#I laugh like some sort of snake or perhaps a lizard

[nullifier]

Noel laughs:

T-ttt-t-t-t-tt-t

ShhHhHhhHh

WAUH [hits something]

[writernopal]

Find the Word Tag

Thank you @mariahwritesstuff for the tag, find her post here.

Tagging: @thesyntheticwanderer @autumnalwalker @amywrites256 @florraisons @starliight-whump @kyuukhya (gently) @lynnedwardswrites (gently) and anyone else who wants to join in!

My words (that I have to find): beautiful, love, time, and worry

Your words (that the people I tagged find): threshold, passion, empire, serve

Snippets come from AASOAF 1 ☺️

beautiful

Her head slid to one side and her hood slipped off to reveal her messy hair. I scoffed a small laugh. Every time I had seen her, she was so put together, so seeing her with a tangled nest upon her head instead of the neat bun she usually sported was comical. She was a mess though I supposed that wasn’t her fault. Most humans looked ugly and unkempt in the morning, even beautiful ones like her, rather a fault of her kind. I studied her face next; it was set in a neutral expression, and now that it was, I could appreciate the gentle slope of her nose and how softly rounded it was at the end. It was charming. Most women in The Empire prided themselves on having long slim snouts and thought that human women's faces were squished and ugly since they usually had small noses. But Mariel wore it well, in my opinion.

love

I scoffed. I so boldly claimed I wasn’t in love back there but now I was beginning to doubt myself. Was I? I kept telling myself I wasn’t because it felt so different from what I had with Ophelia. We hadn’t even kissed or held hands and definitely hadn’t done the other thing, so how could I be sure I was in love with her? And even though I knew who she was, I didn’t know her. I knew nothing about her life growing up, whether she had siblings, her fears and joys, her dreams and aspirations, or even the small things like her favorite food, none of it. She was practically a stranger in that aspect. So why, then? Why was I so drawn to her? Why did I try to find her wherever I went? I said that I needed her. Was that a slip of the tongue? Or was there truth in that? And if there was, why was I so adamant that she should be with me? What if we were rotten together? I sighed again. So many questions would they ever be answered? Maybe not.

time

Just some feet away walked that lavender lizard. He was unaccompanied this time but still looked terrifying as he had that day. I watched him walk among the crowd toward the harbor at an even but quick pace—no doubt, he was returning to his cursed vessel. However, as I watched him, I was struck by how he didn’t shove people out of the way or demand space in a rude manner. He simply slipped and slinked among them as a snake might through a pile of leaves effortlessly and efficiently. I suppose I could infer that being among such rabble might be expected for him if his ship came to dock reasonably often. I only hoped that it didn’t come to dock here fairly often.

worry

I rose to my feet and approached my vanity. I should have been trembling or crying and telling myself that I shouldn’t do this, but there was nothing. I was devoid of any sort of rational thought but also of any considerate feeling. I watched as I pulled open the drawer and picked up the small glass bottle. Its occupant buzzed frantically within its prison. I know exactly how you feel but don’t worry; it's almost over. Soon we would both rest in a place where the terror we felt now would seem like nothing more than a distant dream. Perhaps we might look upon it fondly as the time when we were capable of such a feeling.

[toastedicarus]

I was feeling bad about missing the first post, but apparently the next update is in MARCH so I'm not too late if you think about it?

One of the things that put me off reading Twig the first few attempts was that instead of joining on the premise of 'superheroes' or 'magic' I was instead slapped in the face with the premise of 'biology' which while I think Wildbow does an excellent job of mucking about with to create cool, horrifying, and other sorts of rad shit with, isn't exactly my personal cup of tea? I'm a fake wildbow fan, I'm here mostly for the Rad Shit and rely on other wormbloggers to present Themes and Ideas and such.

Sy this is a lizard. A snake with legs is just a lizard. Did you perhaps miss the second lesson, after 'life needs these elements' in which they go 'this is a lizard'?

The beginnings of Sy being a little shit. I don't remember him laughing a lot later on though? I've heard people (including wildbow) describe twig as a coming of age story, so maybe this is part of it. Like I said earlier, do not expect particularly deep cuts in this liveblog lol.

Hello Fred-From-Scooby-Doo. I sure hope you don't rot away first when these child experiments are revealed to have expiration dates. This is also the second mention of the wax masks that I thought were going to be like, an Everytime thing instead of just something prepared for this particular outing. I dropped my first reading this very chapter because I didn't want to read about wax cracking just as often as taylor reached out for her swarm, given wyvern makes Sy watch peoples faces for tells or whatever.

Hello the girls! I'm sure the gender ratio of the team here will have no surprises later on. Lillian gets a smaller introduction here compared to the other lambs(? I'm not sure if they're called that at this point.) I faintly recall her being the unenhanced medic/intern on the team, and I wonder if Sy thinking about her less here is intentional.

Hello Helen, who's apparently the best lamb (And I found myself agreeing with this with what little I read.) I forgot you were a fucked up blonde little girl like bonesaw, with the 'bending body in odd angles' I had swapped your mental image to the girl from the ring after a bit.

I had to google Wallaces law, because I am dumb. I don't know if this is 'alt earth Wallace got more credit for shit than Darwin did' sort of thing or if Wallace's Law is also a real thing.

Is this the problematic yuri I've heard about or am I reading too much into things because the next chapter comes out in march?

Giving Sy the benefit of the doubt for now that he's doing this because he thinks it's funny to make her mad and genuinely doesn't think it's an issue, and is also twelve(?). May change my tune later given I've heard it doesn't really get better?

Mostly clipping this bit trying to burn the aesthetic into my mind given I forget it over time, replacing every location with a new Generic Brown Brick Building. Haphazard buildings with petrified trees holding them up. Not just Detroit but More British.

We live in a so-Sy-ety.

Oh yeah it was intentional. I remembered one thing about twig, woo.

Very good character establishing being done here.

Hi Jamie. Trying not to read too much into initial description seeing as I know some spoilers about them, but not liking how they look with short hair instead of being happy with long hair is relatable. Men's haircuts suck.

I wonder if we ever get details about the gangs previous monster of the week shenanigans. Also if one counts the kittens, this is two mentions of baby murder in the first chapter.

Sy doing his thing is fun. The fact he's like 12(?) and looking down on the ten year old is also fun.

Wildbow fixing his problems with numbers by introducing ten dollars as a lot of money to share between a few ten year olds. Any attempts to calculate how much anything is actually worth in the twigverse is going to be wrapped up in this murkyness.

So you were curious then.

And given Helen's manner of sitting it actually is a recurring problem. god damn it Sy.

Wollstone, after a google, is just a reference to Mary Shelleys mother, and not another real scientist I should feel dumb for not recognizing.

I could not picture Jamie's hiding spot or the way the door was propped up. Taylor and your omniscient swarm to make sense of wildbow tabletop RPG paced fights, I miss you. I'll even take Victorias 'thinker 1' power. Someone stitch echolocation bat ears on Sy or some shit I'm begging you.

Confirmation that Sy was being a twelve year old about the ten year old he was playing.

I guess I can let the lizard thing go if Sy is only calling that because they're giving all their cases dorky saturday morning cartoon names

I remember Sy calling himself dogshit at fighting and I really hope theres more of these moments where shit he tries just fucking fails like this.

The gang of 12 year olds watching a man be devoured by his own creation, and Sy is more interested in putting Lillian in the out group for covering her eyes. I think this is why I dropped twig the second time, I judged it by it's first chapter and thought with the 'monster of the week' type of plot, with the focus on hunting and food, pretty much every death was going to be indulging in vore instead of other fun ideas for death in a 'biopunk' setting. Snake charmer is a decent starter antagonist, I'll probably have more thoughts about him once we have others to compare him to. Being against the academy but wanting to join it, spouting a few lines about

I don't know Sy well enough yet to know if he was lying to me, the reader about the fake fall he made sound natural in the narration, or if he's just actually bad at fighting. There's a post going around about 'real people falling for the acts that characters put on' and Sy might be doing that to me.

Hooray government created child murderers! You did it! See you again in March, apparently.

[bellatrixobsessed1]

Femslash February (Day 16)

Prompt: Blue Fandom(s): Winx & Avatar Pair: Azula/Icy

Summary: Icy pulls a woman out of Lake Roccaluce. A woman who can wield fire  but radiates no magical energy. Icy would like to take this power for her own.

It was the fire, that small flickering blue flame. It draws her in like a wraith to a pure white soul. She is a mystery, she is rather shrouded in it. Mostly she sleeps, and when she wakes she stares at that little blue flame in her palm. Icy thinks that something has broken in the women’s mind; that whatever has transported her here has left a part of her mind where she had been.

Icy runs a comb through her locks. She has already bathed the woman and dressed her for bed. Three days now. This is the longest she has slept for. Icy scoops her up and tucks her into bed. Any longer and she will have to take her to the hospital. Realistically she can’t care for her and food potions can only substitute so much.

She stares at the woman, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, it is the only sign that she is still alive. She picks up her hand and brushes her thumb over the woman’s soft skin. She is warm, she is always so warm. And she supposes that that is a good sign. As good a sign as it is for Icy to be perpetually frigid to the touch.

She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. Her hair is losing its gloss, it isn’t so shimmeringly black anymore. And the woman’s face is becoming hollow, subtly so but just enough to cause alarm. And Icy isn’t sure why she cares. Why this woman in particular leaves her inclined to extend care. The sort that Darcy and Stormy have been questioning for a while now. All she can say is that there is something about her. Something intriguing. Something powerful. Something that would suit their group so well.

This woman certainly isn’t a fairy, she doesn’t have the wings. But she has the magic. Icy sees that little flickering flame in her mind’s eye. It licks in shades of sapphire, it burns hotter than the dragonfire. So much hotter that Icy found herself drawing her whisperian crystal. It should have been easy pickings, to syphon that power from her. She would wake to find it gone and without a clue as to where it had gone. But there had been nothing to pull. No magical energy for the crystal to latch onto and yank.

This woman isn’t a fairy. She isn’t a witch. She has no magical energy and yet that small blue flame dances in her palm.

.oOo.

When she wakes she is still in this world, this strange place with its strange energies and technologies. Azula isn’t entirely sure that it is real at all. It might be that she has gotten herself killed trying to reach the bottom of that spirit pool. Just as possible, is that it has spit her out here in this world. She very vaguely remembers being pulled out of a much larger pond in a thick forest of pine.

She vaguely remembers a cold like none that she has ever felt before. She feels that cold now. It seeps into her bones and puts a queasiness in her belly. There is coldness in death. Cold is death. And maybe it is better this way…

“You’re awake again.��

Azula swallows. It is that woman, the ghost woman. She is always there. Staring with ice blue eyes. She holds herself tall and taller still with white-blue hair fashioned into a high ponytail. Her skin is so pale, so pale that it is nearly white as well.

Her words register. “I’m alive?”

“As far as I know.” The woman shrugs. “This is the first coherent conversation we’ve had. You’ve been here for almost a month. Generally speaking, the undead aren’t good for conversation.”

She can remember it in small blurs. Faint moments where she had woken in spurts to have a meal, toy with her fire, and--every now and then--change clothes. “The undead? You can talk to the undead?”

The woman shrugs again, “sure. Zombies, ghosts, the beasts that I conjure, my sleep paralysis demon…” she trails off.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Icy. Resident asshole. Famous for trying to take over the world. Probably shouldn’t be allowed back on this campus.”

Azula rubs her face.

“Oh, right. You don’t know anything about this world, do you?”

Azula shakes her head. And the longer she is awake in it, the less she understands. There are things she has never seen before and they are all over. Fixtures overhead that light up the room--candles without any flames, rectangles that ring and buzz, bigger and flatter rectangles that glow and flash images, and scrips and scrolls that are wedged and bound into...rectangles. Everything in this world is rectangular.

She dangles her legs over the side of the bed, a curtain of hair falls into her face. “What is this place?”

“Cloud Tower, school for witches. In the realm of Magix.”  

“Cloud Tower…” She furrows her brows. “Like the Air Temples?”

The woman laughs, “what the fuck are you talking about?”

“The Air Temples. Where all of the airbenders used to live. Before my nation eradicated them of course.”

“And where do you come from?”

“The Fire Nation.”

The woman makes a sound, “sounds dreadful.”

She is feeling weak and dizzy all over again. She slumps forward only to feel those cold hands holding her steady.

“Could you possibly stay awake for more than ten minutes? I have questions.”

Azula tries to shake the dizziness from her head. “You have questions? At least you’re in your own...universe.”

She quirks a brow. “True.” She kicks her feet up and rests them upon her dresser. “Just answer me this; what are you?”

“Excuse me?” Azula’s lip curls back. “I’m a human being.” But, Agni, in the back of her mind she hears it all over again. That nagging notion that she is a monster. Some warped, twisted thing.

“Humans can’t make fire with their hands. Fairies can, but you’re not a fairy.” She gestures between Azula’s shoulders. “And you aren’t a witch. You don’t have that…energy. You don’t have magical energy at all. And yet…”

Azula holds her hand out and lets the fire ignite. She closes her eyes and drinks in it’s comforts.

“What are you?”

“I am a human being.” She repeats.

“If you are human, then what do you call those without magic?”

“Nonbenders.” She replies. “That was more than one question.”

“Yes, well you’re going to answer as many questions as I ask.”

Azula gives a haughty sniff. If nothing else, this woman is bringing her back to herself rather quickly. “And why would I do that? Do you think that I haven’t been trained to withstand interrogation?”

“I think that you have no idea what our magic can do. Does your fire come with the ability to…” the frigid woman snaps her fingers and the flameless candle resting on the nightstand shifts into a snake and slithers out of the room.

Azula swallows.

“One time I turned this happy-go-lucky, wannabe witch into a pumpkin. She wasn’t so perky and cheerful then. You don’t strike me as a pumpkin though. Maybe a lizard of some sort.”

Azula narrows her eyes. “I can’t imagine that you’d get many answers from a lizard.” She drops herself back to the pillow and rolls away from this loathsome woman--Icy, she reminds herself.

“You never told me your name.”

“Azula. Princess Azula.”

.oOo.

So another fire princess. Icy would ponder that this woman is Bloom, perhaps from another universe, but she has too much bite. No, that isn’t it. The fairy has bite. This woman has something else. A darkness, a cunning, she can sense it on her in the same way that it radiates off of Darcy.

It is as compelling as her little blue flame. Decidedly she won’t transform the woman into anything, not permanently at least. This Princess Azula is too interesting for something like that.

“I have one more question.”

Azula doesn’t answer, she simply rubs her cheek against the pillow.

“Are you going to start feeding and bathing yourself now or am I going to have to continue?”

The woman’s face goes red. “I am perfectly capable.” She replies stiffly and with an even more rigid, “thank you.”

Well mannered, this one. She might not enjoy Stormy so well. “Well, when you’re more awake, I can introduce you to my sisters.”

“With luck, you’ll never meet my brother.” Azula grumbles. She rolls onto her back and stretches her arms. “Get me something to drink.”

“I don’t take orders. I give them.” Icy replies plainly.

“You aren’t a princess. You take orders.”

Icy quirks a brow, “see that’s the thing, you aren’t a princess here. You aren’t anything at all, really. How can you be when you probably shouldn’t exist here at all. I’ll get you your drink, princess, but consider it a charity.”

She expects the girl to chuck a ball of that strange blue fire and then toss a barrage of furious insults. Instead the girl sits back up and stares at her with a petrifyingly blank expression. She holds her hand out. Oh the dark energy that radiates off of this one is sublime. It holds a coldness that Icy can bask in.

She plucks the glass into her hand. “I don’t like many things, princess, I don’t like anything at all really. Or anyone. But I think that you’ll do just well with me and my sisters.”  

[blondedemon]

i'm bored and in a writing mood so here's a short story. i wrote it in a sudden inspiration for with zero editing so i apologise if it's terrible lol

and i'm not gonna hide it under a 'keep reading' y'all gonna have to scroll

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

There was a child sitting in the deep, bottom corner of her father's garden. The leaf litter was damp and mulching beneath her hands. Countless worms appeared whenever she dug her fingers into the soft soil. A ladybug crept across the thick pumpkin leaves that surrounded her, and there was a line of ants marching over the toes of her bare feet as they made their way home. The world was alive, alive, alive and she was lost in it.

Three small cupcakes sat with her in the dirt before her.

This was a strange sort of child. The type that adults loved to talk about, but never to. Her eyes were always fixed on some distant point on the horizon, or far nearer, on the ground right in front of her nose. But she would rarely meet the eye of someone who tried to address her. This sort of behaviour tends to put people on edge. Adults are discomfited by the feeling that a child might see more than they do. They encounter a child such as this and chatter behind her back; always off with the fairies and she just doesn't focus, that one and I'd really rather my girl doesn't play with her, she seems a poor influence.

The girl hears every word. And understands them all, even if they'd never credit her for it.

She doesn't feel strange. It was just a label attached to the outer edges of her by faces and voices that couldn't see all the way in. The girl was always seeing deeper than they were. It seemed pointless to talk to the giggling, empty children in her class when there were such better friends to be made elsewhere. Her dad would drop her at the gates with a kiss to her forehead and concern wrinkling his own. She would sit through classes, staring at walls and colouring her fingernails in with textas and graphite as her teachers asked her to write about her weekend. Art time was filled with sheets covered in horses and fairies and secret creatures that stared back at her from deep within the leaf litter. Her addition and subtraction equations would blur and muddle with all the numbers fighting and talking to and laughing with each other. Her stories were full of girls being carried away by strange creatures until they were so far from the reaches of anyone who could watch them. Far from anyone who wouldn't understand what she could see.

She had given up on telling people about her friends long ago.

But now, in the dying daylight, they crawled to her. Out of the leaves and soil and branches and rotting wood, their eyes bright and their scales glittering. They clicked as they approached, little noises in the depths of their throats. Heads cocked to the sides as they regarded her, claws digging little marks into the earth beneath their feet. And the girl stayed ever so still. Not even a lock of her hair would dare move in the wind as she waited for them to come nearer. Each one was perhaps only as long as her forearm, and of course, that wasn't very long at all. Their teeth were little daggers hidden behind scaly lips, only visible when they hissed at each other as they tripped over their own feet. She had no reason to fear them. They would never hurt her.

There were two dozen in all. She'd counted them. It was far more than there had been the first time. She'd been crawling in the pumpkin patch looking for pillbugs to put in her bright plastic bucket when she'd stepped on one. Her father had warned her about snakes, slim monsters with fangs that would stop your heart before you noticed they'd bitten you. And so when she felt those scales under her toes and saw that hard-plated body disappear into the twisting vines, her stomach had dropped.

But no snake had legs, did it? Lizards did, though. And dragons.

Her feet had been noticeably free of any vampire-like pinprick wounds, even through all the mud, and so she'd figured she probably wasn't about to die. So she sat herself down under a leaf, huddled down real small, and tried to peek under the next plant to see if she could find thecreature she'd accosted. Two sharp-yellow, slit-pupiled eyes had stared back. And promptly disappeared like a blink when the creature whipped around and disappeared into the dense plants. The girl was unfazed. She sat there for hours until her dad called her all worried-like from the house, calling her in for dinner.

She didn't see the creature again that night. Nor did her father see her until morning. When she crashed into the house, hours and hours and hours later and told her of her brief encounter, her dad had shouted at her for disappearing so long. He cried that he'd been worried sick. He yelled that he'd had to call the police. She didn't understand. She'd been safe, after all. What did it matter that he hadn't known exactly where she was? She'd never left the yard, he had nothing to be concerned about.

She didn't mention her creature again, but her father saw less and less of her that month. She would disappear into the yard with punnets of strawberries or chicken bones from the night before or little cakes that had been brought by classmates celebrating their birthdays, and she would place these in front of her in the dirt in that same spot and wait. Some things worked better than others. Especially the sweeter things. She could tell it was working when the leaves would rustle more aggressively near the ground, as if something was creeping amongst them.

It was a long, long while before she saw anything real again, though.

Her eyes were half closed when it happened. A slice of sweet banana bread lay amongst the leaves before her, and in an instant, it was gone.

There was a lot of banana bread baked in that second month. Her father could hardly believe how much his kid seemed to love it.

The girl learned how to stay so very still. If she got very quiet and convinced herself she was nothing but a rock lying in the garden, she could sit for hours without so much as licking her lips or wriggling her toes. And the banana bread didn't disappear every day. Sometimes the girl ended up eating it, dirt and all, running back inside to curl at her father's feet while he watched television, men running across the screen and kicking small pixellated balls across the grass. But sometimes, she would watch as a clawed paw would stretch out from behind the cover of a low-hanging, broad pumpkin leaf, and snatch the bread from before her eyes.

That was very often followed by concerning but contented growling from the pumpkins. And very enthusiastic chomping noises.

Slowly, the creature grew more confident, and the girl grew more sure that this was no animal her father had told her about, or that showed up in the encyclopaedias that lined the shelves of her school library. Curved claws smoothed into dense, haunched legs. There was a tail that tapered to a whip-thin point at the end, and front legs that could either hold the animal on all fours or stretch up to reach whatever it wanted to grab. It had a stout nose and a broad face with wide, wide eyes that were set under a scaled brow. A row of gentle spines tracing up its nose and between its surprisingly soft-looking ears.

And the entire thing was covered in plated scales in gradients of black and brown and white to create the most striking pattern she'd seen, a spiralling stripy design that bent the light around it and hid it even more convincingly in the shadows of the pumpkin patch.

She didn't breathe the first time she saw it in full. Its yellow eyes were watching her, unblinking, as she watched it back with an equally immobile gaze. It reached forward and clutched her banana bread to its chest and held her gaze for a second before disappearing into the dark again. In her mind, the girl called out to it. But of course she did not say anything. She had to be still, so very still

Now there were so, so many, and they were all over her. One was curled in the arch of her crossed legs, its side rising and falling gently with its sleepy breaths. Its skin was cold when it pressed against her, because it was nearly dark after all, and these creatures didn't make much of ther own heat. Most of them were battling over the thin pickings she'd left for them, because she simply couldn't bring enough cake to feed all of them anymore. Her father had been suspicious enough when she'd been taking banana bread just for one, but now she was catering for a whole army.

Her first dragon was the last to emerge. It stared at her from a distance, and then blinked slowly, slowly, slowly. The girl didn't move. Except for her slow blink in return. And the creature padded over to her, pressing its nose into her side ever so gently.

The girl moved then, and only then. She reached toward her dragon and cupped her hands under its soft belly, lifting its small body to her own. She felt it put its head on her shoulder and she hugged it to her chest, and she was home.

[monstersandmaw]

Male lizardfolk x female reader (nsfw) *Commission*

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

A commission for @ivymemnoch, featuring a nerdy lizardfolk boy (colouring/design based on a European green lizard) and a tall reader. This is the first of my five commissions to be completed and posted on here, and since it’s a paid commission, it doesn’t get early release on Patreon. Enjoy!

8144 words, no warnings, only fluff, some geekery, and some nsfw at the end. I will add though that I discovered that snakes aren’t the only reptiles to have two penises... lizards do too.

---

After a draining, all-day session in the recording studio, the last thing you wanted was to step out of the soundproofed booth and hear the relentless thrumming of raindrops on the windows.

The producer called over to you, briefly drawing your attention away from the foul weather, and grinned. “That was great! You really nailed her character. I think we can press on with the next section on Monday.” The sphinx smiled at you and stretched slightly before adding, “You have a good weekend now. Rest that voice of yours!”

You smiled and turned to look out of the nearest window with a grimace sliding onto your face. “Ugh. What a day to leave my umbrella behind,” you muttered. “Anyway, see you.”

Lingering just a moment more in the doorway of the recording studio, you eyed the rain and then - resigned to smelling like a wet werewolf - made a dash for it. Three seconds after you’d left the building, it doubled in strength and began to thrash down. Up ahead, still illuminated despite the fact that it was after five o’clock, was a shop you’d often thought about going in, but had never made time to venture inside. With an indignant squawk as the universe nudged you not-so-gently towards the comic book store by dripping water down your collar, you hurtled across the empty street, splashing through rapidly-forming puddles, and shot inside, soaked.

Standing on the mat for a moment, you shivered and gazed around at the room beyond. The walls were lined with bookshelves containing relatively ordinary looking books, and in the centre of the room was a lower stand displaying comics. On the top of this shelf, however, was a small army of figurines from a plethora of games and movies, and as you spotted a favourite of yours, you grinned. This place was nerd nirvana.

At the back of the room, surrounded as if in a shrine by a small alcove dedicated to arts and crafts and prop-making supplies for tabletop games, was the counter and cash register. The figure sitting behind it had looked up as you burst into his slice of peaceful heaven and the movement of his colourful head drew your eye over to him. Tall, slim but clearly muscular, with lime green skin speckled with gold and a wash of vibrant blue across his throat and up his cheeks towards friendly, golden eyes, the lizardfolk looking at you in mild surprise was frankly gorgeous.

You blinked stupidly for a second and then blurted, “I promise not to drip on any of the books.”

He grinned, a wide, warm smile that showed a row of pointed white teeth. “Appreciate it,” he said. His amber, unblinking gaze shifted to the rain and he said, “Gods, it’s really throwing it down out there.”

“Yup. I didn’t make it more than a hundred yards from work before bolting for cover. Nice place to duck into though,” you added, eyeing the figurines and graphic novels around you.

“You work near here?” he asked, setting down the tiny model he’d been painting. His clawed fingers were surprisingly slender and delicate.

You nodded. “Currently, at least. I’m a voice actor. The recording studio is just round the corner.”

“Sweet!” he exclaimed. “You voiced any characters I might know?”

You shrugged. “Maybe? I mean, Eliana from Ice Dragon Chronicles is probably the one I’m most known for? Mostly it’s just small parts for all sorts of things though. She was a rare break…”

“No way!” he breathed, “That’s awesome! Oh wow…” and he practically giggled with delight. His blue throat flushed a darker, more vibrant colour too. “That’s so cool. I’m sorry - you probably just wanted to browse in peace, or even just stay out of the rain. I’m sorry.”

Laughing softly, you said, “You know what? I’ve always wanted to check this place out, but I don’t really know where I’d start… I’ve read a few Manga, but I’d like to try a graphic novel…”

He stood, revealing just how tall he was. You were pretty tall yourself, for a human, but he stood easily a head higher than you. He blinked slowly and grinned, twitching his head towards the shelves along the walls. “Here’s one I always recommend to get people started. I warn you though, it’s a slippery slope… If you like this one, you’ll be obsessed in no time. I’m Bik, by the way.”

“I think I can handle it,” you smiled and he chuckled, handing you a slim but beautifully designed book with a dragon on the front and a female knight on a chestnut charger.

The art style was gorgeous and the writing seemed pretty good quality too, and as you leafed through the first few pages, you found yourself drawn in to the story about the female knight and the dragon. Finally you glanced up at him and said, “I’m assuming you don’t want me to read it all here right now…”

“It’d be nice if you bought it,” he grinned playfully.

He’d just reached out to take it from you when the door opened and a hunch-shouldered werewolf pushed inside, having just shaken the worst of the weather off on the doorstep all over their companion. The person behind her was a tiny, slender, and extraordinarily pretty young woman with pastel lilac hair that for some reason looked natural rather than dyed. Despite her almost innocent, childlike looks, she seemed decidedly furious about the soggy insult from the werewolf. In turn behind them came a figure who would have blotted out the daylight in the doorway had there been any to speak of outside.

You’d never met a hobgoblin before, and you tried not to stare as he lumbered in after the other two who had come to an abrupt halt at the sight of Bik and you standing together with your new graphic novel between you. The grin on the werewolf’s face made you think of feeding time at the zoo, and Bik clearly noticed it because his lithe tail swished a few times behind him in annoyance.

“Shall I take that for you?” Bik asked, offering his elegant hand again for the book and leading you over to the till so that you could pay for it.

You smiled and nodded, aware that the small group behind you were muttering between themselves. Bik was obviously aware of it as well, and seemed irritated by it, though you weren’t sure why. As you fished out the right money from your wallet, he muttered, “My D&D group… We meet every Friday. I���m sorry about them.”

“They seem nice,” you smiled, trying to reassure him. “You know, I’ve never played.”

“Really?” he asked, his golden eyes flashing brightly for an instant.

You shook your head and took the book from him, sliding it into your bag to keep it dry. “One thing at a time, eh?” you grinned before he could invite you to join in and he laughed.

“Hope to see you back again,” he added sheepishly. “There are some others I can recommend to you, whether you like that one or not.”

You nodded. He seemed so cute with the way he tilted his head and blinked his big eyes every now and again. His colouring was also astonishingly pretty, looking like a mosaic of gold and green all along his back, with that vibrant zing of blue around his throat. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” you said as you turned to go, and you really meant it.

While you were walking down the row of books towards the door, grateful that the rain seemed to have lessened considerably, you heard the werewolf dig her friend in the ribs and mutter, “Talk about your type!”

“Shut up,” Bik hissed. “Or she won’t come back.”

Of course, you did find yourself returning to his shop, though not on a Friday evening. You were sure his friends were nice, but you weren’t really there to meet them; at least, not just yet.

Bik’s face lit up when you stepped inside and he hopped down off the counter where he’d been sitting like a naughty schoolboy, swinging his legs and reading a comic which sat in his lap. “You came back!” he chirruped as he set it aside and came over. He wore tight-fitting jeans with a big hole tailored in the back for the thick root of his tail, and a blue t-shirt with a faded print on.

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” you asked, aiming for playful but still coming across as a little shy, perhaps even coy. “You said you had more recommendations for me…”

“You liked it then?”

“Loved it! The twist at the end was amazing.”

His toothy grin made your stomach flip over and you glanced away as a blush rose up your cheeks.

You spent the next half an hour dissecting every detail about the first book he’d recommended, and from there, he chose three others that might suit.

Over the next few weeks, you returned to the shop regularly, and on one blustery August afternoon, you found him preparing some props for his next D&D session. Instead of talking books, you asked him about them, and he tilted his head in that adorable way he had, glancing over the half-finished figurines and what looked like a maquette of an old castle ruin or something.

“Did you make that too?” you asked, and he nodded.

“Yeah. It helps with the game, but honestly I just enjoy making stuff…”

“They’re beautiful! You could work in the props department at a film company or something.”

His blue throat became so vibrant in contrast with his lime green skin that it almost hurt to look at him, and he half turned away. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I get a lot of free time in the shop; fellow nerds aren’t too thick on the ground here, if you know what I mean. Hey, listen,” he added, scratching the back of his head with a clawed finger. “I’ve… uh… I’ve been wondering if maybe you’d like to come along to a session one day? You don’t have to take part or anything if you don’t want to, and we are, like, halfway through this campaign, but if you wanted to you could fill in for one of the NPCs or something… But… uh…” He trailed off, embarrassed and picked up one of the half-finished mimic chests on the counter top.

You watched as he turned it over in his delicate fingers and then chuckled. “You know what? I’d love to.”

At that, he dropped it and spun back around. “You’re serious?”

“Sure! Why not?” you asked, stooping to pick it up and handing it back to him. “Should I bring snacks?”

“Oh my god, could you get any more perfect!” he blurted and then laughed, staring down at the miniature mimic in his hands as if hoping that it might just eat him up on the spot. “Snacks would be amazing, but you don’t have to. Usually we take it in turns to bring something. It’s Oleander’s turn this Friday.”

“Oleander?”

“I don’t know if you remember her, but she’s the tiny one with the purple hair. She’s half fae and all sass. She bakes the most amazing sugar cookies though…”

“Got a sweet tooth then?” you asked and he nodded.

“Duly noted. Tell me about the others? Was the big one a hobgoblin?”

Bik nodded. “Yeah, that’s Jos. He’s kind of shy, but he’s great once you get to know him. He’s playing this tiny elven bard, and she’s -” he broke off, realising he was about to go off on a long and potentially quite boring waffle about their characters. Clearing his throat, he said instead, “Anyway, so yeah, that’s Jos. The werewolf is Emma. She’s… a bit brash and loud at times, but she means well.”

“How do you guys all know each other?” you asked, moving over to examine the figurines on the counter while he talked.

“From school, actually,” he laughed, setting the mimic back down. “It’s the typical - stereotypical I guess - thing of a bunch of rejects forming a bit of a ragtag band, and we’ve just been best mates ever since.”

With a fond smile, you firmly agreed to come to their next session.

You showed up with a bag of cookies, not wanting to seem tight but equally not wanting to try and one-up the resident baker in the group. You were also running a tad late after the recording session had run over, and the door was locked when you arrived at quarter past seven, and you had to bang on the glass repeatedly until Bik scuttled out to rescue you.

“I’m so sorry!” he said as he stepped to one side and let you in. “I thought I left it off the latch for you! I should also have given you my number. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine!” you laughed as he cringed. “But I wouldn’t say no to having your number…”

He went still and then smiled.

You followed him into a storage room at the back of the shop which had been decked out with flickering LED candles, and in the centre of the room was a round table set up for their game. They hadn’t really started yet, and Oleander was, to your surprise, sitting in Jos’ lap. He pecked her affectionately on the top of the head and picked her up, setting her back down on the ground. The werewolf, Emma, snuffed at the air and turned around, tail wagging from between the slats of her chair.

“Hey!” she grinned, leaping up and stepping over to hug you. “I’m sorry. I’m a hugger. You made it though! And…” and she sniffed ostentatiously, “And you brought goodies!”

“I couldn’t not bring goodies,” you chuckled, handing the modest bag of cookies to Bik.

“Tibikthio,” Emma said in a mock-formal tone to Bik, “You picked a good one.”

You turned slowly to the lizardfolk who had closed his eyes in semi-horror. “I hate it when you use my full name,” he groaned.

“Tibikthio…” you repeated. “I like it…”

You caught the tiniest flicker of something cross his face but it was gone a second later.

“Well he hates it!” Emma barked. “Come on, pull up a chair.” She adopted a silly accent, like some old crone, and added, “There’s plenty of room, m’dear!”

Smiling, you glanced at Bik, who still looked a bit embarrassed about the whole name thing, and then you settled in between him and Emma as the game began.

To start with, you stayed on the periphery, letting them tell their story and act it out. Some of them would have made good voice actors, though Oleander tried a bit too hard in places. But they were having an absolute blast. Bik was the dungeon master, weaving elements of improv and story-crafting seamlessly into one narrative, though there were some gaffes and hilarious moments when it all fell apart. By the end of the session, you had cried tears of laughter until your stomach hurt, and had had your heart in your mouth for the entirety of one fight in a long-lost temple.

It was past ten when they wrapped up, and Bik insisted that they just leave everything there for next time. “It’s late,” he said, “And who wants to tidy up now anyway…?” He was met with a chorus of nods and yawns.

Your stomach growled though as you stood and you felt a bit light-headed.

“You ok?” Bik asked, head tilting quizzically. “You look a bit squiffy… Didn’t make you queasy with all the guts and goop at the end of the fight, did I?”

Reassuring him, you told him you had just missed supper that night because of work, and he looked horrified. “There’s a place round the corner that’s open til midnight. You want to grab something?”

Your initial reaction was to refuse politely and say you’d rustle something up when you got home, but you happened to catch Oleander’s violet eyes as she looked from Bik to you with what could only have been described as a look of hope on her face, so you took a gamble and nodded. “Sure, I’d like that.”

Bik shut up the shop and bid his friends goodnight. Oleander winked at him but offered no comment before demanding that Jos carry her home, which he dutifully did. Bik caught you looking at them and smiled. “They’ve been together since they were sixteen. Real high school sweethearts.”

“They’re adorable,” you offered. “I mean, they’re kind of polar opposites, but… it’s nice.”

“There’s hope for those of us who tend to prefer other species…” Bik muttered playfully. “Come on, it’s not far.” As you walked along the empty street, he asked, “Did you have fun?”

“I did,” you replied honestly. “I had no idea it was so…” you waved your hand while you searched for exactly the right word.

“Nerdy?”

You snorted a laugh and corrected him. “Complicated… involved… complex…”

He shrugged casually and shivered. “It’s what you make of it, I guess. We’ve been plotting this particular campaign for months. It’s nice to be able to play it finally!” He shivered again and hugged his bare arms around himself, claws scratching slightly on his rough skin.

“Are you cold?”

He nodded. “I forgot my jacket. I’m not very good with the cold. It’s a lizardy thing.”

The evening wasn’t particularly chilly, but you supposed he was cold-blooded.

“You want my jacket?” you asked. “I think your shoulders are slim enough that it’d probably fit you.”

He shot you an odd look. “Isn't the guy supposed to be the one to offer that to the girl?”

“Only if you stick to stuffy old gender roles,” you grinned. “You want it or not?”

“Yes please,” he mumbled and took it off you with a grateful smile. He looked odd wearing it, but he burrowed into it for the remainder of the short walk to the late-night restaurant.

The two of you sat down and chatted, and you remarked on just how relaxed it felt.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s… It’s nice. I’m glad you got rained on all those weeks ago…”

“Me too,” you laughed. He was a dork, but you liked that he felt genuine, and that his sense of humour was a bit off the wall.

The restaurant wasn’t fancy by any stretch of the imagination, but the food they served looked amazing. Run by a big Highland minotaur with a massive belly and a hearty laugh, it offered exactly the kind of meal you needed after not having had much all day, and the two of you took a seat in a quiet corner on some comfortable, diner-style benches.

The lizardfolk who took your order reminded you of a gecko, and had pinkish colouring and large, blue eyes. While you had always been drawn to lizardfolk, somehow no one seemed to compare to Bik lately.

While you waited for your food, Bik interrupted your musing and asked, “What made you get into voice acting? Maybe next time you can voice some of the other characters they meet…?”

“I think I’d like that,” you admitted. “Normally everyone just asks me to do impressions of famous people, you know, because I have an ear for accents and all that.”

He smiled and rested his chin in his hands, staring at you unblinkingly. It might have made anyone else seem a bit intense, but with him it just seemed endearing. As much as he loved to tell a story, he seemed just as happy to listen to one too.

“Honestly, I kind of fell into it. I did music and drama at college and was all set to go down the ‘traditional’ acting line, but I found I was more comfortable bringing characters to life with my voice than my entire body. It’s still really hard work though. Most people reckon that if you can do a few accents or a funny voice, that’s it, but it’s so much more than that.”

He nodded in agreement. “Oh absolutely! I mean, I think I gathered as much just from what we do in our little amateur group. We all sit round a table and we say our ‘lines’, and we all bring our characters to life as convincingly as we can. We’ve been doing it for years, but we’re still not very good!” Bik grinned at you, showing all his teeth, and you smiled back. A moment later he added, a bit dreamily, “I still can’t believe you voiced Eliana. She’s one of my favourite characters ever! I love that game. I wish she’d been a playable character…”

You laughed, honestly a bit bashful.

Before it could become awkward, your food arrived and the two of you chatted some more around mouthfuls of delicious, humble, homely food until you thought you were going to burst.

“Oh man,” you groaned, sitting back in your seat. “I won’t need to eat for a week!”

Bik smiled and said, “I actually probably won’t eat for a week.”

“Wow, that’s…”

“Economically beneficial?” he snickered. “True. I’d rather be like that than like Jos. He has to eat six meals a day just to fuel his body.” He leaned on the table and added in a conspiratorial stage whisper, “And you know what? Oleander eats just as much as he does.”

“No way!” you gasped. “But she’s tiny! How does she do it?”

“She’s half Fae,” he said. “There’s probably magic involved.”

“Lucky her,” you muttered. “Though on second thoughts, grubbing up six meals a day sounds like a lot of effort. But seriously though, I am so full.”

The minotaur who owned the place came out at that moment and said in a heavily accented rumble, “Ach, too bad! I was gonna offer you’s some dessert!” He waggled a pair of menus at you hopefully.

“We’ll just have to come back next week,” you said and the minotaur laughed heartily.

Bik seemed sleepy after the heavy meal, but he walked you back to your place and you exchanged an awkward hug on the threshold. You got the sense that it wasn’t just you who wished it had been more, but neither of you was ready to make that leap just yet.

That first Friday was the first of many trips to the shop to watch them play D&D together, and after only a few weeks, you began to join in more activelyn. And so you found yourself lending your vocal cords to street merchants and beggars, high nobles and sea captains as the unlikely group made their way across their fictional land. The tables had turned a bit, and now it was you who made them helpless with laughter, even mimicking Oleander’s very particular speech patterns when the group ran into a mimic.

“That’s amazing!” she said. “Are you sure you’re not Fae?”

“No,” you said, “I mean, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I’m very ordinary…”

“You’re not ordinary at all!” Bik blurted and everyone burst out laughing.

“We all know that Bik’s got the hots for you!” Emma grinned.

Oleander chimed in with, “Well, as much as a cold-blooder can have the ‘hots’ for anyone…”

“Oi,” Bik grunted. “I’m sitting right here you know!”

“Better speak up more often,” Oleander teased playfully, chucking him affectionately under the chin like he was a favourite hunting hound or something, “Or she won’t notice you…”

“I’m going to write you all into a jail cell next week,” the dungeon master grumped. “Then you’ll be sorry.”

After that session, he claimed he was tired and begged off going to supper with you. Of course you said it was fine, but you had grown used to your private suppers together and fought off the lump of disappointment that lodged itself unexpectedly in your throat. He waved and slouched off down the street, leaving the rest of you outside the dark and empty shop.

“I think you went a little far this time,” Jos commented in his deep, gravelly voice to the two girls and they sighed. “He’s always been very sensitive about… you know, ‘matters of the heart’…”

“Yeah. Poor thing,” Oleander said and she looked at you with her large purple eyes. “The more he likes someone, the more awkward he can get. I’m sorry we butchered it tonight for you though. I’ll make it up to you. Fae’s honour.” After a pause, she added, “You do like him, right?”

“Very much,” you admitted quietly. “He’s very gentle. It’s nice.”

“He used to play lacrosse back in high school,” Jos grinned. “He wasn’t gentle then! But he’s sweet when it comes to people he cares about. He looked out for me at school.”

You shot him a surprised look and he laughed. “I’m sorry,” you said quietly. “You just don’t look much like the type who needs anyone to look out for them…”

Oleander patted his colossal forearm and cooed, “Ol’ Jos here wouldn’t say boo to a housefly, would you darling?” He smiled affectionately at her and said nothing. “We’ve always been the outcasts and misfits I guess. Bik’s the most normal one of the lot of us, all things considered.”

Emma announced with a sudden curse that she was running late to meet her girlfriend, and loped off into the night on all fours with an accompanying farewell howl, her backpack bouncing around on her shoulders, and Oleander and Jos bid you goodnight and headed off towards the bus stop, leaving you to make your own way back. It was strange not to have Bik by your side that night, and it made you realise how close you’d become to him over the last few weeks.

Back home, you curled up on the sofa, not ready to start thinking about bed just yet, and had just got your phone out to drop him a text when your message tone chimed at you. The way your heart clenched with excitement at the sight of Bik’s name on the notification made you pause a moment and wonder just what this affection for him was turning into. Images of his bright green skin and golden eyes darted across your mind; the sound of his laugh, the way his tail coiled itself off the ground when he walked, the way his clawed hands held the little props he liked to make… You’d been telling the truth when you’d admitted to Oleander just how much you liked him.

‘Hey’, his text began. ‘Sorry I bailed like that. Did you get home ok?’

‘:) yeah,’ you replied. ‘And it’s fine. I get it, but they meant well. And I’m looking forward to the next session already!”

Jos was the one who finally insisted that you had to become a permanent member of their fictional gang. Casting a look at Bik as you all loitered in the main shop after the session, you saw the way he bit his thin lips and coiled his tail around one ankle. “Should I?” you asked.

You’d grown in confidence around them, glad to have been welcomed into their group, and he nodded mutely.

“That doesn’t seem very enthusiastic…” you shot with tongue-in-cheek humour dancing in your eyes.

“Obviously he’d love that,” Emma said. That day she wasn’t in her wolf form, and it was one of the few times you’d ever seen her as such. She had ash blonde hair with a harsh side-shave above her left ear while the rest was long, tied back in a ponytail. Her body was strong and muscular, and honestly she was utterly gorgeous.

You cocked an eyebrow at him and adopted the tone of one of the temple guardians you’d voiced for them earlier that evening. “Come now,” you said with mock sternness, “Speak the truth, young dragonling…”

Bik immediately caught on and followed the joke as he spoke in the voice of his dragonborn bard, quavering and simpering. “Please… oh Great One, don’t make me speak more on the subject… I’m only a worthless wyrm…”

You closed the short distance between the two of you and leaned in close. His jaw slackened slightly, his throat bobbing, and his beady, amber eye locked onto your face. “You are no such thing,” you smiled. Biko’s throat worked nervously. Drawing back, you added, “And I’d love to join the group. You’ll have to help me think of a character.”

Bik still looked like he’d suffered a minor heart attack, but Jos whooped and Oleander giggled. “Great!” they said as one.

You turned to Bik and said, “Maybe you and I can chat it over after dinner, if you’re still up for our usual post-session snack?”

“Definitely,” he croaked, voice sounding thick and slightly awestruck. He looked a bit stunned, but you decided it was in a good way.

He held the door open for you and you stepped close to him as you headed out into the late evening, pressing a hand flat against his chest as you passed, and murmured, “Thanks.”

He recovered quickly, though he did seem to be concentrating very hard on the task of locking up the shop, and as the two of you walked away from the others, he kept glancing down at you.

“What?” you finally asked with a giggle.

“Nothing.”

“It’s clearly something…” you pressed, turning and walking backwards so you could look at his face. “Regretting your decision to let me join the gang?”

“Not at all!” he replied, apparently horrified that your thoughts had gone there. “No… The opposite actually…”

“Oh,” you sighed.

He breathed your name and then stopped. You drew to a halt as well, watching him with a hammering heart. Starting to talk again seemed tricky, but he managed it. “I… Uh… I’m really glad you’re… you know… around… Ah, shit… I’m so bad at this…”

“I’m glad I’m around too,” you said, and you slid your hand into his. His skin was rough and cool, and your first thought was that you would very much like it against other parts of your body.

Bik tightened his grip on your fingers briefly and let out a breathy, nervous laugh. “I’ve never, uh… courted a human before… Is that even the right term for it?”

“You can call it what you like,” you said. “And you don’t have to do anything special or different. Just… keep hanging out with me. Maybe we could watch a movie or something some time?”

“Ok,” he said, swallowing thickly again. “Let’s go somewhere different for dinner?”

You turned your eyes from his to the restaurant sign just up ahead. “But we always go here,” you said. “And we’re almost there… Where else is going to be open at this time of night?”

“You could… come back to my place?” he asked. “I mean, it’s nothing special, but… I’m a tidy reptile, I promise! No hoards of strange things either. I’m not a dragon…”

You had to laugh at his oddball sense of humour that only got quirkier the more apprehensive he got. He also couldn’t stop his throat from fanning slightly too, the reptilian version of sweating nervously you supposed. “Alight. I’d like that.”

The upper storey of the old house where he lived was open plan, with beautiful bare rafters and sloping ceilings, and hardwood floors. His claws clacked adorably on them when he moved about. He also had the heating on stupendously warm, and you took your coat and jumper off immediately. “Sorry,” he said when he saw what you were doing.

You reassured him, and started to look about a little bit while he busied himself in the kitchen and poured you both a drink.

There were bookshelves on practically every available space, and as well as containing a collection of rare first editions and hard-to-come-by novels, they also sported photos, some in battered frames and others just propped up here and there. Most of them featured lizardfolk who looked a lot like him. “Family?” you asked and he came over to stand beside you.

“Yeah. We were a big clutch,” he said as he held the glass out for you. “Poor mum! There are twelve of us.”

He told you the names of each of his siblings, and what they were up to now, but you were really only half listening to the words. There was something magical about his voice, some unearthly quality it took on when he began to tell a story, regardless whether that was a story about his own life or a fantasy tale made up with his friends.

“What?” he asked softly.

“I… I like the sound of your voice,” you said honestly, and you reached your fingers tentatively up to touch the blue of his throat. He drew in a shaky breath, eyes closing as his reptilian head tilted upwards to allow you better access to him. “You’re very beautiful,” you whispered. “The colour of your skin is incredible… I like this bit too,”  you added, running a finger down his cheek where it blended from green speckled with gold to intense blue.

Bik brought his hands to your shoulders and looked down at you, blinking slowly. “Really?” he asked. “It’s not very… I mean… most males of my species have much deeper blue… I mean, just look at my brothers,” he added awkwardly, nodding at a picture behind you.

“I like your blue,” you chuckled without turning around.

Embarrassed, but obviously deeply flattered, he brushed his knuckle against your cheek and said, “Would you like that supper or do you have other things on your mind?”

With a grin, you said, “I suppose I could be distracted by food…” you admitted grudgingly as your stomach rumbled.

You watched him walk away to the kitchen area of the loft apartment, and sighed. This was turning into exactly what you’d hoped it might - a friendship blossoming into something deeper.

Wanting to test that theory, you crossed to join him and, while he still had his back to you, you slid your arms around his slender waist and hugged him. “You need a hand?” you asked, pressing your cheek against his back.

“I… I was going to suggest takeout,” he said bashfully, glancing back over his shoulder at you. “But if you want me to cook, I can?”

You shook your head. “It’s getting late,” you said, releasing him. “Another time. Let’s get takeout.”

While you waited for the food to arrive, you bickered playfully over movie choices, finally settling on some cheesy old film about a dragon who shared his heart with a selfish boy. It was actually pretty good, but it was still horrendously dated in places. It didn’t matter to you though. The food was really good, and the two of you snuggled up on the sofa to eat, with you leaning against his side.

“I couldn’t do this with many people,” you said, nudging him gently with your elbow.

“Do what?”

“Cosy up under someone’s arm. I’m usually too tall.”

He chuckled and swallowed. “Never dated an orc then, I take it.”

You shook your head. “Not dated all that much at all to be honest.”

“What? But your gorgeous,” he blurted and his skin flushed a much darker green. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“You didn’t,” you said and put your hand reassuringly on his thigh. He jumped and then slid his arm around your shoulders, setting his empty takeout box down on the coffee table beside the sofa.

He gazed at you, a more serious look in his eyes, and said, “You know, I couldn’t help noticing your choices of media…” You flicked him a frown and he went on. “Ok, the first graphic novel with the dragon was on me, but everything else has also had dragons or lizards in…”

“You detecting a preference here?” you sassed gently.

“Am I?”

With an ostentatious roll of your eyes, you said, “I mean, I’ve always thought your kind extremely beautiful, but my interest in you is to do with you. It’s not some empty kink. You know that, right?”

He nodded slowly. “Just checking.”

“And what about you?” you said, also setting your empty food box down and shifting your position so that you came to rest astride his lap, the film almost over, forgotten and playing in the background. “I have to admit that your dragonborn seems to like humans rather a lot… Have you got a thing for us warmbloods?”

His throat worked and he didn’t meet your eye for a moment. “I mean… yes…” he said, and his clawed hands found your wide hips. He ran a circle carefully over them and moaned, his own hips shifting a little beneath you. “But when you walked into my shop, all bedraggled and soaking wet, I’d honestly never seen anyone more beautiful in my whole life.”

You laughed and kissed his cheek. He turned his head slightly as you moved away and drew you back for a proper kiss. His claws raked gently through your hair, messing it up as he gripped you firmly but tenderly, and his tongue slid slowly out to taste you, savouring the kiss. It wasn’t a conventional kiss like those you were used to, but it worked perfectly well. You rolled your hips against him once again and he broke the contact, letting his head fall back against the sofa cushions. His tail coiled and uncoiled beside you on the sofa and you reached for it.

“Can I touch you here?” you asked and he nodded breathlessly.

He gasped as you stroked your fingertips along the slightly rough skin of his tail and he brought the tip of it up to caress the back of your hand.

“Kinky,” you grinned and he snickered.

Bik, somewhat slack-jawed and clearly aroused, brought his blunt muzzle to the curve where your neck met your collarbones, and inhaled the scent of you deeply. His tail coiled tightly around your wrist for a moment before unravelling and falling limply onto the sofa again. “I want you,” he rasped.

You let your hips grind into him again and he gasped and uttered a soft curse under his breath as he stared almost reverently up at you. You nodded, and his claws hooked the hem of your top and lifted it up carefully, revealing your bra and he made short work of the clasp. Taking the weight of each breast in his hands, he caressed you and then, with pupils blown wide and dark so that his irises were a mere halo of gold, he took your nipple delicately between his sharp teeth and very gently sucked, moaning softly as he repeated the gesture on the other one. His rasping tongue curled around them too as they hardened under his attentions and you gave a shaky exhale.

“So beautiful,” he whispered as he let go, leaving you throbbing and tingling. “Gods, you’re so beautiful.”

“Bik…” you groaned when he stopped touching you so that he could simply stare at your half-naked body in his lap.

He smiled and to your immense surprise, simply stood up, hooking his arms under your thighs as you gripped his waist instinctively with your legs. He was a lot stronger than he looked and you nearly yelped in surprise. “I’ve got you,” he said as he carried you towards his open bedroom door, nudging it shut behind him with his tail.

He laid you down on top of the duvet and undressed the rest of you slowly, savouring the sight of you as he gradually revealed your body. You looked up at him dazedly and saw the tent straining against his jeans. “Bik… Not fair,” you said. “You’re still dressed.”

More nervously now that the attention was on him, he took off his own t-shirt to reveal a pale, creamy green stomach and chest. He was still stippled with other hues of green and even a few freckles of black, but his front was mostly pale. His lean waist and narrow hips looked deliciously inviting and you sat up and ran your fingers around the inside of his waistband just to watch him shiver beneath your touch.

His hands hung quietly by his sides as you undid the button of his jeans and he stepped out of them carefully. His taloned feet were as delicate as his hands, and you marvelled at them too before letting your gaze sweep up his slim, strong calves to his thicker and more muscular thighs and to the tight, black boxer-briefs that hugged every single curve of his body.

Bik lay down beside you without taking them off and raked his claws up the length of your legs and, applying a little pressure to your hip, pushed you onto your back. With his tail, he tugged your right ankle close to his body and parted your legs enough for him to run the pad of his thumb in a slow, teasing circle around the soft, sensitive skin above your clit.

Your body lurched joyously at his touch and you sucked in a breath. You began to tingle all over, heat prickling beneath your skin as he woke your whole body up with reverent kisses and touches.

“Can I taste you?” he asked a while later after he’d reduced you to a writhing, whimpering mess, and you nodded.

After you moved further up the bed to give him more room, he reverently placed both palms on your hip bones and nosed gently at your sex. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe and you cried out and arched your back as he laved over your lips and just flicked your clit with the tip of his tongue.

“You taste so beautiful,” he said before returning his attention to your body. He circled and nudged at you, dipping his tongue deep inside you as well, always coming back to your clit until you were almost screaming with want.

“Bik, please… Please make me come,” you panted. “I’m so close…”

“Can humans only come once then?” he asked with over-accentuated ignorance, and you knew from the tone of his voice that he knew the answer to that already. You growled inarticulately at him and he pulled back. “I’d better stop then.”

“No!” you half sobbed. “Please…”

Smiling softly, he stared at you and moved his thumb back to your swollen clit. His claws were too sharp for him to work you inside, but the pattern he made on your skin with his tongue was enough to drive you right to the edge, and then as the white heat built inside you, you felt your orgasm rolling over you like a great ocean breaker and you cried out, grasping at the sheets. As you came, he pressed his tongue hard against you, savouring you as you came against him.

When you eventually slumped back against the pillows, breathing hard and almost dizzy with how good you felt, you half opened one eye to find that he had lain down on his back and was palming his erection through the fabric of his boxers.

“Bik?” you asked in a slightly slurred whisper. Your fingers moved to the waistband and he tensed slightly. “Bik?”

Licking his lips nervously, he nodded and you drew his boxers off. At the top of his legs was a mounded sheath which quite obviously contained not one but two cocks. Neither was necessarily all that large, but they were very beautiful, and fully erect.

“We’re not exactly built like humans,” he said bashfully as you stared openly at him. “I… I was worried that -” he cut off with a deep grunt as you trailed your fingers around the edges of his sheath. His twin cocks - both a bright vibrant green tipped with blue - writhed slightly, coiling around one another and glistening with the same clear fluid that slicked his sheath.

“You’re beautiful, remember?” you reminded him, shakily propping yourself upright on one elbow to get a better look at him. You repeated the gesture, running your fingers tips around his sensitive sheath, and he accepted your words as truth as you started to worship him with the same careful tenderness he’d just shown you.

As you lavished attention on him, he started to unravel.

Soon his spine bowed up off the bed and his hips squirmed as you worked his twin cocks in one hand. The tighter you gripped him, the more noise he made as they twisted together beneath your fingers, and you finally wrung a deep, guttural, low-frequency rumble out of him that reminded you more of an alligator than the more delicate lizards he resembled.

“Gods,” he rasped, “You make it feel like spring…” and you knew he was referring to the traditional lizardfolk mating season. You’d just lowered your mouth to the tip of one of his cocks and given it a tentative suck when he blurted, “Can I come inside you?”

You nodded, and he switched positions with you so that he was on top. The heat of his cocks was a delicious contrast to the constant coolness of the rest of him and you bucked upwards against him just to feel them pressing against your sensitive clit.

“Both?” he asked warily and you nodded again, shifting so that he could line himself up. He kissed down your neck and between your breasts again before he nudged the tips of his cocks to your entrance. As he slid into you, slowly stretching you full, you watched his face carefully. Again, he began to rumble softly and he almost couldn’t speak as he hissed, “So tight… so hot… gods, you’re so hot…”

With a final push of his hips, he slid all the way inside you and paused a moment, clearly fighting the instinct to come almost immediately. Recovered, breathing steadily, he began to slide in and out, his rhythm increasing in tempo as he lost himself in the sensations of your body. The way his cocks felt inside you, twisting together and shifting in a way that no toy could ever hope to replicate, was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you knew you were going to come again in no time.

“I’m…” he grunted.

“Me too,” you said, grabbing his rough-skinned arms and pulling yourself even further onto his cocks. “Bik, I’m going to come again.”

“Fuck,” he croaked as you clenched tight around him with a cry.

You wrenched his orgasm from him with the force of your own and he arched his spine, hips driving him deep inside you as he released, and he yelled out, voice hoarse, the sound cracked and broken. His jaws parted to reveal his sharp teeth and you kept your grip on his arms as you came a second time.

He shuddered violently, grunting and breathing hard through flared nostrils, and then fell forwards, barely catching himself in time on his forearms. He was spent and exhausted and so beautiful. His blue colouring shone in the dim light of his bedroom and you trailed your fingers lazily along the bridge of his nose towards his lips.

“That was incredible,” he whispered when he’d got his breath back. “I didn’t hurt you did I?”

“No,” you smiled and he hugged you briefly, lapping a little lizardy kiss on your forehead before pushing himself up on shaking arms and sliding free of you. His cocks coiled briefly in the warm air and he rolled onto his back beside you. With your thighs still slick with his release, you tucked yourself up beside him and took your time in exploring his relaxed body. Where before he had been tense, almost nervous, worried that his non-human body would be too strange for you, now he seemed to have fallen peacefully into a haze of bliss, and he let your hands roam all over his torso and down to his hips while wearing a soft smile the whole time.

His cocks lay soft across his skin, occasionally twitching and drooling a little, but eventually they began to shift back into his sheath. He slid his hand down and adjusted them, and shot you a look. “You really do like lizardfolk, huh?”

With a wry grin, you shook your head and said, “I really do just like you.”

—

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Winter Solstice Gift for lanerose23

This is super self-indulgent but hopefully entertaining too. I’ve tried to not stray beyond the cultural lanes established in the drama, but if I’ve erred or overstepped, please let me know so I can be better. Also, I obsessively watched the show on, like, five different platforms with five different sets of subtitles, so this is sort of a medley of names/translations that seemed to flow best in this tale.

For @lanerose23 for the Wangxian Winter Solstice Gift Exchange. I tried to come through on bunnies, fluff, happy endings, and "safe, sane" sexy times! Happy holidays! <3

Read On AO3

*****

The Great Bird's Promise

Inside his shell, he heard the promise. The great bird said that she would deliver them to families who would love them.

Her wings spanned the width of the sky, beak as large as the sun, as she flew with a basket in her talons. Within the woven bamboo jostled the eggs of every living species on Earth—humans, still new and learning to walk upon the soil; fish and lizards and snakes and the old species who had made this world their own.

A heavy wind blew from a mountain that had not been so tall the day before, for they were growing, too. It shook the bird’s massive feathers, shuddering her expansive wings. She dodged the gust, greeted the new mountain, and didn’t notice when a single egg dropped from her basket.

This one lonely egg plummeted through empty sky and landed in the thatch of a pine tree. The branches reached out from the cliff, sparse and cascading. The egg trembled and began to hatch.

The creature inside, naked, blind, heart beating fast with what could be called excitement and what could be called fear, was called a rabbit.

The huge unblinking eyes of a snowy owl watched the eggshell fall away to expose the fragile form inside. The tiny hairless thing that was called rabbit did not, right now, look like one. He shivered in cold mountain breezes. “Will you love me?” the rabbit asked, for he had heard the great bird’s promise.

The snowy owl pondered this. “If you’re silent,” he answered, fluttering on his perch, “and always stand tall and elegant and do just as I do.”

He would, the rabbit vowed inside. He would forever and ever.

___________

The silences of Cloud Recesses were all wrong. Wuxian turned fitfully on the fine bed with its fine pillows and missed the sounds of Lotus Pier, the insects chirping and fishermen casting nets with soft splashes. Plus, he wasn’t tired. It was barely night and already everything had been shut up tight. He was tempted to break out, perhaps sneak to Nie Huaisang’s quarters and invite him into some mischief, but thoughts of Shijie’s disappointment kept him inside this time.

He wondered where Lan Zhan slept; he was probably already deep asleep in twenty layers and rigid from head to toe, pretty and perfect as an ice sculpture. He’d heard that Lan Zhan played guqin and he’d heard Lan Zhan was already one of the best. Wuxian wanted to hear him play and see what he could learn from the methods. Or maybe he just wanted to watch him play, elegant and handsome and stone-faced.

Wuxian turned onto his back with a groan. It was annoying that Lan Zhan was so attractive. It was annoying that Wuxian couldn’t stop thinking about him. Surely, Lan Zhan would be so boring to touch, he thought, surely it would be like kissing a dead fish, but he couldn’t really believe it because he’d seen Lan Zhan fight. He was fierce and intense and intelligent and appealing, so obnoxiously, effortlessly appealing. If they could have fooled around weeks ago like he’d wanted, Wuxian wouldn’t be in this situation. He grumbled and turned onto his stomach again.

“Wei Wuxian! Go to sleep,” Jiang Cheng growled from his bed. “I can’t sleep with you flopping around!”

Wuxian pouted at him in response, but he tried to lay still. He closed his eyes, settled his head on his pillow, and tried to sleep. He tried to not think of Lan Zhan.

Courtyards away and hours later, Wangji sat poised in meditation, incense a lazy curl of smoke around him. Today’s lectures would begin soon. Today, as every other day, Wangji vowed to be the example Uncle expected of him.

Back straight, hands atop his knees, he breathed evenly, a rhythm as familiar as Inquiry. He appeared as placid as a frozen lake in winter.

Inwardly, he thrashed. He tried to focus on the thrum of his golden core, but instead thought of a bright toothy smile and a laugh that echoed off the Cloud Recesses quiet walls. Wei Wuxian, who broke all wards. Wangji wanted to fight him. He wanted to kiss him. He wanted to silence him. He wanted to hear his every thought. He wanted him to leave and never come back. He wanted him to stay and never go. He wanted to avoid him. He wanted to find him.

He wanted. He wanted. He wanted and he hated wanting. Wanting opened a cavern inside him that he couldn’t fill. Wanting stoked hungers he had no intention of feeding. He would extinguish them forever if he could. He wanted to look upon Wei Wuxian, his smiles, his talents, his body, his brilliance and rebellion, and feel nothing. Instead, the gaping wound of want split open inside him, spilling desire all through him, melting the ice of him. Filling him with want.

Outwardly, Wangji’s little finger tremored on his knee.

___________

The rabbit felt so proud when his fur grew in white and downy as owl feathers. With the owls, the rabbit stood as tall as he could and thought how striking they must look together, though he was still quite small.

But when the owls took to the air, he couldn’t follow. When they returned with beaks full of creatures that were no bigger than he, the rabbit felt queasy. The elegant snowy owl blinked knowing eyes at him and the rabbit understood.

He carefully descended the towering pine tree, the only home he’d known, and began searching for where he belonged.

Soon, the rabbit found a little gathering of field mice. Hope bloomed inside him. They were even smaller than he was! They couldn’t fly through the air and wouldn’t return with beaks full of meat.

“Will you love me?” he asked, gazing into tiny black eyes. The mouse’s nose twitched a little like his, whiskers bouncing as she looked him over.

“If you stay small,” the field mouse answered, “and you never scare us and you never, ever get angry.”

The rabbit eagerly nodded. He never felt anger and he was so little, with no wings or beak, so how could he ever be scary?

___________

Wuxian felt pride and embarrassment in equal measure as he led Lan Zhan around the settlement built by Wen hands and the wards forged with his blood. He’d seen the difficult scrabble of pulling together even these comforts, to make gardens of graveyards and homes among bones. But with Lan Zhan, Hanguang-Jun, beside him so bright and so beautiful, it was impossible not to see it through new eyes. How gray and horrible all this must seem to one raised in the glorious Cloud Recesses. How repulsed Lan Zhan must feel, he thought.

Wangji was not repulsed, but his heart ached, for this did not seem a way for anyone to live. Yet the grayness of the landscape did not scare him like the grayness of Wei Ying’s skin.

“Let’s go,” Wei Ying said, voice on the wind. “I’ll walk you down the mountain.”

They moved side by side back toward the crumbling entry enforced by fearsome power. The infrequent bump of their shoulders reminded Wuxian of happier days spent pretending they were like Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen, bound only by their shared ideals. He wondered, though, if they shared ideals anymore. No regrets, they’d pledged; to live with a clear conscience. Wuxian had no regrets, not really, and he felt cursed by that. He was rigidly ruled by his own unflinching moral compass. He longed sometimes to be someone who could turn away. Life would be simpler, he was sure, if he could only close his eyes and fall into the shared delusion of clear lines, protect our own and only our own, and the black/white thinking of others. Instead, he felt trapped awake, eyes open, poisoned by the horrors hidden within those comforting platitudes. He felt terribly, achingly alone.

“Is there anyone who can give me a bright future path that is easy to go on?” Wei Ying asked and Wangji had no answer. He didn’t understand why Wei Ying had abandoned the sword, but he could recognize now that the power granted him by this disturbing path was immense, more immense than even a prodigious swordsman like Wei Ying could accomplish with Suibian. And immense power was needed to protect the Wen against the clans.

“Let yourself judge what is right and what is wrong, let others decide to praise or to blame, let gains and losses remain uncommented on,” Wei Ying said sadly, certainly. “I know what I should be doing. I also believe I can control it.”

Behind his eyes Wangji felt the press of tears. He wanted to weep in a way he’d not done since he was a child and had never done with any witness but his brother. That radiant, infuriating boy who had lodged himself in Wangji’s heart was bleeding himself dry for others and Wangji could do nothing but admire him for it. It felt thick in his throat, like any word out of his mouth might come carried on a sob.

“Brother, Brother.” A weight, now familiar, crashed against his legs. “Brother, are you not going to stay and eat with us today?”

Wangji looked down at A-Yuan’s bright eyes and soft cheeks. How could he argue with anything Wei Ying did to protect this boy? How could any action to that end be wrong? The questions burnt and knifed inside him against 3,000 rules he knew like his heartbeat. Three thousand rules that conflicted with one another and yet screamed that he should not be here and he should not care for Wei Ying.

Wei Ying lifted the boy into his arms, making Lan Zhan’s excuses for him. “A-Yuan, this brother here already has food waiting for him at home. He won’t be staying.”

“But I heard a secret earlier,” A-Yuan said. “They said that there was lots of good food today.”

“A-Yuan,” Wuxian scolded, but then fell silent. He had never given much thought to being a parent, but the weight of a child in his arms resonated with something primal inside him. It made him feel gentle and fierce. And to see A-Yuan take to Lan Zhan stirred something else inside him, something he was scared to name because he could never deserve it.

Wei Ying turned to him. Wangji expected him to repeat his explanations, give his silence words as he so often did, but instead, Wei Ying looked at him with an expression he’d never seen before. He wasn’t joking, flirting, arguing, or cajoling. He was just...open, holding a child and looking at him, hopeful.

“I’m leaving,” Wangji said and pulled himself away from that look on Wei Ying’s face. He would wonder until the end of his days what might have been different if he’d stayed.

___________

The field mice adored him, for a time. That he was small made them feel safe. That he ate only green things gave them comfort. But not always, and not enough. They were afraid because he was still bigger, mistrustful because he’d lived among owls, and it wore on the rabbit. He tried to never be angry, even when their suspicious looks made him feel that way.

“You have to leave,” the little mouse told him one day, the same one who’d once allowed him to stay. “Your jumping is too scary and we told you not to be scary.”

He only jumped like that when he was happy, but the rabbit didn’t try to explain; he just left.

After days alone, the rabbit awoke to a vibration, like the world might split open beneath him. It came in slow, steady beats—thump...thump...thump. He hopped to investigate and saw enormous grey-bellied elephants with long trunks and huge flapping ears that swatted the flies away.

They’re so big, the rabbit thought with joy. They’d never be frightened of me.

The elephants settled around a watering hole to drink their fill. Some lounged in the water, washing away the dust coating their thick hides, and the littles ones who were still so much larger than the rabbit played silly games that made him smile.

He politely ventured close to an old matriarch with wise eyes. “Will you love me?” he asked.

She turned in his direction, searching the empty air until she found the tiny origin of the tiny voice. She took in his twitching ears and quivering whiskers. “If you don’t get scared,” she said, “and you help us to lift big trees, find tall grasses, and always stay loyal.”

The rabbit nodded because he wanted to be and do all those things.

___________

Uncle saved his life with his punishment.

He was meant to suffer and reflect on his wrongdoings. And Wangji did suffer. He did reflect. But the flayed flesh on his back was nothing compared to the flaying in his heart. In fact, it was comforting, somehow, to hurt as much on the outside as he did inside. It put Wangji’s pain somewhere it could bleed.

The Yiling Laozu fell with only one hand reaching out to him, and that hand reached out too late. Too late. Too late to change anything.

He cared for A-Yuan, but selfishly the boy wasn’t enough. Wen Yuan had a clan now, he would be safe and fed without Wangji around. Wangji didn’t want to be around. He wanted to be free of this hurt, of this loss, of existing in a world without Wei Ying, surrounded only by those who had betrayed him. Including himself, including the beating heart in his chest.

The pain gave him focus. He read the rules and found those he’d violated. He found those he wished he had. He reflected. He reflected. He reflected and accepted that he was in love with Wei Ying, he always would be, and he should have been by his side. The recognition came in a wave, followed by a soul-deep exhale, like the release during meditation or a gasp after almost drowning.

The Cold Pond Cave cooled the fires of him, but not the way Uncle intended. Wangji didn’t regret his misbehavior, only his inaction. He didn’t regret his words, only his silences. And when he accepted these truths, the turbulence in his mind froze clear and solid. He’d loved Wei Ying. He’d failed Wei Ying. He’d wanted to protect Wei Ying. He could protect A-Yuan. He could love A-Yuan.

As the truths solidified in his heart, power thrummed in his core like a yoke had been thrown off. Energy filled him from toes to fingertips to the ends of his hair. The world perceived his affection for Wei Wuxian as his only weakness. Wangji learned in that moment that his love, immortal and infinite, was his strength.

___________

The rabbit had promised to not be scared, but he felt so afraid dodging heavy elephant feet that could crush him. When he rode on their backs, he felt scared to be so high for he remembered the flying things that ate little things like him. He couldn’t help lift big trees, or even the small ones, and they lost him when they strode in tall grasses. The matriarch scooped him up in a mouthful and nearly ate him, even though elephants don’t eat rabbits.

He didn’t stay long with them, though he loved the silly games of the babies and the huge flapping ears of the elders.

He wandered and soon met a tortoise, its thick skin familiar from the elephants, its size just right—not so big as the elephants, not so small as the field mice. “Will you love me?” he asked the tortoise with his hulking shell and narrow eyes.

The tortoise sniffed at him. “If you can keep up,” he said, and continued on his path.

The rabbit happily hopped beside him, only to discover he’d left the tortoise far behind. Oh, dear no, thought the rabbit, this won’t work at all. He thanked the tortoise for his kindness and continued on alone.

___________

When he left the cave, having lost three years with A-Yuan, he let the regret scatter like leaves in the certainty brought by this new, engulfing spiritual power. Three years earlier, he would have met the boy full of ferocity and self-destruction. That was no way to love a child.

Wangji had been raised beside someone’s anger; he would not wish that for A-Yuan, his Sizhui, who looked plump-cheeked and happy in his pale Lan robes. In the mornings, Wangji combed his hair and helped him fasten his ribbon across his smooth forehead. Sometimes, tongue poking out in concentration, Sizhui helped Wangji with his in turn.

Wangji couldn’t decide if it was blessing or curse that Sizhui, Xian-gege’s A-Yuan, had no memories of him. It left Wangji alone to grieve the dreaded, well-dead Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian. But left him alone to bear that bittersweet pain, too. To wish memory on a boy who’d already suffered felt selfish. Better that Sizhui start here in the embrace of GusuLan, in Wangji’s embrace.

Sizhui sat on his lap, even when he was too old and too tall for it. Wangji allowed it. The boy tugged on the strings of his guqin and giggled at the trembling twang. It seemed they both needed this, an extended autumn of youth after a parched summer; forging—or perhaps re-forging—a bond made one magical afternoon that only one of them remembered.

At 12, Sizhui was proper, good looking, and hard working. His aptitude with the guqin gave Wangji stirrings of fate—would this talent have been discovered in a Wen? he wondered. Wangji traveled often, on quests he could barely admit to himself, and when he returned, his first visit was always from Sizhui, even before his brother or his uncle. The boy would seek him out, no matter the hour he returned. It was an indulgence Wangji couldn’t deny either of them.

The sun had just crested the horizon, spilling into the rebuilt shadows of Cloud Recesses.

“I don’t know how we’re meant to obey all of them all the time,” Sizhui admitted softly. The steam from the teapot caught the sunlight like smoke around his young face, carefully schooled to hide his agitation. Wangji knew Sizhui’s face better than his own.

He thought of the platitudes he was told when he’d made the same observation as a child. That the conflict was in him, in the human heart; the rules were to tame the conflict. That cultivation means control and great spiritual strength can only be achieved through harnessing one’s nature.

That is not what he told Sizhui. “They conflict with one another because they are not of equal value at all times,” he said, pleased by Sizhui’s steady hands as he prepared their tea. “Like strings on the guqin, from thick to thin, they can be played separately or together, depending on the melody of a moment.”

“So...we learn the rules so that we may know all the principles that should guide our actions.” Sizhui carefully extended his teacup toward him and Wangji felt a rush of affection for his perceptive, soulful boy. “Just as we learn all the notes we can play, even though not every song requires them?”

“Mn.” Wangji gave a slight nod and lifted his tea, breathing in the floral scent. “And indeed, not only do some songs not require them, but the wrong note—even when beautiful in another melody—would ruin the one before you, and to play every note at once would only create discord.” Wangji knew that discord well. He’d grown up in it.

Sizhui let out a relieved sigh that gave Wangji a tremulous feeling of success, like he’d done a bit of good parenting, even when he barely understood what that was. “That makes sense,” his lovely boy said. “Thank you, Hanguang-Jun.”

Wangji didn’t respond. He simply drank the tea prepared by his son, his Lan Sizhui, Wei Ying’s A-Yuan, and let himself feel a rare moment of peace in the sunrise.

Years later, in Yi City, Wangji would see himself in Xiao Xingchen, who died rather than continue in a world where he’d hurt his beloved—and also in Song Lan, who soldiered on, a ghost carrying memories of dead love close to his heart.

___________

In his travels, the rabbit soon came to wide water, so expansive he could not see its end. It rose and fell like great moving mountains. On the gray-sand shore were seals with big limpid eyes and sweet round bellies. “Will you love me?” he asked one, feeling so scared and so hopeful.

“If you stay close and always share your food,” the seal answered.

___________

Wuxian felt the pleading weight of Zewu-Jun’s words.

He walked in to see Lan Zhan with his hair down, sleeves held back gently as he prepared tea and poured wine, and he understood why Zewu-Jun told him more than he’d asked. Lan Zhan was a warrior, Hanguang-Jun, Lan Wangji, a jade of Gusu, and one of the most powerful cultivators of any generation. He was also a man in love. A man so deeply in love it had burned—burned him—for almost two decades.

Wuxian trembled beneath that weight.

“I don’t need anyone to save me,” he’d said years ago in the Burial Mounds. It took dying and coming back to understand that what he’d meant was I’m not worth saving. Lan Zhan had never agreed, no matter how Wuxian tried to convince him.

The plink and shiver of the guqin brought the tingle in his limbs to his awareness, like the growl in his empty stomach breaking through the excitement of an invention. That physical attraction he’d had to Lan Zhan in their youth had never gone away. It had just been papered over by battles, separation and second lifetimes, unworthiness and the paradoxical belief that he could not love someone so profoundly and also desire him. His eyes trailed over Lan Zhan’s long fingers on the strings, his soft mouth; his eyes, those remarkable, unforgettable eyes, and—

“I want to kiss you,” he blurted out.

Lan Zhan’s playing stilled and he looked up. They stared at each other in silence. Lan Zhan’s expression was gentle, accepting, and silent. Wuxian laughed—the silence should be no surprise; this was Lan Zhan, after all, who would answer direct questions with silence, who would offer no information, even when it was demanded. Wuxian had no intention of demanding. “Oh, Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” he said, entering the room. “I want to kiss you, but do you want to be kissed?”

Lan Zhan simply nodded, as if Wuxian had asked about getting dinner. But the rosy tips of his ears gave him away. “Only by you,” he added. And oh, Lan Zhan’s other great skill: to say so little and still say more than Wuxian knew how to believe.

Wei Ying lowered himself to the floor, sitting cross-legged to Wangji’s left where he still sat rigid, back straight, hands flat to still the long-gone vibration of his guqin. He’d imagined kissing Wei Ying—and more, so much more—for so long. The passion inside him felt always dammed behind an insufficient barrier. So, to release it...he imagined embracing Wei Ying like a tidal wave, overwhelming, undeniable, claiming him with lips, tongue and teeth, smashing their bodies together with the force of his want.

The reality was somewhat different. Wangji’s passion was no less extraordinary, but the dam restraining it now was love, not self-domination. What did Wei Ying want? How much did Wei Ying want? His passion could be like a wave gently lapping shore, if that’s what Wei Ying needed.

Slowly, Lan Zhan turned to face him, fingers moving to rest in his lap. Their knees touched as Wuxian scooted just that small bit closer, movements young and eager. Lan Zhan looked up to meet his eyes and once he’d done that, Wuxian could almost never look away. He reached out to close a hand over Lan Zhan’s, heart thumping and feeling 16 years old with his mind full to brimming with the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen.

For once, he did look away from Lan Zhan’s eyes. Away from his eyes to his mouth, lips plump-pink and tempting. As soon as he looked, he touched, before the courage left him. The tension melted from Wuxian’s shoulders at a kiss returned.

Their hands bumped when they both reached for each other at the same time. Wuxian laughingly yielded, letting Lan Zhan cup his jaw and direct the kiss. It was honey on his tongue, a mouth moving against his, a pleasant buzz through his body. He let his own hand drop to Lan Zhan’s knee, the curve firm and intimate through layers of linens.

Hai hour settled heavily on Wangji’s shoulders. Childhood routine made his mind shift into a quieter state, lending a dreamy mist to the minutes spent blissfully kissing as the snow blanketed the world outside. “It’s time to sleep,” he said. He didn’t much care for himself, but Wei Ying was wounded, and battles loomed still to be fought. Wei Ying needed his rest.

Wuxian wanted to tease Lan Zhan like he used to, mock those rigid GusuLan traditions—if they weren’t going to defy them for this, then for what!? But Lan Zhan, his Lan Zhan; he’d spent so much time worrying and caring for him, he had to be exhausted. “Okay,” he relented.

But neither of them moved to stand or stop. They just kept trading kisses.

Wuxian laughed against Lan Zhan’s mouth and felt an answering smile that made his heart throb. He decided a few moments more couldn’t hurt. For a few moments more, they could be the lusty, carefree boys they could have been 20 years ago, if war had not arrived so early and maturity so late.

“Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying whispered against his lips after several molten minutes more. He felt hot all over, from his knees tight against Lan Zhan’s to his throat where guqin-skilled hands stroked his skin and caressed his jaw. “We should sleep.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan agreed, but only kissed him again.

Wei Ying laughed and Wangji loved the sound. Loved the sound of him, loved the feel of him, loved the life in him. Wanted him endlessly.

“Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan,” Wei Ying pouted sweetly, “who’s been taking care of me, hm? Who will take care of me if Hanguang-Jun is asleep on his feet?”

When Wangji opened them, his eyes were unfocused. He felt drunk, though he’d had no wine but what he could taste on Wei Ying’s lips and tongue. “Sleep with me,” he said.

Blushed cheeks and well-used lips complemented Wei Ying’s features well. He looked young and healthy. “Yes,” he answered, adding sternly, “but we have to sleep.”

Wangji nodded his agreement, amused to have Wei Ying making rules now.

They stripped to their underrobes and climbed into the bed, each fully intending to sleep as agreed, but the room had grown cold with the frost outside and there was so much warm skin, so many hot kisses still to give, so much uncharted territory on this path they’d just begun to walk together and now single layers that could be opened to allow palms to feel the firm planes of stomach and the exquisitely narrow rise of hip.

But they each had secrets, too: a boy asleep not far from where they lay and a golden core warming someone else in Yunmeng.

Lan Zhan felt so good and Wuxian didn’t want to stop even as his heart thumped for the wrong reasons when Lan Zhan’s fingers grazed his wrists. If they were to do the things he’d seen in Nie-xiong’s books, then surely Lan Zhan, the great Hanguang-Jun, would sense what he was missing. He wanted it as much as he feared it.

“Lan Zhan, is it okay – if we – if we don’t go any further – tonight – just not tonight,” Wuxian gasped, each phrase punctuated with more kissing, his hand tangling in Lan Zhan’s hair, his knee sliding over Lan Zhan’s hip.

Wangji gripped the knee curving around him to bring their bodies closer. He wanted to pull it firm against him and take this pleasure he’d been dreaming of for decades. But Wei Ying’s words. He was forever reckless with himself and he would keep going if Wangji pushed it because they wanted each other. Even that thought was a thrill. Wei Ying wanted him, and Wangji wanted to tell him.

But if Wei Ying approached Sizhui with the familiarity and fondness he almost certainly would if he knew, what terrible memories might that disinter? For as much love as had surrounded little Wen Yuan, he’d been living on a mountain of the dead and all his family had been slaughtered. Would returning those memories to his sensitive, happy boy be a kindness or a cruelty?

Wangji still wanted. He wanted to tell Wei Ying the one good thing he’d done, kiss him, hold him, cry with him, make love in a happy haze as though all the painful years had never happened, but no. No, the note he must play strongest now was for Sizhui, and he did not want his first joining with Wei Ying to be shrouded in secrets.

He called upon his Lan reserve to drag himself away from the delicious warmth of Wei Ying’s mouth. “We can stop,” he said, startled by the lust-roughness of his voice.

Wei Ying’s eyes drifted away from his lips. Wangji felt his steadying exhale against his skin. “You’re right, Lan Zhan, you’re right,” he said. “We should stop.”

“You said it first.”

Wei Ying let out a loud laugh, rolling away to throw his head back. Wangji wanted to cover that smooth neck with bites and kisses. When Wei Ying curled toward him again, his eyes shown with fondness and he reached between them to link their hands together, bodies at a safer, less enticing distance.

They talked, then, how they did any other night they’d shared a room in their travels. They compared thoughts about what they had discovered, expectations for what lay ahead, but it felt so new, whispering face to face, lips kiss-tender, voices crossing not an empty room but only the small expanse of the bed.

Wuxian wasn’t sure when they finally fell asleep. He remembered dawn peeking through the screens at the window and it seemed only seconds later that they had to wake and get dressed. He wanted to curl up and sleep for a day, but a wicked, immovable deadline hung over them for soon a murderer would come to Cloud Recesses.

___________

The rabbit had a delightful afternoon in the seals’ company. Their bodies bounced like his and they had whiskers like him and they bounce-bounce-bounced together, but then all the seals bounce-bounce-bounced into the waves where the rabbit couldn’t follow because he didn’t have flippers and his feet were not shaped like a paddles for pushing through water.

He stood alone on the beach for a long, stunned moment, then he turned and began searching again.

In the silent grasses, the rabbit came upon a leopard, its sleek, spotted body low to the ground, eyes peering straight ahead. Its backside wiggled the way the rabbit’s did sometimes. “Will you love me?” the rabbit asked.

“If you can keep up!” the leopard replied, bounding off on strong back legs after a sprinting deer.

The rabbit tried to keep up, but he lost her before the leopard’s voice had even faded from his ears. He continued on alone.

___________

The moment he saw that broken look on his brother’s face at the Guanyin Temple, Wangji knew his daydream of traveling by Wei Ying’s side had died.

To live with a clear conscience, without regret. An easy phrase that provided no guidance in how to weigh regrets against one another. He would regret watching Wei Ying walk away again. He would regret leaving GusuLan with one leader heartbroken and another too unyielding for the complex days ahead. He would regret forsaking a generation of Lan juniors to that unsteady guidance. He would regret abandoning the cultivation world to a power vacuum where evil and self-interest could so easily gain dominance. He wanted to be Lan Zhan. He wanted to be Wei Ying’s. But the world, for now, needed Hanguang-Jun.

But like so many deaths around the Yiling Laozu, Wei Wuxian, this death was not forever. One day, Wangji sat reading in the jingshi when a flute’s notes drifted in with the breeze. He heard a song he knew well and knew Wei Ying had come home.

It was strange to walk the paths of Cloud Recesses and realize it had started to feel like home. Wuxian found comfort in the routine, and could maybe—maybe—understand the appeal of a clearly defined schedule, up to a point. His 16-year-old self would never have believed it, but his 16-year-old self hadn’t yet had to survive in the Burial Mounds. His 16-year-old self hadn’t yet died for his convictions and mistakes.

Wuxian let out a breath as the sorrow passed through him, a familiar companion after all these years. Even that felt at home in Cloud Recesses with its stillness and meditative spaces. Here, Wuxian could grieve and find solace. He’d found love here. He’d found purpose and family. Even Lan Qiren surrendered some of his vitriol when he’d realized that Wuxian would not steal Lan Zhan away. At last, the old man recognized that Lan Zhan was the wise and filial leader he’d been trying to raise all along, even if they disagreed on the details.

Lan Zhan looked as beautiful as an art print among the rabbits in the back hills. The pure white fur and Lan Zhan’s robes, the earthy brown and green—it made Wuxian’s fingers itch for brush and parchment. Perhaps he’d do that tonight...or maybe tomorrow because he’d learned the expressions on the face so many others thought immobile. All morning, Lan Zhan’s eyes had been lingering on Wuxian’s throat, his lips. Their few touches outside the jingshi had been lingering.

The first night Wuxian returned to Cloud Recesses they’d had no early appointments and no deliberate secrets between them, only stories not yet told and endless days to tell them. That night, they discovered new things they could do together that were even more satisfying than fighting side by side.

“Lan Zhan,” he said casually, scratching a rabbit between its velvet-soft ears. “What do you want to do tonight?”

The rabbits on Lan Zhan’s lap were calmer, almost sedated by his familiar and predictable stillness. But then, rabbits couldn’t really read the way his eyelashes slowly lifted over a heated gaze.

Wuxian grinned as a lovely anticipation started to pool in his limbs. He’d always been attractive, but it wasn’t until all this started with Lan Zhan that he’d felt desired, even seduced. “Ah,” he said, and stretched out on his back, hands folded beneath his head. Leaves and sticks crunched beneath him and a few rabbits darted away, but Lan Zhan’s eyes traveled the length of him, just as he’d wanted. One day, perhaps, Wuxian would try to tempt Lan Zhan into kissing him here the way he did in the jingshi, all devouring and unrestrained.

“I want—” Wangji began, then silenced abruptly. He found himself disinclined to speak most of the time, but rarely did he want to express himself more than in these moments with Wei Ying, these rare moments when the intimacy of their relationship was in the fore and not buried beneath life-or-death politics and layers of the mundane. Wei Ying had gotten so good at reading him, but sometimes Wangji wished he didn’t have to.

“Yes?” Wei Ying curved toward him, head propped up on his bent arm. “What do you want, Lan Zhan?

In that eagerness, Wangji saw that sometimes Wei Ying didn’t want to have to read him either. He swallowed and tried. “The book you had.”

“Which book?”

“During the lectures. In the library.”

Confusion clouded Wei Ying’s handsome face and Wangji worried this would fall prey to his poor memory, but after a few seconds, clarity spread like a sunrise. “In the library. When I was having to copy all those rules and you were being so mean and ignoring me.”

“Mn.”

Wuxian smiled brightly. Funny how those days had a rosy shine to them now. Lan Zhan, his beloved Lan Zhan, his sweet stick in the mud who defied nearly every one of those rules for him. He’d been unimaginably attractive in that library, so cold and untouchable. How badly he’d wanted to touch. “What about it?”

Wangji swallowed. He turned his attention to the rabbits in his lap. They dozed, their red eyes closed into gentle lines on their white faces, noses twitching with dreams. They clearly didn’t sense the rapid heartbeat in the body beneath them. “The picture. I would do that with you.”

Wuxian’s mouth twisted. “Which picture?”

Lan Zhan looked up at him, exasperated.

“Ah-ah, Lan Zhan,” he sighed, one hand lifted in defense. “That book was full of pictures. I don’t know which one you saw. I gave it to you to tease you and you ripped it apart so quickly.”

Wangji looked back to his rabbits. One blinked awake and he slid a finger along its forehead as it yawned, cute big teeth on display. He let the subject drop. He would not be able to find the words.

But Wei Ying sat up, excitedly crossing his legs beneath him. “Could you describe it to me?” he asked.

Wangji didn’t reply, neither by words nor a shake of his head. The tightness in his throat frustrated him. The sentence wouldn’t form in his mind, his tongue wouldn’t lift in his mouth, his lips wouldn’t part. That he had these desires, he had accepted. That they were not shameful, he had learned. But to speak them was still beyond his strength.

Wuxian scooted closer until his knees touched Lan Zhan’s. He loved the warm-pink of his ears, but not the storm clouding the features beneath his pale blue ribbon. He reached forward to join Lan Zhan’s hands in petting the rabbits in his lap. “Maybe you could show me,” he said, letting his fingers glide over Lan Zhan’s in a way he was certain could be called shameless. “Tonight, Lan Zhan. You could show me what they did in the picture. You know how smart I am; I’ll figure it out.” Lan Zhan didn’t answer, but the pink of his ears deepened to red, the storm cleared in his expression, and Wuxian grinned. His clever mind liked a mystery and the rest of him liked touching Lan Zhan, so these evening plans were very welcome indeed.

But being Wei Wuxian they also slipped his mind. That Cloud Recesses felt like an embrace would have shocked his 16-year-old self. That he’d become a teacher would not have. Oh, he dreamed of being a rogue cultivator, and that lifestyle suited him quite well on his not infrequent night hunts, but Wuxian had always been someone who loved being surrounded by youth and happiness, laughter on lotus lakes and meals made by someone who adored him.

Those days couldn’t be recreated, not after so much damage, but with the Lan juniors, with Lan Zhan, and A-Yuan, visits with Wen Ning and even slowly, slowly something better with Jin Ling and Jiang Cheng... It suited Wuxian quite well to be Wei-laoshi. He liked guiding disciples in archery and sword forms. He liked the spark of delight in their eyes when they first mastered a talisman.

Wangji liked that others saw His Excellency in the company of the Yiling Laozu. It killed off the rumors explaining Wei Ying’s absence and their hopes that Wangji had “come to his senses.” He preferred when they could tell by sight that the cultivation world was now guided by a mind that had not been tamed. If they felt fear, Wangji assumed they were right to do so. Those who gave him small, secret smiles—they were right, too.

That evening, Wuxian sat on the edge of their bed and barely seconds later found himself with a lapful of Lan Zhan. He instinctively gripped him and blinked, confused, at the broad expanse of a silk-covered back before his eyes.

“It was like this,” Lan Zhan said, a low whisper.

Wuxian blinked once, and then once more. “Ohhh,” he breathed, as every piece of their earlier conversation came back in a rush. “Oh. Yes, Lan Zhan, we can do that.” And really, they’d already started. Lan Zhan’s hips circled in a way that made Wuxian shiver and forget everything else. He swept Lan Zhan’s hair over his shoulder to bare his neck to his kisses and reached around to start pulling the robes from Lan Zhan’s body, sliding his hands up the strong thighs parted atop his. “Did you want to do this that day in the library?” he asked.

“No... and yes.”

“Yeah,” Wuxian agreed. He remembered the messy jumble of yearnings back then. If they’d kissed as boys, Wuxian was sure he would have ruined it, laughing, callous and too scared to wade into the depths of his feelings for the boy who was everything he was not.

They kept small pot of gel by the bed next to a stack of bathing linens. Wangji still felt a bit embarrassed by the obviousness of these supplies, but it was worth it when he didn’t have to leave Wei Ying’s arms when the mood struck them.

When he was young and his body was rocked by desires he didn’t understand, he’d done what he always did: he studied, like curse victim seeking the counter-curse. And indeed, he’d felt cursed, the way his mind refused to stay on any topic but Wei Ying and his antics. He discreetly researched how men fit together, how they touched and satisfied each other. He believed knowledge would bring the counter-curse for surely he would see these acts were foul and undesirable. Instead, he learned, in detail, all the ways he could give pleasure to the vexing boy who had disrupted the peace of him.

The worst times were the fits of grief that took hold during those long years existing in a world without him. Even gone, his thoughts still turned to him. Even gone, he still wanted to touch him. In those dark hours, with smooth gel on his fingers, he’d give his body what it needed. He pictured the beaming smile that died long before the man, those clever eyes and slender hands full of power and strength. After the crest of climax, the tears would swallow him. He would cry into bed linens that would never carry Wei Ying’s scent, and search for the reasons to go on when all he wanted was to fall into darkness with him.

But his linens did smell of Wei Ying now, of his hair oils and the natural tang of him. His linens were their linens because his bed was not his alone anymore, would never be again, and that beautiful boy who had once vexed him let out a tense, blissful sigh when their bodies joined at last.

Wuxian touched his forehead to Lan Zhan’s warm back and tried not to move, though the pleasure made him want to. He kissed the juncture of neck and shoulder blade, gave a light scrape of teeth. “Is it good, Lan Zhan?” he asked. His voice and his legs trembled.

He didn’t immediately receive a response, not a verbal one anyway, but Lan Zhan shifted, adjusting angle and depth and clinging to Wuxian’s hands on his hips.

Soon enough Wuxian didn’t need his words. Soft sounds rumbled in Lan Zhan’s throat, small gasps of satisfaction that would, in anyone else, be loud wanton moans. Like the sort Wuxian muffled against Lan Zhan’s scarred skin, pressing hot, open-mouth kisses as they found their rhythm with one another. It felt so good, always felt so good to touch Lan Zhan, to have this closeness, this way to show with bodies the intensity of his feelings inside. Sometimes he felt obsessed; he wanted to breathe in Lan Zhan, drink him in, become one person and be done with this false separation, this ridiculous idea that there was a Wei Ying and there was a Lan Zhan when they were so clearly one soul, one heart, one person. Maybe if they had a hundred lifetimes together, they could cultivate a way to join their spirits and become one. But—gasping deep and human against sweat-damp shoulder blades as Lan Zhan rode him—Wuxian couldn’t complain about this method for now.

Finished, they collapsed to their sides on the bed, letting bodies cool and heart rates settle. Wuxian dropped kisses on Lan Zhan’s naked shoulders because the affection still bubbling from his climax needed somewhere to go.

After a few moments’ rest, Lan Zhan turned to him. Those who thought him beautiful had no idea, Wuxian thought. They’d never seen him flushed with color, limb-loose and sated, eyes cloudy with peaked pleasure.

Their couplings usually ended with whispered conversations and Wei Ying’s happy laughter, so Wangji didn’t expect the emotion clogging his throat. He didn’t realize tears had followed until Wei Ying’s thumb slid beneath his eyes wipe them away.

“Lan Zhan?” he asked, concerned. “Why are you crying?”

The cavern of want that once terrified him had expanded and burst, filled now with a shameful fantasy made joyful flesh; filled to brimming with a partner, a son, a healthy clan, a life he felt so grateful to be living.

“Thank you,” was all Wangji managed to say.

Wei Ying smiled, that achingly gorgeous smile that Wangji wanted forever. “For what?”

For killing my shame, he thought. For making Cloud Recesses feel like home again. For embracing my silences. For coming back. For staying. For—

“I love you,” Wei Ying said, when he didn’t get an answer, at least not one Wangji had consciously given.

For that, Wangji thought and welcomed his kiss.

___________

The rabbit traveled on, alone and desperately lonely, until he came upon a stranger munching green, green leaves. Hunger twisted in his tiny rabbit belly, but the ache in his heart was more.

“Will you love me?” The rabbit asked, but before the stranger could answer, he went on, “I may be too scary or too big or too small. I may not be elegant and I can’t help lift big trees, or even little ones. I may go too fast or I may go too slow, and I cannot bounce-bounce-bounce into the water. I jump when I’m excited, I sometimes get scared, and I may not be perfect at giving love back,” the rabbit said in a rush. “But will you love me?”

The stranger blinked with red eyes just like the rabbit’s after listening with long ears just like the rabbit’s. A whiskered nose twitched.

“I do,” said the stranger, for he’d been searching a long time, too.

___________

They stood together, watching the swirl of pale fabric as two juniors sparred. Blades glinted as they caught the afternoon sun. Wuxian couldn’t help smiling, feeling like a grandpa remembering his good old days. “Ah, Lan Zhan,” he said wistfully. “Do you think we’d still be equals if I had my core?” It wasn’t as hard to talk about now, between the two of them. It was a fact of Wuxian’s new body and his health; they had to talk about it to navigate a life lived together.

“We are equals.”

“Tsk. I mean with swords.”

“Still equals.”

“Ah, Lan Zhan, you know what I mean.”

Wangji did and he didn’t. “Wei Ying survived the Burial Mounds.”

Wuxian shrugged, feeling that ancient shadow whisper in his heart. “That’s just survival. If you’d been thrown there, Hanguang-Jun would have survived too.”

Wangji didn’t reply, but he also didn’t agree. He suspected that his unwillingness to use resentful energy—his fear of the discord already living inside him—would have meant his death. His spiritual power would simply have bled into the earth, more foul power leeching into the dirt. No, he was certain that none but Wei Ying would have emerged at all, let alone emerged more powerful than when he fell. “Wei Ying is gifted,” he said finally.

Wei Ying spun Chenqing in his hand. These days, it played music more than puppets. “Gifted in something evil.”

“That he uses for good.”

Wuxian snorted. “You have an answer for all of it, don’t you, Lan Zhan? You can’t clean me of all my mistakes.”

“I’m not trying to.” Lan Zhan turned to meet his eyes, countenance both stern and sweet in that way of his. “A golden core can be used for evil deeds,” he said. “You’ve demonstrated that resentful energy can be used for good ones. That is innovation. You saw what others could not. That is a gift. Core or no, you have always been my equal.”

“Lan Zhan.” Wuxian pouted. He’d wanted to flirt and reminisce about the days when an incredibly pretty fuddy-duddy had broken his bottle of Emperor’s Smile. Instead, Lan Zhan had cut at something naked and fragile inside him.

His eyes drifted from Lan Zhan’s, but he bumped their shoulders together to tell him that he wasn’t upset, not really. “Maybe,” he said. “But I want to know if I could’ve ever bested you and Bichen.”

Lan Zhan’s lips lifted in a sad, tiny smile. “Me too,” he agreed softly.

Wuxian wanted to kiss him. Instead—for the sake of the juniors—he just pushed their shoulders together more firmly, removing any lingering space between them. That sorrow could visit them, he decided, the sorrow of what could-have-been. It could visit, but not stay.

Wangji had more he wanted to say. Wei Ying was brilliant. The sort of brilliant that, at most, emerged once in a generation and sometimes not at all. Wangji felt gratitude to have met him, to have gotten him back after everything. But he could sense when Wei Ying wasn’t ready to hear such words. He would let his praise and admiration out in bits and pieces for the rest of their lives. He was okay with that, he decided, and let his weight lean just as firmly against Wei Ying’s as they watched the next generation fly.

[petals-and-bullets]

Eccentric

Pairing: Slash x Reader

Word Count: 962

Info: Partner fic to this moodboard! When it came to owning pets, you were... Eccentric. You supposed that it was lucky that a reptile veterinarian lived next door when your iguana seemed less than healthy.

You were rather… Eccentric when it came to owning pets. A lot of people presumed that you owned a cat or a dog whenever you discussed your beloved companion, but that wasn’t it. Rather, you owned a loveable iguana which pretty much had free roam of your small apartment. You loved the little guy with all your heart, since you pretty much had him in your life since you were little.

Your routine with him was something you never wanted to give up, but when little Godzilla refused to get up for breakfast, you knew immediately something was wrong. It was a sixth sense, really, and you thanked everything that influenced the universe that the guy living next door to you was an expert in reptiles – he had at least two snakes, and you knew he had a degree in animal biology. It took you a few moments before you were hammering on his front door, clutching Godzilla to your chest as you prayed that he was home. You could faintly hear some sort of music, so you figured he was at least somewhere in the flat.

Relief flooded your veins as the door opened to reveal the man, a ball python wrapped securely around his neck. Although his locks hid his eyes, you knew he was watching Godzilla, and you held him out to him with a pleading look in your eyes.

“He wouldn’t get up for breakfast, and it was his favourite too,” you breathed out, blinking back tears at the thought you may have done something to harm your companion. Without really questioning it, he reached out and lifted the lizard from your arms before he motioned with his head to follow him into his apartment. While the apartment was small, it was clear that he kept it spotless for the sake of the animals that kept him company.

“Sit down. Just mind Clyde, he’s been feisty in his tank today,” he murmured as he set Godzilla down on the table before he vanished into another room, only to return in his lab coat and he had replaced the snake with a stethoscope. You felt a little more at ease at the sight, and you knew you had made the right call in visiting him.

It was a tense few minutes as you watched him inspect Godzilla, only to blink when he started to laugh softly and stepped back, turning to face you with a grin. His hand gently scratched at Godzilla’s chin, and you licked your bottom lip nervously as you waited for him to tell you what was wrong with the little guy.

“You know iguanas are stubborn, right?”

“Of course I do, what kind of owner do you-“

“He just didn’t want to get up. You know, he wanted to stay in bed for longer.”

You blinked, and you watched as Godzilla lazily stood up and wandered away from his hand, only to plop back down and settle himself down to get comfortable. You snorted, a hand raised to cover your mouth as you started to laugh yourself, unable to stop yourself. Obviously, you had overthought the problems and had panicked, and hadn’t thought about the fact that, like you, Godzilla had the days he wanted to just stay in bed.

Slash merely smiled at you and picked up Clyde, letting him roam across his hands as he watched you carefully before he sat down beside you, shrugging.

“I don’t blame him. Me and the snakes like to chill out in bed, too,” he mused, and you snorted softly at the thought of the curly-haired man laid in bed, covered in the reptiles he kept in his apartment. It was a pleasant thought, and you immediately wondered what it was like to also be laid in his bed, Godzilla curled up between you. Perhaps it was an indulgent thought, but it was one that that you stored in your mind for when you wanted to think about in detail in the future, given that the pair of you had barely uttered more than customary greetings to each other when you saw each other in the hallway. But this one could be one that you were willing to keep – and Godzilla seemed to be just as happy with a similar thought as he situated himself between you both, his head resting on your thigh.

“… So, he seems to be happy enough to see you,” you murmured, as your hand gently scratched Godzilla’s cheek in thought before you turned to smile at Slash. He seemed to be in thought while looking at you, and eventually he just shrugged and leaned back in his seat.

“Clyde seems happy to see you too – he hasn’t stopped staring at you since you sat down, and not like he wants to eat you,” he chuckled softly before he brushed his curls out of his eyes, and you instinctively held your breath as you actually made direct eye contact with him. It wasn’t long before your mind screamed at you to hug him in gratitude, which you immediately did. Perhaps the relief of knowing that Godzilla was actually safe made you braver than you were, but you moved to press a kiss to his cheek, only to freeze when you realised that Slash had turned his head and you instead caught his lips when he turned his head.

“Oh,” you breathed out, your cheeks flushed red as you tried to process just what happened exactly, and then you blinked and you were unable to stop yourself from letting out a nervous laugh before you found yourself pressed against his chest, your lips joined once more.

Perhaps you hadn’t intended to overreact with Godzilla, but you knew then that you didn’t regret it.

[franziska-writes]

blackberry (1/2, second part in reblog)

warning: if you're sensitive to mentions of or reading about deceit, acting, teeth, general themes of romance, arguing, death, harm, manipulation, swearing/cursing/bad words, dramatized themes of danger, stress, fear, crying, mentions of food, negative self talk, poor and unhealthy coping mechanisms, fire, emotional masking, trauma, god/religion mentions, self blaming, oversharing, grandfather mentions, caps, no caps, then reader discretion is advised.

as I laid myself down to sleep that night, images of her flashed across my eyelids, and questions floated about in my brain like the remnants of light I saw when I closed my eyes. who was she? how did she know how to charm me so well? so intuitively? what was it about me that gave her such intimate access to my wants and desires? but then, as that question toppled off the heap of other such queries, there was a stillness in which I made a revelation.

it wasn’t anything about me in particular that allowed her entry into my mind—it was the woman herself.

I’d had my eyes on her all night, keeping careful watch after I narrowly realized what she was doing. I’d seen her change her colors like a chameleon or an octopus or something entirely otherworldly. her body language would shift to match and compliment whomever she was speaking to—where the sparks of playful rivalry took hold in one conversation, a childlike innocence possessed her in the next. and I had no clue how she could possibly come to have all these different, impossibly perfect qualities possessing her at just the right moment—up until I realized that she was the one possessing them.

this woman was a marvellous actor, far greater than any seen in film.

where film actors worked with a script and set motions and cameras ready to re-record any scene, she worked with real people, with real situations, with moments she had no choice to re-do.

and it was in this moment that her danger fully struck me: this woman, whom I’d all but fallen head over heels for the moment I’d met her, was a shapeshifter.

no, maybe not in the fantastical sense—but it was there.

the gleam in her eye, childlike and bright and new. the glint of chandelier light off her teeth, summoning and bold and terrifying. the shimmer bouncing off her lipgloss, romaticible and flirtatious and seemingly unknowingly breathtaking. she shot to stun.

it was all instinctively woven, all created on the spot from a single introduction alone, all seamlessly stitched together so well that you’d see depth where there was only darkness.

but then again, perhaps she was a siren.

the tantalizing pull when her eyes met yours, like you’d known each other your whole lives and knew no world without the other. the sweet lull of her voice, melting over every syllable like molten metal. the poetry that she spoke, like fire trailing down my limbs as she spoke to me and said my every desire out loud for only us two to hear……. the performance never gave up. she struck to kill, and oh, I think I let her already……

this woman.

this peculiar, dangerously endearing, disarmingly charming woman—this woman, whose eyes were hazelnut whilst also being lizard-green, whose hair was a shifting multitude of different shades of blonde, whose lips were just pillowy enough and whose cheekbones could cut more than glass and whose brows perked just in that right way—oh, dear god, had she enchanted me.

only for me to be told it wasn’t real, only for her to be told to give up the illusion, only for something realer and angrier and bitterer to rear her sharp-defined face for me to see as she laughed at my inability to see through her.

and even then, there was nothing.

only the cold shell of what was born into this world as a human being, but was now something entirely different—simply put: gone.

when I looked into her eyes around the others, they were hollow, hateful, devoid of any and all goodness or emotion or anything even remotely close to that undeniable spark that all life supposedly held.

but when she was out there—out there, doing her job, the one we’d brought her on for…...she shapeshifted, truly, and fully.

her eyes gleamed gold and brown and green and even red under the different lights. her mouth twisted upwards and rested downwards and was open enough for me to see her bite her bottom lip and glance over just to see me cry on the inside. her shoulders were lax and back and shrunk inward depending on just how much she was leading the conversation—though, no matter what, she always had complete control.

and now, as I laid myself down to sleep, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.

how flamboyant and intoxicating she’d been to everyone at the dinner party, how she’d melted in through the cracks to form whoever she needed to be for them, how she’d caught the void in every person’s heart and filled it with illusions of her own making—god, I needed to know how it was so convincing.

and several weeks of using her talents to extract valuable information later, I’d know.

she’d had exactly the same baseline with me every time we met around the others: somewhat withdrawn, burnt-out almost, a faded capture of what she thought a real human being ought to be underneath all the sparkle and jazz-handing of showbiz. she was a performer, through and through, and even this was a performance—although, I got the sense that I was seeing something I wasn’t meant to: she was tired.

and finally, I’d have clarity on that, because I was left alone with her for the first time.

she’d just blown up on everybody, snapping off like she usually did until one of the group said something particularly choice that I didn’t catch. suddenly, the shell before me erupted into roaring flames—the way her voice deepened as she bellowed, the way her tongue slipped over every personally hurtful word she spat out at everyone, the way she rose up and was suddenly more physically imposing than I’d ever thought a person could be….! I was scared for my damn life—I thought for sure she would kill me if I looked at her for too long. and she did it all without breaking a sweat—her hands didn’t shake, and her voice never wavered or clipped, and her eyes were dry and her face was pale. she chewed every single person in the room out, assaulted them at their weak spots and threw the verbal equivalent of boiling hot acid their way—and she did this to everyone except for me. I thought I was lucky to be alive. I was glad for being ignored, and prayed to god that she’d forgotten all about me in the act of getting some apparently well-deserved insults out to settle in the dust of her past with everyone else.

but when she ordered everyone out of the room, I went to go with the rest of them—but she boldly said no, glared them all in the eyes and said that I could stay. when I looked back to my friends for some sort of excuse to go with them, to convey my complete and utter shock at her words, to beg them all through my eyes to get me away from this horrifying display of power so far beyond anything I’d ever seen in a person………….they just stared back. upset, and hurt, and also just as confused as I was.

they left me all alone with that snake—because by then, that’s what I’d been calling her: a snake. not based off any old garden snake or viper, but based off the serpent that convinced Eve to take a bite of the forbidden fruit.

based off temptation and willful deceit.

the moment the door shut and the group meandered away was the moment I felt the room change with her.

it was like the power being cut in the middle of a wild storm, only for the storm to be cut with it; it was silent. still.

and then, she gave a great sigh, and slid back into her chair which was turned away from me for reasons I could only describe as god’s sweet mercy on me.

I, slowly, tiptoed as silent as I could back to where I’d been sitting, but still stood because I was afraid I’d have to make a run for it.

the energy in the room was terribly unsettling.

it was like I’d just watched two strangers end a decades-long relationship in a quiet, deserted waiting room, and half of the pair had walked away and now I was left alone with the other half.

I kept my gaze fixed on her.

it was soon that I noticed just how run-down she looked—just how….different she was.

she was slouched over the desk with her head in one gloved hand, and her fingers were on the brink of carding through her hair. I could feel the stress radiating off her, and for the first time, it was something real, something substantial—I could feel it. it was so, so different to how she’d acted with me when we’d first met. she’d been charming and witty and smooth, and had fit herself into me like a puzzle piece. but now…..there was a noticeable difference. no longer did she seem to exude good and exciting vibes, the kind you’d find within the thrumming thrall of a party, but instead, she was just……….there.

she looked tired, worn out. looked like she hadn’t slept in days and it’d only just caught up to her.

eventually, this nightmare would soon change into a different nightmare—a minute or so after the door shut, she spoke to me, keeping her back turned to me and her face pointedly hidden from view.

“do you know why you’re still here?”

her voice was…..oh, dear god, it was strained, like she was fighting back tears with the small amount of strength she had left. but I was sure I knew not to comfort her—the others had told me just how professional of a deceiver this woman was, and I’d observed it to be true.

I fumbled so hard for an answer that I simply didn’t give one in my panic—but that was alright, because like the perfect actress she was, she seemed prepared to monologue.

“it’s because you’re the only one here who’s acted even remotely like a human fucking being.”

oh?

….oh…..

…………….oh.

oh, god.

“honestly, I—” she began again, cut off by some unheard thing I assumed was a suppressed cry. she took in a deep, faintly shuddering, breath, and continued. “—don’t know why I let them near me. all they do is make me feel like a villain. and I—know that I am one, but…..” and here was when she tried to mask herself with social relatability— “...just because I am one doesn’t mean I have to feel like one, ahah……..”

she fell flat.

she fell flat, and I knew that was wrong, wrong because I’d seen her in action: becoming part of other people in beautiful, polychromatic splendor, matching energies and mirroring body language and altering pronunciations and changing names and smiles and shapes.

but now…..now, she was monochromatic: captured in gray light, a beautiful intellectual—broken but full. full, now, for the first time before my eyes, because everything else I’d seen as hollow and empty. after all—lies were only lies, weren’t they? there was no truth in them, no genuine emotion, no…...anything, really, in my experience.

I felt spurred to comfort her—not because of the daydream she’d probably have rathered to pretend to be, but instead because I saw a glimpse of the human being inside of her.

“y-you’re…...not a villain.”

a sad huff of amusement through her nose as her whole upper half jolted just slightly, “sweetheart, you don’t even know me. everything you’ve seen has been a lie. you know that.”

…..I didn’t know where to go from there.

she was right. she was absolutely right. I had no idea who this frustrated, sad being before me was—but now, I…..I wanted to know. wanted to know her interests, her hobbies, her favorite book, her favorite television show, what joke made her laugh the most, or if she even genuinely laughed at all.

“...........how do you do it?”

my voice was feeble, small, like that of a rabbit cowering behind a great lion.

“how do I do what?” she responded after a short pause, voice clicking even with the smooth ups and downs of her vocal pattern. she really was tired…..if only she’d look at me so I could be sure—

“d-deceive.. like you do. how do—how can you create something so lifelike out of-of thin air? y-you’re lying every minute I see you, and-and yet, I—I-I’m tricked every time. ho-how do you do it?”

it was poorly worded, poorly phrased—but she picked up on what I really meant by it.

I had no clue how she could always know so much.

she laughed, darkly and quietly, with such bitterness that I could taste it like an unripe blackberry in my mouth—and then she turned her face so I could see it, and that was the moment something real began.

her eyes were misty, and her cheeks were flushed, and there was a smile stuck on her face by sheer inevitability.

when she spoke, her words—it’s so difficult to describe, but they evaporated like honey in the dim lamplight.

“there’s a drop of truth in every lie.”

it was simple, yet packed full of meaning, and my mind reeled as I had another revelation.

she wasn’t just playing a part, was she….?

“when I’m with people, I see these voids in them—what they want out of people, what their perfect compliment would be, what they want out of me. I see a void, and I fill it—it’s an instinct that I’ve sharpened to be useful over time.”

oh……

“but of course, no performance is perfect. my execution is only flawless because, to me, it’s a game of survival, and the slightest hair out of place means game over.” her eyes were cast down then, apparently unable to hold my gaze. was she that exhausted? “it drains me. I can’t be around people for very long as I am, but having to act every moment of it just takes more away from me. I’m tired. but I’m a good masker—it’s what growing up in my particular circumstances caused me to have ingrained in me. seared into my flesh and bone and brain….. I must perform perfectly because this to me is the art of survival—yet even so, no performance is perfect. I am more than a good liar. a good liar will feel his performance and give it everything he’s got—but I can do so much more.”

oh.

“with just a brush of my fingertips, I can get a man to weep at my feet. with just the quirk of a brow, I can drive a woman mad. with just the right word, I can draw out a person’s deepest secrets and intrigues. I can control any variable you want me to. I can dominate a conversation, I can be invisible in a crowd, I can make someone resent me. the only thing I’ve grown too much to do is be immune. I can control any situation without saying a word. I can control myself and my body and my responses at the drop of a hat. the only thing I cannot control……...are my emotions.”

oh.

“the moment I leave the conversation, more of me dies and fizzles out into smoke. I...know I could have everything. I could rule the damn world if I wanted to, I’m sure of it. I could have people and friends and enemies and rivals……...but I don’t.”

…….there was a lull there, as she traced the edge of the desk with a finger and cast her forlorn gaze over the carpet.

I’d been so enraptured by the mental pictures she painted for me that I’d completely forgotten I was here with her.

like the stammering idiot I was, I made myself speak up.

“wh-why…..why don’t you? is-is it because you don’t…..uh…..w-want people i-in your life?”

I could’ve cursed at the way her next expression made me feel—a look of anguish flashed across her face, and god, it was more beautiful than any of the lies she’d been before.

“yes, but also no. I…..believe me, I want people—I think that much is obvious, in how entangled my emotions become with my victims, but…...but I—”

a sad smile.

I could feel reminiscence in her eyes.

“I’m not cut out for people.”

...huh?

“wh-what d’you mean?”

she looked up at me, and—and for the first time, I saw a spark of life in her eyes. it made me want to do foolish things, made me want to jump and scream and laugh and cry and—

“I ruin them. I’m the perfect weapon, sweetheart: I’m built to ruin and destroy and conquer. I can override my own body’s signals and ignore my emotions and run for hours on empty. but people….” her brows rose and she looked off to the side, as though impressed and annoyed at the same time. “......people can’t do that. people fall to their emotions and make irrational and poor decisions and struggle to keep it together no matter how rehearsed they are. they drop when they’re tired and their functioning derails. they are not like me. they are soft, and I am sharp and callous. they are warm, and I am cold and mean. they are sensitive and careful with themselves, whereas I fling myself into traumatic situations on the daily even when I am hurt.”

I couldn’t think.

all I could do was process—twenty minutes ago, I’d barely been certain of her status as a human being, and now, she was spilling over in front of me.

and then I realized that she was cracking. breaking. faltering.

no longer was she a carefully maintained shell—now, now she was……..on the verge of tears…..

“there is a shred of truth in every lie that I embody. and my truth is my insatiable desire to be not alone as I have been all my life.”

I stood there in shocked silence for a solid ten seconds.

insatiable……….?

“wh-why...insatiable?”

she looked me dead in the eye and suddenly I understood how the ocean’s tides felt about the moon.

“because I won’t let myself be satiated. nor will I ever let myself be soothed, nor will I ever let myself be comforted.”

my eyebrows pinched above the bridge of my nose.

“why?”

“because that is the most dangerous act of all.”

I was confused. how could it be dangerous to—?

“if my emotions make me want people so desperately to love me when I am simply performing for them…..then I shudder to think what would happen to me if I allowed myself to relax into someone. it’s the same reason no one’s allowed to touch me.”

………….ah. I’d…..I’d noticed that.

no matter how physical my friends were with each other and with me, none of them ever came too close to her, and she actively kept herself at a safe physical distance from most people we encountered. I only steered clear of her because, if I was to be honest, I’d been scared of her up until this point.

even now, she intimidated me—but I was slowly coming to grasp a portion of who she really was.

“but…...but, surely, that- can’t be healthy.” I attempted to argue, feeling a dark weight settle over me. I never liked it when people hurt themselves like that on purpose.

a small, resigned smile found its way onto her face. she hadn’t looked at me for some time now. it was odd to see someone with such a big presence refuse to make eye contact…

“it isn’t.”

my brain paused to compute that.

“then—why do you do it?”

“survival. people get close to me, I hurt them, and they hurt me back, and then they leave. it’s a cycle. I’m simply protecting myself, because I know that the moment I am shown true kindness, I will be floored and malleable in ways you cannot imagine. another reason I wear so many masks—even if I am touched or on the receiving end of kindness, it is still never really me. simply a vision of what they think I ought to be.”

“.......o-oh……..” softer than a whisper.

“I don’t need kindness. I don’t need comforted, and I don’t need people. and so long as I am acting, I am safe from whatever could be.”

now, in this moment, I was feeling stupid. but not stupid as in the unintelligent kind—stupid as in the daring kind.

I’d just made up my mind on a lot of things. I knew what I wanted to do, and I knew there was no stopping my own nurturing instincts, and I knew I was one of those people she’d described earlier that fell constantly to their emotions.

“well, you’re...you’re not acting right now, are you?”

I phrased it simply, casually—like it was any old question without intent hidden under it like the mud under the plank of oak wood outside my grandfather’s home.

she squinted her eyes at me, like she was meant to be wearing glasses but had forsaken them.

“I………..n-no. no, I’m—not.”

she sounded more shocked than I’d been during this entire conversation.

“then come here.” I instructed her gently, taking a few steps towards her as if to show her it would be a joint effort.

she was reluctant and slow in her movements, but smooth nonetheless. (CONT'D)

[blairlocke]

Anywhere-But-Here:  Amahlia & Johnny, Chapter Two

Camping alone was a bad idea.  She held onto her Kapotasana pose, the backbend giving her a wide, but traumatizing view of the road that led to her driveway.  Even at one o’clock in the afternoon, everything definitely looked more menacing when it was flipped upside down.  And though she had seen no source of movement, she continued to scan her field of vision from her current position, as a pretzel.  And there it was again.  This time, she was able to discern the general direction of the indistinctive noise she had heard before, and more demonstrative.  A slight scuffling? In the brush to the left?

It was hard to be sure.  One thing was for certain.  Camping alone had been a very bad idea.  There was a healthy loneliness to camping that had appealed to her.  She had camped every summer with her family, practically from birth until graduation, and had gone on camping sabbaticals with friends in college, and then with Matthew a half a dozen times, though he preferred staying in a cabin, which. to her mind, didn’t really count.  So, when she had been pondering her upcoming weekend with her officemates, whom all seemed to be going to one affair or another, the thought had just popped into her head.  Camping?  And that’s when she realized to her astonishment that she had never gone camping by herself.  Hiking, yes.  But camping?  The thought had seemed to nag at her, filling her with the first sense of urgent excitement she had felt in what could have been months, maybe even years.  Being the true crime buff that she was, the idea of going by herself gave her the sort of momentary pause one gets before climbing into a roller coaster car.  Sure, a fair amount of girls whom had gone off to run or shop or bike or walk or gone off to bed, on their own, had by some terrible stroke of bad luck, never come back, or come back in very separate pieces, and her luck was proving to be questionable right now...wait, how had she thought this would be a good idea?  Oh, that’s right.  She had then gone on to convince herself that she could take care of herself.  Wow...the relief...the logic...the foolishness.

Her stomach had gone sour.

Well, this is the wilderness.  Perhaps it’s just wildlife.  It sounded too small to be a bear...or a mountain lion.  But maybe squirrels?  Raccoons?  Birds??  A girl could hope.

She unwound herself, immediately bounding to her feet and across the small space to her little two-man dome tent.  Just inside the zipper door, without looking she reached in to grasp for the bat, which she had tucked there for peace of mind on her first solo excursion.  She felt its rubber grip, feeling up its neck to the warm aluminum, and pulled it free.  She really hoped that it was a squirrel.  A really big, fat adorable squirrel.

*****

The day was a gorgeous one.  It was the kind of day that The Temptations had sung about.  The kind of pretty that if it were a girl, her measurements would be 36-24-36 and she would be dressed in nothing but a bikini, cherry red lipstick, and a luscious-lipped smile.  

Still, his face remained firmly as placid as an iced over lake.  The glance he gave the bushes, which seemed to be moving, was an innocuous one.  Not curious, merely accessing.

“What the fuck?”  he said it to himself, but the words garnered him some attention from the man that squatted behind some bushes at a campsite that Johnny was passing.  His blond hair glinted in the sunlight, as he paused in mid step and pivoted, all of a sudden every bit interested--a snake sensing a lizard.  But, in the space of a millisecond, there was no man, only brush playing in the wind.  The campsites afforded a modicum of privacy with rough foliage allowed to creep in from every side, but the one meeting the road, and especially this one by the look of it.  He heard rather than saw that someone had picked up on its peeping Tom because they called out, “Hello?”  A woman’s voice.  Johnny continued his path towards the showers.�� He reeked of fish bait and sweat.  The day was cooler than the day before, but only barely.  Why had he decided on a fishing weekend in August?

Excellent and reasonable question, but he was not feeling very reasonable just now.  He had bigger fish to fry than sparring it out with logic.  Oh, yeah.  No fish for his trouble did not help sweeten his disposition.  And after ten minutes in a frigid and highly pressurized shower, his mood had gone from icy to thunderous, though he did smell better.  

“Oomph!”

“Fuck!”  He had suddenly collided with someone coming into the doorway of the men’s room in a rush, and just as he was heading out.

“Oh, sorry.”  It was a woman.  That much he knew before they had shoved away from each other, and before her voice gave her away.  “Oh good, I won’t have to sneak in. I was wondering if you could grab a roll of toilet paper for the ladies room.  It’s completely empty.”  And then, there was a beat as they took each other in.

“Oh.”  She sounded startled, even though her response to him was barely above a whisper.  “Hi.”  It was her.  The woman whom had used his phone to call a tow truck.  It had been a few weeks, and she looked somehow more glowing, which suddenly had him thinking that she had likely been ill before, because while she had been pretty to him, now, she looked like Helen of Troy come to slay him.

He so did not need this.  Let it be some other siren, and the man some other numbnuts.  He was all out of fucks to give when the only price left to pay was his sanity, and sometimes that didn’t seem so far off.  So he fixed her with a noncommittal, and unyielding stare, and then brushed past her.

“It’s all yours,” he threw back coldly.

He wished that the wind would pull itself together, for not even a huff stirred to dry off the dampness of his skin, a combination of cool sweat and a flush that seemed to make his cheeks hum like a furnace.

If only her lips weren’t burning holes in his brain with their rosey advertisement of a bedroom’s true purpose, like a gavel banging a verdict of guilt and lasciviousness.

If only her voice were higher pitched, like some Minnie Mouse, instead of the trill of some film noir detective’s old flame, her pitch that of midnight, both dark and chocolatey.  Where she might be sweet, but likely tasted of rich molten lava.  

If only only her form hadn’t now been briefly memorized by his hands, accidentally in their crashing into one another, but it was enough to make out her curviness, however slight that she might appear.

He was so hard that he could beat the birds away.

“Fuck.”  For the fourth time in some 20 minutes, he cursed to himself.  “Fuck this.”

*****

The moonlight seemed only a small orb like a distant lamplight glowing through fog.  The clouds parted, unmasking the stars which glared fiercely down at her, glinting like tiger’s eyes.  The air could scarcely spare a chill, the steamy smell of coming rain mixed with too much warmth, and it seemed an effort to breathe in the thick and dogged swelter.

She threw her ancient mystery novel towards her equally worn backpack, which was also servicing as a nightstand of sorts.  She had taken the rain fly off of the tent in order to get more airflow, and to admire the stars, but, she thought that she had better put it back on before the sky let itself go.  A flash of lightning hurried her action.

It was just beginning to sprinkle when she was climbing back inside her small shelter.  She had a small inflatable mattress that would keep her up off the tent floor, which was bound to be a good thing if this was the size of summer’s end storm that sometimes crept up in the night.

It was strange that she had seen the bartender.  Especially so soon after she had heard those noises from the bushes, but could it just be a coincidence?  She supposed so.  And certainly, it was not the last person that she had wanted to see.  As a matter of fact, if she was being completely honest with herself, she had not minded seeing him again.  She found their interactions odd, but charged somehow.  

Yes, that was the right word.  Her head tilted itself contemplatively.  Her lips pursed.  Awareness.  That’s what there was between them.  A natural awareness...of what, she was not so sure.  No, he wasn’t responsible for the noises from earlier.  Somehow she just knew that he was not a threat.  To her peace of mind, and sense of comfort, maybe.  But he wasn’t creepy.  He was, however, annoyed.  She wasn’t even sure if that had as much to do with her, or just that he was a morose person.  He begged all sorts of questions to her mind, and she was hard pressed further to figure out why he should seem so interesting to her.  But he was.  It did not hurt that, even though he was clearly older than her by maybe 10 years, maybe even more, he had beautiful and chiseled features.  He had obviously been a pretty boy in his youth, made more interesting by a long aquiline nose, and as a man now likely in his forties, the small lines on his face around his eyes gave away that, at one time, he must have laughed.  Maybe a lot.  The sweep of his cheekbones and curve of his jaw was like a sculptor would trace for an immortal, portraying the kind of beauty that usually did not come to life.

Okay, so he was very attractive.  That was not her question.  Her question was, what the hell was wrong with him that he stared her down as if she were a pesky stray dog, and yet, the air around them seemed to melt her flesh off and her very blood was suddenly made of acid.  She wondered if he was a good kisser.  He certainly had the lips for it.  His lower lip was so full that he looked perpetually pouty.

The question that kept running circles in her mind was, what had made him have that forlorn look in his eyes, as if the world had finally done his spirit in, and he was barely able to keep in motion.  All pretense was dropped where he was concerned.  As the saying went, he had no fucks left to give.  She read a coldness in his eyes, but it had the look of being put there by some unspeakable amount of pain, rather than it being innate.  She wondered what gave her that idea.  She was no psychic, and he certainly hadn’t divulged one detail about himself, not even his name, come to think of it.  But she just felt it.  She knew that the feeling could be no more backed up by evidence than one given a poison apple.  How to prove it without taking a bite?  And, in return, risk having the bite taken out of you.

She drifted off to sleep with the foggy thought of perhaps becoming a more frequent patron of his bar.  It was no surprise when that night she dreamed of snakes, the bar’s neon sign pledging the words The Pit and featuring a Cobra curling around the P, its mascot slithering through her uneasy brain.

[circuscarnage]

Potion class panic.

Just a silly one-off fic featureing Sebek Zigvolt and Jack Howl. Thank you to @holyheaven for letting me use his idea.

Words: 1901.

Potions was one of most interesting classes at Night Raven Collage. It taught the students how to use items that they would not usually use in other settings, such as cauldrons and exotic ingredients. It also educated them on how to defend themselves without the use of their wands. It was remarkable what you could put into a tiny potion bottle. Divus had noted that a good magician always has a potion or two up their sleeve, 'just in case' anything were to happen.

In all honestly, they were quite handy. If you were defenceless and needed to run away from battle, just use a mist potion to distract your opponent as you made a safe escape. If you were facing a powerful enemy and were seconds away from death, you better hope you packed a healing elixir, otherwise... Well, you get the point.

The potion class for the first years was more tame, focusing on introducing the students slowly to the dangers of the magical liquids. Instead of throwing them into the deep end immediately, Crowley offered a calmer experience. Things really got exciting in the second year, but we are not here for that. 

Students were paired up in teams of two, preparing a special potion set out by Divus Crewel, the potions teacher. Don't let his love of fashion fool you. Even though he may not look it, he is one of the most powerful potion masters at Night Raven. The potion they were preparing today was a weak transmutation potion. Divus warned that any misdemeanours when making this would earn a detention, as well as a stern talking to from Mozus. As such, everyone was on their best behaviour. Sebek was practising his own work, using the scales of mermaids, unicorn blood, and the hair of a phoenix to create his elixir. It was almost complete, all he had to do next was to stir and let it simmer for a few minuets. In all honestly, he didn't know what to do once he created it. He had no need for this potion, he could cast a transformation spell himself. Perhaps he could gift it to Malleus? Would he enjoy such a gift? He was already powerful enough, giving him something as trivial as this would be considered nothing but a trinket. But maybe he would like the thought?

Sebek was too busy in his own thoughts to notice another student carrying a few too many bottles. They fumbled around between their fingers before eventually letting one slip, and sending it cascading towards the floor. It shattered upon impact, sending a marvellous crash throughout the entire classroom before it was engulfed in a thick pink smoke. It was utter chaos. No one could see and inch in front of their face. A chorus of coughing and confused cries could be heard as students tried to swat the smoke away, opening windows and using text books to clear the room. "Is everyone alright?" Divus called as he batted the pink mist away with his free hand.

Once the mist has dispersed, everyone looked around, eager to see whether or not it had any effect. Potions class could be disastrous if something went wrong. It could be as small as turning a desk into a piece of cake, or as big as accidentally summoning an almighty fire demon hell bent on destroying the entire school. Thanks, Floyd.

But as the students searched around the classroom, they were disappointed at the lack of change. Everything seemed to be in place. Every potion bottle was securely where it was left, and not a singe desk had been transmuted into a terrible beast. There was a calm silence that lay over the students, letting out breaths of relief as they settled once again. 

That was until the entire class had their attention drawn as the sound of another glass shattering filled the air. Simultaneously they turned in the direction of one student, who was standing next to a broken bottle filled with pink shimmery liquid, accompanied by a long and scaly crocodile tail. At first, Sebek was taken aback. He hadn't realised a crocodile had made its way into the school. He jumped back, surprised when he realised the tail was following him wherever he went. How did a crocodile even get in here? He turned himself around, trying to get a glimpse of the creature. But wherever he was facing, the crocodile seemed to be right behind. At this point, he seemed to have connected the dots. A mild panic started to build up in his chest, which seemed to affect the tail as well, as it started to flail wildly. Some students took the initiative to stand back, far away from the manic tail, while others attempted to stifle a laugh, amused by the tails antics.

With one wave of his hand Divus silenced the group of youngsters. His footsteps echoed through the room as he sauntered across the class, stopping to take a peek at the newly grown tail. It was quite the sight. Reminiscing that of a real reptile tail, it swished back and forth under his gaze. "How peculiar." He hummed. After a moment of inspecting it, he walked back over to his desk, where he took out an old purple book, carved with strange markings. He flipped through the pages before settling on one towards the middle. "Not to worry, I'll have an antidote ready later. You'll just have to wait it out until then."

The tail was going to be a challenge. Even though it only came down to the back of his knees, it was plenty powerful, and could cause some serious damage if he wasn't careful. He needed to get this sorted quickly. With this tail causing problems, he wouldn't be able to protect Malleus properly! Even the thought of not being there when Malleus needed him most was enough to send Sebek into a blind panic. His emotions also seemed to affect the tails behaviour, as it started to flail wildly again, knocking over several more potion bottles, sending them crashing towards the floor.

"Bad pub!" Divus called from the other side of the class as he stormed over. Sebek stood still, fearing that his behaviour would leave a bad mark on his record. When he eventually made his way over, Divus took Sebek by the collar as he lead him outside the classroom, treating him like a new puppy who had torn up his favourite cushion. "I advise you to stay out of trouble until I sort this out." With one hand on the door frame, and the other placed on his temple, Divus let out one final request before slamming the door in Sebeks face.

"Now, sit. And stay."

Sebek walked along the cobbled path of Night Raven, letting his tail swish lazily behind him. Ever since he left the classroom, it calmed down, no longer feeling the need to rampage among the potion bottles. Originally, he had planned to stay put like Divus told him to, but Crowley was patrolling the halls that day, and advised that he take a walk around the school to let off some steam. It seemed to be working.

He let out a small sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He sincerely hoped that Divus wouldn't be mad at him. Surely, he would understand it was an honest mistake. He also hoped the other students would forgive him, he didn't mean to cause a scene. With any luck, they would be able to continue the class without any more disruptions.

"The hell happened to you?" Jacks voice cut through Sebeks inner monologue, and drew his attention towards the Savanaclaw student sitting idly by himself on a nearby bench. The white wolf gestured to the newly grown tail, studying it intently. He had seen students with similar features, those being from the reptile family, ranging from lizard tails, snake like features, and even tortoise shells. However, he knew Sebek wasn't one of them. And seeing him with one was... weird, to say the least.

"There was an... accident." Sebek confessed before telling his friend what had transpired in the class before. The stress seemed to be getting to him, as when he explained all the horrors of having said tail, it started to swing again, smacking into whatever poor soul was walking past them. Jack grumbled as he watched Sebek try to get a grip on his own tail, flustered and fumbling around. It looked like a dog trying to chance its own tail, and failing miserably. Of all the students here, the savanaclaw ones were the ones most experienced with having extra limbs. Jack was reminded of his own tail, remembering how hard it was to control when he was younger. For some reason, that seemed to piss him off more.

"Christ, can you get a grip on that thing?" Jack called out, his hand instinctively gripping onto Sebeks new tail and keeping it in place. It was against the Savanaclaw rules to grab another students tail, but Sebek wasn't in Savanaclaw, and this situation was already getting out of hand. His tail seemed to become even more panicked as it squirmed under his tight hold. Sebek was no different, getting agitated by this fact. The new nerve endings in his tail seemed to scream at him, compelling him to fight back.

"H-hey!" Without thinking, Sebek grabbed onto Jacks already heightened tail, causing it to bush up even more. At first, Sebek had grabbed Jack's tail as a way to get back at him. An eye for an eye, or in this case, a tail for a tail. But as he met the others gaze, he could practically feel the atmosphere change around them. 

Canines bared, ears heightened, and eyes glaring with animistic ferocity, Jack seemed ready and raring to pounce at any given moment. "Let. Go." Jack barked as he stared Sebek down with frightening intensity. It didn't take much for Sebek to match Jack's bloodthirsty stare. He was already quite intimidating without even trying, now he looked like he could take down Malleus with a single glare. "You first." Both males seemed to be increasingly reluctant to back down first, each of them having individual pride that they were not willing to put aside. 

They stood there for a moment, glaring each other down, growls starting to emerge in their throats. It wasn't until the sound of someone clearing their own throat that they realised they weren't alone. Another student had stumbled upon the scene, and was trying to process what was happening. "Divus is looking for you, said something about an antidote?" As the student spoke, they couldn't help notice the strange situation they had walked upon. Their face furrowed in confusion as they let out a shaky question, "Is that a tail?"

Both men immediately let go of the other and straightened up, brushing off the remaining hostility that lingered in the air. Sebek coughed to clear any more awkwardness before speaking. "Thank you for reminding me, I had better be on my way." He turned back to Jack, having the courtesy to at least bid him a farewell. Jack only turned away and let out a small growl, still mad about having his tail grabbed. Sebek made a mental note to apologise for that later.

[2k18leo]

((This may get lost in all the finale talk but I wanted it finished in time for Leo Day, so without further ado, here is Rogue’s personality sheet))

Name: Rogue

Age: 16 (November 5th)

- Leo 16, Donnie 16, Mikey 15, Raph 17, April 17

Gender: Female

Species: Australian Water Dragon

List the most important things about your character.

- Was an actual lizard before her mutation

- Was shipped from Australia to be a pet of a gothic teenage girl

- Did not retain an Australian accent because she was too young to learn one when she was shipped from Australia

- Gets called multiple creative nicknames from Leo, including but not limited to:

-- Ro

-- Rogue-y babey

-- (to the tune of Row Row Your Boat) Ro-Ro-Rogue-y baby

-- Stripes (they both call each other this)

-- Tails

-- Hot Fry ( ??? don’t know where he thought of this)

-- Spade (because of the shape of the mark on her back, which resembles a spade)

-- Reggae ( ?? )

-- Babey Spade

-- Moulin Rogue (to which she always laughs and responds, “it’s Rouge, dumbass!”)

- She loves to paint and be artsy with Mikey

- Will patiently listen while Donnie explains the technicalities of his latest inventions, and is also eager to be a test subject for some of his newer creations

- Absolutely loves to pull pranks with Leo and will sometimes sneak out with him on the shellhogs to race around the city

- Lives with April because “living with all guys is just a little too much sometimes” (but will crash with Leo if she is over there too late) and helps take care of Mayhem when April is at school/work

- She will sometimes instigate the Disaster Twins and their tomfoolery because she finds it so amusing

- She is actually not much of a fighter (but is well aware how to weaponize her tail and claws) but Raph has offered to help train her in their downtime

Physical Details

- Slim waist

- Thick thighs

- Short torso with long legs

Height: 5’6” (with Leo 5’11”, Donnie 5’11”, Mikey 5’6”, Raph 6’4”, April 5’5”)

Weight: ~ 130lbs

Skin: All scales

- Creamy pale green in color over the majority of her body

- Has “glove” markings on forearms and shins

Hair: None

Eyes: Blue eyes, long eyelashes

Other defining features/extra anatomy:

- Long tail with 17 stripes

- Has horizontal stripes from her eyes to the back of her head

- Three fingers/toes on limbs

- Has a heart-shaped marking in middle of torso on ventral side

- Has a spade-shaped marking in middle of torso on dorsal side

Habits:

- Constantly laughing with Leo

- Picking at her scales

- Will tap her claws or tail if she is jittery

- Will subconsciously quote movies if it seems appropriate for the situation even if no one around her knows where the quote comes from

- Will flick her tail if irritated

- When she gets nervous, her tail will suddenly curl around an object close to her for support (more often than not this object is Leo and he thinks it’s precious)

- When she’s being flirty, the tip of her tail will caress under his chin *enter heart-eyes Leo*

- Her tail moves in the night, accidentally knocking stuff over while she sleeps

- Often has sarcastic quips escape her mouth

Gestures/Mannerisms: She likes to sweep her tail around to help her hips sway back and forth

Voice: I am still figuring out a voice actor that I feel would fit her well. I’ve thought about Elizabeth Gillies, Liana Liberato, Sabrina Carpenter, Peyton List, etc. If you have any suggestions, I’m always open to options ! :)

Style: Athletic but casual (a cropped sleeveless hoodie with a choker, and a bandana wrapped around her arm)

-Personality-

Loves/Favorites:

- Food (will eat anything as she is omnivorous)

- Sunny days (loves to bask in the sun)

- Keeping her nails long and sharp

- Music (almost any kind. She can dance to pop, rap along to hip-hop, belt out to the Hamilton soundtrack (where Donnie will join in sometimes), dance to country music while breaking out in a southern accent, and sway lovingly to some nice jazz)

- Spooky stuff (Horror movies, Halloween, ghost stories, etc.)

- Movies! (Disney, Action, Horror, Sci-Fi, Adventure, Mystery)

- Watching/playing basketball (has somehow managed the ability to dribble with her tail)

- Playing Baseball (is not a bad short-stop)

- Swimming (she’s pretty fast underwater with the help of her long strong tail)

- Playing games (be it video games, card games, board games, etc.)

- Creating art (she loves to draw and paint, and also has a subtle love for photography)

- She has a huge ole’ crush on Leo <3

Hates:

- Cold weather (unless it’s snowing)

- Cloudy days (she loves the sun, duh)

- Rom-coms (too cheesy for her taste)

- Bad grammar (her previous owner (while Rogue was not fond of her) went to a college-prep school and she often overheard her speak with proper grammar)

- Burnt popcorn (a trAGEDY)

- A bad sense of humor (she’s thankful that pretty much all the turtles are able to laugh and not take anything super seriously because she often has some sarcastic quips that escape her mouth)

Hobbies: She draws, watches movies, will pick up a book occasionally

Talents/Skills:

- Dribbling a basketball with her tail

- Drawing/painting

- Memorizing movie quotes

Fears/Nightmares: Waking up one day back as a regular lizard

Best Quality: Sense of humor

Greatest Flaw:

- Not great at communication (gets cranky when she doesn’t have her alone time but is not good at expressing that)

- Sometimes gets jealous that she’s the “odd man out” and it wouldn’t matter if she wasn’t there because the boys already have April, but loves April all the same

- Perfectionist (likes things done a certain way) but only sometimes

Character Strengths:

- Playful

- Patient

- Good-natured

- A good sense of humor

- Laid back for most things

- A rationalist (very practical)

And the coinciding weaknesses: She’s not the best at opening up to anyone

What she wants and doesn’t want

- She wants to move towards having an actual family. Perhaps getting some training under her belt to know how to fight.

- She wants to stay away from her previous owner (and the snake that Evie always picked on her with, Calamity)

How does the character picture herself? Rogue: Oh gosh, what did everyone else say? This is kinda weird. Erm, I guess I’m a great swimmer. I like to laugh a lot so the boys never fail to make me. I’m not a neat freak, but not a crazy slob either? I like to think I’m fun to be around.

How do others see her?

- Leo: She’s beautiful, funny, short, has a great laugh, is always down to part-aaay. She laughs at my jokes! My jokes! You know that’s a quality girl!

- Donnie: Yeah, she’s… perfect for Leo, I guess. The two of them can get a bit riled up at times but she has a good heart. Plus, it keeps him busy and not a distraction for me when I’m trying to get work done.

- Mikey: Omigosh, I love her! She’s an awesome artist! She painted this piece on my shell right here, can you see it? Right here. Yeah, she’s great. Not a perfect chef, but I introduced Kondescending Kitchen to her and I think I’ve got her hooked.

- Raph: Shorty? She’s the best! She knows just when to bring Leo back down to Earth. Is always down for any athletic event. *whispers* she throws a mean spiral on Lace Face. I’ve been training with her a few nights a week, y’know to get her strength up. But it’ll be awhile before we take her on any type of mission.

- April: Oh, that’s my girl! Rogue is hilarious, and definitely great with Mayhem. She lives with me at my place, which isn’t bad. She isn’t a slob, so that’s great.

- Splinter: Is that the one with the tail?

Five adjectives that she would use to describe herself. Rogue: Oh, I guess… hmm… funny? Reasonable, happy, laid back, aaaand… artsy?

Five adjectives others would use to describe her.

- Leo: I’ll say it again. Beautiful, cute, funny, short, hilarious, pretty, smart, smokin’, (no, no, Leo, you’re only supposed to do 5. You’re good) … but I can keep going. (nah, I think we got it, thanks!)

- Donnie: Let’s see… Intelligent, humorous, independent yet social, and likeable

- Mikey: She’s tons of fun! Super friendly, a crazy good artist, awesome gamer, and very responsible when need be.

- Raph: The girl’s tough, athletic, smart, a jokester, and pretty trustworthy.

- April: She’s so funny, we laugh all the time. And we have inside jokes and secrets that I trust her with. Super sweet, but she also has a daring side that hypes me up. Aaand, she’s considerate. A good roommate and friend.

- Splinter: When did Blue get a girlfriend?

Most valued possession: Rogue: Oh, uh… probably the bandana that I have wrapped around my arm here. The boys gave it to me as sort of a family token. I didn’t like the look of it on my face since it hid my stripes but I always like to know where it is even if it’s not on me.

Darkest secret and/or treasured memory: Rogue: Wow, you guys ask a lot of questions. Ummm, I guess I shoplifted this hoodie. That’s not the worst thing in the world, but I’m not sure. Not many people know but I don’t think it’s a huge deal. A treasured memory I guess is when I met the boys for the first time. Also the day I escaped Evie.

Most proud accomplishment and or greatest failure: Rogue: I mean, I’m pretty proud of all the art I make. I guess the best thing I ever accomplished was escaping Evie, my previous owner. Everything kinda went uphill from there.

Current motivation: Rogue: Motivation for what exactly? To keep living? I guess my family. The turtles and April have really opened my eyes to what a happy life could actually be. It’s great. Everyday is an adventure with them and they make me feel so loved.

How does she view the future and/or the past? Rogue: I guess I regret not escaping Evie’s place sooner. That was just not a great time for me. But, hey, it’s all better now. I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

What is her philosophy on life and death? Rogue: Well, back before the mutation, when I was still at Evie’s place, I was just a lizard that didn’t really care one way or the other. Evie would constantly shove her other pet, a snake she named Calamity, super close to my cage. Us Aussie Water Dragons are common prey for snakes so it scared the shit out of me. It happened so much that it got to the point where I would just think ‘whatever. If the snake is going to eat me, go ahead. This isn’t a life to live anyway, being in this cage.’ It sucked and the best day of my life was when I escaped. Now I spend everyday with a smile on my face. I want to live life to the fullest! And the turtles really make that feeling come true.

What kind of energy level do they usually have? Rogue: I’m normally pretty calm and chill but I have been known to get riled up with Leo. Mikey and his bubbly side also hype me up sometimes.

How does she show and/or handle: love, affection, grief, pain, anger, sadness, conflict, change, loss? Rogue: I was conflicted with how to feel when the turtles first invited me to their home. Up until then all I had known were dead crickets and a glass box on all sides of me. So, it was definitely weird for me. I mean, Calamity didn’t like me so all I got were stupid threats from her. But loving the turtles came so easy to me. And ever since I met them I had felt a different feeling towards Leo, but the sensation was so foreign to me that I didn’t really understand. I liked him, all of them, but it was just a feeling of wanting to be around him more.

Does she have a temper? Rogue: I think I’m self-aware enough to admit that I have a small temper and I handle it with major passive aggression. I’m not great at confrontation and I’m used to letting things that really get to me sit inside. It’s not the healthiest practice, but…

How does she respond to the surrounding world, the ‘unfamiliar,’ and other people in general? Rogue: You mean everything outside my cage? It’s fantastic! I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to taste the fresh air when I first escaped. The only type of “friendship” I had was with a tarantula in Evie’s room. He and I weren’t close but I preferred him to Calamity anyday. So coming out into the world and seeing the turtles, I was super nervous. Everything was unfamiliar to me.

Polite or rude? Rogue: I like to think I’m polite? I mean, I was never really taught any manners from Evie.

Stingy or generous? Rogue: Umm… both? Neither? I don’t have much to share or hoard.

What kind of ‘public’ face does she display? Rogue: The turtles know I’m not crazy about Evie, so they accept that I don’t always want to talk about her. I’m pretty much an open book, though.

Leader or a follower? Rogue: Both? Neither? I have the reasoning to be a leader in some cases, but I will always do what Raph says if he’s giving orders… even though I don’t go on missions with them. He and April are the oldest and definitely know more about the world than I do. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the leader and I respect him too much to argue about that.

More happy by themselves or in a group? Rogue: I spent years alone in a cage. I love being around people. We don’t even have to be doing anything, but their presence makes me feel a bit safer.

Does he/she have any addictions/dependencies/fixations/fetishes/ or other strange behavior? Rogue: Is popcorn an addiction?

What is her sexual preference/experience/values? Rogue: I like Leo.

-History/Background- Rogue: I feel like I’ve talked enough for one day. I’ll let Taylor finish this off.

Setting: Present day in Rise universe

Occupation: Nah, she’s a mutant lizard, although she sometimes wishes she could help pay rent for April’s apartment because she spends so much time there. April doesn’t mind it since she’s already used to the boys raiding her fridge, but a job under Señor Hueso was mentioned at one point (and might possibly play a role in the future)

Educational background/other learning experiences: Her previous owner has good grammar, but she did not develop the ability to speak until after mutation

Intelligence Level: As smart as a pet of a prep-school kid can be. She also has learned plenty from the turtles and April.

Short Term Goals: Probably finishing a book or a video game.

Long Term Goals:

- Finding the perfect weapon for herself.

- Keeping the family she was so lucky to find

Family:

- Has no idea about her biological parents since she was shipped out so early in life. Doesn’t really bother her that much, though.

- Previous owner: Name is Evangelique (Evie) Flint, who named Rogue and took care of her fine, meaning she was fed adequately. However, Evie favored the other pets that she owned (her snakes and scorpions) and would sometimes get the snakes close to Rogue in order to freak her out (Australian Water Dragons are often prey for snakes). When Evie was moving houses with her family, Rogue was able to escape. She never looks back.

Friends:

- Leo: She and Leo are super close and became fast friends. He flirted with her for months before she actually caught on. Rogue always thought he was cute but was pretty clueless when it came to romance. April filled her in and helped them get together (the best wingman). He is always able to make her laugh and it’s not difficult for her to reciprocate. He enjoys playing with her tail. They’re young and in love but still best friends. The others refer to them together as “The Stripes.” He doesn’t really get seriously jealous because he trusts her with his brothers. He adores her laugh and the heart-shaped mark on her chest.

- Donnie: They’re cool friends. She looks up to him as if he is older than her because of how smart he is. He’s more calm with her than he is with the boys because he’s seen her rational side. She’ll stay out of his way when he’s busy, but won’t decline being a helpful assistant or test subject for an experiment.

- Mikey: She thought he was super funny, like Leo. He was fascinated by her splotches and patterns, and was overjoyed that she liked art as well. One of their first times bonding together was over video games.

- Raph: He approached her first when they first encountered her, mainly as a way to shield his brothers if she was a threat. She likes to play some type of sporty game with him even though she is not nearly as in-shape as the rest of them. It was his idea for her to start sparring. He appreciates how tough and level-headed she is. He thinks she’s a good fit for Leo.

- April: Rogue was fairly relieved to make friends with a girl. April loved her look and thought the choker and hoodie was awesome. She lets Rogue sleep on her couch whenever she pleases, and she thinks it’s great that Mayhem likes her.

- Splinter: They’re not close. She’s met him a couple times and only because she felt it weird that the rat had yet to introduce himself. It’s sort of a mutual respect that they have.

Backstory:

- Born in Australia and shipped to Poughkeepsie, where Evie lived. She was lonely and constantly tormented by her owner and the snake, Calamity, who lived just a single frame of glass away next to her cage.

- After years of living in Poughkeepsie, Evie’s family decided to move to Detroit because of her mother’s business demands.

- Early on in the move, Rogue was able to escape and out of the vehicle and off the Mid-Hudson Bridge into the Hudson River. The river carried her down to Manhattan where she consumed an Ooze-quito and became mutated.

- I’m still figuring out a story on how she met the turtles and the events leading up to the present because she’s currently been with them for nearly half a year (I’ll probably write some drabbles on it in the near future, so stay tuned)

-Combat-

Physical Strength:

- Her tail is the strongest part of her body

- She has enough strength to workout with the boys, but cannot do any of the heavy weights that they can.

Coordination/Reflexes: Not bad reflexes. She’s not clumsy, but her tail has been known to knock things over in an environment she is unfamiliar with.

Fighting Style: Is typically prone to striking with her claws and/or tail

Unusual Abilities/Powers: Nothing mystical about her besides the mutation

Weapons/Other Gear: Has yet to find a weapon that works for her

((couple things, Tumblr completely messed with the format of this but oh well, yes I referenced Leo’s pose from the episode Newsworthy, but I just adore his pose so much that I was super excited to draw it, they may or may not be holding hands, that’s up to your interpretation :D, but yeah. this personality ref sheet was super long but I really wanted to milk this character because I hope she sticks with me for a long time. If you read the whole thing, thank you so much, I appreciate you more than you realize :) )) 

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

All Those Things They Couldn’t Say - A Runaway Baudelaires AU

{ao3} {tumblr} {masterlist}

Chapter Ten - The Baudelaires tour the Reptile Room

Eventually, Monty called for them, and the children made it back downstairs and found their way to the kitchen. They were surprised, upon entering, to see that Monty had indeed made a cake for them. Gustav and him sat at the table, and handed each child a piece before letting them choose their seat. 

“Sunny doesn’t like soft foods, I’m sorry.” Violet said as they sat. 

“That’s unusual for an infant,” Monty said, “But not for many snakes. Perhaps she would like a raw carrot?” 

“Ooh-ee.” Sunny said, as he pulled a carrot from a bowl and passed it to her. “That would be lovely.” 

“Thank you, you didn’t have to do this.” Violet inspected the cake. Perhaps he had poisoned it? No, Gustav was eating, too, and he’d let them select their own pieces… 

“It’s really no trouble.” Monty smiled. He paused, and then said, “Your parents… told you about me?” 

Violet hesitated. “Not a lot. We don’t know much.” 

“But they designated you our first safehouse should we be separated.” Klaus explained. 

“Well,” Monty grinned. “That is an honor.” 

Gustav cleared his throat. He looked a bit more skeptical than Monty. “You said you were Beatrice and Bertrand’s children?” 

The way he emphasized their father’s name confused Klaus a moment, trying to figure out why that was important. Violet quickly said, “Yes. They got married after running away. We… we can name facts about them, if you-” 

“No, no, we believe you.” Monty said. “Like I said, you look just like your parents.” 

“You knew them well?” Klaus asked. 

Monty nodded. “We volunteered together.” 

They tried to hold back sighs. “That’s nice.” Violet finally said. “We hate to impose, but… we just need somewhere to stay until our parents escape.” 

“What exactly happened?” Gustav asked, leaning forwards. “You said that…” 

“That Count Olaf captured them?” Violet stared very hard down at her food. “Yeah. He did. We… he…” 

“He forged a telegram from one of our contacts.” Klaus decided that was the best way to put it. “And killed him. The telegram told us to come to the city and meet him, but it was a trap. They… they got our parents, we only got out because of Violet.” 

“If you hadn’t run for Mother and Father,” Violet said quietly, “I would’ve been too frozen to think of anything, and we’d still be in his horrible clutches.” 

“If I hadn’t run for Mother and Father, I wouldn’t have gotten this bruise.” 

“But we would’ve been worse off.” Violet shook, remembering the Count’s hands running through her hair. “They put Sunny in a birdcage. When we escaped, we broke into a house that had a library, so we could use a dictionary to break the lock.” 

“How did you do that?” Gustav asked, confused. 

“We hit it until it fell off.” Klaus said. 

“Oh.” 

“A… a woman found us.” Violet started to fiddle with the edge of her shirt. “But she called the police. We got them to at least suspect Olaf of trying to hurt us, but we had to run. We… we came here. Sorry-” 

“Don’t be sorry, children.” Monty leaned over and put a hand over Klaus, who was seated nearest to him. “You are in trouble, and you came to us, and we will protect you. Gustav, you said you administered medical treatment to their wounds?” 

“As best I could.” Gustav considered. “I doubt a hospital would be wise. I assume you don’t legally exist?”

The kids shook their heads. “Bit hard to fill out a birth certificate on the run.” Klaus said. 

“We could contact… some associates of ours.” 

“Please don’t.” Violet said. 

“Gustav,” Monty said carefully, “You know Beatrice and Bertrand… didn’t part on good terms with our associates. Let’s let the children stay awhile and figure out what to do.” 

“Only if that’s okay.” Violet said cautiously. 

“Of course.” Monty smiled. “You’re always welcome in my home. Now… do you children want to see my collection?” 

“Raccolta?” Sunny asked, which meant, “What collection?” 

“Why, my reptiles!” Monty stood up, holding out his hands to help the children to their feet. “I’m a herpetologist, after all! What kind of a herpetologist would I be if I didn’t have reptiles?” 

“Is that the… reptile room?” Violet asked. 

“It’s my Reptile Room, Violet!” Monty said. “And it’s filled with all sorts of wonderful creatures that Gustav and I are studying! Would you like to see?” 

“Is it safe?” 

Monty smiled. “It’s perfectly safe. I promise, so long as you keep a level head, no harm will come to you in the Reptile Room.” 

Klaus, who had read a little about reptiles but never had the opportunity to study them, looked to Violet hopefully. “Vi, can we?” 

She hesitated, and then nodded. “Sure. Why not?” 

Klaus grinned and picked up Sunny, shouldering her as Violet carefully followed Monty, glancing back to see Gustav coming after them, watching them just as carefully. 

Monty led them to the door underneath the stairs, and he showed them his top-of-the-line security system- a bunch of useless levers and gears, disguising the simple doorknob. 

“Brilliant.” Klaus said. 

“Ooh.” Sunny said. 

Monty smiled and swung open the door, and Klaus immediately gasped and ran inside, a cheering Sunny in his arms. 

The room, walled with glass, was filled to the brim with cages and containers, all with brightly-colored reptiles. Snakes and turtles, lizards and newts, everything the children could think of. Klaus immediately ran to a glass container, showing Sunny the two-headed cobra inside, while Violet found herself wandering to a large cage, holding three winged lizards, flapping between perches and chirping. She knelt by the complex lock, eyes widening. 

“This is impressive.” she said, reaching for her hair ribbon. 

“It has to be.” said Gustav, smiling. “The lizards keep escaping.” 

“In fact, the only one we haven’t figured out how to lock up is our Incredibly Deadly Viper.” Monty said, smiling. He glanced towards a cage that was, indeed, swinging open, and said, “Speaking of which, where’ve- oh! There it is!” 

Sunny giggled as the coal-black snake slithered over a hanging pole, made to look like a tree branch. It slid down, hissing in Sunny’s face; Klaus hesitated slightly, wondering if he should move back, but Sunny laughed and reached forwards, grabbing its head. 

“Dr Montgomery,” Klaus said, eyeing the snake. 

“Oh, please call me Monty.” 

“Dr Montgomery,” Klaus continued, “Are there any snakes in here that are dangerous?” 

“Why, of course.” Monty said. “You can’t study reptiles without coming across dangerous ones. Why, I have a cabinet filled with venom samples from every snake known to herpetology! But all the poisonous reptiles are kept in cages with sturdy locks. I promise you, children, they cannot harm you in here.” 

Violet inspected another lock; these did seem to be very well-made, hard to remove. She looked up at the snake inside, and then she smiled a little. “This place is amazing.” she said. A crocodile, contained by the wall, let out a cry, sounding very much like it was saying Woe is me. Violet smiled, and then imitated its call. “Woe is me!” 

Gustav, surprised, came over to her. “You have a very good impression of the broken-hearted crocodile.” 

“I can imitate lots of different voices and sounds.” Violet shrugged. “But Klaus is better at forging-”

“Monty,” Klaus started, looking over at a far wall, “Are those books?” 

“Of course! That’s my library! You may read whatever you wish from it.” 

“We can read…” Klaus was enchanted. 

“And you won’t call the police?” Violet asked, just to be sure. “They’ll just arrest our parents when they come for us.” 

“No. Just us. And if you’re uncomfortable and want to leave, I’ll ensure you get to the next safehouse as soon as you can- I’m sure you have others?” the children nodded. “But please, make yourselves at home.” 

Violet paused, and her and Klaus shared a look. They weren’t sure what they were to be expected to do in return. Every now and again they’d stayed in the guest room of some house or another, and their parents had done some chores or repaired a furnace or something. 

“We could help around.” Violet said after a while. “I’m very good at repairing things.” 

“I can clean the library, and I can read up on snakes to help with the care.” Klaus volunteered. “I’m sure we can think of something for Sunny to do…” 

Monty smiled warmly, and walked over to Violet, putting a hand on her shoulder. “That won’t be necessary. That won’t be necessary at all. You’re guests in our home, and we will take care of you as best we can.” 

Violet stared up at him, and felt some kind of peace wash over her. 

He’d take care of them. 

They all slept in the same room- for understandable reasons, they really didn’t want to be separated at the moment. 

As Violet crawled into bed, Sunny curled up and snoring on the pillow beside her, she said, “I think we can trust him. For now.” 

“Yeah.” Klaus nodded fervently. “So long as he doesn’t call the police or VFD on us. What do you think of Gustav?” 

“Bit more suspicious.” Violet considered. “But he seems to listen to Monty. Be a bit careful around him, but I don’t think we have to worry too much.” 

“Are you sure?” 

Violet sild under the blankets, tucking them over Sunny, too. “I’m never sure. But- close as I can be, yes.” 

“And do you think our parents can find us here?” 

Violet shut her eyes. “They will.” 

They have to.

[smolnoms]

A Wolf’s Gotta Eat

I’m writing a story, didn’t think I’d make it to three chapters, but to celebrate doing so I’m putting up the first chapter. It’s my favorite, as it’s got all the good shit I like in it.

What’s In It?: Mouthplay, unwilling prey, animal-human hybrid giants and tinies, mouthplay, foodplay (of sorts? It’s with alcohol.) teasing at soft/fatal vore, and lastly, mouthplay.

Plot’s not super relevant, but to summarize; This world is one of animalistic tinies and giants. Think hybrids. The tinies used to live on lands far below, but due to famines and shit, they found a way to the top through the generations. However, they weren’t expecting the large dangers that lay above…

Character desc. for your convenience: P’veil is a black wolf hybrid, Juol a monkey hybrid, and Hugh is a lizard hybrid. The tiny gets described in ch. but is currently unnamed until later chapters.

Down the wet, empty streets came a dark figure. 

They were one of the many mutts found infesting the shadiest parts of a town so run down and run over, it was a miracle that it still stood. 

Hard working to all, loyal to a rare few...but honestly? That could be said of many.

No, truly, despite their reputation and the respect they held, they never let themself be anything more than another faceless grunt of the back alleys, selling questionable products at best, and morally horrific at worst. Sometimes, even they were a tad frazzled by some of the things that found their way into their little corner of the market, such as the severed leg of a wolf, one that so closely resembled their own…

But, hey! That wasn’t relevant right now. 

What they were really focused on now, was getting a drink.

“Hey, world to P’veil!”

A snapping finger inches from their face jerked them back to reality. Standing before them was a gruff, round man, sporting a grin sharpened with fangs, and a lower portion heavily drabbed in the scales of a reptile. He even sported a short, thick tail just beyond him, one with rounded edges and stained a dull green.

Another voice, higher than his, spoke up besides him. “You’ve been rather spacy tonight…”

P’veil turned to look at a female this time, one with a lengthy brown tail and wide, clawed brown furred feet and hands.

“D’aww, guys, there’s no need to worry about me, I’m just fine.” The entire line was delivered without the friendly mirth one might have expected, and yet, it was paired with a genuine smile, one that shot past them and out beyond the stretching street.

“Well, if that’s the case, then hurry your little furry butt!” Hugh, the reptilian man, barked out in laughter.

“Yes, let’s,” the other, Juol, agreed. As she passed by P’veil, she grinned cheerily, and gently dragged her dull claws across P’veil’s arm. They shivered, goosebumps trailing behind.

“Come on now, wolfy,” Juol cooed, and P’veil couldn’t help but continue alongside their two friends.

The three walked the abandoned streets, void of the rare few honest folk still left in this town. On occasion, pairs of glowing eyes would appear from deeper, untredded roads, either sitting still, or scurrying away as soon as they were noticed.

It did not trouble these three. Not at all.

Having let the silence stretch out long enough, P’veil piped up, curiosity making their voice softer than it ought to be. “I hear this bar is different than the rest.”

“Oh, it’s true! Tell them, Hugh,” Juol sing-songed.

The old man grinned playfully, and paused to sweep a hand outwards to a single building. It was an unusually long building, brown bricked and colorfully stained by sputtering neon sign that hung, crooked, above the entrance. The narrow steel door was not one that invited the pure or the weak to join in on the fun.

“Why don’t you find out for yourself?”

P’veil found themself standing just in front of the door, brow raised and eyes flickering in appraisal. The only real thing that caught their gaze was the neon sign. 

Depicted in bright purple and yellow was a humanoid lioness. She was poised with a hand raised towards her mouth, and fingers wrapped around something. However, it didn’t appear to be a glass of wine...

Done loitering, P’veil finally placed a clawed hand on the cold door, and shoved it open.

“Right up to the front, now! To the bartop!” Hugh crowed, shuffling his overall straps higher before waddling over.

Juol merely hummed, and sauntered over with a toothy grin.

P’veil glanced around quickly. It was dark, with small lighting here and there that made it clear that it was deliberately dim. Numerous human-animal hybrid creatures were milling about, more or less quietly, all sectioned off into their little groups, and occasionally casting looks around at the others, just as P’veil was now doing. They stopped before they could make the mistake of making eye contact with someone, and went to join the other two.

Hugh and Juol sat siddled next to each other, and P’veil gravitated over to Hugh’s side, settling down on a plush, worn-red stool. Their pure black tail hung off the edge.

“I already took the liberty of ordering for you,” Hugh said. “For the joy of mystery!” he tacked on, to appease P’veil’s flash irritation.

“Oh, right, the secret,” they murmured. 

“Hmhmm! Oh, I just know you’ll love it! Perhaps, even more that Juol!”

“Impossible,” Juol smirked, eagerly awaiting her own drink with little bouncing motions.

Humming, P’veil settled further in their seat, softly tapping a sharp claw against the hard countertop. Hells, they were intrigued now. They supposed they could wait, just for a bit, for such an anticipation.

As they awaited their drink, they tried to guess at what the mystery was. First off, they relied on their best sense, and scented the air.

...Sweat and alcohol, expectedly. The heavy odor made them huff, though for a second, they detected something hiding just underneath. They licked their lips, and looked up at the menus that hung above the back of the bar.

And, as expected, it listed off all the drinks that were available, paired with the occasional image. 

Yet what was most curious about some of the drinks, from half the menus, were the strange words freshly painted next to them. Something about it sparked a familiar feeling from P’veil. They remembered that these things were very new, and a sudden popularity to the black market.

“Wait...are, is this-ow!” They sneered at Hugh, who had swatted them. “What was that for?”

“For cheating,” he smugly said. “Honestly, there’s no fun with you, I swear-”

Just then, the bartender returned. The three leaned forward on their seats, eagerly awaiting the reveal of their drinks. 

Not one to tease, the bartender (a hulking man with a snake’s head), swiftly slid a glass in front of each person. 

And P’veil...smiled...wide.

For, sitting right in the middle of their drink was a little, pink, amphibian, tiny humanoid.

And it was staring right up at them with scared, orange eyes.

“Oh Hugh! Ya really outdid yourself!” P’veil hollered, ribbing the man. He returned their laugh while dragging his own glass closer to himself. 

“I’m real glad you think so,” he rumbled, toying with his glass and his own prey that sat within. “Now, bon appetit!” 

“Yes.” They lifted up their glass in one swift motion. The pink axolotl-boy yelped and scrambled feebly for a hold as the glass began to tilt. “Bon appetit!”

The small hybrid cried out, his pleas ringing off the glass. “No!”s and “please!”s and “I don’t wanna die!” crashed and burned on their ears. 

The glass was emptied, and the prey tumbled into their mouth.

The rushing burn of alcohol was swallowed, and following it was the smooth, warm, struggling form of the small youth. Tiny hands feebly pushed out, brushing against their tongue, their teeth, and even smaller head nubs tickled the roof of their mouth. They simply sat there, feeling his squirming on their tongue, and relished in the euphoria of having something so small, so vulnerable, trapped within the heat of their mouth. After a moment sampling his taste, they teased their mouth open.

He gasped in a breath. Brown hair was matted, wet, to his forehead, along with his shorts, the only clothes to drape his body.

“Please, stop...I can’t…” he wheezed, already withering from the assault. He tried crawling outward, and they lifted him along with their tongue, watching amusedly as a tiny arm reached out into the open air.

And gently, ever so gently, they brought their tongue back in, and closed their fangs down on the arm.

He took in a sharp breath. They felt his body go impossibly still inside their mouth. In the silence, they felt his tiny heart hammering away inside his tiny rib cage, shuddering along at a mile a minute.

And then, with a rumbling laugh, their sharp maw opened once more. Their hands fished inside their teeth and removed the drenched, tiny body, and let him hover right in front of their face.

He stared back with impossibly wide eyes.

“Oh, yes,” they purred. A long tongue slid out and lapped up the sides of his body, taking extra pleasure as his tiny hands and feet pushed out in retaliation. “I do believe I will be coming here more often, eheheh. Now, shall we get this show on the road?” they asked. For some reason they couldn’t discern, a small spark lit up in their prey’s eyes, but they ignored it, preparing to slurp him up again. 

“Wait!” he cried, much louder than ever before. They ignored him, and decided to start with that tail of his. Licking a long stripe up its back, they opened up just enough to suck it in.

“I remember! I-she was- there was-!”

Two tiny legs kicked out as they opened up for those too, slipping them in and along their tongue without a second thought. They kicked and clawed, but found no hold along the slick muscle.

“Her name, it, it was-“

In came the torso. They felt his abdomen contract and wobble with his words, and small hands grasped desperately at their fangs.

“Her name, it was Ohrei!”

P’veil felt every muscle in their body freeze as their tiny prey warbled out that name. They gasped, and unfortunately began choking as this sent their prey halfway down their gullet.

“Woah, easy there P’veil!” Hugh slapped down hard on their back.

With a great spasm, they coughed the tiny body back onto the bar top. It slid along the polished wood, leaving a trail of saliva behind.

A heartbeat or two was spent coughing and sputtering, banging a fist on their chest as they fought to catch their breath. As it slowly came back to them, their gaze quickly sought out the form of their prey.

“Hey,” they barked. They leaned in and peered down at their prey. A long claw poked at him. 

“Hey! What did you say? Say it! Say it again!”

A groan issued out from him. He turned to them with bleary eyes. “Ohrei...she-she told me she knew someone who looked just like you…”

Dead silence. Large red eyes locked onto small orange ones, and for a moment, everything felt delicate and strained.

And he dared not move, watching with a wary eye as his fate twisted and coalesced into a new form…

[dzamie-oc]

5: Sad

When I was eight years old, my grandfather warned me about starry-winged dragons. "They eat people, you know, that's how they get their name," he said, leaning forward in his chair, "their wings are black as void when they hatch from the egg. But when they grow big, and they eat a human..." He drew his fingers together, then opened his hand, like a twinkling star. "Plink! A new, white star, sparkling somewhere beneath their wings!" I took him dead serious, of course - age begets wisdom, and my grandfather had an awful lot of age.

At fourteen, I hiked into the woods on a warm spring afternoon. I was meant to stay with the others, but I sensed adventure off the beaten path. I took care to leave a subtle trail - arrows made from twigs, bound in blades of grass. A good adventuring story holds little worth if it cannot be told, after all. My path took me past a serene lake, under a stone arch some dark green lizards were fighting over, and finally into a dim cave. Once my eyes adjusted, I noticed another pair of eyes looking back at me. 

Laying on the stone floor was a dragon, scales black as night. It raised its head, then sat up. Through its folded wings, I caught a glimpse of tiny specks of light hidden beneath. “Hello there, little one. Why are you here? Humans do not often seek my counsel.” The dragon had a low, resonating voice that felt like it was speaking directly into my mind. The scaly head, easily twice the size of my torso, drifted nearer on a sleek, serpentine neck, letting the creature look over me before continuing, “besides, you are small for a human, a juvenile. I know of no human trail that leads to my den, so what led you to seek me out?”

A dragon, scales darker than the void, and wings filled with bright stars. A memory called out, insisting I back away, or even run, from an obvious man-eater. But I was fourteen. I had some years under my belt, and was confident that the adults were lying, or wrong. I had done a fantastic job of not dying for almost a decade and a half, and certainly this streak would not be interrupted. So I stepped forward, and told the truth: “I’m looking to find and make stories. Do you have any?”

The head drew back a bit and blinked. For the briefest of moments, I considered the possibility that I had irreversibly messed up. It passed, thankfully, and a few seconds later, the dragon smiled and giggled, mirth in its eyes. “What a fascinating question! You’ve found the right dragoness; I’ve known many humans, and heard many tales. Here, young human, I have at least a story for every star in my glittering wings. Come, point one out, and I will share its contents.” She sat up and spread her wings out, revealing two great expanses of shimmering, starlit night sky, held captive on a scaly canvas. That was the precise moment I truly understood the word “awestruck.” I hardly noticed my feet move as I stepped closer to her, watching as the stars twinkled, or at least seemed to, and reached out to touch one.

When I did, she jolted, half-furling the wing back up with another giggle. “Oh, I am rather ticklish; I did say to point for a reason. But, ah, you chose this one?” A black claw pointed to a star - in truth, I’d forgotten exactly which it was, but nodded just the same, eliciting a smile from the scaly creature. “Ah, the tale of Varren Kristaller, a spirited mailman. Let me see, where to begin...

“Varren was, as you might guess, a mailman. He was very good at his job, and took great pride in the work. You know the ‘neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night’ motto? Varren was that times a billion. In his line of work, he had dragged a mail recipient from an inferno, tightrope walked across a roaring river when the bridge was out, and even decked a territorial displacer beast when it stood between him and his goal. A thin, wiry sort of lad, but a sense of duty like you’d never seen. Until finally, he faced his toughest challenge yet: a mountain pass had suffered a rockslide, and the only other way from point A to point B was through an uncharted forest, filled with dangerous creatures...”

Her tale was riveting, and before I had realized, an hour had passed and I was sitting against her side, feeling her breath push her scales out and in while she spoke. “... He had seen the village, though, a mere ten minutes’ walk away! Sure, his legs felt like jelly and the snake’s venom was starting to rattle his brain, but you can bet: ten, fifteen minutes later, the mail was delivered. He had done it!” Her breath hitched and her gaze faltered after that sentence, so overwhelmed with emotions was she. Seeing the growing shadows on the ground outside, however, I was forced to bid her goodbye, thanking her dearly for the wonderful story.

My trip back was uneventful, my blazes clear to someone who would be looking for them. I got quite a dressing-down for ditching the others, though; they had thought I had died in the woods. It was a silly matter; I was fourteen, so I knew how not to get killed by the forest.

Years passed. I grew up, I took a trade, I worked steadily most weeks of the year. Love eluded me, though it’s not like I sought it out, either. One of my weeks off, however, I was seized by wanderlust once more - old, comfortable, yet somewhat unfamiliar after such a long time. This time, however, I let my friends and family know I was going for a walk in the woods. What I didn’t tell them, of course, was that I had a destination in mind.

The route had changed over the years. The pond was smaller - although, perhaps it was me who had gotten bigger - and the stone archway had collapsed, though there still stood a triumphant lizard, basking in the sun on its rock. The cave was much the same, but the dragon within was not resting as she had been the first time.

“Hello? Miss dragon?” I called out as I slowly stepped into the shadows. While waiting for my eyes to adjust to the low light, a scaly paw as wide as my chest pushed me firmly against the rock wall; it hadn’t hurt me, but I wouldn’t be moving without the dragon’s say-so.

“Pray tell, human, why have you come here? Fame? A trophy? I hope you do not seek a dragon’s hoard, for my cave is bare of such things.” The tense tone clashed strongly with my memory of her voice. Still, she did not sound angry, and her questioning pulled at my memories.

A quip came to mind - I did desire to take from her glittery hoard, not gold or gems, but something far more value. But, with the unerring confidence of adolescence firmly in the past, I knew that, if she desired, I would not return to the village. “Many of my friends enjoy the story of Varren Kristaller, and I would be much obliged if you would share another or two.” Using “story” and the mailman’s name so early, I hoped to remind her of our meeting decades ago.

To my relief, her eyes softened, as did her grip, and a smile curled her scaly lips. “Oh! Yes, the juvenile story-hunter. It has been some time, no? Do tell me you won’t make that mistake again!” The dragon laughed, stepped back, and spread her wings. They were as beautiful as I had remembered, if not moreso. Utterly enthralling... I wondered, silently, if she or another starry-winged dragon would hunt like this, simply baring their wings and eating their captivated prey. Her voice shook me out of my deep admiration, however. “Shall we play the same game, then? Oh, do take care not to touch - I am still ticklish, after all.” I smiled back, easily ignoring that her smile was full of sharp fangs and bigger than my entire head.

Stepping closer, I looked through the stellar skyscape of her wings before pointing at a large, bright star. “How about this one? Or maybe the dim one over here...”

‘Ooh, tough choice. I’ll start with the bright one, Sophie Ferrum the birdkeeper. The duller one is Savar Kiernari, a humble clerk; his title sounds less interesting, but both their stories deserve to be shared. If you’ve the time, I’ll gladly share both.” The dark dragoness smoothly laid down and reached out with a paw, beckoning me closer. Never one to refuse an invitation for a good story, I took a seat by her scaly chest, leaning back against her as she wove her tale. “Now then, Sophie was the proud owner of no less than four pigeons, a red-bellied woodpecker, and two cardinals. But this story is about a vacation she took once...”

“...and I would reckon that little book is still in that chest, buried beneath the library.” The dragoness scraped at the floor with her claws, as though digging a spot for the sole copy of the book. With her second story of the day complete, I stood up and stretched, immediately both regretting sitting by her for so long and resolving to never regret listening to her. Joints popped, stiff from remaining so still for so long, even with such a wonderful place to sit. When I turned to face her, however, my eyes lingered on her mouth, and a question struck me.

“If you don’t mind, miss dragon... what happened to them?” 

“Ah, pardon? What do you mean?” The smile on her sleek muzzle was gone, but she didn’t seem hostile or angry.

Well, in for a penny... “What happened to them? To Varren, to Sophie, to Savar? Envenomated and crippled, stranded in a tree, and driven to the woods in desolation?” I counted them off on my fingers as I spoke. “Their stories ended well, sure, but did they?”

The dragon visibly shrank back, and she glanced off to the sides. “Are you sure you want to know? They say ignorance is bliss...” she said, though even she didn’t believe it.

“And if I wanted ignorance, I wouldn’t collect stories. Now please, I won’t- I’ll do my level best not to judge.” I offer a smile to the stunning, scaly creature. “You seem to have a number of sad stories, but you pretend they’re not.”

She sighed, and even in the low light, I could see her chest and belly grow and shrink with the heavy breath. “Well... alright. Varren: too weak to move, found temporary refuge in a cave. Told his tale, pleaded his task be carried out in his stead, and was eaten by a dragon. Sophie: fell from the tree, shattering many bones. Begged a passing dragon to end her pain, and her story was found in the journal still on her. Savar: sought out the dragon and regaled her with his woeful tale. Pried her jaws open and threw himself on her fangs.” She cast her eyes downward, letting her star-speckled wings droop and brush the floor. “I have lived many hundreds of years. My wings carry on them two thousand, six hundred and forty-nine stars; thirty-one of them did not exist when you first found me.”

I stepped back, feeling my way against the wall. “Thirty-one? But that’s... do you hunt us?” I had suspected her a man-eater, but the sheer scale...

A large, scaly paw started to reach for me, pleading my stay, but hesitated and fell. “I do not consider it hunting. I find them in peril, I take careful heed of their story, and my wings gain a star.” She smiled then, but the twitch of her lips did not meet her eyes; she saw the fear in mine, and happiness eluded her. “Perhaps I could have saved some. Maybe all of them, although I doubt that. But when they are unwilling or unable to leave my company, I stop their breath, and keep what was their life alive with me. A story is no good if nobody is left who can tell it.”

I promised her I would think about her words, and then I left. Away from the dangerous forest and its black, starry-winged reaper.

It was probably a full year I dwelled on her words. Of course, I still worked, and in spare time spun the stories of Savar and of Sophie. When I was feeling particularly bitter towards the dragon, and in adult company, Sophie would fall from the tree, and Savar would cast himself upon the beasts of the forest. When I held her plea in good favor, Sophie merely lived with her birds as long as she could, and Savar walked off to lands unknown.

It was then with some hesitation that I found myself in front of that cave once more. “Miss dragon? I’m back. The storyteller.”

This time, she sat in the middle of the cave, staring at me. “If you have brought men to kill me, I must confess I may not take the time to learn their stories.” It was a similar fluid, yet guarded voice that had spoken to me while she held me to a wall. “But... I smell no others on you, nor do I hear the clanking of armor. You have rendered a decision?”

I steeled my nerves and stepped forward, approaching her slowly but steadily. “I believe so. After a year, I have only two questions. First being, have you any new stars?”

If there had been any emotion in her eyes, she had forced it out upon hearing me. Instead, she opened a wing and pointed a claw, a shadow over the night sky. “Next to my second claw, the dim one of that cluster of three. She was the only one.” 

I walked towards the indicated stars, but stopped well before being able to touch her. “Thank you for not lying and saying zero,” I said, “now, question two. What was her story?”

This time, her smile was genuine. I learned only one new story from that visit, but gained something far more valuable and precious to me.

Years and decades plodded along, as such things are wont to do. Friends and family grew, faded, and grew anew, but I would always make sure to visit the dragon with her star-speckled wings. Sometimes I would have to wait an hour or two for her to return to her home, but she always had a story for my eager ears, and a spot by her side, even when I had to start bringing my own chair. And then, after a hiatus of a few years, on a warm spring afternoon, I did not come alone. Two of my great-nephews helped me along the familiar path, with me pointing the way. The beautiful lake had, after some heavy rainy seasons, become a lively marsh; that crumbling arch fell further and grew cacti, of all things. And a young tree by the dragon’s cave had grown and thickened.

The boys tried one more time to change my mind, but I was adamant. I would walk in alone. They didn’t have to stay outside, and I would not return to tell them when to leave. It was a terrible thing, making them the bearer of such commands, but I hoped they would forgive me in time. Balancing against a sturdy walking-stick, I stumbled into the darkness.

“Dragon, I am here.”

I couldn’t see her against the cave walls, save for her eyes and her stars. It was nice of her to keep her wings open like that. “It has been some time,” she said, failing to hide her worry, “how are you?”

I shook my head, giving her a question of my own. “How many stars do you have?”

She winced at the question - she always did - and replied, “two thousand, seven hundred, and fifty-three.”

“Would you like another?”

The dragon stumbled and sputtered. She gaped in surprise, staring at me as though searching for any sign of a joke. But no sign came. After a deep sigh, she closed her eyes and shook her head.

“In truth? I would not. But...” As she neared, I felt a warm, humid breeze, blowing from her location. “But... I will have one, anyway.”

[cardinalbones]

Soft

here have a short piece about hanzo and satya being autistic and gay and friends

It probably said something about Hanzo that Satya didn’t bother to text him before coming to his room at three in the morning, after her date.

He was laying on top of his sheets, staring at the ceiling and debating the benefits of going for a walk against the risk of running into another nocturnal inhabitant of the base when his thoughts were interrupted by a quick, smart rapping at his door. He closed his eyes and let a long breath out through his nose before asking the empty room, “Athena? Who is that?”

“Doctor Vaswani,” the AI replied in her usual bright tone.

Hanzo cast his eyes to his prosthetic legs, propped against his side table, and grunted in acknowledgment. He slipped off the bed and walked himself over to the door on his hands. It opened with a soft whoosh when he palmed the controls, revealing Satya, her arms overladen with softs toys and a cheek-splitting grin on her face, standing before him.

“Please tell me you said goodbye to Fareeha before coming here,” he deadpanned.

It takes her a moment to readjust her focus from where she had anticipated Hanzo’s eyes being, but once she does the look she gives him is warm and lovestruck, her cheeks dimpling with her smile, “She walked me to my door and kissed my cheek goodnight.”

Hanzo quirked an eyebrow, “Only your cheek?” Despite his attempts to control his expression, he could feel his lips pulling into a smirk.

Satya tsked in response and motioned – as well as she could, overburdened as she was – behind him, “May I come in?”

Hanzo slid to the side and Satya breezed past him, toeing her shoes off next to the wardrobe and flinging herself onto his bed with a giggle sight. “It was so wonderful,” she began as Hanzo made his way over to the side table where his legs stood, “She took me to Adults Night Out at the Zoo so I wouldn’t have to worry about overstimulation, and she got us an extended, private viewing of the reptile room…”

Hanzo hummed in response as he checked the charge indicator his legs – only four fifths full. Usually he preferred to charge them completely to keep up a routine, but if he wasn’t sleeping tonight… the kinetic chargers could kill the difference. “Yes, Fareeha mentioned something like that.”

Something soft hit the back of his head and dropped to the floor. “Hey!”

He whipped around to see Satya glaring at him over the top of her plushie collection. “Let. Me. Gush.” She took a moment to bask in Hanzo’s taken aback expression before gesturing at the item on the floor. “That’s for you.”

A mottled grey and grey lizard plush lay on the floor, a pink felt tongue sticking out of its mouth, and it rustled with pellets when Hanzo picked it up to inspect it. When he didn’t respond, Satya added. “It’s a komodo dragon.” He could practically here her saying Get it?.

“You got me a present while you were on a date?”

Satya shrugged and turned her attention to sorting her pile of toys, “I have never had friends before, but I read online that a common expression of affection is through gifts.”

The thought that Hanzo didn’t deserve a friendship with Satya washed through him and did his best to stamp it down and shove it away before it could drag him into a downwards spiral. He could deal with that the next time he was lying awake at night in the empty silence of his room. “Thank you.”

The bed creaked as Hanzo hefted himself up onto it.

“Fareeha told you where she was taking me?”

Hanzo briefly looked at Satya, and then had to do a double take as he settled himself on the edge of the bed. She had wrapped herself in what looked to be a ten-foot-long snake plush, its teal fabric decorated with a shimmering scale pattern. “It’s full of beans,” was her only response to his raised brow, and she kicked her legs joyfully where they hung off the bed.

“She wanted Amelie’s and my opinions on whether or not you would enjoy it.”

“Oh,” was all Satya said, and Hanzo began the process of reconnecting his legs, hissing at the uncomfortable sensation of plugging additional nerves into his system.

“You do not have to – I did not mean to disturb you,” Satya protested, sitting up to watch him, but he shook his head.

“I was intending to go for a walk before you arrived.”

Satya pursed her lips, but said nothing else, and a silence fell over the two as Hanzo collected his music player, clothes, and bow and quiver.

The silence was broken after a few minutes by Satya’s soft voice, “Do you think I’m a good person?”

Hanzo started and turned to Satya with confusion written clearly on his face, “Pardon?”

“Fareeha is such a good person,” she explained, staring down at the plush snake head resting against her clavicle, “Fighting for just and – and defending humanity. But I-“.

“Have spent your entire life working towards making the world a better place for its people,” Hanzo interrupted, probably a bit too meanly if Satya’s flinch was anything to go by. He lowered himself onto the edge of his bed and picked up the komodo dragon to fiddle with, knowing that neither of them particularly liked eye contact. Softening his voice, he continued, “The people who raised you lied to you about their intentions but that doesn’t change that what you hoped to achieve was good. And look where you are now. You are a good person Satya. Just because you were lied to does not change that.”

He let her absorb his words for a moment, rolling the stuffing of the plush between his fingers, only to be startled by her voice again seconds later, “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“The people who raised you also li-“.

“I never believed that what I was doing was ‘good’ or ‘right’. I have never been so blinded by my family as to think that we were good people,” he interrupted sharply. Satya’s eyes widened and Hanzo found himself once again swallowing down the bile of his thoughts telling him that Satya was too good to be his friend and look at how he treated her. “Do yourself a favour and don’t compare yourself to me.”

Satya pursed her lips, looked like she wanted to say more, but then thought the better of it. Hanzo turned away closing his eyes and breathing deeply through his nose.

“What if I’m bad at this? Dating someone.”

At least that was something Hanzo could laugh at. “I do not think I am the right person to talk to about that. I don’t suppose Amelie is still awake?”

Satya laughed, too, and something tightened in Hanzo’s chest. “Perhaps you are right.” She sighed, and then sat up, untangling herself from her nest of plushies, “I suppose I should get some sleep – and leave you to your walk. Will you be alright tonight?”

“Yes, Satya, I’ll be fine. Thank you.”