#Rhetorical Ink Observations

[thealogie]

Gotta preface it with ‘I’m not from the US, so obviously don’t understand lots about how election results affect everyday life of people living there’. Also, if I suddenly, still being myself, became a US citizen with a right to vote, I can’t imagine voting for Trump. Saying all that, I don’t think labelling half of the country, tens of millions of people, genuinely evil is very productive or even mentally honest.

I am from the part of the world, which suffered from both republican and democrat US administrations, and lately most of the geopolitical games resulting in tons of blood, have been played, obviously, by democrats. I have to say that I find their utter hypocrisy deeply disgusting. At least your republicans, how I see it, don’t even mask being monsters, they say it like it is. When two negotiating sides state their goals outright, it is possible to come to an agreement at least marginally better than when one side is always being two(3,4,5)-faced, making a point to wrap their actual goals (if they even know them) in pretty words about democracy while double-crossing their negotiation partner even before the ink has dried.

I know that you’re from Iran and are aware of how deeply destructive US foreign policies can be, increasingly so since the start of this century. With one caveat that Trump seems to be especially hostile to Iran, and a democrat would’ve been marginally better when it comes to the US policy regarding Iran. It’s not the same for all parts of the world though, so we might not all be unbiased observers here.

I know that foreign policy doesn’t decide US elections, I only wrote this longwinded nonsense to say that maybe there are solid reasons for half of the US to prefer Trump and reject the democrats, like for the rest of the world there are reasons for either. Economic, political, whatever. Maybe liberals should look into these reasons before dismissing millions of people as genuinely evil, like Hillary did in her time. Idk about you, but when she called half of the country ‘deplorables’ or whatever, no one I know and no one I read (not from US) felt sympathetic. It just sounded incredibly entitled and delusional, and plain dumb. And it looks like since Hillary democrats haven’t learned or even attempted to learn anything, it’s still ‘half of our nation is broken and evil and we can’t do anything about it’. But it’s not how people work, in my opinion. Yes, they might not care about minorities first, they might care about themselves first, but doesn’t it mean that politicians should identify their problems and offer solutions? Isn’t it how it works? Dehumanazing Trump supporters will only radicalize them more, isn’t it what in fact happened, and how it always works with people in general?

Idk about life inside the US, like I said, but how I see it, the only ones to blame here are democrats and liberals in general. If people in the world, and I’m sure inside the US, will see that they finally start addressing the problems instead of hiding behind empty rhetoric, if the level of hypocrisy and delusional entitlement decreases at least to some degree, the support for right-wing populists will also decrease, I’m sure of it. Because most people are not ‘genuinely evil’, but they become embittered and cruel when their concerns are continuously dismissed, things start to fester resulting in ugly political outcomes. I mean, I know you know all this, sorry for being so boring and longwinded. It’s just that I usually like your takes (I came for MASH and stayed for the neighbors as well), including political ones, but here I got a bit of a whiplash, sorry.

I appreciate this thoughtful note. You don’t have to like my takes for us to be on friendly terms. And to be clear I do forever and always blame democrats and liberals for not energizing the people who agree with them.

But as you say you don’t live here and so there’s no way for me to convey to you without asking you to spend months reading right wing political accounts here and talking to people here that a sizable number of the people who support this man are genuinely bad people and want me and people like me out of this country.

This comes from hundreds of personal encounters over the past 8 years and spending the past three months reading dozens and dozens of pieces of reporting that are like “I went to talk to voters in a small town, here’s what they had to say.” And the things you hear are: purge this country of immigrants, make America a dominating force in the world again, get us back to traditional values where women are popping out babies…oh yeah and also the economy would be better under him.

Like idk what you want me to call sexist, homophobic, white supremacists but I think they are evil. And I think it used to be that the Republican Party was more polite about all of these beliefs so I could understand people being disaffected and voting for them for reasons other than hating other humans but now we’re just saying the quiet part out loud and there’s no plausible deniability

[haggishlyhagging]

Get "power" by "surrendering" and "submitting" to your man's every whim, a leading '80s self-help manual advises in typical feminist-sounding rhetoric. Don't talk back, because a ladylike silence will "enhance" your "self-respect" and "feeling of mastery." "Take charge . . . of your courtship," suggests another popular text. "Overcome obstacles," so you can get married. The pseudofeminist title of one 1989 advice book puts it most succinctly: Women Who Marry Down and End Up Having It All.

While the backlash therapy books may be written in feminist ink, they blot out the most basic precept of feminist therapy—that both social and personal growth are important, necessary, and mutually reinforcing. This is a view that was supported, albeit in a rather degraded, commercialized form, in the leading self-help manuals of the 70s; in 1975, The New Assertive Woman issued an "Everywoman's Bill Of Rights" that called for "the right to be treated with respect" and "the right to be listened to and taken seriously." The '80s advice writers, by contrast, seemed to go out of their way to urge women to stop challenging social constraints and to keep their thoughts to themselves—to learn to fit the mold rather than break it.

On no group of women did the self-help authors impress this message more strongly than the ones without wedding rings. The diagnosis was, underneath it all, little changed from the postwar era, when that era's leading advice book—Marynia Farnham and Ferdinand Lundberg's Modern Women: The Lost Sex—declared all single women neurotics and proposed subsidized psychotherapy to get them married. In the '80s, even advice experts more sympathetic to single women and the pressures they faced touted the same marital party line. In the popular 1988 advice book, If I'm So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single?, counselor Susan Page acknowledges in her introduction that unwed women are contending with a social climate that is especially rough on them now; they are burdened by "the specific problems that our times have spawned, such as misogyny," she writes. But she's not interested in helping single women develop the self-confidence and internal strength they need to bear up under these antagonistic conditions. Nor does she propose that single women even question the culture's marital marching orders. "I want to accept certain sociological and psychological factors as given [her emphasis]," she writes. "In this book we will not discuss why [her emphasis] these conditions are as they are, and we will not lament them." What then should single women do to ease what Page calls the "Great Emotional Depression" that she says has descended on millions of them? Just change your single status, she proposes. She dispenses "strategies" only to make women more marketable for marriage.

The '80s backlash therapists firmly rejected another fundamental feminist principle—that men can, and should, change, too. "[L]ately it seems there is a rising tide of utter frustration among women concerning men," Smart Women/Foolish Choices observes, and a lot of women "always end up feeling disappointed by men." But Cowan and Kinder do not go on to consider what men might be doing to inspire such an outpouring of frustration, nor how men might change their behavior to make women feel better. Instead, the psychologists conclude that men are fine and any disappointment women feel is wholly self-generated. It's not the men who are "inadequate," the authors write; it's just that the women's "expectations are distorted." Women are just "hypercritical" of men. All would be well if women only learned to "truly understand men" and their "need for mastery and career success." Women would be happy if they only quit "pushing" the opposite sex to change and learned to "compromise."

Asked later what sort of compromises he had in mind, Kinder says: "Women could have their kids while they are still in college, and then, if they still want a career, they can do that after the kids are grown. You do have to make some sacrifices." What about fathers "sacrificing" by taking some responsibility for their children? Kinder, whose wife stayed at home to raise their children, mulls it over. "Yeah, well that would solve the problem," he says. "But men won't do it. And it's not our place to be saying things like that. We're not social engineers." Not, anyway, when it comes to men.

Confronted with the antifeminist implications of their message, the backlash therapists almost always issue a denial. "We're talking about broadening expectations, not settling for less, and that's not just a play on words," Cowan says. But it is exactly that—unless Cowan has already forgotten his own "Rules for Finding the Right Man" in Smart Women. Rule #8: "Fewer expectations lead to greater aliveness."

Some of the therapists attacking women's liberation most forcefully claimed, in fact, to be proponents themselves. As many media-conscious therapists in the '80s discovered, feminist-bashing "feminists" garnered the most airtime. Susan and Stephen Price, authors of the popular No More Lonely Nights: Overcoming the Hidden Fears That Keep You from Getting Married, were one such "feminist" husband-and-wife therapy team who got a lot of press mileage plugging this backlash diagnosis of modern single women: "androphobia." This "problem without a name," they wrote, shamelessly stealing Friedan's phrase, was a "deep-rooted intense fear of men" shared by most unmarried women over thirty, especially professional women. The cause: "You have been deeply influenced by feminism."

* * *

"These obsessive androphobic fears are a major ingredient in women's resistance to marriage today," Stephen Price is saying in his Manhattan office, a few weeks after his appearance on the "Today" show. "Now that we've reached the end of the women's movement, which is where our culture is today . . ." Here he hesitates, then says, "We both, of course, feel very pro the gains of the women's movement."

His wife, Susan, seated in the office's other therapeutic armchair, nods vigorously. "We're both feminists," she says. "In fact, it was almost me being a feminist that kept me from seeing these hidden fears developing. As a therapist I encouraged women to pursue careers. But what happened is, women escaped into their careers and they didn't put their energy into their relationships. Their feminist viewpoint became a trap." But if careers hurt women psychologically, then why do professional women consistently rank highest, as we've seen, in virtually all measures of mental health? The Prices have no answer.

In spite of their pro-feminist claims, the Prices seem to oppose every feminist tenet, from economic independence to sexual freedom. In their book and in their counseling sessions, they advise women to refrain not only from initiating sex but from having sex at all before marriage. "If the woman is sexually aggressive, the man might put her in the category of someone to go to bed with, period," Susan Price says. Evidence? "Fatal Attraction may be overdrawn in some ways, but you can really see that operating there," she says.

Unlike authentically feminist therapists, the Prices don't consider, much less confront, other forces at work in women's lives. They reinforce the era's isolation of single women by encouraging their female readers to see themselves as defective units, alone and isolated only by their own aberrant behavior. They advise women to "deal with your own personal crisis: What might you [their emphasis] be doing to make intimacy with a man impossible? What attitudes are keeping you [their emphasis] unavailable for marriage?" The primary offending attitude that the book singles out: an insistence on respect and equal treatment from one's mate. "The desire to avoid a submissive status in relationship to men can lead you into a loveless life," they assert. Again, there is no analysis of the attitudes of men, much less proposals for altering them. If a man mistreats a woman, she probably asked for it. "A resistant woman picks a resistant man," Susan Price says. "What we help single women to see is how what they think is a problem with the man is really something inside them." Don't men play any role in difficult relationships? "Probably it is a fifty-fifty proposition," Stephen Price concedes, shrugging. "But this book is focused on women—for the purpose of clarity."

While they don't actually support a feminist vision, the Prices are happy to appropriate the movement's activist language to promote their own agenda. They urge women to "take control" of their love lives by scaling back their career aspirations and to "gain power" over potential husbands by remaining celibate. "It's Up to You to Get Married," the manual instructs, this being the only arena, apparently, in which it's okay for women to take the initiative.

Androphobia may have a scientific ring, but it's not based on scientific research—or any research at all. "We just knew it was a phobia," Stephen Price says flatly. How? "Well, because there's an avoidance there." Pressed to explain what that means, Stephen Price falls silent. Finally, he says: "A lot of the dynamics of phobia are hidden. That's how we know it's a phobia. It's very hidden." This invisible phobia turned the Prices into very visible "marriage gurus," as they now call themselves. "We are inundated," Susan Price says happily. "We've been doing three radio shows a week. Women are calling up saying, what's your [marriage] success rate? We do sessions by phone. We have women flying in from out west. And we get so many letters from women saying they read our book and they realize now how they did it to themselves. They are grateful."

It turns out that Susan Price does actually support feminist principles in one way—for herself. "When we first married, Steve couldn't understand my need for my own career and not wanting to be a homemaker," she recalls. "I got jobs [to support him] while he was in graduate school. He was being groomed for a career and what was I doing?" First she became a schoolteacher, but she didn't find it fulfilling enough. "I decided I wanted to be a therapist. So I went back to graduate school. The kids were still babies at the time. We hired a lot of baby-sitters and put them in a lot of nursery schools." Was any of this a mistake? "Oh, no. I love what I do."

-Susan Faludi, Backlash: the Undeclared War Against American Women

[hazyaltcare]

Typing quirk suggestions for a...

William Murdoch

(Murdoch Mysteries)

...with themes of the 1890s, early 1900s, science, math, mystery, and crime investigators.

Character Adjustments:

Capitalize "M."

Replace "🤨" with "(¬_¬")."

Replace all instances of "pi" with "ℼ." (Ex. "Spin" becomes "sℼn," "pipe" becomes "ℼpe," and "hospitality" becomes "hosℼtality.")

Replace "E" with "∑."

Replace "F" with "ƒ."

Word Adjustments:

Replace "add," "and," and "plus" with "+" or "➕️."

Replace all goodbyes with "au revoir."

Replace all greetings with "bonjour."

Replace "commitment," "obligation," and other synonyms with "duty."

Replace "diminish," "shrink," and other synonyms with the mathematical term "contract."

Replace "expand," "enlarge," and other synonyms with the mathematical term "multiply."

Replace "firm," "inflexible," "stubborn," and other synonyms with "rigid."

Replace "individual," "person," and other synonyms with "perp."

Replace "junker," "wreck," "jalopy," and other synonyms with the old-fashioned Quebec slang term "charette."

Replace "purpose," "use," and other synonyms with "function."

Replace "reason," "cause," and other synonyms with "motive."

Replace "subtract," "minus," and "deduct" with "-" or "➖️."

Text Prefixes & Suffixes:

【🔍🔬👮‍♂️．．．��� <text>

ᔕᑕIEᑎTIᗩ <text> ᗰᗩTᕼEᗰᗩTIᑕᗩ

↪ <text> 🕵‍♂️

<text> 𝚂𝚒𝚗𝚌𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢, 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙰𝚛𝚝𝚏𝚞𝚕 𝙳𝚎𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚟𝚎

<text> 🚲💨

<text> - 𝓦. ℳ.

Phrases To Use:

"An investigation is only as thorough as its most oblivious investigators." A paradox that reminds the listener to mind the company they keep, as the weakest link can be a detriment to their overall goals.

"He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it." A quote from the famous Roman philosopher Seneca, this saying encourages the listener to do the right thing, even in tough circumstances, lest they become what they protest.

"If your hate could be turned into electricity, it would light up the whole world." A quote from Nikola Tesla, who William Murdoch is a known admirer of. This (arguably insulting) phrase informs the listener that their hatred is very potent, perhaps suggesting/warning that they try harder to keep it in check.

"I'm so stressed that I'm starting to see rorschach blots in blood spatter patterns." A darkly humorous metaphor that suggests stress is causing the speaker, who is presumably a crime scene investigator, to see psychologically disturbing imagery in blood spatters, just like in a rorschach ink blot test.

"Shall I refuse my dinner because I do not fully understand the process of digestion?" A rhetorical question posited by Oliver Heathside; a famous English mathematician and physicist known for his work in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This phrase reminds the listener not to shun things simply because they don't understand them.

"The investigator should have a robust faith - and yet not believe." A quote from Claude Bernard, a French physiologist from the 1800s. It is to be used in investigative contexts and can remind the listener that, while it is important to keep their optimism and humanity when investigating, it is important that they also hold onto their skepticism.

"The man who raises a fist has run out of ideas." A quote from the famous late 19th and early 20th century writer, H.G. Wells. It can be used to remind the listener that conflict is a last resort used by those with limited problem-solving skills.

"You're searching for answers harder than a PI that's about to get their funding pulled." A simile that can be used to highlight the frantic nature of a subject's search for answers.

General Quirk Suggestions:

Use 1890s-1900s Canadian slang in your speech whenever possible. If you're struggling to find period-appropriate Canadian slang online or in books, try using American and/or British slang that is period appropriate instead, as Toronto slang of that time period was heavily influenced by it's American and British counterparts.

Use a lot of observational remarks, using terms such as "analyze," "inspect," and "investigate" when referring to what you are observing.

Mod Haze (🎮Greyson)

[jjungkooksthighs]

Five times you have taken advantage of my love for you." The solid plane of his chest covers her back as he presses himself down onto her, his hips forcing hers forward until she's on her knees beneath him once more. "Four times I have made you fall apart for me.”  His fingers depress themselves even deeper against the fragile flesh of her throat as he takes her earlobe between his teeth, "The next time you come, omega, will be your last.”

The female beneath him trembles at that last word.

It has a cocksure grin lifting the muscles around his lips.

He laughs, the sound dripping with derision. “Of course, that’s assuming you do not pass out on me. If you do, I will just have to continue your punishment until you can take it.” The way that that dark, sharp laughter draws itself out and etches itself everywhere that their bodies meet makes familiar desire ink itself into her very veins. There’s a challenge in what he says, for he knows his little hellion too well. Dangling a threat before her was too easy when he had his knot inside her and she had nowhere to go. 

Despite the fact that she can’t even hold herself up anymore, she unthinkingly devours his bait. 

She turns her head so she can peek up at him from a fan of dark lashes and those hazel eyes tell him everything that her mouth will not. Her lids droop from the exertion of their…activities. Even the way she lethargically blinks, as if doing so is a trying task, cannot cover for how her irises have swelled to the point that the whites of her eyes are hardly even there anymore. Her mouth remains ajar just the slightest bit, the sliver of saliva oozing from one side dampening the cushion beneath her in a dark stain. Her arms have gone limp, her fingers failing now to even clutch at the soft material under her. 

It makes him harden inside her. 

“Did I fuck you too hard, whore?” He croons sarcastically, his fingers running over her sizably engorged clit as he stiffens between her walls, “You certainly fucked me over one too many times with your misbehavior. It’s only right I return the favor and put you in your fucking place, slut.” He groans as her walls start to flutter around him, his digits expertly roving and roaming all over the bundle of nerves crowning her cunt even as she whimpers pathetically under him. That has him groaning, his cock rubbing against her as he shifts his hips and she’s helplessly split open even more on his knot.

“That’s it, my love… take it,” he husks. “You love this, don’t you, you little whore? Being my favorite fucking cock sleeve must be nice, isn’t it? Because I only want to fuck you.” He observes the way she quivers, her breaths shallow and sporadic while her heart pounds in her chest as he makes it race. “Even when you’re acting like a bitch, all I can think about is sinking my cock into any of your holes and having my way with you until that attitude is pounded out of you.”

Her response is but a note of a sound. The tremors wracking her body shake her with even more ferocity in the spike of her heartbeat.

More. There was more he could do. More he wanted to see. And the female who still watches them from afar? She could watch. His mate was putting on quite the show, and he’d learned that females were skilled in the art of gossip and rhetoric when it suited them. This one that clings to the tree outside their den would be no different.

No doubt she’d scurry back to her little friends and let loose her lips to spill what she’d witnessed.

And he wants this creature beneath him to be completely exposed. Not only figuratively, but physically as well. Like that, he can do to her what he knows will send her over the edge this last time. 

The hand he’d been using as a collar around her neck releases her as he flips them over, his back now resting on the cushion while her own limp body sits atop him. The world turns for her, but she doesn’t even register it. The second that she takes that first deep breath of air, his fingers are there, dragging themselves down her spine. It’s excruciatingly slow, but as his digits continue to descend, the ones he has attached to her sex speed their ministrations. 

She doesn’t even know she's biting down until he’s murmuring, “Go on and grit your teeth, whore. It won’t stop me from taming you.” The long digits he’s been trailing down her back fall between the cleft of her ass, and then she sucks in a breath, her head beginning to spin from his antics and the rush of oxygen. 

The view he’s got right now is one straight out of his daydreams, and gods, he surely was blessed to have this specimen on top of him all to himself. 

He makes a low-pitched sound akin to a growl, and the vibrations that start near his throat go all the way down his cock and straight up her cunt before directly shooting up her spine the moment that those devious fingers of his push against the puckered skin of her asshole. The fingers he’s got latched to the other side of her hasten to an ungodly pace as the friction from them has her eyes rolling back into her skull. 

Despite the pulsating, tingling sensation that has begin to sear into her pussy, she moans. 

He licks his lips, wishing he could devour that delicious sound. 

“Tell me you love me. And then you'll admit to me why you’ve been such a bad girl for me these past few months.” He teases her other hole, his fingers pushing against it yet never breaching as he urges, “Do that, and your punishment will be over. Do that, and I shall take my knot out of you and let you go to our bed where you will stay from how weak and tired this body of yours will be after all I have done to you.”

Her body is a mess of flailing limbs on top of him, for her muscles are wrenched and drained of all their energy. Her hands fall to her sides without any aim, and her hair frames her face, tousled and utterly disheveled from how his fingers had tugged and pulled at it not long ago. Her heart rams itself against the walls of her chest as if begging to pour itself out to him, the blood pumping through her body mostly directed down to her legs, trying to support her up. In the process, the lack of sufficient oxygen reaching her head makes her feel all the more droopy, her mouth open the slightest bit as she drools, his name a mere whisper when it leaves her, far too lost in the heady, unrelenting pleasure and pain he provides her with. “Tell me you love me. And then you'll admit to me why you’ve been such a bad girl for me these past few months.” He commands in a low growl, the reverberations of which make her shiver. A small moan leaves her when she feels his fingers working their way to pushing her to the brink of her next, and last orgasm, his other hand merely grazing her other hole, pushing against it, and yet, never going further. “Do that, and your punishment will be over. Do that, and I shall take my knot out of you and let you go to our bed where you will stay from how weak and tired this body of yours will be after all I have done to you.” The finality of his tone makes her pussy flutter, and yet, the simplicity of the task she's been given makes her heart swell with gratitude. "I love you, alpha." she pants out loud and clear. "T-there is no doubt-" Another whimper pushes past her lips in a broken syllable of his name, a wanton calling for him and only him. "n-no doubt in t-that." It takes her a lot of effort to speak given how she can barely breathe, but, she doesn't care. The male below her has asked for her to profess to him her love. She couldn't ever deny him of that. Not when there's so much affection and admiration she harbors for him. Never. So, she continues. She needs him to know just how much she wants him, loves and looks up to him. "I.." she pants. "I don't just love you, alpha." she cries out when he strums a her engorged clit. "I- i worship you." She confesses. "Every small little thing that I do.. i do to.. t-to impress you." her breath is ragged, her voice a whisper. But, that seems to be enough, for the magnitude of her words and the emotion that flares in those eyes of hers is more than enough for her to be heard. "I want to impress you. I want your validation, and I want your acknowledgment. I love you very, very much, sir... and it's my fault for not having made you feel that way recently. I pushed you too far the last few months. I did it for selfish reasons, sir. I never stopped to think of how it might make you feel." her heart sinks to her stomach as her words grow heavier, her mind reeling with the way his fingers hasten their pace, intent on pushing her past the brink of her orgasm. "Y-you.. you ask me why I've been so disobedient.. and, well.." she hesitates just a bit, too abashed. But, she shakes it off. She couldn't hesitate! Fuck it. "I... I d-did it for.. for this, sir." she admits, her cheeks and ears turning red like a cherry bashfully, her eyes not flitting away from his like they usually would. She holds the eye contact, no matter how much she feels like melting away right then and there under his intimidating gaze. "I... I wanted you to-" the finger circling the cleft of her ass prods once more, making her draw in a sharp breath. "t-to take me as you wish, sir." She finishes. "Without- restraint." "It's w-why I like being a brat. I c-crave for you. All of you. B-but- I pushed you too far this time." her breath hitches when she feels the coil in her abdomen tighten once more, tears rolling down her face at the overstimulation. "I- I disrespected you in front of everyone, sir. I.. I beg for your forgiveness, master. Please, forgive me. Please, sir. "

Her admissions trail out of her almost as easily as the spittle on both sides of her mouth.

I love you, alpha." she had professed, "T-there is no doubt-" She’d made some sound that was a cross between a choked hiccup and a heaved breath. "N-no doubt in t-that."

He doesn’t interrupt her. 

He observes with a sick sense of fascination the way that the mottled garden of bruises he’d cultivated all over her neck change shape in the subtle shakes of  her body as she trembles above him. The wolf within rears its legs with the sight of how her brows pull together in effort as her thoughts spin behind them in her attempts to heed him despite the air he’d denied that beautiful little body of hers. It is taking everything his lover has to obey him this time with her fleeting consciousness after the physical exertion of their…intimate affairs. The blood she’d lost from his own feedings had made her sluggish and slow. Despite that, her heart pounds against her chest too quickly, the sweat beading her forehead and clinging to her skin failing to cool her in the heat of his heated, unending ministrations. 

She was a fucking piece of art. 

How he could stare and admire her all day and night. How he did just that. Even when she was fast asleep and tucked under his arm when the moons were high and the sky was dark, he could not help but to appreciate the beauty that slept peacefully at his side, her much smaller frame fitting into him like she was made for him. 

I.." she had continued on, "I don't just love you, alpha." Those perfectly sculpted brows of hers had knit tighter together, her mouth opening in an ‘o’ when he rewarded her with more pressure that, using his thumb, he pushed into the button of nerves crowning her perfect pussy with. Her sweet voice had cracked lightly after that.  "I- i worship you.”

That one has all of his muscles stiffen. Well, all except the ones working her wet cunt and pretty little asshole. He wasn’t about to let up when she was so close to finishing. Even if that did surprise him. 

Her? Worshiping him? The idea seemed preposterous. He was no god worthy of her reverence. And yet, she looks at him now as if he’s the creator of life itself. The firelight that bathes her in gold light rings her irises in its glow, and in them, adoration shines. It is unwavering in its sheen, and he knows instantly that saying otherwise, that refuting her would be futile. He could not bear to watch those fervent orbs lose their bright brilliance on account of his refusal of her reverence. 

So, he lets her continue, his knot beginning to deflate inside her. He remains stiff as a fucking piece of wood, and he would make no apologies for that. 

She does, and fuck, each word she breathes out makes him grow impossibly harder. His digits only swirl and slide along her clit and asshole faster, her speech slurring into a moan. 

“Every small little thing that I do.. i do to.. t-to impress you.I I want to impress you. I want your validation, and I want your acknowledgment. I love you very, very much, sir.”

So she wanted a little bit of attention? That made sense. It made a whole lot of fucking sense. His female had been starved of that for many moons during her childhood. Of course she would seek it in him. But how would she ever believe she could impress him, much less earn his approval, when she’d lied to him? When she’d refused him in front of so many other males that looked to him for leadership and guidance?

His expression must betray him to his lover, because she’s speaking again, though this time, she’s thoughtful in her delivery of the words that are feathery in their brush along his ego. 

“You.. you ask me why I've been so disobedient.. and, well,” she stops only when the pad of his thumb pushes against the puckered flesh of her asshole right as he uses the fingers of his other hand to flick against her swollen bud. The spike in pleasure pushes her to swallow down what little hesitation had remained, because then she’s stammering out, “I... I d-did it for.. for this, sir.”

That shyness that she always hid behind…it was nowhere to be found now. Any other time he had coupled with her, she’d have looked away in embarrassment by now. Any other time he found himself seated in her warm depths, he had to order her to keep her eyes on him. 

Not this time. 

This time, she holds eye contact with him, as if tethered. 

Her cheeks grow redder with each second she does, but with one deep, stuttered breath, she admits, “I... I wanted you to-”

You wanted me to lose control, my little vixen?

He urges the thought along the invisible cord tying them together through their bond, and gods be damned, the beautiful creature on his lap fucking nods and under her breath, she confides, “I wanted you to take me as you wish, sir. Without restraint."

Whatever she says after that is lost on him. In the back of his mind, he faintly hears ‘master,’ his cock twitching in interest. 

Over and over again, her voice and the collective of vocables she’d used to fucking confess what he’d known but longed to hear for so long plays in his head, the cage he’d put around his wolf breaking and disintegrating little by little until no bars remain. Her voice–those words–it sends him into some kind of trance, because the world melts away until there is only her, his fingers moving with inhuman speed now as they circle and prod her where no other man would ever know the joy of being able to touch. 

“You wanted me to ravage you like there’s no tomorrow?” It’s his voice that just said that. But its also…deeper. “You wanted it hard and rough?”When the tip of his finger pushes past the tight ring of muscle between her asscheeks at the same time that his other digits whorl around her clit, that’s when she finally throws her head back, begging once more. He listens hungrily, devouring each plea like it is his fucking only nourishment. His vision narrows, her lithe form filling it all as his digit continues to penetrate the chamber of soft flesh in her asshole. “You wanted to see what happens when I crave for you so much that I can’t stop myself from taking you over and over again? When I just fill you up with my seed until I get you pregnant with my children?” He thrusts his finger into her hole, and with his knot still inside her other and his second hand occupied with rubbing at her clit, she can’t even think anymore. All she can do is repeat the only mess of syllables that she’s been trained to whisper when she’s on the cusp of that sweet release. 

There is nothing now but her. All he can hear are her breathy moans, hitched breaths, and broken gasps. All he can see is the ethereal gleam of her skin from under the glaze of sweat that covers her. Her hair has fallen loose from its ties, falling over her shoulders like a dark veil. Her head, still, is turned toward him and she doesn’t dare glance away from him as a strange, low sound rises from the depths of his chest. Her lips have parted even more, and the heavy rise and fall of her chest easily pushes her perfect tits out into view every now and again. 

He subconsciously runs his tongue along his teeth, wanting to latch onto them. He knows they taste fucking amazing when he sucks her nipples into his mouth. And his little love enjoyed it, too. Fucking loved it, even. 

Later. He would make a meal of her later.

Right now, he needs to make her pussy cry for him one more time. And this time, every living creature near and far would hear it. 

“You want me to have my way with you, female? Fine. I’ll have you here and now with my fingers fucking your nice little asshole while my cock is still hard inside your tight, wet pussy."

His vulgarity has her skin pebbling, the unfamiliar brusque edge to his voice leaving little for the way of her dissent if she had any of it.

She's given little time to think once again, because then his index finger that he'd slotted into her asshole is joined by his middle finger and the both of them are curved deliciously against the soft spongy flesh of her walls there when he rams them knuckles deep. That has her whimpering, her lids fluttering as she keeps her sights on her alpha.

He hums low, "You will come for me, female. You will show me how much you meant it when you said you just want to impress me, and you will let everyone hear how much you love being all mine.”

He curls his fingers in a devastating come-hither motion inside the tight channel of flesh inside her, her back arching in a mouth-watering visual as she pleads for her end, her words starting to slur and string together louder and louder.

His lips lift at the edges.

She was waiting for his permission.

“That’s a good fucking girl, omega.” He pumps his fingers in and out of her once, twice, and then, “that’s a good girl. I knew you could be obedient for me. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To let me take control and take care of everything.” Her pussy tightens around his member in her way of an answer and then he’s hissing at the sensation. “Of course you do, female. You like feeling and knowing that you’re wanted. And fuck, there is no one who desires, who craves for you, more than I.” He thrusts a third finger past the ring of muscles in her ass and the friction of three digits ramming into her is almost enough to send her over the edge. It’s so close she can fucking taste it-

He knows. Of course he does. Her body was a gem he’d long since learned all the curves and edges to. Making her glint and gleam in her afterglow, in her every happiness, brought him no greater satisfaction.

“Let go one more time for me, my mate. My one and my only. Scream, bite, or quiver all you need. This belongs only to me. You belong only to me.”

[presleyhearted]

Yours Truly - Chapter 1: Make a Wish

・❥・Pairing: Elvis Presley x original female character

・❥・Genre: slow burn, mystery, angst, fluff.

・❥・Word Count: 4.1k

・❥・Summary: In which a 21-year-old girl suddenly finds herself having consecutive dreams of a particular rock ‘n’ roll star whom she has never met and who died 45 years ago.

・❥・ Ratings & Warnings: SFW. But a brief mention of a sexual topic (nothing extreme), curse words.

| chapter index | prologue | chapter 2

--

NOVA 

When things appear to be blissful and tranquil, that can be snatched away from you in an instant. 

"I knew I'd find you here," A confident statement followed by a sigh, not long after. The empty seat beside me creaks by the motion of being pulled back, as the person occupies it. I observe this in my peripheral vision, but my eyes are fixated on the pages and it's ink in front of me. 

My unchanging position quickly goes noticed by the person beside me, as their hand appears right in front of me - right in the middle of the words that my eyes are drinking in. 

"Luke!" I exclaimed, quickly turning my head towards him. My voice seemed to alert the librarian, as she shushes me very abruptly, a firm glare in her eyes. Both Luke and I mouth a 'sorry' before I turned to glare at Luke. 

He threw his hands up in defence, a grin etched on his lips from the success of disrupting my concentration. 

"I just had to," He shrugs, "your eyes were practically glued to that book."

"But rightfully so!" I flipped the book to show the front cover to him, pointing my finger at the title as if to say matter of fact. 

Luke frowns, confusion wiped his features, "I don't get it." 

"Hamlet. Shakespeare? For our assignment?" 

He snaps his fingers as his mouth utters the realisation, "Oh!" 

I nodded and shook my head, "Exactly." 

"When's the deadline?" He inquiries, a slight panic in his tone - but not quite. Luke was always that person that did not have one single panicky bone in his body. Instead, calmness ran through his veins. Very laid back. Too much, I sometimes think. 

"In three months."

"You are crazy, you do know that right?" Disbelief is written all over his features. 

"Hmm. is that a rhetorical question?" I asked, a smile playing on my lips. 

I do understand Luke's friendly concern over my perhaps 'extreme' attitude of studying. I start an assignment as soon as the professor announces it, never wasting any minute. It allows me the time to construct a first draft, then edit it, then write a second draft. The second draft I find is the midway of the getting that final draft perfect. Precisely on point. 

"Anyways, " I begin, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?" 

"Two things." 

"Good or bad?" I tilt my head at him. 

I met Luke two years ago at the very start of my life as a university student. It was orientation day, and it wasn't anything entirely unique - we were stood next to each other in the line to get our ID's. I made a comment about the scorching heat of the sun, and he turned around to inquire whether I needed to borrow any sunscreen. A very odd way to start a conversation. We later found out that we shared one class together, Creative Writing. From then on, we hung out and naturally formed a friendship. Although, we couldn't be more different in some cases. 

This may be one of those cases. 

He grinned playfully, "Depends on what your definition of those are."

"I know we never share the same definition of either of those." I squinted my eyes at him, smiling. 

"Touché."

"I like him." Luke stated, all the humour from his face has vanished and in its place is a dawned realisation and an unmistakable fear. There is no exaggeration when I say that Luke and I are polar opposites. He always took the leap into the unknown, never over-analysing possible outcomes - he just goes for it. Never a silver of fear and panic in him. 

So to see that very rare emotion clear in his face - I knew that my friend was in a delicate state. 

"Who?" I asked. I already had a gut feeling on who he was referring to, but to hear it from himself would confirm this. 

"Matt." 

I felt my heart sink for him. Luke and Matt began a friends with benefits situation, no strings attached. In our generation, that type of arrangement was not uncommon - and yet, I still worried for my friend, as I recall when he brought it up to me a year ago. Luke may be a very laid back person, full of spontaneity and fun - but he is prone to being caught up in the web of infatuation, very quickly and deeply. On the other hand, I knew Matt. Not closely, but enough to be aware that he is not a relationship-type of guy. So, I warned Luke about this - warned him that the no strings attached situation has its risks. An emotional risks that has the possibility of ending unfavourably for him, so this confession from Luke spikes up that worry that I felt when he first told me about their arrangement. 

"Oh, Luke," I reached my hand out to lightly touch his arm, not wanting to say anything much yet. I wanted to give him the time to process his thoughts and voice them out to me. I needed to listen first. 

He shook his head, "F.uck, I know. I remember you warned me about this. It was going as it usually is, Nova. Then. . . I don't know, " His eyes drift away from mine, as if recalling certain moments. 

Luke proceeded to tell me certain instances where Matt would cross the boundary of the 'no strings attached' situation. Simple, yet it's an intense touch of one's mind. Gestures and actions that two people in relationship would do, a romantic couple. He then continues on to tell me that he finally confessed his feelings to Matt, but has been successfully avoiding him ever since then. 

"I feel like s.hit, Nova." He groans, "I unloaded all of that to him, and ran for it. But I just don't know what else to do. I told myself I'll never find myself in this situation, and yet here I am." He mumbles the last part of his sentence, head in his hands on top of the library desk. 

"Hey," I shake his shoulder comfortingly, "there's absolutely nothing wrong with running away. You did the hardest part Luke, you've got to give yourself credit for that." 

He sighs, "Credit for what?"

"Being damn brave enough to tell him about how you feel, am I right?"

A second of silence. 

"Right. I've got to agree with the voice of reason, I guess." A smile slowly breaks out from him, attempting to lift himself up from despair. 

"Which I am?" I gestured to myself, smiling. 

"From day one. " He sits up, "I want to know what Matt says, but I also don't want to ever know. F.uck. Why is adulting like this? Ever since I started my twenties, life has been putting me on maximum level of danger-type of emotional rollercoasters. " Luke chuckles. 

"Yeah, I get you. But we can only control what we can. No use trying to hold onto things that was never in our hands in the first place." I shrug.

"You know what? Instead of reading books, you should write your own. Like 'Nova's survival guide to life.' or some s.hit." Luke jokes, using his hands for dramatic effect. 

I laugh and shake my head at his ridiculous idea. 

"What? I will bet my left nipple that there will be hundreds lining up to grab a copy of that. You have always been the wise one out of us two." 

I continue to shake my head and dramatically sigh, "I just like being prepared."

Luke snorts, "Uh-huh. But. . ."

"Yeah?"

"Your birthday is in less than twenty-four hours." 

"I am aware of my own birthdate, Luke." I chuckled, but I know that he is indicating to something more with it. 

"What I meant to say is that now you are turning twenty-one. . . maybe just be a little reckless. Don't think, just do." He shrugs. 

I tilted my head forward and he laughs, "Nah, not anything f.ucked up!"

Luke looks around our surroundings, "Libraries and books and being five steps ahead is cool, but don't be too busy looking ahead to notice what's right there in the corner of your eye."

I'm quiet for a moment, but quickly respond to Luke with a smile, "You should write your own book, you know. Like a survival gui-"

"Oh, shut the f.uck up!" He laughs. 

--

The remaining hours of me being twenty years old flashed by like a speed of light. 

I am now stood in front of my full-length mirror in my bedroom, self-consciously turning from left to right and right to left - in attempts to be satisfied with how the birthday dress feels hugging my body. It was a dark purple mini dress that reached my mid-thigh, with long sleeves that covered my arms. I rarely wear dresses in all honestly, only in certain special occasions. There's that silver of self-confidence that beats against the currents in my subconscious mind, creating a friction on my mental image of myself. 

After all, we are our own worst critic. 

My usually straight dark hair was done in loose curls, and I finished my look with a necklace my mother gifted me in advance and the earrings that my grandmother passed down to me a while ago. I always went for the simple makeup, often worried that I'll end up going overboard and looking absolutely ridiculous. So, to ease my worries, Luke's sister came over earlier to fix my makeup into something fancier, but suitable for the occasion. 

Before the conversation with Luke in the library yesterday, I already had preconceived thoughts on the matter about me trying to be 'a little reckless.' I have the habit of journalling quite often, a cathartic way to organise my thoughts and hopefully, makes some sense of it. Like I said before, we are our own worst critic. Although I am firm in my ways of being cautious and wise, the thought of being outside of those lines has crossed my mind more than once for a while now. As the weeks came closer and closer to my 21st birthday, that topic did spin in my head and cluttered the blank pages of my journal. 

When you are a kid, you gaze up at grown-ups in awe and wonder and you can't help but be desperate to grow up. There's that rush and thrill in growing up and being as 'cool' as them. But as the years of your life slip past you and you become older and older as years go by - you shake your head at that naive mind of younger you. How could they possibly think that being an adult is full of pure happiness and magic? 

And the crazy thing is, I did not realise how special it was to be a child - until childhood was over.   Now that I am in my early twenties, the more frightening it is becoming that adulthood can be emotionally abusive and there is that worry of not quite being right. I can be rational, but also feel like an inner child still. A true tug of war where we never truly know who will win. 

But I have concluded this - once you enter adulthood, it seems as though the years past by in a blink of an eye. And I do not want to find myself in a position in the future where I am attacked by this crushing regret that I did not experience life enough. So, I plan from now on, on my first day of being twenty-one years old - I will try my best to take a step outside my lines of logic. Be spontaneous. 

But just like any habit, it is easier said than done. 

I take a deep breathe in attempts to pause my thoughts and exit my bedroom door. I am quickly greeted by a chorus of 'Happy Birthday to you' by family and friends, quickly surrounding me. I smile gratefully, walking slowly towards the table. 

"Make a wish, Nova." My mother says, a bight smile on her face as she shakes my shoulders encouragingly. 

I close my eyes, blocking all the people around me and focus on one particular wish - 

I wish to finally let myself live spontaneously. Nothing extreme. Just something to help me take that first step out. Whatever it is. Send it to me, please universe. 

And with that, I open my eyes and blow out the numerous candles on the luscious red velvet cake. A pattern of applause erupts around me, and the loud music resumes with Luke being the main control of it. 

A little later on, Luke approaches me with a grin on his face, "how does it feel being twenty plus one year added to your life?"

"Weird. But I've made a decision." 

This captures Luke's attention, he looks at me curiously, "Oooooh, a decision on what exactly?"

"What we talked about in the library."

Luke's eyes widen in happy realisation. 

"Yes, that. I. . .I need to be more out there. You are right." I smile at him. 

Luke envelopes me in a tight hug, "I am so happy for you! This is revolutionary, Nova." 

I chuckle at his enthusiasm, and I am about to respond to him when something catches the corner of my eye. 

Some sort of glimmer of faint light that danced from outside the living room window. It was faint and vanished just as quickly as I noticed it. It made no sense since it was night time. It was not the type of light that came from a car's headlight, a streetlight, a flash from a phone - or whatever else. It was a light that had a glimmer to it, almost the type of glimmer you find in animated fairytale stories. 

I blinked and the light was no longer there. Tiredness might just be creeping into me. It was already 11.30PM, as the clock hanging from the wall reads. 

I broke away from the hug with Luke. 

"Have you opened any of your presents yet?" He asked. 

"Not yet."

"Ok, ok good. But we all know mine is the best." He flips his imaginary long hair in a dramatic motion and laughs.

"Of course." I roll my eyes playfully. 

Luke picks up some of the opened birthday cards, "But you've opened some birthday cards I see. Did any cash fall from any of these cards?" He whispered in a conspirator way. 

I chuckle and whisper back, "Yes."

"B.itch you better share. I am broke."

Before I could respond, Luke's curious tone stops me, "Oh, this one's different." 

I looked down at the envelope he is holding. It was a red envelope, but the red was quite faded and It had a small rope that tied it together. I furrowed my eyebrows in curiosity, It felt out of place and it wasn't just because of its color. But there was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on. 

"It's giving me vintage vibes." Luke says. 

Precisely!

"I was just about to say that it looks out of place."

"Hmm, maybe from your grandmother?" Luke shrugs. 

I shake my head, "I don't think so. I've already opened her birthday card for me." 

Without a second of hesitation, I take the envelope from his hands and open it in almost a frenzy. A state of curiosity overpowered me, but then there was confusion. As I peeled open the envelope with my hands, I am met with a blank white greeting card - its front and its inside is blank. No text or illustrations at all. None.

"There's nothing." I state, flipping the card back and forth as if it will magically make a difference to its blankness. 

"You've got to be kidding me," Luke says as I hand it over to him.

"I don't get it." I furrowed my eyebrows. 

Luke walks over to the source of music and turns down the volume, "Hey everyone!" everyone in the room, which is roughly only about 20 people, turn to him and stop dancing - probably in hopes to receive an explanation on why the sudden pause on the music.

"Apologies for interrupting! I just want ask who out of you all has gifted the birthday girl this blank card in this vintage-looking envelope?" He yells, waving the teared envelope with the blank card in it.

Everyone exchanges quizzical looks and shaking of heads. 

"No? No one? Okay then." Luke gets down from the chair, and resumes the volume of the music. He walks over to me and hands me the envelope with the card, "Either one of your cousins is playing a prank on you or no one really has a clue." 

"Well, it would've been nice if there was at least one letter on here. Just anything really. But I doubt it's any of my cousins, they've all collectively just greeted me over the family group chat. " I chuckle. 

"Oh well, after that shortly-lived adventure - I am starving. I think it's time we go get ourselves another slice of cake." He hooks our arms together and pulls me along with him towards the cake on the table. 

"I agree." I grin.

--

Not long after, perhaps around midnight - my guests started to say their goodbyes and head home. The energy of the party has withered down, and myself included - needed to get some much needed sleep. 

"I hope you've enjoyed your birthday, sweetheart." My Mother says, giving me a hug at the front door of my apartment. 

"I have, Mom. Thank you so much." 

"We'll text you once we get home, kiddo." Dad says, smiling at me as he gives me a hug. 

"Okay. Love you both!" 

Both give me wave before turning around and stepping out the front door. I shut the door and lock it, turning around myself and sighing in tiredness. 

"I honestly have no idea how you manage to party throughout the week." I admit to Luke. 

Luke and myself shared the apartment, so naturally he was already lying on the couch. 

"Coffee, Nova. Coffee." He shortly replies.

"Seriously though. My energy is already drained and that wasn't even a crazy party."

Luke sits up and starts to clean up the table, I shortly join him but he promptly stops me from doing so. 

"No way. You are the birthday girl, go get some rest. "

"Are you sure? I can help, it won't ta-"

"Dude, seriously. On the rare occasion that I do clean, which is right now, take advantage and just run." He shrugs. 

I laugh because it is true, Luke was a rather messy person. He was not extremely messy. But let's just say he does get lazy when it comes to the action of cleaning his surroundings. 

So, in this case, he does have a point.

"Okay, fine. Thanks, bestie." I give him a side hug and walk towards the stairs. 

Once I reach my bedroom, I fight the urge to just plop down on the bed. I change into comfortable pyjamas, remove my makeup and place my jewellery on the dresser. 

I yawn as my body finally greets the bed, I pull the duvet cover over myself. My gaze momentarily meet the journal on my nightstand, which reminds me of blank pages that I could fill to chronicle the events of today. But my fatigue is overpowering that action. 

The blank pages make my mind revisit the same state in which the birthday card had, the one that was found in that vintage-looking red envelope. It was strange and made no sense at all. Surely, if it was a prank - then there would be some kind of joke written on the card. But there was nothing on there. 

Nothing.

I feel the waves of fatigue slowly take control of my body, and I allow it. My body finally relaxes, as I am lulled into the hopes of a pleasant dream.

There is such serenity in the silence that greets you when you take a break from the world, and get that few moments of sleep. Some dreams I remember in vague details, others I do not remember at all - as if I did not dream at all and just slept in nothingness until the morning sun greets me. 

My trail of thought is disrupted by the screeching sound of train tracks, I jolt awake with wide open eyes in panic. The sound is so vivid that It is possible that it is coming from just outside my apartment, which is impossible since I don't live anywhere near a train station. 

It takes me a few seconds, but my eyes drink in my surroundings. To the right of me, a wide window that is speeding past the scenery of its exterior. My hands instinctively touch what is beside me - It seems that I am sat on a soft, blue plush wide seat. I already register my surroundings, but my brain cannot fathom the possibility of it. 

I am on a train. A moving train that is going on to I don't know where. But the wooden furnishings of the train compartment make me believe that something is out of place. It all seems so new, but so old at the same time. Like an air clinging onto the past. But not quite. 

"I found you. . . finally." A voice says, in a tone of sheer relief. 

I freeze. My head turns to the source of the voice. The source being the man sat on the seat opposite to me in this train compartment. My eyes drink him in - a wave of thoughts crash through my mind. 

His eyes are unmistakably beautiful. The color blue have never looked more ethereal, and the depth of his gaze made anyone maintaining eye contact with him re-adjust themselves. My throat felt dry all of a sudden. His strongly carved-out jawline was a perfect match for the deep cheekbones that adorned his face. A face that seems impossibly symmetrical - sculpted like the Greek gods one would hear about. His black hair felt into place deliciously against his tanned skin. His lips was curled into that infamous smirk to nicely add onto his overwhelmingly attractive aura. 

It would be impossible to not know who I am facing. 

"I. . .how? you?" Words fail me as I point at him. 

He shakes his head, an amused chuckle escapes his mouth, "Hi, honey." He says, that deep southern drawl prominent in his tone. 

I take a deep breath, "You're. . . him. Elvis Presley." I could not believe the words coming out of my mouth. 

He nods, that smirk of his still very much there, "Yes. Yes I am. " He swiftly gets up, "Hold on." 

He leaves the compartment and shortly returns with a glass of water, "Thought you might need it, darling."

He hands it to me and I gladly accept with a 'thank you', but my brain cannot comprehend the situation. While I'm drinking the water, I cannot keep my eyes off him - his aura was intensely surrounding me, but also the flood of questions that my brain begs to be answered. 

His blue eyes never left mine, with the depth in his gaze - there was something else. There was a sense of disbelief I see in them, but pure joy mixed in too. 

He leans in slightly and with a smile softly says, "I'm glad you're awake, Nova."

next chapter

[liberty1776]

As European defense companies ascend on Kiev in an effort to build ‘in-country’ weapon-manufacturing facilities, the rhetoric for enlisting more cannon fodder in the disastrous counteroffensive against Russia is heating up. For the soldiers fighting in muddy trenches amid falling artillery shells, war has been rightly described throughout the ages as ‘hell.’ But for those sequestered far away in gilded corporate boardrooms and inner-city stock exchanges, war is more popularly known as a money-making ‘racket.’ “[War] is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, and surely the most vicious,” U.S. Major General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) candidly observed. In this age … Continue reading →

[rhetorical-ink]

Haikyuu!! Observations: Tooru Oikawa vs. Atsumu Miya

**SPOILERS FOR ANIME ONLY’S BELOW**

Since I’ve fallen face-first into the Haikyuu!! fandom since being on this Covid-19 Quarantine/Shelter in Place/Whatever you choose to call it, I’ve really attached myself to this show and its characters. And while I really love all of the setters on the show, two of them stand out as my favorites: 

Tooru Oikawa and Atsumu Miya

Yes, I have a soft spot for dramatic, gay as hell, pretty boy brats.

While a lot of reviewers of the anime I’ve watched compare the two, saying Atsumu is “Oikawa realized” or a “suped-up version of Oikawa,” I really think this isn’t true. 

For me, Oikawa and Atsumu are inverses of each other.

Obviously, the pair share similarities:

* Both are setters

* Both are “pretty boys” with an intense fandom

* Both are on the surface sassy, dramatic, and bratty

* Both are insanely good at what they do: Volleyball

What I find interesting is how they are Different, though:

TALENT vs. INSTINCT

* Oikawa isn’t a “genius” or a natural-born talent. His whole character promotes the idea of “polishing” instinct; working extremely hard, sowing the seeds of success and then reaping the benefits later.

* Atsumu clearly has natural talent. He works hard, true, but his character is constantly trying new things, experimenting, and he’s naturally talented enough to pull it off (i.e. the twins trying to rip the “freak quick” and basically succeeding). It’s not something one would see Oikawa doing without intense and laborious practice first.

TEAM DYNAMICS

* Oikawa is known for his power of bolstering his team -- Ushijima himself said that Oikawa can lift a team to its highest potential. He is used as comedic relief, sure, but the teammates of Aoba Johsai know he’s a reliable team captain, and they trust him. Because they have faith in his abilities as a leader and player.

* Atsumu can “bewitch his spikers” with his sets, but he is not a team leader. He’s insanely talented, but relies on his teammates for a lot of the leadership -- once on the Black Jackals, he even mourns the fact that his former teammate Aran isn’t there to back him up or provide advice. While he too is a comedic relief on the team, his team doesn’t depend on him for leadership or that sense of reliability like they do Aran or their own team captain, Kita.

PERSONALITIES

* Oikawa on the surface is charming, happy, and almost-always confident.

Deep down, though, Oikawa is constantly comparing himself to others, afraid he isn’t working hard enough, and fighting his own sense of inadequacy while trying to prove others wrong through his work ethic and “worthless pride” as Ushijima points out. 

* Atsumu on the surface is smug, arrogant, and dramatically confident.

Deep down, though, he’s...actually these things, too. He gets frustrated when others are better than him, (and puts on a show whining about it), but in the end, doesn’t let it phase him getting better. Even after complaining Bokuto-style to his twin brother because he can’t get a serve style right, he ends up moving past it...and getting the serve right. Because he knows he can; it’s just taking the time to make it happen. 

Whereas Oikawa internalizes a lot of his frustrations and stews upon them, Atsumu externalizes his frustrations and dramatically whines about them, but both end up moving forward in accomplishing their goals, regardless of how they got to that point.

And then we have...

HINATA

I CANNOT WAIT until the anime gets to the Rio arc and MSBY Black Jackal arc and we get to see these two setters get “sun kissed” by our boy, Shoyo. 

I find it interesting that Furudate narratively makes it Oikawa that stumbles into Hinata in Rio. I mean, the author could have picked any team for Oikawa to join -- but it’s the Argentinean League. And it could have been any setter for Hinata to meet, but it’s Oikawa.

I think that both Oikawa and Atsumu are foils to Kageyama in varying ways, so it’s fitting that Shoyo gets to interact with both of them before going toe-to-toe with his former teammate. We’ve seen how Kageyama reacted to Hinata being with both of these characters (to extremely hilarious results). I think it’s a great tie-in for both of these characters and showing another connection they have to one another through Shoyo.

SO BASICALLY,

I love these two over-the-top setters and what Furudate has done to present them to us in Haikyuu!! Oikawa was a highlight of Season 2, and Atsumu is looking to be a highlight of Season 4 once it resumes back in July 2020.

Those that have read the manga...it’s taking all I have to be patient, though. 

I’m sure you all feel the same.

[stylistiquements]

The Sorcerer pt. 3

Corpse Husband x gn!reader

Reincarnation AU | Summary :

The same candle lights up on Corpse’s desk every time you are reborn and turn 23. He has been looking for you during centuries but this time you might be closer than anticipated.  {Playlist}

𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝟯 : 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙨𝙚

An eagerness for a special sense of belonging brings you to a lot of unexplored roads. 

☾ Words : 6159.

☾ Warnings : swearing

Masterlist | Previous | Next 

George has barely spoken a word since he started diving into the golden pages of the book Dream brought home. He doesn’t even notice his presence by his side, too absorbed by the perfect calligraphy inked on the paper, curled up on the rocking chair which swings back and forth at a tireless pace.

Dream leans toward his familiar, slowly unfolding his arm so his fingers could get closer to George’s one. His long fingers are curled around the book and it feels as though the contact would be enough to make sure George is okay.

Dream leans toward his familiar, slowly unfolding his arm so his fingers could get closer to George’s one. His long fingers are curled around the book and it feels as though the contact would be enough to make sure George is okay.

When George exhales deeply and rapidly leafs through the golden paper one last time before closing the book, Dream flinches and sits up while clearing his throat.

“You said it was supposed to help y/n but I’m afraid to ask how,” he says as he lifts his head while shaking it in confusion. “I feel like a voyeur after reading all of … this.”

“You don’t have to ask,” Dream mumbles, hoping that it would be enough for George to brush the matter away.

“I have another question that needs an honest answer.”

Dream hums. He hates the way George is looking at him, as if the wrong question was about to come out of his mouth.

“Did you get that book or did you steal it?”

Yeah, wrong fucking question.

“The book contains too much crucial information it to be given to anyone. Even I can feel that," George pushes and he’s so right Dream can’t bring himself to lie, only cover sugarcoat the truth as much as he can.

“It’s ours. I didn’t steal it, I took it back,” he mutters and George sighs exasperatedly.

“So you got us into trouble,” he concludes.

Dream’s lips part but the words get lost in George’s incriminating eyes. He reaches for his hand and grabs it, one last attempt to reassure him as much as he can.

“It’s okay,” Dream finally breathes. “I’ll make sure everything is okay, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“You better because if this goes wrong a human will get involved.”

Sitting in your car in an empty parking lot, you find yourself staring at the object you just bought with a puzzled expression while taking another bite of your bagel. The clueless item, which sits so perfectly still on the passenger seat, seems to be setting a silence you’re not sure how to handle. It’s an awkwardly clear stone in a conical shape attached to a chain reflecting the rays of the sun into iridescent light that spreads above your head and turns the grayish ceiling of the car into something vivid. You take another bite of your food, the only excuse you found to break eye contact for a second, hoping that it would ease the tension that has been growing since you started feeling like the object observed you as much as you observed him. In a long exhale, you end up covering it with your jacket.

You’re not even sure why you bought the pendulum in the first place. Probably a mind busy with a sense of curiosity and the remains of eerie stories you’ve been narrating all morning that still creeped upon you, leaving you feeling a lot more mystic than usual. You just stopped to describe that cryptic looking shop and your steps were leading you inside before you could realize it, the door tinkling as you pushed it open.

The shelves were brimming with crystals and herbs and things you couldn’t identify. From potion ingredients to candles and incense, it looked like the perfect witch den and you hated that it felt so close to home even though it could never be. It was a strange feeling; a sense of belonging as illegitimate as helpless.

Maybe that’s why you wandered around as you did, sight getting filled with questions and a hint of confusion as you analyzed every display meticulously. As if learning more about their world could give you the illusion of being an active part of it. What an irony to hate something you’re so irremediably drawn to.

When you met the object, your attention stopped and you described it with a careful eye. The owner found her way to you; a young lady with faded purple hair and winged liner that made her eyes look like cat’s eyes. She spoke in a funny accent that left you wondering where it could come from. There was something about it -or her- that felt so peculiarly familiar,

“This is a fascinating pendulum, isn’t it?” The woman said, more of a statement than it was a real question. You brushed the impression away and gently smiled at her, not sure what to answer nor even what a pendulum was.

The lady opened the glass cabinet. The chain intertwined with her long fingers and the thing looked more like a jewel when held so delicately and dangling as it was. It swung from back and forth, movements perfectly calibrated. It was inquisitive, a little mesmerizing and, before you knew it, you both were standing on each side of the counter and the lady carefully covered the pendulum with tissue paper.

The way her hair fell behind her ears, the constant smile that was tattooed on her lips, the way the paper crinkled under her fingers, it all grew together to create this one and so lucid déjà vu. The presence felt so intimate, leaving an odd and indelible aftertastes in your throat.

“I’m sorry but haven’t we met before?” You dared to ask as your mind pressured you to.

“Maybe we have,” she simply answered with a soft smile, eyes still locked on the wrapped pendulum. What a weird way to answer a simple question, neither a validation nor a denial.

“I feel like I know you,” you insisted, narrowing your eyes as if you knew there was something more, something that would make everything make sense.

She didn’t say a word, only handed you the small bag she just packed while leading you toward the exit with a hand on your lower back. It wasn’t pressuring but it was firm, an obvious invitation to leave. Maybe you were just being too annoying with the matter and she wouldn’t have been the first one to think so.

“Take care of the pendulum. It’s very special,” she demanded and, just like that, she closed the door of the shop behind you and flipped the card from “open” to “closed”.

You stood puzzled on the pavement for a minute, not too sure how to feel about all of this. Everyday keeps getting weirder and weirder.

The whole experience was odd, really, and maybe that’s why the purchase feels a little wrong, a little off. Like something that was never meant to happen in the first place.

Now, you place an index and a middle finger around the chain. The pendulum dangles, untamed movements that send vibrations against your skin. Your eyes are trying to focus on the stone, to forget about the people walking down the street you still see in your peripheral vision but, as much as you wish for something magical to happen, it’s nothing but a stone that sways aimlessly in the air. You scoff, it just makes the whole thing even more ridiculous. So, you intuitively take a picture of the thing and send it to Corpse before placing it back on the passenger seat.

[Look what I bought,] you type before clicking on the send button.

[Nice pendulum, didn’t know you were interested in that kind of stuff,] Corpse responds

[Me neither but it’s pretty cool, right? I don’t know how to use it though.]

[Why would you buy a pendulum if you don’t know how to use one?]

Thank you Mr Sorcerer, good talk, you mouth with a fake smile that, realistically, looks more like a wince. He always has a way to make you feel so stupid. You don’t feel like responding, too annoyed to give him the credit of asking an interesting question. Yet, your fingers are telling another story.

[Do you wanna teach me, maybe?]

You twist the key inside the ignition. Is this conversation even of any use? It feels like rhetoric at this point; you already know he won’t answer such a question. Yet the phone lights up in your palms before you’re able to put it out of sight. A two letter response that makes you regret hoping he would answer in the first place.

[No.]

There’s this deep exhale as you rub the exasperation out of your face. Why does he always have to be so ungracious? As if bitterness was the only thing he had left. In the end, this is nothing but a reminder that it’s just your friendship with Corpse in a nutshell; shallow and endless exchanges of fuck yous and you toos and that’s just as deep as it can get. You’re stuck inside this infernal game of cat and mouse, looking for a way to approach the real Corpse without him flinching away. This really isn’t of any use. Why would you even try to crawl inside his mind in the first place?

You push the gas pedal, trying not to stare too long at the shop that gets further and further away through the rear-view because, soon enough, you’ll forget about that odd encounter, about that even odder attempt to feel like belonging in a world you could almost think you despise.

You find yourself thinking about Corpse’s harshness, about the expression he probably wears on a face you know nothing about. Can the coldness be seen on his expression every time he chooses the crudest answer? The city scrolls before your eyes and you don’t pay much attention to it. Does he always consider the options or does his mind automatically go to that place where you’re not allowed?

It feels like every response serves a purpose to draw a line you’re so tempted to cross. You sigh heavily. Leaning closer in the purpose of a touch that can never lead anywhere is one weary way to live a friendship. You’re stuck between the wish to get closer and the wish to let go, neither one of the two being a possible thing.

By the time you reach your apartment, it feels like you’re more confused than you usually are. It’s usually so easy to brush it off, to shrug and think that it’s just Corpse being Corpse. Not today, today you're trying to understand an existence that can’t be put into words.

Why can’t I let it go? It’s with that question that you spent the rest of the day answering emails and reading more gruesome stories and now lay restless on your bed. You press the cold pillow against your face as if it would’ve been enough to stifle the question that spreads in your mind like mold. Maybe, at the end of the day, it’s not that you don’t want to let Corpse go, but simply don’t know how to.

The light of the full moon is growing electric, shining so bright that you doubt even being able to sleep.

You fall asleep, eventually, and when you do, you get woken up by the irrepressible necessity to snatch what tickles your nose with an irritating vigor.

Huh?

Your vision gets clearer as you become aware of your surroundings; vastness of meadow and cottony clouds passing fast in a blue sky. Your body rolls on what feels like a picnic blanket under your touch. You sit up abruptly, meeting the eyes of the one who sits cross legged in front of you.

Dream?

Your lips part to talk but you find yourself unable to let a word escape your grip. The energy that emanates from Dream is familiar but this face is new. He never showed it. A secret he wasn’t ready to share before.

Quite the irony if you think too much about it; the man granted you a secret that probably could have ruined his life but has never been comfortable enough to show his face.

You describe his face; green eyes that show confidence, a good amount of pride and wrinkle under a rooted smile as dirty blond hair frame the whole living painting.

If it wasn’t for the feeling that agitated your heart, you would’ve believed to be in front of a complete stranger. Warmth agitated your heart. The leap of faith he took months ago reflects on the softness he never fails to perform. Warmth and relief to have the confirmation that, after all, Dream is still here.

You try to talk again but no breath dares to fall out of your mouth as relief gets caught in your knotted throat. You wish you could wrap your arms around him, you wish you could cry from worrying so much.

It’s with the same gentleness he radiates that he raises a kettle to pour steaming water in a tea cup that sits in front of you.

“Why aren’t you wearing your mask, Dream?” You say, head leaning on the side with a confusion that is starting to grow more and more intense.

“Do I really need to hide my face any longer?” He answers as he hands you a slice of fruit pie on a golden detailed plate. The wind gently ruffles his hair and you find yourself deep diving inside your own mind in search of an answer to a question that really is more rhetorical than anything.

The meadow is as endless as essentially peaceful but there’s something so bittersweet about it. Maybe it’s the silence that makes the wind’s whistle so clear and the lack of human contact even more obvious, maybe it’s Dream’s unexpected presence. In any case, there’s something about those stirring eyes that makes your mind wander near the ghost of a presentiment you’ve been willing to forget this whole time; am I dreaming?

“This place isn’t real, is it?” You ask and Dream’s eyes lower to his tea cup, only proof that he heard the question since he doesn’t acknowledge it verbally. The light gets softer as a cloud obscures the sun and you wonder; if you were to touch him right now, would you even be able to? It’s a tempting wish for a confirmation that Dream isn’t only a chimera, something that would’ve been meant to ease a bit of disorientation.

“It is real but-”

“-but we’re not really here,” you complete the answer as you nod. It’s just a dream. “How do I know that you’re real and not only the fruit of my imagination?”

“Because I know this place and you don’t,” Dream answers and it’s as obvious as deprived of any sense.

You bring a spoon of pie to your mouth, doubting that this would be enough to prove anything. The sourness of the fruits awaken your tongue and he mimics your movements. There’s something so fundamentally confusing about doing something so domestic when it feels like you’re missing the whole point of it. The quietness being more of a hindrance than an actual help. You’re willing to brush the doubts away and believe that Dream is really here.

“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” You ask. The chances of an answer are thin but you simply can’t help it. Dream shakes his head and pinches his lips together. You hold eye contact, hoping to be able to get an intelligible message in those emerald irises.

“Well, have you been safe at least?”

And now he scrunches his nose as he can never be fully honest yet never dares to lie. Maybe that’s the issue. Maybe you wish he could lie from time to time and you could persuade yourself that it’s the truth as you did with his presence inside your dream.

You’re about to continue the interrogation when he interrupts you, “I’ll answer one more question.”

You huff, as if his facial expressions were actual answers.

“You said you knew this place and I believe you didn’t choose it randomly which means you wanted to show it to me … so where are we?”

And now there’s a full wince on his face. You roll your eyes and throw your hands in the air. You just love Dream’s way of answering questions, don’t you? The annoyance is throbbing, the simplest question becomes the most complex puzzle. You look away, plucking some grass mechanically to release the tension that is growing in your fingers.

“My turn. So you tried to use a spell and bought a pendulum,” Dream says before brushing the cup against his lips. “Bold move for someone who hates magic,” and your attention gets back on him; eyes sparkling and proud grin as if he finally proved a point he tried to make a long time ago. He probably did in a way but you won’t let him hear the whole story as it’s more embarrassing than anything.

“So that’s what you wizards do, huh,” you scoff as you raise an eyebrow. “You text each other to make fun of me?”

Dream doesn’t answer, lashes fluttering slowly as to let you steep in your own question but it only pushes you to talk more, “I have to handle this on my own since you're apparently not willing to help me with my issues.”

“Y/n,” he sighs to bring you back to a reality he thinks you’re too far from. “You don’t wanna get rid of the issues.”

You raise an eyebrow to the audacity, “Why not?”

“The spell didn’t work because neither one of you is ready to let go of the other, so what do you want me to do? There’s nothing I can do if you’re not willing to let go,” Dream explains, “and it’s pretty obvious that you’re not.”

Is it? Your mind hisses. Dream’s voice rings with a confidence that is as irritating as unwelcomed but, maybe, it’s just the way you react when he gets too close to an unwarranted truth. He isn’t as wrong as you wish he was. Why can’t you just let it go?

“Oh come on now, was I ever wrong before?” He continues while the words tangle in your brain for too long. You can clearly picture the wide and oh so proud grin that adorns his lips and you mumble something under your breath that is either related to a cuss or a request for the bragging to stop.

“I don’t want to get rid of him. I just hate that our paths always end up intertwining,” you admit in a deep exhale.

“Of course they do,” Dream murmurs. The words linger before fading away. It’s so gentle that, by the time you realize the breath was a whisper, it’s already too late to ask him to repeat himself. You remain silent, eyes fixed on the steam that escapes from your tea cup as you reconsider saying out loud the words that are hitching your throat so badly.

“It’s not as if a relationship with a sorcerer would be something fruitful or anything anyway.”

Shit.

Dream chokes on his tea he almost spit. You wish you could apologize and say that you didn’t mean the harsh words that left your mouth but it’s nothing but a truth that has to be owned.

“Pretty sure you shouldn’t see a relationship by its loss and benefits.”

“You know it’s not what I meant,” you retort. “I would never be able to be with someone who is so secretive about their life. I mean, to the point where they can’t even answer a simple question like ‘where have you been’.”

“I know,” Dream mumbles, quiet and whispery voice that almost melts into the wind that brushes against the tall grass, “but some things are just better left unsaid.”

It shatters the last glimpse of patience you have left. You can already feel your eyes going wide, ready to roll to the back of your head. You’ve heard this sentence too many times for it to be acceptable.

“See? This fruitless conversation is literally my point,” you complain while throwing a hand in the air.

The silence returns. It’s more irritating than any word could be. It feels like the conversation is about to get too heavy to be endured and you know it can never go that way with Dream. The arguments are always sterile, filled with forbidden words that never work at anyone’s advantage. That’s why you exhale deeply and force yourself to move to a lighter subject, “beside, if I were to decide which sorcerer I’d want to be with, I’m pretty sure I’d choose you.”

“That’s why you’re my favorite human,” Dream sings cheerfully and you can’t repress a smile from creeping on your lips.

“No I’m not. I’m just the only human you talk to on a daily basis,” you snort, “and I would only choose you because you’re the less secretive out of the two I know- which speaks volumes about the level of ignorance I’m on.”

“But you can’t choose, can you?” He trails in a low voice and the thought echoes inside your brain for a long time. His lashes flutter slowly, matching a soft smile that seems too compassionate for the situation, almost a little filled with pity.

“No, I can’t,” you finally conclude after thinking about it for a second and there’s something about that conclusion that almost rings as a confession you’re not sure you should be making in the first place. Spoon rattles against the plates and the sun seems to be back, shining to its fullest capacity. The rest of the tasting in silence, trying to brush every matter out of your sleeves to enjoy a time you’ve been waiting for so long.

“I have to go,” Dream informs you and you raise an eyebrow.

“What, now?” You ask, confused. “We haven’t even finished our picnic.”

“I know, peaches, but I don’t have much time left in here. Call me when you wake up and I promise we’ll catch up.”

Dream gets up and walks through the grass away from you. His silhouette gets smaller and smaller and just as he’s about to make one with the horizon, he turns around, “You were the one who brought up the whole ‘being in a relationship’ thingy. I never implied that.”

And just like that, he’s gone.

[Join the Discord VC,] Dream orders.

Corpse drops the phone on the side table as he lies down, eyes wandering around the crowded room where shelves are filled with books that haven't been read in decades and items he collected from his travels. The white light of the moon mirrors onto every shiny objects. Fatigue burns his eyes and even though it feels like a poker shot, he feels ready to try and get some sleep.

[Stop playing hard to get and join the VC, there’s y/n too,] Dream pushes.

He huffs. Even though he tries his best to keep you at a reasonable distance, you still appear everywhere his eyes lay, do you? He won’t answer, he knows he won’t. His body aches for some earned rest he hasn’t been able to wrap around in a shameful amount of weeks. Corpse exhales heavily, turning left and right on his bed to find the ultimate position he doesn’t seem to find. There’s always a bother he can’t get out of his shoulders. You keep creeping upon his mind as if you had the right to.

He won’t get involved, he knows he won't, but the night rings differently and maybe Corpse is longing to share it with someone a little more than expected. His attention falls upon the plant on a shelf, a distraction from a silence that is almost tempting. It looks miserable and the issue hitches his brain. He gets up, one touch and the plant looks alive again.

In another heavy sigh that drains all the air out of his lungs, Corpse stretches his sore limbs and tense back. He drags his feet to the desk and the computer illuminates the room as much as it hurts his tired eyes. He sits, soulless, for a couple of seconds while still debating whether he should join the call or not before ultimately giving in.

“-stupid. You don’t deserve any apology, Dream,” you roar and Corpse is blown away by a high energy that violently contrasts his.

He has no idea why he joined. It feels like he shouldn’t be here -and he probably really shouldn’t-. You blind him with an enthusiasm he doesn’t know how to handle and surely would never be able to match. He remains silent as voices and wheezes chime too loudly for a disoriented mind like his.

The mouse gets dragged across the screen, he’s so ready to end it before it even had the chance to really start. There’s no point in him being here and he feels like a fool for thinking there was one at some point. Yet, Dream greets him before he is able to.

Fuck.

“What are you doing up so late, you freaks?” Corpse grunts before swallowing a breath. His voice is thundering in a place where the echo is too clear for him to ignore how intense he sounds, too intense for the light mood he felt seconds ago. He doesn’t belong here, he shouldn’t have joined that damn call.

“Why, hello emo Howl, Dream here agreed to teach me how to use a pendulum because he actually cares,” you taunt maliciously as if you didn’t care, as if he never killed a mood he shouldn’t even have bothered to kill.

And now, he realizes there’s no use pushing you away as it only makes him look like the bad guy and doesn’t actually do the requested job. Now that it’s so clear, he almost feels a little guilty, mostly stupid.

“That’s not what I said,” Dream retorts but your voice is already flooding everyone’s headphones with quotes he never stated in the first place and he eventually has to give up.

Your laugh is so candid as you and Dream bicker, so organic and contagious Corpse can’t help but pinch his lips not to smile too. But he gets it now; you just don’t know how to take no for an answer. It’s what makes you so overly annoying but maybe that’s also why he always ends up obliging to whatever request you have to make.

The conversation drifts on and off. Corpse discovers a bond he would have never expected. It’s deep and oh so pretty and it feels like whatever it is, you and Dream are made of the same thing. There comes a point where Corpse wishes he could stop feeling like the outcast and join a conversation he’s somehow scared to interrupt. How nice could it be to be so close to someone? How nice could it be having someone who is there no matter what? He forbids himself to explore the idea. He used to know and now he only has to look through the mirror to really see how nice it is. It’s an illegitimate sense of envy that pinches his heart and tastes helplessly bittersweet.

“Anyway,” you say as the chuckles fall breathless. “Corpse, did you know it was the full moon tonight?”

“Oh really?” He breathes before wincing. He’s well aware that it’s the full moon; he’s a goddamn sorcerer. One glance around him and he can see its reflection into thousands of pieces across the room.

“See?” Dream triumphs

“Yeah, yeah,” you sigh heavily, throwing a side eye to your screen in which Dream and Corpse’s drawn icons are displayed. “I thought you guys would like … dance naked in circles in a forest or something.”

Dream’s confusion is loud in his tone and Corpse surprises himself to laugh at the theatrical tone you chose to deliver the words How cute. Humans are so naive, believing everything they hear and see on TV.

“So, you guys don’t do anything particular on the full moon,” you conclude, seemingly a little upset.

“I do, but that doesn’t imply … t-that,” Dream answers with a tone that blends discomfort and amusement.

Maybe it is as nice as he thought it would be; being able to share a peaceful night and a glimpse of joy with people who seem to care.

That’s why you’re so dangerous; you’re so spontaneous you make him wish he were too. It’s one thing to play with fire. It’s another to play with your own life; too risky to be worth it. Yet, everybody who has experienced l’appel du vide would recognize that thrilling sensation inside their chest. As much as Corpse wants to keep you as far away as possible, you keep reminding him that you’re the tingling sensation on the back of his shoulder.

“What about you, Corpse?” You ask.

“I-I don’t really actively practice magic anymore,” he stutters as if he wasn’t expecting to be given a voice.

“Oh, why not?”

The question echoes inside his mind. Why not? He knows there’s a good explanation but right now it feels like his mind can’t wrap itself around it. He knows there is one yet it feels as though he has forgotten. It confuses him as he parts his lips with a frown, expecting an answer to come out but the words tangle with each other and won’t leave his tongue.

“Well I gotta go,” Dream interrupts the train of his thoughts and it’s almost comforting for Corpse to know that he doesn’t have to further torture his own mind. “You two be nice to each other," he orders and you’re already whining and complaining about his sudden escape.

“What do you wanna do, Corpse, do you wanna go to bed?” You ask.

Behind the loudness and vulgarity you’re always performing, Corpse understands now that there’s a certain elegance in the way you interact with him. A delicacy that resides in the tone of your voice. As if you cared, really cared about what he has to say. How could you still think of him as a friend when he keeps treating you so poorly? He doesn’t deserve it, deprived of a sense of empathy they took away from him too long ago.

“I’m not really tired,” he lies as if you didn’t already know that fatigue was his trademark. He’s surprised you don’t point out the fact that he keeps lying for obscure reasons.

It’s not like he would complain about it. The silence the night brings along is contemplative. He wishes there would be more night like this, when time would almost stop to let him catch his breath. Somehow, he feels like it could be filled with something good, something worth it.

“What are you thinking about?” Corpse asks in an attempt to explore that peaceful quietness.

“I wonder what magic could look like,” you answer with what you deem to be an useless honesty.

The question is stupid but he doesn’t seem to find it funny, considering it with a gentle seriousness before saying,“Do you want me to show you?”

A grin grows on your lips, heart beating with anticipation, “Would you really do that?”

Corpse hums and you lift your head as requested. You stare at the ceiling where shadows move when headlights are projected on the windows. There’s a long pause -too long for your impatient mind- before multiple sparkles of light spread on your ceiling. They twinkle and crakle like fairylights and multiply in front of your amazed eyes. Soon they gather and turn the dark ceiling into a starry night.

Your breath gets caught in your throat as you admire the stars that seem to be floating above your head as if they have always been here, as if they belonged to you.

“Is it working ?” Corpse asks nervously when you’re too silent for his liking.

“What do you mean ‘is it working’? This is fucking amazing, Corpse,” you choke out as you giggle as frenetically until your belly hurts. There’s no human words fitted to describe this state of perplexity and admiration. There's no such beautiful and clear sky in the city, that's why it's so special.

Corpse laughs with you. It’s nothing new but, somehow, in the quietness of the night, it vibrates differently. It doesn’t sound like the kind of forced chuckle he makes when he feels like people are expecting him to laugh but rather genuine and oh so endearing.

You thought you could never enjoy anything related to magic but now you realize that maybe it’s more likely that you never learned how to grow fond of it. When a shootingstar crosses the crafted sky, you both exclaim a "oh" before faintly chuckling. You let your back rest on the chair, imagining that Corpse is probably doing the same and looking at the same sky you’re looking at.

“It feels like you’re sitting next to me right now,” you murmur and it feels so special to be able to share a moment that seems so intimate that it makes your heart warm from a proximity you never knew could be possible.

“You’re cute,” Corpse breathes before he can realize it and once he does, it’s too late to take it back.

“No I’m not,” you grumble between your teeth.

“Sure, if you say so,” he finally shrugs in a battle he knows he can’t win.

Somehow, it feels like a turning point you can sense in a feeling nested inside your chest; a sense of novelty that makes you a little nervous as you don’t know if it’s for the best or the worst. Yet, this new beginning feels like it’s about honesty.

“Are you happy, y/n?” Corpse whispers and it’s so faint you wonder if it’s meant for you to hear.

“I am,” you still answer with a soft smile. “Are you happy?”

“I try to be,” he says after considering the question for a while. A confirmation that you wish you never had to deal with. It sends you back to every conversation that ended up in half bitten words and a concerning amount of melancholia that almost choked you even though it wasn’t yours.

It clicks. Bitterness is not the only thing Corpse has left in him. It’s a protection.

“Why are you so sad, Corpse?”

When the words linger for too long and he can no longer stare at the stars above his head, his throat gets sore, lips trembling as he bites them firmly. He feels seen in a way he thought he was safe from. It’s discomforting, unnerving and a spike that threats to burst into his heart. He takes a moment to remember that he has to breathe. He always seems to forget.

“Because when you live for so long, you live through everything,” Corpse mutters and that’s as honest as he can be.

“And everyone,” you conclude and he hums dryly.

“Can I give you a piece of advice?” You ask, knowing damn well that the amount of deep conversation has passed a long time ago and that the loan you’re deciding to take will have some sort of consequence. “If you keep hoping for the people who haunt you to come back, you’ll never be able to cherish the ones who are actually in front of you.”

The words tinkle in Corpse’s head in an odd way like a call for an awakening. He remembers that Sykkuno used to tell him the same thing; it’s time to let it go. It rises inside his lung like a sea of anguish he’s not ready for and it’s so overwhelming it’s animating him with emotions that are too violent for him to think.

“So what?” he scoffs, “are you saying that you’re the one in front of me?”

“I’m not the one who should answer that question,” you simply answer. It’s not enough, it’s not enough for him to make up his mind. Is that a yes or a no? He can’t think and the words are crumbling, too eager to get out.

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” he says with an unexpectedly strong voice that spreads shivers on your arm. “There’s no place for a human in my life.”

“Good because I don’t like sorcerers,” you thunder before ending the call abruptly.

You sit on your chair puzzled for a second. What the fuck was that?

☾ A/N : WOOOOOW I can't believe I finally finished this chapter it's surreal. I can't even begin to tell you how much I wrote and rewrote this I just COULDNT DO IT!!! Thank you for your patience it has been the wildest ride (I feel like I say that every time but hehe) Anyway thanks for reading I feel like shit is finally about to get started in here and I'm so damn excited!! As always let me know what you think and Until next time (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc)

☾ 𝑻𝑨𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 *OPEN* dm me or ask me to get tagged :

@open-minded-chip-101​ ; @lochness-butmakeitsexy​ ; @bizarrebibitch​ ; @bellomi-clarke​ ; @ladybismuth​ ; @katyasrussianaccent​ ; @satanhauntedourcats​ ; @owl-llie​ ; @teenloves​ ; @notannis​ ; @mcntsee​ ; @rottenroyalebooks​​ ; @peachdoppi​ ; @mirahg​ ; @foxxtrot-116​ ; @koi-soi​ ; @lupinpetersclearwaterodairparker​ ; @butterfly-skinnylegend​ ; @fanworrior​ ; @stickystrawberrysyrup​ ; @imsuchtrashhelp​ ; @clubfairy​ ; @boiled-onionrings​ ; @thatlonelyalto​ ; @thatsouthernblondewiththeass​ ; @tiaamberxx​ ; @thesecretwriterblog​ ; @takoyakiuchiha ; @majasophieanna​

[himbodjarin]

LUNAR; CH14

18+ EXPLICIT Content: Gore, general violence, Din/Third person POV. MANDO'A TRANSLATIONS AT THE BOTTOM Word count: 16,019 Pairing: Din Djarin/F!Reader - no y/n

The Mandalorian is a driven warrior — traversing the galaxy in search of the ancient Jedi — but everyone has their weaknesses, and he’s no different. The Bounty Hunter possessed three in fact. One he’s discovered—The Child. The remaining two, though, he wasn’t aware of their existence. At least, not until he meets a valorous Sharpshooter underneath a moonless night sky; then he’s plummeting down a dark mission of self-discovery, questioning his morals and his Creed while the moon taunts him, the phases of the satellite corresponding to his personal revelations. However, the Girl has a dark past that may come to inflict hardships on the Mandalorian and the Child; it's up to the Bounty Hunter to decide her fate. Read on AO3 / Series Masterlist / Playlist

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THIS IS THE WAY

The Sun stands off to Din’s side, silent in a comforting way, a placidness he’s unable to recover within himself, and he savours the company with a gloved hand roosting on a curve. She twists to face him, bestowing a grand smile of rays that encapsulate inside and furnaces his figure until he’s blanketed in a toasty buzz, a swelling in his internal organs that he’ll just never become accustomed to. Din reacts to the sensations the only way he knows how and drags her into his side, a hand slithering to her hip to steady her there; little engagements that he’d never considered partaking in before the Girl.

Hands carved of dormant radiation fuss with the makeshift strap slung across her shoulder; one of the more unfortunate after-effects of her victory. Din had to utilise his craftsmanship to gift her with a lash capable of taking the weight of the disruptor rifle—the harness he relied on was built into his bandolier with a small metal clasp. He cares for the Girl but she is no charity case; the rifle against her back is plenty more than he would’ve ever thought of parting with.

The meddling persists, tinking the steel of the barrel against his vambrace.

“What’s the matter?”

Her head shakes and sinks to indolently survey the turf beneath their feet.

He glances at her hand. “I thought you wanted it?”

She buckles into submission from his queries, not that it took much effort on his part, and drags a hand down the front of her face. “I did - I do but it doesn’t feel right. It’s not mine… With your religion and all this feels awry. I shouldn’t have this.”

“I want you to have it.”

It’s the truth. He wants to be endowed with the ability to watch her manipulate something that’s been with him for so long. He wants to bookmark how it frames her body—he doesn’t know how but it does and he’s eternally grateful for that—but most of all, he wants a part of him to be forever touching her.

Nonetheless, it still doesn’t satisfy her scepticism and she scratches into the leather strap until it weathers and flakes.

“It’s just—”

“What?”

A relieving puff of stale carbon dioxide dispels from her slim parted lips. “I don’t want you to think I’m using you for your rifles, for your protection.”

Helmet inclines enough for the tip of his T to connect with her eyes; a small shake of his head as if to enquire what she’s talking about. She’s more than capable of protecting herself. She’s demonstrated it time and time again and Din is the last person who’d assume such things from her.

“I mean it’s the only reason I hitched a ride from you in the first place. I felt like I deserved compensation for my rifle and I needed a way off that damned planet.” She stiffly eases her eyes to the ground and scrunches a stone beneath the toes of her boot. “I never could’ve anticipated all of what’s happened...happening to—to happen…”

Jumbled and stuttering as if she’d downed six flasks of spotchka is a new look on her. It spawns a bounce in his lungs but he stifles the deep chuckle in the interest of not distressing her more than she obviously already is.

Serrated seams etch into the ridges of her eyebrows laced with insecurity, as though peering through a distorted mirror; one concerned expression switching with the other.

She elaborates, with such a hushed volume he almost activates his sonic detectors to register the mumbling, “It just feels as though if this is in my possession there’s no need for me to stick around. You’ve cleared your debt. I’m of no use to a reinforced Mandalorian like yourself. I appreciate the offer, I do, but…”

“What about…” he suggests, two fingers tilting her chin upwards, “you just keep it warm for me.”

It’ll technically remain hers—radioactive fingers having tagged the trigger with her insignia, the rifle imprinting its framework into the soft flesh of her back whereas it never could nestle into his beskar—even if Din is the only one who believes so. His proposal appears to hit the nail on the head of her insecurities and she allows that pesky hand to cease its unjustified carnage on the strap once and for all.

He’s entrusted with a significant smile that he cradles in his palms gently, nurturing it to ensure its growth and progression—a curve of her lips he’s not worthy of possessing but she donates it nonetheless.

“I can do that.”

It’s a witless justification to continue this worldless pact they’ve got going on and they couldn’t give a damn whether it was a phony excuse or not. She’s deciding to stay as opposed to leaving the parsec with pieces of himself attached to her back and around her neck; she wants to stay. Peradventure, it’ll only be for a little while—Din wasn’t accommodating enough for people’s liking and they’d always leave eventually—but maybe she’ll outride his past acquaintances and remain.

Din silently sighs and glances down the path they’re idled along. Caben and Stoke should’ve returned by now, though he suspects they did and that they might have been accidentally exposed to his fixation on the Girl. They weren’t exactly being quiet in the Crest after all.

Still, it provokes an irresistible grin; she’s his and only he could arouse those sounds from deep in her stomach.

“Sweet girl.” His finger pets the peak of her cheekbone. “I think we’re going to have to walk back.”

She groans. “So much for an easy-going day.”

With their intended excursion back to the settlement coming up empty-handed, the two set out from the Crest and follow the path they’d been adhered to for the past hour.

It’s nearing dusk; vibrant blues and greens numbing to darkened blends of orange and purples. The Eclipse formally so highly spoken of from their taxi service approaches as the moon makes its tiresome journey above.

“D’you think we’ll get to see it?” The Girl’s questioning disrupts the flow of crunching gravel underneath their synchronized feet.

The sky is victimised by a leering tinted slit of transparisteel, analysing the steadiness of thick clouds rolling across the surface of the dual spheres. It scales inwards to observe the shadows of craters beneath the puffs. Sorgan’s secondary moon, much smaller in size or perhaps simply further away, is smothered in the overcast and lags behind its twin, silent and colourless.

“Clouds are moving fast. It should be okay.”

She nods. “Never had the pleasure of seeing one before. Heard they’re real pretty, though. What about you?”

“No. I don’t frequent a planet long enough.”

There’s a fork in the road, diverging off into three different paths but he’s got it all memorised in the back of his mind and continues onwards without a falter in his steps, the Girl to his side with a bounce in her step as she mulls over his candour approach.

“That’s too bad. Not one for settling down, huh?”

It’s a rhetorical question but Din doesn’t want to leave her hanging regardless, “No.”

“Yet here you are—” She prods a finger at his unarmoured side prompting a light swat to her hand. “—settling.”

“...I’m not settling.”

“No?”

His shoulders broaden and he hooks a thumb in the front of his belt. “No.”

She chuckles at him but mercifully leaves it at that, well aware what he says isn’t true but she’s none the wiser to what he’s settling down for—and it’s not Sorgan.

Leather clings to her hip for dear life, refusing to surrender its residency even when they drift from one another to avoid a dip in the path; fingers merely burrow into the cloth and drag the warmth straight back once they’ve passed. Din exploits the absence of inquisitive glances and looming queries to dedicate cloying touches and he’s not afraid to demonstrate it. Where, even a week ago, he couldn’t express these emotions without the adrenaline coursing through his veins, the arousal pulsing in his core, but circumstances have changed—evolved into something fresh.

Something untouched that he wants to corrupt with his obscene hands.

It’s short-lived. Snooping eyes return.

Lanterns emitting orange hues reflect off the waters of the emerging krill ponds, softly rounded fluorescents mirroring against his polished beskar as he sweeps through the troughs. The majority of the inhabitants surround the central campfire, its flames a worthy competitor to the lanterns mellow gingers. They lick and lick and lick at the sky, the scorching embers puffing into the fading purples upwards; laughter and the tinking of spotchka-filled flasks circling the bonfire.

Leather collapses resembling the Crest plummeting through the atmosphere. Heavy, fast, and everything in slow motion while he processes he’s losing traction, a small hitch in his chest upon striking his own thigh. She’s right beside him, an inch away from brushing elbows, yet she’s still too far.

It’s not in his nature to act so possessively in front of people—out in the open for whoever to gauge thoughts, to probe his emotions—and he won’t start parading around now, in spite of the fact she’s accumulated fresh bruises that haven’t been fortunate enough to receive time to heal; or even grant the red inking to mollify into something a little less salient.

They’re the one factor he can pardon from his public displays of affection regulation. It’s simple and clean. An honest indication of what’s between them without needing to flaunt it, simply a demonstration to not infringe on their relations.

Din is accustomed to the turned heads, the watchful gazes as they make way to the midpoint, but the Girl still finds it intolerant; the exposure too confining and she slinks back a few steps. He continues onwards not wanting to draw further attention to her and they pass the spectators, eyes stooping and communication commencing after they’ve had a gander of their guests—their clothes and the Girl’s dishevelled hair evidence enough.

They’re really not as discreet as they pass themselves off to be.

Omera interrupts his motion with a sidestep onto their path. She offers a courteous smile. “Did you have an eventful day?”

“Yes.”

“Can we expect your participation tonight? It should only be a few more hours before the eclipse commences.”

Din nods, somewhat reluctant to agree. Social settings weren’t in his favour but there’s a persistent woman on the heels of his boots who longs to see the phenomenon, and whatever she wishes he will grant with a simple please Din.

Omera gleams at his accepted invitation and gestures past the campfire to a stationed bench compiled of dishes and brimming glasses of various liquids. “Help yourself to our delicacies. It’s all traditional for the celebration.”

He softly sighs, not enough for anybody to hear him over the uproar but it’s sufficient in getting his unimpressed thoughts regarding the taunting dishes—at least, the Girl notices. His helmet pans to the heft on his pauldron, caf-coloured eyes trailing along the limb and jumping to its partner gesturing in the direction of the hut.

“I’ll get you something to eat, all right?”

She doesn’t entitle him the opportunity to oppose her proposition before bounding through the crowd to collect a platter of high-grade Sorgan nourishments. He scouts for a moment, considering her with a slender tilt of his helmet; riveting, how enthusiastic and adaptable she is to the liability of his Creed.

The Way had forcibly distanced him from so many potentials, pulverised them before his very visor, and here she was, dirtying her faultless hands with the soot of his decisions simply to cater to him.

It wasn’t all that long ago he’d be seated up in the Crest’s cockpit, a helmet on his lap, a bowl of nutrients in his hands, a deadpan expression etched into his face as the stars skim past the viewport. Silence, he so often told himself he favours, accompanying him like a prodding rod at the back of his ears; loud and exhausting despite its very name.

It has been quite a while since he’s succumbed to the silence with the Child and all. While he wished the kid would actually comply with his requests, Din has a preference for the cooing and squealing of a baby than the hum and buzz of his haven.

Perhaps it won’t last long—the Child will be returned to wherever he originated and the Girl will journey on after some time—but at least he can savour the atmosphere until then; anything ranging from the snarky remarks to the comfortable quiet in contrast to the loud, resonating one he’s been inflicted by all these years.

“I’ll leave you to eat,” Omera announces, “I’m sure your boy would like to see you when you’re done.”

Another nod on behalf of him, another burden on his pauldron from her; a fleeting touch of her hand but it’s cold and sharp and Din yearns for the Girl’s radiation to cleanse him of the hypothermia.

He sighs and makes his way to their hut.

Their quarters are overfamiliar. The littered blankets untouched, the way Din liked it, lasting evidence of what occurred. The flimsy dress she despised neglected and long forgotten, though it resurges the crisp memories regarding Din’s Honour; how he nonchalantly stripped himself of what he’s constructed himself around simply to feel a smidge of liberation with the Girl—to highlight their connections in the cracks of their implicit relationship.

To show he’s more than just a rusting Creed.

Din exhales through his filters and sinks to the cot’s mattress. It’s not nearly as comfortable with all the beskar on but it’s not as though he’ll be inside long.

“Oh yeah, you just relax there why don’t you?” The Girl grumbles from the doorway, balancing an assortment of bowls and plates in either hand and the crooks of her elbows—she would’ve made for a poor waitress in another life.

He makes no attempt to aid her. “That’s too much.”

“It’s not all for you. Other people eat, too, you know.”

Oh, he knows all too well. The sugary goodness of a thick syrup running down her fingers and onto his tongue never strays far from his mind.

She tries for a bend of her knees to ease the dishes onto a surface but they more or less topple out of her grip, scattering pieces of fried foods across the burnished wood. “Shit...ah, it’s just yours.”

“Funny.”

“I like to think so,” she cracks.

Din strains from his position to observe the variety of consumables she’d pinched from the community; bone broth, assorted krill, an unidentified pastry of some sort—Din crosses it off his list, far too dry looking for his taste—among snacking foods.

They’re not worthy of the title ‘appetising’ but Din’s acquainted with tasteless stock; he only ever eats it for the nutrients anyways.

She hoards a bowl of bone broth to her chest. “I’ll be outside. If you want seconds just call me, yeah?”

Leather wraps around her wrist before he properly registers her words. “No—you can stay. It’s not like I haven’t taken this off around you before.”

“I thought you might’ve wanted to eat in peace.”

Din exhales a laugh out of his nose. “A girl of your build should be smarter than that, no?”

It rises a simper out of her, a roll of her eyes and a shake of her head. Din retrieves the extended plate of krill prepared in a vast abundance of methods—fried, broiled, roasted, sauteed—he unenthusiastically considers a crustacean between two gloved digits.

Vibrant cobalt had grown to a dim grey underneath the golden breading, a fine sheet of oil coating leather skin and a drop of grease slipping down the curve of his thumb. Reluctance and dissatisfaction are apparent in his mannerisms and vocoder, emitting an exhaust laden sigh that crackles into the quiet lodge.

The mattress dips with her weight, the press of her back against his beskar. “Not one for krill?”

“I think I’ve had my fair dose,” Din broods.

“Still pent up about getting a little bit of water in your circuits?”

Another cheesy droid joke that pushes his eyes into the back of his skull but he lets it slide. Din’s famished. It’d been a while since he ate; well, not exactly but the Girl wasn’t much of a meal more than a treat. If he could draw out sustenance from her he’d never have to endure another stale dessert or salty meats from who knows where.

Their backs are pressed firmly together, practically leaning on each other for support, and Din doesn’t need to verify whether she’s looking away for him to unlatch his helmet. Its casual hiss signals for her to keep her eyes trained forwards and he lays the steel to rest beside him.

It’s the first time her eyes are open while the helmet is detached. Well, maybe not the first—he had lifted it the slightest back on Tatooine, in the cockpit while she busied herself with his Crest’s maintenance. The circumstances don’t much differ from now; both scenarios involve food of some sort and resolute trust.

Cobalt of the sweet dessert transferred to a chewy crustacean that’s comparable to grinding tar in his mouth, tough and fudgy but in all the worst ways. Din isn’t a selective person; he can consume the coarse flavourless product without a second’s worth of hesitance but he’s had the best of the best—jatnese be te jatnese, he’d said so himself—a gluttonous intake of the Girl’s taste and nothing will ever equate to that.

The mound of unchewable meat slips down his pipes, buttery and peppery but overall bland. Nutritional enough. He crams another cluster of the crescents into his gullet to appease his appetite.

The Girl sips on the pale cream broth behind him, head tilted against his as the liquid leaks from the carved bowl and between her lips. Din can’t imagine the taste is much better than the krill with the colours being so dull—as though they were eating the incarnation of unstimulating hues of greys and blacks.

“Do you want to try some?” she asks, extending the half-empty bowl to their side.

Din retrieves the grub with a low hum in his throat, uncertain, but ultimately decides it can’t hurt to give it a try. It’s obviously edible if it’s a Sorgan delicacy—how wrong he was. It’s saltier than the oceans with chunks in it; he doesn’t even want to think what they could be. He refrains from spitting the soup back into the bowl or onto the cot and feebly swallows the lukewarm puddle, a nubby leather wrist wiping the residue from his lips with disgust.

She bellows at his reaction, the back of her shoulders bouncing against his pauldrons as she struggles to contain herself.

The base of the bowl knocks against the closest surface available, a flimsy stool that accompanies the table, and he scowls with his arms crossed against the hump of his chest. “You’re wicked.”

“Seemed like you wanted a taste with the way you were looking at me.” Din’s head slightly tilts as he watches from the corner of the visor. “I can feel your eyes. Not sure how you ever catch bounties when all you do is stare.”

Bounties are intimidated by my staring, they’re smart, he wants to retort but saying bounties and smart in the same sentence is comical.

Appetite long gone, by consequence of broth that would serve a better purpose as blurrg feed, Din clips the rim of his beskar between two fingers and considers it among his lap. There’s no intent to lift it up and over his face. No intent to distance himself from the Girl just yet. It gawks at him; captivating in its own methods but still so ransacked of life. The black void of his false eyes darker than that of Space’s vacuum.

Din’s eyes ricochet from the slit to the back of the Girl’s head like a blaster bolt within a room of reflective duralloy and nowhere to go; pondering the morals of his very character as he aligns the crown of her head with the vacancy in his clutch.

She noticeably stiffens as his helmet envelopes her, the rim slack around her neck with nothing to latch onto. Fingers dismiss the fried krill she’s been feasting on and orbits the surface; Din amicably smacks them away and lays his hands on her shoulders to loosen the knots.

“Greasy,” he simply explains his reaction.

One would think such a valuable material as beskar could be cleaned with a small wipe of a damp cloth. One would be wrong. It’s a nuisance to maintain its condition and he’d been lagging behind with its upkeep as of recent—he couldn’t afford greasy fingerprints.

Soft vocals are replaced with a crunchy crackle, an unnatural graininess as if she digested a bucket’s worth of Arvala-7 terrain; sand and grit forming lumps in her ducts and spluttering into the internals of beskar, “What are you doing?”

His fingers rub into the base of her neck, the deepness of his unaffected tone eliciting a hum within the helm. “The rifle won’t be used to its full potential without the helmet.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“Don’t worry, I’m not giving you the helmet. I just want to show you what it can do.”

“Is this...allowed?” She goes to scratch the back of her head but knocks against the steel and limply drops her hand. “It doesn’t feel like this is allowed. I’m sure there’s a rule in that big ol’ Manual for Mandalorians you’ve got hiding around.”

He scoffs. “Do you want to see it or not?”

It dips to a dainty nod.

“Gods, this is heavy. Don’t you get a sore neck?”

Din neglects her questioning and extends his vambrace before her, his other arm reaching around to point at the buttons—effectively sandwiching her between his gauntlets—and his finger focuses on one in particular. It’s a small circular button, a clone to all the others, but more weathered from the abrasive leather. “Click this,” he instructs.

She complies, her digit dainty beside the stocky hide, helmet perking up once the thermal activates and submerging her vision in cool hues of blues. Her curiosity matches that of the Child’s as she twists and turns her head side to side, surely discovering the warm tones of candlelight and heat signals radiating from their hands before her.

“Wait a damn minute—” The Girl aims to toss a suspectful glare in his direction but quickly dismisses the desire, his exposure never far from the forefront of her mind, “you cheating-”

“I told you, Cyar’ika,” Din coos against the side of the helmet. “Not a gentleman.”

“I...I demand a rematch.”

Din chuckles into her, the leaps of his laughter ricocheting against her back but he pays her decree no attention. There’s no way she’d reign successfully in a no holds barred condition, not when his visor contributes half of the rifle's potential of force. Then again, if things were to pan out the same way it did earlier perhaps he’ll take her up on it—just for fun.

“Good for calculating how many threats there are--”

“Yeah, that, or being a little-”

“Next,” he navigates her hand to a second preset.

The thermal deactivates with one push and the sonic detectors engage with another.

It must be disorienting for her to focus on all the surrounding sounds of the settlement, the steel swallowing her senses, Din remembers the first time he donned a helmet—one much smaller and lighter than his current but all the same in terms of abilities and desensitising him from the outside world. Pair that with the power to be able to hear a whisper from over a hundred metres away, it can turn situations sticky and muddled if not appropriately centred.

“What do you hear?”

She’s mute and motionless, suspended in the limbo of space and time.

Din presses a kiss to the nape of her neck in an attempt to declutter her mind but it does very little; sharp claws of concern grasping at the back of his head and scampering upwards until the pressure against his temples is unbearable and it finally conquers him.

He shouldn’t have imposed this on her. He of all people should’ve known better. It takes years of getting accustomed to it.

“Hey. Hey, okay, no more.”

It’s eased up halfway before she interrupts and pulls it back down. “I’m fine. Just trying to focus. There are too many conversations, it’s distracting.” She chuckles. “Good thing I didn’t have it this morning. You snore, you know. Would’ve rendered me deaf.”

Din grumbles beneath his breath—something even the detectors can’t distinguish with the crackles in his vocal cords—and sharply flicks the back of the steel with his forefinger, grinning when she compresses a hand against the side where her ear resides.

“Ow,” she whines. “Okay, okay, turn it off. I’m sick of hearing you breathe down my neck.”

It disables with a final push of his vambrace.

The Girl explores the surface of the beskar with either hand and Din subconsciously annotates how dilatory she is with it—her fingers dipping from the cheek ridges to the face and around the ear caps before resting against the sealed cooling vents at the back—solely dedicating the time to recognise the only face she can put a name to but from his perspective.

Combine that with being endowed with the pleasure of seeing her in his shirt and helmet provokes Din’s heart to stammer against the bones, his jaw to tighten and he seizes the beskar by the edge and twists it to face him. He enables virtually no time for her to comprehend what he’s planning and it’s undetermined whether she managed to shut her eyes before his face is frontwards, but he trusts they are.

It’s outlandish to gaze into the cold dark visor when there’s another lifeform beneath it. Sure, he’s encountered incalculable Mandalorians in his lifetime but never has anybody worn his helmet—it’s a fragment of his Creed, of Him, and he’d rather fall victim to a sarlacc and endure the agony of being digested for millennia than to witness another being wield his persona.

Omitting the Girl from the equation, naturally.

She could carve out his heart with his vibro-knife and he wouldn’t complain one bit. It’s incomprehensible what she does to him. Just a touch of her finger on his face and he’s primed to brandish a blaster and confront her greatest enemy even if he’s incapable of victory.

Nonetheless, it astonishes him how she can gaze into the nullity of a slit and not request—demand—for more. She’s more than deserving of it and yet she doesn’t wish for it.

Perhaps she sees a mirrored image of what’s before him. Not a slab of shiny steel nor a devout Creed but merely the living tissue, the pumping blood, beneath it.

Din trails a digit along the steel jawline and lifts as he reaches the transparisteel visor connecting to the curve at the bottom. It lifts only a little, just enough for her lips and the point of her nose to peek beneath. The soft hills separate instinctively and he wastes no time slotting his own in their place, cupping the back of her neck with his free hand to drag her in close.

Those damned words. They utterly refuse to vacate his mind—duplicating by the dozen and submerging his thoughts and sensations with foreign statements. It links together into a lengthy chain made of high-grade alloy, fortified greater than freshly smelted beskar, and packages his consciousness into overburdened disarray.

Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.

Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum. Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.

Din needs her to know; needs her to hear those words tumble out of his vocal cords.

He needs to enunciate them—to listen to himself admit the feelings hidden within him aren't pseudo.

But he can’t; his lips cease their endeavours against hers yet he still can’t discover the courage to say three little fucking words. Thank the stars he disabled the sonic detectors because he wouldn’t be able to take the speculative questioning upon hearing the thumping in his chest, deep and muffled pulses of his heart struggling to compete with his nerves.

“Din,” she whispers. “You’re overthinking again, aren’t you?”

“No…”

“Come on, you need to get some fresh air. Let’s go see the kid.”

No, not yet, he thinks. Please, just a little while longer.

She hoists the beskar from her head slowly, inches of her impeccable face unmasking at a time. He cups her jaw and tilts her head to peck at her chin, her cheeks, and forehead as the helmet is relieved from each section.

Din records the movement of flesh underneath his lips as she smiles against his intimacy and it urges something intense and unexplored in his centre, his core, and the helmet bounces off the cot and crashes to the floor below with a small push of his three fingers; his lips refusing to curb their hunger for cushiony skin and his weight slowly applies against her until she inclines onto her back with him above.

“Din.”

“Mmm,” he hums, leathers stroking the strands of hair out of her face before reconnecting his lips to her cheekbones.

“We—we can’t. The kid is waiting for you.” Her actions overpower her words; a hand slides down his cape feebly, her fingers catching on the folds to thrust him closer.

“You’re addictive.”

“Not so bad yourself.”

Din emits a gravelly groan and slides a knee between her legs, the edge of his cuisse brushing against the peak of her groin. “Can I have a taste, Cyar—sweetheart, please?”

They don’t have the privilege of time on their side, Din’s more than aware of this fact and yet he can’t stop the glove from slithering down her neck and the curve of her chest to idle at the hem of her pants.

“You’re insatiable,” she says, fingers firmly rooted within the scratchy cloak.

She’s hitting the nail on the head with that proclamation; he’s utterly unsated and deprived of her sweetness. Din requires it like sustenance—like medicine.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Never.”

The aftertaste of her slick is on his tongue and he needs more. He wants to binge on her for eternity and, maybe, then he’ll finally be content; a belly full of her translucent flavours, the gums of his throat and mouth coated in the thickness to the brink of suffocation.

Din’s fingers toy with her buckle loosely, queuing for approval.

“Can’t,” she whines pitifully. “We’ve already made our presence known. They’ll be expecting us out there. Besides, you should spend time with the kid. I’m not going anywhere.”

“No?”

She grins. “Well—maybe back to the Crest. Has that offer got an expiry date?”

“Offer?”

“Already forgotten, huh? If I remember correctly, you said you’ll fuck me in your bunk whenever I want.” She mimics his words, “Name the time.”

Shit—it wasn’t just pillow-talk.

“Why didn’t you mention it while we were there?”

“Oh no, Din.” He’s dragged inwards, his lips brushing the tip of her ear as she diabolically whispers into his, “I got something special planned for that.”

A chill runs beneath his beskar, brandishing his flesh with a bumpiness the dunes of Tatooine would envy. There are endless possibilities for what she’s got in mind but Din’s been excluded from her brainstorming. It doesn’t cease his imagination to run wild with disgusting thoughts of deviancy; ones involving her bent over on that shitty cot of his, the familiar manacles capturing her wrists, shameful noises slipping past those beautiful lips as he takes her night long and into the rise of the sun.

It had to be bigger than that. Don’t get him wrong, he wants to give her all of that, badly, but she could’ve done it earlier. They would’ve had the equipment on hand, no preparation necessary. No, she’s suggesting something else. Something bigger.

But she won’t indicate anything further, won’t give him a little taste of what’s to come, and cruelly urges him back onto his feet to recollect his helmet with a heavy hand.

She observes him upon hearing the click of his locking system inside the helm, either hand on his hip with an inclined head that just reads don’t leave me hanging.

“Suspense makes it all that much better,” she sweetly says.

He’s beginning to realise that sweetness is all exterior, a disguise for all the hot and heaviness she possesses within. A decoy that he’s fallen victim to. He’s like that of a fish foolishly nipping at a too good to be true enticement, the Girl laying in wait for him to latch on and reel him into his doom.

But she’s inexperienced. Unsuspecting of his abilities. Oblivious to his attachment to her lure.

She’s sweet but she’s also sour.

Salty in the heat of the moment.

Bitter in times of hurt.

Saliva constructed of pure savoury goodness.

She’s got all the nourishments he requires and there’s an endless supply; flavours he can taste straight from the source.

So, one can assume the agony, the clenched fists in his gloves, as they saunter through the chatty crowd, her hips swaying ahead of him a little too provocatively. She knows what she does to him, he’s demonstrated his need in various positions, and she’ll go above and beyond to find one way or another to fuck with him—to poke and prod to test his self-control before he drags her behind a hut and fucks her against the walls, whether it was outside or not he couldn’t care.

To fuse her fingers with the puppet strings attached to his pauldrons.

“This should be quiet enough,” she announces and throws herself onto the handcrafted bench, tossing a leg over the other and patting the empty space beside her. “I know you like quiet.”

Din plops down with the Child on his lap, a slothful hand massaging the green wrinkles at the summit of his head. There’s a handful of farmers in their own respective groups scattered around them, producing enough noise that allows thoughts to wander without concerning themselves with maintaining a conversation.

Sorgan’s moons are at their pinnacles, puffy grey plumes illuminated into off-whites from their luminescence. One sphere perches in the vast black, performing as a repellent to the swarms of haze, while the other is blinded by the thickness of the clouds; a circular radiance perceived through the fluffiness the only indication the planet possessed more than one.

A vague shadow surmounts the moon’s edge, the dawdling process of the eclipse having commenced but it’ll be quite some time before anything worthwhile transpires—Din sullenly groans at the missed opportunity to give her his tongue back on the cot. It’s not as though they were missing out on anything. It would’ve only taken him a couple of minutes to work her up to the brink, a couple more to—

“I never asked,” she says. “What’s the deal with you and the kid?”

“What do you mean?”

She shifts in search of a comfortable position among the splinters. “He’s a bounty and you’re a bounty hunter; please don’t make me explain further.”

Din sighs and swipes a finger across the leafy brim of his ear, provoking a gentle burble into the Crest’s gear knob. “I handed him over but they were doing experiments on him and I couldn’t leave him there. Things didn’t go to plan--”

“Because you don’t plan.”

“--and there was a shootout with the Guild.”

“So,” She ponders, “you’ve got a bounty of your own now.”

He scoffs. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Too late.”

Din entertains her amusement with a quiet huff of air through his filters, soft enough for her to register it’s not an annoyance. The subject of the Guild raises some questions he’s not wanting to voice—they’ll only ruin the mood and he doesn’t want to admit defeat—but he’s to play the hand he’s been dealt.

“We need to discuss where we’re heading next,” he says.

“So soon? It’s only been two days.”

“Should consider ourselves lucky we’ve managed to survive this long here. There could be hunters stationed from the last time I was here.”

“Right—and the Crest would’ve got their attention,” she agrees. “Okay. Where are you thinking?”

Somewhere reclusive. An isolated backwater planet much like Sorgan but one where nobody knows their names or reputation. Although discovering a planet with the aforementioned qualities is easier said than done, especially with the threats of audacious bounty hunters on their thrusters. Idling in space until they stumble across a safe-enough planet—or if pirates picked them off—was always an option.

Din sighs.

The Girl was right; he doesn’t plan. He’d just been traversing from parsec to parsec all his life, picking up commissions for fuel and a bite to eat, partaking in activities that simply aided his survival. Now with the Child, he’s expected to have a procedure—to shield him from the dangers Din automatically puts him in upon rescuing him from the client. But he doesn’t have the scheme to save their lives, literally.

“I don’t know,” he admits.

“Nothing wrong with not knowing. With my skills behind a rifle and your—uh… Point is, we’ll figure it out. Lighten up a little, you’ll wrinkle that pretty face of yours.”

With a roll of his eyes behind the visor, he settles for her words of reassurance and heeds her suggestion to relax his forehead.

“Mandalorian—Mando,” Omera’s abrupt panic-stricken tone is plenty for both of them to straighten their posture and bury the quips. Din twists his helmet to where she stands behind him, noting the fumbling hands before her lap, the twitch in her eyebrow ridges.

Din deposits the Child into the Girl’s arms and stands. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“Caben and Stoke...they—they weren’t with you?”

“No, they never returned for us.”

The Girl interjects, “We assumed they headed back before us.”

“No, no. Nobody has seen them.”

Shit—he should’ve realised something was wrong when they failed to show up. Raiders? There was no sign of them on that trail—but Din wasn’t exactly in the right mindset, being too haunted by the Girl’s temptations.

“I’m sorry to ask this of you...at an unfortunate time, no less, but-”

“I’ll go trace their route and see if I pick anything up,” Din says.

“Thank you, thank you.” Omera clasps his hands in gratitude, her thumbs brushing along the stitching.

“It’s not a problem. If I don’t come across them on the trail, I’ll question the neighbouring settlement. They should have some information.”

“I’m coming with you,” the Girl pipes up.

“No. Stay with the kid here.”

She shoots him a curved eyebrow and places a hand on her hip, her other cradling the Child into her side. “I hardly think watching the moon is of importance right now. I won’t let you go out there alone and it’ll be quicker if there’s two of us looking.”

“I don’t want-”

“Don’t want, what, to drag me into this? I think we’re far past all that, no?”

Din sighs. “Fine.”

No use arguing with someone so cocksure like her. Besides, when push comes to shove she’ll be resourceful with the rifle.

The Child isn’t happy at the circumstances, to say the least. He finally finds serenity wrapped in cold beskar edges and has been stripped away so soon—he glares at his guardian in the warmth of poncho-clad arms while Din and the Girl retreat into the woods once more. He’ll make it up to the kid when he gets back; Din’s certain he’ll face the wrath of a foot-long baby if he doesn’t.

“I think you should take the rifle. Just in case.”

“No. You need something to protect yourself.” Din brushes her suggestion off and activates the thermals on his vambrace.

“I’ve got my blaster.”

“That’s not enough. Here, hold it up. Press that. Be careful with the bayonet.”

She glances at him with questioning eyes and rests the rifle against her hip. “What’d you do?”

“It’ll administer electricity to anybody who touches it. There're only so many cartridges—” Din presents a cluster of steel cylinders in his glove and she shoves them in a pocket in her pants, “Pair your blaster with the bayonet and use the ammunition sparingly.”

“You think we’ll need them?”

“Just be prepared.”

They fall into a sharply cold silence, Din utilising his sonic detectors as they trudge through the bush to discern any commotion that may be of use. The Girl retains a pace a few steps behind his own, purposefully slotting her boots into his prints to avoid a stray twig snap here or a tumble there. It’s wordlessly recognised if there are raiders in these parts it’s best not to disclose their presence, especially not when there’s two of them. It supplies them with a lead on their opponent, at least until they identify how many there are.

The thermals are nothing but counterproductive. If they had passed through recently the track would surely be lit in fire-orange but it’s all blues and greys; Din thumbs the button to restore his vision, relieving the burden of having to focus on where he steps and clicks another for his sonic detectors. His vambrace was really getting put to the test today.

“Where——or….hurt you.”

Din freezes, the Girl sharp in his guide, and adjusts his helmet to pinpoint the muffling in his sensors. It’s quiet. Shallow. It could be flooded with a singular flask of water.

“Does….Child,” It’s speech tears.

East, about ninety metres out. The forest is thickened around these parts—too dense to trace any campfires or shadows—but there’s somebody there and they’re referencing a child; there’s not a doubt in his mind it’s The Child.

They’re not raiders. They’re not people who’ll go down without a fight.

“Guild members,” Din slips.

“Any clue how many?”

He hones in on the vocals, isolating each individual muffle or change of tone that could indicate there’s more than just the one. Even if he’s wrong, it’s best to be over-prepared. “Two. No, wait...three. I think.” She quietly mulls the possibility over, the strap of the rifle flinging over her shoulder as she makes way inwards. Din seizes her wrist and suspends her movements. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll get the high ground and see if I can spot Caben and Stoke. There’s no point starting something if they’re not there.”

“High ground?” Din questions.

She grins and breaks his grasp. “How’d you think I got those targets up in the trees?”

The Girl cracks her knuckles, the clicks and pops of joints puncturing his eardrums through the detectors like a bubble underneath a needlepoint. Either of her hands sprawls on the sides of a trunk, fingers dig into the bark for traction, and she hoists her feet up—she’s like the Crest in its ascent, agile and coordinated as she frog-kicks herself up into the branches.

Din’s eyebrows raise in dismay; he didn’t know what he was expecting but it wasn’t that.

The potential one possesses outside a suit of steel is still an astonishing concept to Din even after all these years of branding himself to the insides of his helmet. There’s an endless list of skills he’ll never be able to master—untapped aptitudes that have greyed into a colourless nothing.

Steel platings obstruct his movements, the helmet an obstacle to his sensations; his birthrights.

Brittle tree arms creak and whine above him, the leaves rustling as she navigates the long-arm’s lens to her sight. He’ll be left in amazement if she can distinguish the bodies from the swaying of blunted foliage. The land is too compact with trunks reaching the clouds, even with the magnified scope it’ll be near impossible to identify how many there are or whether the missing duo is being held captive.

His thermals would come in handy right about now for her; with her height advantage and his helmet, she’d assuredly recognise their precise positioning. Hell, she’d be an unstoppable force—a marksman even the greatest of bounty hunters would shake in their armour witnessing.

The Girl’s low tone sails through the treetops, gliding with the bitter night edge, and into his sonic detectors, “I see them—they’ve got them in the middle of the camp. Minimum six hostiles. All equipped with blasters. I can take two of them out from here.”

Well, he’s definitely left in amazement.

That’ll leave him with the remaining four, so long as there’s not more concealed within the shadows.

A lack of communication between them serves as nothing but an impediment, but time isn’t on their side and Din can’t waste any more of it to collect the comm units from the Crest. Weapons locker, second drawer, to the left.

If only he had thought of it earlier.

Din’s helmet inclines skywards, his visor scaling in and outlining her frame.

They’ve got each other's credibility and that, strictly, is sufficient for Din to jump into action; cutting through the undergrowth and stealthing between pillars of wood, each succeeding stride premeditated.

His scanners crackle against his ears, a gruff voice laced with croaks and coughs slipping through the beskar, “Where is he? Look at me! You’ll tell me where he is, boy, otherwise I’ll gut you right here. Perhaps watching you die will encourage your friend to speak, yeah?”

Caben and Stoke quake ahead of the lambent light illuminating their features; previously happy expressions replaced with terror, identical to when the AT-ST had broken through a dozen sturdy trees to gaze upon its victims with hollow eyes.

A burly Weequay paces before them, twin thumbs hooked on the hoops of his trousers in an attempt to appear stockier.

Fuckin’ Weequays.

Din’s blaster will come up short in a confrontation with that layered flesh of his and, with the lack of communication between them, he can’t depend on the Girl on being able to snipe him—he may not be one of the two she can manage. Another Guild member sits off to the side of the farmers, intimidatingly polishing a small vibro-knife in his fist. The remaining four she spoke of patrol their encampment; all either human or made with skin he can puncture.

It won’t be easy and the Weequay has the advantage; Din will need to take him out first and foremost.

He’ll put his faith in the Girl’s abilities that she can ward off the other’s long enough.

Din shovels a cluster of rocks into his hand and hurls them overhead and into the copse recesses, the rustling effectively tearing the hunters’ focus from their posts—Din springs to action and leaps from behind the greenery boscage, blaster pistol in his dominant hand and vibro-knife in the other.

The Weequay’s back faces Din and he exploits the factor, pouncing like a predatory loth-cat onto him and slicing a gash into the leathery hide of his neck. It does minimal damage, a small notch for a dribble of blood to meet with the neck of his shirt. He’s thrown off of the hunter and stumbles backwards into a tree, grunting and raising his blaster outwards; the trigger snaps against the alloy hold, a burning beam of cherry drilling into a fleshy build. It drops to the dirt, blaster bouncing astray.

“Mandalorian!” Caben exclaims into his detectors.

Din doesn’t reply nor impart his eyes to analyse their condition - they’re alive and that’s all that mattered while in the midst of battle.

The Weequay restores his attention to his surroundings, scowling at the Mandalorian before him and dipping calloused fingers into the wound of his neck. He snarls at the amassed blood on his tips. “You’ll pay for that, Mando, just as soon as you tell me where the bounty is.”

Child--bounty.

Any doubt that he had about them being after the kid is shattered, obliterated entirely.

Din’s vibro-knife pulses in his fist, his finger planted against the trigger in his other. The four scrawnier minions gather around his position against the tree, brandishing arrogant smirks as they languidly handle their blasters.

“I said-” The Weequay spits between his boots. “-tell me where the bounty is. You may have taken one of us but there are plenty more. There’s only one of you—your friends here aren’t much fighters.”

One. He scoffs.

A henchman, typically made of flesh and bones and blood, pops beside the Weequay; organic matter dissolving to flaky dust onto the forest floor. It leaves nothing behind that proves it was once a humanoid, barring the hunter’s blaster which plummets to the soil and knocks against the boot of his partner.

“What the pfassk!” One of them cries.

His detectors pick up the familiar whistle of a rifle pellet.

The Weequay raids his surroundings, concluding Din’s ally to be the in the only place that’d see them from this distance: “In the trees! Go!”

The hunters follow their orders but abruptly stop; a second member obliterating the moment his boot sole leaves the ground. Particles scatter with the breeze through the leafy canopies. They lie in wait, suspecting of another incoming granule but Din knows it won’t come—they’re well out of her sight.

But he can’t let them head in her direction; Din flicks the point of his blade between two fingers and slings the knife through the air and into the Weequay’s gullet once more—deeper and thrumming out splotches of plasma, an unnerving outcome of the intensity the knife is throbbing.

He staggers backwards in shock but Din focuses on the others, administering two perfectly aligned bolts into either of their unsuspecting chests; they nosedive into snapped twigs and gravel where sticky liquid accumulates underneath their bodies.

One to go.

Din didn’t act in accordance with his plan—the Weequay winding up as the last he’s to tend to—but this works, too.

The blade is ripped from his gullet, a spurt of hot blood following its dislodging, and the Weequay balefully boasts the dagger in his clutch. “Come now, Mandalorian. It’s going to take more than that,” he snarls.

He scoffs to himself in response and edges closer to one of the hunters drift melee weapons, footsteps precariously slow to ensure he doesn’t allude to his intentions—the bushes swish, a deep crack of a stick, and they freeze as one.

Visor and darkened pools of black sharpen against the lightless forest, apparently having forgotten about each other’s threat to concentrate on their snooping bystander.

The Girl steps out from the dusk, amban rifle hoisted forehead level with the Weequay. She stands stout on her feet, the wooden stock butting into her shoulder, eyes perfectly trained on her target before her. She doesn’t shoot, she won’t without his expressed permission.

The hunter recognises defeat and tosses the Mandalorian’s vibro-knife before his boots.

Din decompresses somewhat, allowing a sigh to flee from his filters and swoops up the knife and creeps past the defeated frame to shred through the rope bindings around Caben and Stoke’s wrists. “Thank—thank you,” Caben hisses and rubs the rash they’ve left in their wake.

Stoke imparts a gratified nod and smoothes out his clothing. “We’re sorry. They ambushed us on our way back---wanted to use us as leverage to draw you out. We’re just glad they didn’t track us back to the settlement.”

“Are you okay?” Din asks and quickly glances over their appearance. Some creased clothing and maturing bruises but for the most part untouched - no blood, no wounds.

They nod their heads in unison.

“He’s--” Caben glares at his captor warily. “He’s after the kid—your kid.”

Din suspected as much. “We’ll deal with him. Where’s the speeder?”

“Destroyed!”

He sighs and contemplates his options as if he had any. No speeder, no ride. “Follow the trail back to the village. We’ll be right behind you.”

They share a concerned look between each other but heed Din’s instructions, slipping past the growling figure and bounding through the bushland towards their escape route without glancing back.

“Quit wasting moonlight, boy. Get your hands dirty,” the Weequay sneers.

Judging by the bravado performance he puts on, he reckons he won’t suffer at the hands of an irritated Mandalorian tonight—he couldn’t be more incorrect even if he were to claim Din was of another species underneath his armour. A nettlesome Gungan. A hard-headed Klatoonian. An emotionless droid. He’s heard it all and they’re all closer to being more correct than he assumes of his safety.

There could be a message to send; violate every bone in his body to signify not to challenge the wrath of a well-equipped storm.

He’ll be in pain, Din’s sure of it, only, it’s undecided to what extent.

The Weequay grins, a sharp menacing clenched-teeth smile that puts Din back in his place, a guffaw that transmits a surge of electricity down the bumps of his spine; sounds of self-assuredness he shouldn’t possess in his perspective, unless...

No—he’s laughing at their idiocy. He’s pending for the upper hand.

Din spins on the heels of his boots, blaster pistol scanning the thicket. There’s more. There’s fucking more of the bastards and they’re smart about it; they laid in wait and let Din kill their teammates, let Din think he had the advantage, and only to fucking swoop in once they’ve noted all of his abilities—his sonic detectors. They’re too quiet for him to sense.

He thumbs his vambrace to activate his thermal but he doesn’t get the opportunity before he’s kicked in the back, staggering a few steps before crashing to the ground in a heap of steel. Grunting and groaning, he surveys behind him for the abruptness. The Girl is preoccupied in a feud of her own with three ambushers, applying his previously described strategy of paralysing with the bayonet before finishing them with her pistol.

She’s tossed around a bit; slammed into the trunks of trees and thrown onto the ground but she recovers and snaps the trigger of her sidearm with such ease. She’s capable, she’ll be fine.

Din needs to focus on this fucker—he needs to kill the scumbag.

Who knows how many of these guys there are. They literally came out of the fucking woodworks; the Girl wasn’t the only one who thought of taking the high ground and with it being so dark out Din hadn’t even thought to assess the treetops.

But they still didn’t know the extent of his capabilities. The hidden gems implanted in his vambraces. They weren’t just for show, after all.

The lurkers are dismissed for the time being—they’re distant, patient until he makes a miscalculation, and he can work with that—his attention focuses on the leathery neck oozing taunting blood. Din’s fingers curl around the vibrating hilt of his blade and lunges while the Weequay is empty-handed, delivering another slash across an arm this time.

It’s too protective, too tough for him to pierce and really leave some damage.

If Din can get one good stab in his throat, he could fucking skin him alive.

But he’s being surrounded. Hunters making their debut from behind bushes and circling him as if he were a fire in the midst of a snowstorm. It just doesn’t end; this was supposed to be a calming few days away from combat and here they were. Din anticipated this happening—tranquillity scarcely presenting itself to him—but he didn’t expect it so soon. The last he was on this planet, he’d been endowed with a few weeks at the least.

A shrill scream erupts, resonating through the forest and waking the creatures dormant in their hides, but it’s so much louder within his helmet on the account of his detectors. His ears pulse with frigid blood. His windpipe snaps closed, lungs thumping against his ribs.

He doesn’t want to look, he doesn’t. But he needs to - needs to reassure himself that it wasn't the shriek of a girl who’d just obtained something severe, something that makes her screams force time to fall dead.

It’s blurry and hazy, his cloddish eyes simply refusing to cooperate, like observing the scene unfold through a brimming glass of steaming caf. Din manages to discern a pillar, mobile with a rifle in its arms, but it’s not the Girl. Din’s learnt her figure greater than the Creed he wears. He’s felt all of its curves and bumps underneath his callouses. He’s dedicated the inches of his tongue to its sweat.

Din could sculpt her physique out of a slab of concrete with nothing but his fingernails.

That pillar isn’t the Girl—so why does it have her rifle?

Eyes stoop lower, the haze clearing and the Girl becoming so clear-cut it aches his retinas. She’s on the ground—the dirty fucking ground—being suppressed with a boot on her midsection; her hands claw at what little shin she can reach but her efforts are depleted, slowed and weak.

The knife thrums intensively and numbs the tips of his fingers, complementing the tingling billowing through his veins, his organs, wrapping around his bones and urging his legs towards her but a hunter steps before him to block his view.

His heart stutters inside his ribs. Stopping and starting. Leaping and dropping.

Pull your head in and kill these assholes, Din demands himself the willpower to snap his scrutiny around the four hunters caging him in a circle. He’s not in the mood to entertain their wishes for a brawl and triggers the flamethrower in his gauntlet, swirling on his feet to enkindle them with orange heat that’ll leave a mark if not end them.

Clothes of two of them ignite, hastily engulfing their frames and biting its brand into their flesh.

Din relishes in their screams, their desperate tries to distinguish the unforgiving flames, and, in his foolish stupor, he’s forced onto the ground—two thickset weights on either of his arms, the front of his helmet slamming against the dirt and knocking against his nose with a vengeance.

He struggles underneath their grip but hardly moves an inch.

The Girl whimpers, faint but oh-so lively with his detectors. Din’s helmet scrapes across the ground as he cranes his neck to peer at her—the hand that’d been working at a shin now flat against the ground, her writhing the only indication she’s still conscious.

Din wants to look away, wants to shut off his sonic detectors and close his eyes.

It hurts to look at her; that pain he’d receive the day after a tussle with a high-end bounty but intensified by a dozen and stripping away at his internal organs as opposed to muscle tissue.

She’s being brutalised. A boot on her abdominals milking her of pained mewling.

“You’re impudent, Mandalorian,” the Weequay gurgles. “Should teach you some manners. Oi, bring her ‘ere.”

Din’s muscles tense. No armour can conceal the visible discomfort those words bring to him but he tries for his voice anyways, “What is it you want? To take me back to the Guild? I’ll go--leave her alone, she’s not a part of this.”

“She killed my men.” Leather-face huffs a breath. “Bring her ‘ere.”

The lackey complies, rugged gloves tearing into her skin and thrusting her in their general direction. Din scans her body for injuries, the spotlight of his eyes staring at the dark vermillion patch seeping through the black of his shirt at her belly. He struggles for a breath. Struggles to swallow the rising liquids that burn the back of his throat. Struggles to not implode with cusses that’ll only edge their retaliation over the brink.

Fucking vermillion.

A colour that looked fantastic on his foes but so fucking unsettling on His Girl.

Her competitor wears the same colour as her, a circular bolt wound in his shoulder and it doesn’t take a genius to piece them together. She must’ve been fooled. She must’ve been attacked with the knife in his hand while tending to the other hunters that now lay dead among the bark.

She can’t stand upright without the arm fisting her shirt and she drops to her knees and successively her stomach before him. They’re both a quivering mess, though for wholly different circumstances, and Din can’t fucking take the look she gives him. So painful. So devoid of that sweetness.

“Sorry, Me’suum’ika,” she whispers.

She feels as though she failed him—that somehow her getting injured resulted in him immobile, anchored to the forest floors and staring at his companion face-to-face while she bleeds out unattended to. Not the fact he can’t control the emotions that overwhelm him. Not the fact that it’s his own incompetence.

“No—pretty girl, look at me. Look at me.” Din trashes his weight against their hold but the position is awkward and his legs are unable to administer any power into his core. He’s as hopeless as captured krill, simply flailing about in hopes it’ll get him somewhere.

The Weequay wipes blood from his neck and nudges a foot into her side, squirming it underneath her stomach and flipping her onto her back to expose that hellish colour tainting her midsection. It melts through the shirt and adheres the fabric against the invisible wound beneath; Din’s eyes refuse to cut away.

It’s painful. Identical to those atrocious holodramas that’d screen late at night in the sketchy areas of town—it’s a shootout of a mess and he just can’t look away.

“She’s dying,” the Weequay announces. “There ain’t no medicine out in these parts. She’ll be gone before you can even lift her off the ground.”

Din’s stunned into silence. What’s he to do? His Girl is an arms-length away from him, bleeding out and moaning in pain, and he can’t do so much as stroke the hair out of her face and reassure her that she’ll be okay.

The Weequay snatches her rifle from his men, twisting the framework in his arms and hovering the prongs directly over her forehead—barely an inch of space between beautiful soft skin and a fatally paralysing influx of electricity.

“Don’t,” Din warns, tone more emotional than he wants to display. “Touch her and I will never stop looking for you.”

“I can end it all for her right now. Turn her to dust. Take mercy on her. Look at her, she’s in agony.”

The Girl’s mouth opens and closes rhythmically, an arm strewn across her front to stop the gush of blood—it’s fucking bad. It worsens when she looks at him, the angle causing tension to find a path along her neck and down to her belly but she shuns the idea of glancing away. Din’s throat tightens.

“All you need to do is point me in the direction of the bounty.”

The fucking choobies on this guy.

“Get her assistance and we’ll talk,” he bluffs.

They’re not impressed by his demands, a singular knee from either of the hunters digging into his forearm. The vambraces support a majority of the weight but it’s still hefty, still——

Vambraces. He’s exhausted what little fuel remains for his flamethrowers but there are still a few tricks in wait up there—techniques that they’ll never anticipate.

Din strains his arm beneath the hunter, flicking his fist as best as he can manage for specks of bright blue to ignite within the cavities of his wrist. A handful of the explosive tips dispense into the still air above him. The birds sing their tune as they coordinate their attacks, dedicating themselves to targeting each individual quarry. One dives into the side of a hunter to Din’s left followed by another to his right, the muscles pinning him down becoming limp, the third impact into the chest of the Girl’s half-defeated foe.

They lay lifeless among the forest; scorch marks where they’d been touched with his beskar sparrows.

Two birds remain circling overhead.

Two?

One dips through the air targeting the Weequay like a missile with his name written on it but Din conducts a staredown with the last, his eyes swiftly tracing the projectile. It makes its move—identifying the bleeding woman coiled on the floor as a threat to his safety, but Din matches its tempo and hurtles himself atop of her body.

His weight stimulates a displeased groan from her throat.

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” he says.

Din cages her head in with his arms and tucks her face into his cowl before caving in on himself, a poor attempt to cover every inch of soft flesh with reverberating beskar and it works.

He feels the menacing tink through his spine as it bounces off the steel and into a tree.

He peels himself from her, cherry liquid having been smeared across his beskar platings, and examines her condition—the shirt drags up and tracks the blood to her ribs, a wide three-inch chamber in her stomach that convulses with each unsteady exhale.

She grunts incoherently and latches her fingers onto the perimeter of his vambraces, beseeching eyes demolishing the resolve within him. “We’ll get you fixed up, all right?” Din examines the incision with trained eyes, plush grey-purple tissue beneath all the vermillion causing his heart to drop.

It’s not that she was trying to stop the bleeding; she’s trying to prevent her fucking intestines from spilling out.

They’re still tucked away inside, where they belong, but if she moves too much they’ll slip out with ease.

His glove compresses around the fabric, wringing out the garment of her insides. His helmet sharply tosses in the direction of a small explosion by his final whistling bird. Weequay remains upright. Din’s insides boil.

This fucker. This son of a bitch.

This is his fault.

His Girl lays beneath the stars, her essence draining from her disoriented body, all because a handful of good for nothing guild members needed to get their hands dirty for a lousy couple thousand credits.

Din’s knees crack as he raises to his feet, his shoulders contracting and fingers crunching around a blade’s hilt. She sputters for a breath, her lungs failing to cooperate with her demands; the distressing audio flourishes the growing rage within him and he scowls under his visor.

He wishes it wasn’t there—wishes he could pluck the damned steel from around his face to burn the Weequay’s leather hide with stewing caf; a tribute of his ire. To permit the one who attributed so much agony on his beloved to gaze into his eyes as he snips his vocal cords through the wound in his gullet; darkened eyes that haven’t touched daylight in decades to swallow him whole in their shadows.

Like a hibernating beast longing for its first meal upon awakening.

Din cocks his vambrace controls and fires out his grappling cord, cleanly winding it around the maimed throat of his opponent, jerking forwards and concurrently rushing into his physique so they tumble to the turf and fend off each other’s clamouring.

That message he had been planning on distributing for the galaxy’s eyes is burnt to ash, much like that of the Weequay’s comrades. Din simply wants to murder the bastard—murder. An act far worse than killing. Killing somebody had always implied his survival, a requirement to take matters into his own hands so that he returns to the Crest with a beating heart.

This wasn’t survival.

This is harsh tidal waves crashing against the foundations of a lighthouse.

This is the crack of lightning in the sky in an unstoppable catastrophe.

This is a whole new side to Din that he’s never witnessed before. Anger that drowns him from the inside out. A bitterness that prods his taste buds. Overheating caf scorching holes through the visor.

Din registers the whipcord and how his fingers hook around the thread.

Din registers the dire clawing at his helmet, the Weequay’s desperation urging him on.

But what Din can’t register is anything in between; his consciousness, usually so clouded with his own grievances, is utterly blank as if he were a wiped droid. All circuitry and no sentiments.

“Ash’amur,” Din spits and applies every pound in his build.

The whipcord is constructed of refined shivs that slice through the thick neck and into Din’s gloves, drawing blood from his palms and fingertips.

It’s the gurgling that does it for him. That vile bubbling of blood and saliva in his pipes as it rises upwards and leaks from clenched teeth down his frilled jowls. It’s too horrendous to sustain—Din cringes and seizes his vibro-knife, only to be punched in the side of his neck the moment he removes a hand from that rubbery fucking throat.

Din groans and slams the cord-entangled hand into his jaw, roughhousing his cranium into the dirt and presenting the vulnerable wound like the perfect target to practice his precision. The blade dips through the seams and excavates deeper through the muscles, intensifying his suffering and crackled spluttering. Coriaceous hands fumble at slippery beskar, mouth belching and spraying ruby drops across the surface of his Creed.

He digs his knee into the fleshy stomach beneath him, extracts his knife and plunges it directly through the crevice once more.

The appendages slink down his torso and thighs, accumulating in a motionless mound atop of twigs and stones—dull eyes rolling into the back of his skull.

That filthy noise pollution continues—fluids frothing and popping in the oceanic limbo of fucking somewhere. Din’s mouth reshapes into a sneer and he impales the blade through the muscle again and again, but the ruckus persists; striking his eardrums with more zeal than his efforts to numb it.

It’s too loud, too distracting, his senses simmering down to solely auditory perception as it spikes in volume. It needs to be stopped, he needs to vanquish it.

Din white-knuckles the rubber hilt and repeatedly thrusts the blade in and out of the wound with rigid movements, his chest heaving with floundering breaths as he falls into a mania of knife-plungings.

The Weequay is long-lifeless but its body rocks with each frantic stab, the blood squelching within the open wound, and Din doesn’t realise the chilling mass beneath him isn’t the cause of the carnage on his sonic detectors until it’s splintered and calling his name between cracks and coughs.

He visibly recoils.

That agonised suffocating on blood wasn’t him at all.

The Girl coughs again, liquid gargling in the deep of her throat.

Vibro-knife rips through the skin as he withdraws the blade and reverts back to the Girl’s aid, flipping her onto her side and smoothing out the hair. “Spit it up, Sweetheart,” he instructs. Vermillion amasses into a puddle beneath her mouth and floods the forest floors. “That’s it, keep going.”

She mewls, incapable of urging up the last swish of metallic liquid—Din intervenes and slips his hand free of his glove to wedge two fingers into her mouth, sweeping out the remainder of accrued blood and clearing her airways.

“Breathe in, there we go, and out.”

She exhales and nods to her wound. “Didn’t—didn’t see the knife in time. Thought I-I killed him.”

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay, all right?”

There’s disbelief written on her face, her eyebrows and teeth tense as she chews on soft gums, but she gives him the faintest of smiles and a nod that’s more to reassure him than it is her.

She’s lost too much blood and the volume is only ballooning with time. Din acts fast and slashes a load of his cloak with his knife, again, the woollen trimmings serving as a tourniquet around her midsection; it’s a shitty solution and functions more to irritate the wound than anything—the fibres of the garment eating away at the uncovered pulsing muscle—but it’s all he’s got. They’ve got nothing going for them here and the Crest had to be a decent twenty minute trek outwards on a good day which this is fucking not, maybe thirty with her condition.

It has to last until then. It needs to.

If he can make it to the Crest in time and without dumping her guts out she has a chance—a chance, not a high one, but a fucking chance—of survival but he needs to go now.

“I’m gonna pick you up, okay?”

She’s light. All that weight sitting on his shoulders mere hours ago is replaced with a floatiness that makes her feel non-existent, like a figment of his imagination. She compresses against the beskar while he zips through the forest like the pellets she’d administered to the hunters; agile, coordinated, but his concentration bounces from his path to her face every few leaps.

“Hey! Hey. Open your eyes. Show me your pretty eyes, sweet girl...there they are. Keep them open for me.”

She strains, “Sorry.”

The syrupy goodness of her tone he starved for—binged on—has boiled over to a sticky mess that only drags him in closer at the touch of his heart. It coats the organ like tar and hardens until it struggles to continue beating, slinking downwards and catching along the walls of his lungs to harass his breathing.

Din chews on his lower lip, his teeth burrowing into the pillows with each step of his boots and shredding them with his enamel until he tastes his blood at the back of his tongue.

She hums and allows her head to roll into the soft bicep beside it, situating her lips against the flight suit to commit a forceless kiss onto the only part of him that she can reach.

“Guess - guess I won’t be taking you up on that offer.” She smiles and exhales a breath—a laugh but she’s too weak to give anything more.

“Don’t… Stop acting like you’re--”

“Dying?” She scoffs. “Well, I-I am, aren’t I?”

No, you can’t Din thinks, you can’t fucking leave me here.

The urge to vomit creeps upon him; disguises itself among the churning of his stomach and the soreness in his throat. Perhaps he would empty his stomach right here and now, discount the concealing of his identity before the Girl just to have the opportunity to bend over and heave until there’s nothing but saliva expelling, but he doesn’t have the luxury of slowing down. In fact, he needs to pick up his pace.

He does just that—albeit not by much but every difference counts.

Din risks another glimpse at her; skin all pale and face scrunched to not let the pain escape from her throat or eyes. She struggles to restrain herself from allowing her eyelids to snap close, to let that twinge in her retinas finally rest—because Din asked to see those pretty eyes and what Din asks, Din receives.

She takes notice of his lack of reassuring words, the shortage of comforting glances, the cold absence of her Mandalorian as he distances himself from his emotions.

“Me’suum’ika.”

He regrets teaching her that word. It sounds so pleasing coming from her vocals, all soft and bouncy like a mattress he wishes to rest on, but currently, it’s pained. It’s croaky and poorly pronounced. It sounds dreadful—tainting the beautiful memory of exchanging nicknames.

She tries for his attention again, “Me’suum’ika…”

No. No, no. Don’t say it. Do not fucking say it.

“Din.”

Their motion suspends as fast as a string snaps. Boots kick pebbles ahead of their path. They’re in a wide clearing, the firs having been repelled at least a twenty-metre radius around them. Quiet. Open. Peaceful.

Forearms quiver with her maturing weight, mysteriously so fucking heavy like he was supporting a thruster of his Crest. The helmet is inert on his shoulders, staring off into the distance where the path narrows between rows of evergreen. Fingers on her waist and the underside of her thigh tunnels into the flesh, his one ungloved hand perceiving her dwindling warmth.

Despair overcomes him like an explosion. No ticking to warn him, no preparation. Just one big fucking detonation that blasts against his calves, staggering his stance and plugging his lungs and helmet with clotted smoke particles that stings his eyes and throat. His tongue liquefies and slips down his pipe where he gags on his own muscle.

“Put me down.”

“No,” he chokes. “I can do it, we can make it. I just—”

His vocals fissure. They crack and pop and it’s not on the account of his vocoder.

The hook underneath the rim of his helmet drags it downwards and every bone in his body tenses at the sight. The sight of His Girl so emptied of expression that she can barely hold eye contact with his black slit. The colour deficiency in her face leaves a sharp taste of salt on his lips, streaks on his cheeks.

Din she says softly, no—not softly but so devoid of strength that it comes out oh-so weak and quiet, put me down Din.

His knees buckle. His arms quake. He sinks to the gravel brutally.

The stones poke and prod against his caps, sharp edges cutting through his garment but he’s completely numb except for his hands and face—enduring the physical touch of a falling star versus the tides that roll beneath the steel.

He doesn’t want to drop her.

He doesn’t want to let her touch the planet's crust because he knows she won’t get back up.

“Me’suum’ika.” She wipes at his armoured chest with her sleeve. “You’re all bloody.”

Din shakes, scrambling not to cave into the overwhelming itch in his forearms—to not permit her perfect figure to be tainted with more grime than it already has been subjected to—except she’s made of duracrete, weighing him down like an anchor on a flimsy rowboat and he can’t come out victorious.

It’s a sluggish descent, all slowed to record each millimetre until she’s flat on the ground. A vermillion reservoir spawns beneath her and trails to seep into his flight suit, his ungloved hand gently laying rest on her concealed wound—the cloak lumpy and outlining something soft, squishy.

He retracts his hand as if it were in the mouth of a rancor.

There’s an unspoken statement that floats above them, circles them and weighs their shoulders down.

She’s dying.

Din knows it. He can see it. He can see her life vacuuming out of a three-inch slit in her abdominals and there’s nothing he can do to delay the inevitable. There’s nothing he can do to save her life. He’s never felt more incompetent but there’s a flicker of hope that she’ll make it. That she’ll just reabsorb the sticky liquid and suture her tissue back together—denial. He’s in utter fucking denial.

“Come here,” she breathes, fingertips stroking the scruff of his jaw underneath his cowl.

His teeth clench. “No, Cyar’ika. Sweetheart, please. I can make it. Just hold on for a little longer.”

“I can’t.”

Eyelids pinch together behind the tint but it doesn’t stop the nipping at his retinas. Gloved hand remains at the rear of her skull, cushioning it from stray rubble but he clenches around air when she hoists herself onto her elbows—approaching him since he’s too shaken to go to her—and knocks against the front of his helmet.

Din forces his eyelids to peel back and it’s a huge mistake.

All he can see is the bottom of her chin, the curve of her jaw, but he’s clever enough to string the clues together; the diminishing heat of her breath warming him on the inside.

The gentle press of her lips against the summit of beskar.

She doesn’t allow him to think, to speak, she does it all for him. But they’re not words he wishes to hear. They’re not I’ll be okay or let’s go home.

“Look.” She nods upwards. “Me’suum’ika.”

She’s not referring to him, but the real moon; its silver-white glow snuffed out and overtaken with oranges as warm as the sunrises that’d rebound off his beskar as he strides back to the Crest, a bounty in hand and dark crescents forming underneath his eyes. Reds as deep as the blood besmirching her gorgeous soft skin.

“Pretty, ain’t it?”

Pretty?

It’s obscene. It’s nauseating. It’s not fucking pretty.

It’s mocking them—mirroring the scene laid underneath it reminding Din of his foolish missteps; she’s all red and bloody because of you; she looks like me because you allowed her to tag along.

Din wants to pilot his Crest all the way up there and put an end to the disrespectful satellite.

How dare it look so full, so complete, while he’s disintegrating before it.

The Girl said he was one and the same with the moon—she fucking said that—so how can it be so unaffected by the loss of life beneath it?

The loss of their Girl.

Din isn’t the moon. He’s the abyssal milky ways that attract eyes at first impression only to exploit that and drag unsuspecting victims into the black holes in the galactic centre of his chest—he’s destruction and chaos and unrelenting, his gravitational pull too great for escape and it only ever ends one way.

“Don’t...don’t look like that.”

“Like what?” he snaps.

It’s unintentional. An overload of emotions that’s been festering for too long and shows its ugly face in the form of a pitch curated with venom and tears.

“You can’t even see me.”

He’s going about it all wrong except he’s right—she can’t see him nor can she feel his warmth but that never intimidated her. She’d found ways to adapt; ways to read his mannerisms and speech rather than facial expressions.

Din has the opportunity to seize that from her; to show rather than tell.

Explosion smoke splutters from his lungs and his fingertips ache as they fumble for the switch beneath the rim, the Girl’s blood soiling his clothed throat and the insides of his Creed. It unclasps, detectors maximizing its violent hiss. He has it maybe below his lips before she pulls and pins it down.

“You’re not ready.”

Din’s heart fractures; the beskar steel of his organ—that’s made to withstand a lightsaber—cracking and creaking at her words.

“No! No, no. You told me you weren’t going anywhere—you said that. You said you would look if I wanted you to see and, Mesh’la, I want you to fucking see.” Din’s fingers tremble against the back of her hands. “Sweetheart, please look at me. Let me do this...I don’t have anything else to offer.”

“Din…no.”

“Let me,” he demands but all the authority is suppressed with a heartache that chews him up and spits him back out.

There’s an attempt to conceal the groans and hisses—an attempt—as she breathes in deep, gathering as much fresh oxygen in her lungs as possible.

Din tries for his helmet again, employing her hands beneath the rim to lift, but she overexerts herself to stop him; tight fingers latched on the insides, knuckles brushing against a sharp jawline and collecting the wetness that streams directly into her grasp.

“This is the Way,” she says it as a reminder and a reassurance that she’s content with never seeing his face because This is the Way, but it only frustrates him; boils the tears on his face until they convert into vapour that attacks his visor, leaving only the crust of salt residue on his cheeks.

You’re dying in my fucking arms he thinks the least I can do is desecrate my Creed.

It wouldn’t even be a desecration, not really. That would imply a disrespectful act was to occur and this was anything but. It’d be an honour, a homage of an unspoken pledge uttered in the dead of the Crest that outweighs the one he took among tinted visors and enkindled torches.

Din’s taut. Rigid muscle constructed of resolute alloy.

It’s not comfortable to rest among sharp edges that prod into her sore skin but rather than peel away—rather than let her breathe without the weight of steel to her side—Din cradles her against his chest, transferring the most minuscule amount of body heat that slips through his seams into her.

His hand is glazed with sticky deep vermillion that oozes from his fingertips, the gravity magnetising droplets onto the beautiful cheek it hovers above. Din wants to touch her, wants to feel the sun warm his flesh and blood, but he’s scared that if he touches her he’ll ruin her iconic softness with coarse fingers.

Blood smears onto her face and fills her sinuses with metallic scents to match those flavours in her mouth, her cheek gluing itself to his hand for him. She offers him a weak smile and entitles herself to a moment to browse his solid face, following the edges of his cheeks and swiping a thumb across the chin’s rim.

“Kiss me,” Din requests. “Just—just once.”

“Just once?”

He nods. “Just once. Do—can you manage one?”

The Girl chuffs out a laugh but cringes at the disturbance in her core. “I might have one in the bank for you.”

She elevates the beskar to the dip in his nose, scenic eyes securely held shut to preserve the Creed he’s already decided he would renounce for her if she would just let him. She deserves to see him, to gaze into his simmering caf. His thoughts range from disloyal alternatives that scour against the sincerity of his mind, wiping him clean of the trust he’s built around himself, all the way to options where he doesn’t go against her words—thoughts where the beskar lifts no higher than his mouth.

He condemns both of the options; either tricking her into seeing him for his own greediness or listening to her pleas despite how much it fucking hurts.

It’s not fair.

Din’s lips hurtle themselves into her; hungry and distraught, a false hope that if he engorges on her taste alone it’ll dispel those macabre thoughts from his consciousness. All he can fucking taste is salt and metal that’s been left in the rain. Her zest, her sweetness, the flavours that taste of her, is gone.

It doesn’t stop him.

He compiles it in the back of his throat simply to have something of her inside him. He’s indulged in her tasteless saliva, the saltiness of her sweat, the syrup of her slick, and now the rancid warmth of her blood.

He can’t hear. He can’t see. He can only feel and touch.

She’s hardly lukewarm, the sun’s rays disappearing over her horizon.

“Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.” Din brushes the hair out of her face. “Not a minute passes where you’re not in the forefront of my mind, Sweetheart. I’ve never encountered somebody so...extraordinary as you. I just need you to know before—before…”

“Din…” Her voice pops, tears of her own brewing.

“I love you,” he confesses, wet beads plummeting from his jawline to her neck. “You taught me how to love; you are my love and that will never change. I love you, ner Cyare—my beloved.”

Din recoils like he’s poked in the chest. The snuffling and mewling that erupts from her vocal cords upon his confession burn him—singe his lungs until they’re tender with each inhale. Nothing could have prepared him for this reaction; the unmasked sobs and vulnerability she’s never shown, not to this extent.

Fingers that dig into his flight suit feel like minuscule vibro-knifes in his biceps. Statements that gush out of her mouth and landslide his heart into submission—I love you, Din. I love you. I love you.

A star and a satellite falling in love; it’s an implausible outcome bound for disaster.

The sun manipulates its flames that allows colourful flowers to bloom or for lively forests to ignite. The moon pushes and pulls the tides fit for a gentle roll across a beach or to capsize rigs with a single flick.

The Sun and the Moon.

Fire and Water.

They’re polar opposites and, despite everything in the universe working against them, they’ve merged as one. Two equally fractured vases exchanging their missing pieces for compensation; a bright orange that’s warm to the touch in Din’s heart and within her lies a sparkly silver shard, a piece of his beskar residing within her to ward off onslaught.

He’s trawled inwards, naked cheek against naked cheek; scruff pricking against the bone of her jaw. Their tears fuse as one and wedge between their pressed flesh. She sobs against him, the hand on his helmet dipping underneath the silver to tangle her fingers within his knotty locks.

I’m fucking scared Din she breaks, I don’t want to go.

Din’s lip trembles. He can’t paralyse the pain that brings forth the donning of a brave face when confronted—that crinkle in her brow isn’t fooling anybody—but, perhaps, he can distract her. Draw her attention away from the gnawing of her intestines against scratchy wool.

“I know, Darling, I know.” Voice so soft and comforting it encourages her fraught muscles to slack and abandon her awareness. “Focus on me, okay?”

Her lips part when he nudges against them, accepting the tongue that requests entrance. It’s one final deliverance on both sides; a diversion for the Girl and a concluding act of love for Din—something to burn into his lips for decades to come, something to remind him he’s deserving of love.

He takes it slow for her sake, concerned that his usual greed would be too overstimulating. They’re lackadaisical; movements so weakened they’re hardly moving, simply holding each other as they quietly sob into the others mouth.

His scalp is heavy with her fingers and he synchronises his own to the nape of her neck, dirtying her pretty hair with sticky plasma. Pretty hair he’ll never be able to touch again—he’ll never be able to feel the strands between his knuckles as he tilts her head back and deepens their devout kisses. Kisses he’ll never be blessed with again.

Fuck.

He can’t stomach it, can’t bear the thought that he’s going to be abandoned all over again.

First, his parents and now his beloved girl—everybody he cared for is slipping through the gaps of his fingers.

It’s not even a gradual process; there’s not enough time for him to tell her how much he loves her, how he’ll never love another lifeform a fraction as much as he does her.

It’s as rapid as a waterfall, a suffocating surge that’s stern against his protests; his silent pleas of please don’t take her away from me.

Din feels the pulsing in her tongue fade; acknowledges how her fingers lax against his scalp, registers how he’s been deserted despite their tongues intertwined. Beskar slips down the slope of his dewy face as he recedes within himself.

The Girl is static, still, silent.

She’s not got a fingernail’s worth of oxygen in her lungs, not a twitch in her eyebrows.

Din’s beloved Girl is gone.

The sun’s solace warmth has been wiped from the face of the galaxy, leaving residual liquid flames that paste in thick layers to his armour. Only an odious sphere of blended carmines remains perched in the celestials—a blood-red lunar eclipse that penetrates through the solid of his heartplate and devours his internal organs.

Din remains idle for what feels like a century, his consciousness paralysed with a stab of her amban rifle’s bayonet. Deprived of sensation—drained of emotion and thoughts—the tears have stopped and left behind an ache beneath his eyes.

When he does eventually move it’s wearisome. The momentum of a dawdling crawl; a by-product of the corpse in his arms and bedrock in his boots.

It takes him longer than it should to reach the Crest.

It takes him longer than it should to lay her body to rest atop the hold’s crates.

Din tries to tell himself she looks peaceful, that she’s somewhere better, that's what people said to others in times of grief, but what could be better than roosting between his arms in the comfort of a secure body of beskar?

The Razor Crest’s lethargic humdrum probes his sockets, the absence of a thumping heartbeat so fucking apparent that it’s harrowing and Din can’t tolerate it for another second. His Creed rips from his head and hurtles through the air to slam into the duralloy walls of his supposed sanctuary, denting a dome where the summit of beskar impacts but it’ll never be enough to damage that fucking helmet.

His trademark steely stoic persona is substituted for tan mien; his inability to conceal his expressions from years of never needing to palpable at the faintest indication of an eyebrow twinge.

Din presses his lips against her forehead, a frigid and stiffness that transfers to his mouth. He luxuriates on her, delivering docile pecks across her face that burns his lips. Din surrenders the last of his breath to her but he’ll never receive any equivalent ever again.

Memories are all that remains—reminiscences that tug on his lungs. They obscure his mind's eye with dull images of the individual circumstances he’d separated the man from the religion.

He wasn’t to ever remove his helmet. His heart sinks. Din had never contemplated the impact of the decree—the implicit statement that it included whether one’s eyes were shut or not.

His heart’s arteries melt into the muscle and flood it until it capsizes within itself.

Din had been subconsciously unearthing methods and plot holes to eliminate beskar from the equation to indulge in the Girl’s temptations—to permit him the opportunity of a lifetime and experience affairs that scarcely presented themselves to him—but it had backfired.

The helmet was removed, whether her eyes were shut or not it didn’t matter.

His Creed was tarnished the moment he even thought about being with the Girl and it only continued downhill from then on—a terminal illness that burrows its relentless claws into his core and carefully conquers each inch of his body without ever drawing attention to itself.

“Cyare.” His vocals crack and pop. “Open your eyes.”

Look at me. I’ve dishonoured my vows for you. Open your eyes and look into mine—savour the caf you were so curious about. You have to look at me. You need to. Please don’t let my sacrilege go undervalued.

They’d been wasting precious moments this entire fucking time. Din’s Honour was non-existent and he could’ve bestowed her with the knowledge of how his eyes brightened whenever she glanced his way, how indentations of shallow dimples formed in his cheeks when he’d smile at her snarky remarks.

His fist slams against the crate beside her. “Stubborn girl.”

Why couldn’t she be like the no-good schemers that yearned to see beneath the steel?

Why did she have to be so protective of his oath?

She died never knowing what the man who loved her looked like.

A sparkle beneath her shirt catches his eyes, solid alloy beckoning his hands. Beskar is still warm to the touch from her sternum. Din rubs the face of the pendant's skull raw, dried blood flaking off onto the steel, his thumb heating with the friction. It’s not much, hardly anything actually, but it’s something that she claimed ownership of—something physical that he can touch and hold that was once pressed against the beat of her heart. With nothing else in her possession of her own, it’s all Din’s got.

It’s knotted around his neck, the thread weighing like a bantha and the pendant torching a permanent mark into his chest. He welcomes it, remains stoic and unflinching as it intensifies and scars over—he wasn’t afraid of being burnt, after all.

Din wipes away the scarlet meadow of clumped hair adhered to her cheek and sets the hem of her shirt as low as it'll reach, concealing the hump of soaked wool. He believed himself to be incapable of shedding more salty liquid from his ducts but tonight is full of surprises. Their foreheads pin against each other, wetness streaming down the curve of his cheekbones and into her hair.

He’s uncertain where he stands with his Creed—it’s not of importance right now—but he was raised on their culture, their words so beautiful that it only felt right to say a final remembrance.

My Sun, Ni su’cuyi, gar kyr’adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum.

----

jatnese be te jatnese - the best of the best ni kar'tayl gar darasuum - i love you me'suum'ika - moon choobies - testicles ash'amur - die ner cyare - my beloved ni su'cuyi, gar kyr'adyc, ni partayli, gar darasuum - i'm still alive, but you are dead. I remember you, so you are eternal.

A/N: i'm so sorry. there might be an epilogue if you guys are interested in that.

taglist: @ohhersheybars, @greatcircle79, @northernpunk, @tanzthompson, @djarrex, @omgreally, @spideysimpossiblegirl

[vischys]

"I DON'T GIVE A FFFFFFUCK, YOU ALLIGATOR SON OF BITCH! WHAT THE FUCK IS THE DIFFERENCE?!"

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒔𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒍𝒚 𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒂𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒇𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔, though inwardly grimaced at the quality of wanton stretch wherein the irascible youth imparted his ire. At the same time, his inner savant naturally sought to both correct and inform @demon-blood-youths Navarro's rhetorical inquiry.

Distinctly significant, osteological wise. To begin with the most palpable, despite both dinosaur and crocodile are accounted under the same clade - Archosauria - they possess different osseous structure. Next would be their natural habitat; Crocodiles, of the family Crocodilia, live exclusively in aquatic-

He mentally shook himself out of his erudite rant, managing to hark back to their predicament thus the inappropriateness, and pinpointed to which part of Navarro's conveyance actually bore consequence. 

"Okay...since Wade is relying underwater. We need to bait him and pin him down. Since you're quick on your feet, can you hit him hard enough to stun him? I can use my bomb to trap him or make sure to get him out of the water. Or maybe I can force him out of the water and trap them and then you attack him." 

Instead of answering immediately, Vergil tilted his gaze toward the body of water surrounding them, which was presently undisturbed since their saurian adversary had once again assumed his aquatic camouflage and thus undetected without Vergil's Concentration. Whilst his heightened focus did prove to be decidedly efficacious at pinpointing the scullion's exact location, it also proved to be detrimental when joined with Navarro's explosive arsenal, which unfortunately has been made indispensable due to none other than the very nature of their environment itself, which in turn provided all advantage there to Wade's reptilian traits.

In conclusion: utilizing combat means that are capable of impacting underwater where the reptile scullion flourishes will be the felicitous course of action, even if said means happen to be a brand of firearm belonging to the Demon Blood Tears' resident bomber.

"Also...here. Take it. You probably need it more than me."

Vergil's gaze flitted back to Ink's second and observed in a tepid mixture of mild amusement and rankling as Navarro produced what he perceived as the teen's own spare mask and proffered it. Common individual would welcome such an offering with gratitude, or at the very least a vein of appreciation over what was a blatant gesture of genuine concern. Yet Sparda's firstborn had been anything but common, and more importantly he possessed a pride and reputation that must be upheld irregardless of the mind-numbing stench of the city's worth of waste assaulting his nose.

Thus instead of accepting the proffered visor, Sparda's scion merely redirected his gaze back to the fetid water in dismissing gesture that bespoke; Foolishness, a temporary lungful of excreta is naught against a devil of my stature.

“ I shall give your method a try in but this matter, ”  he deigned his shorter companion with a verbal response eventually, though with no small amount begrudgment at the emphasis just to ensure that the bomber perceived his actual stance despite his assent upon the use of firearms said method. “ Employ it to oust that scaly poltroon from its underwater hold and follow with another blinding light at his sight to keep it at place. I shall take over from that point henceforth. ”  Once the man-reptile was debilitated out of water, his verdict shall be dispensed by Yamato's undulled steel.

The sound of splashing that transpired almost immediately afterward alerted him, and from the corner of his eyes espied that Navarro was put upon the same state. Then another splash, this time from behind him, prompting him to swivel upon his heels. Then from another direction. And another.

He is attempting to throw us off his putrid scent, that scaly blighter!

The seemingly random splashing carried on that the cambion decided to cease wasting their time anticipating the crocodilian's assault and commence with their own. He tilted his head toward his crimson-clad companion, but before he could voice his intent, a filthy sack was thrown out of the water at the teen's direction, followed a loud splash not of their crocodilian opponent re-emerging, but Navarro being dragged into the feculent abyss.

Wade let out a noiseless cackle, he was still underwater after all. His glee was at its height as the freaking geezer was for once seemingly rendered clueless as to what to be done in this outcome, and above all, he had Van Ink's second in his clutch! Tail. Well, nothing he couldn't remedy anytime now.

Wade's clawed arms shot out to grip Navarro's other leg, taking advantage of the teen's much shorter form in attempt to pull the bomber deeper into the water. His face elongated and morped once more into a jaw resembling that of his title, a CROCODILE, despite whatever shit names and species the midget had been blabbering.

SEE WHY I'M A CROC NOW? Wade revealed his palm-sized razor teeth in a monstrous grin. I'M GONNA MAKE YOU A HEAD SHORTER, MIDGET! MWAHAHAHA! His jaw opened wide, enough to fit Navarro's whole head within.

Vergil let out a low growl for not only the wretched creature managed to confound them still in spite of their mutual alert, but also seized Ink's second with him. But rather than permitting Wade's brand of chicanery to further outwit him, the cambion opted to rein in his pique and re-assert his composure to properly assess the situation and subsequent course of action.

Even if the boy managed to extricate himself, he would likely be unable to utilize his explosive arms still whilst being underwater. At least not without risking damaging himself in the process. Meanwhile, so long as the teen remained underwater, he would present himself as an effortless target to the reptile Horror.

Someone must fend off the reptile wretch long enough for the boy to get out of the water.

Vergil gazed at said water thereafter. The prospect of diving into its dark depth saturated with various manner of bodily discharges, despite being a skillful swimmer himself and the bomber's life at stake, was frankly something he was not looking forward to whatsoever.

His personal distaste aside, Navarro's personal predicament brought forth another matter into his mental equation: Ink.

Existing beyond his professional interest in the city was none other than his personal investment in the Vanguard's well-being, both physical and emotional wise. 'Twas this underlying motivation that prompted him to compromise with Navarro in the first place, and subsequently saved the boy prior from the imminent jaw of the Lovely Horror's reptile Commander. For he knew without doubt it would greatly devastate his demoiselle to lose any of her comrades, her second above all.

The memory of Ink's vacant expression flashed once more in his mind and his teeth gritted at the thought of the same youthful face twisted in grief over Navarro's cold, lifeless body. No longer whole and covered in all manners of waste, indicating not an honorable but most pitiful manner of demise. In the hands of yet another Horror scum to boot.

An epiphany dawned upon him then, prompting Vergil to hiss sotto voce and straighten his stance before summoning a double fashioned after his own devil form by the flick of his right wrist.

The azure double that manifested purely from his demonic energy hovered briefly before dashing toward the exact location where Navarro and the Reptile Horror were. With his cue, his Doppelganger dived unreservedly into the feculent water and unleashed a stark emulation of Vergil's version Stinger that pierced the scales covering Wade's side, forcing the saurian to abandon his grip upon Navarro and retreat, clutching his throbbing side.

𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒆𝒙𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒊𝒄 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒚 did not put him on the qui vive, his own having been acquainted with it ever since he reunited with Ink and part of her teenage fraction in the city-turned-battlefield, thus enough to recognize it as an ally instead of a threat. It did however, notified him of Navarro’s rise in either adrenaline or temper–

Keep reading

[governmentofficial]

@brassandblue continued from [x]

“What’s my problem?” Arthur repeated sharply, incredulity bringing his tone to an even finer point. He found his feet abruptly, rising upright, and punctuated his ire by slapping a file folder he’d been reading onto the nearest tabletop surface. Despite being some inches shorter than the other man, Arthur–especially when his temper fell out of his control–carried a high bristling presence that had come after centuries of practice.

“Why don’t you try deducing what my problem is?” he snapped, eyes flashing with pointed anger. “Seeing as I doubt you would even care to hear me tell you myself.”

(That was a comment he would regret later, but he currently felt justified in saying as much.)

Arthur actually had no doubt in Mycroft’s ability to figure what was on his mind, at least where work was concerned–there was the file, now closed, nearby; his hair was slightly tussled after having run his fingers through it restlessly; his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his hands and arms had just several blotches from the ink of the paperwork he’d finished earlier. Next to the file was his mobile phone, on which notifications were lighting up, all texts from other diplomats, as well as other nations.

Over all, his body language was tense, defensive, even hyper alert, a state leftover from his centuries of soldiering and a veil-thin tension recognizable in those returned from combat. He was a wellspring of emotion, a mess bundled in neatly and meticulously placed packaging where the twine holding things together was decorum that could easily fall away if he let it.

The simple truth was, he was tired, and it wasn’t simply one thing that grated on his nerves–it was a host of things, and that meant he simply needed to get away from them and find the solace of peace and quiet. He needed desperately to switch off, and further human interaction would only make things worse.

Well, somebody was clearly in a bad mood. Mycroft was confident that it had nothing to do with his own actions. He had not done anything recently that would affect Arthur in any way, therefore something else must be the root of the problem at hand. 

Of course, he didn’t have to be told to attempt to work out the cause himself. Mycroft’s brain was always switched on when it came to such a thing - the little details around him constantly bombarding his mind as he processed them and compartmentalised them into neat little categories that explained exactly what he was looking at. Obviously, the other man was having issues at work. What wasn’t so clear was how Mycroft was supposed to respond.

He had attempted to enact the tactic of giving Arthur the chance to talk about his problem via asking what was wrong, but perhaps he had not worded it well enough. Hm. For a long moment, Mycroft was silent - his head tilted at an angle as he observed the other man, his brain whirring away as it tried to come up with a plan of action that would provide success in providing some way to relax a little. 

“You are being rhetorical. You do not want me to state the issue,” Mycroft eventually said. Was he stating the obvious? Oh yes, most definitely, but he wasn’t sure what else he could do in the current moment.

“Perhaps you should go to bed?”

[commanders-quarters]

The ringing ceases when the Octoling finally enters his line of sight. As Spui drew out an open palm, the android crossed its arms, presumably deflecting the gesture despite not uttering a word. He bends forward to receive a closer look at the specimen’s face. It’s not too different from how a microbiologist observes a lowly germ beneath a microscope.

Judging by the audible whirring emanating from its artificial skull, it’s processing something. Thinking.

“… You aren’t one of mine,” it confirmed aloud, seemingly ignoring the other’s question.

Tartar definitely sounded off, too. Even within his metro. It was a new voice synthesizer entirely; it was one carrying a more natural quality to it, though one with a notably thick accent. Some teal ink caught in his speaker crackles free, resembling the way one might clear their throat when their voice has grown hoarse. Rusty with conversing, maybe, but there didn’t seem to be a single speck of rust present on the casing of his ancient vessel.

But, of course, since Spui didn’t appear to be an Elite, Tartar was left to draw some unflattering conclusions about the Octoling’s state of conscious. It conducted its comments according to that preconception. The way the ink streaking his visage ripples would almost seem to indicate a condescending scoff as he angled his head off to the side.

“It’s incredibly ill-advised to be wandering without a directive. Didn’t your commander teach you that?” it asked rhetorically.

With a dismissively sidelong flourish of his claws, Tartar adds, “You must be defective.”

{@commanders-quarters}

It was a Monday evening like any other.

The incubation tanks, much like the severed sanitized tentacles that drifted absentmindedly within them, were still in their infancy. A fresh project on the cutting board. Such freshness was decidedly only worthy of being maintained by the most delicate pincers of metallic sheen.

Tartar’s inky claws rapped on the rust-kissed surface of the aged wall beside the elevator— a distraction from a recurring annoyance. He’d long since learned how to tune out the litany of chants from the training sanitized soldiers, yes, but he could seldom ignore each mild inadequacy that presented itself; it could be modeled by those who lagged behind in their footwork, or those whose strikes just scarcely missed their mark.

Food for later, it thought to itself offhandedly.

Finally, the elevator arrived, and it lumbered inside, taking care to angle its frame such that its back wouldn’t connect with the peak of the open frame.

The button for the second floor— the one housing the main surgical facilities in addition to the sector containing the incubation tanks— is pressed shortly after.

Idling away the seconds, stood formally as ever, he swears he feels a bump in the elevator’s trajectory, but it’s practically imperceptible. It goes ignored.

Once it stepped out, it halted mid-step to survey the area and recalibrate its internal navigation program, trying to align it with its previously saved layout of this floor. An error occurs. That can’t be right. He glances back towards the wall near the elevator. Instead of the usual identifying sequence that would indicate his metro, J-152291-L, he sees a sequence reading C-1515-L painted vertically along the wall. A different metro. Of course. The threads within the spool must be overlapping again. It should’ve paid closer attention to that disturbance within the elevator.

Tartar was on high alert now as he gazed out across the dark expanse of labyrinthine hospital curtains and stationary carts of medical equipment. It couldn’t hear a pulse for miles, but its radar was still detecting a presence within the area. He doesn’t call out, as he’s certain he’ll find the source soon enough, so for now, he stalks along on his pointed boots in silence.

Searching.

@commanders-quarters Today has been an odd day. Spui had been hard at work just hours ago, but his normal duties had taken a backseat as he had been ordered to keep track of any anomalous happenings. As annoying as it was to have his work messed with, he understood. Time and space had always been strange in the deepsea, but as of recent things had gotten more intense. Patients had been disappearing into thin air when nobody was around. And new ones had been appearing out of the blue as well. Of course, they were treated just like any others. A patient is a patient no matter where they might have come from. Being from a different time and place won’t keep you from being saved. But nevertheless, Spui would have been at work treating patients as he had been all morning, if not for the fact there was no one around. No one but him. Spui sat in an office chair, filling out forms as a creeping anxiety swelled within him. It was much too quiet, he hadn’t heard from anyone in hours, Not even from the Commander. It was unusual. Something was wrong, but he already knew that. Still, it ate away at him. Then he heard something, in the far distance, the ding of an elevator. And then, nothing. He tidied up his papers and got up from his desk. Walking out into the stretching hallways he looked around. Nothing.

[skyeventide]

four Silm ficlets for the SWG instadrabbling event (click on the list links for the picture prompts)

the Prince of Alqualondë and jellyfish

Curufin and Celebrimbor camping north of Formenos

Celegorm, with Finrod, discovering walking fish

two men, Third age, discovering old quay ruins

1.

The young Ñoldo is lying on the pearly sand, writhing in pain, her dark hair strewn wet across her back like running ink; her two friends kneel beside her with large helpless eyes that lift to Elulindo as he treads through the white dunes of the shore.

« Prince! », they call at once. « Prince, come! »

« Show me », he says, bending next to them, a hand on the shoulder on the girl. As she turns to her side, reluctantly letting go of her stomach and twitching legs, Elulindo spots long rope-like signs marking her skin beaded with seawater. Wrapped around her belly and her thighs, all over her hands.

He exhales, with some kind of relief. « You mustn't worry », he says, with a smile. « She met a glass caravel. »

« A monster! », the grimacing girl protests. « 'Tis painful! »

Elulindo smirks. « It will pass soon. It gave you a handshake -- think of it as the one relative who pats your back and pinches your cheeks a little too hard. »

The girl whines, but one of her friends swiftly places a hand on her arm, squeezing encouragingly, even as her expression changes with dramatic emphasis. « Your aunt is a jellyfish? »

2.

Formenos is high up north; not Araman, not quite, and yet not the gentle and mild regions of central Aman either.

Formenos and its surrounding lands feel colder, and Tyelperinquar is certain the perception of his spirit is to blame, rather than the fortress or its holdings being at fault.

His arms crossed, he gazes at the sky, here where the silver lights are distant, the stars clearer, and the trails of the gowns of Varda's Maiar shine opalescent for hours in the dark, after the sky-spirits have gone. « Have we ever tried to harness those? »

« Not I », his father answers, stoking the campfire.

« Maybe we ought. »

« I doubt it is possible. They fade too soon, too transient. They are but ghosts of the Music. »

Tyelperinquar turns his eyes from the greens and yellows and blues and iridescent pinks. « It might well only take a very quick hand. »

His father isn't smiling, his lips are pressed down in a tight line. In fact, his father isn't even looking at him at all, taken by whatever sudden displeasure. « It might. »

3.

« Cousin », Celegorm declares, marching into the study, his tone of voice that of someone who's holding in an enquiry and is not yet voicing it.

« Yes...? », Finrod asks, somewhat cautiously.

Celegorm grabs one of the carven chairs for himself and sits on it (sprawls on it would be more correct), his brow knitted with something like bewilderment. « You have seen fishes your life, yes? », he asks, rhetorically.

Finrod blinks, setting down his quill and giving him his full attention. « ...Yes, of course I have. »

« And you have seen snakes? Frogs? Or other animals that climb trees and jump or slither in muds and shallow water? »

« Yes... »

« Wonderful. How about fishes that climb on trees? »

Finrod blinks. « I am unsure that is a real thing. Turco, are you making fun of me? »

Celegorm laughs in that grinding-glass way of his, shaking his head, and plunges his hand in the somewhat damp satchel hanging from his waist. « Then what in the Void is this? Because it was by the mangroves where the river splits among their roots. Climbing them.»

He slaps a fish on the table. Finrod stares at it, feeling as if the thing and its very, very bulgy eyes are staring at him right back.

4.

Weeds and ivy and bramble have grown over the long wall and great archway entrance, the structures of stone underneath showing through, long-abandoned remainder of what once was. An unexpected history emerging from the sea of grass, at the edges of the woods.

« It looks like it was a quay », Anwarher says, his voice echoing wetly in the humidity of the under-arch. « The oldest maps I studied mark this area as touched by the sea. »

« Sad, isn't it? », Gellamgir says, loosening the pull to his bowstring. « Seeing your ancestors' work fall to ruin. »

Anwarher turns to his fellow scout with a raised brow. « This is Númenórean architecture. »

« And? »

« We don't descend from Númenóreans. »

« Everyone descends from Númenóreans, Anwarher. »

« That is not how it works. For one, we'd be much taller. »

Gellamgir rolls his eyes and carefully glances beyond the arch. Anwarher observes his friend as he gazes silently at the curving structure, devoured almost entirely by vegetation. « Still », he says quietly. « I think I understand how the elves feel, now. »

[nataliedanovelist]

SNEAK PEEK At the Upcoming Multi-Chapter MSA Fanfic, Back To Life.

Before the cave, before one of their friends had their life stolen by a green envious monster, before Japanese Audrey 2 tracked down our favorite glasses-wearing dog, they were just your average nerdy young-adults. See how the gang Mystery Skulls came together and what led to the events in the cave in Back To Life.

Below is a sneak peek at the first chapter! I have no idea when I will post the full first chapter, but you can believe that each chapter will be filled with references and even codes for readers to crack. I hope you all will enjoy this and I’m so excited to dive into my newest big project!

If you want to read other works from me, you can find my AO3 account here! Without another word, the preview!

~~~~~~~~~~

What if I could bring you back to life? What if I could be your guiding light? I would be your pathway, I won't let your spirit die, It’s forever, you and I...

Vivi walked a little closer to the dead grass and a little farther from the passing truck playing a loud radio, just in case the side mirror were to graze her blue sweater or the truck would swerve. A bit unnecessary, but it was huge and could squash a woman who was hardly five foot. Her dog’s collar jingled as he picked up the pace and walked closer to her, ensuring Vivi was safe, and that earned him a scratch behind the ear.

Looking down the street in the tiny town she called home, the blue nerd smiled at the brightly-painted building with a hot pepper on top, with English, Spanish, and Latin translations of the restaurant title. It was three o’clock, so most people were done with lunch, promising a quiet place to eat and read a new book.

With no No Dogs Allowed sign to be seen, Vivi took her chances that she and her pet would be welcomed and she walked in, greeted by a happy bell and childish bickering. Vivi turned her head to a far booth to find two girls fighting over a box of crayons, sisters guessing on how similar they looked. Vivi smiled and allowed the slightly jealous feeling to leave her; she had always wanted a sibling to fight with and help make life exciting.

A sign written in chalk by the door read “Please Seat Yourself,” “Tome Asiento, Por Favor,” and “Placet Discumbere,” so Vivi picked a small booth on the opposite side of the room to enjoy a bright window, placing her purse by her side and pulling a chair close for Mystery to sit in. He hopped on quietly and smiled as Vivi pulled out her new comic book and happily opened it, breathing in that crisp smell of new paper and untouched ink.

“Lost Legends.” Vivi sighed. “Can’t believe Alex practically hired fan artists to put this together, and it’s canon! Bet it’s filled with new codes.” And without another word she happily dove into the book and began reading, able to comfortably tone out the sisters fighting.

Mystery yawned and sat more comfortably in his chair, circling and sitting on all four legs with his front paws crossed, observing the near-empty restaurant curiously. He also took some delight in watching the sisters bicker over the wax art supplies; he may not have missed Vivi pulling on his ears, but he did miss having children around to play with. Mystery’s ears perked up and he watched with amusement as a young man in a damp black apron and white chef’s coat with tints of pinkurple emerged from the back and quickly shed the damp apron and hung it up to better hurry to the girls.

“Paprika, Cayenne, stop it!” And he quickly swiped up the box of crayons and ignored the girls’ whines to address the issue. “What happened?”

The slightly smaller of the two, who wore a yellow dress and had her pink and blonde hair in a high-ponytail, pointed to the slightly bigger sister with her red hair hiding her eyes, and said, “Cayenne stole my crayons!”

“Sharing is caring!”

“What if I don’t care?”

The young man snorted with bottled-up laughter and pinched his nose. “Cayenne, you’re not supposed to be coloring, you’re supposed to do your homework.”

Cayenne pouted with her arms crossed over her red-shirt-covered chest and lowered her head. “It’s stupid. It’s too hard.”

“Tell you what, let me greet this table, and I’ll help you.” The young man ruffled her red hair affectionately.

“Can I least do it in crayon?”

“I don’t see why not. Work is work, no matter what color. So Paprika, let your sister use your crayons.”

Now it was Paprika’s turn to pout, but she muttered, “Sí, hermano,” and quickly snatched up the yellow so she could finish her sun before her sister could steal what she needed.

The young man shook his head and chuckled, then went to the hostess’ booth to grab a menu, napkins, and a roll of silverware. Mystery looked at Vivi to find her eyes had averted from her comic book to the scene at some point and she closed it to give her waiter her full attention.

“Hi, sorry for the wait, señora.” He greeted and handed her the menu and placed her eating utensil on the table. “I’m Lewis, what can I get you to drink?”

Vivi swallowed as he smiled down at her genuinely and she couldn’t help but return the smile. “Hi, two waters, please.”

“Sure,” Lewis averted his eyes to the dog sitting like a good boy in a chair and asked, “Should I put one in a bowl?”

“Not necessary, thanks.” Mystery answered plainly, used to the assumption and appreciating it but he could use a straw just fine.

Lewis stared, a bit taken back to have an animal talking back, but he had watched enough anime to accept it easy enough, so he smiled and dipped his head. “Got it. Un momento, por favor.”

“Why does that always freak people out?” Mystery asked rhetorically with a roll of his eyes, enjoying the warm sunlight bathing him in the chair.

“You are of few words.” Vivi teased. “It’s always scary to hear you talk.”

Mystery snorted with a smile and looked over the menu with Vivi, both who had not eaten since breakfast so they were starving. Vivi giggled and pointed to one picture of a dish on the tacos page. “Spaghetti tacos?”

“Oh yeah,” Lewis chuckled as he walked back with the two waters, unable to help but notice the customer’s grabbed attention. “Papi invented them. Every time he makes them he sings this little song.”

“Yeah?” Vivi chuckled back.

“Yeah it goes…” Lewis took a minute to remember the words and muster up the courage to sing it, then quietly sang, “I’m cooking, I’m cooking things, cooking things that people will eat. I’m cooking, I’m cooking things…”

“Things that people will chew!” Cayenne and Paprika sang along with their brother loudly, making his cheeks turn pink.

Vivi and Mystery both laughed and the woman said, “I’ll try them, then, please!”

“And I’ll have a bowl of pozole, please.” Mystery requested.

“Spaghetti tacos and pozole, good choices.” Lewis commented as he wrote the order down on a notepad and took the menu. “Gracias, un momento, por favor.”

“Gracias.” Vivi replied and watched him put the menu in the hostess’ booth and disappear into the back to place the order.

Mystery noticed the closed book and smiled cheekily at Vivi, who was too busy in La La Land to notice.

[stillness-in-green]

MLAWeek Coda: The Lore Post

Sorry this is a few days late!  To the surprise of absolutely no one who has read some of my longer meta posts, I just don’t know how to shut the F up.  (Spoilers: this post is only a few hundred words away from being as long as everything else I wrote for the week put together.)  

Anyway, hit the jump for, in order:

A quick breakdown of the Liberation Army’s general structure.

A list of members, broken down by broad generation, including the ones we have gotten explicitly IDed in canon, the ones I based on figures we see in canon, and the ones I completely made up.

The basic tenets of the MLA and some discussion about their views on quirk supremacy. (feat. fandom salt)

An overview of the way the Advent shook up the political landscape in Japan and the Hearts & Minds Party’s place in that landscape.  Pretty much the same material Trumpet’s victory speech from Day 4 covers, but modestly more in-depth, removed from the need to play well to a crowd, and with some added explanation about the structure of the Diet for readers who are less familiar with it than Trumpet’s audience would be.

A timeline (with only moderately arbitrary dates!) covering the birth of the glowing baby up to the first year of the manga.  Mostly concerned with detailing the events the MLA would care about, but with a few other points of reference to contextualize things for the rest of us.

Bonus Fun Facts: discussion of the considerations that went into the timeline, a look at All For One’s actions re: the MLA, and some miscellaneous blurbs on terminology, worldbuilding and characterization.

A smattering of asides in the form of footnotes.

Note that while this material is based in and accurate to canon as much as I could remember at the time that I was doing my notes on my fills for the week, there’s a lot in here that is based entirely on supposition, interpretation and, at times, just plain-old guessing.  

Thanks to @codenamesazanka and @robotlesbianjavert for their assistance in naming, brainstorming, and just generally putting up with me while the Liberation Army was completely devouring my attention.

@red-the-omnic Somewhat belatedly, here’s that list of MLA members you asked for back during the middle of the week.  Sorry to make you wait so long! 

Enjoy!  

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

ORGANIZATION

Grand Commander: Destro and Destro’s line of descendants.

The First Families: Those who fought at Destro’s side and escaped to continue the fight, and their descendants.  Veritably all high-ranked within the MLA, their tie to the original incarnation of the Army marks them as elites, whether or not their quirks would do so otherwise. The elders of the First Families do a certain amount of collective decision-making when and if the Grand Commander is unable to do so and has left orders otherwise.

Sanctum: “Sanctum” is a special position in the Army.  The name denotes the person who’s tasked with remembering the MLA’s history, practices and lore—the position is considered contiguous, so even when someone is new to the name, they’re still considered “the longest-serving member of the Liberation Army.”.  When they’re getting on in years, they select an appropriate protégé, to whom the name will pass upon their death/capture.  The name must always go to a member of the First Families (though in truth, they’re only on their third one, so it’s more of a pattern so far than a hard rule).

Commanders & Lieutenants: People in charge of major operations, liberated districts, etc. Frequently, though not always, members of the First Families.  Have discretion over their own assignments, but may not have much influence in the Army’s operations on the whole, depending on who they’re connected to otherwise.

Advisors: This title denotes those who are specifically tapped to give advice and aid to the MLA leadership.  Levels of authority vary depending on who they’re advising.  Advisors of lieutenants, if any, are a step above the rank and file, advisors of commanders are about on par with lieutenants, and advisors to the Grand Commander are considered commanders in their own right, regardless of any other rank they may hold.

Rank and File: Pretty much everyone else.

———–      

KNOWN MEMBERS [1]

The original MLA—

Destro: Yotsubashi Chikara.  Established the Meta Liberation Army in his mid-30s in response to the development of what he felt were overly restrictive laws on the usage of meta-abilities. Having observed evidence that meta-abilities grew stronger generationally, he was particularly concerned that no oppressive laws could be enforced by the generation that established them because the next generation would always be more powerful.  Thus, he believed that establishing the use of meta-abilities as a fundamental right was the only way for society to avoid indefinite intergenerational strife.  He was particularly incensed by the government co-opting the message that got his mother murdered to put a pretty, self-congratulatory sheen on laws that did the exact opposite of what she wished for.  Allegedly committed suicide after some months in prison.  The MLA is highly suspicious of this claim—they’re correct to be, but not for the reasons they think.              His quirk, which his entire line would inherit, turns a key emotion into enhanced strength and resilience in the form of a characteristic ink-blot marking.  While it would develop over time, the basic nature of the quirk remained the same. Chikara’s driving emotion was resolve.

Fathom: Destro’s lover, she dedicated a decade of her life after his capture to building up the survivors he’d left behind.  It’s said her son got his drive from Destro, but his anger from Fathom.  Had a large hand in raising her son to be the sort of man he was, particularly in her decision to commit what many considered to be suicide-by-hero when he was in his teens.  A large part of that choice was wrapped up in her never-fully-assuaged grief over Destro’s loss (and, she believed to the end, his murder), but there was also a cold calculation to it—her making a big show of it would lead the police to believe that her attack was the last gasp of the Liberation Army, ending their investigations into MLA activities.  It would also stoke the fires of her son’s rage, honing him into a stronger weapon against their enemies.  Her judgement in both cases proved broadly on-point, though her death did serve to make her son more cautious than she might have hoped.              Meta-Ability: Antennae.  A pair of insectile feelers emerging from her forehead that give her a passel of sensory boosts, particularly in the taste and smell categories, and which also make her able to detect shifts in the air from quite some distance.)

Cascade: A man whose meta-ability lets him turn body parts into loosely controllable masses of water.  Can’t transform fully.  A quick-thinking type able to make hard calls.

Sweeper: A woman with a radio-scanning quirk.  Caught by police in the same fight as Destro.

Sanctum I: The first bearer of the codename.  Had a protective ability of some sort.

Sanctum II’s father: The same quirk as his daughter; see below.  Known for getting some eight people safely out of a police raid by carrying them all out at once despite not actually having superhuman strength of any kind.  (Probably tore several muscles in the process, but adrenaline is a hell of a thing.)

The Second Generation—

Destro’s son: Raised to deeply resent heroes and the government that put them in place, but he was also very cautious of them.  He was profoundly aware that his death would mean the end of the dream that his father had begun and his mother had cultivated, so he was very meticulous in spreading the MLA’s influence underground, rebuilding their numbers before he even began to consider starting to make attacks again.  Destro’s army had been a guerilla force; his son’s would be something much more dangerous.  His driving emotion was anger, and he had two children before being killed by a cerebral aneurysm at 43.  Was able to use his power to make his body larger.

Sanctum II: A woman with an unusual fondness for the traditional Japanese arts, particularly tea ceremony.  Meta-ability: Stride.  Teleport to any location she can directly see by taking a single step forward.   Can take whoever she can carry under her own power. (First Families lineage)

Anchor: An advisor to Destro’s son.  Prominent bull horns.  Meta-ability: Immobilize.  Similar to Lock Rock’s Lockdown quirk, except it only works on his own body.  Very good at wrestling holds (and holding his breath), he tends to fight with backup that can deliver finishing blows to opponents once he has them pinned down.  (First Families lineage)

The Third Generation—

Yotsubashi Kyouyuki: The elder child of Destro’s son.  Deemed an unsuitable Grand Commander for his driving emotion of joy.  Always presented a façade of being cheerful and upbeat, but the ever-present rhetoric that the MLA pushes about the ongoing suppression of quirks and the misery and injustice it leads to left Kyou always struggling with guilt.  In college, it finally got so bad that he resolved to run away, enlisting the help of a friend with a swap-based teleport quirk to get him out of a party undetected. His fate thereafter is a secret that’s been taken to the grave by the MLA members involved in it, but given the typical reactions of illegal underground cults to members wanting to leave, it’s unlikely that he’s living somewhere in happy anonymity.  (Name means Unyielding Happiness, following in his grandfather and nephew's patterns of having characters in their names meaning power/strength.)

Yotsubashi Yukie: The younger child of Destro’s son, and Rikiya’s mother.  With a driving emotion of sorrow, and having been steadily losing family her entire life, Yukie wrestled with depression for most of her life. The presumptive heir to the title of Re-Destro, she spent considerably more time in training than her older brother, but she never much had the temperament for it.  When her father died only a few scant years after Kyouyuki’s disappearance, she expressed her fears that she was incapable of being the leader the Army needed.  This led to her becoming a mother at a relatively young age, continuing the bloodline rather than picking up the banner.  For all her struggles with her grief, Yukie was very determined to at least be there for the son on whom the weight of leadership would fall.  The world of My Hero Academia is a dangerous one, however, particularly before All Might established himself as Japan’s pillar, and Yukie was a casualty of the chaos of a villain attack when Rikiya was ten.  (Name means Glittering Conqueror, ditto the note above about the family pattern for name kanji.)

Rampart: Guardian and general caretaker for Rikiya in his younger years.  Hand-picked for the role by Yukie, who had considered him a close friend since their school days.  Meta-Ability: An earth manipulation power akin to Pixie-Bob’s, though less powerful.  (First Families lineage)

Shinseigi: Trumpet’s uncle, unspecified code name.  Also in politics, though of a more local variety.  Meta-ability: His speaking voice makes listeners suggestible.  (The phonetic pronunciation of his name sounds like “New Justice,” but the kanji are “Sleeping Voice Technique.”)

The Fourth Generation—

Yotsubashi Rikiya: The current Re-Destro (42); CEO and President of Detnerat.  He took up the former title when he was only 6 years old. With the succession of losses that were his uncle, grandfather and mother, the MLA has been fairly careful with him, grooming him with care and rarely leaving him without some form of supervision, be it Rampart when he was young or Trumpet in college.  An extremely dutiful child grown into an urbane man whose good humor disguises a morose—and occasionally volatile—inner character.  Always under a lot of stress (his MRIs are clear so far, though, haha!), but there’s only so much effort dedicated to mitigating that, since stress is his key emotion.  The first in the family line to be able to separate his power from his own body, in the form of his Stress Bomb attack.

Trumpet: Hanabata Koku (44).  One of Rikiya’s advisors and party leader of the Hearts & Minds Party (see below); has known Rikiya since their preteen years.  The Hanabatas were a political family of old, but largely saw those fortunes crash and burn when they started manifesting quirks a few generations into the Advent.  They’ve been clawing their way back into politics ever since and were an early target for the MLA’s project to infiltrate and/or start their own political party.  It was decided very early on that Koku’s quirk and his family connections made him a good choice to groom for leadership of the HMP, so he and Rikiya bonded over their similar positions.  They would go on to attend the same university, during which time they became romantically involved.  In truth, Koku’s university was functionally chosen for him on the basis of which one Rikiya would be attending; the First Families were not about to lose another Yotsubashi to college life.  Koku is more aware of this particular fact than Rikiya.  Still a little wistful about their college days, his opinions regarding Re-Destro’s big starstruck crush on Shigaraki are borderline unprintable.

Sanctum III: Twice’s No. 1 advisor, the dude with the big imperial handlebar moustache and what looks an awful lot like a dress uniform for the Japanese navy.  A few years older than Trumpet.  (First Families lineage)

Curious: Kizuki Chitose (36).  RD advisor and Shoowaysha Publishing Executive Vice President.[2]  From a relatively small liberated district up near Sendai; the MLA connections plus her own profound ambition got her moving very quickly up the MLA chain of command. Daughter of a wlw couple; got her blue skin from her bio mom.  One younger sibling, a sister.  Masterminded the dinners we see the group having in Chapter 218, originally to make sure Rikiya was getting at least one well-apportioned meal a week and a chance to socialize with the closest thing he has to peers, but also because it proved to be an invaluable opportunity to swap information and rumors.

Skeptic: Chikazoku Tomoyasu (31).  RD advisor and Feel Good Inc. board member.  On the bottom end of the generation age-wise, a prodigy in every sense save his broadly terrible people skills.  Recognizes Rikiya’s stress tells because he shares several of them himself, and is also the only person of Rikiya’s generation with the confidence to verbally push him around a bit.  It’s regarded as borderline scandalous by their elders, but Rikiya himself finds it bracing, and anyway, Skeptic’s ability to organize a schedule for maximum efficiency is nothing less than miraculous.  Got Rikiya onto fidget toys.

Toryu:  Toryu is the family name of Galvanize (aka Taser Face aka Kaminari’s Dad).  Mr. Compress’s No. 1, the dude who strolls out onto the lawn after Cementoss rips the hotel a new one and immediately gets his smarm repackaged and returned to sender by Kaminari and Edgeshot.  Great for morale before that, though!  In Rikiya’s age group, his mother’s side of the family (from which he gets the electricity powers) has been in the Army for at least as far back as her school days. (The name comes from the characters for leaping/rising and current/flow.)

Slidin’ Go: Tokoname Tatsuyuki (37).  He’s Slidin’ Go!  Skeptic’s No. 2, possibly because Slidin’ Go strongly resembles the puppets Skeptic is so used to barking orders at and there’s comfort in familiarity.

Aozono: Family name for another of Rikiya’s childhood peers, nothing is known but that green skin runs in the family as far back as her father.  May or may not be related to Curious’s family.

The Fifth Generation—

Geten: Real name unknown.  Family status unknown.  Age unknown, but I’d peg him in the 18-23 area.  Seems to be allowed to attend the weekly dinners without contributing anything but his incredibly terrible table manners.  Can talk an impassioned game about the Liberation Army’s goals (though he pushes the quirk supremacy line a good deal harder than anyone else in the Army is shown to; it’s not even close), but it’s fairly clear that he’s more personally dedicated to Re-Destro than he is the MLA’s cause in and of itself.  I’ll be honest; I have no idea what Geten’s deal is. My tentative headcanon is that he’s an orphan—the English meaning of his name, Apocrypha, refers to sacred writings of uncertain authorship/authenticity—who’s in some kind of Batman-and-Robin guardian-and-ward situation with Re-Destro, but I didn’t wind up writing enough about him to come up with much beyond that.

Nimble: Spinner’s No. 1, the woman with the weird paper-strip-esque hair who doesn’t seem to be in possession of a nose or mouth.  (She absorbs air through her skin like a frog, which is why no one has ever seen her with that sweater covering both of her shoulders.)  Nimble is a friendly sort, though she regards her outgoing good cheer as being a simple matter of social networking.  Ambitious, but sensible about it.                Meta-ability: Sky Write.  Allows her to project letters and pictures into the air around her, giving her a way to communicate she would have otherwise lacked.  She can create words in air she can’t see, but it takes some concentration, and the closer the better.

Scarecrow: Spinner’s No. 2, 21 years old.  Born with amelia (see link in Day Two’s author’s notes) that disfigured his face and severed his arms in the womb.  His quirk-based forelegs—a pair of spider legs emerging from his shoulders—can do a certain amount of basic object manipulation, but it tends to wig people out, so they push him to use his prosthetics like he’s “supposed” to (see Stray Notes section for more on this).  He was viciously angry about it even as a kid, and his parents were frustrated, making them easy pickings for cult indoctrination.  A family friend recommended that they look into Detnerat, where it wasn’t long before Re-Destro himself took an interest in their situation (or at least in making a good impression on them).  Scarecrow joined the Army as quickly as he was allowed to—16.              Meta-ability: Webbing.  The bug legs can project silk like a webspinner (the insect on which he’s based), allowing him to do anything you might broadly understand Spider-Man to be able to do with his webbing, though he certainly lacks Spider-Man’s strength.

Red: Named in passing in the manga, he’s the laid-back dude with the fluffy hair who serves as Skeptic’s No. 1 post-merger.  Probably invaluable in helping Skeptic maintain what bare vestiges of chill he can muster.  (First Families lineage)

The Sixth Generation—

Every child currently under the age of 10 being raised in MLA households with a picture of Destro over the mantle.  It’s not a small number, representing a group that neither the fandom nor the Hero Commission seem to have even realized exist.

———–      

CORE TENETS & THE MATTER OF QUIRK SUPREMACY

Re-Destro is not (contrary to popular fandom belief) in favor of full-throated, might-makes-right, survival of the fittest Quirk Darwinism.[3]  Destro’s will was for people to be able to use their meta-abilities as they saw fit to the extent that that freedom did not interfere with the freedoms of others. He was against the regulation of meta-abilities, but he was not—to the best of our knowledge—against the regulation of crime.  His belief was that one murderer with a fire ability killing people did not justify barring everyone else with fire abilities from using those powers to fire clay, start campfires, engage in fire-themed performance art, use fire to char wood in artistic patterns for money, help park rangers set and direct controlled burns, coordinate explosions for the movie industry, light cigarettes in public, or any other of dozens of possible uses for a fire ability that don’t involve burning people alive.

The MLA do believe that meta-abilities have an impact on one’s personality, but they also believe that that’s okay; that it should be understood and accepted, not feared and repressed—Curious would not have wanted to turn Toga into a tragedy about the consequences of repression if she didn’t think that a spree of bloodletting murders was a tragedy.  Their belief as an organization is that people should be free to use their powers as they see fit in the same way that they would any other natural talent or cultivated skill.  They believe that people will, if free to do so, naturally gravitate to ways of improving their own lot in life via use of their meta-abilities.

Freedom from regulation and freedom from discrimination—these are the core tenets that the vast majority of the rank and file hold to.  A great many of them are laborers, blue collar types who just want to be able to better support themselves and their families.  Many others are those who suffered discrimination because of their quirks and want better for both themselves and their children.  Of course, the further back their connections go, the more likely they are to both be higher-ranked in the cult (with attendant greater resources) and to have grown up soaking in generations’ worth of resentment, groupthink, and radicalism.

Geten, a particularly virulent and single-minded MLA attack dog, has parsed the tenets to mean that people with strong, well-trained meta-abilities will naturally be able to use their powers to do more and raise their status in the MLA’s ideal society, and thus that those who can’t or don’t choose to will not be able to live lives that Geten personally thinks are worth living.  Likewise, Trumpet doesn’t fault Spinner only for his weak ability, but also for his anti-social tendencies.  Of course a politician who’s deeply invested in a narrative of people uniting to throw off their chains and better themselves would be disdainful of someone who locked himself in his bedroom for years and emerged only to violently lash out at society.  (Spinner’s right to call Trumpet a huge hypocrite on this, mind; terrorist cult members have no business lecturing other terrorists about the correct way to violently reform society.)

The MLA does have a problem with quirk supremacy, but it’s not quite the problem fandom thinks they do, and it’s certainly more nuanced than fandom thinks.[4]  Frankly, I could write a whole post dissecting this, but rather than analyzing the canon at length in a post intending to be about my fanon for a series of slice-of-life MLA fics, let me just lay out some issues I think the MLA have.  Note that these opinions may vary member to member, particularly as you work your way up the chain of command.

Many in the MLA believe that people with poor quirks are less capable of asserting their will and becoming whatever they want to be.  They are not, notably, alone in that that sentiment—we hear versions of it not only from villains like Trumpet and All for One, but from the paralleled parents of Midoriya Inko and Shimura Kotarou, the would-be hero Bakugou, and even the iconic hero paragon All Might.  While it’s not universal, My Hero Academia’s Japan is full of people who believe to some extent or another that people with weak or no quirks are inherently less capable of making their mark on the world.  The MLA is just more blatant about it than most.

The MLA are, as a group, not concerned about the fate of the quirkless.  My suspicion is that this is because they think quirklessness as a trait is on its way out—that the touted 20% of the world population that’s quirkless is hugely weighted towards the elderly, those who are from generations when quirklessness was more common.  Think about it: 20% is two out of every ten people.  Statistically speaking, that’s a huge portion!  You only have to look at Deku’s middle school classroom in Chapter 1—thirty kids, exactly one of whom is quirkless—to begin to suspect that there’s something a bit off with the 20% figure.

Further, the MLA follows Destro’s beliefs, and we know from Destro’s manifesto that he believed meta-abilities were growing stronger over time.  So to their mind, not only is quirklessness becoming a thing of the past, but so are weak quirks in general.  While their clear disdain for both is damning—and certainly discredits them as a group suited to decide how society should be structured!—please understand that, “We’re not very concerned with the rights of the quirkless because we think that there won’t be any such thing as quirkless people within a few more generations,” is not the same statement as, “We are A-OK with 20% of the world’s population being second-class citizens for the entire rest of human history,” and it is really not the same statement as, “People with no quirks, or bodies that can’t handle their quirks, need to be proactively removed from the gene pool and we are actively advocating for a systemic, organized culling.”

That said, their disdain, if blown out to society at large, would absolutely lead to discrimination and, undoubtedly, incidents of the same sort of violence that the MLA themselves were forged from.  That they haven’t thought or don’t care about this is one of many things that make them villains.

Further, there is an ugly strain within the MLA that still recognizes quirk marriages.  Because the MLA values freedom, they’re not as ubiquitous as you might think (at least if you think the MLA is a bunch of quirk supremacists with no other goals or values)—“freedom” does nominally include the freedom to marry who you want rather than let your own meta-ability trap you in a life you hate. However, it’s equally true that in a group that believes very strongly in the value of quirks, the power of quirks in the future, and the necessity of fighting a war to bring about that future, there will obviously be members who support the practice.  There are absolutely men and women who have been bullied and guilted by their families into loveless marriages for the sole purpose of producing children with powerful, desirable quirks.  How likely this is in any given location mostly depends on the commander’s opinion on it, though it’s a very rare one indeed who would go so far as discouraging it entirely.

———–      

THE HEARTS & MINDS PARTY

(Considerations on Japan’s political landscape.)

The current monolith of the Diet, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, managed to hold onto power for a full century after the Advent, but their grasp grew shakier and shakier over time.  Initial measures to bar meta-humans from voting proved increasingly unpopular as the percentage of the population with meta-abilities grew both larger and older.  People with easily-concealed powers gained office, sometimes being outed, sometimes not, but on the whole, decades of oppression and violence led to an ever-more-popular opinion that the LDP had mishandled the whole mess.  They lost their supermajority in the Diet when their longstanding alliance with the Komeito party splintered, regained it again for a few electoral cycles, lost it again when Komeito itself fractured, and so on, their once implacable numbers shrinking year by year.  Still, they managed to hold onto a coalition majority right up until Saneki Yuuichi was elected to the House of Representatives.

Saneki headed up a small party based almost entirely on the issue of meta-human basic rights.  Like many meta-humans of the period, he believed that the best way for meta-humans to attain those rights was to live like so-called “normal humans,” to show that meta-humans were just like everyone else. His party advanced the ideology that meta-humans should only use their powers to help others or better society, not to advance their own self-interest.  They pushed stringently for metas to be allowed equal recognition under the law as any Japanese citizen, but also supported measures such as requiring licenses for the use of meta-abilities and limiting those licenses to those actively engaged in assisting police.  Deeply tied to respectability politics, Saneki’s party contained virtually all emitters, a scant number of transformers, and no heteromorphs, who the party felt were an impediment to reaching their legislative goals, but whose particular needs could be brought back up at a later, more receptive time.

Saneki’s politics gained him many supporters, but also drove many into the arms of the Meta Liberation Army, who vocally loathed him and everything he stood for.  The confluence of public dissatisfaction with the spike in violence represented by the MLA, Saneki’s coalition gathering popular support among both metas and non-metas, and the rise of named, organized hate groups trying to roll back what few advances had been gained in meta-human rights finally spelled the end of the LDP’s majority.

The LDP falling apart prompted a scramble for power that would stretch on for nearly half a century. Old alliances whose only common ground had been opposing the LDP found themselves free to seek groups with more compatible goals.  Young single- or dual-issue parties leapt at the chance to address their issues with more fervor.  New parties sprung up across the country.  Not only meta-humans, but minority groups of all kinds saw new avenues to press for substantive positive changes that had been dead in the water under the LDP.  Voting numbers surged as they had not for decades.

The old, conservative elements of the Diet were not gone, of course—they remained a substantial powerhouse!—but no longer could they muster the undefeatable veto-proof numbers that they had once enjoyed.

Like everyone else, the remnants of the MLA saw opportunity in the new, ever-shifting status quo.  With the place of metas secured for the time being, there was no longer a need for metas to form coalitions in the Diet merely to get their basic needs addressed.  A single-issue party from its inception thirty years prior, Saneki Yuuichi’s party was fragmenting, unable to decide on a single direction now that their uniting issue had been resolved to their satisfaction.  In recognition of meta-humans reaching population parity, the MLA launched a project to begin seeding the ideals of Liberation at the highest levels yet—the Hearts & Minds Party.

Beginning as a local party in a prefecture in which the MLA had gained significant underground support, the HMP campaigned on a platform championing individual freedoms and a wide range of improvements to Japan’s battered and overworked social safety nets.  They made an effort to showcase diverse representation in their leadership and gave impassioned speeches promising to reach across party aisles in searching for nuanced solutions to the various difficulties facing the country.

It’s impossible to say exactly how large the Hearts & Minds Party is compared to the Meta Liberation Army, which is claimed by Re-Destro to have 116,000 action-ready warriors (the “warriors lying in wait, ready to rise to action” description presumably indicating that his count does not include uninducted children).

On the one hand, one can presume that everyone who’s a member of the MLA is voting for the HMP on every ticket they can, but not every member of the MLA—who induct combat-ready warriors as young as 16—is old enough to vote, and many probably live in districts or prefectures where the HMP has yet to establish a campaign-ready foothold. On the other hand, while the HMP certainly serves to funnel people towards the MLA, it doesn’t require membership—indeed, it’s far better for their goals for them not to do so.  Therefore, it’s also probable that the Hearts & Minds Party has many supporters who are not (yet) counted among the Liberation Army’s number.  Thus, for the purposes of ballparking estimates, I opted to simply suppose that the two areas lacking overlap (MLA members who can’t vote for the HMP and HMP supporters who aren’t members of the MLA) are relatively equal.

That established, we’re working with a party that has 116K voters/supporters/members.  The closest thing to that number that I could find numbers for is the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), which counted 300K members as of 2017.  Using their total membership compared to their representation in the Diet (as well as a willingness to viciously bastardize anything resembling reliable political math), I plugged in my estimate for the HMP’s membership and wound up with the Hearts & Minds Party holding four seats in the House of Representatives, five seats in the House of Councillors, and sixty-odd assembly members in various prefectural positions.

For some context to those numbers, the House of Representatives (more powerful, but more vulnerable to sudden electoral shifts) has 465 members, 233 of which are required for a majority, and 310 of which are required to override vetoes imposed by the House of Counsillors. The House of Counsillors (less powerful, but serving longer terms and unable to be dissolved for general elections like the House of Representatives can be) has 245 members, with 123 required for a majority.

As you can see, the HMP holding a handful of seats isn’t going to tilt the My Hero Academia world on its axis.  Still, it’s more seats than any number of real-life Japanese political parties hold, and right up until the one-two punch of Shigaraki taking over the MLA and Hawks outing Trumpet’s allegiances to the Hero Commission, the Hearts & Minds Party was well on-track to continue growing its power and influence.

———–      

TIMELINE

(For ease of calculation, most dates are rounded to the nearest five years.)

1980: A glowing baby is born in Qing Qing City, China, heralding the Advent of the Age of the Extraordinary.  For almost two decades, meta-abilities remain rare and poorly understood—incidents are widespread and show huge variance, so most people write them off as anomalies or hoaxes.  As the years go on, however, meta-abilities become more widespread, moving out of the realm of the odd headline that many people think is an elaborate hoax into an alarmed spotlight as it gradually becomes apparent that this is a thing that all humanity is undergoing.  Most major technological development pivots to trying to understand, undo, document or control this new phenomenon.

2030: The child who will become All for One is born.  By this time, society is breaking down into chaos. Across the globe, measures from outlawing all meta-ability use to internment are seen.  Eugenics laws are discussed or put in place.  Communities attempt to run out metas and, in response, groups of metas attempt to form their own communities.  Infanticide rates are rising alarmingly.

2060: Yotsubashi Chikara and Ujiko (original name unknown) are born.  Japan is in complete disarray, awash in mob violence, with organized groups of both metas and non-metas attacking victims indiscriminately.  Developing an ability can get you disowned.  Divisions among the meta minority are developing a noticeable strain of respectability politics rhetoric.

2065: AFO forces an ability on his younger brother, unintentionally creating One for All.  Chikara’s mother is murdered by an anti-meta mob for attempting to speak out in defense of the normalcy of her child’s ability.

2085-2090: Saneki Yuuichi becomes the first meta-human to attain a seat in the Diet. Despite nearly a century of violence, meta-humans are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the population, and the people of Japan are tired.  The prevailing sense is that it’s time to make peace; however, the peace that is being forged involves laws sharply restricting the use of meta-abilities for those who haven’t been formally licensed.  These restrictions see markedly mixed reactions from metas.  Chikara rallies the most vehement dissenters to create the Meta Liberation Army, calling himself Destro.              Disagreement over how to handle the MLA finally finishing the job of rattling the Diet free of the death-grip of the LDP.  Many years of fractious elections will follow as new coalitions form to try and seize majority power.

2095: Japan signs an international accord acknowledging the fundamental rights of meta-humans.  This gesture begins to splinter both internal support and public sympathy for the MLA.

2097: Destro is captured by police and their newly designated Quirk Unit.  Other surviving members of the MLA are hunted down or go into hiding.

2100: The term “Hero” is formally adopted, having been casually in use for some time.  A Hero is one who is licensed to use their power to fight quirk-based crime in accordance with local and federal laws, assisting the police when requested.  The Hero Commission is established as an agency with oversight in the licensing and regulation of Heros.              Destro dies in prison.  Though the matter is questioned, no proof of foul play is ever brought forward, and the death is ruled a suicide.

2110: Ujiko presents his paper on the Paranormal [5] Singularity Theory.  The paper suggests that the power of quirks is continuing to grow with each generation and will, in time, become more powerful than the human body can control.  His evidence is inconclusive, however, and his citation of some of Destro’s observations on the phenomenon becomes a particular sticking point.  In a country that is finally beginning to get its feet back under it, no one wants to see another widespread panic.  Ujiko is stripped of his position; having been living on campus at the time, he’s left functionally homeless and is approached by All for One not long after.

2120: The population of those with quirks and those without reaches parity in Japan. Seeing an opportunity, the MLA launches the Hearts & Minds Party as a local political party, intending to grow it over time.

(2125: Yagi Toshinori is born.)

2138: Yotsubashi Rikiya is born.

(2148: Debut of All Might.)

(2165: Shimura family tragedy.)

(2174: All Might “defeats” AFO.)

2175: Hanabata Koku is elected to the House of Representatives.  He’s not the youngest party leader in the Diet, but he’s close.

2180: The events of Deku’s freshman year at UA lead the MLA to turn their attention to the League of Villains.

———–      

STRAY FACTS

Why 1980/2180?—

It’s an even number for ease of calculation, triangulated between a few considerations.

Firstly, tasers are mentioned in the One for All dream, so the events of the dream (which themselves are happening far enough into the Advent that society’s had time to slide into all-out chaos) must post-date the invention of the taser, which was in 1993.

Secondly, Spider-Man’s silhouette is seen amongst the group of characters who represent the “fantasy” that became reality.  If we assume that those media properties existed in-universe (since the narration is delivered by Midoriya) and were assumed to be fantastical at the time, they must predate the Advent—Spider-Man is the newest of them and his first appearance was in 1962, his material being translated into Japanese by the 1970s.

Lastly, technological and societal development crashed to a halt with the Advent.  The world of My Hero Academia generally reflects a modern-ish Japan, so I wanted modern technology—and modern social reforms—to still feel modern to the characters.  Thus, the point at which society stopped developing needed to predate the Digital Revolution, which really began to hit its stride in the mid-80s.  Hence, 1980.

The opening period is, admittedly, fairly generous on my part, and does assume a certain amount of modern advances were probably underway, but then were lost, sidelined or rolled back as the chaos spread.  You could probably trim off twenty years by stepping up how quickly quirks begin to appear and spread, but the very beginning is the best window to do so.  I’d still peg the Advent at 1980 based on the calculations above (again, it has to fall somewhere between the mid-70s and 1993) but, for example, maybe All for One is from that first generation, and society only takes 30 years to reach the lowest point of its collapse instead of 80.

As to the 2180, the older characters introduce several requirements for the post-Advent timeline.  Ujiko was 50 at the time that society was beginning to stabilize, while AFO dates to its days of utmost chaos.  AFO also needs to be running on at least one anti-aging quirk prior to meeting Ujiko; if the only one he were running on was Ujiko’s own, then based on his appearance and the mechanics of Ujiko’s quirk, I’d peg AFO at merely 85, and he needs to be not only over 100, but far enough over 100 that he’s described that way rather than as “a century-old evil” or something to that effect.

Meanwhile, All Might can’t really be any younger than 50, and seven generations of OFA bearer predated him, even if they did all die relatively young.  Destro’s mother was killed in those early chaotic days, while Re-Destro (himself no spring chicken) is told as a child that the MLA has been in hiding for generations.  “Generations” implies at least two; I further suppose that Rikiya needs to be at least the original Chikara’s great-grandson for him to describe himself simply as Destro’s descendant, rather than use a more specific relationship term.  All of this points to a fairly lengthy stretch of time, much more than is glossed over by Midoriya’s series-opening narration.

AFO and the MLA—

I mention in the very first story of this series that the MLA’s contacts all go “mysteriously missing” after the capture of Destro.  While the police certainly did their own measure of work in tracking down the Liberation Army’s members and allies, there was another figure with a significant hand in the MLA’s downfall.

All for One, then in his early sixties, had watched the rise of the MLA in some interest.  On a personal level, he admired Yotsubashi’s charisma and resolve, and, of course, he wholly supported the free use of quirks (well, his own free use of quirks, anyway)!  On the other hand, All for One also sought to restore order to society, albeit order as he himself envisioned it.  While he was confident that there was no one who could stand up to him no matter whose ideals won out, Saneki Yuuichi’s way promised a more stable society, and bribable and/or blackmailable bureaucrats seemed easier to manipulate than ideal-driven zealots ready to give their lives for the cause.  Thus, AFO decided to help the police a bit behind the scenes, offering a few tip-offs and hints to guide their efforts to end the threat of the Liberation Army.

Of course, as long as Destro was alive, the cause of Liberation still had its focal point. And AFO was still a bit curious to meet this man, who’d inspired so very many loyal followers.  It was an easy thing to arrange.  An interesting man, and an interesting quirk.

Destro did commit suicide in prison.  A man who had always embraced his meta-ability for motivation, and whose ability transformed that motivation into power in turn, AFO stripped him of in the same moment. Isolation from other contact, separation from his lover, his friends and allies, and his cause, a gap in his psyche like no pain he’d ever experienced--all of these piled up on one another into a fatal despair.  After AFO’s visit, there was no need for anyone to arrange a convenient death for Destro.

(And if in later years, the monstrous Noumu, who are driven entirely by pre-programmed, single-minded resolve, are flint-skinned from head-to-toe, well—who would ever even think to connect those dots?)

The Mother of Quirks—

An interesting thing I observed from Re-Destro’s confrontation with Clone!Shigaraki is that, based on their exchange, it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that the Mother of Quirks is the mother of the Meta Liberation Army’s leader?  Re-Destro’s apology for assuming Shigaraki wouldn’t recognize the story suggests that it’s a matter of fairly basic historical education, but he then goes on to explain her connection to Destro at some length—if that connection were taught at the same time her story was, surely he’d see no need to do this? Clone-a-raki’s response backs this up—unlike the general existence of the Mother of Quirks, which was such basic knowledge that he was insulted that Re-Destro thought he wouldn’t know about it, her connection to Destro was unknown to him.

Re-Destro describes the connection as “an inconvenient truth.”  This, in turn, suggests that the connection has been actively obscured.  The MLA’s place in history is taught; the originator of the term “quirk” is taught, but the two are not connected to each other. Kids in school aren’t taught that the very child whose mother was murdered for her words hated what his country was using those words, that message, to do.  It’s naked appropriation that continues to this day, and it’s no wonder that the MLA is furious about it.

The Quirk Unit—

An early term for the group that would, in relatively short order after their formation, officially be dubbed Heroes.  Composed of both meta-humans already on the police force and vigilantes willing to remit themselves to legal oversight, they fought quirk-based crime in many forms, from the common mugger to the terrorists of the MLA, and even former allies in vigilantism.  Well-regarded by history thanks to their efforts in reining in crime and disorder, but quite a controversial group in their early years.

MLA Age of Induction—

Being raised in the MLA means being raised with the goal of eventually being assigned a codename and tasked with supporting the Great Cause in whatever fashion your superiors think you best suited.  The minimum age for this is 16, though 18, being the age at which students graduate from high school, is more common.  At no point is there really a safe way to leave once you’re involved; they are, after all, a secret army.  There’s no aging out of the MLA—it’s a lifetime tour—but disability, injury or general decrepitude can get you assigned to work that generally won’t expect you to see open combat.  The Army is composed of a great many lifetime-of-service families, after all, which means they need teachers and caretakers; another option is dedicated work for the Hearts & Minds Party, who always have room for community organizers.

Liberated Districts—

Settlements that are at least 85% MLA-inducted.  At their largest, they’re small towns; rural villages are far more common.  Without exception, they’re isolated or out of the way.  Tend to have unusually good access to city services compared to similarly-sized settlements.  Deika was one of the largest districts the Army had, chosen for the Revival Celebration due to its combination of a sizable population and a particularly closed-off location.  The MLA knew they’d need many warriors to fight the League of Villains, but they also needed a site that was not merely remote, but that had controllable points of access.

It can take well over a decade to hit the 85% saturation mark in even small villages; Deika and the MLA’s handful of other full-fledged towns are the work of generations.  They begin by moving people into an area and setting up gatherings on some useful pretext or another, enthusiastically welcoming newcomers and very, very gradually indoctrinating people further into the ideology.  Financial support, an accepting environment for difficult quirks or those with patchy legal histories, the odd homeless shelter or food kitchen, a robust presence in the foster care network—the MLA is very, very good at making themselves a warm, sincere, reliable presence in peoples’ lives, a group that encourages everyone under their banner to be their best selves. They think everyone deserves that kind of support!

They are also willing to shed quite a lot of blood to make sure that everyone can get it.

On the Intersection of Disability and Quirk Suppression—

There are a few factors contributing to why Scarecrow can’t use his quirk to do things others would.  First, his quirk is the kind of off-putting that gets Gang Orca ranked third-most villainous-looking hero and leads Shoji to wear a mask because his face disturbs people.  So Scarecrow’s quirk is already the kind of visible that makes people look at him askance.  Compounding this, his prosthetics are obvious, visible to any old person, and people have a very ugly tendency towards bootstrap, “you can do it if you try” mentalities around people with disabilities.  These two factors mean that people who are disturbed by his creepy articulate bug legs would much prefer that he use his significantly less-creepy prosthetics, to the degree that they’re willing to suggest that he’s being lazy if he doesn’t.  They cite the quirk-use laws as a deflection tactic, but Scarecrow—whose pattern recognition functions just fine, thanks—is keenly aware of the underlying mindset.

Nimble is in much the same boat—she literally can’t talk without falling back on a visual representation of some kind (sign-language, a text-to-speech reader, etc), and why on earth shouldn’t she be able to use the fastest and most convenient one without people getting up her ass about it?

None of this is the kind of thing that would likely get either of them arrested (though Scarecrow’s creepy enough that the odds are higher for him, “villain quirk” bias being what it is), but the laws-as-written, nonetheless, are discriminatory, and that makes people justly angry.  Angry people are easier to radicalize, and the Liberation Army has been working that angle since their very inception.

Re-Destro and Trumpet’s College Days—

RD’s an Engineering major with a focus in Manufacturing; Trumpet’s in PoliSci.  They’re two grades apart, with Koku being the older.  Those two years of greater experience shift the power balance between them significantly when Rikiya arrives for his freshman year, facing a new place, a new workload, an entirely new rhythm to his life.  For the first time, Koku is not merely a friend in similar circumstances who is still—as they’re both reminded near-constantly—subordinate to Rikiya’s every word.  Rather, he’s a senpai, someone with specific experience in every aspect of this new stage of life—and someone who’s had two years to become more eloquent, more well-studied, more confident, more mature.

Removed from the immediate supervision of the First Families for the first time in his life, Rikiya allows himself to lean on Koku in ways he never would have back home. Koku, for his part, has had his responsibilities here impressed on him by the First Families at some length, and has spent his entire life being groomed to devote himself to his Grand Commander.  Having said Grand Commander looking to him with such glowing esteem in his eyes—well, there’s no denying that it’s pretty enticing.  The two of them enter a romantic relationship that will endure for several years until Rikiya gets his head back around the idea that Koku’s ability to say no to him is fundamentally compromised.

The Bindi Connection—

I had no reason to develop them any, and thus I don’t have names to assign, but it seems that Twice’s No. 3, the smiling old woman with the gingham dress and the rough-and-ready attitude to combat, and Geten’s No. 2, the short-haired woman whose face is being devoured by her out-of-control sweater neck, are related.  Note the bindi on both of them, as well as the similar hair color, particularly in the page introducing all the advisors.  Mutual connection to Dabi’s No. 3, the guy who got into a fight with a hole punch and lost, is uncertain but possible based on the confronting-the-heroes page spread in which Hole Punch dude’s hand lays familiarly on Grandma Bindi’s back while Big Sis Bindi turns partly towards him as if to whisper some sarcastic observation about how lame Cementoss’s ponytail is.

———–      

FOOTNOTES

1: Regarding codenames, the first generation of the MLA tended to have names that reflected their meta-ability in some way.  From the second generation on, at the behest of Destro’s son, the codenames have become less literal, and thus less revealing.

2: Viz renders the job tile “Executive Director,” but having checked the raw, the Japanese term, senmu, is associated with a fairly specific level of executive authority, and it’s lower than I would peg “Executive Director,” which to my ear sounds synonymous or slightly below Chief Executive Officer.  Executive Vice President is wikipedia’s translation; Google returns Senior Managing Director.  In any case, she’s near the top, but not at the top.

3: At least, he wasn’t prior to meeting Shigaraki.  Now he’s pretty much in favor of a very organized and coherent belief structure that can be summarized as, “Watch Shigaraki tear down the world ‘cause he’s beautiful and I love him,” and honestly, mood.

4: I’ll just come out and say it: fandom blew Geten’s words way out of proportion because a bunch of people got mad that he was being mean to Everyone’s Favorite Serial Killer Dabi.

5: An archaic term by this period.  Even “meta-human” saw more use in academic parlance, while the term “quirk” had become much more widespread among the general population since its official adoption during the period of legislation twenty years prior.

[boogiewrites]

Choking On Sapphires 92

Characters: Alfie Solomons x Genevieve (OFC)

Title & Song: Love Her Madly

Summary:  Alfie and Genevieve sign a contract together. Alfie finds a nostalgic turn to the air between them as they negotiate with less than professional means. They whisper about their future together, but it seems others have much louder opinions about it they want to be heard.

Warnings/Tags: FLUFF. Sexual Content. Negotiations. Old Enemies, New Problems. 

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. (Had to do this since Tumblr killed links, sorry.) Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

Everyone around them noticed the change. The sway to Alfie's stride was a strong strut, masculine as he headed to breakfast every morning. His laugh loud and brash, his threats sharp and cutting, an air of confidence and content reigned in the home and all who lived there felt it.

Genevieve was a soft wave of femininity, hair and face pressed and painted, dresses now modest and structured, not giving away so much of her flesh when she was working. Her strong calves and still scared but bejeweled forearms were the only skin shown besides her face. She was in control, pointed and severe for the world, and happily soft and kind to those she deemed worthy of it. She would hold Alfie's chin to grab his attention. The only soul who dared to do so. His whiskers would bristle as she kissed him and wished him a productive day, saying quietly to him that she loved him. She spoke only loud enough for him to hear, but anyone with the gift of sight could see it between them.

Alfie was softer at home now, finding his way directly to his bride to be every evening. She was still hard outside the bedroom to the gaze of any eyes but his own. But her glimmer was back when they would allow their sighs to escape as they pressed against one another in the sanctuary of their bedroom. He didn’t mind the harshness. He rather enjoyed her directness, in fact. Which is why when she showed up to his office for a meeting in an oddly familiar dress, he was more than surprised. It was clear quickly from her body language, there was a shift in her attitude. Her eyes were dark and sultry in a way he hadn’t seen in many moons. There was a playful young thing waiting to come out behind a closed door and he was happy to oblige.

“Is this my noon appointment?” Alfie rhetorically asks, eyeing her from tip to tail as she stood outside his office. She was in something he’d only seen her wear once and had never expected to see again. She looked at no one but him as she posed in jewels that shone even in the dim dusty warehouse. A flimsy polka dot dress with her matching accessories, cut at the knee and far tighter around the bust and waist than he recalled. The buttons strained against her breasts and he pretended not to notice.

“Well uh... yes.” Ollie answers confused at the way they were looking at one another. “It’s Miss Durand.”

“I know it is Ollie ya fuckin' knob. Learn to read a room.” He points an easily agitated and ink-stained finger his way. “Go read the papers while I work out this contract. Make yourself useful.”

“Yes, sir.” He shuffled off defeated.

“Don’t be too hard on the man, not everyone can speak without conversation as we can.” Gen soothes with soft words after Ollie rounds a corner.

“He needs to fuckin' learn.” Alfie muttered and turned to enter his office. “Got the contracts drawn up.” He announced with a boom of importance, followed with a hum or worrying lips as she shuts the door behind her. The mood set as the door clicks is thick, unchanged in the time that had passed since it's inception. A power struggle of business laced with the nostalgia of sexual tension unexplored.

“Straight to business Mr. Solomons. I appreciate that in a man.” She praised as she took her glasses that match his own out of her handbag to place them on her straight nose both gingerly and with a flare of drama. As was her way.

He squinted his eyes, her behaving as if she wasn’t being even mildly suspicious. “Yeah…” he groaned out, and drank in any sign of her possible tells. “Here it is... Miss Durand.” He tapped a ringed finger to the parchment pushed across his desk. “But you can call me Alfie if ya like.” A smile she had seen behind that desk over a year ago awaits her as she meets his confident gaze. Reservation with an undertone of wild possibility sat behind his blue eyes. Same as the first time, she didn’t know if she should shoot him or fuck him.

She smiled with a coy crooked raise of her lip, “Then you may call me Genevieve.” Her breathy response reached his pink-tipped ears. He picked up on her game and the twinkle in her eye as he leaned back in his chair to observe her with his trademark intrusive stare. She had sorely missed having a partner she could play with.

“S’all there. Give it a read. My lawyers made it legitimate.” He studied her as she did just that and is pleasantly surprised when her expression remained unmoved. She truly had been working on her stone face.

“Of course.” She dismissed his instruction with a curt tone as she began. She expected a joke, to be honest. For him to create a negotiation, be that tough bastard and toy with her a bit. But alas, there was a surprise in the words but it wasn’t a joke. “I come here with cheeky intentions and you do this to me?” She inquired, a subtle smirk ghosted across his face at her accusations.

“It’s a binding, legal contract Miss Durand. I’m not sure what you aren’t finding up to your, understandably, high standards.” His words were fast and even.

“I know you make no mistakes in writing these up and this is not one.” She states to assure herself, shaking her head and pressing forward. “Are you quite serious?” She spoke quietly after finding his face unmoved.

“I don’t joke wif business, you should know 'is.” He lowered his chin and gave her an almost cocky brow for having gotten the drop on her.

“A percentage of profits from the items that require my goods?” She paused as she met his inquisitive stare as she rose from her seat. “And the inclusion of my name into the business as a shareholder.” She states, leaving one finger on the paper that now rested lopsided on the desk. She wouldn’t forget the giving terms and she didn’t have to look to recall them.

“Thought it was fair.” A shrug is given in response, his seat creaked as he shifted his weight back.

“It is.” She nodded with narrowed eyes and a curious face.“You’re writing me into your business?” She clarified.

“All legal and bindin’.” He reiterated with a nod and open hands.

“I’d be a beneficiary?”

“Are ya confused Miss Durand? With your circular questions? Doesn’t suit you if ya don’t mind me sayin’.”

“Are you quite serious?” She rose and began a slow walk to his side of the desk, her expression only giving away the confusion and not her intention for the growing closeness.

“Repetitive questions are very telling of the state of shock your in.” He smirked. “I don’t fuck about with me money, love, I’m entirely serious.”

“I am shocked.” She nodded confidently. “ I am woman enough to admit it.”

“Consider it a merger.” He offered as he watched her move closer. A slinking cat in her tight dress. “A partnership.”

“Beyond betrothal?” She stopped and rested her hip against his side of the desk.

“The first gift of many.” He added with a shake of his head and a sweep of his hands. “It’s simple. You’ve given me a lot of goods. I believe you’d be a good fit for helpin’ me out with the bakery, let me focus on the tracks. I won’t have to oversee it if I know you’re handling it.” He spoke with his usual brash bite as he did with business while she stood with crossed arms and a thoughtful composition.

“I’ve never ran a bakery before.” She submitted as her eyes moved about the room.

“You know as much as any baker I’ve got. The rest, the girls can teach ya. You know the best ingredients in the city and how to get them for the best price. It’ll only be beneficial to both of us if you’re up for it. And it is my belief that you are. It wouldn’t be a time suck. Couple times a week, mark the problems, do the books, send it to me to finalize.” He moved his hand toward the contract as he explained.

He watched the acceptance move across her face. He knew she’d find it more than fair and hoped she’d see the sentiment behind it. “You really want to write me in like this?” Her voice a shade softer than before.

“Course. Why the fuck not? You’re the best businesswoman I know.” He stated obviously. “Why buy from outside sources that aren’t as good when I have you right here?” He motioned with his hands to her body and gave her a supportive nod.

“Flattery Mr. Solomons.” She gave him a much softer smile.

“It’s gotten me far.” he nodded, a smile only she could sense invitingly resting on his full lips.

She gave him a brief up and down, work clothes with their usual dusty and billowy nature against his body in recline. She moved to take the pen from the desk and positioned herself between his legs, bending over in front of him and signing the contract with her signature feminine flair.

“Now 'is is….” He stared at her round arse draped in soft fabric. “Less than professional acceptance.” He groaned out with his underlying playful tone obvious to her.

“Do you mind if I respond in a way that’s unprofessional?” she asked as she restedd her hands on the desktop and let him gawk.

“I’d prefer it.” he grunted with a raised brow.

“How long did you have this meeting down for Mr. Solomons?” She asked as she took her hair down and he felt his nostrils flare as he saw her feminine proportions modeled so closely to his itching hands.

“Half an hour.”

“I think we can work within that don’t you?” She gave a smirk he could not see but turned to reveal a thoroughly amused expression looking down at him.

“I’ll work wif any time frame ya got for is love.” He almost growls, putting his hands on her waist to gives it a squeeze.

She slides her fingers, intertwined with his as she tugs him gently closer, moving his hands to her bum. “I think for something like this a little celebration is in order.” Her tone is confident as she moves a heeled foot up onto the arm of his chair, her flared skirt only teasing him with her stocking covered knee.

“Ya know I love celebratin' a good deal.” He responds with hands that slide from her cheeks to her thighs and rest there with a soft back and forth.

“Is this how you would’ve preferred our first negotiation to have gone?” She asked with a tilt of her head, looking innocent enough but the buttons on her top strained as she leaned back onto the desk.

“THAT'S where I know ‘is dress from, yeah?” He nodded with enthusiasm.

“It is.” She answers slowly and rubs her fingers through the longer bits of hair at the crown of his head.

“Don’t remember it being quite this tight last time.” He teased, both his hands move to cup her heavy breasts in the light linen fabric.

“Oh, piss off.” She jabs and ruffles his hair with a playful shake of his head.

“That is NOT a complaint. Lemme make that perfectly fuckin' clear.” He squeezes and plays, hands rubbing up her ribs to give the girls a good solid wobble.

“Crystal.” She hums and accepts the pawing grip at her body. “I thought it fit to wear this to have a bit of fun, living in sin before we’re married. I can be the newcomer Genevieve Durand, and you are the well established and infamous Alfie Solomons.”

“Again, not a complaint…” He begins with a more serious brow. “But where did this come from? Ya’ve been so serious as of late, pet.”

“Thought some reminiscing might be timely and nice. A touch of cheeky indulgence in the middle of the day for us both?” Her fingers keep stroking his head, scratching his beard as he enjoys the feeling of her soft hands doting on him. “Perhaps a nice escape? I get to play a role, and so do you, act out what we both wanted deep down the first time around?”

“And what exactly is it that you want to do to me Miss Durand?” His eyes were issuing a challenge and she was woman enough to answer.

“I think to get a proper feel for your taste for the Abeille Company you should try some of my honey from the source.” Her voice was breathy and soft, fingers slowly pulling up the hem of her dress and showing him her inner thigh as his hands ran up along the backside of them. “I’d also like a demonstration of just how talented that wicked mouth of yours is. I’ve heard you’re such a cunning linguist, Mr. Solomons.” She rests back on her hands and lets his hands explore her soft thighs, fingers tracing the upper binding of her stockings as she looks down at him proudly for her cheeky words.

“I ‘ave been told I have a gift for it. I’d love to give ya a demonstration. Only makes sense we share our skill sets yeah?” He places a single kiss to her bent knee and sighs at the contact. It was good to be reminded that she could, in fact, have fun and be a bit childish. When it was appropriate and with her Alfie love of course.

“I did have the funniest feeling in the pit of my stomach while bartering with you.” His nose ruffles up her skirt like a curious pup, making his way to her silk knickers. “Similar to the one I’m having now.” She smiles and keeps her hand on his head, feeling his soft dark gingery hair run between her fingers. She feels his warm mouth press against her silk-covered center, comforting and arousing all the same.

“Let me see ya love. Gonna wanna remember ‘is.” He speaks quietly but she feels the grit of his need in his voice as it vibrates off her lips. With confident hands, he pulls down her knickers and pushes her knees apart to sit her back on the desk. With a peppering of eager kisses, he reveals her soft pink center by pushing her skirt back over her hips. He says nothing, a bitten lip and dark eyes speaking enough as his fingertips trace and tease her. He plucks the buttons from her top half to reveal more full body in rounds of waves as each moves her breasts closer to release. A show begins for her, a man enamored worshipping at the altar of his love. Mouthfuls of her weighted and now freed tits reverberate as he moans into her flesh. His thumb swipes over her clit, a slickness already aiding him from her own impatience.

He feels her relax and soften beneath his touch. Something she’d been more easily achieving every time they were intimate now, which was becoming a very welcome habit at night for Alfie's heart, but not so much his knees. It was mostly hands and mouths, him taking the lead and pleasing his betrothed how he believed a man should. Her tendency to allow him to lead her through it and lay back and take whatever he gave made her behavior this afternoon particularly surprising.

With his plush lips nestled between her thick and soft ones, attached and lapping, nursing away at her clit her hands hold his head. She scratches up his back, messing up his hair as he works away at her with small nods of his head as she held her knees wide apart for him. She gets to watch him work at her, tongue as pink as her folds and showing its expertise in making her feel good. The shades in the glass widows give them more privacy but the dust in the air makes the sepia light filter through dimly. Making the red in his hair more prominent as she enjoys fussing with it. “I don’t know if you’re a better negotiator or lover, Alfie.” She exhales with shut eyes and a panting mouth.

Although he could exist just fine without it, he did love hearing the praise from someone’s who’s opinion he held in the highest of esteem.

“That wicked, wicked tongue.” She mewled, he groaned and held fast to her thighs. “That tongue has won me over time and time again, Solomons.” Her head falling back as her hands grip into his messy crown of hair. “But I'd like to seal this negotiation with my favorite instrument of yours.” He grunts in amusement as he looks up at her with boyishly eager eyes.

“Would that be me mind?” He asks as he wipes his beard on her inner thighs with messy kisses.

“You’ve already charmed me with your cleverness darling now let me charm you in that throne of yours.” She pushes his shoulder back with her heel and he happily obeys. He leans back, hips pushed out in his relaxed position as she moves to her knees slowly.

“Ah fuck sweetie ya ain’t gotta-“

“It’s been too long, Cheri.” The dark upward turn of her eyes and her low deep tone were enough to stop him as she palmed him through his trousers, moving with a subtle smirk to free him. “Let me remember what a handful you are Mr. Solomons.” She speaks as if conducting business still, taking his rapidly hardening cock into her hands with loose and doting strokes. “Your reputation precedes you.” She coos and kisses his leaking tip. “Heard Alfie Solomons was hard to handle, biggest bollocks of any man in London. Hard. Head… strong.” She leaves another lingering kiss, lips ghosting over the underside of him. “May I present my offer for these negotiations Mr. Solomons?” She was toying with him and the playfulness in her eyes he welcomed. It’d been so long since he’d seen it.

“Yes, please do.” He moans, pushing back a curtain of black hair from her face. “Show me what you’re bringin' to the deal, love.” He rasps out as she takes him into her mouth. A feeling of fullness and closeness she’d missed floods her. The control was a delightful rush as his hands stayed on his chair arms and she worked him with both of hers. The swears begin, the familiar tension in her neck and the moans of exertion and enjoyment all fall back into place. She might’ve been the one on her knees, but it was clearly Alfie who was the one losing control. With a familiar twitch in his veins against her sensitive lips she pulls off him, a quick and precise swish of hair to the side with a hiked up skirt catches him off guard.

“Time for your counteroffer Solomons.” A wicked smile on her face as she slowly jerks and lowers herself onto him, a position of power as she straddled him in the chair. With hands to his shoulders, tits out and in his face, she felt that rush. Oh, to have control again. It made her sigh and swoon, his hands on her, his mouth serving her eagerly. She had a gangster at her beck and call and he was a pup while buried side her, licking and whimpering and eager to please all the same.

“Fuck me, love.” He whispers against heavy pendulous tits that bounce in his face as her thighs burn with the less than familiar use. He forgets the game as she pulls his head back by his hair and uses him. His hands find her hips as she grinds against him.

Genevieve felt her orgasm building, bodies full of friction giving her what she needed, realizing how much she’d missed taking him for a ride, having him beneath her like this. “Fuck, I missed this.” She lets out in an almost whine, hips and chest soft and rippling. “Fuck, I missed you.” She moans out and lowers her head back down to create a small bubble of privacy of her now waist-length hair around them. With her breathing heavy, she pants against his forehead, his hands large and encasing her back as she takes back her power in her old way. There were no bad thoughts as they moaned together, no bad feelings as she felt him fill and stretch her, only deep fondness for the man that could bring this out in her. “I do love your mind... and that filthy mouth... but… your cock should never be undersold.” She lets out a huff of laughter as she wipes her hair from her face, an inner glow of happiness he sees peak through.

Her cheeks flushed pink. Her hair loose and wild with her feminine and full body working itself against his willing one. She looked youthful and content, like he’d seen her after a run in a field of flowers, the lavender smell in the air just the same. “Yours now, Genny.” He manages to get out and she hums at his sentimentality in the midst of play. He knew what she needed, what could power her or drain her and he always delivered with his observant nature. “Brilliant woman like you… knows when she’s got it dunnit she?”

“Yes.” She nods and holds his face. “Your mine Alfie Solomons. Mine. Tell me.”

“Yours, signed in black and white.” She lets our a rolling laugh, a flip of hair and a smile full of teeth as she lets out a school girl squeal and bounces again on him. “Fuckin' hell love ya gonna finish me quick with this lovely little cunt yeah? Been too long I can’t take a ride like 'is like I used to.”

“I’m close Alfie, just… fuck me.” She pleads and he gets to hear crass words from her for the first time in so long. It makes his stomach twitch and his balls tighten. “Give me what I want.”

He takes hold of her hips and makes her grind against him. A play to have her come and give him an extra minute or two of this lusty angel on his lap. “You want it, it’s yours. Long as you’re mine you get what you want yeah?” He grunts through clenched teeth.

“I want you, Alfie.” She moans helplessly, his hand moving her more now than her own hips as they grow weak and stiff for the impending orgasm. “Don’t waste a drop, Solomons, finish inside me. Want every bit of you to be mine.” She lets out without much thought, just hungry for him and the intimacy of abandon she could only feel with him. No one else could make her this way, this safe and secure and loved to let her be free like this. It was an addictive feeling of connectivity that she’d never known before.

“Ya gonna fuckin' get it love, fuck.” He tries to hold back as he feels her tightening around him. A high pitch pant that calls out to every masculine cell of him comes from her swollen lips. As he watches in wonderment of her chest heaving and face becoming so transparent in her feelings as only he can cause, she gasps and begins to shake. “Like fuckin heaven you are yeah?” He kisses her sternum as she tremors and her hips stay steady and grinding, feeling her heartbeat under his lips as she whimpered out his name, only loud enough for him to hear. Her body tenses and swells, a wet mess of both of them on the insides of her thighs as she held his face and kissed him, hips slow and indulgent as they rocked onto his. His hands held her, two calloused palms on each arse cheek, kneading her like the bread he sold upstairs.

“Fuck.” She sighs against his lips as they cool off, a shiver as sweat begins to dry and their hearts slow. “I needed that.” She admits with a relaxed smile.

“Is that how we do deals now?” He asked with a serious face and she lightly slaps him and chuckles.

“Im a fan of it as a business model.” She answers and kisses his forehead as she smooths back his sweaty and fussed hair.

“It’s a good model for adding more Solomons' to the business.” He chuckles as she adjusts his shirt.

“More Solomons'?”

“Yeah, you’re a smart bird ya know staying in like 'is after… keepin' all me in ya like is.” He moves his hands up to her breasts then to her stomach as he speaks. “Recipe for making babies, innit?”

“Ah.” She says with a now knowing nod. “Perhaps.” A coy reply as she raises off him and begins buttoning her top back into place.

“Perhaps?” He scoffs. “Pretty sure there’s only one way to make the little buggers, love.” is his playful answer.

“I know that.” She rolls her eyes. “I just mean... okay? Perhaps as in... if it does… it does?” She shrugs a shoulder casually. “We are to be married soon anyway. Not like having a baby right after marriage is an uncommon sort of thing.”

“It’s not.” He answers simply as he groans and stands, cleaning himself up and shaking out his legs. “Just making sure we’re both on the same page.” He pulls her back in and pushes her hair behind her shoulders. “Didn’t know if you was ready for it yet is all.”

“I am.” She answers softly. “Have been, truly. Not a secret that I wanted to be a mum.”

“True.” He nods. “Ya know I only want to make sure ya doing well. Telling me these sorts of things. No small decision.”

“I think you’re a fine candidate to be a father. Protective, good listener…”

“A fan of full-bodied women with tits that could smother me.” He adds in with a mumble.

It does what he wants and makes her laugh. “They’re going to get so big Alfie. My word. Will I even be able to walk or just topple over?” She teases back.

“I’ll be a proper husband and I’ll hold em up for ya love. Least I can do really.” He offers with a shrug as he cups her chest and feels it move with her laughter.

“After all, you’ll have done it to me.”

“Fuckin' right, love. Wanna watch this belly swell up with me and watch you and the babe grow. Knowing it’s mine… you’re mine… does things to a man.”

“Does things to a woman too.” She smirks. “I want a strong husband to rub my aching feet and rub me down in all my roundness with oils.”

“Oh you won’t keep me hands off that fat arse of yours.” She scoffs and hits his chest and he acts offended. “What? A mum's supposed to have a big bum love! You’re already lookin' like a proper mum with these tits and child bearin' hips. Am I supposed to lie?”

“YES!” She laughs and shoved him and he grabs her back gently and kisses her cheek.

“Ya gorgeous, love.” He offers more sincerely. “And being the greedy bastard I am, the more of you there is the more I get all to meself.”

“There’s that charming tongue again. What a fool I am for it.” She rolls her eyes and sighs, feeling swept away in his charm like a young girl.

“And thank fuck for that.” He says genuinely as he gives ticking kisses to her neck and ears with his whiskers. “What else has an old fucker like me got going for him?” He taunts.

“This meeting was only for half an hour and I’m afraid there’s not enough time left for me to cover them all.” She says with pouting lips that were only a bit patronizing.

He opens his mouth and side-eyes her and gives her a groan. “Oh ya little-C’mere.” He growls and squeezes her tight as she lets out laughs and sighs at his childish behavior. But the break in all seriousness is truly what she needed, a service he provided exclusively for her.

As their lives always do, everything around them keeps moving even as they take small moments to be still and get lost in one another. They part, new contract signed and not being the only thing to remind them of this joining for the day. Besides at the bat mitzvah, there had been no formal announcement of their official coupling. Word traveled fast for people like them, so they figured there was no point in making a fuss about it. The news quickly spread and there were the concerned glances from women who did not know the true Genevieve when she was asked about the truth of the rumors. Alfie, however, was praised for his luck and getting a wealthy and pretty woman, the only insinuation dared in the men’s eyes who mentioned it being of he was sure he wanted to settle.

After an afternoon of business and personal errands, Genevieve arrives in a cheerful mood back home. After their encounter in the early part of the day, it wasn’t entirely uncharacteristic of Alfie to send her flowers, since her abduction he had made it a point to be softer and more affectionate with her in the same ways.

“There was no sender.” Claire proclaimed as she looks up from her papers in her hands, feet tucked under her in the large chair.

“When did they arrive?”

“Before tea.”

“Curious.” Genevieve whispers.

“How so?”

“I hadn’t had my appointment with Alfie yet.” She answers.

“Are they from him? Thought they could’ve been celebratory for the engagement.”

“Normally I would agree... but Alfie always sends cards and a congratulatory sending should have one as well.”

“An oversight perhaps?” Claire shrugs.

“Hmmmm.” Gen hummed. “Hyacinth’s though…” She shook her head. “Very curious choice for such a thing.” She chewed her lip and studied the bouquet. “And in yellow.”

“Forgive my ignorance of the poetic meanings of flora but should that mean something?”

“Means fuckin jealousy.” Alfie answers with a box in his arms as he comes in, all broad in his hat and coat. He sits an opened box onto the table next to the flowers.

“So you didn’t send them?” Gen affirms and he lets out an annoyed sigh.

“No, love I did not.”

“Jealousy?” Claire asks now sitting up and paying attention.

“I got this fuckin' lot of rubbish today as well.” He knocks the box with his hand. Genevieve leans forward and sees a butcher's block of knives.

“An early wedding gift?” Alfie could hear the sarcasm in her voice as she purses her lips.

“Would seem so, yeah?”

“Yellow hyacinth's. ..knives as a wedding present.” Gen chewed a nail with narrowed eyes.

“A knife? Who sends fucking knives? Is it a threat?” Claire asks with growing concern for the quiet non-verbal conversation between Alfie and Genevieve happening in front of her.

“Knives are symbolic. As a wedding gift they are said to bring bad luck and cut the couple apart.” Gen explained.

“In that case it could only be… oh, ANYONE in the city who doesn’t want you together.” Claire groans and slumps at the new obstacle announcing itself.

“Load of superstitious cunts.” Alfie gruffs out and knocks the flowers with the back of his hand.

“I believe we find ourselves once again in agreement.” Gen says with an apologetic and sad smile to Alfie who only stares angrily at the flowers. The pair on the lad to send these to her. He wishes he’d killed him when he had the chance.

“You two might be but who the fuck is daft enough to send something so outright rude and aggressive to you?” Claire demands.

“Stupid fucker.” Alfie shakes his head in annoyance. He knew he’d come back to show his fuck ugly face again. The mad apples never fall far from the tree.

“I believe our former associates the Greeks, or rather Niko, is my guess, has just let us know what he thinks of our engagement,” Gen answers her finally after reaching out to pluck a petal off the stacked flowers and study it. “And he is not happy.”

Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT!

@jaegeeeeer​​ @cosettewinchester​​ @lookuptheskyisfalling-blog​​ @brianaisasongbird​​d @cry5t4l-w4rri0r​​ @jess2464 @hardygal69​​ @thegarrisonpublichouse​ @a-flock-of-angry-pigeons @pootle​ @negansdirtygirl22​ @musingsby-night​ @shine-dont-shadow​ @inkinterrupted​ @vale0413​ @emerald-bijou @elaenom @give-jack-a-lightsaber​ @ultrablackwidower​ @tinastarkandco​ @arrowswithwifi​ @marvelgirl7​ @they-are-not-just-stories   @ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes​ @alitheamateur​ @gold-trashbag​ @divadinag​ @imhelenagardner​