#His mother was loving with her attempts to help him even if those methods hurt more than they help

[astro-b-o-y-d]

I see people claiming that 'Oh Bill had loving parents that just went about trying to help him with his mutation, only to do it very badly'. And while I could see that to some degree, I think back to Alex saying his relationship with his family was worse than Stan's relationship with HIS family.

And I add that to the fact that we got a loving lullaby from his mother in the website stuff and very little about his father outside of a name and color and...Hmm.

[wolfik128]

Yeah I’m jumping on the self-insert OC train, and nobody can stop me!

source:picrew

(Her left eye should be covered btw)

(This is also my sona I’ve been perfecting over 13 years, fyi. Also I have lore about the world/universe she’s originally from planned so lmk if you’re interested)

Her name is Aura and she’s a prop/set maker and poster artist, she started working for Owen after seeing a help seeking pamphlet in her school, so she’s a sort of apprentice at the studio. She also somehow managed to befriend Owen by doing the smallest things she wasn’t even aware of doing.

Anyway here are some headcanons/story events I have for her: (WARNING SOME DARK STUFF AHEAD)

General stuff: *Full name: Aurora Katherine MaxWolf

*Nicknames: Aura; Wolfi; Chief; Boss

*Sexuality: Bisexual

*19-20 years old *Female *Werecat; pureblood *Abilities: Shapeshifting abilities, force fields, can borrow and use powers of other Guardians *Appearance: Very thin; 1'74 meters tall with light tan, almost pale fur (pale skin underneath); sporting cat ears and cat tail (used for expressing herself, tail is also used for balancing, grabbing things); teal eyes (pupils can change depending on mood); long wavy pink hair (covering left portion of her face - there are three scars [classmate's attack]) *Personality: moody, depressive, closed into herself, distrustful, manic, borderline psychopath, heavy parental issues, self-hate, former self-harmer, shattered confidence, high expectations of herself, severe anxiety and panic attack issues, abandonment issues, sees herself as failure; extremely protective, witty, snarky, sarcastic, has incredibly dark humor, highly caring and affectionate; displays cat-like behavior; her patience varies on her temper; severe PTSD and disociative disorder (mainly during violent events she was part of) *Spirit animal: Raptor (Buddy - mixture of multiple raptor species - velociraptor, pyroraptor, Utahraptor, and some unidentifiable others) - she uses body motions and jerking as a communication method when commanding him

*Family: (blood related) - Eric Eastwool (father, hate - hate relationship, banned her from Andara, multiple attempts at killing her) - Larianna Eastwool (mother, toxic relationship, always takes Eric's side) - Matthew Eastwool-MaxWolf (older brother, great relationship, uses him as a mental support, normal sibling bickering) - Madelaine Eastwool-MaxWolf (oldest sister, rather distant [lives on Andara with their parents], took care of Aura when younger) - Johanna MaxWolf (maternal grandmother, excellent relationship, Aura stayed with her before exile, former Order member) - Henry MaxWolf (maternal grandfather, unknown relationship, founder of the first Guardians, killed by Eric) - Mimi Eastwool (aunt, hates her niece, seeing Aura hurt brings her joy) - Lillianna Eastwool (younger cousin, despises Aura)

*Her family banned her from the universe she came from, also they disowned her, hence why her last name isn’t Eastwool.

*Her father also sent his servants to kill her on several occasions, which resulted in her reoccuring nightmares.

*She tells everyone she was ‘raised by raptors’ which is true: When she was three her father took her to a deep jungle and left her there to either starve or die by thirst. She would if it wasn’t for Alistair, a leader of raptor pack, finding her and taking her in as a member of said pack.

*She’s quite tall, but she appears small thanks to almost everyone else in the pack being taller than her

*Has her own lab

*Despite being a shapeshifter she owns tons of contact lenses (she can't change the form of her pupil) *She's never seen in public without a black top hat *Loves to wear laced fingerless gloves (owns a ton of those in various colors to match with her clothing) *Loves to switch appearance every few minutes to fuck with people's sanity *Swears profusely

*Her favorite drink is  Piña Colada

*Former medicine student, she switched to art school during her third year due to personal issues

*Takes Buddy for a ride several days a week *Enjoys high places (still has a fear of falling from them thou) *Often uses vents to get to places *Uses vents to steal belongins and provoke others *Part of the science Trio (Johnny - Math; Martine - Physics; Aura - Chemistry) *Master in hide-n-seek *Loves to play paintball *Master in cards (got nicknamed - Golden Paw) *Caffeine addict *Horror movie fanatic (uses them to make herself believe her past was somewhat decent), can stand far more nasty stuff than her packmates combined, despite her soft appearance **Has strange respect/is enticed to dangerous chemicals and poisons *Is imune to venoms *Fireproof fur *Has a build-in secret lair connected to her lab, leading down below the surface

[A/N: her parental issues aren’t something that happened to me, I projected her mental struggles and abandonment issues on her thou]

Hello Puppets:

(I may actually write a fanfic, or bunch of oneshots about those in the future, also heads up for some more mature things below!)

(before the fire/cursed book/puppets being evil murderers) *Aura starts working in the studio as a prompts/set painter as a part time job for school *It was either this or a film festival and she totally didn't want to deal with her classmates 24/7 *She and Owen actually got together quite well, Aura being the heavy parental issues, depressed, kind soul she often saw Owen's point, and, considered as a miracle by others, he actually listened and took her advice from time to time *She always loved creating Riley's sets the most (since she could literally based them on her own lab) *Owen let her handle Rosco on several occasions (he even offered her to play Riley once, but she refused "I don't have the right voice, it'd sound weird") *While playing Rosco, Aura often imitated her own big pet, Buddy (a strange raptor breed mixture) and his dog-like behavior. Making Owen happy he doesn't have to correct her on anything *She once took Buddy into the studio, everyone were more concerned about how the hell did a raptor actually get in instead of yelling in panic that a dangerous animal was around (the kids loved and adored him thou) *Due to her rather scary appearance (okay not that scary, but her scars across the left half of her face, her teal eyes that can glow in dark and changing pupils [from oval cat like to snake-like ones depending on her mood], plus her very thin very tall built, cat ears, tail and really sharp teeth, not to mention her sharp claws that can unsheath anytime she gets annoyed) the higher ups persuade her to work backstage and mostly overnight to not traumatize children *Her teacher once came in to check on her, she criticized the set piece Aura was working on calling it 'unrealistic' 'dull' and 'bland', Owen quickly shouted at her, practically banning her from visiting Aura ever again *Aura didn't bother explain to her she made them by using her own lab as an inspiration *She uses her shapeshifting abilities to fuck with the higher ups by changing appearance and then walk around the building (she even tried looking like a living version of Riley and Daisy, prompting Owen to take a picture of her while holding the puppets close as a comparison) *She definitely snuck apple cider can into her workspace (she fused it with hidden part of her lab), on more than one occasion

(making puppet adult movies) *Her classmate once wanted to impress a girl he liked by filming a special adult movie for her, so Aura was persuaded to sneak them in after closing hours to quickly film it (five people - Mark, Smokie, Nayu, Lenny and Maki) to "make a final project for photographic lessons" *She let herself be sold for a two bottles of rum, one of egg-nog and two of vodka (which she definitely drink almost immediately to forget everything, mixing it together) "If Owen finds out I'm taking you all down with me!" *At first they forced her to play Riley ("You're always the one with science shit!"), she couldn't do a line without breaking into crazy fits of laughter "I'll film you ruining my childhood" and she picked up the camera, switching with Maki *She threw things at her classmates that night ("Shit that was my shoe!" "Fuck that's my phone!") *Lenny smacked her with Riley once, accidentally breaking the puppet's lower jaw *Aura had to repair her, spending half an hour on just assembling everything together *Much to her dismay Smokie wanted to make a video of Riley and Rosco too (she filmed it with half closed eyes to not burst into laughter) *By some miracle they actually passed the class, Aura's brother, the pack, their family (and later the gang) won't let her live that down after finding out about it

(book/strange events/puppets coming alive) *Despite her being a magical creature (teleporting around the place, using her psychic powers to move objects around, stopping people from tripping/hurting themselves by creating a soft force fields to catch them, etc.) Owen never told her about the book *She was working that night, feeling strange tingling in the air *She couldn't blame it on alcohol since she forgot to bring some *After recognizing it as a spell used wrong, something pounced on her before she could go investigate *Unlike the rest of the abducted people, she puts up a lot of fight, causing Riley to having Daisy smack her over head by a heavy pan *Thanks to her werecat genetics, and strong psychic powers, she remained completely conscious during everything, much to her puppet's dismay (twitching fingers, sliding away from the table) *Blame it on karma but she ended up having Riley stitched to her, which definitely didn't start well, escalating with Aura poking the red-head into one eye (she changed them each time just to spite her), anytime she found her getting on her nerves *She called Riley "Teenage daughter in denial." During their first run-in with Owen, ("Aura?! Is that you?" "Yes your ginger-haired daughter took me hostage." "He's not my father!") *She got onto Mortimer's nerves for not letting Riley do as he ordered *The psychic link maybe didn't steal her mind, but it definitely gave Riley the ability to read her mind ("Your thoughts disgust me." "Well get the fuck out of my head then, I didn't invite you in!") as well as switching consciousness between the two of them *From that moment on Aura always thought about anything disgusting (usually awful horror movie scene/or that fucking puppet porn) to keep Riley out of her mind (scarring them both) *Riley definitely switched into Aura's body on several occasions while the werecat refused to hunt down Owen, the scientist didn't realize Aura's body had a tail and she tripped over it countless times, falling down, resulting in Aura almost choking with laughter ("Shut up!") *At the end of the night Aura, who somehow took control over Riley after Owen tried to escape, berated Owen for being a moron to use the book without him consulting it with her first ("I'm using magic all the time, I'd definitely helped you.") *She offered to help him put things into correct state, definitely earning quite a glare from the mad scientist ("Sorry, you're too adorable and I've got worse ones cast my way from my father.") *Turns out the book is an ancient relic from Andara (a central universe Aura and the rest came from) written by purebloods so only Aura - the last remaining living pureblooded creature can actually read and use it correctly *She takes away the twisted/dark sides of the puppets, leaving them alive, but demanding for the people to be let free *How did she manage to do that? Easy taking a bottle (a strange teflon bottle) from her bag, she summoned a large, sturdy, mahogany log of wood, poured the liquid onto it, and forced every puppet to watch how the wood desintegrated within a minute ("Now that is what is gonna happen to anyone that steps out of line, I'm looking at you Mortimer!") *Owen had to practically drag her away (not trusting Riley to take over her body) *She makes a promise to Owen and the rest of the gang to permanently turn them into living things by the next week *She also promised to keep working at the studio despite everything that went down that night *She left that day, taking Riley with her (her ears rang by the time she arrived at the Tower, from the constant complaints/questions/or even simple facts) *During the walk home (Aura was really exhausted to simply create a portal) Riley switched minds with Aura multiple times (trying to get walking done right) ending in always falling on the pavement, landing face down, ("Riles, stop it! I'm too tired to laugh anymore!") *Riley absolutely fell in love with Buddy upon first sight, demanding Aura to explain how the actual fuck did she get a real, living raptor *Buddy was acting like a dog, being very excited having Aura back home (reminding Riley of Rosco) *She also made Aura promise to bring Rosco to life too *Aura fell asleep with Riley cuddling Buddy who just watched in confusion, while Aura stroked him *Sly sneaked into Aura's living room that night (as the defacto leader she has solo kitchen, bathroom, livingroom flat on the top of the tower along with her room) taking a picture of them *She sends it to Aura on every Mother's day making her to re-send it to Riley ("Your first mother-daughter moment!")

(week of dealing with Riley) *Riley, in Aura's body, definitely tripped over the tail more than once, resulting in falling down the stairs and almost breaking the glass door leading to the lab (again) *Martine banned both of them from entering for the week, ("Dealing with this whole mess is enough, I do not need another variable!") "It's just a week how hard that can be?" (absolutely fucking difficult when you got a  mad scientist stitched to your hand) *It all started easily enough, Aura explaining the situation to everyone, while keeping Riley mentally on check *Matthew and the rest of the pack then proceeded making dirty comments all the time ("Could you three stop already?! We're trying to eat here!") *Simon kept avoiding Aura all the time, ("I'm not dealing with a fucking Chucky clone!") "Why do you keep wearing that hat, and what's with the gloves and a collar are you a part dog or something?" "It's my image! I'm not questioning your style of clothes so you shouldn't question mine!" *Problems started when Aura returned to school, after explaining everything, she got week free from her studio work, ("Yeah evil voodoo spell, no I'm not insane, not that much and I'm definitely sober. Yes it is stitched onto my hand I can't take her off." "No, she's usually nice, you're just pissing her off. Yes I have to have her there, I can't remove her without amputating my arm." "No, don't worry she won't disturb the lessons, I'll make sure of that." [definitely Aura didn't plan ahead when saying that]) to her head teacher, headmaster and her classmates, she thought it was all finally going to be calm, Riley had other ideas "Why didn't you tell me your class was filled with morons and idiots?! Is there anyone else besides you with more than a single brain cell?!" (Maki wasn't present on the first lesson that morning) "Just my luck I'm bound to a single being with more than one brain cell." (Aura's got like eleven or ten and half, Maki has like six, but she kept quiet, enjoying Riley's dissing everyone else) "You call this a math book?!" (points to an almost empty sketchbook filled with doodles) "Yes." "Don't you dare to smack me against anything!" *During P.E Riley definitely switched consciousness with Aura on more than one occasion, resulting in the werecat taking the hits instead ("I warned you.") *They both, by some miracle, completely decimated the whole class in dodgeball *Also Riley finally learned how to control Aura's tail while in her body, (she still couldn't walk thou) "Can someone get me a ductape? I'm really losing it!" (Lenny after Riley completely proved her wrong during an argument, Aura just sat there, facepalming the whole time) "Hah! And you thought Maki and I were exhauting to listen to?!" (Aura totally received a slap from Riley after that) *Aura and Riley were definitely acing all the knowledge tests (except Art history, "Why the fuck a subject like that exist?!" "Stop complaining you don't have to pass final exam from this." "They're making you take a final test from this?!", Aura still got an A, somehow) *Also they both were polite at first (the first five minutes), only having a silent conversations between themselves (it was broken by the time Lenny and the rest of her crew arrived, "Oh shit what is that?!" "A puppet? Look I've already explained it like four times so just ask around." "Is it alive? It looks dumb." "Watch it blonde-meatsack!" "Riley!!") *Aura was sitting alone in front row (no one wanted to deal with her while Riley was present, not after Lenny got the first taste of Riley's bad temper) *Riley then totally proceeded to yell at Smokie (sitting behind them, always asking Aura some questions, usually about something stupid), spilling everything she found in Aura's mind (some stuff was pretty nasty, but she totally [not] skipped these parts) to the rest of the class "I swear she didn't get it from me!" *Aura then proceeded to sit with Maki the following days (Riley actually started to like her, for having some brain cells) *Things really got wild after Riley 'met' Aura's former teacher who casually insulted (like she usually does and did back at the studio) Aura's work both of them (yep Riley finally learned how to walk in Aura's body, took only feeew falls down the stairs) worked for two hours ("It's plain, it lacks anything interesting, you didn't do anything with the promt given to you.") *It took Aura's entire energy supply to decline Riley getting into her mind again and beating the teacher up ("I'm not letting myself get into trouble because of you!") *It didn't stop the puppet for snapping at her thou, ("Sorry, I can't control what she says."), making everyone stare at Aura *Riley proceeded to talk back to almost everyone *The only ones who didn't received Riley's (rather harsh) feedback were Aura's head teacher and Maki (and Natty, but Riley never interacted with her) *Lenny that week learned many new words to insult people with (Riley practically worded Aura's thoughts out loud, but the werecat won't admit it in the slightest) *Yeah by the end every teacher required Aura to tape Riley's mouth or keep her in check, even her classmates prefered it *By the end of the week Aura was actually talking only with Maki, Terri and Riley in her mind *Aura and Riley got really close by the end, Aura calling Riley 'mom' once ("I know mom, stop worrying." came reply after Aura's body accidentally slipped and almost fell off a ladder) by pure irony *Didn't stop the scientist replying with "I can't help it, honey." Making Aura chuckle *At that point Aura didn't have a single idea that Riley definitely started to see her as one "I'm really fucking surprised my sanity survived this."

(end of the week/ before the fire) *As promised Aura helped Owen bring the  puppets to life *She turned them into humans ("Wait, you meant like a living puppet creature things, my bad. Do you...do you want me to undo it?" "No, this is...actually a way better. They can move by themselves now.") *After that, with Buddy's help (who surprised everyone except Owen and Riley, "He's bigger than Rosco!") Aura gently brought Rosco to them, Buddy helping, before turning him into a living dog (she used most of her energy, he was almost the same size as Buddy) *She had to use Riley and Buddy for support to not fall for a while "I made a promise to Riles." She explained afterwards ("Stop with the nickname!") *Afterwards Aura bid everyone farewell, promising to be back after weekend ("Don't you want to stay overnight? Or I could take you home." "Sorry, thanks for the offer, but I already promised Buddy I'll take him for a ride once we've finished here. Poor boy was upset all week because I couldn't take him for wild rides with Riley attached to me. Let alone fly and soar up above." "He can FLY?!") *Rosco and Buddy quickly became best buddies that evening *Aura stayed for few hours, explaining everything (and threatening Mortimer to give her the book back) *She also didn't want to leave Riley behind that soon, but she'd never admit it

(the fire)

*It wasn't entirely Riley's lab accident that started it (altough she definitely made the fire accelerate by having almost all her chemicals - she made Aura pour some of hers away and bring them to her, close by)

*She was distracted by thinking about a certain werecat, while Rosco was playing with a ball nearby

*She totally won't admit she missed being near Aura already

*Daisy accidentally left her oven turned on with a wooden rolling pin on it (she thought it was turned off in her defense)

*The two fires quickly spread across the studio (thanks to Nick's oil paintings scaterred around)

*After Owen (who fell asleep in his office after talking/playing cards with Mortimer and the rest) Aura arrived first "Sometimes I put some dangerous substances in my bag and forget to take them out at the lab, so I make a fire detecting devices I leave in my workspaces in case of emergencies." She explained making sure Riley wasn't nearby to hear

*Riley of course heard her thanks to the psychic link (screw you strange voodoo mind link!)

*Aura never heard the end of it ("So irresponsible! I can't believe you'd do something like that! Do you have any bit of idea what safety measures means?!")

*Buddy practically had to drag Mortimer, Daisy and Nick out before the fire got them

*Rosco dragged Riley out despite her protests ("Aura's still inside!")

*Buddy also saved Scout from the flames (the only felt puppet that wasn't burned)

*With combined work they managed to put the flames out (Aura staying behind to secure the place leaving Buddy to restlessly pace in front of the inferno while Riley was nibbling on her nails)

*Aura, much to everyone's shock, came out ten minutes later, dragging some things she managed to save, covered in soot, but completely unharmed ("It's the fur, it's fireproof for some reason, no one's sure why or how that came to be, but it's definitely handy. It's probably genetic or my shapeshifting evolved into survival skill, or karma wanted to make something nice for me since my brother is some kind of fire elemental.")

*She imediately changed Scout into human as well

*Daisy then proceeded to almost adopt Scout, much to Riley's surprise ("Hey, how come you're the one being the only one who's able to adopt her?!" "Because I'm kind, motherly, loving and you already have Aura." "What?!")

"Because Daisy is nice and not a screeching harpy unlike someone." (Yeah Nick had to jump away to dodge one of Aura's posters being thrown his way)

"I spent hours and most of my sanity on this. I'm not leaving it to burn here until I beat my teacher's head with it."

*Riley totally pulled Aura into tight hug before lecturing her how 'reckless' 'stupid' and 'incredibly insane' she is ("You could've killed yourself!" "I just told you that's impossible!")

*Aura promised to help repair the studio, "I'll bring my brother and Mikey to help fix this. I'd blackmail Simon into it too, but he's...kinda creeped out by this whole ordeal."

*She offered everyone a place to stay (the Tower, "Hey it's big enough. And I'm sure there's enough space for five (six) more.")

"Stop in the office building by ten."

(coming to live with Aura and the others) *Riley was surprised as hell at the similarities between the set props and Aura's actual lab ("I used my lab as an inspiration while working on the sets.") *Simon almost got a heart attack after coming to the workspace (their little office like setting the pack resides at) and seeing the four puppets (and Rosco) there "So it wasn't some crazy fever dream." *Director Fury offered Riley spot on Aura's research team and in her laboratory ("We could use some more mature person to monitor those three.") *Martine wasn't happy with that decision, ("We're already dealing with one reincarnation of a fucking Mengele and you want us to take in another one?!") *Anyways despite Martine's snarky grumbles, Riley was given the spot *Aura started to regret it imediately after entering the lab, Johnny meeting her on the stairs "What is this mess?!" (what followed was a ten minutes explanation about what happened earlier, and that it's always this way) *Riley practically bans Aura from doing anything around her own lab ("You're not touching anything until you've put a lab coat on, missy!" "You can't order me aroung here, it's my lab!") *Despite her protests and arguments Aura was forced to put on her lab coat *Riley joins Martine in teasing Johnny and Aura about their relationship (they're close friends, really close friends, Johnny dates Lana and Aura friendzoned him so he wouldn't get hurt by her broken psyche; Martine doesn't believe them a bit) *Rosco and Buddy cuddle on the floor/in Buddy's soft bed *Meanwhile the rest (Nick, Daisy and Mortimer) meet rest of the pack, and several other people working there *Sly is practically overjoyed upon meeting them *Simon almost jumps out of window upon seeing them *Owen hangs around too, just waiting for Aura to finish the lab tour (He, Mortimer and Jack play cards for a bit, Mortimer and Jack cheating) *Jack totally calls dibs on Mortimer being his card-buddy *Buddy and Rosco starts to play together, accidentally knocking over metal shelves, uncovering a hidden passage behind it *Riley definitely explores it, arriving in Aura's secret lair ("What is this?" "A place I go to when I want to be alone.") *Aura imediately has to explain the layout, while making sure all the traps are deactivated as Rosco runs around curiously, Buddy joined in momentarily just to watch out for him "Just don't open any metal boxes, there's small doze of plutonium in each." *Riley proceeded to call the dibs on working with Aura down there ("someone needs to keep an eye on you") *Johnny and Martine didn't even bother to stop her *After several hours Aura finally took the group (minus Riley, she stayed behind with the boys, much to Martine's annoyance) *Owen then left the puppets in Aura's care (going to deal with the executives about the fire) *Each of the puppets get their own room (Daisy on the middle floor, one with a large kitchen nearby, Nick besides Matthy's and Matthy's art studio [pole-dance practice room] and Mortimer one in lower floors with large library and magic tricks storage) *Thanks to coming few hours later, Riley was the last one to choose "That's alright. I've actually planned on taking Aura's spare room anyways." "Wait what?! Who gave you permission?! That's my atelier!" *Aura quickly learned to watch her movies in her room (Riley came upstairs just as she started watching Hostel, things turned awkward very quickly) *Rosco held Aura hostage while Buddy and Riley moved Aura's stuff out of the spare bedroom ("Put that down, you overgrown lizard!") * The two spent the first evening/night on the couch watching The Pianist ('safest' movie in reach, Aura wasn't too keen on continuing the Hostel with Riley being few inches away) *Aura let Riley borrow her light blue dress for the night (a formal party to celebrate newcomers to their family)

(the party) "Everytime someone new enters our ranks, they have to go through a test." "A test of knowledge?" "Nah usually just to drink/eat something disgusting" *After minute of pondering the trio decides on marshal Malinosvkij (a lit up vodka shot) (Riley totally became horrified by their choice, well most of the guys around [minus the pack members] were) *Aura picked the drink up with just her mouth (yeah she totally made Riley almost faint, and gained several mortified stares coming her way) *Matthy got Nick totally drunk by mixing whiskey into his wine *Daisy became quite close with several of the women (mainly Billie and Franny) *Buddy was ordered to keep a close eye on Scout (and other kids/underage teens) *Sly proceeded to force Aura (already tispy) to a drinking contest *Aura easily won, despite Sly having all the advantages *By the end the only ones not drunk were Riley (she made it her goal to keep an eye on Aura), Annie (she was tipsy thou) and Willow (Meadow made her promise not to touch any alcohol that night) *Rosco had to help drag Aura back up *Buddy carried Nick on his back, while also dragging Matthy behind him *It was the first time Aura called Riley 'mom' (unironically) (Riley never let her live that down despite Aura protesting she can't remember a shit from that night) "Thanks, mom."

[fresa-schnee]

Day 25: Deep in Thought

Sorry for this one- Was going through a bad spot when writing.

A woman sat alone in her private study, staring solemnly at the fire that was burning in front of her. It had dwindled down to just a small bout of flames, and it dawned on her she’d been here so long pondering one thing: “Am I doing the right thing?”

She grimaced and moved her hand she was resting on to cover her face. Her pale skin was stained with tears from where her thoughts had lead her. To every single mistake, and how many people she had hurt. 

One of her sons had corrupted himself in a fit of jealousy. Another sacrificing himself to save his dying world she gifted him. And his sister doing all she could to prevent him, believing the methods barbaric. 

Her firstborn son now rarely shows his face to the outside world, out of petrifying fear of both mortal and man alike. Finally, in her attempt to redeem herself.. She had caused a war that nearly destroyed a realm an old friend had created with her sorrow and grief.

She could feel the tears swelling up again, and she tried to suppress them. She tried to think back on the words her own mother had told her.. “You are a beacon to all those around you. Shine, and it will guide them on the right path.”

She had always tried to live her life to those words, but anytime she tried to help anyone.. It only ended in failure. She had done so much harm, and caused so much death even if it wasn’t her directly interfering. Somehow, every tragedy linked back to her in some way.

A war of siblings, seeking different ways of salvation. A son blinded by jealousy, and a war caused by her own hands because she felt sympathy. She was meant to be a beacon of life for mortals. To create, and love those who lived. Yet her actions had done the opposite.. And her counterpart, the beacon of void and destruction, had done her own job so well.

At that, Teralin started to recall the words she was told alongside her counterpart. “The Torch of Life.. is a power that dwells along with that of Void. One creates, and blooms.. The other withers, and destroys. But they can’t exist without one another.. You two will have these gifts, and protect the worlds as you see fit.”

“...As I see fit…” She whispered, and looked over at the fire. It’s flames had now completely vanished.. The wood in the fireplace having given all it could. The calming warmth of the fire now slowly being replaced with the chill of the rest of the world. 

She sighed and stood up from her seat.. She used to love exploring different worlds. Different peoples views.. Yet now, she dreaded it. She had made herself a hermit, scared to interact with any being out of fear.. Fear that she’d just cause another disaster.

Was this what her mother expected of her? To see her so beaten down, that she couldn’t even make herself visit the worlds she promised to protect? To give them joy, and make them bloom with new life?

“If only I could talk to you now..” Teralin sighed, and stepped out of her personal study.. How much she wished she could go back to the days before all the tragedy. Before disaster after disaster. Yet there was no going back, as even she couldn’t control the sands of time.

Yet… Despite her fears, she still forced herself to see the worlds. Sometimes it was hard, yes. Terrifying to talk to individuals that weren’t of her family. Yet even now, in moments where the past stayed stuck in her mind like a knife, she tried to recall fond moments.

When she was able to guide those onto better paths. When she succeeded in making others smile, and creating a new form of life wholly by her own hand. 

She had done much damage yes, but she had slowly started to recover from it. In this moment, she forced herself to recall something close to her heart.

She had given the hope to continue on to her granddaughter. A woman who needed that push to keep herself to the path, and only to look back to see what she had lost.. And what she had managed to save.

Teralin smiled at that memory, as she picked up a small staff. It was an old, ancient thing. From when she herself was just a little girl.. A gift to her from grandfather, to guide her in every step. She tapped it gently on the ground, and the crystal at the head of it changed from an abyssal black, to a pearly white. 

She sighed and stared out of one of the windows in her home. Seeing the landscape covered in nothing but snow.. Mayhap she should go on another journey.. It had been quite some time since she had just traveled.. Seeing the world for what it was. 

“..Shouldn’t let the mistakes of past hold me down I suppose..” She chuckled, and tapped the the staff on the ground.. The woman of Life disappearing in a flash of light.

[wallflowerimagines]

*TW PERIOD MENTION*

If you're comfortable with this, could you do some hcs for the lords (but mainly moreau) with an s/o who gets HORRIBLE period cramps? Like they're literally writhing in pain and even after they take pain meds it's still miserable. Only do this if you feel comfortable of course, I totally understand if you dont want to do it❤

Hi, sorry folks, I bumped this to the top of the list, cuz I don't know if it's time sensitive for you, hope it brings comfort❤️ (Moreau's will have some extra)

TW: Period Mention, Reader is still Gender Neutral

Alcina Dimitrescu

Ah, she remembers those. She hasn't had to deal with one in a long while, due to her mutation, but even for her the experience was not pleasant.

This, however, looks very different.

Alcina cannot imagine the pain you must be in. You are curled into yourself on the couch, humming in an attempt to distract yourself from the pain, and you might try to hide them but she can see the tear tracks on your face.

Alcina takes care of you. Any of her day to day tasks can and will wait-- you are far more important. She doesn't leave the room unless you ask her to, and the Maids aren't let into the room unless it is to bring HER the things she needs to take care of you.

She will do whatever you need from her, no question. Cuddles, heated blankets, she will even read aloud to you as a distraction. Pro tip--her hands can get pretty chilly, and if you're someone who does well with ice packs, her hands work 100% better to cool off your skin.

Don't worry about her loosing control at the smell of blood--you are obviously in pain and she has far too much self control to let a little bit of blood bother her. (But depending on how hungry her daughters are, they might not be let in the room unless they have fed recently)

She will also use her contact with the Duke to find you a proper doctor. It's not normal for you to be in this much pain. Dearest, it doesn't matter if someone else has said there's nothing more to be done-- she's getting you a competent Doctor to get a second opinion.

Donna Beneviento

Donna is panicking.

Lady Beneviento is stressed the hell out by seeing you in pain--she hates it. You're lying in a pile of blankets on the floor, unable to be even the slightest bit comfortable because of the pain, and in such obvious agony that your hands are shaking.

Still, she's more than ready to make you feel better. Other than pain pills and more traditional treatment, Donna firmly believes in the power of distraction.

She will use books, movies, heck with your permission she might even use the pollen to craft a hallucination for you to help take the pain away.

(Ethan's encounter with the demon fetus was able to cause him enough harm that he felt it, Donna would definitely try to see if she could use her powers to trick your brain into not feeling as much pain)

She will also be attached to you at the hip, if you need space or can't be touched during your period, you need to tell her up front. She'll be very clingy when you are this miserable.

A little self indulgence here: while Donna does like her tea, she makes a KILLER hot chocolate. If chocolate brings you joy during your period, she has a constant, steady supply of it sent up to your room.

Salvatore Moreau

Salvatore engages Doctor mode immediately. For you to be in this much pain is both not normal and completely unacceptable. He's going to do his best to help.

This man absolutely used to be the Village doctor before his mutation, and as a result does Know His Shit. His siblings and mother may infantilize him to a certain degree, but that is mainly because Moreau's main issues are short term memory problems and his obsessive devotion to Mother Miranda that can make him regress. He's still competent as a doctor, and if he needs to reference anything, he still has some copies of medical textbooks.

He was also a Small Town Doctor, meaning he knows how to treat pain without access to traditional medicine, since often times he didn't have access to it.

It doesn't matter if you're not a tea person, you're still getting tea, made with herbs you don't know the name of and couldn't pronounce even if you did.

He doubles this up with more traditional pain relief methods like extra strength ibuprofen and heated compresses on the area. He might even talk you into doing a few exercises--it can help a lot with pain relief.

Still, when he's caring for you, sometimes he has to leave the room. He uses getting you a glass of water or another blanket as an excuse, but it's really so he can take a deep breath and center himself. Moreau is an empathetic man who loves you to pieces, and watching you cry silently into a pillow just...hurts.

Salvatore also does his best to distract you with anything he has on hand, mostly movies. While you two might normally playfully argue about which ones to watch, he will absolutely defer to you. I would recommend taking this time to watch a scary movie if you're a horror fan, there's literally no other time where Moreau would let you get away with it.

He is at your side constantly, and will only give you space if you ask for it. Even then, he will pop back in every few hours to check in.

Now for Fluff stuff: If you're not careful and watch him like he watches you, Moreau will run himself ragged trying to keep you comfortable.

The best solution to preventing this is coaxing him into bed with you. He might let out a couple of token protests, but one look at your pleading face takes all the fight right out of him.

He will cuddle up to you as close as possible and rub little circles into your back or stomach, whatever feels best. If you two are face to face, you can start to feel yourself relax in time with his breathing, and both of you slowly drift off to sleep together.

It's the best you've felt in days ❤️

Karl Heisenberg

Magnet Man is just... So lost...

You are writhing in agony in your bed, sobbing into a pillow, and so obviously suffering. He HATES to see you like this, because you're hurting and he doesn't know how to fix it.

Karl wants to hurt the things that hurt you, but when it's your own body rebelling against you and causing you pain...He wants to make it better for you but he can't.

He swallowed his pride IMMEDIATELY and called Moreau to the factory. Heisenberg might consider The Lord of the Reservoir to be a little slow in the head, but he used to be a doctor, and Karl is taking zero chances with your health.

He also pops by the Duke to pick up any kind of pain relief possible--Karl literally brings back 8 different brands of acetaminophen, hot water bottles, cocaine, opium, and enough alcohol to give an elephant a blackout. (Maybe he can get you to pass out long enough that you'll sleep through the worst of it?)

You will have to ask directly for cuddles if you want them--as handsy and clingy as Heisenberg is, he is so Bad At Feelings that he will just hover in the corner and work on projects to keep his hands busy. He doesn't know if you want to be touched, and is afraid to ask...but he really wants to keep an eye on you anyway.

[mihrunnisasultans]

Opinion on

Sah sultan? Her influence and power? how powerful do u think she was and if she stayed could she have defeated mihrimah? or hurrem?

I really loved Şah’s character. And I think her character gets frequently reduced in the fandom to being “badass” princess & her power fight with mostly Hürrem (also a bit of Mihrimah).

Yes, she’s the most ambitious and pragmatic of Suleiman’s sisters. I’d also say she had the most influence on Suleiman of them all, perhaps because she reminded him of their mother most and she never actually crossed him, which is why she absolutely could contest Mihrimah’s claims and continue the fight. However, she chose not to. I also elaborated on this issue earlier here.

All of Suleiman’s sisters try to replace their mother following Hafsa’s demise, as an upholder of harem order & protecting the dynasty. Hatice even invites Şah specifically so she can support her in this task, even despite the fact they weren’t the closest of sisters, such as she was with more maternal-like Beyhan. Still, of course Şah does not take a stand against Hürrem just because Hatice wants her to - first and foremost, those people do not live in vacuum and it’s implied Şah and Hürrem actually have met before. For several episodes Şah observes and assesses the situation carefully without taking any side openly and Ibrahim’s death is the moment she decides to act, even though her plans are still hidden because she has a long-term plan. Her method of working to remove Hürrem is very wise - she decides not to try to assassinate her, bring another woman or anything of this sort, but to make her fall permanently from Suleiman’s favour. And she also knows what is the only thing to make Suleiman cast Hürrem away - not her doing any harm to others or committing any crimes, but to hurt his ego and use his paranoia. If Hürrem had yielded and had crowned Bayezid (and Şah again did it so masterfully it was very believable Suleiman d worded), it would have been over. It’s the sort of thing Suleiman would never forgive Hürrem, probably the only one. Same with making H loans money from Venetians during war with them. /Big thanks to @mc-critical for our discussion on this topic some time ago :)/

Sah and Hatice’s relationship is very complicated - they are like polar opposites, with one being highly emotional, and the other very pragmatic and cold, but despite even Hürrem hoping for wedge between them and trying to put it between them - she cannot. Sah is very much concerned each time anything happens to Hatice and she is heartbroken seeing her pain following Ibrahim’s demise too. She promises Hatice she will help her in revenge “Because anyone who comes to their palace with blood and death, will leave with the same”. Their family got attacked and obviously subsequent actions of Hürrem against Mustafa only solidified their need to unite against her.

Sah also has her own ambitions, which I mentioned in the other post, but those are not only simply power oriented. She also desires to prove herself to her own family by being the one to neutralise Hürrem, which is why she has the arrogant attitude towards Hatice or Mahidevran. Unlike Fatma or Hatice, she actually abandoned hope for a fulfilling private life - she’s stuck in a marriage to a guy she does not respect, but she also knows she needs him for pragmatic reasons. The guy she clearly admired a lot married her sister, and even Suleiman & Hafsa showed their preference for sweet Hatice. She felt like her colder, more pragmatic personality was not appreciated enough by her closest. This is why she mocks others’ attempts to remove Hürrem and tries to paint herself as different. In a way it actually shows her inferiority complex & also desire to prove herself to others.

While Şah is deeply embittered by her marriage and does not actively search for love (like Hatice or Fatma), she has a close bond with her daughter (for whom she also sets aside her pride and asks Suleiman to spare Lütfi) & also is very concerned with spiritual matters. Of course providing money for religious establishments & building endeavours (which was done also by historical Sah) is also a way to gain influence, it’s clearly an area important to her also personally, which is why in the end she decides to live in one monasteries after her marriage falls apart and Hatice dies.

And it is a great ending to her arc IMO. She’s well aware that to have an influence as a princess, she should get married again to a prominent statesman, but she obviously does not desire another marriage after the last one ended so traumatically. Hatice took her own revenge herself before dying & it seemed that she was the one who neutralised Hürrem in her last desperate attempt. Suleiman is depressed and while she leaves Mercan to take care of him, idk whether she’s up to sitting with him and pretending she’s sorry Hürrem disappeared. Since Hürrem is gone, Rüstem is powerless and it seems like Mustafa does not need protection anymore.

Standing against Mihrimah would be for Sah a betrayal of her values - standing up against her own blood and dynasty, for what at this moment? Staying in the capital, where almost all her closest are gone? Power for the sake of empty power now?

Sah did never want any harm to come to Hürrem’s kids yet she already almost brought harm to her family inadvertently - she specifically instructed Nigar not to harm Mihrimah or her daughter, only Rüstem and Hürrem, yet the little one suffered most. It was against what Sah wanted or believed in. She fucked up big time here and she knows it. She almost brought harm to dynasty she aimed to protect. It’s not the age when Dilruba sets her nephews on fire - Hafsa’s daughters were brought with a strong sense of family and family loyalty, which is why as much as they did not like Hürrem, they did not treat her kids as enemies, but as their own blood.

Şah is a woman of action and she has no more work to do in the capital. She was always interested in supporting scholars & monasteries, so she chooses to be important & influential there. She’s disillusioned by all the power games in Topkapi & the futility of it. She again confides in Mercan she’s tired. Sah does have her limits, she does not intend to cause upheaval by going against the dynasty (represented by fellow member in Mihrimah) & now all she needs is finding peace & calm.

Could she rival Mihrimah? Mihrimah at that point was not at peak of her power - she was still a young girl and freshly married to Rüstem who had not yet become the Grand Vizier and with Hürrem gone lost a lot of his power. Mihrimah’s role has much more increased following her mother’s demise when she was left with the task to protect her brothers and to be her dad’s adviser and confidant. Upon  Rüstem’s demise (historically), she inherited his huge fortune, which helped her to maintain influential even though she was no longer married to a prominent statesman. Even though her relations with Selim were soured by her support for Bayezid, her brother needed her (or her money) very much once he ascended the throne. It’s truly when she was at the peak of her power - in early years of Selim’s reign, and again absence of Valide and Nurbanu needing time to build her own faction & network of power in capital also worked in her favour.

Princesses did not wield that much direct political influence usually, but Şah and Mihrimah were similar in that they found ways to yield some even without their statesman husbands they could influence. A bit of historical info to finish my musings:

Shah’s career as a sufi devotee began early, in Ioannina in western Greece, where she accompanied her husband Lutfi to his post as governor. There the princess became a lifelong follower of the popular sufi order of the Halvetis. Returning to Istanbul when Lutfi was promoted to vizier, Shah built the first of three mosques with an attached dervish lodge, this one for her Ioannina shaykh. The next lodge-mosque was dedicated in 1537 to the Halveti shaykh Merkez Efendi, who had recently become Shah’s new spiritual guide; the last was a memorial foundation erected after his death in 1552.

Source: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East. How a European Slave Girl Became the Empress of the Ottoman Empire

Source: Necdet Sakaoğlu, Famous Ottoman Women 

 As we can see, Sah continued her construction & spiritual works following her divorce and moving out to live in a dervish lodge outside capital.

A bit about Mihrimah after Rüstem died (she was also aware how beneficial marrying a prominent statesman was because her proposal to Semiz Pasha was true also historically):

From this date on, Mihrimah lived as a widow until her death. In the beginning, Mihrimah was afraid that the political influence she had during her late husband's vizierate period would decrease after her husband's death. Indeed, according to the report of the Venetian bailor Daniele Barbarigo, she had proposed to Semiz Ali Pasha, who was the grand vizier after Rüstem Pasha's death, to marry him, but the Pasha refused the offer, saying that he was not thinking of marrying her. But Mihrimah continued to be politically influential as a widowed member of the dynasty.

Source: Zahit Atçıl, Ottoman Dynastic Marriage Politics and Mihrimah Sultan’s Marriage (translation mine)

And

However, Mihrümah, although now a widow after Rüstem’s death in 1561, still figured prominently in dynastic politics. To illustrate, she was privy to the fact that the royal treasury had been emptied by her father and carried to Hungary to wage the campaign, and she rushed to her brother’s aid, lending him the much-needed gold to cover the obligatory accession donatives. As such, Donini’s assessment and prediction concerning both Selim and Mihrümah’s future relations came true. The eventual return of Süleyman’s treasure to Istanbul, coupled with the pillaging of Chios under the command of Piyale Pasha, soon restored the solvency of the imperial treasury; but Selim remained forever grateful to Mihrümah for the aid she provided at a most critical time.

Source:  Pinar Kayaalp, The Empress Nurbanu and Ottoman Politics in the Sixteenth Century: Building the Atik Valide

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Dark Forest Resident: Pitchfang

Aliases / Nicknames: Pitch, Badger-Cat

Gender: tom

Sexuality: bisexual, aromantic

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father

Other Relations: Sootfang, unnamed apprentice

Clan: Shadowclan

Rank: deputy

Characteristics: kills warriors of Clans threatening his own, brings bodies near their camps

Number of Victims: 3

Number of Murders: 3

Murder Method: snapping necks

Known Victims: Gingerwhisker, Shellfrost, Elmbreeze

Cause of Death: fall, blunt force trauma, killed by Cedarnose

Cautionary Tale: ??

Story: 

He was a Half-Clan kit, which of course put some contempt onto his existence. His mother got together with a loner, and didn’t bother hiding it. She was the kind that was unapologetic about that kind of stuff. It was her own life, and that. What would the leader do? Throw out a perfectly good warrior carrying a future perfectly good warrior?

In spite of the stares and comments, most didn’t take their dislike of the situation over the kit. There were even a few of the warriors that chose to play with him out of sympathy, or perhaps wanting to show their Clanmates that he was just like the rest of them.

Pitchkit felt cared for enough to love his Clan, and rejected enough to feel a need to prove himself more than the other kits.

Sootfang, one of the warriors who often played with him, and who became his mentor. He supported Pitchpaw’s resolve to work as hard as he could, reminding him every now and again to take a break.

Pitchpaw was about to change the elder’s bedding when he overhead them discussing him, saying how with his loner blood, he would run away at the first sign of danger, among other heartbreaking things.

He ran off into the woods until his legs were too tired to move anymore. Sootfang caught up with him, leading to a long, heart-to-heart. Sootfang revealed that he, too, was Half-Clan. In fact, hardly Clan at all, according to what they said when he was Pitchpaw’s age. His mother was a loner who became sick while expectant with him, and sought out the Clan’s aid. She died shortly after he was born, and the Clan took him in.

Pitchpaw had been shocked, and part of him felt broken to now the Clan he loved could be so cruel to those who were different. The other part felt warm and comforted, knowing he wasn’t alone and that there were those that did love him in spite of knowing his origin.

In addition, Sootfang was now one of the most respected cats in the Clan because of how hard he worked and trained. Pitchpaw’s resolve returned. He would do it too.

And he was rewarded. He became respected, admired, deputy.

The bitter hurt of early rejection was forever present, but distant now, as though it had happened to someone else. He truly did love his Clan, every warrior and every piece of territory it protected. He was reasonably angry when Riverclan threatened war. 

They were in a drought and needed more territory for food, but the territory they wanted was home to medicine Shadowclan needed, with five of its warriors sick.

Shadowclan could not afford a battle right now. It was stretching itself weak as it was, with warriors needing to go out, in, and right back out on patrols. Everyone was either too sick or too tired. There was no way the battle could not result in serious injury, possibly even death.

They needed to be scared off, but how?

The first time wasn’t calculated, a slip of anger. A Riverclan warrior was taunting him and his patrol. They got into a fight with one of his younger warriors. He was hurting them. In an attempt to separate them, Pitchfang had accidently snapped the Riverclanner’s neck.

The patrol was in panic, but Pitchfang felt oddly calm. He stared at the body as solutions fit together in his mind like a puzzle, becoming clearer and clearer.

He made the patrol calm down. Then he ordered them to help him carry the body. They weren’t exactly eager to do so, but Pitchfang managed to convince them. 

Riverclan needed to now what Shadowclan was capable of. Anyone could kill a lone warrior at the border. Only a truly dangerous warrior could bring the body right to its camp!

The warriors still weren’t eager, but Pitchfang made a good case. They couldn’t revive the dead, the least they could do was make sure his death was not in vain, and that no one else would have to die in the Riverclan-Shadowclan feud. 

Even though he expected it, Pitchfang couldn’t help but feel surprised that it had worked. Riverclan had suddenly stopped their threats, even patrolling the Shadowclan border.

The cats kept quiet. No one else knew why Riverclan stopped their threats, but they wouldn’t question it.

One of the warriors, Cedarnose came close to caving in after the next gathering, where Riverclan announced the cat, Shellfrost, would be greatly missed by his friends and family. It made it too real for them, to know that the cat they dragged was someone who would be missed.

Pitchfang made him ponder what was worse, someone you don’t know dying and knowing their family, who you also don’t know or see, are mourning, or have your own beloved Clanmates die and have the Clanmates you do know and care about mourn? 

It had to be done.

It would be done again.

Twice again, he killed warriors who wandered alone by the borders. Elmbreeze, who was one of many Thunderclan perpetrators stealing prey from Shadowclan during leaf-bare, passing the strip of land that belonged to Skyclan. And Gingerwhisker of said Skyclan, who was padding too close for comfort to the border.

It was the third one that was the final straw for Cedarnose. Maybe Elmbreeze and Shellfrost’s deaths could be justified-- although he still felt guilty for both-- but Gingerwhisker hadn’t even passed the border!

Pitchfang was more than enraged when Cedarnose told him that he would tell everyone. He chased him through the trees, zigzagging, running into unfamiliar territory, passing dense bush, and down a steep fall.

Additional Information:

--Cedarnose deliberately lead him to the cliff, turning sometime in the bushes.

--Although cats don’t exactly have fall damage, the fall itself had a bunch of jagged rocks on the way down.

--Cat maker: https://meiker.io/play/14330/online.html

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

Binary Sunset (AU post RotS, Beru Lars gets an unexpected visit and has to make a tough choice regarding her nephew)

“Who are you?”

Beru reared back, attempting to put as much distance as possible between herself whomever this thing was, staring her down with cold dead eyes.

“I have come for my son,” the figure said, its voice deep and monotone and distinctly male.

Glancing behind herself into the sleeping quarters of the homestead, she saw that the infant child was still asleep in his cradle. She made sure not to give away his location, but when she turned her attention back to the intruder, her heart was already sinking. He had not moved. In fact, he might have been taken for a statue, had it not been for the loud wheezing breaths of a respiratory device of some kind. The man bore a cape, as black as the uniform full body suit and armour covering him. It danced in the twilight wind, as the two suns glowed behind him like red orbs. Their intense heat seemed insignificant, compared to the burning hatred Beru could feel from the man’s covered eyes.

“I don’t know your son.”

“Is that so.”

His mask gave nothing away, stoic, resembling a human skull. His words seemed a statement, rather than a question, as if he was making a mental note of her defensiveness. Tall, broad shouldered, menacing. Beru hoped she came off as genuine, but when he took a step towards her, she felt the primal urge to run inside, grab the child and flee.

“There is a child in your sleeping quarters,” said the man, after a long, chilling silence despite the sunlight still spilling in orange hues over the sand dunes. “He is not yours.”

“He is!” Beru heard herself growl, shocked by how possessive she had become of the little one in such a short span of time. “He is mine!”

“He is not. You may have taken him in as next of kin, but he is not yours to claim.”

Beru clenched her jaw, throwing a quick glance over her shoulder at the cradle. He was still blissfully unaware, swept in a soft duvet as he cooed in his sleep. Even over the persisting hissing of the intruder’s breathing, she focused on the child. 

Luke. Precious little Luke, destined for so much more than life as a poor moisture farmer. Face set hard, Beru made sure to place herself in the middle of the doorway, just outside the threshold. She would not back down, whatever that decision would entail. The ex-Jedi who had delivered him might have grander plans, plans this stranger might be involved with, but she wanted the boy safe. On Tatooine, if he was taught to fend for himself, to steer clear of Jawas, Tusken raiders and womp rats, he might become an ordinary young man some day. Without the mystical sorcery his father had fallen prey to luring him in.

“He is mine. We have adopted him, we are his only living relatives. He has no one else.”

Beru hoped she sounded genuine to the menace, hoped she was appealing to some sort of sympathy or compassion behind the threatening visage. When he spoke, his tone was even deeper than before, a rumble rivalling that of any fully grown krayt dragon.

“Do not lie to me,” he warned, and moved so suddenly Beru couldn’t help but gasp in mixed horror and startlement.

But all he did was raise one arm, letting the open palm hover midair, facing the woman’s face. She blinked, confusion seeping in - and then her head exploded from within. She flinched, as a sharp pain ground its way into her temples. The ache travelled down her spine, a loud ringing in her ears overpowering any senses as her vision went bright white - shutting out both the mysterious visitor and the binary sunset. She whimpered, her own hands flying up to cover her ears. She wanted to scream, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes as she thought what felt like an ice pick being drilled right through her brain. 

And then, it was gone. As if it had never been there to begin with. Unable to control her sobs, her legs gave out beneath her and she sank to the ground. She panted, terrified of the man before her, of the agonizing headache returning. She could not explain it, but there was no doubt in her mind that the two were connected. The stranger had hurt her without laying a finger on her, if he was able to do that, what else was he capable of? If she had been wary before, now she was terrified.

“I - I am… not lying,” she managed to whisper, voice hoarse and unsteady.

“No. You are not.”

Surprisingly, the man agreed as he let his hand fall to his side. A wave of relief washed over Beru, but she was not prepared to build her hopes up that he may show her mercy and leave her and Luke alone. Luke needed to stay here, for his own safety. The Jedi had promised her he would keep them safe, and she had promised to love Luke as her own son. That meant defending him as if he were.

“You are not lying. You know only what Kenobi has taught you.”

Beru wiped her face with her sleeve as best she could, hoisting herself into an upright position with one hand pressed to the clay wall by her side. She clung to it for support, but through her watery eyes she saw that the stranger seemed more resolute, his stance more determined. She trembled, but stood her ground.

“I won’t speak of it. Not to you. Not to anyone. He warned us of strangers.”

“Kenobi is a liar and a traitor to the Empire, as are all Jedi. Would it be beneath an attempted murderer to lie?”

The stranger’s voice bore the same, mechanical character but it was sharper now, like a bark. Beru felt the hatred from before had returned, but didn’t seem to be directed at her. The way the man said ‘Kenobi’ revealed everything about whom the loathing was aimed at.

“I don’t understand,” the woman shook her head, cold sweat still soaking her forehead and she wiped her brow with her sleeve. 

“He told you the child has no living relatives, did he not?”

Beru’s eyes widened, before suspicion crept back in. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, willing herself to restrain herself from shedding any more tears. Even though she was still breathless, still shivering, still afraid.

“I never said it was him,” she settled for, as her retort.

“I am warning you to play along, or I may need to apply different methods to assure your complacency,” was the reply, and the man raised his hand again.

The threat was enough, and Beru shook her head vehemently, arms coming up to shield herself from another head splitting, intrusive mental assault. What she had assumed before was true, he had been controlling whatever power had tormented her senses. How? Why? Nothing made sense, but she believed him and that was enough.

“You are wiser than most. Fetch the child.”

“What?” the woman croaked, all the blood draining from her face as the intent behind the demand hit her.

“Fetch. The. Child,” he repeated, this time using his raised arm to point his finger at the doorway.

Only a sliver of pink and orange sunlight remained on the horizon. Owen wouldn’t be back in several hours. Beru hesitated, unwilling to comply, but found she could not resist. She could either obey, or protest and get herself killed. The stranger would take Luke away either way, she already knew that.

Stubborn tears welled back up in her eyes, blurring her vision as she slipped back into the primary living area of their homestead. Passing through another low doorway, she approached the cradle cautiously. She didn’t want to wake the child, didn't want to frighten him. Hushing him, or perhaps herself and her own soft sniffles, she picked the little bundle up. Beru made sure Luke was neatly wrapped in his duvet as she cradled him to her chest, rocking her arms gently when it seemed he might wake up. She breathed a sigh of relief when he settled back down, cooing and letting out a soft snore. Swallowing hard, Beru kept her head low and kept her gaze steady on the blonde tuft of hair on Luke’s head where it stuck out from underneath his pajamas. 

Not until she had crossed the threshold, relying solely on her periphery and memory, did she tear her eyes away from the infant. The intruder hadn’t moved an inch, the now chilly, crisp air biting at Beru’s tears streaked cheeks. When she spoke, her voice was soft but defiant.

“If you want him, you’ll have to go through me first.”

“It would be foolish of you to presume I wouldn’t,” he simply stated, his tone matter of fact.

“He’s my boy.”

Once again, Beru hoped he had a heart somewhere behind the exterior facade of menace. Beyond those strange, terrifying powers he had displayed. 

“He is not. The child belongs with his father,” said the man.

“The child’s father is dead. So is his mother. I and Owen are the only family he has left, he has no one else. He means nothing to you, whoever you are. He means the world to me.”

“Then, we have something in common,” stated the stranger, and it took Beru a tad too long to understand what he meant.

“I… don’t understand. I don’t understand any of this. Not Kenobi, not you,” she felt the weight of realization as something began to dawn on her, but refused to voice it and see it confirmed.

The man shifted then, stalking closer with a couple of long strides. As he moved closer, Beru tipped her head back, staring up at his frightening stature but unwilling to turn away, for fear of what he might do if she lost an ounce of focus. He seemed much more focused on the bundle in her arms, however, and she instinctively held the child closer to her body for protection. The man was huge, towering over her, looming like a hungering predator ready to strike. The lenses of the mask he wore were a deep, crimson red, she noticed now. The colour filled her with dread, entrancing as she watched him peer in what could have come across as stunned silence at the peacefully slumbering infant. One the man’s large, gloved hands came up to reach for the boy, and Beru almost yelped in fear.

But instead of harming Luke with just a look, Beru was shocked to see the man touch the infant’s chubby little cheek with an unearned, unexpected tenderness. It was just a simple, gentle graze of fingertips, and a smile pulled at the corners of the child’s lips. He was still asleep, but he cooed something intelligible, one tiny hand reaching for the stranger’s index finger. The stranger seemed cautious, and Beru almost believed he was concerned, maybe even scared of accidentally hurting the boy.

“Kenobi would rather have you believe the child’s parents had perished,” said the stranger, but his attention was still single handedly on the infant.

“Where else would they be? Kenobi told us the Jedi order had been executed, framed for high treason. He told us Anakin Skywalker died with the rest of his kind.”

“They were not framed, they were the instigators. But I am not here to discuss politics that may result in your immediate execution, and neither should you.”

The threatening note to the man’s voice was back, and Beru pinched her lips tightly together. She knew by now that Luke’s life had never been on the line, not given how carefully the stranger was interacting with the sleeping form. Her life, however, was still in mortal peril - and perhaps Owen’s was, too.

“The fact still stands,” Beru dared to say, bracing herself. “That Anakin is dead, and Luke has no one but us.”

“Luke…”

The name was said so gently, so softly that Beru almost thought she had imagined it. Despite the harsh diction, the flat delivery seemed so genuine and heart felt. Gaze darting between the intruder’s mask, and Luke’s pleased expression as the man let him close his little fist around his finger, the suspicion only grew stronger in its persistence.

“Yes. Luke. His mother named him before she died, Kenobi said. Unless that was another lie,” the woman trailed off.

“She did believe you were a boy,” mused the man, almost wistful as he seemed to be speaking directly to the small child.

Still, the words left an impression. A cold, gnawing sensation settled at the pit of Beru’s belly; clawing its way up into her chest cavity where it remained, desperately grinding from the inside as if attempting to force itself out. There was something eerie and uncanny about the stranger, something distinctly familiar. Familiar, yet foreign. Known, yet unknown. She peered down at the infant in her arms, the love she had developed for the little boy overpowering, overwhelming her. Then, she ignored the alarm bells at the back of her mind, the voices screaming at her to resist the urge. Instead, she slowly held the baby out in front of her, face set hard and throat tight as a lump settled at the base. The ball of tears rose, until her eyes were once more brimming with tears.

The stranger eyed her with what could only be perplexed confusion, as if he was in disbelief that she would entrust him with the child. She remained motionless, as he seemed to be weighing his options. Then, with stilted, jerky motions, he lifted both arms. He reached for the bundle, and with caution as if the boy was made of glass, as if he were so fragile he might break at the simplest touch, the stranger accepted him. The scene was ridiculous; a man looking like the reaper himself had come straight from a galactic battlefield while shielding the very icon of innocence in his grasp.

 “You said his Anakin isn’t dead. If he’s alive, then where is he?” Beru said, and the calm, collected manner in which she delivered those words surprised even her.

The stranger said nothing, but he did look at her. 

A long, pregnant silence fell as the darkness of night finally settled over the farm, and the Lars’ homestead. Beru wrapped her arms around herself for warmth, blinking back the tears pooling in her eyes. She had wanted him to say it, to verbally verify and confirm what she suspected. It was impossible to deny, as she studied the wonder and amazement with which the stranger regarded Luke. What surprised her most, though, was when he hid the child close against his chest, and held her gaze. She felt his stare burning into her soul, his presence no less imposing than it had been when he first appeared. 

Beru found she couldn’t speak. She had nothing to say, and even if she did, it would have made no difference. She understood, and took a step back as she nodded at him, encouraging him with a mournful smile. He was dangerous, that much she could tell. The stranger was vicious, ruthless, and cruel. But he held a tremendous fondness for this child, and in that, Beru could see herself. In that, Beru found the strength to acknowledge that the stranger was, in fact, no stranger at all. Even as he turned his back, cape billowing behind him while he began to trudge through the sand in a direction only he knew where it might lead, Beru was certain that the man would keep Luke safe.

As the man grew smaller in the distance, Beru allowed herself to weep again, watching her nephew disappear into the ice cold desert night. Still, something nagged at her compelled her to make a bargain in turn. Not that she had anything to offer, but she was convinced the man who was not a stranger would be inclined to agree.

“Promise me Luke will be safe with you!”

The intruder halted. Sand whirled around his boots, starlight bouncing off the man’s domed helmet as a gleaming beacon of hope in the darkness. She sensed an odd, reluctant sort of foreboding but stood her ground. He did not speak, but he didn’t have to. She knew the answer and she knew he would not have come this far if he didn’t have the intention to keep the boy out of harm’s way. She didn’t know the man well, never had, but she knew Luke. Shutting her eyes, Beru accepted the silence as the confirmation she had been looking for. She had been left alive, living to tell the tale. She knew he had come to kill her, she didn’t understand how, but somehow it was clear. Somehow, Luke would be okay. The man needed the infant, more than the infant needed him. It was the next right thing to do.

“Thank you, Anakin.”

Beru couldn’t be certain, but something told her Luke had a better chance at the kind of life he was meant for in the hands of his father.

-----------

You all knew where this was going, haha. I did intend to post this as another installment of Mask of Death but I’m not sure I should throw a non-canon compliant chapter in there as all others have been as compliant as fanfics can be. Let me know whether I should make an exception for this one or not!

I’m a sucker for dad!Vader and baby!Luke.

[purrincesskittens]

my theory for dragons in the Atla universe as dragon!zuko is a popular theme that I'm in love with. Can't remember who its by but there was a incomplete fic out there on ao3 with a dragon!Bato that I remember seeing when I explored the dragon!Zuko tag on ao3. I also mention a character from @muffinlance 's Slavage, Panuk, in this theory because I have seen them in a few dragon!Zuko stories before and I thought him being a dragon himself would be interesting especially with his background.

Dragons are rare outside the fire nation. In the fire nation they are more uncommon then anything as having dragon blood is usually found in nobles or old blood lines actual original pure dragons were hunted to what was thought as extinction and no more pure dragon bloods were born as some dragons could take on human shapes gifted by Agni which resulted in the first dragon bloods . Zuko is a dragon same with Azula and their mother was of dragon blood and showed characteristics of a dragon from being descended from Roku. Uncle Iroh also has dragon characteristics while Ozai has very faint dragon characteristics. Sozin and Roku were known as some of the last known pure blooded dragon bloods. Most of those who are dragons now are not pure bloods not even Sozins line despite attempts to keep the blood line as pure as possible hence why Azulon arranged the marriage between someone of Roku's line and Sozin's line to try and bring more dragon blood back into their line which was a success and generated two actual dragons. Zuko has less control over his instincts then Azula and takes longer to shift then Azula and shifted later then her. His fire was always considered weaker then hers in either form. Azula was just better at hiding her dragon instincts as she got older then Zuko and has taught herself how to behave in a certain expected manner when she is in her dragon form. Azula is more of a lightning dragon then a fire dragon like Zuko and is the best flyer and can withstand hotter temperatures but Zuko is is more flexible and the better climber and swimmer and can hold his breath longer overall he has the most stamina as a dragon built up over time thanks to training with Uncle. Dragon blood lines try to marry strictly within other dragon blood lines in attempts to keep their blood pure and breed stronger dragon blood in the next generation.

Outside the fire nation in the earth kingdom dragon bloods are rare and growing rarer as those found to have dragon blood are recruited/forced/coerced into the army and used on the front lines for their increased fire resistance compared to normal earth kingdom soldiers which usually results in their early deaths as they still are not fully fire proof no dragon blooded has been since before Sozin and Roku even and even then there were limits no dragon known could survive an volcanic eruption or if enough fire was held directly against them.

The air nomads had dragons among them but they were wiped out along side their brethren. Aang is not a dragon nor of dragon blood but he knew several air nomads who were of dragon blood such as his mentor Monk Gyatso who was of dragon blood and had faint dragon characteristics.

In the Water Tribes only the south has dragons. The northern tribe eliminates all dragons to purify their people of the believed filth that is dragon blood. The southern tribe had more dragons before the raids began but now after the raids there are two known dragons left. Part of it is baby dragons or dragon bloods don't survive the winters with no sun. They end up falling into a coma like sleep and never waking up before eventually passing before spring can come. Those with faint dragon blood try to ensure any pregnancies are timed so that the children are born during the early spring so they are older and stronger by the time winter comes having the midnight sun of summer to grow strong during. Bato is from a surpisingly rather strong line of dragon blood despite no attempts having been made to keep it that way and was the only dragon blooded child of his generation to survive despite being born during the winter. He is more of a water dragon though and can't fly his wings are more fin like but is a strong swimmer and can breath boiling hot water. He will swallow water and heat it within his body before spraying it now boiling hot back out at his enemies. He is weaker against fire due to this compared to say Zuko but can withstand more drastic water temperatures and the cold compared to Zuko who can't handle the cold as well since he is a fire dragon. Panuk is the second dragon belonging to the Southern Water Tribes. He is more like a wyvern though with his front limbs being his wings with claws on them and he has long back legs that can run much faster over larger distances compared to Zuko or Bato. He can't fly either really his wings aren't big enough. He has glided low over the ground after getting a strong running start before but can't fly like Zuko can. He also can't breath fire or water but he does have the loudest roar and strongest bite force. Zuko is a decent enough flyer and fighter in his dragon shape and can climb much better then most dragons as well as swim better considering he is a fire dragon Azula can swim just not nearly as well as Zuko.

When Zuko meets Bato and Panuk he tries to teach them both to fly. This goes as well as one would think it does. Bato would prefer to stick to the water he's to old to learn to fly thank you very much. Panuk can't get enough leverage to get high enough to do more then glide he really isn't built for flying or swimming. Each has their specialty. Bato as the oldest is of course the biggest dragon at over 40 feet in length around the size of a giant squid while Panuk is next around 20 to 25 feet followed by Zuko who is only around 6 to 8 feet long and seems to be constantly molting as he is in a growth spurt period. Dragons can continue grow almost all their lives the older they get the larger they are. Bato prefers soaking in water to remove his molts or has Hakoda help while Panuk just likes to roll around and rub against stuff to remove his unless he can get someone to help. Zuko usually needs human help to get his molts off as his shed skin still sticks to much to the new scales underneath but otherwise he likes nearly boiling hot water or rolling in hot coals it softens his new scales and helps separatethe skin from them. Dragons also shed scales on occasion if some are damaged they shed them as new ones grow in and some shed them like animals with fur coats do during the spring and fall to get summer and winter scales in.

Dragons do hoard things even just those with dragon blood do. It's not that unusual for dragons and dragon bloods to hoard the people they are closest with. Zuko likes to hoard people. What few people he likes he is over protective of. His crew on the Wani are part of his hoard and now the Akhult crew. Azula is a part of his hoard along with his mother. He still loves them both even if Azula and him have a complicated relationship and his mother hasn't been around for years. Object wise he likes swords and theater scrolls and occasionally tea sets usually those he gives to his uncle who hoards them. He also has a hoard of turtleducks back at the fire nation palace that he started by accident and grew over time and refused to let anyone remove them. They are still there and the flock has grown too big to remove. Almost all courtyards with ponds now have smaller groups of turtleducks that originated from the flock Zuko started as a child. Zuko only has a few hoard items he cherishes enough to keep with him when he has to travel most of which he can keep on his immediate person. Bato hoards bones. He carves them for ceremonial use and for weapons. His tent back in the tribe was filled with his carvings some he shared with Hakoda because Hakoda and his family are part of his hoard. Sokka and Katara loved climbing on him in his dragon form as young kids and Katara loved trying to copy his water breath attack with her bending. Panuk hoards jewelry and beads as well as metal objects. He has few hoard items most he wears on him or are his weapons. Zuko and Panuk are similar in that aspect with keeping their hoards on them and keeping them small but Zuko hoards more people then Panuk does.

Hakoda is used to his best friends dragon form and they have their own way of communicating while Bato is a dragon. This method does not work with Zuko who had his own method of communication with Uncle Iroh who understood him enough and enough dragon behavior to form a method of communication with him. Panuk has a more simpler method that matchs his human body language more. Dragons don't always understand each other in dragon forms if they haven't been raised together or have a set method for communication between them already. Zuko is very nippy as a dragon compared to Panuk who is more vocal while Bato is calmer and steadier when Bato was younger him and Hakoda got into so many wrestling matches even when he was in his dragon form but those became less and less the bigger he got especially after he accidentally hurt Hakoda during one. They still happen on occasion to this day between them but Bato has learned to be more careful especially if Sokka and Katara are around. It's just easier and safer to wrestle as humans then human and dragon.

[cleanlenins]

Going Angst Week 2021

Day 3: Family/Friends

TW: Referenced Suicide, Major Character Death, Brainwashing

Read on AO3

She had been trying to fix this blaster all morning, but it seemed to resist her at every turn. When she fiddled with the trigger mechanism, the circuit board would shift and cause a misfire. When she realigned the circuit board, the blaster seemed unable to draw power from the battery. When she fixed that she realized that the trigger mechanism had stuck again. Round and round it went, unable to fix that which she was an expert in. The very thing she had designed and created. Maddie tore off her hood in frustration, running her hands through her hair. The blaster thumped against the kitchen table.

Things used to be so much easier.

She had thought that when she and Jack finally finished the Ghost Portal, everything would fall into place. They would have access to the Ghost Zone. Their research could be proven beyond question. Their inventions and patents would be given the recognition that they had dreamed of all those nights of meticulous drafting. And though much of that did happen, it had come at a cost.

Her family.

She didn't know when it had happened, but her children had started to drift away. Sure, she had not expected them to always cling to her apron strings (though every mother hopes), but this was not the sort of distance brought on by children growing up. The distance was maintained by whispered conversations and discreet glances. A distance held on a foundation of lies and subterfuge. Of secrets and conspiracy. 

Maddie wasn't stupid. She saw it. Maybe a little later than she should have. But that wasn't her fault. It was the ghosts' fault. Constantly spreading their malignant taint onto the world of the living. They had turned her life's work, her portal, against her. Using it for their own perverse ends instead of the benign purpose of scientific discovery.  Of course, the ectoplasmic scum couldn't help but turn everything they touch into a plague among the living. It was their nature. 

Phantom was no exception.

No matter what Amity Park believed, Maddie knew better. The ghost was cunning in its malevolence, but she saw through the hero act. The ghost always seemed secretive, never shouting its plans like the other spectors. Making cheeky remarks with no hint of it's ulterior motives. But in the few moments that Maddie was able to get close enough to see its face, she could see the fear of detection plain as day. Her own son had made similar expressions when caught with his hand in the cookie jar. It was a facsimile of emotion, but an understandable one. The Fenton's would never be fooled by its trickery, they knew too much for that. It had good reason to be afraid of them. 

Even more so now that she knew the truth. Her face burned as she thought about how she had been tricked, her breath catching with the fury the memory brought.

She had been hunting. Not any ghost in particular, but she searched the streets for any that had been unwise enough to cross the veil. And she clung to the shadows, she saw a bright light emit from an alley. Cautiously, she slunk to the mouth of the alley and peaked inside. She nearly dropped her ecto-blaster in shock. 

There stood her Danny. Her Danny! Laughing with his friends, and one unnatural interloper. The female Phantom hovered feet from the ground, holding its stomach in laughter. Maddie was about leap around the corner to tell it to leave her son alone when-

"As fun as it was, I think my bruises have bruises. How about next time you find a different target for practice?" Danny smirked. Smirked! As if it was nothing more than a game of tag. 

"Aw, but you make such a great target! You look so goofy when you try to dodge," The ghost said. It then pantomimed a series of poses, obviously desperate attempts to avoid the painful burn of the ghost's ectoblasts. Danny's friends laughed at the show. Maddie grit her teeth.

"So! Same time tomorrow, then? I'm only going to be in town for another few days," The Phantom said. Her Danny snorted.

"Do I have a choice? You'd hunt me down and drag me out if I tried to avoid you," Her Danny laughed, as if that wasn't the most horrifying sentence he ever spoke.

"As long as you understand that," the ghost said, snapping its fingers into a gesture her son liked to call 'finger guns'. The female Phantom shot into the sky and disappeared. Danny and his friends chatted about their newest video game, but Maddie wasn't listening. She silently ran away from the scene, mind reeling.

No wonder the other Phantom always seemed afraid of them finding out his plans. It had a right to be afraid. If the Phantoms were using her children as target practice...

Maddie stilled at the front door. She remembered all the times Danny had come home with paltry excuses for the bruises and scrapes that covered him. The blood stains on his slowly dwindling wardrobe. The times he came home, obviously favoring and arm or a leg-

Phantom was as evil as any ghost, and now she had her proof.

But first, she had to help her poor Danny. The ghosts had somehow manipulated him into thinking that their cruel abuses were a joke! A game! How he must have suffered for the amusement of the ectoplasmic-scum. 

Maddie was pulled out of her thoughts at the sound of a loud click. She looked down in her hands and saw that she had finally been able to align all the pieces correctly in the blaster. The cool metal was lit by the eerie green glow the power source gave. 

This was the gun that would end Phantom. For good.

Maddie glanced at the clock, realizing it had taken more time than she had anticipated to finish the gun. She should check on Danny. She left the blaster where it sat on the kitchen table, and walked toward the lab. Descending the stairs quietly so as to not startle Danny.

Danny still sat in place where she had left him, arms and chest bound to the chair with ghost-proof tethers (overkill, but ghost-proof was the only kind they owned). Maddie had known that whatever brainwashing her son had been subjected to by the Phantoms would not be overcome with only words. So she had asked the school to let her borrow one of the Cramtastic Mark V's they had purchased. When she mentioned she wanted to catch Danny up on his grades, they let her take him out of school for a week.

Maddie's heart ached at the memory of Danny begging her to untie him. His tears as he thrashed, pleading for her to let him out. That it was a mistake. That Phantom wasn't tricking him. That Phantom was a hero. When she pointed out his bruises, he didn't have an explanation. She wanted to weep at her son's pain and to wrap her baby boy in her arms, but she had to stay strong. Jazz would never approve of her methods, but her daughter was away at college. Jack was away at a conference. What they never knew wouldn't hurt them.

It didn't take long for Maddie to write a program for the machine. A program of how ghosts were evil, how they only wished to cause harm, how there was nothing good about them except for their value to the field of science, how they should all be eradicated on sight. However, Phantom's mind control was powerful. Even when left to the machine's power of subliminal persuasion for hours, she would come back to find Danny had come up with a counterargument to the information. Maddie would rewrite the program to refute that, but the next time she came he would have another excuse. Over and over. It had been days now. But Maddie would never give up on her family. Would never give up on her son. He could be brought back to the world or reason. Phantom would not have a hold on his mind forever.

She cautiously walked up to him. He looked rough. She felt a pang of guilt, even knowing that this wasn't her fault. He had dark circles under his eyes streaked with tears. His wrists were rubbed raw against the restraints. He looked so tired. Breaking through this mind control was so draining, but who knows how long her son had been at Phantom's mercy?

"Danny, sweetie. Have you come to your senses?" Maddie asked softly. Danny blinked blearily at her, fresh tears escaping from the corner of his eyes. She gently wiped them away, cupping Danny's cheek in her hand. He leaned into the touch, before slowly nodding.

"Okay, sweetie. I just need you to tell me. Tell me about ghosts," Maddie almost whispered, wiping more tears away. Danny closed his eyes and swallowed.

"All ghosts...are evil," he croaked, his voice barely above a whisper. Maddie wanted to cry as well. Her poor baby had been through so much. But maybe it was finally over. Next she only had to get rid of the evil that had done this to him.

"That's right, sweetheart. All ghosts should be destroyed, right?" She rubbed his cheek with her thumb. He opened his eyes, pleading 

"All ghosts?" He asked, voice breaking.

"All ghosts, sweetie," Maddie said, still stroking his cheek. A sharp sob wracked his body. He nodded, more tears began to pour. Maddie felt a wet prickle in her own eyes.

"Even Phantom," Danny said. It wasn't a question, but Maddie nodded. She noticed her son's lip quiver. It hurt her so much to see him in such pain, but she knew it was for the best. She would finally have her Danny back. Phantom had lost its hold on her family.

"Especially Phantom."

Maddie turned off the program, and detached Danny from the chair and computer. He immediately latched onto her, with more strength then she thought he had. A vice-like hug that had them both collapsing into a sobbing puddle. Maddie combed through her son's hair, whispering assurances and love to him. That no evil ghost could harm him. She held him until the sobs subsided, completely exhausted he looked up at her. She guided him up the stairs and into the kitchen, having him sit in one of the chairs. She quickly made some toast, sure he would be hungry enough not to care that it was his least favorite thing to eat.

"I'm not hungry," he whispered, glancing at the fixed ecto-blaster on the table.

"You should eat, Danny. You haven't been eating much the last few days," Maddie pressed gently. Slowly, he nodded, mechanically chewing the toast. Maddie breathed a sigh of relief.

"What is that for?" he asked, nodding to the blaster.

"To get rid of Phantom, so he can't hurt anyone ever again," Maddie said. Danny nodded, still chewing the toast and staring at the blaster. He looked ready to tip over from exhaustion any second. Maddie could not wait to get her revenge for what her baby had been through. She itched to start hunting the Ghost Boy. She stood.

"When you're finished, why don't you go up to your room and rest? You've been through a lot these past few days," Maddie said, walking over and stroking his hair. He nodded, before leaning into her and hugging her once more.

"I love you, Mom," he said. She held him close.

"I love you too, sweetie," Maddie said, kissing his hair. She walked away and then down into the lab. She began gathering the equipment she needed to find Phantom. The Fenton Finder, the Fenton Nets, anything she could use to take that filth down. She stacked it all in her arms and headed upstairs. Danny had already left the kitchen, so she sat her tools on the table to better organize them. Putting each in place on her belt, and wrapping them into newly made holsters around her chest. 

She frowned when she set the last object in place. The blaster she had left on the table, repaired only half an hour ago, was missing.

Bang! She flinched at the noise, coming from upstairs. She was all to familiar with that sound.

"Danny?" She cried before rushing toward her son's room.

[ghostpajamas]

Danny Fenton loves his parents. he does, really! sure, he cringes when they tell him about their newest project, he chuckles under his breath when someone at school pokes fun at their latest failed attempt at catching Phantom, whatever. Danny Fenton loves his parents.

Danny Fenton hates the scientists, Madeline and Jack Fenton. well. hate is a strong word. fears? despises, for making his home life a live-wire of tension and a slip up from dissection? that about summed it up.

he was scared to step an inch out of line and his parents didn’t even know they’d drawn that line there. it was like he was doing a tightrope walk for a blindfolded audience. but, in this case, they'd kill him if he fell (if the fall didn’t first). Danny knew that, in all but the absolute best circumstances, this would not end well. he had no outside perspective on his situation though so all circumstances seemed risky at best. so he still kept up the walk.

he wasn’t one for psychological profiling. Jazz did it to him enough without his knowledge that he hardly needed to see a psychologist for that. he could just knock on her door and say "what’s wrong with me?" and she'd give him a bulleted list. maybe she'd even recommend coping methods. he was pretty sure he'd developed some kind of stress disorder over the years. any murmur, any loud noise, any hint of anger in a remark not even directed at himself, his brain would always so readily translate 'you made them mad. you're in for it now. they're after you now.' it was nauseating to sit through while his mind spiraled into a concealed panic. he would just sit there and wait to be attacked. the blows never came. he was still just regular, human boy, Danny Fenton. (for now.)

even before the distinct sizzle of an ectoblast, the smell of ectoplasm in contact with something it should not contact, became engrained into his instincts. even before then he was always a little...scared of his parents. maybe it was the goggles. or how they chose to hunt something they were so certain was a wholly malicious and incredibly dangerous race of being. maybe it made him nervous how easily his father's hugs could crush someone his size. How readily his mother pulled a gun when she suspected spectral activity. ’they’re perfectly harmless! These cant hurt humans at all, only ghosts, don’t worry, Danny!’

Danny dealt in a lot of maybe's these days. some nights when he would lie in bed, feeling like his heartbeat was maybe gone, he would hear what sounded like his name from his parents' mouths downstairs. then he would feel his heartbeat start again. maybe.

when did it happen, how every time you hear them speak about you, to you, you fear for the worse? (there were empty bottles of ibuprofen in his desk drawers, for migraines and the ache of fresh injuries.)

Danny understood deep down, this pressure had been building for years. (his parents' research was still far from the truth but going down a dangerous path in its misunderstanding.) it wasn’t a matter of if, he always felt it coming, a blurry shape on the horizon. it was when. - Maddie Fenton knows there is something wrong with her son. no, not in a mean way. he looks fine (usually), he acts friendly and normal (for him) and well. he's Danny! she's sure he's Danny. but sometimes he- he didn’t look like how she remembered.

day-to-day, he was her son, he looked exactly how he always did. but sometimes it was like he was someone entirely new. like over the last 3 years there had been an imperceptibly small change made every day and in those single, staticy moments, she could see the difference. maybe it was a trick of the light. maybe she had missed her son growing up, spending all her time on researching to the point that she paid no mind to her own family.

she was proud of her work. she loved her work so, so dearly. but- she still felt guilty when she'd notice ‘oh Danny’s so tall now’ (he's been this tall for years) ‘oh Jazzy's hair looks so nice tied up like that’ (she’s been wearing it that way for months). she had the constant aching pull in her gut, that she had missed her children growing up. that they went from babies to practically adults and now she hardly knew them because they didn't fill the role they used to.

it made her sick to think she needed her children to fill a role for them to feel like her children but, here she was.

there was a disconnect between them from so early in their childhood and it only grew when Danny entered highschool. she'd assumed at first that it was just a teenager thing, distancing oneself from your 'nutjob ghost hunter' parents and feeling rebellious. she knew she’d been wrong then but Maddie Fenton, though a seeker of knowledge, was stubborn in her feelings. rather, she didn't want to acknowledge what she noticed. she didn't want to examine what was wrong.

Maddie Fenton knows there is something wrong with her son. and shes scared, not of him, but what she'll have to do if she ever says it out loud. it would be real then. Maddie Fenton was scared of herself, and that made her sick. - Danny came home at 8 pm. his skin was blistered and his shirt was stained. brown-red blotches, a spray on his chest and sleeves, large drops dried around the neckline. the blistered skin; puffy, pink, and peeling on the back of his left hand, arm, fingertips- good god, what happened to him?

the question was on Maddie's lips when Danny spoke up instead. he'd closed the door behind himself in the time she'd taken evaluating his appearance. she'd forgot to even remind him what time it was.

"there was a grease fire at Nasty Burger. someone poured water on it." his tone was so much flatter than Maddie was used to from her son. no humourous lilt, just... empty. she felt like he wasn't even seeing her when he looked up. It was like he’d been reminded of something he’d have rather forgotten a long time ago.

"oh- oh no Danny, we've gotta get that arm patched up and- what's... the stuff on your shirt?" her words betrayed her discomfort but Danny showed no sign of minding her tone. (please don’t be blood. please d-)

"some sauce packets got squashed and sprayed all over me and Tucker. I think this is barbeque?" he scraped at the stain below his collar as he walked to the cabinet in the kitchen that a first-aid box was kept in (there were plenty in the house, most of which Maddie didn't remember buying but was grateful for nonetheless when she needed one).

she made a start to help with the box, knowing Danny’s hand was hurt, but he was already deftly applying antibacterial gel and wrapping the skin gently. he hardly even winced. Maddie felt a hollowness wash not over her, around. like fog rolling in, separating her from what she was seeing. she distantly wondered how often her son must get hurt to be so good at this. how often she didn't even notice he was in danger.

Maddie Fenton loves her son, her family means the world to her and she would protect them through hell and high water. but now she was realizing, through her instinct and her doubt- do I know my son? - Madeline Fenton loves her son. and she fears what she doesn’t know. - Danny Fenton loves his parents so, so much. and he's terrified of what he knows so very well.

[authorialarcanist]

It Seems I'll Never Understand (Kagerou Project)

Genre: Angst

Rating: Mature

Pairing(s): Tateyama Ayano x Kisaragi Shintaro

Summary: "...Hey, Shintaro. Why'd you do it? I mean... You could have stayed out of it. It wasn't your fight."

In a world where Shintaro Kisaragi was the one who killed himself on that fateful august day two years prior, Ayano isn't sure what she can do with her life. Living in fear of the Snake of Clearing Eyes, all she can do is think back on the past, and wonder - why it was that her best friend took her place when she's sure he must have hated her, and when was it that it all went wrong.

Shinaya roleswap with a focus on making it work with as few changes to canon as possible.

---

It’s late - late enough that it’s gotten truly dark out. I’m walking along the road to my home, a boy next to me. The bridge we’re crossing seems to stretch out endlessly into the distance, illuminated only by the moon and the street-lamps we’re passing by.

I fiddle with my scarf absentmindedly as I steal a glance at his face. I’m so glad… I was finally able to become friends with him. Or, well… maybe ‘friends’ isn’t the right word just yet. To him, I’m sure I’m still just that stupid girl who made him tutor her for hours after class.

Still… I tell myself that this is the most important first step. Mm-hm. Now that I’ve introduced myself, I’m sure that we’ll be friends - real friends - in no time at all.

“You really saved my life! I never would’ve been able to finish that problem set on my own.” I grin weakly as my babbling inevitably turns to self-deprecation. Ah, well… after my terrible performance back there, trying to act cool for my new friend was a lost cause already. Well, if this was a manga, at least this might be the part where the aloof genius breaks character to reassure me that I can do it?

“Even with my help, it took you way too long…” He sighs. “Geez. I only came here to get my wallet, too. I must be really unlucky.”

—Yeah, right. I’ve only known this guy for a few hours now, but it’s pretty obvious that tender support isn’t his strong suit.

“I really am sorry…” I shrink a little under his criticism. “But! I promise, I won’t forget about today!”

“What are you saying? Didn’t you just say you forget things no matter how much you study?” Ow… I guess I did say that, but… he really has no faith in me at all, huh?

But he just doesn’t get it! Not quite panicking, I redouble my efforts to explain myself. “Today’s special! I’m going to try extra hard not to forget, so it’ll be okay!”

He hums in contemplation and stares away into the distance. And then—

—“Liar.”

I recoil from the sudden accusation. “Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You’ve broken your promise already, haven’t you? You can’t even remember my name.”

He picks up his pace, and though I try to follow, I can’t seem to move forward.

“Huh? Of course I can!”

“Really? Then why haven’t you said it?”

“Why are you so focused on that all of a sudden?”

“Say it, Ayano.”

“Stop it!”

“Say my name.”

“I— You’re—“ Tears spill from my eyes. I’m trying to say it. Why — why is this happening? Why couldn’t we just keep walking together, chatting about nothing important, like friends do?

“…Yeah. I thought so.” He stops walking, and for some reason, I freeze as well. I have no choice but to watch his back as he speaks. “I guess it’s not your fault, though. Sorry.” He shakes his head. “But… Try to remember, okay?”

He turns to face me again.

His eyes are red.

“If you can’t remember soon, then—“

——

Knock. Knock. Knock. Three hesitant raps on my door.

The sound wakes me from my dream. Already, it’s growing too hazy to remember. All I can say for certain is that hewas there.

He’s always there in my dreams. Maybe it’s some cruel balance for the fact that he’ll never be there again in real life.

“Ayano?”

At the sound of the voice calling for me, I turn over in my bed and bury my face in my pillow, trying not to make any sound to indicate that I’m awake.

“Ayano, please, I know you’re in there. I just want to talk.”

I don’t respond. My father is dead. That’s the best way to think of it. The safest way to think of it. Even when the snake lets him out, it’s only in the hopes of getting me to snap.

“Ayano, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been the best father to you, since your mother died. But please, I just want to know what happened. What happened to Shuuya and Tsubomi and Kousuke. Why you won’t talk to me. Ayano, please.”

My hands clench against the pillow. I force myself to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

“Ayano…”

In.

Out.

“…Just… think about it, okay? I’m here, if you’re ever ready to talk. Even if you need another two years, I’ll still be here.”

A lie. Dad won’t be here. Just the snake.

“…I love you.”

I stay silent, waiting until the sound of footsteps fades from my hearing. No matter how many times I go through this, it never gets any easier. But… I can’t talk to him.

Even if the snake wasn’t privy to his every thought, I can’t bring myself to speak with the man who sold my world.

“…Is… he gone?” A tinny voice whispers from my computer’s speaker.

I listen for a moment. When nothing happens, I nod. “Yeah.”

My computer monitor lights up as it exits sleep mode, and a girl in blue peeks out from her hiding place behind a browser window. “…I still don’t understand why you don’t leave here, Ayano-chan…”

I shake my head. “I… I just can’t. I’m sorry, Ene.” Ene… that’s what this girl calls herself. About a year ago, she popped out of an email and decided to stick around. She tried to put on this sassy, hyper front at first, but it fell apart pretty quickly.

I’m pretty sure I know who she really is, after all. And she knows I know. I just haven’t been cruel enough to push the topic.

It’s not like she has much of anywhere else to go, after all.

“…Okay. I get it.” She looks down at the taskbar and pokes her index fingers together. “Just… hang in there, okay, Ayano-chan? Do your best.”

“Like my best has ever mattered,” I mumble, and sit down at my computer chair. To be honest, my activities since dropping out of school two years ago have been nothing, nothing, and a heaping dessert of nothing. It’s not like I have any sort of online life to speak of, even. It’s just that… ultimately, there’s nothing else to do when I’m living under the same roof as my father. I can’t risk going outside at the wrong time and having to face him. At least he respects the boundaries of my room; and the snake finds it convenient to leave me a sanctuary under his supervision for as long as he doesn’t have any need of me.

“…So, um… Ayano-chan?” Ene glances up at me, a little shyly. “Can I ask about whether…”

Ah. That. I shake my head. “…I’m sorry. I’ve tried talking to him while my father was away, but Konoha really doesn’t seem to remember anything about us.” Konoha… the white-haired boy the Clearing Eyes took in really is just another reminder of my failures. Still, I know that’s not hisfault, and I can’t really blame Ene for being too scared to check up on him herself. Talking to him hurts badly enough for me, and I still hadn’t been quite as close to Haruka as she was. Honestly though, whenever I’d felt safe enough to slip out and check on him, Konoha had seemed pretty nonresponsive. Forget remembering me and Ene; he didn’t seem to remember anything, not even basic things like rain.

“I see…” Ene droops. This happens every time she brings up Konoha; as much as she’s tried to be around for me, I don’t have the first idea how to comfort her when this topic comes up.

Well, honestly, I don’t think I’m in a place to be comforting much of anyone. Back when I tried all those years ago, it only ended in pain.

In the end, I go with the tried and true method of pretending I didn’t see anything. When there’s nothing you can do, acknowledging the problem only ends in more tears, after all. I pass the day mindlessly browsing the web and making more paper cranes for the army that chokes every available surface in my room. Occasionally, I can’t help but fantasize about what things might be like if I had Paper-Animating Eyes. Sending an army of little origami birds to get revenge on the Clearing Eyes… it’d definitely be a more efficient way of getting a wish granted.

Ah well.

At least my father has work during the day and the snake has better things to do than waste time in this lonely house during the nighttime, so I’m able to check on Konoha and grab something from the kitchen for lunch on most days. That’s particularly important, because dinner can be much more spotty, depending on whether my father is in a “bury his problems in work” mood or a “try desperately to be present to make up for selling his soul to an evil snake” one. Well, okay, I really don’t know how much he’s able to retain about what the Clearing Eyes does when in control of his body, but if he really is oblivious about everything that might actually be worse.

Unfortunately he seems to be in a “try to atone” cycle right now, so I’m running off of a single meal when the knocks return once again.

“Ayano.”

Ene hides behind the browser window again, and I click off of the tab showing a video of a mongoose taking down a snake.

…What? Look, I have to deal with the spite somehow.

“I know you’re in there.”

I stay silent.

“I’ve got another mission for you, Ayano. You know the deal by now.”

I freeze. This isn’t dad.

“I trust I don’t need to spell it out for you?”

It’s the other one.

“I’m waiting.Or is this some pathetic attempt at rebellion? If so, I have to applaud. It’s the most pointless one yet.”

I finally find my voice. “I-I understand.”

“Heh. Good.” The snake chuckles. “Two children are coming to stay in this house soon. Your father’s sister-in-law, and some hanger-on. When they’re here, you’re going to be the model of a big sister, understand? Get them to trust you, and then make sure they’re in a certain place on August fifteenth.”

I shrink in on myself. Children? Please, no…

“I said, understand?You know what’ll happen to your family if you refuse…”

“N-no!” I shoot to my feet in panic. “No… I understand…”

“Good.” What should be my father’s voice drips with malice. “See? Wasn’t that easy? Goodbye, Ayano.” Saying the last two words in an odd sing-song voice, the snake leaves. I collapse back into my chair, hugging myself.

“A-ayano-chan…” Ene peeks back out from her hiding spot.

I turn to her with wide eyes.

“Ayano-chan, you don’t have to do this. Please, we can fight back. I’ll help you.”

…If only. But no, I know it’s hopeless.

I can’t fight the snake. All I can do is delay the inevitable.

I shake my head, and start disconnecting the speakers from my computer. If Ene tried to do something brave, and the Clearing Eyes found out…

“…Ayano, please…”

I pull the plug on my monitor. Ene may still have access to the inside of my computer, but the most she’ll be able to do in the house is open and close the CD drive.

“…sorry…” I whisper quietly to myself, even though I know she can’t hear me.

God, how did things turn out this way?

——

I have many precious memories, moments I’ve spent these past two years trying desperately not to forget. Reading storybooks at bedtime with my mom. Meeting my little siblings for the first time. The way my dad’s face used to look when he’d play with us, long before everything happened.

If you were to look through those treasured days, flipping from one to another as though they were files secreted away in a lockbox, one might still stand out from the rest. Perhaps it’s laminated, or hidden behind a false back. Not because it’s more precious than the others - I wouldn’t trade my family for anything - but because it’s unique nonetheless. A moment elevated in its rarity, and in the pain it brings me - not the dull ache of my mom’s face, nor the stabbing betrayal of my father’s failures and mine, but a gaping void of ‘what if’s.

The first time I ever got to see Shintaro smile.

It was during our second year of middle school, a couple months after the day I finally introduced myself. The last test I’d gotten back had been my lowest score yet, and with exams rushing to meet me, I was honestly in a panic.

But then, Shintaro’d spoken up. For the very first time, he gave me a totally unprompted offer to help me study.

“Thank you so much,” I’d sobbed. “I don’t know what I was gonna do…”

“Ugh, don’t be annoying about it!” He’d refused to meet my eyes as he grumbled. “I just know that if you failed your exams I’d somehow get dragged into helping you catch back up. It’s just easier to get this over with this early, alright?”

Whatever his stated reasons, I still felt like I’d been saved when he stuck around to help me pound the latest lessons into my skull. And I don’t know if we finished faster than usual, if something good had happened to him at home, or if his guard was just down that day for some other reason, but one way or another, he decided to stick around and chat for a bit afterwards.

I can still picture it clearly. That sunny classroom, me perched on my desk to bask in the light from the window, him leaning his chair back as we killed time… and the glint of light that drew my eye to the spine of a book just peeking out of his bag.

“Hm? Hey, Shintaro?”

“What?” He glanced lazily back at me.

I tilted my head to read what I could from the spine. It rung a bell; I’d overheard some of the other girls in our class talking about it from time to time. “Isn’t that ‘Let’s Fall In Love’?”

“HUH?” I winced at the sudden crash as Shintaro lost his balance and fell in a heap.

“Ah! Are you okay? I’m sorry!” I rushed to help him up, but he just scrambled back until he was pressed against the wall.

“W-w-w-what are you talking about? I-I don’t, I mean, that’s not—“ Shintaro grabbed suddenly for his bag, but his hand missed its mark and sent the contents spilling out as it toppled over instead. The book landed face up, its cover proudly displaying a drawing of a boy and a girl standing together in a very shoujo-esque artstyle. Emblazoned above the picture was ‘Let’s Fall in Love ~ by Yumeno Sakiko.’

“Umm…”

“I mean! It’s Momo’s! Yeah! My little sister wouldn’t stop pestering me, so I picked up her copy for her, uh-huh! I definitely don’t read shoujo manga!” His stuttering picked up pace as he scrambled for excuses, and I couldn’t help it - some part of me kinda wanted to watch him squirm for a little longer.

So, I grinned slyly and searched my memory of my classmates’ conversations. “Uh-huh? You know, with how Mamiko and Oze were talking in the latest chapter, don’t you think there might be a chance they’ll—“

“THAT’S HERESY!” Shintaro slammed his hands down on the ground, and I winced at the sudden spike in volume. “Mamiko and Suzuki are meantto be together!” He clenched his fist and held it to his chest. “I can’t imagine how anyone would think otherwise after that moment in volume 7! And anyways, Oze and Waka may be having a fight right now, but everyone… knows…” He trailed off as my control failed me and I started to giggle. “…Fine. You caught me. Happy now?”

At the sight of him forcing down a pout and struggling to regain a serious expression, I laughed even harder.

“…So I like shoujo manga. Is it really that funny to you?”

“No, no! I’m sorry!” I did my best to get myself under control. “It’s not that, honestly. You just looked so earnest, and then you kept trying to hide it… If reading that sort of thing makes you happy, then I think that’s a goodthing! It’s actually kinda c—“ I suddenly realized what I was about to say, and blushed heavily. “—I mean, it’s kinda cool! Yeah! You shouldn’t worry what other people will think about your interests, you know?” Oh yeah, that was an absolutely stellarsave, Ayano. Absolutely nobody was gonna suspect that you almost called your classmate ‘cute’ without thinking. Aside from, I dunno, people with eyes.

Thankfully, all of that intelligence must have come out of Shintaro’s perceptiveness instead, because he let it pass without comment. “So…” Shintaro seemed to be looking anywhere in the room other than my face, which might have helped the whole ‘not noticing my face doing a bonfire impression’ thing. “Do… you also read it, then?”

“Huh?”

“Y, you know! ‘Let’s Fall in Love’!”

“A, ah! Right!” I snapped out of my thoughts. Right, let’s just pretend that slip never happened for now, and I can unpack whatever the heck it meant on my own time, when I won’t make my one school friend think I’m even more of a weirdo than he already does. “Ehehe… Not really, actually.” I scratched the back of my head and grinned sheepishly. “I was just parroting something I overheard. I’m more into the shounen stuff, you know? Hot-blooded super sentai fighting to save the world, and all that.”

“Really? But they’re so formulaic. You can see everything coming from a mile away. And how do those guys get through posing dressed like that and not die of embarrassment?”

Well, I couldn’t just sit there and take that. “What? Hold on a moment, like your mushy stuff is any better! Aren’t they all just ‘boy meets girl, cue nothing happening for the rest of their school lives’?”

“Wh— they are not!There’s nuanceand relationship growth and everything!” Woah. Shintaro was looking about the most fired up I’d ever seen him! At that thought, an idea clicked in my head.

“Hmm… Alright, then!” I grinned at him and gave a sharply enunciated chuckle, heh-heh-heh. “Why don’t you tell me more about this series, and if you manage to change my mind I’ll give reading it a try? And then, in return, you’ll watch an episode of Engine Sentai Go-Onger with me, and we’ll see how you feel about heroes after that!”

Shintaro rose to the challenge. “Fine! Come on then, I’ll teach you about why Yumeno-sensei is a master! I mean, her portrayal of Mamiko’s inner struggles alone touches the heart, even for a boy like me! There’s this moment in chapter 12 when she…” He lit up as he talked, gesturing wildly with the plot points. I’m a little ashamed to say that I actually stopped paying attention after a few moments, because my focus suddenly seemed drawn to his face. He was grinning - actually grinning, the first genuine smile I’d seen from him in, well, ever- as he opened up about his interest.

I can only remember thinking two things as we walked home that day.

The first was, ‘What a pretty smile.’

The second was, ‘…oh. Crap.’

…So, yeah. It looked like I maybe had a teeny little crush. That was okay! It was fine! It meant I was finally starting to grow up, right? Anyways, whatever Shintaro’s romance manga said, I was pretty sure that people were supposed to get a lot of those with time. They didn’t have to mean anything, or, y’know, gamble their only real non-family friendships on the chance that someone who was really smart and cute would still want to hang out with a dumb girl they barely tolerated helping out if she asked.

Not a problem! I’d just go about my life as normal, and it’d fade in time. Eventually, I’d probably look back on this day and laugh.

…And if in the meantime, I wanted to see him smiling like that again? Well, that could be my little secret.

——

Of course, let nobody accuse me of being a good planner. Obviously, the darn thing only seemed to get stronger with time. Wanting to see Shintaro smile because I wanted him to be happy slowly morphed into wanting to be the reasonhe was smiling like that. Hoping that maybe, if I could be the one to make this lonely boy smile, that’d mean I was actually worth somethingreally the hero I pretended to be.

Mom died, and I had to be the strength for the whole family as dad seemed like half his world had gone missing, but no matter how much I needed comfort of my own, I wasn’t ready to tell him.

We met Takane and Haruka, and one friend turned into three, but even though I’d only be gambling 33% instead of 100, I was still too scared to tell him.

And then I found out that dad had changed, what the thing in his body had planned for Haruka and Takane and my siblings, and suddenly my stupid little feelings didn’t seem so important. I had to research the read eyes, and I needed Shuuya to cover for me, and in the end I didn’t have the attention to spare for my friend my crush my…

…for Shintaro. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice our growing distant. Why I didn’t notice things growing strained.

Why I didn’t notice that I really was just burdening him with my own expectations.

Didn’t notice until a hill at sunset, a hand snatched away, his back receding into the distance while I stood alone.

After that, I wondered about a lot of things. How much had been genuine, and how much really had just been putting up with me. How much of my motives had been pure, and how much had been that dark little thrill of seeing him down and feeling like I was still needed.

How cruel it must have been, to plan what I was planning and still try to hold onto his hand until the last minute.

So I didn’t try again. I delegated as much school time as I could to Shuuya (and carefully didn’t wonder why his face was growing more stressed, why his own time seemed to draw thin.) I withdrew further, and dedicated everything I had to my lonely mission. August fifteenth came all too soon at last, and I shoved my responsibilities onto Takane, told her to be honest with her feelings even as I swore that my own were better ignored. I wrapped my scarf around my neck, the colour of a hero, I steeled myself and turned to mount the stairs, and I was interrupted.

“Shuuya? What are you doing?” My little brother had arrived in front of me, hands on his knees as he gasped for breath.

“N, neechan, please!” Panting, Shuuya raised his eyes to meet mine. They glistened with tears. “You have to— you have to stop Shintaro-kun! He’s about to do something really stupid!”

“Huh?” I was taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s already gone to the roof! I couldn’t do anything! Neechan, please!”

“The roof?” I still didn’t understand, but I burst into a run anyways, leaving my brother behind. Why was Shintaro even here today, when he didn’t need summer school? Why did Shuuya know about it? What could he be doing on the roof, other than…?

He wasn’t involved. God, please, he wasn’t involved, why was he here?

I took the steps two at a time, ignoring the pain shooting through my lungs, and had no choice but to stop for breath and lean against the wall for a moment when I finally reached the door leading outside.

My father’s voice filtered in from outside. No - not my father. The thingwearing his skin. “Honestly, kid.” He sounded mildly exasperated, like my dad did whenever a student had turned in a particularly baffling answer on a quiz. “You think that you’re gonna be the big damn hero? You really think there’s a single thing you can do here to beat me?”

“No.” Shintaro, this time. “Honestly, it’s a stupid plan. Totally useless in every way. But hey.” A dark chuckle. “Objectively speaking, the life of a rotten boy like me is just worthless enough to make it worth trying.”

I’d finally caught my breath, but at that it caught in my throat. Did he mean—

I burst through the door, screaming, “Shintaro, NO!” The roof was empty except for two people. My father, standing on solid ground looking mildly vexed. And Shintaro, clad in that red jersey I’d said I liked, the color of a hero, sitting perched half-on the fence around the edge of the roof and half dangling over open air.

His eyes met mine, and no matter how hard I try I know I’ll never forget the way his face clouded over, the way his eyes darkened, or the words he said to me at that moment.

“…Oh.

“Ayano.

“The very last person I wanted to see.”

His final curse delivered, he leaned back. The world distorted around him, horrible discordant red tearing open fangs in the sky.

And he fell.

I must have screamed, but it’s a blur. I just know that by the time I came to, I’d fallen on my knees, and the thing that took my father was laughing.

Laughing.

“Ha! You kids never fail to surprise me, you know that? I never once would have expected that depressing little thing to get up off his ass and do something like this!” He paused. “Well okay, I guess I would, but the part where he tried to stand up to me was still new.”

Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d jumped to my feet and was tackling him. “SHUT UP!”

“Whoops!” Somehow, my father’s body stepped out of the way before I could react. I found myself impacting concrete and rolling on the roof, scrapes all over my body where I’d fallen. “Come on, brat. You’re a big girl now, you should be used to hearing swear words by now. Or wait, are you angry about the boy?”

With a wordless scream, I threw myself at him again, but this time he casually stuck out a leg and tripped me.

“You might still have time to save him, you know. Throw yourself off the roof after him, and maybe you could convince him to come on out and bring me that snake he stole.” He sneered. “Of course, it’d mean making this whole little sacrifice play all for nothing. And this guy” he tapped the side of my father’s head, “might even willingly help me kill the brat if you did! Oh, now thatdespair would be delicious to see.”

I swallowed the pain as my fists clenched, scraped raw though they were. “…Shut up. You… you’re just trying to convince me because you know your plan’s finished. You can’t gather the snakes now. There’s no… no more reason to kill Takane and Haruka, or the others.”

*snrk.* The monster covered his mouth with a hand.

“What’s supposed to be so funny?”

“Ha! Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just… you think this kid managed to save your friends? Please.” He rolled his eyes. “He was too late. They’re already dead.” He shrugged and continued in a sing-song voice. “And anyways, the boy was a goner already. You should be thankingme; this way, at least he has a chanceof living for another year or two.”

“W…what…?” I slumped, the fight draining from my veins. No. It couldn’t be. Takane and Haruka… they were gone, too?

My “father” walked up to me and rested a hand on my shoulder. To anyone watching, it might have just looked like a father comforting his daughter; but I could feel his fingers dig into my flesh in a vice grip. “Still, working this all back out from the top is going to be a pain. And that’s not even counting all of the cleanup I have to do! It’s one thing for those other two kids; I’d made preparations for them. But spinning the sudden disappearance of this brat, too? No, that’s far too much work.” He crouched down until he was level with me, a too-wide smile on his face. A shiver ran down my spine. “So, Ayano.I’m going to have you do me a little favor, alright? And before you consider trying to do something brave, consider just who it is that has your family’s life in his hands, hmm? Don’t say anything; just nod.” I nodded, stricken. Everything I’d planned had come to nothing in a few short minutes. “You’re going to find Shuuya for me, and you’re going to have him go make himself look like this guy -“ he waved vaguely at the empty edge of the roof - “’s body for me. A suicide should be easy enough to explain away. Especially when the victim was as gloomy-looking as this asshole here. Honestly, people’re gonna think it was a miracle he lasted as long as he did.” My fists clenched again at relentless slander, but there was nothing I could do. I was totally and utterly defeated. “You got it, Ayano? Do this, and I’ll let the people you care about live a little longer.” He chuckled. “…Well, what’s left of them, at least. Hahahaha!”

How could I have ever thought I could be a hero? All I’d managed to do was arrive too late to save either of the snake’s intended victims, and drag a bystander to his death in the process.

In the end, tears streaming down my face, all I could do was nod.

——

“Neechan!” Shuuya rushed up to me the minute I exited the school. He grabbed my hands - I didn’t resist - and gasped at the scrapes all over them. “What happened to you? Where’s Shintaro-kun?”

“Shintaro— He’s—“ My voice caught.

“Nee…chan…?” I could see the exact moment Shuuya caught on. His eyes widened and his face fell, all in one motion. “Dammit! And just when the guy starts to convince me he’s not all bad, he has to go and do something like this…” His hands tightened involuntarily around mine, but I couldn’t even find the energy to wince.

I spoke in a flat voice, forcing myself to put one word in front of the next. “Shuuya. There’s something very important I need you to do.”

“Huh? What is it?”

“You need to use your power to turn into Shintaro. Let somebody discover ‘his’ body, so there’ll be a record. If you don’t, then… then he’ll…” My voice caught again, but I forced myself to continue before Shuuya could ask any questions. “And then there’s one more thing you need to do. I need you to take Tsubomi and Kousuke, and go away. Go somewhere far away from here, and don’t— don’t tell me anything about where you’re going. You can’t contact me at all, okay? I can’t have any way to find out more about you.”

“W—what?”

“It’s the only way that you’re going to be safe. I… we can’t stop the Clearing Eyes. He can have you all killed in a moment.”

Shuuya must have been able to see the seriousness in my eyes, because he didn’t try to debate the point. “Okay, but… Why can’t you come with us? We can all run, that’ll be safer!”

I just shook my head. “…No. He… he’ll find me, somehow. He knew how to respond to everything that I tried. Anything I do… no matter what, I’m sure he’ll…” I hugged myself and started slowly walking towards the path home. It was clear to me now. I was nothing more than a puppet dancing on the Clearing Eyes’ strings.

“W-wait, Neechan! Come back!”

“Goodbye, Shuuya. Please don’t forget to do what I told you. Consider it… My final request as your sister.”

“NEECHAN!”

——

“…Hey, Shintaro. Why’d you do it?”

I lie on my back, staring at the empty ceiling as I talk to the air.

“I mean… You could have stayed out of it. It wasn’t your fight.”

The cranes crowding every surface above me seem to swirl and distort, like a heat haze.

My head keeps playing his final moments on repeat. Even as the happy days grow dimmer and dimmer, I can’t seem to forget his last words no matter how hard I try.

‘The very last person I wanted to see.’

“If… if you hated me so much, why didn’t you just let me be the one to jump? Why take my place?”

I wonder… if I’d been the one to jump that day, would he have been able to do what I couldn’t? I indulge in a brief fantasy of Shintaro, red jacket flapping behind him, standing tall with my siblings as they face down the Clearing Eyes together.

…Somehow, I just can’t see it. Sorry, Shintaro.

‘The life of a rotten boy like me is worthless’

“…Did you hate yourselfthat much? Were you so sick of life that you grabbed the first excuse you could find?”

…Maybe. But… somehow, as much as he tried to shut the world out, I can’t help but see Shintaro as someone who was brimming with life underneath it all. At the very least, whenever he talked about his sister, he didn’t seem like he’d want to leave her.

The thought of Momo-chan makes me wince. Another memory, this time of her crying and screaming at me when I’d tried to comfort her.

When I’d broken down and sobbed that it was all my fault.

I can’t blame her for hating me. To be honest, I wonder if it wasn’t what I was secretly hoping for.

Just another case where Ayano’s self-satisfaction came before actually doing her job.

My alarm clock rings. I’d set it instead of my phone, to make sure Ene couldn’t try and be a hero. (I can’t help but hope that she’s given up on me, and found her way to somebody who’ll be a better friend.) It means that the children…

…my victims…

…should be arriving soon.

I push myself to my feet. In the end, even blaming myself is just pointless self-satisfaction. I’ve made the choice to play this role; I made the decision that these two children were worth less than the family I know and care about.

It doesn’t take too long to get myself presentable. I choose an outfit that looks like its owner hasn’t been in hiding for the last two years, and glance at my scarf, hanging wrinkled and dusty on a hook.

My hands shake.

And I turn away without touching it. I don’t deserve to wear that color.

Not when red is the color of blood.

“Sorry, Shintaro. Guess you made the wrong trade, in the end. Even a genius like you makes mistakes, huh?”

With that snide remark, I turn my back on his sacrifice and walk out into the house.

…Still, a thought flits across my mind.

—Ah, I would have liked to see that smile, just one more time.

The doorbell rings. It’s time.

I hide my feelings behind a smile, painting it from ear to ear.

And I open the front door.

[maruzzewrites]

Every breath you take. - 10

cw for a bit of gore in this one.

Driving with tension in your arms and legs proved to be dreadful, the anxiety of not knowing what was happening to your darling felt like a sharp pain that disappeared at intervals, only to return more intense and barbed a few seconds later.

It was always a possibility, but never a reality, the fact that one of them would have enough of your obvious love for someone else, someone better than them and that they couldn’t beat with simple courting or vile obsession. Your fiance was an obstacle, even when not in the picture as your husband-to-be, and you wanted to vomit at the mere thought of being the cause of his problems with them.

Your drive, while filled with the desire to be short and quick, was slower than usual. No cars passed you on your way home, no one directed towards the city from the same direction of the house. Even when someone was behind you, you would check through the rear-view mirror to see who was driving. Men, women, old and young, with families or friends, alone or someone in the backseat; no one seemed to match the physiognomy of those men.

At some point, the anxiety grew to the point of being unable to even take gulps of breath. You were driving exceptionally slow, slower than needed, and cars upon cars would honk at you or yell at you from open windows. But you didn’t care, you wanted this. You waited for them to surpass you and give you a better view inside their cars to check thoroughly, methodically, and then switch to the next vehicle in line.

At some point, the terrible strain on your body and mind of hypervigilance made you almost steer to the side of the road. And you had to stop, pull over, and let your limbs tremble and shake with more violence than they ever did in your life. Despite your need to relax, you found it impossible to control your eyes, raising every time a car passed by.

The answer was always the same, no one was following you. Nowhere those men could be seen. Yet, it didn’t help the hollowing fear enveloping your actions, making you lean into the window to watch closer, and closer. You spent like that a good hour, you assumed, but you couldn’t estimate an exact time because you didn’t check the clock of your car when you stopped. The sun shifted, so did the shadows, so you could only presume.

You wondered if you could try again. You picked up your phone from the seat, gripping it with more force than necessary, and you could imagine it breaking between your tense fingers. Cancelling any possibility to call for help, but getting rid of their torment at home. The way your entire life was a puzzle of choices that carried both good and bad consequences, always walking hand in hand, always ready to hit you when you least expect it.

If there was the probability to have something your way, there was also something ready to push you back into the dark corner and keep you there, one inch closer to the wall than before. The negatives were always too great to even be brightened by the vague light of positivity an action could bring. So you stopped holding the phone so strongly, felt your hand ache less as tension left the muscles, traveling back up your arm, in your shoulder, all over your body. Settled in your chest, and you felt almost like your lungs couldn’t contract properly.

You dialed your darling’s number slowly, keeping an eye on the road and any direction that could provide them with easy access to you. The ring in your ear came once, twice, then you heard his voice confirming he was listening. Cordialities, but immediately he questioned if you needed help somehow, and it was implicit he would run to help you however he could.

And he did. Even if he was still away from you, still waiting for your answer, he really did ease your mind. It was only temporary relief, you knew, but your mind held the possibility to feel at peace for once for dear life. Because it really felt like you needed it to keep going, or everything would come down crumbling around you. Having blood on your hands, on your conscience.

You could hear your own voice shake, struggling to crawl out of your throat, but you managed to let him know you were well and you just needed to hear a familiar voice, that you were glad to be talking to him. He didn’t question you, but you could detect a hint of wonder and worry in his next words.

He was in class, he was doing his last bits of project before the exam session. And that made you understand how much you lost in those months, when you would face this part of the year with a bit of loneliness because of his attention to studying. Soon enough, he would have a degree and maybe, just maybe, you could ask him to move away from this city. Move as up north as possible, maybe even leave Italy altogether.

There, you could be happy and shielded by those monsters. In a cozy little cabin, without anyone bothering or threatening you both, ready to pick up your life where you left it. The fantasy in your head only made the return to reality even worse, a drop from a high too sweet. That was how you were reduced, to exorcize and refuse any attempt at happiness only because the cold feeling growing in your chest was crushing to bear.

You made small talk with your former fiance, but he figured soon enough you weren’t in the mood to speak too much. You were really forcing yourself, not wanting to bother him more than necessary, but he reassured you that he would pick up the phone later. He was about to go to another class anyway, the last for the day. By the time he would be on his walk back home, you would have probably been in your room for a while.

You said your goodbye, and then there was only silence. Before your brain could regress into the compulsive inspection of whoever passed by, you started the engine again and drove off into Naples. You were uncharacteristically slow, and drivers would continue to honk and yell at you to do faster, but you wouldn’t dare when your mind was as fogged and overworked as that moment.

When you arrived under your apartment building, you turned off the car and waited in the new stillness. You slumped down, curled up almost, as much as the narrow space in the vehicle would allow. Despite taking this defensive stance, your ears and your eyes were on guard; to notice anything, a step or a voice, a figure or an outfit, anything out of the ordinary that could signal their presence around you.

When enough time passed and you were feeling yourself spiral into darker and darker places, you stumbled out of the car and were careful, like you often did now when returning home, to check every corner of the shared inner space. Not as obviously and thoroughly as you wanted, because otherwise you would seem suspicious and, in the eventuality they were actually observing you, they wouldn’t be as convinced about your changed feelings.

Everything in your life had to be orchestrated around their actions, their thoughts and the possibility of both of those things, because at this point your very existence was put on hold. It didn’t belong to you until you could shake off those chains for good, and you couldn’t wait for the moment they would turn on each other or spit you out after chewing you into dust.

Even as you climbed the stairs, you were jittery. You had to take several attempts at opening the door between them slipping from your fingers or you would miss the keyhole due to the shaking of your hands, still too tense. You even let the door slam with how clumsy you became with the electricity shooting from one end to the other of your brain, too many emotions and information traveling your exhausted head.

Rest called upon you, the sweet embrace of your bed and the secure bubble of sleep, where you could be absent from the world, simulate a reality where nothing ever happened. But you couldn’t retire in your room just yet, you had to go through the motions of a simple and normal life: shower, talk to your family, have dinner, and some downtime. A perfectly average evening for the least average of lives, you assumed.

When your mother was busy watching frivolous programs filled with mundanity and pettiness, you declared how tired you were and wished her a goodnight. It was bitter how seeing those examples of ordinary events, for how much everyone acted as if their problems were so much bigger than reality, would leave an ache inside of you. You were turning into something you didn’t want to be, something filled with resentment and antipathy for anyone suffering less than you.

The ways those men’s influence snaked into your life to poison any aspect of it, how they managed to leave an indelible mark on your psyche and your mentality to the point you couldn’t even imagine how you were before; it hurt, it stung worse than you could put into words and thoughts.

They refined the smooth marble surface with sandpaper until it left nothing but edges and ruined colors, dull without possibility to restore it. You wanted to hope that you could come back from it all, repaint your skin with colors even brighter and even more beautiful, but the muted doom hanging over your head prevented you from keeping up those thoughts for long. The only positive note in the drone that became your life was the plan you were hatching, even if it would take you long enough for everyone else to forget about you and abandon you to fight for yourself.

And even then, what were you to do after? Beaten into a broken shell, ready to release the waste boiling inside and corroding the feet of those around you. If they wouldn’t leave you before those men were gone, they would after the fact: because you would shatter and have to put the pieces together, for no apparent reason to those outside.

Yet, you persevered. You had to, because the alternative was losing yourself. Losing friends and family could burn your soul, but not having one to begin with couldn’t allow you to build your life again. If they’re gone, one day, you would be free. And that meant the freedom to collapse, to be torn apart, to wail and cry until your throat was dry, but it would be your freedom.

You closed the door behind you as you thought. You had been in your mind so long those past months, you built a world made of horror and left everything else outside to be picked up on your way back, when everything would be alright. You laid on the bed with exhaustion cold on your skin, crushingly heavy on your bones.

You didn’t know the exact moment when you fell asleep, but you could swear you rested awake for several hours into the darkness and the silence. But for all you knew, you could have been dead to the world the moment your head touched the pillow, into something dull and aphonic that parodied the ease of sleep.

All you knew was that you were awakened by the filtering light pouring inside, warming you up into the spring air and the early summer notes it carried. You had a week of masks ahead of you, dense, impenetrable, but to endure to the best of your capabilities.

One day it was shopping with your mother, the other talking to friends. One evening it was going to meet family members you had neglected to visit, and the following morning you would walk around the beach to experience something long gone from your life. And every night, it was talking to your fiance and listening to him talk about his studies, forgetting about what your existence was and being everything you wanted to be again.

“What do you want to study?” He asked, once. And you stayed silent for a long time, indifferent to the way your mind couldn’t work on thinking about yourself as someone in a future that belonged to you. You could conjure the hope for it, overwork your spirit until you could put on a façade for everyone, but the concrete result of your plan and all its consequences were alien, distant, and nothing but the damned apple in the coils of a snake.

Your fiance asked again, you blinked the disbelief away. Or so you thought, because the words still wouldn’t come and your brain was failing you with violent rapidity. He wouldn’t suggest anything else, just wait and wait, and your head was a blank slate void of ideas in those seconds. When he assumed enough time had passed, he came to fix the situation a bit, “You remember when we talked about you going to university?”

You did remember, suddenly. You confirmed your memory and felt relief in his voice when he continued with his thought, “I wanted to know what you would like to study.”

You had to think about something, yet you couldn’t find a single spark of life that could guide you. You lost so much time to demented tormentors that you couldn’t even consider the possibility of pondering on that question. Your fiance did propose, long ago, to support you through school, and you remembered dreamingly waiting for him as you admired the building where he took classes.

When you still felt a bit more control, when autonomy wasn’t something so foreign and unfamiliar yet. Maybe that was the start of the end for you, when their presence started to spill even more into your mundanity that it replaced it. When you started to think about them from morning to evening, even when you were far away from their cove.

You stammered, he noticed. He didn’t fault you for the indecisiveness, as he explained, because he was nervous the months before his enrollment as well, unsure if he would pick the right path for himself. However, he didn’t care if you would change your mind once, twice, three times in your first year; you would need time to settle into a future, because it had to fit you as you wanted, not as others demanded.

And despite the desire to have everyone else shut up about their normalcy, so that you wouldn’t be reminded of your plight, you accepted what came from him. Maybe it was because he knew what he was saying and he was choosing his words with attention, with all the concern of someone intent on staying. He was taking an oath, with light words and solemn intent, and you were conflicted between your desire to cave to your need for comfort and your crave for his safety.

But what was the point in demanding from him to forget you along with everyone else? Loneliness and lack of options were deadly in this battle, and even if he was merely a man with no connections and no power, it was still soothing the way his voice could mend your soul and calm your mind. It made you hold that mask with less belligerence, cracking it less between your fingers.

You spent the hours of that evening talking about faculties, classes and possibilities, and your heart could beat again in that atmosphere. Made of risk, opportunity and the allure of everyday that you lost like sand between the fissures open along your body.

It was corrosive, scraping along the burning flesh and leaving tears in its wake, but you wanted it. You wanted that ache, you wanted to feel the white-hot anger along with the fear. You wanted to hate them for what they were stealing from you, or you may end up forgetting how to feel that resentment. There were times when it melted, escaped the confines of your brain, and you were left numb to their actions; and you didn’t want that, you desired the depths of hatred in your soul, the disgust and the anxiety, the pit under your feet as you walked.

And thinking about that lost future with your beloved, drawing the lines smudged by the side of your hand, it served you well in that intent. Because when he handed you a brink, it would fall, and leave the wall incomplete. Because when you were about to rebuild it, they were there to stomp on your hard work and tear down anything else.

Menaces, menaces, there on Earth to torment you until your mind would break and your muscles would give in. And even the soothing sound of your darling’s voice wouldn’t shoo away the whispering enveloping your being, their voices echoing, thundering, bouncing on a wall, on another, splattering on the floor and leaving behind a mess.

It was as if something cracked, letting everything pour and flood the husk left behind by their attentive, meticulous carving. If you had to carry their scars, their markings, may they be reclaimed with the bile and the scalding blood levigating them. Until those men’s passage was nothing but a memory, and then nothing anymore.

You closed the call with the flames of rage licking at the edges of your body, burning you, burning their images. It sealed the pact you made with yourself, of enduring whatever stretch of torture you were left ahead of you. Freedom was your goal, however you would obtain it – be it death, be it abandonment.

That night, the first one in a while in which you wanted to be awake, you observed the sky with new eyes. Not hopeful, not resigned, but incensed and mad. And your quest may be doomed, you may be the pitiful man screaming to the heavens and challenging those impossible to fight, but you needed it. You needed to find the motivation, the motion in your steps, and the force inside your performance.

Your workday came, the usual routine: get ready, take your car, drive to the house. Each moment was a bucket of gelid water over the fire you tried to preserve, with your own breath as fuel, the oxygen alimenting it to height you couldn’t even imagine before.

Your weapons were lousy, meager, worthless, and you hoped they would stay like that – because they weren’t to be used. But until you could, until that flame roared, you begged yourself to resist and fight with what you were given. If you did, you could return.

The day morphed between morning and afternoon, the men around you buzzed and pried. A request, a demand, nothing new and nothing odd. They continued to bother you for your entire stay, and you were ready to jump to attention. There was still rigidity in your steps, you had to summon all your willpower to even look them in the eyes, be cordial, act like you cared or like you even considered them.

Your fervor dimmed in their presence, returned to its glory in the few moments of calm you could make for yourself between one order and the other. Constant, always on your feet and never thinking too long, or you would lose your nerve and let it all slip away.

Your triumph was close, though. The door was a promise made by the end of the day, by the pink hues of the evening waiting beyond the threshold and down the road to your house. You survived another day, you survived with your spirit intact and still burning, even if it was but the minute sparkle of a match struggling to keep alive.

Only a handful of steps separated you from the first victory you could consider your own, the first drop in the vase after the drought. An outcome to keep close to your chest, let it warm your poor limbs, guard and shield with jealous frenzy from the tendril of those jackals. Yours, and only yours, digged up between your hands withered down to the naked bone.

But to that light, there was a shadow imposing itself from behind. It didn’t touch you, it didn’t demand, but you knew you had to stop when you acknowledged it; and it was aware of you knowing, because when your movements stopped, his started.

It was as if everything else fell down, into a void. It was you and it was Risotto, the only two being who ever existed. You breathed in, deep but controlled, to not alarm him and to feed that dying flame, those last ribbons of warmth deep inside your stomach. Air in, air out, slow as you could as Risotto arrived right in front of you.

Despite your knowledge about his involvement with the entire plot and obsession they had with you, you could hardly picture Risotto curved on his desk to watch picture after picture of you, listening to every hushed secret of yours the others were to confide him, scheming the next move and the future he wanted with you. But when those hollow eyes stared down at you like judgment was nigh, you could at least believe the demented corruption that mind held.

He bowed his head in pretend gratitude, in mocking politeness. Yet he was imperturbable, and cold, a glacier on your way to the sun on the horizon. His mouth was bringer of nothing, but misery; in that moment too, he could report nothing but foreboding omens, “Thank you. For everything, today.”

Each word was a pause, each syllable a meaning. Spoken with caution and with perfect delivery, an old actor basking into the applause of the public for his last exhibition. And like the bow to finally depart, Risotto’s arms raised and reached for you. Fangs ready to bite and tear the tender meat, leave it raw against the air.

He held you, more than a hug. It was a famished, desperate clawing at your soul to make it bleed, and bleed, and bleed dry. Head against his chest, calm heartbeat in your ears, drumming away against the membrane until it was as symbiotic as that of your mother the day you were born.

Your blood rushed to that rhythm, and the tide extinguished the last attempt to live on of that match. As if Risotto reached into the depths of your soul, and his fingertips closed around the head until the flame was suffocating around the lack of oxygen.

It ended there. Like every other time, you were left boneless and without yourself, between the arms of a man you didn’t want to see as human. Warm, and you hated it, that he was flesh and blood and brains and bones, that he was there and that he was breathing what you couldn’t gulp down as you were suspended between life and hell.

He left you shattering on the ground, wished you a good evening, and pushed you towards the door. The fragments breaking, hitting the floor, you on the carpets of that house. You looked behind into the hall, some of them there to watch the scene like critics, like judges, like birds of prey ready to hoard what you were leaving behind. You hoped with everything in you that those shards left cuts on their hands.

The drive back home started as badly as you could imagine: halfway, you had to pull over and double down to dry heave at the side of the road. Your throat contracting, releasing, tight and bound as your ribs felt like they were closing in to shield you further. On hands and knees on the dirty, long enough that someone stopped near your car to help you.

What could you do? How did you end up sobbing and step back from a stranger with concern deep inside their eyes, a hand on their phone ready to call for help? You begged, begged, down where you were. It was a simple, sudden illness that would disappear as soon as it came; you staggered on your feet, let them hold you up and leave you on your car seat.

After countless questions, to be sure you would be fine, they drove away. You watched the rear of their car pass, not before they slowed down near your position to check on you. Then silence that came after the asphalt was grinding under the wheels, cracking in the emptiness.

Only then, only in solitude, you fell apart piece by piece. Your head between your hands, between your knees, fingers tense and red for the strain to pull at your hair. The stress against your hairline, tugging once then twice, just to feel something else than the humiliating frustration and bottomless despair brought by that one, single embrace.

It took so little, so very little, and they could destroy any prospect or plan you wanted to build. For days took out of your life to pose as a monument, they came and raided and pillaged, left beaten earth under their feet and you to rebuild the incomplete ruins of what was left. Nothing, as usual, and each time the houses were a bit more crooked, a bit more bare, a bit more empty and useless against their attacks.

The problem was that, was it not? That you invited those barbaric acts inside your life, you didn’t stop and you couldn’t stop. You would have to endure invasion after invasion, in a lone effort of rebellion, unheard and unseen. You could do nothing to stop them efficiently, so you had to simply deal with the consequences and hope they found greener pastures.

However, you hated it with all your might. Because it was easy for them, it was impossible for you, and you deceived yourself in an everlasting instinct of seeking hope and reason to that chaos made of fear, impotence and resignation. An eternal struggle between wanting to keep that nature, that humanity behind a lock, but wanting to get rid of it to feel it pass and go, so that you would not be drowned anymore.

In your desperation, you truly wanted help once more. Who else could do so, if not the man who was there with you for the entire way. Sharing your pling, feeling it with you, your former fiance was a few keys away from you, in the palm of your hand. You dialed his number without thinking, with all the intention, as a second nature now that you could count on no one but him, and yourself, and whoever is beyond you looking down.

The line is hooked, it rings. You never noticed how long, resounding and echoing those sounds are, atonic and dragged to travel from one end of your mind to the other. Finally, the sound of the phone being picked up and your beloved’s voice greeting you with a yawn and a sigh.

It anchored you slowly, the exchange you had with him was calm and measured. You never vented or let your emotions take over when you were talking to him, but he was aware of the heavy note behind your words. He was aware of what you were carrying on your shoulders, but somehow he knew not to push a conversation about the topic, to just talk to you normally as he did months and months ago, before everything.

It was selfish to demand anything out of him, you should have done the most graceful act of care towards him and let him go towards a brighter future, but you craved so much the only feeble light like in that void. If you couldn’t ignite those flames inside of you for long or ever again, at least you wanted to rely on the external source of guidance. No matter how lost he was too, at least he was with you.

As your mind returned to progressive stability, you heard the weariness in his voice. He talked about projects and groups of students awake until the early hours of the morning to complete assignments and study. It wasn’t the substance that interested you, as much as the simple thought that he was fine and well, still living and still growing.

He would be there with you, in that growth. It wasn’t like the others, because he stuck around and he would share it. It wasn’t like those who simply flaunted normalcy, who craved abnormality and would remind you of the spiral of events, of circumstances and complete, utter, all-consuming horror you were in. He was different, he would lull you back into everyday life when everything ended; one in the arms of the other, ready to rebuild or renovate as you both changed, and grew, and matured – with this tragedy too.

“I have to go,” the conversation ended there, with a soft departure. You blinked exhaustion and daydreams away, just to listen once more to that calming voice, “I’m tired, sorry. I don’t think I can talk more tonight. Can we meet tomorrow to catch up?”

Your heart was beating in your throat, suddenly aware and awake. It had been a while since you met up with him, since you allowed that piece of your life back in its rightful place. Were you truly so egotistical to indulge that request of his, put him in grave danger only to satisfy your own need for reassurance? But then, who were you to deny it, who made you decisor of everything and anything?

You accepted, told him you would meet him in front of his house. He giggled with the tune of your early days, when you were still young and only starting to know each other. When you were naive, and happy, and unaware of anything that would come – be it a prosperous relationship or a declining situation.

With the promise hanging over your heads, you both said your goodbyes.

Despite the call, it took more time to recollect your complete calm, reconnect the wires. You couldn’t allow yourself the recklessness of driving without paying attention to the road and the other drivers. When you were ready, you adjusted your place inside your car and drove off.

That evening, you didn’t force yourself into any type of conversation and your mother understood you were more tired than usual. She didn’t insist, leaving you to sink into a deep sleep as soon as you were done with dinner. As always, your rest was devoid of anything.

You woke up unrefreshed, but pushed forward so that you could see your sweetheart. There was no special effort in your preparation, but each brush of your hair and each step closer to his home brought a sense of freedom and apprehension together to weigh down your soul. Even when you called to make sure he was still willing to meet you, you could feel something gripping your airpipe until you weren’t conscious.

It was ringing. Ringing, ringing, still ringing, and he didn’t pick up. You assumed he was showering or getting ready, maybe having breakfast and forgetting all about his phone for the time being. You retried a few times before deciding that it wouldn’t matter anyway, he was a man of his words.

You walked with somber silence, despite the rumble of the city all around you. You knew where he lived, he knew who you were looking for, yet your brain didn’t register much when you arrived at the right place, seeing the right man.

You moved as if everything was slowed to an almost-alt, just like those past few months felt. You unable to make sense of it all, struggling to even twitch, while the world moved on around you and without you. And despite it all, there was someone right behind you to walk in your steps and reach out to you.

A man, with a skull cracked open against a wall, a few steps right of the door to his apartment building. A man, with vacuous eyes staring ahead of him into the mob all around him. A man, cold to the world and stiff on the ground as he fell ungracefully on the floor with his brains spilling.

Someone was moving to cover him up, so that the public wouldn’t see the spectacle of macabre. But  you continued walking over the scene, until a policeman stopped you in your tracks. He was young, evidently so, but he already carried hair white as snow. Besides that, you couldn’t catch any other detail of his appearance.

You raised your eyes to his face, then dropped them back down to the mass under the cover. You moved slowly, your hands holding onto the uniform of the person right in front of you, your knees giving out right under you.

You didn’t cry or wail, just vomited all over his shoes, on the floor and under the eyes of everyone present. You were sure some reached the corpse mere feet away from you. The policeman was not as concerned at the mess as he was at your weakened body collapsing right in his arms.

You didn’t know what to feel for a while, despite the questioning around you. You felt like you were walking under the rain, torrential, frustrated and furious about ruining your clothes and your hair and your bag and everything else that could be ruined. And you wanted to seek nothing but shelter, a place where you could feel the rain growl and rage, then dim and fade.

And you reached it, a shelter. Under it, you stopped for solace, only to find a gelid wind outside that fuming rage and that sustaining energy. Cold, unforgiving, aided by the roar of the thunder and the flash of the lighting, the rain progressively louder and stronger.

You felt cold for the first time since your climb towards a solution. It was always a possibility, it now became a reality. They had to eliminate him, and they put in your mind that dread of the potential – the potential to hurt those around you, for real and without remorse.

And when it clicked, you were aware of how to feel. You screamed enough to empty your lungs of air, until you couldn’t breathe anymore.

[sttheorycraft]

Emerald City

OK, I still have doubts about the DID theories but I'm going to humor them in this post. See @kaypeace21 and @strangertheory for way more developed theories and @strangertheory in particular I was talking to when I started developing this into something worthy of posting. I did try to read kaypeace's stuff again but I am a busy (read: lazy) man and what I saw on a quick glance didn't resemble the newer stuff I plan to say here - apologies if I internalized some of your ideas so much that they feel like my own, kay, just tell me. I THINK this is going to be a new contribution, though.

So, I don't know enough about DID to use the terminology correctly, or even to be confident that what I'm proposing is a proper DID system. Let me just describe it in my own words and you all tell me. Suppose the events of the show take place entirely in someone's mind, and what's going on is a feverish mix of distorted memories (retold through events/descriptions of characters) and imagination. There is some main character whose mind this is taking place in, and we can infer some things about them/their life from patterns in the stories:

1) They had an abusive father (potentially very abusive as per @kaypeace21's theory, but at the very least emotionally abusive) and insistent that the main character be manly.

2) Their mother was harmed by the father and "left" (takes various forms across multiple characters, and could include Joyce if she dies off)

3) The character is gay or trans - this gets messy but it seems like the character was AMAB but El represents their female self, plus all the masculinity problems

4) The character is in love with their childhood best friend, but irl that wasn't requited, at least on the surface, either because of differing orientations or just the norms at the time. (Evidence: Will/Mike, Robin/Tammy)

Those are what I'm confident of so far under this framing. I suspect Hopper's family falling apart and his daughter dying could be relevant too, maybe even the loveless Wheeler marriage, but those aren't quite as clearcut. Nor do I think any of this is that original so far.

Here's what I think is new: this character could be actively under treatment, to bring them back to reality. And Hawkins Lab ("Emerald City" according to Officer Powell in S1) could be where that treatment is taking place. And the explanatory power of this framing is pretty cool.

Dr. Brenner and Dr. Owens represent two different psychiatrists/psychologists who are trying to get through to the patient. Brenner doesn't have much of a bedside manner, but is taking an exposure therapy approach. He wants the patient to face their inner demons ("demogorgons," to quote Bob from that Stranger Things Reunion video) to heal their wounds. That scene where he hands El the flowers and tells her "today we make contact" is about doing a deep dive to try to confront her past. But when she touches the Demogorgon, she can't handle it and freaks, and it's let loose on the population. Hawkins Lab spends the rest of the first season trying to recover El (spying on phone conversations = listening to different voices in the patient speaking?), but they seem to panic and take extreme measures in doing so (staging Will's death was more to stabilize the situation, but e.g., murdering Benny - which from a Rick and Morty-esque view of the situation isn't as drastic as it is utilitarian, definitely poisoned them in El's mind). This leads to Brenner being lumped in with the abusive figures in El's life and distrusted. (Remember: Connie Frazier did the murdering, and from memory Brenner seems to disapprove of her methods. I recognize painting Brenner in a positive-ish light is going to be unpopular here, but just humor me for now - it's not inconsistent with the evidence we have so far. That might change.)

S1E8: Brenner: "Shhh! You're sick. You're sick but I'm going to make you better. I'm going to take you back home, where I can make you... well again. Where we can make all of this better. So no one else gets hurt."

El: "Bad."

Brenner: "???"

So in Season 1, basically the patient rejects Brenner's approach entirely (I mean, it does fail pretty epically) and they bring in someone new ("Those people are gone now. They're gone. Okay? So if we're gonna get through this, I just need you all to realize I'm on your side. I need you to trust me").

Season 2 has Dr. Owens, a new psychiatrist/psychologist with a better bedside manner but whose approach is more tolerable to the patient (at first): just ignore it. Pretend everything's normal, and every now and then when something stirs in the wound, torch it back to where it was. Why fix things when you can keep them under control?

But of course, this wasn't enough: the patient's trauma managed to escape under the surface (subconsciously, is the metaphor) and ooze out all over Hawkins. By the time Owens realized it, the darkness had entered Will and nearly consumed him, and so there was no ignoring it and no way to extinguish it without harming the patient.

Around this time, there's another interesting Brenner scene:

S2E7: El: You're not real.

Brenner: All this time and you haven't looked for me. Why? Because you thought I was dead? Or because you were afraid of what you might find?

El: Go away.

Brenner: You have to confront your pain. You have a wound, Eleven. A terrible wound...

El: GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!

Another callback to being afraid of facing one's fears. Brenner is the unwelcome treatment, but he also seems to be being painted as the necessary treatment.

One interesting side effect of this framing: Kali actively tries to exterminate the staff of Hawkins Lab. If Hawkins Lab is trying to help the patient return to reality, is Kali the villain here? Certainly she and her group come across as rather villainous despite the attempted endearment in S2E7...

Other miscellaneous notes: Dustin/Lucas in S1E2 suspecting El is from Pennhurst, maybe not wrong. S4 taking place in a mental hospital for parts?? Just lots to unpack here.

And of course, this could all be totally wrong. I just think the explanatory power is unusually good.

[leviiattacks]

Two Faced | Chapter Five

↳ levi ackerman, the very person who was about to kindly behead you by a surprising turn of events manages to become your loving husband? you would be elated if this was true love, but it's all thanks to a mysterious magic spell that your life is spared. for now at least.

pairing :: duke!levi x duchess!reader genre :: royal au, angst, fluff, slice of life etc word count :: 3k author note :: just got diagnosed with covid so i have a lot of spare time on my hands so ummm send in any requests you have into my ask box i’d love to try doing headcanons!! → next part is here!!

Erwin sees the confused look you have and now he too seems lost as he shifts his line of vision to Levi. At that moment your husband slams his heel and grinds it onto your foot. Squirming around in your seat dealing with the stinging pain you catch on that you can't let Erwin think you're clueless.

Quickly, the look of confusion washes away from your features and you return his smile. "I'm willing to do what I must."

You think you've ruined this entirely because Erwin's eyes dart suspiciously between you and your husband. However, Hange intervenes, the interference seems to be enough for him to shake off any skepticism he senses.

Two hands hold onto your frame and squeeze your shoulders. Hange is standing up and seems ecstatic."You two are just so evil." they cackle to themself and you play along laughing too. You are not giving Levi the opportunity to ram into your foot again. Hange who is practically a personified ray of Sunshine at all times does still seem a little down, you did pick up on it when you entered the room. Maybe it was just you overthinking, that's what you assure yourself with.

Then it settles in your bones. Evil? Blinking you turn to look at Levi hoping for some sort of indication about whatever is going on.

"She wouldn't listen to me at all, said she felt the need to step in and help the Empire in some way." His tone is monotonous, still not sparing you a glance and you want to kick him in the shins. He's usually much more affectionate and you're afraid Squad Leader Hange and Commander Erwin will figure out this is all a facade.

"It's a noble commitment to put yourself forward for such a risky position, I see why you and Lance Corporal Levi are a sound match." Erwin isn't smiling this time but his tone is content.

Mind now buzzing with ideas you want to fall face first into the carpeted floor of the office spread out like a starfish. You would prefer that instead of being left in the dark. Could they simply mention the name of whatever it is you've apparently offered to do?

Levi's clearly grimaces but then he moves to hold your hand rather boldly. Shaking him off isn't an available option because of his strong grip. "She wouldn't listen to me at all. If I had it my way she wouldn't step anywhere near enemy soil." He grumbles.

The fake concern he's trying to lace in his voice is having an effect on his two colleagues, they're eating it up and believe this act.

Enemy soil? Risky position? He has to be stealthily plotting your death because you see no other reason for why you would be sent off to venture anywhere near the enemy. You aren't even apart of their regime, or any regime for that matter, you're itching with nervousness and want to free your hand from his desperately.

The only emotion this man is good at feigning is straight boredom, he ignores the way your hand shakes and squirms, ignores how your palms are dampening with sweat, instead the way he holds onto you only strengthens. It's surprising that no one has said a word about the lack of chemistry between the two of you.

Suddenly Hange looks down at their pocket watch and hurriedly gets to their feet dragging Erwin up with them too. "Y/N, I have something to tell you later on, please do stop by HQ when you can, I expect that will be soon." They then tell Erwin that there's no time to loiter and that there are more important meetings to attend to.

Erwin leans into your ear and whispers. "He seems disturbed that you're putting yourself at risk. He means well." You wish that were the case but it isn't. Despite that the way Erwin tries to explain Levi's behavior is sweet.

Hange gives you a cute thumbs up but makes it a point that you need to speak later on, even as they're both walking out the door Hange keeps reminding you to meet up later on. The abnormal behavior between you and Levi may have been noticed but you know if that were the case Hange would have been more vocal about it.

"Combat classes start soon. We know this will all be difficult, building you up from scratch is hazardous but all in good time you will serve a key role in the liberation of Paradis."

Erwin's parting words are gracious.

And then both the Commander and Squad Leader leave, the room is empty but Levi doesn't even wait for the door to shut behind your two visitors.

He makes it a priority to throw your hand away from his, he's now methodically using his handkerchief to dust his fingers off. It's oddly ironic and enrages you because he's the one who grappled your hand into his grasp. What's the point when those same hands until recently looped around your waist in the middle of the night?

He thinks your hand is filthy, that you yourself are filthy and disgusting. At least that's what you think he thinks.

Crossing your arms over your chest you make your feelings known to Levi. You're frustrated beyond the way words can describe, it's not about how he refuses to touch you. Admittedly that does hurt you, makes your chest swell in remembrance of the old days but you really just want to know what he's put you up to without your permission.

Not speaking you wait for him to take the hint but he doesn't get it or he refuses to acknowledge your existence, something tells you it's the latter because all he cares about is sanitizing his hands.

He always had been a clean freak but when he was enchanted it didn't take much for him to touch you. Part of you wonders if it's the nature of the touch that he wants to exterminate or the fact it's your skin he's come in contact with which is bothering him.

"Care to explain?"

"Touching someone such as yourself romantically gives me the urge to retch." The confession is as acidic as the after taste one has after a late night of drinking, but he has no problem telling you the blunt truth.

"I see." You shortly reply, you weren't asking about that, your question was directed more towards the conversation which just took place with his colleagues but now knowing he doesn't want to touch you has an emptying effect on your chest.

A silent minute passes, maybe two minutes, you're not sure all you're doing is eyeing the carpet thinking about how you would like to be asphyxiated and brought to your end, you can't handle this for much longer.

"Sign these papers, we need your written consent." His voice shows no hints hints of Lev. Last night may have been the last time you had a chance to witness him.

A stack of documents is thrown in front of you and then you see it right at the top of the pile. A sheet filled with general information, eyes skim over the "Purpose of employment" section and you don't know what churns in your stomach. Is it Exasperation? Nerves? Grief? It can't be pinpointed, it could be a mix of all three.

"An Informant."

Rereading the title you hold the paper in disbelief between your palms. "You told your regiment that I would be willing to spy in on enemy kingdoms?"

His hands rub at his forehead, he's not perturbed at all. "Is it in your blood to be ungrateful?" Brutally cynical his tone is rocky.

He moves - not even towards you but for some reason you flinch stopping him in his tracks almost immediately. Narrow ice cold eyes trace your face carefully for any signs of manipulation or deception. Gulping anxiously you know you have to be careful with what you say or do. Getting too comfortable or casual around him is a risk you are not willing to take.

"I don't think you understand. I do not have the abilities nor the skill to do this. I would cause more issues." You cautiously move to grab his arm but before you get there he takes a wide step back. He's clearly defining that there's a boundary. You won't step into his territory not when you've already invaded a large portion of it for so long.

"I am no witch. I still don't understand what happened." You mutter hoping he believes you or at least tries to.

"Then die." Levi hisses. He fixes you with his poisonous stare. "Make it quick."

Curse yourself to a life with this man who every step of the way is hoping for your death - maybe he'll even push you towards it purposefully one day. The alternative choice available is to die by the hands of that same man right now.

Guilt and regret are what you feel, you can't look death in the eye proudly. Not right now. If you can't commit to the promise you made mother then there is truly no point in making your way to the afterlife.

Cowardice is not the cause of death you want to present her with.

With a heavy heart you sign the papers.

It's been a few days since then, you've received training from some of Levi's squad, at first the combat is nerve wracking but you get to a level where you feel comfortable in terms of defense.

Oluo is slow, you've picked up on the way his stance predicts every move he's about to make. You're thankful for that because it makes training easier, he's oblivious to just how easy it is to read his movements and you snigger at that. Today he's trying a new technique, it consists of attempting to dive in the direction of one of your shoulders and suddenly darting at the other. It catches you off guard for a second but it's simple to block him. Jumping back from another surprise attack you lunge forward as if you're aiming for his face. He lights up thinking this is his chance unbeknownst to him you've already seen the open opportunity you've been waiting for. You can change the wager in this brawl. Swiftly ducking you undercut him with one of your legs, his balance has been knocked and he stumbles teetering by a thread.

A solid kick to his stomach is all it takes for him to collapse to the ground grumbling in vexation.

Mikasa has been helping you with one on one combat and the extra hours of training behind the stables has clearly been of benefit.

Thinking back to your training sessions with Mikasa you frown, not because of the way she flipped you and shoved you into the dirt, no that part was quite exhilarating. It's Sasha. She's been on your mind. She has to be feeling left out, that's your fault you've kept her in the dark about joining the regime, how could you attend training with her? Your maid waiting on you whilst you were training? Impossible.

The last problem you wish to arise is everyone finding out you're Duchess Ackerman. No one has to know about that minor detail, in fact when you informed Hange and Erwin of your decision they strongly agreed it would be best to hide it.

"I think we should get you strapped into some gear. See how good you really are in the dexterity department." Oluo is spitefully mumbling under his breath red faced.

Offering him your hand he looks like he wants to smack it away, You don't have time for this, you were planning on dropping by and paying Hange their more than overdue visit after training hours were up.

ODM-gear doesn't look too hard, you're sure you can work out the mechanisms if given some time. Calculating and shifting time blocks in your head you can come to an end at Six, if and only if you're able to rush past ODM training.

"Okay, I admit you were tired today I could tell. I'll strap myself into some gear."

At this new new challenge Oluo willingly takes your hand and you heave him up.

He's got a cocky shit-eating grin sprawled across his face as he pats your back enthusiastically.

"Good luck, you're in for one hell of a ride."

Three dimensional ODM-gear, a contraption that is very different to a sword or dagger. Most soldiers find it difficult to master the balancing of all their body weight whilst simultaneously gliding through the air with the grapple hooks. This is why introductory lessons in balance, momentum and effective weight distribution are a must.

It's been instructed that you won't be using ODM-gear nearly as much as other members of the regiment, you're training to become a spy after all and ODM-gear is very obviously visible when a person is strapped into their uniform. Nevertheless it's still a requirement to be able to use it. It's a hurdle because it's not your forte by any means but you can't continue avoiding it.

When living as the Duchess you deemed it pivotal to only interact with a limited number of Levi's colleagues, those who worked at the estate couldn't be avoided such as Mikasa but apart from that Hange was the only outsider you spoke to (Before Erwin had come along). You don't know if you regret that decision because it's definitely why everyone is cackling as you thrash around, they have no idea he has a wife and if they do they show no inclination of knowing you are that woman.

Sniggers can be heard as you struggle to center your strength fully, your instructor bellows at you. "No, come on. STOP FLAILING AROUND!" Particles of his saliva fly in your face and that only feeds into your embarrassment. Paralyzed you don't know what to do, he tells you to not move around then the next minute barks at you to not give up, repeats that you have the agility level equivalent of a sick child.

You've been stuck in this upside down position for more time than you can imagine, at some point a large majority of the scouts including Oluo double down in laughter whenever you make a mistake - they berate you when you are trying your best.

Legs kicking out you're panicking and want to escape the harness you're in.

Oluo was right, nothing could prepare you for this.

Mikasa when she isn't busy assisting Levi is a part of the regime too, that's why she's grinding her teeth this morning when she walks into the training grounds and sees the whole scene play out right before her eyes.

She wants to desperately step in and stop this because you being forced into ODM training without having your core strength developed is unfair.

Then a yell is heard from the crowd "GO Y/N!! LISTEN TO ME ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS KEEP CALM!" Both you and Mikasa turn to see Sasha standing next to her.

Sasha? Mikasa knows very well how you forbade her to follow you today, you gave her the day off to visit her family.

"I thought Y/N warned yo-"

"I am dedicated in my service to the Lady, if she chooses to do this I will be by her side to support her. She does not have to feel embarrassed."

Members of the corps are eyeing her weirdly when she says "Lady" she doesn't know you're keeping your identity secret, that was the reason for giving her time away, you were afraid she'd slip up and expose you but simply hearing Sasha proudly announce her commitment for you in front of all these people knocks the wind right out of your chest. You've never felt this much importance before.

Sasha's motivation is all you need because by a miraculous turn of events you manage to steady your breathing pattern and find it within yourself to focus on your core. Wobbling shakily the transition is far from smooth but you flip yourself right side up, the muscles in your calf ache and throb with pain but you've done it.

Grinning from ear to ear at your two friends you feel light-headed with relief.

"Took her long enough." Levi sneers. He's made his way to the front of the crowd, you wonder when he got here. Beaming at him you think your presentation might be enough to discourage his usual response. You're incorrect.

"She's a shame to this squad, there is no need in motivating someone of her rank." Shallow breaths puffing out of you it comes to your attention that he's addressing Sasha.

She ignores what he has to say about you and stays silent, any normal person would have their head hanging down in shame but she looks into his eyes with a determination that takes your breath away.

He pays her no mind after that and turns back to where you're still struggling to keep steady. "Don't think you're hot shit." Your bottom teeth dig into your lip, and your throat suddenly clamps down on you restricting your breath. "She's no good at combat, no good at using her gear. Do you only excel at spreading lies, Cadet?" The way he's now completely indignant in the way he speaks stings. He doesn't even bother to sound normal in front of Mikasa or Sasha anymore, it makes you manually hollow your cheeks trying to keep your tears at bay.

Lies, you know what he's referencing. You want to grab him by the collar of his shirt and throw him to the muddy ground. That's what he deserves for prodding and poking at your vulnerabilities.

He doesn't understand the degree at which all these sudden changes are affecting you, in his eyes this is light work and shouldn't impact you at all, that's why when you feel a muscle contraction and reel backwards, rapidly falling back into that cursed upside down position. He scoffs, doesn't even move to check if you're okay.

Whispers circle around you and even some of the cadets who participated in ridiculing you step forward to take you out of your harness. However, Sasha and Mikasa get there first and shoot them with their intense glares, the both of them work on hoisting you out of your gear.

Levi takes one last look at you before he storms away convinced you're faking, what else would a runt like you do to escape the situation?

In his mind you lost your momentum and your ship capsized because of your own self sabotage.

Little does he know all that has truly lost momentum is the inner-workings of your heart and that is all thanks to him.

[confused-as-all-hell]

Nesta and Feyre

“You loved me when no one else would. You never stopped. Even when I didn’t deserve it, you loved me, and fought for me, and …” 

I’ve been seeing so much discourse on these two lovely sisters that it’s genuinely gotten funny. Everyone in this forsaken fandom hates someone, a ship or person or even a fucking ribbon, I’ve heard. So allow me to clarify: this is not an anti post. I am only pointing out the relationship between Feyre and Nesta, and I apologize if I come off as harsh. I love them both very, very much. If everyone would just be the slightest bit kind, that would be wonderful, thanks. 

I have a sister myself. A sweet, gentle younger sister who still argues and fights and insults me without mercy. I often think of her like I do Feyre, someone who loves unconditionally and irrevocably. And I have always felt as though I am more akin to Nesta, furious and fierce and proud. My sister and I don’t always get along. In fact, we very rarely do, but I love her more than I love any other.

Believe me when I say Nesta and Feyre love each other. Nes said some awful things, ill comments she had no right to weaponize. Feyre was wrong a few times herself, though perhaps not on such a large scale. Either way, these two have their own problems and trauma that they are working through, and I can respect that kindly. 

But I will not lie. Nesta’s initial remarks towards the Inner Circle were awful. Even I can point that out without hassle or difficulty. Lovely Mor extended a hand, complimented Nesta’s dress, made her attempts at friendly conversation; in return, Mor was slut-shamed for her own clothing. Rhys tried his hand at civility, which was understandably difficult for him, as Nes had hurt his mate badly; he, too, was shut down.

I am allowed to hold Nesta accountable and love her at the same time. She fucked up more than a few times. But Feyre, she never held her elder sister accountable. I understand our High Lady’s point of view, as it would twist my stomach to side with anyone other than my own sister. Even if she’s in the wrong, it’s always hard to tell her so. 

So when Feyre glanced up from that check, the one stating Nes had spent 500 gold marks on harming herself, she did not get angry. She was heartbroken, not over the money, but over its cause. Feyre had finally decided she could not keep giving Nesta rope to hang herself; she stepped up, chose to extend a hand instead. And she involved the Inner Circle.

Was she wrong to do so? Was Feyre wrong to involve them in Nesta’s trauma? Yes. I can understand why she did so, of course, but I can also understand why Nes reacted in her fury. I would not want my sister’s friends to bear witness to my difficulties. 

However, it was not abuse when Feyre sent Nesta to the House. Nes was hurting badly, and while drinking and sex are not bad things, it’s not healthy to process your trauma by numbing it away. I say this as someone who has dealt with her own trauma. Feyre, as my own sister would have done, saw someone bleeding and raw, and she acted to help her. She removed her from a poisonous setting and set Nesta in a gentler environment, where Nes could not relapse or partake in those activates that hurt her. Feyre gave her sister time to heal, provided her with money, gave her space for several months. And when Nesta continued to harm herself, Feyre did the best she could, and showed her to a house without those toxic coping methods. 

Tamlin locked Feyre away when she was aching and bleeding, shut her in a bedroom and turned the key. But Feyre gave Nesta an outlet for her frustration (the training sessions), and she worked to make sure her sister was not alone and uncared for. There is such a difference between Tamlin abusing his girlfriend because he was blind, and Feyre seeing a struggling sister and reaching out her hand. 

I’ve also seen discourse on the fact Nesta was expected to step into a “motherly role” and care for her family when their mother died. My girl is not expected to do anything. Their father should have gathered his wits about him and provided for his children. Feyre and Nesta and Elain were young, far too young to worry over their lives. I do agree, if one of those three were to go hunting, it should have been Nesta or Elain. But neither of them should have had to. Nes was wrong; she should have attempted to care for her family in some way, not as a stand-in mother, but as someone who loves her sisters. Their father was worse still. There was no good answer to this disastrous equation, but the blame falls on Elain as it does Nesta, as it does their father. They were wrong not to assist Feyre, but that does not mean one or the other are at fault.

Please, can we cease our banter on the topic of Nes and Feyre? They’re both brave and kind and worthy of love. They both have faults. They care for each other. We owe them so much more than our blind hatred.

[crookswithbooks]

Never the Favorite

Day Five - Declan has always hated the holidays but when Ronan brings a new person into the chaos of their lives he finds himself learning to finally appreciate them.

Declan had never liked the winter.

For as long as he could remember, the entire winter/Christmas season served only to be a nightmare and constant reminder of how estranged their family truly was. When they were younger and Niall was still alive, things had gone smoother but there will still small little inordinacies that you would find if you were willing to look close enough. Whether it was the tree that lit up despite having no visible lights, or the way he was often called away for “business reasons”, there was always something that gave away how different they really were.

Then, after Niall had died, Christmas had only worsened. Ronan was angrier now, less manageable, and Matthew would question why they didn’t have so-and-so decorations that year, or why whoever’s present showed up weeks after the actual date of Christmas. Pulling their family together for the holidays felt more like a chore than a vacation nowadays, and on top of school and dealing with Niall’s messy seconds from the fairy market, Declan didn’t have the energy or time for it. The return of January was always a relief.

This year, however, they had Adam with them. Declan had planned on just Matthew and him for this year, deciding he would skip the obligatory invite that Ronan had ignored for years. Instead, it was Ronan who approached Declan, asking about what their plans for Christmas were. 

“I figured we would just have a small celebration,” Declan had replied skeptically, unsure where this was going but not foolish enough to get his hopes up. “Just family.”

Even as he had said the words, they had been hollow in his mouth. “Family” really meant Matthew and him, something that had been understood for years now. Now though, he decided to stick with the vague term.

“I’m going to bring Adam,” Ronan said as fact, ignoring the fact that Declan had said just family and that Ronan didn’t come to Christmas anymore. He had already walked away before Declan could even attempt to reply.

Now Declan found himself standing at the kitchen counter of the Barns, a tray of cookies on one side of him and hot chocolate that burbled in a pot on the stove on the other. He had been up since five in the morning preparing the abandoned space for guests, and now, five o’clock on Christmas Eve, he exhaustedly finished the last of the tasks he had set for himself. Matthew had been recruited to help out at first until it was revealed that Matthew’s method of helping out was singing Christmas carols and undoing all the work Declan had put time and effort into. He had quickly been removed from helping after that.

Ronan was on Adam duty and was currently picking him up from Stanford. The two should be on their way home about now. Declan had been skeptical about Adam at first, the one person aside from Gansey and Matthew that Ronan had chosen to let into his heart. He had been worried that Adam would break the shakily taped together pieces that made up Ronan and that Declan would have to put him back together after Adam left as he had when Niall had died—not that he had done a very good job of it then. Once he saw the way Adam looked at Ronan, however, like a starving man gazing upon an unexpected feast, he allowed himself to relax a little. Adam loved his brother, that much was clear, and he made him happy. Declan hadn’t seen Ronan happy in so long that he almost hadn’t recognized it when it surfaced.

Now he wasn’t worried Adam would break Ronan. He was worried he would destroy him.

The knock at the door signaled the arrival of the couple in question. Declan smiled, knowing that the courtesy of knocking was Adam’s doing; Ronan hadn’t knocked on any door since he was five. He smoothed out his suit, a gentle gray that Matthew said made him look like a corpse and Ronan said made him look like a douche. He turned off the heat on the stove, whirling around the corner and opening the door.

One of Ronan’s hands was placed securely on Adam’s hip, the protective curl of his fingers a warning sign to anyone who would raise an objection. Adam’s head was turned partway towards Ronan, his lips open on an unspoken sentence, but he cut himself off when he noticed Declan.

“Oh,” Adam said, the word perfectly formed. “Hey.” He glanced up and down at Declan, an involuntary action, and frowned a little. “I didn’t realize it was a formal occasion.”

“It’s not,” Ronan interjected before Declan could say anything. He himself was dressed in a rumpled jacket and jeans that were torn from years of Gansey and he’s excursions. He was wearing neither a hat nor gloves, though Declan noticed the near imperceptible shiver caused from their absence. Adam was wearing a leather jacket that, instead of dwarfing his small frame as it would have a year ago, fit snugly around his torso. He seemed almost more grown-up than when he had left for college, and Declan could see from the way that Ronan stared at him that he had noticed too.

“Matthew’s upstairs,” Declan said, stepping aside to let them inside. “I’ll go grab him. Dinner should be ready soon, I’m just finishing up the last little touches. Feel free to make yourself at home.”

“It is my home, dickweed,” Ronan muttered, only to have Adam’s elbow dig gently and discreetly into his ribs. Ronan elbowed him back, but the gesture was affectionate without any real malice. The two made their way into the kitchen, bickering all the way.

Upstairs, Matthew was staring out his window. His attention was held by the snow falling in soft spirals to the ground, some of it pasting against the window. He held his hand up to it, so that each one of his fingertips was touching a different snowflake. Declan watched him for a moment before coughing, knocking on the doorframe. “Adam and Ronan are here.”

Matthew didn’t look away from the window, though his hand fell limply onto his lap. “I don’t want to have Christmas this year.”

Declan paused. Since the moment he was born, Matthew had been Declan’s to look after, a precious new baby brother, a dream in the form of a boy. Whenever Matthew had a problem it was Declan who fixed it, quickly and unquestionably because the reality of Matthew’s pain was one he never wanted to face. When Niall died, Declan had been there to curb the storm. When Aurora came back, Declan was content to sit back and let Matthew have a mother again. When Aurora was gone he was also the first to come to his side. He gave Matthew everything he wanted because when Matthew was smiling he was happy and when Matthew was happy Declan could be okay.

Now though, he felt his stomach clench unpleasantly and he dropped his hand from the doorframe. He sat down next to Matthew, the mattress creaking under the combined weight, and stared out the window with him. “Why not?”

“Because I’m a lie,” Matthew said, and with those simple words the world shattered around Declan. “I don’t even know if I like Christmas or if that was just something that was programmed into me. What if all the happiness I’ve felt with you and with dad and with Ronan was just a fairy tale that you guys let me live? What if none of it was ever real?”

The only one who hadn’t known Matthew was a dream had been Matthew himself, and it was a secret that the two brothers had kept for seventeen years. Both of them had agreed that the information was something that Matthew was better off not knowing—it was about the only thing they did agree on. Unfortunately, secrets are only kept for so long, especially when they relate to the person in question. Declan had never seen Matthew as desolate as he had been that day on the dock when he first found out about his true identity, and he had promised that he would never let him look that way again.

It was a promise that he realized now, looking at the pinch between Matthew’s eyebrows and his bitter frown, that he had failed.

“None of it was a lie,” Declan said after a moment, unable to look at Matthew as he spoke. “Ronan can’t influence your decisions. He only brought you into creation, like a mother would.”

“But that’s not how his dreams work,” Matthew protested. “A mother doesn’t get to choose her child—Ronan chose me. He…” He struggled for a moment to find the right words to explain and Declan waited with a growing sense of unease. “He picked my eye color and the shape of my hair and the fact that I’m happy and that you’re not and that I love him and that you don’t—”

“I love him,” Declan interrupted, Matthew’s words hurting more because he could tell he meant them. “Why would you say I don’t love him?”

“You’re always fighting,” Matthew muttered, picking at a scab on his arm. “And yelling at each other. The only time you ever talk to each other is because of me. I know that. I’m not that dumb. And I say I love him all the time. You never say that you do—not once.”

From downstairs, Declan could hear the clattering of plates that meant Ronan and Adam had started to set the table, and the soft murmuring of voices. He forced himself to look at Matthew, needing him to understand him, needing this Christmas to be a good one because if it wasn’t it meant that they truly could never be normal and Declan didn’t want to have to deal with that fact.

“I do love Ronan—and you. I love you both because you’re my family. And just because you’re a dream doesn’t mean that you’re not a person. Ronan’s dreams don’t always do what he wants them to. They evolve and they grow into something more than just a dream, in the same way that people do. You’re just as real as any of the rest of us. You’re just… different.”

Matthew glanced up at him shyly, a child uncertain at the love of a parent. “Do you… do you really think that? That I can be a real person?”

“You are a real person,” Declan assured him with a confidence he wished he could feel. “Now let’s go have dinner with the others. I’m sure they’re wondering where we are.”

Adam and Ronan were kissing when they finally came downstairs, though kissing was a polite word for what they were actually doing. Evidently the two had figured that Declan and Matthew wouldn’t be joining them for quite a while, as Adam’s body was pressed against the corner of one of the living room walls, Ronan’s body bearing down on him. From the looks of it, Adam’s tongue was halfway down his brother’s throat and Ronan’s hands were unaccounted for under the other boy’s shirt.

Declan opened his mouth to announce his presence, but before he could diffuse the situation delicately, Matthew bounded into the room oblivious to the scene, and starting serving himself up mashed potatoes. Adam jerked back from Ronan, the tips of his ears burning an embarrassing shade of red. Ronan simply leaned back, seemingly uncaring of the two new people in the room with them.

“Table’s set,” Ronan said, shark teeth flashing, a dare for Declan to say anything.

“Thank you,” Declan said coolly, not rising to the bait. “Matthew and I were just having a talk. Sorry to take so long.”

“I’m sorry—that wasn’t—” Adam blustered through a couple more half-sentences before Declan’s smile assured him it was nothing he wasn’t already aware of, knowledge that did nothing to help Adam’s already mortified state.

Dinner, usually a quiet affair for such events, was unusually lively. Ronan and Adam fell into easy conversation with Matthew joining after a moment, the boy seeming to have no end of things to talk about. Even Declan himself managed to get a sentence in or two without having his head chopped off, mostly due to the inclusion of Adam who defused most of Ronan’s snarky remarks.

In fact, as the evening went on Declan found himself having a genuinely good time. Adam and Matthew softened Ronan’s sharp edges, the presence of two of his favorite people together serving to curb his usual anger. There were even moments in the night when Ronan would laugh at a joke Declan made or respond to one of his questions genuinely without being his usual asshole self.

They ate cookies and drank hot cocoa that Ronan had apparently spiked with something, a fact Declan didn’t learn until the warmth in his gut was too pleasant for him to be sincerely angry about it. Matthew was the first to fall asleep, the unexpected alcohol being too much for him, and Ronan and Adam quickly followed pursuit. Ronan’s rested on Adam’s collarbone, their two bodies intertwined on the couch that was to be a makeshift guest bed, and Declan listened to their breathing slowly even out into a gentle hum.

Declan stood up, drawing a blanket over Matthew and going about the process of cleaning up and wrapping presents to put under the tree. Half an hour later, he stood over the pile of bodies in the living room and wondered at the people who had slowly become his family, his real family. Never before had Declan felt like he belonged, always seeing himself as a protector to his brothers and merely a colleague to his parents. Throughout the years, Christmas after Christmas had gone by, and every time Declan only found himself feeling worse as the night went on. In that moment, however, with Matthew’s face smiling and serene in sleep, and the sight of Ronan and Adam curled protectively about one another, he realized he had finally discovered a family that he could not only care for but that might care for him back.

He decided to join them in the living room instead of going to his bed like usual, and as he lay besides Matthew’s gently snoring body, he found himself content for the first time in his life.