#I’d get some birds and I still need to get a feather and a paw print for my pets

[transliterated-the-book]

Chapter 1: Missing Persons

<< First | < Prev | Royal Road | Next >

“This should be the site they were camping at,” Messenger Darting-Flight peeped as they arrived at their destination, the swift’s gaze flicking around the odd mess of tools and materials. “It was in a much better state when I was here to collect their report two days ago. Something must have happened, Ink-Talon is never this careless.” It fluttered down to the ground and began rooting through one of the piles.

The low angle of the early morning sun through the forest's canopy created a display of spotty shadows across the camp that danced in the breeze with the leaves that cast them. If not for the growls and chirps of the bird and fox currently searching the area, the forest would have been completely silent. All together, it seemed that there hadn't been an accident so much as the pair of missing people just dropped everything they had been doing and left. Something was incredibly wrong.

“The notes and records are still here. Maybe those will have an answer for where the two of them went? Or should we keep following your nose, Silver-Tail?”

“No need, because they’re still here.” Seeker Silver-Tail put its nose to the ground and confirmed the scents, quickly finding a hollow at the roots of a nearby tree where they seemed to be sheltering. Moving to investigate, the black-furred fox immediately saw the glint of eyes peering out of the darkness. Eyes that didn’t look on it with familiarity, but with fear, anger, and confusion. “Apologies if we startled-” It could not even finish expressing the sentiment before Scholar Ink-Talon awkwardly stumbled out of the darkness, squawking a command to someone behind it as it flapped its wings and threw itself at the fox.

“Go! I’ll distract it!” the crow cawed, only to be immediately knocked over and pinned by the fox’s forepaw in one swift motion. Its movements had all the effectiveness and precision of one of its kit hunting crickets on its first trip outside the den.

“Scholar! Control yourself!” The fox barked. “We are not feral, and you are not in danger!”

“Wait, you’re… like us?” Forager Keen-Ear chittered as it emerged from the hollow, the squirrel’s slow, deliberate gait betraying uncharacteristic clumsiness in much the same way Ink-Talon’s frantic movements did, not to mention a fair bit of physical discomfort.

“Something is wrong,” Darting-Flight flicked its tail feathers silently, communicating the message out of view of the crow and squirrel. “They do not seem to be mentally or physically sound.”

“Ink-Talon, please stop struggling,” Silver-Tail huffed, struggling to split its attention three ways to think about any of this.

“That’s not my name! Get off!” the crow screeched before biting into Silver-Tail’s leg with its beak, forcing the fox to leap back with a surprised yelp.

“Friend! Stop!” Keen-Ear squeaked, placing a forepaw on the crow’s wing to placate it. “They don’t mean us any harm.” Ink-Talon slumped over, collapsing from apparent exhaustion.

“At least one of you is lucid,” the Seeker whined as it licked its wound. Ink-Talon’s bite had actually drawn blood.

“I’m not entirely sure I am,” Keen-Ear said, staring at its own paws. “Do you know what happened to us?” It didn’t just mean the two of them, seeming to include Silver-Tail and Darting-Flight in this happening as well. “One moment we were [Our Species], the next we’re… animals. I hoped it was just a bad dream, that I��d go to sleep and wake up back in my bed, but-”

“Not ‘were!’ We still are [Our Species]!” Ink-Talon cawed angrily, finally managing to stand back up. “Don’t you dare give in to this!”

“I’m not giving in to anything! You’re getting caught up in semantics!”

The two began to argue, much of what they were talking about shrouded in some bizarre context that Silver-Tail could not even begin to unravel. Whatever small amount of sense the squirrel was speaking was instantly rebuffed by the far more delirious bird, and the pair seemed to be at a stalemate. Silver-Tail tuned them out and motioned to its nearby companion.

“Messenger Darting-Flight, you need to gather up all of the Scholar’s records and deliver them along with details of what happened here. I will keep them safe and try to get them back to the village.”

“Will you be okay alone?” Darting-Flight nervously glanced between Silver-Tail and the other pair as it gathered and stowed the few scraps of notes in its satchel. “Neither of them are behaving rationally.” Once it had finished, it hopped around to the fox’s front, gesturing at the visible blood on its leg with a wing. “You’ve already been injured, as well.”

“I will be fine. They are far more of a danger to themselves than me in this state.” The fox’s ears drooped as it eyed the pair with a mix of pity and concern. The possibility of whatever had happened to them being contagious or caused by a nearby danger could not be discounted, and the small wound on its foreleg throbbed as the thought crossed its mind. But they themselves were not a threat. Just unwell. “Informing the Coordinator is more important than avoiding small risks.”

“Understood, I will make sure the Physician is prepared for them as well.” Darting-Flight spread its wings and prepared for takeoff before pausing and looking back. “Be safe, Seeker.”

“Fly true, Messenger.” As the swift zoomed off above the trees, Silver-Tail turned back to the arguing pair, only to find the fight having already ended and the two sorrowfully commiserating instead. Keen-Ear sat beside a crestfallen Ink-Talon, awkwardly wrapping a foreleg around the crow. The fox clearly Understood it to be an expression of comfort and consolation, but it was an unusual one for these two. A poor fit for either of their body shapes.

“I can’t do it.” Ink-Talon’s squawks had devolved into some odd mix of a croak and a gurgle. “I can’t move how I want. I can’t think how I want. I can’t speak how I want.” It slumped over on its side, barely able to remain conscious. “But I’m still me, right? I know I’m me. I have to be. If I’m not, then-”

“Stop it.” Keen-Ear interrupted the crow with a desperate, barely audible squeak. “You have to stop overthinking it. We’re going to be okay. We found help. We can survive this.” It was immediately obvious that despite its encouragement, the squirrel did not believe what it was expressing. It was trying to convince itself as much as its partner, and it was not doing a good job.

“Are you ready to converse now?” the Seeker asked, carefully approaching the pair. It needed to intervene before their mental states deteriorated ever further.

“I am, I think,” the squirrel answered, “but my friend isn’t. Too tired.”

“Understood. We can let it rest for a while, and then I can carry it back.” Silver-Tail sat down in front of them, wracking its brain as it tried to figure out how best to approach this. In the end, it just had to sigh and hope that the Forager wouldn’t react poorly to having its mental state questioned. “Before anything else, I need to know. What happened to the two of you? How much do you remember?”

Keen-Ear stared blankly for a moment, as if confused by the question.

“Do you not know? You’re like us, right? [Our Former Species]?”

“No.” The Seeker was caught off-guard by the question, just as much as Keen-Ear was caught off-guard by the answer. This was far more severe than it had initially assumed, and it immediately regretted sending Darting-Flight back so soon. It did its best to hide its fear and confusion, expressing its next question with only a calm tilt of the head and an inquisitive whine. “Start from the beginning. Just who, and what, do you believe yourself to be?”

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

The previous evening…

He awoke to sensory overload. Even with his eyes closed, he was assaulted by unfamiliar scents, sounds, and sensations with absurd detail and intensity. The scents, rather than mixing into a single amalgam of various smells, were each clearly distinguishable, while the pained cries of an extremely distressed bird rang in his ears with the intensity of a fire alarm, somehow communicating the exact location of the poor animal. He needed to shut it out. Focus on one thing. Ground himself, or else start to panic.

Touch. Just focus on touch. Taking an inventory of his senses was a tried and true grounding technique and the first thing he attempted. However, he immediately got the sense that things were wrong. Very wrong. But he hoped he could handle wrong, so long as he took it one thing at a time. The sounds and scents faded into the background as the world gave way to practiced mindfulness.

Breathe in, breathe out. What do you feel? He was lying on his side, cushioned by thick grasses. The contours of his body, however, were bizarre. His arms and legs were outstretched, but felt disproportionately short compared to his torso. And that was to say nothing of what felt like a long, heavy extension of his spine, curving outwards.

No pain. No broken bones. No numbness. But I’m... misshapen? With a… tail? His heart began to race. Fast. Faster than the human heart could beat. It could only mean one thing, and that only made it worse. Rather than accept the clear truth he’d already put together, he withdrew again. He decided to start from square one with a different sense.

Focus. Breathe. Just listen. Pick one sound and listen. The most immediate and obvious sound was the rapid thrumming of an inhuman heart in his ears, so he latched onto the only other thing he could hear: the panicked cries of a bird. It was more than just distressed and angry, like injured or trapped wild animals he’d encountered before. No, these were cries of confusion, terror, despair, and denial. So much emotion and meaning wrapped up in what were obviously the sounds of an animal. It was almost as if…

“No no no no no! This isn’t real! This isn’t happening! Wake up wake up wake up!” Like tuning into a radio station, the unintelligible caws and screeches suddenly became crystal clear. Not audibly, the sounds were the same as they had been, but he understood them. They formed sentences and expressed emotions to him, despite not containing any actual language he recognized. “I’m not an animal! Not a bird! I’m me! Just let me wake up!”

Once more, panic nearly overtook the man as the reality he’d been avoiding washed over him, but this time something else kept him grounded. He was not alone. Someone else was here, experiencing the exact same impossible thing. Someone who was lost in the terror and disbelief he had only narrowly avoided because their presence had drawn him out of it. Knowing nothing else, one thing became clear: He needed to help them, because he refused to entertain the idea of going through this alone. Not for him, nor for anyone else.

So he finally opened his eyes.

He was prepared for his sense of sight to be wildly different in this body. But what greeted him was still bizarre and almost impossible to parse. It was only when he tried closing one eye that he got a better grasp on what he was seeing. His eyes were on the sides of his head, facing outward more than they faced forward. Rather than looking straight ahead with both eyes, he could see most of his surroundings at once, with even the peripheries of his vision coming in crisp and clear. Even grasping that, it was nearly as overwhelming as all of his other senses combined, but after a moment the strain of it all seemed to fade. Even the gray, furry muzzle taking up a sliver in the center of his view felt unobtrusive, as if it didn’t exist if he didn’t focus on it. A sudden rush of movement through the grass to his left caught his eye, and his attention snapped to it reflexively.

Am I wired to notice movement and pay less attention to stationary things? He wondered, though the source of that movement reminded him that now wasn’t the time for experimentation. The other person, who seemed to be a crow of some sort, was thrashing about in the dirt a short distance away. The first thing to do was stand up, and he immediately noticed that rather than ending up on his hands and knees in the middle of the process, he was standing on all fours.

He took his first steps forward, trying to push past the bizarre clashing of his human muscle memory and quadrupedal body. He was less than successful, however, immediately stumbling as he moved limbs in the wrong order. The first idea that came to mind was pretending to crawl. That did the trick. One paw at a time, alternating sides between front and hind limbs. The gait and posture were natural, so it was far less strenuous than crawling on his former hands and knees would have been, but it was still slow. He’d need to figure out that sort of scampering movement small animals did if he wanted to move any faster.

Having made it past the grass, he could see more of where they were, along with the crow in their entirety. They were situated in a forest clearing of some sort. It certainly seemed huge, but given the apparent size of the trees, which stretched upwards like skyscrapers, he could only assume that their small size was the reason for that. The crow was a fair bit larger than he was, but not enough to make approaching him particularly daunting. By this point their cries had died down to the avian equivalent of sobs and incoherent muttering, so he just needed to figure out how to grab their attention.

“Hey-“ he squeaked, his “voice” catching in his throat as he heard what he sounded like for the first time. Small, rather cute in any other context, and very, very vulnerable. But it was what he had to work with right now, so he shoved that thought away, trying not to think about it. “Hey, can you hear me?” His chittering didn’t seem to phase the bird, however, and he remembered that he didn’t understand what the bird was saying until he tried to focus on the sounds. He needed to give them something more concrete to pay attention to. So he pounced, leaping at them with outstretched limbs.

“No! Let me go! Change me back!” The crow’s cries once again filled the air as he tried to wrap his forelegs around them in an impromptu embrace. Thankfully the crow was even less adept at moving their body than he was, and their attempts at struggling failed to dislodge him.

“Calm down. It’s okay. You’re going to be okay,” he said, his words forming out of an odd, cooing purr. He was lying, of course. None of this was okay, and he had no reason to believe that that would change any time soon, but he needed that lie as much as the bird did. “Stay calm and talk to me. Just make any sounds you can, I think we can understand each other.”

After a long and awkward silence, the crow finally spoke, softly cawing and clicking to create their words. “You’re a squirrel,” they stated flatly, still clearly lost.

“Oh.” The squirrel turned his head to confirm this, finally seeing the enormous fluffy tail that had been residing in the blind spot behind his head all this time. “I suppose I am.” He turned back to the crow, who just stared at him in disbelief. “But I’m also like you. Formerly human.”

“We’re not ’formerly’ human,” The bird snapped, finally managing to shake off the squirrel and pull themselves up onto their talons, towering over him as their eyes stared into his with a sudden clarity and conviction. “We are human! I won’t have my personhood dictated by any of this… mystical nonsense!”

“No arguments there.” The squirrel nodded. “Glad to see you’ve pulled yourself out of that spiral, friend.”

The crow just stood there for a moment, all of that determination and anger quickly fading. “…What now?” They asked, looking around the clearing as fear began to creep back into their voice.

“Survival.” The squirrel looked up at the sky, which had begun to take on a lovely orange tint over the last few minutes. “If all that time I wasted as a scout in my teens taught me anything, it’s what your priorities are when you’re lost in the woods. We find shelter, we find food and water, and we find help.”

“Help?” The crow scoffed. “Who is going to help us like this?”

“Perhaps nobody, but making ourselves impossible to find isn’t going to do us any good on the off-chance that…” Something caught the squirrel’s attention as he spoke. Not a sight or sound, but a smell, suddenly highlighted by a shift in the evening breeze. It was a pair of smells, to be precise, clearly distinct from the scents of the two of them and the ambient odors of dirt and grass. They clung to his fur and seemed to leave a clear trail to follow, one clearly pointing out into the woods as he sniffed the air around him. “I think I’ve got a direction for us to go in. Can you walk?”

“…Maybe?” The crow took an awkward couple of steps forward, visibly cringing as they paid attention to the way the joints in their legs were oriented for the first time. “It feels like I'm walking backwards, but it doesn’t hurt. I think I can manage.” They flashed the squirrel an odd open-beaked expression that read as an uneasy attempt at a smile. “Sorry that our introductions started out so poorly.” They paused for a moment, that sentence having come out rather strange. “My name is-“ Another pause, this time with a distinct twinge of panic. “I’m… myself.”

A cold realization crept over both the squirrel and the crow. Their names were gone, replaced by the same translated meanings that had replaced all of their communication. Even within their own thoughts.

They were simply themselves, and that was all they could say.

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

Of all the complications of the crow’s new state of being, none were more distressing than the effects it had on his thoughts. For the most part, he mentally felt like himself. This body was still as foreign as it should be, despite him starting to adjust to moving it. His emotions and inclinations didn’t clash with his memory of himself, either. He wasn’t obsessing over shiny things or compelled to peck at the ground or whatever a real crow’s instincts would tell it to do. It was one of the few pieces of solace he could draw from the situation. He’d read about enough malicious transformations in tabletop games and fantasy novels to recognize that the greater horror was losing one’s mind to that of the animal, not one’s body.

But he wasn’t one-hundred percent the same. The way he understood language was different. It was obviously a boon in this situation. Neither he nor the squirrel could vocalize the way humans could, but they understood each other all the same. Chirps, squawks, squeaks, caws, gestures with wings and paws, and even more nuanced body language like posture. All of it came across clear as day as if they’d spoken with their old voices or expressed with their old faces.

This understanding, however, came at a cost. To communicate in meaning rather than sound meant that many words and phrases simply ceased to exist, even in their own thoughts. What used to be metaphors were instead “translated” literally, or otherwise mangled into less succinct similes, and many proper nouns were replaced with their definitions instead. This included their names.

For the crow, any attempt to express or think his name simply produced “me,” “myself,” or “my name,” while the squirrel expressed similar difficulties, so much so that it was distressing to even try. As it turns out, neither of them had bothered to learn the definitions of their names in their native languages, the crow’s parents having simply picked a nice sounding biblical name for him that he’d never bothered to investigate. They eventually worked out some basics like the fact that they were both men who had been passing through the same stretch of backwater highway before waking up here, but that was all they could manage without taking the time to really dig into how this worked.

He knew that this was a small price to pay to avoid being isolated by an inability to easily communicate, but the loss of his name ate at him. He even recalled his own memories differently, with text and even people’s voices being interpreted through the same filter of meaning as everything else, the sounds of his and others’ names having been reduced to an inexpressible onomatopoeia. And if his memories could be altered, even in such a small way, how could he be sure that nothing else was?

“Good to keep going, Friend?” A small squeak from the squirrel brought him back to the present. He’d apparently gotten so lost in thought that he’d stopped walking.

“Yeah, sorry,” he nodded, fluffing up his feathers in an apparent bid to shed some anxiety, a reflex he wasn’t exactly happy to learn he had. “Just got distracted. Let’s keep moving.”

“Got it. Just don’t be afraid to let me know if we’re pushing it, okay?”

They’d hadn’t been walking long. It was impossible to tell time precisely, but the sun had just set enough for the entire forest to be blanketed in the final purple hues of twilight. He’d never had to wonder how well a crow could see in the dark before. The answer? Not well. The best he could do was follow the bobbing tail of the squirrel in front of him, its brownish grays standing out a bit against the darkness in front of them.

“Can you see where we’re going?” The crow asked. “My eyes aren’t any better at night than they used to be, how about a squirrel’s?”

“Only marginally better than a human’s, I’m afraid,” the squirrel answered. “But I can smell where we’re going. It’s really strong, we’re practically on top of it.”

“Let’s just hope that whatever it is, it’s worth finding. I don’t really fancy sleeping out in the open now that I’m small enough to snack on.”

“Hold up, I think we’re here,” The squirrel said, night haven truly fallen and plunged the forest into darkness. “Let me feel around for a moment… Huh?”

“What is it?”

“There’s… stuff on the ground here.” Wooden clattering and light metallic clinking filled the still air at the squirrel rooted though assorted objects. “I think they might be tools?”

“Tools? A human was here?” The crow immediately perked up. “Then we’re close to civilization!”

“Not… human tools.” The squirrel replied, his voice uneasy. “I can’t see them, but these paws can suss out the shapes of things really well. They’re sized for us, and our scents are all over them.”

“What is that supposed to mean? We were here long enough to craft tools and just… forgot everything?” A much simpler and more likely answer immediately occurred to the crow, but he quickly dismissed it. Contemplating it would complicate things.

“Maybe we…” The squirrel trailed off, clearly grappling with his own theories. “I don’t know,” he lied. It was easy to tell when he didn’t mean what he said when his underlying emotions and intentions were as clear as the actual words. “But it looks like we can camp here. There’s a hollow beneath the tree roots, and our scents are inside.” A soft pattering noise came from ahead as he scurried into the hole he’d found. “Follow my voice! There’s just enough room for you.”

“You’d better be right. I don’t think I know how to back out of a tight space.” The crow gingerly stepped forward until his beak bumped up against the bark of the tree, and then poked around until he found the top of the opening. He crouched down as best he could and tried to shuffle in. “Okay, this is definitely not something these legs are made for.”

“Need help?”

“No, I just need to…” The crow shifted from the initial crouch he’d attempted to a wider, somewhat more uncomfortable stance, enabling him to waddle his way in. “There, that was awkward- Oh!” Both creatures chirped as the crow’s beak poked the squirrel in the forehead. “Sorry!”

“No worries, let me move over.” The squirrel shifted to the left, giving the crow room to squeeze in next to him and turn around. “You’re… really warm.” He squirmed a little bit, the crow being large enough to eclipse his whole body while pressed up against him.

“Same goes for you, fluffy,” The crow croaked. “It was getting chilly anyway.” He sighed, his feathers once more fluffing up reflexively. “But honestly, I’m just scared. I know we barely know each other, but you’re all I’ve got right now. You’ve been far kinder to me than I’ve been to you. It’s impossible not to be direct speaking like this, so I just want you to know that I appreciate it.”

“I don’t know if I’m as altruistic as you think I am,” the squirrel chittered softly. “When I first woke up here, in this body, I wanted nothing more than to run off into the woods and escape, as stupid as that sounds. It was hearing your voice that pulled me out of it. I just didn’t want to be alone, and felt guilty that I'd considered leaving you alone. That doesn’t make me kind.”

“Then I guess that makes us two similar people.” The crow paused for a moment before cawing with attempted laughter. “God, I just wanted to make a comparison to peas in pods and it came out like that. We’re doomed.”

“Well, at least we’re doomed together.” The squirrel sighed, shifting in an attempt to get comfortable, though the direct contact made the crow keenly aware that they weren’t quite able to.

“Are you hurt?” The crow asked.

“Just… sore in places that don’t make sense,” the squirrel answered, needing to pause to give his answer some thought. “Nothing lines up with the way I’m used to picturing my body, so I can’t tell if I’m just moving wrong, if I was injured before waking up, or if I’m just coming down with a squirrel cold or something trivial like that.”

“Well, getting enough sleep is important for animals as much as people, as far as I know. Maybe you’ll feel better in the morning?”

“Yeah, I hope. Sleep well, Friend.”

“I’ll try.” The crow closed his eyes and tried to let himself drift off. Unfortunately, sleep never came.

Every movement, every sound, every sensation in that body seemed to jolt him awake the moment he felt himself drifting off. This wasn’t normal anxiety, he knew anxiety. This was alertness. Hypervigilance. Something deep within him screamed that he was in danger. That sleep was the wrong move to make. And as far as he knew, that was true. A fox, or a badger, or a weasel, or any number of predators could make easy work of the two of them.

I’ll keep watch until I pass out, then. The crow trained his eyes and ears on the hole in front of him, the inky-black abyss of night giving him neither signs of danger nor safety. He ached with exhaustion, and his thoughts became foggy even as they continued to wander, but he wouldn’t sleep. He couldn’t sleep. His body refused. As the night dragged on, one, single truth became apparent.

Something inside of him was broken, and he did not know what it was.

<< First | < Prev | Royal Road | Next >

[hazbincalifornia]

Fork

Chapter 44: Stolas and Blitzo meet with Aamon to discuss what will happen with the baby.

Warnings: Mpreg

Likes, replies, and reblogs are all appreciated, both here and on ao3!

Ao3 link

Blitzo scrubbed his eyes, then went back to staring at the little heart decals interspersed with tiny sperm stickers on the first-floor windows. He took a moment just to process that it was actually, definitely real before his gaze tugged up to see that the blue palace went up another three stories.

“Small mansion”, his ass.

He popped the top button off his shirt as Stolas rapped his knuckles on the door. At least it was just misty today- the rain here always felt just a tad too cold, like it was doing its best to combat the rampant hot hard-ons everything in Lust tended to prance around with. It took only a few moments for the door to creak open, a chubby hellhound woman in a white top and black pants stepping back to allow them entrance.

“Prince Stolas and…” She glanced down at a sheet of paper. “Blitzo?”

“That’s us,” Blitzo said with a nod, and she pushed the door shut behind them.

“Well, welcome! He said he would meet you in the tea room, so follow me.” Blitzo immediately liked the chirp of her voice as she led them down the hallway. Stolas seemed to know where he was going, but Blitzo glanced around to try and get his bearings in case things went pear-shaped and he needed to beat a hasty retreat. There were still paintings of various stuffy-looking royal figures on the walls, same as at Stolas’s place, but there were also various pictures of couples who were either pregnant or with children, often with the raven-bird that was Aamon smiling from next to them or holding said children. He looked a lot more chipper in those than he had in some of the press pictures. That was… probably a good sign that they weren’t handing their kid over to some baby-hating fuckward, right?

His stomach still turned, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t just the microwaved egg muffin he’d had for breakfast. Squeaks echoed around the halls from his boots as they were brought to a small room where two plates with two cookies each had been laid on a table. There were also two cups of tea that had a pleasant, sweet smell that mingled well with the cookies. Aamon stood next to the table in a collared white shirt with a leather jacket, and he nodded at their guide, snake tail swaying lazily behind him. Blitzo’s face was about even with his stomach. It looked soft, like a cluster of pillows had melted together the same way hard candy did when left out in the sun, and Blitzo only barely resisted the urge to squeeze him to see if he’d squeak like a rubber duck before he spoke.

“That will be all, thank you Alexis.”

She nodded back at him, pulling out both of the chairs and taking her leave with a little bow.

“So, this isn’t some kind of aphrodisiac shit, right?” Blitzo raised an eyebrow at the tea, and Aamon laughed a little. The light reflecting off his black feathers practically shimmered as he waved a hand, and the large circular rims to his glasses made his eyes look even bigger.

“It’s a special blend from Wrath, actually. I don’t want to drug either of you on our first meeting, I’d hoped it would be apparent I just want to help.” He paused. “Get it. A-parent? Because- oh, never mind.” He dismissively waved a hand before holding it out to Blitzo, bending forward slightly with a cheery grin. “I’m glad to meet you! Blitzo, right?”

“Yep, that’s my name, don’t wear it out.” He grasped Aamon’s hand and shook it firmly. It had an odd texture- it reminded him more of Loona’s paw than Stolas’s slender hand. Weird. “So you’re the big daddy who wants to help our kid out?”

“If that’s what the two of you want, yes,” Aamon said, letting go of Blitzo and sitting down. The other two followed suit. Stolas reached over to squeeze his hand, and Blitzo’s fingers twitched for a moment before squeezing back. Aamon smoothed over the mussed feathers on the top of his head, giving a soft smile. “I have plenty of room and I’ve wanted one for myself for some time now, but it just never felt like it was the right moment. Imagine my surprise when Stolas comes and nearly caves in my door asking for help with exactly that problem.”

“Must have seemed real lucky, huh?” Blitzo said, and Aamon nodded.

“Exactly! I’m grateful he decided to come to me.” He took a sip of his tea. “I get it- you’re busy and you both understand the optics here. The press can be a bitch sometimes, and Stella’s a handful and a half on her own.” Aamon’s eyes practically glittered as he turned to Blitzo. “Do you have any other kids?”

Blitzo nodded. “One, name’s Loona. She’s a sweetheart and I didn’t want to fuck her over either, y’know?”

“Oh, that’s a nice name! How old is she?”

“Twenty-two.”

Aamon took a moment to do the mental math. “I’m going to assume that she’s adopted, then?”

Blitzo nodded. “Yep, but she’s still my daughter.”

“I wasn’t about to suggest otherwise. So you know what you’re giving up, then. Just means that there’s less potential for regret.” Blitzo’s hand dropped to his middle and squeezed the fabric, pressing so hard that the button imprinted itself in his palm.

Regret.

Right.

Aamon cleared his throat. “Anyway! I’m sure that you have questions. Is there anything you want to know about me? I have no idea what Stolas has told you. If it wasn’t much, it puts you at a bit of a disadvantage, since he gushed about you to me just the other day.”

Stolas’s feathers fluffed. “Aamon!”

Aamon held up his hands, even as a little laugh slipped from his beak. “What? You did. It was all good things, promise!”

Blitzo’s eyes flicked between them, watching Stolas fold his arms and give a little ‘hmmph’ and sink down in his seat before clearing his throat. “So, Stolas said that you were going to say they were an orphan?”

Aamon nodded. “That was the plan. I don’t particularly want to drag either of you through the mud. A large part of my job involves helping couples who are helping trouble with conceiving, so ending up with a child who doesn’t have parents wouldn’t be too hard to spin- perhaps their birthing parent was single and simply passed away in childbirth? Or I could just say I scooped them off the street, no parents in sight. The child themselves will know, of course.”

“And we can visit as often as we want?”

“As often as my schedule allows, yes- I’m sure Stolas will be flitting down here plenty, what with that nifty portal ability of his.” He nodded over at Stolas, who nodded back.

“I will. I appreciate this so much, Aamon, I didn’t realize how much it might have burdened Blitzy, and-”

“Just wait until I do anything,” Aamon said with a half-smile. “You’re helping me, really- now I don’t have to find a wife again until I want to. I’ve seen what it looks like when you don’t care for each other.” His smile dropped a little as Stolas rubbed his arm and looked away. Blitzo’s eyes darted between the two of them again, then narrowed.

“Wait. Did you help him with-”

“Yes,” Stolas cut Blitzo off. “That was a long time ago, but he helped Stella and I. It was part of why I was so shocked it took with you on the first try.”

“Guess I am better than that frigid bitch at just about everything,” Blitzo said with a roll of his shoulders. “And you won’t start using them for cheap labor?”

Aamon tilted his head, raising an eyebrow. “I can afford servants, you know. Raising a child seems like it would be a fair bit more expensive and a lot more effort than just doing that. If they want to help me when they’re older, I’ll welcome it, but until then, I’ll treat them like my own.”

“Yeah, that’s… that’s good.” Blitzo chewed on his lower lip, ripping the skin off and swallowing it. Aamon took a small bite of his cookie before asking a question of his own.

“Did you check on them like I asked?”

Stolas nodded. “They seem perfectly healthy, from what I can tell, and they’re a little bird with an imp tail and horns.”

Blitzo could see a little pink bird in a black dress with his horns standing next to Aamon, wringing her hands on the bottom of it as she looked between the two of them.

She mouthed something before vanishing, but all he could make out was the word ‘leave’. He tried to take a bite of his cookie, but it tasted like rocks, and he let it crumble with the crumbs clinging to the palm of his glove.

“Oh, cute!” Aamon clapped his hands together. “That will make this easier, people might not even suspect anything if they come out looking more like us.”

“I believe it’s a girl as well,” Stolas added.

“I don’t care much about gender, but a girl sounds good to me.” Aamon nodded. “Was there anything else?”

Blitzo’s tail smacked into the leg of his chair as it darted back and forth. “Stolas said you can see the future.” It spilled out like poison from a vial, but he couldn’t swallow it back once it was out.

“Only in bits and pieces, and not infinitely.” Aamon settled his hands flat over each other on the table. “The future changes constantly depending on the choices we all make, so it’s not set in stone. Why, do you have a request?”

“Yeah. I���d kick myself if I let this kinda thing slip through my fingers, y’know? Spent half my twenties looking for a sign shit would work out, now I’m dropping my baby off on somebody’s doorstep like the world’s worst ding-dong-ditch.” He leaned forward. “Am I gonna regret this?”

Aamon tilted his head with a blink before adjusting his glasses. “I think you’re the only one who can answer that question.”

“What, you’re not gonna even humor me, you stuck-up-”

“Blitzy!”

“Is it just because-”

“It’s not because of anything.” Aamon shook his head. “I think you’re confused and scared, and no matter what answer I give, you’re going to blame me for pressuring you into making the wrong one.” His eyes dulled and Blitzo could feel the pressure in the room drop, a chill freezing his blood for half a moment before he blinked and everything snapped back to normal. Blitzo’s heart kept racing like it was in a chase for his life anyway. “I see a fork in the road, little imp. I would love to take in the child and I’d take good care of them, but the choice is up to you.”

Blitzo hadn’t realized that he was hugging himself until his claws dug into his arms. “I…”

“Blitzy?” Stolas asked.

“I don’t- I just-” He looked between Stolas (whose eyes had widened with the top ones narrowed in concern) and Aamon (who was watching him with the most serious expression he’d had so far) and his fingers tightened as he slid off the chair. “I need a fucking minute, ’kay?”

Aamon reached out a hand, palm up. “Do you need me to show you to the-”

“I’ve got it!” Run. He needed to run. The air was too tight in there and so was his chest, he needed to get away, to think. Out of the room and down the hallway, a rug nearly tripping him up as he pinwheeled his arms until he managed to step around it and kept going, sweat dripping down his back. Somewhere to hide, somewhere to- this room seemed promising. It was an office of some sort, with shelves lined with books and an oversized desk that probably fit Aamon but he’d barely be able to scramble into the seat of. He groaned, grinding the heel of his palms into his eyes.

“Fuck, what am I doing?”

“Blitzo?” Stolas’s voice echoed down the hall, and he curled further into himself.

What was he doing? A fork in the road. Aamon could take the kid, raise them up with fancy frills and visits on the weekends, a pretty little princess (or dutchess or marquess or whatever she’d be, Stolas had said he was slightly below him, right?) who knew the right fork to use and would be rich as fuck and…

And wouldn’t be his, not really. Wouldn’t be either of theirs, and would probably end up with a whole different set of Issues with a capital I either way.

His tail swished against the wall as he stared up at a picture of Aamon holding an orange chick and nuzzling his beak against their head. Stolas could still run, could still leave him holding the bag, could…

Could admit things would be easier with almost anybody else who wasn’t a hellfire and a half, but by some idiotically miraculous turn of events, still wanted to make this work anyway. Whatever this was, this thing where Blitzo leeched off his goodwill and fucked with his home life and he still came back, where he fumbled ass-backward into insulting his living space by trying to gift him a better one but that was it, he was trying. Where he said he loved him and was just Stolas enough to believe it, and to believe that Blitzo could do something right, make something right.

Blitzo’s hand rested on his middle, and hers met it from the inside as he sucked in a breath and let it out. She didn’t try to worm her way up into controlling his body this time, but the memory of that foamy euphoria still helped his chest ease a bit.

“You really want to be daddy’s little girl, don’t you?” he murmured, and it was probably his imagination, but the hand pressed out a little harder. “You know I’m a major-league fuck-up, right?” There wasn’t a response this time, but he swallowed down saliva as he stared down at his middle. “I’m going to ruin you. You deserve better than that. But I don’t want to just drop you and run either. I got Loona so she wouldn’t have to face the world alone like I did. I don’t… I don’t want you thinking you did something wrong just because we fucked up to make you exist.”

Her touch shifted, and he scrubbed at his eyes with his free hand. “Sorry to be downer, kid, I promise I’m usually a lot funnier than this.”

No reaction again, and he started stroking gentle circles on his middle. “You’d be pretty fucking great, I bet. Your dads are both pretty big fuck-ups, but at least we’ve got thirty-five years of practice with it and might be able to help you step above that and fly off that trapeze right into the stars.”

“There you are!” Stolas poked his head into the room. “Are you alright? Is something wrong? Are you feeling sick? I asked Julietta if there was anything that might help with imp pregnancy sicknesses since she was with child some months ago…” He crouched down and cupped Blitzo’s face, using his thumb to wipe away a stray tear that Blitzo hadn’t realized had slipped out.

“I think…” Blitzo looked down, then back up at Stolas.

“Darling?”

“I think I want to keep her.”

[saphirered]

I have a request! How about a pre!Caleb x reader with a runechild reader that has been with Caleb and Nott from pre-stream? What would their friendship dynamic be with the two and how does Caleb react to them being hunted for experimentation by various magic users.

I’m so sorry this took so long to write. Double shifts have been killing me but I’m still trying to get these requests out regardless in whatever free time I get. I hope this one’s to your liking. It turned out pretty long 😅 . Enjoy regardless 😘

Prison. How did it come to the point where being stuck in a jail would be both the best and worst place for you to be? At least those after you wouldn’t be able to get you without getting in a lot of trouble or jumping through legal hoops giving you enough time to plan your escape. 

When word got out you were a runechild people praised you… and hunted you discovering your worth as a conduit for the natural magics as well as an arcane power source. You learned many before you were hunted and killed, or enslaved for just this fact so when people came knocking you weren’t going to stick around and find out their intentions and plans for you. You value your own life more than that no matter how curious you may be about what it means to be a runechild. 

Being on the run has its good sides; new places, new people and new experiences. The down side, no stability, no security and no long term friends, always on the road with barely a moment to breathe but at least you’re alive and not held captive and squeezed for every bit of arcane juju in your body. Though, you have to say you do miss having friends. Luckily you’re not the only one on the run from selfish mages with ulterior motives and as they say, birds of a feather… 

You’re sitting in the corner of your cell head leaning back against the wall and one knee propped up. There’s barely any light bleeding through the narrow window up high, the only way you’ve been able differentiate day from night and count how long you’ve been here. Time’s running out. You’ll have to make your escape soon. The guard schedule is the most difficult as you don’t see yourself overpowering all of them. Sure you can charm a few but brute strength isn’t really your thing and you’re kinda squishy compared to the armoured folks trying to keep people from escaping… You weren’t going to take your chances there and draw more attention to yourself. 

The barred door opens, the sound pulling you back to reality to see a rather filthy looking man and a child? Halfling? being pushed into your cell. Great. Company. Not like that eliminates what few plans you had… The door is closed behind them by the guard that gives the small person a kick in the back for good measure. You don’t respond as they cry out about to turn back around and attack the guard but are stopped by the man. The duo sees you as the guard leaves and sticks to the opposite side of your humble abode sitting down together and whisper. 

This would be the next few days; these new roommates of yours sticking to themselves barely speaking at all when not whispering. Not like you could blame them. You weren’t about to stick your nose in their business just like they hadn’t. Though, what you wouldn’t do for some warmth during the colder times like the small one, a goblin you learned, snuggled up with the raggedy man. When was even the last time you had a hug? It feels like ages. Whatever they had going on, you had to say you were slightly envious. At least they had each other. You were all alone and would remain alone for the foreseeable future. You’d give the world if that meant you could have something like they do. 

It’s been a few days since you were given any food. You’re hungry and by the grumbling stomachs of the man and goblin, so are they. Then the guard came by throwing a single slice of bread through the bars. Both you and the goblin scurry forward diving for the slice and you get it. 

“This isn’t enough for all of us!” You shout after the guard holding onto the slice. 

“It’s all you’re getting. Share or fight for the scraps.” The guard calls nibbling on some piece of fruit or something. The goblin woman curses after the guard who stops in his tracks. You quickly glance between the raggedy man and the goblin as the guard walks over to the bars. Casting the spell with nothing but your mind as the guard’s distracted by the screeching cursing woman, the guard’s form relaxes a little bit and eyes turn to you. 

“I’m so sorry about her, my friend. You wouldn’t be able to help us out, would you? It’s been a few days since we’ve eaten and we’re growing hungry. Could you be a dear and fetch us some good and proper food quickly? I’d greatly appreciate it.” You bat your eyelashes and smile innocently. The guard nods happily and hands you a pouch filled with what he was snacking on. 

“I’ll be back with more but please take this for now.” The guard says before he’s off to find you more food. You let out a breath of relief that it worked. You open the pouch and see some fresh berries. The goblin stares at you in confusion as the guard went from asshole to friendly in a split second. You hand her the slice of bread. 

“Now let’s hope the asshole returns within the hour.” You make your way back to your corner and sit down in your usual spot. While you do nibbling on the berries you feel the man’s eyes burn into you or rather a dimly glowing rune on your lower arm. You quickly shift hiding it, staring him down until he averts his gaze. You see from the corner of your eyes as the woman offers to share the slice of bread with the man with a slight hesitation. That amount of food is going to do next to nothing to sate an empty stomach for one, let alone two people. You look down at the pouch of berries while you pop one in your mouth. 

Cursing to yourself you get up, walk over to their side of the cell and sit down a couple feet away from them. You think for a second, pour some of the berries in your hand and hold it stretched out towards the man. 

“Look, we’ve seen you charmed the guard with your wiles to give you food but do you have to rub it in our faces too?!” The woman screeches petting the man’s shoulder in comfort. 

“I don’t think they’re taunting us. I think they’re offering to share.” 

“Take them before I change my mind.” You’re still half deliberating on eating them yourself with how hungry you had grown in the past few days. The goblin calms down demeanour instead turning to confusion trying to find some ulterior motive while the man takes the berries with a brief smile and shares them with the woman. 

The room turns silent again for the next thirty minutes or so before the guard returns with some plates of fresh food. Bread, not stale, butter, a couple of cuts of meat and even some steamed vegetables and rice. You rush over to the bars a little quicker than you’d wanted but even the smell’s enough to make your mouth water. You take the plates offering the guard a charming smile.

“Thank you very much, my friend. We won’t forget your generosity. Now why don’t you be back on your way and we’ll keep this our little secret alright?” 

“Yeah, of course. Let me know if you need anything else.” The guard nods before leaving the three of you. 

“You lot still hungry because this needs to be gone in the next thirty minutes or so.” The man pats a spot next to him and the goblin and you rush over handing them their own plates the three of you shoving down the food as fast as you can, to the crumbs, licking the plates clean. Not your finest perhaps but it only shows how long it’s been since any of you had a proper meal. After you return to your usual silence but remain seated with them. 

The consequences of your spell usage came as you expected and resulted in some bruises for you but they were worth it. Since you shared the food and took full responsibility for your actions the man, Caleb and goblin, Nott had grown a little more open with you and the three of you came to a nonverbal understanding to share what you got and distribute fairly. In the mean time you’d still been plotting your escape but your stunt had put a bit of a dent in that as they changed up the guard schedule too. Time’s running out. 

It’s afternoon and you’re laying on the floor curled up shivering from the cold facing away from Caleb and Nott. Your breath is visible in the air, the day unusually cold. A small hand touches your shoulder so you turn to see Nott giving you a pitied look. You sit up a little still shaking breathing into your hands and rubbing them together in the hopes of getting some warmth going. Nott grabs onto your hand and slowly pulls you in the direction of Caleb where she had been sitting before. You don’t resist as she sits you down right next to Caleb. You can’t help but cling onto him a little, responding to the warmth he brings and he does the same. While the difference is minimal, it’s better than none. Nott curls up in between the both of you on your laps using part of your coat to wrap around her, your own little heating pad against your stomachs. 

Caleb snaps his fingers and you feel soft fur scratch your neck, weight of a paw shifting to your shoulder and settle down. Looking down you see a bengal cat cuddle up like a scarf between you and Caleb. You make eye contact with the man. While your knowledge of the arcane might be limited you put one and one together and recognise the cat to be a familiar. You scratch the orange fuzz-ball’s head a little making it purr. 

“That trick you pulled a few days ago, you think you could do it again?” Caleb asks, voice shaky from the cold. You nod. 

“Good. We’re gonna need it if we want to get out of here. Together.” 

The next few days are repeated in kind, the cold sticking and freezing to death isn’t on any of your schedules. Caleb showed you a little trick of his to keep you warm when you were sure no guards would be near. The flame in his hands and cuddly cat Frumpkin, offered you some warmth and comfort when you most needed it. 

One day you’re in Caleb’s embrace, Nott in yours and you’re huddled together, when you feel some kind of amulet hidden beneath the layers of Caleb’s clothes. Caleb notices you noticed and freezes up. 

“Don’t worry I’m not going to steal it. Is it from your home?” You assure and while he grows a tiny bit less rigid he’s not back to his usual self.

“You could say that.” Caleb speaks absentmindedly, sounding a little stuck in his head.

“So not a good memory then. I won’t pry.” This puts him more at ease. He reaches into the neckline of his shirt and pulls out the amulet running his thumb over it. Curious what it looks like you’re slightly taken aback it matches something you’ve managed to keep hidden on your person too. 

“Looks like we have more in common than I thought. People with those kind of trinkets usually intend to stay hidden from people with a tendency to stick their arcane noses where they shouldn’t.” You take out the similar amulet from beneath your robes and show it. You’d rather not go into the details of how you procured this object. What matters is you have it and it keeps you safe from more persistent folks. 

“It appears so. If you don’t mind me asking, who would you be running from to need such an item?” You notice some wariness behind Caleb’s curiosity. Mistrust perhaps?

“No one in particular that I know of currently. It’s more of a precaution you see. The… origins of my abilities make me very wanted by those of arcane interests. They’d see me caged like some pretty songbird to be shown off to their friends or in chains, to be used as a power source for their spells and rituals without my consent. Certain powerful mages have been made aware of my presence in the Dwendalian Empire and seek to use me for their own plots. I prefer my freedom and staying out of their clutches.” You explain. You have no reason to hide this from Caleb. It just wasn’t relevant before. 

“I think I have a feeling I know about these individuals and believe me when I say you’re better off staying far away from them. I intend to do the same.” Caleb puts the amulet back in its place hidden from sight and you do the same. 

“A common interest then? Since we’re running from the same thing, perhaps sticking together after our grand escape until our paths diverge works in our benefit?” You deliberate as Nott listens along. You expected her to be asleep but apparently she had been listening too. 

“You can protect us and we protect you. You can study and learn together and become more powerful. We’ll protect each other. Caleb?” Nott speaks as she grabs yours and Caleb’s hands in her small ones giving them a light squeeze. 

“I don’t see why not.” Caleb mutters seeing the benefit in sticking together for the foreseeable future. He looks at you waiting for your answer.

“I guess. If you’ll have me, I’d very much appreciate the company.” 

And so you decided to stick together. Your breakout, not without its hiccups, successful regardless. You did as you agreed and had each other’s backs leaving your prison days far behind. You make a great team swindling people, stealing what you need to get by. Life on the road is hard but much more bearable with these two at your side. Nott has very much taken the mother role when it comes to the two of you, making sure you’ve eaten enough, studied enough and sleep instead of sticking in the books with Caleb. She’ll cuddle up to your side even on the warmer nights wrapping her arms around your arm or sides. Caleb shares his knowledge with you, as much as he can anyway hence the two of you studying together. He’s taken up the role of tutor and friend very well. The three of you while a little rocky at first have a good thing going on. You’re more than just friends. You’re family. You look out of each other no matter what and you stick together until the bitter end through think and thin because at the end of the day; birds of a a feather, stick together. 

[falcor-thee-luck-dragon]

Love Cuts Deep

Chapter 10- These Are Strange Times

Summary: Could something positive be truly on the horizon? With the random intrusion of though-to-be-dead Scott Lang at the Avengers Facility, your hope for seeing Bucky again may have yet to be a possibility.

Warning: yeah nothing enjoy the ride

Masterlist

-Five years since the Blip-

Throwing on a dark sleeveless top, you suddenly feel the overwhelming urge to sneeze which evidently causes your little furry companion to startle at the unexpected noise. The furry tigress lets out a meow of protest that pulls forth a humored snicker from you, while the little beast sends you an annoyed look.

Recovering her bearings in a flash, she walks across the short wooden dresser like a model strutting on the runway, her thick mane of mahogany and dark chocolate fur glossy and adequately brushed to perfection, just how your spoiled Main Coon, Silver, likes it.

She purrs happily as she begins playing with Bucky’s dog tags that lay across the small dresser top.

“What are you do..? Oh give me that you little shit.” Silver ignores you until she’s rudely lifted and placed firmly on the carpeted floor before you snatch up the valuable memorabilia. Placing it around your neck where it belongs then glancing down to give her a casual shrug, “Don’t give me that look Silv, I bought you a cool bird feathered cat toy like three days ago. What happened to that?” Silver meows, running her head against your worn out old boots as you smile, “Guess it’s as good as dead huh, you little beast. Now you staying or coming with me to find Nat?” Nothing but purrs of affection.

You lean down to gently rub her head before standing up fully and heading for the door, Silver hot on your heels. Soon you’re both traveling down the hallway until you finally reach the large study. Natasha’s on a conference call with Carol, Rodney, Okoye, and the last two guardians of the galaxy, Rocket and Nebula. And by the looks of it, nothing new has been reported. How disappointing.

Soon they all log off, leaving Natasha alone with Rodney who stays to give Nat a little insight into Barton’s violent whereabouts from the last couple years since he’s been rouge. Apparently he took out a whole cartel in Mexico, so he’s been busy. Definitely not keeping up with those group therapy sessions Steve makes you go to to help cope with the loss. Not that you’ve actually been that consistent with them if we’re being real here.

Quickly enough, Rodney logs out, leaving a tearfully conflicted Natasha as she slouches in her comfy swivel chair. Head in her hands as she holds back the waterfall that threatens to spill within her. You take a step forward, leaning casually against a steel rimmed display area for random nick-nacks. “I’d join you in the fun, but I’m limiting my crying sessions between 1 and 2 in the morning on Tuesdays. So, uh....I brought Silver.” You smile, pointing a finger down to your loyal companion, “Well I guess she brought herself but you know.”

Natasha breaks out into a reluctant grin, genuinely happy to have a bit of positive company within her gloom, “And you didn’t even want her to begin with.” Laughs the red head, “Now I never see one without the other.”

You nod with an almost shy smile, “Yeah, she’s alright.” 

You hear soft movement making its way through the hallway behind you just as Silver meows when Steve casually saunters into the room, coming to stand next to your side as the furry beast paws at his shoes, “What are you here for? Doing some laundry?” You tease at the tall blonde.

Steve smiles at your little jab since he’s not usually always present, doing Captain America stuff and whatnot, “Just here to see some friends.”

Natasha chuckles through glossy eyes, “Well clearly your friends are doing just fine.” Steve knowingly nods paired with a small smile, both you and Natasha look relatively well kept and functional as usual. It’s just, there’s a palpable pain and hidden darkness that always appears to simmer lowly on the surface. Just enough for a skilled eye like Steve’s to notice.

“Exactly.” You add, wandering over to sit cross legged on Natasha’s desk as Steve moves to lean against the display, “But if you’re here to tell us to look on the bright side...”

“I’m gonna hit you in the head with this peanut butter sandwich.” Finishes Natasha with a pursued lipped grin as the 90 year old nods. “Um, right. Force of habit.” Admits Steve, pushing himself off the surface to find a seat next to you and directly across from Natasha. 

The three of you keep to a mutual silence for a long moment until he finally speaks, “You know,” Starts Steve thoughtfully, “I keep telling everybody they should move on...and grow. Some do.” He pauses for a moment as you frown, Natasha looking elsewhere as Steve finally continues, “But not us.”

She shakes her head, “If we move on, who does this?”

“Maybe it doesn’t need to be done.” Suggests Steve, he means well of course, but maybe he’s right after all, its been five fucking years with absolutely nothing to make for it. Nothing of any significant progress or even a possible way to fix what's happened. 

Natasha blinks through bleary eyes of saddened green while you pet Silver’s furry mane, refusing to give in to that notion, “No.” You whisper softly, causing them to look at you, “We can’t, it wouldn’t be right...at least,” You let out a gentle sigh, “at least not for me....before all of this, before I met all of you. I had nothing.” You admit thoughtfully, “Not a soul in the world who gave a damn whether I lived or died. Then I found Bucky, then I found this. This.....family. And because of it, I’m better off now then I was ten years ago.”

They keep a respectful silence as your breaths become shaky, teary eyes now trained onto Silver’s little ears, “And I know they’re gone now, believe me I fucking know it, but I’m still trying to be better.” Natasha nods in deep understanding, a couple stray tears falling down her cheeks as Steve crosses his arms.

“I think we all need to get a life.” He muses, his tone light as he tries to pull you two back from the edge of grief. You give him a friendly nudge at his annoying brotherliness, “You first.” He chuckles as you throw him a playful glare while Natasha checks an incoming call.

“Oh, hi! Hello! Is anyone home?” Speaks a man frantically from one of the security cameras, an orange van behind him, “This is, uh, Scott Lang. We met a few years ago at the airport.....in Germany?” Now you’ve got his attention.

“What the fuck?” You mutter in bewilderment at the blue tinged image of Scott as Steve and Nat share a confused glance, the three of you quickly rising to your feet while Scott keeps talking about who he is, how he got here, and what he’s learned about the world so far.

“Is this an old message?” Wonders Steve as he studies the image of Scott who’s still waving his hands up at the security camera.

“It’s the front gate.” Replies Natasha with a hopeful smile.

——

All you came here to do was shoot the shit with Natasha and maybe make some actual dinner, but here you are, laying across the study’s plush couch as Scott rambles on and on about the quantum realm. Whatever that happens to actually be, you’ve never heard of anything like that before, but then again you didn’t know aliens existed at one point. So perhaps anything's possible.

Silver brushes her fluffy head across your fingers as they dangle over the couches edge while Scott keeps at his long-winded tellings of how he got there, what it was like, that he’s been technically gone for only five hours, and now he thinks there’s a way to enter this new plane of existence and travel to a fresh alternate reality. Like through a time machine type deal, or whatever he’s on about.

Apparently he means one before Thanos. But it honestly sounds like a load of horseshit and gibberish coming from a desperate man refusing to acknowledge that this is the new shit reality. There’s no fucking way that’s even goddamn possible, right? No way. 

Maybe?

Drifting back out of your doubtful thoughts, you swiftly move yourself into a seated position as Scott begins to self doubt. Head lowering as he mumbles about how crazy that it. You start chuckling as he throws you an almost embarrassed look. “Scott.” You speak to gather his attention, “Nat gets emails from a raccoon. Your idea is admittedly a bit nuts, but nothings that crazy anymore considering all the wild shit I’ve witnessed in the past six years. So I don’t know, maybe there’s a way.”

Scott flashes a hopeful smile as his brows furrow in thought, uncertainty seeping right back into him, “So, uh...who do we talk to about this?”

——

“Stark! Miss us?” You shout at Tony as he holds Morgan in his left arm, an Ironman helmet grasped firmly in the right. He gives the four of you a less then enthusiastic nod of acknowledgment before wordlessly turning around and taking a step up onto the wooden porch.

You give Steve a shrug, “He misses us I can tell.”

Soon Tony let’s Morgan go off to play with you as you opt in to be the babysitter slash distraction from the grownups who are currently discussing if time travel and gathering the stones for ourselves is even a possibility, or even a palpable option that can be done. You skillfully listen to everything they’re saying as the little Stark shows off her array of multiple plant-life assortments picked from the local greenery.

“So I got this cone from that tree over there and then I put a frog in a glass but dad said I had to let him go so I did.” Babbles on the five year old as you entertain her constant musings.

You raise a brow, knowing her shenanigans all too well, “Is he in the garden?”

She mischievously smirks, sneakily peaking over at Tony who’s seated up on the porch, before giving you a nod, “Yeah. I made him a little house from some flat rocks I found too. I named him Froggo.”

You chuckle, “Oh really, Froggo? I like it, has a nice ring to it.” She nods in delight before walking into her tiny tent to retrieve something new as you catch either Scott or Steve saying something about a time heist, what the hell are they going on about now?

“Y/N! Look at this!” Calls Morgan excitedly while bursting out of the tent to run on short legs over to you who’s seated comfortably in the grass, “I got a cool rock from the lake but I didn’t get to show you last time cause you left early.”

Raising your brows in surprise, though you don’t exactly feel as thrilled as she is, you make sure she knows you care, “Woah! A cool rock from the lake, why Morgan I gotta see this.”

“Look.” She hands you a dull grey rock with a tiny fossil shell indentation on it, “It’s from the dinosaurs.”

Examining the small round object, you nod, “Next thing you know I’ll come back to a whole dinosaur excavation site. Impressive Professor Grant, I’m thoroughly amazed.”

She giggles in excitement, “Y/N I know what that means now.” You give her an inquiring look as she smiles proudly, “That’s from Jurassic Park.”

“And your dad let you watch that, with the big Trex eating the goat and everything?” You tease before handing her the prized object, “Next thing I know you’re going to have a whole dinosaur skeleton in your house.”

“Yeah that would be cool. Thanks ninja turtle.” Cackles Morgan as she hugs her rock, smiling brightly as you throw her a puzzled look before joining in on the laughter. “Okay, now you’ve lost me kid, I can’t say I have any idea what you’re talking about.”

She shrugs innocently, “Dad told me to call you that.” Clearly not understanding what she just called you either. A ninja turtle? The fuck is a ninja turtle?

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” You muse before looking up to the four of them getting closer to a heated discussion, “Alright Morgs let’s go save your dad before he decides never to invite us back for dinner again.” You add, quickly rising to your feet as she laughs before racing past you, on a beeline for Tony.

You choose to stay out of the conversation and instead wait for Steve, Natasha, and Scott to start walking back towards the car. You lean against the metal as Steve round the corner before catching your eye as he goes down the three steps, “Are we banished from the castle? I was kinda hoping not cause I actually like Pepper’s cooking.”

Steve smiles, “No. He’s not gonna help us is all.”

“Damn that’s shitty.” You retort with a tinge of genuine disappointment, you don’t completely believe this shit is even possible. But dammit if you don’t want them to at least try for all it’s worth. “So what now? I’m guessing you bastards aren’t gonna let this go anytime soon. And cause Tony’s out for the count, we obviously need some different brain power.”

Steve nods while walking closer to the car, “We wanna do this right. So, yeah, we’re gonna need a really big brain.”

Scott turns from Steve to point a thumb in Tony’s general direction, face a mask of confused puzzlement, “Bigger then his?”

-

After a less then pleasant adventure to some cozy little diner in New Jersey where the four of you were subjected to Banner in his weird Hulkness body or whatever the hell he is now. Turns out he was most definitely on board for this time traveling experimentation. Of course he was, the weirdo takes fucking selfies with children nowadays. 

So here you five are now, in the giant glass and metal garage of the Avengers Facility getting things ready for whatever nonsense is about to take place next. The back of Scott’s orange van closed for the moment, keeping hidden some reactor core thing behind its doors. Scott in some safety quantum realm suit while Banner and Natasha stand behind a large intricate assembly of high tech equipment in preparation for the events to hopefully follow.

You keep an amused yet genuinely curious stance off to the side as Bruce gives you a thumbs up, nodding, you face Scott who’s walking over to the van. “Okay, here we go. Time travel test number one everybody! Scott get that bitch open!” You shout with a small bout of rare enthusiasm while he opens up the doors.

“Emergency generators are on standby.” Announces Steve as he walks into view from behind some large plastic containers covered in safety rope.

Banner nods, “Good, because if we blow the grid, I don’t wanna lose, uh..” He points a green thumb at Scott who’s getting his helmet ready, “Tiny here in the 1950’s.”

Scott’s head snaps up in an instant, “Excuse me?” He worries.

Natasha smiles while looking down at her touch pad, “He’s kidding.” She sing songs before shaking her head up at Banner, “You can’t say things like that.”

Banner turns around to face a fearful Scott as you snort at the small bout of humor that you did happen to find rather amusing. Then again, you’re not the labs guinea pig, so instead you casually shrug while giving Scott a half persuasive grin and a thumbs up of reassurance, “Bad joke.” You add as Bruce nervously laughs, “Yeah, it was a bad joke.”

Scott nods apprehensively before turning to walk over to the reactor, appearing to believe the two of you, “You were kidding, right?” Asks Natasha as you raise a brow at Bruce in question. Albeit a smidge doubtful he actually one-hundred percent knows what he’s doing.

“I have no idea.” Whisper yells Banner, confirming your suspicions, “We’re talking about time travel here. Either it’s all a joke, or none of it is.” Explains Bruce, suddenly smiling as he lifts his attention back over to Scott, “We’re good!” He shouts with a positive thumbs up of that prominently famous green.

“Oh we’re so fucked.” You mutter humorously while Natasha shares an uncertain look with you.

“Get your helmet on.” States Banner as Scott does just that, “Scott, I’m gonna send you back a week...let you walk around for an hour, then bring you back in 10 seconds. Make sense?”

Scott smiles brightly, waving him off with confidence, “Perfectly not confusing.” He muses with an almost annoyingly positive expression.

“Good luck Scott. You got this.” Encourages Steve while Scott grins proudly. “You’re right. I do, Captain America.” Then just like that’s he’s gone, sucked into the reactor like a crumb into a vacuum cleaner.

“On a count of three..” Begins Banner, “Three, two, one.” Bruce flips some switches as the machine whirs before a second later and there’s Scott. In the body of a teen. “Uh, guys? This doesn’t feel right.” Worries teen Scott as his brows furrow in confusion, clearly not aware of how he looks. This just got interesting.

“What’s going on?” Questions Steve as Bruce urgently flicks more switches. “Who is that?” Wonders Natasha as you snort at teen Scott, snickering at how absolutely ridiculous your life is becoming and the weird shit you’re adding to the list.

“Oh my god he looks so innocent, like before the world hurt him.” You muse as Natasha’s brows raise in bewilderment, giving you a side glance as she focuses back on the person in question. “Is that, Scott?”

“Yes, it’s Scott!” Protests the sassy little 14 year old before whoosh and he’s gone once again while Banner squats down out of view to mess with some more buttons. A hot second later Scott’s back, this time looking significantly different.

“Oh, my back!” Complains the short wrinkly 80 year old man, Steve sending the back of Bruce a troubled look, “What is this?”

“Hold on a second. Could I get a little space guys.”

Steve hastily jogs around Bruce as he makes his way over to you and Nat, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you bring him back?”

“I’m working on it.” Mumbles Banner with underlying urgency as he flicks more switches in hopes of getting a better result, whoosh, and Scott’s gone again before reappearing as a...

“It’s a baby.” Deadpans Steve in astonishment.

You burst with laughter, “It’s Scott! Let’s just keep him this way so we don’t have to hear him ramble about how amazing you are, Captain America.” You tease playfully as Steve throws you a what-the-fuck kinda expression. “Y/N! He’s a baby!”

“He‘ll grow.” Adds Bruce as you shrug in agreement. Crossing your arms as you study baby Scott, “Steve you can change the diapers.”

“Bring Scott back.” Urges Steve as he ignores you and Banners amusement of the situation.

“Alright fine.” Chides Bruce, “When I say kill the power, kill the power.”

Natasha rushes past you while mumbling, “Oh, my God.” As you await for Bruce’s fantastic technological skills.

“And....kill it!” Natasha turns the breaker switch downwards and a moment later Scott’s back, this time fully Scott. Whether that’s good or not is debatable.

He stands there, arms open and face twisted in confusion, “Somebody peed my pants. But I don’t know if it was baby me or old me.......Or just...me me.” Speculates Scott as you snort in amusement.

“It was probably just you.”

He sends you an unsure look that’s half offended yet he can’t exactly counter that claim considering he’s just jumped between three different age groups of himself. Bruce claps his hands together before spreading his arms out wide in excitement, “Time travel!” He shouts enthusiastically as Steve shakes his head before turning to walk elsewhere, “What?” Wonders Bruce, “I see this as an absolute win. 

——

In the following weeks after Banner’s half-successful attempt at legitimate time travel, Tony and Rocket have been toiling away tirelessly on Starks actual time machine since he’s agreed to help fix the mess that Thanos left behind. The Avengers base has honestly never been busier; with Tony, Banner, and Rocket working on the giant machine. Everyone else is going about their business helping when needed and hoping for good news.

So here you are now, in the middle of the night with all light sources retired for the evening, hanging out in the kitchen with a bowl of watermelon chunks in your hand, and greatly enjoying the recently rare peace and quiet. Though soon your silent midnight snacking is disrupted when the sounds of human feet padding on tile reaches your ears from down the hallway. Dammit.

The lights flicker on in an instant, blinding your vision for a brief moment before they adjust accordingly to find the blue eyes of Steve, he yelps in surprise, hand holding his chest as he relaxes once more when he realizes it’s just you. Then he does a double take, considering you’re seated crossed legged on the counter with a bowl of watermelon, “Uh, hey there Y/N.”

You nod, awkwardly taking a bite out of your snack, “Steve.”

He raises a curious brow, deciding to step farther into the large kitchen area, “Huh, never seen anyone eat watermelon like that before, but I respect it.” Says the blonde, nodding towards the chopsticks held in your right hand.

“Yeah. Less of a mess.” He nods before taking a Gatorade out of the fridge, “Mind if I sit?”

“Go for it.” He nods before promptly seating himself next to the marble table. “So, eating in the dark? Your inner night owl keeping you from sleeping again?”

You shrug, “I can kinda see in the dark so....yeah, a bit of a night owl.” You admit with a growing frown, not sure why you suddenly feel so down in the dumbs again, “....guess I haven’t really slept well for some time now....well, now since I think about it actually, I probably don’t get as much sleep as your average person.”

“I get that, yeah....I know what you mean.” Lightly chuckles Steve in understanding, taking a small moment of silence to let his mind think of something to sway the atmosphere away from an awkward tension. Parting his eyes away from his clasped hands, he looks up to meet your stoic gaze, “You think all this is possible? I mean they’ve made some real progress and I guess Tony really knows what he’s doing. Still after all this time I can’t help but find it amazing.”

Pursing your lips together in thought, you let a small sigh emit from your parted lips before answering, “I hope so, cause if not. Well, guess that would be as expected.” You admit with a frown, “Maybe that’s just how it’s supposed to go....a fitting punishment for my lengthy list of crimes. I guess that’s fair.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Counters Steve as he sends you a sympathetic look, “What happened to you isn’t your fault, neither is what they made you do, or everything Thanos did to the universe....”

“Yeah, guess you’re probably right....it’s just...just so difficult to move on you know? From all of it, everything swirling in my head, and even though it’s been five fucking years now. I still think of that shit, even worse, I still think of Bucky every single day, I miss him.....I just, I miss all of them.” You admit sadly, setting your snack down as Steve takes a moment to reflect on his own losses.

Suddenly his lips curl into a humored smile as he shakes his head, eyes looking down at the table before they connect with your curious ones, “God he was so different back in the 40’s....Y/N you wouldn’t believe the stuff we got up to, jeesh, the stuff he got up to.” Chuckles Steve as you raise an intrigued brow. 

“Alright Rogers care to elaborate?” You press with a growing smile at the thought of Bucky and learning more about him, “Bucky never told me a whole lot about that time. Considering he’ll probably never get the chance, I think I’d like to learn more about him and what shit you people did back then.”

“Aren’t you from the 1950′s?” Inquires Steve with a humored grin as you wave him off.

“Yeah, yeah, I was a baby back then I don’t remember what happened okay,” You explain, “I was born in 53 alright, and let’s not forget I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood.”

Steve nods, “Right. Fair point.....Okay so..” He laughs, “There was this one time and if you knew me back in the day, of course I was getting in an unsolicited scuffle with some boys who thought it was funny to argue with the paperboy.”

Raising a brow, you begin to smile as his eyes light up, “An unsolicited scuffle?” You muse, “Or is this when skinny Steve got his ass kicked by a couple of mangy dogs?”

“Dogs. Yeah that’s probably more fitting, well you know, of course I had to step in and do something.”

“As expected.” You quickly add as he continues.

“Which I did. And let me tell you they were not a fan. Those assholes ran me for two blocks till I got cornered in some market when who would you know it.....Bucky was there, taking some cute strawberry blonde out for a date while he got groceries for his mom.” Chuckles Steve, blue eyes shimmering with the humorous memories coming back to him about his old friend.

You heart subconsciously swells with the thought of Bucky, “Clever man. Sweet talk your girl while doing something useful.”

“Exactly. I would have gotten a bloody nose if he hadn’t thrown a tomato right at the biggest guys head. That thing coated his hair like red paint, then...” Steve balls his fist as he presses it against his mouth to try and keep himself from losing it with laughter, “...then, his friend turned around and smack! Another tomato right in his face.”

Snickering in amusement, you run a hand down the side of your face at the vivid image forming in your head, “oh Bucky..”

“It was pretty damn accurate too. The other guy booked it down the sidewalk before Buck could get him. Then when he started walking towards us, the other guys took off like a couple of scared birds....fortunately leaving me with no bruises that day.” Says Steve proudly, no doubt thinking fondly on that old memory, “Then of course he told me I gotta be more careful and all that stuff, I said I was fine and he want back to shopping with that girl......huh, don’t think I ever saw her again, well....at least with him.”

“Don’t blame her, he sounded like a real ladies man back in the day, she probably got too jealous.” You joke with a small brow wiggle before your smile lessens again, God you miss him so fucking much, “Thanks Steve.....he seemed, so different. It’s just when I knew him, when I first met him that is, Bucky was very different.”

Steve’s face looses it’s once vibrant glow, he keeps a steady gaze set on you now, knowing your time with him was such a chilling contrast to Bucky in the 40’s. You sigh, “I think I would have liked to see that version of Bucky just once, but I liked the Bucky I got after everything we went through.....after everything’s that’s happened. Maybe 40’s Bucky wouldn’t even look in my direction, I’d probably scare the socks off of him anyways.”

Steve shakes his head, “No way Y/N, you’d have him wrapped around your finger so fast, not a doubt in my mind he’d do anything for you in a heartbeat. That’s just who he was, a player yes, but a kind one who treated everyone with respect through that famous charm of his.....and you, you’d have caught his attention in an instant.”

Looking down at your hands, you raise the corner of your lips into a small half grin at the thought of Sergeant Barnes losing it all to the dangerous vixen that is no doubt yourself, now that’s an interesting thought indeed. Bucky in the 40′s, how about that.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not....but I know one thing. That I’m glad to have even known him at all, he was...so special and he didn’t even know it.” You pause for a moment, lips pursing together as you think fondly of your past lover. Steve keeps silent, studying your disheartened features as you gather your words, “So if, if they can somehow do this....if it’s even actually possible to get those fucking stones again. I’ll do whatever it takes, Steve.”

Whatever it takes.

-

Tagged:  @diegos-butt @minigranger @bibliophilewednesday @holyhumorliteraturelight @lilacs-lavender @a-girl-who-loves-disney @starkssnarks @vikingqueen28 @bizarrebibitch @atomicpersonacheesecake @jmstz @staygoldsquatchling02 @marvelbros-oneshots @shawnartmendes​ @mischiefmanaged71 @jckie94​  @iamasimpingh0e

[sabraeal]

Tenderness Like a Bruise

[Read on AO3]

Sequel to Creatures of a Brief Season; written in honor of @puffdragongirl‘s birthday! Robin requested anything that included Od Ana, and what would incur more Od Ana commentary than Bergatt (and potentiality Eisetsu) Arc?

They could spend a hundred years in this snow, a hundred lifetimes, and Od Ana knows: she’ll never get used to it.

You’re meant to be here, Obi would tease, trailing a gloved finger up her sternum, ruffling her feathers. They still hunt with birds like you up north, riding on horseback and snatching hares from the snow.

They’re real birds, she’d huff, snapping at that finger. I’m you, and you’re me, and we’re cold.

It makes her wings stiff, a heavy weight when she lifts them-- not something she needs when they’re already so big, so awkward unless she’s in the air. The wind cuts right through her feathers, ignoring the ribbed bulwark and clinging right to the skin. Obi always tells her to take a flap if she can’t stand it, but the higher up she goes, the crueler it is. Sure she might get some heat in her muscles, but that doesn’t do anything for the parts of her that aren’t involved with flight.

“How many of these are you gonna make?” Perkunas hops around Obi’s knees, big, clumsy paws raking at his trousers. Obi puts him off with a pat, sweeping a gloved finger up his muzzle to still him. It’s no longer like lightning when they touch, just a soft buzz, muted by leather and fur.

See, another reason to suffer down here, shivering-- if she spent all her time up in the air, she’d miss the show.

Shirayuki perches on the edge of a planter, raising her feet as Perkunas scuttles under them. He pokes his nose over her notes, skimming the page until he’s cross-eyed. That little meat bun might think himself bookish, but this is far from the first time he’s lurched from her lap, word-drunk; she spares him a small pat, laying her gloved hand carefully over the ridge of his muzzle. Right where Obi ran his finger, Od Ana can’t help but note.

She snaps her beak, chuffed. Her man’s mistress might play at being busy, too absorbed in her work to pay attention to the silliness surround her, but Od Ana has an eagle’s eyes. Whenever Obi’s all energy and no sense, Shirayuki’s got one eye on him. Not to keep watch, like she’s so keen on saying when she’s caught, but because she likes to turn two toward him if he bends over.

Even now her lips twitch, a smothering a smile before it can take flight-- Od Ana’s grateful for it. The last thing he needs now is encouragement.

Perkunas waddles back over when Obi squats, resting his chin on his knee. A glove reaches down, smoothing the fur between his ears before riffling it again, leaving thick globs of snow. “Until there’s one for all of us.”

That small head cocks, taking in the row of snowmen. Obi might be good with his hands, maybe might even be fine enough to put pen to page, but an artist he’s not-- all his attempts are round and squat, their snow daemons snuggled in beside them. Even Od Ana has to squint to make out which one is which.

“All of us?” Perkunas echoes, sitting back on his haunches. “I don’t know if there’s enough.”

“Sure there is.” Obi levers himself to his feet, one hand free to point. “That’s Master and Miss, Miss Kiki and Mister, and over here’s me...”

“That��s supposed to be Shirayuki?” Perkunas trots up to the smallest one, sniffing at the spherical snow daemon beside it. “Is this me?”

Obi nods, mouth quivering. “Mmhmm.”

Perkunsa snorts, skittering back. “I don’t look like that!”

“Sure you do!” Od Ana clacks her beak, drawing his glare. “Just a little snow sausage, waiting to be grilled up!”

“I’m not!” he squeals, rushing up to where she sits. It’s too far for his squat little legs to reach, paws flexing as they try to find purchase on the stone.

“Take it back!” he growls, hopping uselessly beneath her. “Take it back! Shirayuki, did you hear her? Make her take it back!”

It’s no use-- Shirayuki might keep one eye on Obi, but Perkunas’s plaintive whines are too commonplace to lure her attention away. He grunts and skitters, but Shirayuki sits with her heels hooked on the edge of a stone, unmoved. Od Ana can’t grin with this beak of her, but she can flap her wings, skipping along the stone with a screech that might fall on the more purposeful side of taunting. And like always, Perkunas rises to her bait.

He’s stretched as long as his elastic body can go, every strand of fur on his ringed tail standing on end--

And he tumbles, the way he always does. Just collapses into an uncontrolled roll, more sphere than sense, careening across the yard-- and right into one of Obi’s snow friends.

“Oh!” Perkunas leaps up all at once, shaking snow from his snub snout,  snuffling pitifully. “I’m so sorry, Obi! I didn’t mean to.”

Obi crouches down where he lays, gloved palm landing gently on his muzzle. “I know, little guy.” He casts an eye over the ruined mound, clucking his tongue. “Well, there goes Mister.”

“Eh?” Shirayuki wholly drags herself up from her work now, glancing from Obi’s back to the snow-covered Perkunas and then all the way up to where she perches. Her mouth settles in a knowing line, and when she says, “Have you been getting in to trouble?” Od Ana knows it’s for both of them.

It’s good a bird can’t look abashed, no matter how many feathers she has. Otherwise she might have to try.

“It’s Od Ana’s fault,” Perkunas rushes to tell her, the little liar.

She sniffs, cocking her beak haughtily. “I would never have expected Shirayuki’s daemon to be such a tattletale.”

Od Ana expects a glare, a harsh word, something to quell her, but Shirayuki’s mouth only twists wryly. “You should have known me as a child.”

I did. It’s Obi’s thought, but it dovetails with her own, unobtrusive for once. It doesn’t bear saying that she was neither as excitable or pestiferous as Perkunas can make himself; Obi’s agreement radiates deep in her breast. Their secret, locked in a cage of hollow bone.

“She called me fat,” Perkunas grouses, sitting back on his haunches. It makes him round, like a ball, and Od Ana’s half-tempted to see if she could get him to roll again with just a squawk.

“You are. There’s no reason to be ashamed of it.” Shirayuki tells him, all fondness as she comes to crouch beside him, knee brushing Obi’s as easily as her hand strokes her daemon’s skull. Od Ana can feel his shiver from here, her beak rattling quietly from the one it sends through her. “Oh, Obi-- I’m sorry. He’s undone all your hard work.”

“No worries, Miss.” Obi cradles what’s left of Mitsuhide’s head in his hands. “I’m sure it’s only a bad omen. Poor Mister.”

Shirayuki cocks her head, leaning in to glance at the ruined snow skull. Od Ana might tease Obi, might mock him for never being able to puzzle out how to bridge the gap between him and his mistress, but he certainly knows how to get her to hover in his orbit. Black and red nearly eclipse each other, and oh, what she wouldn’t give to knock the two of them together just to see the spark.

After a long moment, Shirayuki finally says, dubious, “That was supposed to be Mitsuhide?” 

“Yep.” Obi chucks his chin toward the oblong mound, resting beside the remains of the prince’s foremost aide. “See, Sigrun’s right there.”

Shirayuki pitches forward, squinting. “Eh?”

Od Ana clucks, amused. Sigrun’s even-tempered, just like her man, but even she would be insulted by the snow sausage standing in for her.

“It’s too warm for this anyway,” Shirayuki decides, lifting herself to standing. “No wonder Mitsuhide fell apart. He’s the biggest, after all. Couldn’t hold his own weight.”

“It was getting colder. I thought maybe we might get a snow this afternoon, and I’d get to shore them up.” He stands with a sigh, knees creaking in protest. “Doesn’t seem like that’ll be happening today, Miss.”

Shirayuki peers up at him-- further than Od Ana remembers her needing. Ah, so her boy’s grown another inch. He’ll be out of those soon, if the men around him are any stick to measure by. He’s tall enough now anyway, respectable. Doesn’t need to get cocky on top of it-- at least not any more than he already is.

“Suzu told me it’s still too early for snow.” She casts a thoughtful glance at the sky. “Well, at least in the afternoon.”

Obi huffs, amused, eyebrows shooting toward his hairline. “Suzu said that?”

“Well,” Shirayuki wheedles. “Hermia did.”

“That sounds more reliable,” Obi grunts. Most daemons are, save for Perkunas. “Still, didn’t we have one just the other week?”

“Well, yes.” She sways on her feet, but it’s not from weakness or exhaustion-- it’s from energy that needs to be spent, like a child made to sit too long. Maybe Perkunas is more like her than any of them give him credit. “But it’ll be a few weeks before it’s cold enough for another. Lilias has to work itself into winter.”

Since when, Od Ana nearly says. Obi coughs; it barely covers his laugh.

“Ah, that reminds me. Mistress--” Obi turns, catching her eyes, and Od Ana uselessly wills him to close the space-- “the knights need me to help them with something starting tomorrow. You’ll have to look after yourself for a while.”

An idle threat, but Shirayuki takes it with a dutiful nod, just the way she expects. “Got it.” She hesitates before adding, “I hope it isn’t too serious.”

Obi casts one of his long looks over her, somehow both assessing and torn, before he looks away. A pity, since he doesn’t see how she looks back. “They’ve sent a few troops elsewhere for now, so they’re running a little thin at the checkpoint. I said I’d help out.”

“Ah, see.” Od Ana flutters down, perching on his shoulder. She’s too big for it to be comfortable, and he grunts as she knocks a wing against his head before folding them in. “What he means is that no one wants to do the paperwork. And Obi’s handwriting is so nice...”

He grimaces. “Something like that.” He flicks a coy smile towards Shirayuki, heedless of how it sticks. “If I get a cut, I’ll be sure to come to you and get myself bandaged up.”

“Oh.” Od Ana always likes Shirayuki’s sly smiles; Obi deserves to have someone who can make sure he gets as much as he gives. “I’ll be sure to tell Suzu to keep an eye out for you. He’s the best at bandages.”

Perkunas nods, oblivious to Obi’s scowl. “He always has them. A bunch!”

“Because he’s so accident prone himself,” Od Ana can’t help but add. Hermia has her work cut out for her, keeping that one alive.

“I don’t even carry any on me,” Shirayuki informs him loftily, the lie obvious on her lips.

Obi spares them both a thin look; it’s a good camouflage for how much he clearly want to kiss her. “Aw, at least let Little Ryuu do it, Miss.”

Her smile only curves more slyly. “I think that’s up to--”

“What was that about me?”

Ryuu appears out of the crowd, as sudden as Obi ever has; space empty one minute and the next filled with a boy about to hit his first growth, limbs all at odd lengths for his small body. Asasara noses out from beneath his collar, tongue darting out to taste the air before slithering back, settling against his skin. It’s nice to know that she’s not the only one who hates this weather.

“Little Ryuu!” Obi pivots sharply on his heel, unbalancing her enough to see her flapping back over to the wall. He grins wide, hooking his hands on his hips and he looks down at the boy. “Can you do me a favor and remind Miss to start bringing bandages around with her? I’d hate to go to anyone else if I’m wounded in honorable combat.”

“Eh?” He blinks, the blue of his eyes stark against the pale parchment of his skin. “Doesn’t she already?”

Shirayuki sends him a warning look, but it’s far, far too late for that. Obi’s already spun around, victory bright on his angular face. “So Miss does carry bandages.”

Her hands fly up as he looms, though it hardly seems she wants to ward him off. “Those are for emergencies, Obi. Not for paper--”

“Ah, Sir Obi!”

Od Ana cranes her neck, peering up the stairs that lead to the wall. There’s a guard there, waving like his limbs are too long for his body to control, eyes already round in limpid by the time they meet Obi’s. “Sir Obi, sir! I’m supposed to tell you-- His Highness’s messenger has arrived.”

She doesn’t need to look to know how Obi’s body has stiffened, how his breath has caught in chest and mind’s gone to static.

“Messenger?” Od Ana says quietly, stilted. “I thought that was you.”

A long breath hisses through his teeth. “So did I.”

[thischickwritessometimes]

MYSME RBB

Hey!! I joined my first ever collab this year for the Mystic Messenger fandom! It was totally awesome, and I lucked out and got someone super cool as my artist. Shout out to @thedum1, who was my partner for this. Go check out their amazing art that goes along with my writing, and give them some love. Without further ado, here’s the fic!

(You can also find this on ao3!)

Saeyoung decided that he’d been sitting in one place for far too long. His back was screaming in agony, his eyes were trying desperately to make the computer screen focus, and his head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton. All of those combined to make him feel miserable, like he was going to explode if he sat there for even one more minute. 

He shut down his workstation, making sure that his work remained where it was, the computer encoded carefully to make sure that no one could get into it and change things. Of course, if someone was going to get in, they’d have to break through the security in his house, which wasn’t likely to happen. He’d just figured out the best password for his front gate, after all. As Saeyoung idly considered his password (and other possible future ones), he slid on his shoes and grabbed his jacket. 

He stopped in the kitchen to grab a package of Honey Buddha Chips and then was off, heading into town on some form of a quest. The destination isn’t important, he tells himself, just the experience. He just needed some fresh air, a sight that wasn’t his computer screen (or, more recently, the wall slightly above and behind his computer), and perhaps a reminder that there were other humans in the world outside of himself and Vanderwood.

He hummed to himself as he walked, enjoying the sun on his skin and the sounds of birds and people talking. Couples were walking just about everywhere in the park, each chatting and laughing happily. Some younger kids were running around chasing each other. A dog sprinted past Saeyoung, chasing a stick that had just been thrown. 

The dog reminded him of Elly. She always was willing to run around his feet happily as he played with her in Jumin’s apartment. He missed the white cat. It’d been far too long since he last saw her, and he mentally decided to schedule a time to break through his friend’s security to see the fluffy Persian again.

As he walked along, a flyer for a pet shop caught his eye. It was advertising a day to come play with the animals, both cats and dogs alike. As he stopped to read it more thoroughly, Saeyoung realized that if he headed to the shop right now he could get in at least an hour and a half with the cats (and maybe some dogs too). Now armed and ready with a plan of action, he set off with a purpose, striding quickly to the pet store.

As he neared it, he noticed that not many people were lingering around. Saeyoung realized that this must be one of the less popular pet shops and was sad to see that, especially because it looked very charming and quaint. As he pushed open the door, a bell above his head let out a quiet sound to alert an employee that someone had arrived.

Sure enough, a slightly frazzled-looking young man appeared. His hair was shaggy and black, long enough that it was falling into his eyes just slightly. The eyes in question were a stunning blue-green that Saeyoung wouldn’t mind looking into for a while. He tried to shake off that thought. He was here for cute cats, not cute people.

“How can I help you?” The guy asked, a small smile on his face. 

“I’m here to play with the cats. I saw a flyer saying that you guys had free time for that?”

“Oh, of course! Right this way. I think there’s only one other person in there, so it shouldn’t be that much of a crowd. Feel free to use any of the toys out. And don’t worry, the only one that scratches is our resident sourpuss, Yoshi.” The employee opened the door carefully and Saeyoung peered in, amazed at all the cats running around or napping. 

There was one girl sitting happily in the middle of the room, surrounded by cats. She had a dark skin tone and was wearing a pink skirt and what Saeyoung was pretty sure was a halter top. (How he knew that? Well, let’s just say that he had been considering one for cosplay for a long time.) When she turned to look at him, he spotted glasses and heterochromatic eyes. One brown, the other a bright blue. 

She’s cute, was his first thought. It only amplified when he realized that her hair had a piece sticking up that looked to be meticulously formed into a heart like you would see on a lovesick anime girl. Her dedication spoke volumes and he knew that he would probably end up liking this girl if they talked. 

He shook his head slightly. No, he couldn’t be thinking about that. Not today! He was here for cute cats, not cute girls or cute boys. His mind was set firmly on petting all the adorable creatures. 

So he walked past the girl, giving her a faint smile. She returned it with a glowing one that practically lit up her entire face, and Saeyoung had to hide how his heart pattered at the sight. He focused his eyes on a particularly cute orange cat that was napping peacefully in a ray of sunlight.

As he reached out to pet it carefully, the cat responded by purring softly, like this was everything it could have dreamed of. However, after a while it tired of his antics and scratched softly at his hand in warning. He chuckled and pulled his hand away, letting the feline relax by itself. His eyes scanned the room for another willing friend and they snagged on a little black and white kitten.

It was pawing at a toy, obviously bored. Saeyoung crawled over carefully and picked up the toy, which appeared to be a feather on a string. He bounced it around, and the kitten started to paw at it. It got into the game, eventually leaping at it until it tired itself out. 

Saeyoung made a “pspsps” noise, trying to attract the kitten to him. Its ears perked up and it headed over to his lap, where he petted it softly. The cat seemed like just the perfect companion, and if he could adopt a cat right now he would definitely consider this little guy as the one.

There was a quiet intake of breath over his shoulder, and Saeyoung looked back to see the girl gazing fondly at the kitten. As soon as she noticed his gaze, she colored, blushing slightly. “Ah! Sorry to bother you!”

“Oh, it’s not an issue,” he said, giving her a smile. “He’s a cute one, isn’t he?” He gestured to the kitten that had made itself comfortable in his lap. 

“Yes, he really is. I must admit, I may have been looking at him the entire time… but I got a little nervous he wouldn’t like me.” She looked away, seemingly embarrassed. 

“Well,” Saeyoung said, an idea coming to mind. “Let’s test that out, shall we?” With that, he scooped up the feline and plopped him directly in her lap. The cat seemed stunned at first, and Saeyoung worried that he would hiss and claw at the abrupt change. Instead, the cat sniffed at the girl and then settled in again, seemingly unconcerned by what had just happened. 

“Oh,” the girl said, smiling. “He’s lovely.” Her hands went to softly pet him. 

After a few minutes, she looked up. The cat was happily asleep in her lap, purring softly. She spoke again, her voice quiet so as to not disturb the kitten. “I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m Jasmine, but you can call me Jas. It’s good to meet you…”

She trailed off, searching for a name. Saeyoung smiled at her before giving her his fake name. “I’m Luciel. It’s good to meet you as well, Jas. It seems like you’ve got a way with cats, huh?”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said with a laugh. “I do love them though. Cats are some of the best animals, in my opinion.”

“You have a top-tier opinion then. I’m inclined to agree!”

“So I take it you’re a cat enthusiast as well, Luciel?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p’. “I have a friend who has a gorgeous cat and that’s kind of what kickstarted my love for them.”

“Have you ever considered getting one?” She cocked her head, but her hands never left the black and white kitten.

“I’d be lying if I said no. But my job is kind of crazy, and I can honestly say that I don’t think a cat would be good for me right now. Someday soon, hopefully. What about you?”

“I actually came here today hoping to adopt. I’ve been looking for a while but I never found one that I really loved. Well, until today. But I’m still not completely sure…”

“Well the little guy loves you, I can tell that much. And if I’m wrong, which is not very likely, let me tell you, he’s the kind of cat that will always be able to find a new home.” Saeyoung stretched and winked at her.

“Well in that case… I guess I’ll need a name for him, huh?” She looked down with a smile. “Got any good ones?” Jasmine’s heterochromatic eyes twinkled with a hidden glee when Saeyoung’s face lit up. 

“Oh boy, do I! I’ve been saving up all sorts of names for this. Okay, there are the classics, like Fluffy, Batdude, Charles. Oh, and you can’t forget Toast!” His rambling list of (admittedly awful) cat names went on for a long time, leaving Jas halfway to tears with laughter as he continued. When he finally drew his list to a close, both of them had laughed so hard that the kitten had woken up and the employee had poked his head in to make sure that nothing bad was going on.

“Okay, okay,” Saeyoung said once he’d calmed down slightly, “any names catch your fancy?”

“I mean Fuzzbucket was a pretty good idea, but I think I decided on Tama.”

Saeyoung and Jas looked down at the same time to inspect the cat. The black and white kitten released a soft mewl and butted his head at Jas’ hand to request more pets. The two scheming partners in crime looked at each other and smiled. 

“Tama is perfect.” They both said at the same time, then blushed and looked away. Saeyoung swore that when he looked at her cradling the tiny cat next to her chest she seemed to glow with happiness.

Soon enough the time to play with cats was over and the employee was putting the animals back in their cages and thanking them for coming to play with the cats. Jas told him about her interest in adopting Tama, and the employee got her the forms she would need to sign before she could take the kitten home. Saeyoung stayed with her as she filled the forms out, the both of them laughing and chatting the entire time. When all was said and done, Jas hoisted the carrier that held Tama up and exited the building, Saeyoung holding the door for her.

Jas scanned the street, then took a deep breath in, steeling her nerves. “I had a really good time today, Luciel. I was wondering if you’d like to do it again some...time?” She turned around to see the man gone. Her brows furrowed as she swiveled her head to see where he’d gone. “Luciel?”

Saeyoung, who had darted behind a pillar beside the pet store, let out a quiet sigh of disappointment. He gritted his teeth together when he heard Jas whisper sadly to Tama that “he must not have wanted to talk anymore, huh?” 

He leaned his head against the pillar and stayed there until he heard the quiet clip-clop of her shoes walking away. Then he tore himself away from the pillar and walked towards home, hands shoved into his pockets, knowing that he would always remember the girl from the pet shop.

The sounds of music coming from a radio fill the kitchen. A black and white cat races around its owners’ feet as they try to dance. Laughter and pure contentment fill the air as the redhead twirls around the girl with one blue eye and one brown one. 

Years ago, when I was younger, I kinda liked a girl I knew. 

“Do you remember when we first met?” Jas asked, her skirt swinging wildly as Saeyoung spun her enthusiastically.

“How could I forget? That pet shop must be the most magical place on this Earth to me.”

She was mine, and we were sweethearts. That was then, but then it’s true.

“I was so upset when you disappeared, you know. I thought you’d gotten sick of me.”

“I was just as upset, trust me. But I thought I had to, because of the agency. And with Rika and the RFA… it just wasn’t a good time.” Saeyoung shook his head, but then pulled Jas closer to him as they waltzed across the floor.

I’m in love with a fairytale, even though it hurts. Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind, I’m already cursed.

“And then I showed up at Rika’s apartment a few weeks later. Crazy how fate works like that, huh?”

“Oh trust me, I was incredibly surprised to see you appear on the CCTV feed. If my life had a playlist of all the moments where I nearly fell out of my chair, that would definitely be on the top ten list.” 

“I was just as shocked as you were, trust me! I had told myself that I would never see you again, but then there you were!” Jas shook her head. “I had half-convinced myself you were some figment of my imagination.”

Every day we started fighting, but every night we fell in love. No one else could make me sadder, but no one else could lift me high above.

“I feel bad that I tried to push you away while we were both in the apartment. It was hard for me because you were the thing that made me happy and also frustrated me to no end. After all, I was sure I would hurt you.” 

“I wanted to punch you so much, I hope you know. I was at my wit’s end when you finally opened up a little bit!”

“But I did, and look at where we ended up. I opened up, got my brother back, and I got the privilege of having you in my life as my girlfriend and now fiancee.”

“I’m glad that it all worked out because there’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my days with.”

“The same goes to you, Jas.”

“I love you, Saeyoung Choi. Bad cat names and all.” Jas said as the music started to slowly die down.

“And I love you, Jasmine Luna, no matter how much time you spend in the bathroom doing your hair.” Saeyoung responded, dipping Jas as she let out a quiet squeal.

The two laughed and continued dancing late into the night, Tama observing from his perch high above.

I’m in love with a fairytale, even though it hurts. Cause I don’t care if I lose my mind, I’m already cursed.

And there’s the fic!! Reminder to check out the awesome @thedum1 for their amazing art!!

[cheeriecherry]

Birds Of A Feather [6/7]

Hawks x Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, (badly written) smut, 18+ content, y’all virgin birds, my bff kinkshamed me when he read it

This chapter is not necessary to the plot of the story, so if smut makes you uncomfortable (or if you’re a minor) you don’t have to read this, or worry about missing anything important!

Part 6/7

Your bodies press together as your mouths meet hungrily. Keigo has his hands under your shirt, rucking it up so he can unabashedly paw at your chest, plucking and pinching at your nipples until they come to hardened peaks.

You can feel him against you, hard length pressing into your thigh. You trail a hand down his torso, nails scraping him lightly through his shirt, and grip at the outline of his cock.

He groans when you give him a few experimental squeezes, pressing himself further into your touch. “It’s all for you, sweetheart,” he says, desperation dripping in his voice.

You smirk, and give him a few strokes. “For me? I wonder how many times you’ve thought about this, then. You’re so hard, Kei, it can’t possibly be the first time.”

You toy with the drawstrings on his shorts, slowly pulling them undone. Keigo swears a little at the loss of contact, seeking out friction by rutting against your thigh.

You sink your teeth into his neck, and his subsequent moan trails off into a whine when you soothe the bite with your tongue.

“Well?” you prompt, “have you thought about taking me before? Thought about my body beneath yours, as you fuck yourself in your own hand?” You push his shorts down, just enough to get your hands on him, and stroke him slowly from base to tip.

“Yes, fuck, yes. So many times. As much as I could get away with.” His head lolls onto your shoulder, hot breath tickling your neck. “Sometimes, before you came up for lunch, I’d have to get it out of my system. I couldn’t help it, you just looked so good, and sometimes your wings would fluff up when I said the right thing, and I- fuck!”

You swirl your thumb over the tip of his cock, smearing beads of precome down his shaft.

“Naughty,” you tease, “I bet you liked the idea that I could catch you, huh? Liked that I could walk in on you at any time?”

He moans. Loud.

“Yes,” he whimpers, “Sometimes I...I…”

“You what, baby?”

“Sometimes I came to the thought of you walking in, and sticking around to help me out. The thought of your mouth on me always pushed me over the edge.”

Your lips curl upwards at his confession, and you drop to your knees. He trembles and has to lean into the counter when you kiss the head of his cock, your tongue poking out slightly.

“Just my mouth though, huh?” You glide your tongue up and down his shaft, supplying him some of the stimulation he needs, but not quite enough to bring him closer to the edge. Right before you take him in your mouth, you look coyly up at him and say, “I can only imagine what my pussy would make you do.”

You swallow him down in one go.

His moan is obscene, and he leans heavily against the counter as you bob your head up and down. In truth, you didn’t really know what you were doing, but you’ve heard enough stories to get the gist of it. In any case, Keigo seemed to be enjoying himself.

You silently slip your hand into your shorts and panties, and start rubbing small circles on your clit. He must catch the change in your moans, because he looks down at you with a hazy expression and ask, “you touching yourself, chickadee?”

You nod around his cock, and he continues to ramble.

“God, I bet you taste amazing, so warm and wet. That’s another thought that always got me off; bending you over my desk and eating you out until you were a squirming, moaning, squirting mess.”

Your walls clench around your fingers, the idea entirely too enticing.

You pull off him completely, continuing to pump him with your free hand. “You think you’d be good enough to make me squirt, huh? I dunno, only a handful of toys have made me do that~”

He swears again, and reaches down suddenly to haul you to your feet.

He kicks his pants off on the way to the bedroom, and once you arrive he pushes you down on the mattress. You bounce a couple times with a giggle, and sink back into the plush blankets. The room is wide enough that you can spread your wings out fully, instead of laying on them.

You maneuver your shirt off your body, while Keigo all but rips your shorts off, wasting no time in spreading your legs so he can get a good view of you.

He peppers soft kisses to the insides of your thighs, golden eyes connecting with yours. “Fuck, I wanna taste you so bad. Can I sweetheart? Can I taste this sweet, soaked pussy?”

“Yes, god, yes!”

He dives in eagerly, his tongue circling your swollen clit a few times before dipping into your drenched hole. He repeats it a few times, earning several shameless moans from you, until he deems you wet enough to slide two of his fingers in.

He crooks his fingers just how you need him to, pressing up against that soft spongey spot inside you. You tremble beneath him, his actions driving you closer and closer to the edge.

“Keigo,” you whine, “baby, I’m gonna come! Fuck, you’re gonna make me come, if you keep doing that I’m gonna make a mess-”

“Fuck yeah, gonna squirt all over my face, chickadee?”

“Keigo-”

He closes his lips around your clit and sucks, and you lose yourself. With a broken cry, you clench around his fingers, hot juices gushing out of you and over his palm.

He doesn’t relent, continuing to pulse his fingers in and out of you, milking out every last drop you can give him. Only when you start to squirm away from overstimulation, does he release you.

“How’s that for ‘good enough’?” he quips, and you break into breathless giggles.

Keigo shucks his shirt and climbs over you, mindful of your wings.

You shamelessly check him out, admiring his toned body. “I’m suddenly a little jealous of all the girls you’ve bedded before me,” you admit, smiling softly.

He strokes your cheek and presses a kiss to your lips. “The media isn’t so kind to me, huh? Making me out to be some kind of womanizer.”

“Surely you’ve been with at least a few people?”

“Nah,” he says, “nothing more than heavy petting, at least. I’m usually too busy for relationships. But you? You can keep up.” He kisses you again, “and you get me.”

Your lips meet a few more times after that, slowly but surely stirring the arousal back into your body. Keigo gently rocks his hips against you, his cock dragging between your thighs and sliding over your clit.

“You’ll -ngh!- you’ll be my first, you know. First all-the-way, at least.” You peek at him through your eyelashes, “is that okay?”

He lines his cock up with your entrance.

“As long as you don’t mind being my official first, either.”

He pushes in slowly, allowing you the time to adjust to the wider stretch. You tremble as he fills you, never having felt so full as with him inside you. It’s...strange. But good. So good.

“Fuck, you feel incredible,” he mutters as he bottoms out inside you, “my daydreams didn’t do you any justice.”

“Lucky you, then. You get to have me whenever -and wherever- you want, now.”

He groans, trying not to rut senselessly into you.

“Chickadee, you can’t say things like that when I’m literally on the edge of coming.”

“Awh,” you play innocent, “does my pussy feel that good?”

“Y/N…” he warns.

“What? You wanna stuff your fat cock into my tight pussy? Pound it ‘til it’s all nice and sloppy? Bet you could get me to squirt again, fuck me until I’m stupid and can’t move-”

You squeak in surprise when he suddenly flips you onto your stomach, nearly catching him in the face with a wing.

“The mouth on you,” he scolds lowly, making you clench around him, “when you’re sore later, remember that you’re the one who asked for it!”

You barely have any time to gasp before he’s pounding you into the bed, hard and fast. The obscene sound of skin slapping echoes throughout the room, and soon you’re moaning in earnest, hands fisting into the once-tidy sheets.

Keigo is all but laying on top of you, pressing you firmly into the mattress while he slides roughly in and out of you. You’re so close already, and with the way you’re convulsing around him, you’re sure he knows it, too. You reach down to rub at your clit, but he slaps your hand away and pins your wrists beside your head.

“Nuh uh, sweetheart,” he nips at your bare shoulder, “if you wanna come, you come on my cock. Understood?”

You quake and tremble beneath him, the onslaught of pleasure driving you wild. You babble mindlessly against the sheets, bucking your hips back to meet his every thrust.

“Please!” you beg, “please, Keigo, please make me come! Touch me, please, please, I wanna come again, I need-”

He relents finally, his desire to watch you lose control greater than his desire to watch you squirm. He snakes a hand beneath you, fingers gliding easily over your dripping pussy. He rubs quick circles onto your clit, and you keen, tumbling over the edge.

His own thrusts only last a few more seconds before he’s following you into bliss, emptying out inside you. He grinds against you for a while, drawing your orgasms out as long as he can, and eventually stills.

You’re both breathing hard, sweaty bodies sticking together. You can feel the wetness on the bed where you came (twice) but you’re too spent to care. All you care about are the gentle kisses Keigo is littering across your back and shoulders, and the soft praises he whispers.

“You’re gonna need to get a cloth,” you sigh happily, once you can breathe easier, “because I don’t think I can walk.”

You both laugh a little, still dazed with bliss, and he kisses the side of your head.

“On it, chickadee.”

[malkumtend]

Peace, Battles and Deals. (Baypaw x Dewpaw) - characters owned by @lonely-ghost-606

Just a short fic for my friend @lonely-ghost-606 (check them out if you haven’t already!) This story is based on their characters Baypaw and Dewpaw. You may recognise Dewpaw as the abused daughter of the tyrant VioletStar of Willowclan from Ghost’s “Cut the Cord” animatic on their YouTube channel. All you need to know in preparation for this fic is that she is abused emotionally by her mother and is consistently compared to our other main character Baypaw. Baypaw is the son of Cleopatra and Strongheart, leader and deputy of WaterfallClan. He is widely regarded for his strength, as was expected of him by his parents but they do love him, but he is secretly troubled by the growing tensions between his parents as well as emotions he feels he has to keep secret from his clan mates. WaterfallClan and WillowClan are bitter enemies due to tensions over water resources.

With all that said and done. Let’s get going.

I leave when it gets dark. It isn’t easy getting out of the den without anyone noticing, but I manage. Mother and father remain asleep as I quietly step past them into the dark. I can’t help but smirk when I see them asleep. The all-knowing, poweful leader and deputy dozing away while their son runs off, the clan would probably laugh if they found out. There’s a small pride that feels warm in my chest at the thought that I’m besting them in some way. But softly, I begin to take in the bizarreness of what I’m seeing. They’re so close. Silent, calm, asleep besides each other. Even with the noticeable distance between them, it’s still something. It’s better than… My smile drops, and I groan in irritation. I needed to get out of there.

Surprisingly, it’s even easier to get out of camp. The night patrol is nowhere to be seen and I never smell any WaterfallClan scent when I finally leave clan territory. I know I’m far away to be safe when the steady rush of water fades away, leaving me in the welcome silence of the night.

I sigh in relief, allowing myself a deserved grin. Though maybe, I think, it is worrying our patrols are so useless that they can’t keep a single apprentice in. Then again, I wasn’t just any apprentice. Thanks to my parents, I knew the territory like the back of my paw. I’d have to know that much if I was ever going to…

I shake my head again, this time growling, as soon as the unwelcome thought crawls in.

I begin to pace further from the camp. The moon is full tonight, lighting the forest as if it were my own personal guide. Maybe even the stars are being generous because they know who I am. I snicker a little. I don’t let my guard down, of course. I roll my eyes as StrongHeart’s voice fills my head. Never try to take comfort from being alone. When you’re alone, you’re at your most vulnerable. As if I would be so foolish. I know perfectly well to keep fixed for any possible fight; I was a Warrior after all. Besides, it was my enemy who would be sorry if they tried to sneak up on me. I wasn’t some soft apprentice; they’d soon find that out. If they wanted a fight, they’d better know to bring an army.

Still, I keep to the shadows, tasting the air every couple of seconds. After all, it would do no good if I got a few silly wounds. I didn’t want to make Cleopatra suspicious.

When I approach the river, I scent again for any WillowClan patrols. The stars knew those fox-hearts were always trying to take more water than they needed for that mange-pelt they called a leader. The thought of raking my claws on their pelts was definitely tempting, but thankfully, for them, they seemed to be sticking to their territory for once. The line between out territories was broad enough, so it was easy to make my way along without getting too close.

I just wanted to get out of WaterfallClan for a while. I couldn’t sleep and the thought of walk that could help clear my head of any ‘undesirable’ thoughts was too much to take. I’d have just been tossing and turning until some cat woke up and scolded me, it would be best to get out for a bit. It wasn’t like I had anything important tomorrow, just another training session then some hunting. I’d be fine, I could always pass through that stuff in my sleep.

Being tired because of a moonhigh walk sounded a lot better than being tired because I couldn’t stop thinking about the stupid stuff.

I only briefly take my head away from the trail beside the river, but I stop. Just a tree-length away, I could see what might have been a thousand shadowy shapes. They draped down, swaying in the light breeze, so close to the water they might have been stroking it in long green tongues. Behind them, I saw a thick, but stumpy, tree trunk that stood tall, holding its cluster of leaves that hung like thin claws. Willow trees. I’d never seen them this close. They weren’t typically found on our clan territory. And from what I could tell, this land wasn’t part of WillowClan either. I couldn’t catch their reek at least. I walk closer, admittedly a little in awe at how large the trees were. The leaves were soft on my coat and tickled slightly when I brushed past them. The soil was unusually moist and littered with light green leaves that flickered like stones in the small traces of light. The shadows themselves had an emerald sheen that was nothing else but alluring as I padded through the hanging shrubs.

The shrubs weave together as if they were linking tails, crossing their soft leaves, creating a small tunnel as I carry on. I can smell something new coming over me. Something floral, a lot of flowers actually, spicy and sweet. The dampness leaves my paws as I feel the ground become solid, yet smooth. The grass sticks up, fresh and sharp, but they feel like feathers as they brush my fur.

Slowly, the narrow tunnel widens as the willows jet back, letting the grassland expand in a luminous green. The colour is dim but almost blinding when it gleams in the dark. My jaw drops. I’ve never seen a meadow like this before on any hunting patrol. The grassland around WaterfallClan was typically wet and your paws typically sank into a gross coat of mud. But this was crisp, gentle, alluring even.

Approaching the centre of a small hill I can see more colours flash. Flowers, I realise. A wide array of flowers and herbs I hadn’t even seen in the medicine den. I take a light smell at the closest one, its orange petals wide and succulent with nectar, and I almost feel ashamed by the way the gentle aroma makes my pelt quiver.

I look up at the meadow and I’m suddenly smiling. Has anyone ever found this land before? The small prick of doubt makes me purr. It makes me think of how this meadow was mine. My discovery. My place. I am alone under the green sheen of willow, alone with the fresh grass and the delicate herbs. My head buzzes a little, and I am softly aware of my blood becoming warm.

And then I’m laughing.

Not the laughter I craft when I best an apprentice in training, or when a mentor compares their sulking student with me. All those times, I just laughed because I felt there was nothing else I was meant to do.

But right now. I’m laughing hard. Because the suddenness of the glee and the peace makes it so I can’t stop.

I start leaping across the grass, as if the indents of my paws in the grass will mark the meadow as my own. I’m careful to not displace any flowers as I breathe in the wave of smells that stroke my muzzle and vibrate in my throat. With no eyes on me, I relish for a moment. I could fixate on how my heart beats so loud that I can’t hear anything else.

Here I could just have some time to myself.

There were no apprentices I needed to fight.

There were no talks of war with some stupid clan.

There was no worry here at all. Just me. I could take this in all I wanted. And here, that peace wouldn’t be interrupted by the abrupt stab of an argument I’d be forced to witness.

I find myself at the top of the hill and then I’m rolling down, twisting through laughter and grass, letting the memories ooze like dirt in the soil. My throat begins to hurt a little, and my back bumps on a few stray mole hills, but I don’t care. Finally, I’m on my back, embedded in a nest of wildflowers.

There’s some pressing need inside of me to stay there, that everything will stay great if I don’t move. I blink up at the swaying willow leaves, dancing as if they were birds in the sky. My back feels warm, I’m pressing my paws into the flowers beside me, paddling in petals and nectar that don’t break under my touch.

Everything is just natural here. I close my eyes, not bothering to hide my purr. This is something I could get used to.

“What are you doing here?”

The voice is scratchy, intervening, rough and unfriendly. Worst of all, I recognise it.

Of course. My eyes open into the glare. Of all the scum, it would have to be her.

I’m on my paws before I know it, shaking away any traces of flower or dew. My muscles are stiff with adrenaline and panic. The scent of WillowClan immediately attacks me and I bristle with disgusted anger. But it’s the sight of her that makes me growl. She’s there, bristling like me, a treelength away.

When I’ve seen her before at four-trees, she’s always had that same unlikable aura that permeates around her now. Maybe that was why she was always on her own. Served her right for always looking so sullen and moody all the time.

Then again, that wasn’t a shock. If I’d been unlucky enough to be tortured with that thing as my mother, I wouldn’t be smiling either. I couldn’t help but hate her. She looked so much like that fox-heart it was impossible to like her.

There’s a mixture of hatred and confusion on her face. Honestly it might match her fur to some degree. The confusion sitting in the light violet-grey side of her face, while the anger storms in the darker shade that horrifically takes up the other side. I sniff, my anger growing. Her mother is definitely obvious on her.

“What are you doing here?” I demand. The beauty of the area darkens with her mere presence.

Her fangs glint in a crooked way. “I asked first!”

“Yeah?” I scoff, “Well you can answer first too!”

I hear her growl in a pathetic attempt of intimidation. “A long way off your territory, aren’t you? I could practically smell fish from my den.”

“Last time I checked, this wasn’t your territory either, Dew-drop.” I fuel myself on the way her fur spikes.

“Don’t call me that! We’re closer to my territory than yours.” She narrows her eyes even more. “Is WaterfallClan looking to steal more land? Why am I not surprised?”

Now I’m the one who growls. “You’re the thieves, not us! I was just going for a walk, and I certainly wasn’t looking to have anything to do with your worthless clan!”

As if to spite me, she just smirks at me. If she’s looking to get me mad, she’s definitely succeeding! “Don’t you think you should be walking a little closer to your clan? You’re lucky our patrols haven’t ripped off your fur for bedding yet.”

“Pfft! Why would I be scared of your clan?” I flash my claws at her, strengthening up in a way I knew was threatening.

I can see her jaw clench, but her smirk stiffens with another warning blink of her sharp glare. “Careful, mamma isn’t here to keep you safe, river-rat!” There’s a dare to her voice, almost like she wanted me to rip her to shreds. I must admit, with her fur on edge like that, she does look almost like a worthy challenge.

Almost.

“Heh.” I meet her dare with a step forward. “I don’t need back up for any of your scum.” I’m trying hard to scare her off. As easy as it would be to tear her apart, I really couldn’t be bothered. I came here because I wanted to relax. The sweet scent of the flowers wouldn’t be so appealing if they were coated in the stink of her blood.

But like the idiot she is, she takes another step forward. My teeth clench with aggravation. “Then why don’t you prove it if you’re so tough, big guy?”

Part of me wants to meet her threat with my claws. But I relent. I wasn’t as much of an idiot as she was. I didn’t need to get into some pointless fight over some Tyrant’s spawn. “As gratifying as it would be to put you in your place, I prefer an actual fight.” I inhale the fury that sparks on her face like the warm smell of prey. “I’d get a better battle out of a kit than you.”

“Coward!” She hisses. I scoff.

“Whatever.” I turn away from her, impatient to get back to the other side of the hill. “Do me a favour and keep away from me, eh? Smells better on the other side.” I’m ready to block out whatever stupid mouse-dung that she could come up with.

But she surprises me.

“Oh sure, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of your cuddle time with the flowers. Guess that kittypet blood really did make you soft.”

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that she saw what I wanted to keep secret, or the direct insult against my mother, but my blood is immediately boiling, and I’m suddenly sprinting at her.

I’m satisfied when I see a slight jolt come over Dewpaw as I rush at her. To her credit, she doesn’t run away. She pounces at me first, but that’s her first mistake. I slink down onto my belly, using my pace to push me underneath her as she whirls over my head. She doesn’t twist her body, so it’s easy to land a quick strike at her exposed side.

She yowls, landing on her paws with a grunt. She’s quick to turn back to me. “Lucky hit.” She hisses. I get into a fighter’s crouch, placing one paw in front, ready to hit, and one paw back in case I needed to change positions swiftly. I can’t help but laugh silently at how she immediately braces for another pounce; did they teach the apprentices anything in WillowClan. This was going to be easier than I thought.

I’m similarly shocked and disgusted by her idiocy as she pounces forward again, clearly wanting to land some swing at my chest. She was so obvious she may as well have been saying out loud what she was thinking. I just have to side step to easily dodge her and I do it again when she furiously swings at my legs. She’s getting frustrated and that’s her second mistake.

Frustration made you desperate.

“Missed again!” I have to sing when her paw whirls at nothing again, she actually almost loses her balance. I smile to myself. If I wanted to, I could have killed her at so many times during this pointless excuse of a ‘fight’. “If this is the best WillowClan can offer, I’m honestly sympathetic for you lot.”

She lets out a lungeful of air. “Shut up!” She screams. It’s working. If I make her angry, she’ll just get even more desperate, and will soon tire herself out. Then it’ll be easy to pin her. There wasn’t even really a need to mess her up, she wasn’t any kind of threat.

Her next two swipes are just as easily missed, and I’m able to jump over her when she pounces at me again. “Fight back!” She demands.

“Nah. This is more fun!” I take a moment to laugh to myself as she pants in exhaustion.

And that was my mistake.

Because with a surge that wipes away all her exhaustion she darts forward and when I pounce to my side, she instantly follows me with a twist of her body that catches me off guard. Before the smile can leave my face, I feel her paw pound against my cheek. Hard. The following swift hit is just as painful.

I catch my feet well, but the shock makes my heart pound. My teeth ache from the hit, but I keep that hidden. How had she been able to turn like that when she was so tired? And she was tired. Darting a look at her, I can see her fur poofed out like she was ready to drop there. But her paws remained stoic, and her legs didn’t quiver.

And she was smiling. Smiling in a proud way that made me glower.

“No.” She spat out. “That was fun.”

Okay. I admit my foolishness to myself and curse it. No more taking it easy.

I wait for her to obviously lunge at me again, and this time I don’t dodge her. I take advantage of what I’d seen before. My paw swings down onto her back, dizzying her. She met the ground, this time her legs buckling. She tries to get up quickly, but I don’t give her the time.

My paws are on her back before she can let out a grunt. My back legs rest on her spine, and one fore paw presses hard on her neck. She writhes around, screaming bloody murder, but I’m not giving her the chance this time.

“Give up.” I offer mercifully.

Her response would have made a prophet gawk.

I groan and slip off for a moment so I can wrench her onto her back. My paws find her chest again and I’m holding her down once more. But this time my forepaw is on her neck. “I could kill you.” If I wanted, my claws could unsheathe and that would be it for her.

Her eyes meet mine and the defeat I expect is muted. The fight lingers and holds there, stubbornly refusing to expire. She doesn’t stop writhing. Irritation is beginning to replace my anger. What was with this molly? Didn’t she know when she’d lost?

Under my paw I can feel her ferocious growl. “Then why don’t you try it?” I can almost see my shocked reflection in her fangs.

Apparently not.

I could have put an end to her right there. It would have just taken a spasm in my paws.

But she’d called my bluff.

I groan again. What a pain? I didn’t want to kill her; I didn’t really even want to hurt her. I’d already won. There was no point in doing anything drastic with her.

Besides, she’d already ruined enough. I’d come here to avoid this very kind of situation. But I’d let her pull me into her stupid mindgames. This realisation just adds to my irritation, and my desire to beat her dwells a little more.

Eventually, I’m too annoyed to hold her down anymore. I push myself off her with a huff, glaring at her as I smooth down the ruffled patches of fur. “Like I’d start some war over you.” I hiss.

The look she’s giving me is both smug and furious. She gets to her paws quickly, as if she couldn’t remember how badly she was losing. Maybe she was that stupid. “What’s the matter?” She spits, “Too afraid to finish a fight?”

I’m too angry to let her provoke me. “That wasn’t a fight.” I meow. “That was a beating.” I wouldn’t even say I was taunting her there, but her claws flex again. A voice warns me that she’s dumb enough to lunge at me again.

By some miracle however, she’s smart enough to just let out a bitter hiss and remain where she is. “That mark on your face says otherwise.”

I’m confused for a moment, then I hear the small droplet of blood hit the ground beneath me. My eyes widen. She had her claws unsheathed? Fox-dung, she hated me that much? I growl, I hadn’t bled in a fight for ages. The last thing I wanted was for her to do it.

“Lucky hit.” I reply, “You were the one pinned down, not me.”

As I wipe a washed paw across the wound, I await her response. It doesn’t come. My lips purse, and I turn, half-thinking she was planning some cowardly attack. She’s sitting down, glaring at the ground. There’s something dark mixing with the clear anger on her face. It’s similar to the face she usually has at the gatherings.

I snort quietly. Whatever. Like I cared! What ran through her head was nothing I wanted anything to do with. As long as she kept her distance, we’d be fine.

My stomach sinks a little. There wasn’t really a reason to stay here anymore. Whatever peace I’d wanted to gather was gone now. Plus, I’d have to think of some excuse for how this stupid cut got on my face. The only good thing was that she’d have to find an even better excuse for all the dirt and bruises that stuck to her pelt.

I groaned, it still wasn’t like her problems did anything to quell mine. I began to pad back home again. The stink of WillowClan and blood was mixing in my head and it was slowly making my blood run a horrible cold.

“Where are you going?” I hear her shout behind me, like I was doing something wrong. “We’re not done.”

“Yes we are.” I say, not looking back. I wasn’t wasting any more time with her. “I’m going back to my Clan. Why don’t you do the same?”

“I don’t follow your orders!”

I roll my eyes. This crazy molly! “Fine! Do what you like then.”

It’s silent for a second as I walk up the hill. “You going back to your flower patch?” I can hear the smirk in her voice.

I turn back, my eyes trying to burn away whatever stupidity has seemed to overtake her. “You didn’t see anything?”

She laughs. Obviously pleased that she’s lured me back. “Oh, I think I did. And I think a lot of my friends would love to hear about what the strongest apprentice in the forest gets up to when he thinks no one’s watching.”

My face is a raging fire, enough that it would scare off any apprentice I knew. But she isn’t like them. Her blood is as cold as stone. Underneath my snarls, I am panicking, even if it’s just a little. “You wouldn’t dare.” My grit teeth don’t falter. “I bet you don’t even have any friends.”

Dewpaw’s head twitches to the side. “Is that a fact? Oh, then I guess you don’t have anything to worry about.”

The change is so strong we both notice it. The power shift. It makes my insides clench, while she straightens brightly. If I denied it, my clanmates more than likely wouldn’t believe her, but my parents would most definitely get suspicious, and worst of all Violetstar would use any rumour she could against WaterfallClan. And regardless of whether it could be proven or not, that would only heighten the tensions between our clans.

“You rat.” I hiss, I’m ashamed of how soft my voice sounds.

She shrugs, “Yeah, it’d be pretty embarrassing for you, wouldn’t it?”

I take another step forward, “Are you trying to get yourself mauled?”

“You can do what you want, I’ll still get away. By the next gathering everyone will know.” She warns. I stop in my tracks as I sense she’s about to run.

I have to try and keep calm. If I act like I don’t care there’s still a small chance I can throw her off. I wave my tail at her dismissively, “No one in my clan will believe you. And if you think I care one bit what your kind thinks of me, then you’re a real mouse-brain.”

“If that’s the case, then go ahead and get gone.” The way she says it, so sure of herself, admittedly makes me feel ill.

I don’t move. I can’t move. I feel like prey cornered onto a cliff. Every thought I try to make just makes my heart race all the more. In her eyes, I can see she isn’t seeing what everyone is meant to. She’s seeing something else. Something vulnerable. The parts of myself I love and hate so much. I haven’t felt so pathetic for so long.

I look up at her. Her eyes are narrowed and her lips are thin. Thinking. Probably figuring out what kind of blackmail she can use to torture me. My paws are shaking either from anger or humiliation. I don’t want to know which. I think again how I could easily silence her if I wanted to.

But she’s caught me. She knows I wouldn’t do it. She can see it in the way I stupidly bite my lip. I sigh, defeated. I have no choice but to await it.

“Tell you what,” I brace myself as she starts, darting a look of hate her way. She doesn’t flinch. Her mind is made up. “If you tell me what you’re really doing here, I’ll keep your little secret.”

I stiffen, trying to make sense of what I’ve heard. She can see I don’t trust her. “What?”

“You heard me. I don’t think your deaf.”

I unlatch my jaw, “I was just out on a walk.”

“That’s nice.” She says smoothly, “Now how about the truth?”

The fire smokes in my throat again, choking me, blazing in me. “Why do you care?” I force out. There’s no point in lying to her. Apparently that Tyrant blood had decided to give her mind reading powers.

She just shrugs, her tail waves impatiently.

I want to scoff and storm away, but that would do no good. She’s unnaturally controlled right now, nothing like the rushing, impulsive fool I’d fought just a few moments ago. Her eyes patiently lie on me, her claws tapping the ground like a waiting mother. Her aura of smugness makes me want to vomit.

Instead, I think up the closest thing I can think of that will make the truth yet hide the worst parts.

“I… I just wanted to find someplace to relax okay?” I force out roughly. She waits still so I go on a little more. “Training wears me out a little, alright, of course I need to unwind a little sometimes.”

She raises a brow rigidly, “Why not do that at your own clan?”

I blink quickly to hide the voices and images that flash over me. My eyes find the ground, still straight enough to look strong. “It’s more… relaxing on my own. No idiot’s gonna bother me here.”

Or so I thought. I keep that part shut. She doesn’t.

“I thought the same when I came here.” Her snicker makes me growl. “Oh relax, don’t be such a stick in the mud.”

“That’s rich coming from you.” I mutter, glancing back at her. I’m sick of this now. “There, I told you why I came. Now will you keep your mouth shut?”

She must see something I hate because she’s smirking again. Don’t kill her. Don’t kill her. Not yet.

“So, you come here because you wanted to relax with some flowers?” Her voice is more questioning than unkind. It doesn’t stop me from groaning.

“I wasn’t looking for the flowers.”

“But you were resting in them?”

“I could have rested anywhere!”

“I could hear you smelling them. You were purring.”

Oh for the love of- “Look we had a deal; will you keep quiet about this or do I have to make you?” It comes out of me too hoarse to be threatening.

Her chest settles down softly, the stiffness in her eyes has faded, replaced by something I can’t describe. She’s laughing, but it sounds different. “Relax. I’ll keep your secret.”

I’m just about to let the silent relief come to me.

“But, in exchange for keeping your other secret, I want your help with something.”

Something in my chest explodes. A thousand dark voices are screaming somewhere in my chest. “What?!” I yowl. “What other secret?”

“The reason you’re hear of course!” She smiles at me, mockingly sweet. Her eyes gleam like a fox’s.

Starclan, whatever I did to deserve this, I repent my sins. I will literally grovel for hours at your mercy if you’ll kindly make her drop dead, right here.

“You slimy little-”

She raises her paw at me, waving my threat away. “Yeah yeah, let’s get to the point okay? If you want me to keep quiet about that, you need to do something for me.”

I run my paws into my eyes until I see spots. My claws are digging into my fur, desperate to latch to anything that resembles flesh. I should have known she’d trick me like that! “And what it that?” I speak like I’m vomiting out smoke and mud.

When I look at her, anticipating her smug exterior, my anger gives way to surprise. Her paw is covering her mouth like she was hiding a scar of some kind. Her eyes are wistful, darting to the sky as if the trees would speak for her. And there’s some kind of darkness on the patches of fur below her eyes.

I edge back, my mouth opening. Was she blushing? My heart begins to pound and I can feel some kind of tremor in my tail. Just what the heck was she going to ask me to do?

“I… w-want you to t-train here with me.”

I look away then back at her. I try to find any difference on her exterior. The only thing I can see is that she’s blushing harder! She was being serious!

“Say that again?” She wanted to train with me?

“I’m not saying it again!” She snaps, her hostile glare coming back like it belongs there.

“Why on Silverpelt would you want me to train with you? Better yet, why the heck would I ever come back here just to train with you?”

She huffs, her ears digging back. “One – I’ll keep your secret if you do. Two – if you do it, that means after we’re done you can go back and sniff flowers all you want.” She ignores my hate filled face. “And three…” She loses her breath, trailing away with a bitter mutter.

“What?”

She forces herself to look back to me. “I need to train. It’s… hard training back home. I’m sick of losing to the likes of you.”

I resist the urge to snap back at her. I’m genuinely put off by how odd she looks. It was like she was doing everything she could to avoid my eyes. “Why can’t you train with your clanmates?”

“I would if I could. But they wouldn’t dare try and take me on seriously.”

“Why?”

The anger on her face is morphing. Her eyes darken and her breath shakes as she hisses. “You know why.”

Once again, she looks similar to how I’ve always seen her. And now I can recognise the look that makes her fur slacken and her teeth clench. She was miserable. I just needed to look at her, look at who she was, to see why.

“Okay.” I sigh, finding myself bored. “So why do you want my help?” Something clicks in my head that makes me chuckle. “Is this you willing to admit I’m better than you?”

She twists up, her tail lashing, but a fake grin on her muzzle. “Well, you’ll certainly do.” She looks away again, her façade morphing into a neutral expression. “I just need to fight with someone who I know won’t go easy on me.” I snort. That would certainly be me. “Whatever training I can get, I’ll take.”

“Hm.” I mutter quickly, “Well you’ll have to keep looking. I don’t want to train with you.” Coming here for the sole purpose of fighting with some cat I hated was actually more that the exact opposite of what I came here to do. I wasn’t going to help my enemy get better. Spending time, no matter how forced it was, with her was worse than any punishment I could imagine.

“I don’t want to particularly want to train with you!” She exclaims angrily, then glowers to her side, her whiskers drooping. “But I don’t have a lot of other choices.” Light blue pupils swipe back at me with an ugly sneer. “And neither do you, if you want me to keep quiet.”

She has a point there. But I’m still not convinced she’ll stick to this deal. Besides that meant I would have to come out here when she wanted me too! “I’m not risking getting caught for you.”

“Just lie and say you were going for a walk. I’ll be sneaking out too, you know. You’re not the only one making a risk here.”

“What happens if I can’t turn up because I’m caught? You’ll just go back on your deal because you thought I was dodging you!”

“Well, would you?”

Probably. It just hits me then that I’ve told her a plan I could have taken. I growl weakly. I wasn’t thinking straight at all around this pest.

“How about this then?” She says, her tail waving along the grass. “If one of us doesn’t turn up that night, the next night we’ll catch up from there, and if you don’t show up that time, then I’ll let slip your little secret.” She snaps. “At least then I’m giving you a chance then.”

Giving me a chance? I would have been doing it because of her! “Am I supposed to be grateful to you for that?”

Her tone is blunt. “Yes.”

And now she’s looking more like her mother. My claws want to scratch at the ground. This wasn’t fair. I still had more to lose than her if I took part in this stupid deal. The situation cuts into me deeper and deeper with each passing thought. Surely there had to be something I could use against her. I think for a moment and find myself leering at her.

“What if I told everyone how you asked another clan cat for training help? What if I told them why you didn’t want to train with your clanmates?” I spit at her, feeling the tide slowly ease off me. She had secrets she had to keep as well.

Her eyes fill incredulously, but it’s just for a moment. She soon shrugs. “Then I guess we both lose, huh?”

Horror overtakes me again. My tongue trembles on my jaw. Was she really not fazed at all? If she didn’t care then there would be no point in telling anyone. I begin to feel disgusted by the fact that unlike her I have a reputation to keep. I try again, scowling. “You really want your mother finding out about that?”

She laughs. It’s dry. Toneless. Unreserved. But she actually laughs. “That’s my problem, not yours. You’d be surprised how little difference it would make.” She sniffs, staring coldly at me. The weight of her words hangs in the air, but it gives her the control she needs. Her eyes light with evil amusement as she watches me splutter.

She really didn’t care.

My breathing has become audibly clear with panic. Everything seemed to press into me like a swarm of badgers. But more than anything it was the powerlessness she had talked me into. That was it. She’d just had to lure me here and now I was shaking like some kind of frozen elder. I think of what Cleopatra or Strongheart would do if they could see me like this in front of an enemy.

They might actually join together for once just to scold me. Like normal parents.

I don’t know why but Dewpaw doesn’t look like she wants to laugh at me. She stares at me, awkward and confused. I don’t want to think how I look. If I do, I might actually feel tears fight to come out.

I hear her cough absently. “Look, all you have to do is come here and train with me for a while.” She says, I hesitate to call the tone soft. Soft didn’t match her at all. “After we’re done, I’ll leave you alone and you can relax all you like. And I’ll keep quiet about it.”

I glance at her, stonily. She sighs. “Okay. I promise I’ll keep quiet about this if you train with me. Swear on my clan.” She brushes her paw over her heart like some silly kit. “It means we both get what we want. I get to train, you get to do… whatever you want, okay?”

She’s watching me mull over her words. I’m desperate yet reluctant. I can’t help it. This has stormed over the land like the rush of the waterfall. Truthfully, I knew I didn’t really have a choice. I couldn’t let her get loose with what she knew. I look over her, her toned, but unimpressive, muscles. I could just tell that training with her would be a fool’s errand. There was no way she would beat me, even if she did learn how to properly move in a fight. I’d just end up beating her every night.

Somewhat of a pleasant idea, but not enough for me to want to sneak off every night.

But I suppose that what I want doesn’t really matter. The only want I could sustain was her silence.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. My lips thin as I consider this. I’d get some time away from WaterfallClan, and it wasn’t like I’d have to spend all night training her. I’d just battle her, say some light moves that wouldn’t make her too powerful, and then maybe she’d finally be satisfied to leave me alone. If I was being honest, the very fact she would want to train with me was a sign enough that she couldn’t afford to be picky.

My eyes go to the corners. She’s still there sat down. I can see an impatient frown on her muzzle. I can see her tail thumping crossly on the ground. But most of all, I can see the vague, lightless hope in her eyes.

Something inside me gives way and I let out a sharp groan. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

She perks up, her chest puffing out with a meow. Quickly a frown comes to her though, and we resume glaring at each other. “Okay, great. Guess that means your secret’s safe.”

“You make sure it is.” I hiss at her. Just because I’d agreed to help her, it didn’t mean I had to be nice. She wouldn’t be, I knew. “Unlike you, I have a reputation to uphold. So, keep it shut that I go here!”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever. Sure thing, flower-patch.”

“Don’t call me that!”

“I can’t make that promise.” Her eyes flash at me mischievously, a playful way that doesn’t match her at all. I have no control of my eyes as they widen. “You keep yours and we’ll be just fine.” She says. She turns away from her, tail swaying to and fro in a manner of goodbye. “I’m going. We’ll meet here tomorrow night.”

My fur thins down, “Tomorrow?”

She looks back, one eye widened, the other mockingly drooped halfway. “What? You got a date or something?” The half-opened eye winks at me as a cool grin forms on her mouth.

Against my will, I flush a little. In the emerald night, her fangs glint like arrowheads under the water. My silence is telling; the way my eyes are trying to make her erupt into flames are even more so.

“Didn’t think so.” She purrs. I watch her as she walks away, still racing from the embarrassment of this night. “Have fun!” She calls back to me. I scoff at her poor mockery.

It was a mocking call, right? Of course it was! Best to return it. “Hope those scratches make your clan suspicious, Dewdrop!” I hiss at her back.

“These things?” She doesn’t turn back but I can feel her holding back a snarl. “Oh please, there so tiny I’ll just blame them on playing with a kit.”

The tight rage in my chest keeps me quiet enough that I don’t respond. Her tail lashes again, swift and seamless. See you tomorrow. It might mean. I don’t really care if it does or not. She gently disappears under the willows until she’s nothing but a shade of the night. Soon, I’m alone again.

I can’t help but feel like I have to grunt. I still can’t believe what I’ve agreed to. How a journey for a night of peace could go so wrong? I make my way back to the untrampled flowers, breathing them in to quell the ill density in my stomach. This is what I was here for, and I was alone like I wanted, I didn’t need to think about her anymore.

But she’s really ruined my night.

Because she’s worked her way in. Either because of her words or the battle she forced out of me, but I can’t stop thinking about her disgusting grin or her rough laughter. Instead of the flowers sweet nectar, I smell her damp, earthy scent, clouding the area like a toxic fog. I try several different patches and at least a hundred breeds that I’d never seen before, but it remains lingering around me like a rogue in my camp. Unwanted. Dangerous even.

I cannot repress the thoughts, and soon enough I’m too sour and angry to want to stay here anymore. I don’t even think I want to come back. But I have to. My paws cut away at the ground in anger. Why did she have to ruin everything? I exhale through my nose. There was no point looming on it, that was probably what she wanted.

But even that doesn’t stop it. Even after I’ve left the area, even as I find my way back to clan camp, and even as I’ve creeped back to my nest and curled down to sleep again, that image remains. Her looking back at me, smiling smugly, white fangs shining in my head.

I cover my eyes with an internalised, hateful groan. This was not what I expected to fall asleep to. AT ALL.

[f-nodragonart]

Vertebrate Wings, PART 6: Details

Return to main post + TOC >>HERE<<

Details TOC

  Elbow Spines

  Wrist Spikes

  Palms

  Thumbs

Elbow Spines

I was admittedly a LOT more anal about elbow spines in the past. No way no how, I didn’t accept elbow spines in any way, shape, or form. Nowadays, I’m simply wary of elbow spines. I still believe whole-heartedly that a proper wing will have enough membrane stability and surface area all on its own, without the need for an elbow spine. BUT I can absolutely see the aesthetic charm in certain designs, and elbow spines can make sense if designed properly.

The interesting thing is that there ARE real-life “flying” animals with elbow spines—anomalures.

(I honestly wish I had skeletals to show off but I can’t find any, so if anyone has anomalure skeletal photos/diagrams I’d greatly appreciate it)

Technically these animals can’t “fly” but glide, much like the similar (but not necessarily related) flying squirrels, who also happen to have ‘spines’ at their wrists.

Even the recently discovered Yi Qi could be used as comparison, with their highly-elongated wrist spines.

Despite these real-life animals with wing spines supporting their membranes, there are still ways to do wing spines wrong, so keep these tips in mind if you want to add elbow spines to your creature’s membranous wings:

  1)      Animals with these spines are GLIDERS

The living animals with similar spines—flying squirrels and anomalures—are gliders, NOT powered flyers. IE—these animals don’t flap or otherwise move their arms/legs in very complicated motions; their limbs/spines are almost exclusively built to keep the membrane taut during gliding. While we can’t know of the Yi Qi’s specific style of flight at this point, I have reason to believe they were also gliders, not flyers. Again, I can’t prove this for certain, it’s just what I can reason out from what’s currently available about the species.

Either way, evidence points to the idea that these sorts of spines (at least supporting the main body of a membrane—yes I know about pteroids) are exclusively found on gliders, not powered flyers. This makes sense, given that spines don’t have joints, so they wouldn’t give membranes NEARLY the same flexibility and precision as fingers. But since gliders don’t necessarily need that kind of precision, this doesn’t hinder their “flight”.

Now, this fact on its own doesn’t negate the possibility of elbow spines on a powered flyer, but it is a cautionary reminder to take proper integration into account, which the following points will describe.

  2)      Spines are NOT fingers

Elbow spines are not endemic to arm structures—the structures wings evolved from. Thus, an elbow spine would have had to evolve into a wing design for the express purpose of membrane stability and/or widening the membrane surface area.

There is absolutely zero reason an elbow spine would have a claw, pad, or otherwise be implied to be a modified finger. Fingers are based exclusively on the hands (and feet, if you want to get technical), and would NOT migrate down to the elbows just to expand the wing membrane. Hell, even most of the ACTUAL fingers of bat wings don’t have any claws (besides the thumb of course) because claws on the tips of wing fingers are usually useless, since there’s no feasible way to use them for clinging, digging, or scratching purposes. Plus, claws/padding add unnecessary weight to the tips of the wing fingers, which SHOULD be the thinnest/lightest part of the wings, sans open membrane. Claws are only really useful on the shortest, front-facing fingers of bat wings.

However, I will acquiesce that jointed spines aren’t entirely unbelievable. I personally don’t know of any real-life animal with jointed spines, but I don’t think that joints would be necessarily exclusive to fingers. Unlike claws or pads, joints would provide a distinct purpose to the wing by allowing the spines more malleability and delicate control of the wing membrane shape.

  3)      Try not to interrupt the elbow joint

Again, I would appreciate an anomalure skeleton here in order to see exactly where the elbow spine attaches on the arm, but I guess we’ll have to wait on that.

Sans the anomalure (whose elbow structure is impossible to see under the fur), I don’t know of any cases of real-life animals with 3 different, independently-moving bones sharing the same joint (I’m not counting wrists/ankles here considering the specialty of the carpal/tarsal-based joints).

As it is now, I advise caution when placing the base of the spine at the elbow. It may certainly work, especially if the underlying bone/cartilage base of the spine “floats” a little ways away from the elbow itself, as can be seen in this EXCELLENT Dragon skeletal by Sammy Torres, yet again--

But please, do NOT slot the elbow spine directly INTO the joint between the upper and lower arm.  

This would block the range of joint flexibility and important muscular connections between the upper and lower arm.

  4)      Try to form a paddle

As explained in the Membranes and Feathers section, a bird’s remiges are ONLY based in the bone of the lower arm and hand sections. This helps to form a more stable “paddle” out of these sections of the wing, while other feathers (tertials, axillaries) simply close the gap between the body and the remiges.

While feathers shouldn’t be conflated with membranes, I think in this instance they provide a decent reference for spine placement, since many birds are powered flyers. Thus, if the spine isn’t based at the elbow, I think basing the spine on the lower arm just past the elbow itself would work just fine.

Either way, definitely DON’T put a spine on the UPPER arm—it would just be useless. The membrane is already so close to the body on the upper arm (considering how short the upper arm typically is compared to the lower arm) that any extra stability or widening of the membrane isn’t going to do much good. Plus, it would be rather uncomfortable to fold a spine against the body on the upper arm.

Wrist Spikes

(Not to be confused with spines, which I use to refer to projections that support a membrane. See above sub-section for those)

This is yet another anatomical detail I was MUCH more anal about in the past, before learning that many real-life birds actually do have wrist spikes called wing spurs (and clubs, spikes, etc.).

Some have even retained claws on the ends of their fingers.

The claws are the easiest to understand—they’re retained from birds’ clawed ancestors. The spikes and spurs, however, are a bit novel to our human understanding of anatomy, as they can sprout from the metacarpals, carpals, or even the radius of the arm!

The takeaway here is that these spurs/clubs/etc. are used exclusively as weapons (whether against their own or other species). Thus, they are firmly based on an already-present bone (either the carpal, metacarpal, or radius), and don’t move independently. They don’t provide any help in clinging, nor can they fold up against the wing like bat thumbs.

(I highly recommend checking out Darren Naish’s articles on wing spurs if you want a much more in-depth analysis of wing spurs in different bird species)

Just keep the basic anatomy of the hand in mind if you add wrist spikes. For example, if your wing has a thumb, then you’d likely need to base the spike on the radius rather than the wrist bones, or else the spike would interfere with thumb movement. Also be careful not to interrupt the front-edge membrane when adding wrist spikes—wings still need that membrane to function, whether they’re being used for battle or not.

Palms

Now I know I said in the Basic Anatomy section that bats don’t have palms-- just wrists carpals and extra-long fingers. This is likely because of what I discussed in that section about proportions-- the longer bones forming bases of the fingers provide stability to the fingers, while the carpals simply hold all the fingers together at one point, allowing for rotation and flexibility. A proper palm may end up destabilizing the wing, since the base of the hand needs long-bone stability, but the bones of the palm would be shorter than the bases of the fingers.

However, this is merely a possibility-- while palms aren’t technically accurate to real-life bats, I don’t think they’re necessarily impossible, if designed right.

Namely, we need to keep in mind weight and shape.

The wing palm should NOT be too thick/wide relative to the wing arm, since the overall mass of the wing thins out across the arm, from shoulder to wrist. thus, if you slap a heavy palm on the end of the wing, it’ll throw off the whole balance of the wing.

Shape also affects the stability of the wing-- the leading edge of the palm may need thicker support against oncoming air currents, while the trailing edge might thin out some to help with aerodynamics.

So, we can assume that a humanoid palm would be too thick with padding, too large proportionally to the arm, and not shaped correctly for flight.

Instead, I would suggest a couple options.

You could slightly emphasize the wrist space the bases of the fingers share, making for a round, unobtrusive palm. Hell, you might even be able to argue the palm is *just* the carpals, depending on how you draw it-- it’s just a little wider than on bats.

Or, you could lean into a longer, but more asymmetrical palm, with a thicker leading metacarpal, and the rest of the metacarpals shortening/thinning in progression.

Just remember that with either design, the palm should still be fairly small compared to the arm.

Thumbs

When thumbs aren’t being used as a base for feathers like a bird’s alula, they’re usually used for clinging. As it turns out, clinging is more effective when the knuckle of the thumb rests against the object being clung to, thus this knuckle gets a lot more padding than the rest of the finger.

This padding could even be compared to the paw pads of a cat or a dog, especially when the thumb is used as a resting point when bats are on the ground.

While I wouldn’t necessarily consider it a sin to model a wing thumb after a human thumb, it does make more sense to model wing thumbs after bat thumbs so they can properly cling and support a membrane.

-Mod Spiral

[fan-clan-fun]

 I submitted something about the structure of one of my fanclans a little while ago and thought it’d be fun to submit the rest of them! Just more brief descriptions than super detailed. I’d love it if you took a look!

Sorry this took so long to respond to, the size was a bit intimidating, but lets do this!

I’m also quickly noting that there’s a lot of things here that cats can’t do. Most notably, crafting, which here includes weaving, tying, etc. I know it’s unrealistic, I just can’t be bothered to care. And I know the map is a little empty right now, I’m workin’ on it.

You do you, if you want realism thats okay, if you dont, thats okay too! Just make sure in universe you are consistent, because thats where things can get awkward. 

To make things a little more understandable, let’s say these cats have more human-like paws. Think how paws are used in MAPs - the cats can point, make expressions with them, etc. They’re still paws, but can be used in more productive ways.

That doesnt seem like too much of a stretch, and that would make several things more easily possible.

The three clans - ForestClan, SeaClan, and CliffClan - are known (to me, at least), as ‘The Coastal Clans.’ The geography and aesthetic is supposed to match that of a Northwestern coast - think Northern California and Oregon. It’s cold, foggy, and wet most of the time. ForestClan inhabits a temperate redwood rainforest, SeaClan prowls the beaches and the ocean, and CliffClan claims the cliffs that overlook the beaches and ocean (as well as the meadows above the cliffs).

Seems like a good premise, and you can use some irl locations for inspiration and to help flesh it out. 

SeaClan, as said, claims the beaches and the sea as their territory. They are powerful swimmers, with thick, water-resistant fur to keep them warm when in the water. They have big, webbed paws that help propel them underwater. Unlike the canon water clan, RiverClan, who do quite a bit of their fishing at the surface of the water, SeaClan dive for their food. They do, of course, eat lots of fish, but a good portion of their food is also plucked from the sea floor - including clams, sea urchins, and oysters. Plenty of their food is found on the shore, too, though - they often dig for clams and crabs, and pry mussels off rocks.

This is actually really cool cause it makes use of their extra dexterity and ability.

SeaClan, like ForestClan, does not have a conventional leading system, nor do the cats have a StarClan. Instead of one leader, SeaClan has two - the Tidecaller and the Moonsinger (these just being titles, leaders will still keep their normal names). The Moonsinger is the more conventional of the two leaders. The Moonsinger is in charge of all the usual stuff: naming ceremonies, assigning mentors, leading the clan through hardship. The Tidecaller, however, is the spiritual leader. They are the one in charge of spiritual ceremonies - ascension to leadership, naming ceremonies for kits, etc. - as well as interpreting the will and signs of the sea. It is not common for the Moonsinger to receive visions or prophecies. Another notable difference is the leadership ceremony - when one becomes one of the leaders of SeaClan, they are ritually drowned.. And if they survive the ordeal (all leaders in recent history have survived), it’s a sign they have been approved of by the sea and gifted their nine lives (both gain nine lives). There is still a medicine cat, it’s just that the spiritual aspect is removed from the role.

So far Seaclan is distinct from most water-based clans and I appreciate its culture. Part of me wonders what originally led for the leadership to be split up, but the imagery makes sense.

SeaClan refers to ‘The Sea’ as their deity. As it is the basis of their entire lives, from birth to death, it is worshiped and respected greatly. Part of the respect, undoubtedly, comes from fear - though most, if not all SeaClan cats love the ocean, it’d be hard to deny how scary it can be. How vast, deep, and dark it is. It could take your life away in a heartbeat, drown you or drag you out to sea with no mercy (a quick note here: these cats also have some knowledge of a crude version of CPR - and yes, it is a lesson all apprentices must learn). They believe it is important to respect the waves - as it should then respect you back. If Sharkbait was dragged out by the riptide, he was not giving the sea the respect it deserved - perhaps he turned his back to the waves for a little too long. The other side of their religion, or their other deity, would be the Moon, as the moon pushes and pulls the tides. It’s not worshipped nearly as much as The Sea, but SeaClan cats still recognize its importance. Hence, we have the 'Moon'singer and the 'Tide'caller. SeaClan cats do not know of the afterlife, but dead cats are ‘buried’ at sea. If a SeaClan cat is not buried at sea, they believe they will then never walk in the afterlife - instead, they will be cursed to wander the land as a ghost and will never be allowed to return to the ocean. However, this has only proven to be a problem for evil cats (who don’t deserve the respect) or SeaClan cats that join other clans.

Okay right two deities, two leaders, makes sense. So far Seaclan seems to have a cohesive religion, nice.

As for trading, although their skill or style is not quite as refined as the other clans, SeaClan’s crafts are highly sought after for the materials used. Pearls, shells, sea glass, starfish, driftwood - most of their materials used are considered quite beautiful. Don’t tell the SeaClan cats, but most of their things end up getting taken apart to be repurposed for other jewelry, clothing, or other adornments.

I suppose the trade off of precious materials/lower refinement makes sense, although part of me worries that it could be used as a way to look down on this clan as less-civilized which could be a bit uncomfy. 

(On the map)

Mussel Rock - a rather large rock that is covered in mussels. A great place for food.

Tide Rocks - a large clump of rocks that are often used for sunbathing or recreational swimming. They’re also a great place to dive for hunting. They’re called the Tide Rocks because they’re sometimes impossible to get to or stand on because of a high tide, or can just be walked right on to during a low tide.

Shell Shore - a corner of the beach that is absolutely covered with shells. Not only shells, but driftwood, sea glass, pretty rocks, starfish. A common place to get crafting materials. Apprentices often spend hours poring over the choices, trying to figure out the best one to give to their crush.

The Falls - another sort of recreational spot. It’s good for teaching younger apprentices how to swim without taking them into the ocean, and a great source of fresh water.

SeaClan kits have the suffix -shell, apprentices have the suffix -shore. SeaClan leaders do not take a unique suffix.

I currently do not have any plans for the leaders, deputies, or medicine cat.

And, for fun, a song or two for SeaClan’s aesthetic/vibe: Ghost on the Shore by Lord Huron, and Fire by Noah Gunderson.

Looks good so far!

​​​​​​​Next up is CliffClan!

CliffClan inhabit the golden grassy meadows above the cliffs, as well as the cliffs themselves. Compared to the other clans, they are seen as rather laid-back and carefree. Hippies, basically. Typically, they’re lighter in color - lilac, yellow, golden, pale brown, pale grey - and are leaner. Hunting takes place both on the cliffs and in the meadows for CliffClan cats. On the cliffs, birds and birds’ eggs make great meals, and in the meadows, rabbits, mice, ground birds, and other creatures are quite common. Even the occasional squirrel, though they’re typically caught dangerously close to ForestClan’s borders. CliffClan territory gets much more sunlight than other territories and is typically a fair bit warmer. The camp is underneath a great, ancient willow tree - the hanging leaves create a natural partition and protect the cats underneath from rain, wind, hail and whatever else the world might throw at them. The borders (where the leaves hang) have been reinforced with bramble to create a more secure and clear camp. There are two partings/entrances in the camp, one to the territory, and another to an outdoor camp. The outdoor part of camp isn’t too reliable during storms, but for cats who prefer sleeping under the stars or want to nap in the sun, it’s perfect. It also smells rather nice, as the medicine cat keeps an herb garden in a portion of the outdoor camp.

Cliffclan territory and camp sounds lovely!  Although willows do tend to grow closer to water or wetter land and since it looks like Cliffclan territory doesnt have a lot of trees, it is a bit odd for this one massive willow to exist on its own, particularly away from water. Maybe move it near to a little pond or lake? Or set it in a small group of willows in some wetlands? But thats up to you, and you did mention the map wasn’t complete so I may not have the full picture. 

Rather than worshipping a deity, to CliffClan, nature is divine. All life is interconnected. Each piece of nature is itself, it’s own being, and they have no need to apply fancy names or powers to them. The sun brings warmth and light, the wind carries the scent of prey and salt, the rain brings water and cool refreshment after the hot months. Respect and love all parts of nature. “Hear the voice that sings to everything that always has and always will.”

Definitely sounds a little hippy lol. But it fits them well I think. 

CliffClan’s main crafts include weaving, feathers, and ‘tools.’ Dry grass and reeds are woven together to create bracelets/anklets, chokers, and blankets. Feathers are often tucked into those as well. They also weave small baskets that can be used by the medicine cat to hold herbs, or woven grass pouches that can be worn over the body to collect things. One example is the pouches being used to hold eggs as CliffClan cats collect them from birds’ nests. CliffClan has the best technique for weaving by far, making their woven items highly sought after.

I like that they have the ability to collect and organize, it could be cool if different clan members had their own little collections or weaving patterns. They seem to be more independent and chill to have the time to do more things for pleasure. 

(On the map)

The Ponds - a nice spot for cats to relax. It’s a good hunting spot and wonderful swimming spot. Sometimes there’ll even be a fish to catch!

Out of the three clans, CliffClan’s appointment system is the most similar to the canon clans’. Kits are still -kit, apprentices are still -paw. There is still a deputy and medicine cat. However, leaders do not take a special suffix.

CliffClan’s current leader is Brightsun, a seemingly soft-spoken tom with a missing hind leg. His aura is very friendly and warm - one can tell he was chosen to be leader because of his undying kindness and love for his clanmates, not because of his battle skills. He has a himbo husband mate, Hawkheart, and four adopted kits: Thunderpaw, Stormpaw, Rainpaw, and Windpaw.

CliffClan’s deputy has not yet been decided.

CliffClan’s medicine cat is Ripplestream, a former SeaClan warrior. He’s a bit skittish, and just a tad shy. But he truly does love his craft, and, so far, hasn’t looked back on his decision to leave SeaClan. Brightsun and Ripplestream are particularly close, since Brightsun was his mentor (he used to be the medicine cat - you may think, medicine cat to leader? that’s kinda cringe bro. i’m here to strangle cringe culture with my bare hands, and, Brightsun’s whole backstory will be submitted at a later date).

Its not that cringe, its just curious. Is that a normal thing? How do Cliffclan choose their leaders? 

CliffClan’s head monarch is Primroseclaw, former deputy. She retired after she found a mate - her desire was always to serve her clan, and there were other ways to do so than becoming leader. She’s very caring with kits, but strict with adult cats, as they should know better. Primroseclaw is Brightsun’s maternal aunt.

I don’t necessarily see this as an issue as long as there isnt the implication that motherhood as a female is the ultimate way to serve, as that can be alienating for those who cant or dont want to birth or raise kits. But I mean all power to her if that was what she wanted. 

CliffClan’s song/aesthetic: The Well by Woodland.

Lastly, there’s ForestClan! These cats inhabit the temperate redwood rainforest, and are generally seen as the most ‘mysterious,’ because they’re literally shrouded by the darkness of the trees. Typically, ForestClan cats are big and muscular, typically long-furred with darker pelts. Brown is especially common, as well as black and tortoiseshell. Ginger cats are seen as a bit prettier, and, depending on the times, white cats can be seen as beautiful or as a bad omen (it’s harder to hunt in the dark forest with a white pelt). They hunt all sorts of forest creatures, such as squirrels, mice, chipmunks, racoons, rabbits, etc. ForestClan cats are even known to take down animals as big as deer. This is only done on rare occasions - such as for a Gathering or in times of great hunger - but it’s still quite the impressive feat.

Deer are a pretty big thing to take on, Im curious how they do it. If they can take on deer, does this mean that other more natural to their size predators (foxes, badgers, coyotes, etc) aren’t as much of an issue?

I explained the deities and system in another post, but I’ll go over it briefly. ForestClan has three deities - The Sisters - who live on their territory in the form of three ancient, enormous redwood trees. Maieth is the largest tree, and the eldest sister. The leader who represents her duty to ForestClan is called Maieth’s Ward. The second eldest, the dead tree, is Kenoake, the leader who represents her is called Kenoake’s Ward. And the youngest sister, the smallest tree, Aerin - the leader who represents her, is, you guessed it, called Aerin’s Ward. The leaders’ deputies are more like apprentices who have to learn the ins and outs of their role, as there is much more to it than keeping everybody safe from harm.

Oh yes I remember that post. Its all coming together now.

ForestClan’s crafts are also highly sought after, as they make the most use from clay, bones, and paints. Crafts also pay a larger role in clan life to ForestClan than in the other clans. All kits are given necklaces when they’re born, each with a clay bead and a piece of bark from each of the Sisters strung on it. For each event in their life - their apprentice ceremony, their warrior ceremony, a particularly impressive catch, officially becoming mates with another cat, etc. they gain another bead and another piece of bark (from the tree that best pertains to the event; ceremonial from Kenoake, becoming a parent from Maieth, gaining apprentice from Aerin). Necklaces can be decorated with feathers, bones, etc. is the cat so wishes. For special ceremonies, ForestClan cats decorate themselves with ‘paint’ made from crushed berries or mud. They also have special bone wear - tied together with sinew, they drape bones over their pelts, such as rib bones. Leaders wear the skulls of killed deer during ceremonies.

I like the idea of the beads and bark based on what happens during their lives, its a really nice way to remember and give meaning. 

ForestClan cats don’t wear as much ‘clothing’ as SeaClan or CliffClan, their specialty lies in more decorative crafts. One of which is their bone wind chimes, put together with sinew, sticks, and clay. This is especially popular with CliffClan, who enjoy placing them on the branches of the Great Willow. ForestClan’s camp is thoroughly decorated with them, and they’re also used as markers in the woods so cats don’t get lost. Their other especially popular craft is clay bowls. These are great for medicine cats to store their herbs, or to carry fresh water to camp. ForestClan cats also use them to store and crush berries to be used as paint.

Wait wait, clothing? I didnt realize the other clans wore a form of clothing. Why do they wear clothing? Is it to protect themselves, to better carry tools? As for the bone wind chimes, thats a lovely image, both haunting and beautiful to think that these cats have the knowledge to understand and enjoy music.

(On the map)

Mossy Hollow - a soft area for sparring and learning to climb. The mossy ground makes it so, if they fall, it’s not too rough. The springiness also makes it a great spot to practice leaps and fighting/hunting moves. The pond is a great source of fresh water, and the light shining through the trees makes it a good spot to sunbathe.

ForestClan kits are called -sprout, and apprentices are called -sap (sapling). Leaders do not take a special suffix.

This is super cute, I love these suffixes. 

Maieth’s Ward has not been decided, nor has their deputy/apprentice.

Kenoake’s Ward has not been decided. Konoake’s Ward’s deputy/apprentice is Butterflywood, a very gentle cat. They are a bit accident prone, a bit.. Out there. They seem a little odd, but are quite kind, especially to curious kits and apprentices.

Aerin’s Ward has not been decided. Aerin’s Ward’s deputy/apprentice is Cinderspark, a very spunky, eccentric she-cat. She’s quite small for a ForestClan cat, but has very good reflexes and is fast. She’s very excitable as well - I don’t think anyone will be getting over her extremely rambunctious response to becoming deputy anytime soon. Even though she finds it a bit hard to focus sometimes, Aerin’s Ward cited she’d be a great fit for the role - she’s practically Aerin reincarnated!

Vibes: Cocoa Hooves by Glass Animals

As for other details:

Having mates outside of your clan is not forbidden, but it’s taboo - more like an unspoken rule. Both inter clan relationships and half clan kits are frowned upon.. But there’s no punishment for it, save for perhaps the disapproving reaction of one’s clanmates. Medicine cats can have mates and kits.

‘Star’ is a perfectly acceptable prefix. ‘Paw’ is used as more of an insult or to make fun - such as calling someone Heavypaws for being too loud while hunting, or saying someone’s a Wetpaw for falling into the river/pond/ocean. CliffClan cats don’t use this very much, for obvious reasons.

Interesting, but does open up the ability to make names with star as both prefix and suffix I suppose. 

Cats may also leave their clans to join another, if they wish. Again, it’s not forbidden, but it’s.. Odd. Chances are the cat would be then hated by their own clan and an outcast in their new one (well, save for CliffClan, they’re probably the most welcoming of all). The other issue is that of a culture shock - unlike the canon clans, where, if it weren’t for the territory differences, would be just about all the same, the Coastal Clans are quite different. The different territory, leadership system, naming system, etc. might all be a bit tricky to get the hang of. There’s also the issue of the afterlife - where will they go? For example, for Ripplestream, he’s incredibly scared that since he won’t be buried at sea.. Will he be cursed to live as a ghost for the rest of his existence? Will he be taken in by whatever afterlife is offered to CliffClan? It’s all awfully frightening. It makes the issue of switching clans one that needs careful consideration.

I feel like hearing Ripplestream’s background would also help to understand some of the smaller details of this. But it does make sense that it would be odd. These clans dont seem to be aggressive or territorial so it does make sense that they might not react as badly as they could to cats moving clans. Most of the stress seems to fall on whoever is moving, as they would have to learn to live a whole new way of life. 

There is no communal gathering spot - each moon, a different clan will host the gathering. CliffClan often hosts the gatherings at The Ponds, ForestClan at the Mossy Hollow, and SeaClan at The Falls. Gatherings are less formal events held by the clans to report of new apprentices, kits, findings, etc. They’re fun! Gatherings are often all day events, full of competitive games (sparring, hunting contests - medicine cats even have herbal trivia competitions), chatting, gossip, trading, and eating. Each clan brings prey and crafts from their own territory. These Gatherings are held bi-monthly, on the day of the full moon.

Each clan often comes dressed their best - SeaClan with their shells, ForestClan with their bones and paint smeared on their fur, CliffClan with their woven wear. Of course, by the end of the Gathering, most of this is put aside as the cats get more comfortable with each other.

So Im curious as to why the gatherings even happen. Was there some kind of war way back in the past which requried a peace settlement? Was it cultures seeking a way to trade and congregate together so a monthly gathering was a good way to do that? So far seems like you have thought through this quite well. Thanks for the submission!

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ @sasuhinabigflash2020​​ || Day Twenty-Three: They’re Better Than That ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto ] [ SasuHina, vulgarity ] [ Verse: Of Monsters and Men ] [ AO3 Link ]

[ Previous ] [ Next ] [ This piece is a sequel to Days Fourteen and Eighteen ]

Well...Sasuke can say this is certainly a first. And hopefully a last, as far as his career is concerned. Because as a hunter of monsters...working with one is the last thing he should be doing.

Though if he thinks about it...this isn’t the first partnership between himself and this soft-spoken harpy. When he’d targeted her as a potential trophy to prove himself as a Hunter, he’d instead ended up saving her life, teaming up with her against a far more dangerous threat: a vampire.

That, of course, wasn’t exactly planned on either of their parts. Sasuke never intended to spare a monster, and Hinata the harpy never expected to be allowed to live by a Hunter. But the most irritating thing - from Sasuke’s stance, at least - was Hinata’s insistence in her debt to him.

As it turns out...her kind take debt very, very seriously. ‘To the grave’ sort of serious. And now, she owed him her life.

Or so she claimed.

And Sasuke was not happy about that. It was bad enough he let her go, worse still that he lied to his family and clan of Hunters about it. He’d planned on simply avoiding her from then on, but Fate had another idea: to put her in the range of his first official case, looking into an illegal gambling ring run by a kitsune...or werefox, as they’re more technically called.

As it so happens, Hinata seems to know the man in question: one named Naruto, according to her. He’s already had a run-in with monster law, or Nightwalkers as they all call themselves. You’d think that would be enough to send him running him with his tail tucked between his legs. But just in case...Sasuke decides to pay him a visit. See if he can end this without violence.

Oh, if his father could see him now...he’s likely exile him.

But Hinata has pleaded on this Naruto’s behalf. Sure, he’s been swindling humans and risking an exposure of the worlds to one another, but apparently he’s really not a bad guy.

Sasuke will believe that when he sees it. But he promised Hinata he’d do what he could to avoid bloodshed.

Why? He’s not even sure anymore. Maybe he’s too soft to be a Hunter as his father feared. But...too late now.

“How much further?”

“His scent is getting pretty strong,” Hinata assures him softly. “Likely within a block.”

“You can really smell him?”

She glances to him curiously. “Yes…?”

“...sorry. Guess it’s just...weird to realize. I mean I know you can. Just...weird to see it in practice.”

Staring at him for a moment, Hinata dares to ask, “Because you kill us before you can do so?”

In spite of himself, he flinches with a grimace. “...yeah.”

“...I understand. I’ve never seen one of you up close before. It’s...still a little unsettling, if...if I can be honest.”

“It’s a lot less insulting than us talking about me killing you,” Sasuke rebukes, expression still torn.

She doesn’t have a reply for that, and in fact motions for him to pause as she takes a lungful of air at a crossroads of alleyways. “...I think -”

“Whoa!”

Hinata shrinks back with an eep and a flurry of feathers, Sasuke squawking gracelessly as she hides behind him.

In front of them, leaning back and looking ready to bolt, is a man fitting Sasuke’s given description of the werefox: blond, blue-eyed, tanned...this has to be their guy.

“N...Naruto-kun!” Hinata then offers, her bird-like traits vanishing as she realizes who very nearly bumped into her.

“...oh! Uh...Hinata, right? Man, you almost gave me a heart attack!”

“S-sorry! I...I didn’t realize you were that close.”

The blond blinks. “You lookin’ for me?”

“Yes! Well...sort of…?” She gives Sasuke a wary, indicative glance. “I...I have someone here who needs to - to talk to you.”

“Uh...okay. Lookin’ to make some cash there, my dude? I’ve got a couple of really good -!”

“I’m not looking to gamble, let alone illegally,” Sasuke cuts in, already a bit annoyed by the man’s ‘too-cool’ attitude and slick way of speaking. The word ‘illegal’ makes Naruto shift his gears to a defensive posture. “I’ve been sent out by a local clan of Hunters to investigate your dealings and make sure they stop. Permanently.”

Panic laces Naruto’s face as he realizes just who and what Sasuke is. “W-whoa, wait - what? You’re a -? Aw shit, I already got lectured by that old wolf the other day, I don’t need this now, too!”

“Naruto-kun,” Hinata cuts in gently. “We...that is to say, I’m just w-worried about you. If both the Enforcers and the Hunters know about what you’ve been doing...you’re putting yourself in real danger by -!”

“No one’s seen me!” Naruto then cuts in, looking jittery. Sasuke subtly adjusts his posture, ready to give chase if he bolts. “I swear! Yeah I swindled a few Daywalkers but they’re dumb as a box of rocks! No one knows what I am, guarantee it!”

“Anyone come back angry after you swindled them?” Sasuke growls.

“No! Uh, well...okay, a few. But I can talk my way outta anything! Honest! They have no idea!”

“Your luck can’t last forever,” the Uchiha counters. “One of these days, you’re going to slip up and get caught. And if a human realizes what you are and their illusion is shattered, that’s going to make a really big mess. For me, and for your Enforcer friends. Surely you don’t want to piss us both off, right?”

Unbidden as his stress rises, a pair of golden, ink-tipped ears spring out of the man’s hair, pinned in worry. “Look, I-I don’t want any trouble, ‘ttebayo! I was just tryin’ to make a living! You know how hard it is to get a job around here?”

“I have some idea.”

“I got thrown out of the last three I had. They accused me of stealing! It wasn’t stealing, I just…” He gestures vaguely. “...it’s in my nature!”

“Wily foxes. Believe me, I know,” Sasuke mutters, arms crossing. “No-good thieves, swindlers, and con artists.”

“Hey!” Stepping between the two, Hinata puffs up, and despite them not being visible, Sasuke can still picture her feathers ruffling. “Naruto-kun isn’t a bad person - he’s better than that! Stereotypes like that hurt us a l-lot more than you know.”

“Yeah. Like birds being easily spooked and flighty?” Sasuke counters, seeing her wince. “He’s literally running an illegal gambling ring and ripping people off. He’s doing exactly what I said he’d do. And if he keeps doing it, he’s gonna lose a lot more than a job.”

“Please...there has to be s-something we can do…?”

“You, uh…” Naruto takes half a step back, hands lifted. “You’re not gonna kill me, are ya?”

“That depends entirely on what you do, fox,” Sasuke rebukes. “Because right now, I have orders to do just that to ensure you don’t stir up more trouble than you can handle and cause a major incident between humans and monsters.”

The blond pales, eyes widening.

After a pause, Sasuke sighs. “...but I’d rather not kill you. And the only way I can let that happen is if you swear that your swindling days are over. That you���re not gonna keep pulling these stunts and risk you, and a lot of other people, getting hurt because of the panic at a monster being seen. Quit the game altogether, go clean...and I can let you go.” He then steps forward, grabbing the front of the blond’s jacket and ignoring his yip of surprise. “But if I hear about any more werefoxes around here getting their paws dirty...I won’t be so merciful next time. Got it?”

Blanching, Naruto just gives several rapid nods, stumbling back as Sasuke releases his hold. “You...y-you got it, man. I-I’ll go clean! Never touch any cards or dice again, I s-swear it!”

“I’ll be holding you to that. Now get out of here and find something else to do than lurking around alleyways, huh?”

Not needing to be told twice, Naruto spins on a heel and - in a blink - shifts into a huge, two-tailed fox that bolts down the road and out of sight.

Sighing, Sasuke pinches the bridge of his nose. “...I’m gonna be in so much shit if anyone finds out about this…”

“You did the right thing,” Hinata murmurs, hands folded at her front. “I think you s-scared him straight. I’ll check in on him later and...make sure.”

He gives her an unreadable glance. “...thanks.”

Considering him, Hinata then hesitantly admits, “You’re...nothing like I thought you would be.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re...not just a killer. You think, and...you reason. I’ve always heard that Hunters are ruthless...heartless.”

Thinking of his family and their records, Sasuke barely withholds a grimace. “...I might just be an exception to the rule.”

“Well...I’m glad you are. We’re really not bad people, you know. We’re just...t-trying to survive, like everyone else. Sure, some of us stir up trouble...a-and hurt people. But then again...so do Daywalkers. Humans, I mean,” she adds after a pause. “I think maybe...you see that.”

“All I see is me failing to do my job twice now,” he sighs.

“Well...that failure meant two people are still alive,” Hinata replies softly. “...doesn’t that mean something?”

Contradictions running through his mind and giving him a headache, Sasuke waves her off. “...I dunno. But you better get home, and...I better get out of here. And you,” he adds, pointing at her, “are no longer indebted to me. You repaid me with your help tonight, so let it go.”

“But you helped my friend! If anything, I -!”

“Look, I told you: being in debt to me is dangerous for you! If anyone I know were to see me talking to you and not cutting off your head, we’d both be good as dead. You need to stay the hell away from me from now on.”

Not expecting his sharp tone, she retreats a step, eyes wide and tinged with fright. “...b-but...it was you who came looking for me -?”

“This time. And the last time. I thought this would get that debt idea out of your head, but it seems I was wrong.” Stepping up, he rests his finger against her collarbone, trying to look intimidating. “...for your own sake...never see me again.”

Unreadable flickers of emotions dart across her face. “...a-as you wish.”

Hoping he’s made his point, Sasuke stares at her a moment longer before backing away and heading back toward the main road. Why he bothered trying to warn her, he doesn’t understand. She’s a monster. His mortal enemy. What should he care if her actions get herself killed? It would just be one less of them to worry about!

...and yet...it’s getting awfully hard to draw a line between himself, and any other human he knows...and her. Sure, she can burst into feathers, but...her mannerisms, her behavior, her emotions...they’re all exactly like anyone else.

...they’re human.

Buried in his thoughts as he walks, Sasuke stands beside his bike for a long moment, not wanting to drive with his head in the clouds. Everything he’s been taught about monsters - about Nightwalkers - seems to be less and less meaningful the more he interacts with them. Decades, centuries of tradition...are they...wrong…?

Scowling to himself, Sasuke forces the dilemma aside - he needs to report back. He doesn’t have Naruto’s head to present them...and admitting he let the guy go isn’t an option. He can claim the fox escaped...but that won’t stop the hunt for him. Naruto will have to lay low for a good long while for his kin to give up the chase.

But hopefully he realizes that much.

Hoping astride his bike and kicking up the stand, Sasuke veers from the curb and turns around back toward home. He’s too tired and too frustrated to be thinking about all of this. It’s far too large a topic...and he doesn’t have all the answers. Nor can he ask anyone - questioning their oath to rid the world of monsters will surely just get him in trouble. He doesn’t even dare ask Itachi.

...so for now, he’ll just...try not to think about it.

     Woo, another piece done today! No idea if there’ll be a third, but we’ll see lol      Anywho, more of the new-plot monster verse! This one is growing on me, I’ll admit it. I wasn’t sure it would since I had another multi-part story in this verse with an alternate plot - I thought it’d bore me. But I’m pleasantly surprised lol - and hopefully you guys are enjoying it!      I always feel like I can’t write Naruto well. So hopefully I did a passable job with him, eh heh~      Otherwise, I...guess there’s not much to say? I’ve gotta run and get some irl things done, but we’ll see about another part today. We’re still five days behind, but...better than nothing xD Hope y’all enjoyed and I’ll see you in the next one!

[bilgisticallykosher]

Devil On His Shoulders And Lesser Demons All Over The Place; AKA Well, There Goes The Metasphere

As a note, I actually don't believe that Mandy is that angsty. The rumors of her sadism have been greatly exaggerated. As another note, I'd just like to apologize to everyone. Inspired by Devil On My Shoulder by Lime. Or the shortened version, DOMS. Which is ridiculous; clearly Mandy is the only dom here.

Words: Just under 2000

Lime sighed, careful not to cause too much movement to his little "shoulder devil" as he secretly liked to think of her. Mandy was great, and the scenarios were fun to think about, but he could never actually write them. He loved his characters too much to ever hurt them permanently. And yet…

Well, at any rate, he was still out of ideas. And this little (heh) theoretical session hadn't helped any. Maybe he'd have to start from scratch after all. The curtains fluttered in the windless atmosphere, and a bright light flickered from beyond them. Lime squinted. What in the heck? 

"...and since he doesn't know about the others living in his house, he doesn't get them out from the flooding!" Mandy concluded her dreary thought. She looked up and blinked. "Hey, what's that-" She cut herself off with a soundless noise that might have very well been a curse, as a fire bird flew in out of nowhere, and landed lightly on Lime's other shoulder. 

He flinched, but it turned out to not be hot, just pleasantly warm. 

"Um, hi?" He greeted, bewildered. 

"I know I'm not exactly one to talk," the phoenix began, definitely actually talking, "but I think you can do a little better than Miss Not-So-Infinitesimally Angsty." Mandy gasped. 

"How dare?!" The phoenix, who Lime now realized was Phoenix, rolled their eyes. 

"I'm just saying, there's maybe an imbalance there on hurt/comfort you know?" They had a point. 

"Hey, I know how to do comfort!" Mandy huffed. "I get plenty of comfort from readers screaming in the comments." Lime groaned. Phoenix, being one of her screaming readers, slapped their face with their hand- er, wing. 

"Alright, I think I need some backup," they said, muffled through their feathers. They dropped their wing and sent out a fire symbol. Lime couldn't quite see what it was, or if they used their mouth like a dragon, or if it was a feather or something. Pretty awesome, though. 

And suddenly there was a purple butterfly hovering in front of him. At least this newcomer wasn't too hard to figure out. 

"Nyn?"

"I hear you're having trouble with some plot ideas?" She seemed excited and willing to help, something Lime was very grateful for. 

"Yes, thank you so much, I can't seem to get away from the really awful permanent death ones." Lime stared obviously at Mandy, who just shrugged nonchalantly, spinning her magic pen around. 

"Ah. Yes. Well, I've got the perfect solution!" Her voice was so sweet-sounding, it was like music to his ears. Phoenix nodded their head. 

"Yes?" Lime listened raptly. 

"Kill 'em anyways." He froze. Surely, he must have misheard. 

"Wh-" he floundered for coherent English. "What?" 

"If you wanna kill them, kill them!" There was a snort from his shoulder.

"But your stories are usually so cute! And fluffy!"

"Usually,” she emphasized. "Unless Mandy picks the wrong number." Lime turned to Mandy, horrified. 

"Whoops," she deadpanned. 

"I wrote a fic about the werewolf getting a kitten," Phoenix said reproachfully.

Then he got distracted by a voice at his feet. 

"Heya!"

"Aah!"

"Woah!"

"Geez, now I know how Virgil felt," the voice joked. Lime looked down. It looked like...a box? With little cat features? That was adorable, but admittedly very confusing. He had to contain himself from petting. His talons twitched. 

No! Big, scary dragon! Rawr! He wouldn't cave to some weird kitty box! 

… Who was he kidding? He'd be cuddling it within the hour. 

Mandy squinted, staring down at the creature. She steadied herself on Lime's shoulder before sliding down his arm. He grumbled something about safety that went unheeded. 

"Kat?" She asked, tilting her head. "Is that you?" The box- Kat, apparently- nodded. 

"Yep. I'm here to help out!" Mandy squinted. 

"Why the heck do you look like that?"

"Well, like my username. You know," she sighed, Callboxkat? Box Kat? Box cat? Yeah."

"Wait, isn't it supposed to be a callbox? As in a telephone booth?"

"Yeah, but the author doesn't watch Doctor Who." Kat watched Nyn fluttering back and forth, repressing her newfound cat urges. 

"Wait. I thought we were the authors?" Phoenix furrowed their eyebrows. 

"Listen, this is already so meta, does it really matter?" Kat raised an eyebrow. 

"Fair point." Mandy jerked her thumb back in Lime's direction over her shoulder. "So, do you have any suggestions?"

"Do I?!"

"Do you?" Lime echoed back at her.

"So I was thinking," she box-stepped over to one of the lower-set universe basins, "you take some of your tiny characters,"

"Yeah…" He considered the few universes where he had borrowers.

"Then you slap a tail on them, and have them almost drown!" She concluded triumphantly, lithely swaying her own tail at the mention of them. 

"Almost drown them?" Lime asked warily.

“Almost drown them?" Mandy asked with a gleam in her eye. 

"Okay, that's it." A new voice called out. Lime thought he recognized it, turning his head to confirm. Yep, there Allison was, dressed in her own witch outfit of purple and teal. "You," she pointed at Mandy with her magic quill "have had enough angst for the day. You're being cut off."

"No!" Mandy pouted, readying her puppy dog eyes. 

"Yes," Allison crossed her arms triumphantly. 

"Um, not to encourage her," Phoenix spoke up, turning to face her, "but haven't you been just as guilty of angst recently?" 

"What do you mean?" Allison frowned, confused. 

"Yeah!" Kat turned to her, "all those Perspectives lately have been pretty heavy and angst-laden."

"Wh- hey, first of all, recently is subjective, we wrote those a while ago. And we've had a lot of fluff in there, too!" Lime considered this. 

"Vampire Perspective, Pet Perspective…" he listed off. 

"Mandy's been choosing the wrong numbers," Nyn nodded. 

"And! And Lilliputian, Freezing, those were also recent-ish!"

"Face it," Mandy suddenly appeared next to Allison, leaning her arm on her friend, "we're in the same boat now." She flopped over dramatically into her arms. "I've corrupted you."

"Noooo…"

"Hey, Allison, what's that building on your hat, by the way?" Phoenix asked. She sighed, and threw a photo version their way. 

"Arc."

"Oh my god." There were snickers around. Mandy was still draped over Allison, shaking her head at the truly awful pun. 

"PSSSST!" Everyone turned around. There, as if summoned by the bad humor, was a stick figure, looking shifty-eyed, and unmistakably Lefay. She was wearing a trenchcoat, and hat. Of course, the hat wasn't the typical hat associated with a trenchcoat. It was, instead, an umbrella-hat.

"Um," a new voice came in before they could address that. They turned back, seeing a small snail with a dorsal fin on his back. Fin. Lime was starting to see a terrible, terrible pattern here. "I was also invited, but, I don't know, maybe I should leave? You guys are all so cool, I think I probably don't belong here."

"Fin, please!" Everyone chorused together. 

"Alright, alright!" He acquiesced, really taking in the room. "Hey, I guess not everyone's cool, you're looking pretty hot, Phoenix!" He made finger guns at them somehow, and they laughed at his antics. Lime smiled, before remembering the previous interruption. 

"Hey, Lefay," Lime started, slowly, turning back to her, "why's there an umbrella on your head?"

"The costume store was out of trench hats-"

"There's no way that's what they're called," Allison balked. 

"-so I decided to go with the rain theme. And I got this instead!" She patted the umbrella headband happily before tensing, and crouching inward, voice lowering to what was definitely not how she spoke a second ago. "Pssst. Hey, hey kid. C'mere. I hears ya need some help with your woiks."

Lime took a moment to mentally translate this. He was uncertain, but he did need help with his works. He twisted his long, scaly neck over to where she stood. 

"Yeah, alright."

She opened her trench coat wide, causing a flinch or two throughout the group, to reveal what was lined on the inside. Lime could identify a turnip, a rutabaga, celeriac, a parsnip, a yam, taro, a daikon, and jicama. "Um…" Lime was confused. "What-"

"Oh my god" Kat put her paws over her face. 

"Did youse need help wit' some titles?" Lefay waggled her eyebrows. There was absolute silence, aside from some traitorous snickering from some of the others. 

"..............No," Lime decided on as his response. "Titles I can figure out later, but I just need some story ideas to title in the first place." 

"Oh, why didn't you say so!" She responded in her normal voice. "I can totally help with that!" Lime brightened. Lefay smiled back, and then promptly fell to the floor, pillow under her head, asleep. 

Lime flinched back, and turned back to the rest of the room, slumping his head in his hands. 

"This is never going to work," he lamented. "I'll never get a new idea like this!"

"Well," Nyn cut in, "maybe that's your answer." Lime slowly lifted his head, squinting in confusion. "I mean, if you're not coming up with ideas this way, maybe this way isn't the way to go about it?"

"Right," Allison agreed, as Mandy un-flopped from her. "Just because this works for some people, or even if it's worked for you before, doesn't mean you have to use this method."

"Inspiration comes differently for everyone." Kat piped in, tail swishing in excitement. "You shouldn't feel pressured to choose one specific way and stick to it." 

"And if you're forcing yourself to come up with ideas, doesn't that negate why you're writing in the first place?" Phoenix added. 

"Heck yeah!" Fin shouted. "Writing fanfic is supposed to be fun!" Mandy gently put a hand on his arm. 

"You shouldn't feel pressured at all. If you can't think of something to write, you don't have to." Lime looked up at her, she smiled gently down at him. "You're allowed to not write. You're allowed to take a break. You're allowed to put yourself first." Lime sniffed out a laugh, before looking at all the smiling, encouraging faces of his friends and fellow fanders. 

"Okay, I give. You guys are right." He stood up on all fours, nails clacking against the wood floor. "Now let's get out of this…" he looked around again, frowning. "Wait, where are we?"

"Looks like a stage of some sort?" Kat voiced, uncertainly. A voice sounded from all around them. 

"I'm a theater, sweetheart." Brook responded. There was a rimshot.

"You know, it's things like this that make me really glad that I picked my authorsona myself." Lime deadpanned. Allison and Mandy nodded. 

Over in the corner, a shovel fell over onto a sketchpad in agreement. 

"Yeah, I don't know who's doing this," Mandy spoke a little too nonchalantly, "but these are really, really bad. Like, objectively terrible. I mean just completely awful. As if whoever did it started with zero sense of humor, and then got worse." Hey, watch it, witchy, I’m in control of this story. "And I'm in control of a lot more stories, I can make angst like you wouldn't believe," she cheerfully stated, appropriate of nothing, according to the others' perspectives. 

…I surrender. 

Mandy smirked, satisfied, before bounding over to Lime's back. "So, wanna give us a ride back?"

"Sure," Lime offered his hands out, palms flat for everyone (except for those with wings) to climb on. When everyone had settled, he spread his wings, and took flight. As he faded into the horizon, he mumbled to himself, "Maybe I'll write something with Virgil…"

About a minute after he left, Lefay jolted awake. 

"Alright! I've got like six more plausible ideas for AUs, there's this one where-" Lefay paused, looking around. She seemed distressed for a moment, before continuing. "-but I never figured out what happened with the incident with the noodles. TIME FOR MORE RESEARCH!" She pointed dramatically up to the sky, before immediately flopping back into sleep. 

BONUS!

There was a ringing sound. Every set of eyes snapped to the source. 

"Are you ringing from your body?” Allison asked Kat incredulously. 

"I've got a phone in the box," Kat blushed, fishing it out.

"Getting a call, box-Kat?" Mandy grinned wickedly. Kat barked at her. Mandy frowned. 

"Why-"

"I love dogs," she shrugged. 

@callboxkat @delimeful @hiddendreamer67 @theatresweetheart @lefaystrent @infinimay @enby-phoenix @arc852 @justanotherpurplebutterfly @eatingashovel (not by name but you make an appearance)

[radiant-flutterbun]

First | Previously

Nike was blind. She had been since she had hatched. She didn’t need sight though. She experienced the world just fine using her sense of smell, antennae and, since she was a mirror dragon, her heat vision. She could sense the heat signatures of many creatures of Sornieth. Some were more difficult than others, since magic could sometimes mess with heat vision. But for the most part it wasn’t a problem.

She enjoyed feeling the warm sand under her claws. She listened as the waves lapped the beach and as the seagulls overhead called. She smiled as she heard her daughter laughing as she splashed around on the beach.

Nike was just thinking that it was time to inform her daughter it was time to start heading back to the clan when another voice rudely interrupted her inner monologue. 

“Greetings mortal! I am Haibaraad, but you may call me Brad. I am an angel here to search for anomalies. Would you care to tell me of anything unusual you may have seen?”

Nike snarled and turned around, but to her surprise her heat vision picked up nothing.

“Who the fuck is there? And why the fuck do you sound like my old mentor, who I know for a fact is dead?”

“Oh I apologize! I did not mean to frighten you. I forget how your mortal brains can have trouble processing the celestial.”

“I said. Where. The. Fuck. Are you?” Nike opened her mouth to scent the air, but could pick up nothing.

“Can you not see me?”

Nike only snarled in response.

“Your eyes don’t work? Fascinating. I didn’t know that could happen!”

Nike felt a tap on her shoulder and she instinctively growled and bit down on whatever had touched her.

She heard a yelp inside her head, still in the voice of her mentor.

“You bit me!”

She tasted something metallic in her mouth.

“I’m bleeding because of you!”

“Maybe don’t fucking touch me then. At least now I know where you are.”

“That’s what I was doing! I just wanted to let you know where I was since your eyes are broken.”

Nike snorted “My eyes aren't broken. I’m just blind. Stop being rude and tell me who you are before I decide to bite you again.”

“I just told you. I’m Brad! I’m an angel. I’m looking for anomalies on this planet. I sent a letter.”

“If you sent me a letter then my girlfriend never informed me of it. Are you another being of Selcouth? Because if you are, I’m going to have to have Sepulchral see you to verify if I can trust you.”

“Selcouth? Never heard of her.”

“I think I’ll still get Sepulchral just in case. Hold my hand. I want to know exactly where you are.”

Nike stood on her hindlegs and offered one of her front paws to Brad. She felt the scentless being take it. Based on the claws she guessed that it looked like a wildclaw.

“I’m just going to wade into the water first to get my daughter.”

“Why not call her to you?”

“She’s deaf,” Nike said as she pulled Brad closer to the water.

“She’s what?”

“She can’t hear. Gods, you really are no dragon, huh?”

“I did say I was an angel, did I not? My dragon form is to not scare mortals, but it is never my intention to pretend I am something I am not.”

“Well, I still don’t trust you. Not yet.”

Nike’s daughter turned around and noticed her mother wading into the water. She swam up to her and grabbed her other hand, while watching Brad carefully.

Nike felt as her daughter, Kiwi tapped her palm.

Who is that, mom? The taps translated to.

Nike tapped back.

I’m not sure. Go back to the clan and tell Sepulchral to find me here.

Kiwi tapped back one last time so that Nike knew that she understood. The young mirror then spread her wings and flew up to the stone tower that was built on top of the cliff that overlooked the beach.

“Did you just talk by tapping?” Brad asked.

Nike nodded.

“How else am I, a blind dragon, going to talk to my deaf daughter?”

“Huh.”

“Now as we wait,” Nike led Brad out of the water “Care to tell me why you sound like my dead mentor?”

“Oh, I do not have a voice of my own, instead my voice sounds like someone the listener finds to be comforting or familiar.”

“Well, I guess that’s spot on then. I never thought I’d ever hear his voice again. So much has changed since I was in the Starfall Isles…”

Nike heard the familiar beat of wings and turned her head to see the heat signature of a skydancer land beside her.

“Sepulchral. Good you’re here.”

“Yeah. So you want to know if I know this wildclaw that you’re holding hands with?”

“I’m holding their hand so they don’t wander off. For some reason they don’t give off a heat signature or a scent.”

“Huh. Well did they give you a name or-?”

“My name is Haibaraad, but you may call me Brad!”

“Ah!” Sepulchral’s feathers puffed up “Cassie?” He looked around for a moment and then frowned, his feathers flattening.

“Sorry to disappoint. I’m not Cassie, I’m Brad!”

“Yeah they told me their voice sounds like someone comforting or familiar to the person listening,” Nike said “To me they sound like my old mentor.”

“Oh. Weird.” Sepulchral adjusted his glasses.

“But no I do not believe you will recognize me, because I am an angel from Fernweh, not this ‘Selcouth’ place.”

“Yeah I’m sorry Nike, but if they are from Selcouth I certainly don’t recognize them. But I have a feeling they’re telling the truth about who they are.”

“Of course I’m telling the truth! As an angel, I am forbidden to lie.”

Nike took a deep breath “Alright Brad, I’m sorry for being suspicious, but you must understand that my clan has seen some weird characters over the years and some of them had not been friendly. As the leader of Clan Ton Theon, it is my job to keep my dragons safe.”

“Oh that’s great news actually! I’m here because of anomalies being detected on the planet! Please, tell me everything about these weird characters!”

“First, why don’t I invite you inside the clan? If I’m going to be monologuing, I’d like to be able to sit somewhere without sand,” Nike spread her wings “Sepulchral, could you keep an eye on our guest for me?”

“Of course, Nike,” Sepulchral said as Nike took off. He waited until Brad followed her lead to spread his own wings and fly up the cliff and inside of the stone tower.

***

“Now, where were we?” Nike sat back in a pile of pillows in her private study, the room where she conducted important business for the clan. On one side of her stood Sepulchral, and on the other stood a mirror named Morningmist, Nike’s girlfriend.

“I would like to know about the anomalies you have seen. Do you mind marking where you saw them on this map, too?” Brad held out the map of Sornieth they had found earlier.

Nike snorted “What part of ‘I’m blind’ don’t you understand, angel?”

Brad frowned “Did I say something wrong?”

Nike grinned “Nah it’s fine. I was just messing with you. But I really can’t see your map. Good thing I’ve got some sighted dragons with me who can though. Morning dear? Could you take the map?”

“Of course,” Morningmist reached over and took the map from Brad.

“Now as for anomalies I’ve found,” Nike patted Sepulchral’s back, hard “You’re looking at one!”

Sepulchral’s feathers puffed from the unexpected rough gesture.

“Your bird dragon friend is an anomaly?” Brad squinted at Sepulchral, as if expecting to see SpaceTime start to unravel around him.

“Yeah. He showed up here one day after going through a portal. He’s a god from a world called Selcouth. That’s why I assumed you were from Selcouth at first, because Sep here is not an isolated incident.”

Brad frowned and Sepulchral gave them a nervous wave.

“There does appear to be something off about his energy… Are there more of these gods living here?”

“Yep. And a few left the clan to live elsewhere. Last I heard Guerra was somewhere in the Scarred Wasteland, and I have no idea where Pixel slithered off to.”

“I want to see the ones here, then,” Brad turned to Morningmist “May I have my map back?”

“Sure,” Morningmist held out the map and Brad took it. “I’ve already marked where we are, as well as where the old territory was because that was our first incident with a Selcouthian god.”

“Hey,” Sepulchral cleared his throat “Why exactly are you looking for anomalies?”

“This planet is unstable,” Brad responded “Space and Time are beginning to unravel, threatening the entire cosmos. I am here to fix things.”

“And how do you plan to fix things?”

“I will do what is needed to restore balance. Now tell me, being of Selcouth, where did this portal that you stepped through come from?”

Sepulchral positioned himself so that the sword sheathed at his waist was in grabbing distance “Actually, I don’t think I should tell you.”

Brad frowned, their tail twitched and their eyes appeared to glow “I am trying to fix things. Do you want everything you know to fall apart? Do you want your short lives to become even shorter?”

“Tell me what you’re willing to do to fix SpaceTime and I’ll tell you the origin of the portal.” Sepulchral’s claws grasped the hilt of his sword.

“I just told you. Whatever is needed.”

“Even kill?”

“Yes. If it is needed.”

Sepulchral glanced at Nike, still ready to unsheathe the sword.

“I have to agree with Sepulchral,” Nike said “We can’t tell you anything else. Now, please peacefully exit my clan or we will have to resort to violence.”

“I don’t understand,” Feathers began to sprout from in between Brad’s scales “I said I will only kill if necessary. I do not wish to kill anyone.”

“Yeah well, we don’t want to take that chance. I’ll ask one more time, leave my clan.”

“Your mortal brains must be too shortsighted. Do you not understand the vastness of the cosmos? If killing a life or a few lives will save everything else, isn’t it a necessary sacrifice?”

Sepulchral unsheathed his sword “I think you’ve overstayed your welcome.”

“I don’t wish to fight you,” Brad felt as their dragon form began to slip. Their true wings itched to flap. Their other eyes begged to break through their skin. Their halo threatened to shine like the sun “But I will if I must.”

Nike growled. Morning readied her claws. Sepulchral had his sword out and ready. Brad was prepared to summon their own weapon.

Bloodshed would have happened if it weren't for the screams.

From outside the window smoke could be seen coming from the city nearby. All around the Beacon of the Radiant Eye, homes and other buildings were burning. Dragons of all kinds were fleeing the city, and two creatures were battling high in the sky.

One Sepulchral and Morningmist recognized; the Lightweaver, the Goddess of Light and the ruler of the Sunbeam Ruins. The other Brad recognized.

“Oh no,” The portal would have to wait. They opened the window and jumped out, flying toward the conflict “It’s the broken cherub.”

Tagging @HECKLING-HYDRENA @GOLDEN-LIONSNAKE @HOWTO-BE-ORIGINAL @HUNGRYTUNDRAS

let me know if you would like to be added or removed from the tag list!

[therealmadblonde]

October 20

I stopped by Graymalk’s place last night, per her invitation, and the mistress actually set down a plate of victuals for me on the back step. I realized then that Jill was far younger than I’d thought, now she wasn’t wearing her Crazy clothes and had her hair down loose rather than tied back and hidden under a bandana. And she was a good cook. I can’t remember when I’d eaten so well.

Afterwards, Graymalk and I headed for the manse. It was an exceptionally clear night, and there were stars all over the sky.

“It just occurred to me that you’re a bird-watcher,” I said.

“Of course.”

“Have you seen an albino raven anywhere about?”

“As a matter of fact, I have, here and there, for several weeks now. Why?”

“It’s occurred to me that it might be the vicar’s companion. Just a matter of proximity and a guess, really.”

“I’ll watch for it now, of course.”

Someone with a crossbow passed us at a distance, moving in the other direction. We stood still, let him go by.

“Was that him?” she asked.

“Just a member of the midnight congregation,” I said. “Not the man himself. Scent’s wrong. I’ll remember this one, though.”

Streaks of high cirrus fluoresced above us from the stars they framed, and a gust of wind stirred my fur.

“I hunted rats and ate out of dustbins and saw my kittens killed and was hung by my tail and abused by wicked urchins,” Graymalk said suddenly, “before the mistress found me. She was an orphan who’d lived on the streets. Her life had been even worse.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’ve seen some bad times myself.”

“If the way is opened, things should change.”

“For the better?”

“Maybe. On the other paw, if it isn’t opened, things may change, too.”

“For the better?”

“Damned if I know, Snuff. Does anybody really care about a hungry cat, except for a few friends?”

“Maybe that’s all anybody ever has, no matter how the big show is run.”

“Still…”

“Yes?”

“Hard times do really bring out the revolutionary in a person, don’t they?”

“I’ll give you that. Also, sometimes, the cynicism.”

“Like you?”

“I suppose. The more things change…”

“So that’s the manse,” she said suddenly, pausing to regard the big structure which had just come into view, a few lights visible within. “I’ve never been over this way before.”

“No really unusual external features,” I said, “and no — uh — dogs about. Let’s go down and look around.”

We did, making a circuit of the place, peering in windows, placing the Great Detective— one must give him credit for dedication to a role, as he was still in skirts— in the front parlor, reading, below a portrait of the Queen. His only lapse, if one might call it that, involved an occasional puff on a great calabash pipe which he rested between times in a rack on a table to his right. His companion lingered about the kitchen, preparing some small repast. There were many darkened rooms about the place. Off of the kitchen, we noted the head of a stairway leading downward.

“That’s where I should be coming up,” she said. “When I reach the top I’ll pass through the kitchen, if he’s gone by then, and explore the farther side of the house first. If he isn’t, I’ll go down the long hall on the near side and investigate all of its darkened chambers.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said.

We let ourselves down to ground level and rounded the corner to the basement window.

“’Luck,” I told her as she entered.

I went back to the window and watched the kitchen. The man was in no hurry to leave, nibbling as he apparently waited for water to boil, taking out a willow-pattern plate and bowl from a cupboard, nibbling some more, hunting out utensils from a drawer, turning up from another cupboard one of those white cups with the gold rim and gold flower inside that everybody has, taking another nibble…Finally, I saw Graymalk at the head of the stair. How long she had been there — unmoving, watching — I was uncertain. When his back was turned she slipped into the near hall. As I had no vantage on that area, I made a few circuits of the house to pass the time.

“Checking out our new neighbor, Snuff?” came a voice from a tree to the east.

“It never hurts to be thorough,” I replied. “What about you, Nightwind?”

“The same. But she’s not a player. We’re almost sure of it.”

“Oh? You’ve met?”

“Yes. She visited the masters yesterday. They feel she’s harmless.”

“Glad to know that someone is.”

“Unlike the vicar, eh?”

“You’ve been talking to Quicklime.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you at odds. I heard you’d dropped him in the river.”

“A misunderstanding,” he said. “We’ve smoothed it over since.”

“What did you give him for the vicar?”

“Needle’s nightly feeding route,” he said. “Maybe he plans to ambush him and eat him.” Nightwind made a chuckling sound, something halfway between hoot and gasp. “That would be amusing.”

“Not to Needle.” He chuckled again.

“That’s true, isn’t it? I can almost hear him crying, ‘This is not funny!’ Then gulp, and we’d all have the last laugh.”

“I’ve never eaten a bat,” I said.

“They’re not bad. A little salty, though. Say, since I’ve run into you maybe we can do a little business — nothing major, but we take whatever’s there, eh?”

“Usually,” I said. “What’ve you got?”

“After I heard about the vicar I went looking around his place. Met his companion —”

“A big white raven,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”

“Hm. Well, I decided on the direct approach. I flew up and introduced myself. Her name’s Tekela, and she seemed behind on the Game and trying to catch up. Didn’t have much to trade, but all she wanted was a list of the players and their companions. She’d get it from someone else if she didn’t get it from me, I figured, and I might as well get whatever she had for it. First, though, she did know that you’re one of us, and your bird- eating friend. She told me she’d seen you a few nights back, with another big dog, dragging a body toward the river. That was the missing officer, wasn’t it?”

“I won’t deny it.”

“Did you or Jack kill him?”

“No. But the body turned up too near home for comfort.”

“And you were just getting rid of it?”

“Would you want the thing in your front yard?”

“Certainly not. But what I’m curious about is your friend. Tekela recognized you as she swooped by, but not the other dog. So she followed it when you parted. She said that it went to Larry Talbot’s place.”

“So?”

“We’ve been puzzled whether or not he’s a player. One argument against the assumption was that he hadn’t a companion. Now — ”

“What was Tekela doing way in the hell out in that field that night?” I asked.

“Presumably, she was patrolling the area in general, as we all do.”

“‘Presumably’?” I said. “Her master was involved in that man’s death, and she went looking for the body after I’d moved it and found it. She was keeping an eye on it to see whether whoever’d put it there would be back to do any more with it.”

He was silent, and he shrank a little within his feathers. Then, “That’s what I was going to trade you for the story on Larry’s companion,” he said. “But do you know how he died? She did tell me that.”

Just then I saw it. I’d a vision of the officer, drugged, knocked out, or tied up upon the altar as the vicar blessed an edged instrument.

“Ceremonial killing,” I said, “at one of his midnight services. It was early in the cycle for one. But that’s what happened. Then he left the remains at our place for a bit of misdirection.”

“He needed it early for the extra power, because he’d gotten off to a late start. All right. I’ll give you something else for Talbot.”

“Concerning what?”

“The Good Doctor.”

“Done. I haven’t heard anything about him for a while. The dog is a stray from town. Name’s Lucky. I give him some of my food when he’s around and he does favors for me. He hangs around Talbot’s place, too, because Talbot saves scraps for him. He’s too big for anyone to want to feed on a regular basis, though, which is why he hasn’t a real home. You might even spot him in the woods or fields some night, hunting rabbits.”

“Oh,” Nightwind said, rotating his head ninety degrees to stare at the manse. “That spoils one of Morris’s new theories. You’re a calculator, aren’t you?”

“My, Quicklime was chatty.”

“It just came out in passing,” he said. “If Talbot were indeed a player, and with the vicar now in the Game…well, things would be moved around interestingly, wouldn’t they?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“So we’re both checking the place out.”

“True,” I said. “I don’t know that Talbot’s not a player. But if he is, Lucky’s not his companion.”

“Interesting. Have you — or Lucky — seen any other candidates about his place?”

“No. He seems to prefer plants to animals.”

“Can a plant be a companion?”

“I don’t know. They’re alive, but kind of limited in what they can do. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Well, this will all shake down in a few days, I’m sure. In ample time for the work to be done and the world — Should I say ‘redeemed’ or ‘preserved’?”

“Let us say ‘messed with,’ either way.” He closed his left eye and opened it again. “And the Good Doctor?” I prompted.

“Ah, yes,” he replied. “He was the other one Tekela knew about. But I was intrigued when she insisted that there are three people living out there, not two.”

“Oh?”

“So I flew out to investigate, during another of those nasty storms that always seem in progress in the area. And she was right. There was a big fellow lurching about the place— drunk perhaps. Biggest man I’ve ever seen. He was only about for a little while, during the height of the storm. Then he lay down on that fancy bed in the basement, and the Good Doctor covered him up, entirely, with a sheet. He didn’t stir again.”

“Strange. Bubo have anything to say about this?”

“Bah! You ought to send Graymalk after him, if I don’t get him first. Rats aren’t as salty as bats. Tougher, though.  He’s worthless for information. Won’t trade for anything. Either he’s stupid, ignorant, or just closemouthed.”

“I don’t think he’s stupid.”

“Then I’m not sure he knows where his best interests lie. Either way, he’s not much use to the rest of us.”

“I’ll have to corner him sometime.”

“Don’t eat the tail. They’re no good.” He chuckled again. “If you find out more about Talbot or this place, let’s talk again. Plants…hm?”

He spread his wings and swooped away to the south. I watched him vanish into the night. Formidable.

I circled the manse again, checking at a few windows. Then I heard the back door open. I was near the front at the time, and I rushed around, concealing myself behind a tree.

“Good kitty,” said the Great Detective, in a well-controlled falsetto, “come visit us again sometime.”

Graymalk was deposited on the back steps and the door was closed. I cleared my throat, but she sat there for a time grooming herself before wandering off in the other direction. Suddenly, she was beside me.

“Are you all right?” I asked her.

“Fine,” she said. “Let’s walk.”

I headed southward.

“She has a good memory, that old lady,” Gray finally said.

“In what respect?”

“Her servant spotted me, on a sudden return to the kitchen, and she heard me call out. She came back and called me by name. She was very nice. Even gave me a saucer of milk, which I felt obliged to drink. Who’d’ve thought anyone would look at a cat well enough to recognize her later — not to mention remembering her name?”

“Maybe she likes cats. Must have, if she wanted to feed you.”

“In that case, you’d think she’d have one of her own. But she doesn’t. There were no signs.”

“Just has a good eye and a good memory then, I guess.” We crossed the road, kept going.

“I guess so,” she said. “So, I got to look around pretty well before they found me.”

“And…?”

“There’s a windowless room with a wide door and a niche in its far wall — which is of stone, by the way. That old place has been through a lot of changes. Anyway, the niche seemed about right to have held an altar at one time. There were even a few small crosses chiseled into the stone, and a bit of Latin — I think it was.”

“Good,” I said, “in one way.”

“What’s the other way?”

“Nightwind knows about it. He came by while you were inside, and we talked. The white raven, by the way, is named Tekela.”

“Oh, he knows her?”

“…And you were right about the vicar. It was a ceremonial killing — dues for getting into the Game late.”

“Sounds as if you had a long talk.”

“We did. I’d better fill you in.”

“Any special reason we’re heading this way?”

“Yes. That’s part of it.”

We continued to the south and a bit to the west as I told her the things I’d learned. The air grew moist as we went and the sky dark as a blot in that particular area about which heaven’s artillery flickered and boomed.

“So you want to peer in the Good Doctor’s windows again?”

“In a word, yes.”

“Cats aren’t real fond of getting wet,” she observed, after the soft weather got harder.

“Dogs aren’t crazy about it either,” I said. Then, “Whoever wins, it’ll still rain.”

She made the closest sound I’d ever heard her manage to a laugh — a little rhythmic, musical thing.

“That’s true,” she said a little later, “I’m sure. How many times in a century does the Full Moon rise on Halloween — three, four?”

“It varies,” I responded. “It’s more interesting to ask, on how many of those occasions do the appropriate people assemble to try for an opening or hold for a closing?”

“I couldn’t guess. This is your first, of course.”

“No,” I said, and I did not elaborate, knowing what I had just given away. We walked on through the drizzle toward the place of brightnesses, keeping to the road as there were fewer wet things to brush up against there.

As we drew nearer, I saw that the front door of the farmhouse stood open, light spilling out through its rectangle. And someone was moving upon the roadway, headed toward us. Another discharge from the storm clouds gave the building a thorny corona of light, and outlined briefly in its glare I saw that a very big man was moving toward us at an ungainly but extremely rapid pace. He was dressed in ill-fitting garments, and my single glimpse of his face showed it as somehow misshapen, lopsided. He halted before us, swaying, turning his head from side to side. Fascinated, I stared. The rain had washed all scents from the air, until we achieved this proximity. Now, though, I could smell him and he grew even stranger to me, for it was the sick, sweet scent of death that informed his person, reached outward from it. His movements were not aggressive, and he regarded us with something akin to a child’s simple curiosity.

A tall figure suddenly appeared at the farmhouse door, looking outward into the night, laboratory coat flapping in the wind.

The giant figure before me leaned forward, staring into my face. Slowly, unthreateningly, he extended his right hand toward me and touched me on the head.

“Good — dog,” he said in a harsh, cracked voice, “good — dog,” as he patted me.

Then he turned his attention to Graymalk, and moving with a speed that belied his earlier gesture, he snatched her up from the ground and held her to his breast.

“Kit-ty,” he said then. “Pret-ty kit-ty.”

Clumsily, he moved to stroke her with his other hand, rain streaming down his face now, dripping from his garments.

“Pret-ty — “

“Snuff!” Graymalk wailed. “He’s hurting me! Too tight! His grip’s too tight!” I began barking immediately, hoping to distract him into relaxing his grip.

“Hello!” came a call from the man at the farmhouse. “Come back! You must come back now!” I kept barking, and the man dashed outside, rushing in our direction.

“He’s let up a little, but I still can’t get free!” Graymalk told me.

Apparently confused, the huge man turned to the approaching figure, and back again. It appeared to be the Good Doctor headed our way. I kept up the barking, since it seemed to have worked.

When the Good Doctor came up beside the giant he placed a hand upon his arm. “Raining cats and dogs, I see,” he said.

I stopped barking as the giant turned his head and stared at him, doubtless at a loss for words in the face of such a sallying of wit.

“The doggy wants you to put the kitty down,” he told him. “The kitty wants to get down, too. Put her down and come back with me now. It’s a bad night to be outside — with all this rain.”

“Bad — night,” the big man responded.

“Yes. So put the kitty down and come with me.”

“Bad — rain,” rejoined the other.

“Indeed. Cat. Down. Now. Come. Now. With me.”

“Cat — kitty — down,” said the big fellow, and he leaned forward and deposited Graymalk gently on the road. His eyes met mine as he rose, and he added, “Good — dog.”

“I’m sure,” said the Good Doctor, taking hold of his arm with both hands now and turning him back toward the farmhouse.

“Let’s get out of here,” Graymalk said, and we did.

[maevesdarling]

The Terror/His dark Materials AU

I'm too busy to finish this right now but I thought I'd post some small scraps of what I wrote in the past few days about this AU. If you want a detailed list of everyone's daemons please say so. Let's be honest I'm gonna post it either way...

Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier had forced a smile on his face as he watched the people on the pier waving after the two ships. Some women were openly weeping after their husbands or sweethearts, their daemons pressed tightly against them in comfort.

Next to him, Meabh made a small boof sound in the back of her throat. Her dark gaze was fixed on the two women in the middle of the pier. Lady Jane was holding herself together as best as she could, her monkey daemon sitting on her shoulder, occasionally tightening the grip on her clothes when he felt himself slip on the fine satin. Francis didn't needed to see him to know that Sir John was watching her from the rear, his wolf daemon, Anthea, sitting dutifully at his side.

Next to Lady Jane stood Sophia, as beautiful as the day they had first met, dressed in an azure blue dress, her humming bird nestled into the crook of her neck.

He had loved her, once. Still loved her, in fact, and the sight of her fading in the distance made his heart clench in his chest.

"Let us talk to the lieutenants, Francis." Meabh insisted, stretching her elegant white paws. She could feel his growing melancholy. Francis tried to ignore her, he wanted to keep watching until the pier would vanish in the fine mist and all that was left of Sophia was the memories he kept with him. But the arctic fox wouldn't give up. She head-butted his knees softly, moving him along the rail. "Dwelling won't help us, Francis, you need to focus on the journey ahead instead of looking back."

She was right, of course. "Fine. Then let's go."

⚓⚓⚓

You could cut the tension inside the captains cabin with a knife. Francis was brooding, his form hunched over the small desk as he studied the papers in front of him.

Meabh was lying comfortably in the little basket Jopson had placed inside Francis berth. Normally she wouldn't use it and opt to sleep in Francis arms instead but she had been distant for a few days now. He had asked her repeatedly why she refused to talk to him but to his own surprise, did not get any answers.

The captain shook his head and downed the rest of the alcohol in his glass before focussing on the papers again but his vision was swimming.

"Argh, to hell with it." He mumbled before calling for his steward. "Jopson!"

Seconds later footsteps approached the cabin and Jopson stepped through the door, dutifully. His dog daemon, Maud, a beautiful black Borzoi dog, hot on his heels.

"Fetch me another drink, Thomas." He demanded, holding out the empty glass. Jopson looked sceptical towards his captain, he worried his bottom lip between his teeth as if he was contemplating about telling his captain to stop drinking, but decided against it.

"Very well sir." While he gathered the glass in his hands and moved to fill it, Maud stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking back and forth between Francis and Meabh. "You need to stop drinking, it's making her sick." The dog murmured which earned her a shushing from Thomas.

"Please excuse her, captain, she always speaks before thinking. She means no disrespect." He quickly set a full glass of whiskey in front of the Irishman before motioning the dog to his side. "Is that all?"

Francis nodded, dismissing the pair. Maud's words echoed through his head. Was Meabh really this sick? It was only a few glasses and he could hardly remember a time when he wasn't drunk in the past few months, surely she was used to it by now?

Squinting his eyes, he tried to get a better look at his daemon. She did looked quiet thin and some of her hair had fallen off on her flank but he couldn't feel any pain through their bond. A cold shiver ran down his spine when he realized he was in fact, not feeling anything, it was like she had blocked him out of her mind. Francis hands shook when he carefully traded them through her soft white fur. The arctic fox made the tiniest sound of pleasure in her throat. "I'm sorry old girl."

He inhaled audibly. "But I feel like it's too late for us to turn back now. I- I'm not strong enough. I tried, really I did." And with that he grabbed the whiskey and downed it in a single long gulp.

⚓⚓⚓

"Mister Jopson, can I talk to you for a second?" Lieutenant Little asked, knocking against the steward's door. Jopson was on his feet in a matter of seconds, fastening his coat over his night clothes. "What is it, lieutenant? Is something wrong with the captain?!" He asked hastily.

Maud had jumped up from the blanket she had been lying on, her ears poking up.

Lieutenant Little looked exhausted in the lamplight, his usually pristine uniform was crinkled in places and his hair looked unkempt. "No, Lord no!" He quickly said, holding up his hands. Bryony was perched on his shoulder.

Sometimes Jopson wondered what she must feel like sitting on the lieutenants shoulder like that. He had once seen a man with a trained parrot in the streets of London. The parrot was no daemon but merely a tamed animal. The man allowed people to pet him or put them on their own shoulders for a moment. It had looked uncomfortable through. The parrot's long claws would catch onto hair or pieces of clothing and he could see that especially children had struggled to carry the bird.

Was Bryony heavy? How did her feathers feel when they brushed against the lieutenants throat?

A small coughing startled him from his thoughts. "Excuse me, lieutenant. I was- caught up in my own thoughts."

Little waved him off, his posture relaxed ever so slightly. "I come to tell you that doctor MacDonald has asked you to take the morning off. He said the captain is feeling well enough that he won't need to be constantly overseen by the two of you. You should get some rest."

Thomas could feel a heavy weight lifting from his chest that has previously been pressing down on him. If the doctor said the captain was feeling better they were finally making some progress.

He had spend the last two weeks constantly by his captains side, cleaning up sick and spilled drinks, dabbing away the sweat from his feverish forehead and feeding him watery soup, Maud pressed tightly against Meabh's side, liking affectionately between her ears. She was fed a mixture of water and cedarwood to help her sleep even when Francis was awake. Doctor MacDonald had been worried about the captain and visited every hour, even during the night. Sometimes he was only half dressed, Seonag poking out of his pocket. Her spikes causing the fabric to bulge funny.

They had both lost a lot of sleep during the process.

"Thank you, lieutenant, but I can manage. Please tell the doctor I would rather spend my morning by the captains side."

Before he could finish his sentence, Little was already shaking his head. "Please, Jopson, just this once, allow yourself some rest. You earned it. Terror would be nothing without you." Bryony made a surprised caw noise and fluffed her feathers up, both of them looked extremely embarrassed.

"I- I mean-"

"Thank you." Jopson quickly said. "I mean it."

They both stared at each other for a moment, Jopson could feel his heart beating in his throat. "… Would- would you like to come inside to talk, lieutenant?" He asked, feeling bold all of sudden.

Little blinked in surprise. Bryony cawed and hopped up and down on his shoulder. "I would like that very much."

⚓⚓⚓

The first time he had touched Hartnell's daemon was after one of their many Bible studies. The kestrel was still sitting on the table, dangerously close to his own pidgeon daemon, Mhairi, and fluffing her feathers.

"She-" He cleared his throat. "She is quite beautiful." He said honestly, watching the kestrel in awe. Hartnell stopped in his tracks and watched the two daemons sitting next to each other but not quite touching. "Thank you." The AB said in a voice so low it could have been mistaken for the wind sweeping through the ship.

"I hope these lessons bring the two of you some peace." Irving said honestly, holding his hand out for Mhairi to climb on. She refused, tilting her head from one side to the other.

"They are, I feel a great peacefulness whenever I am around you- I mean whenever I am reading the- the Bible!" Hartnell spoke quickly, his face going beet red. Irving just stared at him, mouth opening and closing repeatedly.

"I am sorry." He finally said after a long pause, tears welling up in his eyes. "I am so, so sorry, mister Hartnell." The lieutenant sunk down in his chair pressing the backside of his hands against his eyes. He was so tired.

"What for, lieutenant? I don't understand?"

"I have misused your trust! You came to me in a moment of weakness and I wanted to help you, I thought the Lords words would help you with your pain, I thought if I only prayed hard enough the Lord would help both of us! But I just can't- I can't live with this feeling inside me any more, it feels like I'm being torn apart from inside!" His breathing was laboured, Mhairi tried to calm him down by flying up to his shoulder and nuzzling her beak into his neck. "Shhh, John, you need to calm down!"

And then there was another, featherlight touch against his face, where the kestrel sat on the other side of his shoulder. Both he and Hartnell took in a shaky breath, the younger man's eyes fluttered close for a short moment.

Touching another person's daemon was practically a taboo. The only people who would touch the other part of your soul were either family or partners and yet Hartnell looked pleased with the unfamiliar touch of Irving's shaking fingers in his daemons feathers, not humiliated or afraid. Was he really trusting him this much?

"It's alright, John, I wouldn't have come to you if I didn't wanted to be touched." The older man couldn't remember if he ever heard the kestrel speak before, he was kind of dumbstruck at the moment and so, instead of replying he carefully stroked the soft feathers on her underside, marveling at the feeling.

"We trust you, lieutenant. You won't hurt us. Please, if I can help you with the pain, I- I want to try." Hartnell tried, holding out his hands like Irving was a scared animal.

"I don't think you can help me with this, mister Hartnell." He said honestly.

By now Hartnell was right in front of him, filling his entire vision. "Are you sure?"

He ask, coming nearer and nearer. Irving couldn't help himself. A stronger man might have pushed the AB away, returned to his Bible studies and never spoken of what had just happened again. Irving was not a strong man. Or maybe he was for giving into the urge and allowing the younger man to press a light kiss to his lips.

They both moaned slightly into the kiss, Hartnell tipping forward and almost landing in the older man's lap. "Sorry- I'm so sorry, sir!" He apologized in horror but Irving stopped him with another kiss.

"No. Please. I've never felt this much clarity in my entire life. I- I'm happy."

Thomas smiled down at him. "Good. All I wanted was to make you happy."

Next to them, the pidgeon and kestrel were huddled together, so close their shapes seemed to become one.

[pandawritespoorly]

A Shy ‘Sparrow’: Chapter 2 - The First Amok

Author’s Note: It returns! At long last! I've sorted out what was making me not want to write, so I'm happy to report I'll be writing more than I have been (though that doesn't mean this is going to be updating as regularly as With Time though).

Chapter Summary: Marinette makes her first Amok.

First | Next

“There have been three akumas! Three! And you haven’t even transformed! Peacocks are meant to be seen!” Duusu looks at the girl slumped back in her desk chair. Not a true peacock, but still! Where is her pep?! Has she no spirit?!

“I’m not a peacock, Duusu,” she speaks with resigned acceptance, continuing to work on her homework and not even bothering to look towards her stunning Kwami.

“A peahen then! You can still puff your feathers! I refuse to let you continue to hide like some treecreeper!-”

“A what?”

“Go out there and let Paris know that you’re here and you’re the best bird there is!”

“But I don’t know how to help. I’d just get in the way. Chat Noir will be fine alone.”

“But he could be fantastic! Any situation can be better if you add a beautiful star to it! If you want to help, then use your powers!”

“I don’t know…”

“Well I do! Just create an amok and use it on someone! Come on! Let’s go!” Duusu rushes toward the brooch, staring at Marinette expectantly, “Well?! Spread your feathers!”

Marinette bites her lip in uncertainty, hesitating before she speaks the phrase. She feels the magic wash over her, and she can’t help but smile softly. Then she remembers her task.

She doesn’t know how to do this!

But… it’s night. No one is out, there’s no one watching. She can go out there and practice and even if she messes up, she would have tried.

That’s all Duusu is asking of her anyways.

Alright. She can do this.

The peahen heroine races across the rooftops until she finds one that seems mostly hidden. She’ll be safe here.

Sitting against a wall, she looks at her hands pondering how she’s supposed to do this.

“Alright Marinette. It’s fine. You can do this.” she breathes softly to steady her nerves. Focusing, she closes her eyes and concentrates on… something. She isn’t sure quite what it is.

A soft white feather appears in her open palms. She inspects it in surprise.

She did it! She did it!

Sort of? Next she… what does she do?

Alright, um…

She holds the feather, closing her eyes and focusing on it. She feels something stir in her, and when she opens her eyes the feather is blue.

She puts it to her brooch, still not sure if she’s done it right. Once the feather comes in contact with the miraculous she feels it. The power.

What kind of power does she want to choose? How does she even choose? She doesn’t know what she’s doing.

She exhales softly and focuses once more on her goal. To fix the damage made by akumas. Heal the city.

A large crane appears before her. It seems to be waiting for her to say something, so she pats its head awkwardly, “Uh. Go do your thing I guess?”

It nods, raising its wings and taking flight, glittery feathers fall from it as it goes, and each thing the feathers touch glows softly before it is seemingly fixed - at least that’s what it looks like.

So focused on the sentimonster, she doesn’t hear the soft footfall of someone landing on the roof.

“Who are you?”

Normally Chat wouldn’t give up the element of surprise, but he doesn’t think this is an akuma. He’d seen this person during an attack, and they’re still here so they must be separate from that at the very least. Plagg had mentioned the possibility of a partner, but didn’t seem to think this person was them so Chat keeps his guard up.

The masked stranger wheels around in surprise, but doesn’t speak. They seem to begin shaking slightly, frozen in place.

Chat Noir raises his baton, ready to attack or defend based on their actions. They do neither, instead, once they recover from the shock, they turn and jump off the roof. They float to the next building and continue in this manner, running away.

He gives chase. He wants answers, and simply running won’t work. Where did that bird come from and is it a threat? Who are they and what do they want? Whose side are they on?

He is beginning to catch up when he hears a loud rattling call. The large bird from earlier is fast approaching him, feathers falling. Sneezing, he takes a moment to recover. The bird seems satisfied with its attack and returns to whatever it had been doing.

Oh well, it could have been worse. Now he has to get back to-

The person in brown is gone.

---

“Well! As much as I want to reiterate that peacocks do not run, I will instead be my gracious self and congratulate yourself on your first amok! I’m so proud! A crane, so fitting-!” Duusu flutters all over the room, chattering away. “What?” Marinette is still calming down from the adrenaline of being chased.

“-Not as prestigious as us peafowls, but a bird symbolizing healing nonetheless and seeing as that was your goal - oh and I’m so excited! You’re a creative one- it’s the bug in you - so your sentimonsters will be fantastic! Oh this is so fun! I should borrow Tikki’s kids more often! Yay!”

Marinette is content to listen to the rambling, but the mention of a name piques her curiosity, “Tikki? Who’s that?”

“She’s the Ladybug Kwami. You’re definitely one of hers, but seeing as she’s not here, I have so graciously taken you in - under my wing you could say - and so now you will be the most glamorous bug to ever exist because with me at your side how could you not be!”

“I’m still not sure if I should be doing this,” the designer frowns, “Chat Noir didn’t seem too happy to see me.”

“You’re right! That was very rude of him! Peacocks should be respected and revered, not chased! I should really talk to Plagg!”

Marinette sighs, staring into her lap.

Duusu settles onto her open palms, smiling encouragingly up at the girl, “Hey, it’s okay. Not all of my peachicks had an easy start. Sometimes the world isn’t ready for your fabulousness. If you aren’t comfortable being out in the open, you can still help from the sidelines,” it’s not what she prefers, but she needs to be gentle with this one.

“Are you sure?”

“I am positive!” Duusu chirps, “Next attack, try making an amok to help during the attack. You can take your time with this!”

“Alright,” Marinette relents, “Alright, I’ll try.”

---

Marinette arrives at school at a pretty reasonable time. She’d been woken up a little early by her amok. Duusu had helped her take care of it - having it out 24/7 would drain on her, so they agreed she’d bring it around only after attacks.

“Hey, girl! Did you see the news?” Alya runs up to her, excited. She’s got that glint in her eye that shows up whenever she has information on Chat Noir, or just the whole Hawkmoth mess in general.

“What news?” Had Hawkmoth done something?

“Someone got footage of this giant bird fixing the city! No one knows where it came from, but people are theorizing that Chat Noir finally got a partner!” Alya is this close to squealing. Another hero!

“What’s this about Chat Noir getting a partner?” Adrien asks as he and Nino join the girls.

“Yeah, that dude really deserves some help.”

“A giant bird fixed the city last night! All the damage from all the attacks!” Alya pulls up a video, spinning her phone around so they can see.

“Huh,” Adrien says, “What do you think it means?”

“Clearly it means Chat got the partner he deserves! He- OH MY GOSH, WAIT!” Something occurs to Alya, and she fiddles with her phone, “At an akuma attack a while ago, I saw someone else watching the attack, and, and - get this - they were bird themed! These have to be connected!”

She shows them a shaky image of a brown figure on a rooftop some distance away. It isn’t the best quality, but they can all see some resemblance to a bird. Marinette winces, she hadn’t planned on Alya taking a picture of her.

“Dude! That makes sense!” Nino agrees.

“I don’t know,” Adrien is hesitant, “I’d like for Chat Noir to have a partner as much as the next guy, but…”

“...we don’t know anything about her. She could have no idea what she’s doing - that could put Paris at risk,” Marinette finishes.

“Why do ya’ think they’re a ‘she’?” Nino questions.

Marinette stiffens, “Uh, well, I, um- I just- I don’t really know! I just, uh, used the first pronouns I thought of? There’s no way to tell! Obviously!”

Alya seems to accept that, as does Nino. Adrien gives her an odd look, but seems more amused by her stammering than anything. 

Alya puts an arm around her shoulder, “Well, I guess we can only theorize for now! I’m sure we’ll find out eventually.”

“Mhm.”

---

Later that day, in the middle of sketching out a new design, Marinette’s phone dings with an akuma alert. Duusu notices and looks at her excitedly.

Marinette sighs, “Okay. Okay. Spread my feathers.”

The peahen heroine stands in her room, taking a moment to steady herself before she goes to the roof.

She heads in the direction of the attack, doing her best to stay out of sight. When she arrives, she sees Chat Noir already in a battle against… a Persian?

She pulls up the news on her fan, because she honestly doesn’t know what this one’s deal is.

Before she can, the big cat growls, “That wanna-be evolution will never replace Persian! Perrserker is a disgusting abomination!”

“Look, I’m as upset as you are, but-” Chat Noir tries to settle the victim, to no avail. A giant paw swipes at him, and he dodges.

“Okay. So, um. Help Chat Noir, uhhh how do I do that?” The heroine presses her hands to her face, trying to think of how an amok could help out here.

---

Chat Noir wasn’t expecting to deal with a giant pokemon today.

Then again, everyday is a dice toss with Hawkmoth around. Just another normal day in Paris.

That said, he’d been working under the assumption that he’d only have to deal with one giant pokemon. So when the pokemon that led to this akumatization in the first place (Perrserker, he likes the pun, but purr-furs the classics), showed up he wasn’t sure what to think. Persian immediately notices, growling turning to it.

“You! You little-!” Persian immediately forgets about the hero, turning to the other pokemon.

Chat shakes off his surprise, immediately going to the akumatized object - a red ribbon around the cat’s neck. Cataclysming the akuma, he turns to the second pokemon.

It waves at him, disappearing. He frowns, running to where it had been standing.

All that’s there is a small white feather, and a pebble.

---

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoyed this update! Thanks for being so patient, I didn't intend for it to take this long. ❤️

Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave any thoughts, theories, constructive criticism, or anything really in my ask box, in replies or through reblogs. I love seeing what you think!

First | Next