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forasecondtherewedwon · 4 years ago

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3 Simple Rules for Dating a Centenarian

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 2374

Summary: After seeing Steve's shield handed over to some stranger, Sam calls up Bucky, certain he's the one person who can properly commiserate. He doesn't really expect Bucky to answer though (the guy's become a bit of a recluse), or to hear the hints that he might be missing Sam as much as Sam's been missing him. Not that he'd ever say it straight out.

Sam is almost completely still as the feelings rattle through him like a roller coaster’s last run on a derelict track. He only lets it out—the blend of frustration, betrayal, and regret—in the way his fingers squeeze his knee through his jeans, skin damp against the denim. Keeping his hands clasped, and watching those clasped hands, was more grounding, but he needs one of his hands to hold the phone to his ear, and that activity is getting pretty damn tired.

Bucky’s voicemail clicks on for the third time in a row.

“Bucky,” Sam says, “I know you prefer calls to texting, so what are you doing ignoring me, man? Haven’t used your cell in so long that you’ve forgotten how to hit the answer button? At least it rang. That’s something, I guess.”

He sighs away from the speaker where it won’t be recorded for Bucky to hear later. Maybe he did divert his message from the snarky sarcasm he was planning to leave the guy, but Bucky doesn’t need to hear him sigh on top of that.

For a few moments, Sam taps his foot along with the muffled music of his nephews’ video game coming through the closed door. He knows the boys’ routine (and if he ever forgets, he sees the copy Sarah has on the fridge door) and that this isn’t their usual scheduled time for whatever they’re playing out there. Best guess: Sarah wants them hogging the TV so she won’t be tempted to peek at that government-sanctioned shitshow. Sam can’t blame her. Actually, he wonders if she blames him. The disappointment was so clear in her eyes before he stopped making himself meet them. He thought he was doing the right thing when he handed the shield over. Are there people out there who think he’s let them down, or just his sister? Just himself?

He can’t talk to Sarah right now and he’s thankful that she’s giving him some time to himself, but as soon as he got it, he realized he didn’t know what to do with it. Just like that shield. Dialing Bucky over and over—tapping in every number every time because that appears to be part of this pity ritual he’s performing—seemed like the thing he should do. Probably won’t answer. That asshole is terrible at staying in touch. Still, Sam’s heart feels a little heavier with every word closer he gets to the end of this message. Feels like he’s trying to keep the thing afloat in his chest, like his parents’ boat down at the dock. This is what he knows he should do when everything in him wants to sink—reach out, talk to people. Kinda self-sabotage when he picks the one person almost guaranteed not to answer.

Oh, he’ll hear back from Bucky eventually, probably a handful of choppy texts sent in the middle of the night two weeks from now. Sam knows his pattern; Bucky’s chattiest between 3am and 4am, so chatty that what are likely intended as longer blocks of text arrive in broken fragments because he wants to make everything into neat paragraphs, like he’s writing a damn letter, instead of just getting to the point, but he hits send too soon. Sam would teach him—with plenty of mocking and name-calling, but he would teach him—only while he’s been running ops all over the planet, Bucky’s shrunk his own world way down. He’s gone local to the extreme and it aggravates Sam, even though Bucky isn’t his responsibility, isn’t his other inheritance from Steve. It’s sorta just easier to feel like Bucky is a misplaced bequest than to acknowledge that maybe he misses the guy and his sharp-shooter’s eye and his caveman hair. He can’t keep calling him.

“Thought I’d give you a heads-up,” Sam says, voice weary with this half-true excuse. “Maybe you already saw.” He clears his throat and says quickly, “Anyway, guess I’ll hear from you when I hear from you.”

He’s pulling the phone away from his head and has barely ended the call when it’s ringing in his hand. He answers and catches Bucky’s voice saying his name before it’s even back up to his ear.

“Bucky?” Sam says. “You have a senior’s moment and forget where you left your phone?”

“Nah,” Bucky says. “I saw it was you and decided to ignore it.”

“But you called back.”

“You wouldn’t quit calling. Seemed like you needed me to tell you directly to knock it off.”

“Jackass.” Sam’s gaze darts to the door, but it’s still shut. No chance Sarah saw him grinning over this easy banter. Always the banter with this idiot. Always easy. He sniffs and turns his chair away from the black TV screen. “Did you see that joker on the news?”

Bucky’s either less self-conscious or more inept because he sighs right into the mouthpiece, an exhausted breath in Sam’s ear that has his fingers fleetingly digging into his knee.

“Couldn’t believe that shit,” Bucky tells him in a rough voice. He’s clearly holding back his own feelings about today’s events and, from the sounds of it, they’re more along the lines of anger, hurt, and a simmering desire to wrench the shield from the arm of the new Captain America. “You know that thing’s supposed to be yours.”

“You saying I should’ve done something to stop it?” Sam demands.

“Coulda.”

Sam forces his shoulders to drop, draws a slow breath in and pushes it back out.

“It wasn’t mine anymore, if it ever was. I gave it to the Smithsonian. They sealed it in this glass case and added it to the exhibit.”

“Not a very tight seal.”

“Guess not,” Sam agrees.

“You shouldn’t have turned it over,” Bucky says. Sam’s silent, frowning, and Bucky goes on. “Forget about the shield being given to somebody else—it shouldn’t have even been in a glass case. Doesn’t belong there.”

“I do just fine without it,” Sam assures him. The practicalities of carrying that shield around are more straightforward to discuss than his yawning uncertainty in the face of Steve’s legacy and his place relative to it. “The shield would only get in the way of the wings.”

“You and those wings.”

“Hey, they carried me over Tunisia recently. Show some respect.”

“Didn’t hear about that,” Bucky says in a tone that’s difficult to interpret, though Sam squints thoughtfully as he listens.

“Yeah, well, I shouldn’t even be telling the likes of you, but it was discrete. As far as the major players are concerned, I was never there.”

“So it was illegal?”

Sam’s head tips back as he laughs hard.

“Why, you wanna turn me in?” he jokes. “Working on the government’s trust? What’s the next level up from a pardon? Knighthood?”

“You are such a pain in the ass,” Bucky groans, which really does make Sam smile.

“I’m sure it would’ve been illegal if you were there,” he says automatically. Too fast, his imagination fills it in, a fictional alternative materializing in his mind. Him and Bucky, cocky in reckless freefall. Him and Bucky, fighting back-to-back in a plummeting aircraft. Sam screening Bucky from enemy fire with his wings. Bucky deflecting a stray bullet with his arm before it could hit Sam.

“Nah, I can’t do that no more.”

“Uh huh. I’m sure you’re an angel.”

“Anybody get hurt?” Bucky asks.

Sam glances through the window at the blue sky, the truck rolling unhurriedly past with the driver’s arm hanging out to catch the sun. Beautiful day. He remembers a kick that sent a guy through the door of the plane, sucked out into the sky, another guy tossed aside who tried to fight him in midair, and a helicopter aflame as it went down. He shrugs and figures Bucky’ll hear the gesture in his voice.

“Nobody who didn’t know the risks.”

“Of going up against Captain America?” Bucky probes. Sam rolls his eyes.

“You know, that would almost be a compliment if you got my name right.”

“Don’t tell me you’re not using the name just to avoid compliments from me.”

“I honestly can’t say which one would feel more wrong,” Sam says, passing a hand over his head as he leans back in his chair, “calling myself Captain America or hearing a little overdue praise from you.”

“I’m not really a words guy. Ask my therapist.”

Sam sits with that for a second. He’s happy that Bucky’s talking to someone. He needs it, badly, after decades of violence and being belted into the passenger seat of his own brain. It’s more than Bucky’s ever admitted to him before, but Sam would bet—and bet big—that seeing some stranger named as Steve’s successor today has gotten to Bucky as much as it’s gotten to him. Something like that is bound to open Bucky up a little. He’s the only other person Sam can imagine the news having such a monumental impact on.

“You could try words,” he goads, not wanting to leave Bucky hanging more than a few seconds after his admission. “What else do you have if you don’t feel like being a human action figure?”

“I have my system. My rules.”

“Oh yeah? What rules?”

“Three of ’em,” Bucky informs him. “Nothing illegal. Nobody gets hurt. Making amends for the actions of the Winter Solider.”

“You don’t have to make amends for something you—”

“Don’t. It… helps.”

And who is Sam to question what’s helping Bucky? After the multiple-lifetimes’ worth of hell the guy’s been through?

“Good for you, man,” Sam offers softly.

“Save it, Sam.” The words are clipped but light. Sam grins.

“No words for me either? You more comfortable with me sticking to actions? How are we supposed to talk to each other when you don’t come to Tunisia with me?”

“Wasn’t invited,” Bucky quips back.

“You mighta been if you answered your phone more often. I’m not gonna send you the details to a covert operation in a text.”

“You wanted me in Tunisia?”

“You get shit done,” Sam acknowledges simply. You wanted me in Tunisia? echoes in his head. His heart’s bobbing like a buoy now. You wanted me in Tunisia? You wanted me?

“Not like that.”

“‘Not illegal,’” Sam repeats. “‘Nobody gets hurt. Making amends.’”

“Right. Can’t do any of that.”

“Well, I’m glad this regime’s working for you, but you have to admit it’s weird that I saw more of you when we were fighting alien hordes.”

“What can I say?” Bucky asks in a tone that seems to consciously flatten the charm out of it. “I’m old-fashioned now.”

Sam snorts.

“You were old-fashioned then.”

“I assume you had a team on the ground.”

“I had to,” Sam says over the sound of a squabble in the other room. Immediately, he can hear Sarah’s voice rising slightly above, breaking it up. Just like that, there’s the looping music of the video game again. She’s raised those boys well. “Couldn’t wait around for you.”

“I might show up if you asked me on better dates.”

“It wasn’t a date, it was a goddamn op.”

It’s startling to hear the sound of laughter. Not hearty, deep, rich, or loud, but definitely laughter. Bucky laughs? Sam backtracks a minute. Bucky makes jokes? About dating? About the two of them dating? Evidently, that is something he’s capable of, along with returning calls during daylight hours.

Sam shifts in his seat.

“You could come around sometime,” he suggests, nervously rubbing a hand up and down his thigh. “If you like fish and you’re ever in Louisiana.”

“I do like fish,” Bucky says. “I’ve been going to this sushi place a lot lately.”

It’s not his taste that surprises Sam—it’s the readiness with which he responds to the invitation. He would’ve sooner guessed that Bucky would tell him to shove it up his ass. In a joking way, but still.

“On dates?” Sam asks, telling himself he’s providing some good-natured hassling and that it has nothing to do with the odd feeling he got when Bucky’s joke about them dating caught up with him.

“One. Mostly, I go with Mr. Nakajima.”

“And that’s not a date?”

Sam laughs and wishes he could shut his own mouth as firmly as he’s (many times) told Bucky to shut his.

“I’m pretty sure he’s in his eighties, so he’s more age-appropriate for me than most people, but I murdered his son,” Bucky says grimly.

“Amends?” Sam guesses, adjusting his tone to cope with Bucky’s emotional switchback.

“I haven’t told him yet, but, yeah, I’m working on that.”

They’re both working on something, Sam thinks. Both confronting something that feels too big to tackle—the decision not to announce himself as the new Captain America, guilt for assassinations Bucky had no control over but which span the better part of a century. Sometimes it seems to Sam that they go up against the easiest situations as a team and face the hardest stuff alone. But he called Bucky, and Bucky called back.

“You could bring some of those amends down here and trade them for a snapper dinner,” Sam proposes, aiming for irritatingly cheerful to pull Bucky back out of the dark.

“What do I have to make amends to you for?”

“Being a dick. I’ll text you my sister’s address.”

Sam swiftly ends the call. There are two possible sources to which he can attribute the small surge of adrenaline he feels: hanging up on Bucky and the fact that he might’ve just asked him on a date. When Sam dialed, he knew it was because he didn’t want to do this alone, but he thought that meant watching the appointment of an upstart Captain America. Although he believed he could count on Bucky’s understanding today and for the near future, asking him down to have dinner with Sarah and the boys (or tricking him into it, since he didn’t exactly say it’d be a thing with the whole family) lengthens the timeline. Near future? Inviting Bucky to meet his family and see where he grew up means recognizing that he’ll be in his life a little longer. Alone? Sam might forget the meaning of the word.

#my writing #tfatws #tfatws spoilers #The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #sambucky #Sam Wilson x Bucky Barnes

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darkblueboxs · 4 years ago

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Lifelines

For AFTG Angst Fest day 23: “You can’t die”

Read here or on AO3

TW for extreme violence and gore.

His father starts, as promised, with his legs. He slices the tendons with thick, blunt blades that catch in the shredded flesh, eliciting noises that would be stomach-turning if they could be heard over the screaming. There isn’t much left by the time Nathan is finished, lumps of quivering flesh that may have once resembled a human but no more.

By all rights, he should be dead.

But he isn’t. He waits for death to release him from the sweat and blood and agony, but past all reason, all possibility, his heart keeps forcing blood through his veins only for it to spill out onto the cold tiles of his father’s basement.

Eventually, the voices grow distant, and the room grows dark. They didn’t bother locking the door, never imagined that what remained of him could still be capable of movement. On shaky, new limbs that heal with a speed that Neil never thought possible, he drags what is left of himself into the dark.

Three months later, they catch him again at a rest-stop near Chicago. He doesn’t know if they understand what has happened to him any better than he does; he doesn’t stick around to ask. In the backseat of a car wheeling its way back to Baltimore, he cuts and cuts and cuts until the meaty stump of his hand slips through the handcuff without catching.

The cops find a steaming wreck of a car at the roadside, and Malcom’s body cooling in the driver’s seat. The source of the pool of blood in the back, however, remains a mystery to them. The flesh of his regrown hand stings as the night wind catches it, and he picks up a new name and a new look and loses himself once more.

A month later, he is shot.

Days after that, stabbed.

Weeks later, he spits up blood as the gash drawn across his throat seals itself over, fading to a vivid, white line against dark skin. The store clerk stares at it as he swaps his blood-stained tee for a high-collar polo shirt. Later, while examining the scar in a dingy motel bathroom, he wonders in a detached kind of way whether he’ll ever grow numb to the pain, nerves torn through by endless wear and tear. He touches an exploratory finger to the scar, and yanks it back as the ghost of a blade tears through his throat once more. No. He never had that kind of luck.

“He’s been waiting a long time for you,” Lola hisses. Her threats spiral like smoke in the icy mountain air. The wind whips her hair around her face as she backs him up against the cliff edge. “We kept your room just the way you left it. Ready and waiting for your family reunion. We’re going to kill you again, and again, and again, and again, and…” She punctuates her every word with another step forward, and he steps back in turn. As his heels hit the edge, her smile turns sharkish.

Between the cliff and Lola, the decision is easy. He lets himself fall.

He doesn’t hear Lola’s outraged shriek, doesn’t remember landing, doesn’t linger long in the snowdrift before hauling himself back towards civilisation. He doesn’t think about the creak and shift of his ribcage realigning, but he does worry about the deep tracks he leaves in the snow behind him.

He takes a new name, and heads to Arizona.

“You can’t die.” Andrew’s tone is flat, yet still somehow still laced with disdain.

“I said you wouldn’t believe me.” Neil glances over to Wymack, who is watching with his arms crossed, understanding nothing of the German passing between them.

“I never said I didn’t believe you. It would be a stupid lie to tell, even by your standards.”

“So you do believe me.”

“I never said that, either.”

“There’s one way to know for sure.”

Andrew smiles ghoulishly. “I promised coach I wouldn’t spill blood on his carpet.”

“If you can’t figure out how to kill me without spilling any blood then you’re not as good as I thought you were.”

Andrew’s eyes flick over Neil, as though mapping out points of vulnerability, or perhaps looking for something else he missed. “We’ll see.”

Neil waits for Andrew to test his truth, but the night never comes.

A toy that never breaks, Riko calls him, when he uncovers Neil’s secret. His delight drips from his lips like saliva. Buried in the nest, he takes his knives to Neil again, and again, and again, and-

Neil doesn’t die.

With the marks of Christmas still fresh on their skin, Andrew takes him to the roof, eyes roaming critically over Neil’s recoloured hair and naked eyes. He drags Neil over to the edge by his collar, and Neil wonders if Andrew has finally decided to kill him. It’s a long drop to the concrete below, and the horrified churn of Neil’s stomach isn’t lessened by the knowledge that his body will knit his broken bones back together afterwards.

“You’re awfully nervous for a man with nothing to fear.” Andrew has Neil in one hand, his cigarette in the other. One moment of inattention and either could be sent tumbling over the roof’s edge. Neil’s heart hammers so frantically that he’s sure Andrew must feel it through the hand bunched in his shirt, stuttering nervously like the beating wings of a sparrow. The frailty is an illusion; Neil has yet to meet anything that will stop it powering on, dragging him through the worst the world has to offer him.

“You and I know there’s far more to fear in this world than death.”

Andrew makes a noise several shades too derisive to count as laughter. “And what do you fear?”

Neil thinks of a dark, musty room, and the steady drip of blood on tiles. “Eternity.”

Andrew’s hand releases Neil’s shirt to lie flat against his chest, and for a moment Neil is sure that Andrew is finally going to push him over. He studies Neil with eyes that burn amber against the brisk winter sky, and the moment stretches into forever between them. Not the kind of forever that Neil fears – an eternity spent in the dark being broken and broken and broken is the kind that haunts him at night, but this electrifying moment of uncertainty, he could… tolerate.

Andrew’s hand is warm enough that Neil misses the heat when he withdraws it. Neil tilts forward, although whether he’s following Andrew or escaping the drop behind him he can’t say. Andrew doesn’t acknowledge the impulse as he flicks his cigarette butt off the roof, but his eyes don’t leave Neil’s face.

“Just because you can’t die,” Andrew says, words clipped with a tension Neil can’t decipher, “doesn’t mean you have nothing to lose.”

“I know.” It’s a new truth that burns like acid in his chest, painful as it is terrifying. “I went to the nest because I have something I can’t lose.”

Andrew’s fingers twitch. Maybe he regrets throwing his cigarette off the roof. Maybe he regrets not throwing Neil off after it. “Get out of my sight.”

Neil leaves, heart still beating a frantic pace as though he left it up on the roof edge with Andrew.

He used to believe that it wasn’t the world that was cruel, but the people in it. But people – as far as Neil knows – are not responsible for the power that drags him back to life over and over. For a man who spent the best part of his life on the run, immortality should be a blessing; an immunity to the sticky end that was guaranteed to come to him at his father’s hand. Instead, Neil’s fears have multiplied a hundredfold. At least before, he had been guaranteed some kind of release, no matter how slow and painful the means. Now he fears a lifetime spent in a dark basement, a body pulling itself back together only to be torn apart once more, like Prometheus chained to his rock, rip, repair, repeat.

He wonders what his mother, who he can only picture clawing towards him across the blood-stained tiles of his father’s basement, would have thought of it all. A woman who sacrificed a true life in favour of survival, who put herself through the unimaginable just to keep Neil alive, would perhaps have appreciated Neil’s curse more than he ever could. Maybe it was her sheer determination that landed Neil in this mess, bending the laws of reality itself from beyond the grave just to keep her son’s heart beating. For a moment, Neil is so overcome with hatred that he can barely breathe for it. It’s only now, with his Foxes, that he understands the difference between surviving and living, and if he had any real choice in the matter he would take the latter without hesitation.

Surviving is scraping himself off a grey tile floor and losing himself along stretches of highway that tangle into forever. Living is the weight of Andrew’s body pinning him to the floor as he takes Neil apart again and again and again and-

Andrew says, “stay,” and Neil pictures another kind of forever.

Three. Two. One. Zero.

There was nothing of Neil that needed protecting, that could be protected in any way that wasn’t covered by his curse, and yet Andrew had insisted all the same. Give your back to me.

With Nathan’s men watching the door and Lola’s voice still hissing in his mind, Neil looks at his Foxes and makes the only choice he can. He gives them his forever.

Thank you. You were amazing.

The gun digs into his spine as the team heads out, the threat dragging Neil’s attention away from the riot roaring to life around them. Still, the bullet comes as a surprise.

Of course, the only way to guarantee there isn’t a search is to make sure nobody thinks there’s anything to search for.

The sound registers before the pain does, earth-shatteringly loud even in the chaos of the riot. Neil’s ears scream with the aftershock, but the twist of the bullet inside him tears his attention elsewhere.

Muscles rip and bones shatter and organs burst as the bullet grinds through Neil’s body, and oh, he liked this jacket. Red bleeds through the orange of Neil’s windbreaker, and if he had to guess he would say that the bullet had gone right through the o in Josten.

The crowd screams and ripples around him, a blur of faces that could be Foxes or could be strangers for all Neil’s flickering vision can tell, and men dressed like paramedics seize him by the arms and drag him to a waiting van.

In his last, fleeting moments of consciousness he looks for Andrew.

Then the doors shut, and everything goes black.

He comes around with a bullet rattling around in his ribcage. Coughing the bullet up isn’t as unpleasant as it was being shot by it, but still it scratches Neil’s insides like sandpaper. Between retches he runs through curses in every language he can think of.

Finally, he forces the slug back up his throat and spits, watching as it clatters across the grey tiles.

Grey tiles.

Gr-

The realisation feels like falling off a cliff, dizzying, disorientating, and with the certainty of a rough landing awaiting him at the bottom.

“Rise and shine, kiddo.” He would recognise Lola’s voice anywhere. It seeps into his ears like blood, blocking everything else out.

“My teammates-” Neil stutters.

“Saw you die. Don’t worry, they won’t be looking for you. Well, only in the morgues. They won’t find your body, of course, but maybe we could snip a few pieces of you off for them to stumble upon. I’m feeling generous.” She trails a painted fingernail down Neil’s torso as though following an invisible dotted line. “Your immortality frustrated us at first, you know. But now we’ve all had time to reflect on it, and you know what we’ve seen?” She leans in close, and Neil tries not to breathe in as her perfume drowns him. “Potential.”

Neil yanks at his arms, desperate to put anything between himself and Lola, but the rattle of handcuffs at his back is predictable as it is devastating. The cuffs around his ankles are an unexpected addition to the ensemble. He tries for a kick, but she surges forward, pinning his legs easily with the weight of her body.

His time in the nest – what he can remember of it – was a nightmare of knives and exy and Riko’s smile. But Riko was, when it came down to it, an amateur. He knew how to hurt, but he didn’t know how to destroy, didn’t know the ins and outs of a body like his father’s people did, didn’t know where to draw the line that would keep a victim hovering between awake and unconscious, to keep them suffering that little bit longer. Riko was a bully, but he wasn’t a professional.

Neil survived by clinging to a few things – his foxes, exy, his promises to Andrew – but also to the knowledge that he had survived worse. Riko was a nightmare, it was true, but he was no butcher.

They leave him there to stew in the dark. With a lifetime to wait and their tracks well and truly covered, they have no need to hurry. The air that feeds into the basement through an array of soundproofed ducts is stale and faintly ashy. Without windows, he has no way of gaging the passage of time. The room isn’t just dark, it’s a void, and as time melts Neil’s eyes start picking out patterns from thin air, shapes and shadows that slide around him. He thinks of the bitter January nights spent on the tower roof with Andrew, the glistening stars above and the glow of Palmetto below. He had lived each of those moments with the knowledge of how brutally it would all be ripped away from him, had known to savour the hum of the city and the sparkling sky and Andrew’s lips on his, but all the same he longs for it all just once more. The longing is such a persistent, unhealing pain in his chest that he wonders if it might be what finally kills him.

No such luck.

When the lights flick back on at last, it has been so long that the fluorescent bulbs all but blind him. Neil wants to be on guard against what’s coming, but reflexes force his head into the crook of his shoulder until his eyes can adjust. When he finally forces them open, he wishes he hadn’t, nausea rolling over him as his father’s distinctive outline comes into focus.

He speaks, probably, but nothing penetrates Neil’s terror. He’s five years younger, watching Lola drag his mother’s body away in pieces, promising she’ll be back for him next. Trying to connect the bloodstained hands of his mother’s corpse to the ones that first showed him how to tie his shoelaces, that sewed up his wounds with dental floss and whisky, that massaged hair die into his scalp and broke three of his ribs for kissing a girl…

He was too busy watching the patterns his mother’s blood made on the floor to notice the scars on his face and arms slowly seal themselves over. He did notice his father’s approach, freshly-polished axe glinting at his side.

Past and present blur into one. The first time, his father was restrained, savouring every drop of Neil’s blood as it dribbled onto the tiles. Then came the confusion as wounds sealed themselves over, then anger, cutting and cutting and cutting until Neil couldn’t even remember his own name. Both of them staring as his body knitted itself back together.

The sentence “passed out from the pain” was one that had always irritated Neil. People don’t pass out from pain. They pass out from blood loss, or lack of oxygen, or because of whatever is causing them the pain. There is, however, no simple pain threshold after which the human mind will shut itself off regardless. Pain is not a trip switch. It might shut down the mind, but the body powers on. His body always powers on, and trained hands could hold him on the knife-edge between conscious and not for a long, long time without sacrificing an inch of his pain.

This time, the butcher has no need to hold back. The axe swings, and Nathaniel screams.

He screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams and screams until he can’t scream anymore.

And still he powers on.

Time passes. The lights flicker on. The lights flicker off. Light is terror, because it comes with pain, but not knowing what might creep in the shadows is its own kind of nightmare. Sometimes it’s his mother, clawing through a pool of her blood. Sometimes it’s Riko, racquet in hand, the Raven’s victory march roaring at his back as though a stadium is cheering him on. Sometimes it’s Andrew, blood running down his face, laughing faintly as drugs twist his mind into knots.

Lola likes to visit him in the dark, or he thinks she does. Maybe it’s just his own broken mind turning on him. Her disembodied voice puts words to the desperation clawing at the base of his skull. Forever, forever, forever.

Nathaniel forgets the stars. It’s easier than longing for them.

One day, the lights click on, their low buzz enough by now to rouse Nathaniel immediately from sleep. But it is not his father, nor any of his men, who enter.

Nathaniel stares vacantly at the police uniform.

The cop leans against the wall with one hand, makes a faint choking sound. “We got a body down here.”

Do we? Nathaniel wonders.

There are more footsteps, more noises, the door opening and shutting. Neil doesn’t do anything until a hand touches his shoulder, and he jerks back into himself with a shout. Several people scream as Nathaniel wrenches himself away from the touch. The handcuffs bite into the torn flesh of his wrists and for a few minutes everything is a rush of movement and panic.

Eventually, a woman approaches with a pair of plyers in hand. Nathaniel’s vocal cords haven’t healed enough to scream, but the noise he makes seems to get his point across. Gently, without touching him, she twists the chain of the cuffs around his ankles until it snaps, and waits for him to still before repeating the action on his wrists. His arms tumble numbly forward, and Nathaniel slumps for the first time in… he doesn’t know.

“Nathan,” he says, voice like sand in his throat.

The officer glances to her colleague. “Dead.”

It takes Nathaniel a moment to recognise the sound that escapes him as laughter.

He wants to tell them that he can walk, but his throat has done all it can for him, and he doubts they’d believe him anyway. A stretcher comes, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in the upstairs mirror, he starts laughing all over again.

Then they pass through the oak double doors and down the drive towards the waiting ambulance, but the rest of the world fades to a faint mess of colours as Nathaniel stares, stares, stares at the burning blue sky, so bright that he thinks his eyes are going to melt, but he won’t look away.

He breathes.

When he next comes around, the world is soft and blurry, like he’s wearing glasses that don’t belong to him.

“Were you disqualified?” Nathaniel croaks.

There’s a huff of air from beside him. “Jesus, kid.”

His throat hurts too much to repeat the question, so Nathaniel looks pleadingly in what he guesses is Wymack’s direction until he gets his answer.

“We’re playing the Ravens on Saturday,” Wymack answers at last. “Neil-”*

He’s already asleep again, a smile pulling at his lips so painfully that he thinks he might have torn something in the effort.

The hospital doesn’t want to let him go, and neither does the FBI, but in the end neither can find a good enough reason to hold him. They took Nathan in a bust which turned violent, leaving his most of his men dead. The promise of a reunion with the Foxes on the horizon, Nathaniel fidgets with his hair in the bathroom mirror as though taming it to his liking will distract from the rest of him. He can heal himself of anything, but the scars always remained, and there are so many that Nathaniel barely recognises his own reflection. While he’s worried about the foxes’ reactions, more than anything, he’s grateful. There isn’t a hint of his father left in his appearance.

And, at last, he is returned to his Foxes.

The deathly quiet of the room is broken by a whispered, “Neil?”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he says by way of answer.

“It is him,” Nicky confirms, a little hysterically. Matt makes a pained noise and reaches for Nathaniel’s face, and he can’t help but flinch away from the contact. Matt drops his hand, expression crumbling.

“No,” says Allison sharply. Renee tries to place a hand on her arm, but she throws it off. “No. I’m calling bullshit. We saw you get shot. We saw you die.”

“Where’s Andrew?” He knows the goalkeeper has to be okay, the Foxes could never have made it to the finals without him, but still he needs to see. Allison makes a frustrated noise, so he looks to Renee instead.

“The police just wanted to go over a few more things with him.”

“Like how he beat them at their own job,” Aaron adds flatly. “And how he knew that their dead man wasn’t dead after all.”

Nathaniel ignored the accusation in his tone. “He went to the police?”

“He dragged Kevin in by the neck and told him to say whatever it took to set them after the butcher.”

Nathaniel’s eyes snap to Kevin. “What did you-?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kevin replies with a kind of certainty Nathaniel has never heard from him before. “It worked.” His eyes linger on Nathaniel’s cheekbone, tracing out what remains of his tattoo. “It worked,” he repeats quietly, as though still convincing himself of the fact.

Nathaniel considers dropping into French to scold Kevin for putting himself in the line of fire, but there’s nothing he can say that Kevin doesn’t already know. After all, Nathaniel knows better than anyone how faint the world’s dangers seem with Andrew at one’s back.

He turns to Wymack. “Take me to him.”

“Neil, you need to rest,” says Abby. “You need your injuries checked, you need-”

“I need Andrew.” Nathaniel runs a hand over his face, feeling the new ridges and bumps drag against his fingertips. “Look at me. Really look. These aren’t injuries, they’re scars.”

“Old scars,” says Dan faintly. “But it doesn’t make sense, Neil-”

“You deserve answers. All of you do. But first, I need to see Andrew.”

Reluctantly, the Foxes agree. They seem unwilling to let Nathaniel out of their sight, however momentarily. He ducks back from their open arms, his heart tipping around in his chest like a boat in a stormy sea, overwhelmed by their affection but unable to reciprocate. Every time hands twitch in his direction, his vision blackens and his body tenses, preparing for a new wave of pain. His injuries may have healed themselves, but each brush of contact revives the sensations that scratch through his skin like phantom fingernails.

Wymack drops Nathaniel at his apartment before heading off to collect Andrew, silencing Nathaniel’s protests with a heavy look. He may have a point – the last place Nathaniel wants to do this is a crowded police precinct.

Nathaniel’s legs buckle as soon as Wymack shuts the door behind him, but luckily his couch is there to catch him.

He is woken by the door tearing open.

Andrew is kneeling before him in an instant, but somehow he knows – knows – not to touch. Arms held stiffly at his sides, he looks his fill, cataloguing every new cut and bruise with his all-consuming gaze. It melts something stiff and painful in Nathaniel’s soul, and he lets himself soften under Andrew’s gaze, spine curving as he melts back into the couch.

For the first time in days, weeks, months, forever – he feels safe.

Andrew whispers his name, and it is his once more.

Physical contact is slow to return to Neil, coming in fits and starts as he gives himself back to the steady care of Andrew’s hands. The dark of night is terrifying, but the court’s glaring artificial lights are worse, and it takes a long time for him to feel comfortable under anything but the gentle amber of sunset.

He learns to love the weight of Andrew’s hands pinning his scarred wrists to the pillow, loves the drag of Andrew’s callouses against the ridges of his healing skin.

The Foxes, to Neil’s eternal surprise and gratitude, accept his truth for what it is. He can tell from the sad glances most of them flit between him and Andrew that they have worries that they aren’t intrusive enough to voice, worries about their future. Neil doesn’t know if he can ever die, doesn’t even know if he can age. He may have an eternity, but Andrew doesn’t, and the prospect of a forever without him is a new kind of horror that jerks him awake in the night as frequently as any of his most violent nightmares.

Instead of acknowledging the time-bomb between them, Neil presses his lips to the pale freckle hidden behind Andrew’s ear and whispers, “stay.”

He’s back on court in time for them to face the Ravens, and under the glow of stadium lights he feels all but on fire. The final timer screams, and Neil falls to his knees, the world hazing over as the adrenaline of their victory pounds through him.

He can only watch with a detached kind of fascination as Riko’s racquet whistles down in the direction of his head. He doesn’t bother to brace himself for pain, doesn’t bother closing his eyes, knows that nothing he can say or do will make the pain any less consuming. He feels only a flash of regret that his family will have to witness something so undoubtedly unpleasant.

There’s a sick thud as racquet connects with body, but the pain never comes. Neil blinks, and his world falls out from under him as he sees who was on the receiving end of the strike.

The racquet hits the floor a moment before Andrew does. Both are dripping with blood.

The world blurs into a rush of blood and noise, but this time it isn’t Neil’s blood, but he can feel the impact regardless, screaming through him like a bullet but worse, and there are hands and faces and they want to separate them, no, no, never again, and Neil hooks a finger into Andrew’s collar and holds it like a lifeline even if he isn’t sure who it’s keeping alive, and then there’s the rumble of an ambulance and the fragile blip of machinery-

And then quiet.

Alone in a hospital room, Neil finds the tangle of something deep in his chest and unravels it, unspooling the source of his impossible power like gossamer thread, so thin and fragile between his fingers for all it has endured, and although he had never wanted it he had never had anywhere else to keep it but within himself, but not anymore, and he weaves and weaves and weaves and finally, finally, finally Andrew opens his eyes.

He touches his hand to where the pain should be, before turning heavy eyes on Neil. “What did you do?”

“Why?” Neil says, because it’s the only syllable he has been able to string together since Riko’s racquet hit its mark. “You knew I could have taken it. You knew he couldn’t hurt me.”

“You can’t die. You can still be hurt.”

“Who cares?”

Andrew’s eyes darken with such fury that the rabbit part of Neil’s mind twitches instinctively. A moment later Andrew’s usual blank expression seals itself back over, and the anger is swallowed.

“I made you a promise,” he says at last.

Half-listening, Neil slips one of the knives from Andrew’s armbands and slides the blade across his palm. They watch as blood wells up along the thin slit and pools in Neil’s callouses. The wound stays.

“That’s new,” Neil says faintly. Andrew retrieves his blade and draws it across his own palm.

Neil doesn’t realise how tightly he’s gripping the sheets of Andrew’s bed until Andrew nudges his hand. “You’re getting blood everywhere.”

“So are you.”

Andrew turns his hand over, and slowly they trace each other’s wounds, fresh and painful and wonderfully mortal. Neil can’t feel a hint of the energy that kept him alive for so long, but when his blood mixes with Andrew’s there’s something new, an intricate tangle of something holding them together.

It’s beautiful and terrible, bone-achingly addictive, and when Andrew cups Neil’s head and pulls him in it’s all he can taste, strong and fragile all at once, sweet and tingling against his lips.

They tie themselves together, and they never let go.

#all for the game #andreil #the foxhole court #aftg #tfc #my fic #blood tw #violence tw #gore tw

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marshmallowprotection · 4 years ago

Text

Calluna

Pairing: Saeran Choi/Reader

Fairytale AU.

Description:

The Prince has been bound to the castle walls, and he’s never been able to leave from it. The only place that he has to escape to are the books that he reads and the garden that he’s allowed to venture into every evening. But, what happens when he encounters someone that has eyes that know a world unlike his own?

Inspired by a drawing by @sensetenou

Chapter Index

Chapter Eleven

Darkness.

All you knew was the darkness. There was no trace of light in the dungeon and nobody to hear you scream, and even if they did, they wouldn’t care. You had been used and tricked by Red Hood. He threw you under the carriage and let you take the fall for his crimes.

How anyone believed him, you had no idea. He just pretended to be some sort of knight for justice at the queen’s side, and since Red Hood was only known by the mask, it had been far too easy to cast his blame onto someone else. You dug your nails into the palms of your hands. You knew that you could never trust that man. But, you never thought he would do something like this.

You knew he would make good on his death threats, but this?

A pitiful sob escaped your throat. It didn’t make any sense. How had he made a deal with the queen and what was their plan? You knew that the queen wasn’t innocent and that she had made the people suffer far too much over the years. Red Hood must have found something that she wanted, or maybe they both were after the same goal?

No matter how you wracked your brain for an answer, you could find nothing.

“No… no… no…! This is a mistake!”

You wouldn’t dare close your eyes for more than a minute. Every time that you did, your vision would become overwhelmed with the look of betrayal and hatred in Ray’s eyes. He looked at you like you had shattered his world and in many ways, you had. You had tried to protect him by lying and taking that crown but had you had to do that?

Could you have told him the threat against your life? Would he have believed you? Would you have been able to give up information on Red Hood to him? You weren’t sure. You had always wanted to take the brunt of the pain for yourself due to your pride, and you had been so caught up in trying to ensure that Ray lived—

That you never even considered that maybe there could have been another option. If Ray bore the crown, that would have protected you from the queen’s wrath. He could have done everything to stop Red Hood from controlling you or forcing you to take the knife by the hand. Yet, you knew that no amount of pretending things could be different would fix it.

The second the crown was on his head, something changed in his eyes. He became venomous and very spiteful, his gentle eyes gazing at you with malice.

It was like you didn’t even know him. You had never seen that look in his eyes, nor did you think that Ray would be capable of such anger and venom. Then again, you had broken his trust and stomped on it for all he knew so he had every right to be upset with you. However, the way that he looked at you without even caring what your punishment would be may your blood curdled.

Was this all that you would ever know? Would you die without showing Ray the sea? Would you die knowing that you had been played for a fool?? Would you die with a stain on your past that would forever line the pages of people’s memory? Would you become the demon in a bedtime story to make a child behave?

You knew that you were going to die, that was almost a given with the bounty on Red Hood’s head all these years. But, you could only pray now that it was a swift death without pain. Maybe in your next life, you would be able to be happy with Ray and show him the world that made him look so happy to learn about, but it seemed as though cruel fate would keep you apart.

His anguished eyes would forever haunt you.

Your cries died down after some time, your heart accepting that no one was going to come to your rescue to break you free. They were all scared of Red Hood, and what he said would happen would be the very thing to happen. You didn’t know his end plan but you did know that he was going to hurt everyone to get what he wanted.

You clutched your hands together, praying silently to a God that you hardly spoke to, hoping and wishing that Ray, at the very least, would be okay. You had accepted that he might hate you after tonight but now you knew that he would hate you till the end of time.

You hadn’t wanted things to turn out like this but Red Hood did. Once again, he sealed your fate because you made the wrong choice.

Time passed, but there was no way of knowing how long you would be there. You pressed your head against the cold stone and waited, waited for something to change or something to happen. It was a long time before you heard the sound of footsteps and alongside that sound came the flicker of a torch-lit with fire.

You didn’t bother lifting your head, even as a voice spoke up. “Excuse me, are you alright?”

“What does it matter?” you retorted. “I’m already destined to face punishment. It matters not if I’m okay or not. If you’ve come to take me away, then do it.”

Silence.

Footsteps once again and a warm flame moved closer to your body, the dampness of the cold dungeon hit you all at once. You lifted your head and stared into mint eyes, mint eyes that felt like you had seen once before but couldn’t place the memory. “I don’t work for the queen,” he explained. “I’ve come to get you out of here before it’s too late.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“...Your friend, Hyun, he’s very worried about you,” he said, quietly. “He wants to get you out of here before it’s too late.”

Your stomach sank. Of course, Zen had found out about what happened to you. You knew that he wanted to protect you from being hurt but this was beyond even his power, and there was no way that he could help you.

This castle was heavily guarded and even you had a hard time evading guards and now they were just waiting for someone to make a false move.

Even if you ran, you’d be caught.

Your wings had been clipped and frayed by the very people that you had faith in.

“It’s no use,” you said. “I appreciate that you came this far on my account, sir, but there’s no way that you can get me out of here before the morning. I’ll be lucky if they let me live that long.”

“You’re not Red Hood,” he continued, minding the dread in your voice and picking his words with great care. “You shouldn’t even be facing punishment right now. That man sold you out for his own gain.”

That made you snap to attention. Your fingers gripped the bar of the cell that you resided in, as you stared at this man with a face that you couldn’t discern. His features were blurred by the hood he was wearing, or maybe the darkness, you weren’t sure. All you knew was his eyes. “Wait, wait, wait,” you stopped him. “How do you know who Red Hood is?”

“It’s a long story,” he told you, sincerely, sinking to his knees to sit with you. “I’m not sure that you would believe me given the detail of events that have occurred in the past ten years. But, yes, I do know his identity and while I do not know what he wishes to gain here, he used you to get what he wanted and that was the queen.”

You had no reason to believe this man at all, but you were desperate and he seemingly believed that you weren’t a guilty party. You had nobody else in the world on your side at the moment that could speak to you, so you wanted to listen and to learn what this man had to say. It might be enough to help you save Ray, if not yourself.

“Surely the queen knows this,” you shook your head, incredulous. “She’s no saint and she’s not easily tricked… not as far as I can tell given the number of people disappearing nightly after they dare speak ill-will of her name.”

The man frowned and gazed down at the ground. “You… you would be right about that. The queen has a plan under her belt right now and I imagine with Red Hood’s powers at her disposal, it’s only cemented her vision.”

You tried to lean closer, to get a better look at this stranger that seemingly knew everything that you needed to know. “Please, sir, what does she want? I’m worried about Ray. I don’t want him to get hurt because those two are planning something nefarious. He may hate me now but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want him to be safe and happy. Please.”

“I suppose… I suppose you’re due that much, Sparrow,” he said as if he knew that he couldn’t hold in his secret any longer from the world. “I’ve been bearing this knowledge for so long on my own and I’ve not made any progress on my own to stop it. I… I’ve seen that you care deeply for him, and I know that your heart is true.”

The fact that you had been willing to cry and beg had been enough to show the world that you were willing to submit your pride. You starred at him as he began to explain his story.

“The crown that he wears is imbued with dark magic,” he explained. “The stones that are engraved into the metal are from a cavern deep in the mountains only known to the greatest users of magic in all the land. The people of this kingdom have long used the stone to give power to the crown. For a long time, rulers of this country would have their magician imbue loyalty and compulsion into the crown so that the wearer would be able to control the masses.”

Magic?

“There is no greater power than these stones, and when someone with a vast amount of power can channel their power into the stone, they can enforce anything they want. The queen wants to use the power of the royal stones to force Ray to follow her plans with an iron fist. She wants him to be the puppet king for her brewing armies. The people that go missing late at night are drafted into her army, and I’m afraid her reach has staggering numbers.”

Suddenly, it was starting to make sense. How people just went missing and everyone didn’t dare to fight back against it. Everyone knew that something was wrong but they could only quietly think that it could be the queen. If anyone said it aloud, they would be taken away. If she had magic controlling everyone, then they could have been under her spell without even knowing it.

Anyone in the village could have been compromised.

Ever since you had learned that magic existed, it seemed to be used to destroy everyone that you loved and cared about. You wanted nothing more than to shatter every trace of magic that you had ever seen to free Ray from its hold and anyone else that was suffering against their will.

“When she leaves the castle and travels to other lands, she is steadily stealing from their numbers and casting blame onto Red Hood every time for the sake of convenience. I imagine he heard of what she was doing and decided to work with her to get what they work. Or, perhaps he knows of the stones’ power and wants it for himself. I fear I do not know what it is he wants but he cannot be allowed to continue his terror alongside the queen.”

You swallowed, ignoring the pit that was growing in your stomach. “And, what does she plan to do with this army, sir?”

His expression darkened as if clouded by a silent fear that even he didn’t want to breathe to life in case it truly happened. His fear was real. You knew that from the way his hands trembled against the torch he held close to his side.

His voice dropped to a whisper, “She wishes to lay claim to all lands in our continent with whatever means necessary.”

There was nothing you could do but breathe in deeply. For some reason, that didn’t surprise you in the slightest. If the queen was willing to use her son to destroy everything for her gain and was so willing to let everyone hate him instead of her, well, taking over everything was nothing to laugh at. To think that the queen not only held the power of the throne but magic as well.

It was disgusting.

Did greed ever cease?

Would you ever find someone that didn’t long to own everything and everyone? You knew that you had with Ray, but he was trapped underneath a spell that would make him obey anything that she’d ask of him. His anger was true and tried. It would be impossible to reason with him if the crown was not removed from his head.

Yet, you were trapped in this dungeon and you would never be able to do such a thing to save him from this horrible fate. This wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to make people happy, not destroy their last shred of hope. If he knew what he was doing he would be devastated. Even as you knew your fate was set and doomed, you couldn’t help but wish he could be better.

“Wait, that still doesn’t explain how you know he’s the real Red Hood and I’m not,” you stared at him, waiting for his answer. “Who are you? You can’t expect me to take all of this in and not know who you are in return.”

The strange pulled the head from his head and you narrowed your eyes as you tried to discern his features. For some reason, you couldn’t commit any of it to memory. Even as you were seeing him in person. It was like something was stopping you from remembering or knowing what he truly looked like.

And then, it hit you, it hit you like that time you had fallen from a hill trying to get away from a group of guards angry that you had taken from their boss. His mint eyes were the same ones that you had seen in the painting.

The painting of the royal family, the painting that held a vision of Ray’s father that made you hesitate in the throne room.

That could only mean one thing.

“King… Jihyun…?”

His eyes held a great deal of sadness to them. But, he nodded, confirming the sinking suspicion in your loins. “I’m afraid so. Ray is not the only victim of her magic. She also cursed me long ago and I was too naive to see it coming. Rather, I ignored all the warnings when I knew I should have done something and it is my blame alone that the people suffer.”

That made you shudder in fear. If she was willing to curse the king and make everyone believe that he was dead, then what wasn’t she willing to do? If she would use her family as pawns to get what she’d always wanted, then she would have no problem killing you or anything that tried to get in the way of her dreams.

“How are you alive…?” you whispered, reaching out between the bars to brush against the fabric of his cloth to ensure that you weren’t staring at a ghost or a vision. He was real. The king was alive and still breathing in front of you, underneath some kind of curse that he couldn’t defeat on his own. Much as his son.

“I’m afraid that’s an even longer story,” he admitted. “And, I don’t have enough time to tell you all of the details. She grew angry with me because I wouldn’t agree with her way of thinking and the more that I pushed for my plans to allow the people to prosper instead of us, she turned against me and used her black magic to place a curse on me. Now nobody can remember my face, and no one can see me as who I am. She removed all my power from me and took it for herself. Now, I fear that she’s going to use Ray until he’s no longer useful for her cause as well. I cannot allow that to happen. He’s already in grave danger. He always has been.”

And he couldn’t escape from it.

He was cursed to stay within these walls no matter what happened. So, even if he could fight back, he would be trapped with the queen forever. No way you looked at it was going to help you get out of this mess, and now that you knew that you were going against magic and Red Hood, it felt like you had no hope at all. Even with the king here.

It wasn’t like Jihyun had power, either.

He was just as helpless as you were. Why was he telling you all of this anyway? Even if he let you escape, it was obvious that you could never return to this place if you got out. Nobody would believe you or come to your aid, even with the sympathy of Zen, you knew that his power was not going to be enough to help you.

The most that Zen could do would be to send you on a boat to another country.

You put two and two together, “Because of the curse that was placed on him when he was a child, right?”

Jihyun looked away from you… almost as if there were more to the story than that. He opened his mouth to respond, but the sound of heavy boots came from the stairwell. He immediately put out the fire and pulled his hood back over his head, ducking into the darkest corner of the room to hide from view. Even if nobody knew his face—

He clearly couldn’t afford to be caught.

His must have had some kind of plan to save Ray, otherwise, he wouldn’t have come to the trouble of finding you. You weren’t sure how much he knew about you or how he knew Red Hood, but you’d known from the look in his eyes that he hadn’t been lying to you. You were a liar, you had been raised around the biggest liars known to man.

You knew one when you saw them.

Jihyun Kim was no liar.

The footsteps stopped and you were forced to lift your head and stare up at a guard. He grinned at you with a sadistic glee in his eyes, “Alright, you, the king has demanded your presence. Lucky you, though, he hasn’t decided what punishment you’ll face for your crimes yet. Bloody Red Hood, I bet you know what’s coming for you, and I’m going to love watching it.”

You bit your tongue to stop yourself from saying anything. There was no point in fighting their words right now. Red Hood hurt so many people and now you would have the eyes of everyone that he had ever used or hurt looking to you for a bloodbath.

“...”

He opened your cell and you were dragged away by the ones that had accompanied him, away from the king and any answers that you had.

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victorsandvanquishers · 4 years ago

Note

Body guard for Secre and Lumiere..., the reincarnation reunion we deserve.....

Bodyguard is probably the most popular prompt in my inbox, so I’ve decided to combine these two requests into one! Thank you to @icewitcher and anon for the requests!

The fic will include romantic!Secre/Lumiere and Parental!Secre and Asta, as well as background!AsuYuno and background!Charmy/Rill, all under the Bodyguard prompt. Happy reading, and don’t forget to watch Bodyguard, starring Kareena and Salman! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

~~~

Time moved differently with Secre Swallowtail. She hadn't physically aged after being cursed into a antibird, but once she'd regained her body, the crow's feet came as naturally as the longer hair. She still had the ability to transform into an antibird, and had, after retiring from the Black Bulls and leaving Clover Kingdom, chosen to remain a bird for small periods of time. It was easier to travel in her inhuman form. She could eat from the land, and contemplate in privacy.

There were downsides, of course. If she spent too long as an antibird, returning to her human form could mean spending a full day chopping off the overgrown locks, clipping her nails, and trimming the rest of her body hair. Even though she looked largely the same as she did six hundred years ago, the cells in her body continued to regenerate a bounty of beautiful black hair, and glowing skin.

But Secre disliked long hair, and she disliked pretending even more, so she chopped, clipped, and trimmed the years away.

She'd retired from the Black Bulls seven years after the invasion of the Spade Kingdom, and left Clover Kingdom after Asta died peacefully in his sleep at the tender age of ninety-four. The Spade boy he'd married decades earlier had passed away the year before, and Secre had known that it was only time before Asta went to sleep one night and didn't wake up again. The wails from his grown children began while Secre laid flowers on the ageless skull still standing on the outskirts of the village. She, of course, had known he'd passed the night before, but she didn't think it appropriate to wake the whole house at three in the morning just for that. Asta would have hated it.

He was laid to rest next to his husband, the Spade boy who never took up his princely crown, a boy who became a man, and then an old man who passed away from a heart attack in the middle of game of chess Asta was losing miserably.

Asta had cried about the boy being dramatic until the very end, and the wind spirit wept with him, wailing and begging for her Yuno to come back, to take the stinky shorty instead, and Asta cried with her because the Spade boy had meant everything to them, had meant everything to Asta.

She left identical white flowers on all three graves before she flew away – the bleached skull that still stood sentry after all these centuries, and the two graves of the two orphans who went on to become the greatest leaders Clover Kingdom had ever seen.

In a way, Lumiere hadn't been wrong. The world was cruel, even unbearable at times, but it still had its merits.

She met new people along the way, ones who sometimes asked too many questions, and some who didn't even say hello, merely passed her a plate of food and turned their attention back to their book, their own food, and once, a window looking out towards a bleached sky and golden fields. It was the kind of peace Secre hadn't ever experienced before, the peace of anonymity, of mutual respect for life, of living and letting live.

With Asta, there had never been a moment of silence. Secre was an observer more than she was a participant. Zagred had thought her foolish for that, and had been sealed away for his arrogance. She was a watcher, a recorder, someone who existed on the fringes of a memory that had long since faded away.

She was a hateful woman, too. No god of any religion would ever forgive her for making the decision to use a poor, magicless child for her own ends. She'd manipulated his despair and his longing, and she'd used it to her advantage. She'd used Asta – and she'd paid for it by losing Lumiere forever.

Secre had made many mistakes in her life, but never one as egregious as that one. That's why she had to atone – that's why she had to stay by his side until he'd perished peacefully.

She still bled, even if the blood was viscous black instead of smooth red. Lumiere had forgiven her for her transgressions, of course, but Lumiere forgave everything, even the genocide of his own brother-in-law's tribe, because Lumiere was barely a person even when he was alive. He'd always been god-like in her eyes, and perhaps that's why she'd been punished, because Lumiere had been human, he'd just been too kind, too dumb, too full of faith for his own good.

And then there was Secre – five hundred years as a bird, and she'd latched onto the first child that reminded her of a dead dream. She wasn't afraid to admit it anymore, of course. She hadn't just chosen Asta because he'd looked useful, but because he'd also looked the way she'd imagined her son would, because Secre was just as bad as Lumiere, had dreamed big dreams, and then lost everything in the process.

A woman who loved a man she couldn't have, and desired to bear children the man would never have given her – that was the unfortunate tragedy of one Secre Swallowtail. Secre had told Yami Sukehiro her story once, and he'd laughed at her, because who the hell cried over spilled milk?

Who, indeed.

Ten years after Asta passed away, she climbed aboard a ship and left the continent.

The decades went by, and her names changed. She continued to chop away at the black locks, and kept her nails trimmed and her wardrobe full of muted colors. She didn't return to the continent until a hundred years had passed, once the dragons had returned and the spirits of the sun and sky had finally awoken, and once the dwarves had returned from the deepest parts of the forests. By the time her wings touched the skies above her home continent, a second moon had appeared in the sky, and the elves of the other continents had deemed her continent safe again.

Kings had come and gone, but the great forest remained a deep green. The skull was still bone bleached white by the sun, but now there were more buildings in Hage, and dwarves who traded pelts for tatoes, and children of mixed heritage who didn't have to live in the forests of the Neutral Zone for fear of persecution.

Asta and Yuno's children's children had born and raised their own children, and now their grandchildren ran the farms, and even the schools, and maybe, just maybe she'd encountered one boy with deep red hair who reminded her a little of the Spade boy who'd sobbed freely on his wedding day to her son, her Asta. Names changed, but maybe souls didn't. Maybe souls always remained, maybe the souls of Asta and Yuno were in every single person inhabiting the bustling village that was no longer a village, maybe even the dwarves who'd emerged from the great forest had felt these souls, the souls of the wizard kings who'd married in front of the whole country and led their kingdom into the future.

“Well, well, well – if it isn't little miss songbird herself.”

Secre turned around to face the demon who hadn't made a sound at Asta's funeral, the demon who now walked freely with its black and white skin, and eyes as bloody red as the rubies that used to adorn Lumiere's crown.

“You're still here.”

“Where else would I be?”

Secre didn't answer him, instead turned back to the human and dwarf children squealing and running around a pen full of clucking chickens, daring each other to pet one of the creatures. She'd never experienced this kind of peace, because she hadn't been raised with love and freedom to breathe. She was born to serve, and serve she did until there was no one left to serve.

“That one,” the Anti-Magic Demon pointed to a short, pretty woman with hair as blue as the sky, “is the dwarf girl's daughter with that crazy human that used to paint pictures of everything. The dwarves can live almost as long as us, you know. The old bat is still around here somewhere, but she mostly stays inside now.”

“What are you still doing here? You got what you wanted, remember?”

The Anti-Magic Demon bristled, but didn't budge. “I'm here cuz I wanna be here – why are you back?”

Secre shrugged. “No reason, seemed like as good a time as any.”

Finally the demon went quiet, and Secre exhaled.

Before she'd left, she'd blessed Asta and Yuno's grandchildren with small kisses on top of their little foreheads. She didn't have much money to her name, but she had Lumiere's jewels, old and dull, but still good enough for a pawn shop or a merchant. She'd left them to Asta and Yuno's children before she'd left, and now that she'd returned, she'd expected them to have already paid for someone's wedding, maybe even a house. Instead, Secre found the jewels encrusted into busts of Lumiere, Asta, Yuno, and herself.

Secre stared at her doppelganger, unblinking.

“Is that yer mumma,” Secre heard a loud, squeaky voice say. Secre ignored the voice, and continued to stare at the busts.

“Oi! Old lady! Don't ignore me!”

Secre turned her head in a flash, because she was still inhuman, still two steps from becoming a demon like the Anti-Magic Demon and Zagred, and she was mad, she was horrible, and she just wanted to be left alone.

But the little boy with fat cheeks and stocky legs had other plans for her.

“Don't ignore me, Old Lady!” He fumed. Secre balked at the feisty little child, barely two feet tall.

“Don't bother the nice lady,” called a pretty voice, and it was a voice Secre hadn't heard in almost two hundred years, so she whipped around to face her demon, the demon impersonating his voice.

“Pappy, the old lady is a ghost!” The boy squealed, half horror and half amazement etched on his face as his father plucked him off the ground and into his arms.

“That's not very nice,” said a short man with thick frames, dusky colored skin, and Lumiere's voice.

“Oh my god,” the man gushed in awe, and Secre was barely five feet tall, but she had at least half a foot on the dwarf man, the man who had Lumiere's voice, and Lumiere's aura, and his beautiful, glowing smile.

“Pappy, ghost!” The little boy complained again, and Secre wished she could just disappear, maybe she should disappear, because the more she stared, the more the little boy looked too much like Asta, was too loud, and there was a dwarf with Lumiere's soul standing in front of her, and Secre had wished she'd stayed away, far away.

“Are you the esteemed Miss Nero?” The man began again. “Oh my god, you are her! They said you'd return, but no one knew when! My students at the school, they play games with the antibirds, pretending one of them is you! It is you! I can't believe it! We thought you'd never come home! Have you met the Sister at the church? We've been waiting for you! It's really you!!!”

And Secre drowned, drowned in the liquid gold eyes, drowned in the the beautiful smile, the beautiful voice of the dwarf who'd inherited Lumiere's soul.

“Well, now you have to stay. Can't sleep with a single man who's just tryna raise his baby in these trying times – if yer gonna taste the forbidden fruit, then commit.”

“Should I be hearing that from you?” Secre snapped back at the demon lounging on a bed of flowers.

“I'm just sayin', little songbird – when you get to my age, you see it all. You want it all, so why not take it?”

“Because they're dead,” Secre concluded. “A moment of weakness doesn't need to turn into a lifetime of regret.”

“Who said you needa regret anything? He loves you, and his kid calls you Ghost Mommy when he thinks you're not listening.”

Secre flinched, because it's true, because she overstayed her welcome, because she gave false hope to a man who's now hopelessly in love with her.

“Don't think of it as use, and be used,” the Anti Magic Demon chuckled harshly, as if reading her mind. “He had a choice too – to choose to ignore you, and to move on with his life, but the minute he saw you, he fell in love. You wanna say no, then say no, but remember – he chose to be with you, and you chose to be with him.”

“Is it them?” Secre whispered.

“Maybe, maybe not. Does it matter?”

“Secre! Secre, are you out there? Dinner's ready!” Called a voice from far away.

“Lumiere couldn't cook for his life,” she whispered hollowly, wiping tears from her cold cheeks.

“And the little brat never disrespected a woman in his life, but the second that little punk saw you, he called you a crusty little ghost. How's that for a reincarnation?”

“Bird Lady, dinner is ready!” The little boy with the fat cheeks and stumpy little legs screeched louder than Asta ever did, and she cried, she cried because she missed her Lumiere, and she missed the magicless little boy she grew to care for like a son.

“See, little songbird,” the Anti-Magic Demon whispered, sliding closer, so close that he was mere inches from her crying face, its own eyes hollow and cold and lonely, “after a while, it doesn't matter anymore. After a while, we die too, and death – it's a cold, lonely affair. You got nothing to lose.”

“Bird lady?” The little boy called hesitantly, staying some feet back, because the Anti-Magic Demon was the village watcher, the wraith that simultaneously protected and scared the living daylights out of the creatures living in Hage.

Secre wiped the tears from her face and climbed to her feet. “I'll be right there,” she called back, and the little boy nodded once before shooting back to the little house they called home.

“You found your home,” Secre surmised.

The Anti-Magic Demon hummed in response, laying back against the flowers, eyes fixed on the twin moons in the sky.

“Home,” Secre repeated to herself as she made her way back to her little house with her two little dwarves.

It seemed she'd finally found one as well.

#Black Clover #secre swallowtail #lumiere silvamillion clover #asta #avafanfics

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paellaplease · 5 years ago

Text

Firebird | Chap.5

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 6 Chapter 7

Have a safe and happy holidays!

Chapter 5: Ideographic Approach

Many questions are asked, and very few answers are given. The Enchanter sees another side of the Pride of Rito Village.

Fire. The world was on fire. Maiya pushed through the crowd of fleeing people, ribbons of smoke filling her lungs and the smell of burnt flesh lingering in the air. A blood moon was in the sky, casting a scarlet glow that mingled with the flames spreading from the burning cottages behind her.

“...ey…hey!”

The frightening sound of wood cracking and creaking met her ears. Unsure as to why, Maiya turned her head to glance at the burning houses. In the front door of one of them, an unknown figure stood at the entrance. They were completely faceless, with features so burnt she couldn’t recognise if they were hylian or not. Slowly, the figure seemed to click back to life, lifting a loaded bow and aiming the arrow for the space between her eyes.

“Ench...er…...leep!”

She flinched just as the arrow was released. The last thing she heard was the sound of wood crashing into the ground and anguished screams of the people around her.

“Lita! Grandma! The Enchanter fell asleep!”

Maiya groaned, rubbing away the small layer of crust from her eyes. She knew she was awake, yet could still smell the stench of smoke. “What?” Her voice was croaky, strained. Something small was pulling at her shirt sleeve, and yelling.

The clatter of objects were heard in the distance, then a familiar voice. “Kaneli!”

Where am I? She cracked her eyes open, alarmed to see that she was on the ground and surrounded by several open books. Must have fallen asleep reading. Sitting up slowly, she propped herself up with her free hand. Minding her stiff neck, she scrubbed her face with one of her hands, and looked up.

A tiny rito with a snowy face stood next to her.

He was covered in wild brown feathers and a mint green poncho. Little tufts of hair stood out on his head, barely held back by several colourful ribbons which all looked as if they were tied in a storm. He wasn’t looking at her, focused on pulling at her arm again with a franticness that made his talons click and slide against the floorboards. Maiya cleared her throat.

The little bird stopped, turning to look at her with wide, shocked eyes. He dropped her arm, and stood back, face betraying his awe. “You’re an Enchanter!” He blurted.

“Uh, yes?” Maiya said, feeling a bit hesitant under the weight of child’s scrutinizing gaze.

She blinked as Kaneli’s face broke out into a sunny smile. Inwardly, she grimaced. Too bright. He stamped his little talons in childish excitement. “Wow! Just like the stories! I always imagined you would be taller. Where’s your sealing hammer?”

“I left it in the forge, but why—”

“And your anvil?”

“Well. Blacksmith’s steel is a bit heavy to carry all the way from Akkala to—”

“And your enchanted weapon?”

Maiya sighed, sleepily reaching for the scabbard at her side. “It’s right—” She stopped, hands patting nothing but air. Frowning, she looked down. “Here?” The ornate scabbard was empty.

Her breath stopped. It was like being doused with freezing cold water. A lightning bolt of clarity ran up her spine, clearing her sleep clouded mind and awakening her to the realisation of one, crucial detail. The dagger was gone.

Wide-eyed, Maiya jolted up, her whole body tilting to the side from the vertigo. She quickly righted herself, ignoring the spinning of the room and whipped around frantically, desperately scanning the room for something sharp and definitely burning. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—

“Over here, ekantada.” Honoka’s voice echoed over her panicked thoughts like a bell in a storm.

She turned. The Elder stood by a long table at the northern end of the room, black safety goggles pulled over her glasses and obscuring her face. The kind older rito looked almost terrifying in the dimmer light, having donned a heavy leather apron and industrial half-sleeves to protect her wings. She was still as a statue, focusing as she appraised a dagger with a critical eye.

It wasn’t just any dagger. It was her dagger. Unsheathed, angry, and exposed to the chilly air.

What was most surprising however, was that instead of burning a hole through the Archivist’s floor, its hilt was held in the parallel jaws of an industrial vice. Maiya couldn't believe it. The clamp’s surface was cracked and sizzling, yet as it fought a losing battle against the red dagger, it remained miraculously intact.

Her first emotion was shock. Then—anger; molten and hot, threatening to bubble up and spill out as she marched towards Honoka, little Kaneli following nervously after her. “What are you doing? That is extremely dangerous!”

Honoka spared her an unconcerned glance and turned back to the dagger, watching as it spat scorching flames from its position at her table. The Archivist continued to write in her notebook. “Studying your handiwork,” she said, unperturbed. “You are very talented.”

“How,” Maiya seethed, fists clenching and unclenching. Her next words came out short and clipped. “How are you not burnt?”

Master Honoka gestured to a pile of ashen materials at her side, most of them emitting smoke and reduced to nothing but bent metal and rubble. “With great caution.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Honoka replied to Maiya’s agitation with diplomatic patience. “Think, hylianlla.”

Inhaling a shaky breath, Maiya bit her lip and did as she was told. Reluctantly, she turned her back on her dagger, walking up to the pile of discarded tools and roughly picking up a set of long, warped tongs. She held it up to the scant light of the room, angling it carefully. Little dust particles were interspersed in the air around her as she zeroed in her attention on the piece of metal. The sounds of Kamori asking his grandmother a question faded away as she focused.

With her gloved forefinger she brushed away the oxidized crust, flipping the blacksmith tongs to its side. She examined it, looking for the engraving of a familiar eye-symbol to confirm her thoughts. Yet, there was none.

There is only one logical reason, she thought, but it doesn’t make any sense. "How…" she mused aloud. "I thought Teacher and I had the only ones left."

Maiya looked to Honoka, perplexed. "The Royal Family had them destroyed thousands of years ago." She continued. From the corner of her eye, the fire from her dagger flared again, only to quickly be stifled as if sucked up into an invisible vacuum in the surrounding air.

“Wow…” she heard little Kaneli whisper.

After some deliberation, she finally voiced the burning question in her mind. “Are you telling me that this pile of warped metal are supposed to be Instruments?”

From the around the beginnings of her earliest memory, Maiya was taught the intricacies and history of her chosen field of study. What was left of it, at least. The first and last known makers of Enchanter's tools were the Sheikah. The books back in her mentor’s sanctum called them Instruments, tools that were essential in the smithing and Enchanting process.

These Instruments, whilst eventually breaking down, could withstand the might of most Enchanted objects, proving to be an essential part of the forge. Because of them, Enchanting became less of a lethal process, allowing the art to transition into an accessible skill thousands of years ago.

That’s all changed now, with the burying of history and the loss of almost all Instruments. Maiya knew that Teacher’s gear was passed down by her own mentor, and the mentor before them, and so on. Precious objects hidden from the Royal Family’s eyes at the price of potential treason for the protection of knowledge.

However, holding the rusted tongs in the air, weighty and industrial as they were, she did not feel the same energy running through her as she did with the tools back in Akkala. These Instruments were not of Sheikah make. Are they even Instruments at all?

Her arms dropped, shaking. She had so many questions. "Where did you get this? Who made this?"

The Archivist answered her. "These tools were given to me on indefinite loan sometime ago by the village's blacksmith."

The words were out of her mouth before she could think them through. "Is he an Enchanter as well?"

Honoka scoffed. "Hardly, and I suggest you don't call him that if you do see him. His distaste for your kind borders that of the imbecilic." She shook her head. "I digress. Did you see the oxidation and damage, young Enchanter?”

“I did.” Maiya nodded, looking at her fingers which had a smudge of rust. “I think I understand now. These tools were not properly imbued with whatever…ability the blacksmith was attempting to give them.”

She was missing something, and she had a feeling that Honoka was too. These pseudo-Instruments, warped and damaged as they are, still managed to withstand the fiery might of her dagger. For a few minutes, they bore the prolonged brunt of a weapon that had every intention to irreversibly destroy whatever touched it that it deemed unworthy. These Instruments, whilst not created by Sheikah hands, did whatever their instructions ordered them to do. Operating in the same way her scabbard and Teacher’s cloth did in stifling the flame, and they worked.

Maiya turned to look at the obsidian coloured vice at Honoka’s desk. It had begun to bubble now, softening. It was at the cusp of crumbling into pieces. Yet it continued to stand, holding her dagger and defying its predetermined destruction for several more minutes.

The Hylian pressed a knuckle to her temple, a headache building. There was someone in this village that knew how to make Instruments. No. There was someone in this village that was trying to make Instruments.

There was still another lingering thought which bothered her. "Why did you take my dagger?"

The Archivist snapped her notebook shut, prompting Maiya to glance up. Honoka reached over and picked up her cane once more, walking to her. "To get a closer look.”

“I admit,” She began as Maiya opened her mouth to retort, “your attachment is unusual, hylianlla. I was under the impression that Enchanters relinquished ownership of their creations with the final hit of the hammer."

Ouch.

The Enchanter swallowed her anger, feeling a pang of hurt in her chest. "That's because it is expected the weapon finds its Master not too long after it is forged." She paused, sensing the impending question in the air. "I'm working on it."

Elder Honoka pulled her black goggles up and onto her forehead, giving Maiya an unconcealed view of her scrutinising stare. Her grey eyes were sharp and clear, filled with wisdom and intelligence cultivated by years of research and experience.

"I'm sorry, Enchanter." Honoka said, genuinely. Wings at her side, she leaned into a low, apologetic bow.

"I…" Maiya stopped. I wasn’t expecting that. "It's alright. Just don't do it again."

Honoka shook her head once more, walking to the pile of books Maiya previously slept in. She picked up a tome from the heap. “I must explain my reasoning, hylianlla. When you showed that dagger to me the first time, something— or well, the lack of that something— caught my eye."

The rito flicked the book open, pages passing rapidly before she landed on a specific section Maiya couldn't quite discern. Kaneli next to her attempted to see the image, standing on the tips of his claws to peak into the book. The words were unintelligible, and her hands ached to take it to get a closer look.

Honoka’s head tilted to her, guessing her thoughts. “This is one of the more unusual additions in the collection. There is a powerful spell protecting it. You will fail to read it, as I have, no matter how straightforward the writing may seem.”

"However, we can still comprehend the images, and I’ve been able to develop some theories thanks to that fact. Enkantada, I implore that you listen closely. I’ve studied languages, both new and old for many years. This is one of the aspects of your people that had interested me the most."

In the dusty light, her glasses reflected what seemed to be boldly drawn lines on a page. "There are symbols made by the Sheikah that go beyond the function of the characters within the Sheikah script. These are characters that could mean entire objects, places, concepts, and in this case even instructions.”

In that moment, Maiya was acutely aware of the lines of scar tissue running along the surface of her left hand. Puckered skin that formed a symbol which had been helping her instruct the magical properties of all her failed enchanted prototypes, and the dagger which now stands burning in the corner.

“To my knowledge,” Honoka continued, “the Sheikah people from 10,000 years ago, those who have forged weapons of great elemental control, utilised these symbols. As Enchanters, you and your Teacher would have done the same. Yet,” she paused, gesturing to the enchanted dagger burning in its clamp. “Your blade bears no such markings.”

Maiya’s breath hitched. A bead of sweat ran down the back of her neck as Honoka flipped the book around. The rune for Fire stood out on the page, an almost exact mirror to the scar on her hand.

Master Honoka’s eagle eyes were trained on her again. In them there was no malice, but a cunning curiosity that made her nervous. “I wonder how that is possible?”

“I…” Unbeknownst to her, somewhere in the conversation she had set down the tongs, opting now to nervously pull at the leather glove which covered the buzzing rune at risk of burning a hole through the fabric. How much does Honoka know?

A gurgling noise echoed throughout the Archives, interrupting them. “Lita! Food please?” A small voice chirped.

The older Rito sighed, shaking her head with an indulgent smile. “We can discuss this later,” she said, pulling Maiya away from her thoughts, “You’ve been asleep for a while and lunch was many hours ago. My grandson has a point. You must be hungry.”

“Sit with me, Enchanter!”

“I’m—” Maiya cleared her throat, suddenly feeling parched. “If you just have a glass of water that would be great. You don’t have to serve me food, I can find some outside.”

“Nonsense.” Honoka said, swapping her heavy duty apron for a lighter, patterned one which hung at the back of one of the chairs. “Take a seat at a clean desk, I’ll go find some dried meats and cheeses for you.”

“Oh, and don’t forget to retrieve your dagger from the clamp.” She called over her shoulder, walking towards the backroom once more. Her voice began to trail away. “The scabbard is next to it at the table. Please do it soon. I already have a gap in my floorboards, so I would very much like to keep the rest of my home hole-free.”

Maiya silently drizzled butter over the honeyed rice pudding Honoka served as dessert, barely paying attention to the buzzing little rito next to her. Still shaken from earlier events, she felt her unease ironically lighten with the familiar weight of the dagger hanging at her hip. Kaneli, dwarfed by the towers of books around him, sat happy and content from his place at the table, swinging his legs with a bright smile on his beak. He asked her question after question, talking around his food which he dug into with cheerful gusto.

“Miss Enchanter, can you make other things? Things that are not fire?”

“Yes, or well, I should.” she replied, spooning a portion of the creamy pudding into her mouth. She hummed, pleased at the subtle sweetness. This isn’t so bad. “Historically we were able to make weapons that could emulate the power of many elements.”

“So that’s why you’re here. To see if lita’s books can help you?”

“Correct!” Maiya smirked. She chewed at her food thoughtfully. “Hey, you’re pretty observant for a five year old.”

Kaneli frowned, kicking up a sharp claw into the air. He curled his small wings into tinier fists, and tossed her the most severe glare he could muster with his big, baby blue eyes. Aww. “I’m six!”

Maiya laughed, then spooned in another mouthful of pudding. “Apologies, you are a very observant six year old.” For a second she allowed her gloomy mood to slip, stifling a giggle as Kaneli nodded to himself, as if to say ‘yes, indeed I am quite clever!’

Kaneli pouted and furrowed his brow. Puffing up his chest, he turned to look at her with mock seriousness, assessing something she wasn’t entirely sure of before saying “I forgive you.” Then, as if nothing happened, jumped straight back into questioning. “Miss Enchanter, did you find anything new in lita’s books?”

Maiya felt her levity drop like the petals of a wilted flower. “No.” And she was back to sad moping again. “Not yet, at least.”

“Oh,” Kaneli said. “Well—”

Both jumped as a loud knock resounded throughout the Archives.

Someone was outside.

“A moment!” Honoka called from the second floor. She flapped her wings, gracefully descending to the ground level. She took the cane strapped to her back, hobbling over to her front door and unlocking the gate. Seeing who was there, the older rito clicked her tongue in disapproval. “My dear, what are you doing at my doorstep instead of resting in your hammock? I keep telling you not to push yourself so far all the time! You look absolutely haggard.”

“Good evening, Master Honoka.” A familiar voice said, blatantly ignoring the previous admonishment. “Allin ch’isi, Amaut'a. I’ve brought something for you from the mountain vendor.”

Honoka moved to the side, giving Maiya a chance to peak at the mysterious stranger standing outside the door.

Oh.

Honoka sighed. “Hah, Master Revali. Qoyllur-cha. What am I going to do with you? Come inside and have some arroz con leche.”

Maiya quickly averted her eyes as the blue rito walked into the room. She could feel her heart beating to the sound of his talons lightly hitting the floorboards. He hasn’t seen me yet, she thought, and for a brief moment she weighed up the pros and cons of hiding underneath the table like a dumbass.

“What are you doing?” The little rito seated next to her asked, tilting his head to the side in confusion when he found the Enchanter sinking deeper into her seat, already halfway down.

She cringed, caught. “Uh…”

Then, the young rito’s head perked up, finally seeing who had entered the room. “Vali!” Kaneli yelled. Shoot.

The little rito bolted from his chair. He flapped his tiny wings, flying a few centimetres off the ground before colliding into the blue rito’s stomach with a muffled ‘ooft’. To her surprise, Revali chuckled, hoisting Kaneli high into the sky, before setting the laughing child on his shoulders.

He then turned, their eyes meeting. Maiya was sure that she’d hallucinated the easy smile he had a minute ago, as now a big irritating smirk dominated the rest of his face.

“Ah, what a coincidence, enchanter. I was wondering where you were.”

“She’s trying to hide from you, Vali!”

“I am not!” Maiya sat up quickly, accidentally slamming her kneecap into the table. Ow!

Honoka clicked her tongue again, watching the scene with a small, exasperated smile on her face. She held a bag of parsnips in one wing. “Alright, enough of that for now. Take a seat Master Revali, and please, put my grandson down.”

“Aww! But lita!”

Maiya returned to reading soon after, an air of awkwardness lingering as both rito warrior and hylian guest attempted not to pay attention to the other. She finished the rice pudding quickly, diving back into taking notes from the multiple books around her as Honoka and Revali discussed the events of the day. On the floor not too far away, Kaneli lay on his stomach, kicking his legs in the air and busying himself with his crayons and paper.

“Thank you for the parsnips, Revali. These will go very well in a soup. Is June still selling his produce up there? I heard the weather and bad-company has gotten worse lately.”

“As it always does on the approach to the winter months, Master Honoka. With regards to the sudden rise in Yiga activity, Chief Kamori had increased patrols along several of the mountain routes. I’m confident we’ll have the rabble cleaned up by the end of the Solstice.”

The Enchanter adjusted her chair, accidentally jarring the careful stack of books in front of her. The tower wobbled and shook, sending the volume at its top tumbling to the side. Maiya reached her gloved hand out, quickly swiping it from the air before it could hit the ground.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she gazed down at the book in her hands, letting out a bewildered “Huh?”

It was the same book that Honoka had held a while ago. This close, and she could tell that it was torn and quite dirty. Gently, she blew out a small breath against its surface, watching as dust particles lifted and departed, floating in the air. What she thought was a light, grey cover, was actually an extremely faded blue. It was barely holding on by its bindings, looking as if it had been thrown out a window, dragged through the dirt—

And perhaps set on fire, Maiya thought, running a finger over its singed corners.

She looked at its title, eyes tracing over the lines and grooves of the foreign symbols, committing them to memory. She blinked once, then twice, then took a few minutes to consult Honoka’s language guides. Confused, Maiya found herself unable to remember what she’d just seen.

The Enchanter frowned, reading the title once more. The Sheikah-like characters sharpened then blurred, as if her brain was refusing to cooperate and make the final connection. There was that feeling again, that turning sensation in her gut that she was missing something.

The book was completely incomprehensible.

Great, I can’t read. Maiya rubbed her eyes, cracking it open. Page after page of text and runes produced the same results. Finally, she landed on a purely illustrated section. Unlike most of the book, it wasn’t a rune that dominated the page. Instead, a complicated pyramid like structure stood out to her at its centre. Carefully drawn, it was divided into two, showing a simplistic exterior and greatly detailed interior of trap doors and hidden chambers.

What stood out to her the most, however, was the short column at its doorway, building up and forming around a flat, disk shaped platform at its top. It was a terminal pedestal, but without an ornamental sculpture.

Odd choice for decoration, she thought.

The pedestal was the darkest and most inked part of the blueprint. The artist had painted a swathe of colour, a bright ribbon of vivid sapphire, to mimic the movement of a river or a snake. It ran from the terminal’s top and into the ground and roots below, flowing and following the bottom border until it disappeared at the end of the page.

“What do you have there?” A voice whispered near her ear.

“Nothing.” Maiya said quickly. Slamming the book shut, she turned around, lips sinking into an automatic frown at how close the blue rito stood.

Revali raised a feathered brow, leaning away. “Very well. I hate to cut your research short, Hylian, but I have orders to escort you around the village before sundown.”

Maiya frowned. “Explain.”

The rito sighed, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but there. "Chief Kamori believes that as a guest who had never stepped foot on our village grounds before, it would be rather injudicious of us not to give you a tour of the town."

Maiya opened her mouth to refuse, citing that she'd already had a good enough look around, before a pair of tiny wings pushed a piece of paper in front of her nose. "Look, Enchanter!" Kaneli smiled.

A poorly drawn sketch of a red dagger was on the page. It was shooting flames like a sparkler, lending its light to a few fireworks in the sky. Several thick arrows were positioned near the edge of the weapon, pointing to a section of the blade. Maiya's eyes followed them, seeing that they were leading her to the dagger's fuller, where a few squiggles were gathered together.

"The stories say a long, long time ago, Enchanted weapons had drawings that helped them make fire or ice and stuff." The young rito bowed his head, shuffling his feet. "Yours doesn't though, so I drew some to help."

Maiya was silent, staring at Kaneli's interpretation of runic inscription. Her mind flashed to the way her dagger spluttered and fought as it was held in the vice grip of the melting clamp. The blacksmith. She needed to find him.

According to Honoka he had a dislike for Enchanters. Fine. It made things difficult, but Maiya knew that she needed to find him. A potential lack of cooperation was just another setback she had to overcome. Visiting Honoka had left her with more questions than answers, and this knowledge of the village’s blacksmith having an interest in Instruments was her best lead so far. It would be a waste to ignore it.

"Thank you, Kaneli." She said sincerely.

The young Rito beamed.

"Very well," Maiya decided, crossing her arms. She angled her head up to look at Revali, trying to appear as authoritative as possible. "I'll go, but I want you to show me where the village forge would be. I'm curious as to what your local weapons look like." For a second, she saw hesitancy flash in both Revali and Honoka's eyes. They turned to each other, a silent battle ensuing as the two ritos communicated via raised eyebrows and pointed looks.

"I can learn a thing or two as well whilst I'm there." She added, trying to sound reasonable.

Finally, Revali sighed, walking to the front door. “Sure, whatever. Now say your goodbyes and catch up will you?"

Maiya rolled her eyes. I don’t appreciate your tone, jerk. Carefully, she placed Kaneli’s drawing into her journal and stored them both into her backpack. Whilst Honoka was preoccupied scolding Revali about his sleep patterns, she slipped the unusual book inside as well.

Honoka held her grandson’s wing as she walked her guests to the door. “Young Enchanter, I expect to see your face again. Don’t keep the collection waiting. I hope to hear more of your findings at a later date."

“I’ll try to be back soon.” Maiya said noncommittally, hoisting the small bag over her shoulders.

Elder Honoka playfully swatted Revali’s back with her cane. The aforementioned rito jumped in surprise. "Take care, Qoyllur-cha. Don’t get the hylian in any sort of trouble.” Honoka smiled, crows feet creasing as she adopted a mischievous tone. “Now that I’ve met her, I do agree with what you said yesterday. She is quite an interesting visitor.”

Revali pinched the space above his beak. “Please stop talking, Master Honoka.”

The silence that ensued as they left was tense, but expected. Revali walked up the main staircase quickly, Maiya keeping up behind him with minimal difficulty. Once they reached the top floor, the rito’s pace slowed. He looked behind him once to ensure she was there, leading her to one of the nearby departure decks.

With his back to her, Revali approached the edge of the platform, stopping before the drop. His eyes were trained on something in the distance, and for a moment he stood very still, seeing or feeling something she couldn’t. Maiya looked around, taking in the panoramic view of mountains and treetops around them. It was a few minutes before sunset, a hint of orange already beginning to appear behind the grey cumulus clouds that had gathered throughout the afternoon. In the trees beyond, wild birds began to chirp. It felt nice. Serene even.

“Get on my back."

The Enchanter paused, looking at the rito wide-eyed as a blush began to colour her face. "P-pardon—”

Revali exhaled a deep, world-weary sigh, before bending down on one knee, bracing both wings on the ground as if preparing for a sprint. "Farore Above, have the winds carried your hearing away? Get on my back, we don't have much daylight left."

Maiya blinked, walking forward. Unsure of what to do, she threw all caution to the wind and grasped his shoulder, hoisting herself up. The hylian shifted uncomfortably, slipping to the left as her hands tried to find purchase on the blue rito's back.

Yanking a bit too forcefully, a feather came loose in her grasp. Mortified, she sucked in a shaky breath. She quickly pocketed it, lest her reluctant chauffeur were to see and drop her as soon as they were in the air. "Is this...is this really necessary?"

"Believe me," Revali replied, looking over his shoulder to throw her an expression akin to that of a poked Honeyvore Bear, "I'm asking myself the same question right now, but whatever Chief Kamori says, goes."

"...Even if the request is utterly pointless and extremely undignified." He muttered to himself, the aside purposefully loud enough for her to catch it.

Asshole.

"What was that?"

Oh, shit!

"Uh," Maiya blanked, "I said, 'that's cool'".

Another awkward silence settled between them as she finally decided that kneeling on his back and bending down to throw both arms around his shoulders to stabilise herself was the best course of action. The only issue being that this placed his head uncomfortably close to her own, his bronze pauldrons nearly brushing her cheek.

The winds on the edge of the departure deck blew heavy in her face, making her eyes feel irritated and watery.

Maiya looked away, focusing on the rito in front of her instead. This close and she could see the minute imperfections on his yellow beak. There was a small white line, about four centimetres in length, running along its side as thin as a thread.

A gust of air blew past them, making goosebumps appear on her arms. Reflexively, she gripped him tighter, holding him close to feel the warmth of his back against her shivering chest. She exhaled, the heat of her breath mingling with the cold air, creating a white cloud in the space between her mouth and his cheek.

Revali froze.

The Enchanter briefly wondered if he had reached the end of his patience. Didn’t an important warrior like himself have other pressing matters to attend to today? She wouldn’t be surprised if he was ready to toss her back onto the wooden deck and walk away, Chief’s orders be damned.

"Hey, you know, if this too weird I can always walk."

"No.” The rito warrior spoke, voice heavy with irritation. "Let's just get this over and done with."

Suddenly, the lean muscle beneath her tensed. Revali’s wings extended with a dramatic fwip, fanning at his sides in preparation. His feathers were a sea of blue around her. Filling her line of vision, everywhere and in her peripheries.

One flap, and they hovered. Maiya bit back a vulgar swear as her grasp around his shoulders tightened.

He laughed mockingly. "Is the mighty enchanter afraid of heights?"

"No. I'll be alright, just give me a warning before we fl— AAAAAAAAH!!!"

Without a word, Revali dove off the edge, and the world tilted.

Maiya shrieked, feeling her stomach drop as Revali sent them both into freefall. She shut her eyes, clutching onto him for dear life as the winds around them twisted and turned, whipping past at unbelievable speeds. It was loud. Deafening. Howling like the call of a storm.

Gravity sat heavy on her back, pressure building around her as the ground steadily raced to meet them. Maiya’s heart began to beat rapidly, hammering a heavy rhythm like a war drum in her chest. A warm blush crept up her neck, filling her cheeks and the tips of her ears with a rosy hue. She had to remind herself to breathe.

Amidst all this, she could still briefly register the fresh scent of pine and feel the icy snap of air rushing around her. Cold. Untouched. Free. It was like all her senses were alive, her brain firing messages faster than her mind could fully process.

Inching and creeping like a troublesome snake, Maiya could register the small warning pinpricks of pain travelling along the surface of her left hand. Her eyes widened, no longer in excitement but in panic. Her mind flicked to her gloved hand braced tightly around Revali’s shoulder, already imagining the blue light leaking from the scar’s edges. This is bad, this is very bad. The rune was going to activate at any second and fry both her and her pilot.

The adrenaline rush was terrifying. Amazing. Though if it didn't stop soon, it was going to kill them both.

I’m safe! She mentally chanted. She willed the bubbling energy to recede, her panicked thoughts escaping her as whispered words lost in the wind. “I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.”

As if in hearing her, she felt the speed of their plummet slow, followed by the sound of wings flapping. The pair dipped further, the blue of the waters below getting closer, then suddenly. Whoosh. They changed trajectory—arcing up.

Revali caught the gale, cutting and carving a path away from the ground. Hastening them forward to meet the sky.

From the small cracks between her eye-lids, Maiya could see the light shifting as the world re-oriented itself once more. Her ears popped from the dramatic change in pressure. Head spinning, she briefly contemplated letting go completely and letting herself fall into the depths below. Which was unusual since it involved saving the life of the rito she disliked so much at the expense of her own safety. Damnnit. She knew the fire was going to reach him anyhow, and when it did it was going to send both of them falling anyway. There was not enough time. This was it. Make a decision! This is—

“Ahem.”

Revali cleared his throat, wrenching the Enchanter from her racing thoughts.

"You can look up now."

Maiya peeked an eye open, noticing with belated embarrassment that she had burrowed her face into the rito’s feathered neck. Scrunching her nose in disgust, she pulled away, eyes blinking to adjust to the bright light around her.

Whilst the breeze still blew heavy in her face, the world had stopped spinning. It sat before her now, drifting in a haze of orange and blue. The cacophony of sound in her ears had also dulled to a light whistle, leaving her ears ringing.

Yes. Evidently, they had ceased falling.

Remembering the near disaster from awhile ago, Maiya quickly lifted her gloved hand, ignoring Revali’s questioning look. Sighing in relief, she found that the fire had not activated, the single glove’s surface free of scorch marks. That was too close.

Reigning in her galloping heart, Maiya took three careful breaths and lifted herself back up into a semi-kneeling position. Chancing a look at the world they were currently soaring above, she gasped.

They were high-up.

Extremely, high-up.

They were flying several metres above the apex of the village, the zenith of Valoo’s Spire slowly materializing beneath as the canopy of clouds surrounding them began to clear. The winds at this height were strong, but Revali expertly navigated around them, tilting his wings and angling in a way that placed them at an easy glide.

From their vantage point in the sky, the entire Tabantha Frontier was spread out before her. All around them were trees upon trees, forests filled with conifer evergreens still lush with emerald leaves even in the approach to the colder months.

In the west, rocky cliff faces weathered by time took up most of the view, whilst in the east she could vaguely see the way in which the earth cracked and dipped. It was Tanagar Canyon, cutting through the land like a jagged scar.

To the north were the Hebra Mountains. Dangerous and dignified. If the stories were correct, it was home to all kinds of monsters and secrets. Their snow-covered peaks rose to the sky as if to stab the blue expanse, disappearing under the misty cloud cover that rose higher than the height even she and Revali were at right now.

And in the middle of all this, directly below them, was Rito Village. Maiya could feel the terror in her heart fizzle as she took in the village in its entirety. She’d never seen anything like it before.

Valoo’s Spire stood tall and proud in the centre of a massive body of water. It served as the main supporting structure for the Rito’s huts. Like lanterns on a hook, albeit heavier and less fragile, the huts hung from rock formations which jutted out from the spire like outstretched arms. Maiya noticed that most of the homes were wooden brown and slightly curved, reminding her of baskets or bells.

Instead of spreading out horizontally like most places in Hyrule, Rito Village was built upwards, a vertical village reaching to the sky. From this vantage point she could see the whole grand staircase which ran along the spire like an unravelling spiral, splitting into various departure decks at random intervals closer to the top. Buildings and smaller huts appeared in each level, with patterned cloth banners decorating almost every home, waving in the wind and painting the village in various swathes of vivid colour.

"Wow…," she whispered.

"Yes, I know," Revali's voice broke through her thoughts, reminding her of exactly who she was with right now. "A fine specimen such as myself in flight is a sight to behold."

Maiya’s easy smile sunk faster than a faulty boat on an icy lake as she regarded the blue rito beneath her. "Hylia, not you. I'm talking about your village!"

Squinting her eyes, Maiya could see the movement of the Rito and other travellers of Hyrule as they went about their business. Some seemed to be waving goodbye or closing shop, and she realised belatedly how late in the day it already was. Amongst the various houses she could pick out the few that she’d been to; Kamori’s Hut, Swallow’s Roost and even Honoka’s Archive.

The question left her mouth before she could reign in back in. “Where’s your place?”

“Over there, the hut with the blue banners, a floor below Kamori's.” Revali replied.

Maiya fidgeted, leaning forward to get a closer look. The rito grunted. “Hey, watch it! Keep throwing your weight too far to one side and you’re gonna tip us over.”

But it was too late. The Enchanter continued to peer to the side, inadvertently bracing herself to the left, off-balancing the pair and sending them into a brief spin. Maiya yelped in surprise as the calm world around her fell away again. “Shoot! Sorry!”

Revali made an irritated sound at the back of his throat, wings straining as he reeled them back into their previous glide in seconds.

Silence reigned as the pair regained their breath. Revali angled his head to scowl at her. “Did you leave your brain back in Honoka’s Archive, or have you always been this senseless?”

Maiya hung her head sheepishly, attempting to avoid his gaze and failing horribly. “Okay in all honesty, my bad. Learned my lesson there.”

Revali sighed, briefly considering if pushing the subject was worth it, and ultimately decided to let it go. Instead, the annoyance on his face slid into an expression of thinly veiled suspicion. “Why did you ask?”

Maiya tilted her head, confused. “Ask what?”

“Why did you want to know where I lived?”

“Not really sure,” she admitted, looking back at the village next to them. In one of the upper levels, a pink feathered villager stood at the front porch of a hut, waiting as the main door was opened by another rito who swept them up into a tight embrace. The Enchanter smiled. “Perhaps I’m just curious. Everyone’s going home, tonight. Isn’t your family waiting for you?”

He snorted. “How old do you think I am?”

Maiya coughed. “Age has nothing to do with it! I meant l...well— I'm not asking if you're married with kids or anything." She paused, realising how that came out. "Which is totally fine if you are. There's nothing wrong with that at your age. Which I don't know. It's really a personal preference kind of thing anyway and— "

“Twenty-six.”

“Pardon?”

Revali sniffed derisively, shaking his head. "I'm twenty-six years old. I have no attachments, romantic or otherwise. I'd discovered long ago that they're mere disturbances in my journey to achieve my goals."

"That's fair." She said quickly. Unbeknownst to him, the Enchanter frowned, remembering the grandfatherly way in which Chief Kamori regarded him and the admiration in young Kaneli's eyes when he entered the room. A life alone, even in dedicating yourself to your dreams, couldn’t be an easy one.

Look who’s talking, the nagging voice in her head said.

Well, that’s because I didn’t have much of a choice. She mentally shot back.

Maiya stared at the back of Revali’s head, looking at him the same way one would assess a difficult puzzle. Surely he hasn't pushed all of them away.

She wondered briefly what kind dream he was working towards to warrant such isolation and focus, making a move to ask him, but decided against it when a strong gust of wind blew past them. Revali gracefully caught it, sharply angling them to the side without a word. Maiya yelped, gripping onto his back to avoid slipping and plummeting to a certain death.

The wind ruffled her hair and dislodged her bandana, the piece of cloth unknotting.

"Wait, no!" Maiya cried. Alerted by the sound of her voice, Revali glanced at her, watching as she reached out helplessly as the yellow cloth slipped through her fingers and was taken away by the breeze. To her dismay, it disappeared into the white sheet of clouds, gone from her line of sight in seconds.

Immediately, her uneven midnight hair opened and fanned around her, tangling and waving in the crisp windy air. Maiya growled, resisting the urge to grab the rito and shake him. "Shit! We really need to work on you saying something before you do something like that."

Revali’s jade eyes rose to look at her, and Maiya steeled herself for the retort. Brushing her hair away from her eyes, she gritted her teeth. Glancing down, she was surprised to see that the rito’s beak was snapped shut. He was staring, but not in irritation, looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face.

Maiya felt her annoyance grow. “What? Admiring your handiwork?" She hastily grabbed the flying locks, attempting to bundle them up and tuck them into the collar of her jacket.

Very creative haircut indeed. You could even call the means of achieving it 'lethal'! What an ass.

Revali blinked, seeming to snap out of whatever trance he was in. Hilariously, the feathers surrounding his neck puffed up. "It's nothing." He said, voice clipped. Immediately, he tore his eyes away from hers, turning his head back around.

She rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

The pair continued to soar above the village. After a few minutes, Maiya felt an unusual buzzing in her legs, pins and needles making her feet go numb. It was a precursor to the anxiety stemming from her prolonged lack of connection to the solid ground, and the fact that the chances of her surviving a fall right now would be rather miraculous.

She swallowed her fear, facing forward and forcing herself not to think about it. “I know Chief Kamori wanted you to take me on a tour, but any reason why it had to be up here instead safe on the ground? ”

“If you stop catastrophizing then perhaps you’ll find out in a minute.”

Maiya freed a hand to scratch the back of her neck, “Fine.” She conceded. I need a distraction. “Then actually give me a ‘tour’ of your village and tell me about the houses below us.”

Revali’s response was nothing but diplomatic. “Very well. There’s a few to get through. It would be helpful if you could be more specific.”

“Okay, how about the one with the lanterns still burning bright. Near the bottom of the Spire. Everyone had dimmed their lights, how come they’re the exception?”

“You’re looking at either Slippery Falcon or Brazen Beak. Those two shops are one of the first to transition into their winter hours. Business lasts long after dark, and they capitalize on the tired tourists who walk in during all hours of the night searching for gear or a warm meal. The owners had been competing with each other for generations.”

Maiya was surprised that she did not detect any hint of derision in his tone throughout the entire explanation. “Are their wares any good?”

“They are some of the hardest workers in this village. There is little else to explain.”

She nodded to herself. Interesting. “Alright. Tell me about the one with the blue flower boxes.”

“If it has three white flags with the green cross, that’s the clinic. It’s also the home of our healer, Ahn. They can stitch anything back together, even whilst asleep— as the rumour goes.”

Maiya thought about it for a second, trying to imagine what that would look like. “Stitch anything, huh? Including you?”

He snorted. “No comment.”

She thought of the scar on his beak. “You would think that a warrior gets hurt pretty often.”

“An obvious hazard of my occupation, but it had seldom given me any issue.” Revali said, unbothered. If he wasn’t so focused flying, he would have tossed a wing up as if to say ‘Bah! Preposterous!’ “My use of the bow and command over the sky takes precision. It’s very rare that an enemy lands a hit on me.”

Maiya chose to ignore his humble brag and changed the subject. “What’s that cave over there? The one just above the water?”

Revali huffed at her obvious diversion but chose to let it go. He looked at the direction she was pointing to, and suddenly fell quiet. Unlike his previous responses, he took a moment to mull over his reply. His next words to her were unusually tentative, short. “The blacksmith.”

“Excellent,” Maiya smiled. “You can drop me off just outside his door. I’ll find my way back up from there.”

Another gust of wind flew past them, and Revali tilted along with it. But she was prepared this time, grabbing his shoulders until he righted them once more. “Why are you so adamant to see him?” He asked after he had steadied them.

She rolled her eyes. “Why are you and Elder Honoka so concerned about him meeting me? I can take a grumpy rito.” In fact, I’m doing that right now.

“He won’t be as accommodating as many of the others you’ve met recently.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’ll find a way.”

Revali turned to look at her again, green eyes sharp, assessing her. “You’re serious?” She glared back defiantly, unwilling to fold. The rito raised a yellow feathered eyebrow in her direction and clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Very well, but don’t say we didn’t tell you so.”

“Tell me what?”

He sighed. “You’ll see.”

She opened her mouth to ask what that meant, but stopped when she felt the temperature of the wind around her change. Braids waving in the air, Revali smirked at her. “You should stop gaping at me and look around you, enchanter.”

Maiya disregarded his teasing but nonetheless acquiesced, tilting her head up.

Eyes meeting the sky, she gasped.

It was as if the goddess Hylia herself had taken her brush and dragged it across the sky. The world around them had exploded in colour, painting the bright expanse in reds, pinks and greys to form one of the most dazzling sunsets she had ever seen. From their place in the sky, Rito Village looked like a sparkling jewel. Encased in light, the beauty of the eventide had cast a comforting glow against many of the bell-shaped wooden structures, filling her with a nostalgia for a place that was entirely new to her.

Emboldened by the warmth surrounding her, Maiya took a chance and gazed at the ground below. Like a mirror, the heavens were reflected off the crystalline lake surrounding Valoo’s Spire, both clouds and the village mingling with the glow of the sinking sun.

Revali glanced at her, expression pleased at her obvious wonder. “Seeing as you’re only here for a limited time, I thought it would be a shame for you to miss this.”

"Rito Village is already quite beautiful from the ground," she heard Revali murmur, his voice reverberating into her chest. The metal beads in his feathers glinted in the orange light, "but nothing can compare to what it looks like from the sky."

Maiya hummed in agreement. The blue rito would have seen this sunset for all his life, yet it was nice knowing he still felt awed at the phenomena. The way he spoke of his village in this light, it was like he was looking at it for the first time. The thought warmed her, making her heart beat deeply at the wistful and reverent tone of his voice.

The sunlight glinted off his pauldrons, making her squint as it momentarily blinded her. Maiya rubbed her eyes, in that moment remembering where she was and who she was thinking about. She mentally flushed her previous thoughts away, feeling silly. The high-altitude is getting to you.

From the corner of her eye she saw some of the feathers in his wings change direction, a telltale sign that they were going to descend very soon. “Hey, hold on.” She had one more thing to bring up. “Before we head back down there to the blacksmith,” her voice darkened, taking on a cutting edge that she rarely used. “What in Din’s name was that a while ago? Diving off the ledge? Was that really necessary?”

He didn’t waste a second. “The additional weight meant it was especially imperative for me to generate enough force to catch the wind and get us in the air.” As scientific as his explanation was, his voice was thick with arrogance, haughtiness back in full force. “Sustaining flight with the additional baggage is not an easy feat, mind you. It’s not my fault that a Hylian such as yourself can’t appreciate the art of my technique.”

Did he just call me heavy?

Maiya seethed. “Still, a little warning would have been great.”

She was shocked by his speedy response. “Alright.”

The Enchanter scoffed. “Well that was easy.”

Quickly, Revali changed the direction of his wings, the muscles below her tensing again as he angled downwards. He chuckled. “You might want to hold on tight.”

“What?!”

“And that was your warning.”

Maiya screamed again, hiding her head in the crook of the rito’s neck once more. Her angry swears were only matched by Revali’s raucous laughter, echoing in her ears as they plummeted for the second time that day.

If a person below gazed up at that moment, they would have believed a shooting star had raced across its canvas. As a streak of blue, volatile and electrifying, left a frantic trail of sapphire light in its wake, piercing through the fading light.

#revali #botw #breath of the wild #revali x oc #loz botw #legend of zelda #botw fanfiction #revali botw #rito #rito botw #botw fic #fanfiction #writing #enemies to friends to lovers #paellaplease #firebird botw #maiya botw

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timeagainreviews · 5 years ago

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A Loch back at a Zygon Era

Hello friends! I've had quite the week! Monday was my birthday, so my boyfriend and I took a road trip around Scotland. We saw lots of things from the Beatrix Potter Garden in Birnam, to the Cave of Caerbannog from Monty Python, to the Devil's Pulpit in Dumgoyne. But our main destination was Loch Ness! We settled into our hotel by watching "Terror of the Zygons," which seemed appropriate considering our surroundings. Naturally, I decided to review it here. Before I do, however, I would like to thank all of you who have been liking and reblogging my stuff lately. It means a lot to know I'm connecting with people. Thank you for your support!

On the surface, "Terror of the Zygons," appears to be just like any other serial of its era. However, if you do a bit of digging, you'll discover that there are some interesting facts about its production. Did you know that there was a sort of "real-world," tie in with the story? No, I don't mean Nessie. Think closer to Mickey Mouse. In 1975, Tom Baker played the Doctor for the August "Disney Time," bank holiday special. After introducing several clips from Disney films, he is called away by the Brigadier to the events of Terror of the Zygons. I can't help but wish this information was known to me before writing my Doctor Who and Disney article! You can watch the clips on youtube. They feature Tom being suitably bizarre.

Along with having an unusual prequel, the story also had a deleted scene from the beginning which was later colourised by YouTuber "babelcolour," for the DVD release. This edited version is the one I rewatched for today's review. The scene begins with the TARDIS materialising invisibly. The Doctor walks out from nothingness, wearing a matching tartan tam and scarf, replacing his usual fedora and scarf. Not far behind are Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan wearing said hat and scarf respectively. There's something rather humorous about the Doctor using his companions as human hat racks. Considering Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's name, it seems appropriate that the Doctor is sporting the Royal Stewart tartan. I can't help but wonder if the costume department did this on purpose. After rematerialising the TARDIS to "fix," it back to it's usual broken police box state, the three continue their journey to answer the Brigadier's Disney Time summons. It seems an oil rig off the coast of Scotland has crashed into the sea just shortly after having lost radio contact.

After hitching a ride from the eccentric Duke of Forgill, the three meet up with a kilted Brigadier in a small Scottish inn where the landlord, Angus, plays bagpipes ad nauseam. They're really driving the Scottish shit home, which makes sense when you consider they filmed the episode in Sussex. Also gathered at the inn are Sergeant Benton, various UNIT soldiers, and a man from the oil company named Huckle. The Duke has some curt words with Huckle, informing him that any crewmen found on his land will be shot. After leaving in a huff, we see one of these crewmen wash ashore, seemingly alive. Over the past month, three different rigs have all met their demise. The gang splits up Scooby-Doo style. Dr Harry goes off to check on the injured crewmen, while Sarah stays behind to get the scoop from the locals. And the Doctor goes off to be the Doctor.

Back at the inn, Sarah mentions the odd nature of the Duke to Angus who promptly defends the duke as a good man. However, even he has to admit that the Duke has been acting strangely since the oil companies came. After letting go most of his servants, the only real bit of interaction he's had lately was gifting the inn with a goofy looking stag head. Nowadays the Duke keeps mostly to himself at Forgill Castle. The surrounding area of Tulloch Moor seems steeped in mystery. People go missing as the mist comes in, Angus tells Sarah as they're being spied upon from a distance. Eavesdropping in on the conversation over a veiny, bio-mechanical screen, an unknown figure watches from the shadows.

While driving alone, Harry spots the washed-up man from the rig and jumps out to help him. Believing him to be yet another trespasser, a beardy fellow by the name of Caber shoots the survivor and wings Harry across his brow, rendering him unconscious. Back in the bio-mechanical ship, alien villains twist and caress a fleshy panel in the weirdest form of nipple play ever seen on Doctor Who, causing the destruction of another oil rig near Ben Nevis. While trying to decipher the signal that has been jamming the oil rigs' radios, the Doctor learns of Harry's brush with death.

After checking on Harry, the Doctor goes out to inspect the oil rig wreckage where he discovers strange holes in the foundation. After taking a cast of the holes with plaster of Paris, the cast reveals what looks like the shape of an impossibly large sharp tooth. During a call with the Doctor, Sarah is attacked by the previously seen alien hand, which belongs to none other than a fearsome Zygon! I've always loved their design, especially in this scene. Something about the shape of its mouth is particularly disturbing. I was slightly disappointed about the redesign from the new series. I'm a big fan of the Zygon cat nose. I almost named one of my cats Zygon due to his dark orange fur and similar nose shape, but my partner at the time vetoed that idea. I named him Rory instead.

After discovering both Harry and Sarah missing, the Doctor discovers Sarah in a decompression room for divers, the door slightly ajar. I was annoyed by the fact that the Doctor fell for such an obvious trap, but it also led to an intriguing sequence. Harry's nurse, Sister Lamont, closes the heavy door behind the Doctor and seals it shut for decompression. Running out of air, the Doctor hypnotises Sarah and enters into a trance to conserve air. I'm a big fan of any time the Doctor acts like a bit of a mystic. I'm a meditator myself, so it's cool to see the Doctor tap into the innate powers of thought control. One of the side effects of certain meditations is a slowing of breathing. It was nice that the scene doesn't overly explain this. It allows Tom the chance to really play up his weird alien charm as his eyes roll back and he howls toward the ceiling. Moments like these are why I love Tom Baker so much. He's not afraid of being utterly bizarre.

It's around this time we begin to learn a little about the Zygons. Having taken Harry to their ship, their leader, Broton, tells him a bit about their history. After they crash-landed centuries ago they awaited rescue while subsiding on the lactic fluid of their giant Nessie-like cyborg pet known as the Skarasen. That's correct, you did not misread that- they feed off of cyborg breast milk. Only with a show like Doctor Who can you get a sentence like that. You've kind of got to love that. After discovering their planet was destroyed by a cosmic event, they redirected their efforts toward getting their suckers on Earth. The Skarasen is to be the form of Earth's destructor, as no human weapon could hope to penetrate its augmented skin. In order to move their plan into motion, the Zygons gas the village, knocking the Brigadier and the UNIT soldiers out cold, thus allowing them to move in secret. Luckily for the Doctor and Sarah, Sergeant Benton was on the lookout for them where he saves them from death by asphyxiation.

After coming to, Huckle gives the Doctor a bio-emitter that attracts the Skarasen, which he found among the wreckage of the rig. Having bugged the inn, the Zygons reveal to Harry that they use the psychic imprint of humans in order to mimic their form. He sees the likes of Sister Lamont, Caber, and the Duke, stored in hibernation chambers, maintaining a link to their Zygon counterparts. They use Harry's form to slip back to the inn where they may fetch the emitter. But he is intercepted by Sarah who is concerned by his odd behaviour. She chases him into a barn where they scuffle in a manner that had me weirdly thinking of “Super Vixens.” Russ Meyer's Doctor Who is not something I ever expected to imagine. After a bit of trouble, Zygon Harry falls from a hayloft onto his own pitchfork, killing him instantly and revealing himself to Sarah as a Zygon. However, the crafty Zygons completely evaporate his remains to hide any evidence. I wondered why they didn't just do the same thing to the emitter in the first place, but I guess the answer is "it doesn't do that." Ok, sure, whatever. Now free from his psychic link with the Zygon, Harry is able to sneak about on their ship unabated.

After realising the Zygons were working from the shadows, the Doctor assumes they must have bugged the inn somewhere, so the lads go about searching the place from top to bottom. I love Angus' indignant response to the idea that his inn might have actual bugs. Angus Lennie's performance as Angus is a true highlight in the story. Afraid of the humans discovering that the goofy stag head must be the bug, the Zygons decide to send the Skarasen to rid themselves of these tiresome humans. After figuring out the secret of the emitter, the Doctor draws the Skarasen away from the village only to find it has fused itself to his hand. But Harry's meddling with the ship's systems allows the Doctor the ability to toss the emitter in the path of the Skarasen, destroying it in the process.

The Doctor and friends meet up and go to Forgill Castle to ask permission to drop depth charges into Loch Ness, the source of the signal. Their hope is to draw the Zygons out. Meanwhile, the Sister Lamont Zygon goes to fetch the stag head and fights with Angus in the process, killing him. It's a sad ending for one of the more likeable characters, but it's also kind of wonderful in its simplicity. I never quite understood why the Zygons needed to turn people into electric balls of something I might pull out of my hairbrush, as they did in "The Zygon Invasion." If anything, I much prefer the updates they received in Mark Morris' "The Bodysnatchers." Using venom from their suckers matches their physiology far better than superpowers. Morris really fleshed out the Zygons in a way I wish the show would. Seeing them in their initial incarnation using brute force seems far more practical to me. I think sometimes, more is less.

After discovering a way into the Zygon ship, they save Harry, but the Zygons flee with the Doctor still onboard. The Doctor gets a wonderful opportunity to match wits with Broton in a speech that includes my all-time favourite Fourth Doctor line- "You can't rule the world in hiding. You've got to come out on to the balcony sometimes and wave a tentacle." Evidently, that line was ad-libbed by Tom Baker, only further solidifying my love for the man. He makes a good point though, the Zygons have mostly been working from the shadows, in secret. The Zygons fly away, masking their trail from UNIT, still hiding. I must admit, it's not abundantly clear what their plan actually is. Sure they intend to use the Skarasen against earth's weapons, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of explanation as to how the oil rigs play into everything. There's mention of turning the Earth into something more habitable for Zygons, but I'm honestly not sure. I asked my boyfriend what his impression was, and he couldn't quite figure it out either.

There's a lot of what happens at this point in the story that seems like happenstance. The UNIT crew and Sarah end up going to London, which also happens to be where the Zygons have set their next target. They plan to swim the Skarasen up the Thames to wreak havoc on Westminster Abbey. In my review for "Castrovalva," I mentioned how the Fourth Doctor's super-heroics were oftentimes overstated, and what comes next is nothing shy of extraordinary. After rigging some ventricle type wiring from within his cell, the Doctor uses his own body to complete the circuit, allowing UNIT to see past the Zygon's scramblers and pinpoint their location. I loved that it was Benton that did this, by the way. This was twice in one story where Benton got to play hero. They pinpoint the ship's location to be a disused quarry, which made me ugly cackle. Classic Doctor Who used quarries so often to make up an alien planet, that the idea of them saying "This actually is a quarry," seemed almost cheeky. Broton, thinking the Doctor has died, uses his Duke disguise once more to go plant another emitter in Westminster. After releasing the human captives aboard the Zygon ship, the Doctor sounds an alarm and sets off the self destruct killing the remaining Zygons onboard. Yay, murder!

The UNIT soldiers dispatch Broton after a fumbling fight scene between him, Harry, and Sarah. All the while, the Skarasen is working its way up the Thames. It's a brilliant little bit of puppetry mixed with stop motion animation that I found completely charming. Even if it does look a bit naff, it's effective enough to be a suitable set piece to end such an episode. It's very much within the tone of the story to have the Loch Ness monster stomping through London. The Doctor manages to trace the emitter and toss it into the open jaws of the Skarasen. It nom nom noms the emitter into nothingness, causing it to lose all interest in the Abbey. The Doctor casually supposes that it will most likely return to its home of Loch Ness. I loved that the show kept the Loch Ness mystery intact. After all is said and done, "Nessie," may still be out there. It wouldn't have felt right killing off a beloved cryptid that brings so much wonder to many. Such feelings of wonder are what Doctor Who thrives upon. Sadly, while we got to keep Nessie, we say goodbye to some regulars. This marks the last regular appearance of both the Brigadier and Harry. With the Doctor no longer relegated to the Earth, UNIT begins to play a much smaller role in the story. And Harry, now back in London, hasn't a lot of need to continue travelling with the Doctor. It's an almost unceremonious end of an era for Doctor Who.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story. While I feel like it somewhat falls apart in the final act, the mystery and intrigue in the first few episodes really draw you in. Even my boyfriend, who is a casual fan, was drawn in by the atmosphere. You can see the beginnings of what was to become the more horror-themed stories such as "The Talons of Weng-Chiang," or "The Horror of Fang Rock." The Zygons are, for me at least, a classic baddie. They may not be as popular or iconic as the Daleks or Cybermen, but I think they work as their own kind of threat. Bringing them back has also proven to be successful. The Big Finish audio "The Zygon Who Fell to Earth," is well worth a listen. There's a lot of care put into this story that I think makes it stand out from others. Geoffrey Burgon's beautifully haunting music was a nice change of pace from Dudley Simpson's usual work. The track "A Landing in Scotland," is particularly memorable. The Zygon ship interior being organic was a unique touch that we rarely see in Doctor Who, save for maybe "The Claws of Axos," and the model work was also pretty damn charming. Having recently been to both Loch Ness and Ben Nevis, it really added something to the experience as well. There is a surprisingly low amount of episodes that take place in Scotland, which is unfortunate. If there's anything this trip has taught me, is that Scotland has a lot to offer. There are so many peaks and valleys covered with lush greenery and deep dark waters. It's easy to imagine that somewhere, something is lurking down below. Hats off to Robert Banks Stewart and Robert Holmes for seeing this potential, and turning out something magical.

#doctor who #fourth doctor #tom baker #sarah jane smith #elisabeth sladen #nicholas courtney #BRIGADIER LETHBRIDGE STEWART #zygons #harry sullivan #ian marter #Time and Time Again #tardis #bbc #loch ness #nessie #loch ness monster #skarasen #terror of the zygons

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travellianna · 6 years ago

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Antarctica aboard the Ocean Adventurer... and yes there were a lot of penguins!

We made this unforgettable adventure by booking with Expedition Trips who then organised everything with Quark Expeditions. They were all amazing from start to end of the journey, and we would highly recommend them! People of all ages were on the trip, with the eldest woman at 97 years so it’s never too late.

My number one tip is to pack layers and pack less than you think you wil need because the weight limit on the slightly old and wobbly looking jet plane is 15kg per person! The coldest it got was -3C and maybe a little lower with the wind chill. Waterproof clothing is a must, not because of rain but because of the spray while on the zodiacs. It’s a good idea to take along some books as there is quite a bit of waiting time. If you get seasick, then motion sickness pills are also a good idea. Remember you are very far from any medical care so bring essential medicines.

You should try your best to go into the trip with the mindset that you will have to adapt to the weather conditions and Mother Nature is unpredictable. There is not point in getting mad or impatient (though some people spent a lot of energy complaining), because the company and crew are doing their best to get you safely on your way to an unforgettable voyage. The anticipation is great for whether your plane can take off... but when you are on the way it is an exhilarating feeling!

An alternate to the fly and cruise is cruising from Ushuaia, Argentina but be warned that the waters between there and Antarctica are very rough and it takes a lot longer to reach Antarctica.

The beautiful scenery was striking with blue-white icebergs and glaciers in all directions, pristine snowy mountains, penguins, seals, whales and an absence of most vegetation. We saw only one other boat with two people on it, and a few people at each research station, otherwise it was just our cruise ship of 130 passengers plus crew. There is peace and quiet, and being on deck early in the morning felt like an isolated encounter with grand nature all around.

The trip diary:

Our offical arrival day was 15th December though we were there a day early and I’d come straight from Torres del Paine.

15th December - Another day to explore Punta Arenas, the departure city for our Antarctic adventure with Quark Expeditions. We had to get our bags weighed by Quark adventures and pick up our heavy arctic parkas and waterproof boots. The parkas were bright yellow and very warm, and ours to keep! Our main activity of the day was a tour of the Austral Brewery, which was interesting, especially trying 7 different beers at the end. The La Patagonia brewery was started by a German man Jose Fischer and when he died it was passed to his son. His son committed suicide so then the family gave up the business and it was renamed Austral. All of the beers were quite good and I especially liked the Imperial lager and the Calafate ale, which was fruity.

We caught a Taxi to the hotel and arrived just in time for the 18h briefing meeting. We were briefed on the procedures like entering and exiting the zodiac rafts, timing and weather, and the Antarctic treaty and regulations. There were 4 cm of snow on the runway at King George island and the weather for the morning didn’t look favourable so our flight would be delayed. We were to check back after dinner for the timing update. We checked the update after dinner and it said we would have breakfast as normal, lunch at 11h30 check out at noon, depart at 12h30 and attempt to fly at 15h. The excitement and anticipation could be felt in the room and it was hard to sleep.

16th December - Woke up at 8h and got ready but we had some time until the update meeting at 10h, and only about half of the people turned up since they had already announced we would not leave before 15h. The staff announced that we would not be able to fly at 15h. A group that had been waiting for two days due to bad weather already had priority and one flight was in the air with a second planned for mid-afternoon. Normally there would be two planes but two of the three planes owned by the charter company clipped wings in the hangar and were damaged. One had damage to the wing and another to the structure so they were trying to repair the wing damage. Bad luck! A waiting game untl the next update scheduled for 15h.

While we were stuck waiting, Quark arranged meals and if people would be stuck overnight then they arrange accommodation. It must be a nightmare to handle the ever-changing logistics! Many people were complaining but...no one can predict the weather and it’s unfortunate that the planes clipped each other but it was out of our control.

We rested in the lobby since we no longer had rooms, and at 15h we went up to see the update. Good news is we were cleared for takeoff and group one would meet in the lobby at 17h45 for 18h30 departure to the airport. Our flight would depart at 21h and land on King George island at 23h. The second group would depart at 3h and land at 5h tomorrow morning so they will get to have a beautiful view but after a tough long wait into the night.

Excited to get to Antarctica even if it’s 12 hours later than planned! We were in the lobby and boarded coaches at 18h30 to the airport. A separate truck carried our luggage and we checked that in at Punta Arenas airport. We were on an Antarctic Air charter flight and departed around 21h15 so 15 minutes later than planned. We got a cold dinner of sandwiches, yoghurt, fruit cocktail and an alfajore (addictive biscuits/cookies filled with dulce de leche/caramel). The flight went quickly and everyone queued up to use the loo since they announced that there would be no loos until we reached the ship. We then had to get into waterproof pants and boots. It was difficult especially for the older people to have to bend in the small spaces. We landed by 23h30 and then walked 1.4km to the zodiac launch station. When we got out of the plane it reminded me of Iceland with rocks and snow. Beautiful! We couldn’t take photos because the landing strip is on a Chilean air base. We took a zodiac to the ship Ocean adventurer. We did a water entrance so the boots were useful. It was very calm water and no wind so the zodiac ride was peaceful. The oldest passenger on the boat was 97 years old and this was her bucket list trip- good inspiration to keep on living! We got into the boat via steep stairs and then checked in to our cabin 227 with two narrow twin beds, a starboard window, big double closet and a bathroom. Not so bad for an adventure cruise!

17th December - The second group arrived around 6h and the expedition lead Alison (Ali) announced that breakfast would be from 6h30 until 8h30 and then a mandatory meeting at 10h. We went back to sleep until 7h20. It felt a bit like camp with loudspeaker announcements. But it was much better than camp because looking out of the porthole at any time of the day promised stunning icy scenery in the 23 hours of daylight. We had a briefing and safety meeting at 10h and the expedition team introduced themselves. The ship Dr said the three most common problems are flu, bruises and seasickness. We are far away from any medical care so health insurance can be very expensive especially for the elderly....

We went back to our cabin and prepared for the abandon ship drill, a requirement. That went pretty quickly, though a few people went to the wrong place. The view of Greenwich island, part of the south Shetland islands, was beautiful. We passed a giant glacier and some penguins jumping out of the water on the side of the boat. The jumping is called porpoising - imagine mini dolphins jumping out of the water. Penguins are much more graceful and speedy in the water than on land. Amazing!

We went out on a cruise in the zodiac to see a giant iceberg and there were some penguins sitting on it and jumping off, gentoo and chinstrap penguins. The scenery was stunning with rocks, glaciers and the sea. Then we landed on the rocky beach of Point Fort and walked around to see penguins. One friendly chinstrap penguin, who the guide said they’ve named Charlie, came over to check us out. Many penguins were sitting on their nests as it was just a little early for the main hatching time. Ali the expedition leader introduced some of the staff specialists who gave short lectures on topics like whales and glaciers. Then she explained the upcoming weather conditions and plans for the next day. The plans are always changing depending on the weather and the ice, which can make some passages unpassable. The plan was to go through the Lemaire channel and get to Petermann island then visit Jougla and Goudier islands. We had dinner right after the presentations. I had antipasti salad, red snapper and ginger crème brûlée plus a scoop of coffee ice cream. The food is really delicious on board and we had not at all expected the gourmet dining and excellent service, so it felt like a real luxury.

18 December- We woke up at 6h30 and dressed warmly to go outside and look at the views of the Lemaire channel. It was a stunning clear day and we could see beautiful snow covered mountains and lots of ice. There were penguins swimming and jumping out of the water. We saw a fat weddell seal sunning itself on an iceberg. The captain broke through some ice and we made it partially through the channel but then the ice was too dense so we turned around and went back. Instead we went to Hidden bay for some zodiac cruising.Our driver Jens went very fast so it was fun but very cold! We heard the cracking of moving icebergs but didn’t see any calves. We got back to the ship and had a rest in the cabin until 15h. Sophie from the British antarctic heritage trust at Fort Lockroy came on board to give a short talk. There are 4 women in the team that stay here for 4 months from Nov til March. They run the British post office and museum there, and maintain the site. They have no running water so usually take showers and get fresh food from the passing ships. Tough life! We took the zodiac to Goudier island and visited Fort Lockroy museum and post office. The museum is a restored British research hut from the 1950s and still has canned food from back then including beans and Branston pickle! Our postcards were sent from the post office and it cost $1 to send one anywhere in the world. I walked to see more penguins but the snow was very deep so it was difficult. The lady there told us to try to fill in any deep holes because penguins can fall in to these post holes, get stuck and die. They make a lot of funny sounds, and they steal pebbles from each other’s nests. Very amusing to watch their natural behaviour. People on the cruise were very helpful in general and assisted the more elderly passengers since the zodiacs landed on rock, ice, or sand without any docks. We took a zodiac to the next island Jougla. It was a tough landing with a big step and slippery ice and rocks, then deep snow. It was quite a feeling of awe to make the first footprints in the fresh snow. I walked to see some old whale bones and penguins and cormorants on the rocks. The penguins use their little highways to go between rocks and to the water.

When we got back to the ship, it was time for the pre dinner cocktail with the captain. We got to see him and the main crew. They do an incredible job to take us to these remote places and navigate the ice. For dinner, I had seafood cioppino, prime rib with Yorkshire pudding and baked potato, and a beautiful French opera cake. Two of the expedition team sat with us. Jason from Arizona is a crevasse and ice expert. His job would be to scout the path for tomorrow’s walk to a viewpoint at Neko harbour. Acacia is the photographer and made the photo journal for the trip. She’s from Alaska, works the Arctic season too and spends free time often in Scandinavia. She must like the cold weather!

19 December- We woke up at 6h50 to get ready for breakfast at 7h30. The ship had already anchored in the bay for the landings on the Antarctic continent at Neko Harbour in Andword bay. Until then we had made landings in Antarctica but on various islands. The continent was the big bucket list goal for many of the people on the ship.

There was a rotation of group orders, although many people cheated and jumped on the first boat. My British training makes me follow the queue system out of a sense of duty! This time, we were luckily in the first group of zodiacs to the Neko Harbour Landing. We had to exit the zodiacs quickly because the glaciers can calve (break off into icebergs) and cause sudden waves. The scenery around was beautiful with mountains, glaciers, snow and icebergs. The snow was falling slowly. We took a photo with the Antarctic continental flag since it was our first time on the continent and not an Antarctic island. I took the steep path up the hill to the viewpoint and it was tough but worth it. The glaciers have lots of crevasses and a bright blue colour due to the light reflection. They’re also very active and pieces crack off/calve quite often. I was hot and sweaty by the top of the hill and took off my jacked to just (literally) chill out and enjoy the view until it was time to go down. The snow was deep and slushy. We took a zodiac cruise with Tom, the marine biologist. His specialty is whales and he spotted a minke whale and we saw it briefly breach then it went under never to be seen again. We then went to see a close-up of a Weddell seal and a penguin sitting together on an iceberg. Leopard seals are a penguin predator but Weddell seals are friends. It was fun riding and crunching over small icebergs in the zodiac. We went back to the ship and warmed up with some tea. Then it was time for lunch and the polar plunge. I watched a few people jump in but I decided that was one once in a lifetime opportunity that I could miss out on.

We passed via the Arera channel. We cruised with Cam in a zodiac for an hour and saw a seal, lots of gentoo penguins and a sailboat with an Austrian couple who came out to say hello. We chatted with them and they’d been sailing continuously for 8 years mainly with each other for company. They had just reached the Antarctic via the Drake passage a week ago. Impressive!

We saw a lot of huge glaciers and they were very blue and beautiful, and shaped by the movement of the water. Then it was our turn to visit Cuverville island. We landed and hopped from the water up onto the snow. I went up a small hill and the view of the penguins and icebergs was stunning! I could also see the sailboat. Then I walked the other way to see more penguin colonies. They’re so noisy and smelly, but also very cute! They have well established penguin highways from the water to their nests and some of them climb up a big hill. They have their nests high on the hills because that’s where the snow clears first. Sometimes the penguins decided to use our walkways and even laid on their bellies for awhile, so we had to wait until they moved since they always have the right of way. The day went by so quickly! Tom gave a short talk on seals then Acacia gave a short talk on photography. A passenger named Casey, who has been on the show Bachelorette, gave a talk about his project which was to travel to all 7 continents using commercial airlines in a world record time. He has a website 7 in 72 and has set the Guiness book of world records. He also applied for a drone permit and took some amazing drone footage especially the bird’s eye views of the areas. Ali gave us an update on the weather and plan for tomorrow which included Deception Bay, an active volcano, and a Polish research station on an island which has Adelie penguins.

We went straight outside for an outdoor BBQ dinner. It was cold but the scenery was stunning around us and the sun came out just then. There was so much food and mulled wine. I had a burger, salad, seafood skewer, rice, beans, corn on the cob, curry vegetables, chocolate brownie and bread and butter pudding. Each day is so full of amazement that it is tiring in a good way.

20 December- We woke up at 5h and it was tough to get up but we got dressed and went outside in the rain to see the narrow entrance (bellows) of Deception Island. It is an active volcano and we sailed into it to land at Whalers’ bay. We got out on the zodiacs around 7h30 and walked around the old whaling station. There are a lot of old decrepit buildings including a World War 2 hangar. The wind picked up quickly and the rain was icy. I was on one of the last two zodiacs and they packed it with 15 people (normally we had 10) to hurry back to the boat. The wind was blowing at 70 knots! We missed the landing ramp the first time and had to go back a second time. I was soaked and had to hang everything up. The boat was rocking a lot as we sped along to Arctowski station on king george island to see the Adelie penguins. Then at 11h we went to listen to Paola’s talk about penguins and other animals too. Antarctic toothfish are also known as Chilean sea bass. They are part of the food chain and are eaten by seals and fished (overfished) for humans.

Sometimes the penguins present gifts of stones and food to their partners. They also steal stones from each other’s nests. If a penguin partner doesn’t return with food then the other parent will have to abandon the egg to eat. Survival strategies in the harshest of climates. Intriguing facts!

We went back to the room briefly then went to the lounge to hear the disembarkation process. The airline uses the IFIS website for the weather and SCRM is the Chilean Air base on King George island. We planned to leave in the morning on the plane that brings the next passengers but it depends on cloud cover and the weather.

We landed at the black sand beach and disembarked at Arctowski Polish research station. We could see an Adelie penguin colony on the rocks and with the zoom and binoculars we could see a few penguin chicks. So cute, grey and fluffy! We also saw a lot of penguins on the beach and in the water. There were chinstrap and gentoo penguins around so all three species we had seen during this trip. We saw some whale bones which look very artistic with some of the only green algae visible in the mostly barren rocky areas.

We went back to the ship and the seas were very rough and rocking the boat a lot. It was difficult for people to walk. It was our last dinner on board and we had delicious food and excellent service as we had at every meal. The head of the service crew introduced everyone as they marched in to Despacito. Wow can’t believe it’s already the end of the Antarctic holiday adventure!

21 December- The alarm went off at 5h30 and it was very early! We got dressed and finished packing our checked in luggage. We had to put it outside by 6h. I picked up the China Great Wall station mobile signal briefly and a text came through but no WiFi until Punta Arenas. It was nice to be disconnected for a week. We had to get our carryons and move out of the cabins so we sat up in the main lounge with everyone else. At around 10h the first flight got called to board the zodiacs and go to shore. Then around 10h30 we got called to board the zodiacs and head to shore. Last zodiac ride was fun with Jens driving. We had to wait outside in the cold and wind for nearly 2 hours until we could board the plane and get in the air. As soon as the seatbelt sign went off everyone got up to use the toilets. Neither of the two toilets was flushing so that was kind of gross. The plane in general was a bit dirty cuz they do such quick turn around. We were just hoping that they actually checked maintenance enough.... The flight was only two hours so pretty quick. We got to Dreams Hotel in Punta Arenas and checked in then relaxed in the room until dinnertime with a nice seafood soup at Los Ganaderos.

22 December- We had a day in Punta Arenas as a buffer in case the flight back from Antarctica was delayed. We did some souvenir shopping and then I walked to see the cemetery and pick up some empanadas from Roca Mar for a midnight snack. We ate lunch at Le mercadito in the municipal market again.

23 December - We checked out around midnight and the Taxi came at 00h30 to drop us at Punta Arenas airport. When we went to drop luggage the lady asked if we wanted to take an earlier flight to Santiago at 1h26 so we said sure. We waited for awhile there then had another flight Lima and then finally on the way back to Los Angeles.

#antarctica #penguin #trip diary #glacier #iceberg #snow #nature

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dunmerofskyrim · 7 years ago

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The hamlet ended, sudden and meagre as it began. No dwindle or slow fade as the huts and ricks, the smokehouses and storepits uncrowded away and away from each other. Just a point where Simra stepped past the last lowslung lodge, into then out from its lengthening afternoon shadow, and saw there was nothing else ahead. Not for a long stone’s throw. A thin white hinterland of untrodden snow, hard-froze with how long it had gone undisturbed. And then the rabble of shapes that made up Vidanu’s tower.

Simra looked back. Turned, stamping his feet in the snow to keep blood in them.

The staggered out plots of the hamlet. Sea, off in the distance, glitter and black, and seeming almost higher than the land with its farness. Sea and steppe have that in common — a flatness so huge it towers over you, like a wave gathering up and ready to break.

Closer by, a few wing-clipped racers pecked and scratched round the last homestead. Scrawny and small, their stiff plumes and coarse downy bodies were fluffed all to volume for warmth. Almost sad, Simra thought, seeing them crawling in the snow and dirt. Robbed of flight; kept for eggs and feathers, meat and leather. Almost, until one fixed him with a sharp little sidelong eye.

A shriek went up. Just the one at first but the whole flock took it up quick as blinking. Hateful little eyes and the open squawling wrongness of their mouths – toothed beaks, beaked muzzles – they scrambled squawking towards him. A thrashing of pierced pointless wings, as if to take flight.

Sympathy all swallowed up, Simra fought the urge to run. Went fast as he could without breaking a jog or showing them his back. The clumsy bent-kneed lope of a walk that wants to be something else, craning to look sideways over his shoulder as he went.

Crash of a door as it opened and Simra heard shouting. Bellowy lungfuls of calling, but after him or the racer-flock, he was too busy getting away to try pry apart which. If there’s a chance someone’s raising a hue and cry after you – trespasser, forager, looter, whatever you might be, running from their racers or racing off with one – better to run and never know than stay and get answers.

Churning the set snow with his boots now, Simra struck out into the hinterland, off and towards the Tel. One last glance over his shoulder. The racers hadn’t followed him far. They held back at the end of their scratching ground. Squalling and hissing, and hopping with shrill rage, but they’d stopped at the hamlet’s edge. Like guard-hounds tugging at the end of their leash, jawing and noising for all they can’t chase any further. The comparison set Simra’s nerves jangling, but better a dog barking on its leash than running and biting let loose from it.

Maybe that was what changed his pace. He’d broken into a run some few strides back and made himself ease back down. A warm steady lope, strides long and knees high to fight on through the snow. A wake of grey-tan slush behind him. The Tel standing out like a rash on the whiteness of the way ahead.

From afar it had looked scarce more than a tangle of shapes. Things the imagination would make into skinny trees maybe, climbing creepers, a pale deflated pavilion tent. But the distance had been kind to it. Closer to, it looked nothing so much as a mistake. Fungus, seeded and left to grow feral.

The ground was walked and worked to mud between drifts of shovelled snow. Blotches of yellow-white and powder-blue spattered the dirt like rotten velvet, like paint, like knurls of reset wax. Sporegrowth, Simra reckoned, like on a dead tree’s trunk, or a heel of bread left in the damp. He trod wary around them. Sooner step in the mud.

A loose thicket of stems half-circled the site. Spongy, fragile, moth-coloured, they wavered headless in the breeze. Leaning and sick-looking, they bent under their own weight. Simra reached out to touch one, curious how it’d feel, but thought better of it. Air was too cold anyway to bring his hand out from under his arms or let go the little morsel of flame he still carried.

Most of the stems rose skyward, though by twisted and stunted paths. Some yearnt across the ground, to die off in a heap of snow, or snake towards the dome. It was the cap of an emperor parasol; a young runt trying to spread and fruit. A dozen paces across and twice Simra’s height, it wallowed close to the ground, lumpen and swollen and stuck. Damp and rot had set in like a pox where its edges hung low to the earth.

Simra had never seen a Tel still in its first fits of growth. Wouldn’t so much as try to lie about being any kind of expert. But even unversed, he felt sure this place was a poor example. He walked through it, feeling all the same old Telvanni wrongness but none of the wonder that came with it.

A little dug-out lurked a few strides from the parasol cap. Crude, mean, miserable, even compared with the huts in the hamlet. Like someone had put knee-high walls and a tentlike roof over a mass grave and called the job done. But compared with the unkempt garden of Telvanni trial and failure here, it looked fit to home in. Then again, almost anything does when you’re out and stuck between snow and sky.

“A man trapped in Winter’s teeth will envy the fox her hole, the badger his set, and give not a thought to the stink,” Simra muttered. Nord wisdom, such as it was. Hadn’t heard that in a while. Then he called, loud as he dared. “Anyone about?”

Nothing but the wind at first. But it felt like back on the waterfront, amongst the fishermen and net-menders: the studied and deliberate silence of someone trying not to listen.

“Here to see Master Vidanu, if he’s home!”

A flap of the stretched hide roof shuddered then pulled up a smallway from the dug-out’s wall. A crack of space showed inside. A face in that new slot of shadow. Wide red eyes and little grey fingers grasping over the wall’s edge, drumming and fidgeting. “Who’s asking?” said a high voice from inside.

Simra paused without hesitating. Instinct by now to think before he answered, names and selves and deeds fanning out in his mind like cards. Vestigial though; an instinct from an older time. About this at least he was trying to be honest, when there was no skin to risk by doing so. “Simra Hishkari. Sellsword, scribe, scholar sometimes . . .” He tailed off, thoughts muddied by the cold, the slow gnawing sap of maintaining the flame in his left hand.

“What’s your doing here, Simra Hish-Who-Gives-A-Care?”

“This island’s Vidanu’s holdings, right? Reckoned I oughtta pay my respects.”

“First time for everything, then.”

“Got some questions too, if the Master doesn’t mind. Telvanni business.”

“Come closer then. Can’t have you barking your business like a seal for all the sea to hear.”

Simra gave a small sigh and crossed towards the dug-out.

The flap of roof burst open. A Dunmer child stood halfway up a rickety wood ladder, sussing him over with her eyes. A windchafed blush struck out furious across the bridge of her blunt nose and round cheeks. She wrinkled her nose and frowned so hard it was almost a grimace. “What’d you say you were?”

“Today? I’m an emissary. Means I’ve come on behalf of—”

“I know.” Balanced on a ladder rung, she cocked both hands onto her hips. Puffed up the whole skinny bundle of her torso, like a bird inflating its feathers to hide that it’s nothing but scrapmeat and hollow bones. “Don’t get to be a Mouth without you know what an ‘emissary’ is.”

“You’re the master’s Mouth?”

Her hair was thick and pale-grey, brushed up into a high explosion of a bun. It thrashed violent as she nodded. “You such a dolt I need to say it twice, Ser Scholar-Sometimes?”

“Easy there. I wasn’t doubting.”

She was mouthy enough for the title, that was for surety. Simra gave her a sussing down of his own. Oversize faded red tunic, broideries in coarse white thread all across it, hashes and crosses and stitch-scored lines, like some Dunmer did to darn their clothes, or work hardwearing strength or spells into fabric. A stone-coloured sash enveloped her whole waist and belly. Leggings of sealskin, ill-fit on her as everything else she wore. Dead folk’s clothes, Simra reckoned — hand-me-downs if not scavenged. He crept his eyes past her and down into the dug-out. Shadows, and the vague lick of light in its depths, but nothing clear or certain. No sound, no shift in the light, as of someone moving and their shadow moving with them.

When he looked back to the girl, her stare had shifted. Gone to the fire in his palm and turned hungry, wide-eyed.

Simra knew that face. How it felt to wear it, feel it in your chest. He made a fist with his left hand. The flame disappeared between his fingers.

The girl’s mouth hung open. Black gaps where her front teeth were missing and new ones not yet come through. A look on her face like he’d snatched something away from her.

A smile tugged at the corners of Simra’s mouth. He flexed his hand open again. With a small wrenching feeling – like a muscle threatening to pull or knot – the flame danced back to life. “Teach you much magic, does he? Vidanu, I mean.”

“Plenty!” the girl said, pride-pricked, almost a snarl.

“Bet he hasn’t taught you anything like this, though, hm? Nah, he wouldn’t have. Won’t. This is Ashlander magic, you know. See these?” Simra lowered himself a little, stooping closer till they were face to face. He raised a hand to his face, showing her the harrow-marks there. “These’re Ashlander marks for magicks I’ve mastered. The evil eye . . . And fire-breathing, see?” He traced the mark that curled out from his mouth, following his slow-growing grin. “Vidanu’s not here right now, is he?”

A guess, but she shook her head confirming it, rapt with huge questions and a small glimmer of fear.

“Let me in,” said Simra. “Might be I’ll have time to show you some more Ashlander magic while we wait for him. You’ve got the look of a fast learner about you. Might be you’ll learn something, even. How’s that sound? Good?”

Another great fit of nodding. She beamed, puffing up her chest again. “Follow me! Devils know what you’re waiting on!” And she disappeared down the ladder.

#TES #Morrowind #Dunmer #Simra Hishkari #SH Forth and Back #SH New Canon

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palechasm · 7 years ago

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aloe.

one word drabble prompts

A L O E - B I T T E R N E S S five times hisato was bitter, and one time he wasn’t.

(alternatively titled ‘one more time, with feeling’)

i also want to apologize for how fucking long this is?? like wow you go to write six tiny little blurbs and it still ends up being five pages long. i’m so sorry

warnings for death, gore, animal death, animal cruelty, dissociation, and Bad Morals For Children.

i. bitter

Rain drips down his nose, clouds smothering the dusk sky like wads of soiled cotton, choking the dying rays sunlight. Dark skies and gentle rolls of thunder have marked each day of his life, more surely than the steady cycle of the pale, cowardly moon they hid.

He was born beneath a roiling, weeping sky, and now it seemed he would die beneath another.

The forest sings around him, a chorus of frogs loud enough to rival the storm’s lazy rumbling. So often did the rain fall that it seemed the sky itself was too bored with precipitation to make any real effort at a weatherfront.

But the frogs and the clouds’ cranky grumbling were the only signs of life around him, and his throat was too raw to yell over the noise. Not even a lone doe picked her way through the underbrush, searching for tender greens. Instead the deer dozed in their thickets, safe and dry with fawns tucked safely into their sides.

Would they object, he wondered, if he tried to join one of the peaceful families? The longer he waited, the less it felt that his parents were fervently searching for him the same way he had for them.

His throat ached and burned from calling for his mother, and as a trickle of cold water rain down his neck and between his shoulder, another sob hitched in his throat. It hurt, more than anything, to cry. But what else could he do?

The rain carried him through into the night, and as he knotted his limbs into a tight ball under the feeble arms of a bush, the verity of his situation set into his chest like a sharp, heavy stone.

Although young, he was both smart and old enough to know that sometimes, children went missing– and sometimes, they weren’t found.

He imagined little skeletons littering the fields and the brush, the rice paddies and the bottoms of wells. The lonely remains of little boys who wandered away and died alone, bones poking through the moss and mud like pale branches.

He thought about the trees that wrapped around him in an endless sea. Thought that this might be where he would die, where the creeping fingers of green weeds would wrap around his bones and hold on forever. The forest would steal him away, and shy, friendly deer would step on his ribs where he lay forgotten.

Night bled into thin, reedy wisps of dawn. The rain didn’t stop, and no one called his name.

Something angry and resigned and unfamiliar squeezed his heart.

They weren’t looking for him.

ii. bitter

Black feathers ruffle in a thick mane around the bird’s neck as he shakes water from his body, plumage rolling down his back like an inky wave. He’s smaller than Susutori, and the way he postures toward her in greeting, head dipped and wings splayed, makes it evident that he’s younger as well.

But Susutori is pleased to see him and warbles a pleasant call, her eyes soft and her chest puffed like she’s proud. The newcomer straightens and fluffs his own feathers, their greeting finished. The motherly crow ushers him closer and buries her beak into his neck, preening a spot of mussed feathers.

“You take too long to visit,” She scolds, once finished. “And Sokkou says you’ve been lazy with summons.”

“Sokkou is a worm-eater and a suck-up.” The other bird grouses.

“Watch your words in front of my nestling, or I’ll stick you with your own team of them.” Susu shakes her wings, preening irritably. “We’ll go elsewhere to talk.”

The black, curious gaze of her companion rests on him, and Hisato stares back with matched interest.

“I forgot you had a little human.” The large bird cocks his head, neck stretched to peer at him. “It even looks sorta like a chick. In an unfortunate way.”

Something tugs at Hisato’s heart. For a moment, he’d felt nothing but an easy fascination. It was rare to see any of his adoptive mother’s clan, and there was a sliver of pride in hearing her claim over him- pride, and the warm embrace of belonging. As if he really were one of them, a chick taken under Susutori’s wing.

And then it’s gone, and he was just an oddity. An it. Something strange and sad to gawk at, a boy with no family taken pity on by a crow. A misfit amongst humans and birds alike.

A large wing shoots open and clips the crow’s body, sending him flapping and stumbling with a squawk.

“He’s a human, and he looks perfectly fine.” Susutori bobs down to Hisato’s height, fixing him with a stern, parental look that broke no argument. “Hisato, I have business to attend to. Stay put. I’ll be back to bring you a meal.”

She turns, meeting her younger counterpart as he rights himself from her push.

“You have a bald spot on your tail,” Hisato mumbles, giving him a sour glare. “It looks unfortunate.”

Susutori has the sense to disappear the both of them into a puff of smoke, just as her subordinate’s beak drops open with indignation.

Then he is alone, separated from the safe and familiar like he’d been just a few years ago.

This time, crows and humans both far away, and together with their kind.

And Hisato, alone, the taste of dirt filling his mouth.

iii. bitter

“Normally we’d use our feathers, but a leaf will have to do.” The oversized crow settles into the dry, brittle summer grass. Hisato feels her gaze, making certain he was beginning the exercise correctly.

“Susu, is this what ninja do? The ones your friends help, sometimes?”

“Using chakra is a shinobi skill among humans. Useless, as always.” She mutters, picking at the feathers of a wing. “They leave so many of their own kind defenseless.

“Among crows, we teach all of our young how to protect themselves. And you must learn, too. There are many humans who won’t understand your position, and may try to harm you.”

The crow speaks carefully, skirting around words like ‘death’ and ‘murder’, but the message is delivered without question. Hisato would always be in danger from other people.

“What is my position?” He wonders aloud, cross-legged and raptly focused on the soft green patch quivering on his knuckles. What did it mean to be kept apart from the world?

“You have no village, so you are unprotected. But with the skill to defend yourself, other humans will be suspicious because you are not a civilian. With no headband or sworn allegiance, they will fear you as a bandit, or worse, a defector.

“You will be surrounded by threats, Hisato. The day your parents failed you was the day this fate was sealed.”

Her words are succinct and sharp. His focus is broken and he stares at his mentor, leaf forgotten.

“Am I… an outcast?”

The thought is foreign, strange. It isn’t something he’d before considered himself to be, but the more he looks at himself the more the word fit. It wraps around his skin like an ugly tattoo… or a manacle, perhaps, callously locked over his wrist.

“You are what you are, Hisato. Such is the only certainty in life.”

He looks down, and begins the exercise again.

iv. bitter

There is no blood on his hands, he idly thinks. Slivers of dirt ring his nails, but the pale lengths of his fingers are clear of rusty smudges. His palms are unmarred, his knuckles clean, although dry and lightly scarred.

And yet, a dead man lies a scant few yards away, head lolling and chest peeled open like an overripe fruit.

A jutsu he would rather not use again, given the others at his disposal. He wouldn’t have used it, if he’d known. Known the reality.

But he hadn’t realized, hadn’t understood….

Hadn’t thought.

Before the man’s blade had sank into his throat in a ruthless swipe, he’d pushed him back, air colliding into his enemy like a wall and when he landed, tearing up dirt and grass and moving to rush back at Hisato with rage in his eyes–

– when he landed, springing to attack again, Hisato kept pushing.

Air funneled into the man’s lungs faster than he could think to stop. And when his opponent had finally realized, he couldn’t scream.

Susutori had given him this jutsu. It was one of the first combat techniques he’d learned, being a simple but brutal attack with little possibility of a counter. He understood, now, how ruthless the crow was. How the battlefield had painted her with blood and resolve, and what it meant that she could kill so efficiently and without remorse.

Hisato touches a hand to his side, robe torn open with ragged, stained edges. It isn’t deep, or life-threatening, but it could have been. His neck would have been. The wound bleeds like a warning.

But for how closely he’d let danger touch him, or something else entirely?

Red coats his fingers and seeps under his nails as he puts pressure on the wound.

Ruddy dirt cools beneath the gaping corpse, and skyward a trio of scavenger begin to circle. The only blood he wore on his hands was his own, hot and slick from a living, pumping heart. And wasn’t that just as bad? Did it matter what spatters of blood belonged to who, when someone lay dead?

He approaches the gore, reaches with sticky, warm fingers to close the thing’s eyes. Twin smears are left behind on the pair of eyelids, and he withdraws to clasp at his side once more.

No matter whose blood it is against his skin, a man that had breathed and walked only minutes ago lays still, the broad wings of a carrion bird spreading to full as it breaks its swoop to perch on his leg.

Hisato watches as they descend, one by one, a funeral procession claiming his body for the wilds. Nature will cycle his life back into itself, an ever-flowing balance.

It shouldn’t be disturbing, watching them clean up the terrible mess he left behind. He’d seen death, animals picked apart and others thriving from the end. He’d seen what was left of humans that had met their fate, only the remnants of bleached, stained bones as their final mark of passing. The encounters had never left him feeling sick. Crows, after all, were scavengers at times, and so he’d never thought them gruesome.

He sits with his head in his hands, folded into himself and wondering if it shouldn’t be him, carried away by the birds in pieces.

v. bitter

Pillowed in his lap was a shivering dog, coaxed with gentle murmurs and a skewer of trout. Hisato ran a gentle hand across its shoulders, though the fur clinging there was thin and coarse. Strays were not uncommon in villages, no matter how large or small they happened to be. Hisato often sought out the wandering canines enjoyed their simple and easy company.

They were seemed so uncomplicated, living next to humans who might react a dozen different ways to his presence. Dogs either welcomed you or didn’t.

But the dog cradled between his knees was different from the other strays he’d befriended, kicked by the world within an inch of his life and chased away from the sunspot he’d been curling himself into. Not hurting a thing, but made to put his tail between his legs regardless.

His health was poor, fur damp and coming away in clumps on his haunches. He’d chewed his paws until they were bloody, then licked at the wounds until they were hot and sickly. His pads were cracked, his nose dry, his tail limp. There wasn’t an inch of dog that wasn’t sad and broken.

He would fix this, Hisato decided. He would fix the terrible things this place had done, because what more important thing did he have to do with his time? He would make it right. And when once healthy again, he would take the dog to a kinder, warmer place with dirty streets and plenty of strays to clean them.

Next to a warm fire, an element he usually forwent, Hisato slept with a lapful of dog that, for the first time in its life, had not been chased or beaten.

The world was not kind to strays. Many of them never knew a better life or a different place than the one they were born into, but Hisato had been lucky.

When he left his friend to the bustling streets and overflowing trash bins of a Wind village just west of River country border, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had been so lucky after all. Dogs, after all, were passed over without a thought no matter what village they wandered into. For humans, homes were a tricky thing- stay in one place too long, and someone might notice you don’t have the right papers or the right permission from the right people. Just a group of men in fancy robes, foolish enough that land could be owned like a lifeless commodity.

He would visit, Hisato told himself.

And that would have to be enough.

i. warm

“You’re a weird kid,” Said a well-muscled and ill-shaven man, cigarette dangling from his lips. “But I guess that don’t hurt nothin’.”

Hisato stared silently, head cocked curiously even as he craned his neck up to watch the gruff, scarred face. A dull, warped shuriken was cradled in his little fingers, the feeble shine of tarnished metal drawing him to the empty field. He’d pulled it front one of the few, lonely wooden posts jutting from one end of the field, scattered with forgotten weapons.

“What are you even gonna do with that? Can’t throw it anymore, th’ hells been bent outta it.”

He looked down at the weapon, feeling bashful, and thumbed a blunted edge. “It’s for my mom. She’s a crow.”

“Don’t you call your own mother a crone, boy.”

“No, she’s a crow.” He corrected, squinting up. “What’s a crone?”

The man guffawed, and Hisato wasn’t sure if he was laughing or choking. “Well my ma-in-law is a buzzard, so I’ll give you that one, twerp. I don’t know what th’ hell she’s gonna do with scrap metal like that, though.”

A grin had split through the rough face towering above him, and he smiled back, enjoying the warmth of the man’s attention. Large, thick fingers reached into a pouch at his hip, pulling out a sharp, crisp shuriken.

“You want me to teach y’how to throw one of those things or what?”

At Hisato’s awed grin, he pressed the cold metal into pale, childish fingers.

“Tell ya what, if you can hit that post I’ll let y’have this one, too.”

#harefrost #𝚔𝚎𝚎𝚙 𝚒𝚝 𝚜𝚊𝚏𝚎 / 𝚍𝚘𝚗'𝚝 𝚐𝚒𝚟𝚎 𝚒𝚝 𝚊𝚠𝚊𝚢 // 𝚖𝚎𝚖𝚎 #𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚒𝚕𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎 𝚒𝚗 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚎𝚗 // 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛𝚜 #𝚠𝚑𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚍𝚎 𝚞𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚊𝚢 // 𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗

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badprogen · 7 years ago

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Spiced W(h)ine Chapter 11: Cold Season, Rainy Season. Stiff Season, Sticky Season. Word Count: 2,964 Updates: Bi-Weekly to Weekly {PRELUDE} {<BACK} {NEXT>} {EXITLUDE}

The air is thick with steaming rain and she can hear it pattering against the leaves as she snakes through the bamboo grove. “Rainy season, sticky season,” she says, spacing the syllables of the tiny, repetitive song between the loudest rhythms of the rain, “Rainy season, sticky season.” There are paths she can follow through the grove-- ancients rivets between the arrangements of the segmented green plants. She thinks they might look like a whole picture, or a message cut into the earth by the universe itself-- if only she could fly high enough on a clear day. But not in the rainy season, not in the sticky season.

She can hear her grandmother threshing the shoots, digging her claws into the soft, petey earth to find unwanted root systems and clipping them back, and humming along with it all. “Flute! Flute!” she says and her grandmother stops and beams at her as if she were the first star ever seen by dragons, “I made a song while I was sliding along the grove paths--” And she sings it. And her grandmother smiles and smiles and cannot help but join in...

When she reached the edge of the forest, Lyric looked up at the split in the sky, the wind pulling at her whiskers like an invitation to follow it upwards towards the pale, strange divide. The trees were shivering with the same force and scattered their hoarded flurries of snow through the air in panicked, thoughtless patterns. She saw Virtue swerve to avoid one of these flurries, Muddle tottering in their palm. When the Pearlcatcher had steadied themself, they locked eyes with her and said, “Lyric, I belie--” “What--?!” Muddle was balanced between fear and an obvious, budding resent towards being carried, “What was that--?! What the h-hel--?!” Virtue glanced down at the tiny Fae and blinked, “Yes. That was my question, however coarsely put.” “D-d-don’t talk d-d-down to m--!” The Script shifted against Lyric’s side, slow, encouraging waves of warmth spreading from it. She gathered a matching breath and then said, “I’m not really sure,” her gaze wandered back the split, “But I think hanging around it too long... Muddle did almost get sucked in, right?” Muddle’s frills went rigid and he made a noise as Virtue nodded. “You know, the snow and the trees... I thought it’d be good to move,” she felt The Script pushing the warmth through her again, “We still might want to do that, alright?” Lyric turned to walk, trying to pick up the sounds of the river above the swishing and whipping of the branches. “Perhaps,” Virtue surged forwards, drawing alongside Lyric, “A different direction might serve the same purpose as--” Lyric saw their eyes trained dead ahead, clouding with something that looked thick and distant. “After all, I should tend to Muddle’s wounds before they worsen.” Muddle was struggling to stay upright and squeaked, “I already told you, I--” Before Virtue’s weight shifted and he tumbled onto his knees. “The river, I think,” Lyric wasn’t even bothering to slow down for the others, “Alright. Once we get across it...” she glanced back at Muddle’s spotted form, “Maybe then I can just...” The sounds in her most recent dreams had been so muffled but she remembered, somehow, the shrill, interjecting tune and the long rolling of river-rock over itself-- the scraping of stiff, freezing bodies against the pull of a force far to powerful for her to swim against. “The Everflow River?” Virtue stopped, Muddle barely clutching their claws in time to avoid tumbling into the snow, “I suppose you are not familiar with the boundaries of the Icefields?” “Huh,” said Lyric, only half slowing down, “I guess not.” The trees were scarcer ahead and Lyric could feel the shift in the air as she moved further from the split in the sky. Here the boughs barely quivered, but the shadows they cast across the ground seemed oddly yellow, like ancient bruises just below the top-layer of snow. Lyric tilted her head to the side, exhaling slowly, carefully and watching her breath puff and vanish across the scene. Alright. “I’m afraid,” Virtue had caught up to her, “You might not comprehend the nature of the Icefield-- The magic, that is, or, rather, the severity of it.” “Huh,” said Lyric. She swiveled her head back, but only to check The Script, unsure as to whether or not the slow, ache she felt knocking against her insides was its doing. But The Script looked still, was still-- still as the last line of trees before the land dropped off into the dark, vicious waters of the the Everflow. Another exhale, she tried to imagine it was steam. “What do you think I don’t understand?” she said, watching the iceflows bunching and scraping and then dispersing along the edges of the river. “It wasn’t my intention to--” Muddle let out a gasp and Lyric looked back: he seemed to have had enough of being carried and had jumped onto the ice, hopping from one spidery foot to the other from the cold. He scrambled forwards, with obvious discomfort-- the split ends of his mangled wings leaving a trail of tiny rubies-- and settled on the tuft of her tail, panting and shivering and wincing. “Are you certain you do not wish for me to heal you n--” “Just,” Muddle snapped, “Tell her what you’re not telling her about the st-stupid river or m-magic or whatever.” He held his sides and looked away. Lyric felt a tinge of the sharpness from The Script and dug her claws into the ice, but neither of her companions seemed to notice. Virtue’s eyes looked thick and dark again, “The Icefield is more than just an ideal location for a prison: it is one. Not that every wyrm who lives here is necessarily a fiend or criminal or a creature of unsavory nature... Just that there are safeguards in place to prevent those sorts of entities from escaping the actual prisons located within the Icefield.” Stac’s voice had always been so slick and smug, warbling about the crimes of the Icefield’s impenetrable fortresses: So very Terrible are the many, and many they may be For in the ice and draped in chains, they float on the frozen sea And the keys that turn the locks, and the claws that tie the knots To rivers none can cross, shapeless walls for those who goodness lost-- Oh, to seal evil makes a cost, to hold the lines where wicked’s caught... Lyric shook the song out of her head. “Alright,” she said. Virtue looked from her to the river, “If you are running from a denizen of the Icefield which,” they glanced at Muddle without hesitance, “I would hardly dispute given the circumstances... You won’t be able to cross.” “What do mean,” Muddle’s frills vibrated weakly, but Lyric heard a sudden fragileness cracking in his high voice, “By that?” “It is irrelevant to me-- To an extent,” Virtue said quickly, “I only wish to heal you and any judgement I might pass would only come should I be presented with sound evidence that you...” Their mouth hung open for a moment, then, “Ignore that tangent. My apologies. The river, yes... We were discussing the river. You cannot fly across it, even if you are, ah... innocent, but depending on the severity of the hold you might have been in...” “What are you talking about?” Muddle’s eyes were bulging, “You d-d-don’t know anything about-- You d-d-don’t--!” He glanced nervously at his bracelet and, for the first time, Lyric noticed an odd, dark vein had marred the inside-- the tips of its tendrils barely breached the outer band. Muddle swallowed, “Why does everything keep looking at me like I’m-- Like--” “We’ll be able to cross,” said Lyric, barely registering her own words and she moved closer towards the water. She felt a tug on her tail as Muddle suddenly clutched it, “That’s not an answer-- I--” Virtue was silent but Lyric heard them move along the ice, trailing just outside of Lyric’s peripherals. “Whatever happens,” Virtue’s voice was low, barely audible above the roar of the water, “Remember that I offered you a warning.” “Wait!” Muddle shrieked, tightening his grip, “M-maybe you shouldn’t-- I m-mean, the w-- I mean, the ice flows... they--” The air rushed around Lyric as she coiled her legs and then sprung, launching herself onto the closest ice flow and digging her claws into its surface as it tottered under her weight. Muddle screamed and began to mutter something high and pleading under his breath. Human prayer, maybe? she readied herself and jumped again, swinging her body across the ice as it began to tip. “St-stop it!” Muddle wailed, “St-stop--” Lyric looked back, her eyes meeting Virtue’s. The Pearlcatcher stood on the jagged shore, their nose slanted towards the sky as if they were watching hatchlings quarrel over a scrap of meat. Lyric felt nothing from The Script and made herself equally unreadable, pulling her body in before she leapt through the freezing air-- The dark water churned and crackled below her-- Muddle screamed, again and-- Her palms slid along the ice, her claws barely shaving the surface before her belly struck the edge of the float and her lower half was sucked into the water-- Scrambling against the impossibly smooth surface of the ice flow, she thrashed her tail through the river, trying to propel herself upwards while her claws squealed and scraped against the ice. Everything felt like it was five times heavier, harder than it should have been and the air wasn’t settling in her chest correctly-- She couldn’t catch her breath, she-- In a moment of clarity, she felt The Script pushing against her-- and then pulling over her hip, the twine that held it to her loosening with the relentless current. No. No-- She tried to shimmy along the sharp side of the ice, trying to coax her long body into a place where the current would pin her to it-- Maybe then she could-- There was a noise like a broken flute being held against the winds of a storm and Lyric saw Muddle flailing against water in the same moment she felt The Script tear away from her body. “I ca--” Muddle’s movements were slow and weak but no less desperate, “Hel--” And, without hesitation, Lyric let go of the ice and dipped down into the freezing waters, snaking along with them as if they were the warm, dripping roots of a bamboo grove. Despite the angry grey of the water, the sunlight shone readily through it, casting marbled patterns on the smoothed rocks churning along the shallower depths. Muddle’s body dragged along the sunlight-yellowed underside of a float, but Lyric wriggled past his rigid form, her claws closing around The Script’s undulating red tail of twine. She pulled it towards her, clasping the heavy binding to her heart and hearing the volly of sounds and vibration flood through her again. The water surged upwards around her and she broke the surface, gulping in what felt like seven days’ worth of air, and beating her wings violently against the waves. Perhaps it was The Script singing through her or the memory of herself in what had been a brighter time, but, somehow, she managed to break free of the current and propelled herself onto the frozen bank, where she lay shuddering and panting. If the cold of the water had been unbearable, laying soaked and exposed on the ice was tortuous in a way she had almost forgotten existed. And yet... The Script was warm against her heart and she struggled to push herself into a sitting position, feeling her claws rattle against the ice. The Script bucked in her claws and she dipped her squared nose towards it, pressing the etched binding in the gap between her bushy eyebrows. “Thank you, thank you, thank you...” she said, breathless and freezing and in a voice that sounded as though she might either laugh or burst into tears. She barely heard the sound of Virtue hoisting themself up out of Everflow but looked up at they staggered towards her, Muddle dangling limply from their mouth. “I warned you,” they wheezed, after settling Muddle flat against the ice. Lyric was breathing too hard to say much of anything and wrapped her body closer around The Script. “I warned you,” Virtue repeated and then managed “Watch his chest. If he stops,” they spat out a shimmering glob of something oily and thick as they moved stiffly towards where they had laid their staff upriver, “If he stops breathing... Alert me immediately.” But she kept her eyes trained on the Pearlcatcher and they trudged towards their staff and then back towards where they had put the Fae. Virtue did not comment on this, though Lyric, despite the needles she felt in the tip of her ears and tail, figured they must have known-- Instead they leaned over Muddle’s body and brought the staff to the base of his neck. Lyric’s eyes wandered. “You were right,” she said, squinting across the waters at the opposite side of the river, trying to puzzle out what the distant shapes peppered across its horizon were, “Crossing was hard or, um, impossible, I think is how you put it,” she held The Script against her for another moment before she began to wind the twine around her waist again, “I guess you did warn me.” A beat. “I’m sorry,” she tried, hoping it was convincing. She watched Virtue’s shoulders stiffen, but they did not turn around. Instead Muddle coughed, water dribbling from the sides of his mouth as he jerked his head upwards and coughed again. He took in a fragile, shuddering breath and curled inwards like a spindly insect. “I can’t--” he whispered, his voice so soft that Lyric felt it tug at her insides, “I can’t swim-- I can’t swim-- I d-d-don’t-- I can’t--” He kept repeating it and shivering. “It is imperative we find somewhere warm,” Virtue was looking directly at her, “Or we’ll all die.” “Oh. Okay,” Lyric said, her body feeling like nothing at all, “Is your bracelet alright?” Virtue looked confused, but Muddle suddenly shifted, clutching at the gold around his wrist with his eyes bulging. “Oh that’s good,” said Lyric, setting her jaw so her teeth wouldn’t chatter, and forcing herself to stand, “Maybe it has the kind of magic that would help us not die.” Muddle made a noise, motionless and silent except for his shivering. Virtue looked between Lyric and him, eyes narrowing. “I don’t understand,” they said, “If Muddle had the ability to save himself then...” Lyric shrugged, “It doesn’t make sense, right? But I know that thing is magic and he tried to use it twice... Back in Lopshide, or close to it... Or something like that. I just know nothing happened, I mean, he was very upset, anyways...” she looked back at the Fae, “Is it broken?” “No-- No, it’s not-- It’s--” he folded his opposite hand over the gold, “It’s not m-magic and it’s not broken, it’s-- I can--” The sharpness, this time in her throat-- like Thrush sticking her with his claws. Lyric looked down at Muddle, “We’re going to die if we don’t get warm soon.” Muddle let out a squeak of air and looked away but Lyric craned her neck around so that she could see his eyes again. “It really seems like you don’t want that.” Muddle’s mouth twisted upwards in contempt but hung slightly open in surprise. His body shook. Then, he ran the pads of his fingers along the outer rim of the band, flinching once the action was completed. Nothing. The roar of the river. And then-- A cluster of trees began to ripple with a sudden energy, their trunks splitting evenly, soundlessly down their centers as though a they were water parting around a stone. They began to warp and twist, forming the walls and thatched ceiling of a somewhat large, somewhat lopsided windowless building-- the sides of which rippled a final time, as its thinly wooded door swung open, and then were still. “I’ll prepare a fire,” Virtue moved to lift Muddle up but the Fae squirmed a pathetic distance from them. Virtue looked down at him with a clouded expression, “Unless you--” “I’m not st-stupid,” Muddle dragged himself along, shaking and whimpering under his breath, “Of course I-- agh!” Lyric scooped him up easily and slithered towards the shelter. She barely fit through the door, but the inside of the shack was surprisingly roomy and she could almost sit upright without hitting the brushy ceiling. There was a small clearing near the center of the wood flooring made of poorly cut stone in which a small fire flickered with the draft Lyric was letting through the door. She made to close it, nearly slamming it into one of Virtue’s horns. “Oh, sorry,” she said quickly and moved towards the fire, curling herself around it as Muddle rolled off of her. Virtue closed the door and struggled towards the heat, pulling their legs under them so that they settled in a tight, boxy position. Muddle clutched his shoulders and growled, stepping into the glow and nearly falling over as he tried to sit, “You’re welcome.” Lyric saw Virtue open their mouth and then close it with a strange, heavy shake of their head. The Script felt just as heavy against her, but she couldn’t focus on the sensations, or whatever Muddle had begun to whine about, or anything that wasn’t her stiff, freezing body. “Alright,” she let out a small sigh and settled into the silence, knowing it would be impossible to hold onto forever.

#spiced w(h)ine #flight rising #fr #scrawls #mine

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