#I probably should have made the lizards bigger but lets say they are at a distance

[alexander-norkat]

Saw the video from Invader Batflight (this) and boi i was invested

So Pup Hungergames

[kittenshift-17]

"Soooo... what are we gonna do if he doesn't go away?" Stiles asked softly after spitting out the pool water that’d seeped past his lips.

They both knew what he was talking about. Derek was completely paralysed, and the dead weight of the werewolf was weighing him down. They could both feel Stiles’s strength beginning to wane after two hours of treading water.

"Risk whatever he's gonna do to us if we swim to the edge?" Derek suggested, and Stiles could tell from the look on his face that the werewolf knew that way led a gory, blood-soaked death.

"Think I'd rather drown than be gutted," he muttered.

Derek didn't say anything to that, but he didn't really have to. After two hours of this, Derek had accepted that any minute now, he would drown. He didn't trust humans, especially not Stiles, and he'd been waiting for Stiles to make the decision to save himself. To throw Derek's arm off himself and swim for the edge. To let him sink and leave him to die.

He hadn't yet, and Derek didn't know why, other than the fear of the kanima outweighing his fear of drowning.

"Maybe he'll go away," Derek suggested. "I'm pretty sure someone's controlling him."

"Controlling him to keep us in the pool?" Stiles frowned.

"He's clearly after one of us," Derek shrugged.

"Probably you after all the times you've hunted him."

Derek agreed, though he didn't say so.

"If that's the case, he'll probably let you leave," he pointed out quietly. "You... you can let me go, you know."

Stiles twisted his head to gape at him in confusion.

"You'll drown."

"Yeah, but you won't," Derek answered seriously. "I know you're tired. If you wait any longer, you won't have the strength to swim to the edge and climb out."

Stiles gave him an indecipherable look, the skin around his eyes tightening.

"You don't have to drown with me," Derek murmured quietly because he was certain they both would if Stiles didn't let him go.

"We don't know for certain that it's after you," Stiles replied evenly, looking away from him before he began kicking a little harder and using the arm not holding Derek up to begin dragging them both through the water toward the shallower end.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying not to drown," Stiles huffed.

Derek knew he was flagging. He could feel the way the younger man's muscles trembled with every circle of limbs designed to keep them afloat. Stiles kept swimming while the kanima circled the pool edge, hissing and flicking his creepy serpentine tail. Despite the lizard skin, he reminded Derek of a cat eyeing a bird it wanted to hunt but couldn't reach.

"The pool is still too deep at the other end for you to touch the bottom," Derek pointed out.

"The disability access steps aren't," Stiles grunted and Derek's eyes widened, remembering the school had installed a special staircase into the water that would allow those who couldn't use the ladder to still swim.

"He'll be able to reach with his claws," Derek warned.

"Not if I stay right at the edge of them. I should be able to stand up there."

He kept struggling, panting heavily and almost dropping them both under the water several times. Derek hated being so helpless, his limbs completely numb.

"You don't have to save me, Stiles," he tried again.

"Dude, you only got cut and fell into the pool in the first place because you were trying to push me out of the way when he came at us," Stiles disagreed. "I know you're fast enough to outrun that thing. You could have legged it like Erica did. But you didn't. I'm not gonna let you die for me."

The logic floored Derek.

Like, yeah, he had been trying to save Stiles, but he was bigger and stronger and faster, and the creature probably wasn't after the sarcastic teenager.

"Made it," Stiles grunted in relief, and Derek felt it when he got his feet under him on the solid steps and was no longer straining to tread water.

The creature snarled, swiping at them and it hissed and skittering away when it got wet again.

"It's definitely afraid of the water."

Derek nodded in agreement as Stiles adjusted his grip on him, unfurling Derek's arm from around his shoulders and turning his body to put both arms around his waist, Derek's back to his chest.

He leaned back against the bollard in the middle of the step, installed to ensure no one in a wheelchair using the steps accidentally rolled into the spot that would be too deep. On the step, the water barely cleared Stiles's stomach when he stood at full height - the perfect depth for someone in a chair to keep their head above water. But to keep out of reach of the creature, they had to stay as submerged as possible.

Derek ended up practically in Stiles lap, the boy using his own thighs to help keep Derek’s head above water, arranging his legs to balance the back of his thighs over Stiles’s knees. The alpha wolf inside his soul hated the position, so utterly vulnerable with Stiles at his back, his warm breath huffing at the side of his neck and cheek, over the top of his shoulder. His arms around his waist, supporting him.

"Thank you," he forced himself to say while Stiles panted tiredly, his forehead leaning against the back of Derek's head. "For not letting me drown."

"Yeah, well, you didn't let that thing gut me," Stiles muttered. "And you saved me when Isaac wanted to eat me on his first full moon."

They fell silent after that, Stiles still panting a little from the exertion - he was going to be sore in the coming days after the strain on his muscles, Derek was sure of it. The creature came back a few times, never getting close enough to the water's edge to reach them again, before eventually, it disappeared.

"He's gone," Derek said quietly, and Stiles jolted against his back, having almost dozed off.

"You sure? He could be hiding to try and lure us out."

Derek listened for the creature's heartbeat, but only the steady thump of his own and Stiles’s met his ears.

"We're alone," Derek confirmed.

"Oh, thank God. I'm freezing."

He stirred beneath Derek, beginning to drag him up the stairs to get them both out of the water.

"I think some feeling is coming back," Derek confided when Stiles had him on dry land.

"Of course it is," Stiles huffed. "Perfect timing."

Derek managed to drag himself into a sitting position right as another heartbeat reached his ears followed by the drum of rapid footsteps. He whipped his head around, looking for the source, only to see Scott running into view.

"Stiles! Derek!" Scott yelled.

"More perfect timing," Stiles muttered bitterly. "You couldn't have shown up an hour ago, Scott?"

Derek huffed as well because it was annoying that Scott, Erica, Isaac, and Boyd had all left them here. They could have died.

Stiles looked over at Derek when Scott hauled him onto his feet. Derek met his gaze, his legs still weak.

Stiles had protected him. This mouthy, sarcastic spazz had been willing to drown for him, to die with him rather than leaving him alone to save himself.

Derek couldn't remember the last time anyone had shown him that kind of loyalty. Maybe Laura? Maybe his parents? All of them wolves, all with blood ties to him. And yet here was this stubborn, smart ass human who annoyed Derek more than anyone else he'd ever met, and he'd saved him. He'd shown more loyalty than his pack members had.

The bond snapped into place with a crack like lightning, zinging through his cells, his blood, his soul, and Derek grunted at the sting. Stiles jumped like he'd had a fright, and Scott tensed nervously as the scent of ozone and lightning flooded the space between them. Emotion poured through, heat searing along the pathway linking the two of them. Confusion. Curiosity. Worry. Anxiety. Exhaustion. All of it sizzled into him, and Derek had to close his eyes, taking a controlled breath.

"What just happened?" Scott confirmed, sniffing worriedly.

Stiles was rubbing his chest where the bond originated, his eyes fixed on Derek, his mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something but had no words.

Derek met his gaze steadily, knowing firsthand how overwhelming a pack bond could be when it formed, even for a wolf. For a human, it had to be like being electrocuted, burned alive, and drowned all at the same time. The linking of souls, or mind, or emotions all designed to attune a packmate to another, designed to protect, to connect, to irrevocably link.

"Is... is this... a wolf thing?" Stiles asked and Derek was certain his own resignation, gratitude, confusion, and ever-present underlying anger were all flooding down the bond to Stiles in return.

"What?" Scott asked. "What happened?"

"A pack bond," Derek confirmed quietly, not daring to tell either of them that the last time he'd shared a pack bond with anyone, it'd been Laura. His family. He hadn't bonded with the wolves he'd bitten, and his bond to Peter had been burned out of him like everything else during the fire.

Something unknotted in Derek's belly when Stiles stumbled across the space between the two of them.

"What's a pack bond?" Scott asked dumbly because the boy was an idiot who kept rejecting everything wolfish instead of learning about what he'd become.

Stiles gripped Derek's waist, clinging to him, pushing into his space, and Derek managed to get his arm up, gripping the back of Stiles’s neck in return. He pulled Stiles in by it, burying his nose in Stiles’s hair and breathing in the scent of him, like caramel and sunshine, and the medicinal tang of his Adderall all currently overlaid with the stink of chlorine from the pool.

"Stiles? What's happening? What is this? I thought you two hated each other?" Scott asked, bewildered.

Derek didn't bother explaining it to him, just clung to Stiles tighter and closed his eyes relishing in the complete overwhelm of having a pack bond again, his wolf howling with joy after so long on his own. Stiles burrowed into him, arms curling all the way around him while he buried his head in Derek's neck, clinging to him tightly, hugging him while he trembled.

It might’ve been completely unintentional, and Derek was certain that when the euphoria wore off, he'd resent being so intimately linked with the spastic human, but for now, he had a new pack bondmate, and for the first time in over a year, Derek felt at peace.

.

Xx-Kitten

[spaceleveln]

Let's Dissect a Light Saber! Computer Animation!

As soon as he mentioned Dilithium Crystals, I knew I had to reblog it, XD!

One of my goals in Space N is to have as much tech as possible be the same tech.

I want lightsabers, phasers, shields, sensors, FTL coms, FTL travel, tranasporters, and artificial gravity to all be based on the same Warp Field technology.

So, yeah, a Jedi’s lightsaber is essentially going to be a teeny-tiny little warp engine that’s shooting out a small, tight looped warp field. I haven’t decided whether or not I want to keep it being plasma or not. 

Seems like plasma comes with a lot of issues that might be able to be sidestepped by having it made of something else. Just the warp field itself even.

In Star Trek it actually wouldn’t be so bad since plasma is what gets fed in to the Warp Coils. There would be plasma anyway. Could even have the blade do double duty for cooling the plasma just enough to be cycled through again without overheating this super tiny mechanism. But since I’m intending to switch over to the Romulan style power generation (artificial micro-singularity - AMS) rather than matter/anti-matter annihilation, that actually shouldn’t matter :p

On the upside of my tech plans, I do believe (because I don’t understand physics well enough to know or even figure it out one way or another) that I have a reason for why Lightsabers tend to be blue. Whatever is coming out of the emitter hilt is going to be moving significantly faster than its equivalent in non-warped space, which I think (again, I’m really not adept at math, science, ... logic) would cause it to emit Cherenkov radiation where it interacted with non-warped space.

And Cherenkov radiation does look decently lightsabery to me.

Might also be why there’s so much blue glow in various parts of Warp Nacelles.

I dunno. Maybe? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

But all this leads to the bigger question:

Do lightsabers focus through Dilithium Crystals? Or do Warp Drives focus through Kyber/Adegan/etc. Crystals? Is Dilithium what artificial (Sith Red Lightsabers) crystals are made out of? Or something else?

Or should I just stick with my older plan of using Photonic Time Crystals? Which really should be fictional instead of real with a name like that XD. And sound way too cool not to use. And, in my tiny ignorant lizard brain totally make sense for governing the wave patterns of energy emission because it is organizing the emission in a standard alternating current as the photons bounce back and forth in the exact same pattern. Right? Just say right. It’s all fiction bs anyway.

And apparently the latest “2D” Photonic Time Crystals amplify light or something like that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯  Again, I am no Scientist.

Maybe Dilithium/Kyber/Adegan/etc. ARE naturally occurring Photonic Time Crystals. I think I kind of like that. That would let me keep a little of that Warp can cause environmental hazards thing. Maybe all these crystals form where there are particular kinds of perturbations in other dimension spaces. Like if a normal planet in N-Space happens to lie in a star’s gravity shadow in A-Space, the perturbations in the fabric of space-time cause Kyber Crystals to grow instead of just plain Lithium or Trilithionite Crystals.

And you might even get blue crystals because of the interaction of photons within the Kyber also emitting the Cherenkov radiation. Which means people are going to have a lot of health issues around Dilithium deposits. Eek.

Could even have clarity have something to do with it. Looks like Gray Lithium Quartz at least can get darn clear.

Maybe that’s what the federation is doing in the refinement of Dilithium, finding the stuff and then removing all the impurities until it is a pure time crystal that is catching all the electromagnetic radiation to be modulated.

Would make those Dilithium mines about as valuable as they’re depicted. Most planets just aren’t going to have the necessary conditions for formation. Certainly not in large deposits. You would probably need to have a planet that is only “briefly” in the otherspace shadow. Long enough for some crystal formation but not long enough to nudge the planet out of orbit.

I dunno. Just like thinking about it all. It makes for good distraction and pointless worldbuilding.

[kaptainkoalaoshiz]

@randomshipper123​ for you since I thought it would be too long in reactions:

“Damn Daniel” is equivalent to a positive call out& exclamation to something the one targeted is showing off a lot (and that’s something he enjoys “back at it again with the white vans!” and “Fre sha voca do” is an expression of something unintentionally made funny (via misspelling) that someone points out and laughs at. Both positive but on each end of the spectrum (”fre sha voca do” being on the mocking end and “damn daniel” on the propping up of someone’s self-esteem)

“It’s an Avocado, thanks!” while being on the same theme as “fre sha voca do” is a call back to the same theme of surprise but down the sliders to “damn daniel”. It’s an exclamation of genuine happiness for something mundane someone really likes and is greatful being gifted. The gifted tho, is really young and probably doesn’t have a good handling on what’s a “good” gift by other’s standards (some thinking the bigger/more expensive the better.).

“how did you defeat Captain America” on the other end is a declaration of someone thinking critically and logically over something that is profoundly ridiculous (Captain’s shield being the “size of a dinner plate”) and that nobody else has thought off because their focus was on a big, bright target (said shield) to think of shooting the more obvious target (the legs).

“I don’t need a degree to be a clothing hanger” is a declaration of giving up to do something illogical and unecessary that shouldn’t be done by humans (clothing hangers are “things”) but they do use a purpose and  everybody has one at home so while it’s a stretch, you could potentially be hired to be a clothing hanger. No thought, head empty and a stable job that doesn’t require you to do a lot of physical or mental work.

“road work ahead” on the other end, is both a misinterpretation and an expectation of something that appeals to logic. 1) it says there is work done on the road 2) well yeah, the road should work, that’s what’s it’s supposed to do??

TL;DR:

Shang Qinghua: on a scale from “wearing my favorite shoes to meet my bros” to “unexpected misspelling brigthens a (shitty?) day”, how are you feeling?

Shen Qingqui: in between “I just got gifted a neat rock by my husband” to “fucking hell it’s not hard to kill a Spotted Frilled Spitting Lizard, just attack from behind”, but as a solid answer I would say “I wish I could be paid to be my husband’s eyecandy and let white noise fill my brain while I munch on delicious food.” What about you?

Shang Qinghua: Probably “Cang Qiong works as a unit and handle things together.”

Shang Qinghua: On a scale from “damn Daniel” to “fre sha vaca do”, how are you feeling?

Shen Qingqiu: In between “it’s an avocado, thanks” and “how did you defeat Captain America”, but as a solid answer I would say “I don’t need a degree to be a clothing hangar.” What about you?

Shang Qinghua: Probably “road work ahead.”

Luo Binghe: I speak multiple languages and this is none of them.

[anika-ann]

In the Strangest Place (We Just Might Find Love) - Pt.1

Type: two-shot, pretty much canon

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader     Word count: 3700

Summary: You’re hiding from your boss in a supply closet, minding your own business, when a stranger joins you unexpectedly. 

This is not a beginning of a steamy story; given the reason you’re hanging out in the dark, even a make-out session is honestly the last thing you want to fantasize about right now.

But that doesn’t mean that the nice stranger cannot make your day much better. 

Warnings: mention of sexual harassment, a bit of angst, attempt at humour, language

You were on the verge of screaming – or crying, you honestly weren't sure anymore. But you knew you were done. You had worked your fingers to a bone just to get here; to become a little bee in the most famous hive in Manhattan. Stark Industries. The Stark/Avengers Tower. The beacon of the New York skyline. The dream coming true.

Yeah, not so much.

You hadn't expected super-important assignments – after all, you were just an assistant to the head of one of too many departments – but God, you had not expected to be handling coffee so often. To be running ridiculous errands. Your degree from MIT should actually mean something here! If nothing else than that you were not just some pretty face and that you fucking didn’t deserve the treatment you were receiving.

And that was the root of trouble, really. You could handle making your way up, it would be tiring but not surprising, it was pretty much what you had assigned for.

But you had not assigned for the sexist comments, disgusting innuendo and for the grabby hands of your sleazy boss. Thomas Gregory was a fucking nightmare of a man and you swore that you were quitting if he called you a ‘Dollface’ or slapped your ass one more time.

And that was how you had got here, into this very moment; hiding in a dark supply closet like a creep with two cups of overpriced coffee in a cup holder and a piece of organic carob-nut muffin.

You weren't about to come out any time soon, because you simply knew your boss still would be a pig and give you yet another reason to hand in your notice and you had fucking wanted this job for so long, worked for it so hard and sacrificed too much that you just couldn't make yourself to quit no matter how much your skin cringed and your stomach rolled over every time Thomas Gregory touched you. It was so frustrating you wanted to scream.

Or cry, you still couldn't solve the dilemma. Maybe both.

You barely registered the hurried footsteps – and then the door was yanked open, you glimpsed a tall blond male figure and suddenly there was dark again. Except there was one more body in the very limited room of the closet, making you press your back onto the shelf.

Something rattled with your movement and the newcomer hissed a barely audible ‘Be quiet’ as two columns of muscles that were probably his arms framed your head leaning onto the very same shelf, so you could both fit in here.

The little order leaving his lips broke the last seal inside you. You were tired, frustrated and were receiving enough humiliation as it was, you did not need some random guy invading your hideout, barking orders.

“Look, mister, if you have any problem with me trying to make a little space for you in this tiny-ass closet, I recommend you to-”  

“Shh!” he hushed you and you thought you had never heard someone whisper so urgently; at least it sounded less bossy than before. It did not mollify you though, because this guy actually had enough impudence to-

“Don't you dare to shush me-!”

A hand went to cover your mouth and you let out an exasperated mumble of curses, while his voice continued.

“Please, just— I'm sorry, please, don't make a sound, my friend is trying to set me up and-”

Your eyes went wide and he suddenly fell silent. Before you could question his methods of shutting you up, his exclaim or the pause, and ask him to be so kind to find another closet, another male voice sounded somewhere behind the door.

“Come on, Steeeve. Man, don't be such a prude. Lillian is a great chic, okay?”

The man – the friend, you assumed – seemed annoyed and you couldn't believe that Steve had not been kidding you. He was actually hiding for the very reason he had offered you. You nodded as you heard the stranger behind the door move and the hand covering your mouth hesitantly disappeared.

“It's just a lip piercing, don't be such a tight-ass. It can actually be quite fun, you wouldn't believe what a girl can do with such thing…”

“Gross,” you commented soundlessly and you could feel your companion’s eyes burning a hole into your head in silent agreement.

“Goddammit, Steve!”

The voice and the footsteps slowly disappeared in the distance and you… you were face to face with a stranger named Steve in a limited space of a dark supply closet, his breath tickling your scalp, his cologne very much assaulting your nose; at least it was a pleasant assault.

“I'm sorry for being so rude. And thank you,” his voice caressed your hairline gently and hearing his suddenly polite tone and evaluating this whole situation, you could barely hold back a giggle all of sudden.

“You're welcome, Steve. How long has this been going on?”

“Two days-” That didn't sound too bad, he could probably take a lot more- “-at this level. With Lillian. It was Emily before that and Angelina before that. In smaller scale, it's been happening for about four months,” he recited dutifully as if he was reporting a status to his boss and this time you couldn’t help it – you giggled.

When you could feel the wounded gaze he gave you, you obediently made a sympathetic noise.

“Aww, poor you, your friend supplying you with no doubt great relationship material…”

“That’s what he said! But I don't want a relationship material. I don't want any material, not even his… one-night stand material. What does that mean anyway? These are women he's talking about, not a material-”

You let out a tiny pleased sound at his exasperation, which shut him up. You wondered if it was your turn to speak – it was hard to tell, supply-closet conversations weren't exactly your area of expertise.

“Kudos for that thinking,” you noted after short silence and the darker shadow of his figure tilted his head. “Did you try to tell him that you weren't interested…? Of course you did, why am I asking, that was a stupid question…”

“It's okay. I'm sorry, I got a little… carried away. It just… it's like talking to a brick wall.”

You hummed in sympathy again and the room fell into silence once more.

It was ridiculous how much your mind started working over hundred percent, trying to come up with something appropriate to say. The best you could do was:

“Hey, you want a cup of overpriced organic coffee? I happen to have two.”

The needy noise that let his lips was downright pornographic. Or maybe it was your mind playing tricks on you, the strange environment finally getting to you.

“I knew I smelled coffee here! I thought I went completely insane.”

You couldn't help but smile at that. Yeah, you knew the feeling all too well.

“Nope, your senses were not playing tricks on you. Help yourself. It should be around your left hand.” A rustling of a paper bag. “Oh. That's a carob-nut muffin – with carob instead of cocoa. You can have that too, I won't need that.”

“Alright, I gotta ask. Why are you hiding in a supply closet, with a muffin and two cups of expensive coffee nonetheless? And may I hand you one?”

“Such a gentleman. Thanks,” you murmured and accepted the cup. You weren't lying about not needing it – you wouldn't. Because you were about to quit; it was inevitable.

You sipped the warm liquid, its taste as bitter as the reason behind your actions.

“So?”

“I'm hiding from my boss.”

Your voice must have sounded terrible, because his own softened at the confession.

“And why is that?”

“Because if I bring him his coffee and muffin, he'll probably call me his good girl and— and slap my butt and-”

“I beg your pardon?” he growled, like honest to God growled, the strange sound warming your scalp.

And it was the righteous outrage in the sound he let out, the reaction that you needed, someone agreeing with you – a stranger, who wouldn’t feel obliged to do so just it was a duty of being a good friend to you – that made the levee break. Suddenly tears were streaming down your face, anger and humiliation, and your breath was hitching in embarrassing hiccups and the dark space felt so anonymous and safe at the same time that you didn't even care anymore.

“And if he does that I’ll have to– to quit, because I-I'm so fucking fed up with his dis-disgusting hands and si-sickening voice voicing his lizard thoughts a-and I ca-can't quit goddammit, I worked so fucking hard to-to get a job h-here and-”

You didn't realise your hands started trembling until the cup disappeared from them, placed back on the shelf, and a pair of much bigger and warmer hands gently enveloped yours, his body shifting just a little closer as he lost the support that had been keeping some distance between you.

“Hey, hey, shh, it's gonna be okay…” his voice washed over you soothingly, sounding almost at your ear.

Still, there was space between your bodies, a respectable distance – as respectable as possible in the limited space. It was as if he acknowledged it could make you uncomfortable – which probably wasn't exactly hard to figure out, given what you just told him.

“I'm sorry,” you sobbed and cleared your throat afterwards in attempt to compose yourself. “I didn't mean to load that on you, my problems are none of your concern-”

“Like hell they aren't. Sexual harassment on a workplace is everyone's concern, or it should be,” he grunted. His hands tightened their grip, not uncomfortably – reassuring. “This okay?”

You smiled through your tears. This Steve guy was really sweet to you. You almost forgot what it was like to be treated with respect.

“Y-yeah. Thank you for-- for asking. That was really nice.”

He huffed. “It should be a normal human decency. And I did grab you before that, sorry.”

“Something tells me you would let go if I said no more vehemently.”

“Of course I would.”

You gave him a watery smile he couldn't see and tried to calm your breathing completely. His thumb caressing your wrist helped. You wondered which department he was from; if his skills in comforting came with a job description or if he was a natural.

“Have you… have you tried to fill in a report?” he asked hesitantly, making your heart stop.

Oh yeah, you had. It had ended up in a shredder machine, because Thomas had spotted it. He had made you do it yourself, standing over you and watching, claiming the complaint had been baseless and it would pointless to hand it anyway, because he would explain the HR how it truly was. That you had made a move and he, the good father and husband he had been, politely turned you down, which turned you vengeful.

You whispered the story to Steve, your voice trembling, more tears escaping and you could immediately tell he believed you – because his grip grew steely strong, his teeth grinding.

“This is wrong. You should have never been forced to work for a man like him– objectifying you, touching you, threatening you, that's just--- you should talk to Tony,” he blurted out in the end and you frowned.

“Who's Tony?”

You had checked the whole HR department via their website when doing your research. You couldn't recall any Tony.

There was a short pause, broken by Steve's confused voice. “Stark.”

You blinked, wondering if Steve was joking. He didn't sound like he was joking, which was strange, because so far, he had seemed to be a smart and reasonable man.

“There's no way I'm scoring a meeting with Mr. Stark. And it's not like he’s dealing with things like that.”

“...Talk to Pepper then. I doubt she has bigger than zero tolerance for harassment,” he exclaimed confidently as if talking to Pepper Potts (this time you assumed whom he was talking about – did he call all of the big bosses their first name…?) was an option for a regular human being like you. Realizing that all over again though, that was tough.

“While I believe that’s her policy, it's not like I can just walk into her office.”

Steve seemed to consider that, while his thumb was still drawing patterns on your skin, almost subconsciously.

“I think you could. But if you're worried it might take a while and you’re scared to go back to your office now, let me walk you. I can explain him that every employee deserves to be treated with respect,” he offered finally, deadly serious, yet still sounding kind.

Your heart swelled. A guy you just met (in a supply closet, a good story to be narrated at parties, you supposed), suggested to help you out, no hesitation. God, wasn't he just too pure for this world?

“I… thank you, Steve. But… while you do have an impressive frame, I think it would only get worse. I think I'll just enjoy this extremely hipster coffee, which I'll later have to pay for no doubt and… and go face my boss to hand him my resignation. There are plenty jobs, right? I can as well serve coffee in a café,” you said with a sad smile, letting your hands slip from his comfortable hold.

“That's not right. Especially if you worked hard to– not to mention it's a matter of principle. You run away once and… running is a very hard habit to break,” he whispered, as if a secret, trying to reason with you.

You bit your lip when the truth of his words washed over you, along with the way he spoke; with such a strong believe in principles that should stand a standard. It… he made you forgot your own trouble for a second as you let yourself get lost in him. In the way he treated you, the protector's persona, yet not forced. He had suggested you to ‘let him come with you’, not even a note of command in his approach. This was not a man seeing an opportunity to be a hero when spotting the damsel in distress; this was a man who believed in what was right and wanted to fix things that were apparently broken. You wished there were more men like him, selfishly wanting one of them to be your boss.

“And men like these – they need to be put in line,” he added darkly, snapping you from your daydreaming of a better world. “Let me come with you. I'll—I’ll help you fill in the forms, walk you to HR. You don't have to deal with this alone.”

For all the comfort the dark had offered you so far, you wished for a little bit more light now, enough to see his face, his eyes. You knew they would be burning with honesty, you were sure of it, maybe a little rage aimed at a man who dared to treat another human being the way he did.

The offer was so tempting. But just imagining the security escorting Steve from the building for wanting to help you was enough to put out the fiery need to accept. It was ridiculous to care so much about his well-being after what could be minutes of knowing him, but no one could call you out on it. And if they did, you could always play it cool with ‘matter of principles’; good people only deserved good things.

You carefully reached out, hoping to find his hand again. Your heart skipped a beat when you brushed his thigh instead, but at least his hand was right next to it. He released a surprised breath when you took it into yours, way smaller one. You bit your lip when leaning in a little, blindly trying to meet his gaze.

“You’re a good man, Steve. I’m sorry your friend is giving you a hard time, you don't deserve that – even though I'm sure he means well. If you ever want to get him off your back...” you wavered at the ridiculous idea, but hey, why the hell not, he had offered to help you out first, “you can say you're seeing someone. Give him my card. I'll confirm we're together – he seems like a kind of a guy who would check.”

Shocked breathless laugh erupted from his chest and you assumed you hit the nail on the head. You fished out one of your business cards, handing it to him and releasing his hand then.

It was time to leave and face your fate, but Steve didn't make any attempt at moving out of the closet.

In fact, he seemed to examine the card for a while and then he quietly read out your name. You gasped in surprise. How the hell could he see anything? You could barely make out his silhouette!

“How-”

“I'm used to working in dark spaces,” he muttered absently. “Would you really do that?”

Slightly taken aback he was considering your offer, you nodded, only to realize he couldn't see it--- actually, he probably could.

“I would. Hell, I think I could handle one uncomfortable dinner with your friend vetting me,” you added, slightly amused at the idea. When you could hear his shocked exhale and wanted to take it back. “I didn't mean to-”

“Let me come with you to your office,” he repeated like a broken record and you frowned at the sudden change of topic.

“What-”

“It could throw your boss off your back for long enough for you to deal with the complaint. If you would be comfortable enough to play my girlfriend for a dinner time, why not now?”

Your eyes went wide and you almost choked on air.

“I-what? I told you it would probably only make it worse-”

“It will work.”

“How can you be so-”

The door yanked open and your eyes were hit by an unpleasantly sharp light, making you squint.

“Holy-” a ridiculously familiar voice you couldn’t place breathed out. “Wilson! I found him! You’ve gotta see this!”

You wanted to see the owner of the voice, but your view was completely blocked by the broad chest of your companion.

So you at least raised your head to meet Steve face to face so to speak. You couldn’t see much, your eyes still adjusting; with the light shining from behind him, playing a mysterious game with his blond locks, framing his impressive figure, he looked like a freaking angel, beautiful and righteous, bringing justice, yet wrapped in an aura of peace and serenity. You barely kept your jaw from falling on the floor.

You kept staring, focusing on his face, and slowly started realizing that his features too, were familiar. Mortification was creeping up your back as the puzzle pieces started falling into place, creating a horrifying picture, making you wish for the Earth to swallow you.

The voice from behind Steve’s back resolved the last doubts you had about your temporary mysterious roommate.

“Wouldn’t peg you as a get-freaky-in-a-closet kind of guy, Capsicle.”

You wanted to immediately protest that you had definitely not been getting freaky in the closet, but your brain was still frozen because of the big revelation – that you had just been comforted, hell, that you had just offered to be a fake date to Captain America.

You simply stared at him, unbeing able to hold your jaw from falling anymore. Because– because-- oh god.

Now it made perfect sense that he thought Thomas Gregory would be intimidated… by the idea of harassing Captain America’s girlfriend. You couldn’t really blame Steve for being sure it would work. Also, it kinda explained why he called Mr. Stark or Ms. Potts their first names – they were on the first name basis.

Which really was the least relevant thing right now.

A bashful smile appeared on Steve’s lips, a little guilty perhaps, and you just… giggled at the absurdity. You couldn’t help it. You had just spent minutes in a supply closet with Steve Rogers without having a single clue about it and while you didn’t do anything heated as someone would assume, it was one of the most amazing minutes of your life.

You must have looked like an idiot or something, because he chuckled too, completely ignoring another male voice growing in volume as the newcomer approached.

“Holy hell, man! I can’t believe what I’m seeing!”

At those words, Steve tentatively took your hand with an encouraging smile and led you out to the hall. You were met with two pairs of curious eyes examining you from head to toe. You lowered your gaze, now fully aware of the fact they belonged to Tony Stark – the Iron Man – and Samuel Wilson – the Falcon.

Well. Now the ‘party story’ finally got the right juice.

“Then don’t, Sam, because it’s not what it looks like,” Steve replied to his match-maker friend and took a deep breath, squeezing your hand tighter. “Tony, this woman would like to report harassment on her workplace.”

Your head snapped to Steve’s face with panicked gaze. What the hell was he doing?!

Tony Stark made a noise of disapproval.

“Couldn’t you try harder so she wouldn’t complain about you?”

“Tony,” Steve addressed him, his voice solemn just like his expression, which clearly surprised the billionaire. “I’m serious. It’s not about me. Her boss is the reason why she was hiding here.”

Without commenting any further, Steve handed him your business card and Mr. Stark hummed. You weren’t brave enough to look up. Was he going to wave it off? Was he going to fire you?

He said your name, making you gulp in fright. You had to look up now and you really didn’t wanna, too afraid of what you’d see. You were shocked to meet with a searching gaze, but not a mean one.

“It is true? Is your boss giving you trouble? Making sexist comments? Worse?”

You felt tears in your eyes, utterly taken aback by his sensitive tone, the inviting light in his eyes. It was too much to bear and you wanted to escape the kind gaze; and he wouldn’t let you. You only managed to nod when you felt Steve’s thumb caressing the back of your hand.

Mr. Stark sighed, adding a dark ‘goddammit’, and returned Steve the business card.

“Alright, kids. Let’s have a trip.”

And you just stared.

…what?

Part 2

I know, I know, Steve is a little bit of Knight-In-Shining-Armour here, but it made sense to me O:-)

Happy weekend!

Thank you for reading!

[thelittleboyfromloveactually]

Two Shorten the Road

part 1

joel dawson x reader

warnings: cussing? idk, bad writing.....fluff, cuteness, monsters(is this a warning), mentions of death, SPOILERS

word count: 2154

prompt: when your best friend decides to leave your colony to go find the love of his life, you decide to join him on his journey even if you aren’t so happy about where this journey is going

Welp I did it, I took it into my own hands. I am writing a joel dawson series. Because we👏need 👏more👏joel👏fics👏 it’s basically the movie, almost the same script but obviously slightly different…ENJOY! <3

No one in my generation or later had a typical upbringing, I mean some of us did but then the world ended. This type of thing sounds straight out of some apocalyptic movie, but we basically live in one now. Agatha 616, an asteroid heading straight for earth, I know, so original. So we all came together and did what we do best, blow things up. Yup, we blew up teh asteroid, and humanity was saved! We thought. But here’s the thing about rockets, they are made of a bunch of chemical compounds which eventually rained back down on earth. Suddenly there were these Aileen creatures that mutated and started eating us. Ants, lizards, roaches, crocodiles, you name it. Our president was even killed by a giant moth. Ya….not so original now huh? We suddenly need tanks to kill ants, oh man I remember the good old days when a shoe would do just fine. Sometimes even the tanks didn’t work. Eventually the really big ones and our military took each other out and we lost 95% of the human population in a year! Those of us who survived hid, bunkers, caves, panic rooms, all around the world. So for the last seven years I’ve been hiding in an underground bunker. It’s really not as bad as it sounds, and it’s better than getting eaten alive. It’s a great group of people and we all love each other.

“Are you sure they’re asleep?”

“Who?”

“Y/N and joel!”

“Oh ya I’m sure”

“Joel? Y/n?”

“He���s asleep”

Actually we are both awake. Me and my best friend joel have kinda mastered faking being asleep. Our beds are right across from each other so we normally just lie there and make stupid faces at each other. We are the only two single people in our bunker. Nice huh? Joel is my best friend. I met him when I joined the colony. He’s the sweetest. It’s funny cause everyone thinks we should just have sex already because that’s literally all everyone else does. But we are way above that. Anyway, joel is in love with his girlfriend from before the colony, her name is Aimee. With one “I” and two “e”s. He loves to talk about her, he writes her letters. So in reality, I am the only one who is not in love in this bunker. I’ve never had a boyfriend, ever, even before the world ended.

We don’t really get any sleep. The moaning kinda keeps us awake. I got up and out of my bed and headed for the kitchen. I heard Joel’s bed creak and then his footsteps as he followed behind me. Another annoying thing about being down here is that to get to the kitchen from my room, you have to walk though other people’s bedrooms. Oh shit, they are busy, why would they leave their door open. Me and Joel stopped.

“Oh” joel and I said in unison

“Hey Y/N! Hey Joel!” Ava said

“Oh hey Ava” Joel said, we didn’t dare look over to our left.

“Y/N how’s it going?” Tim asked

“T-totally good tim, h-how are you doing” I asked

“Yeah, good” he responded

“I uh we couldn’t sleep” said Joel looking at the ceiling

“Ya we know the feeling” Ava said with a laugh

“Yeah probably not for the…..same reasons” joel said looking straight ahead

“Your guyses door was open, did you…did you know that?” I asked

“Yeah we know” they said

I shook my head and knitted my eyebrows together

“Okay” joel trailed off

Ever since Tim’s parents were eaten by a swarm of termites he and Ava have gotten really close, in every way.

“Okay, goodnight” joel said as we walked

Basically everyone is coupled up down here, a baby was born last winter! Welcome to the apocalypse kid. Ok if we ever get out of this, that would be an awesome story to tell your kids. “Oh ya I was born in an underground bunker doing a monster apocalypse” “yes exactly like World War Z but with bugs bigger than a 5 story building”. I mean come on.

So your probably wonder how the hell we get food, we’ll we have a cow. Gurdy. Gurdy is great. We also have a hunting party that brings back whatever they can from the surface. It’s gotten harder and harder, cause we ran out of bullets. And facing one of those things with a handmade weapon is just as hard as it sounds. It’s very very difficult. I go with them….sometimes. I still get scared. But I’ve been out quite a lot, especially compared to my man joel over here. I’ve been out maybe 30 times, he’s been out…maybe once, or not even. He’s the chef of the bunker. He makes super good Minestrone.

Me and joel like to hang out with Mavis. A robot. Yup. Not much for conversation, her batter is shot. Just like every other mavis I would imagine. When I’m not hunting we hang out with her. But sometimes I just go read. Reading and joel keep me sane. I mean sometimes joel drives me insane but I still love him. I have quite the collection of books too! I’ve got Emma by Jane Austen, a couple random ones that we found, all the hunger games and Harry Potter books, some mysteries that stopped being mysteries after a while, and then of course some smutty romance books for personal entertainment.

Joel likes to say that his thing is target practice. He has never hit the target but ya know, gotta entertain yourself. I think his thing is drawing though, he has this book that he draws in from Aimee. It’s really cool actually. He’s really good.

I sat watching Joel as he tried to hit the target, laughing a little every time he missed. It was cute how hard he tried.

“Shut up” he said shaking his laugh away

I laughed again, but then suddenly the lights started flickering. You could hear screeches and creeks echoing through the bunker. Joel turned to look at me. Worry and determination in his eyes. We both scrambled out of the room and into the kitchen where everyone was preparing.

“Hustle, hustle people we’ve gotta move”

I turned to look at Joel but then realized that he wasn’t next to me. Where did he go? Worry flooded through me. Suddenly the clanking of our weapon started behind me.

“Hey guys!” Joel said as he rammed into the railing, I shook my head. “Guys! I’ve got the weapons” he smiled at me

A few people walked over to him taking them out of his hands

“Stay” said Tim

“W-what?” Joel asked looking around in confusion

Everyone was talking and barking orders “grab what you need and let’s go! Y/N you coming?”

My eyes shot open “yes! Yup!” I jumped up and grabbed the bow and arrow from Joel.

“W-what's happening?” He asked innocently “what’s going on?”

“There’s a breach” said Tim

“What do you mean? Like inside the bunker breach?!” He asked

“Yes joel! Now come on!” I told him, patting him on the pack as I followed the others

He followed me and watched the plan get arranged

“Anna, Y/N and I will engage. Anderson and Tom plank him”

“Plank him, ya ok where do you guys need me? You want me to uh come through the rear or..?” Joel asked eagerly

“I don’t think your going to pass this joel” I told him

“Pass what? You guys need help, let me help” said clutching his crossbow

“You gonna make me say it?” said Sam

“Say what?!” God he was so adorably clueless

“You can’t handle it joel, your shook” said Sam, we all began getting into positions

“Ya ok, yes so you guys don’t get scared..ever?” He asked still getting ready to fight

“We get scared, we all get scared joel, but you get really scared” said Sam

“They are trying to make you feel bad joel” I said sweetly, trying to calm him down

“We love you joel”

“But your a liability”

“Ok why did that speech feel so rehearsed? And what about Y/N? She’s like…ya know?” He said bobbing his head

“Joel-“ suddenly the bunker shook and the lights flicked again

“Ok 30 meters out! Let’s move!” And we were off

Leaving joel and some others behind. You could hear the growling of whatever we were up against

I followed the others and listened carefully. I was freaking shaking. Don’t ask how I got sucked into becoming one the the hunters. Kinda just happened and I was just-

“OH SHIT!” I heard someone yell, it was too dark to see. Someone was gone, that thing took them. I couldn’t even see it. Oh fuck my life. Everyone began scattering, running away from the monster. I stopped running to take a breath, when I realized I was alone. Nicely done Y/N. The lights kept flickering. I heard something blow up in the distance.

“Conned? Conner?” I heard a whisper, one I knew all too well. Shit, joel. I ran toward the sound, and had no idea I was also running toward certain death. I stopped running. There it was, that thing. I’d never seen this before. I didn’t recognize it. I stayed silent, not moving at all. It slowly crawled over a shower curtain. Oh fuck. He was going toward joel! I quickly grabbed my bow and arrow and shot it. Right though the face. Next to its….eye I guess you could call it. Joel stood there, frozen.

I slowly walked over to him “Joel, hey are you ok?” I asked as I slipped my hand into his. He was trembling. Tears ran down his cheeks. He has a bad freezing problem, so I've been helping him work on it.

About an hour later I sat with Joel, still holding his hand as he stared out into space. We could hear everyone talking. How could this have happened?

“It ripped through steal”

“Anderson and I resealed the Breach point, nothings getting in that way again”

“But why did it happen?”

I tried to toon it out, and I hoped Joel did too.

“Joel, do you wanna talk about it?” I asked squeezing his hand, he looked so sad, which just crushed me

He shook his head

“Ok….” I nodded, I leaned into hug him but was interrupted by his voice

“How far away is Aimee's colony?” He asked

I pulled back, looking at him confused. The talking stopped and everyone look at him

“What?” Tim asked

“Aimee’s colony, how far away is it?” He repeated

“About 85 miles” he said as he furrowed his brows

“How long will it take to get there?”

“What do you mean joel?” I asked leaning closer to him

“Just humor me, how long?” He insisted

“7 days” said Tim

“Someone who’s armed and trained would hardly last 50miles, but you…joel” Ava said, I felt bad for him, he really didn’t deserve any of this

“Alright” Tim continued “now I need volunteers”

“I’m gonna go” joel said

No one said anything, they just stared

“It’s an impossible journey joel” said Tim, crossing his arms

Joel stood up, moving around my chair. “No im serious…I love you guys but there’s only one person in this world who ever truly made me happy and she’s only 85 miles away” he said strongly “I’m gonna go see her” I could see his mind was made up

God he was such a romantic, how could you not love this guy? Sure it hurts when your best friend tells you that you didn’t make him truly happy. Especially when you maybe sorta kinda have a crush on him.

He let out a breath “woah, that felt awesome” he said as he walked off to start packing

I stood there for a second processing and thinking, but then suddenly my mouth took over and well….

“I’m coming with you!” I said, he froze “I mean you can’t leave me here with these middle aged people, and your my best friend so” I shrugged

“I’ll come back for you I promise” he walked over to me “I can’t let you put yourself in even more danger” he said grabbing my arms

“I can’t let you put yourself in danger knowing that I could have helped protect you” I said, he stared blankly at me

I smiled “o-ohK…then I guess…” he trailed off

“Cool I’ll go pack” I skipped past him. Was I scared? Hell yes. But like I said, I needed to help joel and protect him in every way I can. And sure I wasn’t so happy that he was returning to his long lost love but if it made him happy then I would live. And anyway, two do shorten the road.

[pi-cat000]

BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (1)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters:  Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

Inspired by Unforeseen Mayhem by Aerugonian 

Here is their tumblr (all their work is so good)

(NEXT)

...

Kakashi thinks he might have died. He remembers the flash of steel and Obito’s face or maybe it had been Madara. His memory of the events leading up to the attack are hazy after receiving one too many hits to the head. What he does remember is the slowly spinning, hypnotic red of a Sharingan, and the quick build-up then explosion of chakra.

Then there was excruciating pain in his left eye and…darkness…

…

Kakashi opens his remaining, usable eye to gaze up at tall angled structures that stretch into a grey overcast sky. He can’t feel the left side of his face, his limbs are numb and unresponsive, and there is the damp of blood soaking through his hair. The bone-deep ache of chakra exhaustion is so all-encompassing that he can barely lift his hand let alone stop the bleeding. Around him, there are several people yelling in shock and surprise. Civilians he vaguely notes as he clings to consciousness. There is no sign of Madera, Obito or any of Kakashi’s allies for that matter.

When his vision dims for a second time he thinks that this, this would be his last breath. Alone, severely injured, in a foreign location and with only civilians as help? It was a death sentence.

He is wrong in the end.

…

Kakashi wakes up in a strange hospital bed surrounded by the strangest people he has ever seen. He also wakes up covered in bandages, his more serious injures either treated or in various stages of recovery.

The air is dry with a distinct lack of chakra. It is something he would usually only see in a prison cell made to contain dangerous shinobi in which chakra draining fuinjutsu arrays were applied to the walls and floor. There are no fuinjutsu arrays here. This is not a prison cell. For one, there is a large window. Secondly, there is a constant stream of doctors, nurses and other patients moving in, out and around the building. Finally, the door to the room is not locked. It doesn’t even have a lock.

After memorising the comings and goings of the people working in the strange hospital, he takes some time to scout. Even while injured and drained of chakra, he has enough skill and experience to avoid the workers and other sickly people he shares his room with.

 The world outside his window is one of cement, concrete and brick, with tall imposing structures covered in reflective glass standing higher than any building he has seen before. The closest point of comparison he has are the buildings in the Hidden-Rain and Stone villages but even those are a loose approximation. The hospital is both similar to Konoha’s main hospital, abet a lot bigger and full of strange equipment and technology. The people, despite their lack of chakra, display odd and inconstant abilities, techniques and physical deformities. One of the doctors has a lizard tail and he catches a glimpse of a man with a wooden block for a head. He sees a woman heal a cut with a simple hand wave. Either he is in an unusually elaborate and detailed genjutsu or he is very far away from Kohoha.

Everything is so odd and strange that he is well and truly stumped, leaving him with nothing else to do but quickly return to his hospital room. At least the weird chakra-less people are non-hostiles and willing to provide much needed medical attention. Though he is, as of yet, uncertain about the purpose or motive behind said medical attention seeing as he was a complete unknown to them.

After some consideration, Kakashi decides to wait. He has no idea how he ended up in the place aside from a loose theory that involved his still healing Kamui Sharingan. Additionally, there was no use trying to get back home with stab wounds, his leg broken, his ribs cracked, his shoulder muscles torn and his chakra levels so pathetically low that he’d probably kill himself if he tried.

He takes solace in the fact that his presence, while probably missed to some extent- he likes to think so anyway- wouldn’t impact the outcome of any major conflict. With Naruto’s stubbornness and Sakura’s tenacity, home would be waiting for him, even if he took a bit of time getting there.

…

After a week of information gathering -ie pretending to be unconscious and listening to conversations- Kakashi concludes that the people operating the hospital are relatively harmless. They seem to be under the mistaken impression that Kakashi is a citizen of their village and thus automatically entitled to medical attention. This is despite his lack of identification or history with the place. Such a thing would never happen in Konoha as even civilians were carefully monitored and tracked. Without identification or relatives/friends to vouch for them, a civilian would more likely be thrown out of the village than given what was surely resource-consuming medical treatment. It is lucky for him that there are apparently so many civilians in this village that their shinobi-equivalent forces couldn’t properly keep track of them all. Another point in favour of it not being any sort of hidden-village or any place he was familiar with.

 “Oh, thank goodness!” Says the greying, middle-aged man in a white coat as he approaches Kakashi's bed, “You’re finally awake. How do you feel.”

“Ah…a bit tired,” Kakashi plasters on a confused smile, raising his undamaged hand to rub the back of his head, hunching his shoulders for good measure. The perfect image of a disoriented patient.

 “What happened? Where am I?”

There was only so much he could achieve be pretending to be unconscious and snooping around at night. It was time to get a real feel for residents of this strange place and figure out his next move. This meant integrating into the local culture.  

“No need to worry. You’re in Hosu General Hospital and you’re well on your way to recovery,” A nod and the doctor moves forward to stand beside his bed, “A little drowsiness is a normal side effect of the pain medication we have you on. Now, if I may have your name?”

“Kakashi.” If they hadn’t recognised the Sharingan when they had bandaged it up, then they most likely wouldn’t recognise his name either.

“Well, Kakashi,” The man says with no hint of acknowledgement, “My name is Wada Yasutoki and I’m here to make sure you are recovering properly. Can you tell me if you are feeling any discomfort or pain at the moment?”

“Hmmm…my arm and leg?”

“Would you be able to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?”

Kakashi thinks for a second and shrugs, “3.” Honestly, he only notices the pain when he’s consciously paying attention.

Another nod and Doctor Wada fusses about, examining the bandages around his shoulder and then his leg, “Well, they seem to be healing as well as any broken limb, maybe even a bit faster. And the stab wound near your chest is almost completely gone.” A thoughtful hum follows the statement. “If not for your left eye I would say you had a healing or regeneration quirk…hmmm…maybe a passive healing factor linked to your quirk…?” Wada looks to him, waiting for confirmation and Kakashi shrugs. From his nightly snooping he knows that ‘quirk’ is the term for the bloodline ability things the people here had.

The Doctor doesn’t press the matter instead asking, “Is there any discomfort in the left side of your face?”

“No.” Kakashi doesn’t want the people here touching his eye any more than necessary. The fact that it is draining charka at its usual sluggish rate was a sign that it was, at least, somewhat functional and that’s good enough for him. He guesses he should be thankful for landing in a place with medicine advanced enough to save it.

“You had us concerned when you didn’t wake after we saw to all your injuries,” The Doctor continues, “Your left eye took quite a bit of damage and we were worried that there might have been some sort of brain injury. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or confused please, do not hesitate to call a nurse.”

The man shakes his head and sighs, “Now, I understand if you want a bit of space after going through such a traumatic event but if you could provide any details concerning the predicament that ended with you so badly injured it would be a great help to the investigation.”

Kakashi gives a faked confused hum and smiles apologetically, “Sorry Doctor Wada. I'm having trouble remembering much of anything really.”

“Nothing? No details about the potential assailant at all. What they look like? Their quirk?”

“No. Where is Hosu General Hospital by the way?”

His bland expression obviously causes his doctor some concern as he is subjected to a penlight being shone in his uncovered eye.

 “It is located in Hosu City, a ward of Tokyo. Where is the last place you remember being?”

The names mean nothing to him.  Kakashi schools his features into one of complete confusion, “I don’t remember.” 

It’s not even a lie this time. 

After the admission,  Doctor Wada only grows more concerned and Kakashi is subjected to many reassurances that it is completely normal to forget a few things after a brain injury and that he shouldn’t worry himself too much. The level of comforting and reassuring is a bit much if he is being honest. Never before has he longed for the cold frowns of  Konoha’s medic-nin.

“I’ll have to schedule you in for an MRI. If you’re having trouble recalling basic facts alongside your long-term memories, then there might a serious problem.” The older man finally concludes, having run through an extensive list of questions regarding Kakashi’s history all of which he answers with vague half-truths.  Where did he grow up? Somewhere with a lot of trees. Did he have any close relatives? He thinks they might have died when he was little. What does he do for a living? Commission work. Did he have any colleagues? He doesn’t know where they are. So on and so forth.

“It’s a shame your ID and phone were missing when they found you. Stolen by the bastard who put you in this situation no doubt,” the Doctor sighs again, “We might have been able to track down your records. Oh well, we’ll do our best with what we have.”

Kakashi doesn’t speak, pretending to be deep in thought. Mentally, he pats himself on the back for an infiltration gone surprisingly well considering his lack of preparation and the flakiness of the ‘sorry I don’t remember my backstory’ excuse.

“I don’t suppose you remember anything about your quirk,” the doctor asks, “Ocular quirks can have odd effects on brain activity and ability to process information. It might give us a place to start.”

From what he had seen, ‘quirks’ tended to have a specific function but he is still trying to figure out their limits. All he knew for sure was that none of them used chakra.

“It’s called the Sharingan.” He offers to see what the doctor does with the information, “I don’t remember much else about it.”

“Hmmm, ‘copy wheel eye’…it’s a descriptive name at least. Maybe a quirk that deals with memorisation or information recall. I will see if I can find it on the Quirk Registry. Hopefully, that will be enough. ”

Kakashi nods loosely in agreement, filing away the fact that there was a Quirk Registry for later contemplation. 

(NEXT)

[bleachbleachbleach]

Fic: Away, Away

This was written for Day 13 of @hitsuhina-week! If you prefer, you can also read this on AO3. Which is my preference, because Tumblr keeps eating my spacing whether I use Rich Text or HTML so it looks absurd on here. >.>

Aftermath / Going on a Trip Together Hinamori Momo + Hitsugaya Toushirou Pre-Series

--

This will be the last time. 

(Whisper it, so he won't hear.)

--

Every spring, Junrinan finds its way to the western mountains. (The souls of Rukongai wander.) There is no grand procession: They disperse across the vast range, often alone and sometimes in twos. They are always careful not to cause disruption, because while one soul in a forest full of spirits generally isn't worth the effort, seven is a meal.

They are three. 

Soon, they will be two. Hinamori can't stop whispering her new name, hi na mo ri. It's early to be out here, but the snows were mild this year and new growth is already peeking from beneath the thick, rich leaf rot. She feels an affinity with this year's tender saplings, a feeling that grows hotter with every whispered repetition of her name. Her grandmother had given it to her, showed her how to write it. She'd studied her name harder than she had the exam.

Hinamori has an acceptance letter. In April, she is leaving. 

Hinamori nearly walks straight into a nettle spirit--the hair-eating kind--draped across the game path plain as day.

"Do you wanna be bald?" Toushirou grouses as he yanks her back just in time. "I guess it fits. You're acting like a blind old man." 

Hinamori blinks, brushes imagined hair from her face. It's the fifth time she's tried to walk straight through a spirit in as many days. 

"Studying is bad for your eyes," says Toushirou. He doesn't care for moony Hinamori. Momo had paid a lot more attention to what was in front of her. But she's Hinamori now. At least, that's the only name she'll write, dragging her thin stick through the dirt outside the house. So that's what he calls her.

Toushirou squeezes through a bumble of pot-bellied mushroom spirits and Hinamori follows him, stepping carefully into his tracks.

"You'll need to keep reading even when I'm not around. It'll go if you don't practice," she says.

Toushirou makes a noncommittal sound.

"I'll send you letters full of kanji and quiz you on them when I visit." I'll learn how to write them pretty, she promises, just like Baachan does.

"Will you write me back?" she asks.

"Probably not."

This hurts her. But Toushirou plans to go the rest of his life without writing a single thing. It's not personal.

"Why would I need to tell you what happens in Junrinan?" he says. "You already know."

--

And if I forget?

--

Life in Junrinan doesn't change. That's what Toushirou was promised. The winters are quiet and slow, and in spring they go to the mountains. Summers are for farming, and autumns for harvest. Then winters are quiet and slow again.

Spring passes with bracken and angelica in hand. It is counted in the spirals of ferns as their number grows in the baskets. Some are dried; some are steeped. Mostly, they are sold. Many of the men in Junrinan spend springtime waking before dawn to sprint to the mountain, forage the lowlands, and return to the village for evening revelries, but Toushirou and Hinamori and their grandmother have always spent the whole of the season between the trees. The mountains prefer it when you stay. 

This will be true no matter how long Hinamori is gone.

April 12th through July 20th, then our first break, she says, scratching numbers in the dirt. But Junrinan doesn't have dates the way the Academy does. She draws the way the trees will change. The change happens in a long straight line, and beyond July 20th there is an emptiness rather than a repetition. How do you draw an unwritten future?

Hinamori writes her name again.

--

In the spring, everything is full: Toushirou enjoys the wet green of it, the late snows and vernal flooding. The water flows down from the mountains ice cold and the forests are loud and thick with spirits.

The spirits have no names that are written and no faces that have ever stayed the same, unremembered but immemorial. They are loud. Most of them respect the borders of his body. They brush against his legs with thick wet fur or scrape his cheek with leathery wings. They coil around his throat, treating him like a tree or rock. Some of them are trees and rocks. They are the mountains and forest, just like the wandering souls of Junrinan. They all belong here, more or less.

Toushirou can see most of them. When the blurry ones pass through you, it's feverishly unpleasant for the split-second it happens and then is nothing at all. The blurry ones, Toushirou figures, aren't actually in this forest. They are like shadows at sunset, cast long and far from their bodies. Their true bodies roam a different world entirely.

That's what Hinamori wants to do. 

Hinamori used to clamor for shinigami stories any time one of them passed through town. She'd been told one time that all travelers carried stories and now expected it.

The shinigami never expected her. Unless commerce was involved they didn't tend to acknowledge souls, or even look at them. So they always seemed surprised by Hinamori, like it hadn't occurred to them that they'd meet a real, full person out here. Which is fair enough, Toushirou grudgingly allows--there are plenty of souls in Junrinan so old and staid they cannot move, nor speak. (Don't touch them. It's unlucky.)

We don't talk about those.

The shinigami talk story: The story of black dye. The story of a tall bathhouse. The story of grilled meat on sticks. The story of the time they saw a noble. The story of a big fish. The story of a bigger fish. The story of the bullet train. The story of my sister, who isn't very interesting but is the only thing that comes to mind right now sorry. The story of 19th seats should be paid more. The story of the soul who wanted a story. 

Almost none of the stories are about death.

"Little girls shouldn't go into those mountains," one shinigami once said, which is as close as a story ever came to it. "Nasty stuff in there. They're called Hollows, you know. Real bad guys."

The shinigami patted the sword at his hip. He'd just told Hinamori a story about the third son of a lesser noble whom everyone loved and thought deserved better than the shadows of his elder brothers. And how preposterous is it, really, that he should have to prove himself when his brothers never did? Pushed out here into the boonies, seeking honor and fame. He really feels for the guy. Don't you? Don't you?

"You seem to know a lot about 'this guy,'" Toushirou offered.

"I'm a master storyteller," said the shinigami.

I've killed a Hollow before, you know, boasted the master storyteller. He'd led a unit of twelve men into those mountains out there, which were so quiet you could hear your own heart beating. When you can hear your terror--that's when you're on the cusp of valor. His eyes lit up. I was the one who cut the mask, he said.

Twelve is obviously far too many (seven is a meal), and those mountains have never been quiet. Toushirou didn't think he'd really been.

In the spring, though, there's a dark scar where once there'd been a copse of trees. Shattered branches and burned ground. His grandmother says it smells like Hollow. 

"They see things differently," his grandmother half-explains, of the shinigami and their Hollows and the silence of their mountains. Of course this would seem a different place to them.

"They're idiots," says Toushirou, though suddenly he's not sure. The scar is hair-raising, and his stomach roils. Maybe they really shouldn't be out in the woods.

"The shinigami know more than you," says Hinamori, taking his hand in hers. She grips it tightly, reassuring, or maybe annoyed. Both. She has a lot of school spirit for someone who hasn't even been yet.

But she doesn't let go of his hand, even after they've returned to the cover of the live trees, kitsune fire nestled in the brambles at their feet.

Toushirou makes the mistake of noticing a spirit that tends to linger just out of sight. It feeds on your instinct to look, and it grows higher and higher the more you crane your neck, so sure you'll be able to sneak a glimpse of it. By the time you realize the trick, you've always been had. It's very annoying.

--

This will be the last time.

(Scream it.)

--

"It's so dark out here," says Hinamori, in spite of the kitsune and all the rest. Lots of spirits glow. She is still holding his hand.

Toushirou thinks of the small lamp Hinamori had bought to study by, the wild shadows it cast on the interior walls and the way it had made all hours bright. He thinks of all the hours she hadn't slept. All because some shinigami had told her a story about a school. 

Anything would seem dark by comparison. He can't remember the last time she hadn't had her lamp on when he went to bed.

Hinamori is going to snap the bones in his hand. He yelps. Tears prick in his eyes. "What's wrong with you?"

She doesn't let go, and then she doesn't let go.

"It's so quiet," she says faintly. Her free hand wavers over her heart protectively.

It's so dark. It's so quiet. Quiet enough to hear your terror.

Except it's not. It's not dark.

It's not quiet.

The forest is full, air thick with chirrups and buzzing, screeching, hooting, chittering. Bodies clack and bones shudder. Reeds whistle and something large makes a whomping, resonating tone. Foxfire hisses as it makes sparks, throws phosphorous motes that dance high above. A heartbeat glow marches up the ridged spine of a lizard spirit. The forest is as it has always been.

Toushirou's eyes widen. 

"You can't hear them anymore."

To Hinamori, it is all darkness and silence. 

She sinks to the ground, burying her head in her knees as though to hide from the quiet. From the black. She drops his hand.

"Momo--"

She shakes her head. She opens her hands to the sky like she's waiting for a bird to land. For a split second, a small warm flame billows from her palms. 

Then the entire forest catches.

The thought had been innocent enough--to be her own light in the darkness, conquer her fear. But the forest only hears the conquering. It's the kitsune who don't take kindly to Hinamori's light. Their fire screeches up and outward and then all the spirits are in frenzy. A meal! scream some; and others, a threat! A danger to be expunged. A strange thing not of this forest, these mountains.

Outsider! the world around them hisses. Away.

away, away

Hinamori screams as the flames leap forward--the claws, the vines, the terrors and all in between. She throws herself in front of Toushirou. 

Toushirou can't find his voice at all. The wide whites of his eyes feel the propulsive gust of the forest coming down on them. On Hinamori. No! he can't shout, cold fear coiling over his frozen legs and pricking at his shoulder blades. Something serpentine rushes past him and he's on the ground. His head smacks hard against a writhing tree root and he tastes bile, feels nothing. 

Hears everything.

away

When he wakes, snow is falling, wet and sloppy. Kitsune are nibbling at the singed edges of a hanafuda. Hinamori is in her grandmother's arms. She's crying.

--

Before Hinamori started studying, with her bright lamp and her long nights and her feverish poetry scratched into the ground, before the hunger came, she'd woken one morning to a futon streaked with her blood. Her grandmother said that this was womanhood.

"The tea will stop the bleeding," she assured a tearful Hinamori as they scrubbed at her futon, pinking the waters. Toushirou beat at the stain with his feet, splashing everywhere.

"You don't have to touch it," Hinamori had said quietly, her eyes fixed on the water. "It's my mess."

"Baachan said I have to help," Toushirou objected. "Besides, am I supposed to just sit here and watch you bleed?"

--

Just one last time.

--

Hinamori isn't hurt, but she is in pain. The forest doesn't want her anymore. (She is leaving.)

"The forest sees them differently," his grandmother says, the other half of her earlier explanation. "Them," meaning shinigami. "Them," meaning Hinamori, now.

Shinigami see and are seen differently. They belong differently. Toushirou had only ever distinguished them by their black clothes, and sometimes their attitude. But his grandmother talks about reiryoku, about reiatsu, about the realms the shinigami travel through and the spirits they are blind to. The spirits that belong to different worlds than theirs, even when they're side by side. Some worlds are bound to one another, tied by fate and duty; others are repelled.

As Hinamori's reiatsu blossomed with her womanhood, slowly folding outward past her skin, beyond her body, her worlds were chosen for her. Like the bleeding, there's a tea to help this, too, but it's not the same. 

There is no going back.

"What're you looking at," Toushirou scowls at her. He's not sure what to do with her pain. There's nothing he can do for her pain. But she's looking at him differently, a little less like Hinamori and a little more like the rest of Junrinan does, and that scares him.

She asks him if he'd felt anything. Something cold.

She's asked him before. Every day since the incident, she's asked him.

His answer is always the same. No. Just fear.

He should be helping his grandmother. They're here in the forest for a reason, and that hasn't changed; they have foraging to do. But he doesn't want to leave Hinamori alone. 

"Don't be afraid of it, Shiro-chan," says Hinamori. Hinamori, who's now afraid of the dark.

Hinamori, who is leaving.

--

She doesn't have a choice. When her power comes into her she knows there is only one place she can go. It's a place she has always wanted to go. (She has always wanted to go places.) But now she has to.

She smiles. 

If she is going to go, she's going to fly. She will love, and yearn, and cry. She will give all of herself to the future before her, even when it means that precious things can be only memory. If there is something Hinamori leaves in him when she goes, it's flight. 

Someday, Toushirou will remember to remember that.

--

"Will you write me?" she asks.

--

--

(You will be written.)

--

She returns for the summer, then is gone again. Winter, then gone again. But she doesn't come home for the spring. They'll be going to the realm of the living. They will fight Hollows, just like the Gotei 13. She explains the meaning and stroke order of the characters, go tei,  though she doesn't explain what the Gotei 13 actually is. That part must already seem obvious to her. Shinigami stuff. That's all Toushirou will ever need to know. Seems pretentious.

When Junrinan returns to the mountains this year, Toushirou and his grandmother stay behind. "It's dangerous," she says. She squeezes his shoulders.

It's dangerous now. 

There is no going back.

Junrinan may not change, but life does, and by the second summer, Hinamori has mostly forgotten the shapes of the forest spirits. Toushirou is forgetting them, too. 

The difference is, Hinamori has found replacements. She talks about incantations and sword stances, friendships and histories. She has been to the realm of the living. It's only been a year, and already they have nothing in common but their memories, ever-receding. 

Sometimes she wakes up screaming. She doesn't say why.

--

Toushirou dreams of a chill ripping through him. He dreams of a place where there are no mountains as far as the eye can see.

--

He wakes to Hinamori.

[lostonehero]

Becoming less human

It was a week after the near end of the world by two men who had good intentions but no common sense. The teams Aqua and Magma merged and started on trying to help without the use of extreme measures. Both teams thankfully were pardoned and nobody died, but the orbs the orbs were absorbed into both leaders flesh, and as far as anyone knows nothing came of it except the two leaders getting together.

Maxie gave a frustrated sigh as he tried to put his shoe on again, for some reason it felt too small. He was 35 he was well past growing stuck at 5ft 5in for the rest of his life. He never complained though his height never defined him, and he could beat Archie in a fist fight no problem, growing up in a orphanage where everyone hated would make someone tough. Granted Archie would never admit to loosing, well it wasn't like anyone would belive Maxie either to the world he was a weak skinny nerd. He wore the long sleeves and stocking to cover up scars from past abuse he didn't want to show the world.

"Leader Maxie? I mean Maxie." Tabitha stutters out.

Maxie sighs "Archie isn't in here Tabitha." He heard a sigh of relief as his former admin walked in. "And I told you you didn't have to stay, you can get a better job and not be stuck with the crazy man who almost ended the world." He cursed under his breath again and tossed his shoes to the side.

"Le- Maxie I want to help with your new vision, and even if it involves Aqua what you have drawn out is pretty amazing sir...." he trails off as he watches Maxie. "Sir are you alright."

Maxie sighs. "I think I must of hurt my feet and they are swollen my shoes seem too tight." His feet look perfectly fine except for his nails that look like they are turning black.

"Oh I see do you want me to call for a doctor?"

"No Tabitha I'm fine I'll just steal Archie's shoes he left here." Maxie sighs seeing Tabitha scowl at the former Aqua leader. "I don't need you judging my love life Tabitha."

Tabitha huffs. "You can do better sir."

"Tabitha I appreciate the sentiment but I'm pretty hated right now."

"W-well you are still liked."

"I know you have feelings for Matt, and besides I'm 10 years older then you and Courtney so my answer would still be no."

Tabitha tries to hide his red face, Maxie knew him too well at this point. "R-Right sir uh today is your day off I came to remind you no work."

Maxie curses under his breath Tabitha knew him well as well. "Right very well then I think I'll visit Archie."

Tabitha sighs but didn't argue he knew Maxie wouldn't overwork himself around that pirate.

.......

"If you keep staring at your hands I will smack the back of your head Archie." Shelly huffed

Archie was in casual clothes and nit his wet suit today. He felt naked without it on, but fir some reason his gloves couldn't go all the way down, and it seemed as if the webbing on his fingers had gotten deeper and his nails longer. He kept thinking back to the blue orb absorbing into his skin filing his blood with ice and the legendary beast staring at him seemingly to say "you survived you'll be rewarded" he really didn't know why that was in his head. He even asked Maxie about it and he said the same thing when in regards to his encounter.

"Archibald you're boyfriend is here." Shelly sneered rolling her eyes.

Archie sighs and gives a look to Shelly and she just raises her hands and left. Archie knew Shelly hated Maxie, and he knew Shelly didn't approve but he made him happy.

"Archie? Are you alright." Maxie asks as he plops down into a chair wearing longs sleeves and pants.

Archie frowns he knew the real reason why Maxie covered up and hell it had been only a short time but he wish he could see more of him more often then the bedroom. He shook his head. "I don't know I couldn't put on my gloves today."

Maxie leans back. "Funny I couldn't put on my shoes today I had to wear yours, well the pair you forgot to get when Courtney chased you put of my bedroom."

Archie grimaced at the memory but looked confused. "Maxie I'm like three sizes bigger then you how have you not tripped?"

"They fit perfectly." Macie says calmly but his shaking hands gave him away. "Is this the reward." He whispered fear lacing his tone.

Archie has never seen Maxie truly scared, sure he had startled him but the man was ready to punch him in the face rather then run away. His nerves were starting to eat away at his confidence. "I-i don't know Max. Are we taking there place?"

Maxie shivers. "I never wanted that, I don't think I could stand to loose you now." He frowns. "Could I stay with you tonight...." he trails off.

Archie nods frowning, Maxie never asked he always just stayed and was so dominate in his ways. He decided he didn't like seeing Maxie scared. "Have you gone back to..." he didn't finish his sentence when Maxie looked him in the eye.

"Yes once, it was for closure to make sure they were gone...." he stopped seemingly recalling something. "I heard something though."

"What?"

"Uh I think you've been blessed by the gods your body will change to accept it.... I thought I was just hearing things." He looked down biting his lip.

Archie sighs and looks at Maxie. "I don't want to talk about this anymore..."

"Neither do I." Maxie gets up and offers Archie his hand. "Shall we get some ice cream and try to forget with bad movies."

Archie smiled softly nodding getting up. "Aye that sounds great."

.....3 months later.....

Maxie tried to wrestle Archie's shoes onto his feet but he had little to no luck, it's been months and he was comfortable wearing them this was like being a teenager in a growthspurt all over. "Fuck this!" he threw the shoes across the room and finally noticed his pants were short that doused his frustration with fear.

Archie rushed in right out of the shower his towel haphazardly around his waist. "Maxie are you alright."

Maxie in a quiet voice. "My pants are too short and slightly tight."

Archie furrows his brow and actually looks down and to his astonishment Maxie was right. "I know you've gained weight Maxie, but uh you gained height."

Maxie sighs. "I thought it was I eating more I gained weight, and I didn't mind that but.... but " he stops and takes a deep breath. "Archie we never did stop did we?"

"My legs aren't fusing if that's what your asking." Archie tried to joke but he was starting to get scared too.

Maxie sat down on the bed. "I need to get new clothes." He sighs laying down. "We probably should tell Steven."

Archie frowns and moves to lay down next to him. "Maybe we should start with our former admins, or current ones they really never stopped doing their jobs."

"I don't know which one would be worse." Maxie chuckles covering his face. "Tabithia and Courtney will be the worse mother hens."

"You think that's bad Matt once carried me to bed when I had the sniffles." Archie gives a small laugh.

"When did our lives get so messed up? Wait don't answer that I know why." Maxie huffs looking at Archie.

Archie couldn't hold it in and started to laugh.

Maxie threw a pillow at him.

..... 6 months later......

Archie frowns looking at the large blanket Matt bought for him and Maxie. "Is this really necessary? Maxie only grew 6inches."

"Bro you need to think long term, you're changing too." Matt puffs out his chest. "Even if you become another kyoger I want to make sure you're warm."

Archie sighs scratching his beard. "I don't think that's what I'm becoming Matt, but uh thanks." Matt was like his brother, he was just a tad over protective.

Matt shakes his head. "No matter what happens Archie I will be by your side no matter what."

Archie smiles softly. "Thanks Matt, but uh I think we are good on blankets, Maxie is like a furnace..."

"Does he have a fever, I know I was rude and mean when you started dating but he really loves you can I help?" Matt rattles off

Archie chuckles. "No Bro like how my body temperature lowered Maxie's went up."

"Ohhh ok so you guys cancel each other out just like them. Maybe they are dating too."

Archie covers his face with his hands trying to get that image put of his head as Matt rattles on about the many plans he has to help.

.....4 months later.....

"This is insulting at this point." Archie huffs laying on his stomach.

Maxie matching Archie's position. "I didn't want a tail either but here we are. It's not even fully formed yet and it's so sensitive." He sighs. "I honestly thought you would be upset because I'm taller then you now."

"Not gonna lie Max that kinds of turns me on." Archie chuckles hearing Maxie scoff.

"We aren't even entirely human anymore and you are thinking about bedroom activities." He tries and fails to look offended. "I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind Archie but I want to wait till we are done changing."

"Agreed, so how are your feet doing I know they were killing you." Archie hums trying to keep conversation to distract from the pain.

Maxie looks away. "Scales and bone spur on my heel...they feel a lot better but I'm worried I might hurt you while we sleep."

Archie has wide eyes. "Matching your claws."

Maxie looks back raising his brow. "Seriously Archie? What about your neck?"

"Gills got matching ones on my waist as well, I don't need my wetsuit anymore." He smiles.

Maxie smiles "swimming with Bruce is in your future right." He grimaced as a soft crack is heard. "F-fun with your p-pokemon."

Archie held onto Maxie's hand. "Its ok you don't need to be tough around me I love you."

Maxie held on tightly to Archie's hand. "I love you too." It was the first time they exchanged those words.

....1 month later....

Archie was chasing down Maxie with a bucket of soapy water. "Maxie I swear to arceus that you need to stop you're shedding let me help."

"Fuck off Archie, and leave that fucking hell brush in the trash." Maxie growls a red glowed from his eyes.

"Maxie it's just a brush stop being a baby." Archie tries to tackle him but misses. "I swear I will call Courtney and Tabitha."

"You wouldn't dare." Maxie hisses.

"I would you human lizard just get in the medicated bath." Archie crosses his arms.

Maxie grumbles and walks back to the large bath with bubbles and a medical oder he hated. He got in crossing his arms. "Only because I don't want them to see me naked again."

Archie sighs and begins to scrub softly at Maxie's scales helping them shed. "Look I don't like this either but I refuse to be covered in your shed again. I don't care if we are still changing you will take a bath when you shed."

Maxie scowls. "You don't have to baby me Archie. You know why I don't like baths."

Archie pauses. "I know Max, but you'll feel better we both know that. I'm sorry but I don't want the shower spray to hurt you like last time when you first shed."

Maxie looks away and nods. "I know I know, could you.... maybe uh come in with me?"

Archie chuckles and plops into the bath with Maxie splashing him.

Maxie spits out the soapy water at Archie. "You know what I changed my mind get out."

Archie laughs harder. "Love you too Maxie."

......1 year later....

Maxie was sitting at his desk Archie was late to their meeting, Tabitha and Courtney were both waiting along with Shelly and Matt. It was an uncomfortable silence. Maxie tapped his claw against the wood not realizing he was creating a small hole. "He's the one who called the damn meeting why is he running late."

Tabitha sighs knowing Maxie's temper was high by the smell of burning coming from his tail that slapped the floor in annoyance. "Maxie he probably forgot something."

"We share a home Tabitha he seemed perfectly put together." Maxie glares at Matt who looked guilty.

Matt Maxie knew was awful at keeping secrets and a glare from Maxie was enough to set him off. "ARCHIE IS GOING TO PROPOSE." Matt yells breaking all tension. "I promised I wouldn't tell but I just can't. He is late because the ring is taking longer to make then he realized." He covers his face in shame.

Shelly curses. "Fucking hell Matt he told us in confidence."

"I know I know but Maxie looks so upset." Matt whimpers

Shelly groans and leans back.

Courtney was laughing softly a rare sound.

Tabitha gave a look to Matt saying you're on the couch tonight.

Maxie slams his hands on the table startling everyone. "That fucking bastard" he gets up quickly. "I already bought a fucking ring."

The four stared at Maxie connecting the dots and everyone realized that maybe that their collective bosses were both actually so deeply in love they had the same idea.

At that moment Archie walked in hearing Maxie yell. "You bought a ring?"

"Of course I did you dumb pirate I love you." Maxie huffs. "I was waiting for the full moon because you like the moon's reflection on the water."

Archie looks like he was about to cry. "Maxie I love you so much woukd you marry me?"

Maxie threw his own black box at Archie. "Make an educated guess you college graduate."

Archie burst out laughing and runs to tackle Maxie into a hug. "Damn right Maxie I will marry you."

"And I will marry you Archie." Maxie smiles

[yourdeepestfathoms]

The Grey Palace

So this a book I’m really hoping to actually finish! It’s a horror slasher story, but it’s set on a cruise ship. I’m posting the first chapter for my followers to read if they’re interested in following along with the creation and storyline! Feedback is greatly appreciated!

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

A sleek grey seagull was perched on the wooden guard rail around the churning green ocean. It shifted from foot to pink foot, ruffling unruly feathers, and squinted beady black eyes up at the giant ship looming above it. It looked suspicious of the vessel, and even more suspicious of the people boarding its mass.

The Grey Palace was the greatest cruise ship to ever exist--or so all the Yelp reviews claimed. It included casinos and spas and waterparks and food! But only if you pay for it, because it’s not like you already paid $425 for a single ticket for your four person family. 

It was a colossal sea beast, made out of the finest and toughest extra-strength steel plates and boasting the largest size of a cruise ship in the whole world at a staggering 1,854.25 feet in length and 265.74 feet in height. It had a tonnage of 230,000 gross tons, outweighing every other ship in the business. Its hull could shatter icebergs, its bow could split the sea in two, its propellers were more powerful than any jet or rocket in the entire world. Luxurious lounges and steamy spas promised the best relaxation, the waterpark and Kid’s Club proclaimed full entertainment for children, and the restaurants provided the best food on the seven seas. It got its name from the lustrous grey color it was painted, reflecting rainbows all across the body of the ship. 

Everybody wanted to board the floating Palace, and only a select few got the invitation into the Aquatic Kingdom.

But in this case, a “select few” meant 8,700 people.

The boarding dock was clamored with passengers. Families that made the mistake of keeping their luggage on them instead of turning it in to the porters, families that trying to keep all their kids from running off, families already bickering over what they were going to do first, all packed into one area that was treacherously close to the ocean and a giant ship that would easily be able to sweep a fallen victim underneath its mass. One woman had her toddler on a child leash like it was a dog, tugging on the rope every once and awhile when the kid tried to run off. Another mom was herding her family in close to take a selfie, earning disgruntled noises from the children when they had to squint and smile up into the sun. A man was loudly talking to a video camera he was holding, most likely making a vlog for YouTube that would only probably get 67,000 views and 1,230 likes. Worryingly close to the edge of the dock was a pair of kids, pointing into the water and calling out what they saw while their parents obliviously chatted with some other people. Several porters were furiously helping everyone board, sweat beading their brows as they worked diligently. 

The seagull watched them all, raising its beak in a haughty manner. It seemed miffed by the intrusion of so many humans in its territory, but didn’t have the strength or size to do anything about it, so it just gazed judgmentally from a distance. Its dark eyes shifted over to the girl looking back at it, then screeched in surprise when she was shoved, jerking open its narrow wings and leaping away into the air.

  “Come ON, Violet!!” Ethan shrieked.

Violet staggered to the side, nearly tottering into someone behind her while she attempted to regain her balance. She clenched her fists, growling softly in her throat for a moment before letting her anger dissolve away.

  “I’m coming,” She said.

  “You’re being SLOWWWW!!” Aiden yelled, earning a few glances from other people because of his volume.

  “Sorry,” Violet muttered, hunching her shoulders in.

Her family bustled across the port, getting closer and closer to the gangway with each, but before they could cross the threshold, a ship photographer jumped into their path, wearing a painfully cheery grin and brandishing a bulky camera.

  “Would you like to take a family photo before boarding?” She asked, waving an arm to a photobooth set up. The backdrop was of The Grey Palace sailing.

  “Can we, Mama?” Felicity asked Deandra eagerly, tugging at her arm.

Deandra smiled down at her. “Of course, dear!”

They hustled over to the backdrop. Violet attempted to follow, but Tobias stood in her path and firmly said, “Not you.”

Violet backed away obediently, not bothering to argue.

She watched as the seven of them posed for a photo, the epitome of a white, rich family. Deandra was fifty-four, but she was constantly being praised for how good she looked for her age. Unblemished, glowing ivory skin, clear of any wrinkles, and dyed champagne blonde hair. Her neck and wrists were loaded with jewelry, but her hawk-like amber eyes were sharper and brighter than the diamonds she wore, always locating every one of Violet’s flaws.

Tobias was like her toy, even though he was older, bigger, and burlier than she was. He was as nicely dressed as his wife, clad in a tweed jacket despite the summer Whittier heat and expensive jeans and a gold watch that cost more than all their tickets combined, but he still had the face of a lizard, dull blue eyes, and brittle, greying hair that he would slather with enough gel to start a fire. But he was rich, being one of the top congressmen in the state, and had a sharp-tongue that pleased Mother, both audibly and physically, and was very easy to walk all over. Violet guessed that was why Mother even kept him around.

Carly was their pride and joy. She had a supermodel body, thin and tan, with long, luscious blonde hair and the bright blue eyes of Father. She was pretty, but cruel, like a diamond wrapped in barbed wire. Her words were always loaded with venom, manipulative and cunning and bearing no mercy or guilt over what she said. She was harsh and cold, which was probably why she still wasn’t married at twenty-seven, and when Violet told her this after her favorite paints were stolen, she beat her into unconsciousness. Violet still had the long, winding scar across her left side from when she had been lashed with the sharp edge of a broken flower vase. 

Tobias Jr., or just Toby, was the exact opposite of the man he was named after. Out of all her siblings, he was Violet’s favorite. He was a coward and a boot-licker, but he was genuine and had a good heart. He got Violet into The Walking Dead and once cleaned off her back when Father whipped her with his belt after she talked back over something controversial, but provided little help against her mistreatment, being just as scared to stand up to their parents. Still, it was a step up over everyone else. His dark amber eyes were doe-like and his brown hair was always unruly no matter how much he brushed it. In a way, he almost reminded Violet of the seagull, watchful and cautious.

Felicity was Mother’s mini me and Father’s little princess. Her wavy hair showed the natural hue of Mother’s, honey blonde, but her eyes were the deep blue of Father’s. She was incredibly slick and deceptive, as well as exceptionally greedy, always able to get whatever she wants whenever she wants it. She was dripping with as much jewelry as Mother was, maybe even more, and looked at everyone else with great disdain, disgusted at how ugly they were compared to her. Her voice was like the squeal of a pig, and she often preened herself in any reflective surface that could serve as a mirror. At age eleven, she already thought she was the queen of the world.

Aiden and Ethan were nothing but imps. Violet didn’t even know why Mother and Father had them; there was no point in their existence. They just lived to take up space and time and money, but their parents treated them like they were heirs to the throne. They were near identical, with dirty blonde hair in a mushroom-like shape around their heads and eyes so dark they looked brown instead of amber. All they seemed to know how to do was eat food and cause chaos, often forcing themselves into Violet’s personal space just to annoy her. 

That was the Nicotero family. The rich, flawless Nicotero family, perfectly happy without the illegitimate child chained to them by blood.

Violet, the kid who the congressman cheated on his wife to have on accident, named after a flower because her father couldn’t think of anything better than the plant he saw squashed on the side of the sidewalk when he was fleeing the scene after stealing her from her mother’s breast mere days after being born.

Violet, the girl with weirdly pale grey eyes that no one else in her family had and hands that never seemed to stop fidgeting with things and an overly anxious mind that contrasted with a bursting internal temper.

Violet, the library for all the should have’s-could have’s-would have’s, an encyclopedia of everything that shouldn’t have happened, an example of what her siblings were not supposed to be.

Violet, the fifteen-year-old with vibrant petals curled towards her family, but poisonous roots lying beneath, just like her name’s sake.

  “Say ‘cruise ship’!”

  “CRUISE SHIP!!!”

The camera flashed and the photo was taken.

Violet blinked her eyes; they were sore in the sunlight. She shifted from foot to foot as she waited for her family to finish up at the photobooth. She wondered if they would put it on the fridge like all the other photographs she wasn’t a part of. They never put up the things she was in.

  “Come on! Come on! Come on!” Felicity yipped, pulling on Father’s arm. “I wanna get on already!!!”

  “We’re coming, we’re coming,” Father chuckled. He somehow had all the patience in the world when dealing with the squealing Felicity, but once yelled at Violet for taking too long to tie her shoes.

The Nicotero family pushed their way through the crowd to the closest gangway, shoulder checking other people and trodding over feet without pity in the process. Violet did her best to apologize to anyone they disturbed, seeing as no one else was, so she walked down the walkway and glass doors slightly turned around, and when she faced forward again, she got her first glimpse of the place where she would be spending the next one hundred days.

The main atrium was a giant room with a high-vaulted ceiling and looked like it had been carved out of glass; every surface was shiny and spotless. There were spiral staircases and grand steps and visible catwalks coiled around the walls, all bursting with activity. A marble fountain with intricately designed leaping dolphins was burbling softly in the center of the room, and King the Silver Polar Bear, the mascot of The Grey Palace, was standing in front of it, waving to passengers as they came in and occasionally taking photos with kids who came up to him. Violet must have been staring for a bit too long because he spotted her and pointed, then waved her over. Violet shook her head and said, “No thanks” but Felicity shoved her over with a shrill, “Go say hi, Violet! Someone actually wants to see you!”

Violet staggered forward, feeling that sensation of rage bubble up inside of her again, but, like before, it dissipated rather quickly, as there was nothing she could do. She merely sighed and looked up at the large grey bear now looming over her.

  “Umm… Hi.” Violet said awkwardly. What were you even supposed to say to the mascots? Especially when you have to talk to them against your will?

King waved cheerfully. The head of the suit was set in a petrified, open-mouth smile and the eyes were permanently wide and glowing with glee. It was almost unnerving in a way. Was the person underneath the mass of grey fur as happy as the skin it was wearing?

  “Uhh… Sorry, I don’t really know what to say.” Violet said, cringing internally. Her cheeks felt like they were on fire. 

King made a dismissive hand gesture, then pat her head. The action felt profoundly awkward, but Violet was polite and said goodbye before shuffling back over to her family with her head ducked. Felicity and the twins exploded into high-pitched giggles.

  “Violet. Don’t run off.” Mother said sharply, staring down her nose as Violet.

  “Yes, Mother,” Violet muttered.

Carly suddenly looked up from her phone. “We should go get drinks. The rooms probably aren’t ready yet.”

Mother nodded. “Good idea.”

She led the pack through a wide hallway, whisking by other passengers like she was the queen of the Aquatic Kingdom. On the way, Toby shuffled over to Violet.

  “I don’t like those people in costumes,” He said. “Gives me the creeps.”

Violet peered up at him. “How old are you?”

  “Oi! Rude!” Toby elbowed her gently. He never tried to purposely hurt her. “So… What do you think?”

Violet gazed around the hallway. It was lit up brightly, casting colorful shadows across the painted walls. 

  “It’s nice,” Violet said. “Nicer than any place I’ve been to. Aside from the house, of course.”

She had been shocked when Mother told her about the cruise a week before her freshman year ended. It was going to be a big family trip, and she was actually invited. Usually she was left out of these things. Being alone at their mansion for a week or so at a time while the rest of her family was out travelling or on vacation had been a normal affair ever since she was eleven.

Toby frowned for a moment at that, then quickly said, “It’s gonna be fun.”

They passed through a set of glass doors and entered onto one of the many decks. Surprisingly, there weren’t too many people out yet, as everyone was probably still getting checked in or exploring. Mother glided over to a canopy bar and began ordering. 

They probably spent an hour at that bar, sipping brightly colored cocktails and chatting avidly over their plans for the trip. Violet stayed out of it, of course. She sat at the smooth wooden counter, twirling a pink drink umbrella and scrawling mindless thoughts in a small purple notebook to pass the time. 

An elbow as pointy as a dagger jabbed into her back at one point, making her pen streak across her page, leaving a permanent black like through the written words. She clenched her jaw and turned around.

  “Yes?”

  “Come ON!” Felicity said. “We’re going to go eat!”

  “Didn’t you hear us talking?” Father squinted at her.

  “Sorry. I must have dozed off.” Violet said.

Carly scoffed. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

Nobody said anything against this. Violet didn’t, either. 

They went to the buffet where lunch was waiting, and Mother grumbled about how many people there were, but they eventually sat down to eat, their plates piled with food. Violet got more than she intended, but ate everything, just now realizing how hungry she was. She got judgemental looks from her family, but she did her best to just ignore them.

After lunch, they finally checked into their cabins. They got the suites, of course.

Mother, Father, and the twins got the largest room, one with a queen bed and bunk beds for Aiden and Ethan. Carly and Felicity room together, while Violet stayed with Toby. It was fine with her, really. She rather be with her older brother than any of the others.

The rest of the day was spent preparing for the trip. Toby took the twins and Felicity to get signed up for the Kid’s Club, while Carly hooked up with some friends also on the cruise, Mother went to make reservations for the spa, and Father already began drinking. 

Violet stayed in her cabin, writing away in her notepad while listening to the TV drone on. She finally got up and went out when the sun began to set, unknowingly stumbling right into a departure party on the main deck.

Music blasted as thousands of bodies writhed around together. Several people were in the pool, splashing around loudly, while others were watching the entertainment shows with great interest. Violet couldn’t stand all the noise, so she ventured to the back of the ship and watched as the land slowly disappeared on the horizon. 

A man leaned against the railing a few feet away from her as the golden-orange sunset was starting to turn a bright red color. After he blew out a wisp of smoke from the lit cigarette he had, he said, “This is gonna be one hell of a trip.”

As the first firework was set off at the deck, Violet replied, “You can say that again.”

[belladxne]

i will see you where the shadow ends | chapter 7

[see notes for ao3 and ff links]

part of the put your faith in the light that you cannot see series AU: Breath of the Wild pairing: KiriBaku word count: 6,410

chapter 7: there's a shadow where I used to shine, that tries to hide behind the smoke

Eijiro wishes he could say he leaves soon after that. He knows how long it takes to complete shrines, generally, and he can’t really afford to linger just because he’s comforted by the presence of other people. He knows he has to get a move on.

But, yeah, that’s not what happens.

It takes a few minutes to stop chatting with Hirooki, and then, of course, upwards of an hour to finish the trial hidden in Ha Dahamar Shrine. And after that, he knows he should set off, but he figures the smart thing is to catch a wild horse and register it at the stable, first. After all, travel will be a lot faster with a horse, so this will save him time in the long run.

The problem he wasn’t foreseeing is that he doesn’t know how to catch a wild horse, and it turns out a few tips from the guy who runs the stable did not make him an expert. The horses are all skittish—way more skittish than he accounted for. That probably was true for wild horses at the best of times—but it’s probably way worse, now, with the countryside they roam being littered with way more monsters and dangers than it ever used to be.

Or maybe he’s just making excuses, because it takes him over an hour to catch a single horse. They stick together in small groups, presumably for safety, and several times he gets close to one, only for another to spook and send them all running. Most of the time, he doesn’t even get that close, though. Twice he manages to get on a horse, only for the animal to then buck him right back off.

It also doesn’t help that he lets himself get distracted and sidetracked often, catching just about any bug or small creature he spots, now that he knows they’re useful. Several times he’ll forget all about the horses he’s trying to sneak up on, just to grab a lizard or cricket that darts across his path. It’s not long before one of the compartments of his bag ends up loaded with dragonflies and frogs and tons of other potential elixir ingredients.

He’s battered and disheveled from being bucked off of horses’ backs by the time he finally pinpoints one, just far enough from the rest of its small herd to be easy to approach. And she actually seems to be strong, healthy, and built for speed—he’s not sure how he knows, but he must have spent enough time around horses before, that he can tell from watching for a minute or so if a horse would be reliable for travel or battle. This one has a deep, reddish-brown coat and a white mane, and he can tell already that she’s probably one of the most reliable wild horses he’s laid eyes on today.

This one, finally, he manages to vault himself onto the back of and hold on tight, clinging and desperately trying to soothe the horse until she finally calms enough to accept his presence.

It’s somewhere around half past four in the afternoon when he finally rides up to the stable, exhausted and harried but triumphant as he announces his horse’s name as Riot and waits for them to outfit her with a saddle and reins once they’ve registered her.

He’d like a few more minutes to take a breather after the effort that went into the near two hours he spent chasing horses and bugs alike, but he’s wasted enough time. He stays still long enough to feed Riot a couple of apples from his bag in attempt to win her over, and then he’s swinging up into the saddle and urging her north, down the road to Kakariko Village.

Within five minutes of riding, Eijiro can tell he’s made a good choice—or, got lucky with which horse he was able to get alone, more like. Either way, he picks up quickly on the fact that Riot has remarkable endurance, and that she’s faster than most of the horses he’d seen so far, too. If he can get her to warm all the way up to him, the extra time spent falling on his ass trying to catch a horse might turn out to have been a more than worthwhile investment.

The first leg of the ride goes fantastic—better than fantastic. Riot travels so much faster than Eijiro could, of course, and the road to Kakariko is completely clear of monsters. And from Riot’s saddle, Eijiro can’t really give into the temptation to snatch up any mushroom or herb he sees growing along the side of the road. Not as easily, at least.

He closes half the distance left to Kakariko in what feels like no time, flying past the scenery at a gratifying pace with hardly any stops. The sun has dipped below the horizon, though the sky still clings to as much of the daylight as it can, before something finally grinds his progress to a halt.

There’s… well, he doesn’t know what to call it, up ahead. It looks like a round little tree on legs. It looks like a huge, fat Korok. The creature—he’s guessing it must be a Korok, albeit a particularly massive one, bigger than fifteen or twenty normal Koroks all put together—has the same light wooden skin, and a massive leaf around its nose that almost resembles a beard as well as some impressive eyebrows that look like carved wood protruding from its face. He also carries a satchel that, Eijiro realizes as he gets closer, is of the same material and make as the enchanted bag that had once been Izuku’s.

Eijiro remembers what the first Korok had said—that the seeds were for Hestu, who Eijiro wouldn’t be able to miss. You’ll know him when you see him, were the spirit’s exact words. This… was a pretty distinctive Korok. Eijiro pulls the reins to get Riot to stop before the Korok, who stands just to the side of the road, looking… well, he thinks he looks sad, maybe?

It’s hard to read the expressions and body language of the forest spirits, since their faces are just leaves that don’t really shift much from expression to expression, but he does look a little slumped over and unsure, Eijiro thinks, as he slides out of Riot’s saddle to talk to the large spirit. He doesn’t even get a word out before the Korok is straightening up in surprise.

“Shalaka?!” the thing says, incomprehensibly. Eijiro blinks, but before he can form a response, the Korok is continuing in his high-pitched voice, “You! You can see me?!”

“Uh… well, yeah,” Eijiro responds, scratching at the back of his neck. When he opens his mouth to ask if this guy is, in fact, Hestu, the Korok throws his stubby wooden arms up in delight and interrupts Eijiro with a bizarre little song made up of similarly incomprehensible syllables.

“It’s been a hundred years since anyone has been able to see me!” the Korok announces, upon completion of his odd little song. “I’m Hestu, and I need your help!”

Well—that solves that mystery. Eijiro doesn’t even blink at the way the Korok just assumes, immediately, that he’s able and willing to help. Mostly because he is both of those things.

“Those monsters over there stole my beloved maracas!” Hestu says, slumping over sadly with a gesture much farther up the road, apparently not particularly invested in giving Eijiro time to get a word in. There are no monsters in sight where he’d gestured, but Eijiro’s sure he’ll run into them when he gets that far. “I think they’re still there on the other side of those rocks up the hill.”

Eijiro nods firmly, still trying to make out where ‘those rocks’ are, if not where the monsters themselves are, when Hestu says something that instantly catches Eijiro’s interest.

“I can’t use my powers without them. Shoko...” Powers? He’s got powers? Maraca powers? Eijiro wants to see what that looks like. “So please! Please get my maracas back from them.”

“Of course,” Eijiro says, because it’s not like he hasn’t already fought monsters nearly every step of this trip. And with how much time he saved riding Riot instead of walking, he can afford the delay and still make it to Kakariko at a reasonable time. Not that he would have been able to leave this dude hanging without feeling unbearably guilty and turning back to help, anyways.

“Sha-shaka!” Hestu sing-songs, probably as thanks? Eijiro has just resigned himself to never having any idea what’s happening when he’s talking to Koroks.

Swinging himself back up into Riot’s saddle, Eijiro coaxes her forward at a trot. For the most part, the right of the path is open to the air, the ground falling away at a steep incline, but after about five minutes of riding, the path starts to close up ahead.

He knew it would eventually—he remembers, somehow, that Kakariko is nestled in the mountains, the path a fairly level road that had been worn through the steep hills and mountains of the area. Even if he doesn’t ever remember coming to Kakariko before, he’s got enough knowledge of the landscape that he thinks he probably must have. So it’s not a surprise when the road curves into the hills, natural walls forming on either side of the path.

And there—just as the hill forms its steep cliff as a wall on the right side of the path, there’s an opening. It seems open on the other side, so it’s not quite a cave, though it’s got a roof in the form of a boulder that must have lodged itself at the top of the opening at some point. But Eijiro guesses the rocky slopes are what Hestu meant when he said the other side of those rocks.

Climbing off of Riot, Eijiro moves around in front of the mare, running a hand soothingly down her face and receiving a gentle headbutt to the chest in response.

“Stay here a few moments, okay?” he requests, though he knows she’s not likely to understand him. Still, he pulls an apple out of his bag as a bribe and lets her munch on it, hoping it will at least endear him to her enough to keep her here waiting for him, in hopes of getting more apples out of him.

With that, he turns to the natural archway, draws his sword, and gets ready to go to work.

The worst part about this is that it should have been so easy.

It was only three bokoblins—sure, their fur had turned blue with maturity, so they were generally stronger and more intelligent than the red ones he’s encountered more often so far, but he fought a few already just on the way here! Several monster camps he’s fought had five or six bokoblins, even if most of them were still young and red-furred.

He’s already fought enemies stronger than this, this should not have been a problem for him.

And for a second, he really believed it wouldn’t be. He dispatched the first of the three before the group even realized he was on them, and turned to the others without much concern. Sure, it was two on one, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver in this pocket between the hills and the cliffside down, but he’d thought he’d had it.

That’s when it happens—the bokoblin wielding a spear lunges for him. It drives its spear downwards over its head and Eijiro tries to twist out of the way, but he just—he just screws up. His foot gets caught in a dip in the ground, his ankle twisting painfully as he dodges away, and in the moment of indignation and incredulity that he’d made such a rookie slip-up, the other bokoblin strikes.

Eijiro sees the boko bat swinging towards his face a split-second too late, and his ankle buckles when he tries to stagger back. He doesn’t get out of the way fast enough, and the bat comes slamming into his temple at almost full force. For a hot second, Eijiro sees stars, falling onto his ass hard. Dazed, he tries to blink the starbursts of color out of his vision, wincing as the bokoblin that just landed a hit roars at him.

He barely rolls out of the way of the next strike, and for a brief second the quick motion makes him so dizzy he thinks he’ll fall over, but it’s not exactly an option. Fuck, he has to end this now.

Eijiro swings the flat of his blade at the legs of the nearest bokoblin. With a yelp, the thing’s legs are swept out from under it, and it drops. Eijiro doesn’t wait for an invitation as he lunges forward, flipping the blade down to impale the creature.

Its last living companion is already brandishing its spear, so Eijiro doesn’t bother to dislodge the sword. He vaults over the body and throws himself into a clumsily-executed roll on the other side to buy some distance—and, fuck, his head hates that, oh, Gods, he might hurl. He unslings his bow from his back as he comes up from the roll, arrow drawn, nocked, and loosed almost immediately.

His arrow hits right between the last bokoblin’s eyes, and it falls atop the last one with little ceremony.

Eijiro drops more gently—his head is screaming at him, and it’s been jostled enough, so he lets himself flop down onto the grass beside the monsters’ campfire slowly. Lifting a hand to his head, he whines. Not only is a nasty bump already forming, but there’s a gash there as well, and Eijiro has a sick feeling in his gut.

The bokoblins are already starting to disappear, leaving him the only one sprawled out in his misery—whatever they are, this is the main thing that’s always set them apart from the other creatures that roam Hyrule.

They’re not made of anything substantial, apparently, possibly or even probably created entirely from the same Malice that had distorted All for One into the Calamity it is today. And since they aren’t natural beings, having only Malice holding them together, as soon as they’re slain they just—turn into an awful sludgy smoke and dissipate like they were never there. Apart from some stronger and older ones, who have parts that stubbornly cling to existence. Fangs, horns, maybe a heart from time to time, which, ew.

He knows all this, without remembering having learned it, just like he knows how to fight. Or, at least, is supposed to. That was so stupid. It was just three blue bokoblins. How can he not even handle three blue bokoblins?

Frustration swirls around in his chest, and he grits his teeth. He wants to scream. He should be better than this. How can—how can he even hope to help Katsuki and Izuku if he gets his ass kicked this easily? Fuck—they need him, and they’ve been fighting the entire Calamity for a century, and he can’t even—he can’t even hold his own for a few days against weak enemies. Gods, he hopes Katsuki can’t see him right now. With all of his heart, he desperately hopes it.

He squeezes his eyes shut, pressing his hands to them so hard he sees bursts of color behind his eyelids, in attempt to block out the light from the campfire that’s agitating his budding headache.

Gods, he hopes the chest the bokoblins had kept up on a platform at the back of their camp holds the maracas. If they’re not even here, he’s gonna scream.

But quietly. In his head. So he doesn’t make his headache any worse.

Eijiro’s headache is absolutely killing him, and he is, in a word, miserable.

Hestu had been so happy to see his maracas, it honestly made everything worth it. The problem was Hestu had been very vocal about his appreciation. The happy yelling and singing had been bad enough. The maraca-ing, once the two had discovered the seeds Eijiro had been gathering from the Koroks that dotted nearly every inch of Hyrule were actually stolen from inside Hestu’s maracas and would need to be returned, was kind of worse.

Eijiro hadn’t raised a complaint, though. Partially because he wasn’t heartless enough to ruin Hestu’s joyful new mood, and also because he used his maraca powers to make Eijiro’s new bag even bigger. He’s not sure how much more he can stuff in there now, but he thinks he’ll be excited to find out once he’s recovered a little.

For now, he’s tired and miserable as he continues up the road, keeping Riot at a slower pace to keep from bouncing his head around too much. For the first time since leaving the plateau, anxiety gnaws at him more than impatience as he thinks about his destination.

It’s not particularly late—maybe around seven, if he were to guess—and he knows he could make it to Kakariko within the hour. Maybe even within half an hour if he really pushed it, which he doesn’t think he has it in him to do. But the thought fills him with apprehension and—and something almost like shame, he thinks, as he considers it. He swallows, shifting in the saddle uncomfortably.

Inko had said that Aizawa had been an advisor to Katsuki. He’d—he’d been around one hundred years ago, and must have known about the plan for Eijiro to return. He was supposed to have advice for Eijiro, to help him help Katsuki and Izuku, but—

But how can Eijiro ride into a town where they know him, where they’re expecting such important things from him, looking like this? He doesn’t want to limp into town with a shoddily-bandaged gash on his head, looking half-dead on his feet. That’s not—that won’t—he doesn’t want to let them down.

He doesn’t want to hobble into town, wincing every step, and be told—oh, sorry. You’re in no shape to do this. I can’t believe we waited one hundred years for this. Don’t worry, though, we’ll find someone else to handle it.

He needs—he has to help Katsuki. He can’t let someone else keep fighting this battle for him—like Izuku had to, just because he was another chosen of Farore. And he definitely doesn’t want to ride into town and disappoint people who expected him to be the hero they’d waited so long for.

Just the thought of going into the village like this nearly paralyzes him. He just—he just needs a good night’s sleep, maybe; some time for the wounds to heal a little, or at least be somewhat less fresh when he gets there. He knows part of his dragon ancestry left him with the ability to heal faster than most people, at least he might be able to hide the pain in his ankle after a rest, and the swelling on his head might have gone down.

Yeah—yeah, that sounds like a better idea. The part of him that’s been so frustrated with his slow progress at least quiets down, just a little, for once. It’s just… it’s just one night, and if the result is that no one has to know how much weaker he is than he should be, it’s worth it.

He doesn’t know where else might be safe to stop, secluded from the road and tucked away, so Eijiro climbs off of Riot where the monster camp he’d cleared out for Hestu was, coaxing her through the archway to where the camp rests. The campfire the monsters had set is down to embers at this point, but that’ll be easy enough to fix.

Eijiro goes about setting up camp, rekindling the fire, and roasting some low-effort dinner with as much laziness as he can manage. If he can cut a corner, he does. All he cares about is not making his ankle or head worse, getting a full stomach in hopes that’ll give him some extra energy for healing, and knocking the fuck out.

The process is maybe twenty minutes at most, and the soft grass beside the fire is so much more comfortable than the cold stone he’d slept on last night. If not for the headache still pulsing mutedly behind his temple, he might consider this downright blissful.

He feels like there’s something he’s supposed to keep in mind, something important, but he’s too exhausted and frustrated to bother. Drifting off quickly, he figures he’ll remember in the morning if it matters. And then he’s out.

…—up already, asshole! Come on. Gods, you lazy—wake up, fucker!

Eijiro groans, turning his head as if to burrow it into the soft grass it’s pillowed on, like that can muffle Katsuki’s voice harassing him. Exhaustion blankets over him heavily, and the only thing even vaguely resembling a thought in his head is the desire to go back to sleep. His body feels like it’s made of lead and his eyes might as well be welded shut—it’d be so easy to drift off again, if not for the voice still pressing insistently at the edges of his mind.

Ei, come on, we don’t have time for this. Get ready.

An exhausted, pathetic huff escapes Eijiro in his irritation, his whole body tensing like if he curls in on himself enough he can block out any semblance of consciousness and go back to sleep, before falling slack in resignation, his eyes blearily cracking open.

And—oh, fuck.

He’s surrounded by red. Fuck, when he blinks his eyes a little farther open, the whole sky glows with it.

All for One’s getting stronger, asshole—he gets too fucking powerful during the blood moon. Which is right fucking now, by the way, which you’d notice if you would get the hell up.

The fucking blood moon! Shit, Hirooki had even warned him, and he still—he still went to sleep in a monster camp. In a split-second, panic pumps enough adrenaline into his veins that moving suddenly doesn’t seem like such a monumental effort as he scrambles to his feet.

Finally, fuck. For the first time, he notices how panicked Katsuki had sounded, only in its absence as relief colors his tone instead. You’ve only got about a minute. All for One uses the peak of the blood moon to bring its fucking cannon fodder back—be careful, dumbass, your ass is about to be surrounded.

Any lingering anger at having been woken up so rudely—and with so many insults, which, rude—evaporates instantly as it sinks in that Katsuki probably just saved his life. He draws his sturdiest sword and experimentally puts some weight on his bad ankle, which, ow, fuck, still hurts, but it’s better off than it was earlier and he thinks he’ll be able to move on it if he’s careful.

“Thanks,” he says, hoping Katsuki can hear him, as he readies his stance. Before his eyes, cinders of murky black Malice start rising off of the ground, drifting through the air all around. He doesn’t even think he’s ever seen the substance except when monsters first fade into clouds of it and dissipate—but now it hangs heavy all throughout the air, raising the hairs on the back of his neck.

Gaze analytical, he watches some of the Malice in the air swirl together in three different places around the campfire, merging into murky clouds that start to take on the shape of the bokoblins he’d handled earlier.

His sword is swinging for the nearest bokoblin almost before it begins forming, and he settles in for a fight.

It’s over fast. Maybe he accounted better for his ankle this time, or maybe he’s finally used to not fighting at full strength, or maybe it’s as simple as this time he was lucky and last time he wasn’t—whatever the case, it’s only a couple minutes before he’s standing triumphant again, this time without any more injuries to show for it.

Heaving slightly, he sheathes his sword and edges away from the monsters that had very nearly ambushed him in his sleep. As far as he knows, the whole monsters rising from the dead thing only happens once, at midnight, and won’t be happening again until the next blood moon—that said, he honestly does not want to take his chances. Even if the heavy presence of Malice clouding the air has finally dissipated.

He doesn’t think he can comfortably sleep next to this fire anymore anyways, without paranoia keeping him awake for hours.

“Hey...” he speaks into the night, still breathless from exertion as his eyes flick vaguely skyward, sort of in the direction of Hyrule Castle, though the hills block his view. “I don’t… uh, I don’t know if you heard me before, but I mean it. Thank you. I—you probably saved my life.”

He waits, eyes searching the righted sky, like the returned navy and the light of the stars can somehow provide him with a view of Katsuki. When no response comes, Eijiro feels his expression grow pinched, and he sighs as he drops his gaze to the grass.

He’s… tired. Frustrated. He’s only gotten four hours of sleep, his ankle still aches, his head still pulses and sends waves of nausea through him if he moves it too quickly, and he just wants to hear Katsuki’s voice again. It’s all he has of him at this point—he can’t even remember a face to put to it. To say he’s in a miserable mood would be an understatement.

Riot still hasn’t settled down where he’d had her tethered near the archway, a distressed whinny snapping him out of his disheartened ruminating, and he approaches her carefully, still unsteady on the injured ankle. The mare rears back on her hind legs, braying—being startled awake by reforming monsters and a sudden fight had clearly been just as upsetting for her, and Eijiro can hardly fault her.

“Hey, hey, sh-sh-sh-sh, it’s okay, girl,” he soothes, hands raised placatingly as he stays out of reach of her hooves. The last thing he needs after surviving those monsters twice is for his own horse to brain him less than an hour from Kakariko Village. Continuing to make soothing noises, he inches closer, digging around in his bag for one of his last apples. “Sorry, Riot, it’s okay now, hey, hey, calm down.”

Even once he’s brandished the apple, waving it before her temptingly, it’s a few moments before he can get her settled enough that it’s safe to get closer. His free hand strokes comfortingly down the line of her nose and over her neck as he feeds her the apple, and it’s another minute of murmured words and gentle strokes before she’s genuinely more calm.

He gets another headbutt to the chest, but this time it feels more scolding than affectionate, which he figures is fair.

With a sigh, Eijiro unties her lead from the tree just on the inside of the natural rock arch, and coaxes her through the opening back to the road. He feels even worse about going to Kakariko now, grumpy in the middle of the night, with his ankle and head still hurt, but even if he won’t go all the way to the Sheikah village he at least wants to get a decent distance away from here. He’s not going to be able to get any more much-needed rest, otherwise.

Pulling himself up and into the saddle, to get weight off his leg, Eijiro urges Riot forward at a slow pace. He only rides two or three minutes, just enough to be out of sight of the archway, and then he finds a curve in the winding, steep walls of the mountain pass to settle himself and Riot into.

It’s not nearly as sheltered, but he’s exhausted, and it’ll do. Curled up as comfortably as he can get, Eijiro pillows his head on the warm doublet Inko had given him and lets himself drift off into a restless sleep for the rest of the night.

The morning’s still fresh by the time Eijiro wakes up, groggy and still wishing for a few more hours of sleep. All told, though, he’d already gotten at least nine hours, even if the break in the middle did him no favors, and he doesn’t want to risk sleeping out in the open for any longer.

His ankle is still stiff, but no longer painful as long as he’s careful about putting his weight on it, and when he gingerly touches at his temple he discovers the bump has gone down significantly, even if the gash there hasn’t quite healed. It’s fine. It’s better than arriving in the haggard state from last night, at least.

He sets off quickly, only stopping once along the way when he comes across a small waterfall feeding into a little pool beside the road. He wades in and washes up somewhat, cleaning up his appearance as best he can in the cold mountain water, pulling his hair back into a ponytail, and then carrying on once Riot’s drunk her fill.

The roads of the pass open into the sheltered valley that houses Kakariko abruptly. If not for the wooden gates that the Sheikah had constructed further along the road, there would have been no warning that the steep, closed walls of the road were about to split off.

Eijiro pulls on Riot’s reins, coaxing her to a stop at the entrance to the village, on the railed pathway that overlooks the entirety of the settlement. Kakariko is a sleepy little village, safely ringed in by the walls of the mountains on all sides, and something about the cluster of houses with their curved thatch roofs brings him no small measure of comfort. The last of his bad mood seeps away, his eyes drinking in this proof that some things have survived the Calamity with eagerness.

There’s an elderly woman resting beside a tree a little ways along the road, who greets Eijiro warmly, pulling herself to her feet with some effort. She apologizes for letting him see her in her current state, explaining that she’s twisted her ankle—”It happens to the best of us,” Eijiro’s quick to tell her, the irony not lost on him—and then he’s sliding off of Riot to offer to let the woman ride his horse back to her house, to keep the weight off her ankle. She’s mid-sentence thanking him when her eyes land on the Sheikah Slate on his hip, and her eyes widen.

When she asks where he got it, Eijiro barely even starts to explain before she’s grabbing Riot’s reins, nodding in apparent understanding and insisting he get to Aizawa’s home immediately. She promises to board his horse for him at the inn, so long as he hurries to the large house below Lantern Falls, across the village, because the Sheikah have been waiting for him for a long time.

As she pulls herself into the saddle, she implores him one more time to hurry to Aizawa, before surprising him with a heartfelt declaration that she’s honored to meet him, though she thinks he’s probably used to hearing that. He’s not, and he doesn’t know what to say—but he doesn’t get the chance to say anything before she urges Riot on down the road, apparently intent on not keeping him any longer.

It’s still fairly early, maybe not much after eight, but the village already maintains a constant, if slow and sparse, press of activity—a couple of kids are strewn along the main road, as well as a girl around his age who’s just settling in to stand outside what looks like a shop, and Eijiro passes by a farmer hard at work in a pumpkin patch.

Everyone he passes eyes him as he makes his way down the road, most with curiosity and some with suspicion, but every once in a while someone’s eyes will drop to the slate at his hip and their eyes will widen, expression shifting quickly to awe. Flustered, Eijiro averts his gaze and quickens his pace.

Aizawa’s home is pretty hard to miss, built high on stilts over an island that sits at the foot of several waterfalls, in the protective curve of one of the steep valley walls. There’s one important-looking set of stairs that leads up to the raised balcony that wraps around the house, with a gate that arches over the foot of the stairway.

The two men standing guard just beside the gate instantly drop into defensive stances when they realize he means to make for the gate, and Eijiro lifts his hands placatingly, letting out a startled, “Um,” but the motion draws their eyes to where his hands had been resting. More specifically, to the Sheikah Slate.

Both men gasp, and then apologies are tumbling from their lips as they straighten their stances, moving aside to usher him through. Eijiro can’t even get more than a few words out to try and reassure them of no harm, no foul, without them insisting he go on ahead and assuring him that they’ve heard all about him from Aizawa.

It’s kind of overwhelming. He doesn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t for people to all recognize him on sight and treat him so—so—important. Being told they’re honored to meet him and have heard legends about him—it’s a lot.

It makes him feel exposed as he makes his way up the stairs, each step feeling too loud—like anyone in the village could look over and see him at any moment, and maybe come to the conclusion that he’s some sort of huge deal.

He keeps his eyes on his feet as he climbs, just in case, because he’s not sure how he’s gonna handle it if he makes eye contact with one more awestruck Sheikah, until he’s finally near the top of the staircase. His eyes lift, and Eijiro blinks at the sight that greets him—there’s a little girl, maybe six or so, sitting on her knees, several pieces of colored chalk scattered in front of her. She’s got long white hair characteristic of the Sheikah, and a very concentrated look on her little face as she draws on a pillar just left of the patterned double doors to the building with a piece of yellow chalk.

The second to last step creaks under Eijiro’s foot, and the girl gasps and startles, whipping to look at him with wide, red eyes. She drops the piece of chalk in the process, and Eijiro leans quickly to catch it when it rolls towards him, so that it doesn’t fall off the edge of the deck.

“Sorry, sorry!” he says, gently, giving her his widest, friendliest smile. She still looks alarmed as she stares at him, so he doesn’t move too close when he climbs the final two steps, crouching just on the edge of arm’s reach to hold out the piece of chalk. “I didn’t mean to scare you! Wasn’t trying to be sneaky.”

Her eyes, still wide, flick from the piece of chalk to his face a few times, and her hands clasp tightly at the hem of her tunic instead of moving to take it back from him. Now he feels really guilty, and his smile turns apologetic as he carefully sets the piece of chalk down halfway between them. Still hoping to put her at ease, he turns his head instead to examine her handiwork.

It’s crude in the usual way little kids’ drawings are, but it’s colorful and cute, and there are five figures all scrawled along the deep brown pillar. Four of them are all holding hands—one he imagines is the little girl herself, since the white-haired figure is so small compared to the others, which include a taller white-haired figure and two more yellow-haired, adult-sized figures, all of them in the approximate colors of Sheikah clothing. The fifth figure is above, with long blue hair and big blue wings.

He lets out a low whistle, curious what the scene represents.

“That’s really cool,” he tells her earnestly, jerking a thumb towards the drawing as he continues to squat just before her, expression open and, hopefully, reassuring. “Do you live here?”

She still doesn’t answer him, biting her lip, but after a moment she gives a small nod and leans forward cautiously to grab the piece of chalk. The motion causes some of her hair to fall into her face, and as it falls forward he notices something peeking through the white locks—a tiny, pale horn.

“Hey, nice horn! Wanna see something cool?” he asks her, beaming, before he hardens scales around the top of his head, red dragonscales curling around his temples and along his hairline as two small, draconic horns peak out of his hairline in similar places to hers. “I can have ‘em, too! Horn buddies! I’m Kirishima Eijiro, it’s nice to meet you.”

Something about the phrase, horn buddies, it sends a pang of—of something through him, something soft and nostalgic, but before he can examine the feeling, the little girl’s eyes are widening once more, her eyes flicking from his horns, to his hair, to the slate on his hip before her mouth falls open into a tiny little o.

Great. Even the little kids know who he is here. That’s gonna take some getting used to.

She keeps staring at him, clutching her piece of chalk tightly in her hand, and Eijiro sighs when he realizes he’s probably not gonna coax any words out of her. With one more smile sent her way, he rocks back on his heels before standing, giving her a little wave. “Well, I’m gonna go inside now, okay?”

She nods again, which he’ll take as the biggest victory he’s gonna get, and then Eijiro turns to the double doors, taking a deep breath before placing his hands on them and pushing them both open at once.

Inside is a large, open hall, with several cushions lined up in rows for many people to sit at, and across the room rests a very haggard-looking man. At first, Eijiro thinks he’s asleep, but when he takes a couple steps into the hall, the man—Aizawa, probably—speaks without even opening his eyes.

“So, you’re finally awake.”

Slowly cracking an eye open, the Sheikah shifts forward in his seat with all the zeal of a man still mostly asleep.

“It’s been a long time, Kirishima Eijiro.”

[theonetheycallhannah]

A Mage’s Beginning-Part One

Summary: Anathema of Velena is sent by the Brotherhood of Sorcerers to a kingdom already decimated by a mighty beast when she happens upon another. One who saves her life…as she saves his.

Pairing: Geralt/OFC (Anathema of Velena)

Word Count: 5k

Rating/Warnings: M for language, discussion of mature themes and situations, alcohol consumption, violence, and reflection on a particularly shitty childhood that could be triggering. Body image triggers. No smut for now. Also, warning that it’s stupid long and only half done! Wow! I’m super sorry! Anathema is kind of a long winded little witch.

Inspiration: Netflix’s The Witcher, that sweet, sweet Cavill bod, and the chocolatey crunch of his “Geralt voice!” (idk why, but that’s the imagery for me. Lol!) Also, Ana inspired by the badassness of Anya Chalotra as Yen, the powerful vulnerability of Anna Shaffer as Triss, and the poise and grace of MyAnna Brunning as Tissaia…I honestly can’t believe that the name Anathema is a total coincidence now. Especially considering that my name…is Hannah, a version of all of these. It just came to me as a cool name.

Author’s Note: Like most of my OFCs (and honestly, even EFCs), Anathema is loosely based on myself. She reacts how I feel I would (or sometimes hope I would) in her situation. For those of you who read “Shape of Her” you’ll know that I’m chubby. Anathema was, as well, before her transformation, and she talks about what it was like for her as a child and adolescent growing up. For me, this was a deeply personal thing to write about. I don’t usually talk about the effect my weight has always had and continues to have on my mental health. I’m very fortunate that, unlike Anathema, I have loving parents that have never treated me this way. But in an odd way, their “help” and concern for my physical health has created this sort of villainous aspect of them in my mind, and I suppose that comes out in Ana’s mother here. At any rate, I should probably go back to a counselor about it, but that’s tough during a pandemic and with my work hours. So I write about it, and I guess there ends up being a bit of validation for her/me when Geralt shows interest (and maybe takes that further in part two...no spoilers here!). Not that any of it’s completely healthy, but at least it’s kinda cathartic and fun in the moment if you don’t think too hard about it. I hope the monologue doesn’t bog you down and make you lose interest. If it does, just skip it. It won’t hurt my feelings.

Also, I’m sure my spells are total baloney compared to what’s in the books and deffo to what’s in the show. I just wanted to write something down to sort of show the power being expelled by Ana. These are probably way more Hogwarts than Aretuza! Lol!

Tag List: @sunflowersstan @mylittlepartofthegalaxy @mstgsmy @lareinedususpense @geekycanuck and @littlefreya (omg it let me tag you this time, Freya!) I didn’t tag some of you that I tagged before in Shape of Her, just because I didn’t know if that was something you wanted. (basically, if I didn’t get a concrete response one way or the other, or I wasn’t fairly sure you’d want a tag, I didn’t tag you. I still love all of you!) Please let me know if you want to be tagged or if you want me not to tag you in things! I will not be offended! Also, this is not smutty. It’s pre-smut. lol!

Anathema of Velena was a mage of little renown. Powerful enough, but nothing compared to someone such as Yennefer of Vengerberg. She had worked so hard at Aretuza and all Rectoress Tissaia de Vries could manage to tell her most days was “You could not organize a pair of gloves, Ana. How do you expect to be able to control chaos? I’m not even convinced you have any chaos in you.” She turned away, calling the five other girls out of the lightning tower, some of whom had ampules filled with crackling white light. The rest were in various states of injury from singes to limps. Anathema…well, she had nothing. The lightning didn’t come near her. She left the tower without a prize, but filled with shame, uninjured from the typical failed attempt. She didn’t know why it was worse, but it very much was.

It took her years to finally get over that day.

Her first assignment the brotherhood sent her on was, well, it hardly mattered now, because the city, the whole kingdom was now rent by some foul beast. She’d been sent to help. But had arrived too late. She heaved one of her deeper sighs. “Fuck.” She let out audibly. She’d have to make camp. For the third night. At least. Maybe it was the fifth. She wasn’t certain. But it seemed like too long. She dismounted her chestnut mare, Clove, and started to get her supplies down for her modest tent. Modest, meaning that it appeared modest to the casual observer.

Inside, however, when she’d cast her enchantments, it was almost like home, complete with a full bed, soaking tub, fireplace, table, chairs, and a lovely lounge with a settee and chaise. One of her favorite things about Magic was being able to pack heavy while still traveling light. She was even able to bring a small book collection.

She’d just finished setting everything up and was casting the necessary protective enchantments to the perimeter of her site when she heard a rustle in the bushes about twenty yards away. She attempted to remain calm, but was terrified. She carried only a small silver dagger and a steel short sword that she rubbed with a silver infused oil which she made when she came across good silver and decent tallow. It wore off, but the silver oiled blade was a good compromise when you couldn’t carry both silver and steel. What was she, a fucking Witcher? Anyway, she drew her dagger, but conjured a revelatory wall around her so she could see who or what was out there hunting her. She prayed it wasn’t a kikimore. Anything but a kikimore, she thought. Those shits gave her the creeps. Give her an iron toothed wyvern, or the king of dragons, himself. She could conjure in battle against the best of beasts born of magic, but those insects…no.

There came a keening howl unlike anything she’d ever heard. A drowning scream that almost sounded like it was coming from under the water. Then too many pairs of glowing green eyes started appearing from said bushes. They were horrifying lizard-fish people. And they were walking toward her camp. It would be all too soon that they would walk through the invisibility shield as she hadn’t been able to cast any deflective measures yet. They’d breach her camp in minutes if she didn’t act. She prepared to cast a fire spell on them, hoping that would work, when she heard a deep male voice behind her growl an order.

“Get down! Hide!” Pardon me? She thought. This guy didn’t know who he was dealing with.

It appeared though that she didn’t, either.

The voice had come from a very tall and amply muscled horseman. He wore no armor, only a dark linen tunic tucked into leather breeks, and tall black boots. All was weathered and smelled heavily of horse, ale, and sweat. He quickly dismounted in that way that some men do in which they swing their leg over the horse’s head instead of around the rear. This was the way that, even in her terror, made her feel an unfamiliar but pleasant stirring in the pit of her stomach.

His hair, which she had presumed blonde at first, she noted now to be silvery grey, and well past his shoulders. Maybe longer than her own. He grabbed a sword from the large sheath on his saddle and stalked toward the oncoming rabble of sodden predators.  

She thought…she might have been mistaken but she was fairly sure he’d grabbed a steel sword. Steel would not be very effective on these monsters, if she had sized them up right. She looked to his saddle, seeing the hilt of another blade there. She stepped toward it and slid it out to reveal that this was precisely what had happened. He’d grabbed the wrong weapon in his haste. Well. He was dead. She grabbed the silver sword, sheathing her dagger, and marching toward the scrum around the well-meaning muscle head.

“Selectum ignitus!” She chanted as she wrought her hand in the corresponding motion. This spell burned only victims she chose, leaving others unharmed. It had only stunned these creatures, but it was enough time to allow her would-be hero to catch a small break from his blunder. His thick neck was still in the spindly clutches of one of the largest fish men, apparently less susceptible to fire than the others. Ana stepped up behind him, and with the silver sword, sliced his head clean off at the neck.

“Here.” She said as she tossed him the weapon, the steel sword somewhere on the forest floor to be found later. “They’re waking back up.”

“Mmm.” He mumbled. Right. He was welcome. All this gratitude was just making her blush.

They fought well together, surprisingly. She with her magic and dagger, and he with his signs and sword. She could feel it when he cast them. She noticed him using Aard, so she started casting more similar spells herself. The skirmish was over in minutes. All of the beasts had fallen and she looked at her newfound comrade, both of them covered in blood and muck.

“That was…fun!” She said, in earnest.

“Hmm.” He responded. As if to say, sure, whatever, freak. And began hovering over the corpses, rummaging in his satchel.

“So…these handsome fellows. I’ve never come across them.” She waited a beat, hoping he’d just answer her, knowing that’s what she meant for him to do. Oh, okay. This wasn’t the kind of guy he was. Fair. “What are they?”

“Drowners. Bigger ones are called drowned dead. They come out of the nearby bodies of water.”

How nice. Surely she wouldn’t have any nightmares about that. She'd heard of drowners, as a coastal dweller, but had been fortunate enough to never see one. Until tonight.

“And…not that it’s my business, but…you’re doing what exactly?”

He sighed. “These remains have a lot of useful potion ingredients. I never waste a kill if I can help it. Ginatz’s Acid doesn’t grow on trees, does it?”

“No tree I’ve ever seen, no.” She laughed. He didn’t. Well. This guy would just be a barrel of fun, it seemed. But he did just try to save her life. She should attempt to repay him that kindness. Even if he failed a bit at first, she didn’t know what she would have done if he hadn’t been there.

“Hey, I have a few more spells to do before my camp is fortified for the night, but then I was going to have some dinner in my tent. I have plenty, if you’d like to join. As a thank you for helping me tonight.”

“Camp?”

“Tempora Portia.” She swept her arm down to create a window in the cloaking spell so he could see her camp in the clearing.

He saw the small tent, that looked as though barely two people could lie down in it, much less sit for a meal.

He eyed her warily. “I think you’ll be lucky enough to eat in there by yourself with just a bowl and a spoon.”

“Ever heard of not judging a book by its cover?” She asked. “Trust me. I have a plump pheasant, some really delicious herbs I got on the way here from Aretuza, and some lovely wine! I’ve been saving it until I got here to share with the court, but…” she looked sheepishly at the ruined city on the hillside. “You’re clearly the only surviving citizen, Sir….”

“Geralt. Just Geralt. I’m not a citizen. I was commissioned to come here, just as you were. Only I was sent by…the neighbors…to eliminate the threat before it reached them, too.”

“Right. Geralt. I’m Anathema of Velena. Nice to meet you, and thank you for saving my life tonight.”

“Anathema, thanks for saving mine. And I guess, I’ll take you up on dinner.”

~~~~~~

She told him to finish his scavenging, and cast a charm onto him and his horse, Roach, to allow them to enter through her custom enchantments.

When she was finished securing her campsite, she went inside her tent to clean up. She conjured lots of warm fragrant water into her copper tub. It would have been more relaxing had she not been covered in the muck of battle. The drowner guts were slimy like fish entrails on her skin and in her hair. She was fairly certain that she also had blood from both her own wounds and Geralt’s spattered across what skin had been exposed during the fight.

She reached for her sponge and a bar of soap that smelled of lilac, one of her favorites, and scrubbed until all of the muck, mud, and blood was gone from her skin and hair.

She felt a telltale shudder come from the perimeter of her camp, indicating that her would-be rescuer and his steed had stepped through them. She had put up sheer modesty curtains somewhat arbitrarily, but today she was glad for them. She had just stepped out of the tub and was fully naked when Geralt entered.

“Erm.” He cleared his throat simultaneously announcing his presence and asking if he could come in. She must applaud him for his excellent communication skills.

“Come on in, I’ll be right there.”

She donned a simple, modest wrap dress that went well beyond the duty of a bath robe and looked infinitely more chic, and piled her damp, dark hair into a messy coil high on her head.

“So glad you could join me. Did you get everything you wanted from the creatures?”

“Everything they could give me. Yes.”

“Good. Well, I’ve not started dinner yet, but it won’t be very long. Why don’t you have a bath? You look like you’ve been riding for weeks with no sleep and you’re caked in the muck of a dozen battles like the one we were just in. I’ll clean and mend your clothes, too.”

“I’m fine thank you.”

“Oh, please? You’ll enjoy dinner so much more if you’re not concerned with how you smell…plus my table isn’t so big that…I couldn’t smell you too.” She giggled. “So as a courtesy to your cook and table mate?”

She looked at him with her doe eyes. Maybe that would work. She loved helping people and making them feel better. She thought he was restraining a smirk. He complied with a grunt and a nod.

“Splendid. I’ll get you some wine, too. I love wine with a bath! Don’t you!?”

“That and silence.” Point taken. She’d let him relax.

He stood in the corner of the bathing alcove as she conjured bath water for him.

“Agua fragra fieretta.” she spoke, and the tub filled with steamy water that smelled like spearmint, cedar, and a hint of lavender. Her own had smelled so different. She hadn’t realized it seemed to change depending on who you were drawing the bath for, never having done so for anyone but herself.

She dug around for a sandalwood soap and a new sponge and set them out for him on the small side table.

“Here you are. I’ll be right back with your penis! I mean, woah. Sorry.” She had turned around at the wrong moment. She knew he’d been taking off his shirt when she was rummaging. But she assumed modesty would mandate that he wait for her to leave before removing his trousers. She had been mistaken. He stood there as naked as the day the midwife pulled him from his mother, hands on his hips just like it was the most blasé thing to ever happen.

“It’s fine. I don’t really think about being shy anymore. Sorry. My clothes are on that stool if you want them. Thanks.”

“Right, great. I’ll be right back with a towel and wine. That’s what I was going to say before. And yeah, then I’ll see what I can do for those clothes.”

She left, procured the wine and a towel, and hurried back, placing the cup audibly on the table so she didn’t have to speak to him. She was so embarrassed. She grabbed his clothes and sat them on the settee for later. She was somehow both glad and disappointed that he did not acknowledge her.

Now, she needed to work on dinner. She’d gotten a lovely pheasant this afternoon with her bow. She’d been gathering fragrant herbs of all kinds along her journey and had traded some of them at market for potatoes, carrots, garlic and pearl onions. She prepped the pheasant, stuffing it with the vegetables, herbs, and some salt and pepper, and rubbed it down on the outside with some olive oil and seasoning. She placed it in her camp oven to cook in the infused oil and its own juices, basting it every so often.

She magically cleaned and mended Geralt’s clothes and tried unsuccessfully not to think about the body that they covered. His arms were as thick as the average man’s legs and his legs were not unlike tree trunks, albeit much more shapely. His chest was monolithic with two great pecs and six well-defined abs. He was also perfectly hairy. No one would confuse him with a bear, but this was definitely no boy. No boy, at all. And Mother Melitele herself would weep at the sight of the cock on this man. Long. At least halfway down his thigh. She didn’t get that good a look, but she thought it was veiny. And it was definitely thick…although she couldn’t compare it to much. To anything, really. Not even the instruments used on her the day she ascended to her current state of perfection. She'd been given powerful herbs to sedate her until the transformation was complete.

She’d arrived at Aretuza a sluggish and overweight wallflower with tiny breasts. When she went over her desires for her new form with the “miracle worker” as she liked to call him, she asked him to upgrade her in every way he could, but to keep her eyes the same shade of green they’d always been. She’d felt that the eyes were too directly attached to the soul and to change them was going too far. The rest, however, was fair game.

And this was her first assignment since her ascension, so she hadn’t been anywhere but her home, which was an unforgiving place, and Aretuza. Little opportunity for romance had presented itself. And she wasn’t even sure how romance would go for her at this point. Were mages adored for their power? Beauty? Or who they were as people independent of those attributes? Was that all she was now? A beautiful magician? She suddenly felt a small pang of regret.

Her eyes shifted involuntarily now to the bath partition. Must have been the movement she caught out of the corner of her eye. Geralt was taking a drink of wine, a very long drink, and when he set the goblet back down, he leaned his head back with a contented sigh. She took the clothes back to the stool when she’d finished, smiled at the scarred, and incredibly heroic man before her, and popped away to finish dinner.

~~~~~~~

She busied herself setting the table with modest candles, and conjuring an extra setting for Geralt. She filled a pitcher with an “agua potum” spell and put her wine vessel out. As she was tabling the pheasant, her eye caught movement again in the “bath room.” Geralt had gotten out of the tub and was drying off. His back was no less impressive than his front and his ass was like a fresh, crisp apple. She’d always loved apples. In her dreamy haze, she'd come too close to the hot camp oven and burned her hand. She let out a whispered but audible “fuck” and brought her hand quickly to her mouth to cool the fire with saliva.

It helped a little, but not much. She continued to prepare as Geralt got dressed and he was out right as dinner was on, wine goblet in hand.

“Smells nice.” He complemented. She was shocked, but still in a lot of pain from the burn.

“It better be the best fucking thing I’ve eaten in ages to make it worth searing the skin off my finger here!” She put her hand to her mouth again, and brought it out, shaking it.

He sat his goblet on the table and went outside, all without a word. She was confused. Wondering how she could have offended him, but honestly, not really caring. She’d tried. She sat down. Exhausted. He came back in with the satchel he’d been wearing and packing with solutions from those corpses.

He walked around the table to kneel in front of her, held out his hand, and raised his eyebrow expectantly. She gave him her injured hand, extending her index finger to indicate the affected area.

“You know, I’ve seen men lose half their faces to fire. This isn’t so bad.” He rifled through the bag for a vial of clear oil with bits of purple floating in it.

“Did they live?” She asked, amused.

“A few.” He smirked, dabbing a small amount of the oil onto his index finger and applying it to hers.

Her relief was instant and evident on her face.

“Wow, that feels so much better. Thank you! What is that?”

“A simple infusion. Oil of lavender. Here.” He gave her the vial.

“Oh I couldn’t.”

“Take it. I make more all the time. It’s damn near free. I’ll show you how, too, so you're prepared for next time. It’s essential for a healer’s kit. Many uses.” These were more words than she’d heard him speak all together since they’d met. She decided not to remark upon it.

“Well thank you. I hope you’re hungry! I think the pheasant is ready to be torn!”

They filled their plates with juicy, savory sections of the bird and large chunks of the vegetables that had become pleasantly tender inside it. Thyme and rosemary, onion and garlic danced off the tongue, complimented by the salt and a dash of ground peppercorn for zest. For once, a meal tasted even better than it had smelled and she had forgotten the terror of the fight with the drowners, the pain of her burn, even the startling sight of the naked man in her tent, and relaxed into the pleasure of a delicious meal.

This is one of the reasons I was fat before, she told herself. And made sure she stopped eating before she'd filled herself to gluttony.

She noticed that her companion was eating…enthusiastically. She was on the verge of saying ravenously, but there was an element of refinement to it that forbade her from using the more savage descriptor. He seldom drank, and most rarely from his water cup.  He liked the wine, then. She liked this fellow. Quite a lot. He stabbed large portions onto his fork and put them easily into his wide mouth. But even though he took larger bites, he did take his time in chewing, savoring the succulent food. She appreciated this from him.

"You're going to have to finish the poor bird off. I'm stuffed." she patted her tummy, demure now, as it had never been in her recent memory.

"Hmm." he grunted in protest. This one she couldn't quite translate past general disagreement.

"What?" she prodded.

"We both know you didn't need any help taking down this bird alone. Even with the vegetables. It's all incredible, by the way. Best meal I've had in ages."

"First of all, thank you, I quite liked it too, and secondly, it's called restraint. Ever heard of it?" she sassed him back.

"I've heard of it, yes. Can't say we've ever crossed paths, though." he held her gaze as he drank deeply from his goblet. Was it suddenly warmer in the tent?

"Well, it might be a good idea to seek it out here and there." she said, hiding well the feathers he'd just ruffled. "Food and I have a volatile history. I have to show restraint or all of this is gone." she indicated her physical form. She hadn't truly intended to make him look at her, but he was. He was holding her in his gaze in a way that was utterly alien to her.

"Mmm." he grunted, as if to express his understanding.

"But enough about me. What about you? It's not every day I meet a witcher!"

His amber eyes met hers, inscrutable, but not pleased.

"You knew."

"Of course I knew. I have eyes and ears, and all kinds of senses working. And all of them caught wind of what you were the moment you dismounted your horse."

"And yet you helped me. Fought with me. Saved me."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Most people don't want a witcher around. They'd prefer the monsters we kill. Even when we're summoned to communities, invited, we're a pariah until the job is done. We're seen as the…lesser evil."

"Tell me Geralt. Did you make the choice to become a witcher?"

"No."

"Do you think I made the choice to be a conduit?" This question, he didn't answer. She thought he may not know. She decided then to tell him her story. How she came to be a mage, and the hell she went through to get where she was.

"Do you know what my nickname was as a child? It wasn't anything cute, like a vegetable or fruit or a baked good, or even a cuddly little creature, no. No term of endearment would suit me. I was called 'Rat.' Because you see, as I mentioned, I have a complicated past where food is concerned, and this comes from my youth. When I would sneak into the pantries and steal food. My mother and the staff thought at first there was a large rat, or even a raccoon behind the lost inventory, for at first, I left behind traces and made a mess of things. But after a while, I got good. Covered my tracks. Then mother started blaming the staff. Beating them, then firing most of them. No one seemed to notice how fat I was getting. Me being the middle of five girls. Eldest two sisters already married off to wealthy business men from town and bringing the bratty little grandchildren around, the younger girls learning dance and music, and generally being full of charm. I was in the background. Until one night, mother found me. She was searching the pantry for a tonic for indigestion when she saw me burrowing, trying to hide between sacks of potatoes. She hauled me out and dove for a long wooden spoon on the worktop in the kitchen. She beat me bloody with that spoon. I couldn't sit and could hardly walk for days."

She took a drink from her goblet, fortifying her. She didn't tell this story often. In fact, she hadn’t told anyone but her best friend Codrick, the blacksmith's apprentice. And that had taken many years.

"She started giving me smaller portions at dinner. Insisting that I wouldn't find a husband in my current state and threatening to sell me to a brothel if I didn't marry in good time. I was nearly starving, but still not getting thin fast enough to satisfy her. She made me run around the perimeter of our grounds. If I wasn't back in time, she'd set our wild bull out after me. There were a few times I was nearly gored. But I kept sneaking into the cupboards late at night. They were locked now, but once I told Codrick what was happening, he helped me by forging me a spare key. She kept calling me 'Rat' which was interesting. As if the sneaking and stealing was the more deplorable side of me than my actual size. She never called me 'Pig.' Perhaps because at least pigs had a use. Pigs could be sold or slaughtered for food. Rats were just a nuisance. The last time she caught me, she hauled me into the kitchen and reached for her wooden spoon again. But this time, when she reared back to strike at me, the spoon had turned into a vicious raven. It squalled and flailed and she let go of it, shooing it away. But it didn't relent. It clawed and pecked at her head and face until her hair was patchy and ragged and her face was a bloody mess. One eye was completely gone, the other, likely to be lost. But she could see well enough to tell where the raven landed after it had left her alone. Right beside me, as if it was trying to calm my still quivering form."

"So that was your conduit moment?" Geralt asked, knowing the answer.

"Yes. Lady de Vries showed up at our door not a moment too soon. The Madame from the local brothel had just agreed to my mother's price. There was a rather tense moment where the money had already changed hands and Tissaia had to threaten both women with rather unpleasant repercussions. She was having me and there would be no arguments. Actually, though, the whole experience of being fought over gave me the confidence I needed to confess my true feelings to Codrick and kiss him before we left the town. I'd fancied him for years but never had the guts to tell him."

"I'm sure you have a point to telling me this life story of yours." Geralt said, patiently, but clearly ready for her to wrap it up.

"Right. Sorry. My point is, most of us that are born or imbued with magic have some story like this. I'm certain you're no different. I could go on with horrors at Aretuza, too, just like I'm sure you could with stories of…where was it you were trained? Kaer Morhen?"

He looked at her skeptically.

"Wolf amulet around your neck. School of the Wolf. I thought that was Kaer Morhen."

"Mmhmm." oh, a two syllable grunt. His vocabulary was proving vast.

"Why shun you over a life you didn't choose? And if I have a fucked up past too, and I'm still dealing with that trauma, what right would I have to dismiss you or consider you an unworthy brother in arms? Or dinner companion? Or maybe even travel companion? After all, we fought well together and we don't know what's out there laying waste to the countryside."

"Suppose you're right."

"About which part?" this always happened to her as someone who never shut up. She never knew whether "you're right" was a blanket statement covering an entire monologue, or just certain parts that someone wanted to subscribe to.

"The first part. I'm still not sure about traveling companions. Or mages, if I'm honest. No offense."

"None taken. If it makes you feel better, I'm still very new to being a mage. I don't have any bad mage habits. I'm not even that good of a mage. I had to hand assemble this tent before I spelled it."

"Well, you did a fine job." he chuckled. "It looked…sturdy, from the outside."

"That's what I was going for. And why don't you just…try me for this expedition. I'll sign a contract saying that it's not your fault if I die. Not that anyone would care. Plus, we'll live in luxury every night, and I can make anything taste delicious with bare minimum ingredients."

"Tempting, but won't it be a little…cozy with both of us in here?"

She looked at him, incredulous.

"Remember the part where I'm a mage?" she walked over to the sitting area and contorted her hands toward the wall. "Addendum Sanctorum."

She beckoned him through a new flap in the canvas to a modest, but still accommodating room with a large, plush bed, a few sturdy, simple chairs, a small table, and a bathing area of its own, complete with a stash of sponges, soaps, and towels.

"See? It may not be all of the comforts of home, but it's hardly roughing it compared to the alternative, am I wrong?" She turned to look at him, but he was much closer than she'd expected him to be. She looked directly up into that piercing amber gaze that was unlike any she'd seen before. And he looked so…dangerous. And yet she wasn't afraid. At least not primarily. What she was mostly feeling was desire. She wanted those strong, skilled hands to touch her. She wanted to be held. She hadn't been held since she was a child. And a very young one, at that. She could feel something mutual coursing between them. And that was the thing that terrified her. The thought that he might be hungry for her in that way. He ran his hand along the slope of her temple and cheek down to her chin.

"I don't recall saying I'd mind sharing a cozy space with you, Ana."

TBC in Part Two

[awesomehoggirl]

it’s wip wednesday so i thought i’d share a quick writing wip from my multi chapter fem howince fic which will maybe be done in 20 years ! it’s got 8 chapters and i am still on chapter 2 if this gets finished it’ll be a miracle. the fic is called eau d’bedroom dancing because i love le tigre and imagine how fantastic riot grrl vince would be ...

mentioning before hand that i write all my first drafts and oneshots with no capitals because i find it a lot easier but with this fic when i go back over i’ll put capitals in :) (also this is a section from chapter one not the opening)

—

her name is vincenzia mirabella lucie-marié le manteau rafflesia vaisseau-spatial noire (the longest name in the class, and the only one never written up on the ‘star student!’ chalkboard) but everyone refers to her as vince. she’s new to the school, and seemingly england, but her accent is pure south london. two teachers have quit because of her already. holly moon has never been so interested in a person in her entire tiny life.

oh, she’s read up on musicians, heard their stories, wished ever so slightly that her life would someday be just as interesting — did you know nina simone had seven siblings, that john coltrane was in the navy? but the weirdness that seems to just bounce off vince’s tongue beats every story she’s ever read hands down.

it quickly becomes apparent that she’s borderline feral: if the staff-room murmurs of the teachers are to be believed, she came from a ‘neglectful home’; if vince’s own word is to be accepted, she was raised in the jungle by a cast of rock stars, animals and french nobility. holly is sensible enough to doubt her at first, but before long (and after many demonstrations of her ability to talk to animals) she’s genuinely on board. they sit behind the ash tree at lunch time, out of sight from dribbling boys and disapproving teachers, and holly figures out that through half a chocolate bar vince can be coaxed into revealing all sorts about her unorthodox childhood.

‘dunno why you’re so desperate to know about my life,’ vince complains once, when asked again to tell the story about the great order of frogs and the backwards waterfall. ‘why can’t i hear stories about you for a change?’

‘all in good time,’ says holly, whose mother is a tax attorney married to a geography teacher. ‘plus, i know you love the attention.’

and so vince sits there and talks until she goes hoarse, or loses interest, or feels like changing the subject right at a crucial moment, or the school bell rings and they have to go inside. she talks about her house made of bus tickets and her animal friends, her french duke uncle who would come down on bank holidays and teach her table manners, about joining the jackals for hunts, about skimming the treetops in the claws of squabbling vultures, about the hoots and screeches of the monkeys as they chased her through the undergrowth on the back of a hippopotamus. and holly will listen breathlessly, trying to seem nonplussed when in reality she is clinging to every last word. (tell me again about the paper-mache tiger and the rhinoceros’ game nights. tell me again again again.)

because no matter how hard her sensible brain tries, she really can’t prove them wrong. vince is hopeless at all forms of spelling or arithmetic. she is genuinely flabbergasted when explained to that, in fact, biting and shoving are not always seen as ‘playful’ in the human world. she swears like a sailor (or perhaps a rockstar) would, until the little old lady vicar gasps, snaps her bible shut and refuses to read to the year six class ever again. idioms are beyond her, let alone algebra, and the teachers insist there’s no hope — but they can’t help liking her, despite it all. there’s something so genuine about her ever-present toothy grin, her bubbly demeanour, that they soon allow her to get away with anything.

and yet holly is her best friend. and the only person (maybe in the world) vince will tell her stories to.

‘once upon a time,’ she begins one lunch break, dipping holly’s generous sacrifice of a curly wurly into her pocket for later, ‘i was out with jahooli the leopard, who was my best friend — he’d give me rides on his back when i was really small, swattin’ the bloodsuckers away with his giant tail. he’d catch me fish in his big strong jaws, crush ‘em up so i could eat ‘em right, i was just a nipper, i’d not got all my teeth in yet, but he was a right sweetheart about that sort of thing. on the surface jahooli always seemed to be a reckless character, a real rough-and-tumble kind of cat, but i knew the reality: he’d lost his mate and his litter and he was gettin’ on a bit, i was all he had left in terms of fatherhood. it meant he did get a bit invasive at times, yeah, he could be real clingy. i didn’t mind though, see, i’m wise beyond my years, so i was quite good with all that stuff, i let him vent to me when it all got a bit too much for his poor leopard heart to handle. anyway, this one day he was lookin’ after me, on account of my foster father bryan ferry being away on tour. and it was a hot afternoon, this one. really hot.’ she sinks down on her heels. ‘the kinda hot that drenches you in sweat no matter how still you stand. the kinda humid that makes your palms slick and your eyelashes heavy. most of the animals were tucked away underground by midday, but the bigger sorts like me and jahooli, we couldn’t exactly join them. so jahooli said, why don’t we make our way down to the river?’

holly feels her spine prickle. it is eerie, the way her friend’s stories pull her in.

she follows vince along to said river, feels jahooli’s long speckled tail curling round her shoulders, bumping against her collarbones, keeping her close. feels the slick wetness of the air, feels the burn of her lungs as they work in shallow pumping gasps. breathes in the hot dark of the bush, the low chatter of the canopy. soon the lumbering gait of the leopard slows, the river is in sight — the banks are busy with boars, bucks and buffalo, sunning lizards and mice. slow-blinking crocodiles cruise in the shallows. vince is not afraid of them. (holly would be.)

‘is it true if you’re being chased by a crocodile you should run in a zig-zag pattern?’ she interrupts (not because the story is getting a little too tense for her or anything).

vince rolls her eyes, makes a face as if holly has asked her the stupidest question in the world (considering just yesterday she asked holly whether all numbers bite or if the three digit ones are just especially fiesty, they clearly have different opinions on what counts as a ‘stupid question’). ‘if a crocodile were to haul its fat arse out of the nice cool water just to give you a bit of trouble, you probably did something awful to deserve it. why? are you plannin’ to go pokin’ sticks at ‘em? cause if you are, insult their music taste, they’ll go absolutely mental. most crocodiles are obsessed with alice cooper, so there’s a good starting point, have that one on me.’

‘so what’s—‘

‘oi, hush! do you want this story or not?’

holly shuts up. vince lowers her voice.

the jungle is sweaty now, the riverbanks a dripping piccadilly circus. jahooli has left vince’s side, gone to make conversation with ranbir the great panther, so she ventures alone to the water’s edge (the animals watch over her, they all like her, tiny and pink and strange as she is) and dips her feet in. the water is so clear and cold it hurts, but soon the pain ebbs and gives way to a calm coolness. she sits down, slides in up to her knees, lies back against the soft mud

the jungle is treacle now, bubbling and pooling, thick. vince soon drifts off and the leaves behind her eyelids are red. the stars are wheeling gulls, the air is thick with salt-spit, her eyelashes tangle and she slips down into the mud. somewhere else, the dulcet waves begin to lap. the elephants have arrived. jahooli and ranbir share a look before they approach, hackles raised (they are not mean-spirited creatures, but they do like to play a prank).

the jungle is long gone now, and vince dreams of strawberry ice cream. somewhere else, jahooli and ranbir wind around each other dizzyingly, teeth flashing slick and sharp. somewhere else, the elephants are fussing, distressed by their feline dance, their ashy trunks whirling as they back up their feet. pelts twist and brush together before the big-cats turn, open their jaws and let out a combined roar that wakes vince, sends animals scattering, splits the sky in two —

and the jungle rumbles. and the elephants charge.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

Prompt-thing: Fire Spirits to torment Vanessa.

First, I can no long think about the Fire Spirits without also thinking about the Conductor, hope that’s okay. Second, another fic that’s probably in the same timeline as Guilt (I think I might just start calling it the ‘adopted timeline/au’). Third, this drabble fic thing ends sooner then I’d have liked it to but it’s almost 2am and I’m already running on like 6 hours of sleep (so if the end part is a bit more incoherent than other drabbles, that’s why) so that’s where it ended because I need sleep. It still wraps things up though, I think, and is a definitely at a point where I’d scene cut anyway. I might do a continuation later though, I know I would like to. And finally, thank you for the request!

Fire Spirits

The fire spirits were back. They always came back. If Snatcher didn’t know better, he’d say it was because they liked annoying him. But no, it was because the forest was a place of high spiritual energy, it attracted them like moths to a flame.

He couldn’t make them go away either. They didn’t listen to him and their brand of magical energy was resistance to his, making destroying them take a lot of effort. With how powerful he was, he could force it if he really had to but it was a pain and exhausting so he preferred to make contractors deal with them instead. He maybe wouldn’t have to this time though because he officially had an adoptive daughter he might finally have a real use for.

“Hey kiddo,” he said with a grin as he popped in on her as she exited her ship now parked in his forest. “I’ve got a job for you.”

Hat Kid’s face let up. “What kind of job?”

“The fire spirits are starting to come back. I would like you to take care of them before they start making themselves too much of a nuisance. Think of it as your way of earning you keep around here, a house chore or whatever.”

“Okay! But… I’ve always wondered why you don’t destroy them. I mean you’re like super powerful and stuff and they’re not so… can’t you deal with them? Are you just lazy?”

“No, I’m not lazy.” The fact that she’d suggest such a thing was a bit offensive but he’d let it slid for now. “The reason I don’t deal with them myself is it takes a lot of energy to take them out. They’re beings made of fire, meaning light basically. I’m a being made of primarily shadow energy. Not true opposites but throwing shadow magic at light beings doesn’t exactly have great results.”

“So… it’s like Pokémon? Your attacks aren’t very effective because it’s a poor type match up?”

“I don’t know what that means but… sure I guess, my attacks aren’t very effective against them. Hence why I prefer someone else to handle it so I don’t have to. So hop to it.” He clapped his hands twice to spur her on.

She didn’t move though instead she seemed deep in thought about something. “They’re fire spirits,” she mumbled to herself, “and going off Pokémon rules that would mean…” She trailed off as a mischievous smile spread across her face. An idea had occurred to her, that was almost never a good thing. “I have an idea,” she said, speaking to him again. “Instead of getting rid of them you should send them to torment your ex!”

Snatcher had been preparing to say ‘no’ but stopped. “Huh?”

“You should send them to torment your crazy ex,” Hat Kid repeated. “I mean they’re fire spirits with fire magic and your ex is an ice bitch with ice magic so they should be super effective against her. Don’t you want to mess with her? She’s a horrible wretched evil peck neck. You should burn her house down! I bet it’ll be fun!” She her smile was now more evil that mischievous. Good.

Snatcher had never considered doing such a thing before. He’d always been so focused on not having anything more to do with her, only fending her off whenever she decided to invade his forest, that he’d never considered trying to do anything to mess with them. It was honestly a huge oversight on his part.

“You know what kid, I’m suddenly glad I adopted you, you’re smart,” he said. She beamed at his praise. “There is a problem with your idea though, they won’t listen to me. I’ve tried to tell them to go away or take down their stupid fire barriers at least a hundred times over the years, if not more.” Probably more because the first time they’d appeared he’d still been trying to be at least sort of a good guy. They didn’t have souls he could eat – he’d tried but it had hurt him – and other than for the barriers – which weren’t intended to harm anyone and actually seemed to be just a byproduct of their rituals – they weren’t doing anything bad so he’d been reluctant to kill them. “I doubt they’d listen to you either because of how much time you spend with me and the Subconites, you reek of death and shadows.”

Her face fell. “Does that mean we can’t send them to torment Vanessa?”

“It means we can’t but I know someone they should listen to and that someone will listen to me.”

“Really? Who is it?”

“The Conductor.”

“Why would they listen to…”

Snatcher didn’t let her finish before teleporting away.

***

The Conductor was just about to leave his dressing room when he suddenly had the sense that something was behind him so he should probably turn and check. It was probably just paranoia but… It was Snatcher.

He couldn’t help jumping a little in fright and taking a step back. Not many people survived direct encounters with the infamous Snatcher. The Conductor was one of the lucky few but the thing he’d had to do to accomplish that feat had been abhorrent. So he wasn’t a fan of the ghost and was honestly terrified.

“What the peck do you want?” he said because no way was he going to let his terror show.

Snatcher grinned wide. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“I ain’t trying to kill the lass again, no matter what you say. You can eat my pecking soul, I don’t care.” He shouldn’t have cared the first time but… he’d been taken by surprise and terrified.

“Well good thing I wasn’t going to ask you to. Now, I would take your soul but alas I have a feeling a certain child now legally in my care would be rather displeased with me if I did. It’s annoying when she cries so I’d rather not deal with that.”

The Conductor had almost forgotten Snatcher had adopted Hat Kid because honestly, he didn’t want it to be true. Snatcher was well the Snatcher, he ate people’s souls, he’d tried to murder Hat Kid, had forced the Conductor and others to try as well. And yet Hat Kid insisted he was a good guy deep down inside and that he cared about her. She’d even shown the Conductor and DJ Grooves a copy of the adoption papers Snatcher had written up to adopt her. He had signed it though so Hat Kid’s claims had to have some truth to them even if the Conductor disagreed with the whole adoption. He’d no choice but to accept it and try not to think about it too much because he couldn’t do anything about it.

“Now,” Snatcher continued, “because of our history I know you probably don’t want to help me. And honestly, I don’t blame you, from your perspective things were pretty bad. But we’re past that now, right? So I need you to…”

“‘Pretty bad’? That wasn’t ‘pretty bad’, that was pecking…”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Snatcher cut in, making a placating gesture with one had that made the Conductor’s blood boil with rage he couldn’t do anything with because he was facing Snatcher. “You’re an angry fire lizard, I understand. I’ll have you know though, the favor I’m asking you to do was Hat Kid’s idea. She’s actually really smart sometimes, would you believe it?”

“She’s smart all the time you peck-neck.”

“If you say so. Now, I need you to talk to the fire spirits in my forest and tell them to harass the Ice Queen Vanessa instead of me. They should listen to you because I’m pretty sure dragons are on the top rank of the fire beings, right? Even the small feathered ones like yourself.”

“What the peck are you talking about? I’m not a dragon.”

“Oh, you’re not? I’m pretty sure you are. I could be wrong though I guess because all I know for sure is you have fire magic. There are a number of ways that’s possible, none of them make a difference for what I’m asking you to do though so it doesn’t matter. Let’s go.” He snapped his fingers and the world around them shifted to deep purple.

“Peck you, you pecking peck neck,” the Conductor said instead of being afraid like he’d wanted to be because whatever the peck was going on here was not okay.

The purple faded and suddenly they were in the forest next to Hat Kid and her ship, now parked. “Uncle Con,” she said with a smile.

“Uh… hey lass,” he said, glancing around. The forest was dark and creepy, he did not like it especially since Snatcher was looming over them now that he had all the room in the world to do so. He was a dumb showoff, why couldn’t he stay a normal person size? He just liked being bigger and taking up more room than everyone else because he was bully and a peck-neck. Before the Conductor could say something about it though…

“Now go talk to the fire spirits for us,” Snatcher said. “It’s important, right kiddo?”

“Yes! I don’t know why they’d listen to you Uncle Con but if they do, go tell them to burn down Vanessa’s Manor!” The evil glee in Hat Kid’s eyes and voice was concerning. But was it because she was spending too much time with Snatcher or just how she naturally was and that’s what had drawn her to Snatcher in the first place?

“Why?” the Conductor asked to avoid dealing with that question.

“Because she’s horrible and awful and evil and just the pecking worst.”

Well if Hat Kid hated this Vanessa person so much she must be truly terrible, worse than Snatcher because Hat Kid didn’t hate him. And come to think of it, hadn’t the Conductor heard tales about an Ice Queen Vanessa? She’d frozen her entire kingdom, killing everyone in it, or something like that, right? So yeah, she probably deserved to have her house burnt down at least.

“Fine.” The Conductor sighed. “I’ll talk to them.” And they probably would do as he asked because in his experience, fire spirits tended to more often than not. He’d always assumed it was because he was half fire spirit but maybe it was something else like Snatcher had suggested? … Nah, no way. And he didn’t care anyway. He just wanted done with this business as soon as possible so he could leave the damn forest.

For this drabble event.

[spideyswebhead]

Loose Screw (Arthur Morgan X OC)

I don’t know why since seeing The Devil All The Time trailer I’ve been thinking of Red Dead Redemption 2 again, maybe it’s because I saw someone mention that was Tom’s “YeeHaw” voice. But anyway, Arthur and Emmaline are on my mind again. So enjoy this one-shot with these two babies.

Also this is a first with writing this type of scene, so be gentle on me for it!

Summary: Emmaline tries to talk to Arthur about Dutch plans.

Word Count: 2,224 (This became longer than I intended)

Warnings: Murder -♡- means it started and when it’s over if you need to skip. And slight spoilers to chapter 3 and 4

(1st gif by @river-the-fox and 2nd is @whitewolfofwinterfell​)

Arthur burst through the door of Angelo Bronte bedroom most likely. Instantly raising his gun to kill the guard who had been hiding behind the bed, but fell to the ground with a bullet wound in their head before they could do anything to defend their boss. “John! In here!” Arthur calls for Marston.

Bronte raised up from the bathtub which turned out to be where the lizard was hiding, aiming his gun at the two men but found he had no ammo left. Cursing in Italian that Arthur didn’t understand - nor cared to understand - and in panic threw his gun. Hitting John square in the face.

“AH! Goddammit!” John yelps in pain from the impact, his hand flying to his face.

Arthur probably would’ve laughed at the scene of John being hit in the face with a gun, but he was focused on getting Bronte. Who pleaded with the two men as he stepped out of the bath with his hands raised.

“Okay, okay! I’m sorry, friend, I... no, name your price! Name your price, every man has a price, eh?”

John had recovered from the blow of Bronte’s gun and advanced to the man before clocking Bronte in the face, knocking him out cold. “Should we kill him?” John asks Arthur, staring at Angelo Bronte with disgust.

“Nah, let’s take him to Dutch.” Arthur told him as he shouldered his rifle.

“You carry him. I ain’t touching this piece of shit.”

Arthur nodded wordlessly, walking to the unconscious man, feeling his pocket and coming up with $155, he hummed appreciatively at the find and would put it in the camp funds box once they return to camp and pocketed the money before he picked up the lizard. “I think Dutch wants to have a little chat, Mr. Bronte.”

Arthur could hear the whistle of the law coming to answer to their invasion “Shit.” John mutters.

“C’mon, Morgan! We’re getting the hell out of here!” Bill exclaims.

-♡-

Dutch woke up Bronte who looked at all the men in the boat looking ready to kill him, but let their leader speak to him before they would do anything. “Hey, big guy. We gonna ransom you or what?” Dutch said to him.

“You’re pathetic.” Bronte says, sliding further up the boat, not looking threatened or scared in the least despite the Van der Linde gang kidnapping him easily.

“Oh. I am?” Dutch challenged. “Cause from where I’m sitting...” He sat up straighter so Bronte could get a good look at all the murderous men holding their guns firmly. “You’re the one deserving of pity, my friend. All your men, all your money, it weren’t no match for a bunch of bumpkins.”

“You are nothing.” Bronte hissed. “You do nothing, you mean nothing, you stand for nothing. Me? I run a city and when the law catch up to you, you will die of nothing. I am this country! you...you...you are what this country is running from!”

Dutch had a stoned look on his face as he spoke with such a calm tone it would’ve sent a normal man into begging for forgiveness. “I possess things you will never understand.”

“You don’t even possess your own men! A thousand dollars to the man who kills him and sets me free!” Bronte promises and looked at all the men who didn’t move a muscle at Bronte’s promise, years of loyalty to Dutch and faith in him over weighing Bronte’s broken promise.

“What are you going to say now?” Dutch says in a taunting tone as he leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

Bronte seemed loss of threats and broken promises to get him out of this situation like any other, his men dead at his house and law no where for them to find him. “They are even bigger fools than you. No doubt, the law will find you, already the dogs are on their way.”

“Oh yeah?” Dutch taunts, sitting up as he advances on their prisoner. “Oh, you’re right. You are so right” Dutch grips his shoulder and pushes him close to the edge of the boat. “They are good at smelling filth, huh? So filth has got to be disposed of!” He dunks the lizard into the filthy swamp.

Arthur and the others stand in the boat as Dutch forces Bronte’s head to stay under the water, a determined look on Dutch’s face, Bronte yelling as he tries to fight their leader’s strength to get some air in his screaming lungs. Arthur stood there in surprise on Dutch’s actions, never seeing hims react in such a way as he yells at the drowning man. This wasn’t the way Arthur was taught from Hosea and even Dutch. 

Revenge is a fools game.

“Your friends the Pinkertons gonna come and rescue you? You repulsive little maggot! You call them now, you call them!”

Dutch force Bronte to keep under until his thrashing body eventually settled and stopped moving. Dutch lets him go and stands up, seeing a alligator there waiting for one of the men to jump in to get their snack. Dutch without a beat kicks Bronte’s body into the lake.

“Jesus.” John breaths, the first to speak as the Alligator eats up Angelo Bronte. “What part of your philosophy books cover feeding a feller to a goddamn alligator, Dutch?”

“The part that covers weakness.”

“...I don’t know.”

“Well I do! It ain’t nice, I know it!” Dutch says as he steps off the boat onto the peer where Thomas had stopped the boat. “But it’s either us, or him! I figured it might as well be him.”

Dutch walks away to join the other men who go to get on their horses. Arthur and John step off together slowly and look at area where Bronte disappeared. A sick feeling in the pit of Arthur’s stomach.

Revenge is a fools game.

-♡-

Emmaline noticed Arthur didn’t return last night when all the men eventually did when Dutch finally got his revenge on Angelo Bronte, she didn’t know what happened but with the way Lenny and John acted it didn’t seem good.

“John, what happened?” Emmaline said as Lenny went to his tent, John coming up the porch of Shady Belle. John puffs out a sigh and plops into the chair that someone set on the porch at some point. Emmaline took the other to listen to John in case he would talk.

John took a second to double check Dutch wasn’t there so he wouldn’t interrupt and told the nurse of their camp of what happened with Angelo Bronte. Emmaline listened intently and didn’t say anything for a while as she processed the actions of Dutch Van der Linde tonight.

It wasn’t like they haven’t done brutal things in the past, murdering gang members, robbing banks, shooting up half a town in Rhodes before killing that old hag Braithwaite inbred sons before casting her manor on fire cause she kidnapped Jack and sold him to Angelo Bronte. The rage of the Van Der Linde Gang was vicious, but the way Dutch acted wasn’t the normal Dutch. He always talked about revenge being a fools game.

“It wasn’t right.” John said, scratching his chin. “Bronte is a bad man, but nobody deserves to be fed to a damn alligator.”

“No, you’re right.” she agreed. It was silent between her and John for a second before she spoke again. “Where’s Arthur? He should have returned by now.”

John just shrugged. “Don’t know, he might be taking care of something or laying low.” He tells her before patting her on the shoulder in a brotherly manner for getting up and heading into the house to probably get some sleep with his family. Emmaline stayed out to try and wait for Arthur, smoking a cigarette as she waited, but after she was done with it, putting it out with her boot, she returned inside the house.

She made her way up the stairs and went into the tiny room her and Arthur were given. She stripped down to her undergarments, stuffing her clothing in the trunk where their clothes were together, blowing out the candles before she snuggled into the rough cot. Slipping into a dreamless sleep.

Emmaline woke up when she heard rustling and she turned around from facing the wall to see Arthur finishing getting dressed, finishing up buttoning his black and red vest. Must’ve came to bed at some point in the night? She watched silently as he turned to the table where he had a map sprawled. His hat laying on the table next to the map. There was a streaming light of the sun rays into the tiny room from the early morning - Arthur always a morning person and up before Emmaline - the golden glow casting over her lover that somehow made him more handsome. She took a second to appreciate the view before she spoke. “Mornin’”

Arthur looks over to the woman once she spoke to him in a sleepy tone. “Mornin’” He returns.”Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“‘s okay.” She said, sitting up, holding the blanket against her as she sat up in the bed. Arthur had returned to looking at his map, his pencil in hand. “John told me what happened with Bronte.”

“Did he?”

“Yes. Arthur... Are you okay?”

“’m fine.”

Emmaline pursed her lips at that response, not believing him at all that he was ‘fine’ after seeing Dutch murder a man. “John seemed bothered by it and you didn’t return until late.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Arthur, can we please talk about this?”

“What is there to talk about? Bronte is dead.” Arthur says, keeping his gaze on that damn map. “Nothing there to discuss.”

“Just- can we please?” Emmaline tries again.

Arthur sighed as he shifted his feet, turning to his lover but avoiding her gaze as he seemed to stare into the corner of the tiny room instead of the half-dressed woman. He didn’t say anything. “Arthur, it wasn’t right for him to take his life like that and for that reason.” She bites her lip as she chooses her words carefully here. “Are you sure Dutch is right about this Tahiti thing?”

“What?” He spoke, now his blue eyes landing on her instantly from her words.

Emmaline had only been with the gang for two years and had listened to Dutch spoke about everything from keeping faith, the promise land of Tahiti where they could be free from everything, one more big robbery and they’ll be on their way to getting a boat to Tahiti and starting their life over. After listening to the same thing over and over and feeling like they were getting no closer to getting to this freedom he was speaking of, she was starting to question Dutch’s motives. But nobody dare question this grand plan of Dutch Van der Linde, but Emmaline was getting tired of this false promises and as she thought about Dutch’s plans of becoming farmers in Tahiti...it had a lot of loopholes and unrealistic dreams.

But also knowing her lover, who has had 20 years loyalty to Dutch, it was hard to talk about the flaws of Dutch and she had to choose her words carefully when talking about this.

“Killing Bronte just so we can rob this bank and than 2 months later become farmers in Tahiti? For 15-20 people to start a new life? It just...it seems unrealistic for this world now.” She said. “You always told us how revenge wasn’t a way to do things and it seems to me Dutch is believing that idea more.” Emmaline says, keeping her gaze on Arthur’s and not daring to look away. “Killing Bronte just seemed...reckless and could make this job bank job go really bad.”

“It’s just one more job and we’ll be out of here, Dutch knows what he’s doin’“

“Are you sure? Getting in the middle of a family feud, for what? Some rumor of gold?”

“It would’ve helped!”

“And what did it do? We’re always running cause of some plan Dutch had that backfires in our face, Arthur!” Emmaline argues. “Now he’s killed a man in cold blood and cause so much more trouble! I’m tired of running!”

“Dutch had to do what he needed for all of us to get us the money!” Arthur says, fuming at the thought that these past 20 years were for nothing.

“And this is the way to do it? Get the money to go to Tahiti that he doesn’t even know about! You heard him, he heard some one talk about it once and that’s it!”

“I’m not going to talk about this.” Arthur huffs, grabbing his hat and placing it on his head harshly and moving to leave the room.

“Arthur!” Emmaline calls for him. “You can’t just walk away!” She gets up, wrapping the blanket around her to conceal how undressed she is. Arthur ignored her as he went down those stairs. She glared at his hat, he was impossible to talk to about any of this. She heard a door shut and turned to see Dutch looking at her and narrowed his eyes.

They stare at each other for a second before Emmaline goes back into her room, shutting the door behind her.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

Superior is INDEFENCIBLE Part 2: Odds and Ends

Part 1

As a little follow up to this post I want to wrap up some defences I have encountered for both Superior #2 and the Superior storyline in general.

To start with we have more hypocrisy from the man I once admired as he tried to defend his position on Superior.

He was challenged on his primary argument that Peter and MJ’s separation justified her obliviousness now that they are back together; for further details see the above linked post.

In response to this challenge he said:

“I think there is more to my argument then "They've lived apart for a year" and her relationship with him during that time doesn't have to hold relevance to their relationship after being apart.”

Like…this guy was for fucking real.

OF COURSE their relationship back then is going to hold relevance to their relationship after being apart.

Obviously with the benefit of hindsight Nick Spencer’s run proves this to be the case. And you can refer back to my prior post where I dive deeper into the topic.

However, in that post I was talking about the specific nuances of Peter and MJ’s relationship.

What’s mind boggling is that in the above quote he’s making an even bigger reach. Jesus Christ OF COURSE their past relationship is going to hold relevance for their then-current one.

That’s how relationships work!

FFS, romantic or otherwise everyone’s relationship with everyon else is shaped by the past. This is like arguing Peter hating Norman for killing Gwen Stacy doesn’t have to be relevant to their relationship after his return to the Clone Saga.

I mean shit dude, Peter’s high school romance with Betty Brant was relevant to their romance after he graduated college!

This is how all types of relationships work. You don’t just jump in after awhile, start fresh and then nothing from the past has any bearing on the present. Even in the most positive of scenarios the fact that you are getting together again  would still be shaped by the fact that you liked each other in the first place.

And for the life experiences those two shared that’d go a thousand fold.

Now let’s move on to some over miscellaneous comments sent to me a  looooooooooooong time ago.

I’ve had this stuff in my drafts for years! 

For the sake of catharsis I’ve decided to clear it out. It revolves around Superior Spider-Man and the comments I’m responding to were made before the original volume ended in 2014.

“Rob Wrecks wrote:Why would Aunt May even react to it? She doesn't even know the identity of Spidey now.”

In Civil War she was able to tell that the Chameleon, a MASTER of disguise who was being more subtle than Otto was, was not her nephew.

Whilst she might not know he is Spider-Man she knows her nephew so she should react and become questionable regarding his change in demeanor and behavior. What’s the old saying ‘A mother always knows’.

“As for MJ, they aren't even married anymore either. Sure she remembers who is under the mask. But I doubt she's gonna bring trouble on herself for prying.”

I address a lot of this in this  post.

Basically, not being married anymore has nothing to do with it. This woman lived with this man for years (five to be precise) and had a very close relationship with him which involved countless tragedies and traumas. That doesn’t just go away. This is to say nothing of the fact that she has known this man for about 10 years and has been his friend and girlfriend during that time. In fact in Stern’s run when she knew who he was but didn’t let him know, she was depicted as knowing him better than anyone and was able to read him as a book. This was back when they weren’t as close as they are now, hadn’t known each other for as long and she didn’t know him as intimately as she would later come to down the road. In ASM #290 Peter himself says MJ knows him as well as he knows himself and this was before the marriage.

Even in Slott’s run this depiction of Mary Jane knowing Peter better than anyone else was highlighted in various stories like Spider Island, a time travel arc, Alpha, and a Lizard arc at HORIZON labs. 

In JMS’ run Peter and Mary Jane were shown to be somewhat in synch even though they were separated at the time and had been for a long while going back. This was showcased in ASM V2 #50 and they had been effectively separated with minimal interaction as far back as ASM V2 #13; arguably even issue #1.

And yet she understood him and knew him very well, falling back into synch with him when they reconciled. Yes there was some awkwardness and them getting to know each other again but it was not on the same level of Otto guzzling champagne, creating spider bots, talking in a manner which was unlike the way he’s ever spoken before and MJ just wondering passingly then dismissing it. This woman has lived through the Chamelon, robot parents and clones and lives in a world where friggin Skrulls have invaded.

This out of character behaviour should send off alarm bells. She DOES clock something is off in Superior #10 but only when he says a phrase she’s never heard him say before. He was doing shit MUCH more out of character before then and she was dismissing it.

Later she was STILL dismissing the notion that Peter wasn’t himself as merely crazy on her part.

Again this woman knows Peter can be/has been cloned  repeatedly. This woman even for awhile believed Peter himself was a clone so she knows even memories can be replicated. But Peter is acting so obviously NOT himself that it’s practically SCREAMING at her that she should get this. In fact Peter’s ghost point this out which is Slott lampshading the situation. That doens’t make it good writing that’s just pointing out how bad your story is.

“Hasn't she (I'm guessing he's referring to Aunt May?) been focused lately on her new marriage though? I don't read enough of Spidey these days so I'm only going with bits and pieces I've read about here and there.”

What does being married recently or focusing upon it have to do with anything?

In Civil War she was focused upon not dying because Peter’s ID reveal had upended her life.

If you are someone’s MOTHER and have raised them all their life you will absolutely  be able to tell when something is wrong, when they are in fact not the real deal.

“As for MJ, who would she go too? Not like anyone would likely believe her unless she had a telepath scan her mind.”

Who would she go to? I dunno maybe the fucking Avengers or Fantastic Four who are Peter’s friends and team mates. Or maybe not go that far why not go to Black Cat, Human Torch or Daredevil . These are all people whom she knows (at least vaguely in regards to Daredevil) personally and have access to technology that can prove things one way or another.

Even if you argue that it’s not fair bringing in the wider Marvel Universe, Black Cat, Carlie, HORIZON labs, the Bugle staff and Scarlet Spider are all Spider-Man franchise characters.

“Now there could be a possibility she's making a list of his behavior and the like and is just waiting for the right time to say something when she knows she's less likely to die from it.

Maybe Slott's just got something going that'll eventually be revealed? Who knows.”

Oh boy, that didn’t stand the test of time did it?

This is just shitty analysis on principle. It hinges upon blind faith and writing stuff in your head about what characters are doing behind the scenes.

There was NEVER an indication MJ was doing anything like that and her actions actually contradicted event he idea of her doing any of that stuff.

The net responses are to the statement that Doc Ock was a gentleman who would treat women with respect.

“Keyword there, 'was' a gentlemen. I can imagine after years of defeats at the hands of Spidey, certain habits would change and he wouldn't care anymore.

It could have just been a subtle change that no one really noticed. He did try and end the world before #700 if I recall right.”

You need to SHOW those habits changing. The last major Doctor Octopus story before BND was in JMS’s run when he was very much a gentleman. You can’t just say his illness and defeats suddenly transformed him into a would be rapist. It’s utterly out of character for him. It’d be like bringing back Ben Reilly and making him a mass murderer. WHY is he a mass murderer.

(Fun fact. The stuff I bolded about Ben Reilly was something I wrote at the time. I kept it in because of how sadly ironic it wound up being…fuck Clone Conspiracy seriously)

Ending the world before #700 is one thing IN Doc Ock’s character. He is egotistical and wants acknowledgement of his genius.

Superior depicted him going against a character trait he’s always had. In his origin story, when he was ‘courting’ Aunt May, when he was involved with Stunner and Lady Octopus and the like he has always been show to have a respect for women and not had to resort to cheap ploys to woo them.

In Superior he was trading off of MJ’s relationship with Peter and Peter’s memories to basically abuse this woman. That is beneath Doctor Octopus. He is an intellectual a man for whom such actions are debase, the realm of the common thug whilst he is much more he is DOCTOR OCTOPUS.

BTW in Web of Death it was established that Doc Ock probably would not target MJ or Peter’s family even though he knew Peter’s identity.

So for him to suddenly switch to ‘I’m gonna fuck his girlfriend to get one over on him” is again utterly out of character.

‘Web of Death’ was co-written by Tom DeFalco btw, who established Otto’s origin. Thus the argument is flying in the face of someone who helped define the character with no explanation at all.

Slott had done this with other characters like Ashley Kafka.Suddenly the most naively compassionate woman in the world who believed she could redeem CARNAGE is saying this lesser serial killer is a complete monster. That is piss poor writing.

Even if Slott WERE to establish and show how Ock went from one extreme to the other it doesn’t make it a good idea. Doc Ock would be rapist is a lot less interesting than Doc Ock the lone super villain who is part gentleman and part humanitarian with a respect for women. If this was Norman Osborn in Peter’s body, or Electro, or Shocker I’d believe these actions.

The topic then changed to Carlie Cooper’s depiction in Superior as a goddam idiot who isn’t even telling MJ Peter might  be evil. “Red Hood wrote: Carlie and Wraith followed Ock’s paper trail because she knows for fact that peter parker doesnt have the money to fund his own private army, the reason she hasnt said anything is because it's not such a good idea to go pointing fingers without absolute truth, remember eddie brock and how he was so sure about the sin eater?”

Carlie’s investigation was going incredibly sloooooooooooooooooowly. Not only was it dull reading, but it made her completely unsympathetic. Why not warn Mary Jane by saying “Look before he died Doc Ock told me he and Spider-Man had swapped bodies. I’m not saying Peter IS Doc Ock but just....be careful MJ”.

Or why not inform the Avengers or Fantastic Four about this. Sure the Avengers gave him a physical but they wouldn’t know what to look for. And why is Carlie Cooper all of a sudden saying “Wait I KNOW Peter doesn’t have this kind of cash so this is a big clue that he isn’t himself.” When her first big clue should have been that time Spider-Man SHOT SOMEONE IN THE FACE!

“also peter and mj arent married anymore.”

See above.

You don’t just suddenly fall out of knowing someone if you’ve been THAT close to them and known them for that long just because suddenly you are not married anymore. She has deduced subtle differences in the Chameleon and clones before this but Ock is NOT being subtle whatsoever. He isn’t even talking the same way he normally does. And Mister Red Hood even says so himself, Carlie can tell right way. His co-workers whom he’s known for LESS THAN A YEAR can tell something is up. But the woman who’s been closer to him than ANYONE in his life, she can’t tell. That is bullshit of the highest order.

“1. mj and peter arent married anymore, idk if they were married in identity crisis but remember how after the deal with mephisto they were separated for x amount of years before she even came back to new york, i can see her not being able to tell peter is acting different at that point. aunt may and the avengers though don't get a pass especially when carlie who knew him the least could tell right away.”

See above.

You don’t just suddenly fall out of knowing someone if you’ve been THAT close to them and known them for that long just because suddenly you are not married anymore. She has deduced subtle differences in the Chameleon and clones before this but Ock is NOT being subtle whatsoever. He isn’t even talking the same way he normally does. And Mister Red Hood even says so himself, Carlie can tell right way. His co-workers whom he’s known for LESS THAN A YEAR can tell something is up. But the woman who’s been closer to him than ANYONE in his life, she can’t tell. That is bullshit of the highest order.

When you separate from someone you’ve been that close to those feelings don’t just disappear. This is especially true of people who’ve been through immensely traumatic events together. Soldiers often find that only fellow soldiers, specifically ones who were with them in combat, can truly understand what they went through and how they felt. It creates an emotional/mental bond. Same thing here. Peter and Mary Jane went through Venom, Kraven’s Last Hunt, the death of Harry, Gwen, aunt May, Ben Reilly, the clone saga as a whole, Civil War, Peter’s OWN death, Maximum Carnage and so on. They’d have that kind of connection I was speaking about, you don’t just forget it to the point where you let MASSIVE differences in behaviour slide, especially massive differences in behaviour which are different to the way he was acting LAST WEEK!

“3. Also i don't think his  [Doc Ock’s] actions are entirely out of character, i mean he was dead, then revived, beat down for several years into a dying body. given time to think about all the things you would do if given another chance i dont think its out of the question for doc to say "great, second chance at life with a movie starhottie gf". also if you'll threaten the city, then the world, then mind swap with someone i dont think having sex is that big a stretch.”

See my comments above why this IS out of character for Doc Ock. Again this isn’t just him wanting to get laid this is him potentially date raping an innocent woman. You need to SHOW the progression of that change

And rape in comic book fiction is understood to be worse  from the reader’s POV than the various Saturday Morning Cartoon style crimes he’s pulled.

The next comment was in response to the public’s indifference towards Spider-Man shooting Massacre in the face! “7. As far as no one caring about massacre, didn't he break out a few times and inflict his namesake? no one is going to care that a killer like that gets shot, humans aren't dignified at all. i can see aunt may saying something but no one else is going to be like "oh great that killer is back in jail, too bad all criminals break out" no they're going to be like "finally someone put down this thug, maybe my life or someone i care about will be spared from him at least in the future" and maybe it was caught on security cameras or phones but maybe they deleted it, i mean spider-man just shot a dude in the face and if he wanted there would be nothing anyone could do to stop him from putting the hurt on someone else”

This is just rubbish.

No one is going to care? For God’s sake the police in real life get reprimanded for using unnecessary force.

The law is the law you CANNOT publically execute an unarmed man. And my point was no one, not even Mary Jane or Jonah, were reacting to this mind-blowingly out of character action on the part of Spider-Man. Maybe they do not care that Massacre was killed but they should be wondering “Jesus that’s not like Spider-Man at all”. This was Spider-Man becoming absolutely EVERYTHING Jameson ever falsely accused him of and no one reacted. And I am sorry but the attitude of ‘human’s aren’t dignified so they’d react like THIS” is extremely broad and generalised. This would be a major talking point and a major issue. This is EXACTLY what the entire ‘Civil War’ debacle was about. Super heroes running unchecked doing as they pleased. It’s been what, a year tops Marvel time since Civil War? If that stuff was deleted YOU NEED TO SHOW IT. The cover story is that EVERYONE in that massive crowd covered for him. That is in no way shape or form how humans actually act. And who would there be to stop like a teenager or a kid or a lone person in the crowd from tweeting “OMG Spider-Man just shot this dude” or uploading a video or picture. They were CHEERING him on they wouldn’t be afraid of him being reprimanded. Once something like that hit the internet it’d spread like wildfire, it wouldn’t be something that if immediately taken down would die away, especially when THE NEWS was stating Spider-Man had ‘neutralised Massacre’ and then Massacre shows up dead, WTF would the public THINK happened?

“Aaron Alexander Luthor wrote: Superior is an excellent title, but I feel you approached it having already made up your mind. Doc Ock NEVER attempted date rape, and I don't know where you get that from”

Boy, I wonder where I got the idea of Otto trying to rape MJ from? What an obviously ‘excellent’ title.

Trying to sleep with Mary Jane whilst tricking her into thinking he is Peter Parker then that is categorically trying to date rape her. He didn’t go through with it because he discovered he could just wank off to her memories (I can’t believe I wrote that) but that is exactly what he was trying to do. Maybe to HIM he didn’t think of it as rape but yeah that’s exactly what it was.

“He ripped off his own shirt, not hers.”

I honestly have no idea what he’s talking about here btw.

“Mary Jane had/has mentioned several times that there is something wrong with him and that she thinks there is something strange going on, he also hasn't spoken to her in weeks in the time frame of the comic.”

Yes MJ has noticed passingly things are wrong but then he feeds her a line and she buys it or otherwise she dismisses it herself. This in monumentally out of character for her given her history and makes her incredibly stupid, which is the ONLY way this title could have worked out. Again, she lives in a world of Skrulls, clones, LMDs and shape shifters one of which is literally an enemy of Peter’s and has tried impersonating him multiple times (targeting her specifically twice). But she either doesn’t clock anything is wrong or doesn’t really react when she does. And he HAD spoken to her within weeks by the time or Superior #2.

“Same goes for Aunt May, he visited her the first few weeks as Parker, and hasnt spoken to her since. He is basically ignoring the people in Peter's life, and they have taken notice.”

See my response about Aunt May not knowing. Again, this woman RAISED him and she could tell when the master of disguise who was being a lot more subtle about impersonating Peter was not her son/nephew.

Also he wasn’t exactly ignoring  the HORIZON labs staff was he?

“When he killed Massacre, some of the civilians were shocked and appalled, but when the police investigated all the officers on the scene lied for Spidey, because they think he did the right thing. That is why the only officers still interested are Carlie Cooper who does know, and is ACTIVELY trying to prove it isnt Peter, and Captain Watanabe aka The Wraith”

My point about NO ONE taking photos, tweeting, facebooking or whatever still stands as does the security cameras thing and the fact that Massacre was TRYING TO GET PUBLICITY. Again with Carlie why is she not warning SOMEBODY at this point. It isn’t like they wouldn’t believe her after Massacre. It isn’t like Spider-Man isn’t acting weird. It isn’t like body swapping is a legit THING in the Marvel universe. For God’s sake this happened to Captain America!

Kaine, the CLONE of Peter Parker with identical memories and everything. In the Sibling Rivaly crossover between Scarlet Spider and Superior Team-Up even HE couldn’t tell that Peter. Was an imposter This guy doesn’t just know Peter well, he IS Peter. And Otto was ranting none too subtley about how Kaine has bad blood with HIM. He doesn’t say he’s Doc Ock but he’s conveying unsubtly to Kaine that he is not Peter Parker and he is not TALKING like Peter Parker either. When his CLONE is still operating under the delusion that he is Peter Parker that’s put it beyond doubt this was ridiculously contrived.

“BTW, Carlie and MJ have talked about the suspicious way Pete has been acting, Carlie just hasnt told MJ directly.”

WHY didn’t Carlie tell MJ! And WHY were she and Peter noticing Peter’s different actions yet being totally blasé about them.

FFS in ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’ MJ and Peter had been married for just 2 weeks and in that time she was able to deduce from his actions that the guy in the Spider-Man suit was NOT Peter. In the Mark of Kaine an identical clone of Peter approaches her and she is ultimately able to tell (twice) that he is not her husband. And she did this whilst pregnant and stressed out from a life or death situation to say nothing of the fact that Aunt May had recently died which would be weighing on her mind. Yet in Superior her mind was clearer and she was still buying this was Peter. This is enormously bad out of character writing for her

“As for the Avengers scans, it wasnt that no one could read them, its that they all came back NORMAL.”

No, the scans DID NOT come back normal at all. Doc Ock looked at the scans and could TELL something was not normal because he saw ghost Peter was in his mind. Yeah there was a tiny inconsistency in the brain waves but why the heck weren’t there people on the Avengers team that day to take note of stuff like that. Cap, Wolverine, Black Widow and Thor are obviously NOT going to be able to properly read this scientific equipment like Iron Man or Hank Pym or the Beast. ANY of those guys would’ve been able to tell but no only the Avengers who categorically would not be able to properly read the brainwaves were there. Why? Why get the unscientific Avengers? Because of plot contrivances is why.

And where were the telepaths? One telepathic scan from SOMEBODY should have told all. And again these tests come back normal....no one thought he could be a clone? Spider-Man has joked to these people about his clones, they know about them. Correct me if I am wrong but at the time of the Avenger’s physical of Peter wasn’t there a character involved with the Avengers who was supposed to be the living universe? SHE couldn’t tell Doc Ock is Spider-Man? The universe literally didn’t know this?

“Even Dr. Strange and Wolverines tests all came back regular.”

If Dr. Strange with all his power wasn’t able to deduce the truth that’s even MORE contrived!

And what the heck were Wolverine’s test? That he smelt the same? Of course he would.

“There was a tiny inconsistency in the brainwaves, it wasnt that no one could read it, its that it was so small that no one would even take notice of it, except for Peter or Ock if they were to look for it.”

See above for why this is bullshit.

“And the Avengers are STILL very suspicious, if you read the current titles.”

At the time a ‘current title’ was  Superior Team Up #1.

In it the Avengers told him they were wrong to put him in probation and are still just ‘suspicious’ when he INVADED SHADOWLAND WITH AN ARMY!. Because THAT’S so usual for Spider-Man right?

“You're entitled to your opinion, but you cant just make up facts and call it a discussion. I get the impression that you a)Havent read the whole series; b) Had already made up your mind before reading the issues you have read; and c) Havent read the companion stories (i.e. Avenging Spider-Man, Superior Team-up, Hickman's Avengers titles). If you look at the story as a whole, its actually quite good.”

Said the guy who got all the above information I outlined WRONG.

From a technical point of view it doesn’t make sense, it uses contrivances and out of character writing to keep it going. You want to write Doc Ock as Spider-Man. Okay then don’t surround him with people who should be able to figure this out. Or say there is some kind of device redirecting their attention.

Don’t have Doc Ock not act like Doc Ock because that defeats the point of the exercise. Don’t go for deliberate sensationalism or crass storytelling which was essentially everything revolving around him hooking up with Mary Jane and then the oh so lovely page of the Superior Spider-Wanker.

That issue in particular even resolved itself in a contrived manner. Doc Ock begins uttering gibberish which recalled One Moment in Time about “we cannot be together because it’s an unsolvable equation blah blah blah”.

Basically he is saying “I can never be with you because of the danger I put you in”; which is Slott using the character as a mouthpiece.

In the next issue Otto began courting a student at his college because consistency rocks. Even Ghost Peter is out of character at this moment “WOW Ock you did the one thing I could never do and walked away from Mary Jane”. Peter is right he probably can’t walk away from Mary Jane but...does he WANT to? Where the heck is this coming from? What is worse is that it’s so unnecessary. There was a MUCH better explanation for Ock breaking up with MJ. If Ock were in character he could just come to the conclusion that sleeping with MJ under these circumstances would be wrong and beneath him hence he wouldn’t go through with it. If Ock was out of character as he was in their issue but still vaguely in character he could just come to the conclusions that since accessing Peter’s memories he’s begun to have genuine feelings for MJ and doesn’t just want to fuck her, it would involve him having a relationship with here which at this point in time he is incapable of, he doesn’t know how to handle it. I will wholeheartedly admit I was not jazzed about the concept of Superior from the outset. If nothing else I want to read about Peter Parker not Doc Ock and if I did want to read about Doc Ock AS Doc Ock, not as Spider-Man and not as an rotting body.

An arc in a comic is one thing doing this long term all the problems I foresaw have come up as well as some I didn’t even predict. This could have worked if Doc Ock was separated from Peter’s supporting cast who should be able to tell something is amiss but then that defeats a lot of the point of the story. It was a lose-lose situation.

People can enjoy garbage if you want but don’t call it gold.

Part 1