#Dark planet lit by no sun | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

jjungkooksthighs · 2 months ago

Text

Zenith

♊︎–Pairing: (X-02) Caleb x fem reader

♊︎–Genre: Angst, fluff, and smut

♊︎–Rating: 18+/ nsfw (mdni)

♊︎–Word Count: 17,200 words (31 pages y’all are in for it)

♊︎–Summary: After being torn away from you, your lover finally comes home to you after a mission alone and without you. You soon realize he hasn’t been taking care of himself in his separation from you and take it upon yourself to fix that in the ways that only you can.

♊︎–Warnings: Possessive!X-02/Caleb, obsessive!caleb, soft dom!Caleb, sub! reader, mentions of blood, slick and pre-ejaculatory production, scenting, dirty talk (lbr I love that shit), praising, handjob, grinding, cunnilingus (oral f), creampie, breast worship (just a tad), breast/nipple play, nipping, sucking, begging, muscle kink, scratching, cum eating, manhandling, cursing, wet and messy sex (he’s hungry alr), size kink, face riding, pinning, lots of marking, fucked against the wall

♊︎–A/N: I humbly present my first offering to fellow LADS and Caleb enthusiasts that was made with excitement following his myth release and then horniness when I started ovulating this week. I was extremely horny and this…well, this happened.

The ticking of the clock, once a sound that elicited excitement in the promise of his return, now grates on your ears like the engines of the spaceship that has become a prison rather than a home to you. The clock’s sound, after years of longing fiercer than the sun, was harsh and unforgiving in its continual, ceaseless passing that waited for no one.

Least of all the love of your life.

It had been a blue moon the last time you’d been separated from him, but this mission that the higher ups had given you both had been unlike anything either of you had been assigned.

It had come after your paired scouting of the ruined planet of Philos, the life and greenery of the planet now a wasteland of death and scraps.

You both had been tasked with discerning if the planet were habitable after years of quiet desolation, and after only a single moon on Philos, you had determined that the anger and sorrow of the system had harvested too deeply into the very soils to sustain more than the weeds that grew sadly from the split, fractured soil.

You try to sleep, the dark canvas of space and array of stars offering you their respects in the dim, slow blinks of the white balls of light that colored the endless expanse before the glass panes of the viewport that act as bars between you and the limitless freedom of darkness beyond.

That damn ticking. It doesn’t stop. Doesn’t even muffle itself in apology when you throw a pillow over your head as your thoughts fly to the terrible, cold abyss of the worst that could have happened to the only person who held your heart in his hands.

You toss and turn, body sore and aching from being launched too hard into the metal of the training room walls when the training bot, who had taken the form of a large, mechanized Hoartfrost Wyrmload, had taken advantage of your momentary lapse of action when your lover’s face, twisted in pain, had flashed through your mind when you’d let it wander.

Had it not been for the powered exosuit you’d worn, you surely would have had bruises, much less broken bones.

To punish you for your failure to clear the training floor unscathed as Ever’s most finely crafted and battle-hardened weapon, you had had to fight for hours in that fluorescently lit room, the loud clangs and broken whirrs of the bots slicing through the air as the black, blade-like extensions of your power cut them through. Sent out in waves, it had been relentless monotony, but you’d had no choice.

The organization’s manipulative, calculating leader would never allow you to see your lover-much less protect him from their malevolent experimentations-if you did not do their bidding.

Only after 202 monsters and a decapitated Wyrmlord had the thick, heavy automated door risen and you’d all but run to your chambers, heart racing in excitement.

Asta, the ship’s commandant and head of Ever, had told you that the he who your heart desired would finally, finally be allowed to rendezvous with you there after he debriefed the highest ranked officers on his mission that he’d been sworn to keep hidden even from you.

It’s been 2 days, 20 hours, and 2 minutes since his departure and each second feels like a decade in the excruciating torment of his absence.

You curse under your breath, the sharpness of worry curving your nails inward toward your palm as the blanket your other half had made for you slides from your shoulders when you rise from your bed. Its warmth fails to offer even half the amount that your lover does, but you still cover your shoulders with it, imagining that it is him that envelops you as you pad forward toward the biggest of the translucent panels that overlooks the infinite space of the darkness.

The brightest of the hot, white orbs of light of the stars looks like two joined stick figures, forever together in each other’s embrace as the two twin bodies who you’d named Pollux and Castor study you.

It is the Gemini constellation– one that you find your attention drawn to in your lover’s absence. You press your hand against the glass, peering up at the star sign he was created under and praying to it to watch over him while you cannot.

You liked to think that the stars knew when your lover was near and tried to commune with you in your bottomless worry whenever you were apart from him, for the glow of their light always seemed so much brighter when he was near. When he held you in his arms under them and spoke sweet, wonderful promises into your ear that he always, always kept.

Right now, Castor and Pollux flare fiercely, almost as if to mock you in the biting, gnawing loneliness that only your lover could soothe.

His name flits between your lips like an atom through space–quiet but there, refusing to be relinquished.

The quiet of your chamber soon steals his name, its taunt loud in the seizure of it.

You pull your blanket tighter around your barely clad body, the thin, short nightgown of black you’d worn to match your sinking spirits leaving much of you exposed to the prickling chill of the chamber that never was warm unless he was in it.

“Hurry back to me, Caleb,” you whisper to the stars, hoping they will hear your plea, “I miss you.”

The figures of light nestled within expanse of the endless sky of ebony twinkle as if to tell you they’ve received your wish, and then the only door admitting entry to your chambers directly behind you opens, all the way across the room, makes reverberating rumbling noises that grind your ears in their unpleasant din.

The clock continues to chip away at time as if you aren’t enslaved to it.

He’d have come to you by now if he were on the ship, and so you don’t bother to look away from the stars when you grouse, “If Asta has sent you to examine me out of concern for my performance, you can shove that bullshit up your ass.”

You’d become well acquainted with combat, your own code rewritten by Ever over and over again in their pursuit to make a heartless warrior capable only of doling out death and destruction. But your hardwiring had changed the moment your lover had laid his lips over yours, had professed his love so tenderly that it disassembled the walls around your heart and tuned it just to him.

Footsteps sound from behind you, the thud of heavy boots not lifting a hair of fear on you. Their wearer moves with purpose, never standing still as they cross the open chamber toward you. They do not cease their magnetic pull toward you until they stand behind you, still and unmoving as the planetary systems before you.

So absorbed in the memory of his smile that brought more light to your world than any moon and in eyes that have entire supernovas swirling within them, you don’t even notice the way your body has already begun to seek the one to the back of you.

“I was told that it is good manners to speak when you’re spoken to. I don’t need an examination right now. Leave, because no one except X-02 may touch me.” You adjust the soft velvet blanket closer around you, wishing with the might of an entire galaxy that your lover was here with you. “You can tell Asta I’ll execute whatever Wanderer that Ever wants dead in two seconds flat if he just gives me the word. I’ll terminate it in exchange for what I really want.”

Silence.

A heart’s beat passes before strong, familiar arms encircle you around your middle, and instinctively, you let their bearer bring you against him.

Were it anyone else, your impulse to fight would already have rendered them unconscious and in a heap on the floor.

But you know this embrace. You’ve been swathed in it many, many times before.

Then, with a voice smoother than honey, “And what is it you really want, huh, pip-squeak? Surely it must be me.”

From the very first word he speaks, your entire soul seems to ascend, your attention uncontrollably tugged into those familiar, warm discs of nebulae that make a ring where irises should be that are of purple and pink.

“Caleb…” You say his name like he’s a cosmos that has bewildered you, gazing up from where he stands over a head above you as one of your hands rises so your fingers can explore him in a gentle orbit along his cheekbone as if to prove to yourself that he’s here, that he’s not some holograph you unwittingly conjured up.

The usual black visor he wears is gone, the same powered exosuit of black covering him from his neck down. It was the garb that most shook in terror upon seeing, but for you, it inspired only the weightless feeling of joy and joviality.

The sunset of his eyes bask you in their tenderness as he leans into your touch, a long, drawn out breath falling from between his lips as he relishes in the feeling of softness that only you can summon in a universe so twisted and cruel.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come back to you, pip-squeak.” He apologizes, the guilt caging each syllable while he tilts his head down so their sin is left at the crest of your forehead, his arms coaxing you more insistently into him so that not even the air can come between the two of you. “You were in my every thought whether I was awake or in hypersleep. Every second I spent away from you, I wanted to be by your side. I wanted to be with you in any way I could.”

His larger hands that rest on your abdomen move around the atmosphere of you, around each side of your waist, urging you to turn and face him. He rotates you as if you’re his very axis, and the truth of his confessions utterly disintegrates the sadness that had begun to pressurize between your ribs— that had begun to make even breathing a hard thing to do.

In its undoing, however, the bottled up emotions you’d kept so carefully contained spiral out of control, overwhelming you such that you–without even a fraction of your strength–strike your fist against where his heart throbs for you.

“You stopped responding to my messages and calls exactly at hour and minute 22:02. I thought something had happened.” Your eyes start to burn with the tears that threaten to escape, your fingers finding the edge of his jaw before you take his chin between them. He crumbles at your touch, his expression shifting to one of shame over his err as he lets you maneuver him closer like you’re the center of his gravitational field. “You aren’t allowed to do that to me, Caleb. I…I-” your voice deserts you, the tight lump that has formed in your throat forcing you to try to swallow past the worry that had been gripping you with the intensity of a thousand hands.

I can’t lose you.

His dark brows stretch toward each other, concern shooting through his eyes in their versions of meteorites before he rests his forehead against yours. “I’m here now, pip-squeak. It’s alright.” His fingers dig possessively into the soft flesh of your waist as if you might disappear if doesn’t hold onto you tight. “I want you to know that I lost contact with Ever when I went too far past the protofield protecting the ruined kingdom of Philos. It somehow fried my communication systems, pip-squeak.” His voice cracks under the weight of being alone, of being ripped away from you while he’d been able to do little but be Ever’s volatile weapon who it kept from exploding by using you as its collateral. “I couldn’t contact you no matter how many times I tried. When I returned, I demanded to see you, but they threatened to hurt you if I didn’t brief them on what had happened down there.”

“You of all people know that I can handle myself,” you sniffle when the first tear falls, his irises tracking it as it descends down your cheek. Long, metallic digits of his right hand find it before it can douse his foot in your sadness as you croak, “I can handle anything so long as I am with you.”

Your sadness, surely, is his Roche limit in how cataclysmic it is to him. Enough to make him want to collapse everything until only the two of you remain. But there was no escape from some gravitational phenomena. Phenomena like Ever that had invaded every corner of the universe and would never cease to persecute you until he tore it all down for you.

And to do that, he needed to get stronger. No matter what it took.

“I know, honey. I know that better than anyone. But I have to be Ever’s dog to keep you safe. You are their prized possession–but more importantly, mine.” He adds after a pause, irises locked onto your next tear on the other side of your face. He catches this with the same hand where no sensation kindles his receptors any longer–with the knuckle in the middle of where a human finger would have been– the cool wetness of your emotions putting his systems into alert. “Do you remember what I told you when we went down to the remains of Philos together, Y/N?”

You nod against him, too choked up to answer beyond that even if you tried.

You both had crash landed on that planet, only his metallic wings and the tortuous pain they caused him saving the both of you when your cruiser’s engine had failed. He’d become unconscious after using his body as a shield against terrain that had slowly been doomed to death by a planet that’s energy source had abandoned it. It had been your kiss that woke him, the distraction of your tender lips almost enough to negate the agonizing pain that stabbed into your every cell like pointed icicles from where your palms had been connected through the transfer port in your mechanical suits.

You’d felt the grimace and contorted expressions against your lips while you’d siphoned the sounds of his suffering into you, wishing with every fiber of your being that you could have taken all of it into yourself.

So many times you had been forced–trapped– in the experimental glass pod, unable to do anything but watch while the only person your heart longed for had suffered, his heart-rending bellowings unfathomable and unescapable even when the prickling syringes and needles tried to erase your memories.

Always they remained and lingered, just like the name you’d given him.

And his pain… it was beyond anything any creature should have been capable of bearing—an unholy force that consumed every part of him, twisting his insides, grinding his being into pieces. It wasn’t a simple ache or throbbing wound. It was as if every nerve in his body had been frozen and shot with ice, each pulse of agony a jagged shard of frigidity, carving deeper and deeper until he could no longer tell where anything was.

But he never failed to recognize you and he had not hesitated to hold you close in his arms, cradling you there as if you were the most precious thing in his eyes as you both careened into the landscape of decay and desolation. He’d willingly taken the brunt–or rather, the entirety–of the fall for you, the idea of any harm coming to you more horrifying to him than his own death.

His unconsciousness had become his enemy, his worst nightmare exerting itself upon him in a reaper’s scythe that brought only your sharp screams and wails, your lifeless, broken body in a heap while he’d held you against his chest. His own sorrow had flowed forth like a waterfall in the stream of crimson tears down his face, the grief and suffering breaking every part of him into pieces that attacked and impaled themselves into each other over and over again.

He’d only escaped that haunting, horrible hell of darkness and cold worse than any winter was by following your voice that beckoned him back towards the soothing, warm light of life that he only found meaning in when you were the his moon that drew the waves of being forth, his very epicenter attracted to your beautiful, gentle core.

In what once had been a lively, vibrant meadow rested nature’s cemetery. Only the sickly, warped weeds sprouted beneath him where you’d somehow managed to drag him against a dead trunk of a tree that had been split in half by the sickness that had ravaged this land.

But there you were, on your knees between his with your kind, nurturing lips planted between the part of his hair as you’d hummed the remains of the song he’d sung for you since you were children whenever he needed to calm you down.

It was a song only you knew. A song that needed no words when your eyes could speak them so much clearer than any letters could hope to try to describe the meaning of. A song that, like a black hole, called forth everything that you both were to each other. It channels it all together before transforming, evolving, changing it into something so much more than any word could express.

He’d confessed to you there, in that meadow on Philos–a once human inhabited planet that required massive amounts of energy, power, and sacrifice of one sovereign for many–what both of you had been held captive from admitting for so many years prior, your memories chipped and chaffed by the needle of Ever’s scientists that, until he’d grown strong enough to serve as a better candidate, had stuck into you.

In effort to find a way to contain you, to control you, the head of Ever had assigned only one person to ever be your partner when sent on missions meant for bloodshed and annihilation of the monsters it had created.

And oh, how hard he had fallen for you. It was as inescapable as trying to free himself from gravity.

You grounded him. Enveloped and surrounded him in every sense of the word with your cute laughs, your pretty smiles, your glimmering eyes, your voice of silk that, even when you told a bad joke, still trilled softly and dulcetly in his ears. You were everywhere in his head and yet, so far away, as untouchable as the clouds in the sky up until that fateful day in the meadow.

There, he’d let the confessions burst through his chest like some supernova, the bond you’d built together with him birthed anew under the crushing weight of what had been–and what could be–when he’d pierced through the deep space of the forbidden and uttered, the undeniable and undisputable. He’d only ever wanted to be in your world, for he’d for so long yearned for a place beside you that was not one of imagination or observance from a distance.

After all, he had been doomed to that tortuous fate before becoming your hunting partner when he’d been stuck behind that horrible glass wall with you trapped on the other side.

And when he’d coaxed you close in that meadow, those same arms–one cold, rigid, and bionic while the other was warm, pliant, and fleshly– led your front against the strong, chiseled chest covered in the dark fabric that lovingly clung to what little of his human body remained, he’d declared a different kind of need–one that wanted to devour you from where you’d sat atop of him.

You’d never forget the way his mouth had sought your ear, his breath hot against the shell of it as he’d said something that would lay eternally with you every time you closed your eyes. Every second that was spent in the shivering rigidness of his absence.

“I want to feel your warmth, your heartbeat…Everything…I want you to stay with me…Forever.”

When he’d nuzzled his cheek against yours, coveting every moment of touch that made every single one of his receptors charged with what felt like electricity zipping through his body, you’d let him, the obsessive flare in his eyes sparking something baser in you that only ignited deliciously more when he touched you like you were his entire world and looked at you like you were a celestial creature descended from the sun, the moon and the stars.

No amount of testing or experimentation on you could erase that memory. He’d made sure of it, hiding that, among what remained of your memories with him, inside a small pocket of a void in your mind that even Ever could not touch after many attempts spent honing his power for your sake.

Only two months and two days have passed since then, but he’d turned your world upside down and become the equator of your system far, far before then. It was as if your kiss had been the unavoidable calamity that had made his desires collide and converge, their amalgamation too powerful for him to resist in your magnetic pull whenever he saw you, smelled you, thought of you.

And now, as he stands before you as solid as the glass at your back, that same reaction, set off by every atom that made you up, has you repeating those words he’d spoken to you by the remains of that charred yet living tree stump on Philos. The same stump had had the beginnings of moss attached to it, the two bodies of alternate forms helplessly clinging to each other even after their environment had been unforgiving to them.

Under the intensity of those nebulous eyes powerful enough to make you fall to your knees, you repeat what your lover had professed so ardently to you, his yearning dressing the guilt that is draped under his eyes. It is enough to take your breath away when his long, mechanical fingers wrap around your wrist where you had been dragging your own digits down towards his lips.

He leads your digits to them, the pads of your own fingers steered along the edge of his mouth before they follow the outline of his lower, fuller lip. It has become cracked in the aridity of whatever planet he’d been sent to, and you wet your own as you stare, unabashedly at his.

Embarrassment that had once perched heavily over your shoulder at the very thought of him no longer does in the nest he’s made in your chest, and so the words fly free when he draws your digits over and along his thinner upper lip to his defined Cupid’s bow. It, too, is dry and begging for the nourishment only you can give.

“You are dehydrated, Caleb. You weren’t taking care of yourself again,” you whisper, the nerves in your still human digits crackling with sensation when he pilots them so they catch and carry the plumpness of his lower lip down, his saliva seeking you before the pink of his lip returns to contain it after your fingers have been conducted toward the corner of his jaw so you can hold him there.

Your touch sends sparks down his spine, and he relishes in the warmth of you that no sun could ever hope to emit as he closes his eyes, nudging into your hand while he utters, “That does not matter to me when there are more important things that require my attention.”

The meaning of that is not lost on you, and you knew well the lengths he would go to shower you in every iota of his devotion as vast as space itself. His calibration had, for a long time, been warped in its centering all around you, and so descript was it that he often forgot to attend to his own needs as long as yours were. You’d since figured out a way to navigate that, for it burned you to see him neglect himself for your sake.

“I’m thirsty, Caleb. Carry me to the kitchen, will you?” You ask, affection flowing forth like water when he gives a smile that could light up any room at your request. You encircle your arms around his neck, needing this closeness just as much as he does after being away from you too long.

“You don’t have to tell me twice, pip-squeak,” his hands travel down from where they’d been resting on your hips, ginger and gentle as they glide from your sides downward past the curve of your backside to their destination on the backs of your legs.

When he’s wound his fingers around the underside of your thighs, it takes little effort for him to hoist you up against him, your legs automatically wrapping around his waist like he is your own charging port. Unlike you, part of him has been fused with metal, his right arm lost to Ever’s unassailable greed for perfection in creating life that was as dangerous as it was perfect.

Created to serve as your precursor–your corrupted guardian and watchdog–your body had been spared over the trials done on his so that you could be the organization’s angel of blood and slaughter.

With you held closely in his arms, he crosses the distance of the open concept chamber complete with a long, rectangular coffee table made entirely of glass that is accented by two black leather couches in front and behind it. On the far side of it are two lounge chairs, one smaller than the other, arranged next to each other and facing the viewport with its wide view of the stars and dark sky. The larger one is worn and has small tears in its armrests from where he’d gripped them so hard during many dawns and dusks spent either with you in his head, on his lap, or between his legs.

On one end of the parlor is an impressively sized bedroom, grand bathroom, and boudoir, the last of which he’d built himself using his Evol, his sweat, and his hands. On the other end of the sitting room, there is a sleek kitchen of chrome appliances, grey cabinets, and a sizable island of white marble that looked like the moon’s dust had settled across it.

It is here that your lover brings you, unwilling to let you go even for a moment as he strides to the refrigerator and waits patiently for you to open it.

In the short time he’d gathered you in his arms, you’d been swept astray into the whirling domain of his eyes, and when he arches a brown brow upward in a teasing move that gets your pulse quickening, you pry your sights away from him.

Like he is your own force of momentum, your inertia is swift to alter its state and you open the refrigerator door, quickly procuring the pitcher of apple juice he’d prepared for you the morning he’d left. The note written on a sticky note still remains stuck to its side, the words ‘Made with love for my special, beautiful girl whom I miss dearly’ smudged from the oils on your fingertips as you’d held it.

Only a quarter of the amber colored liquid remains, for you’d been unable to resist the sweet taste that reminded you so much of him when it fell across your tongue. He doesn’t question your choice of drink when he notices the bent edges of the sticky note that must have been anxiously fiddled with by your fingers while you’d waited for him.

Instead, he teases you once again as he turns to place you on the island behind you. “Missed me, didn’t you, pip-squeak?”

“You taught me that missing someone is wanting them to be with you even when they can’t be. And every minute you were away, I wished for you to be here with me, by my side.” You confess, the frigid and hard stone under you a stark contrast to the calefaction he radiates. Not wanting to let him go, you ask, “By the way, can you get me the glass I left at the edge of the counter? My arm isn’t long enough to reach it.”

Your admission has his blood rushing to his face, a grin that even Cupid would have been jealous of crossing his face.

“But of course, my lady,” he bows his head in obedience, the playfulness jumping off each vowel tugging at the chords of your boundless feelings for him. “One glass for the pretty girl coming right up.”

As if every second of your touch had charged him up, he dutifully reaches around you for the apple-shaped glass you’d left out earlier. The small action has him leaning forward, his hot breath fanning against your lips. Like this, you can tell that the usual lively color of those lips of his that are vibrant like a flower’s petal in spring had lost some of their vivid pigmentation, the lack of proper nutrition stealing it from him.

It makes your stomach twist, even the basic tenets of self-care eradicated from his mind when all but you dwelled in it during the times he was separated from you.

With the cup in tow, he rises back to his full height, oblivious as usual to his malnourished state that only befell him when he was away from you. Anger worms its way through you, an anger that would bury itself in you until you’d found a way to save him from the assholes that sent him on that godsforsaken mission and did this to him.

“How much do you want, pip-squeak?” He inquires, taking the pitcher from you and pouring the sparkling juice forth from it.

His voice cools the ire that had been slithering inside your stomach, but jealousy over a damned cup that had apprehended his attention away from you makes you possessively squeeze him between your thighs where he stands.

He makes a surprised sound at that, the sound making you ascend as it tumbles from his cracked lips.

Your resolve hardens as you watch him selflessly tend to you through the stream of juice that conforms to the shape of the cup he’d crafted for you.

“Give it all to me.” You tell him, impatient for his attention again to be attached to you.

The burbling stops, and finally, those eyes of his rush toward yours like fucking meteorites.

“I told you before, pip-squeak,” His fingers constrict around the neck of the pitcher, the glass cracking under the pressure of him as he sets it down, “If it’s my unique scent you want,” with his other hand, he brings the cup of juice under your lips, “a uniform filled with memories,” he tips the cup just the slightest bit toward you, your mouth parting to accept the cold, tart liquid over your tongue, “or even the authority to command me,” the last few words siphon something hungry in you despite the liquid that is beginning to fill your mouth, the slender, metallic digits of his other palm slipping around the back of your neck to tilt your head back so more of the juice can spill between your lips with its sweet tinge, “I’ll make sure you get everything you could ever ask for.”

You hold eye contact with him like he might vanish if you don’t keep him held under the whirling pressure of you, tipping your chin back more as he encourages you with the hand he holds you with while he keeps you close, just as unwilling to be too far away from you.

The sight of you–your legs spread with him nestled between them and your wet, soft lips accepting what he feeds you as you let him lean you back, willing and pliable for him–makes the still-fleshy organ in his netherregion harden where he’s confined in his powered exosuit.

He observes you with captivation starring the corner of his purple-pink orbs, watching the honey-colored juice disappear into the cavern between your lips as it pours forth into you. Each mouthful of it down your throat has him feeling as though his internal temperature has begun to overheat, a different kind of steam demanding to be let out when the last of the contents of the drink flow into the chamber of your mouth.

You don’t swallow this one.

Rather, you lift one of your hands, making a come-hither gesture with your finger while intention–magnifying and polarizing–harnesses him to you like a magnet.

He knew you more intimately than you knew yourself, and so the realization that dusks over his countenance casts you into the heatwave of his fierce, intense emotions once reserved only for his mind.

As tall as he is, his shadow shades you in the soft light of the moon that sits in the distance of the dark realm outside as your lover’s front falls forward, one of his hands closing around the edge of the counter as he husks. “You’re a bad liar, pip-squeak. You can’t fool me. You want me to drink from you that badly, huh?” the glass he’d been pressing against your lips is put down, his irises dipping from yours to your mouth before his index comes upon one side of your cheek where his thumb spans your other, his other knuckles urging your chin up so that you can’t escape the all encompassing gravity of his affliction for you. His hot breath fans your lips as he draws inevitably nearer, “You can be such a silly girl, and yet-”

Waiting for him to come to you is an eternity you can’t possibly bear, and when finally he closes the distance between you– two masses of matter inextricably colliding and crashing together as you seek each other’s every molecule in a searingly passionate kiss–the natural release of the liquid you’d been storing for him is diffused into the chasm of his mouth, his groan short-circuiting you as he deepens the kiss, the fusion between you expelling reason and logic until all there is is him.

More you give and more he takes, his long tongue flitting over yours while he explores you like it’s the first time.

Against your mouth, he breathes, “You’re irresistible to me. I can’t stop myself from falling for you. Every. Single. Time.” The words are passed between voyages of his mouth as he returns, over and over again, to his origin point of you, fire licking up at you from where he’s connected to you.

His fingers depress themselves into your flesh as if you are the foundation he needs to stay afloat in the depth of his all consuming weakness for you, the slight pressure that action imposes on you making your lips pucker against his where you feed the still crisp juice to him. Stray trails of it dribble down your chin, your neck and then between the valley of your breasts that strain against the low v-cut nightgown hardly even reaching past your ass.

You’d chosen it knowing it was his favorite of the many he’d stitched and sewn himself just for you. He’d taught you a great many things about feelings, emotions, and that little thing called desire, and you’d begun to see just how much-with the tiniest of actions or words- you jumbled his impulses and want that only you could rewire, rewrite, and reshape.

“Caleb,” you grapple for the leather strap overlaying his powered exosuit below where the amber colored crystal is embedded at the base of his neck, his mouth claiming yours as you pull him closer, needing him everywhere and anywhere you can have him in the visceral summonings only he can make well up within you. Your shallowing breaths and spit swirl together in the clash of your tongues and teeth, neither of you able to resist the other.

He swallows what makes it past the ring of his lips, hungry for more even when your lungs begin to burn from lack of air, and in their enviousness, rip you away from him.

Like the wane of a moon, his eyes have gone dark when he breaks the seal of his mouth over yours, the string of saliva bridging you to him refusing to snap until he straightens, his index smearing the remains of his own essence over your upper lip as he utters, “My name isn’t a safe word, pip-squeak. Saying it won’t make me stop.” His hand slides into your hair while the other now has the counter in an iron-grip as he battles to control himself, his lips coursing toward the edge of your mouth where his finger had been. The pink of his tongue slips from between them to lap up in a long, wet stripe as he collects the pleasing, saccharine remnants of apple juice that had escaped. “You just make me want more.”

Your eyelids flutter at the sensation, his words making heat bloom in the apex between your thighs that you hadn’t even realized you’d begun to rut against him in search of friction where they are still wound, with the rest of your legs, around his waist.

“Y-you made it spill,” you stammer when that knowing muscle betwixt his lips is brought under the edge of the other side of your own. There, he leaves the slick of his saliva from his tongue’s travels downwards as he gathers the taint of sticky, sugary remains on you there, too.

“You think that was an accident, baby? It wasn’t.” His hand slinks toward the back of your head so he can take a handful of your locks and gently guide you down until your back meets the hard plane of the counter. Reduced to a weightless mass in the omnipresent skies of him you could forever exist within, you can do little but wait for him to maneuver you, your own digits holding on tighter to the leather strap below his neck where he hovers above you because somehow, someway, you needed to keep yourself by him, the void of space observing you from outside the glass walls of your chambers both a hope and a curse.

“Mmm… Thank you for feeding me. That was good,” He hums, the transparency of his yearning there in his eyes, showing the basest part of him sequestered in the far reaches of his orbs while he continues his devoted descent, the passage of his mouth one that follows the winding paths of the existing tracks of liquid that had traveled south along your throat and chest from earlier. Each time his soft lips land, the hot of his tongue is there to scavenge for your taste that has become deliciously mixed with that of apples. Between them, he tells you, “I missed you so much, pip-squeak.”Craving more of you, he keeps driving his mouth to the ocean that is you, the wet sound of his kisses on your flesh and devoutness of his touch making everything else sink away.

Before they can completely desert you, you need him to know something. You hardly stutter his name out in a poor excuse for his attention, but it is enough for him to pause, his mouth ghosting the spot between your collarbones where’d he’d been laving the pink muscle along the trails of the sweet liquid that had converged into one before dripping down your chest.

“What is it, my sweet girl?” He questions, tilting his head to the side so the ebony of his bangs falls just over the one eye that he usually sweeps free of his fringe. “Did I do something wrong?”

“You’re not allowed to leave me like that again. It felt like one half of me was missing. Like there was an empty hole in my chest the entire time you were gone.” You tug him down with you, the metal of the roboticized fingers of his right hand bracing him by one side of your head while his other cradles the back of your skull. His breath hitches when you confess, “It was like that hole sucked up all of the happiness and good in my world because you were not in it.”

Before him, you’d been a stranger to all but death, your swords sharp and your orders from the scientists at the lab unforgiving. But despite missions of bloodshed and piercing, terrorizing screams, everyday you’d both watched each other from behind the see-through wall of your glass cages. You’d listened to his stories and musings raptly while inextricably drawn to his side like he was the center of all gravity, your palms separated by the barrier between you when you weren’t trapped in your glass pod.

He had always been the only source of sensation or sentiment, and in him, you’d found what only he could give: home.

He can feel the vulnerability that has locked your muscles in place, so he croons, “I’m here now. Nothing will take me away from you ever again. We will always be together.”

“Promise me,” you don’t let his words drift away from you, the echo of a vow made when you’d both been much smaller surfacing in the back of your mind, “Promise me again, Caleb. I won’t forgive you if you break it.”

Something flickers behind the window of his eyes. The tenderness that colors his voice dulls everything but him, even the clock’s ticking muted when he answers, the blizzard of the air pushed away when the summer of his breath blows along your chin from where he looks fondly down at you, “I promise, my one and only.”

When you relax beneath him, your ligaments freed from their invisible chains, you use the grip you have on the leather strap to lead him to your waiting lips, the sincerity of his words tangible in the featherlight brush of his lips over yours that makes your heart skip a beat. He must hear that, because he deepens the kiss as if he can circumfuse all of his love into you through that action alone. Insistence takes over, and you relish in it when he slots his mouth harder into yours, not willing to release you from the endless expanse of his ardor for you until oxygen–the damned nuisance–tears you away from him once again.

His breaths are short and shallow while they coalesce with yours, his chest heaving above you where your other hand–the one not already clutching the thin strap below his throat–rises so your fingers can carefully trace the outline of his lips that are fine and fair, almost like satin. No longer are they dry, the sheen of your spit there, embracing them in your care for him while he stares lovingly at you. His lips are so malleable, so nimble as your digit glides across them, his mouth pursuing your hand as if to forage for more of your warmth.

“Affection?” You pose the question, a fledgling still to the ways of showing the indescribable ways he makes you feel when you’d spent so much of your life behind a glass case.

His orbs soften under the silver light of the moon that all but makes him glow when he affirms, “Affection. Do you need me to shower you in affection, my one and only?”

Your fingers gravitate down his chin, his throat, the upper plane of his chiseled, muscled pectoral where his own heart pounds fiercely and quickly, like it, too, is trying to reach for you; like it, too, preens happily under your touch and attention. Your own thrums against your ribcage to the same hurried rhythm as if in a dance of passion, neither able to step away from the other.

Swept into that symphony of sensation that only he could orchestrate, you don’t hesitate when you answer, “Yes. As long as it is you, the answer will always be yes.”

You watch his veiled control crease his thick brows and diverge his lips, a fragmented breath leaving him when the hard, cool, robotic fingers of his right hand circle around your forearm to direct your open palm up, the sculpted realm of his body hidden by the mesh of his suit where his chest is before the rigidness of alloy encases his throat and shoulders.

At the base of his throat that alloy is carved out to contain a golden crystal, and it is here that he lets your fingers hover, waiting for you to tap it so you can press the series of holographic buttons only you know the right combinations to.

“Humans show affection in many ways. But there are ways they do it that are only done when they have found their other half…their one and only.” The metal of his hand ascends up your arm until his palm is pressed against the back of yours, the interconnected phalanges of his fingers bending around yours as he tells you, “Kissing is one way of it. But to let the one person you share the deepest of bonds with feel and see you–all of you– so they can accept and welcome that, too…that’s another way. And I want you to do that with me, my precious girl. I want you to accept every part of me.”

With his digits wrapped around yours, your index lightly pushes against the crystal nestled between the two notches of his collarbones, the familiar amber light of the holographic panel coming to life before you. You don’t need to look down at it anymore, opting instead to glimpse the nebulas of his eyes that glint intensely at you while your fingers move with practiced ease over each of the three symbols amid the pyramid displayed before you.

After you’ve hit the final one, there’s a series of chinks and chimes, the nanotechnology embedded in his suit fluorescing in particles of purple that ripple outwards from around the crystal, the flow of light extending outward from it as the black mesh and alloy disintegrate everywhere the light falls like a tide of violet over the glorious sculpture of his body.

Inch by inch the canvas of him is bared to you, neither of you hearing the thud of the abandoned crystal hitting the ground beneath you when the art in front of you captures all of your attention, the polar pull too strong for you to resist even if you wanted to when your eyeline veers down his body in a mouthwatering view that has both sets of your lips slickening.

Years of modification, missions, and maintained training regimen had corded every bit of him in muscle, his abdomen etched into six defined, sharp blocks across his middle. Framed by two more below, he’s a well-made mosaic of a human being. Even his pectorals are cut seamlessly in their curvatures that cling to the rest of him, his broad, strong shoulders accenting it all where the left arm connected to them looks as if it has been stroked entirely with thick thew from his bicep to his forearm. From the back of his hand, thick veins branch out, the raised lines offshooting up his forearm.

Where flesh and that same muscle should have wound down his other arm, the metal of a robotic replacement remains. Like a restoration piece, it attempts to match its mirror in the sinuous, sinewy make that no longer can receive feeling beyond pain.

He senses the subtle squirm of your fingers where they now rest against his sternum, your basest receptors within itching to rediscover him.

“Go on, pip-squeak. Feel me,” he implores, trailing the hand of yours that he still holds down across his pectoral until your palm rests just over the strong, erratic palpitations of his heart, “This is all yours. It always has been.”

The beat of the organ beneath your hand pushes your own along, your fingers becoming curious travelers that wander along the mountainous range between his pectorals, the smaller pads of each of your five fingers crossing along, under, and around every contour and curve of him upward from his defined collarbones to the blocks of muscle lining his abdomen. Somewhere along the way, his hand detaches from yours, his knuckles turning white where grips onto the counter so you’re pressed between the pleasing warmth of his body and the cold foundation of the countertop.

Each stroke of your fingers along the plains of his chest has his breaths deepening like each touch both satisfies and starves him, and when your fingers roam down a little too far past the slabs of thew settled over his stomach, that’s when he nestles his nose into the crook of your neck, his balmy breath sweeping over the sensitive area on the side of your throat as he inhales the essence of you before he checks, “You want to go there, my darling? Are you sure?”

You had never cared to know what pleased a man before him. But years of tension and longing for this man before you had built up inside you and made you overflow and fucking brim with want that could only be fulfilled by him.

No one had ever asked what you wanted, much less if you were clear on what it was you even thought you wished for in the first place.

But he had. He always had.

That is why your own digits drift downward until they amble along one side of the impressively large shaft standing at attention between his thick, muscled thighs, fingers skimming along the ridges of his proud cock.

“Fuck,” he curses when you reach his base, only able to get half of your hand around him before ascending. “You really did miss me, didn’t you, my sweet girl?”

“Can I show you?” You turn your head, lips searching for his where they linger along your sternocleidomastoid muscle lining the side of your throat. You peer at him with innocent doe-eyes that are enough to make him into your slave if you wished it. “I know how because of you.” You squeeze him lightly–deliciously– under the bulbous head of his cock, transfixed by the way his eyes become hooded while your hand descends down back to his engorging base just the way he’d taught you to.

Unable to ever deny you when you look at him like that, he breathes out, “You know you can do whatever you want to me, pretty girl.” His handsome expression contorts into one of contained pleasure, his brows pulling together and mouth falling open when you handle him just a little faster, your thumb spreading the newly rolled beads of pre-cum over the mushroom-shaped tip of his length that made your own mouth and sex cry out of need for him.

“This body is yours, baby.” He emits a long, drawn out sound of pleasure when you stroke him there and back, your other fingers brushing at the swelling bulbs of his balls beneath his sumptuously sized cock. You feel, fascination pooling in your core, the way the veins that wrap around his member have begun to jump excitedly under your touch, and gods, did the man in front of you look delicious when in the throes of rapture only you could bring.

Watching him was addicting. It was like a drug that you could never, ever, stop taking, your brain and very blood now so dependent and entrenched in the sights, sounds, sensations, and thoughts of him that it could no longer fire correctly unless your fix was with you–or inside you.

“Mine.” You repeat, your hand picking up the speed you rub him up and down with, your other fingers curling around one of his engorging balls and massaging it before giving the same attention to the other. He inclines his head as if in deference, irises loyally bowing down to yours, for he is utterly weak to your ministrations.

Your voice and touch are his aphrodisiac, and in his absence, he’d become so very starved for you.

“You’ve become so good at this, haven’t you? You’re going to make me cum for you if you keep going like this, pretty girl.” He pants laboriously, concentration painting its way across his face when you tighten your grip around him, the vice of your hand making the top of of his length weep, its wetness drawn down by you every so often when you wind and twist your hand around his large, fleshy head before dragging it back down. “Feels so fucking good, pip-squeak. I taught you too well, didn’t I?”

“I had a very good teacher,” you agree, your legs securing around him harder in your keenness to bring him closer because as near as he is, you need him more than the air that hovers between you while you rub at his testicles with one of your hands and other, becoming a vice around his cock, gropingly glides along his length without pause–without abandon– your joined flesh making obscene sounds of his slick and wetness as you please him.

His breaths become heavier the faster you go, knuckles going whiter than snow as he fights to contain his release that he can feel quivering in the base of his balls all the way to the curving arc of his cock that reaches for you in its beautiful, long curvature.

He’s so fucking close. He’s just at the fucking edge of the precipice of his release, but that end that suspends itself over him now is not the one he had envisioned upon his return to you. The appetite he had for you made him hunger for another, more carnal means. One that only you could parch the cavern of his mouth from.

No, he needed you in a different way. He could wait. He was no stranger to that when it came to you.

“Yeah? Well as much as I want to cum for you, pretty girl,” both of his larger hands seize your wrists, pinning them above your head, his cock pressing against the wailing apex between your legs as he tells you, “You did so well to feed me earlier, and now I want more. I’m so hungry, pretty girl. And only you can satisfy me.”

“Hungry?” You moan when he gives a purposeful roll of his hips into you, the tip of his fully erect cock a little ways under his belly button yet the rest of him sliding deliciously along your folds.

He chuckles low when you moan at the way his cock slides against the button of nerves above your folds when he undulates those toned hips of his again.

“Yes, baby. Starving.” The space around your arms shifts and invisible streaks erupting through it before the colorless, leaden matter set alight by embers shoots down around your forearms and hands, his Evol over gravity tethering you in place so his hands can wrap around your thighs, pulling them over each of his broad shoulders so he’s got your ass resting against his sternum and your sex inches from his waiting mouth.“I told you before…I want everything you are willing to give me. That includes your sweet, delicious honey.”

You don’t resist him. You’re exactly where you want to be right now while his irises lower to where you’re bare for him. He sucks in a breath, staring like he’s looking a fucking meal, “You left yourself bare for me…what a needy girl. But you know, I like my girl needy for me. That’s hot.”

He inhales deeply through his nose, your intoxicating scent making his eyes roll back before those heavy tendrils of his power, receptive to his hunger, pull at the edges of your nightgown. They slowly tug it up your body, each sliver of skin you present to him making his salivary glands water as he swallows around a suddenly dry throat. And between his legs, his cock hardens impossibly more when the fabric of your nightgown crests over your perfect, pert breasts, the peaks of which are stiff and demanding of his attention. You’re already glistening with wetness for him, the evidence of your arousal evident in the sheen of it that coats your cunt from your earlier illicit activity.

“pip-squeak…you’re so beautiful.” It’s a remnant of his usual voice that comes out, for you’ve stolen his ability to breathe not for the first time, and certainly not for the last. “Please let me have you right here on the counter in our kitchen. I’ll make you feel good just like I always do. I’ll take such good care of you, baby.”

Ever mindful of you and your wishes, he gives you the chance to decide. And ever the light to his shadow, you could sooner reject him than the moon could halt its wayward journey around the solar system.

“I’m all yours, Caleb.” You muster, your own words rushed under the current of his eyes that garner every bit of your attention.

“Do you have any idea what you do to me when you say that, my sweet girl?” The pink of his tongue peeks from between his lips, stretching and elongating before it gently passes itself along the slit of your sex, licking up in a long, wet stripe before it curls back into his mouth, the thick glaze of you covering it before it disappears between his lips. “You make me want to please you so fucking much. I won’t be able to stop until you’re a moaning, writhing mess for me.” His eyes darken as the essence of you spreads itself across every taste bud, his fingers coiling harder into your thighs. “I’m going to eat you out until I am satisfied, my sweet girl. Until you fill my fucking mouth with your precious come.”

He doesn’t give you time to respond after that, for he attaches his mouth to your cunt like a man starved, his mouth becoming a circle of searing suction that demands everything you have. The tang of you is unlike any savory substance he’s ever had across his palate, and mixed with the sugary drippings of apple juice that had coursed down from your breasts to your belly to the thin thatch of hair that his nose is now buried in, you’re a mix of delicacy and sin that he will never tire of supping.

“C-Caleb…ah-” You stutter when that expert of a tongue of his sidles between your folds, lapping you up like he’s a dog.

“Mmm, you taste so fucking delicious, baby,” he hums against your sex, the metal of one hand glinting in the silvery moonlight as he slides it up the supple curves of your body until his fingers are wound around your breast. There, he kneads into your flesh, loving the show of expressions dressed in your satisfaction that you bear to him while you are made the receiver of his gluttony. “Your tits are so perky and perfect just like the rest of you. I love how they fit in my hands, pretty girl.” The strong muscle that he glides between your labia there and back makes a sweltering heat begin to pool in the basest part of you, the fingers he has on your breast running over the dusky bud of your areola before they roll it between them. “I can’t wait to put my mouth on them later.”

Your spine arches at that, the beauteous arc of that making him ache between his legs as he ravenously suckles you like you’re a meal he’s happy to wolf down, your very essence slathered across his tongue where he flattens it between your soddened lips, dragging it up and over your hole that clenches around nothing while he consumes you with the vigor of a man drunk on the high of you.

“Yes, fuck…more, pretty girl. Feed me more,” his words are muffled with his mouth still swathed around you, the flat of his tongue splaying itself over your hole only to twist around it in frenzied rotations to draw out more tears of your need from it. “You’re so fucking good.”

Freer than water over the brim of a cup, your voice spills from your throat, “P-please, Caleb…Please.”

With your pleas drawn forth from you, thirst saturates his orbs as he sucks you between his teeth, the sounds of his slurping causing an even fiercer wave of desire to engulf you as your sex sheds even more slick for him. He catches it all onto his tongue with fervor, the resulting sigh of his satisfaction joining the filthy sounds of your passion that you make together.

“You want this tongue inside you, baby?” He mouths from where his mouth is melded to you, “What my sweet girl wants is what she will get.” His last word is swallowed by your cunt when the tip of his tongue slips into your hole, and he slowly sinks into you inch by delicious inch. You keen at that, and when he flicks it against your walls side to side, it makes the warmth of bliss surge up through your fucking veins from where he’s fixed to you with each devastating flick of it along your plush, velveteen insides that welcome him eagerly.

There’s nothing languid about the way it writhes along the soft cushion of your walls, the movements of it wild and fevered like he can’t get enough of your addicting flavor as he uses the possessive grip he’s got on the pillow of your thigh to impel himself deeper inside you while you tighten around him. With his tongue still lodged within you, he mumbles, “Be a good girl and wrap your legs tighter around me, baby. I want to feast on you as much as I can. Can you do that for me?”

The vibrations of his voice are carried along his tongue and straight into the bundle of nerves nestled deep within you. You barely manage to comprehend his request, your brain malfunctioning under the burrowing of his tongue farther into you so you’re stuffed unbelievably with the wet length of him while he palms at your breast, twiddling your nipple between his thumb and index while heat coils in your core.

In the absence of your mind’s input, your walls constrict around him and your body obeys him, your thighs closing around his head to keep him lodged between your legs, your ankles crossing over each other so your heels can secure and lock him in place.

“There you go.” His words are smothered by your cunt as he dines on you, “That’s it, pretty girl.” He guzzles you between his lips, tongue grazing and gliding over each and every edge and lineation of your silken basin until no part of you has not been left lathered in his saliva while his other hand joins its counterpart so on your neglected breast.

You feel those familiar tendrils of his Evol holding your hips in place, even his own power refusing to relinquish you while his hand cups the underside of your tit, thumb dragging itself along your nipple while his artificial palm fondles your other.

You cry out at the series of sensations that don’t pause or let up, his eyes misting over in the haze of his desire that demands every bit of you as he breathes in your inebriating aroma that drives him fucking mad.

You call out his name, begging for him once again, and it earns you another twirl of his tongue around the tunnel of your pussy as he intones, “I know, pretty girl. I’m making you into a desperate little mess. But don’t worry, I’ll make you come soon, baby. I want you to cream all over my face just as badly as you do.” He draws in a deep breath of you at the same time that vulgar tongue of his swivels inside you, his fingers playing with the buds of your nipples while you moan loudly as the coil in your core tautens. “You’re getting close already, huh, baby? It makes me feel so good to be able to listen to you sing for me while I pleasure you. Shit...I just can’t get enough of you.”

You entice him even nearer with your legs, squeezing him between your thighs by way of answer, your words lost to the pleasure that steadily begins to wind around your lower abdomen all the way to your brain. Your hips try to buck against him in search of more friction, but his Evol keeps you in place, unable to move while he tongue-fucks you, swallowing every now and again the taint of your own appetence.

He notices that small movement of your hips, listens to your resulting whine when you are halted from that endeavor, because then the tendrils of his Evol that had been binding you still from above and below your waist start to conform to your shape, the makeshift digits acting as hands that support you down your back and ass rather than tethering your hips in place.

“Ride my face, pretty girl,” he instructs as the hot length of his tongue penetrates the tight ring of your hole, immediately striking you frenetically along your walls while he’s swaddled in the vice of your cunt that clenches around him. “Remember what I taught you.”

His encouragement fires the sparks of your action, and you immediately follow his directive. Your hips roll into him, the border of your lips catching on his nose and just barely hitting the edge of the bundle of nerves crowning your cunt while his fingers gently trace the pebbling outline of your nipples. Your mouth soon falls open to emit the wanton sounds of your blissful rhapsody.

Headiness makes the air heavy between you, your back bowing at the tantalizing thrill that he arouses in you while he continues to flit his tongue in rampant, gyrated motions inside you while you grind yourself against his face like he’d told you to while he praises, “Just like that. You’re doing so well for me, baby. You’re so nice to suck on while you’re using my face to feel good.”

Over and over you oscillate your hips against him, for each time producing a faster, fevered rhythm in the back-and-forth of the hot muscle of his tongue against you while he swills your piquant quintessence into his mouth. His hands never stray from your breasts, devoted to the peaks of your tits that have peaked under his constant attention. His irises smolder you in his zealousness, and you can’t escape the wildfires they make you burn with as he lavishes his love on you.

Inevitably, the coil of need that had been building inside you threatens to burst, and he knows it, because when he buries his face even farther into you, angling his chin in this way and that so he can lave his tongue up the far end of your walls before pivoting it provokingly at places you didn’t even know existed in the trench of you, he feels the way you grip onto him harder, your sex contracting harder around him while he coos, “Yeah, fuck, I’m so hard for you, baby. Keep going.”

Your hips hasten their pace, chasing the ecstasy that twines itself tighter in the base of your belly with every sway of them along the lower half of his nose, cheeks, and mouth. Your breaths have become shallow, barely a figment of what they once were where you whimper for him. The globes of your breasts heave up and down even with his hands still covering and rubbing at your rigid peaks while you rock yourself shamelessly on him, deliriousness spewing into him as you careen toward your end.

“Tell me how good I am, baby.” His voice is smothered by you, his tongue drowning most of the syllables in the depths of you, “Tell me I’m the only one who can make you into a wet, dripping mess that wants no one but me. Let me hear your voice, pretty girl, and I’ll give you what you want so badly.”

You grind like a craven creature along the bridge of his nose all the way down to the end of his chin, the gleam of your taint left in your continual passage atop of him, your entire system flushed with the same frenzy he takes you with.

Coherency has forsaken you now, its forebear of wantonness left to overwhelm you in its place.

It is why you moan out, “You’re so good to me, Caleb. So, so good. Better than anyone could ever be,” you throw your head back, and he sees the whites of your eyes when his tongue streaks faster than a comet back and forth within your plush galaxy that he could spend years exploring, words slurred from your efforts as you soddenly cant your hips astride him while avarice incarnate churns your core and cunt. “No one can fuck me like you, touch me like you do, or kiss me like you do. No one, and absolutely no one, can love me as you do.”

The words are but echoes of a chant he’d been your maestro for, aiding and directing your notes of enthrallment for him while he’d pitched you into an impassioned dance your body had responded only to him with.

Your answer activates something feral in him, his pupils blowing wide and nearly absorbing the circlets of compressed morning dawn in them. Metal fingers take your chin between them, maneuvering your attention back to him and all you can see are the dimmed nebulae of his eyes as the space above where you both have become one distorts and distills. The tendrils of his Evol divaricate and break through it, reaching down until-

“Only I can have you like this. Now look at me when I make you cum, baby. I want you to remember this memory of me between your legs and never, ever forget it. You’re going to recognize me by sight, smell, touch, sound…everything.” Your eyes snap open and latch onto him when the cumbrous, corpulent striations of his Evol, all at once, press down on your clit in a feeling akin to hundreds of tiny palpitations and pulses against the bundle of nerves as he manipulates gravity solely for you. Your gasp is garbled and your hips jerk and jounce at the sudden flux of sensations, and then his other hand is there, on your hip, to help you keep going while his tongue makes schlepping noises where he fervently frisks it up and down in rapid succession within your clinging walls. “Such a good listener you are. I need you to cum in my mouth now, pretty girl. I need you to feed me your honey.”

Your mouth falls open in an ‘o’ shape, the sonorous scream that resounds from you making even the walls tremble in its volume as your body obeys his directive and your world goes white with the shattering of the tension he’d founded in you. From its springs a fierce, fiery pleasure that floods you from he’s fused with you, the torrid, intense waves of it washing over you from the tips of your fingers to the ends of your toes that cramp and curl behind his back.

He fucks you through your orgasm, the ribbons under his control winding down your sex slithering around and between his lips before they nuzzle the flowerbed of nerves buried far into you. The hot length he threshes about in your silken channel moves with an inhuman speed as the other hundreds of tendrils of his Evol ruinously ravage your clit over and over again while you wail and whimper for the man beneath you, your cunt cinching and spasming around him.

Your essence gushes forth like a lewd stream into his anticipating mouth where he’s still got it moored to you, groaning deep and low where he receives you before he’s relaxing his tongue and opening wider to thirstily drink up the saccharine juices you have made for him.

“Keep coming. Fuck, keep coming for me. I love your taste. Need it every fucking day,” he sloppily swallows your slick down, “Give me every drop, baby. I want your taste to linger in my mouth forever.”

You don’t have to be told twice, the tendrils ceaseless and unabating in their pressure as they depress themselves over the most sensitive parts of you without pause. They leave no area unclaimed, rushing and lapping at you everywhere over and around your clit and g-spot in their own kisses to you that make their master jealous.

Their master, who pushes his hips into the counter, halting the small undulations they’d been making into it while he observes your euphorically erotic performance just for him. Their master, who squeezes himself between the counter and his body where his cock splutters with pre-cum, a pervasive twinging of an ache declaring its longing for you even when he stifles it with the small, constringing threads of his Evol that force his orgasm down into the base of his balls.

More you spill into his mouth as if a dam had been broken between your legs while he guides your grinding pussy there and back along his nose to his chin, the reservoir of his mouth receiving your release while you gush uncontrollably between his lips.

“Such a tasty cunt,” He drains you like you’re the fountain of his very life, each movement of his Adam’s apple bringing with it the sound of his gratification in the low groans he lets out. When the flow of your juices begins to slow, each of those colorless ribbons of his power disintegrate, his tongue retreating into his mouth so he can sip on you again and again– insatiable for you as an emaciated, famished male who hasn’t fed for weeks.

His want is there, each time he draws you in, and it writhes in the irises that dilate and expand as he besottedly ogles the blissed, fucked out expression that has you mewling, the unbelievable intensity of your climax leaving you feeling as if you’re suspended entirely in some astral dimension that only your lover could augment before you.

“Thank you,” he says it in some kind of daze, like the tart twang and tangy scent of you have clogged his mind of any reasonable thought while he languidly cleans you up, “Thank you so much, my love.”

Fondness makes your heart swell for him, and you’ve forgotten that the ribbons of his Evol still keep your arms tied down and entirely too distant from him.

“Caleb,” your voice is hoarse from your earlier outcries, “I want to touch you. Can I?”

Your plea has the tendrils binding your arms to the counter dissolving and releasing you, your request brushing past the brume of the trance that you’d put him under while the other strands of his Evol encasing you around your pelvis diffuse into thin air.

He cleans you with his tongue, entreating whatever remains onto it, your thighs slackening and opening around his head in the feeling that has been sapped out of you.

Once he’s sure he’s devoured every last morsel of the dinner, lunch, and breakfast that he’d made of you, his hands return to your sides to carefully ease you back down onto the counter so you’re laid against it once more.

“You do not need to ask me that, my love. I love it when you touch me,” He licks his lips, the lewd daubing of your taint embracing the wet length of him as satisfaction morphs his handsome features when the last of you is lathered across his palate. “I live only for you, anyway.”

His confession makes your cheeks flush a shade of red even rubies couldn’t hope to compare to, and it only becomes a mightier shade when you blink up at him with those long, obsidian-like lashes of yours while he uses the back of his artificial, roboticized hand to wipe away the glistening sheen of your essence that still sullies his chin and nose before the pink muscle in his mouth slips out to relish in that, too. “I would do anything for you because I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

Familiar heat simmers between your legs, and you extend your slightly shaky arm toward him, fingers outstretched in effort to make contact with him while you answer, “You would never let me forget.” As tall as he is, he’s too far away even though he’s stood against the countertop, your own legs now dangling on either side of him.

You whine at his unwanted farness despite your thighs that tremblingly try and fail to clamp him between them, and the resulting chuckle of amusement makes wings take flight in your chest as he responsively tilts his front forward, head lowering a little so you can dotingly cradle his cheek in your hand.

“What do you want, pip-squeak?” He rests his head in your hand, his knuckles of his other hand tenderly trailing down the underside of your arm to feel more of your smooth skin while his other, bionic one braces him against the counter so his chest hangs closely above yours.

“You.” Your answer is fetched forth by the attracting force that is him, the debris of hesitation eradicated under the nebulae in his eyes that spin with adoration and devotion solely to you.

“You have me, sweet girl,” he coos. “You always have.”

You’d never been good with words. Still, he made you want to be.

So you try to show him what you mean another way, bending one elbow under you so you can surround yourself in his musky, masculine scent of iron and grass. Like this, you can’t miss the fully engorged, painfully erect member between his thighs that’d he’d left neglected out of his devoutness to you.

You whine at the sight of him, fingers twitching impulsively at the sight of him as he tells you, “I know that look in your eyes, pretty girl, but I won’t last if you touch me there right now. I need you too much right now.”

An emotion your language simply didn’t have a means of expressing makes the whole of your heart twinge and pang for him, your fingers drifting down from his cheek so they can maunder down his neck to where pliant flesh meets rigid, hard metal. The daintiness of your touch makes him shudder, and his carefully shrouded vulnerability exposes itself in the shadows within the corner of one of his eyes as your fingers nimbly meander down the dark plating of iron where his receptors can’t feel you anymore–nonetheless, you don’t stop until your palm lays against the back of his.

“You once said that humans who love each other can mate their souls together if their vessels become one.” Your digits curl inward, filling the space he’d left open for you between his metallic fingers while his other digits reverently follow the curve of your shoulder blade to the dip of your spine. “I want that with you.”

His breath is snagged away by you, and he still sounds so very winded whenever the imaginings he’d had of you are replaced with the reality that is so, so much more beautiful than anything his mind could conjure.

“Are you certain, my one and only?” He asks breathlessly while you bring the artificial phalanges of his iron hand to your lips, kissing each where human joints would be in the middle of every single one of them.

Ever considerate of you and your own will, his question only whisks forth the truth of many moons and suns spent basking in the rays of his care and affection.

“These past two cycles without you made me realize that there is only one thing that has any meaning to me in this place, Caleb, and that is you,” You profess, turning his hand over so you can intertwine your fingers with his. He interlaces his with yours, each fitting perfectly next yours like they were designed just for this purpose. All the while, he admires every bit of the spread of red dusting over your cheeks while you say, “Make love to me until our spirits mate for life. Until we can’t remember what it was to be without each other.”

The kindle of your voice sets him alight with pining that refuses to be doused until his very being is joined in the heat of passion with yours, and he stiffens unbelievably more between your parted legs while the bulbous head of his enlarged, swollen cock leaks his pre-cum that has you wetting your lips, your tastebuds secreting saliva at the delicious sight of him.

“As you wish,” he faithfully utters before using the union made by your hands to help you sit up. His other digits faintly course down your spine, pebbling your flesh as they go. The soft pads of his fingertips don’t disappear until he reaches the small of your back where the globes of your ass hide you from him. “My moon and my stars,” those calloused digits fasten around your thigh, “My one and only in this life and the next.”

You watch him bring your intertangled hands to his mouth, the shape of them pledging themselves to you in the fleeting, deferent kiss he impresses upon the back of yours before he ensconces it over the corded thew of his shoulder, doing the same to with your other.

“However you’ll have me, I’ll come to you. And I will make all your wishes come true. Every single one of them,” His bionic, metal hand joins its counterpart along the home of the backs of your thighs so he can entwine you around his toned torso one leg after the other. While he does this, he angles his head to the side, the hotness of his breath blown against the shell of your ear while he murmurs, “I made a promise to you that I’d bring you to a paradise that is just for us. Whether it is my body or being that takes you there, my sweet girl, you’ll find it with me.” The torrid territory of his mouth skims the cartilage of your ear as he admits, “After all, you have been my Eden from the first time I looked upon you in that garden of tubes, glass, and monitors.”

“Take me, then. Make me entirely yours so that we can always be together.” You declare, wrapping your legs and arms resolutely, unwaveringly around him.

His control snaps, and from its remains, his want takes over.

“Finally,” The word is hurried, rushed from the base of his throat when he easily lifts you up against his body and turns to hastily trudge away from the counter, his mouth tangling with yours in a mess of teeth and spit, the wet smacking of your lips all that you hear past his groan when you move your hips against him, your sex skirting along the tip of the several inches of his infatuation with you before your spine hits a wall, an untamed intent rearing in his eyes when he surfaces for air to husk, “Take it off for me, pretty girl. You won’t need that little nightdress before, during, or after what I’m going to do to you.”

You heed him, peeling it off your body where it had been bunched atop your breasts and discarding it somewhere behind him unceremoniously while his irises roam and ravage your completely exposed form to make heat ignite everywhere they raze.

“Caleb,” you whine, entranced by the unbridled, unadulterated lust that conflagrates in his orbs, stoking you in his desire.

“You looked so pretty for me when you were getting off on my tongue earlier, my love. I would have come against the counter just from watching you, but I couldn’t let myself. Do you want to know why?” He mutters, adjusting and raising you up before the streaks of his Evol quickly clamor around your lower half so he can release you with one of his hands to take his massive, veiny and girthy length into it. “One: you were so beautiful while you enjoyed yourself on that countertop. I couldn’t bear to stop when you looked so tempting. Two: I wanted to come home. I wanted to cum inside you.”

Possessiveness has him slapping his head against your core to sodden you in his own essence, your pussy contracting around nothing while you shed more tears for him there.

He exhales shakily, prodding at your entrance with his tip. “You’re so wet for me, pretty girl. My spit and your juices look so pretty on you.” He lines himself up with your drenched hole and he sighs satisfactorily at the way you gaze at him from under a fan of dark lashes, “I’m going to fuck you until all that you know is me, my love. Until all that you can think about is me. Until all you can remember is me.”

You clasp your arms around his neck, touching the bridge of his nose with yours, “That sounds like paradise to me.”

With your consent, his Evol bears you down onto his cock all in one fluid motion, the delightful fullness and friction from him bottoming out within you making your eyelids flutter while the both of you elicit the vocal sounds resonant of your rapturous union.

“Fuck,” he curses, “You feel like a dream.” He husks, the invisible tendrils under his control holding your hips in place and turning you weightless while he nearly draws himself out of you only to bury himself back into you to the hilt nice and deep. “No, you’re better than a dream. And you’re all mine. Say it, pretty girl. Say you’re mine.”

“Y-yours,” you stammer when his warm, wet mouth encloses you where your shoulder meets your neck, sucking you between his teeth hungrily as the blood that rushes beneath it is coaxed to where he mars you while he thrusts debasingly into your pussy.

“I have to remind you that I belong to you, baby, and leave traces of me all over you. You’ll look so gorgeous with my marks all over you.” Up your neck he travels, leaving flowers of red and pink in his wake while he crosses the orchard of your neck to the other side, the veins of his cock brushing against your walls caressingly as he picks up his pace needfully. “When you look at them, you’ll see that I chose you. That I’d only ever choose you. ”

Your walls embrace him tightly at that, and it earns a long, drawn out groan from where his mouth captures yours, teeth gnashing and tongue thrashing against yours in his insistence.

“I want it. Want you,” You mewl into him, your head falling back when his skilled maw descends to dote on your chest, the hot length of his tongue licking around and then over the pliant area of your nipple. He draws a line of spit with it to your other, taking it into his mouth so he can taste you while he plunges powerfully into you with his bulging cock that rubs deliriously against you.

“I’ll give it to you, pretty girl. You’re taking me so well. You feel so good,” He grits his teeth at the divine and damning sanctuary of your body, hastening the drive of his length into you even through the denial of his own end and continual shunting of it with his Evol that swells his balls and member to the brim in the buildup of his captivation for you. “I was made for you, pretty girl. And you were made just for me.”

Through the haze of your lust that he fills you with, you can vaguely ascertain that he’s fuller than usual, that the network of veins and ridges constellating his much thicker cock pulsate sporadically while he tries to mask it with a bite onto your tit, teeth sinking into you that will surely impart a series of crescents there in the shape of him.

“Caleb-” You barely get his name out before he shoves his throbbing member harder into you so every bit of him is seated in you, his pace quickening with each purposeful drive of his cock inside your willing and waiting cunt that clamps around him as if to keep him there.

The slap of his heavy balls against your ass are obscene even to your own ears as his tip kisses your cervix with each quickening thrust, each one turning your thoughts to mush while his eyes flash feverishly up at you from where he’s got your tit bound between his lips.

“Command me,” he orders, teeth territorially leaving their impression over and around the peaked bud of your other breast while he slams his length into you even faster as he sets a brutal, merciless rhythm, your whimpers wrenched from your throat while he drools around you, spit gleaming licentiously in its viscous venture down your belly. “Command me to let go for you, baby. Tell me to give the seed of my love to you that you’re going to carry inside this pretty pussy of yours.”

You can’t even think anymore, your words lost to the unwavering, relentless pistoning of his pulsating, swollen member that knocks against your g-spot each and every time he pounds into you to make the heat that has spread in your core smolder and flare with an intensity that even a wildfire would fail to contain.

Fingers of steel that can no longer detect sensation grab your jaw in an iron-grip, the manic glint in his eyes sending you deeper into the flames of felicity while his other hand flattens against your belly to feel himself where he protrudes against you while rams himself into your silken channel. “I said,” he punctuates each word with a lurid lurch of his hips, “Command me.”

His order summons your voice from the bowels of your body, your baser being temporarily avulsed from the depths of yourself as your mouth falls ajar when the palm against your stomach turns so the pads of his index and middle fingers can zealously stroke the cluster of nerves of your clit, the heel of his hand pushing into the sensitive area just above the thatch of hair overlying your sex to make his intrusions even more decadently depraved.

“Let…l-let go for me, Caleb,” you incoherently babble, “W-want your…want your seed inside me.”

His eyes darken, and then he hums, “Mmm, I knew you would listen. You’re such a good girl. I’m going to ask you to do one more thing for me. Can you do that?”

You nod, not trusting your voice to last with how he splits you apart until you don’t know where you start and he ends, tits jiggling and jostling where the colorless striations of his Evol don’t pin you in place against the wall while his fingers render aberrant patterns over and on your sensitive bundle of nerves cresting your cunt.

“Fall apart on my cock and succumb to me, baby. Milk me fucking dry.” His fingers push down along your engorged nub while several invisible streaks of the power under his control stretch around and between his digits to consort with him like extensions of his own hand, brutally impelling themselves against your bloated button of nerves in tandem with the catastrophic whirl of his fingers against it. ”Show me how much you love me while I fill you up with mine.”

You dazedly watch his lips move, the meaning of them slow to find you while he ravishes you with his cock with a final, fatal, calamitous blow that hits you in all the right places, not a single part of you devoid of his length as your body obeys him. Your walls spasm and convulse around him as you let out a piercing cry of his name and hot, blinding, white pleasure uproariously makes you its fortissimo.

He’s bewitched by you as you move like a melody caught in slow motion, each breath a note drawn out, deliberate, aching with anticipation. The rhythm built inside you–a private symphony–pulsing low and deep like bass beneath the velvet sky of the dark. You were the strings of a musical instrument and he the composer, your body arched in perfect sync with the rising tempo. When your climax comes, it is a full crescendo–raw, electric, soul-deep–the kind of moment where the world falls away and only the music remains, echoing in your bones long after the final note fades. You don’t just feel pleasure–you become the song, and in that instant, you and he are infinite.

Your voluminous, glorious orgasm sends him into his, and he fucking bursts, shooting his molten seed inside you with a reverberating rumble of groan that sets your blood afire.

“That’s right, pretty girl,” he encourages, “You’re so gorgeous when you lose yourself on top of me, my love. Keep going. I won’t let a single bit of me out of you.”

You do as he says, even your labored breaths clinging to each other as he ruts his hips into yours, helping you to ride out your orgasm until your walls have stopped fluttering around him in a euphoric ballad while his mouth secures itself to yours, mingling his saliva and breath with yours in a messy string of kisses that don’t cease until his fingers find the backs of your thighs so he can languidly summon his Evol into the ether just to hold you nearer against his chest.

Still he fills you, each white spurt lovingly caressing parts of you that you didn’t even know you had.

So stuffed full of his cum, a sliver of it slips down your thigh, but several streaks of his power push it back up inside your cunt, keeping it all there while you try to hold the rest of his release within you.

Your limbs tremble from the intenseness of your illicit activities, but it is a pleasing kind of numbness that is left in his wake while your hands dangle from the back of his neck, fresh red lines made from your nails now adorning him there that he wears proudly.

He waits until you’ve caught your breath until he asks, “Are you okay, pip-squeak? Was I too much?”

You smile at him, a different kind of feeling flittering through your chest when his eyes light up at you while you say, “There’s no such thing as ‘too much’ with you. I loved it…and you.” You attempt to card your quivering, jellified fingers through his tousled, mussed hair and he preens at the action.

He croons, his own smile reaching his eyes when he rubs his nose against yours, “That’s what I like to hear. I love you, too, you know.” He gives a soothing squeeze to your strained and still quaking muscles along your thighs, “ Do you need me to give you a massage? You may not be able to use your legs for a little while, pip-squeak.”

Your cheeks burn at that last part, the inclination to hide your face in his neck where he’s shining with the sheen of sweat awfully provocative right now. “That does sound appealing, but you have not properly eaten yet. You need to.”

He arches a brow, and incredulous, he retorts, “What are you talking about? I just did. And it was delicious.”

Impulsiveness wins over your still recovering rationale, and you claim his Adam’s apple between your teeth while you challenge, “That’s not a real meal, mister. I’m not going to let you starve because of me. I love you too much for that. You can make us both something and we can eat together. I’ll tell you about the dreams I had of you while you were gone. How does that sound?”

That piques his interest, and then he’s heading toward your bedroom with you tucked safely in his arms while he offers, “Sounds good to me. But I think a shower is in order after that. I need to clean you up.”

He watches your irises dip down where you’re both still connected, chuckling to himself when you give an inquisitive look. “And you plan to keep that inside me while you do?”

“Oh, pip-squeak,” he muses, “There are many ways to make sure it stays where it belongs. And if you lose any of it,” He takes the bottom of your earlobe between his teeth, “I’ll just make sure you give you some more.”

Familiar heat stirs between your legs, and you playfully nip over the notch of his Adam's apple while you say, “You’re insatiable.”

“Only for you, my love,” He passionately professes through a pleased grunt, “So, what do you want me to make for us?”

“Anything as long as it is made by you. You can choose for me. You know what I like better than I do.” Your answer honestly as your lids grow heavy, and when you lay your head against his chest, you can hear how his heart is tuned to the same beat of yours. “My only request is something with apples in it. They remind me of you.”

“And what is it about them that reminds you of me?” His tone is the timbre of music in its peaked curiosity, the plop of his feet against the floor a soft backdrop against it as he peers amorously down at you.

Crisp where he needed to be, soft where he allowed, with a tartness that showed when life bit too hard. The scientists and commanders of Ever thought they knew him after one passing, scrutinizing glare, but they missed the way he carried seasons in his soul– the sunlight, the storms, the long patient ripening. And like an apple, he held your truth at the core– not always easy to reach, but real, and worth it.

You confess the musings you’d long harvested in your heart, they flow easily when he looks at you like you’re his entire universe. Each word nurtures in him a happiness that beams from those brilliant eyes of dawn and sunset that are merged together in them, and he effuses that comfortable warmth through your every bone, cell, and atom, your body fusing itself to his in a manner of seeking that went far beyond the flesh and mortal coil.

Hours pass and he never drifts from you, unable to leave his moon and stars. Time is but a poor construct in his presence, because he instills and imparts in you the rich, vibrant wonders of life that manifest down to his every breath.

When your bellies have been sated and he’s carefully washed you of the sweat, spit, and slick you’d unconditionally made for each other, he takes you to bed. There, his fingers–magnetized to you–lulling each tensed, overused muscle of yours into relaxedness from where he’d lain you atop of him before tracing the outline of your every curve while whispering sweet nothings into your ear where it had been nestled into the crook of his neck.

You’d given in easily into the tantalizing tug of sleep, for he’d enticed all of your energy and ability to move properly, the devout worship of his digits–both of metal and of flesh–too divine not to surrender to.

When your even, measured breaths brush at his throat and your eyes have fallen closed, that’s when he presents his mouth against your temple, surreptitiously delivering a vow of his fealty, loyalty, and faith while you sleep peacefully–blissfully– in his arms.

“Rest well, my one and only. I promise to you that in life and in death, we will never be apart.”

Your peaceful expression lures him into his dreams, wanting to be with you there, too.

The black void of space soon swarms him, his body robbed of its weight as he falls toward a scorched, scarred planet iriscable in the flame of its doomed fate. He’s been torn away from you again, and when he attempts to move, to try to find you, his appendages each fail him, each bereft and depleted of strength.

Dismembered drones, Wanderers, and synthetic droids plummet past pieces of what once were cruisers, the lone, untouched ship of steel above him an abandoned refuge to the holder of his heart who dives toward him unflinchingly and determinedly as you cry out his name.

Your kindling touch, when you furl your arms around his neck, restarts his every nerve and it’s all he can do to warn you of the imminence of his decay, your consuming connection corrupted by the same source that made you for each other of which he’d been trying to protect you from.

There’s nothing but conviction in the pools of your eyes when you confess that this–being with him– is where you want to be. That the world being wrought in disastrous destruction is not scary, but losing him–going on to exist in a place where he is not– that is a nightmare you could never bear.

There, in the pit of space, he makes his final promise to you, sealing it with a deep and devouring kiss that even the sun and moon commit to memory in the passionate profession of your love to the galaxy beyond. Then, the powerful intensity that your souls burn with for each other finally, fatally combusts into an inferno of light and matter.

Like two stars that can’t be contained in their destiny to be together, the spark of your connection explodes, and then, he knows only you as the brilliant phosphorescence your union creates swirls and whirls around you, a supernova of destructive proportion coupling you with him forever that is felt through the far reaches of space.

Subconsciously, he ensconces you in his arms just a little tighter from where you both lie with each other in your bed, your name spoken as a servant addresses their goddess.

And unknowing yet just as perceptive to him, you press yourself against him just a little more insistently, his name a pleading prayer as it flits past your lips while you slumber on in the solace only he could ever bring.

#lads caleb #love and deepspace caleb #caleb #lnds caleb #caleb x reader #caleb x you #caleb x fem reader #caleb smut #lnds #caleb angst #caleb fluff #lads smut #lads fanfic #lads fluff #lads angst #caleb myth #love and deepspace

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agardenandlibrary · 3 months ago

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I haven't listened to WTNV in a while. I'm finally catching up with it again and I gotta say. Can't believe how much of this is still imprinted.

Cecil: there is a dark planet of awesome size.

Me: oh, lit by no sun?

Cecil: it is lit by no sun.

#wtnv #welcome to night vale #wtnv 251

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chimcess · 5 months ago

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Pitch Black || jjk (Prologue)

⮞ Chapter 0: Prologue Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Captain!Taehyung, Doctor!Jimin, Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 400+ Summary: Stranded on a barren planet lit by three suns, a group of survivors struggle to survive after their transporter crash-lands. Their situation grows dire when pilot Y/N discovers that every 22 years, an eclipse plunges the planet into darkness, unleashing swarms of flesh-eating creatures. Facing both external threats and internal tensions, the group forms a fragile alliance. As mistrust and secrets surface, Y/N's complicated dynamic with convict and murderer Jungkook intensifies, making the fight for survival against the darkness and the creatures even more perilous. A/N: When I decided to rewatch the Riddick movies and reread the comics, I never thought I'd get so inspired to write a fanfiction based off of a "what-if" scenario, but here we are. So, this story follows the main storyline in Pitch Black (I think that's pretty obvious by the title) with a pretty large twist that leads into the rest of the story that's to come. Like everything I write (I'm so sorry), this will be a massive series that's pulling from a few of my new obsessions as well as my own creative thoughts and feelings. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you guys will follow along.

In the cold stillness of his cryosleep chamber, Jungkook's thoughts flickered like static on a faulty transmission, defying the stasis meant to consume him. They said cryosleep shut down most of the brain—all but the primitive side, the animal instincts that lurked beneath reason. Maybe that explained why he was still awake when no one else was. He didn’t question it much anymore. It just was.

Transporting him with civilians had been a bold choice, one he suspected someone would regret soon enough. The faint echoes of the world beyond his chamber filtered through his sharpened senses—a faint murmuring with an Saramic lilt, chanting low and steady. Likely a holy man, heading for New Mecca. But what route would they take to get there? He played out the possibilities in his mind, trying to map the path based on the faint hum of the engines and the sense of distance stretching endlessly ahead.

Then there was the scent. Subtle, but there: sweat mixed with leather, the metallic tang of tools, and the earthy grit of worn boots. A woman, no doubt—a prospector, maybe one of those free settlers who carved out a living on the fringes of colonized space. He imagined her kind: practical, determined, stubborn as hell. And he knew one thing for certain. They never traveled the main roads.

That brought his focus back to the real problem: Taemin Lee. The so-called lawman. A brown-eyed devil with a mercenary streak and a personal agenda. Jungkook knew exactly what Lee planned to do—drag him back to slam, back to a cage. But Lee had made a critical mistake this time. He’d picked the wrong route. The long route. The ghost lane.

A long time between stops. A long time for something to go wrong.

And as if summoned by that thought, something did feel wrong. Subtly at first, but unmistakable. The hum of the engines wasn’t right—too uneven, like a heartbeat skipping in the dark. The muffled sounds of the ship’s systems filtered through the walls of his chamber, distorted but insistent. Alerts, maybe. Warnings. He couldn’t make out the specifics, but the tone was unmistakable: something was off.

Jungkook’s jaw tightened, his senses sharpening as his body fought against the enforced stillness of cryosleep. The faint shiver of vibration in the chamber walls had changed, the ship itself broadcasting unease. It was subtle, but he felt it—like prey sensing a predator in the shadows.

A long time between stops, indeed.

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averycutesalamander · 5 months ago

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from the prompt list, for my bestie <3 gn reader !

29: Tucking their hair behind their ear.

Sometimes Boothill could swear that the universe itself is trying to inconvenience him at every possible turn.

He's on his way back home to you after an exceptionally long absence; too many time-sensitive missions got stacked on top of each other, and he hasn't had a single day to spare with all of this running around. (He's found that he gets especially cranky when he's kept away from you for too long; he has to wonder if the poor bastards he's been shooting can tell.)

There's some kind of issue with the dock he usually uses on your planet, though, so he's been forced to find somewhere else discreet to land his ship; it took him a good few hours to even find somewhere that he's confident won't sell him out. When he texted you saying he'd get home late, he wasn't quite expecting it to be this late. It's well after midnight by the time he finally manages to land, and he has to fight to keep his irritation in check. He's weary and tired and pissed off and he misses you like a prisoner misses the sun, so he makes the walk to your home in record time.

He opens the front door quietly, retracting his spurs just before he steps inside. He wipes off his feet as he settles his hat on the rack, carefully tuning his hearing to track down your heartbeat; he finds its comforting rhythm in the living room, slow and even. Sleeping, if he had to guess. The house is quiet and the lights are off; you probably passed out before dusk.

Sure enough, when he turns the corner, he finds you asleep on the couch; you're still in your day clothes, your phone cradled against your chest. His chest aches, just as it always does when he lays eyes on you again after coming back home; it's like he's just shaken a heavy weight off of his shoulders, and suddenly, everything is right in the world. A quiet pang of guilt echoes in his chest, though; he hates making you wait like this, even if he's twice as pissed about it as you.

(You never, ever complain about things like this. The most you do is playfully grouch, but you never seem to lose your patience with him. He doesn't know how to handle it.)

He crouches by your side, his gaze soft with affection. Tenderly, he tucks your hair behind your ear, smiling gently when you sleepily crack open your eyes to look at him.

“You've been waitin’ out here this whole time, sweetheart?” He tilts his head, watching as your lashes flutter. “I told ya to head to bed if I didn't get here in time.”

“Didn't feel right,” you mumble, sighing in apparent bliss when he cups your cheek, your skin hot against his metal. “Wanted to stay up until you got here.”

(Fuck, you're too sweet for him. He's not sure what he did to deserve someone as lovely as you.)

“C'mon, then,” he murmurs, soft and fond. “Let's get ya into bed.”

You hum absently, nuzzling harder into his palm, and his heart pangs with some kind of feeling he can't quite name – something bigger than fondness, but warmer than endearment. Gently, he scoops you up into his arms, careful to support your head as your fingers twist lightly in his jacket; you don't tense in the slightest as he lifts you, and something about the sheer weight of your trust has his throat feeling tight.

He moves you to the bedroom, careful to avoid bumping you on the doorframe. The room is dark, lit only by the sliver of moonlight that streams through the closed curtains, but he doesn't have any trouble navigating in the dark. (When he first gave up his body, he certainly hadn't predicted that he'd be using his night vision for something as banal and loving as this.) He shifts you over so he can cradle you in one arm, pulling back the blankets with the other and settling you gently onto the bed.

(You always look so damn pretty; it drives him crazy. You look like an angel, your face all soft with sleep and your body lax with exhaustion. His heart aches from the force of his adoration.)

“Lemme get some clothes for ya, sweetheart. Can't imagine that's all that comfy,” he murmurs, and the only sign that you're awake is the soft grunt that you reply with. Adorable.

He rummages in your dresser for a moment, plucking out the pajamas that he knows you find the comfiest. Then, he returns to your side, carefully and gently guiding your clothes off of you; he can tell that you're trying to help, but your tired squirming is ultimately more of a hindrance when he's just manhandling you anyway. (He can't say he minds. You're too damn cute when you're tired.) Finally, once you're bare, he eases you into your sleep clothes, easy and familiar. Then, he tucks you carefully under the blankets and sits by your side, smiling gently at the way you sigh and hunker down into the plushness of your pillow.

He leans down, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, almost certain that you've already fallen back asleep. You surprise him when he stands back up, though.

“Don't go,” you whine, simultaneously theatrically and genuinely dramatic. “Get in. Wanna hold you.”

You reach out with one fumbling hand, clearly intending to grab onto him; he smiles fondly as he links his fingers with yours, snickering as he settles back onto the edge of the mattress.

“I'm just gonna wash up real quick, sunshine.” He strokes his thumb across your knuckles, quietly savoring the blissful heat of your palm against his metal. “I'll be back in a jiffy.”

“Don't care,” you grouch flatly. “Get in.”

He chuckles harder, delight blooming in his chest as he raises his brows. “Even though I smell like a fudgin’ barn?”

“Don't care.” He can tell you're starting to drift off again, because you're slurring so badly that he almost can't discern what you're saying. “You smell like you, and I love you, so I like it. Get in the damn bed or I'll never let you give me head again.”

He spies a smile creeping onto your face when he laughs, bright and earnest. “Well, that'd be a mighty shame for both of us, so I guess I gotta get in,” he drawls, his heart soft with affection.

You make a pleased noise, and when he carefully loosens his grip on your hand, you let him go without fuss. Moving to his side of the bed, he starts to systematically remove all of his clothes, his pins rattling softly as he shucks off his jacket and his belt clinking as he tosses it away. His gun is placed lovingly on the nightstand on his side of the bed, and he removes the unpleasant casing on his left arm, familiar and easy.

When he's bare – it's a shared preference when you cuddle him – he lifts the blankets and slips into bed beside you. You flipped to face him when he was getting undressed, so when he draws you into his arms, you latch onto him seamlessly; you move with him as he shifts onto his back, keeping you cradled against his chest as you straddle him. The moment you get settled, the two of you sigh in open bliss; your weight on top of him is practically euphoric after such a long absence, and the heat of your body practically sings in his wires.

“I love you, sweetpea,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to your temple, his body going limp as he breathes in your scent – the smell of warmth, of home, of love.

You make a series of unintelligible noises that he thinks is supposed to be, “I love you too.”

He smiles, soft and foolishly lovestruck. He tracks the steady beat of your heart, his breathing following yours as you drift back into sleep, warm and content.

It's good to be home.

#sal.txt #was immensely tired when i wrote this lol i think it shows #boothill #boothill x reader #hsr x reader #honkai star rail #gn reader #x reader #reader insert #fluff

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skybreakprimeonao3 · 5 months ago

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Whenever Din slept, it was almost always in the same position; arms crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankles, head tilted forward. It was a habit he picked up while bounty hunting, especially while in space. The Razor Crest had alarms for almost anything that could pull the ship from hyperspace, but Din would rather stay in the cockpit and nap there.

The position worked well on planet too. Tracking a bounty was a lot of waiting, and depending on the cantina, people were less likely to pester the Mandalorian sleeping in the corner booth. Din wouldn’t dare actually sleep in public, that would be monumentally stupid. But while people thought he was asleep, he was actively scanning his surroundings, checking on the Razor Crest’s systems through his helmet, while keeping a weapon hidden by his arms.

Even if he slept in the small bunk on the Razor Crest, there was very little room to move. With his arms over his chest and his legs crossed, his body knew it was time to rest and stay still, so he continued the habit.

That only changed after he got Grogu. The child had the pram to sleep in, but Din had woken up enough times to find himself cradling Grogu’s body while they slept. At first, he would sigh and put the child back into the pram, but after a while, the small bit of weight became a comfort. Din would wake up, see Grogu, and made sure he was secure before going back to sleep.

Having an actual bed was harder to adapt to. He had a room at Luke’s Jedi school, there for when he visited, and the bed was comfortable to the point that his body didn’t know what to do. He got no sleep the first night, and on the second night, he dragged the blankets to the floor, laying between the wall and the bedframe. That night, he got some sleep, but it took a while to adapt to that, and then adapt to the bed.

By the time he could sleep in a normal bed, he lost his room for the upgraded privilege of sharing a bed with Luke.

And Luke slept like a multi-limbed creature desperately clinging to the nearest solid object.

Din was that solid object.

The beds were almost the same, Luke’s bed a little bit bigger, so Din had to grow used to sharing it with another person.

It didn’t matter if they went to sleep separately. If Luke stayed awake reading while Din rolled away from the light to sleep. If Din came back from a job late at night while everyone was asleep. No matter how much space was between them when they went to sleep, Din woke up with Luke’s arms curled over his waist and their legs tangled together.

Honestly, it was a surprise that Din didn’t wake up at the first touch, but his body must have recognized the safety in Luke’s embrace. Similar to how he didn’t wake up when Grogu had decided to join him while they had travelled the galaxy.

Din smiled as he stared down at the fluffy hair of his beloved, Luke’s head ending up on Din’s shoulder during the night. The rising sun turned Luke’s hair more gold, the darkness fading with each day that Luke spent outside with his students. The Jedi looked much younger asleep, and Din enjoyed the sight of his lover, even though he could only feel pins and needles from the arm under Luke.

With his free hand, he reached over and brushed the hair away from Luke’s face, letting the fingers trace over his eyebrows, the edge of his nose, across one cheek…. Din savored each moment until Luke began to stir, nose scrunching up before blue eyes blinked open at him. Recognition lit up Luke’s face and he smiled sleepily as he sat up.

And realized that he had drooled in his sleep over Din’s sleep shirt.

Din caught the expression of mortification on the Jedi’s face and couldn’t contain his laughter. After helping with children, both in the Covert and in the Jedi school, a bit of sleep drool from his lover was endearing.

#star wars #star wars fanfiction #luke skywalker #the mandalorian #din Djarin #dinluke #dinluke blurb #skybreakprimeonao3

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malvoile · 5 months ago

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Me and the Devil ; iii

ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ɪꜱ ᴀ ᴘʜᴀɴᴛᴏᴍ ʙʟᴀᴅᴇ ʙᴜʀɪᴇᴅ ʙᴇᴛᴡᴇᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʀɪʙꜱ. ᴘᴀᴜʟ ʜᴀꜱ ʙᴇɢᴜɴ ᴛᴏ ʜᴀʀʙᴏʀ ᴏᴅᴅ ᴅʀᴇᴀᴍꜱ.

word count: 14.4k warnings: canon-typical threats, violence - serious bodily harm. graphic injury, blood, light smut, allusions ish to oral (f receiving), fingering, light choking, biting, very very brief dubcon (feyd warning tbh i should just call it this), unprotected PiV, fantasies, fair pulling. food sharing & mentions of hunger, discussion of alcohol, religious/cultural trauma, familiar trauma. freaky dreams, foreshadowing. fluff and some angst too - and a fair amount of politics that i made up lol notes: hiiii guys <3 a long chapter here, there's no good way to cut it up hehe - also i am sorry i didn't edit this after rewriting it so im sorry abt any typos. feedback very much appreciated! previous series masterlist

Concerns Rise Over the Destabilization of Sabberon

In the wake of the unseating of House Bourbon and the resulting power vacuum on the House’s formerly fiefed planet Sabberon, concerns are mounting over potential destabilization within the planet's region. Situated in a crucial sector of the galactic trade route, Sabberon's turmoil could have far-reaching implications, not only for orbital stability, but for the economic prosperity of the Landsraad's main trade economy.

With no governing body to maintain order, rising insurgent groups throughout the planet threaten to plunge Sabberon into chaos. The potential for conflict and upheaval remains a significant concern for the wider galactic community – yet as of today, there has been no comment by the Emperor.

This all comes to head a month before the Imperium's Annual Referendum, wherein new negotiations on Space Trade routes will be drawn, along with the final Arraignment of the House Bourbon.

- Collected Galactic News report sent to Duke Leto Atreides, 10191. Caladan.

Somewhere high upon the northern continent of the planet Sabberon, there is a trail that leads through the forest.

Past the Castle Bourbon, it winds up the slope of a mountaintop – in the short springtime, when the snow thaws and the glaciers spill their icy veins through the woods and ravines, the ground grows spongy with wild grass.

It is soft below your feet now.

The highest range of mountains tower in the distance; they dominate your sight, caps bald with such reflected sharpness that you have to squint against the rays. It is warmer in these elevations, and though the path you walk now is thawed and overgrown with alpine flora, those peaks on the horizon never lose their ice – nor the bursting jeweled-veins they hide deep within.

The sun is shy and springlike; it glows upon the skin revealed beneath your dress and glistens off dripping pine needles swaying to the ground in the breeze. Bare feet; cold, toes stained with earthy soil, and the warmth of a weight tugged within your grasped hand.

Trees rustle and whisper around you as you pass slowly, a breath echoed in the woods – branches smack against your bare arms as you near the secluded clearing ahead. It is small, though venerated; embraced by tall trees, laden with chiffon ribbons of green. Laid within your vision beneath the sinking shade is a pyre lit with candles, in offering and loomed only by the Pine which grows so high that it is swallowed by the breath of clouds high above.

The breath that falls from your lips is one of peace.

The sheet laid before the safety of the Pine is welcoming – you lie upon it, strewn with the breeze and the song of birds through the trees; overhead, the sky streaks pink and orange.

An arm brushes your own – a body lies beside you, and as your eyes flutter shut, you feel the touch trail slowly up the expanse of your side, curling around your arm to soothe the goosebumps which arise.

A pair of lips find your own, and though you see merely darkness and glimpses of glistening sky high above, the heat consumes you: Slowly and kindly.

A sigh against plush lips, hands searching for the heat of your husband, a soft breath of a chuckle against your cheek. He is bare chested; and his skin burns when he presses against your yearning palms, desiring, willing, hungry.

His own fingers trace the trail of goosebumps up your thigh and under the hem of the dress; pleasure follows in his wake as your head tilts back, a long-dormant yearning awakening at the sound of his breaths. And in the small noises you emit, a smile presses to your throat, a small hum of satisfaction from your husband above you. Though the sun is warm and orange upon your eyelids, you do not open them - far too caught in the warmth of your husband’s touch.

A grasp of the plush of your thigh – a soft thing, though intent in their own right; and you turn to receive his waiting body, a line of warmth upon your own as his touch teases over your heat. A long gasp when a warm palm finds your aching desire and teases you, light as the wind in your hair and the birds chirping in the woods.

Your lips find his once more, breath hot as his fingers press, agonizingly slow, into you; a sigh that slips towards a moan in the uptick in singing birds, the rustle of wind through whistling leaves as he hums into your mouth.

Tingling with anticipation, with desire, you clutch him – and muscles lithe and warm strain underneath your nails, his touch sliding to press against you once more, slowly moving into a rhythm that brings a gasp lodged into your throat.

A phantom tickle graces across your forehead – hair, though you’re unsure if it’s yours or his – and though he leans forward and grasps the sheet beside your head, his other hand continues its ministrations, stirring arousal from the deepest pits of your being.

In the throes of passion, you throw your head back once more, inhaling deeply in an attempt to conceal any possible hitch in control; though instead of the fresh forest, instead of your husband – you choke on the suddenly tinny air that seems to leak from the sky, which presses into your lungs even as you rock in pleasure.

A hazy thought meanders through your lapsed consciousness – your husband smells different here, upon the ground of the Sacred Pine; not like the fresh scent of sea-salt soaps and wooded forests; though the the metallic scent washes away as lips trail down your throat, nipping at your heady skin when your head falls back onto the white sheet.

Following the soft moan you let out is a shush from his lips, gentle as the breeze through the needles of the trees; Ecstasy dances through you, lighting a fire of desire that has your legs squirming to close as your husband presses them back open with the palm of his hand.

His presence is warm, eager; and consuming.

Though his hands push, bunching your dress over your hips; your eyes flutter to glance at the Pine, standing tall above you. From upside-down, it sways rather curiously, licks of heat igniting from high in the branches – and the sky is streaked in a bizarre breath, a strike of unease in your gut that is swallowed by the dip of light below ridged peaks in the distance.

Though even in the evening light, it seems as though the branches of the Pine are ablaze; and before you move to sit up, perhaps observe closer, your husband’s wanting lips slot against yours once more.

You melt into the sheet below; a warmth pressed eagerly against your own heat strikes a match within you, your eyes rolling back in pleasure before shutting in bliss. The moan that slips from your lips rings warbled in the clearing, as though fallen through a lake – and your husband nips at your kiss-bitten lips slowly.

The ridges of his spine tense as your hands slide along – and the length presses against your aching core, his lips grazing your cheek.

Wind whistles through the trees, ashy and blown. In the quiet of the forest, you whisper softly and your voice is nearly swallowed by faint screams.

“I love you.”

Barely a breath of words against his lips – and his hands tug your hair gently, exposing your neck to his wanting teeth once more. The Pine above sways again, belying a breath of orange and a scream of heat – but you blink and soon teeth are biting sharply, pain striking you through your spine.

Chuckles into the open air around you, curling in your mind as a hand slides down your side; though your words were no such thing of humour, your gaze flutters shut and lips press on in search of the more sensitive areas of your neck.

The chill breeze flutters over your bare skin, goosebumps cascading over every curve of you; though the more your husband bites down, the stronger the foreign smell grows – and in a grunt of discomfort, you shove his mouth away from your throat.

His warmth leaves you, and in an instant, his voice curls into your mind and seeps dread through you.

“I know, pet.”

A whisper - cold and sinister; you have less than a moment to shift, to scramble away from the huffing chuckle from the shadows of your vision, before it happens.

A sharp pain punctures through you.

Blood curdling – the scream you let out tears through the woods, sending a murder of crows to the sky with screams of their own; and your eyes fly open to find your husband’s eyes–

Though it is not Paul at all.

Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen smiles cruelly, watching with a hunger in his eyes as he presses; The pain between your ribs is unbearable, and your hand flies in a choked gasp to cover his own, feeling the sickeningly familiar hilt protruding from you.

In terror, you look down:

A sickeningly pale hand grips your own nameday knife, the exposed part of its blade glinting in the dim light of the ceremonial candles; a lick of flames which were moments ago above you, around you, within you.

You are struck with paralyzing fear – and Feyd-Rautha’s breath is hot against you as he slowly leans down, lips cold; you feel the hilt twist just as his lips press to your forehead.

Blood seeps a slow march; over your body, it soaks into the sheet below you, tainting the ritual in crimson – and you remain in your expiring breaths, a small glowing ember carried to the hearth of forgotten gods; lied and lying, taking and taken.

“You're mine.” And his hand turns the blade deeper, glinting as you scream. “My little wife.”

Rays of sunlight pierce your vision when you jolt to life.

A haunt of touch still upon your ribs; and a face hovering before you, staring deep into your racing heartbeat. And so in your delirious panic, you lash out – a fight to get the body off of your own, your fist swings wildly in your blind haze.

Though a palm of defense catches the brunt of your offense, and you are effectively jerked aside as a gasp floats into the still dust of the room. For a moment as your heart pounds, you consider how many moves it'd take to disarm your attacker – but when you blink yourself into focus, your stomach drops.

Hestia, cheeks red as she breathes, her round eyes wide; her grip is firm, gentle around your closed fist, but her brows are knit with worry.

"My lady," Her voice is airy, eyes searching your panicked gaze, “You were only dreaming.”

It is ragged, the gasps you take – and you blink in rapid attempt to dispel the lingering tendrils of nightmare that still cling to your consciousness. Dread finds you; regret clasping your ribs in a deadly embrace.

“Void above,” You whisper, eyes pricking in regret, “I-I'm sorry,” you stammer, the weight of your actions crashing down upon you as you realize what you've done. "Are you okay? Hestia, I didn't mean to–”

Your hand is squeezed gently within her own. “It's alright,” she says, “You were frightened. I woke you while you slept. Anyone would react the same way.”

It is a lie wrapped in a gauzy layer of kindness; and guilt gnaws within you, a lump in your throat.

“I wouldn't hurt you.”

Though your tone is less than a whisper into the morning beams of light, Hestia's visage remains unwavering and calm. “I know you wouldn’t,” She promises, “And you didn't. I'm just glad you're alright.”

You are struck with relief at her words and you allow yourself a moment of breath as she takes a step away from your heaving chest to draw further the curtains across the way. The bruises and marks from your old life took several days to fade after your arrival on Caladan; though she, nor the other maids, ever said a thing, let alone stared too long when you’d slipped a tunic over the jagged scar across your ribs each morning– nor when they offered the makeup in the tone of your skin to cover the odd-shaped marks upon your neck of fading teeth – nor when they helped you pull the mourning veil over your face.

You’ve grown quite fond of them all. Particularly Hestia, in her tenderness and willful amiability; it occurs to you slowly as you watch her gather your clothing that you never found this kind of humanity on Giedi Prime.

And even after you and Hestia finish your breakfast, she doesn't ask about the dream; And you don't tell her.

It is certainly not the first of these dreams you've had – such a place has haunted you nearly every night since you begun dreaming again in the wake of the poisonous sun; Those mountains, the hills, the pathway to the open clearing: Each night, it calls to you, singing a song you cannot hear.

But never, not until now, has there been a man with you.

Never has Paul, nor Feyd-Rautha, found you in those dreams.

A sharp pain still clings to your breaths – and still lingers that phantom blade, stuck through your ribs; haunted in the shadows by the cold stare of the man you were once promised to forever.

A haunting thing, to near such a pleasant dream – only to be ripped from it by the ghost of shadows; and you reel anyways in shame from the beginning of the dream – fading at the tips of your fingers, such a warm and hungry thing it’d started out as…

Paul, your mind reminds you as you swallow the unease in your stomach, it was Paul who was with you in the beginning.

An odd ritual it’d been – one that felt faint yet familiar, as though some ghost long dead had whispered such things to you in your sleep; and you shake off the dusty robes of the past in search of the present, a more tangible and decidedly less salacious thing.

Dressing is a solemn affair this morning.

It is slow that you drape yourself in the fineries of a life far left behind; cloth made from the veins of plants alpine and far away – they smell of the ocean now, and you watch the pines in the distant western forest bristle in the breeze. It is not until Hestia brings forth the gifted necklace that you hesitate.

It glints in the morning rays – precious stone carving the hawk and sigil, a soft thing, but cut sharp with the cerulean green valleys and ridges of the jewel; and though Hestia is slow as a hunter to a startled doe, you still stiffen when he moves to lace it around your neck.

She's not unused to this; it's been half a week since it was given to you, and each day you have bared your teeth as she clasps it around your neck – though still, beneath the veil, holding the skin above your heart captive, you wear it.

She is beside you, now, and it is not hard for her to tell where your mind’s gone.

“You said he apologized?” She asks it tentatively, as though you might slit her throat at the mere mention of Paul; though instead you merely huff a humourless laugh. “He did,” You affirm, “Though only after I told his parents.”

Your agony is received; you sigh once more, “I acted like a child. Perhaps I was in the right, but nevertheless–” You glance out towards the glinting forest and moors beyond, clenching your jaw at the memory of Paul’s sharp eyes and accusatory tongue. “He must hate me more now.”

The necklace is clasped over your clavicle, and you can feel the incredulous look Hestia sends you; though you merely press your lips, admiring the pendant against your skin in the morning light of the mirror. It does well suit you, much to your chagrin; a fine piece as ever to hold above your head.

Power always seems so beautiful in the morning light.

She says your name gently, whispering into the empty bedroom, “He gifted you a family heirloom – look at it! It must be older than the two of us combined.”

And her irreproachability is as charming as it is unnatural – it is still an adjustment, to take in her joyous nature, the curve of a smile so genuine and spirited. It is still an adjustment, then, to see people so human and to try to return some semblance of that humanity in gratitude; and though she is lighthearted, it does not quell your distress.

Your teeth worry into your bottom lip as you hum gently, shrugging, though you wish to simply melt into the girlish giddiness that leaks from her and infects the corner of your smile.

“It's not so simple”

Your eyes cast down, where your bare feet stand against the floor – and for a blink, beneath them lies wild grass, a white sheet; a seep of crimson leaks through the pristine fabric and you snap away, taking a step back and staring skittishly at Hestia. “I think he’d prefer for me to remember who now holds my reins.”

And if anything, it is a relief to be able to speak so candidly with someone; a trust, knowing it will not leak from your lips through her own and into the ear of the Duke – or his son.

“Or, it's his way of trying to welcome you into House Atreides?” She suggests with a lifted brow, and the indignant part of you bristles as she continues, “He does not mean ill will, I promise. He's... slow to trust.”

You turn, figure shrouded in the morning light’s beams through your large windows. Your brow lifts, your tone teasing; A foreign thing – one that, out of rusty exercise, delivers more accusatory than intended. “You seem to know Lord Paul quite well, Hestia.”

And, as expected, she flushes red; you hide your smirk in the palm of your hand as she shakes her head, eager to dispel any perceived accusations.

“N-nothing like that, my lady –" And it is rather frantically she rushes to assure you, "My mother is Lady Jessica’s in-waiting,” She explains quickly, fingers fidgeting with the sleeve of your blouse, “And Paul is only a few years older than I - and though I am just a worker, he and I were reared very close.”

You’d figured as such; though she speaks highly of him, there indeed has been no inkling of affection held more than anything platonic in her musings. Though, if there had been, perhaps a part of you could not blame her; for visions of a youthful teen, curly hair and a sharp laugh, green eyes that swim with light and pool with the gentle fountain of dutiful intelligence. Perhaps he is someone you do not know; that odd feeling, that light when you know only a stranger’s shadow – just as you might be to him; his green ghost that haunts these halls.

You nod gently with a smile that grows in Hestia’s melting embarrassment – and she notices not a few moments after you crack.

A smile blossoms and it brings warmth into your sullen heart. “You tease me,” She observes with a small grin of her own.

You laugh only quietly, shaking your head, “I apologize, I couldn’t help it.” You admit, pacing away from the window to gather the garment from her arms.

“So you’ve known Paul for your whole life?” You wonder, unable to bite back the intrigue which laps at the shores of your mind.

And then comes a sweet kind of existence, one which lives in the early hours between the sun’s rising and the castle’s; Hestia nods, setting to work on your sheets, straightening them as you begin to dress yourself. “I've got no siblings of my own,” She muses lightly, “Though I imagine he is exactly what a brother should be.”

A memory is sharp in the bruise of your heart, and you blink back the vision of the boy falling to the sand, fingers grasping a blade too large for his palm. The numb ache crawls in an eclipse of your pleasant mood and you fight it with a blink.

There is a chip in the boudoir beside you; it glistens against the waxy shine of the sun. Hestia’s warmth, that song of unburdened amity, lulls the dull ache of your heart into a placant thrum.

“– Kind, thoughtful. He entertains the most foolish subjects and also the most serious –” A pause and a rustle, as if she’s turned to glance at you – you do not return the stare, mind too lost in the Paul that Hestia knows; the Paul you have yet to meet.

“And, if you’d believe it…” She says it almost conspiratorially, arriving to button the back of your tunic, as you turn from her, listening quietly, “he can be quite funny sometimes."

Funny. You send her a look; this time there is no fooling – she laughs gently at your doubt and nods, “Believe it or don’t,” she muses, “He is good. He will warm up to you.”

And though she says it in good nature, there is a dejection which leaks into your heart, which pools around the memories of sharp tongue and mistrusting eyes – of a short apology and a pendant wrapped around your throat, binding your wrists.

Instead you force a smile, hoping it appears more brilliant than you feel.

She is a sweet girl – a girl not familiar with the burden of family, of how it falls at your feet in a slump of black and pale and gray and death – and so you imagine her as a young girl, hand-in-hand with a young Paul, skipping down hallways and whispering conspiratorial through the doors of the worker’s quarters.

A melancholia visits you quite suddenly, and your eyes drift to the cobwebs of silk which spin small patterns across the high beams of your ceiling.

“I always seemed to fight with my siblings.” Your voice is a whisper in a breath; what a distant dream it is now, those nights curled together by the grand hearth, the days running through ornate halls, learning to hunt in the woods. Bows pulled from hair and tied into your own – a hand smaller than yours tugging you into an icy lake – screaming, crying, the thud of young limbs hitting another. Anger, that ferocious thing that is only so well known by that of your own kin; A hard thing it is to remember, when their faces have begun to slip away.

“I had four of them,” You offer to her – and though she knows just as well as each person within the Imperium knows now of your family and their end, you feel the comfort of choice; the warmth of choosing to reveal such information about your family to a lended ear. Your brows knit – there is a nest of brown twigs and dried mud just below your window. “And we would scream, and hit, and fight, – all the time, when we were young.” A gaggle of young chickadees vie for the worm in their mother’s mouth within the small nest, and you watch on with burning eyelids. Your breath is solemn, and your fingers trace over the healing scars upon your palm. “But they were my favorite people in this entire universe.”

It is still in the somber moment, though you break your shell with a cleared throat, tearing your eyes from the soft burgeoning feathers of the chicklets in the nest. And after a deep inhale, you smile wistfully, clearing your throat as you slide on the hand jewelry she offers to you; Hestia doesn't say anything, and you're grateful for it.

She lingers beside you as you slide rings over healed knuckles. Your voice comes once more, and it is stronger. “Family, blood or bond, is a precious thing,” you decide, turning to slip on your shoes and tie your trousers. “I am quite glad you and your mother have found it.”

And though there lingers some despondent hesitation, Hestia nods in agreement, her own wistful smile playing on her lips. “Indeed, my lady.”

Your hair catches the rays of sun in the mirror before you – tainted with the leaking green of your veil, you place the ferronnière above it; and you are beautiful in this light, yes – beautiful, but miserable. A dog with a collar for the Atreides leash.

Your gaze leaves yourself to find Hestia watching with a small smile.

An offer of her arm and a small nod brings forth a balm to the stinging hesitance of leaving your room.

“Now, let's get you to this War Council.”

Paul’s sigh is sharp in the empty room.

An aseptic scent pierces his nostrils, contaminating his brain – distracting him. The castle becomes very sterile, deep in the more secluded chambers; here, where he breathes and feels the world breathe too, the air has a chill to it – sharp with some kind of disinfectant.

“Concentrate, Paul.”

His mother’s voice is low, though soothing. “Project your will.”

But he can’t bring himself to look up – his mother stands just a few paces away, her eyes boring into him; Focus. He needs to focus.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he hums gently, a twitch of focus in the crook of his neck; but then, flames flicker up the sides of his vision – a large tree, smoke leaking from somewhere above where it pierces through the clouds. His name, sighed gentle as the breeze through the trees, trickling into his mind; hands, threading through the curls at the nape of his neck. His nostrils flare as he shakes his head, letting out a small groan of irritation. Focus.

Within him, an energy builds; something comes, and he knows he must not lose it – but as he begins to speak, a strange sense of trepidation washes over his mind; a nagging suspicion of unease, some dripping chill down the bumps of his spine. He falters in his words for a moment, confidence waning as doubts creep through the cracks in the shadows.

It's silent for a moment, before she sighs from across the room.

“You’re distracted this morning, Paul.”

He bites back a sharp I know – and instead sighs, a sagging weight in his shoulders as he pushes his hair back with the heel of a palm. “I didn’t sleep well.” He excuses, pacing towards the water pitcher; his mother follows, reaching for the glass he offers. She hums, sipping on the water as he stares into the reflection of his own.

“Dreams?”

She reads him so well.

Paul wills his spine not to tense at her words. With a half a breath, Paul takes another sip of his water – a purchase of time, perhaps. There is a giving degree to which he understands the Bene Gesserit’s plans, and how perhaps he might fall into them; this alone is cause for hesitation. Those years ago – almost two, now – the searing, bone-gnawing pain of that box; the whispers around closed doors, the breath that plumed when the Reverend Mother told his own lady mother that there were two candidates.

Two candidates – for what, he still doesn't know – and yet Paul may one day be one of them. It is an instinct, perhaps some method of survival written into his very DNA; he accepts the churning sick in his stomach at the thought of what his onslaught of dreams mean.

“Yes,” he acquiesces – any possible lie he could have thought to fabricate would have been sheared by the blades of her mind, anyway – and he turns to her, guarded but concerned. She is his mother, after all.

“I've been having dreams,” his voice is slow to regain traction – there is a small scuff on the floor and he traces it with his toe. “Vivid dreams…” He murmurs, chewing upon the skin of his lip, “of Sabberon.”

And perhaps to an untrained eye, there would be no change; But Paul's eyes are indeed quite trained.

A flicker of concern passes through her and it serves nothing but to feed the pit of anxiety that grows in Paul’s stomach.

“Sabberon?” She echoes with a wary tilt of the head, “And what do you see in these dreams?”

The hesitation comes once more, although the memory is still fresh in his mind: For in the beginning, it is that spongy earth, toes imbued with dirt. Soft whispers of his name from voices he cannot see, a caress of the wind in his hair, the glistening mountain peaks that glitter like jewels in the distance, the ribbons tied to trunks and candles lit unyielding even when the sky falls.

And then there is you; a soft thing, an inevitable one – with the soft skin of your thighs trembling in the wake of his wanting lips. There’s the sigh, hitched and breathy, as his hands hold your hips to the pristine sheet below you; the bunching of a dress, the glint of a blade's silvered and black hilt almost golden in the reddening sun.

Your gown, thin and blowing in the breeze, the same color as the veil which still hides your face from his wanting gaze; even in the dying light, the streaks of orange and pink in the sky, snow falling weightless from dark clouds above. That fabric, woven from the skin of alpine hemp which grows in clusters around your planet – bunching by your hips, your chest tremoring in the flickering light of ceremonial candles; breath, warm and willing upon his neck – palms teasing and eager alike, crawling in descent towards his own waistband. A soft moan, the smell of ash –

Paul is drawn back from the glimpses of skin and the flashes of metal, the smell of smoke; he swallows thickly, staring at his mother with the glance of a lamb before the jaws of a wolf – though he shifts, clearing his throat, and the veil lifts.

“I always…” He chooses carefully the truths he can forgive, “I always see a white blanket on the ground. Above, there’s a… the Great Pine of Sabberon. Visions of…” His brows furrow, swallowing the thick of concern, “of knives, and streaks through the sky; I think they’re… missiles. And we’re there together…she and I.”

Barely a blink from his mother as she murmurs, “Lady Bourbon?”

He barely nods, blinking away visions of shining hands and whispers threading through pine needles in the wind.

“I don’t know why it’s always the same dream,” He pleads to his mother – tell me it’s fine – and though his voice is barely audible, he cannot shake the calling for him, that odd feeling that something importing awaits him on Sabberon. “Maybe I've been reading about Sabberon too much,” He half-shrugs.

And it is a relief to admit it finally to someone – since your arrival, perhaps even in the days leading up to it, he’s unsure; but his dreams have ebbed and flowed in the brook of consciousness, always floating back to that place. Always there, and now, with you – and after the lessons the other day, he is sure: it's Sabberon.

He dreams of it burning; he sees it up in flames, and sometimes, you with it.

His mother does little to quell the concern that brims in his gaze – though she sets down her glass and kisses his brow. “Be cautious with your dreams, Paul,” She chides, “Listen to them, learn from them.”

Her gaze brings no such comfort to him as he watches her gaze flick from the cliffs through the casement and back to him.

“Dreams are messages from the deep.”

Though it is only late morning, the Strategy Council finds you quite weary.

You sit, toying with your fingers as you drown in a sea of House Atreides; and once again, the only solace in the room is your blade, laid in front of you on the table for all to see. Certainly a warning, this time.

Nearly everybody you've met of importance during your sojourn is in attendance – the table is large and long, so much so that you know you will have to project your voice to be heard by the dredges of your periphery; and around you sit war masters, strategists, women and men with intense stares and the symbol of house Atreides upon their clothing.

It is a fight, after Duke Leto sets a brief introduction, to not sound too sharp nor calculating; your gaze skitters over the listeners as you speak, their eyes interested, respectful – it is a shock to your body as you trail off, aware of the respect that brims in the quiet of the room.

But worse still is the fight to stifle your yawn as the Duke reviews intelligence reports; Gritting your teeth, you sit up straighter – through no hitch of boredom but instead the dreadful absence of rest, now is perhaps the worst time for your body to punish your mind for your lack of sleep.

And beside the Duke this time rests a chilling gaze, one you’ve yet to meet in such a scenario – Paul rests with a straight spine and a stare hooked upon the pendant hanging from your neck, and you fight not to stir with the heat of the green boring through your veil.

Until now, there's lived a cold silence between the two of you that has not been broken since it befell; that night when you were gifted the necklace – and besides the stiff apology he issued you the morning after, assuring you he was out of line for treating you with disrespect in his father’s study that morning – all that’s grown between you and your betrothed are cordial nods or a tight-lipped smile from him in passing, whenever a house member is around. Nothing more would dare be said between you, lest you pull a blade to his throat.

If you'd been less indulged in your studies and training – or perhaps he, less prideful – maybe it would not have gone on this long; a stalemate as stubborn as its proprietors.

But seeing as you've barely been in the same room once since that dreadful dinner several days ago, it's no different. You aren’t to be wed until the end of this year, but you know sometime soon, you will have to learn to live with him.

Paul does not notice your attention on him for some time as the strategy council rolls on; He is seemingly in his own world, gazing intently at the necklace in a way that gives you a rush of unease – and you, drawn into the world of dreamlike memory: Of hands smooth against skin, of soft breath upon your cheek, of curls tickling your forehead.

But it’s as if a shock hits him – and suddenly, a green stare finds your own; and though it is near impossible to discern your face unless mere inches away, Paul never fails to find your eyes behind the veil.

In his stare, your mind convulses; brought forth unbidden and unsolicited, you see them: Curls that kiss your forehead, lips plush and pressed to your neck – a hand snaking up the bareness of your thigh.

You swallow thickly, shifting in your seat; you’ve grown quite used to the demons which sleep in your mind – of Feyd-Rautha’s shadows curling to grasp your mind when your eyes shut – yet this strange thing, this new thing?

Now, you're flushing each time you catch your husband-to-be's eyes – like some innocent girl, lovestruck and awake to be put in a corner; catching those very same eyes which regard you as a pawn on the chessboard of his House, no less.

And yes – there is not a part of you so vain as to lie and say Paul is not extremely attractive. A creature made of dark curls, sharp angles, plush lips, that cooled, smooth voice; anybody worth their wits could see his allure – but even just this innocent observation rings forth a violent urge of resistance. An urge, to rip off the necklace; to scream at him, at the Imperium – I am not yours to keep.

Though, before you can do much of anything, his gaze is gone from you; Paul breaks the turmoil in your mind with a simple turn of his head.

Begrudgingly, you try to do the same.

Though it yields nothing but more trouble: Your eyelids droop as you fight to stare at the Duke, who speaks in what you can only perceive as background noise as your mind soldiers on against your own will.

“Lady Bourbon?”

And with that, your eyes snap up, heart suddenly beating hard under the alarmingly paternal gaze of Duke Leto; In fact, through the silence, you observe that every eye is on you expectantly, including Paul’s.

It is with ignorance of the concerned look etched upon his countenance that you snap out of your reverie, embarrassment flooding you; Paul's green eyes bore into you even when you turn to address the Duke.

“Apologies, Duke Leto,” you clear your throat, willing your cheeks to stop flushing from the attention, “I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I've been having some…” You reluctantly admit the burdens of your mind, “…odd dreams. They've been keeping me awake at night.”

After a beat, you stir, “Could you please repeat yourself?” You wonder with a flushed face and twisting fingers – but there is a quick glance sent from Lady Jessica to her son and your attention is stolen.

Paul’s own gaze meets his mothers and then casts suddenly downwards, as if deep within his own mind; and it is clear – whatever she delivers within her gaze, he is clearly avoiding – though there is little pause from the rest of the council, and you soon forget the look shared between mother and son.

From down the table, Thufir Hawat denotes a remedy in the form of an elixir you can take before sleep that should help you; the Duke orders a worker to have it brought to your quarters this evening, and in the expiring embarrassment of your slip-up, your mind rocks from its pulling descent to slumber.

You’re painfully alert after this, and when you are finally called upon to share your thoughts, it is by Gurney Halleck: “My lady, you’ve before mentioned certain endeavors during your time on Giedi Prime.”

You nod and he takes the affirmation with a nod of his own, “What do you know of their Spice exploits?”

And eyes once again fall to you from across the room; in a ticking of your jaw, you wish once more to rid yourself of the cursed veil that constricts your vision. Your spine straightens at the question and you choose your words quite carefully. “I do not know much of their spice harvesting,” you begin, “and it must be said that what I know is mostly second-hand; I learned most of what I know through the na-baron Feyd-Rautha.”

A murmur from the end of the table, one you are quick to squash with a withering look behind the veil: “He is vicious,” You affirm, folding your hands, “but he has his own weaknesses, ones which the other Harkonnens lack.” And though the implications of your words settle in unease around the room – the Lady Jessica’s head turns to you just slightly – you do not drop the Duke’s stare. “I might remind you all that Spice is not their only source of power.”

And in the wash of a renewed power – eyes are hooked upon your cloaked figure, on how the words drip from a mouth so concealed. “They have large petroleum reserves – from refineries around the planet, stored in the bowels of Barony; I've seen them, they're never-ending."

This makes the duke shift in his seat; likewise, Paul's brows furrow in thought.

Your voice is a beam through a forested canopy of pine and spruce, bursting forth into the sterile room; A perk of interest that bristles through the icy surface of a sleeping scape. “It is true, I was not an agent for my family; though from what I’ve been able to piece together, my family was recording Harkonnen reserves, and monitoring their activity with the Spacing Guild.” Your voice hangs, words heavy with implication. You swallow down the worry that gnaws in you before you continue. “Not just for spice, but petroleum. I was none the wiser until after they were caught.” You spare a glance to Paul, meeting his stare with your own. “–But of course, who is to believe me?”

Paul’s gaze is promptly cast away, written with some flash of guilt; and you continue once more. “I assumed it is is why the Great Houses likely allowed for me to be brought to Caladan – in hopes that I know something of my family’s findings.”

Your eyes fall to Duke Leto. “Am I right, my Lord?” You wonder; the room is quiet as your words are absorbed, a rainbow of faces all varying degrees of surprise.

Duke Leto is an honest man. “Yes,” he affirms, “It is one of the reasons I believe the Landraad passed the ordinance for your betrothal to be transitioned.”

The knowledge does not do much to ease your worry – indeed, just some figure of strategy in a game above your head.

His words are not unkind, though: “We've been concerned with any acts of retaliation to our house after this ruling, and though it hasn't come yet, we need to be prepared. We must know what you know, my lady.”

You press your fingers along the blade before you as you nod. “When the betrothal was annulled, they were distraught,” you admit with an open air, catching the guarded surprise of several glances. It is mirthful, the small smirk that sneaks onto your lips as you take in their expressions. “Not for some attachment to me, mind you,” You ease them, “Feyd-Rautha was the worst of them when it came to the dissolution of our engagement – but the truth is…” you offer a half-shrug, shaking your head in some bitter mirth. “Harkonnens don’t like when their toys are taken away from them.”

It is just as uncomfortable as ever; Paul’s stare is focused down, upon the grain of wood below your fingers, and you do not flinch at the set in his jaw. In the silence, you push forward, “Thufir has been tutoring me on local economics,” You nod to the man down the table, “I understand that the majority of the trading exports from Caladan are agriculture – fine wine and rice?”

Paul’s voice comes from the depths. “Yes,” he confirms; and you nod, the chain of your headdress chiming slightly as you hold his stare. You wet your lips, “The Baron could easily flood the galactic market with cheap petroleum, garnering almost no externalities for himself.” You tilt your head, “An influx of cheap fuel like that could disrupt the transportation networks – the market for space transport and exportation would be saturated by the Harkonnens within days.”

Sparse glances of thought and furrowed brows across the table – and after a moment, you hear the thought that has lingered in your mind since the moment you saw the refineries’ stock at Barony.

“An action like this would highly disrupt our direct trade access from this system to most others without use of the Spacing Guild.” Thufir adds – the Duke still looks at you, urging you to continue. You do.

“What I fear,” You crack your knuckles gently, knee bouncing just slightly under the table, “Is the vacuum that’s been left on Sabberon. There is no governing body now that my family has been eliminated.” It is a blunt, unemotional statement, and you move past it before the ghosts which linger in the corners of your heart come out of the shadows. “If Harkonnen boots hit the ground there, they could rather easily take control of the planet's resources and exports. Their battalions could easily squash the insurgent groups in the North and South.”

A nod, a sparse murmur – and then, a woman a few seats down from you leans forward to catch your gaze. “Sabberon's industries are commercial fishing, fir, logging.”

Hardly much to worry about, you know – and you turn, nodding. “Yes, they are – but I more mean the glacial deposits within our mountain ranges.” You purse your lips, a secret kept in the confines of Castle Bourbon tilting from your lips. “The highest ranges contain precious minerals and ores whose compounds are quite valuable for industrial applications. It’s how we industrialized so quick in the Turning Age.” You wish to avoid any history lessons – but it is important; and you clear your throat as you set down the pneumatic tubes you'd prepared before the council.

“I've documented, to the best of my ability, everything that I remember here. Feyd-Rautha knows about the deposits on Sabberon; I believe it is fair to assume the Baron does, too.”

It is in the lull of the moment, heavy and steeping with thought, that his face comes to you – and a sickly hand around your neck, a black smile: You're mine to keep. There's plenty of life left for you to serve.

In a blink, you’re back to the grain of the table, tracing along it with your nail. Paul leans forward, brows furrowed. “If the region of Sabberon is destabilized – controlled by Harkonnens or in civil conflict – we could lose almost all of our exports. It’s a crucial line of trade in the system for us.” He echoes your concern, “Giving them access to the resources is dangerous enough, but a near-monopoly on petroleum, Spice, and the Space Trade Route?”

There is a spark of intrigue at the sharp point of his intelligence – but nonetheless, you merely nod in agreement, pushing away any such girlish thoughts in sacrifice of the matter at hand.

Gurney Halleck’s voice cuts through your observation of Paul’s hair against the light: “We need to consider this carefully. If the Harkonnens make a move to Sabberon, we must be ready to respond. But acting first could have larger consequences.”

Duke Leto nods; with a glance to the War Master and back to the others. “Halleck's right. The Referendum is soon – the Landsraad will be redrawing the Trade negotiations then,” His gaze flickers to you, “–and your arraignment is set for the same congress. It seems the best option is to wait.”

Dread fills you; stuck between a rock and a hard place, you’re left with nothing to do but wait – wait for the impending trade drawings, for the impending arraignment. You’re no fool – the arraignment might leave you with no inheritance, no claim to Sabberon. Your gut coils in anxiety, and it is not soothed by the urgent sense that curbs the meeting: plans are drawn out to set more strategy meetings before the Referendum; you are requested to attend them.

Fear clubs up the ridges of your spine with each nod you give to passersby – and a panic pulls your eyelids to droop, your brain aching for rest.

By the time you return to your chambers, you are much too exhausted to seek lunch.

Instead, you are asleep within minutes.

Your name calls to you.

A hum in response as you thread your fingers through locks of curls; in the distance, birds sing. The sun drags streaks flying across the sky in its descent, and flakes flutter gently around you – though it smells not of snowfall. A bonfire crackles somewhere, you can smell the heady cedar embers, see the flames in your blinks.

Your hair is tugged; in a huff of laughter, you tug the tresses laced between your own fingers – but in another surprising jolt, you’re tugged again and you gasp, catching the flicker in green eyes. “That hurt,” Your floating voice chides, though there is no malice – your words are faint and dancing around the falling flakes – a warm palm grasps your jaw to tilt your head up.

“I'm very sorry,” he does not even trying to cover the lie, smiling against the dying sun. “Let me ease the pain,” He whispers, gentle and teasing against your jaw. A faint chuckle when he nips down your exposed neck and you breathe out; His hands are quite daring, slipping your dress over your head until you're bare against the sheet, blinking up warmly at the forest. The breeze of springtime is chill and disarming against your flesh; birds sing. His fingers trace you slowly.

And there is nothing but arousal snaking through you as he sinks lower, lips painting a path back up your thighs, nipping gently at your soft skin; A swat to the top of his head, and a short noise of protest from him in response as you bite back a smile.

“Paul,” you whisper, and it disappears through the trees as if off to find some other world. He hums in a teasing lilt, vibrations rippling from his lips to your warm skin, sending a cascade of goosebumps through you.

“Come back to me,” you whisper – and he listens, though he usually doesn't; His lips are replaced by his hips and soon, after a small roll, a gentle moan leaks from your lips. It is still slightly cold in the death of spring, but his skin is warm; His lips are warm.

“I'm here, aren't I?" His eyes are upon yours, and your stomach flutters, “I'm always here.”

And when he slides into you slowly, his lashes tangle in a kiss of deep brown – and your head tilts back against the sheet, his hand hitting the trunk of the Pine above your head, grasping with a thud; a long whimper is swallowed by his lips, consumed by his warmth, by the deep sensation that sends your back to arch.

And any semblance of chivalry dissipates as Paul begins to move; A palm gliding up from your hip, sliding over your breasts, pinching a pert nipple before rising – and you with a clutch upon his shoulders, grasping the warm skin and revelling in the sweet relief of pleasure. Fingers glide over your heaving chest as hips slide into your own – you’re pushed down against the earthy floor in ecstasy, and his grasp finds it suddenly–

A finger traces over the emblem clasped around your throat: A hawk, cerulean and shining, over your sweat-sheened, thundering chest.

And before any such disdain can leak from lips so wanting of affection, he’s pulling with a startling force – the necklace breaks under Paul’s grasp and falls apart, stones and pearls rolling over your bare chest and pooling onto the sheet below you.

And it’s a thing of pleasure, the way your hand snakes to press his grasp to your thundering heart; the pendant is thrown far behind you as Paul’s desperation leaks through.

A groan from his lips as his hand squeezes over your neck just lightly, your own grasping it in a shocking pleasure – it is unlike any sensation you’ve yet experienced, and soon pours his breaths and groans like a river of desire broken for you. A whispered phrase, over and over, spilling from your lips and his alike – lulling you into a state of euphoria as his body rocks with yours, breathing to the earth and feeling it breathe back.

Hands grasp skin tight and desperate – your nails find the line of his smooth back, clutching to the lithe muscles that move with his hips; and he, tracing each curve of your face and neck with his lips, gasping as the flakes that fall around you begin to burn as embers. Smoke lingers somewhere far off; though you are with your husband and you cling to him, whispering that same phrase over, and over – a jolted gasp of pleasure – and once more; over, and over, and over –

“I'm yours.”

Something rouses you from sleep, much quicker this time, and you wake with a start.

Broad daylight streams through your chamber windows when your eyes open, your heart thundering as you shift on the sheets; A blurry form comes into view, fluffing the untouched pillow beside you on the bed. You do not strike this time, instead swarmed with shame and embarrassment in the wake of such tangible dreams.

“Bad dream again?” Hestia she sets down a fresh set of clothing; you swallow and wince at your dry throat, heart thudding. Bad dream... You can feel your face flood with embarrassment – you'd rather be caught dead than admit what you'd just dreamt, so instead you push your hair from your face, fanning your cheeks.

“Yes.” You croak, accepting the glass of water she offers you, “I did not mean to fall asleep.”

The sheets are warm and your spine is lined with sweat; you slide out of your bed with the elegance of a newborn mare, eyes flicking around.

The sky is sunny, not a single rain cloud; and your chambers are heavy, tight.

“I need some fresh air.”

Paul’s shadow dances across the wild grass as the midday sun follows his steps.

The breeze is much more permanent down by the shore; he brushes stray curls from his eyes, tracing the shoreline below with a lingering absence; It's only a few hours until he should be back in the strategy chambers with his father, helping draw plans for the upcoming Referendum – but the castle has grown stuffy and sterile at the same time, and his stomach growls in hunger. He needs some fresh air.

Though the sea mists his cheeks, his mind is stuck high above him, spinning in the memory of the Strategy Council meeting. Paul would be struck dead a liar if he were to say you were not one of the most intelligent women he’s met; and after this morning, there is truly nothing much else he has been able to think of – and despite himself, the growing bud of admiration sprouts within his mind, even despite your predisposition to violence and solitude.

Paul almost feels foolish for how blinded he was – if war is really on the horizon, he supposes it’s very lucky that House Atreides took you in; If not for your capabilities and sharp intellect, then for your claim to Sabberon, for your connections with the Ginaz and their Swordsmen; for your intimate knowledge of Harkonnen power.

It’s now as important as ever that Paul ensures you remain on the Atreides’ side, should this war come – a burden to hold you should you somehow wish to return to the black embrace of Giedi Prime, but one he will have to keep. Because you are too valuable to his House to let you go over trivial things; Politics is all two way streets; you will help them with your insights and they will protect you. And with this, perhaps, comes the truth – that Paul has begun to learn of you, of the you that shines through any small cracks in the armor.

And over the meadow he walks, he sees that lush green forest again; a woodpecker against bark, your hands sliding into his own as you lean him back against the trunk of a tree – the smell of smoke, an explosion on the horizon; laughter swallowed by the wind, lips pressed to parted lips.

Paul sighs harshly.

He's not sure if it was the correct decision to tell his mother about these dreams, instead of his father; skepticism is a biting friend as his feet trudge over the cliff and down, closer to the beach.

Paul loves his mother, but he is indeed not naive to the manipulative nature of the Bene Gesserit; in some dreadful way, he wonders once more which silent partners in the Imperium influenced the decision for the Houses to order his betrothal to you.

A small whisper in the back of his mind, that sickly voice of the Reverend Mother those years ago: Two candidates... Paul may one day be one of them–

The skittering of a rabbit through the grass calls his attention to the path, his jaw clenched tight.

The wind is swallowed by the structure under which he ducks; It is a small alcove – one of many below the cliffs which hold a cluster of tidepools, small and large. And this particular one catches his eye, just on the left – a soft smile grows upon weary lips.

When he was younger, he often played in these very alcoves with the few other children his age in the castle; swimming, playing hide-and-seek, sparring with wooden daggers.

His feet take him into the alcove without any hesitation – the rock grows slick with seawater and the scent of the brackish pools; it isn't until he's into the shade that he sees the figure seated among the pools.

You wear the same clothing you'd donned at the Strategy Council, your feet bare and dipped into the shallow waters.

For a moment, he considers turning back to his path towards the beach; but your back grows rigid as you turn to him, and he’s struck with a breath of beauty blowing in the breeze of your veil.

A thick silence; a silence lived between you, lodged like an unwanted burden – it has been some time since you were last alone. A memory of his shaking hands, the bite in your words as you’d clasped that pendant to your chest - of that sheer veil, of your glistening gaze across the table.

It is time to leave such hesitancy behind; and so with a tentative swallow, Paul takes a few steps closer.

“I hadn't expected to find you here,” An honest and neutral observation.

Somewhere beyond that gauzy veil, you stare back at him; and your fingers twitch towards the blade upon your hip before curling once more into a soft fist, cradled in a palm. “Nor I you,” you reply coolly – and in the uneasy silence, Paul sacrifices his pride and endures the agony of discontent.

He does not ask if you mind if he joins you – he knows that you would; so instead he sits gently, leaving a wide berth of space between you.

And while you bristle at his arrival, stiffening as he sits across from you and drops the bag from his back beside him, he cannot bring himself to blame you.

It is a peculiar posture you give; a cradling of your hand as you watch the ripples in the tide pool that he slowly dips his feet into – it is soon that he recognizes the gives of pain from your figure. And that very agony it is almost palpable in your silence as he looks down at where you rub the skin of your hand, swollen and red.

“I assume you met the crabs.”

And the headdress of metal jewelry that adorns the crown of your forehead chimes when you turn to watch him, surprise laced into your posture.

“I did.”

Your affirmation is punctuated by an unfurling of your palm, revealing blistered, irritated skin; He winces more for your own sake than in true surprise before letting his eyes roam gently over the near landscape – moss grows in clumps throughout the rocky pools, though he searches for that short, stalky root which grows just outside the reach of the water.

And after spotting one beside you, he reaches; you flinch, though he pays no mind to the hitch in your breath as he gives the stalk a quick tug – and the plant is ripped out, roots and all.

He hands you the root of the stalk, gesturing for you to take it: “You can use this plant.”

And in your evergreen poise, you grasp the root hesitantly, as if sensing a trap. It dangles limp from your grasp, earthy as the gems upon your jewelry – and you return to your statued posture, watching him, faceless and green as the moss around you.

He nods after a moment of awkward breath, gesturing to the stalk. “Chew it.”

You do nothing but breathe at him for a moment – and perhaps if he could see your eyes, he’s sure he would find disbelief; Skepticism. And perhaps if it were any other time, any other person, he’d laugh at the silent incredulity that leaks between you.

He shifts, feet circling in the pool of water. “It soothes the itch and the pain. You chew it, and spit it onto your palm.” Patience is lost when you do not respond – and perhaps out of the growing blush on his cheeks in your refusal to act, he sighs sharply, “It's not poisonous.”

I'm not trying to kill you, he almost says; but something in him stops the words before they leave his mouth and he instead tilts his head in a short mock of your own.

And he swears in the breeze carries a huff from beneath that gauzy fabric – and then the root disappears rather awkwardly under your veil.

In the glinting light of the cave, he can just nearly make the shape of your lips, hear the small snap of the stalk between your teeth. And in the quiet lap of waves against the shore in the distance, Paul watches expectantly – from years of habit, he is used to the milky taste; but he remembers how unpleasant it can be the first time.

And those eyes catch his own, some phantom force from behind shades of green – slowly, you spit it out onto your palm, as if questioning if you were doing it right. Paul’s face feels suddenly warm – a trail of saliva falls from lips glistening in the spare ray of sun, alight with a forested green and the milky blood of the root. It is a harsh reminder of the dream he'd woken up from this very morning; and with a sudden sense of panic – as if you might somehow reach into his mind and see such salacious thoughts – he forces the visions away.

The waves lap idly against his feet; you rub the mixture into your palm quietly.

“How did you know to do that?”

Your voice is curious, and the fingers not matted with the root-paste press against the spongy moss beside your pants. You’re a vision of that first day, when you’d whispered words of interest at the very plant nor beneath your touch; a vision of green and poise, of stoic quiet and twitching fingers. Despite himself, Paul’s lips curl up in a small grin.

Squinting against the sunshine, the beach in the distance is a warbly thing, foamed and bubbled by the current – and his left shoulder shrugs. “I played here when I was young. I got pinched a lot.”

You don't necessarily laugh, but there’s an exhalation from your nose that curves his own lips; and when, after a few more minutes, you reach to rinse your hand in the pool before you, the angry skin has returned to its glowing health.

Waves crash quietly within the cove and Paul warily watches one of the bluecrabs meander across a rock beside you – just when he parts his lips to warn you, your fingers move away, head tracking its path across and towards the smaller pool behind you.

And in the moment of silence, he hears the unmistakable rumble of your stomach.

“Are you hungry?” He asks suddenly, clearing his throat; Your hand has taken to drawing idle circles in the tidepool, and you hardly cease the hypnotizing movements as you shrug with a small nod. “I slept through lunch today.”

A moment of hesitation before he looks over his shoulder at you – unassuming, running your nails across the patch of bare skin awarded by the cuffing of your trouser legs; and slowly, from the bag beside him, he pulls out the food that he'd taken from the kitchen.

Apples, crackers, some imported cheese; sparkling juice from the vineyards south of Cala City, and a foil filled with bits of chocolate.

But through his focus on unwrapping the pack, your voice cracks into the cove, incredulous – almost amused. “This was all for you?”

Paul bristles defensively, giving you a wide glance, cheeks warm. “I was hungry,” He defends; and with a hard blink, he’s brought back to the week previous, when all that he saw when you were around was red – anger, trepidation, mistrust.

And though thoughts whirl in his mind quicker than he can catch – of you, your family, your time on Giedi Prime – he finds himself mildly pleased with the stalemate that has come about; a hand reached across an abyss, and a hesitant grasp in return.

Your voice is light when you speak again. “If I can confess,” your head trails down sheepishly – Paul’s attention follows you. “The veils have never made it easy to enjoy a long supper. They tangle in my hair no matter how it's styled, anyways.”

And despite himself, he huffs a short laugh; was that a hint of a joke, from you?

It is not so abnormal, veils – he has known many women in his life to wear them – but never in a custom such as yours; to not remove it in front of anybody for months and months of mourning – He cannot fathom how bizarre a change it must be, even if it is how you were raised.

So when your hands raise, he does not expect them to go towards the hem of the fabric.

And he does not expect you to slide it from the crown of your head.

It is sharply that he whips his head away; in a skipped heartbeat, the glimpse of your hair unfettered by the green gauze haunts his mind – what in the hell are you doing?

Paul’s heart thunders against his chest, though he cannot find any words to string into a meaningful sentence – he watches a bluecrab crawl into the pool across the way.

“I don't mean to shock you,” your voice is so very close, now; he swallows down the flutter in his throat at its lilt, “Truth be told, I'm not even sure if I'm supposed to wear these still.”

Confusion laces through his mind – the rock you sit upon is wetted and dark, clumped with bright emerald moss; and you, as if unknowingly, throw kindle into the fire of nerves in his chest.

A mirthful tone you bring with your words: “You don't have to look away, you know. I'm still the same beast as before.”

And he does look, after that.

Paul cannot help himself: he stares at you – really you – no fabric to cover the slope of your nose, the curve of your chin, the round of your cheeks; the way your brows gather, a canopy above the most expressive eyes he’s ever seen in his life.

And your hair is loose – let wild and uncovered, swayed gently by the sea breeze; glossy in the glint of sun off the sea in the distance. Paul wonders absently, in some foul derivative of jealousy or hatred, if Feyd-Rautha enjoyed your hair; unique as it surely was on a planet full of hairless beings.

Paul quickly schools himself – perhaps in another life, he’d be rather ecstatic to see that he has such a beautiful bride-to-be; yet it just serves to wash over another pang in his stomach. Your words of moments ago haunt over his mind as he once more meets your eyes, waiting for him. I'm still the same beast as before.

There is some inevitability to your gaze – disfavored to him, yes – but perceptive, knowing.

The pull of the tide must be answered by the shore, Dr. Yueh once told him; Perhaps that is true, and perhaps that is why Paul stares at you, the sense of mistrust breaking way to a new sense of dread, of regret.

You are no beast to me, he should say. But he doesn't; not when he’s unsure if it would be a lie coming from his lips.

Instead, he can only voice the astonishment in his mind at the sight of your veil held between your hands. “Why did you take it off?”

You blink; heavens, your lashes are long – they kiss your cheeks against the soft light from the grotto. He swallows thickly, busying himself with the apple and a knife.

Your voice comes as matter-of-fact as you’d been in the meeting that very morning. “Well, I'm quite hungry.”

You lean over – your tunic rustles in the movement, and Paul averts his gaze from the glinting necklace upon your chest, the slide of your hair upon the fabric of your back. Slowly, you take to slicing the cheese for you both with your very own blade – and Paul’s confusion has not quelled, but instead grown in the breeze of your nearly casual movements.

It’s as if the veil took with it the cold, calculating dissidence; you sit in front of him a young woman, plain. Pretty, sharp, cunning; but, simpler than that: Hungry.

A simple thing indeed – one that, as his own stomach rumbles, he knows he relates to. And so he offers you a slice of apple warily, watching you with some lingering shame, as if he's stumbled upon on a shrine long since sacred and wanting.

“I thought you wore them for nine months,” He states, tilting his head, "The anthropologists in the video said–”

But you’ve reared to stare at him, blinking in some odd vision of shock: “–Nine months?" You interrupt, voice more animated than he's ever heard; it nearly startles him, the youth in your voice, the life. You nearly bemoan, furrowing your brows as if hoping to recall a long lost memory. “It’s hardly been three weeks and I’ve already begun to fantasize burning them.”

Confusion must paint his expression, for your face changes sheepishly, falling into a solemn line. “Forgive me,” You clear your throat, “It's grown apparent to me as of late that am not well-versed in my own customs.”

And it is a stony, quick change from your previous cadence; Paul’s brows furrow, though you seem to offer him further elaboration as you take in his countenance.

“My family did not often uphold many of the old religion's traditions once I got old,” You sigh as you chew on an apple, tilting your head, “I was educated by the Bene Gesserit as my mother wished when I was young - and in many ways, our family adopted their customs in replacement of our heritage culture.”

It is a stone dropped into his stomach at your words, though he lets no emotion betray him – your voice licks with the lilt of trepidation in the mention of the Bene Gesserit; and your eyes, wide and expressive, only pull him in despite the foreboding churn of his stomach.

This is certainly not what Paul expected – why, then, have you been wearing the veil so devotedly?

“I have a book,” He says dumbly – and with a cleared throat, he ignores the sudden flush that crawls from the collar of his tunic. “If you– if you want to read more about it.”

You fix him with a look, and he’s struck by the rawness of your features. “A book?” you echo, and he shifts upon his seat awkwardly.

“About your family's customs. I j–” he stops himself, combing a stray curl back, “We thought it would be pertinent to know what your courting traditions are, what your customs are. To make you… comfortable,” he reasons gently, guilty that it was not so apparent from the beginning, “If… if we are to marry, it should be honorable. For both of us.”

It's as if his words have seeped into the spongy spin of your mind; your eyes have grown distant as they course over the shoreline across the way, brows settling in a line across the smooth skin of your forehead. Moments pass and the words he left hanging in the air stay; Waves kiss the sand of the cove and Paul toys with the knife in his hands quietly. He’s unsure how he might pull you from those cold depths of your thoughts, and so he sits, watching your lips purse and catch between your pearled teeth gently.

And after a moment, you come back to him. “Thank you,” You say – and your voice is once again that blank, cold tone – as if a wall had been snapped up suddenly, “I only remember wearing the veils when I was–” You break off for a moment, ripping the skin from a slice of apple. “When my sister died. I wasn’t quite old enough to remember much from it, and… I was eighteen when I left Sabberon. As I got older, our castle was so often full of visitors that we would regularly forgo most customs of my father’s family.”

It is a melancholy thing when you look back up at him. “If I can be honest, I… suppose I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Involuntary as it is, Paul cannot help his gaze from darting to the necklace you wear around your neck; and just as quickly he moves to search your visage – looking perhaps for any emotion. He finds none.

I shall wear it like a dog.

The breeze catches your hair. Paul’s brows furrow, “The veil wasn’t your choice,” he realizes. Guilt, that drooping, wilting guest, slumps upon the stoop of his heart.

And you shrug, glancing at your lap, “True, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to make choices for myself,” you admit – and it’s an admission far too heavy for the air in the cove, as you swirl your toes in the pool, as his own press to the rock beneath the water, his heart heavy. A hand flickers to the veil that lies with its adorning metal headpiece to your left. “I guess taking it off is one of them.” You clear your throat, nails digging into the earth exposed from where Paul had ripped the root – and your other hand rises, almost as if you endure a sharp pain in your ribs – and you cradle the spot, fingers lingering in a haunting line before falling to the rock below. “Feyd-Rautha would not have let me wear the veil even if I had wanted to. But at least I am making the choice for myself now.”

And it is a jolting reminder, one of horror – when you had arrived on Caladan, Duncan's arm still bleeding with the result of your fight, Paul had seen a Harkonnen. A dagger wrapped in layers of silk and velvet.

And perhaps the Caladan air has changed you; but more likely, you have begun to heal yourself – and although you do not look well-rested, there are indeed healing wounds upon your arms; wounds that churn Paul’s stomach, that strike his heart in acrimony, in wrath. A nightmare, you’ve come from – and he knows now that whatever you’ve endured is something that would break many.

Still, you’ve changed in a gradual shift: You are not so fervent or distrusting as you were those first few days – though you remain that ghost haunting the halls, you walk with less wrath, more credence; He knows you speak with your chambermaids freely – you take sparring lessons with Duncan after Paul each day, and tutor in the mornings before he does. Your voice in council this morning: Grown and defrosting, confident; born to take on such a role.

You sit perched upon the dark rock – the light hits your hair and the slope of your nose, bathing your eyelashes in an ethereal glow. You’re a sharp woman, keen and astute; He watches your straight spine, the slow breaths which grow from a proud chest.

You will make a good duchess.

And in a moment, Paul notices – a wide gaze, searching his face; it occurs to him that perhaps this is also the first time you have seen him unobstructed. And so, with an odd feeling in the pit of his stomach, he lets you stare; a secret relish in the silence and its change in demeanor.

A once excruciating thing, leaking with the sentiment of shared disdain, of mutual mistrust – though now grows a respect, or maybe the roots to it; a slow thing, plotten in frozen soil and hoped to grow despite harsh weathers.

You finish your half of the apple, and he watches the glint of your necklace as you lean back upon your palms. “Can I…” His voice breaks through as an ocean does a cliff; “Can I ask you something?”

It is a beautiful collar. I shall wear it like a dog.

And Paul is so very suddenly tired – fatigued from his lessons, the council, the marriage, the prospect of war with the Harkonnens, of his dreams; his head feels as though it swims, light above the clouds and yet tethered to the ground below.

Your brows dip slightly, as if your hackles rise. “Yes,” you murmur warily, eyes roving over his figure.

He swallows thickly, willing himself to spit it out. “Do you choose to wear that?”

He need not gesture to the necklace that hangs around your neck; and you, stilling in the cold wind of truth. When it comes, it is not through words: Your eyes are wide and, if Paul did not know better, they reveal the sting of fear.

You say nothing, but in time, you shake your head slightly.

And this does not ease his conscience.

It is an echo of words bitten through clenched teeth and the onslaught of rain; it is in the weeping willows of that ceremonial dress, in the sliding of shade over your veil that first time he ever met you.

He’s not sure why he says it, but it comes as a whisper, as wind snuffs out a flame, as fog creeps across the shoreline in the early hours:

“Threats demand evolution.”

His murmur is swallowed by the breeze in the cove, by the rustle of the veil beside you.

His words bristle your spine, though you say nothing; and for a long minute, he avoids the burning stare of your gaze against his profile.

It is only after the food is prepared and spread over the moss between you that you speak; and in the time it takes for Paul to lay out the food, it occurs to Paul that this is the most you and him have spoken without being plagued by tense silences or passive-aggression – or at least without enduring the childish embarrassment of being mediated by his parents as they ask you both questions at the supper table.

A nail, trimmed and coated in a deep paint, traces the glass bottle that lies half in the bag – the soft clink of your tap brings his gaze from the pools below. “Did you intend on drinking yourself drunk this afternoon?” You wonder – a warmer tone, that inkling of amiability returning so suddenly.

He hands you a piece of bread and his knife, shaking his head wryly – though the lingering hesitance of unfamiliarity restricts him from jesting in return.

Having intended to be alone, Paul had not grabbed a glass, let alone two; and so he grasps the bottle by its neck, twisting on the cage atop it to begin to open it. An irritating curl lies across his forehead – and so he flicks his head to jolt it out of the way; your gaze tracks the motion.

“It's sparkling tea.”

At his words you hum slowly, glancing at the bottle in his hands.

“That’s a shame.” You muse, hand brushing one of your own strands away, “I've never tried wine.”

Paul's eyes flicker to you in surprise; Had you not been offered wine at supper here? Had you never had it in your youth, as a highborn?

“Not even when you were young?”

And you shake your head, a wistful smile gracing your lips; your hair is silken, even in the shade – Paul hadn't expected it to be such a shade, but suits you.

“Never,” you confirm, “Where I come from, our preferred drinks are mead or ale, usually served warm. And…” You trail off, shrugging, “On Giedi Prime they favor liquor that is made from anise – you know, the spice?” You inquire, and continue when he nods, “It's much too bitter for my taste,” you continue, your voice tinged with a similar bitterness that you describe, “And even if I did enjoy it, I… tried not to drink there, when I could.”

Paul looks out to the sea – clouds crawl in an ominous roll towards the shore, the air thick – it’ll rain this evening.

There is nothing to say; and so, he begins to ease his thumb over the cork, pressure pushing against him.

“In the South, all that grows are fields and fields of vines,” he explains after the moment passesa dn clouds swallow the sunlight. Dripping sun, wide-reaching hands of vines, drooping with heavy clusters of sweetgrapes in the South. “They make all kinds of fine wine there. Sweet, sparkling, aged.”

You hum at this, your gaze tracking his own to the sea, tracing the crash of waves against the stark cliffs in the distance.

Your small lunch passes by in intermediate silence after this: Both you and Paul are insatiably hungry, and in minutes the food is nearly gone – you’re not particularly warm, and neither is he; and it matters not. He is well consumed with his own thoughts to give himself the company you do not provide.

Though as the sun continues its peak in the sky and you continue to eat quietly – clearly attempting to remain amiable with him – a sense of regret bubbles in his chest.

“I owe you an apology.”

And it startles you – his throat is dry, and your jump goes unaddressed, your nails digging into the moss beneath as he refuses to meet your gaze. “I've…” He pushes away the pride that burns at his throat, “I’ve treated you poorly. Acted like a child,” he admits.

In his peripheral, you turn to him.

His sigh is weary. “I didn't expect for it to happen like this,” and the corner of his mouth lifts mirthlessly – emotionless, as he gazes to the coast. An understatement on his part, and surely yours, too – but it is indeed the truth.

And perhaps it is not polite to admit to your betrothed that you loathe the idea of marrying them, but he knows the feeling is more than mutual. And he does not blame you for it.

Paul is admittedly not usually one for so many words with a stranger – but they come forth very easily in the quiet of the cove. “I was… displeased with how this worked out. Shocked. But–” He shakes his head, unwilling to lose his thought, “But that doesn't excuse how I've treated you.”

You don't say anything, but he can feel how tense you've grown – a statue once more in the dying afternoon sunshine. You have every reason to hate the Harkonnens just as much as his family – if not much more; and with a clammy palm, Paul runs his hand over his forehead.

The thunderclouds loom in the horizon; the salt carries thick in the growing wind.

And with the absence of your words – perhaps in a moment of resignation, he says your first name; Never having said it out loud, it comes out as a murmur on his lips, a small hymn that coaxes your gaze to his own.

“This path was set for us.” He admits, swallowing thickly, “Though we can–” He turns to watch your eyes, how they swirl with unbridled emotion. “Maybe we can navigate it together.”

And in the afterbreath of his words, your breathing is heavy with emotion. Paul is not naive enough to believe it is tears, though he averts his gaze all the same.

“Yeah,” you finally whisper – and though it is dispassionate, withdrawn, it is laced with some small drip of desperation. “Yes.” You mend – though your eyes are far away, tracing the violence in the crashing waves, watching the foamy white caps break in their wake.

“I won't disrespect you again,” he insists, “I swear.”

You lift your feet from the water, curling them under you as you stir, nodding slowly. “Thank you,” Your eyes are sullen. “But don't make promises you can't keep, Paul.” And though he expected as much, the emptiness of your tone churns his heart and spins his head. “I've had my fill of broken vows.”

You aren't hostile in your words; instead they are melancholy, a dreary wind whistling through an empty ravine – beneath Paul, another small bluecrab treks across the terrain, rocking in the gentle water tides.

You’re right – and he's soon filled with the same sense of dread that he's felt after each dream that has haunted him since they began; that same melancholy which envelopes you as you rise, gathering your belongings, preparing to walk back to the castle.

And Paul walks beside you, little more than a few words escaping either of you as you go; a brush of your shoulder against the crook of his elbow, the hitch of a breath concealed with a glance to the shoreline.

By the time you enter the main gates, fat raindrops have begun to fall on Paul’s face, sticking heavy to his lashes.

You, likewise, shield slightly from the rain, your hair kissed with teardrops from the skies, sliding over your cheeks like the tears you’ll never give.

The halls are slick with intracked rainfall – workers offer towels, scold him, tease him; and yet they stare, though they try not to – eyes warm his neck, and pierce through the girl who walks at his side.

But still you walk with your head high, spine straight. Your eyes are guarded, almost insecure at the prying faces who watch your visage as you pass – but even as Paul walks you to your chambers, you don't give in.

And you don't put the veil back on.

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messenger-of-babel · 8 months ago

Text

In Your Eyes

Summary: Clark isn't much of a morning person, but your eyes are enough to get him out of bed each day. (Clark Kent x reader)

Word Count: 2.1K

Notes: First Clark and this piece nearly had me dead on my feet (simply just tired- after this month I need to take a holiday and move house soooo). Fun Fact: I was actually the biggest superman fan when I was younger so he's kind of like my comfort now haha. Not really any warnings on this one, general mentions of violence again? angst? Either way, it hurt doing this to my boy.

Enjoy~!

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Clark wasn't particularly a morning person.

In fact, the longer he could stay curled in his sheets he preferred. Working as Superman was hard, but not nearly as hard as being a reporter at the Daily Planet. He worked long nights before getting changed into his suit, his headlines, deadlines and taglines rattling around his skull while he did his patrol. Even with his Kryptonian stamina and ability to synthesise the sun for energy, it did nothing to stop the tiredness endemic of working a nine-to-five for the sake of capitalism.

You however, rose for the sun. Gently shaking his shoulder each morning, greeting him with a soft smile that fooled his eyes into thinking the sun was already up. He'd groan, smile in return and pretend to roll over to go back to sleep, making you giggle. It never lasted long, and you'd flop on top of him, draping your arms over his stomach before pinching at the skin playfully.

"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty." you'd say, pushing at him to get him up. He'd just huff and bury his face into the pillow.

"The sun isn't even up." he'd tiredly protest, sound muffled.

"Yeah, but it's about to be." you'd laugh before moving off of him, slipping out of bed to get dressed. He'd just watch you through one eye lazily, studying the way that you would flit around the bedroom so effortlessly. Humming softly to yourself you never noticed how his eyes clung to your figure, the slope of your shoulders and the arch in your spine. Unaware of the lovestruck gaze he'd send your way as you got changed, pulling on clothes for the day and washing your face.

When you made coffee he'd finally rouse himself, pulling him from the warm embrace of the bedsheets to seek yours out instead. He'd hug you from behind, leaning his weight on you and cheek pressed into your hair. Inhaling softly, his senses were alight with the smell of coffee and your shampoo, soothing his irritation of being woken before dawn. "Double shot." he'd mumble sleepily into your hair. "Please."

"Already added," you say with a smile, finishing his coffee first. You take in in your hands, turning to the side so you can offer it up to him. He moves one hand from your hip to grip the mug, bringing it to his lips and taking a sip.

"Thank you, honey." he murmurs with a sigh, unwrapping from you so you can make your own. He watches how you busy yourself, slow yet methodical in your movements. He leans his chin in his hand, set up at kitchen counter and a lazy smile on his face. He might not have liked mornings, but he sure as hell liked you.

Your morning routine was always followed by getting changed, checking each other’s outfits and making sure you were both presentable for work. You also worked at the Daily Planet, being introduced to him as a reporter previously at the Gotham Gazette. The darkness of Gotham had gotten to you, the constant reporting on crime, corruption and the latest murder on the block slowly wearing away your soul. So, you had moved to Metropolis with its art deco buildings and lit streets for a change of pace.

He could tell from the first time his eyes met yours, that you were meant for Metropolis.

Clark didn’t want to be biased, doing his best not to be swayed by the thudding in his chest and ears every time he saw you. Yet he still couldn't help the thought popping into his mind every time you passed his desk or waved to him in the mail room. The way the tension eased out of your shoulders day by day, getting to report on new things. As you wrote about medical breakthroughs and charity events instead of gangs and mob violence, your smile peeked out of the shadows. You took the stories no one else wanted to take, the local library art competition, the national science fair, the new displays at the museum. The stories no one else wanted to fight for, his coworkers all stepping over each other for a scoop on Superman or the latest minor crime to rack the Metropolis streets.

Clark could see though.

The same way he could see the darkness that clung to Bruce, like a shadowed cloak heavy on the shadows of all Gothamites. Your pen was already heavy with death and violence, desensitised and numb. The way that your eyes cringed slightly when Perry asked you to take larger articles. You finally got to report on the positive, got to embrace the things that came so easily in Metropolis, yet you fought tooth and nail for in Gotham.

So, who could blame him when he fell in love?

He had worked up the courage to ask you for a date, which turned into two and three. On the fourth he might have accidentally revealed his identity as Superman, but you promised to keep his secret before kissing him breathlessly. Now you were in his apartment, your apartment together, making coffee. Clark was sur that this is what heaven was like.

his favourite part of the morning, however, was going to work together. You were close enough to walk to work, and you'd show up to work hours before anyone else, an hour before the sun showed its face. In the dark you both would scan and drop your bags at your desk before heading for the stairs, his hand on your back the whole time to make sure that you don’t trip or fall. When you unlock the door to the roof a cool gust of air hits your face, making you sigh happily while he winces slightly at the sudden breeze. Every morning you'd sit there together, watching the sun come up.

When that golden orb began painting the sky a beautiful pink and orange, he woke up fully. The beams settling onto his skin made his DNA thrum with energy, as if his cells were waking up as well. It was a shot of energy stronger than anything coffee could give him, muscles relaxing under the touch of its light. He loved the feeling of the sun, the warmth, the light, the gentle caress of the morning and the last hug of it before it set in the evenings. Yet all of that was nothing compared to the way he felt when he looked over at you.

You always wore the softest smile as you watched the sun come up, the gorgeous colours of the sky mixing with the shine of your irises. Clark felt like was looking into galaxies more beautiful than any other he had seen in space, and endless sea of colour and warmth he wanted to dive into. Every morning without fail it made his heart overflow, and he could never resist pulling you to him softly and dropping a soft kiss into your hair. It was his favourite way to watch the sunrise, through your eyes instead of his. He'd look at your eyes no matter how many skies you sat under, just to see if what you saw was different. You always looked up with such amazement and wonder that Clark was convinced you saw a different sky from him. When he took you home to meet his parents, the purples trails of the cloud looked like fields of lavender in your eyes, the blue of the clear sky appearing as an endless ocean. You had both been sitting out on the fence, pressed into his side to block out the sting of autumn's chill. He had kissed you on the head like he now did every morning, and that's when Clark realised that he wanted every day to be like this. Wanted to be able to look into your eyes every morning to try and get just a glimpse of what wonder you managed to capture in your gaze.

So, he had proposed.

The backdrop was the farm visiting his parents, under the tree down by the creek. He had waited for the most beautiful sunset, the dusk just beginning to settle in and stars peeking through the soft blanket of purple and pink. when you said yes, the joy and sparkle in your eyes had been something unmatched still to this day, outshining every star that had twinkled to cheer him on that evening. As soon as you said yes it felt like his heart had soared to the heavens, and finally, he could see those eyes every morning for as long as he lived.

When Clark wakes up one morning without the gentle shaking of his shoulder or your coffee on the counter, he barely makes it to work. He drops his bag as usual, walking up the stairs and settling on the roof, legs over the edge of the building. He sits there, waiting in the darkness. He turns his head, hoping each time that he'd see you walk through those doors and apologise for being late. For not making him a coffee, for not calling ahead and telling him you weren't going to be in work. For not coming home.

You had been called back to Gotham for family business, and the darkness you had finally managed to shake from your shoulders finally got you. He had received the call from Batman, not Bruce, making his heart lurch. Bruce had been the best man at his wedding (shocking a plethora of guests), so of course he knew what you looked like. Knew that it was you even when you were splayed out over the pavement, unseeing and still. You were friends with Bruce as well, and Bruce’s own pain was evident in the sombre tone as he tried to break the news to Clark.

Clark had flown over there, his best friend intercepting him before he could get close to the scene. He hadn't even been allowed to help, forced to sit in the shadows knowing that you were right there metres away and he couldn’t touch you, hold you, confirm for himself what he had heard over the phone.

Gang violence. A mugging gone wrong. Another victim, just another number.

And now you had become the thing you hated writing about, a death so common in the city of Gotham that you didn't even make front lines like it would have in Metropolis. You were on the fifth page, the ninth name down on a list.

Clark felt sick.

He felt sick being called in to ID your body and seeing the face he loved so much. Staring dully upon the cheeks he'd pepper with kisses every morning and every night before bed, the shoulders that held up his chin when he read over your shoulder or to watch a video you wanted to show him. The hands that interlocked with his so perfectly when you walked together held limply and empty at your side, unable to ever feel the warmth of his palms again.

So, when you were gone and it had sunk in fully, he struggled to get back.

Things around him seemed to fall apart, things that even the support of Bruce and the financial aid couldn't fix. Yet the one thing he kept together was the routine, dragging himself like a zombie through the behaviours so deeply engraved in his muscle memory. Even if he wanted to sleep in his body woke up like clockwork, spectral hands rousing him, and he could dream that you really were there. That when he rolled over, he'd see you beaming back at him. His hand ached to escort you up the stairs of the Planet, uncomfortably heavy by his side instead.

He’d turn to drop a kiss into your hair but was always met with air, and he'd falter. Then the sun would come up and the energy would zing across his skin, but the morning after he lost you was the darkest sunrise he had felt to date. The beams would fuel him, humming across his cells and stirring his DNA. Yet he’d still stare out at the sunrise, the colours mixing across the sky in a beautiful display. He couldn't get his heart to fall in love with the sky again, nor warm at the image of it. After all, you were now looking at a completely different sky from him, and the sky just wasn't as pretty when it wasn't reflected in your eyes.

Clark just hoped that wherever you were now, that you had the most beautiful sky to look at. That somewhere, you were out there, galaxies reflected in your eyes that never had to close again.

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corruptionpit · 2 years ago

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youtube

A song for a planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. An invisible titan, all thick, black forests and jagged mountains and deep, turbulent oceans.

(TL;DL lyrics for those not in the mood for a 14 minute doom metal ode)

#welcome to night vale #Wtnv #the dark planet #Wtnv the dark planet #Dark planet lit by no sun #Wtnv 13 #Wtnv 146 #Youtube

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letstalkaboutshtufff · 8 months ago

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Night on the town

Mandalorian x reader

Pairing: Din Djarin Mandalorian x reader

Warning: mentions of alcohol and some 18+ themes. No minors please!

Summary: Reader doesn’t listen to Mandos warnings about staying on the ship, then wakes up with something new and a bit troubling…

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

“Don’t leave the ship” those four words had been echoing in your head all week.

For months you’d never really minded following your Mandalorians orders, most planets he landed on for bounties were backwater scugholes whose inhabitants were low level creeps and criminals. You were perfectly fine staying within the safe compounds of the ship normally…but this planet was different.

Ceralis 3 was known for its bustling city full of high quality clothing stalls, the tastiest food establishments, musical performances, and oh how you couldn’t stop thinking about the renowned city square that’s lit up like starlight when the suns go down and everyone gathers to dance. You’d seen so many brochures advertising Ceralis 3 as a top vacation spot. And now you were finally here… stuck on a ship.

“Must be nice..” you mumble head resting flat on your arms watching the suns set from behind the glass of the ships viewport. The twinkling lights in the distant mocking you as if to say “here we are shining so bright and you’re stuck in a dark smelly cockpit”.

Ok so maybe that’s an exaggeration.. but still you were minutes away from going crazy with boredom.

“Don’t leave the ship” he said from the bottom of the ramp like he always does before leaving for a bounty.

Bounty hunting usually doesn’t take a week though… ugh

You lean up on your arms watching the twinkling lights of the city getting brighter. What was everyone doing now? Drinking? Dancing? Having 1000x more fun than you were right now??

You glance at the small data pad that Din gave you. When he was finished with a bounty he usually sent a quick message through.

You checked it again for the millionth time.

No new messages…

What if you just went for a quick look… no

No you couldn’t do that, din would be angry if he found out.

If he found out…

If…

You check the data pad again. Every time he sent a message it usually took him a decent amount of time to get back to the ship, he’d usually stop for supplies and whatnot.

So you had time even if he messaged you while you were out…

But could you break his trust so easily-

*pop pop pop*

Bright strands of fiery light shot up from the skyline in the shapes of flowers.

Well he didn’t need to know everything…

You sprung up practically jumping down the ladder to your small closet.

You smirked pulling out the one nice “out for a night on the town outfit” you owned. A stark contrast to the usual travel outfits you donned.

You applied some light makeup, grabbed your satchel and were off the ship in record time.

You took note of the pathway, and kept the data pad close to your hip in case that all to familiar beep sounded and you needed to rush back..

You gasped nearing a well lit archway taller than anything you’d seen before.

Giddy with excitement you ran in and were immediately overtaken by a rush of… well everything.

The streets were lit bright with lanterns, full of laughing and singing people.

The smells were making your mouth water wondering what on earth could smell so heavenly, and the buildings.. oh the absolutely breathtaking carvings. You didn’t know what to do first!

So you did the first thing that you saw, you ate from several stalls, bought a bunch of jewelry and souvenirs that you absolutely didn’t need, watched a few performances, drank some juice being served on a tray that you didn’t realize had alcohol… and then made your way to the famous square.

Oh and what a sight it was… like someone had the most dazzling dream and brought it to life. Everyone was jumping and dancing to live musicians. You wondered briefly if your Mandalorian could dance. Probably not.. but maybe if you really asked nicely he would.. or if you just dragged him..

You wished he was here.. you usually weren’t separated that long so it’s been a little lonely.

You sighed watching the couples dance and hold each other warmly. Some kissing some just gazing into each others eyes…

Ok more than a little lonely..

Maybe you should head back..

You sipped on your juice walking back in the direction of the ship.

What lovely juice, so sweet and spicy at the same time..

Mmm juicy juice so lovely

Hmm you peeked at a stall in passing, maybe you should get him something? Yeah that’s right, he wouldn’t be mad at you for leaving if you got him a gift!

Maybe you’d get some more juice while you shopped and then maybe——-

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

Ugh why is my head pounding so bad…

You wince sitting up in the cot holding your head with a hand.

You blink slowly regaining your senses, the previous nights memories ending in a blur. You didn’t even remember coming back to the ship…

Ugh you were so stupid, the “juice” was alcohol and you’d had so many of them..

You panicked a bit not seeing your satchel on the hook but then calmed seeing it on the floor.

With a sigh you reached in pulling out the data pad and pressing the button.

*new message*

Oh kriff..

*Heading back. Shouldn’t take more than half a day.*

Half a day… wait when did he send that!?

The sky was so bright outside how long had you been asleep?? You looked down seeing you were still dressed up from last night.

I better change before he gets-

You stumble a bit feeling your leg let out a painful throb.

Oh no was I stupid and injured myself last night?

Quickly you pull up your clothing expecting a bruise or a cut or something but instead what awaited you was infinitely worse.

“Oh maker what have I done…”

You vaguely remember wanting to get something for Din but why on earth did your drunken state think that was a good idea!?!?

Kriff what did I do!?!?

You wobble quickly to the mirror to get a better look at the new addition to your outer thigh.

An abstract outline of your mandalorians helmet with his name cursively written under it.

Oh now you remembered.. bits and pieces as you stumbled into a tattoo stall and scribbled on a paper demanding it be the bestest bestie best tattoo ever, you even remember the guy asking if you wanted to wait until you were sober but then you cried until he did it.

Kill me now…

Ugh Why why why!? How was I going to explain this to Din!?

As if the universe was punishing you even more you heard a familiar beeping and gasped feeling the vibrations of the ships ramp moving.

Of kriffing course he would arrive now!

You quickly pull your clothing down and try to look as nonchalant as you can watching as Din walks up the ramp into the hull.

His bounty blocked your view of him but he was fighting and throwing some curses but Din is quick to throw him in the carbonite freezer.

You gulp as he finally turns around to regard you.

“Welcome back..” you tried to sound like your normal self. Key word being tried.

Din stood still for a moment then his helmet slowly shifted from your face down to your body then up again.

Oh yeah my outfit and makeup…

“You look…nice” he said a bit confused.

Maybe you could spin this…

“Oh well I um wanted to um surprise you… I really missed you Din..”

You hoped your nervousness would be taken as you just being embarrassed to dress up for him.

He tilted his helmet a bit, his stance relaxing ever so slightly and he took a couple steps in your direction.

“Yeah?”

Oh how easy men could be sometimes…

“Yeah” you smiled stepping forward too and wrapping your arms around him. “You were gone a while this time..”

He pulled back a bit to see you but his strong arms were still held firm around you.

“Yeah the bounty was more work than I originally anticipated, sorry you had to be alone so long.”

“It’s alright..you’re back now that’s all that matters…” you smile up into his visor knowing his eyes are deeply peering into yours just as lovingly.

His hands slide a bit and he grips you a bit tighter “if I knew you were gonna dress up just for me, I would’ve forgotten all about the bounty and rushed here..”

“Mm I’ll have to remember that for next time…” you lean up tilting your head to the side to kiss the bare skin just under his helmet. He breathes in, deep and crackley through the modulator.

Your hands reach up about to lift his helmet off when suddenly his head moves to the side.

“Din?” You frown a bit following his gaze then when you do your eyes widen a bit at what you see.

A beautifully beaded tote bag overflowing with items leaned against the wall, a strand of pearls strewn across it along with a shimmery scarf and a bottle of “juice”. Oh Kriff just how drunk did you get last night!?!?

“What’s that?”

“Oh um just some old stuff I pulled out when I was trying stuff on for you..”

He pulled away and you knew you had messed up.

“Din..?”

He approached the bag and knelt down. He picked up the bottle with one hand.

“And you just happened to have an alcohol that’s only produced on this planet in your storage?” His voice had completely shifted from gentle and loving to interrogative typical pre meeting me Mando.

“Well…”

He abruptly stood up with a sigh.

“You left the ship” he stated with a huff.

You bite your lip looking away from the intense stare.

“…”

“What’s the one thing I told you never to do?” You could tell he was angry but was trying to hold it back.

“…go against your orders..”

“Go against my orders and what did you do?”

“I left the ship… I’m sorry but I was so bored and lonely and I just…” maker could you sound any more pathetic and whiny.

He let out a huff of annoyance, “you put yourself in danger because you were bored?”

“Din..”

“You don’t know this planet, and I have a million enemies, I don’t tell you to stay on the ship for the hell of it” he bit out getting more frustrated.

“I… I know… I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking..”

You heard a sigh again and hesitantly looked up. His shoulder relaxed a bit his tone a bit softer but still plenty stern. “I can’t go after bounties and worry about you too..”

Well now you felt like absolutely shit

“Oh Din I’m so sorry, of course you can’t, shouldn’t actually. It was dumb and stupid and reckless and I promise I won’t leave again. No matter how tempting it is..”

He stood for a moment deciding you were sincere in your words, he held out a single arm motioning for you to come closer again,

You do and hug him muttering another apology.

“So you didn’t dress up for me huh..?”

Oh..

You peek up from his chest finding his gaze on yours,

“Well… not exactly but my first thought when I looked in the mirror was how I wished you were by my side to see me… does that count?”

He lets out a scoff and lowers his hands “No”

You pout

“But I know how you can make it up to me”.

His hands are back on you stroking your thighs kneeding them softly when all the sudden you yelp.

He pulls away shocked “what’s wrong?”

“Oh uh nothing just got caught up in the moment…”

His head tilts and boy for someone with a helmet on his expressions were clear as day.

“Wanna run that by me again?”

“I had a cramp?” You lamely ask.

Seconds of silence pass before his hands are reaching for the tips of your dress.

“Ah wait no!”

You jump back not ready now or ever for him to see your latest mistake.

He freezes, now that’s something you’d never done before.

“You hurt yourself didn’t you?” He crosses his arms.

“I did not..”

“Then what are you hiding?”

“….”

He sighs again loudly “you have three seconds to show me before I do it myself.”

Kriff…

You hesitate not knowing what to do.

“One”

Ugh what now!?

“Two”

Maybe you could lock yourself in the fresher…

“Three”

You make a dash for the open door but make it all of two steps before strong arms pull you back.

“Really?” He huffs annoyed.

“Din wait!”

“Just relax what’s the worst it could be?”

No way you couldn’t show him, you catch him off guard by fighting his hold.

“Hey stop that”

“Enough!” His bark cuts through you like a knife and you freeze.

He spins you around, his hands locked onto your arms.

“Din...” you plead but he won’t budge.

He maneuvers your hands into one of his while his other reaches for your dress. You can’t help but try one more time to evade him and use the one move he taught you in self defense,

Of course because he’s who he is all it buys you is three seconds before he has you sprawled over his knees.

How ironic… if only he knew how you’d fantasized about this exact position.

“You really wanna make things hard don’t you?”

“Din please you don’t understand! Just leave me alone-“ and just like that the delicate freshly tattooed skin was exposed to the cool air of the ship and his searing gaze.

Then it was silent..

“I-I didn’t mean to I got drunk by accident and then wanted to get you a gift and for some crazy reason I thought a tattoo would be a good idea and…and…and-“ your nervous ramblings continued until you suck in a sharp breath feeling soft fingers caress the area just around the tender area.

“You did this…for me?”

“W-well yeah…”

You try to turn your head to see him but it’s impossible in your condition.

He silently caresses the area around it as if he…wait no way!?

“Do… do you like it?” You asked hesitantly.

He let out a breath.

“Can’t say I hate it…”

Oh my maker

“R-really?” You question an eyebrow raised.

“Mm” you flinch a bit feeling his fingers trace over the sore area.

He pulled you up so you were straddling him facing his visor.

“Sorry I left the ship…” you say after a few moments of silence.

“Swear you won’t do that again..”

“I promise..”

“Are you angry with me?”

“Yes” he said without hesitation.

“Really? After all the trouble I went through getting you your gift” you smirk a bit wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

His hands gripped your thighs squeezing softly, “Yes…” you smiled knowing by his voice he was all talk. You already had him in the palm of your hand.

“Want me to make it up to you?” You whisper near the side of his helmet.

He makes some sort of hum through the helmet and you take that as a yes, you push him back a bit so the distance between you is closed, your core pressed against him deliciously.

His hands travelled around squeezing and caressing in the ways only he knew how you liked. You’re about to lift his helmet up so you could finally kiss him when he pauses his movements.

Ugh not again

“What’s wrong?”

“You were drunk…?”

Ah Kriff, why did I have to let that part slip out.

“Y-yes but just a bit…”

He looks at you in a no nonsense way,

“Ok maybe more than a bit but it really wasn’t my fault, I didn’t know the drinks had alcohol..”

He sighs

Man if I had a credit for everytime I made this man sigh…

“I know I know, it was dumb and reckless and I won’t do it again, can we go back to what we were doing please? Remember the tattoo I got for you?”

I push his helmet towards my thigh.

He lets out a little laugh, “alright alright I get it”

His thumb strokes it again, “it suits you”

You let out a laugh, “I think it suits you more…didn’t realize you were that type of guy…but honestly it’s growing on me too, he did a good job didn’t he?” You peer down admiring the details. Not realizing Dins fingers had froze.

“He?”

“….”

Oh Kriff

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

I’ve been on a huge Mandalorian kick lately and had this little idea. Hope you enjoyed! Also please excuse the lazy editing❤️

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makingspiritualityreal · 8 months ago

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Nakshatra Gunas - The Study of Underlying Motivations

I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Gunas of Nakshatras translate to the essential energetic disposition of the natives and the effect their have on their environment. This energy goes beyond words and simple communication. It is simply the vibrational imprint that these Nakshatras produce.

To understand the Gunas, we first need to understand the concepts of Rajas, Tamas and Sattva.

Rajas is the human pursuit of fulfillment of desire. It’s the material enjoyment and the planning, preserving and organizing that comes with that enjoyment as the prerequisite. It’s linked strictly to the concept that there is a certain lack that one must fulfill through the material world, but that lack is in reality lack of self awareness, that we are developing here. Rajasic planets are Mercury and Venus.

Tamas is the difficulties that are put in front of us for the purpose of our development, what we discover once we got to know ourselves enough through Rajas. Tamas is simply where we show spiritual ignorance, but the goal of Tamas is ultimately wrestling the dragon and breaking that ignorance. Here is where we face and overcome our “shadow side”, or fail to do so if the planet doesn’t perform well. Tamasic bodies are Rahu, Ketu, Saturn and Mars.

Sattva is the state of spiritual enlightenment. With that enlightenment comes satisfaction even among difficult circumstances, because Sattva is aware that even any difficulties of the Tamasic stage are an act of God for our self betterment. As a result, Sattvic natives are detached from obsessive desires but also excessive worries about the future. Sattvic planets are Sun, Moon and Jupiter.

If you look at the table above, you will see that each Nakshatra has three levels to it’s Guna nature.

Level one is the basic nature of each Nakshatra, but that only puts them into each group, showing that the first one through Rajas is achieving self awareness, the second one through Tamas confronts their darkness in interpersonal relationships and the last one achieves Sattvic bliss in collective participation. However, once we go beyond a certain level of simplicity, we discover a deeper story in levels two and three.

I will give you an example with Pushya, because it has all 3 Gunas in its nature. In its base, Pushya is a Rajasic Nakshatra, which means it desires to establish a structure in the physical world, based on its Dharmic interests. But as we move to level 2, we can see that Pushya’s underlying motivation is Sattva, meaning that there is desire in this Nakshatra to build physical, Rajasic structures as abodes to Sattvic practices. So the Rajasic desire has a spiritual tinge to it, because it allows one to feel the presence of God on Earth. Then, we get to level 3, the deepest, most hidden expression of what Pushya does. It creates Tamas, triggers in eyes of other people, because when structures of both Rajasic and Sattvic splendor appear in front of people, all their insecurities are lit up through contrast. As a result, actual contact with such splendor forces people into very deep self reflection, which causes discomfort and so reveals people’s lowest nature through Tamas. Pushya’s deepest desire is for all that splendor to purify their lowest parts also.

Another example that contains all 3 Gunas, Vishakha. Vishaka’s basis is Tamasic, showing its intimidating, fiery facade and overpowering nature. This Nakshatra causes superficial conflict or discomfort due to submission of either party in its immediate environment at first glance. However, as we go deeper to level 2, we discover Vishakha actually has a desire for a peaceful Sattvic state, and they are more assured in their chaos than people give them credit for. So the intentions of these natives are more pure than we expect at first glance, as they have an inherent positivity at their core and enjoy a friendly atmosphere. However, as we descend into level 3 we discover the presence of Rajas, their passionate desire nature and their talent to conquer the world, themselves and immerse in self development. This is also where these natives realize that the Tamas they were facing was due to others sensing their competitive nature and wanting to subdue them to eliminate them as potential rivals for their desires, and admit their own desire for growth and progress to themselves.

As you can see, each Nakshatra has a unique story that shows its progress, desires and complexities. Level 1 is the part of Nakshatras nature that seems the most obvious, down to level 3 which translates as energetic consequences that you might even think are unexpected. You can meet people who seem chaotic but desire peace, and people who seem polite but secretly want to create chaos. And all of these traits exist for a reason of the Nakshatras fulfilling their karmic destiny.

#vedic astrology #jyotish #astro observations #astro notes #vedic astro observations #vedic astro notes

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jackdraw-spwrite · 4 months ago

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Star Nursery

Words: 4660 Characters: Clockwork, Danny Warnings: None Also on AO3

Sometimes, the timeline needs a little nudge to get things going in the right direction. And sometimes, it needs more than one. At least, that's why Clockwork tells himself he's showing Daniel the stars.

---

The room was dark when Clockwork appeared. Around him, dark shapes were distinguishable only by a night light, by Clockwork's own glow, and by the window, blinds open to a snowy December night. Lit by the neon sign out front, the flakes drifted down outside like falling stars.

The soft silence of the snowstorm would have swaddled the room, if not for the muted rises and falls of voices one floor below. Though the sound was dampened, the cadence was that of an argument. Occasionally, snatches of it survived the smearing effect of the walls. A careful listener could probably discern the topic.

Clockwork didn't care.

He focused instead on the bundle in the crib. Daniel was tiny, his hair fluffy on his head. One hand was curled into a fist, impossibly small.

He was sleeping soundly.

Read the rest on AO3, or below the readmore:

There was a thump loud enough to rattle the walls. The argument fell silent.

Daniel had been sleeping soundly, at least. He shifted, grimaced, and prepared to scream at the interruption to his nap.

Before he could, Clockwork picked him up.

"Hello, Daniel," he murmured. He pulled Daniel to his chest, rocking him gently to soothe him.

After a moment, he added, "Daniel, I have something to show you."

Mistily, the baby’s eyes opened, focusing on Clockwork. Too young to know fear at a stranger's face, he reached clumsily for his hair.

Clockwork gave him his index finger instead. Daniel wrapped both his tiny hands around it. Eyes wide, he studied it a moment and then pulled it towards his mouth.

"Yes, I am fascinating, I know,” said Clockwork, as Daniel gnawed on his glove. “But you'll like this much better."

He held out a hand and a circle of blue swirled to life at his fingertips. He carried Daniel through the portal, and–

—

"Look," said Clockwork, and directed the child's vision.

Daniel's eyes grew wide, and he reached out a hand as if to grab at what he saw.

Above, below, and everywhere around them was the inky void of space studded with countless stars. In an immense cascade of light, a great strip of them split the sky in two.

Each and every star seemed to hold hints of a different color, a sincillating rainbow of red to blue. They varied in brightness and as the moments passed they seemed almost to dance among themselves.

No, they were dancing. In a slow waltz, the brightest points of light sped past the dimmer, stars exchanging places with one another in a dizzying spectacle: a mobile to put all others to shame.

Daniel stared, transfixed, and did not look away until sleep weighed his eyes closed.

—

"Daniel, I have a present for you," murmured Clockwork, nudging the two-year-old awake.

Blearily, he squinted at Clockwork. His serious expression lent him a gravity that was entirely undone by his chubby cheeks and the incredible cowlick rising from the back of his head.

Clockwork didn't let his amusement show, instead letting Daniel wake at his own pace. He'd been showing up long enough and often enough that Daniel would recognize him.

After a moment, he was rewarded by Daniel widening his eyes and twisting to get a good look at their surroundings.

Already wide, his eyes grew even wider.

Beneath them, the rings of Saturn stretched like an immense road. The stars were cradling the pair of them, solid and steady.

And beside them loomed the immense bulk of Saturn itself, banded and pale and breathtaking, crowned by a circlet of glowing blue.

Danny squealed in delight, wiggling to be set down. Instead, Clockwork let go--

—

--and Danny giggled, hair floating free in a halo that glowed in the light of the binary suns behind him and for a moment, it was as though he had his own corona.

At Clockwork's back was a tiny, frigid planet coated in a filigree of white.

He smiled and reached out to catch Danny's hand.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Danny nodded.

—

Clockwork had shown Daniel many, many planets by now. The one below them was dark and small, but growing. Every few moments, impacts spiderwebbed out into tiny red lines that faded just as quickly.

The planet's star hung to the side, close enough that it resembled a coin instead of a point of light.

"Daniel, do you know which planet this is?"

He shook his head. His hair twisted gently in the low gravity, like seagrass.

Clockwork smiled and said, "Watch."

At just the right moment, he pulled their progress through time from blistering speed to something far closer to real time and pointedly looked at a particular point in the stars around them.

Daniel followed suit.

It started as a pinprick of light just barely brighter than the backdrop. And in slow motion, the shadow of an asteroid grew from it. It grew from a pinprick to a coin, and grew again until it loomed enormous before them, and before the infant planet. So close, it was easy to see that it was rounded by the strength of its own gravity; a planetary mass in its own right.

And then it struck.

Even so early in the existence of this solar system, the gas surrounding the planet wasn't thick enough to carry sound. But the impact before them kindled to a blaze so bright it had a roar of its own.

Time for them may have been allowed, but it was still significantly faster than real time, so in the hours that followed, the cataclysm unfolded before them like a dancer’s skirts.

The planet deformed terribly, countless flakes of it crumbling away or rippling outwards, away from the impact site. Yet more were flung outwards in a cloud of cosmic debris. And then, finally, the paired masses began to pull apart again, taffy-like.

Slowly, the masses separated. The furiously flowing bridge between them cooled and broke apart, pieces beginning a slow fall back to the planet where they splashed back into the gaping wound of the impact. The planet’s new moon lingered nearby, just as disfigured. The glow from its scar was bright enough to wash away the stark shadows of space on its dark side, and the molten rock shimmered like an angry burn.

Slowly, they dimmed. First to orange, then red, then just a hint of it brushing the edge of the visible spectrum like a slumbering giant just out of sight.

Shadows returned.

By the time Danny's eyes grew heavy with sleep again, the smaller of the two objects was round and gray in the light of the star.

He'd rested his head against Clockwork's shoulder as he watched, and now Clockwork bent his head to ask him, "Do you know now?"

Danny shook his head, looking up with sleepy eyes.

"It's Earth. Your home."

—

"This is what a nebula looks like from the inside."

Around them, the stars seemed almost to trail veils. Or, to decorate them like gems.

"They're also known as star nurseries."

"Star Nusr'y"

"That's right, Daniel," Clockwork said. He combed a hand through Daniel’s hair. "Isn't it pretty?"

One finger in his mouth, Daniel nodded fervently.

—

The moment they appeared through the portal, Clockwork spread an ectoplasmic construct beneath them before letting Daniel down.

He swirled his cloak from his shoulders and spread it out before settling atop it in a coil. He patted the spot beside him and Daniel turned from where he was peering at the ground and half-floated, half-stumbled over.

The gravity where they were was odd, partway between Earth's surface gravity and the absence of it. In it, Daniel was adorably clumsy.

Clockwork hid his amusement in his smile. Daniel was three – "And a haff," he'd insist, stubby fingers held up to emphasize the point – and very serious. He wouldn't take it well if he thought Clockwork was laughing at him.

Clockwork offered his arm as an anchor as Daniel settled beside him, and pulled him close once he was seated. Daniel's little hand grabbed hold of Clockwork's tunic, and Clockwork felt a surge of fondness. He'd watched it grow from a hand that could barely grasp his finger, and yet like the rest of him it was still so very small.

He spent a space of breaths savoring the contact.

"Well Daniel,” he said at last, “do you know where we are?"

From the shelter of Clockwork's arm, Daniel looked up and shook his head.

"Do you want a hint?" offered Clockwork.

A nod.

Daniel wasn't in a particularly talkative mood yet. Clockwork had woken him only minutes before; he was still fuzzy from sleep.

And in other ways. His hair wasn't quite so unruly here as it was in zero gravity, but it still stuck up at odd angles. In places, it puffed out like the down of a baby bird.

"You should be able to recognize where we are," said Clockwork. "Not here specifically, but the colors and landscape should remind you of somewhere you've seen before."

"'peficaly," muttered Daniel, and scrunched his face into a grave frown.

Clockwork filed the sight away, then did the same with the heartache. He still had a little time.

Daniel had decided he wanted another, more careful look at the landscape beneath them. He was smushing his face into the platform in his focus, and muttered softly to himself as he puzzled out where they were.

Clockwork felt a smile wrinkle the corners of his eyes and kept quiet. The landscape beneath them was distant, he thought, but recog nizable. With only the dark of space to compare it with, the land was pale. It was craggy, too, and dotted with countless craters.

He wanted this night to be memorable for Daniel for more reasons than the conversation they would have, and Daniel had longed for this sight for as long as he'd been able to form sentences.

He would piece together the clues.

Had pieced them together. He scrambled onto all fours and whipped his head to look at Clockwork. His eyes were huge and shining.

"The Moon?!"

After a teasing moment to let Daniel’s anticipation build, Clockwork nodded.

Impossibly, Daniel’s eyes grew even larger. The emotion radiating off him built like a volcano until Clockwork could imagine it humming under his skin.

The squeal of excitement that erupted would have been deafening if Clockwork hadn't anticipated it. Still, he was glad the volume cut significantly as Daniel slammed himself back down onto their platform and continued to yell his delight directly into it. Or tried to, at least. With the reduced gravity what he managed was more of a float.

Clockwork chuckled and settled in to watch his little boy try to expel more excitement than he could physically contain. It would be a while before the excitement died down, and Clockwork intended to savor every moment.

Clockwork stroked one hand through Daniel's fluff. With his other, he pointed to features on the moon's surface. They were overlooking the far side of the moon, and though Daniel had spent much time looking at maps of both sides, the low angle was contorting even landmarks from satellite images into something more earthly.

With each feature explained in terms he could understand, Daniel made appreciative little oohs and ahs. Even at three (and a half) his attention for all things space outstripped all other topics. Clockwork was grateful for it: each crater, peak, and exposed basalt plain meant another scrap of time like this.

…

He was putting off the conversation they needed to have.

He knew that.

It didn't make it easier to stop.

Clockwork had the power to slow time, and to stop it. If anyone could, Clockwork was the ghost who could hold onto a moment forever. A ghost did not gain power like that without wanting it, without needing it as a human needed air.

Clockwork held a reputation as cool and reserved. As almost uncaring in his distance. As impersonal as a mountain river, and just as cold.

Clockwork was reserved. Clockwork was distant. He had to be, because he was also deeply, terribly, cruelly sentimental. He loved as a river ran: swiftly, deeply, ceaselessly.

He loved Daniel.

He knew that soon they would part, and so soon was not happening.

Outside their little bubble, the world was frozen.

But while Clockwork had gained his powers over time from sentimentality, he'd mastered them with discipline. He steeled his resolve.

"Daniel," he began, "there is something I should tell you."

Not want. He did not want this. Nor must. He could avoid this conversation. But for Daniel…

For Daniel's sake, he would have it.

Daniel looked up, floppy contentment draining from his limbs.

"Cl’work?" he said, slurring the first half like he hadn't done since he’d mastered Clockwork’s name. His eyebrows furrowed as he pulled himself to his knees.

Clockwork had planned this conversation. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say he'd charted it, tracking the best paths through a multitude of futures. His sight had shown him how Daniel might or might not react with every spoken turn.

What it had not shown him was the grief like lead in his chest.

He took one of Daniel's hands in his. It was so small.

And yet.

It felt like there was something stuck in his gears. But his ticking was regular. His pendulum’s sway was familiar. He was functioning.

And yet.

Had he been human, Clockwork would have wet his lips. He was tempted to do so anyway. Just a fraction more time…

He was deviating from his script.

“You’ve grown in these past few years,” he started. Saying so felt comical, with Daniel’s hand still so tiny in his own.

“I already knew that,” said Daniel, wrinkling his nose.

“Of course you did,” said Clockwork. “You’ve been there for all of it.” Was his voice thick? Could Daniel tell?

Footing lost, he opened his mouth to continue.

I’m leaving was too heavy to leave his lips. As was, We will have to say goodbye soon.

I love you felt feather-light on his tongue. He stayed it for other reasons. To say such to Daniel shortly before vanishing–he was cruel. He liked to pretend he was not that cruel.

“You’re growing up,” Clockwork said. It was not in the script.

“Oh,” said Daniel. His voice was small.

Even with such a small deviation, the timelines were starting to shift and sprout new branches. It caught Clockwork off guard. He found himself surrounded by a sensation of space, vast like their surroundings.

Adrift.

The possibilities here…

No. He needed to stay focused.

“‘r you gonna say,” Daniel’s tone shifted to mimicry, “A Fenton isn’t scareded of anything and. ‘m too smart not to start early or the other kids wouldn’t havva chance an’. It’s only acoupla hours anyway?”

The sentence had been too long for Daniel to manage at once, full of awkward pauses and trailing sounds as he lost his breath and found his words. But the point of it was clear, regardless.

“Your parents told you that,” Clockwork said. It wasn’t a question, but it would let Daniel follow the conversation.

Daniel nodded, looking down so his hair fell over his eyes.

Clockwork hummed. Daniel was three, nearing four. It would be some time into the school year before he turned four, so registering him for preschool was unusual. A more common choice at his age would be daycare, but with his parents’ rock-solid belief in Daniel’s intelligence…

Daniel was looking up through his hair at Clockwork.

His core ached.

The parenting books had said that children of preschool age would feel afraid of starting preschool for a number of reasons. They did not say what children of Daniel’s age would be afraid of, starting preschool.

“And you would like me to say something as well?”

A nod.

He pulled Daniel into a gentle hug, and ran a hand through Daniel’s hair. It was the same motion he’d long used as Daniel fell asleep watching the stars around them. It should be soothing.

Softly, he asked, “Can you tell me what you’re worried about?”

Daniel ducked his head and muttered something unintelligible.

“What was that?”

“Jazzy’s got friends.”

This was not all Daniel would say. Clockwork waited.

Daniel had grabbed hold of Clockwork’s cloak. Now he twisted it in his hands. Contemplative. Fretful.

“What if,” he said. “What if.”

Clockwork tugged their hug a little bit tighter. “I see.”

And Daniel relaxed, head falling against the pane in Clockwork’s chest. He could feel it, warm and solid, hair feathering against the glass. It tickled, a bit.

“You’re worried you won’t make friends?”

Daniel nodded.

In the timelines he’d so meticulously navigated before bringing him here, Daniel had made them. Though the timelines were spiraling and blending around them now, Clockwork had little doubt that was still the case. For all his youth compared to his classmates, Daniel was a bright and friendly child.

For a moment, Clockwork considered telling Daniel that his fears were groundless. But. For all that this was an unexpected conversation, it was not an unforeseen one. Clockwork had expected to steer around it with Daniel none the worse for its lack. But he’d done his research. The paths through this conversation had been sparse at first: Clockwork could only consider paths one of the participants might take, and he hadn’t known to consider some options put forward in the parenting books.

He was the ghost of time, not parenting.

Do not minimize, the books had said. Do not dismiss. Acknowledge the fear. Saying that there is nothing to fear, that they will succeed may not alleviate their fear, only pile fear of disappointing you atop their fear of rejection.

They’d gone on to list other fears a child could have, starting preschool.

Separation anxiety…

Clockwork tugged his thoughts from the path with a twinge of guilt. Neither he nor Daniel’s parents gave enough attention to him for that. Regardless, the shape of his reassurance was clear enough.

He gave Daniel a reassuring squeeze and selected a response. “Ah. A whole new group of children your age, and you don't know how well you'll get along with them.”

Daniel said nothing to that. Instead, he kept his head leaning against Clockwork’s chest, soft breaths misting the glass.

“Maybe it won't be all new faces. Have you seen children your age at the park?” He had, Clockwork knew.

Daniel nodded again.

“Did they play with you?”

Another nod.

Not every child had. Some had parents who were leery of the elder Fentons. But others encouraged their children to play with Jasmine and Daniel. Clockwork could not say the reason–he could not read minds, after all. But he could guess they were the same.

“If they go to the same park and are only a little older,” said Clockwork, “they may be in your class. So maybe it won’t be only new children. Does that sound a little less scary?”

Still quiet, Daniel nodded.

In all, about five of Daniel’s classmates would be children he’d played with before. Not that he should tell Daniel that precise figure. This was enough. Any human could have guessed what he’d said aloud.

Clockwork should pull the conversation to what he needed to say. To what needed to be said.

But if Daniel was content to rest his head against Clockwork’s chest awhile, then perhaps it could wait.

Just a little longer…

But all things must come to an end.

Clockwork shifted, and pulled his hand from where he’d been using it to cradle Daniel's head against his chest.

Sleepily, Daniel murmured in confusion before bringing one fist up to rub at his eye.

“Cl’wrk?”

It was time. The anticipatory grief in his chest found an echo outside the bubble. Slowly, in shudders, time was beginning to move on.

“Daniel, I brought you here because I have something to tell you.”

Daniel peered at him, suddenly tentative.

The rest of this conversation would be so very difficult.

“Daniel,” Clockwork began. Haltingly.

It would be so very easy to lie.

…

He was looking at Daniel’s hands. He should at least look him in the eye. He dragged his eyes up.

Daniel’s eyes were so very blue.

“I–” love you, he wanted to say. He mustn’t.

He forced himself to say what came next.

“I am not going to be able to visit you much longer.”

And there was the shock Clockwork had so dreaded.

And there were the tears.

Eventually, the tears slowed.

The repeated “no no nos” had too, and Clockwork was left with a wet shirt, a little limpet gripping the fabric of it so tightly his fingers quaked, and a guilt he adamantly ignored.

This was for the best.

He was holding Daniel close, of course. Stroking his back to calm him and humming soothing nothings. It was–It wouldn’t matter if Daniel knew how much Clockwork regretted this. He would forget it anyway. Clockwork could grant himself the indulgence of being kind.

It was nothing to all the other indulgences he’d already taken, with his child. All the other sights. The joy on his face at some new wonder–

Daniel hiccupped.

“We have a month,” offered Clockwork, moving his hand to muss Daniel’s hair. “Two more trips like this.”

“‘ree.”

“Hm?”

“Three,” bargained Daniel. His voice was muffled by Clockwork’s shoulder.

“Two,” said Clockwork, biting back more regret. “One for a bad day, and one for goodbye.”

“Today’s bad.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Daniel tensed in his arms, and Clockwork closed his eyes. Of course he didn’t believe him. Of course he was angry. Why should he be anything else?

Clockwork sighed. “I’ve visited you far too often in the past few years. I want you to know you can handle a few weeks without a visit before we say goodbye.”

At that, Daniel was silent. Clockwork let him be, instead savoring the feel of Daniel’s weight against his chest, even if he was angry. What he would give to have it longer.

But he already had.

Clockwork pinched his eyes shut.

“What if I can’t?" Daniel asked.

“I think you may surprise yourself."

Daniel frowned.

“But if you can’t, you’ll have my help.” He gave Daniel a reassuring squeeze. “We can figure it out together.”

In this, Clockwork felt no guilt in the untruth. Daniel would never need his help, so what might happen if he did was immaterial. Irrelevant.

“And besides, you have your parents and sister.”

“Jazzy’s baw, baws.” Danny began, stumbling over the second word before abandoning it entirely. “Jazzy’s mean.”

“But she makes sure you’re safe, doesn’t she?”

“I guess.” and then Daniel clutched harder at Clockwork’s shirt. “But I want you.”

“You have your parents, too.”

“Want you.” Daniel’s voice was higher now, and plaintive. On the verge of tears.

I want you, too.

“I only show you the stars,” said Clockwork. “Your parents do much more than that. Your sister, too. In a few years you won’t even remember me.”

“I will!”

“It will be kinder to forget, little star.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“You will.”

Daniel was silent for a time. Then, barely a whisper: “I love you.”

Clockwork’s hug squeezed tighter. Fiercely, briefly. Like if he bundled everything he wanted, everything he felt into the action, then Daniel would understand.

I love you, too.

Clockwork tucked Daniel in.

He adjusted the covers. He wiped the tear-tracks from Daniel’s cheeks. But the frown still marring Daniel’s face could not be fixed so easily.

It could. All he had to do was–

Core twisting cruelly in his chest, Clockwork stroked his hand through Daniel’s fluffy mess of hair before backing away.

Daniel had refused to give up the idea that he would remember Clockwork, doubling down and insisting and insisting until.

It wouldn’t matter.

Clockwork had let him fall asleep in his arms.

It wouldn’t matter.

Daniel would forget him.

With a swirl of blue, Clockwork vanished.

—

Daniel launched himself at Clockwork with a wail. Clockwork closed his arms around him in a hug, letting his child cling to him as he sobbed in great, wracking heaves that should have consumed all the air in his lungs. They did not die down quickly. For long minutes he alternated sobs with shuddering gasps and for longer still he just tucked his head against Clockwork’s shoulder and whimpered.

Clockwork swayed, watching the expanse around them. It was a simple scene, tonight. Nothing new. Just Clockwork, and Daniel, and the familiar stars of the Milky Way from Sol’s neighborhood, only a few years distant.

As simple and humble as a scene like this could be.

Tonight, he wanted Daniel to find comfort in familiarity rather than distraction in the novel.

He was still sniffling.

Clockwork coiled his tail into a lap and set Daniel in it.

“Would you like to tell me about it?” he asked..

—

Clockwork hitched Daniel up on his hip, and pointed. He was leaning his head a little against Daniel’s, letting his cheek rest on Daniel’s crown where his hand was not.

"Do you see over there?"

Danny squinted. "Yeah."

"Just watch that spot."

Clockwork had pointed to a patch in the sea of stars surrounding them which seemed veiled by a shadow. Daniel’s eyes trailed uncertainly over the area, back and forth, back and forth.

Clockwork smiled to himself, savoring the bittersweet loss on his tongue.

Only eleven years. An eyeblink, to Clockwork. Thousands of times that period were unspooling before them every instant as he drew time along for Daniel like film across a movie projector. At his age he'd never have the patience for these wonders otherwise.

But only eleven years without Daniel carried a different weight, didn't it? Lonely, in an empty tower filled only with visions of his child, come home at last. Visions, for all they would feel like memories.

Eleven whole years indeed.

As they waited, the stars behind the veil flickered a little, rippling in brilliance as the clouds of gasses in front of them gathered. As they built on themselves, thicker and thicker. The formation of a protostar was a quiet sort of spectacle, like this. Just the sort to put an exhausted young child to sleep. Just enough to fill his dreams with wonders of a similar kind.

Clockwork hoped.

For all his sight, he wasn't able to see them.

He held Daniel close, and let the hours trail smooth across mental fingertips. Slowly, as Daniel must still have counted it, there came a flickering glow that strengthened into brilliant yellow. Even so, he watched it with the rapt attention which had so captured Clockwork’s mechanical heart.

Eleven years.

Clockwork slowed the play of time. Just a fraction. Just enough for a little more time. But of course, there was one thing he couldn’t control here.

One little boy.

Daniel’s eyelids were drooping, his breaths lengthening. Every few moments he would jerk one awake, or twitch. He was fighting so very fiercely to stay awake. But it was a losing battle.

His head dipped to his chest, once, twice, thrice and didn’t lift back up.

Clockwork looked down at him, a fond smile playing on his lips.

He’d fallen asleep holding Clockwork's hand.

A few stolen moments of indecision later – could he wake Daniel to show him one last sight? Should he? – a portal swirled open before them, and Clockwork left Sol's earliest years with Daniel in his arms.

In his bedroom, stars and space paraphernalia cluttered every surface.

Silently, Clockwork raised the comforter on the bed, slipped Daniel beneath the sheets. When Clockwork wrested his hand from Daniel’s grip and tucked him in, his brows furrowed at the loss.

Clockwork ruffled Daniel's hair for the last time in more than a decade, and leaned down to murmur into his ear.

"Until we meet again, Daniel. Be good."

There was a flash of blue.

And then, the room was dark.

#danny phantom #clockwork dp #danny fenton dp #jackdraw-spwrite #jackdaw-spwrite

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sparkriel · 4 months ago

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thinking about hearthian biology on a planet with such a fast night and day cycle… about their sleep cycle mostly but also some stuff about the two sets of eyes! headcanons below ::3

Hearthians are of course naturally equipped to handle the conditions of the planet they evolved on! I think in this case it would manifest in a few ways. I’m also considering hearthian days to last a little longer than they do in canon (three days in 22 minutes) just cause days in video games are always sped up for playability, so maybe a hearthian cycle is more like 40 or so minutes.

- Hearthians have sleep-wake cycles like cats napping and waking throughout the day and night! They don’t sleep every time the sun goes down and get up every time it rises, but they sleep in short bouts every few hours, maybe on average waking 4-6 hours and sleeping 2-3. the concept of a “day” to hearthians is generally just really different from how we consider it on earth, it’s undoubtedly used for timekeeping but it would be really inconvenient for a productive technological sentient species to have to bed down every like 20 minutes. other smaller creatures like fish or bugs may adhere more to the actual light/dark cycle

- ofc the village is full of lanterns and strings of light for the dark, but they also have blackout curtains or dark windowless rooms for sleeping! or even a plain and simple eye mask. they don’t all universally sleep at the same times but taking a sleep together is an intimacy activity

- the “night sleeping under the stars” every new space pilot does as tradition before their first solo flight is in fact not a full sleep period, but simply a nap :) hence why Slate was up tending the fire the whole night and watching over you. it might have only been like a 20 minute nap but for a creature that sleeps in short periods that’s not an insignificant amount!

- Hearthians can fall asleep very quick and easy. You could say this is kinda supported in canon too by how you can doze off at any campfire in mere seconds and meditating will also make you fall sleep (confirmed by the DLC), so it’s not much trouble for them to quickly transition between up time and down time

- they have better night vision than humans do! going quickly back and forth all the time between light and dark lighting conditions could cause eye strain or difficulty seeing comfortably while their eyes have to be adjusting constantly, especially if they’ve been awake for a while and are tired—so one pair of eyes is equipped with more rod receptors (light and dark) for night vision and the other pair has more cone receptors (color) for day vision! They’re using all four eyes simultaneously, but each pair has their turn to rest a bit while the other becomes dominant for the period of light or dark.

- Timber Hearth is VERY bright and sunny during the day- the sun so close is HUGE in the sky overhead. there’s more than enough lumens to go around. so in order to help them not go blind, the lower, smaller eyes are the more light sensitive ones; a tiny bit extra shadow, and more importantly a lot less surface area to collect light and easier to protect during the day. because of the smaller size their dark vision is not as spectacular as, say, something like an owl or a squid with ginormous eyes, just superior enough to navigate the frequent dark.

- the larger upper eyes on the other hand are more color sensitive; in very brightly lit environments high color differentiation is more useful, and the larger eyes can take in more light without being harmed as much from the extreme brightness of the close sun, since they receive much more in cones than rods.

- since they do have decent dark vision lighting up the village is not expressly necessary, not as much as it would be for human eyes, but it is a comfort and makes color vision at night better. also it’s pretty

- I like to think that sometimes though the village will gather for a stargazing event and turn all the lights out to see the sky best ::)

#outer wilds #outer wilds hearthians #outer wilds headcanon #bee talks

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slipstreamborne · 2 years ago

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Today I learned about Pluto Time, a website where you enter your location and it calculates the next time the sky above will be as bright as high noon on Pluto. Typically the minutes/moments just before sunrise or just after sunset.

The video that I saw about it talked about how small the sun is at that distance, a half-grey dot in a sky of almost black. But on the chalk cratered surface it's at least as bright as the nights lit by our own full moon, they said. Bright enough to read by.

I just stepped out into the dusk and the crickets were so very loud in the purple white light, the trees so dark and green.

Greetings, all you insectoid natives of a lost once-planet. What are you reading today, three billion six hundred seventy million and fifty thousand miles from our shared sun?

#slip irl #space

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chimcess · 4 months ago

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Pitch Black || jjk (1)

⮞ Chapter One: The Crash Pairing: Jungkook x Reader Other Tags: Convict!Jungkook, Escaped Prisoner!Jungkook, Piolet!Reader, Captain!Reader, Holyman!Namjoon, Genre: Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Thriller, Suspense, Strangers to Enemies to ???, Slow Burn, LOTS of Angst, Light Fluff, Eventual Smut, Third Person POV, 18+ Only Word Count: 27.7k+ Summary: Stranded on a barren planet lit by three suns, a group of survivors struggle to survive after their transporter crash-lands. Their situation grows dire when pilot Y/N discovers that every 22 years, an eclipse plunges the planet into darkness, unleashing swarms of flesh-eating creatures. Facing both external threats and internal tensions, the group forms a fragile alliance. As mistrust and secrets surface, Y/N's complicated dynamic with convict and murderer Jungkook intensifies, making the fight for survival against the darkness and the creatures even more perilous. Warnings: Strong Language, Side Character Death, Main Character Death, Aliens, Vicious Carnivorous Aliens, Violence, Blood, Jungkook is a huge prick, Cocky too, Talks About Past Characters Dying, Trauma Bonding, Bickering, Arguing, If Kook is a prick then Lee is a dick, Child Death, Graphic Death Scenes, Sexual Tension, Y/N is just trying her best, Jaded Characters, Religious Themes (I mean no harm and do not want to offend anyone), Bad Character Choices, Peter is Iconic (and a dumb ass), Surviving, Alcohol Consumption A/N: First chapter means it's time for the fun to begin. Or in this case, the catastrophe. Thanks for reading!

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The steady hum of the Hunter-Gratzner was like a heartbeat—a constant, low thrum that seeped through Y/N’s boots and kept her anchored in the here and now. It was so familiar she hardly noticed it anymore—until it suddenly stopped. And that silence wasn’t peaceful. It was suffocating, the kind that squeezes the air out of your lungs and makes your skin crawl. Not something you ever want to hear in deep space.

Today, though, the hum was going strong, a comforting reminder that the Hunter-Gratzner was doing exactly what it was built to do. Y/N’s fingers moved across the console with quick, confident precision, like they’d been doing this forever. In a way, they had. After so many hours in the pilot’s seat, it felt less like she was guiding the ship and more like she was part of it—a living extension of its circuits and steel.

A burst of static from the Kordis 12 radio broke her concentration. Flight control’s clipped voice cut through the hiss. “Hunter-Gratzner here,” she answered. “Cleared the last planetary marker.” “Copy that, Hunter-Gratzner,” came the calm reply. “You’re in the primary shipping lanes and cleared for main engine burn. Have a good sleep, H-G. Silas, out.”

A small smile tugged at her lips. Her hand tightened on the lever, then she eased it forward. The reactor’s purr deepened into a low, resonant rumble that pulsed through the ship like some ancient predator settling in for a nap. The ride was smooth—remarkably so, given the sketchy charts of the Tangiers System. No stray debris, no glitches, no pirates lurking in the dark.

Her gaze flicked to the console, scanning the numbers until they leveled off. She did a quick mental calculation of her cut: half a percent. Not much, but enough. Every run, every ton of cargo, chipped away at her debts and nudged her further from the past she was trying to outrun. Out here, in the cold black of space, it was all about survival.

Twenty-eight weeks to New Mecca. That was a long, lonely stretch—but Y/N liked it that way. The emptiness suited her. When the rest of the crew went into stasis, it left her with time to think... or not think. To forget. Forget the faces, the regrets, the ghosts.

She leaned back, fingers wrapping around the warm ceramic of her synth coffee mug. The bitter taste brought her back down to earth—figuratively speaking. Moments like this, with the ship’s hum in her bones and the console lights glowing softly, made the universe feel almost small and manageable. But even then, those nagging questions crept in.

Is this enough? Enough to change her life? To change her?

She pushed the doubts aside, focusing on the faint pinpricks of light scattered across the viewport. This was why she chose this path. Not many women signed up for these long-haul routes—months of isolation, heavy responsibility, and even heavier risks. Most took safer roles: cooking, medical, logistics. But not her. She wanted the pilot’s seat, the chance to earn her crew’s trust while hurtling them through the void.

And she’d done it. Earned it the hard way. Respect wasn’t handed out; you had to wrestle it into submission with grit and skill. She remembered the sneers at the academy, the snide comments. They only fueled her determination. By the time she graduated from Helion Prime’s technical college, she wasn’t just “that dock rat.” She was Y/N Y/L/N, Docking Pilot.

Her uncle had been the first to call her that, pride shining in his eyes even as he teased her. “Docking Pilot,” he’d say, guiding her hands over the controls of his beat-up transport. “You’ll go places, kid. Farther than I ever did.”

Back then, Helion Prime had felt like the whole world—shimmering dunes, scorching heat, and so much promise. She’d started in botany, thinking maybe helping things grow would heal something inside her. But the cockpit’s call was louder. Flight school swept her up, derailing her neat little plan.

That’s when she met Jimin Park. His grin could slice through any tension, but it was his quiet steadiness that really grounded her. Like her, he understood loss. They clicked right away—two orphans forging a bond without needing words. He was practically family, so much so that her uncle took to calling him “nephew” without hesitation.

When NOSA balked at hiring a “Helion Five girl,” Jimin used his connections. His voice carried weight on Aguerra, a place where religion was considered outdated and logic reigned. Helion Prime’s faith clashed with that worldview, but Jimin made them see beyond prejudices. He landed her an interview with Director Min, and Yoongi—sharp-eyed and no-nonsense—saw her raw talent for what it was: resourceful, adaptable, unbreakable under pressure.

Joining the Starfire crew felt like coming home. She still missed them all—Jimin’s steady humor, Armin’s wild Earth stories, Hoseok and Val’s constant flirting. They were a real team, which was a rare thing in the vacuum of space. But then came the promotion offer.

Co-pilot. Better pay. Easier hours. The catch? Leaving the Starfire.

It had seemed like the practical move. But practicality doesn’t fill the aching void left by Jimin’s laugh or Armin’s tall tales. It doesn’t replace that sense of belonging you’ve finally found and then walked away from.

Now the reactor’s low rumble hummed in her bones as she stared into the endless night. Choices. They always caught up with her in the dark, when everything was still except the glow of the console and the distant stars. Had she chosen right? Or had she traded too much for the hum of this ship and the lonely stretches of black it carried?

She thought of Koah, how he could turn even the most routine haul into a story worth hearing—always full of humor and heart. He made every shared meal feel like an adventure. They’d built something special, too—trust forged in danger and laughter, in moments where they looked out for each other no matter what.

And now? Now she was stuck with Greg fucking Shields.

Shields wasn’t just a bad fit—he was the kind of guy who turned the atmosphere sour the second he walked in. Even the simplest tasks became ordeals under his watch, every word dripping with smugness and spite. Koah had been the glue that held them all together, but Shields felt more like a dead weight dragging them down.

“Passengers are tucked in,” he announced, swaggering onto the bridge with that grating, self-satisfied tone. “All set for the long night.”

Y/N didn’t look up, her fingers gliding over the console with practiced ease. “Coordinates locked?” she asked, voice clipped and all business.

“Getting to it,” he drawled, dragging out the words just enough to poke at her nerves.

She refused to take the bait, though her patience was already thinning. Shields finally tapped in the last sequence, and the console beeped its confirmation.

“Don’t rush me, Fry,” he sneered, throwing out the nickname like an insult, smirking as if daring her to react. “You want me to fly us into a black hole?”

Her jaw tightened, her hands pausing on the controls. Fry. Once upon a time, that name brought warm memories—Uncle Sean calling her from the docks with pride in his voice. But Shields had a knack for twisting it into something ugly.

Then he muttered, “bitch,” just loud enough for her to hear. It was the last straw.

“You’ve got your coordinates,” she said, her voice low and controlled, like the calm before a storm. “Lock them in and get off my bridge.”

Shields opened his mouth, ready to spew more venom, but a gravelly voice cut him off.

“Greg.”

Captain Marshall’s tone carried an authority that left no room for argument. It was deep, steady, and edged with enough menace to make Shields recoil.

“Take a walk. Now.”

Shields hesitated, clearly tempted to protest. But one look at Marshall’s face made him think better of it. With stiff shoulders, he muttered something under his breath and stomped off, the hatch hissing shut behind him.

Marshall turned to Y/N, the corners of his beard twitching in a half-smile. “You good, Frenchie?” he asked, using the nickname she actually liked.

She exhaled, not realizing she’d been holding her breath. “I’m fine, Cap. Thanks.”

He nodded, studying her for a moment before leaning against the console. “Shields is a pain in the ass,” he said, his voice dropping to a more casual tone. “Don’t let him get under your skin. If he keeps this up, he’ll be shown the airlock soon enough.”

She let out a dry laugh. “I’ll believe that when I see it.”

“Believe it,” Marshall said with a growing grin. “But don’t think you’re off the hook, Frenchie. I need you sharp. And because I’m feeling generous, I’ll spare you the disco tonight.”

She groaned theatrically, rolling her eyes. “Finally! Your music tastes are borderline criminal, Cap.”

“It’s a cultural treasure,” he protested, feigning offense.

Their shared laughter cut through the tension, if only for a moment. It reminded Y/N of easier days—back on the Starfire, before hard decisions and new regrets made everything more complicated.

22 Weeks Later

The ship’s hum had always felt like part of her—it was in her bones. Most of the time, she forgot it was there. You only noticed it when it vanished, and that’s usually when panic kicked in and you started praying. But for Y/N, there wasn’t any warning. She didn’t even get a chance to register the silence before the chaos hit.

Her cryo-locker hissed open and spat her onto the deck as if the ship itself was rejecting her. The air felt like a slap—icy, metallic, and stinking of burnt circuits. Alarms shrieked, overlapping and piercing, and her muscles, still useless from cryo-sleep, gave out beneath her. She landed hard, arms barely stopping her face from hitting the cold metal floor.

The Hunter-Gratzner groaned, a deep, agonized sound like the big beast it was had finally given up. Gravity shouldn’t have been working, but it yanked her sideways anyway. Flickering lights threw erratic shadows across the twisted wreckage of the corridor—jagged metal, ruptured walls, and beyond the cracked viewport, a faint orange glow flickered like a distant fire.

Y/N forced herself up, hands shaking so badly she could barely grip the frost-encrusted console. She was cold, nauseous, and terrified, but a single thought pounded in her head:

Get up. Get up.

She wobbled onto unsteady feet, nearly gagging on the hot, chemical stink clinging to the air. Fighting the urge to panic, she staggered toward the nearest cryo-locker. Inside, the plexiglass was smashed, shards clinging to the frame. Blood streaked the interior in frozen arcs, and the body inside—someone she might’ve known—was crumpled and horribly bent. She tore her eyes away, throat burning with bile.

There had to be survivors. There had to be.

Movement flickered in the next locker. Heart hammering, she rushed over and wiped the frost from the glass. Inside, the Captain was stirring, breathing shallowly but alive. Relief hit her like a jolt of adrenaline.

She slammed her hand against the intercom. “Cap’n, can you hear me? The hull’s compromised—it’s holding, but barely. Thank God you’re alive. Hold on, I’m gonna pop your E-release. Red handle—pull it once I clear it, got it?” Her voice came out fast, shaky. “I’ll try to get the warm-ups running—”

Then she heard it: a sharp, staccato crack. Phat-phat-phat. Thin contrails streaked through the air. A heartbeat later, the Captain’s chest exploded, spraying blood across the cryo-glass. Shards of plexiglass and metal blew outward, embedding in the walls. He jerked once, twice, then slumped, his eyes going dark as sparks shot from the ruined console.

Y/N reeled back, hand over her mouth. She’d been staring right at him—and now he was—

A sudden hiss behind her made her spin around, heart hammering. Another cryo-locker flew open, and a man tumbled out, crashing into her. They both hit the deck in a heap, limbs flailing.

“Why the hell did I just fall on you?” he wheezed, scrambling to get off her. He was clearly still half out of it from cryo-sleep.

“The Captain’s dead,” she blurted, voice rasping. “I was looking right at him when—” She stopped, fighting off the horrific images. “The hull’s shot. Shields are gone. We’re—”

“Wait!” His voice jumped an octave, eyes darting around. “Not Shields! No, no, that can’t—” He stared at her, then pointed to himself in confusion. “I’m Shields, right?”

For a moment, she just stared. Then a short, bitter laugh escaped her. “Cryo-sleep,” she muttered. “Fries your brain. Every damn time.”

Shields nodded, looking shell-shocked. “Sure does.” Then his eyes slid over her shoulder, and he went pale.

Y/N didn’t have to turn around to know something was there. The air felt different—colder, heavier, and alive with a presence that made her skin crawl. Fear twisted in her gut, relentless.

“Get dressed,” she snapped, snatching a warm-up suit from a storage compartment and thrusting it at him. Her voice shook, but her hands were already flying over the console, checking readings.

“Fifteen-fifty millibars,” she muttered. “Dropping twenty a minute. Dammit, we’re bleeding air. Something nailed us, and it wasn’t gentle.”

Shields clutched the suit like it was the only thing keeping him alive, his hands trembling. “Tell me we’re still in the shipping lane,” he begged. “Tell me it’s just stars out there—endless stars.”

Static crackled on the display as Y/N keyed in commands, her heart pounding. When the screen finally cleared, her stomach twisted. Not stars. Not the vast, empty black she’d hoped for. Instead, a planet loomed—huge, angry, its atmosphere swirling with bruised shades of purple and gray, like a living storm ready to devour them.

“Jesus Christ,” she breathed, the words dropping from her lips like lead.

Then the ship lurched, starting its fall. It began with a savage, grinding howl as the Hunter-Gratzner tried and failed to fight gravity. Metal tore, supports snapped, and the deck tilted under her feet. She lurched forward, scraping her hands on the jagged edge of a console. Smoke stung her eyes, the acrid stench of burning wires filling her lungs.

Through the viewport, the planet’s churning atmosphere rushed up to meet them, a hungry predator closing in. Too close. Too fast. She forced herself to move despite the slanting corridors and the crushing pull of gravity.

Her headset crackled: Shields’ panicked voice cut through the screech of alarms. “They taught you this in training, right? Frenchie? Please tell me you remember the drills!”

She couldn’t answer. She could hardly think. Her surroundings blurred—frost-coated walls, blood smears, cables sparking overhead as she staggered through. By the time she reached the flight deck, she half-collapsed into the pilot’s seat, vision spinning.

Sweat slicked her fingers as she fumbled with the harness. She muttered curses under her breath until, finally, the clasps locked. Slamming her fist against the console, she prayed the failing systems would cooperate one last time. Damaged panels flickered, crash shutters groaning open to reveal the storm outside.

It was like staring into a swirling cauldron—red and gray clouds boiling in pure rage. They weren’t just falling; they were plunging, yanked down by forces well beyond her control. Her hands moved on instinct, flipping switches and twisting knobs in a frantic attempt to steer them out of this dive.

“Crisis program…” Shields’ voice came again, high-pitched and unsteady. “We’ve still got oxygen—fifteen hundred millibars. Surface pressure… oh, God.” He paused, his words faltering. “Maybe the ship’s in a good mood? For once?”

She pictured him cowering at his station, knuckles white, fear bleeding through every syllable. It spiked her own terror.

“Shields,” she croaked, her throat raw. “Focus.”

The stick suddenly jerked in her hands, fighting her attempts to level out. A faint hiss sounded, followed by a dull, bone-rattling thunk that echoed through the cabin like doom itself.

“Frenchie?” Shields’ voice cracked. “What the hell are you doing?”

The jettison doors were sliding shut. Her hand moved almost of its own accord, toggling latches with icy precision. Her thumb hovered over the switch that would shift the ship’s center of gravity—along with its passengers. She trembled, staring at the storm outside. She could practically feel Shields’ stare burning into her.

“Too much weight,” she said, voice taut as a wire about to snap. “I can’t keep the nose up. If I don’t—”

“You mean the passengers,” Shields interrupted, his breath hitching. “Forty people, Frenchie.”

Her jaw locked. “So we both go down? Out of some noble gesture?”

The silence that followed was worse than any alarm. It pressed in on her, suffocating, while outside, the storm raged. Her thumb quivered on the switch, a cold piece of metal that felt like an executioner’s blade.

She could practically feel the planet’s pull, like a weight on her chest. She imagined the look on Shields’ face—disbelief, maybe betrayal. She couldn’t bring herself to look back.

The ship’s hum, once so comforting, was gone—replaced by the wail of stressed metal and piercing sirens.

“Don’t,” Shields whispered, his tone stripped bare. It wasn’t a command or a plea. It was the broken voice of someone who already knew how this could end.

Her head dropped, a ragged sob or curse catching in her throat—she couldn’t tell which. The planet was swallowing them whole, the shaking and roaring all around an echo of the turmoil inside her. Forty lives weighed on her, crushing her soul.

With a sudden cry, she pounded her fist on the console, rattling loose screws and broken panels. The switch remained untouched.

The cryo-lockers hissed open in unison, a sound too serpentine, too alive. Frost curled over the plexiglass, twisting into vaporous tendrils that slithered toward the dim lights overhead. The ship shuddered. The deck groaned beneath the weight of its own failing systems.

Lee stirred inside his locker, fingers sluggish as they wiped at the frost. His thoughts felt submerged, murky, as if he were rising from a deep-sea dive. The overhead fluorescents flickered erratically, throwing jagged shadows across the metal walls. Something was wrong.

Across the aisle, Jungkook moved—slow, deliberate. The black goggles strapped over his eyes made him unreadable, but the sharp glint of metal between his teeth turned his grin into something feral. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. The tension in his frame said everything.

Lee’s gaze snapped to the digital display blinking outside his locker. LOCK-OUT PROTOCOL IN EFFECT. ABSOLUTELY NO EARLY RELEASE. His stomach clenched.

Farther up the cabin, Y/N’s hands gripped the controls so tightly her knuckles blanched. The fractured monitors cast sickly light over her face, her breath coming fast and sharp. Behind her, Shields paced in tight, frantic circles, like a caged animal sensing a coming storm.

“Frenchie,” he barked, voice ragged with barely leashed panic. “NOSA—”

Y/N spun, eyes flashing. “NOSA isn’t here.” Her words cut like a scalpel, slicing clean through the rising chaos.

Shields froze, his lips pressing into a hard line. “The captain’s dead,” he said. No ceremony, no buffer. Just the truth. “That makes you in charge.”

Her laugh was bitter, jagged. “In charge?” Her fist slammed against the console, the impact like a gunshot. “You think a few hundred hours in a simulator prepped me for this?”

Shields unbuckled his harness, rising slow. Deliberate. “Don’t touch that switch,” he warned. His voice was even. Dangerous.

Y/N’s thumb hovered over it, sweat slicking her skin. The ship lurched. A shriek of metal tore through the cabin. Sparks rained down like dying stars. Her pulse hammered. And then—she slammed the switch.

“I’m not dying for them,” she muttered.

The Hunter-Gratzner bucked hard, carving a fiery scar across the sky as it plummeted. The hull shrieked. The jettison system hissed—then fell silent.

Nothing happened. The cryo-lockers remained sealed. Y/N’s breath caught. The switch was flipped, the call made. But the ship had refused her. Forty lives still frozen in limbo.

Shields cursed, hands a frantic blur over the interface. “Seventy seconds! You’ve got seventy seconds to level this beast out, Frenchie!”

She didn’t answer. Her focus tunneled in, every move muscle memory now. Switches flipped. Levers yanked. The ship groaned in protest, but she forced it to obey, wrenching it into some semblance of control.

Through the fractured windshield, the planet’s surface loomed—a maze of jagged rock, waiting to devour them whole. A metallic screech—louder than anything before—split the air as an airbrake tore loose, slamming into the windshield. The impact spiderwebbed the glass, splintering light into chaotic shards. The ship spasmed.

“What the hell was that?!” Shields’ voice was barely a breath through the comm.

Y/N didn’t answer. Her eyes flicked to the ground-mapping display—fractured, glitching, but still her only hope.

Sixty meters.

The cockpit rattled. The frame howled. Her hands were cramping, locked in a death grip on the controls.

Thirty.

The cryo-lockers exhaled in unison, a chorus of ghosts awakening. Lee blinked against the mist, lungs burning.

Ten.

The ship screamed. And then—impact.

The world didn’t just break. It detonated. The windscreen imploded, glass bursting inward like a thousand tiny daggers. The shockwave slammed Y/N back against her seat, her harness biting into her ribs. The cockpit filled with dust and debris, a choking maelstrom that turned every breath into a struggle.

In the passenger bay, Lee’s cryo-locker ejected with a violent hiss, spitting him onto the wreckage-strewn floor. His lungs seized as he gasped for air, mind reeling. Sparks flickered, casting eerie, broken light over the twisted remains of the ship.

His gaze caught on a massive crack splitting the hull—a wound too deep, too final.

Then—the groan. Deep, reverberating. A death knell. And the tearing.

A whole section of the ship peeled away, sliding free like dead skin. Rows of cryo-lockers went with it, vanishing into the swirling dust outside. Forty lockers. Forty people. Gone.

Shields’ voice crackled in Lee’s ear, raw, shaking. “We’re still breathing,” he rasped. “Oxygen’s holding at fifteen hundred millibars. Surface pressure… survivable.”

The word sounded like a joke. Lee pushed himself upright, legs shaking, ears ringing. The air was thick with the stench of scorched metal, blood, death. Around him, cries of pain cut through the chaos—some sharp and frantic, others weak, fading.

Jungkook’s cryo-locker was open. Empty. A slow, insidious chill climbed up Lee’s spine. His fingers darted to his hip, searching for his holster—gone. The unease slithered deeper, turning his gut into a leaden knot. He raised his flashlight, the beam cutting jagged arcs through the dust-choked air.

Then—a sound. Metal on metal. Rhythmic. Deliberate. Chains. The hairs on Lee’s neck stood on end. His breath shallowed. Slowly, unwillingly, he turned toward the noise. Two feet lowered into view from the shadows above—bare, bound in chains that whispered with each measured step.

His descent was too smooth, too unnatural. The black goggles strapped over his eyes caught the flickering light, cold and alien. The bit clamped between his teeth forced his mouth into something almost feral—not quite human.

Lee barely had time to react. The chain lashed toward him, a whip of coiled steel snapping tight around his throat. He staggered, hands clawing at the cold metal cutting off his air. Jungkook moved with silent precision, tightening the chain with a slow, measured pull. The darkness swayed. Lee’s vision blurred at the edges.

No. Not like this.

His fingers fumbled for the baton at his side. A flick—snap—and it extended, steel glinting in the fractured light.

Swing.

The first strike glanced off Jungkook’s ribs. No reaction. The second hit harder, enough to make the chain slacken just a fraction—enough to breathe. Lee’s instincts took over. He drove the baton up, hard, straight into Jungkook’s throat.

The force sent them both crashing to the floor. The impact rattled the remnants of the ship around them, a chorus of groaning metal and falling debris. Lee pinned Jungkook down, pressing his forearm hard against his throat. His breath was ragged, raw.

“One chance,” he growled, voice rough with fury. “You blew it.”

The dust began to settle. The ship around them was barely holding together—a skeletal ruin of scorched steel and shattered glass. Then, Lee’s flashlight caught a flicker of movement—a woman. He recognized her from when they boarded. The co-pilot. Her name was lost on him. Blood streaked her face, hair matted to her forehead, breath coming in shallow, uneven gasps. But she was breathing.

“Over here,” she rasped. Steady. Unbreakable.

Lee stumbled toward her, boots crunching over shattered wreckage. He crouched, hands moving instinctively, shoving aside the debris pinning her down. The ship groaned with each piece he wrenched free, as if it resented his efforts.

And then—her legs were free. He hauled her up, her weight solid against him, but she barely found her footing before the reality of their situation slammed into her. Not just broken. Annihilated.

Her knees buckled. She sank, hands clawing at the scattered wreckage as if she could piece it all back together. Her lips parted. “Shields.” A whisper.

Then, frantic movement. She shoved aside jagged fragments of steel, shattered screens, the torn remains of the captain’s chair—anything, everything standing between her and what she already knew she’d find.

And then—she did. Strapped to his chair. A metal rod—long, jagged—pierced straight through his chest, impaling him like some grotesque marionette. Blood seeped in slow, dark rivers, pooling beneath him.

His eyes flew open. Wide. Wild. Panic-stricken. “OUT!” His scream ripped through the air. “GET IT OUT OF ME!”

Y/N jerked back, breath hitching. Around her, the others stumbled into the nav-bay, voices colliding in chaotic bursts.

“Pull it out!”

“No, leave it! You’ll kill him!”

“We don’t have a choice—just do it!”

The noise. The suffocating stench of blood and scorched wiring. It all pressed in, a heavy, cloying thing clawing at her senses. Her eyes flicked to the wall—where the med-locker should have been. Gone. Nothing left. Her pulse spiked. No anestaphine. No painkillers. Nothing. But she knew that already. She knew.

Her mind snapped into triage mode, training she hadn’t used since she’d first boarded the Starfire. The H-G had small med kits—scattered across compartments, emergency supplies meant for minor injuries, burns, fractures. Enough for patchwork. Not for this.

A quick scan of the room told her where they were—one in the overhead hatch, another tucked beneath the paneling by the nav station. She didn’t move. Didn’t go for them. Because she knew. Shields was going to die.

It didn’t matter if she used the last of their coagulants, their sterile dressings, their dwindling supply of stim injectors. The rod had pierced deep—a lung, maybe his aorta. If they pulled it, he’d bleed out in seconds. If they left it, he’d drown in his own blood.

There was no saving him. Silence crashed over them. Shields’ breathing was slowing, each rasping gasp a grim countdown. Y/N straightened. Her voice dropped—low, steady. Cold.

“Everyone. Back.”

The others froze, hesitated—then stepped away, shuffling like ghosts. Only Lee lingered. His gaze flicked to Jungkook’s bound form in the corner. Even shackled, Jungkook radiated menace, his stillness more unnerving than motion ever could be.

Y/N barely registered him. Her focus was on Shields. His body trembled beneath her hands, breath thin, ragged. She pressed her palm just above the wound, steadying him. He was shaking. Not from pain. From fear.

His eyes locked onto hers, searching—desperate. “I can’t die like this.”

The words were barely a whisper. Her throat tightened. “You won’t,” she lied. Because that’s what you did for the dying. You gave them something to hold onto. Even if it wasn’t real. She tightened her grip on his hand, let her voice drop to something softer. “This is going to hurt,” she murmured.

The suns hit like a clenched fist, brutal and unrelenting. Twin orbs, one molten red, the other a vicious yellow, scorched the sky and stretched jagged, overlapping shadows across the cracked, barren earth. The heat wasn’t just heat—it was something alive, something with teeth, pressing in, coiling tight around their throats, stealing breath with every shallow inhale. The air was dry, acrid, thick with dust that swirled at their boots, carried by a wind that keened through the desolation like a dying thing whispering its last confession.

The survivors stood in uneasy clusters, their movements wary, shapes distorted against the shimmering horizon. No one strode forward with confidence. Every step was measured, hesitant—like the planet itself might open its mouth and swallow them whole if they made the wrong move.

Daku and Bindi stood apart from the rest, a fortress of two. Daku was stillness carved from stone, his sharp gaze sweeping the alien expanse with the quiet calculation of a man who had survived worse. Bindi, by contrast, was all coiled energy, lean muscle stretched taut over bone, every movement precise. Not panicked. Just prepared.

Peter lingered at the edge of the group, dabbing at his sunburned face with a monogrammed handkerchief that belonged in a boardroom, not here. He let out a brittle, humorless laugh. “Welcome to paradise.” His voice was thin, dry as the air, and it barely made it past his chapped lips. No one laughed. There was no room for humor here.

In the distance, the wreckage of their ship lay sprawled against the cracked earth like the carcass of some great, wounded beast. Twisted metal jutted at odd angles, blackened from the crash, half-buried in the dust like the bones of something the sky had spit out and abandoned. It was silent now, but it didn’t feel still. It felt like it was waiting.

Inside, Y/N moved through the ruins, hands working mechanically, searching through the wreckage for anything salvageable. The silence pressed against her like a second atmosphere—thick, oppressive, wrong. The ship had once been their salvation. Now it was nothing more than a graveyard.

Near the wreckage, the Chrislams had gathered in a tight circle, white robes stark against the dust-streaked ground. Their heads were bowed, their lips moving in silent prayers—or grief. It was hard to tell which. Namjoon stood at their center, broad shoulders squared, his presence anchoring them even as doubt flickered across the younger pilgrims’ faces. Their hands fidgeted at the wooden crosses and crescent pendants hanging from their necks, symbols of faith that suddenly felt like relics of a world too far away to matter anymore.

A boy, no older than fifteen, broke the silence, his voice raw with desperation. “Which way is New Mecca?” His hands were pressed together, pleading. “We need to know where to pray.”

The words hung in the air, weightless, useless. There was no north here. No compass points. No stars to guide them. Just endless wasteland stretching toward an indifferent horizon. Jagged hills clawed at the sky like broken teeth, dark silhouettes against the searing light.

Namjoon lifted his face, squinting against the blinding suns, searching for something—an answer, a direction, a sign. But the sky gave him nothing.

Lee fumbled with a battered compass, flicked it open, watched the needle spin uselessly before snapping it shut with a frustrated hiss. “Even this thing’s lost.” He shoved it back into his pocket.

The ship groaned behind them, a deep, wounded sound, like something exhaling its last breath.

Inside, Y/N sat on the scorched floor, her back pressed against cold metal. Shields’ body was cradled in her lap, his head resting against her chest. The rod that had impaled him was still there—a grotesque, final punctuation mark. His blood was thick and dark against her hands, its metallic tang heavy in the air.

She had tried. God, she had tried. She had shouted orders, whispered reassurances, prayed to gods she never believed in. But none of it had been enough.

The others had moved on, their voices distant through the ruined hull. But Y/N stayed.

Because this wasn’t just a wreckage. It was a grave. And she was the only mourner.

The twin suns poured their merciless light through the jagged tear in the hull, turning dust into molten gold. It shimmered, beautiful in the way cruel things often were—dazzling, deceptive. The light exposed everything. Every failure, every flaw. There was nowhere to hide.

Y/N shifted, her muscles trembling, stiff with exhaustion as she eased Shields’ body to the floor. Her fingers lingered at his shoulder, unwilling to sever that last, fragile tether to the man he had been. The warmth was already leeching from his skin.

Then, slowly, she rose.

Outside was worse.

The heat struck like a hammer, thick, oppressive, pushing against her lungs with every breath. Dust swirled in restless eddies at her feet, the wind sharp as glass, carving at her skin, splitting her lips. A few yards away, the Chrislams knelt in the dirt, heads bowed, lips moving in murmured prayers. Their voices were barely a ripple against the keening wind, but it was the only human sound left in this place. For a moment, she let it fill the cracks inside her, a balm against the unraveling edges of her sanity.

Lee stood apart, one hand raised to shield his eyes against the glare. His jaw was tight, his shoulders locked, a silent fortress against whatever storm raged inside him. When Y/N stepped down from the wreckage, his gaze flicked to her, brief but cutting. He didn’t speak. Neither did she. Some things didn’t need to be said.

The land stretched before them, vast, indifferent. Jagged hills rose like broken ribs, their peaks tearing into the sky. Shadows pooled in the valleys, deep and impenetrable, as though the planet itself was swallowing the light. There was no refuge. No soft place to land. Only the brutal reality of survival.

Y/N swallowed against the rawness in her throat. “We’re on our own now.”

The words weren’t a revelation. They were a sentence.

No rescue was coming. No help would break through this alien sky.

She squared her shoulders beneath the weight of it, forcing one foot in front of the other, because the only way out was forward. Even when everything inside her begged to turn back.

The suns glared down, merciless and unblinking, turning the wreckage into a molten skeleton of what it had once been. Heat shimmered off the twisted metal, a feverish mirage making the debris seem like it was still shifting, still alive. But it wasn’t. It was dead—just like the people who hadn’t made it out.

Y/N climbed the jagged remains of the hull, her boots slipping against scorched metal, her fingers gripping the torn edges of a fractured panel. Her muscles ached, her breath came too short, too shallow. The air was too thin. Too dry. It scraped against her throat like sandpaper, and every inhale felt like a battle she was losing.

Below, the Chrislams knelt in the dust, their white robes dirtied and torn but still stark against the wasteland. Their soft prayers were barely audible over the dry, keening wind—a thread of humanity in a place that had none. Y/N let it wash over her for just a moment, a faint tether to something beyond survival.

Further up the wreckage, the others waited—Lee, Peter, Daku, Bindi, Leo. Their faces were carved with exhaustion, their silence heavier than the heat pressing down on them. Smoke curled from the wreckage behind them, black tendrils rising into the hazy sky. The crash had scarred the earth itself, leaving a deep trench of twisted metal and scorched rock, a wound with no hope of healing.

Y/N reached the top of the wreckage and let her gaze sweep the horizon. The planet stretched out before them in a wasteland of jagged rock and dust, the ground cracked and splintered like old bone. Sharp-edged hills rose in the distance, their peaks like broken teeth against the sky. There was no movement. No color. No life.

Only death, waiting for its turn.

“No one else made it,” she said, her voice low, steady. It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an observation. It was a fact, as solid as the wreckage beneath her feet.

Silence stretched between them until Lee finally spoke, his voice dry and edged with bitterness. “They said there’d be a scouting party here.” He gestured toward the empty valley below, his words laced with grim sarcasm. “Guess they forgot the welcome committee.”

Peter coughed, dabbing at his sunburned face with that ridiculous monogrammed handkerchief. “Lovely spot,” he muttered. “Really. I mean, who doesn’t love the sensation of their lungs turning to parchment? Very exotic. Five stars.”

Y/N barely acknowledged him. Her focus was on the facts. The data. “The air’s too thin,” she said, voice clipped, clinical. “Not enough oxygen. Our bodies aren’t used to it. We’ll adjust, but it won’t be comfortable.”

Leo wiped sweat from his forehead, his face pale despite the heat. “Feels like breathing through a straw,” he muttered.

Peter waved his handkerchief dramatically. “Asthmatic here. Literal hell. Can I file a complaint, or is that not an option?”

“Enough,” Daku said, his voice cutting through the noise. His stance was firm, arms crossed over his chest, his gaze locked onto Y/N. “What happened?”

Y/N exhaled, rolling her shoulders against the weight of the question. “Debris. A rogue comet. A navigational error. I don’t know.” The admission felt like acid on her tongue. “What matters is that we’re here.”

“And alive,” Bindi added. Her tone was even, but there was something behind it—reluctant gratitude. “You got us down. That’s more than most pilots could have done.”

The words stung. Not because they were meant to, but because they weren’t true. Y/N knew that. They thought she’d saved them. But she knew better.

It wasn’t skill that had brought them down in one piece. It was luck. And luck never lasted.

She led them into what remained of the equipment bay, stepping over shattered panels, ducking beneath dangling wires. The air was thick with the scent of burned circuits and something else—something metallic and bitter. Blood.

Failure.

She knelt by a pile of debris and yanked free a suit, its fabric stiff with scorch marks. It would have to do. Holding it up, she said, “Liquid oxygen canisters. We rip them out. Short bursts, make them last. We don’t know how long we’ll need them.”

The group moved into action, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten in the face of survival. Leo lingered near her, watching her with an unsettling calm.

“Is someone coming for us?” he asked, voice steady in a way that made her stomach turn. “Or are we just gonna die here?”

The question hit like a stone dropped into deep water, sending ripples through the group. Y/N didn’t answer immediately. Her fingers tightened on the suit, knuckles whitening.

The others had paused, their movements stilled by the weight of the words.

Leo tilted his head. “I can handle it,” he said, softer now. “If we’re not making it out, you can just say so.”

Bindi stepped in, resting a firm hand on his shoulder. “We’re not giving up,” she said, her voice calm but absolute. “Not today.”

Leo hesitated, his bravado slipping just enough to reveal the scared kid underneath. Then he nodded.

The cabin reeked of sweat, scorched metal, and desperation. Shadows stretched long in the dim light, pooling in the corners, turning everything into a graveyard of broken machinery and shattered hope.

Y/N’s gaze drifted to the far side of the bulkhead, where Jungkook sat shackled and still, his presence more a quiet threat than anything else. The dark goggles covering his eyes reflected the dim light, a black void revealing nothing—no fear, no anger, no desperation. Just absence.

He didn’t fidget. Didn’t test his restraints. Didn’t move at all. That was what made him dangerous.

Yet, despite the cold knot of unease tightening in her stomach, Y/N couldn’t help but notice—he was beautiful.

Not in the clean-cut, manufactured way of men who knew they were being watched. No, there was something raw about him, something untamed. He was tall, all lean muscle wrapped in pale skin, the sinew of a predator coiled beneath the surface. His inky black hair was too long, falling into his face in uneven layers, the kind of overgrowth that should’ve looked unkempt but only made him more striking.

And then there were the tattoos.

They climbed up his arms in a chaotic symphony of ink, patterns and symbols weaving together into something intricate, something deliberate. Black ink against pale skin. A story written in the language of the damned.

Y/N’s throat went dry. Did they stop at his arms? Or did they go further, trailing over his ribs, down his back, curling against his hips? The thought hit like a static charge, sharp and unbidden. She swallowed, dragging her gaze away before she could entertain it any further.

“What about him?” she asked, her voice low, unsure despite herself.

Lee snorted, smirking. “Big Evil? Leave him locked up.”

Y/N forced herself to focus. “We don’t have forever,” she snapped, frustration bubbling up before she could reel it in. She exhaled sharply, running a hand over her face. “He broke out of a max-slam facility. Do you really think a pair of cuffs is enough?”

Lee shrugged, careless. “Only dangerous around humans,” he muttered, his voice thick with implication.

Before Y/N could fire back, movement caught her eye—a thin, silver thread trickling down the hull, glinting against the harsh twin suns.

Her stomach clenched.

Water.

Everything else vanished.

Her body moved before her mind could catch up, scrambling over the wreckage, boots slipping against warped metal. The sting of sharp edges against her palms didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was reaching the cistern before it was too late.

She wrenched open the hatch, metal scorching beneath her fingers. Sunlight flooded in, illuminating the nightmare inside.

A thin, glistening stream dribbled from a deep fracture in the steel, seeping into the cracked earth below. The ground drank greedily, dark stains blooming where the precious liquid had been only moments before.

Y/N’s breath hitched. A curse slipped past her lips, low and raw. This wasn’t just a leak. This was death.

Footsteps crunched behind her, the others approaching in hesitant silence. No one spoke. They didn’t need to. The truth lay bare before them, glinting in the relentless light.

Y/N leaned heavily against the hatch, her fingers pressing against the scalding metal as if to steady herself. Her gaze stayed locked on the dirt, watching helplessly as the last of the water disappeared, vanishing like hope itself.

The planet wasn’t just going to kill them. It was going to make them watch while it did.

A muscle ticked in her jaw. Her nails bit into her palms until pain cut through the spiraling thoughts. No. There wasn’t time for this—not for despair, not for grief. The planet would take everything if they let it, and she refused to give it that satisfaction.

She turned away from the empty cistern, shoulders squared against the weight pressing down on her. The others were watching, sweat streaking their dirt-smeared faces, fear barely concealed behind exhaustion. They were waiting for her to tell them what to do.

“We keep moving,” she said, her voice steady despite the scream clawing at her insides. “We’ll find more. There’s always something out there.”

The words tasted like lies. But lies could keep people alive. And right now, survival was the only thing that mattered.

The cargo hold reeked of scorched wiring and failure—the kind of failure that clung to your skin, settled in your lungs, and made itself at home. The air was thick with it, stifling, oppressive. Y/N wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and pressed on, stepping over shattered panels and the twisted wreckage of what had once been their future.

Somewhere in this mess, there were MRAs. Mobile Resource Augmenters. Compact, efficient, life-saving. They were designed to extract moisture from the air, convert it into drinkable water, and they sure as hell weren’t cheap. NOSA wouldn’t have sent them on a long-haul mission without at least a few onboard.

She knew they were here, but no one else seemed to care.

Y/N was used to working with the best—astronauts trained to push beyond the limits of human endurance. On Aguerra Prime, her name meant something. She was a government official, a veteran of deep-space missions, one of the top-ranked astronauts in NOSA’s fleet. She had survived hostile environments before.

This, though? This was worse. Because she was surrounded by people who should have been fighting to survive—but weren’t.

Peter moved through the wreckage with a magician’s flourish, fingers dancing over the lock of a sealed crate like he was about to unveil something miraculous. The lid groaned open, dust puffing into the stale air, and inside lay…

Furniture. Tiffany chairs. Polished bronze lecterns. An entire crate filled with useless, gaudy antiques.

Lee let out a sharp whistle, nudging the crate with his boot. “King Tut’s tomb,” he muttered. “Just what we needed.”

Peter’s face lit up, eyes gleaming as he ran a reverent hand over an antique desk. “This,” he murmured, “is Wooten. A very rare piece, mind you.”

Y/N stared at him, patience fraying like old wiring. “A desk?” she asked, her voice sharper than the heat outside. “Not food. Not water. A desk?”

Peter waved her off, as if she were the one being unreasonable. “Not just a desk,” he corrected, prying open a hidden compartment.

Nestled inside, gleaming like a sick joke, sat a row of liquor bottles. Sherry. Scotch. Vintage port.

Y/N felt something snap. “We’re dying of thirst, and you brought booze?”

Peter stiffened, his hand hovering protectively over the bottles. “Two-hundred-year-old single-malt scotch,” he said, tone dripping with wounded pride. “To call it ‘booze’ is like calling foie gras ‘duck guts.’”

Lee barked a laugh, already reaching for a bottle. The seal cracked with a soft pop, and the sharp scent of aged alcohol filled the air, thick and cloying. He raised it mockingly. “Here’s to survival—or whatever the hell he just said.”

Y/N clenched her jaw so tightly it ached.

She had spent the last hour shifting wreckage, trying to move beams twice her weight, searching for anything that could actually keep them alive.

And these idiots were getting drunk.

Her gaze flicked to the scattered debris. There were still places she hadn’t checked, still a chance the MRAs were buried under the twisted metal, waiting for someone to dig them out.

But as she looked around, at Peter cradling his precious scotch, at Lee tipping his bottle back like this was some kind of vacation, at the rest of them barely pretending to care—she felt the fight drain out of her.

No one was going to help her, and she was done trying to save people who didn’t want to be saved.

She exhaled sharply, the decision settling like a stone in her stomach. Without a word, she turned on her heel, stepping away from the wreckage, away from the lost cause unfolding in front of her.

She had been trained to adapt, to survive no matter what. But NOSA had never prepared her for this. The footsteps came before the words.

Namjoon and his followers stepped into the wreckage, their white robes streaked with dust but still somehow immaculate, like they existed just outside the filth and chaos consuming the rest of them. The Chrislams moved with that same unsettling calm, like they hadn’t yet realized the depth of their predicament.

Y/N barely spared them a glance. She was past caring.

But Lee—still riding the high of finding nothing useful—wasn’t about to let them pass without commentary.

He slammed his bottle onto a metal crate with a hollow clink, his frustration breaking through the haze of heat and exhaustion. “For what?” he demanded, voice sharp. “There’s no water. No food. Just rocks, dust, and death as far as the eye can see.”

Namjoon met his glare without flinching. “All deserts have water,” he said softly. “Somewhere.”

Lee let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Great. You talk to God, then? He got directions?”

Namjoon didn’t blink.

“God will lead us there.”

The words hung in the air, heavy and immovable, like the wreckage around them. Y/N bit down on the retort bubbling up in her throat, but the pragmatist in her screamed louder than any prayer. Water didn’t come from faith. It came from work, from tearing apart this wreck until her hands bled.

“While God’s drawing up a map,” she muttered, turning back to the containers, “we’ll keep looking.”

Namjoon inclined his head respectfully and led his followers away, their murmured prayers fading into the distance. For a moment, Y/N envied their calm. Then Peter’s humming broke the quiet, his fingers trailing lovingly over the polished wood of the desk as if cataloging a museum piece. Her jaw tightened, but she swallowed the urge to snap. Wasting energy on him wasn’t worth it.

Lee pried open another container with a sharp kick, sending a plume of dust into the air. Inside was a heap of torn fabric and broken machinery, tangled and useless. He swore under his breath and shoved it aside, his frustration vibrating in every movement. “This is a goddamn joke,” he muttered. “We’re supposed to survive with this?”

“Keep looking,” Y/N snapped. Her voice cracked like a whip, harsh and desperate. The panic simmering just beneath her surface slipped through. “We don’t find water soon, no one’s making it out of here.”

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the scrape of metal and the mournful whistle of wind through the wreckage. Outside, the suns continued their relentless assault, the wind carrying dust and the heavy weight of despair. Y/N pressed her hand against the ship’s hull, the heat seeping into her palm. Every moment without progress felt like another step closer to death.

She moved toward the equipment bay, her focus narrowing. Somewhere in the wreckage were the pieces of the ship’s water generator. If she could just find them—just piece it together—they wouldn’t have to rely on the barren, unforgiving land outside. But her concentration splintered, fraying with every glance at the others.

Peter’s oblivious grin. Lee’s sharp frustration. Namjoon’s calm certainty. All of it clung to her like the heat, pressing in, pulling her mind away from the task at hand.

Her fingers brushed against a bent panel, her breath hitching as she caught sight of something familiar—part of the generator’s casing. Relief surged, but it was fleeting. The casing was twisted, its edges sharp and useless without the core components. Her chest tightened as she knelt, wrenching it free, her hands shaking as she turned it over in search of something—anything—that could still work.

Behind her, Leo’s small voice cut through the haze. “So,” he said, too calm for a kid his age. “What happens if we don’t find it? The water?”

The question hit her like a blow, her grip tightening on the casing. Around her, the others stilled, their movements halting under the weight of Leo’s words.

“You don’t have to pretend for me,” he added, his tone flat, unflinching. “I can take it.”

Y/N closed her eyes, her breath shaky. When she finally spoke, her voice was brittle, scraping against the silence. “We’ll find it.”

It wasn’t an answer. It was a promise. And God help her, she didn’t know if she could keep it.

The ship groaned like a dying animal, its ruptured hull straining against the inevitable. Twisted metal rasped against itself, the sound a constant needle under the skin, an itch that couldn’t be scratched. Dust hung thick in the air, turned to gold by the merciless twin suns that stabbed through the fractured ceiling. Every breath tasted of scorched circuitry and hydraulic fluid, the scent of ruin and slow decay.

Jungkook sat in the shadows, chained to the bulkhead, utterly still. Not the stillness of resignation—but of patience. Of calculation. His wrists, raw from steel cuffs, rested against his thighs, fingers loose, body deceptively relaxed. The dark goggles strapped over his eyes reflected slivers of fractured light, a predator’s gaze hidden behind black glass. The mouth-bit locked over his teeth was meant to make him less dangerous.

It only made him look like a caged beast waiting for the lock to fail.

The ship shifted again, the wreckage settling into itself. He ignored it. The ship was already dead. That wasn’t his problem.

But Y/N’s absence was. Not that he cared. Not really.

But she was the only one in this mess who wasn’t an idiot. The only one who thought ahead. Moved with purpose. Her voice carried weight, her commands cutting through chaos like a blade. That kind of control was rare. Most people shattered when things got bad. She didn’t.

Still, he’d expected more when he first got a good look at her. Too lean. Too sharp. Built for function, not decoration. No softness, nothing extra. Not the kind of woman who caught his eye.

But then she’d spoken. And the way the room shifted around her—the way even the air seemed to move when she did—had made him reconsider.

Not beautiful, but something. And that something was more interesting than pretty.

Jungkook rolled his shoulders, cataloging the weight of his restraints, the tension in his muscles already fading. The nickname he’d overheard while half-conscious surfaced in his mind.

Frenchie. Too small. Too soft. Didn’t suit her at all.

The cutting torch lay just out of reach, its dull gleam a whisper in the wreckage. His head tilted slightly, lips curling behind the bit—not a smile, something colder. The ship was quiet now, save for the occasional creak, but Jungkook had already mapped every fracture, every weakness, every way out. The crack in the hull above him was subtle, barely there.

To anyone else. To Jungkook, it was an invitation. A flaw. A way through.

He shifted, testing the give of his chains. Metal rasped against metal, a whisper swallowed by the ship’s dying groans. He didn’t flinch. He just moved slower, smoother—a shadow moving through shadows.

Then, without hesitation, a sickening pop shattered the silence.

His left shoulder dislocated, tendons twisting, bones shifting in a grotesque ballet of control. Pain flickered at the edge of his consciousness, a distant thing, irrelevant. His breath remained steady.

Another pop. The right shoulder went next.

He exhaled slowly, muscles flexing, and with a sharp, brutal motion, his arms twisted through the narrow gap between his head and the bulkhead. His hands, now free, hung limp at his sides. For a moment, nothing moved. Then, with a precise, measured force, he rolled his shoulders back into place. The snap of bone meeting socket reverberated through the cabin, a sound that made most men sick.

Jungkook barely noticed.

The cuffs slipped from his wrists, hitting the floor with a final, hollow clatter.

He rose in one smooth motion, unfolding to his full height, presence suddenly too much for the cramped space. The air felt different. Thicker.

He stepped forward, moving toward the torch, his bare feet silent against the floor. The chains lay abandoned behind him, the weight of them meaningless now. The torch was warm against his fingers as he picked it up, rolling it once in his palm, adjusting to its feel.

Then he turned.

The goggles hid his eyes, but the smirk behind the bit was unmistakable.

The cutting torch hummed to life in his grip, a low, vibrating growl that filled the silence.

He was free.

The world beyond the wreckage was a graveyard—heat and silence stretched endlessly in every direction, oppressive, unyielding. Twin suns hung in the sky like merciless sentinels, their light leeching color from the landscape until only stark, blinding desolation remained. The ground was a cracked, scorched wound, dust spiraling in restless eddies, threading through jagged rock formations and yawning craters. In the distance, hills wavered like mirages, ghostly illusions rippling in the heat, always there, never reachable.

Lee stood at the edge of the ruin, half in shadow, half in the unrelenting blaze of the suns. The tang of sweat and burnt metal clung thick in the air, catching at the back of his throat. His pistol rested loosely in his grip, a lifeline more than a weapon. A thing to hold onto. A reminder that he wasn’t defenseless, even if the planet seemed indifferent to the concept of survival.

The silence pressed in, heavy. Wrong.

Silence should’ve been relief. Silence should’ve meant safety. But this wasn’t that kind of quiet. This was the kind that watched. The kind that waited.

His gaze swept the horizon, scanning the brittle, broken ground for something—anything—out of place. But the emptiness was deceptive, shifting, playing tricks on his eyes. The wreckage groaned behind him, metal expanding under the punishing heat. The ship was dying, settling into its grave. He ignored it. There were more immediate concerns.

Then—movement.

Not much. Just a glint, half-buried in the dust. A sliver of something reflecting the twin suns. Lee exhaled slowly, crouched, and reached for it, brushing aside the grit with careful, practiced efficiency.

The object came into view. A curved piece of metal. Scuffed. Worn. Unmistakable. His stomach dropped. The mouth-bit. Jungkook’s.

Lee straightened too fast, the bit still clutched in his hand, his fingers tightening around it like it might bite him. His other hand curled reflexively around the pistol’s grip, knuckles bloodless. The planet, empty and endless just moments ago, now felt like a set of teeth closing in.

Jungkook was loose. The realization landed like a hammer blow, cold despite the heat.

Lee had seen what the man could do—shackled. What he could be, even when restrained by steel and sedation. Now, the shackles were gone. The bit that had kept him contained was nothing more than a useless scrap of metal in Lee’s hand.

And Jungkook was out there. Somewhere. Lee scanned the landscape again, but the terrain mocked him. Too much space. Too many places to disappear. Too many places to hunt from.

The wreckage of the ship loomed behind him. The others were still inside—Bindi, Namjoon, Peter. Oblivious. They had no idea what had just been set loose into their already precarious existence.

Lee’s jaw clenched. Like we needed another way to die.

He turned the bit over in his palm, its edges smooth from use, from time, from teeth. He should’ve known. They all should’ve known. But it had been easier to ignore the truth than to face it.

Now, that denial had come at a cost.

The wind kicked up, whispering through the wreckage, sending dust scuttling across the cracked earth. The sound of it sent a chill down his spine, because it wasn’t the wind he was afraid of.

Lee shoved the bit into his pocket, a grim token of what lurked beyond the ship’s broken hull. Jungkook wasn’t just a problem. He wasn’t just dangerous. He was intentional. A force of nature with purpose. Whatever he wanted, whatever he was planning, it wasn’t going to end well for anyone.

He turned back toward the ship, every muscle wired tight, every step measured. The pistol was steady in his grip now, but the weight of it felt inadequate.

This wasn’t over. Not even close. The silence had changed. It wasn’t just emptiness anymore. It was a warning. Jungkook wasn’t watching from a distance.

The cargo hold was a machine of chaos—loud, desperate, and running on the thin fuel of fear. People moved like scavengers, tearing through storage lockers, prying open crates with bloodied hands, dragging whatever they could find into the nav-bay. Metal clattered, plastic scraped, breathless grunts and muttered curses filled the stale air. Dust spiraled in the fractured sunlight slanting through the ship’s wounds, turning the space into a golden, suffocating haze.

Y/N stood on the outskirts, arms crossed, watching. It wasn’t much of a stockpile, but it was all they had.

The room—once a hub of order and precision—now looked like a battlefield before the war even began. Broken panels, exposed wiring, the remains of shattered instruments littered the floor. In the middle of it all, their growing pile of salvaged weapons stood like an altar to survival.

Lee stepped up first. No hesitation, no wasted motion. He crouched beside the pile and inspected his finds: a pistol, a shotgun, a baton. Well-used, well-loved. The shotgun bore the scars of a hard life—scratched barrel, faded stock—but the way Lee handled it left no doubt. The weapon was an extension of him. He loaded it with quiet efficiency, each metallic clink settling into the uneasy silence.

Behind him, Daku and Bindi added their contributions. A battered pickaxe, a handful of digging tools, and an old hunting boomerang—its edges worn, its surface scarred. Daku flicked his wrist, testing its balance. He nodded once, satisfied. Bindi, hovering close, scanned the room with sharp eyes, daring anyone to question their worth.

Then Namjoon stepped forward.

A ceremonial blade. Ancient. Ornate. The kind meant for rituals, not combat. The hilt gleamed under the dim light, its intricate carvings whispering of old traditions. But the edge—thin, honed—was made to cut. He set it down carefully, with a reverence that stood in stark contrast to the chaos around him.

And then there was Peter.

He stumbled into the room, arms overfilled with weapons that didn’t belong on a battlefield. His face was red, breath heavy, but he carried his haul like it meant something. He nearly tripped over a loose wire before dumping his findings onto the pile.

Silence followed.

Polished war-picks. A blow-dart hunting stick. A collection of relics that belonged in a museum, not a fight for survival.

Lee stared. “The hell are these?”

Peter straightened, his expression hovering somewhere between pride and offense. “Maratha crow-bill war-picks,” he declared, lifting one like a trophy. “Northern India. Extremely rare.”

Daku snorted. He picked up the hunting stick, turning it over in his hands, unimpressed. “And this?”

“Blow-dart hunting stick,” Peter shot back defensively. “Papua New Guinea. One of a kind.”

Daku let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh, tossing the stick back onto the pile. “Looks like they went extinct for a reason.”

Peter’s face darkened. His fingers curled around the remaining items like they might be snatched away. “Why are we even bothering with this?” he snapped. “If Jungkook’s gone, he’s gone. Why should we care?”

The air changed. The tension turned solid.

Lee was the first to break the silence. He stepped forward, slow, deliberate, his voice razor-edged. “First,” he said, his tone like the cocking of a gun, “because he can only survive out there for so long. Sooner or later, he’s coming back—for supplies. For water. For us.”

He let that settle, let them feel the weight of it.

“Second,” he continued, lowering his voice even further, “because killing is the only thing he’s ever been good at. And he likes it.”

No one spoke. No one moved.

Y/N felt the weight of those words settle into her chest, heavy as a loaded weapon. Jungkook wasn’t just a problem. He wasn’t a rogue element in their calculations.

He was a predator. And they were his prey. As if on cue, the group reached for their weapons.

Lee holstered the shotgun, his grip firm. Daku tested the boomerang again, tracing its edges with quiet precision. Even Peter, reluctant as he was, finally set one of his prized war-picks on the pile, his fingers lingering before he let go.

Y/N reached for the ceremonial blade.

It wasn’t made for this, but it would do. The weight of it felt strange in her hand, but solid. Steady. A promise.

The wind howled through the ruined hull, carrying the dry, metallic scent of the wasteland beyond. The horizon remained still, jagged peaks unmoving, but inside the ship, something had shifted.

The air felt electric. Like the moment before a storm. Y/N glanced at the others, their faces cast in flickering shadows. They were ready—or as ready as they could be.

Jungkook wasn’t gone. He was out there. Watching. Waiting. And now, so were they.

The ship jutted from the earth like a rusted blade, its jagged metal edges catching the dying light of twin suns. One burned a deep red, sinking low on the horizon, while the other clung stubbornly to the sky, casting long, broken shadows across the wasteland. Wind whispered through the wreckage, carrying the dry scent of scorched metal and sand, a faint, restless sound in the vast stillness.

Lee perched high on the hull, rifle balanced against his shoulder. His silhouette was razor-sharp against the sky’s bleeding colors. He moved only when necessary, scanning the horizon with a hunter’s patience, the kind of stillness that meant survival.

Then—movement.

A flicker. A distortion at the edge of his vision. His grip tightened. His breath held. What the hell was that?

The words barely escaped his lips, lost to the wind before anyone below could hear them.

On the ground, the others worked against time, piecing together survival from the ship’s remains. Daku and Bindi crouched over a makeshift workbench—little more than a pile of salvaged crates and twisted panels. They moved with careful efficiency, assembling breather units from scavenged tubing and half-broken filters. Each strap tightened, each valve checked, because failure wasn’t an option.

“Try it now,” Daku muttered, handing one to Leo.

The boy lifted it to his face, inhaling tentatively. A soft hiss, the measured release of oxygen. Relief flickered across his face, there and gone in an instant.

A few yards away, the Chrislams worked in silence, layering cloth over their heads, tying knots with practiced hands. Their transformation was seamless—fluid—turning them into nomads, figures that belonged to this land in a way the rest of them never would. Namjoon moved among them, his presence steady, guiding younger pilgrims as they secured their wrappings.

Y/N stood apart.

Her focus was on Shields. Or rather, what was left of him. His body was wrapped in salvaged cloth, the material rough, inadequate. But it was all she had. She tied the final knot, her fingers lingering for a moment, grounding herself in the task. When she straightened, her shadow stretched long and thin in the fading light.

“Namjoon.” Her voice was steady, though exhaustion clung to its edges. “We need to move before nightfall. While it’s still cool.”

Daku wiped a streak of sweat from his brow, glancing up. “What, you’re heading off too?”

Y/N nodded, jaw tight. “Lee’s leaving you a gun. Just one favor—bury my crew. They didn’t deserve to die here.”

Bindi met her gaze, expression soft but resolute. “We’ll take care of them.”

Then the sound came. Faint at first. A whisper. A reverence.

"Namjoon… Namjoon…"

The wind carried it toward them, weightless yet insistent. The group stilled. One by one, they turned toward the voice, rounding the wreckage to see where it came from.

And then, they saw it.

A blue star.

It flared against the horizon—impossibly bright, too large, too deliberate. It rose slowly, cutting through the burnt reds and oranges of the sunset like a blade. The light spread, stretching long shadows across the cracked land, shifting as if the planet itself had taken a breath.

Bindi exhaled sharply. “My bloody oath.”

“Three suns?” Leo whispered, his voice thin with disbelief.

Daku shook his head, his expression dark. “So much for nightfall.”

“And so much for cocktail hour,” Peter muttered, but the joke died the second it hit the air.

Namjoon stepped forward, bathed in the blue glow. The light painted his face in something almost holy. His voice was calm, steady, carrying the weight of quiet conviction.

“We take this as a sign. A path. A direction from God.”

Before anyone could respond, Lee moved.

He slid down the wreckage, boots kicking up dust as he landed. He straightened, brushing himself off, his rifle still slung across his shoulder. His face was unreadable, his eyes sharp.

“A very good sign,” he said, nodding toward the blue star. “That’s Jungkook’s direction.”

Y/N’s gaze flickered to him, unreadable. “Thought you said you found his restraints over there,” she said, jerking her chin toward the opposite horizon, where the red sun was slipping beneath the cracked earth.

Lee didn’t flinch. “I did.” His voice was even, final. “Which means he’s moving toward sunrise.”

The words settled like a stone in the pit of Y/N’s stomach. Jungkook wasn’t wandering. He wasn’t lost. He had a direction. A purpose. And it was moving closer.

She looked back at the star, its eerie light shifting the landscape into something foreign, something watching. A slow exhale left her lips, her mind sharpening.

“Then we move,” she said, her voice unyielding. “Before he decides to double back.”

No one argued. No one hesitated. Because the truth was simple. They weren’t just running from Jungkook anymore. They were following him.

The horizon shimmered, a mirage of heat and shifting color, an alien dream unraveling in the distance. The landscape stretched out before them like an open wound, raw and unrelenting, bruised in shades of violet and ochre under the double glare of the twin suns. To stare too long was to feel the world slip sideways, the very fabric of reality twisting under the weight of its own unnatural stillness.

They moved in a thin, fragile procession, their figures small against the vastness, nothing more than a line of ghosts fading into the endless heat.

The Chrislams led the way, their voices rising and falling in quiet, hypnotic rhythm. Their steps were deliberate, measured, faith woven into every movement. Incense pots swung gently from their hands, sending tendrils of spiced smoke curling into the air—an offering, a prayer, a plea for something greater than themselves. The scent tangled uneasily with the metallic tang of dust, the dry crackle of a world long since abandoned to silence.

Lee followed at a short distance, shotgun resting easy in his arms, though his grip spoke of exhaustion more than readiness. Sweat streaked through the dust on his face, his makeshift visor—a jagged scrap of plexiglass tied down with wire—biting into his skin. He ignored it. The pain was secondary. His eyes never stopped moving, scanning the horizon with the wary focus of a man who understood that stillness could kill just as surely as motion.

Beside him, Y/N shifted the weight of Peter’s ridiculous war-pick across her back. The ornate handle dug into her shoulder with every step, a mockery of their situation. A relic in a place that demanded survival, not sentiment. She had given up rolling her eyes after the first hour—exhaustion had a way of dulling even irritation.

Peter trailed behind, his face pink from the sun, his every step labored. And yet, he cradled his remaining artifact like a sacred object, a lifeline to something that only made sense to him.

The sky loomed, too vast, too fluid, its colors seeping into one another like ink bleeding through paper. The heat distorted the air, turning the horizon into something unreal, something that moved even when it shouldn’t. It was the kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace.

It meant something was waiting.

Y/N fumbled with the cloth she had tried—and failed—to wrap around her head. Her fingers, slick with sweat, kept losing their grip, the fabric slipping no matter how many times she adjusted it. The suns beat down, relentless, burning through her scalp, through her bones.

Namjoon noticed.

He didn’t speak. Just stepped closer, his movements calm, measured. Before she could protest, his hands brushed against hers, taking the cloth with quiet certainty. He wrapped it with the efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times, securing each fold, each knot, with practiced ease.

Y/N stiffened. She wasn’t used to small kindnesses.

“It’s too quiet,” she muttered, her voice too loud in the stillness. “You get used to the hum of the ship, the engines… then suddenly, it’s just… nothing.”

Namjoon tied the last knot, adjusting the fabric slightly. “Do you know who Muhammad was?” he asked, his voice low, conversational—like they were discussing something as ordinary as the weather.

She blinked at him. “Some prophet guy?”

His lips twitched. “Some prophet guy.” He stepped back, eyes scanning his work before meeting hers again. “He was a city man, but he had to go to the desert—to the silence—to hear the words of God.”

Y/N squinted against the glare. “So, you were on a pilgrimage? To New Mecca?”

He nodded. “Chrislam teaches that once in every lifetime, there should be a great hajj—a journey. To know God better, yes. But also to know yourself.”

A dry laugh slipped from her lips, brittle as the ground beneath their boots. “Sounds terrifying.”

Namjoon just watched her, waiting.

She exhaled. “I grew up on Helion Five,” she admitted, tugging the cloth slightly, testing its weight. “Not as nice as Prime.”

Something flickered in Namjoon’s expression—recognition, maybe respect. “Least religious of all the Helion planets,” he said. “And the poorest.”

Y/N nodded. “I studied botany on Prime. Spent eight years at the technical institute.”

Namjoon’s face shifted, surprised but pleased. “Then you’ve been to New Mecca.”

“I have.” Her voice softened slightly. “Studied under Dr. Abbas.”

He let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head in wonder. “Dr. Abbas was a mentor to my uncle. I met him once, when I was young. Brilliant man.”

Y/N nodded. The memories flickered behind her eyes—the towering spires of New Mecca, the hydro-gardens sprawling across the academy, faith and science woven together in delicate balance. It had been an oasis of learning, a place of possibility.

A place that should have led her somewhere better than this.

But then Helion Five ran out of money, and so did she. Her funding dried up, and she ended up back in the dirt, scraping by, until a flight school opportunity on Aguerra Prime sent her halfway across the galaxy.

She didn’t say that part.

At least NOSA paid well. At least the benefits were better than anything in the Helion System.

Namjoon studied her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, quietly, he said, “You’re full of surprises.”

Before Y/N could respond, Lee stopped. His entire body locked, every muscle wound tight. His breath sharpened. Then—his voice, low, razor-sharp. “Hold up.”

The words carved through the air, snapping every nerve in Y/N’s body to attention.

Lee lifted his rifle, scanning the horizon. His stance had changed—tight, predatory, every line of his body braced for whatever came next.

A ripple of unease passed through the group.

Y/N stepped forward, pulse quickening. “What is it?”

Lee didn’t answer immediately. He just handed her the scope, his expression grim.

She pressed it to her eye, adjusting to the warped, heat-rippled view. At first, she saw only what she expected—the same endless wasteland, stretching as far as the horizon. The cracked ground, desiccated and lifeless. The swirling dust, shifting restlessly in the dry, scorching wind. The emptiness, vast and absolute.

Then—something.

A cluster of thin, vertical shapes disrupted the monotony of the landscape.

She frowned. Her first instinct labeled them as trees, but the thought was dismissed as quickly as it formed. That was impossible.

She adjusted the focus, scanning for details, but the air above the superheated ground distorted everything. Waves of refracted light bent and twisted the landscape, making the objects shift in and out of coherence. She knew how easily the mind could be deceived under conditions like this—optical illusions born from extreme temperature gradients.

Still, she studied them.

They stood upright, dark against the glare of the horizon, irregular in height and spacing. They weren’t moving. Not even a fraction. No branches trembling in the wind. No leaves fluttering. Just still, rigid silhouettes.

Her jaw tightened.

If they were plant life, they shouldn’t be here. The conditions were too extreme. The heat alone would desiccate any surface vegetation in hours—if not outright kill it. Water, if it existed at all, would be buried deep underground, far from the sun’s reach. Any life here would have adapted to that reality. It would stay hidden, evolving in subterranean networks, safe from radiation and exposure.

But these things stood exposed, unyielding beneath a sky that could boil blood.

She exhaled slowly. If they weren’t trees, then what? Rock formations? But they were too slender, too irregular, lacking the weathered smoothness she’d expect from geological structures shaped by the elements.

Her mind cycled through possibilities.

Dead stalks of something that once lived? Artificial structures? Or just a mirage—some trick of light warping the landscape into false patterns?

She lowered the scope, blinking hard, then looked again with her naked eye. The shapes were still there, but less distinct, as if they faded into the background when not magnified.

That unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

Her fingers tightened around the scope.

"Those aren't trees," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else.

Y/N lowered the scope, pressing her lips into a thin line. The shapes still lingered on the edge of the horizon, indistinct and unreal, but her mind refused to place them in any known category. That alone made her uneasy.

“They aren’t trees,” she repeated, calmer this time. More certain.

Lee scoffed. “And you know that how?”

She turned to him, pulse steady despite the irritation curling in her chest. “Because trees don’t grow in places like this. Not on a planet this hot, this dry. Any plant life would be subterranean—assuming there’s life at all. Whatever those are, they’re not—”

“We’ll check it out.”

Y/N stiffened. “That’s not what I—”

Lee was already moving, waving for the others to prepare. “Not gonna stand here debating with a pilot who thinks she’s a scientist,” he muttered, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

Her fingers curled into a fist at her side. “I have a PhD in botany, actually,” she said flatly. “Which is why I’m telling you—”

“And I have a gun,” Lee cut in, not even looking at her. “So we’re gonna make sure.”

Y/N inhaled sharply through her nose. Of course. Of course, he was like this. She’d had his type figured out in the first ten minutes—loud, condescending, the kind of man who couldn’t stomach the idea of someone else knowing more than he did.

“You could just listen to her,” Namjoon interjected, stepping up beside her. He didn’t raise his voice, but there was an edge to his tone, subtle but firm. “She’s probably right. We don’t know what’s out there, and heading straight toward something unknown isn’t exactly smart.”

Lee exhaled sharply, turning back just enough to give Namjoon an unimpressed look. “Yeah? And what’s your plan, genius? Stand around and argue?”

“I think his plan,” Y/N said coolly, “is to use common sense.”

Lee barked a laugh. “Right. Common sense is what gets people killed. We don’t assume, we confirm.” His gaze flicked back to her, sharp with challenge. “Unless you’re scared?”

Y/N’s expression didn’t change, but inside, something clenched. Not in fear—just exhaustion. She’d dealt with men like this her entire career. She knew exactly how this argument would play out. She could cite a hundred scientific reasons why approaching those things was unnecessary at best, dangerous at worst, and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

Lee wanted to stomp over there just to prove he could.

Fine. Let him.

“Whatever,” she muttered, shoving the scope back into his hands. “Let’s go, then.”

She didn’t miss Namjoon’s concerned glance, but she ignored it. If following Lee into a potential death trap was what it took to get him to shut up, so be it.

At least when this inevitably turned out to be a waste of time, she’d get to say I told you so.

The wrecked ship knifed through the barren skyline, its twisted metal ribs jutting like bones against the backdrop of twin burning suns. The land stretched endlessly in every direction—cracked, lifeless, shimmering under the weight of an unrelenting heat. The ship’s remains had become a monument to survival, a jagged scar on an already brutal world.

Perched atop the wreck, Peter reclined as if he were sunbathing at a luxury resort instead of stranded on a hellscape. His misting umbrella—a ridiculous contraption of indulgence and pure audacity—hissed softly, releasing a cooling vapor laced with alcohol. The mist shimmered in the dry air, enveloping him in a cocoon of decadence, as if the wasteland were merely an inconvenience rather than a death sentence.

Below, Daku appeared, dragging a makeshift sled across the scorched earth. The thing groaned under the weight of scavenged supplies—tarps, cables, tools lashed together with salvaged wiring. Sweat slicked his skin, dust clinging to every exposed inch, the heat pressing down on him like a living thing. He barely spared Peter a glance before barking out a sharp, humorless laugh.

“Comfy up there?”

Peter angled his umbrella, peering down with a lazy grin. “Incredible, really,” he said, voice dripping with mock sincerity. He lifted his polished flask in a casual toast. “Turns out food and water are highly overrated when you have the finer things in life.”

Daku’s scowl deepened, his fingers tightening around the sled’s rope. “Just keep your bloody-fuckin’ eyes peeled,” he muttered, his accent sharpening with irritation. “Don’t need that ratbag sneakin’ up and takin’ a bite out of my bloody-fuckin’ arse.”

He turned and trudged toward the distant hills, the sled dragging behind him with a slow, agonized scrape. Peter smirked, swirling the amber liquid in his flask before pouring a precise splash into a delicate glass—somehow unbroken despite the crash. He lifted it to his lips, savoring the moment like he wasn’t marooned on a planet actively trying to kill him.

Then—the blade. Cold steel against his throat.

Peter’s breath hitched. His body went still, every instinct screaming don’t move. The pressure was light but undeniable, the knife’s edge sharp enough that even the slightest shift could draw blood. The air around him changed, tightened.

Then a voice, soft, almost amused. “He’d probably get you right here.” The blade tilted, just enough to let Peter feel the danger. “Right under the bone,” Leo murmured. “Quick. Clean. You’d never hear him coming.”

Peter’s fingers twitched toward the war-pick resting across his lap, but he didn’t move. He barely breathed. Because Leo wasn’t bluffing.

Peter’s eyes flicked sideways, catching the boy’s gaze. Those too-bright green eyes—steady, unblinking, holding something that didn’t belong in a face so young. The knife didn’t waver in his hand. His grip was sure, practiced, casual in a way that turned Peter’s stomach.

Peter swallowed carefully, feeling the blade shift with the motion. “Aren’t you a little young to be playing assassin?” he asked, voice light, strained. “What’s the story, then? Did you run away from your parents, or did they run away from you?”

A flicker of something dark passed over Leo’s expression—anger? Amusement? It was gone before Peter could name it. The blade stayed where it was.

Then, after a heartbeat too long, Leo stepped back. The knife withdrew with a flick of his wrist, a smooth, deliberate motion. The tension didn’t break—it just stretched, coiled between them, an unspoken thing that settled heavy in the heat. Leo turned and walked away.

Peter let out a slow, measured breath. His hand brushed over the war-pick in his lap—too late, too useless now—but the weight of it felt like reassurance. His fingers trembled slightly as he adjusted the umbrella, tilting it just enough to cast his face back into shade. He exhaled, steadied himself.

Then, forcing his voice back into something closer to normal, he called after him.

“What exactly are you trying to prove, kid?”

Leo didn’t stop. Didn’t turn. The knife in his hand caught the light as he walked, glinting with every step. A warning. A promise.

Peter watched him disappear into the waves of heat, unease settling like a stone in his chest. He lifted the flask, poured another sip of sherry, and swallowed it down. It tasted bitter now.

The edge of the wreckage was quieter than anywhere else, a pocket of solitude carved into the heat and ruin. Leo sat cross-legged in the dust, her back to the others, their voices distant, muffled by the wind that swept across the barren expanse. The shadow of the hull stretched thin, barely offering relief from the twin suns, but she didn’t care.

She just needed to be alone.

The knife rested across her knee, a sliver of light catching on the steel, glinting as if it had something to say. Her hands hovered above it, fingers twitching, uncertain.

Her curls clung to her forehead, damp with sweat, itching at the back of her neck. They’d been a nuisance all day, an unwanted reminder of something she wasn’t anymore. Something she couldn’t be.

The first time she cut her hair, she’d done it with a shard of broken glass in a back alley on Taurus I, shivering, starving, her hands sticky with someone else’s blood. She’d shed her name that night too, left it behind like the curls that littered the filthy street.

Audrey had died there. Leo had crawled out of the wreckage. Now, here she was again.

Her fingers curled around the knife, steadying it despite the faint tremor in her hands. The first cut was clumsy, the blade snagging against a tangle before slicing through. A curl tumbled down, landing against the dust, dark against the pale ground. She exhaled sharply. Then she cut again.

Each slice was an act of erasure. A deliberate, necessary violence.

The curls fell in thick, heavy strands, coiling like dead things at her feet. She didn’t stop, even when sweat stung her eyes, even when her breath came short and fast. She worked until there was nothing left but uneven stubble, rough against her fingertips.

A breeze ghosted across her scalp, cool and startling, and for a moment, she felt untethered. Unmoored.

She stared down at the pile of curls, scattered like broken promises. Pieces of a girl who no longer existed. Pieces of soft hands and warm voices, of braids woven by someone long dead, of a life stolen before she ever had a chance to claim it.

Her throat tightened, but she swallowed hard, shoving the feeling down. Then, with one sharp motion, she ground her boot into the curls, sweeping them away with a harsh kick. The wind took them, lifting them into the air, scattering them across the wasteland.

She watched until they disappeared.

The knife was dull now, the edge dulled by the thick, stubborn strands it had cut through. She ran her thumb along the blade, then slipped it back into its sheath.

Leo stood slowly, brushing dust from her knees, rolling her shoulders back. She could already feel the questions rising in her mind. Did she cut enough? Would it pass? Would they see through her?

No. They wouldn’t. They saw what they expected to see—a wiry, sharp-edged boy, too young to be dangerous, too hard to be soft.

And that’s all they needed to know. She wasn’t going to tell them. Not Daku. Not Peter. Not even Namjoon. It wasn’t about trust. It was about survival.

She knew what happened to girls out here. She’d seen it. Felt it. She knew how softness got twisted, exploited, broken apart piece by piece. Leo wasn’t going to let that happen to her. Not again. Out here, softness wasn’t just a weakness. It was a death sentence.

Her green eyes flicked toward the horizon. The jagged hills stood like teeth in the distance, waiting for them. They would bring more pain. More danger. That was inevitable.

But Leo would meet them head-on. She had no other choice. Squaring her shoulders, she turned back toward the ship. The others would see her return. But they wouldn’t see her. Not really.

To them, she was just another boy. Just another survivor. Another body moving through this relentless, unforgiving world. And that was exactly how she needed it to be. Audrey was gone, scattered like dust on the wind. Leo was all that was left. And there was no space for softness now.

The rise gave way to something wrong.

Y/N had never expected to find trees—hadn’t even humored the idea. This planet was too hot, too dry, too merciless. Nothing should be growing here, least of all something as delicate as surface-dwelling vegetation. If life existed, it would be underground, hidden away from the blistering heat, surviving on whatever moisture remained trapped beneath the surface.

But what lay ahead wasn’t life at all.

It was bones.

They weren’t scattered remains or the weathered fossils of something long forgotten. No, these were enormous, structured, standing like a grotesque forest of the dead. Ribs the size of starships arched toward the sky, their jagged edges worn by time, bleached to a sickly green by lichen clinging stubbornly to their surfaces. They loomed over the wasteland, casting long, skeletal shadows that twisted and bent under the relentless double suns.

The ground beneath them was no better. Littered with shattered fragments, hollowed-out vertebrae, and the occasional half-buried skull, it was as if something had torn through this place—something big, something merciless.

The young pilgrims, Namjoon’s people, had begun to murmur prayers, their voices hushed and wavering.

“Allahu Akbar… Allahu Akbar…”

Their reverence was tinged with unease, their steps hesitant now, their awe tempered by something much colder.

Y/N lingered at the edge of the rise, adjusting the strap of her pack with a quiet exhale. She had no desire to move forward. Whatever happened here, however long ago it had been, it wasn’t natural. This wasn’t a graveyard. A graveyard implied burial, rest, peace. This?

This was a battlefield.

Lee, of course, had no such caution. He stepped up beside her, his shotgun slung low but ready, his face streaked with sweat and dust. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze was sharp, assessing. Always acting like he was in charge. Always acting like he knew best.

"This doesn’t feel right," he muttered.

Y/N barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "No kidding," she murmured, voice dry.

They reached the others just as Namjoon translated a question from one of the younger pilgrims.

“He asks what could have killed so many great things.”

No one answered.

Y/N didn’t think they wanted to know.

They moved deeper, their earlier eagerness replaced by a silent, collective caution. She reached out, running her fingers over one of the towering ribs. The grooves carved into the surface were too precise, too intentional. Not the work of time, nor of nature.

“Killing field,” she murmured, stomach twisting. “Not a graveyard.”

Lee crouched near a pile of smaller bones, picking up a fragment. He turned it over in his hands, brushing away the dust. The surface was smooth, polished by age, but the ends—the ends had been broken.

“Whatever it was,” he said grimly, “it was a long time ago.”

A little ways off, Kai drifted toward one of the massive skulls, its hollow sockets wide and empty, a monument to something long dead. The structure was vast enough to shelter them all, its surface ridged with comb-like formations. Curious, Kai pressed his palm against one of the ridges. The wind shifted, catching within the grooves.

Namjoon, unlike the others, wasn’t entirely lost in the spectacle. His gaze flicked back to Y/N, watching the way her expression remained tight, the way her fingers twitched with irritation.

“You don’t like this,” he observed quietly.

Y/N huffed out a breath. “I don’t like being here at all. This is pointless.” She cast a glance at Lee, who was still inspecting the bones like he was the first person in the universe to ever see a skeleton. “And I don’t like being dragged around by someone who acts like he’s in charge just because he’s loud and armed.”

Namjoon smiled faintly. “That’s just Lee. Cop acting like a cop.”

Y/N snorted. “Yeah, well, I didn’t sign up to be bossed around by some overzealous authority figure with a superiority complex.”

Namjoon chuckled. “Yeah, he’s a dick.” Then, after a beat, “But mostly harmless.”

She side-eyed him. “Mostly.”

He shrugged, the ghost of amusement lingering.

A pause settled between them, quieter, more thoughtful. Y/N glanced at him, debating, then sighed. “Call me Frenchie.”

Namjoon blinked. “What?”

“It’s my call sign,” she explained, shifting her weight. “Got it when I was working on the docks with my uncle, and it stuck around. All my friends and family call me. You might as well, since I actually like you.”

Namjoon’s expression softened, something warm flickering behind his eyes. “Frenchie,” he repeated, testing the name with obvious care. A slow smile curved his lips. “I like it.”

Y/N nodded, satisfied.

Then Namjoon hesitated. “My mom used to call me Joon.” His voice was quieter now, thoughtful. “I haven’t heard it in a long time.”

Y/N looked at him, tilting her head slightly.

“She passed away a few years ago,” he admitted.

Y/N’s chest ached, just a little. She understood that feeling too well. “I’m sorry,” she murmured.

Namjoon nodded once, accepting, before offering her a small, sad smile. “It’s okay.”

Y/N hesitated, then said, “My parents died when I was little. My aunt and uncle raised me.”

Namjoon’s gaze met hers, understanding passing between them in the space of a heartbeat.

For a moment, they stood there, two people from different worlds, bound by quiet losses and shared irritation for the man currently barking orders at Kai like he had any authority.

Namjoon sighed. “We should probably go stop Lee from doing something stupid.”

Y/N smirked. “Or we could let him and watch what happens.”

Namjoon laughed, shaking his head. “Tempting.”

But they both knew they’d step in. Because Lee might be a pain in the ass, but he was still on their side.

A low, hollow hum resonated through the bones. The sound rippled outward, vibrating through the air, sinking into their chests like a pulse of memory. It was deep, mournful—a ghost’s sigh.

Kai’s face lit up, wonder momentarily eclipsing fear. “I’ve never heard anything like this,” he said, turning toward the others, his voice tinged with awe.

His smile froze. Something moved in the skull’s shadow. A face—pale and grinning—emerged from the dark. Kai stumbled back with a strangled yelp, his hands flying up instinctively. It wasn’t a monster. It was Soobin.

He stepped from the depths of the skull, laughter bright and sharp. “Got you good,” he said, grinning.

The tension cracked—momentarily.

Lee was already moving, instincts pulling him into the cavernous space of the skull. The shadows stretched long inside, pooling in uneven recesses. Bones littered the ground, but not the smooth, time-worn ones outside.

These were fresh. Chipped. Splintered. His shotgun swept low, the muzzle nudging against a shattered fragment. The air inside the skull carried an edge, something faintly electric—like the charge before a storm.

Lee exhaled through his nose, slow. "Nothing," he muttered, but his gut said otherwise.

Outside, the group gathered near the towering ribs, unease thickening as the wind hummed through the combed ridges of the skulls, filling the air with a sound too unnatural to be ignored. The massive remains stood like silent guardians over a forgotten tragedy.

High above, Jungkook watched. He was a shadow within the bone, his body pressed into the dense curves of the cavernous skull. The faint light filtering through the ridges illuminated only fragments of him—a glint of movement, a slow, steady breath. He didn’t stir. Didn’t make a sound.

His gaze flicked over the group below. He had been tracking them for hours. From where he crouched, Y/N was the closest. She leaned against the skull’s base, fingers twisting off the spent oxygen canister at her belt. The hiss of escaping air broke the silence.

Jungkook’s grip tightened around the bone-shiv in his hand. Its jagged edge gleamed faintly, a relic carved from the remains of this place. His muscles coiled. His breath was measured. He waited. The hunt hadn’t begun yet. But soon.

Y/N shifted her weight, pressing her back against the massive skull. The warmth of the bone seeped through her clothes, and for a moment, she let herself close her eyes. Just a second—just long enough to exhale, to let the exhaustion settle beneath her ribs before she pushed forward again.

Above her, in the hollowed-out depths of the skull, Jungkook did not blink. He moved with the silence of something bred for patience, for hunting. The bone-shiv in his hand hovered steady, his fingers curling around the carved handle as he leaned forward, the comb-like ridges of the skull framing his motion.

Her hair, damp with sweat, swayed just within reach. A flick of his wrist. A whisper of steel. The blade caught a single lock, slicing it away with surgical precision. Dark strands drifted into his palm, weightless, a piece of her claimed without her ever knowing. He studied them for a moment—expression unreadable—before tucking them into the folds of his makeshift belt. A keepsake. A marker.

Below him, Y/N shifted, oblivious to how close she had come to the edge of her life. She pushed off from the skull, stretching out her sore muscles before turning. “We’d better keep moving,” she said, her voice even, but tired.

Lee’s arrival had been perfectly timed—though she had no idea how perfectly. He stood a few feet away, flask in hand, smirking beneath the sunburned grime on his face. “Care for a sip?”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t alcohol supposed to dehydrate you faster?”

Lee shrugged, tipping the flask toward her. “Probably. But it makes you care a whole lot less.”

She hesitated, then took the flask anyway. The liquid burned a path down her throat, hot and punishing, but she swallowed it without complaint. She handed it back, her gaze drifting toward the horizon. The boneyard stretched behind them, vast and silent, too silent.

“We don’t want to be out here when it gets dark,” she said briskly.

Lee nodded, tucking the flask back into his jacket as they fell into step. The group ahead was just visible now, their silhouettes shrinking against the dying light.

The crunch of bone fragments beneath their boots was the only sound between them. They climbed the rise overlooking the wasteland, and then—Lee froze. He moved fast, stepping onto a rock, rifle raised, the scope pressed tight against his eye. Every muscle in his body went rigid.

Y/N felt the shift instantly. Her fingers brushed the hilt of her knife. “What is it?”

Lee didn’t answer at first. He adjusted the scope, lips pressing into a tight line.

“I thought maybe he’d double back,” he muttered, voice barely audible. “Could be trailing us.”

Y/N’s stomach coiled tight. “And?”

Lee exhaled, lowering the scope. “Nothing.” He shook his head. “Left the flask as bait. No bites.” He climbed down, his boots hitting the earth with a crunch. “Guess he’s smarter than that.”

But Lee was wrong. So, so wrong. Back in the shadows of the skull, the truth was different. The flask, once brimming with scotch, now sat empty. Its contents had been poured out—replaced with a handful of coarse, reddish sand. Carefully. Deliberately.

Jungkook crouched deep in the graveyard of bones, his body a seamless part of the ruin, woven into the wreckage of something ancient. The strands of Y/N’s hair were still tucked securely into his belt, their faint scent rising with the heat.

His chest rose and fell in slow, controlled movements, his fingers adjusting the bone shards strapped across his body like armor. He was a ghost. A specter inside the carcass of a long-dead god. Watching. Waiting. And as the group moved farther away, he smiled.

The spired hills rose like shattered teeth against the sky, jagged and sharp, their edges blurred by the feverish shimmer of heat. The ground cracked beneath the weight of the twin suns, a vast, unrelenting plain stretching between the wreckage and the emptiness beyond.

Beneath the meager shade of a tarp strung between two rusted poles, Daku worked in silence.

Each swing of the pickaxe landed with a dull, defiant thud, the ground resisting him at every turn. This planet didn’t want to give up its dead.

A few yards away, the bodies lay wrapped in scavenged cloth. The makeshift shrouds clung awkwardly, shifting slightly in the breeze, as if reluctant to settle. A corner of one cloth lifted—just enough to reveal the curve of a hand, frozen in stillness—before the wind set it back down, as if even the air knew better than to disturb the dead.

Daku didn’t look at them. He didn’t have to. Their presence pressed against his skin, heavy as the heat, heavy as guilt. He drove the pickaxe into the ground again, his muscles burning, his breath ragged. The wreckage of the ship loomed behind him, twisted metal stark against the sky. It felt farther away than it was, separated by more than just distance.

Movement at the edge of his vision made him pause. Bindi stood in the shadow of the ship, watching. She lifted a hand in a slow, deliberate wave. Daku raised his own in return. A small gesture. Too heavy for what it was. But enough. Then he turned back to the earth.

The ground cracked beneath his next swing, reluctant but yielding. The rhythm of digging gave him something to focus on—something other than the weight pressing at the edges of his mind.

“Daku.”

Bindi’s voice carried across the dead landscape, firm but quiet.

He didn’t stop. “You need something?”

She stepped closer, hands on her hips, her presence solid, steady. “You good out here?”

Daku leaned against the shovel, wiping sweat from his brow. His voice came out rough. Flat. “Depends. How good does digging graves in an oven sound to you?”

Bindi snorted. “You could take a break, you know.”

“They deserve better than that,” Daku muttered. No room for argument.

Bindi didn’t try.

She stood there for a moment, gaze lingering, unreadable. Then she turned and disappeared back into the wreckage, leaving him alone with the dust, the heat, and the dead.

Daku worked until his muscles ached, until his hands blistered, until the trench was deep enough to matter.

Then, finally, he turned to the first body. The cloth fluttered slightly as he crouched beside it. Too light. That was the first thing he noticed. The weight was all wrong, the shape beneath the fabric too empty. His breath caught in his throat, but he didn’t let it settle. Didn’t let himself think.

He lifted the body carefully, arms straining as he carried it to the grave. Lowered it into the earth like it meant something.

A breath. A pause. The world around him held still, as if watching. He swallowed hard, then reached for the shovel.

The first shovelful of dirt hit with a dull thud. Then another. Then another. The sound of finality. The sound of something being buried that would never be dug up again.

When it was done, he stepped back, brushing dust from his palms. It wasn’t much. But it was enough. The sound of footsteps behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know it was Bindi.

“You need help?” she asked.

Daku shook his head. “I’ve got it.”

She didn’t argue. She just stood there with him, both of them framed against the endless, indifferent horizon. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was everything they couldn’t say. Everything they’d lost. Everything they still had left to lose. Daku exhaled, his gaze fixed on the hills in the distance. The sun was sinking, but the heat never left.

“They’ll rest easier now,” Bindi murmured.

Daku tightened his grip on the shovel. “Let’s hope we can say the same for us.”

The canyon yawned ahead, its ribbed spires stretching toward the twin suns like the remains of some ancient beast, clawing at the sky in its final death throes. Heat shimmered off the cracked earth, turning the horizon into something warped and restless. The silence was thick, not the absence of sound, but the kind that pressed in on all sides, heavy with the unshakable feeling that something was watching.

Y/N adjusted the strap of her pack, fingers brushing absently over the worn hilt of her knife as she scanned the terrain. Every step felt heavier, dragged down not just by exhaustion, but by the weight of the stillness.

Ahead, Yeonjun suddenly crouched, his voice low but urgent.

"Captain… Captain!"

Y/N was at his side in seconds, her brow furrowing as she followed his gaze. Half-buried in the dirt was something small and round, coated in dust and split slightly down the middle. At first, it looked like some alien fruit—leathery, weathered, its exposed core stringy and fibrous.

The Chrislams gathered close, murmuring in soft Saramic, their voices tinged with something fragile—hope.

"Could it be food?" one of them asked. "Something edible?"

Y/N brushed the dirt away, fingers tracing the rough, familiar stitching. The realization sank in like a stone dropping into deep water. She lifted it slowly, turning it over in her palm.

Her voice was flat when she spoke. "It’s a baseball."

The murmurs stopped. The small circle of bodies tensed, shoulders tightening, breath catching. The dirt-smudged ball sat in her palm like an artifact from another world. In a way, it was.

Namjoon stepped closer, the usual calm in his eyes sharpening into something watchful. He scanned the canyon’s winding path, his voice measured but weighted.

“We are not alone here, yes?”

Y/N didn’t answer, but her grip on the ball tightened.

Behind her, Lee shifted, his rifle held easy but ready, the sharp cut of his jaw betraying his unease. His fingers brushed the scope, his movements slow and deliberate.

“Never thought we were,” he muttered, the resignation in his tone carrying something else beneath it. Something like readiness.

The canyon widened, opening into a plateau that led toward the spired hills. And there—standing against the base of the jagged rock formations—was a settlement. Or what was left of one.

Rust-streaked shipping containers, stacked into makeshift buildings, leaned into each other like forgotten bones. Tattered sunshades, barely clinging to their rusted poles, flapped weakly in the heated wind, their edges frayed and curling.

The group stopped.

Namjoon moved first, stepping forward with a reverence that didn’t match the decay before them.

"Assalamu alaikum!" Yeonjun called, his voice carrying across the empty space, bouncing off the metal walls.

Nothing. No answer.

Lee peeled off toward a rusted-out moisture-recovery unit, crouching near the battered jugs scattered at its base. He picked one up, shook it. Nothing. Just a hollow rattle of grit inside brittle plastic.

“They ran out,” he said grimly, setting the jug down with finality.

Namjoon’s gaze lingered on the machine, his voice quiet. “Water,” he murmured. “Once, there was water here.”

The pilgrims sank to their knees, hands raised, their voices rising in unison. Allahu Akbar. The sound filled the empty settlement, a prayer swallowed by the bones of a place long past saving.

Y/N watched from the outskirts, the weight of the baseball still heavy in her grip. The prayers filled the space, but they didn’t fill her. Her gaze drifted to the shipping containers. Too still. Too empty. She moved toward one, her steps careful, deliberate. The doors hung crooked, their rusted hinges straining against time. She pushed one open.

Inside, the remains of lives left behind: A tipped-over chair. A rusted lantern. A faint, smeared handprint on the wall.

Y/N dragged her fingers along the broken edge of a table. Her voice was quiet, more to herself than anyone else.

“What happened here?” Lee’s voice, closer than she expected.

“Doesn’t look like they had much of a choice,” he said, gesturing to the scattered jugs, the rusted-out machinery. “This place dried up.”

Namjoon’s voice broke through the weight of the silence. "We search. See what remains."

The group spread out, their movements slow, careful. The air was thick, heavy with something unspoken. Y/N turned the baseball over in her hands, a cold certainty settling deep in her chest.

The air inside the structure was stale—not just old, but abandoned. A vacuum where life had once existed and then receded, leaving only the sediment of its passing. The particulate composition of the dust—fine, unbothered—told Y/N that no one had been in here for years.

She stepped forward, careful with her weight distribution, feeling the floor shift just slightly under her boots. Disuse. Wood degradation. Subsurface rot. The building wouldn’t collapse under her, but it was tired.

She cataloged details as she moved—mental notes stacking like research entries in her mind. The table in the center of the room: wooden, refectory-style, approximately two meters in length. Surface dull with oxidized grime. Deep scratches. Cup rings. The wood had absorbed more than just liquid over time—it had absorbed history.

The walls bore framed images—early settlers, hands dirt-streaked and competent, smiling children, a boy gripping a baseball bat. Domesticity in an unrelenting world. A psychological anchor. And yet, they were gone. The structures stood, the ghosts remained, but the people who built them—who bent this world to their will—had vanished.

Where?

Y/N moved deeper inside, her fingertips trailing along the tabletop’s edge. Oil deposits in the grain. Sweat, grease—human residue. She withdrew her hand quickly, as if touching the past too much might make it real again.

She reached for the wall, searching by muscle memory for a switch. “Lights,” she muttered, though she already knew—futility.

Her hand skimmed rough plaster—no switches, no panels. Not even the residual tackiness of adhesive where something had been ripped away. No artificial power grid at all.

Her mind started turning. She moved toward a window, the fabric blackout blinds stiff under her fingers. Why blackouts? She yanked them back, expecting the room to flood with sunlight—

A face stared back. Y/N jerked backward, pulse spiking. Her breath hitched before recognition caught up. Lee. Standing just beyond the glass, his features cut sharp by the exterior glare. He grinned, bemused, almost lazy.

"Try not to get lost in there," he said through the window, voice muffled.

She exhaled sharply, tension bleeding from her muscles. A short, nervous laugh escaped her as she nodded. "Not planning to," she called back.

Lee gave a small wave and stepped away, disappearing into the light. She was alone again. But the silence inside the building had shifted. A creak from behind her.

Y/N pivoted, knife half-drawn, instincts running ahead of her thoughts. Something in the corner caught the light. An orrery.

It sat on a low table, its frame dulled with oxidation but intact. She took a slow, deliberate step forward. The gears inside clicked, stuttered, then began to turn.

The device came to life. Tiny planets, caught in orbits dictated by age-old mechanics, began to move. Uneven. Jerky. The largest celestial body, positioned where a primary sun should be, pulsed faintly—bathed in a perpetual glow.

Y/N stilled. No darkness. Her fingers brushed the frame. "No darkness," she murmured. "No lights, because… no darkness." Her scientific mind caught the pattern before her gut did. Something prickled at the base of her skull. A realization forming too slow to stop the chill crawling up her spine. She turned sharply, stepped back into the sunlight.

The porch creaked beneath her boots, the glare of the twin suns almost too much after the dim interior. She squinted, eyes scanning the barren land for movement.

Then—a flicker. Far out, something glinted. Not naturally. A deliberate reflection. Her breath caught. She moved fast, pushing past a line of laundry still clinging to rusted wire, the faded fabric brushing her arms as she pushed forward.

The glint again. She broke into a jog.The ground crunched beneath her boots, fractured stone and sand shifting as she reached the source— A skiff. Partially buried in the desert’s hungry mouth.

Y/N’s pulse pounded. The fabric wings, tattered and skeletal, flapped weakly in the wind. The hull, sleek despite its damage, bore faded markings—symbols etched by a language older than the ruins around it.

A vessel. A departure. Or an arrival. Her fingers traced the surface—metal, pitted and worn, but solid. Heat radiated from it, even in the already blistering environment. Residual energy storage? Possible thermovoltaic components? Her heart stuttered.

"Allahu Akbar," she whispered, voice trembling between awe and calculation.

She didn’t believe in miracles. But she believed in science. And the science told her one thing: Someone else had been here.

The others caught up within minutes, their footsteps crunching against the fractured ground, but Y/N barely registered them. Her mind was already dissecting, calculating, breaking down the skiff in front of her.

Namjoon reached her first, his approach slow, deliberate—a reverence she couldn’t afford. He placed a hand on the hull, fingers splayed over the scarred metal, his eyes slipping shut for a brief moment. A prayer. A plea. The Chrislams behind him murmured their own, their voices threading through the air like a quiet current of faith. Y/N wasn’t praying. She was analyzing.

Her fingers traced the hull, mapping out the pitting from sand erosion, the carbon scoring along the intake vents, the microfractures spiderwebbing across the surface. Heat residue. That meant energy retention. That meant—

"Think it’ll fly?" Lee’s voice broke through her thoughts. He stood just behind her, rifle slung loose, his gaze sweeping over the vessel with a mix of hope and skepticism.

She exhaled sharply, tilting her head, already formulating possibilities, probabilities, limitations. "I don’t know," she admitted, but the words thrilled her. Not in uncertainty, but in possibility.

Her hands moved instinctively, pushing against the skiff’s frame, testing its stability, density, material integrity. The hull composition felt wrong—light but strong, too smooth to be traditional alloys. Not purely terrestrial. Some kind of composite—low-weight, high-tensile resilience.

The intake vents told her more—angled for atmospheric entry, but the heat scoring was shallow. This thing hadn’t been through a rough descent. It hadn’t crashed. It had landed. Her pulse ticked up, the rush of discovery washing over her, every neuron firing at once.

"This isn’t just wreckage," she muttered under her breath. "It was left here."

Lee frowned. "What are you saying?"

She stepped back, surveying the machine as a whole, not just its parts. "Scorch patterns are too controlled for a crash. The way the sand's drifted against it—it's been here a while, but not long enough for total burial. And the material—" she pressed her palm flat against the hull "—it’s still holding latent heat. That means an energy core. That means—"

Lee caught on before she even finished. His breath left him in a short, sharp laugh. "—it might have power," he finished.

Y/N nodded, her mind already racing ahead. If there was power, there was a chance. The skiff wasn’t just a symbol of escape. It was a machine—a problem to solve, a system to understand, a puzzle begging for hands smart enough to unlock it.

For the first time in too long, she felt the familiar pull—not just survival, not just endurance, but science.

"If we can get inside, if the controls are intact, if we can access the core—" she turned to Namjoon, who was still watching her, still measuring her words against his faith.

"We might not be stuck here after all."

The group fell silent. Even the wind seemed to hesitate, as if waiting for the verdict. Y/N’s hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her palms, not in doubt but in determination. For the first time in days, she wasn’t just reacting to survival. She was chasing it.

She looked up, toward the endless stretch of sky. For once, it didn’t feel like a ceiling. It felt like a destination.

Perched atop the ruined ship, Peter reclined in the only way Peter could—utterly unbothered, delicately indulgent, as if this wasteland was nothing more than a minor inconvenience to his standard of living. A toast point rested between two fingers, smeared with glistening caviar, because apparently, nothing—not even being marooned on a hostile planet—could persuade him to lower his standards.

The heat wavered in thick, rippling waves, and yet Peter sat immaculate, his linen trousers untouched by dust, grime, or the creeping dread curling at the edges of reality.

He lifted the toast toward his lips, prepared for the luxury of a bite, when— Scrabbling.

Soft. Imperceptible to anyone who wasn’t listening. A faint, almost instinctual sound. Dirt shifting. Small rocks tumbling. The suggestion of movement.

Peter froze. The toast hovered, suspended between indulgence and survival, as he tilted his head toward the edge of the ship. His sharp gaze narrowed. His hand lowered the toast with slow, deliberate precision onto a neatly folded napkin. He adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, brushed nonexistent dust from his trousers, and peered over the side.

Nothing. Just the dirt ramp, the heat waves, the small rocks still rolling a little too lazily, as if something—or someone—had climbed up. A muscle ticked in Peter’s jaw.

"This," he muttered under his breath, voice edged with his usual dry sarcasm, "now qualifies as the worst fun I’ve ever had. Stop it."

The wasteland offered no reply. The silence was thick, viscous, wrapping around him, pressing against his skin. The heat crackled off the ship’s hull, and suddenly, the toast and caviar felt obscenely misplaced.

Peter grabbed his war-pick—the ornate, polished relic, absurd in his hands, its weight foreign despite its promise of violence. He descended cautiously, every footstep deliberate, scanning the fractured shadows of the hull.

Still—nothing. His pulse was too fast. He did not like this.

“Leo?” Peter’s voice was low, edged with tension. "Oh, Leo… if this is one of your charming pranks—"

A voice rang out.

“What?”

Peter nearly dropped the war-pick. Leo’s voice was too casual, too far away. That meant—whatever had been up there with him, hadn’t been Leo. Cold certainty locked around Peter’s spine.

His tension sharpened into movement, feet carrying him faster now, deeper into the ship’s fractured belly, where he found Leo and Bindi, elbow-deep in a stubborn storage container, dirt streaking their faces. Both looked up, annoyed.

"Tell me that was you," Peter snapped, his grip tightening on the war-pick.

Leo’s brows furrowed. “Okay, sure, it was me. What’d I do now?”

"You’re assailing my fragile sense of security, that’s what,” Peter shot back. His voice cracked—just slightly—betraying his nerves.

Bindi straightened, her sharp gaze zeroing in. “He’s been right here, mate," she said, unimpressed. "What are you going on about?"

Peter opened his mouth, but— A shadow moved. A flicker across the fractured beams of sunlight slicing through the hull. The three of them froze. The air thickened, pressing in on all sides.

“Daku?” Bindi called, voice tight.

No response.

Leo darted to a narrow crack in the hull, pressing his face to the dusty glass. His breath fogged the surface as his gaze locked onto something.

Daku. Outside, hunched over the graves. Moving slow. Deliberate. Leo’s voice dropped to a whisper. His lips barely moved when he spoke the name they had all been avoiding.

"Jungkook."

Peter went rigid. The war-pick slipped in his sweaty grip. Bindi didn’t hesitate—she ripped the weapon from his hands in one clean motion, her body already moving, her muscles tensed like a spring waiting to snap. Leo followed, boomerang gripped like a lifeline.

The shadows deepened. The air grew heavier. And then—he appeared. Bindi swung first. Her aim was perfect—too perfect. The war-pick sliced through the air— and missed.

“No—!" Leo’s voice cracked. Panic ripped through him.

The man staggered back, arms raised defensively. Not Jungkook. Sunburned skin, blistered raw. A gaunt frame, weak, trembling. He clutched the lever of an emergency cryo-locker, his breath ragged, desperate.

"I thought—" he rasped, voice hoarse. Relief bloomed across his face. His eyes darted over them, hopeful, human, just a survivor—

The gunshot tore through the moment. Louder than the wind, louder than the sky. The bullet hit center mass. Blood sprayed across Bindi’s arm. The man’s body jerked, crumpled. His eyes went wide, confusion etched into his sunburned features before the light in them went out. A single breath. Then silence.

The group turned. Daku stood yards away, pistol still raised. His hands trembled. His chest rose and fell too fast.

"I thought it was him," Daku stammered. His voice cracked, unraveling. "The murdering ratbag. I thought—"

Leo’s face was ashen. His throat bobbed as he whispered, "He was just somebody else."

Daku’s gaze dropped. His hands fell limp at his sides. The pistol slipped from his fingers, clattering against the dirt. His knees buckled. His voice—wrecked, broken, crumbling.

“I thought it was him.”

And in the shadows behind the graves Jungkook watched. Still. Calculating. Amused. The goggles over his eyes caught the light, glinting. For a breath, he lingered, his gaze flicking to the breather strapped to Daku’s chest. Assessing. Weighing. Measuring. Then—like smoke he was gone. Leaving behind nothing. Just the echo of his presence and the weight of a mistake they could never take back.

The skiff crouched on the cracked earth like a carcass picked clean by time. Its fabric wings, once sleek and functional, hung in limp surrender, their edges frayed by wind and heat. The sand had already started reclaiming it, creeping up the landing gear, seeping into every exposed seam. Whatever this ship had been, whatever mission had left it here, was long over.

But it still had answers.

Y/N dropped from the cockpit, her boots crunching against the gritty surface below. She straightened, brushing sand off her hands, her mind already unraveling the mystery beneath the wreckage.

“No juice,” she called over her shoulder. Dead cells, fried circuits, a nest of corroded wiring—this thing hadn’t powered on in years.

Lee stood a few yards away, rifle slung over one shoulder in that lazy-but-ready way of his. He was watching her work, but also watching everything else.

“Controls are fried,” she continued, fingers running over the sun-bleached hull, searching. “Wiring’s a mess, but maybe we could adapt—”

“Shut up.”

Lee’s voice was sharp, cutting through her sentence like a blade. His hand came up, commanding silence. Y/N froze. Not because he had spoken—Lee was an ass, and abrupt orders weren’t new—but because of how he had said it.

His entire posture had shifted. The lazy stance was gone. His body was tight, coiled, head tilted slightly—like a wolf catching the scent of something just out of sight. Predator mode. Y/N’s stomach knotted.

“What?” she asked, voice low.

Lee didn’t answer immediately. His eyes swept the horizon, scanning the jagged rock formations, the dunes shifting lazily under the heat. The air around them felt wrong. Too still. Too heavy. Like the world itself had paused, waiting for something to happen. Y/N’s fingers drifted toward her knife, her pulse accelerating.

“Like my pistola,” Lee muttered.

Y/N frowned. He was hearing gunfire?

No—not gunfire. Something else. Before she could ask, the silence fractured. A sound—soft, metallic, deliberate. Like a latch being tested. Like steel on steel. Like someone was inside the skiff. Y/N’s grip tightened. She glanced at Lee. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod. He heard it too.

“From the ship?” she whispered.

“Maybe.” His voice was clipped, low. “Or it could be him.”

Jungkook. The name didn’t need to be spoken aloud—his presence was a constant shadow, thick and inescapable. Even when he wasn’t there, he was. A shiver traced down Y/N’s spine, but she swallowed it. Fear wouldn’t help. Answers would. Her focus snapped back to the skiff.

If she could find a serial number, a registry plate, even a manufacturer’s mark, she could start piecing this together. Where had it come from? Who left it here? And more importantly—what planet were they even on? She ran her hands over the hull, searching.

The paint was stripped, the weathering extreme, but beneath the peeling surface, she spotted a faint etching—small, almost invisible, tucked just beneath the intake vent.

Her pulse spiked. Identification markings. Y/N dropped to her knees, yanking out her multi-tool. The tip of the blade scraped carefully over the surface, clearing away grit and oxidation. There. Her brain moved fast.

“PT-221…” she whispered, deciphering the numbers as they appeared. A familiar format.

“This is a personnel transport skiff.”

Lee glanced toward her, but his focus was still half-outward, scanning the horizon. “That mean anything?”

Y/N exhaled hard, her mind racing.

“PT-series ships were manufactured in the Helion System. Specifically” —she brushed away more dirt—“On Prime. However, this one looks weird. An older model from Aguerra Prime or Earth. I'd sixty years, but there's a lot of copycat rebuilds out there. Depending on where we are, it's unlikely that anyone would leave a ship for sixty years with no plan of retrieving it.”

That meant something huge. If this skiff had been manufactured in the Helion System or any of the others that she mentioned, then it had originated from human-inhabited space. That meant they were somewhere mapped. Somewhere reachable. Which meant—they weren’t lost. Not completely.

“This is good, Lee,” she said, voice breathless with revelation. “If I can get into the onboard system—if the black box is still intact—we might be able to pull location logs. Nav data. Even a distress signal history.”

Lee wasn’t looking at her. His grip had shifted on his rifle, tighter. His jaw clenched. Y/N’s excitement fractured.

“Lee,” She barely whispered it.

He didn’t blink. His face was off. For a second, Y/N thought it was just the heat. The pale sheen on his forehead, the way his fingers flexed against the grip of his rifle—subtle signs of dehydration, maybe, or just the endless tension grinding them all down to bone. But then she really looked.

His breathing was wrong. Not labored, exactly, but uneven, like his body was reacting to something before his brain could catch up. His pupils looked a little blown, his skin too clammy for the dry heat pressing down on them. He was sweating, but not the normal kind. A slow, cold kind. Like someone had just ripped a secret out of his chest.

"Lee." Y/N’s voice dropped an octave, sharp with something she wasn’t sure she wanted to name. "What’s wrong?"

No answer. His jaw flexed. His fingers twitched, just once, against the trigger guard. Y/N’s stomach twisted. She barely had time to register it—to react, to decide if she should be worried or just pissed off—before Lee suddenly exhaled hard, shook himself like a man breaking out of a fog.

Then, just like that, his entire expression changed. The tension? Gone. The weird, distant look? Gone. He rolled his shoulders, blinked twice like shaking off a bad dream, then turned toward her with forced nonchalance.

“Sorry—what?” His voice was too normal, too casual, like he hadn’t just short-circuited mid-thought. “Say that again?”

Y/N stared at him. His breath was steadier now. His hand had relaxed on the rifle, no longer clenching like he was waiting for something to spring out of the dark.

But his skin still looked a little too pale under the sunburn. His lips pressed together too tightly. Like he knew she had clocked it. Like he was daring her to push the issue. Y/N narrowed her eyes but didn’t push. Not yet.

Instead, she rolled her eyes and turned back to the skiff. "Nothing important, Lee. Just, you know, information that might actually save our lives."

She dropped to her knees again, blade scraping against the etchings on the hull, scanning for anything else. Serial numbers, flight logs—hell, even a maintenance sticker would help. Something to tell her where the hell this thing had come from. Because if she could figure that out, then maybe she could figure out where the hell they were.

The grave site shimmered under the twin suns, the heat so thick it seemed to press against Daku’s chest with every breath. The ground cracked beneath his boots as he dragged the dead man’s body across the dirt, the sled groaning under the weight.

The sound was grating, a harsh scrape against the silence, but the world swallowed it whole. Daku was alone.

The shipwreck loomed behind him, just out of sight, the sun-tarp sagging under the oppressive weight of dead air. The shade did nothing. It just made the place feel more hollow.

He braced himself, hands on his knees, and tried to ignore the way his lungs felt like sandpaper. Sweat burned down his back, soaking into the fabric of his shirt, but he didn’t stop.

The grave wasn’t deep. Couldn’t be. The ground was fighting him, resisting every strike of the shovel like it didn’t want to give up its dead.

Then he saw it. Something in the dirt. Daku froze. Half-buried at the bottom of the shallow grave, nestled beneath the loose soil, was an opening. Not just a crack in the earth. Not a burrow. Something else. Too smooth. Too deliberate.

He knelt, breath hitching, his fingers brushing over the edges of the hole. The walls were lined with something fibrous, a texture that wasn’t quite plant, wasn’t quite animal. Dried husks, webbed together in intricate layers. Organic, but wrong.

His stomach twisted. He reached for the handlight clipped to his belt, flicking it on. The beam cut through the dark, illuminating the tunnel’s slope.

The walls reflected faintly. Not like rock, not like dirt—something else. Something that almost looked wet. Then the smell hit him. Acrid. Chemical. Like something had been burned too clean, stripped too sterile.

Daku tilted the light. The tunnel curved downward, disappearing into a place the light couldn’t reach. And then—it moved. Not the tunnel. Something inside it. A ripple. Small at first. Then again. Daku’s heart slammed against his ribs. At first, it looked like shadow, just the way the light played against the uneven walls.

But then he realized it wasn’t the light moving It was something in the dark. Something that was watching him. Then it lunged.

The edges of the burrow split apart with a wet, tearing sound. Like flesh peeling open. A tendril shot out, fast—too fast. It wrapped around Daku’s wrist, cold, slick, unnervingly strong. Panic detonated through him.

He yanked back instinctively, but the thing was stronger. Its grip tightened, pulling him toward the tunnel. Daku screamed. His free hand fumbled for his pistol, but his fingers couldn’t get a grip. The thing’s skin—if you could call it that—was slick, shifting, like oil trying to hold a shape.

Finally, his hand closed around the gun. He fired. The shot shattered the silence. The muzzle flash lit up the hole for a split second, and in that moment, Daku saw it.

Not just a tendril. Not just something reaching. A mass. It was writhing, growing, expanding from the darkness. Daku fired again, his pulse a drumbeat in his skull. The tendril spasmed, rippling like disturbed water. The grip loosened.

Back at the ship, Peter flinched so hard the toast point in his hand toppled, caviar-first, onto the dusty hull. He stared at it. Then at the horizon. Then back at the toast. Then back at the horizon. His mind scrambled for an answer that didn’t exist.

Leo’s head snapped up, boomerang held tight, his knuckles bloodless against the grip.

“That was a gunshot,” he whispered. Like they needed the reminder.

Bindi didn’t hesitate. She dropped into a crouch, war-pick in hand, her eyes locked onto the grave site. Something had happened. Something bad.

Peter scrambled down the side of the ship, his usual swagger gone.

“Tell me that wasn’t just me,” he said, voice pitched too high. “You heard it, right? I’m not going mad?”

Bindi didn’t even look at him. Her focus was all horizon, all muscle, her expression unreadable.

“Course I bloody heard it.” Her voice was clipped, sharp. “The question is, what are we gonna do about it?”

Leo swallowed hard. “That was Daku, wasn’t it?” His voice cracked. “It has to be him.”

Bindi’s head snapped toward him. “Don’t assume.” Her voice was hard, commanding, no room for argument. She rose from her crouch, grip shifting on the war-pick. “Could be anything,” she said. “Or anyone.” A beat. “We stay sharp.”

Leo’s green eyes flickered with something raw. His grip tightened.

“If it wasn’t him…” His voice was barely audible now. “…Then what?”

Peter opened his mouth, ready to quip, ready to deflect—but the look in Bindi’s eyes stopped him cold. She wasn’t joking. This was real.

He shifted uncomfortably, licking his lips, eyes darting toward the ship. “I’m just saying… maybe we think before running headlong into—” He gestured vaguely. “Whatever that was.”

Bindi cut him off.

“Stay here.” Leo flinched, but Bindi didn’t soften. “If anything moves that isn’t me or Daku,” she said, “you scream like the world’s ending.”

Peter opened his mouth again, but she was already moving, slipping toward the gravesite, war-pick held ready. Leo and Peter watched her go. The heat rippled around her, warping the horizon into something unreal.

Leo exhaled sharply, crouching beside Peter, boomerang in a death grip. “…Do you think it’s him?”

Peter didn’t answer. Didn’t blink. Didn’t breathe. His gaze was locked on the grave site. Because something was wrong. He could feel it. Finally, he swallowed, dragging a hand down his face.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. He glanced toward the horizon, his brow furrowing. “But whatever it is…” His voice dropped. “…It’s close. Too close.”

The second gunshot shattered the graveyard’s silence, the sharp crack tearing through the thick, suffocating heat. The bullet found its mark.

A tendril snapped apart in midair, black ichor spraying outward in a violent arc, sizzling where it struck the dry earth. The air reeked instantly—something acidic, chemical, a stench that clung to the back of Daku’s throat, making his eyes water.

But the thing didn’t stop. The next tendril lashed out, wrapping around his calf before he could react. Then it pulled.

Daku hit the ground hard, his back slamming against the dirt with a dull thud. His breath ripped from his lungs, the wind knocked out of him as he slid toward the gaping burrow.

The thing wasn’t just strong. It was fast. He aimed blind—fired blind, his pistol flashing bright in the gloom. The muzzle flare lit up the nightmare for half a second.

A tangle of limbs. Writhing. Folding in on itself. Not solid. Not liquid. Something in between. The bullets tore through it, but it didn’t bleed right. It shuddered—jerked, rippled like disturbed water—but the tendrils kept coming.

One sliced across his chest, razor-thin but unforgiving, carving deep into his skin. Daku gritted his teeth against the pain, his vision blurring at the edges. His free hand scrambled for purchase, fingers clawing at the dirt, but the earth beneath him was giving way.

The grave was getting deeper. Or maybe he was just getting pulled in. His boots dug into the edge, small rocks tumbling down into the void below. Daku kept shooting, kept fighting, even as his grip weakened.

Another shot. Then—something different. One bullet hit deep. Not just flesh. Something inside it. The thing jerked back for a split second, a violent convulsion rolling through its mass.

Daku felt a spark of hope. But hope never lasted long on this planet. The creature lurched forward with renewed fury, its remaining tendrils snapping around his arms, his waist, his throat.

Everything constricted at once. His lungs spasmed. His vision narrowed. The last scream he tried to release died before it even left his throat.

His gun slipped from his fingers, tumbling into the abyss. Daku was going under. The ground crumbled beneath him. His boots skidded, slipped- Then he was gone. Yanked down. Swallowed whole.

The grave collapsed inward. The dirt settled. The sled sat untouched, its cargo neatly stacked, as if nothing had happened at all.

Overhead, the twin suns burned on. Their heat didn’t care. Their light reached everywhere. Except down there.

Deep in the burrow’s black throat, something shifted. The sound was wet, sickly, like flesh being pulled apart and put back together again. The darkness pressed down, thick and suffocating, as something dragged itself deeper. The creature retreated, its tendrils folding inward, pulling Daku’s motionless body into the abyss.

Deeper. Deeper. The light from the surface faded to nothing. The planet consumed him whole. And the silence that followed was final.

The ground burned through Bindi’s boots, the heat relentless, but she didn’t feel it. She sprinted across the packed, unforgiving earth, her breath tearing from her throat in ragged gasps. The twin suns bore down, their light merciless, the air thick and smothering, clinging to her skin like a second, unwelcome layer.

The makeshift sun-tarp came into view, its edges flapping against the crooked poles, the sound barely a whisper over the thunder in her chest.

She felt it before she saw it. Something was wrong. Bindi skidded to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust. The world tilted slightly, her stomach dropping as she yanked the fabric aside—

And froze. Jungkook was standing there. Still. Silent. Waiting.

He was on the far side of the grave, body eerily relaxed, one hand hanging loosely at his side. In it, a bone-shiv. The blade gleamed faintly, catching the light in a way that shouldn’t have felt threatening—but did.

He didn’t flinch at her arrival. Didn’t step back. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, the slight tilt of his head the only indication that he even acknowledged her presence.

His goggles hid his eyes, but Bindi felt them—felt the weight of his stare like a blade against her ribs. Her gaze dropped and her lungs locked. The grave was empty.

The sled overturned, its contents scattered across the dirt like the remnants of a struggle. Blood smeared the earth, thick, dark, soaking into the fractured ground.

And at the bottom of the pit, something worse. A hole. No—a burrow.

Its edges weren’t normal, weren’t clean or mechanical or natural. The fibrous lining trembled, quivering like raw nerve endings, as if the planet itself had breathed a wound open.

Bindi’s body went cold, even as sweat stung her eyes.

She saw it then- Daku’s boot. Just the boot. Lying a few inches from the grave’s edge. Torn. Scuffed. One lace half-untied, like he’d been dragged right out of it.

Her scream tore through the air. "Daku!" Her voice broke, raw, desperate. "DAKU!" The grave swallowed the sound.

Jungkook still hadn’t moved. The silence around him was louder than her cries, pressing down like a living thing.

Bindi’s hand tightened around the war-pick, both hands now clutching it as though it could anchor her, keep her from falling into the same void. Her chest heaved, her throat aching from the scream, but her rage cut through the fear like a blade through flesh.

Her voice shook, but her fury didn’t. "What did you do?"

Jungkook tilted his head, lips barely twitching. A smirk. Or maybe not. Maybe just a reflex, something almost human, but Bindi knew better. He didn’t answer. Didn’t even acknowledge the accusation.

Her gaze snapped back to the grave—the blood, the torn earth, the quivering maw of the burrow. Something else had been here. Something alive. Something that wasn’t Jungkook.

Her breath hitched, the pieces snapping together in her mind with the speed of pure, visceral instinct. "What is down there?"

It wasn’t a question for him—it was a question for herself. Jungkook finally spoke, his voice low, measured, almost curious.

"Not me."

The words crawled under her skin. Her legs weakened. The hole at the bottom of the grave pulsed faintly. Bindi felt it. Like it was waiting.

Jungkook flicked his head toward the burrow—a gesture so small, so deliberate, it made her stomach lurch. He wasn’t explaining himself. He was telling her to look. Telling her to understand.

Her fingers tightened around the war-pick’s handle. And then—she broke. Her scream ripped from her throat, raw and violent.

"Liar!"

The word shook the air. Jungkook didn’t flinch. Didn’t argue. Didn’t deny it. He just turned. His body moved fluidly, like an animal slipping back into the shadows, a creature untouched by morality, by fear, by regret. And he walked away.

Bindi stood there, breathing hard, hands shaking, staring at the grave like it might come alive beneath her feet. It already had. And whatever had taken Daku was still there.

Waiting. Watching. Hungry. Her chest heaved, her grip white-knuckled on the war-pick. The silence returned, heavier now, an oppressive weight of knowing. And she thought, for the first time, that maybe the real question wasn’t what happened to Daku. Maybe the real question was— How much time did they have left before it came back for them too?

Jungkook ran.

His body moved like liquid through rock, weaving through the towering spires that clawed at the sky like the fossilized ribs of some ancient, long-dead colossus. The terrain twisted violently, sharp-edged canyons and jagged drops designed to kill the unskilled, but Jungkook flowed through them without hesitation. Every step was measured, every movement deliberate, his muscles adjusting instinctively to the unpredictable ground beneath him.

The planet breathed heat and silence, thick and watchful, as if the land itself was waiting for the inevitable collision between predator and prey.

The boots behind him never stopped. Lee was close. His footsteps were methodical, unhurried despite the speed, a hunter keeping his quarry exactly where he wanted it. Then—

CRACK.

A gunshot split the air, shattering the fragile quiet. Jungkook felt it before he registered the pain—a sharp, white-hot kiss slicing across his shoulder. The impact sent him off balance, his body crashing into the ground in a violent sprawl.

Dust exploded around him, thick and blinding. He tumbled, skidding hard, his skin tearing against the brutal terrain. His lungs seized, inhaling grit as his momentum carried him forward—too fast, too out of control—until his body came to a bone-rattling stop.

Jungkook braced, muscles tensed to spring back up, keep moving, keep running— He never got the chance.

A boot slammed onto the back of his neck. Hard. Hard enough to rattle his teeth. The force drove him down, his face pressing into the burning dirt, the rough grit scraping against his cheek. His fingers twitched, instinct clawing at his spine, screaming at him to fight, fight, fight, but the weight was unrelenting.

Lee. Jungkook didn’t need to look. Didn’t need to see the satisfied smirk he knew was on the bastard’s face. Didn’t need to hear his smug, infuriating drawl to know exactly what was coming next.

“Same crap, different planet, huh?”

Jungkook’s breath came shallow and steady, his muscles coiled like a trap waiting to spring. The heat of the twin suns pressed against his exposed skin, but it wasn’t what burned.

Lee leaned in, his boot grinding just a little harder against Jungkook’s spine. “You’re fast. I’ll give you that.” A casual chuckle, like they were discussing the weather and not locked in a decades-long, vicious game of hunt-or-be-hunted. “But you should’ve figured it out by now—” He bent closer, his breath warm against the back of Jungkook’s neck. “You can’t outrun me.”

Jungkook’s jaw clenched, his breath still even, controlled. Lee wasn’t invincible. No one was.

Lee shifted slightly, his shotgun gleaming in the sunlight, still pointed directly at Jungkook’s skull. “I’ll admit,” he continued, his voice dropping to something almost amused, “for a second there, you almost had me. Thought you might actually make it.” A pause. A beat of silence, stretching taut. “But here we are.” Lee sighed dramatically, pressing just a little more weight into his hold. “Same story, different setting.”

Jungkook’s fingers twitched against the dirt. His mind moved faster than his body, calculating every shift in weight, every possible angle to escape. Lee was underestimating him. Not enough to be careless—not yet—but enough to assume this was over.

Jungkook tested the pressure against his neck, shifting just slightly. Lee noticed. The boot pressed down. Hard.

“Don’t,” Lee warned, voice dropping into a growl.

Jungkook exhaled slowly, forcing his body to still, to wait, to let Lee think he’d won. His lips twitched. A fraction of a smile. Lee’s grip on the gun tightened, the movement subtle—a hunter sensing the shift in the air, the moment before a predator strikes.

He leaned down, close enough that Jungkook could feel the smirk in his voice. “Go on,” he whispered. His breath was warm. His tone was taunting. “Try something. I dare you.”

Jungkook’s body went still. Too still. The silence stretched unnatural and tight, buzzing with something unspoken, unreadable. Lee frowned slightly. Jungkook smiled.

By the time Y/N and the Chrislams stumbled back into the settlement, the twin suns hung low and merciless, stretching shadows across the cracked earth like skeletal fingers reaching for something they could never quite grasp.

And then she saw him. Jungkook. Sprawled in the dirt. His wrists shackled, his body wrecked.

One lens of his goggles was shattered, exposing the swollen ruin of his right eye, a bruise blooming deep and dark beneath the glass. Blood caked his face, dried in jagged streaks along his jaw, pooling at the corner of his split lip. His chest rose and fell in slow, controlled breaths—the kind that meant he was keeping himself from making a sound, from showing weakness.

The dirt beneath him was stained with sweat and blood, mixing into the dust like he was being absorbed into the planet itself. And standing over him, fists still trembling, was Lee.

His knuckles were raw, his breathing sharp, his entire body locked tight like a spring stretched too far, too long. He wasn’t gloating. He wasn’t even speaking. Just watching. Waiting. Y/N felt the violence in the air before she heard it.

Lee’s voice came low and razor-sharp. "I don’t play that." His fists clenched again, his jaw tightening like he was holding himself together through sheer force of will. "I don’t play that, so just try again." His breath was heavy, sharp, every word weighted with rage barely kept in check. “C’mon, Jungkook. Tell me a better lie.”

Y/N moved without thinking. She grabbed Lee’s arm, yanking him back hard. "Ease up!" she snapped, her voice slicing through the oppressive silence. The moment her hand connected, she felt how hot he was—burning with anger, with exertion. His pulse hammered beneath his skin, barely contained.

Lee didn’t turn to her. Didn’t move. And then—Bindi screamed. It was raw, guttural, the kind of sound that didn’t just come from the throat—it came from the bones, from the marrow, from something breaking inside.

She lunged.

Her fist hit Jungkook’s jaw so hard his head snapped sideways, blood spattering from his already-battered lip. His body didn’t even flinch, like he had already been beaten past the point of feeling it. Y/N reacted instantly, throwing herself between them, shoving Bindi back with both hands.

“Bindi! Stop!” she shouted, struggling to hold her back.

Bindi fought against her grip, her whole body shaking, tears streaking clean paths through the dirt on her face.

"You bloody sick animal!" she screamed, her voice splintering. "What’dja do with my Daku?"

Jungkook didn’t answer. Didn’t even lift his head. His expression was eerily blank, his face tilted just enough that one shattered lens reflected the fading light like a dying star. Y/N’s heart slammed against her ribs.

She turned to Lee, eyes blazing. “Where’s Daku?” she demanded. “What the hell happened out here?”

Lee finally looked at her. His expression was unreadable—too tight, too locked down. His fists unclenched slowly, like it was taking all his effort not to hit something else. With a sharp nod, he gestured toward Jungkook.

“Ask him.”

Y/N dropped to a crouch beside Jungkook, her voice shifting—softer, but no less urgent.

“Jungkook,” she said, staring at the wreck of his face, at the mess of blood and sweat and silence. “What happened to Daku?”

For a moment, he didn’t move. His chest rose and fell, slow and even, like he was holding on to the only thing he could still control. Then, finally—he lifted his head. His cracked lips parted. But all that came out was a rasping sound. Low. Broken. Like the faint whisper of someone who had screamed themselves hoarse.

His eyes flicked to the horizon. To the jagged spires looming in the distance. Then back to her. His lips moved again. A single word, barely audible.

"Gone."

The world tilted. Bindi let out a choked sob, her legs buckling as she sank to the dirt. Lee’s jaw locked, his knuckles going white as his fingers tightened on the stock of his rifle. Y/N’s stomach plummeted. The weight of Jungkook’s answer pressed down on all of them, thick as smoke, suffocating.

She swallowed hard. Forced the words out. "Gone where? What do you mean gone?"

But Jungkook didn’t answer. His head tipped forward, his chin resting against his chest, his entire body folding in on itself like the fight had finally bled out. Like there was nothing left. Like he had already decided—whatever happened next wasn’t up to him anymore.

Y/N and Lee stood at the edge of the grave, their shadows stretching long over the ruined earth. The silence between them was thick, suffocating, the kind that only came after something had gone horribly, irreversibly wrong.

The scene was a crime scene without a body, a massacre without a corpse. Blood streaked the dirt in wild, erratic patterns, like the desperate brushstrokes of a painter losing control. The grave itself was a wreck, its edges collapsed inward, as if the ground had been alive when it happened, twisting, convulsing, devouring.

Nearby, Daku’s sled lay overturned, its contents scattered across the dirt—a mess of supplies, tangled cables, a crushed water jug. A single boot, scuffed and worn, sat half-buried in the dust, the laces flapping lazily in the wind. But Daku was gone.

Not a body. Not a single trace of him. Just this. This wreckage of struggle and silence. At the bottom of the grave, the hole yawned open, its edges lined with something fibrous and strange, something that looked almost… organic. It pulsed faintly in the breeze, like the twitch of a dying thing.

Y/N swallowed hard. It didn’t look natural. Nothing about this looked natural.

Beside her, Lee crouched, his sharp eyes scanning the ground like he was reading a language only he understood. In his hands, the bone-shiv gleamed, its smooth, curved edge catching the last slivers of dying sunlight. He turned it slowly, letting the light skim its surface, watching how it reflected in sharp, fleeting flashes.

Y/N’s stomach twisted. “He used that?” she asked, her voice low but tight. She didn’t know what answer she wanted.

Lee didn’t look up. Just kept turning the shiv over, like it was some kind of sacred artifact. “Sir Shiv-a-Lot,” he muttered, dry and detached. “He likes to cut.”

The words settled like poison in her gut.

“So why isn’t it bloody?” she pressed, her voice sharper now, her eyes flicking between the blade and Lee’s unreadable face. “If Jungkook did this—if he killed Daku—then where’s the blood?”

Finally, Lee looked at her. A faint smirk tugged at his mouth, but there was no humor in it—just something cold and bitter, something dark sitting behind his eyes.

“Maybe he licked it clean.”

The joke hit like a slap. Unwanted. Cruel. Y/N recoiled slightly, shaking her head as if trying to dislodge the thought. She turned away from the grave, her arms crossing tightly over her chest, her breath uneven. The wind picked up, whipping dust around them, as if the planet itself was shifting, restless.

“This doesn’t make sense,” she muttered, her voice nearly swallowed by the wind. “None of this does.”

Lee stood, brushing the dirt from his hands, slipping the shiv into his belt. He glanced down at the grave one last time, his expression unreadable, his eyes dark.

“It’s not supposed to make sense,” he said, his tone flat, emotionless. He turned to her, his silhouette washed out against the light. “It’s just supposed to scare the hell out of you.”

The cabin felt too small. Too damn small. The walls creaked, thick with heat and the weight of unspoken things. The air reeked of sweat, blood, and the faint, metallic tang of rusted iron—or maybe that was just him.

Jungkook was slumped against the wall, his shackled hands resting lazily in his lap. His dark hair was damp with sweat, half-hiding the wreck of his face. One lens of his goggles was shattered, exposing a swollen eye already blooming in shades of deep purple and red. Blood stained the cut of his jaw, a slow, sluggish trickle from his split lip. He looked like hell.

But he looked at her. And that was what made Y/N hesitate for half a breath too long. She stormed in, boots hitting the floor hard enough to rattle the metal beneath them. She was pissed. But more than that—she wanted answers.

“Where is he?” she demanded, her voice cutting through the thick, suffocating air.

Jungkook didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His chest rose and fell in slow, measured breaths, but his stillness was a lie. The tension was there, coiled beneath the surface like a blade waiting to strike.

“I’m serious,” she pressed, stepping closer, her fists clenching. “You told them you heard something right before it happened. What was it?” Her jaw tightened. “Talk, or I’ll let Lee finish what he started.”

Something dark flickered across Jungkook’s face—a twitch of amusement, a shadow of something cruel. And then, in a voice roughened by exhaustion and something else, something deeper, he rasped,

“You mean the whispers?”

Y/N frowned. “What whispers?”

Jungkook’s busted lip curled into something feral. Dangerous. Amused.

“The ones that tell you where to cut,” he murmured. His voice was so casual it made her skin crawl. “Left of the spine. Fourth lumbar down. That’s the sweet spot.” He smiled, slow and lazy, like a man reciting a bedtime story. “Gusher. Every time.”

Her stomach twisted, but she didn’t look away. Didn’t let him see that he’d rattled her. Because that’s what he wanted.

“Stop it,” she snapped. “Just stop.”

Jungkook didn’t. He leaned his head back against the wall, eyes half-lidded like this was all one big joke. “Metallic taste, you know.” His voice was silk stretched thin over barbed wire. “Human blood. Coppery. But add a little peppermint schnapps…” He dragged his tongue over his split lip, smirking when her expression didn’t change. “Almost palatable.”

Y/N clenched her teeth. She could feel the heat radiating off him, could smell the sweat and iron on his skin. He was playing with her. She wasn’t in the mood.

“Why don’t we skip the theatrics and try the truth?” she said coldly.

For a moment, Jungkook just watched her. His smirk softened—not gone, but different now. Something quieter. Something that almost looked like… regret.

“You’re all so scared of me,” he said softly. “Most days, I’d call that a compliment.” His voice was low, nearly lost to the hum of the ship. “But today…” His jaw ticked, his fingers flexing against the cuffs around his wrists. “Today, I’m not the monster you need to be worried about.”

Something in her chest pulled tight.

She took a step closer. “Take off the goggles.”

Jungkook went still. “No.”

Y/N didn’t wait for permission. She reached out and yanked them from his face, snapping the broken strap with a sharp crack. The goggles hit the floor.

Jungkook flinched, like she’d stripped away something vital. Then his eyes opened. Y/N froze.

His pupils were wide, swallowing the dim light. But it was the color that stopped her breath. A ring of shifting hues, flickering between deep emerald and burning amethyst, like oil-slicked glass catching fire. It was mesmerizing. Unnatural. Beautiful.

Her voice came out lower than she expected. “You did this to yourself?”

Jungkook let out a bitter laugh. “Slam doctor.” He tilted his head. “That’s what we called him.”

Y/N nodded. “I’ve heard about it. Never seen it.”

“Lucky you.”

His lips curled, but the smirk didn’t reach those strange, hypnotic eyes. “You’re locked in max-slam. Barely any light. Your eyes feel like they’re burning out of your skull.” He flicked a glance toward the slats of light bleeding through the metal walls. “Some back-alley butcher says, ‘Hey, I can fix that.’” His voice dropped, mocking. “And then you end up here. Three suns frying you alive. Makes you wish for the dark.”

Y/N folded her arms. “You think this is funny?”

Jungkook’s smirk sharpened. “You gotta laugh, sweetheart. Otherwise, you cry. And crying makes you thirsty.” He tapped his temple with one shackled finger. “Pro tip for desert living.”

Y/N let out a slow breath. “You killed before. You don’t deny that. But this one? Daku? You expect me to believe you didn’t?”

Jungkook went still. For a fraction of a second, something cracked in his expression. Then, it was gone—buried beneath that infuriating smirk.

“No, ma’am,” he said smoothly. “Not this time.”

Y/N narrowed her eyes. “Then where is he?”

Jungkook leaned forward, just enough for the heat between them to become noticeable. The chains at his wrists rattled softly, but his focus was all on her. “Look deeper,” he murmured.

The way he said it—low, deliberate, dripping with something she didn’t like—sent a cold, involuntary shiver down her spine.

“What does that mean?” she demanded.

Jungkook didn’t answer immediately. He tilted his head, studying her like he was measuring how much she could take before she broke. And then, in a voice barely above a whisper—a voice that sent her stomach twisting with something she didn’t want to name—he said, “Wrong questions.”

She swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

Jungkook sat back, his expression unreadable. Deadly.

“Daku ain’t the only one who’s not where he’s supposed to be,” he said softly. “Or haven’t you noticed?”

A chill slid down her spine. His words settled in her chest like a loaded gun.

Y/N’s breath hitched. “What are you saying?”

Jungkook tilted his head, his bruised lips curling slightly. “You’ll see.” His voice was calm, certain, almost amused. And then—softer, darker, almost like a promise: “And when you do? You’ll wish you hadn’t.”

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