#How to break black magic symptoms

[sserpente]

A/N: I’ve been meaning to write this for so long. If you’re in the mood for some angst, you’re in the right place!

Words: 1743 Warnings: angst, poisoning

You didn’t know what hurt more. Was it the fact that the man—god—you had fallen for was on the brink of death, taking his last breaths? Or was it the very circumstance that no one but you cared?

Tony Stark had been very clear about it. He tolerated Loki only per Thor’s humble request. The God of Thunder himself was less than pleased that the Trickster was to serve his sentence on Earth of all places. It was Odin’s magic that restricted him, keeping him from causing even more mayhem after the chaos he unleashed in New York City.

They were even less delighted about him joining their self-proclaimed superhero group on missions even though Thor himself claimed that Loki’s wit and skills could prove useful.

You had nothing to say in the matter of course. If anything, you were declared crazy because you had expressed your affinity for the God of Mischief and that included Loki himself.

You couldn’t help it. The way he smirked, the way he talked, the way he sat in the corner buried in a book—one of the very few instances you ever saw him relaxed, not to mention the occurrence with the cat… oh, the cat. A stray—black and white, young, purring and dancing around Loki’s feet, desperate for his attention. And when he’d bent down to pet it and even conjured some food for it, it was the last piece of evidence you had needed to conclude that this man was not evil. Misguided, betrayed, hurt? Yes, all of those things and more. But not evil.

It was the latter. The very circumstance that no one but you cared hurt more.

Thor had left for Asgard already, seeking the advice of their healers. It was ridiculous, truly. In a life-threatening emergency like this, how could his banishment still hold any weight? He needed help.

Your enemy had been thorough, researching each and everyone’s greatest weakness. And Loki’s had proved the most fatal. Whatever the extra-terrestrial had coated their weapon in before it fired its arrow at the God of Mischief, it prevented him from healing, had him break out in a sweat and slowly lose a battle against the poison now spreading in his body.

“Loki? Can you hear me? Please stay with me. You got to stay awake, alright?” He was on the sofa, with his head placed in your lap. You stroked his forehead in an attempt to soothe him. Blue eyes found yours and you were unsure whether he wanted to tell you to stay with him or let him die in peace. You’d been singing to him too. Trying to keep him in the present, in the now.

By the time Thor finally burst back into the room, Loki’s breathing had become dangerously shallow.

“Did you tell them about the symptoms? What did they say? What’s wrong with him? How are we gonna heal him?” The questions gushed out of you like a waterfall before he’d even set his hammer down.

Thor, however, grew silent for a moment. “There… Loki was poisoned. The rat knew what he was doing. The arrow was likely infused with blood from a Memphis of Muspelheim mixed with a deadly dose of mistletoe essence.”

You put one and one together immediately. “So… you’re saying this poison was specifically made to kill a Frost Giant?”

Thor looked down. “Yes.”

“Well, did you bring the antidote then?”

“There… there is no antidote. Not on Asgard. And I fear… there is no time to search the realms. The Jötuns have spent millennia destroying every last drop of this poison. There is hardly any antidote left.”

Your heart sank. No… no! You were not going to let Loki die!

“There has to be a way. Somewhere we can…” Your lips parted. “There is somebody. Someone who has everything. You mentioned him before, you said you brought the Aether to him!”

“The Collector?”

“He has it. He must have it.”

“What, and you think he will give it to you without anything in return?” Tony said.

“I didn’t say that. I’m sure we can offer him something in return to make it worth his while.” You turned back to Thor. “Heimdall can take us there. Please, Thor. This might be our only chance.”

Perhaps you should have been surprised that the God of Thunder relented. There was no doubt he too wanted his brother to survive. The entire time you’d been preparing to leave, Thor was brooding and lost in thought. He wasn’t one for big words—but he cared and for the moment, that was good enough for you.

The Collector’s place was dimly lit, eerily quiet and… it smelled awful. You took a deep breath regardless and gave a nod to Thor to venture forth.

“An Asgardian. And… a human?” The Collector tilted his head when you stepped into view. “What an… honour. What brings you to my humble domain?”

“We need your help. We’re looking for something rare. Thor’s brother Loki is Jötun and he’s been shot with an arrow drenched in a rare poison.”

“Hmm… yes, I’m familiar.”

“There is no antidote. If… if anyone has any left, it must be you.”

“So it must be… I do indeed have this antidote you speak of.” Your face lit up but judging by the Collector’s body language—a smug and repulsive expression, truly—he was not going to give it up easily.

“Surely, your Asgardian friend has told you of how the Jötuns have ensured every last drop of this poison gets destroyed. There was a need for an antidote no longer. The bottle that I have in my collection is… an antique, almost.”

“Fine,” you spat. “What do you want in return?”

“You see… I’ve never had a human in my collection.”

Your eyes widened, lips parting to respond.

“No!” Thor roared.

“Then I am afraid we have reached a dead end.”

“She’s not an object to be collected, she’s a person!”

“Thor!” Gnashing your teeth, you turned to him and took a deep breath. “It’s fine. Just take the antidote to Loki, alright?”

“No. There has to be another way.”

“Take the damn antidote to him, Thor!”

“I cannot let you do this.”

“You can and you will. He’s your brother, Thor! And I’m…” I’m in love with him. Heavens, was that stupid? Loki didn’t even know. It was absurd, wasn’t it? To sacrifice your own life in this way to see the God of Mischief live another day?

Yes. It was. But it… it felt like the right thing to do. Loki deserved another shot. A chance to redeem himself, to show the world that he was more than he let on. And a chance to have the damn world apologise to him, too.

“Tell him… tell him to live his best life, okay? Tell him… tell him not to be too harsh on himself. To… to love himself.”

“To love himself?” Thor frowned.

“Shut up and listen. Loki hates himself, don’t you see that? He hates what he is, he hates what he’s become. He hates himself. And you all played a part in that.”

“Why would you do this… for him?”

Your lips parted. “Tell him… tell him I fell for him.” There. You’d said it. But it didn’t matter anymore whether he’d reject you, right? You’d be here, wherever here was and Loki would be back on Earth, recovering. You’d never have to face his reaction after your confession and yet, he could live with the knowledge that he was not, in fact, so terrible, that no one could love him beyond a family bond like the one he shared with Thor.

“I… fine. I will. Mark my words, I will come back for you,” he added quietly.

You nodded. Was there hope? Possibly. Possibly not. But you did not doubt for a second that your sacrifice was worth it.

You didn’t know how many days had gone by since Thor’s departure. One? Three? Ten? There was no sunlight in this place, no clocks. One of the Collector’s lackeys made sure to feed you regularly at least, other than that… you were on your own, caged in a pretty glass box until he figured out what to do with you. Unless of course… he was just going to keep you on display like this like the maniac he was.

If you didn’t know better, you would have asked him for a book. Surely he had some in his collection. It was boredom and solitude that would drive you mad sooner or later, that much you were sure of.

Every sound nearby became more interesting than the next. The cracking of the metal tiles, the flapping of wings of the caged bird opposite your own stupid box, the ruffling of clothing whenever you moved… a massive explosion forcing everything in its vicinity several feet into the air. Wait, what?

Your eyes widened and you stood. Were you under attack? Oh heavens, no, you didn’t want to be killed inside of a glass box! Would there be another explosion? What if the cage broke and you bled to death because of the shards piercing your body?

Chaos erupted, yet the Collector was nowhere to be seen. A scream escaped your lips when with a start, a figure appeared right before your cage, remnants of green shimmering light enveloping them whole. It took you a moment to realise that it was Loki.

“My… that is quite the predicament you have landed yourself in, pet.”

“I… w-what? Loki… you’re alive, you’re fine. What are you doing here?” Unable to process what was happening, you inched back when the God of Mischief broke the lock and opened the cage for you to climb out. Electricity rippled through you when he took your hand in his.

“Rescuing you, of course.” His sly smirk had you gasping for air as you leaned against him. Your knees and legs hurt from having to sit for so long.

“Thor told me what you did.”

“Did he also tell you…”

Loki nodded. Without another word, he leaned forward and stole a chaste kiss, leaving you breathless and wanting more.

“Come. The others are waiting on the ship. And then, my dear, I shall show you the proper Asgardian way of courting a woman.”

You smiled, relief flooding your entire body as he picked you up and carried you home.

[ruru195]

You can talk like inkIllness It works like what are the symptoms and stages you have about it?

(I think that in the original Babtqftim they don't specify much so I think you can have a certain freedom in the symptoms and stages)

Talking about the ilness, just like you said I had the freedom of going through it before starting to write since i wanted to have a clear view of what i was looking for, here I will give you my notes of it:

🩸 What Is The Inkness?

The Inkness is a mysterious and magical illness that affects inky or magical beings. It seems to be tied to deep emotions, soul damage, or exposure to unstable magical energy. It's not contagious but can resonate with others who are emotionally connected or magically similar.

⚠️ Main Symptoms (What It Causes)

Ink vomiting (black, thick liquid)

High fever

Extreme exhaustion

Shaking/trembling

Stabbing internal pain (feels like something tearing from the inside)

Dizzy spells or fainting

Emotional breakdowns (random crying, panic, confusion)

Body twitching or spasming

Dark veins or spots glowing through the skin

Inky tears (crying black liquid)

Nightmares or hallucinations

🕰️ Stages of The Inkness

Stage 1: Subtle Signs

The person feels more tired than usual

Mood swings and irritability start

Slight stomach or chest discomfort

Nosebleeds or coughing up little specks of ink

Easily cold or hot with no reason

Many don’t notice they’re sick at this point, or they blame stress.

Stage 2: The Ink Settles

Ink vomiting begins (thick, black liquid)

Fevers start, hard to break

Shaking hands, joint pain

Strange marks (ink stains or black lines) appear under the skin

Emotional overload (crying, panic attacks, sudden anger or sadness)

Can't keep food down

This is when most realize something is seriously wrong.

Stage 3: Collapse

Pain becomes unbearable

Eyes and veins may glow or darken

Fainting spells begin

The person may scream or cry uncontrollably

Their voice may change or break mid-sentence

Black tears and blood

Cannot move easily without help

This stage is terrifying and dangerous. Usually, friends must help them.

Stage 4: Critical or Recovery

If untreated:

The person may lose consciousness for days

The body may leak ink constantly

They become cold, barely breathing

Emotional damage increases (memories become painful)

Can lead to death (the heart or soul giving up)

If helped in time:

Ink vomiting fades, fever goes down

Emotional wounds still take longer to heal

Permanent marks/scars may remain

Sometimes magical abilities become unstable afterward

💔 Extra Notes:

The illness reflects their inner pain, so the more guilt or fear they carry, the stronger it becomes.

People with Inkness often try to hide it at first, which makes it worse.

Comfort, love, and emotional support slow it down but don’t cure it. Magical intervention or resting in a safe environment helps most.

I hope this helps you understand of how i see the ilness, if you have any comment never doubt in making one.

[mariabtsos]

Secret Story of the Swan ||J.HS|| - Part 2

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Description: You've been betrothed from the day you were born, your father may have not said it outright, but there comes a point when he can't hide how obviously he and Hoseok's mother want you to fall in love with him. When tragedy strikes and obstacles get in the way, will love be enough to save you?

Genre: Drabble? Royal!AU, prince!Hoseok x princess f!reader, childhood frenemies to lovers, arranged marriage, forced proximity, slow burn-ish, fluff, fantasy elements, angst.

Warnings: curses, hunting of animals, kidnapping, mentions of depressive symptoms (helplessness, lethargy), brief harassment.

Word Count: 2.4k+

There were many painful parts about your situation, for one, the death of your father and the sinking feeling that you’d never see anyone, Hoseok, ever again. The second most painful part came with the sunrise, when your body would contort and transform from the person you were into what Eojin had made you, a swan. From dawn till dusk, you were trapped in this form.

Months this went on for. Your only company were others like you, magical beings that had been imprisoned in animal bodies too, you’d met them the first time you transformed back into your human form; Taehyung had been the first to approach, he wore a brown fur jacket and pants, a white shirt underneath, he was a very handsome elf, his tan skin and black curly hair a perfect compliment to his deep voice.

“Oh man, he got another one guys!” he whispered behind him, causing two more men to step out from behind the bushes, another elf and a sparrow. The sparrow was smaller than the elves and he was the next to approach.

“Hi there, pretty swan!” The sparrow said, his wings were as big as his torso, and they had beautiful intricate designs. He wore a coat lined with colorful feathers raging from blue, green, and yellow with nothing else underneath, and he wore loose fitting pants with black boots.

“Hi,” you said timidly, and a little confused, “um, I’m not sure who-”

“Oh I’m so sorry, my name is Taehyung,” the first elf spoke, a bright boxy smile on his face, “the sparrow is Jimin, and the other elf is Jungkook,” he pointed at each of them.

The other elf, Jungkook, had pointed ears, fluffy white pants and a white fitted shirt, “how’d you end up here?” He asked you curiously, sitting down crisscrossed.

“I was kidnapped, we were visiting the Jung kingdom, and our way back we were-”

“The Jung kingdom?” Jungkook’s eyes widened, “I have an elf friend who lives near there, he loved all the royal gossip, before I was taken he told me how Prince Hoseok-”

“Kook-ah!” Jimin stopped him, “she was talking,” he sighed, smacking the back of his neck.

You chuckled at the shenanigans, “it’s alright,” you assured, “I was taken too,” you explained the story, from Eojin’s banishment to your time with Hoseok to now, they all listened attentively.

“Holy… Y/n, I’m so sorry,” Jimin was the first to break the silence after some time. “If it helps, we were taken and were cursed too, we managed to escape the little prison he has in that old castle but, we’ve been in hiding ever since but…it’s been hard.”

You nodded, at least you weren’t alone, “what did your friend tell you about Hoseok?” you asked curiously, wanting to hear anything possible. “Just that he was looking forward to seeing you again after so long. I was taken way before you it seemed,” Jungkook explained.

And so time went on, from morning till the sunset, you flew around the lake you were trapped in, Jimin came with you most times, he was the only one that could fly given his animal form was a hummingbird. You two flew around looking over the water, you could almost forget everything you’d lost this way, all the things you were missing. Taehyung and Jungkook usually waited for the two of you on the ground, a little bear and bunny that happily jumped once you and Jimin landed. During sunset you and them would talk and dance and speak of your past lives, speaking sometimes all night.

One particular night, Eojin showed up, causing the guys to hide while you faced him.

“So, little princess, are you finally going to give in and marry me? This torture could be over in an instant!” The man said, walking up behind you and placing his hands on your waist, you physically tensed up, squirming in his hold as you tried getting away.

“You’re disgusting, I don’t even know why you want to-“

“I want your kingdom, Princess, I told your father I’d take everything he loved, you first and next the kingdom he fought so hard to protect from me,” he chuckled darkly, “if I marry you no one can question my claim to power, I’ll make sure you are spoiled rotten,” his nose began to nuzzle your neck and you pushed yourself away.

“Get away from me!” You yelled, “I will leave, I will leave and-“

“And what? Do you forget that unless you’re on this lake and unless the moon touches its waves you will remain a swan, and that sweet prince of yours will hunt you rather than save you,” Eojin interrupted once more, his voice stern, bordering on angry before he took a deep breath and plastered on a smile. “I’m sorry, I got carried away, think about it will you? Things could be better for both of us,” he said one more time before he walked off to the castle on the edge of the lake, a dilapidated stone building that had certainly seen better days, just as you had.

You fell to your knees and sobbed, eventually being joined by the guys who did their best to console you, but what could they tell you that you didn’t already know? What could they tell you to make you feel better when they were stuck in the same boat?

“I wish Hobi was here,” you whispered as tears stained the fabric of the dress you’d been wearing since you were taken, and right then the guys knew they had to do something to help, something to fix this. 

When the sun was up, Jimin immediately flew to that same stone castle he’d ran away from months ago and though he was terrified, he couldn’t let you, his friend, suffer like this much longer, he wouldn’t forgive himself and neither would Jungkook or Taehyung.

It took a while to find what he was looking for, especially when he was trying to act like a regular hummingbird so as to not get caught by the man who was still moving around the room, he waited on a branch nearby until Eojin left. He flew in quickly, making a quick scan of the room, it seemed the sorcerer had whatever secrets locked in a big wooden chest. Jimin tried looking for the key, checking every nook and cranny before he heard footsteps returning; he flew out again sitting on a different branch a little farther, but it still gave him an okay enough view of the room.

Eojin came back, he sat in front of his wooden desk and wrote something on a scroll. Eojin wasn’t necessarily ugly, he was certainly older, maybe late 30s? Little strands of grey hair littered his brown hair. He had a long face with almond shaped eyes that were just farther apart than the average, their usual color was honey-like brown Jimin recalled, from all the times he tried to force the sparrow to use his own magic to make the sorcerer more powerful.

Finally, Eojin moved to the wooden chest, grabbing the key to it from a floor board that seemed to be sealed with magic, and as he unlocked the chest he pulled out what had to be his book of spells. Jimin had to use every but of restraint not to fly right in, but Eojin seemed to make things easy, walking the book to his desk and opening it. The sparrow managed to catch a few things here and there as the pages turned, nothing that would help you. He was considering flying away and resigning to the fact that he couldn’t help you when he caught a glimpse of the very thing he’d been looking for.

For the cursed, only a vow of everlasting love can break them free.

That was enough, it had to be. Jimin flew away, taking a bit of a longer way to the lake so he could process the information. As he landed on the shore, Taehyung and Jungkook were still consoling you.

“Yn! Yn! Listen, I think I found a way to break your curse,” he spoke enthusiastically, but you didn’t seem very enthusiastic, it broke Jimin’s heart, and the same could be said by Taehyung and Jungkook’s concerned faces.

“Let’s find Prince Hoseok, if he’s a hunter we can bring him here around sunset and when he sees you-“

“It’s not worth it, he probably doesn’t even remember me anymore, I’ve been here for almost a year, they all probably think I’m dead,” you sighed, moving away from the bear and bunny as you got in the lake, “just leave me alone,” they watched you with saddened faces, feeling heartbroken for you.

If only you knew, Hoseok had never given up on you, he was still looking, still training, still wanting more for the two of you.

“Hob-ah, I really don’t know how safe-” Namjoon began protesting as he stood in front of a tree, apple on top of his head.

“Don’t you trust that I won’t kill you, Namjoon-ah?” Hoseok laughed as he readied his bow and arrow.

“Yeah, Namjoon-ah, Prince Hoseok would never hurt you…on purpose,” Yoongi chimed in, watching in his crisp uniform with a mischievous grin, if there’s one thing he loved it was teasing Namjoon like this.

The poor dimpled man shook his head, sputtering random words as he took the bow and arrow Yoongi was offering him. Hoseok had been obsessing over your disappearance, he read every book, went on every excursion with the hope of finding you until his mother cut the resources for it, “we’re looking for a body at this point Hoseokie,” she had told him, and while it was discouraging, he persevered.

You couldn’t be dead, he wouldn’t believe it.

Part of his practicing was this move, Namjoon would shoot an arrow from a distance while a blind-folded Hoseok would catch it and shoot it back at whatever threat they may encounter. It was meant to be a plan b in case he ran out of arrows while fighting whatever animal that had taken you, and he’d come up with it after months of researching different big animals, months of using the poor royal musicians as fake animals to practice shooting too. 

Yoongi tied the cloth around Hoseok’s eyes, “alright, on my count,” he spoke firmly. Namjoon got the bow at the ready slowly, slightly trembling with fear, he’d always been so clumsy.

“One!”

Hoseok took a deep breath, bow in one hand while the other one remained empty for now.

“Two!”

Namjoon pulled the string, ready to shoot although still shaky, “please, please, don’t miss,” he whispered to himself.

“Three!”

Namjoon let go, shooting the arrow and watching as it flew swiftly toward his best friend, Yoongi watched with bated breath while his expression remained stoic. The prince heard the swift sound, and his reflexes served him well, catching the arrow and quickly drawing back the string of the bow and releasing it. It hit the apple in its center, causing it to split into two. Namjoon plopped down, his breath raising while Yoongi praised the prince for his aim.

Meanwhile, the queen watched from the outdoor balcony while she drank her afternoon tea, Gayoung was worried, seeing her only son obsessing over a girl who was most likely dead just like her father, who’d just been buried a few months back. Gayoung was worried about a lot of things, especially because as much as she believed you were dead, a small part of her wanted you to be alive, just so that Hoseok wouldn’t have to experience a broken heart. It was enough that what was meant to be your throne had been taken over by a distant uncle of yours for the time being.

Gayoung had to get her son to move on, and so, with the help of her lackeys she organized a ball for Hoseok’s birthday, where she invited all princesses that were of age and prime for marriage, he needed to move on. As much as it pained her to admit it, and the quicker her son realized how many other princesses were interested, and just as wonderful as you, the better. Another heir was needed after all.

In the castle library, Hoseok and Namjoon browsed through his books once more, it felt like all they did was practice and read, Namjoon missed all the other things they did, but he couldn’t argue when he’d seen how important you’d become to Hoseok through the years.

“What else did King Kyungjun say when you found him that night?” Namjoon asked as he went through the same book about carnivores for the tenth time this month.

“That she was taken by animal, that’s all, the guard that came to warn us later said something about it not being what it seemed,” Hoseok sighed as he closed another book. He surely could recite most of them from the index up to the acknowledgements, and yet nothing led him to anything to do with you. Namjoon sighed, continuing to read the next book, he’d read this one at least 5 times, and in the midst of it all Hoseok suddenly let out a very loud “I got it!” causing Namjoon to nearly fall from his chair.

“It’s not what it seems, Joon, this whole time we’ve been looking for a big animal, what if it’s more complicated than that?” Hoseok jumped down from his spot in one of those rolling staircases.

“Okay, you completely lost me now,” Namjoon admitted a bit exasperated, and before he could protest further, Hobi grabbed Namjoon’s sleeve and pulled him, there was no time to waste. And yet his mom suddenly appeared in the doorway with a bright smile on her face.

“Hoseokie! I got confirmation for all of them- oh?” She was startled as Hoseok lifted her up in a hug and kissed her forehead before continuing to his stride, “everyone’s coming!” That made him and Namjoon stop. “Who's coming mother?” he asked, confused, and Gayoung made the split the decision to keep it a secret that she was basically holding a speed dating show for her son, “no one, just some nobles for your birthday, where are you going?” she questioned, trying to distract him from asking further questions.

“To find the animal that took Yn!” he said with strong conviction, and Gayoung sighed, everything in her wanted to tell him to stay and not bother, but perhaps one last excursion would help him realize you were gone.

“Make sure you’re back by tomorrow night for your birthday celebration,” she simply said, and Hoseok nodded quickly before grabbing Namjoon’s sleeve once more and dragging him with him, his thoughts full of you, and how this had to be it. He was close to finding you, he could feel it.

Taglist: @hobigrl87 @hoseokkie-caeks @chroniclesofbts

[magixfairyix]

A Dress and a Guise

A toxic yuri Iarcy (Iorda x Darcy) oneshot based on an idea from @s12-kittie's dream, because HA I've infected ya'lls subconscious with Iarcy now.

Iorda gets helped out of a horrible situation by Darcy, only to realize that she just got herself caught up in a web of lies.

TW: Potion drugging (not by Darcy), wait nm potion drugging (by Darcy, she does in fact do that. She does in fact drug Iorda), scars, emotional manipulation, kinda noncon use of psychic magic, withdrawal symptoms, potion recovery, kidnapping (not by Darcy), past kidnapping by a cult, metions of past cult torture, wounds, creation of wounds (via knife, from Darcy)

This will be a fun ride.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Iorda could vividly recall the first time she'd met Darcy.

She had been living in a contsant haze for four months, only knowing agony and not knowing if her body would hold out for the next day of torture. Magix was one of the safest planets, and its city was even more so, but that didn't stop a cult known had The Wizards of the Black Circle taking people into its grip only to preform ritualistic expiereiments on them to see how much the victems' bodies could take.

Iorda could also recall the day she was kidnapped.

She'd been walking around the West Side of Magix City—about to take the bus back to her appartment—before she felt a burst of magic come out for her from a dark alleyway, hitting her in the head and knocking her unconcious. Day after day onwards were times of shackles on her wrists, only knowing a cold cell where the only change from the silence were her screams as runes were carved into her skin and her choking as potions were forced into her throat.

She first saw Darcy when one of the authorities from the Magix Council had taken her out of temporary confinement after the members of The Wizards of the Black Circle had been arrested. In her pain-filled haze—not having the potions in her body was almost more painful than having them inside her—she heard the authorities question Darcy, and the witch had claimed she was a freind.

Iorda was sure she'd never seen Darcy before in her life, but she was too tired to care.

Through the six months of healing Iorda had to go through, after the authorities advised her to keep to herself in her apartment until she recovered some, Darcy had been there with her. Iorda, for the first few weeks, suffered from adoris withdrawal so much so that she was in constant energy as it felt like her bones were breaking and her muscles were tearing themselves apart.

She remembered being in a haze of pain, collapsed on her couch for several days straight at the beginning. It was hard for her to get up, move, or speak; but for some reason, this stranger—or freind, whoever she had been—was willing to help seemingly out of altruistic interest.

Iorda had felt both guilty and grateful at the time for how many hours Darcy had spent with her in her apartment. Making sure she actually drank water, ate something, and that she wasn't alone when one of the withdrawal attacks hit. Comforting her when Iorda screamed in her sleep from nightmares and cradling the girl in her arms while whispering reassurances.

It was better than being alone, and somehow, maybe a deep part of her knew how unlikely it was that latching onto this so-called 'freind' of hers would go well for her.

But again.

Iorda had been too damn tierd to care.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Iorda didn't have withdrawal attacks as often as she used to, but sometimes she wondered if they would be less annoying than having migraines and fevers wrack her body. She'd been taking deep breathes to steady herself, lying on the couch of her apartment for the past three hours.

She wondered if going to some sort of therapist—maybe one who had worked with adoris victims, or others impacted by that cult—would help or, at the very least, she'd be prescribed some sort of medication to make the recovery less difficult.

But then Iorda remembered how Darcy had told her that the witch tried to get a therapist, only to have several turn her away; saying that Iorda could only be helped by rest and rest alone. She sighed, leaning her head back against a pillow, deciding to herself that the so-called therepists in Magix sucked ass.

Everything sucked.

Everything had sucked for the past four months.

Four months of the 'rest' that was supposed to fix this.

Iorda could admit that things have gotten better for her compared to the days full of constant pain and terror at the thought of having the wizards come back to take her back to the cell. She could drink and eat almost normally now, except for her aversion to warm drinks—potions ran just as warm.

She'd even been moving around a lot, though just around the appartment. Iorda had no desire to go outside again into Magix City after she'd been kidnapped, and so she took to organizing her room or her kitchen; hell, she'd gotten back into poetry and embroidery again.

But until the fevers stopped...

Until Iorda stopped having any withdrawal attacks at all...

It would be best for her to heal.

Iorda, through her haze heard the familiar sound of her front door unlocking. Only one person ever came to see her, and so she didn't even have to question who had entered the apartment—more so returned to, knowing how much time Darcy spent at the place.

"Hey," Iorda called out tiredly.

"Hey," Darcy responded with her usual kind and soft tone as she closed the door behind her, walking over to the kitchen counter and placing a bag full of groceries on it. "How are you feeling?"

Iorda reminded herself that when she had enough energy to get a job and work that she'd pay the witch back, even though Darcy had reassured her that she didn't mind. It was strange. Iorda wondered if she could've stayed with her parents at the outskirts of Magix City...

Iorda frowned.

The thought left her suddenly as if she lost a hold on it. It had been happening more often than not latley; forgetting or losing her train of thought as if she'd never questioned her circumstances. She concluded it was because she was tierd and that she needed more rest.

She just needed to rest...

"Tierd," Iorda answered, doing her best to sit up straighter. "Miragine."

"Hm, that sucks," Darcy answered.

"It's better than how I was," Iorda said with a shurg, mannaging to sit up. It was true, but dear dragon, she just wanted to have energy again without nightmares or random sensations of fear at recalling with happened to her in that cell. "I mean it."

Iorda flexed her hand, watching the skin of her foream move under the many rune scars that were now only pale lines instead of bleeding wounds. She didn't feel as exposed when she showed them as she used to be, and she was glad that even though they were unpleasant for her to look at that Darcy had never made her feel like they were unsightly.

Iorda looked up as she felt a cup gently pressed into her hands.

"Drink this," Darcy said with a gentle smile.

Iorda returned the expression—the witch was one of the few things that had been getting her through these past few months, pushing her to heal even when it felt like she was getting pulled between healing and getting worse—before she took a sip of the cool drink, wincing as it went down.

"Did you—" Iorda started, choking it down. "Did you put rosemery in or something?"

"For healing, yes." Darcy tilted her head. "Why?"

"Just..." Iorda started, bitten nails digging into the cup. "Tastes a bit like... adoris."

Darcy frowned before taking the cup back. "My mistake."

Iorda took a deep breath in order to calm herself down. She really didn't need to lose herself and get lost in panic and fear just from the taste of something similar to adoris. It wasn't the first time something like this had happened, but it was the first time she was feeling so much fear—almost reflexive—at the taste.

 It was only rosemery. 

That was all it was.

Iorda looked down at her hands to see them trembling.

"Lie back, okay?" Darcy said gently as she gripped Iorda's hand. "You're pancking."

Iorda nodded, trying to fight back a sob as she laid back against the couch, resting her head against the pillow behind her. If it was anyone else, or even herself, she would've thought that she had taken a minimal dose of the adoris accidentally. Her breathing trembled as her eyes darted around the appartment, feeling prepared for having runes carved into her skin.

She wasn't in the cell.

She wasn't in the cell.

Iorda swore for a second when she blinked that she saw the familar sight of the dark iron bars of the cell in high detail—enough that she was able to see the dark stains in the right side of the cell and the moss growing on the left.

"Darcy, what is going on?" Iorda asked fearfully.

"You're just stressing out from the taste of the rosemery," Darcy said plainly, running her thumb over Iorda's kunckles. Iorda felt the touch ground her only slightly, and she felt a slight increase of magical energy from Darcy's side. "Just relax..."

Iorda knew one debate between herself and Darcy is if it would be easier to calm these attacks—annoyingly random, though thakfully, they rarley occured when Iorda was alone—with psychcic magic, and Iorda always had denied the offers of the witch. It wasn't from a place of distrust, but having fear and panic burried magically would only lead to a reliance on it in the future.

Iorda, biting her lip, tried to weekly tug her hand back. "Darcy, I've told you that I don't want—"

"You need to calm down, otherwise you're going to hurt yourself," Darcy intertupted firmly.

"I-I know, but—"

"It's okay..." Darcy said reasuringly, her voice flipping from firm to soft and almost alurring within seconds. It was almost scary how the witch did it, but Iorda never said that, or took it as a sign of danger. "Relax..."

Iorda shivered from the nauea that threatened to overwhelm her, the past terror stabbing her through the heart. She could barely feel the couch she was laying down on, but something she could feel clearly was that Darcy's free hand had drifted up to the side of her face.

"I..."

"Shh..." Darcy said gently, moving Iorda's hair out of her face even as the girl tensed. "It's okay. It won't hurt."

Iorda felt an unfamiliar shiver as if it came from her very core, and soon the same sensation started snaking its way through her mind. She choked on a sob as she tried to weakly move her head away from the witch, but the reassuring words and the prospect of having the terror burried quicker than suffering through it was a useful sedative.

She wanted to move her head away.

But she was too tierd to care.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Iorda inhaled deeply as she leaned back against the window that towered from the floor to the roof, one of the many windows that lined the halls of Cloud Tower College for Witches. She knew how quickly and how easily things had changed after the first time her thoughts had been tainted by Darcy's magic; how different those last two months of healing were compared to the earlier four.

At first, Iorda realized that Darcy was becoming more pushy and insistent than usual. She didn't have as much of her usual gentle patience she had when Iorda hesetated to drink a healing tincture—now, Iorda had to wonder what had been snuck into those, or if she was truly just being paranoid in asking that—or when she wanted to soothe her panic naturally and not magically.

Iorda could justify the change in Darcy's behavior on stress.

At least before the manipulations became clear.

Iorda had become a "nuisance" instead of someone the witch cared about, supposedly out of the care in her own heart—did Darcy even have one? She became "lucky" that Darcy had bothered to help her out, instead of being lucky that she managed to get out of the cult.

Her scars quickly became "unsightly," and soon, Iorda had learned to cover them up.

Nuisance, lucky, and unsightly.

Those were the three words used most during the rare argument between the two. Iorda didn't feel as tempted to argue as much as she used to, especially now that Darcy had dragged her into a certain sceme the witch and her two sisters had to steal a magical ring from a fairy called Stella; the crown princess of Solara, a planet full of light. 

Iorda, of course, disagreed at first.

She was healthy for the most part, both mentally and physically. Nightmares were infrequent—besides the ones that only seemed to occur when Darcy was present—and she was able to bring herself to go out into Magix City again.

But there were two small facts that prevented her from disagreeing with the plan for long.

One, Iorda wasn't an idiot. She knew now that Darcy had been in her head enough to know that she had the potential to use every dark moment Iorda had experienced against her.

Once she found out that Darcy had been sneaking adoris doses into her drinks for her to panic enough to agree to the psychic magic's use, she'd been livid; snapping, feeling betrayed.

Two, Iorda knew how diluted those doses had been.

Darcy kept a more concentrated dose of adoris—in a small vial—that would be enough to hurt just as much, if not more, than the same amount of the potion Iorda had been forced to consume by the Wizards. It would set back all her progress. Make her a little more than a recovering addict.

Iorda had seen it only once when, after she gave the witch a big 'fuck you' after being told that she'd help steal Stella's ring. Darcy had made it very clear that she had the upper hand.

Iorda knew the third reason was something she preferred not to admit to herself. After all the times Darcy had buried her panic, stress, and pain with her magic, it had led to Iorda feeling dependent to some extent on that. She felt safer with the witch than she did on her own, and although she knew it was all lies and careful manipulations, she couldn't help but drink in the peace as if it were oxygen when she was able to.

She felt pathetic at times.

Maybe she was.

Or maybe she just had bad luck.

Iorda pulled out her phone, glancing at her emails as she waited for Darcy to return from the dorm she shared with her two sisters, with the plan to get Stella's ring. For the sake of eliminating further risks, Iorda wasn't allowed into the planning sessions. She only knew what Darcy would tell her, but then again, things were always like that.

Iorda heard footsteps coming down the hallway.

"And... the plan?" Iorda asked calmly as Darcy walked up to her, though her voice betrayed her usual unease at being around the witch. God, if she had the emotional strength and the upper hand, she would hex this witch into oblivion if she could. "Any updates?"

Darcy leaned against the wall next to Iorda. "There's an art exibit in Magix City where the Council will be showing off magical items to the public." She subtly looked around the hallway quizically, making sure that the two of them were alone. "Rumour has it the ring will be there, and so, you'll be coming with."

Iorda stopped herself from seeming irritated. It seemed to her that beneath all the constant fawning and fear, she was just pissed. "Couldn't... you and Icy go? Stormy?"

"That I could've, but if something were to happen..." Darcy said, glancing at Iorda and giving her a glance with an underlying warning that further arguing or questions wouldn't be tolerated. "You'll be taking the blame while I get out and take the ring."

Iorda held her tongue. During plans such as these, Darcy was more irritable than the composed witch she usually was. More likely to threaten, and Iorda didn't want to have to deal with that when she was already stressed about the possibility of getting arrested from getting drawn into the plan of theft of a royal object.

"I'll... I'll go then," Iorda said, eyes averted as she nodded.

Darcy gave her an approving look, slightly smug. "Good. I'm glad we agree."

Iorda felt Darcy rest her hand on her shoulder briefly as if it was a comforting touch of reassurance, though at the touch, Iorda felt that coil of stress in her chest unwind. She had learned not to protest against the not-so-subtle uses of psychic magic. 

"Come, darling," Darcy said, turning around and gesturing for Iorda to follow. "We have an hour to get ready. And we have to make sure we look presentable."

Iorda waited until the witch's back was turned before she breathed in deeply, trying to not appear irritated. Darcy's psychic magic could bury her fear, pain, and discomfort. But it could never seem to get rid of the irritation of being treated like a pawn. 

But...

She truly was a pawn, wasn't she?

A pathetic one, at that.

Too deep into the artificial peace to argue.

Too disadvantaged to fight back.

Too weak.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Iorda decided that she'd never let her hair be anything but loose if she ever got 'let go' by Darcy in a way that didn't send her to a cell for dragon knows how many years. Having hands she didn't trust run through her hair in a mockery of affection, as they braided it, made her stomach churn.

She'd rather have her hair in anything but a braid.

Of course, Iorda knew that Darcy was aware of how important hair was for a psychic witch. Spiritually, that is. Iorda's skills in her psychic magic had lessened during all her time spent in that cult, and even more so when she neglected to use them during her recovery.

But Iorda still held onto any part of a stable identity as she could get.

Her knee-length hair was one of them. One of the few places of pride for her. She may not be skilled magically, emotionally, or physically, but at least she still had this.

Something that was her's.

And so, she fought back against the urge to tug her head away from the brush or the brief touch of Darcy's hand against her hair. Despite how many times she had let the witch run her hair through it in the past, both gently and, well, frantically on some occasions.

Iorda kept herself mentally occupied by tugging at the hand-length sleeves of the dress she was told to wear: composed of thick fabric that scraped against all her scars, and was modest thanks to the high neckline and length of the skirt.

Iorda assumed that the art exhibit was a very formal event, but she doubted Darcy's words on how important it was to hide her scars for the sake of that formality.

She forced herself to hold her tongue, though.

She had found herself wondering as of late how Darcy got to this point. Little was known about what the witch and her two sisters planned to do with the Ring of Solaria, but she could guess it was something bigger than a simple prank.

It was obvious that someone didn't become manipulative at birth.

Manipulation bred manipulation.

She couldn't help but wonder who 'bred' that into Darcy.

Darcy soon finished braiding Iorda's hair into a tight braid that stung at her scalp, moving it through her hand gently before looking at Iorda's reflection in the mirror of the dressing table. "Look at you..."

Iorda reminded herself not to tense as Darcy rested a hand on her shoulder, once again in some fake sort of affection. If she tensed, she was stressed, and if she was stressed, then she'd get all those emotions buried against her will. It was better to pretend as if she tolerated this and believed the fake words and touches.

But it was nicer some days to lie to herself, as if the witch still cared for her the same way she did the first few months Iorda got out of that cult.

Maybe there was some sort of care.

Buried deep down.

She had the thought a few nights ago that Darcy could have very well not let her heal. Iorda could have been struggling with withdrawal symptoms even now if she hadn't had some sort of so-called 'support.'

Back then, she could barely move from the couch during those first few weeks. If she was alone during that time, she probably would have been malnourished by this point. More mentally unstable than she already was.

Maybe there was sort of care.

Twisted, desperate, for the witch to hold onto something.

But then again, if Darcy was out of the picture, Iorda would've been able to bring back the memory of where her parents were so she could ask her actual fucking family for help.

Darcy still hadn't let that memory out of its buried state.

And she never would.

"Beautiful," Darcy hummed with an affectionate smile that looked too real for Iorda's taste, running her hand through the braid before she lightly kissed the top of Iorda's head. She reached for one of the drawers, opening it to put the brush away.

Iorda was still put off by the witch's touch and words, so she didn't notice that Darcy was opening the wrong drawer. "Darcy, wait—"

Iorda felt her stomach drop as Darcy's eyes landed on the object in the center of the drawer, and god, she was the most afraid that she'd been in a long time. She forgot the knife was in the drawer most of the time, and by now, she doubted she had the courage to even attempt to drive it through the witch's heart.

Darcy glanced at Iorda, her face eerily emotionless and void of any affection. "Iorda, what is this?"

Iorda's mind went through so many excuses and explanations. She split her tongue, she had to use the knife in a spell, she invited someone over, and they ended up being a masochist. But for all those excuses, she knew that Darcy would see through her lies in an instant.

Psychic magic made it difficult to die.

In any relationship, twisted or not, honesty was important.

This wasn't any different.

Iorda started to stand up, breathing in shakily. "I..."

Darcy gripped Iorda's shoulder before forcing her back down in her seat. Iorda went silent, keeping her eyes averted down to her feet. She was dead. She was dead. Iorda wondered if today was the day Darcy decided that she wasn't worth the effort.

Iorda could only hear her heart beat like a caged animal in the long silence. She didn't even dare to look up into the mirror, because she feared doing anything that would cause Darcy to become even more pissed than she already was. Iorda had grown acustomed to the witch's moods and levels of irritation: condensending was a warning, snapping was anger, but the current silence of Darcy meant that she was pissed. 

Truly pissed.

"Are you not grateful for what I've done for you, Iorda?" Darcy said, gripping Iorda's chin and tilting it up so that the girl met her gaze in the mirror. "I could have left you in that cult to rot. I hope you are aware of that."

Iorda didn't try to move away. "The knife isn't—"

"You know better than to lie to me," Darcy said, her eyes cold and her smile one of repressed fury. She ran her free hand along Iorda's braid, and the girl shivered. Iorda felt nails dig into her chin, and she winced. "So, how about you use that pretty little mouth of yours properly and tell me why there is a knife in your drawer."

Iorda knew she was trapped, and so she breathed in shakily as she stared directly into Darcy's reflection. Her nails dug into the fabric of her skirt, unmoving. "I..."

"Yes?"

"I... wanted to kill you..." Iorda said, her voice trembling with a sort of weakness she found pathetic, despite this fact that this was one of the first times she could be honest with how pissed she was. "I was... angry that I was helping you and your sisters. I was angry at you. Everything. So I hid it."

"And how long has the knife been in there?"

"Since the first day I started at Cloud Tower."

Iorda hoped that her quick answers would at least soothe some of Darcy's anger. Stuttering would only make things worse, and so, honesty and quick words were the best option. She still recalled getting accepted into Cloud Tower—already having helped the Trix a week before then—and sliding the knife into the drawer should she need it.

She was now starting to regret that decision...

"You've learned to be honest," Darcy mused, letting go of Iorda's chin before she rested her hand on the girl's right shoulder, digging her nails into it repeatedly. She let go. Dug them in. Let go, and repeated while watching Iorda carefully for any sort of flinch. "And to stay still, apparently. That's an improvement..."

Iorda could only fight back a sick feeling within her as she nodded. She kept her gaze on the mirror's reflection, breathing in slowly to remind herself not to tense at the sharp pains in her shoulder. God, she really couldn't play things safe. Her past self had really hidden a knife of all things, and now, she was paying the price.

Darcy pulled something out from her pocket, holding it up in the reflection of the mirror. "You remember this, don't you?"

Iorda tensed—then stopped when she felt the witch's nails dig further into her skin—as she raised her gaze, seeing a small vial between Darcy's fingers. The glass vial was a translucent red, though the liquid inside was a pale yellow that made it seem far more harmless than it was.

Just like Darcy, in that way.

Weirdly enough.

"Answer me."

"... adoris." Iorda's voice wavered.

"Yes, adoris," Darcy said condescendingly. She rested the vial of the drug on the dressing table and then placed the knife next to it. Two threats next to each other. "But since you have been more tolerable recently, you are going to get a choice."

"What?"

"Adoris, or the knife."

Iorda was confused, and she could hardly think. "But... what are you going to do with the kni—"

"Choose very quickly, or I might just lose my patience and decide to shove the adoris down your throat regardless of your choice," Darcy said, her voice firm. She was, although livid, inwardly amused at how Iorda had the guts to even attempt to conceal a weapon. She could respect the act of wanting to get revenge on those who controlled you like a puppet on strings. But not enough to exempt the girl from the consequences of her actions. "Adoris or the knife, Iorda."

Iorda breathed in shakily, her hands trembling. "The... the knife."

Better the knife than the adoris. Better any sort of physical pain than having to struggle through the withdrawal symptoms for a second time, except now she wouldn't have the support from the witch she was deluded into accepting at the time.

Darcy nodded to herself, shoving the adoris vial back into her pocket. Iorda would hardly be useful to them if she had chosen the drug, and so, this was the best outcome for both parties.

Iorda struggled to keep her breaths even as she saw Darcy grab the knife with her right hand, pulling it back to her side. She felt her eyes burn. She would not cry. She could not.

She felt Darcy rest her hand on top of Iorda's own, lacing their fingers together almost comfortingly. Iorda breathed in slowly, trying not to pull her hand away.

Darcy softly squeezed Iorda's hand. "You won't try to kill me again?"

"N-no..."

"You really shouldn't have hidden the knife..." Darcy hummed softly, tilting her head so it rested against Iorda's. "It was a bad idea, and you know you can't survive without me, right?"

Iorda went silent.

"I need you to answer me, sweetheart."

This was what hurt Iorda the most, somehow. How quickly Darcy could switch between being silently livid and a sort of affection. Not real enough for her to fully let her guard down, but not fake enough to dismiss it.

Her skin shivered with anxiety, and yet, Iorda sighed.

She always relented.

And gripped onto the 'affection' like a lifeline.

"I... I know..." Iorda said weakly. "I'm sorry..."

"I know you are," Darcy said, running her hand over Iorda's. Despite the atrocities, the witch tended to be surprisingly gentle physically. Iorda leaned her head against Darcy's, mirroring the witch. "I just need you to stay still for me now, alright? Do you think you can do that for me?"

Iorda tensed. "Why?"

"I didn't ask for questions. I asked if you could manage to stay still," Darcy said, firmly and yet comforting. Iorda hated it. She wanted to grab the knife from the witch's hand, concequinces be damned. But she was trapped in this. "Close your eyes, too. It will make this easier, and then we can work on getting the Ring of Solaria at the exhibit ."

Iorda was deeply afraid, but she couldn't show it. Anything that could be done was better than the adoris, and so, she just wanted this movement to be over. She wanted this day to be over entirely.

She closed her eyes, trying to keep her breaths even. Although there wasn't any psychic magic going between Darcy's hand resting over her own, she still grounded herself with that touch. Darcy pulled up the right sleeve of Iorda's dress so that her arm was bare.

She'd be fine.

She'd be fine...

Iorda felt the beginning of a sharp pain at her right shoulder as the blade of the knife lightly moved across her skin in a straight line. She bit her lip and gripped Darcy's hand tightly, trying to remember anything that wasn't her time in that cell all those months ago.

"There we go..." Darcy hummed.

Iorda wanted Darcy to yell at her and be furious. Like the witch was when she first grabbed the hidden knife out of Iorda's drawer. Anger would be easier to match with anger, and fury with fury.

Not fear.

Not cowardice.

Iorda stifled a sob, feeling the knife rise before another thin line was cut over it. Only into the first few layers of her skin. Not enough to take an eternity to heal, but enough for it to bleed.

She only felt the knife get pulled away when a third line had been cut. Along with the shaky breaths entered her lungs, and the pained noises that threatened to escape. Iorda hadn't yet looked in the mirror. She didn't know if she'd handle seeing the wound on her skin.

"It is just a little sigil to make sure you will not try to kill me again," Darcy said, voice with its mask of reassurance. She was aware of the fact that getting another wound had not been pleasant for the girl. "A failsafe, if you will..." She paused, averting her eyes as she took a deep breath to stifle any sort of guilt. "It won't do anything else to you. I promise you that."

Iorda couldn't kill Darcy.

She was stuck here.

Iorda felt Darcy rest her hand at the side of her head before tugging her closer into a half-embrace, running her other hand over the girl's back to calm her. Iorda bit her lip as a sob pushed back her throat, eyes still closed as she buried her face into the witch's shoulder.

She hated this.

She hated Darcy.

She hated the whispered words of reassurance from the witch.

She hated how the sigil in her skin hurt so damn much.

She hated how their relationship had become.

She hated feeling so helpless.

And she hated that Darcy was so gentle with her.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Iorda had no fucking clue how Darcy had mannaged to get the two of them into this event. Since the new art exhibit at Magix Museum was organized by the Council of Magix, it must've been rather prestigious. She wouldn't put it past Darcy—or Icy—to have stolen the invites.

But the two of them were quite inconspicuous.

Iorda still despised how the dress scratched at her old scars, and also the bandages wrapped around the sigil Darcy had carved into her moments earlier, but it allowed her to blend in. Darcy was dressed in a similar manner: a long-sleeved violet dress.

Iorda pinched the fabric at her shoulder, tugging it away slightly from her recent scars as she and Darcy wandered around the exhibit that was already filled with lavishly-dressed citizens.

Darcy rested her hand over Iorda's fidjeting before adjusting the sleeve of the girl's dress. "Better?"

"Um..." Iorda paused. "Yes?"

Darcy nodded calmly. Iorda and the witch continued walking around, pretending to stare at several paintings and artifacts. None of them was the ring. But for now, the main thing was not drawing suspicion.

"Succeeding tonight is important, Iorda," Darcy said, voice firm but not overtly warning. But then again, they were in public. "Very."

"I'm aware," Iorda said, sighing. "You've made that clear."

Iorda suspected a subtle glare or warning look from Darcy. She hadn't spoken out of turn, though her tired sarcasm had been clear. Iorda was tired. Her arm hurt. And she felt more hopeless every single day since she got out of that cult.

Darcy sighed, running a hand through her half-tied-up hair. "Not just for my sisters, but for me." She glanced at a painting of a female figure, a witch, clothed in dark robes with an opera mask on her face, titled: The Reign of Liliss. "It could have been anyone. You. Someone else. The point is, this is not something personal for me."

"... the Ring or me?"

"How you've had to become a scapegoat," Darcy said, pursing her lips tightly at the painting before walking away from it. "I would have done the same to anyone else without hesitation, and although my methods have been harsh, I had to make sure that you weren't a risk for ruining everything for us."

Iorda didn't know what to say to any of that, and she didn't want to. Bitterness towards the witch was still clear inside her. She wanted to feel angry, even though now, she just felt tired.

"After tonight, things will get better," Darcy said softly.

Iorda wondered if Darcy was talking more to herself, but soon the witch started following a group of several others down a hallway. Crowds of royals, rich people, or ambassadors. Iorda followed, trailing by her side.

One of the exhibits was a glass room—piping and wires embedded into the transparent surface—with a white screen at one end that showed holographic imaging, and a Zenithian was explaining the electromagnetic properties of it. Iorda was half-listening because most of her attention was Darcy's hand resting on her waist.

Was Darcy truly apologetic?

Was she ever?

"ATTENTION."

Iorda glanced up at the loudspeaker fixed in the upper right corner of the room, and the rest of the people in the room did the same. What was going on? She was confused and worried if something was wrong—

"ALL GUESTS PLEASE EXIT EXHIBIT 1543. A ISSUE WITH THE PIPING HAS BEEN—"

A crack appeared on the front wall of the room, the pipe within the glass shuddering and beginning to break. Iorda raised her hands to cover her face as high-pressure water sprayed onto everyone, and as soon as more pipes and glass broke, she felt water rise up to her knees.

Shit.

"To the doors!" A woman with an elaborate hairstyle cried out as they rushed to the doors, shoving each other out of the way.

Iorda followed the crowd close by, breathing in shakily as she felt the water continue to rise quickly. She wondered who decided to put the main piping in glass just for the sake of aesthetics. Darcy was close behind her, struggling due to her choice to wear heels to the event.

Iorda was one of the last people to go through the doors, glancing behind her to see Darcy a metre away from the exit. She paused. A decision could be made in a heartbeat: she couldn't kill Darcy because of the sigil, but that didn't mean indirectly.

Iorda shut the door, ignoring the glare of fury from the witch as she pulled an obsidian hair ornament out of her braid before shoving it between the door handles. All others had run far away, and so, no one was there to stop her.

"Iorda, you wouldn't dare—"

"I would," Iorda spat, expressing her built-up bitterness as she stood up straight. A part of her appreciated that Darcy hadn't let her die and that she had been somewhat... gentle with her, but her understanding stopped there. "For so long you have been fucking with my head and manipulating me, and I am done, Darcy. Done."

Water still spilled out of the broken pipes and shattered glass, filling up now to Darcy's waist. Iorda knew that, like a lot of magic, transporting would require the user to remain calm. She didn't care if Darcy would get out or not, but what she did know was that now she finally had a chance to run.

Iorda turned around, racing towards the exit of the museum.

She didn't look back.

Even as a tear fell down her face.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Five Months Later...

Iorda was glad she had managed to find a dress to wear to the annual Alfea dance. Well, the dance at Alfea College for Faries was where the students of Alfea, Red Fountain, and Cloud Tower were invited to.

During those past five months, a lot had happened.

After Iorda abandoned Darcy in Magix Museum, she went to Headmistress Griffin to tell her about what the witch and her sisters had been up to.

Only the information Iorda knew.

But information nonetheless.

Griffin and Faragonda had agreed that Iorda could choose to either go to Cloud Tower or Alfea. The choice had shocked Iorda at first until she had learned that Griffin was the one who suggested it after worrying that her school had too many unpleasant memories.

After Iorda recounted her experiences at the hands of The Wizards of the Black Circle Griffin said that Iorda needed a place where she would finally be able to get a fresh start.

Iorda was studying fairy magic at Alfea, of course, but she still had the free will to learn witchcraft on her own accord. She shared a room with five other girls—Stella, Musa, Bloom, Flora, and Tecna.

Stella had been the one Iorda was unsure about at first. The fairy's bright attitude and enthusiasm—something Iorda had not been used to, and if anything, was suspicious of—had made Iorda wary, until she got to know the girl a bit.

Iorda looked herself up and down in the wall-length mirror in the room she shared with Stella, adjusting the skirt of her dress. She and the rest of her dormmates had gone out shopping several hours earlier, specifically for this dance, and Iorda, despite her nerves, was looking forward to it.

Hair was loose over her shoulders.

No sleeves.

She wore a long, pale lavender and silver dress with a halter-top bodice. Scars showed on her arms, but now Iorda had learned to think of them as runic symbols of her survival.

Iorda smiled in the mirror, moving side to side.

She found that she looked beautif—

She froze.

One thing Iorda had learned after all this time was to learn when she was being watched. Either in the cell or during her time under Darcy's thumb, she knew when she wasn't alone.

No.

No.

Iorda now looked at the left edge of the mirror, unable to bring herself to turn around. She could see half of the window. Not open. But she could also see a few tendrils of brunette hair peeking out from where the reflection ended, as if whoever was there was sitting on the windowsill that wasn't visible in the reflection.

She clenched her hands into fists.

The window had been locked, but would good would it have done against an enemy who could move through shadows in an instant?

Who could transport with a simple move of the hand?

Who has never left open ends?

Iorda practically felt Darcy smirk.

"Looks good on you."

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

When I said toxic yuri, I meant it >:)

Also wanted Darcy to also be, y'know, human in a way. I imagined that she cared so much about not disappointing Liliss and messing up the plan that she was willing to find a traumatized as hell person and manipulate them.

And that (also because of Liliss, and trauma), she did want to hold onto Iorda in a way. Darcy had few things in her life, and despite Iorda being expendable, she was one of them.

[fandom-susceptible]

TDP Rewatch S1 E8: Cursed Caldera

Runaan does the intro voice! Nice, I forgot he did that. I was so spoiled for Moonfam content in season 7 that coming back to the early seasons has me missing him.

It's interesting that the Moonshadow elves still have a strong enough connection to the Moon Nexus that they keep a guardian mage there, with enough interaction that she's been married repeatedly, they have an established path back there, but Rayla didn't connect it to the Cursed Caldera from the beginning. Granted, she's never been to Katolis before and likely wouldn't know its exact location, but the other assassins also didn't bother to point it out to her on their way in.

I love how unbothered Ellis is by Rayla being an elf. She's so fundamentally kind, same as Ezran, but just also so unhinged. I wish we'd seen her interact with Aanya, those two girls would have been lethal together.

Y'all it's called the Cursed Caldera for a reason. Also Ellis literally already told you about the terrors and horrors of the mountain before.

"Is he okay?" Ellis whispers to Rayla as if she's not the most unhinged child I've ever seen in my life

watching their planning scene I'm just giggling feeling like I'm reminiscing about them being babies still figuring themselves and each other out.

I don't remember noticing before that the candles leading up to Runaan's cell door are lit with dark magic - they're purple fire. It just makes me think of LOTR, where the elves are just straight-up allergic to evil and being around fire like that would make them ill by sheer proximity. I know TDP elves don't canonically work like that, but it does evoke the vibe. It's a good animation choice.

Can we discuss that it's standard practice in Katolis that prisoners keep their clothes? We see this repeatedly later, with Soren, Claudia, Viren, Ezran, and Viren again. Runaan being shirtless and in torn pants is intentional treatment.

Oof, he winces when he sees the food Viren sets down in front of him. It's Xadian, which means someone had to go across the border to get it. Some of it's from Moonshadow Forest. So his presence here has caused an invasion of his home.

There's a bruise on his right shoulder that I hadn't noticed before, and he's developed a black eye, as well. That could just be the blow that previously only showed in his jaw showing more over time, sometimes wounds under the skin do that as they heal, but it could also be guards or Viren being cruel. We can't really say. The lighting really isn't letting me get a good evaluation of his left arm this time, though. Viren comments the hand has seen better days, so it's likely that the shadows are covering up symptoms of blood issues all the way to his fingertips at this point.

Runaan just flicking his eyes to the orange and back to Viren was a tiny gesture but conveyed the entire reaction of did you really think that would work and also would you fuck off already at the same time, and it's delightful. Bless the animators, honestly.

. . . Bless Gren, this poor sweet man. Has he been standing this entire time? I hope those chains give him enough room to at least sit down sometimes, it's been days.

anyone else remember all the old fics about Gren and Runaan breaking out together? I loved that. It's one of the things I've toyed with in an AU where Rayla actually got Runaan/the other assassins on the kids' side that night. It's in the "Runaan actually got captured covering their retreat with the princes" version that sits in my head.

why's everybody gotta deadpan Callum, "Monotony Mountain" is just as funny as any of the others.

Ava is an incredibly strong young wolf to be carrying two people on her back like that, even if they are kids.

I love how Runaan just looks vaguely annoyed when Viren comes back into his cell again. Like he's been keeping that sour resignation pretty solid but he's Extra Annoyed now, because this idiot won't just leave him alone. Mood, honestly, Runaan, I get annoyed at the sight of Viren too.

Imagine how pissed Runaan would be if he knew how Viren treated his kids. Runaan attacked his own kid once, after giving her every chance he possibly could, when she was for all intents and purposes a grown woman under his command who was fighting him, and he spent two years marinating in his own personal hell in the coin over it. What he did was completely sanctioned within his own culture's rules and it still plagued him endlessly. What Viren does to his kids isn't normal by anyone's standards, and instead of feeling bad about the harm he causes them, he frames it as their fault.

"Don't you know only humans can be bribed?" It's interesting that Runaan uses this phrasing. He doesn't say that elves don't use currency, he just says they can't be bribed - which makes no implication about the existence of currency in Xadia, but establishes that bribes of anything won't work there.

Also hot damn Jonathan Holmes (Runaan's VA) does things to me when he's growling, jesus

I love the frame by frame of Runaan examining the coins. Cold and disinterested gives way to focus, then shock, and then the fear hits. He realizes the moment he understands what's happened that he banished his friends over nothing, too, that their bodies were never found because they were taken, not because they ran.

(we never see a lotus attached to the Dragonguard, so I'm inclined to believe that's an assassin specific tradition, which explains why it was believed that Tiadrin and Lain ran and were assumed to be alive even when they were cursed)

The kids having their respective heart-to-hearts are really well-written. They're hitting me a little too much in the heart to give much commentary on them.

Wait, hang on a sec. *rewinds a few seconds*

oh I never noticed that before, holy shit

So in the first episode, when the elves first run into Markos, we get a shot of the assassins from profile after he starts running. Rayla pulls up her hood and takes off after him, and the other elves glance at her but let her go.

In Rayla's memory, Runaan turns to her and physically points her after the guard.

But he never actually did when we were seeing it from the omniscient narrator perspective!

Now, Runaan definitely shoulders the responsibility for what happened when he talks to her about it later, I'm not discounting that, but it's a super interesting storytelling thing to have her memory not match the events we saw earlier. It's such a subtle thing, but it really drives home how important Runaan's expectations and opinions are to her. Holy shit, it's awesome.

"Thanks for failing at your mission. I like being alive." is such a good moment, because yes, the dialogue is adorable, the kids are being cute, but I also think that this message wouldn't have hit Rayla as well from someone like Callum who would try to convince her it wasn't a failure. Ezran doesn't do that. He just acknowledges it's a failure but thanks her for it anyway, which breaks through her automatic defensiveness when someone tries to contradict her, and reminds her why she's doing all this. "I'm glad you're alive, Ezran." to be clear, I don't think Ezran's specifically picking and choosing his words to make her feel better, I just think he happened upon the exact perspective that was going to help her.

god, I love Jack De Sena. Occasionally his insecurities as Callum really call back to the Sokka days, and I get so nostalgic about it. This show is a blessing.

HOW FUCKING STRONG IS ELLIS, this girl yanks Ezran and the dragon egg up onto Ava's back with her all with one arm!

I love that Ellis barks with Ava, it's so cute.

Rayla's having a full on anxiety attack moment after tripping over the rock and killing the creature, and it hurts my heart. She almost didn't make it. She almost lost the boys, too. Then she's all hopped up on adrenaline and gets a swarm of little creatures crawling up her, how do you even fight that feeling, that'd be terrifying to begin with and she's already shaky from crisis. I just want someone to give her a hug and tell her it's gonna be okay.

Runaan is downright pissed now at the sound of Viren's approach, and honestly, yeah valid. I wonder what they told him about Viren's life or death status when he was resurrected in season 6, given Viren died at around the same time as Runaan came back.

Gods, I need to rewatch this episode more often just for Runaan's voice acting. The delivery of "You have succeeded." and "You have found something worse than death." just chills, every time, I love it.

I also like that this is the information he chooses to give. He's spent this long refusing to give Viren anything at all to go on, just repeating various refusals and claiming his own death. This though, he puts it forth as a warning. You're right, mage, this is worse. Don't toy with things you don't understand. This is dangerous, even to me, and I know what I'm looking at. Runaan makes choices about life and death, but this thing, this is beyond him. It's advice.

And Viren doesn't take it. He pushes farther, he's excited by this dark knowledge, so Runaan goes from this plaintive warning to spitting his final refusal, because if this foolish human is going to ignore his warnings, he can live with the consequences.

I know we all joke about Runaan calling the coins/capitalism worse than death, but he was actually talking about the mirror. The response the coins evoked was "You're a monster." He may not know what the coins even are until Viren rips his soul out to add to one himself. He may assume they're trinkets made from the death of an individual, just stealing them away and refusing to allow them to have their proper funeral rites. Which, for a culture with such a strong connection to death and the afterlife, I imagine would be a hell of a violation.

Gren's look of alarm and concern towards Runaan's cell gets me every time, too. We give the kids a lot of credit for their kindness, but Gren is also such a kind soul. He's a soldier, raised and trained to see Runaan as an enemy, but when he hears him scream, while locked in a dungeon, he still looks concerned. That says a lot about his character.

The fact that we can see Runaan moving in the coin initially is also intriguing. They seem to do away with that later, and I wonder if it was just a retcon or if the coins just slowly solidify to a specific moment.

As the credits sketch shows Corvus examining the snow elf, it makes me wonder what his thought process has been. Rayla told him the boys were following her willingly. He's not stupid - he and all the other soldiers likely saw that she wasn't holding swords on the boys until Callum said she would. She didn't fight to kill him, and she left after disarming and delaying him. The boys are still alive. Now they're in a village, and she's apparently relaxed enough to stop and make the snowman a snowelf. Word around town is that she ran off with two human children - the boys. He's likely putting the pieces together from there to realize she told him the truth, but still puzzling over why.

Ahh, the infamous credits sketch of Ethari's tears. The moment he realized Runaan was truly gone, and Rayla had really abandoned him. (I have a lot of thoughts about why Ethari reacted the way he did to this news, which I'll talk about more when they meet him later and I have other posts about, but from his perspective . . . yeah, this is really all he knows right now.) And we really didn't know his damn name for two more seasons.

[ironstrange1991]

Need

Pairing: Doctor!Strange, Defender!Strange, Supreme!Strange x Fem!Reader

Synopsis: After the reader breaks one of the Sanctum relics, she starts to feel a little strange and it is up to the Stephens to deal with the situation in the best way possible.

Word Count: 7k

Warnings: Polyamorous relationship dinamics. SMUT: Sex pollen, oral sex with male receiving, masturbation with male receiving, umprotected p in v sex, creampie, cum eating, slight spanking, slight degradation kink, there is probably more stuff that I am not remembering.

A/N: It took me almost a month to write this fic and I know many of you are anxious to finally read it, so I hope you like it and have a good reading.

You weren't feeling well. Your body was aching, but it wasn't a normal kind of pain, it was something very specific. At first you didn't pay attention to the sensations when they started, you ignored them as much as you could because you were worried and embarrassed about having broken one of the Sanctum's relics and you had no idea how to tell Stephen because you were tired of hearing phrases like: Don't touch things you don't know what they are; Don't mess with the relics; Stay away from magical artifacts.

You always did like you were told, but sometimes you needed to clean one shelf or another, you couldn't stand to see the dust gathering and Stephen never remembered to clean them and Defender never had time when you asked him to, so sometimes, against their advice, you did a good job cleaning everything.

It was exactly what you had done that morning. Since you were off work and the three Stephens were busy doing god knows what and you'd be spending the day alone, you decided to be productive and clean up the parts of the Sanctum that were always overlooked in routine cleaning.

Everything was going perfectly fine until you bumped into one of the many vases on the pedestals in the Window of the Worlds Room and it smashed to the floor. Inside the vase there was only earth. Or you thought it was earth, although you could have sworn you smelled a strange smell coming from it. It was a black and thin substance that, when it fell to the ground, raised a cloud of dust, soiling your clothes.

"What the fuck, Y/n" You screamed to yourself bringing your hand to your mouth completely paralyzed. It took a few minutes for you to calm down and clean up everything. As you put the pieces of the vase in a box and tried to pick up that disgusting dust from the floor to dump it in a plastic bag you were pretty sure you inhaled a lot of the substance, but you tried your best not to think about what that meant, although a thought insistent in the back of your head made you scared to death that the thing was actually the ashes of some important master who had died centuries ago and was now stuck to your hands and clothes.

But there were more important things to think about. For example, how were you going to tell Stephen that? He would be so mad at you.

Finally, you hid the box and plastic bag with all the earth you could pick up from the floor and put it on a shelf at the back of the library. You continued cleaning and tried to calm your anxiety by telling yourself that the best thing to do was to tell Defender what happened and ask him to fix the relic before Stephen noticed. You just knew he wasn't going to get mad at you and he would do his best to help you hide it from the other Stephens.

You were finishing your cleaning when you noticed the first symptoms. You felt a little dizzy and thought that was why you hadn't eaten anything in the morning, but then you started to feel hot. Very hot. Which wasn't normal since you were in the middle of autumn.

The other symptoms took longer to appear and it took you a while to notice that something was really wrong.

You noticed that you were thinking about Stephen a lot, which to a certain extent was normal, you thought about your Stephens all the time, however you were thinking about specific parts of their bodies and very specific things they did to you in bed and it was leaving you in an almost unbearable state of arousal.

By mid-day it was clear that those sensations were not normal, mainly because you tried to solve the problem yourself with one of your vibrators and you didn't get any results, in fact the situation seemed to get worse.

You were horny, sweating and aching for Stephen to the point where it became a real pain right between your legs. You couldn't think straight, but you knew it must have something to do with the substance you inhaled and seeing that your symptoms seemed to get stronger by the minute, you overcame your fear and shame and called the first Stephen in your cellphone speed dial.

The phone rang a few times until finally you heard the familiar baritone voice. The sound somehow made the ache between your legs increase.

"Stephen… can you come home, please?"

You didn't pay attention to how your voice sounded, but his response sounded worried. "Y/n? What happened?"

You inhaled and exhaled through your mouth "I'm not feeling well. Stephen, please... can you come home?"

"Honey, tell me what happened." Supreme insisted on an answer.

"Please Stephen, Hurry up!"

...

Stephen and Defender were talking to Wong in his office when Stephen's phone rang. He looked on the screen and seeing that it was Supreme he just declined the call. Whatever it was, it could wait.

A few seconds later Defender's cell phone rang and he excused himself to Wong and left the room to answer it. He came back quickly seeming worried.

"Something happened to Y/n. We need to go home."

Wong didn't ask any questions, he just waved towards the door "Well, go ahead then. Let me know if you need anything."

Stephen walked out of Wong's office with Defender on his heels.

"What exactly did she say?" He asked putting his sling ring on his finger.

"Supreme said she called him begging him to come home. Said she's not feeling well."

Stephen opened a portal to the Sanctum's living room and the two walked through it, finding the room empty.

"And why did she call him?" Stephen didn’t even try to hide his annoyance.

"This is no time to be jealous, Doctor." Defender answered while they went up the stairs and crossed the corridor quickly finding the door to the master bedroom, Stephen's room, open.

When they got there, they found Y/n sitting on Supreme's lap, both arms thrown around his shoulders, face hidden in the crook of his neck. He was stroking her hair, whispering in her ear.

"What happened?" Stephen asked, quickly noticing that her skin was red and glowing, her clothes was wet with sweat.

Hearing his voice, she got up and ran to him, her arms wrapping around his neck, her lips colliding against his. Stephen kissed her quickly, but brought his hand to her forehead.

"Christ, she is burning!" He said casting a worried look at Defender.

Defender touched her arm and as if she had only noticed his presence at that moment, she let go of Stephen and threw herself into his arms.

"I'm sorry, baby. It was my fault."

Defender shushed her "What happened, baby?"

"I was cleaning the house and... it was an accident, I didn't want to break anything, you know I'm always careful with your things..."

Defender shushed her and faced Stephen worriedly. "We should take her to the hospital."

Stephen nodded "Sweetheart, whatever you broke, we'll fix it later. Now, tell me what you're feeling."

She faced him shyly taking Defender's hand and lowering it until it reached between her legs "I’m feeling weird here."

The two Stephens glared at each other and Supreme chuckled nervously. "Did you notice the smell on her clothes?"

Defender buried his face in the crook of her neck and inhaled deeply. She moaned softly and shamelessly rubbed herself in Defender's hand. "Baby, please. Make the ache go away."

Stephen sighed heavily "What exactly did you break, sweetheart?"

"A vase. It was on one of the pedestals in the Window of the Worlds room."

Stephen shook his head "If it's what I think it is, it could take hours for her to get better and the symptoms are only going to get worse unless we..." He didn't finish what he was saying, instead he glanced at Y/ n moaning and grinding herself in Defender’s hand like a cat in heat.

"Baby...please." She whined.

Defender shushed her and placed a kiss on her forehead. "It's okay, baby. We'll make the ache go away."

Supreme stood up "I'm going to lock the Sanctum. Hope you guys saved your energy today.

...

You were burning. Inside out. But unlike any other known fever you didn't feel cold, you were literally melting in beaks of sweat.

Stephen insisted on putting you under the shower to remove any trace of the magical substance that was stuck to your skin and although the water was cold, you were still burning.

He insisted on soaping you up like he was bathing a child and the whole time he kept his face straight and didn't say a word. That, along with all the weird sensations in your body, brought tears to your eyes.

"I'm sorry, Stephen." You apologized for the thousandth time, your voice trembling. "Please, don't be mad at me."

He sighed heavily helping you rinse the soap off your body and smiled reassuringly "I'm not mad at you. I'm just worried. I don't know how long this is going to last."

You whimpered hearing those words. You just wanted it to stop. "Don't you have any spells you can use?"

He shook his head "Not that I know of, at least." He turned off the shower and wrapped you in a towel "Come on, let me take you to bed, I'll take care of you."

Supreme and Defender were in the room sitting in the two armchairs next to the fireplace, but the fire had been put out.

Stephen touched your forehead "The temperature dropped a little with the cold water" He said sitting you on the bed and going to the wardrobe to get a change of clothes for you.

"I don't feel any better. It's too hot." You complained looking at the silk pajamas he chose for you to wear. "I don't want to get dressed, Stephen. I just said it's too hot."

He sighed rolling his lips "Okay, Sweetheart, as you wish." He placed the change of clothes on top of the bedside table looking unsure of his next actions, so you let go of the towel letting it fall down your naked body. "I need you."

He gave Supreme and Defender a quick look as if he was expecting some kind of approval and you spread your legs so he could fit between them.

Stephen touched your face and allowed himself a smirk "I never thought I would have to make love to you under these circumstances, love. This is for you to learn to listen to me and not mess with the Sanctum relics."

You pouted "But you want to make love to me, don't you?"

He took off the shirt he was wearing and you were eager to touch his defined chest. You scratched at his skin, your hand going down to the waistband of his pants. You helped him to undress. He was hard already and you couldn't help but devour him with your eyes.

Stephen grabbed your chin making you look into his eyes. "I always want to make love to you, sweetheart. Always. But something tells me that’s not what you need today."

You grabbed his cock and started to pump him and Stephen let out a little groan watching you spit in your hand and stroke him nice and hard to get him ready for you. He gently pulled your hand away and took over giving his cock a couple of jerks.

“You need to be fucked and that’s precisely what I’m going to do to you now.” He finally entered you drawing a loud moan from your lips. The feeling inside you seemed to intensify for a moment, but when he started to move you felt relief, it was like you could finally breathe after being submerged for so long.

"Oh Stephen..."

Stephen groaned, his face in the crook of your neck, your legs entwined behind his back. He wasn't being gentle and you didn't want him to be. He was right, this definitely wasn't about making love at all, you were filled with the most basic, primal desire to be dominated by a man and be used without mercy.

Stephen leaned on one of the canopy columns of the bed and considerably increased the strength of his thrusts.

"Yes, right there, Stephen."

He grabbed your chin making you look at him "Does it feel better now?" He asked, his breathing coming in between gasps.

You just nodded.

"I know. My cock is making you feel a lot better, isn't it, sweetheart?"

 You nodded vehemently and clung to his neck, searching for his lips as if you needed them to breathe.

"I need you to come, Stephen. Inside me. It will help, I know it will help. Please."

Stephen groaned loud "Need my cum inside you, uh? That will make the pain go away?"

"Yes, yes, it will. Please, Stephen, cum for me, cum inside me, give it all to me."

Stephen buried his face in your neck getting carried away by the moment and let out a loud moan right by your ear and his thrusts stopped completely and you felt his cum spurting inside of you, thick, warm and so much of it. You moaned feeling a different kind of climax. You didn't come, but it was like your body was reveling in the sensation of having his cum inside you. Like the body of a person who has spent days in the desert and can finally feel the water running down their throat.

Stephen kissed you gently and pulled out. "How does it feel now? Better?" He asked, checking on you. He was panting.

You felt slightly better, but the fire still burned between your legs. Somehow you knew it was far from over.

You bit your inner lip and shook your head.

"It may take some time to actually get better, but we're here, we'll take care of you."

You wrapped your arms around him pulling him back on top of you "I need more, Steph, please..."

He chuckled. "I need a few minutes to get ready for you again, sweetheart." He responded placing a peck on your lips and then addressed Supreme. "She needs more. You take over now?"

Supreme got up with an ironic smile on his lips "Tired already, Doctor?"

Stephen pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek, but he didn't respond, wisely deciding that this wasn't the time to argue.

When Supreme approached you stopping beside the bed there was a smirk on his lips and his eyes showed that he was holding back his laughter.

"It's not funny, Stephen." You said slightly offended.

"I know, I know this is a terrible situation, honey, but I can't help it." He said giggling and pulling you to his lips. You slapped his shoulder, but kissed him anyway. You reached for his belts, but he snapped his fingers impatiently and quickly got rid of his robes. You pulled him on top of you, letting his body weight make his cock rub against your clit. It felt good, very good.

You moaned pornographically loudly.

"Of all the relics, you had to bump into that vase." He said nibbling your bottom lip and teasing you.

"Stephen, please..."

"I know, I know." He patted your hip "Turn around. Get on your hands and knees for me."

You complied, but he tsked "Turn full length on the bed. Let's give the other Stephens a better view of our actions."

You did as you were told and pulled a pillow up to your head, hugging it tight and lifting your ass as high as possible. Supreme rubbed the tip of his cock on your slit, using Stephen's cum as lube. He put two fingers inside you fingering you and gave his cock a couple of jerks and finally, finally, entered you with a hard thrust.

He stopped with his dick buried inside you enjoying the feeling "Fuck, honey, you feel so good, so impossibly warm..."

"Stephen, please move." You begged and moaned loudly when he did as you asked. He rested both hands on your waist pulling you against his thrusts at an incredibly fast pace.

"Oh my god yes, yes Stephen, just like that, fuck me just like that.”

He slapped your ass cheek hard, much harder than you were used to, making you yelp. "Yeah, just like that? Who could tell a magical relic could turn my girl into such a needy little whore, uh?"

You whimpered softly feeling the mixture of pleasure and relief flood your body, Stephen's teasing having an effect on you. "Y-Yes, Stephen"

He slapped you again and kept his pace incredibly rough "Such a needy little thing desperate to be fucked. Aren't you ashamed?"

You shook your head no "It feels good, Steph... when you fuck me like this. So good."

Stephen groaned obscenely loud, his fingers carving the flesh of your hips, his heavy balls slamming against your clit as he fucked your pussy with such hunger.

"I know, honey. It feels good for me too. Your pussy is so warm and so delicious... wanna cum inside and fill you with my seed. Will it help calm the ache?"

"Y-yes, it will, please give it to me, Stephen."

You bit the pillow suppressing your desperate moans that were quickly escalating to screams.

"Oh, I will, but I want to enjoy this warm little pussy a bit more. It feels so good."

He brought one of his hands to your hair, gripping it tightly and pulling, using it as a rein to pull you against his thrusts. It felt so good, so right to give yourself to him like that, for a minute all that existed was the two of you and the sounds of the sex you were having, loud and wet.

"F-Feels so good, Stephen, cock's fucking me so good. It's so big."

He slapped your ass ever harder this time, the sharp pain somehow adding to your pleasure. "Cock feels good inside your pussy, uh honey? You know what, I think you made it on purpose, wanted to know how it would feel to be this horny for my cock."

"N-No, I didn't. But it feels good when you're fucking me." You moaned loudly and bit the pillow feeling your whole body tingling with a strange sensation, it was almost as if you could feel your orgasm approaching, but at the same time it was different, too strange, and too strong and it all felt too much. "Please, Stephen cum, it feels too much, I need you to cum."

Stephen groaned "Beg for it, just one more time."

"P-Please Steph, I need your cum, please cum inside me, please."

And so he did. Stephen's thrusts came to a halt, he moaned so loud and you felt his cum spurting inside you. It felt good and you felt relieved. Your legs gave out and you fell face down on the mattress. Stephen supported his body weight on his arms and kissed your cheek.

"Good girl. Tell me, does it feel any better now, or do you need more?

You were panting, your heart was pounding in your ears, yet you know you were far from sated. "N-Need more."

You were scared by the intensity of it. The relief you felt when he was fucking you, or pushing his cum inside you, gave way to the already known need, a desire for sex that seemed inhuman.

"I know, honey. We'll give you more."

...

Defender was extremely hard. His cock was throbbing desperately asking for Y/n, and it couldn't be any different. Even though he was used to sharing her in bed with the other Stephens, watching them fuck her was still one of the most arousing things he'd ever done in his life. Over time he stopped questioning whether that was right or wrong and just enjoyed the moment.

He couldn't believe such a silly accident could have led to that, and the problem wasn’t that she would have to have sex for the rest of the day and they would have to provide that for her, that was a privilege. The thing that was bothering Stephen was that she was, to a certain extent, suffering, and he wanted to alleviate that, he wanted to make the ache go away.

He went to her, eager to play his part, but first, he conjured a glass of water and made her drink it. He took the hair tie that held his hair and tied hers in a ponytail.

"It'll help with the heat." He said caressing her face. "I wish there was more I could do, baby."

She threw herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his neck "I'm sorry..."

"Shh, its okay, we are not mad at you, none of us are mad at you. It was an accident, accidents happen."

Y/n sought his lips desperately and he kissed her. Her hands were eager to free him from his robes.

Stephen let her undress him. He kicked off his boots and got rid of his pants and boxers and sat on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

She grabbed his cock and spat on it and swallowed it whole with such a hunger that Stephen gasped. She started bobbing her head along his length and Stephen grabbed her ponytail and let himself indulge in the feeling of her mouth sucking his cock for a minute, but as soon as he realized how that wasn't going to help her situation at all, he gently grabbed her chin and pulled her off his cock.

"Baby, you shouldn't make me cum in your mouth, it would be a waste. You need it inside, remember?"

She nodded with a sweet pout "But it feels good when I such your cock, baby."

Defender almost melted at those words. God, she was so lovely and he was so in love with her that sometimes it felt like his chest was going to explode. So much love that he never dreamed of being able to feel before he met her.

He pulled her to his lips and she moved to straddle him. "I know it'll be even better if you ride me, baby. What do you think, uh? Would you like to use me to make yourself cum?"

She nodded and he guided his cock to her entrance and she lowered her body letting him stretch her inch by inch.

"Oh, baby it feels so good." She moaned resting both hands on his shoulders.

Stephen let out a soft groan "Yeah? Use me then, baby. Fuck me any way you want. I'm yours."

She moaned loudly and began to ride him at first slowly and then increased the pace, fucking him fast and hard, riding him with such desperation. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him for a passionate kiss, eliciting a hum from him and Stephen closed his eyes forgetting for a moment why they were making love like that in the middle of the day. He just concentrated on the wonderful feeling of having her tight and warm pussy around his cock, squeezing him incredibly tight.

Y/n let herself be carried away by the moment, her forehead pressed against his, her lips stealing passionate kisses from his lips. It felt so good, definitely too good.

Stephen held her waist to make her stop for a second. "Slow down, baby. Don't make me cum yet, I want to last for you."

She nodded, but her hips kept moving albeit slowly. "It feels good. Your cock is making me feel so good, Stephen."

"Your pussy feels amazing too, baby. I never get tired of making love to you, you know that?" He cupped her face and kissed her ardently and in one swift movement he placed her under him and entered inside her again, thrusting slowly but putting intensity into the movements, going deep enough to reach that special part of her that always made her moan louder. . And as soon as he found it, she whimpered.

"Y-yes, baby, right there."

She locked her legs behind his back and dug her nails into his skin.

"Gonna cum for me, uh?" He teased.

Y/n nodded. "Yes, yes, baby, I'm so close. Wanna cum, Steph, please."

Stephen leaned on the headboard to increase the intensity of the thrusts and put his other hand between them, he started rubbing her clit in circles and instantly he felt her pussy fluttering around his cock. She closed her eyes and her whole body started to shake.

"That's it baby, don't hold back, cum for me."

She moaned outrageously loud and grabbed a handful of his hair pulling him to her lips. Stephen kissed her passionately and kept thrusting, prolonging her climax and feeling his balls tightening.

"Fuck baby, wanna cum in you. Can I cum, love? Tell me I can cum."

She smiled sweetly. "Y-yes...cum baby...inside." Her voice sounded shaky and so sweet. Stephen buried his face in her neck and gave a couple of intense thrusts before coming to a complete stop, emptying himself into her.

Stephen knew it didn't matter how many times he had come inside her, every time was special and it always made him feel like the happiest man in the world.

...

You opened your eyes feeling your body tired, but you were far from sated. Although the strange feeling and heat had subsided considerably, the arousal you felt was far from being considered normal. Your body was trembling under Stephen, you were feeling weird in your stomach and your walls were clenching around his cock as evidence of how much you still wanted him.

Stephen's heavy breathing in your ear didn't do much to help your situation as you loved the sounds they made when they finished on you.

You stroked his hair gently kissing the top of his head.

 "How are you feeling right now?" He asked in your ear and kissed your lips gently.

"Better, but I still want you." You replied feeling your cheeks getting hot, but deciding to get over your shyness. There was no room for that when you were with your men. "Actually, I think I need my three Stephens now." You confessed.

He smirked cupping your cheek and kissing your lips again. "Yeah? I'm sure the others are eager to join us."

He pulled out and you stretched out on the bed. You were feeling a little sore between your legs, but you didn't pay much attention to that.

He conjured a cloth to clean you up. "We made a mess on you, baby." He admitted making you chuckle.

"I like it."

You waited patiently while he cleaned you up carefully, being extra affectionate. When he was finally satisfied with his work, he got rid of the dirty cloth and kissed you. Your fingers tangled in his hair and he let out a soft moan. So soft and so sweet.

"I want your mouth now, baby, if that's okay." He asked nibbling on your bottom lip.

You nodded, but gently pushed him away so you could sit down. You hooked your finger, inviting the other Stephens to join in too.

"There's room for more Stephens in this bed." You teased.

Stephen, who had put his boxers back on, walked promptly to you, his cock visibly hard beneath the white fabric. There was a smirk on his lips as he sat down on the mattress beside you and stroked your cheek, the tension from before long gone.

"You have no idea what it's like for me to see them fuck you, sweetheart." He confessed taking your hand and leading it to his cock. "You look so good while being fucked, taking them so well. You make me so proud."

"Hm, I love being fucked by all my Stephens. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world." You responded grabbing his cock through the fabric, moving to sit on his lap and pulling him to your lips. He wrapped his arms around you and thrusted his tongue into your mouth, dominating yours in a big, wet, jealous kiss. It was you who broke the kiss first, running your lips down his neck, biting and sucking the skin while grinding yourself back and forth in his shaft.

He groaned and patted your ass and suggested "Get on all fours and stick that luscious ass out for me so you can suck Defender while I fuck you from behind. What do you think, Sweetheart?"

You nodded, smiling slyly, but cast a questioning look at Supreme who was still sitting, smoking a cigarette and watching you intently.

He smirked "I'll join you soon, honey. Now, do as he says, make me proud."

You nodded at him dismounting from Stephen's lap and positioned yourself on all fours making sure to stick your ass as high as possible while wrapping your arms around Defender's thighs and grabbing his cock. You gave him a teasing look before popping it into your mouth eliciting a loud moan from his lips. He threw his head back indulging in the pleasure of it.

"Fuck baby. Oh yes...she really knows how to suck dick." He praised and Stephen chuckled proudly.

"I know, she is amazing." Stephen answered slapping your ass. "Isn't that right, sweetheart? Show him you're the best."

You let out a muffled moan when Stephen thrust two fingers into your pussy and started to fuck you with them. You felt him nudging your entrance with the tip of his cock and you wiggled your ass teasingly as he gripped your waist tight and entered you with a single thrust. You would have screamed if your mouth wasn't stuffed with Defender's cock.

Stephen kept the pace fast and strong and Defender grabbed your hair that was starting to come loose from the hair tie and wrapped it around his hand, but he didn't push. "That's right, baby, feels so good. Flick that wonderful tongue on the head. Yes, just like that. Such a good girl, such a good baby sucking my cock so good."

You groaned loudly, loving hearing Defender loosing up like that. Usually, he was always very modest in dirty talk, which only made the moment even more exciting.

Stephen slapped your ass again, harder this time, and pulled his cock out of you, teasing. "Such a dirty little girl taking my cock so well, uh? And sucking Defender's dick too. You drive me crazy, you know that? Make me wanna fucking ruin you."

You took Defender's cock out of your mouth to respond to his taunts. "Ruin me, Steph. Fuck me til I can't walk. I'm still so horny."

"Yeah? I guarantee you learned a lesson today, didn't you?"

You pumped Defender’s cock hard and replied "You guys aren't mad at me?"

 "How could I be mad at you if your disobedience resulted in the three of us fucking you like that?" Stephen replied entering you all at once and starting to pound into you, the sound of flesh against flesh and your breaths and moans was all you could hear.

Defender pulled you to his lips, fucking your mouth with his tongue as you let out a moan on his lips.

"He's right, baby. You need to be more careful, but none of us are mad at you. How could we…"

He directed you back to his cock and you spat at it and shoved it in your mouth going all the way down this time, feeling the tip hitting against the back of your throat.

He groaned loudly. "...when you suck cock like that? Fuck, baby. You’re gonna make me cum."

You just hummed in response.

"Is that what you want? Want my cum in your mouth?"

You hummed positively making Stephen groan in response. "Such a dirty little thing. She needs cum in all her holes today, isn't that right, sweetheart?"

"Uh hum" You hummed while Stephen fucked your pussy in such violent pace. You put your all into your work, swallowing Defender's cock and then taking it out of your mouth and flicking your tongue at the head and sucking hard and then running your tongue down the length of it just to swallow it again and repeating the process until he moaned loudly and grabbed a handful of your hair and spurted ropes of his warm cum into your mouth.

"Oh fuck..." He let out something between a groan and a chuckle. "Take it, baby. Swallow it all."

You were aware that this was definitely not Defender's usual behavior, he was usually much softer than that and much less talkative, but you couldn't deny how much that side of him appealed to you.

His moans were like music to your ears. "That's it baby... so fucking good. Oh... love you so much."

You took his cock out of your mouth and made sure you opened it for him to see his cum inside and only then did you do as you were told, swallowing everything and sticking your tongue out for him to see.

“So fucking dirty.” He groaned pulling you to his lips.

"I love you too" You moaned in his lips as Stephen's thrusts became more erratic and you could feel him pulsing inside you.

He let out a loud groan. "Fuck sweetheart, pussy feels too good, gonna cum, tell me you want my cum too, tell me how much you need it."

You moaned feeling that you were close too. Your body responding to his thrusts, the coil threatening to snap each time he hit your sweet spot. "Fuck yes, Steph. N-need your cum, give it to me."

He grabbed your hair and pulled it pulling you against his chest as he fucked you mercilessly.

"Body is desperate for more cum, uh? You're leaking and you still need more?" He teased whispering in your ear.

"Y-Yes. Need more."

"Yeah? You're a greedy little whore, aren't you? One Stephen isn't enough, it takes three to fill that pussy with cum and make the ache go away?"

"Uh hum" You hummed feeling that you were very close to your second orgasm. "Stephen... wanna cum."

Stephen bit your earlobe and lowered one of his hands to the middle of your legs and began to rub your clit in circles. You let out a loud moan. "Oh yes, Steph, make me cum."

He hummed in your ear making sure to rub his goatee in your skin, making it prickle. "Then say it: I'm a greedy little whore who needs three Stephens to satisfy me."

You whimpered repeating the words the way he wanted and once he was done with his teasing he started to pound into you even harder and that added to the stimulation of his long fingers on your clit was enough to make you come, but this time it was bigger, more intense and you felt warm liquid running down your legs. Stephen groaned loudly and started to spurt his cum inside you. He didn't stop thrusting until he was fully finished, pushing his cum inside you with each thrust.

"F-Fuck yes. Oh my god, sweetheart... the things you do to me..."

You felt your legs shaking and Stephen pulled out and you sat up in bed. Your entire body was shaking with the intensity of your orgasm.

"Fuck sweetheart, you squirted all over the bed, made a mess." He stated, but there was a certain pride in his eyes, the corners of his mouth curled up in a smirk. "Was it that good?"

You nodded letting yourself be pulled into Supreme's lap who had returned to bed. You were so lost in your pleasure that you didn't even notice Defender pulling away, he was sitting in the armchair by the fireplace now, dressed in sweatpants, his hair pulled back in a messy bun. He smiled proudly at you, deciding to just enjoy the show as now he was satisfied.

"First time wetting the bed like that, honey? You're going to have to do it again for me now." Supreme teased but you knew he was serious, you could see in the way his irises darkened that he was jealous.

"I... don't know how I did it." You replied feeling your face getting hot. "I never..."

"He knows, sweetheart." Stephen chuckled "I'm sure it will happen again sometime. Now, give me a kiss." He cupped your chin and kissed you and then got up and walked gloriously naked to the bathroom.

Supreme held your chin between his thumb and index finger making you look at him. "How you're feeling now? Pussy still feeling weird?"

You stroked his hair, tucking a few white strands behind his ear and trying to understand how you felt. The desperation and the heat had passed, your body was tired and sore, but you still felt the desire for sex and you knew that wasn't normal, because you had already come twice, the second one being the most intense orgasm you've ever experienced.

"I'm feeling better, but I still need you." You replied cupping his face.

He smirked "That pollen really turned you into an insatiable little thing, didn't it?"

You nodded feeling your cheeks getting hot and buried your face in the crook of his neck. "I didn't do it on purpose. I didn't even know what was in that vase."

He stroked your back, his trembling fingertips brushing lightly across your skin. "I know, I was just teasing you, honey. We know you don't need pollen to be horny."

He took your hand and led it down to his cock. He was so hard for you.

You wrapped your fingers around his cock and turned your head to capture his lips in a hungry kiss. Your lips moved in sync as your tongues fought for dominance, neither of you willing to give in, but when you tightened your hand around his cock and began to pump him at a fast, precise pace he relinquished control moaning loudly and you took the opportunity to win him over by sucking his tongue with a victorious hum.

It was you who moved to position him inside you. You were leaking, Stephen's cum running down your thighs mixed with your own fluids, but neither you nor Supreme cared about the mess at that point. All that mattered was the desire you both felt and as you sank into his cock he moaned loudly cupping your face and making you look into his eyes.

"I love you, Y/n. I love the life we ​​share." He whispered as a secret in your ear.

You grinned as you move up and down fucking him slowly but oh so good. "I love you too, Stephen. I love all my Stephens."

He smirked grabbing your waist and taking control back to himself, moving you on his cock at the pace he wanted, always fast, hard, rough even. The squelching sound of his cock fucking your pussy was so arousing, you were so wet, the sensation was different and so amazing and it wasn't just you who noticed that, because Supreme groaned completely lost in his pleasure and confessed. "Fuck, honey, pussy feels so nice wet like that. Cum is the best lube in the world."

You let out a small giggle letting yourself be manhandled by him and feeling like the coil in the pit of your stomach was about to snap again. He felt it too because your walls fluttered around his cock and he groaned loudly, both of his hands grabbing your ass cheeks and moving you up and down.

"Are you going to come for me now? One orgasm for each Stephen?" He teased and you just nodded, your arms wrapped around his neck to keep your balance as you rocked on his cock.

"Do it, honey. Do it now. I can't hold back any longer. Gonna cum too."

You forced yourself down rubbing your clit on his pelvic bone and let yourself be dominated by the wave of pleasure that washed over you.

Stephen came soon after, pushing ropes and ropes of cum inside you.

You two ended up panting, devouring each other's mouths and moaning.

After five loads of cum inside, you felt the fire and need for sex die down leaving you in a state of exhaustion you couldn't remember ever feeling before. Your body slumped over Stephen and your eyes closed almost immediately and you felt him holding you tighter, but everything around you was an incomprehensible blur.

...

Stephen returned to the bedroom after taking a shower and putting on a pair of pants. He had also prepared the bathtub with warm water and Y/n favorite bath salts, imagining that she would need them to relax after their activities.

"If you guys are done, I prepared a bath for her." Stephen said and Supreme nodded.

"Hear that, honey? A hot bath will help you feel better."

She just hummed and mumbled some incomprehensible words.

Defender got up and walked over to them. "I take care of her." He said taking Y/n from Supreme's lap and taking her to the bathroom.

Supreme quickly cleaned himself up and used magic to dress back in his robes and boots. "I'll take care of the mess Doctor, maybe we'd better take a look at that relic before Wong finds out she broke it."

Stephen nodded. "You're right. Did she say where she put it?"

"At the library. In a box."

Supreme used magic to dry the mattress she had soaked so beautifully and part of him was still fighting the jealousy that scene caused in him. He put clean sheets on the bed and finished organizing everything before leaving. After an afternoon like that, he was begging for a hot shower and some sleep.

Defender knew Y/n was exhausted, so he bathed her quickly and sat her up in bed and helped her get dressed in the silk pajamas Stephen had left on the bedside table. He used magic to dry her hair and helped her under the sheets.

"Is cold." She complained now that she was totally free from the influence of the pollen.

"Do you want a blanket, or do you want me to light the fireplace?"

But she didn't answer, falling asleep almost immediately.

He covered her with a blanket and placed a kiss on her forehead. "Love you baby." He whispered and left the room.

...

Stephen shouldn't have been surprised to find Wong in the library. It was the most common thing in the world, but due to all the events he couldn't help but curse internally.

"How is y/n feeling?" The Sorcerer Supreme asked walking down the hall carrying a box with pieces of what was once a relic.

"She is better now." That's all Stephen said.

Wong smiled to himself. "I will take this to Kamar Taj to repair the relic and its contents."

Stephen nodded. "That's precisely what I came to do now."

Wong seemed to think for a moment before speaking. "You know, there's an herbal infusion that can be brewed to ease the... symptoms, but it looks like the three of you managed to solve the problem quite well."

Stephen was blushing like a teenager. "Yes. Thank you, Wong."

Wong nodded opening a portal back to Kamar Taj. “Keep her away from my relics, Strange.” He demanded.

Stephen sighed watching the portal closing and shook his head still trying to believe in everything that had happened. The things Y/n did to Stephen, to all the Stephens... Yet he wouldn’t change a thing.

Reblog please! Leave a comment if you liked it. Interact! I will love to read all of your comments and opinions. It inspires me to keep writing!

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[wraheathcliff]

A Quick Dictation

Warning: Graphic magical medical gore, dubious patient discomfort, light (mean, brief) gay smut, addictions, vampirism, over-the-top elf drama. Consider yourself informed, foul citizen. It's only going to get worse from here. I did tone it down for Tumblr...

Heathcliff remained frozen as crystals slowly reflected under the dark lashes of his gaze in the microscope, collective ions of arcane transforming to rapidly precipitate out in glowing green clusters of organized fractals. The drop of wretched blood on the slide bloomed calcified arcane from mere granules of the expensive crushed dust. Nothing unusual there, but this one formed too quickly. The sample was giving him mixed results, and he was running out of time to figure it out. The beauty of the transformation was consistent, but the rate and amount was changing by a variable he had yet to understand. He wouldn't even be able to start on the experimentation with his own Dracone blood if he couldn't find a reasonable baseline to compare. The fresh samples should have helped but his subject was dying. He had been doing this with multiple slides for hours. Eyes narrowed in frustration.

Pustules all over the wretched man tied tightly face-down to his operating table nearby were abundant examples of how far over-indulgence ravaged elven bodies to horrific effect. The arcane clustered with oversaturation in the blood, forming these crystallized deposits usually near the spinal column and upper back, sometimes terminating the subject once they reached the heart. Removing them was risky, infection rates high. Users would often re-ingest these pustule clusters as they glowed with the concentrated arcane deposits, recycling the addiction back into the body. In this way, addicts could sustain themselves when it became harder to get the high levels they desired. Different than symptoms of withdrawal, like the withered of the Nightborne, the wretched occupying ruins in the Ghostlands were beings of excess. They bathed their bodily systems with the arcane in any way to get even higher. Their tolerance levels were always craving more.

A tortured scream muffled pitifully from the frail patient as he drooled a black pool on the cold steel, face pinned to one side, eyes barely seeing. Heathcliff frowned at the disruption, his mood growing more tetchy and sharp. The crowded lab should be properly segregated with isolated rooms for research but he found no time to organize the slowly growing collective experiments crammed on shelves and occupying sections of surfaces that made sense only in his mind. The rattling metal distracted him, but the screaming meant it was time for more sedation. Soon.

The familiar noise of his creaking laboratory door followed shortly after. Heathcliff didn't need to wonder who it was. The lack of noise told him everything.

"Tantalus." Heathcliff declared like a warning, as if the vampire intruder was already pinned beneath him. "Not now."

Slender pale arms snaked down Heathcliff's chest as a predatory smile sighed against his ear. "Doctor… you look so tense. How about a little break?" the voice smooth and soft, a poisonous pleasure. "I brought you your mail from the front entrance." He tossed a bundle on the desk with a flick of his wrist, jostling it a bit on impact.

Heathcliff's eyes never moved from the microscope as he refocused the lens. "Hasn't my brother kept you sufficiently occupied?"

Tan pouted becomingly, head resting on Heathcliff's shoulder from behind. "Cruel. You know I'm hungry."

It was routine by now, indulging his beautiful friend's appetite. Almost daily, as of late. But Heathcliff's price was always very high. Dracone blood was too rich, in more ways than one. And they were certainly not lovers.

Heathcliff sighed with feigned burden, acquiescing reluctantly. "Very well. Partake if you must. But expedite matters, I implore you." He jerked his neck away from Tan's grazing teeth and began to loosen his belt. "On my terms."

Tan sank gracefully down as he had done so many times before, not wasting time to satiate his greedy vampiric appetite on the addictive, heavy Dracone blood while exciting his host. Blood that tasted like a heavy threat and a promise, ancient and wrong, coming out of all the right places.

The practiced exchange was just getting started as Heathcliff noticed the letter on top of a pile of mail. He reached over to read it while fully engaged with Tan's attentions below the desk. The moans got a little louder between his legs as a smile of appreciation excited him while reading Lady Shadowglade's reply. So she had disposed of him. Now it was time for renegotiations. That thrilled him to the bone. He reached down and sunk his fingers into silvery hair, curling until his grip was good enough to yank Tan off him after a few more delicious moments, trailing blood all on the stone floor.

"Up." Heathcliff dragged him to his feet by his hair and released him only to get a better grip on him by the throat. He hovered close, eyes softening and accessing slowly as if finding the perfect place to kiss. Lips grazed and a skilled tongue licked his own blood off a lip, a chin, only to pull back and turn him around roughly, bending him over his desk. His demands stated clearly: "Take it all off." This was a business transaction, not a date. Heathcliff moved a step to the side to yank open a desk drawer, pulling out parchment, ink and quill. He placed them on the desk in front of Tan, now naked with elbows and palms resting on the surface.

The doctor ran his hands along the elf's well-toned body with a smile as he approached him from behind almost fully-clothed, leaning down on top of him to whisper instructions in his ear. "You're also going to pen a letter I dictate. And do not spill a drop." Tan complied in his heady state of blood lust, dragging the parchment in front of him with a palm. Was this one of the doctor's new little games? He didn't have time to wonder as he felt a warm liquid, a tingling fire start between his shoulderblades and river down his spine in a pleasurable descent. Heathcliff continued pouring the silky liquid from a glowing beaker within reach, a careful trail of something dark and purple dropping down Tan's divide where it would be needed most. He gasped and arched his back, roiling with anticipation.

Heathcliff established a relentless cadence, plundering mercilessly. "Pay attention now. Transcribe precisely as dictated." Tan's eyes widened as he braced himself, attempting to actually use the quill, struggling to keep it steady.

"Lady Shadowglade, How refreshing to learn our friendship can bloom... uninhibited by former arrangements." Heathcliff continued between punctuated breaths, his hair separating into wild curls from the exertion.

"Mutually beneficial opportunities await our futures—." he felt the vampire tense beneath him as he efficiently neared a quick release, Tan's moans chorusing grotesquely with the weakly shrieking patient nearby. He worked through it, unfazed, a ghastly juxtaposition. "—so let's talk about them. Come to my estate. Setup a day with my lawyer to arrange an escort—" he let his breath catch up, "—to pick you up in Silvermoon." He finished roughly as he grunted out his closing with a demanding, strained voice: "Come quickly." Tan was moving with him to a crescendo, not sure or caring if he was still supposed to be writing but finally unable to do anything but drag the tip off the page in a long, aching spill.

It was mailed the next day.

@lillandyrshadowglade

[weavingstarlight]

Falling Fast, Fading

Read on AO3

Prompt (Feveruary): Burning Up Then Freezing Cold

Tags: Injury, Infection, Sickfic, Legend gets hit with the whumping stick

***

Regrets, like mistakes, have a way of piling up.

Time already carried enough regrets for any one person before this new adventure had begun. Some days they burned in his blood and tasted like ashes, and he knew he would carry them long past the day when he was buried in his grave. He had hoped, at this point in his life, that he was done adding to his collection of failures, done adding flakes to the mountain of snow that froze his tongue and heart with shame.

— He should have known better. —

They shouldn’t have let their guard down so close to the Eastern Palace. Legend, their Veteran, shouldn’t have let a black-blooded river zora slip past his defense and dig its claws deep into his upper leg. A potion sealed the wound quickly enough, but potions had limits, as the Heroes knew well enough.

Infection had set in despite their attempts to keep the wound clean. It happened like that sometimes. As frustrating as it was, without fairy magic there was little they could do besides treat the symptoms and wait for the illness to run its course.

The fever had raged through Legend’s body for two days now, burning away fat from his already-lean figure and leaving him pale beneath the blazing color in his cheeks. He tossed in restless dreams and delusions, consciousness elusive but sleep impossible.

In his rare moments of alertness, the Veteran swung from irascible to piteously needy; at some times driving his caregivers away with barbed remarks, at other times clinging to them with teary eyes and a desperate grip.

On the morning of the third day, Legend seemed to finally turn a corner on his recovery. He woke with clear eyes, unclouded by the pain that had governed his body for so long. He accepted the thin soup that Wild made for him without complaining of much nausea, and he even managed to keep it down. The gloomy pall that had hovered over their little group lightened with the Veteran’s apparent convalescence, replaced with a tentative cheer that was as infectious as a catchy tune.

Time should have known that the deities would never let their group of Heroes catch a break.

The Chain’s reluctant leader waited until everyone had eaten a leisurely breakfast and split off to their own various morning chores before approaching the Veteran. Time wanted to check on his progress and determine when he might be fit to travel, but he didn’t want the boy to feel pressured by the others’ impatience to continue their mission.

— Stupid, how stupid, he shouldn’t have waited… —

“How are you feeling?” Time asked, settling down on the ground in front of Legend.

Legend tipped his head, considering. “Like I’ve been flattened under one of Wild’s Guardians,” he replied with a bit of his usual grouchiness, but his honesty and clarity made Time hopeful. It was so much better, he thought, than the way Legend had mumbled his way through his delirium during the past two days.

He took in the boy’s pale skin and gaunt features, the eyes still fever-bright, and the way Legend’s lips trembled slightly as he responded — and the fact that Legend was looking so much better this morning said volumes about how badly he had fared.

Time wordlessly held out his hand, and though he rolled his eyes at the elder, Legend willingly offered his own arm for inspection. Time took it, setting his fingers on the pulse point, and was pleased to feel that Legend’s heart rate had slowed markedly from the fluttering, rabbit-like rush it had been when he was in the throes of his illness.

— He should have known, should have figured it out sooner, should have paid closer attention. — 

Time scooted closer, allowing Legend to reclaim his arm — which the boy promptly crossed, radiating a fake annoyance with the attention. Ignoring the way Legend huffed and scowled, Time placed the back of his hand against the boy’s forehead to check his fever.

Time’s eyes widened in surprise. Legend’s skin wasn’t hot at all, it was chilly. In sharp contrast to the red flush he had been sporting previously, now it seemed as though all the blood had been drained from him, leaving him cool and slightly clammy.

“Legend?” he breathed.

Legend’s glare didn’t abate. “What, old man?” he snapped. “Yeah, I get it, I still look awful. Lemme put on some of the pretty Captain’s makeup and I’ll be back to my normal gorgeous self.”

Time didn’t know what to say.

— He didn't know what to do. —

He didn’t know what was happening, and that frightened him.

“Wars?” he called over his shoulder.

The Captain looked up from where he was listening to Wind’s chatter by the dead campfire. When he caught sight of Time’s expression, he silenced the sailor with a gesture and crossed the campsite to join them.

— Should have asked Wars to check on him in the first place, maybe then he… —

“What’s going on?” Warriors asked, pulling one of his blue gloves off and crouching down with Time and Legend. His gaze took in the Veteran from top to toes, lingering on his face and hands. As Time followed the Captain’s eyes, he saw things he hadn’t before — the way Legend’s focus was drifting; the way his hands shook, even though his arms were folded in irritation.

Wars used his bare hand to palm Legend’s forehead. Whatever reaction Time had expected, it wasn’t for the Captain to blanch, his expression falling before it was smoothed over with a blank, professional look, stern and forbidding. The look he had once worn when commanding armies.

Time knew that expression was the one Warriors reserved for emergencies.

“Legend, tell me exactly what you’re feeling right now,” Warriors said curtly.

Legend rolled his eyes again — and swayed. It was small, just a little wobble before he righted himself, but with Time and Warriors both watching him like cats at a mousehole, that moment of disorientation made both their hearts sink in tandem.

“Tired,” Legend groused, “a little lightheaded. Everything is stiff.”

He paused, eyeing his own toes under the blanket. “I guess… my feet are kinda tingly? Do you need to do that?” he asked as Warriors moved his hand from Legend’s forehead to the pulse point at his throat.

“You don’t feel hot anymore?” Wars demanded.

“No,” Legend retorted. “Feel cold. ”

Legend suddenly found himself flat on his back, head spinning, efficiently deposited there by Wars, who was now snapping orders at Time while he yanked Legend around.

“Keep his legs elevated,” he instructed, arranging Legend’s limbs to his liking. Legend growled and tried to push himself up on his elbows, only to find Warriors’ hand firmly pressing down on his chest, keeping him on the ground. A wave of dizziness passed through him and he sank back down, shivering.

“Legend, I need you to stay calm and stay awake,” Warriors said seriously.

Time positioned himself so that Legend’s legs were propped up on Time’s knees. Meanwhile, the rest of the Chain had started to gather around, curious and more than a little alarmed at Wars’ demeanor.

“Is he okay —”

“What’s happening?”

“Sky, bring over more blankets,” Wars barked, ignoring the buzz of questions. “Twilight, I need water. Everyone else, give us space.”

“Will you damn well explain yourself?” Legend insisted. “I fee-eel…” He closed his eyes against another wave of dizziness, and swallowed hard. His head was positively fizzing, sparkling at the edges like his skull was filled with fairy dust instead of thoughts. It was so hard to concentrate. He almost missed Warriors’ answer.

“Legend, you’re going into shock,” the Captain said, his voice firm and gentle like he was trying not to scare any of his listeners. “It happens, rarely, after a bad infection. We need to keep you warm and get you some help.”

“Help?” Time asked, heart twisting.

Warriors kept speaking to Legend, but he met Time’s eyes. “We’re going to take you to a Fairy Fountain, buddy. You’ll be okay.”

Sky returned with an armful of blankets and he and Wild proceeded to wrap Legend in layer after layer of wool and cotton. The Veteran was looking worse by the minute, putting up with the fussing and maneuvering with a distinctly uncharacteristic patience, only reacting with slow blinks as he allowed himself to be repositioned.

Wars waved a hand in front of Legend's face to get his wandering attention. “Do you have any healing rings that could help?” he asked, his tone clipped.

“Wearing ‘em,” Legend mumbled. Time knew he wasn’t imagining the way Legend’s words slurred, as he spoke through lips that were chilled or numb.

Wars paused, then — “Shit,” he cursed, “the rings are healing the damage, but not the infection itself. That’s why we didn’t realize things were so bad.”

— If the symptoms hadn’t been hidden for so long —

“Wild, do you have anything that could help?” Wars asked. The desperation in his voice stilled the rest of the Chain, bringing them all to a halt. Wide eyes turned to Wars, then to Wild.

Is the situation really so dire?

Wild stepped up beside Wars, swiping hastily through the Sheikah Slate’s many functions. “Potions aren’t going to help, right? I have elixirs —”

“It’s his heart I’m worried about. His pulse is too slow —”

“Oh! Then — Aha!” Wild triumphantly tapped the Slate and a small bottle materialized in his hand in a swirl of blue sparks. The bottle was full to the brim with a shining cerulean blue liquid. “Hasty Elixirs always make my heart race, ” Wild said, handing over the little vial.

Wars paused with his hand on the stopper. “And you just… drink these anyway?” he asked incredulously. “You know what, we’ll discuss it later. Thank you.”

The Captain’s voice became surprisingly gentle as he turned back to the boy on the ground. Time remembered hearing this voice, too — during the War — when a younger Captain had held his own much-younger gaze and kept him steady through carnage and pain. “Legend? Link? Can you drink this?”

Legend hummed a little, his eyes closed. The hand that snaked out from between the blankets shook so much that Warriors didn’t even offer him the bottle, just brought the glass to Legend’s lips while Four helped lift his head and hold it steady.

The elixir seemed to revive Legend slightly, bringing a little color to his wan cheeks and causing his respiration to pick up. But any relief the Chain felt was short-lived as Wars turned steely eyes on the rest of them.

“Wind, find Legend’s maps. We need to move. ”

“On it,” the sailor confirmed, dashing away, and Time saw a hint of the soldier the boy would someday become during the War of Ages.

Warriors’ attention was back on Legend, patting his cheek and pinching him when he refused to open his eyes. “Legend, I need you to tell us how to reach the nearest Fairy Fountain,” he said sternly. “Come on, stay with me. I know you know every inch of your own era. Show us the way, come on…”

It was agonizingly slow, getting the semi-conscious Veteran to explain how to find the Fountain. His eyes refused to focus on the map Wind held in front of his face, and his responses grew more and more nonsensical as the minutes passed, until finally he could provide no answers, only stare in confusion as Warriors pressed him.

They were out of time.

Time lifted the blanket-wrapped boy into his arms, standing up carefully, trying to ignore the way his knees creaked after so long sitting on the ground. Wars stood with him, helping him get Legend situated with minimal jostling.

“We’re going to get you help, okay Legend?” Wars said, positioning himself at Time’s elbow. “But I need you to hold on for me, kiddo. Keep fighting.”

“‘M not… a kid,” Legend managed to mumble.

“That’s the spirit,” Wars said encouragingly. “Keep it up. I want you to tell me off properly when we get back.”

“So stay awake as long as you can.”

.

And now they were running, they were moving as quickly as they could in a race to the nearest Fairy Fountain, hoping they weren’t already too late.

Legend had passed out fully soon after they started travelling, and after that nothing could rouse him. Wars’ lips pressed into a thin line, but he said nothing except to chivvy the group to greater speed.

Time carried Legend as gently as he could, his feet finding their way through the undergrowth as naturally as they once had in the forests where he had grown up. He wore no armor and carried no equipment, having chosen to prioritize speed over all else — and trusting the others to watch over him and his charge.

Wars hovered by Legend’s head, keeping pace, doing his best to monitor the boy’s steadily worsening condition.

Wild and Hyrule had rushed ahead, promising to find the straightest overland route to the Fountain that they could still take with an injured member. More than once already, Time’s group had been forced to divert around some ravine or hill, and Wild and Hyrule had shown them how to get around it. Time chafed at every delay, every time they had to deviate from the straight path, but he knew logically that they would be even slower if they didn’t take the detours.

When they weren’t clambering over and around terrain obstacles, Four led the way with Legend’s map and Hyrule’s compass in his hands. His Pegasus Boots allowed him to keep ahead of the longer-legged Links. His expression was serious and stoic, as though he was locking his emotions behind an iron will.

Panic was their enemy.

Panic dogged their heels.

Wind and Sky, as the slowest at overland travel, had been tasked with cleaning up the camp while the others went ahead. Their dismay at being left behind had been so entirely overcome with worry for Legend that Time barely felt bad about it.

Twilight paced alongside Time and Warriors, his stress and concern radiating from him like a palpable heat. Every so often, he would offer to take Legend from Time to give the older man a break, and asked more and more frequently as the minutes flew by. But Time couldn’t bear to let Legend out of his arms for a moment, clutching the boy to his chest as though he could hold body and soul together by strength alone. He held onto hope by the slender threads of Legend’s heart beating close to his own, the thin rattle of Legend’s breath contrasting his own labored gasps.

— His heart rate was so sluggish, his skin was so cold, they couldn’t seem to keep him warm at all. His breathing was shallow and slow. — 

“Almost there, Legend,” Time murmured to the still form in his arms. “Almost there, just hold on…”

Four suddenly skidded back into view, his eyes wide and hair mussed. “We found it!” he cried. “Straight ahead, a cave — away from the river, and then follow the cliffs —”

“Run,” Wars told Time, “I’m with you. We need to run! ”

“Lead the way!” Time called to Four, and the group shot off together, following the little smith as he wove among the trees.

Time’s chest burned, his arms and legs ached as they forced themselves on to greater speed. He felt every one of his years in each beat of his heart, heavy and burdened, like he was rolling a boulder uphill. But the tender weight in his arms incited him to push harder, to go faster, faster, because to fail now was unthinkable.

They almost made it.

Time felt something in the air around him shift. Legend’s faint, struggling breaths had gradually slowed… and slowed…

And then they stopped completely.

Wars stumbled beside him, his face going white as the blood drained from it. “Time, stop!” he gasped. “He’s… I can’t feel —”

He can’t feel a pulse.

Time wrenched himself forward, inadvertently yanking Legend’s wrist out of Wars’ grip. “We’re not stopping,” he panted, and pushed on.

Even though they were — 

— too late, seven YEARS too late, still he had fought. And he and Zelda had clawed back victory even from the ruin that their failure had wrought, even though they had already lost. —

He could not do any less for one of his boys.

Time broke through the trees at a dead run, the late morning sunlight striking him like a slap in the face. Ahead of him stretched a wall of stark brown cliffs, unbreachable and unpassable — but he could see his goal at the base of the steep slopes. Four stood anxiously beside a slender crevice in the rocks, and as soon as he spotted Time he started waving frantically, practically jumping up and down to be seen.

Under Time’s feet, daisies and wildflowers bloomed lavishly. Their scent filled his lungs as he charged down the gentle slope, crushing flowers beneath his incautious tread.

He skidded past Four and slipped into the fissure, not even stopping to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. He simply clutched Legend closer to him and wove through the tight passageway blindly, following its curves by way of instinct and a few fresh bruises.

Light blossomed before him as he turned the final corner, nearly colliding with Wild, who was doubled over clutching a stitch in his side. The cavern he emerged into was lit by a lovely, misty pink glow, as was the larger-than-hylian form of the Great Fairy who hovered in the center of the space. Below her, stirred by her delicate feet, dark water filled a natural basin, and the familiar sound of fairy chimes drifted softly past Time’s ears.

Hyrule was there, wheezing, trying to stumble his way through the words of a proper greeting, a supplication to the Great Fairy —

Time didn’t care, didn’t wait, didn’t hesitate. He held his breath and plunged both himself and Legend into the mint-scented waters of the fountain.

.

.

.

Wars dashed into the Great Fairy’s grotto just in time to see Time hurl himself and Legend into the glimmering pool, sending a cascade of clear water over the lip of the basin to splash over the gathered Heroes and lap at their boots. The Great Fairy gave a melodic cry and dove after them, disappearing beneath the surface without a single ripple.

Everybody in the chamber froze, stunned. Even the little fairies who fluttered about the space ceased their chiming, scattering to the edges of the cavern and leaving the room dim without their light.

Long seconds passed, the disturbed water gradually settling. The water on the ground soaked into their boots and socks as they all stood like the statues beside the Fairy Fountain, helpless and afraid.

Waiting…

Then Wars was jolting forward — because the water began to roil and slosh, and Time’s and Legend’s heads broke the surface together and they both were spluttering and gasping for air.

It was the most beautiful sound the Captain had ever heard.

Time was soaked and dripping but Wars could see that he was crying with relief, pressing a kiss to Legend’s forehead as the younger coughed and shook in his arms.

“That’s it, keep breathing,” Time murmured into Legend’s hair as Wars waded through the fountain towards them, feeling like he was going to collapse himself. “Don’t stop, don’t ever quit. Keep fighting…”

Notes:

Septic shock is not something to screw around with. Warriors (poor lad) has seen it before, multiple times during the War, and he has never seen someone survive it without the intervention of a fairy. He really didn't think Legend was going to make it.

[rel124c41]

WALT DISNEY WORMDOG I. jade leech/oc

please contact your local doctor if you are experiencing the following symptoms: prophetic dreams, the feeling that someone is calling from across the water and from across the wave, midnight visitors, scars from sand, new friendships, black blood coming out your ears but NOT your nose, inhuman strength, canine teeth on your throat, & the philosophy that we should move on from our past and never let it hold us back from the possibilities of tomorrow.

a/n: a midnight conversation after jamil’s overblot

tags: blood and injury, oc is from the x reader called ‘the look on your face’, & established relationship

word count: 1996

“Hot, hot, hot, hot.”

“So you’ve griped.”

“Hot, hot, hot, hot.”

“Really, I would have never imagined.”

Panting like a mutt, molten lava on his draped tongue, the Ramshackle Prefect turns around to the vice-housewarden who has been following him like a duckling. He tries to mold his expression into something serious, something vexed. It is like trying to push melting ice-cream back into a sphere.

So, features wilting right back into that heat-stricken expression, the Ramshackle Prefect marches right back on to his destination. If Octavinelle’s vice wants to play his part as a mosquito in this Sahara-esque dorm, let Jade have his fun. There is something Marion needs to do.

For the first time in three days, his hand finally breaks contact with his sword’s handle.

White calluses on his tan hand are as prominent as fresh tattoo ink. The indents and intricate carvings have meshed themselves into his hand. You could mistake them for his palm’s natural creases if not for the single column of sigils upon feather-patterned horse-hoof pommel hilt. Damascus steel meets cobblestone.

Marion’s knees? They punch the cobblestone ground with an angry passion. Collapsing, he grips the edge of Scarabia’s pure gold fountain and ducks his head underwater.

An amused smile appears on Jade’s face. How truly unusual. Closing the distance, the eel-mer decides to take his own little respite too. After a battle and party, one should make time to unwind. Sitting on the edge of gold, Jade stretches out his legs and leans his head back to observe Marion’s nape. “You know, if you were so dehydrated, I’m certain Kalim could have assuaged your plight by making you a personal rain-cloud.”

It takes a while until Marion resurfaces. When he does, rivulets of water jump in shooting-star-leaps over the tips of his ebony hair. He runs a hand through the wet mop. It is considerably less hair than he had when entering Scarabia four days ago; before winter break, his hair was shoulder length and now it is chin length.

Through the stubborn strands that curtain his face, Marion groans , “This place is even hotter than Savanaclaw. Ugh, how is that even possible?”

“Did you not hear my suggestion?”

“Hmm?” Marion has taken to dipping his battered hands into the crystal clear water. The water’s weightlessness feels heavenly,

“I said, why not ask for the help of Kalim’s Unique Magic or perhaps a dip in the oasis?”

It is a relatively easy question to answer, but Marion reflects on the situation. How he had waited until he was sure Grim was dead to the world, stomach full of sleep-inducing food, and double-checked Ace and Deuce’s rooms. Stood outside Scarabia’s vice’s bedroom, trying to listen through the door’s cracks if Jamil’s measured breaths were from real sleep or a facade. Then, a lighthouse yellow eye bloomed in the comfortable dark Marion had been stalking in and Marion allowed him to follow.

The only reason he is able to relax now is because Jade said: (“I slipped something in the tea.”

“You did?” Marion asks, pulling back from the guest room Deuce is slumbering in. “What was it?”

“A heavy sedative. Something from the fungi kingdom that I doubt even Jamil could recognize the taste of. Come, let’s go.”) And that had assured him everyone would be comatose in a deep dream. So, after ignoring it for so long, Marion is able to treat his consistent, four day long heatstroke.

As to the response to Jade’s inquiry, it is: “Didn’t like the idea of taking my eyes off them.”

It had been Grim that texted Ace and Deuce for a rescue; Marion had been opposed firmly. Just as he had been opposed to the help of Azul Ashengrotto and his two, taller shadows.

“Hm,” Jade responds softly. He turns his burning gaze off to the side, towards the nebulous ebon that coats and suctions onto the exterior of Scarabian architecture. “Could’ve asked for my help.”

“Could’ve but didn’t,” Marion agrees as he rises to his feet. Completely ignorant that Jade is vexed.

He has still not taken off his steel-toed boots since this morning and it is now approaching midnight. Physicality rules heavily over sentimentality. An overblot for breakfast and lunch with a party for dinner and dessert. What a painfully busy day.

“Should’ve.” It seems Jade has gotten his fill of appreciating the building designs. Gold and olive-brown try to make an imposing dissect at green eyes but it falls short. It is really hard to ever look at the Ramshackle Prefect with any animosity.

Sand-dollar hued laces are pulled apart as Marion balances his foot on the fountain’s edge. He wiggles his foot out his boot and unfurls his white sock.

“Are you upset or suggesting something for the future? I think the only other hot dorm might be Ignihyde, but it's temperamentally hot and I manage fine there.” It is almost amusing to Jade how sincere that question is – almost. Jade watches as Marion hooks his other foot on the fountain’s edge, undoing the laces. He is just about to answer when Marion gets his left boot off. His white sock is soaked red.

“Huh, odd.”

Jade quirks an eyebrow at Marion’s monotone exclamation – if you could even call it an exclamation. Like two people waiting for the circus’s curtain to rise, they watch in tandem as the sanguinary-dyed sock is removed. Blood sticks to Marion’s thumbs, pulling it off. The sight causes both Marion’s and Jade’s eyes to pulse with interest.

“You know, I concur. Odd.”

“I didn’t even feel anything.”

“I would say that’s incomprehensible, but with your dance battle with Jamil and then the literal one with Ace and Deuce … I have no reason but to believe you.”

“Wonder if it happened because of the stone pillar.”

“Who knows. Wiggle it,” Jade instructs with barely contained, dangerous intrigue.

Marion tries to, but it is fruitless. His big toe is bent to the side with all the harsh angles of a broken stick. The best image to compare it to is the end of a hockey staff, one ridge turn away from being straight. In the red, you can see a tiny, snowy mountain cap of white which is the bone peeking out. The rest of his toes move just fine though.

“No use,” Marion declares, staring at his open fracture. By now, the blood that has not been absorbed into the sock starts to make dimes of red on gold.

With a pat to the fountain, Jade wordlessly instructs Marion to sit. A breath later, he hovers over the protruding wound with his magic pen, getting to work on a healing spell. As violet shimmers and skin rearranges itself, they go quiet with different ordeals on their mind.

It is just odd, the rawest definition of the word, that Jamil’s Unique Magic had not robbed Marion of his sword. Jamil had certainly tried as Marion remembers: “Why don’t you two stay here at Scarabia for winter vacation? Prefect, let me handle your sword; you can relax here.”

Under the hypnotist’s spell, Snake Whisper, he had followed each instruction down to the tiny word of relaxation, but his grip had never faltered from his sword.

I’m not immune to magic or overblots, Ramshackle Prefect thinks as he watches his big toe reverse and mend, but I didn’t once release my sword. If anything, he and his claymore glued themselves together after Jamil’s words for three whole days. Acting completely in reverse of what the magic-laced instruction was.

He treads his right leg back and forth in the fountain’s water, contemplative. It is in the past though, so perhaps it is fine to let it go. He sends a pensive look over his shoulder to his claymore, laying by the fountain, and decides it does not matter anymore. It will never phase him again unless the future calls for it to.

“You run so much hotter than everyone else,” Jade says as he places a hand over Marion’s neck. He knows there are no scent glands in humans but he still possessively lets his own scent diffuse into brown skin. Infects the pore with the sweat of himself, infects the already infected bloodstream.

“Mmmh, you remember when I head-butted Jamil twice during the fight?”

“I recall.”

“I did it because I was so dizzy from the heat. Needed to restart my vision and mind. The first was a test; the second one was intentional.”

“You have such a crude and amusing way of doing things.”

“Thank you. Not sure how you can stand this heat though. I think I’m melting,” Marion whines, leaning into Jade’s embrace.

“Being cold-blooded comes with a particular adaptability.

“How’s the Coral Sea?

“Rather cold and desolate.”

“That sounds great,” Marion moans, enthralled with the idea of pitch black, chilly landscape. “Take me there?”

“One day.”

The conversation lulls and Marion dips his now fixed foot into the fountain. His muscular arms hold the edge of the fountain behind him; the scars on his left arm made from Leona’s Unique Magic stretch with his deep breath. Scars travel down that arm like kintsugi pottery, lightning cracks of sand-hued wounds on a dark canvas.

It is a while of just basking in company before Jade breaks it.

“Why did you not let me or Floyd fight?”

Marion’s eyebrows raise curiously. “During the overblot, you remember, when you kicked both me and Floyd fifty feet away from the fight?” The smile on Jade’s face is predatory and wide, gleaming with all his acute enamels. Ah, that’s vexed!

“Hm, I just felt like I had it in the bag, was too in the moment to need help.”

“Yet you allowed Kalim to assist you,” Jade leans forward, showing more of his teeth.

Is it so bad that he wants to be the only one of the Ramshackle’s arsenal? The first character … the main of the player … selected in the game as Idia would say, right?

Rolling his options on his tongue like a piece of gum, Marion looks up at the squirting arches of the fountain. Water leaps in this beautiful, jetting motion. Everything about this place is a little hypnotic.

“You really want to know?” Jade’s expression gives away the answer clear as day.

Leaning close, he whispers, “you smell the best when you’re fighting for your life. Would’ve distracted me.”

Jade’s heart gives a dangerous lunge in his chest, overjoyed. Smiling, he glides his hand up until he is pinching the chin of the Ramshackle Prefect, puppeting him so his spine has to hunch yet his neck has to tilt up. Such a malleable clay structure for Jade to mold; something he will dip his fingers into only to discover there are blades hidden in the clay like razors in Halloween candy. What a treat, caramel and blood. Waiting to taste just about anything, Jade leans amorous … but —

Marion pulls back. “Nice try,” he congratulates, smiling at the frown on the vice-housewarden’s face.

“Don’t humans kiss at least after a life threatening situation? Even when wired on adrenaline earlier, you stubbornly refused.”

“Not this human. C’mon. I’m cooled down; let’s raid the kitchen.”

There is much more to discuss about Jamil’s overblot; about what is going to happen in the future; about them and their relationship. It is best to be done with petite interludes made by chowing down on some good food.

Ah, he supposes the taste of stolen food might be as appetizing as metaphorical caramel and blood. Marion always knows how to get his attention — the pinnacle distraction for the eel-mer has always been cooking. So, Jade puts his hand in the outstretched, scarred one.

“I’ll try later.”

“I know,” Marion says. He presses a kiss to the wrist of Jade’s hand that was just holding his magic pen and reversing his wound. “Let’s go steal some shit.”

[omegaremix]

Finds For 2016.

Diet Cig “Scene Sick”

Tame Impala “New Person Same Old Mistakes”

Cold Cave ft. Black Rain & Genesis P. Orridge “Comprehension”

Computer Magic “Be Fair”

George Clanton “Notice Me”

Prurient “Dragonflies To Sew You Up”

Tropic Of Cancer “Stay Safe”

Mssingno Scope

Blanck Mass “Atrophies”

Holydrug Couple, The “Follow Your Way”

Russell Haswell “Spring Break Extended“

In Aeternam Vale “Dust Under Brightness”

Sophie Product

Consumer Electronics Dollhouse Songs

Blanck Mass “Dead Format”

Hibou “Above Us”

UXO self-titled

Follakzoid “Directo Al Sol

Moon Duo “Free Action”

Tearist Living: 2009-Present

Deerhunter “Ad Astra”

Beliefs “1992”

Ducktails “Don’t Wanna Let You Know”

Tame Impala “Nangs”

Candy Snatchers, The “If You Can’t Have Fun, You Ain’t Fun” (live)

Shana Falana “There’s A Way”

DOM “Burning Bridges”

Girlpool “Before The World Was Big”

Holydrug Couple, The “Paisley”

Ash Koosha “Harbour”

Dystopian Future Movies “Paint It Red”

Angry Angles “Things Are Moving (All The Time)”

Polysick “Smudge Hawaii”

Kleenex “Nice”

18+ Fore

Innsyter “Cut Eleven”

Airliner “Her Crutch”

Clams Casino “Drawn” (Crim3s RMX)

Com Truise “Silicon Tare”

Crim3s “Stay Ugly”

Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers “Born To Love”

Imaginary Pants Kites At Night

Ana Lola Roman “Klutch” (Com Truise RMX)

Costavision Lo-Fi Exotica

Coachwhips “UFO, Please Take Her Home”

Rubs, The “Runaway”

Airliner “Left Orange”

Sheer Mag “Fan The Flames”

JK Flesh Rise Above

Gigi Masin“Tears Of A Clown”

Reatards, The “You Ain’t Fun No Mo’”

Hussy, The “You Know”

Home “Resonance”

TR/ST “This Ready Flesh”

Pastel Ghost “Clouds”

LNDN DRGS “Dope Sick”

Ata Kak Obaa Sima

Hailu Mergia & The Walias “Yemiasleks Fikir”

Christoph De Babalon “Surreal Mirrors”

Gigi Masin “Fata Morgana"

John Carpenter Lost Themes Remixed

Veldt, The “Sanctified”

Zola Jesus “Collapse”

Merzbow & Keiji Haino & Balazs Pandi “How Differ The Instructions Of The Left From The Instructions On The Right”

Cults “Oh My God”

Vektroid “Neo Cali”

FOE “Genie In A Coke Can” (Alec Empire RMX)

Peaches “How You Like My Cut?” (Ziur RMX)

Tex Taiwan “Algorhythm Vision”

Jagwar Ma “Uncertainty” (Mssingno RMX)

Odesza “It’s Only” RMXs

Honeyblood “Sea Hearts”

Connie Laverne “Can’t Live Without You”

Kedr Livanskiy January Sun

Body-San “Shining The Money Ball”

C.V. Jorgensen “Ghetto Svend”

9th Wonder & Buckshot ft. Talib Kweli “Hold It Down”

Uniform “Symptom Of The Universe”

Czarface ft. Vinnie Paz & Cappadonna “Shoguns”

D.I.T.C. “Rock Shyt”

Lizzy Mercier Descloux “Fire”, “Wawa”

David “Baby” Cortez “Happy Organ”

Low Red Center s/t

Alan Turing “God Save The King / Baa Baa Black Sheep / In The Mood”

Dolly Parton “Jolene” (33 RPM)

Tobacco “Gods In Heat”

Pere Ubu “Blow Daddy-O”

La Coka Nostra “Waging War”

Elusive Textures

Technicolor Skull “Technicolor Skull”

Hanin Elias ft. Electrosexual “Hold Me”

IKO 93 “Drag” / “Mutt”

Innsyter Poison Life

Bloom Offering “Bite Their Tongues”

Jlin “Downtown”

Sandro Brugnolini & Stefano Torossi “Effetto Notte”

Comet Gain “(All The) Avenue Girls”

Nick Klein “Anxiety Plae”

Le Matos “Eyes Throat Genitals”

Bill Loose “Slight Misgivings”

L-Fudge Chronic Irresponsibility

Author & Punisher “Lust For Scales”

Sun Ra “The Cosmic Explorer”

Liquids Hot Liqs

Ice Cream Love, Ice Cream

Khost “Deathset” (Godflesh RMX)

Ramleh “Airborne Babel”

L-Fudge ft. DJ Spinna, Shabaam Shadeeq & Talib Kweli “What If?”

Caroline K “Tracking With Close-Ups”

Rosa Yemen “Herpes Simplex”

Jonas Reinhardt “Androma”

Sunrise Ltd. “Our Love Will Grow”

Tearist “Headless”

Red Fetish “Spanish Meths”

Hot Chocolate “Could Have Been Born In The Ghetto”

Vibrators, The “Disco In Moscow”

York Factory Complaint Lost In The Spectacle

Nick Klein I’d Rather Sit Alone

[shinxeysartgallery]

The Murder Drones brain worms got me in a chokehold rn

Anyway, I got thinking about the Solver again. Ever since Episode 2, it's been established that the Solver is capable of creating flesh out of seemingly nothing. And we also know since Episode 1 that Disassembly Drones (as well as Workers with the Solver) can regenerate any wounds inflicted on them as long as there's sufficient material for it to use.

The latter seems to imply that it's still abiding by the Laws of the Conservation of Matter - matter cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed. Makes sense; it took the materials in the area and transformed them into new body parts to repair damage. Nothing was created or destroyed in that regard. But then what about the flesh?

Episode 7 gave some interesting implications regarding that. We got to see a flashback where the Disassembly Drones were deployed to hunt down and devour humanity, even getting a little scene of V ripping off and swallowing some poor sap's arm and N drinking the blood out of some dude's neck. But here's the thing about that: those two particular humans that were explicitly shown being eaten obviously weren't the only ones that were killed and eaten by them. Much like with all living things, there's only so much room for food inside the body, which also applies to the Drones. Since they're robots, they obviously can't digest it or go shit it out later when they get full like a human or animal can, so where did all the blood and flesh they ate go?

In Episode 2, we see J's core teleport away in a black hole after N stabs it several times with his tail. We've also seen other instances of the Solver being able to teleport or open black holes/wormholes. We also know that all Disassembly Drones have a core like that inside of their bodies. Both Episode 2 and Episode 7 confirmed that the cores can act independently from its host body and still possess Solver abilities. So my theory is that their cores were teleporting the flesh and blood somewhere as it entered the Drones' bodies. Where exactly? It's hard to say, but likely to wherever the source of the Solver is. No, not Cyn, but whatever it was that originally possessed her. She was Patient Zero, but the Solver clearly existed before she woke up in the dumpster. Whatever its source is, that's likely where everything went. If it's still abiding by that scientific law mentioned before, then it explains how it's seemingly able to create it out of nothing - it's not; it's basically moving it from one place to another through use of wormhole magic when its powers are invoked. This also explains how the Disassembly Drones were able to consume what seemed to be an infinite amount of humans without them ever getting full.

(We know its very existence and its other behaviors still break several scientific laws, so this might be a moot point, but it's still interesting to think about!)

It also gives some more interesting implications to Cyn's comment about being hungry before jumping into the giant flesh pit to the center of the planet. Maybe the stuff was being teleported directly to the entity's stomach? And if that's the case, then that's maybe why the portals it makes are so fleshy? It's basically ripping a hole into the entity's stomach that's already full of flesh and blood from its previous kills.

Also as a side note, Episode 1 established that Disassembly Drones require them to drink oil every so often to keep from overheating - a symptom that also exists in Worker Drones with the Solver. We saw in Episode 4 that when Uzi used her Solver powers too much, she began to overheat and go a bit crazy until she was able to consume some oil. What if the Solver entity itself has something similar going on? We don't know what it's doing behind the scenes, after all. What if it's like those Drones, where it needs to consume blood and flesh to keep up its energy, much like how they need oil? If that's the case, Cyn's remark likely implies that it's used up a shit-ton of energy on something, which does not bode well for the future of Copper-9 or its inhabitants... (Or any other planets/exo-planets in that universe, for that matter.)

I'm probably over-analyzing stuff again, but still think it's interesting. lmao

[acewitch-writes]

My last snippet stirred up some interest, so here's another piece of that same story! This snippet is the prologue. Once I have more written, I intend to post it to AO3.

...

“Are you sure you want to go in there alone?”

“He won't talk if anyone comes with me,” Remus responds, ducking away from his father's smothering hands clamped to his shoulders. “I'll be fine. Just trust me.”

Lyall sends an uneasy glance to his wife, Hope, and she nods. “Let him go, Ly. The boy couldn't hurt him even if he wanted to.”

Lyall hesitates a moment longer, chewing on his lip, before exhaling in defeat and standing back. “Alright. Alright. Just… just make sure Protego is enabled. Full coverage, nothing less. Stay back at least two feet from the bars. And shout if something goes wrong. Understood?”

“Yes, dad,” Remus mumbles.

“We'll be right here on the other side of the door.”

“I know.”

“Be careful.”

There's no need, Remus isn't in any real danger here, but he nods anyway. “Of course, dad. Always.”

The Sentinel at the door, clad in the trademarked black robes fitted with leather braces, winding belts, armored chestplate, and sturdy knee-length boots, waves his wand when Remus steps forward, unlatching the magical locks. The door creaks open on metal hinges.

Remus walks inside, trying to keep his head inclined in a show of bravery. But when it clanks shut behind him, he can't help jumping slightly. 

A voice chuckles from the shadows. “You're like a cat.”

In spite of everything, Remus feels his heart perk up. “Symptom of a bubble-wrapped childhood,” he responds to the shadows, eyes scanning the room before him. There is a metal holding cell taking up just over half of the room, bars humming softly with anti-magic enchantments. Huddled on the floor in the corner of the cell, Remus finally spots him.

Sirius. He's dressed in traditional black wizard's robes that must have belonged to his father because they appear to be a size too large. His long black hair is loose and disheveled, dull strands framing his tired, beautiful face. He regards Remus with wary silver eyes from his seat on the stone floors.

“They let you come in alone?”

“Not without a massive fight,” Remus admits. “My dad didn't want to let me.”

“I'm sure he didn't.”

“He thinks you're too dangerous.” Remus says this with a hint of accusation.

“Maybe I am,” Sirius says flatly. He looks down at his hands, secured tightly with silver manacles. “How long has it been?”

“Three months.”

Sirius nods distantly.  “My parents?”

Remus frowns. “Already sent away for reconditioning.”

Sirius’ expression darkens. “Regulus?”

Remus’ heart suddenly starts racing. “Him, too,” he lies. “They'll be assigned jobs soon.”

“Jobs,” Sirius scoffs without emotion. “Call it what it is, Remus. Your mum can't hear you on this side of the door.”

“It's better than death,” Remus points out.

“No, it's not. I'd rather be dead than sent to one of those horrible labor camps,” Sirius snaps. “And if you had any magic of your own, you'd agree.”

“You know that I agree,” Remus retorts. “But you went rogue. I don't know if I can get you out of this.”

Sirius pulls himself to his feet and limps over to the cell door. “Then break me out.”

“I can't.”

“All I need is a Spellcom,” Sirius insists, leaning against the bars imploringly. “Give me yours and tell them I nicked it.”

Remus takes a step back. “Sirius, I really can't.”

“Yes, you can. Just give me the damn Spellcom.”

“You murdered 12 people,” Remus bursts out, unable to contain it any longer. “Their families are outside right now calling for your head! One of the victims was a ten year old girl, Sirius. She was at the zoo with her granny, and now they're both dead because of you!”

Sirius’ expression turns to stone, hands slowly lowering from the bars. “That wasn't my fault,” he mutters coldly. “Dragons are meant to be dangerous and wild and free, not locked up in an enclosure to be gawked at by crowds of muggles. Their own disrespect for the beasts is what got them killed.”

“You let them out! As far as the law is concerned, their blood is on your hands.”

Sirius laughs with harsh contempt. “Godric, listen to you. Always the coward. I knew you were too soft to do what needed to be done.” He returns to his shadowy corner and eases himself back to the floor with a grimace. “Just go. You're worthless to me here.”

This stings. Remus swallows it back, resolve crumbling. “I wanted to help,” he whispers. “I thought we were going to do this together.”

“You would have just held me back,” Sirius says heartlessly. “You're too weak and spoiled. You wouldn't know courage if it slapped you across the face.”

“That's why you left me in the dark?” Remus guesses, heart splintering. “You didn't think I could handle it?”

“If you could, you'd hand over your Spellcom right now,” Sirius responds challengingly. He holds Remus’ gaze for a long moment, waiting, before snorting derisively. “See? You'll watch them ship me away before you ever grow some semblance of a fucking spine.”

Remus feels helpless. He wants to do it. He wants to reach into his pocket to hand over his Spellcom like Sirius is demanding. But there are so many Sentinels outside, he would never make it. And when he finds out that Regulus didn't survive, he'll get himself killed before ever letting them bring him back here alive.

Sirius is a ticking bomb, prepared to blow himself to bits if it means he'll at least get to die as a free man. Remus can't let it happen. He can't live in a world that doesn't include Sirius. Why couldn't Sirius have realized that before he did this stupid thing without him? 

Remus can't think of any other way out of this now. Sirius dug his grave too deep this time. Even with all the power and influence of the Lupin family at their disposal, they can't make this stain vanish. 

There's no other solution. Remus can't let Sirius live out the rest of his days in a labor camp, and he can't let him get himself killed in a violent escape attempt. Which leaves him with only one option.

Remus turns to leave without another word. He knocks on the door, and the Sentinel posted outside opens it at once. As he steps through the threshold, Sirius jeers one final insult at his retreating back. “Pathetic.”

The door slams shut. Remus feels the word curling around his chest, settling there along with all the vitriol and contempt with which it was uttered. Searing him from the inside.

“Are you okay?” his father frets straight away, eyes darting all over his son's body for any sign of damage.

Remus waves him away and lifts his head to face his mother with grave determination. “I would like to have Sirius Black reconditioned into my own personal Sentinel.”

[seducemefanficsandheadcanons]

The wheel dictates Aron must suffer an asthma attack! 👻

This ask was so interesting to write because Aron doesn't have asthma, but I found a way to make it work! I hope you like it!

Cross posted on AO3 and Wattpad

Deep breath (Sam x Aron)

Aron loved her job.

Growing up, she always knew she wanted to go into the medical field. She’d struggled with her health and chronic pain for as long as she could remember, and many of her family members did as well. She watched her own father battle cancer for years, a battle he lost. When he passed away, she knew she wanted to do something to make a difference in the medical field.

However, she never thought she’d be capable of medical school, since she barely was able to make it through high school. So that was a dream she gave up on pretty early on in her teen years.

However, when she turned eighteen and learned about magic from her late grandfather, he offered to find her a job at a hospital in the demon districts. Aron wasn’t sure how the legal aspect of it worked, but after about four years of training there, she had a medical degree. Finally she was a doctor, working with demons and humans alike, while also improving her magic skills.

Unfortunately, not long after she was finally officially able to call herself a doctor, her own health took a turn for the worst. Her seizures became a daily occurrence, her paralysis episodes becoming more intense, and the pain was unbearable. So, she had to quit the job she loved so much.

Then, after receiving a proper diagnosis of chiari malformation and then the surgery to treat it, she was finally able to go back to work. Her boyfriend Sam- who happened to be an incubus, had stood by her side every step of the way as she returned to work. 

The first few months were incredibly difficult, but no one could deny her increased mood as time went on.

That all being said, her complicated history made it even harder for her to take breaks when she needed it. It had been about a year since she returned to her job, so she had gotten used to the long hours. Human illness wasn’t contagious to demons, so she continued working when catching sickness she could work through, and asked other doctors to cover human patients until she was better.

She made extra sure to take precautions around sick demons, not only for her own sake, but also for the sake of the incubi. She didn’t want to get sick from demon illness, and she sure as hell didn’t want to get the others sick as well.

But that didn’t make her immune. Even the most effective ways of preventing herself from catching something didn’t stop her from coming down with something. 

Over the last three years, a new illness began spreading around the districts. It was believed to be brought over between planes, but no one could pinpoint the exact cause yet. It caused symptoms that heavily resembled a human illness known as asthma, a chronic lung condition that causes inflammation in the airways.

This new condition wasn’t exactly like asthma. It only lasted anywhere from a few weeks to a year, instead of being lifelong. It also caused fevers, not high enough to cause a problem but high enough to cause discomfort.

Aron and her colleagues had been looking for better treatments for a while to lessen the symptoms, and had begun prescribing steroid inhalers to the humans who contracted the condition. Unfortunately, the demon's immune systems were killing any possible effect the medication may have, so they were stuck on how to treat them.

Aron was currently drawing blood from a young witch patient. Her recently dyed hair- dark brown with baby blue streaks- was in a claw clip. She had on simple black pants and a blue t-shirt underneath her white coat, a name tag hanging around her neck.

The room felt extra cold, but she could feel herself beginning to sweat a little bit underneath the layers of clothing. She tried to brush it off as her own issues with temperature regulation. She smiled at the patient and gave her instructions to check out at the front desk before stepping out.

She walked through the hallway, planning to do some paperwork until the next case, when she started to feel a heaviness in her chest. She cleared her throat, feeling her breathing become a bit labored.

As she kept walking, it was quickly becoming harder to breathe. It felt like she was under water, gasping for air as she began coughing violently. She desperately tried to fight for air, the strain of her coughing sending waves of pain through her head and neck. 

Tears began streaming down Arons face as her lungs burned from lack of oxygen. She leaned against the wall, her throat feeling like she’d swallowed sandpaper. Her head felt like it was going to explode.

“Doctor Anderson?” she heard a voice call; it sounded like her coworker but she couldn’t make out the sound over the volume of her coughing and the ringing in her ears. “Aron? Aron!”

She heard the sound of a door opening, and some commotion before feeling something being placed against her mouth. An inhaler.

“Deep breath, take a deep breath,” she heard them say.

Aron parted her lips and took the inhaler in her mouth, inhaling the medication, then repeating. After twice, they pulled it away, placing a hand on Arons shoulder. “You okay?”

Her coughing calmed down, an ache still in her chest. She opened her eyes and looked at her coworker and friend, who had short blonde hair and big, silver eyes. “I’m…I’m okay…”

Aron was instructed to go home after an evaluation which revealed she’d contracted the illness. She argued otherwise, but was left with no choice. They sent her home with an inhaler and some pills.

She had a tight frown on her face as she stepped inside of the mansion. 

“Doofus? What are you doing home so early?” Sam asked her as he started to walk over.

Aron put her hands up and stepped back. “Don’t come near me, I’m contagious.”

He huffed and crossed his arms. “Human sickness can’t hurt me, remember?”

“‘S not human sickness,” she countered. “It’s fucking demon asthma.”

“Oh,” he said, the attitude leaving his tone. “Shit. What can we do?”

She held up the inhaler and pills wordlessly, not speaking.

Sam sighed and stepped closer, making her frown at him and step back. He gave her a pointed look. “I can handle some asthma, doofus. What, are you going to just stay away from me until you’re better?”

“That’s literally the only thing I can do to keep you and the others from being sick,” she said, beginning to walk up the stairs. "I hate my fucking job," she added in a grumble.

"No you don't," he sighed. “You can’t just stay locked in our room. I’m gonna need to get in there eventually.”

She paused and leaned against the wall, being hit with another coughing fit. She held the railing of the stairs as she tried to keep herself upright. Immediately, Sam was beside her, stopping her from falling and gently rubbing her back. “Sheesh. You’re gonna cough up a lung.”

“So will you if you don’t get away,” she told him as her coughing finally stopped. She didn't truly want him gone, but feeling sick made her grouchy.

“Whatever. Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he said, carefully picking her up and taking her to their room.

[itsukismoon]

Main Story - Chapter 4 (Summary)

For previous chapters, please refer to here and here

Heads up: very long summary. 憧蝶 Is the name of the organisation Nanashi, Testament, Mirror and the Dark Night Duo are a part of. I’m unsure of how to translate the name so I’ll just call them “Butterfly”.

Est reveals that 150 years ago, separated cases w the same symptoms as the ones from black fairies’ miasma already appeared. finding the records of this was extremely hard for two reasons: 1) either medical limitation (medicine at the time still didnt know what was going on) 2) someone is currently trying to hide the information. hes pretty sure theres some kind of connection. but anyway, knowing this can be a huge help to Kaiai, who will go back w Sion to Sorciana (capital of the Country of Magic, the setting of ch.2 and HQ of Magia Seminar Guild) to look further into the matter. now its Gui’s turn to speak, and he drops a few bombs:

If they want to know more about the key, they need to go to the mechanics’ guild (Niji no kanata) and look for Oswald, a grandmeister whos a leading figure in mechanical engineering. in the now out-of-print record book by him, the encyclopaedia of inventions and dreams, there is a secret box (secret boxes open only if certain instructions are followed, kind of like in da vinci’s code). in particular, said secret box presents the same motifs and decorations as Emma’s key, and apparently it was made for Eden, Emma’s father. the box’s whereabouts are unclear, but they still should go find Oswald and ask.

In order to go there, the mechanical city of Woodman, the shortest route is to take the moon road to Dilettant, gastronomy’s country. so that’ll be their next destination! Emma’s worried that the butterfly will act and break some havoc, but Camus walks in and tells her not to worry, Bloody lady will take it upon itself to keep in control the situation so that they cant do anything without being noticed. Mam’s pride has been hurt after the incident, so she has already sent multiple spies all across the world. they will get revenge on the Butterfly. Camus also reminds Emma about her purification powers, and that she should definitely check that out. Crow chimes in adding that if they get to Oswald and find out more about eden, Emma will find out more about herself and her origins! and when that happens they will definitely be there for her, since shes their nakama :)

The gang arrives in Dilettant, and Rouge starts fawning over the mouth-watering smells and sounds of wine glasses being clinked, but before he can run off the others stop him: they’re not here to have fun, they have to be careful about the butterfly! Itsuki apologises, saying that the next moon road to Woodman will take some more time to appear, so in the meantime they’re stuck here. Noah scolds rouge for his usual careless behaviour, and Gran approaches Rouge asking something but seeming very indecisive about it, like he doesn't want to ask it in front of the others. Victor arrives, happy to have found a nice brand of liquor. apparently, while everyone at Bloody lady is busy dealing w the aftermath of the incident, he joined tsukiwatari to look for some ingredients. he says that his job is to keep the bar lively and provide for a resting place when things are rough. he also notices that everyone has a weary face, and asks if they're going to spend the entire week being miserable. they should enjoy their time here, after all, tsukiwatari is the guild of exploration, they should be having fun in new places.

He explains that Dilettant used to be the country of manors (荘園) with an extremely elitist society and poor culture. the feudal lords who owned the land had all the power, and if you were not one of them, your life was basically terrible. social status used to be everything, but then Oscar, the duke of Dilettant and self-proclaimed “genius of the tongue”, came and changed the way of life of the entire country, whose economy is now based on food and good cuisine. he has an extremely refined sense of taste and chose only the finest of flavours while promoting all talented chefs regardless of their social status. Emma remembers hearing of him from Lannes, who had to spend three entire days analysing all of his guild’s (Gastronomy) reports. apparently Oscar eats 20 meals a day lol. Itsuki explains that the prestigious guild reviews local specialties, has a magazine with all kinds of recipes, and the guild home is a restaurant, Ballroom, whose reservations run out for months at a time. although tsukiwatari would like to eat there, they’ll have to settle for something else.

All around them are shops self promoting themselves as Oscars favourites, etc. all of a sudden, said Oscar walks out of a restaurant, people gathering all around and the owner following in tow. Oscar walks to the restaurant banner saying that the food has been “approved by Oscar himself”, and he tears it down, adding “what a foolish thing”. as this happens, tsukiwatari can clearly see that he has a black fairy with him, although he doesn't seem to be losing his control. Emma calls Navi to ask if he has any idea of whats going on, but he's just as clueless as them. in the meantime Oscar leaves, so they chase after him in the back alleys of the town, but instead they find some monster/black fairy familiars. after defeating them, Gran asks Rouge if he knows something

Rouge:” what?? why would i know something??”

Gran:” ah… i see…. yeah, that makes sense…”

Anyway, since they have lost sight of Oscar, they decide to go to the guild hq to see if they can talk things out. they meet Walter, who notices Emma’s guildkeeper pin and asks if shes here on federation business. he's a bit scary, so the interaction goes like this:

Emma: "u-uhm-" Crow: "cmon don't be scared" rouge: "ahah, get in the right spirit! those arms and neck etc... so broad" Noah: "..." Itsuki: "don't be afraid. if its broadness, Gran wont lose either" Gran: "oi💢"

They tell him they want to meet w Oscar, but Walter is crystal clear: the duke is not meeting anyone as hes busy preparing for the week’s big event; and he walks off. the gang hears a pair of familiar voices: Joe and Ace are working as trainees at the guild to become chefs because apparently they just got fired from the Butterfly AND they know nothing about Oscar’s black fairy. Emma asks them what their goal is, trying to destroy people’s dreams.

“its for the greater evil! the greater evil is just greater evil!!! right Ace?

“yeah!!! nothing more nothing less!” (they're just stupid)

They ask more questions to them but they just don't know shit. Noah says they're about as useless as Rouge. someone from the Gastronomy guild steps in, asking them to go wash the dishes instead of wasting their time around… it’s Cuit! he introduces himself to the group, telling them he couldn't help but overhear those two talking about evil, black fairies and Oscar’s name being mentioned.

In the meantime, at the Butterfly’s hq, Mirror asks if they’ve made today’s move yet. Testament denies, saying that they overdid it last time, so now the federation is keeping a close eye on them. furthermore, Bloody lady has apparently found the hq? they predicted this, but its still quite a bother: its best to lay low for a while. in the meantime, Nanashi should infiltrate somewhere… he complains about being alone, since Testament fired the Dark Night duo. doesn't Mirror want to help wink wink? “no, I'm a bystander.”

Back to the guild, Cuit apologises to the others for Walter: he’s very quiet and due to his appearance he can come off as a bit scary; in truth, Cuit describes him as a gentle bear in the forest (+side note for those who do not know it: he's a poison expert! thats his job at the guild since, according to Cuit, the more poisonous the ingredient the tastier it is). while the entire place is in chaos due to the upcoming big event, a crying woman is yelling at Kuchen, Cuit’s older brother. she and Kuchen had a date yesterday, but he didn't go, and she asks him whether his job or her are more important.

K:”shut uppp. and don't come to my workplace, its annoying” + “don't say such embarrassing things. its obvious that my job is more important”

After the woman runs away in tears, Riche, Kuchen and Cuit’s younger brother and Gastronomy’s sommelier, comes into the picture, lightly scolding him. Kuchen defends himself, it’s not his fault that she’s taking it so seriously: he was just playing around with her. Cuit adds that sometimes the other person will take things more seriously, so he has to think about these things.

before Kuchen can say anything else, he notices the group and asks about them. they all move to a more secluded space where they introduce each other (Emma holds her hand out to Riche in greeting but he hides behind Cuit, they don't say it here but Riche has a fear of women or smth lol; then Kuchen teases Emma saying shes easy to read, and its obvious shes angry at him for making the girl cry early; they don't start on the right foot). they tell the trio about black fairies, and the fact that Oscar is currently being possessed. according to Riche this adds up onto his recent behaviour: he's been distancing himself from everyone more than usual, he's been visiting restaurants alone, places he had previously rated as bad, etc. the problem is that Oscar is the pillar of gastronomy in the country, and with this upcoming event of the week, the “Grand Ball”, the fact that Oscar is like this while also being the one in charge for all the chefs and dishes in charge is a HUGE problem. the event will be a national banquet where many foreign royals and nobles will attend: if it doesn't go well, it’ll be over for the entire country. but here comes the dilemma the group cant wrap their head around: black fairies make people aggressive and go out if control; why is it that Oscar looks so calm? the only way to find out is to meet him.

In the mean time, in a small alleyway, a chef is yelling and complaining that he didn't get chosen for the Grand Ball banquet. this is so unfair blah blah blah. all of a sudden, though, Oscar approaches him…

Walter is updated of the situation, but he refuses to force a meeting between the group and Oscar unless actual chaos happens. Oscar’s daily work is still fundamentally important, and mustn't be impeded in any way. the only way to actually get them to meet him is by proposing a food that he has never eaten before… Crow remembers an ancient recipe of a banished dish they found during an expedition, the Dark Pot. according to Cuit, its a legend among chefs worldwide, and it was banned because of its extremely strong flavour. Walter is certain Oscar has never eaten the dish before, since he’s never had to poison taste it; if they manage to make it, he will surely come. however, since the main chef and menu for the Grand Ball haven't been chosen yet, the group will have to handle this themselves, as even Cuit is working to get Oscar’s approval. the Dark Night duo overhears the convo, and they challenge the group to become the world’s best chefs. moving on, with Lannes’ help Emma manages to get a copy of the translated recipe, which leaves everyone confused:

ingredients: slim pig belly, floppy onions, blissful cabbage, smiling potatoes, snow grass (”sukisusuki kusa” lol), magma cacao pulp, mad grapes (according to Cuit they can all be purchased in Dilettant)

some of the steps include: sprinkle salt following your heart, stir the ingredients while shouting the food spell “◯◉◇☆x~!”, simmer it as hot as your first love.

the recipe doesn't make sense. they decide to rely on crow’s good luck to make a decent dish.

snow grass: ill be very brief because these chapters are mostly humour based. Emma, Noah, Itsuki, Crow and Walter go to a forest to get the grass; there’s plenty of poisonous plants which is why Walter is tagging along. the Dark Night duo is also following the group and they eat poisonous plants bc they see Walter doing it thus getting food poisoning. they get to where the grass is, and the taller they get it the better. the duo jumps ahead, but they get trapped by the grass who traps enemies in self-defence. Itsuki follows suit, but when extracting the grass, the plant lets out a soul-wrenching scream, while also working an aphrodisiac on Itsuki, making him fall in love. Crow jumps in to the rescue and everything goes well. heres a few things we find out during this ch: Itsuki loves cooking but he’s terrible at it (which is why he’s giving it his all to make this dish), Noah used to live in a forest with other kids but said forest doesn't exist anymore, Walter comes from a family of poison specialists, and he holds Oscar in an extremely high regard.

magma cocoa powder: now its only Emma and Kuchen, and he takes her to a shop that sells the cocoa they need, which is apparently extremely spicy. Emma politely thanks him, but he tells her to stop being so formal and to drop the “-san” honorific. as he laughs at her stiffness, and a crowd of girls go crazy from afar because omg THE Kuchen just laughed!!!! and who is that his new gf???? they banter for a bit until Emma changes the topic, asking him if he’s ready for the Grand Ball. Kuchen replies saying that he’ll just do it the same as always: if he’s the one making the chocolate then obviously it will be the best. then Emma says “you have so much confidence. you truly are a genius chocolatier, aren't you?” to which Kuchen doesn't reply, a troubled expression on his face. as they walk, Emma spots a shop with a poster saying their chocolate was even approved by Kuchen, who stops dead in his tracks and asks Emma to buy him some. she does, but apparently the chocolate is low-quality. he tears the poster down and starts fighting with the owner, who apparently knows him. Kuchen accuses him of copying the recipe of the chocolatier who used to work for the shop, the one he had actually praised, and of mass-producing the chocolate to save money. they get into a bitter fight, and the owner yells at Kuchen that an arrogant person like him will be shunned immediately the moment he loses Oscar’s backing. they walk off, and kuchen explains that things like these happen quite often; but in any case, he has no intention of leaving the guild: if there’s anywhere he can create the best chocolate in the world, that’s next to Oscar. Emma says that she understands, and that his passion for chocolate is shining through, which leaves Kuchen shocked (they usually take him for a fool). they go back to the guild, where Victor is fighting w Riche to make him try a spritz (Riche is a full believer of pure wine only despite liking the spritz). Emma approaches Cuit, complimenting him for his hard work and adding that she should truly be more like him. Cuit says “yeah thats right… if it wasn't for hard work I probably… (implying he’s no one without hard work → talentless), leaving Emma like ???????

mud grapes: Riche, Victor and Emma this time! they visit the most famous vineyard in the outskirts of the city, and they easily get the grapes as the vineyard gifts them for the special occasion, although usually mud grapes cannot be grown artificially. Emma mentions that she thanks both Kuchen and Riche-san, and Riche stops dead in his tracks. DID SHE JUST CALL KUCHEN WITHOUT A HONORIFIC?? ARE THEY ALREADY THIS CLOSE??? WHAT HAPPENED DURING THAT OUTING!!! IS SHE TRYING TO DISTRACT HIS BROTHERS!!! etc. Emma is trying to defend herself but Riche is literally standing meters away bc of his (hasnt been explained yet) problem with women, whatever that is (Emma believes he just hates her, but Victor understands right away).

(im not putting many pics in these summaries but i just want you guys to understand)

He gets closer while still hiding behind Victor. he admits she’s different from all the other women that get close to his brothers, and they kinda make peace? but Emma feels a weird sensation, the same one she felt when she saw Oscar from afar, and shivers. Navi appears from the key, scaring Riche shitless, telling her she’s almost got the right answer! this time its just familiars though! a fight ensues, and once its over, due to the presence of the familiars, Emma knows that a black fairy is nearby, although shes unsure as to who might be behind this all.

In the meantime, in the city, Gran is alone with Rouge. the latter playfully asks him whats going on: everyone’s busy gathering the ingredients but he's inviting him out to hang out. Gran tells him that he's grateful for his presence, and that despite acting sleazy, he's always very helpful, especially when the others get a bit chaotic. however, he's been doubting him ever since the incident at Bloody lady. when Itsuki and Noah were abducted, the kidnapper dropped a handkerchief: its the one Gran gave Rouge on the very first day they met. furthermore, he guided them around the casino, gave them information on the secret gathering, and he was able to precede the DN duo. Gran asks if he’s a tsukiwatari nakama, if he's truly family?

Emma and Gran meet up at the guild. Noah didn't really care about the cooking part so he went somewhere. as for Rouge… Gran says he went for a drink somewhere. Victor is also somewhere in the city. this means that Itsuki and Crow are the only two ones cooking (aka… its BAD). when they walk in the kitchen, Gran nearly collapses to the floor, attacked by a black miasma coming from Itsuki’s plate. he begs Emma to try the food (its actually black materia), and Emma is like “THIS IS EDIBLE????”; she wants to try regardless, since Itsuki’s eyes are shining like two stars. Gran tells her to wait, he needs to fetch stomach medicine first- and Crow just tells Itsuki that theres no way Emma can eat that unless he wants to actually kill her… Itsuki apologises, he got too ahead of himself :( the black fairies appear and start making fun of him (”this… this has the smell of death”, “humans eat such trash??? their foolishness knows no bounds…”). The rest of the preparations are a bit of a mess, with Crow cutting the vegetables in fist-sized portions, the unclear instructions on seasoning, etc. As the dish is slow cooking, Emma meets Riche outside the kitchen, and together they overhear Kuchen and Cuit talking from another kitchen. Cuit, despite being terribly busy with managing guests and staff, has decided to change his menu, in order to better suit Kuchen’s perfect dessert. Riche accuses Emma of peeping, but Kuchen overhears their banter and invites them in, where he has Emma try the desert he’ll serve at the grand ball: a multilayered chocolate cake. Emma finds it perfect, commenting that this is why Kuchen is so confident… this remark leaves Cuit feeling insecure, so he excuses himself with a lie and leaves.

Emma returns to the dark pot kitchen, and we are told the DN duo’s past (directly narrated by them despite no one asking lol). They lived in a nameless country, in a nameless city, with no parents nor house, a place rampant with diseases and crime. Their dream was to become the world’s no.1 heroes of justice. They would stand up to adults bullying children, getting beaten up in their stead. One day, they fell into a trap made by the bad guys, were confronted by the police and had to run away from the city. Then, they arrived to a certain country, where they started working as servants to a certain noble, an evil man who stole money from the people. They tried finding evidence of his crimes to get him prosecuted, but failed and were accused instead. This process of being kicked out and being accused repeated itself a few times, until they decided to become bounty hunters to make ends meet. On their first job, they got saved by Nanashi who, upon hearing of their past, told them that since they had always lost to “evil” then they just had to become even more “evil” to win. To conquer evil with evil (ikemen villains im looking at you). And thats how they started working with the Butterfly. Unfortunately, they were fired from there too, and after Oscar approached them in Dilettant, they have decided to prove their worth through cooking. Crow says that Joe (pink haired brother, the oldest one) is making a terrible face, and that dreams are supposed to be more fun to talk about. Ace disagrees, some happy people with sparkling dreams like them and no hardships could never understand. The duo goes back to taking care of their pot.

In the meantime, Victor and Noah are talking together as they stroll through town. Noah thinks the others act a bit too friendly, and he points out how weird Primus club is for having members that don't trust each other like Camus and Ymir. Victor says that although his guild is made up of selfish people with different agendas and personalities, the casino is an irreplaceable home to all of them. As they talk, they spot Oscar with no black fairy, and they chase after him. Scene cuts to Nanashi who has successfully infiltrated somewhere, he talks to himself until he goes “damn… I'm already at the talking to myself stage? I might be missing Joe and Ace more than i thought… hey, black fairy, you’re the only one I can count on here; there’s someone that’ll be perfect for you…”.

The dark pot has been completed! Emma goes into the courtyard to report to Cuit, and finds him sitting on a bench. He apologises for not being of much help, and when asked about how his menu is proceeding, he answers that it’s still a bit… blurry. Emma notices a mug with snow grass soup in it. Cuit asks if she wants to try it, and when she does she’s overjoyed! Then, they proceed to have a cute little interaction where he asks her to drop the honourifics, while he switches from “Emma-san” to “Emma-chan”! Feeling a bit less shy, she asks him if he’s worried about anything, adding that as a guildkeeper she can help him with anything at all! Cuit laughs and inches closer, he’s so happy: first she compliments his cooking with sparkling eyes, now she’s lending an ear to him… he explains that his Grand Ball full course meal included Riche’s wines and Kuchen’s chocolate; however, he knows that Oscar won’t choose him for the event, so he’s just holding back his brothers. On the other hand, Kuchen managed to create the perfect dish effortlessly, so he can’t help but compare himself to his brother. Emma tells him that the only thing she can say is that the soup he made was so delicious, she smiled. that’s why—

Victor: “WE HAVE A PROBLEM!”.

Victor and Noah come rushing in the garden and they start telling how they chased Oscar into a suspicious building where he was having a suspicious meeting with about 10 suspicious looking chefs, where he told them that the Ball is approaching soon so failure will not be an option as his black fairy hovered behind him. Emma and Cuit suspect he’s planning to make the black fairy go wild at the Grand Ball. Riche approaches them, but he seems unresponsive. A black fairy appears at his side, together with Nanashi, who declares not to know anything about Oscar’s situation (is he telling the truth though?); Crow and the others went to patrol the streets, so now they have to handle Riche by themselves. Riche pours wine into a glass, then smashes it on the ground once he’s gulped it all down. Kuchen arrives at the scene, and Riche starts with a monologue on how he will never forgive his brothers! They are just TOO WONDERFUL! Kuchen has received a gift from God, Which is why he’s the best chocolatier around; the women he dates are unworthy, and he should just cut them all off!!!!!! And why is Cuit so insecure when his cooking is one of the best around!!!!!!!!! When he was a kid he was a troublemaker who got into fights a lot, but he always made sure to come back home in time because he wanted to eat Cuit’s meals!!!!!!!! He will never forgive him for underestimating his own cooking. Kuchen understands, then asks Cuit if he’s been looking at the face of the person who eats his food lately. Emma joins in, but before much can be said, Riche continues: HOW DARES OSCAR LEAVE HIS BROTHERS OUT THE GRAND BALL!!!!!! HE CANT FORGIVE HIM! HE’LL DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!!!!

Fight ensues, the black fairy is purified and sucked into the key, and riche collapses to the ground. Nanashi says “purification complete, met my quota, time to leave!”. Then he swears he doesn't know anything about Oscar’s black fairy: things have been tough on them lately. Noah:”So cant u just stay still??” Nanashi:”Nope! I wanted to see Emma-chan! ;P”. Dark night duo walk into the scene by chance, where they see Nanashi. The latter comments how they have given up so easily on their dream to become the most evil duo in the world; but whatever, he didn’t really mind their stupid positivism (Joe and Ace are left “!!!!”). Then he leaves.

Riche awakens some time later in one of the castle bedrooms (IDK if i said this before but the guild’s hq is called castle Edouard) after getting patched up by Walter, who pats him on the head and looks at Kuchen before stepping to the side. This prompts the eldest to speak up, apologising to Riche and promising he’ll try not to worry him too much in the future. Cuit also promises to believe in himself more, and that he’ll definitely have Oscar approve of his cooking for the Ball (cue Walter patting his head lol; every time he does it everyone always gets embarrassed and blushes. He approached Kuchen like 👁️👁️ and Kuchen goes “N-no…im fine….”). Crow, Gran and Itsuki come into the room, and they start discussing what just happened. Regardless of whether it’s the Butterfly’s work or not, they have to stop the duke before things turn violent. However, Cuit asks for 2 days of time: if there’s truly something wrong with Oscar, Cuit and his brothers want to ascertain it w their own hands.

Flashback: Cuit loses a competition because a rival chef mixed something into his dishes. Oscar steps in, saying that he ate Cuit’s dish, and that man added 25.8 grams of Bougetto (?) liquor in the sauce. The other chef defends himself: even if this is Oscar we’re talking about, he can’t treat him however he wants, he’s the chef of the yadda yadda family and blah blah blah. Oscar has no ears for someone tarnishing gourmet food. “Cuit, let’s go”. That Noble family is actually really close with the royal family, And they don’t let anyone get in their way, so Oscar’s position could be in trouble; but he doesn’t care, as he will not allow food to be degraded. He adds that if something were to happen to him, then Cuit and the others will have to take up his role.

If the black fairy is distorting Oscar’s belief, then it is up to them to do something about it; this is their gourmet pride (chapter title drop oooh). Walter will keep an eye on Oscar and let them know if he does anything suspicious, whereas Emma promises to step in in case things go south: as a guildkeeper, she wont let meisters get hurt!

Three days later, they finally get to meet Oscar to have him try the dark pot; he gives them some kind of backhanded compliments which make the group feel like he’s indirectly yelling/mad at them. However, before trying their dish, they request him to try Cuit/Riche/Kuchen’s meal first. I will not be translating the entirety of the meal the they give Oscar however: Cuit proposes a dish made with foreign vegetables, and Oscar is not happy with this decision; Cuit points out that these vegetables are not inferior in quality despite being cheaper, but they give a more homely feeling, something that is kind of important to Oscar if you read his past story. He then goes on to explain how they tried incorporating the guests’ countries of origin in the menu for the grand ball. This is a great responsibility, because it means that all dishes must be equally good, or the guests from a certain country will be displeased; it’s why Cuit wants to be the one to handle the menu: the skill of a chef is seen in these situations. After the meal, it appears that Oscar is extremely pleased. But.

“I will not let you serve this at the Grand Ball”.

Everyone’s appalled, so they just hit him with their suspicions. Oscar’s black fairy, Feld, appears. And he seems to be, extremely angry, to the point where Oscar is struggling to stand up. He directly addresses him by name, telling him to calm down (meaning he’s by now acquainted with the fairy). Navi comes out of the key, and he points out how Feld is different from all other black fairies they have met until now: instead of being violently out of control, he feels a bit weak. They explain to Oscar what the situation is and what black fairies are. Feld appeared in front of Oscar one day, and “stirred” his emotions, which he accepted as a good thing, as he, too, is driven by anger just like Feld. This basically means that the fairy has been trying to go out of control, but Oscar has been resisting through sheer willpower alone, although his body suffers from it. Emma gets ready to purify him, but Oscar refuses to let go of this anger now. Emma, ask him what in the world is he so angry about? He mysteriously tells her that if she wants to understand she has to follow him.

Fast forward a bit, Emma is accompanying Oscar to a party held at an aristocratic mansion. she doesn’t really know what’s happening plus she’s worried about messing up w her manners in such a lavish place. Oscar says:” don’t worry about the nobles, just think of them as potatoes” (lol) “but Oscar that’s disrespectful!” “Yeah, poor potatoes, sorry for comparing you to these people..” (LOLL). During the meal all the aristocrats are chatting among themselves and Oscar looks angrier and angrier although Emma doesn’t really understand why. Then, an aristocrat approaches Oscar and they start talking: the latter asks about how his chef (someone who Oscar noticed as being quite talented) was doing, and the noble replied saying that he was replaced with a chef from another noble family of chefs who are famous for producing top-quality cooks. The aristocrat keeps talking, looking down on “untalented nobodies” and whatnot. When dinner is over, Emma confesses she kind of understands him now: what most of those people enjoyed was not the good food but the title and brand that came with the chefs. Oscar goes on to say how these people eat food that is made with high-quality ingredients and praise it because of the quality of the ingredients themselves; as he says this a dark aura surrounds him. This is the disease that is currently rampant in the country: chefs’ competitiveness should be encouraged, but the people evaluating them are rotten to the core. As a result, unknown but skilled chefs are being deprived of opportunities to grow. He is enraged at the current state of the country, which is why the guild is having the Grand Ball. He simply tells her to look forward to it.

The day comes and Emma is allowed to sit next to Oscar in case the black fairy goes crazy. The dishes are brought in and everyone is enjoying the taste of them without knowing the names of the chefs and where the ingredients come from; therefore Oscar is forcing them to “enjoy the food” rather than the titles that come with it.

At the end of the night he presents the 10 chefs who prepared the entire menu to the invitees: the Dilettant aristocrats recognised them as being the unknown chefs they fired from their kitchens in favour of celebrity chefs; Oscar exposes their hypocrisy in front of the foreign guests, making them appear as fools. On the other hand, foreign guests are delighted at the idea of hiring these unknown but extremely skilled chefs. Later, Oscar finally confronts the Dilettant aristocrats, outing his ire and disgust. The aristocrats fall silent and when they leave, they are embarrassed and with red faces. Oscar delightfully laughs like a child at them. Him and Emma chitchat about everything that went on and the way Oscar had to train the chefs by making them do the dishes 300 times. As they talk, they are approached by an extremely well-dressed man and his attendant: it’s Dilettant’s king, who thanks Oscar for hitting at those nobles’ reputation in public. The country can now finally start working to meet the standards of its reputation as a country of food lovers.

Later on Emma purifies Oscar of the black fairy who now regains some kind of consciousness and he starts speaking (after he sends Evan flying with a punch). The person he used to protect once upon a time was a man who was accused of a crime he didn’t commit and who died in despair. Navi ask him what the hell he is since he wasn’t inside the key nor he was losing control. Mateo and Rive (?) come from the key, and mentioned their own experiences: they were overwhelmed by negative emotions and it is impossible for the host to maintain a sense of self. Feld doesn’t remember anything at all. However, he has a vague memory of a huge tree, which is the one Emma saw during the “purification incident” back with Bloody Lady (CH2 PT18). This seems to resonate with all black fairies present. 

Emma reports the information to Crow, and they surmise that the tree might be the place where black fairies originate from. They also suppose that Eden, Emma’s father, might be there.

The next day it is officially a week since the group has arrived in the city and tomorrow they will have to leave to the next country. Before that, they are having Oscar to try the dark pots: Itsuki and Crow’s being red, whereas joe and ace’s being black. All of a sudden Rouge has also come back from whatever he was doing in the city, leaving a very perplexed Gran, and an angry Victor and Noah. Oscar tries both but the first is terrible, and the second just tastes weird (is this goldilocks?); Crow defends himself by asking if this is not the taste of rare and ancient cuisine. But no later than he speaks, Cuit walks in with a third pot, containing a golden coloured soup. Obviously it’s amazing. The DN duo says that technically the others’ rating was “terrible”, whereas theirs is “weird”, meaning they technically won the challenge. Regardless, they don’t feel as happy as they thought they would, because, as Emma points out, this is not their real dream (she says that despite them being villains, she really liked the look in their eyes). Oscar admits approaching them not for their cooking skills but for their anger. They realise that what the others are saying is right and that they are destined to fight evil with evil. Before leaving Joe turns to Emma and tells her that although he was flattered at her “love confession” (which never happened), he cannot accept her feelings yet (Emma:”i somehow got dumped!!!”).

(Some sort of flashback i think?) Rouge tells Gran how kind Emma is to everyone, even someone like him. The fact that the others consider him as family makes him a bit uncomfortable and he thinks he doesn’t really deserve it, especially since he doesn’t believe in the “ fundamentals” (?) of people. However, Gran points out, he still mindful of them which is why he doesn’t say anything about it. Rouge cannot bring himself to tell those kids that there is a traitor among us (amogus…).

The DN duo is leaving; Emma tries to inform them of something but Joe is like “no I’m sorry I can’t be with you even if you try to stop me we cannot be together. I have something to do. Blah blah blah”. The truth was that actually Cuit had invited all of them to the guild’s top famous restaurant. There, he manages to guess what everyone wants to eat specifically without them saying anything at all. Everyone pretty much starts eating like animals since Cuit’s food is so good. Even Victor, who normally speaks in a very polite and kind of effeminate way goes “BRO WHAT THE HELL THIS IS SO FUC- i mean! How delicious^^!”. Kuchen brings in some chocolates he made with the super spicy magma cacao, telling Emma that the smile on her face when eating these chocolates is the cutest and most honest until now. Oscar walks in, apologising for not being able to show his gratitude better. He notices Kuchen’s chocolates and tells him to use no additives next time, just make it 100% spicy (kuchen:”YOU’LL DIE LIKE THAT??” But of course he accepts the challenge from Oscar). Oscar then turns to Cuit, informing him that the course menu he proposed the other day is to be served to the next trilateral talks under direct request of his majesty. Oscar and Walter pretty much run away after this because after the Grand Ball happened the avalanche of work that was put off is now cascading on top of them like crazy. Cuit feels sorry that they can’t help him in any way and he wishes that they had a guild keeper, hinting at Emma. He lets her know that since Oscar went through the trouble of coming all the way here to bid farwell to them, he must’ve surely taken a liking to her.

The time to go to Woodland has come, and the moonroad has appeared without delay. Victor is to return to Grayland, and Rouge appears to be leaving as well (“the winds are calling for me! Being a wandering poet is toughhh-“ Noah:”then just fly to the ends of the world.”). He says he’s joking, there’s something he actually needs to look into, though he promises he’ll come rushing to help them when they’re in a pinch. We find out through the conversation that he has with Victor after the others leave that Rouge is actually going to Record as he has business with the federation. While the others are walking and talking to each other on the moon road, Navi appears from the key and informs Emma that the black fairy they captured in record, the one that had been asleep all along, has just woken up. Emma is engulfed by a white light and the black fairy tells her that he has awakened due to her powers of purification growing stronger. Then he disappears and when Emma returns to normal, nobody but Navi can see her. The scene cut to Testament commenting how the Awakening has started.

[aisling-the-vengeful]

I’m on my break at work so I’m gonna write some things down about Aisling, more specifically. Her childbirth of bloodstone and moonstone and and Bular Concepcion. Since I’m doing a sort of recall and recon of some of Aisling canon stuff with gummar.

Gunmar and Aisling now, for the time being have three children. Bular being the youngest and moonstone and bloodstone being oldest (Boudicca I am still pending on what to do with her since I feel I neglected this oc a lot. So she is for now. On hiatus)

But the idea is moonstone and bloodstone births were…accidents really. Or at least, not what they expected pretty early on.

Gunmar and Aisling planned to wait due to Aisling trauma with Orlagk when it comes to births and such. So. When she fell pregnant in the womb by Gunmar with the twins. It came to a suprised for the both and an adjustment. For gunmar, fatherhood was different compared to anything else he had faced and such. It was different from relationships between kings to generals to soldiers. This was more than that. It…in a way, in his core. Scared him.

And Aisling was pretty nervous. Even going signs of troll symptoms of stress when it comes to the pregnancy. But the two made due, and come to relax and be more stress free with the pregnancy.with some lingering anxiety the birth was hard for Aisling. But when the two parents saw the twins bloodstone and moonstone. They saw how the differences between them. One big, chunky, and clearly grown naturally. Black as her parents stone and hissy. (This is before bloodstone transition to genders)

While the other, a pure white mare troll. She was not like her twin, fragile, almost like a human, or a speckle of snowflake landing on a leaf. Her eyes pink and red. Albinoism. She was tiny. And the parents treasure them. Gunmar come to feel the call of all troll father instinct flood in him like magic in his veins.

So, when after some centuries, they finally decide on a second. But they decide to go entangle stone instead. Taking their chips of stone together and put them together, and watch as the stone turn into an egg with the life inside. Which would become bular. The little whelp, a runt, similar to moonstone, bursting early and already causing trouble.

[sincerelystesichorus]

astarion, anne carson, & autobiography of red - small character study blurb

In which I've written 40k words of Astarion character analysis fanfiction and I'm definitely still normal.

Astarion used to be blue, but ever since that night two centuries ago, he was reborn red. And he had spent at least the past century thinking that red was irreplaceable. It was – red, it was in his blood and the little blood Cazador would let him wring from rats, corroded and stained. His very life force. He was Cazador’s, his spawn, his jewel, his ruby. There was no cure for red. Not until you became the successful means to an end. He had been sure of it. Being red wasn’t good. It made everyone who wasn’t red, and that felt like most everyone, stare at you like you put off a certain aura… like they knew you were a monster that could only act off of instinct and emotion. And it was so frustrating, because parts of Astarion were blue still, knew what was better, but they were nothing in comparison to the suffocation of red. The emotions, and especially anger, fear, came on so strong. It was hard not to act on them, to test out what the boundaries of pure action were. Astarion knew the color and impulse all too well.

I expand way more on the idea of people as colors within my writing than Autobiography of Red does, where Geryon is the only one who is red. This further pushes Geryon's feelings of being separated from humanity in his narrative, but there's a lot of inherent evil and fucked up things within Faerun so I felt expanding on colors and specifically shades/hues was a better way to communicate this for Astarion.

Geryon's red is tied very instinctually to emotion though, and so representing red as a chaotic force of emotion in my fic didn't feel like too far a step. I took a lot of inspiration from Magic: the Gathering's color pie lol. While you never get an exact description of what's wrong with Geryon, you get a lot of the symptoms, reminiscent of some sort of innate childhood mental illness, on top of the obvious trauma present in his story.

Back to Astarion, though. I've just never not been able to code him with CPTSD, I think that's obvious, but I also know that poor bastard has a personality disorder skffkjdf. The game always hammers in he has no sense of self outside of his looks, which he can't even be sure of because he can't see himself. Astarion has to work his confidence and self-image off of memories of his body and face from two centuries ago, and from his master's word. Cazador has assigned him to this seduction role (or, I feel its at least implied that Astarion was ultimately forced into it because he was seen as the Szarr runt, he was pretty and easy to push around, and I'm also pretty sure Petras has a line about getting to eat dogs now and then?) and Astarion fulfills it because it's all he can do. All he feels good for. His actions aren't his own for two hundred years, and in a morbid way of coping with constant sexual trauma, he functions off of "Well, at least I'm pretty," but even that assumption comes from Cazador's rule.

Astarion had decided he was mostly pure red, splashes of black and blue coming in, bright and visible. The remnants of his past and an even deeper level of Cazador’s corruption, bruising his psyche.

Carson is again sparing with other color imagery as to fully emphasize Geryon feeling like this big red monster, but I love this little excerpt on fearful anger.

Black/shadow is already a strong force and theme within the game so it was easy to work with, acknowledging it as a sort of staining evil. Astrion has his later lines about how he never stopped viewing himself as Cazador's slave, and I think showing that corruption is obviously important. He's hurt but can still heal (as opposed to an ascended Astarion... who I have little if any hope for sdfkjdskf).

Cazador had spent the last two centuries branding it into his skin and mind, breaking his psyche to the point Astarion was worried there’d always be little cracks that remained. That he’d always be Cazador’s wilted poppy, ashamed and folding in on himself, his neck miserably drooped aside for the taking. 

Cazador is Astarion's Herakles, and I think that metaphor works even better considering that whole little side lore with Vellioth in the ruins. Herakles kills Geryon because he must, Geryon is a way for Herakles to ultimately reach a life free of consequence, but it's not like Herakles is innately malicious in the act. He is hardened after already facing so many labors and the trauma that was forced on him by Hera that induced his journey in the first place.

Cazador wants power, some part of him is probably truly convinced he's easier on his spawn than Vellioth was to him (a lot of insults to Astarion are about his feelings and "whining", Cazador feels vindicated in his trauma and is far gone), and sacrificing Astarion is simply a part of that journey. There is no world where their destinies do not intertwine. Geryon will always be pierced by Herakles, and Astarion wouldn't be the Astarion we know without being pierced by Cazador (and without his ultimate decision to finally separate himself from him, or to become him.) Astarion, understandably, will never not feel some sort of shame or agony over this moment, from natural emotions and I'm sure years of Cazador victim-blaming him. He consented to Cazador's help that night after all, didn't he? (And we simply won't acknowledge the coercion.)

Astarion’s attempts to prolong the inevitable were shattered by thick layers of stone suddenly slamming in front of his face, muffling sound and casting him into a void. He could hardly hear Cazador’s foul laugh as he departed. Astarion waited all night for Cazador to return. And then all of the next day, and the next one after that. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Astarion started to agree that dying would have been easier. More peaceful. He had pondered hundreds of ways to attempt to kill himself while stuck in this abyss, the voices that had started developing only giving further inspiration, but it was impossible. He was sure.  All he could do was wait. Beat and claw at the stone around him. Curse. Repeat. Sometimes he'd wonder. If he'd ever get out of here. If Cazador would remember after forgetting. If this would be his forever. The voices began to recite to him again. Just how long eternity can be.

I think this is the greatest and most obvious similarity between these two, within Carson's retelling. Geryon feels somehow trapped and doomed by the narrative from his early childhood, and receives some blunt confirmation of it when he faces early sexual abuse. This affects his entire life, his early relationships. Geryon can't be older than ten in this excerpt, but knows the pain of isolation because of his trauma and for feeling different.

Astarion was plucked up by Cazador right out of law school. While for us it's not all that young, for elves he was fiercely immature, basically just starting to come into himself at his first big-boy job. Astarion was likely raised with a lot of privilege that also made him a bit more naive, his book smarts not meeting street smarts, which has him meet his end. In his undeath, that basically flips, Astarion plays his manipulation games and indulges in petty crime and seduction, unable to dedicate himself to studies. He reads and he's witty, but can you imagine the Astarion we know as a judge? It's giving Divorce Court. It's giving Judge Judy. (Honestly maybe that's what got him whacked in the first place.)

Astarion is already constrained to what Cazador lets him be as a slave. He's less than a person, and his own body is one of his greatest trauma sources.

All of this, to be punished so supremely when making an act of slight self-preservation. Astarion wanting to maintain some of his principles and let someone go. It becomes his greatest regret, his worst and most defining punishment. It's how Cazador breaks him.

I restructure some of the circumstances within my fic, as to better tie in the main romance, but it still functions as a punished act of self-preservation for Astarion. I'm also sure most people are familiar with the pain that solitary confinement can bring, but if not, it's genuinely inhumane and dehumanizing. Lack of stimulation is extremely damaging to the psyche, I wrote in Astarion breaking into psychotic episodes while enclosed, but even in game, he speaks about going catatonic. I'm sure minorly from exhaustion after fighting, but also from the isolation. His mind likely just drifted and dissociated beyond belief, and I can't imagine it. This is my favorite piece of Astarion's story we are given, it really is just so pivotal and heartbreaking, to be punished for having freewill in the most objectifying circumstances.

In summary to Astarion Ancunin I just sorta feel like this I guess...

ddfsdfdk but yeah just emo about my poor boy feeling so weird and disconnected yet so drowned in his own emotions you know...

[my homage to autobiography of red, fic series page, my ao3 page]