glances down. Both of the figure’s feet are flat on the ground.

Of course, his rational mind whispers. What were you expecting?

This ‘Din’, still standing at the other end of the hallway, now faces him directly. And gripped tightly in his left hand is the source of that infernal thrumming.

The Darksaber. Ignited and ready for battle, as it always has been.

Now, technically, pointed at Boba. The figure doesn’t turn away. The light it gives off is sickly, splattering Din’s shirt with the same strange, inverse not-glow the blade itself emanates.

It reminds him of a fish, of all things. One he’d read about, so many years ago. The type that suckers in prey with a shining, blinding light.

A throb in his temple makes itself known, winding the tension in his spine even tighter. When did the thrumming get so loud? It’s everywhere; it bites up his legs and punctures the soft spots between his ribs. A clawed hand crushing a spoilt fruit in its grasp.

Boba clenches his fists to stop himself from covering his ears, nails biting into the flesh of his palms. The sound is more piercing this time, with purpose and deadly aim.

Thick, oozing cold settles in his gut. There is only one possible target in this room.

It gets louder. And louder. It ebbs and flows like the tide but so much more vicious. It doesn’t stop; the noise simmers and bubbles and rings in his ears, resounding through the hallway so strongly it shakes his teeth to the tender, aching nerves and pounds at the insides of his skull. It’s swarming out from behind his eyes and it doesn’t stop, why can’t it stop — the Darksaber swings upwards, ready to strike the final blow — why is this happening he should take it—

“Din!”

The figure flinches. Boba’s shout is as good as a bullet. His shoulders heave with staggering breaths. His heartbeat pulses jaggedly at his throat and he’s panting; a cold, thin sheen of sweat is draped over the back of his neck.

The Darksaber is held high above Boba’s head. The crest of a wave, frozen. Then the blade retreats with a quiet whoosh before the hilt clatters to the ground. That’s the only reason Boba realises the thrumming has stopped.

It still doesn’t feel fixed. Nothing does.

The figure stumbles forward and Din’s haggard face is suddenly awash in a sliver of moonlight. He’s a puppet cut down from his strings, crumpling to the ground.

Boba is there to catch him. As it will be.

“Easy. What happened?” he questions gruffly, too preoccupied with checking the other man over for injuries to hear just how hoarse his voice is.

But whatever state he’s in, Din is worse. He stares at some point on Boba’s shoulder with glazed, unfocused eyes. The man is sweating buckets. “I... I don’t know.”

Din’s voice is soft, as Boba has come to expect, though not reassuring. It crackles and bursts to suggest there’s mucus sitting in his airways, spitting and popping like rotting fat thrown out to sizzle on Tatooine street corners.

Perhaps it is reassuring, then, to be holding his friend so limp in his arms like this. Because Boba knows what blood in the lungs sounds like, and the distinct lack of it anywhere in the musty hallway finally brings his racing pulse something close to calm.

Boba makes a slow, calculated move to rise from the floor and lift the other man with him, but Din flinches when he feels Boba’s shoulders tense. A flinch that dissolves into faint tremors wracking his body, which Boba is loath to ignore, but it also clears the fog from his gaze somewhat.

“I’m—” Din clears his throat and forces out a hard, sharp breath. “I’m fine.” He looks Boba in the eye. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

“No, you’re not,” Boba returns dryly, though he can’t deny the weight that slips from his chest. Breathing, talking. Even with the tremors leaching from Din’s bones into his own, they’re good signs.

Din cracks a weak smile, which comes out more as a grimace. In any case, it doesn’t matter when it’s wiped away almost immediately as Din glances to the side.

Boba looks too. Next to the wall, the discarded hilt of the Darksaber stares back.

“Fett,” Din says gravely, keeping his eyes trained on the weapon. So gravely in fact, that Boba’s hackles rise. He’s speaking as if— as if his life depends on it.

“What?”

The fingers on Boba’s shoulder dig in tightly. “Take it,” Din whispers, hissing between his teeth. He’s pleading. “Take it, destroy it. Anything. Just don’t leave me alone with it.”

Boba is not a man easily surprised. But there is something inherently sickening in the crease of Din��s brow, anxious and abandoned. So much about all this is wrong.

He’s pallid, Boba realises. Din is shivering and sickly and sweaty like he’s in the slump of a fever. He’s still staring at that damned saber.

In the dark, they’re both kneeling on the ground. They are kneeling, technically, before the Darksaber itself.

And with a stubborn set of his jaw, Boba makes a decision.

He swings Din up from the ground, maintaining a stable hold on both arms and looping one round his own neck before either of them can topple back down.

“Right,” Boba barks, and Din’s head snaps up. “You’re going to get some sleep. And you’re leaving that blasted thing here.” His voice leaves no room for discussion.

As he marches them back to Din’s quarters, taking careful stock of any acute weaknesses in the other man’s posture and satisfied to find none for now, Din’s gaze remains forward. It latches onto the door with sharp, quiet focus, and the sight could make Boba grin.

The haunted look in his eyes is new territory. But determination; that, Boba can work with.

Walls of granite and sandstone are taller at night, it seems. Boba gets the fleeting sense that they’re boxed in on either side, in such narrow walkways, then shuns the thought. The palace is his territory. He has nothing to fear, here.

Still, he makes his way around the corners a touch quicker than before.

By the time they’ve gotten to Din’s door, neither of them have looked back once. It’s illogical, he knows. But they both look straight ahead without fail. As if that would keep the thrumming at bay. As if they feel the silence is any better.

Din takes a moment to push himself upright, testing his balance. “Thank you,” he says quietly. It’s sincere, which Boba can respect. He just doesn’t know what it’s for.

Settling on a nod, Boba suggests, “I’ll keep it in my quarters.” The empty sword still lies in the other corridor. “We’ll… figure things out in the morning.”

Din’s mouth flattens into a pained line, and a muscle jumps uncomfortably at his temple. Here, with a little more light, Boba can see the bags etched under the man’s eyes. He’s struck with the impression that this… sleepwalking, for lack of a better term, is not a recent development.

“Yeah,” Din mumbles. “In the morning.”

He eyes his cot as a starving man would a feast, but lingers at the boundary.

When Din speaks, Boba almost regrets waiting to hear it.

“I don’t know what it’s doing to me.”

The words are uttered with a familiar, resigned shame that drips to the floor. It puddles around Din in viscous trails, drooping his shoulders and shutting his eyes. Weighing him down for longer than a night, clearly.

“I don’t know anymore, Fett. Sometimes I can hear it talking to me. Talking. I think I might—” He wheezes out a sigh, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes as if to purge whatever he sees there.

A moment to collect himself, drag all the pieces together with string and a loose knot. Then, in a quiet, ragged voice, Din confesses, “I think I’m going insane.”

False platitudes have never come easily to Boba, and they don’t start now. His jaw is slack as he searches for the words, anything to fill that chasm, until he realises there aren’t any.

So he doesn’t say anything at all, save for a slow, sympathetic hand on Din’s shoulder. He stands with his friend.

And in the dark of the palace, Boba wonders if Din might be right.

———

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himbodjarin · 4 years ago

Text

God Among Mandalorians

18+ Content: gore, violence, post-s2 Word Count: 7325 Pairing: Din Djarin/Mando!Reader

Din Djarin is subjected to malevolent whispers from a blade he doesn’t wish to own; they speak to him - encourage him to pursue the deepest and darkest of his desires. It’s impossible to control and when it becomes too much, he’s forced to finally let go—to become the Mand’alor he’s written out to be by an ancient power. Read on AO3 | Masterlist

CHAPTER ONE: DRALSHY'A, PARJII

The Darksaber has a voice.

Toneless and guttural vocals discharging from the depths of the blade; half a dozen past wielders fusing as one disordered hiss. It’s distinct in comparison to its thrumming counterpart, warmer and kinetic albeit sheathed on its reluctant proprietor’s belt bobbing against the muscle of his outer thigh as he strides through a dispersing crowd.

It speaks to Djarin, beckons his fingers to lay on its hilt where they frolic the engravings absentmindedly. It tells him stories of the past. Explains its origins and each former possessor’s failures and encourages him not to repeat their downfalls. It is of destruction and an end. By nature, it should fit snugly in his hands of mortality, but it’s a mere mantlepiece—another threatening component to contribute to his growing ensemble.

It woos in his ears, assuring otherwise; it is where it belongs.

For he is the Mand’alor.

It has ambitions, Din discovers, desires yet to be unmasked but they are there; dormant in the roots of its mechanics and it wishes for him to precede its narrative. There’s an energy that swallows the weapon whole, thick and heavy, a reversal of what the Force is spoken of. If there is such a thing as an anti-Force, a field so dense and polar, the Darksaber unquestionably resides within it; suspended in total absence, manipulated by shadows and unprincipled appetites.

Not a moment passes where it is quiet.

There’s a growing difficulty in obstructing its statements—they are merely whispers that capsize beneath the urban commotion—though Din cannot disagree the voices in his head aren’t disconcerting; urging a blind finger to stroke an activation stud aimlessly.

Aside from the ornament of a completed mission, Din had regained the potential of returning to his ho-hum lifestyle of bounty hunting and isolation. At least until Bo-Katan inevitably comes hunting to reclaim ownership of a disreputable blade. He suspects she won’t rest until she reigns victorious, forcing his hand to clash against hers. With the lack of his Razor Crest at his disposal, he’d been marooned on Nevarro awaiting an opportunity to arise. Although, sealed in a layer of ancient steel and weaponry wasn’t aiding his approachable presentation and those who’d found the courage to strike up a deal were less than reliable.

This leads him to the tunnels of his abandoned covert, scouring its remains for nothing in particular—the majority of materials have been destroyed and those who hadn’t perished in the fight fled from the planet.

There’s a sole beam of light fixed to the side of his helmet illuminating the sewer shafts, combing its duracrete floorings for stray beskar the Armourer might’ve misplaced—or worse. Maybe the Imperial remnants stationed on the planet finished what they started before there was time to join the others on whichever land they now tread.

Din’s eyes harden at the carbon staining the walls and ceiling, trails of browning blood of his family leading down the hidden escape routes, scratches only something as durable as beskar steel could produce stamped throughout the canals. The last time he’d toured these regions he’d been too preoccupied with not collapsing to his knees—on account of a wound that still pulses against the back of his head to this day—that there hadn’t been the chance to examine the state.

It’s a massacre.

The cheerful unrest of foundlings running through the halls now muted; a perfect paralleled picture of his childhood village in cinders. These tunnels were a sanctuary to some and a prison to others, but they provided that assurance of security. Reliability they’d still own if not for Din’s shenanigans against the Guild.

A stray strobe of contrasting whites, much too animated to be a swaying lantern, bounces out of the entrance to the forge. Calf muscles lock up and his helmet dips to follow the casted path ahead. Karga had mentioned they’d salvaged whatever they could before his arrival, though there’s little reason to return. This wasn’t one of his associates.

Din clips his beacon and peers around the entrance’s curvature.

The cone of their light minimises to a sphere shining against their feet and Din’s eyes widen oh-so-slightly as he skims their attire—a humanoid clad in meticulously forged plates of beskar and duraplast, a distinguishable helmet encasing their identity.

It’s not too divergent from his own arsenal; equipped with vambraces consisting of similar bumps and curves of an integral flamethrower, sturdy plates protecting their essential organs and weakened points without disrupting their mobility, a holstered blaster attached to their thigh. They’d even opted for their own cloak, similarly tattered and misshapen from combat.

It’s been too long since he’s conversed with another Mandalorian, factoring out Bo-Katan’s group—who weren’t the most agreeable bunch—and he aims to take a step closer to reveal his presence but the sole of his boot doesn’t separate from the duracrete before he’s halted. A blaster snaps to their glove as if by pure will and targets the centre of his chest.

“Tell me what happened.”

Of all the accents in his lifetime, he’d never heard someones be so distinct. Their voice sticks out like a nightblossom in a bouquet of damsel flowers; feminine and uniquely buttery in the face of a crackled modulator. Their tone and armour build hints at the Mandalorian being a woman and his speculation only solidifies as she repeats, “Tell me what happened.”

“Imperial,” Din explains. “You’re not of this covert. What brings you here?”

“Business.” The helmet cranes to the side, black tint centring on his frame to assess his stance, his compliance, the shiny steel he represents in comparison to her matte-coated alloy. The blaster straightens. “Where’d you get all that beskar?”

Din isn’t keen on her prying and his palm drops to rest on the butt of a hilt attached to his hip, droningly answering, “Business.”

There are seven beats of his heart, three murmured words in his ear before she silently determines he’s unworthy of wasted effort and holsters the tool to her thigh; his hand lingers the regions of his hips, not so easily convinced.

They sit amid a staring competition like those he’d participated in as a young boy back in his village and then again in the coverts with other foundlings—a simple act of welcoming him into their way of life—but now those colourful soothing eyes are replaced with a threatening slit of transparisteel.

The helmet she’s devoted herself to is identical to his own. Sleek and forged of the purest beskar but of a darker shade, varnished in a lightless colour to increase the build-up of pressure in her enemies chest. It wasn’t uncommon for Mandalorians to customise their armour, whether out of practicality or aesthetic purposes ranged—Din had stained his past platings himself.

After all, there was no need to spend time cleaning blood if it blended in.

She’s as dark as the deepest shadows of the galaxy, as edgeless as space itself. The design she’s embraced is a paragon for stealth, a tactic he suspects she prefers; lurking in spaces of void where only the blinking lights of her vambrace can be perceived.

She eventually takes initiative and tears from his gaze and returns to her original plan before the interruption. It grants Din the opportunity to analyse her form beneath the midnight flight suit and the way she carries herself; airy and established. She’s soundless when she strides, disciplined ears incapable of logging her position without the aid of his vision and he tracks how she steps over a fallen artefact encircling the forge.

Electric breath blows through his beskar, the shrilling whispers of previous rulers coaxing him to step inside - to sketch the arch of her back as her cloak transfers to one shoulder. Din’s helmet tips, a thumb hooking into his belt, and he considers the curves her armour fails to conceal.

“You’re still here.”

Din’s shoulders broaden and he lifts his head, recalling the less than ideal situation he’s currently in to be allowing his body’s desires to best him. “This is my covert.”

“This is a covert no longer. It is a shell. You do not have a tribe.”

Static nips at his ears. It invites his fingers to stroke the sleek shaft, a rumbling that resonates through his hip and into his chest. Her helmet angles and he considers yanking the hand away, simulating hesitance, but elects against it and observes through the tint for her next move.

A feeble scoff emits from her filters.

Brooding personalities were frequent in their kind, perhaps justified with everything their people have encountered, but this Mandalorian’s got zest in her blood. She takes amusement out of witnessing him reach for a weapon out of impatience. She’s reckless; an unwise attitude that’ll end in bloodshed if she persists. They are hunted for their steel but their foes would take great pleasure out of slaying someone so spiteful.

He challenges, “And what of yours?”

She fiddles with a lost welding tool and sighs, “Stationed in some pathetic excuse for a hideout on Tatooine. A pit, of all things. Not as bad as the sewers, though.”

“Tatooine.” Din carries a heavy boot closer. “Take me there.”

“Who do you think—”

“If there’s a covert then perhaps the others fled to shelter there before Imps arrived.”

It’s a little bit of reassurance, a flicker of hope that he’s not the sole survivor of his tribe. He would already be halfway up the Razor Crest’s hatch if it hadn’t been disintegrated on a far-off planet.

“They don’t accept aruetiise anymore.”

Din sneers, a sizzle erupting in his palm. “They’re not outsiders.”

With a shake of her helmet and a hand pocketing a dismantled device no longer in service, she proceeds past him in line for the exit. Leather captures her forearm—thank the stars she bears a vambrace to shield the burrowing he inflicts on the steel—and he declines his sight, nearing her proximity.

“There were foundlings here.”

He utilises his wrist to block an incoming fist, impulses surpassing his thought process. Their beskar knocks against each other, interfering with the plunging attempts of a vibro-knife throbbing through her palm. She applies her weight into him, the blade loudly whirring as it grows near his neck; definitely stronger than the typical women he battles with all the Mandalorian training they receive.

The Darksaber rumbles against his joints, pleading for the Mand’alor to seize its grip and slay those who dare deceive him—so contrasting to its prior proposition upon catching sight of her figure. It’s a melodramatic approach for something so diminutive and in place of slaughtering a kindred, Din aims to disarm her of the blade.

But she’s agile and draws a leg back to kick him in the abdomen.

Stunned and staggered, he scarcely has time to monitor her determined stance before she’s lunging yet again. She exploits their size difference and sweeps his legs from beneath him but he refuses to go down without casualties; a stubborn hand fisting a flock of neck seal until she’s tumbling amongst her boots. He foolishly failed to assess the situation before his reflexes kicked in and now she straddles him, an armoured knee jabbing into the soft paddings of his abdominal protection and her blade held firmly against the thick of his cowl. Its heartbeat pulses into the flesh beneath, notifying him of its proximity and the lack of hesitation she’ll demonstrate if he progresses.

There’s a branding on her pauldron, her clan’s signet, though he doesn’t recognise the creature—layers of fangs with a twin set of eyes and a mane of quills that outline the crescent ridge of her shoulder.

“Lay another finger on me and I’ll slice them down to the knuckle,” she barks. “If you must know, Tatooine won’t house refugees in its state. They will not be found there. Especially not the foundlings.”

Din quietly groans at the pestering echoes from his thigh lecturing him of his inept abilities—his shortcomings in the opposition of a figure so small in contrast.

“It is cowardice to desert them in a time of need.”

“They’re fearful of the consequences. Intimidated at losing their secrecy. Surely you could understand that. If that’s all you wish to gain from me, our relations have concluded. Don’t follow me.”

She draws her blade and he retaliates by thrusting her weight off himself, assuming a mirrored scene by restraining her with a knee to her stomach and a hand against her breastplate.

Her vibro-knife is knocked out of reach but it doesn’t stop her from attempting to gain the advantage and show him of her earlier promise. Although, the patent point pressing into squishy flesh as an implicit threat of his own promotes her to fold - to settle into the duracrete and be forced to listen.

“Me’copaani, burc’ya?”

Din inspects the red bar blinking at him from the top of her vambrace. “Where is your craft situated?”

There’s no response, no reaction. She’s stilled her breathing so that he can’t feel it quicken or slow and without the capability of feeling for a pulse beneath all the armour and material, he’s left to resort to threats rather than calculations—the beat of one’s heart often indicating the truth greater than their tone. But he’s grown short-tempered in the past few weeks, isolated on a planet that wasn’t aiding his composure, and he plucks her torso off the ground with his fingers leveraged beneath the rim of the breastplate, helmet inclined to hulk above her frame. “You’re in no position to be resisting.” Vibro-knife hums against the unarmoured slope of her waist. “Show me to your craft and you will be unharmed. This is a good deal.”

She uses an elbow to balance herself and chortles before his visor, “That’s not very dignified of you. Have you lost the way of life, verd?”

Vocoder crunches. “I have no apprehensions if it allows the foundlings to be recovered.”

“You Mandalorians have an intriguing form of greeting.” Echoes of the voice magnetise his visor to the entrance; Greef Karga stands with his hands pushing his coat backwards to rest his knuckles on his hips.

Din’s in for a rude awakening; a hand thrusting against his throat and a sharp clash of beskar on beskar, the tinking resonating throughout the forge. He stumbles and flattens a hand to the face of his helmet where they impacted, the point of his nose aching from the steely headbutt.

They’re both on their feet once more, thrumming blades held at either of their throats.

“All right, all right.” Karga situates a glove on Din’s shoulder, a defensive hand extended ahead of the opposing Mandalorian. “There’s not a lot of you left. Quit fighting and focus on your common goals.”

“Common goals?” Din asks.

“I have a proposition—for the both of you.”

There are no demonstrations of withdrawing the blade on her part and she goes so far as to drive herself against his to afford the stretch of her arm, metal tremoring through his neck down to his chest. Din imitates her action and their blades sink further into their respective cowls until the tip pierces flesh only just.

The corners of his lips alarmingly curve upwards at her intrepid behaviour.

Fingers twitch, teeth clench—the heaviness swaying from his belt coerces him to disengage like a newly-oiled droid receiving orders. The incision pricks against the fabric of his scarf as he twists to face the Guild leader, arms crossed and helmet tilted to show he’s listening.

Greef glances between the two, who both so quickly disregard the other’s presence at the mention of a job. He clears his throat and proceeds, “There’s been talk of smuggled beskar. That seems to be your forte. Figured I’d inform you before some thieves overhear its whereabouts.”

It’s a task, employment, an opportunity to distract himself from the growing clouds tugging at his marionette strings. Din accepts, “Where is it?”

There’s a dramatic scoff from beside him. “Planning on making a shield to match that spear of yours?”

Karga sighs, “Tatooine. It’s on Tatooine.”

If she was to comply, Din could kill two womp rats with one bolt. Easier said than done. It’s a mission in itself persuading such a strong-willed lifeform, let alone one who is also a Mandalorian. They were taught not to bend to another, though that’d usually exclude their own kind but not so in these circumstances.

“It’ll require you both,” Greef mentions before either claim the job. “There’s upwards of two dozen factions focused on smuggling on Tatooine land. It won’t be a quick job and I’d expect reinforcements. Nexu is well adjusted to dealing with this kind. She’ll prove useful.”

Din’s helmet sways to the woman three feet away. She returns his gaze, mimicking his arms crossed against his chest.

An eyebrow cocks upwards, his tone half-amused, “Nexu?”

“Just a nickname, of course,” Karga says. “You bunch have your need for privacy.”

She stands like a tower, unmoving under a gaze others are so easily intimidated by. Din tests out her so-called name once more, the word almost foreign, although she doesn’t take too kindly to his modulated muttering. “I’ll cut out your tongue, vaar’ika,” she warns.

The signet on her pauldron attracts his attention—the outline of a beast he’s never had the pleasure of encountering but one he’s heard stories of—becoming so transparent now the name has been tossed into the air. Nexu; a feline with a great reputation for being cutthroat. A Mandalorian being referred to under the name of a beasts’ is unheard of - their identity was to be concealed or spoken with pride; never disguised.

They don’t do aliases.

In the least, it’ll make for distinguishing them from each other.

“I’m not some bounty hunter desperately scavenging for more beskar than I need. I have personal business to attend to,” Nexu declares.

“If that’s the case, show me to your spacecraft and I’ll go unaccompanied.”

Din’s not quite sure why he’s so pressed. It wasn’t as if the beskar contained much value to him, carrying his own weight in it already, but this Mandalorian bares her teeth and it makes him want to establish who’s more accomplished—mightier and worthier; demonstrate to some ancient pressure swirling around his physique he won’t allow for one to threaten his power.

Suddenly he’s back in the body of himself as a boy, knocked on his ass by his training partner—one of the Mandalorian children who’d accepted him as a suitable rival—Din remembers the rage bubbling up inside him as he looked up at the pretentious smirk, the motivation to reign over all the others - prove he’s not some scared orphan.

Two words circulate through his head, the words hissed in Mando’a.

Dralshy’a. Parjii.

Words that were never uttered to him as a youngling—mere syllables spoken to the best of two fighters acting as a motivator to further cultivate their abilities and it worked; Din trained to surpass his opposition until he was prepared for a rematch.

But he never got the opportunity to test his strength.

“I hardly think so,” she laughs dryly.

Her tone grounds him back to reality, a groan building up in his chest but he suspects she’d enjoy his frustration and it’s enough for him to swallow it.

“Take him to Tatooine.” Karga raises a hand to halt her interruptions. “You’re looking for somebody, right? That’s Mando’s specialty. A service for a service sounds fair.”

Din doesn’t appreciate Karga offering up his hands on his behalf but if it’ll provide him with proper transport, he’ll cooperate—reluctantly. He’s exhausted Nevarro’s commissions and without the necessity of fuel and maintenance on his craft, he’s swimming in credits. It’s ironic; he’s the richest he’s ever been - he could afford to go anywhere in the system and yet he’s stranded on a volcanic wasteland.

Nexu considers the proposal, shooting a glare and angling Din up and down, eventually sighing and snapping, “Be at the Gladiator by nightfall or you’re losing your only way off this rock. I won’t be waiting around.”

She doesn’t grant him the potential for questions—what does the Gladiator look like, where is it located; concerns he should be made aware of but he’s no stranger to unmannered people—and slips past both men and recedes into the depths of the tunnelling systems, merging as one with the shadows on behalf of the dusky armour.

She’s a character he wasn’t thrilled about encountering; excessively brash and quick for conflict were traits of individuals he preferred to keep his distance from when possible. He combated enough bounty targets with the same attitude to satisfy his quota for five lifetimes. What she lacks in optimal behaviours, she makes up for in appearance at least. She’s easy on the eyes even with all that armour on, as though it’s balancing out her grandeur. The Darksaber’s incessant caterwauling diminished to a meek hum when she was in his sight—his stomach returns flaccid and he deeply exhales the stale oxygen in his lungs.

Din could only imagine what nonsensical reaction the voices will extract from him if he were to see her without the beskar, without the helmet obscuring that honeyed voice; if he were atop of her again only with fewer layers.

He sighs once more, unable to believe the unrighteous flashes surfacing the forefront of his mind.

“She’s got quite the charm to her, doesn’t she?”

“Certainly interesting. Tell me, what do you know of her?”

Karga motions a hand towards the exit and they set out to return to the common house. They settle into Greef’s favourite booth, off in the far corner he stations himself on the daily, and commence banter of his new associate.

He mentions Nexu’s great conquering of the beast, how she singlehandedly defeated it with nothing but a blade when she was still just a young girl. She’s recluse, a hermit of sorts, much like himself. There’s no knowledge of her clan’s whereabouts or her objectives, only that she’s hunting for somebody though neither of them has been made aware of who. Karga talks of the Mandalorian as if she was infamous though Din hasn’t heard chatter regarding someone who matches her description before.

It’s suspicious, the Darksaber decides.

Din and the voices have diverging concerns. While it’s troubled by the idea of being pried out of the warm hands of its rightful ruler, Din is deep in thought regarding Bo-Katan’s silent promise; leafy-green envy poisoning her eyes. At the end of all things, they fall together like a lock and key.

He doesn’t believe Nexu to be collaborating with Death Watch but the voices cry into his bones—don’t let your guard down, they’re out to dethrone you—as he skims through the load of spacecraft, visor reading the duralloy underbellies where identification numbers are often painted.

Pebbles and molten dust tumble along the ground with a gust of wind, knocking against his boots with each step. Nevarro’s sun kisses the planet’s crust but its effect on his physique persists; a fine layer of sweat forming at the curve of his back muscles, his tongue feeling more of a nuisance as his throat dries out.

A whistle of a hiss stretches out to prod against his helmet, the culprit being an extending hatch to his right; a frame of black plates and cloth at the entrance, a gloved hand on her hip.

“Sooner you get on the sooner I get rid of you.”

Din’s quiet except for a sigh squeezing past his slack lips. Her craft—the Gladiator—is average in size and qualities - not too different to his Crest. Twin corridors extend on either side of the hold and doubtlessly unite together in a circle, judging by the exterior disc-like design.

She dips from the hold, the rumble of the Gladiator’s ignition signalling she’s made it to the cockpit a few moments later. For someone who was so adamant about sticking a blade to his throat earlier, this Mandalorian sure is trusting not to surveil a stranger aboard her craft.

Perhaps it’s the security of the Creed they swore to; the assurance there are dependable people out in the systems inclined to provide assistance, no matter how much they spit banter to each other’s visor. Din opposes the sabre’s inclination to comb the gunship, despite the pressure in his core—he sacrifices his confidence of protection for her comfort, the whispers growling at him excessively. It’s earsplitting. It cuts his flesh and nestles into his blood and bones, redirecting his hand to flatten against the hilt and it quells; numbs to hushed murmurs in the back of his head. It’s been wild as of late, untamable and inescapable.

They come in waves. Moments of vulnerability—the need for sleep or a foolishly over-emotional state—where it noshes his insides, twists and wrings out all the disobedience within him until he’s merely the shell of a person he once was, engaging with its thirst for power and authority. He’s yet to wield it in combat as he’s convinced the moment the blade retracts, any sliver of his resolve will be drowned out by the venomous ambitions already coursing through his head; infiltrating his senses.

“I suggest you sit down. Gladiator’s got a kick to her.”

Din takes the deflection she provides to break contact with the sabre and sinks into the paired co-pilot’s seat a metre across from her, the extended board of navigational controls hinting she hadn’t been alone all this time. It’d only be a hassle operating the craft all on her own, though the way she thumbs the buttons with such fluidity suggests she’s had time to adapt.

Levers flick upwards and downwards, buttons depress into their sockets, and he’s greeted with mechanical frequencies that remind him of his lost sanctuary.

She doesn’t speak until they’ve reached hyperspace. “What’s your deal with the foundlings?”

“What do you mean?”

Her visor trains on his side profile but he remains frontwards, hypnotised by streaking whites. The overly-cautious tone in her voice shocks him, “Did you lose a foundling?”

Sea-green floppy ears and inordinate darkened eyes come to mind—the remnants of a life he dearly misses tightly clutched in the recesses of his memories, surfacing only when he beckons, like a speeder stored away to prevent rust.

“No.”

“Are you looking for a particular one?”

“No.”

Nexu probes him with her eyes, no visor could hide her blatant attempts, he feels it poking against the side of his helmet like physical contact but he’s well-acquainted with a strangers examination. Only, she’s clever and greatly observant. She clicks her tongue as if she’s read his origin story off him like a dedicated plaque. “It’s because you were a foundling, isn’t it? There’s a part of you that believes if you protect them, you can repay the elders for their generosity when they took you in. Want to be a hero, do you, little foundling?”

Din’s not ashamed to be a foundling. He’s beyond thankful to have been accepted as one of their own. Yet, hearing her utter those words with a smirk to her voice, he finds himself wrenching his helmet towards her - feels his chest tighten.

“You treat me differently because I do not have Mandalorian blood?”

“Don’t be so bold. I don’t care whether your lineage is pure or not.” She kicks the heels of her boots to the peak of the console before them, reclining in her seat. Din follows the length of her legs and acknowledges how the stars avert their gaze from her, incapable of planting their mark on the matte of her armour.

Peppery browns beneath the darker slit maintain their route upwards. She’s, regrettably, got a figure that catches his attention—gets his blood pumping warm, arouses thunder in his abdomen and numbs his perception; bad news for someone to be capable of provoking these responses out of him.

It’s not out of the ordinary to be tempted in such ways but they’d occurred on his command; times when he’d allow his feet to take him to a brothel and be swayed by a pretty pink-skinned Twi’lek or eye-candy behind a cantina bar - women who’d provide a break from sore bones and achy muscles. He’s never been seduced by somebody if he didn’t wish for it - and yet one of his own kind is managing the rise of those lost sensations without her realising it - never from somebody he didn’t have the privilege of seeing—and it is a privilege.

To be able to gaze at a woman’s beauty from a distance, examine the softs of their cheeks and the plump of their lips, the lengthy eyelashes flitting with their own curiosity at a shiny beacon of a night’s worth of fun and pleasure. Din feels his eyes burning holes into her. She doesn’t provide him with that privilege; he’s not even certain what species she may be beneath, though he doesn’t much care. He’s been with all sorts.

The sabre’s not quite certain where it stands on her either.

Flipping between forewarning him of her unknown intentions to enticing him to reach out and touch her. She wouldn’t decline the opportunity to bed the Mand’alor, it murmurs into his lungs. Din won’t allow her to be subjected to the same hauntings as him—not while there’s still a shred of humanity residing within him—and tears the hold of his eyes.

“Nexu,” Din says to break the silence but it’s only one-sided, her attention seemingly up in the clouds. “How did you slay it?”

“What?”

“The beast; the nexu. How did you slay it?”

The leather of her seat crunches as she shifts. “A beskad.”

It’s been some time since he’s seen one in action. They weren’t common weapon choices these days—narrowing one’s senses to close-ranged combat wasn’t an ideal situation even with Mandalorian armour.

Din interrogates, “You were only a child and they’re large creatures. You can’t have triumphed.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Would you like for me to demonstrate my abilities?” She takes his silence as an answer, crossing her arms against her chest. “Quit callin’ me Nexu. I’m no savage.”

They remain in silence for the duration of the excursion, only muttering a few sentences regarding their plan once they’ve landed.

Tatooine is as hot and dry as ever but it’s no lava wastelands and Din basks in the warmth of the night, the grit beneath their boots beginning to cool without the strikes of the twin suns. They’re perched upon a ridge a few kilometres out from Mos Pelgo, in the midst of the remote dunes where smugglers dwelt—harbouring their operations in sandstone dens and getting fixed on their own supply.

There are creates in the depths of the overhang, guarded by two individuals with blaster rifles held at their hips. Orange flames lick at the transparisteel safety of lanterns illuminating their station for the dual visors, the sky embracing the mechanical ticks as their vision broadens and enhances.

Nexu—or...the woman, the Mandalorian, his unfortunate partner, hums a query, “Got any plans rattling up in there?”

“There’s two above, they’ll be first to go. The pair at the crates will be easy pickings afterwards.”

“So, what, you think you can do this all by yourself?”

There’s not a doubt in his mind he could; he’s dealt with a small group of smugglers like this before - it’s in the job description. Karga must’ve played up the danger simply to get her to agree to provide a way off the planet for him—not that he’s complaining, though the reminder of an unowed favour is more than undesirable.

“Just wait here and stay out of the way.”

She dismisses him, “What of the reinforcements? Care to share your master plan of approach to a group you’ve yet to assess?”

“I suppose you’ll have to make yourself valuable and cover me,” he japes but continues, “There aren’t many options available. I don’t see you with a sen’tra.”

Din observes her bounce to her feet beside him, dusting off the granules from her flight suit. He adjusts the toggle on his vambrace and his thrusters awaken, sunset flames kicking out of the chutes with confidence that matches his demeanour.

“I excelled in the Rising Phoenix in my covert. Give it to me.”

“No.”

He releases his hold on the ground as the boosters ignite with fury, sweeping as one with the crisp breeze and making a beeline for the adjacent rim of desert from where his partner lies in wait. Din withdraws his blaster from his holster—a sharp pang hitting the back of his head the moment his finger brushes the trigger. It’s so intense and unexpected his hand nearly flicks the weapon from his glove, but he can’t afford to lose his defence so close to the enemies line of sight and perseveres through it all, his grip tightening alongside the throbbing.

Din lines his barrel with the closest foe and pinches the trigger, a bolt of red skidding from the skies and into the peak of their head. The other guard’s attention snaps to him, the lift of their rifle simulating a shine from the moonlight but he’s faster, more practised from decades of quick-thinking and situation adapting, and drifts to the left to prevent his beskar taking the brunt.

The trigger clicks once more and another body falls to the dust.

It takes care of these guys, the spotlight transitioning to the two remainders below. Din turns just in time to meet with a flash of crimson striking against his pauldron. It rains sparks that fall beneath him, matching those igniting within what little tolerance he contained, and he dips to the ground and dedicates a shot to the daring one. It hits, right in the stomach, the man’s choked cries dragging his friend’s focus their way.

Din utilises the heel of his boot and kicks the first man onto his back, crunching his abdomen beneath his sole, and shoots the fourth beam to the last man standing—he falls, rifle bouncing once before settling among its possessor.

The first man writhes underneath Din’s foot, slipping out a suffocated query, “Who the hell are you?”

There’s another—more familiar and dulcet—voice speaking into the dead of night behind him, “Quit playin’ with him and finish him off. I don’t like this. There should be reinforcements.”

“You should be thankful there aren’t,” he retorts.

“Got a few screws loose up in there, do you?” she says. Din’s eyes narrow, finger tightening around the trigger with each rhythmic pulse on the insides of his skull. “There should be dozens of men surrounding us as we speak. It’s not right.”

She’s not incorrect in the slightest and perhaps if he wasn’t so distracted by everything going on inside his conscious perhaps he’d be in the mindset to comprehend the situation is far too idealistic. Alas, the echoes and cries - the rising nausea - the explosions against his lobes - the spicy blood shooting up the veins in his neck all add up to be too confronting, too pestering like a yapping massiff.

The trigger snaps underneath his pressure. The corpse of the man sizzles from the blast, puffs of white smoke flowing from the forehead wound.

The initial shock of accidental discharge isn’t there—suffocated in black overcast and lightning cursing the skies—but it settles deep in his chest as he holsters the tool to his thigh, a break in the clouds, the chanting for spilled blood disappearing the moment his hand feels empty.

There’s no rise in his heartbeat, no adrenaline rush, just a steady pulse that’s heard in his ears.

Din doesn’t miss the change of her attitude - the slender tilt of her helmet as she silently considers his outburst, but neither of them addresses it, rather preferring to concentrate on the mission like they’ve been programmed to be.

There’s one crate for the both of them, filled to the brim with shiny objects and smuggled goods, and Din collects the bundles of polished ingots among the cluttered jewels and packaged spice. It smells of heat and bitterness - a sharp edge that’d slice the corners of his nostrils if not for the overworked filters.

The satchel that once carried something so much more valuable than currency is now weighed with beskar, supplying that familiar heft against his waist and dragging down his shoulders but it’s not the same—it’ll never be the same.

“Here.” Its calculations are offset with the additional steel, no longer providing that misplaced sensation. She steps back with hands on her hips, the leather of her fingers burrowing into the soft of her hips and there’s a bubbling thirst to observe - to examine how deep she can get into the thick of flight suit before reaching a slope of flesh, a longing to place his hands in place of hers.

Din bites the insides of his cheek and peels away, wordlessly scolding the suggesting positions he’d like to partake in flicking through his head. He tells himself it’s simply been too long since his last fling. He tells himself it’s only occurring because she’s got a figure to her.

He tells himself the voices will stop encouraging him to pursue it right here.

It’s tiresome - countering these ancient powers with pure commitment and will, though it’s not all that opposite to what he’s been doing his entire life; fighting simply to survive, only its so much more about other’s survival than his own - the call for carnage an omen of what will come.

He’s never felt more fatigued; not even when he’s gone days without sleep merely for the sake of a bounty’s crummy reward.

There’s a sense of abruptness in the air, an impression of a higher power alerting him of incoming threats—the visualisation of a streaking dart of red and he’s pulled to the side by his feet’s accord. Din turns as a tink registers in his sensors, visor glaring at a burning hole in one of the crates behind.

It takes less than three moments for the two Mandalorians to be encircled with men armed with blaster rifles. They dismount their speeders and train their weapons onto the exposed portions of their body - their legs, waists, areas people typically disregarded.

“I should’ve stayed on the ridge,” she sighs.

One man steps forward, waving around his blaster with confidence as he talks. “Drop the bag.” Din doesn’t comply and remains motionless - hardly expands his lungs for a breath. “We’ve got you outnumbered. We’re doing you a favour by not shooting you where you stand. ”

It belongs with you, he hears, deep in the abyss of his centre, do not submit to such vermin.

Between the voices of the ancient chiefs and orders of worthless couriers, Din’s being overstimulated - his head throbs and his eyes are tender.

The strap of the satchel is in his hand before he can register the weight shift, the clinking of beskar steel resonates through the desert as it meets with the ground below. Their rifles target the duo, their fingers sliding to their triggers and it’s not until he sees the slow drag that Din finally sets into action.

He can’t continue to counterbalance the desire any longer.

When his palm ordinarily hovered over the butt of his blaster, it now pressed against the hilt of a retractable blade—leathered digits spanning the width of the activation stud. It steers his movements and responds to his wants - the want to slay each man where they stand.

Din snaps through the air like it’s second nature; like he was made to wield such an artefact. They hardly have the chance to process the beacon of silver and black charging for them before they’re slashed and stabbed, cut and filleted. They’re like moths to his Crest’s lights; drawn in by such a sight and consequently distracted by the jeopardy they’re in—dropping dead to the grit mere seconds later.

It takes less than a minute, less than a shift of rolling clouds, for him to wipe out the entire troop; blood and froth merging and soaking the pale beige sand. One remains and Din stops short ahead of him, witnessing the man—the boy—fall apart like fragile sandstone. He submits to the tower of steel, fingers twitching as the neglected blaster drops; his fate lies in the hands of the monster who’d just slaughtered his friends in the blink of an eye.

The Darksaber thrums a sinister tune of electricity and withered souls, capable of capturing one’s attention greater than the most brutish of tides. Din loosely sways the blade beside him. “Mesmerising, isn’t it?”

The boy trips on his heels. “Go on then, do it! You’ve - you’ve already killed them all! Or are - are you going to let me go?”

“You mistake this for hesitance,” Din drawls monotonously and pulls his elbows back, pressing the mantle of the sabre close to his chest. “We merely wish to savour this.”

Taut flesh of his knuckles crack as his grip intensifies and he sinks the tip of the blade into the trafficker’s sternum at an angle - vibrations circulating through the body and smothering out the blubbering cries. A hand flies to his throat where nails render the flesh red and bruising, eyes wide with shock and realisation.

Din jabs the curve in further until it punctures the excessively beating organ, the energy biting it with vehemence, and stands tall while the corpse tumbles. The blade swings ahead of the reflective visor and he observes the white aura burning off the remnants of skin and blood.

It’s hushed for the first time since he claimed it; hardly even a murmur in his ears.

The lack of interference only heightens the atmosphere - the whistle of the wind, the chatter of Tatooine lifeforms, the crunching of dunes beneath one’s feet. Din swiftly turns and clamps his fingers in preparation, only to turn lax—it’s just his partner but it’s a sight.

She’s knelt with one cap on the ground, a hand pressed to her heart and her helmet tipped to reveal the crown of it. She stammers over her words in the beginning, but he’s far too fixated on the statement to take notice, “You are...you are the - the rightful ruler. Mand’alor. It’s really you. By Gods, I’ve put my blade to your neck. Ni ceta. Forgive my brash actions, Sir.”

Being the subject to someone’s praises—their loyalty and grovelling upon wronging him—is pleasantly captivating, energising almost, and he smiles warmly beneath his helmet and tilts his head with intrigue.

Din clicks the deactivator and the energy collects inside the grip, which he uses against the edge of her beskar chin - lifting and lifting until she’s on her feet once more. She strains on her toes as Din persists, drawing her in until their visors are an inch apart.

There’s a conniving undertone to his voice - one so subtle neither of them acknowledge the existence of it, “Do not fret, little Cyar’tomade. Luck is watching over you - I do not intend to cause distress to someone so committed, though I propose you withstand the urge to underestimate my capabilities again.”

She nods, voiceless.

He releases the pressure of his hilt from her chin and reattaches it to his hip. The lost satchel is retrieved and settles nicely against his waist and he steers for the direction they arrived, stopping a few steps in and monitoring the absence of movement behind him. She stands baffled, her hands awkwardly held at her sides as if they’re foreign objects - unsure what to or where to place them.

“Come,” Din requests with a jab of his head.

Her armour fails to conceal the genuine confusion she exhibits, the small uncertain step before she forfeits against her better judgement and unites with him—an extra foot gap between them than prior.

Din doesn’t pressure her and lays a comforting hand on his counterpart amongst his hips.

It whirs at his contact.

We come for you, Mand’alor. Do not resist - we will show you the Way.

******

aruetiise - outsiders me'copaani, burc'ya? - what would you like, friend? verd - soldier vaar'ika - pip-squeak/runt dralshy'a - stronger/brighter parjii - winner/victor sen'tra - jetpack ni ceta - sorry [literally: i kneel] (grovelling apology) cyar'tomade - fans/supporters/devotees

taglist: @ohhersheybars, @greatcircle79, @northernpunk, @tanzthompson, @djarrex, @omgreally, @spideysimpossiblegirl, @riddikulus-obsessions

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retrocgads · 2 years ago

Photo

UK 1985

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spell-cleaver · 3 years ago

Text

Astrophilia

@star-wars-wlweek

Day 5: Enemies to Lovers & Canon Divergence

Read it on AO3 or on FFN!

One world trapped under a mouse's paw saw Leia and Han having a peaceful moment at odds with the chaos around them, before she threw a glass of wine in his face.

"That's not normally how I drink Corellian wine."

"This is low, even for a scoundrel like you." Leia threw the glass down as well and marched away. "We are running for our lives from the Empire while on a mission of vital importance to the Rebellion. The only thing between us and capture are those electrical storms keeping the Imperials at bay." She jabbed her finger at the red clouded sky. "This is no time for your cheap attempts at seduction."

"This wine wasn't cheap, and pardon me for wanting a drink after just saving our lives."

"We wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't lost your nerve!"

"Lost my—" Han's indignant splutter sounded like a speeder backing up. "Lady, I've sailed from one end of this galaxy to the other, and believe me, there's nothing out there that could make me lose my nerve!"

But Leia wasn't listening anymore. "Did you hear that? Sounded like a ship."

"And for the record, I wasn't trying to seduce you! I'd sooner seduce a gundark!"

"That's not an Imperial ship. I thought you said no one else knew about this place."

"We should run. Now."

They did not run.

Her ship swung down and Qi'ra may have drawn too much satisfaction from the way Han unconsciously threw himself in front of the woman he was with. The woman was staring up at the ship, eyes narrowed, but Qi'ra evidently wasn't one of the Imperials hovering just outside the storms so she didn't run—yet. She landed, cracked open the landing ramp, and trotted down it.

The probes she'd left in atmo had paid off. She'd found Han again, and now he was going to pay.

She saw Han freeze and pale, even while his companion sized her up, from her surprisingly stylish spacer's gear to her blouse to her neatly bobbed hair, as well as the blaster in the holster at her belt. She didn't bother drawing it, yet, though both her and the woman were clearly ready to at a glance.

The woman wasn't uninteresting to look at, either. She had a familiar face, somehow, with pretty dark braids and a white jumpsuit with pockets, which looked easy to move around in. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Qi'ra responded by shooting. A warning shot, fair enough, but Han got the message when it skimmed his face. He opened his mouth to bluster something before she shoved her blaster back in the holster and spoke.

"I'm Qi'ra Solo," she said. "And Han"—another warning shot, eyes narrowed—"is my husband."

Three shootouts, a lot of yelling and another glass of wine in Han's face, staining his yellowing collar, later, and they were in a more amenable situation to discuss… everything.

"You're not after me," Organa—Leia Organa, the Rebel terrorist princess, as she apparently was—said, squinting at Qi'ra. "Just Han?"

Qi'ra sized her up. "I could get a good price for you with those Imperials up there, Princess, but I'm no bounty hunter. You wouldn't be worth it."

"Charmed." Qi'ra almost laughed, but didn't complain when Organa put her own blaster back in its holster and inclined her head towards an outcropping of rocks a few dozen paces away. "May I speak with you, then?"

"A peaceful negotiation? I wouldn't be opposed." Qi'ra glanced at Han. "However, if he escapes—"

"We'll be able to see him still. Shoot if he tries to make a run for it."

Han looked so wounded. "Leia—"

"We can talk later. Especially about the things you've apparently been lying about."

"She's not my wife!"

Organa looked a little regretful, but turned to Qi'ra anyway. She didn't want to negotiate, clearly, no matter what a scoundrel Han may have been to her. She wanted to protect Han—a sentiment Qi'ra could once have empathised with—since Qi'ra seemed so intent on either killing him or getting something from him, but she was smart enough to try to hear the full story before navigating unknown skies.

That was sensible. Qi'ra liked that.

Once they'd walked away a little, Organa cut right to the chase. "Why are you after Han?"

This woman clearly had an excellent ability to detect nonsense, but Qi'ra tried to string her along nonetheless. "As I said. He's my husband."

Organa said nothing, but her body language said it all: she shifted her weight onto her left foot, folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

"We were married," Qi'ra insisted, trying not to smile. She was canny, then. No wonder Han liked her.

"Han may be a scoundrel and a thousand other things, but he doesn't strike me as the type who would lie about being single when he has an," she looked her up and down, "apparently very loyal wife."

…blast Han and his overwhelming, foolish tendency to play the good guy even when he was trying to be immoral.

A blast Organa's judge of character for being able to see it.

Still, she tried. "My apologies if he led you on, then." She gave a pointed look to the spilled wine that still stained his front. "I know he can be… seductive."

Qi'ra desperately wanted to laugh, so she was relieved when Organa laughed for her. "Him? No. I'm afraid not." She straightened up. "But he is my friend, so I'd prefer it if he wasn't harmed. So I want to know the truth of your involvement with him."

"That is the truth." Qi'ra shrugged. "We were childhood sweethearts, we were roped together years later in a job to steal some coaxium… and we only escaped with our crew by staging a fake wedding."

Organa stared at her in blatant disbelief for a moment.

Then she shook her head and snorted again. "Of course he did."

"And then," Qi'ra emphasised, her tone growing colder, "he ran off with my cut."

Organa shut her mouth. "That also sounds like him."

"I want my husband back," Qi'ra said with a wicked-sharp grin, "and I want the cut he owes me."

It wasn't even necessarily about the money, she had to admit. It just also happened to be the principle of the thing. Sana, Lando, dozens of others involved in the underworld knew that he had double-crossed her, for thousands of credits. If she let it slide when she, quite literally, had him cornered, that would hardly dissuade people from crossing her again.

Organa looked at her intenty. She seemed to be mulling it over.

"What do you mean by you want Han?" she pressed. "Do you just want your credits, or do you want to take it out in blood as well."

Han, still in earshot, noticeably went pale, but still didn't interrupt, thankfully.

She considered it. "I'm not a sadist. I don't have my heart set on violence. But you understand that vengeance prevents other people from double-crossing you the same way."

Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, was someone who should have known nothing about those brutal, underhanded tactics, but Qi'ra supposed from her flattened lips that she did have her own personal experience with cruelty.

"It doesn't," she replied. "Fear only works so far. Eventually, the only this it teaches is how subtle you need to be."

"Of course a Rebel would say that."

"Of course a Rebel would know." She met her gaze, hard and level. "I won't let you hurt Han. If you do, I'll shoot you. No matter how skilled you are, that's two against one."

"Han would say never tell him the odds," Qi'ra parried.

"You're smarter than Han."

Han's "Hey!" told them he was still listening intently, but that wasn't what had Qi'ra red lips curving into a smile.

"More like you?" she pushed, watching Organa closely. Her eyes had been arrested on her lips by the smile, and only now did she flick them up to lock their gazes again.

"Indeed," she said, voice smooth.

"So we're at an impasse?" Usually Qi'ra was more frustrated by such a situation, but Organa was… fun… to spar with.

And even now she looked thoughtful. Thoughtful, and resolute.

"Not quite," she suggested. "Han is far from skint. He recently did a great service to me and earned a great reward. He is meant to pay off Jabba with it"—of course; Han was in hot water with that slug, too—"but since it's been months and he seems to have no inclination to go to Tatooine to actually do so, I feel the credits would be better used here."

Han opened his mouth to protest, but Organa cast him a stern look and it fizzled out. He was as rambunctious as ever, then, but now had the sense to know when a good deal was being negotiated for him.

"We are agreed," Qi'ra said. Through it was subtle, she read the relief in Organa's relaxing shoulders.

When Organa held out her hand to shake on it, Qi'ra went one step further and took it, kissing the back of it gently.

Organa—Leia—froze for half a moment, her expression torn between excited and scandalised. But she was back to her stoic, professional face a moment later as she gently took her hand back.

She was still a little stiff, but the smile she gave Qi'ra was not disinterested.

"Han," she called, "do you have the credits with you on the Falcon?"

Han grimaced. "I… left them back on base." It was a poor excuse for getting out of this, if he was using it for that, but Qi'ra didn't think he was.

"Then we'll have to take Qi'ra with us when we return, give her the credits, then drop her back here to retrieve her ship." Leia seemed unruffled even as Han gaped at her.

"Take me back to the Rebel base? You are bold."

"You shan't be allowed onto it, of course, nor to know the coordinates, location, or see any part of it. But I wouldn't want you to stay behind and think we were running off. I assume you have no trackers on you?"

"No."

"Good."

Qi'ra suggested, "You could send Han back for the credits and remain here with me as a guarantee."

"With the Imperials in the sky? Not a chance. Besides," she glanced at the hand Qi'ra had held hers with, "I may convince you to join the cause along the way."

Qi'ra laughed out loud. "That will never happen."

The disappointment that pinched Organa's face was hardly visible, but her voice grew flatter. "Then this will be our only voyage together." She gestured ahead. "Shall we?"

Qi'ra smiled at her, oblivious to Han staring in confusion. "We shall."

#qi'ra #leia organa #leia x qi'ra #my writing #random words on a page #starwarswlweek2021 #flash fiction #flash fiction: star wars

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nelllraiser · 4 years ago

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step the fuck up, kyle | kyle & nell

TIMING: shortly after kyle attacked bex. LOCATION: the forest in the outskirts. PARTIES: @darkh0wl and @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: nell takes matters into her own hands when it comes to convincing kyle to let her help in his quest for control.

Kyle had explicitly said he didn’t want Nell’s help. But apparently that meant nothing to the witch as Nell followed the tracking spell she’d set into play, intent on finding the werewolf so that she might begin her entirely genius plan of helping him learn how to better control when and where he shifted. Even if it was true that he’d only hurt people twice in his lifetime, she couldn’t help but feel that disaster was simply waiting to strike with an untrained werewolf...and she’d meant it when she’d said she didn’t want to kill him. At first news of Bex’s attack, she’d been ready to greedily plunge the silver of her knife clean through Kyle’s heart. Then he’d cowered in Morgan’s basement and talked about being at fault as well as hurting his mother. She hadn’t wanted the story to sway her sympathies, had tried her best to keep her compassion from winning out in lieu of her anger, but it had become more impossible as time passed. What had happened to giving supernaturals second chances? Was she really so desperate for his blood because he’d accidentally attacked her student and friend? A part of her that was built from the memory of seeing too many die and get hurt had told her killing him was the smartest option, and perhaps that was true. Was she willing to live with the guilt down the line if Kyle continued to become a problem, adding more people to his list of injuries?

Nell’s spell came to an end, signaling that her quarry was hidden somewhere within the swath of trees and forest a mere thirty feet in front of her, and she shook her head in an attempt to clear it. She’d already made her decision to be here, and do her best to give Kyle his second chance. Casting another spell, she uttered the latin words that would grant her complete silence of her movements. It was necessary to catch Kyle by surprise for her plan to work. Then she set to climbing the nearest tree, using practiced movements and muscles to hoist herself up into the branches towering above the forest floor. There. She could see the black hair of his head bobbing below her from this better vantage point, and with nothing to lose she launched herself towards her target, using another bit of magic to ensure she didn’t go splat when she came to a stop not five feet in front of him, arms high as if she’d just landed one of her gymnastics stunts. “What the fuck is up, Kyle?”

A jog through the woods always set Kyle at ease. Even if he was running on two legs instead of four, the forest felt like he was returning home. He’d made a habit of these jogs enough times that he felt like he knew these woods; their ins and outs and what made them breathe. He popped earbuds in, turning on a heavy playlist to get his blood pumping, and he took off.

He hadn’t been running more than a few minutes when someone was falling from above and yelling at him. Kyle couldn’t understand what was being said over the music that blared in his ears. His heart was already beating fast, but now it threatened to tear right out of his chest. He could feel the damp hair at the back of his neck standing on end. He fell back in surprise, landing on his butt. His mind was already panicking, running through a thousand scenarios all at once. It took a lengthy moment before it fully clicked with Kyle who he was looking at.

“Nell,” he growled, through gritted teeth. Breathe, Kyle. Just breathe. But he couldn’t catch his breath. Why would she surprise him like this? She knew— It dawned on him that this was what Nell had been planning to teach him restraint and control. His chest heaving, Kyle closed his eyes and put his head in his hands. He could feel it already. Breathe. But it was happening and he couldn’t stop the wolf once it was in motion. “Nell!” This time he was yelling. Kyle’s hands dropped to the ground and he gripped handfuls of dirt and the detritus of the forest floor. He just had to breathe.

Nell couldn’t help but take Kyle’s instantaneous reaction as something that was almost validating. Maybe he hadn’t mauled that many people over the years, and maybe he’d just gotten lucky. She supposed people didn’t usually fall out of trees in front of one another, but that wasn’t to say that more surprising things could happen in the day to day life of a werewolf. To be honest— she hadn’t expected his reaction to be so visceral, thinking that her surprise would simply get his heart-rate pumping healthily, and they could go from there. Instead it seemed as if he’d already begun his shift, and she knew that once that had been set into motion...there was generally no going back.

“Well...I guess we just have to wait for you to finish now,” Nell commented with a somewhat miffed expression, already amending any future plans she had for helping Kyle with his control. Note to self: Must begin with something that causes less stress than falling out of a tree in front of him. Depositing another spell onto her person, she prepared herself to climb the tree once more, this time aided by the advanced speed the magic would grant her. “I’ll just wait up here, alright?” Then she was sprinting back towards the tree she’d come from at breakneck speed, readying herself to climb it once more. At least then she wouldn’t have to hop around dodging him while he worked this out of his system.

Kyle was pissed to say the least. Nell had gone against his wishes and forced him into a shift before he was good and ready. His last coherent thought was of her words. Irresponsible, she’d called him. Hypocrite. He let the anger wash over him, almost relishing in the feeling and the justification that came with it. “Nell,” he yelled again, but this time her name turned into a roar in his throat. He sat there for a few moments, panting, before his nose reminded him that there was prey to be caught. Shoving himself to his feet, Kyle shook out his coat, black and wavy like his hair. He licked his lips, salivating at how close his prey still was. Kyle stalked forward; head low, eyes locked on Nell. Her back was turned as she started her ascent up the tree and his predator instinct told him she was vulnerable. Carefully, quietly, he came closer. Kyle began to circle her, coming toward her side for a better angle on her throat. He tensed, ready to strike. After a few moments, he leapt at her with his teeth bared.

“Sorry- I don’t really speak wolf,” Nell commented as he roared, perhaps too unperturbed while being faced with a beast that was intent on ripping her throat out. But after five years of traveling the world to deal with supernatural threats, bringing in fighters for the Ring, and continuing in her line of supernatural bounty hunting— she was decently desensitized to danger when it was only her life on the line. With no other collateral damage present it was easy to slip into the ways her body knew well, as if it were another day at the office. “Ah, ah!” she tutted as Kyle leapt, turning from her spot on the tree to extend a hand in his direction as she balanced herself against the trunk, magic sprouting forwards from her fingers to create an invisible shield, one that most creatures tended to slide off of. “No! Down! Bad!” Then she began climbing higher, doing her best to get out of werewolf jumping range. “So...how long do these usually last for you?” she asked the wolf, knowing Kyle had no way of actually responding, or perhaps even properly understanding.

Kyle bonked off the shield, dropping back onto the ground sideways with a thump. He snarled and staggered back to his feet. Circling around the trunk again, he repositioned himself. Every time Nell shifted, he shifted with her, always a step behind. Trying a new tactic, Kyle stood on two legs, with his front legs braced against the tree. This time, he leapt straight up. His claws dragged against the bark looking for purchase. He only managed to slow his descent before he was back on the ground. With a frustrated huff, Kyle tried again, using his claws to drag himself upward. He got within a few feet of Nell’s feet as he snapped at the air.

Nell couldn’t help but think that Kyle looked a lot like Taki braced against his favorite scratching post while the werewolf stretched himself along the tree. Unfortunately, the differences were that Taki wasn’t a werewolf, and he also didn’t have any desire to kill Nell. Maybe this would actually be a little cathartic for Kyle in the end. He could get his anger at her out in wolf form, and then they could actually talk and work together on a plan for monitoring his control. An “oop” of surprise slipped between Nell’s lips as Kyle made attempts to reach her once more, his latest method getting him closer than any other one had. But she simply continued to climb all the higher as his jaws snapped somewhere below her, letting the speed of her magic grant her another few meters up the tree. “Maybe I should have figured out how you usually come out of shifts before doing this…” she mulled thoughtfully, wondering how long she might be stuck climbing a tree. Maybe if she...fed him? If she gave him something to sate his bloodthirst, he might change back? Leaning against a branch of the tree, she summoned a large steak from the inside of her fridge at home, the meat cut magically blipping into her hand as she waved it for a moment. “You want this?” she asked before letting it fall towards Kyle’s open maw.

The steak smacked Kyle in the face as it fell, and he dropped from the tree with it. He nosed at the meat, not trusting it at first. He glanced back up at Nell again. She would be a much more filling meal, but the meat was right there. He snapped the steak up in his maw and darted away to feast on his prize where Nell couldn’t take it back from him. Once he was far enough away that he felt safe, he lay down on his stomach with his hind legs splayed out behind him. Kyle gnawed at the steak with the side of his mouth, thoroughly enjoying himself. His tail wagged slowly, Nell all but forgotten in the tree.

He splooted. Kyle had taken the steak and sat himself in a sploot. Nell could barely contain her amusement as she watched Kyle drop into a pose that was nearly infamous for being one of the absolute best canine poses of all time. If she hadn’t been vaguely worried about the concept of exposing Kyle as a werewolf to anyone that might come across her phone, she would have taken a picture then and there- if only to show Kyle once he was back in the mind of his normal self. And maybe Morgan. And Mina and Bex too. And definitely Taki. Either way, she was pleased that he’d taken the food, and let herself drop a bit closer to the ground so that she could get a better view of him. “So are you...feeling better now?” Food calming him down was something to work with, right? Maybe there was something in that to help with releasing himself from his shifts faster. “Did you want more?” Would that help him return faster? Nell decided that Kyle was much more likable in his werewolf form when he couldn’t talk.

Nell addressing questions to Kyle only earned her a half-hearted growl. He turned farther away from her, but not far enough that he couldn’t keep an eye on her. Turning his back was a sign of trust and he didn’t trust Nell. As he ate, his heart rate began to come down. A full belly always calmed him; it made him a touch sleepy. That, and the exertion of trying to catch Nell, and Kyle was halfway to being himself again, or at least his human self. The concept of self, when he could conceptualize it, was complicated. He was a wolf for sure and felt connected with the wolf. But he had all these human emotions that he didn’t know what to do with. The wolf was easy; there were no emotions to deal with, just instinct alone. The same instinct that had nearly killed Bex, that had wanted to kill Nell just a few moments ago. All that ebbed away slowly now as he settled considerably.

Before he was fully aware what had happened, Kyle was coming to his senses and shifting back. The steak gone, he was half naked, laying on the forest floor, his clothes in tatters. “What the f—,” he mumbled before spinning around and looking up in the tree. “Nell.”

“Hey Kyle,” Nell waved a lazy hand in greeting from her perch on the tree, legs swinging in the air as she looked down at him. She carefully averted her eyes from going anywhere below his waistline, figuring the young man was already upset enough by the recent turn of events. “You don’t happen to have any clothes nearby, do you? If not I can just get you another blanket or something.” That’d be easy enough to summon from home- just like she’d summoned the steak. “So did you wanna come up here, or should I go down there?” she asked as if she were requesting his preference on what he wanted for dinner. Part of her wanted to gloat to him that she’d been right- if she’d been anyone else less equipped to deal with werewolves she’d most likely be dead meat by now. But even she knew that you caught more flies with honey, and though she wasn’t exactly the sweetest bait in the world, she could at least be sure she wasn’t straight vinegar.

Kyle wanted to kill her. Not the wolf brain, but the coherent, thinking human brain. He wanted to make her eat her words. Instead, he took a deep breath and sighed. “I, uh,” he stammered, covering himself as best he could. He was dazed from changing and then coming to so abruptly. It left him foggy. He cleared his throat. “I have a change of clothes in my car. Can you...poof them here or whatever?” Nell was probably feeling pretty justified right now. She was probably gloating to herself in her head. That thought made Kyle take another deep breath. His body ached from the pain of the shift and he couldn’t do that again now. Steak or no steak, he didn’t have the energy to push it like that again right now. Nell didn’t need to be proven right again; once was enough.

“Where’s the car?” Nell asked, needing a bit more specific of an area to work if she was going to summon the clothes. “Then I can ‘poof’ then,” she said while raising her hands to form little quotation marks with her fingers. “And what kinda clothes are they?” The more details the better when she was summoning from a place she wasn’t exactly sure of the location of. Nell paused as she waited for his answer, her feet still swaying in the air as she sat comfortably on her branch. “You never said if you wanted to come up here or the other way around.” Her change in demeanor from their last two encounters might have been...puzzling to say the least, but this was simply a part of reminding herself that Kyle wouldn’t want to work with someone he hated. “So did you ever message those people you said you were going to message?” That was an easy enough transition into what she really wanted to talk about.

“It’s just outside the woods, parked on the side of the road. It’s a silver Jeep Cherokee.” Kyle crossed his legs, trying to give himself any semblance of respect. “The clothes are in my back seat. It’s a gray hoodie and black sweats.” He could feel his cheeks burn with embarrassment. What was Nell’s angle here? She’d pushed him to his limit the last time they’d spoken. Before that, she nearly killed him. Today, she’d pushed him well past his limit. Did she feel bad for him? That made the anger he held worse. “I don’t really care if you come down here, can I just have my clothes?” He needed to buy a new pair of shoes. That was two that he’d lost already. This shit was stupid expensive. Maybe Nell was right… Kyle grit his teeth. He didn’t want her to be right. If he’d learned anything from his altercations this past week, he’d learned that it was better if he stayed away from anyone he cared about. It was better if he kept everyone he knew at an arm’s length or longer. “No, I didn’t fucking message them,” he spat. He didn’t even mean for it to come off aggressive, but Nell was just messing with his head. She had to be. This was one of her control lessons, and Kyle wouldn’t let her win. Not like this.

“Alright, hold on,” Nell said as she began to climb higher up the tree once again. She ascended until she could see above a good portion of the forest, looking in the direction Kyle had talked of and she could see a silver car like the one he’d described. After a brief moment of concentration and sparked magic, the clothes were in her hold. This time— instead of descending normally she uttered another piece of magic that would grant her the ability to fall slowly from the great height. She dropped no faster than a feather to the ground, landing gracefully as she held the clothes out to Kyle, signaling that he should come and grab them. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna look or whatever,” she said while pointedly turning her head away from him. Dealing with Kyle was obviously going to be tricky based on the way he spat about not messaging other werewolves. She needed to boil him slowly- like a frog. Unfortunately...patience and doing things slowly wasn’t Nell’s strong suit. “Kyle…” she began to speak as collectively as she was able to, “I don’t understand how you plan to not become dangerous if you don’t talk to other wolves.” Perhaps somewhat wisely, she chose not to tell him that she’d messaged Ariana for him.

Kyle’s blush had crept all the way up to his ears. He was a deep pink by now, as he awkwardly got up, still covering himself, and took the clothes from Nell. He turned his back to her. Quickly and rather clumsily, he pulled them on, only turning around when he was fully dressed. “Thanks,” he mumbled, the residual anger audible in his voice. He tried to take a deep breath, but it came out shaky. He didn’t want to lose it again on Nell. She seemed like she was genuinely trying to help him now. Not that he wanted, or needed, her help. But she seemed to be coming from a good place. That was enough reason to try to chill out for a second. Still, when she spoke, sounding like she was trying to talk down a wild animal or a particularly cranky toddler, he grit his teeth. Kyle had to take a second breath, in through his nose and out through his mouth, and this time it was steadier. “I want to talk to other wolves. On my own terms. Things have been-- It’s complicated. I’ve been focusing on Bex, like I think you should. I want to make sure she’s okay after I-- after what happened.” He couldn’t let himself think about his claws in her chest, or the way she screamed. He hadn’t been able to close his eyes without seeing it--seeing her on the ground beneath him as the streetlights flickered. Kyle’s eyes squeezed shut and he took one more breath, trying to forget for only a moment.

Nell shrugged off his thanks, knowing she probably didn’t really deserve it after being the reason he needed new clothes in the first place. But now that he was decent, she strode closer to him so that they could have an actual face to face conversation. It wasn’t until she was stood directly in front of him that she remembered he was a decent chunk taller than her. Suddenly she wished that she’d insisted on him coming up to the tree. At least they would have been roughly the same height sitting in it. On second thought maybe she should go back to the tree. Then she’d really be taller than him. It took a long moment for her to remind herself that there were more important things at stake here than her feeling tall, and finally she remembered to address why she’d come here in the first place.

“I’m not trying to be a dick, Kyle,” Nell began, doing her best to keep her frustration from getting the better of her. It was easier now that the Bex incident was a little more removed. “Focus on yourself and then Bex. You can’t do shit for Bex if you’re still worried about whether or not you’re gonna rip her to pieces. And thankfully I can focus on more than one thing at once,” she insisted, having no intention of letting this go. “I can take care of Bex. And so can Morgan and Mina. And then so can you once you figure out yourself.” But she recognized that look in Kyle’s eyes, had seen it in the mirror on more than one occasion while she wondered whether or not she was more of a risk factor than not. “Listen- if you don’t wanna be a liability, and don’t wanna feel the way thinking that makes you...feel...then you have to do something to make sure you’re less of one. And running off into the forest and refusing help isn’t gonna be the thing that does that.”

Kyle had forgotten that Nell was so short. She seemed far less intimidating when he towered over her like this. He was glad she’d come down out of the tree. Their height difference had Kyle’s lips pulling up halfway to a satisfied smirk, but the conversation they were having was serious enough that he pursed his lips instead. “I don’t want you to focus on me. It’s--I don’t like it. I don’t deserve anything from you.” He looked away, fingers trailing through his hair absentmindedly. “I don’t want to be a liability. I’m just--it’s hard. It’s complicated. I’ve never had a super tight hold on my shifting, but it feels like I’m slipping more and more. And I don’t want to, but…” But what if he lost himself? Or was the wolf who he really was? How do you separate what you are from what controls you? Kyle sucked in a sharp breath and looked back up at Nell. “Have you ever done this? With another wolf, I mean. Have you ever taught someone else control?” If she said yes, he had follow up questions. If she said no… Kyle was already resisting the urge to run off into the forest, even if Nell said it wouldn’t help him. It felt like it would do something.

Nell’s eyes narrowed briefly as she took in his smirk, resisting the urge to try and smack it off his smug little face. She was trying to help now. Not get him to shift back. Obviously that hadn’t worked out the first time. “I know you don’t want me to focus on you, but someone has to.” Kyle wasn’t a responsibility she’d wanted after seeing the way he’d hurt Bex, but she’d thrust it onto herself nonetheless. “If it’s slipping, then we’ll find a way to make it un-slip. You’re gonna stand a better chance if you just let people try and help you.” She was speaking as calmly as she could. It was easier to be rational when she hadn’t just finished healing the wounds that might have killed Bex.

“Not...technically a wolf, no. I was preparing to at one point, though.” He didn’t need to know that the wolves she’d been worried about controlling had been herself and Adam. That had been almost six months past now, but Nell still remembered how they’d worried about hurting the people they didn’t want to hurt. She still worried about that, though not in the terms of a wolf. Their bites had turned out to be null and void with loup garou being unable to turn others into werewolves. “And I’ve tried to help other supernatural people learn control. I know it’s not exactly the same, but it’s something— and you need something, Kyle.”

Kyle’s skin crawled with anxious energy. The way he saw it, Nell was mothering him and that felt bad. He didn’t like that at all. So she’d never done this before and Kyle was her wonderful little guinea pig. Great. Nothing could go wrong there. He pulled at the strings of his hoodie and worked his jaw, trying not to look at Nell. “I think I’d do better on my own,” he started. “But clearly you’re not going anywhere, so I guess it’s fine.” He sighed deeply. “We gotta set up some ground rules, though.” If he was gonna be stuck with Nell, he might as well have some agency in the agreement.

“First off, you cannot jump out of trees at me. Or jump out from behind a bush. Or--just don’t jumpscare me, okay? That wasn’t enjoyable for either of us and you’re gonna get someone hurt doing that.” He couldn’t shake the what-ifs that circled his mind like hungry vultures, preying on his fears. What if Nell hadn’t been as fast as she was? What if he’d been better at climbing the tree? What if he’d bitten her or attacked her like he’d attacked-- “Secondly. No more bringing up shit that I’ve done and holding it over me. Like my mom. I know what I did. If I want to talk about it, it’s my decision. Not yours. Same with talking to other wolves. I don’t need you to talk to them on my behalf or anything. I’m--I’m working on it.” Finally, he looked back over at her, jaw locked now. The urge to kill her still gnawed at him, but he was pushing it down. It helped that she was short. He could take her on, but he didn’t have to. Not now.

Nell had already opened her mouth with a retort hot on her lips to argue against why he wouldn't do better on his own. But the words were stopped in their tracks when he finally seemed to grant her a little bit of wiggle room when it came to helping. “You know it’s really good that you recognized how stubborn I am now. Otherwise this could have gone on much longer than it needed to.” She was certain she would have won anyway, but it was nice that they could skip over the rest of the back and forth. The witch barely resisted rolling her eyes at the mention of ground rules, trying to remind herself that she guessed it was far for Kyle to have some autonomy in the situation. “Sure- fine, alright.” The battle of getting him to accept her help had been won, so she could let him have this moment.

“To be fair I didn’t think you were gonna get that close to shifting by me just jumping out of the tree,” Nell rebutted. “I wasn’t trying to make you shift off the bat. So yeah- now I know you’re a little too jumpy for that method to work.” Apparently she couldn’t just roll over for the rules he was setting down, talking out her reasons as to why she would accept them. “I don’t want you to worry about hurting me, though.” It probably came off as cocky, but Nell was confident in her abilities to dodge a hungry werewolf and tell the tale. After all, she’d done it on multiple occasions before. “I don’t want that to get in the way of us working on your control, I mean.” His second rule left her feeling a granule of guilt, realizing that her online attempts to talk about his mother hadn’t come off the way she’d intended. “I wasn’t...trying to hold it over you. I was just...trying to help.” Still, her natural inclination to go against anyone instructing her on what to do was beginning to kick in, making her want to balk against the authoritative tone he was using. “For the other werewolves thing...it might be a little too late for that,” she mumbled, as if doing so might prevent him from hearing.

Nell really made it so much harder for Kyle to push down the urge to kill her when she went against every single thing he said. “Can’t you just--,” he snapped. He had to take a deep breath, focusing on the tree tops and trying to follow single branches all the way back to the tree. Anything to keep himself from either losing it again, or yelling at Nell. After a moment’s pause, he spoke again. “Can you please not argue every step of the way?” he asked, voice much more steady this time. “I’m sincerely trying with you right now, and you’re making that especially hard. There are some things I’m just not ready to talk about with you. Not right now. And I hope you can respect that instead of justifying why you did it.” Everything Nell said was a justification of why she had done the things he was asking her not to do. Kyle knew this was probably the closest thing he was going to get to an apology, but that didn’t help the frustration he felt. Nell was easily one of the most aggravating people he’d met in White Crest. Whether or not she did that on purpose, he wasn’t sure. He opened his mouth to keep going, but Nell dropped on him that she had apparently already contacted another werewolf for him. Aggravating. Kyle’s mouth snapped shut and he closed his eyes. He just had to breathe, Nell meant well. She was coming from a good place. She didn’t mean to piss him off. “Who did you contact?” he asked tersely, voice low. He just had to breathe.

“I’m not-” the words had left Nell before she could stop them, her gut reaction wanting to make her argue back when it came to whether she was, in fact, arguing or not. Thankfully she finally managed to catch herself, and bit off the reply before it could fully fly. She didn’t agree with his words, but she didn’t refute them either, giving him a look as if to say ‘See? I’m not arguing.’ But the word justifying didn’t sit quite right with her. Not when it left such a hypocritical taste in her mouth. So that was the end of her silence. “I’m not trying to justify things which...sounds like a justification but- I just...wanted to explain. Not saying that they were...right or anything.” She was just lacking when it came to making people she didn’t know all that well understand. Generally, Nell could go one of two ways when it came to getting to know people. The first was that of her being an acquired taste, with the person slowly getting used to the witch with time and hopefully patience while she figured out how to mesh with them. The second was when they were drawn to her recklessness and spontaneity, seeing an opportunity for fun in the young woman that often wore off in them sooner rather than later, making her into something of a temporary novelty until people got tired of it. As for the other werewolf. “Well...I don’t know if you...know them,” she began, having the decency to look at least a little charginned at the fact that she’d already gone against his wishes. “It was just one, though!”

“Just one,” Kyle parroted. “This is exactly what I’m talking about, though. Why didn’t you at least ask me first? Depending on who it is, I might know them. Who was it?” If it was Alcher, that was a whole can of worms Kyle didn’t want to get into. Honestly, she scared him. She was intense to say the least. If it was Ari who was contacted, it was a little better, but Kyle still didn’t want her to know that he wasn’t totally in control. He’d worked so hard to keep that under wraps. He’d worked so hard to keep himself in some semblance of control. Ari didn’t need to hear from someone else what had happened. Kyle barely knew her as it was. If it was another wolf entirely, that was just embarrassing. What a great first impression to make. Hey, I’m Kyle, the guy that almost killed that witch in the alley. I’m sure you’ve heard all about me. That would go off great. “Just… Can we--can you--work on it? Otherwise, I don’t think this is gonna work out. I need to have some kind of agency in this whole thing, you know?” There was a sinking feeling that things would still not work out for them, but he tried to push that down with the murderous intentions. This had to work, or Kyle had all but run out of options.

“I- well-” Nell didn’t have all that good of a reason other than the fact that she’d still been functioning off the sense of urgency that came with seeing Bex torn into bits, and thinking a little too much about how fragile an untrained witch could be if attacked by a werewolf...again. “I don’t know,” she lied, not exactly all that willing to let Kyle peek into the place where she kept her trauma and the worries it caused. “I was just...worried.” It was a shitty answer, and he deserved better than that. She just wasn’t sure how to give it to him. “But the wolf- her name starts with an A...and ends with A.” Nevermind the fact that she hadn’t actually heard back from Ari, yet. “So if you know a wolf like that, it’s probably her.” He was asking the bare minimum of Nell, and she mulled over his request for a long moment as the two stood in the forest. Agency was a big part of learning control, wasn’t it? You couldn’t learn control unless you felt in control. That’s what she’d been trying to achieve with Bex. Shouldn’t the same apply to Kyle? “I can...try,” she acquiesced, not all that certain of how successful she might be with the endeavor. “But I might not be great at it so- you might have to be a little...patient.” It was something else Kyle shouldn’t have to deal with, but he deserved a warning, didn’t he? Now that she was feeling less combative, she longed even more for her tree and the security its height granted her. “Now...do you wanna sit in the tree or not?”

Kyle understood. Nell didn’t need to say more for him to get what she meant. She was trying to protect Bex. She was probably trying to protect Morgan, Mina, herself...countless other people. He couldn’t blame her for that, but it left him feeling helpless all the same. His situation felt out of his hands in more ways than one and he didn’t know how to reconcile that. Solemnly, Kyle nodded. It sounded like Nell was talking about a different wolf, he guessed. Alcher didn’t end with ‘A’ and neither did Ari. Wait, was Ari short for Ariana? He groaned softly. That would be his luck. Fuck. “All I’m asking of you is for you to try,” he said, nodding. Christ was he tired. Nell wasn’t only aggravating. She was exhausting, especially after a shift like that. “I can be patient if you can try,” he agreed. “Let’s sit in the tree.” They had a long road ahead of them.

“Great. Then I’ll try,” Nell repeated with a nod, still not sure how the beginning of her butchered attempt to help Kyle had enced them here. She should have thanked him for the offer of his patience, but even that felt too personal, making her feel a sense of vulnerability she wasn’t quite sure she wanted around Kyle. So instead she made her way back to the tree, climbing past the scratch marks Kyle had made against its trunk until she was sat on one of the lower branches, waiting for the werewolf to join her. Once the two of them were settled, her feet began to swing all over again, and she turned to the man beside her as the stiffness of her shoulders dissipated in the slightest. “So...what the fuck is up, Kyle?” She wasn’t sure where they’d end up, but at least they’d begun.

#// i LOVE KYLE THAT'S ALL #wickedswriting #chatzy #ch:kyle

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rptv-starwars · 4 years ago

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Disney Drops ‘Slave 1’ Name on Lego’s Boba Fett ‘Star Wars’ Ship

The name of the ship, which appeared in the films and on 'The Mandalorian,' remains on the official 'Star Wars' Databank, however.

June 29, 2021 7:47am

Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett in 'The Mandalorian.' Everett Collection

Disney is dropping the name Slave 1 from Boba Fett’s classic Star Wars ship — at least on a Lego product.

The ship was first introduced on the big screen in The Empire Strikes Back and seen again in the prequel, Attack of the Clones, before appearing in season two of The Mandalorian. And the name of the ship still appears in the Star Wars Databank, the official reference guide for the franchise.

On a new Lego set, the ship is now titled “Boba Fett’s starship,” as first reported by the Star Wars fan site, Jedi News. Jens Kronvold Frederiksen, Lego Star Wars design director, told the site that Disney asked the name be changed for the latest model. Neither Disney nor Lego responded to a request for additional comment. The Lego Boba Fett Starship goes on sale Aug. 1.

Disney has taken several steps to rebrand or alter a number of products and theme park attractions after criticism over dated and racist stereotypes, such as an overhaul of the Splash Mountain and Jungle Cruise rides.

And Mandalorian star Gina Carano was fired in February over controversial social media posts, with Lucasfilm saying at the time that “her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities are abhorrent and unacceptable.”

Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Chapek said of the firing that Disney stands “for values that are universal: Values of respect, values of decency, values of integrity and values of inclusion. And we seek to have the content that we make reflective of the rich diversity of the world we live in. And I think that’s a world we should all live in harmony and peace.”

As for the Boba Fett ship name change, there was some backlash on social media from those who do not like franchise alterations, which included Mark Anthony Austin, one of several actors who played the bounty hunter character in the original trilogy. “My ship will forever be Slave1. Nothing. Not even #disney can or will change that. This is the way,” tweeted Austin.

The Slave 1 name has been the subject of commentary for some time. In 2008, Billy Dee Williams, in reprising his character Lando Calrissian for the Cartoon Network satire Robot Chicken, said: “I have to say, Boba, this is one beauty of a ship. Not crazy about the name, though.”

------------------------------------

Mark Anthony Austin @BobaFettANHSE

https://twitter.com/BobaFettANHSE/status/1409343754285109248

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response by another twitter user:

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/disney-slave-1-name-boba-fett-star-wars-ship-1234975131/

#slave 1 #star wars #lego star wars #boba fett #bob chapek #ewokes #disney star wars

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offtopicoverload · 4 years ago

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This Isn’t How it Was Supposed to Go

This was supposed to be quick and easy, harmless and inconsequential. This was supposed to be a final goodbye, an actual goodbye, not whatever this is. Not this, never this.

so i’m a failure and couldn’t bring myself to finish the chapter i wanted to post over the weekend, so have this random ficlet as my first foray into Lovestruck writing instead. enjoy, i guess. i was just tryna vibe and my brain said "hey what if mc dies in that episode you just read" so here we are

M Rating (i mean. the bitch dies sooo)

Jessa x MC

~1.2k words (short, but im tired, so leave me alone)

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. This isn’t at all how it was supposed to go. This was supposed to be quick and easy, harmless and inconsequential, a minor hiccup to look back on years from now with a fond, potentially exasperated smile. This was supposed to be a final goodbye, an ending, however sad it may be, a bookend on a whirlwind series. This was supposed to be an actual farewell, not whatever this is. Not this, never this.

Her body hits the ground.

Her body hits the ground hard, muscles twitching violently as electricity courses through her entire being, a raw, grating, horrific scream dying in her throat. Dying in her throat as her body hits the ground. Her body hits the ground limp, motionless, empty and lifeless as everything becomes nothing. Nothing becomes everything as her body hits the ground.

Jessa’s running before she’s even thinking, before she’s even processed the monstrosity of a sight in front of her, before anything feels real. She’s sprinting, her skin humming with the currents she crosses as they sing in her veins, as purple plays along her skin, as heat dances through her muscles for once. She runs and runs until she’s collapsing, still surrounded by the buzzing grid, and pulling the body into her arms.

Tears fall down star-speckled cheeks and blur within sunrise eyes, but they don’t matter, not when she’s not moving, not when her chest isn’t rising, not when her face is slack and her eyes are rolled back. Nothing matters as Jessa takes in the lightning scars scorched along mint green skin, the singe on previously perfect clothes, the burns staining fingertips. Nothing matters, nothing matters and Jessa doubts anything ever will again.

“No, come on, come on, whiskey girl,” Jessa mutters under her breath, fingers brushing away errant strands of hair from her forehead. “Whiskey girl, give me something,” she pleads, cold fingertips searching for a pulse, searching for exhales, searching for a heartbeat, searching for anything, anything at all.

But she doesn’t find anything, anything at all. The only things she finds are air that’s too still, skin that’s too cool, and a chest that’s too stiff. She doesn’t find anything as she desperately searches and pleads and cries for the body laying in her lap, for the woman that’s unresponsive, for the whiskey girl that’s not a whiskey girl anymore.

Until the tiniest inhale breaks the quiet, alighting Jessa’s nerves in a way wholly different from the electric shocks. It’s the smallest gasp, the slightest wheeze as she stirs barely, just barely. But it’s enough for something akin to hope to blossom in Jessa’s stomach, enough for her to be cupping a pale cheek and murmuring sacrilegious prayers incoherently.

Another intake, another miniscule rise of her chest, and Jessa’s all but sobbing in relief. She’s hugging the body resting against hers, she’s whispering promises and pleas and a thousand other words that could never be assigned a true purpose besides reassurance and unadulterated adoration.

She wipes the tears from her cheeks with a weak, watery, hollow laugh, her hand further rising to rake blue hair and curling tendrils back from her flushed and messy face. Her eyes scan the grid, sparks still flickering around her - them. There’s still a them, there will always be a them, she won’t let there not be a them.

She cradles the body against her and rises to her feet tentatively, struggling slightly under the weight resting in her arms. Careful steps take her to the edge of the current, to the dancing embers of purple splayed in a labyrinth, each footfall hesitant and slow, a wary waltz on an unstable dancefloor. She retraces her way through the maze, every turn and every shift in the static sending anxiety spiking in her chest as she holds the body against her tighter.

This isn’t over, it’s never over. Jessa’s never met a true end, never met a final chance, never met a rule she can’t break or squirm her way around. She’s never failed so terribly and never said a goodbye she didn’t want to say, and this is no different, it can’t be.

After all this, all the bounties and shady dealings, all the blushes and fluttering stomachs, all the rule breaking and risks, this isn’t different. It’s not different for her, and it’s not different for the infuriating PI limp in her arms. The same PI that doesn’t give in, that doesn’t skip out on a job, that swore she’d see this to the end.

She’s not allowed to back out, she’s not allowed to quit, she’s not allowed to run from this job. She’s not allowed to leave, to disappear, to abandon this. She’s not allowed to abandon Jessa, not after fighting so hard. Not after Sweetheart’s Day, not after stepping back into the bar after all that time, not after those nights in the club, not after those nights in the backroom. Not after secret rendezvous and midnight video calls. Not after all this shit.

Jessa grunts, hoisting her higher to adjust her grip, and carries on in the direction of the tiny village, determination boiling inside of her. She hurries over to the first person she spots, a hunched over old woman who kindly points her in the direction of the village’s hospital, and she all but runs there.

She runs as fast as her legs will carry her, she runs as quick as her lungs can handle, she runs as swiftly as she is capable with dead weight resting like lead in her arms. She runs until she’s gasping for air and pushing the door open with her hip, until some man in a coat is taking the body from her arms and rushing through a door, until she’s fighting with a nurse to let her follow.

Until she’s collapsing in a chair, her head falling to her hands, tendrils and shimmering locks curtaining around her face as tears stream freely, finally. Finally, the weight in her arms is gone, but the weight on her shoulders, on her chest, on her heart only grows heavier.

It grows heavier as the image of a man-made lightning strike echoes in her mind, a broken tape that no amount of hitting the television will fix. It’s a constant stream of splintered memories, fractured feelings, erratic thoughts as purple and green and pink flicker behind sunrise eyes. A constant stream of a cracked and strained scream, of begging gasps, of heavy footfalls hurrying in a sprint cycling in her ears. A constant stream of throbbing thoughts, pounding feelings, aching words bobbing in a loop in her throat.

A constant stream of a nightmare, a haunting, wake-up-drenched-in-sweat, can-barely-breathe-afterwards nightmare. A nightmare that wasn’t supposed to exist, that wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t how it was supposed to go, not one bit, not in a single universe, not in any life was that supposed to happen.

That image wasn’t supposed to be stuck in Jessa’s mind as her whiskey girl sits somewhere else, but it is. It is, forever now, no matter what happens next, that’ll be forever there, trapped and pounding on the bars of it’s imprisonment for attention. It will forever be true that that happened, that that’s how it went.

That her body hit the ground.

#lovestruck #lovestruck fanfic #starship promise #jessa flexand #jessa x mc #this started pretty good then i got off the rails but i dont even care at this point #just take the gay angst #also a super weird ending but im still tired maybe ill fix it later #tw death #cw death #oop forgot that #although i guess she doesn’t die? idk #death tw

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anistarrose · 5 years ago

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Fear The Reaper A Lot, Actually (TAZ Balance AU)

AO3

Summary: In the aftermath of the catastrophe at the Miller Lab, Kravitz strikes a deal with his bounties. Their crimes against death will be forgiven if they can bring in two specific liches for arrest…

But unfortunately, those liches are named Lup and Barry J. Bluejeans.

Characters: Kravitz, Taako, Barry Bluejeans, Angus McDonald, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch, Noelle | No-3113, The Raven Queen, misc. BoB cameos

Relationships: Taakitz, Angus McDonald & Taako, Barry Bluejeans & Kravitz

I posted the second of three scenes in this chapter on Tumblr in January, not really expecting to continue it at the time, but it was well-received there, and I realized that I actually have a lot more ideas for this AU than I expected! This fic has been in the works for months, and I’m simultaneously so excited, nervous, and relieved to get it out of my mind and into the world.

That said, there is one other person who’s read this fic before, and that’s @fexiled! They’ve been an awesome (and patient) beta reader, and I’m incredibly grateful to them for all their advice, typo-catching, and encouragement!

***

Kravitz couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of sinister agenda would possibly bring a lich to a train station, but he’d intercepted Barry J. Bluejeans in stranger places than Rockport. If he was after any other bounty, he’d be worried about the nearby masses of civilians on holiday getting caught in the crossfire, or worse, being used as hostages — but with Barry, he never knew what to worry about.

Barry, for his part, didn’t seem fazed by the prospect of facing down the Grim Reaper in a transportation hub staffed entirely by identical clones of Tom Bodett, and he addressed Kravitz calmly and amiably:

“Ah, there you are. Hope you didn’t have a ticket for the Rockport Limited, ‘cause it left a couple minutes ago.”

“I have a magical sapphire scythe that lets me teleport anywhere on the Material or Astral Planes,” Kravitz replied. “Why would I need train tickets?”

Barry chuckled — nervously? Awkwardly? Without a visible face beneath his hood, he was difficult to read. “I dunno, leisure? In case I got on a train and you wanted to follow me, but legally?”

Kravitz narrowed his eyes. Barry was normally talkative for a lich, but today, he seemed especially affable… not to mention unsurprised by Kravitz’s appearance. “Were you expecting me to follow you here?”

“You’ve followed me stranger places,” Barry reminded him. “Graveyards for dragons, necromancy conventions, the actual moon that isn’t just a secret society’s headquarters… point is, I kinda figured the ticket counter at a train station wouldn’t stop you.”

Kravitz adjusted his grip on his scythe, channelling a spark of the Raven Queen’s power to scan the area for magical traps. There were none.

“I don’t have any tricks this time,” Barry promised him, his hooded void of a face still frustratingly impossible to read. “No sabotage, no moon ogres. I just want to talk.”

A pigeon landed on the ground between them, pecking at a dropped sandwich without any acknowledgement of the two undead entities that could each obliterate it in a second.

“Let’s say I humor you, in the interest of not catching an innocent bird in the crossfire,” Kravitz replied. “What would you want to talk about?”

“I’m realizing this isn’t gonna sound that sincere, but… an apology. And a warning.”

“What world do you come from, where it’s appropriate to follow an apology with a threat? Are you going to, I don’t know, imprison my soul if I don’t forgive you?”

“The world I come from has nothing to do with it.” The lights beneath Barry’s hood flickered erratically, but he kept his composure. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for wasting so much of your time. You could be out there stopping evil necromancers, but I’ve been leading you on a wild goose chase for a decade, and I’m genuinely sorry about that. I’m sorry that I can’t do the things I need to do or save the things I need to save without being undead, and making what I can only assume is a gigantic bureaucratic mess for the Astral Plane.”

Kravitz sighed. “Are you hinting that I should just give up forever on chasing you, because you’re not evil? Do you really expect me to believe that, coming from a lich?”

“Well, I wasn’t counting on it, but that would be nice,” Barry admitted. “The thing is, whether you believe me isn’t going to matter a whole lot in… let’s see, at the rate we’re going, I doubt it’ll take much more than a year. You’re gonna have a bigger problem on your hands — and if you want even a slim chance of surviving it, you and your goddess and every plane in this system will need to be prepared.”

Kravitz eyed a clock on the station wall. “Keep making threats like that, and you’ll have thirty seconds to explain yourself before I end this conversation.”

Barry held up his hands. “Wait, wait, let me clarify — that wasn’t me threatening you! That’s me knowing what’s coming, and not wanting to see it obliterate this entire universe! I — I see, now, how that could get misinterpreted — but I promise, I’m not making this up just to mess with you! You have the ability to warn the Astral Plane, to warn the Raven Queen and by extension all the gods in the Celestial Plane, so that they can prepare for this and stand a fighting chance —”

“Excuse me, gentlemen? Is there anything I can help you with?”

A Tom Bodett approached them, completely unfazed by the lich and the reaper staring each other down of the Rockport Limited boarding platform, and Kravitz couldn’t help but wonder how frequently the humble employees of the train station had to deal with the undead making a scene.

“Stay back, mortal!” he shouted, twirling his scythe and jumping between the Barry and the poor, almost certainly underpaid Tom. “This is an arrest of one of the most dangerous death criminals in Faerun —”

But Barry had already vanished into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest wisp of red smoke, and Kravitz held back a curse.

This always happened one way or another, every damn time Kravitz had encountered Barry in the past decade. Barry had been right about one thing — he’d wasted an astronomical amount of Kravitz’s time over the years.

“Well, I guess that takes care of that,” Tom declared brightly, as if he caused distractions that allowed ultrapowerful death criminals to escape justice every day. “He was making quite a scene — any idea what his deal was?”

Kravitz shook his head. “Just a lich playing mind games. As liches are wont to do, you know.”

At least, I hope that’s all Barry is, he thought with a shiver. But if he wants to give me a reason to believe him, then… well, he can do it from a cell in the Eternal Stockade.

***

“Hey, Reaper Man! I’ve got an idea for you!” Taako called out. Something about the gleam in his eye piqued Kravitz’s curiosity, even though hearing out ideas from death criminals was an objectively unwise idea.

“Do tell, then,” Kravitz replied, and the mischievous smile on Taako’s face expanded into a toothy grin.

“You hunt down a lot of different bounties, right? And Lucas and Maureen and Noelle, they can’t possibly be the worst criminals on your naughty list, can they?”

“Naughty list? What is he, Santa?” Magnus snickered. “I guess it is technically still Candlenights…”

“Today has been a Day with a capital D,” Kravitz warned Taako, “and I’m not in the mood to hear an argument about why I should let them go because morality is relative —”

“Cool your collarbones, Skeletor, I may have come here to get the Philosopher’s Stone, but I’m no philosopher. I was just thinking: what if we tracked down one of your bigger bounties for you? You let some harmless death criminals go, we bring you a really evil one in return, you collect a big old bounty and also get to see my charming face again! Doesn’t that deal sound like a winner?”

“In practice, it just sounds like a good way to get double-crossed — but in theory, it would be quite a bargain, I’ll grant you that.” Kravitz mentally ran through his list of bounties, almost immediately focusing on one particular lich that had vexed him for years. “And I have to admit, I’d love nothing more than seeing you three take a crack at bringing in Barry J. Bluejeans —”

The second Barry’s name was uttered, Taako let out a wheezy laugh like a congested elephant, and Magnus and Merle weren’t far behind, guffawing so heartily that they fogged up the insides of their null suit helmets.

“I laughed at that name once just like you, but when you’ve been hunting him for years to no avail, it won’t seem so funny anymore!” Kravitz warned them. “He’s easily in the top five most dangerous liches in Faerun, not to mention the number one most elusive!”

“Barry’s a LICH?!” Magnus chortled, as Merle doubled over clutching his stomach and Taako rolled around on the floor in hysterics.

“All that time in Phandalin, we were at the mercy of an evil undead overlord and we didn’t even know it!” Taako cackled, evidently not too troubled by the revelation. “Fuck, we’re lucky to even be alive!”

That caught Kravitz off guard. “Wait, you’ve met Barry Bluejeans?”

“And lived to tell the tale!” Merle boasted. “We could totally do it again, by the way!”

“Hang on, Merle,” Noelle interrupted. “Was this what you meant earlier? When you said you were friends with a couple of liches?”

Merle blinked. “When did I say that?”

“Never mind.” Noelle sighed, then turned to Kravitz. “There’s gotta be some mistake. Some kinda identity confusion. The Bluejeans I met in Phandalin, he — he was a good man. He tried to keep us hidden while he fought off that awful dwarf, that dwarf that was setting everything on fire as far as the eye could see. Mister Bluejeans was so reassuring, and so brave — if anything, I’d call him a hero, not some horrible undead monster.”

“That doesn’t really sound like our Barry,” Merle said. “He was kind of an ass. Told me to stab myself with a rusty fork.”

As his bounties squabbled among themselves over the true nature of Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz took the opportunity to pray to the Raven Queen.

Your Majesty, if these criminals think they can really track down such a dangerous lich… would taking their offer be the right choice? Or am I about to be scammed?

The reply was immediate, as if the Raven Queen had already been observing the Miller Lab intently and contemplating the situation for herself. I cannot make this decision for you, Kravitz. But I trust your judgement.

Thank you, milady. Kravitz collected himself, and announced his terms.

“I’ll tell you what. One lich isn’t quite enough to sell me on this deal… but two liches would be, especially if the latter of the two hasn’t been detected in over a decade. If you bring me the both of them in the next two months, everyone involved in this whole Miller debacle goes free — but if you fail, I come to collect all your souls. You still up for this deal?”

Magnus looked like he wants to ask for clarification, but before he could get a word out, Taako casually declared:

“Sure, dude, we’re up for it. Who’s the second lich, other than Barry?”

“Her name is Lup, and she was last sensed in the general vicinity of Wave Echo Cave ten years ago,” Kravitz replied with a smile. “That’s all I know about her, so that’s all the information you get, too. Good luck!”

***

“You’ve got two months to capture a couple of liches? And if you don’t, the Grim Reaper will take your souls?!”

“Shh, not so loud!” Magnus hissed, pressing a finger to Angus’s mouth. “Do you want everyone on the moon to hear?”

Angus glanced around the cafeteria. Exempting him and the three Reclaimers, it was completely empty aside from a few discarded, tattered Candlenights decorations. “Have you at least told the Director about this?”

Magnus smiled sheepishly. “Uh, it never seemed like the right time to bring it up.”

“Carey knew because she was there, but she didn’t seem too keen on being the one to break the news,” Taako elaborated. “Can’t say I blame her.”

Angus sighed. “And your new robot friend, Noelle. Is her soul a part of this bargain, too?”

Magnus nodded. “Yeah. We promised her we’d take care of it, so she’s hanging with the Regulators now —”

“And I bet Lucas Miller isn’t even dead after all, is he?”

“Perceptive as ever, Agnes,” Taako confirmed. “Maureen really did die, though. She went back to the Astral Plane.”

Angus took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes, a gesture that made him look far older than ten. “No offense, sirs, but why didn’t just gamble with the Grim Reaper for your souls like normal people? You might’ve actually had a chance at succeeding, that way!”

“Huh,” muttered Magnus. “Good question…”

“Yeah, Taako, why didn’t we just gamble for our souls like normal people?” Merle echoed.

Taako shrugged. “I dunno. I guess I just thought that Kravitz guy sounded pretty okay, like he’d give us a reasonable bargain…”

“Reasonable? He made Magnus chop my damn arm off!”

“Arguing isn't going to get us anywhere, sirs,” Angus spoke up. He hoped he was putting on a calm facade, even though his feet were trembling in his shoes. “Did Kravitz tell you anything about these liches? Names? Locations of recent sightings?”

“Already jotted down all the details for you, my little man,” Taako answered, handing Angus a single sheet of paper. “Didn’t want to forget anything that would help you work your boy detective magic.”

“As if you could ever forget Barry Bluejeans!” Magnus scoffed.

“A lich named Barry Bluejeans? That can’t be right…” Angus took a look at the sheet, titled “Case File” in loopy cursive letters and broken up into two subsections:

Lich #1

Name: Barry Bluejeans

Last seen: The circular glass mistake formerly known as Phandalin, a couple months ago

Weaknesses: Gerblins (unless that was a cunning play so we’d let our guard down), pants that aren’t made of denim, the temptation to party and drink while other people do his job for him

Other information: Used to be Gundren’s bodyguard, and didn’t do a very good job — but who could blame him? That dwarf was an even bigger asshole than he was.

Lich #2

Name: Lup

Last seen: Wave Echo Cave, 10 years ago

Weaknesses: I don’t know, probably holy water or something

Other information: Zilch

Each section was accompanied by an illustration. Barry’s was a cartoonish drawing of a skeleton with jeans, glasses, and a mullet, while Lup’s was simply a series of question marks. At the bottom of the page, Taako had written: Now have at it, Caleb Cleveland Junior!

“…You really have a lot of faith in me, don’t you, sirs?” Angus asked quietly.

Taako shrugged awkwardly, as Magnus replied:

“Well, we know you’re way better at this than us. And you know that’s not exactly a high bar to clear, but you’re obviously our best shot.”

Angus took a deep breath. “Do you remember the reaper’s exact terms? Were there any loopholes we could exploit?”

“Were there?” Magnus mused, tugging at one of his sideburns. “Does anyone remember what he said?”

“Why are you looking at me?” Merle asked, prompting a laugh from Taako.

“Well, in that case…” Angus took a deep breath. “I guess I’ll interview Carey and Noelle to make sure we’re not missing anything, but we shouldn’t count on being able to cheat the deal. Do you think we could book a transport sphere down to Wave Echo Cave tomorrow morning, to go search for leads?”

“Should be no problem,” Taako told him. “Back to our old stomping grounds! I can hardly wait!”

“Reliving our old mistakes! Hooray!” Merle cheered sarcastically, and with that, the Reclaimers all sauntered back to their dorms with easygoing attitudes that Angus could hardly believe.

How are you all so cavalier about dying? he thought. How can you bear to joke about this situation?

And what will I do, if I can’t help you find these liches?

***

Notes:

I really appreciate people commenting on/reblogging this fic, especially for this first chapter! There's absolutely no obligation to do so, of course, but it would mean a lot <3

For what might be the first time in my life, I already have a surplus of chapters written, so the update schedule should remain consistent for at least a month or two (fingers crossed). Since this chapter was on the shorter side and included a scene I posted months ago, I think I’ll post Chapter 2 in a week, then switch to updating every other week from Chapter 3 onwards. (Probably still on Tuesday evenings, plus or minus 24 hours.)

Also, I’d just like to give a shoutout to Angus McDonald for always, always ending up with a bigger role in my fics than I expect when I start writing! But I’m glad he managed to sneak his way into this one, because there’s a bunch more Angus scenes coming up that I can’t imagine this fic without!

#taz #taz balance #taakitz #taako taaco #kravitz taz #barry bluejeans #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #no-3113 #lup taaco #the raven queen #taz balance spoilers #rosalia writes fic #fic: FTRALA

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