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redheadspark · 3 years ago

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Dandelion Wine 🌼

Summary: A bad confrontation at Sersi and Ikaris’s wedding has the female Eternal feel more alone about her thoughts and what love truly means. She didn’t think Druig would be mixed in the process too.

WC: 4,424 words

A/N: This chapter has some angst and some fluff mixed in!This is a part one, since I wrote but pretty big I wanted to break it up into two parts.

This work also has the subject of Asexuality, and if I do offend someone in this work PLEASE MESSAAGE ME AND LET ME KNOW! I writing this as an Asexual myself and how I personally feel, and although I know every person’s journey is not the same, I still don’t wish to offend!

Gupta Empire 400 AD

"Hold on, Kingo! I need a break, please!" You said in a gasp and chuckle. Kingo stopped spinning you on the floor where you were dancing, surrounded by the citizens in the city as another song was erupting in the massive room. Kingo only laughed as you were trying to catch your breath.

"We're only getting started!" Kingo teased you as you tolled your eyes and moved your hair from your eyes. You clasped him on the shoulder, taking a few long breaths before I pointed to the quiet corner near the entrance to the hall.

"I'm catching my breath. Go find Makkari to dance with you," You hummed to him, seeing him nod his head as you were walking away.

"She's too fast for me!" Kingo called out to you as you were weaving through the crowd of humans. It was still early in the night, the reception of Sersi and Ikaris's wedding was the biggest party of the month as it felt like every human there in the city was in attendance. The Eternals were the guests of honor, just lime before with any other party the humans threw for you all, but Sersi and Ikaris were the main guests of honor. They both were already off on their own, enjoying their time alone together. It left the rest of the Eternal to mingle and celebrate amongst the humans.

You were clad in a deep orange Sari to match your Armor, feeling it swish in the wind as you were gliding and maneuvering through the crowded bodies to finally reach the small opening and corner of the room. There were only a few humans there, too engrossed in their conversation as you approached. Once they saw you coming, they mostly scattered. You finally had enough room to breathe and get some air, sighing in relief as you leaned against a pillar. Your eyes scanned the room, seeing the happiness seeping out everywhere and your Eternal brothers and sisters mingling around.

Thena was shaping war stories with some humans, all of whom were watching in awe and fascination as Gilgamesh was off to the side and gazing at her with a massive grin on his face. Makkari found her way onto the dance floor with Kingo, gaining from ear to ear as she was swaying at a much faster tempo than Kingo. Ajak was walking out the doors with a somber-looking Sprite, talking to her in a hushed and nurturing tone with an arm around Sprite's shoulders. Phastos was nowhere to be seen, having you wonder if he made his way back to the Domo right after the ceremony to keep working on one of his inventions.

He was never one for a party anywho.

Out of the corner of your eye, your gaze not leaving the dance floor, you saw a human man walking over in your direction with a looseness in his walk and a massive cup on his hand. You were remaining calm, but something inside of you was making you feel on edge about how this human was approaching you. Maybe it was your instincts and gut, or perhaps it was how he seemed so fearless in how he was approached an Eternal, but it felt like this was not going to be some easy conversation.

"What does one do to have the honor of being in the company of an Eternal?" The man asked, his voice sounding a bit slurred in a way as he was grinning at you. You remained calm and collected, not looking at him and still watching the crowd of people in front of you dance with one another. He seemed cocky thinking that he had enough confidence to talk to you and get away with it.

"Nothing at all," You replied, sounding cordial to him as he tried to lean into you a bit and you stayed still, "I'm merely enjoying the night. As are you, I take it,"

"It would be a bit better with your company," he replied, having you roll my shoulders a bit to give him some kind of gentle sign or hint.

"I'm in no mood for that kind of company tonight,sir,” You gently said to him, thinking that it was going to work on him. But he just chuckled, his stance was still loose as he tried to take a step over to you and some of the liquid in his cup sloshed out and onto the floor. It made you grimace, realizing that the man was clearly drunk.

"Come on now," he said, leaning in a bit and getting closer enough for you to smell his breath and feel some heat off his skin, "I may be human, but I can show you a good time tonight,"

"The only time you will show me is time away from you," you replied cooly, trying to stay confident against him. Yet in the back of your mind, you were a bit faired of where this was going to go. Humans tried to talk and court some of the Eternals in the past, you were all seen as Gods to them. Of course, the others saw it as amusing and almost endearing. But with you, it felt off.

You didn't want that.

"I suggest you re-think your decision in not enjoying a night with me," The man then warned, his voice was no longer sounding playful. His tone got a bit deep, maybe trying to be a bit dominant to you. That's when you knew that this could go left. Humans were fragile in their limits when it came to consumption, this was nothing new to you. But you never thought you would find yourself in the middle of a situation where you might have to defend yourself against a human. You loved humans as a species, flaws and all. But this was a darker side you never thought you would see. It made you afraid, feared, and almost paralyzed.

Of course, you could stop him instantly with your cosmic energy and the strength you knew you had. It would be easy enough. But then again, mentally you were in a faraway place from strength and you felt so small and exposed at the same time. You were never once for confrontation or conflict, and this felt like it was about to be one. All because you're refusing to go to bed with him. You inwardly started to panic, the fight or flight mode kicking in and you were choosing the latter. All you wanted to do was flee, to be safe somewhere else, to not be there with him.

"And I suggest you back away from her before I make you."

A voice was heard behind the both of you, have you suddenly feel a bit paralyzed as the man looked behind you, his glossy eyes then got bigger and looked rather spooked. He backed away instantly, having you look down and feel another body being pressed between yourself and the drunk man. You knew who it was, the calm aura he would have about him that was also laced in intimidation. His voice sounded low but smooth, in control but careful.

Druig.

"I was merely making conversation with her," the man tried to reason, almost trying to sober up himself, but his swaying in his stance was still showing off how drunk he was. You were feeling a shiver in that situation, in the middle of the confrontation now all over you and how you denied the human.

"Clearly she seemed interested in you in how you're acting," Druig shot back at him with his tone laced in sarcasm as he stood in front of the human and blocked you from him. Perhaps he could feel your spooked nature as you were looking down at the ground, almost shaking under your skin.

"It's not my fault she's—" the humans as about to argue, having you cringe inwardly while you heard the human gasp out. It finally made you look, seeing Druig nose to nose with him now and the human's face was almost sobered up instantly. Druig's look was stern with anger, something you rarely saw him use on a human. Sure, it saw it plenty of times with Ikaris, but not with a human. The human gulped, seeing that he wasn't going to win this fight with the mind controller.

"Walk away from her…..now……before you finish that sentence or even a syllable," Druig growled at him, your feet moving before you could ever hear what happened next. You were moving, trying to get out of the room as fast as you could. It pained you and hardened you for some reason, someone trying to sleep with you and you rejecting them because you felt nothing in return. it was always a battle within you: why you felt no real need or urge to be with someone like that and on that level. You always wondered why you were that way, why would never felt that urge or need to be with someone like that, on that level.

Once you were outside and the night swallowed around you, you kept walking a bit more along a dirt path that took you to the outskirts of the city and the open plains. The crisp air was hitting your flushed face, giving you some relief and some calmness. Your heart was finally slowing down from beating out of your chest, yet your brain was still rattled from that recent confrontation. The peace in the air and surrounding area was such a contrast to the reception inside the building.

Walking over to a larger boulder that was perched against the city wall, you sat on top of the boulder and watched the moon that was hung high in the sky with the scattered stars. The music was still heard within the walls, though now it was muffled and the distant sounds of the wilderness were surrounding you, having you lean back against the wall and close your eyes for a brief moment.

Why was this so hard?

When someone got too close to you, or when you felt that sense of intimacy was about to occur, you would run away, It was always this way since you came to the planet, and it frustrated you since others took to that kind of intimacy and love so easily. Humans slept together, it was natural for them and rightfully so. Deep down within you, you wished you had that drive to be with someone on that level, to have that kind of euphoria of love that you were told occurred. But your body and mind didn't want it, and the frustration was a build up in the recent years.

Yet you also saw love, good and pure love. You saw love in how humans cared and protected each other, in how they held each other in sadder times or in times of joy and happiness. You saw love in the smaller gestures and kind stares, holding hands and being close to another. Love seemed so different, it seemed more organic and a delight. You craved for it too, but maybe sex and love were too wound together that you feared you could’t have love without sex.

It was all too much to think about.

You heard a set of feet walking over to you, a slow cadence on the dirt with boots riding in the air as you were still trying to calm yourself down and forget all that happened moments before. You felt the night went from great to bad within seconds.

"Are you alright?" He asked, his voice no longer sounding angry to intense like it did a few moments before. Druig sounded kind now, gentle and soothing with his voice right next to you. You took in a long breath, not knowing how to answer it at first since the last thing you wanted to do was ret-has what just occurred.

"I'm fine," You answered, then raising an eyebrow at him and gesturing with your head to the doors that lead back inside, "Why did you leave the party?"

"I wasn't going to let you be out here on your own, was I?" Druig asked you with a cock in his step, "Not after what that human did to you,"

"He didn't do anything," You argued, but he scoffed.

"He was about to, and being heavily drunk made it worse for him. No, I wanted to make sure you were alright. You looked…real uncomfortable back there with what happened," Druig explained, his voice then sounding tender when he mentioned being worried about you. It made you cringe, almost shake a bit in the cool air.

"I've never felt that uncomfortable before," you mumbled out loud to him, keeping your voice down since you knew it was just you two speaking there outside.

"What he did wasn't right," Druig reasoned with you, having you open your eyes and look over to your left. He was standing there, still in his black formal sari and his face looking worried. You saw the blue tint of the moon on his face and attire, barely illuminating his pale face and brown hair. Druig then shrugged, "Clearly he was too cozy for his good to try and intimidate you,"

You snorted, poking back ahead of you and you playing with some of the orange garment of your outfit, "He saw me as a weak wallflower,"

"Surely not," Druig disagreed, amusement in his tone as he walked over to lean against the boulder to give you space but be close enough to talk, "Or he doesn't know you as the Eternal who can transform into a ferocious animal at will? That you can snap a Deviant's neck in your jaws when you're a bear?"

"Yet I froze when he simply spoke to me," you countered back, shifting a bit in your spot on the boulder as Druig sighed. You paused, your finger stopping their movements on your dress as your mind was wandering again. You remembered feeling that discomfort when the man was close to you, trying to hit on you and coax you. You've seen this before, and it would work with humans as they would flirt and sleep together. However, you felt nothing from it when it happened to you. Even he was drunk and throwing himself on you, maybe you should have felt something. Anything.

There was nothing.

"Druig," You said Druig's name, seeing him cock his head at you as you peered out in front of you in the large plains that stretched out and away from the city, "Do you think I'm….odd?"

"I think the word 'Odd' is such a naive word to use to describer one's self," Druig reasoned with you.

"Unique then," You corrected yourself with a new word.

"Everyone is unique. You are as unique as I, though your spirit is far more gentle than my own," Druig answered then, his voice running smoothly off his tongue.

"Broken?"

That one made him stop, the playfulness was no longer there on his face or in his voice. In fact, he looked rather solemn when the word 'broken' came out of your lips. But you were staring hard at the scenery, not daring to fully look at your fellow Eternal. Druig was always one to be open to talk to, yet you two were never truly close. He was your friend, it was nice and simple. Yet you were having this unique and tender moment, outside of a party, in the middle of the night.

"I never saw you as broken," Druig undoubtedly answered you, having you see him watch you carefully out of the corner of your eye as he looked a bit concerned, "You have a good head on your shoulders and you do the right thing, always. What makes you think you're broken?"

You took in a long breath, finally looking back at Druig and seeing him stare are you with patience on his face and in his eyes. What you were about to say seemed like a cocked-up scenario in your head than anything logical. Maybe it was all in your head, and you were going to sound crazy in front of the mind controller.

"I don't want to be with someone…like that," You explained calmly, pausing a bit before you finished the sentence. Druig said nothing, almost tasing his eyebrow at you since you could see he wasn't understanding.

"Like that?" He repeated, trying to catch on.

"I don't want to have sex with anyone," You made it simple. Druig looked a bit floored with what you said, now making you think that you went crazy. Sex was part of human evolution, human reproduction, and the somewhat normal way of life for all humans in general. It was part of the DNA, in a sense, to have sex with one another. You weren't completely blind to it, nor were you engrossed in it either. In fact, trying to picture yourself in some kind of moment that would lead to sex didn't seem right or natural to you.

It seemed….fractured.

"I feel nothing when it comes to thinking about sex," You said some more, not stopping yourself as it was now spilling out of you while you looked away from Druig and up to the sky at the moon, "I try to think of maybe wanting to, but then I don't. I don't feel anything towards, no drive to have it. That man wanted to have sex with me, but just the thought alone made me feel sick and empty and…broken."

it seemed foolish you were dumping this on him, the last person to be confusing this too. Yet this was festering inside of you for some time, almost as long as you could remember. This was seeming you never told the others about, it was perhaps one the biggest secrets you would ever keep to yourself. The only reason why is that it felt like you were doubting your existence and well-being for not wanting to have something as natural and as good as sex.

After a long moment of silence and the rustling of the trees filling your ears, you suddenly realized what you just said out loud to Druig. The both of you were never really thick as thieves or close as a friend, Druig considered Makkari his good friend. Rightfully so, but what you just told him seemed to be reserved for a deep friendship. You were red in your ears of embarrassment now, feeling flushed all over now as you. Druig was silent next to you, almost digesting all you said, but in your mind, you must have screwed with his mind.

"I shouldn't have said that to you," you muttered, hopping up from the boulder where you were perched on, and abruptly started to walk away from him and hang your head in shame. Maybe he thought you were crazy, or maybe he was going to tell Makkari all that you spilled out to him. But before you could make it past Druig and down the path that would take you to the Domo, Druig finally moved.

"Wait," he said, making you stop and have your back to him and standstill in both fear and anticipation in what he was going to say to you. You were waiting for the questioning, the judgment, or anything negative from him. Druig was never one to hold his tongue when it came to what was on his mind, he wasn't afraid to say what he was thinking. Some of the time it was amusing, and other times it was cocky. Yet out there in the dark, you had no idea what Druig was going to say.

"We can forget I said anything," You reasoned, thinking that it would be better to just forget about the talk, "That was foolish for me to say that to you,"

"I didn't find it foolish," Druig said to you calmly from behind you, having you hear how leveled his tone was and how sure he seemed too, "If you worry I'll say anything to the others, I won't. And for the record, how you feel doesn't make you broken."

"If you wish to make me feel better with kind words, it's a bit too late for that," you said almost in a scoff. His hand reached over to touch your arm, coaxing you to turn around and face him. You didn't realize how close he was to you, almost taken aback by how he was standing right in front of you. He was close enough for you to see the blue irises magnify in the night and the small beauty mark on his skin near his cheek.

"You are not broken," He said to you again, this time he sounded so sure that it was almost like he was determined to tell you. You breathed out softly, almost in a sad smile as you looked down for a moment to see his fingers still touching your arm and having you feel the heat of his fingertips along your skin, "You do what is comfortable for you, not what is comfortable for someone else. No one should tell you otherwise,"

"Not even Arishem?" You asked, sounding a bit bitter. You thought of Arishem with this inner battle, how he would possibly want you to ahem these feelings and to feel the rejection of being intimate. Was it in his plan? Was it a sick joke on his end? Did he forget you in some way?

"Why should you care how Arishem feels about you?" He countered back, making you squint a bit from the bit in his tone at the mention of Arishem, "How you feel is how you feel. No one should tell you or make you feel differently. It doesn't matter about anyone else and how they feel about it,"

You were watching him tell you this, seeing how assertive he was in telling you how to feel about yourself. You would hear how he zealously spoke about the humans, with brightness in his rhythm, or even with feet of anger when his emotions got the best of him. When Druig would talk, you knew the rest would listen since he had important things to say. At that moment, right there in front of him, you realized it was the same thing.

Your eyes trailed from Druig over to the direction of the Domo, having me stumble a bit in your stance. It was another struggle that you were facing: The Eternals. There was no doubt in your mind that they loved you and cared for you. You loved them all the same too, they were your family since you all woke up together on this planet. Although you were there on a mission to defend the humans from Deviants, you bonded with them all along the way. Each of them was growing close to your heart, you were fond of them and would do anything for them. That small flicker of doubt was there, that fear that perhaps they wouldn't understand how you felt.

"They wouldn't judge you either," Druig reminded you, though now you looked back over to him. He was still staring at you, almost with some fondness inches gaze and his hand still on your arm. You gave him a small glare.

"Don't read my mind," You softly pleaded at him, but he shook his head softly and gave you a small smirk to almost lighten the mood.

"I didn't have to," He said, "The look you gave was enough for me to guess. But I am right though: they wouldn't think of you differently. I know none of them would,"

He paused, briefly looking down where his hand was against your skin. You were watching him, almost thinking if he would judge you. Even though he just spoke to you for the last few minutes and was telling you not to care about others and their opinions. Secretly, you were caring about Druig and how he thought.

"I know I don't, and I won't say a word to anyone else about this without your consent," He replied very softly, almost in a vulnerable way when you saw him finally look back at him. While you two were locking eyes with each other, he pushed his fingers down your arm to finally lace your fingers so gently it almost felt like you were holding air between your fingers. You could have sworn you felt some kind of spark there when your fingers touched and your palms were barely hovering over each other. It was a good sense of comfort, the anxiety and near panic attack you had moments before with the human was replaced with something that seemed to be safe and protected.

"Thank you, Druig," You thanked him in almost a whisper. Hearing from someone else, not from the voice in your head, that what you felt was valid and right made this whole situation a bit better. Out of all the people in your life to confide in and feel better by, you had no idea it was going to be Druig. It almost felt like a safe bubble went up and around the two of you. Maybe there was a new shift in your friendship with Druig at that moment, in that second. You couldn't pinpoint what it was precisely, but you knew deep down that the mind controller was creeping closer to your heart and almost to your soul.

"You're quite welcome," he replied, his genuine smile was now etched on his face and your hands were still held together. He then gestured with his head in the direction of the Domo, "Wanna head back to the ship and see what Phastos is up to?"

You smiled back and nodded, Druig leading the way with your joined hands between your bodies while you walked together. Your dress clothes were swaying in the cool air of the night while you both walked in comfortable silence. It felt so calm to walk side by side with him, only baring your soul to Druig moments before.

You didn't know it then, but a small seed within you of pure love started to take root and was about to grow over the next few centuries.

To Be Continued.....

Part Two: Honey Bee

*This fanart for the series is made by the beautifully talented and sweet @saradika! I'm so thankful she made this for me, and I think this frames the series perfectly!

Thank you dear friend!*

#druig eternals #druig #druig x OC #druig x female reader #druig x you #eternals #eternals fanfiction #eternals fan writing #eternals fanfic #writing #fanfiction #barry keoghan writing #barry keoghan fanfic #barry keoghan #asexuality #asexual character #asexual #Spotify

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alyswritings · 2 years ago

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Reconcile

Request: Can you do one where druig has a sister but they just split up when he left. Until one day she is in danger and somehow manages to connect with him to beg for help.

Druig x sister!reader

Summary: Druig comes to his sister's aid when she calls.

Warnings: sexual assault, knives, stabbing, some angst and fluff

a/n: thank you for the request! hope you all enjoy!

(gif not mine)

Y/N stands back watching as Druig snaps at Ajak. He turns to the battle down below, mind controlling the people, all of them turning to him.

Ikaris grabs Druig, shoving him against the wall. Y/N straightens up, watching Ikaris' movements carefully.

"Let them go." Ikaris demands the mind controller.

"You're gonna have to make me." Druig states.

"Stop." Ajak orders, walking over to the two. She gives Ikaris a look, the man backing away.

"If you wanna stop me... you're gonna have to kill me." Druig declares. He starts to walk down the stairs, Y/N quickly catching up to him.

"Wait, Druig." She grabs his arm, standing a few steps behind him. She pulls on his arm making him turn back to her. "Please stay. We-- we can figure something out."

"Sorry, Y/N. Nothing's going to change my mind." Druig tells her.

"But--"

"You know how to get ahold of me." Druig says. He turns away from her, continuing his trek down the steps, his arm escaping Y/N's hold.

Y/N tearfully watches as Druig walks off, all of the humans blindly following him.

- - -

Y/N is on vacation in Peru with a few of her friends. Y/N was hesitant to come along originally, knowing she'd be in the same country of her brother that she hasn't spoken to in centuries.

After he left the team, Ajak ordered the group to all go off and live their own lives. Y/N tried to communicate with Druig telepathically after he left, but he never responded.

Y/N is currently at the bar, now alone after her friends all went off. One of her friends met a guy and they left for his hotel room. Her two other friends, who are dating, went back to their own hotel room.

Y/N sips on her drink, savoring the last of it before she returns to her own hotel room.

"Hello, pretty lady." Y/N turns to find two men both around their early or mid thirties. One man is leaning against the bar, an attempted flirtatious smirk on his face. However, all it does is make Y/N want to leave and never seem him again. The other man eyes Y/N up and down, practically undressing her with his eyes.

"Hello, lads." Y/N greets, attempting to be polite.

"Ooh. We got a Scot." The first guy chuckles.

"Irish." Y/N corrects.

"Well, what's a pretty girl like you doing all alone?" The second guy asks. He moves to her other side, leaning a hand on the bar, the two basically trapping Y/N in her seat.

"Enjoying my drink. Peacefully. I'm, uh, I'm really not interested." Y/N tells them.

"In what?" The first guy asks.

"You two." Y/N deadpans.

"Oh, come on. Not even a little?" The first guy asks.

"Not in a million years." Y/N says, flashing a fake smile.

"We could show you a good time." The second guy grabs her wrist.

"No." Y/N denies, trying to rip her wrist out of his grasp, but he only tightens her grip. Y/N tries to pull her wrist free again, but still fails. "Let go."

"No. Not until you agree." The guy seethes. The other guy puts his hands on Y/N's waist, the woman tensing up under his tight grip.

"Come on, pretty girl. We'll have fun." The first guy whispers in her ear.

Y/N throws her hand up, sending the man in front of her flying a few feet back, crashing into a table. She reels her arm back, elbowing the other guy in the nose making him fall back.

"Don't touch me." She growls.

Y/N quickly pays the bill before storming off, trying to get as far away as she can. After walking for about ten minutes, she hears shuffling a few yards back. She quickly turns, but finds nothing.

Y/N continues to walk, more cautious than before. She looks around, but the streets are empty which she guesses it is the middle of the week and late, so it does make sense. Y/N tries to enter different stores and restaurants, but they're all closed.

"Shit." she whispers to herself, knowing she's being followed. She quickens her pace, trying to get to her hotel quicker, wishing they didn't book one across town. She pulls her phone out, but finds it at one percent. Before she can try to call anybody, it dies. "Crap."

Y/N hears footsteps a few yards behind her and she speed walks, trying to look confident, and hopefully getting to her hotel safely. She's not sure what to do since there's nobody around when an idea strikes her.

Might as well try. She thinks to herself. Druig! Please, please help me. I'm not safe. I'm being followed. They're humans, but I don't know how bad it could go. Please, please, please. Druig!

Where are you?

Y/N freezes at the voice she hasn't heard in centuries. She remembers her predicament and quickly regains her walking speed. She honestly didn't expect him to answer. She quickly tells him where she is and he assures he'll be there as quickly as he can.

Y/N turns a corner, bumping into somebody.

"Oh, sorr--" Y/N stops when she looks up, finding it to be one of the men from the bar.

"Hi, sweetheart." He wickedly grins. He grabs both her wrists and drags her into an alleyway. The other man rushes towards them, Y/N realizing he was the one behind her. The guy shoves Y/N against the wall.

"What do you want?" She seethes.

"You." The man states. He starts to kiss her neck, Y/N squirming in protest.

"Just relax. Enjoy it." The other guy says.

Y/N brings her leg up, kneeing the guy in the stomach making her groan in pain and fall back. She throws her hand out, sending him into the other wall.

The second guy attacks her, Y/N holding him off. She tilts her head sideways, sending him to the ground.

"Oh, you psycho bitch!" The guy groans.

"What is she, a freaking wizard?" The other one asks.

Y/N continues to fight them off. As she knocks one of them down, she turns to fight the other one, finding him standing right there. Before she can react he slices her abdomen with a knife. Y/N lets out a small cry of pain, her hand flying to cover the wound.

The guy stabs her leg causing her to let out a yell of pain. Y/N falls onto the ground, one hand on her side and one on her leg. Her back falls against the wall, breathing heavily.

"Now... you gonna cooperate now?" The one guy asks, a smile on his face. Y/N glares at him until the other guy rushes up, tightly wrapping his hands around her throat. He cuts her air supply off, Y/N gasping for air, her hands abandoning her injuries to pry at his hands.

"Dude, come on. We didn't wanna kill her. Just mess around with her." The other guy says.

"You're the one who stabbed her!" The first one exclaims.

Suddenly, both men's eyes turn gold. Y/N thinks she's hallucinating, and the man holding her lets her go. Y/N coughs for air, breathing heavily as she regains oxygen.

She watches the two men walk off before her eyes fall on her brother.

"God, about time." Y/N pants.

"Well, you did move from your last location." Druig comments, rushing over. "Can you walk?"

"I... I think so." Y/N nods. Druig helps her stand up, keeping an arm around her waist for safety. "Just get me back to the hotel."

"Where is it?" Druig asks.

"About five minutes away." Y/N says.

- - -

Druig helped Y/N hobble back to the hotel as quickly as he could. He mind controlled everybody to make sure they didn't pay any mind to the man and the girl with a leg injury.

Now, in her hotel room, they got her leg patched up and Druig is working on her side now.

Y/N hisses in pain as Druig applies the disinfectant on the wound. Y/N lets a small whine of pain out.

"Stop squirming." Druig mutters, not looking up from what he's doing.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Not like I got cut with a knife or anything." Y/N rolls her eyes. Druig rolls his eyes as he continues to treat her wound.

"What are you doing in Peru anyway?" Druig asks.

"I'm on vacation with my friends." Y/N informs.

"Where are your friends?" Druig asks.

"All off enjoying private adult time." Y/N says and Druig nods understanding.

"Couldn't get a guy, huh?" Druig teases.

"I got two. They're just psychos." Y/N retorts.

"True." Druig mumbles. "There." He puts gauze over her cut. He starts to clean up, Y/N still sitting on the counter. "Are, uh... are you okay?"

Y/N gives him a look.

"Just answer the question." Druig says.

"Hmm. Well, I just got attacked by two twisted humans with a knife who couldn't take "no" for an answer. And shockingly big brother came to the rescue." Y/N says.

"Why so shocking?" Druig asks.

"I haven't talked to you, let alone seen you, in centuries. You left and you never replied to any of the times I reached out to you." Y/N says.

"I'm sorry about that. I did miss you." Druig says.

"Yeah, no, you really seem to give a shit." Y/N says, getting off the counter.

"I'm sorry. Who came all the way here because you were in danger? Cause you were begging for help?" Druig asks.

"It took me being in danger for you to talk to me! What's up with that?" Y/N argues.

"You know, you could've visited." Druig states, following her to the bed.

"You could've visited." Y/N counters, putting a jacket on. "You could've talked to me, at least. Mentally or in person."

"I'm sorry, Y/N. But I still care about you." Druig says making her scoff. "If I didn't care I wouldn't be here right now."

"Whatever. I'm fine. Thank you for the help. You can leave." Y/N says.

Druig doesn't say anything, simply standing by the end of the bed, watching Y/N clean up her clothes that she left scattered around the room.

"I did check on you." Druig says.

"What?" Y/N asks, turning to him.

"I... I would occasionally get into your head. See how you were doing." Druig informs.

"That is so wrong, Druig." Y/N says.

"I know. But you built a wall. Rather you knew it or not, you built a wall from me getting through to you while you were conscious. I was only ever able to do it when you were asleep." Druig says.

"How would you know when I was sleeping?" Y/N asks.

"I just tried until I was able to reach you." Druig says. "I only do it every few years or so. Sometimes once a decade."

"Why didn't you visit?" Y/N asks.

"Couldn't leave my village. Why didn't you visit?" Druig repeats the question.

"Didn't think you'd really be interested in seeing me. Or any of us." Y/N says.

"I would've. You could still come visit." Druig offers.

"Is that your crap apology?" Y/N asks.

"Maybe." Druig says making Y/N roll her eyes. He sits next to her on the bed. "Y/N, I... I'm very sorry. About leaving you. About not answering... or visiting. If you... want to try to rekindle the close bond... I'm not opposed to it."

"So you're still mind controlling an entire village?" Y/N asks. Druig silently nods. "Does it not get tiring? Or... or boring?"

"It's peaceful." Druig says.

"Guess that doesn't sound too terrible." Y/N mumbles.

"The visit offer stands. And if you like it enough, perhaps you could move there." Druig says.

"Do you get cell service?" Y/N asks. Druig simply shrugs, having no clue. "Guess I'll have to find out for myself then." She mutters.

"So..." Druig trails off, looking at her questioningly.

"I'm not opposed either." Y/N says, catching Druig's lips quirk up the tiniest of bit before he regains the 'don't care' composure. "Though I am still kind of mad about the centuries of radio silence."

"Understood." Druig says.

"But thank you for getting to me in time tonight." Y/N says.

"Well, I suppose you were always my favorite." Druig says making Y/N quietly laugh and he smiles a little.

Taglist: @glxwingrxse

#druig #druig x sister reader #druig x sister!reader #marvel eternals

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pearl-pilots-in-chains · 3 years ago

Text

Come to My Window (All the Little Lights #2)

Fandom: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Ships: Asurei

Rating: T

Summary: Rei doesn't like summers much. She usually ends up spending most of her time alone. One afternoon, an open window changes things. Meanwhile, Asuka's unpacking is going great . . . just great. She's just about had enough when she's distracted by the sound of a familiar song.

Notes: It's time for Asurei to Asurock! This is the second part of my All the Little Lights Evangelion high school AU. A slight warning, there's some content in this fic that might be offensive/triggering. I tried to avoid getting too graphic or dark, but there are some clear depictions of depression and bullying, as well as allusions to familial issues. I just wanted to make sure I put a bit of a disclaimer. That being said, I think those parts are important to Rei's character, so I didn't want to leave them out.

The first song Asuka recognizes Rei playing in this fic is "Always With Me, Always With You," by Joe Satriani, and the band shirt Asuka is wearing in this fic is based on the art to the album "Karmacode" by Lacuna Coil.

This was originally posted to my AO3 on May 25, 2020. Hope you enjoy!

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Rei slumped down into the chair, letting her head fall back, her gaze tilting upward, until she was scrutinizing the ceiling. The faux-sky formed on it looked down on her, the painted stars flares of cream and flame that sliced out of the navy base. She thought it was a nice view. It had the power to draw her back, pulling away years to reach innocent memories. She could recall when the sky was first cast onto her ceiling. It had been her father’s idea, and it was his hand that brought it to life. She remembered watching him from her bed, sitting on top of the plastic wrap they had laid down, crinkling the glossy tarp between her fingers. It half-seemed to be a fragment of another world, a remnant of a different life. Now, the mural served as the sole reminder that her father’s presence had once filled her room.

She had thought about asking Shinji to help her paint over the false sky. She knew there was a can of paint in the garage that could match the ceiling’s original shade well enough. She could return it all to a blank canvas. Erase the constellations, fill the vacuum with blinding light. And yet, she never asked. She wasn’t sure Shinji would be willing to help if the request was made. There was a picture on top of his bookcase. It wasn’t in the front. Its frame stood behind one that displayed Shinji and Toji after a track meet, celebrating their respective performances. But it was still there, half in hiding, half revealed. She knew the day it had been taken. December 24, 2000. On the eve of their last Christmas as a quartet. Her memories of that day were nebulous, lost to the childhood haze that the painting day had managed to emerge from. The picture spoke enough to make up for the lack of recollections though.

Her mother was holding Rei in her lap. Rei was looking away from the camera, down at the floor. She looked far wiser, far sadder that a child should. She looked as though she knew too much. Yui was looking up towards the camera, a smile plastered on her face that failed to hide its fraudulent nature. It was took curved, too hooked, too forced. The eyes told the truth. Distant, worried, ashamed. Shinji was sitting by Gendo. He was trying to imitate his father, pressing his face into an amalgamation of the mask the adult wore. It was a shoddy disguise though, as his lips looked seconds away from tremble, and there was water in the corner of his eyes. Gendo wore the true mask. His gaze bored directly into the lens’s eye, staring it down, as though he was willing the time to work correctly through sheer willpower and determination alone. Or, perhaps he was merely compensating. The tinted glasses he normally sported were nowhere to be seen, which left his eyes naked, exposed, without a shield to fume behind. It was possible that the tight, angry smile which ripped through his lips and the needling glare in his iris were designed to make up for this. They had the opposite effect, however. Whereas his traditional spectacles contained and concealed some degree of his emotions, his posturing revealed the true extent of them. His spite, his wrath, his pride, all laid bare.

As a general rule, Rei didn’t keep photos in the same way her brother did. He had a greater appreciation for the physical mementos, the tangible preservation of a moment for posterity. Rei treasured the fleeting nature of seconds, minutes, days. The ephemeral essence of life. The truth that nothing was everlasting, nothing endured. Consequently, there were three pictures in her room. One of her standing by the front door, the day before her first day of elementary school. She looked brave in it. It wasn’t just a front, Rei realized. She had felt brave that day. Time had taught her, however, that there was a thin line between bravery and foolishness.

The second picture showed Shinji and Rei, mouths broken in laughter, dancing through the backyard, Shinji lunging out in an attempt to tap her shoulders. They had been playing hide-and-go-tag, as they referred to it, and he had found her secret spot behind the rose garden. Yui had snapped the shot the moment before Shinji discovered that his sister was faster than he had anticipated, and had ended up face down in the grass after his ill-fated leap.

The last picture was the newest of the three, though now passing the age of six years, another family photo. This one was dated August 16, 2005. The smiles were more genuine, even if they looked more worn. Gendo was over four years absent.

Shinji visited his father. He had since second grade. Sometimes once every other weekend, sometimes once a month, depending on how their schedules worked out. Rei never visited. She hadn’t seen Gendo in person in a decade. She was perfectly fine with her only memories of him being mostly vague, indefinite impressions of youth. They were painful enough as they were. She didn’t want to imagine having concrete memories.

Yui had never made either of them visit him. She never would. She understood while Rei chose not. If anything, she understood better than Rei herself. Rei was truthful unsure why Shinji chose to go. Perhaps out of guilt, perhaps out of regret, perhaps out of pity, perhaps some combination of the three. Whatever it was, Shinji chose to see his father, and Rei chose not to ask her brother to help remove the last physical trace of their father from her space.

Even beyond Shinji though, Rei felt a reluctance to erase the ceiling, to restore it to its first form. Her mind shied away from the choice, became anxious, and fell silent. Rei knew far, far too much about anxious silences.

She was the “Silent Ikari,” after all. That was one of the names which had been ascribed to her. One of the kinder ones, really. She was never called them to her face, of course. Not that people said much of anything to her face. She supposed that it might be out of respect for her brother, the Ikari most people liked. But they still spoke, in voices loud enough and near enough for her to make their ‘observations’ out. Maybe they thought she was as deaf as she seemed mute. Maybe they just didn’t care if she heard. After all, they could reason that she had no real ‘excuse’ for being withdrawn, closed-off, that ‘emo girl in the corner.’ She just thought she was ‘too good for them.’ The genius who was smart enough to have skipped a grade, who could probably skip another, but ‘just didn’t feel like it.’ The one who all the teachers thought was practically perfect, even if they worried she was ‘a little on the quiet side.’ The one who had a friendly, and moderately popular brother, but was herself too ‘stuck up’ to even bother talking with anyone. And if they didn’t play up that she was cold and arrogant, they played up that something was wrong with her. That she ‘wasn’t all there,’ or had never figured out ‘how to be a human.’ There were words that stung even more, especially when she was younger, when she learned what they meant, but she preferred not to reiterate them in her mind. She didn’t need to give the speakers that power, that lasting blow. All the same, a memory crept into her head unbidden.

It was one of the first times she had sat away from Shinji and his friends. She had felt like a burden to her brother, and she had been tired of always hanging on to him, even if he had never minded. Even if he had wanted nothing more than to make sure she was okay. He was smart enough to know her reputation, even if people avoided saying things in front of him. He had gotten into a fight, a real fight, with someone who he had called a friend before it, over a passing comment the friend had made about Rei when he thought Shinji wasn’t paying attention. After that, Rei had decided to give her brother space. She didn’t want to be the weight that he felt bound by. She didn’t want to be the shadow that he felt as though he had to protect. He hadn’t been happy about it, but he had understood and agreed when she had talked to him. If there was one undeniable fact about her brother, it was that he always did his best to empathize, even when it was clearly difficult for him.

She had picked out a table along the fringe of the room to sit at. Somewhere out of the way, to avoid unwanted attention. She hadn’t wanted to be alone. She never had. But by then, it had seemed too late to change the perception of the faces she saw. The disregard, the amusement, the disgust. They had seemed immutable. And so, she hadn’t tried. She had done her best to be invisible. Because it was easier than fighting against a tide than felt overwhelming. She was too afraid of drowning to do otherwise.

She had heard the boy’s conversation with his friends before he approached her. Her hearing had always been above average, and when you heard your name spoken in first cautious, and then careless, tones behind your back, you got used to honing in on it. There had been a dare. A bet as to whether or not he could get a date with the ‘broken girl.’ They had all been at the age where suddenly, exploring previous unknown urges and interests seemed of the upmost importance. Well, most of them had been. She hadn’t. She still wasn’t. Not in the same way, anyhow, or to the same degree. At least, she didn’t think so. They spoke of crushes, and flirting, and love, and sex, like objects on fire, that burned the skin when they were handled, but were worth the flame. She thought of them in muted terms, as though she was touching the same once-scorching objects, but after they had passed beneath a waterfall, the flames all-but vanquished, only the occasional ember remaining. They were safer to hold, to handle, but the appeal, the allure in the danger, was gone, their extinguished state irrevocable.

His stance had been casual as he walked over, but there was a cruel, cocksure glint in his eye. His tone betrayed just what he thought of her, and what he thought of himself. She was an object, a means to an end (the money involved in the bet), and that was all. He was the lad who was going to win the bet, and she should feel lucky to be used for that purpose.

“Hey.” His tone had dripped smooth self-importance, self-exaggeration. “I’m Maximilian.” He had used his full name, not the Max he went by, as though he could make her persuade by the sheer power of possessing what he no doubt thought was an ‘exotic’ name.

“Hello.” Her reply had been quiet, not really timid, though it could have been mistaken for such. Any who had been less caught up in himself would have recognized that it instead bespoke that she had no interest in talking to him, was aware of what he was doing, and want no part of it.

“I’m going to sit here.” It hadn’t been a question, hadn’t been a request, had been a statement, had almost been a command. A command to accept the fact that she was in his presence, and should treat him with the respect his conceited conscience told him he deserved.

She hadn’t said anything in response to that at first. He had taken that as the acceptance he desired, and taken the seat across from her. “So, you’re Rei, right?” The tone was aggressive, as though he was going to dismiss whatever she said, because he was certain he knew who she was. She had imagined that if she said, simply to deny him, he would have ignored it and preceded ahead as though she had said ‘yes.’ He had been the type of boy who could go either one of two ways. On one hand, he could cross too hard of a line earlier enough that he still had a chance to learn how to be something better. On the other hand, he could grow up to be a man who refused to acknowledge refusals, because he felt he has the right to what he wants. The worst kind of person, Rei thought. The kind who thought that others very selves were second to their own desires. Rei wasn’t sure which path he had ended up taking, but she was very glad that they had gone to different high schools, although she felt bad for whoever ended up being the target of his interests there.

Instead of saying ’no,’ or merely staying silent, Rei had cut to the chase. “I don’t want to go out with you. Please leave me alone.”

This had thrown him for a loop. That much had been clear. He had expected her to at least hear him out. His opinion of himself was high enough that he hadn’t even considered outright disregard, the very same treatment he had intended to give her. The result of course, had been that he had become angry. Furious, really, she imagined, though his sheer pride kept him from making a scene, considering he cared too much for his image as the ‘cool guy.’ Instead, he had leaned in, breaking into her bubble, to spit the words in her face. “You don’t know what you’re missing, stupid bitch. It’s not like anyone ever going to ask out a freak like you. The most attention you’ll ever get will be from some white coat in a psych ward.”

She hadn’t flinched. She had known that it would be her downfall if she did. That breaking was what he wanted, her visible suffering was what he was craving in that moment. He had realized she wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction after a few seconds, and strolled off, still cocky, but surely fuming internally over the fact that he hadn’t managed to get a reaction out of her. Not a twitch in her lips, a blink in her eyes, something to show that she was shattering beneath the calm exterior. Not that she wasn’t. She just knew how to delay the collapse. It had happened later that day, in the safety and solitude of her room, a silent sort of disintegration. No tears, no screams. Just a widening hollow feeling that consumed her from the pit of her stomach, reaching up into her chest cavity, groping at her lungs, sucking the air into, folding her in on herself until she felt small enough to simply stop existing altogether. It wasn’t an uncommon experience in those days. Before she learned how to grow numb to the words, numb to the spite. That came later though. You had to experience enough pain, enough cover crumbling, to learn how to ignore the barbs that brought it on.

She had never told her brother about that particular incident. She hadn’t wanted him to start another fight on her account. She wasn’t sure if he had ever found out. She guessed it was likely he had, although she wasn’t sure what he had done about it (though she thought it was probable he had done something).

The abuse had never been physical, never public, rarely direct. There had been no retaliation for that incident either. She supposed on all accounts that it was because people were afraid of what her brother might do. Or perhaps not her brother, but more accurately, her brother’s friends. She liked them for the most part. The track team members her brother was close to were an anomaly, in that they were some of few decent people she had ever met in the schools she had attended. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. Knowing that she didn’t have to worry about making her brother choose between his sister and his friends. At least not anymore. He had discarded the ones that had tried to sway him away from the familial choice. She supposed then, that he had already made his decision. She felt guilty for that. She felt guilty often, when it came to her brother, and what she perceived as the difficulties she brought into his life. She knew how much he worried for her. Worried that she was afraid, worried that she was hurting, worried that was lonely.

The most painful part of the guilt was knowing the her brother’s fears weren’t altogether unfounded. No, she supposed, they weren’t unfounded at all. She would characterize her feelings as more anxious than afraid, but the other two concerns she knew he held were accurate. The latter led to the former, in a way. She had discovered there was nothing quite like the feeling of isolation, of division from others, to exacerbate preexisting pain. To make it metastasize, grow into something greater than itself. Seclusion bred sorrowful things when it revealed what was latent.

She had never had her brother’s power with people. He had a natural sort of charisma about him, as awkward as he could be at times. He seemed to draw people to him. More important though, words came easy to him. He could carry a conversation when it dashed against rocks, and somehow bring it out to the far side relatively unscathed. Whether it was a matter of skill, or a matter of luck, social things seemed to turn out positive rather than negative for him more often than not.

Words had never come easy to her. Not when she was talking to someone other than her mother or her brother. She could read cues, interpret signs, and understand context well enough, but there was somehow a disconnect when it came to putting all of that into play when encoding something herself. Ironically, and perhaps appropriately, she couldn’t articulate why. She only knew that it made everything harder. That the persona she conveyed caused people to say she was ‘cold,’ or ‘dead,’ or ‘inhuman.’ Those her knew her well knew this wasn’t the case, but aside from her family, the only people who fell into that category were Shinji’s closest friends, who had spent enough time with him, and by extension, with Rei when she was around, that they read her demeanor differently. She didn’t really have friends of her own, she knew that much. It had been that way since she was a child. She had worried her teachers in kindergarten by the fact that she seemed to turn away all the kids who tried to connect with her. This hadn’t changed, and by the time she headed to junior high, no one tried anymore. The teachers had kept worrying of course, but as she got older, this worry had been offset by their satisfaction and appreciation of her academic performance; apparently, at the end of the day, even elementary school teachers cared more about a child’s grades than her ability to fit into classroom society.

She hadn’t understood it then. Hadn’t understood why her responses, her reactions shut others down. It was only after hearing the covert comments too many times that she had realized what other people thought of her. And by then, the road to remake her reputation had seemed entirely too insurmountable.

That perspective had resulted in her leading a life that was half-spent in sequestration. The silver lining to that, of which she constantly reminded herself, was that she had devoted plenty of time to pursuing her passions, even if it was at a solo capacity. The filled bookcases in her room were one testament to that. The filled folders on her laptop were another, and the guitar resting in its stand by her desk was a third. The lack of company had done wonders for her creativity, she supposed. Was it a worthy exchange though? That was all in the eye of the beholder.

Pulling her gaze away from the ceiling, Rei brought it to rest on the guitar sitting by the desk. The chrome elements of Stratocaster-imitation form glistened in the sunlight from the window above her desk, opened to let the breeze flow in (a partially successful attempt to offset the heat without resorting to blasting the AC, because Rei preferred a more natural solution). She knew it would be at the earliest, four hours before her brother made it home. His shifts had been extended recently, on account of another employee quitting. And of course, her mother wouldn’t be home for at least another hour after that, a timetable that had become the new normal over the past several months. There wasn’t much for her to do in the meantime. Shinji was officially the house chef, because he argued that it was a way for him to ‘destress,’ which was his way of saying that cooking was one of his favorite pastimes, and that he didn’t want anyone else in the kitchen, which he had unofficially declared his ‘dignified domain’ in one of his more emphatic (and comedic) moments.

Rei didn’t particularly like summers, primarily because of how empty they often ended up feeling. This summer had been particularly forlorn one, as with her brother spending nearly all of his time either working or in the company of his new friend Kaworu (she suspected that the her brother and the ashen-hair boy would be dating soon, not that she resented Kaworu; from the two brief interactions she had had with him, he seemed quite nice actually), she had been left to her own devices for days on end. At this point, her routines, as much as she appreciated them, had begun to feel somewhat monotonous. She had taken to browsing blogs lately, in search of a new potentially hobby she could try out to add some diversity to her day, but so far, she hadn’t had much lucky finding anything that she had gravitated toward with any great enthusiasm. She had briefly considered trying out her hand at archery, before swiftly coming to the conclusion that as enticing as her visions of Legolasesque prowess were, the actual effort that would undoubtedly be required to achieve any degree of proficiency wasn’t something she quite felt up to. The fact that even if she did manage to become a competent archer, her chances of being able to skate down a staircase atop a shield would most likely remain negligible was also a bit of a buzzkill. And so, at least for the moment, her current hobbies would have to suffice. She decided that tomorrow, she would take a walk down to Off the Shelf! If she was going to stick with what she knew, it wouldn’t hurt to at least get some new reading material. Well, new to her anyway.

With a barely audible sigh proceeding from her lips, Rei pushed herself up and out of her chair, and left the corner of the room, strolling over to her desk lackadaisically. She retrieved her guitar from its stand and plugged it into her practice amp, positioned alongside the desk. Flipping the amp on and turning the volume to a decent level, satisfied with her other levels. She then set herself down in her desk chair and rolled her volume knob up. She paused for a few seconds, thinking of a good song selection. After a moment, she made her decision.

The first palm muted notes sprung out from the guitar as she picked through the intro, before launching into the melody itself, the pensive tone pervading the room. She allowed the traces of a smile to steal onto her face. It was a beautiful song. One which promise never to leave, never to vanish. One whose titled she liked to think vowed to be with her always. It was a piece she was content to return to. That always seemed to make her day a little less lonely.

Perhaps then, the particular events brought about by her playing that afternoon could only be considered highly appropriate. If one was to take this view, then perhaps it could be called an act of fate, rather than a mere coincidence, that Rei did not think to close her window before she started playing on that particular occasion, something which she habitually did, half out of shyness and doubt of her own talent (unfounded doubt, of course, as anyone who had heard her play could attest to), and part out of respect for her the elderly couple who lived next door, whom she suspected were probably not fans of some of the more ‘enthusiastic’ music she played (which was to say, progressive metal). It would, however, be unfair to Rei to blame her for failing to realize that the elderly couple had moved across the country several months before to live closer to their family. It wasn’t as if she interacted with them frequently, or in fact, paid much attention to them at all. They had kept to themselves, something which she also did. On the other hand, a better case could be made to label Rei a bit on the oblivious side for not noticing the new neighbors who had moved in several days before. That had been a bit more of an affair, though not one which either Yui or Shinji could have been aware of, considering it occurred during the day while they were both absent. Rei, on the other hand, had no such excuse. Her excuse would be, if one were to ask her for it, was that she had been particularly engrossed in rereading one of her favorite books on that specific day, which was in fact true. All the same, it meant that she was unaware of her new neighbors. And furthermore, unaware that one of them would soon hear her playing. And of course, logically, this also meant she was unaware that her life was about to change. However, a lack of awareness rarely averts something from happening, and it certainly did not in this case.

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Asuka glared down at the figurine in her hands, scowling. “Dammit,” she grumbled to herself, pulling away the now-severed head from the body of the dragon, and inspecting the jagged break. She spared a glance at the unraveled square of bubble wrap in the box below. “Well that’s just great.” With a sigh and a shake of her head, she set the broken figurine down on top of the bookcase. “I’ll have to fix you later. Gotta ask Misato if we have any glue, or if it’s lost in one of the boxes out in the garage.” She scowled, and turned back to sorting through the contents of the box. She extracted two more figurines from her their bubble wrap entombments, and was pleased to see that her cobra and sorceress were both still intact. Setting them on the shelf beside the beheaded dragon, she grab one of the discarded pieces of bubble wrap and held it up to the light coming through her window. “I guess you didn’t totally fail,” she remarked dryly, before crumpling the strip in her hand and listening to the series of satisfying pops that occurred as a result.

Tossing the now-pointless piece of plastic into the trash bin by her door, she set her hands on her hips and surveyed the pile of boxes that had yet to be unpacked, a hoard still big enough to lay claim to an entire corner of the room with a vengeance. What next? She ran her eyes over the bare walls of the room, finding the off-white coloration unappealing, to say the least. When was this designed? The 80s? Posters it is.

While she now had a goal in mind for the next step in her unboxing/room design (she preferred the latter description, because it sounded more dignified in her mind, and didn’t serve as quite the same reminder that she had just moved, but in all reality, the former was the more accurate description), finding the objects she needed to accomplish that goal was easier said than done. Opening yet another box, and discovering once again that the objects of her intentions were not within (said box instead contained several stacks of CDs, relics of a time before MP3s were the absolute norm), she set it atop the growing pile of boxes that had failed to contain her quarry, with a derisive glance at the blurred face of Avril Lavigne that stared back at her from within. “Why do I even still have you?,” she muttered as she folded the lid back over. And more importantly, why the hell didn’t we label more of these? I blame Kaji. Because yeah, the person who basically didn’t pack up any of my stuff is to blame for why I didn’t label it. Right.

With a roll of her eyes (mostly directed at herself, if she was being honest), she grabbed one more box from the trove. If they’re not in here, I’m taking a break. This is so stupid. As she opened this particular box, she was at that point not surprised to find that rather than the posters she sought, it instead contained two tight rows of game cases. Well, at least I found something decent. Box in hand, she made for the living room. I’m pretty sure Misato left the bottom shelf of the tv stand empty for these.

She was partway through the process of shelving the games when she felt her pocket vibrate. Pausing her activity, she pulled out her phone and looked over the text that had just arrived.

Tiffany H: How’s day four of the move-in going?

Asuka considered the question for a moment, before writing her response.

Asuka R: About as well as the first three lol.

Asuka R: As in, tedious

Asuka R: How’s life in Terahburg?

Tiffany H: Oh, fun. Same as always, tbh.

Asuka R: Aww, and here I thought you’d be sweet and say it was boring without me or something ;)

Tiffany H: Oh, I mean, you’re right! Whatever will we do? Life’s lost all purpose now that you’re gone xD

Asuka R: Now that’s more like it!

Tiffany H: We’re all lost without you Asuka! We’ll never see the light again without you!

Asuka R: And don’t you forget it!

Tiffany H: In fact, the entire town might perish out of sheer sorrow! Our lives our meaningless now!

Asuka R: Okay, that might be a bit of a stretch. . .

Tiffany H: Ya think? Lol

Asuka R: Hey, don’t stop on my account!

Tiffany H: I’m running out of material here *shrugs*

Asuka R: And here I thought you were a true thespian!

Tiffany H: Yeah, but talking about you gets boring after a while. ;)

Asuka R: I’m hurt. Deeply hurt. *turns nose up*

Tiffany H: There, there, you’ll survive. Just don’t drink the Asherdale kool-aid and forget we exist. Lol

Asuka R: Asherdale kool-aid? Seriously?

Tiffany H: Like I said, I’m running out of material here. Don’t @ me.

Asuka R: Uh huh

Asuka R: Right

Tiffany H: So, what’s the ‘dale like? We got any competition?

Asuka R: I’ll let you know when I figure out what the ’the ‘dale’ is

Tiffany H: Ur 1mp0ssebl3

Asuka R: My eyes are scarred now, thx

Tiffany H: You deserved it. So, what’s the ‘dale like?

Asuka R: Best adjective = boring

Tiffany H: RIP

Asuka R: No competition so far, so you don’t need to worry. The best they have going for them is an

arcade.

Tiffany H: An arcade?

Asuka R: Yeah, I saw it when we were getting into town. Looked it up, it’s some sort of retro deal.

Tiffany H: Retro arcades? Is that a thing now?

Asuka R: Apparently it is in the northwest.

Tiffany H: Whelp, sounds great

Asuka R: Oh yeah, fr

Tiffany H: Well, enjoy ur arcade. I gtg get ready for work.

Asuka R: Ok, say hi to Amanda for me!

Tiffany H: Will do! Ttyl!

When she had finished shelving the games, Asuka made her way back to her room, a determined glint in her eyes (not an unusual expression for her). Alright, now it’s poster time! I don’t care if I have to go through every damn box in that corner, I am finding them! I’m not going to let an outdated 80s color palate get the best of me! And plus, her mind added as an afterthought, Once they’re up, maybe it’ll actually start feeling a little more like my room. And less like someone else’s room, that I’m just staying in. A frown briefly crossed her face, but she tossed it away, steeling her mouth into a resolute line.

Approximately forty-five minutes later, the stack of boxes was no longer a stack, but instead a small pond spread across half of the room. Asuka, meanwhile, was red in the face, and looked as though she was a few steps away from steam vents cartoonishly bursting out of her ears. One final, unopened box sat in the corner, the last remnant of the toppled tower. She knelt by it, her face spelling murder, and began to cut through the tape with her pocket knife. . .

“Verdammt, wo sind sie?! Das ist lächerlich!” (Dammit, where are they?! This is ridiculous!)

She punched floor next to her, gritting her teeth as she looked down at the contents of the last box, namely a set of drum skins, and her stick bag. Still glowering, she removed these items and headed to the spare room. Might as well put these with my kit anyway. She couldn’t deny that one positive of this house was the presence of the extra bedroom, which meant that her designated practice space was no longer a garage. That was definitely a positive. Even if it one of the only ones so far.

Setting the sticks down by her stool and the drum skins alongside her drum cases in the corner, she looked over at the kit with a degree of temptation in her eyes. I should probably at least try to finish unpacking, now that I covered my entire room. But . . . I mean, it could help me calm down. And ignore the fact that we probably forgot the box with my posters somewhere. Walking over, she took her seat behind the kit and grabbed a couple sticks from the sling that hung off the floor tom. Just something to blow off steam. I don’t need to practice a song or anything. She was about to count herself off (out of habit rather than necessity, really), when an adventitious sound reached her ears. She blinked, pausing. That sounds . . . oddly like “Always With Me, Always With You.” She looked around, searching for the source of the faint guitar playing she had picked up. Her eyes locked in on the window behind her, which until that moment, she hadn’t noticed was partially open. Rising from her seat and dropping her sticks back into the sling bag, she walked over to the window and looked out.

This particular window looked down on the strip of the yard which ran alongside the building, and faced the house next door. She couldn’t be certain, but it sounded to her as though the music was coming out of one the windows of that house, which also happened to be opened. Her interest piqued, she decidedly to get a closer look. She headed for the stairs.

Emerging out into the backyard, she made for the wall that marked the border between her family’s yard, and the neighbor’s property. It wasn’t much of a wall, really. It only reached slightly higher than her midriff. She looked down at it skeptically. Well, I could practically step over this is if I wanted to. Guess they’re not too worried about trespassing.

Outside and closer to the guitar playing which floated out into the air, it was relatively easy to determine that its source was indeed the window she had identified earlier. Glancing up toward said window now, Asuka pursed her lips, faced with a bit of a decision. One one hand, she could forget about it and head back inside. She had determined the location of the unseen guitarist, and considering he or she was her neighbor, it seemed like there was a decent chance she’d be able to find out who the guitarist was eventually. On the other hand, going back in and continuing with her unpacking wasn’t the most enticing of options. In the end, she chose the path that let her procrastinate on facing her bedroom’s recently introduced ground cover.

Climbing up over the half-wall, she jumped down into the neighbors’ yard. She decided that if she ran in to any sort of trouble, or said neighbors turned out to be less than thrilled by her trespassing, she could book it back to her house with relative ease. It wasn’t as if the wall would provide any significant barrier. Plus, it’s not as though I’m going to try to break into their house or anything. I mean, I’m going to go ring the doorbell. Though I suppose I could have just gone out to the street from my house and gone over that way. Oh well. This’ll be fine.

Still listening to the solo (which, as she heard more of it and paid greater attention, she had to admit sounded quite good) rolling down from the open window, Asuka walked up along the side of the house, and curved around to the front until she found herself standing directly in front of the door. Alright, here we go. Plan ‘avoid unpacking’ #1, activate! Reaching up, she pressed in the doorbell and waited. She heard a bell-toweresque recording play from somewhere close by the door inside in response to the ring. That’s an interesting choice for a doorbell. Sounds sort of like an antique clock. That might not be a good sign . . . I can’t imagine anyone under the age of fifty using that for their doorbell. Oh well. If it turns out the guitarist is a retiree or something, I can always still act polite or something, say I thought his or her playing sounded pretty good, and then bail. Simple enough.

Asuka waited for a good thirty seconds, wondering if someone was going to come to the door. After a few more moments, she decided that the answer to that question was probably a definitive ‘no.’ Hmm . . . now the question is, do I ring the doorbell again? Or do I just head back home? On one hand, they might have heard it and just don’t want to answer, and in that case, I don’t want to be the jerk who can’t take a hint. On the other hand, maybe they just didn’t hear it the first time. That’s a possibility too. Which means it might not hurt to wring it again. Asuka pulled out her phone and looked down at the clock on the lock screening, waiting for it to change. I’ll give them another minute. If no one comes by then, I’ll ring it one more time. And if no one shows up after that too, I’ll head back to my place.

Watching the digits on the screen, Asuka gave a small nod to herself as the moment passed. She reached forward and gave the doorbell a final ring. Once again, she heard the recording play from within the house. You know, I think I’d get pretty tired of that if it was my doorbell. Just imagine what that would be like if someone tried to prank you by ringing it repeatedly. That would get real annoying, real quick.

After another solid twenty seconds or so, Asuka came to the conclusion that no one was coming to the door. Shrugging, she turned and headed back out toward the sidewalk, content to make her way home. Well, I tried. Guess I’ll find out who the guitarist is another day. Unboxing time it is then. Lovely. However, as she turned away from the path up to the door and angled herself back toward her resident, she heard the faint sound of the guitar carrying out from alongside the house. This time, however, it was a different song. She paused, narrowing her eyes in focus as she searched for the title. Oh, come on, I know I know this one. It’s not Satriani though . . . I don’t think it’s Vai either. Dammit, who is it? She shook her head, disgruntled with the fact that she couldn’t place the tune. Fantastic. Now that’s going to be stuck in my head and bugging me for the rest of the day. Presque vu sucks like that. It was at that instant that another thought snuck into her mind. The guitarist could be the only person home. That would explain why no one came to the door. If they’re practicing, they might have earbuds in or headphones on, which would mean they couldn’t hear me. So, I’d have to get their attention with something else. And their window is open . . .

Asuka practically sprinted the short distance back to her house, a confident grin across her face. When she finally emerged from the back door roughly five minutes later, she was glad to hear that the mysterious musician was still playing. Once again, the guitarist had moved on to a new song. This one, however, Asuka recognized. “Tender Surrender,” she murmured. “Not a bad choice.” At this point, Asuka was almost certain that whoever was playing was probably a good bit older than her. I mean, seriously, Steve Vai hasn’t been big since the nineties. At least, I don’t think so. I mean, I only know him because of Kaji, so that definitely says something. But hey, I’m not a guitarist though, so who knows? Maybe they still adore him or something. All the same, her desire to avoid completing (or at the very least, returning to) her unpacking process outweighed her potential concerns. Plus, her new plan kept her even further away from the person whose attention she was trying to get. Which meant that if they didn’t care for her methods, she could be long gone before they could do much about it. The logic of her strategy was moderately convincing, if she did say so herself, even if it was purely designed to give her a somewhat rational justification to her better judgment for her own procrastination.

Pulling herself up and over the sad excuse for a dividing wall, Asuka found herself in the as-of-yet-nameless neighbors’ yard once again. She strolled over a little closer to the house, positioning herself so that she was in a direct line with the open window. I have to say, this is one way I never expected that year I pitched for the softball team in middle school to come in handy. She looked down at the construction in her hand, the centerpiece of her quickly-concocted scheme. Guess all of that packing newspaper might turn out to have a second purpose too. Hopefully it’ll do better at this than it did at keeping Misato’s shot glass collection intact. With a chuckle to herself, Asuka rolled her arm back, lifting the paper airplane into the air, and let it fly toward her target. It soared upward, its arc accurate, and slipped straight through the open window, disappearing from her view.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rei was nearing the close of the song. Her plectrum had been relegated to a secondary position, pinched between her pinky and ring fingers, to keep it from obstructing her fingerpicking. Only the pads of her skin now met the coils of steel, coaxing melody from the taut metal. Though the piece was not an anthemic one at any point, never attaining any great summit or volume in its course, it had still diminished from its peak, drifting back into itself as the notes grew more wavering, less forceful. They now resembled soft, intermittent tears intermingled with trembling gasps, though whether these expressions were borne out of sorrow or ecstasy was a mystery offered up to the beholder’s mind for judgement.

In her mind, Rei could hear, could feel the presence of the band about her. Every feature, each individual auditory fragment of the track came to her as she moved her fingers, by memory rather than sight. She listened as the band’s accompaniment slowly gave way, dissolving into pleasant stillness, sending its light and focus toward the guitar’s shuddering cry, until it was the only sound left to fill the emptiness, in soundscape both physical and mental. But fill this space it did nonetheless, each caressed, drawn note wandering through the fold’s of her shut eyes, dancing over the defined, stringent edges of her desk and shaving them down into something smoother, unbroken, winding. Blurring the room she half-saw through the image she conceived, transfiguring the elements of the space to abstraction, melting the absolute and the tangible into the fantastical, the speculative.

As she glided into the final phrase, she slowed even further, elongating the notes, letting their voices sing louder than her conducting digits. She had led the song to its conclusion, she let the song itself lead what was left. It extended, sweeping over the growing seconds, echoing as it reiterated, reprising and refusing to fade. Rei followed the draw, her fingers seemingly moving of a will other than her own, glad assistants in the art. At last, the final reverberation arrived, pleading, yet peaceful. There were seven notes left, which dwindled to six, and from there it faded to five, a receding handful.

The fifth note was about to declare its presence when the moment was broken. Something struck Rei’s forehead, fracturing her concentration and dream state alike to shards. Her fingers fell from their unconscious ballet, the necessary pressure absent. The string buzzed against the fret before it died an abrupt dead, cut off by its impact against her lax digit. The song was stripped into nothing, the ending cumbersome and unheeding, true closer beyond its grasp. Rei’s eyes tore open as her hand plunged away from the neck, dropping limp to her side as she stared sightlessly at the desk before her, her blank visage betraying no hint of her acute bemusement.

Rei dropped her pick onto the top of the desk, and lifted the instrument from her lap, returning it to its stand once more. Slanting her head downward, she reached out and retrieved the ostensibly offending object from the floor by her feet. Lifting it into her lap, she rotated it around in her grasp for a few moments, examining the shaped newsprint, complied into a new structure, a form capable of flight synthesized from ink and pulped fibers. Adjacent to weightless, an insubstantial avian, an artificial imitation. Its name was derived from bellowing metallic brutes that claimed the skies as their domain, raging turbines thrumming, incensed engines clamoring, the bellow of war on their wings and a cold caterwaul in their grinding wheels as they wrenched away from the ground and took their place in the belly of the beast. Such a marked difference, an undeniable dichotomy, between this tenuous newspaper lark and those titanium pterosaurs that prowled the clouds at humanity’s behest. To think that both such beings were constructed and christened by the same species was a perplexing, confounding concept, one which spoke to the multitudinous nature of sentience. It could give attention no less assiduous than the sedulous scrutiny bestowed upon the architecture of alleged advancement to the most minute of pursuits. The value of each undertaking determined by the engineers, by the consumers, by whatever society observed its progress.

It was curious, the capacity which such a seemingly innocuous, inconsequential object possessed to act as a conduit for contemplations of the existential and philosophical varieties. Nevertheless, Rei pulled her thoughts away from such metaphysical meanderings and extracted her eyes from their glazed gaze, elevating them from the errant examination. Equally curious were the origins of the airplane. Her emphasis adjusted accordingly, Rei rested the newsprint coated craft on her desktop and rose from her seat to survey the yard from her window.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Asuka watched the empty window closed, scrutinizing the vacuum that had devoured her airplane several moments earlier. It showed no signs of providing any sort of reaction to that consumption. However, Asuka was nonetheless certain beyond any shadow of a doubt that her newspaper agent had fulfilled its intended purpose. Moments before, the song, which had crawled to a languid and hazy, yet subtly rapturous, finale, had come to a clipped conclusion. There was no mistaking that the ending was unintentional. The last note had been mostly-dead, the tone dulled and buzzed out, a quickly recognizable accident, that had been replaced by silence in an instant, the bum note sheared from existence before it could linger. That . . . was rough. Ooops. Well, hopefully they don’t get too annoyed.

At first, Asuka had expected that the guitarist would take one of two routes. On one hand, the musician might immediately make an appearance, due to the sudden interruption, and apparent derailment of the song. This had seemed to be the most probable outcome to Asuka. After all, most musicians didn’t appreciate being disrupted while they were in the midst of a piece. On the other hand, the guitarist might first finish the song, and then come to the window. Though the second possible outcome seemed somewhat less likely than the first, Asuka knew that there were many individuals who took their musicianship seriously to the extent that they would merely continue onward as if they had never been disturbed in the first place, until they finished their performance. Of course, given that the guitarist was practicing rather than performing, Asuka didn’t expect that this would be the case.

This was all to say that Asuka was not prepared for the reaction occasioned by her action. Or, to be more precise, the lack thereof. Asuka had firmly expected the guitarist to do something. Which was why she grew progressively more and more agitated, albeit it in an understated manner, as the seconds flew by and it appeared as though her ‘delivery’ had prompted positively no response whatsoever. No one appeared at the window, nor did the playing resume, and furthermore, there was not so much as the slightest audible outburst in response to the disruption. Aside from the botched note and the vexatious silence, there was nothing to indicate that the guitarist had even noticed the paper aircraft.

Asuka tilted her head as she continued to stare up at the window, her cheeks and lips creasing downward into the beginning of a frown. Come on, do something. Or are you actually going to just ignore that? Of course, there was no answer to this question, given that Asuka had inquired it of her own mind, rather than posing it out loud. The stillness stretched longer, no termination in sight. Asuka rested a hand against her hip, before dropping it back to her side. That might send the wrong sorta message when they finally decide to show up. If they decide to show up. Asuka’s frown had now passed its infancy, maturing into a full-blown line of irritation. Which is looking less and less likely. A measure of tension had filled the air, as anticipation of a reaction had turned to exasperation, and perhaps a portion of perturbation as well. The tension gave no indication that it had any intention of abating prior to Asuka’s departure. Well that’s just great. Dammit, I guess it’s back to my lovely, most definitely not covered in a mound of boxes room. Fantastic. Rolling her eyes, Asuka half-turned to withdraw, when a figure suddenly appeared in the window. Asuka hastily righted herself as her gaze locked in on the arrival. Took you long enough.

The person looking out of the window was not who Asuka had been expecting. The figure’s blue locks glistened vaguely in the sunlight as it touched them. Her eyes were dark, a rich, bark-like brown, the hue of tilled soiled moistened by a smattering of a rain. They practically gleamed with racing thoughts, deep pools of incalculable deliberation. It was the overall aura of her face, however, that knocked Asuka from her stride. It was expressionless, utterly unreadable, beyond the definitive certainty that the mind behind worked tirelessly and furiously. Asuka could discern no trace, however slight, of any sentiment or emotion in it. The emptiness, the absence, was uncanny. Asuka’s mind raced as well now, seeking an explanation for the void she beheld. Maybe I’m just too far away. After all, I’m a good distance from where she is. Maybe if we were closer, I’d be able to tell . . . something. Her attempts at persuading herself that this was a reasonable explanation failed miserably. The argument was woefully, blatantly incorrect. There was no denying the simple fact that the girl’s face, despite the fact that it appeared as if she was no older than Asuka, perhaps even younger, could have easily belonged to someone who spent years perfecting the perfect vizard. Somehow, I get the feeling that she’s never lost a poker game.

The duo’s encounter began in silence, both parties merely taking in the other, no words exchanged. Asuka did her best to hide her own feelings of confusion, as well as residual irritation. Can’t match her poker face, but I might as well try to not look too worked up. When the silence had lasted long enough to become uncomfortable, especially when combined with the force of the girl’s undeviating gaze, Asuka decided she would have to break it, as it didn’t seem feasible that the supposed guitarist would be the one to do so.

“Hey, you sounded good!,” Asuka called up, doing her best to sound both amicable and positive, in spite of the fact that these weren’t the foremost sentiments in her mind.

The girl said nothing in response, though Asuka briefly thought she spotted the barest, vaguest hint of a smile alight on the edges of the girl’s mouth for a split second. Well, no news is good news, right? And who doesn’t like a compliment? Guess I might have to do the heavy lifting in the conversation though. “That was Tender Surrender, right?”

The girl remained silent, but gave a small nod of her head, her expression unchanged. Asuka decided she would interpret this as an encouraging reaction. I mean, she doesn’t seem angry that I disrupted her earlier, so all things considered, I’m going to take this as a success so far. “Steve Vai is pretty cool. Classic 80s guitar, you know?”

The girl nodded again, blinking as she did so, before resuming her stare. Is that the first time I’ve seen her blink?, Asuka wondered. Because I think it is, and that’s more than a little bit unnerving. Because I’m almost positive she’s been staring at me for a couple minutes. No way, she must have blinked earlier. People don’t go minutes without blinking. That would be . . . unusual . . . and most likely not healthy for your eyes.

Asuka decided to try out a different subject. There’s got to be something that will get her to talk . . . right? Maybe? Hopefully . . . ?

“Anyway, I heard you earlier, and I wanted to see who the good guitarist was.” She bookended this with an agreeable chuckle, that was roughly eighty-five percent forced. “I’m Asuka Kaji. I just moved in to the house next door,” she pointed back over her her shoulder, “a few days ago.”

The girl tilted her head as she received this information, giving Asuka the impression that this was in fact new to her, and she was taking some time to process it. A few more seconds passed, and at last, the girl spoke. “I’m Rei Ikari,” she paused, and then added, “Thank you.” Her voice was soft, but carried down from the window fairly well all the same. It had a calmness to it, that matched up perfectly with her reserved demeanor. It was nearly a monotone, but not quite. There was a note of inflection in it, an element of what Asuka thought was cheerfulness, though it was difficult for her to be certain.

This time, Asuka was the one who tilted her head. Well, at least I got her name. Not sure why she’s thanking me though. “What for?,” she inquired, maintaining her amicable exterior, which was somewhat less forced than it had been several seconds earlier. Perhaps only seventy-five percent at this point, possibly even seventy.

Rei answered in the same voice, devoid of all but a hint of pleasantry. “For the compliment. I’m glad you like my playing.” Asuka hung on to that hint of pleasantry, decoding it to mean that Ikari was genuinely happy. At least, I hope that’s what it means. Although, she could just be putting on a front just like me. I’ll say she’s genuine for now though. It’s easier to be friendly when I don’t have to constantly second guess the other person.

Asuka smiled again, an expression which was mostly real. “No problem. Like I said, you sounded good.”

Rei nodded to this, but didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, she looked down, at something obscured from Asuka’s sight, and then back up at the other girl. “Would you like to come to the door? You won’t have to shout up from there?”

Asuka wasn’t quite sure that the volume she had been speaking at could be deemed shouting per se, but in comparison to Ikari’s subdued volume, she supposed she could see the logic in the other girl’s words. “Sure. Sounds like a good idea.”

“I’ll meet you there,” Rei intoned, not deviating in the slightest from what appeared to be her default voice. Stepping away from the window, she disappeared from Asuka’s view. Asuka set off along the side of the house, making for the front door, considering their conversation so far as she did so. Okay, saying ‘default voice’ might be a bit harsh. Makes it sound like she’s a robot or something. I don’t think she’s AI. I mean, probably not. She allowed herself a quiet little chortle as she rounded the corner and strolled over to the porch. She paused in front of the door. Guess I don’t need to ring the doorbell. Which means I get to avoid the antique clock. Or bell tower. Whichever one it sounds like. Probably both. Either way, not hearing it is a positive.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the door in front of her opening. Rei halted in the doorway, looking at Asuka. Up close, Asuka couldn’t discern any substantial differences from what she had already observed of Rei’s demeanor. However, the hints of a smile which she thought she had spotted earlier were more pronounced now that Asuka had a better view, making Ikari look moderately more genial to Asuka’s eyes. Huh, maybe I was right. She’s more friendly when I’m not looking up at her framed in a window. And I thought that argument was absurd. Even though it was my argument. Ha! Shows what you know, me!

Asuka smiled back at Rei, the most genuine one she had offered Ikari so far. Abruptly, Rei held out a hand toward Asuka. She looked down, and her smile fell a bit. The blue-haired girl was holding out the paper airplane to her. “Is this yours?,” she asked, giving no signs that she was angry, which threw Asuka off once again. Alright, maybe she’s just at good at hiding when she’s upset as she seems to be at hiding when she’s happy. Then again . . . I don’t see anything. Not in her face, or her posture. And she still smiling. Well, if that’s what that is, I mean. Maybe I didn’t actually disrupt her? Maybe she just messed up on her own? Or maybe she really doesn’t care?

Asuka nodded slowly, assuming an empathetic expression, less cheerful and slightly more chagrined. Just slightly, however. She wasn’t one to act particular embarrassed, even if she was. Not that she “Yeah, that’s mine. Sorry if I threw you off, by the way.”

Rei extended her hand a little further, offering the miniature parody of an aircraft to the redhead. “It’s okay. I was nearing the song’s conclusion anyway.”

Asuka accepted the offered airplane. “You sure?”

Rei nodded. “Yes. Your technique isn’t bad.”

Once again, Rei managed to say something that Asuka was not anticipating. My technique? Where did that come from? This is kind of getting on my nerves. A little bit, anyway Who just randomly switches topic mid-conversation like that? “What technique?”

“Your folding technique. It’s effective. Do you make origami?”

Oh. That is not what I expected her to say. “Ah, okay. Thanks. But no, I don’t.” I mean, technically I have, but I don’t need to tell her about how great that went. Damn cat. Since when do cats eat paper anyway? When did that become a thing? And to think people say dogs are the ones who will eat anything.

“I think you’d be good at it if you tried,” Rei said sensibly.

“I’ll let you know if I ever try it out.”

Rei nodded, her faint smile becoming somewhat more defined, as if this was the most logical and appropriate response, and she appreciated that Asuka had used it. Asuka decided it was time for her to get in another question, before the conversation took an additional unpredictable turn. “So, do you go to Sarea High?” Might as well figure out if she’ll be going to the same school as me in the fall. It wouldn’t be a bad idea at all to know some people before I get there.

Rei only nodded again in answer to this question.

“Cool. I’ll be going there in the fall. You a,” she made a quick estimate of how old she thought Ikari looked to be, “junior?”

Rei shook her head. “I’m a senior.”

Well, I was only off by a year, that’s not too bad. “Me too.” You know, for expecting the mystery guitarist to be some guy in his forties, it turns out we have a lot more in common than I thought.

Rei didn’t respond to this information, but merely continued to look at Asuka, her head tilting slightly to the side, the smile on her face seeming more prominent than ever, though still more of a light impression than a defined expression. Asuka met the girl’s gaze for a moment, and matched the bluenette’s smile with a wider one of her own. I mean . . . she’s kind of unusual, but she doesn’t seem so bad. Could definitely do with talking a bit more, but whatever. “Are you in band?”

Rei shook her head. “No. I’d like to be in jazz ensemble though.”

Asuka grinned, and remarked, “I mean, from how you sounded earlier, I’m sure you could tackle jazz. Plus, it’s fun for guitarists!” Is it my imagination, or is that a tiny tint of blush I see on her cheeks right now.

“Thank you. Again,” Rei said softly. “I haven’t auditioned though.”

Asuka’s smile faltered, and she pursed her lips. “Why not?”

The imprint of a smile and the vague reddening slipping from her face, Rei shrugged. “Nerves, I guess,” she answered.

“Ah. I understand.” I’ve been there. Who hasn’t? But hell, she’s definitely good enough to make the cut! Especially in a town like this. I highly doubt they have a great jazz scene here or anything. Asuka paused, but then set off again, more animated, “Well hey, you should audition this fall! I’m going to be there! So there’ll for sure be someone else there who knows you’re a fantastic guitar!”

The mild coloring that Asuka suspected was a blush most definitely returned to Rei’s face with this comment. Without meeting Asuka’s gaze, a strange change from her pattern up to that point, she replied, “Maybe so.”

“Well, think about it at least.”

Rei nodded, and after another handful of seconds had elapsed, asked, “What instrument do you play?”

“I play drums,” Asuka answered.

Rei looked back to Asuka once more, her indistinct smile back on her face. “Are you going to do marching band?”

Asuka shook her head. “No, I prefer playing with a full kit. That’s why I’m going for jazz ensemble instead. It’s what I did at my old school back east in Terahburg.”

“That makes sense.”

“Yep,” Asuka stated smartly. A new idea had emerged in her mind, one which didn’t seem like a half bad one. “You know, we should jam together sometime. Since we’re literally next door to each other.”

Rei said nothing at first, but Asuka noticed that the blue-haired girl’s eyes looked more distant now, practically looking straight past Asuka. She was tempted to turn around, to see if there was something behind her worthy of attention, but she somehow doubted there was. She’s probably just appraising the idea. She seems like the type of person who thinks things over. Thinks things over intensely, to be precise.

When the space between the two girls had lapsed into silence for approximately thirty seconds, Rei spoke up. “What type of music do you like?”

Asuka gave a small shrug in response to this. “The short answer is, I like a lot of stuff. I’m open to pretty much anything. And the long answer is, well, long.” She let out a little laugh to accompany her quip. “But, you might be able to tell,” she shot a pointed glance down at her shirt, which featured an image of a man removing his face from his skull to reveal a bundle of bandages beneath it, an action which was surprisingly depicted in a manner that wasn’t particularly gruesome (which she personally thought a rather unusual choice for a gothic metal album cover, but she enjoyed the art nonetheless, a fact evidence by her possession of the shirt), “I like metal.”

Rei’s eyes followed Asuka’s indication, and studied her garment, taking in the image. “That is interesting,” she commented, giving no real suggestion of her actual opinion of the artwork. “However, I’m not familiar with Lacuna Coil.”

Asuka curled her lips into a wry half-smile. “Not enough people are. They’re pretty awesome though. If you like gothic metal, that is.”

Rei nodded gently, in a manner that came across as fairly noncommittal. “I’ll have to check them out.” Her tone didn’t particularly evince true interest either, thought Asuka couldn’t say that it suggested the opposite for that matter. It fell in line with almost all of Rei’s speech, in that it was nothing if not neutral and more than a little ambiguous. I guess you could call it balanced. It could go equally toward either side.

“So,” Asuka began, “What about you?”

“As in, what type of music do I like?,” Rei countered, seeking clarification.

“Yep.”

“I enjoy instrumental music. Especially when the guitar is the main focus.”

“I get ya, that makes sense,” Asuka remarked with a nod .

“But, I am open to many types of music as well,” Rei added.

“That always cool. Variety keeps things entertaining.”

“Indeed,” Rei agreed, though her voice showed no particular enthusiasm. The sentiment more closely resembled an acknowledgement of a basic principle that could only be recognized as a fact of life, rather than an identification with a specific, shared perspective. After this observation, she fell silent once more. Asuka tilted her head to the side, waiting for the other girl to continue, but she did not seem eager to break the silence which had descended. Well, she basically avoided that question. Or at least, she avoided giving a direct answer to it. I could press the issue, or save it for another time. Oh come on, I’m not one to save things for another time. She doesn’t seem to mind me too much so far. I’m gonna roll with that.

Asuka decided to reiterate her point. “So, what do ya think?”

“About what?,” Rei asked, her eyes twitching momentarily.

“About playing together sometime?”

Rei tilted her head to the side, before righting it and nodding. “I think that would be a good idea.”

“Cool!”

“Yeah,” Rei concurred, the smallest vestige of excitement briefly filling her voice. Asuka picked up on the alteration, as quickly as it passed. That sounded encouraging!

“Well, hey, let me give you my number, so you can get in touch with me when you want to. That work for you?

“Okay.” Rei extracted her phone from her pocket, a movement which Asuka mirrored.

It was when she glanced down at her phone that Asuka noted the time. Her eyes widened for a brief second. Crap! It’s that late already! Seriously, I’ve been here that long? I probably need to actually try to finish unpacking at least some of those boxes today. If only so I can move across my room without climbing on top of them. Oh well . . . all good procrastination has to end eventually.

Rei cradled her phone in her hands for a few moments. Asuka got the impression that Rei was a little hesitant (for whatever reason) to hand it over for Asuka to put in her number. Selecting a different strategy, Asuka opened her contact profile and held the phone out for Rei to see. “Here, you can just copy off of that. If you don’t want me to put my number in yours, I mean.”

Rei looked at the offered device for another moment or two, and then nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Rei inspected the displayed information for a moment, and then quickly typed something into her phone. “Got it,” she announced.

“Awesome.” Asuka withdrew her phone and slid it back into her pocket. “Look, I gotta bounce. I still have lots of unpacking left to do.” She grinned and chuckled. “My room looks like a minor tornado or something tore threw it. So that’s fun.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Rei responded quietly, but the expression on her face gave the words weight. The impression of a smile that had lingered there for much of the conversation at the door had finally blossomed into something which could be firmly identified as a smile, even if it was a small, uncertain one.

“You too!,” Asuka agreed cheerily. Alright, now the question is, what will she interpret as a proper goodbye? This question proved unnecessary, as Rei gave Asuka another small nod, and then retreated into the house, closing the door behind her, in a startlingly swift burst of activity. Asuka blinked, shrugged mentally, and turned to go, trotting back out to the sidewalk.

Well, all things considered, I’d say that counts as an utter victory. Mystery guitarist turned out to be both under the age of thirty, and overall, pretty likable, at least, I think so. Not to mention I have someone to practice with already, and I’ve only been here a few days. And she lives next door. That’s a pretty great coincidence, I can’t lie. And best of all, I avoided unpacking for a solid half hour more. That’s the real success story here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rei didn’t leave after closing the door. She remained in the hall, watching the girl through the peephole as she departed. She couldn’t say exactly why she did it, only that it felt like the appropriate thing to do. When at last the redhead disappeared from her field of vision, she turned away from the door, and made her way to the kitchen. A strange sensation had developed in the pit of her stomach as they conversed. As with her logic for remaining at the door, the reason behind it barely escaped her mental grasp, as did an appropriate name for it. At best, she could characterize it as an unsettling experience, but not an unpleasant one. The feeling of a warbling tremor creeping up toward her chest, and then shying down and away once more. It played just beyond her reach, content to lurk there. Her first thought had been that perhaps food would lay the disturbance to rest. However, as she sat at the table and contemplated the granola bar she had retrieved from one of the cabinets that ringed the kitchen proper, she came to the abrupt realization that she lacked both the appetite and interest to eat it. Dropping the item in question back onto the tabletop, she tilted her head back to consider her kitchen ceiling. She decided that she preferred this view to the similar one she had observed earlier in the day.

There were fewer unpleasant memories wrapped up in this one. At least, that was the explanation she provided to herself, citing it as being the rationale reason for her mood. Because, clearly, it made perfect sense that studying the structure of the kitchen ceiling would fill her with a disconcerting, apprehensive excitement, but excitement all the same. Any other explanation would beg further questions. Questions she thought it was far, far, far too soon to be even touching upon. And that was without taking into account the fact that the excitement shied away from analysis. She suspected any efforts to investigate it would only yield confusing results. Results that led to the very same questions she wished to avoid. The safer alternative, then, was the ceiling. She was excited over the ceiling. Surely, if inspecting the ceiling of her bedroom could trigger a cascade of doubts and memories, inspecting the kitchen ceiling could make her feel giddy with an opaque happiness, until her brain was too muddled to focus on the shapes in the plaster and they meshed together into an indistinct collage of lines that made her eyes water when she tried to trace the maze she envision within it. Right?

#evangelion #neon genesis evangelion #fanfic #fanfiction #highschool au #asurei #asuka x rei #rei ayanami #asuka soryu langley

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kaen-ace-of-diamonds · 4 years ago

Text

Hatchling

Word Count: 2100+ (oneshot) [AO3]

Genre: Friendship/Family

Characters: Zuko, Sun Warriors, Ran and Shaw, Druk, Azula, Mai, Azula’s Therapist (mentioned)

Summary: Just when heading the Fire Nation seems to be a manageable task, Zuko finds himself saddled with a duty that no human has been given in over a hundred years.

Written for volume one of the Tales of the Four Nations @atlazine

~0~

There was very little that surprised Zuko nowadays.

After five years, he had settled into the role and routine of being Fire Lord. True, it felt as if the reparations to the other nations and the restructuring of the Fire Nation itself was an endless process. At the signing of the global armistice treaty, a dam of sorts had been broken, and he had been flooded with all the demands and protests and vitriol that could be expected from a world ravaged for a century, and at the end of the struggle, left confused as to who had really won.

His father’s court had been no help, being more interested in scrambling to maintain the power they had enjoyed as the spearheads of a conquering empire that had so abruptly fallen to peace. Over the course of the first year or so, he had ended up having to displace or imprison the majority of them, had even fended off assassination attempts from them. Not that they were the only ones who wanted his head on a pike, but that didn’t make it any better. Were it not for his newfound friends, his quickly married and anointed Fire Lady, and the few younger generals and courtiers that acted for the nation’s best interests and agreed with his way of doing so...Zuko wasn’t entirely certain that he would have been able to keep his head above water.

The tide had ebbed somewhat now. But only somewhat. After a morning of audiences in the throne room (none too pleased about anything, Zuko thought), he was now in for an afternoon full of documents to process. He’d slogged through to the point where his right hand was beginning to cramp up, and yet he could still barely see over the piles of loose paper and scrolls on the spacious desk in front of him. He groaned, rubbing his face with the hand still holding the brush, and resolved never again to make fun of anyone who complained about dealing with “mountains of paperwork.”

So engrossed had he become in his work that he didn’t notice the one different scroll until it was suddenly being dangled like a fish hook in front of his face.

“Gah!” Zuko jerked back so hard he bonked the back of his head on the golden frame of the chair. “Ow!”

“Having fun, Your Majesty?”

He looked up, startled, at the armored figure leaning up against his chair. “Oh...Hi, Azula. I thought your appointment with Dr. Zhihao was today?”

“It was. It ended two hours ago.” Azula gestured with the scroll to the small office window, and its near-perfect view of the sun already halfway below the horizon. “I’m surprised your eyes aren’t bleeding.”

“Ugh, but they sting,” Zuko sighed. “Please tell me your day’s been at least more exciting than mine. I...What’s the word? Let me live vicariously through you.”

Azula sighed theatrically. “Some elite guard. These new trainees are positively useless.”

“You’ll let them live, though, right?”

“No promises, Zuzu.” He started to protest and she promptly bopped him on the nose with the scroll. “None!”

He batted the paper away, laughing all the same. Another thing he’d thought impossible that had become real after all: the chance to reconnect and laugh with his sister again. “So who’s that from? Kuei? Hakoda?”

“Does this look like the Earth King or Water Chief’s seal? Read for yourself,” she said, unrolling it before his face.

It was blank, with an unfamiliar wax seal of four claws. Zuko squinted at it, puzzled, and was about to comment on it, when something occurred to him. He gave the air another sniff: Yes, that was lemon.

Zuko brought a lick of flame to his finger, and held it up to the paper, revealing the archaic characters painstakingly written in the invisible ink. “...The Sun Warriors need me now, too?! What for?”

“They don’t say. And they didn’t ask me along this time. So I suppose you’ll have to find out yourself. Kazan will be saddled and ready for you in the morning.”

Zuko sighed. “Would it be too much to hope that they’re offering me a break?”

“Oh, absolutely. But Mai will hold things down in your stead, in the meantime. And no one would dare cause trouble with me to keep this palace in line. Speaking of which, while you’re there...” With a flick of Azula’s hands, the candles and torches around the room flared to life in brilliant blue and white flames. “Tell Ran and Shaw hello for me, would you?”

“I’ll pass along the message. You know, I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear how well you’re doing since we visited them.”

Azula smirked. “I should hope so. And remember that you’re to be the best image possible of the modern Fire Nation to them. I expect they still hold a degree of distrust towards us; if we’re ever to reestablish a formal connection with them as a nation, that would be a nice thing to do away with.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the hint.” Zuko pushed back the chair and stood up, raising his arms and stretching hard enough to elicit several satisfying cracks from his spine. “Secret business trip, here I come.”

~0~

He appreciated how well the royal kennel’s training accustoming their animals to any kind of environment had worked for their beloved pair of tigerwolves; Kazan and Ikari had slept calmly in Appa’s saddle for his and Azula’s journey here three years ago, despite the altitude, speed, and no doubt the smell of prey. Aang and Appa were unavailable for a ride this time, so Kazan spent the journey across the ocean curled up and snoozing in the corner of Zuko’s small and speedy private boat. By the time they reached land, Kazan was fully up to the lengthy gallop through the rainforest to the domain of the Sun Warriors.

He didn’t know what he was expecting when he finally reached the indicated gathering place, dismounted, and joined them. But it certainly wasn’t Chief Huo Shan hurrying up to him and interrupting his formal greeting, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him further into the temple, downward and forward. Kazan gave a puzzled whuff and trotted along at his master’s heels.

“Ch-Chief?! Uh...If this was an emergency, I — “

“No emergency, Fire Lord! But urgency, all the same!” It came to Zuko’s attention then that Huo Shan was smiling.

It wasn’t long before their rushed journey ended, and found them in an enormous torchlit chamber, larger and higher even than his own throne room. It was lined by dozens of beaming Sun Warriors, with an only slightly less enormous mass of glowing coals. Both the room and the mass were still just barely big enough to fit their occupant, Shaw, who was coiled up quite comfortably on the burning heat. Ran was standing upright behind the coals, alert and eying the newcomer imperiously. Zuko has only met the pair three brief times including this one, so he wouldn’t call himself the best in interpreting dragonish expressions, but it seemed to him that both of them were looking extremely pleased with themselves.

He squinted, trying to see what it all meant. “Is...this a ritual of some kind?”

“Not an official one, but certainly cause for celebration.” Huo Shan’s mouth was open to say more, but before he could fully explain, what appeared to be one of the red-hot coals darted out from the pile and straight at Zuko. “Oh! He wants to demonstrate himself.”

“Demonstr — Whoa!”

Zuko reflexively reached out to catch the projectile zooming up towards him, but had to fight to keep from dropping it as the scorching hot surface pressed up against his bare arms.

“Ungh, it’s hot,” he hissed through a teeth-clenched grin. He then noticed the bright gold eyes blinking up at him, and the jump of excitement in his head that was not his own. “Uh...You’re hot?”

There was all of a sudden a baby dragon in his arms, and it seemed very happy to be there.

“How...long has he been here?” Zuko heard himself ask. He wasn’t sure how dragons defined gender, but he got the sense that he was correct.

Shaw lifted her great blue head from the nest of coals, and her mouth hung lazily open in something like a smile. Zuko heard the same strong voice in his head that he had heard on the judgment summit: Our egg was laid decades ago, little brother. Since before Prince Iroh visited us. The world was no longer safe for young dragons, so we kept him dormant until now. Only this summer have we moved to hatch him...so we could introduce him to you.

“To...To me?”

Yes. The Sun Warriors have lived hand to wing with the dragons since times immemorial, and we share a great bond of gratitude for that. But we are both free to make our own decisions as to how to exist with the Fire Nation of today. For now, they will remain in peace here; as for us, we have decided that we will reintroduce ourselves, through you and our son.

“I...” Zuko set his mouth, stood up straighter. The baby dragon chirped and wiggled, apparently impressed. “I see. I’ll help in whatever way I can. What would you have me do?”

This child is our firstborn, eight weeks old and weaned. He can survive without us now. As a sign of goodwill, we entrust him to you, to raise as a friend and companion, the way it was in the days before Sozin. We still remember that peace, those bonds. Spirits willing, all of our offspring will know nothing but.

Zuko nodded, holding the little dragon closer. “I’ll do so happily. May I ask his name?”

It seemed to him that the noise Ran made was laughter.

Dragons name themselves, little brother. In time, he will tell you.

~0~

Mai tilted her head to the side in utter disbelief. “You’re raising...a dragon?”

“Yep!” Zuko said brightly, diligently chopping up meat on the low table in their quarters.

“Somebody else’s dragon?”

“Well, he’s kind of half ours now.” The dragon, sitting on the other half of the table, wiggles his tail excitedly. A puff of flame spurts from his mouth toward the bowl, but Zuko pulls it back. “Hey! Trust me, just wait for the seasonings. I’m kind of...fostering him for his parents. Though if all goes well, he should be staying with us for a pretty long time.”

Azula, using Ikari as a lounge pillow on the other side of the room, was grinning like her birthday had come early. “Well, this certainly makes me feel better about protection for our people, should things turn...bad, again. Becoming the first dragon tamer in over a century ought to earn you some respect here too, Zuzu. So long as nobody decides that they would rather become a Dragon instead.”

“Trust me, I won’t let that happen,” Zuko growled, stroking the dragon from head down to neck. “I’ll protect him no matter what. There’s going to be peace between our kinds again.”

He offered the bowl of chopped and spiced meat to the dragon, who happily proceeded to char it black with its fire and then wolf it down. Zuko grinned. “Some of the outer islands are complaining about invasive animal species damaging their lands. I’m thinking I could bring this guy in to take care of that, since he’ll need bigger meals soon.”

“Well, if we can use him for problem solving, I guess he’s not so bad,” Mai conceded. She reached out to give him exactly two quick scratches between the horns. “Good dragon.”

The dragon chirped, gave her fingers an affectionate nibble, then hopped from the table to Zuko’s head to do the same to his hair. Zuko glanced up at him with contented amusement, feeling a trace of the dragon’s avid friendliness over his skin. “Yeah, thanks. We like you too.”

“Do you think I’ll get the next egg?” Azula asked, absently scratching her tigerwolf behind the ears. “Doctor Zhihao was right about raising an animal being therapeutic. This thing doesn’t seem much different from a puppy.”

Zuko shrugged. “Ran and Shaw’s call. But I don’t see why not.”

Through the window, a messenger hawk flew by, letting out a screech shrill enough to draw the dragon’s attention. Puzzled, he tried a wispier call of his own, as he spread his own tiny wings and leapt from Zuko’s head. But far from gliding, he fell in a heap onto the floor, and Zuko felt a needle stab of confusion in his chest.

He smiled, and reached down to pick the dragon up and set him back on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll have you flying before the summer ends, I promise.”

#in this house we fucking ignore the comics #avatar the last airbender #zuko #azula #ran and shaw #atla druk #atla mai #kaen's fics

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idreamofasriel-blog · 7 years ago

Text

Metal Slug-Demon Song Ch 11

Nadia yelped and Trevor caught her from falling when they felt the whole ground under their feet shook. “Are you okay, Nadia?” Trevor asked and helped her regain her balance. “I'm okay, Trevor.” she smiled brightly at him and they both flinched when a loud banging and clanking of metal rang through the air and they ran toward it, guns pointed and they found a mangled hatch door torn from its hinges and carelessly tossed to the side. They saw something making a sharp turn around the corner of a building and they chased after it. The street was dark and Trevor and Nadia took their flashlights out. The demon was nowhere in sight and they approached the vacant street with precaution and it was a good thing that their flashlights can attach themselves onto their guns to free their hands. They both agreed to split up a bit and cover more ground. Trevor was alone now in the big part of the city, he needs to think of a plan on what was he going to do is he did run into the demon on his own and no one to back him up. Trevor only got his handgun, a heavy machine gun and possibly enough ammo to take down a whole group of enemy or Allen O'Neil himself, if he ever go down that is. He heard trash cans rattling in the alleyway and walked toward it and wondering if now is the good time to get his heavy machine gun out and start shooting. When he stepped into the alleyway, all he could find were knocked over trash cans and scattered Newspapers in the wind. He let out a sigh of relief and turned with guns and a frost cannon pointed squarely at his face, “Stay where you are or I'll make you into a human Popsicle!” All of her bodyguards and Rebel soldiers cocked their gun to get ready to shoot him down. Trevor raises his hands to surrender when he saw Abigail running toward them, “Beatty, what's with all the shouting going on over here?” She let out a soft gasp and ordered their men to move to the side and let her through to talk to Trevor, “No surprise seeing you here, Sergeant Spacey.” said Abigail, who's doing a good job hiding her excitement to see the man of her dream again. Serious on the outside, squealing like a school girl on the inside. “The feeling is mutual with you too, Abby.” Trevor spoke back and now he wondered if he worded that right or not and hoped that he didn't give Abigail a false idea that he has feelings for her which he doesn't. Abigail thinks it over, “I have no doubt that you and the Squad are looking for the same demon, am I right? News does spread awfully fast in the battlefield,” said Abigail, “The ambush, Allen O'Neil Junior is in the hospital, and the Ikari Warriors getting an unofficial visit from the Ptolemaic Army and the demon too.” Trevor raises a brow, “How do you know about the Ikari Warriors being attacked?” Beatrice spoke up, “My sister and I were in the city that you and the pink-headed bimbo were in and we followed you from the bakery and eavesdropped on you both while you were on your radio. Bad idea to speak loudly about what you were just told.” Beatrice smirked at him. In her defense, she was right and Trevor never goofs up till now. Abigail reached into her pocket and took out a pair of handcuffs, “Well, Sergeant Spacey. It looks like you're our prisoner till we decide on what to do with you. Please, put your arms down so I can-” They heard a scream and a Rebel fell to the ground and all the guns were pointed right at the demon. He roared and breathed fire at them and they moved out of the way with the alleyway now stinking of burning garbage. Trevor grabbed for his Heavy Machine gun and pulled the trigger to rapidly fire at him and Abigail summoned her laser cubes to shoot lasers and her sister joining her to blast ice at it. It did freeze its feet in place and he struggled to yank his feet free and the Rebels moved closer to keep firing but they were all slaughtered by the demon who breathed fire on his fists to deliver fiery punches onto them. Even Beatrice's bodyguards were all slain by his wrath and drew closer to them and slamming a fist through a cube and then grabbing another to smash it against another one to pieces. “We're not going to let you destroy us like last time!” Beatrice shouted and fired a chunk of ice at his face, hitting him good and making him stumble backward. Trevor pulled her away quick just in time when the demon's newfound rage smashed her ice cannon. “We better run unless we want to get fried.” said Trevor and the girls have no choice but to follow him. Abigail and Beatrice have no close-range combat skills and Trevor is only armed with a Heavy Machine gun, a hand gun, and grenades which aren't enough to fight off a blood thirsty demon. He slid and stumbled across the ground but regain his balance to keep on running. They were running out of time and alleyways to run through and they better think fast or get killed. Trevor found a door and lucky for him, he can shoot the lock off it with his handgun and push it open. “In here! Hurry!” Abigail and Beatrice ran inside and Trevor felt the swiping of the demon's claws on his backpack and slam the door on his face. The demon roared, slamming his fists against the door that Trevor leaned against to keep it shut. Everything was quiet until Beatrice screamed when they saw a fist bursting through the door and Trevor let out a painful cry, the demon shoved his head through the hole in the door and chomped down on Trevor's shoulder and tore the hole bigger so he can claw at Trevor's chest. “You let him go!” Abigail grabbed a nearby crowbar and swung it hard enough that the demon lets go of Trevor and recoil away in pain. They heard him roaring in agony and Trevor moved in quickly to push a heavy crate against the door while flinching in pain. Holding a Heavy Machine gun in his hand, they waited to see what it'll do next. Trash cans were getting turned over and they heard flapping of wings fading off into the distance. “Trevor!” Abigail gasped in horror, seeing the wounded man sliding down against the wall while clutching his bleeding shoulder and his shirt getting stained with his own blood, “A-Abby, open my backpack up and grab my first aid kit!” he groaned in pain. Abigail in a hurry grabbed his bag and unbuckled it open and fished around in his bag and discovered a large hole and half of his stuff gone. “There's no first aid kit! Beatty! Open our pack up and fetch for ours!” Even though Beatrice has a strong jealousy toward Trevor and she would love to turn him into a human snowman, but in the end, Beatrice always put her sister's needs first before hers or anyone else. She opened the pack up and grabbed their first aid kit and handed it to her, “I'll do anything to help you out, Abigail.” she said and looked over at Trevor, letting him know how lucky he is that she loves her sister so much that she's willing to help her with his injuries. Abigail looked at his wounds, “The scratches we can clean and bandaged up but the teeth marks are going to need a lot of stitches.” said Abigail, opening the first aid kit up and getting out what they needed for it. “Lucky for you, I have done these stitching dozens of times on that meathead, Allen O'Neil, and his son when they get stabbed or...or...” Abigail's sentences trailed off and her eyes were like a deer in the headlights. Trevor removed his shirt and discarded it to the side, revealing his muscle tone chest and traced out abs and a tiny scar on his upper right arm. She was memorized by his well-cared body and she was so lucky to be helping it get better and getting an up close and personal look. Beatrice nudged her sister, “Abigail, we got a demon out there that's trying to kill us, remember?” Abigail snapped out of it and apologized to her sister and Trevor was blushing a bit and awkwardly looked away. She cleaned his shoulder up with some medicine and took a needle and thread and began stitching the wound up carefully to prevent inflicting any more pain on Trevor. She made a tight knot and cut the thread and apply a gauze and bandages on it and she helped him clean up the scratch wounds next which was a simpler fix that he can do on his own. She still couldn't keep her eyes off of him, she wants to make a permanent mental image of this till he put his shirt back on and slowly got off the floor and grabbed for his Heavy Machine gun. “Thank you, Abby and Beatrice, for helping me. I'll get a doctor to check for any sign of infections when I get back.” They were quiet as they navigated the building and Trevor shattered the door's window with the butt of his knife and unlocked it from the other side and they stepped outside. They were back on the street again and they let out a sigh of relief. “We better get going and find Allen O'Neil, Abigail. I bet he didn't find anything.” she said and walked ahead of them. Abigail looked over at Trevor, the young woman was blushing and it felt like it was saving the Mars People from the Dragunov and Yoshino all over again. If the Aliens were replaced with a bloodthirsty demon. “I better follow my sister but first.” Trevor looked at her, “I guess you're going to take me prisoner then.” Trevor was wrong about that plan. The next thing he knew, he felt Abigail leaning in close and giving him a sweet soft kiss on the lips and she stepped back, “Thank you for saving me and my sister.” Abigail turned and walked away. Dumbfounded over what just happened and watching the sisters disappear down the street, Trevor stood there for a good while till he heard Nadia running up to him. Trevor, are you okay? I heard gunshots and came running.” said Nadia between pants and Trevor brushed his fingers over his lips lightly, “Ye-Yeah, I'm all right, Nadia. Let's go find the others.”

#Metal Slug #Demon Song #Fanfic

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years ago

Text

I Didn’t

http://dudeblade.tumblr.com/post/163454403646/so-kob-how-exactly-did-you-debunk-my-claim

1. That was not the argument at hand in the OP: The argument was whetehr or not the shows you listed where better than RWBY.

And 2. I actually did compare RWBY to them. And I even pointed this out the last time you tried this and said how it was an example that RWBY stands up even to professional shows.

But, guess it’s easier to fight a strawman huh?

Primarily out of curiosity. To see if they still held up even after all these years, and to see how they compare to RWBY. IMPO, they are BETTER. Oh wait, that’s an opinion that makes RWBY seem mediocre in comparison, no WONDER you think that all I do is bash RWBY despite the fact that I want to love the show. It makes SO Much SENSE NOW.

No, you were talking in a very affirmative and factual way in the OP, meaning you were claiming yourself to be right. (https://knightofbalance-13.tumblr.com/post/162855264440/yes-yes-it-was)

And I realized that the show, Beast Wars, one of the very FIRST 3D Animated shows ever aired, is better than RWBY.

So no, you were not saying an opinion, you were trying to pass off an opinion as fact. As you are still doing now. And half of your argument is strawmaning me for pointing this out by twisting the facts: if you are so right, you wouldn’t need to do this.

1. So, if Cinder is supposed to be hated, why are we shown her having regrets about things? Why are we shown her to be in pain? These are things that are done to give us a reason to sympathize with a villain, but we have yet to actually be SHOWN or even TOLD what her reasons are for wanting power. She’s supposed to be sympathetic in those scenes in Vol 4, but earlier she acts like a villain who is aware that she’s evil, and is okay with that. Also, the Joker is a force of nature, no villain can top him. But Rampage utterly DEMOLISHES Cinder in the ‘motive’ department.

because she was give n some humanity, some flaws, to make her less two dimensional. By this logic, because the Joker has a tragic backstory, we are meant to feel sorry for him when that is clearly not the case.

And here’s a problem I stated in the argument: Beast Wars is finished. RWBy is not. In the future, we could very well get more information on Cinder’s motives. You can’t make judgements like these until you have all the facts: And yet you are making broad strokes about RWBY.

No...The Joker is not a “Force Of Nature” villain: Darkseid is an example of that type of villain. The Joker is the “Insane, tricky, unpredictable, chaotic trickster” type of villain. This is a problem you have here: You cannot tell the difference between two types of characters. It’s like saying Shinji Ikari is a better protagonist than Goku: they are not compatible. In fact: That in and of itself is a problem here. Rampage was built t be the “Tragic insane” character whereas Cinder is the “power hungry manipulator” villain: they are not compatible thus the argument comes down to who you like subjectively better and in an argument, that means jack shit.

And another thing: You STILL don’t explain jackshit abut your side: How does rampage crush Cinder in motive? Why does he? You can’t just claim these things as fact.

2. Beast Wars IS better. For starters, the writers NEVER withheld valuable information, and they never relied on forced humor. Not to mention the fact that the characters are fleshed out, and get more than one episode in the limelight.

Okay, so first you say that you are stating your opinion and now you are repeating what you said earlier but as fact...Dudeblade, you can’t even go a paragraph without contradicting yourself.

Okay...So? How is that bad? How is not withholding information bad in RWBY or Best Wars? in fact: How do you know withholding info wouldn’t make Beast Wars better or not make RWBY better? No explanation? FIne, your argument is invalid.

How is the humor forced or not forced? What is the tone of Beats Wars and how does it ? Any examples? No? Then I claim bias against RWBY again.

And RWBY isn’t finished: Stop making jumps in logic just to suit your narrative.

3. This is because RW/BY has a cultish following of fans who refuse to see the bad in the show. Like you. You claim that RT isn’t homophobic when they literally repeated the same unfunny “fag” joke in Camp Camp TWICE! And this is just proving my point. “If it’s professionally made, but has a lower rating on IMDb, then we can compare it to RW/BY“ - That’s you. “If it was professionally made, but has a higher rating than RW/BY, then it isn’t fair to compare the two.” - That’s also you.

And I can claim that Beast Wars has a cultist following fueled by Nostalgia and it’d hold the same weight as yours: none at all. because neither of us provide any evidence. In fact, I can say that you are biased against RWBY and then as proof point out all points in which you ignore aspects of RWBY (such as being incomplete, different types of villians and how the shows are structured) or never give examples (humor, motives, characters as well as action, vocals, audio and animation) in this very post in order to declare Beats Wars better.

I can also point out the fact that you call Camp Camp unfunny but admit to watching South Park and the SImpsons were they made those exact same jokes.

And no, I am not. As we will see latter down the line, I actually compare RWBY to higher rated shows. You are the only one who refuses to acknowledge RWBY as being professional until you can say that it is worse than something else.

Here, let me do it right now. Jimmy is the smart kid who feels like an outcast because of his intillect - Something that people can relate to because they can feel like an outcast for simply being BETTER than others at something. Carl is the kid with the medical conditions and weird obsession, which everyone has. Sheen is the guy who hero worships a fictional character, much like how you worship miles and Kerry. Cindy is the girl who is jealous that her title of “The Smartest” was toppled, and Libby has an obsession over music - something that EVERYONE has, or at least KNOWS a person who is.

Except that I don’t feel like an outcast because of my intellect, in fact, it wasn’t because I had something over other people but rather I LACKED something from them. So Jimmy would seem pretentious and entitled to me. Not everyone has a weird obsession and definitely doesn’t have medical conditions. And you missed the ACTUAL chance to be right and say “Kamina or Simon The Digger”, two characters I heavily look up to. Instead, you bring up an attack on me that makes you look like an ass.

Cindy just comes off as a brat to me because I LIKE it when someone is smarter than me: it allows me to see what I am doing wrong and improve. And Libby’s obsession with music is literally the only thing I can relate to.

See the problem Dudeblade? Not everyone THINKS your way, not everyone AGREES with you: In fact, most people don’t.

Going off of your point: I can say the same to the characters in RWBy. Everyone has been like Ruby at some point, blissfully believing in a good world. A lot of people have parental problems like Weiss (like you), a lot of people can relate to trying to fight against the world while trying to NOT become like their enemy and a lot of people can relate to Yang’s depression (as I have and I know you have.) Even if you bring up my previous point: That just means the two shows go after different things.

But if you insist on this, let me ask you: Name a trait of Jimmy’s that isn’t smart or condescending. Name a trait of Carl’s beside sick and weird. Name a trait of Sheen’s beyond stupidity and obsession. Because I can with RWBY: Ruby’s issues with dealing with the world not being what she thought it was, her eagerness to make friends and her guilt about putting people around her in danger. Weiss has her overcoming her racism, learning to put aside her grievances with Ruby to work with her and become her best friend and her admiration of her sister Winter. Blake has her cowardice, her martyr complex, her issues with Adam as well as her inability to let people help her. yang has her maturity, her depression and overcoming it, her good nature, her relationship with Ruby and her father, her duality with her mother and her tendency to be harsh towards those she cares about. You do not give an example of how they are better characters beyond being relateable which RWBY has as well.

Oh hey, look! MORE proof that IMDB ratings are all that matter. Despite the fact that you claim that LoK has an unfair advantage when it has a higher rating.

1. Because they are factual and the only place RWBY shares a page with all the examples.

And 2. I pointed out the exact same advantages that the other three had as well:

And unlike Beast Wars which is a part of an existing franchise, complete and had more professional backing: RWBY didn’t and still doesn’t. Again, while this is amazing of Beast Wars, RWBY is still factually rated higher so your opinion doesn’t hold much weight.

And this while being completed and backed by a popular network whereas, again, RWBY is NOT. SO even with all those advantages, RWBY still beats it out.

And it aired on Cartoon Network and is complete. So your statement fails.

I bring them up in BOTH sides of the coin: You only argue them when they have the higher ratings.

More proof that you only care about ratings when it comes to comparisons.

Contradicted when I demanded that you explain why it was better right BEFORE that as well as the fact that I bring up this right at the end:

And the only one I really fond impressive is Beast Wars. Storm hawks and Jimmy Neutron are both utterly crushed by RWBY in teh ratings, who doesn’t have network backing, isn’t a part of an existing franchise and isn’t complete so it can still go up.

And again: ratings are factual. You cannot make them up nor can you fake them. They are a factual way of quantifying a series' quality. You have yet to disprove that.

YOU SEE! You just proved my point. You just said that the other shows don’t matter because they got crushed by ratings, but when it’s RWBY that’s getting crushed, then it’s unfair because they had “network backing.” NEWS FLASH! - LoK got SCREWED OVER by the network. Your argument is ALREADY contradicted by actual facts.

Except that these exact points you bring up were brought up with the previous three when they had lower ratings: You are only now arguing them because you have a chance at twisting the facts.

And how was LOK screwed over? Because it got so low ratings that Nickolodean pulled it off the air? (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/TheLegendOfKorra) Wouldn’t a show getting pulled or canceled be a sign of it being bad normally unless proven otherwise, which is not the case here? Especially since TLA never did?

Again, because people like YOU keep claiming that it’s “unfair” to compare RWBY to things like LoK or SU. RWBY has the advantage of not having to deal with censors, and being able to go back to fix things they are aware would make fans confused, but they don’t take advantage of it. Which is a problem considering that you seem to ignore the fact that other shows have to deal with censors, and don’t have the luxury of being able to hire TFS or Funimation VA for one-shot characters. when SU uses a guest star, it’s for a character that is special, and is likely to return. RWBY? - “Oh hey! Let’s hire TFS voice actors for these characters” “Great, which ones?” “These guys.” “But, they’ll only be there for one episode…And they hardly have any lines.” “Exactly! We’ll get the recognition of USING TFS actors to voice characters,and NOT have to worry about paying them so much” - That? That was the (probable) thought process that went into the idea of using TFS actors. Though, it’s also my cynicism talking as well.

I claim it is unfair...then proceed to compare them to RWBY with the same standards that I did with the previous three while you refuse to argue ratings until they are higher than RWBY’s? And...so what about censors? Stuff that the censors deal with nowadays don't concern the quality of a show: Lesbians and black people do not make a good show. They are inconsequential to a show’s quality.

And that’s true...only Tara Strong, one of the most iconic voices in the business.

And a constant compliant with RWBY has always been the voice acting: So wouldn’t hiring more professional actors fix the problem? So attempting to fix a problem is bad now?

And you just admitted to having bias being prevalent in your argument: Why should anyone take what you say here seriously?

Much like how RWBY isn’t even noteworthy enough to get a review by the Nostalgia Critic despite LoK and SU doing so. And considering that you used the words “mostly just using Smash Bros brawl for acting” when you conveniently ignore the stolen assets that RWBY uses, I’m guessing you don’t even know the story at all.

... Nostalgia critic doesn’t review cartoons anymore, especially such recent ones. That's Doug Walker and those are Vlogs, personal opinion. Not factual reviews.

And that “assest stealing” has been disproven (https://lovenotefromcoco.tumblr.com/post/155633293739/slashmaiddeviantartcomartrwby-wtf-645284611). A RWBY fan would know this.

Here’s another thing: Just because RWBY is the first American-made anime DOESN’T automatically excuse any of the mistakes that it constantly makes. I know that’s a hard concept for you, but I can do this about Beast Wars and the mistakes that it made despite being one of the first 3D animated shows to ever air.

Okay...never said it did: You were just trying to devalue the accomplishments of RWBY so I showed accomplishments you couldn’t devalue.

Ahem; Tigerhawk got killed off too early, we never got to explore a whole lot on Megatron’s dragon mode, Blackarachnia whines about not being trusted too much despite having a lot more bad blood with the other Maximals, they used TIME TRAVEL as part of the plot, and Rampage’s caring nature wasn’t explored that much.

And yet you claim it to be better than RWBY when I see many of the same mistakes you claim RWBY has done in here. And when I did this in the past, you still called me a fanboy so why should this be different for you?

There, I just listed off some of the things in Beast Wars that were mistakes/irritating. But unlike RWBY, these are just mine, whereas most of the gripes about RWBY are shared by most of the rwde tag.

And are these shared by most of the RWBY tag on Tumblr, let alone circles that do not include Tumblr? Are they shared by the critics of RWBY or that one jackass FMF? No, so by your own logic, you are still wrong here.

Grow the fuck up kob. RWBY isn’t “Magically exempt from criticism” like you say. Neither are miles, Kerry, Grey, and the rest of crwby. They have to be held accountable for their bullshit excuses and mistakes, or they’ll only receive praise from the likes of you and the rest of the cultish fndm. Meaning that they’ll keep making the same mistakes over. And over. And over.

Funny you say that: I did in fact criticize RT in my Volume 4 review (https://team-crtq.tumblr.com/post/162758524659/volume-4-review). I’m not the one lying, attacking people, being hypocritical, calling someone racist in the tags for no reason other than Ad Hominin and attacking people. I’ m not the one who refuses to say anything but one side of a conversation, refuse to do the same for other shows and then calls everyone who disagrees with them a “cult.” That’s just you.

You failed in the very title of your post so I don’t know what you were expecting.

#rwde bullshit #dudeblade

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