#Neither abandoned nor Forsaken

[doulafaith]

Christ's Breakthrough

“His Abide”  Reading  Reflecting Responding To God’s Word while Walking it Out Context: Matthew 27: 1-66 Focus:  Matthew 27:51-52 “At that moment the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth quaked and the rocks were split. The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many saints who had fallen asleep were raised.” Matthew 27: 51-52 Definition: Breakthrough – a military…

[hidden-behind-the-fourth-wall]

For Rome - Chapter 1

Summary: A weary Roman General, Marcus Acasius, sets out to find the so-called "Angel" his soldiers speak of—a woman with a gentle touch and an even softer voice. What he discovers is far more extraordinary than he ever imagined.

Pairing: General Marcus Acasius x F!Reader

Warnings: a description of injuries (I'm not a doctor or do not have any medical education so apologies), nothing here yet. English isn't my first language so all mistakes are mine for which I apologise.

Words: 6K

The life of a soldier was never an easy one, but the life of a Roman soldier? It was a crucible of steel and blood. General Marcus Acasius knew this better than most. War had carved its lessons into his flesh and seared them into his soul. He had lived through campaigns that churned the earth with rivers of blood, watched comrades fall like broken reeds, and seen hope flicker and die in the eyes of too many men. This was not a life he would have wished upon his worst enemies—let alone himself.

And yet, here he was. Bound by duty, chained to Rome’s legacy, and crushed beneath the weight of serving not one, but two emperors whose names would forever leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

Two boys drowning in power they neither earned nor understood. They were spoiled by their station and cruel in their ignorance, wielding authority like a child might a blade—clumsy, reckless, and devastating. Marcus had long since lost count of the orders he had executed on their behalf, justifying them under the banner of Rome. Yet he knew the truth. He had not fought for Rome in years. He fought for their whims, their games. And the cost? Endless bloodshed. Endless grief.

The screams haunted him most—the keening wails of mothers clutching lifeless sons, the choking sobs of widows, the silent, hollow-eyed children whose futures he had stolen with the sweep of a sword. He had grown sick of it all. Sick of blood-soaked glory, of starving masses, of men reduced to mere tools in the grotesque machinery of imperial ambition.

Perhaps that was why he found himself here now, in the shadowed underground of the subcity. The stench of rot and despair clung to the narrow alleys, and the skeletal frames of the impoverished haunted every corner. It was a place forgotten by the sun and abandoned by Rome, yet it thrummed with whispers.

Whispers of you.

An “angel,” his soldiers had called you. At first, he had dismissed their reverent tones as the drunken ramblings of battle-weary men. What could an angel possibly look like in a place like this? But the way they spoke of you lingered in his mind, drawing him down into this forsaken part of the city.

It was not the talk of your beauty that intrigued him. He had seen beauty before—false and true, fleeting and eternal. What struck him was the way his men, hardened and stoic, described your hands, your voice, your presence. They spoke of the way your touch could ease pain, how your smile softened the sharp edges of their suffering, and how your words, simple and kind, could light the darkest of days. They described you with an almost childlike awe, as though you were something beyond their comprehension, something Rome itself could not tarnish.

Marcus wanted to scoff at their adoration, but the weight in their voices told him otherwise. Could someone like you truly exist in this ruined city? A city bloated with greed, corroded by power, and built on the bones of the desperate? He needed to see for himself.

You were said to help those Rome had cast aside—the soldiers, the beggars, the orphans, and the broken. While the wealthy insulated themselves from the rot, you faced it head-on. Even Lady Lucilla, a shrewd and guarded aristocrat, spoke of you with an uncharacteristic fondness. “A stubborn creature,” she had called you with a rare smile. “She takes only what she needs, no more, even when I insist. She’s maddeningly selfless, like a fool chasing the wind.”

It was those words that lingered as he descended into the subcity. They painted an image of someone unyielding, someone who refused to be swallowed by the darkness around her. Someone who, perhaps, could remind him of what it meant to fight for something greater than power.

The streets grew narrower, the air thicker. His boots crunched against the broken cobblestones as he approached the small gathering place where you were said to tend to the sick and weary. His heart, hardened by years of war, beat faster, not with fear but with something he couldn’t quite name.

The room was not what he expected.

Makeshift beds lined both sides of the narrow space, occupied by men, women, and children in various states of weariness and healing. Yet, unlike the countless barracks and field hospitals Marcus Acasius had seen in his lifetime, this place radiated an unusual serenity. The faces of the sleeping bore no trace of the gnawing fear he had come to associate with suffering. It was as if some invisible spell had been cast here, lulling their troubled souls into a rare and precious peace.

He inhaled deeply, preparing for the sharp sting of blood and rot so common in places of injury and despair. Instead, the air was clean—remarkably so. It smelled faintly of herbs, maybe lavender, and something subtler, something soothing. It reminded him of the private quarters back at his villa, of the rare nights when he could sleep without the shadows of war pressing against his chest. A ridiculous thought, he chastised himself.

And then, he saw you.

You stood with your back to him, entirely focused on the child sitting on the small, battered chair in front of you. Marcus had made no attempt to move quietly—he was a soldier, not a thief—but you hadn’t turned at the sound of his boots on the stone floor. It wasn’t fearlessness; it was trust, an unshakable calm that marked every movement of your hands as you adjusted the sling cradling the boy’s injured arm.

The child couldn’t have been older than eight. His tear-streaked face glistened under the dim light, and yet his lips curved into a smile—soft, hesitant, but undeniably genuine. A smile on the face of an injured child. Marcus stared at the sight, unmoored. He had never seen such a thing before. In the chaos of war, even when children were treated, their screams and sobs were met with indifference, their pain an afterthought. But here, this boy laughed—a pure, light sound that bounced off the walls like a small rebellion against misery.

“General.”

Marcus turned to his right, startled from his reverie. One of his men lay in a bed nearby, his head wrapped in clean bandages, his arm in a sling not unlike the boy’s. He bore the marks of battle but looked far better than Marcus had expected. There was color in his cheeks, and his voice, though tired, carried a note of gratitude. “I didn’t expect to see you here, sir.”

With a quick wave of his hand, Marcus silenced the man’s attempt to rise and salute. Before he could reply, a burst of laughter drew his attention back to you.

The boy was laughing again, his small body shaking with mirth. From where Marcus stood, it seemed you were scolding him, your finger jabbing lightly into his tiny chest. But the smirk tugging at the corners of your lips betrayed you. Whatever you were saying, it was no reprimand. It was a game, a tease, an effort to pull the child out of his fear and into the safety of his own joy.

You lifted the boy off the chair with ease, steadying him as his bare feet touched the floor. His brows knit together as you handed him a small cloth bag, but his frown vanished the moment he peeked inside. His wide, shining eyes spoke volumes. To him, whatever lay within was a treasure.

“Food,” the soldier beside Marcus murmured, his voice low as if sharing a secret. “She always sends them off with something to eat and a few bandages, in case they need more later.”

Marcus turned to him, his expression unreadable.

“We soldiers don’t take the bags,” the man added, his lips curving into a faint smile. “It’s our way of helping her, in a sense.”

Marcus’s gaze shifted back to you, just as the boy flung his arms around your waist. The child’s face pressed into the fabric of your tunic, and for a moment, Marcus expected you to flinch, to recoil from the dirt and grime clinging to him. But you didn’t. Instead, you wrapped your arms around him, holding him as though his small embrace was a gift you treasured.

The light in your eyes was unguarded, pure, as though you had managed to unearth something sacred in this forsaken world. And in that instant, Marcus understood. It wasn’t just the calm you brought to the room or the kindness in your actions. It was the way you saw them—not as burdens, not as broken things to be fixed, but as people.

His gaze landed on you then. You had paused in your work, looking at him with a flicker of curiosity. For a moment, your eyes studied him, piecing together who he might be. Then came the realization, settling over your face like a shadow. Marcus braced himself, expecting anger, distrust, or even fear. He was, after all, the embodiment of the Rome that so many here had suffered under—a man of war, destruction, and discipline.

But no such emotion crossed your features. What he saw instead was recognition and something that startled him even more: worry.

You moved toward him with a grace so natural it seemed deliberate, your steps soft and careful, as though you were wary of waking the injured souls around you. Not that the child’s laughter hadn’t already done so—it rang through the space like a bell, impossible to ignore. Yet your gentle tread felt like a habit born not of necessity but of respect.

“General Marcus Acasius,” you greeted him, your voice low but warm, your lips curling into a soft smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. The worry lingered there, quiet but unmistakable. “Whatever brings you here? I hope you’re not injured?”

Your voice was something else entirely. It carried a tenderness he had not heard in years. It reminded him of a mother soothing her child after a nightmare. No wonder his men had spoken of you the way they had; he could see now how easily they must have fallen under your spell.

“Nothing to worry about,” he replied, surprised at the gravel in his voice. “Just a few bruises—annoying more than painful.” He didn’t know why he admitted it out loud. Perhaps it was the way your eyes held his, unwavering and full of quiet concern, or the way your tone invited truth without demanding it.

“I can take a look at them, if you’ll let me.”

You stepped closer then, as if reaching out to touch him, but your hand hesitated mid-air before falling back to your side. It was almost imperceptible, that moment of pause, but Marcus saw it. It wasn’t fear. It was something else—an acknowledgment, perhaps, of who he was and what he carried. You were cautious, yes, but not timid.

Your attention shifted to the soldier in the nearby bed, and the smile on your face broadened into something softer, brighter. “Emascus,” you murmured, moving to his side. Your hand brushed gently against his forehead as you checked his temperature, your touch featherlight. “You’re not running so hot anymore. That’s a relief.”

The soldier nodded, a faint smile tugging at his lips.

Marcus watched the exchange, a strange mixture of emotions stirring in his chest. Gratitude was chief among them—gratitude that someone cared for his men in a way he no longer could. Your hands, your voice, your presence—it was a balm for these battle-weary souls. But beneath that gratitude was a deep sadness. It pained him that such care could only be found here, in the forgotten corners of Rome, among those cast aside by the empire he had given his life to defend.

Your voice drew him from his thoughts.

“Would you be so kind as to wait for me in that room there?” you asked, gesturing toward a door at the end of the corridor.

For a moment, Marcus didn’t register that you were speaking to him. When he did, his brows lifted in surprise. There was an unexpected firmness in your tone—not commanding, exactly, but resolute. Though your words were phrased as a request, there was no mistaking that you fully expected him to comply.

“I like my patients to have an ounce of privacy while I take care of them,” you continued, your smile returning, this time with a hint of mischief. “If you allow it, my lord.”

Something in your tone almost made him laugh. He hadn’t been spoken to like this in years—not with such quiet authority, not by someone who seemed utterly unshaken by his presence. You didn’t seem to see the weight of his title, only the bruised man standing before you.

His lips twitched, amusement threatening to break his stern facade, but he merely nodded and turned toward the door. He left the soldier in your care and entered the room you had indicated.

The space was small but neat, with a wooden bench against one wall and a table holding an assortment of salves and bandages. It smelled faintly of herbs, the scent even stronger here than in the main room. As he sat, Marcus felt a strange sense of anticipation, as though crossing the threshold of this room had marked the beginning of something he couldn’t yet name.

He leaned back, his gaze drifting to the door as he waited. For the first time in years, he wasn’t thinking of battles or emperors. Instead, his mind was filled with you—your quiet confidence, your steady hands, and the unexpected strength in your voice.

He hadn’t even noticed when his eyes closed. The stillness of the room wrapped around him, lulling him into an unfamiliar calm. It was unlike him to let his guard down. Years of war had taught him to remain vigilant, always aware of his surroundings. Yet here he was, letting his defenses crumble in the quiet warmth of this strange place.

The great General Marcus Acasius, lulled into a fleeting peace by a mere slip of a woman. He almost chuckled at the absurdity of it. Somewhere in the heavens, the gods were surely laughing.

When he woke, the room was darker than he remembered. The soft glow of a single candle now lit the space, casting flickering shadows across the walls. He blinked, his eyes adjusting, and realized the other candles had been extinguished. The lone flame illuminated a desk cluttered with papers, small jars, and bundles of herbs.

You sat there, leaning over a parchment, your brow furrowed in concentration. The light caught the curve of your cheek and the faint smudge of ink on your fingers. There was an endearing focus to the way you worked, your nose scrunching slightly as if deep thought required such a gesture.

A strange thought crossed his mind—you looked almost...adorable.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

His voice was rougher than he intended, and he regretted it when you jumped, startled by the unexpected sound. Your hand flew to your chest, but the alarm faded quickly, replaced by that familiar, calming smile.

“You seemed like you needed the rest, my lord,” you replied, standing to light the other candles. The room grew warmer, brighter, the flickering light chasing away the shadows and revealing more of the space. You moved with practiced ease, each motion deliberate yet unhurried.

Moments later, you handed him a cup of wine. “It may not be as fine as what you’re accustomed to, but my father always said it’s good manners to greet a guest of high rank with wine rather than water.”

There was a playful lilt to your voice, a teasing cheerfulness that felt out of place yet oddly welcome. It caught him off guard—not just the tone, but the fact that you spoke to him as if he were merely a man, not a general burdened by the weight of Rome’s empire. There was respect in your words, yes, but also a grounding quality that made him feel human, rather than the untouchable figure most people treated him as.

He took a cautious sip of the wine, raising a brow in surprise. It wasn’t the finest vintage he’d ever tasted, but it was far from the worst. Given your introduction, he’d expected something barely drinkable.

His surprise deepened when he noticed you pouring yourself a cup of water.

“I prefer to keep my wits about me,” you said, catching his expression. “A clear head is important, especially if someone comes in need.”

But when he didn’t respond, still staring at you with mild bewilderment, you reached for his cup and took a small sip of the wine yourself. The casualness of the gesture startled him. You drank as if it were the most natural thing in the world, then placed the cup back in his hands with a smirk.

“See? I’d make a terrible healer if I poisoned my patients.”

“And since when am I your patient?” he asked, his tone caught between amusement and disbelief. Few dared to address him so directly, let alone with such nonchalance.

“Since you admitted your bruises,” you replied, settling onto the edge of your desk with an easy grace. You leaned forward slightly, your gaze locking with his. “Speaking of which, will you let me see them? I might be able to make them less...annoying.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, almost forming a smile. The way you quoted his own words back at him carried a lightness he hadn’t felt in years.

For a moment, he simply looked at you. In a world that demanded so much pretense, you were refreshingly unguarded, completely at ease in your skin. There was a peculiar strength in your openness, a quiet defiance of the world’s harshness that left him disarmed.

And against all odds, he found himself nodding.

“Let me help you with this,” you said softly, gesturing to his armor.

Your tone was steady but not commanding, leaving the choice entirely to him. Marcus hesitated for a moment before nodding, a small gesture that carried more weight than you realized. You hadn’t moved an inch until he gave his permission, a restraint he found rare and striking. You valued dignity, it seemed—not just your own but that of others—and in a world like his, where power often crushed such considerations, it felt like a delicacy.

Your hands, though small, moved with confidence. It wasn’t the first armor you had removed, that much was clear. Yet there was a care in the way you handled the clasps and buckles, as if you weren’t simply working with steel but touching him directly. That thought made Marcus uneasy, though not unpleasantly so. You were a mystery, a curious creature that didn’t fit into any category he knew.

When you finally peeled away the layers of armor and his tunic, leaving him in his undergarment, your sharp intake of breath didn’t escape him.

“Those look a bit more than just annoying bruises,” you chided, your voice carrying both concern and a quiet reprimand.

Marcus felt strangely exposed—not just physically but in some deeper, more vulnerable way. He had been treated by healers before, but those were men, soldiers like himself, who patched him up with brisk efficiency and little ceremony. This was different.

Your fingers brushed over his scars and bruises, light and careful, yet purposeful. Some of the older wounds bore the telltale signs of sloppy care: reddish bandages, poorly healed scars, and swelling around the stitches. Your grimace deepened as your gaze settled on two scars that had become infected.

He watched your face, noticing the way your lips pressed together in frustration, your brows knitting with disapproval. It wasn’t directed at him, though. That much was clear.

“You don’t look too happy,” he said, his voice laced with dry humor.

You sighed, your fingers continuing their examination. He winced when you pressed gently against one bruise, testing for deeper damage. But when your hand moved to the large bruise near his ribs, the pain was immediate and sharp. Marcus flinched, a curse slipping through his clenched teeth as his hand shot up to grab yours, stopping you from pressing further.

“Forgive me, General,” you said, your tone clipped, “but at least now I know you do feel pain. You’re just a complete moron for ignoring it.”

“Excuse me?” Marcus exclaimed, genuinely taken aback. For the first time in years, someone had spoken to him with such boldness, and he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or impressed. “Do you care who you’re speaking to?”

Your expression didn’t waver. In fact, you seemed entirely unbothered by his title or his irritation. “You can sentence me to death for my words if you wish, my lord,” you said, your voice firm but laced with a frustration he could only describe as maternal, “but it doesn’t change the fact that you have multiple broken ribs. And you’ve neglected them. Not to mention whoever last treated your wounds should be stripped of any right to practice medicine. Two of these scars are infected, and I’ll need to reopen, clean, and stitch them properly.”

You glanced up at him then, and his breath caught. The anger in your eyes wasn’t for him—it was for his neglect and whoever had failed to care for him properly. There was something about that look, fiery and determined, that melted something in him he hadn’t realized was frozen.

“So you can do whatever you wish with my head,” you continued, your tone softening slightly but still resolute, “but only after I’ve taken care of you, my lord.”

Marcus stared at you, speechless. No one had ever cared for him enough to risk their own well-being for his. You had to know the danger of speaking to him this way, yet here you stood, unwavering.

And, to his surprise, he didn’t mind. He found that when it came to you, he didn’t care about his status or authority.

“Where do you want me?” he asked at last, the faintest hint of amusement in his voice.

You blinked, caught off guard for the first time. Your reaction was subtle—just a few moments of hesitation—but it was enough to make him smirk. A small, childish triumph stirred in his chest, a victory that felt sweeter than any battle he’d won.

You were good. Really damn good. It didn’t take long for Marcus to understand why his men preferred you over the hardened healers in the camps. Your hands were smaller, gentler, moving with a precision that was both calming and mesmerizing. But it wasn’t just your touch—it was the way you talked him through each step, explaining what you were doing as though giving him a measure of control. It was a strange thing for him to find comfort in, but it steadied him in ways he didn’t expect.

When the time came to reopen his infected scars, you hesitated. Your expression faltered, guilt flashing across your features like a crack in the calm façade you wore. “Brace yourself,” you said softly, almost pleading. And when the scalpel touched his skin, you winced, as though the pain you inflicted was your own to bear.

It hurt, of course, but it was nothing Marcus hadn’t endured before. Yet the way you worked, with such care and purpose, made it impossible to look away. Your movements were swift but deliberate, your focus unwavering. You cleaned each wound with an attentiveness he had never experienced, as though the scars on his body were more than just marks of survival—they were something sacred.

“You’re better behaved than your men,” you teased as you began cleaning the second wound.

Marcus raised a brow, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Oh?”

“I remember Euthris once proposing that a kiss would make him feel better,” you said, a grin tugging at your lips.

He chuckled, the sound surprising even himself. He had known women who would have slapped a man for such a comment without hesitation. And yet here you were, laughing about it.

“I do apologize for my men,” he said, his tone warm, amusement lacing his words. Truthfully, he understood the poor soldier’s sentiment. He surprised himself by realizing he wouldn’t mind a kiss from you either. But he was no longer as bold as he once had been—age and experience had tempered him. “I assume he left thoroughly disappointed?”

You shook your head, a playful glint in your eye. “I kissed his cheek to thank him for donating his food bag to someone else.”

Marcus blinked, taken aback by your words. His expression softened as he processed them. Perhaps his men were flirtatious, even bold, but they were also honorable.

“They’re good men,” you continued, your voice quieter now. “I’ve noticed the way they leave their bags behind, or how they slip coins into places they think I won’t see. They could spend those coins on something for themselves, but instead, they choose to help. You should be proud of them, my lord.”

“I don’t believe I’ve had much to do with their actions…” Marcus began, but his words faltered as you began stitching the reopened scar.

Your apologies came soft and quick, almost teary, as the needle pierced his skin. He wanted to tell you it was fine, to reach out and brush the concern from your face, but he remained still, letting you work.

“I didn’t know about your existence,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now. “I came here because I overheard my men talking about you during one of their drunken nights.”

You flushed at that, your laughter turning awkward and small.

“They spoke of an ‘Angel,’” he continued, his eyes fixed on your face. “And I had to see for myself.”

“You must be disappointed then, my lord,” you whispered with a hint of humor, turning to the next wound. Again, you apologized softly when the needle broke through his skin.

“I never had an image in mind of what an angel might look like,” he said. His voice dipped, becoming almost reverent as he reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. The movement was instinctive, unplanned, and when your body froze beneath his touch, he hesitated. Had he crossed a line?

“But if someone were to ask me now,” he continued, his hand retreating slowly, “I would give them your description.”

Your breath hitched, and your wide eyes lifted to meet his. For a moment, neither of you spoke, the air between you thick with something unspoken.

You had heard of General Marcus Acasius. His name carried weight, whispered among soldiers and citizens alike. He was a formidable force, a man whose strength and cunning had turned the tide of many battles. But more than that, he was spoken of as a good man—merciless in war but fair, unwavering in his duty.

When he had walked into your space earlier that day, the first thing you noticed was how unfairly handsome he was. You had wondered, fleetingly, how a man like him could ever be sent to a battlefield. But now, as you stitched the last wound and felt the weight of his words sink in, you realized he was more than his reputation. He cared for his men, even as he neglected himself. He spoke without arrogance, treated you with respect, and carried a depth that made you want to know more.

“Forgive me, my lady. It seems I’m as ill-behaved as my men,” Marcus chuckled, the sound warm yet apologetic. His gaze dropped to your hands, which had frozen mid-motion after his words and touch. You swallowed hard, regaining your composure, and quickly returned to stitching the last wound.

When you finished, your voice was soft, almost hesitant as you asked him to remain lying down. If the room hadn’t been so quiet, he might have missed it entirely. Without waiting for a response, you turned to your table, busying yourself with a small bottle and herbs.

The smell that wafted from your work was unlike the harsh medicinal odors he’d grown accustomed to—sharp, biting scents that clung to battlefields and camps. This was different, a subtle and soothing aroma that seemed to fill the space with peace. He found himself breathing it in deeply, drawn to its unfamiliar comfort.

“You have nothing to apologize for, my lord,” you said after a moment, your voice steadier now. When you turned back to him with a medium-sized bottle and a piece of gauze, he noticed the faint flush on your cheeks. His lips curved into a small, unbidden smile, his ego growing slightly at the sight.

“Rather than ill-mannered,” you added, a shy smile tugging at your lips, “it was quite charming, I must admit.”

Marcus chuckled again, his gaze resting on you as though you were some kind of art—something rare and unexpected in his world of violence and chaos.

“But I am no lady,” you continued, meeting his eyes briefly before glancing away. “I’m just a girl from the lower classes, trying to carve out a place for herself in this cruel world.”

“You are the reason my soldiers are still standing,” he replied, his voice steady and sincere. “If anyone is worthy of the title, it’s you.”

His words took you off guard. There was a weight to them, a charm so effortless it almost felt unintentional. “Not to mention,” he added with a faint smirk, “you still haven’t told me your name.”

Your reaction was almost comical—your hands paused mid-action, and your mouth opened as if to reply, only for you to close it again, too embarrassed to speak. Marcus couldn’t hold back the laugh that burst from him. It was deep, genuine, and so free of burden that it surprised even himself. He hadn’t laughed like that in years, and you, caught in the sound of it, found yourself smiling despite your flustered state.

Finally, you managed to stammer out your name. The way he repeated it, soft and deliberate, made your heart skip a beat.

“I…” You cleared your throat, willing the warmth in your cheeks to fade. “I’ll apply this oil to the bruises on your ribs, then wrap them with bandages. I assume you won’t accept the bandages from me.”

When he nodded, the smirk on his face grew, earning a roll of your eyes.

“Fine,” you said with mock exasperation. “But I insist you take the oil and use it before bed each night.”

He hesitated for only a moment before accepting the bottle. He knew well enough he couldn’t find anything like it elsewhere. But as you began to pull your hand away, his fingers closed gently over yours, stopping you.

From beneath the folds of his armor, Marcus retrieved a small leather bag. Without hesitation, he placed it in your hand. The weight of the coins surprised you, and you immediately began to shake your head.

“I cannot accept this,” you said firmly. “I won’t—”

“You can,” he interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument, “and you will, my dear.” His smirk softened into something warmer, his voice quieter as he added, “You’re doing an incredible job—not just for my men but for everyone who comes to you. If not for yourself, then take it to help them.”

You looked down at the bag, then back at him, your throat tightening as the emotions you had kept at bay finally broke through. Tears welled in your eyes, spilling over before you could stop them.

“Thank you,” you whispered, your voice trembling. “From the bottom of my heart.”

Marcus, sensing your discomfort at showing such vulnerability, simply nodded and looked away, giving you a moment to collect yourself.

Steeling yourself, you poured some of the oil onto the gauze and began to gently apply it to his bruises. Your touch was soft but deliberate, your movements careful as you worked. The warmth of the oil seeped into his skin, its soothing scent filling the space between you.

As you finished and prepared the bandages, Marcus watched you with quiet fascination. He hadn’t expected to find someone like you in a place like this—someone who treated others with such care and dignity, no matter their station. He couldn’t help but admire you. There was a quiet strength in everything you did, a resilience that didn’t demand attention but couldn’t be ignored. Yet, alongside that strength, you carried a gentleness that was rare in a world like his—a softness that didn’t falter, even under the weight of the pain and chaos you confronted daily.

“I want this oil to be gone in three days,” you said at last, your voice steadier now, though the lingering care in your eyes hadn’t wavered since he first saw you. “Every night, it should be applied.”

You looked at him then, something sterner flickering behind your gaze, and for a moment, he saw the fierce determination that lay beneath your calm exterior. “And please,” you continued, the words firm but kind, “do not overwork yourself. Those ribs need time to heal, and they won’t get it if you keep pushing yourself.”

He smiled at that, a quiet acknowledgment of your concern, and nodded. His eyes never left you as you worked, wrapping his torso with bandages. Despite the size of your hands, your touch was confident, and your movements were precise. To his surprise, when you finished, he found himself able to breathe a little easier.

“The dressing of broken ribs is crucial for your health,” you explained, as though anticipating the thoughts running through his mind. “Even if it hurts a little, it needs to be done tightly enough to provide support.”

You glanced up at him, your smile gentle but teasing. “My biggest concern was that one of the ribs might puncture your lung. And, well, no one wants that.”

He chuckled at the light humor, his chest rising and falling more easily than it had in days.

“I won’t waste your hard work on me,” he said sincerely, his voice warm with gratitude. There was something in his gaze—a softness, an intensity—that made your breath catch for just a moment.

You nodded, stepping back and surveying your work with a satisfied expression.

“Do you need help dressing?” you asked, tilting your head slightly.

Marcus moved his arms tentatively, testing the bandages’ hold. To his relief, the sharp pain had dulled significantly. “No, I think I’ve got it,” he replied, shaking his head with a small smile.

“Good,” you said, turning back to tidy your workspace. “I want to see you again in three days for an inspection.”

He pulled his tunic over his head, watching you as you worked, your movements fluid and purposeful. He couldn’t help but notice the care in even the smallest gestures—the way you arranged the jars, the precise manner in which you cleaned your tools. His gaze lingered, and a soft smile touched his lips when he realized how intently he was observing you.

You continued speaking without looking at him. “Of course, if you decide not to take my head before then.”

At that, Marcus frowned. But when you turned to him with a playful smirk, his confusion gave way to quiet laughter.

“And who would take care of my soldiers the way you do?” he replied, his tone gentle but sincere.

Your expression softened at his words, and you rolled your eyes in mock exasperation. “Three days, General,” you murmured, turning to leave.

As you disappeared into the hallway to check on your other patients, Marcus remained where he was, his mind lingering on the sound of your voice and the way you had looked at him—not as a general, but as a man. He was already counting the hours until he’d have an excuse to see you again.

[peachetteprice]

heya, can I please request hc’s of how 141 boys would react to their s/o finding out they(141) cheated on their s/o (reader) . im in need of some angst 😭

Oh, boy.

Long disclaimer: this has been in my ask box since July, and I am well aware that it's unlikely you're still in need for angst. I quickly came to the realisation after working on it for a few days that I misread the entire prompt and had written for Price and Soap with YOU being the one to cheat on THEM (141). In my perfectionist state, I abandoned the whole thing, choosing to forget the whole prompt even if it meant denying someone who was clearly interested in my work something that they'd asked for that I could (reasonably) provide. Moral of the the story - I am an idiot and I edited this note so I could tell myself to STOP USING BIG WORDS JUST CAUSE THEY'RE BIG. Thanks. Love you.

Some of the Boys with Cheating S/Os

TW: General angst, adultery, mild aggression, mention of arson (mild)...

Captain John Price

Anyone knew it wasn't easy being married to a man such as John Price, himself included. He would have traded the life he had if he could, but he couldn't, nor wouldn't, because that wasn't the man he knew himself to be. Sure, in some perverted timeline, a thousand light years away wherein he didn't feel a sense of pride, responsibility, or accountability over the people with whom he shared his country, might he have taken that job as head of accounting he would have been promised, had he gone to university, or simply devoted his life to the blues and twos of the constabulary. None of it would have been harder work that he currently undertook, but it was honest work. And that was the sort of man he was: honest, dependable, and loyal.

That being said, much like the aforementioned, neither of those exclusive three things were easy to achieve. Nor adhere to. But when he stood at that altar in his pin-striped suit, pink and red corsage on chest, and spoke his vows to love you in sickness and in health - and, Christ, he didn't take them lightly - and you returned them, he hoped that you meant it.

And that wasn't to imply that you didn't. You did. Most ardently.

But the nights were long, cold, and unbearable without John. When he was back, he was often distant for a week or two, reeling from whatever madness he saw in the field. If he did make it back into his own mind, he was unlike the man who left beforehand. In fact, he would only return a few days prior to leaving, and then the cycle spun again. And again. And again.

He never spoke about it – the field. Never took a moment to cry in front of you – you heard him, of course you did, in the shower, when he thought you were doing the laundry – and if you did press him on the matter, he simply washed it away with a dismissive hand and a non-committal 'I'm fine, love'.

That might have been when it started. The distance. When the nights become longer, colder, and so unbearable that you needed something to warm the space beside you when he was away. That was all it was ever supposed to be.

John found the men's razor in the bin in the bathroom. It was your colleague, Mark's. He'd come over one evening to comfort you when John was away. It was supposed to be a bottle of wine and a walk home for him, but he woke up in your bed, and there was no stopping what had started, then.

There was no moment of doubt in John.

He knew it immediately; you had another man by your side.

He most expected it. That might have been the most devastating part of all. That, in sickness, he knew you might have longed for the warmth of a man to the point of committing adultery, even if you professed that your heart still lay with him. Even if he knew, himself, that it still did.

You knew he knew it, too, when he sidled into the kitchen with a hand palming his beard, and he placed the razor beside the pot of bolognese you were monitoring as it bubbled away.

"Got something to say?" He asked.

For some god-forsaken reason, there was no malice in his tone. He should have been near-boiling over the thought of another man with his hands on you – the body that he had sworn to cherish and to hold until the day he died.

But, as was the case when he took his vows, he did not take them lightly.

And though you sobbed, pitifully, and asked him to be quick with the divorce papers, so that you might quit your job and move somewhere else - somewhere less suffocating from the lies and the deception – John did not give up.

He threw the razor back into the bin. He sat you at the dining room table. He asked you to explain. Everything. From the very beginning – not since Mark, not since that bloody bottle of red wine, not since the gentle hand he placed on your knee when he should have been out the door – the complete, unabashed beginning when you first lost a modicum of care for him.

When you did finish speaking, the sun had come up. It must have been seven in the morning, but your eyes were so bloated, your words had torn such a scratch into your throat that you couldn't ask what time it was, nor even be able to see the clock on your kitchen wall.

It wasn’t pretty, the things you both spoke about, of the late nights spent texting John, asking if he was doing alright – to utter radio silence on the other end – as another man lay between your legs, suckling against your sopping cunt, and dragging every droplet of cum and sinful moan your voice had to offer, of the dissolved shared affection and broken trust that lined every sentence, of the nervousness as you walked into the pharmacy to ask for a morning-after pill, just to quell the shame you felt about having another man's uncloaked cock in your cunt, even though you were up-to-date on birth control that month.

But if anything permeated throughout the entire conversation, that cemented the idea that, if he hadn't asked you to be his wife, that someone else would have surely filled the role better than you – it was that he was not going to give up on you.

He'd given those vows as a promise, not as a suggestion. In sickness and in health. Till death do you both part. And you could have – and had – moped about how terrible a wife you were, how he should leave at the soonest possible moment and never look back, but that wasn't going to happen, so long as John Price was your husband. 

Because if there was one thing he would do, in every facet of life, perverted timeline or not, it was try.

For John Price would never give up on his lawfully-wedded wife.

John "Soap" MacTavish

There's a pair of underwear in the wash that doesn't fit him. He knows because he tried them on. They're initial-ed in sharpie on the inside label. JR. They're not his initials, that’s for certain. They're not his favoured design. They're not in the shade he wears. They're a lot of things that they aren’t and shouldn't be, like in the wash at all, beside your panties, one of your special weekend bras, and old bedsheets.

James Robinson, your pilates instructor.

It takes him too long to rack his brain before he happens upon the name, arriving at it after consulting your calendar magnet-ed to the fridge, spending the rest of the time thinking with them on the kitchen counter. He nurses a glass of milk as he does. It isn't right for alcohol at the time. It's only five in the morning, though if it were five in the afternoon he would have already taken the next bus to the White Rabbit pub and burnt them in the trash out in the alleyway, just to send a message to you to never give them back to the man who took you from him, when they better suited being strapped to one of his homemade explosives and thrown through the bastard’s office window.

The cereal you munch as he stares at you that same morning tastes sour. Seems like it’s gone off, but Johnny's drinking a glass – his third that morning – so you surmise it’s just about ready to turn. His eyes won't leave you. They often never did, particularly in the mornings, but not like this. Not with such intensity that your stomach draws bile from your liver.

The boxers are in the knife drawer.

You don’t know that the boxers are in the knife drawer, and if you did, you might have even fessed up before he had the opportunity to confront you about it. You’re a coward. You know it. He knows it, too. That’s why he’s waiting for the right time.

And when it is – the right time, that is – he digs them out from between the cutlery and throws them in your lap. It’s silly, really, the thought that takes the place of confusion in your brain. It’s stupid. Naive. Idiotic. Perverted.

"What was that for?" You chuckle, holding them up. Sure, if he wants that now, you're quite ready for it–

"–They're not mine."

All prior concern is embellished with fear. A gall builds in your stomach – you’re about to throw up, and a dry heave makes it to the base of your throat, a quick gulp forcing anything bitter back down. It’s simply foolish, how easily it makes complete sense. The nervous drinking all morning, the gaze that wouldn’t leave yours, the smell of cigarette ash on his fingers when he handed you the carton of milk for your cereal. And you think, oh-so naively, that there may be a chance to refuse his insinuation.

“They're not yours? Who else could these belong to, Johnny? They fit you, don't they?"

"Really? Seriously?" He bites back a disgusted scowl, you see it in his cupid’s bow, hunched up towards his nostrils exactly how it manifests in his nightmares, the scent of rotting bodies, dirty blood, unfinished business. "J.R."

You go blank. There’s nothing at all. You’ve never thought about nothing at all before. It’s a desolate place, the emptiness of your mind. It ruminates in your soul like footprints in a field at night. Who they belong to, why they’re there, why they’re no longer. There’s nothing to be seen, nothing to be heard, nothing to be felt – the trees are too far drawn into the night to be real; tangible.

"Johnny–" it spills out suddenly.

"–Don't you go sayin' my name with those dirty fuckin' lips!” He growls.

"We can – we'll talk about it.” Some things are coming to mind. Not many. Self-preservation related, mostly. “Sit down.” You wave your hands wildly. “I can explain everything, I promise–”

"–Oh," there was almost amusement in his voice, edging on the maniacal, certainly psychotic, "You take me for a fuckin' bampot, don't ye?"

"Johnny, please!"

He nears. He’s animalistic, right now, the way he's stalking you like a tiger who can’t pounce because you haven’t yet turned your back to him, and it wouldn’t be fun until you did. You've never seen that look on him. You never want to again, if he can help it, though you’re not sure he can. It's better suited to the field, staring down an enemy from close range, just before he sets a bullet straight through his head. A sharp fear rises behind the upset. It’s cold. It lingers like a needle beneath skin. It hurts.

"Get out of my house."

"What? Johnny?"

"I said, get out of my fuckin' house!" He swells with an uncanny rage.

Only when you do leave, retreating into the hallway wearing your pyjamas only, does he heave a breath or two that turn solidly into anguished pants, choked sobs and lonely wails. It isn’t supposed to turn out like this, sitting before the lift of your apartment complex, covering the guilt with the ruse of having lost your keys if anyone stops to ask if everything is okay, though everything is most certainly not okay.

James was a nice man. Johnny was a nicer one. But the quell in your throbbing, begging cunt from months of being apart from Johnny was even nicer when James indulged, tongue lapping over your folds like a dog wishing to please its owner. You told him you enjoyed it, even left him with a kiss on his cheek, and he left as soon as it ended, though you hid from him the fact that you threw up in the toilet as soon as you locked the door, sobbing into the same sheets he had you dribble your cum, wishing you could reverse time.

Johnny will never forgive you. That much is true. No matter how much you plead at his doorstep for him to reconsider the relationship – his mind is not so weak, and he finds it endearing that you seem to be convinced otherwise. Though, he does regret one thing – not taking your things, too, along with James’, to the empty lot behind the correctional youth centre and paying the kids there to watch it burn.

BONUS: Phillip Graves

Totally not because I feel bad about letting down anon... no way...

It's three weeks after the fact of your adultery that a text pops up on your phone, unattended, that reads something to the effect of feeling guilty about your time spent with a man for the benefit of revenge, suspecting that Graves, too, has been cheating, as you delicately lament to your best friend, Emily.

Naturally, he confronts you, and you know better than to lie to a man with an arsenal of juggernauts at his disposal, so you confirm his suspicions, and explain that it was by no fault but your own that you slept with Adam.

He’s furious, ardently so – justly so – and you explain that it was undeserved on both sides, to which he seems inexplicably confused, until landing on the understanding that you thought a woman you saw at a hotel with Adam was his lover. And you realise… he wasn’t cheating on you.

And the confusion compounds in your mind, realising his naivité of your illicit relationship was fueled only by the fact that you’d been attending book club at such ridiculous times in the night. He’s pacing, gasping for air as you rightfully say;

“I can’t believe you thought I was going to book club this whole time.”

And he stills, like a lamb, crouches against the dresser, and exclaims with such anguish that you wish you’d never said anything about it at all:

“There’s no book club?!”

| Masterlist |

[lullaebies]

For Aegon III/Jaehaera's requests: Aegon being nervous because Haera is having their first child and heir after a decade.

He can hear her screams of pain from behind the doors of their shared chambers.

He starts to pray the gods, despite Baela and Viserys' tentative reassurances then Haera calls for him and Aegon's feets lead him in front of the doors; the guards try to stop him and he orders them to not touch him.

They woke the dragon and the dragon will be protective of his mate and hatchlings.

When he enters, he is quick to be by Jaehaera's side

"My king you shouldn't-"

"I can and I will"

They had their baby boy🥺 and you bet that Aegon cries for the first time out of happiness, then Haera is there like: "Give him to me! he's mine!"

And doesn't allow anyone to touch their baby and you vet Aegon will wash his baby boy, much to the horror and amusement of the masters, midwives and Aegon's siblings

Aegon paces around the hallway in an attempt to calm down. He has been banned from his bedchambers for the better of half an hour now.  The Grand Maester and his accompanying midwives have tended his wife as she gave birth to her firstborn; their firstborn.

He is not a religious man, by any means of the word, but he prays under his breath. The gods had long forsaken him, laughing as they planted him on a throne of swords that had cost him nearby everything. But his wife had a woman of more faith, despite all she had been through herself. If the Seven are true to them, they would protect her.

Aegon hopes so, begs so, his stomach turning up and down. The toll of the birthing is clearly heard beyond the doors that separate them. Jaehaera is eight and ten, and they both grew plenty since their wedding, but she has remained a smaller woman to this day. Her pregnant belly had been big for her frame, he can’t help the dark thoughts his mind leads him to.

“You are going to have to breathe, dear brother,” Viserys tells him. “Births do not ever sound pleasant. This is a fact of life.”

Yet they never sounded so difficult for Larra, either, he wants to say, but he only frowns. If it wasn’t for the fact Lady Larra Rogare had left court a year prior, he may have said it aloud. Little Aegon, Aemon, and Naerys were left alone with only their father. The pit in Aegon’s stomach grows exponentially. This is a possibility, for Aegon too, and he had never trusted his odds.

Baela takes him by the shoulder. If it wasn’t his sister, he may very well flung that hand away. “You are going to look more dreadful than your wife when she gets out of that room,” she says straight to his face. “Calm down. I have done as much twice. Rhaena had done so six times. Your little wife will manage, she’s resilient, for all it’s worth.”

She’s neither you nor Rhaena. Resilient Jaehaera had been, but it hasn’t been without struggles. Aegon doubts she had ever said as much to anyone else but him, but this court had been a lonely place for her besides for him. She’s been changing it, step by step, and now labouring to change it definitively, but how alone must she feel in that room? 

Another pained wail comes from within the room. I can’t take it anymore.

“I am entering,” he finally says, escaping his sister’s grip. There are protests from all sides when he steps away from his siblings and to his Kingsguards. The bumbling fools in their white capes move to not allow him to enter, citing the instructions of the Maester, but he glares them down. He’s a full head taller than both, with a crown on his head. He has abandoned the days the Keep could rule him when he fired Lord Torrhen Manderly. “You serve the maester or the King, now? Move aside, or else.” 

The doors to the room open for him while Jaehaera is pushing, forehead wrinkled and sweatied as she does. All her attendants turn to him, but he ignores them and their words entirely.  Aegon only needs a few long steps to reach his wife, sitting beside her on their very bed. 

Jaehaera lifts her eyes to him, panting as he wipes her forehead and moves silver strands from her red-hued face. Grand Maester Munkun swallows as he moves to him. “Your Grace, you shouldn’t like to stay. Births are stressful occasions—”

Aegon does not listen to a thing the man says. “Aegon,” Jaehaera pants, fingers coming to clutch his sleeve. He gives her his full palm to squeeze. 

“—To both parents…” The Grand Maester slowly falters in his words.

“As I’ve noted,” Aegon answers, cutthroat. “I can stay and I will. Now mind your Queen before I find someone who does.”

The old man gulps in response, and scurries to his seat at the edge of the bed nodding. Aegon fixes the pillows under his wife’s head. The calls to push are difficult on his wife for a while, and he feels her using all her strength, the squeeze on his hand a testament to all her efforts.

Their child’s cradle is ready, standing by the window and illuminated by the sun. So many blankets woven for a child not yet born are laid within. Jaehaera had been waiting on the babe for so long, talking to her belly at times even, hoping the little one would hear. 

In comparison, Aegon had been almost afraid. He had worried and angered and anxiously dealt with the idea of a child coming under his wing. Broken wings, by most accounts. He has never known how his siblings had been able to heal the way they were, raising their own family in swift pursuit. Jaehaera’s losses, his losses, had made them become ghosts in the shells of their bodies for the longest while.

But he had grown into this shell, just as he had grown into his crown, and now it is their turn to rebuild. 

Jaehaera lets out a sharp yelp of pain, and Grand Maester Munkun lifts his head. “The babe is crowning,” he looks to the midwives. “Prepare the bath!”

Aegon squeezes his wife’s hand harder. Jaehaera’s eyes are bleary from tears of effort, but he feels he is the one who is in whirls of uncontrollable emotions. Jaehaera inhales in determination, readjusts her position and groans loudly one last time.

A babe’s cries deafen all other voices in the room. 

“It’s a boy,” Munkun announces to the room amidst cries of new life, and then looks at him. “A  healthy prince, Your Grace. An heir for the Iron Throne.”

Grand Maester Munkun is holding their son. Aegon doesn’t know how long he has been waiting on letting his tears fall. It could be from the moment he has been told Jaehaera’s water broke, and it could be from moons prior, when he had been first told Jaehaera is with child. There is some spell cast on him when he sees his boy writhe for attention, tufts of silver hair sticking to his head. It’s my…

The umbilical cord is cut, Jaehaera, despite her pain and fatigue, rises into half-sitting in a bolt. “He’s mine,” she yells at the Grand Maester, paralysing all attendants in the room. Queen Jaehaera, as the court knows her, hardly ever raises her voice. “Give him to me!” 

It’s their boy, first. Before he is an heir, before he is thrust into his royal position, it’s their son.

Aegon comes up from his place, and takes his son from Grand Maester Munkun before he could give him to any of the midwives. He is a big baby, eyeing Aegon with a stare of indigo. He has small, pouty lips, and squishy cheeks as red as all of his body is.

“Our son,” he says, placing the boy in her arms. Jaehaera holds him close to her chest, and finally, the stress on her face dissipates. Tears escape her eyes, but she smiles so widely. “He has your nose.”

“Hello. I am your mama,” she tells the newborn softly. The babe’s cries calm as they speak. Aegon brings a hand to caress his face. Does he recognize their voices? Aegon hasn’t spoken to him during the pregnancy as much as Jaehaera, but the nights he did, does the boy recall them? Aegon had been so afraid for his upcoming arrival, but now he has him and he can’t look away. “And this is your papa.”

It’s my family. 

And he loves it, so dearly, he will never let it go.

“Congratulations, little brother, and good sister,” he hears Baela’s voice from behind him. Both her and Jaehaera look up to her. His sister is mindful of their space, but ogles the little boy with a grin. Viserys is further back, trying to catch a glimpse of the child too. “The midwives are afraid to ruin the moment, so I must. Our prince needs to have his first bath before the water grows cold.”

Jaehaera licks her lips, rather hesitant to give the boy away. They share their reservations with only their eyes. Aegon thinks for a moment and kisses his wife’s temple before looking at all the attendants in the room. “Bring the bath here. I’ll do it.”

There are many variations of his title that come about in exclamation. ‘Your Grace’, ‘Your Highness’, ‘Your Majesty’ and so on and so forth, all complaints and concerns and whatnot. None of it matters, not even a smidge, when Jaehaera smiles at him, and gives him their boy in full trust. He holds him, swearing his arms would be secure for the boy evermore.

Because I am your father, above all else.

[rikafurukawa]

Lo, the hapless traveler, bound by cruel fate, wanders the inky void where neither time nor space obeyeth mortal law. In this forsaken realm, where light withers and shadows reign, her steps falter, yet her spirit remains unbroken.

The stars, mere remnants of a forgotten sky, offer no guidance. The very air is thick with the weight of forgotten truths, yet silence greets her every cry. No path, no hope of escape presents itself, for this place, abandoned by gods and men alike, doth bind her in its unyielding clutches.

The void, a prison without walls, speaks only of despair, leaving no refuge—only the endless dark.

[hhimring]

Three who Stayed in Beleriand

A fic compilation for "March of the Quendi".

Beleg Comes to Ivrin

The first Teler to come to Beleriand was Elwe, almost certainly. But he was in company with Orome and, with Orome, the three elves passed quickly back and forth without delay. Afterwards Elu was so full of the wonders of Valinor that he barely remembered any places they had passed through during the journey.

The first Teler to visit Ivrin was Beleg, scouting in advance before the rest, for he believed it was not sufficient only to rely on those who had arrived before them, although he had indeed spoken with Finwe and a few others of his people before setting out to get an idea of the lie of the land for himself. Beleg waded across the young Narog below the waterfall. He scooped up a handful of the water and drank and found it sweet and good to drink. Then he sat down cross-legged among the moss and ferns on the bank and listened to the cheerful song of the waters of Ivrin for a while.

Finwe was so eager to get where they were going, he thought, that he saw the land only in terms of space to be crossed. He was aware of possible dangers and advantages Beleriand offered to travellers, right enough, but was he truly stopping to look? However wonderful Valinor might be, at the end of the road, surely they could spend some attention appreciating what they found on the way? This now, this Ivrin, was a good place, a welcoming one. He would tell his kin about it, when he returned to them, and he would rest here a little longer before he went on.

Beleg did not know yet, of course, that Elu would be lost and that so many of his followers would spend the rest of their lives in Beleriand, but he did tell his people about the wellspring of Narog with its pools and falls and about other beautiful and kind places he had found. As the Forsaken settled in, waiting for Elu’s return and then gradually recognizing that they were in Beleriand to stay, Ivrin became a familiar stopping-point in the network of their journeys, of the paths they took as they went to and fro, exploring the land that had become their home.

Young Annael passed by Ivrin when he first climbed the path up the slopes of Amon Darthir, discovering a way into Hithlum through the mountain range, and afterwards he and others who settled with him at Mithrim came this way often. Although the Sindar made no permanent settlement at Ivrin, life went on there. Lovers walked on its banks, now and then, and perhaps Gwindor was not the first to compare his beloved to the gleam on the pools of Ivrin, even though still neither the Sun nor the Moon had risen yet.

[From: On the bonnie banks of Ivrin]

Celeborn at the Gates of Sirion

He had barely reached Olwe in time for a last farewell--just in time to tell him that Elwe still had not been found, time for Olwe to ask again: 'Won't you abandon this fruitless search and come with us?' and for Celeborn to reply, again: 'I can't give up yet. Won't you stay--wait a little longer?'

He had stood beside Cirdan and watched half his family, half his people being towed away out to sea westward, out of reach.

Somewhere out there was the light of the Trees that Elwe had spoken of, but not for them. Not without Elwe.

He left Cirdan staring out across the waves and returned to the shadowed woods where Elwe had vanished, intending to resume his search. But his steps were slow--no need for haste now--and he veered from his course.

He heard the roar of falling water far off and, threading his path among pools, came, the first of his kind, to the place where Sirion fell deep down into the earth, plunging below hills--the same broad river, surely, he had seen flow into the bay majestically below? So many unseen wonders Middle-earth held, so many mysterious transformations! So Elwe might yet re-emerge...

[The Forsaken]

Cirdan Crosses to Balar

Cirdan seemed to be in a thoughtful, almost melancholy mood, as they tacked across the Bay.

‘This was the first voyage I dared to make away from the coast on a ship I had built myself, across the sea out to the Isle of Balar’, he told Halven, after a while. ‘I have built greater ships since and made more dangerous voyages, but I was so proud of my first sea-going vessel! I believed that I would be making the great journey across the Belegaer in no time, now. Then, of course, Ulmo and Osse advised me not to try…’

Halven, who had been born long after these events, put her hand on his arm. They stood in silence by the mast, watching the Isle grow ever closer, its outlines more clearly defined. There were low bushes, but not much tall growth on the Isle and its shores were rocky.

[From: The Voyage of the Sand Piper]

@march-of-the-noldor

[badlifedecisionshotline]

-《Passed down messige from a diety -Ihakaw/Evine》

"If you ignore it, its not there" TW: suggesting traumatic themes (braud) + physical abuse, body horror/gorey descriptions. Please dont read at all unless you're fully sure you're able to read. GORE. GORE. UTTERS. OK?

Accidentally posted- not finished ✅️

Finished but probably will be edited

If you have something to ignore, already consider yourself in danger

You have forsaken a child, once in your parents care now in yours for such a long time. And you failed it. Instead of giving it all that love it needed, you threw it in the basement or the attic- the backyard maybe even. I do know it was never your fault you ended up here— But probably neither you, nor the animal inside your home agree with me.

Because of your neglect in hydrating it, it has stared licking the windows of the cold lifeless room.

From the neglect of feeding, it has started tearing the floorboards and the layers of wall to feed on anything.

Due to you neglecting to show some love and affection, it gutted itself just so it can wrap the warm utters around its body. Mimicking being held by your arms

You heard people say "itll catch up with you someday" but they're wrong. They already are creeping around. How would you know? You didn't pay attention, they're almost free

The toddlers

On the flip side,(compared to the others) you'll always know when they break free. You'll barricade anything and everything just for it to come out again. It wants your acknowledgment. it wants you to admit it is, in fact, there. And itll do everything necessary to feel that way. Just standing there isn't enough for you— Itll pull your hair, itll cry itll scream. Itll break everything in sight.

And you? Youll hit it.

I just want it to stop. You dont know how.

You hit it. Thats the only time it gets your attention

Itll never try escape, because it gets exactly what it wants because of you. The acknowledgment.

The pain is worth it in its eyes. Not to mention when it sobs you do it more. Itll only stop when it can't bear the pain anymore, and it'll shush itself. You beaten up a kid

But one day it wont hurt anymore right? Youll atcualy try pay attention to it, give it that love. To make it learn that its not normal, and what is true love. Because again- just like they said. It hurts you more than it does the toddler.

The Afraid

Theyll be quieter than you can even imagine, you wont know they're there untill its almost too late. For they are aware of your cuelty, and wonder what else you're capable of. They're exploring the house, to see what they could've grown up with that you failed to provide. Theyll listen, theyll dream. Youll always see how foods missing, but again- Just ignore it. And it doesn't exist. You know the breadcrumbs you sweeped under the rug werent from anything you ate. But it doesnt matter does it really? When they have grown and gained the curige, for they now know you're the one whos terrafied, you'll feel air on your neck before getting mauled.

They might feel regret, and as you lay in a pool of blood, they will stay with you, mourning the life you two could've spent together. In which this never happened, just so it's able to live a life outside confinement.

Itll wrapp you in its gutters

It wants to comfort you

Doesnt know how to though, never had an example

The abandoned

The opposite of ones who are afraid — they're in your backyard. They get to eat the slugs, rocks, trash, glass- all kinds of things really.

But everyone sees it, so you try sush it. Its the kind you cant see because its just on your blind spot regarding windows in the house- but your neighbors and strangers can.

You're the only one whos spoken to it.

It listens at first because it wants to know what happens if its hidden- Nothing does, however. You dont show up again, and no one knows it's there. So much like the toddler, it'll stand in the middle, doing all sorts of things- conserning ones getting the most attention from strangers. Oh- and you. You talk a lot more! It feels horrible, but you're back.

At night itll try break in though

Goodluck

It has more reasources than the others

What it does then now even i know- if this fits, you will. You know it better, right? You payed attention?

The vengeful

Chances are, its more like those who were locked away in the house. Exept it hates you. It hates everything it lacks. Everyone who doesnt. Much much more, but also good to mention — it hates how it wants your love. It wants to be loved.

Itll watch, itll listen. Its more determined than the others. Itll prepare, and prepare it will. Sharpen its claws, streanghten its jaws. All the deformalaties it needed to create to survive

And you're both of them. The house, the owner and the "beast".

Its never late. You can reverse the damage. What you need to do will be uneqe to your animal.

You need the love you never got

And youll get it doing whatever you need to do to get better

[sgt-scottymoreau]

Nightmares (Halloween)

Summary: None really, only a small fic for the spooky season inspired by the Alone skin. With a small twist :)

Warning: None

Words: 1.4k // Masterlist

A/N: None

The wind blew in the empty deserted hallway. A few dead leaves rolled on the cracked cement as her boots crushed the ones who came under her path. Her flashlight paved the way in the darkness in front, to a certain extent. Scotty didn’t like to be here. A gut feeling telling her that she shouldn’t be. But she kept advancing, calmly. Whenever a door or an intersection approached, she carefully checked and made sure everything was clear. Her radio crackled. The voice that came through sounded muffled, distant. “Can you repeat your last?” 

“....looks…left wing…”

Scotty let out a groan. Radio reception was terrible here! Whatever was the order, she took a wild guess and went for the left wing of the building. Her steps echoed against the walls, the place being as empty as where she was before. Repeating the same pattern as before, every room was empty, safe for a mess of broken furnitures, papers covering the floor, water leaks, all that would make this place abandoned and eerie. “Scotty, do you copy?” Gaz’s voice finally came clear. 

“Yeah, glad to hear a familiar voice.”

“Likewise. Listen I can’t get a grip of the captain, nor Soap or Ghost. Do you have anything?”

“No, same silence. I did catch someone telling me to go left but it was so b-” A loud dial, screeching noise pierced her ear through the earpiece before Gaz was able to come back asking what the hell just happened. To be honest, none of them had any idea. 

“Need backup now!” Ghost requested. He showed signs of life! 

“Where!” She quickly asked. 

He gave his position and in a flash she was making haste there. First time she allowed herself to run since she sat foot in this forsaken place. Of course the atmosphere wasn’t creepy enough, the closer she got to him, the colder the air became. Her breath was fogging heavily by the time Scotty stopped. She called him a few more times on the radio, no answer. Neither from anyone else. She was alone again… 

Scotty gulped and returned to a more careful state, advancing slowly. Then it happened. A horrifying scream came from all directions. It didn’t sound like someone who was scared or in a fit of rage. No, it was this scream of pain, atrocious pain. Close to torture almost. Her blood froze, the grip around her gun tightened. “Ghost?” She whispered. No answer. She gulped. No reason to stay stationary, might as well keep going. The scream echoed once more. What the hell was going on?

A shadow flashed on the wall and vanished as fast as it appeared. Instinctively, Scotty turned her attention to this movement. She advanced, turned the corner and… found nothing but another empty hallway. A curse escaped her lips. This was getting ridiculous. Her light brightened the distance and a figure ran in front of her. Or two? Her thumb reached for the radio. “If you can hear me I need backup, possibly hostile at my position.” To hope that this message would reach anyone. Gun at the ready, she approached cautiously. Her footing avoided most of the debris. Her foot stepped on something hard that cracked under her weight. A glance and Scotty saw the bone. Part of her wished it was animal in origin, but on a better inspection, it was human. 

“Fuck, fuck… what the fuck it this place!” She cursed getting creeped even more. Another cracking noise from the back had her turning on her heels. She finally shone some light on all this. She held down a scream and stepped back. 

The man… or men? No, that wasn't human anymore. It shielded its eyes from the light with his mutated… one..two, three arms?! His vision adjusted to the brightness and it lowered its cover. Scotty felt nauseous all the sudden. The deformed, skin stretched, ripping in some place three headed monsters looked straight at her. “Ghost?” Her lips trembled in horror. 

His three melted arms reached for her, a groan came out in a strange anharmonic way from all the heads. No this wasn’t Ghost, it couldn’t be! He looked like he was fused, mushed together with different versions of himself. An experiment that went horribly wrong. Her heart raced, her breathing matched the speed as fear settled in her system. She didn’t remember the last time she felt this way. He moved on step, she adjusted her gun. “Stay where you are!” Scotty ordered firmly. Ghost stopped, his heads tilted to the side. Scotty tried once more to contact the rest of the team. Static over static. What was she supposed to do now? Shoot this monster down or attempt to be friendly? Was it Ghost or not? If it wasn’t, it looked a lot like him! The monster behavior shifted. His glassy eyes… six of them were focused on her. He let out a piercing shriek. Scotty let go one hand from her gun to cover her ear while turning to protect the other. He suddenly charged at her. Quickly, she fired a warning shot. That didn’t stop it. Scotty didn’t give it a second thought, she ran the opposite direction.

Her feet slipped on the floor around the corner, her hand grabbed the wall to prevent her from falling. The monster was always on her tail, his shadow projecting in a menacing way, reminding her that he was never really far behind. Scotty looked for an escape. Who builded this place? Hallways that stretched on and on forever! She jumped in a room, her gaze searched for a place to hide. She found a table and decided that it would be better than nothing. She crawled under the small space just as the monster turned to check the surroundings. His steps were heavy on the concrete, his breathing was ragged. It would be close to these zombies in the movies. Then it stopped. 

The room went silent. A deafening silence that scared her more than anything. He couldn’t have vanished in thin air, could he? Scotty didn’t dare to look, she held her gun close to her. A minute or five passed with no sounds. Maybe she was safe? Maybe… The three faces suddenly appeared right in front of her. By reflex, she screamed and kicked them away. The desk behind her broke and she made a run for it. Or tried. The monster grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her back. Scotty kicked it again. The jaw from one of the heads broke but that didn’t stop him. Her mind begged , urged her to shoot at the creature. But it was Ghost’s face. Faces… Despite how monstrous it looked... 

“No it’s not him!” Scotty yelled at herself. “You are not Simon!” Hands shaking, she aimed her rifle at the middle head. The muzzle on the forehead, she pulled the trigger. Another gruesome display. But at least the monster was dead. Panting, Scotty pushed herself away from its grip, tears builded in her eyes as reality of what happened hit her. Well what even happened? She was shaking, adrenaline slowly falling down. She had to contact someone. “Scotty in the blind, does anyone copy?” Another minute passed in silence. “Come on guys, this is not funny anymore!”  

The shadow grew bigger behind her. Her eyes watched in horror as it formed on the wall she was facing. The Ghost monster was rising! She looked over her shoulders. Stupid. Despite one missing head that exploded, it threw itself at her, jaws ready to bite. 

****

The scream she let out was enough to have him wake up in panic. Ghost’s hand flew to the light stand. He flipped around to see Scotty panting, eyes wide open in panic. “Everything is alright?” He worried. 

Scotty was awake but her body was always paralyzed. It took a good minute to be able to simply turn her head to look at Ghost. Her eyes frantically made out every one of his features. One head, two arms. Not flesh splitting into… God, it looked so real! Felt real. She regained sensation in her fingers first, then was able to move her arm to cup his face. “Y-yeah. Bad nightmare.”

“Want to talk about it?” Nightmares could be many things. 

“It’s alright. Just some silly thing. Straight out of a horror movie. I’m glad you have one head again.”

He frowned with a smile. What kind of dream was that? Scotty promised to tell him everything later, for now she wanted to sleep. She crawled in his arms. Ghost pressed a kiss on her forehead, stroked her hair till he heard the soft sleeping sound. Sure that she was good, he closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Unsinkable

Chapter 50: We’ll Write a New Song

Characters: Din Djarin, Sabine Wren, Koska Reeves, Fenn Rau, The Armorer, Ezra Bridger, Omega, Original Characters

Words: 5509

Summary: As the dust settles, the tribe looks to Din to chart their course.

Read on Ao3 or below the cut

Part VI

New Beginnings

. . . . .

As morning came in full force, Axe Woves and roughly a third of the camp departed from Concordia.

While Din wouldn’t necessarily call their exit hasty, it was prompt. There was no hesitation, no doubt, no deliberation, and no further consideration.

Their minds were made.

As far as they were concerned, Din Djarin was not the Mand’alor. The fact he wielded the Darksaber and chalked up another won duel right before their very eyes did not sway them.

In a way, Din supposed it was a good thing they weren’t influenced by tradition, rather they made this choice for themselves consciously, but their reasons and motivations weren’t sound. It was not wounded pride talking—their rejection of him couldn’t faze him, not when he saw through their vitriol and traced the root of their defiance to plain and simple prejudice. Long before he embarked on this fateful journey, he suspected he would have to stand against a wave of baseless scorn and he had already lost count of the amount of times he had been labelled a cultist since he arrived.

But, turning his gaze from the fading silhouettes of Axe’s flock to the camp set up in the abandoned training grounds, he saw a far larger group composed of ones who chose to stay.

They could have gone.

Neither Bo-Katan nor Axe put a limit on how many could follow them. As it turned out, only a small handful were devoted and paranoid enough to take the plunge on Mandalore along with Kryze and only a hundred agreed enough with Axe to leave with him.

Two hundred (give or take—Din wondered if he should get someone to take a headcount) had decided to stay.

They lingered around the edge of the airfield, a sea of blue armour and blank expressions, uncertainties flowing through their company, the murmuring growing like churning storm-waters. Within the span of one hour, their whole reality had fractured, things they tied belief and faith and hope to buckling and leaving them here: untethered and vulnerable.

They came here on a promise they would soon retake Mandalore and reestablish their people.

Now the woman they had trusted, believed in and followed for longer than Din could fathom was dead and her lieutenant—her second-in-command and unofficial successor—had forsaken them. They were left behind, the path laid so clear and direct before them abruptly terminating.

Did they stay because they did not agree with Axe Woves? Did they stay because they truly believed in the Darksaber and its new master? Or did they stay simply because they did not know what else to do?

Regardless of why they stayed, the matter of what next? remained.

In the rush of silence and stillness chasing Axe’s departure and the tribe’s partial disintegration, Din perceived a new wave rising on the horizon, rearing up with all the usual threats to overwhelm and dislodge him.

Just as it cast its shadow over him, a hand came and took his.

The touch alone was powerful enough to banish the wave.

But it was the voice that followed that brought him back to solid ground.

“You’ve come this far,” Sabine reminded him, her voice low, just for him. “What’s a little further?”

He huffed a single, shallow note of a laugh—a reaction to the ironic simplicity of her encouragement.

She made it sound like he had undertaken a mildly arduous hike and reached a point where his motivation and energy naturally, understandably faltered, but, oh, if he could just tap into his reserve…

He knew what she meant.

Twists and turns aside, they had embarked on this quest expecting to arrive here (or somewhere resembling here). He knew in producing the Darksaber and revealing himself as the Mand’alor he was, essentially, putting out the call. There was as much chance of the entire tribe answering as there was no one paying him any heed.

Now the fight was done and he stood the victor, the disputes thereto flimsy and largely ignored.

He held now the fate of a whole new tribe in his hands.

He had expected that.

“Just… gotta figure out where to start,” he admitted, quietly, squeezing Sabine’s hand as he shored up his resolve.

She drifted closer, her armoured shoulder bumping his arm. “Well, my mom always told me to start at the beginning. Right now,” she continued, a shift in her tone calling his attention to wake up, look where she was looking, “I think she’s the beginning.”

Following Sabine’s wordless direction, Din glanced up and there, standing alone and apart from everyone else, was Koska.

She stood, gaze fixated on the sky, watching Axe and the others depart. The sky had quickly absorbed the sharp little silhouettes of the segmented Kom’rk flock, pale blue expanse and vague clouds of gold and purple washing in and settling easy like a lake calming after a barrage of hail. But even then, even with nothing left to see, Koska remained.

Din felt no grief at Bo-Katan’s demise or Axe’s departure.

Bo-Katan brought about her own destruction and erased the lives and legacies of fifteen others with her arrogance and paranoia. Axe chose to leave, and that pained Din only because it drove that old, rusted blade of dissension deeper, ensuring the Mandalorians remained ever a fragmented people.

He did not witness all this loss as some detached observer, but he experienced it much like trekking through a storm well-equipped with layers and layers of protective gear.

But for Koska…

“Go on,” Sabine encouraged, giving Din a nudge in the arm. “Go be a Mand’alor.”

He exhaled.

He didn’t move immediately, a part of him inclined to suggest she take this one. But then, before he could really catch up with his own mind, he peeled away and strode over.

He made his way to her side at a drifting pace, not attempting to mute the sound of his boots scuffing the mix of dust and grass coating the earth. He meant for her to hear him approach, offering her the chance to prepare and to decide whether to banish or welcome him.

She bent her head down but otherwise didn’t budge or angle herself away.

It seemed enough like a “you can come closer” for him to continue.

“I understand this has been a difficult day for you,” he said, feeling like he was blindly picking each word out of a bin.

She already had her arms folded, now, slowly, they drew tight around her. She pulled in a breath like she was building to respond but, abruptly, she blew it out unused and fell still once more. Just as Din was wondering if he should leave her, give her space and solitude to comprehend everything that had just occurred, she reached up and pulled her helmet off. It wasn’t exactly the kind of thing people did when they wanted to be left alone and unseen.

She turned it over in her hands so the visor would gaze back at her, the freshly risen sun sliding over the dark-tinted transperisteel. 

Bo-Katan had had owl eyes painted above her visor.

Axe’s helmet had a white stripe encircling the crown, denoting his high rank.

But Koska’s helmet was blank, save for a thick coat of glossy sky blue paint.

Din hadn’t thought about it before but the paint on her armour was newer than the others—new and rich and complete; where Axe and Bo-Katan kept some parts unpainted, Koska spared nothing: no piece of her did she leave to linger in some kind of identity limbo. He wondered if there had been a colour there before, something she had covered, something she had sacrificed to cement her affiliation with the Nite Owls.

“I’m not saying they were good and I’m not… denying what they’ve done,” she said, slowly, every word as careful and considered as what he had strung together, “and I know you can’t see them in a good light, but they were family. They were my family.”

Din looked away for a moment, casting his gaze up at the sky—how much it had taken today, how much had occurred before the sunlight even managed to hide the stars…

“I’m kind of like you,” Koska shared, her voice growing smaller, like a creature trying to brave the world outside of its protective shell. “Timid” was the last word Din would ever use to describe her but he got the sense this subject was not one she brought up often. “I lost my birth family when I was young. I wasn’t that young,” she amended, “and I wasn’t adopted into another family; I was just sorta… moved around. I didn’t know what else to do so I trained. And I trained and I trained and I got noticed. I was useful and they wanted me. They trusted me. And it was nice—being wanted, being trusted… being a part of something.”

He knew.

Oh, how he knew…

She finished her sentence and then fell silent, though it seemed as if she were leading somewhere. Her lips pursed and the corner of her mouth pulled like she was trying to keep something back.

Din drew a step closer. 

He considered, deliberated, decided against, then went ahead and laid a hand on her shoulder.

The touch had an almost instantaneous effect.

At first, Koska tensed, unused to or just ill-prepared for it. Then her shoulders fell slack and she shut her eyes tight.

“They just… left,” she said and though the words were small and simple, Din saw how much they weighed.

For years, Koska’s loyalty was to Bo-Katan, but not once today did the heiress heed a single word the young Protector said. She was quick, lightning-quick to label her a traitor the moment she presented any opposition to her plans, tossing out her logic and reason and proof with headstrong belligerence. She dove headfirst into her death rather than take notice of Koska’s warnings and supplications.

And then Axe. As far as Din could discern, he had been a friend and some kind of mentor to Koska. She respected him and it was clear she valued his insight and experience, but he thought nothing of shoving her aside when she stood in his way. There was no consideration for her viewpoint… or for her in general.

Now all was said and done.

Now both Bo-Katan and Axe were gone—the former more permanently than the latter, but still: both departures were deliberate… both departures left Koska behind.

Din didn’t know what to say.

His thoughts and feelings on the whole ordeal didn’t align with Koska’s—they just… couldn’t. They hadn’t meant to him what they meant to her; they hadn’t quite done to him what they had done to her. And what expression of sympathy would she even be willing to accept from him?

He decided against trying to say something philosophically profound.

He had always preferred plain old practicality anyway.

And, well, Koska was like him…

“There’s two hundred people left in the camp,” he stated and paused, waiting for her gaze to redirect to him. When it did, he tossed a nod of his head over his shoulder, indicating the blue-suited Mandalorians milling about in varying states of shock (some, he knew, were watching them, watching him—waiting for something). “We need to focus on them.”

There was no window of time wherein he feared his words were the wrong ones. As he spoke, Koska straightened up, like he was giving her a mission of the utmost importance.

“I don’t know them and they don’t know me,” he continued, mirroring her and setting his own shoulders back, ready to continue the hike. “But they know you. And you know them. This next part is unmapped; I’m going to need you to help us navigate it together.”

She gave a succinct nod. Then she turned and her eyes flicked to the camp.

“They will follow you,” she reassured him. “But they need to know where you’re going and where you plan on taking them.”

. . . . .

Koska and Fenn summoned a handful of ones from the Nite Owls—ones Din assumed were their equivalent of tribal elders—and they gathered in what was apparently serving as the camp’s dining tent.

At length, they discussed the remaining tribe’s fate, the most pressing issue being the matter of where to settle.

They could not join the tribe on Lothal. Governor Kell and the Lothalites certainly wouldn’t object to extending further refuge to ones in need, but they weren’t the only ones to consider. Lothal was aligned with and thus under the protection of the New Republic, and the New Republic was nervous about Mandalorians in general, their sentiments regarding the people as a whole woefully soured by Bo-Katan’s actions as of late. If they caught wind of a mass gathering on Lothal, it would only be misinterpreted, and the last thing the battered tribes needed now was a senseless war with the galactic government of the season.

So wherever the Nite Owls settled, they would have to ultimately move and merge the covert with them.

The Nite Owls had had their hearts and sights set on Mandalore, but that was, of course, not a viable option. To extinguish any scepticism, they showed the Nite Owl elders the results of the untainted scans. Though they made no significant remarks, they couldn’t disguise the look in their eyes, the realization of just how close they had brushed past a most violent death and the severity of Axe’s deception dawning on them.

One of them then suggested they return to Kalevala. It was a lush, verdant planet they had resisted planting roots in only because they had been holding out for Mandalore. Now, it was free, they were free, so why not return?

But Koska pointed out that Axe would most likely stake a claim on it now. Kalevala was to House Kryze as Concordia was to House Vizsla; the clan line was dead now, but Axe had just stepped in as head of the house; he had the right to claim Kalevala as his own. Considering as it was a world he knew well, it made sense he would return.

(Din wasn’t so sure he saw correctly, but when they struck Kalevala off the list, Koska looked relieved.)

Feeling like he was missing something obvious, Din asked why they couldn’t simply remain on Concordia. Mandalore was poisoned but this moon was—as far as he had seen—completely clean. The richness of the forests attested to the environmental health of the world and the camp was already stationed here; why not stay?

Slate Cin—one of the Nite Owl elders, a stout, balding man of approximately fifty—agreed that Concordia seemed a good option, but revealed they could not safely go beyond the boundary of the airfield and training grounds.

He brought out a holo-map of the area, the flickering blue light casting a cold glow over the ones gathered inside the tent—something about the scene pulled Din’s mind back to the Morak mission, to assessing the refinery layout one last time before striking; this felt equally as serious.

“Initial scans of the moon showed the Imps had razed the Vizsla Stronghold and set up their own base and airfield which they soon abandoned,” Slate explained, gesturing to the areas as he mentioned them. “When we arrived, as we were setting up the camp, we discovered the Imps had left more than just a couple of burnt out TIEs behind.”

Curtly, he splayed out his hand and the hologram responded to the command gesture, a smattering of red dots popping up, quickly infecting the map.

“Land-mines?” Koska guessed.

“Some of them,” Zorina said. She was another of the Nite Owl representatives: a woman not much older than Din with black curly hair and an accent that rolled and clipped every word smartly. “Some others are buried claw traps or lethal spikes with hidden hair-triggers.”

“The Imps left behind traps,” Sabine summarized.

“It’s one of their most effective strategies of procuring our beskar,” Ursa explained, a low, seething growl in her modulated voice.

“As far as we’ve found, the training grounds are safe, but we can’t venture into the forests or fields,” Slate said.

“And it would take a while to find and clear all those traps out,” Din concluded. 

He peered closer at one of the red dots. It itself was innocuous—just a simple round red dot—but the image of a buried claw trap springing and clamping down on an unsuspecting Mandalorian came vividly to mind, sending a jagged chill down his spine.

What was more, there were children in the covert, and though they were clever and careful, how could they resist exploring all this wide open space? What if they stumbled across one such vile contraption?

“Alright,” he said, struggling with a sudden tightness in his throat and a cold, nauseating churn in his stomach. “Concordia is off the list.”

“So is Mandalore, and Kalevala, and Lothal,” Ezra listed, counting them off on his fingers.

“I thought there were hundreds of worlds in the Mandalore system,” Omega said. “Can’t you just… pick a different one?”

“There are thousands,” Fenn corrected with gentle emphasis. “But many have suffered our homeworld’s fate; many others have been turned into elaborate snares like Concordia. Some have been claimed by pirates and smugglers and the Mining Guild has snapped up anything harbouring any trace of any commodity of value.”

“The worlds belong to us but we would have to fight to retake them,” Din said, again feeling like he was standing against a threatening tidal wave.

He could think of a few other temporary refuges. It wouldn’t be difficult to find asylum on neutral worlds like Morak or Tatooine or Nevarro—they all, to a degree, owed him, and he had an in with the planetary leaders. But that was all those worlds could realistically provide: temporary refuge. They would never own the land they stood on. 

There were scores of empty worlds just floating about in the galaxy but they weren’t necessarily free for the taking. The instant they tried to settle on one, no matter how small, how insignificant, how ignored it seemed to be, someone would appear and claim it as theirs. 

Even if they could manage to establish a colony on some world—inhabited or not—they would live everyday at the mercy of others, something as fickle as a change in mood all it would take for them to lose everything.

If it was all Din could offer them, it was at least something, but it was no easy task relocating a tribe. As it was, neither tribe had had a chance to properly settle after their last move. Ultimately, they needed something permanent, something that was theirs.

They needed a home.

“There is one world,” Ursa said, breaking the silence with her perfected blend of regal and certain.

Din took the breath to prompt her to continue when Sabine whipped around.

“No! You can’t mean…” she trailed off, the fire flashing at the start of her words dying, rapidly reducing to a smouldering heap.

Voice as precisely measured as the metal she worked with, Ursa expounded on her choice: “There will be no smugglers or pirates lurking there—the weather is too inhospitable to such idle folk. And there is no repository of any mineral or element of interest to the Mining Guild. More than any other world in the Mandalore system,” she said, her tone winding down to land the conclusion, her helmet shifting, switching her hidden gaze between Din and Sabine, “it is the one you have the strongest legal and ancestral right to claim.”

Din frowned. “What world?” The question just tumbled out on its own accord but he already half-knew the answer. He turned to Sabine and just a glimpse of her was enough confirmation. Quietly, he asked: “Your world?”

Her face had turned to concrete, her expression frozen in something grimly neutral while her eyes flickered as if with a fever, unable to meet Din’s visor.

“Krownest,” she answered.

. . . . .

Decisively, Din suspended the discussion. 

The sudden call for a recess confused the Nite Owls but they didn’t give voice to anything. Still, Sabine did not miss the puzzled frowns from them or the looks of sympathy from Ezra and Omega as Din requested they all disperse.

In moments, it was just the two of them left in the too-big tent. Without the company, the crude space felt positively cavernous, all the empty tables and benches adding an abandoned illusion to the scene. The thick tarp blocked the light from outside, reducing the day to a premature night.

“What did you do that for?” Sabine asked in a snap, the bluntness of her voice a sudden burst that rattled the very air between them.

“Because we need to discuss this,” Din told her, simply, slowly, his voice enviably steady and calm. And then, for the first time since arriving on Concordia, he took his helmet off.

She wished he hadn’t.

It was silly, but while he wore the helmet, regardless of the fact she had already removed her own, she could believe she had some kind of protection, a childish sense of “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me.”

Removing one’s helmet was a declaration of and a request for honesty and transparency. He was making himself vulnerable, letting his expressions highlight and verify every word he next said; at the same time, it reminded her, starkly, that everything she felt and said and expressed was being openly, directly perceived.

No more hiding.

“We were discussing this, until you told everyone to leave,” she pointed out with searing steam in her voice. “How do you expect us to get anywhere if—?”

“I didn’t expect your mother to suggest your world,” Din interrupted, his voice even gentler without the helmet in the way. “I’m sorry.”

Responses—mostly hot retorts—fired through Sabine’s mind like out-of-control hover-trains. She could barely make out the form of the words, everything so fast and frantic, it all blurred together. Something thickened in her throat, preventing even a single syllable from slipping out.

“We don’t have to go to Krownest,” Din continued and shook his head as he held up a hand. “We don’t even have to consider it.”

“But my mom’s right,” Sabine told him, managing to grasp and hold some thread of stability. “No one else would have taken it over. It’s just sitting there; we may as well use it.”

“We don’t know if it’s clear. But, even if it is, even if it’s—even if it’s perfect, I am not going to force you to go back there.”

His gaze was so sincere, every line, every colour so earnest and meaningful as he looked at her.

She couldn’t face it. 

She turned her head sharply away, tethering her gaze to a random table off to the side, the sharp grey edges painted in a faint blue glow from the hologram.

“I know what you went through after the Purge,” he said, his voice drawing closer. “I know you had to bury your clan on your own. And just because you have someone back from that doesn’t… it doesn’t lessen that loss.”

Just a little earlier this morning, she thought she had seen the final stroke of the final word in the final chapter of the Great Purge. With Bo-Katan’s end, Sabine thought she could at last lay it all to rest. The pain would stay but it wouldn’t be so sharp now that the invalidity of her excommunication and exile had been exposed.

While Bo-Katan had confronted and cursed her on Krownest, Sabine knew—logically—the world had nothing to do with it; it merely stood as a stage and a backdrop.

But it was where she lost her most precious connections to her people. She may have left that day with her armour intact but the person within was a hollowed-out shell, an echo, a reflection on evaporating water. Now, years later, she had reclaimed her heritage, she had refilled the armour with purpose and faith, but nothing could be done to restore her clan… her family.

“I don’t want you to feel… coerced or—or pressured to return,” Din said. He was right by her now, close enough that he could just reach out and hold her but he didn’t… and she couldn’t decide if she was grateful for that or not. “That’s why I wanted us to have this discussion first. Fenn is right: there are thousands of worlds we can consider. Somewhere has to be waiting for us.”

“But that’s just the thing: that somewhere… might just be Krownest,” Sabine said, the words falling out like a confession. She shook her head, her lip curling as she reviewed her initial reaction. How much of that fiery emotion was true and how much she could blame on hormones and the long morning, she wasn’t sure. Regardless, she made an effort to pierce and divide them, sift them out and think clearly, feel clearly.

She took a seat on one of the benches and Din followed a tentative beat later, taking the spot beside her. She closed her eyes and let her breath escape in a voiceless sigh.

Her mother suggested their ancestral homeworld. She had suffered and survived the Purge on the frontlines, she actually witnessed the destruction firsthand; Sabine only arrived in the aftermath. If her mother was so keen to return, why shouldn’t she be, too?

But her mother was captured and torn from the world in the midst of battle; she didn’t see the full extent of the carnage, she didn’t smell the smoke or stand there, consumed by the silence… she didn’t tend to the dead all by herself, continuing to do so even after being declared dar’manda by someone she looked up to.

If it hadn’t been seized by pirates or smugglers or miners, Krownest served now only as a graveyard.

Sabine didn’t want to return.

But was it really right to leave it as that? To relegate the world she had grown up on, the world that had sheltered and nurtured centuries of Wren families, the world bequeathed to her, to a silent cemetery?

What would her father have wanted? If Tristan were here now, what would his answer be?

“My clan would’ve seen it as an honour just to be considered as a world for our people.” 

It felt like the words came from someone else, but that was alright because she found she agreed with them.

Opening her eyes and blinking to come back to the dimly lit tent, she turned to meet Din’s patient gaze properly. “I think we should try to give them that honour.”

He waited another moment before nodding, his mouth set in a line. “Only if you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

He exhaled, emptying out his lungs in a rush. Sabine expected him to rise, don his helmet, and go call the others back to continue the discussion but he didn’t. Instead, he let his shoulders slide down, his back bowing, losing its drilled rigidity. When he hung his head, she realized this adjournment was as much for himself as it was for her.

He had not had a shred of silence or solitude since they set out—nowhere a moment to wrap his mind around what had happened and all the changes, all the repercussions that would inevitably ripple outwards. He could keep going, keep taking everything thrown at him, keep giving what was asked of him, and he would, but he could do so much better if he could just catch his breath between the waves.

He wasn’t going to give himself the break he needed. He had no ulterior motive when he called for a private moment with her; the slight pause and sag was all he would steal.

But the others could wait a moment longer. Really, everyone could do with an extra moment to just sit and reset.

So, before he could pull himself back into mission-mode, she wound her arm around his. She didn’t latch onto him, didn’t lock him in place; if he was so determined to get up and carry on, he could slip away without any effort. But he gave into his weariness without fight, leaning towards her and opening his hand, so eager to receive hers.

“I don’t know how much you’ll like Krownest,” she said, her thumb tracing the seam of his glove. “It snows for half the year and the other half isn’t exactly a Lota summer.”

Din laughed, the sound soft and airy. “If you stop stealing the covers, I think I’ll survive.”

She smiled, and maybe her eyes stung a little.

Because she knew if she had suggested the hellish lava pits of Mustafar or the acid-eaten swamps of Nal Hutta, Din would have followed her. They could live in a rotted hut on a sunless moor and he wouldn’t even joke about leaving her. 

She realized then that the threat of losing him had passed.

It came like the all-too-sudden culmination of a storm. All the thunder and the howling wind, all the lightning and lashing rain just ceased, quiet rushing in with such fervour and totality it seemed as loud as the rage it had just quenched.

Gideon was dead. 

Bo-Katan was dead. 

Axe was gone. 

The hunters would move on.

It was naïve to say they were free. 

These adversaries had been thwarted, but they were not their only enemies. They had, both of them, so many more skeletons in the closet than they had so far confronted. Before them lay an unwritten future; who could say who would appear next and attack them? And in declaring himself Mand’alor, Din inherited a whole new gallery of haters and challengers.

But this storm—this sleep-stealing, heart-wrenching storm—was over.

Sabine didn’t doubt there would be more but, right now, the waters were still, the air was calm, and the sunlight shone like it was brand new.

“It’s a pity I won’t ever get to see Mandalore,” Din remarked. He didn’t sound overly sad about it, but there was a wistfulness to the words.

“You’re not missing much. Purge aside, Tatooine has more life to it than Mandalore ever had.”

“Maybe. But I would have liked to see the places you knew.”

She grimaced. Though not every memory she had of Mandalore was sour, the bulk of her time there was spent at the Imperial academy. 

Even those days, she had to admit, were not all bad. And, had she the chance, there were many places she would have liked to share with him.

Every day, she got to admire up close the stunning cubist architecture of Sundari. Every day, she walked through the artistically manicured gardens, captivated by the light streaming in through the stained glass ceilings and walls. Every day, she passed the murals immortalizing the Mand’alors. Every night, she looked out the window of her dorm room, straining to see what she could of the sky above the sharp glow of the city.

The dome was not always opaque. When the air outside was calm, when the dust was settled and still, the protective dome was perfectly transparent. The Imperial academy was one of the few buildings in the capital city tall enough to grant a clear view of the umbrella sky.

On the clearest of nights, Sabine could just see the shape and glow of Concordia.

“You know, we were here at the same time,” she pointed out. “Not right here, but… I was on Mandalore when you were training here with the Fighting Corps.”

She watched Din blink as he did the math for himself. She could see the moment the calculation brought him the same answer she had unearthed: his eyes flashed and his head did that little spring back of surprise.

His mouth opened but he couldn’t find what he wanted to say. 

They didn’t believe in fate, and a coincidence did not credit destiny.

The strictly practical warriors they were could see it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

The poets they harboured within, however, couldn’t help but imagine it meant something fantastic.

Either way, it was funny to think that a little Imperial cadet with a rebellious streak and a promising but stubborn Fighting Corps. trainee would one day wind up holding their people’s fate in their hands.

To her, it was beautiful to think that all those nights looking up at the one bit of light in Mandalore’s sky, a wonderful part of her future might’ve been looking back at her, neither of them knowing what they were seeing, both of them so oblivious to how intertwined their stories already were… and how much they were going to change everything for their clans, their tribes, and their people.

. . . . . 

Author’s Note

Yeah… there’s a reason why I’ve been practising painting snowscapes 😉❄️

🎶chapter playlist🎶

Long Live — Taylor Swift

Faith of the Heart — Rod Stewart

Little Wonders — Rob Thomas

World — Five for Fighting

When the Cold Comes — Peter Bradley Adams

You and Me and One Spotlight — Yellowcard

White — Cardinal Trait

invisible string — Taylor Swift

Ain’t It Crazy — The National Parks

[bardic-tales]

It's now 3: 19 am, and I still can't sleep. As always, this means that I'm going to share the other half of the quotes of Crisis Core that has inspired these headcanons.

Sometimes, when my husband and I reply through the game we talk about how Bianca would react to this or that. One topic that always comes up is Angeal's quote: "What do angels dream of?". Bianca would have a very different react to this bit of dialogue.

Content Warnings: Abuse, body horror, existential crisis, experimentation, mental health struggles, religious trauma, self-loathing, societal rejection, themes of destruction.

source: imdb

Bianca’s perspective on existence is deeply tied to her identity as a hybrid of celestial and demonic origins. She resents both. Unlike the idealized notion of angels striving for humanity, Bianca sees no place for herself in either realm. Her human experiences are tainted by the rejection she faced due to her celestial origins, and her demonic heritage binds her to chaos and destruction. She curses the duality of her nature, which she feels only leads to suffering: her suffering and pain.

When humans first discovered she was part angel, they looked to her as a divine messenger: a being that could bridge the gap between humanity and the divine. But as soon as her Creator failed to answer their prayers through her, as the Creator is absent from the dimensions they birthed, humanity turned on her and used her as a scapegoat for their inability to understand the greater cosmic forces at play. This betrayal left her deeply scarred, fostering a hatred of human expectations and the idea of being a pawn in divine schemes.

Her captured by Shinra only deepened her self-loathing. Hojo's experiments, particularly the Project N (Project Nephilim), sought to exploit her hybrid nature by introducing Jenova and S-cells into her blood. These experiments were designed to see if her celestial blood could be fused with Jenova's, which would grant her unimaginable power on what she already possessed and help the SOLDIER program. While Project N was ongoing, she was experimented on by Diana Ravenscroft as a way to unlock the secrets of immortality, to prevent or cure life-threatening illnesses which plagued humanity.

But the result was far from empowering. Instead, it left Bianca feeling even more alienated and emotionally volatile, as her body fought between three irreconcilable forces: the celestial, the demonic, and the corrupted influence of Jenova. This process twisted her essence, amplifying the chaos within her and further obscuring her sense of self, as her demonic blood overpowered and corrupted the celestial essence within her. Her experiments were a constant reminder of her hybrid nature, a painful fusion of two forces that only led to torment. It was amid this agony that her opinion hardened - her heritage was a curse.

source: gamerant

While Angeal asks, “What do angels dream of?” and answers with the idea of angels yearning to be human, Bianca’s response would be the opposite. She dreams of escaping both her celestial and demonic origins, of ceasing to be a symbol of either side’s exploitation. Bianca does not dream of humanity. Humanity abandoned her, and angels have forsaken her, leaving her in the abyss between two worlds. Although she is entitled to ‘retire’ to the Celestial Realm when she tires of the mortal realm and Asmodeus wishes to use her for the prophecy surrounded her birth, Bianca is unwanted by the celestials and the infernal dominion.

In her mind, her existence is a blight upon the world—a cursed gift from her Creator. She is neither angel nor demon, but something far worse—a being that does not belong in either realm. Like Aerith, Bianca is the only one left of her kind: a Nephilim born of the union between angel and demon. She curses the very essence of her birth, and it is this curse that drives her toward her ultimate goal: the destruction and rebirth of the omniverse. Her plans to bring about a kilonova, wiping out all existence to start anew, stem from the desire to escape the confines of her existence, to erase the past that created her and the pain that shaped both her and Sephiroth, and to forge a future free from the limitations imposed upon her by her hybrid nature.

In the end, Bianca’s struggle is not about longing for the humanity she was denied or the purity of angelic ideals. It’s about rejecting both as false promises. What she truly seeks is freedom from the legacy of her origins—freedom from the chains that bind her to celestial, demonic, and human expectations. Her embrace of Sephiroth’s vision of destruction and rebirth is a rejection of all the forces that sought to use her, and through the coming kilonova, she seeks to tear it all down and build something entirely different—something beyond angels, demons, and mortals alike. It will be a place where the children she manifested into reality, Sephiroth, and those like them can thrive.

[lightup0nlight]

Surah ad-Duha gives us a message of hope. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says:

🌺 ❛By ad-Duha.❜ What is ad-dhuha? It is the bright time of the morning. Allah takes an oath by this special time, the brightest time of the day.

🌺 ❛By the night when it darkens.❜ And Allah takes an oath when the night takes over, covering everything in darkness.

And this, too, is how our lives will be. We will never have straight sunny days, where everything will constantly go perfectly well. Neither will it always go bad, or worsen all the time eternally. These times will alternate with one other. After ad-duha, the night will come, the darkness will cover us; but ad-duha will soon return, and such is life.

🌺 ❛Your Rabb has neither forsaken you, nor hates you.❜ Not only will ad-duha come again, but even in dark times, our Rabb has not left us.

This is a message not only to Rasulullah salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, but to you and me as well. When things get really difficult, and we’re unable to see it through because of the darkness of the fitan (trials), remember that Allah has not abandoned us.

Just because things are difficult, it doesn’t mean Allah hates you. Just because you’ve had a bad past, it doesn’t mean Allah will never forgive you. Just because you’re unable to overcome a trial, it doesn’t mean that nothing good will come afterwards or out of it. Just because the dunya looks bleak right now, it doesn’t mean your akhirah is doomed to be bleak as well.

🌺 Allah says: ❛Who listens to the distressed when it calls on Him, and Who relieves its suffering, and makes you inheritors of the earth?❜ 【Surah an-Naml 27:62】

So do not give up on Allah’s Rahmah. Make du’a for His Protection and Forgiveness, while having good thoughts of Him. Remember this dunya is temporary, while the akhirah — your true, happy ever after — is for all eternity.

Your sister in Deen, Aida Msr ©

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Heretic - a Malevolent fic

What road remains for a man whose purpose abandoned him?

AO3

For @aktrashpanda, who drew this art:

What road remains for a man who lost his own? Who misplaced the one he was given? Who followed, sure, faith and sight fixed on what seemed narrow and true?

Aye, but that’s the wrong question. Here is the right one: what remains for a man whose road, narrow and true, abandoned him?

It’s an answer I never sought, for I did not know the road could refuse its rider. My purpose, my meaning, as I knew he was, left me behind. I woke without my road, and without my arm, my purpose run away. No one has seen him.

What road remains, then, for a man? The truest of all: seek and you will find.

#

‘Tis the newspapers which the Lord uses to shed light on my new way: the report on the mayhem up north, half of New York’s elite caught up in some scandal.

I recall… something about upstate. This is where my purpose was going next, and by God, it sure looks like he got there.

The story’s a good ‘un, rife with worldly intrigue, and the papers talk of nothing else. There’s murder, fire, underground rituals, strange masks and bodies no one can identify, and… Satan-worship? 

So it’s called in the reports about the mess our finest uncovered, yet that is not the devil’s symbol I see in these grainy photos. I know what I see, for it was in Arthur’s book.

I had time to study that book, to learn some new truths, and I remember what it was called: Malleus Monstrorum, the Hammer of Monsters. Between learning to live without my arm, and giving comfort to my sheep (who come to me for it, distressed by my injury and unable to offer their own), I take months to locate a copy. To track down the wayward brother in Dunwich who has one, and is willing to let me see.

And in that time, I find no comfort with my flock, or in my prayers, or on my knees. Neither with the host on my tongue, nor with sleep in my eyes. There is no comfort, for my road has forsaken me.

But the book. The book, blasphemous yet true: brother Andrew, muttering and mad, lets me see, and in it I find the symbol they saw upstate, and it leads me on.

He was not alone in his hard journey, brother Andrew, and from him, I receive names, clues, a way forward. I follow that symbol through paths and hints and secret codes, and I find the people who know what it means, and I walk this new road that seems to have found me.

Which it has.

And then, I find her.

#

She, who walks between. She, who thinks herself above creation, but is not; she, who, being so old, is so young, and has so much to learn. And I… know I am meant to teach her.

(Is it heresy to find a new purpose after yours got away? Is it heresy to seek a new path, to follow a different star when the one you knew has gone dark?)

She takes me from my life because I recall to her that same road which abandoned me; we’re both forsaken, left behind by him who gave us purpose and direction and hope. (Though she does not call it hope, I know what I see. What she lacks is not hope, but faith.)

She says he was her favorite. I say he was my purpose, and so condemn myself.

“I will keep you, little priest,” she says, not acknowledging that I sought her.

“I will use you, little priest,” she says, bidding me wield the skills the good Lord gave me, which she calls magic and I call penance.

“I will corrupt you, little priest,” she says, not knowing that I am already corrupted, and she can bring me no lower.

But I can lift her up.

Through her teaching, I learn to heal, and so can finally do good deeds to weigh against my bad. Through her, I meet and lead wild sheep who may never lay eyes on another shepherd through all their cursed lives. Through her, I travel, and see works and worlds unimaginable, and through her, I will be redeemed as I guide her to redemption.

(It is not the same as weekly confessions, the same humble faces masking repeated sins and perfunctory repentance. It is sanctification, active and pure.)

Arthur Lester was my purpose, but now, I see: he was not an end in and of himself. He was the road to my end.

“I should kill you, little priest,” she says, but she means it not at all. I am her purpose, and she’s mine, led together by one who had no faith of his own. The Lord works in mysterious ways.

“I will convert you, little priest,” she promises, low, and that I will not worship her makes her question what she knows.

In the end, we will save each other, or damn each other, and either way, Arthur Lester is to blame. I don’t know that he lives, but I have faith that he does—and I pray for him. I pray he finds his own road, and this time, that he stays true.

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

NOTE:

Psst… there's a way to support my writing now (and thank you Kraiva, Som, Charlie, Flamia, Bree, and more who encouraged me to do it).

[ryanmelrosecomics]

The Rain Cloud Short Story By Ryan Melrose

THE RAIN CLOUD

 Chapter 1: Forbidden Grounds

The dirt path twisted like a living vein through the dense, scraggly brush. Elliot Grant shifted the weight of his pack and cast a sideways glance at Sophia Lane, who was several paces ahead, her strides full of purpose. She moved like someone determined to find something extraordinary, though Elliot wasn’t sure what that “something” could be in such an unremarkable stretch of wilderness.

They had come across the town by chance—an uncharted speck not marked on their maps or apps, and it intrigued Sophia immediately. Abandoned places, she’d said, were her favorite kind of discovery. Her voice had carried that giddy edge she always got when she was about to drag him into one of her wild adventures.

Elliot paused at the edge of the town, taking in its decayed grandeur. Rusted signposts leaned like tired sentinels, their faded words warning of something long lost to memory. Houses leaned into one another as if conspiring in whispers. The air here felt stagnant, thickened by time itself. There was a stillness—a too quiet kind of quiet.

Sophia was already through the threshold, a triumphant grin on her face as if she’d claimed the forsaken town for herself. “You coming, Elliot?” she called over her shoulder.

“I’m not sure this is a good idea,” he muttered, his words catching in his throat. There was something about the place that turned the air heavy, but he couldn’t bring himself to explain it without sounding foolish. Against his better judgment, he followed her, his footsteps crunching against shattered glass and loose gravel.

The further in they walked, the more unnerving the town became. It wasn’t the abandonment that unsettled Elliot—he’d been to plenty of desolate places before. It was something else, something about how the place felt, as though it was watching them through eyes neither human nor mechanical.

“Check this out!” Sophia’s voice broke his thoughts. She stood in front of what must have been the town’s square. A fountain stood in the center, bone dry and caked in rust. She tilted her head to the side, inspecting it. “Ever get the feeling a place has a story it’s just waiting to tell you?”

Elliot nodded, his unease gnawing louder at the back of his mind. “Or a story it doesn’t want you to know.”

It wasn’t long before they came across the first sign of warning—an old wooden board nailed to a weathered lamppost. Its letters, scrawled in red paint, were faded but decipherable: KEEP OUT. Beneath it, another sign had been etched in a hurried hand, its jagged strokes full of desperation: LEAVE BEFORE IT FOLLOWS.

“Creepy,” Sophia said with a scoff, brushing a hand over the sign as though to dismiss the words entirely. Elliot felt a cold knot twist in his gut.

“We should go,” he said, his voice sharper now. But Sophia waved him off.

“Oh, come on! It’s just old ghost stories—urban legends to keep kids away. We’ll be fine.” Her laughter echoed in the hollow air, but it carried no warmth, only a strange hollowness that seemed to belong to the town itself.

And then, from the corner of Elliot’s eye, he saw it: a smear of shadow against the clear, sunny sky. A lone storm cloud hung low on the horizon, impossibly dark and foreboding. He blinked, trying to shake the image. Surely it was nothing—just an errant fragment of weather. Yet, somehow, he knew that wasn’t true.

As the sun dipped lower, the town seemed to shift, its edges blurring with an unnatural haze. The air grew heavier still, pressing down on them like invisible hands. In the growing dusk, Elliot felt the first drop of tension trickle down his spine. Unseen and unsaid, the raincloud on the horizon seemed to take its first breath.

 

 

Chapter 2: The Storm Appears

 

The air grew thicker as they ventured deeper into the town, their footsteps stirring up motes of dust that hung in the still air like suspended time. The houses here seemed smaller, shrinking into themselves with age, their boarded windows like blind eyes. Elliot couldn’t shake the sense that they were being watched—not by people, but by the town itself.

 

“Do you feel that?” Elliot asked, his voice low, though he didn’t know why he whispered.

 

Sophia glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “Feel what?”

 

“This… heaviness. Like the air’s… different,” he said, fumbling for words. Even as he spoke, his pulse quickened, though there was no visible reason for it.

 

Sophia only shrugged. “Maybe you just need a snack or something. Blood sugar.”

 

Elliot forced a weak laugh, but his eyes darted again to the cloud. It was there—closer than before. It loomed low over the western edge of the town, so dark it seemed to devour the sunlight. It wasn’t just a storm cloud, he realized. It was unnatural, its edges too sharply defined, almost like a jagged wound in the fabric of the sky.

 

The wind picked up for the first time since they’d entered the town, tugging at their clothes and hair. Strangely, the cloud didn’t move with it. Instead, it seemed to hover in defiance of nature, as though tethered to them by some invisible thread.

 

“Look at that,” Elliot said, pointing to it.

 

Sophia followed his gaze and frowned. “Weird. The wind’s blowing east, but it’s… hanging there?”

 

Elliot nodded, his throat tightening. “Yeah. It’s like it’s… watching us.”

 

Sophia chuckled nervously. “Okay, now you’re just creeping me out.” But even as she said it, Elliot noticed her step falter slightly. For all her bravado, he could tell the town was starting to get under her skin too.

 

They pressed on, coming to what must have been the main street. Shops with shattered windows and peeling paint lined the road, their signs swinging lazily on rusting hinges. A single lamppost stood at the street's end, and beneath it lay something odd—a small pile of scorched stones, blackened as if struck by lightning.

 

Sophia crouched down to inspect it, brushing her fingers over the surface of one of the stones. The moment she touched it, a low, almost imperceptible hum filled the air. It wasn’t loud, but it seemed to come from everywhere at once, vibrating in their bones.

 

“What the hell was that?” Sophia asked, standing abruptly.

 

Elliot looked around, his skin prickling. “I don’t know. But let’s get out of here.”

 

As they turned to leave, a droplet fell from the sky, landing with a quiet hiss on the ground near Elliot’s foot. Both of them froze, staring as the drop ate into the dirt like acid, leaving a small, bubbling crater.

 

More droplets followed, hitting the ground in a slow, deliberate pattern. The storm cloud had crept closer now, its shadow spreading over the town like a dark stain.

 

“It’s raining,” Sophia whispered, her voice trembling for the first time. “But the sky—it’s not supposed to…”

 

Elliot grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the direction they came from. “We need to go. Now.”

 

But as they ran, the raindrops seemed to follow them, hissing and sizzling wherever they landed. The street behind them began to dissolve, the asphalt warping and curling as if recoiling from the rain. The storm wasn’t just a thing of nature—it was alive. And it was coming for them.

 

Let’s unravel the tension, dive deep into their emotions, and reveal eerie fragments of the town’s dark history. Here’s Chapter 3: The Manifestation:

 

---

 

### Chapter 3: The Manifestation

 

The rain came in brief, acidic bursts, each drop hissing against the ground like tiny, whispered warnings. Elliot and Sophia ran, their breaths ragged, the soles of their boots slipping on the slick, warping pavement. The storm cloud above seemed to swell, growing darker and denser with each passing moment, its shape roiling as if alive.

 

Elliot’s chest ached as he pulled Sophia toward the nearest building—a decaying storefront with its windows shattered inward. They collapsed against the wall, trembling, as the rain continued its relentless assault just outside the crumbling doorway. The air inside was damp and thick with the scent of rot.

 

Sophia pressed a hand to her knee, struggling to catch her breath. "What the hell is happening, Elliot?" Her voice was sharp, but there was a tremor in it that betrayed her fear.

 

"I don’t know," he said, his voice low, barely audible over the distant hum that seemed to emanate from the storm itself. "But it’s not... natural. That thing... it’s—" He cut himself off, unwilling to put words to the growing dread gnawing at the edges of his mind.

 

Sophia turned her gaze to the street outside. The rain had begun pooling in shallow craters, the ground beneath it dissolving into a blackened, viscous slurry. And then she saw it—a flicker of movement within the cloud. She blinked, thinking it a trick of the light, but no. There it was again: a shifting, indistinct form, coalescing and dissipating within the storm’s writhing mass.

 

"Elliot... look." Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely more than a breath.

 

He followed her gaze, his blood running cold. Within the storm, shapes began to emerge—not solid, but hinted at, like phantoms pressing against the veil of reality. The contours of a face formed briefly, cruel and angular, its eyes hollow voids that seemed to pierce straight through him. It dissolved back into the swirling cloud, but its presence lingered, as if etched into his very perception.

 

"We need to keep moving," Elliot said, his voice trembling. "This thing—whatever it is—it’s not going to stop."

 

They ventured deeper into the building, hoping to find another exit that would lead them away from the storm’s shadow. The interior was a graveyard of forgotten lives: overturned furniture, faded photographs, and shelves covered in a thick layer of grime. On the far wall, a mural caught Sophia’s attention. It was crude, painted in long, desperate strokes, but its meaning was unmistakable. It depicted the storm cloud, looming over the town, its rain falling like daggers onto indistinct figures below.

 

Beneath the mural, words were scrawled in jagged, uneven letters: IT REMEMBERS. IT JUDGES.

 

"What does that mean?" Sophia asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

 

Elliot shook his head, but his gaze was drawn to a rusted filing cabinet shoved against the corner. He pried it open, the metal screeching in protest, and pulled out a brittle stack of papers. The top page was dated decades ago, the ink faded but legible. It appeared to be a report—an account of the town’s final days.

 

The words were chilling. Mentions of sacrifices, a pact to stave off a "great unraveling," and a storm that came as both punishment and reminder. The reports spoke of townsfolk vanishing, their bodies never found, and a warning passed down: “Do not enter. Do not awaken what was bound.”

 

Sophia scanned the page over his shoulder. "So... this thing was called here? By them?" She gestured vaguely at the town around them.

 

"Looks like it," Elliot said, his voice hollow. "Whatever it is, it doesn’t care if we’re not part of their mess. It just... exists. And now we’re part of it."

 

A sudden crash echoed from somewhere outside, followed by a low, guttural rumble that didn’t sound like thunder. Elliot’s stomach churned as the realization hit him: the cloud wasn’t just following them—it was hunting them. And now it was close.

 

As they stumbled back toward the front of the building, the storm surged forward, its shadow swallowing the street. This time, the face in the cloud remained, its features sharper, more defined. A cruel grin twisted across its ephemeral visage, and its hollow eyes flared with a lightless intensity. It was no longer just a storm. It was an entity—aware, deliberate, and filled with malice.

 

Elliot’s legs felt like lead, but he forced himself to move, grabbing Sophia’s arm. "We have to go now!"

 

They burst into the street, the rain sizzling as it landed around them. The face in the cloud followed, a silent specter of judgment, growing larger and more defined with each passing moment. The town seemed to twist and shift in its presence, as though reality itself bent to its will.

 

And through it all, the words from the report echoed in Elliot’s mind: “It remembers. It judges.”

 

Chapter 4: The Chase

 

The rain fell harder now, each drop carving searing craters into the earth. Sophia’s lungs burned as they sprinted down the street, the acidic air scraping at her throat. Elliot was just ahead, his hand clamped around hers, pulling her forward like a lifeline. Every step felt futile, as though they were running in circles, the cloud's malevolent shadow never far behind.

 

“Where are we going?” Sophia shouted over the cacophony of sizzling rain and crumbling stone.

 

“Away!” Elliot yelled back, though the answer felt hollow. The streets all looked the same now—twisted, distorted. Landmarks that should have guided them out seemed to shift and double back on themselves. The town wasn’t just abandoned. It was alive, a labyrinth that refused to let them go.

 

Behind them, the storm surged closer, its dark, roiling form blotting out the sky. The face within the cloud was clearer now, its cruel grin stretching wider, its hollow eyes pulsating with a rhythmic flicker, as though mocking their desperation. It wasn’t following them out of hunger or curiosity. It was hunting them for sport.

 

Elliot’s grip on Sophia’s hand tightened. “In here!” he shouted, veering toward what looked like an old church at the edge of the town square. Its doors hung crooked on their hinges, and its steeple leaned precariously, but it offered shelter—however temporary.

 

They burst through the doors, slamming them shut behind them. The air inside was thick with damp and decay, the wooden pews warped and splintered. Sophia sank onto the floor, her chest heaving, her face streaked with sweat and rainwater. Elliot paced, his hands pressed against his temples.

 

“This isn’t… this isn’t possible,” he muttered, more to himself than to her. “Storms don’t… do this. Clouds don’t—”

 

“Elliot,” Sophia interrupted, her voice sharp. “This isn’t the time. We need to figure out how to stop it.”

 

He stopped pacing, his eyes wide. “*Stop it?* How do you stop a… a storm? Did you see it? It’s not even—”

 

“Elliot!” Sophia snapped, forcing him to focus. “Listen to me. This thing, whatever it is, it’s tied to this place. That face in the cloud, those warnings we saw—they mean something. There has to be a reason this thing exists. We just have to figure out what it is.”

 

Elliot stared at her for a long moment, then nodded reluctantly. “Alright. But where do we start?”

 

Sophia’s eyes swept the room, falling on an old, water-damaged altar at the front of the church. Behind it, etched into the wall, was a faded symbol—a swirling, spiral design surrounded by jagged lines. It was eerily similar to the shape of the storm cloud itself.

 

“Over there,” she said, pointing. They approached the altar cautiously, their footsteps echoing in the empty hall. Sophia ran her fingers over the engraving, tracing its lines. Beneath the symbol was more writing, but it was barely legible, the letters worn away by time. She squinted, trying to make out the words.

 

“‘The binding…’” she read aloud, though the rest of the text was too fragmented to piece together. She turned to Elliot. “Do you think this could be… some kind of seal? Something they used to trap it?”

 

Elliot frowned, his mind racing. “Maybe. The reports we found earlier said something about sacrifices. What if they… I don’t know, summoned this thing and then tried to contain it?”

 

Sophia shuddered at the thought. “And now it’s loose because… we trespassed?”

 

The weight of her words hung heavy in the air, but there was no time to dwell. Outside, the storm roared, the sound reverberating through the walls like a living heartbeat. The face appeared again, pressing against the stained-glass windows, its grin splitting wider. The rain began to seep through the cracks in the walls, sizzling and eating away at the wood.

 

“We have to move,” Elliot said, grabbing Sophia’s arm. “This place won’t hold.”

 

As they scrambled toward the back of the church, they stumbled upon a trapdoor hidden beneath a tattered rug. Elliot pried it open, revealing a narrow set of stone stairs leading downward.

 

Sophia hesitated. “What if it’s worse down there?”

 

Elliot glanced back at the storm, now almost inside the church. “It can’t be worse than that.”

 

With no other options, they descended into the darkness, the trapdoor slamming shut above them. The hum of the storm grew fainter, but its presence lingered, an oppressive weight pressing down on them even underground. The stairs led to a cavernous space—part basement, part crypt—its walls lined with more of the spiral symbols.

 

In the center of the room stood an altar, unlike the one above. This one was pristine, untouched by time or decay. Resting on it was an object, small and wrapped in layers of blackened cloth. Sophia stepped closer, her hand trembling as she reached for it.

 

“Wait!” Elliot grabbed her wrist. “What if touching it… I don’t know, wakes it up?”

 

Sophia glanced at him, her jaw set. “Elliot, it’s already awake. This might be the only way to put it back to sleep.”

 

She pulled the cloth aside, revealing a stone figurine—a miniature replica of the storm cloud, complete with the cruel face etched into its surface. Beneath it was another inscription: The price is blood.

 

The crypt seemed to groan around them, the air growing heavier. Elliot’s mind raced. What did it mean? Was this the key to stopping the storm—or just another piece of its curse?

 

Before they could decide, the trapdoor above shattered, and the first drops of the rain began to fall.

 

Chapter 5: The Realization

The rain hissed and sputtered as it seeped into the crypt, devouring the ancient stone like a hungry beast. Elliot and Sophia stood frozen, the figurine between them emanating an almost imperceptible vibration, as though it recognized their presence. The words etched beneath it—The price is blood—hung in the stale air, their meaning as ominous as the storm that loomed above.

Sophia’s voice trembled as she finally broke the silence. “What… what do you think it means? Whose blood?”

Elliot’s mind reeled, scrambling for answers. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s… symbolic? Like a ritual sacrifice or…” He trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought.

Above them, the storm raged, its guttural hum reverberating through the walls of the crypt. The face in the cloud appeared again, leering through the shattered trapdoor, its hollow eyes glowing faintly. It wasn’t just observing them—it was waiting.

Sophia gripped the figurine tightly, her knuckles white. “This thing—it has to be the key. The mural, the reports, everything—it all points to this.” She stared into Elliot’s eyes, her resolve hardening. “We have to do something.”

Elliot shook his head, panic creeping into his voice. “Do what? We don’t even know what this thing is! For all we know, this figurine could make things worse.”

“Worse?” Sophia snapped, her anger laced with fear. “We’re trapped, Elliot. That thing is going to kill us if we don’t try something.”

Her words hung in the air, and for a moment, silence enveloped them, save for the distant hiss of rain. Elliot looked at Sophia, really looked at her—the defiance in her eyes, the tremble in her voice. She was terrified, just as he was, but she was right. They had no choice.

“Okay,” he said finally, his voice barely above a whisper. “But if we’re going to do this, we need to understand what we’re dealing with.”

Sophia nodded, her breathing shallow. Together, they turned their attention back to the crypt. Symbols covered the walls, spiraling patterns interspersed with jagged lines and crude depictions of the storm cloud. It all seemed disjointed at first, but as they examined it closer, a story began to emerge.

The symbols told of a pact made long ago—a desperate bargain between the town’s founders and a powerful, malevolent entity. The storm was its physical form, a harbinger of its wrath and a reminder of the price of failure. The pact was simple: prosperity in exchange for blood. Every decade, a sacrifice was required to keep the storm dormant. But at some point, the sacrifices had stopped.

“They broke the pact,” Sophia murmured, tracing a finger over the symbols. “That’s why it’s here. To punish them.”

Elliot frowned, the weight of the truth sinking in. “And now it’s punishing us for stepping into its territory.”

Sophia’s gaze fell back to the figurine. “If this is the key… maybe we can use it to bind the storm again.”

Elliot hesitated. “But what if the price is—”

A deafening crack cut him off as the ceiling began to collapse, chunks of stone crashing to the floor. The storm surged into the crypt, its face filling the space with an unbearable intensity. The temperature dropped, and the air grew so dense that it felt as though the walls themselves were closing in.

Sophia clutched the figurine, her eyes blazing with determination. “We don’t have time to think. It’s now or never.”

Elliot nodded, his fear giving way to resolve. “What do we do?”

Sophia knelt before the altar, placing the figurine back on its pedestal. The storm’s face twisted in fury, its hollow eyes flaring as though it recognized their intent. The crypt seemed to groan under the weight of its anger, the walls quaking as cracks spiderwebbed across the stone.

Sophia closed her eyes, her voice steady despite the chaos around them. “We return what was taken.”

Without hesitation, she pulled a small pocketknife from her bag and drew it across her palm, the blade biting into her skin. Blood pooled in her hand, dripping onto the figurine. The moment the first drop touched it, the air shifted. The storm’s roar faltered, replaced by a low, resonant hum that seemed to vibrate through their very bones.

Elliot’s heart raced as he watched, unsure whether they were saving themselves—or sealing their doom.

Chapter 6: The End and the Unescapable

The figurine pulsed with an otherworldly hum, its jagged surface drinking in their blood like parched soil. Elliot’s hands trembled as he gripped the stone, his breaths shallow and labored. Beside him, Sophia pressed her bleeding palm against the altar, her teeth clenched against the pain. Together, their blood pooled and seeped into the grooves of the ancient carvings, igniting the spiral symbols on the walls in a dim, flickering light.

The storm above howled, its face contorting in fury as though it could feel their defiance. The walls shook violently, chunks of stone raining down around them. The crypt groaned under the weight of the entity’s rage, but for a fleeting moment, Sophia dared to hope.

“It’s working,” she gasped, her voice thin. “It’s—”

Her words caught in her throat as the light from the symbols flickered, dimmed, and then vanished entirely. The figurine fell silent, its vibrations ceasing as the blood disappeared into its jagged surface. The crypt went still, an oppressive silence descending like a shroud. For a breathless moment, neither of them moved, their hearts hammering in their chests.

Then the storm roared, louder than ever, its face pressing against the shattered trapdoor above. Its hollow eyes blazed with renewed fury, and its twisted grin stretched wider as it surged forward. The ritual had failed.

“No,” Sophia whispered, shaking her head in disbelief. “No, no, no!”

Elliot slumped against the altar, his skin pale and slick with sweat. Blood dripped from his hand, pooling at his feet. He tried to push himself up, but his legs buckled beneath him. “Sophia…” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper. “I can’t—I can’t get up.”

“Elliot, no!” she cried, dropping to her knees beside him. She grabbed his arm, trying to lift him, but he was too weak. His eyes met hers, and in them, she saw the truth. He wasn’t coming with her.

“Go,” he said, his voice trembling but firm. “You have to go. Now.”

“No!” she shouted, tears streaming down her face. “I’m not leaving you!”

“You don’t have a choice,” he said, his grip on her hand tightening for one brief moment. “Please, Sophia. Run. Don’t let it take you too.”

She shook her head, her heart breaking as the storm’s roar grew deafening. Acidic rain began to pour through the cracks in the ceiling, sizzling as it struck the ground around them. She wanted to fight, to stay, but his pleading eyes left her no choice.

“I love you,” she whispered, her voice breaking as she stood.

“Go!” Elliot shouted, his voice hoarse. “Run!”

Sophia turned and fled, tears blurring her vision as she raced up the crumbling stairs and into the open air. The storm’s roar followed her, its face twisting with triumph as it descended on Elliot. His scream echoed through the town, a sound of pain and defiance that tore through her soul.

For a fleeting moment, she thought she had escaped. The rain slowed, the storm seeming to hesitate, its focus locked on Elliot’s final sacrifice. She stumbled into the empty street, gasping for air as sunlight pierced through the clouds.

But then the rain came again.

Sophia stopped, her chest heaving as she looked up. The storm surged toward her, its face more menacing than ever, its hollow eyes glowing with an insatiable hunger. The first drop struck her shoulder, burning through her jacket and into her skin. She screamed, falling to her knees as the rain intensified, each drop eating away at her being.

As the storm consumed her, Sophia’s thoughts raced. She saw Elliot’s face, his voice echoing in her mind. She thought of the town, the warnings they had ignored, the price they had paid. She thought of the ritual, of their blood spilled in vain. And finally, she thought of the storm, its relentless judgment, its cold indifference.

In her final moments, she understood. There had never been a way to stop it. The pact was broken, and the storm would never rest. It wasn’t punishment—it was inevitability. A reminder that some forces cannot be bargained with, cannot be defied.

The last thing she saw was the storm’s face, watching her with an eerie calm as it claimed her. And then there was only silence.

Above, the town stood still, its ruins untouched by time, as though nothing had happened. The storm dissipated, its presence fading into the endless blue sky. But the air lingered heavy, the faint, acrid scent of rain a quiet warning to anyone who might wander too close.

And in the stillness, the words carved into the walls echoed in eternity: It remembers. It judges. Click the link below for more short stories and other content

[ink3dinich0r]

dry grass and rotten wood

Rikiel used to feed the stray dogs that roamed the streets with what he could find. Dirty, flea-bitten, and rib-raw, the motley packs trampled through their created trails in the high grasses of the mostly-abandoned neighborhood, unkempt and forsaken like the yards they grew in. Rikiel found it no chore to toss onto the paths an extra piece of dinner’s cold chicken, some scraps of stew coagulated with fatty oils dripping along their broths, or handfuls of stolen dog food snatched from the convenience store.

He’d take a plastic bucket from the shed, filled it with water, and leave it on a rotten wood porch to find it again come evening under the sickly yellow glow of the streetlights, a circle of wet pawmarks and droplets dancing around the empty plastic. He considered childishly once to sit by the pail and see if a rover would peek its head out from the bush, but even his young mind already understood: The bodies of the canines bore bruises and marks made by neither tree nor rock. Humans could be cruel; Rikiel knew that. They knew it better.

The life cycle ran its inevitable course as summer froze to winter and melted to spring. Whimpers in the grass were the telltale signs of life, from little folds of fresh skin and mother’s blood. New life welcomed into the world in-between the safety of the dry hay. He grieved. He tried to imagine their callow bodies torn like their parents. The little legs, barely moving now, forced to forever run once they found their standing. Eyes born closed but once opened, would wish they hadn’t.

But what could he do? The dry grass and rotten wood would be their home, and they’d forever feed on scraps found in the dirt, with water rationed in a bucket. He’d pity them only because he drank from a faucet, but maybe the bucket was heaven compared to teeth facing the rain. When he watched the puppies grow, among the scars that grew and patches of fur that didn’t, they played, and bit, and yelped, and loved.

Rikiel liked dogs; adored them for their loyalty. He could empathize. Why not bare your belly to the one who licks your wounds? Why not howl in darkness if it meant to learn the path back home? He'd felt sorry for them for so long as a boy when they were freer than his confined childhood. He thought he was acting as their savior until he grew older and found that rotten porches were softer than any bare bed and water that came from a bucket meant it came from love.

When he ran away to join the streets, he could feel more wind under his legs than he ever did before. The world felt wider. The sky, higher.

If howling was crying, then he’d called for home all through the night.

[scribeforchrist-blog]

Not Broken, but Comforted 

MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK

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+ James 1:16 So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters

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VERSE OF THE DAY 

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Isaiah 40:30 But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint

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** SAY THIS BEFORE YOU READ; HERE’S SOME CHRISTIAN TRUTHS **

I AM NOT BROKEN 

I AM NOT TOSSED TO THE SIDE 

I AM LOVED 

I AM COMFORTED 

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READ TIME: 7 Minutes & 55 Seconds

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THOUGHTS:

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   So, I got a 3D printer, and I can create all these things, but I couldn’t get it to work when I first got it. It took me three hours to set it up, and when I got it all set up, the first print I made was this little, tiny boat, and the top of it didn’t print, and I was going to throw it out because it wasn’t finish, but when I looked at it, I thought maybe I should keep it.

     The Holy Spirit reminded me that he didn’t  throw me out; he took me as I am broken as I am, and has always reformed me, always loved me, and sometimes we are done with people because they aren't on the level we are on, sometimes we are done with projects because it isn’t  going anywhere, sometimes we are done with friendships because the person  won't change but what we have to remember is God  won't give up on us, 

     God doesn’t say, I'm done with you because you're not where you suppose to be , look at, Peter. Jesus knew that Peter wouldn’t be where he needed him to be; he didn’t leave him, he didn’t shake his finger; he told him, look, Peter, you're going to betray me, and Peter said no, not me, lord and he still didn’t leave him when we are at our lowest Jesus doesn’t throw us away, he collects us up and comfort us.

  “Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavily laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

   The word says, come to me, and he will care for us even if we are heavily laden. He will comfort us and give us a restful mind, and no matter how cruel the world can be, he will still be gentle; his burden might seem long or harsh, but they aren’t . Jesus sees us as his own; sometimes we can feel the world is closing in on us because we are often not accepted by people, especially when we are genuinely following God, but God wants us to know that he is there through it all, he's there through the missed treatment, through the isolation, through the anxiety of life he is there. 

  2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;9 persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

      The word tells us we are hard-pressed but not crushed. We can be under extreme pressure, but we are not crushed. A lot of times, we can feel this way because that’s what the enemy wants us to feel like. We are not winning, or we are not accepted, but we are accepted by God regardless of what is we have done, the word says we are perplexed: what does perplexed mean? We are filled with uncertainty but aren’t at a loss for hope. Our hope is in Jesus; we are tried on every side but not forsaken by Jesus; we will constantly feel struck down, but we are not destroyed. We are victorious, and that’s something we must hold on to. Many of us lose hope when going through it, but we have Jesus, and in him, we have victory.

   Victory might seem neither here nor there, and victory might not feel like it is ours, but it is; a lot of us have to realize that no matter what we go through, God is going to be there, but we must focus on him a lot of times we are lost in our thoughts lost in our situations but when we have no one to go to God is standing there saying I can help you just trust in me! 

   Verse 16: Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed daily.

   It says don’t lose heart A lot of our situations seem endless, like there’s no way I’m getting out of this, but God says don’t look at your situation, keep your eyes on me, don’t let what you are going through stop you from praising him, don’t let what your feeling stop you from thanking him, praise him when you're going through, don’t lose heart at what’s happening but stand your ground and tell the enemy that I won’t lose heart, that I won’t feel defeated because I am  VICTORIOUS in Jesus name! 

  Verse 18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

  The word tells us again, don’t fix your eyes on what is seen but fix your eyes on the unseen, which is eternal that’s even with your troubles, don’t let your troubles be what you focus on; give them to God and allow him to work it out and a lot of times it might feel like you can’t let our troubles go I know it’s hard but the more we hold on to them the more we are telling God I don’t think you can handle what I have going on and he can if he can string the stars in the sky ,if he can create this whole world don’t you think he can take care of you? he can! 

  God doesn’t look at what we look like; he doesn’t throw us away because we don’t have this or we don’t look this way; no, he holds us and comforts us through our hiccups that’s what a true parent does through our hurt and pain he’s there to comfort us. 

   ***Today, we talked about how God doesn’t just throw us to the side; he stays with us; many of us have had people toss us to the side because we don’t meet their standards. The only standards we need to keep up with are God's standards, and he doesn’t have any; he wants us to come to him just the way we are so he can love us right where we are. 

   Psalm 73:76 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

    God's strength will never run out; we will run out of money, we will run low on energy, we will need to replenish a lot of things, but God love won’t stop neither will his strength , I can say I have been in some tough spots, and I thought I won’t ever see the end of this. Still, God shows me why I can depend on him every time. If you're having a hard time, you can also go to him and tell him exactly how you feel. ©Seer~ Prophetess Lee

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PRAYER

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Heavenly Father, thank you for today; help us be stronger and wait on you. Lord, we thank you for your love, grace, and mercy. Lord, help us to keep our eyes on you and not on our troubles; lord, help us to know that when we do have troubles, we have you, and you’ll guide us through it all and that we aren’t broken, and we aren’t thrown away because you love us through or mistakes through or deepest pain. Lord, we are so grateful, in Jesus' Name Amen 

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REFERENCES 

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+  Ephesians 3:16 that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

 

+ Titus 3:5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,

 

+ Psalm 27:13: I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living

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FURTHER READINGS 

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 Proverb 22

Job 32

Psalm 116

Joshua 17

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[mwolf0epsilon]

The Umbaran Pathogen - Day 21: Shock

Summary: While on their way to the basement floor, Kix's team is reunited with the rest of the 501st's medics. Finding a cure will have to wait just a little bit longer...

Warning: Slight gore warning due to injuries, but it's not overly descriptive (there is mention of a potential loss of limb)

Twitch belongs to @gaeasun Pitch belongs to @lost-on-kamino

Prev / Next

[In which the events on Umbara are worsened by an unknown pathogen taking hold of both the 501st and 212th. These series of drabbles will follow a non-linear timeline based on the AI-less Whumptober prompt list for 2023.]

THIS STORY IS ALSO ON AO3

---

The lift had been fingerprint-locked with a specific code for each set of prints that were logged into the security system's database. Neither Rex, Fives nor Kix had anything on them that they could use to slice into the system and bypass this security measure so, as a result, the trio had been forced to rush down flight after flight of stairs. Making them regret ever having climbed up a tree, to reach the exposed vents that were mounted up on the 11th floor of the hospital.

Usually running down a few stairs wouldn't tire them out this badly, but considering how grueling the campaign had been (for various reasons), suffice to say they were not in great shape at that exact moment. Sleep deprived, hungry and thirsty. And maybe a little cranky as well, which was more than a little fair.

That said, they were finally on the first floor. Sweating bullets and practically dragging themselves forward, while utilizing the facility's map to figure out where the basement hatch was located. Because of course the Umbarans had decided to make it hard for just anyone to stumble into their precious server rooms.

Nothing could be easy on this gods forsaken planet.

"It says right here that the hatch is in a tiny room behind the main lobby." Fives offered as they got closer and closer to the entrance of the hospital. Keeping an eye out, despite all of the halls they had traversed being virtually abandoned. "Probably so the receptionist can keep an eye on whoever goes in and out..."

"It's only gotten colder..." Rex sighed. "My HUD is giving off insane temperatures..."

"You know, the harder I think about it, the more sense it makes to keep the temperatures so cold in here." Kix looked around, his own HUD showing him just how frigid the halls really were. "A lot of terrestrial arthropods don't do well in the cold, and Dogma looked like he'd turned into some kind of insectoid. The infected would probably avoid coming in here because it'd mess with their bodies and senses."

"When you put it like that, the basement thing also makes sense." Rex mused as he kept on walking at an even pace. "If the entire building is cold, but one section produces noticeable heat, they'd try to break in and congregate in the warmer server rooms. By keeping them in the basement, they can at least mask the difference in temperatures..."

"Still sucks that we have to go down there." Fives pointed out.

They were now in the lobby, which was as deserted as the rest of the facility. Briefly, Kix wondered if maybe the staff had been evacuated once the two battalions had made it planet-side. Or maybe something else had happened while both armies went at it out in the woods?

He couldn't be sure, nor did he really ponder on it for long. Not when the entrance door swung open, revealing two very familiar figures carrying...

"Twitch?! Coric?!" Kix gasped at the state of the two standing medics, before his eyes focused on the two prone figures they were carrying on their backs. "Oh stars..."

"What happened to Pitch and Sponge?!" The second most experienced medic heard Fives exclaim, as he rushed forward to help. Settling the unconscious Sponge on the floor and noting their bruised and bleeding face, before moving to do the same for Pitch. Startling slightly when, despite not moving in the slightest, the blue-haired medic blinked up at him and darted his eyes about, trying to take in the scene.

"They're...." Twitch's legs shook as he collapsed onto his knees. All energy drained as he tried to catch his breath in loud shuddering gasps.

"Easy vod'ika..." Rex comforted the younger clone, kneeling besides him to rest a hand on his back. "Take deep breaths, like this..."

While the Captain took charge of the youngest, Fives muttered a loud curse as something suddenly occurred to him.

"Kark... Their buckets aren't on them, and their armor is pretty busted up. They're gonna freeze in here..." The ARC pointed out, seeing the poor state they all were in. There was no way their kit's thermoregulation systems were operative "I... Blankets. There's got to be blankets in a hospital right?"

Paying no mind as the ARC ran off to look for something to keep their injured vode warm, Kix instead began to assess the situation. Sponge had a broken nose, busted lip, several scratches and bruises, and their breathing wasn't sounding too good. Coming off rattly and wet-sounding, which he hoped was just because they were trying to breathe through a broken and bloodied nose.

Likely concussed to hell and back as well...

Pitch, meanwhile, seemed to be awake and aware but unable to move. Perhaps also unable to feel anything at the moment, since he'd definitely be passed out from both the horrific gashes on his face, and the huge gaping hole in his upper-thigh. Both of which were bleeding sluggishly.

"Dogma stung him..." Twitch mumbled. "He uh... He can't... Can't move or talk or.... Or..."

"Easy vod." Rex continued to comfort Twitch.

"Coric..." Twitch blinked tiredly. Looking towards the CMO who was standing there with his left arm dangling uselessly at his side.

Looking at his Ori'vod, Kix's heart began to race ever so slightly. He was still standing, but the wound on his shoulder looked bad. So bad in fact that he could just about see exposed bone. The way the arm hung limply also did not give him much hope that Coric had any use of it left, since the muscles and ligaments on the shoulder had definitely been torn off.

And then there was the far away look in his brother's eyes that gave him a lot of reason to worry. That glazed unseeing look that he mostly only saw on dead vode. Or, in some cases, the ones that just couldn't take the pressure of war anymore.

Resistant to stress his left nut and shebs...

"He's going into shock." Kix hissed, looking to Rex. "Get his armor off."

"But he'll free--"

"Now, Rex!" Kix barked out the order, giving no space for the blond to argue. Thankfully the Captain seemed to understand and moved over to Coric so as to begin removing his kit. Twitch joining in, the younger medic likely trying to use the repetitive motion as a way to ground himself and avoid going into shock himself.

"Fives, have you found those blankets?" He called out after the ARC, who was somewhere under the receptionist's desk fiddling with the drawers and storage boxes.

"Got some of those electric ones that we've got in the Resolute's medbay, and some emergency ones as well!" Fives replied as he held up both the familiar reflective material and a very large bundle with a wire and remote attached to it.

"Great! Bring them over, as many as you can carry!" Kix knelt back down to turn remove Sponge's kit and then turn them on their side to avoid any chances of aspiration. His fellow medic didn't need to drown in their own sick, or end up with a bout of pneumonia on top of everything they'd already gone through. "Rex, Twitch, wrap up Coric in one of each blanket. I need one of you to keep an eye on his breathing and heart rate, and the other to raise his legs up. I'm going to tend to Pitch and Sponge, and once I'm done I'll have a look at his arm."

Fives handed over two of the blankets to Rex, before moving on to wrap up Pitch who was watching quietly. Giving Kix space to work on Sponge, while offering the blue-haired medic some basic first-aid. Between the two of them, the other two and most injured troopers were quickly patched up and bundled up nice and warm.

Then, Kix moved on to treating Coric.

As he'd guessed, his arm was in terrible condition. With all of the damage his shoulder had received, it was very likely he'd be losing the arm altogether. Something which made Kix's heart ache just thinking about it.

A loud and inhuman sounding shriek outside made everyone jump slightly. Pitch's eyes immediately darted towards the door, while Twitch visibly tensed. The younger medic's trembling worsening considerably as he recognized the horrid sound.

"Oh crap, I think they're here..." Fives gulped as he squinted out one of the tinted windows, seeing some movement in the distance. "We need to get that cure, and fast..."

"We're down three medics." Kix pointed out. "Cure or not, going out there won't end well for any of us... Especially if they know they have us boxed in."

"They hit so fast..." Twitch whimpered. "They caught us by surprise and... And..."

"We get the picture kid..." Fives winced, looking towards the injured medics and back out the door. "We'll... Think of something... But first, lets get down into the basement and look for what we came here for in the first place..."

Things were not looking good in the slightest. But what else could they do other than proceed with their mission? Maybe once they knew what they had to do, they could then figure a way to change the tides.