#I gave up rending halfway through so sorry

[iridescentheartbreaks]

I see the Cowboy JJK trend and I raise you: Rodeo Cowboys, Bull Rider Geto Edition

[graveyarddirtseries]

Graveyard Dirt & Salt

Chapter 7: Mena

Sitting up now, he pinned her with a look, that look he had when he was being a proper marine. It was commanding, cold and just firm enough to make her feel like a little girl caught in a lie. When his blue-grey eyes narrowed and chilled, they became weapons used to spear a person still, used to rend them open and bare to his scrutiny.

Another day came and it was one more Sister Mary Patrick wouldn't get to see.

Time always seemed so passively cruel to her. How despite anything which happened, it just ticked, ticked, ticked away.

Young Grace Harper had noticed this after her father died, when Christmas came and went and came again, she grew older and he would forever remain the same age.

Kneeling by his headstone in the Laurel Grove Cemetery, she would bring her father sunflowers plucked from her mother's garden, and tears that never seemed like they would ever stop.

This year Mena would become older than her father had ever gotten to be. And the thought unsettled her. She had claimed, during her wilder years in Atlanta, that she would be dead by the age he had been when he died.

But here she was, kneeling beside Sister Mary Patrick's resting place, hastily dug into the cemetery behind their church.

She didn't have any flowers to bring, her beloved rose bushes weren't in bloom yet and it was too late for the lilacs and wisteria.

But she brought something, because you had to offer something to the dead as a remembrance.

It was a small cloth doll, something she had made one day out of scraps of linen and fabric, wanting to give it to the nuns who went to sell their honey and goods at the farmer's market to give to some small child.

It never got to make that journey into town.

So it was placed at the base of the rough wooden cross that marked Sister Mary Patrick's grave. She would be in a better place.

Mena wouldn't lose another nun, she wouldn't let her girls live through this all over again. Mary Patrick would want them to rise from the ashes, she would say it was a lesson, hard taught, but hopefully learned, sent by God himself.

“Who the fuck let you and that ass clown decide anything about my sister without me?!”

The stillness of her morning was broken by the loud teenage boy, shouting at who she could only imagine was the poor Lieutenant somewhere in the morning mists of her convent grounds.

Pushing to her feet, she sought out the sound, wanting to silence the language and hopefully help the Lieutenant placate the boy.

“You know what I don't need you fucking idiots dealing with my shit!”

The marine's low tone was beginning to be heard as Mena rounded the corner of the cloister, finding both arguers standing beside the water pump for their well.

“I can deal with this myself!”

“Son, you couldn't even defend yourself or keep my back safe at that cabin. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with not being good with guns or fighting, but in this instance, your sister's survival would be best placed in the hands of Benny or myself.”

Mena approached the two, coming to a stop just behind the Lieutenant.

“I don't even need any of you!” Grayson stated.

“Why are you being such a stubborn little cabri?” The Lieutenant asked softly. “We want you here with us, we want to help you. But time is important and you're not ready for fighting or recon. You come with me, I get you trained up.”

“I'm not weak!” Grayson argued, like a child who knew he was, but hoped just words would convince the adults he was an old veteran, ragged and rough from war.

Reaching out, Mena placed her hand very, very lightly on the boy's shoulder, he jumped, but didn't leap away, just a twitch.

“I appreciate this is a conversation we must have, gentlemen, but there are nuns sleeping just over there and you are using some very potent language.”

“Sorry, Missy,” the Lieutenant said.

“Sorry,” Grayson murmured, embarrassed.

“Grayson,” she said. “I don't know Mr. Malone very well, but I do know is that he loves Annie and he will never leave her behind. He's going to find your sister and he'll bring her home to you.”

“Did you see his shoes?” Grayson demanded. “They were more expensive than my sister's first car.”

“Junker?” The Lieutenant teased, trying to lighten the mood.

Grayson shook his head. “No, she worked really hard to buy it new. I mean, it was basic as shit, but...”

Mena smiled. “You know,” she said. “I would kind of love to hear about her some more. If you don't mind telling me about Haley?” “You're just trying to distract me,” Grayson replied sullenly.

“I'm a nun, Grayson, I don't have the capabilities of trickery and lies,” she lied. “You get ten extra lashings in hell for each lie you tell.”

The Lieutenant beamed broadly, sitting down at the pump to flop his bag on the ground, digging through it. “You'll have to tell us all about Haley tonight around the fire,” he said. “Right now, we have to get hunting while the hunting is good.”

Mena gave Grayson's forearm a warm squeeze. “Be careful out there, you two? I want both of you back in good health.”

“What kind of mischief are you up to right now?” The Lieutenant called out after her.

“Well, there's a little girl who will be waking up to find she's been left behind and I want to be there for her.”

“You're a sweet girl, Missy.”

“Woman,” she stated, turning around to face him. “I'm a woman, Lieutenant. Girls are the things made of sugar and spice and everything nice.”

“And what are you made of then?” He teased.

“Oatmeal and granola and nothing interesting,” she returned. “See you two soon.”

Inside the convent, she passed a few nuns who were just entering the dining room after their morning prayers in their rooms, heading into the one she had given to Annie.

The child was in the middle of pulling on her little shoes, the pretty purple ones with velcro.

“Good morning,” she greeted the girl brightly. “Did you sleep well, honey?”

The child nodded, eyes darting past her to the empty hall beyond. Benny was usually the first person she saw in the morning, and Mena knew it wouldn't take her long to figure things out.

“I have to collect the eggs from the hen house for breakfast,” Mena went on smoothly. “Would you like to help me?”

Already putting two and two together, Annie sort of bowed her head for a moment, before furrowing her brow and nodding firmly.

“Come on,” Mena said, holding her hand out to the girl. “Let's go outside, it's beautiful this morning.”

Mena waited until they were in the morning sunshine, before she stopped Annie just under her peach tree.

“Sweetie, Mr. Malone had to leave us last night, but-” she added quickly as Annie begin to panic. “He promised me he'd be back and I told him that it was a great sin to lie to a nun.”

Annie absorbed this information for all of a second, before she bolted away from Mena, heading for the gate.

Halfway there, she was scooped up by the Lieutenant who had been loitering about the front of the church with a couple of the younger nuns, the marine holding the squirming girl gently, but firmly as she kicked and sobbed.

“Hey now, boo,” he cooed to her. “What's the ruckus?”

Annie didn't say anything, just reached her hands longingly towards the gate.

“Hey now,” he went on, setting the child down and squatting before her to rub away her tears. “Benny'll be back, he had to go out to find your mama, but he told me that he would be expecting you to be here when he came back and if you head out them gates, then I guess he won't be able to find you.”

Annie calmed somewhat, still sobbing pathetically before him.

“Now, you go ahead and cry, honeybee,” the Cajun cooed soothingly.

Mena knelt behind Annie, so both adults sort of encompassed the child.

“You wanna a hug from me or Mena?”

Annie turned to Mena and buried herself against Mena's chest.

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Mena whispered over Annie's head.

The marine beamed. “You don't keep me around for my pretty face.”

All day Mena kept Annie close to her, wanting to distract the child.

But often her eyes would turn to the gates, or to a door, or anywhere Benny could pop up from.

“Maybe with no one left alive we can finally pick our own habit styles.”

They were outside, doing the washing the old fashioned way, hot water boiled over the fire, a kettle big enough to do a small load of laundry and some soap, the garments were spun around and around in the kettle with a baseball bat from their sport closet from when they took their annual summer picnic camping trip.

“That way we don't have to do so much washing,” Sister Mary Claire finished.

Mena felt several pairs of eyes on her and cleared her throat politely. “I think if any of you want to wear more practical items we can accommodate that.”

“Our habit has always been a proud symbol of our order,” Sister Thomas Aquinas argued. Mena knew she would be the last one to hold out to the old ways, she was set firmly in her beliefs.

“If you want to remain in the habit you can, but it might prove practical to change, something modest though, please. Let's not go too far into the realm of short shorts and halter tops.”

“There goes my summer look,” Sister Dymphna retorted, cackling along with a few of the younger nuns.

“I can't wait to get some floral patterns back into my life,” Sister Felicity Perpetua murmured.

“I think Sister Mary Patrick would have loved to have dressed plainly,” Sister Mary Agnes said.

Mena nodded. “She'd love for us to flourish in the wake of her passing.”

“Do you think we will?” Mary Monica asked.

“If we manage to learn some self defence from the Lieutenant, then I think we have a very good chance. But there will be change and some sacrifice.” Mena said.

“Will we really have to shoot people?” Mary Claire asked.

“They aren't people anymore,” Mary Elizabeth said. “They're dead, aren't they?”

Everyone looked at Mena, who continued wringing out the undergarment she had in hand.

She slowly and carefully pinned it to the line that ran from the side of the cloister to a pole about five feet away. There was a desire in her to avoid the question, but she knew she would have to answer it as best she could.

“We don't know,” she said finally to everyone's shock. When several nuns begin speaking at once, Mena held up her hands to silence them. “The Lieutenant isn't certain they are dead or just diseased, but!” She added as more questions came at her. “We can be assured, they are beyond our mortal help, so regardless. They are violent and they would most certainly kill you as witnessed by poor Mary Patrick. So don't hesitate to kill them, if you need to.”

“Will we be punished by God?” Mary Monica asked. “Is it a sin?”

“I can't answer that,” Mena said. “But I think, in my heart at least, we can safely say God did not put us on earth to allow ourselves to be picked off by these abominations. I think He would want us to fight and survive. That's our trial.”

“What about other things?” Felicity Perpetua asked.

“Such as?”

“The men?”

Most of the nuns began an uproar.

“I mean!” The young nun amended quickly. “Are we free to talk to them?”

“I never told you to not speak with them, just to be wary,” Mena said.

“But they're very secular in their speech,” Mary Monica pointed out.

“Just because they are, doesn't mean you will be.”

“And where does the line get drawn then?” Thomas Aquinas demanded.

“Wherever it needs to be to divide our world from theirs without isolating ourselves from them,” Mena returned coolly. Thomas Aquinas was...argumentative with her at the best of times and the worst.

“Think of this place as more than a convent now,” she went on. “It's a mission, and our mission is to offer shelter and protection for those who seek it here behind these walls. In return the Lieutenant and maybe others can help protect our way of life and our home.”

“Is...is God still with us?”

The voice was so soft, so shyly spoken that Mena took a moment to register it. None of her nuns had such a soft way about them, well...the novitiate did.

Mary Elizabeth sat, head bowed, her work laying damp in her lap.

An expected roar of assurances from the other nuns never came and Mena found herself looking at eight pairs of eyes all solemnly gazing at her.

Even Sister Gertrude, sitting in her chair, with her pretty sunhat on with one of her cats in her lap, managed enough clarity of mind to gaze over at her expectantly.

They didn't want reassurances, they wanted an answer that Mena never had. God was always just faith. You had faith that he was there, that he guided you, that he heard your prayers, but...this was too much for her to even know.

She had even wondered this herself recently, had been wondering about this since she saw the dead walking the earth.

Had He abandoned them after rapture happened? Had He never existed?

She could lie and say yes, she could lie and say no, but the only truth she could tell them was a sturdy, “I don't know.”

The nuns seemed to absorb this like a bumper car hitting a brick wall, it rocked them and they gave a single shudder that ran through the entire group, before they just sort of accepted it and went back to work.

Except Mary Elizabeth, who sort of hunched in on herself more and began to softly sob.

Setting down her own work, Mena moved towards the young woman and knelt smoothly down beside her, an arm going around the younger woman.

“Listen,” she said loud enough to address the other nuns as well. “I can't speak for your faith, if you think that God is still with us, then He is, but I just...I can't honestly answer you, Mary Elizabeth. Shy,” she amended, using the woman's real name, hoping to snap her out of her mood.

It seemed to work as the young woman looked up at her quickly at the sound of her own name used.

Hugging her closer, Mena went on, “but I do know that all of you have me and the Lieutenant now and Grayson and even Mr. Malone, though he may not stay. And if we have each other, then whether God is watching over those we lost in the rapture or wherever He may be, we have each other and that will make us stronger if we remain together.”

Mary Claire set her work aside and flopped down beside them. “I need a hug too, Mother Mena.”

“Me too,” Felicity Perpetua added, joining them hastily.

Before she knew it the other nuns were all clustered together, two of them going over to hold Sister Gertrude in her chair, an entire flock of white habits spread out on the grass, hugging and embracing each other, some of them sobbing a little, their pent up fear and anxiety freely flowing.

This was what Mena loved about her lot in life. It wasn't the church, it wasn't prayer or lighting candles or the relic of Saint Cecilia they kept in the reliquary.

It was that these were her girls, her nuns. They were the only family she had now and she had to protect them, they couldn't withstand another loss.

A shadow was cast over them all and Mena opened her eyes to a sight that had her heart skipping several beats. In the time it took to register the blood and the gore, she also registered the fact that it was plastered to the Lieutenant who was holding a deer carcass wrapped in a blue tarp in his arms bridal style, standing over them.

He was the epitome of filth. Standing out against the fluttering white of their drying habits beside him, covered in sweat and blood and dirt and other things Mena knew were best left to mystery.

“Oh, Lieutenant,” she scolded him, as her nuns returned to their work at the intrusion. “You scared ten years off my life.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I was about to ask if everything was okay?”

She nodded.

He turned to walk off, when she called out, “Lieutenant?”

Turning back to face her, the Cajun grinned a little nervously. “Yeah?”

“When was the last time you bathed, honey?” She asked.

“Oh,” his head dipped to the ground at his feet, peering over the deer in the tarp in his arms. “Uh...well...I walk myself through creeks here and there.”

Mena looked at the poor man, he tried hard, from what she could see, to be neat and orderly, but he was absolutely bordering on noxious. “We're doing laundry today, it's our day to do it, would you be so kind as to hand over your shirt and pants?”

“Well,” he began almost shyly. “It's...I'm not about to make you wash my skivvies,” he attempted a charming grin at her.

“Lieutenant, please? We're women, you think we don't have dirty clothes from time to time? Mary Agnes, could you maybe set aside some hot water for the bath for the Lieutenant?”

“Oh! No!” The marine protested. “Really! Ladies, I'm...I know I'm a dirty Cajun boy, you don't need to...”

“Don't be embarrassed, Lieutenant,” Mena insisted. “We'd prefer if you took a quick bath, actually.”

“Oh,” his face fell and for a moment Mena wished she hadn't wounded him as she did, but then he grinned crookedly. Dropping the deer, dropping his pack, the man shucked his shirt first and handed it over to her. “Start with that, I suppose.”

Tossing his shirt directly into the kettle, Mena nodded.

“I'm sorry if I'm a little ripe for you ladies,” the marine apologized. Again he sort of dipped his head shyly. “Guess you can't take the trash out of the trailer trash, yeah?”

Realizing how awful she must have made the poor man feel, Mena quickly stood up to follow him as he headed for the stump they were using as a butcher's block.

“Lieutenant,” she said, falling in stride beside him. “I didn't mean to embarrass you back there.”

He shook his head. “I'm a dirty boy,” he admitted. “It's the end of the world. I just...well, I hope I didn't offend you ladies none. I've been trying to keep neat, but...every day it's either the uggies coating you in something or hunting.”

She nodded. “Well, all the same, I shouldn't have brought it up so publicly. I suppose I'm just...disordered today.”

Stopping, he turned to her. “You alright?”

“I think so, just...accepting a few things, I guess. When you're done with the deer, I'll help you find some hot water and privacy for a wash. If you'd like.”

“If you'd like,” he repeated.

Staring up at the man's pretty blue-grey eyes, Mena couldn't decide if she wanted to weep or embrace the poor man, he put up such a front, but there were moments of real vulnerability in his eyes that tugged at her heart a little more than they should. He was like a child buried inside the body of a grown man. A grown man that, as he stood towering over her holding the deer carcass, she could so very clearly see his breathtaking power and strength.

“What happened here?” She asked, hoping to change the subject, to smooth over her faux pas in embarrassing him in company. Pressing her finger lightly to a deep, wide, jagged scar that tore down his side.

“Time and tides,” he replied casually. “Wanna learn how to gut and clean this doe?”

Glancing to the other nuns where Mena was supposed to be helping, she considered his invitation for a moment, before saying, “I shouldn't leave my chores to be someone else's burden.”

He nodded.

As she turned to leave him, he said, “you know...” he began. “I appreciate you washing my shirt and taking care of me. I don't need you to do it, understand, but I'm grateful all the same.”

“Lieutenant, our amenities are yours now if you need them. We can't just turn on our bathtub anymore because without power our pumps won't run, but we can heat you up some water for a good soak.”

“Holes in a bucket,” he pointed out.

“What's that?”

“Makeshift shower, holes in a bucket. It's faster and saves time.”

She smiled. “Oh. We might have to hook something up for it.”

He nodded. “Or we could figure out a way to get power back to the convent...I don't know much about electrical engineering, but...solar or wind maybe? I'll give it a think.”

Mena brushed her hand over his shoulder warmly. “Well, for now don't worry yourself too much about our power. We're just grateful you're bringing us home meat.”

He beamed. “It's what I'm good at.”

“Tell Grayson to bring us his clothing too, if he can, we'll wash those as well.” Mena added as the marine turned to join the young man at the stump.

“Sure sure.”

Rejoining the nuns at the fire, Mena eased down to her work wringing out the clean clothing.

It was an entire blissful minute before Dymphna asked, “so is looking okay with this new order, Mother Mena? Because I'm looking and that marine is beautiful.”

“The apple was fine on the tree, Dymphna,” Mary Agnes warned playfully.

The nuns laughed softly, but Mena was quiet, head bent to her work.

“It was a joke,” Dymphna apologized.

“No,” Mena began, “it was fine, just...we should do our best to try to make him feel welcome here. I'm afraid we've begun our relationship with the Lieutenant a little unsteadily. He's given us much more than we have shown him and I think we should remember that. And I'm not innocent of these charges either. I didn't even want him here. That was my biggest mistake, could have cost us more than just...what we've lost.”

“Here's your shirt, Lieutenant,” she said, placing the cleaner, dry shirt down beside the metal wash tub she had been filling half full of deliciously hot water, bringing some cool water in to lower the boiling temperature a little for the man to ease himself down into it.

Coated in blood now from the deer, the marine eyed the tub warily. “Not sure I can fit myself in this little thimble,” he remarked, nudging it with a boot.

Mena smiled and turned to set the jug she had been using to bring cool water in for the bath beside the door. “Well, you can try all you want. Stick your feet in it at least, heat them up nice and warm, then start at the bottom and work upwards.”

Behind her she heard two thuds and a zip and turned before it registered, nearly catching the Lieutenant in mid disrobe.

“Oh!” She covered her eyes.

“You had your back turned,” he replied sheepishly. “Thought you were leaving.” Still it sounded like he wasn't shamed into redressing as she then heard the clothing fall and the soft splashes of him stepping into the tub.

“Do you...need anything else?” She asked.

“Well, just hold on now, because if my ass gets stuck in this tub, we're going to need some Crisco and a whole lot of leverage,” he teased, causing Mena to giggle, it was half nervous, half amused. She wouldn't ever admit it, but she might have loosened her hand shield a little. Just a little! In case he fell.

“Alright, I'm in, got myself covered, your chastity is safe.” He remarked. “For now.”

Dropping her hands, she looked at him, crammed into the tub like a sardine in a can, towel draped across the important bits, legs spidered up and out, feet planted on the floor. From the amount of water displaced on the floor, she imagined there wasn't a whole bunch left in the tub with the giant man.

“Well, looks relaxing,” she lied.

“Hm.”

“Let me get you some fresh hot water to replace what you've lost,” she said, moving towards him with another towel in hand. “And here, if you put this behind you, just...in here,” she leaned him forward and tucked the thick towel between his lower back and the hard metal rim of the tub.

His body was hot and slick from the water, and as much as she didn't want to insult him again, she knew from the grime that came off on her, that she would need to change her habit to a clean one again.

“How long have you gone without a proper bath?” She asked him.

“A long time,” he admitted. “Maybe since this all began. I couldn't find a good place, the water's dangerous if it's over your head, it can be over the heads of the sinkers.”

“Sinkers?”

“Yeah, the dead will get into water over their heads and sink down, they don't live as long down there as the land ones, but they like to haunt the depths and grab ya when you're not expecting it. Stay out of the deep waters, yeah?”

“I will,” she replied, horrified.

When Mena returned to the bathroom - that ineffectual place that mostly they just used for bathing in privacy in and dumping the water down the shower drain into their lagoon far beyond the wall, she found the Lieutenant slumped over sideways in the small tub, his arm draped dramatically on the floor.

“Are you alright?” She asked, carefully adding more water to his bath, mindful of his flesh and the speed which she introduced the warmer water.

“Marat,” he replied with a grin. “You ever see that painting?”

“You're playing in the bath now?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Just waiting for you to come back and warm me up, this floor is frigid.”

“Then get your arm off it,” she returned, gently nudging it with the toe of her shoe.

His hand grasped at the toe of her shoe and he lifted it a little.

“Stop it! I have hot water in my hands,” she scolded, laughing despite the situation as he released her and continued to fidget in the water. “You're very fidgety for a marine. ADHD?”

“No thanks, I already have some,” he teased, easing back against the fluffy, now soaked towel she had rested behind him. “I don't know. Maybe...something undiagnosed. Made school hard, you know?”

“Um-hm.” She set the bucket down, there was still some hot water left in it, but she didn't want to scald the poor man in the tub, so she left the rest to cool a little. “Are you at least getting clean while you fidget?”

“I think so...” he remarked, eyeing his arms and legs. “But my feet are freezing out there on the floor.”

Mena moved to his feet and dipping a clean cloth into the warm water of his tub, she helped him clean and warm his feet.

“Service comes with this?”

She smiled. “Missions clean the feet of the poor, why can't I clean the feet of the mighty too?”

He dropped his head back and grinned. “Well, don't serve me because you have to. I'm not above scrubbing my own damned hooves.”

Mena laughed. “I like you, Lieutenant. You're a calming presence.”

“Even with all my fidgeting?” He asked.

“Yes.”

He beamed wider. It was a very boyish, almost sheepish grin he had, something that could bend a person's will if he turned it on just hard enough to charm, but he held it back with modesty and that sort of shy way he only allowed one side to lift up higher than the other. Taking hold of the bucket of now properly cooled water, Mena tucked his feet inside it and allowed them to soak in the warmth.

“Why are you taking good care of me?” He asked. “Not that I'm ungrateful, but...seems a little much.”

“I was hoping to work up to a proper thank you to you for all you've done so far for us.”

“Oh yeah?” He asked.

“Hmm.”

Sitting up now, he pinned her with a look, that look he had when he was being a proper marine. It was commanding, cold and just firm enough to make her feel like a little girl caught in a lie. When his blue-grey eyes narrowed and chilled, they became weapons used to spear a person still, used to rend them open and bare to his scrutiny.

The duality of the man was both sweet and gentle and hard and firm, in more ways than just his mental state.

“Come here,” he commanded her with a casual crook of his finger and despite her slight fear, Mena found herself obeying him, shuffling on her knees towards the top of him, eyes unable to look away from his.

With her maybe a hand's width away from his face, he studied her hard and long, before rasping, “you up to something?”

“No.” She swore.

“If you're working towards something, just tell me,” he assured her. “I take honesty better than manipulation.”

“I just wanted to show my appreciation for you,” she whispered, not at all shaking a little because of the intensity of his eyes and the rasp of his baritone.

It had been a long, long, very long time since she had been this close to a naked man and maybe she made a mistake wanting to wash his feet, maybe she had made a bunch of mistakes. And maybe a few of them had been on purpose, because she was still a flesh and blood woman and he was a very, very charming man.

“Don't be scared,” he replied suddenly, hand wet and warm from the bath on her shoulder now, pushing her back a little gently. “I was just worried you might be trying to get me to do something wild like kill the boy child or something. And then I was worried you were trying to seduce me or something, because there's no better way to prey on a person than to prey on their loneliness.”

She shook her head. “No, I was just...trying to be kind. Is that how you interrogate everyone in your life?”

“Just marines,” he returned. “Honestly. Don't worry, I would never hurt you. Just...tell me things, yeah? Be open. I'm more forgiving than God.”

“Blasphemy,” she pointed out, moving back to his feet.

“I think we need more honesty between the two of us if we plan on existing here for a while together,” he added.

“I agree.” She looked up at him. “Are you really that lonely? Don't they train marines to isolate and survive on their own.”

“Well sure, but...you can train a man to live in isolation, doesn't mean it's good for his head.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Truthfully, when I first got here, all I desperately wanted to do was talk to someone who didn't grunt or groan. Well...at first, anyways.” He added with a roguish grin.

She smiled sadly. “I'm sorry. I sent you away. All you wanted was to talk.”

“No, you did the right thing. People aren't the same anymore, you can't just throw open your doors to them. Seems it's survival of the fittest out there now, the uggies are just mosquitoes at the BBQ.”

“Well, you have us now. And we wanted to invite you and Grayson to eat with us tonight, in the dining hall.”

“Really?” He asked, eyebrows raising.

“Um-hm.”

“Ladies say 'yes', Missy,” he teased, repeating something she had often said to Annie in front of him.

Without thinking, she smacked his knee with the back of her hand and clucked her tongue at him.

He laughed. “You can't hit me after you bathed my feet! I don't think Jesus would approve!”

Mena laughed with him, though a little more moderately. “Behave yourself then.” She warned. “And tomorrow when you go out, try to find some clothes that might fit you, so next time we do laundry you have a change you can slip in to.”

“That's like asking me to find a Babe Ruth rookie card, Missy. I'm a big fella and the Georgian backwoods has some little, tiny men.”

[thepartyresponsible]

another fill! this is not a champagne fill. this is a coffee fill, which has stronger notes of bitterness and acidity.

@greythunderkat​, i am so sorry. your power is out, and you asked very nicely for a little more from the post-apocalyptic verse, and you probably wanted something at least a little sweet, and here i am, bringing you despair. 

this is how jason coped with the end of the world. warnings for character deaths (so. many. deaths.) and also for roy harper, which means drug references and trucker hats and bad decisions.

It’s a grotesque, Jason thinks, what the world has done to itself. It’s an obscene joke. He tells Roy, when he asks, that he’s not surprised, but that’s a lie. It had been a hell of a shock, watching Gotham rend itself to pieces. The kind of hit that falls so fast and so mean that you don’t feel it for hours. There’s just the sudden jolt, and then radiating numbness.

He remembers the desperate twist of sorrow that hooked in when he found Alfred on the floor, sweating through his shirt, cuffs already stained with vomit. He remembers scooping him up, remembers hating Bruce for doing this, for leaving another one of his blind, stupid followers to suffer alone. Alfred – imperturbable, unflappable Alfred – had seemed to weigh almost nothing.

The numbness hit about three minutes later, when he found Bruce’s body. After that, he didn’t feel a damn thing for six, seven months.

He buried Alfred and Bruce side-by-side, tucked right next to Bruce’s parents. He put Tim there, too, when he found his body, a week or so after the worst of it had worked through Gotham.

Tim didn’t die sick. Tim bled out in some back alley, got his face stomped in afterward. Jason doesn’t know who he was trying to protect, but he died with his mask on, like a good Bat.

Jason doesn’t hear a damn thing from Dick or Barbara or anyone else. Never finds their bodies. As he works his way out of Gotham, heads south like a migratory bird fleeing winter, he leaves messages behind, spray painted on every building he thinks they might check, telling them where he’s headed.

When he leaves those places, he does it again, leaves a breadcrumb trail of black spraypaint, bats and coordinates in coded messages.

But he never hears anything from any of them again.

He’s surprised by what the world does to itself, but not that he loses every single Bat in the processes. They’re all better-natured, nobler. Those who didn’t die sick probably died like little Tim, fists clenched tight until the bullet holes drained too much blood.

Bruce, of course, would’ve been proud of every single one of them.

Probably not so proud of the way Jason ran away, and damn sure not proud of the things Jason did in that first stretch of months after leaving Gotham, but Jason tells himself he doesn’t care. Bruce Wayne was never proud of him, so it’s not like he fell from grace. More like he just kept digging farther down into the muck he’s always been mired in.

It’s Roy Harper, incongruously enough, that steadies him out.

“Hey, Jay,” he says, months after the outbreak, as he rolls through the window of the warehouse Jason’s staying in. He smiles like it’s nothing, like he’s just dropping in after some work with the Titans. He smiles like the world isn’t gutted behind him.

“Fuck,” Jason says, too out of habit to remember sentence structure, too startled to compensate. He swallows the cold canned soup he hadn’t bothered to heat up. “What the fuck, Harper?”

“Been following your messages,” Roy says, with a shrug. He’s starved to bantamweight, and, every time he grins, Jason gets a pretty clear idea of what his skull looks like under that thin layer of skin. “Anyone else find you yet?”

Jason sets the can aside, climbs to his feet. Roy eyes him with a casual friendliness that almost hides the way he’s keeping one hand close to the knife on his belt.

“Just you,” Jason says.

“Yeah,” Roy nods. There’s a sudden, sharp twist of his mouth, a flash of something behind his eyes. “You’re the only one I’ve found, too.”

Jason figures they could fill graveyards with the list of names they’re trying not to say to each other. All those bodies stacked up between them, and he doesn’t know how the hell he’s supposed to climb to the top, meet Roy halfway.

“Sit down,” he says, finally. “There’s soup.”

Roy studies him for a second and then smiles again. Last time Jason saw him, he was in disgrace, but it’s probably a hell of a lot harder to find heroin now that the world’s dead.

He doesn’t look healthy, but he looks clean.

Hell, he’s the first familiar face Jason’s seen in months. Jason wouldn’t chase him off if he looked high out of his Goddamn mind.

  They don’t talk about it much. One time, when Jason wakes up to find Roy curled in on himself, rocking back and forth, he puts a hand on Roy’s shoulder and listens, carefully blank-faced, while Roy explains.

“I was in rehab,” he says. “Kinda remote. Grayson found it for me. We were fine for a couple weeks, then I guess someone remembered we were there. Whole fucking place, and just me. None of others were fighters.”

Jason didn’t try to hold Gotham. He knew it was a lost cause, and he chose, pretty quickly, not to die for it.

He wonders how long it took Roy to make the same call.

“It’s alright,” Roy says, mostly to himself. He rubs at his face, but he isn’t crying. His face is emptier than Jason’s. “I’m fine, Jay. It’s okay.”

“Yeah,” Jason says, “alright. Let’s get moving.”

‘’Sure,” Roy says, getting his feet under him. He wobbles a little on the way up, but he’s steady by the time Jason steps back. “Let’s go.”

  If Jason had a chance to pick, he wouldn’t have picked Harper. But he’s glad that he’s here. There’s an edged, insistent optimism to Harper. That’s probably what got him in trouble in the first place, but he can’t get into much trouble with Jason constantly within reaching distance.

Jason thinks that, anyway, until Harper comes laughing out of the forest, hyena-cackling, blood on his face, his hands, all down his Goddamn shirt, and says, “Jay! Jay, I killed a fucking bear.”

“With what, shithead?” Jason says, on his feet so fast that he’s almost dizzy with it. “Your fucking hands?”

“Arrows didn’t take it down,” Roy says. He leans over, hands on his knees, and laughs, giddy and high-pitched, off his head on adrenaline and maybe blood loss. “Got it with a couple of arrows, finished it with a knife.”

“You fucking idiot,” Jason says, tripping right into rage. “You fucking disaster.”

“Killed a bear, Jay,” Roy says, a little petulantly. His hat is missing, which serves to show off the ragged cut on his forehead.

“Fucking Christ,” Jason says, and doesn’t panic. “Fucking Christ, Harper.”

  The cuts aren’t as bad as they looked. He’s not hurt half as bad as Jason feared. But they’re low on antibiotics, almost out entirely, and Jason can’t sleep because he’s so damn worried that Roy’s going to up and die on him from gangrene, like this is some shitty WWI-era tragedy.

“You’re gonna get trench foot,” Jason tells him. “Your face is going to turn green and fall off.”

Roy laughs. He’s not quite as manic as he was earlier, but he still seems to find the whole situation somehow hilarious. “Better not,” he says, mumbling from his sleeping bag. “I’m definitely the pretty one.”

“The fuck you are,” Jason says. He stares at the ceiling above them, tries to remember how far away that town was, the one with the pharmacy that looked like it might still have something valuable left inside. “I swear to Christ, Harper, if you die--”

“Not gonna die, Jay,” Roy tells him. He’s serious now. Soft and blank, the way he gets when he’s sad. “I killed a bear with my fucking hands so I could get back to you, dumbass. I’m not leaving.”

“You killed it with a knife, asshole,” Jason says, but his heart tightens up in his chest, and he gets unwelcome flashbacks of finding Tim in that dark alleyway, the bright red of the suit, the dark red-brown of old blood.

He doesn’t want to lose any one else. He’s a long way from Gotham, and he doesn’t know where the hell he’s supposed to bury Roy if it’s not right next to the rest of his family.

  He sneaks out at dawn, leaves a message for Roy to stay in their stolen cabin, try to get some rest. Out scouting, he writes. Gonna find more food.

They have enough food. Hell, they have a fucking bear that they’re supposed to find something to do with. They have stacks and stacks of canned food. What they don’t have is enough antibiotics, and so he’s off to get more.

When he gets into town, he walks right into a trap.

Fortunately for him, the trap’s already sprung, and the trappers have their eyes set on different prey.

The man’s older than Jason, looks put-together in a way that is almost laughable, given the relative dilapidation of the rest of the world. It looks like he still bothers to comb his hair in the morning. He comes crawling out the half-collapsed mess of the pharmacy with a bag on his back, a gun on his hip, and dust all down the front of his shirt.

Jason watches in amazement as the man no-shit pauses to brush the worst of the dust and debris off of his clothes before he sets off down the street, straight for the group of men who are waiting to grab him.

Jason stopped wearing the bat on his chest a long time ago, but Roy painted it on the back of the stupid red hoodie he gave him last Christmas, and Jason feels the weight of that symbol for the first time in years.

The easiest thing, he knows, would be to wait until the fight’s over and then take out the survivors. That’s the clean way to play this, the safest way forward.

But there was a time when Jason didn’t put his safety in front of anyone else’s.

He’s never quite been a hero, but he used to be something better than what he is now.

When he kicks the sniper off the roof, it feels like some kind of resurrection. The bullet he puts through the leader is blinking awake after a long fever, settling back into a body he barely remembers.

It’s not what Bruce would’ve done. But this isn’t Bruce’s world. Bruce died, and took his world with him, and Jason’s been out of the world so long that it stings, stepping up to the edge, letting himself be seen.

When he calls down to the man below, he’s almost laughing, feels stupid and off-balance. Relieved, maybe. “Hey,” he says, “you’re a fucking lunatic, you know that?”

The man looks up at him. He’s calm, relaxed. He just shot four people in thirty seconds, and Jason hasn’t seen anyone move with that kind of beautiful efficiency since the last time he saw Nightwing having fun in a streetfight.

“I’ve been told,” he calls back, dry, amused.

It has been a long damn time since Jason spoke to a stranger who had anything other than threat and fear in their voice. It’s been a long damn time since he met anyone who moved like his people used to, back when he had people other than Roy Harper.

It feels like some kind of homecoming. It feels like crawling his way out of a second grave.

He gambles on trust, because he thinks, if he spends one more day in a dead world, he’s going to die with it.

“You grab any antibiotics?” he asks. “I’ve got a friend who did something stupid.”

[noccalula-writes]

OMG I basically just told someone I’ve been trying to befriend since two years ago but who never gives back equally that I can’t do this anymore. I told her I keep getting disappointed cause my feelings aren’t reciprocated and I’ve had enough. I don’t feel bad about it, though I have the reason to (she’s recovering from depression), but right now I feel so fucking great that I forgive myself for being a jerk. It’s great to be a jerk sometimes too Come on tell us an unrequited love story of yours

Sometimes you gotta set those hard boundaries - it’s not being a jerk when you know you need to protect your own heart. If she can’t meet you halfway, that’s not your fault. 

The only real unrequited love story I have is one that ended up turning into my last serious relationship with a guy before I met Cyn - it was high school so there was a lot of requisite drama and such. I pined after him for months and months and while we flirted constantly, he flat out told me he’d never date me. 

CW: shitty shitty teenage romance behavior, slut shaming

(I, having zero self esteem at the time, continued to be utterly besotted with a guy who said things like “It’s never going to happen” to me - keep in mind I met this guy less than 2 months after my mother’s death and when I’d been moved six hours away from my home and lost all my things and my friends so I was pretty fucking traumatized) 

He went to Germany for the summer (his mother was a German immigrant) and I was heartbroken, but we wrote each other letters the whole time he was gone. He sent them to my great aunt’s house - I was living with my father for the brief period in which I did so and didn’t trust him not to go through my mail - and I remember she called me one morning at 7am on a Saturday to tell me I’d gotten a letter from Germany the day before and she’d only just then checked the mail, and I got up and drove straight over in my pajamas. 

During that summer, I got bored and had a shitty, boring threesome with a girl I was hanging out with and a guy that we all knew. It was a wasted few hours and I thought nothing of it, but when word got back to The Guy in Germany, he flipped his shit and sent me a scathing, horrible letter that was so cruel that the best friend he’d demanded deliver it to me took it right back out of my hands and threw it into the trash. “There,” I remember him saying, “Now he can’t say I didn’t give it to you.” 

I fished it out and read it at work. I don’t remember all of it verbatim anymore, thank god, but one line was “You’ll never be good enough for me.” I was heartbroken. I slept for days until my best friend - a dude - dragged me into the shower of the house I was staying in (no longer at my dad’s at this point, mostly bouncing around as my senior year started) and made me go to Warped Tour with him. When The Guy got back from Germany, that letter had made the rounds (he apparently sent it to a few other people to try to ensure it’d make its way to me) and so many people were furious with him that when he came to a party I was at, almost no one spoke to him. 

He gave me some big “I love you, just not in the way you want me to, sorry I said those things” song and dance that was completely artificial and I played it as cool as I could, pretended I hadn’t been affected. I remember telling him I’d been called far worse by far better men. The long and the short was within the span of a month after this, he started waiting on me at the lockers and walking me to class, and finally he gave me another long letter - one that confessed he loved me and had been in love with me and he knew he’d missed his chance and he was sorry. Despite literally every single red flag I could have possibly been given about this guy, I was still stupidly in love with him (see again: no self esteem) and we proceeded to have a blissful, world rending three months of utter joy before it turned into the most toxic, awful thing either one of us could have done with our time and ended so horribly that I had a complete psychotic break and a hysterical pregnancy. 

So… yeah. It took years for me to really come to understand that all of this was a result of unprocessed trauma and a childhood of various abuses coming to a head after a life altering event. It was rough. I had panic attacks when I thought about accidentally running into him and isolated hard for a while. It took years to get over it, I was already with Cyn by the time I really started to feel like I’d moved past it. 

Now I see it for what it was and I wish someone had stepped in and done something but que sera, sera. 

[ongnable]

spaces between us

a/n: second part of the supernatural au, this time it’s eumyang-sa jinyoung. special mention: sum! my dearest - @moonetc; who provided the title and also helped me proofread for: “player! jinyoung” and “boyfriend! jinyoung" anons (hopefully the length of this series will make up for the fact that i am centuries late)

unfair.

this was so unfair. why did jinyoung have this type of power over you?

he’s ruining your name with each syllable he breathes. ruining it forever, because you know no one else will be able to say it the way he does.

{ supernatural au } kdn | bjy | pwj | osw | hmh | hsw

the families were gathered.

yin-yang symbols that adorned their clothes a clear indication of their bloodline; compass boards tightened to their belts refused to sway even as they sat at their respective seats on the table. the gold linings that traced against gaudy eighteenth mahogany furniture is a stark contrast to the guests’ attire.

grandiose and commanding, the conference rooms of the institute were designed neither to look welcoming or friendly. velvet tapestries decorated the walls up to the high ceiling, while lush carpet lined the floor.

they were there purely for business purposes.

as were the families.

greying hairs piled up on top of her small stature, dry wrinkles deepened on the aged face of the elder when she notes the lack of appearance by their reason for gathering. a clear sigh escapes her without trouble as she twirls the jade pendant hanging low around her neck, twirling it between her first three fingers.

her stamina may have begun to weaken in the last few years, but her magic is still strong. the lack of the heir’s presence isn’t something that can escape the pungsu-jiri circle she’s put up.

“where is jinyoungie?”

from her left side, she could see her only son bite his lower lip nervously before a slight scrunch of his nose forms - a habit he’s surely passed on to his own child. if there was one thing of this family that she knew of - it was that they all shared the same habits. good or bad.

but mostly bad.

it came with growing up in the same wretched conditions, from one generation to the next. an apprentice near a temple learns to recite the scriptures untaught.

“halmeoni!” is shouted from outside the hallway when her grandchild finally shows up. neat in his uniform, hair styled out of his face.

“ahh, our jinyoungie finally decided to make his entrance.”

“better late than never, right?”

the older woman smiled, repeating after her grandson, “better late than never”, dropping the formal air that surrounded her as the crow’s feet lifted. “now go take your seat”. she gestured at the empty space between her daughter-in-law and son.

it was late and you’d just made it out of the library before the magnetic looks were about to shut you in, so it’d been strange to hear someone else still out. their hushed voices echoing down the empty hallway.

even stranger that you could pinpoint one of the voices.

they’d quieted down when they heard you approaching, likely because the pair didn’t want to be caught sneaking around at night. from what you made out before they both when silent, it was a boy and -

“seojeong?” you asked. positive that it was your friend’s voice you’d heard before the speakers went silent.

“oh thank the gods, it was just you!”

it was just me? you raised a brow at your friend’s tone. why the sudden secrecy?

“why are you still out?”

“i was just in the library. i must’ve dozed off without realising.” cracking a smile teasingly, a hand unconsciously comes to rub the back of your head. “you know me.”

“ahh. i’m not even surprised. you’re always so clumsy.” she tutted, “are you heading back to the dorms now?”

“yes; and you...” you glanced at the boy next to seojeong.

tall, kind of lanky under the purposely loosely fitted uniform. not really seojeong’s type now that you think of it, knowing her crush on kang dongho in the upper years. so you don’t stare too long in case it gets rude.

“you too?”

“i’m just going to finish talking to jinyoung before i go back. you head back first. don’t stay out late by yourself - it’s almost the night of full moon after all. i’ve been smelling the wolves out lately.”

“of course.” you try to control the urge to roll your eyes, nothing ever escaped her sense of smell. she probably just wanted to show off a little, it wasn’t as if the wolves could hurt you anyway.

from the corner of your eye you can see this jinyoung studying you in interest. all clinical curiosity and sterile scrutiny. as if you were a wild animal stuck in a petting zoo he wasn’t sure he wanted to touch.

“i’ve never seen you before.” he said, and it gets really hard to hold back an unimpressed expression. something halfway between a snicker and an un-ladylike 'huh?’.

how many times have you heard that line before? it’s even worse when you see how jinyoung treats your friend, ordering her without even so much as glancing her way.

“introduce us.”

seojeong seems to catch on to watch you’re thinking straight away since her pacifist ways start grinding away at the sharp edges of the building pressure.

“she’s not a - aish. i don’t even know why i should bother explaining to you. she’s not one of us.”

“fun.” he talked at if you weren’t there, as if you were beneath him.

even as an outsider, you could tell what seojeong was trying to say to you. to warn you.

us, the eumyang-sa.

so this boy must be related to her. in a sense - you could see it. the same small faces and round eyes. unconsciously hypnotising voices.

“i’m jinyoung, bae jinyoung.” he introduced himself, before turning his attention to you. finally looking at you, instead of through you. yet, it’s uncomfortable - the way he stares as if he’s found new prey. “what’s your name?”

he’s asking for a name. i should tell him... seojeong has told me about her abilities before... so just the first half....

seojeong cuts in before you can say anything. blocking your view of jinyoung.

“don’t answer him.”

y/n, she mouths your name. allowing you to blink open eyes that seem to have closed in your mind. as if a spell over you has been broken.

“don’t answer him.” is repeated, and she’s glaring at jinyoung over her shoulder now.

jinyoung who’s wearing a smirk. a sense of victorious bliss washed over his face when he sees the reaction he’s elicited out of his cousin.

there’s a bitter taste of stark realisation in your mouth when you see that you’ve been a pawn in this stupid game of chess played between the two of them - and your friend has lost because of you - as seojeong hastily drags you away towards the dorms.

“y/n. i’m so sorry about just now. i didn’t mean to get you involved. if it were up to me, i wouldn’t introduce jinyoung to anyone at all. he’s actually nice once you get to know him, but you know what it’s like with us.”

then why did you answer him? you wanted to ask.

but it made sense, because you’d tried to tell him your name too. even when you know you shouldn’t. even when you didn’t.

it was difficult to control.

that fine blurred line between a suggestion and order.

“jinyoung isn’t like me, so please try to not tell him anything if you see him again. i know it’s hard - but he doesn’t need your full name to influence you. he’s the heir.”

the heir. you’re sure you’ve learnt about what an eumyang-sa’s heir can do before during asian history class.

the beginning and ending of wars. the downfall of dynasties.

every hundred years or so - spanning three generations - no can more than one heir exist in the same time frame. holding a power so strong it’s considered a curse.

“if he has your name. it won’t be something weak like what i control, y/n.”

scent. seojeong controlled scent.

the ability that allowed her to match-make couples by manipulating their pheromones. the reason your house always smelt of fragrant flowers and baked goods instead of rotting flesh and blood despite the range of students. how she always evaded the wolves and foxes during sports practice.

as long as she knew their names.

you’ve never once thought of it as weak.

“he’s the grandson of the elder. a direct, pure blood descendant.”

you hear what she’s trying to say. he was strong. very strong.

there was a reason the eumyang-sa families were unafraid to send their children to the institute despite not being classified as another race under the post-ragnarök peace treaty.

“born under the golden dragon, bae jinyoung. if he has your name... it’s your sense of touch he takes away. jinyoung will be able to control your actions.”

the cup of coffee by your side is casually taken from you when someone decides to sit across your normal seat at the library.

you really should’ve known this was going to happen as soon as you learnt that the cousins had been arguing the previous night.

“you’re seojeong’s friend right?” jinyoung’s helping himself to your drink, taking a hearty gulp before placing it next to you again.

“yes,” a friend was a good title to have when dealing with him. “and you’re jinyoung. heir of the eumyang-sa families.”

i know who you are. i know what you can do. i won’t tell you my name.

the best defense is good offense.

“hmmm.” jinyoung leans on his hand as he tilts his head to the side, and he’s staring again. a habit he seems to have developed when it comes to you.

“did you want something, bae jinyoung-ssi?”

“a bit of your time. and maybe a name.” he’s peering over to look at your notebook. one of the little actions that have always bothered you. you don’t understand why people liked looking over at other people’s work so much. “but i don’t think you want to give me your name.”

you give him a small smile. something that won’t be misinterpreted as being overly friendly. followed by a soft shake of the head to emphasise the “no. i don’t.”

because it’ll be more than my name you’ll be taking.

unlike jinyoung who gave you his name so readily, it wouldn’t be like giving gold coins to a cat for you. it’ll be the pearls that he can readily trample and rend you with.

“i just want to be friends.”

“why?”

“why do i need a reason to want to be friends with you?”

“because i’ve heard about you.”

and not just from your roommate. people talk. your class gossips.

none of his friends are low profile either; all them of famous amongst the student body. the boys that lived in dorm a hundred and one were all legends amongst the races.

more importantly, you’d sought out information on him.

this mysterious boy with a voice you couldn’t forget. only - each piece of information served to confuse you more. none of what you’d heard about him made sense.

“you have another girl around your arms each week. you drop classes even before you start attending them. you don’t even leave the dorms unless its to attend the weekend trips out of the institute grounds. we have nothing in common, so why do you want to be friends?”

“you’re close friends with my cousin.”

you knew that amongst the eumyang-sa that attended the institute, seojeong and jinyoung were both outliers. the families usually clung to themselves and travelled in what were jokingly called tribes (privately, you always thought it mocking). was he trying to see if you were genuinely friends with seojeong without ulterior motives?

is he just trying to play the protective family member role?

jinyoung pauses. sizing you up. wondering whether you were worth the trouble of a lie. he settles for telling the truth instead. he could always leave if you proved yourself problematic.

“you’re not scared of us.”

that was... unexpected.

“and i require-” the words get in him, and he quickly swaps for something a little more amicable. “i want someone who isn’t scared of me. to help. for a favour.”

“oh.”

you’ve never had someone force you into doing a favour for them before. what were you supposed to say?

jinyoung didn’t look like he was willing to elaborate either.

the two of you sit in stalemate silence as you continue flagging down the pages of your book, jotting down the occasional note.

and so it goes like that; you - making your cursive notes. him - watching you make your notes. by now, the library is starting to fill in with a few more students as the upperclassmen finish for the day. the two of you inadvertently catching the attention of a few scandalmongers.

“i need to go out with someone who isn’t scared of me.”

it takes a lot of focus for you to not pick up your jaw before it drops on the wooden table. was this how he had legions girls lining up for him? he’d talk to them for a bit, get them a little curious, and then just fire something at them like a thunderbolt in the midst of a clear sky?

people were seriously attracted to these kind of lines?

“you make it sound like all your exes were scared of you.”

“they were.”

jinyoung remembers the way their smiles didn’t reached their eyes, their hands always alert enough to shrink away if he tried holding them. the way they willed their bodies to turn towards him when the tips of their toes faced away; and the way their elbows constantly stuck to them - a barricade.

“then why did you date?” you ask. hushed voice a muffle against the crowd that have just entered the library.

under normal circumstances you’d really feel bad for this guy. because - wow - must be crappy having a girlfriend who’s scared of you. even worse - to have several of them.

but at the same time, the ridiculousness of the whole situation makes it hard to relate.

“because i needed a girlfriend, and they were willing to let themselves be led on in exchange of being treated well.” jinyoung explained.

he knew that none of the girls he’d dated were actually ‘led on’, he’d made clear what his intentions were, and they all knew what was going on. but you didn’t need to know that unless he got your agreement to help.

“right... um...”

'i need a girlfriend.’ you’re not sure people usually placed such importance on dating someone rather than actually liking them.

still. you had no interest in doing the boy in front of you a favour when you had nothing to gain from it. especially not being his girlfriend just for the sake of having rights to said title.

closing your book - since alas, it seemed that studying was not going to be on your agenda today - you look up. excuse prepared on hand.

“why do you think i’m not scared? according to what the old texts say - you could tell me to breathe underwater against my body’s natural defences and i’d still do it.”

flinching, jinyoung’s expression turned grim as his lips settle into an annoyed frown. he probably didn't expect such sharp words when you’ve been exchanging such pleasantries until now.

"how could i possibly not be scared?"

he gestured at you with a tilt of his head.

“i know you’re not.”

from across the table, his bangs part ever so slightly, dusting above his brows as his gaze skims over your fingers. splayed over an open book to mark the page. before his eyes drag up to your face. taking up everything along the way, and finally settling - at your nose? your eyes? you’re not sure.

“your body language gives away a lot.”

the vivid micro-expressions, the gentle angles of your limbs, the un-exhilarated breathing.

even though you weren’t paying attention before; you feel your heart suddenly thundering in your chest, the bass-like resonation loud enough to echo through your ears.

just knowing that he’d been paying such close attention, that someone was studying you so...

“you’re not scared. but i don’t know why."

this was the way he spoke, you thought.

answers that weren’t actual answers. questions that weren’t quite questions.

you shouldn’t answer. you really shouldn’t.

but just like the previous night - there’s a pull to him. an invisible force that bubbles from your chest and pushes up your throat and the words tumble out without much thought. without any thought.

jinyoung’s only answering the bare minimum and yet... and yet... you wanted to know more.

was it because of his voice? part of his ability?

“if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be put at risk even in a hundred battles. if you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. if you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.”

“did you just quote art of war at me?”

there’s a soft shrug you didn’t mean to throw so easily, but one doesn’t read sun tzu for nothing, and you re-focus on the table, packing away stray pens into the case.

if there was ever a good point to stop the conversation - it’d be now.

“but the more you know, the more useless you’ll feel. our power isn’t something you can fight against.”

his voice is sharp. almost accusing as he states his point. but rather than calling you a coward, it’s more like he’s saying ‘you’re an idiot’.

there’s a raised brow on that intricately handsome face, challenging you for a comeback; and against what self control you thought you possessed - it works.

“can’t you just take it as me accepting it? i don’t see why i feel should scared if i’m already prepared for it. not to mention... i think you’re a good person.”

proud, a little arrogant, and self-indulgently rude. the type to brag without reservation, yet had the ability to back it all up.

but people who pay attention to others and observe their peers well are almost always unfailingly kind despite appearances.

so you’ll take your chances.

“let’s just take it as me being willing to take risks. because, bae jinyoung-” you dropped the formalities. “i don’t think you’ll give me anything to be scared of.”

grabbing your bag, you stood without taking a glance back at the boy who just asked you to be his girlfriend.

just an inch more before he’s completely out of earshot - you hear that his seat is unmoved against the carpet floor as jinyoung reaches across to finish the cold coffee that you’ve left behind.

it takes a total of three more times of seeing jinyoung at the library that week before you next speak to him. just enough for it to be bothersome, but not enough for you to consider it an annoyance. he never says anything; but you feel his eyes on you nonetheless -

“you’re here again.”

jinyoung wasn’t studying. he didn’t have books on him, no laptop to keep him occupied, and, certainly - he took another swig from your cup - certainly no drink to keep him awake.

“but there’s no point in you being here at the library.”

“correction. there didn’t used to be a point.”

trust him to make it his mission to try and rile you up even though the two of you have barely spoken.

"i’m sure you have better places to be and better things to do. so maybe, you could, you know… just go.” instead of distracting me.

for some childish reason, it felt as if you admitting that he bothered you - it’d be losing. that it meant you took notice of him. that bae jinyoung’s presence registered with you. you felt immature for thinking so, but it was hard to deny the competitive streak inside.

more-so; the sun was shining outside, the weather was mild, and the library was empty. echoes of the terrestrial species playing basketball rang through the concrete courts, the dribbling beat an unpredictable staccato.

even you felt tempted to go out for a bit.

“why are you even here?”

“because you are.”

it should make you blush. words like this were designed to be just right. neither too much nor too little. little things that tug at the heartstrings and pull you closer step by step.

but something else bothers you.

he was doing it again, answering only the bare minimum. making you lead the conversation. studying his face for any sign or indication of him initiating more of the exchange and finding none, you move to pack away your stuff from the table.

evidently, you weren’t going to get anything done today. so there was no point in wasting your time here.

purposefully leaving your drink behind, you push it towards jinyoung. for once, it’d still be warm when he finished it.

how he could ever stomach the cold tea or coffee he took (stole stole stole, the petty side in you chants) always equally confused and impressed you.

“you’re leaving early today.”

“i’m not focusing.”

he smirks, and the unease you didn’t think you were feeling decreases a little inside. the stuffiness you had blamed upon cabin fever floats into something akin to lightheaded ease.

compared to the stoic, un-movingness he’d been displaying; a cocky and prideful jinyoung was turning out to be much more pleasant to be around. more natural.

“it’s because i’m here isn’t it?”

“ah. but then i wouldn’t have stayed for the last few days either, would i?”

it wasn’t as if he hadn’t showed up before.

turning back to look at him. something you’ve been doing a lot lately, you realize belatedly. there’s a warning glint in those dark eyes when they peek through his long bangs.

“but yeah.” effortlessly swallowing pride, you give exactly one curt nod. “i’ll give it to you. you’re part of the reason, bae jinyoung.”

“i’m distracting you.”

yes yes yes yes you’re distracting me so please stop

he shoves the almost empty cup back into your hands. as if he’s unwilling to finish it off. there’s two sips left inside, so you will yourself to think that it’s just because he doesn’t want to be the one throwing away the trash as you tip it back.

no good would come out of you thinking too deeply into non-existent affections.

“but why? it’s not as if i’m the one who hasn’t answered questions.”

thinking back, it was true. jinyoung may answer cryptically, but he’s never hedged away any of your questions even when they were too inquisitive.

not to mention ‘the favour’ still sat in the awkward space between the two of you, but you refused to bring it up again first in case he had meant it as a joke.

favour my ass, you wanted to argue, more like request. or order.

“is it because i’m so handsome?”

shameless. really, he was shameless.

“you wish. you aren’t my type.”

“oh, so you have a type. that’s good. i can try and match it if you tell me. if it’s a specific someone, just tell me their name - i’ll even better them if i can have that.”

“i-” flush. that’s what you promptly do when he lowers his height to meet yours. it wasn’t noticeable when he simply sat across you. but standing, it was plain to see that you both did not see eye to eye.

literally or metaphorically speaking.

a few seconds of silence settles in as you wreck your brain for what really was your type. it was something you’ve always said to keep people off your back whenever asked to attend blind dates. but you’d never actually thought of it seriously.

perhaps someone who respected the elderly? liked pets? you honestly didn’t know. someone who seldom lied, maybe?

thinking hard, your mind busies itself with the sudden unanswerable question. another one. frustratingly. but you refused to have another answer you owe him.

only when you see him trying to hold back his laugh that you finally register it as a joke.

it’s the first time you’ve heard him laugh like that. not the snarky huffs that materialise out of schadenfreude, and not the mocking smirks he does just because someone must’ve told him that its how you go around breaking hearts. it rumbles from within and comes out giddy and childlike, innocent and boyish, and whatever words you had get stuck at the top of your throat.

“come on, the sun is shining, the weather is mild, and the library is so boring.” he leans back, gesturing for you to follow him, angling his body towards the institute’s most popular coffee shop. unsurprising as it happened to be the only one.

how did he-?

still frozen in your spot, jinyoung beelines to grab your hand when you make no movement to follow in his first few steps ahead. the smile he flashes you taking a mischievous turn as he pulls you through the shelves. the leaking sunlight strobing his silhouette through each awning windows the two of you pass.

“let’s head out. i’ll buy you another cup.”

{part 2} to be updated

masterlist

[darkageofwar]

The Last Testament of Enric Zaughn

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me like this. I’m terrified of what a Marshal might do if I spoke in public, and the idea of being recorded means even small crowds are equally monstrous. So again, thank you for listening to me like this, for taking the chance to believe me, and remember all of what I am going to spit is true.

My name is Enric Zaughn of Real Barsona, and I am 1037 years old.

Yes, yes, not 37, a thousand and 37, maybe, but let me explain please.

I was recruited into the 257th Real Barsona Line Regiment, and, if you’ll allow me to brag, was the best Viell player in the signal companies. Oh you should have heard me when I got going, old boots would tap with me, and I even nearly made it into the Regiments grand band. Imagine how mad Contrat would have been if I took his spot, he’ probably blow me a new-

What? Oh sorry, sorry, I’ll get back to speaking right.

Well, we were being shoved off in the...the old transport...Lady of The Stars! Yeah, Lady of The Stars, that was her name. Well, we were marching with a whole fleet to take out a Robber Baron in Khris when, wouldn’t you know it, some of them decided to meet us halfway.

Don’t wanna get into it too much, but The Lady wasn’t supposed to be alone like she was, so you can guess how long before a whole bunch of them boarded. Hard to even call it a fair fight when about all our officers were in the heavens, we couldn’t use out full rounds, and the emergency supply of canister wasn’t. After a day we were down to bayonets, swords, axes, some sergeant spears, ship pipes, spike bombs, bottles, butts, teeth, anything we could sink into them. It was a blood bath, a full month of nothing but-

I’m sorry, but what’s in your pocket?

Oh a pipe!

What?

I’m not a Marshal, you can shoot up all you want. In fact, give me a shot too, I need something nice. Don’t worry, I’m a grown man, I won’t bomb it.

Ah, nice and painful. The story? Right, right.

We couldn’t do too much before they rounded us all up, and I guess our Choir had been killed, or else there would have been at least some scout to help us. I tried to go out on a stand, but events I couldn’t do nothing about meant I wound up in some cages instead. They tried interrogating the ones in there, and I, of course, only told them what they deserved to know. The captain must have really liked my honor, because before we knew it, I was lined up in charge of watching everyone else pretty close.

What? No, no no no no, I didn’t do that, no soldier would, I just really think they sparked with me.

Besides, they understood it, they knew I had to, there was no way they couldn’t. Everyone knew I was just doing what a soldier had to, and besides, it wasn’t anything they wouldn’t have done either.

So I watched the cages on The Faithless Servant for a...well, how long doesn’t matter. Just know that one day, they came out and the Captain snapped on me. Of course he did, since all those brigands are all the same, a twig shot in the head, gifting you one day, ready to hang you the next. And, are you ready, he said that I, a true soldier, with the stupidest thing I ever could imagine, had snuck into his daughter to-

Sorry to ask again, but what is in your pocket?

Not the pipe, your other one.

Oh, it’s just some coin...just some coins? I’m only asking because...

Right. My story.

They tried to kill me then and there, cause crazy and all, but an act of gods came through for me. We were in Hyperspace at the time, their blind idiot of a pilot steering the ship right into a storm, of course. At least, I think that’s what must have happened, since the ship just began crunching, bending, twisting our of nowhere, whole halls being wider than a field, thinner than a card, then taller than the sky in the blink of your eyes, regardless what was standing in it. Then there’s the screams, of the screams, they were thick enough to swim through, over and over and over, from everywhere and everything, begging for mercy, begging for gods, begging for an end to it all! The screamless places weren’t any better, the battering of something slamming into everything bombarding your ears, and between us, I don’t know how I didn’t change like the rest of them.

But, I didn’t change.

See, after a day, maybe a day, I hope it was only a day, dear gods I pray it was only a day, things went the other way. Oh sure, the pelting was there, but it sounded half the galaxy away, the screaming, rending, and other unpleasents being placed with whimpers you had to press your ear against them to make out. Not that they all died, but...well, I was the only moving thing left that was intelligent. Tried eating and drinking for calm, but it’s kind of hard to when the spirits want to chat and the food proves it can dance.

So I wandered the ship like that, always starving, dying of thirst, waiting for the step where the floors of walls decided to reduce me down. I wandered like that for a thousand years.

Yes, the thousand years again.

Yes, I don’t look a fight over 30, I know.

Yes, yes, that Khris system was only taken over by a Baron about 8 years ago.

Yes yes yes yes yes, they say the 257th was lost to raiders only 6 years ago, but that’s the lie.

And what is in your pocket? No, not those, the pocket my friends keep growling me about.

My Friends?

My Friends!

My friend, I haven’t told you about my Friends yet!

You see, one day I found something like a fat baby Viell in one of the rooms I was trying to sleep in and, since you can only hear the same nothings every day for so many days, I tuned it up for a draw. Wasn’t pretty mind you, but I could draw on it for something a little special, and it was then that my Friends came to watch. True, there were walls, but the yellow orbs they got for eyes didn’t care, peaking through the dead light shadows, every wall, corner, crack, crease, it all having a set of them big old eyes watching me.

Some of them even found themselves inside with me, the ones in the shadows still all blurry like, but the ones in light had their friend frames with fluffy, spindly, moltenly, amethyst  skin, or fur, or scales, or whatever it was they had. Most of them were on all their limbs on the ground, but some of them were twice as tall as the room, passing through the roof like nothing, still watching me with that big yellow eyes. Some had claws, some had talons, some had nothing, it really didn’t matter what they had because they kept applauding me with whatever it was the more I played for them, and the more I played for them, the more they clapped.

I had never played such beautiful music before then, and they gave me a just reward for a just soldier.

They changed the ship for me, leading a new bridge out over a vast desert to a massive palace of bones all smelted together with a giant moon like diamond above it all to take the light we didn’t need. Inside, oh inside were endless balls filled with all of my Friends in celebration over everything, billions and billions of groaning under the weight of literal mountains of food. I gorged myself for ten years, tasting the flesh of every meat and fruit, drowning myself in every sweet nectar and bitter soul, my Friends always having one more dish to try.

It was paradise.

After those years I was eating with the Overlord Aiznockt, such a plump and mirthful god, who thanked me for being such a great guest and Friend for their humble meal. Aiznockt told me that I, Me of all people, could help us, that I could bring their joy to our suffering hell of a lie, that I and I alone could bring an end to all suffering. They gave me the sweetest meal I ever imagined and right there, with a soldier’s hesitation, I agreed to help my Friends. So they gave me The Faithless Servant, they gave me a humble crew of Friends, they gave me everything I’d need to know, then they gave me you.

What, you thought this was your idea?

Oh, no no no no, my friend, you see, this is what we wanted.

They made sure this place was here. They made sure you had heard of us.  They made sure we could meet. They made sure we were abandoned together.

You thought you’re the first I told? I’ve talked a dozen times a day every day for five years! Everyone who leaves has full faith in my words, my Friends helping those who simply can’t understand, and have been with us this whole time. They have watched you very closely, told me many wonderful things I need to know.

But they can’t tall me what is in your pocket.

Oh sure, they’ve told me about you pipe and leaves, your Thaller and 27 Mill Thallers in coins, your pills in a sleeve pocket, your tiny device near your chest that I pray for your sake is not a horn...but not your pocket.

They told me of your secret pocket, the one your hand rests on, but not what’s inside.

They try to invade your secret pocket, but my friends are angry that they can’t.

They don’t get angry easy, for everything should be filled with joy, so I get Very Angry the more disturbed my Friend’s get.

So I demand to know one last time:

What is in your-

[terrestrialstuff]

"There's no turning back now, there's no one coming for you except for me" possessed jackieboiman?

{I fell asleep halfway through writing this. Should remember not to post writing requests past midnight…But hey that means I get to post this on Jackie’s birthday so it’s not all bad.

I also spent way too long on Jackieboyman’s backstory but it makes for an interesting read I hope.

I wanted this to be a quick little snippet but it ended up being almost 2k. Also, I’m sorry this took so long but I hope you like it!}

Jackieboyman liked using the net to find his dates. He was a better flirt when writing that he was face to face anyway, always getting so hot and flustered. The girl he was talking to lately was nice, a brunette with short hair and a gift for drawing. They had been on one other date in a coffee shop, and today they would meet at Jackie’s house. Which was convenient for him if things got bad but would also heighten the chances of her stumbling upon things she really shouldn’t stumble upon.

When she knocked on the door, the young lady wondered how a simple accountant could afford a house like the one she was standing in front of. Jackie had said he had finally gotten a stable job after finishing his degree a few years prior and he had certainly looked the part, his look half one of a businessman and half of a college student, mixing button-up shirts and ripped jeans as if he had only had enough time to change half his attire before meeting her on their first date, which was oddly cute.

He opened the door in the same jeans he wore for their first date, and a shirt with a reference she didn’t get but looked really good on him. She was glad to see that he wasn’t overdressed, as she herself had gone with a simple skirt and shirt.

The date went well. They cooked and ate together, an oddly domestic thing to do on their second date but Jackie liked it. He liked how easy it was to be himself with her, how she could almost keep him at bay. Almost.

Once they had finished their dinner, his date asked him to point her to the bathroom, and Jackie gave her directions without a second thought. Except she must’ve misunderstood him because less than a minute later he heard a scream and instantly realized that his room was next to the bathroom. And that Jackie had forgotten to lock the door to said room. This would be hard to explain but as long as the other didn’t show up he should be alright. He got up to try and go talk to her when he felt it. He was here, trying to get access to his mind. No, no, no, not now! Go away! Go away!

She should’ve known that he was too good to be true. A funny, nice, financially stable man attracted to her? There had to be something wrong with him. At least she had discovered it before she became too invested. Her scream was a gut reaction, something she couldn’t control. She stopped herself as quick as she could, but she was sure he’d heard. All around her, bodies were on display. The room must’ve once been clean but was now covered in blood and human remains. It looked like something out of a horror movie, and she really didn’t want to know how or even why these people ended up there. Oh Lord, what could she do now? Her only option was to run, she guessed. Her car was in the driveway, but to leave this way she would have to go through the living room where he was. Looking around her, trying not to vomit as she noticed more… parts around her, she noticed an open window, probably opened as to not stink the place out. It was her only way out, but for that, she would’ve to cross the room filled with dead bodies and she really didn’t want to do that.

She heard a chair being pushed and figured Jackie was on the move. If she didn’t hurry she would be next. As dreadful as the room was, it was her only shot. Holding her breath, she crossed the room and pushed herself out the window. Once she was outside, she wondered why she couldn’t hear Jackie anymore. By now he should’ve at least reached the room but she still couldn’t hear him. It didn’t matter, all she needed to do was get to her car and then drive as far away as she could before going to the police. She hoped they would believe her, as she had, in her hurry to leave, forgotten to take pictures.

Jackie was surprised that he didn’t go after her right away. The other decided instead to take his sweet time, stretching. He could smell the blood coming from the room, and it only made him happier. The only way for her to leave was with her car, so he wasn’t that concerned. All he had to do was find a way to rend her car unusable and he would get her eventually. Smiling to himself, he got up from the chair and headed to the driveway. You can’t drive a car if you have no battery. Or wheels.

Oh no. Even before arriving at her car, she knew she was fucked. The tires were trashed, not just pierced but ripped apart. The hood was open, revealing a missing battery. She now knew why Jackie didn’t come straight after her. He was smarter than she gave him credit for. She looked around for an escape. He’d told her his neighbors were out for the week, so there was no use asking them for help. This left her with only one escape route - the woods. She wasn’t a fan of hiking but she also had no other choice. She’d left her phone in the living room - she didn’t think she would need it in the toilet really - so she had no way to call 999. Into the woods it is.

The other was having a grand ole time, as he liked to say. He had a victim on the run and no way for her to escape, her phone in his pocket and her car broken. He heard a branch snap from where he was hiding at the edge of the woods. It was her only remaining solution, he had made sure of that. He could hear Jackie screaming, locked in his own mind but not in control of his body anymore. Oh, this was going to be so much fun…

He could see the girl only a few yards away from him, trying not to make any noise but failing. He decided to let her wander for a while, keeping a close watch on her while he thought of the best way to get her.

She had reached the forest surprisingly easily. Now all she had to do was get to a safe location and call the police. Her heart was beating into her ears so loudly that she could barely hear herself. Still, she tried to make as less noise as she could, in case he was hunting her. Which he probably was. The vision of all the dead bodies came to her again, making her lose her footing for a second. She had heard about all the disappearances in town lately, but knowing who was behind them was disturbing to say the least. Even more disturbing was the fact that it was a person she was dating, even if only once - she didn’t count the date she was currently supposedly on for obvious reasons.

She was walking deeper and deeper into the woods without any indication as to if she was going in the right direction, but she had no intention to go back. Not to him. No matter how deep into the woods she wandered she always felt like he was just behind her, always there, always watching.

He was getting bored. Watching her stumble around the forest was fun for a time but he wanted an actual chase, not this tracking he had to do to know where she was going. The entity possessing Jackie took out a knife from its belt and sneaked closer to the girl. He was close enough to smell her now. Just one more step and he could…

Crack

He’s there. She broke into a run without a second thought. She didn’t turn back to check if he was following her, she didn’t want to know if he was there. All she wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry, but she couldn’t. She had to keep running if she wanted to live.

She would not live for long. Jackie knew he was getting impatient. He liked the thrill of the chase but he liked the thrill of spilling blood even more. Jackie hated that, hated that he made him watch, powerless as all he could do was scream and trash at the mental prison he was trapped in. The other knew how badly Jackie was affected by this, how much the wannabe hero wanted to save each and every person he came into contact to. Not on my watch, Super-Zero.

Jackie could see that he was closing in on the girl, he felt the impact when he launched at her and crushed her, pinning her to the ground. He felt her struggle and fight back, but he couldn’t do anything to stop it. He could only hear his voice as the other spoke: “There’s no turning back now, there’s no one coming for you except for me”

She screamed as the was pushed to the ground, the weight of his body trapping her and rendering her unable to fight. She still tried, but somehow she knew this was the end. The man above her looked nothing like her date, his jeans were even more ripped than they had been, and his shirt suffered the same treatment. Thinking back to all the bodies, she figured this must’ve been why he lived near the woods. In here, no one could hear her scream. This didn’t mean she wouldn’t try, though, and she gave it her all, hoping that for some mysterious reason someone would hear her and come rescue her. That’s when he spoke and God, his voice was chilling her to the bone. He didn’t sound human, anymore, his voice almost glitching and echoing as he spoke: “There’s no turning back now, there’s no one coming for you except for me”. The last thing she saw was his glowing green eye before she felt her skin tear and he stabbed her through the heart.

Jackie felt his body readying itself for the hit, saw the knife shine just before it was plunged right into the girl’s heart. He felt his lips part into a crazy smile, felt his body react to the kill. And yet it wasn’t him. It wasn’t his fault. All he wanted was a nice date, but like everything good he had in his life he had to come and fuck it all up. One day he’d have his revenge. One day he’d hurt him like he’d been hurt. And then he’d be the one praying for forgiveness.

[twirlinginthefade]

Home Is Where the Heart Is 4/?

In which: Ladders are assholes, Rowan gives a Terror a scare, and the first rift is closed

Rowan resisted the urge to scream. The way up the mountain had been full of ladders, and climbing them was a nightmare. She gave up halfway up the first ladder and took to letting her metal leg hang down while she climbed with her arms and used her other leg as support. Varric opened his mouth to comment (or offer help the less cynical part of her mind whispered) more than once, only to be silenced by her practically jumping onto the next ladder and beginning to scale it like a spider monkey.

Now her arms were sore, there were demons everywhere and the place was full of stairs.

May the Gods of her mother curse all stairs.

“Hey kid, you doing okay?” Varric eyed her from where she was wiping down her staff. “You’re muttering alot”

“I'm fine” she answered automatically, slinging the staff back onto her back. “Just want to get this done”

They finished the last set of stairs and Rowan swallowed the sigh of relief when she saw the bodies littered in front of the exit. Most of them were face down, ragdolled on the ash and snow covered ground. The only one that was face up was young woman, only slightly older than her. Rowan quietly bent over and closed her once-blue eyes, ignoring the fact that her chest had been split open.

Her skin was still warm.

Stairs could wait. Whoever did this deserved to be hunted down and torn apart by crows.

“This cannot be all of them” Cassandra mused aloud, counting the scattered bodies.

“Think the others are holed up ahead?” Rowan looked back to where Varric stood close to the Seeker, helping her roll over the other scouts.

“Our priority must be the Breach. If we do not seal it soon, no one will be safe” Solas added from the side, looking away from the bodies and instead gazing towards the Breach. A murmur went through them and they went forwards.

After a few steps, Rowan felt it. A whisper, the softest kiss. Claws against her cheek and fingers along her spine.

“Rift!” She went faster, ignoring the pain and the shouts of her companions. The whisper was different this time, darker and more sinister. Less cloying sunshine and more harsh saltwater against abraded skin.

She skidded to a halt mere steps from a Shade, its head bobbing as it went towards a downed scout. The hairs came up on the back of her neck as it turned to her and screamed. The sound was cut short by a bolt hitting its head, sinking in with a squealing thunk. Varric arrived next to her with a glare.

“You! What were you thinking?

She blinked at him for a moment. “Rift?”

A very angry Cassandra smacked another Shade about to claw the face off of one of the scouts and Solas blasted the other with vibrant ice while Rowan anchored herself to the saltwater rift. The feeling of drowning washed over her, subtly choking water filling her lungs and carrying her with it. But the surface was easy to find, saltwater letting her pass with ease, not minding the sting against her skin.

She came out with a lackluster pop and found the rift was still open, tiny puddles of green mist spread across the ground.

“Maker, why is it still open?” Cassandra wondered, sword still outstretched. A scout hobbled over to her, hand spread against her ribs.

“It could be that the rift is more powerful than the others. Perhaps there is something more to it” Solas used as the puddles erupted, pulling two new creatures into the world.

The new beings were tall, lanky things with mouths ripped open, stretched down to the base of their necks and claws the size of Rowan’s hand. One of them stood to its full height and turned its crooked head towards Rowan.

Then it disappeared.

“Form up! They come from below!” A scout shouted as she and two others fought the other one, knives and arrows flashing.

Rowan felt a hand grab her and swallowed her panic when she felt Cassandra pull her behind her, pushed between the Seeker and Varric, who was facing the other way, bolts at the ready. Looking around, she saw Solas on the fringe, alone. And the bubbling puddle behind him.

“Solas! Behind you!” She shouted and saw no sign that he had heard her. She moved forward to get out, only to have Cassandra pull her back.

“Stay here! I cannot have you running away when we are so close” The Seeker grabbed her arm, keeping her still.

Rowan met Cassandra’s eyes and popped the Seeker in the mouth.

Cassandra staggered back and Rowan darted off, just as the green demon burst out of the puddle.

Solas was quick with his magic, hitting the demon in the legs with a blast of ice as it hit him from the side, sending the elf sprawling.

“Solas!” Rowan watched as he dazedly went up onto his elbows, the Terror stalking towards him. “Head down!” Thankfully, he immediately went flat again.

She skidded to a stop, right foot sideways. She hefted the spear and thought back to the Shades, to the Wraiths. The feeling of sunshine, tar and saltwater. Sparks in her veins. The staff flew, a javelin in the hands of a gladiator with a prayer to Jupiter on her chapped lips.

The staff hit the Terror in its neck, the blade striking into its elongated mouth. Then Rowans intent hit, the sparks bursting into a indigo cloud. The resulting scream made Rowan resist putting her hands over her ears as it writhed and finally laid still on the ground.

Ignoring the looks from her companions, she focused again on the rift. Saltwater under her skin, an abyss below. But she knew its trick now and pushed towards the light. She pulled the edges together, sealing it with the feeling of an undertow.

She came back to the world with a waver, blinking rapidly as she adjusted to the sight of snow.

“You are becoming proficient at this” Solas approached her from the side, with both of their staves in hand. He handed hers back, the blade still covered in ichor.

“Lets hope it works on the big one. Also, Cassandra looks like she is going to murder you” Varric pointed out, motioning to the bloodied Seeker talking to the scouts. Rowan sighed nodding.

“Time to face the music” She walked over to the Seeker, waiting patiently for her to dismiss the scout. After a moment, the scout left with her squad and Cassandra turned, nose bloodied and scowl set, to Rowan. “Before you yell at me, I'm sorry I punched you but it was the only way I could think of to have you let me go and Solas was in danger and-”

“Enough” Rowan looked up to Cassandra. “You must understand that there is more to this than a random apostate and you dying would ruin our chances of closing the Breach”

Chastised, Rowan looked down, trying to hold in her protests. Cassandra had a point, but everything in her body wanted to protest the potential of a blackened Mark.

“However” Rowan’s head shot up to see a weary look replace the anger. “I cannot say I would not do the same if it were my Marked.”

Rowan chewed her lips and presented her wrists to the Seeker. “I understand if you would prefer me bound” There was a pause before she felt Cassandra’s hand clasp around her wrist and lower them.

“I will not bind you. But please, do not punch me again”

“I’ll try”

The group of them continued on, facing towards the Breach. The next ladders were easy, Rowan sliding down with renewed determination. Soon, they arrived at the temple and Rowan saw the true cost of the Breach.

All around the temple were bodies, burned, twisted and some in the midst of screaming. The floor was still smoldering and the stones were still hot to the touch. Surrounding the area were walls of huge, blackened stone riddled with veins of sickly green that pulsed with her heartbeat.

“Here we are, the Temple of Sacred Ashes” Varric was standing next to her, amber gaze sweeping along the scattered, kneeling bodies. He looked up to her, something unknown in his eyes. His mouth opened for a moment, before closing without a single word passing his lips.

Near silent, Rowan walked amount the bodies, careful to not disturb the dead. The dead here were diverse. Bodies larger than Cassandra, horned and huge, bodies as small as Varric, lithe as Solas. Bodies, too small to be anything other than a child.

Rowan swallowed her bile. “Whoever did this will suffer” the words were unbidden, snarled in the quiet. She caught Cassandra’s looks from the corner of her eye and turned. “If I did this, do not take pity on me. I would not want you to.”

She rounded the corner alone, missing the exchange of expressions from her companions. She stopped, breath held as she saw the Breach up close for the first time.

It was beautiful.

All around its weeping tear was smoke, coloured like fresh grown grass and absinthe. The smell of roasted flesh gave way to saltwater, petrichor, and ozone, woven together like a quiet symphony. Sparks dripped from the crystal in the middle, shattering against the air as they fell like tiny fallen stars.

It was terrifying.

The smoke hid rips and rends and tears. The smell of decay and mold cut through the salt and storm. The crystal screamed with a hundred voices, each crying out for hope, or mercy or faith. Each call unanswered by whatever God had tended this barren garden.

Unknowingly, Rowan had begun to walk forwards to the Breach, her steps unthinking against the pitted, burned ground. She had begun to step on the rising ground near a crumbled stone banister when Solas gripped her upper arm and jerked her back.

“Do not listen to it” He told her quietly, Rowan blinking away the Breach. “Do not give it your attention, just keep going and ignore it.” She gave a quiet nod and he released her arm, but kept close to her. Both mages ignored the look Cassandra gave them when she came up.

“You’re here! Thank the Maker.” A familiar voice made Rowan perk up and she turned to see Leliana with a small pack of scouts behind her. The Seeker and her spoke quietly outside of Rowan’s hearing range, Leliana occasionally looking up at her. Before long, the two directed groups of Leliana’s scouts to station themselves around the Temple and for some of the soldiers to join them.

“This is your chance to end this. Are you ready?” The Seeker joined Solas and Rowan near the railing and looked up to the Breach with an inscrutable expression.

“Ready as I’ll ever be I suppose. Are you going to be putting me on a ladder or do I have to jerry-rig a harness to get up there?”

“Neither. The rift there is the first," Solas pointed to a rift, about 15 feet above the ground "and if we seal it, perhaps we seal the Breach.” He made an ‘after you’ motion and Rowan sighed.

“Let's find a way down then. And be careful, it looks unstable.”

The four of them were joined by Leliana and they all began to walk down the rubble path.

After a moment, there was a quiet rumble from the air, and a deep voice spoke. “Now is the hour of our victory. Bring forth the sacrifice”

Cassandra perked up as the voice trailed off, her brow furrowing. She turned to Solas with a questioning look. “What are we hearing?”

“At a guess? The person who created the Breach”

They passed a pair of archers, the two of them adjusting their bows and quietly talking. They both looked up as the group passed and stared at Rowan, making her look away in discomfort. A hand on the middle of her back led her on, a quick look showcasing Varric glaring back at the scouts. He gave her a soft look and she gave a smile in return and mouthed a thank you.

Soon, crystals in a deep, vibrant red were jutting from the ground and she heard a quiet growl from Varric. “This is red lyrium Seeker”

A look from Cassandra. “I am aware Varric”

“But what’s it doing here?”

“Perhaps it was raised up when the Breach was opened and was corrupted.” Solas mused.

Varric matches Cassandra and makes a noise of disgust. “Its evil” He looks to Rowan and her look of interest at the lyrium. “Whatever you do, don't touch it”

Rowan is about to open her mouth to ask why when the voice echos again. “Bring forth the sacrifice”

Then, slightly louder, “Someone help me!”

The voice startles Cassandra who blurts out “That was Divine Justina’s voice!” The Seeker charges forwards, Varric close behind, into the pit down the broken stairs. Solas follows more sedately and Rowan meeps as she stumbles over the stones in order to catch up.

The drop into the pit nearly makes Rowan cry when she drops down, accidentally landing on her prosthetic and jarring her already sore stump. She grips the wall momentarily, pushing the pain away with the rest of it. Repressing the pain is easier now.

She turns away from the wall, carefully not meeting Varric’s eyes. Cassandra is standing almost in the middle of the space, facing the rift. As Rowan walks over, her hand sparks and the rift answers.

The space is white and misty, bleak monochrome, save for the figures in the mist. One is towering, dark and vibrant crimson smoke, while the other is a woman, clothed in robes similar to the ones she had seen on the Chancellor.

The woman speaks. “Someone help me!” She shouts again and the doors burst open. Rowan is there standing in her nightgown, her face unbruised and hair still slightly mussed from the day before. Her leg is on full display, showcasing the prosthetic's shining metal.

She looks up to the darker figure and squares up. “Let her go!”

The Divine looks at Rowan over her shoulder. “Run while you can! Warn them!”

The Shadow turns to the girl and points with a clawed finger. “Kill the cripple”. Their (his?) voice booms, echoing through the space as another flash passed through the air. Rowan winced at the light and the words before her upper arms were seized and Cassandra was in her face asking questions.

“You were there! Who attacked? The Divine is she...? Was the vision true? What-”

“Cassandra, stop, you’re hurting me!” Rowan pushed at Cassandra’s chest and stared at her with a scared expression. “I don't remember anything. I remember waking up in a fucking dungeon and people beating for something I had no idea about. Now I’m in pain, seeing things I don't recall happening in a fucking hole in the ground and wondering if I’m even going to survive a day after meeting you after waiting 21 goddamned years!" Rowan panted after her rant, backed away from the rest of her group. “I just want to get this done” she whispered, voice breaking slightly.

The group was silent until Solas held out a hand to Rowan. “The rift is not sealed” He led her over to the rift until she was standing almost directly underneath it. “It is closed however, but only temporarily. To fully seal it, we must open it and seal it properly.” He looked to Cassandra. “It will cause attention from the other side, so be prepared.”

Cassandra followed his train of thought and made a signal to the scouts and soldiers. “That means demons! Be ready!”

Solas stepped back and left Rowan alone with the song and swirl of the Breach.

She looked up into the rift, looked through and saw the stitch holding it closed. She reached out and ripped.

The demon was on her in an instant.

Lightning crackled around her and a hand snatched her back as the demon swung its arm it her. The demon filled her vision, all purple scales and shifting eyes. It had no whisper, nothing quiet in its massive body. Someone steered her away, passed her along. The sounds of fighting ran past her ears, past her mind. Because all she could hear was her.

“You could be so much more. You are so much more, aren't you?” She (they?) boomed. “All of these people, they aren't important, are they? You saw.” The demon batted away a scout, only to be hit with a familiar white burst. “You are needed. How important. We could be so good together, so powerful.” The demon looked at her and screamed. “Be mine and we could be great” They purred.

Rowan looked back and with all her strength said “No” before she connected to the rift again.

Screams filled her head, each one clawing and clamoring for space in her skull. She pushed them away, only for them to come back in full force. Pushing again, she found them closer, trying harder to get into her skin.

The more she pushed away, the more they pushed forwards. So, she let them in.

The pain came rushing back first. Her arm, her leg. Her eyes, head, and chest. The anger, the fear and frustration swam through her and for a moment she was the rift, inside the Breach. She felt whole in a way she had not felt since she was 13 and a drunken trucker had taken her dancing.

But the feeling couldn't stay. The Breach had to be sealed and she was no longer that little dancing girl in a pink dress.

She pulled away, ripping herself from the singing tear. It hurt, pieces of her coming away and then bouncing back twice as sensitive. She could hear screaming, distant and out of reach until she realized it was her, screaming out her real lungs, in her patchwork body in the world that had given her the soulmates she had been waiting for.

Then it was quiet, dark and safe. There were hands, touching her arms and begging her to stay. Too many hands, too many voices. The spread of blackened marks, a stopped heart.

Blissfull, unending quiet.