#Canon can shrivel into dust

[spicypotstickerbliss]

broke: Jason is the favorite child because Bruce likes him the best.

woke: Jason isn’t actually the favorite child, it just seems that way because Bruce is able to subtly communicate his affection to every one of his kids EXCEPT him and it fucking tears him apart.

[wintersongstress]

A Dream’s Winding Way

Part II — The Weaver and the Loom

Pairing: Arthur Morgan (high honor) x Female Reader

Summary: For as long as you could remember, you dreamt of falling in a love so whole and pure it was worth enduring the many griefs in your life. But the world, cold and cruel as it was, robbed that dream from you, and you believed you would forever be broken until you met a man who was scarred in his own way.  

Word Count: 10.8k

Warnings: sexual assault trauma responses, murder, canon-typical violence. 

A/N: Arthur will make his appearance at the end here ♥ thank you THANK YOU @the-halo-of-my-memory​​ for beta-ing 💞 

Part I | ao3 link

                              ~ II — The Weaver and the Loom ~

Snick. 

The bolts inside the cabinet lock slid free. Between your finger and your thumb, the tarnished key in your grasp opened a long-latched door, a swoosh releasing dormant air. Inside the stale cell, relics of the past awaited, felty with dust. A chatelaine belt rested on the shelf, ornate with filigree, alongside a satin pouch, a crystal hat pin, silver spurs with brass rowels, and a wedding bouquet, its once-white roses shriveled and decaying. You paused once, running your fingers over the cool rivets of a sapphire brooch, and overlooked it all, instead retrieving a new vase for the kitchen table—one that would not shatter into pieces when it fell—and a tattered recipe book. 

With the book settled in your lap you opened it with a crack. Antique, creamy pages inked with words fluttered past your fingers, food stains mottling the margins alongside cursive pencil scrawls. A flattened sprig of poppy bookmarked the page for an oatmeal pie recipe. You tucked it back in for time to keep safe. A few gentle turns later you found what you were looking for and rose from the floor of your grandmother’s room, relocking the cabinet, and shutting the door behind you. You donned an apron and began your work.

The rugs, the curtains, all were taken down and rolled up, flapped outside, and beaten with the handle of your broom. You swept the floors of broken vase shards and stray leaves, replenished the oil in the lamps, trimmed the candle wicks, tossed out last night’s dinner, laid a new tablecloth, filled the silver ewer from your grandmother’s cabinet with water and fresh flowers, and scraped the ashes out from the fireplace. Wood clopped as you piled it up in a canvas carrier outside and lugged it in. Soap suds splashed your wrists as you scrubbed the dishes spotless. All the while the clock ticked on, from hour to hour, the day waning, until you could no longer prolong the inevitable, and commenced your grisly task. 

You propped your family recipe book open on the counter and fetched a large stew pot from the wall rack. The cutting board hosted the full spectrum of ingredients you needed, so you set the pot over the stove flame and warmed a dollop of butter and olive oil. The yellow onions you chopped sizzled as you added them in, and, using a knife, you deployed your special ingredient from the cutting board. A few dashes of salt and pepper joined the mixture next, and once the onions popped their flavor, caramelizing, teaspoons of dried sage and thyme hand-picked from your garden snowed from your hand with clumps of chopped garlic. 

Stirring, mixing, curdling, after a few minutes a pour of red wine and a splash of vinegar came next, making the soup bubble fragrantly. You scraped the copper bottom with a wooden spoon, stirring the browning bits of onion and garlic around, and drowned it all in three cans of beef broth from the general store. Two bay leaves fluttered in last before you covered the pot with a lid to let it simmer. 

The Sheriff would have a fine last meal. 

When the first three stars appeared in the evening sky, your cottage was aglow with soft light and welcoming with the scent of a rich dinner. Fine dishes and silverware sparkled on your table with a basket of bread in the center beside a lit candelabra. A fire warmed the hearth, and the alluring shimmer of dusk slipped in through the clean curtains. All was set. You sat in your armchair and waited, staring at the flames. 

Hoof beats. Sweat chilled your palms as the sound drew nearer and you stood to peer out the window. The dot of a lantern bloomed in the distance. You tucked your shirt into your belt and clutched your shawl tighter, holding your heart to tame its wild beating, fingertips bumping the band of your mother’s ring, still hanging around your neck from a chain. The most important thing for you to do was breathe, slow and even, so your blood could thrum throughout your body as it was supposed to and give you strength. It flowed into your heart and you closed your eyes. 

“Ease up,” a voice called. His voice. 

A horse nickered, blowing out its nostrils. Leather creaked as he dismounted from his saddle and the bit tinkled as he hitched the reins, whistling. You could imagine it all, him fixing and grooming himself as he walked up, expecting a girl who would be so happy to see him and enamored with him that she made her home all nice to welcome him after a noble day of hunting outlaws. 

The jingle of his spur was as foreboding as a snake’s rattle as it marched up the flagstone path. You positioned yourself in front of the stove, bending over the pot with a spoon and stirring the flavorful broth, a smile schooled on your face. 

“Honey pie, you home? It’s me.” 

The picture of a perfect wife, you thought, standing in your inviting home in a cooking apron. He would only see what he wanted, blind to you being capable of anything else. 

“Door’s open!” You chimed, and the doorknob turned. 

Some change at once went through the room. In a heavy, dominant rush it all came back, like the strong winds the night before that rattled the window panes and made the trees plunge and bow. You spent all day distracting yourself from the flashbacks of his lurid words, the fondlings, and the sound of his labored breaths. Anguish seized your throat at the footfalls entering your home once again and the pillar of strength you constructed within, had leaned upon, began to crumble. 

You had a hangnail on your thumb. You discovered this while squeezing your fist tight, tethering yourself to the present. It was a welcome, soft twinge of pain for you to focus on and you picked at it, fixing your eyes on the window. The candle before it illuminated the glass, and you watched the sapphire heart of the flame waver, heard the little hiss of it, and glanced beyond. A sky wistful with waning blue, a sunset throwing gold on all that was green, a hush of wind passing through the leaves, and your reflection blending in between. To take it all in brought you forward in time, to a crackling fire and a bubbling soup, and a purpose hanging over your heart. 

It is not happening again, you reflected. And it will never happen again. 

You were safe, you reminded yourself, safe in the present, grounded, and irrevocably turned to face the man who hurt you in a way no one ever had. You looked at him without seeing him, a dish towel in hand. 

“Come on in, I have some dinner on the stove. It'll be ready in a jiff if you want to hang up your things.” 

“I would be delighted,” was his reply. 

He took off his Stetson, hung it on the hook. The sound of his coat being tugged down his arms and his gun belt unbuckling made your heart beat fast and your fingers curl into your palms again. Shaking, you gripped the edge of the counter. Steam from the bubbling pot kissed your cheeks.  

A chair scraped across the floor. “It smells delicious, sweetness. I’m downright famished.” 

You breathed in and out slowly. He folded his leather gloves beside his table settings and you prepared a dish for him. With a gulp and a clench of resolution, you dipped the ladle deep and unearthed the chunks of vegetables, pouring them artfully into a bowl, spoonful after spoonful.

“Any luck tracking down that gang?” 

He sighed, deep and tired. His elbows knocked on the table as he reached for the loaded bread basket. 

“They slipped through our fingers last night, but we almost had ‘em.” Pulling the loaf apart, he ripped a piece and tucked it into his mouth. 

You rounded the table and laid the baleful meal on his place setting, in a daze as he happily snatched up his spoon. 

“Oh my,” he marveled. The polished silver of the utensil disappeared in the broth and came back up replete with the softened wild bulbs. 

“These onions are quaint,” he commented. 

The lie came to your tongue easily. “They’re called pearl onions. I have them growing in the back.” 

And with a pleased grin, he feasted. You sat across from him with your own bowl, your spoon a special porous one so you could pretend to eat alongside him. He dipped his bread in the soup and drained his glass greedily, refilling it himself from the pitcher you set on the table earlier. Before long he scraped the bottom of the bowl and you replenished it. 

You tried not to pay attention to his sordid aspect. The way he sniffed loudly and chewed openly, the dirtiness of his face from riding, the grease slicking his unwashed hair and the matted tips of his mustache, his eyebrows also unkempt and overgrown. You fixed your eyes to the grain of the wood instead, ate your bread with a slice of cheese and a handful of walnuts, munched on the salad of spring greens you prepared, all the while waiting for time to take its natural course as the toxins of the ostensible pearl onions invaded his system. 

“You’ve been quiet,” he observed. His hunger appeared to sate as he scraped up the last dregs of his supper, affording his utmost attention back to his hostess. “Why won’t you look at me?” 

You lifted your chin from your palm. Something in his expression shifted with awareness. 

“Is this about last night?” he went on. When you remained simmering in your silence, he deflated. “Listen, I–I didn’t mean to get so rough with ya. I was drunk, and I’m sorry.” 

Your insides twisted and flamed, refusing to be quelled. You shot up, turning your back to him and crossing your arms as you faced the window. 

“You’re sorry?” you seethed. A drum pounded in your ears; it was the mad pulse of your heart. Tall in your judicial resolve, you whirled and directed your fury towards him in its full magnitude. “Not a bone in your body is capable of being sorry,” your voice shook, low in its tenor. “You saw an opportunity to take advantage of me and seized it. The way you spoke to me—degraded me—it’s impossible for me to believe you didn’t enjoy every moment of your vulgarity.” Split flew as you scoffed at him. “Regret is not within you. Not when I see now that you planned it. All along.” 

He broke into a laugh of disbelief and leaned back to survey you. The worst kind of smile distorted his face, as if your fit of temper delighted him. 

“Yer actin’ like you didn’t want it. Like your cunny wasn’t drippin’ wet for me–” you lunged forward, vision red and nostrils flaring, ready to seize his neck in your hands and crush his windpipe like the frail stalk of a vegetable, but stopped, grasping the back of your chair instead. You despised the idea of having to touch him and were reminded that you would not have to get your hands dirty to kill him. But you were prepared to. How much longer could you stand his gloating and his shameless iniquity? The wood of the chair’s cross rail creaked beneath your unforgiving knuckles. The Sheriff smirked at your little display. 

“I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it,” he argued, pointing his finger at you; then he shook his head. “What nerve you have, bein’ a little cocktease with me. But I didn’t treat you like those whores in town, no, I went out of my way to…to enamor you, bringin’ you flowers while you greeted me in your garden in your lace and your pretty smiles, a pie coolin’ on your windowsill. You know my dear Carolynn never blessed me with a child, and here you were,” he gestured to your frame and the home around you. “Takin’ on the responsibilities of housekeepin’ all by yer lonesome. All you needed was a man to take care of you, and I could be that man. Honey, I want to marry you. I could make you happy! Can’t you picture it?”

Flushed from his diatribe, he pleaded with you, half-rising from his seat until you thrust out a hand in warning. Surprisingly, he heeded your tacit command. Disgust curled your lips into a sneer. 

“Marry you?” you echoed, hollow with disbelief. Your vision blurred and you blinked against the mounting tide of revelation washing over you. His mindset, his reasoning, it was unfathomable, and you struggled to piece together a sentence. “This whole time…that was your object? And you thought that by—by trapping me, and giving me no other choice, that I would accept you?” 

His eyes rolled heavenward and frustration flashed across his oily face. “Lord knows I’ve been patient,” he gnashed his teeth, voice raising a note higher. “I didn’t want any other man to have you. What, you think you’re meant for one of those half-witted grangers in town? They don’t know the first thing about women, let alone how to keep one as pretty, smart, and pure as you. You know it’s downright sinful to keep such gifts to yourself.” 

His words were worse than his touch. You had not one to describe your own sensations; the shock of his inflicted on you completely suspended your power to think and feel. 

“Sinful…” you wandered over his meaning. “You’re a hypocrite.” Releasing the chair, you stepped away a few paces and shook your head, huffing to contain your brimming despisal for this man. You refused to listen to him any more. All throughout the day strands of thought had weaved through your head, firmly knotting into what the shame made you believe about yourself. That you were ruined. That you were worth less. He must have thought he was paying you some kind of compliment, saying what he said. The refutation rose in you to a forbidding height, like the dust before a whirlwind, and your lips parted to release your final judgment of him. 

“You don’t know the first thing about me: about what I want, or what I need. What you did was assume. You assumed I wanted someone to come around and sweep me off my feet, save me from my solitude, and you assumed that I wanted you. A gluttonous, arrogant, entitled pig who can’t take responsibility for his own actions, who would rather blame them on the beast at the bottom of the glass,” you spat with venom. Emotion began to wrack your voice, lifting and dropping it like the swell of a wave, but you plowed forward, pinning him to his seat with the fearsome gleam in your tear-stricken eyes. 

“The worst part about it is you could’ve made your intentions clear! I could’ve been spared from all this pain if you had only the stones to be straightforward. But I guess the prospect of your hurt pride was too much to endure. Deep down, you knew the only way you could have me was unwillingly.” 

Your hand clutched at your breast, wrinkling your shirt and tangling in your necklace chain. You let go and charged forward again, and this time, the chair rail snapped in your hands at your final word. 

“You had no right. You’re the most pathetic excuse of a man I’ve ever seen, and I’ll be glad to see you drop dead.” 

At the crack of wood he sneered. No longer tolerating this speech, he stood, and for a fleeting moment you shrunk back. Until his hand—his fat, pallid hand, still bearing a wedding band—braced itself on the tabletop and he wobbled on his feet. Blood rushed to his face and a delta formed in his forehead as he blinked at the ground, as if his vision was filled with spots while his legs drooped unsteadily beneath him. He clenched his gut and groaned. 

A griefless laugh croaked from you. “You know, they say that wishes and dreams have a winding way of coming true. It looks like you are gonna spend the rest of your life with me, Sheriff.” 

His sight fixed itself on the bowl in your place setting, at the spoon resting in it, and how none of your portion was consumed. He had the look of a man who realized something too late. The vein in his neck fluttered and his breaths sawed in and out of his lungs. Sweat dotted his temples and a thread of saliva spilled from his wobbling lip. 

“Wh–what did you d-do?” He choked out. 

The compass of your soul spun and whirred, before the ruby-tipped point settled decidedly south. 

“What I had to.” 

As his knees gave out beneath him, the Sheriff clutched the table’s edge, and the peaceful, law-abiding chapter of your life ended. The scent of bile fouled the air as he retched and retched, his body rejecting every morsel of the Death Camas he had stomached, and the pallor of his skin colored to that of fish’s belly before the monger’s crude knife carves it open. Not a twinge of sympathy or regret rippled inside as he fell helpless to the floor. Not at his struggle for breath, at his uncontrollable muscle spasms, or the chunks of undigested food dangling from his chin. He would lie there, wheezing and convulsing in a mound of his own vomit, until his heart stopped. You had no desire to watch, and you had no desire to wait any longer for your meteoric flight from this tainted place of grief and despair. 

You unlatched the trunk in your bedroom and sifted through your belongings. Two saddlebags quickly filled. You packed the essentials: bedding and a camp outfit, medicine and provisions, clothing for severe weather, and valuables to fence. Rummaging through the kitchen, yanking open drawers and cabinets, you moved mechanically, occupying your mind with a plan moving forward, all the while a man lay dying on your floor, twitching and choking, sightless and inert. His breath was a mere rattle as you dressed yourself for travel and long riding, laying your necklace with your mother’s ring inside a sack for safe keeping. This was not the time for thoughts and moral ruminations, it was the time for action. 

It would buy you time–and perhaps forego a bounty altogether–if you buried the body. His absence from town would not go unnoticed, but—Oh, yours would not either. Regardless, your next course of action began to formulate itself. You would need a shovel, a rug or a blanket, and a lantern, for the sun had dipped below the horizon and would not light your path. 

As the night closed darkly in, the sunset folded its wings over the rib cages of clouds; the last pulse of color on the shore of the world a glowing, molten shade of marmalade. Insects clacked and clicked in the dusk as you stepped out in your hunting jacket, hoisting your supplies over your shoulder on the dirt path to the stable with a lantern swinging in your free hand. White moths flittered around the light and followed in your grim, resolved wake.

You hung the lamp on a hook behind the creaking door, illuminating the hay-strewn space. Bridles, bits, and martingales populated the wall inside the stable, with rakes and shovels propped up from the ground. An empty wheelbarrow served as a temporary home for your provisions, setting them inside so you could perch yourself on a stool in the corner to strap on your spurs. 

Willa shifted on her hooves to adjust to the weight of the various sacks and pouches you affixed to her saddle, but she complied with a trusting snort. You spoke to her kindly, stroking her forehead, knowing that she was listening in her own way and understood her importance to you. Without her, you would be alone. Without her your future, your freedom, it would all be infeasible. You led Willa out into the night, a shovel tucked under your arm and your lantern restored in hand. 

An owl hooted and a pack of coyotes yipped and yowled, the sound carrying throughout the valley. Willa’s keen ears flicked, along with her long tail, and you gestured for her to wait behind the cottage, hitching her to an oak sapling. You intended to trudge through the muck of the funereal situation as quickly as possible while the night breeze slipped cool fingers through the forest and snuffed out the last tendrils of daylight. You marched back into the firelit house for the last time.  

The stench hit you first. Foul and nose-wrinkling, you tugged your collar up against the smell and regarded the log of the Sheriff’s body, lying rigid. In death, he soiled his pants, as all men do. The body releases everything and the muscles stiffen and lock, blood stagnates in the veins, the skin purples, the tongue lolls out, and the eyes fix wide open to meet the unknown. Nature takes its course. Flies are drawn by some promising whiff of a feast in the air and consume the dead flesh in a quivering swarm of greed. Time passes. Maggots crawl. And bones will be all that remain, until, some day, they are dust for the wind to claim. 

He was the one you rushed to when you found your grandmother cold in her bed. He was the one who arranged for the church to collect and prepare her body for burial beside your parents in the local graveyard. He was one of the persons who offered you words of comfort during the funeral. 

He was the man who hurt you most in the world. 

And he was no more. 

It was a yawning, black moment, the one in which you stood, hesitating on some windy pinnacle, reflecting on not what will be, but what, long since, has been. Your throat choked around nothing. What has become of you? The future stretched out before you gray, interminable, and desolate. Thoughts crowded thick and fast in your mind, and you imagined carrying out the rest of this act—covering his body, dragging it across the floorboards, the weight of it, the slack look on his face, the creases of his fat fingers outstretched from his limp hand, and you knelt to the floor with a gathering horror of your deed, a tremor pulsing in your throat, your heart crumbling to the same ash dropping in the dim fireplace. 

A numbness possessed you to pull up the corners of the rug, to nudge his body to the center of it with your foot, to wrap the carpet around his form and tuck him inside. To do what needed to be done. Your mind turned off. It had to, for it was the only way to endure. There was no choice left for you. But you wished you had listened. To the night, to the change in the wind, for the footsteps of fate and the creeping shadow of the terrible god of chance stepping into your doorway, eclipsing your hope of escape from this dire strait. A darkness was gathering in the hush; the kind something crouches within.  

Fate is a weaver, poised at a loom; the spider over your garden gate. It works silently and unseen, amidst an intricate and silvery web, attaching invisible strands of possibility along a path leading to an inescapable epicenter. Fate, with its nimble clutches, spins and entwines, pulls one thread, wends the other, until the time comes when the unwary traveler reaches a pivot point, the moment when their life goes down one path or another, and the spider strikes the grappling victim caught in its web.  

Back first, you dragged the carpet bearing the Sheriff’s body outside your door. His boots stuck out from the roll, thumping along the ground as you grunted with the effort of transporting him, using the strength behind your legs to shuffle farther along. The light from inside spilled out along the flagstone path, and as you stopped to establish a stronger, more efficient grip, your ears pricked at a pair of unfamiliar spurs clicking and scuffing to a halt behind you. 

A pin-drop silence encased the air. 

Your heart froze. Ice enveloped your ribcage and crystallized the blood inside their elaborate vessels, each breath serrating through your chest like a razor. For a time, only the stars moved with their twinkling. Slowly from the ground, inch by inch, you turned your head and your sight rose to the face of the intruder, the sole witness to your grisly act, and you almost laughed at how twisted fate could be. 

A faltering deputy was fixed in place on the path, taking in the undeniable scene before him. He was no stranger. You recognized him in that slant of dandelion light by the curled tip of his nose, his ruddy cheeks, and the cleft in the middle of his chin. His beard was strong, a shade darker than his hair and not so red as his skin, and he had grown into his jaw, the line of which had become more pronounced and square. He wore wrinkled pants tucked into worn, dusty boots, with his lanky frame swallowed by a long duster, a vest beneath it buttoned all the way, and a gun belt sagging around his hips. Ungloved hands hung at his sides, fingers that long ago squeezed the curves of your budding body dangling emptily. 

Though he scarcely looked it, he was the boy from the orchard with russet hair and dimples all those years ago, whose mother treated you like her own; but he had grown since that uncomplicated beginning. How a broken collarbone led to a friendship, which ripened into an affection and concluded in bitter resentment, was unforeseeable at the time. You never guessed that the two of you would end up like this.    

“Gideon,” you breathed. “What are you doing here?”

The hungry, sweeping motion of his mouth against yours invaded your mind. In the blink of a moment like this, despite the current of the years that swept past and weathered away the discomforting, stony edges of the memory, you could relive the minutest details of your past with him: the sloppy tangle of tongue and teeth and the scratch of an adolescent mustache; the mopey, beseeching expression on his face, begging for more of you. A chill crept across your skin at the remembrance of his neediness and desperation, making it hard to look at him, shame rooted so deeply in you. 

He uttered your name in the same stunned tone, his mouth agape until he swallowed his alarm. “It’s been a long time,” he said, and his eyes, murky, silver, and cold—like a pond in winter—cut to the sagging roll of carpet in your arms. An unmistakable pair of boots stuck out. “And I see much has changed.” 

None of your muscles moved—but the weight of the deceased tired your arms and you ached to rest them. You slowly lowered the rug to the ground, your eyes never leaving one another’s.  

“This isn’t what you think it is.” 

A disbelieving scoff left him. “What I think it is,” he echoed. “I’m thinking that better not be who I think it is. I’m thinking ‘she went from breaking men’s hearts to stopping them altogether’,” his long legs carried him forward and your spine stiffened. His face came into the light. You shrank back. “Something tells me you don’t have one of Dutch Van der Linde’s boys wrapped up in there. See, I knew the Sheriff would be here tonight, and that’s his horse hitched there,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the animal. “You have five seconds to produce the man I’m looking for alive and well or I’m taking you in.” 

You wished to heaven you could think of a way out of this. What vestige of freedom you could still secure was within your grasp and it made your teeth grit that the bitter waters of life would surge high once again at this crucial hour. It figured; the final wave for you to overcome came in the form of Gideon Taylor, the pouty boy who you had no remorse for jilting. Your fists clenched beside you and you lifted your head, standing tall, measuring and meeting the danger of his presence. 

Holding his stare unblinkingly, you pitched your voice low, words growing frost. “You should leave.” 

Though he had a gun and lasso on his hip and an inflated sense of superiority to empower him, Gideon hesitated. 

“I will, once you tell me where the Sheriff is.” 

His spurs jangled. He spoke to you cautiously, as if you were a skittish animal about to bolt for an impenetrable thicket, the flit of his eyes gauging your every move, and his hand rose out to you while he subtly reached beside him. 

Before you a narrow avenue of escape flickered, shrinking smaller and smaller like the last sliver of the moon in the dark of an eclipse. 

When lightning flashes, the precise amount of moments that pass between the initial burst of light and the thunder that follows measures the distance between the strike and the listener. A blink, a heartbeat, a slow breath. That was how much time you had to act, before the thunder came and the earth trembled. In that slow, blinking, beating instant, you knew how this would play out. 

When his gun began to clear leather your instincts kicked in, quick as a snap. You leapt backwards into the house, throwing the door shut. Fumbling with the bolt, the rusty metal bar slogged its way through the lock, making you cry out in frustration as you strained to jiggle it forward. The bolt slid home the instant Gideon’s shoulder rammed against the boards. 

Your teeth rattled at the battering of the frame. He charged against it repeatedly and your eyes, in darting about the room, snagged on a buffet table. Praying the old lock would hold, you rushed to push it in front of the door and the furniture groaned as you shoved it in place, only for Gideon’s attempts to break in to cease. 

“So, we’re doing this the hard way?” Gideon yelled through the door. Your heartbeat thumped in your ears and your face grew hot at the rushing of blood. You moved to extinguish all the lamps and candles, flooding the room in darkness and the lacy scent of candle smoke. His voice came again a moment later.

“Shit, what the hell did you do to him?”

The body. Beyond the threshold. He must have peeled back the rug, looked upon the Sheriff’s vacant eyes and felt his clay-cold cheeks. A leaden weight sunk into the pit of your stomach. There was no escaping what you did. But a small chance remained to evade capture. You could sneak through the back window and mount Willa quietly, get a head start before Gideon gave chase. You could lose him in the woods near Lady Face Falls and follow the water north—

A bullet crashed through the window. You dropped to the floor. Moving forward, you crawled towards the bedroom, covering your head with your hands whenever glass shattered and chunks of wood flew. Along the way your foot slipped through a sludge of the Sheriff’s vomit and your knee banged against the wood. You bit your cheek so as not to cry out in disgust and pain and shuffled slimily onward by the heels of your hands.

Gideon fired off six shots in total before you made it safely to the other room. Quietly, tortuously, you unlatched the window and pulled it up by the handles in increments to prevent any sound while outside Gideon cursed to reload his weapon faster. You winced as it gave a squeak, but the noise was muffled by the breaking of a window in the front room. A heavy stone’s thump followed after. 

Gideon called out in the dark. “Are you gonna come willingly or do I have to shoot you? There’s nowhere to go!” 

The night air beckoned. Without another thought you swung a leg over the sill and ducked out, making a break for Willa. Behind the cottage, you slid down a slippery bank of pine needles until you reached your moonlit mare, grasping the smooth horn of the saddle and clambering astride to get a move on.

“Ya!” With a kick to her flank, Willa gave a jolt and a toss of her head before starting forward. Moments. You had bought yourself moments to escape, merely. Snatching up the reins, you seated yourself properly and urged Willa through the grove of trees, hunching low to dodge the lash of branches. 

She moved with a swift determination beneath you. With hooves heavy upon the earth, she sensed your urgency. Twigs snapped and spears of moonlight shot through the pine canopy as you wove through a wide belt of trees, your breath coming hard and fogging in the air. 

The lane of a meadow came into view and you burst through the tree line, into the moon-bright open. Willa vaulted over a fallen log and landed in the muddy grasses, your rear hitting the saddle hard while pellets of ice flecked your cheeks as she scudded over a sheaf of unmelted snow.  

“Go, go, go!” Crying out, you nudged her flank again, and Willa obeyed, breathing hard. The prospect of speed and gaining distance from your pursuer outweighed the risk of exposure, riding in the open like this. Her pace transcended into a gallop. You clung tight, blinking against the cold air as it pricked your eyes. The thunder of her feet matched the beat of your heart and the landscape became a blur of stubby trees and boulders smudging past you. In the wind she made Willa’s mane flowed, and you trusted her completely to deliver you from danger. 

A gun fired off in the distance. You were forced to let up, arming yourself with your father’s hunting rifle, the stock firm against your shoulder as you peered down the sight and readied your aim. A quarter of a mile off a glint of moving light came from a lantern, and it struck your heart with a pang to do it—to fix your sights on the pulse of it and fire with violent intent. The sound split through the valley. The empty cartridge ejected. 

Astride his horse, Gideon shouted as it reared up. Your round pierced the dome of his upheld lantern and sent glass and kerosene raining. In the briefly purchased interval you prompted Willa onwards, back into the ponderosas that environed the open meadow and the darkness their bristling boughs afforded before he and his horse finished screaming. 

The farther into the woods you ventured the thicker the trees crept in, until you were forced to a walk. Into the silence of the night you listened, straining for any sound of pursuit. Nothing, only the cold shadows, dim moonlight, and scaly bark of pines passing by your knees. You propped the rifle against your thigh and loaded another brass round into the breech before hopping down from your mount. If the necessity rose again, it would be easier to aim on solid ground rather than swiveling on horseback. 

Pine cones and fallen twigs scattered at your step, and you took care to prowl lightly through the snowmelt. You held Willa’s bridle in one hand, her bit jingling, and led her until the murmur of flowing water pricked your ears. Miserable cold began to set in. At every rustle and riffle of leaf and breeze your eyes snapped to each corner of the woodland on high alert. More than anything, you wished for the warmth of your hearth—to be nestled in your favorite chair like any other evening spent in the solitude of your home. Not gripping a loaded gun in a dark forest, heart racing for your life. 

But at home, you remembered, lay the body of a dead man. To return to such a place was to hold to your ear a shell from the sea of the past, filling you with the hollow echo of what once was and no longer is. Those chapters from before fluttered away—as the seasons did. 

The soil turned mossy and spongy from the lush influence of the river, with trilliums springing up between tree roots and felled, sun-bleached logs. You let Willa walk on ahead, and the music of the water dampened the far-off sounds. Your breath came out slowly as you surveyed the wooded area behind you. 

How smart had Gideon grown in the past few years? Could he track you, undetected? Was he stalking you through the woods, with the patience and guile of a hunter?  In truth, you had no idea what he was capable of, and it made your fingers twitch towards the trigger. Then again, what were you? 

The treetops stirred. A gale whistled down from the mountains, hauntingly cold, and spliced through your jacket, meanwhile the starlight twinkled on. The moonlight turned the river iridescent. Willa drank her fill of water and you settled back into the saddle to trudge downriver. Gideon would lose the tracks you had no time to cover once he reached the stream, but could easily piece together your route. You stowed your rifle and formed a grip over the reins, knuckles over, and moved to fit your boots into the stirrups to give Willa a kick. 

You wondered how you could not have heard it: the low, whisking sound of a twirling lasso. By the time it dropped around your shoulders, it was too late. With a violent lurch you were dragged backwards from your horse into the numbing, snow-fed water. Hard and unforgiving rocks bashed into the side of your face as you slammed into the streambed, the taste of coins flooding your mouth as your teeth cut through your lip and tongue. You wrestled with the unyielding hold of the rope amidst the water flowing around you, the shock of which soaked ice in your blood instantly. Black flowers blossomed behind your eyes. A hard yank snagged the air from your lungs and pulled you free from the chaos of the current. 

Coughing, spluttering, blinking and gasping, twigs and gravel scraped your palms and before you could brace your hands against the silt someone else’s pinned them together and pushed you on your stomach. 

“You’re not gettin’ away now,'' a voice hissed. You remembered those hands on you years before, stronger since, and contempt flamed up in you, compelling the fight in your limbs to kick and scramble beneath Gideon’s hold. 

“Quit makin’ this harder for me than it already is!” he snapped. With force, he wrapped the rope around your wrists in a tight bind. All that was left to fight him with was your ankles and you thrashed your knees to shake him off, but the solid weight of him prevailed. 

“No,” you groaned, and it took all of your strength to. The rope bound your feet together, and a stupor sludged your limbs from the shock of the cold water. You were flipped onto your back, flinching at a face you were loath to look into. Gideon shook you by the shoulders and your eyes rolled.

“Tell me why! Why did you kill the Sheriff?!” 

The river still roared in your ears. Water dripped down your neck, bunched in your lashes. You thought they might turn into icicles, like the great big ones that hung from the cottage roof in the wintertime. Senses dulled and dazed, you could hardly see from the blur of tears and cold, but you caught the echo of his question, and the vial of indignation within you overflowed past the chatter of your teeth and the shivering of your limbs, unable to contain the seething words any longer. 

“You have no idea–” a cough interrupted your speech. “What kind of man you are defending.” 

Blood from the cut inside your lip spattered onto his face and he only blinked as if it were water. His astonishment was beyond expression. By the moonlight, the dark of his eyes narrowed, and you wormed beneath his glaring sneer. 

“He was a great man. Everyone saw the good he did. But you–” he yanked you up from the rocky bed by the elbow, your head lolling. “You were all he talked about. And I tried to warn him about you! You know what he did? He just laughed at me and said I wasn’t man enough to handle you.”

His statement stunned you into silence. Upright, your senses were slow to sharpen with the fog accumulating in your head. The idea of the Sheriff boasting about you to his fellow men sickened you more than the memory of his touch almost. But you had no time to harbor the thought before Gideon dragged you to his mount like a lamb to slaughter. 

Within the narrow, binding circle in which your ankles could shuffle you were pushed along, stumbling over pinecones and driftwood. You were too cold and cut up by the rocks to fight him, but you dug in your heels as you approached the tan horse’s flank, the gelding’s tail twitching. 

You rolled your shoulder as he shoved you harshly forward by the center of your back and searched for your horse desperately. Willa had taken off during scuffle, trotting down the opposite side of the riverbank. You whistled for her, and her head swung in your direction.

Gideon lost what little patience he had and pulled you up by your underarm. “Do I need to gag you as well?” You braced your arm against his horse’s side to keep your footing. “I think I should, since you’ll be savin’ your confession for the judge.”  

“Gideon, stop. Please,” you wheezed. “There was a wrong done to me.” You hoped the pain in your voice would make him pause and see the misery in your eyes, think about the weight behind your words. Maybe he would remember the girl you used to be, and recognize that she was gone, wondering what took the light from her heart. A minnow of doubt darted across his face and his grip nearly faltered, until the breeze blew cold and snuffed any flame of apprehension sparking inside him.

“And you call what you did makin’ it right? Killing a man is against the law,” he elucidated. His spit sprayed across your cheek and you flinched. “But I’ve heard all that I have an ear for. You’re spendin’ the night in a cell.” 

Gideon crouched and lifted you from around the legs, hefting you onto your stomach over the horse’s rump. Blood rushed to your head as your weight gravitated to your abdomen and your muscles strained to support it. The steed’s legs shifted underneath you and you lifted your head with a painful effort to speak your mind as he rounded the horse. 

“The law doesn’t tell you what’s right and what’s wrong; it only says there’s a price to be paid for certain actions,” you snapped. Disdain pulsed through your veins, your blood humming with contempt. 

“Yeah?” Gideon’s feet slotted into the stirrups and he gave a kick, gripping the reins and flicking them to the right. “And you are gonna pay—with your life. What’s that tell you?” 

You balled your fists and squirmed, the weave of the rope digging into your wrists. Gideon started forward, roughly, back into the darkened forest. Your chin knocked against the horse’s hide and you held your head up again. “Men like the Sheriff bend the law in their favor whenever it suits them to get what they want and never pay that price. The law doesn’t protect those beneath it.” 

“Spoken like a true degenerate.” He tossed you a look over his shoulder and scoffed. “God, if my mother could see you now.” At the memory of Mrs. Taylor and her old warmth towards you, you flamed up again, voice coming out in a growl. 

“Oh, you don’t have room in your head for more than one idea!”

“I know better than to listen to this. I know you. A man’s heart is your joy to play with–” 

“And it’s your joy to play the victim! Even now you can’t fathom why I despised you. You filled me with shame. Men like you and the Sheriff, all you care about is what I can give you. My heart, my feelings, they don’t matter. In the face of your desires they mean nothing. They don’t so much as cross your mind. The Sheriff took advantage of me and he would do it without a second thought over and over again unless I stopped it!”

“Shame?” Gideon turned back to you. The cold pinked the tips of his ear and nose, his knuckles also red from their place on the bridle. He went quiet for a moment before going on, the scenery passing by vaguely in shadows and shafts of moonlight. Your sternum ached at the pressure accrued from resting on it, and every time your head bounced along with the rhythm of the horse you glimpsed your bound feet on the other side. 

He spoke softer this time. “You must not remember how sweet I was on you when we were together. But the way you turned so sour so suddenly, when I could’ve sworn you liked me just as much…it made my head spin more than anythin’. I didn’t know what I did wrong.” 

The confession strummed a somber chord within you, twisting your expression grimly. You stepped out of the present, back into the years, while Gideon emerged from the cover of the woods and picked his way onto a pale ribbon of trail that wriggled ahead like a snake. A sign post at the fork heralded the one mile marker to the main road into town, painted white and chipping.

“We were so young. We were children, Gideon. It wasn’t love.” 

It struck you that, at the age you spoke of, you did not know how to say no—the word not being something girls were taught. What you knew of women’s’ relationships with men was the expected role they fulfilled: giving. Giving affection, pleasure, children, companionship. In theory the rationale was not so terrible. Love was a dream. To be in love was everything. But your tryst with Gideon acquainted you with a breed of men who were used to taking what women were expected to give. Your kiss, your touch, your embrace and your body, these were all special to you; a gift to be bestowed, the chance to do so reveled. Not things you were expected to surrender to the first boy who looked at you lustfully, unconcerned with your true, inner value. You wished you knew that then. 

The train of thought led you, for a glimmer of a second, to believe you could have stopped the worse act inflicted upon you by the hands of the Sheriff. As quick as it came it died. He would have found a way to get what he wanted, regardless of pleas, or strength, or precognition. You were not to blame. Bad people would always exist in the world and take advantage of others, and it was no fault of yours. 

Gideon shook his head, sighed, and muttered to himself. Pivoting, he looked down on you with a pinched mouth, his eyes hidden in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. “Yeah, well. We still knew what we were doing.” The cutting edge of his words dismissed you and he spurred his horse into a faster trot. 

 I think you’re just ashamed and don’t know how to admit that you liked it. A ghost whispered. The soft choke of his death rattle gripped your memory and you flinched from it.

The hardheaded hold Gideon held on his grievances made your teeth clench. If only the perfect string of words existed to compel him to release them, you would draw the strands from the air, thread them together into a net, and cast their influence over his mind to pluck his heartstrings and make him remember the boy he once was; the one who looked upon you so fondly. But the notion came to a halt at that, for was he ever a boy capable of thinking beyond his own wishes, considering the thoughts of others? 

“You’re so selfish. You’ll never change,” you found yourself saying without thinking. But he did not catch your words, and you spoke up as your despisal surged anew. “Maybe you knew what you were doing when you groped me, and ground yourself against me, and kissed me slovenly, but I didn’t. Because maybe you’ve forgotten, but I just sat there. You only ever cared about making yourself happy.” 

He scoffed. “As much as I know you’d like to think it is, this isn’t about what happened between us. I stopped thinking about you in that way a long time ago, along with asking myself why. What you offered—” Gideon cut a withering look to your frame and grunted. “Wasn’t that special. There’s plenty of other girls out there. I’m just glad I didn’t end up in a goddamn carpet.” 

Further and further away your hope slipped. Your heartbeat pounded in your head, making it throb and ache as you hung over the horse’s side and your feet grew numb. Inevitably, water pricked your eyes. A chill breeze brushed past your nose and snot began to dribble from the end of it while your vision blurred and your voice broke.

“There is no getting through to you, is there?” 

In reply, Gideon only spurred his horse to trudge an incline in the road and leaned back in the saddle, steering away from the deeper patches of snow. A knot formed in your throat as you choked down useless tears. He owed you nothing. His nature was not understanding, or reflective, or critical of himself. It was self-righteous and vindictive. The conviction rested in his eyes as unyielding as the laws of justice. An ounce of sympathy from him was as likely as drawing blood from a stone.

Bitterly, your head fell, and you sucked your quivering, gashed lip. One last time, you tried to implore him. One last time, you sought your freedom, because it was the only thing you had left to lose. 

“You can let me go. I’ll never come back here! Whatever you’re trying to prove, you don’t have to–” 

And he slapped you across the face to shut you up. 

The strike stung like nettles and your ears rang. Shrinking away, your mind blanking with static and noise and blinding white despair, fresh blood spilled from your lips from the slap and your trembling body remembered how cold your dip in the river had been. Worse was the wind, billowing down from across the distant mountain peaks, and the shivers set in deep. The trot of the horse went on, up a hill and off the trail through the terrain once more.

In silence, in anguish, in defeat, you wept. Over the side of a horse, bound, slapped, and subdued, you wept and embraced the taste of salt. For your lost girlhood. For the grandmother who raised you and the mother who did not have the chance. For your life, for the ruination of your dreams, from the unfairness of it all. Was this the harvest of all that had been planted for you? Bone-weary, you slumped against the animal’s hide and let yourself rock with each step. If only sleep could take you. You were ready for all of this to be over, to be a dream you could wake from in a sweat and try your best to forget. Bleeding and shivering, you longingly ached for something to fetch you out of your present existence, and lead you upwards and onwards, but you had no heart left for anything. 

Glancing up at the sky, a bank of clouds enveloped the moon. Over wood, over water, the flood of its silver radiance receded, the ensuing darkness weaving a mystery in every drop of dew and creaking branch. An owl hooted, but its mate did not answer. The stars did not have any either as you searched for them.

The tall trees rustled, violently unsure, and the night breeze carried a sickly sweet scent in its passing, as if stirring something hidden under rotting leaves. As Gideon passed beneath them, the ragged shadows cast from the spruces closed in, and in the gloom an old stone rose from the earth like a grave. It may as well have been your own. Darkened by the color of moss and damp, the granite ledge presided over the forest, sundered by some glacial movement from the mountains eons ago while death and rebirth churned in the woods all around. 

Unable to face what was to come, you turned your head. But in so doing, you caught sight of Willa trailing you from a short distance, the spot of white on her forehead unmistakable, and your tears subsided. Your heart glowed and lifted; a wobbly smile dimpling your cheeks. Graceful and poised, steadfast and resilient, she trotted in the passing shadows like she was of its fabric, her coat the same shifting shades of moonlight while she moved like a river, the sinews of her forearms and chest a changeful, inky black above her socks of white. Her hooves were too soft to hear in the spongy dirt. 

Willa’s softly brown and gleaming eyes held a star in them. Every journey you embarked on, she was beside you. She carried your bushels of burdock root and feverfew and fireweed back to your cottage without complaint, conveying you home through the forests and switchbacks countless times, and in turn you took care of her since the day your grandmother bought her from the livery.

The events which occurred in the past day loosened your foothold on your sense of self. But in that moment, pondering Willa, it came back to you. You remembered who you were, and what you believed you were meant to be. A girl brought up to respect the Earth and revere it, who kept hope in her heart always, and dreamed that she could be loved. With crystalline clarity, your mind broke free from its chains and a wind stirred a flame back to life inside of you.

From a drained well of will, you gathered your strength, braced yourself for another struggle and one last trial of endurance. While you raced to think of a way to cut your binds, Gideon’s head snapped around, and you stopped. His revolver was drawn in a flash and his horse whinnied and raked its hooves. He fixed his eyes on the tree line and you strained for any telltale sound while his gelding started to canter to the side uneasily. Something spooked it.                                

“What is it?” you hissed. He ignored you.

A twig snapped close by. “Who goes there?” he called out. Not far off, a ribbon of campfire smoke wove up into the night air and you squinted at the shadows.

Gideon tugged the reins hard to the left and clicked his spurs, venturing to investigate and evade the open clearing. Your head joggled with the movement and you grunted. A patch of ground ahead, though sideways from your point of view, appeared odd, misshapen, the thick carpet of pine needles too obvious to be natural. But Gideon was not watching his tread and aimed his horse’s walk right over it.

A dire creak made you freeze.

“Look out!”

It was too late.

A shrieking snap, and next, the wind was in your ear as the earth gave out from beneath. With a cry, the horse stumbled and reared and everything went upside down. Your heart seized during a timeless, weightless, airless second as a lattice of concealed logs collapsed beneath the load of Gideon and his horse, and you all fell in an outcry.

The sap and pine scent of fresh wood rushed up your nose as it cracked all around you. Unable to reach out for anything or protect your face, the sharp edges of branches snagged at your clothes and stabbed at your sides, needles scraping and stinging your skin. When the slamming force of the ground ended it all, a spike of wood tore a scream from you as it impaled your thigh.

The tumult fizzled to a static in your ears. You roiled on the dirt floor of the manmade pit, curling into yourself like a pill bug at the hot, pulsing throbs of pain in your leg surrounding the intrusion. You cried out at the unbearable and debilitating burning shooting throughout your body. Throat raw, vision white, breath sawing raggedly, your senses came clear enough for half a moment to observe Gideon, still astride his hysterical animal, gripping the bridle and urging the horse out of the pit. He kicked it harshly to vault over the rim back to solid ground.

He spared you one glance before riding off, and left you.

Tears stung your eyes and you wailed out your pain freely. Scratching at the rope around your wrists was useless, your nails only drew blood. All over, your body ached with bruises and fatigue, and it depleted all of your strength to focus on your breathing alone. Frustration and pain tangled in your chest like a mass of snakes, warring each other, and all you could to do alleviate the pain was roll onto your uninjured side. Your leg gushed like an oil-well.

Once everything started to fade, time ceased mattering, and you slipped in and out of consciousness. You blearily wondered why you were still fighting. A cold sweat chilled your neck and your chest palpitated unbearably.

Sounds from afar, beyond the pit, invaded your ears. There were hoof beats. The shouts of more riders, pursuing Gideon most likely. He would be rounding up what was left of the Sheriff’s posse, going after this gang that has been troubling this valley the past few days. No doubt this pit was dug by them, a trap for someone who got too close to where they were camped out. The whole town would be in a frenzy, meanwhile you...fading, languishing in the dirt…no one would find you in time…

With a quavering sigh, you began to let go. There was only so much your body could take; it would so much easier to sink into this grave than crawl your way out. To breathe became like listening to a lake lap a shore with its waves, growing fainter, quieter, and more still.

The moonlight was serene, and the coolness of this cavity of earth was welcome. Tree roots poked from the stratified layers of dirt, worms and centipedes clinging to the moisture therein. Above, a scuff of needles and a snort announced the presence of your most trusted friend.

Willa whickered, eyes finding your curled form in the pit. She paced around the edges. What remained of your hope ached. Through a glaze of tears you tried to speak, to soothe her, but no sound broke from you other than a whimper. But you were not alone. Never alone…in these woods…these mountains…with these familiar stars above…until unknown, male voices dispelled the cloud hovering over your thoughts.

“I’m telling you, I heard something. Someone in pain.”

Footsteps, a pair of them. You fought to stay awake, aware, but your willpower was slipping like the final sands through the waist of an hourglass.

“It’s probably another one of them law boys,” someone grumbled. “Maybe we caught one.”

“As soon as Dutch gets back we need to skip town without kissin’ the mayor goodbye.”

“You’re telling me. We should’ve left after that business last night.”

A haze began to drift over you again, sweeping you under the blessed numbness unconsciousness promised. Your eyelids were so, so heavy.

Willa nickered, the white of her eyes showing as the pair of men presumably approached her.

“Whoa, easy there.” One of the men regarded her, gently shushing and calming her in a matter of moments. In a way only you could—

“Look.”

“It’s a girl. Tied up like a steer.”

A gun being holstered, a thump of feet, and you were no longer alone. A shadow passed over the moonlight on your face. It was too dark to see, to know if you were about to be saved or damned by whoever was crouching over you. Dimly, you hoped you looked too powerless and broken to be mistreated.

“Pl—please,” your weak words tasted of copper. The apricot glow of a lantern warmed your face, and you looked up into a pair of eyes you trusted instinctively.

“What happened here?” The man who asked you this was older, with graying blond hair swept beside his temples. You had never seen him before. He had deep lines beside his shrewd eyes and his mouth was grim, but a kindness of understanding softened his countenance. It had been such a long time since any sincere compassion had looked at you through eyes other than your grandmother’s.

“Deputy—was bringing me in—left me here—“a spasm of pain interrupted your slurred speech. Wincing, you gestured to your thigh with your chin, seeing the pool of red darkening your pant leg for the first time. “Can’t move.”

The older man’s companion joined him in the light of his lantern. He was younger; tall and well-built, with a gun belt slung across his hips replete with ammunition, the brass of his bullets shining. A satchel hung from his side and he unsheathed a hunting knife attached to his belt. The quick gleam of it filled you with uncertainty.

“Easy, miss,” he raised his hands. “We don’t mean you any harm. I’m just gonna cut you free. Hold still.”

In a few saws of the blade the rope loosened its pitiless hold over your limbs; the relief of clutching your wound with your own hands was enough to make you sob. The men grew quiet, considering your condition. All of the blood was draining from your head, like it was all racing to escape out of your leg. The chunk of wood was buried in it, likely holding back a gushing torrent of crimson like the river miles and hours back. You wanted nothing more than to yank it out. It had not gone all the way through.

“We need to take her to a doctor,” the older man asserted, and his companion made a noise of protest. “I don’t know if Susan and Bessie can patch this up.”

“No—“ you cut him off, as forcefully as you could. “I can’t—I can’t go back there,” your breath began to labor and dizziness crept in as you moved to sit with your back against the packed dirt wall of the pit. “They’re gonna—gonna hang me, for killing that awful man.”

Clutching the wound, the blood oozed out warmly between the webs of your fingers, the dark, iron scent of it pungent in your nostrils. Air hissed out sharply between your teeth.

The two men looked to each other in mute discussion.

It left you in a sad whisper: “You should just leave me here.”

“We’ll help you.”

“We will?”

“Arthur.”

The fading began in earnest. You were incapable of protesting what came next. A pair of hands grasped your elbows, guiding you to your feet, which only stumbled because there was no strength left in your legs. Boneless, a broad chest caught you, your head lolling in the pillow of an arm, your nose grazing the fur of a jacket, and you burrowed into the scent of smoke and forest with a groan.

“We need to get back.” The lantern flame was doused, and the arms surrounding you lifted you in their hold. Your lashes fluttered to catch a glimpse of him, the man who held you, but his hat cast a shadow over his gaze and the night around him was dark with blue.

“You’ll be safe with Arthur, miss,” a voice said, but you were far away, lost to memories and hollow dreams. They dragged you down deep with pictures of bluebells in a water puddle, of lightning flashes through a curtain, of useless wrists beside you.

Your last awareness was of a sky made of woods and branches, with all of its stars perishing.

[2n2n]

What do you think about this art??

What covers tsukasa's mouth ?? 👇👇

Tsukasa is simply wearing a black face mask! I wonder why ... ? secrets under there ... ? I think there are secrets under there

what I think about this art is

porno girl hentai girl tsukasa girl in a porno porno girl slut girl slut tsukasa porno girl tsukasa

but you probably don't want to hear about that ....

I will try to control myself (?)

MAHOU SHOUJO NENE!

lots to unpack here I hope we get. More art of this AU so we can understand Any of it.

It appears as if Tsuchigomori and Yako are kind of power-granting mascots ala the usual for magical girls ? Tsuchigomori is the same colorscheme as Amane's tsueshiro …. purple and red? So… I guess they are in some way … involved … ? The Tsueshiro not being green/red is killing me. It's never changed colors before. It's changed shape (and only in Valentine's event I believe, where the boys are specifically some sort of heart/love demons...), but ....

It is interesting Amane + Tsukasa are paired, and Amane is more or less on the side of the Broadcast Club...? Maybe incidentally, but eh you know ... Bad Guys Side....

Amane is definitely simply The Bad Guy like he typically is in AUs, so charming of him... it feels like Tsukasa giddily stans him and watches him strut his stuff .... ♥

Amane is once again wearing a collar. Why? It's killing me. He wears a collar in Valentine's event, too… please … Amane… what are you trying to represent? In the Ryokan event, AmaTsu wear matching collars, too, though of course, Amane was wearing his first, being a cat …

the symbolism of this … ? the potential ..... shrivels me to dust. I can barely think about it ....

I have no idea what the boys are meant to be, I will leave it up to someone smarter to sus it out ... my first guess was jiāngshī ?? because of the hat ??? being ghosts, and being possible as a result of suicide, and well, Amane's been a vampire and other ghouls, it feels 'on par' with what he becomes in AUs ... but that's a very ignorant guess, doesn't at all touch on the horns or jewels, which I don't recognize ... they could just be ... something made up ....or a bug I don't know about ... i don't know ... ! Ignorance ... Ignorance me....

but ugh, it is making me think about the boys as corpses in different conditions, which I would love... if Tsukasa's facemask was hiding more gruesome mutilation, or something. I love when Tsukasa is visibly more messed up than Amane ... ♥ it's kinda how I feel it 'is' in canon deep down ... and in things like Ghost Hotel, Tsukasa might be missing some fingers ... would really love a Tsukasa with some permanent, frozen-in-time-of-death wounds courtesy of Amane... ♥

Unfortunately though Nene-chan herself is not very interesting to me here visually x''''l me and Aida-sensei have such different tastes WRT magical girl attire ... I don't like any of this look, beyond the asymmetrical socks ... I simply hope Amane manipulates her into feeling like a hero while actually enabling his own destructive plans, just like in canon. Make her destroy some sacred jewels or something....

The uh, Teen School AU with the magic also has a magical girl element and THAT Nene-chan looks so atrocious to me, absolutely the worst look, hate it toe to tip, im SO sorry Aida-sensei ... your idea of 'magical girl' is just so x''''''l no... I hope more art happens so I can see.... normal girl Nene-chan in this AU.... I mean Teen School has such a Bad magical Nene-chan but I LOOOOOOOVE NORMAL CHEERLEADER NENE-CHAN IN THAT AU!!!!! so mnngh h... please ... the twins are so hot I want a hot Nene-chan for them.....

every time Teru/Kou are just cops in AUs it is Funny. Yeah. I need to make a compilation sometime of every AU they just translate into, detectives, or, cops. All these STUPID MINAMOTO ARE . here to ARREST EVERYONE . here to PROFILE!!!!! GOD. so direct with AUs. we just make Amane some sort of monster villain, and the Minamoto cops.

I feel Nothing about Shijima Mei being here I'm sorry girl. Mitsuba I'm also sorry girl I, there's just this major slut happening on the other side of the picture I can't think about anything else. Not sorry to Sakura though she looks like a beautiful unicorn :) thats so nice ... I do have a little room to think about that :D

and lastly. A... AidaIro sensei is this ... is this you?

it's absolutely not black canyon or white inferno who are gray and white respectively .... I .... ?

[malklavian]

just me being salty about new ass-tarion content

what the fuck did they do with ass-cended ass-tarion's new kisses, lmfao. why does the pc look like they're gonna piss themselves in fear when he grabs them and pushes them around, when they should look delirious with horniness and delighted at being his lil b*tch, which they willingly agreed to be. it's like they're trying to convey some bee dee ass em stuff but also actual abuse? but not knowing how to handle it. maybe cuz they're taking on too much at once. it's like they don't even know what they think about ass tarion because yes, that's a very dark route in his romance, but if you as a creator don't know how you feel about it then perhaps just leave it be and think about it some more, don't force it just cause he's popular and fans are thirsty for new ass tarion shit.

like if you're gonna paint it as the EVIL MUAHAHA route for him then what the hell are you trying to convey by making it seem like pc is suffering at his hand by his treatment? by even making this romance route an actual option and actively creating new content for it? trying to teach us a lesson about the cycle of abuse or something? in that case i'm not really feeling it. like, bitch i'm not here to get educated, i'm here to be evil and deranged and toxic with my garbage vampire boyfriend whom i helped ascend by sacrificing 7000 innocent souls, whom i WILLINGLY turned into a sadistic cunt, whom i WILLINGLY follow and choose to love or lust for or whatever, despite having many opportunities to back out. what do you think i am, STUPID? that i thought i could fix him by letting him take part in an ancient ritual to turn him into the most powerful vampire that has ever existed? or what??? especially with an evil durge. dear god. do i even need to explain why. i just don't understand how durge can be canonically into stuff like n3crophilia but they shrivel up like a delicate flower when some vampire pretty boy chokes them a little. not to mention that durge could easily kill him and crush him into fine vampire dust and snort it off a corpse's fucking bellybutton if so they pleased, like hello? this is durge we're talking about? ass-tarion's depravity is NOTHING compared to durge's depravity, lbr. and ass-tarion might be a little cocky now that he's powerful, but he isn't THAT stupid to act too out of line, especially when he isn't even aware of all the possible ways to use his new powers.

anyway... i just think this has a lot of potential and it's not being properly handled. i think they're scared of sending out the wrong message with this route of his romance, but i think people who pursue it are mostly the kind who feels the same way i do. those who think ass-cended ass-tarion is too hardcore would probably back out as soon as he proudly flaunts how evil he has become. i hope they fix it eventually. if they're gonna keep this romance in, they should just go balls deep and embrace how fucked up it is instead of acting coy about it... but then again this game is so damn popular and they're under so much scrutiny, i don't terribly hold it against them. if this game didn't blow up they'd have much more artistic freedom

[wishing-stones]

(R&R) What would the gang do if Ren became corrupted/overwhelmed with darkness/dark magic? Does Nightmare have any plans for if/when it happens?

Fortunately, Nightmare is pretty good at keeping on top of that. Their power is derived from his, not coming from the same source, so it's unlikely that it would try to take over and fully corrupt them as it has him.

However, for the sake of devil's advocate, if they somehow got their hands on one of the original black apples (there's a couple floating around, but they're shriveled up and lack much of their power, since Nightmare effectively has it all) that could effect them.

How this sudden change effects a human... might not be great. The physical changes would probably be darkening of the hair (to black, if you see them with a different hair color than that) and making it extremely glossy with that same sort of teal, oil-slick iridescence that Nightmare's goop has. (Or... a different color, depending on what you think their soul color is.) They'd get black sclera, and pupils that reflect their soul trait color, probably black veins visible on their skin... and not a lot else. They'd struggle with the constant barrage of negativity, freak out, try to get rid of it, and outright panic.

Nightmare's been there. He knows what to do.

No one's going to see either Nightmare or Ren for a while. A week or two. Long enough for Nightmare to explain how to come to terms with and sync up with their new powers and sensitivity to darkness.

Their ability to use umbrakinesis would be cranked up, and they could move about like Nightmare does-- through shadow. They'll never be quite on his level of power, but a lot of what Ren could do would be in line with what Nightmare can do, complete with being made stronger by negativity and weaker by positivity. They'd be less sensitive, but it's a new sensation that takes getting used to nonetheless.

The boys would freak, too, when it first happens-- Killer would be the most level-headed and approach it with the air of taking control of the situation so everyone else doesn't panic as hard. Or try, anyway. Dust would fly through the stages of grief in about five seconds and then settle on anger rather than acceptance-- how had they gotten an apple? Did Nightmare wittingly let this happen? Does he know? He wants answers. Axe is extremely concerned, and wants to try and comfort them through this, and doesn't do well with writhing, screaming, crying humans. He has to remove himself from the situation. Cross is in the same boat as Killer, trying to comfort them and soothe them. Killer is the one talking while Cross has them wrapped up in his coat or a blanket, whichever is more readily available, holding onto their hand and stroking the back of it. Baggs is on emergency duty, quickly moving from his lab to where they are to get various things-- a sedative, so they don't have to be awake for this, a painkiller to help try and abate the agony that the change brings on. Their soul is in too much of an uproar for him to be able to get a hold of it properly, and he'd get pushed out by foreign magic besides.

No one handles it well until Nightmare shows up to help. It doesn't take long, because he knows intimately what that sudden stab of pain and horrible negativity is. No matter where he was in the multiverse, he's there within three seconds to help deal with it.

This would catch Dream's attention, too, and despite how Nightmare might hiss and snarl, his presence is a good thing here-- it helps combat the immediate, angry onset of corruption by having him dull it, and allow his brother to help it incorporate properly. Both of them know there's no going back from this-- the best they can do is make sure it doesn't irreparably hurt Ren.

Interesting idea to play with, for sure, but not something that'll happen in canon.

And no, they wouldn't get tentacles. That's a Nightmare only thing.

[tulipscomeinallsortsofcolors]

how many can i ask about in one ask? 😅 18, 20, and 23 would all be interesting to know! but you dont have to answer all three

What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

“A curse,” said Roman, “On your life and your body, for as long as I live and longer still after I die, on and on until my bones are dust,”

The smell of burning flesh grew thicker even though Noll was no longer in the fire – it choked the air, and Patton coughed slightly as it grew stronger and stronger.

“May your blood rot and your heart shrivel and your skin turn to ash; may you walk the earth seeking joy and never find it; may you know only misfortune, misery, and squalor for the rest of your life,”

The clearing was heating, sweltering even in the middle of December – it prickled something familiar in the back of Patton’s head.

Greta Fischer, he realized, Her ghost. It smelled the same.

“May you die, alone and unloved, unremembered, unremarkable in a nameless hovel and be buried in an unmarked grave,”

Dizzy completed her circles, sitting solemnly on the other side of Noll from Roman. Roman picked up Noll’s hand in his, wrenched it flat and pinned it – he brought up his knife in his other hand and carved a shape Patton couldn’t make out into his palm.

“An Unseelie would have killed you,” said Roman, “And you would have been grateful,”

okay so i actually had this curse written well before i concieved of this fic! it came to me in a dream several years ago and i wrote it down as soon as i woke up, at which point i tucked it into a document and titled it "the kind of curse that makes wiccans foam at the mouth" for a rainy day.

the original curse was also a bloodline curse, specifying "On your life and your blood, on you and your children and your childrens children for as long as I live and longer still after I die, on and on until my bones are dust"

i cut this from roman's version, because a bloodline curse seems very much not his style

20 answer earlier!

If you had to remix one of your own fics, which would it be and how would you remix it?

Blanketverse! i love it, and it holds a special place in my heart for being the verse that really catpulted me into a position to get some friends in the fandom, but at this point its 5 years old and i'm a very different writer

several times ive thought that i want to add to it, but the verse itself and the state of canon and my perception of janus and remus especially is so VERY different from what it was when the fics were originally posted that trying to reconcile the two is a next to insurmountable task.

[ruiniel]

Whither you go

Fandom: The Silmarillion

Characters: Aegnor, Andreth

Relationship: Aegnor/Andreth

Rating: T

Count: 1.2k

Additional tags: Spirits, Halls of Mandos, Oneshot, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Implied Relationships, Drama, Past Relationship, Canonical Character Death, Cosmic horror elements if you squint, Ghost story of a kind, Personal interpretation of Mandos inspired by canon, There is no fluff here

Also on AO3

Summary:

'Whither you go may you find light. Await us there, my brother - and me.'

- from Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth, J.R.R. Tolkien

Months and months ago, tried a short ghost story about souls meeting again in a time out of time. Featuring the saddest OTP. The AU is on me (apologies).

The nightwinds are kind. They lift her above foreign lands, over sleepy forests and serpentine rivers, above hopes and dreams and old woes. The stars gleam, too bright, ancient watchers dripping light in the maw of the world, and higher still, she rises; wandering gusts lap softly at her bareness. Frostbitten and faraway the kindled ones once seemed, now so close she brushes past them, past remnants of divine luster and the touch of hallowed fingers that sewed them to barren skies.

A part of her wonders if this is a dream, but no fancy of the mind ever brought such freedom, nor such peace; like a floundering bird on swift, restless wings, she crosses paths unknown with no end in sight. There is no weariness or hunger, only depths of loneliness as the past weakens its grasp, peeling away in chipped layers that fastly shrivel like paper to flame. She could clutch at them, tuck them close and so she tries, only to find all desires void of meaning, all wishes laid to rest.

Should I be afraid?

Like a falling star, the thought dies, for the very concept of fear is unraveling and falling from her like leaves with the seasons.

Other memories emerge, flowering, wilting in rapid succession: some cherished, some best forgotten. A pull stronger than her will leads her forward, and unhoused she drifts as drowning in the thrashing waves of a cosmic river. Her frail, wayward light is cupped by great, gentle hands, like a grain of sand carried across the outer oceans.

Alone.

She stands beneath the looming arches of vast, endless chambers.

Heavy, leaden silence presses its solemn fists into stark grandeur. Fine silver dust shimmers on smooth black floors, disturbed by her wavering steps. The tall columns of jet soar into hidden heights, draped with grey vapors that float like gossamer, fluttering with no wind to stir them. Andreth sees etchings that sway and curl across their limpid surface, ever moving, ever changing. She looks closer, but for all her past knowledge, cannot place meaning to the script.

What is this place?

Stillness; no answer but the faint echo of her own voice, roiling like flickering motes inside her head. She walks on, stalked by a sudden, pressing weight of bereavement, and despair is on her heels.

Who... am I?

She knew this; she knew. She has to remember, can never forget, fighting the torpor that pools around her like a dark rippling lake, urging rest and forgetfulness.

I was a child of the earth.

I lived, I learned.

I loved.

She looks at her hands; grey and translucent. She ought to feel awe or terror, but now there is nothing.

I lost.

“Where am I?” her words arrow blindly, swallowed by quietude, trapped in the strangest of dreams. “Someone…?” Andreth sinks to her knees, curling like a shell, her forehead pressed to icy floors. “Anyone... please…”

“Saelind?”

It comes as a faraway keening, but she hears it. The word sears, stoking the flame of remembrance. Slowly she rises and stares at the figure a distance away, tall and golden amid shadows.

Saelind.

Aye, I was known by that name once. She must remember.

Andreth gains her feet and draws near, eyes widening as his features become clearer, sharper, familiar.

“You…”

The dead of winter. Snow is in her hair, melting on her burning cheek, her lashes. A firm grip rights her balance; an apology served with smiles like curved blades.

Bleeding sunsets fringe the memory detailing a cold evening, a freezing night. Her blood is hot and the stars are cold, and her face sways in the mirrorblack. Her veins sing beneath her youthful skin, craving coarse, sword-wielding fingers.

“Aegnor!” she cries, unable to believe it. She dares not speak, fearing he will disappear, that he will leave again, but he merely stands before her like a stab of regret. “How… but you left!” Andreth stumbles in her flight to reach him. “North away, long ago, to the swords, and the siege…”

He gives no answer; lowers his head.

His deep voice she remembers, soothing and warm like the hearth she curled up to on bitter nights, dwelling on what might have been. Andreth would throw her arms around him, weep and weep until the mountains crumbled, until the seas dried and the world was turned. She takes another step and another. She cares not how or why, but he is here now, with her.

Her hand reaches for his face, finding empty air. Frowning, she tries again and his eyes, once as kind as they were eager, are dark with grief, his lips a seal of misery as he says, “We cannot mingle here.”

“What is your meaning?” Andreth asks, frantic, yet trying to reach for him in vain, her hands delving through him. “Where is here?”

The Elf raises an arm, gesturing to a long corridor leading to a chilling, unworldly light. It dazes her, thrumming around them like a heartbeat, beckoning, calling. She knows.

“The Halls of Awaiting,” Andreth murmurs. “But that means I am…” she looks to her hands again, struck by the diaphanous glow of her bodiless form. “You are…” Gone. Ousted from the physical realm, come to the final circle.

She does not want to leave; does not want this gift.

Aegnor glances at a tapestry streaked with crimson, depicting lands drowning in dragon fire. “The war has ended for me.”

“You fell...” she sighs, looking up at him. Once, she would rest her forehead on the cold plate armor of his chest; his hands would twine in her hair. “So… so soon...” the truth bites with savage teeth. For all the time allotted to him on Arda, he’d gone before her. “Are you… are you alone here?”

The wraith shakes his head. “There are others.”

She does not see them. There is no one else but they, and now, at last, she is afraid. Andreth stares at his form, swaying like the lorn branches of trees caught in the storm. He is made of crumbling visions, golden and distorted, and fading. “But...” she tries, “...how?”

The spirit watches her, features breaking in dismay, and meanings flit across his face. Pain, longing, regret; acceptance. “I was allowed to see you, before...” his brows furrow, and he looks away, as though gathering courage long overdue; too late.

Andreth shivers. She remembers. Now, in this plane of thought where they are no more than whispers and sighs and broken light, she finally understands his choice without bitterness.

“Saelind, please, listen. I will—”

He struggles to speak, his hollow eyes plead meaning, but fragments of thought flutter between them like grey moths and she no longer understands him. The fleeting words rush through her like fireflies, and he flickers like a spent candle. The halls are deathly cold, but terrible and bright, blinding her vision of him. Desperate, Andreth shuns the rising command from beyond, tucking away every trait, every detail, all the memories. She faces the imperious light, “Let me linger a moment longer, no more!”

The Elf is mere gleaming outlines, his features bled away like inked parchment in the rain. Hardly Andreth fights the finger-like threads coiling as burning whips around her, and she herself is dwindling, fracturing to splintered colors. Her hands reach for him, craving his words, needing to know. Luminous waves spin like a maelstrom as the call swells unbearably loud, and her cries are lost.

Silence falls, heavy-handed. The halls are dimmed. The lone fëa lingers amid the tapestries of fate, wordless and formless, fading to a dull, mournful grey as the soft dust of Mandos falls upon him.

[maruxee]

so.

I know we're all clamoring to see Knives get his ass kicked (by Vash) in the next ep - including myself. And we know it's not gonna end well for anybody. And I'd be nice if Knives actually realized the extent of the damage he caused his brother, y'know?. But good lord, what would that even take, to have him reach that point?

So with that in mind, I've started to imagine scenarios - not looking to be canon, but just in a "wouldn't it be fucked up if" "what if" sort of way.

like

What if -

(warning: major character death)

The portal flickers and threatens to collapse as soon as he gets in.

Nai notices just in time to get out before it closes. He is livid. Goes to Vash's blackened form, demanding to know what he's doing. Grabs him by the shirt and inky dust floats off, staining his hands. He shakes Vash, demands an explanation, and a crack spiderwebs across Vash's neck. By the time Nai notices through his haze of fury, pieces are crumbling in his fist, and he is shocked into silence before he screams. His brother's name in one long agonized wail that makes the glass panel rattle.

Rot.

It sticks to Nai's skin as he helplessly watches his brother dissolve. He can't hear himself, what he's saying, all he knows is that it hurts like losing a limb, begging like there's anything left to listen. He can't sense anything anymore, the body is empty, there's nothing there but void. He knocked down the pillars of Vash's mind to the point it collapsed onto itself, left it with nothing to fill up the black hole of self-loathing. And now it grows.

Anything he touches crumples even more. Vash is now an ink block melting in the water, staining it like an oil slick, spreading like a stormcould. The roots, attached to their sisters, spilling out the tank and into the city, they shrivel so violently they squeeze anything caught in their grasp. Flecks of rot fall off them to poison anything they touch. The ground and the walls rumble like an omen, an echo of a fall from long ago. The entire city of July in a chokehold, caught in Vash's death grip.

Yet all Nai can do is keep screaming at the pocket of void where his brother had been, blades creaking as the rot makes them rust. Through the static in his head, he hears noise from behind the glass, pounding fists and loud aggression.

He turns and sees a small young woman. Dark hair, dressed in white.

Another one.

Like that woman that his brother attacked him for.

Like Rem.

Through the plant-blue fluid and flurries of black dust in the tank, her eyes are bright with tears and fury. Through the ringing in his head, he can't hear her words, but he knows. His only thoughts are Vash's words.

"It's my fault?"

He screams and stabs himself to pieces.

[vvienne]

CHENGXIAN FIC RECS

Petals on a Wet Black Bough by DachOsmin

While drinking at a tavern that caters to men that favor men, Jiang Cheng happens upon a masked stranger that looks eerily like his dead brother.

from these nettles, alms by callowyn, zorrosuchil

Jiang Cheng didn’t have a plan for Wei Wuxian coming back into his life, and he realizes now this was a mistake. He’s going to slip up. He’s going to give it all away.

Fate—or at least Jin Ling—is going to make sure of it.

you're the one that I want by verity

They haven't really talked about what's going on between them, except this morning while Jiang Cheng was eating breakfast and Wei Wuxian was lying on the sofa with his arm over his eyes, Wei Wuxian said, "Are you going to be weird about it if I hold your hand in front of our friends?"

Jiang Cheng chewed his youtiao.

"Just let me know," Wei Wuxian said. "It's chill."

Oh, Jiang Cheng knew very well that it was not chill. But he wasn't like Wei Wuxian; he couldn't just do things like that, like it was nothing. Wei Wuxian could name his sword—gleaming now on the rack above his head—Suibian, he could do whatever he wanted. He got all the curses and the blessings of being always inside and outside the Jiangs, and Jiang Cheng got everything else.

"You can hold my hand," Jiang Cheng said after he swallowed, feeling like he'd just walked over a bed of hot coals.

letters from inside the storm by serein

"Jiang Cheng," Wei Wuxian hears himself say, echoing and strange as if from underwater. His hands feel slow and fumbling as he reaches for Jiang Cheng's chest, watching the blood soak through the silk and keep dripping.

______________

A year post-canon, Jiang Cheng takes a blade meant for Wei Wuxian. Things unravel.

family resemblance by ruche

“I am good-looking,” Wei Wuxian cuts in, theatrically pouting. Then he drops the act and gestures at Jiang Cheng’s-- everything, “but in a different way than you, obviously.”

In which Wei Wuxian takes Jiang Cheng to a sex store. They are, as always, so incredibly supportive of each other.

i was put together wrong, still i was made for you by finedae

Wei Wuxian wakes up in Mo Xuanyu's body, and the five slits across his wrist. He also wakes up in a brothel where the Mo family had sent Mo Xuanyu after the embarrassment of harassing Sect Leader Jin Guangyao, his half brother and now Chief Cultivator.

Jiang Cheng pays for a night, looking for a demonic cultivator.

too much, not enough by Shamelesscooper

“Okay, so good news!” Wei Wuxian says, swanning into the room with just enough energetic cheer that Jiang Cheng knows whatever it is he’s going to say is going to be awful. “We figured out the nature of your curse! You’re probably not going to die! It’s not even going to hurt!”

“Yeah? And what’s the bad news?” Jiang Cheng gruffs, crossing his arms over his chest.

Wei Wuxian does a double-take, like he’d expected his (fake) good mood to fool Jiang Cheng. Like it’s ever managed to fool Jiang Cheng. His laugh is a little shrill, a little frenetic as he says, “Well, uh. You know our ghost friend back there? Yeah, she’s possessing you. Which is why...” He makes a gesture at the general area of Jiang Cheng’s... problem.

“Ah,” Jiang Cheng said, expression souring. “I’m not going to like the cure, am I?”

“You’re not going to like the cure,” Wei Wuxian nods.

--

Jiang Cheng gets cursed on a nighthunt. Wei Wuxian helps him with the cure.

Halves by jusrecht

What do you call halves that fit each other in all the wrong ways?

Start a Riot by ohwhatevrewhatevr

“They killed A-Die and A-Niang,” Jiang Cheng says, his sharp but defined muscular frame curling in. He's all lean, purposeful muscle, nude and bruised.

“Wei Wuxian -” Jiang Cheng grits out in a dangerous, furious rasp - there’s a slight tremor to it still. He still isn’t looking at Wei Ying, just lying there limp, his face to his side, showing his profile and those sharp cheekbones. “Where the hell did you go? Where did you go that was worth leaving me behind ?”

“I-”

“And why won’t you tell me? Why won’t you-”

TL;DR Jiang Cheng goes into heat, they fuck, and hormones make them spill some of the beans before they go spill some Wen blood. (no romance happens :/, just sex)

like you’ve never known fear by tsunderestorm

He doesn’t want to take it slow, because Wei Wuxian doesn’t want things slow. Wei Wuxian wants passion and skill and things Jiang Cheng doesn’t have, he just has anger and inferiority and a head full of fucking thoughts that won’t stop running around and bumping into one another when he’s trying to focus on this.

翻云覆雨 // in clouds and rainfall by oh_fudgecakes

A night hunt goes wrong when the group encounters a Qiongqi. While protecting his nephew, Jiang Cheng is hit with poison by the beast. They don’t have time to research an antidote, but prolonged dual cultivation with another cultivator will neutralize the poison...

When he’s chosen for the job, Wei Wuxian is surprised, and determined to give his shidi a good time. Alternatively: In Which Yunmeng Recon Happens While Wei Wuxian is Balls Deep In Jiang Cheng.

oh my god they were (step)brothers by serein

"Really, boys?" Yanli sighs. "Right in front of my salad?"

________________________

chengxian and step-brothers porn tropes: a montage.

baby it's a black hole by villainousfriend (katzenfabrik)

"What's wrong, Jiang Cheng?" he asks suddenly, looking up from his bowl.

Jiang Cheng just meets his gaze, not even lifting an arm to convey, Where do you want me to start?

"You've been... staring at me, this whole evening, shidi," Wei Wuxian adds, more slowly. The colour in his cheeks didn't fade after the bath, and now, with the food and candles, the room's got stuffy and he's even pinker than before. It should look healthy but it only highlights the shadows under his eyes, so deep they look like grooves in the skin.

"No, I haven't," he says automatically, and shoves a meatball in his mouth.

Jiang Cheng meets up with Wei Wuxian after Baoshan Sanren restores his golden core, just as they planned. After this, surely things are going to go right, right?

don't you worry honey, 'cause i can't say no by Runespoor

Wei Wuxian tests a talisman and hopes Jiang Cheng doesn’t make it weird.

hungry little fool by serein

Despite the easy warmth of the picture, Jiang Cheng immediately pegs something as wrong.

Wei Wuxian's looking at his slim forearms, held aloft in the air, with that look on his face like his unease is lapping at the edges, threatening to escape.

Like the tide is rising too high, and it's threatening to wash Wei Wuxian away.

[soft chengxian post-canon ft learning to love your new body]

lotus bridge by Sectionladvivi

Wei WuXian comes to visit Jiang Cheng's shitty apartment and they wax nostalgic about when they used to whack off to porn together as teens.

for a moment (i forget to worry) by everyearning (noctiphany)

He wants to fuck him, of course he does. But this is good. It’s almost too good. Wei Wuxian is afraid of things that feel too good now, too scared that he’ll wake up and it will all have been a dream. But he thinks as long as he can keep them like this, right on the precipice, maybe he won’t have to find out. Maybe this won’t get stolen from him like so many other good things.

smoke by serein

"You do piss me off," Jiang Cheng replied automatically, ignoring Wei Wuxian's faux-sad swoon. Jiang Cheng scowled. "If I'm such an oblivious idiot, why didn't you say something?"

Wei Wuxian huffed. "Well they're very confusing feelings to explain, Jiang Cheng. I want to kill anyone who thinks they can hurt you, but I also want to fuck you until you cry." Oh. Jiang Cheng's stomach fluttered in mixed interest and trepidation.

Canon divergent AU chengxian ft. Jiang Cheng's not so subtle danger kink and Wei Wuxian being a jealous, dangerous gremlin.

when everything soft abrades you by tsunderestorm

Jiang Cheng had said “no” when Wei Wuxian had first asked him to wear lacy panties and a bra when they fucked. He doesn’t feel bad about that, either - after all, it hadn’t even been a serious request, more rather one of Wei Wuxian’s off-hand, teasing remarks. They come off as jokes - at least, he means for them to - but Jiang Cheng knows from experience that they are backed one hundred and ten percent by Wei Wuxian’s modus operandi of “haha, unless it you’re into it though”.

Turns out Jiang Cheng is into it, too.

weaving figure eights and circles by vrooom

“Wait hold on. Jiang Cheng?” The voice is no longer sultry. It’s matter of fact, incredulous, and horrifyingly familiar in a way that makes Jiang Cheng’s insides shrivel up and crumble into dust.

“Wei Wuxian?” Jiang Cheng says, holding the phone as far away from his ear as possible. He glares at the phone like it personally betrayed him. “What the fuck are you doing on my phone sex line?”

can’t train a moth by Runespoor

"Hey. You alright?"

"My boyfriend wants to put nudes of me after sex on Grindr. Take a wild guess."

Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng attempt communication and a new kink.

clothes make the man by verity

Jiang Cheng requires a new suit. Wei Wuxian removes it.

[athys-obelia]

character/s: claude de alger obelia, diana of siodonna, felix robane

synopsis: it's...uhm....an empress!diana x concubine!claude crackfic 😭😭

warning/s: uhh a sprinkle of politics, the robane duchy is now siodonnan and not obelian screw canon, diana is lowkey mean to rogrog

a/n: i'm so sorry this is so bad

part one

felix's foot taps against the tiles of the empress' room impatiently. "you stayed up finalising the agreement all night, your majesty, perhaps some rest is due?"

diana spares him glance, turning sideways from her position on her bed. "what was his name again?"

  "pardon?"

  "the painter," she elaborates, pointing towards the painting on the ceiling above the bed. "i keep...i don't know, i keep finding new things the more i look at it."

  "is that so?"

the painting itself, a coronation gift from felix, depicts the goddess diana reaching out to the children of the world and vice versa. "if you look at the sky closely - remember our old siodonann classes?- 'for the people' is hidden in the stars. isn't that cool?"

the knight squints at the painting. "oh, i see it! i wonder why it's in old siodonann, though?"

  "i would guess it's because the imperial family wasn't worshipped in the old days," diana explains, "for example - right now, in some parts of the empire, my late father - bless him - and i may actually have shrines because people believe the imperial family's descent is from the gods. when the kingdom was just formed, though, kings and queens weren't allowed to ride alone in carriages as they greeted their subjects- they needed to have a slave with them at all times, who kept on repeating 'you are human' to them. 'you are human', 'we are all the same in the eyes of the true gods."

the sound of the army of maids behind the door is enough to pull felix out of his trance. "er...horatius calvus, your majesty."

  "hm?"

  "the artist, that's his name."

  "ah." diana turns to the painting once more, eyes staring at the goddess' hair that melted into the night sky. "would you be able to get in contact with him? i'd like to commission a piece."

felix bows gracefully. "as your majesty commands. oh, and - for the obelian delegates' farewell celebration tonight...has your majesty decided on an escort?"

she groans, falling back on the bed. "i've had so much free time lately, the harem is all i think about!"

  "very funny, ma'am. then...shall i prepare the usual?"

diana shakes her head. "i'll visit viscaria palace later and see for myself. the obelians brought some concubines with them as presents, it's be nice to weed through the bunch."

felix's eyes nearly pop out. "you're visiting the harem?! your majesty! did you find someone you like??"

she chucks a pillow at him before he can continue. "you weren't loud enough just now, fe, i don't think all of siodonna heard you."

  "...apologies, ma'am."

three years ago, when she had only just come into power, diana remembers being afraid of the large, gold doors between her and the council room. she remembers pausing before entering, regaining her breath, preparing her mind. projecting an image.

if there is one thing she has learnt, though, it's that only fools can be afraid of their own property. their assets. the larger-than-life doors swing at her command, allow or deny entrance with solely her permission. confidence comes easy when you act like you own the place - nevermind the fact that she did own most places.

but i have no reason to be afraid.

the obelian delegates stand at her arrival and bow like good little lords should before an empress. one of the more prominent ones stands to address her as soon as the meeting commences.

  "blessings and glory upon the sun of the great siodonnan empire," he says.

diana raises an amused eyebrow. this game, hm? "is that an obelian greeting, duke? how interesting. here, one would usually wish 'a long life to the protector of the siodonnan people'. that's all i am, after all - how could i be the sun?"

duke alpheus sputters. "er...i failed to acquaint myself with siodonnan culture appropriately, my apologies, your majesty. i shall do better next time."

how arrogant. still, she smiles, "i must confess, duke alpheus - i am slightly susceptible to praise, so i'll let you off this time."

  "thank you, ma'am."

  "although making the assumption that there will be a next time at all was quite courageous of you." diana signals the guards, who open the door to let the final participant of the meeting inside. "however -courage and bravery are traits best suited for kings and queens, duke. not lords."

the obelian delegates pale as they watch their - former - emperor, wrists bound, enter the hall with an entourage of knights.

diana glances at the newcomer. "although i suppose even for an emperor, too much of a bravado may cost a war."

anastacius de alger obelia glowers at her.

she frowns at the knights. "how come such a precious friend of mine is tied up like this? is this how we siodonnans treat our guests?"

felix bows deeply. "i apologise, ma'am - he was resisting far too much."

  "whatever the case. get a seat set up right here, beside me - after all," diana smiles at the fuming obelian, "we were dining together just a few months ago, weren't we?"

  "three months ago, to be precise," anastacius spits out, "after which you decided to switch tides and invade us like a coward."

she watches one of the knights set down a fancy chair to the left of hers, reaching out to untie the bindings on anastacius' wrist. diana frowns suddenly, waving over felix, "ah, is this the leash my brother used when he tamed his dragon?"

the former emperor flinches, staring down at it. "someone here tamed a dragon?" a light pink dusts his cheeks - did he really touch the actual leash of a dragon?

felix shakes his head with a small smirk. "this is the leash her majesty the late dowager empress used, ma'am. for her dog."

  "-ah, right, i remember now! all the ones marked with this little purple line are used for tying down senseless animals, aren't they?"

  "yes, your majesty." felix returns to his spot behind her, clear amusement swimming in his grey eyes as he watches the obelians try and maintain their composure.

diana gently lets the leash loose, a hand on the stunned anastacius' shoulder to lightly push him into the seat. "you aren't wrong - i did betray your hospitality, didn't i?"

roger alpheus winces at the sudden authority in her tone as the knights pass out a document to each of the obelian lords.

  "obelia's greeting and offer for peace was kind to me, so i must return this generosity. your country is now part of the siodonnan empire, so we should be parting on a good note. will a little present suffice?"

a brunette diana remembers to be a count speaks up, "...a gift, your majesty?"

felix moves closer to the table, watching the detailed map of siodonna carved into its centre. as he raises his hand, almost as if it were a chess piece, a small island moves to the left. its color flickers between a siodonnan purple and the obelian teal.

diana sighs. "i was planning on the island of delphine, since it not only contains a relatively large gold mine, but also much tourist attraction."

oh, she can see the stars in alpheus' eyes already. "thank you, your ma-"

  "but." he shrivels under her piercing gaze, "but, obelia doesn't need gold, does it? what you need is better foreign relations. and what better way to form an alliance..."

she eyes the map, and with a flick of felix's wrist, a small stretch of land connecting two continents switches from its original purple to a hue of blue.

diana looks up now, meeting even anastacius' shocked eyes. he eyes her suspiciously, "do you really-?"

she nods. "...consider it a gift from your sovereign. it is enough, yes?"

  "i- uh," duke alpheus blinks twice, "the isthmus of erven is...an adequate present, yes, your majesty. the people of obelia shall thrive due to your generosity."

  "it is not generosity, duke. your people are my subjects now. however, i hope you realise the isthmus isn't obelian property for obvious reasons. there is no trust between us. despite this, what i will allow is some access." diana stands, watching the foreign nobles mirror the action. "the terms and conditions of our relationship from this point onwards are in the papers before you and are, obviously, subject to change. feel free to approach me with concerns, should you have any."

  "you were firmer than i'd expected with the obelians, your majesty," felix comments.

diana recoils as his eyes light up at the sight of viscaria palace. "remember when i visited obelia for anastacius' coronation? i was only seventeen, but two years into my studies as heir - and they were all over duke renauld's son! poor cousin ronnie couldn't stop apologising."

felix snorts. "the renaulds wouldn't have dared challenge your majesty's claim, not while the late empress dowager was behind you."

  "ha! that's right, everyone was scared of mama." she grins fondly, "papa most of all."

the knight nods, murmuring a prayer.

  "i want them gone as soon as possible," diana admits, "but there's much to settle before that. i need to fix up anastacius before we can let him back, the second prince is still...what was his name, again?"

  "claude de alger obelia, ma'am."

she winces. "yes, he's an impo-"

a commotion sounds from within viscaria. felix raises an eyebrow at the shouts echoing from the beautiful building, a hand already atop his sheathed sword. "ma'am, stay back, i'll have a look- your majesty! where are you going-?!"

navigating through the decorated halls, diana halts before the entrance of the garden. the argument is between two men she doesn't recognise, as the older concubines gather to the side, amusing twinkling in their eyes.

  "attention!" felix roars, "her imperial majesty, empress diana celeste!"

the two freeze in fear.

  "disrupting my peace. how dare you?" diana demands.

one of them, dressed too finely for someone she hadn't even seen yet, steps forward. "your majesty, my name is xerre, i was only-"

she raises a hand, effectively shutting him up. tone softening, diana turns to the group crowding around the desert table. "lex?"

the group shuffles to let a young, silver haired young man forward. lex bows gracefully, laugh lines around his eyes crinkling. "yes, my lady?"

  "do you know what happened here?"

lex nods. "the monthly salary was being distributed, your majesty, and xerre - being a present from the kingdom of masur - had some trouble believing his amount was the same as a former obelian slave's. verhan stepped in to argue that your majesty was the one to decide this, and they began fighting."

  "shall i prepare for his voyage back to masur, majesty?" felix asks, as the rest of the concubines roll their eyes at his antics.

diana studies the masurian concubine, beckoning him closer. "it is common knowledge i do not generally accept gifted concubines from territories out of my own."

she watches his adam's apple rise and fall, tracing a nail over the well defined jawline. xerre shivers.

  "however, your king is new to his throne, and his queen one of my dearest friends. do you realise how our alliance will look were i to send you back?"

he nods cautiously.

  "i do not wish to withdraw support from someone i consider a brother, xerre. especially when he is engaged in armed conflict on two fronts."

  "i- i am prepared for any punishment your majesty deems appropriate."

diana sighs softly. "i would send you to work for me in the capitol, but the rules state every concubine entering must reside here for a certain amount of time. until then, bear with it. this palace, and a life of luxury, is only meant for my favorites. clear?"

  "yes, your majesty."

  "my apologies, ma'am," felix says once the crowd disperses, his head hanging. "i should've prepared for your arrival with more care."

she waves off the apology, heading to the guest hall to take a look at the new obelian  concubines.

  "vera leaves for her son's wedding for a week and we've already had an incident. honestly, felix."

  "...who's vera?"

diana pauses at the unfamiliar voice. her gaze falls on the figure sitting on the window seat, entirely immersed in the book in his hands. she blinks, stunned, watching the colourful window's filtered light paint the brilliant blonde of his hair.

felix is the first to address him, scoffing, "i believe your majesty's beauty has enchanted one of the gods - who else would dare address the empress of our nation so casually?"

diana chuckles, watching as the man stands, intrigued. she stays silent, breath hitched, as he towers over her, studying her with a curiosity that rivals hers from a moment ago. and only when he finally lowers himself to a knee does his hair part, and diana flushes at the red tinting his ears.

  "greetings to her imperial majesty, may the gods grant the protector of the siodonnan people a life long and blessed."

she offers him her hand. "rise. and tell me your name."

a beat of silence passes as he stares at her outstretched hand before hesitantly accepting. "claude, your majesty."

  "claude," diana tries, finding it rolls of her tongue deliciously.

he raises an eyebrow as she regards him. "your majesty...?"

diana smiles, her hand moving to touch the various jewellery adorning his fingers. gently, she slides off the gold ring off of his ring finger. "you must have a good reason to be donning an unauthorized magical item in my palace."

he doesn't answer, head lowered.

her hand lets go of his, raising to grip the blonde's jaw. diana tilts up his face, meeting his gaze. the dull grey eyes from before have vanished, replaced by glittering blues.

she inhales sharply. "you're...the obelian pr...the second prince of obelia."

he nods.

diana turns, more puzzled than angry. "why is he in my harem?"

  "... didn't your majesty wish for it?" felix tilts his head in confusion.

  "what? no?"

the knight frowns. "but i was so sure...your majesty said you didn't have an heir because you wanted a concubine as beautiful as me...when we took over the imperial palace, as the army swore their allegiance...your majesty said the prince was the prettiest you’ve ever seen?"

  "i- felix, i was kidding!"

  "...oh."

she turns to the prince then, "and you! you're a prince! how come you just went along with this??"

  "well...it was the most peaceful part of the palace..."

diana gapes at the two men, before finally sighing in defeat. "you're telling me i was scouring the lands for you, while you were right...?" she raises a hand to massage her temple, "...gods grant me patience."

felix cautiously steps forward, "your majesty...i understand this is shocking, but... tonight's escort..."

she glances up at the obelian prince. "allow them all to retire. i've found the perfect escort."

a/n: hmmm this was a bit empty claudiana wise, wasn't it? their development is coming though, i had to give empress!diana an intro :) also !! the situation may seem a bit confusing rn, but next chapter will clear things up! or you can just ask me for clarification <3

💕 felix is dying to find a concubine diana likes bc he really really really wants to be an uncle

💕 in siodonna, emperors/empresses are referred to by their first(diana) + middle name(celeste) and not a last name bc they technically can't belong to a house, they belong to the empire. but the middle name is important bc you have to ask for it (from someone you love and respect usually), you're never just born with one (so you could ask a parent / friend / mentor yada yada and they give you a name they believe fits best)

[crow-in-a-teapot]

tower of nero spoilers

i have just finished the tower of nero. and before i go searching for other people’s thoughts and art and more of the characters i love so much, i want to write down some of my own thoughts because i know as soon as i delve into that ‘ton spoilers’ hashtag there are going to be complaints and criticisms and so much that i don’t want to hear, or essays that’ll make me upset, or things that’ll change my perception on the book (because on this website people really love to hate the trials of apollo).

i want to start with: i loved it. it didn’t feel earth-shattering or huge and momentous like some of my favourite riordanverse books (house of hades, the blood of olympus, the last olympian and maybe some of the magnus chase books take those pedestals for me) but it was satisfying. and i think it was satisfying because it in no way felt like an ending. whether because eventually rick will write that will-and-nico-go-through-tartarus-and-save-bob novella, or because we (or at least i) will continue writing and imagining and creating for this world i don’t know. he didn’t wrap up the story in a perfect little bow like ‘nineteen years later’, he simply put it on pause. gave us a glimpse of where every character was at at the end.

the only thing that makes me so angry and upset is that i did manage to get some spoilers for moments that i know would have been so good to experience for the first time if i hadn’t been spoiled for them. the moment where rachel mentions penguins in a mansion near her house, nico getting mental health advice from mr d, the fact that will and nico were going to be in the book for so much of the story, but the big thing was literally spoiled for me two days ago, it was the reason i sat down to read it as fast as possible because i was terrified of getting more spoiled and not being able to experience the moments for myself, was that piper had a girlfriend. i know that reading that for the first time would have been so cool and surprising, and the fact that when it came up for a moment in the last couple pages all i felt was disappointment because it was spoiled for me and because it was now tinged with whatever that person was saying about her having a girlfriend.

but i still had some warm fuzzy moments, the two parts where apollo thinks he’s going to die but nico comes up behind him - so good. impeccable. 

Leader Guy spat. ‘Now, I kill you.’

He raised his sword... and froze. His face turned pale. His skin began to shrivel. His beard fell out whisker by whisker like dead pine needles. Finally, his skin crumbled away, along with his clothes and flesh, until Leader Guy was nothing but a bleached-white skeleton, holding a sword in his bony hands. 

Standing behind him, his hand on the skeleton’s shoulder, was Nico di Angelo.

and

Nero raised his hand, ready to give the kill command, when behind me a mighty BOOM! shook the chamber. Half our enemies were thrown off their feet. Cracks sprouted in the windowsand the marble columns. Ceiling tiles broke, raining dust like split bags of flour. 

I turned to see the impenetrable blast doors lying twisted and broken, a strangely emaciated red bull standing in the breach. Behind it stood Nico di Angelo.

gods. poetic brilliance. i can’t believe i’m still a nico di angelo stannie in the year 2021. in five years i have not changed (ever since the tv show announcement last summer i have managed to morph into myself from 2017)

from here i’m not sure where to go next i kind of want to go through everything, except it’ll be more difficult than my tyrant’s tomb reaction because i wasn’t reading on a kindle and thus can’t just do funny little reactions to screenshots of quotes, so i’ll just skim through the book page by page and see what i can comment on (i’m not planning on doing analysis today, no thank you, just enjoying the end of my childhood and trying to squeeze as much out of it as possible)

i have an emotional attachment to mr. snake from the very first chapter, and am very upset that he’ll never get off on his baltimore stop and get to see his wife, lu had no reason to shoot and kill him like that.

that brings me to lu, i liked her, it was interesting to see how rick kind of brought in not only the overarching theme of abuse, but also people who let the abuse happen, i have more i could say on this i’m too lazy to right now, and i promised no analysis - or the fact that Lu had conspired to make the show non-lethal to spare Meg’s feelings rather than - oh, I don’t know - refusing to do Nero’s dirty work in the first place and getting Meg out of that house of horrors. 

And are you any better? taunted a small voice in my brain. How many times have you stood up to Zeus?

Okay, small voice. Fair point. Tyrants are not easy to opppose or walk away from, especially when you depend on them for everything.

the parallels to meg and lester heading to percy’s apartment, and then to camp half blood to the hidden oracle was so cool to read, every callback to the hidden oracle just there to remind us readers exactly how far apollo has come and how he’s changed; the entire chapter with sally, paul and estelle just felt sickly sweet, it just didn’t seem real how wholesome and good that family is, like i get why apollo broke down and just sobbed in that shower.

also rick really saying acab again in toa, i thought he was done after that elf cop chapter in magnus chase (the magnus chase series is a masterpiece) but apparently not, with A ‘good cop’ is still a cop... still a part of the mind game.

the grey sisters, i forgot about them completely but this threw me back into was it the sea of monsters when annabeth summoned them? i’m not sure, it could have been the lightning thief either, they really remind me of the disney hercules movie. the whole ganymede paragraph was gold, i love gods being canonically confirmed lgbt in the riordanverse. i also love the whole eye-tossing part - 

‘He will crush our eye,’ Anger cried, ‘if we don’t recite our verses!’

‘I will not!’

‘We will all die!’ Wasp said. ‘He is crazy!’

‘I AM NOT!’

‘Fine, you win!’ Tempest howled.

also, the explanation for why dionysus chooses to look the way he does was perfect, because it was something i often wondered about and wasn’t expecting to get an explanation for, and i imagine the whole mythological dionysus to look like.. well like a more feminine apollo i guess, beautiful in a gender non-comforming way.

Other Olympians could never comprehend why Dionysus chose this form when he could look like anything he wanted. In ancient times, he’d been famous for his youthful beauty that defied gender.

... 

In retaliation, Dionysus had decided to look and act as ungodly as possible. He was like a child refusing to tuck in his shirt, comb his hair or brush his teeth, just to show his parents how little he cared.

every scene with nico at camp just BREAKS ME, i would throw in screenshots of every damn quote but unfortunately, as said above, cannot and would rather not type every one; we’ll start with, obviously apollo confirming to him that jason is dead. 

He didn’t look angry exactly. He looked as if he’d been hit in the gut not just once but so many times over the course of so many years that he was beginning to lose perspective on what it meant to be in pain. He swayed on his feet. He blinked. Then he flinched, jerking his hands away from Meg’s as if he’d just remembered his own touch was poison.

ugh then will talking about how nico’s doing, confirming that he’s suffering with ptsd, mr d giving him advice, helping him sort though what voices in his head are real and which ones aren’t, then the paragraph that just recounts every horrific thing poor nico has been through, how will has to reassure him that he’s okay and ‘with friends’ when he wakes up after shadow travel

will’s kindness to apollo, buying him clothes, and apollo finding seymour the leopard’s head in his bed, put there by mr d aaaa AAAA A A A A A THE ORDINARY, EVERYDAY CAMP HALF BLOOD THINGS..

i could go on for years and years about how much i appreciate rachel having a big role in this book, and the visit to her apartment, everything, her art, the fact that she got what she wanted, she’s going to PARIS to study ART, she isn’t forced to be someone she’s not by her dad, and gets to be a big part of a demigod mission and not stand on the sidelines for once.

i love that her landscapes are still visions, that she still paints the quests demigods go on - the burning maze, jason’s funeral pyre, caligula’s ships; and how nico ~appreciates art~

‘And, hey, di Angelo -’ she pushed him playfully away from the canvas he’d been ogling - ‘don’t brush against the art! I don’t care about the paintings, but if you get any colour on you, you’ll ruin that whole black-and-white aesthetic you’ve got going.’

i. love. rachel.

WILL GLOWS!! THE HEADCANONS FROM LIKE FIVE YEARS AGO THAT YOU’D SEE FLOATING AROUND ABOUT HIM MANIPULATING LIGHT!! CONFIRMED!! CANON!! AMAZING

I AM  OBSESSED WITH THE TROGS, I LOVE THEM, THEY ARE GREAT, not gonna lie, i was expecting something more dramatic and spooky with how worried will was and how dionysus was going.. visiting the cavern-runners isn’t ♫ good for your mental health  ♫ but the little hat frog gremlins were a good addition. i like them very much and their funky little soup shenanigans. quoting the ghost king himself: trogs good. nice hats. (IM SORRY I KEEP MENTIONING HIM BUT I JUST) also how apollo starts wishing for breadsticks a s ajoke and theY STRAIGHT UP HAVE BREADSTICKS? HUH? WHERE DID THEY GET THE BREADSTICKS FROM??

yeah, i’m also still very much upset by every mention of jason grace, it’s funny how ever since his death in the burning maze i have grown to love him more and more and that’s not fun for me, for that boy to become one of my main comfort character’s and have his death and sacrifice and nobility mentioned every few chapters. i’m pretty sure i cried when he appeared to talk in apollo’s dreams, and this time the tears weren’t from the effort of keeping my eyes open and working for hours straight reading this book (i remember staying up until 2am to finish the sequel to beautiful, broken things, it was very much worth it)

‘All right, Jason. We miss you, though.’

ALSO. THE FACT THAT THIS KID. THIS CHILD. HAD TO THINK ‘BUT IF A HERO ISN’T READY TO LOSE EVERYTHING FOR A GREATER CAUSE, IS THAT PERSON REALLY A HERO?’ A KID ISN’T SUPPOSED TO THINK ABOUT THAT AND BE READY TO SACRIFICE THEMSELVES FOR THE GREATER GOOD,, i,, ugh,, he’s supposed to be finishing school and designing temples not being the perfect hero and soldier,, spain without the s,,

as @couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name said: ‘thinking about how ghost! Jason didn’t seem to understand why Apollo was so upset about his death because he’s been raised to believe a hero’s sacrifice is noble and his life doesn’t matter in the grand scheme and also if he doesn’t understand why the person who watched him get horrifically killed is so torn up over his death he probably doesn’t even realize his other friends are grieving him..’

IM SO UPSET THE ARROW OF DODONA IS DEAD D: IT WAS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE CHARACTERS ALL THE FUNNIEST MOMENTS WERE BECAUSE OF THAT ARROW AND IT'S DEATH WAS SO SAD WTH LIKE WE FIND OUT HOW USELESS THE ARROW FELT AND HOW THE GROVE OF DODONA ALL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE CRAP AND WOULD FAIL APOLLO AND THEN ONCE WE FEEL BAD FOR IT, IT DIES??

the entire python battle was pretty grim, there is a part of me that's like because this is the last book series i would have loved say the magnus chase and kane chronicles gang in a giant battle with everyone like the battle of manhattan but even more dramatic, but even so, i did appreciate that python battle and the whole almost-falling-into-the-depths-of-tartarus thing.

him talking to artemis was cool, but JESUS: 'I turned and strode out of my room, trying to recall how the god Apollo walked.' like that HURTS. it was such a huge culture shock for apollo to go throught this huge character arc and be so human and understand the pain of others, to be around gods again who are so.. apathetic. also, zeus. 'Interesting how he put that: I had done him proud. I had been useful in making him look good. My heart did not melt. I did not feel that this was a warm-and-fuzzy reconciliation with my father. Let's be honest: some fathers don't deserve that. Some aren't capable of it.'

OKAY OKAY SO THE END?? CHIRON TALKING TO A CAT (BAST) AND A SEVERED HEAD (MIMIR) ABOUT SHARED PROBLEMS WITHIN THE PANTHEONS!! WILL AND NICO RECEIVING A PROPHECY FROM RACHEL TO GO TO TARTARUS AND SAVE BOB!! THE HUNTERS OF ARTEMIS, INCLUDING THALIA AND REYNA BEING BEST FRIENDS (qpr.. qpr..) HUNTING THE TEUMESSIAN FOX!! PERCY, ANNABETH AND GROVER, THE ORIGINAL TRIO, GOING ON A CHAOTIC ROAD TRIP TOGETHER!! - SO MANY STAND-ALONE SET -UPS PFSJSJSJ

okay quick word on the reunions at the end: funny little elephant visitation program with livia and hannibal. love that for them. calypso and leo's relationship seems rocky and complicated, but that's to be expected, i think even if they do get properly back together again it might not last long, because it does pretty much feel like a teenage relationship where the two aren't very compatible, but we'll see. hazel and frank are so funny with their gold plated necklaces. lavinia - tap-dance icon. almost cried at the mention of jason's temple-extension plan again. percy not being sure about what he wants to do in college is accurate and i like that that's left to be up-for-interpretation (rick does THE MOST for the fanfic writers pfsjsj). i am OBSESSED with aeithales, like i hate deserts so the burning maze setting is not my favourite but GOD that HOUSE, the vibes are off-the-charts. i'd love a house made of living trees that's also a greenhouse filled with dryads. meg gets a unicorn. that is so great.

i kind of wish the book hadn't ended with 'Call on me. I will be there for you.' because every time I imagine the friends theme song and i don't think that's the vibe he was going for, BUT i do love him talking to meg, that was genuinely emotional - 'You'll come back?' she asked. 'Always,' I promised. 'The sun always comes back.' ; i really wish it had ended with that, but i guess apollo does tend to break fourth walls and talk to the readers, like a lot of the protagonists of riordanverse books.

[starlightsearches]

The Runaway—Ch. 3

It was supposed to be like any other bounty. Just another job. But when Din Djarin meets a runaway trying to escape a tragic past and a bleak future, everything changes. (Set after the events of Season 1, no spoilers for Season 2)

Masterlist

Din Djarin x f!reader (no y/n)

Series Warnings: Language, canon-typical violence, mentions of abuse.

AN: Near-death experience in this chapter, but that’s the only extra. Feedback is always appreciated!

Din squints into the darkness, hardly able to see even with the adjustment his visor makes to the steadily dwindling light. He doesn’t show it, as he leans up against the rough-hewn entrance to your makeshift home, but there’s a stiffness to his muscles after the journey here—his legs aching underneath the weight of the armor, and the sun had been inescapable, beating down on both of you like the wrath of god. Although it’s setting now, the heat hasn’t abated in the time since and underneath his armor Din’s clothing is clinging to his skin.

“It’s around here somewhere,” Din can just make out your shape now, a dark smudge against blacker surroundings, but you move with confidence and quiet surety as you search around the small space. “Ha! Here it is,” there’s a faint click, and the little hovel you’ve led him to is filled with a yellowing light that stutters against the walls before steadily growing brighter. You swing the flashlight around in small, sweeping motions and Din takes it all in, his heart shriveling in his chest like a life-vest with a leak.

“It’s not much,” you say quietly, watching him out of the corner of your eye, “but it’s far from the worst place I ever lived.” Din doesn’t want to know what those places were like.

You’re hunched over, practically in half, but the dirt of the roof still scrapes at the top of your head, little crumbles of dust nesting in your hair as you move. He has no idea what stuff you’ve planned on grabbing—there’s nothing here worth taking. You’ve got a meager supply of food, stacked against the far wall, high off the ground to keep it away from any pests, but no table, no place to build a fire. There’s no bed, either, just a mat and a blanket so threadbare it seems to be made of holes. He can’t take his eyes off the blanket, the blood draining from his face; for a moment, he thinks he might be sick. His fingers curl in on themselves, twin fists resting at his sides, and he wishes that your father were here, right now. He’d end him.

“Hey,” Din turns at the sound of your voice and finds you kneeling at the edge of the back wall, near the mat and you’re looking up at him expectantly—Din wonders how many times you’ve tried to get his attention. You wait for a moment, and he nods to show that he’s listening. “Can you help me with this?” He’s not sure what this is, as you point at the wall—a gesture that gives him no helpful information—but he agrees, the child following closely behind as he takes his first step inside. 

 Din crouches, but only manages one or two half-steps before falling to his knees, which is all it takes to cross the distance from the door to the place where you kneel. You push the flashlight into his empty hands before lowering yourself to the ground. 

Starting in the bottom corner of the room, you rest your palm against the wall, stacking your hand one over the other with careful precision and Din shines the flashlight in your direction without asking any questions. About halfway up the wall, you begin to move towards him, walking your hands along the wall until you’re leaning over him, your body stretched across his without ever moving close enough to touch.

The light falls across your face, your lips moving silently casting strange shadows on the wall behind you before you stop just on the other side of him, the tip of your finger carving a soft x in the wall. “There,” you say quietly, just a soft puff of air against the side of his mask.

You lean back, taking the flashlight from his hands, sitting back on your legs, looking at him expectantly. Din is at a loss.

“I need you to hit the wall where I marked,” you say, characteristically cryptic, “really hard.”

Din looks at the wall, examining it more closely; unlike the rest of the packed-dirt structure, this side seems rock-solid underneath the caked-on, crumbling dust. He hits it hard enough, he could break some fingers, at best. 

You see his skepticism through the mask, shuffling a little closer, “it’s a false wall,” you say, retracing the x with your fingers, “I built it myself when I first came here—couldn’t just leave my stuff out in the open.”

“Why didn’t you keep it under your mat?” Din asks, still hesitant. That was the standard procedure for most of the criminals that Din had encountered, although he’s not sure that you fall into that category. Thieves among thieves will target their own if needed, but it’s futile to try and steal from anyone who sleeps on top of their possessions. Especially when there’s a blade under their pillow. 

You roll your eyes at him, “because that’s the first place everybody looks.” Din makes no move to do as you’ve asked, and you examine him more closely, your eyes searching the mask for the answer to a question that you haven’t yet asked. There’s a pause, a shift in the momentum of this conversation, this partnership, “don’t you trust me?”

Din sighs, rolling his eyes at you and he thinks some part of you knows because you smile as he pulls his fist back, his eyes on the carved x.

“Then again, my hands could have grown in the time since-” you blurt out in warning, but Din’s already loosed the punch. He closes his eyes, unwilling to watch the impact, waiting for the snap of bones, but it doesn’t come, his hand crashing through the wall amid a shower of dirt. 

It’s not a large break in the wall—Din can feel both edges of the space you’ve created without much movement, the tips of his fingers brushing the back wall while his wrist is still visible. He pulls his hand from the crevice, brushing the dirt from his glove and you fill the place immediately, shining the light and digging around in the illuminated opening. 

“Here,” you shove something into his hands, still focused on the crack in the wall. Din takes it, glancing down.

His eyes blow wide when he sees the item—a necklace like a collar, made of woven gold and blood-red gemstones. It’s caked with dirt, but still sparkles in the evening light, each stone throwing fractured ruby streaks against the walls of the room.

“Is this real?” Din asks, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. He’s not sure what kind of material the necklace is made of, but it looks expensive. He starts the mental tabulation: fuel costs, food, repairs that need to be made. New weapons to be purchased, toys for the kid. Maybe even an upgrade for his armor.

Before he can finish the thought, you’re shoving more jewelry his way—handfuls of glittering stones and expensive metals. Din sways on his knees, light-headed.

“I think that’s the last of it,” you turn to face him, shifting into a sitting position. You hold your hands out, and Din lets the collection fall into your waiting palms. You begin to sort the baubles into small piles, brushing the debris from each sparkling surface. Din stops your hand as you’re about to place a set of delicate silver bangles next to a jewel-encrusted hair pin.

“What is all this?”

Your eyes flicker with confusion, trying to interpret Din’s response, and honestly, he’s doing the same. His hand stays on your wrist, his grip loose enough that you could break it if you tried, but you don’t, your stare fixed right where his eyes would be.

    “You told me you didn’t have anything left. That you sold it all.” His voice shakes as he looks at the extravagant spread, the necessities and indulgences he had been calculating earlier multiplying ten-fold. With this sum, you could buy . . . anything. But when he looks at you, your expression pained, he’s immediately chastened. There were some things that had no price.

    “I lied,” you say gently, watching as the child wanders over to inspect the treasures. Din moves to grab him before he can reach any of it, but you hand him something to play with—a simple golden chain—and he’s mollified for the moment, pulling at the object with his little, green hands.

    “Why didn’t you tell me?” You both pull your attention away from the kid when Din speaks, and you sigh, brushing a few stray hairs away from your face with a rough hand.

    “I didn’t know if you could be trusted. For all I knew you were going to take it all and turn me over to my father anyways.” A huff of air escapes Din’s lips at your statement. There’s plenty you’ve left unsaid, words that weigh heavy on Din’s shoulders, a trust that he can’t fully fathom. It’s not just your life that you’ve placed so fully in his hands—it’s his, too, and the kid’s. With this, and the bounty your father had offered, he could buy a better life: no running, no danger, no bounties. He could find the child’s people, make sure he was safe. And then, after that, he could do anything.

    You knew all of this, when you brought him here. Din feels very small, sitting on the floor of this dingy dirt hut in the middle of nowhere, and this choice, this offering, feels much too large.

    You push the piles towards him, scooping them all together in your hands. “I want you to have it,” you say through shaky breaths, “for helping me.” 

    Din makes no move to take it, although he could. He grabs the strap of his satchel instead, tossing it into your lap.

    “Hold onto it for now,” he commands, “I don’t take any payment until the job is completed.” 

    You don’t move, lips parted and eyes on him. He thinks he might see the barest hint of tears pooling at the corners of your eyes, but they fall closed, and for the first time, Din can see what this means to you. You want to live. You want to be okay.

    You begin clearing up the jewelry, packing it into the satchel, slinging it over your shoulder. That’s when Din hears the noise, footsteps crunching over the terrain outside. He stops you with a finger to his lips, pulling the flashlight towards him and flipping the switch, throwing the room into darkness.

     His visor adjusts to the shadows and his eyes follow soon after. You seem to know that something is wrong, and he can see you in the eerie green light that the mask offers as you pull the child into your lap, looking up at him with wide, worried eyes.

    Din moves quickly, back on his feet and out the door in mere moments, scanning the black horizon with careful eyes. He catches their flickering light source first—three people, he assumes based on the cadence of the footsteps and the soft chatter between them. The shortest one carries the torch, walking a few steps behind the others, and Din stands casually, waiting for them to notice him. His hand hovers over his hip, and he unlatches the strap on his holster.

    “‘S that you, Mando?” The familiar voice, one that grates like gravel against his ears, calls over the distance between them. He was right before; three people approach, but the man in front is the only one he recognizes, and everything gets more complicated. 

    “Hello Tate,” Din keeps his voice even, folding his arms over his broad chest, and the light from the torch flickers dangerously off the beskar. He hopes you’re hidden from view, with the child and the satchel. Din could get you all out of this with relative ease, as long as none of them notice your presence. 

    “Greef told us you were on the runaway job,” Dev says, and then he chuckles, “he actually told us not to bother.” He shifts his weight, leaning on one leg more heavily than the other. He’s got a blade in his hand, but his grip is casual, and he rests it against his hip. The other two have weapons as well—the zabrak on his right has a dangerous-looking club slung over his shoulder, and the twi'lek on his left carries a blaster in the hand not holding the torch. None of them seem too eager to use them just yet, and he’s not planning on giving them any reason. Still, he shifts again, resting his hand on his own hip, just above his blaster. Better to be safe. 

    “We decided to take our chances anyways,” Tate continues, eyeing the change in Din’s posture, “and with a bounty like that, can you blame us?” The others laugh, but the smiles don’t reach their eyes. “Somebody on the way to town told us to look for her out this way. We thought we might find you here.”

“The place was empty when I arrived,” Din gets straight to the point, “I think she might have left it abandoned. I’ve been waiting for her to return.”

    Tate smiles, “I thought you might say something like that.” 

    It happens quicker than the light flashing against his armor—weapons are drawn and he’s got the barrel of a blaster resting at the edge of his mask. Din keeps his own blaster aimed at Tate, but he watches the others in his periphery, tracking their movements. 

    “You gotta get a more subtle look, Mando, if you’re gonna be tellin’ lies like that. We heard from a few different people that they saw you chasin’ the girl out of the cantina.” He steps closer, twirling the blade with surprising dexterity given the meatiness of fingers, and from this distance, Din can see the dirt caked into the creases of Tate’s face, see the shadow of a beard growing over his skin. 

    “So now I’m forced to wonder,” Tate continues at a whisper, “where you’ve got her stashed if she’s not here, hmmm?” Din keeps silent, shifting his grip on his blaster, putting the slightest amount of pressure on the trigger.

    “Where is she, Mando?” he asks again, but  his gaze flickers to the zabrak, a movement so minute he almost dismisses it, until he shifts to check on the twi’lek. Din lets out a low sigh through his nose. Tate thinks he’s got the upper hand on him based on numbers alone. In his mind, he’s already won.

    “She back on your ship?” he asks again, growing impatient with Din refusal to accept defeat, “she out there with that little green freak you stole?”

    The sound of the shot booms in response and Tate stumbles back, hand at his midsection, checking for the burn of the blaster bolt, but it’s the twi’lek who falls, eyes rolling back into her head before she lands with a thump, the blaster falling from her hand.

    Din’s already aiming again, for Tate this time but the shot goes wide as the zabrak catches him on the shoulder with the club. His knees buckle and he fights to stay standing, blocking the next swing with his forearm. Wood clangs against beskar and Din grunts at the impact, pain sparking through his armor. 

    He’s hardly recovered before he hears the metallic slash, feels the burn in the open space where the pauldron meets his chest plate, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees red. 

    One of them hits him in square in the chest, and then there’s a boot at his neck. He places one hand at the heel, but the other isn’t cooperating—a strange tingle travels from the tips of his fingers up to his shoulder, and it burns, dead at this side.

    “Gonna ask you one more time, Mando,” Tate leans over him and Din sees black around the edges of his vision, fighting for every breath, “where’s the girl?” 

    Din says nothing, willing some kind of life into his arm, struggling against the weight of the world for one more lungful of air. He hopes you’ll keep the kid safe. 

    There’s a streak of red that shoots across his vision, and it’s funny to him; no one ever mentioned that as a part of dying, but he’ll accept it. There’s another—he lets his eyes fall closed. And then the weight is lifted, and he can breathe again, and he falls into a deep and restless sleep.

[thoughtsonargentdawn]

On the potential of greener pastures.

While I don’t see the need to beat the dead horse that is the incelery of Blizzard Entertainment’s treatment of women and gay men - still holding out for the claims of transphobia, don’t worry it will be there - One thing I have noticed lately is the increasing willingness of long term WoW players moving to other realms and universes of fantasy.

But the question, is it the right thing to do?

Obviously no one reasonable to advocate for you to stay playing something you find uncomfortable - that is insanity and inhuman. But, is Tamriel, Eorzea or the Galaxy Far Far Away really the type of place that the average Argent Dawn player will feel at home in? I’ve had many discussions with my fellow CoAD team friends and we all have our opinions on the matter. While we all agree that as a creative medium, we as players should reclaim World of Warcraft as something that works for us all - not all of us are particularly comfortable in remaining on the game considering what type of behaviour paying for that subscription enables. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- So first up on the list. Tamriel,the main setting of the Elder Scrolls universe. As a whole I would say the Elder Scrolls Online thematically matches many popular brands on Argent Dawn. It ticks the boxes of House/Noble Roleplay, Military, Intrigue and “Race War Now!” - all fairly popular areas of roleplay on Argent Dawn. ESO also boasts a far more vigorously designed world compared to current WoW, a considerably more consistent lore and player housing that is very generous. The downsides? There always are downsides... ESO is shackled with an insular community that much like Guild Wars 2 - another former contender to WoW - has a somewhat small town Alabama mentality towards new players. This is also combined with a recurring problem of a number of players using their characters to effectively further their own real life politics or ideologies. In particular the crypto-fascists are very drawn to the Aldmeri Dominion faction, with the prominence of the Thalmor - yes the same elf supremacists from Skyrim - being a key factor. Thanks to blatant racism being a canonical factor of the setting many have gotten away with effectively using their character as a smokescreen. Alternatively the Neo-Roman Imperials also are a popular second choice for your standard chauvinistic “ew women” basement dwellers who would shrivel at the first touch of a real woman. Community issues aside, ESO also has system problems with a very awkwardly designed UI that is unintuitive to someone used to the traditional hotbar system present in many MMO games. Perhaps a minor problem in the long term as you get used to it but be prepared for heavy frustration and awkward handling. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Second up we have the supposed rising star of the genre, in the gleaming world of Eorzea, the primary setting for Final Fantasy 14. The setting is very conducive for Adventure type RP in particular, but by no means limited. The worldbuilding of Eorzea is very elaborate, with analogues to many real world cultures being present, Norse, Franco-German, Middle English, Levantine/Mediterranean and Far Eastern with smaller groups being present too. The lore is watertight, with very few inconsistencies - the few are merely a player issue of doing class quests in reverse order to the story quest mostly - and the setting is shown rather than explained through out of universe books. Player housing is rather advanced as well, with both personal and guild varieties being present in four capital cities so far.

Things are not always sunny however. Some glaring errors are present in the game. The UI and general intuitiveness of the systems present are incredibly dated and arcane. This is likely due in part to the need to keep things workable for the console players, and probably Square Enix not understanding their playerbase, especially in the West. In addition, due to how the story is the main system of progression, for those wanting to roleplay with a full understanding it is effectively mandatory to do the main story questline to completion before taking part in substantial or heavy roleplay. Finally and probably the most glaring problem is the issue of the community itself. While the general projection is that the FF14 community is very welcoming and kinder than the WoW community, this is only really applicable to the US servers. Both Crystal and Primal - the main ones - are highly active, busy and brimming with both helpful people and roleplay, so much so it spills out into the open world and cities. Crystal in particular is the most analogous to “golden age” Argent Dawn. The only major issue is the “problem” of ERP being quite acceptable and open in the games RP community, no weirdly KKK cosplaying attempts to shut it down will work here, unfortunately for some. That said it can be ignored and the players soliciting can be reported if they persist - and square enix is very good at customer support. However, the European servers are a whole other beast. Light has no roleplay of any major or notable amount, and half of the servers on it are not even populated. Outside of Lich, Shiva and Odin there are scant few players around. Chaos has more people on it, but the wrong kind of people. I have spoken to a now silly number of people on Crystal and to a lesser extent Primal giving abject horror stories they have brought from the Chaos server group. Most of the RP happens on Omega, with some smaller level on Moogle and Ragnarok. Though to call it RP is generous. Their “roleplay” consists of generally playing self-inserts in Second Life tier social roleplay. Those few who engage in actual roleplay often find themselves ostracised or even - subtly - harassed - remember, square enix are very good at customer support - for trying to roleplay within the setting they are in. It is no surprise then that there are more European players playing on the US server groups than on their own. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally the old man, though potentially most balanced of the three is the well established Galaxy Far Far Away - the setting of Star Wars: The Old Republic. With a colossal lore from both in game and the extended Old Republic universe itself the game has tremendous potential for all manner of RP, from your traditional Sith or Jedi RP to space Criminals, Military, space Researchers/Academics, Political RP and most things in between. The Stronghold System, while dated compared to the others does allow for expansive and varied environments to do both public and private roleplay within, with a whole catalogue of venues being available for perusal. Besides that, the planets themselves are highly expansive and massive in terms of scale, easily twice the size of major zones in WoW often with a variety of environments that make the planets seem like an actual world, or part of at least. Hoth really does have the sensation you are on a frozen tomb in the Outer Ring. The downsides of the game however are rather heavy. Roleplay is almost entirely guild centric, though not hidden away by any means. Competing “headcanons” have been know to create problems, but as the Galaxy is big enough it really boils down to a matter of taste rather than sociopathic cult leaders attempting to control the roleplay for everyone. In addition, the system of the game are woefully clunky, with the worst customisation for characters present, even if the transmog system is better than WoW’s. Thankfully the new expansion for it is coming soon which promises to revamp both character agency and customisation and fix systems that are horrendously out of place in 2021. Finally the other main issue of TOR is the presence of the free to play, but pay and get more model. Freemium is neither the F2P that ESO offers or the simple subscription model FF14 offers.

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

With all that said, each game has its flaws and perks. Considering there loudest voices seem to be indicating either a shift towards ESO or FF14, it will be interesting to see if these become permanent converts - with all the moral grandstanding about how terrible Blizzard is - or they will quietly slink back to Azeroth once the dust settles and nothing sadly is done about the appalling corporate problems in Blizzard. I personally will remain engaged on Argent Dawn. WoW itself is a product that is shaped by its community more than its sleazy developers and strangulating Blizzard over it is realistically likely to cause more harm long term. Besides, how can we reclaim the setting for the players if we all decide to jump ship?

[carewyncromwell]

The Cinderella AU is back...and with it, a proper introduction to the character who fills the “evil stepmother” role -- Carewyn’s cold, cruel grandfather, Charles Cromwell. If you’d like to learn more about Charles and his family’s canon counterparts, you can consult this post, but to summarize quickly, in Carewyn’s canon, Carewyn’s mother Lane ran away from home to elope with a Muggle, which ended up protecting Carewyn and Jacob from Charles’s emotionally abusive influence. (At least until R started going after them, because hey, what d’you know, in Carey-bear’s canon, Charles is R’s leader.) But in this AU, Carewyn has to answer to Charles for some reason...so yeah, that doesn’t bode well, does it? You’ll just have to read on to learn a little more about why that might be...

Fashion changed very dramatically during the Renaissance, thanks in large part to the cross-pollination of different cultures and influences that came from more extensive travel, the growing popularity of published works, and royal funding of the arts. Pre-Renaissance men’s fashion, at least for the nobility, was very big on oversized sleeves, which ended up creating a more “top-heavy” frame. (Just look at most portraits of King Henry VIII.) As the Renaissance went on, though, trunk hose (which creates that kind of “bubble butt” look that we’re used to seeing in William Shakespeare Halloween costumes) became the latest fad, shifting a man’s frame to be much more “bottom-heavy.” Women’s fashion briefly flirted with wide trumpet sleeves (as one can see in this portrait of a young Elizabeth Tudor, later Queen Elizabeth I), but by the time the 1550′s were over, rounded sleeves grew much more popular. Fitted sleeves also went in and out of style in a lot of Europe throughout the 16th century, though sleeves were considered a special feature on gowns, so they often had a lot of embellishments, such as paneling, embroidery, or puffs. One exception to this rule, however, was in Italy, where fitted, detachable sleeves that could be used on multiple gowns became fashionable. Fashion in Italy in the 16th century was notably understated and modest compared to a lot of Europe, which tended to favor a lot of ornate beading and embroidery -- there were even laws on the books restricting how “bedazzled” women’s fashion could be. One such law even banned stripes, as it was considered wasteful to use two different kinds of fabric just to make a pattern. That being said, there were plenty of people in Italy who said “screw the rules” and worked around them anyway. Carewyn’s dress in this picture is somewhat based on this design, but with some tweaking, most notably with a fuller skirt and more ornate and puffy sleeves.

Previous part is here -- whole tag is here -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

When the end of the month arrived, Andre requested that Carewyn come to his chambers bright and early in the morning. Carewyn had anticipated that the prince had some extra duties for her to attend to, but instead, he immediately led her over to a corner of his bed chamber that he’d drawn a curtain around. When he pulled the curtain back, he revealed a full tailoring station inside his walk-in closet, complete with organized rolls of fabric, various jewels and beads strewn about over a table, several unfinished hats stacked on the nearby desk, an entire separate wardrobe of unfinished pieces, and several mannequins with fine fabrics half-pinned on them.

One mannequin, however, was wearing a completely finished, luxurious dark scarlet gown. It was made of about six different fabrics, all cut and sewn together in a complex tapestry of folds and textures and trimmed with many sparkling beads and jewels. Also lying on the floor just in front of the dress was a pair of heeled shoes made of off-white cloth with red and white roses sewn into the toes.

Carewyn couldn’t help but gape. Andre was grinning from ear to ear.

“So?” he asked. “What do you think?”

Carewyn glanced out the side of her eye at the prince, over to the dress, and back.

“Did you...make this, your Highness?” she asked, amazed.

Andre laughed. “Carewyn, please, it’s ‘Andre.’ But yes! I got inspired while working on your shoes, so I stitched this up to go with it. ...Do you like it?”

Carewyn walked around the mannequin to look over the gown, not daring to touch it. She’d never seen so many fine fabrics on one dress before -- velvet, linen, silk -- and all the embellishments must’ve taken full days to finish --

“It’s -- well, it’s extraordinary, your -- Andre,” she corrected herself very quickly noticing the prince’s pointed smile. Even she was finding it difficult not to smile too. “The beading on the sleeves, the lace work -- the alternating wool and cotton paneling along the bodice...it’s worthy of an artisan!”

Andre looked clearly both incredibly pleased and impressed. “You have an eye for detail, Carewyn!”

His face burst into a bright white grin as he bent down and picked up one of the off-white cloth shoes.

“I’m pleased you like it,” he said brightly. “I thought it’d be the perfect thing for you to wear today. Lord Cromwell sent a message to the palace asking Father if you could return home for a visit -- so I worked all night to get this done in time so that you could wear it for your outing with your new shoes.”

Despite her best efforts, Carewyn couldn’t completely keep the dismay and discomfort she felt off her face.

“What? Oh -- oh, your Highness, I -- ”

“Ah, ah, ah,” chided Andre, “what have I asked you to call me?”

“Andre,” Carewyn corrected very quickly, her eyes drifting up onto the dress rather than at Andre, “this dress is...truly beautiful...but it befits a lady of status, not -- ”

“It fits you,” Andre said, undaunted. “I used the measurements from your uniform fitting. It should fit you like a glove -- or better.”

Carewyn felt like her stomach was shriveling up. She hated turning away such a lovely gift -- under any other circumstances, she would love wearing it out and about. But...

“That...that is...it’s so kind of you, to use me as your template...”

Or “dress-up doll” -- that is what the Queen said I would be, isn’t it?

“...but I simply couldn’t wear such a gift on my visit...not when I have no comparable gifts to bring my cousins. Many of them are around my age, and...and well, I know Heather, Iris, and Dahlia would be very upset, knowing I got to wear such a beautiful dress and they didn’t.”

None of her cousins had ever been very respectful of Carewyn’s personal belongings. Not long after she first arrived, her aunt Pearl’s two bullying sons, Kain and Arsen, stole her jewelry box while she was sleeping and sold both it and its contents for pocket change. Her youngest cousin, her uncle Blaise’s bratty son Tristan, had once thrown a bottle of red wine out the window that shattered mere feet away from Carewyn and soaked her dress so badly that it never washed out. Even Iris had -- after Carewyn caught the eye of one of her suitors who’d come to call -- ripped the sleeve off Carewyn’s dress so badly that she had to hide from sight for most of the day, until she’d managed to sew it up enough that her chest wasn’t exposed. Carewyn had had to hide her mother’s old dress from her cousins for years, for fear they might steal and/or ruin it.

Andre frowned deeply.

“Well, I hardly can send along anything for your cousins without knowing their measurements,” he said with a quick glance at the wardrobe full of unfinished pieces.

His face then brightened with an idea.

“How about this -- I’ll order you. I order you to wear this dress on your trip home, and to have your cousins give you their honest opinion of it. Then you must bring their opinions back to me. Goodness knows I could use some feedback -- and maybe a few new ideas, if they have them,” he added with a teasing grin.

Carewyn opened her mouth to object, but Andre cut her off.

“As your prince, I command you to showcase my work to your family,” he said through a broad grin. “Am I clear?”

Carewyn really, really didn’t love the idea -- but she had to concede that she could use this to her advantage. She needed a stable place at the palace in order to achieve her goals, and she could help maintain that stable place at the palace by justifying to Charles why she had to be there. And Charles’s whole interest in her being there was to try to endear the Cromwells further to the royal family, and maybe even secure one of her Aunt Claire’s daughters a space in that family...

So, with a heavy sigh, she put on a small smile and inclined her head respectfully.

“Very well, Andre. I’ll wear your work proudly.”

And so Carewyn set off for the Cromwell estate on horseback, dressed in the new shoes and dress Andre had made for her. The shoes were lovely and fit perfectly, but they were rather impractical for walking around outdoors. Carewyn thought to herself that she might have to continue wearing her old shoes when she returned to her palace work, if for no other reason that she hated the thought of getting them scuffed up.

As to be expected, when she arrived, her cousins reacted very hostilely to her appearance.

“Well, well,” sneered curly-black-haired Kain, “what do we have here? Playacting as a lady, little Winnie?”

“All hail Lady Cinderwyn, Duchess of Dust!” sniggered his similarly dark-haired brother Arsen.

He reached for her wide skirt, but Carewyn -- remaining on her horse -- steered herself far enough back that he couldn’t reach.

“I wouldn’t damage this, if I were you,” she said as coolly and levelly as she could. “It’s not mine.”

Arsen and Kain exchanged a mocking, wide-eyed look and an “oooooh.”

“Are you a thief now, little Winnie?” asked Kain. “How far you’ve fallen -- we might need to call the castle guard on you -- ”

“Cinderwyn’s a thief!” crowed tiny Tristan in a sing-song voice. “Cinderwyn’s a thief!”

Claire’s three daughters looked a lot less mocking.

“You have some nerve, stealing clothes from your betters,” spat dainty, brown-haired Heather. “Grandfather should lash you within an inch of your life -- ”

“I haven’t stolen anything,” Carewyn said very firmly. “Now I wish to see Grandfather. I have a message from the Prince he’ll want to hear.”

“Grandfather’s inside,” said Claire’s gangling, button-nosed son Elmer with a crooked smile. “I’m sure he’ll enjoy your new look, Lady Cinderwyn...especially with the finishing touch!”

He jumped right into a mud puddle that splashed everywhere. Carewyn just barely avoided the spray, but when she moved back, Dahlia and Iris successfully grabbed hold of her velvet brocaded skirt and yanked hard in either direction, as if trying to rip it.

“Iris -- Dahlia --  ” said Carewyn, her voice growing colder and harder as she struggled to hold in her temper and emotion as best she could, “if either of you have any ambition to marry his Highness, I would strongly suggest letting go of his dress this instant!”

All of Carewyn’s cousins stiffened.

“His dress?” repeated Dahlia, looking outraged. “You mean to say you took this from the Prince?!”

“He bid me to wear it, for my visit,” Carewyn shot back fiercely. “Or would you have me oppose his Highness’s will?”

“You...arrogant, pretentious, ungrateful little rat!” shrieked Dahlia. She tried to yank Carewyn off her horse, and there was a slight struggle as Carewyn tried to both comfort her horse and prevent Dahlia from dislodging her.

“Now, now, children,” said a very coldly serene voice, “a little less noise there.”

All of the Cromwell children looked up to see Charles Cromwell striding across the lawn. He was dressed in black, gray, and white with a dark red cape with black trim, and he supported himself on an ebony-wood cane with a dragon’s head carved out of black zircon for a handle. Behind him were Carewyn’s aunts, Pearl and Claire, with their husbands, as well as her uncle Blaise. All three of them were looking over Carewyn’s outfit disapprovingly -- Blaise looked particularly irritated, his upper lip curling as he rested a hand on top of Tristan’s shoulder that made the small boy flinch.

Iris and Dahlia were still clinging to Carewyn’s skirt, but they’d frozen up like startled cats when their grandfather appeared.

“Grandfather -- ” stammered Iris, “W-Winnie’s a no-good thief -- she stole this dress from -- !”

"I have stolen nothing,” Carewyn repeated coldly. She stroked her horse’s white mane several times to soothe it.

Pearl too had come up to rest a hand on Arsen’s shoulder and was looking at Carewyn very critically out her own almond-shaped blue eyes -- most of Carewyn’s family had them.

“Is that so?” she said, her voice a low growl in her throat. “Explain, then, what gives you the nerve to show up here dressed in such obnoxious clothes.”

“It’s positively garish,” added Claire in a higher, simpering tone from her comfortable spot in her husband’s arms, mirroring her sister’s disapproval like a child would imitate their older sibling.

Carewyn raised her eyebrows very coolly. “Prince Henri will be very disappointed to hear that. He worked very hard on this.”

This startled all of the Cromwells. Blaise looked scandalized.

“And I suppose that makes you think the Prince favors you somehow?” he spat, his eyes flashing dangerously as he released Tristan’s shoulder and approached Carewyn’s horse. “Rather than just thinking of using you as some saucy little tart and then discarding you, just like your wretch of a father did your mother -- ”

"I think nothing of the sort,” Carewyn cut him off coldly.

Don’t you dare talk about my mother.

Charles, the least visibly startled, took a few steps forward. Iris and Dahlia finally released Carewyn’s skirt so as to get out of the way, and Charles came to a stop about three feet from Carewyn’s horse, his own almond-shaped eyes locked on his ginger-haired granddaughter’s face.

“I believe you owe me a full report, child,” he said quietly. “Stand before me and give it.”

Carewyn’s red-painted lips pursed as she picked up her skirts and descended from her horse at last. She looked up at Charles with a very stoic expression.

“Prince Henri learned that I would be coming to see you, as per your request,” she explained. “He commanded that I wear this dress, for my visit. He’s heard about my cousins and desires Dahlia, Iris, and Heather’s opinions on it. Then he requested I deliver their feedback back to him this evening.”

The time limit was a flat-out lie, but one Carewyn knew she could get away with. She did not want to stay at the Cromwell estate overnight -- she’d rather sleep on a lumpy old cot in the servants’ quarters than on the floor by the kitchen fireplace. 

Claire looked at Charles, her face breaking into a rather eager expression. “His Highness wishes to hear from my daughters? He must have heard from the rest of the court of their extensive talents -- ”

“Or at least purported talents,” said Blaise under his breath with a rather cynical look. “Seems the rumor mill is working well...“

Pearl shot Blaise a glare, but Claire didn’t seem to hear him -- she had already whirled on Carewyn.

“Tell his Highness that the dress is a work of art, fit for a queen!” she said insistently. “And make sure that he knows that there are much better models for his work here, at the Cromwell estate -- Iris has a far superior build, Dahlia the most perfect shoulders -- ”

“I suppose Winnie can do far worse than inanely fawning over your daughters’ target on their behalf,” said Blaise in a rather cutting voice. “Mindlessly swooning certainly worked for you.”

“Blaise!” Pearl snapped reproachfully.

Charles’s eyes drifted over Claire and her three anxious-looking daughters thoughtfully.

“...What feedback...do you believe would most please his Highness, child?” he asked Carewyn.

“He appreciated it when I noticed the details,” said Carewyn. “I would think if anyone had any creative ideas to add onto it...or perhaps constructive criticism...he might react well to it. His Highness is very interested in fashion and tailoring...I’m sure he would appreciate knowing someone who could indulge in that passion with him.”

He must be awfully lonely, locked up in the palace all the time. It’s no wonder he tried to find things to do indoors that could bring him some joy, if he’s unable to go much of anywhere...

Charles’s eyes flitted over the silk and ornate beading on Carewyn’s sleeves.

“His Highness certainly does have an eye for finery...has the royal family come into additional wealth recently?”

“I don’t think so,” said Carewyn. “The castle staff is very limited. And although the nobility are all dressed and fed well and the castle is decadent, the staff is frequently short of common necessities like nails and coal for the fire. Not to mention the staff’s rations are sparse.”

Iris gave a loud, haughty laugh. “Ha! Probably just as well -- you could do with getting some of that meat off your thighs!”

“Iris,” said Charles very sleekly, even as the rest of Carewyn’s cousins sniggered.

His lips curled up in a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

“...It seems that the King and Queen are indeed in need of our family’s charity. But we must indulge their pride. It’ll be far easier for them to accept help from a future daughter-in-law and princess than simply from a loyal servant of the realm. Carewyn -- you shall report back what his Highness wishes to hear. Customize three answers for Heather, Iris, and Dahlia -- one fawning, one critical, one creative. Whichever answer he likes best, we will then pursue that route with the cousin you’ve assigned to it.”

His almond-shaped blue eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly upon Carewyn’s face.

“And once we’ve secured an invitation from the Prince...I expect that you will step aside, to make room for your cousin to make her move.”

Carewyn’s expression didn’t shift.

“I’m not interested in courting princes,” she said lowly.

Heather, Iris, and Dahlia can knock themselves out. Andre will see through them sooner or later, and it’ll be all their own fault.

There was a cold, diamond-like glint in Charles’s eye. “...Yes...you truly don’t care to chase any man except for your brother...do you, Carewyn, my dear?”

Carewyn tried not to blink or look away.

“You have news of Jacob?”

Charles sighed airily. “I’m afraid not, my dear. I know he’s well, of course...but news from the War front, as you know, is simply impossible to come by...”

“You know he’s alive,” Carewyn shot back a bit more sharply than she meant to. “That doesn’t mean he’s well. No one could be doing well out there.”

“And yet I’m sure you’re happy that the first is guaranteed?” said Charles. “At least, so long as you do your duty to your family, and to me?”

It was a warning, but it was done so delicately -- it was like his voice was flirting with a threat, rather than flat-out making one.

Carewyn’s lips came together tightly as her gaze drifted to the ground.

“You know I wish no harm to come to either you or Jacob,” Charles said softly. “Losing a child was terrible enough, losing grandchildren as well...well, it would deeply upset me. And per our agreement, you are the one who must shoulder the burden of your brother’s and your debt to me...particularly since you have no dowry and no possible claim to my estate. Remember, Carewyn...you are responsible for how you are treated -- and for how Jacob is treated.” 

Carewyn’s eyebrows knit tightly together over her closed eyes.

“...Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now then -- rehearse the answers you plan to give to his Highness with your cousins. I wish them to sound convincing, so that when one or more of them is invited to the palace, they will be able to play their part appropriately.”

Carewyn hated every minute of hashing out responses with Heather, Iris, and Dahlia. Like their mother Claire, they and Elmer were all “follower” type personalities who tended to echo whatever they thought would please others -- so Dahlia, Iris, and Heather were constantly trying to steal each other’s ideas to “improve” Carewyn’s answers, despite all three of them supposedly needing to take three different approaches as part of Charles’s plan. Even the three girls’ hostile attitude toward Carewyn largely came down to her refusing to follow their direction, despite her lowered status in the family giving them authority over her -- something that, Carewyn believed, they would never do if their positions were switched.

When Carewyn was finally ready to leave (and successfully avoided Tristan’s muddy hands when the wickedly grinning little boy forcibly tried to hug her goodbye so he could leave stains on her dress), Blaise pulled Charles aside. As the male heir of the Cromwell legacy, Blaise had always followed in his father’s footsteps most, but there was one thing they didn’t agree on.

“Father,” he said, his voice very low in the back of his throat as he watched Carewyn ride away at a fast gallop, “I don’t approve of her returning to that place.”

Charles smiled coldly. “You always have disliked sharing your toys with others, Blaise.”

“It’s a bad influence!” said Blaise, whirling on his father. “We can’t monitor what she does, how she behaves -- who she speaks to -- how can we hope to keep her, if we consistently open her cage?”

Charles’s eyes, the same color and shape of all of his children and most of his grandchildren, sparkled with something crueler.

“Ah, my boy,” he said sardonically, “you have much to learn about cages. Physical cages have strong bars, but ones easy to see and constantly weathered. But a cage forged carefully in another’s mind...can become so strong that the prisoner willingly chooses to stay.”

Charles turned on his heel, his lips curling up further still even though his face remained so doll-like and emotionless.

“As weak and overemotional of a thing she is, Carewyn is far more like you and me than Lane ever was. She’s very resourceful and she’ll do whatever she has to in order to get what she wants -- and that drive fuels everything she is and does. It may make her spirited, but it also makes it so that as long as she sees Jacob’s life in the palm of my hand...so too will she be.”

Blaise’s eyes flickered with a strange skepticism. “And...if Jacob’s life were ever not under your sway?”

Charles’s expression grew even more detached and emotionless as his smile faded and his eyebrows raised.

“...Would Carewyn really want to contemplate what state he’d be in, if he weren’t?”

Carewyn couldn’t be happier to leave the Cromwell estate behind. She didn’t slow down her horse’s pace until she’d reached the outskirts of the market, well after the manor house was out of sight. Only then did she slow her horse down to a leisurely trot, so that she could enjoy some time on her own wandering down the village streets before heading back to the palace. The castle staff wasn’t expecting her back to work until the following morning, so she could take her time.

Unfortunately for Carewyn, there was another reason her cousin Tristan’s hands had been so muddy -- and that reason soon became apparent when Carewyn reached into one of the pockets on the side of her saddle, thinking to temporarily change out of the pretty shoes Andre had given her and were now pinching her feet for the ride home. When she reached into the pocket, she instead found the tiny snake that Tristan had stolen out of the reeds by the nearby pond.

With a scream of surprise, Carewyn flung the snake to the ground -- the snake arched back, hissing angrily, and that in turn spooked Carewyn’s horse. With a loud, scared whinny, it reared back, bucking wildly.

“Whoa!” cried Carewyn. “Whoa, boy -- whoa!”

Several passerby turned around at the sound of the noise. A few looked like they wanted to help, but were too warded off by the horse’s kicking feet. Carewyn tried desperately to calm her horse, stroking its mane with one hand and clinging desperately onto the reins with the other, but it was no use. She wasn’t strong enough to wrench her horse into submission. And so when the horse gave a particularly violent jerk, Carewyn was thrown right off.

“AHH!”

Out of nowhere, someone dashed forward. Carewyn ended up slamming right into them, and the two landed roughly in a heap in the dirt.

Carewyn watched her horse gallop off the street, her face very tense and distraught. She then looked down at the person she’d landed on top of, and she gave a visible start.

Her “hero” was a man about her age dressed in modest clothes with tanned skin, slightly-too-long dark hair, and a beard. His sparkling black eyes were squinted slightly as he winced in pain, but nonetheless shone with some concern as he looked her over.

“Are you hurt, Lady Cromwell?” asked Orion.

[searchingwardrobes]

The Early Leaf’s a Flower: 10/11

Here’s another M rated chapter, and this time for a more enjoyable reason :) In addition to sexy times, there are a lot of revelations in this chapter. I can’t believe we are almost to the end! You all have been so supportive of this story, especially those of you who were fans of the original. Thank you for trusting me and sticking with this new version!

Thank you once again to the mods of the @captainswanbigbang for hosting the Captain Swan Rewrite a Thon. Also massive thanks to my betas @shippingtheswann and @optimisticgirl. I also owe a lot to all of my fellow writers in the discord chats for your conversations about creating my own version of Neverland and the other realms.

Summary: She saw eyes that were the blue of the forget me not peering at her through the cracked door of the wardrobe. He saw hair as gold as the buttercups. Why does the wardrobe keep bringing them back to one another, if fate keeps tearing them apart? Or maybe fate has her reasons …

Rating: M for sexy times, violence, canonical character death, and attempted rape

Trigger warnings: vague references to child abuse (physical and sexual), violence, and positive Millian

Words: About 5k in this chapter

** Complete and updated every Monday** Also on Ao3

Chapter Ten: No Lovelier Sight

Killian stands behind the wheel, the biting air here above the clouds cutting across his cheeks. Above him, the pegasus sail snaps in the breeze as they make their way to Neverland. Below him, Emma stands looking out at the blue sky and wispy clouds, her hair flying around her like an enchantress. Milah’s old skirts billow around her as well, the bottom hem only hitting the top of her boots. After all, their former owner was but seventeen when she died, and Emma is a woman of twenty-three.

He had sat upon the edge of his cot earlier after retrieving Milah’s things from her old trunk, Emma next to him, and told her more about the girl they had once belonged to as well as what she had meant to him. He doesn’t plan on hiding anything from Emma, especially not when she walked away from the only realm that has ever been her home.

Yet Emma had barely reacted to his story, simply staring straight ahead, her occasional nods the only sign that she was listening at all. She hasn’t spoken much at all since he told her about Henry.

“Starkey,” Killian calls, “can you take over?”

“Of course sir,” his first mate answers, handing the sextant over to Curly.

With the ship in capable hands, Killian moves to the lower deck and slowly approaches Emma. She turns to him, managing a trembling smile as she pushes her hair out of her eyes.

“The air is thin and cold at this altitude,” Killian says, “are you sure you don’t want my coat?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t feel it,” she tells him softly, “I don’t feel anything.”

He isn’t sure what comfort she needs from him, but he opens his arms for her. Emma comes willingly, pressing her face to his collarbone and grasping him tightly about the waist. She shudders, and he wraps his arms around her.

“You’ve had a lot to process in a very short amount of time,” he tells her soothingly as he rubs her back gently. “First your attack, and then the news about your son . . . “

“I just don’t understand,” Emma mumbles against his chest. “He was a newborn baby. A woman was adopting him. A woman with a nice home in a nice little town.”

“I don’t know, love,” Killian sighs, wishing he could help her more. “Tink said that giving him up wasn’t easy for John Darling. He had him for two years before he brought him to Neverland. I think he got a bit attached.”

“But he didn’t love him,” Emma says bitterly, stepping out of Killian’s embrace and swiping angrily at the tear tracks on her cheeks. “Not enough, anyway.”

Killian can only nod, for he fully agrees. There’s really nothing more he can say. Emma reaches for his hand, and he takes it, lacing their fingers together. She pulls him near as she turns back to look at the clouds as they roll by. She pulls his arms around her waist and leans her back against his chest. Her hair smells like vanilla and cinnamon. Her hand slides down his left arm to grasp his hook, and he can hardly breathe past the lump in his throat.

“He’s five years old now, Killian. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. He wasn’t supposed to grow up like me.”

“There’s one difference between your childhood and his, though. His mother is on her way to rescue him.”

Emma turns in his embrace, and a tear rolls down her cheek. “What if he doesn’t want anything to do with me? What if he hates me?”

Killian catches the tear with the pad of his thumb, then caresses the dimple in her chin. “I don’t see how anyone can hate you, my love. And children are infinitely forgiving. Think back to when you were five, Emma.”

She gives him a tremulous smile even as her eyes flood with more tears. He lets his forehead drop to hers, though he won’t initiate a kiss. That will be on her timetable, not his.

“My love,” she whispers, “I like the sound of that.”

She turns her head into his shoulder and wraps her arms around his neck as he holds her tighter.

“Your heart’s desire, Swan. That’s all I want for you.”

“What I want is my son. To love him and have him love me back. Is that selfish?”

Killian buries his fingers in her hair. “Not at all. I believe that’s called a mother’s heart.”

*****************************************

“It’s beautiful,” Emma breathes as soon as the Jolly Roger settles upon the waves after her magical flight. Killian comes to stand at Emma’s side, taking in the sight of Neverland on the horizon with fresh eyes. Dead Man’s Peak is no longer a hulk of jagged rock, but a verdant mountain. Skull Rock has mostly crumbled into the sea, leaving behind a shimmering coral reef. The ribbon of Rainbow Falls can even be seen cascading down into the valley.

“It wasn’t always,” Killian sighs, “but you’re right, it’s gorgeous now.”

Emma grins as she leans farther over the railing of the ship, and Killian’s heart is warmed to see it upon her face. She awoke this morning in a cold sweat, thrashing against an unseen foe. When she finally calmed in the circle of his arms, she explained the nightmare. She was back in that crumbling house, being attacked by those men, only her lad was there too. She was reliving her trauma, that Killian knew all too well, but he also guessed that her fears about meeting her son were also wrapped up in her nightmares.

“Mermaids!” she exclaims, pointing.

Killian leans over with her, and sure enough, a school of mermaids are leaping through the water alongside the ship. Frankly, he feels they’re showing off with their over-the-top acrobatics.

“They’re so colorful,” Emma observes.

“Aye,” Killian says, slipping his arm around Emma’s shoulder, “they’re happy to have their lagoon back. Soon the island will be teeming with the mystical creatures that used to live here so long ago.”

Emma shakes her head. “I still can’t believe Peter Pan was evil in real life.” Then she frowns. “And I’m a little pissed that I don’t get to kill him myself for what he did to my son.”

Killian holds back a chuckle, for he knows her anger is real. It makes his blood boil as well. Yet he loves this bold and brilliant woman, and admires her avenging spirit probably more than he should. He brushes a kiss to her temple.

“I would bring him back if I could, just so I could see you unleash your wrath on him. The gods know he deserves it.”

Emma wraps her arms around his waist and rests her head on his chest. “Thank you for saving Henry.”

“You’ve said that far too many times already, Swan.”

“Well, you’ll just have to hear me say it again.”

Hook and his crew sail the Jolly Roger into Pirate’s Cove as they always have, but even his men are struck silent at how the island has changed. Bright flowers bloom, and the songs of tropical birds fill the air. The remnants of Rainbow Falls trickles over the rocks of the bluffs ahead in a soothing rhythm.

Killian leaves his men with the ship and guides Emma through the thick trees, following the river that cuts through the island. Tink and Tiger Lily told him that no more dreamshade grows here. Every time a pixie dust tree blooms with new life, every dreamshade plant in its vicinity shrivels up and dies. Killian is glad he no longer has to fear the evil plant.

Emma is quiet as they walk along the path to the home of the fairies. He senses her nerves, and gives her hand a comforting squeeze. The smile she gives him is forced, but she squeezes back.

Tiger Lily and Tinkerbell no longer have reason to hide their domicile, so the cave is now open to the sunshine, and smoke rises cheerily from the chimney.

“This looks cozy,” Emma says, biting her lip.

“Aye, though the smoke there is just for show. Tink has this idea that every home needs a fire going, even when it’s bloody 99 degrees outside.”

Emma manages a nervous laugh and follows him down the short passageway to the main part of the house. Killian taps his hook in the open doorway to alert those inside to their presence.

Tiger Lily, unsurprisingly, isn’t home. Tink is at the sink doing dishes, but gasps and drops a bowl into the sudsy water when she sees her guests. Her hands fly to her mouth as she dashes across the room.

“You’re . . . you’re Henry’s mother!”

Emma gives Killian a surprised look, and he shakes his head in confusion.

“How in the world do you know that, Tink?”

“Oh Hook, really? I’m a fairy, I know these things.”

“She’s been impossible since she got her wings back,” Killian tells Emma.

Said wings flutter in indignation as Tink glares at him. “And you, Hook, have no manners. You haven’t even introduced me to our guest.”

“I didn’t have a chance the way you’ve been blubbering on.”

“I’m Emma,” Swan interrupts, giving Killian a pointed look, “and yes, I’m Henry’s mother.” She glances around the room, worrying once again at her bottom lip. “Where is he?”

“He’s napping,” Tink says, “but we could tiptoe in there if you like.”

“Should I?” Emma asks nervously. “I mean, I don’t want to scare him.”

Tink waves her hand. “He sleeps like a rock, believe me. Such a pleasant, sweet child, really.”

Emma’s cheeks pink and her hands twist nervously as she follows Tink down the short hallway. The fairy opens the door slowly to reveal a darkened room with twinkling lights strung from the ceiling. In one corner is a twin sleigh bed, and snuggled under the soft blankets is a little boy with chestnut hair. Emma’s trembling hand flies to her lips as she tiptoes closer. His cheeks are plump, his ears stick out from his head in an adorable way, and Emma can’t help noticing that he has Neal’s nose. She glances behind her and sees that Killian and Tink have slipped away to give her privacy.

Emma sinks to her knees beside the bed, her hand hovering over the child’s head. A half sob chokes in her throat as she gently strokes her little boy’s soft hair. He shifts in his sleep, clutching the teddy bear at his chest a bit tighter, and Emma quickly pulls her hand back. He rolls over, flinging one arm out, and that’s when Emma sees it: the buttercup birthmark that matches hers. The one she hasn’t seen since the day he was born. There’s no mistaking it, this is her son.

She rises from the floor and tiptoes back out of the room and down the hall. When she sees Killian, he gives her a concerned look, and she flies to him. He lets out a puff of breath when she collides with his chest, but he instinctively holds her tight.

“He’s beautiful,” she chokes out.

******************************

“John Darling adopted Henry when he was three years old. Apparently, he had terrible colic as an infant and severe night terrors after that, so he had been difficult for children’s services to place.”

Tink’s words seem to have little effect on Emma. Killian watches her with concern. The cup of tea in her hands is surely cold by now, and Emma hasn’t lifted it to her lips once since Tink gave it to her. She stares into the flames of the enchanted fire and idly pushes Wendy’s old rocking chair back and forth with her foot. Tink catches Killian’s gaze in concern, but he gives her a barely perceptible shake of his head. If Emma wants to engage, she can, but he won’t force her.

Tink clears her throat and leans towards Emma. “I believe Henry’s difficulties - the colic and the night terrors - has to do with him being a child of two realms.”

That catches Emma’s attention, and her gaze snaps quickly to Tink. “Two realms?”

Tink opens her mouth, but before she can explain, a small voice pipes up from the hallway, and Henry shuffles in. His face is flushed and sweaty from sleep, his hair is sticking up crazily, and he drags his teddy bear behind him by one leg. He freezes when he sees Emma and Killian. Tink notices and rushes to scoop the boy up on her lap.

“Henry, you remember Killian, right?” She brushes at his hair as Henry nods shyly. “And this . . . “

Tink edges towards Emma slowly, and Emma sets down her cup of tea with shaking hands. She edges onto her knees so she is eye level with Henry.

“ . . . this,” Tink continues, “is your mother, Henry. She’s come for you.”

“Hi, Henry,” Emma whispers, smiling despite her choked voice.

The boy blinks as he takes Emma in, then he eases off Tink’s lap and comes closer to the mother he hasn’t seen since the day of his birth. Killian can tell Emma is overwhelmed and that she longs to touch her son. He also knows she won’t until the child is ready.

Henry pulls his teddy bear closer and rests his chin between the toy’s ears. “Do you want to see my other toys?” he asks Emma softly.

Emma’s smile is wide and beaming. “Yes, I would like that.”

Henry reaches out and takes Emma’s hand. Once they’re out of sight, Killian drops his face to his hands, unable to help the tears that leak out of the corners of his eyes.

*******************************

“I can scarcely believe how much it’s changed,” Killian muses to Tinkerbell as he looks around him, “we were only gone a few days.”

He’s lounging on a picnic blanket, Tink sitting cross-legged next to him. Emma has taken Henry down to the edge of the water for a swim. The blanket is scattered with the remains of their lunch.

“It truly is beautiful,” Tink says with a sigh.

Killian tosses an apple core into the woods behind him, then lays back, flinging his arm across his eyes and resting his hook on his stomach. Tink gives a sardonic half laugh, haugh snort.

“Don’t get too comfortable, pirate, there are still a few lost boys out there.”

Killian rises up on his elbows and arches a brow at the fairy. “You think they’d cause trouble?”

Tink shrugs, squinting out at the water. “Felix was loyal to Pan almost to the point of obsession. They’ve melted into the deepest part of the jungle and are quiet for now, but . . . “

“Well, I’m not borrowing trouble,” Killian grumbles. His eyes find Emma and Henry, and his voice grows thick with emotion. “I’d rather enjoy a quiet moment while I have it.”

The sun shines on the water of Mermaid Lagoon, making it sparkle like diamonds. The songs of the mermaids float on the air, and it’s just as beautiful as Tink had always said. Henry is knee deep in the water, laughing every time one of the mermaids flicks her tail at him. They’ve learned that the creatures can be rather mischievous, but one named Ariel has taken a particular liking to Henry. Ariel’s their princess, actually, and her fondness for the boy means they all remain on their best behavior with him.

Killian laughs at Henry’s antics. Each time he lunges for a mermaid tail, said mermaid darts away, and the five year old ends up splashing face first into the water. Yet every time, he resurfaces with a sputtering giggle. Killian’s gaze shifts to Emma. She and Tink are the same size, so the fairy has loaned her some clothes. Emma is currently wearing a one-shouldered dress of ocean green that hugs her figure. The skirt normally hits just below her calves, but Emma has it hitched up to her knees. She sits on a rock next to Henry, her legs in the water. Henry splashes her, and she splashes back. Then Emma opens her arms wide, and Henry launches himself into her embrace. Emma presses him close, not caring that he’s getting her completely wet.

“These two weeks have been good for both of them,” Tink comments.

“Aye,” Killian agrees, unable to tear his gaze away from the woman he loves. Emma rises from the rock, cradling Henry like a baby, and walks up the beach towards them. Killian can see that Henry is getting sleepy by the way his arms have gone slack in his mother’s arms. Sure enough, when Emma deposits him on the picnic blanket, the lad’s eyelids are drooping. Emma wraps him up in a towel, and Henry curls up in a ball on the blanket, hugging his teddy bear close. Emma catches Killian’s gaze and smiles as she brushes Henry’s wet hair out of his face. Soon, the boy’s breaths even out, and he’s fast asleep.

Emma frowns. “Do you think it’s okay for him to sleep out here? He’s wet.”

“Don’t fret, my love,” Killian tells her, “the sun is warm, and you have him wrapped up snugly.”

Emma nods, but still bites her lip in concern. She’s only been a mother for two weeks, after all. What does she know? Killian probably knows more than she does after all his years of rescuing lost boys. Mason was Henry’s age when he joined the crew, so Killian had practically been a teen father.

“Swan,” Killian says gently, taking her hand and rubbing her knuckles gently, “you’re wonderful with him. A natural.”

She lets out a long sigh and gives him a wobbly smile. How he manages to read her like that is another thing she’s having to get used to. She watches her son sleep, rubbing his shoulder soothingly. Once he allowed her to touch him, she couldn't seem to get enough: hugs, rubbing noses, brushing his hair off his forehead, cheek kisses. Henry loves the affection too, often leaping onto her lap and cupping her face with his chubby little hands. One of Henry’s arms is flung out in sleep, a habit of his that Emma finds adorable. His birthmark catches her eye, as it often does.

“Tink,” she says softly, “these two weeks have been great. But don’t you think it’s time you explained to me what the hell this all means?”

Emma doesn’t miss the glance Tink tosses Killian’s way, yet the furrow upon Killian’s brow likely matches hers. He’s already told her about Pan searching for the heart of the truest believer and about the significance of Henry’s birthmark. What neither of them can understand is how she fits into all of this.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Tink hedges.

“None of that, you bloody stubborn fairy,” Killian admonishes in a teasing voice. “You said that Henry would be a child of two realms, but from what Emma and I can gather, he’s a child of only one. A land without magic.”

Tink sighs, then looks at Emma questioningly. “Tell me about his father again.”

Emma shrugs. “He was just a boy. An ordinary runaway.”

“A right jackass is what he was.”

“Killian!”

“Well he was!” Killian protests, and Emma can’t help but smile at his indignation. They’ve had many long nights filling in all the details of their time apart, and Killian is definitely not a fan of Neal.

Tink says nothing, her gaze distant, and Emma can practically see gears turning in her head. Killian looks nervous too, for some reason. Emma glances back and forth between them.

“What are the two of you not telling me?”

“A child of two realms,” Killian says, his gaze falling on Henry, “and . . . “

“A child of royalty,” Tink fills in.

Emma blinks and gasps, “You can’t be saying . . . I mean, you don’t really think . . . but I’m no different than Neal! A nobody, nothing, I -”

“You were never nothing,” Killian interrupts her firmly.

Her gaze softens at the intensity in his voice, but then she shakes her head, the implications of it all overwhelming.

“You’re from a realm of magic, Emma,” Tink says, “it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

“I was abandoned,” Emma argues.

“Think about it, darling,” Killian says softly, “you were found wrapped in a blanket that had your name stitched into it. Does that sound like careless parents to you?”

Emma rubs at her temple.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Tink says, “but the prophecy about the truest believer was very clear. You , Emma Swan, are not only from a magical realm, you’re also -”

“A princess,” Killian finishes for the fairy. Emma’s head snaps up at the sadness in his voice. His jaw clenches as he rises to his feet. “Which is why this idyllic little holiday must come to an end. My ship and my crew are at your disposal, your highness. I swear to you, we will find your family and your kingdom.”

Before she can process what he’s saying or the sudden formality in his voice, he’s turning away and striding quickly back through the jungle. Emma looks at Tink, her eyes blinking in confusion.

“What the hell is up with him?”

Tink sighs. “Captain Hook has quite the problem with self-loathing, I’m afraid.”

***********************************

Killian is slowly coming up from the depths of a deep sleep, fighting the persistent whisper of his name. Then soft lips brush across his, and he doesn’t want to fight it. His eyes blink open, and he squints in the dark, trying to see. A cool hand, a whisp of soft hair, and those lips again on the shell of his ear.

“Follow me, Killian.”

He thinks he’s dreaming at first, but when his arms reach for Emma’s side of the bed, and he finds it empty, the last cobwebs of sleep flee his brain. He sits up, heart pounding at first until he sees Emma in the doorway, smiling at him. She tilts her head in a gesture that says come on, and seems to glide out into the hallway. He knows it’s the illusion of her long, white satin nightgown, but it makes her look ethereal all the same.

Once he’s up and doing her bidding, she picks up her skirts and runs on her bare feet down the hall, through the parlor, and out of the cave. He swears he hears her giggle once they’re out in the moonlight, but he’s beginning to wonder again if this is a dream.

She stops at the edge of Mermaid Lagoon, and whirls to face him. He skids to a stop at the picture she makes, the light of the full moon pouring over her figure and illuminating her hair. That damn nightgown leaves little to the imagination, honestly, especially in this lighting. She smirks at him, as if she’s read his mind. Then she’s slipping the straps of the nightgown from her shoulders, letting the satin fall soundlessly around her feet. He’s completely shell-shocked now, blinking and practically gasping for air as he takes in her naked form, flawless and strong in the moonlight. They haven’t been intimate since her attack, and the sight before him causes an instant physical reaction. He suddenly realizes that he rushed after Emma without a shirt, without his brace, without his hook.

Without a weapon. He glances nervously at the jungle behind them, but Emma laughs.

“Is this a dream? A trick?”

She shakes her head and gives him a soft smile. “Killian. Seriously? I just felt we needed some time alone.”

That last word - alone - falls from her lips with weighted meaning. Then before he can respond or take another step, she turns and slips into the waters of the lagoon. She goes under soundlessly, then comes back up, only her head out of the water.

“Aren’t you coming, pirate? Or do you not know how to swim?”

It’s Killian’s turn now to smirk as he quickly discards his sleeping pants. “Oh believe me, love, I’m good in the water.”

He dives in, cutting across the lagoon with easy strokes. He breaks the surface right in front of her, and Emma immediately wraps her arms around his neck, pressing her naked body to his. He shouldn’t succumb to this temptation, not when he knows now who she really is and where she comes from. Yet his arms go around her automatically, and his forehead drops to hers.

“Emma,” he groans, “why are you torturing me?”

“Why are you torturing me?” she counters.

“I’m sorry?”

Emma’s fingers find his wet hair as she presses herself ever closer. “It’s been over two weeks, Killian. I miss you.”

“I didn’t want to push you.”

She smiles, nuzzling her nose against his, “I know, and God, I love you for that, but I’m ready.”

“But since then we’ve . . . well, now we know -”

“Stop it,” she commands, pressing a finger to his lips. Lips that curl up into a smile before pressing a kiss to the pad of her finger. “What was that for?”

“You sounded so regal just then.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “I’m not a damn princess.”

Killian frowns. “Yes you are, and we should be reuniting you with your parents, your kingdo-”

Emma cuts him off with a fierce kiss, her tongue assaulting his, telling him far more with her actions than she ever could with words. He shouldn’t kiss her back, but their wet skin is pressed together, her fingers are digging into his scalp, and fire is coursing through his veins. Emma wraps her legs around his waist, and he’s completely incapable of rational thought. He slides his hand and stump down to hoist her up, grabbing her flesh in the process and eliciting a groan from deep in her throat. He shifts her so they are lined up perfectly, and she moans as he enters her. It’s quick, and slightly awkward in the water, but it’s been so long that neither of them mind. Emma’s legs tremble around him, and she drops her head to his shoulder as they both come down.

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Killian tells her breathlessly.

“I did.”

He kisses her then, tenderly and with wonder. The jungle isn’t quiet; the water laps at the shore, crickets chirp, and leaves rustle. It feels like they can both finally breathe. He never wants it to end.

They stay in the water for a long time, never leaving one another’s embrace. Neither wants to break the spell of the night with words, so they speak with kisses instead. When they first try to leave the water, they make it only as far as the beach. He presses Emma into the sand with his weight, claiming her lips once again. Yet she’s the one who takes him, switching their positions and pinning his arms above his head. The moonlight is spilling over her again as she moves above him, her head thrown back, her breasts glorious. They come at the same time, and then Emma collapses against him, her hair everywhere. He gathers it in his hand as he presses a kiss to her shoulder.

The first light of dawn is just tinting the horizon when they finally get dressed. Killian tries not to look Emma in the eyes, worried still that this was all some sort of hazy dream, or worse, a goodbye.

He’s just slid his pants up to his waist when Emma comes up behind him, wrapping her arms around his chest and pressing her cheek to his back.

“This isn’t me saying goodbye, if that’s what you're thinking.”

His breath catches in shock. He’s not the only one who is perceptive. She’s smirking at him when he turns around, and she reaches up to cup his face in her hands.

“I love you, Killian Jones.”

“I love you, too.”

She searches his eyes. “I feel like my whole life, until now, I was just searching for something.”

He threads his fingers through her hair. “Aye love, I feel the same. Perhaps I have always been trying to find my way back to you.”

She gives him a tremulous smile, and he exults at what he sees in her eyes. Her next words, however, steal his breath.

“I don’t want to look for my parents.”

Killian frowns. “Emma, I’m sure they’ve been waiting for you all this time. Hoping, maybe even searching.”

She shakes her head. “I’m tired of living in the past. I’m ready to look forward - with you and with my son.” She presses a kiss to his lips and then drops her hands from his cheeks. Instead, she clasps both his hand and his stump and presses them to her chest.

Killian can scarcely breathe. “Swan, do you mean that you would . . . that is to say . . . “

Emma laughs as a single tear slips down her cheek. “Don’t make me ask you, pirate.”

He grins broadly as he presses his forehead to hers. “Marry me? Let me always, always be by your side? Let me be a father to Henry?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.”

Killian kisses her again as the sun breaks forth across Neverland.

Tagging: @snowbellewells​  @kmomof4​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @teamhook​ @bethacaciakay​ @let-it-raines​ @welllpthisishappening​ @wellhellotragic​ @winterbaby89​ @xhookswenchx​ @courtorderedcake​ @branlovestowrite​ @hollyethecurious​ @vvbooklady1256​ @profdanglaisstuff​ @carpedzem​ @ekr032-blog-blog​ @jennjenn615​ @tiganasummertree​ @lfh1226-linda​ @ultraluckycatnd​ @spartanguard​ @shireness-says​ @scientificapricot​ @stahlop​ @resident-of-storybrooke​ @superchocovian​ @sherlockianwhovian​ @snidgetsafan​ @ohmakemeahercules​ @thislassishooked​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @nikkiemms​ @delirious-latenight-laughs​

[clockworkrobotic]

OOOOUUUGGGH H HERE IT IS

Thanks everyone for your patience while I took three times longer than intended <3

final word count 5234 ;;

I’m planning to write more but this ended up so absurdly long that I’m splitting it up. It’s a wild dumpster fire of headcanons and canon canons, ive tried to avoid exposition but if something doesnt make sense shoot me an ask lol

sort of vaguely around the end of BL1. Rowdy teenage calypsos. Dramatic backstory. Go

“Do it again.”

 He sits cross-legged, facing her, watching intently. Tyreen scans the grass for another flower and finds one, a small purple thing that’s braved the blistering Pandoran heat to spring up from the rare lush patch they’ve settled into this afternoon. Her brow furrows with concentration as she touches it and searches for the not-quite-uncomfortable breathless feeling that precedes what she’s about to do. In honesty, she’s not entirely sure what she does to trigger it, but if she focuses hard enough, it seems to happen eventually.

 Sure enough, after a few seconds, it’s wilting against her hand, the colour draining to a dull brown as the petals dry and shrivel and crumble to dust. Her chest feels hollow and then it doesn’t, her arm is tingling slightly as the pleasant warmth travels up and leaves her markings glowing a faint blue, and she feels content and floaty for a moment.

 Troy is watching in awe, and he reaches out suddenly and grabs her arm.

“These are getting bigger,” he tells her certainly, inspecting her tattoos, “they didn’t go around your hand the other day. D’you think they’ll keep growing?”

 Tyreen pulls back and looks at the ground. She doesn’t want to tell him that she feels them, at night, a scratching needling feeling drawing patterns down her body, and that as pretty as they are she doesn’t really want any more of them, they might make her face look weird. She also doesn’t want to tell him that he’s right.

“So cool…” He trails off, and Tyreen enjoys the quiet envy in his voice.

“I wish I could do other stuff,” she confesses. Troy shrugs.

“Maybe you can. But you haven’t found it out yet.” He pulls up another flower and hands it to her. “Do it again.”

* * *

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Dunno,” Tyreen answers honestly, “I’m fine, though, really.”

She feels more than fine. It’s the only use she’s managed to put her powers to - as long as there’s something small and alive nearby, she can draw its energy in place of food. Some days she’s been getting by just running her hands through the grass. When she thinks about it, she can’t even remember what being hungry feels like.

 The past few weeks have been a blur of trudging through the arid desert and scavenging abandoned camps and just trying to stay away from trouble. They had learnt early on to avoid active settlements - the local bandits didn’t take too kindly to thieves - but rummaging around in waste and ruin yielded little in terms of rations. Tyreen had pocketed herself a neat little pistol that she (thankfully) hadn’t had to use yet and Troy had secured some kind of baton that looked as though it might have once doubled as a taser, but other than that, resources are scarce. At least this way she can make sure he’s getting something close to enough to eat.

“You should still eat something, Ty. This can’t be good for you.”

“I’m not sure living in the desert is good for anyone.” Tyreen pulls her jacket up over her shoulders to shield herself from the heat. Little as she might physically need it, she’d kill for a cold drink right about now. Beer. She isn’t even sure what beer tastes like, but she’s parsed that it’s a noble option on hot days, and under the blistering sun came now to consider it some kind of ambrosia.

 Troy’s footsteps stop behind her and she turns wearily to look at him. He’s shielding his eyes and squinting into the distance.

“I think there’s a town up ahead. Let’s move.”

* * *

“It’s no use, Troy,” Tyreen groans, trying to hide how pissed off she’s really getting. Not that she doesn’t appreciate his enthusiasm, but there’s only so much she can put up with. She starts to pull her jacket back on.

“No, no, c’mon, just - one more try,” Troy pleads, darting forward to grab her wrists, “You heard the guy in the bar back there. He reckons you’re a Siren. There’s - there’s so much more you could lea-”

“Most powerful being in the universe were his exact words, Troy.” She slouches a few exasperated feet away and slumps onto a rock cluster. “Killing plants is a far cry from that.”

 Troy runs a hand through his hair and sits himself on the ground in front of her. “It’s not killing plants, Ty, it’s - some kind of energy thing, like you can - steal life force or something -”

“Troy,” Tyreen cuts him off firmly, then pinches the bridge of her nose and softens her tone, “I know you want to believe there’s more to this but - I think this might be it.” He’s watching her in earnest, but she can see the light die behind his eyes a little, and it hurts. “You heard him, too. Sirens are dangerously powerful, from birth, he seemed to think they’re killing their parents and levelling bandit camps before they can walk. Do you - don’t you think, if I could do anything like that, we would’ve found out by now?” She tries to offer a small smile. It looks more like a grimace. Troy opens his mouth to say something, and she cuts across him again. “I’m sorry, Troy. It’s a fairy tale. We’re stuck on the same shitty planet as everyone else.”

 Troy’s mouth is pressed into a grim line and he looks away from her. Tyreen gets up and offers him a hand. “Come on. It’s getting dark. I can start us a fire, at least.”

* * *

 They come for her that night.

 Tyreen is jolted awake by a hand over her mouth, and finds herself face to face with a masked marauder. Even with the ventilator covering the majority of his face, she can tell who it is.

“Hello, little Siren,” he croons, and the grin in his voice is sickening. She shrieks, one hand going for his face, the other scrabbling above her head for her pistol, kicking and howling muffled under his thick glove, trying to make enough noise to wake Troy up. The marauder is bigger than her by a lot, pinning her easily to the floor, and to her panic she can see two others advancing behind him.

“Never seen one in real life,” one of them comments, stepping over and kicking her gun out of reach, “Is she dangerous?”

“Nah, they told me everything,” says the one holding her down, and shifts to press his knee into her abdomen. Tyreen feels tears springing into her eyes. “She can’t do shit, least, not yet, anyway. Reckon we can fix that, though.”

 Tyreen twists beneath him and makes another lunge for the pistol. It catches her assailant off guard, and she manages to choke out a breathless “TRO--” before he regains his hold on her, hand twisting in her hair and slamming her face hard against the ground. She can taste blood.

 Several hands seize her arms and haul her to her feet, and there’s one covering her mouth again. She kicks frantically at them, feet slipping against the dusty earth floor.

“Come on, sweetheart,” is the rasped attempt at sweetness against her ear, “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” And with that they’re dragging her from the shack, impervious to her muffled pleas and the tears streaming down her face.

 Through her panic and probable concussion, she tries to find some clarity, to find that little breathless inkling she feels with the plants. It’s a long shot, she’s never managed anything more complex than a small cactus before, but maybe Troy is right, she can do it, she just needs to -

CRACK

The hand around her mouth goes limp and after a couple of beats, she feels the weight drop behind her. The other two let go of her arms, instinctively leaping away from whatever has just felled their comrade, and for one absurd moment she thinks that she’s managed something incredible.

“TYREEN!” Troy grabs her arm and pulls her behind him. He’s holding a thick piece of wood that looks like it might’ve been Tyreen’s height to begin with, but now hinged almost completely in two, bearing thick, vicious splinters where it had collided with the marauder’s head.

 The other two have drawn their guns, but Troy is faster. Even at 16 he towers over them, wasteland-formed muscles knocking down both attackers in one swing of his makeshift weapon. There’s a loud BANG that jolts Tyreen unpleasantly back into reality and she dives for the dead marauder, seizing his gun from its holster and realising too late that she’s never done this before.

 Troy has one of the men pinned to the ground, and the other is taking aim again. Tyreen doesn’t think, just points and shoots, aiming as far from her brother as she can get away with, fighting the resistance of the trigger until she lands a solid hit. Silhouetted by the light of Elpis, she sees him go down, his fingers twitching as his weapon falls from his grip. Her heart is racing, vision blurred by tears and adrenaline, but she can’t risk him getting up. She can hear the panicked pleas choked beneath Troy’s fingers to her left as she shoots her attacker between the eyes.

* * *

“Can’t sleep?”

“Nah.”

 Tyreen sits on the mottled grass and watches the sun rise. Troy seats himself next to her, legs crossed like he used to when they were kids. Tyreen fidgets with the sleeves of her shirt.

“You can’t wear this, Ty, it’s a hundred degrees out,” Troy says, picking at the worn cotton. Tyreen pulls them further over her hands.

“I don’t want anyone to see them.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that, and the pair of them sit in silence and watch the orange sunlight wash over camps and communes as far as the horizon.

“We have to go,” Tyreen says eventually. Troy glances over his shoulder to where the bodies of the three marauders are still lying. It’s only been a few hours, but in the heat the flies are already buzzing lazily around the corpses, and a swarm of rakk are beginning to circle overhead.

“Don’t you want to get some rest first? Nobody’s going to find us up here for a while.”

 Tyreen shakes her head and lets the silence fall for a little while longer, punctuated by the occasional shriek from above.

“I’ve never killed anyone before.”

“Me neither.”

 They both ponder the absurdity of the situation. Pandora isn’t renowned for its peaceful living, its occupants consisting mostly of violent bandits, escaped convicts, and the mutated casualties of Dahl’s mining operations. Yet they’d managed to avoid confrontation up until now, and it had dragged them screaming from their cabin in the dead of night. Terrified as she’d been, Tyreen wonders why she isn’t feeling more, well, anything - she’s just taken a life, and she feels as indifferent to it as if she’d walked away from a bar fight.

“They deserved it,” Troy says suddenly, as if reading her mind. His voice is flat and stony, “They were going to hurt you.”

 Tyreen looks up at him. His expression is cold, and there’s something different about him, like a vengeful spark in his eye. She sighs and leans her head against his shoulder (well, arm) and then pulls away abruptly.

“Troy, you’re bleeding!”

 Troy snaps out of his reverie and glances down, noting the deep indent in his bicep where a bullet must have skimmed past him.

“Has that been open this whole time? Damn it, that’s hours old, we have to get that cleaned up-”

“Calm down, Ty, it’s just a gra-”

“It’ll get infected, Troy, you could lose your arm.”

“It’s fine, leave it-”

“Let me help you.” She’s standing now, furious tears pricking her eyes. Troy doesn’t say anything. She storms inside to get the med kit.

* * *

 They play it safe and don’t stop until they’re a couple of towns over. Despite the sparse population news had a habit of travelling fast here, and Tyreen is keen not to become the focal point of a planet-wide manhunt. She stays small, keeps her arms covered despite the sun, though thankfully they appear to be moving north and it’s getting a little cooler.

 Troy keeps an anxious eye on her. She’s growing skittish, recoiling inward whenever anyone passes too close, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. She refuses to use her powers any more and at night she insists on sleeping next to him, terrified of what might happen if they get raided again and she can’t wake him up in time.

 They’re sitting in a tavern one lazy afternoon when a conversation the next table over makes Tyreen freeze up. Troy hears it too; they’re talking about a local faction of the Crimson Lance, and the word Siren hangs heavy in the air. Tyreen cringes inwardly and looks up at Troy with pleading eyes, desperate to get as far away from this conversation as physically possible. Troy shushes her, trying to tell her without words that they can leave in a moment, but what they’re hearing could be important - Commandant Steele is old news at this point, but it sounds like they think there’s another Siren in the area. Tyreen pulls nervously at her sleeves. They can’t be talking about her, surely - she hasn’t said a word to anyone since they arrived. Low profile isn’t the word.

 Tyreen gets up suddenly, upsetting their glasses, no longer resigning to sit and listen. She grabs Troy with a shaking hand and all-but drags him out of the bar.

* * *

 Tyreen sleeps restlessly, tossing and turning uncomfortably, too hot and too cold at the same time, her brother’s protective hold the only thing preventing her from falling out of bed. She swears the ground is shaking like they’re resting over a tremorous fault line, yet the room and its contents remain still and Troy sleeps undisturbed. There’s a nagging urge telling her to head outside and look for… something, like a magnetic pull calling her out into the darkness, but she vehemently fights it, fear outweighing abject curiosity. When she finally drifts off, the sun is rising, spilling in through the frayed curtains, and she’s curled up in Troy’s arms, safe as she’ll ever be.

* * *

“Ty.”

Tyreen barely hears him. Her head feels like it’s full of radio static, has done since she woke up somewhere around 3pm. She’s focussing on just walking straight forward, though she’s not sure she’s doing a particularly good or convincing job of it.

“Tyreen,” Troy insists, grabbing her arm and forcing her to stop.

“Wuh,” is all she can manage, her hazy state making the sudden halt feel vaguely like whiplash. She presses her eyes shut and rubs her temples.

“Ty, look.” Troy is pointing behind her. Tyreen turns around and waits for her head to stop spinning.

“What ammi lookin’ at?” She mumbles after several seconds of attempting to decipher the blur that is her vision.

“Are you alright?” Her brother sounds incredibly worried and incredibly far away. She aware of his hand on her back, although she’s not sure that is her back, it feels thrice removed, as if she’s watching through someone else’s eyes and thinking with someone else’s brain.

“M fine. J’st dizzy. Water,” she manages, and fumbles around for her hipflask. The motion is disoriented, almost drunken, but she finds it and struggles with the cap for far too long. Troy takes it off her and opens it. “What’s am I lookin’ at?” She says again.

“Ty, you’re leaving footprints.”

“So? S’a desert.”

“In the grass.”

Tyreen blinks several times and tries to focus on what’s in front of her. It takes what feels like minutes before she can see clearly enough, and when she can, she’s not convinced she isn’t hallucinating.

 As far back as she can see, as far as they’ve walked - which is not the sandy wasteland she’d been picturing in front of her for the past couple of miles, but more of a, admittedly ill-attended, pasture - there’s a set of footprints leading up to where she’s standing. Where she’s set foot, the grass has wilted away beneath her, leaving dead foliage and dry earth in its place. Tyreen looks down to where she’s standing now, and sees it; around her, the verdure wavers and leans in, towards her, pulled taut by some invisible force, before drying up and shrivelling to straw. It seems to slow as the circle around her grows, but it’s happening alright.

“This is bad... issnt it.”

“It’s…” Troy’s tone does not match hers. He seemed elated. “Ty, it’s incredible. I’ve never seen you keep this up for so long!”

“Mm?”

“You’re getting stronger, I told you, you just need to practise-”

“Troy…”

“- We can find somewhere safe next time we stop, you can try it on something larger, like, an animal or something-”

“Troy, I’m n- not -”

He’s still talking, but his words are blurring together into one excited stream of noise. Tyreen feels a drop in the pit of her stomach, like the ground has just fallen away with her still attached to it. She tries to feel for the hipflask he’s still holding.

“Troy I’m going to throw up,” She manages, surprisingly coherent, and her brother catches her as she blacks out.

* * *

 Troy is holding a cold cloth to her face when she comes around. She’s lying on his jacket, but the ground beneath is hard and uneven, and the fabric pulls uncomfortably against her as she moves to sit up.

 Troy breathes a hefty sigh of relief and against his better judgement, gathers her into a tight hug.

“Oh my god, I was so scared, Ty, I thought I’d lost you,” he mumbles brokenly into her shoulder.

 Tyreen pats his chest gently. “’M fine. Can I have some space?”

 Troy gives her one last squeeze and lets go. His face is wrought with worry, and she can tell he’s been crying. She opens her mouth to say something, and he shoves her hipflask into it.

“Drink. It’s been hours.”

 She complies gratefully. He’s right, she’s completely parched, and the flask is empty in seconds. The awful fuzziness from earlier still isn’t quite gone, but she can see clearly again, and Troy doesn’t sound like he’s half a mile away when he talks. Tyreen takes a few deep breaths and scopes out the room.

  It’s not a room. They appear to be in a cave of sorts, the grey walls dotted with condensation that’s slowly crawling down the walls and keeping the air comfortably cool and refreshing. Up ahead, the entrance opens out to a deep blue sky dotted with bright constellations and a full, luminous moon.

  Troy is watching her. “I’m sorry, it’s not great, but it’s the only place I could find without anything…” He trails off, and she sees his jaw flex as it does when he’s nervous. “...Alive.”

 Tyreen blinks at him, at a loss. He doesn’t elaborate. She draws her legs up to her chest and rests her head on her arms.

“It’s a good thing you’re wearing long sleeves, anyway.”

 It’s then that she sees it. His shirt is torn - no, burnt, the edges frayed and blackened,  pulling away to reveal an angry mess of red, blistering skin dragging down from his shoulder.

“Oh my god…” she murmurs, reaching out to touch him. He flinches.

“You, um,” Troy laughs uneasily, trying to lighten the mood and failing, “You were a bit grabby.”

 Tyreen can only stare. She can barely remember anything before she passed out, only a static headache, and footprints, and Troy catching her, and now…

 Now her brother is recoiling from her touch, on instinct, like a frightened animal, and he looks as though someone has raked at his chest with a hot poker.

“Troy,” she says slowly, “What’s going on?”

 Troy runs a hand through his hair and looks at the ground. His shoulders are hunched, making it hard to see the scars she’s left on him, but she knows they’re there now, and she can’t take her eyes off them.

“I don’t know,” Troy answers honestly, after what feels like forever, “But I think those bandits were right.” Tyreen flinches at the memory. “I think I was right.” Troy looks up under his hair and offers her a half smile. Tyreen feels like her heart is in her throat, too anxious to smile back. “You can do more than kill plants.”

* * *

 Tyreen is glowing.

 Whatever cover the long sleeves offered her before is lost now. Through the tired grey of her shirt the markings weave a prominent blue around her arm. She wonders if they will actually burn through eventually.

 She walks a few paces behind her brother, hopeful that his hulking presence will shield her from view, or at least deter any would-be attackers.

 She wears gloves now, although she’s not sure it’s doing much. Foliage still wilts as she brushes past it, and it’s getting worse. She can’t control it. Her heart is hammering in her chest and she can’t sleep, so buzzed constantly that she can’t get a moment’s rest. The static headache is coming back.

 They’re back to raiding bandit camps, reluctant to risk running into any enthusiasts in towns, but it’s taking a toll on the both of them. Troy still needs to eat, and as they venture further into the tundra the camps grow populous and more secure. Few are abandoned and they’re more complex, civilised almost, rickety shacks climbing multiple levels up cliff faces, connected by makeshift stairs and ladders that can barely hold Troy’s weight.

 After a few close calls, they decide Tyreen should sit out the raids. Night is a lost cause, her luminous tattoos making her a walking target as they try to stealth through the camps, and during the day her vision blurs and vertigo hits her in waves.

 She resolves to sit outside the camp, standing guard, although there’s not much she can do if disaster strikes. At least Troy can find her easily in the dark. She learns quickly not to mention the growing collection of marks and scars he’s amassing with each trip.

“I think we should turn back,” she says one night, as they’re huddling together under blankets, deep in the safety of a cave. Tyreen can barely feel the cold but her brother is shivering (much as he tries to hide it) and she’s giving off enough body heat for the both of them.

“We can’t.” Troy’s jaw is clenched.

“We were safer in the desert. There’s too many people here.” Troy shakes his head. “Troy, come on, we can’t stay here. You’re going to freeze to death.”

“I’m fine,” Troy mumbles, breath rising in a mist before him, “Have to keep you safe.”

“Troy…”

 Her brother presses his eyes shut and shakes his head again. “It’s better for you… here.” He draws in a shivering breath. “Nothing… to hurt you.”

 Tyreen knows exactly what he’s talking about, and he’s right. As they wander deeper into the frozen wasteland the greenery is dwindling, giving her body less to draw on, the headaches becoming tolerable background noise as opposed to the constant, nauseating buzz when she was brushing through the foliage a few miles back.

 She wants to tell him to leave, that she’ll be fine here on her own; but she knows that’s a lie, and he’d never abandon her anyway. Troy is the only thing keeping both of them alive, and it’s killing him.

 She looks up at him, in time to see his head drooping as he drifts into an uneasy sleep, resting against her shoulder. She’s managed not to burn him since that fateful night in the nexus, but she also hasn’t managed to do anything else. For a few days Troy had insisted that she try channelling the energy she’s built up, convinced that that’s what had hurt him, but after several frustrating, failed attempts, Tyreen was starting to think they’d both imagined it. Maybe she hadn’t burnt him, just clawed at him a whole lot, enough to draw blood. That must have been it.

 She wishes she could sleep. Instead, the best she can do is curl up close to her brother and keep him warm until the morning sunlight seeps in through the windows of their makeshift home.

* * *

 Tyreen is sitting in the snow a few hundred feet outside of Troy’s latest charge when she hears him screaming. The sound reverberates within her, shaking her to her core, raw and visceral and unmistakably him. She’s on her feet before she can stop herself.

 He’s done this before… don’t get involved… it’s too dangerous… She stops trying to convince herself. She’s never heard that sound from him before. He needs her.

 Nobody looks at her when she bursts into the camp. They’re too busy huddling, watching, jeering at something she can’t see up ahead. The ground is spattered, warm and wet and soft with blood, so much blood. They’re at least a hundred yards away and the vicious spray reaches as far as where she’s standing.

 Tyreen feels as though she’s wading through water as she approaches the spectacle. She can’t move fast enough, terrified of what she’s going to see, but desperate to see it. The buzzing headache is creeping an icy path behind her eyes and obscuring her vision, her heart pounding so hard and so fast her chest hurts and she can’t breathe, her blood races like molten metal through her veins and she can see out of the corner of her eye the vibrant blue radiating from her, the only visual she can place as the static pulls a cloudy veil over her sight.

 She isn’t sure if the crowd parts for her, or if she pushes through them. The taunting subsides for a moment as her presence is noted, and then starts back up again, wordless yelling and mockery coming from all sides. Who is she? She shouldn’t be here.

 Tyreen doesn’t need to see clearly to know what she’s looking at. Her brother is slumped motionless before her, propped half-upright against something, his form through her murky vision painted merciless red, red, red. She can make out her hands in front of her as she reaches out to him, her palms coming away from his torso hot and damp. Her mouth forms silent words, begging him to wake up, fingers drawing thick red lines along his face.

“This is heartwarmin’, truly.” The voice comes from all around her, barely audible through the haze of shock. Tyreen gets unsteadily to her feet. The world tilts sideways. “But you can’t be here, darlin’.”

 Tyreen half-staggers around to face the speaker. He’s a blurry mess of colour and motion, and he’s pointing something hefty and probably dangerous at her. “You got ten seconds to leave, or you’re joinin’ him.”

 What happens next, Tyreen will later justify as self-defence. It’s a lie. She’s never wanted to hurt someone so badly. She wants him dead.

 The figure takes a step towards her, and Tyreen moves, hand outstretched. She thinks she hears his shotgun go off as she connects with his throat. Something surges within her, rippling through her body and charging the air around her with a terrifying electricity. Her vision goes white.

 Tyreen comes around to chaos. Her clothes cling to her uncomfortably, and she’s vaguely aware of screaming and raucous movement all around her. She looks down at her hands.

 She’s covered in blood. It’s coating her arms, her body, drying against her face, plastering her hair against her forehead. Through the vibrant red, her tattoos glow faintly, the light dying peacefully against her skin. The headache is gone.

 Heart in her throat, Tyreen reluctantly surveys the area around her and nearly passes out. The bandit who threatened her is gone, replaced by a violent spattering of blood and viscera. An amalgam of decimated organs and what might be clothing is dotted around, hanging from various buildings and structures, painting a few unfortunate nearby bandits caught in the splash zone. Only the gun remains intact, lying in the midst of the gore, seemingly untouched by any of it. It’s almost comical.

“Don’t touch me,” she says shakily, aware of one particularly brave or foolish bandit cocking his gun off to the side. He doesn’t need to be told twice. Tyreen casts a sweeping glance around her, and the remaining spectators scatter.

“Tyreen…”

“Troy! Oh my god!” Tyreen spins around and all-but throws herself at her brother. The colour is drained from his face, his skin cold and clammy, but he’s alive.

 She pulls away suddenly, remembering what has just transpired. “Oh, fuck, oh my god, I didn’t-”

“That was... awesome,” Troy manages. He smirks weakly, hand reaching up to grasp her shoulder. Hand…

“Troy, your arm!”

Troy follows her gaze to bleeding crater where his arm used to be. It’s been blown completely from the socket.

“Huh,” he mumbles. He moves to touch the wound, and Tyreen grabs his wrist. “That’s not good, is it.”

“Can you walk?”

“Th... think so.” Troy attempts to push himself up with his remaining hand. “No.”

“I- I don’t know what to do.” Panic settles solidly in her throat as the magnitude of the situation dawns on her. “Troy, y - you need a doctor.”

“Yeah…” Troy trails off, his eyes starting to drift closed.

“No, no, god, don’t go to sleep, Troy-!” Tyreen taps his face firmly, hands shaking. He doesn’t respond. “Stay awake, please, wake up, oh my god - HELP!” She scopes the camp frantically. “SOMEONE HELP ME!” There must be something, someone who knows what to do, a settlement out here couldn’t last this long without medicine…

 There. She can make out the crudely-drawn Aesculepion hammered into the ground a few hundred feet off.

“I’m gonna be back soon, okay?” She presses her forehead to her brother’s, fighting tears. “I’m getting help.”

 She draws herself to her full height and takes a deep breath. Picks up the discarded shotgun with bloodied hands and marches towards the medical tent.

* * *

 Troy’s hand twitches lightly against hers. Tyreen springs to attention, the most she’s moved in two days.

“Hey,” she greets him softly as his eyes flutter open, “Don’t move too much. You’re in safe hands.”

 Regardless, Troy awkwardly tries to push himself upright, knocked off balance by the missing appendage. Tyreen pushes him gently back to lie down.

“You need to rest. Doctor’s orders.” She shoots a smile over to the far corner, where the medic is cowering, terrified. “Isn’t that right?”

“You’re not glowing,” Troy murmurs, his voice cracking slightly from the anaesthesia. He moves over like he wants to touch her. “I can’t feel my arm, Ty.”

 Tyreen brushes the hair from his face and smiles tenderly. “We can fix that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

 Troy squeezes her hand weakly, too worn out to inquire any further. He mumbles something incoherent and sinks back into the mattress. Tyreen pulls the worn blankets over him, feeling real relief for the first time.

 It’s refreshing. Liberating. Nobody’s out to get them here, far contrary - the commune dwellers have proven quite eager to help her. For once in her life, they don’t have to run.