#I guess you could say the mind stone also required a sacrifice though…

[theeemeraldstar]

I’m just saying.. if the soul stone requires sacrificing a person you love, it should be the one in the middle of the gauntlet 🤷🏻‍♀️

[capstoverogers]

A Soul for a Soul - Chapter 2

Pairings: Past Natasha Romanoff/Black!Reader, Eventual Carol Danvers/Black!Reader

Genre: Grief/Angst

Warnings: Mention of Characters' Death, Cursing, Lots o' Sad

Word Count: 3,016

Chapter 1

-----

There was a party raging on the battlefield, because no one didn’t know what else to do, except you all knew Tony would want you to celebrate. But maybe everyone just wanted to put off mourning till morning, didn’t quite yet want to deal with the consequences, for better or for worse.

It was an easier concept to swallow when Thor and his pretty warrior friend with the flying horse disappeared for a moment, then came back in minutes with as much Asgardian beer and liquor as they could manage (which, between the two of them, was a whole damn lot). A friend of Rocket’s - Star Lord - then took the charge, cracking open the first beer and finishing off half it in a single gulp before blasting some mix tape of 70s tunes from his space ship that soon turned the battlefield, this graveyard, into an all-out function.

The largest fire you’d ever seen raged where the compound once stood, courtesy of Zoey, and bodies started to move under the moonlight, freely to the music, helped of course by the copious amount of liquor that helped bury down any sense of sadness in favor of this celebration.

You couldn’t focus, though. You still hadn’t managed to find Nat in this swarm of familiar and strange faces, and she was the only one you wanted to see. Once you had her in your arms, then you could let yourself celebrate - or at least you could try. Even as everyone slowly started to let loose, there was this permeating sense of sadness, as prevalent as the cascades of smoke soaring upward from the fire, as no one could escape the thought of the sacrifice that allowed you all to celebrate like this.

It was like everything was in the way, though, and you supposed you could give a few minutes to these friends who you hadn’t seen in years before you found your wife.

“I can’t believe you’re married!” Zoey was gushing as you stood in a small circle with Bucky, Sam and Steve; the superpowered were wielding Asgardian drinks while the rest of you eyed their bottles enviously. You couldn’t help but grin, showing off the simple, but sleek vibranium band on your finger as Sam pretended to squeal like a valley girl with a hand to his chest and Bucky shot you a simple grin as he held out his metal arm.

“We match.”

You beamed at him, though not with the fervency of Steve, who hadn’t pulled his eyes from the Winter Solider for a second since the battle had ended. Well, except to urgently meet your eyes, seemingly desperate to pull you away for a private moment. You didn’t know why - didn’t know if you wanted to know why - and found yourself avoiding his gaze as it drifted to the crowds of people, hoping to catch the one face you wanted to see above all else.

“I feel like I know no one,” Zoey murmured beside me, also taking in all the people around her. “It’s weird to think that it’s been five years. It felt like…a malfunction. One second I was gone and the very next second, I was here, like nothing happened. Like the world had just…glitched.”

“Like a blip,” Bucky said knowingly. Zoey nodded with a frown, then perked up when the Jackson 5 started blaring from the speakers. She turned eagerly to you, already drifting to where Star Lord had started up a makeshift dance floor.

“We gotta dance!”

Sam was nodding fervently, a little grin playing at his lips as he started to move easily to the beat. You grinned a little, but you were still so distracted, especially as you could sense Steve about to interject, his eyes once again set on you, and you couldn’t get caught in a conversation with him. As much as you truly loved him, they tended to be endless.

“I’ll meet y’all out there,” you assured, backing away before their protests could fully reach your ears. “Gotta find Nat.”

“(Y/N)…” Steve started, but Zoey beat him to it as she nodded with a grin.

“Oh, I bet you do,” she said, eyebrows waggling ridiculously, and man, you missed this. You laughed heartily, then turned away, starting to feel desperate the deeper you got in the crowd. It had been over an hour - where had she been?

You finally caught a glimpse of Clint, who had seemingly changed into his civilian clothes, your heart spiking when you saw that he was talking to someone who his body mostly obscured, but you could tell it was a woman shorter than him. Of course your best bet would be to find Nat with Clint; she’d probably got caught up in the crowd and reunion just like you did, but just like he’d promised before he left, Clint was still looking out for your girl.

Before you could make my way over to them, though, you found yourself colliding straight into Peter’s strong chest. He stumbled back, the profuse apology already tumbling off of his lips, only slowing down when he noticed it was you. All thoughts of making your way to Natasha fled from your mind as you took in your friend’s red eyes, half-empty bottle of aged Asgardian liquor in his hand and the sway in his step.

“How are you, Pete?” You asked, stepping close so he could hear your voice, soft with compassion and concern.

“Drunk,” he hiccuped with a brief, bright smile that reminded you of the fifteen year old boy you had met years ago before it quickly faded. “And sad.”

Peter was always the type to wear his heart on his sleeve - one of the things that hadn’t changed about him, along with his forever gentle and earnest brown eyes. Even as he sprouted up - shoulders broader and jaw firmer and covered in the scruff he hadn’t gotten a chance to shave off yet - he was still Peter. Just a wearier, more mature one, but still always filled with a hope that had helped fuel you all.

As much as your own heart hurt over the loss of Tony, it hurt even more seeing clearly how it was affecting Peter. You’d never seen him drunk before. Granted, it took a lot of Earth liquor for someone like him to even get a buzz, but the way his words slurred off of his tongue was telling.

“I’m sorry, Pete.”

He shrugged, eyes glazing over for a second before his attention drifted to the music. He perked up slightly.

“Hey, is that Zoey?!” He smiled a little in wonder, eyes honing in on The Flame as she figuratively burned a hole in the makeshift dance floor. She had attracted the attention of a drunk Star Lord, who was laughing as she showed everyone up. “Wow. I haven’t seen her in…”

You couldn’t help but chuckle as he struggled to count.

“Five years,” you supplied, your smile more soft than mocking as he turned back to you with an eager nod. “You go say ‘hi.’ She’ll like that. I’m gonna find Nat.”

“Okay!” Peter chirped, seemingly drunk and distracted enough by Zoey to let his sadness fall to the wayside, at least for a moment. He began to stumble towards her, but stopped, something pensive crossing his gaze. “It’s not weird anymore.”

You furrowed your brow at him, “What’s not weird?”

“If me and her went out. S’not weird anymore ‘cause I’m grown up.”

You chuckled fondly at how ironically boyish he sounded. Peter’s crush on Zoey back in the day had bordered on infamous with how completely obvious it was, but of course she had seen him as nothing but a little brother, with the nine year age difference and all.

But you guessed that was a four year age difference now.

“Better get on it before that Star Douche dude does,” you said, nodding to how the aforementioned space punk was dancing a little too closely to Zoey in a way that was almost rhythmic and would have maybe been charming if you weren’t already decidedly Team Peter Parker. You clapped Peter on the back, and you grinned at each other. He started to sway towards the dance floor, his shoulders bouncing to the beat, and you watched him for a second.

“Hey Peter?”

He looked at you curiously over his shoulder. You offered him a small smile.

“We’re gonna be okay,” you said. “I know it doesn’t really feel like it now, but…we’ll get through this too.”

You were happy to see his smile sincere, no matter how small it was. He nodded once, then turned back towards Zoey and the dance floor, finally leaving you to make your way to Natasha.

Except as you got closer to Clint, you realized that he wasn’t talking to Nat, but his wife, who he must’ve fetched from their home - along with their kids - and brought back to the celebration. You furrowed your brow at how even from across the way, you could notice how red his eyes were as his shoulders seemed permanently slumped. Tony meant a lot to everyone, but you hadn’t expect to see Clint that affected.

“(Y/N)!”

You let out a sigh as you recognized Steve’s voice from behind. In a second, his long steps led him right in front of you, this striking mix of urgency and tragedy saturating his blue eyes as he gazed down at you.

“I need to talk to you,” he said in a quiet, serious tone. He took ahold of your wrist, firmly but gently, and you knew you had no chance of pulling away from his grip.

“Can it wait?” you pleaded, your head started to crane around again. “I just really want to see Nat.”

When you looked back at him, something had completely crumbled in his gaze as he stared down at you, and you knew immediately. You think you knew the second you’d stepped foot on the battlefield and hadn’t seen her, hadn’t felt her, but had buried the feeling down deep, because it couldn’t be true.

“(Y/N)…”

“No,” you said, shaking your head as you tried to step back, though Steve’s tightened grip held you in place. “Steve, no.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No.” Your voice stretched and cracked as your eyes started to sting. This wasn’t happening. You were misreading this. Nat was about to come up to you at any second, wrap her arms around your waist, assure you that she was there, that everything was okay.

“To get the soul stone, it required a sacrifice,” Steve said, voice strained and eyes pained, and slowly you started to feel everything crumble around you. “A soul for a soul. Clint tried to stop her, tried to give his life, but you know Nat…”

He tried to smile; it didn’t hit.

You did know Nat. How she always felt like she wasn’t doing enough. How she never felt like she had fully atoned for the darkness of her past. How big and noble her heart was, how she would do whatever it took to complete the mission, if it meant it would save you all.

It’s why you loved her so much.

It felt like your chest was about to collapse on itself. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t see through the mess of tears streaming down your face. This couldn’t be real.

You could feel Steve’s arm start to come around you, but you pulled away, shaking your head as he stared at you helplessly. He was one of the greatest heroes Earth had ever known.

But there was nothing he could do about this.

-----

One shot of Asgardian liquor, and you were done. Thor wasn’t kidding about that shit.

You didn’t know how much time had passed. Could’ve been ten minutes. Could’ve been three hours. You sort of wished that it was the rest of your life, that Thanos would’ve managed that snap before Tony snatched the glove away from him - then you wouldn’t have to feel.

The next best thing, though? Being fucking drunk. The ache was there, but it was more numb. Your head unconsciously swayed to the music, fainter from where you sat in the dirt, yards away from the party. You fingered your wedding band and felt so fucking empty, but somehow it was okay, because you were drunk.

You wanted to kill Clint. He told you he’d look out for her. You trusted him to fucking look after her.

Then you remembered how broken he looked when you’d caught a glimpse of him and realized that if there was anybody who could understand how you were feeling, how you were trying not to feel, it was him.

You were rooted to the spot, though. Maybe you’d never move again. Why did it have to be Nat who went to that dumb planet to get that stupid stone? It couldn’t have been anyone else? No one knew what you’d have to lose in order to win?

You heard footsteps approaching, and usually your reflexes were sharp (you hadn’t climbed your way up the S.H.I.E.L.D. hierarchy by being slow, after all. You wondered what your job would be now that Fury and Hill were surely back. You wondered if you’d make it past this night), but it took you a long second to pull your head up from where you had been staring at your ring.

You squinted at the strong-stanced blonde hovering carefully a few feet away from you. Her figure was imposing, but somehow you could tell that her eyes were soft.

“Hey,” you coughed up a hiccup, “hey, Carol.”

She looked amused and pitying at the same time as she nodded, taking a slow step closer.

“Hey (Y/N),” she said softly. She glanced down at the bottle perched in the dirt by your feet, chanced a small smirk. “I don’t think that stuff’s made for people like you.”

“You mean us mere mortals?” You slurred with a stupid, bitter sort of grin followed by a hollow chuckle.

Her own grin was drowning in the pity now.

“Yeah. No offense.”

You shrugged. You didn’t care. Nothing like spending the past decade with a bunch of super-humans to make one deeply confront their own mortality. You’d reckoned with your normalcy a long time ago, the fact that you’d never be as great as them, no matter how hard you tried.

“How about sad people?” You said after a moment.

Her brow furrowed, puzzled.

“Sad people,” you reiterated with a slur. “This shit made for sad people? ‘Cause I’m…” You frowned for a moment. “Not sad. ‘Cause sad’s a feeling, and I don’t think I have those anymore.”

You were kind of confused by the understanding in Carol’s eyes, and you realized you knew next to nothing about her. You knew she’d saved Tony, Peter and Nebula from space five years ago, and she was possibly the most powerful being you’d ever seen. You knew she’d known Fury since you were a child and that you liked her. She felt safe without trying, was witty and to-the-point and was really easy to get along with. She’d swing by the compound to check in, every few months, and it was always nice when she did.

“I heard what happened.” You don’t know when, but suddenly Carol was sitting next to you, and you think she was trying to drown you in sympathy as she looked intently, but gently at you. “I’m sorry.

You peered at her for a long second, then shook your head.

“You can say her name, you know,” you announced, strangely angry at the vagueness of her statement, like you were fragile, like your entire childhood hadn’t been marred by loss and struggle. “Natalia Romanova. Natasha Romanoff to us dumb Americans.” You gave a laugh that came out more as a hiccup. “Black Widow. My wife.”

You ran your fingers across your wedding band as Carol watched quietly. You couldn’t really read her gaze, didn’t really care to, but she’d stopped looking at you like you were the most pathetic creature in the world, so that was nice at least.

The two of you were silent for a moment. You kept playing with your wedding band. You and Natasha had been married for one month, two weeks, three days. You thought you’d have forever. Everything burned. Your eyes, your throat, your chest.

“I lost a wife too.”

Your head snapped up. Carol was staring off towards the party, the fire still going strong.

“The same one, three different times,” she continued with a dry chuckle. “I won’t lie, it’s different than your situation, but…”

She shrugged, turning her head towards you with a slight smile.

“I know what it’s like, feeling like your entire life has been ripped away from you and there’s nothing you can do about it. I’m the biggest bad ass in the universe,” she gave a self-aware smirk, and it actually made you grin a little, “but I still couldn’t get her back.”

Helpless. That’s exactly how you felt. You’d always been able to get what you wanted, even against the most seemingly insurmountable odds - you had grown up an orphan in the hood, for Christ’s sake. But now there was this, and you knew you couldn’t get what you wanted this time. As hard as you tried, as much as you worked, what could you possibly do in the end?

You wanted to cry. You just hiccuped instead, then appraised Carol curiously.

“She didn’t die three times, though,” you said with drunken certainty. “Your wife.”

“No. Just the last time,” Carol said simply. Her words surprised you; you’d assumed maybe Carol’s wife had been snapped away but was back now. “I lost her a long time before that, though.”

There was steadiness, a resignation to the sadness that tinged her otherwise cool voice.

“Oh.” You shifted a little. “Sorry.”

She shrugged, meeting your eyes again.

“Me too.”

Taglist: @afuckingshituniverse

[fatesdeepdive]

Entry 14: Groans of Increasing Discomfort

Heading back to the castle, it seems I’ve accumulated a ton of new buildings to buy. I can buy a statue of Mozu which probably costed more than her entire village, a ballista and shuriken launcher to use in castle battles, a bunch of puppets to give me nightmares (they fight for you in castle battles too I guess), a shop to buy new units (both generics and clones of the soldiers I already have), and a hot spring. Because fanservice. You can run into other units in there, everyone is in their underwear and blushing, half of the decisions that were made in this game’s development were solely for the sake of horniness, yada yada yada. I actually tried to leave and the game stopped me, because Sakura was showing up and it’s necessary to get that bath time with the teenage girl. The hot springs does have a use, admittedly, but it won’t become apparent for a few chapters.

Support: Lady Corrin/Reina

C: Corrin sees Reina talking to an old man and asks her about it. Reina explains that he reminds her of her parents, who cut her out of their life when she became a soldier. And also, apparently, don’t give a shit about her being the personal retainer to the goddamn Queen. Actually, wait, hold on. Where the hell was Reina when Mikoto got blown up? You know what? Her parents should be ashamed of her, she’s a terrible bodyguard.

B: Corrin tells Reina she should visit her parents. Which makes sense; Corrin points out that she’s an orphan and wishes for any relationship with a parent, no matter how strained. Reina tells Corrin that she became a soldier because she really, really, really likes killing people. Corrin volunteers to find out how Reina’s parents are doing.

A: Corrin tells Reina that her parents are doing fine. Reina retcons the last conversation by revealing that she became a soldier to protect her family’s peasants. Nowadays, though, it’s all about that murder.

Review: This one was fine. Corrin wanting to help Reina is a nice bit of characterization, but there isn’t much more to say about this one.

Now, you may be wondering why I referred to Corrin as Lady Corrin in the last bit. Reina actually has completely different supports depending on Corrin’s sex. Most characters have identical supports with Corrin, or if not that just minor dialogue changes (For example, Camilla and Laslow, off the top of my head). But characters like Reina, who can only support Corrin, get two conversations. I suppose it’s for the best, considering those characters would otherwise be incredibly out of focus as opposed to merely extremely out of focus.

Support: Lord Corrin/Reina

C: Corrin sees Reina carrying an apron, which weirds him out, because of the whole murder hobo thing.

B: Reina reveals her sheltered noblewoman housewife in training turned soldier backstory and says that the apron was a gift from her parents before they cut her out.

A: Reina says that her parents cried when she became a knight and that she keeps the apron out of gratitude for them.

S: Corrin, off screen, goes back to Hoshido to talk to Reina’s parents. Apparently they’re proud of her. And he asked to marry her, which she accepts, because she cannot imagine life without him. Apparently.

Review: So, these are kinda the same support? I mean, the actual words are different, but they cover the same information. It’s weird that they were split into two conversations. Whatever. The second one is better, because it gives this really fun characterization of Reina being a friendly team mom when she isn’t stabbing people so she can hear them gasp their last breaths. Also, it resolves the plotline. On the other hand, the S-Rank is really mediocre. Reina saying she relies on Corrin daily is ridiculous, given what we’ve seen. Overall, the problem with Reina is that she just has these two conversations. And one with Kanna, I guess, but that one is recycled from other characters. If Reina was a more fleshed out character that interacted with other characters, she might work as a character. But, as it stands, all she has is her recruitment and two mediocre supports.

Support: Hinata/Takumi

C: Hinata kicks down the door to Takumi’s room so he can tell him that he’s going to start a fighting tournament so he can beat people up.

B: Hinata beats people up.

A: Hinata reveals that he’s beating people up to cheer up Takumi, because Takumi looks happy when he cheers him on. I feel like he could have, I don’t know, asked Takumi how to cheer him up in advance instead of just assuming and doing something he said he didn’t want, but whatever. The two bond over Hinata beating people up.

Review: I think this one helped me hone in on why a lot of Fire Emblem supports don’t work. Supports are, by their very nature, just dialogue. So, when you get a support like this, that relies heavily on something happening, it ends up as telling not showing. That’s why the best supports rely on dialogue rather than explain something that happened off screen.

Support: Kagero/Saizo

C: Kagero and Saizo get into an argument over how to train royal guards, with Kagero pointing out that Saizo’s hard as nails “be ready to die for the monarchy” speech just stressed people out. Saizo blames the new recruits for being inexperienced.

B: Saizo endangers the life of his men to succeed on a mission and Kagero calls him out on it. Saizo points out that victory requires sacrifice and war is unforgiving. The two of them point out that they’ve had this exact argument again and again, and it’s the reason they broke up when they were dating.

A: Kagero and Saizo win a big battle together and admit that they work well together.

S: Saizo points out that their relationship failed because they kept trying to change each other and forgot that they loved each other. The two of them decide to give it another shot.

Review: This one has a much more solemn and reserved tone than most supports, which helps it stand out. It isn’t great, but it has a good tone and I actually don’t dislike Saizo and Kagero as a couple. Them being a flawed couple that broke up over their differences, then trying it again after maturing and becoming more rounded people is a lot more realistic than most relationships in this game.

Birthright Chapter 12: Dark Reunion

The gang arrives in Cyrkensia, a city in Nestra, a country that I forgot existed because this is the only part of the game where it is mentioned. Cyrkensia is a popular vacation spot with a big opera house that appeared in the intro.

A kitsune named Kaden goes up to the party and explains that he’s in town to repay a favor to someone. This introduction feels like when you introduce a new player halfway through a D&D campaign and they quickly explain their deal after walking up to the party.

Kaden introduces his friend Layla, who explains that she’s a singer at the opera house, but can’t perform tonight because her mother is dying. Also she’s singing for King Garon, the evil king who is on vacation a week after starting a brutal war. Azura volunteers to perform in Layla’s steed so the party can do some patricide. Now, you may be thinking, did the game do the stupid trope of having Azura and Layla look identical? Surprisingly, no, they didn’t. Everything else about this chapter is so cliche I assumed they would, but they actually remembered Zola has illusion magic that the party never uses. Also, because we helped the person Kaden has to help, he now owes us a favor, and will totally kill dozens of soldiers in a war he doesn’t give a shit about if we ask him to.

Kaden

Kaden is a Kitsune, this game’s equivalent of Laguz or Taguel from past games. He wields a special weapon called a Beast Stone that allows him to fight by turning into a big ass fox. His personal skill heals units who heal him. He’s a glass canon who does extra damage to cavalry, giving him an interesting niche. His human design is fine, but not remarkable. His fox design is cool, especially regarding the blue fire that floats around him; that said, the spikes on the legs are weird. Personality wise, he seems to be a go lucky idiot who stumbled into joining us.

When the party arrives at the opera house, Corrin notices Elise, who looks sad. Azura, who doesn’t look like Layla for the player, goes on stage. Azura sings the only song she knows, the magic one that breaks mind control, which makes Garon...groan in increasing discomfort, which makes me also feel discomforted. Also Azura does a bunch of crazy water magic, which is a bit extra.

Garon orders his troops to capture us, because Zola betrayed us. Gasp. Shocking. Zola does admittedly beg Garon to spare us. Garon kills him for even suggesting it, right in front of his young daughter, because Garon is a cartoon supervillain. Zola dies begging Corrin to forgive him and Garon calls Corrin weak for having sympathy. Takumi threatens to kill Garon, but Corrin points out that they need to leave if they want to live. Which is smart; Garon has ridiculously high stats.

This battle sees our units fighting on boats floating in the opera house, which is a cool setting for a battle. On turn three, some reinforcements arrive. Xander, who’s still pissed about the whole traitor thing. With him are Peri, a cavalier with cotton candy hair, and...is that Inigo? That’s Inigo, from Awakening. That’s fucking Inigo! What is Inigo doing here, and more importantly, why is he working for the very obviously evil bad guys?

There’s a Dragon Vein you can use to freeze all the water, which would make this level easier, if it wasn’t already a broken easy level. To beat this level, you need to get Corrin to a specific spot. Corrin can’t walk on water, so you need to fight through an onslaught of tough enemies. There’s just one problem: Hinoka or Subaki can carry Corrin directly to the end. I fought the enemies, because why not, but I didn’t have to.

I ignored Garon because he’s able to one shot literally every unit in my army, but I did decide to take on team Xander. Side note, I looked up Garon’s battle quote after the fact, and he says this to Corrin: “I may not be your father, but I will slap you down like a child.” I take back everything bad I ever said about Garon.

Peri, as it turns out, is a sadistic sociopath, because Nohr. Inigo...excuse me, Laslow, blushes when we stab him. And Xander steals Inigo’s famous crit quote from the Princess Bride.

Peri and Laslow went down easy, but Xander was almost as bad as Garon. Even with his bonus against cavalry, Kaden only did one point of damage per hit. I had to resort to the classic strategy of throwing disposable soldiers at him until he was weak enough for Corrin to Dragonstone.

This was a great map, with a creative setting, multiple ways to approach it, tough bosses, and an exploit that makes it completely skippable. Still, it’s the only Birthright chapter with a creative goal, so it deserves a little credit.

After escaping the opera house, Xander chases after us, despite being defeated ten seconds earlier. Elise gets in his way, telling him that if he’s going to fight someone, he should fight her. As Corrin runs, Xander warns that it is her destiny to fight him.

After escaping Xander again, Corrin finds Azura collapsed on the ground, exhausted. She’s going to die at the end of the game, isn’t she?

[dankar-camoran]

A Conversation in Paradise (Or, “I was thinking of some Eldamil and Mankar headcanons and it led into a Thing”)

(CW: Descriptions of blood and gore, violence, drowning, torture)

“Master, do you have a moment to talk?”

“Call me Mankar, Eldamil. You have shed your mortality and have earned a place beyond that of a mere subordinate, and we’ve known each other so long besides.”

Eldamil couldn’t help but smile at this, albeit not for long considering what he had come to discuss. “I appreciate that, Mankar, and am grateful to you for lighting my way on my path to Paradise. That is why I have come to see you, so that you may provide further illumination.”

Mankar rose from his throne and walked past Eldamil, bidding his lieutenant to come with him “We’ll walk and talk. No need to confine ourselves to one corner of Paradise when all of its beauty is ours to share.”

The two mer emerged from the palace, into Gaiar Alata. Flora that had not been seen in Tamriel for millennia bloomed, and the endless sea shone with the radiant light of eternal sunrise before them. The older Altmer’s face, though usually measured and reserved, did betray no small amount of pride at the sight before them. The culmination of a lifetime of work, created through dedication, perseverance, long hours of study, and no small amount of sacrifice.

Eldamil was similarly mesmerized by the beauty despite the reservations he was readying himself to put forth towards Mankar. It still seemed unreal, that the Master had somehow, with the aid of Lord Dagon, echoed the actions of the Daedra during the dawn, and created his own demesne, to his own specifications and under his complete control. Not only that, but he then bound each and every one of his followers such that, when they died in Mundus, their souls would not be claimed by the Eight Traitors, or Talos the Pretender, or even by any of the Princes of Oblivion, for through the tutelage of Mehrunes Dagon, Mankar had inextricably linked the souls of everyone in the Mythic Dawn to his own. And Gaiar Alata was linked to his soul as well, creating the path that would guide his followers to their home beyond mortality, unspoiled by the Aedra.

The bestial roars and agonized cries surrounding them did not perturb Mankar’s serene expression, but Eldamil visibly cringed as he heard them, and avoided looking in the directions that they were coming from. Down a hill to the left, a stone pathway was stained red with blood as two clannfears tore into a fresh kill. Then, the blood began to fade, and the remains began to crumble, even the pieces that were being swallowed whole by the clannfears. Whoever this was, they would find themselves alive and intact in another part of the Savage Garden within moments, if they hadn’t already.

It was Mankar who broke the silence between the two of them, “You take issue with their pain, Eldamil. You wonder why, in Paradise, those who have Ascended beyond mortality are at the whims of daedra, rather than standing with them on equal footing.”

Eldamil turned, doing his best to not look surprised. The Master was excellent at seeing beyond one’s surface disposition and guessing their true feelings, and he didn’t want to seem as though he had come to doubt their cause. “It’s not that I take issue, Mast-Mankar, I just haven’t yet divined for myself why it is necessary. They served you faithfully in life, bringing about the breaking of the Covenant, and were promised to be set above all mortals.” A scream followed by the sound of bones being snapped between daedroth jaws interrupted him, and he hoped his unease wasn’t overly present in his voice, “Forgive me for questioning you, but, is this really what you meant by that? Pain and suffering, without respite?”

Nodding sagely, Mankar, still smiling, put a hand on Eldamil’s shoulder, “There is no need to sound so nervous, Eldamil. You lack knowledge that would ease your troubled mind, and so you seek it from me. That is not a transgression, it is what I would expect from any of my followers, and particularly one of my Chosen. As for the knowledge you seek, surely you see the similarity between the natures of the Ascended and the daedra.”

“Their immortality, yes. You’ve helped us transcend the boundaries placed on us by the Aedra, as you promised. We share immortality with the daedra, death becoming a mere setback. Why then, do the daedra attack and ravage the denizens of the Garden? Why do the Dremora and Xivilai enact such horrific torments on those who seek to become equal in standing with them, and to stand with them with the common goal of remaking the Mundus into what it always should have been?”

“When you ask me ‘why,’ Eldamil, do you mean why the daedra do what they do? Or are you asking why I allow it to happen?” Mankar’s smile had not faded, but Eldamil could see something had shifted in his eyes; something that suggested that this was no longer an edifying discussion between master and acolyte, but instead a conversation that would have to be navigated carefully, for his own sake.

He inhaled slowly, attempting to calm his nerves, agonizing over how to answer, before resigning himself to the truth. Surely Mankar already knew how he felt. “Both,” he admitted, looking at the ground, “I suppose I must mean both, I’m sorry to say.”

Mankar withdrew his hand from his lieutenant’s shoulder and chuckled. “I told you, you haven’t transgressed by asking me questions Eldamil; there’s no need to look so contrite.” He gestured towards a wandering daedroth, teeth and claws caked with fading gore.

“The daedra act the way they do because they know, despite sharing immortality with the Ascended, there are still a myriad of differences between the two. Consider how the daedra have been in existence for eons, observing all of existence in between countless deaths and rebirths. We only uncovered the secrets of conquering death comparatively recently, so there are still fundamentals of daedric thinking and being that the Ascended still do not understand. They still have minds resigned to mortal ways of thinking, and it will take considerable time for them to even begin to comprehend the basics of a Padomaic way of thinking. Of course they aren’t considered by the daedra to be equals. Even after the Dawn breaks, who knows how long it will take and how much death must be endured before that happens?”

“And as for why I allow it,” Mankar paused to allow Eldamil’s gaze to come back towards him, rather than towards the water, where one of the Xivilai wardens of the Garden was holding a a thrashing dunmer’s head underwater. “When I request something of you, Eldamil, what do you do?”

“I…fulfill your request, to the best of my ability.” Despite himself, Eldamil stole one last glance at the water. The dunmer had gone limp, and the Xivilai released them to wade back to dry land, clearly looking for a new toy made of something hardier.

“Constructing Gaiar Alata was no simple task. I required the aid of Mehrunes Dagon in order to conceptualize it, and several Daedra aided me in shaping it into what it is now. In exchange for their assistance, some of them requested to be allowed access to those who would inhabit the Savage Garden, and I saw no reason not to allow it.”

There was another lengthy pause as Eldamil grasped the implications behind Mankar’s answer. “But, Mankar, these people have done so much for you– for Lord Dagon. This is their reward? To be the playthings of Daedra, and not their equals, until we bring about the Dawn?”

“We’re very close to that point, Eldamil, it won’t be much longer. And besides, with eternity ahead of us, a short season of unpleasantness here in Paradise will fade from memory.” 

Eldamil stopped walking and stared pointedly, “But you could have warned them that this would happen, Mankar, you could have at least told them about the depravities they would undergo to pay your debt to the Daedra.” Eldamil’s tone was harsher than he had intended it to be, and he quickly regretted his outburst when Mankar stopped as well, an expression of mild surprise on his face. Again there was silence, broken only by the sounds of some unseen torture in the distance.

“I’m sorry, Master,” He spoke to Mankar’s feet, quiet and once again contrite, “you’ve guided us without fail this far, and all we have yet to achieve will be realized through your vision. I have no right or reason to-”

“You’re right, Eldamil.” Mankar interrupted, holding up a hand, “I could have told them. But i didn’t, and I bear the weight of the repercussions of my inaction.” His smile had faded, and he gestured for them to begin walking back towards Carac Agaialor.

Emotions clashed within Eldamil. The shock and relief at Mankar accepting his criticisms, along with guilt at the sudden change in his disposition. This Paradise was the culmination of so many long years of toil for Mankar, and now, instead of enjoying the results of his efforts, he was being harshly criticized by someone he considered a friend.

The walk back to the Palace was mostly quiet, with most of the Daedra they had heard and seen before having moved farther away, following new prey. As they approached the entrance, Mankar spoke up suddenly, “Did you have anything else you wished to discuss, Eldamil?”

“No, Mankar. Thank you for speaking with me, it was illuminating, as it always is.”

“Are you sure? Because I sense you have one more question to ask.” Mankar stopped in front of the palace door and looked expectantly at the younger mer.

“I’m not sure what you mean. Did you have something else you think I should know?” Eldamil was confused; he couldn’t think of anything else that had been concerning him.

“You wanted to know why the Daedra do what they do to the Ascended Immortals, and you wanted to know why I allow it,” Mankar explained, as Eldamil realized his smile had returned, “I thought you might also like to know why they spare you. Or why I allow that.”

There was yet another scream in the distance, and Eldamil swallowed, suddenly feeling very cold. He thought about what to say in response to this, but came up with nothing.

Mankar, with a chuckle and shrug, moved to the door and opened it, “In any case, after you, old friend.”

[randomfandomfamily]

So, people apparently try to use Dewey as a sacrifice. A lot. I’m sure that turns out fine.

Most of the time.

Tagging @sophfandoms53, because darling you are my inspiration, and @3kkh0, because you asked me very nicely not to fuck up the adorable danger dumbass.

Being tied up wasn’t an ideal situation. By far Dewey’s least favorite part of adventuring with his family, and it happened more often than he’d like. If he was tied up, he couldn’t run around and search for booby traps or bust a move whenever the team was in need of a victory dance.

It’s not that being tied up made him feel helpless or anything. He just liked being able to move. If he was tied up then he couldn’t move, and moving was required for running. Escaping. He really needed to be escaping right about now.

This wasn’t getting him anywhere. He forced himself to take a breath and clear his head. Everyone else would be here soon and voila! Rescue for Dewford Duck!

… again.

He made another attempt at wriggling out of the ropes, but to no avail. Sometimes it worked, particularly newer religions who hadn’t had much experience, but this was an ancient tribe. Needless to say, they were pretty good at tying knots.

Giving up on trying to get out of the ropes, he stood up and started looking for a way out of the… pit… cage? It was a hole in the ground with a bunch of branches woven together to keep him in. He wasn’t sure why they bothered with the branch thing. After a few failed attempts it became pretty obvious that he wasn’t going to be able to climb out.

“Ugh,” Dewey groaned as he leaned against the dirt wall. “What do these guys even want?”

Huey and Uncle Scrooge weren’t there to answer his question, so he tried to remember what they had said in the plane on the way there. It was a tribe–a really old one–that believed in some all-powerful god. Classic ancient tribe stuff.

Whether or not the god was real was up for debate. Dewey had met a couple of gods before, so it wasn’t impossible. But the only reason this tribe believed in this stupid god was because they managed to get their hands on some magic spear a really long time ago.

According to Uncle Scrooge, this thing couldn’t miss. No matter how you threw the spear, it would nail the target every time. So now they were looking for the spear because… adventure. Also, super cool weapon.

Huey and Webby had talked the whole way there about rituals of the tribe and how their hierarchy worked, but Dewey hadn’t been paying attention. He heard god and spear and pretty much checked out of the conversation.

He was mostly just excited about the adventure part of the whole ordeal.

A rustling made him glance back up. A pair of painted masks removed the woven branches and stared down at him.

Considerably less excited at this point.

“So!” Dewey said nonchalantly. “Do I get to leave the hole, or-” He was interrupted by one of the tribe members grabbing him by the ropes secured around his torso. “Hey! Ow! Easy with the merchandise, guys.”

Well, at least he was out of the hole now. The sun was dangerously close to completely disappearing behind the horizon, and torches were being lit up around the tribe’s village.

He still wasn’t worried, though. Even if it was getting kinda dark. It would be harder to locate the tribe, sure, but come on. This was his family, all experienced adventurers. They’d still be able to find him, easy.

“You know you’re in big trouble as soon as my family shows up, right?” Dewey asked. He was ignored and led towards the middle of the tribe’s village. “My friend Webby could take you guys, no problem. And my Uncle Donald? Oh hoooo, buddy, he’ll tear this place apart.”

More tribe members started emerging from the primitive huts. There were a lot more of them than he thought. But it would be nothing for his family of adventurers. Plus! Launchpad had even joined them for this one, so they were even more prepared.

He glanced around for any sign of his family. Nothing so far, but that wasn’t so unusual. The point of rescue varied from adventure to adventure. Some days busting him out of the cage, other times a dramatic save from the altar.

Personally, he wasn’t a fan of that second option. Not that he didn’t trust his family to save him, it was just a little more nerve-wracking. Not scary, of course. He wasn’t scared of these people and their magic spear. He was Dewey Duck. He wasn’t afraid of anything.

Dewey spotted a small group of tribe members with drums.”Oh! You guys have music set up for the occasion? You really know how to have a good time.” One burly tribesman glared down at him. Dewey brushed off how uneasy he felt. “What kind of sacrifice is this, anyway? No, wait, let me guess. You’re going to… stab me with the magic spear?”

They didn’t answer, but a chant had started to rise, low voices muttering nonsense. Dewey hated the chanting. It was so unsettling.

Too unsettling. Time to distract himself. “You know, stabbing has got to be my favorite kind of sacrifice. Simple, yet effective. Less is more, know what I’m saying?”

He was bad at this. It was easy to talk to people that liked him, but it was hard to talk himself out of trouble. That’s what Louie was good at. Louie knew how people acted, what to say get people on his side, or at least get them to not kill him.

But Dewey didn’t understand people like that. He didn’t know what to say, and he didn’t have the skills to get himself out of the situation like Webby. And he certainly didn’t have Huey’s resourcefulness, either.

Maybe that’s why he was getting taken all the time. It was just so glaringly obvious that he’d be the easiest target.

Dewey clenched his fists at his sides. Not now. He could re-evaluate his worth later. After he was back at the mansion. And tomorrow he could pretend he got a full night’s sleep, when he actually just spent hours staring out his window and counting stars.

He spotted the spear. Some guy with a big leafy-looking crown was holding it. Definitely the leader, but not the sacrifice guy. Huey called them priests, Louie called them cultists, but Dewey didn’t really care what they were called, he just wished they’d stop trying to use him in sacrifices.

Though, he supposed it was better him than some other rando they found in the woods. He had people that would look for him. And find him. Hopefully soon.

“Okay, so the big guy over there has the spear,” Dewey said. He was trying to stall, but it wasn’t really working. “But he’s kinda standing all the way over there with the spear, so how’s this sacrifice going to…” He watched the guy in the crown pass the spear over to a guy in an ornate cape. Also made of leaves, somehow. “Never mind. I guess that’s how it’s going to work.”

There wasn’t a traditional altar, just a simple wooden post in the middle of the platform. It made sense, actually. Most sacrifices were done with a knife, but with a spear? That wouldn’t really work laying down.

Dewey shook his head to clear his thoughts. Now wasn’t the time to be complimenting the tribe on their practical methods of sacrifice, he needed to think. He’d run this course so many times, way more times than he should have, he should be able to think this through.

First thing, getting untied. The light from the torches caught something on the ground in front of him. Discarded spearhead. It was either from someone’s broken weapon or one that just never got attached to anything, but whatever the case, it was good news for him.

All he had to do was grab it. Feigning the trip was easy enough for an actor as brilliant as he was, but he nearly missed the narrow window of opportunity to snatch the spearhead off the ground before the two tribespeople leading him towards his doom quickly yanked him back to his feet.

“Sorry guys,” Dewey said easily, holding the sharp stone tightly in his hand. “Lost my balance for a sec there.” The stone was digging into his hand, but he couldn’t afford to loosen his grip in case someone saw it.

He scanned the trees while painted masks started securing him to there post. Where was everybody? They were usually here by now. It was starting to look like he was gonna have to get out of this one himself. Which was fine, obviously, he’d done that before.

There was a moment of panic when they were tying his hands behind him that he thought someone saw the stone. To his relief, they backed off the platform without giving him a second glance. As soon as they left to join the rest of the chanters, he set to work trying to get the ropes off.

It always looked easier in the movies. The movies didn’t show how bad the rope chafed your skin when you worked the stone back and forth. And they didn’t show how much the rock slipped because you can’t see what you’re doing, either.

The chanting was starting to get louder. This was bad. Not bad enough for him to start panicking, because he never ever panicked, but it was still kinda bad.

“You guys are seriously gonna regret this,” Dewey warned. “My family is out looking for me. They’re about to find me, I guarantee it.” His gaze darted to the treeline. Still no sign of anyone.

If it was just Uncle Scrooge, Webby, and his brothers like it used to be, he’d assume they were trying to ambush the tribe. But Uncle Donald, his mother, and Launchpad were on this mission. And no offense to any of them, he loved them dearly, but stealth wasn’t their strong suit.

So if he couldn’t hear Uncle Donald yelling or Launchpad crashing through the trees, that meant they weren’t here. And if they weren’t here…

Bad. This was actually bad. He tried to think of something to say, literally anything, but the words weren’t coming out any more. The only thing he could do was reassure himself that his family was going to be there soon. They always were.

Unless they weren’t.

The priest-cult-whatever-he-was held up the spear. Under normal circumstances, Dewey could count on the darkening sky and flickering firelight to obscure their vision enough to maybe miss. But this was a spear that couldn’t miss.

Baaaaaaaaad. Bad bad bad. Really bad.

The arm holding the spear pulled back to throw just as Dewey heard the ropes finally snap. He shook his hands free and ducked just as the spear flew over his head.

He couldn’t hear much over his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, but he was pretty sure the chanting was turning into angry shouting. And if they were gonna be angry anyway, then he might as well take their special spear while he made his escape, right?

The seconds it took to pull the magic spear out of the post cost him, but he was sure Uncle Scrooge would be happy he managed to grab it. The normal spear that grazed his left arm wasn’t a big deal. Angry people with spears were all part of adventuring and definitely manageable.

There wasn’t much left to do but run. “So long, crazy sacrifice people!” He called as he jumped off the platform. “I’m off to- whoa!” He realized his mistake the instant he hit the ground. The spear wasn’t going to let up until it hit the target, and it hadn’t hit him yet.

Why didn’t he leave it in the stupid post?

It was a struggle to run and stop the spear he was holding from impaling him. He wasn’t sure how to make it stop, but stumbling earned him another spear that he didn’t quite dodge in time. He was only vaguely aware that his right shoulder was hit, but he was sure he’d feel the sting as soon as the adrenaline wore off, which wouldn’t be any time soon considering he was getting chased.

“Stop. Stop it.” He hid behind a tree and pushed the spear away from himself. “Ah, if Webby were here, she’d know how to fix this.” Taking the spear with both hands, he forced the tip of the spear to face the ground. “Alright, think.

“You’re Dewey Duck, the world’s greatest eleven year old adventurer. You can figure this out.” The sound angry shouts grew closer at an alarming rate. “Okay, I can figure this out in a minute.” He took off running again, trying to make as little noise as possible.

Talking was usually how he coped with stress. He’d pretty much been talking since he got separated from his family. That probably wasn’t a good idea at the moment, but he couldn’t help muttering to himself anyway. It was hardly a whisper, really, but it kept his fear to reasonable levels.

“Fear?” He muttered as he shoved aside the underbrush in his way. “Since when do I deal with fear? I don’t do fear. I am not afraid.” The light from a torch barely registered before the painted face appeared. Dewey scrambled to back up and keep running. “Not that way!”

Still not afraid. Absolutely not afraid. Would his Uncle Scrooge be afraid? No way! So he just had to concentrate on not getting stabbed by this stupid magic spear.

Though, in hindsight, maybe he should’ve concentrated on running, too. It didn’t occur to him that running blindly through the woods in the dark wasn’t a good idea until he was already rolling down the hill.

Good news, he covered a lot of ground with how quickly he descended the slope. Bad news, there were a lot more things hurting now. He was pretty sure his back had hit a rock on the way down, which very effectively knocked the wind out of him. Not to mention he was about seventy-six percent sure his leg was gonna have a nasty bruise and-

He was forgetting something.

His blurry vision cleared up just in time to see the spear he dropped speeding towards him from above. He rolled to his left to dodge it. And, thanks to his incredible adventuring skills, he did dodge it. Mostly. He mostly dodged it. And mostly dodging it was totally fine. If you got mostly correct answers on a test, you still got a good grade.

Bright side. He needed a bright side to this.

“Come on, get up,” Dewey scolded himself. “Spear hit me in the side, and that’s not great. Bright side. It’s not stuck in my side, it’s stuck in the ground.” He used the spear to stand himself back up. “And bonus, if it hit me, then its job is done. Which means I can safely carry it back to… um…”

Where was he again? He was pretty sure he was headed back in the right direction when he first started running, but now…

“Great,” Dewey said bitterly. “Okay, wait, this is still fine. Everyone’s probably out looking for me still. I’m bound to run into someone eventually. I just have to keep walking.” Distant shouts made him shudder. “Never mind. I’m running.”

He took about two steps and nearly fell again. He had to plant the spear in the ground to keep himself from falling over. “Never mind again. Running is not happening.” Walking was still a pain, but considerably easier than full-on running.

If Huey were here he’d probably say something smart. Like how Dewey should probably take a piece of cloth to try and stop the bleeding in his side.

Fortunately, his shirt was already ripped from the spear. He paused to take off his short-sleeved overshirt and tore it up so that it could tie around his torso. It probably wasn’t the best patch job, but it’d work until he found the others.

Unfortunately, his family was a little harder to find than he thought they’d be. He considered shouting to see if anyone could hear him, but given the tribe of people he had robbed of a sacrifice and a magic spear, yelling seemed like a bad idea.

Not that they wouldn’t catch up to him eventually anyway. His progress was getting slower by the second. They’d figure out where he was sooner or later and-

That was a torch.

Dewey nearly tripped for what seemed like the hundredth time and stood behind the truck of a tree. He rubbed at his eyes furiously, trying to force back the tears that sprang into his eyes after he tripped. Much like everything else that was happening to him right now, crying would be bad.

The light swung in his direction. If Dewey were allowed to curse, he would have. Because really, how stupid did you have to be to trip while you were being chased? This was, like, the bajillionth time.

Probably the last time too.

A very irrational part of his brain forced him to close his eyes, like the light would disappear if he couldn’t see it. The logic was every bit as sound as hiding under his covers, convinced that the hoodie Louie left on the chair was a monster, but logic wasn’t exactly his area of expertise.

He could hear someone walking close by. If his mother and Uncle Donald were here, they would tell him to be brave or something. That was usually so easy for him. So why did it feel like his throat was starting to close up?

Dewey slid down the truck of the tree and sat on the ground. He was scared. It felt ridiculous and stupid, but his side hurt and it was dark and he couldn’t find his family and he was scared.

The sound of footsteps were closer now. Like, really close. Way too close. Dewey tightened his grip on the spear. Usually he would love an excuse to wield a magic weapon, but not tonight.

The tears he had been trying so desperately to hold back started to slip out. He couldn’t stop them even if he wanted to.

He could hear whoever was holding the torch just on the other side of the tree. Clamping a hand over his mouth to stop any noise from coming out, Dewey waited for the footsteps to pass.

By some miracle, they actually did pass. They walked right by him. Dewey was sure they’d hear his heartbeat, and he nearly collapsed in relief when the footsteps receded, but he forced himself to stand up.

And then he ran. He didn’t care if his side hurt or not, he wanted to find his family. He wanted to give Uncle Scrooge this stupid spear and never look at it ever again.

A low rumbling caught his attention. “The plane,” Dewey said breathlessly. He changed directions and ran towards the sound. Normally he’d try for a grand entrance, but he was way too relieved to care.

Now, Launchpad had been told to stay with the plane while the others looked for Dewey. He hadn’t expected to be the one that saw Dewey first. But the duck that stumbled into view was undoubtedly his best friend and boy was it good to see him.

“Dewey!” Launchpad jumped up and waved enthusiastically. “There you are! I haven’t seen you in forever!” He frowned as he noticed Dewey looked a little less-than-fantastic. “You don’t look so good.”

The younger duck laughed weakly. “Trust me, I’m doing much better now.” He was using a spear as a walking stick. When did Dewey get a spear? Launchpad didn’t remember him having a spear before. “Where is everyone else?”

“Looking for you,” Launchpad answered. “And a magic spear that never misses. I’m here with the plane in case we have to make a quick… getaway.” He smiled brightly. “Oh hey! You’ve got the magic spear! Awesome! Mr. McD will- oh geez.” Launchpad reached out and steadied Dewey, who was right on the verge of falling over. “You really don’t look so good.”

Dewey clung to the sleeve of Launchpad’s jacket with his free hand. “I’m fine,” he whispered in a quivering voice, “I just wanna go home.”

Launchpad immediately scooped him up. It wasn’t very hard, Dewey was light and very small. It still made him uneasy to feel Dewey curl into him like he was scared to look anywhere. He relaxed a slight bit once they were in the plane, but not much.

Deciding the spear wasn’t important at the moment, Launchpad took it and tossed it somewhere. Mr. McD would probably take care of it whenever he got back. “Wait,” Dewey protested, “The spear-”

“I don’t think you need a spear,” Launchpad put Dewey down in the pilot’s seat, “I think you need to sit there for a minute.”

Launchpad could admit that he wasn’t very good at adventuring. Crashing? Yes. Piloting? Debatable. But one thing he did know how to do was use a first aid kit. When you ran into things as much as he did, you learned to patch yourself up.

Dewey cleared his throat when he saw Launchpad pull out the red box. “Launchpad, you really don’t have to-”

“I think I kinda do actually.” Launchpad sat in the co-pilot’s seat and opened the first aid kit. “What happened out there anyway? You look like you got hit by… something.”

“Oh, you know, just normal adventure stuff.” Dewey held out his left arm when Launchpad motioned for it. “Crazy people in the woods wanted a sacrifice and I was the easiest target.”

Launchpad hummed thoughtfully while he worked. “Did you escape on your own?”

“Yeah, nobody had found me yet.” Dewey shrugged. “Que the chase scene, blah blah blah, I feel down a hill and now I’m here.”

“How’d you get the spear if they were all chasing you?”

Dewey hesitated. “They may have… you know, thrown it. At me.”

Launchpad laughed as he finished bandaging Dewey’s arm. “Wow! And Mr. McD said that the spear never missed. Lucky you, huh?”

“It didn’t miss, Launchpad.” Dewey lifted the hem of his long-sleeved shirt. “Huey would probably have a heart attack if he saw this, but it was dark and I don’t really know how-” He winced as he untied the blue cloth around his torso. “Anyway, they threw the spear at me but I ducked and it ended up sticking in a wooden post.

“And I probably should’ve left it there,” Dewey said as he let the shredded remnants of his shirt fall to the floor. “But I wasn’t really thinking, so I pulled it out. I fell down a hill and uh… well, the spear never misses, right?”

Launchpad rummaged through the first aid kit. “I don’t think Huey’s the only one who’s going to have a heart attack.”

Dewey sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

“I mean, you should have seen your mom. She’s never seen one of you guys be used as a sacrifice before.” Launchpad shook his head. “I bet she’s still freaking out. And Donald too. And Mr. McD and Webby and your brothers and…” He noticed Dewey’s eyes starting to water. “This is… not helping, is it?”

“Reminding me that everyone was worried because I’m useless and can’t take care of myself?” Dewey snapped. “Yeah, no, not helping.” He groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. “I-I’m sorry, Launchpad, I didn’t mean to get mad.”

“S’okay,” Launchpad said as he bandaged Dewey’s side. “And I don’t think y-” He was interrupted by a pained shout. “Are you-”

Dewey waved him off. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m fine, it… it just hurts.”

“Almost done,” Launchpad promised. Nothing was deep enough to need stitches, thankfully. He wasn’t sure he could do that. Still, it was pretty bad. “As I was saying: I don’t think you’re useless.”

Dewey tentatively touched the bandages over his injured side. “You’re only saying that because you’re my best friend.”

“No, I’m saying it because it’s true.” Launchpad swatted Dewey’s hand away from the new bandage. “And nobody else thinks it either.”

“Launchpad, you can’t know what other people think.”

He shrugged and set to work on Dewey’s shoulder. “That may be true, but that doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

Dewey’s brow furrowed. “I don’t get it.”

“And now we’re even.” Launchpad closed up the first aid kit and stood to put it back.

“That isn’t how it works,” Dewey said.

“Why not?” Launchpad asked as he tucked the small box away. “You’re always doing the brave stuff. Bein’ all cool and dangerous. That’s important for adventuring.”

Dewey rolled his eyes. “Everyone does the dangerous stuff. Even Uncle Donald!” He leaned back in the pilot’s seat. “I’m just doing it dumber, and I get into more trouble than I should. I’m not as smart as Huey, Louie, and Webby.”

Launchpad sat back down. “That’s not-”

“Don’t say it’s not true,” Dewey interrupted. “Look at me!” He threw out his arms angrily. “Does this look like a smart adventurer to you?”

“What? Just because you got hurt?” Launchpad asked. “You think Mr. McD got out of every adventure without a scratch? That guy’s almost died more times than I can count, and I haven’t even been working with him for that long.”

Dewey let his arms fall. “I hear what you’re saying, but it… I just-” He sighed and buried his face in his hands. “I still feel like crap.”

“I think it’s okay to feel like crap sometimes,” Launchpad said. “If it makes you feel any better, you just brought back a spear that Mr. McD has been trying to track down for years. I’m only here because he thought he might need the extra muscle, but you did it all by yourself.”

“I mean…” Dewey peered between his hands at the spear Launchpad had tossed aside. “I… yeah. I did do that.” The barest trace of a smile appeared. “Guess that was pretty cool, huh?”

“Definitely cool,” Launchpad agreed. “And you can tell your brothers how cool you are when they get back.”

Dewey nodded slowly. “That is kind of my thing, isn’t it? Being all cool and dangerous and stuff.” He looked up at Launchpad. “Thanks.”

Launchpad reached over and ruffled Dewey’s hair. “That’s what friends are for. Friends are also for hugs. Do you want a hug?” Dewey nodded, and Launchpad scooped him up for the second time that day.

He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but it was long enough for Dewey to finally–finally–stop trembling like a leaf in a storm. Even then, neither party seemed keen on letting go.

It wasn’t until after Dewey had fallen asleep that Launchpad remembered that the radio in the plane was connected to the walkie-talkies everyone else was carrying. He wished he had remembered it sooner, but better late than never.

“Launchpad to uh… everyone. Can you guys hear me?”

“Aye, we can hear ye. What’re you doin’ on th’ line?”

“Hi Launchpad!”

“Loud and clear on our end.”

“Dewey made it back to the plane,” he told them. “And he got the spear, too.”

“Wait, really?”

“Uncle Donald, Launchpad found Dewey!”

“Uuuugh, we did all this work for nothing.”

“We’re on our way back, lad. Don’t let that nephew of mine go runnin’ off again.”

Launchpad glanced down at Dewey. “Well, he’s actually asleep, so I don’t think that will be a problem.”

“Asleep? Why is he asleep?”

“Long day,” Launchpad said. “I’ll explain once everyone gets back.”

[jahaanofmenaphos]

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

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TUMBLR CHAPTER INDEX

QUEST 10: CHILDREN OF MAH

QUEST SUMMARY:

The Mahjarrat are dying, and they want answers as to why. To get them, they must journey back to Freneskae at the behest of Zaros, who promises them freedom from their Rituals once and for all. When Zamorak gets wind of his intentions, it leads to the two deities meeting for the first time since the great betrayal…

CHAPTER 1: LONG WAY HOME

Jahaan had been informed of Ozan’s fate. He took it as well as expected.

Over the next few days, Ariane, Mary Rancour and Idria visited Jahaan in his hospital bed, but neither party welcomed the visits. Conversation was tense and weighted, with hollow pleasantries and distracted glances. After all they had been through, conversing just didn’t seem possible, let alone appropriate. Ozan’s absence choked the air around them, invading their minds. How could they talk about anything else? How could they talk about him?

They couldn’t. That’s why, before long, Mary Rancour made excuses to go back to Burthorpe, and Idria said she had business to attend to in the Guardian of Armadyl military order. Ariane stayed for a while longer. Usually the two just sat in silent, solemn contemplation. Jahaan slept through a lot of the visits, even when he wasn’t tired. He couldn’t deal with anyone, let alone her.

Soon, she too made her excuses and left for the Wizards’ Tower, saying she ought to go back and look after Coal.

Then, Jahaan was alone. It was a familiar state for him. He liked solitude, unless in the company of those he trusted. That list was growing thinner and thinner with each passing day. The only true friend he ever had was Ozan, though. Now he was gone too.

Jahaan felt angry. He felt rage, bitter, burning rage… but he was tired. Gods, he was tired. Soon, the rage became hollow. He felt empty, breathing just enough to keep living, the shallow air rattling around his insides.

That’s why he slept so much. At least in his dreams, he didn’t feel so empty.

Gaw’kara’s treatment consisted predominantly of bedrest and pain remedies. Every time he caught Jahaan attempting to walk without aid, even if it was just to stretch his legs and take in the view from the nest, he barked at him to go back to bed. Such injuries required time and relaxation, he would always repeat. Gaw’kara didn’t even allow Armadyl to see Jahaan until a good week into his recuperation.

By the time Armadyl was finally allowed to visit the World Guardian, Jahaan was growing very restless. He could walk, but not without the use of a cane, and he only had one good arm to hold that with. The pain ranged from mild and underlying, all the way up to agony if he twisted in the wrong way. Thus, pain relievers were always on hand. Still, Jahaan was looking forward to leaving the nest. He was grateful for all Gaw’kara and the Armadyleans had done for him, but he needed to leave. He needed to collect his armour from Wahisietel and rest up somewhere else, somewhere private. Not that he had much in the way of company, but still. He’d rather be recuperating on his own terms.

Jahaan was propped up in his bed when Armadyl greeted him with a warm smile. “Salutations, World Guardian. How are you feeling today?”

“Fine, thanks,” Jahaan replied, his stock reply for the question he’d been asked dozens of times by now.

“I apologise for not visiting sooner - Gaw’kara forbade it, and I daren’t cross that bird,” Armadyl chuckled, a wry smile on his beaked face. “But he told me what happened, and of your condition. You’re going to live, and make a full recovery, but only if you don’t do anything reckless.”

“Reckless is all I have,” Jahaan attempted a smile; that, and the joke, were weak. “Thanks for letting me rest here, Armadyl. I really appreciate it.”

“But of course. We don’t turn our back on the injured, World Guardian. And in spite of the horrible circumstances, I’m glad we finally got a chance to properly meet. Sliske’s ascendency didn’t exactly allow for pleasantries.”

“And the memory of the ascendency is anything but pleasant,” Jahaan retorted, wincing as the inhalation he took made his ribs ache. But instead of more small talk, Jahaan wanted to cut to the heart of the matter. He feared Armadyl might be in the business of recruiting him - the World Guardian was a powerful ally to have, some might argue - but Jahaan was in no mood to be under any god’s wing, no pun intended. Frankly, he’d had enough of the divine, and wanted nothing more than to leave the confines of the nest and lick his wounds in solitude. “Listen, while I appreciate your hospitality and all, I was hoping that-”

“You could leave?” Armadyl finished with a raised eyebrow. “Jahaan, you are not a prisoner here. You’re free to leave whenever you like. However, Gaw’kara had recommended at least another week of bedrest and observation. Allow that, and I’ll take you anywhere on Gielinor. And as an added incentive to stay, I’m hosting a banquet tomorrow to mark Taw-itsh Makaaw - it’s a holiday we celebrate twice a year. Could you be persuaded to attend?”

At the word ‘banquet’ Jahaan’s stomach started to rumble. Medic-bay food was hardly a feast fit for… well, anyone, let alone kings. It was nutritious, NOT delicious. He ate it out of sheer necessity to stay alive, and even then he wasn’t sure if it was worth it, knowing he’d have to suffer another mouthful of it the next day.

So, Jahaan accepted Armadyl’s invitation, and indeed stayed another week in the nest to appease Gaw’kara. Like Armdayl, Jahaan did not want to cross that bird. He was given an entire lecture upon the correct ways to treat his injuries, what to do and what not to do. The term ‘post-concussion syndrome’ had been bandied about, and Jahaan didn’t actively want to experience it, so he did take the advice to heart.

Once the week was up, Jahaan requested a teleport to Nardah. He was gifted with a cane to assist his walking, something Jahaan deeply wished he didn’t have to use, but begrudgingly did. It took him near five times as long to cross the room without it.

When he landed in the swelteringly familiar heat of the Nardah climate, Jahaan wished he also asked for a waterskin. Nevermind, the journey wasn’t that long. Though with his walking stick, and with every step being an adventure into achiness, it certainly felt like a long time.

Finally, mercifully, he reached the home of Ali the Wise.

It was a sight for the glamoured Mahjarrat to see; the last time Wahisietel had seen Jahaan, he was a lot more sprightly. Now, he was huddled over a cane. His left arm was in a sling, with his wrist bandaged. His nose was crooked, and a gap in his smile showed a missing tooth. Purple and blue splotches covered his cheeks.

Ushering him inside, Wahisietel demanded, “What happened to you?”

From the stony look on his face, Wahisietel had already hazarded a guess.

“I picked a fight and lost,” Jahaan replied, a half-truth at best, but he really didn’t want to get into it. Instead, he limped over to the set of armour neatly tucked into one of the corners of the room. “Thanks for holding onto this for me. I’m sorry I didn’t collect it sooner.”

“I am not so easily placated, Jahaan,” Wahisietel’s tone was stern, yet measured. “Tell me what he did.”

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, the back of Jahaan’s head was gradually starting to hurt. Headaches were commonplace, a side effect of the concussion. But just because they were expected, didn’t make them any less irritating.

Then, something troubling caught Jahaan’s eye. “Wahisietel, your hand…”

The Mahjarrat’s eyes followed Jahaan’s gaze down to his left hand; his glamoured human flesh seemed to be receding, a pale skeletal hand threatening to make its appearance known.

Pulling his sleeve down over the hand, Wahisietel was concerned, but not surprised. “This particular side effect started happening days ago, though I’ve been feeling the effects for weeks. My power… it has been draining at an alarming rate.” “But how?” Jahaan queried, his brow furrowing. “Lucien’s sacrifice should sustain the Mahjarrat for another five hundred years, right?”

“So you would think,” Wahisietel’s voice was grave and laced with concern. “If I am not the only one to suffer degrading, then that would mean another Ritual is upon us soon. That could mean…”

Shaking his head, the furrowed brow of Ali’s disguise relaxed somewhat; he gave a thin, sorrowful smile. “My apologies, I did not mean to burden you with this.”

Relaxing down into his armchair, Wahisietel motioned for Jahaan to take a seat opposite him. “Now that’s settled, it’s your turn to explain the state you are in.”

Slowly, Jahaan descended into the chair. It was a painful effort. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time. You can start by telling me why I was nearly crushed in my own home by a randomly materialising set of armour.”

Accepting that the Mahjarrat wasn’t going to budge on this, and rather enjoying taking the weight off his feet, Jahaan gave a heavily trimmed down version of events. No unnecessary information, and nothing about Ozan. He couldn’t bear to bring up the man’s name.

For the most part, Wahisietel sat there quietly, stewing. At least he spared Jahaan an ‘I told you so’, something the World Guardian was expecting more than his headaches. After Jahaan repeated the story, Wahisietel spent what felt like an eternity toying with his beard in silent contemplation. Jahaan was in no rush to break that silence.

Eventually, the Mahjarrat spoke. “Do you have somewhere to stay?”

Jahaan was caught slightly off-guard. Not the line of questioning he was anticipating. “I… I’m heading on to Menaphos. I’ll find somewhere there.”

Nodding gently, Wahisietel continued, “I’ll help you carry your armour to the bank. I doubt you can wear it in your condition, yes?”

Jahaan blinked. “R-Right… thank you.”

And that seemed to be his cue to leave. The two didn’t say a word to one another on the way to the bank, and Wahisietel left Jahaan with a very conservative, very blunt ‘farewell’ as he made his way back home. Jahaan was left utterly baffled at the Mahjarrat’s response, regaining just enough stability in his mind to take out a waterskin and some coins before heading over to the flying carpet operator, replaying the conversation in his head as he did so.

What he didn’t realise was that, upon returning home, Wahisietel smashed his desk in half with his bare hands.

Jahaan didn’t want to go back to Menaphos, but in his heart of hearts, he knew he had to.

He was going to go back to The Golden City, to walk through the imposing gates that towered into the clouds and beyond.

He was going to walk through the Merchant’s District, marvelling at the opulence of the wares for sale as he did so. He’d gaze upon the beautiful silk robes of the residents, walk across the perfectly paved streets, trying not to feel like the outsider he had become.

He was going to look up at the Golden Palace in the Imperial District, where the rich and affluent lounged in excessive luxury, either oblivious to the corruption and poverty surrounding them, or unphased by it.

He was going to walk across the city’s main plaza where the statues of the four lesser deities of the Pantheon stood proud.

If he could face it, he would return to the Port District. He might even see what became of his old house.

But for now, it seemed as if Jahaan would end up in the Worker’s District, since that's what his budget would allow. He was going to return to the dregs of the city he had spent a fair portion of his youth in, when the alcohol guided him that way. Waking up to the sound of pickaxes against rock was something he’d get used to. That is, until his ribs healed enough for him to join the workers, earn a pitiful living and pay off the debt he’d accrue renting a place to stay. It was the only part of the city with an altar, for the Pharaoh hated religion, seeing it as a threat to his authority. He went so far as imprisoning religious leaders. The ramshackle altar at the shoreline was a beacon of hope for those trapped in the monotony of a pauper’s life.

And just as the altar was a beacon of hope to the residents of the district, Menaphos was as close to salvation for Jahaan as he could get. This was because Jahaan’s life in Menaphos was a life before Ozan. For twenty-five years Jahaan had remained in Menaphos, not meeting his best friend until he left the Golden City. Therefore, he’d made no memories with the man in Menaphos. For Jahaan, Menaphos was the last place where he felt normal. Once he left the comfort of the city walls, everything changed. But normality, stability and peace… Jahaan’s injury and grief-addled mind concluded that Menaphos was the only place to find such things.

That’s why he had to go back to Menaphos.

So, bracing himself and paying the fare, Jahaan began the magic carpet ride across the desert. When he left the Golden City, the magic carpet transport system hadn’t been introduced. He had to walk from settlement to settlement, and some stretches of the overwhelming heat almost killed him. Directions to towns were hard to follow - maps didn’t account for the endless stretches of blank, sandy nothingness. You couldn’t catch your bearings in such a place. So, despite hating the nausea-inducing carpet ride, he thanked the gods for its existence.

The large golden gates slowly emerged into view over the horizon after what felt like half an eternity on the flying fabric. Once the carpet was parked, Jahaan rolled off and sunk into the sand below. He ended up having to sit down in the sand for a good fifteen minutes before the world stopped spinning enough for him to continue his journey. It also took him a solid five more minutes to stand up again, his pride making him refuse the assistance of the carpet operator at the Menaphos station. Jahaan could have sworn the man’s pet monkey was snickering at him. Why were there so many monkeys in the desert anyhow? Jahaan had passed a whole colony on his journey. He thought them a mirage at first, but this one here disproved that theory.

Brushing those thoughts to one side, as well as brushing off the sand that coated the lower part of his body, Jahaan limped over to the imposing gates of Menaphos. They were taller than he remembered, somehow. They felt taller, at least. Possibly because, with his bruised face, bandaged ribs and cane, Jahaan felt incredibly small.

After signalling to the guards, the gates were eased open, and the spectacle of Menaphos unravelled in front of him.

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

Previous chapter / Next chapter

[lapixie]

Ten Years Later Chapter 3

Chapter 1   Chapter 2

Chapter 3

About two hours after getting to the lab, the bulk of which he spent calming down his robots, he was finally able to look into the files and see what was being worked on. He was immediately floored.

“Kid,” he murmured to himself, reading the top file, “I knew you were a genius, knew you were gonna surpass me, but this is better than even I thought you’d be.”

As if summoned by his thoughts, the door opened and Peter walked in.

“Hey Tony, I was just checking to see if you wanted any help going over everything. I know you’re a genius and all, but it’s been ten years of progress.”

Peter’s face was timid and his body language was wary, like he thought Tony was going to be mad at him.

“Sure! I was just reading some of your files, and I gotta say, I’m impressed! Massively, gigantically, hugely, impressed!”  He may have gone a bit overboard, but he wanted to make sure Peter knew how much he thought of him. It must have worked, because his face lit up and Tony couldn’t help but stare. This kid was beautiful!

“Thanks Tony! That means a lot coming from you.” Peter almost whispered. Giving himself a shake, Peter walked over to where Tony was, and started going over all the updates to technology. Even doing just a light overview, it was still going to take days. To get a working knowledge again would take weeks.

He was caught between feeling depressed and hopeless that he was so far behind; and being elated that he would have an excuse to spend so much time with Pete. Which made him terrified, because he should not be feeling that way for a kid! Who, okay, was no longer a kid...but still! No! Bad Tony!

Pulling his attention back to the present, he was startled to notice that he had unconsciously gotten closer to Peter. Much closer. Like so close behind him he could probably feel his breath on his neck, and his arms were on either side of him. He went to quickly move back, but before he could, he heard Peter’s breath hitch. Was he nervous? Or could he possibly be attracted to Tony too? Before his brain could combust, Peter stepped forward away from Tony.

He was so stupid! Of course Peter didn’t want him! He was older and used to be his mentor. He probably thought of him like a dad. Oh God. He was lusting after a kid who thinks of him as a dad. He’s going to hell. Thankful that he was behind Peter and not in front of him, because he could feel his face was on fire, he cleared his throat and stepped to the side, giving the poor kid more room.

“So all these projects are amazing, and I can’t believe how smart you are! One question though. I don’t see anything about how you brought us all back? Where’s that file?”

He was genuinely curious. Strike that. He was genuinely bursting at the seems to find out how Peter did it. This amazing, wonderful, beauti...uh...awesome boy.

“Well, Mr. Stark, that’s the thing…” Peter seemed really nervous, and wait…

“We’re back to Mr. Stark, are we?” He chuckled, to let him know he wasn’t actually mad.

“Er, sorry, Tony. It’s just...about how I brought you all back...I kind of...didn’t. It’s just you. For now! We’re totally gonna figure it out! It’s just...when I figured out how to bring back one person, I knew it had to be you!”

His heart stopped. In all the universe, quite literally half of all the people in the universe, including his Aunt, which Tony knew how close he was to, Peter chose him to bring back! Maybe he did care about him as more than a mentor, maybe this could grow to be more, maybe-

“Because out of everyone we lost, I knew you could help me figure out how to get everyone else back! I know they’ll all understand when we get them back!”

Of course that’s why Pete chose him! For help. And he would help. He’d get everyone back for the kid so he wouldn’t have any reason to feel guilty.

“Yeah, I’ll help. Of course I’ll help! Who else is lost still?” He asked, needing to know.

“Well, um, you know Aunt May and Ned. Bucky, Wanda, Dr. Strange, T’Challa, Antman, Hawkeye…”

“It’s going to be okay. I have a question though. With May being one of the snapped, how was Happy dating her?” That had confused him since he found out May had been gone just as long as he was.

“That was before the snap. They didn’t tell many people, just me and Pepper. That’s why he’s unhappily single. Cause she’s been snapped for ten years.”

Peter looked so sad, Tony’s heart ached for the boy. He couldn’t believe that between him and his aunt, he was the one picked. If there had been any doubt before, there was none now. He would do everything in his power to help Pete get everyone back.

“We’ll get her back Pete. We’ll get all of them back. I promise!” Even if it was the last thing he did, he would get this done. The kid lost his aunt and his best friend. And he was a kid at the time. Only 17 years old. He had to make this right. The kid chose him because he believed in him. It was kind of humbling....but he was Tony Stark. He didn’t do humble.

“If anyone can do it, we can! Two brightest minds in the universe right here!” It did not warm his heart to see Peter chuckle and lose some of the sadness in his eyes. Which, coincidentally, was not killing him.

“So before we move on to saving the universe, tell me how you saved me? Maybe we can build on that?” He couldn’t wait to hear what brilliant tech he had come up with. It would probably blow everything out of the water, it was going to be amazing, it-

“Uh, I kinda just asked the soul stone and it gave you back.”

-it was so Peter.

“Huh? You did what now?” He wasn’t confused, he was just asking for clarification. Because surely the kid didn’t mean that he spoke to one of the most dangerous artifacts in all existence? Strike that, it’s Peter, that’s probably exactly what he meant.

“Well, I tried everything. And I mean everything! For ten years! And I just couldn’t figure it out. I was feeling really bad, and I just started talking. Not sure to who, cause I don’t believe in God. I mean, technically, Thor is a God? To the Norse? But no. So I was just talking to the ether, I guess. But then something started talking back to me. 

“It was the soul stone. It really didn’t like what it had been used to do. And it just happened to mention that everyone that was snapped was inside it. Which, sounded, ew. But eventually, it just came right out and said ‘Peter, I have your aunt, your only family left in the world, and I have Tony Stark, your’...uh, ‘the only person who could maybe help you figure this out. Choosing one would mean sacrificing the chance to spend this time with the other. A sacrifice is required to use me. Would you sacrifice spending time with one to get time with the other?’

“I have to admit, it struck me dumb for a bit. But I thought about what the stone was saying, listened to the actual words it said, and I knew it was trying to help. So I answered. I did what I had to do, to maybe save the world. The universe. I said ‘I choose Tony Stark.’ It wasn’t immediate. I kind of thought it would be. I mean, the snap happened within a minute. But the stone told me it would take some time. So I got Happy and Rhodey to come over, and called Pepper to come home, and you know the rest!”

Wow. That was. A lot. But he only had one burning question he needed an answer too. A dire need.

“Home? You live here?”

Peter looked a bit nervous as he answered, “Yeah, well, after the snap, I didn’t have anywhere to go. May was gone, and with her the apartment. Ned was gone. I didn’t feel right asking to stay with MJ. I was staying on the streets when Pepper found me. She told me I was moving in, and she wasn’t giving me any choice. Um, I don’t have to stay though…”

“NO!” He actually yelled it, without meaning to. Peter flinched a little and he felt so bad. A little (lot) quieter, he continued, “No. You don’t have to go anywhere! I’m just glad Pep was able to get you here. And yeah. She orders me around all the time too. I’m guessing after ten years, you’ve learned to just accede to her demands also?”

With a little quirk to his mouth, that Tony did not want to kiss, he just nodded.

“It’s really best that way. She usually knows what she’s doing better than us anyways. I’m sure you’ve learned that in the past ten years.”

“Yeah, yeah I really have. But she does make things easier, I have to give her that. I would still be struggling with the whole being outed as Spiderman thing if it wasn’t for her.” He shook his head ruefully, obviously remembering it all again.

“Boss,” Friday cut in, “it’s time for dinner. And Ms. Pepper has advised me to tell you that she has told me to cut all power to the lab if you have not started heading upstairs in ten minutes.”

“Friday, I thought you loved me! Would you really cut my power?”

“In a heartbeat boss. Go eat.”

He really had to shake the hand of the person who made her so completely life like and sarcastic. And then kick them. Oh wait. That was him.

“Let’s go Pete. Apparently, dinner waits for no man.”

Tag List:

@stxrker-fan-xx @lokitonypeter

[ink-asunder]

Dragon Hazel, Human Sacrifice - Doctor Strange Fanfiction

A/N: Here’s part two of the Dragon!Hazel-wants-a-human-companion-offering fic. ( @writer-deann )

Characters: Stephen Strange, the Ancient One, La Gaelik (Hazel) (female OC)

Setting: The Ancient One lives au, also there’s dragons au.

Summary: While reinstating a peace treaty with the Masters of the Mystic Arts, a reclusive dragon decides she wants a human sacrifice. For companionship, she claims. Though the conditions of such a task turn out to be more convoluted than anyone expected.

Word count: 1,702

Part 1 - Part 2 (here)

-

They finally found a volunteer from Kamar-taj. A strappling young man from the acolyte rank. He said his goodbyes to his peers and parents, then Wong and Stephen took him to the lair of La Gaelik. The dragon roused as they approached her and murmured some quick greeting so they’d be allowed to speak.

“We have brought our sacrifice,” Stephen gestured to the young man, who stood up straight and watched the dragon carefully. “Please accept our offering in exchange for your peace.”

She eyed the boy. “What is this?”

“What?”

She blinked. Stephen tried to be more polite this time. “I’m sorry?”

“This is a boy,” the dragon stated in a bored tone. “I wanted a girl.”

Stephen felt his jaw clench. “Then you should’ve said—”

Wong kicked his shin to shut him up and bowed his head to the dragon.

“Of course, ma’am. We’ll bring your companion soon.”

And they left before anything else could go wrong.

*   *   *

“She didn’t take him,” the Ancient One stated as Stephen met her by the window of the New York Sanctum.

“You knew?” Stephen asked. She didn’t look away from the window. “Of course you did.”

Her voice was oddly reserved when she spoke again. He hadn’t heard her speak in such away since their final confrontation before fighting Kaecilius. He had a mind to ask her what was wrong, but he knew he wouldn’t get an answer from her if she hadn’t already told him.

“Find a companion that suits her,” the Ancient One ordered. “Fulfill her orders. We need this treaty.”

*   *   *

Luckily, there were a number of novices and acolytes willing to volunteer, so Stephen and Wong had a selection to pick through for their discerning critic. They picked a young woman who was a novice and brought her to the dragon.

“You’re back,” the dragon glanced at them. Stephen gestured to the young woman they brought.

“Your sacrifice,” he offered.

The dragon straightened and inched closer to scrutinize the girl. At least she looked this time.

“Not bad,” she murmured. “She’s a little young, don’t you think?”

Stephen glanced slowly between the dragon and the woman, who gave him a mortified look.

“Would you prefer... older?”

“I don’t want to take a novice away from her studies, no,” the dragon pulled back and settled back on her ledge of stone.

“Alright,” Stephen nodded and pursed his lips before he said something he regretted.

The next woman they brought was a higher acolyte.

“Are you well-read?” the dragon questioned her.

“Quite,” the acolyte replied. “I love reading.”

“Mm,” the dragon hummed and tilted her head. “And are you able-bodied?”

“Yes. Whatever you ask of me, I can perform as well as any human.”

That was a statement of hubris, but no one questioned her. This was the third person Stephen had brought to La Gaelik, and his patience was running thin.

“Are you good at playing chess?” the dragon asked.

“Yes, ma’am. We had a club at my high school.”

“That’s too bad.”

Stephen slowly turned to glare at Wong.

“I don’t want someone who is good at chess,” the dragon dismissed. “Bring me someone else.”

*   *   *

Stephen’s patience was wearing thin. Amidst the tens of offerings taken to the dragon, she accepted not a single one of them. And with each companion, she gave another piece of helpful and progressively more specific feedback.

“Can you play erhu?”

“No...”

“Unacceptable, bring me another.”

The quest for a suitable offering became a draft. Instead of finding a volunteer, all masters and acolytes in the order were called forth and interviewed based on their meeting the convoluted criteria for the dragon. So far, they needed a female of acolyte or higher rank who was above the age of consent and preferably older, able-bodied, a skilled spellcaster, well-read, didn’t like playing chess, and could play erhu. After several days of struggling to find a suitor, a few people assembled group erhu lessons in their spare time.

Stephen and Wong brought the most suitable woman they could find. It would be a hard loss, but they were running out of options. The dragon leveled Stephen with an ill-amused look.

“This is a virgin, Stephen,” she snapped.

“How was I supposed to know that?” he demanded. He was getting tired of their game.

“I’m sure you will next time.”

Stephen had to kick a nearby bush once the three of them left the cave.

“Well, at least she’s not cliche,” he finally muttered.

So, now the requirements included someone who was sexually active, and Stephen did not let himself consider what that implied about this contract; he just kept looking. After that, the instructions got even more niche and unreasonable. Has an allergy to acetaminophen. Can ride horses. Is a dog person. Has had head trauma at some point in her life.

“Does she have to be cisgender?” Stephen asked after another rejection.

“Stephen!” the dragon straightened, shocked and offended.

“I’m just asking!”

Finally, they found someone who met the specific requirements. Anything based on opinion was altered—don’t like dogs? Now you do. Won a chess tournament? Now you have amnesia and don’t know how to play. Even then, it was so difficult. And Stephen was about to lose his damn mind.

Now, he stood to the side of the cave, turning a twig in his hands to keep them busy as they waited. The dragon observed the woman they brought, but Stephen had come to recognize her immeasurable, day-ruining disappointment.

“Have you ever seen Star Wars?” she asked.

“Yes.” There was no point lying. No doubt she’d be disappointed whatever the answer.

And disappointed she was.

“Alright,” she sighed. “You can go home now.”

Stephen snapped the stick he’d been holding in half.

“How do you even know what that is?” he demanded.

“There’s a drive-in movie theater some dozen miles from here,” the dragon replied. And that was all their was to it.

Stephen was close to giving up. As he, Wong, and the woman returned to Kamar-taj, they were met by the Ancient One. Stephen could barely meet her eyes. That was the last person in their order they could’ve found. If they wanted to appease the dragon, they’d need to branch out of their order, and who knew if they could do that safely.

They met with the Ancient One in her study, who avoided looking at them for a long time, like she was guilty of something.

“Now we need someone whose never seen Star Wars,” Stephen relayed the information in an exasperated tone. “That was our last potential candidate. If we’re going to fulfill our end of the deal, we’ll need to branch out. Though I don’t know how we’re going to do that safely and humanely....”

“No, we don’t need to do that....” The Ancient One looked up. Her expression was dismal. A grim pout. A guilty grim pout.

Stephen raised his eyebrows.

“I haven’t seen Star Wars,” she quietly admitted. Stephen leaned forward.

“And as for all that other stuff?”

The Ancient One pursed her lips. “I think she wants me specifically.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Stephen demanded. No, he knew why. She was the Sorcerer Supreme. She couldn’t just abandon her order and her duties to be some dragon’s pet. Perhaps she found it a better solution to ignore the possibility entirely.

Stephen gave a sigh of defeat, and the Ancient One sat up a little straighter.

“We’ll negotiate with her tomorrow. After you take me to her.”

Stephen nodded. This whole peace talk business was an absolute mess.

*   *   *

The dragon was lying down as usual with her back to them this time as they entered the cave. She called a greeting over her shoulder, but didn’t turn.

“We’ve brought your final sacrifice,” Stephen announced. “She meets all your criteria.”

The dragon scoffed. “Does she have green eyes?”

The Ancient One spoke this time. “Yes.”

The dragon twisted around as if startled. She stared with a face of awe and disbelief at her offering. The Ancient One stood before her, dressed in golden robes, a labrodorite pendant hanging from her neck. In that moment, La Gaelik thought she might tremble beneath the blessing of the other’s gaze.

The dragon then sat back and grinned.

“It’s about time you showed up,” she said. “What took you so long?”

“Well, not that you noticed, but I’ve been recovering from an injury,” the Ancient One replied. “I haven’t had time to come see you, Haalaan.”

“Oh, I noticed, Giin,” the dragon tilted her head, a mischievous look in her eye.

Stephen glanced at Wong, who leaned closer to him.

“Giin means ‘mine,’” Wong explained. “She’s accepted her.”

“Great,” Stephen muttered. When he looked back up, the Ancient One was already standing right in front of the dragon with her arms draped around the dragon’s neck. The dragon closed her eyes and flicked her tail contently.

“Now you’re trying to force me into early retirement,” the Ancient One mumbled against the dragon’s fur.

“There’s nothing ‘early’ about anything you do, Ancient One.”

The Ancient One grinned up at her. “How could I stay here when I have an order to lead? You’ve always been so self-indulgent.”

The dragon pressed her head against the Ancient One’s chest. “I only wanted to see you, Giin. Go back home.”

“Thank you.”

*   *   *

Not a day later, Stephen found the Ancient One in the courtyard with someone he’d never seen before. A woman with wild black hair was lying across the veranda with her head in the Ancient One’s lap. She seemed peacefully asleep as the Ancient One calmly brushed a hand through her hair.

“New recruit?” Stephen guessed quietly. The stranger spoke up in a lazy voice, eyes still closed.

“No, Stephen, I’m not here for mentorship....”

That voice! Stephen froze in his tracks, obviously flustered, as he looked between the girl and the Ancient One.

“That’s not—”

“I’m her companion, remember?” the Ancient One grinned. “This was the best negotiating we could come to since I couldn’t leave the sanctuary.”

Stephen stared at the dragon in human form draped across the Ancient One’s lap.

“This has to be violating our treaty in some way.”

Fin.

[crystalelemental]

New Mystery of the Emblem is complete, and I have many thoughts.

Let’s just start with this: holy shit this was so much more fun than Shadow Dragon.  For three major reasons:

No one is expected to die.  Shadow Dragon bothered me immediately, because I’m required to let someone die in the prologue to escape.  That sucks, and I hated it.  I have never gotten over that, or the expectation to kill more units to access the bonus chapters.  Which, sure, you can argue are optional.  But those characters appear in this game and are recognized, so clearly those happened now didn’t they?!

SUPPORT CONVERSATIONS!  Okay, they’re not like...actual support conversations.  They’re Radiant Dawn style, where you have conversations with allies at your base and only your base.  But there’s a tier of 1-3 for most characters, and they’re essentially support conversations, and god Shadow Dragon was impossible to get in to without those.  Seriously, I may enjoy the gameplay of Fire Emblem overall, but I do not enjoy units for combat performance, I enjoy them for being characters, and thank god they feel like characters this time.

Actually interesting story.  Shadow Dragon was pretty boring, frankly.  Very basic concepts presented, not really a lot going on.  But New Mystery actually expands on a lot of this stuff.  I’ll get into that more below.

Suffice to say, I really enjoyed it more than Shadow Dragon.  I think in terms of ranking, I’d definitely place it above Shadow Dragon, Birthright, Revelation, and Sacred Stones.  Currently I think I’m putting it above Conquest too.  While Conquest is similarly fun to play, New Mystery has the benefit of being more interesting as a story.  I’m hesitant to put it over Echoes, though.  Listen, Echoes sucks as a game.  It’s really not fun to play, almost at all.  New Mystery is fun to play, so this should be obvious.  But while the story is improved, I wouldn’t put it anywhere near the level of Echoes.

See, the main thing with New Mystery is that it filled in gaps that made the world feel more organic than just generic medieval kingdom with magic and dragons and shit.  They delve into what the Fire Emblem here is, about the history of the dragons, and why, say, Tiki’s kept locked away for so long.  Also why Medeus is a villain, and out to eliminate humanity.  Turns out, he was the only Earth Dragon to listen to Naga and convert to a manakete, and even helped guard the seal over the dragons who were slowly losing their minds.  But humans, as soon as they had that advantage, exploited dragons.  Several maps showcase that these deteriorating dragons are being kept in thrall to human tribes who use their power for personal gain.  Exploitation of dragons led Medeus to despise humans, and seek to overthrow them.  Which is pretty cool!  I’m on board with that!  Tiki’s said to also be deteriorating without the seal in place, and that, as a powerful divine dragon, she’s bring ruin to the world if she weren’t contained.  So they basically kept her in stasis to avoid disaster.  Which...okay, Fallen Tiki should’ve just been that.  A feral Tiki that’s no longer all there, instead of just “Gharnef’s power is controlling her.”  Shadow Dragon’s momentarily irritable Tiki wasn’t shit compared to what they implied could happen here.

The trouble is that the game is still pretty basic.  Beyond this bit of worldbuilding, it’s still very much conflict between the kingdoms, again, all ochestrated by Gharnef, who’s working for Medeus.  Again.  They play around more with their themes and set up some cool ideas, but it’s not the most compelling of narratives by any means.  What’s also not helped is that, while support conversations exist to make characters more engaging, it’s not all of them, and not all are done well.  Some supports are just a sort of filling in the gaps.  At least, with the MU they are.  Maybe with other characters they get a bit more.

Speaking of MU, let’s divert a bit to talk about them.  Kris is like...the one MU I have heard universal hate for.  My best guess is that this is due to fans of the original FE3, who didn’t like their inclusion in the first place, because otherwise I have no idea what the problem is.  Kris seems fine.  Really boring, but fine.  The only reason they’re kinda my least favorite is because they’re supposed to be their own character but don’t do anything.  Like, Robin has a personality and is fun, and has a great dynamic with Chrom.  Corrin, for all the faults borne of Fates, feels pretty much like a typical Fire Emblem lord.  Byleth...okay, I don’t like Byleth much, I feel like their inclusion kinda hinders the game’s narrative a little bit, but otherwise they’re pretty blank and exist mostly as a support for the other lords.  But Kris...doesn’t do much of anything.  They don’t really have a dynamic with anyone, including Marth, and are just sort of...generic loyal knight with no knowledge of the world for some reason, and who only ever trained with their now dead grandfather.  Beyond that, they don’t really exude any particular personality.  Which is probably part of the problem with supports; everyone supports with Kris, but they don’t contribute much, so it’s mostly the other character doing stuff at them.  They just don’t have much to do.

With one exception.  We gotta talk about the other, presumably new character: Katarina.  I actually love Katarina.  Which is a shame, I pulled one of her in Heroes once and made her into a manual because I didn’t care.  Oh well.  Anyway, Katarina’s got a pretty solid story behind her, and is one of the more compelling pieces of the plot overall.  She’s part of a band of assassins who were orphans, taken in by Lady Eremiah.  Eremiah is super cut-throat, willing to sacrifice the lives of these children to accomplish her goals, which mostly seem to be serving Gharnef.  While Legion’s boring and lame, Clarine and Katarina are spectacular.  Clarine starts off really obnoxious, and kind of a bitch, but the chapter where she finally falls hit me pretty hard.  Katarina’s supports with Kris also give a bit more context to what had happened, particularly with the talk about how Clarine and Katarina share a birthday, because they never had one but Clarine just decided on a day and that was the end of it.  It’s a really cute dynamic you get to experience kind of in reverse.  You see how bad things have gotten, then get the history of what used to be, and why Katarina couldn’t leave.  Eremiah’s the same.  Gharnef shows up as she’s dying and reminds her of her own history.  The orphanage she worked at was burned to the ground and the children slaughtered in the last war.  In despair, Gharnef appeared and convinced her that if the children were strong, they wouldn’t die so easily, leading her to take in the next wave and train them for strength alone, all the while becoming corrupted by Gharnef’s influence.  That last part aside, pretty compelling.  I do enjoy narratives that play with the idea of kindness being manipulated to a sensible, but corrupted, conclusion.

My main problem is that Gharnef sucks.  He’s not an interesting villain at all.  He just kind of exists, and was largely motivated by getting passed over by his master when it came to who got the cool spells.  He’s a big, stinky baby man whining about not being the favorite, and I could not care less.  Yet he’s supposed to be this grand puppetmaster, of a particularly shitty puppet.  Hardin was an ally in Shadow Dragon, who became an enemy this game.  Why?  Oh, he was mad that Nyna didn’t like him back, and got super buttmad about it.  Which is honestly fair at this point, since they describe it as a depressive episode.  He gets to marry this woman he loves, only to find out she never reciprocated the feeling at all.  Feel like it’s fair to be upset.  But then Gharnef shows up and allegedly corrupts his soul with the Darksphere.  Which...okay, first?  Lame.  Second?  Why do we have that, and why does it do that?  This was a gift from Naga, why the hell is it so dangerous?  Third, super lame!  It takes away all agency Hardin had as a villain and removes it down to “oh, he was possessed.”  Which sucks, because the exact inverse happened for Michalis, and now he’s super cool!

His character arc this game was spectacular!  Showing up to take Minerva away from her captors.  Giving her refuge in the desert and helping her rendezvous with Marth?  There’s something going on, compared to last game where he was just some lame baby man who wanted power.  Minerva says Gharnef lost his hold, and Michalis is like “Oh, no, I would never bend to him.  I killed dad because we disagreed on Macedon fighting to become a major power in the world again, and he tried to have me exiled.  I did it for me, and regret nothing.”  Honestly loved that.  But when asked why he’s helping now, it turns out it’s for their sister.  He talks about how, after he was defeated, he was near death, and the first thing he saw when he came to was Maria kneeling over him, praying to the gods to save him.  He was so touched by her kindness despite his actions, that he’s now solely driven to save her as his final act.  He doesn’t regret his actions, but recognizes that he lost and needs to do something, and god damn if it’s not going to be saving his little sister.  That’s super cool!  I’m so on board with this dude now!  One of the bigger antagonists of Shadow Dragon who offered almost nothing became a big favorite in the game with a single conversation!  I feel like that encapsulates the difference between Shadow Dragon and New Mystery pretty well.

The last thing I’ll mention is gameplay.  I really enjoyed just playing this game, and I think a big component of that is because the maps are pretty short.  And yet.  They’re challenging.  There are a few that just repeatedly required me to restart the chapter, despite being maybe three turns long.  The extra chapter when you first face Legion, and it’s got the two mercenaries to the left and right of your starting position, and you can recruit both but you have to not kill them?  The map was so small they could get to just about anyone, so it was a real challenge to handle the archers with my high movement units, prevent those two from dying against the blockades to the sides, and take out the boss quickly without being swarmed.  Other times, the gimmicks were a little obnoxious.  Like Chapter 18.  You’re trying to take this one castle on the right that’s pretty well defended, but there are these super fast cav archers closing in on you from above.  You basically have one turn to get to the village on the left, so their king calls them off.  It’s a cool chapter, but I had to reset the first time, because I didn’t go into the chapter knowing that.  I put my dancer closer to the fortress, thinking I’d have to just move quickly and take out the boss to get them to back off, so Marth couldn’t reach the goal fast enough.  It’s just small things like that.

Overall, I think it’s pretty solid.  I could see playing this one again some day.  Maybe to intentionally miss one of the spheres so I can see what the bad ending is about.  But on the whole, I like it.  Still not super impressed with the characters in Marth’s game, I still feel like a lot are pretty bland (including Marth himself), but it’s a huge step up from Shadow Dragon.

[yzssie]

OCEAN EYES Pt. 4

Characters: Loki/Reader(Y/N)

Chapters: 4/7

Warnings: smut and smut (dominant Loki), mentions of self-harm, a little angst (added some fluff to compensate it)

Short summary: You find yourself in the midst of another attack by Loki, but little did both of you knew that things will get complicated, a strange attraction to each other will change everything.

Words: 2.9k

Disclaimer: I DO NOT ROMANTICIZE OR ENCOURAGE SELF HARMING! Mental health problems are very serious and real. If you have any struggles and you want to talk with someone, I am right here and I truly wish to help you!

A/N: 

Late Valentine’s gift! Though it’s a chapter more, domestic to call it like that, the next one will be smutty /smirks/. Sorry for the cliffhanger T_T  Trouble coming up? What do you think?

Please do tell me if I mistakenly added you to the Loki/Tom tag instead of “FANFIC GONE... GOOD?” or if you meant to be added on the general tag and I misunderstood you want only for the teacher au. I said I have only a general tag list, but then I had a lot of tag requests only for “FANFIC GONE... GOOD?” so I am a little bit disorganized. Please mention which tag you prefer (the specific fanfiction or the general one for Loki and Tom), or if you want to be changed or removed from the list! SEND ME A MESSAGE OR COMMENT! Thank you and sorry darlings! 

Also, we are going to have the next chapter for “Fanfic Gone... Good?” next week, stay tuned! I wanted to make it slightly longer so I am currently thinking of expanding it in 3 chapters, that’s why I couldn’t double gift you this week! Thank you everyone for all the support, it means a lot to me!! SENDING LOTS OF LOKI LOVE!  ❤ ❤ ❤

*part 7 is out, check Masterlist*

You eye him while he takes his seat again and notice that the food was left exactly how it was before you threw your little fit. You get rid of that memory and aim for more basic and calm conversation in order to make up for whatever you two fought off.

“So… what is this?” you point to a plate which looked delicious.

“It's a rolled pastry with beef, vegetables, some you don’t know because they're Asgardian and cheese?” his eyebrows furrow at his explanation. “It sounds terribly normal but I have to keep it simple for your Midgardian tastes.”

“I'm fine with everything honestly. And I would like to know more about this one,” you take a bite of the roll and your eyes widen. “It's so goooood,” you throw your head back and Loki can't help but smile shortly at your overreaction.

“Ok, I would actually like to know about everything here,” your eyes scan the table and a hint of pride can be seen in Loki's glimpse. He feels pleased with your own satisfaction.

“There will be enough time.”

You look at him and can't help but feel content at his remark. This has to mean something, he wouldn't keep you with him just to toy with you, right?

“I recommend this,” his golden magic shoves a plate in front of you and you smile.

“It's beautiful.”

“The dish? Well, I wouldn't call it beautif…”

“Your magic.”

He raises an eyebrow and you cough.

“I mean, the colours and the way it works. Better than that blue thingy you have on your scepter.”

The Tesseract? Have you just assumed his magic is better than a cosmic box combined with an Infinity Stone? He shakes his head in amusement at your statement and continues eating his food. Sure, he worked intensely on developing his magic skills while he was “dead” and he reached a point where he can be called one of the best sorcerers in the nine realms, yet he also analyzed the Space Stone and he indeed grasped a better hold on its power. He took his time giving the fact that he was hidden from everyone over the assumption of being dead, but, even if he still needs time to comprehend them, he wanted to show off his new powers. And what wouldn't be a better target than the planet he almost owned and the race that caused his mother to sacrifice herself?

His hatred is paused by another satisfied sound escaping on your lips when you bring a piece of cake in your mouth.

“What did I tell you about…”

“I am sorry but I usually don't eat a lot. And since I wanted this cake so much I should refrain from eating much of a meal before it. You know, counting calories and macros, I bet you don't worry about getting weight and so on. Trivial things for a God right?”

“My strength requires a lot of replenishment.”

“Obviously,” you take another bite.

“I would much prefer you to be as replenished as I am than starving for such an idiotic human goal.”

You roll your eyes and take a bite from another cake.

“You know Loki, life on Earth is really hard. I mean, you underestimate the hardships a Midgardian goes through.”

“Is this why you hurt yourself?” he asks and you stop your fork from getting another piece of cake.

You're afraid to reach this subject with anyone, moreover with the God of Mischief.

“Let's make a deal,” his voice interrupts your thoughts but you still don't raise your head to meet his eyes, “You answer a question I ask and I will also answer one of yours.”

You finally look up at him and chew on your lip.

“I assure you that I can get all the information I need with only a touch, so you should be thankful that I am feeling a little bit… generous today.”

“Ok…” your fingers are starting to fiddle with the fabric of your robe and wait for him to start.

“Why did you self-harm?” the question sucks all the air from your chest and you gulp.

“Life,” the word barely escaped from your lips with a choke.

“You're testing my patience.”

“I'm sorry…” you whisper.

“What exactly in your life made you do that?”

Silence.

“Well, I did warn you,” his body vanishes and by the next second your back meets his chest, one hand wraps around your stomach and the other one sticks to your forehead. You feel a weird pressure trying to get in your head and you lean on Loki's shoulder when your memories start to project in your mind. From high school when comments about your appearance made you starve yourself, to college when you felt useless, stupid and hopeless, to your boring work life. The times your heart broke because of failed relationships, the times you felt your existence a failure to your parents and friends. Nights you barely slept, anxiety attacks, moments you let your blood flood the sink, scenarios on how you could just end your life… he watched everything. You pant when the memories stop and struggle to get away from his grasp.

“No…” a muffled sound meets his neck and he does something you both get surprised of: he hugs you tightly, warmness from his body taking over your, making you totally give in.

“Stop,” his voice is stern and you do as you're told. “I would have done it anyway, sooner or later.”

You lay in his hold absent-minded, realizing that he knows everything now. You are ashamed, embarrassed, you never told anyone details about your depression.

“I am… not exactly proud that I invaded your privacy in this forceful way and pained you by reminding of those…”

“You mean that you're sorry?” you would have laughed at his attempt to avoid this word if you weren't in the given situation.

“I do…” there's a long break and then a soft whisper, “Apologize.”

He would have never said that to a mere mortal. But he can almost feel all your misery radiating through your delicate frame. He now concluded how easily to break you are, not just physically but also mentally. There was a slight panic in his chest when he blood on your skin. He now has second thoughts on this whole matter. At first, he didn't mind breaking you, wrecking you, that was his plan, but now it’s different. Why? He keeps questioning his actions. Why? You're messing his plans, his… crave for power and domination.

“Well…” you shift awkwardly.

He clears his throat and let's go of you, even if the absence of your touch makes him sigh.

“I guess this didn't work as I wanted,” you sit back in your chair and drink a glass of wine to bear with another awkward exchange.

“Let's say I would prefer you not to drink a lot, it doesn't seem like you can handle alcohol,” his hand pushes the glass away. “I will answer some of your questions if you behave.”

You look at him standing to your left and search his eyes. God, how can someone have such a beautiful pair of eyes? The blue irises are like an unknown yet mysterious place that fascinates you, wishing you would never stop falling into their profoundness even if you know it’s dangerous.

“You're staring.”

“Oh, yes,” you break the eye contact. “So, we're in Asgard.”

He nods.

Great. You've been drifted to another realm, though it sounds tempting to explore.

“Probably somewhere pretty far from the palace you're supposed to be at.”

He nods again and sits on the chair near you, prepared for more nonverbal replies.

“What happened to you after the…” you pause, “Avengers crash and so on?”

“Nothing special. Imprisoned and then,” he takes his time to think the answer, “Freed by the oaf of my brother.”

“And what have you been up to?”

“Studying magic and getting stronger.”

“For?”

Good question. He wanted to attack Earth again, revenge his mother’s death but now everything seemed stupid in your company. But why? You are nothing but a mortal, as Thor's lover is. He somehow understands why his brother was so protective of Jane when the dark elves approached. But his mother… Did she also feel as Thor felt? As he still feels now? When she sacrificed herself for a mortal? Was it for Thor's happiness? 

Of course, the mighty real son of Odin and Frigga. 

No.

He wants to hit himself for a moment that he actually assumed his mother didn't care as much for him as she did for Thor. She was the only one, the only person in his life who truly loved him.

“You…” he snaps.

“For me?” your face contorts in bewilderment.

“No. What's it with you? Is this a trick? Are you sent by one of my enemies? By Father?” he jolts, hitting the chair on the floor and you yelp. “Tell me,” he grabs your chin threateningly.

“Loki… you took me here.”

“Yes, yes I did! Because there is something about you, something that attracts me. Did he cast some spell on you?”

“Loki please, calm down.”

“Calm down?! You dare to inflict me with your affection? Affection? For whom? For what reason?” he’s screaming now and you're shaking at his outburst.

“I'm…” your lip quivers but no words are coming out.

“You're what?” his fist pounds the table.

“Understanding you,” you finally manage to respond, making him frown.

“I know how you feel. You're misunderstood because of your actions. But those actions were simply a reflection of the pain you're going through.”

He laughs ironically, “Understand me? You?”

“I was in New York when you fought with the Avengers. And I saw… your eyes. It was for a couple of seconds while Thor evacuated the building. And I just… felt it… knew it from your eyes.”

“You're completely stupid.”

“Meeting you twice… I will not call it destiny, merely a chance to…”

“To?” his tone is low.

“Know your true self. I know it sounds crazy, who do I think I am? You're a God, I'm a very non-significant human, more non-significant as usual people are. I don't know, to be honest, I am also clueless about my actions towards you. They're just led by… my inexplicable feelings.”

“Feelings?” a strangled sound comes from his throat. “For someone who almost killed you? For a monster like me?” his pale skin changes to blue and the ocean you adore becomes crimson.

So that's how a Frost Giant looks. Nobody from Earth seems to be aware of Loki’s true identity except you. When you were hiding under an office for safety while Thor was fighting Loki, you overheard the small conversation between them, including Loki stating that he's a Frost Giant, a species which they both hated. Your eyes follow the lighter blue stripes on his face and can't help to trace them with your fingers.

Loki's eyes widen and for a moment he leans in to feel your touch but hastily grabs your wrists to stop you.

“I will freeze you.”

You chuckle. “In case you haven't observed, my body’s temperature is literally 15 Celsius degrees.”

He is not amused by your joke and your lips tighten.

“Ok… it was not appropriate for this mome…” your words stop when Loki's hands wrap around your waist and his head rest on your stomach, his Frost Giant form gradually disappears. Unsure about how your movements could push him away, you hesitantly bury your fingers into his hair and gently play with his long black curls. 

Your scent is taunting him, you feel like… a place where he'll always be welcomed back whatever happens, a place that waits for him, longs for him... You feel like home.

“You are not to discuss about this moment,” his voice is muffled in your embrace and you smile.

“Of course I am not,” you roll your eyes. “What will happen to your enormously evil reputation if words are out about cuddling with such a weak Midgardian?” you massage his scalp and he hums in approval.

“Can you show me around?” you mumble while you're still stroking his hair.

“Why would you give up your life to accompany someone like me?” he ignores your question and you take some minutes to finally respond.

“Because I have pretty weird standards as you might have already noticed.”

“Indeed,” he agrees and lets go of you. His hand tangles in your hair and pushes your lips onto his, gently tugging on your lower one. His hands travel to your thighs, your muscles tense at his touch. He grabs and wraps them around his waist, jolting you up on the table. Your arms tug his leather blouse, while the kiss is getting sloppy, slow, as if he has to retrace a lost map. His tongue is looking for yours which gladly joins his dance for dominance. You thought this kiss will steal your soul, you have never been kissed like this before, needy but in the same time steady, passionate. His fingers brush your back and you shiver in his arms, moment which he breaks the kiss.

“It's not entirely safe to do so… but take a quick shower and I will show you around,” he grazes his fingers on your right thigh. “A quick one.”

You nod and storm for the bathroom while Loki grins stupidly at your excitement.

What did I get into?

After what lasted like 10 minutes you return to the dining room where Loki sits on the couch, reading a book.

“What are these clothes Loki? Renaissance times much?”

“Those are Asgardian clothes.” He takes a glimpse at your figure and his gaze drops on your revealing shoulders marked by his bites. You squirm uncomfortably under his stare and he stands up.

“You would have to stay near me and don't touch anything or speak to anyone, understood?”

You nod as he grabs your waist and your body feels weightless for some seconds before a weird sensation hits you and you hold onto his shoulders strongly. Your eyes shut close and your breath stops while his arms are now rubbing your back.

“We’re here,” he states and your legs go jelly but he holds you in place. “Breathe.”

He has just teleported the both of you in an Asgardian square but your body is not adjusting really well to his magic.

“I might throw up,” you gasp but a sudden warmth envelops your chest and you instantly feel better.

Did he just use his magic to make me feel better? Oh God, I'm starting to like him more than I already do.

“This is an Asgardian square, though it is not as fancy as it is in the center. We’re in a very reserved place in the mountains.”

You glance at him and gape at his changed appearance.

He rolls his eyes at your reaction, “I cannot be seen here, especially with someone like you.”

His features could be still seen slightly due to his blue haunting eyes which remained the same but he now he has shorter curly copper hair and a beard. His face is less visible from the black leather hood he wears.

“So are we shopping?” you smile widely while you take in the surroundings.

He grabs your hand and drags you back, almost sticking your body to his.

“There are some people here who can feel if someone is not Asgardian.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“They might be. My magic is covering your smell but I would prefer you close.”

You ignore his death stare and return your attention to the blue decorated stands with different objects. The sellers are wearing simple brown and beige clothes. You wouldn't know that they're Asgardians if you weren't on another planet.

“I actually do need some things like make-up? Skincare products? Comfy clothes?”

“I much prefer you naked, body and face.”

You roll his eyes and he tilts his head.

“Did you just…?”

“So if you can transport things,” you interrupt him, “Can't you like have a short trip to Earth and steal a Chanel make-up stand? Or a…”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I was just trying. I mean… since you would do this, at least let it be something expensive.”

“Choose whatever you want from here.”

“Loki… I have no idea what these are… what language is this?”

“Give her whatever she needs.” his gaze fixes the seller and a green glow flashes in her eyes.

“Of course, your majesty.”

Did he just cast a spell on her? Her mind-controlled gaze fixes on your face as she studies it. She quickly packs a few bottles in a box and she handles it to Loki.

“Let's leave.”

“Well if you can steal from a merchant in the square I assume you can do the same to a whole line of cosmetics which probably gains 100.000 times more than this woman.”

“Your tone pet, you better lower it and stop complaining,” he groans and grabs your waist to crash your body into his. For a moment you thought he would kiss you but it appears he’s sensing something and checks his surroundings from the underneath of his hood.

“Loki?”

“We’re getting out of here, now!”

Taglist opened (please mention which tag you prefer):

Loki/Tom Hiddleston tag: @drakesfiance , @cutiepotpie177 , @brokenthelovely , @heart-shaped-hell , @ultrailoveharrystylesblog, @mooncrow123 , @screw-real-life-i-pick-fandoms , @powerstrangerdacre , @darkprincessloki92     , @abrunettefangirlnerd , @little-moonbeam-666 , @youreawizardjulie , @writingmi , @lokislilslut , @abelstnbhd , @januarycalendargirl , @yuna-belikova @joyofbebbanburg , @timevortexheart , @captainrainbowpanda , @thesisterofthedevil , @unlikelytigerqueen , @loreleyfromouterspace , @bitchwhytho 

*crossed username means I cannot tag you for some reason :( *

[cheshiresense]

Out of curiosity, and because you've mentioned it before: how do you think a friendship between ichigo and aizen would go down? *tosses in a time travel bit, just in case, because why not?*

Pinglist: @yoshifics @bewarethemandragora @runeofluna @selenedreamwalker @hypnos28 @verticallychallengedintrovert @fandommaniac2401 @lovingempress @cynthia-of-the-wallflowers @shadowsofmoonracer @pairp @warriorofbooks @charlottedabookworm @lyra689 @sheyrenawyrsabane @sora-the-empress @xadriannax @yumeniai @arrysa @lirial89-fanfiction @skysong246 @caiahat @grimreaper19 @arosethornbyanyothername @mtkiseki @kaminoko-x @nesskyru @tatarako @parklena42 @zibeth-a @aerdnanocte @timegrenades @healingmichiko @shiko-rae @soraofmelody @fandoms-make-the-world-go-round @north-peach @yannilicious @oceanshimmerspirit-blog @naramyon @presumenothing @miralifox @nonbinary-hawke @dejunco @yuzukimist @wolfsrainrules

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. In general, I’m not a huge fan of Ichigo & Aizen interaction unless Aizen’s just there to fill the enemy role. It’s not like I hate it, it’s just I’m usually not interested in it.

But.

Let’s say Yhwach wins. Soul Society is destroyed. Most people are dead. All that good-bad stuff. Ichigo gets sent back. Along with Aizen. They’re basically the only two powerhouses left, and SK figures if anyone can stop his son, it’s these two with all the knowledge and experience they have against Yhwach. And also if anyone can keep Aizen in check without literally locking him up, it would be Ichigo.

Because I am a sucker for TBTP era, that is where they go. Maybe that’s as far as the SK could send them, maybe he thinks a century-ish to prepare would be enough.

Aizen Sousuke, Fifth Division lieutenant, gets carted off to the Fourth when he collapses out of the blue one afternoon under the weight of a hundred+ years of memories, including all the work he’ll do in his attempt to make a perfect Hogyoku and the events that led to his brief reign in Las Noches and of course his defeat at the hands of Kurosaki Ichigo and Urahara Kisuke and even those two years he spent in the darkness of Muken before being released just in time to watch the world collapse.

Ichigo, mind and body, gets conveniently dumped near a patrol led by Shiba Kaien. It doesn’t take much for the Clan to accept someone who’s so obviously one of them, even if they don’t know who his parents are. He’s also shuffled off to the Fourth because Kaien found him bleeding and near-comatose, and the Shibas have private healers but Unohana is still the best.

Ichigo wakes up first. His healing factor is no joke, and Aizen technically has two souls working to integrate together while his mind struggles to put all the new memories in order. They don’t see each other that day. Aizen gets his own private room, and Ichigo is in a wing reserved for the Shibas. But Ichigo can still sense him, and yeah, a very large part of him is still wary of this man because they aren’t exactly friends and Aizen’s one of the smartest, most dangerous people Ichigo has ever met. But at the same time, he also remembers the Aizen who tried to help him against Yhwach, undoubtedly for his own survival and his own refusal to serve anyone, but by the end, it was also very obvious that Yhwach was going to win and Aizen still didn’t switch sides or run away. Not even for his own survival. If nothing else, Ichigo can respect conviction like that.

Sousuke wakes a few days later. Unohana tells him his reiatsu was depleted, and did he strain himself training? Sousuke easily takes the lie and runs with it, conceding gracefully to Unohana’s ominous stare and lecture before he’s released.

Kyouka Suigetsu is cold even to his touch, and he can’t hear her even though he can feel her again. It’s both jarring and startling. He’s used to a certain kind of emptiness where his spirit once - and now again - resided, and he didn’t realize just how much he missed her felt that emptiness until it’s been filled again. He’s not sure what kind of reception he’ll receive when he enters his mindscape so he puts that off for later.

He goes back to work, brushes aside his captain’s suspicious glances and deflects his gruffly concerned nagging. He gets his hands on a calendar as soon as possible, and a few quick calculations tells him it’s still a good decade before the Hollowfication incident. He hasn’t even met Gin yet. Which reminds him… He considers it for all of a moment before making a mental note to recall all the Shinigami currently secretly under his command, gathering souls out in Rukongai under the guise of missions. Gin was a… tolerable protégé, a quick learner and a dependable subordinate, inasmuch as Sousuke ever depended on anyone. He has no use for him this time though, so he might as well leave the boy and his friend alone. Besides, Ichigo probably won’t approve, and even before they came back, Sousuke had already decided that - at least until Yhwach is taken care of - it would be more trouble than it was worth to have to fight Ichigo every step of the way as well. Until or unless, of course, Ichigo attempts to get him thrown back into Muken.

They don’t meet up until two weeks later. Sousuke is admittedly impressed at the speed Ichigo can get things moving when he’s motivated. Within a week, rumours of a new Shiba enrolling a bit late at the Academy begin circulating. Within two weeks, said new Shiba has reached prodigal status and jumped straight to almost all senior courses, most likely slated to graduate by the end of the year.

“You act quickly when you have made up your mind,” is Aizen’s opening gambit when he appears in the ramen stand that Ichigo deliberately chose because it’s only half a block away from the Fifth Division barracks.

Ichigo shrugs and doesn’t bother looking up from his noodles. “No use dragging my heels, right? I can’t do anything when I’ve got every Shiba in the city hovering over me like I might collapse from a strong gust of wind. They’ll have to back off once I graduate and get a job.”

Aizen makes a faintly skeptical noise once he finishes ordering his own meal. “You would be surprised. The Shiba Clan has always been strangely family-oriented.”

Ichigo rolls his eyes. “There’s nothing strange about being family-oriented. But whatever, we’re not here to talk about them. What’s your plan?” He gets a raised eyebrow for that. Ichigo rolls his eyes again. He feels like he’s going to be doing that a lot. “You can’t tell me you don’t already have like half a dozen plans cooked up. So tell me those, I have a few ideas of my own that I’ll tell you, and we’ll poke holes in each other’s plans until we come up with the best one.”

He gets stared at a bit more before Aizen’s ramen arrives, and they eat in silence for a while. Aizen is the one who breaks it in measured tones, “We need to figure out a way to breach their Wandenreich before Yhwach returns. He is powerful enough on his own. Taking his army from him would be a decent blow against him.”

Ichigo grimaces. “Right, and by we, you mean me.”

Aizen points out, mild as milk, “I cannot manipulate reishi.”

Ichigo sighs but doesn’t protest. His gaze slides over to a nearby shadow before returning to his food. “Right. Well. I guess you’ll be figuring out a way to defeat the Quincy army?”

Aizen waves a dismissive hand. “Yhwach aside, I am not particularly concerned about the rest of them. If push comes to shove and our Bankai are stolen, Urahara Kisuke invented a way to cripple them. I am sure I can duplicate the method.”

Ichigo gives him a hard stare at that. “Okay, but that better not be code for ‘I’m gonna continue feeding people to my sparkly magic stone’. Yours was a failure anyway so there’s no point doing the same thing all over again.”

Aizen counters with a narrow-eyed look that doesn’t quite fit the kind, genial lieutenant disguise he’s got going right now. It’s creepy. “The Hollowfication research will be necessary. I believe it is key to defeating Yhwach.”

Ichigo scowls. “That’s fine. But not your way.”

Aizen’s lip curls a little, equal parts derision and mockery before it’s wiped away again, just as a group of Shinigami duck inside to pick up their takeout order. They whisper excitedly when they catch sight of Aizen, and all of them blush when Aizen smiles at them. Ichigo thinks he might gag.

“Do you think,” Aizen says with all the silky bite of hidden poison, as soon as the Shinigami have left. “Your Urahara Kisuke created his Hogyoku any differently than I? He somehow succeeded where I did not, but do not think for one second that his hands are any cleaner than mine. The very nature of the Hogyoku requires the sacrifice of souls. He is no saint, no matter what kind of pedestal you’ve put him on in your-” He stops. Looks at Ichigo. A frown creases his brow. “…But you know that.”

Ichigo shrugs. “That Kisuke’s done some seriously messed up shit? Well yeah. I mean, Exhibit A: Rukia, Exhibit B: me. And I didn’t spend all my time at the Shouten only drinking tea and training, you know. Sometimes we talked.”

He doesn’t let himself think about it though. He’s been handling everything so far by very pointedly not thinking about it. About everything he’s lost. About everyone he’s lost.

“Just find another way,” Ichigo finishes irritably. “You’re supposed to be smart, right? So quit fucking around and figure it out.”

Aizen… doesn’t do anything as obvious as glare or even clench his jaw or anything, but there’s something about the unblinking sharpness of his expression that makes Ichigo think the man is torn between amused and annoyed and maybe a little incredulous. Ichigo doesn’t quite understand where all those emotions are coming from but he scowls back with an unflinching sort of steadiness because this is a line in the sand, and Aizen will not be crossing it. Not again.

Aizen finally concedes with little more than a huff of a laugh through his nose even as he turns back to his meal. “As you say,” He agrees, and if you only listened to his tone of voice, you’d think he was the pinnacle of gracious modesty. “And what of Urahara Kisuke? Will you be stopping him too?”

Ichigo frowns. “Yeah, but it’ll probably take me a while to get there. I was thinking, after I graduate, should I go to the Twelfth? We’ll probably need Kisuke, sooner or later.”

“You believe you can influence him enough to change him?” Aizen looks amused all over again.

“I can try,” Ichigo retorts. “If it really comes down to it, I can find his labs, burn everything that looks shady, and then pin him down and explain everything to him. And hopefully by then I’ll have found a way through to the Wandenreich too so that would be proof.”

He bristles defensively when Aizen actually rolls his eyes, a little. And here he thought the bastard was too refined for that.

“And there is the Kurosaki Ichigo I recall from our early days,” Aizen murmurs. He doesn’t give Ichigo the chance to snap back, continuing smoothly, if pointedly, “Do you even know enough about any scientific field or technological research to catch the Twelfth’s eye? At this point in time, those are the only types of graduates Urahara Kisuke is looking for.”

“Well, no,” Ichigo admits. He knows a bit from listening to Kisuke in the other future-past but probably not enough to actually make a career out of it. “But you can teach me, right?”

Aizen doesn’t even blink, but his reiatsu flutters just a moment, giving away his genuine surprise. “Me. Teach you.”

“You can say no,” Ichigo snorts. “If I can’t get into the Twelfth, I figure the Thirteenth or Eighth might be-”

“I have not said no,” Aizen cuts him off calmly. “And it would be foolish of you to believe there is no danger in working your way into Kyouraku Shunsui or Ukitake Jyuushirou’s good graces. This is not a century in the future where they’ve spent years stewing silently under a number of injustices against people they claimed to care about. This is a time where they turned their faces and said nothing when the Gotei’s elite was gutted overnight on one man’s say-so. Kyouka Suigetsu’s hypnosis ensured that an already paranoid government would condemn them, this is true, but I never had to hypnotize a single Shinigami for them to let the matter go. There was talk, of course, but in the end, they swept the incident under the rug all on their own.” He studies Ichigo for a long moment, and whatever he sees there - Fury? Disgust? Disappointment? - makes him nod with something like satisfaction and something like pity. “I will teach you some basics. I teach classes a few times a week at the Academy. I can set aside some office hours for you. If you can turn Urahara Kisuke to our cause, it would simplify matters greatly. But I doubt you will enjoy it much. You have always preferred the arts, I believe.”

Ichigo freezes. Aizen looks particularly innocent despite the dark-tinted amusement that swims underneath. “I did say I have watched you grow up all your life, did I not?”

“…You are so fucking creepy,” Ichigo finally croaks.

And Aizen beams rainbows and butterflies in response, and hell Ichigo wishes he’d looked like that at Yhwach because surely it would’ve been a one-hit KO. It sure as fuck makes Ichigo want to run screaming in the opposite direction.

And… some time passes. Ichi goes to school, meets up with Aizen in his office a couple times a week for tutoring sessions, plots with Aizen, snarks with Aizen, shouts at Aizen on one memorable occasion when they argued over whether hypnotizing everyone into helping them fight would be a good tactic (Ichigo wins with a no, for now, to be rehashed in the future).

Eventually though, people notice.

Sousuke hasn’t been using Kyouka Suigetsu as much. To be honest, there’s simply no real need, which is… an actual novelty. He is literally not doing anything illegal, and in fact hasn’t done anything illegal - beyond ensuring all the Shinigami under his command don’t remember what they’ve been doing for him - since he came back in time. He’s fairly certain it’s some kind of record.

It’s largely Ichigo’s fault, Sousuke decides. When he isn’t doing paperwork or teaching a class or away on a mission, he’s tutoring Ichigo or ironing out their future potential plans with him.

And Ichigo is not like Gin. Gin was obedient. For all that he had a mischievous streak, he also walked a careful line around Sousuke. He had a knack for just enough backtalk to be amusing but not offensive, made himself useful but didn’t linger enough for his presence to become annoying, and ultimately, he did anything and everything Aizen asked of him.

Ichigo is not like that. He very much does not give a damn about whether or not he offends Sousuke. He’ll park himself in Sousuke’s office until he learns whatever chapter of whatever topic Sousuke is teaching him that day. He’ll let them both take a break if they end up too frustrated, but he keeps at it, and he never shies from asking Sousuke to explain something again if he doesn’t understand. He matches Sousuke word for word if they disagree over something. He isn’t too prideful to concede if Sousuke makes a good enough point, but likewise, he doesn’t let Sousuke get away with insisting on being right when Ichigo comes out on top in their arguments.

It’s frustrating, and more than once, Sousuke thinks it would be so much easier if he could just… hypnotize Ichigo a little, to make him a little more agreeable. Of course, then he remembers Kyouka Suigetsu won’t work on him, because they may be back in time, but the soul remembers, and Ichigo adapted to Kyouka Suigetsu’s illusions from the very first moment they teamed up against Yhwach like he’d done it his entire life. Kyouka Suigetsu has never and will never work against Ichigo, and Sousuke’s still undecided about whether to be impressed or insulted by this.

So Sousuke is forced to cope. He’s appalled when Ichigo actually manages to goad him into snapping back once or twice, but at the same time, there’s something almost freeing about not having to watch his words, his actions, his very facial expressions, when there’s only Ichigo around. With Ichigo, there is no need to pretend because he already knows exactly the kind of person Sousuke is, and it leaves him feeling simultaneously wrong-footed and uneasy and perhaps just a touch grateful.

Eventually, Hirako notices. Hirako Shinji has forever been a thorn in Sousuke’s side. Not particularly life-threatening, almost forgettable at times, but irritating all the same. Hirako’s always seen something off about Sousuke. He’s never been able to see the full picture, but he sees enough to remain wary. Not that it helped him much in the end of course.

But he sees Sousuke with Ichigo, with the Shiba’s latest pride and joy, and undoubtedly, he probably thinks Sousuke is corrupting him. Which secretly amuses Sousuke to some degree. If there’s one man Sousuke would put money down on being uncorruptible, or at least very close to it, it would be Kurosaki Ichigo. If anything, it tended to be the other way around. Ichigo drew people into his orbit and changed them, simply by being himself. No mind manipulation necessary.

“Sou-chan,” Hirako sidles up to him one day, peering at him like that would make Sousuke crack and spill all his secrets. “I hear you’ve been hangin’ out with an Academy brat lately.”

Sousuke levels a patiently droll expression on his captain. “Indeed. Shiba-san has expressed an interest in joining the Twelfth upon his graduation, and he wishes to further his education in certain sciences in order to better his chances for acceptance. Since I have some knowledge of several areas in the field, I offered to tutor him during my office hours.”

And the best thing of all, he isn’t even lying. He wonders if Hirako can sense it too, because his captain stares, keen-eyed and silent, too controlled to flap his jaw in shock, but shocked all the same. It makes Sousuke wonder if he really did lie to Hirako that much the first time around. Then he remembers that more often than not, he simply left an illusion of himself in the barracks while he worked in his labs.

Hm. Is that why? because some part of Hirako - perhaps because of his Zanpakutou’s abilities - has always sensed that literally everything about his own lieutenant was fake?

“I see,” The man says at last. “Well, that’s good. The kid could benefit from that if he really wants to get into the Twelfth.” But I’ll be watching you goes unsaid. “Invite him over sometime,” He continues, and the offer is genuine, because at his core, Sousuke’s captain is a good man. “He can see what a Division looks like from the inside.”

Sousuke watches him walk away. He wonders if it will change anything if he tries shoving Ichigo in Hirako’s direction. It could be interesting to find out.

And…. that’s all I have. Basically these two getting to know each other in-between figuring out how to save the world and dragging in allies and settling into their lives in the past. And Sousuke still mind-whammying people as a first instinct. And Ichigo stopping him from mind-whammying people, which becomes instinct. It’s an interesting friendship, to say the least.

[geniejackman]

Harry Potter: What the Movies Got Right

Because the movies get a lot of shit for the ways that they differ from the books, here is a way too overly-detailed list of moments from the Harry Potter films which IN MY OPINION improve upon the source material.

Sorcerer’s Stone:

The Norbert Storyline: Cutting out the whole midnight hand-off of Norbert to Charlie’s friends story-line was a good move. It slowed down the plot in the book, and come on, how were Charlie’s friends able to sneak into Hogwarts in the first place? There are literally entire chapters of people trying to figure out ways around the schools security.

 Chamber of Secrets:

Nothing to add, the book and movie are almost entirely one and the same (Sure wish they’d followed through with this on some of the other movies. Lookin at you Half-Blood Prince).

-ONE THING THOUGH; at the end when Harry tricks Lucius Malfoy into freeing Dobby and you can hear him start to cast ‘Avada Kedavra’ at Harry. It’s a small and HILARIOUS addition. Like, really Lucius? The killing curse? At this little twelve-year-old, right in front of Dumbledore’s office, in broad day-light, over literally nothing? I heard somewhere that this was because Jason Isaacs thought he should say some spell but nothing was scripted, and Avada Kedavra was the only one he could think of. But it’s just really funny to think about Lucius legit about to murder a kid in public over losing his house-elf.

 Prisoner of Azkaban:

-Aunt Marge’s Big Mistake: I love that Marge blows up and floats out of the house, rather than just bouncing off the walls like in the book. Hysterical!

-Lupin scenes: Lupin talking about how Lilly “was there for me at a time when no one else was” and how she had a gift for finding beauty in people “even and most importantly when that person could not see it in themselves”… just… fucking David Thewlis man. Actually, all the Harry & Lupin conversations in the movie have this sweet parental energy that was mostly there in the books, it just feels so much more potent here thanks do Dan & David’s incredible chemistry.

-Harry’s Patronus Lessons: the powerful memory that finally gets him to cast the spell is thinking about his parents talking with him. Kind of an understated change from the books, but it helps to underscore that the memory doesn’t need to be big or even all that happy, just emotionally poignant.

 -“WHY DON’T YOU RUN ALONG AND PLAY WITH YOUR CHEMISTY SET?!?!?!?”

-Snape protects the kids: Even though Snape was being a dick the entire time in the Shrieking Shack, he still acts as a HUMAN FUCKING SHIELD between the kids and Wolf Lupin and even takes a blow to the chest while protecting them. Book Snape was unconscious the whole time. Also, Movie Snape is so much more sympathetic than Book Snape, fight me. More on this down the line.

 Goblet of Fire:

-Really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, because there ain’t much.

-David Tenant is fun as hell as Barty Crouch Jr: I mean, there isn’t much fleshed out motivation in the character in the movie besides being bat-shit-fucking-crazy, but hey, it’s fun to watch! Also, I love the added detail (which I believe was improvised by Tenant) of Jr’s lip twitch and how this gives him away when he’s pretending to be Moody in front of Crouch Sr.  

-Cedric’s bravery: It’s a very small thing, but in the book when Cedric and Harry realize something’s off in the graveyard, they don’t really react much, or even say anything. When Harry’s scar stars burning, my man Cedric has enough presence of mind to draw his wand, ask Harry what’s wrong, takes a defensive stance, and shouts “Who are you? What do you want?” bravely to an approaching Pettigrew. Guy spends his last few moments being an absolute champ. Hollywood did you wrong Robert Pat.

 Order of the Pheonix:

-The DA training sequences: They’re wonderful and full of teen-whimsiness and the score makes me happy. Seriously, go listen to the ‘Dumbledore’s Army’ track, it’ll make your day! https://youtu.be/fZane0CwAGg

Harry’s cheesy one liner which somehow still manages to be great: “Every great wizard has started out as nothing more than what we are now, students. If they can do it, why not us?”

-Neville’s Character growth: “We’re gonna make them proud Neville. That’s a promise.” Man, I really wish there had been scenes of Harry and Neville talking about their families in the books. There’s so much that they share in terms of past traumas. I like that they bring it up in the film, even if it’s a very quick scene.  

-Fred and George: It’s been said before, but the scene with Fred and George comforting a young student who’s had the Umbridge hand-slicing treatment is UNPRECEDENTED and I LOVE it. This helps show them as more than just loveable jokesters.

-“Neville Longbottom is it? How’s mum and dad” “Better, now that they’re about to be avenged!” FOUR FOR YOU NEVILLE LONBOTTOM, YOU GO NEVILLE LONGBOTTOM!

-Possession: I’m gonna be honest, this movie is my next-to-least-favorite of the adaptations. I’d be prepared to write it off as a bad movie altogether if it weren’t for the way they decide to end with the Ministry battle: In the book, Voldemort finishes dueling Dumbledore and starts possessing Harry, who tells Dumbledore to kill him. Possessed Harry says: “Kill me Dumbledore, death is nothing compared to this. Kill me. And I’ll see Sirius again.” This moment is really quick, and it’s not really made clear until the next book that Harry’s love and grief in this moment is what drove Voldemort out. In the movie, the scene gets more time and attention and shows Voldemort possessing Harry, forcing him to remember his worst memories of losing people he loves. For anyone who’s ever suffered from depression or anxiety, the way these horrible memories overwhelm Harry is shockingly familiar. But then, Ron, Hermione and the others come running in. The sight of them makes Harry remember all of the best moments with his friends: “You’re the weak one. And you’ll never know love, or friendship. And I feel sorry for you.” HOLY HELL. All the tears. Just all of them. I fuckin love this moment. Congrats Possession scene, you single-handedly saved this movie for me.

Half-Blood Prince:

Oooooh boy. Full disclosure, I kind of hate this movie. It’s just… it’s not ABOUT anything. Like, SO much was changed in Order of the Pheonix to make it tonally different from the book, AND YET: Sirius’s line in the OOTP film about how “we all have light and dark inside of us” is so cliched and not from the book at all, but it PAYS OFF and shapes the theme of the movie at the end when Dumbledore reinforces “It’s not how you are alike. It’s how you are not.” So yeah, not really from the book, but it’s at least trying to have a theme. HBP the movie is a mess. Instead of having a central theme, the main idea for the movie appears to be: “stuff is happening”.

-Despite this, there were one or two instances of “stuff is happening” which the film added that built positively on the book. One of those is, hear me out, the Burrow attack. HBP the book is pretty void of any action until the very end, and this addition (nonsensical as it is. Did they ever explain how the Death Eaters were able to break through the Ministry’s protective charms to get to the Burrow?) gives us some pretty cool visuals and some much needed tension. Too bad it’s totally meaningless as we see in the first few minutes of Deathly Hallows Part 1 that the Weasley’s have completely rebuilt the Burrow. Cause, ya know, magic.

-Draco on the Hogwarts Express: “Hogwarts. What a pathetic excuse for a school. I think I’d pitch myself off the Astronomy Tower if I thought I had to come back for another year.” HA! Oh the irony.

In general, the characterization of Draco is so much more engaging here than in the book. The fact that the movies are less exclusively only what Harry thinks and sees gives us opportunities to see more into other characters perspectives. Draco’s experiments in the Room of Requirement really add a lot to the characters emotional struggle. And boy howdy does Tom act the HELL out of the bathroom cry scene. Really makes you wish they’d followed through on that redemption arc in DH part 2 (more on that later).

-Last but not least; Slughorn and the Lilly fishbowl. HOLY SHIT is this scene powerful. Not only is it an incredibly touching story, but we get to see the parental and emotional aspects of Slughorn’s ‘collecting’ of promising students over the years. And the sadness of Slughorn’s unfinished sentence; “the day the bowl was empty… was the day that your mother….” Just, damn. I both love and hate this moment, because it adds something positive to HBP and that makes me mad because I guess I can’t totally hate it now.

 Deathly Hallows Part 1

-Opening montage with Hermione Obliviating her parents. In the book, Hermione tells the boys about how she did this in order to make them see how much she’s already sacrificed to their cause. But damn. SEEING it really makes it even more devastating.

-Hedwig’s Death. Damn, just typing those words hurt my heart. I really liked that Harry lets her fly free at the beginning, only to have her come back during the sky battle to save Harry. It’s sad in the book having her die in her cage, but they really amped up the cry factor for the movie by having her sacrifice herself.

-“Hey losers! He isn’t here.” Goddamnit, Neville just keeps wracking up those ‘Biggest Badass’ and ‘Best Character Growth’ points. It’s great foreshadowing for what’s to come with his hero moment in the Final Battle.

-Harry and Hermione’s dance. I know some people have called this scene unnecessary and awkward, but here me out. The dancing itself is, in my opinion, EXACTLY how awkward fools like Harry and Hermione would dance, and the moments where they slowly change from depressed and dead-eyed to light-hearted and goofy, it shows you that despite all the hardships they’ve gone through, they’re just kids. A little awkward, a little uncertain, but still able to enjoy the small things in life. Also, the little moment where they linger for a moment all serious after the dance always played to me like “hey, you know how Ron just stormed out after accusing us of having a thing? Maybe there’s a possibility that we actually do… nah.” It’s a nice little moment.

-Scabier’s creeper moments with Hermione. That scene in the forest when she’s put up the enchantments so they can’t see her, but he can smell her. It’s a great acting moment between Emma and the dude playing Scabier (even if this should have been Greyback).

-Draco at Malfoy Manor. Small but touching scene; when Draco is brought in to make sure the Death Eaters have caught Harry, he does the same thing in the book where he claims he “can’t be sure”. In the book, Draco says this while refusing to look Harry in the eye. In the movie, he looks Harry dead in the face and looks scared to death while asking “What’s wrong with his face?” Just… the concern and fear dripping off of him is DELICIOUS. (AGAIN WITH THE REDEMPTION ARC!!! THE POTENTIAL WAS THERE WARNER BROTHERS!!!!!)

-Hermione Tortured. Not really all that much was changed for this scene, but Bellatrix carving ‘mudblood’ into Hermione’s arm and the way it evoked Holocaust concentration camp victims was a stroke of genius.

-Dobby at Malfoy Manor. Way to give this ‘lil dude a moment to shine! Specifically; “of course I can, I’m an elf!” “Dobby never meant to kill anyone. Dobby only meant to mame or seriously injure!” And then… the death scene. I love that in the movie, Dobby gets a longer farewell. “Such a beautiful place… to be with friends. Dobby is happy to be with his friend. Harry Potter.” UGH! At least give me some warning before you rip my heart out.

 Deathly Hallows Part 2

-Snape vs. McGonagall; I’m torn, because I love the scene in the book where Harry defends McGonagall against the Carrows leading into the scene where she confronts Snape, but I also really love this big dramatic scene in the Great Hall with the “How dare you stand where he stood?” and McGonagall dueling Snape. Alan’s expression as Maggie steps up is PRICELESS.

-Harry and Malfoy in the Room or Requirement; “Why didn’t you tell her? Bellatrix? You knew it was me.” Yeah Warner Brothers, why didn’t he tell her? Gonna maybe follow through with this redemption-arc you seem to be building up? No?? OKAY THEN!!!

-Snape’s death scene. Changing the setting was a stroke of genius. This scene is wonderfully done and we all know it.

-The Prince’s Tale. Okay, I feel like I’m going to take some flak for this. At first, I wasn’t thrilled with how much was cut out of Snape’s flashbacks concerning his friendship with Lilly and their falling out. But when you really think about it, they cut out all of the really gross stuff. For instance, it’s never implied that he enjoys bullying people for fun, he doesn’t call her a mudblood, he isn’t shown being toxic towards Lilly and jealous of James, never has the moment where he asks Voldemort to kill Harry & James and leave Lilly for him, and in general is WAY less problematic than in the books. This might be an instance of a ‘less is more’ win in favor of the film. I know, I’m as shocked as you are.

-Malfoy’s Redemption: So this might be confusing for some folks since this wasn’t in the final cut, but here’s a link for what they originally had in mind for Draco’s redemption arc: https://youtu.be/hS5Z2YbyePg

I am SO MAD that this was left out of the final cut, since it’s so obviously built up in part 1. Also, it would have been a HUGE improvement on the source material since Draco effectively has NO character growth there. This moment, where he makes a huge stand by yelling “POTTER” (also, GREAT inverse from the way we’ve become accustomed to hearing Draco sneer at Harry by invoking his surname over the years), throws him the wand, and runs back to join the fray, is a great addition to the series. I really wish the filmmakers had stuck with this plan.

 Incredibly long ranting list over.

[houseofzoey]

Characters

Zoey Zoey is mostly only talked about in this book, with minimal content told from her perspective. This makes it especially apparent how weird it is for her chapters to be the only ones told in first person.

The little that we do get from her perspective mostly reiterates the same information constantly: She feels guilty for Heath’s death, she can’t remember anything, and her soul is in pieces. The problem is that the book can be pretty selective about when she has memory problems, plus it makes it sound like her soul is shattered – as in broken into several little pieces – but it’s actually only in three pieces. Four, if you count Zoey herself. This means that Zoey is made up of just courage, compassion, joy, and whatever Zoey herself represents.

It’s also kind of weird how her brokenness is conveyed. Beyond just her memory problems, she’s also disappearing. That doesn’t make sense with what Thanatos and others have said about the effects of a shattered soul in the Otherworld. Zoey should be in a Caoinic Shi’, a non-existent Gaelic term for a zombie-like entity. That doesn’t sound like she should literally disappear.

Then we finally get to the part where Zoey actually does something. (Incidentally, the fact that Zoey is almost completely inactive in this book falls completely flat as a demonstration of her brokenness because she’s never been an active character in any previous books.) I know I said this in earlier posts, but this really, really should have been a big dramatic moment. We’ve spent the entire book building to it. I’m not expecting three full chapters or anything ridiculous like that, but more than a single page should be expected. Like, even something as simple as Zoey having to prove her acceptance of each part of her soul, maybe having to remember and feel those emotions before she can call them back into herself. Something more than just saying, “Hey, come back,” and having it happen immediately.

Zoey is also absolutely useless when she confronts Kalona. She summoned wind and didn’t use it to stop the spear. Given that she was able to stop a magically teleporting arrow at the end of Hunted, this is inexcusable.

Also, Zoey is now a queen. For some reason.

Stevie Rae Stevie Rae sort of fills Zoey shoes in this book and boy does it show. She refuses to address problems, has a completely unnecessary love triangle that consumes much of the plot, and throws around her unofficial title as High Priestess (and, occasionally, her affinity) to get what she wants. I used to at least kind of like Stevie Rae, but she’s honestly just as bad as Zoey now.

Seriously, Stevie Rae was supposed to be the nice character, the one who admonished her friends for being too mean or catty. And yet, in this book, she says a man has a “pea brain” because of how he dresses. Let me point out that Stevie Rae’s style of dress is frequently mocked or insulted by other characters and she hates it. Why would she do that to someone else?

I think this shows that the authors struggle to write any actual distinct narrative voice or characterizations unless they’re leaning really, really hard into stereotypes. It’s hard to talk about Stevie Rae’s role in this book without talking about her love triangle. It is such a waste of time! She doesn’t need a love triangle – the very idea of her having any relationship with Rephaim, even a platonic one, should create more than enough conflict on its own! The conflict that comes out of the love triangle doesn’t make sense. Aside from Stevie Rae feeling confused and guilty in a tired rehash of Zoey’s every relationship ever, the love triangle comes to a head with Dallas discovering her relationship with Rephaim and then acting 100% out-of-character and suddenly becoming evil. And guess what? His freak out would have made just as much sense if he was a close friend realizing he’d been lied to for days and feeling betrayed because of what he’d been lied to about. The romance angle adds nothing, especially because their relationship was barely established in previous books. It’s just an excuse for Stevie Rae to make-out sometimes and have a sex scene interrupted.

As for Rephaim, it often feels like the authors don’t know what the focus of that conflict should be. The fact that he killed Anastasia and Dragon wants revenge for it is acknowledged, but it’s more about Stevie Rae’s fear of people discovering her relationship with Rephaim and consequently rejecting her and killing him. There’s not really a sense of expectation for him to actually try and make up for committing murder. The book does also acknowledge that Rephaim is barely humanoid, but only in so far as “beast” and “monster” are being treated as synonymous with a superficial idea of evil. That he’s a giant bird is acknowledged as a problem for their relationship very sparingly. Even Rephaim’s intention to continue serving Kalona and thus Darkness isn’t really addressed – not in a way that grapples with the moral implications of what he’s willing to support and participate in. Stevie Rae cares about his connection to Kalona because of how other people will react.

The situation with Rephaim is status normal for pretty much the whole book – she’s trying to hide him from everyone. The only changes that happen is she bonds her soul even more deeply to his by paying a debt to the black bull, but – surprise! – that’s kind of pointless because she apparently already developed feelings for him anyway. I have no idea what purpose that debt is supposed to serve in the book other than giving her something new to angst about. The only reason anyone finds out about Rephaim is because he storms in on her and Dallas, and that only happens because of the other subplot finally showing up. By the end of the book, she’s right back to square one with Rephaim because Kalona returns and they can no longer be together like they were for much of this book.

Aside from love triangle drama, Stevie Rae really doesn’t do much in this book. She talks to people. A lot. Eventually, she performs a ritual and completely screws it up, but uncovers information about how to get Stark into the Otherworld. Towards the end of the book, she finally does something about the rogue fledglings that have been regularly murdering people, but only because it’s on the news and people might blame the House of Night. And her solution doesn’t stop them from murdering people! She just forces them out of the tunnels so she and the other red fledglings can go back to living there.

The Twins Might as well not exist. After page 134, they are literally not present for the rest of the book.

Damien and Jack They contribute some research and exposition that, honestly, Darius and Thanatos could just as easily have provided. They also might as well not exist. Just like the Twins, they literally aren’t present passed page 134.

Also, Jack has yet to ever use his affinity.

Stark Easily one of the most obnoxious parts of this book. I can’t really even think of what he contributed. Did he come up with any ideas or solutions on his own in this book? Thanatos and Darius brought up the bulls and Isle of Skye, Nyx guided him to say the right words to get on the Isle, Kramisha provided the poem, Aphrodite told him Heath was key to getting Zoey to move on – he couldn’t even accomplish the task of defeating the Other on his own! And he was specifically was supposed to be on his own for that. But no, Seoras slices Stark’s eyelids and gives him strike-line-vision, and then the Other just kills himself.

Oh, wait, sorry. The Other impales himself and “dies”, except he’s not dead, so then Stark is taken over by the sword and cuts him in half. Because that’s honourable, somehow.

Stark defeating the Other is also super anticlimactic. Stark gets cut up a bit and it’s clearly meant to be nail biting and intense, but his wounds don’t affect his ability to fight, he’s somehow able to do everything by instinct, and then he gets magical strike-line-vision handed to him through now effort of his own. As someone pointed out in an anonymous ask, this situation would have been way more dramatic and character building if it actually focused on Stark’s past wrongs and inner demons instead of a bunch of b.s. about recognizing his arrogance and accepting brutality. Let me see Stark facing the wrongs he committed while serving Darkness. Let me see him forced to acknowledge that he’s a rapist without running away or lashing out at the people who call him on it. That would require real character growth.

But that would be haaaard so instead we get b.s. and magical solutions handed to him with no effort or sacrifice.

Well, there is a sacrifice technically, but it’s also stupid. Stark lays on a stone platform and gets cut up a bunch. That’s it. Somehow, he doesn’t bleed to death from having his eyelids, chest, ribs, etc. repeatedly sliced open over probably more than an hour. I get the whole “keep him on the edge of death” thing, but logically he wouldn’t be able to stay on the edge very long like this before he outright dies. Is there no other, less ridiculous way this could have been accomplished? Or were the other ideas not brutal or “manly” enough?

Kalona He had arguably a very significant role in this book but, much like Neferet, barely actually appeared. The two scenes he narrated were both either entirely unnecessary or at least detrimental to the tension and mystery of the conflict. Knowing exactly what he and Neferet were plotting from the outset made all the subsequent chapters of characters talking and hypothesizing particularly mind-numbing.

The real problem with Kalona is that the series does a terrible job of giving proper weight to what, exactly, makes him a villain. You can’t redeem him by showing that he ~*loves*~ Nyx when his heartbreak at her hands is used to justify rape, murder, enslavement, and plans for world domination. Everyone seems to forget or gloss over those details, though, because the authors so desperately want him to be tragic and redeemable.

His fight with Stark is incredibly stupid, too. Why did he summon a spear if he wasn’t even going to use it?! I get the impression that he was torturing/taunting Stark by slowly beating him to death with his bare hands while Stark was armed with a claymore and still useless, but that would have been more effective if he was actually unarmed.

Aphrodite Where once Aphrodite was a character with actual agency, she’s more and more degrading to the point of being a narrative tool. A whole new aspect of her affinity is discovered by Thanatos, who she met less than an hour ago at that point, and who also teaches her exactly how to use this new affinity. She’s told by Stevie Rae about the poems and the words of the white bull. She learns through a vision with Nyx exactly how to get Zoey back from the Otherworld and what will happen if she doesn’t.

Aphrodite doesn’t actually do anything in this book. She’s a conduit for information and nothing else. You could replace her with an unnervingly accurate Magic 8 Ball and the only difference would be less horrendously obnoxious dialogue.

Neferet Neferet’s character has never been particularly subtle – she���s the reason I created the “foreshadowing with neon signs” tag for this blog – but it’s gotten out of hand. Her dialogue is the most over-the-top, dramatic, stereotypical villain crap I’ve ever seen.

This is the first book where Neferet kind of actually has a tangible plan, but she’s still kind of going about it in a ridiculous way. She knows Kalona is a) banished from the Otherworld, and b) has an incredibly strong lust for Zoey. Despite all this, she sends him to the Otherworld with the expectation that he can and will stop Zoey from pulling her soul together and returning to her body. Here’s an idea: Why doesn’t she have Darkness act directly against Zoey instead of using Darkness to bind Kalona to an Oath her very likely can’t fulfill?

Other than that, Neferet is basically non-existent in this book. I have to wonder if the authors are trying to pull of a Voldemort effect – the more infrequent appearances of the villain are, the more dramatic and terrifying it is when a confrontation does occur. With Voldemort, you always know he was up to something and often got glimpses of it through Harry’s visions, Daily Prophet reports, or various Death Eater activities. Plus, enough was established about Voldemort very early on to make him a genuinely terrifying figure. With Neferet, we know she’s responsible for the undead fledglings and a few deaths, but… why? Her goals are so vague and her “evil plots” are often so nonsensical or out-of-nowhere that it’s hard to take her seriously. Why did she target and kill football players in Betrayed? Why did she kill her own professors in Chosen when she obviously knew the High Council wouldn’t support her immediately declaring war against humans in retaliation? How did any of this contribute to her ultimate goal of freeing Kalona? And then, once Kalona was freed, why was her focus on taking over the school that she already had full jurisdiction over? Why is she simultaneously trying to convince the High Council that that she is Nyx Incarnate and that they should elect her as the next High Priestess of all Vampyres? Would one title not suffice?

What is Neferet trying to do? Vague plans of world domination have been mentioned, but we don’t know why.

Nyx

Why did she only ban Kalona’s body? Why leave such an enormous loophole and never intervene when his spirit goes to the Otherworld?

Why does Nyx stop guiding and speaking to Zoey? Zoey is literally in her realm. She’s closer to Nyx than she ever has been in the past, and yet this is the one book in the series thus far where Zoey receives almost no guidance from Nyx. After Zoey pulls her soul back together and Nyx shows up to force Kalona to revive Stark (more on that later), Nyx says Zoey has made her proud again. What’s that supposed to mean? Is she mad at Zoey for grieving? Also, Zoey didn’t have her elements before she pulled her soul back together. I’m not sure if that’s because her incomplete soul made her unable to use her affinities, or if that’s an example of Nyx actually taking away Zoey’s affinities. Nyx did definitely take away Zoey’s tattoos, however, because they didn’t return when Zoey got her soul back together, but rather several minutes after Nyx showed up.

If Nyx respects free will so much, why the hell did she force Kalona to give a piece of his immortality to Stark to revive him? Literally the explanation given as to why she didn’t ban his soul from the Otherworld is because Nyx respects free will too much. This is an absolutely enormous, baffling inconsistency.

Why did Nyx show Aphrodite this detailed vision of everything that will happen if Zoey doesn’t return to her body and specifically include that scene with Stevie Rae and the two versions of Rephaim fighting each other (which has nothing to do with Zoey), but she doesn’t bother explaining or showing Aphrodite that the Native American boy she sees is actually Rephaim. How does she expect Aphrodite to help Stevie Rae if she won’t actually tell Aphrodite what’s happening?

She also Stevie Rae and Rephaim an image of him as a human but gives absolutely no indication of how this might become reality. Why? What are they supposed to do with this completely context-less information?

[lightrivals]

I’m still thinking so hard about the possibilities of Endgame when I found this post on Reddit and it made me think of this: what if Tony’s dream in Infinity War about having a kid wasn’t a dream, what if it was real; he said it was so vivid and real so let’s take that as fact. This means in some timeline, Tony and Pepper do have a kid and for some reason in Infinity War he sees that reality as a dream. He’s connected to that version of himself, the timelines are converging. It’s also important to note that the post IM2 arc reactor has properties similar to the Space Stone and the nanobot arc reactor probably does too. Not quite sure how that fits in yet but I wanna note it.

Anyway, that dream makes Tony do something different in this universe (IW) that strays from previous timelines. This also assumes that this timeline (IW) is under the influence of the Time Stone’s usage so Strange used the stone at some point to set a period to go back to, a reset/save marker I guess. This is a game after all and video games have save points. I want to say a save point is Avengers 1, where Thanos is his most vulnerable by giving Loki the Mind Stone and the Space Stone, but another important part is during the fight with Ebony Maw where Strange attempts to use the stone but is blocked from doing so (probably trying to create that save point).

Now, IW is the accumulation of all the events happened before, so that means if this IW universe is the one where things are different enough to make the Decimation happen. Maybe destroying the Mind Stone is worse than the Decimation (x). Maybe Loki has to steal the Space Stone so it doesn’t get destroyed because if it were to be destroyed, that would destroy space itself. The events in the movies before IW are different than the original timeline that we haven’t seen on screen yet because the entire MCU after Avengers 1, if not the entire MCU as we know it, is the time-altered timeline. I love this idea because the MCU, known as 199999 in Marvel canon, is technically an alternate universe to 616, the comic canon timeline, even though we often see the MCU as its’ own entity. This could lead back to a theory from way back about how Loki lost the invasion on purpose, how he gathered the Avengers together on purpose so Earth would have the means to protect themselves from Thanos, or why Selvig had such an easy fail safe for the portal with the scepter.

I still question why Loki did nothing when he had throne after The Dark World. He had the Nine Realms at his disposal and did nothing as creatures fought each other and descended into chaos. I have a feeling he was there to protect the Tesseract for whatever reason but also the events of GOTG and GOTG2 occurred during this time frame and he did nothing about it. 

Anyway this also allows me to bring up the point that in the Endgame trailer Scott Lang went back in time to the old Avenger’s bunker that Howard Stark and Hank Pym used to work at in the 80′s. If you look at the video, it says “archive” in the corner with a date that looks like it says 1983. That in mind, in many trailers there are things left out of the actual movie or minor details to lead us astray. I have a feeling Black Widow’s dialogue at this point is an overlay that does not line up with the scene. So I’m only focusing on the actual scene and Scott’s words here, which means he could be trying to talk to Tony. (x)

Speaking of going to the past, the AV4 set photos with a gray-ash-blonde Tony with Scott Lang--our resident time traveler while Strange has yet to become Supreme--AV1 Tony, AV1 Thor, AV1 Loki, AV1 Steve, and AV1 Hulk/Bruce Banner, I can see Endgame showing us how the MCU was altered to create the AV1 storyline we know. Endgame can show us how CAWS was altered too, how AoU was altered--in fact, we know Tony gets frazzled enough to create Ultron because of Wanda’s direct manipulation. Ultron needed to happen to get to the Mind Stone. We also could see how IM3 was altered, etc etc. Back to the kid thing, Harley was Tony’s first semi-kid before Peter and maybe because of Harley Tony is more willing to taking care of Peter, which means he’s more likely to have that connection with his alternate version of himself where he has a kid, and thus dreams about it.

[Also a side note, Pepper is in the Iron Man suit in IM3 and maybe she took on Rescue after Tony ditched the arc reactor, so the Tony on the ship who I strongly believe is a different timeline Tony caught in the aftermath of a failed attack on Titan, alludes to that?]

[Another side note: this kinda implies that the Avengers needed to be split up in sub groups around the world by the time Thanos came (done via CACW) and also shows that if the Avengers are together in full, they are indeed powerful enough to stop Thanos or at least destroy one or more of the Stones]

Back to Infinity War: when Strange went through time on Titan, he possibly was setting a new save point and going through all the different timelines and realizing that this current one, the IW one, is the one with enough changes that there’s a possibility things could be won as long as Thanos is able to snap. Endgame is then the story of these changes, of the alternate ways Loki’s invasion and/or the battle on Titan went, with the Avengers using the quantum realm to time travel and ensure things happen so the Decimation occurs, setting somewhat of a time loop. The loop is broken at the beginning of IW which is why IW is the timeline we see. The rest of Endgame is then how to bring back the people lost in the Decimation, which probably requires heavy sacrifice in all the timelines and I have a feeling given Tony is the centerpiece of the MCU (and especially IW because his dream sets off the difference that allows for the snap to occur) he might be the last to sacrifice.

[padawanlost]

can you list some of your favorite anakin or obi wan quotes from books?

This is going to hurt, anon. But you asked for it so… enjoy :P

Obi-Wan turned his back on the open door. He climbed out of thehomestead and trudged away. The sand sucked at his boots. He felt the wind pick up in thesudden way he’d become accustomed to on Tatooine. Sand pelted his cheeks. This was his lifenow. To protect a baby who didn’t know him, might never know him. To have noone by his side, ever again. To be Master to none, to have his life linked tono one.T o coexist with memories that he could not live with. To have thememory of Anakin be like living fire in his gut. To get up every day, to stand,to watch, to live, when so many had died. And keep on walking. [Jude Watson’s TheLast One Standing]

Obi-Wan indulged in his own swift smile. Yes. Theywere indeed working in sync. And he realized then how much he’d missed this.Had missed Anakin and the way they could read each other without the need forclumsy words. They were a better team than even he and Qui-Gon had been. Andwhile he understood completely the need for them to unravel theirpartnership—not only because of the war, but also because Anakin was a JediKnight now, with his own responsibilities, still … he felt sharpregret. Working without Anakin was likeworking half blind. [Karen Miller.Star Wars: Clone Wars Gambit: Stealth]

[Anakin] hadworried that Obi-Wan did not have room for him in his heart.But Shmi’s smile rose in Anakin’s mind. Hearts have infinite room, my son. Itwas one of her favorite sayings. Anakin sighed. He wished he could combineObi-Wan’s cool judgement with his mother’s goodness. Someday. Maybe his Masterwould trust him enough to let him tangle again with the Sith. Perhaps he wouldnever have a Master-Padawan relationship as deep and trusting as Obi-Wan hadwith Qui-Gon. Perhaps Obi- Wan kept his as a Padawan in order to fulfill adying wish. But maybe it didn’t matter how it happened. He should not focus onwhat he didn’t have. He had this. This was his. And that was something. Hewould work hard. He would be a greatPadawan. And Obi-Wan would come to love him. He would make him do so. [JudeWatson. The Trail of the Jedi ]

Anakin had always hated sand. It was one of the manythings about his Padawan that Obi-Wan understood better now that Anakin wasdead. That was the horror of losingsomeone: understanding came too late. [Jude Watson’s The Last One Standing]

Blade-to-blade, they were identical. After thousandsof hours in lightsaber sparring, they knew each other better than brothers,more intimately than lovers; they were complementary halves of a singlewarrior. This was not Sith against Jedi. This was not light against dark orgood against evil; it had nothing to do with duty or philosophy, religion ormorals. It was Anakin against Obi-Wan.Personally. Just the two of them, and the damage they had done to each other. [MatthewStover’s Revenge of the Sith]

 The suns had determined this at the dawn of creation.Brothers, they were, until the younger sun showed his true face to the tribe.It was a sin. The elder sun attempted to kill his brother, as was only proper.But he failed. Burning, bleeding, the younger sun pursued his sibling acrossthe sky. The wily old star fled for the hills and safety, but it was his fatenever to rest again. For the younger brother had only exposed his face. Theelder had exposed his failure. And others had seen it—to their everlastingsorrow. [John Jackson Miller. Kenobi: Star Wars]

Anakin was still alive in Obi-Wan’s mind. Obi-Wan wasengaged with him so intensely that he expected his apprentice to walk over oneof those shifting sand dunes and grin at him again. Or scowl. He’d takeanything. Any mood, any defiance. Just to see him again. [Jude Watson’s TheLast One Standing]

“A healthy slave is a slave who dreams of escape,”Krayn said. “That is what security is for,” Nor Fik said. “I amnot suggesting that you pamper them. Feed them enough to keep going. When yourship is struggling, you must conserve your fuel, but reach yourdestination.” Obi-Wan felt revulsion rise deep within him. Krayn and NorFik were talking about living beings as if they were machines to be maintained.You’re the one who doesn’t understand!Anakin’s tortured words filled his brain. His Padawan had been right. He hadn’tunderstood. He couldn’t understand the depths of Anakin’s feeling. As a child,Anakin had lived every day with the knowledge that his life meant nothing. Thathe was a possession, not a living being. Obi-Wanstruggled to maintain his calm. His heart cried out to move, to get on a shipand go to Nar Shaddaa. [Star Wars Jedi Quest Path to Truth by Jude Watson]

Obi-Wan nodded.There was something about this boy that wound around his heart.During the course of their missions together he had seen firsthand Anakin’simpulsive generosity, his loyalty, his thirst to learn. Remember, Padawan, thatmost beings are essentially unknowable. There are mysteries at the heart thatcan surprise even those who think they know themselves. Obi-Wan turned away sothat Anakin could not see his wry smile. Qui- Gon was in his head so often. Itwas as though his presence was so powerful that he could never die. Obi-Wan wasgrateful for it. He missed his friend and Master with a keenness that had notdiminished with the years. [Star Wars Jedi Quest Path to Truth by Jude Watson]

 There were tears on Anakin’s cheeks, he could feelthem. He wasn’t ashamed. He wasn’t goingto apologize to anyone, not even Yoda, for caring enough about Obi-Wan to weepfor him. [Karen Miller. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Wild Space ]

Anakin came awake and blinked owlishly in the warmcabin lights. “You were dreaming,” Obi-Wan said.“Not me. The ship,” Anakin said. “Or maybe we weredreaming together. We were traveling around the galaxy, seeing wonderfulthings. It was so great to just be free. You were there with us. I think youwere having fun, too.” Anakin held outhis hand, fingers spread, and Obi-Wan met it with his own hand. [Greg Bear’sRogue Planet~]

 What else had he done there?Obi-Wan didn’t know. He knew only from that day on, a shadow began to engulfAnakin, something Obi-Wan couldn’t penetrate. He had tried to talk to Anakin aboutit, but his Padawan had brushed off his questions. He realized now that Anakinhad begun to confide in Padmé instead. They had married in secret, and the marriagehad been part of the reason Obi-Wan had felt a divide between him and hisPadawan. If Anakin had told him of the marriage, he would have understood. Notapproved, but understood. He had been tempted once, too. He had loved, too. Ifonly Anakin had confided in him. If only … And why hadn’t he? Because Obi-Wanhad failed him. If he’d been a better Master, if he’d had more of Qui-Gon’skindness and wisdom … Anakin might have approached him, have felt free to saywhatever he was thinking or feeling …If …They had flown together, wingtipto wingtip. They had relied on each other. He was more daring when Anakin waswith him. Anakin had taught him how totake risks. But in the end he had lost everything. [Jude Watson’s The LastOne Standing]

 Obi-Wan reached out and closed Anakin’s fingers overthe stone. “I hope it will be with you always to remind you of Qui-Gon andme, of our deep regard for you.” Anakin’s smile lit his face. “I’lltreasure it. Thank you, Master.” [Jude Watson. The Way of the Apprentice]

 Soon they would be ending their journey together. Theyboth knew it. He had never had to bid good-bye to Qui-Gon as a Master. He wasstill Qui-Gon’s Padawan when he died. Maybe that was the reason he felt soclose to him still. He did not know if Qui-Gon would have left him with wordsof wisdom, with a direction to follow. Now he had no way of knowing what elsehe could give Anakin. He had given him everything he could. It wasn’t enough.Sadness filled Obi-Wan as they blasted into the upper atmosphere. He loved Anakin Skywalker, but he did nottruly know him. The most important things he had to teach he had nottaught. He would have to let him go, knowing that. He would have to let him go.[Jude Watson. Legacy of the Jedi]

Sometimes he [Obi-Wan] talked to him in his head.Arguments more furious than the ones they’d had. Talks in which he explained,Master to Padawan, why he’d done what he’d done. Simple words that managed tosay everything he’d meant to say, only more clearly than he’d ever been able tosay it. In these talks, Anakin listened and understood. Of course, he wastalking to a ghost. Anakin Skywalker was dead. [Jude Watson’s The Last OneStanding]

 “For Anakin,”Obi-Wan said at length, “there is nothing more important than friendship. He isthe most loyal man I have ever met—loyal beyond reason, in fact.Despite all I have tried to teach him about the sacrifices that are the heartof being a Jedi, he—he will never, I think, truly understand.” He looked overat Yoda. “Master Yoda, you and I have been close since I was a boy. An infant.Yet if ending this war one week sooner—one day sooner—were to require that Isacrifice your life, you know I would.” “As you should,” Yoda said. “As I wouldyours, young Obi-Wan. As any Jedi would any other, in the cause of peace.” “AnyJedi,” Obi-Wan said, “except Anakin.” Yoda and Mace exchanged glances, boththoughtfully grim. Obi-Wan guessed they were remembering the times Anakin hadviolated orders—the times he had put at risk entire operations, the lives ofthousands, the control of whole planetary systems—to save a friend. More thanonce, in fact, to save Obi-Wan. “I think,” Obi-Wan said carefully, “thatabstractions like peace don’t mean much to him. He’s loyal to people, not toprinciples. And he expects loyalty in return. He will stop at nothing to saveme, for example, because he thinks I would do the same for him.” Mace and Yoda gazedat him steadily, and Obi-Wan had to lower his head. “Because,” he admitted reluctantly, “he knows I would do the same forhim.” [Matthew Stover’s Revenge of the Sith]

[fallintothegrey]

Dusk Till Dawn - Chapter 25

Also on AO3.

Rey groaned as the braid in her hair came loose yet again, glaring at her reflection in the mirror. She’d been standing in the ‘fresher in Poe’s quarters for thirty minutes trying to put the mourning braid in her hair, but she couldn’t figure out how to get the simple looking, yet intricate plait to stay. Grasping the offending strands, she started again.

The General had decided that they had gone far too long without honoring their dead. Loss had hung over the base like a shroud for weeks while they all tried to survive and figure out what to do next. Now that their chance of survival didn’t look quite so bleak, it was time to acknowledge that loss.

Rey didn’t know much about mourning practices. Funerals were few and far between on Jakku–you were more likely to pass away unnoticed on the desert planet. If you were buried, X’us’R’iia would just dig you back up again. A lucky few would be cremated by their loved ones, to have their ashes mix with the sands. But most simply fell where they stood. There was no room for ceremony in such a place.

She felt woefully out of her depth standing in the ‘fresher preparing for a ceremony she knew nothing about. The feeling wasn’t new, certainly, but it felt different this time. She wanted to pay respect to all of these people who had given their lives for the Resistance, but she didn’t know how. She knew people typically wore black to funerals, but black clothing didn’t have a place on Jakku–it was too hot and it made you stand out against the sand. In lieu of black clothing, she was trying to put the mourning braid she’d seen Leia wearing in her hair, but her efforts were proving to be in vain.

She had almost secured her fifth attempt to her crown when a knock sounded at the door. With her hands still tangled in her hair above her head, she elbowed the door control. It slide open to reveal General Organa, holding something black in her hands. Looking up at Rey’s braiding attempt, she smiled softly. “Would you like some help?”

Rey eagerly nodded and dropped her arms, the braid spiraling back out again. She backed up, letting Leia into the room, who laid what turned out to be a black dress on the bed. She gestured to the chair and came to stand behind Rey when she sat.

“My mother used to braid my hair,” she said quietly as she began to carefully twist the locks of Rey’s hair. “It was expected that the mothers of Alderaan would teach their daughters how to braid. And on special occasions, the mothers would braid their daughters’ hair and the daughters would braid their mothers’ hair.”

“That sounds nice,” Rey said as she resisted the urge to lean her head into Leia’s hands. A distant memory of someone carding their hands through her hair tickled at her mind.

“On the day I was captured by Vader, she’d offered to braid my hair.” She folded another strand into the plait. “I waved her off, saying a junior diplomat didn’t need her mother to braid her hair. When I couldn’t get the braid to lay smoothly, I put my hair in buns and rushed to the shuttle. I regret every day that I did not let her braid my hair one more time.”

She carefully wrapped the braid over the crown of Rey’s head, securing it with a pin pulled from her own hair. She placed her hands on Rey’s shoulders, and Rey reached up to squeeze the older woman’s hand. “Thank you.”

Clearing her throat, Leia backed up and gestured to the dress. “I guessed you didn’t have anything to wear today.”

Rey picked the garment up and held it to herself. She’d never worn a dress before–at least she didn’t remember ever wearing one. “Thank you,” she said as she looked from the long-sleeve, full-length black dress back up to Leia.

“It was custom for the Alderaanian royal family to always travel with a set of mourning clothes. The habit stuck and after all of these years–all of these funerals–I started keeping a supply with me for people like you.”

“I’m sorry you’ve had to do that.”

Leia smiled sadly. “This cause has demanded the ultimate sacrifice from so many, and they deserve to be honored. And we deserve the chance to honor them. The clothes, a braid, they seem trivial, but they’re what we have. They’re what we can do.”

Rey nodded solemnly.

With a final smile, Leia moved to the door. Before she opened it, she turned back to Rey. “When you’ve done this as many times as I have, you start to become numb to the loss. I still haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or not. I barely had time to grieve for Han–” She paused, her voice catching. “Now I’ve lost Luke too. And while I ache for them, my grief for them joins my grief for everyone else we’ve lost, a grief so momentous that I can’t feel it anymore, not if I want to keep moving forward. But I’ve been moving forward through grief since Alderaan still existed. Poe hasn’t, and he’s going to need you today.”

“Of course, General.”

“You’re allowed to need him, too, Rey. Help each other. Feel your grief together. You’ll be stronger for it.”

Before she could respond, Leia walked out the open door, leaving Rey to her jumbled thoughts.

As she pulled her shirt off and stepped out of her pants, she wondered if she could do as Leia had said. Could she be there for Poe? Did she even know how? He’d been there for her numerous times, through her injury on Jakku, through Kylo’s assault on her mind, through what she thought were the last moments of her life. He was good at being there for people. She didn’t know if she could do the same.

And the thought of sharing her grief with him terrified her. She was unpracticed in the emotion, having been alone for so long. She hardly knew what she felt at the loss of Han, of Luke. It felt more like a hole in her, a void that would never be filled, that her body had simply reformed around. She didn’t know what it would do to her if she acknowledged that hole, probed its raw edges. And she didn’t want to burden Poe with that, not when he had such grief of his own to carry.

In the time since they had returned from Takodana, she acknowledged that something had changed between them. After nearly dying, she’d realized that she did want to feel everything that had been denied to her in her solitary existence on Jakku. Listening to Maz and Sura, she’d taken a chance. Poe had made it very clear that she determined what they were to each other, so she made the first moves. She teased him, she toyed with him, because she enjoyed seeing his reaction. She enjoyed feeling playful. And she enjoyed the chance to explore what she felt, what she wanted, without losing her control.

What Leia asked of her, though, required her to relinquish that control, meet his vulnerability with her own. And she didn’t know if she do that. After spending most of her life without any control, living under Unkar’s thumb, she didn’t want to give up something she finally had. She trusted Poe to not abuse that vulnerability, but she didn’t trust herself to not shut down around it, push him away again. And now that she was finally at a point where she knew he was something more to her, she didn’t want to push him away.

But, she realized as she pulled the dress on over her head and the silky fabric ghosted down her body, Poe always was the protector and maybe he finally deserved to have someone protect him. And she was likely one of the very few he would allow to protect him. So she would do that for him, and reveal whatever she needed to in the process.

She pulled her boots on and walked to the door. Pausing before the door control, she turned back to grab the pieces of the lightsaber. She wanted to feel close to Luke today.

The atmosphere was somber as she walked to the hangar, the halls devoid of the usual sounds of clanking tools and chatter coming from the cavernous space.

She walked in to find the Resistance members standing near the hangar door, with stones arranged on the floor. She spotted Poe, wearing his uniform, his head bowed. She went to him, sliding her hand into his.

He looked up at her in surprise at first, before giving her a sad smile. “Hi,” he murmured.

“Hi,” she responded. “I missed you this morning. Where have you been?”

“Was the bed cold?” he asked cheekily, before turning serious again. “I couldn’t sleep. I came out to work on Ebon One.”

“Alright.” She studied his face out of the corner of her eye. “I’m here, if you need-”

“I know, sunshine,” he cut her off, squeezing her hand.

She wanted to say something else, something to make him see that she wanted to help him, but Leia stepped before them before she could.

“I said when we were still on D’Qar that we would honor our dead more fully and properly after the fight. But as in any fight, more have died for our cause—too many more. And as in any war, the fight still isn’t over. We cannot honor them more properly on this Force forsaken planet, but we can honor them as best we can.”

Rey felt Poe tense next to her.

“One hundred and thirty seven.” She looked over them, tears glistening in her eyes. “One hundred and thirty seven lives lost since we left D’Qar.” She gestured to the stones behind her. “One hundred and thirty seven stones, one for each of the brave men and women who died for the Resistance.”

Rey glanced over at Poe. He stared resolutely ahead, standing at attention, but she could see tears welling in his eyes.

“We are here because of them,” Leia continued. “We press on because of them. We still fight because of them.”

Rey gripped Poe’s hand tighter.

“As we rebuild, we cannot forget those who died to ensure that we could. We cannot forget those who died so we could live. We must carry them with us, like beacons into the world we seek to reclaim. We must carry their passion, their courage, their strength, their wisdom, and their love. If we do that, we will not fail them. We cannot fail them. For they will never truly be gone, not if we continue their fight.”

She knelt down to pick up one of the stones and walked solemnly out of hangar into Akuria’s sunlight, the snow crunching below her feet. The Resistance members watched her for a moment, unsure what they should do.

Rey smiled through tears when the first to follow Leia was the little orange and white droid. Reaching out one of his mechanical arms, he picked up one of the stones and rolled after the General. Spurred into action by BB-8, the rest of the Resistance followed.

They rejoined Leia in a valley protected by the ridge. She appeared to study the stone in her hand for a moment, her thumb rasping over the rough surface, before looking up at them. “Cairns are usually built on a hilltop, but I’ve been in this fight too long and I don’t have the energy to climb that anymore,” she said as she gestured back towards the ridge. A few people chuckled sadly in response. “More than that, though, I want this cairn to remain here, long after this war is over, long after we’re gone. On top of the ridge, it might topple in a harsh wind or fall with the snow–and the people we honor with this cairn were made of sterner stuff than that. So let us build this memorial here, in the shelter of the ridge. Let these stones be sheltered in the way that we have been sheltered by their memory. Let these stones be sheltered in the way that every one of us, living and dead, are sheltered by hope, by love, and by the Force. Emerging from such a shadow, our light can only shine brighter.”

She took a steadying breath, before kneeling and placing her stone on the ground. Her fingers lingered on it for a few moments as she whispered a few words. Once she stepped away, the rest of them built the cairn.

Rose walked forward, Finn clutching her to his side as she struggled to quiet her sobs. She nearly dropped to her knees, held up only by Finn’s arm around her waist, when she reached the spot. She shakily placed the stone on the ground and leaned heavily into Finn as he set down his own stone.

A group of new recruits who arrived after these lives had been lost walked forward together, their shoulders set, their faces impassive. They set their rocks down around Leia’s and Rose’s, forming the foundation. When they straightened, Jevlan led them in a salute, his slim shoulders swallowed up in the too-large private’s uniform he wore.

Chewie brought an armful of stones forward, offering a mournful cry for each person they represented  as he carefully arranged the stones. When he walked back passed her, Rey could see tears glistening on his fur.

“Godspeed, rebels,” C-3PO said as he creakily knelt to place his stone. R2, BB-8, and the rest of the droids echoed his call in binary and arranged their stones.

The members of Ebon Squadron, including Sura and Iolo, came forward with their arms around each other and placed their stones together. Snap pressed a kiss to Karé’s forehead while pulling Jess to his side, and Sura wrapped Iolo in a hug.

The rest of the Resistance walked forward, but still Poe didn’t move from his place by her side. Every time she glanced over, he remained with his head bowed and his eyes closed. The continuous clenching of his jaw was the only sign of his struggle.

Rey flipped the stone over in her hand, trying to keep the tears pricking at her eyes from falling. The immensity of loss took her breath away as she stood there. She had keenly felt the loss of Han and Luke, but she hadn’t fully understood the depth of grief that the Resistance members held until that moment. As the cairn grew before her, she realized that she was looking at a memorial for more people than she’d known in her entire life. Face to face with their many sacrifices, Rey resolved to repay their sacrifices. She resolved to continue what they started and to finish it, no matter what that meant for her.

She walked to the cairn and knelt next to it, her gaze moving over the numerous stones. She placed her stone and pressed her hand to the top of the monument, whispering “Thank you” in every language she knew. Beneath her hand, she felt an answering pulse rise up through the stones.

Rising to her feet, she fell back into her place by Poe. Hand now free, she reached out to press it to his arm. As if her touch burned him, he pulled away.

After all of the other stones had been placed, Poe still held his. He opened his red-rimmed eyes, straightened his shoulders, and marched forward, his back painfully straight. He set the stone on the top of the cairn, his hand shaking as it lingered for a moment. But as quickly as that slight crack in his demeanor appeared, he clenched his hand into a fist, turned from the cairn with military precision, and walked passed the gathered Resistance members towards the base. As he walked away from her, Rey could hear him muttering something over and over.

“It should have been me.”

Many of them trailed off then, giving the cairn one last look before turning back to the base. Soon, only a few remained.

Rey walked back up to the memorial, the lightsaber pieces clutched in her hands. She knelt again and set the pieces on the top of the cairn. “May the Force be with you, Master Luke,” she whispered.

“He doesn’t need that.”

Startled, Rey looked up to see Leia smirking at her. “What?” she asked.

“My brother’s already with the Force. He doesn’t need your words and he’d probably knock you on the head for wasting them on him. And he certainly doesn’t need that.” She gestured to the broken lightsaber. “You do.”

“But it’s broken.”

“Then fix it,” Leia said with a hint of exasperation. “You’re a smart woman. If Luke could figure out how to make an entirely new lightsaber, you can figure out how to put an old one back together.”

“But the crystal—”

“You will find a new one,” Leia cut her off. “That saber called to you, Rey. It is meant for you. But maybe the crystal inside wasn’t. Maybe it needed to be broken so you could find your crystal and make it whole again.”

Rey looked down at the pieces of the saber, examining them for the first time like something that could be fixed, not something broken beyond repair. She picked them back up and stood again. “Thank you, General,” she said with a nod.

Leia smiled fondly at her. “I know that look. Don’t immediately get your tools and start working. Remember what I said earlier about Poe.” Her smile fell. “You might be the only one who can get through to him today.”

They walked back to the base in silence. Leia stopped to give Rey a hug before returning to the command center, leaving her to find Poe.

She went first to his quarters, though she knew he likely wasn’t there. Finding her suspicion to be correct, she stowed the saber pieces in the footlocker and picked the uniform jacket up from where Poe had thrown it on the floor before he fled.

She ducked her head into the common room, where Ebon Squadron had gathered around the table to toast their fallen comrades. Jess raised her glass of whatever swill Snap had found to Rey. “Hey, Jedi. Do you want to join us?”

Rey shook her head. “No, I’m trying to find Poe. Have you seen him?”

“Not since we came back to base,” Snap replied.

“Look for BB,” Sura suggested. “He’s never far from Poe when he’s like this.”

“Thanks, Sura.”

As she turned to leave, Karé called out to her. “Tell him we love him, alright?”

“I will.”

She wandered through the base for several minutes, nodding to people as she passed. Finally, she turned the corner into a dimly lit hall and found the little round droid beeping insistently towards a closed door.

“Go away, BB,” she heard Poe’s muffled voice.

“Hey buddy,” Rey said as she knelt down next to him. “Is he alright?”

He spun his photoreceptor to her and whistled his dismay to her.

She patted BB’s head. “I’ll try talking to him. You go find R2.” He looked at the door once more before rolling away.

She knocked gently on the door. “Poe, can I come in?”

He didn’t answer for several moments, but then the door opened a crack. She pushed into the dark room.

Poe sat on the floor of the abandoned closet, his elbows propped on his knees and his face buried in his hands. When she joined him, dust puffed up around her. She pressed her side to his and looked over at him. He pulled in a deep breath as tears dripped from his eyes to the floor, but he would not return her gaze.

She sighed and placed her hand on his forearm. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry you’re hurting. But you’re not alone. Your friends are here for you. I’m here.”

He turned to look at her then, and the despair in his eyes pierced her. “I should be alone,” he said gruffly. “Better yet, I should be dead.”

“Poe, don’t say that.”

“Why not?” he bit back. “It’s true. A lot of the people we built that cairn for would still be alive if I wasn’t.”

“You don’t know that,” she argued. “You don’t know what path they were destined for.”

“But that doesn’t matter. They still ended up on a path with me. I made the wrong choices and they were killed because of me.”

“Poe, at every moment, with every choice you’ve made, you have done what you thought would keep your people safe. You ordered the strike on the Dreadnought because you know it could take out the entire Resistance if you didn’t. You defied Vice Admiral Holdo because you thought she was dooming everyone. With every choice you’ve made, it appeared to be the only choice you had at the time.”

“Then I’m not fit for the Resistance if I couldn’t see that there were other choices besides letting my friends die.”

“Then maybe you’re not fit for the Resistance,” she said simply. “Maybe I’m not fit for the Resistance. Maybe none of us are fit for the Resistance.”

He gaped at her.

“None of us should be fit for the Resistance,” she continued, “because that would mean that we have so little faith in the galaxy, we assumed we would need to go to war.”

He snorted quietly.

“I don’t want to be someone like that and I don’t want you to be either. So, yes, you’re not fit for the Resistance. You made some bad choices because you didn’t see any good choices. But if that makes you want to give up, to die, rather than live and fight for those we’ve lost and those we have left–well, then maybe you don’t belong in the Resistance, either. But I know that’s not true.”

New tears glistened in Poe’s eyes as he blinked at her.

“You’re a good man, Poe. You wouldn’t ache with this loss if you weren’t. But they’re at peace. You need to know that.”

“You don’t know that,” he said as he wiped at a tear that rolled down his cheek.

“Yes, I do.” She grabbed his hand and gripped it tightly. “I felt it, when I touched the cairn. There was peace, and purpose. Now it’s time for you to find your own purpose, from within this pain, and move forward with it.”

He stared at their joined hands, lacing his fingers with hers. She leaned her head down on his shoulder, and he rested his head against hers.

“What do you think your purpose is?” he asked as his thumb ghosted back and forth over the back of her hand.

She thought for a moment before answering. “There’s been an awakening in the Force, and not just from me. I think I’m supposed to find the people like me, meant for something much bigger than they ever wanted, ever imagined, ever dreamt they were meant for.”

“Anything else?”

“I think I’m meant to end this,” she admitted. “Kylo and I, we’re equals on opposite sides. We’re destructive when we meet, and I think one of us is meant to destroy the other. I don’t think there’s any other way that this can end.”

“Please don’t think that,” he exclaimed, lifting his head to look at her and gripping her hand so tightly that his nails dug into her skin. “You have to be meant for more than that. You have to believe that. I have to believe that.”

She lifted her head from his shoulder and turned to look back at him. “What other ending can there be?”

“Something better than that—anything but that.”

“Like what?” she asked, wanting to know what he thought life should hold for her.

“I think you’re supposed to find people like you, teach them to seek the light, teach us all to seek the light. I think you’re meant to find your family, whether it’s the family you were born to or the family you choose. I think you’re supposed to live a long life, surrounded by the people who love you–Finn, Rose, Chewie.” He paused, eyes searching her face. “Me, if I make it that long.”

She smiled at him. “Maybe that’s your purpose–make it long enough for me to fulfill my purpose.”

“That would be alright with me, sunshine.”

Her expression turning serious again, she met his eyes. “No, your purpose is bigger than that, Poe. You’re meant to learn from your loss and lead with that wisdom. You’re meant to guide the hurt, the lost, and the broken back home–just like you did with me. You’re meant to fight this fight, and you’re meant to leave this fight and finally find peace.”

“That sounds alright, too.”

She returned her head to his shoulder and they sat there in silence for a few minutes, simply existing with each other. Rey eventually pulled her hand from his and patted his knee before rising to her feet. “Come on, flyboy. Ebon Squadron’s holding a wake in the common room.”

He rose to his feet, but he pulled her back before she could reach the door. She looked back at him puzzledly.

“I just need a couple more seconds,” he said as he stepped closer to her and set his hands on her shoulders. She stood under his gaze as he slowly brought his hands up to cup her face. He closed his eyes and gently pressed his forehead against hers. His breath fluttered over her skin as he exhaled long and slow, his shoulders dropping. She brought her hands up to rest on his arms and released the same calming breath.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better.”

“Hey, Poe.”

“Huh?,” he hummed.

“Promise me that no matter what purpose we end up having, we’ll be together at the end.”

“I’ll do whatever I can to be there, Sunshine, as long as you promise to do the same.”

“Deal.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead before he released her. As they walked to the door, it felt like the veil that had fallen over them, secluded in a forgotten supply closet, was pulled back.

Emerging into the hall, they emerged back into the Resistance, back into the fight.

But first, before they worried again about what the Force had in store for them, they would celebrate their friends–their lives, their memory, their courage, their light. As they walked to the common room, side by side, that’s what they intended to do.

They could find their purpose tomorrow.

A/N: Holy angsty chapter, Batman! Sorry about that–I can only apparently write about them having fun for two chapters before it's back to the angst. I'll lighten it back up in the next chapter.

Regarding the next chapter and the plan for this story, the demands of this story and the demands of my work and travel schedule are not really meshing right now. The story I'm trying to plot is requiring longer and longer chapters, which I'm struggling to write each week in time to maintain the upload pattern I've established. So, for the months of June and July, I will be uploading every two weeks. Once my schedule slows back down in August, I hope to go back to posting chapters weekly. I will keep you updated on that front.

As always, thank you for reading! Seeing your likes, reblogs, and replies makes a very stressful time for me a lot more bearable! Much love to you all!