#I had this idea for a while except for the Niflheim one I wanted to do one item each region in hell

[hes-sunshine-im-midnight-rain]

Your MC can only send one

(Ppyong is in his Juno form when the delivers it to earth)

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

How would you have written Hela as Loki's daughter?

I would have taken the myths and mixed them with the MCU.

[I want to preface this by saying that I have absolutely no idea what I've just written and that if you read this whole thing you're only going to waste 3 minutes of your time that you will never get back, you have been warned 😜🤷🤦]

Loki and Thor would be shown to have spent some time travelling through the 9 realms and sleeping with all kinds of beings then returning to Asgard without a care in the world, except in one of those visits Loki had slept with a giantess who found herself pregnant with Hela. She consulted Odin who repelled by one of his "sons" having slept with such a heinous creature he vanished her to Niflheim where she gave birth to a daughter and died shortly after.

That little girl was raised by snakes and monstrous beings, heard from the evil men so many stories about Asgard and their terrible ways and she grew interested in coming in contact with them. Once she mastered the use of magic she sent a message through the well of Niflheim expecting Odin to hear it but he had been banished to Earth so the one who heard it was no other than Loki.

Confused but intrigued by it he established contact and that, coupled with the fact that Odin was away which, unbeknownst to Loki, had weakened Asgard, the branches of Yggdrasil started to get loose... and Thor felt it. He returned and saw Loki in what it seemed to be an enchantment of some sort and when he touched him they were both transported to the shore of corpses. Once Loki regained his consciousness both brothers had to fight the corpses until Hela showed up.

Neither of them recognized her which hurt her deeply, knowing as she did that Loki was her father. She would tell them the story of her mother, her imprisonment in Niflheim and her upbringing and what Odin had done to her mother, which would make Loki relate somewhat. In the end she would fight them for the chance to leave the realm and while Thor willingly fought against her, Loki stayed out of it, only defending himself against her attacks but never once hurting her.

At one point she'd have Thor pinned against the wall, powerless and about to be murdered... with Loki standing right behind trying to reason with her, terrified for his brother but not moving a finger.... when Baldr kills her. Then he attacks Loki to which Thor, trying to save his brother, stands right in front of him and is fatally stabbed by Baldr - accidentally. Loki in his rage uses his sorcery to disintegrate him and he's left alone in Niflheim with no way back to Asgard and the corpses of his brother and his daughter on the floor, so in his rage he uses his sorcery to bring them back as souls of the damned and they live happily ever after as Zombie Stephen's cloak.

[illusory-torrent]

My feelings on lunoct are mixed. I want to like it but it's clear the planning and execution for it is barebones. I may have my gripes of BB but at least they actually have scenes together. Noctis and Luna don't even interact as adults except in an afterthought novel, and even then only the end.

"My feelings on lunoct are mixed. I may have my gripes of BB but at least they actually have scenes together."

i'd disagree tbh... noctis and luna have scenes together where it's shown why they like each other.

they interacted as children back when noctis was injured and in a wheelchair. they were literally childhood friends, just like ren/nora or catra/adora.

she would escort noctis around while he was staying in tenebrae, and sacrificed herself to make sure he got to safety when tenebrae was captured by niflheim.

luna is also the one who helps prompto befriend noctis. one of noctis's lifelong friendships is a result of this.

she's also the one who inspires noctis to keep going in her speech in altissia.

and of course, we all know of her saving noctis using her last strength via healing and then her passing on his ring to him before her death.

when it comes to lunoct, we know why they like each other. you as the player can actually figure out why noctis and luna like each other.

noctis likes luna because she is a light in the face of adversity, she is constantly strong in the face of hardship and he takes inspiration from that.

luna likes noctis because he has a strong desire to save the world and she loves eos. she died to save eos.

his desire to save the world is, of course, fueled by his desire to save her. he admits this to her before her death.

and we know of two alternate canon timelines in final fantasy xv that show lunoct development as well.

the omen trailer, which shows a vision of an alternate timeline, shows us that if luna and noctis don't work together, he literally goes insane. the trailer's description states that omen shows a possible future scenario that "must be avoided", implying that noctis and lunafreya need to work together to save the world.

and finally, there's the book you mentioned, dawn of the future.

&dawn of the future shows us another timeline where noctis and luna both live and get married.

all in all, lunoct had more canon moments than bumbleby in its development. not saying lunoct was done GREAT, it still needed a lot of work imo. but it's better than bumbleby.

for bumbleby, nobody knows why blake and yang like each other.

why does yang like blake? when did yang start liking blake? nobody knows.

why does blake like yang? when did blake start liking yang? nobody knows. it couldn't have been v1-v5 because blake was blushing at sun, dancing with sun, calling him her hero, etc. for five volumes straight during that time.

"I may have my gripes of BB but at least they actually have scenes together."

yeah, scenes where yang is blatantly racist to blake (v2). or scenes where blake literally compares yang to adam, her past abuser (v3). nothing about bumbleby is healthy. nothing about bumbleby says they have healthy boundaries... because they don't. bumbleby is a trauma bond.

blake and yang won't even hear out the idea of working with others without getting upset. blake and yang can't even separate from each other anymore without feeling scared how the other will feel about them. blake and yang won't have the uncomfortable conversations that need to be had regarding their relationship.

it's just forehead touches and handholding and blushes. that's it. that's all their relationship is. there's no substance; there's nothing there once you take a deep look at the ship. in a world full of great sapphic relationships in media (rupphire, bubbline, amberprice, harleivy, lumity, caitvi, etc.), bumbleby will eventually just be forgotten and left behind.

i really don't think bumbleby is all that. and i certainly don't think bumbleby is better than lunoct.

[nothing-but-dreamy]

ELEVATOR

Pairing: FFXV! Ardyn Izunia x GenderNeutral!Reader

Words: 1.371

Warnings: some making out

Summary: Unfortunately, the elevator got stuck and you're trapped with your boss, the Chancellor of Niflheim: Ardyn Izunia. There's no problem between the two of you except that you have a crush on him. But he doesn't know that. Right?

You felt nervous. As always when you were alone with the Chancellor. Not because he was harsh with you. Every single bad rumor you had heard about the man got disproved by Ardyn Izunia himself.

No matter how politely he was, to be alone with the man gave you chills. Mostly when it was in a small space like the elevator you two stood in. The closeness let the crush you had on Ardyn speak loud to you. Your thoughts sang a song that made your blood boil with sexual tension whenever you were with him.

It was so wrong and yet, it were the dreams that kept you awake in the night. Quickly, you pushed the inappropriate thoughts aside because you were just on your way to a meeting with Aldercapt as the elevator produced some nasty sounds before it stopped completely.

Ardyn, who stood near the doors, pressed a bunch of buttons, "Mh... What a pity. It stopped."

"Excuse me Sir, but what do you mean with 'it stopped'? It can't stop. We have a meeting to attend in ten minutes.", you said as you checked worried the time on your smartphone.

Slowly, Ardyn turned over to you, checking on you, "Well, but we're stuck. The alarm already went off. Now, we just have to wait.", he said, closing up on you as he saw your worried expression, "YN, are you feeling alright? I'm sure we don't have to wait long."

Once again, you fumbled with your smartphone, checking the passing seconds, "But too long for the meeting with Emperor Aldercapt. He will be mad if he has to wait too long.", you said nervously. Niflheim was most advanced when it came to technology but no one was able to fix the bad internet connection. You couldn't even made a call to inform someone.

Ardyn watched you getting nervous with each passing moment. You were the smartest assistant he could ask for and yet, you lost your balance when a tiny bit went wrong. In all your professionalism and correctness, to see you jittery gave Ardyn a bunch of ideas for some well-needed distraction, "You wanna make out?", he whispered with a raspy voice as he stood in front of you.

"W-what?", you stammered shocked, not sure if you had understood what he just had said.

"We can use the time we have to wait wisely. So, you wanna make out? With me?", Ardyn asked seductively, stroking over your cheek with the back of his hand.

You swallowed thickly as Ardyn held you captive with his intense glance of his unique eyes, "But Chancellor, I... We cannot-"

Ardyn stopped you by lying his index finger on your lips, "Call me Ardyn, please. And I know you're fond of me. You tried to hide it very hard but I saw the glances from you at me."

With a racing heart, you stepped back but quickly, you hit the wall while your blood was rushing into your ears, "I- I'm not... You're my… Chancellor Izunia, you're my boss. This wouldn't be right.", you whispered with a shaky voice. Your mouth was already dry and your brain clouded by Ardyn's appealing scent that filled the elevator.

Ardyn smirked as he noticed your fast heartbeat and how your eyes became darker. Steadily, he leant down, stopping just inches from your lips which were slightly sparkling from your tongue, "Shh. We can do whatever we want. I won't tell this anyone. It can be our little secret. What do you say, YN?"

As he whispered your name with his alluring, smooth voice and as his breath fanned over your face, you were done. Your knees became already weak. You needed something, anything, to keep yourself on your feet so, you grabbed into Ardyn's coat to pull him into a longingly kiss.

His lips were soft and warm and how you had imagined it, he tasted perfect. Quickly, Ardyn took control over you. He deepened the kiss, biting down on your lower lip before his tongue was caressing yours in a demanding way.

Ardyn chuckled before he leant back, "Oh, so eager suddenly?", he breathed as he got new oxygen into his lungs, "Well, I'm not complaining. You taste as sweet as you look."

With his index finger, Ardyn stroked from your chin down your throat and over your body until he reached your hip. He grabbed it and turned you around, pushing you against the wall with your chest, pinning you with his own body against it, "But if you wanna complain just say a word and I will stop.", he breathed against your neck while his hand roamed appreciatively over your frame.

"N-no... There's nothing I have to complain about.", you answered with a heavy voice. Just his firmly touch was enough to drive you crazy. That his hand searched merciless its own way underneath your clothes didn't make it easier for you to breathe or to think properly.

"Splendid! Because it would really be difficult for me to let go of you right now.", Ardyn whispered between several kisses along the soft curve of your neck. He felt your erratic pulse underneath his lips. As he bit into your skin, you moaned deeply while your fingers were searching any kind of support on the wall.

You tried everything to keep yourself together which wasn't easy at all. But you feared, if you would just let yourself go, you were sure everyone in the building would hear you because of what Ardyn was doing. His right hand roamed over the naked skin of your stomach, down to the rim of your pants to glide right beneath them. As Ardyn touched your erection, you groaned. Your core was already screaming for more. The fire that arose in your middle spread through your body and let you trembling against Ardyn's solid frame.

Ardyn was amazed. He had asked himself many times how you would sound when he would lay a hand on you. How your skin would taste when his tongue would lick over it and how much you would trust him to work your body. With closed eyes, you let your head fall on his shoulder. Your bare neck looked so invitingly that Ardyn just moved his left hand to your throat, lying his slender fingers around it, "You like that? Being under control of me?", he whispered into your ear, grazing along your skin with his lips.

You nodded shakily, "Y-yes, yes, I do.", you admitted. The elevator wall wasn't enough anymore. You wanted to feel something else. You wanted to feel Ardyn. While he was working his hand on you and keeping you in place with his other hand around your neck, you digged your own fingers into his soft, long and wine-red strands. To your surprise, he groaned as you tucked on it.

Ardyn enjoyed the attention he got from you to the fullest but he was also eager to give you a first, little taste how it would be to spend physical time with him. Skillfully, he worked his hand on your hot erection, listening to your quickened heartbeat until he noticed that you were close to your climax.

You were almost losing yourself because of the sensational feelings Ardyn gave you. The heat was on the rim of an explosion to shoot you into the depths of lust. You were just about to scream and to release yourself as Ardyn removed both his hands from you to step back. Speechless, you turned around just to see him smirking.

"Oh, don't look so shocked and disappointed, my dear.", Ardyn said amused, cupping your cheek with one hand to kiss you tendely, "We will continue this. Later. Now, we have to meet Emperor Aldercapt."

With a smug smile, pleased about himself, Ardyn stepped back from you and left the elevator whose doors opened in the very moment as if they were under his command. From the corner of his eyes, he saw you following him with shaking steps and still lust-filled eyes. Ardyn knew, later, when he would have you in his bed, he would have a lot of fun making you scream his name again and again and again...

[secret-engima]

Drabble for Time Travel Twins verse

(because I have no impulse control and SOMEONE *eyes @rayearthdudette* reminded me about Titus and then my muses ran away with me. Enjoy!)

...

-They are 12 when Titus first comes to the Citadel. Romulus is more than ready to stab him, because he remembers Libertus telling him what happened, that the man became a traitor, and any threats to Regis are threats that need to be removed, but Remus is … conflicted. One on hand, yes, Titus is a danger. But when? Surely the man hadn’t always been a traitor. Captain had taught him … so much. Taken care of them before going cold and hard in those final days. Remus is … biased he supposes. Reluctant to arrange an “accident” for the man who meant so much to him at one point, especially when he shows no signs of treason right now.

-So they watch, aloof and quiet (which is not unexpected for them considering their … backstory, so no one really notices), trying to find evidence of treason or loyalty and are both disturbed when they realize that Titus Drautos is … he is loyal. He is angry and hurting, having just lost his home of Cavaugh outside Insomnia and it’s Wall, but he is not angry at Lucis. He is not bitter toward the king, but instead seems to respect Regis in a polite, impersonal sort of way. He treats both twins with respect and manners, not questioning their paranoid looks, the way Romulus keeps picking a fight, or how Remus has nicknamed him Captain with a feral sort of smile even though the man is a Crownsguard rookie with no real rank.

-Sometimes he even steps into situations unprompted on their behalf, and while Romulus is convinced it’s a ploy to gain trust, Remus sees the crease in the man’s forehead when he interjects himself in a situation (a dispute with the other guards, a reckless prank he can see about to go dangerously south rather than just hilariously sideways) and his gut whispers that Titus is sincere. But then, he trusted Captain before and look where that got him.

-They are 16 when Titus Drautos disappears on a mission outside Insomnia. If they hadn’t been keeping a constant eye on him (hadn’t been making up excuses to be around him so as to search for treasonous behavior, hadn’t been getting attached despite the memories screaming that it was a bad idea) then they would never have noticed. Titus was one man amid the entire Crownsguard, and as good at his job as he was, as personal his reason for joining the Guard (saved by Regis when their “father” personally led rescue efforts to Cavaugh in the wake of the destruction), one man is so very easy to miss. Titus was new, he didn’t have that many friends in the guard, and most of them were on other missions and duties themselves. So when Titus was assigned to a milk run outside the Wall with three others and two of them came back with a report of a daemonic ambush, everyone else just shrugged with regret and moved on. Hardly the first time they’d lost a rookie to the Night.

-Except.

-Except Romulus and Remus know that Titus couldn’t be dead. They had not altered the timeline in a way that would have made the man die, surely. If anything, Romulus’s constant sparring challenges would have made the man more capable and besides all that, somewhere deep inside Remus still clings to the image of his Captain before the betrayal. The strong, steady, unbreakable presence that kept so many of them from throwing themselves into fights they couldn’t win because they didn’t want to come back to empty houses and shattered Clans.

-Except Romulus and Remus know that at some point Titus Drautos becomes Glauca, the wielder of an experimental regenerating armor, and Romulus has personal experience with Niflheim and their predilection towards immoral science.

-They are smart enough to leave a note at least. One telling Regis that they’re going looking for Drautos and will be back in a few weeks. Hopefully. Then they run, putting as much distance as they can between themselves and Insomnia before Cor can catch up to them and drag them home.

-It takes them longer than expected. Romulus remembered a lot of things and a lot of missions, but Niflheim holds a lot of territory and they can only hit so many bases before they risk capture and discovery from either side.

-But they do have some ways to narrow it down, and the twins lost their qualms against “aggressive negotiations” to gain information a very long time ago.

….

-Titus doesn’t know how long he’s been there. Only that it’s been too long. Far too long.

-Long enough to know that no one is coming. He is alone. Forgotten. Abandoned.

-Just like his home when Mors pulled back the Wall, not even sparing a thought for the region of small towns and simple villages right on his doorstep that were no match for Niflheim’s military.

-Long enough that he’s stopped trying to fight it when they come into his cell and unshackle him from the wall to drag him off to the lab for another session. Another agony filled day of them pumping black sludge and liquid metal into his veins and watching him writhe on the table as it forces itself into shape around his skin and then slides back underneath when the scientists press certain buttons.

-He hates them. He  h a t e s  them.

-He’s starting to hate the Lucis Caelums more. For leaving him. Just like they left his family to burn, just like they left all of Lucis to burn.

-(And in the back of his mind he knows that’s not fair, that he should hate the people doing this to him not those who live safe and far away, but he is helpless against these scientists who keep him drugged and shackled, and it is so much easier to hate the things that he doesn’t have to be terrified of, so much easier to keep himself alive when his hate has a target he can imagine lashing out at rather than the ones who have long since gotten wise to his escape attempts and tricks and pin him down body and soul).

-Titus has been here too long and as he is dragged to the table and strapped down for the (tenth-hundreth-thousandth) time he knows that no one is coming.

-He doesn’t realize that the shaking of the world is not just another side effect of his mind struggling to cope with whatever the sludge and metal does to him until the scientists stop in the middle of their work and start looking around.

-One of them looks toward the door and orders an MT to go check what was going on. The unit leaves and the pain resumes.

-Until the intermittent shivering of the world turns into one long, prolonged shake. Like reality is a wet dog and the entire lab is a stubborn drop of water that won’t quite leave the fur coat. Somewhere to his right, the head scientist, a weedy man with black hair and a propensity to laugh in childish delight when Titus gets violent, yells something that sounds like “earthquake? Here? Impossible!”

-Titus loses time easily on the table, and he isn’t terribly surprised when he blinks his eyes open without memory of closing them and instinctively looks around to try to reorient himself in regards to time (to whether the session is almost over or if he still has a long way of torment to go)

-Why is his face wet.

-Why does the wetness taste like copper.

-Is he bleeding again? Did the liquid metal come out of his skin too fast and open large gashes again?

-A blink of lost time, a sluggish glance to the right.

-Had … had the weedy scientist man been pinned to the wall by a sword through his chest for long?

-Why were all the scientists screaming? He was the only one who did screaming during the sessions.

-Another blink and the screaming was quiet but the alarms were like nails in his ears, so loud he almost couldn’t hear the words being said to him by the person yanking the restrains off his arms, “-kay, Captain, we’re gonna get you out of here. Just hang on. You hear me, Captain?”

-…Captain?

-Only one person called him Captain.

-He lifted a hand toward the … person? Hallucination? and brushed his knuckles against a slender cheek, metal skittering in and out of his hand, reaching for the person-vision-thing with something like curiosity, “Re … mus?”

-Blue eyes, darker than their usual ice, as dark as the ocean or the King’s magic, filmed with tears. The hand that took his was scarred in familiar patterns, burns that were done by fire but branched jaggedly like lightning, “I’m here, Captain. I’m getting you out.” A glance to Titus’s other side and a tightening of the jaw, “We’re getting you out. Just hang on, okay?”

-Titus had to be dreaming. Or dying. Finally. The royal princes were very openly not fond of him, for all they had chosen to make him their preferred pestering target and training chew toy for the last 4 years. They were only 16 and this was a Niflheim military laboratory. No one was coming for him, especially not the princes.

-Titus did his best to hang on to Remus’s shoulder anyway as the much smaller teen have carried, half dragged him down torn up, smoking hallways. Ahead of him, silver gleamed, not like the liquid metal the scientists kept pumping in his veins (that he was probably dying of right now) but brighter. Purer.

-Romulus’s armiger had always been a thing of deadly beauty, especially when Titus wasn’t on the receiving end of it. It carved through the MT Units that tried to stop them with barely a thought, the dozens of swords the boy had obsessively collected swapping from the air to his hands and back in the space of blinks, defending or destroying by turns.

-Not a single Unit or bullet got anywhere near Titus and Remus.

-Something coiled around him, warm and painful, but a … good kind of painful. Not like the scientists and their tools. More like the burn of a hot shower against sore muscles.

-Not a bad thing to feel while he dreamed up a rescue scenario as he died.

-A blink that lasted too long, because when he opened his eyes again, he was lying on his back, being dragged through the grass on some kind of makeshift shield sled. The sky was above him, so open and vibrant he hadn’t realized he’d started to forget what colors other than black, silver, and white were until just then. He didn’t dare blink away the tears that started, because he didn’t want to miss this. This dream of rescue and freedom in his final moments.

-It was evening. If he craned his head, he could see smoke rising in the distance. The base that had held him nothing more than an empty shell.

-The vision of Remus was still talking from where he and Romulus were dragging Titus’s shield sled, “-a little longer. We’ll patch you up once we get to the Haven, okay? Just a little longer.”

-He blinked. Opened his eyes to pain.

-Pain-pain-pain-painpainPAINMAKEITSTOPPLEASE-

-“What’s wrong with him?”

-“I don’t know! He might- he might be going through withdrawals from whatever drugs the Nifs used?”

-“It’s been hours past that point and it started up just now, withdrawals have more warning than that-!” swearing, loud and by his ear as he writhed in burning white agony, “Is he seizing? Hold him down till I get an elixir!”

-“-not working I don’t know what’s wrong-”

-“-ven! It’s the Haven!”

-“What?”

-“Captain never went on Havens! No one knew why, and he always had a good excuse so no one really questioned it but-.”

-“Daemon blood, it’s got to be, they probably used it as a conduit for the armor. The Haven was trying to purify him-.”

-“He’s off the Haven now, why hasn’t it stopped?”

-“We interrupted the process, the suit isn’t complete and we probably just screwed up whatever counted for stable with it-.”

-PainpainpainpainpleasejustmakeitstopjustenditenditENDIT

-“-dare die, Captain! Don’t you dare die on me!”

-Please.

-Just.

-E n d   i t.

-Hand on his chest and on his neck it hurthurthurt-, “You don’t get to leave me behind!”

-Light.

-White hot light, brighter than the sun, brighter and more agonizing than anything in life before or after.

-Kids in front of him. Kids who thought they were adults, thought they were ready for war, thought they were ready for magic to reach inside and change them forever.

-His boys. His girls. His idiots.

-His Glaives.

-Blood and bandages, blades and crisp black uniforms edged in silver. “Appropriate,” laughed the shadow of the jungle and the storm on his heels and where did he know that voice from? Where did he know that shadow?

-Endless battlefields and unchanging training rooms, the flicker of braids in the corner of his eyes, meanings kept secret, meanings absorbed through exposure until the sight of pink made him cringe and the glimpse brown beads made his heart hurt in sympathy. A hundred faces come and gone, a dozen more that stayed-stayed-stayed. Brown eyes green eyes burning burning blue. Lips in a hundred different faces with a hundred different names, all of them looking at him and calling him the same thing in fondness-anger-respect-heartbreak-affection-trust.

-“Captain.”

-“Hey, Captain.”

-“Yo, Cap!”

-“For Hearth and Home, right Captain? As long as there is breath in my body, I follow that order.”

-A name on the tip of his tongue, a knowing that was fond and angry and regretful all at once. The glimpse of beads.

-Lightning branching scars made of purple fire.

-The pain stopped.

-Titus opened his eyes.

-And looked into burning burning blue, set in a face that was partially cracked open in branching lightning scars that bled purple fire, “Hey … Captain.”

-There was a name on Titus’s lips, and it wasn’t “Remus”, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what that name was. At least not before the world went dark and he passed out from the relief of no longer being in pain.

-He woke up to the crackling of a campfire and a sprawling night sky over his head. For a moment he lay there in utter disbelief, not daring to move just in case he woke up back in the lab. Something shifted off to his right and a moment later a small, calloused hand rests on his forehead, “Awake for real this time, Drautos?”

-Titus stares, “…Prince Romulus?” The words cracked in his throat and when his coughing fit died down, the prince who shouldn’t be there handed him a canteen of water. Titus inhaled carefully several times after drinking, then looked up again. The prince was still there, “…How?”

-Prince Romulus sat back on his heels with a carefully blank expression, “You’re a hard man to find, Drautos. And a hard one to keep alive.”

-“I … what?”

-The Prince looked over his shoulder and Titus jerked internally when he spotted Prince Remus curled up asleep on a bedroll, exhaustion in every line of his teenage body, his branching scars far more vivid than usual.

-Purple fire spilling free of skin and blue, blue eyes and memories he can’t see-hear-touch-.

-“You … you came for me.” Titus whispered, unable to believe it, but also unable to disbelieve it. Why?

-Romulus grunted and evaded the implicit question in Titus’s words, “It took us longer than we thought to find you. Didn’t realize the Nifs had so many labs, let alone in Lucis. Then we got you out to a Haven and whatever they pumped in you decided to send you into some kind of violent fit.”

-Titus could remember that, dimly, and it made him feel sick just thinking of the black sludge and the liquid metal squirming under his skin-.

-Except he couldn’t feel it anymore.

-He pressed his hands over his arms, trying to find the feeling of foreign, painful metal inside him and instead felt … something else. Light. Twin suns of light hiding in his core, one that nipped and grumbled at his senses like a winter-chilled river that looked calm on the surface but raged quick and fast underneath, and another that crackled and sparked eagerly down his bones like lightning and the pounding of rain. Magic. Twin cores of magic, humming under his skin in place of the horrible, burning liquid metal the Nifs had constantly forced into his veins.

-…The princes’ magic?

-Romulus saw his look and turned his face away, “Remus burned the Starscourge and that … metal … out of your body with his magic but something needed to replace it. It had … carved you up inside and leaving those channels empty … would have been fatal.” Romulus glared at the night beyond the Haven, “I’m not explaining that well. But that’s what happened. Then he passed out.”

-Titus couldn’t untangle his emotions properly, they were too jumbled and strong do to more than rasp, “And … you?” Because there were two distinct magics inside him now, he could feel them.

-Romulus shook his head, stood up and prowled a few steps away to the campfire before sitting down again and admitting gruffly, “Remus wasn’t enough. After you were purified, you went into shock. I’d brought along ten phoenix downs just in case something happened…” The prince inhaled slowly, whispered more to the flames than Titus, “I ran out. You were still fading. So I dragged you back.”

-“Why?” Titus’s hands were shaking and he couldn’t get them to stop, couldn’t think about what the prince’s words made him feel because if he did he would break before he could get an answer and he needed to know. Needed to know why the two princes that had never acted particularly fond of him would race into the wilds, would risk their lives to free him, and then would … give him their magic.

-It wasn’t Romulus who answered, but a sluggish Remus, who slurred from his bedroll, “Cause you’re our Captain.” Remus blinked sleepily, yawned and finished, “Hearth and Home. ’S what matters most. Hearth is where you stay, Home’s the people in it. That’s you.” Blue eyes fluttered shut again before Titus could think of a response, but when he looked over at Romulus, the eldest prince was watching him solemnly.

-The prince tilted his chin in agreement with his twin, then added very softly, “We were afraid of you because you’re from Cavaugh. Our father already has to deal with enough bitterness and backlash over Mors’ reign, we didn’t know how you would react, being so close to the royal family that failed your town. But then you disappeared and … a prince takes care of his people. We can’t save everyone, we don’t have that kind of power. No one does. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.” Then he shook his head, shifting to sit with his back to the fire and his sword on his shoulder, a soldier keeping watch even though there was no need on a Haven, “Go to sleep. You’ve been through a lot. We’ll call for pickup to Insomnia in the morning.”

-Titus lay back down very slowly, head spinning and limbs shaking, his entire world upended and shaky. Except for one thing. One realization, one burning vow, curling tight in his chest.

-These princes were his. They had come for him. When he’d lost all hope that anyone could come, they had. They had come and carried him to freedom, burned out the poison in his veins and given him each a piece of themselves to keep him alive when they had no obligation to do any such thing. No matter what he thought of Mors, or their father, for that …

-For that he would stand beside the throne without hesitation or doubt.

-He woke up the next afternoon to find that Remus had somehow migrated from his bedroll to Titus’s and was sleeping curled up under one arm, his magic tangling around Titus’s soul and keeping the nightmares at bay while Romulus, who had drifted over sometime in the night, dozed fitfully within arm’s reach away. When Titus stirred, Remus clung tighter to the tattered Crownsguard coat they had dressed him in at some point. Remus called him “Captain” the same way King Regis beckoned his Shield, (the same way a child called out to a trusted adult, and what had he ever done to earn that trust from two boys who were known to have been abused so badly by adults before), and Titus relaxed obediently into the teen’s hold.

-And he knew.

-He was theirs. Whatever they needed of him, whatever they wanted him to be to them, that’s what he would be. For them he would burn down the world if they only asked, and in their defense he would give anything.

[stonecoldmeme]

He may as well spit it out. "...I'm going to die, Prompto." Noctis let out a shuddering breath. "I don't know if you've realized that when I said it before. I have to die, I'm the only one who can kill Ardyn, and I can't do it in this life. I've made up my mind, so you can't stop me. So that's why I need you to make sure that I don't leave you with regrets. That's why I want to be with you before I go..."

Prompto’s breath audibly hitched, but he didn’t... react.  Not outwardly.  Not loudly or even really... internally at that point.  He’d already shed tears, knew he’d be shedding more, but he--  He had to be there for Noct.  To do his... his duty, to be strong.  To give his all, because he’d promised.  Even if he thought the whole... the whole dying to give everyone else light was absolutely fucking bullshit--

And all those words.  Everything Noctis just said, it... he felt so many things.  Anger and sadness and longing.  “Do you really expect me to just... let you go?”  His voice was a lot quieter than he meant for it to be, and a lot more rough.  He wanted to rage at everything and everyone except Noctis... but the idea was hard to fathom.  Hard to accept.  “Is that... what you want?  Really?”  Because...

He knew Noctis.  Didn’t matter if they spend ten years apart or a thousand; he knew this man.  His shouting and fighting against injustice, and few things felt less just than what his best friend had just said to him.  Trying to ignore his own pain, it--  It wasn’t fair.  (Neither was Insomnia’s fall.  All those people dead.  Everything that had happened in Niflheim.  None of it was fair, nothing was fair--)

But maybe Noctis already knew that.  Maybe he’d thought it through and made a choice, and... while still unfair, if he was set on that and relying on Prompto to follow through, to be at his side no matter what...

He could cry again later.  Later.  “I need to--  Sorry.  Sorry, but I... I have to hear you say this is... what you want.  I’ll do--  I’ll give you anything.  Anything you really want.”  Even if it shattered him into a thousand pieces.

[bgn846]

The Niflheim Experiment Chapter 13

The dust settled after fifteen minutes which allowed Ignis and Aranea to explore their makeshift prison. What Gladio had initially thought of as being one explosion had actually been two, thereby sealing them inside the hallway from both sides. Sighing quietly he turned to check on the others. Ravus was awake but had his eyes closed, his only movement being the hand that was carefully petting Luna’s hair.  She was still unconscious but appeared to be comfortably resting and using her brother's stomach as a pillow.

Loqi hadn’t stirred once, since Luna had finished healing him.   Gladio hoped he would be okay, the kid seemed fine but looks can be deceiving. Unwilling to relinquish his hold Gladio simply sat cradling the former Nif in his lap.  So far Loqi was the only person who’d actually be able to relate to what he’d gone through.  Well, not all of it, but at least the nearly being consumed by the scourge.

Suddenly wondering how long he’d been out after Luna had healed him Gladio couldn’t help but ask. “Ravus, how long did it take for me to wake up after Luna healed me?” The man in question groaned softly before shifting his head slightly. Aranea had been nice enough to lend her jacket as a pillow for him. She was rough around the edges but it was clear she had a strong desire to ensure the safety of those she considered allies.

“Wasn’t quick,” Ravus offered after a beat. “M’guessing nearly twelve hours or more.”

“Probably means blondie here is gonna be out for a little while longer then, huh?”

“Maybe, but he was in good health before he was corrupted, I’m sure that will make some difference.”

“Careful Ignis!” Aranea shouted disrupting Gladio’s train of thought. Looking over he was alarmed to see Ignis crouched down with his arm in between a rather large chunk of rubble.

“Nothing has shifted, but I need to see if I can feel an obstacle on the other side. If this debris pile is only a few feet thick we may be able to breakthrough.” Ignis defended as he pushed his arm even further into the small gap.

“Iggy, please be careful, I don’t want you to lose your freaking arm.” Gladio scolded, he was terrified the pile of unstable concrete would shift and trap him.

“Fine!” he huffed, “it’s of no matter, I can’t feel anything besides more hard surfaces.”

“Good then you can stop doing that,” Aranea commented right before she roughly pulled Ignis back and sent him sprawling backward on his butt. “You may be okay with endangering yourself like that, but I’m not.” She accused after Ignis shot her a glare.

The two came back over to sit down. It was clear they couldn’t escape from this place. They had no choice but to wait for backup or see if this Ardyn character would attack them again.  The guy could easily set off another round of explosives and kill them all. That realization made Gladio’s stomach turn. It wouldn’t be his first choice of how to die but they were at the mercy of this mad man.

“So, tell me again what happened when you came in to get us?” Aranea asked once she’d checked on Luna and sat down to rest.

“We came in and then someone who looked like Luna approached us, but didn’t say anything.  They were injured and kept holding out a hand for help,” Gladio explained.

“What do you mean looked like? Were they blonde and resembled Luna or--.”

“It was the oracle,” Ignis cut in. “If Gladio hadn’t stopped me from assisting her then I’d be in the same boat as Loqi.”

“So an exact copy of Luna? How’s that even possible?”

“I dunno, but when I ran it through with my sword nothing happened.”

“Wait you stabbed Luna?!” Aranea exclaimed.

“It was Ardyn!” Ravus growled, “he’s got magic remember.”

“Still, I never saw him impersonating someone, that’s creepy as shit!”

“You think that was Ardyn I stabbed?” Gladio asked in disbelief. “I thought it was a monster or a daemon.” The idea that he’d already come nearly face to face with this guy was not sitting well.

“I’m almost certain of it, Ardyn is a tricky bastard,” Ravus breathed out harshly.

“It would explain why he was able to seemingly disappear after you attacked.”

“How did you know it wasn’t Luna?” Aranea questioned with a furrowed brow. “If it looked exactly like her how’d you know?”

“Uh, I--,” Gladio wasn’t exactly sure how to describe how he knew. The feeling he’d experienced was nothing he’d ever dealt with before. It was like a sixth sense had awoken in his body, one that specifically reacted to Ardyn. “I felt bad, honestly. I can’t explain it properly but I knew it wasn’t Luna and that’s about it.”

“Huh, I wonder if butterball over there will have the same reaction as you when he wakes up,” quipped Aranea.

“Do let us know if you feel that sensation again,” Ravus added with a wave of his hand. “I’d like some warning, small or not, of Ardyn’s return.”

Nodding Gladio stayed silent, he couldn’t think of anything else to say.  He couldn’t exactly see a way to beat someone that could survive being run through. He’d aimed for the heart, there was no mistaking it, but the fake Luna, or Ardyn, simply laughed and ran away.  

A soft moan drew Gladio from his ruminations. Glancing up he noted that Ravus seemed very alert, his focus being on his sister. They all stared intently as Luna worked to regain consciousness. After a few minutes, she blinked her eyelids open and peered back at them owlishly. “Did we crash?”  

Aranea laughed sarcastically, “no, we got blown up.”

Luna’s eyes widened at the admission, “Is everyone alright?”

“Yes, mostly, aside from some expected bumps and bruises we are all okay,” Ignis supplied calmly. “Though, I can’t say with certainty how Loqi is feeling as he hasn’t woken yet.”

“I healed him, I know he’ll be alright,” Luna affirmed with conviction.

“Until he wakes up to tell us otherwise, we’ll have to take your word for it,” Aranea sighed.

“Are we trapped?” Luna asked with worry as she looked around the dimly lit pile of rubble around them.

“I’m afraid so, I’m not sure what Ardyn wants from us but he’s clearly not done yet,” Ravus added while scowling.

“So far, our only advantage has been your ability to heal the scourge,” Gladio threw in to try and make himself feel better. Things were not looking good and he needed some form of good news to latch onto.

“I wish we could harness that power into a weapon,” Aranea huffed, “I know it’s probably impossible but I can still dream.”

Luna remained silent after the comment, it was clear she was thinking hard about something. “Wait, I might be able to bless an object, enchant it in a way. It might actually have an effect on him, it’s worth a try right?”

“When you say enchant what exactly do you mean?” Ravus asked with narrowed eyes.

“If I can heal the scourge then I must have power over him. I might be able to actually heal him!” Luna was getting excited and Gladio hoped she might be onto something. Though it was hard to see how in her current state. She still hadn’t sat up and looked exhausted to boot.  

“You’re barely awake from passing out earlier, and now you want to go around making our weapons into instruments of the gods, themselves.   Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Ravus retorted.

“If he has the power to spread the scourge then he must be stopped, I don’t care at what cost.”

Groaning loudly Ravus threw an arm over his face. “You’re going to try no matter what I say aren’t you?”

Luna attempting to get up was her answer; she struggled at first until Ravus begrudgingly supported her back. “We don’t have much time, he’ll be back I’m sure of it,” she chided reaching out for her brother’s sword.

Watching the oracle work her magic was something to behold. Gladio wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing, but Luna appeared to be gathering her powers and somehow imbuing them into objects. Not that it was obvious except when you handled whatever she’d work on.  His own broad sword now thrummed with new energy.  Something similar to what it felt like when he used the armiger, but this feeling had more raw power behind it.

After about an hour Luna’s complexion began to pale. She was fading due to working so hard. Ravus noticed right away and ordered his sister to stop what she was doing.  Figures Luna would be trying to literally energize every single weapon they had in their arsenal.

“I must finish this last one,” she murmured.

Wincing with pain Ravus sat up fully and gently pulled the dagger she was holding away. “Rest, I believe you’ve given us a fighting chance.”

“No, I – I must continu--,” she offered weakly before fainted mid-sentence and falling straight into her brother's arms.

“It’s selfish of me to let her push herself, but this may be our only chance at making a dent when it comes to Ardyn.”

“She seemed pretty excited about the idea, I don’t think she’ll hold it against you,” Aranea supplied as she stood to stretch. “How much more time do we have to wait before the cavalry arrives? I’m getting sick of just sitting here.”

“Would you rather the alternative?” Ignis asked. “I do think this barrier of rubble is keeping our attacker at bay.”

“Then what is he waiting for? Back up is coming so we won’t be stuck in here forever.”

“Perhaps the person he wants isn’t in attendance at the moment,” Ignis lamented. “I wouldn’t be surprised if his real target was Noctis.”

Panic gripped Gladio once Ignis’ words had sunk in.  “Is there any way we can warn them? If he comes then Ardyn could attack when they arrive or go to the city to ambush him there. We’re divided and vulnerable!”

“Calm down!” Ravus growled. “We must stay focused or the fight is lost. I know you’re concerned but we can’t let our emotions rule.”

Gladio knew Ravus was right, but the idea still stung. Having to simply wait and see whether they would survive or not.

“Do you have any of those potions left?” Aranea asked suddenly. “We sorta need Luna to be awake if we actually end up catching Ardyn.”

“Damn, you’re right,” Gladio groaned. “Sure, she gave us magic weapons but without her to deal the final blow we’re kinda just left holding a ticking time bomb.”

“If we can hold him,” Ravus corrected.

“If he lets us get close enough to try,” grumbled Ignis.

“You lot are so depressing. I for one am not dying at the hands of a creepy dude. We need to help Luna right now and wait for backup.”

Healing Luna enough to wake her up ended up taking 2 elixirs and 1 potion. The oracle again regained consciousness looking exhausted and not at all rested. Gladio felt terrible for doing this to her but Aranea was right, she needed to be awake for them to even have a fighting chance.

“Wha’ppened?” she slurred.

“Waiting for Ardyn,” was the response that Aranea choose to offer as she paced the small space. “We needed you awake, sorry.”

Luna simply nodded and worked to gain her bearings. “How will we know when help has arrived?” she asked after a moment.

“I wish I knew the answer to that, but I’m afraid we will have to wait to find out,” Ignis sighed.

And wait they did, for nearly another two hours. The beam on their lone flashlight was growing dimmer by the minute. Soon it would flicker and go out leaving them trapped and in the dark. Gladio hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He was about to comment on what their backup plan might be when a distant rumble shook the floor. “What was that?!” he exclaimed hurriedly. “You all felt that too right?”

Based off the wide eyes peering back Gladio figured they’d heard and felt it as well. Wasting no time he began shouting at the top of his lungs.  It didn’t take long for the others to join in.  Ignis had to shush them a few minutes later when shouts could finally be heard through the rubble. Gladio felt like he could cry, they’d made it! Help had arrived.  The only fear left was Ardyn.

The light had officially gone out by the time the others had broken through the immense pile of debris blocking their exit.  Gladio had summoned his shield and done his best to keep the dust off of Loqi and Ignis.  The only other shield in the armiger had been given to Aranea and she was protecting Ravus and Luna.  The rush of stale, but to them, fresh air hit and they all sighed collectively in relief.   It was at this moment they could finally see their rescuers.

An entourage of glaive stood on the other side of the now penetrable barrier with Cor and Nyx in the lead. They all hobbled out of their little concrete prison quickly, the risk of getting stuck again too terrifying to consider.

“Who needs medical attention?” Cor asked once they’d cleared the small opening that’d been created with what appeared to be a lot of hard labor and sweat.  Granted the glaive had a few more tools at their disposal than they’d had.  Namely what looked like a pneumatic jackhammer.  That would explain the odd noise they’d heard early on.

We’re all mostly tended to, Marshal,” Ignis offered as he kept walking forward. “I’d like to get outside of this facility as soon as possible.”

Cor nodded and waved the remaining glaive forward. The small sliver of daylight coming out from the door was a sight for sore eyes. Unable to slow his pace Gladio practically ran the rest of the way and promptly collapsed on the grass outside.  Thank the astrals they’d made it out of there!

“Big guy? Did –did we die?” Loqi rasped a second later from where he still wrapped in Gladio’s embrace.

“Loqi! Ha you’re alright! We’re still alive but it was a close call there.”

“What happened?” he asked tried to roll his head to the side to see around Gladio’s bulk.

“We got blown up,” Ravus spit out as he approached. He looked the part considering Ignis was half dragging him along.

“Shit, no way, I didn’t wake up at all!”

“Yes way, now do you think you can walk?” Gladio checked as he went to release his hold.

“Walk? Are you fucking kidding big guy? I’m going good holding my head up.”

“Need some assistance?” Cor asked as he strode up next to them.

Gladio shook his head and peered around to see how they’d all managed to arrive. A combination of militarized vehicles was spread out around Aranea’s dropship, dusty from their rigorous journey. It was at that moment that Gladio spotted something terrible. There, in one of the trucks was a familiar silhouette. “We need to leave now! You shouldn’t have let Noct come!” he shouted in a panic.

Cor merely shrugged, “He was acting like a baby, so I let him come.”

Opening his mouth to argue, Gladio quickly thought of another problematic issue. “Is the king with him?”

“He couldn’t leave Insomnia. You know your father wouldn’t have let him anyway.”

“Still --,” Gladio didn’t have time to finish when a dark shadow passed over them, he could only look over in shock as the rays of the setting sun highlighted the figure of Ardyn standing before them once more.

“Oh joy, you’ve brought me more playmates, how exciting,” he drolled. “I was beginning to think you’d never show up.”

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[niflim]

headcanon: wolves, fenrir, packs, & rings.

wolves are creatures revered as guardians. given the way that cloud is a protector, especially in my personal portrayal, this wolf motif that he adopts is invaluable to me. not only are wolves considered to be guardians, they are also symbols of ritual. loyalty, and spirit. the wolf is described as a being that creates “ quick and firm emotional attachments ” as well as needing to “ trust their own instincts ”. i think this is particularly interesting because it reinforces the idea of control over one’s life, and control is definitely something that cloud strives for.

and, just a little bit of an aside, it’s thought that zack is the wolf that appears in advent children, and i definitely agree with that sentiment, especially since in japanese folklore they’re revered as gods of the shinto religion and considered to be divine messengers. not to mention the fact that they’re guardians as mentioned above. in brett l. walker’s the lost wolves of japan, it’s noted that wolf talismans were worn to protect against things such as fire, disease, and other calamities as well as bringing fertility to the land and couples hoping to have children. not saying that last bit is why cloud has chosen wolves to adorn his clothing, but it is interesting.

we also know that fenrir ( the wolf ) is a representation of cloud’s guilt and the symbol of him acting as a lone wolf. it vanishes at the end of the movie along with his guilt, supposedly, for the deaths of zack and aerith. he can start to forgive himself, though these things don’t happen overnight.

i don’t think the presence of nibel wolves in the nibelheim region is a coincidence either. it’s from where cloud hailed, taking its namesake from the land of the dead, niflheim, that they can be found. it ties him back to nibelheim, his past. cloud is a nibel wolf from nibelheim or, at the very least, that is how he’s choosing to pay homage to his destroyed home. nibelheim is also where odin can be found --- that which fenrir is destined to destroy. it’s not all that farfetched to say that cloud is fenrir in this scenario. a being sometimes considered a hellhound and that sephiroth is the god that he is to devour.

fenrir is a ferocious wolf from norse mythology and is the son of loki. fenris wolf was foretold to be a bringer of great calamity and would grow quickly, so he was bound. it is said that he will devour the planet, kill odin, will, in turn, be killed by vidar, and his children, skoll & hati will swallow the sun & moon respectively. it can be argued that cloud bit those who would bind him, just as fenrir bit off tyr’s right hand.

on the subject of packs: cloud has never really had that sort of acceptance of a pack until he joins avalanche in their mission to stop shinra. media often depicts characters such as cloud as lone wolves --- fierce, standoffish, distrustful beings that will do all in their power to keep from being part of a group ( or they just can’t see themselves be accepted, more than likely in cloud’s case ). but once they’re accepted, they’re loyal. they would die for their pack. cloud would die for his pack. little did he know that not only would he find a pack to call his own, but he would be their alpha.

one of the interesting things about packs, and this lends a bit to my own characterization of cloud when he’s with the people he loves, is that male wolves are gentle in caring for their young and are devoted to them. also, the entirety of the pack is there to help raise the children. all the children in cloud’s life have so many loving members of their family to care for them. 

while cloud certainly shouldn’t be placed into the role of a father when it comes to denzel, it’s something that he takes up in my portrayal of him regardless. i think that while cloud’s role is more in line with zack’s in this situation, he feels responsible for this kid’s life. he wants to take care of him and takes on this role that kinda ... falls somewhere between brother & father. guardian, i guess. but he’s okay with denzel calling him dad. if that’s what he wants him to be, that is exactly what he’ll be because he feels their connection is more than just brothers --- even if their age difference is what it is. aerith brought him to him and tifa for a reason.

by extension, the rings that cloud gifted to tifa, denzel, and barret are a symbol of them being members of his pack. i know that marlene will be given a ring eventually if she doesn’t already have one. any other lovers aside from my default relationships here will get one, too.

cloud isn’t always one for material things, his actions are always based on the emotions and feelings he can’t properly express; thus, to me, it feels entirely proper that cloud would go out his way to mark his family as his family in this one exception to that rule.

[ddaengyoonmin]

Chapter 8

Pairing: Jungkook x reader, Taehyung x reader, Jimin x reader, Namjoon x Reader, Jin x Reader  eventual Ot7 x reader in later chapters

Genre: fluff, angst, smut!!!

Theme: Based kinda on sword art online a lot of similar ideas and themes kinda combining the idea of them trapped in the game, but the world is closer to ALFheim online

Warnings: Swearing, Death (non main character) Fingering and female orgasm

Word count: 3.6k

Chapter 9

——————————————————————

   You yelled at you hit the stones below. “Please don't kill me.  I’ll give you all my items” you choked out.

“We don’t need your items” The fire fairy hissed out.  The fox hybrid fairy was silent and glaring Jimin’s way.  

“Wait. But then why…” you stuttered out, looking up at the three of them. They were still standing while you knelt on the ground.

The fire fairy who seemed to be in charge of this party took a step closer to you. With him standing close the light of his screen now allowed you to make out his features better.  His hair was a light blonde, almost white, his eyes were a dark brown and stern.  His clothes seemed to be dark burgundy with a black leather jacket placed over top.  

He crouched down to your eye level and you glanced at his screen ‘RM’ his gamer name read.  

“We need you to join our party.” he said calmly “I don’t know if you know this, but the amount of people that picked Water Fairy as their race is actually extremely low compared to all the others. Like one percent, so you’re rare.  And you’re the only race with healing powers.  I bet if people knew what this game would turn into things would’ve been different, but how could we have known” he sighed then continued

“So when the game maker left the sky and the crowd was in chaos, me and my brothers here” he motioned to Jimin and the Fox hybrid “We knew we’d fucked up by not having a healer in our party and made it our main mission to find one.  We saw that Shadow fairy leading you through the crowd and join up with that Sylph and we decided to follow.  We were close behind you the whole time.  Trailing you secretly only a few steps behind and out of sight.  Once we realized you wouldn’t just leave that party and join ours we came up with a plan to send our charming youngest brother here to get on your good graces and convince you to leave your party.”

You gasped. So they weren’t planning on stealing your items, they just wanted to steal you.

Jimin looked remorseful and stepped forward “I was supposed to get you to leave them, but I started feeling guilty for that.”

He was interrupted by RM “And that's where things kind of went to shit.  He tried begging us to reconsider, I think my brother has developed somewhat of a crush on you and didn’t like the idea of us using you.” He glared over at Jimin “But, I’m not really in the mood to indulge in childish crushes and concerns right now or any time in the near future. I hope you understand.  But, my only concern here is me and my brothers making it out of this hell alive”

The way RM spoke reminded you of Jungkook, he had the same type of attitude and determination about keeping the ones close to him alive that Jungkook had about you and Taehyung.  You understood but it didn’t quite make you feel much better about the position you were currently in.

Jimin spoke up again “I was actually out there talking to them again, trying to just get them to leave you alone, I was begging them to just find someone else, but then you walked out here after me.  I wish you hadn’t y/n” he frowned.

Finally the fox hybrid spoke up.  Crouched down close to you now you could better see his large orange and white ears poking through his dark hair.  The name on his screen reading ‘Jin’  “You ending up out here alone is an all too sweet opportunity we aren’t going to let slip through our fingers. We don’t want to hurt you.  But as my brother here has said, our motives are out of self preservation, we won't hesitate to use force. You will leave that party and join ours.  We aren’t giving you a choice” He sternly spoke.

You felt yourself start to tear up.  Your hands were shaking as you reached to your screen and went to the menu, clicking the buttons to leave Jungkook and Taehyung's party.  You wished you’d never gone to investigate, maybe you could have avoided all this. Maybe Jimin would have eventually convinced his brothers to leave you alone, but it was too late now.

“Good girl” RM nodded at you.  “I’ve sent you an invite.”  He stood up and you accepted the invite.  

Jimin was staring at his feet solemnly.  You were angry at him for not being honest with you, if he really wanted to look out for you he could’ve just told you what was going on.  

Jin pulled you up by your arm “We need to leave now, I don’t want to be bothered by your old party.”

RM nodded in agreement “We had a plan to go to the mountains once we found you.  I heard there's a dragon’s cave up there with some amazing loot.  Items that will surely make us the top players in the game with the highest chance of survival.”

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‘Jungkook’s point of view’

He had the most incredible dream.  He dreamt of your body against his in this very bed.  Pressed completely against his as you trailed your lips along his neck, his hands were touching your naked body, feeling every inch of you, it felt so real.  You were then kissing his chest, his stomach, light kisses reaching his hip bones and just as your lips were about to reach exactly where he wanted them he woke up.  His hand went to his crotch it was now just as hard awake as it had been in his dream.  He groaned wishing that it hadn’t just been a fantasy.

He turned over to look at you while you slept, just as he usually did many times in the night.  Except when he turned over you weren't there.

He shot up and looked around.  Taehyung was still asleep snoring loudly.  Jungkook got out of bed and walked over to the other side.  Jimin was gone too.  

A feeling a fear was sitting heavy in his stomach as he checked the lobby of the inn only to see you weren’t there either. He took a few deep breaths and checked his screen.  When someone is in a party with other players you can observe their health from the party screen.  He silently prayed that he wouldn’t see your health low or worse…

But instead, your name wasn't even there. And neither was Jimins.  “Shit!” He cursed loudly.  He rushed back up to Taehyung shaking him awake. “Tae she's gone! They’re gone! Get up now”

Taehyung fluttered his eyes open, confused, sleep still making him cloudy.  “What are you talking about?”

“She's not in our party! She's gone.  We have to go now” Jungkook felt anger burning inside of him.  How could he be so stupid, how long had you been gone? Where could Jimin have taken you? He wanted to kill that sly cat man for taking you.  

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You had been flying all night with Jimin and his two brothers.  Jimin had tried to apologize many times but you couldn’t even bear to look at him.  Your body felt numb and cold.  Partially because the area you were flying to was at the far north of the floor one map.  A place called Niflheim, a snowy area with many mountains.  The place where RM had said the dragon’s lair was.  He’d gotten a tip that the dragon always was away during the day, and if the four of you went to his lair during that time the loot would be unattended and free for the taking to whoever got there first.  

The air was getting colder and you noticed it had started to snow.  You all had taken many short breaks to recharge your flying stamina.  At each stop the snow seemed to grow thicker.  It was light now but you couldn't see a thing as you flew, the snow was blinding and surrounded the four of you fully.  You could barely make out Jimin through the snowstorm even though he was flying right next to you.  

Suddenly a flash of blue light lit up the sky you were in.  You saw another party that seemed to be flying side by side with your own, there were five players who all looked like they were Sylph’s, their green wings giving that away. For the split second that the strange blue light had lit up the air you saw looks of terror on each of their faces.  The light faded as quickly as it was there.  “What the fuck was that!” you heard screams from somewhere, you couldn’t tell if it was from one of the boy’s from your party or the one next to yours.  

The light lit up the sky a second time, this time brighter, and something else was visible through the thick white weather, it was a horror you hadn’t expected to encounter.  You could see the head of a large blue creature, it’s eyes menacing and large sharp teeth lining its jaws opened in an almost smile.  It was the dragon.  You couldn’t make out the rest of it’s body. Then the light again faded and you could hear RM shout out. “Shit shit shit shit.  We need to land! NOW!” the four of you tried to do your best to descend through the blinding weather.  

You heard screams piercing the air from above you as you tried to fly downward against the strong winds that seemed to want to blow you right back up.  

The blue light flashing again, you could see the full shape of the enormous wings and body of the dragon, the light you now realized was coming from its mouth.  In one swift breath, it let out a strong attack of blue fire.  

To your horror and shock, the fire was directed to the party that had been flying next to you.  You’d never be able to get what you just witnessed out of your mind for the rest of your life.  One second they were all there, the next second those five players were burned alive before your eyes, and they were gone.  Evaporated in a series of digital pixels.  You knew what that meant.  Game over.  

You didn’t even realize you were almost to the ground, you landed hard and rolled a few feet.  Your HP taking a significant hit as you skidded to a stop on a snowy ledge.  

The four of you had landed on a small clearing on the edge of one of the mountains you’d been flying over. Your breathing was quick and panicked.

 “Oh my god, oh my god” you shook, lying in a fetal position on the ground.  The other three players didn’t seem to be faring much better.  Jimin was laying flat on his back, glassy eyes staring straight up to the nothingness above you all.  Jin and RM were holding each other in a less that brave stance.  The fox fairy wide eyed and gasping through tears.  “We almost died Namjoon, we almost fucking died”

RM or Namjoon rather, glanced your way “Water fairy, fucking get over there and heal Jimin”

You slightly snapped out of your trance you’d been stuck in, realizing Jimin who was a few feet away from you was still unmoving.  You crawled toward him and saw on his screen his health bar was dangerously in the red.  You rapidly selected your strongest healing spell and put your hands on his chest.  His health bar slowly started to rise.  

Though you were furious at Namjoon for dragging you into all this, you couldn’t bear to watch anyone else die right before your eyes.  “Are either of you hurt?” You yelled out to them

“No, we are fine, Jimin fell hard is he okay?”

You nodded, “He’ll be okay” You said quietly.

----------------------------------------

Namjoon directed you all into a small opening in the wall of the mountain.  It led to a large cave, with many tunnels and rooms it seemed. Namjoon lit a tall fire in the largest part of the cave and him and Jin sat down silently next to it.  Jimin shook his head and left into a short tunnel leading to a small room just off the main part of the cave.  Now safe from the cold and the dragon, you allowed yourself to finally feel the full impact of what had just happened to you.  

You were crying so hard you thought you’d never be able to catch a full breath again.  How could this be happening to you.  One moment you were safe in a warm room, next to Jungkook and now you didn’t know if you’d ever see him again.  Would you ever be able to feel the warmth of his body against yours once more before you died? Would you die horribly like that party you’d watch burned in the sky?

“Would you shut up?” Namjoon snapped at you

“ You’re freaking me out okay, we all saw what happened, pull yourself together”

You shot dagger eyes his way. “This is all your fault.” You ran at him and started beating your fists against his chest “I’d be safe if it wasn’t for you.”  He grabbed your wrists and held them tightly one in each of his hands.

“Stop it.” He stood up, now glaring down at you.  “I’m sorry okay” His face suddenly softening. “My brother almost died today.  You saved him, see this is why we need you”

“He wouldn’t have almost died if you weren’t greedy and leading us all towards a dragon!” You snapped harshly.

His face hardened again “I don’t think you understand how this game works.  You need to be strong to survive, you need to be smart to survive.  You need money, and points, and items that put you above the rest of the players.  We have ninety nine more floors to go if we want to make it out of this alive and I’m not going to just sit here and do nothing.  I want my brothers to make it out of this, I want to make it out of this.”

“I understand that. The man that I…” You stopped almost saying ‘The man that I like’ “the man that I was with has already explained that all to me.  But he would’ve never put our team in such a bad situation.  If you really cared about your brothers we wouldn’t be here” you spat angrily.  

“Fuck off” he scoffed, letting go of your wrists and pushing you away from him. “I know what I’m doing”

You huffed in frustration, not knowing what else to do, you ran to the room that Jimin was in.  As mad at him as you were, he was the only thing here that was somewhat familiar to you.  And as much as you hated him, the similarities that he had to your Velvet might be the only thing that could calm you down.  

When you arrived in the small cave room, you saw Jimin sitting crossed legged against the cave wall.  You slowly approached him, sliding your back down to sit next to him.

He turned you you, tears in his eyes.

 “I’m so sorry y/n.  I…” He buried his head in your shoulder. “You shouldn’t have saved me.  I’m not going to make it out of this alive anyways. None of us are.  This fucked up game…” He stopped, not being able to get out another word through his sobs.

You placed your hand on his head, petting him like you did the first day you met. “Don’t say that Jimin.” Though you couldn’t bring yourself to argue him.  You weren’t sure if you believed you would make it out of this alive either.  

“Y/n, I know you love Jungkook” he softly spoke, his voice still shaky.  

“W-wait, love? I’m not sure if it's quite…” you stuttered.

“I’m sorry we took you away from him.  But part of me isn’t. Because I love you” He lifted his head, tear flooded eyes meeting yours.  His lips quivering as he spoke.  

You didn’t know what to say.  Love was a strong word and you barely knew him.  

“I know you don’t love me back. But please” his hand gently reached and touched your cheek “Please give me just tonight to feel what it’s like to be loved by someone as beautiful as you.  I could die tomorrow never knowing what your lips feel like” he whispered and without warning he was hovering over you and pressing his lips against yours.  It was fast and desperate.  You could taste the lingering salt of tears that had fallen down onto his lips.  At first you were still, not sure if you should return his affections.  ‘Fuck it’ you thought ‘he's right, we could die tomorrow’

You pushed back into him, grabbing the back of his head bringing him further into a deep kiss.  He purred and put a hand behind your back, moving you so you were laying down on the cold cave floor, his lips still melded with yours.

 His kisses were different than Jungkook’s, more eager and quicker.  You felt him position himself with one leg between both of yours as he continued his hungry kisses.  His lips leaving yours and meeting your neck, then your shoulder, sucking and leaving marks. A soft  “Mmm” left his mouth, his breath warm on your shoulder.  You decided to let yourself fully get carried away in the moment.  

You grabbed his hips tightly and pulled them into yours so that you could feel his growing excitement pressed against you.  With a groan he started to excitedly grind against you. He pulled one of your legs up and with the other hand lifted the fabric of your dress up past your hips giving him better access to you.  

 You could feel his clothed length rubbing against you.  He moaned loudly, the feeling obviously was just as good for him and it was becoming for you.  He nuzzled his head into your neck and whispered “Can I take these off?” His fingers playing with the hem of the white panties that covered your now dripping core.  Without even thinking you nodded.  He purred again excitedly and moved so that he could remove the fabric covering the part of you that was aching for him.  Another soft “mmm” and he was back between your legs, sucking on your neck, grinding even harder against you.

You realize this is only the second time you’ve been this intimate with a man.  You’d had sex once at a college party that you had been dragged to, but it was less than enjoyable.  This with Jimin was amazing.  You felt like you could cum just like this, feeling him rub against you.  You wanted him to take off his pants and fully feel him.  You didn’t even know where these thoughts were coming from, you’d never thought of him this way before.  Maybe it was the adrenaline from what had just happened that was causing you to have these feelings but you weren’t going to question it too much, you were just going to be here in the moment.  

You wanted to let these thoughts and feelings drown out everything else that had been racing in your head.  The tingling that spread through your whole body as Jimin’s hips rolled into yours seemed to erase every bad thought that tried to push its way into your mind.  You never wanted it to stop.

You felt a soft moan leave your lips as one of his hands had snuck its way to your center.  “Wow” Jimin gasped “You’re so wet for me y/n, you’re really enjoying yourself huh?” he chuckled.  

Two fingers had found their way between your folds and started to slowly circle your clit.  Your hips bucked up into his, arching your back at the touch, pressing his hand closer in to your pussy as you did.  He moaned at your actions and increased his speed.  You felt your breath getting faster and more ragged as his magical fingers continued their quick pace.  

“J-Jimin” you gasped

“That's it baby” He breathed out quietly. “See how good I can make you feel?”

He planted a light kiss on your lips.  

Your body tightened and you could feel yourself approaching your high.  

“Jimin I-I’m gonna” you couldn’t even finish your sentence before waves of pure ecstasy were flowing through your body as you came.   

“Fuck yes baby” Jimin moaned, his fingers carrying you through your orgasm “Oh my god you are so beautiful like this, cumming so good for me baby” He peppered kisses all over your face.

Your quickened breathing finally slowed down and you realized what you’d just done.  You thought of Jungkook, the man you actually wanted, the man who should’ve been the one making you feel this way.  Guilt surged over you.  You and Jungkook had never said you were exclusive or anything, but you felt so dirty and wrong, like you’d betrayed him.  

“Oh my god, no Jimin, I shouldn’t have…” You started.

“Oh…” A familiar voice sounded out from the archway of the room.

 Your heart dropped into your stomach, why, why did you do this and why was he here...now, witnessing you in this position with Jimin.  You were full of shame and tears began to roll down your face as Jimin quickly pulled himself off of you.

Jungkook stood in the doorway of the small cave room.  “Found you…” He muttered.

[ertrunkenerwassergeist]

Born Into the Wilds - Chapter 9

*slams hands on the table* This chapter is finally done! Sorry for the long wait, in compensation this is extra long. I'm prepared to get screamed at. Also a big thank you towards @noctanotherone for helping to get my thoughts in order on this one.

Here’s a Link to AO3.

In which a battle happens and General Glauca appears.

Featuring: the absence of Captain Drautos, confusing military stuff the author made up on the fly, Nyx' usual planlessnes, Crowe ex machina, lightning and awkward dialogue.

Warnings: blood, injuries, death (this is a battle)

Words in Hadnissa:

makti-oir = war chief, commander-in-chief, warlord; lit.: leading hunter Galahkari = people of Galahd Ohlro ar fahl Eohsas = Eos' light be on you; a formal greeting kohna = swearword; along the lines of shit ohtahi triantafe = a type of rose native to Galahd with black petals, it's highly poisonous and even the smell can cause hallucinations thuir = father makuwid = hunting group, squad mates zehstir = foreigner, enemy; very strong insult namakar = huntress; lit.: she-hunter

09. A Complication

The attack couldn't have happened at a more unfortunate time. Nyx had been back from his two week medical leave for a few days now and had been in the middle of planning the second set of training exercises for the newly structured Kingsglaive with Libertus and Luche.

It was still a right mess. The members of the Kingsglaive took to the change with an enthusiasm tinged with relief that had surprised Nyx. The troops he had interacted with regularly had been mostly stable, with the most extreme exception being Troop Rani.

Captain Drautos wasn't happy about any of this. He had stood at the edge of the training field at the first day of training, with a dark scowl on his face and hadn't said a word as everybody made their best attempt at working together within their new groupings. When the first exercises had resulted in people screaming at each other, Nyx had thought he had seen a gleam of grim satisfaction in the Captain's eyes. But that couldn't have been correct. Right?

In the end, it had taken Libertus yelling at them to behave like professional hunters, to calm everybody down. His best friend and hunting-brother may have a temper and grouch about things he didn't like in above average volume more often than not, it took quite a bit, however, to actually get him to yell on the top of his lungs – and what powerful lungs they were. Everybody knew that.

At the end of the day, those training exercises could have gone worse and no one had been permanently maimed or killed. That could definitely be considered a victory in some cases. Nyx could understand the hiccups, he really could. All members of the Glaive had found ways to work around the problems of each Unit and Troop over the years. Even Troop Rani with its two feuding members. And now they had to get used to new people hunting at their sides.

It was Pelna who burst through the door of the tiny office Nyx had commandeered, since he, to his utter consternation, actually needed one now, his face a grim mask that grabbed the attention of all in attendance at once.

“Border Patrol just sent the message: Niflheim is on the move again. They say Glauca was sighted with them. The King wants us out there as soon as possible.”

For half a second no one said anything. Nyx jumped up from where he had sat down not a minute ago, nearly knocked a pile of papers off the desk and cursed. Libertus' face looked caught halfway between a snarl and an expression as if he had just smelled something unpleasant, while Luche's face could have been made out of stone.

Nyx took a deep breath, suddenly deathly calm. The smell of ozone started to creep through the air. “Luche, get the others moving and call as many as you can out of their vacation. With Glauca there we need every hunter we can get. Pelna, make sure everybody gets what they need from the inventory and I don't care if some idiot says 'Crownsguard only'. Take it, I'll deal with it once we're back again. Libertus, round up the trucks and tell those damned drivers to be there on time or we'll drive ourselves. We can't let that son of a she-devil any further into Lucis. Also tell Sonitus to get in touch with the Border Patrol, I want to know exactly where the Niffs are. You all have an hour. I'll-”

“You'll get ready and calm down your magic, Nyx. If you fry the truck you're in because you can't control yourself, or worse, blow it up, you won't be getting anywhere,” stated Libertus rather forcefully.

For a moment they stared at each other, both willing the other to back down with their gazes alone. But his hunting-brother was right. He himself may be rather calm, but his magic was a torrent beneath his skin.

“All right,” he conceded. “All right.”

Libertus looked at him a moment longer to make sure he actually meant it, before he nodded and stormed out of the room after the others that had already left the moment they had received their orders.

An hour wasn't a lot of time to prepare, and they hadn't done any exercises for it – Nyx put them on his ever growing to-do list – but they really needed to hurry.

He stayed in the office a few minutes longer, minutes that felt like an eternity, until the animal-deep jungle-instinct raging beneath his skin was reduced to a distant echo thrumming in his mind. But instead of going towards the locker room to get ready, he left the tiny room to get to the Captain's office.

Nyx had tried to stay out of the older man's hair for the last few days as much as possible. But now, makti-oir or not, the Kingsglaive needed their Captain.

In the hallways it was like somebody had poked a beehive. People were everywhere, trying to do whatever they were doing as fast as possible without actually running in the halls. A crowd was assembling around the Glaive's armoury, voices clamouring over each other in a bit to get what they wanted, and fast. Through a gab Nyx could see Tredd trying to keep order with a grim face, and continued on his way. People should know better than to question Tredd within the armoury. The Furias may be traditionally artisans, but if Tredd understood one thing best, it was weapons.

“Captain?” Nyx half asked, half yelled as he knocked on the man's door.

No answer came.

Nyx frowned. Should he open the door anyway? He could feel the gazes of the passing Glaives in his back and decided he could deal with the consequences, should the Captain be in his office. Settling his shoulders and chin in a stubbornly determined expression, he opened to door with one last unanswered knock.

“Captain, I'm coming in.”

The office was empty.

Nyx closed the door behind him to keep curious gazes out and started to search the room for a clue to where Captain Drautos could be. There were no new messages or notes pinned to the walls, no file on the desk that could tell him anything, and he didn't quite dare to actually rummage through the cabinets or the desk.

With a displeased frown Nyx gaze wandered one last time around the relatively spacious room before he whirled around and left. He had better things to do right now than to look for the Captain.

There was a crowd forming outside the headquarters. People stopped and gawked as the Glaive assembled outside in their new groups, while non-fighting members loaded the trucks with field packs, half of which Pelna had managed to wrestle from the Crownsguard's clutches somehow.

Nyx ignored the Insomnians as best as he could and tried to decide how to divide the Troops into Companies. He hadn't had the time to really do that until now, which was coming back to bite him into the ass. He hissed like a disgruntled cat, displeased with himself and those damned onlookers. They had ten minutes left before wheels up and still more Glaives arrived, those having been called in from their vacation.

All in all, Nyx estimated that there were around 200 Glaives assembled, which was less than he liked and more than he had expected. Their numbers had been dwindling steadily for years now. They needed new recruits, but that was a problem for another time. Nothing he could do about it now.

He looked for Libertus. His hunting-brother had the loudest voice he knew and could probably make himself be heard over the noise the easiest. The man stood at the edge of the plaza where the noise wasn't as prevalent and talked into a clunky military phone with a fierce scowl on his face. He hung up before Nyx could reach him.

He gave a lazy salute in greeting and hung the phone that could probably be used as a murder weapon, onto his belt.

“Bad news: only half the usual drivers are there. The other half is 'indisposed' because the call was too short notice,” he sneered.

Nyx suppressed the urge to growl. “Then we won't ask for their services anymore,” he said.

“I have nothing against that,” Libertus shrugged. “We could probably hire a few Galahkari that could use the job, as soon as Crowe figures out our budget. But we need to somehow arrive at the battle before the Niffs stand in front of Insomnia.”

“We can do that,” agreed Nyx. It was a good idea. “Could you do me a favour, big guy?”

At once Libertus eyed him suspiciously. Nyx just rolled his eyes at his best friend's behaviour. He wasn't that bad.

“Hey, it's nothing bad. I just need you to help me with organizing the Troops and getting everybody into the trucks. Oh, and ask for volunteers to drive them.”

Libertus still looked sceptical but nodded and followed Nyx back in front of the crowd.

For a moment Libertus took in the group in front of him, all in the individualized uniforms of the Kingsglaive, and took a deep breath.

“Okay people, listen up!” he yelled so loudly Nyx was tempted to cover his left ear. “Into your Units and Troops! Don't fall asleep people! Troop leaders to the front!”

To Nyx' satisfaction, it didn't even take half a minute for the whole Kingsglaive to stand in front of him in orderly lines. There were eleven Troops in total, ranging from a total strength of ten to thirty-one people.

The two Troops specializing in stealth and hit-and-run tactics would be grouped into one Company, three Troops could be grouped under heavy hitters and assault, he supposed, and a further two fell under demolition. The last four were a bit trickier. One specialized in ranged fighting, one in magic, another was the supply squad and the last could be called a rearguard, he supposed. In the end the mages were stuck with the ranged fighters.

Under the curious eyes of the growing Insomnian crowd and camera flashes, they piled into the trucks as to Libertus' yelled instructions, and departed with only a ten minute delay. The streets were empty of any traffic as they made their way towards the wall and Nyx realized that somebody must have told the City Watch that they were coming through. He sent a quiet blessing to the person who had thought of doing so. Probably either Pelna or Sonitus.

Nyx had absolutely forgotten about it.

Their long convoy passed through the gate and over the huge bridge connecting Cavaugh with Leide without any interruption.

It was shortly after nightfall when they neared the latest known position of the Niflheimr army. They were very close to the Taelpar Crag now. Until now Niflheim had not managed to bridge it and take Duscae. They had gotten close more than once, though, and it showed in the many natural stone and crystalline arches spanning the Crag, that had been fortified or destroyed in the fighting.

Secullam Pass was chosen as their base of operations. Within minutes near blinding floodlights were set up to keep the daemons away, a watch was set up and Unit Kresch, under Sonitus, was sent out to stake out the enemy.

Waiting for a battle to begin had always been the worst for Nyx. It made him restless with pent up energy and broody. It reminded him too much of his time with the resistance in Galahd.

To keep himself from crawling up the rocky walls surrounding their camp, he hunted down Pelna, the newly baked leader of the Gebo Unit. It was a part of the Ulnen Troop which was responsible for their supplies. Right now they were responsible for keeping their floodlights running and distributing the field packs.

“Ohlro ar fahl Eohsas, makti-ori,” greeted Pelna when he saw Nyx coming and crossed his wrists in a formal greeting.

Nyx stared at him and very pointedly rose a hand to his collar bone. Pelna actually rolled his eyes at that, but didn't comment on it. Instead he stepped up to his friend and said: “How can I help you, Nyx?”

“I know it's kind of late to ask, but how did you manage to convince the Crownsguard to part with their stuff? The last time the Captain tried, I heard it nearly ended with somebody dead.”

Pelna stared at Nyx with a raised eyebrow as if to say and this is why you keep me from working? “It's pretty simple. I kept to the tried and true method of 'better ask for forgiveness than permission'. Don't look at me like that, I learned that from you, you know? Damn idiot that you are. I bribed Hephaistos into helping, and he was the distraction while I and some of my new Unit mates got the stuff out.”

It took Nyx a few seconds to actually understand what Pelna had just said, but when he did, he couldn't help himself. He laughed. It was a roaring full belly laugh that made more than one head turn, but Nyx didn't care. This was just too good. Pelna cast him a sour look.

“What's so funny?” asked Libertus as he marched towards them along with Crowe.

Nyx wheezed as he tried to get his laughter under control, only for it to start up again as he opened his mouth to explain.

“It would be so embarrassing, if you died of laughter and took us with you because you guided the Niffs towards our base,” stated Crowe in that typical deadpan of hers, when she found something hilarious but refused to laugh herself for whatever reason.

“I- I'm sorry,” Nyx gasped, fighting to keep the laughter down. He pressed a hand over his mouth. His eyes started to tear up with the effort it took.

“Our dearest First Hunter seems to find it hilarious how I got us the supplies we desperately need,” grumbled Pelna, and got a sage nod from Libertus and an amused huff from Crowe as an answer.

“Don't get me wrong, this is funny and all, but Luche is looking for you. He wants to go over the attack plan with the rest of the lead hunters. Which you should actually organize since it's your job, Nyx,” said Crowe.

“Alright, alright. I'm coming,” Nyx answered as soon as his breathing was steady enough and he didn't fear to burst into laughter again.

They attacked at daybreak. As soon as the sun was high enough in the sky to ward the daemons away. As far as they had been able to tell this was the time the Niffs were most vulnerable since they couldn't depend on their growing mass of daemons. Until now, when it had come to open battle, the Captain had always insisted to wait for the Niffs to attack and defend from a stronger position.

Nyx had decided to do something different.

Units Kresch and Roh, who now belonged to the Tahrolin Troop, and were their stealth specialists, were to circle around the enemy force with a demolition Unit and attack the pens where they kept the beasts they used as an attack force. Hours ago, Luche had taken Roh Unit and had gone to join Sonitus to give him his orders. Simultaneously the heavy hitters would stage a full on frontal attack along with Senehrin Company to give them cover fire.

As soon as Luche's voice came over the comms, reporting that they were in position, Nyx gave the order to march over the wide stone arch spanning Tealpar Crag. Not far behind it, on the other side, was a wall the Niffs had hastily erected, and span their whole compound. It was barely more than a few slaps of concrete stacked onto each other.

A slight breeze ruffled Nyx' hair before the world grew still. Not even the distant calls of the birds could be heard. There was only the warmth of the early morning light, the sound of his own breathing and the feeling of animal-deep jungle-instinct crackling close beneath his skin. A rumbling growl resonated through his chest as his field of vision widened and narrowed down at the same time. Only the wall and what lay behind it were important now. New colours joined the old and some grew muted as his eyes grew more sensitive to light.

Then the crudely erected wall exploded as a combination of old Galahdian seal traps and Lucian fire spells crashed into it.

Nyx stood close enough to feel the hot air lick across his skin. His lips twisted into a snarl that could have been a bloodthirsty smile, as the sound of screeching metal and yelling voices reached him over the roaring fire and falling rubble.

All nervousness was gone as anticipation curled in his gut, and sparks of lightning travelled up and down his arms.

As soon as the rubble had settled, Nyx bounded into the thick oily smoke churning in the air and blocking out the light. Formless shapes tumbled through the thick smoke, and all within the reach of his kukri fell in gurgling screams and burbling whimpers.

The smell of burning metal and rubber, oil and blood clogged his nose, but still he found his way to the other side of the burning hell. Nyx jumped onto the nearest MA Veles and toppled it with a volley of lightning until nothing but a smoking husk of useless metal was left.

A roar echoed between that walls of this area in the base, as he wedged his blades free of the machine he had driven them into. It travelled over the twisted metal and MT and MA units attempting to form a defensive line. It made the air quiver and the hairs on his neck raise in anticipation. It took him a moment to realize that it was him who made that sound. A challenge and announcement of an assured victory at the same time.

Nyx clamped his mouth shut behind his face guard and shook his head. He needed to keep a clear mind. A shot cracked through the air, missing Nyx, who was still crouching on top of the smoking MA Veles, by a hair. Only years of training suppressed his initial instinct to flinch. Instead he threw one kukri into he direction the shot had some from.

The world around him dissolved into a nauseating display of shards of Lucian magic and then he was on top of an MT. His chest slammed into its front and made him groan as the air was knocked out of him. Even through his clothes and armour he could feel the icy cold the MT emitted. The thing couldn't react fast enough and fell lifeless to the floor as Nyx rammed a blade into the masked forehead.

He now stood on a metal catwalk spanning the Niflheimr compound overhead. His new vantage point let him see the Glaives who were now pouring through the opening that had been blown into the wall. A large part of the magitek had blown up along with it. Their fault for storing their shit along the outer wall. Nyx snorted and watched for a moment as the Glaive practically descended upon everything that was still able to move.

Satisfied, he turned away and looked where still a series of explosions shook the air, along with the resounding roars and snarls of furious behemoths and sabertusks. He couldn't really see anything that was going on over the other walls between him and the other Units, but he trusted in their ability to get the job done.

Out of the corner of his eyes he saw movement. It was a pair of MT, both of them snipers, aiming at the Glaives below. They hadn't seen him until now. Within seconds he was on them, tackling the first as he aimed a shot and drove a kukri into the knee of the second, who toppled over, off the catwalk and into the fray below. Snarling and eyes blazing, he slammed his now empty hand against the MT's face and sent lightning through it until its mask was nothing more than a warped mass of metal and its limbs stopped twitching uncontrollably.

Again he looked towards the closest inner wall which prevented them from getting further into the strangely improvised base. He had an idea. But as he reached up to activate the communication device, he ripped it off his ear with a foul curse as it fried with a painful pop-spark.

Shit. So much for that, he thought with a twist of his lips. I really should have practised more.

Nyx warped down towards the kukri still lodged into the now dead MT's leg and grabbed the nearest Glaive by the shoulder. It was Axis.

“I need you to relay some orders for me!” he yelled over the cacophony of screeching metal, gun shots, the dying roar of a furious behemoth and the sounds of discharging magic, as people cried and fought and died.

Thankfully Axis didn't bother to ask what had happened to his device and just raised his hand.

“Attention, all Glaives. I'm about to relay orders of the makti-oir in his stead.”

“The most talented warpers are to gather near the wall leading further into the base. We need to get past the gate to prevent the Niffs from organizing a counter attack, so we'll warp over the wall and open it from the inside. Luche is to do the same on his end as soon as those damn behemoths are dead. Oresch Unit is to secure the breached wall as soon as we're finished here.”

Nyx took a deep breath. His magic was pressing against his mind, urging him to hunt, to kill and feast on his prey. Another breath. Not now. Pack came first. Their safety was paramount, and to keep them safe he needed to be able to think.

Dutifully, Axis repeated every word.

With a thankful nod Nyx turned away and made his way towards the targeted wall. It wasn't very high, five metres at most, which was below average for a Niff base, but like in all bases, this one had an opening which was blocked by a series of red lasers that could melt flesh from bones, if someone was stupid enough to touch it.

Axis followed him. The man may specialize in magic based close combat, but his warping skills were above average. Not far from him, Nyx could see Libertus decapitate a MT with a kukri that looked more like a traditional Ostium battle axe than anything else.

Three others met them by the wall. Nyx grinned. Five. Five people for this was a good omen.

“Axis, you're to concentrate on shutting down those lasers, the rest of us will cover your ass. On my mark, we warp. Ready- go!”

In unison they threw their blades. Lucian magic burned like acid on Nyx' tongue as he appeared above the wall for a second before he warped down on the other side, the others following him in a protective formation around Axis in which Nyx was taking point.

His feet barely touched the ground, before he was swarmed by MT. They were those guys with the heavy serrated swords. Nyx cursed and dove out of the way. A sword whizzed past where his head had been not a second ago. Nyx managed to kick the thing in the hip as he evaded another horizontal swing of the sword. The kick caused the upper body of the MT to rotate just enough that it buried its blade into the machine next to it, caving its breastplate in with a high pitched metallic shriek and a sickening crunch.

Before his target could wedge its blade free, he severed the sword arm at the elbow and drove the other blade into its neck. His weight caused it to fall backwards and take another two MT with it. He made short work of them.

“I've got it!” cried Axis and with a hiss the lasers deactivated.

Suddenly the air was filled with the electric whirr of MA units activating. There were eight of them. Kohna. So they hadn't been fast enough.

With a snarl Nyx hurled himself over the last two MT in front of him, twisting the right one's neck and clipping the other in the shoulder. He knew his blades couldn't do much against the MA units, so he sheathed one and used his now free hand to fry the nearest one with a powerful bolt of lightning.

Not far from him Axis was doing something similar, attacking a machine's weak spots with calculated shots of lightning. They needed more mages here. Again Nyx cursed himself for frying his comm. He couldn't distract the other four with him now, so he had no other choice but to retreat.

And nearly run into another Glaive right as he stepped through the gate. Blinking sweat from his eyes, he recognized Libertus. His facecloth had slipped off and revealed a bloody nose.

“Libs! I need you to comm Lesan Unit! Our blades won't do anything against those MA units!”

Without further ado, the man did just that. His voice was drowned out as something further into the base crumbled with a deafening blast. The ground shook.

It was only due to the fact that Nyx stood so close to the wall, that he didn't fall. Libertus didn't fare as well. He fell heavily onto his side and had to quickly roll away as a magitek spear buried itself into the ground where he had just lain. Nyx killed the thing with another blast of lightning.

“Come on, big guy. No time for a nap,” he said as he helped his hunting-brother to stand back up.

The fighting continued in that vein, until they met Luche's Troop in the heart of the base. It was here the officers were housed as well as logistics and communication. Or there should have been.

Instead there was nothing here but a large empty space.

Something was very, very wrong.

He could see the same thought echoed back at him from Luche's face. The man had discarded his hood and facecloth sometime during the fight. His normally slicked back blond hair hung into his forehead and was covered in soot and ash. Other than a few scrapes and a nasty bruise forming over his cheek bone, he seemed to be fine.

The sun beat down upon them, signalling the nearing midday. The air was hot and sticky and stank of ozone and molten metal and rubber. It left an oily film at the back of his throat with each breath Nyx took and made him wish he hadn't already used up all of his meagre water rations.

His muscles ached from the continued fighting and he could feel a stasis nearing. He had simply used up too much of his magic. He couldn't bring himself to regret it, however, as it had saved more than one life.

“Keep your eyes peeled,” he ordered. “This stinks of a trap.”

Next to him Libertus shifted his weight in anxiousness. “I've got a bad feeling about this,” he muttered just loud enough for Nyx to hear.

Suddenly Luche raised a hand and the growing mutterings between the Glaives stopped at once. He activated his comm, clearly listening to something. The longer he did so the paler his already fair complexion grew and a raw look of fear flittered through his eyes. It made Nyx' stomach plummet in dread. Luche looked him in the eye and suddenly Nyx knew.

Glauca.

Ruthlessly, Nyx shoved down the urge to order a full retreat. It had never been stated directly during the planning of this attack, but they would take this chance to kill the monster in the armour, one of the main reasons they had had to flee Galahd seven years ago.

With a resolute nod towards Luche, Nyx opened his mouth to issue new orders, but was interrupted by the sudden cry of “Dropships incoming!”.

“So this really is a trap,” someone behind him mumbled, despair lining the voice.

Nyx gritted his teeth. He knew the sensible thing to do was to order a retreat. At once. Before the trap napped shut.

“Libs, contact Crowe.”

“What? Nyx, we need to fucking go, right now!” his best friend hissed into his ear.

“No!” Nyx half yelled, half growled.

He refused. He refused to let Glauca slip through his fingers again. That man had collapsed the tunnels he, his sister and his mahir had been in, killing the last of his immediate family. He bared his teeth in a snarl.

All eyes were on him.

The high pitched whine of the air ships' engine ground against his sensitive ears.

“Contact Crowe,” he repeated, his voice a harsh rasp. “Ask her if she and her Unit managed to master that storm field spell they have been practising.”

Realization crossed Libertus' face like a ray of sunlight in a dark, cloudy sky and the tense atmosphere eased the tiniest bit.

“This plan is madness,” growled Luche as he came closer.

“I won't let Glauca slip through my fingers this time, if I don't have to, Luche,” Nyx growled back.

The blond man stared at him with hard eyes. Exhaustion was edged into his face, a testament to the overall state of the Glaives present. Damn it, he shouldn't have let all of their main attack force fight from the beginning. It must have been hours now that they had fought without much of a break, safe for a few moments they had been able to steal here and there.

MT didn't grow tired. Humans did.

“She says yes,” interrupted Libertus before Luche could respond.

“Good. Tell her to blast as many ships out of the sky as she can. Units Arl and Sevah, trap this place to Pitioss and back. Those tin cans aren't to take a single step without something going off. The rest of you, regain as much strength as you can before one of the ships make it through. Share any elixirs you might still have left over. I'll go after Glauca.”

“Have the ohtahi triantafe finally cooked your brain? This is madness, Nyx. No one has gone up against that man in a direct confrontation and lived,” Libertus practically yelled.

“Libertus is right. They say not even the Royal House dared to do it, back when Regis still deigned to leave Insomnia,” Luche cut in.

“I won't go alone,” defended Nyx.

“Oh, and who exactly will help you? Our strongest fighters will be here because of your hair brained scheme,” his hunting-brother growled.

“Oresch Unit,” answered Nyx before he could stop to think about what he was doing. “They are by the breached wall. Luche, where is Glauca now?”

Luche was clearly unwilling to answer, but after a few seconds he sighed. “Fine, you win. The Fathers must have blessed you, for your stupid ideas to work so often. He was seen outside the base, close to the Crag and to the north. Don't lose, Nyx. If you do, the whole Glaive is done for.”

Nyx nodded, eyes flashing in a silent promise, and ran out of the base as fast as he could, as the sky darkened with roiling clouds and lightning flashed.

Oresch Unit had not been idle during the fighting. Nyx' experienced eye could see the signs of traps half hidden in the rubble. Discreet lines were drawn into the dust and dirt, and he wondered who had sacrificed their water to make these. Most of them were old Galahdian scourge wardings that had been modified to work against Niflheimr magitek. Their presence read dangerously close to that of a daemon.

Their leader was a petite woman with shoulder length dark, brown hair that, at the right side of her head, was braided close to her head in a series of small braids forming a wave pattern. Her name was Ladone Najad, Tethys' aunt, and was approaching her fiftieth year. She had somehow mastered the art of startling even a behemoth with her presence alone, if she so desired, or she could make herself be completely overlooked.

That was exactly what he needed in this situation. Should he not be able to do it, she could use her talent to catch Glauca unawares and kill him.

Probably.

Hopefully.

Ladone listened to his plan with the gravitas of a person who had seen it all. She didn't say a word until he had ended and looked at her expectantly. One of her thin eyebrows rose the tiniest bit, as she thoughtfully chewed on one of those fireleaves she carried around everywhere.

“You're worse than your thuir ever was,” she drawled and spit a reddish blob onto the ground. “My ancestors and the serpents in the water help me, I'll do it. But I want my makuwid to stay here, makti-oir. I won't let this wall be undefended should something happen, and if I've learned one thing with those zehstiris, it's that there's always something going on with them. I'll follow you, to death, if need be, but be aware that, if I get the chance, I'll take it. This isn't your kill alone.”

Her eyes were piercing and hard as flintstone as she looked at him. He nodded respectfully. Ladone Najad wasn't somebody he wanted mad at him. Ever.

“Of course, namakar,” he answered.

“Good. Then we shouldn't waste any more time. Iase, you're in charge until I get back,” she barked.

A woman in her late thirties and hair cut so short it was nothing more than fuzz on her head, gave a salute. Ladone nodded and turned her attention back towards Nyx.

“Before I forget, here.” She threw a flask at him. It contained a yellowish liquid flecked with blue. “My son-in-law made this. It's better than the dishwater the Lucians try to sell us as an ether. Take it. You look like shit.”

Nyx' only answer was a tired glare, but he emptied the small flask without another word. It tasted kind of like he imagined a swamp to taste like. The thick liquid travelled down into his stomach, leaving a warm and revitalizing trail in its wake. At the very least it worked gentler than the punch in the gut that was a Lucian ether.

“Well?” she said, her head cocked in a way that clearly communicated they should go now.

Without another word Nyx started walking north. They stepped into the shadows of the trees growing close to the edge of Tealpar Crag, and from one moment to the next Ladone seemed to vanish into thin air. Nyx breathed an exasperated huff that just covered how anxious he really was.

Around him nature was unnaturally still. The animals had probably all fled when the fighting had begun this morning. Storm clouds swallowed nearly all of the daylight and lightning shrieked in the sky as it hit a dropship. The combined magic of nine mages weaving the field spell, was a growing weight prickling against his senses. Wind howled through the trees and across naked rock. It reminded him uncomfortably of the first hints of a Galahdian autumn storm.

He snarled to chase away the dread pooling in his gut, making his hands slippery with sweat and his senses going haywire at the sensation of being watched. Which he was. By Ladone. An alley, he reminded himself firmly and stepped out of the thinning trees and into the open. The ground was bare rock with a few stubborn bushels of grass growing here and there, and behind him the enemy base loomed, smoking and wreathed in lightning.

Suddenly, there he was.

General Glauca.

He emerged from the shadows of an erratic boulder like he was a daemon himself.

Each step the mountain of a man took sounded with a dull thud over the lighting roaring in the sky, his very presence filled the air with dread. Nyx crouched down, muscles suddenly too tense as his instincts screamed at him to run, and bared his teeth in a warning snarl.

“Your attack on the base was surprisingly effective, Glaive. You have my compliments,” Glauca snarled in a warped voice that set Nyx' teeth on edge and made his hair stand on end. The decidedly mocking tone didn't make it any better. “But now you are exactly where I want you to be.”

Nyx crouched even lower, nearly on all fours now. The handles of his kukri dug into his palms and he readjusted his grip.

A bone-grinding laugh travelled through the air and suddenly Nyx realized that this... person in front of him couldn't be human. It radiated an energy uncomfortably close to a powerful daemon and through the crevices and seams of the armour shone a dark light that betrayed its true nature. That of absolute malice for malices sake.

Unbidden, an old adage of protection and warding tumbled from his lips.

Another unholy laugh.

“You think this will help you, little Glaive? Words for beings that are nothing more than hot air themselves? Let me tell you one thing: there are no Gods. There are only those strong enough to lord their power over those too weak to do anything about it.”

“I'm not interested in what you have to say, zehstir,” Nyx hissed.

His field of vision widened, and he could now hear the near silent whirr Glauca's armour emitted as he dragged the tip of his huge sword in an arch across the dirt in a mock salute.

“Ah, how long has it been since somebody called me that?” Glauca drawled each word, rolling them around his tongue as if they were a fine wine. “That name brings back memories.”

With a roar of sudden fury, Nyx threw the kukri in his right hand and pounced.

The warp was quick and instinctive. For a split second, he saw nothing but magical particles glowing a near blinding blue. His fingers closed around the grip of his kukri without hesitation as he twisted in the air to strike his prey where his neck met the shoulder.

An ice cold hand clamped around his wrist in an iron grip and tossed him away. Nyx rolled across the dirt, using the momentum to twist into a crouching position again. His breath came in quick bursts and his lungs burned. Damn it. He was too tired for this fight. It had made him a second too slow.

“How pathetic. I expected more of a challenge from an esteemed warrior like you,” mocked the thing masquerading as human.

Thundering steps drew slowly nearer, but this time Nyx wouldn't let himself be goaded into attacking too early.

He stayed still.

Waited.

Magic, free and wild and powerful like the coeurls of his home, thrummed beneath his skin, giving his tiring muscles the opportunity to react fast enough.

Glauca's blade rose and Nyx darted beneath his arm and behind him. He jumped onto the General's back as the man took a jerky step forward, his blade cutting nothing but air where he had without a doubt expected Nyx' head to be.

This tiny mistake gave him enough time to find a grip on the armour as he slammed one of his kukri into the left shoulder guard. Lightning shrieked, bright and deafening, as it travelled from his hand into the blade and then into the magitek armour.

Glauca roared. More in fury than in pain, but it was still loud enough to make Nyx' ears ring and his vision blur. The inhuman sound sent goosebumps up and down his spine.

The armour started to glow as too much energy travelled through it and began to melt away. With a triumphant growl, Nyx challenged even more lightning. Slowly, oh so slowly, he could feel the armour give away. But it wasn't fast enough.

His prey started to struggle, trying to get him off.

In response Nyx slung one arm around the helmet and watched as it started to light up as it was assaulted by bolts of lightning. With another roar of fury his prey stumble backwards. One step. Then another. Farther and farther until Nyx' back hit the erratic boulder. Hard.

Dark spots danced across his vision and the air was pressed out of his lungs. His grip slacked and the lightning stopped as his concentration broke.

Something hit him hard in the face. He could taste blood on his tongue and blinding pain exploded behind his eyes as the back of his head collided with the boulder at his back. Again he was thrown through the air. Only this time he landed painfully on his side.

He lay there as he struggled to pull air back into his lungs. Only luck had allowed him to not lose his grip on both kukri. Shit, he hoped he hadn't broken any ribs.

Harsh laboured breaths echoed mechanically through the magically charged air. It stank nauseatingly of ozone, hot metal and something putrid that made Nyx retch.

“Do you... really think that... something like this... will kill me, Glaive?”

I hoped it would, Nyx wanted to say but couldn't, too busy with just breathing and dragging himself up onto his feet again. He couldn't allow himself to stay down. To stay down was to die. And he couldn't die now when things were finally changing.

Finally he managed to clear his swimming vision enough to be able to focus on Glauca again. The monster in human skin still stood by the bolder. He did not quite lean on it, but it was clear that the melted armour on his shoulder was giving him trouble. The destroyed parts on his helmet were already regenerating, giving Nyx only the most fleeting of glances at a patch of pale skin at the temple.

He cursed quietly inside. He had nearly had him.

His limbs trembled as he forced himself to stand upright. Stasis was looming dangerously close. He had put nearly all of his newly regained magical strength into that attack.

Movement on top of the boulder caught his eye. Barely a moment later Glauca howled. Still eerie and hair raising and mechanical. But this time in pain as a long and thin kukri found the weakest spot of his destroyed shoulder guard.

Ladone twisted  the blade with a thundering war cry before ripping it out again. She was gone again within the blink of an eye. As if she had never been there in the first place.

A sword slammed into the boulder and nearly cut it in half.

“I will make sure there is nothing left of both of you to bury once I'm finished with you,” hissed Glauca through clenched teeth.

Nyx barked a laugh. An idea started to take form in his mind. It was madness, but it could work. He hoped Ladone would catch onto it. Otherwise he was pretty much dead.

“For that you need to catch me first,” he rasped with sharp grin full of teeth and retreated back the way he had come between the trees.

As he had hoped Glauca followed him, each step a tiny earthquake.

Wood splintered as his huge blade hit the trees Nyx duck behind, just dancing behind its reach like a cat playing keep-away.

A gust of wind that shouldn't have been. Metal rang against metal as Ladone struck again and vanished just as quickly as she had before. As Glauca made to follow her Nyx charged in a half hearted attack that missed its mark by an embarrassingly huge margin, to keep the man's attention focused on him.

Further and further Nyx lured Glauca between the trees. Closer and closer to the edge of the Crag. To an arch close to the one the Glaive had used to cross it, but still far enough away from the others. Hopefully.

Nyx' movements started to get sluggish. The burning in his lungs had exceeded uncomfortable and passed into painful a while ago. Each new breath he took was a struggle between his need for oxygen, to just keep moving a little further – nearly there, nearly there nearlytherenearlythere – and the instinctive need to avoid the pain it caused to suck in each new gulp of air.

His concentration had shifted from avoiding the sword chasing him to just keep moving. He knew, if he stopped, it would be over.

Suddenly the trees were gone and the Crag gaped at his back, beckoning the unwary to a horrifying death. A death Glauca had a scheduled meeting with, if Nyx had anything to say about it.

Oh so carefully he started to inch his way over the arch, concentrating only on Glauca and what his prey was doing. His steps had grown uneven and his left arm hung uselessly by his side. There were obvious chinks in his armour now. Nyx grinned a bloody grin. Ladone had gotten the bastard good.

Voices sounded from his left and behind him, but he ignored them in favour of Glauca. They were so close. So close to killing the second nightmare of Galahd.

Suddenly the man stopped right at the edgy of the arch. Nyx tensed.

“Do you think this cheap trick will work on me?”

Too late Nyx realized what Glauca meant. He flung himself forward in a futile attempt to stop it, but he knew he wouldn't be fast enough. Exhaustion ate away at him, both magical and physical.

A dark shadow slammed into Glauca's back with a defiant cry as the sword was driven into the arch, crumbling it with a nauseating wave of something that was neither magic nor scourge.

Nyx stumbled. One step, then another.

Then the ground beneath him fell away.

[enricodandolo]

Can we please stop reading Wagner's operas as complete sausage fests?

(Cross-posting from /r/opera for the five people browsing the #opera tag on tumblr)

Inflammatory title, check. Typing this fresh out of the shower inflamed with righteous indignation, check. References to YouTube comments, check. That's right, it's rant-time (or, as Wagner calls it, "act 2").

So this is something that has been on my mind a lot but that I've never really bothered to write down. I don't think this will come as a surprise to most of the people on here, so this is gonna be somewhat self-indulgent. Obviously, big shout-out to the 2005 Copenhagen Ring, which was my first introduction to Wagner.

In a lot of the literature, and certainly in the popular imagination (hello there, angry YouTube commentors), Wagner is all about the men. *Meistersinger* productions almost always hinge on the director's perspective on Hans Sachs and what a cad he is. The *Ring* is usually told as either the story of Wotan, whether he be a visionary master manipulator or a villain in disguise. *Tannhäuser* is about Heinrich dithering about for three hours like a latter-day Hamlet who can't decide between Betty and Veronica (wait, what?). This is not to say Wagner's big female characters -- Brünnhilde and Kundry being the prime examples -- don't receive attention in those productions or analyses. But they're usually ancillaries of the men, in some way or another, and not the focal points of the action.

But that's not at all what we can see in the libretti themselves, let alone the music! If anything, I'd argue that in all of Wagner's mature works -- Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Meistersinger, the Ring and probably Parsifal -- it's the women that drive the plot, and the women that make the most use of their agency.

I think the best example for this is probably Walküre, and in fact listening to the first two acts this morning brought this on. When the Copenhagen Ring had Sieglinde pull Nothung from the ash tree rather than Siegmund, I saw a lot of reviewers tut-tutting. According to a not very scientific study of the comments on the YouTube upload, that seems to be a point of more contention than the deaths of Loge and Alberich in that production, or Hunding getting away scots-free. I note that the Met Ring has the twins pull out Nothung together, hand in hand, which is cute and doesn't seem to arouse nearly as much dissension.

But in fact, Sieglinde is far from the helpless damsel in distress that some people seem to want to paint her as. Hell, her very first line goes: "A stranger -- him, I must ask." The clear implication that she has some sort of plan in mind -- which, though never spelled out, becomes pretty clear over the course of the first act -- doesn't exactly characterise her as helpless victim waiting for her saviour. It is Sieglinde who, at risk to her own safety, forces Hunding to grant Siegmund shelter by literally calling him a coward. Later, it is Sieglinde who -- on her own initiative -- drugs Hunding and directs Siegmund to the sword, not just to save him but also herself. Rather than Siegmund saving Sieglinde, this is a transaction between equals: Sieglinde gives Siegmund the means to defend himself from certain death at Hunding's hands, and in return Siegmund bodily protects Sieglinde from her abusive husband.

Throughout the act, the equality between the twins is emphasised. In part, of course, that's for foreshadowing that sweet, sweet twincest, but one line always gives me pause:

HUNDING Wie gleicht er dem Weibe! Der gleißende Wurm glänzt auch ihm aus dem Auge.

I've seen some pretty bizarre translations of that (that deceitful serpent, really?), but I think this might be the most literal:

How like to the woman is he! The same gleaming (radiant? bright? searing?) worm (almost definitely: dragon rather than earthworm, cf. Fafner) shines in his eye.

I don't really think you can get much clearer on what kind of temperament Wagner had in mind for both Wälsung twins than comparing them to a freaking dragon.

Later on, too, it's Sieglinde who first realises just who this dashingly handsome stranger is and goes "eh, fuck it" and proceeds to basically spell it out to her brother. By this point, we've seen Sieglinde pretty much run the first act, directing events to her advantage from a position of supreme weakness. No matter which of the twins draws Nothung from the tree, I think it's pretty clear that the first act is Sieglinde's self-actualisation and emancipation more than anything else.

The theme continues in acts 2 and 3, in my opinion. Sieglinde takes the backseat here as the overarching mythological plot dominates the action, and the focus shifts to two other female characters: Fricka and Brünnhilde. Now Fricka seems to be positioned perfectly to be played under the "shrewish, overbearing wife" trope who just doesn't understand Wotan's greatness and is keeping him down, man. Wotan and Brünnhilde certainly seem to share that opinion in how they talk about her. But regardless of how she is portrayed on stage, Fricka completely dominates the confrontation with Wotan despite the supposed master-manipulator and patriarch's sweet romantic ideas on how to deal with the Wälsung twins. This is one sharp lady, and she doesn't waste a second before reminding Wotan that he's bound to enforce the divine law she set down. Musically, too, Fricka's sharp soprano lines seem to easily overpower Wotan's explanations in all the recordings I've heard, another common theme.

Brünnhilde of course is the poster-child for any feminist reading of the Ring for obvious reasons. Not only is she, apparently, her mother's equal in wisdom and magic (so says Erda, at least -- later on Brünnhilde bitterly mocks her lack of wisdom, so your mileage may vary). Over the course of the three operas she's in, she

wilfully defies Wotan's orders despite being literally created as his instrument in attempting to save Siegmund

convinces Sieglinde to live and (on the day of his conception, most likely) bestows a seriously programmatic name on her son, with the clear implication that she's doing this as her own way of fixing Wotan's broken master plan

transforms her punishment into an unishment by tricking Wotan into letting her set the conditions for her spouse-to-be, and it's pretty clear from the swelling Siegfried motif just whom she has in mind

musically overpowers brash Siegfried not once, but twice (the love duet and the oath scene in Götterdämmerung) -- I don't think it's a coincidence that Brünnhilde enters Siegfried fresh and ready to shatter every glass pane from Walhall to Niflheim while Siegfried himself has something like three hours of intensive singing behind him

hands out magic items and boons to a departing Siegfried like a mellow dungeon master just before a big-ass boss fight

after being forced into marrying Gunther, immediately turns around and moves to take down Siegfried hard, including by making alliances of convenience with her direct personal enemies Gunther and Hagen. No lovesick puppy here.

burns down the fucking world and kills all the gods

So much for the Ring (haven't touched on Gutrune and Waltraute, who I also think get a bad rap as an uninvolved accessory to her brothers' plot respectively a walking flying plot device). It's not that different in Wagner's other operas, but I'll run through them more curtly.

Tannhäuser: Elisabeth shuts down a mob of angry men about to lynch Heinrich, then cleverly leverages her reputation for piety to give him a way out that will, at the very least, save his life and has a chance of restoring him to the court's good graces. By contrast, Heinrich himself doesn't really *do* all that much.

Lohengrin: Ortrud runs the whole show here, and she would have gotten away with it too if not for those meddling grail knights! Telramund is something of a tool by comparison who doesn't even seem to be aware his wife is manipulating him. Elsa comes off as something of an ingenue, but she's got a will of her own and I like to headcanon that much of her behaviour in act 1 is deliberately performing saintlyhood and Christian mysticism as a legal defense strategy. Sure, a grail knight does come along, but if he hadn't there are worse ways to be perceived by the audience than a consumptive martyr. Big shoutout to Carolyn Walker Bynum's Holy Feast and Holy Fast here, aka the grossest book about medieval Christianity I've had the pleasure to read.

Tristan: sheesh, it's Tristan. Nothing much happens but what little plot there is is set in motion by Isolde deciding to avenge her late husband and kill herself to avoid to unwelcome marriage to a political and dynastic enemy. (Then the date rape drugs come out.)

Meistersinger: Obviously Hans Sachs gets most of the credit for plotting, but really, most of what he does seems to be prompted by Eva at least in part. Realising that her father has gone insane, she uses her limited agency to make the best of a bad situation by first trying to make Walther a Meistersinger (roping in Lene and David) despite his eminent incompetence and psychopathic temperament, then settle for a friend if not a lover by encouraging Hans Sachs to woo her instead. She also manages to keep Walther from murdering anyone on-stage which is quite a feat.

Parsifal: Like with Tristan, there isn't too much plot in the traditional sense, and the characters are hyperstylised archetypes -- excepting Kundry, who is of course one of the most multilayered and complex characters in all of opera (which ... isn't saying much, but still). While Kundry doesn't do all that much to drive the action on-stage, it seems to me she's expressing her agency by helping the grail knights as an attempt at restitution and trying hard to subvert Klingsor's magically-binding orders to the end of her own redemption.

So, yeah. Wagner may have had a massive thing for muscular pretty boys with big swords, but it's really the women who drive the plots and tell the muscular pretty boys what to do, and I wish more directors / reviewers / etc. would pay closer attention to that. Rant over.

TL,DR: just because Wagner was an antisemitic shithead, that doesn't mean he wasn't a crypto-proto-feminist!

[sara-scribbles]

To Love a King (Part 3)

Hríd/F!Summoner Warning: None

Pure fluff this time.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 --------- A few days went by in a blur of activities. Ylgr had many plans for them that Kiran found herself busy. The distraction from her situation with a certain ice prince was a welcome one. The young princess took them from place to place with such enthusiasm that Kiran found herself sharing it. Kiran hadn’t felt such carefree happiness in a long time since she first arrived. The toll of constant war had affected her more than she realized.

Taking a break from running around, Kiran, Sharena and Fjorm were laying in the gardens. Though Niflheim was a cold place, they had a garden that was enchanted to stay at a comfortable temperature in order to grow plants. The grass under them was a bright, healthy green and the plants around them flourished. Staring up at the clear blue sky, Kiran felt at peace as if all her troubles were gone.

“I like this.” She closed her eyes.

Sharena yawned. “It’s great! I haven’t felt this relaxed in….a long time.”

“This garden was a little piece of spring for when we wanted to rest. We all use to come here to play when we were younger…” Fjorm said wistfully. “Now….we don’t really have much time for relaxing. Hríd is so busy with his duties to enjoy anything.”

Kiran bit her lip at the mention of the prince. A few days had passed and she hadn’t seen hair or hide of him. “How is he?” she asked, trying to act nonchalant.

Fjorm sighed. “He’s being kept busy with putting final touches on the coronation. It’s in two days, so Hríd wants to make sure everything is perfect.”

“Your brother is so serious, Fjorm,” Sharena commented. “He reminds me of Alfonse in some ways.”

“He’s always been like that.” She turned over on her side. “When our parents passed, Hríd took it upon himself to take care of us. He tried so hard to remain calm for us, yet we could tell he was suffering just as much. He use to smile a lot, but now he rarely does.”

The three were silent. Kiran hardly knew the prince, yet here she was throwing herself at him. He was able to hide his pain from her, and she was blind to his inner turmoil. Her stomach twisted into a flurry of unease. She tried her best to help all the heroes in anyway she could. Of course some were not so receptive to her help, so she let them be. Kiran knew she could not help everyone, but that didn’t stop her from trying.

“He has been smiling a bit more lately,” the ice princess mused. “I asked him about it, but he just smiled and shook his head.”

“Sounds mysterious. Maybe he’s just happy to have you home for the coronation?” Sharena supplied.

Kiran didn’t want to assume but she wondered if that had to do in part to her. “At least he’s a bit happier,” she said quietly.

“I’m glad too. It’s a relief to see him healing after everything he went through.” A warm breeze caressed Kiran’s cheeks. “Oh!” Fjorm sat up abruptly. “I forget to tell everyone about tomorrow's banquet.”

“We get to eat a lot of food, right?” Sharena sat up and Kiran followed.

“Of course. However the banquets usually have a theme. This time the theme is masquerade, so everyone has to wear a mask.” She smiled at the two. “Don’t worry I asked one if the maids to leave a mask for you in your rooms.”

Letting out a sigh, Kiran felt a smirk pulling on her lips. “I should have brought Marth with us.”

“Why?” Fjorm titled her to the side.

She only smiled as a giggle escaped and turned into a full blown laugh. As Kiran laughed at her own inner joke, Fjorm and Sharena shrugged. There were many times where they didn’t understand her. However it was nice to see their Summoner smiling and laughing. --------- Tossing and turning, Kiran finally kicked the covers off with a loud huff. Unable to sleep, got out of bed. Grabbing her cloak to wrap around her body, Kiran peeked outside her room before padding down the hall. She remembered the way to the garden and found it without a problem. Stepping outside, the magically made warm air enveloped her in a warm embrace. The grass brushed against her bare feet as she made her way to the spot Fjorm had taken them before.

She paused when she saw the form of another person sitting there. The full moon illuminated the figure enough that she realized it was Hríd. She hesitated to go over as he looked to be deep in thought. Taking a step back, a twig snapped under her foot causing her to freeze with eyes wide and bated breath.

He made no motion that he had heard the noise. Kiran let out a breath and turned to leave, when his voice called to her. “You can stay, Summoner.”

Glancing over her shoulder, he had not moved an inch from his spot. Shoulders slumped forward a bit and legs stretched out, he looked just like any other person in that moment. Deciding that it wouldn’t hurt to sit with him, she made her way over and plopped down onto the grass. The area was quiet except for the chirping of crickets and buzz of insects.

“Can’t sleep?” She could sympathize with that. There were times where she couldn’t fall asleep because of what she would see behind closed eyes. Those nights were more often than she let on. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to bother anyone about it.

Hríd let out a deep breath. “In three days, I’ll be king. The title holds a lot of weight.”

“You’ll be a good king. I’m sure of it.” Drawing her legs to her chest, Kiran watched as a frog in the pond surfaced.

“How can you be so sure?” His eyebrows drew together. “I let my people be slaughtered not too long ago.”

She squeezed a fistful of grass in her hands. “That wasn’t your fault. Yes, many people died, but you can’t keep blaming yourself for it.” She released the grass and tried smoothing it out. “I might not be the best person to give advice, but I think you need to get past what happened. Use what happened as a learning experience. Look back on it as what you should do differently. It doesn’t mean you have to forget those who lost their lives. Instead learn and do better so something like that won’t ever happen again.”

Looking up, Kiran noted the fireflies that bobbed through the air. Hríd remained silent as he stared out. He needed, she decided, some peace and quiet. Whatever weight was on his shoulders, he needed time to lift it himself. Everyone around him could only do so much before the responsibility fell onto him.

After a while he spoke. “There are many things that could happen under my rule. I just want my people to be at peace.” He frowned. “I will try my best to keep the peace for the sake of my people, both living and lost.”

“Good. You should try to worry a little less. You’re starting to get wrinkles,” she joked, trying to lighten the mood.

He chuckled. “Ylgr said the same thing. She says I look like an old man when I frown.” He turned to look at her.

Kiran tilted her head back. “I see what she means.” Reaching forward she pulled Hríd’s lips into a mock smile. “Better.”

His eyes glinted in amusement as his hands closed around her wrists. “I’ll try not to look like an old man.”

Letting her hands fall to settle between them, she didn’t pull away from his grasp. “Maybe you should make some jokes. Best way to smile is making others people smile.”

An eyebrow went up. “I’m sorry but it’s not in my nature to make jokes.” He held one of her hands while his other hand traced patterns on her palm.

Her unoccupied hand went back to petting the grass. “I doubt that.” A slow smirk formed on her lips. “I heard you yell ‘ice upon you’ on the battlefield once.”

He feigned ignorance. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. You must have heard incorrectly.” He laced their fingers together.

“I should have recorded it on my phone…” Kiran rolled her eyes but grinned. Hríd gently tugged her arm and she moved closer. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her to sit between his legs.

She settled back into his chest with a content sigh. “Are you ready for the banquet tomorrow? Fjorm said it’s a masquerade.”

“It should be a good time for everyone. The cooks have been preparing for days. Will you be attending?”

“Of course. I didn’t come not to eat delicious food!” He laughed quietly. It rumbled deep in his chest. “I’m not sure why I need a mask considering I’m going to stick out like a sore thumb.” Her cloak would give her away immediately.

“I’m sure you’ll look lovely regardless.” Brushing her hair aside, he pressed a kiss on the back of her neck. It sent shivers down her spine.

She hummed approvingly when he pressed another kiss on her neck. Her cloak had fallen off her shoulders to pool at her waist. “You flatter me too much.” Shifting in her position, Kiran maneuvered herself so she straddled him. “Careful with the compliments, or I might think you mean them.”

“Why do you think I don’t mean them? You’re beautiful, intelligent, empathetic, funny, s-”

“Okay I get it,” she said, with a laugh. Her ears felt warm.

He reached up and brushed his thumb against her cheek. “You turn a beautiful shade of pink when I compliment you.”

Kiran buried her face in his chest. “I’m not use to getting such compliments,” came her muffled reply. He smelled of pine, lavender, and his own unique scent.

“You deserve more than just compliments,” he said, his hand gently combing through her hair.

Pulling back she grinned, cheeks still tinged pink. “You’re right. I deserve a feast everyday!”

His eyes danced with mirth. “I never took you for a glutton, Summoner.”

“Now you know my weakness. Feed me good food and I’m done for,” she sighed dramatically. Her hands came to rest on his bare chest. Kiran was thankful for the deep-v of his shirt. His heart beat steadily under her hand.

They were silent for a moment. Kiran kept her eyes locked on her hands. Hríd kept stroking her hair absentmindedly. Finally pulling her hands away she looked up at him. He had a far away look on his face.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

He blinked and looked down at her. His brows were pinched together. “Excuse me?”

“It’s a...saying where I’m from. Basically I’m asking what you’re thinking about,” she explained while mentally slapping herself. Sometimes she forgot how different everyone was from her.

He nodded though his brows were still drawn together. “I find myself wondering why.”

“Why what?”

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, he smiled wistfully. “Why you affect me so much. I’ve always been in control of my emotions. Yet when I’m around you, I lose all control and follow my instincts.”

Kiran couldn’t lie and say she wasn’t a bit smug that she affected him so much. “I guess you and I have the same problem. I’m usually not so…bold.” She looked away from his intense stare as she recalled the moment in the hall. “I tend to forget everything else. I’m not the type to have sex in open places.”

He chuckled. “Neither am I.” Wrapping his arms around her middle, he laid back on the grass bring her with him.

Snuggling against him, Kiran bit her lip trying to suppress a smile. “I never took you for a cuddling type.”

“I never did either. Though it may be due to the fact that I have not ‘cuddled’ with anyone before.” He sighed. “You’re very warm.”

Kiran merely hummed in agreement. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to relax. Hríd’s body was solid yet soft in a way that made her feel safe. His scent helped her mind to relax and her muscles to loosen. As she wandered between the realm lucidness, she thought she felt something warm press on her forehead.

[alleyxcrow]

The Weary Lion

Cor is thrown back in time, but he’s thrown so far back it’s to just after he joined the crownsguard.

Cor remembers a lot of things: the names of all his men, the birthdays of his “kids” and “grandkids”, the way the world looked before ruin. He forgot so much: the name of his first drill instructor, the face of his mother, how short and thin he used to be. It’s makes his head hurt to wake up each morning still in his fourteen-year-old body with King Mors as his sovereign.

Basically, I’m a sucker for Dad!Cor and my bet is on Cor when he realizes that he might have a chance at changing the future and saving the men he’ll eventually come to call brothers and give a proper long-lived life to those boys. Ardyn, Bahamut, Providence, whatever has nothing on Cor when he’s on a mission.

I see this fic as starting with Cor still deployed with the crownsguard on the Lucian continent, very pointedly and with prejudice keeping Niflheim from getting a strong foothold or hit in wherever he’s put. The fact that Niflheim is still in front of him after he put years and years of his life into destroying every scrap of them in Insomnia and Lucis makes his blood boil in a long-forgotten hot-headed manner. It doesn’t matter if he rationalizes that he’s back in time, of course Niflheim is still around: he indulges and takes this one personally.

As a result, despite his young age and very short active record, he earns the respect of his fellow guards quite easily though his superiors and commanders all pretty much hate this young maverick who so easily gains sway and say in their troops. The cherry on top of that is that he’s effective and does exactly what he says he’s going to do, so what can the commanders really do except file disciplinary complaints and put insubordination marks on his record.

With his long line of good/bad marks on his record, Cor isn’t called home to become Mors’ bodyguard this time and he almost has a heart attack when he realizes that. He’s already changing the past and becoming the king’s bodyguard was instrumental in gaining him a spot in Regis’ retinue. After a few battles and long sleepless nights, Cor eventually comes to the conclusion that while that is a familiar and desired path, he doesn’t need to become Sword of the prince and the Marshall of the crownsguard in order to change the future. If anything, that would slow him down. The acceptance that he’s never really going to get to know Regis, Clarus, Cid, and Weskham again weighs on him, but he has a duty and that’s to deal with Ardyn, or Adagium as he’s known right now.

Cor is sent back to Insomnia on leave at some point after this and the fic shows his home life. I headcanon it as poor and impoverished. Dead/Neglectful father, absent/sick/dead mother, slums district in Insomnia, something along those lines. At 14 years old Cor is pretty much taking care of himself and possibly his mother too with not a lot of options on improving his quality of life, not that it’s much different than WOR Lestallum. At least there’s light, electricity, and sometimes hot water. Cor busies himself around his neighborhood, watching kids, helping carry things, fetching items, anything to keep his hands busy. After so many decades of being on the go, he can’t sit still. He also takes the time to break into the royal library to learn more about Ardyn and the Starscourge. On one such trip, he’s almost caught by Regis and he has to fight with the need and urge to go to his old friend and brother. He can’t. Not yet. He meets Clarus soon after when one of his more forgiving commanders drags him from practice to come sit in on a war meeting and give his opinion and stance on current Niflheim movements, in front of Clarus, his father, and the current Marshall of the crownsguard no less. If he didn’t have high-up attention before, he does now.

Cor is deployed again and pondering his next series of steps (go free Ardyn, speak to Gilgamesh, travel to Tenebrae to receive advice from the Oracle and maybe Shiva if she was around at that point, kill Niflheim’s head of army and government, maybe go wake the Infernian, the usual On-Leave things to do), when his post is attacked by Niflheim. They manage to repel the attack with some heavier losses and when Cor hears that Niflheim had used the attack in order to set up a basic stronghold he furiously stomps off to go deal with it. Switch POV to Regis and retinue showing up to the fort, looking for a Cor Leonis, someone the Marshall and King Mors thought would be vital to Regis’ trip. The current commander, harried from the recent attack, throws his hands up and jabs his finger at the explosions in the distance “I don’t know but that’s probably him” and ta daaaa that’s Cor’s first impression by the retinue as a whole: a scowling, dirt and oil covered teenager with a too-big sword that stalks back into camp and snarks back when his commander berates him for acting without permission. When Cor actually catches sight of the retinue and realizes that they’re here for him he’s floored...and irritated because how is he going to keep the future from happening now? Yeah, he could wait and yes there’s quite a bit he could do while with the retinue, but he had plans and now they’re on hold.

Cue Original Chocobro shenanigans with the other four baffled by this “boy” who has exactly zero self-preservation, a haunted look in his all-too-knowing eyes, and is too good at most everything for his own good. Cor is torn between reflexive camaraderie and trusting in them and realizing over and over again, no these aren’t the brothers he remembers. Cor will eventually disappear off to Gilgamesh around the last time he went in the original timeline, but this time it isn’t to challenge the First Shield, but to get his advice and insight. I’m tempted by the idea of Gilgamesh realizing Cor was sent back by someone with a lot of power and taking that as incentive enough to leave the Tempering Grounds to travel with him (lmfao imagine the looks on the retinues’ faces).

I’m not sure how this would roll into a fix-it yet, but I’m in love with the idea of older-than-you-but-not-really Cor interacting with the Original Chocobros and wanting to just take a nap.

Tldr; Cor travels back in time to before the Original Chocobros road trip and shenanigans happen as he tries to keep the future from happening.

[charlottedabookworm]

Okay, so. Fair warning, but this is sad. This is part of an AU where Fractured Lightning!Nyx did not escape with Prompto because they moved him before Nyx could escape, and then Nyx spent the next decade and a bit thinking that his son was dead - or worse. There are mentions of dehumanisation, human experimentation, branding, medical procedures, and family being separated from each other.

Anyway, tell me what you think?

He doesn’t want to believe it. His son was dead, had died over a decade ago in some no-name lab in Niflheim. Had died at the hands of the scientists who had made him, killed because Nyx wasn’t strong enough – wasn’t good enough – to protect him. Nyx had lost his son because he wasn’t fast enough, because he tipped his hand too soon, and they had taken him from him mere days before he had made his escape. Nyx had made a mistake and his son – not by birth, no, but by blood and magic and bond – had paid the price. He’d had to live with that fact ever since. (He’d had to live with the knowledge that, while he was safe from the labs, while he had escaped, his son hadn’t. Every single moment since, every moment that he’d been free, had been haunted by that knowledge. Late at night, he couldn’t help but wonder. How long had his son lasted, after Nyx had left? What would they have done to the child who could feel the land and was too young to know better, who had magic but no one to teach him control, who took the best to Nyx’s blood but was far too empathetic for the MT program? Would they have followed through on their plans on retraining him, of making him into the perfect soldier who could use magic? Or would they have just killed him as a failed experiment? Would they have cut him apart to see what made him tick? Would he have suffered all of the horrors of the labs in Nyx’s place? Was his son – his son – laying in some unmarked grave that only contained what the scientists couldn’t use? Or had he been killed in battle, left to rot on some battlefield after Nyx or one of his friends had made that final blow?) His son was dead. But that doesn’t mean that he can take his eyes off of the Prince’s friend. Off of the teenager with blond hair and blue eyes and a bright smile that Nyx remembers so well. He’s spent the entire time that he’d been on guard duty subtly watching him, unable to look away even for a second in case this was a dream. And the kid had been watching him as well, giving him confused looks the entire time even as one hand periodically rose to rub at his chest. He looks so much like the boy that Nyx had first met, and he wants so desperately to go and comfort him. To speak to him and hold him and apologise for leaving him. Instead, he stands blank-faced at attention – his hands clenched into fists behind his back, nails digging into the flesh of his palms even as the brand on his arm seemed to burn. His magic aches. “I’m sorry,” the kid says eventually, walking over to him and sheepishly rubbing at the back of his neck with a shy, confused smile on his face. Behind him, the Prince and his other friends watch them both with odd looks. “But, have we met before? It’s just, you seem really familiar?” And Nyx’s heart breaks. Because standing in front of him is a teenage boy with his mother’s eyes – with his eyes, with eyes the same shade of blue that had only ever belonged to Clan Ulric – and this is his son. He can’t deny that, can’t deny the way that his magic is desperately trying to reach for something that doesn’t reach back (and what had they done? What had they done to his son, that his magic no longer sung in the air and danced on his skin? What had they done to the little boy whose magic had twined around Nyx’s as though they were the same?), can’t deny the way that the magic of the land was singing – fainter here than in Galahd, but Nyx can hear it all the same – at their reunion. Standing in front of him is his son, and he doesn’t recognise him. Not really. (Why would he? A voice in the back of Nyx’s mind whispers. He was just a child when you left him in the hands of those monsters. He was so young when you last saw him, why would he try to hold onto the memories of a man who had abandoned him to hell?) It hurts. It hurts, and it breaks something inside of Nyx, to have the boy who had once been his entire world look at him with nothing more than faint recognition. And, no matter how much Nyx tries to tell himself that a four-year-old wouldn’t have been able to remember him anyway, it tears at him. But that’s okay. Nyx smiles at him, even as tears burn at his eyes and his magic rages under his hold, because his son was alive and he was safe and he had friends. He wasn’t in the labs, he wasn’t fighting a war, he wasn’t dead. That’s enough. His son was alive, and he was happy, that was all Nyx had ever wanted – everything that he’d dreamed for him. He might not carry his name, Nyx might not have gotten to raise him himself, but he was alive. That was enough. (it had to be) “We knew each other, a very long time ago,” he says, his voice breaks slightly over the words and tears that he won’t let fall still burn at his eyes. He clenches his fists tighter, using the sharp pain to ground himself. Nyx swallows past the lump in his throat. “You were very young at the time.” Too young, far too young. Blinking, he lets the sudden image of the toddler that he’d known fade back into the teenager in front of him and, fuck, he needs to get out of here, before he does something stupid. “It was very nice to meet you again, little bird.” He grimaces at the slip, bowing his head to the Prince and turning to leave. A tear slips down his face. Nyx doesn’t notice the way that Prompto freezes at the words, the way that he watches him leave with a hand outstretched as though to pull him back. He doesn’t see the look of shock, of dawning realisation, on his face as his magic surges inside of him – breaking barriers placed years ago to protect him from himself. He doesn’t hear the word that the teenager whispers as his friends surround him. “Dad?” (“Breathe, baby bird, just breathe. Please. It’ll be okay in a little bit, love.” “It hurts.” He swallowed, tears burning at his eyes as he looked at his son writhing in pain on the bed in his cell, separated by glass walls. He couldn’t do anyway and inside his magic raged at that, at the stifled cries of pain that the toddler gave – his skin inflamed and a new scar forming on his back. He hated this. Hated that he couldn’t even comfort his son – that he couldn’t hold him in his arms and hug him and tell him that it would be alright. But he couldn’t move up his plans, he wasn’t ready yet. So, he did the only thing that he could. He spoke. “Birds are the freest thing in the world, you’ll love them. They fly across the sky, day and night, calm or storm, and they only come back down when they choose too. You’ll see them one day, little bird, I promise you. Just a little longer, then we’ll be safe, okay…” He continued on, babbling about the outside world to a boy who had never seen beyond the labs except in pictures and stories until his son’s breathing eased and he slipped into sleep. Only then, did Nyx allow himself to cry. He curled up in the corner of his tiny cell and sobbed. He cried for his son, for every child who had been borne to the labs, and he sobbed for himself and the family that he’d lost. He cried and cried and cried, silent even as his body shook horribly, and wrapped his arms around himself in a vague imitation of a hug. One more week. He just had to last one more week. He cried himself to sleep, thinking of that, trying desperately to ignore the kernel of hope that grew inside of him. One more week) (6 days later, Nyx woke, and his son was gone. Transferred to another facility, the scientists mocked him. Nyx was making it too soft, so they had sent it elsewhere to toughen it up. Maybe they’d allow Nyx to see it again, once it’d been fully converted. They knew how much Nyx cared for the experiment, after all. They laughed as they left, and Nyx felt his heart shatter. His son was gone) (24 hours later, everyone in the facility was dead outside of Nyx. He had no idea where his son was. That fact would haunt him for the rest of his life)

[secret-engima]

Random HCs for Some of My Verses

Future’s Blurry (the Past is a Trap) verse:

-Glaucus has no idea how he wound up with a pet mad scientist. He WENT there intending to kill Besithia, he DID. Instead he found himself with a mad scientist on his heels, complaining about not having a fancy lab anymore and needing it if he’s going to prove Glaucus wrong.

-Oh yeah, Glaucus thinks with a squint, somewhere in the whole “somehow not killing the scientist” (not that he COULD, Prompto had come from that man and if there was a chance ... well, he loved Prompto more than he hated Besithia, it would be worth the annoyance) Glaucus had said that Besithia wasn’t smart enough or skilled enough to be Really All That™. Besithia had immediately taken offense, forgetting all about his life being in danger in favor of his pride, and demanded HOW DARE. OF COURSE HE WAS.

-Glaucus had snorted something to the order of how if he was REALLY all that he would be able to make a cure/vaccine for the Scourge, not just piddle around infecting things with it and claiming to have done something NEW (the scourge infected everything by nature, essentially infecting machinery wasn’t new, it was just calculated stupidity).

-Glaucus thinks that might have been what led to his acquisition of a scientist actually. Besithia so insulted he’d been willing to defect from the empire that they both knew would never condone a vaccine for their precious Scourge just to prove Glaucus WRONG.

-At one point he has to stop and laugh hysterically over the fact that he just took out Niflheim’s R&D division at the kneecaps. By doing a slightly (SLIGHTLY) more adult version of Double Dog Daring their head scientist.

-There’s also the fact that, to get proper funding, housing, and equipment for his new pet scientist, Glaucus could no longer just subsist on bounties from Hunts and dragging Ardyn from hotel to hotel. No, he needed money, manpower, resources that couldn’t be tracked.

-Lucky for him, he was once Cor the Immortal, the guy in charge of busting illegal butts and then later in charge of the surviving population of humanity in the Long Night. He knew a thing or two about discreet resources and acquisition of funds.

-The Insomnia Underworld had no idea what hit it. It feels like one minute their going about their days, discreetly infighting between the families, laundering their illegal items, the next minute everything is being taken over like dominos by an icy-eyed TEENAGER that can’t seem to DIE no matter what is thrown at him.

-By the end of the year post getting his scientist, Glaucus had (unwillingly) re-taken his title of The Immortal and was the shadow king of the entire freaking Underworld of Insomnia and a good chunk of Lucis. Anyone who didn’t like his new rules of conduct were killed or kicked out and those who were smart enough to swear loyalty found themselves magically bound by their word (Glaucus had no idea how he pulled off that trick, he blamed the KoL and their shenanigans during the time travel). Glaucus then put some of the less scummy and more intelligent ones in charge and calmly swanned off to go back to running around the wilds taking on Hunts and blowing up Nif bases.

-The new Lieutenants in charge of the underworld on behalf of their new Underworld King all just ... kinda blinked at each other and silently asked “What Just Happened?”

-And that is how Cor/Glaucus ended up the reigning king of the Lucian underworld and Besithia got to play mad scientist in a hidden laboratory all Right Under King Mors’ Nose thank you and good night.

...

Risk the Fall (We Have Felt It All) verse:

-The others in the main cast of the first game get reborn too, don’t @ me.

-As we all know, Lightning is the new Crown Princess of Lucis and Hope is the new Crown Prince of Tenebrae, the others are also their own characters so to speak except for Snow and Serah but we’ll get back to them in a sec.

-Sazh is an Armaugh. He’s Weskham’s nephew and his new name is Sors. He’s three years older than Lightning this time around, but he STILL gets teased as the “Old Man” of the group, which he bears with good humor. He ends up being her Hand, just like Ignis is for Noctis.

-Fang and Vanille are reborn as half-sisters who look nothing alike. Fang is the elder of the two and just as Throw Hands as ever. She’s like- three-ish years younger than Lightning. Vanille is five years younger than Lightning. They don’t have the same mom, and only stumbled on each other by happenstance. They started by recognizing each other from their past life and then started comparing their current one and talking about it was funny that they both came from a fling rather than a marriage. Then they start talking about their respective moms (At least Vanille’s is dead I think? Who knows, but this way Fang gets to adopt Vanille and drag her home) and from there they talked about what little they know of their respective dads.

-And find out their descriptions of appearance and temperament described by their mothers match.

-Eerily so.

-“We’re sisters!” Vanille (who needs a new latin name btw) squeals in joy, throwing her arms around Fang, who just snorts dryly and says,

-“I swore that if I ever met ‘im, I’d stab him where the sun don’t shine. But since he gave me you ... I guess I’ll just give him a black eye. Maybe break an arm.”

-Far, far away in Insomnia, Cor pauses and reaches for his sword on instinct, sure for a moment that someone was plotting bodily harm against him. There is no one in the study but him, Regis, and Clarus however, so he shrugs it off a moment later. Probably just the nifs cursing him out for his latest mission or something.

-Snow and Serah come back as canon characters. Because I Said So.

-Luna is 8 years old when she tentatively creeps up to Zagreus/Hope, tears in her eyes, and softly asks “Hope” if she can see her sister.

-Zagreus stares at her in shock, then slowly kneels down to be eye level and whispers, “Serah?”

-She nods, blue eyes so much older than they were just yesterday before something caused her to remember, and Hope kisses her forehead before hurrying off to find his computer. Over Skype, Lightning and Serah cry for joy and sadness.

-“We’re not sisters this time,” pouts Lightning just a little.

-Serah smiles, sugar sweet and innocent, “I guess you’ll just have to hurry up and marry Hope so we can be sisters-in-law.” Both of the elder reincarnates choke on their spit while Luna laughs.

-Meanwhile, somewhere deep in the jungles of Galahd, Libertus tiredly puts ointment on Nyx’s cuts and scrapes while the grinning Ulric holds an ice pack to his black eye, “Just had to pick a fight, didn’t you,” mutters Lib, “always gotta be the Hero.”

-Nyx smiles, and Lib notices it’s that strange, far-off sad one he gets sometimes, the one that makes him look way too old and weary for his years, “I promised,” he says simply, an apology and unknowable explanation all in one. Libertus doesn’t ask WHO he promised, he knows Nyx won’t tell him. “I promised” has been his excuse since they could barely walk. Libertus isn’t sure he wants an answer at this point. Some things just aren’t for mortal men to know.

[eirenare]

“Ardyn Izunia: Powers and Origins”

Okay so, first of all: this is a post about a theory that’s been on my mind for a long time (I’ve talked about it before, and posted a bit of my thoughts on TW and I think here too) but that I hadn’t been able to finish writing as much completely as I wanted... and I know that it probably makes zero sense to upload my theory now, when Episode Ardyn has just come up online minutes ago where I live... but still, I like my theory and I had fun with it, so, well, there it goes!

Also: as I’m writing this the DLC is downloading and I want to avoid any risk of spoilers, so as soon as I upload this post I’ll retreat to play and just emerge to social media once I finish it.

May you all have a good time playing Episode Ardyn! <3

It’s no secret that Ardyn Izunia, Chancellor of Niflheim, oldest king of Lucis and former savior of those afflicted by the Starscourge, is the most powerful being of Eos. Not even the Astrals, the gods of Eos, can defeat him.

Such power, however, leaves many questions. And while some of them had been answered, there are still others that remain a mystery.

The main question is… why is Ardyn, and only him, able to absorb the Starscourge? It’s stated in the Official Works book that this is a “unique ability” of Ardyn, even though it says his clan had been given power by the gods, so… we can assume two things: either this ability isn’t god-given, or that if it was god-given there had to be a reason why only Ardyn could use it.

In the case that it was god-given (and since no one else had been given said ability), I think there’s a possibility that Ardyn would have been used as a container for the Starscourge unbeknownst to him, probably ordained by the prophecy, and that he didn’t know until he broke free of Angelgard. In theory, having a living “container” for the Starscourge, while very cruel, would’ve made things easier… except it all went wrong.

In the case that it wasn’t god-given, it’s either a special characteristic of Ardyn’s organism, or he somehow acquired it.

Another possibility (although less possible) could be, in the case that Ardyn was alive already by the time Solheim was still there, that he would’ve been experimented on. Given the fact that Ardyn seems to know a lot not only about daemons, but also about machinery from Solheim, and that Niflheim apparently advanced a lot in their experiments when he started “helping them” (for example developing the Wallbreaker Wave, a technology that can inhibit all the magic from the line of Lucis and enfeeble Astrals), I wouldn’t entirely rule out that possibility. Or that Ardyn had some contact with this kind of technology.

Any of the cases above could give reason as to why Ardyn can absorb the Starscourge, so let’s talk a bit about the rest of his abilities…

It’s easy to pinpoint the origin of the majority of Ardyn’s abilities, to categorize them as abilities that come from the Starscourge (like “shadowstepping”, infecting others with the Starscourge) or from the gods (the Armiger, and probably his “regular” healing abilities —that can either come from the gods or be a blessing of the Crystal—).

However… apart from being able to absorb the Starscourge, there’s something that Ardyn shouldn’t be able to perform, but that he can: summon the same kind of Wall that Regis maintained… without using the Ring of the Lucii.

Now, this is something weird and interesting, because the Starscourge can’t grant him that power, and neither can the Astrals. Only a king of Lucis can do this, using the Ring of the Lucii, which is what harnesses and channels the power of the Crystal. An extension of the Crystal.

And, while for some time I thought Ardyn may be able to copy abilities (and still, that’s a possible power of his), there’s no way he could’ve copied the Wall of the Citadel, since the effort of nearly all of the Astrals is needed to bring it down to grant access to Noctis and the others.

So, then… how can Ardyn do this?

Well… another thing that’s no secret, is all of the religious symbology of Final Fantasy XV (specially Christianity), and more specifically, surrounding Ardyn. From his way of dressing in the past and his artworks (a clear allegory to Jesus), his powers and role (the savior that travels healing others and teaching them), to his relationship with others and his destiny (Abel and Cain come to mind with him and his brother for example, and then there’s the fact that he’s fated to die in the end so that the world can be saved), and even one of his hobbies (wine), it’s clear what Square-Enix was aiming for with him.

Now… remember Episode Ignis? That fight in the “Verse 2”, in which you play as Ignis against Ardyn in the Keep of Zegnautus? There’s a moment in which Ardyn basically “mocks” Bahamut’s stance, making the weapons look like wings on his back.

And then, remember when Square-Enix answered in that Q&A video a question about his relationship with Bahamut? They basically said it was a secret, and laughed.

Well… Where am I going with this?

I think that Ardyn is of divine origin, which would go along with the Christian themes of the game.

My thoughts are that Ardyn’s either son of Bahamut, or that he could’ve been “born” from the Crystal. Being a son of Bahamut would further enhance that comparison between God and Jesus, but then again, he has powers that don’t really fit with Bahamut nor any other Astral, nor with the Starscourge. Another idea that’s been in my mind for a long time is that Ardyn could’ve either been born or become a Messenger, as well, but since we know so very little about the Messengers, so it’s much in the air.

Maybe I’m correct about something or maybe I’m not, but regardless of it, I had fun with the theory all along which is what matters (even if it pains me that I couldn’t bring myself to finish writing it properly, as early and detailed as I wanted —the original one, before Episode Ardyn: Prologue, was 5 pages long before even reaching half of the document, and I’d compiled there all the info I could about the Starscourge for example—), and if it’s not correct then I can always make an AU of it (?).