#I just wanted to draw her. and the cool sword. that is all. have a good day :)

[nutmegnautilus]

Finally finished Tears of the Kingdom on New Years Eve... I really liked Zelda's dress design in this one, and the decayed master sword. I also like that there's a Zelda floating around Hyrule giving people bad advice. I think that she should get to hold the cool sword. for fun

[puppy-the-mask]

So I've been cooking up some alternate outfit ideas for my Lmk sona and this is what they'd look like if they were with the Demon Bull Family! The idea is basically they'd be something of a court musician but it's mainly just a title.

Edit: Added the version without her armor <3

I don't have a concrete story but the initial idea was that cas was friends with swk in the brotherhood days and stuck with dbk after everyone else got sealed away and the whole consumption incident went down since she had nowhere else to go (and conveniently was the only lady around that he could ask for relationship advice when courting Iron Fan). They didn't expect Cas to live this long, only really expecting to have her around through her natural lifespan but they noticed she wasn't aging so now she gets to be their babysitter for date nights! Through the years she's been something of an aunt/sister figure and has become fiercely loyal to the family despite having no desire to take over the world. Redson built her electric bass and the armor she wears over her gems, the Bass has 2 extra buttons on it- the fire button spews fire out of the pipes and the Bull button unsheathes her sword from the neck of the instrument since she can't exactly walk around with a sword on her hip so easy these days. She travels with a heavy metal band across the continent- i like to imagine her intro episode has the crew excited about a big band coming to the city and while they wait they run into redson and annoy him cause he's bragging about getting exclusive vip passes to the show. The crew would expect someone mean from the music and the from the rest of the family but Cas is super welcoming and nice when the crew sneak backstage to bother redson some more XD

[reachartwork]

the process

a lot of people like to ask me about my process and how ai can be "creative" because they're under the impression that it's just kind of a big slot machine. you pull a lever and art uncontrollably comes out. well, let me show you my process

this is going to be a long thread tagged with #long post, blacklist that if you want to skip it.

so how it starts like most art is that i have an idea. in this case, earlier i made a post about witch-knights "surfing" on swords, so i'm going to try and make that - a witch-knight flying through the air atop one of her swords.

it starts with this picture.

i think this picture is dogshit so i discard basically all of it to try and find something closer to my original intent. there's a couple of uninteresting regenerations so it's clear i have to go back to the drawing board and teach the machine what it is i'm trying to do

let's start with a witch-knight on a broom. it's definitely not great but it gives us a better pose that i can work with.

i start by erasing the broom and replacing it with a skateboard - the machine understands skating better for what i need it to do.

there's a ton of small, subtle errors in this image and it overall looks like dogshit but the most important part right now is blocking and the overall pose structure - i need her "surfing" a large, lengthwise object, in the sky. i start by erasing pieces of the skateboard

now we have a sword, which is good. but the sword itself looks... bad. i'll spare you the abortive attempts at selective regeneration of the sword and just show you what happened when i rolled it back a couple of times from this pose and let it regen entirely.

again, tons of small little shitty errors, but this is something i can work with. i do another regen for a less shitty sword. her boob armor gets replaced with, like, generic scale mail.

this image has a great sword and decent pose but like... everything else is kind of futzy and i dont like it. instead of trying to pick and choose i just throw it back into the oven for a second. much better! but now she's going to cut herself on the sword, oh no!

again, i'll save you the agonizing thirty minutes of trying to get it to understand where the foot should go. unlike before i didn't really have a choice except to muscle through. there! now she's surfing safely :)

so it's done, right? well, i mean, i could post this. and it would probably do okay. but *i'm* not satisfied with it. there's stiffness. dozens of minor errors. the eyes look weird when you zoom in. let's start by fixing her hat, and then maybe her hands?

but she's missing fingers on her left hand so let's go ahead and fix that too. and i don't really like the tip of her sword and the ocean looks really flat and boring. so, VERY CAREFULLY, i have to etch out the parts of the sword and her body i have to keep, and also write an entirely new prompt to tell it "i want an ocean w/ rolling waves please :)"

this is better but not great. i try again - serendipitously, it makes this really cool variant with a shadow over the water, but i know working with that will take more wrangling so i'm considering it an evolutionary dead end and discarding it for now.

i proceed to spend 30 minutes trying to make the ocean look better but it's really not working imo. i'm gonna go back to the shadow version and see how that works

i'll spare you the other 8 minutes - i'm satisfied with the following picture. the sword isn't *perfectly* straight, her eyes aren't perfectly textured, the scale mail is... weird, in texture, but anything else would be greasing the wheel and i think beyond the machine's ability to do fine detail.

i've also attached the starting picture for comparison - it has better, "higher quality" clouds and ocean but i personally cared more about the pose and the sword surfing - the background is mostly tangential. could i get back ocean and clouds of that quality with another two hours of painstakingly cutting and re-generating bits of the background without destroying any of my existing work on the pose? probably. but i don't want to.

total time spent on this piece from start to finish was one hour and twenty one minutes. and now you know!

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

Reworking my White Knight design. Notes under the cut as per usual

There are three primary inspirations that I'm working off of:

The Three Muskateers

Knight's Armor

Masquerade Costumes

I've been trying to think about it from two practical perspectives, Darling's, and my own.

For Darling she needs to be able to suit up fairly quickly, and have enough coverage to completely hide her identity. It also can't be too heavy or she risks slowing herself down.

And then for me I just don't want to draw overly complicated armor every time I draw her in action. So she needs to be at least somewhat recognizable as a knight without the design getting overly busy. I also think it's very boring to have this wonderlandian vigilante just be a normal knight.

So here's some stuff about all that!

Her outfit starts with a base layer (shirt, trousers, ect.) then she adds padding, and pieces of leather armor on her arms and legs. Then over that she adds a very light flowy tunic to disguise some of that protection (it's good to keep your enemies guessing, and it provides a nice non-threatening appearance for the people you're trying to help. Princess lessons can be very helpful when it comes to public reputation.) Then she has plate armor on her chest, as well as greaves and boots. It's all very pieced together out of stuff she's scavenged from around wonderland and in abandoned lockers. None of it is made to go together.

The belt doesn't have a scabbard, she keeps her sword across her back, but it does have lots of loops for carrying extra stuff that Darling wants to have on hand. When she finds various foods and potions and other weird little tools in wonderland she can tie them to her belt for easy access during emergencies.

The hair is a whole separate ordeal. First she puts it under a head covering that kind of serves as a bald cap (but also hides her very recognizable hair even if the hat and wig come off). Then she puts the wig on top, and puts on the porcelain mask. The mask is well-fitted, enchanted to disguise her voice, and can be tied at the back under the wig. And after all that she puts on a very fetching hat. There's no real purpose to it, she just thinks it looks cool

Add cape for extra heroic effect! Now you can channel all your repressed rage into your alternate identity while hitting things with swords and providing aid to the masses

[brittle-doughie]

Draw Your Blade! | Looking into the Valorous Sun Tournament Update for CROB!

It’s pretty cool that we get to have a story this time around when it comes to the GCL, I recall when it was just the new cookie and the league itself that was the main score, so it’s good to get something read for this GCL

Cream Soda is happy to see an old friend of hers, but it doesn’t seem like Cherry Cola Cookie shares the same sentiment, wonder what occurred between these two to get them like that?

And Cream Soda has a pretty nice looking epic skin to go along with her, Cherry Cola’s is no slouch either. Leek Cookie is also getting the Epic costume of this update too btw.

The urge to do Champion League is STRONG, she got the whole set of a costume, candy, AND a trial. Girl literally won this update!

This along with the Rock, Paper, Scissors event, and Tough Cookie matches among other improvements are also a great addition.

HANGING ON THE EDGE OF TOMORROW!

LIVE AND LEARN!

FROM THE WORKS OF YESTERDAY!

LIVE AND LEARN!

“Oh, are you training your sword fighting right now, Y/N Cookie?”

“Yeah, I want to make sure I’m all readied up before the grand tournament! I don’t want to be rusty and end up squandering it on the first match!”

“Well, if you need any help in the form of working on your stance or a sparring match, I’m happy to help!”

“Ah, w-well, Cream Soda Cookie. You see-“

Cherry Cola Cookie appears behind Y/N Cookie, surprising Cream Soda!

“That’s nice of you to offer, but they already have someone helping them train…”

“Cherry Cola Cookie! Well, it never hurts to have a third opinion, it helps with improvement better!”

“What part of “they already have a training partner” did you not understand?”

“I’m sorry, Cream Soda. Cherry Cola did ask first and I didn’t want to turn down a long time friend…”

“I’m your long time friend too! Let me help you with your training! I won’t lose to Cherry Cola Cookie!”

“Must you always make a sword fight out of everything? Very well, the winner gets to be Y/N Cookie’s training partner, but don’t expect me to lose.”

“I won’t either! Let’s do this!”

You sat out as you watched the two cookies sword fight, neither side refusing to let the other win. While you prefer that the two had got along and both could help you, you knew better then to interfere with the fierce passion of the two.

[moonselune]

Hii, do you have any headcanons for the companions at the beach? (Let's pretend it's during the story and the companions decide to take a (deserved) break for a day so Astarion can actually stay in the sun lol)

omg omg omg omg yes I'm going to write this as more of a headcanony rambling list because the THOUGHTS I HAVE

Astarion

he is sunbathing and don't you dare stand over him he will gut you

he is not putting on sun cream because 'the burn is worth it'

irl he just wants to feel the consequence of the sun on his skin, to feel it one more time

but he will just tell everyone that he is too gorgeous to burn

he is bright red at the end of the day but its worth it - though not so much when Shadowheart says his sunburn isn't worth one of her healing spells.

Karlach:

YOU WANNA PLAY MERMAIDS!!?!?!?!?!?

She would 1000% dive for cool rocks and shells and bring them back to companions, the less receptive they are, the more she brings them as if to prove something

que Minthara, Astarion and Lae'zel having piles of shells and rocks near them

starts a volleyball match, the volleyball becomes a flaming meteor by the end of it because of how competitive she gets

plays chicken in the water with Shadowheart on her shoulders vs Lae'zel with Minthara on her shoulders - Min'zel lose because they are too strategic.

pouts when told it is time for them to go home and runs back in the sea, telling them '5 more minutes!"

Gale:

Smothered in sun cream

shades and floppy hat does not give a single fuck

Gale is having a day off, mage hand fanning him with a ridiculously large fan.

says he isn't going to of the bbq because he always cooks yet gets involved some how

definitely a backseat cook

"I mean I haven't seen anyone in Waterdeep do it that way, but you are the blade of frontiers after all"

Minthara:

She has found everyone the best beach spot - she doesn't care that it is an extra ten miles from camp the companions will appreciate it

Finds it hard to relax but eventually does after a bottle of wine or two - thanks to shadowheart

She even gets roped into beach games, which she tries to dominate but eventually loses - though she always blames her teammate for it.

Despises the sun so whenever she is resting she is in permanent shade,

She also had the big shades and big hat, the fact she is matching with Gale is just an unfortunate coincidence (Gale's fault of course)

Builds a sand fortress with Lae'zel.

Lae'zel:

Much like Minthara, is very practical about it all

Does some laps in the sea

Surprise tackles her companions into the sea, to see how they would react.

This does not go down well with Shadowheart who has just gained her confidence in swimming again

Lae'zel makes it up to her by making a sand fortress

It's a prototype for her own Gith fortress one day but she guesses shadowheart can lay claim to it for today if it means she'll stop complaining about her hair getting wet

Chows down at the bbq and joins Karlach in the sea when its time to go - she enjoyed the beach more than she thought she would.

Wyll:

This is his time to shine

This is his BBQ

He burns everything

Yes its not how they do it in waterdeep but what does Gale know ( a lot apparently)

Plays it off as a foreign sword coast culture

nobody believes him but nobody says anything

plays mermaids with Karlach

is also very competitive when it comes to volleyball

falls asleep in the sun afterwards and Shadowheart puts sun cream patters on him

isn't mad about it

Shadowheart:

Tells everyone that she is not getting in the water

After 5 minutes of being there she is in the water

Halsin does turn into a porpoise to help her swim (no secret meaning behind it because it turns out Shadowheart is in fact a terrible open water swimmer)

She's the one with the cold flask of cocktails and wine topping everyone up

She won't admit it but perhaps she gave Wyll one too many 'juice drinks' and that's why the food burned

Joins the shade with Minthara, draws a sun cream penis on Wyll but then feels bad

When Lae'zel shows her her apologetic sand fortress she is actually touched and puts a shell on it

Scratch runs through it 0.5 seconds later

Halsin:

Man just fucks off in porpoise form after helping shadowheart learn how to swim

They accidentally leave without him

[pinknipszz]

adagio for strings 1/4

↷ ˊ- true form!ryomen sukuna/f!reader | next >

"you know where to find me, and i know where to look."

(a/n: gift for my baby @mania-sama)

sellers of the market shout at you for standing idly on the edge of the street, their sun-kissed faces pulled taut from age and ire. they kept a keen eye on you as they mutter to themselves over what trouble the illegitimate daughter of a whore and a local businessman would stir.

but you, so bony and brittle, find their fears irrational. how could you possibly be capable of anything else, other than swatting away the mosquitoes that threaten to drink all that you had left?

you thought that the day was too pleasant to waste away, so you had crawled out of the woven walls that keep you cool from the summer haze. it is more like a pile of scraps than a house, but it feels like home. it doesn’t look down on you with hate and pity and everything in between. when nights grow too cold, you pull the walls closer and hug your body. when the sun smiles at you relentlessly, as if it was laughing at your predicament, you push back further into the shade.

home is the only thing you could control, and for that, it is your prized possession. your stomach twists into tight knots at the idea of leaving, but you want to stretch your legs. the calluses on your feet are softening. if you don’t get up and move now, your feet won’t be ready for a sprint down the gravel streets if a mob finally decides to chase you out. so you visit the market, silently greeting their looks of apprehension like an old friend. 

you grip the hatchet that you stole, remembering how the old farmer had chased after you, throwing rocks and curses laced with venom, when he realized that the village vagrant had snatched his favorite tool. that was many years ago. you don’t know how he’s doing now. maybe he found a better one, something sharper to hack bamboo stalks with, and has long forgotten about you. or maybe he hammered a headsman’s block near his front porch, where he sits sharpening his sword, waiting for you to come back. 

mindlessly tracing the grooves in the weathered wood, you limp from stall to stall. the closest seller eyes you warily. her gaze flits between your haggard appearance and the dull weapon at your side, her lips tight and nose turned upwards, most likely upset over your proximity to her precious baskets of fresh pomelos and persimmons. it leaves a bad impression on her more than you. she is an esteemed seller with the finest fruits, and you are people repellent. bad for business.

she watches you with ferocious intensity, half-expecting you to reach for a fruit to quell the gnawing hunger in your gut. she knows how you feel. she could see it in your eyes, in the bones that peek under the dirty robes that you stole from a dead man you had found on the side of the road. she knows about your hunger, but she doesn’t offer a single fruit, even when she has baskets upon baskets to spare, like you are nothing more than a thief or a pauper. if selfishness was a monster, you wondered if it would look like her.

but miraculously, she doesn’t say anything. the feeling never gets old. you don’t know if it is the dull hatchet or the rest of your unsightly figure that frightens her just enough, but it leaves you with sick gratitude for whatever gods are up there. if you could only have a handful of good things in this lifetime, let this moment be one of them. you flee deeper into the market before the seller could reach for something to hit you with.

it is busier than usual today, you realize, limping past a group of giggling kids drawing figures in the dirt. the shouts are louder here. those wise enough to not waste their attention on you continue their hollering, eager to reel in unsuspecting customers with a net spun from deceptive words. you don’t know a lick of business. what it meant or how it worked. based on what you’ve seen, however, is that the loudest caught the most fish. you don’t think twice about the quiet sellers you had seen during your last visit that are no longer here. 

sometimes you think it is just the laws of nature. the strongest survive and forget the weak, who are branded for death the second they leave the womb. it’s a promising thought. the sellers who had been too meek to adapt with their competition had been overturned by the changing tides of an uncertain economy. they were weak, unfit to survive. you don’t know if your assumption is correct, but you find that things in nature can easily be applied in real life. you scratch the itch under your jaw.

further along the path, you see a stranger standing by a stall that sold fowl meat. the stark white of their hair, reminiscent of winter nights, ceases your limping. their robes are clean, and they wear socks with sandals. they aren’t local. you have never seen something so close to snow standing in the heat of summer. briefly, you wonder if thirst and hunger finally caught up with you, until the stranger turns. their muddy eyes rake over your form, picking apart your robes and hatchet and matted hair. they hold a small bag of pomelos.

quite a sight for sore eyes, you think bitterly. while they don’t entirely look like a pompous bastard, anyone with clean clothes and warm food in their belly is sure to look down on you in one way or another. so you continue to watch the interaction in silence, even when the stranger looks away in favor of the butcher, handing him a heavy satchel of gems you never knew existed. then they leave, with a bag of raw meat, for the other side of the market, the opposite of where you are standing. 

you pull yourself to where they stood, dropping your hatchet to hold out your hands. you wait expectantly for your fill. “the hell d’you think yer’ looking at,” the butcher spits, eyes narrowing at you. fury rolls off of him in waves at your audacity. “got a lot of nerve to show up here.” you don’t know why he’s so upset. well, everyone is upset with you, but you don’t know what unsettles him today. perhaps the white-haired stranger was someone important, and you shouldn’t be standing in the footprints they left in the dirt.

“trimmings,” you rasp, your voice curling around each syllable harshly. it is the first word you utter in weeks. it is also the only word you said during your last visit, and the one before that. seriously, you would think that the butcher had it down to routine by now. he scoffs but reaches for the bloodied basket anyway, throwing it in your chest. your weak arms catch it quickly before you peer inside. it is mostly fat, but food is food. you can’t wait to savor it back home. 

“t’s the last time yer’ getting anything from me,” the butcher breathes and leans in to jab a roughened finger into your shoulder. “better get out of here before i hang you on a jointed hook.” the cruel threat falls on deaf ears. you know the butcher wouldn’t do that. not because he is kind, no. far from it. your dead body simply has nothing to offer. there’s no way to make money off of you, unless someone decides to throw your bones to a dog. nonetheless, you retrieve your hatchet and scurry off without saying a thank-you or a goodbye. 

there’s no point in wasting a breath on a man who looks at you with equal hatred. with one arm, you hold the bucket close to your chest protectively, while your other hand holds the hatchet. you follow the path from whence you came. the dirty robes cling to your skin uncomfortably, and your raw feet ache, but you can’t afford to let your guard down, not when you finally have proper food again. the sun dips into the horizon, and sellers are dismantling their stalls. soon, they will reach home, and so will you.

the hatchet continues to work its miracles, warding off evil like a talisman. however, you know deep down that you shouldn’t overdo it. it won't be long until someone calls you out on your bluff. when they realize that you can’t even lift it past your waist, they’ll come rushing towards you with bags over their heads and poison on their pitchforks. you let your mind wander. perhaps you could pay another visit to the butcher and weasel through a hole in his house, tiptoeing around for his favorite cleaver. you quite like the thought.

you hardly hear passing gossip over the pulse in your ears. however, one frantic conversation bleeds through your excitement. you pay no mind to it at first, thinking you are the subject that leaves them so tense, which is nothing out of the ordinary, but the words “white” and “monk” and “curse” stop you in your tracks. you nearly forgot about the uncanny stranger who stood out like a sore thumb, much like you for reasons entirely different.

the hairs behind your neck stand pin-straight, and you tilt your head towards them. it is two ladies who frequent the market often, you realize. their houmongi kimonos juxtapose with the plain wear of village folk. their wealth couldn’t be any more obvious. kamo. the name tastes like metal in your mouth. great. more pompous bastards. you want to resume the walk home, but something in you feels inclined to listen, to eavesdrop on what leaves their pretty little heads spinning.

so you listen and you eavesdrop, keeping yourself a safe distance away to ensure they don’t see you. 

“this is the third time this week,” one who wears a sparkling pin says first. she leans closer to her friend’s side. “you know about the rumors. nothing good comes out of seeing him.” him. for a moment, you think that she’s referring to the white-haired stranger, until you hear what she says next. “the monk-child is just a bad omen. it’s the cursed object we have to worry about.” it comes out of her mouth like a slur. you think it’s a euphemism for something else.

but you don’t have time to dwell. you must return home, so you do.

you like to think that things would have turned out differently if you had stayed at the market a little longer. maybe then, you would have heard them talk more about the supposed monster among men, and how the villagers suspect you having something to do with it. how your sudden appearance somehow aligned with the monk-child, another bad omen second only to you. you would have heard them chortle over the troops they had sent to your home while you had been away. 

maybe then, you would have lifted your hatchet over your waist for the first time in your life, and hack down on their shoulders, through the thick material of their beautiful kimonos, and into unmarred flesh. but no amount of dreaming could save you from the anguish, as the grip around your bucket and hatchet slacken. they fall to the ground, and the fatty meat spills all over. your finger twitches, as well as the edge of your lips, the corner of your eyes, and the base of your spine. the sun is long gone, replaced by moonlight. 

you find it sick how you wouldn't have known who destroyed your humble home if it weren't for the insignia left behind. you recognize the colors. kamo. kamo. kamo. the torn fabric lies above the ashes and taunts you.

your legs give up under you, and you fall to your knees. the sound that leaves you is nothing short of primal. animalistic. closer to grief more than anything, when you grab handfuls of dirt and ash and squeeze hard. you think about the village. about the stranger you are wrongly accused of associating with. about the butcher and the kamo women. the butcher. you wouldn’t be surprised if he had been the one to ask for military intervention, like the goddamn coward he is. you claw at the ground until your nails bleed.

you are too angry to weep. you don’t care about the blood collecting at your knees, seeping into the robes that you had stolen, or around the precious hatchet. is this penance? your soiled hands find purchase in your hair, and they tug at the roots. how could the gods be so cruel? it still smells like smoke. the residual warmth taunts you, as if reminding you what a real fire is like. nothing that a couple of makeshift walls of a home could emulate. you shakily reach for the wooden handle.

you push yourself up, ignoring the protests of your aching body, and bite the inside of your cheek. you are staring hard at the remains when you feel a heavy weight bump into your foot. with the last bits of your patience, you look down. a pomelo. it sways side-to-side before coming to a complete stop, as if someone rolled it towards you. someone did. when you look back up, you find the same muddy eyes that studied you at the market. 

they didn’t say a word then, and they don’t now. they simply watch, hidden between trees in the distance. you reach down for the ripe pomelo and tear it open. when you bite, you realize you don’t like pomelos, but you finish anyways. you're still starving. you throw the tart flesh into the ashes with no intention of returning, before tightening your grip on the hatchet and turning towards the village. you miss the ghost of a smile on the stranger’s face.

“are you pleased with her actions?” they ask the darkness beside them. their words are met with silence.

(masterlist) | listen to adagio for strings!

[blednokrov]

I've been having lots of fun designing random OP fusions for a hypothetical AU where people can fuse... Feel free to drop a combo of any two Strawhats in my asks for me to draw a fusion of them (I'm only reading impel down rn so please no spoilers)

More on these:

Mickey (Nami + Franky) - ultimate Big Sibling fusion. She's very balanced in her sense of responsibility, desire to take other under her wing and general "fun but let's keep it sane and safe" vibe. One of favorite fusions of Strawhats as her appearance often means "supervised fun that is otherwise strongly off limits" and they just love her in general. Overall, Mickey's cool, fun and sexy (and not allowed in many public places because she only wears bikini swimsuits). He fights with electrocution.

Didja miss me? Well, now you can look at my pretty face all you want - we're gonna have so-o-o much fun~

U.V. or just Violet (Usopp + Vivi) - the big dreamer one. She is really sweet and emotionally open - probably one of most child-like fusions, but often gets timid and unsure when it's time for her to to stand up for herself. She loves fantasizing and excitedly ranting about all these ideas on how to make world a better place, but goes into very absurd territory without noticing. They fight with a sling and explosives.

No, wait, but listen. But what if The World Government, like, printed money so that everyone can have some, and- No, wait, i don't think this is how economy works. Okay, what if we all just...

Roro (Zoro + Robin) - arguably the most unhinged fusion of them all. With Robin's morbidly creative mind and Zoro's general disinhibition in most generally dangerous situations, Roro is pretty much unstoppable once he set his mind to do something reckless, dangerous and possibly really violent (as they both don't have any qualms about murdering or causing severe bodily harm). However when not in "focused on following through with an insane idea" mode, Roro is actually a rather pleasant company! They're calm, collected and thoughtful, yet shamelessly silly, especially with Luffy and Chopper who they adore. Most of the crew is rather cautious about them (except for Luffy who whines how he misses playing "multiarmed tags" with Roro) because they can cause much trouble without supervision. On the other hand, they're very strong. They fight combining swordfighting with generating extra limbs (which also means an arm slashing you with a sword can sneak on you from any direction).

Oh. I see. How about we send his head- okay, his fingers in a box to his captain as a warning?

Note: Luffy has the privilege of naming all fusions and usually just smashes names together until it sounds like an easy to remember name... Sometimes inner logic of how the name was made is lost even to him

[quibbs126]

…Okay, you may end up seeing these drawings yet again on a later date

I finished the page, which was small at 500x500 px, but I wanted to make the page bigger. I did that, and I drew one new thing, but now I don’t know what else to draw on there. So for now, I figured I might as well post the original full page right now

Yeah, sorry for the laziness

This is the other sketch I finished on there, for those curious

Anyways, so yeah, this new style practice I’m trying

The original page I tried these out on is this, which also isn’t full, but I thought trying it out with actual characters instead of just random poses and shapes would be better, so I switched over to Cookie Run characters

The method is still a work in progress when it comes to all the shapes and the red sketch layer

I suppose what I should do now is try drawing a bunch of different Cookies that have different body shapes, so that I have practice with that. As well as maybe attempt some full body ones

I suppose you can suggest some if you want, considering I don’t know who to draw other than like, Hollyberry or Avocado, since I should try drawing large but not buff characters here. But I should also probably draw more skinny, and also chubby

But on to what I actually drew

So I already talked about Peach Blossom and the top Dark Choco drawing prior, so no real need to elaborate

The Dark Choco and Dark Cacao one was me drawing them in their younger forms to see how they compare. Not for any sort of study thing, but just in a symbolic sort of way. Since they’re so similar looking

I think I had a lot more fun with Choco, especially his hair. I remember Cacao being mostly annoying for his weird cloak thing that I don’t understand

The hand pose was ass though. I knew the general idea of what I wanted, that being them with their hands over their swords, but I was struggling to figure out how to draw the hands. Not to mention I had to change the pose from the red sketch because the swords were further down than I put them. I still don’t think I did the pose exactly correct, but screw it, it’s good enough

I’m also noticing that Choco looks way lighter in skin tone compared to Cacao. Like yeah, I know he’s normally slightly lighter, but it’s far more noticeable here. I’m pretty sure it’s because I used Dark Choco’s ToA colors here (bc they work better with my black lineart), which are slightly lighter, as well as just that Dark Choco is wearing much lighter colors while Dark Cacao’s are relatively darker. So maybe it just makes them contrast more

I liked drawing them, but I also did basically do the same body type 3 in a row, so I should probably draw different characters

Anyways, let’s talk about that extra sketch

So for those who likely don’t remember, that there is an OC of mine called Prickly Pear Cookie

I made her entirely on a whim one day, and she doesn’t really have any character or story, just vibes, but I really like her design and wanted to draw it again

I probably should give her some sort of bra though. The shirtless chest looks cool but in my opinion sounds really uncomfortable without at least that

I did originally draw her with the green skin, but it looked weird so I shifted it to more of a yellow so it looks more human

Honestly I really like how she turned out

But yeah, I think that’s about it for now. Just wanted to show this

[anonymous-dentist]

Or: A prince and a pirate meet in a bar...

For Spiderbit Week Day One: Pirates

-

Las Casualonas used to be a smaller building, Roier thinks. More smoke, less space. More room for dancing, less room for goddamn swordfighting.

Roier watches passively as yet another pirate-wannabe gets thrown out of the building. He sips at his (terrible) beer, fingers idly drumming the table in a neat rhythm.

The loser's sword- a pitiful little thing with more holes than a slice of cheese- gets thrown out after them by the winner: a tall woman with white-blonde hair and a big floppy hat.

"Better luck next time!" she taunts. She laughs, loud and harsh and very pirate-y, and turns right on the heel of her boot to head back to the bar to order a round of celebratory drinks for her crew.

The sword on her belt shines dully in the dim tavern light, blood spattered across its blade.

Roier... considers. She's tough. She has a crew of tough-looking people- Roier watched them cheer her on during the fight, and he can see them surrounding her at the bar now with claps on the back and laughter. She has a nice sword. She has a big hat. She has to be a pirate, right?

But. But she just isn't right. She isn't the one he's looking for.

And so Roier turns his attention from the woman and back to the tavern as a whole. Back to the drawing board...

Pirates.

Oh, pirates.

There's a new law against piracy in the kingdom now. There's also a new pirate in the kingdom- or, rather, from the kingdom.

Coincidence? No. The new law was created within days of the Bear Captain's attempted assassination of the royal family's oldest child, and the Bear Captain hasn't been seen since the law was put into place.

This is a problem, because Roier wants the Bear Captain dead. He wants him more than dead, actually, but there are laws against torture these days, too. (UGH!)

And so Roier sips his (terrible) beer in Las Casualonas' most secluded table. He wants a pirate, but he wants a certain kind of pirate. One that will seek him out, not one who jumps onto tables and stabs a guy (though that is pretty cool, can't lie.)

The hood of Roier's cloak is pulled over his head. He's wearing gloves. He's in all-black, and he has a sword on his belt and two knives up his sleeves and another knife hidden in his boot.

His eyeliner is black, and that's all that matters, isn't it.

The woman and her crew leave the bar and head to a table across the tavern: out of sight, and now out of mind.

Roier sighs and looks down at his reflection in his beer. His eyeliner is smudged, ugh. He'll have to touch it up soon; he might be emo now, but he has standards.

His reflection blinks up at him: black eye and healing lip and broken nose. He looks pirate-y, right? Suitably criminal?

He tries a smile. Fails. Sighs again.

Flinches slightly as the chair across from him is roughly pulled out.

"Shit, my bad," he hears. Deep voice, kind of raspy as if he'd just been yelling.

Roier looks up from his drink and locks eyes with a stranger.

Roier... considers. Broad shoulders, some visible muscles, but not many. Solid figure and large, scarred hands. Short hair, scar across nose, golden earrings, bags under eyes, healing broken nose.

Rapier on his hip, and a pair of flintlock pistols hidden beneath his heavy-looking green coat.

Pirate, Roier thinks.

The pirate sits and immediately leans back into his chair with a groan and a slump, his face burying itself in his hands. He has rings on every one of his fingers, and they're shiny. Gold and silver and gold.

"Sorry if I'm intruding," the pirate sighs. "It's just... so much over there."

He doesn't point, but Roier's eyes go over the pirate's shoulder and towards the group of pirates the woman has at her table. (Is he one of them...?)

Roier shrugs. "It's fine."

(Because it is.)

"I was hoping for some company, anyway," he adds.

(Because he was.)

"Really?" the pirate asks, cracking his fingers apart and looking through the gap. He doesn't sound convinced. "You look..."

"Handsome?" Roier supplies.

"Yeah, but I was going to say, 'emo'."

Roier laughs. He can't help it. (He hasn't laughed since it happened, and it tears his throat up a little, but he almost can't feel the sting.)

Leaning forward slightly, Roier braces himself with his elbows against the table. He tries a smile, and he even sort of succeeds.

"Maybe I am," he hums. "But even emo guys have shiny things. Here."

He manages to smile a bit wider as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a shiny gold piece. He places it on the table and slides it across, his fingers lingering as the pirate snatches the gold piece up.

Both hands turning the gold piece over, and suddenly so much more attentive, the pirate frowns: contemplative.

"Okay," he cautiously says. He looks up and furrows his eyebrows at Roier. "What do you want."

Roier's fingers tap against the table.

"Eh, not much," he shrugs. "Just tell me what you know about the Bear Captain."

The pirate snorts and looks back down at the gold piece; his eyes are practically shining like stars, and it's really actually kind of adorable, actually.

"Who, Spreen?" he casually asks, not noticing the way Roier's entire body freezes up at the name. "He's new in the area. Not much of a captain. He doesn't even have any treasure."

Roier gasps dramatically. "Oh my God, he doesn't have any treasure!"

"Fuck you, treasure is important," the pirate huffs. "Who becomes a pirate for fun? It's all about the treasure."

He pauses, then: "Or... it's all about the killing."

Absently, Roier reaches up and scratches at his chest. The rough fabric of his shirt does not feel good under his nails, but he hardly notices.

The pirate looks back at Roier, eyes narrowed just slightly.

"Which are you?" he asks.

Roier hums, feigning confusion.

"Which kind of pirate are you?" the pirate asks. "Treasure, or killing?"

There's a pistol and a bag of ammunition in Roier's satchel at his feet, but he answers, scoffing, "Treasure, obviously? Do I look like a killer?"

He gestures towards himself with a painted grin. His scar just barely pokes out above the collar of his shirt, and so do the bandages plastered over his shoulder wound.

The pirate... considers.

Then, he smiles and looks back down at his new gold piece.

"You're right," he says. "And you're smart. Like I said, it's all about the treasure. Who needs to kill to get money when you can just steal it?"

He flips the gold piece into the air, and he grabs it mid-fall. He opens his palm, and... nothing.

He meets Roier's surprised gaze with a cheeky grin.

"But if you want someone dead, you're talking to the right guy," he says. "I'd have to talk it over with my co-captain, but-"

"Your co-captain?" Roier asks.

At the same time, the woman from earlier stands and cups a hand around her mouth and shouts, "Cellbit! Stop flirting and get over here! Tubbo's going to do a backflip!"

The pirate- Cellbit?- just rolls his eyes and flips her off without looking.

"Her," he says, voice just short of a sneer. "I'm down to kill whoever you want dead, but she'll be a bit harder to convince."

"Ah," says Roier.

He's still smiling, but it doesn't seem to be reaching Cellbit's eyes anymore.

Reaching forward, leaning across the table, Cellbit brushes a hand behind Roier's ear; Roier bites back a gasp, a shiver running down his spine.

As Cellbit sits back down, he holds up the missing gold piece. He flicks his wrist, and another gold piece slides out from behind the first one.

"She doesn't do it for the gold," he explains. He drops the coins onto the table, watching them roll into each other. "She has morals."

Roier frowns. "Is she even a pirate?"

"No, but I am, and so is half our crew. She prefers the term 'boat mafia'. But, anyway, let me finish here."

Cellbit reaches into Roier's cup and pulls out a third gold piece, placing it neatly onto the table near the other two.

"If someone was to come onto the ship and, say, kill the Bear Captain without Bagi's approval..."

He slides his gaze up to meet Roier's, smirking slightly.

(His eyes are so blue, Roier thinks. Just like the ocean...)

Roier finds himself smiling, genuine.

He nods. "I get it."

"Good. Now, let's go join the others so we can-"

Cellbit is cut off mid-sentence as Las Casualonas' doors crash open and a legion of armed guards come storming into the tavern.

Roier folds into himself, pulling his hood further down his face. (He was supposed to have more time, what the fuck?)

"Everybody, stop what you are doing!" Etoiles, the head of security for the royal family, commands.

The woman, Cellbit's co-captain, slowly turns to face him.

"Um," she says, "no? Who the fuck are you?"

"Who the fuck are you!" Etoiles counters. "Are you a pirate?"

"Technically, no."

"Oh, well that's alright, then. But everyone else!" He pulls his sword out and points it at the rest of the tavern. "Put your hands up where I can see them! Princess Leonarda has informed me that her cringe brother is being held captive in here- which is totally embarrassing, by the way, total rookie move from him, and I am not leaving without him!"

Cellbit looks at Roier.

Roier looks at Etoiles.

Etoiles looks at the barkeep.

Roier looks back at Cellbit.

"Kidnap me," he whispers. "I'll have you and your entire crew pardoned when Spreen is dead."

Without hesitation, Cellbit stands and kicks his chair backwards and turns and pulls both pistols out of their holsters and points them both right at Etoiles' heart.

"Cellbit!" the woman hisses. "We are not doing this again!"

Cellbit ignores her and says, voice low, "The prince is not going anywhere. He's coming with me."

"Okay, those two sentences contradict each other, but that's fine!" Etoiles says. "I may not be good at grammar, but I am much better at killing pirates. Are you ready?"

Slowly, Roier wraps his hand around his bag's strap under the table. He's beaten Etoiles once before, sure, he can do it again. Probably. Maybe. (Not in his condition, not now when he's still supposed to be under bedrest, but...!)

"Get ready to run, your highness," is all that Cellbit says in response.

He glances back at Roier, winks.

And then he pulls the trigger, the tavern explodes.

[ahllohehn]

Gem's area ,or whatever the Oracle has, has two kinds of decorations cute cottagecore stuff, and spooky stuff like skulls and stuff

An excerpt from the Camp Oracle's Journal:

"I put some fairy lights and curtains around the cave to make it seem homier. I also made a really wide tent filled with blankets and pillows to add up to the comfiness. After all, it was going to be my home for the next few weeks until I had to go back to school. Actually, it’s gonna be my home for the next summers to come!

There’s not much yet, but I hope to add more soon. Grian’s sister, Pearl, came to visit for a while to get a look at the new oracle (aka me). She was really nice! She helped me out on setting up the decorations around my cave and even gave me an old plushie of hers to add to my tent.

It was a well-loved wolf plushie, if the way the seams were already threatening to burst from just how much it’s been hugged, probably.

I didn’t want to take it at first because, you know, sentimental value! I couldn’t just take away her childhood plushie! But she was really adamant about giving it to me. She reasoned that Tilly (the name of the plushie, by the way) would be safer with me than it was with Grian.

Pearl couldn’t take the plushie with her because she’s always on the move with the goddess Artemis, Hunters of Artemis duties and all that. “It���d be a shame if it got lost mid-expedition,” she said.

And who was I to reject after that reason, you know? So now I have little Tilly living with little Gem in the super comfy and cool Oracle cave!"

Thank you for continuing to read! Have a tour of what's inside of Gem's cave:

COMFY CORNER OF THE CAVE

Cat beanbags and plushies - The cat beanbag is customized to look like Jellie. It was mainly put there during times Scar comes by to hang out with her so he wouldn't have to stay for too long on his wheelchair while visiting.

Seawater rug - Personally sewed by Xisuma after hearing that Gem had interest in marine biology. He wanted her to feel happier when resting in her cave since the cave was too far from the shore and the sea.

Aquatic animal plushies - Impulse and Skizz excitedly came over to give her fish plushies as a welcome gift. The clownfish is named Skizzy. The shark is named Impy, named accordingly to who gave which.

Small foldable table - Gem doesn't fold it often as she keeps her art stuff on it. She draws and makes the pins here.

BY THE WALL

Skull-shaped fairy lights - Not always green in color, but she keeps it green to make everything feel creepy. She had normal fairy lights before this but Cleo jokingly replaced it with string lights she bought during Halloween. Gem liked it so she kept it.

Worn out sword / Worn out shield - Not hers to begin with. They're actually normal weapons Etho had forged as practice before. He gifts them to Gem everytime she wins a spar against him to act as 'spoils of war.'

DESK / CURTAINED SIDE

Desk - There's chairs facing each other on each side of the table. This is where she mainly meets the campers for personal prophecies.

A line of potted plants along the wall - Bdubs offered to give her plants he thinks Gem would like to care for. There's mostly small sunflowers and succulents along the wall. One of the potted plants grew a particular one Gem never saw before. It was only when Pearl came over and questioned why she had a moonlace flower in her cave that she realized she was growing a magical plant. Bdubs never answered as to why he gave it to her.

TENT

Where Gem mainly sleeps. In here, you will never feel uncomfy as she's probably got 20 pillows and 5 blankets in there. Pearl's old plushie, Tilly, lives there with her. Grian asks to come in and cuddle with it when he has a particularly rough day.

about au au tag discord

[meraki-sunset]

In the au with the different spritefusions (Vrita, Equdan, Haleri, Tavlux) what would be the davepeta/jasperose equivalents?

Oooooooooooooooooh let me see.

Okay so in canon, the alpha session pre scratch has 4 kernels and the 6 elements thrown at them are 6 people. 5 trolls and an AI. Resulting in Arquius, Tavris, Erisol and Fefeta, all of which die in their timeline in diferent ways

Now for the diferent sprite fusion you're talking about, i used the exact same people from canon, but mixed them in a diferent order. Creating Haleri, Vrieta, Tavlux and Equdan. You can find the post about them HERE

Who most likely didn't exploded and followed Davesprite and Nanna to John's planet and survived te timeline's errasure.

Pic fo their Godtiers just for fun.

Now, Davepeta and Jasprose come from Post-Retcon, which means the 6 elements conforming the sprites are diferent this time around, forming, not only Jasprosesprite^2 and Davepetasprite^2, but also GcaTavrosprite and Arquiusprite (again).

SO! all i need to do is pick all the canon people/creatures from the Post-Retcon Sprites and mix them in a diferent way. Like this!

Giving us as a result something like this

The fussion of Davesprite and Lil Hal, ultimate self and ultimate Strider, would most likely romantically pursue canon Jade, like Davepeta did in homestuck, but more successfully. Also be an amazing sword master due to the knowledge from all timelines.

I mean, it would just be Cat-Equius, doesn't have the cool character develompent that Arquius had, but has nice guardian powers and he's not alergic to himself. Plus he's a cat like his moirail Nepeta

Oh boy, Tavrospersprite^2 has by default achieved ultimate self and is afraid of nothing, because he has knowledge of all Tavros and has learned all their lessons in a second. Will call Vriska a bitch and proceed to kiss Gamzee in one breath, to inmedialty go fight some villain and disappear like a Cheshire cat (isn't alergic to himself because he now knows it's in his head)

RosepetaSprite is a chill gal, and now has the habilities of drawing and writing, making her the ultimate autor. She's a little heartbroken about not being able to be with Kanaya or Karkat, because this timeline's Rose and Dave are dating them, but she won't let that bring her down

Ironically Rosepeta is now conected to the other three sprites. Tavros having the memories of her cat and guide, Equius being her moirail and Davar being a fussion of a copy of her father and of her doomed brother who wanted to see her again. She has some heavy back-up now.

[thewulf]

Frosted Steel || Cassian

Summary: Request -Can i request a Cassian x Reader?? Here's what I'm thinking-Reader is from winter court. She's gifted with unique ice-binding magic from her home and arrives in Velaris to help Rhysand finalize a critical peace treaty?... Read Rest Here

A/N: Well... this one got away from me hahaha but I had a blast writing it. Def in the zone writing these ACOTAR fics so please keep sending them my way!

Pairing: Cassian x Female Reader (Winter Court Reader)

Word Count: 9.8k + (WHOOPS)

TW: swords, reader gets cut, blood, general ACOTAR warnings

In the silent, shimmering halls of the Winter Court you stood before Kallias, your father and the formidable High Lord. His piercing blue eyes reflect both concern and determination as he addresses you. The throne room was usually a place of austere beauty but felt colder today. The frost patterns on the walls mirroring the tension in the air.

"Velaris is not just another city, and this is not merely a diplomatic visit my daughter," Kallias begins. His voice resonant and commanding. "Rhysand needs our support to finalize a peace treaty that could stabilize relations of the Winter Court for generations. I need someone who can represent our interests with both power and delicacy. Someone like you."

You shift slightly with your boots whispering against the icy floor. "But father, my magic is suited for creation not conflict. Surely there are others better suited to navigate the intricacies of a peace treaty?" You tried your best to convince him, but it was sure to fall of deaf ears. When he had a plan there was no talking him out of it.

Kallias rises. His height and presence filling the room with an almost tangible force. "No one else possesses your unique abilities or your perspective," he insists. "You understand the fragile nature of peace. This treaty needs more than just political acumen… it needs the trust and bond that only your magic can foster." You knew exactly what he was doing. He was trying to flatter you. You lowered your gaze knowing there was no talking him out of this. You felt the weight of his expectations pressing into you. It is an honor yes, but a daunting one, nonetheless. The responsibility feels as heavy as the ice that clings to the peaks of your homeland.

Seeing your hesitation Kallias softens before stepping down from the dais to place a reassuring hand on your shoulder. "I would not ask this of you if I did not believe in your ability to carry our hopes," he says. His tone infused with a rare warmth. "You have always risen to the challenges presented to you, greater though they may seem."

Drawing a deep breath you nod, accepting the mantle he's offering. "I will go to Velaris. I will help broker this peace." You spoke even though you truly did not want to go.

Kallias smiles with pride evident in his eyes. "Rhysand has arranged for an escort to meet you at the city gates. They will ensure your safety and aid in your acclimation to the Night Court's ways. Spend some time there. Get to know them. It will only aid in our recovery efforts after the war.” As you turn to leave your heart steadies itself. The path ahead is uncertain and is filled with potential alliances and hidden perils. But as the frost air fills your lungs you feel your resolve harden. You will meet this challenge as you have met all others with the cool grace and quiet strength of winter itself.

He didn’t give you long to get ready to leave. Within a day you were already finding yourself at the outskirts of Velaris, the once hidden city of the Night Court. As you step through the threshold into the city your senses are immediately overwhelmed by the vivid contrasts. Unlike the icy, silent elegance of your homeland, Velaris pulses with life. Its streets bustling with faeries of every conceivable form and hue. The air here carries the warmth of starlight even into the night. It was a stark contrast to the crisp, cold air of the Winter Court. Your unique ice-binding magic was a rare gift in your cold dominion, and it stirred within you responding to the latent energies of this foreign land.

Your arrival isn't just a mere visit as your father had informed you. It's a mission charged with the weight of potential peace or conflict. Directed by your father you are here to assist Rhysand, the famed High Lord of the Night Court and one you were incredibly intimidated by, in finalizing the critical peace treaty. The responsibility weighs heavily on your shoulders as the outcome could define the future relationships between your frigid realm and the temperate lands of the Night Court.

As you glide through the throngs of fae your eyes marvel at the architectural wonders of Velaris. The buildings around you display intricate designs that emit an ethereal glow, seeming both ancient and vibrantly alive. Despite the surrounding beauty you remain vigilant, your magic at the ready. Your heart beats a complex rhythm of excitement and caution as you near the meeting point. In Velaris, amidst allies and strangers, you must navigate the intricacies of court politics. Utilizing your magical talents for diplomacy and perhaps learn to defend yourself in more ways than one.

However, a different sensation stirs within you—a blend of nervousness and unease—as you anticipate your first encounter with Rhysand and Feyre. Both are Daemati, a kind of power that deeply unsettles you. This fear stems from a harrowing past encounter with a Daemati under Amarantha's command who had mercilessly killed twelve children of the Winter Court. One of these children was your Ivy. She was a young fae you were mentoring. Ivy, like yourself, possessed potent abilities but her promise was brutally cut short. She was a loss that still haunts you to this day.

Now as you approach the House of Wind with your escort a mix of fear and determination tingles through your nerves. You replay the pain of your past and the loss that continuously gnaws at your spirit. Yet, you steady yourself with the knowledge that your father has prepared you well to shield your thoughts. He had trained you relentlessly once he returned from under the mountain. At the time it frustrated you but now, in this moment, you are profoundly grateful for his persistence.

Rhysand and Feyre greet you at the grand entrance. Their presence was both awe-inspiring and intimidating. Rhysand's dark hair and piercing gaze are balanced by a surprisingly warm smile. While Feyre's poise and grace exude a calm strength. Though their reputations are fair and just leaders precede them you can't shake the lingering trepidation of their unique abilities.

"Welcome to Velaris," Rhysand says. His voice both smooth and inviting. "We are honored to assist the Winter Court in these crucial talks."

You manage a polite nod making sure to keep your mental shields tightly woven, an invisible armor against any potential intrusion. Rhysand’s eyes seem to glimmer with a hint of understanding, but he makes no move to address the unspoken tension.

Feyre then steps forward with a gentle smile. Her empathy palpable even without words. "We hope you find comfort here during your stay. If there's anything you need at all, please let us know."

As they lead you through the corridors of their home filled with the light of glowing crystals and the scent of night-blooming flowers you remind yourself of the mission at hand. You are here to negotiate peace. To secure a future for your court. Despite the warmth of their welcome, you remain vigilant, prepared to protect your thoughts and heart from the painful memories of the past and the daunting power of the present.

After showing you to your room, a beautiful space with a view of Velaris that twinkles like a starlit sky, Feyre gently suggests that you join them for dinner. As you follow her down to the dining area your nervousness manifests subtly. Your leg shakes rhythmically, a silent tick showing the unease churning inside you. The room is beautifully set with candles flickering softly. They cast a warm light over the array of dishes that smell of spices and something sweetly floral.

You take your seat making sure to deliberately avoid the gazes of Rhysand and Feyre who try to make the atmosphere as welcoming as possible. Your leg continues to shake under the table and despite their friendly demeanor you find yourself unable to meet their eyes. You choose instead to focus on the intricate patterns of the tablecloth. You felt terribly out of your element. Why had your father sent you here? You couldn’t even look them in the eyes, how were you going to negotiate peace with them?

Noticing your discomfort Rhysand addresses the elephant in the room with a gentle directness. "It must be quite unsettling being far from home and surrounded by strangers. Especially strangers who possess abilities that might seem... invasive. We both understand the significance of mental privacy and consent," he begins. His tone imbued with empathy. His acknowledgment of his and Feyre's Daemati powers catches your attention prompting you to glance up briefly.

"We're committed to using our powers to protect and heal, never to harm or coerce," Rhysand continues hoping to ease your worry. "It's a rule we hold sacred in Velaris. A promise to each other and to those we welcome into our home."

As Rhysand speaks there is a sincerity radiating with each word. You find the courage to lift your eyes and meet his gaze for the first time this evening. Something in his expression, a deep-seated earnestness, cuts through the fog of your apprehension. You nod slowly acknowledging his pledge and the safety it promises.

"Thank you," you speak quietly. "I've heard much about both of you and your abilities. Forgive me for being so… cold." The smirk that follows is light and tinged with the irony of your homeland's icy reputation.

Your gaze shifts between Rhysand and Feyre. Their attentive postures encouraging you to continue. "The reason for my caution," you explain, "stems from a… an awful experience. One of the children taken by Amarantha's enforcer was under my protection. Her name was Ivy. I was supposed to shield her. Protect her. To nurture her abilities. But I could only watch helpless as her mind was torn apart. Piece by piece. It was... traumatizing to say the least. The fear of that power. The fear of it being used again so mercilessly has stayed with me." You let out the breath you were holding feeling a weight being slowly lifted off your shoulders in your admission.

Taking a deep breath, you fight through the tide of emotion threatening to overwhelm you. "Ivy was more than just a pupil to me. She was like a daughter," you begin. Your voice trembling as the words spill out. “Young and brilliant. Her very presence could brighten the darkest winter nights. She had a rare gift for ice magic. The kind that comes once in a generation. Ivy could weave frost into intricate sculptures of breathtaking beauty. She could coax snowflakes into patterns that told stories. Her magic wasn’t just powerful, it was art. Art in the purest and most captivating form."

Your voice cracks as the memory surges forward, raw, and as sharp as the day it happened. "When the enforcer came, I tried to shield her. I stood between them. I begged him to take me instead. But he just laughed..." Your hands clench into fists at the memory with you nails digging into your palms as if to anchor you against the pain. "And then he turned his attention to her. Ivy was just a girl. A beautiful little girl brimming with potential, and I had to watch from a distance… utterly powerless, as he ripped it all away. Her screams... the look of sheer terror in her eyes... it's etched into my memory. A nightmare that never fades."

Pausing, you swallow hard, feeling the sting of tears as they threaten to breach your composure. "I couldn't save her. The guilt of that moment, the utter helplessness. It’s haunted me ever since." You wipe away a tear that manages to escape, your voice a whisper now. "That’s why I’m so wary around Daemati. That’s why your powers… even though I know you use them for good, initially stirred such deep fear in me. The memory of what was done with similar abilities. It terrifies me still."

As you finish the room is enveloped in a heavy silence. Rhysand and Feyre absorbing the depth of your pain. Each of their faces etched with compassion and sorrow for your loss. Feyre's reaction is immediate and visceral. Her eyes fill with tears, and they silently overflow as she listens to the end of your harrowing experience. Moved deeply by your pain and the horrific loss of Ivy, she can barely contain her distress, reflecting her profound empathy.

"I'm so sorry," Feyre whispers. Her voice quivering as she reaches across the table, seeking to provide comfort even as she struggles with her own reaction. "That you had to go through that, to witness such horror... it's just unthinkable. I can't express how deeply sorry I am for your loss and your pain."

Rhysand's expression is one of solemn resolve as he observes both you and Feyre. He places a reassuring hand on her shoulder offering her a silent strength before turning his attention to you with a serious yet compassionate gaze. "What happened to Ivy, the terror she endured—such things are what we fight against every day," he says firmly. "Under my watch we hold ourselves to a promise: that we use our power to protect, to heal, not to harm. What you experienced will not happen here. You have my word." He nods his head in reverence.

The sincerity in Rhysand's voice and his protective assurance coupled with Feyre's empathetic tears create a poignant moment of understanding and solidarity. It offers a small yet significant reassurance that in Velaris you might find not only safety but also allies who genuinely care about your well-being.

As dinner progresses the conversation gradually shifts towards lighter topics. Focusing on the details of the peace treaty. The atmosphere has eased significantly with Rhysand and Feyre both engaging in thoughtful dialogue about the future plans and the roles each court might play in fostering peace. You find yourself becoming more invested in the conversation feeling a bit more at ease with each passing moment.

Just as you're beginning to relax fully the door bursts open and two figures storm in, deep in a heated debate. Their voices are raised, each trying to overpower the other with their arguments.

“You think charging in without a plan is the answer, Cassian? That’s reckless, even for you,” the darker-haired one asserts, his expression intense and clearly frustrated.

“And you think waiting around is going to solve our problems, Az? We can’t just leave it unresolved!” the larger man retorts with his broad frame gesturing emphatically.

Rhysand sighs, setting down his utensils before looking between his two friends. “Alright, what’s this about?” he asks, ready to mediate with a practiced ease.

As Cassian and Azriel's loud entrance interrupted the dinner your eyes immediately locked with Cassian's. Despite the intensity of their ongoing argument something about his direct gaze halted all other thoughts. It was as if a gust of wind had swept through the room, leaving you momentarily breathless. Amidst the unexpected disruption the corner of your mouth quirked up in amusement. Such candid, boisterous dynamics were a rare sight back in the Winter Court and the sheer openness of it all struck you as refreshingly odd. Even as the argument continued your focus remained riveted on Cassian. You found it impossible to break away from his gaze, his eyes holding a mixture of passion and warmth that was intensely captivating.

Catching your amused smile, Cassian halts mid-sentence. A playful glint appearing in his eyes. “And who do we have here?” he asks. His tone shifting to one of curiosity mixed with a hint of charm. “A spy from the Winter Court come to watch us squabble like market hagglers?”

Azriel rolls his eyes at Cassian’s dramatics. “Ignore him. Cassian thinks every new face is part of a grand intrigue.”

Rhysand chuckles and intervenes before Cassian can respond. “No spies here, just Kallias’s daughter from the Winter Court. She’s here to assist with the peace treaty negotiations. Remember?” Rhysand explains gesturing toward you with a warm smile. “And apparently to witness the Night Court's General and Spymaster in their, let’s say, natural habitat.”

Cassian’s face lights up with a broad grin as he extends a hand in greeting. His earlier fervor now redirected into welcoming you. “Well then, welcome to Velaris! I’m Cassian, the General. And the brooding shadow over there is Azriel, our Spymaster. Seems you’ve got a front-row seat to our tactical disputes.”

Azriel gives you a nod, his earlier annoyance fading into a reserved smile. "It’s good to meet you. Please don’t mind us. We argue, but it’s all in the spirit of making the best decisions for our people."

Your initial amusement grows into a genuine smile, touched by the warmth and candidness of their welcome, even amidst their lively disputes. This evening has certainly turned out to be full of surprises. Painting a vivid picture of the Night Court as a place of vibrant personalities and fierce loyalty.

As the energy from their spirited discussions simmers down and the laughter echoes into a comfortable lull you take the opportunity to express your amusement at their robust debate. Greeting Cassian and Azriel warmly you share how refreshing you find the candid nature of the Night Court. It's a stark contrast to the more reserved and formal interactions typical of the Winter Court, sparking your curiosity about the dynamics of this lively group.

"Well, it's certainly different here," you comment with a light laugh. "I'm looking forward to seeing more of this... enthusiasm during my stay. I'll be here for a month or so. I hope to learn as much as I can."

Rhysand, seizing on your mention of an extended stay, exchanges a quick glance with Cassian. He gave him a sly smile as he senses his brothers attention shifting toward you almost immediately. "A month or so gives us plenty of time," he says thoughtfully. "If you're interested in learning more than just politics perhaps you'd like to join some of our training sessions? Cassian here leads our warriors and I'm sure he could arrange something that accommodates your skills and interests."

Cassian’s eyes light up at the suggestion. He was always eager to bring someone new into the fold of his training regimens. Especially someone as unique as you seemed to be. "Absolutely," he agrees with an enthusiastic nod. "It’s not all sword swinging and strength training. We focus on strategy, agility, and even some elemental control that might align nicely with your ice magic. It could be a good way to blend some of the Winter Court techniques with ours."

As Rhysand suggests joining the training sessions you hesitate, a flicker of doubt crossing your face. "I appreciate the offer but I'm not really a fighter," you admit slightly apologetic in your nature. "My strengths lie more in diplomacy and magic, particularly ice magic. I'm not sure how well I'd fit into a warrior's training regimen."

Rhysand, observing the interplay at the table, seems particularly keen on your participation. His insight as a leader might allow him to sense the undercurrent of interest from Cassian toward you. Something potentially deeper than it appears. He pushes gently but with a knowing smile, "It’s not just about fighting. It’s about understanding different perspectives and disciplines. It could be a valuable experience."

Cassian although typically straightforward and jovially aggressive, adopts a slightly softer demeanor. His usual bravado tempered by earnestness. "Training can also be about balance and harmony. About integrating the physical with the magical. Your skills could bring a fresh perspective, not just to our tactics but to our understanding of magic and combat."

Then Azriel, who normally stays quiet in such discussions adds his own encouragement. His subdued voice carrying weight. "It’s worth exploring. Sometimes stepping into unfamiliar territory reveals more about our strengths. It could be enlightening for all of us."

Cassian's expression briefly reveals his surprise at Azriel’s interjection. It was a small, almost imperceptible lift of his eyebrows signaling to you that Azriel's encouragement is out of the ordinary. This small gesture subtly hints at the importance of the moment.

Feyre as if sensing the nuanced shifts in the conversation supports their suggestions with a warm and inclusive gesture. "It’s also a way to connect with everyone here. Our training sessions are as much about building relationships as they are about building skills. It would be wonderful to have you join, even just a few times to see how it feels."

Encouraged by their collective support and Cassian's surprised yet approving glance following Azriel's seemingly rare endorsement you find yourself reconsidering their proposal more seriously. "Alright. I'll give it a try," you agree, a tentative excitement building within you. "This will be very… interesting."

"Excellent," Cassian says. His eyes brightening with enthusiasm. "We’ll start at a pace that feels right for you. It’s about growth and learning, not just exertion."

As the dinner concludes and plans for your training begin to take shape you can't help but feel an intriguing pull towards what lies ahead. The possibility of new friendships and perhaps deeper bonds begins to form, hinting at the start of an enriching journey within the Night Court.

On your first day at the training grounds, the crisp morning air of Velaris is invigorating, filled with the sounds of clashing weapons and distant calls from sparring partners. Cassian leads you to a quieter section reserved for one-on-one sessions away from the more vigorous activities of his usual warriors. The atmosphere is slightly tense. The space between you filled with cautious curiosity. Each of you is clearly gauging the other trying to find a comfortable rhythm in this new training partnership.

"Let’s see what you’ve got," Cassian suggests. His tone friendly but carrying a hint of challenge. He watches intently as you demonstrate some basic maneuvers with your ice magic. You created delicate yet sharp frost patterns that float gracefully in the air. His nods of approval are sparing, and you can tell he’s mentally noting each display of skill though he keeps his feedback measured and professional.

As the days progress the initial stiffness that marked your interactions begins to melt away. Cassian’s coaching style is intense. His commands are sharp, his expectations high. However, as you meet his challenges with increasing confidence you begin to understand the method behind his rigor. You also start to catch glimpses of humor in his sharp eyes. A sign that there’s more to this formidable warrior than just discipline and strength.

"Try not to freeze my soldiers. We’re running out of good men as it is," he jokes one morning after you skillfully direct a swirl of ice around a training dummy skillfully stopping just short of a group of soldiers watching nearby.

With a small laugh you shoot back, "I thought the Night Court could handle a little cold."

His laughter in response is hearty. A sound that seems to echo around the quiet corner of the training grounds. It's a turning point, signaling a shift from mutual respect to something warmer, more friendly.

By the end of the week your training sessions are characterized by easy banter and playful challenges. One afternoon Cassian dodges your icy projectiles with nimble grace only to slip slightly on a patch of ice you cunningly left in his path. "Not bad for a scrawny little thing," he grins while steadying himself with the agility of a cat.

In response you flash a mischievous smile and with a subtle flick of your wrist, you freeze his boots to the ground. "And not bad for a brawny brute," you retort. Laughter bursts from a few nearby trainees who have started to look forward to these exchanges between the two of you.

Cassian manages to break free before brushing ice from his boots with mock indignation. "You’re going to pay for that one," he warns though his eyes sparkle with amusement.

As the week draws to a close the training ground has transformed from a place of cautious appraisal to one of growth and friendship. Your sessions with Cassian are no longer just about learning to integrate your ice magic with physical combat. They’re also about the laughter shared over slipped footing, the shared grins after successful maneuvers, and the light-hearted jests that now flow freely between you. This evolving camaraderie promises not just improved skills but a deepening bond, hinting at the development of a relationship built on respect, challenge, and mutual delight in each other's company.

The atmosphere at the training grounds is usually charged with the sounds of diligent practice but today there’s an added layer of excitement due to some young onlookers from the Night Court. Cassian plans a session that balances demonstrations of your unique ice magic with some basic combat techniques hoping to impress not just you but the eager young fae watching from a distance.

Wearing your elegant Winter Court attire, which was more suited for display than combat, you find yourself not in your usual training leathers. Today was supposed to be about finesse and control not full-contact sparring. As Cassian readies the next exercise you catch the eyes of the children peeking out from behind the trees. Their expressions were filled with awe and curiosity. Smiling back at them your attention momentarily drifts from the task at hand.

Cassian notices your distraction and the intricate fabric of your attire raising an eyebrow in mild concern. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to change into something more... practical?" he asks you once more. His voice laced with skepticism.

You shake your head while stepping forward confidently. "I believe today's session can benefit from a different approach," you explain. Your voice steady, confident. "My attire from the Winter Court is designed not only for aesthetics but for mobility in a certain style of combat. It’s more strategic and less about direct confrontation. It might offer a new perspective for your warriors."

Cassian looks dubious but intrigued by your assurance and the potential learning opportunity for his trainees. After a moment of consideration, he nods slowly. "Alright," he concedes. His tone cautious yet curious. "We'll adjust today's training to focus on technique and precision. We'll go light on the physical combat to accommodate your attire."

Grateful for his flexibility you prepare to demonstrate that finesse and strategy can be as effective as brute strength hoping to prove the value of your unique approach and the versatility of your court's combat style.

As dusk deepened over the training grounds, the session with Cassian was intensifying. He was fully focused on you, guiding, and challenging you with each swing of his blunted training blade. He did not notice Azriel's silent approach until his brother was almost beside them, landing softly. The sudden appearance of Azriel, so smooth and silent, caught your eye at the crucial moment.

Cassian, thinking you were prepared and about to dodge, continued with his planned attack and swung the blunted blade in a broad, sweeping motion towards you. Normally you would have sidestepped smoothly but distracted by Azriel's unexpected arrival you froze. The blade, though blunt for training, struck directly against your side with surprising force due to your lack of movement. The impact was hard enough to slice through the delicate fabric of your Winter Court dress and nick your skin, drawing a line of blood.

Immediately realizing the mishap Cassian dropped his sword and rushed to your side, his expression flooded with concern. "Are you alright? I thought you saw me coming," he asked quickly as his voice was laced with worry.

Trying to mask the sharp sting and the sudden warmth of blood seeping through your dress, you attempted to reassure him, "I’m okay, Cassian, really, it was just a shock more than anything—"

But as you spoke a wave of dizziness overwhelmed you, your knees buckling under the dual assault of pain and sudden faintness. As you started to fall Cassian instinctively reached out, catching you just in time. His hands which were initially meant to steady you felt the wetness of blood through the fabric of your dress. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the bright red on his hands realizing the cut was more serious than a mere scrape.

Without a moment's hesitation Cassian scooped you up into his arms. His movements were swift and filled with urgent care. He looked up at Azriel who had stepped forward, concern etching his features. "Keep the training going, Az. I’m taking her to Madja, now," Cassian instructed firmly. His voice carrying the weight of his resolve.

Azriel nodded understanding the gravity of the situation and stepped back to allow Cassian to pass. Cassian, holding you securely, moved with purposeful speed towards the infirmary. His mind was racing with worry. The flight was quick. His powerful wings beating against the cool air of the evening, each stroke propelling you further away from the training grounds and closer to the healing hands of Madja.

As he flew you clung to him feeling the cool air against your face, which helped alleviate some of the dizziness. "I'm really okay, Cassian," you tried to assure him again, your voice soft, noticing the tension in his body, the way his jaw was set with worry. "It’s just a little cut, I think. I’m sure it’s already healed up."

Cassian only tightened his hold, a gesture of protective care. "We're not taking any chances," he said firmly. His tone brooking no argument. "You’re getting checked out, no arguments."

Suspended in the air, held securely in Cassian's embrace, you noticed the tension in his expression. His jaw set firmly as he navigated through the skies. Wanting to alleviate his concern and lighten the mood you looked up at him, your voice competing with the rush of the wind. "Okay, no arguing," you conceded with a soft, reassuring smile. "But how about an even less swordy day at training tomorrow?"

"You know, maybe we should consider taking a rest day tomorrow," Cassian suggested hesitantly. His voice carrying a protective tone. "Just to be sure you're fully recovered. It might not be wise to jump right back into training."

You looked up at him feeling the warmth of his care but also a spark of your own determination not to be sidelined by a small injury. "I appreciate your concern, Cassian, but really, I feel fine," you countered quickly. A hint of stubbornness in your tone. "A light day as planned with some tactical drills. Nothing too strenuous. I think it would be good for me. For you"

Cassian raised an eyebrow with a small smile breaking through as he sensed your resolve. "Oh, how quickly you've changed your tune, princess," he remarked with a playful smirk. The affectionate tease in his voice floated on the wind as he continued to fly, his grip around you reassuring and strong.

The brief exchange brought a light-heartedness to the moment and Cassian's smile broadened slightly appreciating your spirit and resilience. "Alright, tactical drills it is then. But at the first sign of any discomfort, we're taking a break," he conceded. His tone still carrying a hint of caution but softened by his growing trust in your judgment.

As you both neared the infirmary the flight through the crisp evening air felt less like a rush to aid and more like a shared journey back to stability. Cassian's initial hesitation faded, replaced by a quiet confidence in your resilience and a deepening sense of connection between you. The city of Velaris spread out beneath you, a silent witness to the bond that was strengthening with every beat of Cassian's wings and every word exchanged above the rooftops.

Landing smoothly at the infirmary Cassian carried you inside where Madja was already preparing her tools. Cassian gently laid you down on a cot as his hands lingered for a moment longer than necessary. His eyes were searching yours for any sign of further distress.

Madja quickly assessed the situation. She cleaned the wound and confirmed it was shallow. Though the blood loss and the shock had caused your faintness. "You'll be fine. Just a little rest and you’ll be up in no time," she reassured both you and Cassian, more so Cassian, who finally allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief.

You turn to Cass with a smirk playing on your lips. "See, told you so, General," you tease in an attempt to ease the palpable tension that had followed you from the training grounds.

Cassian's relief is immediate and visible. He lets out a deep breath, the tightness in his shoulders relaxing as he returns your smirk with a wry smile. "Fine, you were right. But let’s avoid making this a habit, shall we?"

Before you can respond the infirmary door swings open abruptly. Rhysand strides in, his expression a mixture of concern and command clearly having been summoned by Cassian’s urgent mental call. His eyes are wide as he quickly scans the room landing on you sitting relatively unscathed on the infirmary bed.

"Are you alright?" Rhysand asks. His voice tight with concern. He moves closer. His gaze flicking from you to Cassian, seeking an explanation.

You nod reassuring him with a calm smile. "I’m just fine, Rhys. Really, it was much less dramatic than it seems. Cassian has been worried enough for everyone," you say, glancing at Cassian with a playful raise of your eyebrows, signaling that all is truly well.

Rhysand's gaze softens though the lines of worry don’t completely disappear. "Cassian briefed me but seeing you well makes a world of difference. These training accidents... Well, they shouldn’t happen. We’ll review the protocols to ensure this is an isolated incident."

Turning to Cassian, Rhysand claps him on the shoulder. A gesture of support mixed with a mild reprimand. "Take care of her. Make sure she follows all of Madja’s instructions," Rhysand instructs, his leader’s tone resurfacing.

Cassian nods solemnly, "Understood. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again."

With a final nod and a comforting smile directed at you Rhys exits the infirmary, his presence leaving as quickly as it arrived. The room feels lighter now, the earlier tension dissipating with the confirmations of your well-being.

Cassian stays by your side. His relief evident but his watchfulness remaining. "Now, about that 'less swordy' day tomorrow..." he begins, ready to shift back into the lighter, teasing dynamic that has marked your growing friendship. Grateful that the day’s scare has ended on a reassuring note.

As Cassian suggests a less physically demanding day focused more on magic you can’t help but giggle. A slight relief moving away from any activities involving bladed weapons. “That sounds perfect,” you agree with enthusiasm brightening your voice as you discuss potential exercises that would let you showcase and refine your control over ice magic without the physical strain.

As the conversation continues Cassian helps you up ensuring you’re stable on your feet and offers his arm for support as you begin the walk back to your quarters. The corridors of the Night Court feel quieter than usual. The soft echo of your steps mingling with the fading adrenaline of the day’s events. There’s a palpable shift between you and Cassian. A new layer of closeness brought on not just by the day’s scare but also by the accumulated time spent together over the past few weeks.

Cassian’s voice breaks the comfortable silence. His voice softer, more reflective than before. “I’ve really enjoyed these last few weeks with you,” he admits. His gaze fixed ahead. “You’ve taught me more than you’ll ever know.” His words hang in the air laden with a sincerity that draws your attention fully to his expression. It’s open, honest, and there’s a hint of vulnerability there that you hadn’t noticed before.

You look at him, touched by his confession, noticing the slight hesitance as if he wants to say more but is holding back. Maybe it’s the fear of crossing an unseen boundary or the uncertainty of your reaction that keeps him from continuing.

Encouraged by his openness you respond warmly, “And I’ve learned a lot from you, too, Cassian. Not just about fighting or training but about what it means to really care about your warriors, your friends.” You pause searching his face for a reaction. “It means a lot to me, all of this time we’ve spent together.”

Cassian’s eyes meet yours and there’s a moment of silent communication. A mutual understanding and appreciation that seems to deepen the bond between you. “I’m glad,” he finally says with his voice low. “I hope we can keep this going, no matter what the training schedule says.”

As you reach your quarters there’s a reluctance to part between the both of you. A desire to prolong the connection that has clearly grown beyond the confines of instructor and trainee. Cassian lingers at your door, his usual confidence tempered with a newfound tenderness.

“Get some rest princess,” he says softly before stepping back with a reluctant smile. “We’ll start fresh tomorrow. Less swordy, more... magical.”

You nod, smiling back at him, feeling a warmth that extends beyond the fading pain from your injury. “I look forward to it, Cassian. Thank you for everything today.”

He nods, then turns to leave, but not before throwing a look over his shoulder. It was a promise of more shared moments, more lessons, and perhaps, deeper revelations yet to come. The door closes softly behind you leaving you with a sense of anticipation for what the next day might bring, both in training and in your evolving relationship with Cassian.

After the incident at the training grounds and a night of rest you dive back into the treaty negotiations with renewed focus. As the talks commence you are at the forefront, your diplomatic skills shining as you navigate the complexities of the discussions. Your adept use of magic not only impresses but also serves as a poignant reminder of the Winter Court's strengths and capabilities. The treaty talks progress smoothly and a successful agreement begins to take shape much to the relief and satisfaction of all parties involved.

However, despite the importance of the negotiations and your central role in them your thoughts intermittently drift to Cassian. The memory of his concerned eyes, his protective stance, and the warmth of your conversation lingers with you, distracting you more than you'd like to admit. As you mentally rehearse your next points in the discussion, you find your mind replaying moments from the training sessions, his laughter, his teasing remarks, and his unexpectedly gentle care.

Unbeknownst to you, your mental shields—usually so meticulously maintained—begin to slip slightly amid your daydreams. Rhysand, who was not actively probing but is always somewhat attuned to the emotional and mental state of those around him, picks up on your wandering thoughts. He catches snippets of your internal musings about Cassian, not enough to grasp the full context but enough to piece together the gist of your distraction.

Throughout the meeting a knowing grin slowly forms on Rhysand's face, amused by the realization of your burgeoning feelings for his brother. He doesn't comment on it during the talks. Making sure to maintain his professionalism and focusing on the successful closure of the treaty. However, the little smile that occasionally plays at the corners of his mouth doesn't go unnoticed by those who know him well.

Later, as the meeting concludes with handshakes and a collective sigh of relief over the treaty's ratification. Rhysand pulls Cassian aside just before your evening training session. In a quiet corner away from prying ears Rhysand's grin broadens.

"I think someone has managed to catch more than just your training expertise," Rhysand teases as his eyes twinkled with mirth. "Our Winter Court princess seems to be a bit distracted by a certain general." As Rhysand delivers his playful revelation, Cassian's initial surprise quickly shifts to a broad, almost uncontrollable grin that spreads across his face. The sudden display of joy is uncharacteristic of the usually composed general, revealing just how deeply the news has affected him.

"Oh? And what makes you say that?" Cassian tries to maintain a semblance of composure, but his voice betrayed a hint of excitement beneath the casual façade.

Rhysand notices the change in Cassian's demeanor. The light in his eyes that hadn't been there moments before. "Well, let's just say that her thoughts were a little less guarded than usual," Rhysand replied. His voice laced with amusement. "She might be more interested in the person teaching her than just the lessons themselves."

Cassian's smile widens and he shakes his head slightly almost in disbelief but clearly delighted by the prospect. "Is that so?" he murmurs more to himself than to Rhysand, his mind already spinning with the implications.

Rhysand watches Cassian's bright grin, a knowing look crossing his face as he teases, "Seems like those training sessions are about more than just tactics and spells."

Cassian’s expression remains upbeat but a hint of seriousness creeps in. "They’re enlightening," he admits while giving a nod. "There’s something unique about her… beyond just her skills."

Sensing the depth in Cassian’s tone, Rhysand's demeanor shifts slightly, becoming more contemplative. "Just be careful, Cass. It’s easy to let your guard down when strong feelings are involved."

Cassian pauses as he felt a weight in Rhysand's caution. He looks at his brother, a silent plea for understanding without words. Rhysand, ever perceptive, senses the depth of Cassian’s feelings, realizing this might be more than just a fleeting fascination. "Cassian, do you think she could be…" Rhysand trails off leaving the implication hanging in the air, heavy with the weight of possibilities. His question is subtle, probing—asking if Cassian feels the deep, fated connection of a mate.

Cassian meets Rhysand's gaze with his own eyes reflecting a mix of hope and uncertainty. "I don’t know," he confesses softly. "But there’s something there. Something that feels… right. More than I've felt before."

Rhysand nods slowly as he processed this new revelation. His initial caution softens into a more supportive stance. "Then take it seriously but carefully. If this is what I think it might be, it’s not just significant for you but could be for the Night Court as well."

He places a hand on Cassian’s shoulder with a firm, reassuring grip. "Follow your heart but keep your head with you. She’s not just any visitor. She could and is likely to be much more."

As Rhysand walks away leaving Cassian to ponder the future the conversation not only cements Cassian's resolve but also clarifies the stakes. It’s a turning point. Marking a shift from casual interest to considering the profound potential of a deep, lifelong bond. Cassian feels empowered and cautious now acutely aware of the significant path that might be unfolding before him. This is no longer about training or simple affection. It could be the beginning of the rest of his life, your life.

As dusk settles over Velaris with the fading sunlight casting long shadows across the training grounds, Cassian awaits your arrival. His mind a jumbled swirl of thoughts from the earlier conversation with Rhysand. His anticipation is palpable, heightened by the significant discussions about feelings and futures that may be closer than he's admitted to himself.

During that first meeting in the dining hall his mind was a whirlwind of emotions. As he and Azriel entered mid-argument his initial focus was entirely on their spirited debate not the important dinner he was walking into. The sudden sight of you was an unexpected and striking presence. You brought a sharp halt to his thoughts.

Cassian was immediately struck by your poise and the quiet confidence with which you held yourself among such esteemed company. His first impression was of your elegance and the serene way you observed the dynamic entrance he and Azriel made. There was something about the way you carried yourself as a blend of strength and grace that captivated him instantly.

Embarrassment quickly flooded him with a blush creeping up his neck as he realized the discordant note their arrival struck in the otherwise serene setting. There you were, seated elegantly among the dignitaries of the Night Court with an aura of quiet confidence radiating from you. Despite the potentially disruptive entrance your expression remained unflustered. The slight, knowing smirk playing at the corners of your lips, and the amusement twinkling in your eyes spoke volumes. It was clear you were not only unfazed by the raucous disruption but also mildly entertained by it.

What struck Cassian more deeply was the way your attention seemed focused solely on him, as if the room and its other occupants had faded into the background. This singular focus, paired with the amused arch of your brow, left him feeling both exposed and intrigued. It was as if you could see right through to his typically hidden insecurities prompting a mix of vulnerability and a compelling desire to engage further.

Cassian felt a twinge of chagrin for not having presented a more composed entrance. Especially in front of someone who commanded such a presence as you did. The initial embarrassment, however, slowly morphed into a quiet determination. He was keenly aware that he had an opportunity to make a more meaningful second impression. One that could perhaps intrigue and draw you in just as you had captivated him from that first shared glance.

As he moved to regain his composure, smoothing back his hair, and adjusting his jacket, Cassian was already plotting how to transform this awkward beginning into an opening for deeper connection. The evening had just begun, and he was determined to show you a side of him that resonated with the depth and discernment he now saw reflected in your gaze.

When Rhysand later suggested that Cassian take the lead on your physical training, he seized the opportunity without hesitation. Training was his domain where he felt most in command and most himself. He anticipated that in the structure and discipline of physical training, among the straightforwardness of drills and exercises, there might be space for more informal interactions. For laughter and light conversations that could bridge the gap between formal dining hall introductions and a genuine connection.

Cassian saw each upcoming session as a canvas. As an opportunity to impress and engage you, not just with his skills but with his insights and his approach to teaching and leadership. Privately he knew he’d have to thank Rhysand for the suggestion—whether it was a calculated move or just a fortuitous throwaway idea, it had given him a golden opportunity to explore the potential that he sensed bubbling beneath your initial poised exterior.

He was intrigued, more so than he had been for a long time. The initial physical attraction was strong. Yet it was your demeanor, the intriguing mix of diplomacy and candor, that truly piqued his interest. Cassian left the dining hall that evening with his mind full of questions and curiosities about you. He was eager for the next opportunity to interact and perhaps to understand the compelling figure you were beyond just the surface.

From the memories of that first dinner to the present moment on the training grounds, Cassian's journey of understanding and admiration for you had woven through weeks of anticipation and subtle discoveries. Each interaction had added layers to his initial perception, enriching the image he held of you in his mind.

Then as if to punctuate his thoughts you appeared for the training session, garbed unmistakably in Illyrian warrior attire. Much different than the training leathers and Winter Court apparel he had grown used to see you in. The traditional leathers of his people clung to you, accentuating both strength and grace in your every move. The sight of you in such commanding attire sent a jolt through Cassian. His reaction visceral and immediate. His eyes widened with a mixture of surprise and admiration flashing across his face as he took in every detail—the way the leather fit you, how it moved with your body, and the undeniable air of confidence it brought to your demeanor.

The transformation was not just in your appearance but in the energy you exuded. Standing there you embodied the strength and resilience of an Illyrian warrior, qualities that resonated deeply with Cassian’s own identity. It struck him then how seamlessly you seemed to integrate into his world. How naturally you adopted its symbols and its strength. This was no longer just about training or sharing skills. It was a visual affirmation of your integration into his life and culture.

As he approached you his initial shock gave way to a profound respect. The way you carried the weight of the armor, the casual yet respectful nod you gave him as he walked up. These small actions spoke volumes. Cassian felt a renewed sense of connection. A deeper bond forming not just from shared interests and conversations but from seeing you embrace a part of his heritage with such ease and honor.

In that moment as he closed the distance between you, Cassian realized how deeply he was drawn to you, far beyond the physical allure. It was your spirit. Your willingness to step into his world, to don the armor of his people and stand ready to engage on equal footing. This realization brought a warmth to his chest and a smile to his lips. One that was both proud and welcoming.

As you stood before Cassian in the Illyrian warrior attire your presence was a striking blend of determination and slight apprehension. The soft evening light cast long shadows across the training grounds accentuating the quiet resolve in your posture. You were about to propose a change to the day’s lighter, planned routine. While confident in your suggestion there was a hint of nervousness tinged your voice, reflecting the care you took in challenging the agenda.

"Um, Cassian," you started, your voice carrying a cautious undertone, "I know we planned for a less sword-intensive session today..." You paused trying to gather your thoughts. But before you could continue your eyes met Cassian’s, their intensity like a direct challenge, causing a sudden vulnerability to flutter in your stomach. His gaze was penetrating, studying you with a warmth and focus that unnerved you. For a moment the confidence you felt started to waver under his scrutiny. The depth of his attention making you want to melt into a puddle right there on the training grounds.

However, drawing a deep breath, you summoned your resolve. Despite the shake in your confidence, you pressed on bolstered by the knowledge that this was an important step in your training. "I feel fine. But I've been thinking. I'm already quite familiar with my magic, and not as much with swordsmanship." Your voice grew slightly firmer as you continued, "Maybe, if it’s alright, we could incorporate more of that?" As you reached the end of your proposal a slight stammer betrayed your nervousness. "If you're okay with that, that is," you added with a nervous smile. Eager yet uncertain of his response.

Cassian, still somewhat in awe of your striking appearance and the commanding aura you exuded in the traditional leathers was momentarily taken aback. His response was on the tip of his tongue, an agreement forming, when Azriel quietly joined the duo. Observing the scene, Azriel noted your determined stance and Cassian’s admiring gaze. A knowing smirk crept onto Azriel’s face. "Looks like she’s going to give you a run for your money, brother," he teased unable to hide the amusement in his voice.

Cassian was caught between his brother's teasing and your challenging proposal but managed to regain his composure. He cleared his throat and stepped forward, his confidence rekindled by the familiar banter and the prospect of a spirited training session. "Alright then," he agreed with a nod. A smile breaking through as he embraced the challenge, "swords it is. Let’s see what you’ve got."

As the session progressed Azriel lingered on the sidelines, his eyes shifting between the clashing swords and Cassian’s animated instructions. Every now and then he couldn’t resist throwing in a light-hearted jab especially when it seemed like Cassian was particularly impressed by your quick learning curve or deft movements. "Careful, Cass, I think she might just outdo you in your own game," Azriel called out after a particularly skillful maneuver from you. His tone teasing but proud of you.

Cassian shot a mock-glare at Azriel, but his eyes sparkled with humor and something softer, an undeniable delight in your prowess and enthusiasm. Despite himself Cassian found that he enjoyed this, the mix of training intensity and the undercurrent of playful rivalry. Not just between him and you but with Azriel's involvement as well. It felt oddly, natural. You’d found a way to integrate yourself into the court within only a month of being in Velaris.

Throughout the training Cassian’s admiration for you only grew. Every block, every parry you performed with increasing confidence seemed to not only impress him but also deepen the sense of connection that he felt. This wasn’t just about teaching you how to handle a sword. It was about sharing a piece of his world, his passion, and seeing you embrace it with such fervor was both exhilarating and endearing.

As the sun dipped below the horizon Azriel’s teasing remarks faded into the background, replaced by a quiet acknowledgment of the shift he saw in Cassian. It was clear to him that his brother was, indeed, in trouble. But in the best possible way. Cassian's usually unshakeable demeanor was softer when he looked at you, filled with a mix of pride, respect, and a burgeoning affection that went beyond the confines of the training ring.

When the session finally wound down and the cool evening air settled around, both you and Cassian were catching your breath, reveling in the afterglow of intense physical exertion. It was then that Azriel, unable to resist the opportunity for a little brotherly teasing, stepped forward. Clapping Cassian on the back with a broad grin he couldn’t help but comment, "Well, that was quite a performance. And here I thought today was supposed to be less about swords."

Cassian, still a bit winded from the session, shot Azriel a quick, warning glance. But even he couldn’t hide the amused smile that tugged at his lips, indicative of his own acknowledgment of the shift in plans. Your puzzled look darted between the two brothers catching the tail end of their dynamic, your smile mirroring Cassian's albeit with a touch of confusion.

"Less swords, more magic, but I guess plans change when you're dressed for battle," you chimed in attempting to play off Azriel's comment, still somewhat oblivious to the deeper layers of teasing.

Azriel’s smirk widened as he observed the interplay, his eyes glinting with mischief. "Absolutely, plans do change. Especially when a certain someone decides to show up looking ready to join the ranks of Illyrian warriors," he teased you, turning his gaze back to Cassian with a sly expression. "Makes a general reconsider his strategies."

Caught in the moment, you shared the origin of your attire, a light chuckle escaping you. "Feyre absolutely insisted on me wearing the traditional leathers," you explained, your smile fond as you recalled Feyre's insistence. "I thought it was just for protection, given the training. She seemed really adamant about it."

Cassian’s expression softened at this with a brief smile acknowledging the hidden hand of Rhysand in this setup. Though he connected the dots, realizing his brother's likely involvement in Feyre's insistence, he chose to keep this revelation to himself. Instead, he simply nodded, appreciating your earnestness and perhaps, deep down, thankful for the unintended push it gave him to see you in a new light—strong, capable, and utterly captivating in Illyrian leathers.

As the training session drew to a close and the night deepened around them, the playful banter and shared laughter began to ebb. Azriel's remarks, though lighthearted, had hinted at the shift he observed in the dynamics between you and Cassian. A development that seemed to promise much more than just companionship in the future.

Recognizing the cooling air and the perfect, serene evening that enveloped Velaris, Cassian suggested a leisurely walk back through the city. "How about I walk you home tonight? It's a nice evening to cool down and stretch out after training," he proposed. His voice casual but with a hopeful undertone.

Azriel caught the subtle inflection in Cassian’s tone and simply couldn’t resist one more jab, his knowing smile broadening into a full-blown, mischievous grin. "Sure, take your time," he teased, his voice rich with implication. With a final chuckle and a wink at Cassian, Azriel spread his wings and took to the skies leaving you both to the quiet of the evening streets.

Cassian walked beside you there was a thoughtful distance in his initial steps. As if he was contemplating the right words or simply savoring the shared silence. Gradually, he drew closer, his presence a comforting constant at your side. The soft lighting from the streetlamps cast gentle shadows and the faint rustle of the leaves created a backdrop that enriched the moment with a quaint, almost magical quality.

Every now and then his hand would lightly touch your arm or guide you around an uneven patch on the cobblestones. Each contact sending a quiet thrill through you. Despite the casual nature of the walk there was an undercurrent of something deeper. A thread of anticipation weaving through the air between you.

"Same time tomorrow?" Cassian finally broke the silence. His voice a blend of softness and something undefinable yet unmistakably tender.

"Definitely," you replied with your smile genuine and wide. The connection you felt with Cassian was undeniable and while you might not fully grasp the depth of his feelings, the pull towards him was strong and only growing stronger with each passing day.

When you reached your quarters Cassian lingered for a moment, his demeanor protective and gentle. He seemed reluctant to part ways, but he was satisfied to know you were safe for the night. "Make sure you rest well tonight," he said with his hand resting briefly on your back, his smile warm and lingering as he wished you a good night.

Retreating to your room, the echoes of the evening replayed in your mind. The laughter, Azriel's teasing, the soft, serious timbre of Cassian's voice asking to see you again. There was an excitement brewing within you. An eagerness for what these sessions and these new feelings might lead to. It was an intriguing mix of anticipation and a bit of nervousness, stepping into this newfound connection with Cassian, but every instinct told you it was a path worth exploring. As you settled down with thoughts of the next day’s training, and more importantly, of seeing Cassian again, it filled you with a warm sense of expectation and a quiet joy.

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[comicaurora]

Following off of, but moving away slightly from all the Fate talk: If you were to write a ‘King Arthur but female’ story, how would you go about it? What would you look for in such a story?

I can think of a couple ways I'd do it!

First, the easy part. Sword in the anvil/stone, whosoever draws it forth is the rightful king of England. Well shit, that little peasant girl just pulled it out like it was nothing. Hail to the king, any objections can be directed to The Indomitable Soul Of Albion Herself.

Or, if ancient England accepting a lady king is too much of a stretch, Merlin has a habit of helping people out with magical disguises. If necessary - and if it would be fun from a story standpoint - our peasant girl of Secret Noble Heritage could get a magical disguise that lets her appear male. Could even go full fairy tale and do something like having her appear as her true self at night, and King Arthur during the day. If we really wanted to blend it, we could let her female identity be Morgan le Fay, Merlin's student with an affinity for dark times. However, doing that would spoil the potential gay drama of letting Morgan be a powerful villainess who learns Arthur's true identity early on, and that might be too good to pass up. And since Arthur's eventual destiny is to be taken to Avalon by Morgan to sleep until England's greatest hour of need, that gets Cool Layers if we let them have a whole enemies-to-lovers thing going throughout.

Arthuriana is extremely loose in the canon department anyway, so while there are touchpoints I'd want to hit, we'd have a lot of freedom of movement in how we'd hit them. This would basically just add layers of characterization to how Arthur would handle the various adventures she gets into - especially if she feels the need to obscure her identity from some or all of her knights. There's a surplus of damsels in various folktales that could be Arthur stuck in her secret identity due to Magical Hijinks.

Unfortunately, Guinevere's foundational role in the story almost always involves her sleeping with dudes who are not Arthur, and since the overall story of Camelot is a tragedy whose downfall is brought on by a schism in the royal family, we might need to keep that for thematic consistency. And it takes on layers if we stick with the "Arthur's public identity, at least at first, is a Dude" thing, because - shocking as this may be - some people actually aren't even a little bit gay, and if Guinevere ended up politically wedded to Arthur only to learn that her husband is in fact not her preferred gender of lover, she might not be jazzed about that.

Other than that, let the cool swordfights and quests remain unchanged and I think you've got a good recipe for episodic character drama.

[powderblueblood]

HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc! as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER EIGHT — SEWN UP

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summary: you'd need a hacksaw to cut the tension between you and eddie, but that's not your weapon of choice this time around. a newspaper pitch, a patchwork girl and a tasteless prank all work together to make things ever more awkward between you and the boy you keep senselessly calling your friend. content warnings: MINORS DNI, THIS IS NOT SAFE FOR YOUR PURITAN EYES - reader is an ex-bitch on a journey of self-discovery through being an even more specific kind of bitch, angst in the form of an elizabeth munson mention, miscommunication, lacy engaging non-platonically with someone other than eddie, mention of lacy's surname and dad's name, REEFER RICK CAMEO, billy hargrove slander as per, violence, a humiliating prank, smut in the form of public hand stuff (f!receiving), me feeling insane about this chapter word count: 14.3k

Dear Mom,

She hasn’t got warm hands. She hasn’t got the kind of smile that draws people to her. She hasn’t got a kind word for everyone, no matter where they come from. She hasn’t got a lot of patience. She hasn’t got a fixed sense of herself–well, she does kinda. But, not totally. Not yet. 

She’s not like you.

Other cheerleaders wore ponytails and they’d bounce. But when she wore a ponytail, it swung like a sword. She used to be cruel and exacting, but now she’s just exacting. She’s honest and observant to a degree that’s, like, almost psycho. She’s a cold front, but she laughs like a lightning strike. I feel like thunder, powerless to do anything but roll after her. Can’t help myself. 

She knows what she wants, she thinks. Other days she doesn’t. I keep trying to tell her that’s okay, in ways where I don’t actually have to use the words. My words wouldn’t be as good as her words. Her words burn clean through me like a lit tip of a cigarette. 

But she does have your book. 

Y’know, I always thought it was kind of creepy the way some guys would try and look for their mom in other girls. 

So this might be a good thing. Less Oedipus-y, more ea–… 

Shit. I was gonna say something I’m so sure you’d smack me around the head for. But you’re not here to do that. I might be in better shape with this girl if you were.

Anyway. I miss you. 

Eddie Munson stands in the midst of an incredibly awkward aftermath. 

See, for two people so purportedly self-assured, he in his freakshow roguishness and you in your prim-perfect knife-edge sharpness, you’re both entirely dogshit at acknowledging… well… anything. 

You both tried to snap back to normal so quickly, with Wheeler and her science experiment pregnancy scare smashing through the ice. But the water underneath that ice is still freezing cold– and you’re both pretending you’re not gasping for air, pretending like you don’t remember gasping for each other’s lips. 

This is totally cool. This is totally fine.

And then Eddie comes to see you at The Bookstore, which has become just as routine as nearly never brushing his hair, and sees you fixing your seller’s tag to your pick of the week. Your face in that arresting, self-conscious smile that he wants to melt off with the blowtorch of his mouth. 

It’s The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum. 

Now, he noticed that you would habitually drop writers’ names into conversation like they were your lit professors– Didion said this, Bukowski said that, Bronte yadda, Burroughs yadda. Always some genius-adjacent, formative-thinking, socio-politico-boffo brainwad, more often than not with a substance abuse kick that you romanticized from a safe distance.

But then you unearth this book, a green clothback cover yellowing with age and roughness, red and yellow inlaid titling blasting out a name he ought to know. It makes his visual memory brrrrrrring! like a bright red tomato shaped kitchen timer.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz was with Elizabeth Munson wherever she went. Her records were her plane tickets, her escape to another world, but you couldn’t take your records with you to the hospital. Escaping to Oz was a decent substitute. She must have read it a bajillion times; she even took to calling Wayne Unc Nunkie after the elderly munchkin who only ever had one word for anybody. And whenever Eddie would drop an egg when they were baking or come running through the house with his knees all cut up, she’d coo, “Oh, my li’l Ojo the Unlucky!”

The book lingered everywhere– on the kitchen counter of the house on Pennsylvania,on the vinyl seat of the booth at the now-shuttered Benny’s when she could afford to take Eddie for a treat, on her bedside table. 

Up until the end. 

It knocks the wind out of Eddie when he sees it on the display shelf. He does a bad job of hiding that. 

“What, too shocked to make fun of me?” you say, perching yourself on the rickety stool behind the counter, and your voice betrays a little embarrassment. “That’s a first.”

“I–... huh?” He tears his eyes away from the book long enough to catch the specks of blush high on your cheeks.

“It’s not my usual flavor, I know, but I’m capable of whimsy too.”

“Why that one?” His limbs feel stony like Unc Nunkie’s, as much as he wants to languidly lean over the counter and bother you like he always does. 

You shrug, but you tilt the opposite shoulder. A reverse, a peek behind the looking glass. He notices that about you, which goddamn shoulder is your shrugging preference. 

“I think it was one of the first books I kept checking out of the library when I was little,” you say, glancing back at the display, “It’s about this poor little kid who has to find a way to reverse a spell on his uncle who’s been turned to stone, and the eponymous patchwork girl is–”

“I know the story.” It comes out a little blunter than Eddie was intending it to. So much so that it knocks you back a beat. 

“Oh,” you say shortly, eyes flaring down at the counter. “No need to cut me off mid-stream about it.” 

Eddie winces, knowing he’s coming across as weird and stilted but with no idea how to safely climb down. “No, just– I know the story, yeah. My mom…” That is not a safe dismount, dummy! “...she… liked it a lot.”

“Yeah?” your tone stays even, yanked back from him a little. He wants to be like, sorrysorrysorry. “She ever read it to you?”

“A bunch, actually.” 

“No shit.” The corners of your mouth tick up. “Wanna hear something super dorky?”

Just the mere invitation of your little smile loosens him up a bit. Eddie twists a ring around his finger, head kicking to his shoulder as his foot kicks to the counter. “Always,” he says, squinting. 

You straighten your spine up on your stool and clear your throat. Hand goes over your heart, like you’re about to recite the damn declaration. Your eyes shutter closed. 

“Here’s a job for a boy of brains– a drop of oil from a live man’s veins; a six-leaved clover; three nice hairs, from a Woozy’s tail, the book declares; are needed for a magic spell, and water from a pitch-dark well– the yellow wing from a butterfly to find must Ojo also try; and if he gets them without harm, Doc Pipt will make the magic charm; but if he doesn’t get ‘em, Unc…” your crack one eye open. “...will always stand a marble chunk.”

Eddie is silent for… for a while. For a good handful of heartbeats, for a beat so long that makes you knit your brow up, your eyes needling into him. Eddie’s looking at you with rose-colored soft focus. His elbows are eagerly pitched on the counter now, chin in his hands. The last person to recite those words to him was his mom, her voice raspy and tired but still willing to read to him. She hadn’t smelled like herself. It was sad.

And now, your voice, with all its snippy chainmail thrown off, gone all soft and lyrical and dedicated. 

He thinks about a littler you, one he could vaguely pick out of a lineup if he really, really tried, criss-cross applesauce and pouring over that book so often that that little spell jams itself into your brain. 

The mage before she donned the mink coat.

Eddie is looking at you and can’t force his heart out of his throat. 

Well, until he can.

“Ew,” he cringes.

“What?!” you exclaim, your eyes getting all incredulous and kind of mad. 

“And they call me a fuckin’ nerd, what the hell was that?” Eddie’s laughing, mocking, not with his whole heart. But it’s enough to make you scoff, irritated with him again. 

See, you thought you were being cute and he knows you thought you were being cute. He needs to put you back in a place where you’re marginally unlikeable enough to just be a friend. 

Restore the natural order. Don’t think about how he wants to recite that same verse back to you in front of an ordained Elvis in Vegas. Because he would, in a heartbeat. If he wasn’t committed to not being stupid. 

Christ, you’re pretty. Christ, he’s gonna do something stupid.

“You are… completely undateable, you know that?” he nods ferociously, eyes trailing you as you cross out from behind the counter and head for a box of books that need to be shelved. All uh-huhs and sure, Eddies. The bell on the front door jangles and a customer passes behind him. 

He yells after you, voice traveling down whatever winding path you’ve taken through the stacks. “You with your black and white movies and your twat rock and your Wizard of Oz… baby, what crowd are you even playing to?” 

“What crowd am I playing to? What crowd are you playing to?!” you seethe, shuffling the ten-tonne box of books down the aisle with your feet. “Fucking baggie-pushing, guitar-brutalizing, board-game-...maker-...upper!”

“Woah. Wit’s unmatched as usual, Lace.”

This fucking guy. This fucking guy. You try and do one darling little thing, you just recite a little piece of a book his dead mom used to read to him or whatever, and you get verbally bashed! God forbid, god forbid you let the fucking drawbridge down for half a second! This blows! 

You’re trying to be less of a bitch, in case you idiots didn’t notice!

It’s kind of inexplicable, how sensitive you’re feeling about this. Could be that since you kissed and since you pinkie-swore with Nancy Wheeler in the bombed-out boys bathroom, you kind of felt as if you were standing on a blade’s edge with Eddie. Not knowing where to put your hands, not knowing how much or how little to joke around. Not entirely happy with your moment of madness at the Ecker trailer. Not entirely happy that it hadn’t happened again. 

But you’re not about to apologize. Not to him. Don Rickles in a battle vest over there. Must he always just poke you like that?!

“You’re undateable!” You shove a bunch of books aside on the shelf. “Me, I’m cu–...”

Right through the shelf, a customer stares at you. Your voice dies in your throat because, unfortunately, he’s looking right at you in your flurry of annoyance toward Eddie. And unfortunately, this stranger, he’s a little… 

“What were you gonna say?” he asks, closing Gravity’s Rainbow. 

“Cute.”

Guy smiles, doesn’t break eye contact with you for a second. He’s wearing a sweater. He looks fresh out of somewhere stone walled with crawling ivy. “I’d attest to that.”

You forget about Eddie– just for a second. Gesturing to Gravity’s Rainbow, you say, “Gonna attempt to finish that?”

“What’s that mean?” His grin is infectious, or maybe you’re just starved for this kind of attention. 

“Nothing,” you say, with a little more tongue than you need to, “Just, I don’t know of anyone that’s ever finished that behemoth.” 

Well, you don’t know of a lot of people that read the way you do either. But, digression. He raps a knuckle against the cover of the book and for some reason, you feel it in your belly. 

“I always finish,” he tells you. 

“Do you now?”

That’s the longest you’ve been quiet in a hot minute, and that’s the kind of thing that gets under Eddie’s skin. Chain on his jeans jangling, he starts off into the creaking labyrinth of lined-up bookcases. 

“What, did you expire back here or something…” he mutters, a little whine in his tone– play with me, play with me, even though I’m being kind of a dick to you–

He sees you, a book lying lax in your arms, your body swaying to and fro and you’re–

“--talkin’ to yourself, Lacy? Great look. Real honeytrap, if you’re lookin’ to catch some imaginary di–”

“Eddie,” you grit at him, and he spots the whole other human male you’re talking to through the stacks. Well, not just talking to. Not with that body language. 

This dude tilts his chin to Eddie. “Hey, man. I remember you. Didn’t you used to sell dimebags in the woods outside school?”

Fire flares in Eddie’s gut. He vaguely recognizes this guy– class of ‘83 or ‘82, not remarkable enough to be hateable but now, he’s certainly collegiate looking enough to be… distracting to you. So, annoying to him. 

“Why, man? You lookin’ to buy? Or just cruise some high schooler tail?”

“Eddie!” you hiss again and he scoffs like, really?! You turn back to this… whoever the fuck. “C’mon, I’ll check you out.”

“You’ll check him out, huh?” Eddie sneers, bearing over you as you pass him in the aisle. Body heat breezing right by, face a mask of sheer disgust. Impulse talks; it totally wants to just grab you and throw you behind him and– well, he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet. But he’s creative. Who the fuck even is this guy? Where did he come from?

“That you?” this guy says, jerking his head toward the staff display, toward The Patchwork Girl of Oz. “Lacy?”

“To my friends and co-conspirators,” you say, ringing up that godawful Pynchon book. 

“Which one was that guy?” he asks, watching you jot out his receipt on the carbon copy pad because for whatever reason, Ivana’s cash register is from the fucking 1800s and she refuses to upgrade to anything with a thermal printer. “Friend? Co-conspirator? … boyfriend?”

You wrinkle your nose. And don’t exactly answer, but it’s enough confirmation for him. 

“Good. Say, why don’t you jot down your number on this thing?” He pushes the receipt back to you. “I can keep you updated on my Pynchon progress. You can… see if I’m good enough to co-conspire with.” 

You like this approach. In fact, you love this approach, because you hadn’t been earnestly picked up in… forever. And he has this certain je ne sais quoi about him, something that screams moved out of state for college. You stay grinning, biting your lip for a good breath or two after he leaves the store. 

Then Eddie appears in your peripheral, like some terrible harbinger of embarrassment. 

“Undateable, huh?” you say, fully aware that he was earwigging on that whole exchange because he’s a nosy bitch and he can’t help himself. Glutton for gossip. 

“You don’t have to throw yourself at the first person who walks in the store just to prove a point, baby,” Eddie tells you, this big face of condescension. You want to smack it off him so bad your palms are itching. 

You huff and backtrack to where that box of unshelved books sits. “Maybe I’m tired of waiting around.”

—

Ronnie Ecker and Robin Buckley are looking each other in the eye, wolf-whistling furtively when you elbow open the door of the gym. 

“You’re flat. I’m telling you you’re flat,” Ronnie’s insisting, an adorable three inches away from Robin’s face. 

“I can’t be flat! A mouth whistle cannot be flat!”

It’s marching band practice. You don’t know what the hell goes on in here and you know better than to ask. 

“Would you two get a room already?” you call, heels clicking across the glossed wood of the gym. These dorks have all got their feathered hats and bibs on, a kind of half-assed dress rehearsal for some pep rally they’re having on Friday. You missed the bulletin– kind of stopped paying attention, actually. Extracurricular distraction is a hell of a drug. 

“Excuse me, this is a closed–” that’s the voice of Miss Genovese, the band teacher, stomping down from the bleachers in these tragic little loafers with the pleather peeling off. She makes it about halfway toward you, then this exasperated look washes right over her. The teacher dashes for the double doors and you point after her with a freshly painted red index finger. New lease on looking good. 

“And that is?”

“Like, the third time in the last hour,” Ronnie shakes her head, taking her flamboyant little hat off. “Biggest running theory is morning sickness.”

What, is pregnancy like, catching or something? you’re about to muse.

“It’s almost contagious, right?” Robin says, tugging at her clip-on collar, “I mean, first your whole thing and now–” 

Ronnie doesn't even have a chance to gesture for her to ixnay! before she slams pause on herself, eyes wide and all shit, did I say that out loud?! Your eyes narrow in return. That’s suspicious.

“What whole thing? My whole what?”

Ever and eternally knowing when to call it, Ronnie holds a hand up before Robin can even start to scramble an apology and serve it to you. Panther versus a precious little puppy dog– the fight ain’t even fair. 

“Nothing. Scuttlebutt bullshit, the usual,” she rolls her eyes, throws a sympathetic glance to Robin who winces and retreats. Huh.

“What’s going on with you two?” you ask, crossing your legs over the bottom rung of the bleachers.

This actually makes Ronnie’s expression soften a little– her eyes race back in Robin’s direction and you swear you catch a blush. “Also nothing! Compound nothing. Why, does it look like…”

Lips purse into a little satisfied grin. Knew it. Toldja. Point to Lacy. “Looks like whatever you want it to look like.”

Ronnie reaches forward and waves her feathered hat in your face– stop being so observant! You cough in protest– ew, I don’t know where that thing has been! 

“Whatever! What brings you to geek church?” 

“That’s what they’re calling it now?”

“Stick around, we’ll start speaking in tongues.” 

“Satanic Panic bringing about a fun new turn for the pep rally! Put some God back into that wind instrument,” you croon. “No, I actually wanted your thoughts on something.”

Ronnie raises her eyebrows and you feel like you oughta mirror her. You’re not usually one to seek out a second opinion, but the more you’ve gotten to know Ronnie, the more you see that she’ll tell you how it is. Especially now that you’ve dispersed with the whole intimidating it-girl cloud and she’s stopped pretending to be shy.

“I know. I’m shocked too.”

“I’m honored,” she swings her shoulders in girlish delight, “Dish it up, Doevski.”

“Okay, so,” you clap, hiking forward on your creaking bleacher, “I’ve been seeing this guy–”

“--this is the bookstore guy?”

A blink and a beat. “How’d you know about that?”

A face that has Eddie told me with footnotes of and he was kind of jealous scrawled all over it stares back at you. “I ‘unno, maybe I overheard…”

“Doesn’t matter.” You slice a hand through the air, no time for this right now. “Facts are facts, I’ve been hanging out with this guy,” interesting change of phraseology, considering, “and he’s a college guy–”

“If they could see you now.” The royal court of Hawkins, obviously. Older guys are generally an accomplishment. But Ronnie’s half-jesting. 

“--I know, shut up. But, he mentioned something that would absolutely rock my college applications is a really, really great–”

“--feature in the Streak?” you’d gasped out in the back of his Ford Cortina (how very European!). College guy’s mouth was on your neck and his hand was inching into your shirt, playing at a faux placket of pearl buttons. Boys can never tell a real button from a fake one, apparently, even if they go to an East Coast school. I mean, shit! You’d gleaned enough information from him over a shake at the diner; relatively well-to-do family that lived near the Wheelers on Maple and kind of underwhelming taste in lit for an English major. 

But he maintained eye contact and listened to your witty little bon mots, even if he didn’t… laugh at them. One thing led to another and thus, the backseat college advisory-slash-makeout session. 

“Yeah, yeah, they love that shit…” he’d said, moving to your mouth in order to swallow any forthcoming words. But his words had piqued your interest more than his fingers had. 

“What about an underdog story?” you said, eyes kind of hazing over in the middle distance. 

“Sure, underdog, great…” college guy grabbed ahold of your leg and tugged you into him, “We can talk more about it later, okay?”

“Okay–”

“–okay?”

Ronnie grimaces. “I didn’t need that much detail.”

“Yes, you did.” You stare at her. “I’m a storyteller.”

Ronnie chews the proposal over a little, cheeks kind of bunched up in confusion. Behind her, band geeks badly hide their hickeys and exhibit too-gangly, too-obvious body language. No inspiration to be tapped from there.

“An underdog story… on the society pages? Like, who could you possibly–”

You smile that awful, conniving smile, because you came in here armed. “Ye of little faith.”

“Oh, no,” Ronnie says, and honestly, you’re a little taken aback by that reaction, “Hellfire?”

A shrug pulls your shoulders right up, rapidly on the defense. “Why not, right?” 

“Why not– Lacy, you almost guillotined Jeff that one time he asked you.”

True that you hadn’t had the inches of article to spare for Hellfire Club in not-too-ancient history, but, “That was then, this is now! World’s changing– and it’s topical!”

The whole Satanic panic thing really did tickle your funny bone; and you saw yourself having a little fun with that by turning the focus on Hellfire. Subverting Eddie’s cult-leader mythos to show that he is just a kid who might have a propensity for telling a good story, surrounded by other kids who want to get a word in. You’re not looking to turn the tide on his reputation or anything but maybe… y’know. You could do the admirable journalistic thing and scratch the surface a bit. Show what you’ve learned. 

It’s a challenge. You love a challenge.

“And it’s a good excuse to get in Eddie’s face,” Ronnie’s voice breaks through. 

There is a lonnng beat, one you hold like the last shoes in your size at a sample sale. Your mouth keeps going to make the words yeah, right or it’s not about him! or y’know, something to exonerate you from the notion.

“I know he isn’t…” Ronnie trails off, coming to sit next to you. “that he’s kind of being weird to you right now.” 

Go ahead and feign that ignoramus, girl. Shoulders quirking and all. 

“Oh. Is he?”

And then Ronnie says maybe the dumbest thing on the planet, regarding the abominable sitch between you and Eddie Munson. 

“You should just talk to him.”

“Ecker, there’s fruitless efforts and then there’s barren wasteland,” you scoff, “Guess which category proposing this to Eddie falls into.”

“That’s not what I–”

J’excuse, Ronnie, but you don’t care! Because this isn’t actually about anything other than getting all of those dice-throwing dorks, including Miss Ecker herself, into your damn paper. Okay?

“We have to ambush him! Element of surprise, that’s it,” you smile primly and hop off the bleachers. “I’m just going to show up at Hellfire, photographer in hand and– he won’t have a choice, will he?”

Ronnie’s expression is a mask of reproachfulness. You don’t let it shake you. You’re a cat playing with a now-endless ball of yarn, and you’re unshakeable. 

“He’s such a sucker for attention,” you say, tossing your hair, and it sounds a lot more like you’re convincing yourself than anyone else in this echoey gym, “He won’t be able to resist.”

—

Reefer Rick doesn’t call, unless it’s an emergency. All of his communication is inbound, or passed through a shoulder check and a goofy smile at Melvald’s, or a nod of the head across the pool table at The Hideout. He doesn’t frequent there so much, because Bev knows he’s a pool shark and ever since ‘Nam, his ears are a little too sensitive to all that metal racket, man! By all means, rock on, but by then I gotta go rock-a-bye myself to sleep, alright? Anyway, that’s how Eddie knows to ride over to his place, if it’s not through a call he’s placed himself. 

You need me, kid, you come and find me. 

So when Eddie gets a call that says, “We gotta pow-wow, ese,” his nerves are set on edge. Not that he wasn’t feeling bad enough, what with the fact that some douchebag in a Cortina had picked you up and dropped you off to school the last couple of days. What with the fact he had actively dogged the car down a little bit of the road from the trailer park with his van, resisting every temptation to just run it all the way off into a ditch. And what with the fact he didn’t know what to say to you about that without it coming out in an anti-missive of jealousy! jealousy! jealousy! so what he did say to you was… nothing. 

You two can’t maintain a consistent line of communication to save your lives, he realizes. There’s too much left unsaid, and the both of you are too stubborn or too scared to say any of it. Or even think it, in his case! The amount of times he’d had to slap himself sober, his brain going into overdrive thinking, if I had just told her… It’s a ‘friendship’, if you can even call it that, based on barbs and bad behavior and doing things because you know you shouldn’t. For the thrill. Right?

Like. Whatever. It’s not like he’d made tapes of a half dozen Black Sabbath albums because you mentioned you wanted to ‘study up’ on that ‘monster music’ he’s making. It’s not like you’d given him an annotated copy of Still Life with Woodpecker because he wanted to throw some ‘nonsensical curveball shit’ into a later Hellfire campaign. 

It’s not like Eddie missed you– he just… should have seen this coming, is all. He’s used to getting left in the dust while people move onto better things, or whatever. 

God, Munson, your voice taunts him from somewhere in his hippocampus, need some help nailing yourself to that crucifix?

Anyway, fuck, Rick called him. 

Rick had gotten out of lockup about a month ago– some truncated charge or another that Eddie didn’t bother asking too much about, mostly because… well, Rick hadn’t really been himself. Larger and brighter than the sun itself, the great and powerful lion of a man that oozed life ain’t shit if you ain’t havin’ fun energy, Rick had kind of dimmed. Lost a lot of weight while he was inside. Came back a little bit twitchy and fluent in Spanglish, for some reason.

Eddie was worried, because of all the adult figures in his life, Rick was meant to be the one with levity. He’d lost out on a fun uncle when Wayne stepped into his father-figure role. Al was nothing but a dangerous bit player. Rick, he could rely on. 

Thinking back to that infamous day when he had gotten loaded at Lipton Landing, before he picked up you and Ronnie, before he… well, you know the rest but, Eddie had sensed that Rick could use the company. He kind of tried to poke it out of him, whatever was wrong. Didn’t work. They had just watched The Godfather in a tense-ish silence and doofed a lot of joints. Sorta freaked him out.

Eddie’s crushing gravel on the descent to the infamously slanted Lipton Landing for his summons. There’s a hum that seems to traverse the window panes, a fond plucking work that could only belong to Link Wray. He puts the van in park and jogs up the steps to the front door, bracing himself for the pungent plume of skunk smoke that always greets him.

“Eduardo,” Rick’s voice curls around the greeting like smoke curls out of his mouth and he yanks Eddie over the threshold. Door slams, arm tightens around his shoulders. “You’re here.”

Rick’s always a handsy sorta guy–not like that!–but this grab makes him seize a little. 

“You rang,” Eddie says, voice lilting, “Everything okay?”

Rick clutches him by the shoulders and looks at him for a long, long time. Uncomfortably long. How has he managed to puff on that joint for this long without choking long. 

“No.”

And Rick begins a shuffle toward the kitchen. Eddie follows in an awkward half-step, headache threatening to bloom someplace in the back of his skull because he does not know how much more of this vagueness he can take! 

“Does it have anything to do with why you called me down here? Because, shit, I would love to get a straight answer out of someone for once!” A mirthless chuckle follows, trying to soften his desperation. 

A flick of the refrigerator door and Rick places two beers on his kitchen counter, hands bracing against the surface. “Then let’s sit crooked and talk straight. It’s about your…”

Hss. Eddie takes a notoriously mis-timed sip.

“...neighbor girl.”

Ffflp– Eddie wishes, just one day of his goddamned life, he could act cool at the mention of you. Even the suggestion of the mention of you. But no, he’s got PBR streaming from his nose like a moron and a look on his face that says uh-oh, spaghettio!

“That’s what I was afraid of,” says Rick, taking a knowingly smooth drink from his beer. 

With the heel of his hand, Eddie wipes away his spluttering mess and fumbles around for a crumb of nonchalance. 

“I don’t know–”

“Eddie,” Rick levels. God, Eddie hates it when adults are adults, and Rick hates having to act the adult even more. 

His shoulders drop. “What about her?”

“Well, when I was in the pen–local, I’ll have you know–I got approached by a very interesting man with a proposition I was powerless to refuse.”

With some trepidation, Eddie mumbles, “Oh, yeah?”

“Someone– well, let’s say me and this someone have a friend in common…”

“Rick–” Eddie’s attempting the leveling thing, but he’s not as good at it as Rick is. Or as you are, for that matter. And you’re who he’s attempting to imitate here, even if he won’t admit it.

“--a certain mutual business partner, if you will–”

“Rick.” Eddie tries to punch through the tension with the big man’s name. “It was Lacy’s dad. Right? You can just say it was her dad.” 

Rick’s brow sinks into a wrinkle. “...Lacy? The fuck kind of a dumb name is that?”

“It’s a nickname.” Why does Eddie feel defensive.

“The fuck kind of a dumb nickname is that?”

“They call you Reefer Rick.”

“That is a calculated business decision, a calling card if you w–”

“Rick. Can we close in on the point, here?” Ooh! Seems to actually work this time, much to Eddie’s relief. “I only got so many if you wills left in me.”

“Si, pronto,” Rick nods with apologetic understanding; he’s such an empath, this guy, “Long and short of it is, her pops offered me a little bit of cash and some assistance, iffin’ I promised to keep an eye on her.”

“Assistance…?” Eddie murmured out of the side of his mouth. It’s all in the way Rick says it! “Like…” Hand a loose fist. Jerky-jerk. 

“Eddie,” Rick chides, “Assistance gettin’ out. In prison, that is just called bein’ sociable. –anyway, I have this conflict of interest, with the whole surveillance thing.”

“And what is that?”

“You.” The way Rick drops it is obviously meant to cause some kinda ripple effect of realization, but Eddie’s still confused. 

“So you… didn’t take the money?”

“Huh?” Now Rick’s all confused. “Of course I took the fuckin’ money! What kind of a chump do I look like, man? What I’m getting at is, I knew that rattin’ on her also meant rattin’ on you.”

“Wh– why would it…” 

“I got eyes everywhere, man. Dig? I’ve seen what’s been happening.” 

Eddie’s heart leaps into his larynx. Eyes everywhere. And the truth was, you two had been stupid enough to be a lot of everywhere, thinking your respective trailers were the only hot zones. The Bookstore, the Hawk, Main Street Vinyl, Family Video, the diner, you name a Hawkins establishment and it has probably seen Eddie Munson and Lacy Doevski good-naturedly bickering in its aisles. 

He wonders if Rick even had eyes in the Ecker trailer. Ronnie could be a Lipton informant. That girl can hold a secret about as well as Wayne Munson can hold his liquor, which is gracefully. 

“Nothing’s been happening, we’re just–”

“Eddie.” Like a bulldozer, this guy. “I know Ivana pretty well. You ain’t hangin’ around that bookstore for the good of your health.”

“So what, you’re gonna–,” Eddie can feel himself starting to scramble, starting to sweat, backed into a corner like a hunted animal, “...tell her dad that we went to the movies a couple of times? That I go to her job, that I– that we’re–”

“What are you?” The way Rick puts it to him– rock, meet hard place. Should this really feel like such a tough question to answer?

“Friends.”

Rick draws up to his full height (tall, mountain man) and looks at him like he just shoved a cream pie into his face.

“It doesn’t matter, okay!” Eddie froths over, like a snapping dog, “We’re barely hanging out– anymore– so you can… you’re not gonna tell him anything, are you?”

Rick’s hands slowly, slowly rise, urging him to calm the yapping. No need to get into such a tizzy. Which Eddie wishes he could believe.

“‘course not, man,” he shakes his head, “Ray Doevski only needs to know what Ray Doevski absolutely needs to know.” Eddie can feel a little more weight behind that sentence than he’d like. “No reason you need to figure into this story.”

“That– that’s it? You’re not gonna tell him about u– about me?” 

“You’re in enough of a shitheap as it is, is how I see it.” A beat. Rick takes him in; really takes him in. Feels like an embrace, his stare. Concern uncrinkles the ever-present smile in Rick’s eyes. 

“Eddie, you care about this girl?”

Eddie’s mouth attempts to form around an answer, but he’s just blinking into nothing. Does he care about you? Does he care about you? He wants, needs to say no, to pfft you off, but every molecule is screaming otherwise. And Rick can sense it, operating on the extraterrestrial level that he does. 

“Then I’m real sorry.” 

“For what?” 

As if on cue, car wheels on gravel shuck Rick’s attention away from him. His eyeballs jitter in his head, heading for the door– Eddie close behind him. “Sorry for what, Rick–?!”

“Little bit for that, little bit for… this.”

Standing in the window of Rick’s living room, these two watch an offensively red muscle car skew into the driveway, making a mockery of Eddie’s beat up van. The driver’s door pops open and the first thing Eddie clocks is a blinding glint off some brand new aviator sunglasses. 

The second is that trademark Munson smile. 

—

“This is exciting!” Nancy Wheeler says, kind of flatly but with a conviction buried deep under her curled bangs. 

On the table sits two piles of playing cards, one steadily growing and one steadily decreasing. 

You two had taken to playing gin rummy when staring at paper layouts became a little too much. Technically, she actually had a say in layout and you were just nosy, but it’s a decent excuse to hang out. Though, both you and Nancy had this incredible tendency to hyperfocus on detail so hard that neither of you could pull the other out far enough to look at the big picture, so one day she tossed a deck of cards your way and said, “Deal!”

“I know,” you say, trying to focus on these melds of suits you’re making– that discard pile is looking poor, “Fresh turn for me, y’know? Less fluffy, more Didion.”

Nancy snorts softly, swapping out a card from her hand. “Who does that make Eddie? Charlie? Or Linda Kasabian?” 

A smile dances across your lips and you shrug, reaching for a cigarette before you go for another card. Usually, smoking in the newsroom was prohibited, as it was prohibited on most of Hawkins High grounds, but whenever that deck came out, you felt it was appropriate for at least one of you to be smoking. Gave a kind of Torchy Blane feel to the whole scenario which fit you and Wheeler pret-ty keenly, if you did say so yourself.

“That’s not what I was talking about, though,” Nancy says, poking Fred Benson’s empty mug toward you to use as an ashtray. 

Your eyes narrow; this could be a play to distract you from a winning hand. 

“It’s not?”

“No…” she puffs out another soft scoff, meeting your eyes over her fan of cards, “I mean the college guy.”

“Why is it exciting?” and you do want to know why Nancy thinks so. She’s a mile wiser beyond her years, even precocious enough to keep in step with you most of the time. You’d like her take. 

“Well, it’s what you wanted, right?” she tells you, watching you puff your cigarette and dig into the stock pile. “Somebody older, decidedly not a grabby high school boy– but someone with more experience, both with girls and with being outside of Hawkins. And the fact he goes to Vassar means–”

“He probably eats kitty like a maniac.”

Nancy lets out this full-bodied Merlot of a laugh, only a little color dashing over her cheeks. She’s gotten used to you being provocative on purpose because it gets a laugh out of her. So far grown out of the prude shoes you were sure she was still sporting. You’re proud of her. 

“Not exactly what I was getting at but– more sensitive to the female perspective, sure.” But then she registers what you forgot you’d even dropped. “Hold on, probably? You mean you haven’t–...”

You shrug. It’s a little withdrawn on your part. 

“Oh,” Nancy says, and seems to be leaning a degree or two towards unsurprised. That ruffles your feathers a little bit. Again, with the frigid thing. You couldn’t shake it. 

“No,” you emphasize, shucking your pitiful melds back again. “It's not as if we haven't–done things. I've copped a handful. Time is of the essence, and I take, y'know, a little more time to get there.”

“So no return on investment...?”

"Not... yet."

Nancy almost tosses her cards at you, the way she jabs them through the air. “You? You, the one who’s been preaching Betty Friedman to me, you haven't been getting–”

“Yes, me! Did you not hear me about time and the essence?”

“I know, it’s just– a little surprising.”

There have been exactly three instances of almost you tying your panties to the rearview mirror of college boy’s Ford Cortina, so to speak, and you’ve come out of each one with this desperate echo of oh well! Maybe next time! careening around your skull. Like you’re trying to convince yourself that by virtue of him not being in your grade, this has been a worthwhile way to spend your time. And listen, no misunderstandings here, it has! At least, part of it. It usually starts like this– the two of you grab some shitty diner coffee or some shitty diner food and then he takes you around in his car for a turn or two, admiring that famous Hawkins scenery (see: shuttered businesses and if you’re really lucky, that one mangy fox that feasts on the overflowing trash can near the Big Buy). You talk (you mostly talk) books and movies and say something that should be a hook of conversation but usually ends up with him screwing his face up in amusement and saying something along the lines of, “God, you’re so beyond this place.”

Which, duh. You’ve been saying this. This is the raft upon which your whole identity floats. 

The exchange dies in the air and he puts his hand on your leg and that is just… wonderful. He’s a solid B on the kissing GPA, and he’s cute and sort of funny, even if he doesn’t rally back jokes the way you’d… sort of gotten used to. Sometimes he makes a halfway-interesting observation about like, Philip Roth or somebody. But when it comes down to the minute of it, it still feels like going through the motions. Fumble bra strap, catch nail on his zipper, crank back passenger seat to climb in the back. Hey presto, you’ve distractedly jerked off a boy once again. 

You are not entirely sold on the fit of his hands on your body, even if he doesn’t look at you like he’s just solved a Rubik’s cube.

In fact, he kind of looks at you like you’re precious. Virginal precious. Innocent precious. Which you’re not totally sold on either. 

Nothing about him that makes you fantasize about what his mouth might feel like on you. What your fingers might feel like wound around his curls. His hair doesn’t even curl. There’s just nothing about him that calls for your full attention.

“Think there might be a reason for that?” Nancy, your annoyingly perceptive Nancy, presses. Goddamn intrepid girl reporter. She hasn’t stopped staring at you with that smug little look. You haven’t answered the question. “And it might be… living across the way from you?”

“Tch. What?” you snip. “I’m… having fun. What?”

“Nothing,” she smiles. “Just… gin.” 

She lays out her dazzling melds, complete with a measly goddamned three in deadwood cards and you toss your own bullshit hand to the side. A dumb amount of spades that add up to nothing scatter across the desk. An accusatory finger jams in her direction. 

“You are a fucking card shark.”

“Nope!” Nancy says, popping her ‘p’, “I just know a really great set when I see one.”

Reaching into Fred’s mug, you crush your cigarette with a little too much force. Now, how would Nancy have a read on that? you think, oblivious to your own obviousness. (Like a neon sign. Like a circus tent.) 

You hadn’t even reminded her of the catastrophic events of her thirteenth birthday which led to a whole lot of this awkwardness, which, now that you thought about it, actually implicated her in the crime of you kissing Eddie Munson ‘til you were breathless in Granny Ecker’s closet. 

If you hadn’t been born and had a birthday, I wouldn’t be in a spiral over some boy with a curl pattern like a fucking backwoods libertine. 

“You’re not clever,” you tell her, but she’s looking at you all cleverly, “Like. You’re clever, but I need you to know that you’re not clever.”

With flicking fingernails, Nancy picks up your discarded cards and folds them neatly back in the deck. 

“I’m just saying,” and the tone she takes is a little gentler now, “don’t… let yourself miss out on something just because, I don’t know, the thing you’re currently having fun with is what you think you want. What you feel you want and what you think you want are two very different–”

“This isn’t entirely about me, is it?” you realize, defenses peeling down a little bit. The Nancy and Steve of it all had been looming since your (admittedly triumphant!) visit to the war memorial that was the boy’s bathroom. Still no sign of that place getting fixed, by the by. And ever still, Nancy hadn’t told Steve about their little mission. Many a reason for that, you were led to believe. Not a lot she wanted to dissect, though.

Nancy’s face scrunches up and she stops packing the cards. 

“No. But let’s pretend like it is.” 

A groan escapes you as you sink back into your chair, a twinge of pain running along your shoulders.  

“Nance. This is all so much more complicated than you realize.”

“Try me.”

You toss a hand through your hair, slapping your palm down on the desk. 

“Fine. But if I tell you this–”

A hand rises out between the two of you– yours, pinkie extended. 

“Not a word,” you press. 

Nancy clamps her finger around yours in a way that enforces how super-serious she is about this. The reason your usual reserve doesn’t hold up under that x-ray stare of hers is because you can tell she actually gives a shit. She’s not looking for gossip. She cares. Which is still an entirely alien feeling to you. 

So the whole thing spills out. Steve’s party, the record store, getting locked up in Eddie’s trailer and getting locked up in feelings, Roane County Quarry’s incredible acoustics, the friendship that made you fold all the neatly arranged origami parts of yourself out toward him only to realize you had no idea how to fold them back. The kiss. The subsequent awkwardness of said kiss. The college guy. The relative radio silence. The fact that…

“...I don’t feel like myself when he’s not around,” you say, lighting a fourth cigarette off your third. “Isn’t that silly? I spent all this time painting this like, fabulous eggshell of myself then this wild-eyed, smart-mouthed, catastrophic ass smashes it clean open and now–”

“All the college boys couldn’t put you together again,” Nancy nods. “You’re a very beautiful Humpty Dumpty.” 

“... does Humpty Dumpty die in the end?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be teaching it to kids.”

“No. They should know. The fall comes for us all.”

There’s a suspended silence. You get this feeling like you’ve emptied your purse on the table and you still can’t find that thing you’re looking for, despite sifting through everything. 

“How does that even happen?” you question, biting at the skin on your little finger. Not Humpty Dumpty, the Eddie thing. It comes out idle, but you pray that Nancy, with her feelings scalpel and surgical precision, doesn't decide to answer it. 

Instead, she says, “You need a photographer for that piece.”

Thatta girl. Your dimmer switch turns up. “Fred hasn’t even okayed it yet.”

“I’ll deal with William Randolph Hearst, okay?” Nancy says derisively and tosses her eyes to heaven. She pushes her chair back. “Ask Jonathan Byers.”

“He hasn’t taken photos for us in a while,” you remark, eyes searching Nancy. She’s readying herself to leave, so totally dodging this line of questioning before you can even cast it. Clever. 

“No, he has not,” she sighs, winding her scarf around her neck, “But he’d be good for this. He knows how to capture action. And his kid brother plays DnD with mine, so this’d be, like… nice for them.” 

And this is just as much me making amends with Jonathan Byers as it is you, backwards as it may seem, you nearly hear her say. Or you’re making that up. 

Shame Nancy is so dead set on becoming the next Nellie Bly. Under the right circumstances, she’d make a hell of a normal person. 

Good thing you prefer freaks.

—

Jonathan Byers is a notoriously hard boy to get a hold of, it turns out. Nancy passed along his number (which, you actually already had but you didn’t bring that little detail up) and when you finally punched it in on the yellowing phone nailed to the wall of your trailer, it rang and rang and rang. 

Which, after the fourth time, was just rude. Do the Byers have a thing about not answering the phone, or something?

“Jonathan!” you holler across the parking lot, emerging from the passenger side of Nancy’s car this time. 

College guy was decidedly busy and despite the hanging tension, you’d toyed with the idea of asking Eddie for a ride. Alas, the boy in the Dio patched battle vest was nowhere to be seen. His van hadn’t been there since the weekend and he had been MIA from school the last couple of days, actually, which was itching at you. 

It also made you miss when you had a goddamn set of wheels at your disposal. 

Anyway, Jonathan looks at you with flaring eyes, kind of like you’ve just stuck a shotgun to his snout and there’s no hope of him making a getaway. “Um…”

Now, keep in mind that these are the first words you’ve spoken to him in a measurable high school forever, so his surprise is entirely justified. It’s just not within the beam of your patience right now. 

“Hi. Can we chat?” you say, falling in step with him as you head towards the front door. You don’t bother asking for permission, and forgiveness won’t be necessary. “I was hoping you could help me out with a piece for the Streak.”

Blink, blink. Jonathan’s grasping for words– seems to be a lot of that going around lately. 

You strike your hand through the air. “Let me put it to you like this– you are going to help me out with a piece for the Streak.”

“Why?” he asks, and it’s prickly. 

“Becauuuse,” you draw out, “I need a photographer. And god knows whenever Nicole attempted to work a lens, those snapshots were so out-of-focus they looked like an optical illusion.” 

“And, you’re not talking to Nicole right now,” Jonathan nails you, but not totally. In your mind,  you revisit flashes of Nicole recounting, in gloriously erroneous detail, those photos Jonathan had taken of Nancy. You had pretended to be scandalized and rolled your eyes, thinking what’s a little peep show among losers. 

“Even if I was,” you say, dogging Jonathan all the way to his locker, “I still wouldn’t ask her. This is important to me.” 

That avoidant Byers reserve stands strong, with Jonathan grabbing books in hurried succession. He is trying to get away from you, but that’s not happening without an emphatic yes! 

“I don’t even really–” 

“Take pictures anymore?” you pfft, pointing to his messenger bag, “Twenty bucks says your camera is in there and the film’s half shot.” 

“I don’t have twenty bucks.” 

“Me neither,” you shrug, “Spent it on that new Echo & the Bunnymen.”

Jonathan hesitates a bit, fingers strumming against his biology textbook. A thread of something long forgotten by the listening booths of Main Street Vinyl tugs between you both, but it’s not weighed down by the prospect of will we kiss about it. He kind of smiles. 

“What did you think? I haven’t gotten down to hear it yet.”

You thought it made you want a flowing dress and a place to prance. Like if the more whimsical end of Fleetwood Mac didn’t exhaust you. Those last four tracks snapped your heartstrings like suspenders, with comical aplomb. 

“Grandiose! That ‘Killing Moon’ song? It’s got Jonathan Byers written all over it,” you chirp, and mean it. “I’ll make you a copy if you put that camera to work for me.”

He shrugs, but you can see you’re wearing him down. “I’m not much for shooting pep rallies.”

“Liar. Wheeler says you’re top banana in the action shots department,” you counter, “But how about players? I think I want some portraits, too. Non-corny ones.”

“What team?” Jonathan screws up his nose. The distaste for jockery runs deep, and rightfully so. 

But you shake your head, face curving into an expression of near excitement. 

“No team. Better, and worse, depending on what side of the cafeteria you’re sitting,” your hands splay out, and for god’s sake, you feel like Munson himself, “Hellfire Club.”

Jonathan looks like his record’s skipped. Eyeballs sort of jiggle in his skull and he mouths, oh, like the association of you between Hellfire should mean something. Suspiciously like Nancy, and just suspicious period. Your eyebrows start to inch towards one another. 

“What’s that look? Does that mean you’ll do it?”

“Um,” he dillies, then dallies, “Sure. Yeah. You know, my kid brother loves DnD.”

Ah, yes. The other Byers boy, the one who’d gone missing all that time ago. You remembered. Actually, you remembered not being able to figure out how you should feel about it– how you should act, other than falling in line with the majority of people who were giving Jonathan shit at the time. You regret that now, with a chill that runs right down to your toes. 

“Could be cool for him to see, no?” you try, corner of your mouth lifting, “A little niche in the midst the high school horrors. To look forward to, y’know.”

The look on Jonathan’s face is more than a little bit screaming, that’s rich, coming from you, you were the high school horror. But he shakes it off, because he’s nicer than you are, even though he doesn’t need to be. 

“Yeah… whatever you say, Lacy. When do you need me?”

You tell him Friday and he agrees, much to your satisfaction. You’re just about to punch him on the shoulder like teamwork, buddy! before he saves you such a wildly out-of-character display by dodging toward his homeroom. 

You sail toward your locker like the bastard that’s risen alongside the cream, only to be greeted by something… strange. Scratches, all around the maudlin gray paintwork of your combination lock. Like it’d been tampered with, or something. A blaze of paranoia burns at the base of your skull, and you instinctively try to recount where your journal is… in your bag. Phew. Fine. This could be… anything. 

Fingers reach forward to twist your lock, and with the slightest touch, the door is forced open by a push from the other side. A flash of bright red, then SPLAT. Yellow, SPLAT, blue, SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT! You shriek a real ear-piercing shriek as at least a dozen water balloons spill out of your locker, hitting the floor with an obscene smack. Water dashes everywhere, and you’re barely able to move out of the splash zone in time. 

“What the fuck!’

Within seconds, there’s a hubbub and a crowd’s gathering, trading sickening snickers with one another as you peer into the dark of your locker. You gingerly step through the puddle, suede boots irreparably spattered, and yank the door the whole way open. There, sat atop your schoolbooks and a stray water balloon that hadn’t made the fall, is a horribly familiar set of test tubes.

In one of them sits a squirt of blue liquid and that offensive strip of plastic. And scrawled across it in clumsy black marker? 

IT’S A FREAK!

Realization hits you like Carol did, making your head swim among all the murmurs of oh my god… and gross! and told you–trailer trash and unconcealed cackles. A voice sparks up like a sizzling ember in a swathe of darkness. 

“Where’s your baby daddy at, Lacy? Get tossed in the slammer with your old man?” 

The languid tones of none other than Billy All-Balls-No-Brains Hargrove drift by you, sailing right past the back of your head as you stare a hole through the innards of your locker. Then, your stupid hippocampus gears up– Robin, mentioning ‘your whole thing’ while Genovese baby-barfed her guts up, Ronnie urging her to shut the fuck up, even Jonathan Byers was privy to this hot little piece of gossip. 

This theory that you were up the spout with Munson Junior Junior. 

How many people had seen you, stupid little you, coming out of that drugstore hiking that Advance box over your head like the championship cup? Seen you hopping into Eddie’s van– and out of it, and back in again on what now seemed like countless occasions? 

Nobody could have suspected it was Nancy’s test, because nobody saw her. They saw you. That was the whole idea. You just didn’t consider the blowback.

“What’s going on out here?” the softly-coated concern of Ms Kelley rings out in the hallway, doing absolutely nothing to disperse the peanut gallery that’s set up around your locker. 

“Lacy?” her voice points to you. Even the goddamn guidance counselor uses your beloved nickname.  

You don’t react. You don’t even know what you’re doing until you come to a couple of paces down the hallway, feeling the thin, straining rubber in the palm of your hand. Your footsteps make heavy, wet, slapping noises against the linoleum as you follow the half-slouched shouldered swagger of Billy Hargrove down the hall. 

Down, and down, and down towards the boy’s locker room and he doesn’t even register it, and you don’t even register that Ms Kelley is still calling your name–your full name, now–until she’s two dozen paces behind you, losing you in the throng of students making their way to class and you shove past half-dressed seniors in the locker room who guffaw at you in a way that feels like a knife in your gut and you yell, voice shaking–

“Hey Billy!” 

And launch the water balloon, making square contact with his smug face. 

“Cute fucking prank!”

His reaction, predictably, is way too slowww moooootion for your fucking liking, so you don’t even give him a shot to fully wipe his face off and mumble, “What the fuuuuck is yourrrr probbbblemmm, ssssllluuuutttt…” 

You just go for him with the ferocity of a jumping jackal. Hands ball in his stupid sleeveless flannel (it’s winter in Indiana, you West Coast jackass!) and you shove him against the lockers with– well, with the strength only an ex-cheerleader brimming with suffocated rage would have.

Metal clatters and one empty unit even careens over like a big tin domino and you say, “Come up with that idea all by yourself, you fucking nimrod?”

Billy just smirks at you in half-speed, mullet sopping, as if this is a come-on. “I had a little help.” 

It occurs to you that right here, right now, you could sell Nancy Wheeler down the river. You could be the you you once were, and you could say, well, primo observation skills, that pregnancy test wasn’t even for me! 

But you don’t, because a pinky promise is a fucking pinky promise.

You let go of Billy’s shirt. Step off. “You’re pathetic,” you spit, but it feels more pathetic coming from you. All that molten blood in your veins makes you want to eviscerate him and whoever else was involved in orchestrating this stupid, stupid, stupid prank. But you come up lacking. Fuck!

Tears prickle at the corners of your eyes and you start to rush out of the locker room– but you’ve given Billy a reason now, and he’s gonna follow you. 

“Shit, are you crying? Those hormones must have you really messed up, huh?” he faux-croons, the thunk-thunk of his poseur motorcycle boots following you to the back entrance, by the sports equipment. Your eyes are streaming freely now, lashes frantically blinking a path to vision. 

But Billy isn’t letting up. And like the Pied Piper of slimeballs, he’s drawing followers– not least of which include Tommy Hagan. 

“What about that college dropout you’re banging, Lacy?” his nasally tone slices through Billy’s tarry taunting. “He know you’re knocked up yet?”

“Jesus Christ, Doevski! I’m impressed,” Billy laughs, “Just how many loads are you taking?”

An abandoned baseball bat lies on the ground, having rolled out of the sports closet; instinct behind the wheel of your personal van, you stoop to pick it up and shove through the doors. You can nearly feel the breath of Hargrove and Hagan and all of these horrific, horrific boys with nothing better to do than to torture you hot on the back of your neck. 

“Not yours, that’s for fucking sure,” you manage, your voice thick. The bat, at least, feels solid in your hand. 

“It’s fun not being frigid, ain’t it, Lacy?” Billy goes on, and you squint against the sunlight as you round the building. “Tell me this, Munson teach you how to suck cock yet? ‘cause if not, I got a little time on my hands.”

Forging ahead, you cross the tarmac of the parking lot. The soft frost hasn’t even totally thawed out yet, sparkling atop the paintwork of Billy’s blue Camaro.   

“That a fact, Billy?” you say, tears drying in quick streaks in that brisk morning air, leaving rivets in your made-up face.

You use your momentum to launch one foot onto the hood of Billy’s car, then the other. You nearly slip against the icy exterior, but steady yourself fast. Bat dangling at your side. Stomp. Stomp. You stand on the roof, and turn to face this congregation of assholes. You do not let sense set in, despite it threatening to inch through the white hot flame of your rage.

“What the fuck are you doing,” Billy outright cackles and Hagan and company guffaw along with him. 

“Billy,” you sigh, a little breathless from the speed at which you’d booked it from the locker room to the parking lot, and the sheer vigor of your shock, awe and rancor, and everything else, “What the hell am I supposed to do with your limp dick in my mouth? Chew on the fuckin’ thing?”

Billy repeats himself, a touch darker now. “What the fuck are you doing.”

“I’m serious!” you say, a little shrill, a little stomp to punctuate that last word, “One thing you can say for Eddie Munson, is at least the motherfucker can get hard!” 

Motorcycle boots advance towards you, and you point the bat at him like a broadsword. 

“Do not. Come any closer. Or I’m gonna start doing some serious damage to this ugly piece of overcompensation.”

“She’s bluffing,” Hagan crows, and you turn your flaming glare on him. You wish you had a mirror– you wonder if crazy becomes you. Billy takes a pointed step forward and you raise the bat above your, head bracing for action– that’s enough movement for him. 

“Gimme that bat, you stupid fucking cunt–!” But Billy’s cut short by a body barrelling into the side of him, knocking him askew. A jangle of denim and leather. The bat slips a little in your grasp. 

“Get the fuck off of me Munson–” 

“No way to talk to a lady, Billy!” Eddie gasps, tossing Billy back and letting his limbs hang. “You kiss Karen Wheeler with that mouth?”

Billy rounds on him like a triggered animal, spittle flying.

“Some fucking lady!” he snarls, “Got downgraded to that trailer park and now her snooty ass is spreading it for half of Hawkins! Desperate! Stringin’ you along like the dumb piece of shortbus shit you a–”

Activated, you throw that bat to the fucking wayside and scramble off the fucking car– nobody talks to him like that! 

But you’re not fast enough, nobody’s fast enough, nobody can compete with how huge and booming and definite Eddie’s voice sounds when he says, smile glimmering, sun breaking through the bleak midwinter… 

“You know what I like about you, Hargrove?”  

THKUNCK. Bone to bone, fist meet fucking flesh–

“Nothin’.”

A scuffle goes up, and Eddie can’t even feel the hits of Hargrove’s hands connecting with his face, chest, ribs, wherever– all he can feel are your arms locking in vice around his waist, putting yourself in the eye of the storm in order to yank him back.

—

You got an elbow to the crown of the head, which isn’t too bad, even if you feel like a cartoonish lump should be rising there. But look at these other guys. 

Billy with a black eye that’s bulging up rapidly, Eddie with a split lip and more than a couple of scratches on his knuckles. In that fray, he hadn’t exactly considered the implications of punching a guy with all his goddamned rings on. The implications being that shit hurt like hell. There is this radiating pain in his hand, not letting him unfurl his fingers completely. 

There’s also this radiating feeling of dread cloaking his entire upper half as you sit three-to-the-wall outside Higgins’ office. You had, in Eddie’s estimation, incredibly bad timing. 

See, considering the events of his past week, he was slowly making peace with the fact that he should probably be avoiding you entirely, even if that meant he died a little inside. He should have been doing that from the jump– but you, unbuttoned and reckless now apparently, kept requiring interventions so you didn’t get killed, or worse. 

And Eddie couldn’t help himself when it came to you. Especially not when you were standing on top of Billy Hargrove’s sick Camaro, swinging a baseball bat and getting called some shit that no one should ever be calling you. 

You’re out of control. Totally unsheathed. End of your rope. Unlaced. 

And he’d do just about anything to keep you safe. 

Even fuck up his guitar-playing hand. Which is also his…

“I can’t believe you fucking suckerpunched me,” Hargrove mumbles from your left. “With those ugly fucking rings on.”

Eddie can’t help himself, the last shred of propriety knocked out round about the time a knee to the ribs had winded him. “Aw. Billy. Don’t be so hard on yourself–”

“Eddie…,” you start, tone warning in a way that makes him want to pinch you, kind of. He leans towards Hargrove, meaning he’s leaning over you. Hair brushing across your shoulder. You notice that it smells distinctively skunkier than usual. Camping out at Lipton Landing?

“--honestly! You’re no sucker!” he implores, eyes shining in jest, “You totally had that coming!”

You hear Billy seething from his end, Eddie snickering from his and launch a well-timed arm in front of both of them before they can snap at it again. 

“Cut it out, assholes! This is becoming increasingly more pigheaded.”

“And you’re the voice of perfect reason now, huh?” Eddie sneers, not giving you much breathing room. “Where’s the bat at, Babe Ruth?”

“In the parking lot, waiting to finish you off,” you grit back, nearly nose-to-nose with him, because you don’t know how to digest the guilt of his aching fingers. 

“What are you mad at me for?” Eddie hisses, a smirk threatening to break his scowl, because he doesn’t know how not to provoke you.

“Knocking her up, probably,” Billy mumbles from the side. 

“Shut up, Hargrove!” you both snap, eyes never leaving one another. 

Higgins’ door creaks open and a quietly livid Ms Kelley says, “Lacy.” She jerks her head, motioning for you to up and at ‘em. You do, but not without one last look at Eddie, cradling his hand. Round, bottomless irises meet yours for a moment, then dart away with an impact that thickens your throat. 

His poor hand, you find yourself thinking.

“He needs an ice pack…” you find yourself mumbling, Kelley shuffling you into Higgins’ office. The principal sits behind his beat-up desk, fingers steepled. You absently wonder if he’s been campaigning for a new, shinier, possibly more oaken desk because this doesn’t paint the picture of threatening figurehead that he so clearly wants you to tremble under. 

You accidentally kick the thing, crossing your legs as you sit. “Sorry.”

“You should be,” Higgins declares. Here we fucking go. 

“Permission to state my case?” you attempt. This hadn’t been your first time in the principal’s office; minor classroom infractions, a saccharine we’ll do everything to help that we can after your dad’s arraignment, but this time was certainly the worst. 

“Denied,” he shoots you down.

“Permission to submit a plea of temporary insanity, then,” you try, patting at the sore spot on the crown of your head. “You know this doesn’t bode with my track record. You think I climbed on top of Billy Hargrove’s car completely compos mentis? Please.”

A tense silence from Higgins’ and Kelley’s end.

“You saw what Hargrove did, didn’t you? That disgusting prank?” 

Again, nada.

“I’m a honor student, for Chrissake!” you exclaim, and Kelley plucks herself from the windowsill behind Higgins’ desk. 

“Were an honor student, Ms Doevski,” she corrects. “Your grades have been slipping since– the events of the last couple of months. You’ve dropped cheerleading, you’ve made really puzzling false claims about peer tutoring, you…”

“Yes! Yes, the events of the last couple of months, if by which you mean familial imprisonment, then yes, I’ve been a little distracted!” 

Higgins kicks back in his seat just as you hitch forward in yours, too angry to be pleading but too desperate to defy. His turn to mutter here we fucking go.

“I can turn this around,” redirected to Ms Kelley and her ever-sympathetic expression, “I can turn this around.”

“College applications deadlines are within touching distance, Lacy.” She of little faith. 

“I know that!” As if your hands aren’t itching every time college guy mentions Ithaca or… wherever the fuck it is he goes. As if that isn’t a crack in the assuredness that you were going to take flight out of this town in a spectacular fashion.

“Ladies– can we dispense with the hysteria and deal with the here and now?” Higgins insists and you and Kelley, despite your opposition, share a look.

World class, this guy. Top of his field, asshole-wise. 

“Two week suspension should do it,” he says, jotting something down. 

You open your mouth in protest and Kelley quells you– you’re in no position to start bargaining down. 

“Technically, she didn’t do anything,” and for good measure, but pressed, “Sir.”

“She climbed on top of that boy’s car with a baseball bat!” Higgins barks; now who’s hysteric?! “She had intent to do harm!”

“It was justified.” You can’t help yourself. 

Kelley stares him down, and that woman’s charm is something that should be studied in a fucking lab, because he relents right away. 

“Two weeks of Saturday detention, then. Christ. Am I going soft?”

You shake your head, all the knots in your body releasing just a little bit. You try to dig out what’s left of your once-famously refined charm, while simultaneously dashing towards the door before he can change his mind. 

“Au contraire. You’re a paragon of masculinity, sir. Regan could take a hint. Door open or closed?”

Higgins grimaces. “Send in Hargrove. Tell Munson he’s suspended. I don’t have time for both of those pricks today.” 

Eddie’s voice travels through the crack in the door. “I heard that, sir.” A beat. “I miss you, sir.”

You bite back a deeply reluctant laugh and jerk your head toward Billy. You’re up, champ.

Then, it’s the two of you. You and Eddie, Eddie and you. Alone, save for the ever watchful jam jar eyes of Janice the secretary. Eddie is still nestling one hand in the other like it’s a baby bird with a broken wing. Shit, you really hope it isn’t broken.   

“You’re suspended. They told me to tell you.” It’s a statement made to turkey-stuff the silence more than anything. 

The way Eddie lolls his head back makes you want to reach out and push it in the opposite direction. You don’t know why. 

“You’re a regular town crier, ain’t ya.” 

“Hear ye, hear ye.” 

A leaden pause. Your hearts might have thumped both in time just now.

“Wanna get out of here?” he asks.

“No leaving school grounds,” Janice unhelpfully squawks. 

Eddie gets up, drawing himself to his full height. Your eyelids flutter. There’s a little purple around that cut on his lip, which you bet is starting to throb something awful. You feel dwarfed beside him, and he uses his good hand to turn you by the shoulder and shuffle you past the nosy secretary’s post. 

“I meant the sick bay, Janice,” Eddie pelts, giving each vowel sound a hard flick. “I’m wounded. And she’s apparently pregnant. Or didn’t you hear?”

—

The nurse’s office is tiny and cramped, smelling of bleach with a glaring fluorescent overhead. Eddie has a hard time figuring out why anyone would come here to feel better. Especially given that Nurse Lydia is barely ever present. 

Eddie carpes the opportunity to slam himself down on her rolling saddle chair, gliding into your path as you try and snoop around for first aid materials.  

“I don’t think you should be driving that thing,” you remark, “You could be concussed. You’re acting concussed.” 

“It’s keeping me awake!” 

Eddie watches you, digging through drawers and pulling out tongue depressors, your teeth making an indent into your bottom lip. Your eyes are doing that darty thing, quietly frantic in place of an apology. You don’t know how to say sorry you got wailed on by Hargrove for me. Instead, you’re acting like he’s bleeding out. 

“Lace, just wait for the professional.” 

The clip of your nickname makes you toss your stare over your shoulder, hardness framing your eyes like mascaraed lashes. Eddie stops rolling around at once.

“I am the goddamn professional, as far as you’re concerned.” Your little chin jerks towards the exam table that’s beat into the corner of the room. “Get on the bed.”

Whack-a-mole. Woodpecker. Other euphemisms for his cock developing a pulse. Eddie has to physically restrain his jaw from dropping. 

“Yes, Nurse Ratched.”

Scoffing out a little fuck you!, you go about scrambling together supplies and Eddie obediently launches himself onto the bed, the ancient thing creaking beneath him. When you finally approach him, you seem to be holding a lot of alcohol pads. 

The look before you admit to a shortcoming is one he wants framed. You always flick your eyes around like a guilty cartoon character, like Betty Boop on her way to gaining a doctorate in the pretentiousness of the English language, and pout. Lean your neck in, like you’re swearing him to secrecy. 

“I actually don’t know anything about first aid. Beyond the rudimentaries.”

Eddie chuckles. “You were a cheerleader. You were getting thrown in the air a whole bunch, if I recall. Feels like you should know how to like, resuscitate.”

“Rudimentaries, I said!” and you grab his injured hand a little roughly, alcohol pad torn out and ready, “Like, I obviously know alcohol disinfects a wound, ice for a bruise… I don’t know how to, like, reset a bone. Besides…” 

You inch closer to him now, wiping at his torn and tender knuckles a little too carefully. They’re just stupid cuts, Eddie thinks, his breath beginning to shallow. 

“...that Cat People remake was premiering at the Hawk the day we had first aid training. Like I was going to miss that.” 

He can feel heat radiating off your body, a core change for cold little you. Feel the fabric of your skirt brush the rip in his jeans. A little choked, he mumbles, “Cat People is a remake?”

“Based on the 1942 original,” you nod, flicking the tiny used pad in the nearby trash can. “I like it. But I like that David Bowie song more.”

“That song sucks.”

“You’re injured and wrong. What a shame.” Your fingers close around Eddie’s wrist and slowly, slowly press his forearm to his chest. “Keep that elevated.”

“It’s not broken,” and he’s staring at the quiet tremble in your bottom lip.

“Could be sprained,” head cast down again, tearing open another pad, and he can smell your hair, “Does it hurt?”

Eddie doesn’t answer right away, because he’s waiting for you to look back up. Because he thinks he’s going to carpe something else. 

You fall for it, and your eyes sucker him in. He feels weak in the joints. You repeat yourself. “Does it hurt, Eddie?”

He just nods, boyishly. Nearly passes out when your fingertips tilt his face towards the light. Skin buzzing underneath them, you peering at his mouth like you know what you’re doing. The slit in his lip feels raw and strained. 

“This’ll hurt, too,” you murmur, and he feels your breath against his jaw. A sharp prick from the alcohol against his cut doesn’t make him wince– worse. As you swipe the cotton against his bottom lip, he whimpers. Unh.

Oxygen stops short in your throat, hearing that. That noise. It sends a wave of motion through your lower body. You’re leaning awfully close to him, closer than you need to be. In fact, his knees are settled either side of your hips. How did that happen. When did that happen. How did you allow this. 

How are you allowing your fingertip to trace against his lip, alcohol evaporating without a hope or a prayer. How are you allowing yourself to look at him through the fan of your lashes, his injured hand still obediently propped against his chest. His good hand pressing into your lower back.

You taste the vagueness of the disinfectant on his lips as he presses them into yours. 

Jerking back, you’re not far enough away from him to create a distance that matters. All you see are Eddie’s eyes, flickering open, apologetic in themselves. About to tell you he’s sorry.

No.

Hands fly, one woven in the curls at the base of his skull as you kiss up into him, tongue an impolite peak. This is not the closet; this is arguably far more dangerous, with the nurse’s door still open a courteous gap. This is the harsh light of day. This is Eddie’s hand moving your skirt further up the curve of your ass. 

He’s grabbing onto you as best a one-armed man can, and your hand travels in turn. A jagged, fevered path drawing up his thigh until, under your palm, is the hard outline of him. The pressure of your hand over the denim-bound curvature of his cock makes him groan sharply, the sound pressed against your cheek. 

Face angles back for a look at him. Because this is bad, mindless, reckless, stupid. And he’s always worth a look.

You spot a tiny speck of blood on the pink of his lip from where his cut had split. 

And your curious tongue flicks at it. 

Eddie’s eyes flare. You, unable to unglue your stare from his, suck his lightly bleeding lip between yours. Fragile. Crushable. 

He did this for you. 

No one’s ever cared, or known you enough, to do something like that for you.

Desire moves you like a shockwave and your hand leaves his crotch to help you clamber onto the exam table, clamber into Eddie’s lap. 

Downright idiotic. 

You cast a glance to the door, Eddie’s fraught breath puffing against your neck. 

Thought you were a smart girl.

You look right into his face, the poster boy for sheer distraction, pre-occupation, skin-searing annoyance, nervous charm, surprising wit, magnetism, oh my… and feel his fingers edging far past the hem of your skirt, past the binding top of the thigh-highs you’re wearing because it’s fucking laundry day and stopping at the gusset of your panties. 

He can feel how wet you are.

Lips a breath away from each other, one set bleeding, one set housing a gasp. Eddie nudges his forehead against yours, the both of you blind to consequence.

“Just friends, right?” His breath is jagged and unconvinced, and your hips kick toward his hand. 

You do not answer.

Unbruised fingers push the fabric covering your radiating heat aside and you have to tighten your grip around the back of his neck so as not to tumble over. Eddie is not deft, because this isn’t the moment to be deft. He plunges two fingers into the plush of your pussy and looks to you with pleading eyes. Eyes that say, is this good, eyes that say, don’t make a sound.

You nod in the affirmative to both and he drags his digits out slowly. Rhythm picks up and you’re clenching around Eddie’s hand in a matter of minutes, lower muscles seizing and het-up moans being gratefully swallowed by him. Pad of his thumb moves to create rough, clumsy friction against your clit that elicits a sharp, high, wanton ah! from you, grinding against him in an unquenchable search for more.

“Does he do this? Does anyone do this for you, Lacy?”

Eddie’s eyes keep searching you for approval and you’ve lost the ability to appease or deny him– all you know is the blind, nonsensical want that’s pouring out of you is being lapped up. Lapped up. His tongue, you want his tongue everywhere, but it’s working at your earlobe, your neck, sucking, whispering, “Just friends? Lacy?”

And when you cum, it’s fast and hard and suffocating, an achievement you’re close to angry at him for– because no one has ever been able to break you apart that fast. 

Or at all.

He can never know. He’d be so insufferable about it… some bare fragment of a thought passes through your brain, synapses busy firing elsewhere.

You’re rocking against him through the crest, pressing your forehead to his with such a force that you’re frightened it’ll splinter, you’re murmuring, “Eddie… Eddie, d–hmn, fuck…”

And you can tell by the way he’s attempting to press his body against you that he wishes he hadn’t bust that stupid fucking hand of his, so he could hold you properly– and you’re right. You’re right, you’re always fucking right, but you told him to keep it elevated and he’s going to do what you say.

He’s got no choice when it comes to you. 

He needs you safe. Needs you happy. No matter what.

Which is why he’s got to pull this bullshit move. 

Eddie is patient and watches you regain a little consciousness, faster than he’s sure you’d like. He extracts his hand and, sticky with you still, wipes it on the thigh of his jeans. Heart thundering in his ears, he tugs you into one more breathless kiss and wonders if you can still taste the rust sharpness of his cut in between your lips. He’s strangled himself against cumming up till this point, and this doesn’t help matters. An imperceptible spot of pre-fun lies in his lap but the thing is, the really fucked thing is–

Eddie gently shoves you away, mind silently babbling for the right thing to say. I’m sorry is something you’d see right through, get off is too harsh, oopsie is too fucking whimsical–

But you, ever-perceptive you, you realize your place. Knock yourself back into reality so fiercely that he’s afraid it’ll bruise you, lovely, awe-inspiring you that just softened into his hands like that. You clumsily clamber off the exam table in a hot flash of rejection, which– no, god, no, he doesn’t mean that…

“I–”

“No, I know,” you grit, prickly all over. Thumbing at the edge of your blurred lipstick. “I know. I certainly know.”

Eddie dares to look at you and you dare to look back at him. His lips looking worse off from you, but at the very least kissed. At the very least kissed, but you could cry with the empty feeling inside you. A cavern of a girl. You nod curtly, like this is the conclusion of a particularly charged run-in of acquaintances, not like you wanted him to swallow you whole moments ago. 

Slipping out of the nurse’s office, you run right into the myth that is Nurse Lydia. 

She looks tan. 

“He’s,” you struggle, “He’s waiting for you.”

—

Cheating out sick from school and taking a shift at The Bookstore following the latest in a series of apparently neverending aftershocks was probably not the smartest call– but hell, you’re fresh out of smart calls.

Ivana smells a rat, and she doesn’t take to rats lightly, so she gives you your space. 

The morning ticks on at a pace that feels supernatural; like you’re witnessing outside of your body, like you can’t orient yourself in the right direction. You attempt to arrange and rearrange poets from alcoholic to puritan. You sell someone a copy of The Fountainhead without giving them their free blistering evisceration of Ayn Rand. 

You’re at a loss. A shameful, dangling loss that almost makes you feel pious. Like you should go to confession. 

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… I let my one-time best friend, current-cloudy object of my affection get beat up for me then bring me to climax in the nurses’ office. 

You retread the same sentence in your over-thumbed copy of Save Me the Waltz like a table corner you keep stubbing your toe on. 

We couldn’t go on indefinitely being swept off our feet.

You said it, Alabama. Something’s got to land.

And, because someone down there wants you dead, land it does. 

The bell of the store’s door clashes upon opening, and all of the energy draws toward one magnetic point. A shock of silver hair, standing on end catches the lamplight, glowing almost eerily. 

You feel a zzzzip of static. The air feels charged.

He doesn’t face you right away. Kind of slinks into the place, edging along the shelves. 

“Say, Lacy. Ballpark me somethin’,” his Southern drawl is barely contained within the Midwestern flatlands of his accent, bursting through the baseline like a corpse that hasn’t been buried deep enough. “How long… do you think…” His fingers tap along the worn spines of the display, creeping closer to the counter, “...it would take… to read all these books?”

The lilt of his voice is so familiar that you recognize it instantly. Even the way your name falls out of his mouth. Like a funhouse mirror, a distortion of a voice you’d come to…

Well. Let’s not get into that. Let’s get into this.

A roguish smile with a couple decades of road wear on it and a tacky Hawkins High class ring on his finger. You could’ve sworn Eddie told you he dropped out. 

“How many years in the big house with nothin’ better to do?” He finally stops and pivots on his heel. The way he looks you over makes you nauseous and lightheaded, like he took a long, long sip out of you. Jammed a straw in your jugular and sucked. 

Lot of blood play happening ‘round these parts.

“Hello, Al.”

“Hello, sweetheart. You filled out.”

author's notes: christ alive. i mean WELCOME BACK! i really missed you guys. happy new year, thank you for keeping me on the level with writing this chapter, it was so much FUCKING harder than i anticipated! was it too much warped angst? are the feelings complicated? does the pope shit in the woods?!!!!! you betcha. anyway, be seated for today's lesson - "less oedipus-y, more ea--..." there is an ending to that joke that i felt was too crass for the moment but if you can guess it you win a prize - the patchwork girl of oz is the seventh book in the wizard of oz series by l. frank baum! obviously. it's actually a laugh riot, you should check it out. scraps, the eponymous patchwork girl, is a full tilt lunatic who's kind of a bit of me. but theoretically, the patchwork girl made out of a thousand different scraps of everything else... bit of lacy innit - the mage in the mink coat is self referential lmao we've gotten to THAT point in the story - gravity's rainbow is a book that guys i dated used to recommend to me constantly which is like infinite jest for people who are ran through - i'm really fucking with college guy at this point, making him drive a ford cortina. because i think it is ugly - the plot of the annotated book that lacy gives eddie, still life with woodpecker by tom robbins, is... interesting eye emoji eye emoji. tom robbins also wrote even cowgirls get the blues which was adapted into a feature film starring, say it with me, robin's mom - the link wray song that soundtracked the lipton landing visit in question - "charlie? or linda kasabian?" go ahead and read the white album by joan didion for me wouldja buddyroo, just like lacy and nancy already have - fun fact, i played a two person game of gin rummy with myself to get into the mindset for this chapter. i suck at it - torchy blane is another one of my pre-code wonders-- glenda farrell plays an intrepid newspaperwoman, and this character actually went on to inspire lois lane from superman - and I KNOW some of you are going to be mad at lacy for fucking college guy, but... shit happens when you're a booksmart lovedumb eighteen year old that can't face up to her feelings! i don't wanna hear it! - fred benson i love you baby! i'm almost sorry i called you william randolph hearst, newspaper magnate and all around lunatic and the inspo behind the diss track citizen kane, but i'm not! - nancy wheeler has a photo of nellie bly in her locker where a photo of her beau should be - so echo & the bunnymen's 1984 album ocean rain is obviously most famous for the killing moon (jonathan byers you ARE my donnie darko) but may i point your attention to motherfucking seven seas - OH YOU KNOW I (EDDIE) HAD TO DO IT TO 'EM. this was shameless but i've had this in my heart for over ten years babe - for the purposes of this timeline, you know eddie is keeping higgins in pills. which is why he hasn't been kicked out of hawkins high so fast his lunchbox would combust - nurse ratched, obviously from one flew over the cuckoo's nest and that ill-fated ryan murphy series....tf was that...but also from this fucking sick tune! - save me the waltz is by zelda fitzgerald! my loves, thanks for hanging in for this chapter. i know it was a wait, but i hope you enjoyed! i also know it was a little more angsty pants than my usual fare-- but look baby. we need grist for the mill, okay? as always, reblogs, comments and likes are FIERCELY appreciated! love u all so much. my little hellcats. to die by your side etc

[codgod]

y’know generally i try to limit colour palettes to as few colours as possible to make things more cohesive but despite my best efforts only jay ended up being able to stick to that </3

ANYWAYS here’s the as-of-right-now fully updated designs for these dickheads. these will no doubt undergo even more tweaking as i draw them more but this is a start i guess. also pls open the pictures to look at them properly i worked so hard LOL

some random notes under the cut yaaaay

chip —

he jingles when he walks. somehow he’s still stealthy. i do not know how

kept the platinum ring that bonded him to gillion in the block! because hey he doesn’t really have a reason to take it off (and it’s a nice reminder of how much gill cares about him, and how far their friendship has come since that ice arena)

his tattoos shift and flicker like actual flames, and sometimes (harmless, purely aesthetic) sparks fly off them when he’s excited

i just think smoke coming out of his mouth when he’s angry would be cool :]

chipped teeth from biting rocks and coins all the time :/

he has scars from the red lightning, they’re just mostly contained to his back and shoulders. they’re a similar red to his coat even once they’ve healed

gillion —

the tail sleeve thing is so he can rest it on the ground without damaging his scales, he doesn’t usually wear it when he’s just on the ship because the wood is soft enough that it’s usually fine + it can hinder swimming a bit. it’s mostly meant for places where there’s cobblestone or gravel streets and such. i think his armour would probably have a version that looks similar but covers the whole tail minus the fins, maybe with some armour plating of its own. i didn’t draw it because there wasn’t any room lol

his scars from the lightning are pink mostly because red stood out too much tbh. they softly glow in the dark the same as his coral and the pink parts of his fins

also kept his ring! his hands aren’t really made for jewellery, though, because the webbing means it won’t sit very secure on his finger. so he keeps it on the same chain as the necklace he got from aslana to keep it safe

tried to make him look a bit bulkier and more his age than in my original design? i feel like i was leaning too much into the naivety and. shortness. originally lol. he also has thicker eyebrows now and i’m still trying to decide how i feel about them but i think? i like it? i don’t tend to give many character thin eyebrows so it could’ve been a unique thing for him but alas

i think i made the sword too small but like ignore that

also forgor to include pretzel </3 that’s okay though she can get her own design sheet later. she’s special like that

jay —

i believe in tall jay supremacy

blue magic! i was considering gold but that’d look a bit more like a canary than i wanted for her wings so. blue jay :]

her hair is supposed to look kinda like fire to mimic her dad ! kinda showing that even if she runs from her family and the navy they’ll always be a part of her. and also i just like drawing messy hair

i gave her sturdier gloves just because i feel like it fits her better. also changed up the shirt to more of a button up solely because i don’t like tank tops very much LOL

i did WANT to make her outfit a bit flashier to match the boys better but i couldn’t quite figure out where to Put the flash. maybe that’ll come later, the way the story’s going i might get to design some cool prosthetics for her or something

overall —

because there’s just so many fucking colours i triiied to add at least one or two colours from each of them into the others designs. jay has her necklace with each of their main colours on it, her wings are the same blue as gillions eyes, her jacket and right eye are the same dark blue as destiny’s blade, her hair is the same orange as the lighter part of chips tattoos. chip has a dark green sash under all the belts, the same as the hilt of destiny’s blade. they all use the same shades of black, gold, and brown

the only real exception is gillion doesn’t have anything from the other two because he has Such a specific colour palette and he already had so much going on as-is orz jay was obviously the easiest to do this with because she has both warm and cool colours in her palette by default lol (and i did her design last, so that helps)