#I will be drawing scales for the rest of my life

[skade32]

Inspired by ABBA’s “Slipping through my fingers” lyrics:

I read a fic on AO3 with these lyrics and I WISH I REMEMBERED THE NAME SO I COULD RECOMEND IT

I was inspired to like encapsulate some ‘childhood memories’ of the Fushiguro siblings that I like to imagine Gojo has reminders of in the form of drawings and objects and letters and photos in his office.

In my found family fantasies, Gojo would relate to these lyrics regarding Tsumiki (don’t come after me I know this is mostly copium idc) and her sudden disappearance from his life. Also a little bit for Megumi who is not so suddenly, but nonetheless moving farther away from him as he both becomes an adult and no longer needs Gojo as much as he once did.

This was not really planned to be a whole thing. I initially just drew the bottom panel for fun bc I’m extremely not normal about teenage-single-parent-gojo (again I’m aware of the copium please don’t burn me at the stake) and idk I just couldn’t tear myself away from working on it and the next thing I knew it built itself up to the whole page and I hope other people can enjoy it as much as I have.

Description:

A graph paper notebook page covered entirely with a graphite sketch of a quickly thrown together comic scene. Two panels are featured atop the background which appears to be a cluttered desk in the foreground with numerous kinds of papers strewn about from mission reports to a letter addressed to Tsumiki. Amongst the papers in the top right corner, just adjacent to the first featured panel, a traditional jar of ink supports a dark pen, gently resting at an angle against the ink well. The pen seems to have been carelessly put aside as ink still drips down into the well below. The small portion of the scene not taken up by the desk has the walls, covered entirely by nondescript talismans, loosely sketched so not to drive too much attention from the subjects of the piece.

Wax drips from long-neglected candles, leaving almost no remnants of the once smooth and unblemished form it must have held just hours earlier that day. The residues of the wax leave bulbous trails, stopping just before the edge of the candle-holder sitting just to the left of the first feature panel.

Within the first panel is a scene of a little girl, squatting down so her shorts sit just above the heels of her little rubber rain boots. She seems distracted, lost in thought, as the rain pelts her and the sidewalk beside her becomes more reminiscent of a canal rather than a pedestrian pathway. The overgrown garden of the small cottage she loiters by fades into the misty sky, dark leafy bushels obscured by the soft glow of a lamplight to her left shoulder which complains achingly to the deafened thoughts of Tsumiki’s mind, still lost pondering the butterfly that rests gently upon her outstretched fingers, lovingly sheltered from the oppression of each raindrop which could rip its fragile scales in an instant. Such danger seems to not affect Tsumiki as she endures the assault from the heavens to endure the butterfly gets not a drop on his fragile wings. Her left hand holds the umbrella at such an angle that tree butterfly’s safety is assured, her own soggy hair a small price to pay for preserving such a beautiful creature.

Connecting the edge of this panel’s bottom edge to the background, a small square with a slanted cursive script writes “Slipping through my fingers all the time…”

The second panel, shifted slightly to the right of the former, occupying the focus of the bottom half of the page, displays a simpler image. The bright smile of a certain white haired idiot grows brighter as black spikes hair brushes against his chin. His dimple’s grow deeper when he notices the camera flashing at him and his disgruntled child relenting finally to sleep against his collarbone— leaving no doubt to any onlooker that the smile reached his eyes, true glee racking the young man’s expression as he jokingly flaps a limp hand about in a greeting gesture towards the camera. Whether or not Megumi’s participation in this memory was unwitting or not, that was up for debate. Regardless, the boy was clearly exhausted. Likely from some kind of jujutsu training after a mission that day if his athletic shorts and Gojo’s uniform were any indication.

A text box yet again connects to the bottom left corner of this panel reading: “…I try to capture every minute…”

[eelgraytea]

History will remember them as very close friends…….roommates, even

[puff-the-bunny]

Alright, help me decide. Doing a cosplay and meshing together two different adaptations of a character, so the colors are slightlyyy different between versions. No context for the rest of the design HADFYHADF VOTE WITH YOUR HEART !!

[roosterforme]

Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw Part 7 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: One phone call was never going to be enough for Bradley. Another opportunity falls into his lap, and he emails you right away to see if you can make a little time for him. When he shares a bit more with you than he bargained for, he's pleasantly surprised once again by how open and authentic you are.

Warnings: Fluff, language, Bradley being vulnerable

Length: 4300 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female teacher!Reader

Check out my masterlist for more! Yours Truly, Bradley Bradshaw masterlist

Bradley was never usually one to get lost in a daydream. He was exceptionally good at focusing on flying when he was in the air. If he had a task to complete on the ground, he always got it done. But when he spent the rest of his day after talking on the phone with you in his bunk, he wasn't focused on much except the sound of your voice. Then he dug out the pictures you'd mailed to him so he could see your face as well. The combination of everything about you was almost too much, and he didn't know how he'd manage in person.

He still had weeks of his deployment left, and he'd never wanted to get home so badly in his life. That first date was already set. He was annoyed he couldn't give you a firm idea on when it could happen, but you didn't seem to mind too much. In fact, you told him you'd be ready whenever he got back. And that you'd take him any way you could get him. Well, as long as you still wanted him next month, you could have him.

With a smile on his face, Bradley reached for the stack of letters from your class and took the time to judge the drawing contest. All he really did was award each kid their own unique superlative. The purple jet that he thought was Violet's won the 'I Wish the Navy Liked Colors' award. Jayden's drawing of the jet with the dog named Vanessa for a pilot won the 'She Probably Flies Better Than I Do' award. And the one that looked like a dragon won the 'Fanciest Scales' award.

He wrote on the back of each picture, chuckling the whole time. Then he got to the one you drew, and he noticed something he'd missed when he first opened the newest box from your class. Next to his name written on the side of the F/A-18, you'd drawn a little heart. He was all smiles as he flipped it over and started writing.

Hey, Gorgeous,

This one's my favorite, but don't tell the kiddos, okay? The little heart really sold it for me. I can't wait to see you.

Bradley

After he packaged everything up and dropped it off to be sent back to the states, he made his way to dinner. He ate his meatloaf alone once again, but he hadn't felt lonely in months. The adrenaline rush of the phone call was finally starting to wear off, but he felt warm all over. You'd be asleep now back in California, but maybe there was a chance you had in fact emailed him that selfie before you went to bed. And that is what once again lured him back to the lounge. You had a vise-like grip on every part of him, and he was itching to know exactly what you looked like tonight while he was talking to you.

Unsurprisingly, he had to wait a bit until there was a computer free that he could use. Sundays always seemed to be when the lounge was swamped, but he didn't mind. He just sat back and thought about the way you said his name. He could imagine you whispering it. He could even imagine you screaming it.

"Shit," he grunted, hopping up when it was finally his turn, and he logged into his email account to find that you wrote to him approximately fifteen minutes after the phone call ended. And when he opened your message, he leaned in a little closer to make sure nobody else around him could catch even a glimpse of the photos you attached.

His heart started beating in that same erratic way it had when he listened to you telling him you thought about kissing his scars. Not only had you emailed him a sweet looking selfie of you in bed wearing an oversized sweatshirt, you sent a second, decidedly spicier one, too. 

Bradley ran his hand over his mouth and mustache, trying not to groan as he quickly memorized every detail of that second photo. You'd removed that oversized sweatshirt and snuggled down under the soft looking sheet, and there was not a scrap of shirt fabric covering your arms or chest. Inch after glorious inch of the soft swell of your breasts was visible before the sheet forced him to imagine what the rest would look like. And he had a very vivid imagination.

When his hand dropped down to his side, he realized he was staring open mouthed at the photo. The little smirk you wore in it let him know you were absolutely intentional about this, and that was such a huge turn on for him. This is how you wanted him to see you. Fuck. He scrolled back up to the first photo where you were wearing your sweatshirt and a much more innocent smile, and he whispered, "Okay, Gorgeous. You've ruined me."

He realized as he scrolled all the way back up to your actual message that there were probably a lot of guys who got sent straight up pornography from their wives or girlfriends when they were deployed, but this had to be the hottest looking thing that ever graced his inbox. And you were still completely covered up. He shook his head to clear his mind as he started reading.

Bradley,

Thank you for the phone call. I'm sitting here kind of regrouping while the butterflies are still going crazy in my belly. I can't pinpoint exactly what it is with you that sets them off, but hearing your voice for twenty minutes straight has turned me into a boneless heap on my bed. I'm almost afraid of what might happen to me if you touch me.

It's gone. I deleted my profile and the entire dating app. I'm no longer looking for single guys with jobs who are between 30 and 40 years old. I'm just looking for a 36-year old Naval aviator who wants to take me to the beach in Coronado to watch the sunset with Thai food and Prosecco.

I hope you come home soon. Do you have any idea how much longer you'll be gone? Why isn't the Navy taking into consideration the fact that you and I have a date to go on? I'd just really like to see your face in person as soon as possible.

I'm attaching two photos, probably against my better judgement. Maybe it's just my excuse to get you to call me Gorgeous again. I can't wait to see you.

Your favorite pen pal

He wanted to wait until he had some gym selfies to send, but he couldn't leave you hanging. Not when those two, flawless photos caught his eye again. So he started typing up a response, and soon he found that he wanted to talk to you on the phone again badly enough that he was going to go back to one of the admirals to see if there was any way he could.

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

You had such a hard time falling asleep on Saturday night after talking to Bradley. It was like your body had accepted the inevitable before your brain had. You were completely enchanted by him, and the call made it so much worse. Hearing him call you Gorgeous through your phone speaker was almost more than you could handle. You were turned on and too warm, even without your sweatshirt. You couldn't believe you sent him that photo. You couldn't believe you trusted him enough to keep it private.

He probably dated women in the past who sent him things that were way more explicit than a selfie where they were covered up, but you were still a teacher who wanted to keep her job. You loved your class, and you knew nobody else could handle your kids as well as you could. But you wanted to give Bradley what you could for now.

It was the description of the perfect date and the promise that he'd kiss you as soon as he saw you that kept playing in your mind. And you let it keep playing on loop, because he lived in Coronado. And that's how you finally dozed off. When you woke up on Sunday morning, you had a brand new email in response to your selfies.

Gorgeous,

I'm thrilled to hear the app is gone. All of the other single guys aged thirty to forty are probably at home crying right now, and I can't blame them. I'll just sit here with a smug look on my face.

That phone call was one of the best of my life. The way you say my name is somehow better than I imagined it would sound, and I'd been spending a lot of my free time thinking about it. Hearing your voice and seeing you in these photos is a privilege. That second one had me staring with my mouth hanging open for a few minutes. I think I just about memorized it, but I'm going to check one more time before I log off. Okay, maybe two more times. As much as I love it, I don't want to feel pressured to send me things like that. But dear god, Gorgeous, I mean it when I say you take that word to a whole new level.

You don't need an excuse to get me to call you Gorgeous. Hopefully by next month, you'll be hearing it so much in person that you'll be sick of it. And it's not a matter of if I touch you, it's a matter of when.

As soon as I have a better idea of when I'll be back in San Diego, that information will be in your inbox immediately.

I can't wait to see you,

Bradley

You couldn't wait that long. You would never make it. Your sheets were brushing your bare skin as you thought about him calling you Gorgeous so many times that you got sick of it, but you knew that would never happen. You were going to need another hobby or maybe five to help you pass the time, but for now, you decided to work on your lesson plans for the coming week.

Your kids would probably be happy to learn that you were planning on extending your aviation lessons to the end of the school year. Or at least until Bradley got back. What you wouldn't give to have him visit your classroom. Just the idea of him standing in front of the board, maybe in his flight suit, left you light headed. You already knew your kids would be absolutely delighted to meet him after writing back and forth so many times.

After you managed to distract yourself for a full day, you were just getting into bed when you heard your phone ping with a notification. "Oh god," you groaned in pleasure. When you opened the new email from Bradley, you were met with the promised gym selfies. One was of his reflection which was taken in a long mirror that seemed to cover most of a wall. You could see some other people working out in the background, but front and center was Bradley curling a massive looking dumbbell in snug shorts and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

You dropped down onto your bed and zoomed in on his biceps. "Dear Lord." Your heart was hammering in your chest now. Did he not know what he looked like? Did he not know that his body was absolutely flawless? The second photo was even better. The half-smirk, half-smile and the peek of pretty, white teeth. The slightly messy hair. The chocolatey brown eyes. The scars with the beads of sweat running down them. "Unbelievable."

And then you read the short message.

Two gym selfies, as promised. You asked for a nice closeup of my face, and that's as good as it gets. Talk soon, Gorgeous.

You were still looking at the photos when you fell asleep.

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

Bradley shouldn't have been surprised that another mission was in the works. He'd been so caught up in you, he almost expected smooth sailing and a direct path back to San Diego so he could get on with his personal life. But no such luck. After several days holed up in planning sessions, the only real happiness he found was in each new email from you.

There was another class photo in one. There was a selfie of you at a Thai restaurant in another. And there were always a lot of fun details about your day, too. But it was the bits where you let him know you were thinking about him that made him a little weaker for you with every passing day. His favorite was when you told him you donated all of your DVDs of movies with spiders in them. He also loved it when you told him that your students wanted to meet him.

If he could just get back, you and he would be watching all the spider-less movies together, and he'd be more than happy to visit your classroom. But, fuck, this deployment was dragging. He was tired, but he wasn't sleeping well. And there seemed to be cabbage rolls every evening in the cafeteria. When he finally made it out on deck a few days before he was supposed to fly the mission, he ended up talking to Marty.

"You need a hand with that?" Bradley asked the mechanic as he worked on taking apart an engine.

"Sure, Lieutenant," Marty replied, handing Bradley some very greasy bolts and a wrench. "Just hang onto those for me."

Two minutes of watching him work, and Bradley wished he'd brought his phone with him to record a video for your class. "The kids would love this," he muttered, and Marty chuckled.

"You still sending stuff to that elementary class back in San Diego? The pen pals?"

"Yeah," Bradley replied. "I think I've kind of adopted them. Or maybe they've adopted me? Either way, I've been writing to them this entire deployment. And... you know how you asked me if I was dating a teacher a few months ago?"

Marty looked at him and laughed. "Let me guess. You fell for their teacher?"

He nodded and sighed when he thought about you. "Yeah... it's just been a lot of emails and letters and one phone call, but now I can't wait to get back home."

"Damn," Marty grunted as he removed another bolt. "Some guys have all the luck." Bradley ended up helping him lift some heavy parts from a crate as Marty told him, "I have a ten minute FaceTime call scheduled for later this week if you want to use it to talk to your new girlfriend again."

Bradley was ready to jump at the chance to see your face and hear your voice at the same time, but instead he said, "I can't take that from you, but thanks, man."

Marty shrugged. "I'll just end up talking to my sister again. You can have it."

Bradley stared at him for a few seconds. "Yeah? You're sure?"

"All yours."

Bradley stayed long enough to get the details and help Marty unload everything else he needed to finish his project, and then he got cleaned up and went to the lounge to email you. If you were able to talk to him over FaceTime, it would be everything he needed to get through this last flight mission and end his deployment on a high note.

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

"Lieutenant Bradshaw said my drawing is the funniest one!"

"Lieutenant Bradshaw likes the rooster beak I put on my jet!"

"Lieutenant Bradshaw said mine is the least realistic in a good way!"

You were trying not to laugh as you looked at each of the little messages Bradley wrote on the backs of the F/A-18 drawings. They were all somehow well thought out and personalized. It was as if he actually knew these kids. But you supposed that in a way, he did. You kept going back to your desk to look at the note on the back of your drawing.

Hey, Gorgeous,

This one's my favorite, but don't tell the kiddos, okay? The little heart really sold it for me. I can't wait to see you.

Bradley

Seeing him was all you could think about now. You were almost completely convinced that your feelings would translate well from virtual to personal interaction. How could they not? He was as sweet and sincere over the phone as he was through his writing.

When you checked your phone after your kids were dismissed for the day, you tapped on a new email from Bradley before you started packing your bag to head home.

Gorgeous, any chance you have ten minutes you're willing to spend on a FaceTime call? Tomorrow night around 8:00 for you?

You squeaked in delight at the mere thought of it. His face and his voice and his words and his attention all at the same time? Ten minutes of it?

Yes! I'll be ready!

Now you had to wait. You also had to get your friends to bump up the Friday night dinner reservation to 5:00. And you needed to make sure you looked nicer than you did when you were usually lounging at home in your oversized sweatshirt. 

So when Friday evening rolled around, and you barely made it home from dinner by 8:00, you were a little frazzled. You wanted to take the time to fix your makeup, and you wanted to change into a cuter shirt that your friends would have definitely called you out on if they saw you wearing it to dinner, but there was no time. Your phone was already ringing at 8:01.

This time, the butterflies erupted as soon as you accepted the call and saw Bradley sitting there in his flight suit with a hesitant smile on his face. He didn't even have to say a word to make you feel like you were going to float up to the ceiling even as you tried to sit down on your bed.

"Bradley," you breathed softly, and his smile grew exponentially. 

"Hey, Gorgeous."

You bit your lip as you took in all the details of his face on your tiny phone screen. His brown eyes were wide as he did the same to you, and you couldn't stop yourself before you said, "Hey, Handsome."

His cheeks immediately flushed with a pink tint, and he looked down at the table in front of him with a bashful smile. You wanted to climb through your phone to get to him, settle yourself down on his lap, and feel how rough his flight suit was against your hands. You wanted to tip his face up so he was looking at you again, and when he did that on his own, you almost screamed in delight at what he said next.

"Damn, Baby. You didn't need to get all dressed up just to talk to me. You look beautiful right now, but I'm also partial to your sweatshirt."

You looked down at yourself and then back at him with a little laugh. He was staring at you in awe as you said, "I always look like this."

"You always look like this? You always look this hot?" he asked, that little grin you liked so much dancing around his lips. "Seriously?"

"Well, I mean, I didn't do anything special. I wanted to, but I ran out of time, and I definitely didn't want to miss your call."

Your heart was thudding as he really scanned your face and let out a low whistle. "I guess I'll find out for myself soon enough. About two more weeks to go, and then I'll be home. I just got that information today."

"Two weeks!" you exclaimed, nearly dropping your phone. Images of beach sunsets and Bradley's big hand holding yours filled your mind. "That's better than I was hoping for!"

You watched him run his hand through his hair, almost like he was nervous now. "Same. So what do you say? Two Saturdays from now, as long as everything goes as planned, you want to go on that first date with me?"

"Yes, Bradley," you replied immediately. "If you want to spend your first day back on dry land with me, then that's absolutely what I want to do."

His voice was deep and raspy as he said, "Then it's a date." But his eyes still seemed uncertain, and you knew instinctively that there was more going on as he asked, "You think... maybe we could talk about date number two for a minute? I was thinking we would go out to a restaurant so I can prove to you that I clean up okay."

You had to press your lips together for a few seconds before you said, "I have no doubt in my mind that you'd look just as good in a tee shirt as you would in a tuxedo."

That made him laugh as he scratched along the stubble on his jaw. "Humor me, Gorgeous? We would end up going out on a second date, right?" he asked, and somehow you could tell that something else was on his mind. "Maybe we would even go on a third?"

"Would?" you asked softly. "Don't you mean will?"

"Shit, I'm sorry," he said, leaning in a little closer. "Yeah. We will."

You and he studied each other as you asked, "Is there something wrong?"

He leaned back in his seat, and your heart started beating a most uncomfortable rhythm. "Damn it," he muttered, closing his eyes briefly as he took a deep breath. "We only have a few minutes on here, and I'm fucking it up because I'm nervous." You noticed he was rubbing his palms along his thighs, and he looked you in the eye as he said, "I really like you. All I can think about is getting home and doing all the things I promised. I don't usually feel like I have anything special to look forward to in San Diego. Or at least I didn't before we started talking." He cleared his throat and added, "I'm flying a final mission here in a few hours. It's a sensitive one, and... I just wanted you to know that I'll be thinking about you until I have to put my head down and get to work."

"Oh," you gasped, suddenly more aware than ever that he had the kind of anxiety inducing, adrenaline spiking job you could only ever dream of. Your fourth grade classroom was tame by comparison. Your students were nothing compared to opposing fighter jets. His career was dangerous.

Tears filled your eyes as he groaned a little bit and whispered, "I'm sorry, Baby. I kind of killed the vibe."

"You didn't," you told him quickly, studying the concern written on his features. Then your voice got even softer as you asked, "How will I know you're okay?"

He cleared his throat and said, "Sometimes they close off communication as we get closer to port. Of course I'll email you if I can, otherwise I'll let you know when I'm back in San Diego." His brown eyes flicked to the side and then back to you. "I'm going to have to go in a minute here."

There were a lot of things you knew would have to be left unsaid for now, so you told him what you could. "I really like you, too," you promised him, and some of the worry melted away from his face. "And I'm thinking dinner at an Italian restaurant for our second date. That way you can get cleaned up nice, and I can wear a dress that I'll be stressing out about all night long. And you can tell me that I look gorgeous while my foot keeps intentionally bumping yours under the table." He was smiling now, so you decided to go for broke. "And you kind of promised me takeout on your couch with a spider-free movie. I was hoping you'd play a song on the piano for me. I was hoping to cover both of us with a blanket and kiss you senseless. How does that sound?" You were gripping your phone a little tighter, hoping you'd be able to hear his response before he said he had to go.

"That sounds perfect, Gorgeous," he said, looking a lot calmer now. "Let's do that."

"Please, be careful."

"I will."

And then he was gone.

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

Bradley needed to make it home, because he decidedly had a lot to do there. Nat was expecting not one, but two dinners out of him now. There were eighteen fourth graders he wanted to meet. And as he ended a FaceTime call with the woman of his dreams while she had tears in her eyes, he knew he wanted to go on those dates more than anything else. If he never got to meet you in person... well he couldn't even think about that right now. He was supposed to report to his jet on the main runway in an hour, but you kept popping up in every corner of his mind. You were more emotionally open with him over a ten minute call than Vanessa ever was.

"Bradshaw!" He turned to see a petty officer coming toward him with a box. "Last mail call."

"Thank you," he replied, already smiling as he recognized your handwriting. His nineteen pen pals were here to keep him company once again, and his heart swelled with something he didn't even want to try to identify at the moment. All he could do was drop the box off in his bunk and tell himself he'd open it when he got back after nightfall.

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

Vulnerable Bradley is nervous just thinking about what might happen. He's starting to feel like Gorgeous could be be the one waiting on the San Diego end of all of his deployments from now on, but he needs to get through the rest of this one first. Maybe they can meet in the next part? Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 8

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[eddiethebrave]

secret admirer part twenty-two

759 words

one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one

Eddie do you ever think about what you’re gonna do after high school? like how am i expected to know what i want to do with my life? i mean, i have another year to think about it but not that much can change in a year you probably wanna do something with music, right? make it big with your band and have people screaming your songs i’d go to every show if i could be your own personal groupie who knows? maybe that’s my calling p.s. have a good time at hellfire tonight i hope you win !!!!! -H

You’d think the win last night would put him in high spirits, and it did. At first. He celebrated with the guys, passed on the get together someone suggested, and drove home feeling proud. It was when he was laying in bed, though, that he started thinking. When he graduates, how often will he be able to ride a high like that? From pure accomplishment?

Steve puts on a brave face for morning practice. He doesn’t wanna drag anyone down with him. He goes through the motions of accepting congratulations and pats on the back from his peers and teachers alike all morning long. 

It only makes him think, though. 

Seriously, what comes after this? More school? Does he accept that internship at his father’s soul sucking company? Does he get a gob and jump right into adulthood?

What it really comes down to is the fact that Steve had never thought he’d have a future. Honestly. He’s getting closer and closer everyday to the next stage in his life, though. The years snuck up on him and now he has to deal with it. 

On a lesser scale, Steve doesn’t like thinking about what life will be like once Eddie graduates this coming May. How is Steve meant to tolerate this hellhole without him? Sure, he’d gone years without really noticing him, but now that he knows what it’s like to have a taste of him in his life, he doesn’t think he could go back. 

The whole thing makes his pulse quicken and sweat begin to bead at his hairline. By the time he makes it to art class, there’s a tension forming at his temples and he’s not looking forward to the headache. He doesn’t think he has it in him to act like everything’s normal. 

For once, Carol doesn’t acknowledge his foul mood. She’s too busy staring at Robin. For the portrait, of course. 

The teacher had informed them today the class is basically a free period and they can choose what to work on or what to not work on. 

Steve sits slumped over the table with his head resting on his folded arms. He kind of wishes Eddie hadn’t put the divider up and also that he had his sunglasses so he could stare at him without feeling weird about it. 

Instead, he rests his eyes and tunes into the sounds of pencil on paper surrounding him. He dozes for a while and has nearly fallen asleep when he’s awoken with a poke to his cheek. 

Steve peels his eyes open, but no one seems to be wanting his attention. There is, however, a piece of paper placed next to his left arm. 

It’s a drawing. 

A stick figure with tall swoopy hair and eerily realistic eyes. 

Steve looks to his left, only to find the culprit still hard at work with his face tucked behind the divider. 

Steve visually fills in the blank and surmises Eddie’s smile probably matches his own. 

Steve doesn’t dare fold the paper. He tucks it into the notebook he has to keep it safe. Throughout the rest of the day, he opens the book just to look at it. When he takes it home, he tapes it to a wall in his bedroom, somewhere he can always see it. 

Eddie did i ever tell you how sweet it is that your club has matching tees? i haven’t seen anyone who doesn’t do sports or the school band have a uniform but it makes sense that other clubs would, too you look good in black, don’t get me wrong, but GOD i thought i was gonna die the first time i saw yours so thanks for that also, while we’re on the subject of how hot you are,  you should wear your hair up more often p.s. sorry about the existential crisis on friday i wasn’t doing too good but i got a pick-me-up eventually <3 -H

twenty-three

tag list (closed)

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[banj0possum]

umm is it possible to get a yandere! male!siren x shy!gn reader?

Fish Bait

Yandere!Siren x GN Reader

CW: Kidnapping, assault, minor stalking, murder, thalassophobia maybe?

🌊 You are quite shy when it came to talking to people. You found the whole 'socializing thing' a bit overwhelming considering how rough and loud the rest of the people in your academy was.

🌊 You much preferred staying by the shore with a nice book or drawing book to enjoy the sound of the waves with. The ocean breeze and wailing of seagulls never failed to relax you.

🌊 One day, you heard the strange sound of splashing by the tide pools along the more rocks area of the shore. You thought it was a fish or some other animal that got stuck in one of the pools after the tide retreated and got up to help it out.

🌊 But what you saw was no animal, well, half animal. In one of the pools was a man with the lower half of a fish, his scales glistened wondrously as it splashed in the water.

🌊 The man looked at you with wide eyes and froze. You put your hands up to show you meant no harm.

🌊 "Please! Spare me! I just want to go home!"

🌊 "Calm down! I won't hurt you!"

🌊 He shook with fear as your hands drew closer to him.

🌊 You then pulled him up from the pool and carried him to the sea, he stares at you as you gently lowered him unto the water.

🌊 As soon as his tail was submerged in the sea, he swam out of your grasp and went a distance away from you, part of his head peeking out of the water as his red eyes looked at yours.

🌊 "Well...safe travels.." You mutter, wading back to shore, but the merman peeks his mouth out the water and shouts to you.

🌊 "You're not going to ask anything in return?"

🌊 You look back. "Uhm..no, I'm fine, thanks anyway.."

🌊 "Hmm, you know...you can come with me to my home. I'll grant you the power to breathe under water and you can enjoy the treasures I have there. What do you say? It's the least I can do for what you've done for me!"

🌊 "Nah, I'm good. Be safe though, I heard theres pirates that hunt merfolk nowadays..." You continue your way to shore but the merman swims quickly to your side.

🌊 "Don't you want to be rid of those insolent fools you call schoolmates? I can give you a life people only dream of!"

🌊 "I'm not really..interested..."

🌊 "...You're not?"

🌊 "Yeah..."

🌊 "...Oh..uh..ok...wow-um..well, bye I guess..." The man stutters before sinking his head back into the water.

🌊 You sigh, that was some encounter. You doubt you'd run into something like that again...

🌊 Boy howdy you were wrong.

🌊 You'd spot the strange boy again and again, always hiding back behind the rock or piece of driftwood he was watching you from.

🌊 Sometimes you'd also find trinkets and beautiful stones laid on the shore. You never took them though; you didn't want to take something someone probably lost. The merman would grumble to himself every time you ignored his baits.

🌊 You'd also see him again trapped in the pools, feigning sorrow that poor little him got stuck again during another low tide. What ever shall he do?

🌊 Your days would go on like this, the merman desperately trying to lure you into the sea but to no avail due to your shy and polite nature.

🌊 Him basically stalking you turned to him directly talking to you and trying to get you to go with him in the water.

🌊 "Oh dear, I've been stuck at this reef for ages! I just can't get out! Could you help me please? I promise not to drown you!"

🌊 "No thanks, I'm on the last chapter of my book..."

🌊 "My, my, it's so lonely in the ocean, not a playmate in sight, come down with me so we can really get to know each other yeah?"

🌊 "I don't really wanna get my clothes wet..."

🌊 What you thought was a potentially dangerous creature of the sea became a whiny, attention-seeking drama queen.

🌊 Eventually, you'd learn his name is Caspian. He gave up a bit on trying to lure you and settled on making small talk with you.

🌊 Most of your conversations would revolve around your cultures, how you two lived compared to eachother.

🌊 "So those silver things with teeth aren't combs? Interesting...tell me more!"

🌊 He more or less looked up to you because of the knowledge you'd tell him, even though it was all basic things ever human knows, but he wasn't a human so, I guess it's alright.

🌊 He'd try to crawl onto shore to see what you were reading or drawing. You'd have to scoot away from him because he was dripping wet, and you didn't want your paper to get soiled.

🌊 Please read to him! He loves it when you read out loud the books you bring!

🌊 Life seemed pretty content with you having a friend to talk to, one who's not judgmental of your quiet personality.

🌊 That was until one day, you heard laughing and shouting from your usual spot.

🌊 You saw your classmates, waist deep in the water trying to drag Caspian to the shore, the merman snarling and biting the air around him angrily as the bullies degrade and laugh at his attempts to wriggle out of their grasp.

🌊 "Look at this, boys! With this ugly thing we can buy the whole pub if we wanted to!"

🌊 "H-hey! Leave him alone!" You shouted, dropping your things as you ran to help your friend, but one of them punched you with in the face and grabbed you, about to hit you again.

🌊 "What? You're gonna let this siren kill everyone that comes to this beach? God you're dumb! No wonder why you have no friends!"

🌊 He was about to give another blow when you both heard a shrill cry from the ocean.

🌊 The water pooled with crimson as only the splashing of limbs can be seen form the shore, cries and gurgles are heard from the writhing gore. Your classmate rushes into the water to save his friends before the violent splashing stops and the red patch of bloody water extends towards him and around him until you see him get yanked below into the water, a splash of a fish tail verified in your mind that it was Caspian.

🌊 You could feel your heart pounding as you see the siren lift its head from the water, his blood red eyes staring at you again with razor sharp teeth bared.

🌊 "P-please...don't hurt me..I didn't lead them to you I swear!" You cried as he crawled to your shivering form.

🌊 You held your breath as he pulled you in a wet hug, your clothes getting stained by the salty, bloody water.

🌊 "Oh my darling~ I know you would never hurt me~ But we're not safe here anymore..I fear I'll have to take you somewhere safer...somewhere away from those disgusting creatures."

🌊 You couldn't even react before you were pulled into the water forcefully, you kicked and swam all you could to get him to let go of you, but soon enough, your whole body was under the water. The only thing that was left of you were your things by the sand, and bubbles that rose to the surface before stopping.

🌊 "You'll be safe here my love, my most wonderful treasure~"

this one was by far one of my favorite bois ive written, he's so mhmhmghghghmmmhmhmmhhh

[flawseer]

3000 AS character drawings

(Clearsight, Listener, Thoughtful)

I suppose this might be a new collage? Probably not a complete one, but I would like to draw some of the characters from this time period that I liked or found otherwise notable.

I wanted to include Clearsight's parents in this post, but the prospect of drawing five full-body pictures of dragons in one post filled me with some kind of emotion, so if I do that, it'll likely happen later.

Clearsight

The mother of pantaloons herself. She is described as slender, beautiful, and as having purple eyes. The graphic novels so far have one depiction of a Nightwing using future-sight and it shows her eyes glowing an eerie white while she does it. Clearsight's method of using her clairvoyance is very unorthodox, but I like to imagine she still gets this effect when she looks ahead at future events. Only in her case it looks less ominous and much more casual. I picture her sitting at the dinner table with her eyes lighting up every few minutes, until her mother finally goes "now dear, we've agreed; no future-vision during meal time." So she sighs and silently continues eating her beet salad.

Also, obligatory mention that the silver scale in the center of her forehead is, once again, a reference to my partner @flamebringer0 's theory about Nightwing powers and indicates the presence of prophetic powers, like eye scales would mark a mind reader.

Listener

Clearsight's bestie is described as large, long-necked, and curvy, and seems like a good extroverted foil to someone who spends most of her time cooped up inside her own head. She comes across as a bit of a romance-obsessed airhead, but some of the things she tells Clearsight are actually pretty reasonable, and I like to think Clearsight becomes more appreciative of Listener's ideas and influence once she departs the continent and they are separated.

Apparently she later writes a scroll about Clearsight being the most brilliant prophet who ever lived. I would like to know how that affected her life, considering the Nightwing tribe probably remembers Clearsight as "that lady who was fawning over the crazed warlock we all ran away from". Did Listener catch push-back for publishing a laudatory script about someone like that?

Thoughtful

Here is glass boy. The book describes him as handsome with circular glasses. I accidentally drew him a bit more chubby than I intended, but honestly, I think it suits him. He looks very pleasant and friendly, which seems to be in line with his general character. I am actually very happy with how this drawing turned out.

Also, he is not bipedal in this picture. He is resting his weight on his two hind legs and tail. I think of this as "tripod stance"; it's a body posture a dragon can assume to free up their front legs to do precision work. It is relatively stable, but grows uncomfortable if you stay that way for too long (tail cramp).

Also, you can't really walk like that. To walk on their hind legs with any kind of proficiency, a dragon has to place both of their wings on the ground to substitute their front limbs.

[novaursa]

Love love LOVE the cycle!! Thank you, both to the anon for the idea, and to you for bringing it to life!

So, what would happen if the reader picked to save Grey Ghost? Or what would happen if Larys (the bastard he is) made the reader choose one, but killed both? What would be the outcome of those different choices 🙈

✨ You are brilliant as always ✨

The Cycle (one for the price of two)

Requests are closed!

- Summary: Cregan leaves with his duty to the Wall and you are left alone with a choice Larys Strong brings.

- Paring: velaryon!reader/Cregan Stark

- Note: This is an alternative scenario of The Cycle. For a full introduction to the story and an entire understanding of this scenario, please read the first part.

- Rating: Explicit 18+

- Next part: justice

- Tag(s): @sachaa-ff @alyssa-dayne @oxymakestheworldgoround @daeryna @melsunshine @21-princess

- A/N: ☺️❤️

The cold night air claws at your skin as Larys Strong’s men drag you into the courtyard of Winterfell. Your breath comes in ragged gasps, your body numb from fear and exhaustion, but your mind is ablaze with the impossibility of the choice laid before you. Eddard, your son, bundled in one of the assassin’s arms, lets out a small, sleepy whimper. The sight of him—so helpless, so unaware of the danger—nearly breaks you.

And there, just beyond, lies Grey Ghost, your dragon, chained and wounded, blood dripping from the deep cuts along his silver scales. He lets out a pained, guttural growl as he senses your presence, but even that fierce sound is muted by his weakness, the loss of strength that has drained him since Rook’s Rest.

Larys stands a few paces away, his thin, cold smile barely concealing his delight in this cruel game. His voice cuts through the wind, smooth and deliberate. “As I said, Lady Stark, a choice must be made. Your son… or your dragon. One will live. One will die.”

Your heart pounds so hard you think it might burst. Every second feels like a lifetime as you glance from Eddard, small and innocent, to Grey Ghost, who has been your faithful companion since you first took to the skies. How can anyone make such a decision? How can you decide who will die and who will live when you love them both with every fiber of your being?

But you know the answer, even as the agony of it burns through you. You look at Eddard, and the choice is made, your love for him overpowering everything else.

“I choose my son,” you whisper, your voice barely audible, trembling with the weight of the decision. “Please… let him live.”

Larys tilts his head, watching you with those calculating eyes, his lips curling into something resembling a smile. For a brief moment, hope flares in your chest, the faintest flicker of belief that he might actually honor your plea.

“Very well,” he says softly, gesturing to his men.

Relief surges through you, tears spilling down your cheeks as you look at Eddard, your precious boy, the reason for every breath you take. But then—your world shatters in an instant.

Larys turns to the man holding your son and gives him a slight nod. Without hesitation, the man draws his knife, a quick flash of silver in the dim light.

“No!” The scream tears from your throat, raw and desperate as you lunge forward, but it’s too late.

The blade slices through the air, slitting Eddard’s throat with a sickening efficiency. His small body goes limp, his eyes wide with shock and confusion, blood spilling down his neck, soaking into the blankets wrapped around him.

Your knees give out beneath you, collapsing onto the cold stone, a wail of anguish ripping from your chest. You crawl forward, hands shaking as you reach for him, his tiny, lifeless form slipping from the assassin’s grip into your arms. His skin is still warm as you cradle him, your tears mixing with the blood, your sobs breaking the silence of the night.

You can barely think, barely breathe. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t supposed to die.

But Larys’s voice cuts through the haze of your grief, sharp and cruel. “You chose poorly, my lady.”

Your head snaps up, disbelief and fury burning in your eyes as you clutch your son’s lifeless body. “You—You said—” Your voice is hoarse, broken.

“I said you had a choice,” Larys says coolly. “I never said I’d honor it.”

A cold wave of realization washes over you, and with it, a burning rage unlike anything you’ve ever felt before. “You lying—” Your voice falters, your throat choking on the words.

Grey Ghost lets out a low, rumbling roar, sensing your pain, his own agony and fury mixing with yours through the bond. You can feel his anger, his desire to fight, to break free of the chains that hold him down.

But Larys is not done. With a swift, uncaring gesture, he signals to the men surrounding your dragon. “Kill it.”

“No!” Your scream rips through the air, but you are powerless to stop them. You hold Eddard’s body tightly to your chest as the blades flash again, this time plunging into Grey Ghost’s flesh.

The dragon roars, thrashing weakly against his bonds, his silver scales slick with blood as the swords tear through muscle and bone. You can feel every cut, every wound, as if it were your own, the bond between you straining under the weight of his suffering.

You try to rise, to stop them, but your legs refuse to work, your body frozen in place by the sheer magnitude of your grief and rage. Grey Ghost’s roars grow weaker, each one more agonized than the last until, finally, there is silence. His massive form slumps to the ground, his once-proud wings limp and lifeless, his brilliant silver eyes dull and glassy.

You are left kneeling in the courtyard, the snow beneath you stained red with the blood of your dragon and your son. Your heart, your soul, feels as though it has been ripped from your chest, leaving only a hollow, broken shell in its place.

Larys watches you for a moment, his expression unreadable, before he turns and walks away, his men following behind him. “I’ll leave you with your… losses,” he says over his shoulder, his voice cold and distant. “Remember this night, Y/N. It’s what comes to those who stand against us.”

You sit there in the cold, your body shaking with sobs, clutching Eddard’s lifeless form to your chest, your gaze fixed on the still form of Grey Ghost. The fire of vengeance is all that remains, flickering in the ruins of your heart.

They will pay. By the gods, they will pay for this.

Winterfell stands quiet, eerily so, as Cregan rides into the courtyard. The wind bites at his skin, but it’s not the cold that chills him to the bone. It’s the silence. The absence of life in a place that should be filled with the sounds of his people, his family.

He had received no word for days, no ravens from the castle. His duties at the Wall had kept him away, but something in his gut had twisted, telling him that something was wrong. Urgently, he returned to Winterfell, only to find a scene that makes his blood run cold.

His horse’s hooves crunch against the frozen ground, but no one comes to meet him. His brow furrows as he dismounts, his hand automatically reaching for the Ice. Men who should be standing guard are missing, and as he steps further into the yard, the sight that greets him stops him in his tracks.

Grey Ghost.

The dragon lies still, a massive, broken form in the snow, chains wound tightly around its body, blood frozen into the earth beneath him. The beast’s wings are torn, its scales dulled, and there’s no mistaking the finality of its lifeless eyes.

Cregan’s heart sinks, a terrible dread twisting in his gut. His wife’s dragon is dead.

His eyes scan the yard frantically now, searching for any sign of you, his thoughts tumbling wildly. If Grey Ghost has fallen, then what of you? What of his son?

The weight of his worst fears presses down on him as he sprints through the castle, his boots echoing off the empty stone halls. His heart pounds louder than the silence that envelops the castle, every step filled with a rising panic.

Finally, he bursts into the Great Hall—and the sight before him stops his heart completely.

You are sitting in the middle of the hall, on the cold stone floor. In your arms is a small, motionless form, wrapped in bloodstained blankets. Your face is pale, hollow, streaked with tears that have long since dried on your skin. Your eyes are wide, empty, staring down at the lifeless body of your son—your sweet, innocent Eddard.

Cregan’s breath catches in his throat. “Y/N…” His voice is barely above a whisper as he rushes toward you, but you don’t move, don’t react. It’s as if you don’t even hear him.

He kneels before you, his hands trembling as he reaches out to touch you, to make sure you’re real. The sight of Eddard—his son—cold and still in your arms, is a punch to his gut, a blow so devastating he feels like the air has been ripped from his lungs.

“No…” His voice cracks, thick with grief as his hands hover over Eddard’s tiny, lifeless body. “Gods, no…”

You blink slowly, as if waking from a nightmare, your gaze lifting to meet his. Your eyes, once so full of fire and life, are dull now, clouded by a sorrow so deep it seems to have swallowed you whole.

“They made me choose,” you say softly, your voice barely audible, as if the weight of what you’ve endured has crushed it. “Larys Strong… he made me choose… between Eddard and Grey Ghost.”

Cregan’s chest tightens painfully. His throat burns, and his hands shake as he reaches for you, pulling you into his arms as gently as he can. “Y/N… my love… I’m so sorry…”

You shudder in his embrace, your tears wetting his cloak as you clutch Eddard closer to your chest. “I chose him,” you choke out. “I chose Eddard… but they killed him anyway. They killed him, Cregan. They killed our son.”

His heart shatters into pieces, the grief hitting him like a wave of ice-cold water. He pulls you tighter against him, his own tears threatening to fall as he holds you and the body of his son, helpless to stop the overwhelming flood of sorrow.

“They killed Grey Ghost too,” you whisper, your voice fragile, broken. “I heard him scream… I felt him die…”

Cregan doesn’t know how to respond, his mind struggling to comprehend the cruelty of it all. The Greens had come for your blood, for vengeance, and they had taken everything. His son, your dragon—both gone. And now, you are a hollow shell of the woman you once were, shattered by a grief so terrible it may never fully heal.

“I will kill them for this,” Cregan vows, his voice low and trembling with barely contained fury. “I will hunt down every one of them, and I will make them pay for what they’ve done. I swear it.”

You don’t respond, just collapse against him, too broken to fight, too numb to even cry anymore. All you can do is hold Eddard’s tiny, lifeless form close, as if somehow you can protect him from any more harm.

“I’m sorry, Y/N,” Cregan whispers into your hair, his own tears falling freely now as he presses a kiss to the top of your head. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The two of you sit there, in the cold emptiness of the Great Hall, cradling the weight of your loss. The world outside is quiet, the snow falling softly, as if the gods themselves mourn what has been taken from you.

But within Cregan’s heart, something hardens. A fire ignites. He will not rest until Larys Strong and the Greens feel the pain they have caused him, feel the agony of every drop of blood they have spilled.

One day, they will pay. One day, Hour of the Wolf will come.

[mydarlingclaudia]

fish boy

note : divider is from @/cafekitsune. I also wrote this because I was inspired by this drawing by @sillydicejelly please go look at their art it’s very pretty! this is another summer fic because I’m not ready for summer to be over ugh. I liked writing this a lot but I did feel kinda silly towards the end

wc : 2.8k

tags : @lottiies

desc : he saves you from drowning and you come back each year, falling in love was easy. strangers to friends to lovers, fluff, I think angst (towards the end), not proofread, re2 and re4 Leon, gn!reader, au

It started back in 1997 when you were nineteen. Your family went to the beach for a week in the summer, like you do every year. Your family had a beach house there that they’d had since before you were born, you’d been going there your whole life, you’ve never noticed anything strange. Most days were the same; go into town, window shop and buy as much ice cream you could stomach, go home and swim until you couldn’t feel your arms, roast your skin, play with your cousins, eat, sleep, repeat.

But nothing stays the same forever, sometimes that was a good thing, sometimes that was a bad thing. But this change was just… odd.

One night you were just having a hard time, you and your mom had gotten into a fight earlier in the afternoon and it had just thrown off the rest of your day. You went out that night, maybe around ten after everyone had gone to bed, the wind was harsh, the water was harsher. That didn’t stop you from jumping into the water to try and let the cold water ease your mind.

It didn’t work, though. One big, unexpected wave had toppled you over in the deep water, and before you knew it, you were gulping down salt water, unable to tell up from down.

Miraculously, you didn’t die, even though you should have. You had lost consciousness, though. You didn’t know where you were when you woke up, all you could make out was a small shore, surrounded by cliffs and overgrown weeds, no one else in sight.

Except for a boy.

He was blonde, pretty, pale, too. There was something a bit odd about his face, but you brushed it off as your bleary eyes adjusting. You don’t remember what you said to him, mostly because you didn’t even know what you were saying when you said it, but he had helped you sit up and you rested against his shoulder, one of his hands awkwardly patting your back. It felt comfy, you could ignore the ache in your body and how heavy your lungs felt and just focus on his wet skin pressed against yours.

This must have been what Eric felt like when he was saved by Ariel in The Little Mermaid.

When your eyes finally did adjust, and you got a good look at him, you realized that the oddity of his face was scales that lined his cheekbones back towards his ears, and that his ears weren’t even ears, but webbed ones, like some sort of deep sea creature. You had backed away from him, a confused expression painted on your face while a slightly pained one was etched onto his.

Your eyes hadn’t been able to focus on a single part of him, flicking between his tail, his webbed hands, the gills that lined his throat, his sea-matted hair, the blue tint that surrounded his fingers and gills, everything. You had to be dead, there was no other explanation, but his voice had been so soft when he spoke to you, that you almost wanted to scoot closer again.

“Listen I-I just- you’re- I think I hit my head.” You had sputtered out, one of your hands flying up to feel against your head for any bumps.

“I checked already, you didn’t.” The fish boy had reassured you, pushing himself closer to you.

“I-I didn’t?” Your eyes were glued to him the whole time he had moved himself closer to him, you didn’t back away this time.

“You didn’t, I promise.” You flinched when he reached up to peel your hand away from your head, making him stop for a second, those pretty blue eyes of his robed over your face for another second before he pulled your hand away.

“So-so what? What happened?” He let go of your wrist, placing both his hands down on the sand, his eyes were yet to leave yours.

“You were gonna drown.”

“A-And you saved me?” He nodded, you let out a shaky breath. “So I’m not imagining this?” He shook his head this time. “Jesus, where are we?”

“By the lighthouse,”

“The lighthouse?! That’s like, what, four miles away? Goddamn.” You groaned, that explained why no one was around.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I-I guess.” You watched as his eyes trailed down to your bare legs.

“… I’ve never met a human before.” He mumbled.

“I’ve never met a mermaid- merman- uhm, fish boy, I dunno.” He looked you dead in the eye again for a few seconds, then let out a giggle and shook his head, you had smiled at him.

You had to admit that this strange creature was kinda cute, you didn’t doubt that he could probably overpower you, but he had been gentle with you so far. He stopped laughing as you stood up, watching the way the muscles in your legs flexed.

“Shit, my families gonna be wondering where I am.” You had told him, putting your hands behind your head and pacing around in a small circle.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to take you back.” You stopped your pacing, looking back down at him and the dumb smile he had on his face.

“You are?”

“I mean… yeah? Why would I save you just to leave you stranded?” He chuckled, you huffed.

“Well, thank you.”

He was a strong swimmer, that shouldn’t have surprised you, he had helped you swim along when you got too tired to do it. You had told him to just leave you at a spot along the beach that was secluded because it’s right where ships would dock and that you’d just walk the rest of the way back home. Before you had left, he had eagerly told you his name, you told him yours. The two of you had lingered for a few seconds longer than necessary, him in the water, you on land.

You felt like thanking Leon again wouldn’t be a good enough way to show your gratitude for saving you, you didn’t really know how to properly thank him yet, but you had suggested meeting in the same place the next day shortly after sunrise. Leon bit, eagerly.

You were surprised when Leon showed up the next day. And the day after that, the next day, too, and every day after. He’d bring you shells and sand dollars, you’d bring him human treasures (coins, candy, ice cream, anything).

Leon would let you look at him, because the more you looked, the more intrigued you became with him, and he liked that feeling. You found more blue scales littered across his arms, he let you touch them. You liked his tail a lot, all the pretty blue and tan scales that shimmered in the sunlight paired with strong fins that were rough to the touch.

You could spend hours talking to Leon, and you did, your family would ask you where you were running off to, you’d just say it was a boy in town, it wasn’t really a lie. He’d ask you about all the places you’ve been to on land, you’d ask him about the ocean.

Leaving was hard. You had promised him you’d come visit again, maybe even on your own a few times a year. But you had promised Leon that you would be back the same time next year. You’d never forget how he frowned and nodded his head, asking you for another keepsake. You gave him a bracelet you bought in town.

—

You had the whole year to look forward to seeing Leon again. When you arrived on the beach in 1998, you were almost certain he wouldn’t show. As far as you knew, mermaids didn’t have calendars, how would he know when a year passed? On the drive up you contemplated how long a year was to them, you almost gave yourself a nosebleed thinking about it. You would just have to ask Leon.

But Leon had shown, and he showed up with a grin on his face and the best shells he had gathered over the past year.

“What do you call those?” Leon had asked you, pointing a blue finger at the overgrown wildflowers sprouting out of the hill above you and him. You looked over your shoulder, sparing a glance to the purples and yellows of the flowers that gently swayed in the wind.

“Those? Those are flowers.” You said to him, taking another cookie from the ones you had baked and brought to him, still looking at the wildflowers. You quickly learned that if given the chance, Leon would eat just about anything, especially sweets.

“They’re pretty.”

“There are prettier ones.”

“There are?” You finally look back to him, he’s only a handful of feet away from you, the cookies and other treats you brought rested on top of a stool between the two of you. Leon was laying on his stomach, forearms keeping him propped up as his eyes locked onto you, gentle waves rolling over his tail and reaching your feet, the two of you hidden away at the part of the docks no one ventured to.

“Sure, sunflowers, snapdragons, lilacs, chrysanthemums, tulips… I could go on forever.”

“… Would you bring me some?”

“Of course.”

And you did, you brought Leon as many flowers as you could carry, he was worth a pretty penny for all of these flowers. You were no expert on plants, but the night before you brought him the flowers, you took out a book at the library on them, just to know each one’s meaning so that if he asked, you’d be prepared.

Leon asked about anything he could think of, he always did. You were the same, in a way. You’d never been all that curious about the ocean until Leon came into your life.

You watched Leon with a softness in your eyes you don’t think you’ve ever even looked at a boy with when he’d twirl the flower stem between his fingers and study each individual petal, you wanted him to look at you like that.

“I wish I could take these back with me.” Leon had mumbled to you, eyes still glued to a tulip.

“Maybe you can, I don’t know how well they’ll hold up in the water, though.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” His eyes shifted from the flower in his hand up to your face, his smile dropping a tiny bit. “These are beautiful, I don’t want to just remember them.”

You didn’t know what to say. You wanted to tell him that you couldn’t keep everything you wanted, but you knew that you were keeping Leon as close as you could and that telling him that would be hypocritical.

“I’ll buy you as many flowers as you want.” You told him before you could even finish the thought, but you meant each word. Seeing his face light back up made your heart skip a few beats in your chest.

“You will?”

“If it’ll make you happy.”

“Yeah, it would.” Leon had smiled at you, you got out of your beach chair and scooted next to him in the sand, reaching a hand out to run over his wet back before you wrapped your arms around his shoulders in a hug. Leon had gone stiff for a few seconds, your grip loosened on him, he took that opportunity to move and wrap his arms around your waist. He didn’t let you go for a long time.

—

Years came and went, your visits with Leon stayed the same. You spent most of your summer at the beach now, talking with Leon, swimming with him, eating with him, any excuse you could find to be with him, you were there.

August of 2004 is nearing its end, it’s late right now, you don’t know whether it’s before or after midnight. You’re soaked through to the bone, salt water clings to your cold skin as you lay on a beach towel. Leon is next to you, he’s never not near you when you’re at the beach.

Leon gets more and more handsome each time you see him. You’re not sure what’s going on under the surface of the water, but something has hardened him. His eyes are a bit colder, he’s gotten a bit stronger, he’s more serious about things.

You don’t think you ever really knew Leon, you liked to think you did, but he’d never be able to come into your world and you’d never be able to go into his without an oxygen tank strapped to your back. You had to settle for this.

Leon’s never mean to you, though. He still asks questions, he still brings you shells, he still loves flowers. He’s gotten more touchy, he likes your legs, you continue to like his tail.

Leon shifts beside you, rolling onto his side to face you, you do the same.

“When are you leaving?” He asks.

“I’m not sure yet.” You couldn’t stay at the beach forever, you tried to work jobs that were more lenient, but you still need to eat and have a roof to sleep under. Your family notices how you keep returning to the beach for longer periods each year, they think you’ve fallen in love. You have.

“Just be sure to say goodbye.” Leon says this each time you have to leave, you always say goodbye, you’d never just leave him without telling him you wouldn’t be back for a while. You don’t say anything as Leon sits up, reaching for a tulip from the bouquet of flowers you brought, you grab one as well.

It’s silent between the two of you, you’re picking off the petals of your flower, reciting “he loves me, he loves me not” in your head repeatedly, you haven’t done this since middle school.

“If I had legs…” Leon starts, you stop what you’re doing, pausing on a he loves me petal. “Would you take me with you?”

“Take you where?”

“Just with you. I just… I just wanna be around you for more than a few weeks.” Leon’s words both warm your heart and make it clench at the same time, you turn your attention back to your flower, picking off more petals.

“Of course I would. I’d take you anywhere you wanted.” Your eyes flick to his face, catching his smile.

“I miss you, y’know.” You stop again, he loves me not.

“I’m right here.”

“I mean when you’re gone.” Leon huffs beside you, letting his hands fall down to his lap, still holding the tulip. “I don’t like when you leave. Every single day for the past six years I’ve swam up to shore waiting for you, even when I knew you weren’t going to be there. You’re the first human I’ve ever met, I’m pretty sure you’re the kindest one out there, too. You can go anywhere you want in the world and I’d never know it. I just want to see you.”

“And I want you to come with me,” You admit with a shaky breath. “Believe me, I think about you everyday, I try and find things that I can bring to you, I try to be here more than I probably should be. If- If we were able to be around each other every waking moment, I’d spend my life with you.”

“… I don’t want to be in the sea anymore.”

“Leon, you have no idea how easy I wish it was for us.” You can feel tears pricking at your eyes, you look away from Leon, the only petal left on your tulip is he loves me.

“Would you ever move here? To the beach?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“Then do it.” Leon meant it as a demand, but he said it so softly it sounded like he was begging. You toss your tulip to the side and look back at him, scooting closer, letting sand stick to your skin as you leave your towel.

Leon is still blonde, he’s still pretty, he’s still pale. His skin is still wet to the touch and you’ve come to love the scales plastered onto his skin, he’s not awkward when he holds you anymore, and there’s a different ache in your lungs when you’re around him that certainly isn’t you being waterlogged.

You bring a hand up to cup his face, his webbed hand closes around your wrist, leaning into your touch.

“I love you,” He murmurs against your palm, pressing a kiss to it.

“I love you, too.” You whisper to him. Leon doesn’t pull away from you, he never does until he absolutely has to. His hand slides up to latch onto yours, he holds it against his chest and leans in until his forehead is resting against yours.

“Please, say it again.”

“I love you.” You’re the one who leans in for the kiss. The summer you first met, you had found yourself laughing at the thought of kissing him because you thought he’d taste like fish. Instead, he tastes like salt water you’ve swallowed more than enough times, you’d drown in it knowing it tastes like him.

[purpurkatart]

Hello! After having some time to get over my loss for the Pokemon TCG Illustration contest, I decided to write up a small blog entry about the process and include some WIP pictures. Feel free to look below if you want to read my ramblings on the process.

Idea Generarion-

So coming into this contest, I knew I wanted to make a mixed media piece. In terms of theming I chose something that not only reflected a “magical moment” for a Pokemon (in this case meeting a legendary Pokemon), but also a moment when playing the games myself. In fact this piece was inspired by my awe when I first encountered a box legendary in game, as before I thought my teacher was lying to me when he said you can catch the legendary on the box!

This is the concept sketch that started it all! At the time my main concern was getting ideas down and seeing how they looked. Thinking about things like how would the composition would look, how would the colours look. So on and so forth.

I didn’t want to focus too much on the sketch and wanted to start making the physical object, so out of some cheap paper I started making a set up testing out size, scale, composition. I didn’t want to get too attached to the original sketches only to realise I couldn’t make it in real life… I went though a few drafts trying to get things right, slowly adding in aspects such as background objects and higher quality drawings.

After completing the draft I bought the images back into procreate to experiment with colours. This is the point where I made the mistake of thinking I had plenty of colours to choose from, not realising I would be limited by what I could buy from various yarn shops. That or hope I could find the right colour online, but that was always a gamble. If I don’t stop talking about this now I’ll get sidetracked talking about how much I miss yarn shops…

Anyways, I cut out the individual pieces that I would make within the background and used them as a guide for crochet assets. For this part I wanted to use different stitches to create textures such as the ripple stitch, bobble stich and some cable stitches, I feel bad as I never took any work in progress photo so of them. Let’s pretend you’re looking at a photo of a half finished crochet abstract shape.

Finally onto the main event, the Pikachu (and Suicune). The decision to make Pikachu a plush was based on what I would have liked to make for the 2022 illustration contest (if I wasn’t geographically challenged!!) Despite being British I decided it would be fun to make anyways, so I could experiment. I never got around to that but decided it would be fun to try for this edition.

Making the pattern was HARD! As I wanted Pikachu to have a unique pose, I had to work out different methods to plush i’ve made in the past which have been somewhat relaxed in their posing. I ultimately ended up making each part individually, pinning it together and then making adjustments as needed. It didn’t start out great however I ended up with this weird Pikachu shaped thing that did the job. Throughout this process I would regularly photograph it in the background to try and catch any issues early on. For example if the ground needed to be a different shape.

Photographing the final price was interesting. I felt bad for my partner as I essentially turned my dining table into a mini photography studio! I spent several days waiting for different lighting opportunities and experimenting with different light. Marking down different camera angles to ensure I have all of my bases covered. I easily took over 100 photos to get the perfect shot! In the below photo you can see washi tape being used to rest out different positions for the sculptures.

And that leads me to the peice! Even though i’m sad I didn’t make the top 300, I am pleased with the work I did for this piece (and my flygon entry too!). I’m glad I decided to experiment with ts peice and look forward to refining my methods in the near future!

[flamebringer0]

About Nightwing Powers

Wow it turns out you can attach titles to posts, awesome. I will now make another post.

It always drove me kind of crazy how Nightwing powers are presented in canon. I think it drives a lot of people crazy because I've seen more than one person's headcanon adjustments to them. So here is my contribution to that genre.

Some Nightwings have perceptual abilities that other dragons -- other Nightwings and members of other tribes -- lack. One is the ability to read minds, the other is the ability to see the future.

All Nightwings develop both future sight and mind reading in the egg. The mind of a fetus can't integrate any of this information, and most will lose both abilities long before learning to understand what they mean. The dragonet's third eye closes, so to speak, within hours after hatching, and will stay that way for the rest of their life. For unclear reasons, the loss of these abilities is prevented by exposure to the light of a full moon immediately after hatching.

Nightwings always hatch at night, at least if the eggs are exposed to the sky. Those who hatch under a full moon retain the ability either to read minds or see the future, whereas those who hatch under two or three full moons retain both. The presence of these abilities also causes the development of silver scales on the face. A mind reader has a silver scale at the outer corner of each eye, whereas a prophet has a silver scale in the center of the forehead.

[Image ID: Two simplistic line drawings of a dragon's head. These drawings are identical with each other aside from the placement of specific scales, which are highlighted in white. The left drawing is labeled "mind reading" and shows two crescent-shaped scales at the corners of the dragon's eyes. The right drawing is labeled "prophecy" and shows an eye-shaped scale in the center of the dragon's forehead. /.End ID]

The appearance of the silver scales correlates with the strength of the ability. A larger, rounder scale indicates greater power.

[Image ID: Five simplistic line drawings of a dragon's head. These drawings are identical with each other, and with the drawings in the previous image, except in the placement of specific scales. The first drawing is labeled "Starflight" and has no highlighted scales. The second is labeled "Fatespeaker" and has two crescent shaped scales near the eyes. These scales are very thin, much thinner than those of the drawing that was labeled "mind reading". The third is labeled "Clearsight" and has a single scale in the center of the forehead. This scale is large and perfectly round. The fourth is labeled "Moonwatcher" and has three scales: two at the corners of the eyes, and one in the center of the forehead. These scales are shaped identically to those of the "mind reading" and "prophecy" drawings from the previous image. The last drawing is labeled "Darkstalker" and has three scales: two at the corners of the eyes, and one in the center of the forehead. All of these scales are large and perfectly round. /.End ID]

A dragon hatched under three full moons inevitably has the most powerful prophecy and mind reading. Other than that, it's unclear what exactly makes the abilities of one Nightwing stronger than those of another.

Raw power isn't the whole story, though. Clearsight is the greatest prophet of all time, but she isn't the most powerful prophet of all time (or even the most powerful in her immediate friend group). It just turns out that a dragon who diligently works on her abilities will have a certain advantage over one who believes he is already the most powerful and has an inevitable destiny.

It may not be immediately obvious what it would mean for someone to be "more" or "less" powerful at mind reading or prophecy, but there are two relevant metrics: clarity, and control. I think the names are self-explanatory, but just in case, here's a metaphor. If you imagine Nightwing powers as a flashlight shining into a dark room, clarity is the brightness of the bulb, and control is how easily one can direct the beam. These metrics are not really independent: weakly empowered Nightwings will be weak in both aspects, and strongly empowered Nightwings will be strong in both aspects. For those in the middle, who make up the majority, clarity is more developed than control.

The strongest prophets can direct their vision down many different paths, examining the futures that cascade out of intricate chains of decisions, possibly centuries into the future. The weakest prophets have occasional, muddled impressions that a certain decision in their immediate future might lead to something good or bad. In between are the average prophets, who have clear visions, but little ability to control when they occur or what they are about.

Similarly, the strongest mind readers can root around in another dragon's mind and examine any fact, belief or memory they're interested in, whereas the weakest may have a vague impression of the most immediate, intense feelings of whomever they're around. Average mind readers can clearly read the surface thoughts of other dragons, but can't probe arbitrary mental structures without somehow activating them -- by inducing the target to actively reminisce about a memory or some such thing.

In the old days, back when Nightwings understood where their powers came from, it was quite common for ambitious parents to try to time the conception of their eggs so that they would hatch under the full moon(s). For a single full moon, this is almost pointless: the quickest of the three moons cycles through its phases in just a few weeks, and the variation in the incubation period for a Nightwing egg is great enough that it can't be reliably timed to any specific moon phase. For two and three moon nights, this practice is more meaningful, but only in the very general sense that someone who doesn't conceive an egg roughly a year before the brightest night definitely won't have any thrice-moonborn dragonets, whereas someone who does, might.

Some seers would also offer advice about how to do this. For the most part, this advice was snake oil; only the most powerful seers could decide to have a vision about a particular egg's future. Even among the few who could, it would be extremely difficult to see and articulate all the subtle factors that lead an egg to hatch after a longer or shorter incubation, and most of them would be far outside the ability of the parents to really control anyway.

More unscrupulous parents would occasionally try to break an egg open under the full moons, regardless of whether the dragonet was ready to hatch on their own. This practice has never been successful, as hatching in this way disrupts the delicate developmental process needed for the dragonet to retain their power. It is also quite dangerous, and many of the dragonets who were subject to this simply died.

Foeslayer and Arctic didn't do any of this, incidentally. They just got lucky. Or they got unlucky. Depending on which of them you ask.

Speaking of Foeslayer and Arctic's kids, Whiteout has both Nightwing powers. It's not because she hatched one day after the brightest night, though. Hatching a day after a full moon doesn't grant any power. It's actually a manifestation of synesthesia. Synesthesia causes sensory modalities that are unrelated in most people to correlate in a specific way. Whiteout, like all Nightwings who hatched under no full moons, lost direct access to her abilities shortly after hatching. However, she's still able to use them indirectly via synesthetic influence on her other senses. This is why she describes Clearsight as "azure on the inside": to her, Clearsight's thought patterns are azure in a fairly literal sense.

Another Nightwing whose power manifests in an unusual way is Flame. I mean, Flame isn't actually a Nightwing, but he has a semi-recent Nightwing ancestor. That's why he has a forked tongue, unlike other Skywings, and why he has darker scales than any other Skywing. And he hatched under a full moon, so he can read minds. But since his Nightwing ancestry is slight, his power is extremely weak. It's so weak that he has never become consciously aware of it, and most of the time, it doesn't really affect anything. But if someone thinks really hard about him, he senses it. This is why he's the only dragon Moon has ever met who can tell when someone's looking into his mind. It's a very weak form of the same two-way communication she uses to talk to Darkstalker.

In the year 5000, Nightwings have largely lost access to their powers, since they no longer allow their eggs to hatch under the moonlight. Contrary to what Moon thinks, this isn't because they're afraid of hatching another Darkstalker. After all, if it were specifically desired to avoid hatching eggs under the full moons, we would expect to see some kind of active prohibition, or at least some sort of legend about the terrible consequences of doing so. What actually happened is that the Nightwings' new home prevented them from hatching eggs in moonlight, and after a few generations with no mind readers and no prophets, the dragons started to believe their own abilities were legendary or allegorical.

Despite the Nightwings' present powerlessness, belief in their abilities persists. The Nightwings encourage these rumors, and also train their dragonets to imitate the power they lack. This training mostly consists of cold reading and theatrics, not unlike the techniques human con artists use to simulate psychic powers. However, they also leverage the one sensory ability that Nightwings still have over all* other dragons: an extremely strong sense of smell. Most dragons are aware that Nightwings smell better than members of other tribes, but they don't grasp that they may leak private information through subtle odors that only Nightwings can perceive. By examining the smell of another dragon's body, modern Nightwing "seers" and "mind readers" deduce information in a way that is easily mistaken for magic by the uninitiated.

Darkstalker is highly scandalised by this practice when he wakes up, not least because he has an Icewing-tier nose and can't do it.

Now that Nightwings are living in the rainforest, it's likely that their extrasensory abilities will start to become more common again. Unfortunately, their only connection to the ancient techniques for controlling those abilities turned out to be evil and was sent to gay baby jail. It will likely fall on Moonwatcher to begin the process of re-developing these practices and teaching them to a new generation of Nightwing dragonets.

*Actually, Seawings can smell nearly as well. But only underwater.

[arjudy224]

The Intern: The Laughing Fish

Gotham harbor buzzes with energy this morning. Fishermen compete for the best catch. Dozens of workers prep the yachts for their bosses rich escapades. Even the seagulls are hard at work today, eagerly searching the docks for their next meal. A perfect image of regular people living their lives. Unfortunately if we've been called, then something must be going horribly wrong. Judging from the crowd of distressed fishermen forming towards the end of the boardwalk, my gut feeling was right.

As I draw near the distressed crowd, a familiar voice rises above the rest.

"We are sending our best people to look into this. Keep an eye out for a press conference by the end of today." Detective Gordon addresses the crowd.

The crowd erupts in a chorus of anger.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I'm going to brutalize that clown!"

"God, I hate this city."

Behind the greying Detective stands a very sour looking Dr. Harris. I maneuver my way through the crowd next to him.

"Dr." I greet from behind.

Dr. Harris says nothing while attempting to catch a slippery fish.

"How adept are you at evolutionary biology?" He eventually asks through the sweat beating down his face.

"I dabble..." I respond growing closer to peer over his shoulder.

Dr. Harris grabs a fish with his bare hands. Before I can move the wiggling vertebrate leaps from his hands directly at my face.

"Catch it!" Dr. Harris hisses.

The flying tang leaves a wet trail across my cheek before dropping into my hands. The poor fish fights with everything it has to get away. Against all odds, I manage to wrangle the wiggle worm into a somewhat sturdy position in my palms.

Once the fish slows a bit, I notice something. The fish is smiling. A big yellow toothy smile with a red outline that one could mistake for lips. The external scales have turned a peculiar, yet familiar shade of pearly white. Both the pelvic fin and the pectoral fin have developed into a contrasting shade of dark green.

If I didn't know any better, I would say it looked like-

"Joker..." A voice growls interrupting my thoughts.

Turning to face our new arrival, I almost laugh at what I see. Batman's suit looks a little goofy in the morning light. Maybe even a little warm in the humid air. The cowl has a slight shine to it. Dr. Harris immediately begins explaining our situation to the Caped Crusader.

"This batch came in last night. We don't know how or why. The working hypothesis is that this may be a side effect of the Jokers latest toxin."

"Is it deadly?" Batman questions eyeing the gasping fish in my hands.

"Not to the fish. We should get the test results back by noon if we start soon."

Batman nods.

"Let me know what you find out."

I take pity on the fish and throw it back with the rest. Most of my life I've struggled with asthma: I know the feeling.

"What would he have to gain from this?" I wonder aloud.

Turning to the Dark Knight, I am stunned to realize there is nobody there. Batman disappeared. Doing a 360, I notice a dark figure hiding in the shadows on the nearest boat.

Huh.. Maybe the dark suit doesn't look so dumb in the daylight after all.

Dr. Harris smiles at me for the first time. My heart pounds. This can't be good.

"Didn't you say that you liked smoothies?"

I do like smoothies, but why does this feel like a test? I nod slowly.

"I hope you didn't eat anything too heavy this morning. We'll need to prep quite a bit of samples."

I narrow my eyes. Samples are typically liquid. How would we make fish.... Oh my God... This cannot be happening.

"Don't we need to test the water for excess nutrients? We don't want an algae bloom to form from the toxin."

There's a glint that forms underneath his unnecessarily large glasses.

"All in good time dear. We can worry about that after lunch."

Hoisting the barrel of Joker fish into the bed of his pick up truck, Dr. Harris teases down at me.

"After we prep those samples, how about fish and chips? I'm having a craving."

The Intern: Gotham x reader

Prequel: Death of a family

The Intern: Day one

The Intern: The Laughing Fish

The Intern: Busy Work

The Intern: Outreach Gala

The Intern: Visiting an old friend

The Intern: Chemical Valley

The Intern: Billionaire Boys Club

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Napoleonville [Chapter 6: The House Of Salt And Scales]

Series Summary: The year is 1988. The town is Napoleonville, Louisiana. You are a small business owner in need of some stress relief. Aemond is a stranger with a taste for domination. But as his secrets are revealed, this casual arrangement becomes something more volatile than either of you could have ever imagined.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+ readers only), dom/sub dynamics, smoking, infidelity, Evangelical Christians, kids, parenthood, Willis Warning, (Mis)Adventures With Aegon, Targ family dysfunction, bodily injury, blood, alligators, ANGST!!!

Word Count: 7.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @marvelescvpe @toodlesxcuddles @era127 @at-a-rax-ia @0eessirk8 @arcielee @dd122004dd @humanpurposes @taredhunter @tinykryptonitewerewolf @partnerincrime0 @dr-aegon @persephonerinyes @namelesslosers @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @daenysx @gemini-mama @chattylurker @moonlightfoxx @huramuna @britt-mf @myspotofcraziness @padfooteyes @trifoliumviridi @joliettes @darkenchantress @florent1s @babyblue711 @minttea07 @libroparaiso @bluerskiees @herfantasyworldd @elizarbell @urmomsgirlfriend1 @fudge13 @strangersunghoon

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 🥰🧁

“Did you hear that Willis is single again?”

Ugh. “Yes, Mama. I heard. You told me already.” You linger in the doorway with a white bakery box in your hands: your mother’s favorite, grasshopper pie, straight out of the 1960s. She allegedly ate through two a week when she was pregnant with you. Cadi has already dashed inside and made herself at home; she’s probably jamming the movie she got from Blockbuster—Predator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Amir recommended it—into the VHS player. “You told me, Willis told me, all his deputies told me, Cadi told me, my mailman told me, the checkout ladies at the Piggly Wiggly told me, literally every resident of Napoleonville has informed me in no uncertain terms that Willis is single again. And I could not possibly care less.”

Your mother sighs and presses a hand to her forehead, wounded and incredulous, like she’s just watched a 60 Minutes segments about a tsunami or a genocide. “I just don’t understand it. In my day, people married for life.”

You glance back longingly at your Chevy Celebrity. “Yeah. I know they did.”

“When your father, and God rest his soul, when he was young, he was a hellion,” your mother says, as if you don’t remember it, as if you weren’t there. “He’d get his paycheck every Friday and stay out all night with his buddies, sometimes he didn’t come home the whole weekend. I’d lay into him when he finally showed, I’d say, ‘Rene, how on earth am I supposed to put dinner on the table if I don’t have any fish in the icebox?!’ Once he punched a hole in the kitchen wall and I had to cover it up with a picture of President Eisenhower! And I never even thought about leaving. How could I have done that to you? Forcing you to grow up in a broken home? Mothers and fathers living apart, whoever heard of such a thing? It’s unnatural.”

You’re brainstorming recipes to distract yourself. Caramel pretzel cookies. Banana chiffon pie. Cheese Danish cupcakes with diced cherries and a hint of vanilla. “Everyone draws their own lines, Mama.”

“But it’s not just about you,” she implores, her eyes shimmering with sympathy she never had for other women. You remember what she said on the rare occasions you confided in her about your frustrations with Willis: Of course a man isn’t going to want you bothering him with your feelings when he’s had a hard day at work. Of course a man—after you’ve had his baby, after you almost died to do it—is going to be crossing off days on the calendar until you can have sex again. He keeps a roof over your head and he never hits you, what more could you ask for? “What about Cadi? What if she grows up thinking that her marriage vows don’t mean anything? It’s the foundation of society, marriage. If that goes, everything goes.”

It’s the foundation of a lot of coercion and unfairness and misery, that’s for sure. “I wouldn’t want Cadi to stay in a situation that makes her unhappy. Would you?”

Your mother throws her hands up, like you’ve told her you’re converting to communism and catching the next flight to the USSR. “Life isn’t just about happiness, sweetheart! It’s about commitment, it’s about responsibility! If everyone did what they wanted all the time, no one would stay married!”

“Maybe that speaks to the value of marriage as an institution.”

“And morality is already falling apart in this country,” your mother continues, ignoring you. That’s what she does when she can’t refute facts, logic, evidence. “Young people living together, women having babies with two or three different men, people doing drugs, people on Welfare, people shooting and stabbing each other, sex shops everywhere, naughty magazines at gas stations, men wanting to marry other men—”

“Okay, Mama. I really have to go now.”

“Alright, I’ll shut up. I will, I will, I swear.” She makes peace with a brisk kiss to your cheek like a stamp on an envelope. “Enjoy a nice quiet night to yourself. Do you have any plans?”

Well, Mama, I’m trying to resist the temptation to call my engaged dominant oil tycoon not-boyfriend and tell him to come over for kinky adulterous sex. “Not really. I’ll probably take a bubble bath and then watch something Cadi would think is boring, like 20/20.” You hand over the bakery box, and your mother’s face lights up.

“Grasshopper pie?!”

“Of course.”

“Thank you, sweetheart. You know it’s hard for me to make it myself anymore. This rheumatoid arthritis, it’s got me all twisted up.” She nods down to where her fingers grip the box, knobby and increasingly useless.

“When’s your next appointment?”

“I’ve got one in…oh…about three weeks, I think. I’d have to check my daybook. All the way over in New Orleans with some specialist that Dr. Cormier recommended.”

“Okay. Want me to go with you?”

“Yes, that’d be fine.” It would be more than fine; she wants you to go, though she won’t say it. You aren’t sure if she doesn’t want to impose or doesn’t want to admit how reliant she’s becoming upon you, like growing up in reverse.

“Mawmaw!” Cadi shouts from inside the house. “Hurry up! I want to watch Predator!”

“You quit your hollering, I’ll be right there!” Then your mother looks to you and offers one last piece of very unsolicited advice. “Just be kind to Willis, alright? Give him a chance. I don’t think he’ll ever find a woman he likes as much as you. That’s what everyone says.”

“Mama, he has no idea who I am.” And he’s not interested either.

“Sure he does. You’re the mother of his child, and you always will be. Maybe you’ll find your way back to each other.”

“I’ll think about it.” You definitely won’t. “Goodnight, Mama.”

“So long.” She shuffles into the house, and once she’s shut the door you hear her muffled voice: “Arcadia, come on over here and help me slice up this pie…”

You drive home with the windows down and blasting St. Elmo’s Fire. There’s still an hour or two of sunlight left; the world is painted in gold and blood orange, the soybeans, the sugarcane, the grass growing tall and wild, the Spanish moss swinging from the trees, the earth ripening as its revolution hurtles towards the apex of summer. Cadi is out of school until August. Amir will be announcing his looming departure to San Francisco. Aemond will be getting married.

The adolescent alligator that Aemond is so afraid of is in the far corner of the front yard, basking in the last of the daylight. You walk into your room, flop down on the bed, lie there staring longingly at the pink phone on your nightstand. You reach to pick it up, then stop yourself. Aemond hasn’t fucked you, hasn’t kissed you, has rarely touched you at all since you found out about Christabel. But he stops by your house and invites you to his; he stitches himself into your life like someone somewhere once sutured his face back together.

I can’t. It’s wrong. He’s engaged.

Aemond doesn’t know you’re home alone. It’s Friday, and usually Cadi would be here with you until tomorrow morning.

Maybe it’s not really cheating until he’s married. I mean, if Aemond and Christabel aren’t sleeping together, if they almost never see each other…is it even a real relationship?

Wistful thinking, yes, denial, yes; but with each passing minute your resolve not to pick up the phone weakens.

We don’t have much longer until the wedding. Our time is slipping away.

He’s a robber baron. He’s arrogant, he’s delusional.

And I want him. I still do, and I can’t stop.

The phone rings. You sit up, startled. It’s not Aemond, you tell yourself so you won’t be disappointed when it isn’t him. But it is.

“Hi,” Aemond says; he sounds out of breath. “I’m really sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s okay, Cadi is actually having a sleepover with my mom. They’re watching Predator. My mom has no idea what it’s about, she’ll be clutching that Bible she got signed by Jerry Falwell a little extra hard tonight. What’s up?”

“This is going to sound random, but…you haven’t seen Aegon, have you? He hasn’t shown up at your house, he hasn’t called? You don’t know where he is?”

Aegon? Why would I know anything about what Aegon’s doing right now? “Um, no…?”

A long exhale, a lull that’s full of dread.

“Aemond, what’s going on?”

“He and my father got into it a few hours ago. They were screaming at each other, kicking furniture over, which isn’t all that unusual, honestly. But then Aegon ran away.”

“Wait, like, he’s gone…?”

“He stormed out the back door, went down to the lake, and then headed north into the trees. And I assumed he’d be back by now, but it’s getting dark and he’s not here. He never came home. His Porsche is still sitting in the driveway.” There is a pause. “I think he’s out there.”

“Out where?”

“In the woods,” Aemond says, shellshocked, terrified. “In the bayou.”

Your eyes dart to the window; the golden daylight is dwindling. “Aemond, he can’t be alone in the bayou. It’s dangerous. He could die. There aren’t just alligators, there are wild boars, cottonmouths, copperheads, snapping turtles, brown recluses, fire ants, I don’t think there are any black bears this far south but it’s always possible, he could drown, he could get trapped in quicksand, you cannot let Aegon spend the night out there.”

“I don’t know what to do.” You’re not used to hearing this in Aemond’s voice: the panic, the vulnerability. “No one else seems worried. They said he disappears all the time, and that’s true. They’re convinced he’s found his way to a strip club or a Waffle House or something and will drag himself home eventually. No one will listen to me. My father has forbidden me from getting anyone else involved. He doesn’t want gossip getting around town and overshadowing the new rig project or…you know. The wedding thing. My wedding. And I can go over his head, sure, I can make calls, but when investigators show up here to start searching my father is just going to tell them to leave. How is it even possible to find Aegon? At night in a fucking swamp? Is anyone going to be willing to go out there before morning? Do I need people with bloodhounds or a helicopter?”

No way, you think as soon as the idea hits you. But it’s the right thing to do. It’s the only thing to do. “I can think of someone who knows their way around the bayou.”

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s just after 7 p.m. when Willis arrives to pick you up: grinning smugly, mullet fluffed, Plymouth Gran Fury hauling his brand new 20-foot jon boat. He’s dressed for night fishing in boots, camo-colored waders, and a grey hoodie with SHERIFF printed across the front in black letters. You climb into the passenger seat wearing sneakers, denim shorts, and a blue raincoat over your Pepsi t-shirt. You haven’t been fishing since you were married to Willis, and you’ve never missed it. It’s a grisly business: hooks through lips, hooks through eyeballs, hooks swallowed and tangled up in some doomed creature’s guts.

Aemond is waiting at the mouth of the Targaryens’ driveway, just out of sight of the mansion they call The Last Desire. He gets in the back seat and sits there testily with his arms crossed, lips pressed into a thin line, glaring out the window as an indistinct blur of primeval vegetation passes by outside. He has on his Marlboro jacket, light-wash jeans, and Adidas sneakers. You hope he doesn’t ruin them; although you suppose he can always buy more. He could buy a hundred more, a thousand more, and it wouldn’t make a difference. You can’t fathom what it’s like to live that way. It seems to conflict with all the laws of man and nature.

Aemond speaks grudgingly to Willis, a quick flat statement that invites no conversation. He didn’t call Willis to explain the situation, you did. You’re afraid to leave them alone with each other. You aren’t sure who would be more likely to end up a corpse decomposing in the muddy silt at the bottom of Lake Verret. “Thank you for agreeing to help with this.”

Willis chuckles warmly, either oblivious to Aemond’s prickliness or unbothered by it. “Bien sur! It’s my job, son. We’ll hunt your brother down.” Then he glances over at you, smirking, prying. “So, sugar…how’d you two make each other’s acquaintance?”

“Amir and I baked the cakes for his engagement party.”

“Engagement party, huh?” Willis looks at Aemond in the rearview mirror. “You gettin’ married?”

Aemond is still staring out the window. “Obviously.”

“So you ain’t single?”

“Legally, I am in fact single until the day the marriage license is signed.”

Willis returns his attention to you. “So he ain’t the petit ami you’ve been so secretive about.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Willis. I really can’t be more clear than that.”

“Oh, I know you got one. I know all your looks, sugar. Some days you come ‘round my office lookin’ lovesick, like you’re just a-floatin’ on a cloud. Other days you’re real mean, like you don’t want me takin’ none of your time, like you got somebody more important to spend it on. And then sometimes you just look…” He smiles, mischievous. “Well, how can I put it? Satisfied. The cat who ate the canary. And I recall exactly what that looks like on you. It’s been a while, sure. But I remember.”

From the back seat, Aemond sighs irritably. You say to Willis: “Can we please focus on finding Aegon?”

“Sois calme, sois calme. That’s why I’m here. We’ll be in the water in ten minutes.”

There is no more discussion; the only sound is the radio, Holding Out For A Hero by Bonnie Tyler. Willis turns onto a winding dirt road that leads to a boat launch about a mile from the Targaryens’ property. He spins his Plymouth Gran Fury around and backs it down the concrete ramp towards the rippling, slow-moving currents of Lake Verret. It’s difficult to see from the driver’s seat—most people would have someone get out to guide them—but Willis knows the way by heart. He’s been on boats since before he could walk; Willis’ daddy knew the bayou, and his daddy knew the bayou, and his daddy did too, all the way back to before the Louisiana Purchase. Your family are newer arrivals (relatively speaking), having only been in Napoleonville for about 100 years and keeping mostly to the town. You remember your 11th grade science teacher saying once that alligators have been around since before the dinosaurs went extinct. Maybe that’s what Willis is: a relic of a distant time and species, afflicted with a cunning ruggedness that won’t allow his kind to go extinct.

When the trailer is mostly underwater, Willis gets out of the car to unhook the straps that keep the boat moored to it. You go outside to help and Aemond follows, though he doesn’t know what to do. He’s never handled a boat this size and it shows; perhaps a yacht would be more his speed. He stands aside and watches, frowning, hands buried in the pockets of his Marlboro jacket. His lack of expertise riles him. He’s not used to being the incapable one. He hates not having control.

Willis already has a tow rope tied to a metal handle at the bow of the jon boat; he lifts it out and gives the free end to Aemond. “Hold onto that, will ya? Don’t let her get away.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies ungenerously. Willis returns to his Plymouth Gran Fury to finish backing the trailer into the lake until the boat floats. Standing on the shore together, you and Aemond stare at each other, unable to speak honestly, unable to decide what you’d say even if you could.

The jon boat bobs in the water, and you show Aemond how to pull it away from the trailer using the tow rope. Willis drives the trailer back onto dry land, parks his car in a flat area near the boat launch, and then joins you and Aemond by the water’s edge. He walks to where the boat is floating just to the right side of the concrete ramp and, with some difficulty, clambers inside as the boat rocks under his weight. Then he stands in the middle of it and gestures for you to approach. “Let’s get goin’, sugar.”

You take Willis’ hands when he reaches for you and let him help you into the jon boat. When you stumble over a bench seat, he steadies you with a hand on your waist, familiar but in no way erotic; not for you, at least. Still, from where he is standing on the lakeshore with the tow rope, Aemond glowers venomously.

“Your turn, son,” Willis calls to him, winking. “And I promise not to get too sweet with ya.”

But Aemond doesn’t need any assistance to board the vessel. He has long limbs, good balance, and an ironclad determination not to let Willis see him falter. Aemond sits at the bow of the boat. You claim a spot in the middle. Willis takes a seat at the stern, starts the outboard motor, and guides the boat into the treacherous swampland that lurks like a stalking animal at the edges of Lake Verret.

In the bayou, the water is sluggish, currentless, thick with vivid green salvinia and duckweed. Towering bald cypress trees grow out of the opaque depths and are adorned with greyish, anemic bundles of Spanish moss like spiderwebs. Mangrove trees with their myriad of semi-submerged roots are sanctuaries for catfish, turtles, baby alligators. Larger gators—as big as the female that lives in your yard, and some up to seven or eight feet—prowl with only their nostrils and ancient yellow eyes peeking out from under the water. Great blue herons tiptoe along the shallow shoreline and stab at fish that unknowingly flit between their long skeletal legs. Cicadas shriek in the trees so loudly they almost drown out the hum of the boat’s motor. When the last of the daylight vanishes, Willis tells Aemond to turn on the spotlight mounted to the bow, and the water becomes a soupy, greenish, primordial witch’s brew beneath its glow. Aemond lights a cigarette and puffs on it as he ponders this alien corner of the world that he’s found himself in.

Willis has a number of items stowed on the flat aluminum floor of the boat, you notice now: nets, paddles in case the motor fails, bottles of water, ropes, fishing poles, flashlights, hunting knives, a few sturdy wooden walking sticks. He’s wearing his sheriff’s pistol on a belt fastened over his waders. This makes you uneasy, though you can’t recall ever seeing him use it. It seems wrong to be able to end a life with so little effort.

“Aegon!” Aemond shouts from the bow, using a flashlight to look to the sides of the boat where the spotlight’s luminescence doesn’t shine so brightly. You grab your own flashlight to help him search. “Aegon! Where are you?!”

There’s something burning in your nose and throat as you lean over the side of the boat to peer into the shadowy wilderness. Salt, you realize, but that doesn’t make any sense. Lake Verret is a freshwater lake. You turn towards where Willis is steering the boat with the rumbling gas-powered motor. “Do you smell that?”

“Yup. Sure do.”

“But…how…?”

“One of the rigs mighta hit a salt dome while they were drillin’, I figure,” Willis says. “There’s been talk for years that we got salt domes under the lake. But that don’t stop these oil companies.” He stares meaningfully at Aemond. Aemond glances back, rather abashed. “And ya know what that means. If the water turns brackish, most of the fish’ll die. And who’s got to live with that for generations to come? Not the Targaryens or the Rockefellers, that’s for sure.”

Aemond resumes shouting for his wayward eldest brother. A dark snake, perhaps six feet long, slithers down the length of the boat through the murky water. “Aegon! Aegon!”

“What did he and Viserys argue about?” you ask.

Aemond is cagy. “It’s…kind of personal.”

“Personal like he got a stripper pregnant or personal like he murdered someone in a drunken hit-and-run?”

“Neither. But closer to the first option.” Then he roars into the darkness: “Aegon!”

“Maybe the bon a rien already found his way back home,” Willis says. “Maybe—”

And then there is an echo through the bayou, faint but vaguely human, a ghost, a phantom. “Aegon!” Aemond shouts back. “Where are you?!” Willis cuts the boat engine so you can hear the reply.

Faintly, very faintly, his disembodied voice drifts out of the trees. “Over here! Help me! Quickly! Seriously, really really quickly!!”

“Keep talking!” Aemond yells. Willis is listening intently, trying to pinpoint a direction. His thick, dark eyebrows are knit together in concentration that is rare for him.

Barely audible over the screams of the cicadas: “What the fuck am I supposed to say?! Just get over here and save me!”

“We’re trying to figure out where your voice is coming from, so don’t stop talking!”

“Help me! Come help me!! Right now!! My arms are getting tired!!”

“What? What are you doing with your arms?!”

“I got him,” Willis says. He restarts the motor and steers the boat down a narrow corridor of the swamp. The path is only about ten yards wide and bordered by mangrove trees with nests of exposed, labyrinthian roots. The water is probably relatively shallow: five feet, ten feet, just deep enough for secrets. The breeze is cool and wet, almost chilly. On the shore, you spy a snapping turtle the size of a golden retriever. Its long prehistoric claws are coated with mud and green blades of marsh grass. It ogles you as if to say: What are you doing here? You don’t belong here. This is where the dinosaurs that survived the asteroid live.

“Aegon?” Aemond calls.

“Here! Over here! I can see you, I see the lights! Oh my God, I’m not gonna die! Thank you Jesus!”

Aemond laughs in relief. “I didn’t think you two knew each other.”

“Shut up and save me, you muppet!”

And then you see Aegon—the spotlight hits him, he is illuminated in a stark white glow—and your stomach plummets, your blood goes cold. In an alcove of the bayou, right where the water meets the shore, Aegon is up in a bald cypress tree. He’s about five feet off the ground and standing on top of a branch just thick enough to hold his weight. It’s too narrow to balance comfortably on; he is hugging the trunk to ensure he doesn’t fall, and a fall would be catastrophic. Sprawled on the muck surrounding the base of the tree are a plethora of alligators, all approximately ten feet in length. That’s big enough to be lethal humans. That would be big enough to kill a bear, a horse, a shark. When the spotlight shines on them, the gators begin to squirm and hiss, glaring with soulless reptilian wrath at the boat. Willis shuts off the motor, and the boat bobs placidly.

“Oh, fuck,” Aemond says.

“Yeah, exactly!” Aegon pitches back. He’s wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and tiny turquoise blue shorts. He is barefoot. “So what’s the plan?! By the way, hey, cake lady.”

“Hi, Aegon.”

Aemond says: “How the hell did you get up there?”

“I was pissed off about the dad thing and I was walking for a long time, then I realized I was probably in the wrong neighborhood for someone with two legs and no desire to get eaten. I tried to find my way back but then these pig-looking things started chasing me and I freaked out and climbed up here to hide until they left. But as the sun went down, alligators started showing up. And the more time went by, the more alligators there were. And that’s the whole story, can you get me down now?!”

Aemond asks Willis, petrified: “How do we get him down?”

Willis surveys the scene for a moment, thinking. “Alright. Here’s what I reckon. We can toss him one end of a rope and he can tie it to the branch above him, right at the base where it’s real thick. Then we’ll hold the other end of the rope, and he can kinda shimmy on down it into the boat.”

Aegon says: “But what if right before I get to the boat, when I’m like four feet above the water, an alligator jumps out and bites me?”

“They don’t usually do that,” Willis replies.

“Usually?!”

“Look, we don’t have a lot of options,” Aemond tells his brother. “We can do the rope plan now, or we can leave you here, backtrack all the way to the boat launch, get the car, get some help, and hope they magically have a better solution for you. Or you can wait up there until morning to see if the alligators leave. You pick.”

“Isn’t that the hick sheriff guy? Can’t he shoot them?”

“Gators got brains ‘bout the size of a walnut, son,” Willis says. “And if I don’t hit ‘em where it counts, I’m just gonna make them angrier. That ain’t good for any of us.”

“Okay,” Aegon concedes. “Throw me a rope.”

Willis grabs one from the bottom of the jon boat, hands an end to Aemond, and tosses the other to Aegon. It takes the eldest Targaryen boy four attempts to catch it; the rope keeps falling and smacking the hissing alligators in the face before Willis lugs it back to the boat to try again. Once he finally obtains the rope, Aegon knots it—double, triple, quadruple—around where the branch above him, just barely within reach if he stretches as far as he can, meets the massive trunk of the bald cypress tree. Willis tells Aemond: “Now ya gotta hold the rope real tight. No slack at all, or it’ll dip and he’ll end up in a gator’s lap.”

“Yeah, Aemond!” Aegon says, his voice shaky. “No slack!”

“Got it.” Aemond loops his end of the rope around his waist, makes a knot, and then grips it with both hands and tugs it until it forms a straight diagonal line from the tree to the boat.

“Ya sure you wanna do that?” Willia says softly, nodding to Aemond’s waist. “If somethin’ goes wrong and he ends up in the water, you’ll be goin’ in with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Alrighty.” Willis grabs one of the heavy wooden walking sticks from the aluminum floor of the boat. “If a gator tries to cause a problem, I’ll whack ‘em good. Don’t let ‘em get their jaws ‘round ya, not an arm or a leg or nothin’. If they get ahold of ya, they’ll roll and rip your bones right outta the sockets.”

“Awesome,” Aegon says from the tree. “I’m so glad you told me that. Yeah. Great. Any more super helpful alligator trivia, Sasquatch?”

“Yes sir. If one chomps down on ya, poke it in the eye with your fingers. A whack to the snout or a poke to the eye is the best way outta a gator’s mouth.”

Aegon gulps and clutches the rope, steeling himself.

“What should I do?” you ask Willis. “Should I get a stick too—?”

“Nothin’. You don’t do nothin’. You just sit down right in the middle and keep the boat steady. And if your petit ami starts goin’ overboard, maybe try to snatch him. But don’t ya fall in. Ya don’t want to be in that water. If there are gators above the water, there are gators below too. I guarantee it.”

You sit in the precise middle of the boat, using your weight to reinforce the vessel’s center of gravity as Aemond and Willis stand at opposing ends. Right before Aegon begins his descent, Aemond snags your attention. He makes a motion with one hand, a slicing, a prohibition. Don’t do anything insane, he means. Don’t risk trying to drag me back into the boat if I start going over.

“Whenever ya ready, bon a rien,” Willis says. And no one else but you knows that what he’s calling Aegon is a good-for-nothing.

Aegon begins scurrying down the length of the rope, rapidly closing the distance between himself and the bobbing jon boat. He passes above the hissing gators congregating at the base of the bald cypress tree and then over the water, where there are ripples that multiply out from epicenters and flashes of movement just beneath the surface but no homicidal alligator activity. When Aegon nears the boat, Willis seizes him and helps him into it; and then Aegon ruptures into hysterical giggles.

“I almost died, can you believe that?” he asks Aemond, who is untying the rope from his waist and beaming, the first real smile you’ve seen from him tonight. “Because I ran away from Viserys?! What an idiotic way to go. I’ll never let that bastard convince me to off myself. I gotta outlive him. I gotta do Jello shots on that motherfucker’s grave someday.”

“Yeah, you do,” Aemond agrees, squeezing Aegon’s shoulder.

“Goddammit,” Willis grumbles. He’s using his walking stick to jab at the water near the rear of the boat. “We’re hooked on a mangrove root or something.”

“Do you need help?” Aemond asks, headed towards him.

“Yes sir, if you’d be so kind. I don’t…I can’t see…what the hell is it stuck to?”

“The motor…? The blades of the motor?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, you’re right. Yup. There it is. We musta drifted into it while we were preoccupied. Okay, we gotta push the boat off the root and then we can get movin’ again. Grab a stick, let’s start pushin’.”

“Should I get a stick too?” Aegon says, joining them. “I can hit stuff with sticks. I really want to get out of here…”

There’s a bit of a commotion at the back of the boat as the men try to propel it away from the mangrove tree. Willis is complaining that the water is too deep to touch the bottom with his stick. Aemond’s stick keeps slipping off the mangrove roots when he tries to get leverage. You aren’t sure what Aegon is contributing, if anything. The boat has begun to rock.

You look to the tree where Aegon had been imprisoned. The alligators are fully awake now; they are headed into the water and disappearing there, unseen, unheard, and yet all around you.

“I think we need to go now,” you say, but no one is listening to you. They’re still wrestling with the mangrove root. You rise, taking a few steps to the left to offset the boat’s listing towards the right. “Guys, we need to—”

The boat is freed from its organic jailor and lurches sharply towards the left. As the men cheer triumphantly—completely unaware of what’s happening—you are jolted off your feet and tumble backwards over the side of the boat.

The shock of hitting the water stuns you. It is cold and impossibly dark; when you open your eyes to try to find the surface, the boat, you can’t see anything. You paddle blindly. Something brushes your leg, and you scream bubbles of mute terror. You can’t breathe, you can’t think, you are picturing those ten-foot gators slinking into the water that you’re now thrashing wildly through. You swim towards what you think is the surface and strike unyielding metal—the underbelly of the boat—hard enough to put stars in your skull like the flashes of lightning bugs. You get turned around and don’t know where you are again. Something glides past your arm, and you gasp before remembering that there’s no air. Dark water—salt and silt and decomposition—surges into your lungs, your stomach, sinking you like an anchor from within. There is a whirlpool of motion around you and muffled shouting. Then something closes around your wrist.

The eyes! you think frantically. I have to poke out its eyes!

But the vice around your flesh has no teeth. It’s not a reptilian jaw, you realize now, but a human hand. It leads you and you obey.

When you break the surface, you cough bayou water from your throat and blink it out of your eyes. Willis is leaning over the side of the boat and stabbing at gators with his stick, shrieking at them in French. One lunges at him from the water, jaws snapping. Willis whips the pistol off his belt, aims it squarely between the creature’s eyes, and fires. The boom is deafening; the bleeding gator sinks into the water. Aegon is kneeling in the boat and offering his arms to help you climb up.

You look beside you. Aemond is barely keeping his head above water. “Go!” he orders you. “Get in the boat!”

With Aegon’s help, you heave yourself over the side and collapse to the aluminum floor, lungs aching, skull pounding, heart thudding mercilessly, soaked to the skin. Then you force yourself to your hands and knees to see where Aemond is.

“Aemond?!” Aegon is yelling. “Aemond, where are you?!”

He’s gone; you don’t see him in the water. You try to scream for him too, but the water still in your throat strangles you. Your hands close around the edge of the boat, and Willis grabs your raincoat to yank you backwards. “Other side!” says, pointing. “We’re gonna capsize, we need weight on the other side, go there!”

You scramble to the opposite end of the boat, sobbing now, still hacking up muddy water. Where’s Aemond?? Where is he??

Both Willis and Aegon are grasping for something. They’re shouting and stabbing into the water with their walking sticks. And then they’re hauling him into the boat: Aemond, blood pouring down the left side of his face, a gash by his temple, another on his forehead; something bit him or clawed him. He’s wearing only his jeans and a white tank top; he ripped off his Marlboro jacket before diving in after you. You don’t see his Adidas sneakers anywhere. They must have been kicked off in the water. His glass eye has been knocked out and lost in the muck. What’s left in its place is a void, gaping, pink; it’s difficult to look at, you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t. It has the visceral, gory quality of organs never meant to be seen. His fingertips go to the socket to feel for his prosthetic. When he confirms it isn’t there, he covers his face with his hands and moans.

He saved me. He jumped in after me.

You crawl to him. “Aemond—”

“No!” He pushes you away, and you see that there’s blood and ancient silt from the bayou in his empty eye socket. It will have to be cleaned out. Willis watches, astonished, bewildered. For once, he is at a loss for words.

“Aemond, please…” You’d do anything to help him. You don’t know how to help him.

He saved me.

Aegon reaches for Aemond. “Hey, hey. It’s not that bad. Hey…” He drops to his knees, presses his forehead against Aemond’s, stains himself with his brother’s blood. And when Aemond tries to pull away, Aegon doesn’t let him; he’s got his fingers tangled in Aemond’s wet hair. “Thank you for saving me. I’m always almost getting myself killed and you’re always saving me. What would I do without you, huh? None of us would be okay without you. Thank you, Aemond. You hear me? You’re not gonna get this again anytime soon, so listen up. Thank you. Thank you.”

“I’m just so—”

“I know.”

“I hate that I’m like this.”

“It’s not a big deal. You’ll order a new one.”

“You know what he’s going to say.”

“Fuck him. Why do you care what he thinks? Because you think he’s the one who gets to decide what you’re worth? He isn’t. He’s not qualified.”

Aemond nods, but he doesn’t seem to be convinced. He still doesn’t look at you. He turns so the left side of his face—bloodied, eyeless—is angled towards the water and out of your view. Willis goes to the motor, starts it, and begins guiding the boat back towards the launch where he parked his Plymouth Gran Fury.

Aegon glances over at you. “You okay, cake lady?”

“Yeah.” But your voice shakes. The rest of you is shaking too; now that the adrenaline is wearing off, you can feel that you’re shivering in your wet clothes.

“Put it on,” Aemond says softly, and at first you don’t understand. Then you see that he’s pointing to his Marlboro jacket, left hurriedly flung on the floor of the boat. You unzip your dripping raincoat and don Aemond’s Marlboro jacket instead. It smells like him: smoke, cologne, effort, secrets.

“Thank you,” you tell him, wanting to say more. Aemond doesn’t answer. He stares into the murky water, greenish under the glare of the spotlight, and says nothing to anyone all the way back to the boat launch. Wordlessly, he helps Willis re-hitch the jon boat to the trailer. He remembers the steps. He’s a fast learner. The blood on his face is drying; his right eye won’t allow itself to look at you. The only sound on the drive to the Targaryens’ mansion is the radio of the Plymouth Gran Fury, which Willis turns up to cover the silence: In A Big Country.

At the end of the cobblestone driveway, lights are on in the vast house called The Last Desire. Everyone gets out of the car. Willis shakes a rather puzzled Aegon’s hand, then turns to Aemond, who ignores him. Willis chuckles, more curious than offended.

“So ya are the man who’s been givin’ her that satisfied look. I knew it. Yes, I knew what I saw. What’s your secret, son? Ya must really know your way around a woman if ya got her so mad about ya with a face like that. Ya look like the Rougarou got ahold of ya—”

Aemond grabs Willis by his hoodie, yanks him off his feet, jacks him up against the side of the sheriff’s vehicle. Immediately, you and Aegon are shouting and trying to break them apart.

You plead: “Aemond, don’t!”

“Aemond, he’s got a gun!” Aegon screeches.

Fortunately, Willis isn’t grappling for his pistol. He holds both palms in the air, open and empty, like he’s surrendering; but there’s still a smile on his face. Aemond doesn’t act like he’s heard anyone. He leans in close to Willis, his voice low and dark and snarling, his sole blue eye glinting. “You had so much in your filthy fucking hands and you just threw it away.” Then he slams Willis against the car one more time, tears away from him, and strides up the porch steps and into the house.

Aegon hurries after him, casting you a quick glance and a beckoning wave. It’s an invitation. You coming? Aegon mouths, and then vanishes inside.

Willis peers up at the house: stained glass windows, immense white columns. You don’t see any signs of Vhagar the Great Dane. Willis speaks calmly and without looking at you. “I think he’s in love with you, sugar.”

Improbable. Impossible. If he was, he couldn’t marry someone else. “He’s not.”

Now Willis’ eyes flick to you. “All I’m sayin’ is that I’ve been fishin’ on that lake since as long as I can remember, day, night, sun, storms, and nothin’ on earth would have gotten me to jump into that water. Not even Heather Locklear herself.”

“Just go, Willis,” you say, exhausted, heartsick. “Thank you for what you did tonight. But please go now.”

“How ya gonna get home?”

“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry about me.”

“Of that, I am incapable,” Willis drawls. Then he climbs into his Plymouth Gran Fury and is gone. You sprint up the porch steps in your soggy sneakers, searching for Aemond.

In the white-and-gold foyer, Viserys is just arriving. He struts across the marble floor until he is close enough to his two oldest sons to embrace them, to hit them, to extract their teeth with his knuckles. The others pour through the doorways—Alicent, Criston, Helaena, Daeron, Otto—but while they gape in horror and fascination, they don’t speak in anything more than murmurs amongst themselves. Viserys steals only a glimpse of Aegon, swift and disinterested, then examines Aemond: wet clothes, no shoes, grime and blood, dazed fury. When his cool, pale gaze reaches Aemond’s empty eye socket, Viserys flinches and looks away.

“So you lost another prosthetic,” is all he says. His face twists into a grimace. And you expect Aemond to do something, to jab back, but he doesn’t. He’s frozen, he’s paralyzed. His right eye is misty. He’s biting his lips so they don’t tremble. And suddenly you hate Viserys Targaryen, you hate him more than you can imagine hating anyone. You think that you could watch his entrails unspooled from his body without feeling a thing. The Targaryen family patriarch hasn’t spoken to you; you don’t register to him at all. You might as well be an oriental vase or a house plant.

“You’re the one who did it, Viserys,” Aegon says, stepping in front of Aemond seething and sharp like a blade. “You remember that part? I do. I remember. The North Sea, 1968. I remember him trotting around after you, always so desperate to prove himself, always doing anything you asked, anything you could dream up, worshipping you like you were God. And where were you when he was getting his eye socket debrided at Moorfields Hospital? In fact, where were you when he got his hands caught in a winch when he was eleven? Where were you when he fell off a pipe deck and broke six ribs because one of your idiot employees forgot to close a safety gate and he couldn’t see it? Where were you then? Where are you now?”

Viserys scowls down at him—revolted, repelled—but he doesn’t reply. He feels no instinct to defend himself. He is unable to internalize shame; it rolls off him like raindrops.

“You’d love me so much if I was dead,” Aegon says, grinning, baring his teeth like an animal. “How sick is that? You can love bones in a box, but not someone standing right in front of you. You love Aemma, a ghost. You love Baelon, and you never even knew him. You’ve got nothing for me. That’s fine, I don’t care, I’ll be alright without you.” He points to Aemond. “But you’ve got nothing for him either, and he’s everything you always wanted. You’re disgusting, you’re broken. You belong in a box too. The part of you that was human is gone. I don’t give a fuck about what’s left.”

Aegon shoves Viserys, hard, and then storms past him. As he crosses into the kitchen, Helaena grabs for his wrist. You can hear her whisper: “What the hell happened?!”

Then Aegon remembers one last thing. He whirls around and bellows at Viserys, his voice reverberating off the vaulted ceilings: “And I’m not getting my vasectomy reversed! You can’t make me! It’s bioethics! I asked the lawyer!” He stomps off and disappears, Helaena in tow.

Alicent shoots Viserys a hateful glare and then flees from the foyer, her long auburn ringlets streaming out behind her. Viserys goes in the opposite direction. Daeron and Otto share an awkward glance and then depart as well. Only you, Criston, and Aemond remain in the room, surrounded by treasures that might as well be handfuls of earth, flour, swamp water, salt.

Cautiously, Criston lays a hand on Aemond’s shoulder, on his right side where he can see it. “Aemond…”

“Don’t touch me,” Aemond says as he wrenches away. He leaves like a hurricane, like a flood, receding until there remains only wreckage and memory.

Criston sighs deeply, and then he asks you: “Do you need a ride home?”

You don’t respond. You haven’t decided how to yet. You stare at the place where Aemond stood, a void like a star that died out. Do I follow him upstairs? you think.

Do I?

[strwberri-milk]

Streaks of Vermillion

Rafayel x Reader || Hurt/Comf || 1, 238 words

a/n: uhh i finished the myths for rafa and thought this thing up and its has referenced death of reader but youre not acc dead i promise its all the set up hurt/comf/rafa feeling so many Things for you

Oh God what he would give to stop seeing that colour on you.

To the God of the Sea, this is the happiest day of his life.

And when he kisses her, he devotes the entire ocean to his beloved.

It couldn’t have been better if he willed it. The sight of you standing in front of him, arms wrapped tightly around his waist as you playfully scold him to not try dropping you into the crystalline azure beneath your feet. He can barely hear it with the blood rushing through his ears, the angelic notes of your voice brushing against him like seaweed against his fingertips.

To surrender his heart to you is a happy thing, he thinks. It wouldn’t change things, not at all. You’ve held his heart in your hands since the day he met you. Your fingers brushed against the surface of his being, shallow ripples drawing the attention of an ever curious younger him. The only thing he knows with confidence from that moment forward was how to love you.

It’s why he’s deluding himself that your voice in his ear isn’t slowly getting weaker, tears staining the side of his throat simply just tears of joy. You were happy, weren’t you? You told him as much constantly, reminding him that he is – no, was – your saviour. It’s why he pretends your normally secure grip on him is loosening, fingers trembling against his shoulders in a way he knows isn’t pleasure.

The hot release of your body coats his fingers, lithe hands unable to turn wrists in the way that you need him to. Instead, he holds you tightly, muttering affectionate words into your ear.

“You’re doing so good for me.”

“Just hang on, just a little longer.”

“That’s it, just like that.”

They burn his throat coming up, butterflies in his stomach pounding incessantly against skin and bone – maybe they’re scales now, he can’t tell.

You gasp in response, a pathetic sounding whimper ringing out and making his stomach drop.

“Rafayel, please,” you plead, stuttering breaths pushing insistently against the column of his throat.

His hand is sticky, blood already beginning to dry in the arid temperatures of the desert. The blade penetrates your body, just shy of the heart you’ve returned to him.

He feels your hand come up to cup his cheek, a reassuring smile still on your face.

“I meant it when I said it Rafayel. My heart is yours. From this life to the next.”

Your body is cold to the touch. He can’t explain why. You were just fine earlier, smiling brightly at him as you tried to convince him to rest. Sunlight streams in through the windows and he thought the rays supposed to keep you warm.

He can’t understand why this is happening to him again, not here, not now.

Scarlet pools underneath your body, Rafayel’s eyes unable to see anything else. His breath catches in his chest, bile rising up in his throat and tainting his breath.

His arms go under your body, recoiling at how warm it is there. He feels your heat slowly dissipating, streaks of read marking his hands and your face. He wills himself not to lose focus, picking you up to try and get you some help. He feels the thudding of his heart pounding heavily against his chest, trying in vain not to throw up at the feeling in his stomach.

He can hear your voice calling to him. His name always sounds so pretty on your tongue and it’s all he can think about before he hears the loud thud of your body hitting the ground.

“Rafayel! What are you doing?!”

Your perplexed expression looks up at him from the ground. He watches you massage the side of your body that hit the ground, grimacing a little.

“Why are your hands so cold? And why didn’t you respond after I started hitting you?!”

“I…I was washing paintbrushes,” he replies numbly, faintly remembering getting up to try and organise some of his supplies.

“The water heater’s been acting up so all the water in the house is ice cold. I forgot.”

Vibrant hues of red and orange dye his room from the setting sun, painting your face and body in them. It takes his eyes a while to readjust to the vibrancy, shaky fingers wanting to reach out and hold you but he can’t be sure this is reality. He looks to his hands, clenching them into fists to try and restore some feeling into the stiff joints.

“Poor thing,” you coo, picking up on the change in his demeanour as you reach out to take his hands and try to warm them up in yours.

“You must be freezing. It’s like there was no blood running to your hands at all.”

You were horribly wrong. There was blood – far too much of it.

Silence envelopes the two of you, something Rafayel was beginning to forget when he found you again. You choose not to let it bother you too much, seeing the somber expression on his face. You’re not sure what to make of it, biting your lip as you try to find the right words to say to him.

“Do you…want to talk about it?” you try after a moment.

“About what?”

Rafayel’s long since turned his attention to an abandoned canvas in front of him. You come up behind him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. He stiffens in your hold for half a second before relaxing, exhaling deeply.

“You’re not normally that spaced out. Do you remember anything?”

He turns to face you for a brief second before looking back to the canvas. You can’t tell if his refusal to answer is because he’s genuinely forgotten or because he’s choosing not to answer you. You decide it’s the former and help him out.

“You were absolutely exhausted so I told you to go take a nap. Then I got tired so I laid down with you. I guess you woke up before I did and went back to your painting. Next thing I know you woke me up with a death grip around my body and proceeded to ignore me until I threw myself out of your arms and onto the floor.”

He remains silent and you find it a little foreboding. Rafayel’s chatty nature was something that endeared him to you. You know it’s a representation of his affection to you and the fact that he’s quiet always means he’s thinking about things. Despite the overly dramatic and whiney personality that Rafayel had you understood well that it was a cover for something he wasn’t yet comfortable enough telling you.

You bury your face in his neck, breathing in the smell of salt and paint mixed in with something unmistakably him. He leans into your touch, showing you that he heard you.

“Is that so?” he says after a bit, suddenly standing up and taking your hand in his.

You find yourself being taken back to his bed, quietly pushed against the sheets and pulled into his arms. You don’t miss the way his hand comes up to rest against your chest, Rafayel’s breath tickling your hair as he takes a deep breath.

“Did you have a nightmare or something?” you try again, ignoring the slight gnawing in your stomach of concern for him.

“Just thought about something I wish I could forget,” he mumbles, mind tiredly counting out the beating of your heart.

[insomni-frog]

Wowie look at that, I'm actually drawing the ocs I haven't drawn yet (ignore the fact that I made a new one that wasn't on the list.)

I'm planning on drawing my ocs in groups, these ones are all the ones who are sea themed.

Anyway in order there is Chippy Cookie, Sea Angel Cookie, Sea Cucumber Cookie, Konpeito Cookie, and Sugar Seal Cookie.

Chippy is a Sea monster, although they are far from monstrous. They've chosen to live their life up on land and hide their true fishy ways, which is a bit hard considering a small splash of water causes them to break out into scales.

Sea Angel is a wandering performer who seeks out ships sailing across the waves. He'll dazzle them with his songs, ones so mesmerising most sailors fail to realise they've gone off course—and are now sailing into dangerous waters. But rest assured, Sea Angel promises an encore for their ghosts.

Sea Cucumber is silent and stoic little thing, although take them on deck of a ship and they'll soon be spilling their guts out to you. Literally.

Konpeito is an ai singer (basically a vocaloid) whos entire existence remains inside of a crystal. She loves to sing, dance and perform, but sometimes she wonders if there's more to live for than what she was programed for. (Edit: she was also inspired by SAYU from NSR)

And Sugar Seal is a selkie whos lost her coat. She spends her days singing a cursed song, any cookie who hears it finds themselves stricken with bad luck.

[parisoonic]

I just want to say I love how you do your lineart, it looks so good! ahhhhhhhh!!

I'm gathering a lot of advice about the topic of lineart and I just wanna know how you get it to look like that? My line weight is getting better but the drawing itself just comes out a bit.. weird.

Thank you so much! Lineart is probably the thing I've been working hardest on as I am not a lineartist (and still struggle a lot) but it's something I really need to get better at for my job. UM there's honestly so much that could be said on the topic of lineart. Big things for me are:

Weight -> Use line weight (aka thickness) to describe form, lighting, contact and scale. Thick lines imply shadow, contact and nearness-to-camera. Thin lines imply tension, recession and light.

Straights vs Curves -> Use straight lines against curved ones for maximum interest. This is partly a character design thing but as we're using lines to describe our characters it's worth mentioning :)

Complex vx Simple -> Use complex lines against simple. Faces are always complex so therefore the backs of heads should always be simple. Chests are quite complex so backs should be simple. Dorsal sides of the arms are complex (Delt, tricep, bicep) whilst the ventral side is more simple (tricep...mainly) etc.

'Think in Ink' -> Lower your sketch layer almost to 0% opacity so you're not getting hung up on how nice/energetic your sketch look and instead are approaching the piece from an ink mindset. BUT it's digital! So if there's something in your sketch that you like just bring it forward (copy and paste) into your ink layer. I sketch and ink with the same brush so I can use this workflow

'Confidence' -> small hesitant feathery lines will look nervous compared to big swooping lines. Less is always more. I'll redraw arms/limbs until I can get the appearance that it was done in one brush stroke. Again it's digital so you can erase to cheat this look : )

MISC 01: I always hear 'draw from the shoulder'........meh............it's digital so draw from your wrist...it's fine honestly. If we were working at A1 in a life drawing class then we could get some shoulder action going but most of us are hunched over 16inch tablets. I think this advice aims to pull people away from feathery-nervous lineart honestly which you can improve on without relearning how to draw from your shoulder.

MISC 02: For a 'smoother' look do your lineart at a larger canvas size than you need. Once I'm happy with a sketch I usually double the canvas size and do my lineart then.

MISC 03: In PS (at least) anti-aliasing goes funny at any zoom level that isn't in the 5 times table. So try not to look at your canvas when you're zoomed in to 87% or 71.39% or something crazy. Just stick to 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% if possible.

UNFORTUNATE TRUTH: Lineart is incredibly based on raw draughtmanship I've discovered. When you're working with colour you can hide a lot in rendering (shadows, highlights) or post-processing (depth of field) but in lineart all your mistakes are just...there for people to see. There's ways round this...which I use A LOT. 'Flourishes' (I use 'flourishes' to mean over-confident lineart where it veers particuarly thick or particuarly thin in contrast to your approach in the rest of the image) can sort of trick people into thinking you're more confident about an area than you actually are.

As well as leaving 'breathing room' within your lineart instead of actually...resolving the area. I do this the most around the face and hands.

Hopefully some of this helps? Honestly there's a lot of deep dives that could be done into indivudal things and there's also the massive caveat that all of these are 'guidelines' and not strict rules. I also favour a more...concept-arty? animation-y? storyboard-y? look to my lineart which favours flourishes and breathing room for a incomplete/work-in-progress feel which would make methodical colouring (ie: for a comic or something) a pain.

Keep up pratice is the main thing and doing studies of artists who you like that have great lineart - you'll pick up draughtmanship skills along with the lineart studies. Here's some of my lineart from a year or two ago...it varies between very 'standardised' (which makes it difficult to read volumes and to be honest, it's boring) and 'TOO EXCITING' (which...also makes it difficult to read volumes and for the eye to rest).

I'd like to share my brushes at some point as I've found 3 that I really like and use for everything more or less. I discovered that a shocking low amount of people use PS on tumblr (shocking to me I guess as i'm so used to PS being the standard) and everyone seems to use Procreate or Clip Studio Pro...so I want to check that the brushes are Procreate compatible at least before I share!