#TRAP SWEEP everybody

[billy-crudup]

You know the Butcher? That freakin' nutjob that goes around just chopping people up? Well, the feds or whatever heard that he's gonna be here today, so they set up a trap for him. This whole concert? It's a trap. They're watching all the exits, checking everyone that leaves. There's no way to get out of here. It's kinda dope, right? TRAP (2024) dir. M. Night Shyamalan Cinematography by Sayombhu Mukdeeprom

[nomairuins]

loveee when a character is crushed under the weight of someone elses expectations for them love when a character dedicates their entire life to something they never even wanted for themself love when the only reason a character keeps going is because theyre Supposed to and bc theyre supposed to make another person happy/proud. YES !!! CLAPPING !!! YES !!!!!!!!

[servantofthefates]

“False Alarm” Tarot Cards

The Hermit

Your first instinct might be to think, “I will die alone and unloved”. But very often, it just means your soulmate is a Virgo. Because this is Virgo’s card.

Justice

Some people draw the Justice card, and think a legal trouble is on the horizon. But often, it only means the wrongs in your life are about to be righted.

The Hanged Man

The go-to meanings for this are delays and sacrifices. But sometimes, The Hanged Man is only telling you that life is about to feel like a vacation.

The Devil

Many people are afraid that it means abuse, which it can. But in this card, the couple’s shackles are loose. So they can easily escape if they actually try.

The Tower

“My world will come crashing down!” tends to be the leading interpretation. But more often than not, it actually means, “Someone will rock your world.”

Five of Wands

This is a card of conflict, yes. But the fear it creates is unfounded. If you look at the card, no one is really hitting anyone. They are just playing around.

Nine of Wands

This one is often associated with the anxiety card, the Nine of Swords. But they are very different. In this, the enemy has already been vanquished.

Ten of Wands

Burdens. That is what everybody says. But the man in this card is not burdened by trouble. He is “burdened” by his harvest. He is bringing home the bacon.

Five of Pentacles

It can predict poverty, yes. But more importantly, it says that when poverty does come, help can be accessed. The couple is right outside a church – a sanctuary.

Seven of Pentacles

It does say, “Sorry. Keep waiting.” But what it is really saying is, “You are not waiting in vain.” Your rewards are guaranteed. They are just not ready yet.

Five of Cups

Most readers immediately see grief, and they are right. But there are two cups left standing. The future is still safe. Life still looks promising.

Eight of Cups

This card does not mean, “You are in danger. Walk away.” It means that while you are comfortable where you are, you will soon leave for a better path.

Seven of Swords

This is not always saying that you are the thief’s victim. Sometimes it means you are the one who will get away. Or that someone will sweep you off your feet.

Eight of Swords

No, you are not trapped. You are only feeling trapped. Yes, you need saving. But only from yourself. Let go of your hallucinations, and all will be well.

[venussaidso]

𝗞𝗲𝘁𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗺𝗲𝘀 — 𝐍𝐚𝐤𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐚 𝐎𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 (part 1) 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏𝟎

disclaimer: spoilers for all movies or shows mentioned.

the warnings: mentions of drug abuse, sexual violence, self-harm, genocide, mental disorders/illnesses, cannibalism and self amputation.

The most interesting theme within all the Ketu nakshatras was one that was unexpected, as it is common to mainly associate Ketu with concepts of disconnection or isolation from society as a whole -- since Ketu is often linked with the 12H. But it is more about the interactions with the unseen forces within society more than anything. Because the 12H also represents the collective's consciousness and all the interconnected energies that come with that which Ketu becomes possessed by. And it is Ashwini that is the most sensitive Ketu nakshatra, as it easily becomes consumed & absorbed by these 12H energies which often leads to chaos and loneliness.

Ashwini nakshatra embodies Nothingness which is the oldest energy in the universe. It's between a space before actualized creation, and after the rise of awareness that's emerged from Nothingness (or the Cosmic Void). It is very fitting that this is the first nakshatra; but it should also be considered the last as it essentially represents the non-duality of Life & Death. This theme is further extended in Bharani and beautifully explored in that nakshatra, but in Ashwini we focus on the spirit's evolution. The energy found in this nakshatra is as undeveloped as it is chaotic, which is why evolution needs to take place -- and this usually involves extreme harsh forces to tame it. It is in Ashwini where there's confusion or lack of self-awareness of one's own identity as energies here become repressed, unconsciously accumulating. I'm going to use some films as examples to explore this point.

First, I'm going to use the most typical Ketu-coded character. Ashwini Moon Christian Bale's Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho". This film follows an investment banker who relishes in the wealthy excesses of his superficial lifestyle in which everybody else around him also revels in. His life is empty, mostly revolving around getting into exclusive restaurants, wallowing in designer suits, having a meticulous morning routine etc. There's a pressure in general for conformity and Ashwini is sensitive to these energies which they take up, driving them to compete and also go too far with this -- because it's no longer about conforming anymore. It's become an obsession, and these pressures drive Patrick Bateman into homicidal tendencies as an outlet. This film perfectly encapsulates modern-day consumerisms, and it is of course an Ashwini native who is driven into a descent of madness from this empty, superficial culture he's subjected to.

Nothing can fill up the emptiness inside of him and he knows that. This crippling, painful understanding is what continuously manifests his violent self-hatred and hatred towards others. And this is why he is forever trapped in a cycle of loneliness, as he is surrounded by the same narcissistic, self-absorbed suits who will continue to maintain this soulless, superficial culture.

The movie was adapted from the book with the same name, written by Mula Moon Bret Easton Ellis whose own experiences inspired the book "American Psycho".

Quote from an interview; OregonLive (2010);

"[Patrick Bateman] did not come out of me sitting down and wanting to write a grand sweeping indictment of yuppie culture. It initiated because my own isolation and alienation at a point in my life. I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself. That is where the tension of 'American Psycho' came from... It came from a much more personal place."

-- Mula Moon Bret Easton Ellis

Now, onto the movie "Fight Club", which was directed by Magha Sun David Fincher, and stars Magha Sun Edward Norton and Mula Sun Brad Pitt.

The most highlighted character from this film, played by Brad Pitt, is Tyler Durden, who plans on making a revolution to destroy the hyper-capitalistic, materialistic superficial culture that we saw destroy Patrick Bateman from the inside in "American Psycho".

(video - 🎧)

Of course, just like Ashwini Moon Patrick Bateman took his obsessive consumerism too far; Mula Sun Tyler Durden lays on the opposite spectrum -- aiming to destroy modern society by blowing up all credit card companies and ruining the world's economy. Mula is related to destruction as it is ruled by Nirriti, the goddess of destruction. The oppressive forces that weigh on this Mula character, Tyler Durden, causes him into a spiral for freedom (9H), using extremities and acts of terrorism to be rid of ego/society. Whereas Ashwini, having no solid identity and just being undeveloped in nature, is more likely to conform; but so long as Ketu is there, there will always be an emptiness in the ambitious pursuit of things. Ashwini can grant excess wealth and fame, but with no inner fulfillment or balance, you see characters like Patrick Bateman. Or Daniel Plainview from "There Will Be Blood".

A movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who has Ketu in Magha, and stars Ashwini Moon, Mula Ascendant Daniel Day Lewis who portrays Daniel Plainview. Plainview is more Ashwini, as he is an extremely ambitious, capitalistic and competitive oilman.

His pursuit for wealth and power leads him to personal loneliness, isolation and emptiness -- we see how Ketuvians become so drained and eaten alive by the energies they absorb in the pursuit of things. Similarly to Patrick Bateman, he not only hates others but himself and wishes for no one to succeed in life.

(click on the gif(s) if they're buffering lmao, i swear they're cheap)

His primal competitiveness and self-loathing even drives away his only family -- his only child. His adult son means to do his own oilrig business and cuts his partnership with him. But Plainview's unchecked ambition shows that even after attaining success and power, he literally goes ahead to disown his own son as he considers him competition now. And now he extends the same hatred he has for others to him. Further isolating himself; this validating his deep sense of loneliness that was always there with his self-loathing.

The film ends in an Ashwini fashion; in which Plainview goes into a psychotic meltdown and murders someone who he has had a long stewing hatred for.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

I wanted to provide a brilliant video from the YouTuber "The Vile Eye", who explored the dark nature of this character; because it perfectly illustrates Ashwini nakshatra in a twisted way -- especially in how Aries in this segment is influenced by Ketu forces. Everything about this character is every Aries stereotype you can think of from the top of your head, but Ketu exaggerates it to the point of extremity and tragedy.

Amazing video for anyone who wants to understand Ashwini at its extreme which can manifest in real life of course.

Now in the series "Peaky Blinders", which I quickly wanted to mention, stars Ashwini Moon Cillian Murphy whose character faces moral dilemmas, as his relentless pursuit of power contributes to his moral ambiguity.

His ruthless ambition to become the most powerful in the criminal underworld is something I couldn't help but relate it back to Ashwini's drive & competitiveness.

The movie "Scarface" stars Ashwini Sun Al Pacino who plays Tony Montana. And fun fact, Tony Montana is loosely based and inspired by the real-life figure, Al Capone, who was literally a goddamn Ashwini Moon. So, I say Scarface is a fucking Ashwini movie.

Both Tony Montana and Al Capone had unchecked ambitions and an unrelenting desire for power. In Ashwini, extreme power can be attained, and we saw how Tony Montana quickly rose to it (as Ashwini is the Star of Transport and it is associated with Shidhra Vyapani Shakti which translates to 'The Power to Quickly Reach Things'). Similarly, Al Capone was also driven by the desire for power and he attained it.

Like Daniel Plainview in "There Will Be Blood", Tony Montana starts to experience isolation after all of his achievements. His chaotic behaviour contributes to his alienation, and he starts to feel intensifying loneliness, which seems to be a theme with this nakshatra. And this film also ends in Ashwini fashion; with absolute chaos, the psychotic unraveling of Tony and of course death.

I wanted to also add in the movie "Nightcrawler" which stars Mula Sun Jake Gyllenhaal who plays a character willing to go to the extreme lengths for success and personal achievement, to the point of exploiting others and not giving two fucks about ethical boundaries.

He has a distorted view of success and has an unchecked, ruthless ambition which is common in Ketu nakshatras. He is also a socially isolated character, behaving inappropriately as he is disconnected from social norms. He has zero empathy. In his obsessive & relentless pursuit of success, he is devoid of humanity. Had to mention this film because these themes are not exclusive to Ashwini.

But as I did mention, Mula is more likely to be aware of societal pressures and these natives often feel deeply disturbed by them -- while Ashwini is more focused on the Self, as it's ruled by the 1H. In the film "Falling Down", Mula Moon Michael Douglas plays a character who has become disillusioned and is now aware of the pressures and oppression caused by the modern-day life. This movie is literally directed by Magha Sun Joel Schumacher.

He confronts many issues such as homelessness and crime, which are heavily rooted in the greedy, capitalistic system of modern society. But he becomes violent and chaotic himself, going into a descent to madness (from absorbing the energies felt by the collective who also feel the weight of these oppressive forces within society). This movie deals with the consequences of unchecked rage, a theme shared in all Ketu nakshatras.

The film "Taxi Driver", which stars Magha Sun Robert De Niro and is directed by Magha Ascendant Martin Scorsese, depicts a man who suffers from extreme loneliness, alienation from society, and struggles with existential crisis. The film explores social decay; such as social disparities, the disillusionment of our main character to society's ills, crime, poverty etc. He goes into a descent into vigilantism, using violence as a catharsis which is a common thing for these Ketu nakshatras (mainly Magha and Mula as it looks at societal frustrations and the emptiness in life/modern culture).

The character also suffers from a possible case of untreated mental illness, and insomnia -- and this seems to be a theme with all Ketu nakshatras in general.

Another film where the main character suffers from extreme insomnia is "The Machinist", starring Ashwini Moon Christian Bale whose character's insomnia and untreated mental illness literally contribute to his isolation and alienation.

will be coming back to this film in my part 2 post

And the film "Fight Club", in which Magha Sun Edward Norton plays an insomniac character who has dissociative identity disorder. And his split personality is interestingly played by Mula Sun Brad Pitt.

Then we have the film "Insomnia", directed by Ketu in Magha Christopher Nolan, starring Ashwini Sun Al Pacino who plays an insomniac detective who faces some mental challenges.

There is a spiritual belief about insomnia, which suggests that there may be a disturbance in one's spirit; unresolved issues that have been long suppressed can be linked to an imbalance of energy within the body. This causes restlessness and more mental problems. This could make sense as Ketu and the 12H deal with what is unconscious -- and how that tends to be our deep, rooted traumas and the way in which they affect us & those around us. And not just traumas, could just be repression of one's own internal suffering from either loneliness or external pressures. We see this with Patrick Bateman, whose only outlet is literal murder, or Tyler Durden's 'revolutionary' fight club causing more destruction around him as planned. Both characters violently act out from these unaddressed decaying energies within themselves and from within society.

The series "Sharp Objects", directed by Magha Moon Jean-Marc Vallé, mostly deals with family traumas, but also shows how those traumas and unresolved energies literally cause death and chaos around them.

Camille Preaker, who is played by Magha Sun Amy Adams, is deeply traumatized and troubled. She has a history of self-harm and has many scars on her body; her self-destructive behaviour is a coping mechanism for what happened when she was young (sexual violence by a group of boys and witnessing the slow, painful and preventative death of her sister). Then we have her younger half-sister Amma, played by Magha Moon Eliza Scanlen, who has a hidden dark side that has been shaped by the family's troubled history and generational trauma. By the end of the series, we find out that Amma is the killer of the violent murders that have shocked the townspeople of Wind Gap. It is Amma who is responsible for all of the gruesome deaths of the girls whose teeth were removed. As Camille's coping mechanism is cutting herself as self-punishment for all the guilt she harbours from the death of her sister, Amma literally commits homicidal acts. All of this connecting to just how messed up, and complex, their trauma and the community they grew up in is. And then we have their mother, played by Mula Moon Patricia Clarkson, who has Munchausen syndrome and is responsible for the death of her oldest daughter. Camille was a witness to her sister's suffering and death, and she sees her mother as a monster and now her little sister is an extension of her. This series is such a good example of how our own personal unchecked traumas affect others, especially those who aren't involved. And how much destruction can be caused, as we see with Amma killing other girls as an 'outlet'. This is why I now realize how wrong I was about Ketu, as Ketu is not necessarily about isolating from society. Regarding society, Ketu will be the complex yet intricate unaddressed/rotting energies within society, and it always relates back to individuals' personal generational traumas. It makes sense that Magha relates to ancestry roots and origins of oneself, even the origins of one's trauma.

Now onto the film "Nocturnal Animals", which is directed by Magha Sun Tom Ford, stars Magha Sun Amy Adams and Mula Sun Jake Gyllenhaal.

Amy Adams plays Susan who is a successful art gallery owner. She receives a manuscript for a novel called Nocturnal Animals sent to her by her ex-husband Edward who's played by Jake Gyllenhaal. The book is extremely violent & tragic; but it actually turns out to be a symbolic reflection of their relationship and marriage. Bringing in the Ketu themes of unresolved trauma and getting to the roots of it (Mula theme). This book serves to make Susan confront how much of her actions fucked him up. The movie focuses on the confronting of one's past, telling of how trauma will still continue to shape the lives of those involved. And the movie shows that even Susan still has unresolved issues just by her repulsed reactions to extreme parts of the novel.

The movies "Split" and "Glass", stars two Ashwini Suns, Anya Taylor Joy and James McAvoy. McAvoy's character, Kevin, has dissociative personality disorder and these different personalities exist to keep him safe. His trauma is so extreme and deeply painful that it manifested into the creation of The Beast, the most dangerous and superhuman personality. Three kidnapped girls are prey to The Beast as they end up being devoured by it but there is only one doesn't fall victim to him -- and that's Anya Taylor Joy's character Casey.

The reason why she doesn't fall victim is because she, too, has suffered extreme trauma and her resilience through it is what creates an immediate connection with Kevin. It is when The Beast sees her scars that he calls her pure, implying that those who have been damaged are the ones who are truly evolved.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Also, "Split" is another example of how deeply repressed energies and traumas of one can ruin everything around them and victimize those close to the Ketuvians (usually uninvolved people's lives being violently taken; "Split", "Sharp Objects", "American Psycho", "Falling Down" etc.).

Ashwini Moon Zendaya in the series "Euphoria" plays a character, Rue, who has been through a significant amount of trauma, including the passing of her father. She uses self-destructive ways to cope with her deep emotional pain and grief, very similarly to Magha Sun Amy Adams's character in "Sharp Objects". Rue uses drugs to numb herself from her harsh realities. There is a moment in the series in which she has a chaotic meltdown.

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Something I now understand with Ashwini is how explosive, volatile and scary its ungrounded energy can be -- exactly why I'd commonly associate it with hysterical meltdowns which can lead to accidental or unplanned homicidal acts or other forms of harm/self-harm. This scene of Rue is vaguely taking me back to Ashwini Moon Christian Bale's spiraling and meltdowns in "American Psycho".

(YouTube clip by me - 🎧)

Ketu, especially with Magha, seems to cause erratic behaviours when its natives aren't purified of their long-accumulated baggage in their unconsciousness -- exactly why the 8H is also ruled by Ketu as Scorpio shares this particular theme. As long as there is deep disturbance and imbalance in the body, there is no rest for the soul -- even for future incarnations to come.

But now, I want to touch on the senseless harshness of Ketu. Remember, this energy embodies the eternal sucking void. Mula nakshatra relates to the center of the cosmic void and goes straight into the roots of it. Ashwini has already risen from it, while Mula is centering itself back into it. Mula is where we seek an awakening to the truth of what is behind reality. What is on the other side of the cosmic void? Truth is searched in Mula, but it seems that it is Ashwini that understands that chaos is the absolute truth of reality. There is no meaning to anything, which sounds nihilistic, but it is what makes life beautiful.

In the film "The Pianist", written & directed by Magha Sun Roman Polanski, starring Ashwini Sun Adrien Brody, starts out quite warm with a well-put together family and a handsome talented Ashwini man who dreams of being a pianist. But things take a drastic turn. We see a once bright-eyed boy turn into the shell of the person he once was after going through such harrowing events, and things just keep getting tragically worse and worse until there is not even a sliver of hope anymore. The majority of the film is literally just despair, senseless cruelty, and the protagonist's soul slowly becoming annihilated.

I've never watched a film more Ketuvian than this; surrounded by genocide, death and being completely isolated while being eaten by one's own lonely misery.

One moment you think one character is going to make it out alive somehow because they have the conviction and drive to survive, but the film immediately takes that idea away as they helplessly die. You think the protagonist is going to see some light, and the film even makes you slightly comfortable in some moments given the harsh realities, but you witness just how everything remains tragic. There are no answers to any prayers, as suffering is just ongoing. This tonality creates another layer of feeling trapped, and you watch as the character just lets life do whatever it wants to him as he is trapped in a world where he is helpless anyway. With Ketu, you realize that there was never any security or answers to this senseless chaos in this world to begin with.

But his survival at the end makes you question why he even went through all of that. There was no lesson to be taken from such a tragic, horrifying experience. Why did his other friends and family die but not him? In the end, he became a successful pianist as he dreamt of from the beginning. He was exceptionally talented from the start; these events took everything away from him except his passion for the piano. What he went through was senseless, as Ketu has no prime motivation. Saturn will push you through the worst so that you can reach a level where you can now attain all of your reaped rewards, Ketu doesn't care for what you get in the end -- that's Rahu's objective, as Rahu deals with ego; Ketu deals with the evolution of one's soul and that usually involves its annihilation.

The kdrama "Save Me", stars three Ketu natives; Magha Moon Seo Yea-ji, Mula Moon Woo Do-hwan and Mula Sun Ok Taec-yeon. It follows Seo Yeah-ji's character, Sang-mi, and her family after moving into a new town. They become influenced and entangled by a religious cult. Sang-mi becomes aware of just how oppressive and dangerous the cult is when she & her family literally lose all control to them. Sang-mi's attempts to escape become futile, as she remains trapped under the oppressive abuse of the cult, turning her more into a shell of the person she once was.

(The Mula male characters are the ones who find out about the Magha girl's whereabouts, and they plan to save her and her family from the clutches of the cult.)

She witnesses extremely harrowing events, and the drama makes you feel the sense of hopelessness that she's feeling -- trapped and completely helpless no matter how much she tries to save herself and family. There is a similar sense of hopelessness and lose of one's own identity found in "The Pianist", but in this drama it's more about extreme involuntary isolation from society (which I will be expanding on in part 2 of this exploration).

The film "Society of the Snow" is literally directed by Ashwini Moon J.A. Bayona, based on real life events. There's a documentary based on these events as well, "Stranded: I've Come From A Plane That Crashed On The Mountains", directed by Magha Moon Gonzalo Arijon.

Now, in the "Society of the Snow", there is a tone of hopelessness set in the film because of the gruesome reality that these characters (based on real life people) experience. And never in their lifetime did they think that everything was going to change so drastically from just living the average life of normal teenage boys. These characters, who were in a rugby team, get on a plane that would soon crash onto glacier surrounded by endless cold harsh mountains -- with just a piece of the wrecked plane remaining in which they take shelter in. The protagonists are surrounded by the dead bodies of friends who did not survive the crash, and now they must spend the first night in harsh coldness while many are severely injured. They couldn't even sleep, the first night being spent with many of them crying and wailing out loud, nearly freezing to death. One day after, a rescue helicopter searches for them, and they all scream out for help. But the helicopter misses them as they're barely noticeable under all the glacier that surrounds them. This is when the sense of hopelessness and despair kicks in and intensifies as the story progresses. Now that chances of being rescued have completely fallen to zero, they realize that they can't ignore their growing hunger anymore. They all have no choice but to eat the flesh of the dead bodies after running out of chocolates. We see how these decisions mentally challenge some of the characters. It is truly tragic as they were stranded, isolated from the world and completely in despair in every waking day, for a span of 72 days.

After being rescued, we see just how malnourished they were from the looks of their bodies. They come back home bone-skinny and weak. And the monologue in the ending scene tells us how the survivors wondered; "Why didn't we all get to come back [home]?" "What is the meaning of it all?" These are the questions asked when we observe these raw Ketu events.

Ashwini Moon J.A. Bayona also made the film "The Impossible", which is about survival and resilience -- based on real life events. Much like "Society of the Snow", it also has a sense of complete despair and there is an involuntary separation of a family (which reminds me of "The Pianist" in which Ashwini Sun Adrien Brody's character is also separated from his family in the story).

"Nothing is more powerful than the human spirit" it writes on the poster.

"Nowhere", is directed by Ashwini Moon Albert Pintó, a survival thriller about a pregnant woman who finds herself isolated from society as she's drifting in the sea trapped inside a container. Because of her newborn baby, she is forced to survive and protect her child even when there is no hope. The reason why she's even in the container is because she was fleeing a society of a dystopian future in which women & children are caged and murdered (Ketu's oppressive forces and her attempt to run away from them leads her to total isolation which is another manifestation of Ketu).

And we also have the film "127 Hours", directed by Ashwini Moon Danny Boyle, starring Ashwini Sun James Franco who plays Aron Ralston whose right arm becomes trapped against the canyon wall when he was on a solo canyoneering trip. When he is unable to release himself, we realize the severity of his situation. He is completely isolated and alone. His own supplies running out and he's losing his mind. The struggle for survival and one's own helplessness is a theme of Ashwini nakshatra as this eventually drives one into taking extreme measures for freedom -- as the audience sees him resorting to cutting his own arm off.

These themes seem to speak of the power and resilience of the human spirit, as emphasized in "The Impossible" and "Society of the Snow". Our ability to survive even just our own personal traumas must be a testament to our spirit being an extension of the Higher Power which is behind the happenings of all of these senseless yet significant experiences and events we go through.

It is in Ashwini that one's experience through harsh forces contributes to the spirit's evolution after total annihilation, which leads us on the path towards moksha. This is particularly why I state that Ashwini must be the last nakshatra, in my opinion of course.

Ketu is very pure by nature, and it wants to destroy impurities. The repression of one's accumulated dirt can manifest in destructive tendencies, this being a misdirected flow of Ketu energies wanting to express the very raw forces we're wired to run away from. By facing one's true inner self and embracing your entirety is how you embrace Ketu in general. But one must go deep and inward. All three Ketu nakshatras deal with getting to the roots for this reason.

Ashwini is ruled by the Ashwini Kumaras, gods of medicine and healing. Also known as divine physicians. In order to heal, one must get to the root of all disturbances in order to create the perfect medicine to heal. As Ashwini is ruled by the 1H, this does involve getting into the roots of oneself for self-liberation. Magha, on the other hand, is about tracing your own existence back to the consciousness of others -- usually family members and ancestors. Magha relates to generational trauma and shining light on that in order to be freer. Mula is symbolized by the roots of a tree, and 'mula' translates to 'roots'. It signifies ancestry roots as well, but mostly the truth. Mula is where disillusionment takes place as one gets directly into the roots of everything; going right into the galactic center -- which can also signify going right into the roots of our demons and letting all of that rotting energy burn from your body. And after this purification process, one's consciousness raises by default.

Ashwini has strong, undeveloped energies which can be tamed and grounded to be properly channeled -- in order for this to be achieved, one must let go of poisonous impurities so that they're no longer controlled/possessed by unseen forces. It is in Ashwini that we expand on the interconnection of the collective consciousness being tight, as this was secretly discovered in Uttara Bhadrapada and remembered in Revati. Ashwini nakshatra is extremely sensitive to outward energies, as are the rest of the Ketu nakshatras. Every individual's consciousness is affecting the whole world somehow. This being a Ketu theme in general describes the whole energetic field of the world and how we each play a part in it and affect each other's lives. As all Ketu nakshatras deal with getting into the roots of things, we must get dirty by digging into our own roots which are connected to the reasons for our layers of repressed emotions such as rage, numbness, resentment, hatred and grief which are commonly harboured in Ketu natives. These unconscious emotions, which form our Shadow Self, contribute to how we interact with the world and other people -- and there's always that capacity to harm or further traumatize others because of our own unchecked, hidden troubles. Mula also perfectly shows how all of the complex, interconnected traumas of everyone else are intertwining and creating more chaos and confusion in society; and the disillusionment to how the oppressive systems of society are just breeding more of these pains & troubles -- which in turn, in Ketu fashion, demonstrates just how trapped everyone is.

Continued in Part 2

[tamurilofrivendell]

A Kiss | Thranduil x Reader

Pairing Thranduil/Female Reader

Read on AO3

Content: It's pretty much just smut. Consume responsibly.

Prompt: (#9 on this list). It’s in bold in the text below.

Requested by anon.

The throne room had been abuzz with movement and noise all day as audience after audience took place before the King in quick succession. You could see that Thranduil was getting frustrated and drained as the time wore on. It barely showed of course, he was very adept at keeping himself composed, but you noticed all the same.

Truthfully, you couldn't keep your eyes off him and your attention continually drifted from the carousel of people who came to stand before the throne, to the King who sat there at the top of it. He was still wearing his winter crown, the spring season not yet fully flowered. Dressed in expensive fabric of mossy greens and muted golds, he sat with his silver waterfall of hair flowing down his broad shoulders, and his head was tilted just ever so slightly, looking far more interested in those before him than he actually was.

“Stop looking at me like that.” The Elvenking’s deep booming voice was fairly nonchalant when it came, as the doors closed after the final audience had concluded, but there was an edge to it. An edge that you mistook for anger until the rest of the sentence fell from his lips a beat later. “Or I’m going to kiss you.”

You blinked up at him. Oh. So, your looks had not been quite so subtle as you had thought them to be. You turned, sweeping your gaze across the room. Everybody had left. You knew guards were positioned at the entryway but the one that usually stood below the throne while Thranduil held court in here was missing.

With a soft smile, you turned back to look at him. His intense gaze was pinned on you and you could see a darkness in his eyes that you recognised immediately as desire. That, too, had been the reason for the edge in his earlier tone.

"Would that help your mood, my lord?" You asked innocently as you moved towards the steps at the bottom of his throne. Thranduil was watching you intently, his head tilted again, this time definitely as interested as he looked.

"A kiss?" You concluded, your feet moving and carrying you slowly up the steps, moving towards where Thranduil sat waiting.

He hummed softly, an affirmative, keen eyes following every little movement you made, every step that carried you towards him until you were standing directly before him.

Amusement danced with the desire in his gaze as he looked upon you.

"I do believe that would certainly help, little dove." Thranduil said in response, holding eye contact. You could have squirmed under the intensity of it.

"As my king wishes." You murmured in response, taking a step towards him. Thranduil's knees parted and a shiver ran through you as you stepped between them and leaned in slowly. Pausing just briefly before pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth.

Thranduil growled his disapproval as you started to pull away again, a playful smirk tugging at your lips, but you didn't get far as he locked his knees in, trapping you between them. "Now, little star." He looked up at you with a small smirk in spite of himself, aware of the game you were playing with him. "That is not what your king wishes."

You looked back at him for a moment before you leaned in again. You had thought about getting him to chase you but he had caught you before you could even move so you decided you would comply. However, you were just a little disappointed, thinking that you'd have liked far more than a kiss and this was hardly the place.

Or so you thought.

As your mouth met Thranduil's, his hands gripped your waist and pulled you down with ease. You squealed in surprise and he took advantage of your open mouth, sliding his tongue in as you found yourself seated with your legs astride his lap.

You happily deepened the kiss, enjoying the taste and the feel of him. His hands soon began to wander, sliding up under the little intricately stitched lace top you had paired with your skirt that morning, causing another delicious shiver to shoot through you.

Thranduil continued his exploration of your body, delighting in your warm skin, hands moving of their own accord up to your breasts. You gasped softly into his mouth as his skilled fingers kneaded and massaged, tugging softly on a nipple every so often.

You writhed under his touch, kisses becoming harsher at his ministrations but it was nothing compared to when his fingers worked their way back down your body, one arm sliding round your waist as support and the other edging ever lower, down beneath your skirt, Thranduil seeking his most desired prize.

Bucking slightly at the feel of his fingers brushing between your legs, you broke the kiss and sucked in a deep breath. Your eyes opened so you could look at him.

"Here...?" You asked breathlessly, even as his fingers began to gently stroke between your legs, pulling soft sighs from your lips.

Thranduil nodded, watching your every expression like a hawk, every movement and sound you made only heightening his own desire, which was quickly making itself known between you both as he felt himself harden.

"Here." He replied firmly, voice hoarse as he pulled you in for another kiss.

In the same moment, one of his fingers dipped inside you and you gasped again, the sound quickly swallowed into the hot cavern that was Thranduil's mouth.

Soon, a second finger had followed the first and you were squirming and wriggling in his lap, the movements only causing friction against his own arousal. He gritted his teeth as he continued to move his fingers inside of you, wanting to make you ready for him. His thumb focused on your swollen nub and he groaned softly as his fingers slid a little deeper, past where first they had found resistance.

His mouth had moved from your own by this point and he was tracing delicate little kisses down your throat and across your collar bone. Your head had tipped back to grant him easier access as you lost yourself to the pleasure he was bestowing upon you.

Thranduil practically growled as he felt you tighten against his fingers, moving faster as he pushed you towards your impending orgasm. A cry ripped itself from your throat as you came, his fingers leaving you empty as you gripped onto his shoulders to hold yourself steady.

When you opened your eyes, you noticed Thranduil had removed his erection from his slacks and was lazily stroking himself to the image of you coming undone before him.

Hot desire ripped through you at the sight of him.

Ignoring your still-shaking legs, you reached down between you both and replaced his hand with your own, giving him a few soft strokes, delighting in the sounds it pulled from him.

He could take it no more, you knew, as his hands harshly gripped your waist and moved, helping you to position yourself above him. You began to sink down onto him but it was too slow for his liking and he tugged at your waist, sheathing himself inside you.

You barely knew where his moan started and your own ended.

Thranduil started to move then, impatient, but you were more than happy to meet his thrusts, finding you'd recovered enough from your previous orgasm.

The empty throne room was suddenly full again, this time with your loud moans and gasps, neither of you caring how loud the two of you became. The guards at the entryway were more than loyal and you knew they would act as though nothing had happened at all.

Watching Thranduil as he thrust again and again, you could tell when he was reaching his peak. His breathing became more laboured and his thrusts more sloppy as his eyes began to fight to stay open.

He liked to watch your face but sometimes he could not stop his own pleasure from overcoming him completely.

You wanted it to.

As he thrust up to meet you one last time, your hand moved down between your bodies. He didn't even notice until, suddenly, your hand came into contact with him, lightly cupping his balls.

A cry ripped itself from his throat at the sensation and his grip on you tightened, his hips stuttering as he hit his peak, spilling inside you as you soon followed with your own pleasure.

Then there was a silence that was only broken by the pair of you attempting to catch your breath. Your legs were jelly as you slumped forward, your forehead against his firm chest. Thranduil sucked in a few more deep breaths before he finally lifted his hand and ran his fingers through your hair. He kissed the top of your head with a little chuckle that caused you to raise your head to look at him.

"Now that, little dove, was exactly what your king needed after such a dreadful day."

Smirking, you smacked his shoulder playfully as he laughed again and then stood, sweeping you up into his arms. You relaxed against him with another sigh as he moved out of the door that connected his private chambers with the throne room.

A nice long hot bath and a relaxing rest of the night with you in his arms was in order, he decided.

[bean-bean2000]

The Maid - Part 11

Pairing: Loki x reader

Warnings: Angst, mentions of violence, depression, mentions of suicide, despair, feeling trapped. Mentions of abuse and rape.

Please read at your own risk. Your own media consumption is not my responsibility. Please read and review the warnings before proceeding.

Thank you and enjoy!

Part 10

Series masterlist Main Masterlist

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You wake to the sun shining in from the small square window and the caws of a raven.

Sitting up slowly, you head directly to the bathroom to bathe. No thoughts have crossed your mind as you’re functioning on autopilot.

You look at your reflection and see nothing. In the deepest parts of your mind you can hear the locked chest rattling and moving to get out, much like Pandora's box, but you push it further.

Not anymore. Just focus on your job. I can’t do this anymore. For your own sanity, push them out.

You get ready for the day and head out to your first destination: the King’s bedroom.

As you perform your duties, it feels as though you’re floating. The world around you seems hazy, almost as if somebody else is controlling your body as you watch through your eyes.

You’re cleaning the room robotically, as you move around sweeping and dusting. You hear nothing besides this constant deep buzzing.

Suddenly you feel a hand wrap around your forearm and makes you turn around. You show no reaction as you’re turned to face Loki, staring at you with squinted eyes.

He’s saying something but you can’t hear until you shake your head out of the haze and focus again. You curtsy low and address him “Hello, my king. How may I be of assistance?”

He stares at you, searching your eyes. “Are you well?” he asks.

“How do you mean, my king?” you reply stoically.

He can’t find that fire behind your eyes that used to burn with defiance, nor that snarkiness he loves to see when you challenge him. He only sees empty eyes staring back at him.

“What happened?” he demands rather than asking.

“I'm unsure what you are referring to, my king. I am simply doing my job, as your maid. I’m doing as you said, your highness. I know my place.” Your eyes look sunken and void of anything.

He frowns at your reply when you turn around and continue your work as he stares at you in confusion and worry.

He steps in front of you “Stop.”

You immediately obey “Yes, my king.” and you stand there waiting for his next order.

He continues to search your eyes, not understanding how a woman with such strong character, the woman he met a few days prior who would rather be beaten than to obey an order, suddenly accept a command so easily.

He sits you down on a chair and analyzes you. He can’t sense any foreign or dark magic on you. There is no curse he can identify. He’s bewildered by your drastic change in character, until he notices this dark purple aura surrounding your body. He doesn’t understand how he hadn’t felt the presence of this magic before, but he quickly realizes that it isn’t foreign. It’s coming from within you.

Thinking out loud he says "You're not supposed to have magic. How is this possible?"

Then, he remembers something his mother had told him years ago when he was a boy:

~~~

"Mother, what do the colours I see around people mean? Everybody has a different one. Why is that?" Young Loki asks.

"My son, those colours are called auras. Everybody has a different aura depending on their type of magic that they have and use. Sometimes, people may have dormant magic, subdued from years of being unused. Those auras, are much different, however. They are usually a deep orange, which can eventually turn into another colour when and if they start using their magic again." The Allmother explains to her eldest child.

"But what about dark purple? I was reading a book in the library that mentioned dark purple auras but I wasn't able to find any details about it." the curious boy questions.

"Dark purple? That is a very rare aura... one I have not seen since our last Great War, centuries ago. A dark purple aura happens when somebody born with magic, has suffered greatly. As a result, their magic is naturally subdued, because the most dangerous and volatile person is one who uses and grows their magic through hate and pain. The dark purple aura reflects the pain and trauma they've endured and almost acts as a warning to others. It is well known by all experts of magic that a dark purple aura cannot be cleared without the affected person healing themselves fully from their trauma." she explains.

"How do you heal them?"

"That is where the issue lays, my sweet boy. Over the years we have learned that this can only happen one way: True love and complete trust. It has been noted that the only thing that can break such pain, sadness and anguish, is unconditional love. Very few cases have been recorded where one with a dark purple aura has found such love and managed to free themselves and accept their true aura, stemming from their true, healed, self." she grabs ahold of her sons hand and guides him through her garden.

"This type of magic is the most powerful and the most difficult to attain as it is not really magic at all. Nobody can simply enchant another to fall in love. The love must be true. This means, it cannot be influenced by any unnatural forces. It cannot be forced or tricked, which is why it is the most difficult ailment to cure, unfortunately. Even more so as times passes because true love has lost its meaning over the years. No book or magical spell can tell you what true love is because there is no singular definition. For a mother, it may be the love she has for her child, for another it may be their significant other, or their sibling...It differs from person to person. Sometimes, an act of true love by the affected person themselves or the one that they love, can break the dark purple aura. Unfortunately, at times, those acts of unconditional love, are fatal; sacrificing yourself for another. True love is a very fragile and fickle thing. Extremely difficult to attain but very easy to break." she sighs sadly as she walks through the mazes of her garden.

Young Loki remained silent the rest of their walk, mind reeling trying to understand what true love really means.

~~~

At that moment he decides to do the one thing he promised himself he would never do without one’s consent.

He places two fingers on your forehead, and you feel a tingle as he begins to read your mind and replay your memories. He starts from last night, with the intention of going back as far as possible to understand who you really are.

When he begins, he can see the box of emotions hidden deep within your subconscious, locked with chains and kept hidden well beyond. He replays your memories in your room and the bathroom.

He pulls back in surprise. “How did you do that?” he asks you.

You do not reply to him and stare blankly through him.

"But... if your magic is supposedly dormant, how are you able to dissociate yourself and psychologically lock your emotions away?... Can I reverse it?" he asks himself, thinking out loud.

He taps once again into your memories and chases after the locked chest hidden in the furthest part of your mind. As he begins to approach it, it moves again, further away every time. Finally, Loki decides to try halting it in its spot with his magic. When he tries to do so, a sudden intense wave of fire scorches around him. Confused, he touches it and to his surprise, he can feel the heat from the fire within your mind. As he tries to step through, a phoenix emerges and screams as it flies at him. He feels the power of the phoenix throw him backwards and he inhales deeply as he staggers back on the table in his room. He's breathing heavily, heart racing as stares at you in disbelief.

What just happened? Did she throw me out of her mind? How is that possible... that has never happened... Who are you?

"May I resume my work, my king?" you asks monotonously.

Loki shakes his head incredulously and waves his hand in the air "Yes, yes, continue. I must take my leave."

He quickly walks to the door and looks behind his shoulder before leaving, watching you broom the floor as if nothing happened.

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Somehow, Through the Storm

Summary:

Living in the slums of the Warehouse District, Kaz and Inej are struggling to cling on to life through a seemingly unending winter. Wrapped up in a stranger's overcomplicated marriage contract that he is convinced is key to solving the merciless weather, Kaz remains busy and distracted for days on end, putting everything else at risk. So when a storm ravages the city and sweeps Inej into danger, the offer of safety, food, and a place to stay is an overwhelming one - no matter the cost. Terrified of mounting threats, Inej signs a contract - not knowing she would land herself trapped at the Menagerie. Kaz signs a contract that states if he can walk all the way through the city and back to the Warehouse District with Inej behind him, never looking back at her, they will both go free. But this is the Barrel, the darkest part of the city where the rules of physics can change with the stroke of a pen; the journey back will not be the same as journey there…

This is a Hadestown-inspired reimagining of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, casting Kaz and Inej as our main characters and heavily featuring our beloved Crows, set in an alternate version of the Grishaverse with a different magic system based entirely on contracts.

Tags: @lunarthecorvus @marielaure @multi-fandom-bi @igotthisaccountunderduress @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @devoted-people-hater @spraypaintstainonawhitewall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list let me know <3

Warnings for this chapter: implied past sa references, ptsd references, gambling addiction references, imprisonment references, implied slavery references (similar to Kerch indenture contracts)

AO3 link:

Chapter 8 - Kaz

“Now not everybody gets to be a god, and don’t forget that times are hard”

- Road to Hell, Hadestown

By the time Kaz returned to the Slat over an hour after dawn, his constant companion of exhaustion beginning to tug at the edges of his tapestry in a threat to pull him under, he was expecting Inej to be long gone. It hadn’t seemed, when they’d last spoken, that she’d be all too eager to stick around. Instead, he found her lying on her side in the attic, still deep beneath the surface of sleep. She was crowned by a wreath of braids, curled on her side with her knees pulled high and her hands tucked into her, as though she were tending to some precious, secret something held close against her chest. For a moment, and it was only brief, Kaz watched the rise and fall of her shoulders as she breathed. This was perhaps the only time he’d seen her without perfect posture, and her angular shoulders leaned into each other like they were trying to hide her collar bone, slightly visible where the fabric of her blouse had been tugged downwards in sleep, out of sight from the world. Her arm was looped around the strap of her bag, and from its proximity Kaz thought that she might have been holding the satchel next to her on the mattress, but that it had slipped away from her when she fell asleep. He paused. 

You can stay here tonight. 

Where… What about you? 

Inej’s hesitancy had been a quaver in her voice, her dark, endless eyes flitting from Kaz to the door behind him. Now she lay on top of the blanket, despite the chill in the air, with Kaz’s pillow pushed aside and what looked like it might have been a shirt folded up beneath her head. A set of brass knuckles, which hadn’t really been what Kaz meant when he’d said she needed a weapon but he supposed wasn’t a bad start, had slid down her fingers when her hand relaxed and now lay half against the mattress and half over her fingertips. There was something else metal glinting on the bed, just slightly; something lying motionless beneath the cuff of Inej’s sleeve, catching a weak sunbeam leaking through the window making a valiant attempt at glimmering. Kaz didn’t dare to step any closer to the partitioning wall across the room, but only to lean slightly until his eyeline had shifted enough that the reflection dimmer and he could make out the shape of a key discarded on the mattress. The key to his window. 

He left the room as quietly as he could manage, thinking to but paused at the top of the stairs. He definitely shouldn’t lock the door, he knew that. But what if Haskell came prying? It wasn’t unreasonable to expect it. Kaz doubted more than two days ever went by without the old man rummaging around, though what he was hoping to find he wasn’t actually sure. Probably just loose cash, or anything incriminating Kaz had left lying around that he might be able to extort him for. Kaz had never been concerned about this; he was too careful, nothing of his side business with the contracts ever reached the attic of the Slat, and anything that was worth keeping hidden was hidden well. Haskell was yet to try tearing up the floorboards, but Kaz had a backup plan lay in wait in case he ever decided to give it a go. 

But if Haskell walked up and found Inej, asleep on top of Kaz’s mattress? He couldn't imagine it would end well for anyone involved, but least of all Inej.

Kaz had spent the night working in the upper room at Lexi’s long after Nina had to return to the Barrel, and walked back through the Warehouse District under the golden bleach of dawn. Well, golden was perhaps to kind a word for what the last rays of the sunrise had been; the sun was a watered down beam of sickly yellow, pooling in the cracks beneath the cobblestones without any warmth of brightness to it, no real beauty to find in its pitiful reflections. The shadows were still long, as they would most likely remain until midday began to draw near, and the front of the Slat had been cast in ghostly grey as he approached. Not that sunshine falling on its crumbling facade had ever made the building feel much more inviting. 

The building had been sleepy enough when Kaz crossed the threshold, other than maybe the early afternoon these were the slowest hours for the house’s boarders to be out on the old man’s business, but it was never exactly quiet. Kaz lingered at the top of the stairs, listening through his door for any movement from Inej - though it was unlikely he’d be able to tell if she woke, wasn’t it? She would most likely leave in silence, leaving no-one any the wiser. He couldn’t trust the possibility of her absence though, nor the possibility that Haskell wasn’t home, or wouldn’t happen to wander his way upstairs before she left. Downstairs he could hear voices, creaking floorboards, what might have been a mug or plate falling and smashing on the boards. 

Kaz beckoned Jesper across the room as soon as he’d stepped foot back onto the ground floor of the Slat, where the front space opened into a vaguely larger area that was used as a communal space for - well, mostly for drinking as far as Kaz could tell. He didn’t enjoy the closeness of the space, nor the oppressive heat that seemed to come with it from so many bodies so tightly slotted together, and so spent very little of his time there, but always it seemed that people were drinking, and probably partaking in less legal pastimes as well. Jesper gandered across the room, slipping his way around crowds and mismatched tables that had been rather squashed into place, 

“I need you to keep an eye out for the old man,” Kaz told him, keeping his voice low and trusting that the sound of the crowds would do the rest for him, “Keep him out of my room,”

“Why-?” Jesper broke off as he caught Kaz’s gaze, “Yeah, alright, fine. Where are you going?”

Kaz wasn’t entirely confident in that. He probably shouldn’t go back to Lexi’s when he’d been there all night; it was good of her to give him the space, but she didn’t owe him anything and her patience was bound to wear thin at some point. Kaz happened to be an excellently sharp knife when it came to fraying people’s patience. 

“I shouldn’t be longer than a few hours,” was what he settled on saying, after a brief pause, “When are you leaving?”

“Why do you assume I’m leaving?”

It took nothing more than Kaz raising a single eyebrow for Jesper to relent. He spent the vast majority of his time in the gambling parlours on the edge of the Warehouse District, where the buildings began to give way into the pleasure district that was the Barrel; if he wasn’t on his way back from one, he was probably on his way to it. Most of the city’s gambling dens were deep in the Barrel, glittering things festooned in gaudy baubles and studding East Stave like ill-set, glass gems in an ugly piece of costume jewellery. Jesper had never been stupid enough to venture farther than the seedy dens on the south of the Warehouse District, but Kaz didn’t entirely trust that he never would. 

“I can wait a few hours,”

“Good. If you see Anika tell her to take her report to Lexi’s; I’ll pick it up from there,”

Jesper nodded, but if he was planning on saying anything in response then Kaz didn’t find out; he was already on his way out of the building. He flexed his fingers in his gloves, stretching them back and forth over the head of his cane. Pain was radiating from his bad leg, always worse in the cold as it was, and he knew that it would soon put up further protest at his refusing to rest for so long. But Kaz had already decided where he was going, and the walk would be worth it. 

On the border between the Barrel and the Warehouse District, farther North than the shanty towns and the border stone he usually met Nina at, the factories and storage facilities began to give way to sleazy bars, the gambling parlours that Jesper disappeared into so often, and even a few small brothels tucked into hidden spaces. It was the edge of both of them, towing the line between the pleasure district and the slums, doing its level best to cater to them both. And there, around two thirds down the road, an abandoned building with a black and crimson facade. 

It had been boarded up by the city, barricaded and blocked off with enough purple stadwatch signs and warnings to keep most squatters at bay, but nowhere in Ketterdam stayed empty for long. There wasn’t the space to waste. If no-one bought the lot then it would soon be torn down, something new and governmentally owned quickly erected to replace it. But not if Kaz had anything to do with it. He stood before the battered old door, staring up at the sign above it - a massive crow wrought in black metal, a watchful, oxidised silver eye gleaming as it peered out into the street below. How much more money did he need? How much longer could he keep the wrecking ball at bay?

This club would be his. He would make it so. His house, his business. He could separate from Haskell, probably even take half his boarders with him in the process, and start his own operation. He could get Jordie his revenge at last.

From the right angle, in the distance, Kaz could just about see the colourful outline of the Emerald Palace on the horizon, the canals and the Staves of the Barrel nothing but a blurry haze laid out at its feet. The Emerald Palace was the crown of Pekka Rollins’ kingdom. Some day Kaz would be its end, and this building could be the start of it. This building, and the intelligence Inej brought him, the jobs that only Jesper could pull off, everything Nina could do on the inside. And, he thought, slipping a hand into his pocket and finding the envelope tucked in quiet, cosy secrecy, the key to bringing a city to its knees might have very recently wandered straight into his path. 

“Kaz, I’m telling you,” Nina had emphasised last night, settling deeper into her chair, “You know everything that I know. You know I can’t stay; what else do you want from me?”

“I want you to give me something useful,” he’d insisted, “There has to be something we’re missing,”

Nina sighed. 

“Probably. Definitely. But we aren’t going to figure it out by saying the same thing back and forth to each other. We know Wylan is alive, we know his parents are still claiming that he’s dead, and we know that he’s left the Geldin District-”

“But why?”

Nina looked like she was about ten seconds away from banging her head repeatedly against the table, but Kaz was used to having that effect on people and he was all out of sympathy. 

“I. Don’t. Know,” she’d enunciated for the hundredth time, “For Saints’ sakes, Kaz, just go and ask him at this point. I’m tired, and I need to get back,”

Kaz had irritatedly let her go and continued working alone. He knew that she was right - not only that they were going round in circles but also that she couldn’t stay any longer; it was running a close enough risk for her to leave the Barrel in the first place. Nina spent as little time in the Barrel as she could reasonably get away with, but no matter how malleable her boundaries were they still had to have a breaking point; Kaz would not recommend trying to find it. 

He very much doubted that Nina had actually expected him to find the boy and do exactly as she had suggested. But the boarding house he was staying in was just a few streets from here, and Kaz did just so happen to have a letter addressed to Wylan Van Eck sitting in his pocket. 

The kid did not look thrilled to open the door and see Kaz on the other side of it, but that wasn’t particularly surprising. He frowned, already pushing the door shut again, as he said: 

“I gave you an answer. Leave me alone,”

Kaz’s foot found a comfortable spot between the door and its frame. 

“I’m not here to offer you a job,” he said, “Though it is still open if you change your mind,”

Wylan glared unhappily at Kaz’s shoe blocking the door and for a moment Kaz thought he would neglect to answer. His voice was impatient when he finally sighed: 

“What do you want, then?” 

Kaz flicked his wrist so the letter, Wylan’s real surname in black ink on creamy paper, a seemingly unbroken red wax seal embossed with a laurel holding it closed, appeared between his black gloved fingers. 

“I believe I have something of yours. And I believe we may have something to discuss, Van Eck,”

The colour had drained so thoroughly from Wylan’s cheeks that someone might have been physically wringing him dry. His jaw ticked, his eyes unmoving from the envelope in Kaz’s hand. 

“So you took it,”

Kaz shrugged.

“I was starting to hope I’d just imagined it,”

“Unfortunately not,” Kaz replied, “Hope never gets you far round here. But a name as good as – what? Thirty million kruge, maybe? That should get you pretty far,”

Wylan’s lips twisted, his gaze finally returning to Kaz’s - frightened eyes hiding behind a hard stare. 

“What do you want?”

“I told you,” Kaz smiled, slipping the letter back into his pocket and watching as Wylan’s eyes flicked to trace the movement, “I just want to talk,”

There was a brief pause; Wylan glanced furtively down the empty corridor, then over his own shoulder, and then furiously beckoned Kaz through the door. Kaz smiled again, straightening out his shirt cuffs and stepping over the threshold. 

“Much obliged,”

[imaginesfordifferentfandoms]

Lost It All But Found You

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Prompt - “What do you miss most? About life before all of this.”

You were already in bed by the time Joel came back from his shift and didn’t bother opening your eyes as you heard him close and lock the door before quietly walking over to the bed to press a gentle kiss just above your eyebrow. He was quiet as he shut the bathroom door and a few minutes later you heard the shower running, you knew he had been on body burning duty, the job everybody hated getting but paid well.

You let your mind wander whilst Joel showered, a dangerous thing to do most days but especially today when you, even twenty years after the outbreak, were feeling the effects of everything. Some days were fine, they were easy and it felt like you had accepted that this was how the world was now. Those days were great, you liked your little apartment, didn’t mind that you couldn’t leave the walls, you didn’t mind going to work. It was nice to pretend, especially when in those moments it didn’t feel like pretending.

Then there were days like today. Days where you struggled to drag yourself out of bed, hours after Joel had left for his shift. This morning was hard, you felt like your body was being weighed down by the weight of the thousand questions you had that would never be answered, questions of what had become of the people you loved, questions of what if’s and how could this happen. Days like today the world didn’t feel real, it felt like a dream that you would wake up from but you never did. Eventually you pulled yourself from the bed and went to work, on these days your body was on autopilot, you didn’t remember getting ready for work, you hardly remembered being at your job but the repetitiveness of it made it easy. The whole time you worked you weren’t really there, instead you were deep in your head.

It had been twenty years since the world went to hell. Twenty years was a long time, twenty years of questions swarming your head until you felt like you were drowning. How had this become your life? The world had ended and here you were sweeping the streets like it was a regular old day.

You hated it.

Being inside the walls on days like this felt suffocating and you longed to go outside. Joel went out sometimes but he never took you, always said his runs were too dangerous and you didn’t doubt it but a part of you would always long to see the outside of those walls again. The thought of being within the walls until you died made your skin crawl, trapped from the outside world because there wasn’t a cure for this virus, there would never be a cure.

That thought always consumed you with anxiety, turned your blood cold and you had stopping to force yourself to breathe, to push past the tingles in your hands and calm down. Sometimes you could handle it alone but most times it ended with you sitting with your back pressed to the wall and Joel walking in on you, moving over to sit besind you as he pulled you into his arms, his fingers running groundingly up and down your back until it was easier to breathe.

Today you had at least managed to make it to your bed before the anxiety became too much and ever since you had been in an almost paralysed state of staring at the wall in front of you until your eyes were too heavy to stay open and they fell shut though you couldn’t fall asleep no matter how drained your body felt.

You had been so focused on your own thoughts that you didn’t hear the shower shut off or Joel moving around the room as he changed into something comfortable before climbing into the bed behind you.

Joel felt you jump slightly as his arm slid around you, your head turning to look up at him with a confused look before you blinked several times and seemed to register it was just him. He pulled you closer so your back was flush against his chest, his arms around your waist and fingers drawing shapeless patterns into your skin. Slowly he felt you beginning to relax into his touch, not fully out of your head but enough that you could focus on the things that were real.

Joel pressed a kiss to your head and let his lips rest against your hair, smiling softly as your hands came to rest on his arms, your fingers coming to mess with the watch that had sat on his wrist for twenty years.

When you were like this it was easy for Joel to get lost in his own head with you but he always shoved his own thoughts down, it wouldn’t do well to have the pair of you out of your minds with grief.

Joel didn’t say anything, there were never any words to say when you were having a bad day because everything you were thinking was true, every bad thing you thought about the world was right. Joel knew how hard it was to carry the questions that were swimming around in your head because he carried his own questions, felt the weight of them every day.

So instead he did what he could do, he could hold you close to him, he could make sure you didn’t get too lost in your head, made sure you had his touch to ground you back to reality. He would be there for you in ways he knew he could. Most of the time when you had a bad day you tended to not want to speak anyway, sometimes you wanted to hear Joel speak, it didn’t matter what he said but sometimes you just needed more than his touch to help you find your way back. There was the rare occasion, it hadn’t happened more than a handful of times in the many years he’d known you, where you wanted to talk about what was happening in your head.

Today seemed to be one of those rare days.

“I don’t remember what my family even looked like.” You whispered, voice cracking as tears slipped down your cheeks and Joel felt his heart break, he knew what you meant.

Twenty years was a long time, so much happened and things became harder to remember. The sound of somebody’s laugh, the way their voice sounded when they were happy, the way somebody’s hair fell into their face or how they smiled. You could remember the song somebody sang in the morning, could recite all the words to it but couldn’t ever remember how they sounded when they sang it.

“I wonder about them all the time, did they survive, are they out there somewhere? Some part of me hopes they are but then another part of me, the part that’s tired, hopes that whatever happened that they’re at peace.” You said, keeping your voice low as you spoke and focused on the feel of Joel’s fingers through your shirt.

“I’m sorry.” Joel whispered into your hair and you laughed quietly though it came out as more of a sob really.

“You know what the most bittersweet thing is about this whole thing?” You asked, turning in Joel’s arms so you were facing him now, “I got to meet you, it took the world going to shit for us to meet. You are the best thing in my life, before the outbreak and after, you’re the best person I know.”

“I love you too, baby.” Joel murmured as he kissed your forehead. “I love you so damn much, just hate that it took losing everything else to get here. In another life, baby, God, baby I promise in another life everything would be different, you’d never be scared again.”

“What do you miss most?” You asked him and it was a question that made him pause, not because he didn’t know the answer, God he knew the answer straight away, it was something that stuck with him every day of his life. “About life before all of this.”

He had never told you about Sarah, he didn’t know why he hadn’t but he had never spoken about her. Maybe it was because it was still too raw, too painful. Twenty years had gone since she was taken from him and it still felt like yesterday. You spoke about not being able to remember your family but some days Joel would do anything to get the image of his daughter shot, bleeding and dying in his arms out of his head.

“My daughter.” Joel said quietly and watched you pull away from him as you stared up at him in shock, your eyes were still watery as tears stained your cheeks. “I miss my daughter.”

“Joel-” You breathed out, no words coming to you and Joel couldn’t help but smile down at you as he reached a hand up to brush away the tears. “I’m so sorry.”

“Her name was Sarah.” He told you and his smile widened as he watched you mouth her name to yourself. “She was just a kid, twelve, and the best thing I have ever done with my life.”

“You’ve never told me about her.” You said, not prying for anything else but giving him the opening to share her with you if he wanted.

And he did. He wanted to share his life before the outbreak with you. He wanted you to know Sarah, wanted you to love her like he did because she was his whole world. Even twenty years later when so many of the memories he had with her had become foggy he never lost that overwhelming feeling of love.

“That kid- let me tell you if anyone was gonna call me out on my bullshit it was Sarah. The day the world went to hell it was my birthday and she called me right out for not being home on time, for forgetting the cake. Sarah matched me without ever missing a beat, the two of us could go back and forth all day long” Joel chuckled to himself and you smiled over at him, your full attention on him and he paused to kiss your forehead again. “Kid was more athletic than I ever was, she was on the soccer team, God knows how but I still remember her out on the field, still remember she was number 14. She was brilliant, so many awards that we didn’t know what to do with ‘em.”

“She sounds amazing.” You said softly and Joel grinned down at you even as his eyes shined with tears.

“Yeah, yeah she was.” Joel nodded and took a breath, “me and her used to go hiking together, just the two of us out for hours. I don’t even know what we talked about, can’t remember but I know she laughed, I know she loved going. Most kids her age got embarrassed spending so much time with their folks but not Sarah, hell she was always looking for more time for us to do things together.”

“She knew her dad was a special, smart kid.” You told him with a smile and he chuckled wetly.

“Some army asshole, the day the outbreak happened, it was just me and her, he could see we weren’t sick- Sarah hurt her ankle in the accident and I was carrying her but he could see we were fine and this asshole shoots at us. I tried to protect her but…she died in my arms and I couldn’t do anything.” Joel told you and you felt your own eyes well with tears again but you pushed them back as you pulled Joel into you, holding him against you as you murmured soft words of comfort.

“I’m so, so sorry Joel.” You felt your neck wet with his tears as he cuddled into you but you also felt him smile before he pressed a kiss to your skin. “I’m really glad you told me about her.”

“Me too, baby.” He murmured and you ran your hands through his hair. “She was my whole world, that’s what I miss the most from before.”

The two of you held each other, both of your minds filled with what had been lost, what could never be, thoughts of another life where you had met, where you knew each other's families…you had both lost so much and sometimes that pain was easy to get lost in but, through all that pain and suffering, you had also found each other, had found a love neither of you had thought possible, had found the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with even if it was this version of a future that nobody had seen coming.

You and Joel were each other's anchor, making sure you stayed afloat when it was so easy to give up. This new world might have taken everything from you but it had also given you Joel and it was bittersweet but you were grateful to have found him, you weren’t sure either of you would have made it this far without the other.

__________

Joel Miller Taglist (Click the link in my bio to add yourself!) -

@avengersfan25​,

Thank you so much for reading!🖤

[chiefbeifongcanrailme]

The Sphere's Embrace

I have officially finished posting to @linbeifongsweek

Here’s my submission for day 8 of Lin Beifong’s Week. You can also find it on AO3.

Pairing: Lin Beifong x Bumi

Rating: M

Art made by JadeLotus💚

The Sphere's Embrace was a cunning and formidable trap, designed to ensnare unsuspecting trespassers within its metallic grasp. At first glance, it appeared to be a massive spherical structure, looming ominously within the chamber it guarded. Its surface gleamed with a metallic sheen, betraying no hint of the danger that lay within.

It all started because because everybody loved to go out of their way to make Lin's life harder than it already was. But really, this was far from circumstantial. There was a logical series of events that had thrust Lin into this position. 

After defeating the Red Lotus, it was a rather grievous few months when Korra departed for the South Pole for her recovery. Because spirits were down, and instead of joy in the face of victory, Republic City was facing melancholy in the wake of a shattered Avatar, and all of Air Temple Island was living within the gloomy waves of despair. Because the new airbending master, Jinora came to the rescue by taking inspiration from the glory of the Yangchen festival and organized a little ritual for Korra's speedy recovery followed by a festival of merriment for all the attendees. 

Because her moronic sister said "two Beifongs are better than one" and brought her own incredibly ridiculous-looking portable prison in case any wandering Red Lotus members decided to crash their party.

The Sphere's Embrace consisted of a colossal spherical shell, constructed from reinforced platinum and intricate mechanical components concealed within its surface. Suspended above the ground, it rested upon a sturdy base, its polished exterior offering no indication of the mechanisms hidden beneath. At the center of the Sphere's Embrace lay a cozy bed, tempting weary travelers with the promise of rest. However, this seemingly inviting surface harbored a deadly secret. Embedded within the floor of the threshold, were pressure-sensitive sensors, finely tuned to detect the slightest weight. 

It was because of that final security sweep Lin did towards the end of the ritual. Because Lin just had to check out that stupid giant ball-sac of a prison that was supposedly impervious to any and all bending. Su wouldn't admit it, but Lin was certain this had Kuvira's blueprints all over. But finally, It was because she saw a pair of naked butt cheeks galivanting inside the prison. 

Lin had hopped in without a thought- ready to fight the prisoner that had already taken his rightful place.

Upon detecting the presence of an intruder, the Sphere's Embrace sprung into action with lethal precision. Bi-parting doors, seamlessly integrated into the spherical shell, would snap shut with thunderous force, sealing the victim within its metallic confines. The doors would lock with a resounding clang, rendering escape impossible from within. Those trapped within must await the mercy of their captors or the intervention of an external force to secure their freedom.

"Lin!" the naked man, she now recognized to be Bumi, shrieked in unison with the snapping doors. 

"Fuck, fuck, fuck—" 

Lin was panting as she frantically ran across the room looking for vulnerabilities in construction. Naturally, she failed in bending the platinum walls. The prison was well thought out, a real testament to Kuvira's cunning. The bed in the center was made entirely of wood and unbendable materials. The counter top had a straw bowl with some bananas to keep the prisoners alive, a fruit with not enough water content to use to cut the platinum walls with pressure. Certainly, even lightning couldn't break a metal this dense and durable- maybe slightly damage it- but Suyin made sure it was flawless.

"What are you doing in here?" she managed to berate. 

Thankfully, he had the decency to cover his genitals with his hands. "I just wanted to have a look at—"

"And where are your clothes?" 

"They're outside- are- are we trapped in here?" he asked, cowering. 

"What do you think, Wan Shi Tong?" 

"Sheesh there's no need to be—”

"We're fucking trapped in Suyin's bending-proof platinum nut sac!" 

"Relax, Lin. Someone's going to notice we're missing and—”

"No?!" she cried, a pitch higher, "they're going to assume we left- like the rest of the crowd." 

"Tenzin's going to notice I'm not—”

"Is he?" she screamed. "Or is he going to assume you bailed to go party in the city like always?" 

"Okay you have a point there," he admitted. "But—”

"Oh, fuck me, Bumi—”

"Gladly! I'm ready. You're the one still wearing clothes," he said all too seriously.

"Stop trying to—” Lin shook her head and swallowed on her dry throat, dumbfounded. "What did you say?" 

"It would be a honor to fuck you," he said, bowing in reverence. Lin couldn't decide if her heart was racing because her blood was boiling or she was actually considering his offer. Bumi had totally transformed since his retirement- he looked good, but more importantly, he looked good naked. His body was toned like never before- leaner but just as burly as he used to be in his prime. 

She realized she hadn't responded and she didn't want him getting ideas. "Shut up, Bumi." 

"Fine, your loss," he shrugged. 

Bumi sat atop at the foot of the bed while Lin continued to look around. He observed the way she scuttled about, her eyes were blown wide with frenzy governing her every movement. It had been a while since he had spent any one-on-one time with Lin, and the last time he did, he had almost asked her out to dinner. You see, he wasn't lying about it being an honor to fuck her. He meant it. And that nonchalant candor was the best way conceal those jitters he felt around her. 

"How are you not freaking out?" she asked. 

"I mean, we're trapped." he said. "There's no way out. And there's no point in freaking out." 

Lin didn't stop to roll her eyes like Bumi imagined. Instead she was shaking. And suddenly, he remembered. Lin had always been a little claustrophobic. 

"Hey, why don't you have a seat for a moment." 

She gave him an incredulous look. 

So he stood up, hand still against his crotch so as to not flash Lin as he made his way over to her. "Relax, Linny. I'm going to get us out of here, okay?" 

"Bumi—" 

"Shhhhh," he said, rubbing her arm affectionately. "Why don't you lie down on the bed for a moment?" 

"Bumi, I—" 

"Just one moment. A tiny one, please?" 

Lin sighed, but she relented. As she got to the bed, covered in red bedsheets and a matching duvet, she looked over at Bumi's naked form and then stared at the bed. He had his bare buttocks on these very sheets just a second ago. Somehow, that idea didn't bother as much. He was just Bumi, at the end of the day. Bumi who wore bottomless chaps to his brother's anointment. Bumi who ate and drank like a bottomless pit. Bumi who'd side with her whenever Suyin was being a menace. Bumi, who comforted her after Tenzin ended things with her. And that's when she realized- he was trying to comfort her, before her train of thought left the station with- Bumi whose buttocks she really wanted to grab with a firm—

"On the bed now, Linny." 

She shook her head and lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling. "Can you now tell me why you're naked?" 

"Oh," he replied. "I wanted to check this prison out, but if I stepped in- the way you did- it'd shut down. So, I was using airbending to float around and I didn't want my clothes to get in the way." 

"Oh," she commented with surprise in her voice. "That's actually clever." 

"What can I say, I am a clever man, Linny." 

She rolled her eyes. "Can you not call me that?" 

"I don't think I can," he replied. 

When Lin felt a depression on the bed, she glanced to her side to see him smiling down at her. He stroked her hair gently and said, "We'll get you out of here, okay?" 

"Bumi, I'm fine. I just don't want to be stuck in here." 

"Lin, you're brave. And you can be brave every day of your life. But today, you don't have to. I can take care of you." 

She sat up, resting on her palms. "Why are you being so nice to me?" 

Bumi snorted. "I'm always nice to you." 

She couldn't argue there. It wasn't as if Bumi irritated her on purpose. Maybe she could afford to loosen up a little. Maybe she could be nicer to Bumi going forward. He was kind, funny in the way she hated, ridiculous, infuriating, and smart in the silliest ways, but spirits if he wasn't endearing.

"We should really find a way out," she said. 

"Linny, how? Nobody would be able to hear us scream." 

Narrowing her eyes at the nickname, instead of addressing it, she said, "So what now?"

"Try to look at the bright side!" he suggested, jovially. "You're getting uninterrupted Bumi time! And I'm naked and it's okay because I'm hot now. Don't think I didn't see your eyes on my ass." 

Lin's cheeks turned pink with embarrassment, and Bumi took that as his cue to proposition her again. 

"There's a bed too. And it's Suyin's. Why not mark our territory?" 

"Bumi," she whispered. 

His hand slowly traversed the length of her arm. Her eyes thirstily followed the delicate movement of his fingers until they reached her chin, at which point, he used one finger to tilt her head up towards him. 

"Nobody will hear us scream." 

"What if someone does come lurking around here?" 

"Then, I'll hide you under the bed, get rescued naked and give you the perfect window to escape and then never speak about this again." 

Lin couldn't help but smirk. "That does sound enticing." 

"And I'm still not hearing a no," 

Lin grabbed his face and slammed her mouth against his. He hummed when her tongue entered his mouth as his hand roamed up and across her torso. With each hand he squeezed her breasts as she climbed atop him. Lin was ravenous and Bumi was all she craved- and he knew that too. And in no world would he want her any less than she wanted him in that moment. Bumi tightened his arms around her back and tossed her down onto the mattress. She landed with a fluffy thud just as Bumi's lips found her neck. Her hands ruffled through his wild hair. 

Bumi couldn't remember for how long he had wanted this- his brain had turned to mush. He ran one hand down her breasts, straight through the slim gap between her belly and waistband and massaged her inner thigh perfectly- Lin had to moan to let him know. 

"Louder," he growled. 

She did not want to test that hypothesis- because what if someone did hear them? Suyin wasn't perfect. So she pulled his mouth on hers to shut them both up.

And that was how Lin Beifong had found herself quite literally thrust in that position.

She found out about an hour later when nobody came running to the trap, as she came, screaming into glory, that the trap was indeed sound proof. She came and then she came another time- her mind was in lost in the clouds of divine bliss. 

Lin offered up her handkerchief to him to wipe himself up. There was no telling how long they'd been fucking or how late into the night it had now become where they had been laying in bed holding each other. Bumi had been peppering her cheek and shoulder with soft kisses as they fell in and out of sleep. And it wasn't until morning- or so they thought- when they wordlessly began again on a string of kisses. 

Food and water had become all the needs of the sexless. With Lin in his arms, he had everything he needed to survive. 

"I might be getting addicted to you," he whispered by her jaw as he got on top of her. Lin pushed a wild strand of his hair behind his ear before he dipped back down to kiss her. 

"We all have our vices," Lin replied on his mouth. 

"Still wanna get out of here?" 

"You'd have to forcibly pry me out of this place." 

Bumi chortled and doubled down on her. There was something to be said about the way this prison had become their own perfect bubble. It was the embrace of the Sphere's Embrace. Whatever their relationship was outside of this bubble had no hold over them while they ravaged the each other. There were no thoughts of ramifications, no worries of what this meant- it was a pure expression of flooding desire- indomitable, delirious desire. 

Lin placed her hands against the platinum wall over the bed as Bumi rammed into her from behind. His hands were grasping her ass when she led one over her thigh and down in between her legs. He didn't need to be told what to do there, because by now, he knew her body better than he knew his own. 

"I'm getting close," she moaned, as he picked up the pace. His hands were flawlessly menacing her clit, making her whole body scream and sweat with endorphins. Had she known before hand how well their bodies complemented each other, she would've jumped him well before he ever left for the United Forces. 

"I can't tell you how long I've wanted this, Lin," he said, verbalizing her exact thoughts. 

She felt his teeth on her back and then she couldn't resist it anymore. 

"FUCK—" she screamed. "BUMI- I'M—" her voice wavered from a shrill moan into a throaty grunt from the high. 

"Shit," Bumi cussed at the sight before him. 

A sizzling sound broke through both their moans as Bumi crashed on top of her. Her hands had seemingly crumbled and broken through the sturdy walls of their personal bubble. There was now a massive hole in the wall, as the fresh breeze from the Island wafted inside. The nesting warmth of their ecosystem was gone. It was all cool winds. 

Bumi was still recovering, shifting beside her to spoon her from behind as Lin caught her breath. 

"We're free," he coughed. 

Lin whimpered, still getting off the high, unable to register what Bumi was talking about. She was still sensitive, groaning when Bumi rubbed her arm to catch her attention. 

"You broke the wall," he panted. "We're free to leave." 

Catching on, Lin quickly sat up in bed to see that the wall behind the bed had indeed disintegrated. 

"How did... " she stared at her hands in disbelief. 

Bumi sat up too, knitting his eyebrows together. "Did you bend platinum?" 

Lin huffed, not looking away from her hands. "Did I?" 

"I think I did," 

She glanced back up at the wall and then slowly brought her hands to it. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling at her element encased within what was known to be the purest form of metal. Bumi admired her naked form as she concentrated and within moments, to his shock, the wall tore open. 

She gaped at him with shock and he returned the same look of incredulity. It was dark outside, which meant that it had been a full day since their entrapment. As far as Lin knew, the Beifongs of Zaofu were living at Air Temple Island during their visit, so a sneaky, quiet exit was prudent. Luckily, Bumi had left his glider and clothes right behind a tree close to the Sphere's Embrace. 

Wordlessly, he got dressed as Lin followed his shadow behind the tree. In a moment, he had his arm around her waist, the other holding up the glider as they took flight. 

Heads down, they were silent the whole way to the city. They hadn't exchanged a single word since they had stepped outside the Sphere's Embrace. It had been a challenging twenty-four hours- especially now that they both fell victim to the phenomenon of some kind of captivity attachment. 

Once they reached the threshold of her house, it was Bumi who finally cleared throat to terminate the silence. They surely had the same thoughts resounding in their minds that neither wanted to be the first to verbalize. 

As she unlocked the door, Bumi stepped forward. "Can I come inside?" 

Lin gave him what he thought to be the sexiest smile he had ever seen. 

He took that as a yes and followed her in, shutting the door behind him. 

Ultimately, while the collapse of the Sphere's Embrace could be a painful and transformative experience into reality, it offered the chance for renewal and the possibility of creating new spheres of embrace that are even more fulfilling and enduring than before. As it turned out, Bumi had found his life-partner in the world's first platinum bender. 

[dr-abitat-blog]

Day 29: "Everybody will know you're mine."

@ailesswhumptober

T/W: Abusive parent, Father whumper, Son whumpee, punishment, branding, cult setting, blame

“Saturn…I really expected different from you.”

His footsteps creak against the wooden floorboards, circling me as I kneel there on the ground. The disappointment and disgust drips from every word. I feel his eyes glaring down at me, bearing into my soul. My skin crawls as his hand traces across the back of my neck, forcing my head down into a gesture of complete submission. “To think that my own son — of all people — would dare to act out against me.”

I growl shakily at him in response. It sounds rather pathetic through the sturdy muzzle strapped tightly behind my head. The buckles pull and catch at my scarlet strands with the slightest movement. The ropes binding my crossed wrists tightly behind my back are cinched painfully enough to leave prominent rope burns. I aim my own glare towards the ground, my muscles stiff and tense in anticipation of whatever punishment awaits me. Really, I should have expected it. After speaking out against him in front of all of the other Elders, I should have know that I would be pushing my luck — and this was where it had left me.

On my knees, at his mercy.

“After everything I have done for you, Saturn — you ungrateful child.”

His hand yanks at my hair, tugging my head cruelly upwards. I yell out in protest, blinking back hot tears as our eyes meet.

Do not let him see fear. 

Do not let him see fear.

I continue to hold my stance. Our narrowed eyes stare into each others’ — until he finally throws me back down to the ground with a scowl. 

“Pathetic. Have you truly forgotten your place, boy? You are my son, my flesh and blood — with a greater purpose that the Elements chose you for — and yet you speak of the Outside? Of leaving?”

There is nothing I can say in my defense. Nothing at all. “No matter. If you are that much of an imbecile that you need a reminder, then it is my duty as your father to give you it.”

Releasing his hold on me, he strides to the other side of the room. His long dark hair sweeps into his face, shadowing him as he picks up something thin and metal from the side of his bed. “I will make sure…that you never forget who you are, Saturn.”

With deliberate footsteps, he stalks back towards me. Now that he is closer, I catch the item in his hands glinting in its full glory — and my blood freezes.

No…E-Elements no—! “N-Nmmgh!”

“Hush,” he scolds, holding up the thin metal pole, “You are the one that asked for this, Saturn. You knew the consequences, yet you still acted against me.”

He starts…chanting. On the end of the pole is a delicate curved shape, a sigil — his sigil. His mark as an Elder. Before my own eyes, the sigil begins to glow a burning hot white.

He would not—s-surely he would not—!

With a horrified cry, I immediately try to shuffle towards the door — but I am unable to. Metal chains suddenly spring out from the surrounding circle, ensnaring my body in place, trapping me. I tug and struggle, beginning to thrash and cry out in panic — but he doesn’t stop. Not until he is right in front of me, holding the glowing hot sigil before my eyes.

“Do you have anything you wish to say to me?”

His fingers move for the straps of the muzzle, quickly unbuckling them and pulling the wretched thing from my face. The sigil is centimetres from me. I can feel the heat from here. Sweat breaks out on my brow as I shiver in fear. The fire leaves my eyes as an icy cold terror replaces it. I begin breathing rapidly, my shoulders rising as I pleadingly shake my head.

“I am sorry — I-I will never speak out of turn again, I—F-Father please—!”

His face remains unreadable. He doesn’t respond — other than to unbutton my shirt, pushing the crimson fabric aside to expose my chest. My breathing turns into panting, shaking my head desperately. “P-please, I—AGHHH!”

My skin is on fire. The surrounding flesh sizzles in a wave of hot agony. The metal is plunged into my chest, held firmly in place for several long seconds. My body jerks and writhes to avoid it, but it is no use. It remains firmly in place, burning into my skin. The scent of my own flesh burning makes me almost retch. The tears start seeping down my cheeks before I can stop them — a sign of weakness. 

“Do not be a coward, Saturn.”

Choking back a sob, I hold my tongue. I force the tears back, squeezing my eyes tightly shut and clenching my shaking fists behind my back. The heat. The smell. The pain—

“Finally.”

The metal is torn from my chest, leaving me keeling over, the room spinning in a dizzying haze. Through the blur, Father grabs hold of my face, squeezing my cheeks as he jerks me towards the mirror hanging on his wall. Slowly, my eyes take it in — the two of us standing there together, me on my knees in submission, as any son should be to their father — and the red raw sigil branded into my chest.

The sigil…of Lucifer.

“You see that?”

He presses a finger into the wound, eliciting a pained hiss from my trembling form. “That is what you are. My son.”

His grip tightens further. “Everybody will know that you’re mine.”

N-no—

“Especially you -- and you will know what I expect from you in the future to please me. Do not let me down, Saturn.”

I want to retaliate — but I cannot. The fear of the consequences is too great. Satisfied at my silence, he releases his hold, heading towards the open door. “I will leave you here to reflect on your actions and pray to the Elements for their forgiveness. Only when I am ready will I release you from this room.”

Without another word, he turns on his heel and slams the door closed. The lock clicks behind him and his footsteps fade away. Only when I am absolutely sure that he cannot hear me — do I finally start to sob.

[pandemic-info]

https://twitter.com/RealGayArbys/status/1700539156403830862

Making sweeping generalizations about how "everyone" is acting right now will not bring clarity or understanding to this moment. The truth is, humanity is not a monolith. And we are being cut off from one another/hidden from view, & not seeing a lot of what's actually going on.

I am begging yall to stop erasing those of us who DO CARE with your thoughtless word choices. "Nobody is wearing a mask anymore" is a distortion and a lie. You are not the only person in your community wearing a mask. You are not the lone person who gives a shit.

No matter where you live, I promise you there are disabled people who are trapped at home right now. And you contribute to their erasure when you say "no one in my city gives a shit." The people you're seeing out and about are not "everybody." You need to remember this.

Every time you say: 'hardly anyone cares,' 'no one is wearing a mask,' 'most people have just given up'? You are repeating right-wing talking points & you are personally distorting the truth. The truth is, we have no reliable way of knowing what percentage of us are still trying.

[purpleprincessonfyre]

OUAT AU - I Know Places

Angst and Hurt/Comfort

Ethane - Ethan Lensherr x Liane Felton

Fantasy AU

Inspired by the song I Know Places (Taylor's Version)

"They got their cages,

they got their boxes,

And guns.

They are the hunters, we are the foxes,

My love."

The woods darkened by the second as Ethan's horse cantered through the thorns and brush towards the tall twisted tower in the distance. His sword at his side, his helmet lowered, he was ready to kill this creature on sight for her wrong doings. Who would curse an innocent princess like that? And why? As soon as the curse had been lifted, the King had offered a heavy bounty for anyone who slayed the monster and brought back her head. Ethan was never one to pass up an opportunity for vengeance.

As he reached the twisted tower he heard no sound from the outside. Perhaps he was walking into a trap? He dismounted his horse, drew his sword and entered through the creaking, splintered door, making his way up the winding staircase as the wind whistled through every crack and crevice in the tower walls. Ethan had been told the creature was a vile and hideous woman with a heart as black as ink and terrifying powers. But that didn't scare him.

As he reached the top steps he heard a slight sound coming from the floor above, it sounded like...crying? The closer he got the louder the sound became and he gripped his sword tighter, ready to find an innocent soul trapped in this wicked tower.

Instead he saw a young woman, curled up in a corner, head between her knees sobbing. Her long purple tresses were being swamped by bright blonde roots, long curving black horns protruded from her head and scars ran down her tearstained cheeks and neck as she sobbed.

The knights presence became known as he entered and Ethan was suddenly looking directly into deep purple eyes. He knew those eyes well...it couldn't be! His mind reached back to a simpler time and instead of seeing this woman he instead saw a young girl with bright blonde hair, short black horns and huge sweeping wings on her back, giggling and smiling....

"Something happens when

Everybody finds out.

See the vultures circling dark clouds."

"Who are you?" The young girl demanded, pointing a long stick at the young boy, her purple eyes filled with determination.

"I'm not a monster, I promise!"

"But you are a human, right?"

"I...well-"

"You're trespassing in the realm of the Fae."

"The Fae- ohhhhh. That's why father said not to step on those circles of mushrooms..."

"You...you entered a fairy circle?"

"Yes?"

The young girl chuckled, trying to look serious but couldn't help herself but laugh.

"Hey!"

"Sorry but that is your own fault. You shouldn't have stepped in the circle."

"Just...can you put the stick down?"

"It's my stick."

"Please?" His green eyes pleaded with her as she frowned, unsure of whether this boy was trustworthy.

"You promise not to hurt the fairies? Or our land?"

"Cross my heart." And he did so.

"Good. I'm glad to hear it."

"So why are you here then?"

"I'm a fairy too."

The boy frowned, looking her up and down, noting her dirty bare feet, her ragged dress and her horns.

"Y'don't look like any fairy I know."

"What do you think we look like?"

"I dunno. Smaller, they wear flower colours, they have wands. And they have wings."

"I have wings too!" The girl retorted, indignant.

"Well, can I see them then?"

"See what?"

"Your wings, silly!"

"That's a bit rude, you can't ask to see my wings."

"Well then I guess you haven't got any..." The boy said, sniffing. The girl grimaced before arching her back very deliberately and out came two large, feathery, purple wings from her back. The boy looked on in awe.

"Wow! They're so pretty! And they match your eyes!"

"Thanks...I'm Liane."

"Ethan, nice to meet you."

"Lights flash and we'll run for the fences,

Let them say what they want

We won't hear it.

Loose lips sink ships all the damn time,

Not this time."

Ethan blinked and there was his childhood fairy friend, Liane, crying on the floor in the dark tower.

"Liane?"

"Ethan....I'm sorry."

"You cursed the Princess?!"

"It was foolish, I know!"

"You're the monster?"

"Thanks.." she spat bitterly, tears still rolling her cheeks.

"But why?"

"Jealousy, selfishness, pride, envy, just kill me already! I know that's why you're here! Yes I cursed the Princess to prick her finger and die! Yes my plan failed miserably! Yes I feel awful! Now just kill me, you idiot!" She screamed, her eyes now glowing purple as she sat there, waiting for her death.

Ethan looked her in the eye, held up his sword, and dropped it at her feet.

"I can't kill you."

"What?"

"I can't do it, Liane."

"Why not!"

"Because I care about you, you stupid fairy! I've always cared about you."

"You have?"

"Yes. You can make rash decisions, you get jealous, you're uncouth, you say things that would make Kings blush but I love all of those things. You matter to me."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart.." he smiled, taking her hand and helping her to her feet, noticing something on her back. Something rigid that used to feel soft and feathery. Something that felt raw. Like it had been sliced away from her body.

"Your back...it's-"

"Don't." She cut in, flinching away from him as he grazed her back with his fingers.

"Where are your wings?"

"Ethan stop it."

"I'm asking, where are they?"

"Please..."

"WHERE ARE YOUR WINGS?!"

"Love's a fragile little flame it could burn out,

It could burn out..."

"Can I touch them?" A slightly older than before Ethan asked, admiring her wings the way he always did.

"Um, as long as you're gentle, then yes." Liane held out her wing to Ethan, letting him stroke it. As his hand touched her feathery wing, it felt like stroking a soft bed, so smooth and so warm to the touch. He smiled.

"Well?"

"They're so soft! And fluffy!"

"Thank you.." she smiled, a soft blush creeping into her cheeks as her continued to stroke her wing like she was an injured bird or a scared horse. It was comforting in a strange way. Like the way her mother used to stroke her hair when she was little.

"Can we go flying now?"

"What's the magic word?"

"Please?" Ethan begged, his big green eyes as round as marbles as Liane relented, taking hold of him by the waist firmly, her eyes turning to the skies as they began to ascend, swooping and soaring through the trees and into the clouds as Ethan whooped and giggled, Liane smiling and chuckling as they flew so effortlessly through the sky.

The feeling of flying on Liane's wings was like nothing else mattered, just him and her in the wind and the breeze for as long as they pleased. He felt safe in her arms and knew she would never let him come to harm.

"Just grab my hand don't ever drop it,

My love..."

"It was my price for the curse!" She howled, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed. "I wanted to curse the future Queen as payback for what the King and his men did to my land so I went to The Dark Prince for a curse!

"He told me it would cost me dearly and he said he would take from me something precious. Something I can't live without. My wings...I was blinded by greed and anger, I agreed and he promised that when I succeeded he would return me my wings with the knowledge that I would owe him from then on. He took that horrible blade and cut them off, displaying them in his disgusting castle like a trophy! But I failed....and now I can never have them back!" She sobbed, stroking her now raw and rigid back mournfully.

Ethan sighed and tried to console her but rage of his own was festering in his heart as she spoke. Learning that his closest friend had made a deal and had her wings clipped by the most powerful man in the realm for a curse made him more than angry. His heart now ached for the woman he had grown to love, holding her fast as she cried harder and harder.

"You have to go, they'll kill you too for betraying the king."

"I'm not going to leave you here."

"Ethan please-"

"Come with me." His eyes were inviting and warm, his gauntleted hand holding tight to hers. He wanted to take her away from all this, take her far away from the Kings and their knights. He pulled off his helmet and tossed it to the ground as a sign he wouldn't break this promise.

"They'll come for both of us."

"Let them. We'll keep running. You and I can leave this place, my horse will take us to greener pastures, we need nothing but ourselves for company. For the rest of forever you are mine, Liane."

"I...I love you. I've always loved you."

He kissed her, holding her tight as his lips crashed against her darkened, cracked lips, watching as the fire in her eyes calmed and her heart beat started to slow. His hand went to her stained hair and he held her like he was never letting go.

The two mounted the horse as the sun started to set in the west, Liane covered her head with her cloak carefully, holding on tight to Ethan's waist as they looked towards the thicket in the distance.

"Let's leave this awful forest."

"Together."

"For now and for always."

And they rode off into the waning night, from anyone who would want them dead, heading for a life far quieter and far simpler than the ones cut out for them.

"(I) In the dead of night

Your eyes so green....

(Hide) And I know for you

It's always me."

Thanks for reading!

@jackiequick @gcthvile @cherrysft @blueboirick @meiramel @ask-starrk @ask-missparker @askstevella @finlayholmes @rickb-chaos @luna-d-marsh @therealdaydreamstark @thechoooooosenone @wizzzardofoz

[purrassicjet]

I've never done WIP Wednesday before, and I may even be late to it, but here's the half-chapter I wrote for Ivy on the Trees before I lost interest in it. I may return to finish it/the fic one day, but for now, here:

From the chapter "Party Policies":

The door creaked as Ivy tried to sneak into class. Usually, she’d be good at this, but she couldn’t help her environment. She winced and slid through the small crack she had opened up, jogging around the edge of the room to minimise the risk of people staring. It didn’t work, she could feel the class’s eyes boring into her back, but she tried to ignore it. She hadn't attended one of these classes in a long while, she supposed it was a surprise to see her there. 

At least Oisin looked happy to see her when she walked up. The tip of his tail twitched when he noticed her approaching, his grin wide and excited. Her heart soared and she jogged the last few steps towards him. 

“Ivy!” He called out in a whisper-shout, beckoning her over to the Rat Grinder's table, “We haven't started yet. You're just in time! I'm so glad you're here.” 

There was a ‘We're lost without you’ implied there that made Ivy smile.

She smiled and slid into her seat between Oisin and Ruben, shuffling so she was sitting closer to Oisin than to Ruben, who was still giving her nervous glances. Just as she sat, the teacher, who’s name Ivy could never remember, tapped on the board, calling the class to attention.

“Alright, everybody. You know the drill by now. Your time starts… now.”

Ivy switched her gaze quickly from the board to the projection table in front of her, sharp ears picking up the soft click of the timer starting. Two hellhounds appeared on the table, growling menacingly despite their small size, surrounded by a red rocky terrain. 

Ruben said, “Hellhound, large-” at the same time as Ivy leaned over the table and started saying “Hellhound. Fiend-”

They locked eyes for a second. 

“I do the readouts on the enemies.” Ivy stated bluntly, giving Ruben a stare. 

“Well,” He spluttered, “You haven't been here in a while and-” 

“You're wrong as well.” She interrupted, conscious of their minute ticking away, “A hellhound is a medium fiend, not a large one. No wonder you've been doing poorly without me, you can't even get basic facts right.” She didn't realise quite how much venom was in her voice until Oisin gave her a warning kick under the table. 

She whined and hissed at him, but took a deep and purposeful breath, “Sorry, Ruben. I repeat, the hellhound is a medium fiend and-” 

Her stomach lurched painfully as she was hit with a teleportation spell she wasn't ready for. She was deposited on the floor of a desert-like area with the sound of a dog growling nearby. 

“Asshole!” Ivy exclaimed, wheeling on Ruben in frustration. She knew she shouldn't be reacting like this, that she was supposed to be trying to reconcile with her party, but she couldn't help feeling the anger bubble up inside of her. “If you had just let me do the readout, we would have had time to actually discuss!”

“If you had actually attended classes, I wouldn't have needed to!” Ruben yelled back, waving his ukelele around in frustration. He had been much quicker to stand. 

She opened her mouth to talk back, but the beginnings of bright orange light hit the edges of her vision. “Everybody get down!” She yelled, scrambling across the sandy ground and tackling Ruben. Her back heated as fire passed above her. She shut her eyes tightly until it was finished. 

“Woah, Ivy-” 

“Shut up. Later.” Ivy rolled off of him, eyes sweeping for her fellow party members. Lucy was patting out a fire on Oisin's back, but other than that, everybody looked fine. 

“What I was trying to say was that hellhounds usually travel in packs. If there are two, chances are there are more!” She grabbed the bow she dropped when she teleported, pulling an arrow out of her quiver and nocking it back. 

“I think I can trap these two.” Oisin piped up, magic swimming around his hands, “They're made of fire, right Ivy?” 

“Yeah.”

“Then this should be helpful.” Magical energy concentrated in a ball in front of him, and once he released it, it took on a watery appearance. The ball shot towards the attacking hellhounds, growing as it went on, so much that once it reached them, it efficiently engulfed most of their bodies, trapping them in place. 

[klarawouldrather]

Falling In Reverse's Watch The World Burn

Just an hour ago Falling In Reverse released their new single Watch The World Burn, alongside a killer videoclip. Ronnie Radke has said in the past that he doesn't like when bands anticipate their new releases, it takes forever and there is no joy or surprise in it.; he prefers just dropping new shit out of the blue when people aren't expecting it, and this time was one of them. I think it is safe to say we all agree with him.

This new song is perfectly coherent in sound and theme with their last two singles released in 2022: ZOMBIFIED, and Voices In My Head. Falling In Reverse have found the best sound for this new epoch, displayed for the first time in their hit Popular Monster, and Ronnie Radke has perfected the mix of the vocals and the song in general. I'm specially a fan of his pronunciation during the harder parts of the song, where he opens a lot the vowels. It is pure sound quality, can't get any better than this.

The structure of the song is pretty much the same one that their 2022 singles have, starting with a Trap intro, altho this time way longer than what one would expect -over a minute and a half-, but it fits perfectly. Then it follows into a short fast Rap section heavily inspired in Eminem (the main rapper Ronnie Radke draws inspiration from) going way faster than, again, one would expect. Finally it builds up and breaks into the modern Falling In Reverse metal sound.

I was beginning to think we weren't gonna hear from their new lead guitarist Max Georgiev; but we do atho not much, only some sweet sweep picking arpeggios. This is the first release of the band he participates in so the project was already cooked before he joined anyways. He fits perfectly in the band replacing Jacky Vincent who went on to focus on his amazing Neo Power Metal project Cry Venom. Both Jacky Vincent and Max Georgiev have a virtuoso classical and symphonic inspired playing style, the later having a beautiful album of classical guitar pieces called Exorcism Chapter One. The two current members of the band listed as co-composers are the also lead guitarist Christian Thompson (who joined Falling in Reverse in 2015 participating in Just Like You and Coming Home) and the bassist and backing and lead vocalist Tyler Burgess. We can also see in the videoclip one of the best drummers of the music scene, Luke Holland. He is not a permanent member of Falling In Reverse, but he's been participating with the band for over two years now.

During the metal part of the track Ronnie Radke builds up and climaxes in a harmonized high note just like in Voices In My Head, and the drop that follows frankly sounds the same as the one in that song. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is clear that these three singles are sisters just as the trilogy Losing My Mind / Losing My Life / Drugs. It is expected that two other songs will join Voices in my head, Zombified, and Watch The World Burn, in a 5 songs EP titled Neon Zombie to be released this year 2023.

The videoclip is full of pop culture references, with warlike imagery and the same concept of Ronnie Radke being some kind of destructive force in a wooden closed space, this time a church, just like as we see in the single that cemented their contemporary sound Popular Monster. I gotta say, my favourite videoclip of the ones in this development arch is Voices In My Head, but this one is specially epic and powerful just as the song is.

Thematically it feels like a synthesis of the other two songs of this afromentioned sisterhood of singles, it literally opens with "I got voices in my head again". Talks about trauma, needing therapy, depression, and aggressiveness like in Voices In My Head; and about being criticized and how supposedly "Nowadays everybody’s so sensitive" like in ZOMBIFIED.

Now this last faulty idea is based on a talking point of the hegemonic media and buffoons of the dominant class that aims to spread fearmongery about an imaginary cancel culture, like it is shit on the walls of a public bathroom. It is a shame that such a talented musician has fallen into this discursive tomfoolery: no Ronnie, teens on the internet are not coming for you, you can still choose to be a bigot on the internet if you so choose, people being called out on transphobia on twitter is not literally 1984, it is the bare minimum of accountability. It seems to me that victims that bite into this ideological trap are the ones with the thinner skin, thinking we are zombied cuz we don't tolerate bullshit.

Still, Watch The World Burn is one hell of a song that even copying aspects of their other two last singles, feels unique and full of personality. Falling In Reverse does not fail to deliver.

Grade: 9/10

XOXO

[bafflement]

Deaged Oz AU - After The Meeting

Tip looked up as a knock sounded at the door to the set of rooms they all shared in Atlas. He wasn't expecting anyone, but everybody else was away at the moment. He shrugged, putting his book down and getting to his feet, maybe they were after Qrow?

Moving over to the door, though, it revealed a boy not much older than Tip was, who blinked down at him in surprise.

"Uh... Wintertip Pine?" The boy enquired, sounding rather doubtful.

Tip nodded. "Yes, that would be me. Why?" His hand crept towards the hilt of his rapier as he spoke, though, eyes busily scanning for anyone else that might have come with the boy. To catch him alone was rare enough that this just seemed to scream 'trap' to him.

"I have something I need to deliver to you. Your eyes only, though... I was expecting you to be rather older?" The boy shrugged and held out a bound scroll. Tip took it, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

"Any idea what this is about?" He asked, hoping to at least get some context clues from the strange event. Though he doubted Salem would have provided any written evidence of her plans if it was actually her, that would be so far out of character that... well, never mind.

He slit the seal open and scanned the contents, stopping halfway through to adjust his glasses slightly. The paper was a strange shade of almost purple, though the ink seemed normal enough. Was it... scented? His eyebrow rose further upon the discovery that yes, yes it was... this was not exactly normal correspondance to send to an eleven year old.

He noted the name and almost smiled. Lady Greenbriar had been the older woman on Atlas Council, the one that had taken none of James' attitude and had seemed to recognise him. He had no real memory of her, but maybe this meeting could change that?

She wanted him to come alone, which was slightly problematic, but she had specified a time about an hour from now, the others wouldn't be back yet. If he was quick enough, maybe they'd never need to know? He was pretty sure she wouldn't harm him, at least.

He smiled at the boy who'd delivered it and nodded to him. "Please inform her that I'll be there and thank you." The boy looked weirdly more intimidated by Tip's calm acknowledgement of what was really a summons than he had to delivering the letter. Ah well, maybe this wasn't the normal reaction, but Tip was highly curious now...

Picking out clothing took less time than it might have, had the lady in question not probably once been a friend of his father's. Ah well, at least Winter might be happy that he'd chosen Schnee colors for this? It felt slightly manipulative, but it could give him an advantage if the talk went south... and if Winter found out where he was, he knew she tended to be more gentle when reminded forcefully that they were related.

Brothers, but he hated doing that... he wasn't a child, he wasn't helpless... he wasn't even really that sickly anymore with the help of his aura. They needed to stop treating him as though he would break, he was an accomplished Huntsman, after all...

He froze in the doorway to the room where he had been told to meet her. She wasn't alone, a man sat with her who was familiar. Why was Lark Winchester of all people here, though? He was aware that like the Ironwoods... and the Schnee's, the Winchesters had lost a child to that same kidnapping circle, but why would he be interested in Tip, of all people? He wasn't Wren Winchester, after all... he couldn't bring her back.

A flash, then, briefest memory hitting. Wren, her blonde hair and her... oh no... her bright green eyes. He shook himself out of it, though. He had to be imagining things.

"So, this is the child you wanted me to meet, my lady?" Lark's voice was light, but his eyes were hard as he stared at the tousle haired little boy.

"Does he really look that unfamiliar to you, Lark?" Lady Greenbriar's tone held laughter, her eyes soft as she, too, looked at Tip.

"I..." Lark broke off, sweeping a second, more assessing look over Tip. He shook his head slightly, looked again. Tip felt rather like an insect under the microscope at that point, but suppressed the feeling. His shoulders straightened as he met Lark's eyes.

Lark Winchester, pillar of the community in Atlas that he was, proud chairman of the Winchester Military Equipment Company, started to swear. Lady Greenbriar looked impressed. Tip just grinned at him, which seemed to set off a fresh round of profanity, slowly getting more impressive before Lark regained control of himself.

"... Winter?" It wasn't really a question, though. Tip nodded, grin more rueful now and Lark just closed his eyes briefly.

"What happened to you? How are you... why are you...? You know what? Never mind, that can wait. I'm just so damn glad you're alive!"

Tip blushed, even as Lady Greenbriar sighed. "Unfortunately there's more to it than that, Lark. It turns out that little Winter Schnee here is the wizard."

"Excuse me?" Lark stated it flatly, disbelief in every iota of his body language.

"Unfortunately, yes." Tip agreed, calmly. He adjusted his hold on The Long Memory pointedly and Lark's eyes flew to the cane.

He promply started swearing again.

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Somehow, Through the Storm

Summary:

Living in the slums of the Warehouse District, Kaz and Inej are struggling to cling on to life through a seemingly unending winter. Wrapped up in a stranger's overcomplicated marriage contract that he is convinced is key to solving the merciless weather, Kaz remains busy and distracted for days on end, putting everything else at risk. So when a storm ravages the city and sweeps Inej into danger, the offer of safety, food, and a place to stay is an overwhelming one - no matter the cost. Terrified of mounting threats, Inej signs a contract - not knowing she would land herself trapped at the Menagerie. Kaz signs a contract that states if he can walk all the way through the city and back to the Warehouse District with Inej behind him, never looking back at her, they will both go free. But this is the Barrel, the darkest part of the city where the rules of physics can change with the stroke of a pen; the journey back will not be the same as journey there…

This is a Hadestown-inspired reimagining of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, casting Kaz and Inej as our main characters and heavily featuring our beloved Crows, set in an alternate version of the Grishaverse with a different magic system based entirely on contracts.

Tags: @lunarthecorvus @marielaure @multi-fandom-bi @igotthisaccountunderduress @thelibraryofalexandriastillburns @devoted-people-hater @spraypaintstainonawhitewall

If anyone else would like to be added to the tag list let me know <3

Warnings for this chapter: ptsd references, implied past sa references, major character fake death, implied abuse references, implied child abuse references, fear of sa, fear of abuse, slavery refernces (similar to Kerch indenture contracts), implied possible forced marriage

Note: There was honestly so much more that I wanted to get into this chapter but it got a bit long so I'll just have to keep you all guessing a tiny touch longer...

AO3 link:

Chapter 10 - Inej

“People turn on you just like the wind, everybody is a fair weather friend. In the end, you’re better off alone. Any way the wind blows,”

- Any Way the Wind Blows, Hadestown

There were two statues of Sankta Anastasia in Ketterdam. Inej didn’t know why, exactly, but there were. It had surprised her to learn that there was a single statue of any Saint anywhere in the city, or quite honestly the entire country, and of all of them she didn’t think that Anastasia particularly represented any Kerch values at all. No-one under Ghezen would bleed themselves dry to heal the sickness of others; what prosperity did you get yourself from that? But so it was, for whatever reason, that there were two statues of Sankta Anastasia nearby - and though she didn’t believe statues were necessary for prayer, Inej was hardly going to complain about it. 

The bigger of the two statues was in the Ravkan Embassy, in the North of the city but not quite far East enough to encroach onto the Geldin District. The Anastasia there was in the centre of a small town square, wrought in grey stone, water falling from her neck and legs and outstretched arms into a fountain basin below, as though she were bleeding into them. People used to drink the water for good luck, apparently, but that changed into tossing pennies into the basin after Ketterdam’s most recent plague outbreak and has continued on for the past decade. Now, plague or none, the water was surely too churned up with metal to be safe to drink. Inej had heard from somewhere that the stadhall had it emptied and cleaned through every year or so, and then returned a small percentage of the coins to it so it still looked inviting for people to continue asking Anastasia for their blessings. She wondered what they did with the rest of the cash. She wondered if they’d been the ones to push the coins idea instead of drinking the water in the first place, to see if they couldn’t wring the Ravkans dry of just a few more pennies than they already had. After all, she’d never known prayer to rely on money anywhere at home. 

It was the second statue of Sankta Anastasia that she was standing underneath now. This one was smaller, positioned at the front of the Church she’d been so fitfully attending at the North of the Warehouse District, and had perhaps been the place she chose for a meeting point just to force herself to walk in and light incense for her parents beforehand. She’d knelt on the stone and clutched the match with shivering fingers, fighting to swallow her tears as someone glanced in her direction. 

This statue was not only smaller than the other one, but more mournful as well. She was cast in black rock, less smoothly sculpted and instead chiselled in definitive, sharp lines that rendered her in equal detail but gave her a pained, maybe even frightened expression. It was something in her eyes, maybe. Her limbs weren’t so much outstretched as they were laid around her, as though someone else had arranged them on her behalf - which, Inej supposed, they had, her being artwork and all - and instead of the popular depiction of her long, flowing red hair the artist had designed a long braid falling from the corner of a headscarf and tumbling over one of her shoulders. It almost seemed as though she had been caught in an unexpected wind, and was staring through it with fright burning in her eyes. Inej thought that this Anastasia looked younger than the other. 

When Inej had woken yesterday morning, curled tightly on top of the blanket in Kaz’s attic room, it had been so many hours after dawn that she could hardly believe it. When was the last time she had slept past sunrise? It took her a long few minutes to move; she listened to the silence of the room, to the movement and voices on the floors below her, and waited in stillness until she was convinced she was alone. When she did sit up, it was a cautious movement on stiff limbs that she only dared to stretch after a moment of holding herself in place, perched atop the mattress, her eyes gliding through the room. She had not forgotten the terror that had found her the previous night. 

But the attic was empty except for her, and there was no sign that anyone else had been here all night - the few things she had touched were exactly where she’d left them, the keys to the windows still nearby even though they’d dropped out of her sleeve. Inej stood and stretched her arms, then her spine, then her legs, then finally her neck. She rolled her shoulders and felt relief move through her. 

How long would the space remain empty, though? Kaz had said he would be back this morning, but he hadn’t specified when. Inej crept to the door and tested it again, just lightly - still unlocked. She breathed. 

The blanket had become slightly crumpled beneath Inej overnight, so she quickly knelt and straightened it before returning the little pillow to its place. The shirt she’d used to prop up her head in its place was, of course, creased and lined but it was cleaner than the one she was wearing so she found a position against the partition wall where none of the windows, or the mirror, could set their eyes on her and quickly swapped them. There were a few other small things to do to set the room to rights - she returned Kaz’s window keys to the little tin he kept tucked behind the basin, wiped down the countertop with the little towel and refolded it as neatly as she could manage, reset anything else she thought she might have accidentally knocked or moved. Then she paused in front of the mirror, which hung on the wall above the water basin, as she unpinned her hair. 

The glass was slightly smudgy, as though it had not been cleaned for some time, but even so Inej could see the exhaustion in the girl on the other side of the glass, the darkness hiding in her eyes, the places where she’d been ripped apart and attempted to stitch herself back together again. In some ways, it bothered how obvious they were. Seams were supposed to be hidden and neat; after two years of being someone who had to carry a needle and thread in her pocket, Inej still wasn’t sure that her reflection looked like a particularly accomplished seamstress. 

From the tightness of the braid crown that she’d slept in, there was still the tiniest remnant of damp clinging to her hair. For the most part it had dried in the shape of her plaits and now, as she shook it out over her shoulders, held a vague pattern of tight waves. She ran her comb through it briefly, regathering the frazzled strays and teasing out the small knot that had formed in a lock of her at the front of her face, slightly shorter than the bulk of her hair, that had come half free of the braid overnight and narrowly avoided creating a semi-permanent bond between Inej and the shirt beneath her head as it tangled itself around one of the buttons, and then split it in two over her shoulders and pulled it into two, relatively loose, low plaits. 

What time was it? Inej crept back across the room, thinking to check the clock on Kaz’s desk, but before she could reach it a floorboard creaked beyond the door. It was barely a millisecond that Inej had been frozen in place; before the door could even have been pushed open she’d crossed the room, slung her bag over her shoulder, leapt towards the window like there was a fire beneath her feet, and was gone. 

Anastasia and Inej stared at each other for a moment. That was another thing about this second statue: Anastasia was at almost the perfect eye level for most of the street’s passersby. She was built to a human scale, her back a little taller than Inej’s, her pedestal barely large enough to call it one. Her dress fell simply and plainly, and she stood sentinel outside the Church with her sad, silent eyes as though she were begging you to step inside. She wanted to help, she seemed to be saying, and she knew that she could if you would let her. Inej wondered if she’d known the whole time that helping was killing her, or if it was only deeper into the path she’d chosen that the realisation came. Would she have changed her mind? Had she wanted to, but found herself too deep in to turn around? 

It was a little unnerving, after she’d done it for a moment too many, to keep staring into the Saint’s eyes. Inej almost wanted to take her hand. 

She looked away. 

When she left the Slat, yesterday, Inej had made it across several rooftops with her heart burning in her throat before she realised that she’d forgotten her comb. She stood above a drainpipe, watching the streets of the Warehouse District below her, cheeks stinging in the crisp morning air and the skin of her hands already cold and bitten by the wind. The comb was lying on Kaz’s counter, discarded by the mirror. She could have gone back for it. Logically, she knew that to be true. The room was probably still empty, and even if it weren’t most of the times that Inej visited Kaz she would simply slide in through the window to find him at his desk. She could go back and find the comb. She knew that. 

But she’d still slipped away into the horizon, only dropping to the cobbles once she was several streets away, the Slat nothing more than a simple dot vanishing in her wake.

There was a small section of canal along the South edge of the Warehouse District, on the opposite border to where it met the Barrel but instead closer to where the city began to gradually give way into the countryside, where small market stalls often gathered. They were often packed up and sent running by stadwatch patrols, permits were so difficult to come by that they suspected anyone selling anything was doing it illegally and most of the time they were correct, but Inej had never actually seen any illegal items up for sale. She liked to walk through even though she couldn’t afford anything, and had more than once hovered by a food stand until the owner told her to clear out. Sometimes you might get lucky enough for them to give you something small for free, an exchange for moving on and not bothering their customers any longer. 

Yesterday, though, Inej had walked into the market with over fifty kruge sewn into her jacket and twenty clutched in her fist, which in turn was buried deep inside her pocket. Money she had earned. She probably should’ve saved the cash, tried to gather up enough to find herself a hostel or even just a room for rent where someone might be willing to take her on, but she was so hungry. She bought a pastry, and then another, and then she even indulged herself enough to buy a coffee in a paper cup. Perched on the curb, her feet planted on the road in front of her, Inej inhaled the steam rising from her drink like its warmth was a drug, buzzing in the fingers clutched around the cup and shivering inside her with every breath. It was too hot to drink yet but she sipped it anyway, almost welcoming the brief burning sensation that it brought over her lips and against her tongue.

A footstep sounded behind her and she forced herself to calm - no-one was following her, no-one was looking for, no-one knew or cared who she was and even if they did it wouldn’t make a difference. It was a busy market street, and a footstep behind her meant nothing at all. 

“Inej,”

Inej almost jumped out of her skin. Coffee sloshed over the lip of her cup and scalded her skin as she leapt up to her feet and she dropped the drink in shock, but still she was quick enough to slip her other hand into her brass knuckles as she spun and - 

Kaz caught her fist in the air, nothing but the tiny barrier of metal and leather in between them. Inej tried to calm her breathing as he drew away, dark eyes flicking over her and the dropped coffee. The dark brown liquid had spilled across the cobbles like the paper cup was bleeding.

“I thought we weren’t meeting until tomorrow,” Inej managed, as though in hopes of retaining some dignity, or as though to blame his lack of timekeeping instead of her own overactive heart rate for her response to the surprise. 

Kaz adjusted himself against his cane, then slipped a hand into the pocket of his perfectly tailored jacket. A moment seemed to hang in the air and Inej swallowed something that might have been anger or embarrassment at the realisation that she’d tensed as she watched him, but then there was a small wooden comb hovering in the space between them, loose in Kaz’s outstretched hand. 

“You forgot this,”

Inej hated that she hesitated, but she did. She imagined his grip on the comb tightening as she reached for it, or pulling it out of reach just to see if she would clamour for it. But the comb slipped silently from Kaz’s gloved hand into her own, still slightly painful, one, and a second later it was safely tucked into her bag. 

“Did you burn yourself?”

“It’s fine,” she breathed, picking up the now empty cup and discarding it in the waste bin nearby, then turning to pace back towards Kaz. It was only after another moment of silence had passed between them that she gathered the courage to say: “What business, Kaz?”

“We may as well talk now, unless you were going to gather any more information today; no point waiting until tomorrow when we’re already here. And besides,” he glanced at the pool of coffee running over the road, “It would appear that I owe you a drink,”

Someone stepped out from the Church, behind Anastasia’s statue, and Inej watched them attempt in vain to shake the city’s smog out of their shirt cuffs before they began to walk away. She had told Nina that she would wait all morning, but after only near to fifteen minutes standing by the statue she was starting to feel concerned that the people would think she was suspicious. Luckily, Nina did not take much longer to appear - Inej had been starting to wonder if she would duck into a storefront or even the Chapel, and whether it might look more normal for her to wait indoors. But Nina arrived at somewhere near to twenty past nine bells, her eyes scanning the small courtyard until Inej stepped out from behind Anastasia and into view. 

She’d written the letter to Nina as soon as Kaz left her, after the market. Or rather, as soon as she'd made it across the city to the nearest library and was perched at a little table with free paper and free ink sitting in front of her. Sometimes she could hardly believe the magic of libraries. She could also hardly believe that the Kerch hadn’t disestablished them yet. 

She’d spent some time sitting and reviewing what she’d written, to make sure that the message was clear enough but that the letter made sense alone as well. Would Nina understand what she was saying? Inej had little confidence in her own skill, but Nina was smart enough, she had no doubt, to know what Inej was asking even if the message didn't make perfect sense. To her, of course, it was clear, but she struggled to tell if it would be to anyone else. She read through it for what felt like the thousand and first time:

I’m afraid that each time I come to write to you anything interesting I might have been planning to tell you is simply forgotten - I must start making myself notes throughout the week and gathering them together when I sit to write. - “I’m not writing on business, but you’ll hear from me about that soon,”

I think it’s just that it feels so stilted to write and for it to take so long to receive each other’s replies; I could write you a letter every day and still have plenty more to tell you when you visit. You will visit soon, won’t you? I know you’re busy, but I do miss you. - “We need to speak in person, if you can.”

I’m going to Sankta Anastasia’s statue tomorrow - the one outside the Church in the village, that is, not the big one in town - to start preparations for her festival. - “Meet me at the smaller statue of Sankta Anastasia, outside the Church in the Warehouse District”

Anyway, I’ll be there all morning from nine bells tomorrow, sorting what tables and ribbons and all we already have and seeing if we need to order anything in, then in the afternoon I’m meeting up with Gregor. - “I’ll wait for you, come any time in the morning from nine bells, but I’ll have to leave come afternoon,”

He doesn’t know I’m going to Sankta Anastasia’s, I should add. - “Kaz doesn't know I’m writing this. He doesn’t know we’re meeting,”

Sankta Marya - that didn’t mean anything specific, really, but Inej wanted to know more about the Van Ecks and for as much as Kaz talked about them she didn’t feel that he had told her very much. Nina would know more. 

You know he won’t be happy if I go into town on my own so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me keeping myself busy with this instead. - “I’d come to you, but Kaz is strange about the boundary line; if I’m lying to him either way then this is better,”

I do worry about you in that city. They say such strange things about it that I lose track of which ones might be true and which are entirely made up. - “I’ve been here for months and still no-one will tell me anything,”

Eurydice - that was the name she’d registered at Hendrija’s with, the one she’d used at most places in Ketterdam and the first name Kaz had managed to track her down under before he found the real one. Inej still wasn’t sure how he’d managed that. 

Nina was wearing a soft red blouse and black trousers beneath her unbuttoned coat and her hair was mostly piled up at the back of her head, except for a few front pieces that were loose to frame her face and swaying slightly in the persistent breeze. She waved lightly at Inej as she approached, smiling in a way that made the green swirl of her eyes shimmer slightly. 

Inej didn’t know exactly how they’d ended up sitting in a coffee shop - she was trying to save her money, but all the same she’d followed Nina through the door and paid for what was almost definitely an overpriced cup of coffee. It tasted good though, and the warmth of it seemed to burrow deep inside her, settling close and cosy.

When she’d followed Kaz nervously to another food stand yesterday, he’d bought two coffees and then asked her if she wanted anything else. For a moment she’d only been able to stand there in silence, as though her brain was slightly out of time with the world. She stared at the menu without reading it, then shook her head. He’d said he owed her a drink and she would let him settle it. She didn’t want them to owe each other anything else. Somewhere in between the Ravkan woods two years ago and running from a house in a Ketterdam shanty town as fast as her legs could carry her, Inej had finally managed to realise that owing anybody anything was dangerous. People could turn on you in an instant; trust, no matter how welcomingly it might be shaped, was too sharp an edged thing to hold onto it too tight. 

“Are you staying at the Slat tonight?” he’d asked her, before they parted ways. 

Inej hesitated, but before she had a chance to ask anything he’d added: 

“I’m out again; it’s no imposition,”

“I could have left my comb behind then,” she’d teased lightly, not really sure where she’d got the gall. 

Kaz shrugged. 

“Well if I hadn’t come to see you, you wouldn’t have known to come back. And I wouldn’t have seen you followed my suggestion to get yourself a weapon, either,”

Inej smiled. 

“Brass knuckles weren’t exactly what I had in mind,” he admitted, “But I should think they’re a good place for you to start. There was power behind that punch you threw at me, but no precision - no finesse. You need to learn to fight,” 

“Who am I fighting?”

“I’m afraid you’ll find a lot of enemies in our line of work,” Kaz replied, “You’d best prepare yourself to face them,”

They had been his parting words to her, and she was left standing alone with an empty paper cup in her hands, watching his back disappear around the corner. Our line of work. Was that really what she wanted? 

“So,” Nina placed her mug onto the little table in between them, then settled deep into her chair, “What did you want to talk about? I mean - Kaz, Marya, sure, but what exactly?”

Inej sipped her coffee again, trying to sort through her thoughts and arrange them into the right order. She’d practised what she wanted to stay inside her head whilst she was waiting for Nina, and yet somehow it had flown right out again now that they were actually sitting here. She wanted to say tell me if I can trust him and what isn’t he telling me? and I stole that contract page everyone seems so excited about but no-one will even tell me what it is, but she wasn’t sure that was the right way to go about things. 

“What…?” she hesitated, “I haven’t been working with Kaz for very long. And I don’t… he hasn’t really told me what I’m doing. If I’m going to keep spying on someone, I at least want to know who they are. Why I’m doing it,” 

Nina nodded.

“Who is Wylan Hendriks?”

“That,” Nina half sighed through her smile, “is a more complicated question than it should be,”

Inej had to admit, she was surprised to discover that to be an understatement. 

“Alright then,” Nina’s mug clinked against its saucer, “The Van Ecks. What do you know about them?”

Inej searched her head for the vague information she’d managed to garner during her time in Ketterdam, but it was nigh on impossible to know what was truth and what was fact. 

“They own half the city,” she said, after a beat, “and practically all of the Geldin District. Jan Van Eck, his wife-”

“Marya,”

“Marya. So Jan and Marya; they’re the richest people in Kerch. Jan… ran the Merchant Council? Or…?”

“Disestablished it,” Nina nodded, “In everything but the title, anyway. The country is officially still under the Council, but they’ve been nothing but his puppets for years now. There hasn’t been a Council vote that didn’t swing his way in over half a decade,”

Inej sipped her coffee. 

“What else do you know?” asked Nina.

She had to think on that one for a moment, but eventually she ventured: 

“They’re building the wall?”

“He is,” said Nina. She took another sip of her drink before she went on: “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. 

“Marya Hendriks married Jan Van Eck when she was twenty, and he was twenty three. We don’t know much about where she was before that, other than that she comes from a well-off family, but we know that Jan was already doing well for himself working for his father’s business. When his father died, Jan took his seat on the Merchant Council. He massively increased the business in a disproportionate amount of time, more than doubling his profits, and immediately started expanding his property in the city. He also fought anti-contract laws under the guise of fighting for Grisha rights, only to turn around and bind Grisha to him with their own words. His actions towards Grisha caused mass unrest across Ketterdam alone, and it only really cleared up because the Queen’s Lady Plague broke out. People needed a place to go, and he offered them one - for a price that, without the plague, they wouldn’t have been willing to pay. 

Meanwhile, Marya has given birth to a son. By the time the plague outbreaks start the kid’s about eight; being kept indoors, out of sight… it’s not entirely unusual, right? He’s young, they’re trying to keep him away from contagion. Most likely he was taken out of the city for a while, they have plenty of countryside property where infection rates were practically non-existent. But even after the epidemic dies down, people barely ever see him,”

Inej frowned. 

“It’s sudden,” Nina continued, “Before the plague outbreak, he goes everywhere with his father on all these business deals and things, all sorts. Afterwards? Nothing. Four years of this go by, and then there’s some kind of accident - I’ve never heard what, exactly, but the kid was twelve and something happened. He died.”

Inej almost gasped at the ache that split inside her heart. 

“There are rumours that his mother went mad from it,” said Nina, though she didn’t look particularly convinced by the stories, “But if you ask me it’s Jan who lost his mind. All of it, the entire city - it only got worse after that. Triple the number of contracts signed. The Barrel had been keeping their own game running with contracts all that time but now Jan started dealing with them directly, running the share programmes with Grisha that split us between working for both areas. And then, eventually: the wall. 

“He started building the wall, around the entirety of the Geldin District. Nothing from the rest of the city will touch him or his family again,”

Inej stared at her. 

“But of course,” she murmured, “Marya’s the unreasonable one,”

“Oh, naturally,” Nina eyed her over the rim of her mug, “Hysterical,”

Inej’s lips quirked. 

“See the problem we’re facing, here, and the reason that Kaz has hired you on, is that all of this began six years ago. Well, really it started before the plague so more like eleven years ago, when the anti-contract laws were disestablished. But the son, Wylan - he died six years ago. Supposedly,”

“I see,” Inej took a slow breath, “So say that an eighteen year old boy walked into the Warehouse District, using Wylan’s name and Marya’s maiden name…?”

“Suspicions might be raised?” asked Nina, “Yeah, you could say that,”

Inej nodded, slowly, then frowned again. 

“You knew, though,” she said, “When we first met, Kaz said you were right, he’s here,”

Nina took a breath. 

“Yes,” she said, “That’s where it gets complicated again,”

Nina went to order another coffee before continuing the story, but Inej held off this time. They were seated by a window and she turned to watch the passersby on the street outside, thinking about the day she and Nina had first met. Other than Kaz making a brief introduction between them, there had been no chance to talk before he’d turned to Nina and announced: 

“You were right. He’s here,”

“He’s alive?”

Kaz pulled a piece of paper from his pocket - the final page of a contract that Inej had made a copy of for him - and handed it over, watching Nina’s eyes widen slightly as she scanned the page. 

“Look familiar?”

“This is - how did you-?”

“That would be Inej’s work,” he glanced at her, “If we plan on pressing forward with this, you two probably want to communicate,”

“So you’ll do it?” Nina breathed, everything about her seeming to rise slightly higher as she stared at him, “You’ll-”

“I’m not running a charity, Zenik, I’m not out here risking myself over someone else’s contracts out of the goodness of my heart. And this won’t be a cheap job,”

Nina released a slightly frustrated sigh, but Kaz hadn’t appeared to care.

“How much?” she asked, bitterly. 

Kaz looked back to Inej. 

“How long did you say the contract was?”

She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged as she said: 

“Long. Fifty pages? More?”

“Fifty?” Nina exclaimed, “That can’t be - for this?”

She waved the paper back and forth. 

“At least,” Inej nodded, “I’ve never seen one like it. Why? Who is it?”

No-one had given her any answers, then, but she was going to make sure she got some now. 

Nina sat back down and set her new coffee and a small pastry on the table, asking again if Inej was sure she didn’t want anything else. Inej declined, rubbing her fingers against the single remaining note in her pocket. She’d rather avoid spending any more this morning, if she could. 

“So what about the contract, then?” she asked, trying not to watch enviously as Nina took a bite of her pastry, “Something to make him disappear?”

Nina shook her head. 

“Based on what I managed to find out about him,” she said, “Which, I’ll tell you, isn’t much, I guarantee you there’s a contract with his signature on it somewhere. But no, the contract you found in his bag wasn’t his,” she paused for a moment and Inej thought it might have been for dramatic effect before she turned to her coat, slung over the back of her chair, and began to root through the pockets until she produced a piece of paper - the copy Inej had made of the final page of the contract, “Here. I know you don’t read Kerch, but see the names here?”

She pointed to the dotted lines where two signatures had been marked. Inej nodded. 

“Marya Hendriks,” said Nina, pointing to the first, then moving onto the second: “Jan Van Eck,”

Inej frowned. 

“This is a Grisha-written contract. And it’s also a marriage certificate,”

It was a good job that Inej hadn’t ordered another coffee, because if there had been anything in her mouth at that moment she would surely have spat it out. 

“What?”

Nina glanced over her shoulder, gently motioning for Inej to lower her voice. 

“I had a vague idea that we’d find… something like that,” she said, “But fifty pages? That’s insane for any contract. I got suspicious that Wylan was alive a few months ago, and I told Kaz something weird was going on - or weirder, anyway. He looks into people’s contracts for them, finds ways to get them nullified - and I pass his information on to anyone who might want that, if they can get to him. But if he can convince Wylan to help us? If he can unravel what the hell might possibly be written in that marriage contract? Well, Kaz will swear blind that he’s only in it for the money, but we might actually stand a chance to- to change things,”

Inej barely even knew what to say to that. She did her best to nod, but her mind was swimming away with Marya Hendriks, and a thousand questions that she knew Nina would have no answers to. She settled on instead asking: 

“Can I trust him? Kaz, I mean,”

Nina shrugged. 

“About as much as anyone round here,”

So, no then, Inej thought unhappily. 

“I, erm… I don’t have anywhere to stay right now, but I spent the last two nights at the Slat. Kaz said he was working anyway so I could take his room,”

Nina nodded, but she was clearly trying to work out where Inej was going with this. 

“He said that I could stay. But I don’t- I mean I can’t…” Inej swallowed, “I don’t want to owe him anything,”

She fidgeted with her shirt cuff, not quite meeting Nina’s eye. Nina just shrugged. 

“Factor it into your deal,”

Inej glanced up. 

“What?”

“Kaz Brekker is a ruthless, amoral bastard with a terrible haircut,” said Nina, leaning back in her chair and lifting her mug of coffee to her lips, “But he’ll keep to any deal you strike with him. Whatever he’s paying you for your sleuthing, tell him you’ll use part of that to pay him to stay. You don’t owe each other anything,”

Inej furrowed her brow. Could it really be that simple? She wasn’t sure she was actually making enough money to pay him for the bed - and besides, she’d spent the past two nights sleeping in his own room; that could hardly work for him long term. But maybe if she suggested this, they’d be able to find some sort of deal that would work for both of them. 

And if it didn’t? Well, Inej had a steadily growing list of places she had run from. What was one more?