#The people who actually speak those languages came up with them so I nodded and agreed with their ideas

[world-of-eibon]

hahaha, the new Eibon Map is so large, I can't even upload it to tumblr! Discord can't handle its file size, nor can google, wonder where I could possibly host the image? Oh well, here's the old map with the incorrect hex sizes and with the Far East/Jinwa and Kihara on the map before they were split off into their own continents seperate from Eibon.

[verystrxxwberry]

The mcl boys with a deaf s/o ?

MY CANDY LOVE; routes with a deaf S/O

♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•.

𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: fluff, MCL routes, sfw. ↝ 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: Hi! I want to apologize if I said something wrong related to this subject and if it gets to be offensive. If it offends anyone, please let me know and this post will be deleted. 

♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•. ♪¸¸.•*¨*•.

CASTIEL

Being realistic, at first he was a bit mean because he didn’t know how to have patience.

When you both met in high school, he didn’t know you existed because you never talked to him, and there was a good reason after all. It wasn’t until you both were in a team project that he got to know of your existence and realized that you were actually deaf. He tried calling your attention a few times, even yelling at you, but there was no use. Lysander had to inform him about your condition when he saw how mad the red-haired guy was getting.

Castiel felt bad for thinking you were a clumsy shy person. He tried to be patient, but when he was in high school, his patience was notorious thanks to the lack of it. He waved at you to call for your attention and communicate with you by basic signs, like pointing at some stuff, nodding or shaking his head.

He ended up using his phone to communicate with you through messages, and there he realized that you were an interesting person after all.

He is observant so he analyzed the way people communicated with you, being aware that he had to face you directly and get your attention. 

During his free time he learns sign language to have more communication with you, but also to impress you a little. He mainly did it because he also thought that it’d be more comfortable for you if he was more communicative in person than in messages, as he used to be.

He used to beat up those who dared to make fun of you when you weren’t looking at them.

So sometimes you’d see that Castiel was missing for a week, and he’d simply say that it was because he was sick or something. He wants to protect you from the negativity and bullshit of other people.

With years the communication got more fluent and he definitely didn’t regret learning sign language for you. 

He may get confused with some signs at first, using them wrongly and accidentally saying the wrong stuff. To fail like that made him really embarrassed…

He also worked his patience thanks to your relationship and because he loves you and respects you enough to not mind repeating stuff in sign language when he accidentally tried to vocally talk to you first.

He sometimes is glad that you are deaf so he can practice some songs with his guitar late at night. He’d warn first that he would go to sleep late as he’d be practicing for future concerts.

Just so you know that he is there, he keeps a hand on your left shoulder or the small of your back. It is very characteristic of him , so you quickly realize it is him who is touching you.

Whenever you both are in public and someone tries to talk to you, without knowing about your condition, he basically translates it to you after they are done speaking.

NATHANIEL

When you first came to high school, he was well informed about your condition and he had no problem adapting to it. When he got the knowledge about it, he practiced sign language for the day you came to school. He is surprisingly good at it and you were relieved that there was someone in there who knew how to communicate with you.

He made you feel welcomed there, and that was his main goal. He knew that his sister would probably make fun of you and he made sure to stop her before she did anything. If anyone dared to make fun of you, he’d gladly send them to receive a scolding from the director.

Nathaniel has a natural charm which made you feel safe as the first person that helped you to know the school better, so you relied on his company.

He has trained his patience thanks to his sister, and not only that but he can be patient when he likes what he is doing. When he acknowledges that his company is positively received by you, he’d be even more glad to help you with anything you may need. 

Whenever there is a third participant in the conversation, he has gotten used to talking and using sign language at the same time so both of you and the other person can get the information at the instant.

Even years later, the condition of you being deaf has not been any problem for any of you. Sometimes he likes to be in a quiet environment, and knowing he is beside someone who brings him peace and is not yelling just as the household he used to stand it’s simply perfect.

He wouldn’t even allow you to think less of yourself for being deaf, even if it has its difficulties. You are still a lovely person and that is the only thing that matters to him.

There is a subtle smile on his face every time he is focusing his attention on you. He gets lost mid-sentence when he is signing to you, simply because he got distracted by your beauty. It is amusing to see how he gets confused with the signs and then excuses himself by saying that you are too beautiful for his attention.

He is very attentive, so it is easy to get his attention whenever you need something.

LYSANDER

He knew there was a new student who was deaf, but he had no interest in getting to know you at first. He is quite the introvert and prefers to be on his own, as he also finds it difficult to take the initiative.

Still, he was aware that maybe you were lost during the first weeks, and more in a place where people weren’t used to communicating through sign language. He himself didn’t know really well how to communicate like that, but he used his famous notebook to talk with you, even if he lost it lots of times.

You will, once again, be a victim of his notebook research. There is no escape.

He is extremely patient and attentive when it comes to communication. He would like to learn sign language directly from you, but he would also end up learning it on his own so he doesn’t bother you that much during your free time.

At first he might seem really confused when not being able to identify too good your signs, so you’d have to be slow and patient as well.

He always carries a notebook around in case his knowledge fails to let him communicate with you. It is quite cute how he gets frustrated when he doesn’t remember a sign correctly.

Hey but it is a truly nice detail of him to dedicate a big part of his notebook to you, as he will leave some white sheets to write things to you. During class you two would communicate like that and fortunately teachers wouldn’t mind as they know what his intentions are after all.

With years, he will make sure to make his knowledge of sign language more fluent, and you might find him some days learning on his own.

He admires your strength in a world where not many people will be able to communicate with you due to the lack of knowledge of sign language.

Whenever he realizes someone is judging you, he’ll wrap an arm around your waist and make sure that you keep his attention on him so you ignore them.

In the future, after high school, he will check his notebook to see the first times he communicated with you before he learnt sign language, smiling at the little conversations you had through a simple pen and a paper.

KENTIN

He is your childhood best friend and has grown up learning how to communicate as you also learnt sign language, so you both basically learnt at the same time. He has always been patient and good to you.

Communication has been no problem since the beginning with him!

Maybe when you both were little kids there were a lot of misunderstandings because… well, you both were kids.

His eyes were always on you, making sure you didn’t feel left out at any moment and that you could understand everything others’ said. 

Even after the military school he kept being the same loving guy as always (I love him). But now he had more confidence that if anyone dared to laugh at you, they’d pay it hard later.

Kentin wants to make sure you are comfortable and happy no matter your condition. Because being conditioned to hear doesn't mean that you do not deserve to be happy or not enjoy your life. He is well aware of your insecurity of not being able to hear, but you are still a human who doesn't have the fault of having been born this way. You are even more human than other humans. Kentin will be there whenever you overthink about your condition making you less. He believes you are a loving person and will definitely prove that you can enjoy the experiences that life offers!

He knows how to call your attention and when you want his, and whenever you ask for his, he drops everything he is doing to check on you.

He might not have patience with everyone, but his patience never ends when it comes to you. 

He is kind of scared of something happening to you when you go outside on your own since you can’t hear anything. That's why whenever you are going out he begs you to please look around calmly and be truly careful with the people and cars around you. He doesn't want to overwhelm you by always being beside you, but if he can accompany you wherever you want, he'd be more relaxed.

ARMIN

The first time he tried to talk to you in class, and he literally was even yelling to the point everyone turned around to see him like ???

You realized something was happening when everyone turned around in a certain direction. When you turned around to check what was happening, you saw Armin frowning and looking at you as he moved his lips but without making any sound. You found yourself in the same situation as other times in which a person talked to you without knowing you’re deaf. You signed him and at first, he didn’t even realize you meant that you are deaf, until other classmates told him.

He felt truly sorry when he realized he was angrily calling for your attention when you didn’t hear a single thing from him. 

He knows nothing about sign language and at first the communication would be through reading his lips or messages through the phone. Sometimes he forgot that you were deaf, making it difficult to communicate, and more when he spoke so fast that you found it harder to read his lips.

Still, he found comfort and liking in your company.

He likes it when you are the one teaching him sign language, even if he is lazy. Still, he wants to communicate comfortably with you and feels like he owes you all the comfort he can give you.

He is bad with it… even years later. There is basic communication, and he makes his deepest effort on learning it correctly because he loves you and wants you to be good in your relationship. 

The communication will mainly be through writing messages and his clumsy sign language. He understands you better than signing himself. He probably signs in the wrong order most of the time, but you get to understand him most of the time.

The first things he learnt to say were mainly stuff related to videogames…

One of the good things is that when you are sleeping and he is playing games late at night, he gets to yell at people and curse them with all his rage. He used to get scolded by his parents or Alexy, and now he can be free to scream with no fear. Even though if you hear just a little, he will be respectful and not yell because he definitely doesn’t want to disturb your sleep.

RAYAN

The moment he knew there was a student in his class who was deaf, he had no problem with it and found it exciting that he was finally able to put in practice his knowledge of sign language. I believe that he is the kind of person to join random classes such as cooking, learning languages, learning how to do some creative stuff… simply to spend his time and improve his skills. 

One of the very first classes he joined randomly was sign language and he found interest in it. When he got you as his student, he had no problem. There was barely a barrier with communication.

As he did the class he was also signing so you understood from him. Sometimes he got quiet to sign, forgetting about speaking because he was focused on communicating with you and keeping your attention.

During your relationship, things go slow as a regular one. He considers that your condition doesn’t stop him from anything in particular. He can still have reading dates with you, go to the museum with you, go have a coffee with you… And mainly, he can have a good laugh with you too.

Just as Nathaniel, whenever he communicates with a third person and you are there, he naturally translates his words into sign language. Even if he isn't a part of a conversation and you look at him with an expression of “help me” since the other person doesn’t know that you are deaf, he will help you to understand.

He will never interpret any bad thing that has been said about you. He simply makes the conversation end and then you two go to somewhere else that’s nicer.

If you like reading, he shares his books with you. You will find small notes in the sides of the text, indirectly commenting some stuff to you.

If you don’t have hearing aids yet, he will get them for you. He wants your deepest wishes to become true no matter what. Yet whenever you wear them he’ll forget that you wear them and will keep signing to you.

HYUN

When he met you in the Cozy Bear Café, he thought that you hated him since you ‘ignored’ him. He became quite sad and confused at first, trying to call your attention but seeing that you were looking at the other side. It wasn’t until he dared to approach more and you signed to him that you couldn’t hear that he realized what happened.

It was a big relief for him to know that you didn’t hate him, he simply wasn’t able to get your attention as good as he’d like.

Unfortunately he found himself not knowing truly well how to communicate with you, and his main option would be through the notepad of the café, where he’d talk to you.

Hyun hated to be very nervous around you because he didn’t want to make you feel ignored or bad because he didn’t communicate with you. He wanted to be around you more. He wanted to be someone you could rely on no matter what.

He admires your effort when you work in the Café and your patience with everyone. He gives you small notes of compliments to cheer you up as you work as he finds endearing your presence.

He felt weird at the beginning with the awkward silence there was in the environment, but he got used to it and definitely enjoyed sitting beside you with no fear of being in silence. He finds your breathing comforting.

He joined signing language classes even if he mainly communicates through notes and physical contact. 

Hyun has no fear in scolding your boss if she ever dares to make any comment or consider you less just because you are deaf. You are one more in the work, your dignity deserves to be respected.

He confessed to you with a bucket of flowers and a small note that said “I like you a lot” with some hearts drawn around. It was pretty cheesy of him but it was cute to see him blush as never before during that moment.

Whenever he goes to work he leaves a note in your nightstand like ‘have a nice day!’, ‘make sure to eat and drink properly’...

Whenever you aren’t wearing your hearing aids, he’d simply take advantage to mutter how beautiful you were as you were giving him your back. He admires you like a fool in love. 

Wearing hearing aids would be an easier way to communicate between you and Hyun, as he’d be able to talk and also to understand your signs clumsily. He’ll always repeat what you signed in a confused tone to check if he got it right.

PRIYA 

She is very observant, so when she sees you from afar that you sign to another classmate that you are deaf, she simply keeps it in mind for the moment she needs to communicate something to you.

When she first communicates with you, she goes directly in front of you to get your attention and with that kind and sweet smile of hers she starts signing at you.

Just like Rayan, Priya decided to learn sign language simply because she was interested in learning it, and also because she thought that knowing it would open opportunities for her to get to know more people and make deaf people feel included when she was around.

Oh and thanks to this knowledge she got to meet you and she will always be satisfied with learning sign language.

Things do not really change in your relationship due to your condition. She keeps communicating with you naturally and believes that you being deaf isn’t a limit in your relationship.

She will save with you, giving you a part of his money if you do not have hearing aids because she would like you to hear about the good things life has, just as the sounds of nature or some good music. She is aware that it is overwhelming to wear hearing aids when you aren’t used and then you suddenly hear everything. 

Priya is always attentive to your reactions and your feelings, so the moment she sees you being anxious or something about your state, she’s gonna bring you to somewhere more calm so you can relax and rest your ears. 

She has a lot of words to say when someone disrespects you. She will argue for as long as needed until that person apologizes to you and she signs you to not forgive them because they do not deserve it.

With Priya your dignity and self-being will always be protected because she will make sure you are alright and not affected by any of this.

✰; remember to reblog and like to support my content, I hope you enjoyed it!

[astarion-approves]

The Waiter

'There stood the most gorgeous man Tav had ever seen in their life. Tall with pale skin, ruby red eyes, and hair as white as snow. There was a certain air about him, it felt like being charmed into bed without so much as speaking a single word in return.'

The reader falls in love with their waiter in the Czech Republic.

Modern day 'reader' x Astarion. 1.7k words

Slightly NSFT (no actual sex or descriptive sex), excessive second hand embarrassment, reader is a moron, some Czech, third person.

Thank you to @chenziee for your help on this. I only speak English and she was an absolute saint to translate some dialogue for me.

Keep reading for the full story.

The Czech Republic was seemingly a little peaceful country compared to America, but the food was… interesting to say the least. Time after time, Tav found themselves in search of something familiar to have during their vacation. They ended up spending more time having fruit, cheese, and wine than anything else.

Finally, their friend, Eliška, put her foot down, dragging Tav to a traditional restaurant and insisting they try the food that her country has to offer.

“I warned you before you came to visit,” the friend said with a soft laugh as they were both seated at a small circular table. “I knew you wouldn’t like our food.”

Tav crossed their arms over their chest in defense. “It’s not my fault all your food looks so…” They gestured to a plate being carried out from the kitchen, something that looked like raw dough covered in a brown gravy with some form of meat and cabbage next to it. “Whatever the hell that is.”

“Vepřo knedlo zelo,” Eliška spoke quickly, the foreign language beautiful but words Tav didn’t understand. “It’s roast pork, dumplings, and sauerkraut.”

Tav shrugged. “That doesn’t sound bad. I guess I could get that.”

“Nope,” Eliška shook her head and opened the menu that was sitting on the table. “I’ll be picking for you.”

“Oh shit,” Tav grabbed their own menu, hoping to see what monstrosity their friend might order for them.

But of course it was all in Czech.

“Anything but blood sausage, please.”

Eliška snorted but continued flipping through the menu, a menu with no pictures of course.

While she browsed you stared at what you assumed was the wine menu, ‘Víno’ was one of the only words Tav managed to learn thus far and being drunk on vacation was their plan for most of the trip anyway.

“Dobrý den. Máte vybráno?”

Tav looked up from their menu, their eyes meeting with the waiter, and they felt as if they’d been kicked in the chest.

There stood the most gorgeous man Tav had ever seen in their life. Tall with pale skin, ruby red eyes, and hair as white as snow. There was a certain air about him, it felt like being charmed into bed without so much as speaking a single word in return.

Tav leaned forward in their chair, trying to figure out if those red eyes were just a pair of contact lenses. He tilted his head and raised a single brow at them.

Fuck—that was adorable.

Tav looked to their friend, who was still studying the menu. They mumbled something to the waiter, which Tav assumed was ‘just a second.’ The waiter nodded and turned to leave—

“Is he on the menu?” Tav blurted out before the waiter was outside of ear shot. “Because I want a bite of that."

“Jesus Christ, Tav.” Eliška swung the menu across the table, successfully hitting Tav on the side of their head. “Don’t just say shit like that!”

“It’s not like he speaks English anyway!” Tav defended. They’ve only been in the Czech Republic for a few days but besides their friend and other tourists they haven’t come across many non-native English speakers that could understand Tav’s version of English. Plus, only much younger people seemed to be learning English, while their waiter looked to be in his early 40s. “Anyone who speaks English here can’t understand me, we’re fine. I speak too quickly, remember?”

Eliška glared at Tav. “You only say that because I do all the talking. Please just.. try to hold your tongue. You could offend him.”

Tav held their hands up. “No promises.”

Soon the waiter returned, carrying two glasses, one in each hand. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up, exposing his strong forearms riddled with thick veins. Tav sat back in their chair and just watched as the man put a glass down in front of them. How could forearms be that sexy?

“We need a new waiter, I’m going to melt just by looking at this man.”

“Tav,” Eliška hissed. “Shut the fuck up.”

He looked between the two of you in confusion before speaking, “Vybrali jste?”

“Dvakrát tlačenku s chlebem, džbán s vodou a sedmičku rulandy červené, prosím,” Eliška replied quickly, refusing to look at Tav while they spoke.

The waiter nodded, scribbling into a notepad with what Tav assumed was Eliška’s order.

“Did you get wine? If not put him in a tall glass for me—“

Eliška kicked Tav under the table, making them gasp in pain. Those heels were vicious.

“Ask him what his name is, I want to know what name I’m going to be dreaming of tonight.”

“Tav—“

“Oh my god we should ask him to take a picture with us to celebrate my first traditional meal—“

“Tav, stop—“

“Oh yes, kind sir, in my country waiters do take their shirts off for photos, it’s perfectly normal—“

“Tav, so help me god—“

“What’s ‘please fuck me’ in Czech?”

“‘Fuck’ is pretty fucking universal word, you idiot.”

“Just ask him his name, please?” Tav put their hands together, begging their friend for this one favor. This one obnoxious, ridiculous favor.

Eliška sighed and turned to the waiter, who still stood there looking confused but seemingly entertained at their interaction. “Já se moc omlouvám, mojeho kamaráda by hrozně zajímalo... Jak se jmenujete?”

The waiter chuckled, putting his notepad away and turning to Tav. He crouched down, putting himself at eye level with Tav. “Astarion,” he spoke slowly, softly, his voice deep and calm. Those red eyes stared back at Tav with ease, glimmering with amusement.

“Oh,” Tav breathed out. “Fuck, even his name is gorgeous… Astarion.”

Astarion smiled and stood back up, then Eliška thanked him and finally let him leave the table, the waiter pausing to look back at their table once before going into the kitchen.

“Astarion,” Tav repeated the name, enjoying the way it felt on their tongue. “Astarion—“

“Mhm, and not a common name in Czech at all, Tav.”

“Sounds Czech to me.”

“It’s not—“

“Oh he’s coming back!” Tav was grinning at his return, excited to see him again so soon, and carrying a bottle of red wine.”

Astarion opened the bottle with ease, pouring some into a glass and handing it to Eliška to be tested. She lightly twirled the glass before taking a small sip. But Tav wasn’t even paying attention to what she thought of the wine. They were more interested in watching Astarion as they worked.

“He opened the bottle so easily, Eliška. It's official. I'm in love.”

Eliška hummed and took another sip of the wine. “It’s literally his job to open bottles all day, Tav.”

“Bet he’s skilled with those long fingers then.”

Eliška ignored Tav and put her glass down. She spoke to Astarion, who filled the glasses and placed the bottle down between them.

Soon Astarion was leaving again, only to return shortly and carrying two plates to their table. Tav smiled as the meal was placed in front of them—

But the smile dropped into a frown when they looked from Astarion’s handsome face to the plate he just set down.

“What in the fuck did you order us?”

Eliška snorted into her wine, breaking into a laugh as she watched Tav stare at their meal in shock. “It’s domácí tlačenka.”

“Eliška, this looks like if you took bologna and made it evil.” Tav poked at the meat with a fork, unsure of how to proceed.

“Try it,” Eliška replied. “You’ll like it.”

“Astarion,” Tav looked away from their plate and to the now grinning waiter, at least he was being entertained by the silly picky American. “My future husband, can you believe she’s trying to make me eat this?”

“No.”

“See!” Tav pushed their plate away, refusing to try the dish. “Even this handsome god of a man doesn’t like it.”

“Uhhhh… Tav—“ Eliška tried to speak before being cut off by them.

“You can eat this weird ass dish, meanwhile I’m going to drag Astarion to the nearest hotel and let him be my meal instead,” Tav said and laughed at their own joke.

Eliška just stared at Tav in horror. “Tav… you need to stop speaking now.”

“Stop worrying,” Tav said and rolled their eyes. “He doesn’t understand me. Right, Astarion?”

“Right.”

“Just like I said, Eliška. He doesn’t speak a single word of English.”

“Not a single word,” Astarion said with a nod.

“Tav, please... take a second and think—“ Eliška grimaced as Tav cut her off once again. This time the woman keeping her mouth shut.

“I could go on for hours with everything playing through my mind right now with this man—“

“Oh my, please do tell.“

Tav laughed and turned their focus onto the waiter, who simply smiled back at them. “I’m here for two more weeks on vacation but I don’t want to see the sun again. I want you in my hotel room, fucking me until I can’t walk, fucking me until I forget my own name, fucking me until I lose sense of time and the Czech government comes to find me because I’ve been reported missing—“

“That is an awful lot of sex, not that I’m opposed to it—“

“I’m going to drag you back home with me, just so I can wake up every morning and see the most handsome creature in the world lying next to me every day of the rest for my life.”

“How romantic.”

“Then I’ll marry you and we’ll be together forever.”

“Fine. But only if we continue living here. American healthcare is a joke.”

Tav laughed and turned back to Eliška, smirking at them in a ‘I told you so’ kind of way.

“See? He doesn’t speak any English.”

“Tav… You are an absolute fucking moron.”

“What—“

Astarion hummed, drawing Tav’s attention back to himself.. “I can’t miss work, but I do get off in two hours. Let’s try a date first, before we get married. Alright?”

Astarion turned and left, the waiter laughing to himself as he disappeared into the kitchen once more.

“Wait…” Tav looked from the kitchen and to Eliška. “Did he just speak English?”

Eliška just shook her head in disbelief.

[wonderland-smile-stories]

~ Chapter 10. 03 ~

I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes and how poorly written this fanfic is. English is not my first language and together with my dyslexia ass things can go wrong I'm sorry.

I sat against the wall next to the closet door. I wasn't in the mood to be locked in there, but I needed some peace after what just had happened.

Because of the pain I took from the green blob monster, I felt so much better than before. The headache was gone completely now, which made me happy.

I was twirling the bloody bandage from my head in my hands while thinking about everything.

Why would Hyun-su react like this?

What was that guy playing at?

Something must have happened up there.

"Hey." I snapped out of my thoughts when Hyun-su spoke up.

I was actually surprised to see him here, let alone without that guy.

"Hey," I breathe out.

"Where is your new friend?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.

Hyun-su looked behind him before looking down at me.

"Somewhere."

I nodded my head slowly before looking back down at my hands.

For a few seconds, he just stood there looking down at me before speaking up again.

"I wanted to talk to you." My eyes went back to him nodding my head for him to continue.

"They probably have told you that he is just like us, right?"

"They also have told me that he killed his own men."

I watched as Hyun-su clenched his jaw before talking again. Now in a much colder tone.

"He saved me up there."

I narrowed my eyes looking at him waiting for him to continue.

"He told me that monsters and humans can't coexist together and after what had happened earlier with that green slime monster I agreed with him."

A frown came to my face before I shook my head.

"They were scared. You can't blame them for being scared?"

"What if they become scared of you and me in the future? Are you going to let them kill you or me?!" He snapped at me.

I was kind of surprised by him raising his voice.

"They wouldn't and you know that. Just put yourself in their shoes. What would you do if you were completely human in this situation, huh? Wouldn't you be scared too? Scared people do stupid stuff."

Hyun-su let out a groan shaking his head seeing that I wasn't agreeing with him.

For a few seconds, he stood there thinking before kneeling down in front of me.

"Ui-myeong he wants to leave this place to find more like us."

Good for him let him go.

He won't bother us then.

"He asked me if I wanted to come with him. Come with us, with me, away from here."

What?

Away from Green Homes?

I can't just leave here. Ji-su, Eun-yu, Mister Han, Eun-hyuk, and the kids are here? I don't want to leave any of them behind like that.

"Who's going to protect these people if we are gone?"

Hyun-su shook his head.

"They don't need us. We have been their hounds long enough. Let them do their own dirty work."

I opened my mouth to say something but closed it quickly.

I can't understand why Hyun-su turned against the people here. I know they have hurt him in the past, but they all accepted him now.

Not all the people here wanted to use him.

"Hyun-su." I started looking at how he was hopefully waiting for my answer.

"I can't. I can't just leave them like that. They are my friends. For the first time in my life, I have found some people who like me and treat me like I'm a human being."

"But you aren't human neither am I."

I don't know why he wants to leave here.

"Don't you want to be with me?"

I was surprised by those words and what they could mean.

Do I want to leave everyone that I care about and who cares about me to be with Hyun-su?

Do I want to leave my makeshift family I have created here?

I don't want him to leave at all. If I could I would go with him, but there are too many people here who I care about that I don't just want to leave behind like this.

To be honest I don't think Hyun-su wants to leave either.

I think he's just scared.

I know that he cares for the people here as much as I do. It's just that guy Ui-myeong who has planted doubts in his mind.

"No," I whisper with a shaky breath.

"No, if it means that I have to leave the people who care about me behind."

He was taken back for a second, but his shocked expression soon changed to his old emotionless gaze.

Without saying anything he stood up. This was not what I wanted.

"Hyun-su, wait." I stood up grabbing his arm, but he pulled back.

"Don't." He replied coldly.

"Hyun-su please, just listen. I don't know what that guy has told you, but it isn't true!"

He turns around to face me.

"He has shown me the truth about humans." I shook my head.

"No, not everyone is bad! Just like there aren't all bad monsters! Why are you believing this guy over the people here?" I tried to explain to him, but it didn't seem to work.

"The people who used and locked me up here like some animal?!" He yelled at me.

I clenched my jaw taking a deep breath.

"Please, Hyu..."

"Why did I expect you to listen to me? You're just as bad as them. If you had really cared about me you would have told me and everyone else the truth about you being a monster as well, but I guess you were too scared to be used and locked up just as was. You're just like everyone else."

I was too shocked to speak.

How could he say that? He knows that I wanted to! I didn't have a choice.

For a few seconds, he just looked at my heartbroken stare before he turned and walked away. 

The moment he turned the corner tears began to spill on my cheek.

Why was he like this?!

How could he be so cruel?

He knows that I tried every time to help him!

"It's odd that you choose humans over monsters."

My head shot up when I heard an unfamiliar voice.

"It's odd you would think I would choose someone like you over people I care about." I snapped back.

He let out a chuckle before he began to walk towards me.

"So you don't care about Hyun-su? The poor boy looked devastated when he passed me a couple of seconds ago."

My eyes followed his every move not trusting him one bit.

"I do care about him, more than you think, but I won't let someone fill my head with lies."

He let out a loud laugh circling me.

"I didn't tell him one lie. I just opened his eyes so that he would see the real world, why can't you see it? Don't you see that these people are just using you two? They would be dead in seconds if you weren't here."

I let out a scoff shaking my head.

"Trust me I know what the real world is. These people are my family and you don't know one fucking thing about them or me!"

He stopped walking when he was back in front of me. My eyes followed his hand when he grabbed something from his pocket before handing me a red paper.

"Are you sure they see you as their family? Aren't you a little afraid they will sacrifice you the minute they learn they don't need you anymore?"

With frown brows, I look down at the piece of paper before opening it.

My eyes caned the page reading everything carefully. It was a military announcement. They will offer safety and shelter if you offer them a special infectie. Someone like me.

"So are you still so sure about these people?" I look back up at him seeing him smirk at me.

With a clenched jaw, I crumble the piece of paper before pushing it back into his hands.

"Yes, now why don't you just leave? You don't want to be here and we don't want you here. Be smart and go before I'll make you."

Ui-myeong raised his brows with an amused smile on his face.

"Why? Are you scared I'll hurt your so-called friends?" My hands turned into fists seeing how cocky he was.

"You better don't touch anyone here. I'll make sure you regret the moment you step foot in this building. Now be wise and go. Don't take my threat as a bluff." The smile never left his face.

It only grew.

With his hands up like he would surrender himself he took a few steps back.

"Okay, I get it." He was about to turn around when he spoke up a final time.

"Black looks good on you, to be honest." With that, he walked away leaving me behind in anger.

Previous Chapter ~ Next Chapter

———————————————————-

Hey guys! Theirs only 1 chapter left and an epilogue. The next chapter is going to be long! I first wanted to split it in two, but I didn’t really like it, so it’s going to be one long one. I hope you guys enjoy it, bye!

[denimbex1986]

Richard: "...I've actually gone past Andrew on a Lime bike, but that's it - we once, I think we shared a nod on a Lime bike; kind of passed each other...it was going through Soho, we were going through Soho..."

Andrew: "Electric bike - what's not to love? Lime - lime green."

Matt (to Jon): "...I am finally coming to New York and I'm going to take you up on hanging out when I get there."

Jon: "Extended invitation to all the people on this call, by the way..."

Andrew: "Can I bring my Lime bike?"

Jon: "Yes..."

Andrew: "Um, yeah, I think it's, for me, it was, you know, the other actors. The character that I played was - a lot of the time I was acting on my own which was a really weird experience because I; I didn't really like it to be honest. We, we shot it during the pandemic and we were away in Italy, and people couldn't come and visit and I couldn't, couldn't get back, um - and when, when you're acting on your own, and sometimes acting a lot in, in, in a different, uh, language, um, was, was kind of hard, so when the other actors came on, um, like Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn particularly, it was, it was, it was amazing.

And actually, one person that I think was incredibly helpful - we had a cast ass - assistant and her name was, and still is, uh, her name is Elisa Sofia Fioretti, and um, you know, those people who, who kind of look after - you know, when you're, when you're on a set for like 13 hours a day, uh, it, - it's very all consuming particularly in, in this part, and so the person sort of helps you manage all the other parts of your life and, you know, keeping that afloat, uh, is, and, and helps you with, with those things. You really do, do become, uh, so bonded and Elisa was amazing because she was just a - a brilliant; she was the person that I kind of hung out with the most and, um, she's uh, you know, has, has, um, uh, ambition to become a producer herself and I, I, you know, she was - was just amazing."

Andrew: "Well Steve Zaillian our, our - he, he, he wrote an incredibly, um, uh, sort of beguiling script in the sense that the sta - the screen directions were so beautifully written, they really were; there were sometimes just pages if there's no dialogue, there was just - you read it like almost you were reading the, the Patricia Highsmith novel. So it was a really good map in, in the sense of what the character might be sort of going through, and it was actually a great pleasure to act with no dialogue because all you're really required then to do is just be as alive as you can on the day and, and just um - so I, I always find it really interesting looking at characters just thinking, not necessarily feeling so to speak; I mean, of course there's a bit of feeling there as well, but watching characters just be and, uh, uh, watching them work something out or watching them make, make mistakes was actually a really wonderful thing.

And maybe we don't get to do that as much because, uh, you know, a lot of, a lot of drama is, you know, very dialogue, um, centered. Um, and then the other scenes were just - he, he writes very sparsely you know; I think it's very difficult to make a great movie out of a sort of - or a great TV series - out of, out of a mediocre script, so the scripts were very spare, even the dialogue, there were no greats of grandstanding, um, you know, speeches or anything like that, but uh, they were very witty and precise, and it was just a great, um, great pleasure to, to play the kind of domesticity of this person who's a kind of an iconic literary character, but to try and, to try and um, uh, understand what, what he would be like just, you know, walking down or going to see a gallery or just being on his own, you know. The murder I mean - the murders are only - really only took two or three weeks to, to, to, to film out of a whole year of filming, so uh, so yeah, it was, it was, it was a strangely - I was very, very connected to the character, apart from, you know, the murder."

Andrew: "Yeah, I think it's - I think it's the stage really. I was very lucky - when I was, I was only about 18 or 19 and I joined the Abbey Theatre, the - our National Theatre in Ireland - and um, I got some, got some really good, really good parts really when I was very, really tiny. I'm sure the other actors were like: "What the - who's this little -?" But anyway, um, but I, I feel like I was very - I feel very grateful for that because it was a lot of new writing, and then when I moved to London, I, I worked a lot at the Royal Court Theatre, which is a, is a new writing theatre, and, and what was really helpful about that is it gave me an, an appreciation of, of writing.

And I think the, the writer really is, is the actor's ally; sometimes I think even more so than the director, you know because those work - it g - it gave me an, uh, a real appreciation for what, what, what, um, what you can do with a good script and good - that, that, good writing, and, and I suppose I sort of - I became more discerning about what a good script is; and I think that's a, a handy tool to have as a writer, because sometimes you can get things that look uh, or it might be attached to a great studio, or it might be a good story, but the actual, um, music of the script is actually kind of quite weak and I think for an actor, that's the thing that we, we play with. You go: "God, I just wanna be able to say that line" or "That's incredibly funny" or "That's very moving", um, and if, and if, if a - I always describe it as a kind of an autograph; if a script doesn't have a very singular kind of autograph, then I think it lacks something, and I think I learned that very, very early on from being in the theatre where that's - where the writer is really at the centre of the, of the art form. So yeah, I feel, I feel, I feel, feel that gave, gave me something; whether - whether made the, you know sometimes you, you just don't have a choice, you just - if you're not working, you just choose to be in the thing that's terrible, um, but at least you know; at least you have a sense of going: "Okay, well I, I, I have, I have my own opinion of what, what this is." Yeah."

Andrew: "Um, I uh, I think it's wonderful. You know, I think it's wonderful - um; does that mean that, I would hope that that is every year not necessarily, I think - I think, uh, I think that it's wonderful that it's incidental, but I suppose one of the things that I would be cautious about, um, is I don't think anybody ever - well, I suppose in relation to the characters it's different than, than, than the actors, I suppose, I suppose there can be; sometimes when we're talking about characters and we're talking about actors, there can be a sort of prurience or even sort of hysteria about people's sexuality, and I hope that we're, we're moving towards a place where it's, uh, there's a kind of more fluid place where, where; I think the last thing any actor really wants to be is to be, uh, is to be, uh, to sort of, um, what's the word? To trade on their own sexuality - I think that's kind of what you actually don't want to do, so you know, speaking as somebody who's, who's, who's a gay actor playing, playing a sort of, uh, a non-heterosexual character, um, you know I, I, I don't - I wouldn't want to; I, I feel - what do, what do I mean? I just feel like there - that it's really important that, that, that, uh, you know to play; these characters have a certain kind of sexuality, but they also have an enormous amount of other attributes, and I think you don't really play gay, you know it's - it's impossible to do that because it's not something that we cultivate necessarily, you know; it's a, it's a, it's, it's not a talent anymore than being straight is, so, so yes, it's, it's interesting but what's more interesting to me are the stories.

These are extraordinary stories and they're all gay or you know, a lot - four of them are, are, are, are characters, but they're enormous - they, they may have similar sexualities, but I'm not sure, uh, that - I think the stories is - are what's interesting, and I just wonder if it wasn't - if there were four straight characters, if, if we would be even talking about the sexuality of the characters. So yes, I, I welcome it, but I - I'm not sure it's the thing that we, any of us, necessarily would feel that that's the thing that we would be most proud of, if that makes sense. So it's sort of yes and no for me. Um, I don't know what you think, Matt."

[faroreskiss]

The Power of Understanding / Part 5 (v2)

v2 (rewritten) posted on: 2023/09/10

Read of Ao3

Cheat Sheet

Chapters: Part 4, Part 6,

Warnings: None? Red parts are "Post-Calamity Hylian" (PCH), AKA the language you speak with Wild.

In this chapter: More backstory, how you met the chain and how you found out about the price of it.

The rest of the breakfast was uneventful; you and Zelda enjoyed the delicious pumpkin pancakes prepared by Link, with homemade butter and cream. Yum.

Even though it was a day when you didn't have to go to the lab with Zelda, there was still much to do. It takes a long time to build a kingdom from scratch, after all. This was to everybody’s advantage, as the unspoken things were going to stay unspoken for a little longer.

Today's topic was children. Ugh, you really didn’t like them as much, but you couldn't deny that their brains were like sponges for information, and it was interesting to observe how they learned things, especially languages. Zelda was planning a history and grammar lesson for the village kids, and you, of course, volunteered to help with the material prepping.

Link also liked teaching, but this time his subject in the "school" was going to be "P.E.", as you taught him the word. A fancy way of saying he was going to teach horse riding.

The weather was luckily quite sunny on that day, perfect for a class outside. While the history class was nearing its end, he went to run some errands and to pick up his horse from the Hateno stable. It was built recently and kind of on the outskirts of the village.

A couple of hours later, he came back with a very odd group of travelers. All armored, relatively young men and a teenager. They looked quite intimidating, yet somehow familiar to you.

Including Link, all of them looked like a huge mess, as if they just fought something. Some of them had blood stains on them, some had scars that looked like they were recently bleeding. Zelda was still teaching the class, so you stepped out of there to make sure children didn’t get distracted by the group and walked towards them.

“Link?” you called to him. “Who are these people?”

As you said ‘Link,’ you couldn’t help but notice how the travelers behind him kind of also perked up, even if just for a second. You raised an eyebrow, carefully considering what to make of them as they exchanged looks between each other and nodded.

“Erhm,” he hesitated, scratching his head. “I don’t know actually. I can make out some of the words they say but it’s not super clear, right when we thought we were figuring it out, we ran across some weird monsters on the way, and they were able to handle themselves pretty well, so I thought… I don’t know, the whole thing is weird. More we walked, the less understandable their speech got. I thought you could maybe help… so..”

“Hello!” you greeted them with a wave.

One of them, the one with the wolf pelt, said something. You could almost, almost make it out. There was something familiar about what he just said, if only you could understand…

Then a horrible, splitting headache and a piercing sound started assaulting you. You screamed in agony, getting down on your knees and holding your head.

“(Y/N)? Are you okay?”

Then some type of darkness swallowed you whole.

_______________

You groaned, feeling dizzy. What just happened? Your stomach was feeling queasy. One moment you were in the village square, and now… in a forest? It seemed like those 8 people were also with you.

You called out to Link, then realized he was right next to you, motionless. You held his head and called out to him again.

He startled at your touch, and it seemed like the first sense he regained was hearing. “(Y/N)?” He seemed to recognize your voice, but it's like his brain still needed a second to process what's happening. Then an expression of relief crossed his face, “Hey.. I’m okay,” he said as he composed himself. For some reason, his speech became… less recognizable. It was him alright, but you felt the feeling of familiarity slowly seep away. It felt wrong.

“Hey!” you called out to the rest of those people, who were all in some type of state of dishevelment, gathering their belongings from the floor or using the dirt ground as their puke bowl. The one with some type of animal pelt on his shoulders approached you and Link.

“Uhm,” he said cautiously, “A’ yu okei?”

It took everything in you to not laugh out loud. Was that supposed to be English? You understood what he meant, but it’s been so long since you heard, well, plain English. Hylian was just a weird mashup between Japanese and English from your point of view (and sometimes other languages), and it took a bit for you to learn.

Either way, you composed yourself and decided to try your luck with plain English. It was taking you so long to answer, you started feeling rude towards this nice gentleman who looked oddly familiar. He had some markings on his face. Quite distinctive, and to be honest, he was such a hottie. 

You just nodded at him, “And you? Are you okay? Can you understand me?”

“Ya, I caen. Ya spei’k almost onaji like ore.”

Okay, but this was ridiculous. Sure, the "Post Calamity Hylian," let's call it, was also a mash like this, but at least it sounded like an actual language. This was just strange, like a bad joke.

But it also made sense. Some games in the TLoZ series used kana as the basis of their Hylian alphabet, like in Minish Cap or Wind Waker, or OoT; you even tried to transcribe some once. Some games like Skyward Sword or Twilight Princess, however, were using a script based on the Latin alphabet. Huh. Maybe that’s why…

But then, these people must be…? You just needed to test it.

“Link?”

There was no mistaking it. Every single one of them perked up and looked towards you.

“Oh shit,” you cursed under your breath.

Link tilted his head and gave the man a confused look when he spoke. “Hm. You sound odd. But you were sort of speaking Hylian, yeah?” He seemed puzzled as he looked back at you.

“Does that mean you understand what he's saying?” he continued, staring at you.

Link seemed puzzled as he watched you communicate with the man and didn't understand what's going on. He watched you talk, though, and when you finally finished and asked the man if he understood you, the man suddenly nodded his head rapidly, giving an 'Uh-huh' sound.

“Yes, yes I do… Oh Link, not sure how I can explain this to you, but I think… All those people are called Link.”

“Don’t you understand him when he talks?” you asked back to your interlocutor with the animal pelt.

“Lady, we someho’ managd da comms wi the rest o’ da grup, but koitsu over here still koe no gibberish to us,” he said, pointing at Link, as he looked to the rest of the group, asking for confirmation.

He sounded absolutely ridiculous. If only...

"So, I take it, you are also Link then?" you said back to the guy with the pelt. You felt a tinge of pain in your head. You didn’t pay much attention to it.

“Yep.”

The pelt guy was still standing nearby, staring at Link intently. His expression was a blend of sadness, frustration, and pity. It looked as if he held strong negative emotions towards Link.

Your eyes widened. Did this Link and your Link ever meet? If you are correct, and if that is the Link from Twilight Princess… They kind of did. Didn’t they?

Meanwhile, all the Links (you were pretty sure at this point) already gathered their belongings and moved toward the conversation.

Most importantly, you were still not screaming out loud, and the fangirl scream stayed in your brain. These people were all Links, you were pretty sure. This was almost like a dream come true, if you disregard the fact that you are in the middle of fucking nowhere in a forest with an upcoming throbbing headache. You tried to keep your cool.

“Ey, Rancher. Learn anything?” another Link with something wrapped around his neck, a scarf perhaps, asked, as they stopped chattering between each other. He was the one that sounded the most understandable so far. 

The tinge of ache actually started to intensify even more. It was still manageable. You dealt with worse. The skinny looking Link was absolutely staring at you with a puzzled expression.

Pelt guy (probably Twilight Princess Link?) didn’t break eye contact with you as he spoke. “No, but for some reason, you speak better now?” he replied to him, it might have sounded sarcastic in any other context, but he sounded genuine. 

“Yeah, okay, what the fuck?” came from the Link with the red tunic.

“Ookay, guys, this is really trippy. You don’t sound so funny anymore,” said the teenager.

The Link with one eye missing and the skinny-looking one looked at each other. They seemed more like they had an idea about what’s going on.

“Huh… didn’t think translation magic actually existed, just like that,” he said slowly, looking up at you. 

Your Link also spoke, “I… understand them, but it is hard. The words don’t sound… quite understandable, but I get the gist of it? Maybe?”

Pang. Another tinge of pain in your head. Sharper this time.

Your headache was intensifying. More anybody spoke, the worse it got. Did you suddenly develop migraines? You were pretty sure that’s not how migraines worked. 

The teenager gave your Link a puzzling look. ”Uh, that guy is BARELY understandable.”

Another pang. It felt like somebody stabbed you in the eye, but from the inside. 

Your head was throbbing. The more they spoke, the more it hurt.

The ‘introduction round’ went through anyway; each of them explained the story of how they met, how they have been together a while. How they were all the chosen heroes of their respective eras, the strange monsters that appeared recently. To anybody else, it might have sounded like these people just escaped an asylum. But the Triforce marks in their hands, some of the accessories they carried… To you, that was unmistakable. You squeezed Link’s hand subtly, and told him to trust you. That these people were not lying to him.

But even in the state you were in, you were about to explode with excitement; girl, you played all of these games. When it was Link’s turn, you were the one that explained it to them. They still weren’t able to understand him quite well. You didn’t mention the 100 years of sleep part, but told them about the Calamity and how Link defeated it some time ago. The rest was his to tell, if he decided to. 

Pang. Pang. Pang.

Though for some reason, the so-called "understanding better" buff was not there as much anymore. Links had noticed it as well, the Link next to you noticing it first. The more they were able to understand Link, the less clear their speech got to each other. Basically reverting to what it was, before you met them, you supposed. And more your Link sounded foreign to you. 

Pang. Pang. Pang. Pang. Pang Pang Pang Pang Pang Pang Pang.

And you REALLY weren't feeling well.

The Old Man raised his eyebrow.

You made eye contact with the skinny Link (Link from the first game, you were pretty sure), who understood that something was wrong, as blood from your nose was dripping onto your blouse.

Then you lost consciousness.

```````````

[baelpenrose]

Project Praetorian 41: New Arrivals Part III: Commonality

Micah talks religion with Mark and Molly, and Mia works on language barrier issues. As I do not speak spanish (though ironically @writing-with-olive does) we wound up telling the sequence from Mia's perspective, with the note that everyone else speaking "broken" English from Mia's PoV is a translation convention.

Beta read by @canyouhearthelight and @writing-with-olive TW For kidnapping in flashbacks. Historical note for anyone who doesn't get the in-joke in Mia's flashback: the US Government has a long and sordid history of using Central American and specifically El Salvadorian cartels as mercenaries to do the CIA's bidding.

Micah

Getting off the VTOL was a relief - his dad had been an engineer, even if the obvious accent made it hard for him to get work at any of the really big firms, and Micah had had to hear about the dangers of that kind of air transport more than once when his dad had held up a newspaper and talked about the Osprey. “Another crash! Rotary blades on the top and a jet engine! How did any company allow this out of R&D?”

He hadn’t been riding in one of those - thus why it had landed instead of crashing - but his father’s general distrust of VTOL craft in general had left an impression. And that Nazi asshole who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about his panic attack the whole trip hadn’t helped, even as he’d tried to stay calm by counting the stitches on the seatbelts.

At least Jared hadn’t found out he was the product of a mixed-faith marriage. He’d suffered racial slurs, he’d suffered Islamophobic ones, and he shuddered to imagine how much worse it would have been had Jared known he was half-Jewish. 

Then he was introduced to the people he’d be joining, heard the last name of the leader of the kids, and realized he was going to find out any minute - hopefully with violent consequences for Jared. 

The group of new arrivals was split up, and Micah found himself being pulled aside by the boy introduced as Mark Ascher, along with a redheaded girl introduced as Molly Harper. 

“Hey. So, welcome to Palatine base. You’ve probably been stuck at Aventine for a minute, and…actually, before we start, did they do any testing on any of you there? I know they have facilities there, Echo’s testing started there.”

Micah felt a surge of fear. “Testing? What…what are they testing for?”

Mark blinked. “Okay, that’s a no. They did not. We’ll cover that later - oy vey, at this point I’m gonna buy a camera on my next leave - make an orientation film.”

Micah looked between them and Molly glared. “I think that’d be…kind of a dick move. I don’t think I’d have adjusted as fast if Vergil hadn’t given me the tour.”

“Fair enough, but I never know where to start with this…”

Something clicked for Micah. “You’re not a New Yorker, right?”

“Bite your tongue. I’m from Boston.” 

“That’s what I thought, but you cursed in Yiddish, so I thought I’d check. Salaam.”

Recognition flashed in the other boy’s eyes, changing him all at once from a young man trying to be older and harder than he was to match responsibilities he never wanted to the kind of boy Micah wished he’d known more of in school - clever, quick to laugh, and easy to talk to. “Muslim?”

Micah nodded. 

Mark gave Micah a fast hug. “A relief to have someone else here who gets that at least. Now, I know that Kosher and Halaal are not exactly the same thing, and I have been working to keep kosher on military rations, but you came at a good time - we just got a lot more freedom to operate on our own, so you’re not dealing with the crap I was where it was something I more or less only kept on holidays because I didn’t have a guarantee of eating if I stuck to it consistently.”

“Holidays?”

“Oh, right. Uh. We don’t get them. Not just us, though, for once, I’ve been here for almost three years now and we didn’t get Christmas off from everything sucking. It’s a very nondenominational suck. Oh, talk to Leon, she’ll help you find some ways to keep your traditions while surviving here. All in it together and we do mean ‘all’ in it together. Which means you’re probably going to be asked to explain Eid, both of them, I had to explain Purim and Rosh Hashanna. The results of the whole detachment trying to celebrate each other’s holidays is…I mean it’s often hilariously bad but it winds up giving it more of a home feel than not bothering. And don’t expect help from the higher ups.”

Micah felt a strange mix of warmth and horror at the casual description of a lack of recognition of holidays of any kind. 

Molly suddenly asked a question. “Hey, actually, I have a question since I know Muslims have a holiday where they fast for a month and Lent is coming up…”

Micah spoke first. “My faith acknowledges exceptions for health reasons, I don’t know about yours…”

Molly shook her head. “I don’t have to give up all food, just meat from animals on land, and something else. Also from blood in general. The church used to enforce a ban on carrying arms during Lent.”

Mark took a breath. “I…I want, so badly, to not immediately reverse myself, but I am going to strongly suggest that our job itself is a health reason to not fast - I don’t think you can do a month only eating at the beginning and end of each night. I mean, I barely make it through training on Yom Kippur each year and that’s one day without food or water. I’m not saying you can’t, I am saying, before you decide, train with us, then decide if you can do that while fasting. And remember that combat is much, much worse.” 

He turned to Molly. “And…yeah, sorry. No. There’s no holiday any of us can skip a mission for. If it happens during Lent, or Yom Kippur, or Ramadan, or the High Holidays, or any other day when we are absolutely not supposed to be spilling blood, then…taboos get broken because we are keeping each other alive, and we’re too short on hands to have anyone sit out. I’m sorry.”

Micah felt a thrill of fear. “So. You keep saying ‘combat’ - what are we fighting? I saw a bunch of UN flags at Aventine. Are we going to be turned into supersoldiers to deal with terrorists or lock down nukes, or..?”

Mark looked at him, then doubled over laughing. Micah felt hurt, and Mark kept going, slowly taking a breath, then spoke. “Okay, okay, sorry, sorry, just…that’s what we thought for the longest time, just. Okay. no. The actual answer is so much dumber. No, see, we actually straight up get super powers, and we’re fighting aliens. Yeah, really.” 

Micah started laughing. It was a joke, it had to be a joke - but Molly’s face was deadly serious, and he slowly stopped laughing. “You’re for real. This is…”

“Yeah. Go figure.”

Micah sat down. “Alright, so…” 

“They’re real. I got scooped after an alien scouting party attacked Tanglewood music camp and wiped out my family and killed my best friend. I was the only survivor.”

“That was a fire, wasn’t…” Micah trailed off as he realized how stupid he sounded. No, obviously not. Obviously that would be the cover up. “Ya Allah.” 

Echo was calling to Molly, and Molly ran over to them, Micah noticing the tears in her eyes. 

“She lost everyone she loved in her first contact. We had another battle we were ready for and we beat them, pretty soundly but we’re…” Mark leaned back on the bench, tossing chicken and beans onto Micah’s plate. “It’s terrifying.”

“What’s the testing?”

“I’m going to explain and you are going to leave the swearing or the appeals to HaShem to the end because if you do it every time I say something awful we’re gonna be here a while.”  

Micah nodded, the ghost of a joke failing to cover the menace implied by Mark’s story.

“So. We get injected by some vile chemical that causes mutations. Before it can give us turbo-cancer or whatever, we strip down to underwear or completely, depending on how much of this we’ve already done, climb into machines that look like sealed MRI machines but are not, which then proceed to blast us with radiation from all over the spectrum. This breaks down the mutagen while also mutating you harder and in a more useful way. The reason you don’t get clothing later, we figured out, isn’t that it gives Koleth a clearer read, or that it blocks too much of the radiation, and I can’t believe we ever believed that, no. It’s actually that once you’re far enough along, they have to hit you with enough radiation at a weird enough frequency that clothing will catch fire. By then you’re changed enough that it doesn’t do anything but change you. They did not tell us this, by the way, Echo found out while poking around the scientists’ computers while she was breaking a captured alien machine. I do not know what this says about our ability to survive nuclear fallout so do not ask. I am terrified we will have the opportunity to find out.”

“Allah yahmina, what is this place?”

“Official answer: Imperator’s Palatine Base. Unofficial answer: The best argument I’ve yet encountered that my people are wrong and that hell is in fact a thing.” 

“How are you this calm about it?” Micah felt vaguely faint.

“You get used to it.” 

Mia

She hadn’t slept properly since those mercenary assholes had gotten a bag over her head and taken her north. She still wasn’t sure how or why they’d picked her, but from what she’d gotten out of the mercenaries - who were locals, when she’d screamed at them - they’d told her that the blood tests she’d gotten in the hospital had showed she could be helpful.

She didn’t know what the hell that meant, but she knew she had to get home, back to her mother, back to her brothers. She’d struggled to try to escape, but been told if she kept going she’d be knocked unconscious.

She remembered the mercenaries taking her to someone they clearly answered to, asking him if he wanted to keep her for other sale for a few days, and him shaking his head. “No. Some rich white American asshole already paid us a hundred thousand for her - with another hundred thousand promised if she’s undamaged. Apparently she’s got some rare gene that some fucked up American research firm wants to experiment on and they’re paying top dollar for test subjects.”

She had been kept in a dark room - though fed surprisingly well, apparently the cartel was interested in getting paid for the ‘undamaged’ part - and once she’d realized she wasn’t going to be sold to a brothel, assaulted, or shot because she was apparently already paid for by people who were capable of paying the cartel too much to throw her away, she started using it. 

By swearing up a storm at her captors and spitting on them every chance she got. 

Thus by the time she was dragged out of a warehouse, she had been gagged, and two white assholes were talking to her captor, offering him a suitcase - and shoving her onto a boat, which went a certain ways off the coast before she was put on a helicopter.

She remembered seeing her city - her country - fade away in the distance.

She’d been surrounded by assholes who refused to speak her language, except the man who had apparently commissioned her kidnapping by the cartel, who introduced himself as August Gideon, who spoke it fluently and kept up an eerily polite tone.

“Ms. Orellana, I apologize for the roughness of your arrival. As you know, your country has a history of being a bit politically unstable due to a criminal element who are easily made into efficient proxies for outside actors. Our organization is funded by the UN security council, and we have access to most of the UN data bases, even the ones they swear are strictly confidential. You see - that hospital you went to a few months ago, to get your tonsils out? They tested you, like most patients, with a gauntlet of basic blood work - and one of those samples, as of eight months ago, is determining if someone is a Praetorian candidate. Among other things, I no longer have to collaborate with Stricken about the most effective ways to bribe blood samples out of donation or hospitals.” He gave a wan smile. “You came back with a positive test. Which is when we engaged the mercenaries who picked you up and turned you over to us.”

“What did you want from me? What the hell is a Praetorian candidate?”

“Project Praetorian…you’re now in the custody of an organization called Imperator. You’ll find out the rest from your compatriots, day after tomorrow - you were the last to arrive of this wave, and you’re all being transported together to the other facility. I have a plane to catch back there tonight, I’m afraid.”

“Why not ride back with the rest of us?”

“I have business I have to attend, and an important briefing to provide.” 

***

The four she’d been stuck with at the base were incapable of speaking to her, so she’d been stuck gesturing at herself and saying “Mia,” asking for their names and getting “Kimmy,” from a girl in a wheelchair, “Micah,” from a quiet, nervous looking boy with Gideon’s complexion but the gentle presence of one of her brothers, and “Jared,” from a boy who looked at her like something to scrape off his boot.

The ride on the chopper had mostly consisted of Jared apparently antagonizing Micah - Mia didn’t understand what was being said but she understood the tone - and Kimmy taunting him back. Rapid-fire English that she couldn’t follow but that she knew was probably important to understand.

When they landed and people were presumably introduced, she stood there, asking if anyone spoke any Spanish - and got a response from one dark, gorgeous girl who pulled her aside and spoke, haltingly but with some degree of fluency. 

“My name is Echo and yours…”

“My name’s Mia, it's really good to meet you. I’ve been stuck with no one to talk to because no one understood what I was saying for ages and I don’t actually speak English. So, what is this, what’s going on? What is a Praetorian candidate? Who are these people?”

Echo blinked, slowly, and then said. “I am not that strong in Spanish now. Praetorian is a thing where they do crazy science to us - it hurts. Gives us weird powers, like a comic book.” 

Mia unwrapped that in her head - Echo wasn’t totally fluent in Spanish yet, or spoke a different kind, but she was trying. Praetorian was a program of some kind where they were having experiments done on them, which gave them…superpowers? Echo had to be saying that wrong, Echo seemed smart.

“What do you do here, Echo?”

“I work with computers - hack into them. Jonathan is…” She shouted for Jonathan to do something in English and Jonathan casually lifted an unused table. “Strong. Like a comic book. The crazy science changes us. They teach us to fight too. We’re supposed to be…” Echo broke off and said something that was obviously a chain of curse words in English.

“Supposed to be fighting aliens. One minute.” She shouted for someone and a girl came over, the same age as Mia and red-headed. Echo chatted with her fast, and the redhead looked between them, then said something in Spanish back, also a dialect that was more formal than Mia really spoke but was something her churchgoing aunt would have gotten much more easily. Molly had a rosary, a simple one, but it reminded Mia of her grandmother’s.

“I’m Molly,” she started, “And…I only really know Church Spanish,” she said, waving the rosary. “So I do not know how much I can say about our lives here - beyond that we may have been kidnaped by the devil. But if you want to talk about your family, I can understand that - we had a few Latin families at our church, we were supposed to be able to talk with each other, all of us, about important things.”

Mia nodded. “I have brothers back in El Salvador. And parents. They have no idea where I am.” That started hitting her for the first time. “God, I’m never going to see them again, am I?”

Molly lunged forward and hugged her. “I’m sorry. My parents are dead, died when the aliens first appeared. The others talk a big game about being a new family and hopefully the ones with living parents see their families again, and…I don’t know, Leon and Curtis are talking about ideas for the rest of us if the war ends before we’re adults.”

Mia nodded. “So, Echo - and Molly. What’s the deal with the kids who introduced us?”

“Mark - the skinny one? He’s kinda in charge, and the guy who spoke is Xavier.” 

“Xavier spoken for?”

“Not officially,” Echo replied, glancing at Shiloh in the distance. 

Molly followed her gaze. “I wouldn’t recommend it.” 

Mia let the other two girls guide her to a table and sit her down, shoveling food on her plate and eating with them, slowly fumbling through Spanish with them and starting to get through a smattering of English, some of which she’d gotten in school before she’d had to stop going to start working. Picking it back up with them was helping, a bit, but suddenly Molly started. “Right. She needs ASL too.”

Echo cursed in not only English, but Spanish, and her phone let out a series of beeps that might have been her using powers to curse in morse code. 

“Right - actually, might be easier, different grammar.”

Mia looked between them, and then Molly stood up in shock.

Molly

The conversation had been going well with Mia - honestly the new girl was really pretty and Molly was glad she spoke enough Spanish to make her feel welcome, but then something insane happened.

Shiloh had been over by Kimmy, and was putting hands on Kimmy’s back. The paralyzed girl started screaming, then bit down on her shirt, before Shiloh stepped away for a second, leaving Casey holding Kimmy’s hand as Kimmy writhed in pain, then Shiloh had come back, and begun doing - whatever they were doing again.

And it hit Molly what she was witnessing. Shiloh was trying to repair Kimmy’s spine. 

Shiloh. A person that, as much as she hadn’t admitted it, she hadn’t talked to much, been alone with the least of the Praetorians - by design. Their anger, their weird gender stuff, had always made Molly nervous, went against what she’d been taught.

Shiloh had given someone back his eyes during the battle, healed burns, restored wounds. Molly had seen that, but that had been rational, Molly had thought, or at least, as rational as anything could be in a world where aliens had come down from the sky, gunned down her parents, and she was now a superhero-supersoldier supposed to be fighting them.

But this.

Kimmy stood up, leaning on Casey, as Shiloh slumped, taking deep breaths and huge bites. 

Kimmy took a few steps forward, eyes filling with tears, and laughed maniacally.

Shiloh had just performed a straight up miracle. It wasn’t just healing a broken bone or restoring a wound, Shiloh had just made a cripple walk.

She heard Mia gasp behind her as she crossed herself.

“Even here, that’s…that’s crazy. That’s…”

Molly’s world spun as she saw Kimmy take slow steps and turn around of her own accord. 

“Holy shit.”

“Welcome to Praetorian. That’s our healer, Shiloh. Going completely beyond the impossible.” 

Beyond the impossible. 

That was one way to put it. 

Molly picked up a huge platter of food and carried it over to Shiloh in absolute silence then set it down in front of the deaf healer, signing for them to eat as she did so.

Shiloh gave her a quiet nod, and continued to watch Kimmy, a smile of satisfaction and quiet pride on their face.

[mams-is-my-will-to-live]

Obey me MC timetravels to when Solomon was still ruling King Solomon.

(: AFAB MC although it can be read as Gender neutral for now? I will change this if ever. I have always tried to stick to gender neutral pronouns for MC so If I slip up I'm sorry and kindly tell me. Part 1 probably and will be very short. I just need to gather my thoughts maybe make an outline Uh as much as I would like to make this more inclusive the MC here grew up in a religious household as it is needed for the plot.... so sorry. NB spoiler free yay. Also sorry for the wrong grammar and the typos. I did this on my phone :)

Time travel is not something new to MC. In fact they have already done so multiples times. This however comes as a surprise as instead of anywhere in the devildom. They seem to be in an unfamiliar land instead. somewhere ancient. MC couldn't explain it however the description seems to fit.

Determined to at least find a general location of where they were. Walking along the road near the river which should lead to somewhere with people right? At the very least they hope it will. It wasn't long before they were stopped by a kind lady who looks concerned about MC's modern clothing.

"Oh poor dear! Have you been attacked by bandits on the way here?" MC looks confused but before they were able to refute the old lady's claims they were drag to the home of the lady. "No need to worry I will help you" The old lady assured them before they are able to speak a word. Privately however they thank whatever has put them there that they can understand the language that the lady speaks. Must be some kind of magic or atleast a way to appease them on whatever this is and why does this always happen to them anyways... Waking up in unfamiliar places.

MC was made to sit down as the old lady went to another room. This time carrying a bunch of clothing that MC only has ever seen worn during things such as historical plays or those Movies about the stories from the bible that plays every month of March back where they grew up. As popularized by the holy week. Not wanting to offend the kindness of the stranger they gratefully accepted the clothing. As they were ushered to an empty room to change into the clothes. They suppose it was a good thing so that they can blend in even better while thinking of a way to get back to their timeline. Now to know where in the past they are.

"Um.. Thank you for your kindness..." MC spoke meekly to the older woman in front of them. The older woman just smiled at them.

"You look very out of sorts poor dear. A long way from home I presume?" She asked MC kindly as she folded the clothes MC was wearing earlier.

"Ah you don't need to do that..." MC flushed. This lady remind her of her grandmother.

"It's fine I assure you. So what led you here to Jerusalem?" MC hoped to have kept their facial expressions clear from their shock. Alright that is one problem solved. They are in Jerusalem. But *WHEN* in Jerusalem. Will they be seeing Jesus or something? Does Jesus even exist? MC lowkey wanted to ask the brothers or even Solomon but considering the circumstances they privately kept it to themself.

"Uh... I was actually hoping to visit the temple for... uh worship..." that's a safe answer right? There shpuld be many temples for God here since it's the holy land right? Damn if MC knew thsi would happen they should've paid more attention to theology classes back in their school days. Thankfully it seems that MC has hit the nail on its head somewhat as the woman nodded her head.

"How unfortunate that you arrived here during the Sabbath." Sabbath MC knows that day of rest. Yeah ok they got this. Totally not internally panicking. God they feel like Levi.

"Uh.. yeah how unfortunate..." they trailed off.

"You came at a great time however since the temple that King Solomon has been building has been finished." King Solomon...

Well shit. Well at least now they know for sure when they are in the last but at the same time. Why does this always happen to them really...

[clumsiestgiantess]

Y’all remember when I asked you to choose which way I wanted to take the language barrier story (either a continuation or a prequel)?

Continuing with Ritchie and Mason seemed to be the one people were most interested in, so without further ado…

Part 3 of Takeover Scenario Future!

(part two here) (@goblinunderabridge, @entomolog-t, @microfoxprime, tagging y’all because you were the ones who wanted this to win!)

The first night with Mason was wild.  Once I was certain everyone else had gone to bed — even my sister, who kept checking up on me every twenty minutes — I made us a fort beneath my blankets.  He stared in awe at the covers high above him, grinning at me as if it was the coolest thing he’d ever seen.  It was kinda like a sleepover, only he’d be here every night.  I reminded myself to get an actual bed for him later.  Tonight he seemed perfectly content to stay right here with me.  “Wow! S’ti ekil a elohw sucric tnet rednu ereh!  Knaht uoy, niaga, rof lla fo siht.  I yltsenoh t’ndid kniht stnaig derac hguone tuoba su ot evig em gnihtemos yletomer ekil siht.  M’I dalg uoy dnuof em yadretsey.  Neve fi uoy did kaerb ym gel.”

“You’re welcome.. I think?”  I hadn’t understood much of it, but Julie had stuck it to me to learn ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘you’re welcome’ in the survivors’ language.  I asked about learning ‘yes’ and ‘no’, which seemed important, but she shrugged and said that wasn’t really necessary considering nodding or shaking your head could easily replace those words in the basics of communication.  She added that thumbs up or thumbs down could also mean ‘good’ or ‘bad’.  We’d just started learning ‘sorry’ when I was called off to get to bed.

We stayed up a good portion of the night playing Super Smash Bros on my Switch.  Mason refused to sleep until he’d mastered the little controller.  Thankfully the single joycon they give you on the switch was just big enough to be a bit larger than keyboard size to him.  He was decent — clearly he’d played games like this back in his world.  The only thing stopping him from beating me was the fact that he had to use both hands to move the joystick.  I still let him win a few times.  He called me out on it for most of them, though.

I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I was shaken awake by Mason.  He gestured around to the bed then to himself and I eventually realized he was asking for his own place to sleep.  Nodding tiredly, I helped him down off the bed to the floor.  He only needed a single pillow as a mattress and a small blanket as a whole comforter.  I’d just put away all my gaming stuff and slid into bed when he spoke.  “Ritchie?”  It was strange hearing him speak my name.  So much of what he said I didn’t understand.  

“Yeah?”  “Tha.. Thank…  Knaht uoy.”  Well, at least he was trying.  I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for, either.  Maybe everything.  “Re- Re’uoy emoclew.”  Damn those contractions are hard to pronounce.  I peered over the edge of the bed at him.  He was sitting up on the pillow, grinning at me from below.  “Goodnight!” I called quietly, settling back into my bed.  “Thgindoog!”

Groggily sliding out of the covers the following morning, I nearly gave myself a heart attack.  I’d missed stepping on Mason by a mere few inches.  Thankfully, he was still asleep and hadn’t noticed.  Just as I returned from the bathroom, my mom hurriedly opened the door to my room.  I yelped, quickly coming up to the entrance to block her view of the little bed on the floor, and the small person sleeping soundly in it.  “H-Hey, Mom!  Why are you up so early?”  “What do you mean?” she asked me, “I have to drive you to school in twenty minutes!  I came to see if you were ready for breakfast.”  Her confusion turned to stern exasperation.  “Ritchie, don’t tell me you forgot.  You have six weeks of summer school, young man!  You better get up and get ready!”  “Alright, ok!  I’m up!  I’m getting ready!”  She sighed and closed my bedroom door.

Up until then, I’d forgotten about summer school.  Probably because it sucks.  At least it’s shorter than normal school.  I hurriedly readied myself in my room, stuffing things haphazardly into my backpack.  As I sat on the edge of my bed to yank on my socks, Mason stumbled blearily into the space, still half asleep.  “Tahw…  S’tahw gniog no?  Yhw era uoy pu os ylrae, edud?”

He grumbled something at me, then yawned.  “I have to go to stupid summer school,” I told him with a groan.  Mason stepped back slightly, giving me a slightly hurt look as if I’d grumbled at him.  I held up a hand, “No, no I’m not angry at you!  I’m angry at school, see?”  I picked up my backpack and placed it in front of me, zipping up the pocket I’d been stuffing things into.

Immediately upon seeing my backpack, Mason’s eyes dulled.  A knowing, almost disgusted look spread onto his face.  “Yeah,” I sighed unhappily, “school.”  Mason waved a hand at me dismissively and turned to go back to sleep, but froze in his tracks before he could reach the pillow.  Whirling back around, he ran across the room to me, excitedly talking nonstop.  “Woah!  Slow down!  I only know like.. five words in your language!  And you’re talking so fast I wouldn’t understand a single one!”

He stopped next to my backpack and yanked the zipper back open, pointing to himself then to the open bag.  “You’re kidding…  Why would you willingly go to school?”  Just like I’d been taught a few things by Julie, Elenor had also taught Mason several words in English.  ‘Why’ was one of them.  Mason stammered a moment.  “I tsuj.. tnaw ot og htiw uoy.  Ees erom tnaig secalp, I sseug.”  He stammered awkwardly, glancing away from me.  Whatever he just said, I understood ‘you’ and ‘giant’, and the fact that he was suddenly at a loss for words.  I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I didn’t see why he couldn’t come.  It would probably make classes a bit less boring, even if Mason couldn’t exactly get out of my bag without being seen.  “Alright,” I nodded, “Let me just rearrange a few things in-”

“Ritchard?  Are you ready up there?”  I flinched, blood running cold.  “You have ten minutes to be in the car.”  Quickly grabbing Mason, I hastily slid him into my backpack — tucked between my binder and the side of the bag where the zipper was.  He gave me a wide-eyed look as I went to zip it up.  “I’m so sorry, man.  I just- my mom’s gonna kill me if I’m not ready.  Just.. try to make yourself comfortable in there, ok?”  Sliding a more gentle hand in, I settled him more comfortably so nothing was in danger of hurting him and especially his leg.  “Ok, gotta go.  I’ll see you at school, buddy.”

Zipping up my bag, I cautiously slung it over my shoulder and made my way downstairs.  Placing it on a chair at the table, I quickly snatched up some breakfast as my mom warned me again about being late.  While I finished eating, I felt a tug on my sleeve and glanced down.  A little arm had slid out of my bag, trying to get my attention.  It slid back inside once I noticed it, and Mason’s face peered through the gap where his arm had been.  He pointed to the table and mimed biting something.  “Oh yeah!” I whispered, “I can get you breakfast, one sec.”

While my mom went to put on shoes, I grabbed a bagel off the counter and slipped it into my bag beside him.  “All good?”  Mason gave me a thumbs up and I zipped everything up again.  Nothing too extraordinary happened on the way to school, but I made sure to treat my backpack with a bit more caution than I usually would.  With it on my lap, I could feel Mason shifting around inside, still trying to get comfortable.  Guiltily I remembered how hastily I put my things inside it.  Whenever I get to my locker I’ll have to rearrange it for him.

However, I didn’t realize that during summer school, you don’t get a locker.  You just bring your bag right to class — in front of about a dozen people.  I had no choice but to leave him there.  Class went by agonizingly slowly knowing there was someone else hidden right beside me in my backpack.  When lunch came and I headed to the cafeteria, I pretended I’d forgotten something and went back — secretly hoping to check up on the survivor.  But of course teachers just have to eat in their room.  Defeated, I trudged back down the hall to get lunch.  At least I could bring Mason something to eat whenever I returned.

Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea bringing him with me.  His presence was only making me more anxious.  Thankfully, I managed to wrap up some of the school’s meatloaf — which was really just random meats stuffed suspiciously together — and returned to class.  It would probably leave a huge mess in my bag, but at least my secret friend would have something to eat.

Actually, he might not even have that.  Mason was gone.  The zipper to my bag was open wide when I arrived.  I cursed under my breath, carefully rummaging through everything in my backpack.  The only sign of him was a partially-eaten bagel and the little empty place he’d constructed for himself.  Desperately, I wanted to call out to him, but I could only sit quietly at my desk, glancing accusedly at the people around me.  Did someone steal him?  Who would’ve gone through my stuff to find him?!

I dreaded it the whole time, but as the end of the school day arrived and the bell rang, I sat at my seat and attentively watched everyone’s bags and hoodies to see if anything could hint at a survivor stashed away inside.  Once I became the last in the classroom, I began peering around the floor.  “Ritchie, is there something you need help with?”  I jumped as the teacher eyed me confusedly from across the room.  “I- I think I lost something,” I said numbly, “but I can’t find it.”  She let me stay for a bit longer, but eventually even she had to leave, and I was left standing alone in the school.

By then my bus had long left.  I was stranded, but not so much as Mason might be, so I kept searching.  “Mason!” I whisper-yelled through the empty halls, “Where are you?!”  My phone started ringing, making me jump as I slunk around.  I glanced at the caller ID and paled.  It was my sister.  My mother was still at work, but my sister was at home, waiting to see whether I’d come back from school.  “Shit!  I can’t let her know about Mason!  She won’t let him stay with me if she finds out I lost him on the first day!”  

Up ahead, I heard the sounds of a custodian in the next hall and quieted my voice.  I peeked out from the corner, planning to make a quick dash past the hallway’s opening while he wasn’t looking.  He seemed distracted enough, so I angled myself to make a run for it, but froze as a shout echoed down the hall, followed by a loud slam.  A survivor scrambled to their feet and ran for the end of the hallway, followed by the custodian with an empty bucket.  I watched in horror as Mason was roughly scooped up into it.  

With a huff, they walked around to the end of the hallway, and tossed the bucket’s contents outside.  Oh thank god, he’s just letting him out.  I raced away down a different hallway and out the side door.  My side ached by the time I got to the door where Mason had been tossed out of.  He was there!  He was.. helping someone up?  I stopped in my tracks.  Mason helped another survivor to their feet.  This new survivor was the first to spot me watching them, and upon realizing I was there, he started screaming — dashing away into a nearby bush and tugging Mason along.

“Wait!  Mason!” I yelped, rushing forward.  The survivor skidded to a halt, letting the other continue hiding.  “Ritchie!”  I fell to my knees at the sound of the relief in his voice.  He ran up to me, scrambling up my bent legs like a ramp before hugging my chest tightly.  In that way, I could feel both of our heartbeats pounding in our chests.  We sat together like that for a while before my phone rang again, startling us both.  Mason stood practically glued to my side as I hesitantly picked up the call.  

“WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, RITCHIE?!  I KNOW YOU TOOK MASON BECAUSE HE’S DEFINITELY NOT HERE!”  Oh.  “YOU BETTER NOT HAVE GOTTEN HIM KILLED!”  “N-No!  He’s fine!  He’s right here!  He wanted to come to school with me!”  “He wanted to, or you wanted him to?” she asked.  “He wanted to!  You can ask him yourself!”  “Mhm,” she grumbled disbelievingly.

“Anyway, can you come pick me up?  I’m still at school; I missed the bus.”  A groan rumbled out of the speaker.  “Alright, I’m coming.”  The call ended.  I breathed a sigh of relief and glanced back down at my survivor friend.  “What happened?” I asked Mason, opening my bag and pointing to the empty spot where he’d sat earlier.  “Where did you go?”  “I was taht yug!” he told me, pointing to the bush where the other survivor was hidden. “Eh saw gnilaets sgniht morf eht moorssalc eht tnemom eht rehcaet deppets yawa, os I-”

Mason stopped, recognizing the growing confusion in my eyes.  I didn’t understand him.  If only I could just, like, watch a video or something and understand his language.  He sighed, also clearly wanting me to understand him as well.  Never in my life have I wanted to actually learn something language-related until now.  It’s.. kinda the reason I’m in summer school in the first place.

Stepping a little ways in front of me, the survivor motioned for me to follow him.  We made our way back to the bushes in the exact opposite way as the day I found him — with him in the lead and me cautiously following.  When I neared the bush, the other survivor whimpered something to Mason.  I could see him cowering deeper and further away from me.  Mason briefly began to speak, then his eyes lit up with an idea.  He raced over to the dirt, broke a small stick off the bush, and began to draw.  

When he was finished, I slowly peered down at it.  The drawing showed a sad little stick figure behind the bars of a cage, then Mason pointed at the other survivor.  “Ohhh,” I realized, him nodding along with me.  “Eh saw dnuof yb a tnaig dik,” he explained, drawing a larger stick figure with a mean face standing beside it.  “Adnik ekil woh uoy dnuof em, tub eht tnaig ohw dnuof mih saw.. a tol esrow.”

I watched as he gently coaxed the other survivor to come out.  He stepped up to the very edge of the bush, but stayed beneath it.  The little guy looked awful — much more like the wild survivors I’d seen before I met Mason.  His eyes were bloodshot and rimmed with purpled bags beneath them, and everywhere on him were the telltale signs of either bruises or starvation.  He looked older than us, but I couldn't tell if he was actually older, or if his awful tortured state made him look that way.  It was probably both.

“Wh- Who would do this?” I asked quietly.  Mason rubbed away parts drawing to show the survivor escaping a backpack.  He’d been living in the school since his escape.  But today was the first day of summer school.  He would’ve had to have just escaped today!

Shocked, I looked to Mason as he stopped drawing.  His expression darkened for a moment, then he turned and looked up at me — not with an accusing ‘you might’ve done this to me, too’, but a thankful ‘you might’ve done this to me, too’, only I hadn’t.  I’d hurt him by frightening him, but I’d never intended to do anything that would make him look like this new survivor.

With a shaking hand he reached for me, leaning more heavily on his good leg.  I gently took his hand and sat him in my other palm.  The new survivor physically flinched at our interaction, as if I were touching him instead.  I brought Mason to my face and scrutinized him for a moment.  “Are you.. thgirla?” I asked, remembering only one of the words I meant to ask him.  He pressed a bit closer to my hand, but nodded.  If I was so horrified by seeing the poor state of the new survivor that I’d previously grown used to seeing, I could only imagine how Mason must’ve felt finding him — how he must’ve felt when the survivor told him that a ‘giant’ my age in my school had done that to him.

He squeezed my finger as if to say he knew I wouldn’t have done that sort of awful thing, then turned to the other survivor.  “Ees?  S’eh a yldneirf eno, I raews!  Eh nac teg su tuo fo ereh ot erehwemos efas!”  “Dna woh gnol evah uoy nwonk mih?”  He seemed to have said something either really smart or really scary because his reply quieted Mason for a moment.  

“I- I t’nevah nwonk mih gnol, tub I wonk s’eh doog!  Sih retsis-”  “Won s’ereht a retsis?”  “Ehs swonk ruo egaugnal!  S’ehs neeb sdneirf htiw a namuh rof sraey!  I t’ndid tsurt siht tnaig ta tsrif rehtie, tub ehs detalsnart rof em; eh sdnatsrednu.. emos sgniht tuoba su.  Eht tnatropmi sgniht!  Dna s’eh gnoig ot nrael erom!”

The two survivors almost sounded like they were arguing, but I think Mason was just trying to explain to the other guy that I wasn’t going to hurt him.  Damn, why did ‘I’m not going to hurt you’ have be part of today’s useful phrases to learn instead of yesterday’s?  After a back and forth that went on for several minutes.  Mason said something decisive.  Moments later, the new survivor begrudgingly slid out from beneath the bush.  

After some half-arguing, he approached me with his head down as if he were being marched to his doom.  I slowly lowered my other hand for him to climb onto.  Tucking Mason against my chest — which he didn’t seem to mind — I was able to keep a steady both hands on him to ensure he would have as comfortable a ride as possible.  Still, the survivor struggled slightly in my grasp — repositioning himself every few seconds while frightfully glancing back at me.

I made it to the pickup line where Julie’s car was already sitting.  A jolt of guilty fear zipped through my chest, but I braced myself for her yelling and headed over.  Sacrificing my hand that held the new survivor’s back, I opened the car door.  Julie was on the verge of yelling at me, but then she realized the survivor in my hands wasn’t Mason.  Then she realized I was carrying two survivors.

“Where did you-?”  “Mason found him in school.  He said that this guy was caged up by another kid.”  Julie gave the new survivor a pitying look — anger rapidly fading from her expression.  “By the state of him, I wouldn’t doubt it.  Come on, get in.”  I deposited both survivors onto the dashboard so I could get my backpack off and my seatbelt on before reaching out and picking them up again.  The new survivor struggled in my grip, but Mason slid down to happily sit on my lap.  He called up to the guy in my hands and his struggles slowly lessened.

“S’tahw ruoy eman?” Julie asked the survivor in his own language.  He turned to her, wide-eyed.  “T- Tahw?” he asked.  She repeated what she said, nodding to him.  “Ym eman.. si Sirhc.”  “Sirhc,” she repeated, “Ll’uoy eb efas htiw su, I esimorp.  Revetahw deneppah ot uoy erofeb, s’ti revo won.”  The survivor stilled in my hand, and stayed fairly quiet for the whole ride back, except for occasional questions he’d ask Mason or Julie.  Again I had that sense of not belonging.  Everyone in the car had either asked or answered questions throughout the drive, while I sat in silence — only able to guess at what was said.

Back at home, Julie took the new survivor off to the kitchen to get him something healthy to eat and drink.  On my way to my room with Mason, she asked me to tell Elenor what was going on.  I poked my head into the seemingly empty room across the hall from mine.  “Elenor?”  The survivor appeared from behind my sister’s bed.  “What is it?” she snapped.  “Julie wanted me to tell you that we found another survivor.  He was in my school escaping from a kid that had caught him.”  She sighed, said something under her breath in her own language, then nodded and waved a hand dismissively at me.

In my own room, I finally put Mason back down.  He stepped out of my hand to the surface of my desk.  I gave him a long look, then sat down tiredly, head resting on my crossed arms.  “I want to know what everyone’s saying,” I told him quietly, “But I barely know any words in your language, and I’m even worse at pronouncing them.”  Mason came and sat down directly in front of my arms, scrutinizing me with concern.  “English,” I tried, pointing to myself, “you?”  I pointed to Mason.  “Hsilgne,” he replied.  “Hs.. ill.. gn-e?” I repeated questioningly.  We spent a while repeating the word for his language back and forth, then Mason eagerly grabbed a pencil and tugged a piece of paper closer.  In his hands, both items looked massive.

He tried to write something, but kept fumbling with the pencil.  “Hold on,” I said, opening a drawer and digging through it.  “I put a pencil through a sharpener for a bit too long…  Aha!”  I pulled out a very used wooden pencil — the tip ground down all the way to the edge of the eraser.  It still looked thick around in Mason’s hands, but it was small enough that he could use it much easier.  Mason wrote down a word in his language, then pointed to the last letter.  Looking up at me, he nodded towards the larger pencil.  “You want me to write?” I asked, picking it up.  He nodded, made room next to his word on the paper, and pointed to its last letter again.

Confused, but intrigued, I wrote the letter he pointed to: ‘h’.  He went down the strange word, pointing to each letter from the end of the word to the beginning.  ‘h’, ‘e’, ‘l’, ‘l’, ‘o’.  Wait.. what?  I looked at the word I wrote then at the one he wrote in his language.  “Hello?” I tried.  “Olleh!” Mason replied happily, pointing to the papers.  “Wow!  Ronele t’nsaw gniyl; ti yllaer si sdrawkcab,” he mused to himself.

Excitedly, I wrote a word in my language, then pointed to the last letter.  Mason immediately got to work copying it down.  Soon we began learning how to properly talk to one another without having to mime everything.  Through the paper, he told me what had happened without me at school while I occasionally repeated larger or important words I wanted to commit to memory.  I learned that Mason had heard the new survivor — his name was Chris — trying to gather some supplies from the room to try to hole up in the school for a while.  He’d escaped whatever awful kid had taken him by breaking out of the plastic lunchbox they’d kept him in — continuing to kick the latch until the cheap plastic snapped open.  

When Mason climbed out of my bag and made his way over to him, Chris had thought he was also escaping.  However, after learning that he’d befriended a ‘giant’, Chris had begged Mason so vehemently to run away, and tried to convince him that he wasn’t safe, that the teacher in the room nearly found them and they both had to run and hide outside the classroom.  From there, Mason had to chase down the other survivor to try to convince him to come with me.  

Of course, they both ended up getting lost.  After the last bell had rung, Mason feared that I’d left him behind.  He’d begun to have second thoughts about chasing Chris when the custodian found them both and kicked them out.  I knew the rest of the story from there.  “Era uoy thgirla?” I asked him after he’d finished relaying what happened.  I’d asked him that before, but I wanted to flaunt my knowledge of his language a bit.  Mason nodded happily, flopping down on my crossed forearms.  

“Haey, m’I tsuj dalg I tog tuo fo ereht dna kcab ot uoy wohemos.  I saw gnitrats ot daerd taht d’I eb gnivil ni eht sehsub niaga…” Despite my efforts to learn, I still couldn’t quite decipher full verbal sentences yet.  Instead, I tried to cheer him up by laying my head back down over my arms, jokingly resting it on top of him.  He laughed loudly, shoving at my chin.  “Yeh!  Pleh! M’I gnieb dehsums!” he yelped.  

The rest of the day passed more easily.  I grudgingly did homework, then went to check up on the other survivor before I got ready for bed.  He’d decided to stay with Julie, which.. fair.  She can actually understand and speak their language.  Apparently, he had a colony of people that he’d been taken from that he wanted to get back to.  Julie had promised him she’d take him early the next day after a safe night’s rest, and ONLY if he agreed to take armfuls of supplies with him to his camp.

Laying down roughly in bed, I snickered as I watched Mason get launched a good five inches into the air.  I didn’t realize it would do that to him until a split second before I hit the mattress.  He shook himself off eagerly and pointed at my Switch laying beside my bed.  I shook my head “Worromot.  I ev- ah ot peels.”  Mason gave me a slightly disappointed look, but nodded, understanding I’d have to get up early again tomorrow.  By the time I was finished getting ready for the following day, Mason was tucked away in his tiny bed, fast asleep.

[ff7-has-taken-me-over]

I’m back with another fun prompt before I hit you guys with angst (sorry <3) I had a lot of idea but I decided this one was more cute and funny. so an AU where soap is medic (he is still the same just is more medically knowledgeable) so one day gaz and ghost walk in to medic ( gaz did something stupid and got hurt ghost is there to make sure he doesn’t pass out on the way there) and they see soap and ghost man is mesmerized he literally stop and stares soap walks in and just starts curse at gaz for being back in his office so soon then he sees ghost and gives him a huge smile and promises he’ll take care of gaz and he’ll be fine (ghost is so in love he just nods his head and thanks him). the next victim is könig he cuts his arm and soap just takes care of him and he is just straight flustered he just thinks of the nice medic who help him (the band-aids are cute animals). now the last two are Alejandro and Rudy they got a bit hurt and soap see’s them and immediately tends to their wounds he hold Rudy face with cleaning his cuts(Rudy face is so red and doesn’t know how to speak).then he hold Alejandro hand to bandage it he just stared and flirts with him in Spanish (soap knows multiple languages due to being everywhere as a medic) soap laughs and just says “ you think I’m hot? You’re not bad yourself and don’t worry I always kiss a patient better then he kisses his hand. Alejandro is just in shock and cannot speak price saw that go down and while soap is helping him he just say” y’know how we been talking about you joining 141?” “Yeah why?” “Let’s rethink that”.

Sorry this one took my so long, I’ve been trying to finish off some fics that’ve been sitting in my computer for a year.

Anyway! I actually love the idea of Gaz getting sent to Soap’s med room so often that the two just know each other really well by now and Gaz looks at him, looks at his lieutenant and goes, “Yes. He’s gonna love him.”

And then starts the talking about either man to the other one. Ghost kind of gets over Gaz talking about this medic so often and finally decides to go see what all the fuss is about himself one day. One look at the man tending to a random soldier and Ghost has fallen hook, line and sinker.

So now Ghost takes every opportunity to go see the man, including the time he ‘had’ to go with Gaz to make sure the man didn’t pass out in a random hallway (because there totally weren’t other people that could’ve taken him and he was the only person available)

It’s probably the only proper interaction he’s actually had with the man and when Soap turns that bright grin and soft eyes on him and speaks without an ounce of fear? Simon swears he could melt into a puddle.

König only ends up in medical because his captain told him to, something about needing him in tip-top shape. He doesn’t understand why since it’s literally a scratch but he won’t disobey orders, even if they’re literally pointless.

Though when the Austrian walks through that door and the nice medic man smiles at him that brightly he doesn’t feel as annoyed anymore. Especially when he gets so worried over mere scratches and handles him as if he might actually hurt him with one wrong move.

Soap offers him a choice of three animal Band-Aid’s, giggle on his lips as König chooses the cat one, “It suits you quite well I reckon.”

And if König wears those bandaids with pride and makes sure they’re always on display? Well, nobody’s gonna bring that up with the giant lest they die.

Rodolfo and Alejandro hadn’t met the man yet, both having been on a mission that had gone just a little rougher than they had expected. When they get back they’re both a little reluctant to go to medical, the older lady that had last been there was rough in her proficiency and sometimes you came away with an extra injury you didn’t have before.

But they both walk in and Soap’s there, turning toward them with a smile that drops in favour of worry as he rushes over. He ushers them to sit before going about and collecting his equipment, deciding to tend to Rudy’s head wound first since it seemed a little more severe than Alejandro’s arm.

Soap talks the entire time, voice as soft as his hands and Rudy swears he’s about blow a fuse with how hot his face is getting. The man’s face is so close and he keeps shooting the other these reassuring smiles whenever Rudy finds himself tongue tied in the face of his questions.

Alejandro watches the whole thing with amusement because he’s positive that he’ll be able to pull off talking to the man better than his longtime friend has.

But then Soap’s taking his hand in his own, treating him the same as Rudy and Alejandro finds he can’t remember a damn thing about the English language. He rolls with it though, flustering only slightly as he flirts in Spanish even though he’s positive that Soap doesn’t speak the language. Maybe the man will sense the intention behind the words?

“You’re quite good looking yourself. Did you want me to kiss your wound better as well or just your friends face?” Rudy looks ready to combust with both the words and the sudden language change from the Scotsman, Alejandro not faring much better as he opens and closes his mouth.

Soap laughs at their faces and lord have mercy, they’re both ready to die for this man if he so much as asked it of them. Soap does keep his words, kissing Rudy just right of the cut along his brow while he kisses the back of Alejandro’s hand, just shy of where his injury ends.

The two end up staying in medical just a touch longer since they both fear they’ll pass out if they stand right that second.

Price either sees the interactions or he hears about them from Gaz and he’s honestly a little scared of what might happen if Soap were to actually join the 141 and go into battle with them. These men were willing to kill when Soap had a bad patient, he didn’t want to imagine what could possibly happen if the man got physically injured in any capacity.

[hettiesworld]

Name of fic: The Distance Pairing: John Doe x OFC (Violet) Plot summary: After joining Sweet Tooth’s gang, she stumbles across John Doe and Quiet, as they were on their way towards New Chicago. She couldn’t help but feel attracted towards the milkman with a funny sense of humour… Warnings: Strong language, violence. Author's note: This is in a 3rd person POV, but it does have their thoughts in this fic.

Chapter 1

John was helplessly pulled along by Sweet Tooth, as he offered the dark-haired woman a forced smile. He was nervous, more or less because he wasn’t sure just how long this would take. He would have to stay and watch the clown’s show, and then he could be free, right? That’s what he was hoping, as he was lead into a large dining room, with a big stage, a rack of clothes, and a makeshift bed made for the clown. John looked around, before looking towards Sweet Tooth.

“What, was the suite already booked?” He joked. It got a laugh out of Sweet Tooth, as he explained himself a bit, before he pointed out what used to be an old fish tank, long dried out, that went from the floor to the ceiling. Inside was none other than quiet, who pounded on the glass with her fists.

Making sure Sweet Tooth was busy, John ran up to the glass.

“Serves you right. Why should I help you anyways?” he stated, as the woman reached into her jacket pocket, and pulled out his keys. “Shit…” He cursed, before he looked towards the other woman who’d been stuck here with them. “We’ve got to convince him to let her out. Without those keys, I’m stuck here. We’re stuck here.” He told her softly, before a scream just down the hall was heard loudly ringing out. Shit, more people? It seemed Sweet Tooth was already alerted by the noise, but John sort of stopped him before he could move on.

“Hey, wait up man, can’t we let her go?” He asked, pointing to Quiet. “Wait! Hear me out, but wouldn’t you want more people to see your show? Well, why not have three…or more people clapping for you when the shows all over?” He reasoned, forcing a smile to the clown.

Violet just ignored the milkman, but little did John know is that she was actually listening to his words. She watched the intruders' conversation, as she acted as one of Sweet Tooth's guards. All that Violet could hear from Sweet Tooth, when John suggested to let Quiet go, was deep laughter from the clown.

"Stay with them, Dragonfly. Don't let them get into any trouble." The clown asked Violet, ignoring John’s suggestion completely, as she stood there in her leather jacket and boots, her Nirvana t-shirt was on show as her bow was strapped around her body. She nodded as it gave John the idea that she was working for the clown.

When she looked away for a moment, she started to blush, noticing how handsome John was. She then cleared her throat as she looked back at Quiet and John, taking a gulp of water from her metallic gold water bottle to hide the fact that her face was bright red.

As the clown came back, with blood on his mask, he thought for a moment before shaking his head. This made Violet realise this might be her chance of escaping his casino, so she cleared her throat making the others look at her. She then muttered to Sweet Tooth, "He is correct. You might want both of their feedback for your show." She tried to convince the clown.

“What?” Sweet Tooth and John said in unison. Both were surprised by Violet speaking up. John was more surprised because he didn’t even know she could talk up until that point. He blinked a few times, before nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, what she said. We’ll stay for your show.” He insisted, as he gave Quiet a look, as if saying she better play along. “Well…you do make a good point…and it’s not like we get a lot of women around to give feedback for that demographic…alright! Dragonfly, let her out!”

Sweet Tooth agreed, after a moment of thinking it over. John sighed with relief and looked towards Dragonfly. He’d owe her one for sure. For now though, he’d focus on the situation they were in.

“So, what about the other guys?” John questioned, catching the clown’s attention. “What other guys?” Sweet Tooth asked, sounding intrigued. “The ones that are back in the casino. Didn’t you hear their car pull in?” John questioned, before suddenly the clown grabbed his large machete, and faced Violet.

“Dragonfly. Keep an eye on these two. I’m going to get more people for the show.” He insisted, as he moved out of the room, promptly leaving the three together as John moved to help get Quiet out of the large fish tank.

“You know, you have one hell of a boss.” He commented towards Dragonfly as he shook his head, although he was entirely glad she was on their side. A pretty woman like that? Of course he would be glad to have her on their side.

As Violet nodded to the clown's instruction, she chuckled under her breath as she heard John's accusation, shaking her head. "He's not my boss. God, he's too crazy." She rolled her eyes as she watched John help Quiet out of the empty fish tank. "After he heard that I was a part of the Army, he forced me to join his gang." Violet explained softly to the two of them so that Sweet Tooth couldn't hear her.

“Part of the army- no way! A pretty woman like you?” John asked in surprise, as Quiet finally climbed out of the tank, equally as surprised as John, but said nothing. Not yet. She couldn’t just trust anyone just yet.

"WAS a part of the Army." Violet said to them, shaking her head.

She then adjusted the bow and quiver on her back and then put some gold-coloured lipstick on her lips, looking into her pocket mirror, realising that it was smudging slightly. She cursed softly, "Sh*t-" She muttered to herself as she put her mirror back inside of her jacket pocket.

The man smiled as he watched Dragonfly for a moment, before he cleared his throat. “So, you ready to get out of this place, I take it? I mean, you said it yourself, the guy’s too crazy.” He questioned, to which Violet just shrugged her shoulders. He figured she must be interested in taking him up on his offer, which was fine enough for him. Still, they’d have to wait for Sweet Tooth’s show, something that did bug him. He had a schedule he was on.

He had to pick up that package, and fast. He only had ten days, after all. He couldn’t afford to waste one of those whole days here in Vegas. The man was pretty intrigued by the killer clown wanting to do a show though.

John wondered what the hell kind of show Sweet Tooth would even do? “If you were with an army at some point…did you used to live in one of the cities?” He asked curiously as he looked towards Violet, before realising he was getting ahead of himself. He hadn’t introduced himself at all yet.

"I was a Staff Sergeant. And yes I'm going to escape this fucking place, but you can't tell Sweet Tooth." She replied to John's question, before explaining to him that she had no idea what Sweet Tooth's show was going to be.

When Violet said he couldn’t tell Sweet Tooth, the man gave a nod in agreement, and gave a signal that his lips were sealed. “No worries, I gotcha.” he told her in a hushed tone, just in case the clown came snooping around during the conversation.

She knew that she was going to be apart of this 'show' and entertaining Sweet Tooth with her singing. "Yes. I used to live in Boston, but then I moved to Austin, Texas." She answered John.

“Boston? You’re from up North?” He suddenly asked, rather surprised. He’d never been up north, everyone knew it was bad up there. Too many vultures, butchers, and Holy Men. In fact, there was probably far worse up that way than he liked to admit. Even though North was exactly where he was supposed to be heading. Yeah, he really still wasn’t too thrilled about that, but at least the job was definitely worth it.

“Shit, that’s right, you don’t know who I am! I’m John. Her? I have no idea who she is. She’s a mute, I’m pretty sure.” John introduced himself, before he pointed towards Quiet who promptly flipped him off and rolled her eyes, shaking her head.

“See? This is what I had to deal with out there…” He muttered, shaking his own head, clearly not thrilled with Quiet at all. The man eyed Dragonfly though, very interested in her. She was far too pretty to be stuck in a place like this, and she seemed interesting enough. He wanted to get to know her more.

"Nice to meet you John. I'm Violet. People just call me Dragonfly because of my necklace." Vi then showed him her dragonfly necklace around her neck before looking over at Quiet, nodding at her. She wanted to tell Quiet that she was just like her, quiet but badass.

Just then, she heard loud footsteps, knowing it was Sweet Tooth and she knew he wanted them to go to the stage. Violet sighed. "I think he wants us to get to the stage. Follow me." She said so sternly, wanting John and Quiet to follow her.

John was still intrigued with Violet though, and wanted to get to know her more. They didn’t have the time though, as she mentioned getting to the show room. “Oh, right! You think he got those other guys snooping around? The guy seems pretty thorough.” John questioned, as he followed Violet along, Quiet not far behind as they entered the show room only to find a blonde woman sitting there.

“Wow, okay…that accent is very Boston…you two wouldn’t happen to know each other, would you?” The man joked, as he looked towards the blonde, then towards Violet. He chuckled awkwardly afterwards, and took a seat at a table, looking around the room. Something really did smell good, and he hadn’t noticed it until just then. Was…Sweet Tooth actually giving them a show, and food?

Violet only rolled her eyes at John, mentally apologising for his behaviour at Juliet. "No." Is all that Violet said to John's question before nodding at the blonde and going backstage to get ready for Sweet Tooth's show. She wore a black dress and matching heels, her hair was up in a bun. She then heard the clown walk into the same room where they were.

“I take it the two of you got roped into this…any clue what the shows about, exactly?” The blonde woman – who was in the same room as John, Quiet and Violet was – asked the milkman.

John watched Violet as she walked off. Seriously, how could he not? His eyes lingered right up until Quiet nudged him harshly in the side, forcing his gaze back on her. “What?” he responded, before the blonde spoke up. “No clue, blondie. Hey, why exactly are you here yourself?” He questioned curiously. She had to be a milkman. Given how casually she was treating this, it was something a lot of them shared amongst each other. He supposed he was just so used to other milkmen at this point, he could just pick up on that sort of thing.

Before the ‘blondie’ could reply, the crazed clown came back into the room.

"Are you ready Dragonfly for the show?" The clown called out to Violet, to which she replied with, "Yeah I'm ready."

She then walked onto the stage as the intro to 'Supermassive Black Hole' by Muse started to play. She held the retro-looking microphone in her hands as she began to sing with such a sultry voice.

John didn’t have a long time to think about it really, let alone think about much else as the music started playing, and Violet got up on stage.

If John had been head over heels with the woman before, he was certainly head over heels in love with her now. Okay, maybe not ‘in love’, but was she drop dead gorgeous? Yes. Was her voice absolutely breath taking? Absolutely.

His eyes were glued to her as she sang, and his eyes never left her figure. Quiet, who was equally as impressed as the other two rose her eyebrows in awe, and gave a slight nod of approval. Really, the woman was amazing, and the three had the fortunate chance to see it. All three of them were beginning to think that this show wouldn’t be as bad as they were thinking it would be to begin with.

Violet went off stage and that was it for the first act. The other two was up to Sweet Tooth for the other acts, having no idea what his plan was going to be. She got dressed back to her original outfit, as she was intending to escape with that outfit and not with a dress on.

John watched Violet return and gave her a wide grin. “Wow, an army woman and a great singer? You’re really something else.” he complimented.

Vi tried so hard not to blush in front of him as he complimented her. Just then, she felt Sweet Tooth pull her by her arm, to which she did not like and the others could tell she didn't.

John wanted to say more, but before he could, Sweet Tooth went pulling her along, and John didn’t like that one bit. In fact, it made him shift in his seat, as if stopping himself from getting up immediately and starting a fight with the guy. He already knew from experience that would be a bad idea though, so instead, sat still. He wasn’t sure just how honest Sweet Tooth had been about letting the two of them go after the show. Especially now that more people had miraculously shown up.

"Dragonfly, my little girl… I would like for you to entertain our guests again with a little show, if you know what I mean." She cringed, knowing exactly what the clown was on about.

But she saw the confusion on the others' faces as she sighed, going backstage yet again to get ready for the second act.

Then again, the crazed clown had actually been kind of nice to him after their little fight, so who knows. John looked over towards Quiet, who casted a glance towards him. “I know, I know…we’ll get out of this as soon as we can…” He promised the girl. She just glared at him, and turned her gaze towards the stage.

John wasn’t leaving Violet though. He couldn’t now. There was no way in hell he would let her stay back here and suffer in this place. He could tell she wanted to leave, and so, he’d help her. He was determined now more than ever to do so.

After 2 more acts of Violet wearing outfits that were too revealing, and singing 'Sexyback' by Justin Timberlake and 'Old Town Road' by Lil Nas X, she was exhausted as hell from the 3 performances. John couldn’t keep his eyes off of Violet, as she came out and sang in the revealing outfits.

His eyes lingered over her body, and whenever it was a bit too long, Quiet would nudge him. Quiet on the other hand had realised that the blonde was busy freeing herself when the clown wasn’t looking. It seemed everyone was focused on escaping. Well, everyone except for John who was more focused on Violet on stage. It seemed like he’d long forgotten about what they been discussing before this show.

She looked at Sweet Tooth, who was cheering and applauding it.

"Sooo… what did you guys think?" The clown asked John, Juliet and Quiet, tilting his head with curiosity as he leaned his baseball bat against his beefy-looking shoulder. Violet wasn't sure how he was going to react with either a compliment or a criticism about her show, so she just stood there nervously.

Once the show was over, it took John a moment to remember where he actually was. What they were doing here.

Oh shit. That’s right. “Y-yeah! It was great!” John agreed with the blonde, although was surprised at the clown’s violent reaction. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear? The man looked towards Violet and wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m serious! She was amazing!!” He quickly said.

The clown got annoyed at John's compliment, the grip on his baseball bat got tighter. He didn't want them to compliment the performance at all. He wanted to them to be brutally honest about the whole thing, and he would keep his promise of letting them go.

Quiet then spoke up. “It was fine. She has a great voice and all, but you’ve got to change up a show when you’re entertaining people.” She said, suddenly making everyone go silent. “What?” John asked, surprised the woman could even talk. “Well, not everyone likes music right? Maybe you could’ve…done some skits between the music.” Quiet added, causing the clown to stop and think, seemingly debating the woman’s idea.

When he heard Quiet's criticism, the smirk on his face grew at the fact that the woman could actually speak. He laughed out loud before saying to them, "Okay, okay! I'll let you go now. Go on." He then went to uncuff Juliet from her chair, not noticing that she tried to get out of it.

John was relieved when Sweet Tooth seemingly just accepted Quiet’s criticism and stood up, ready to leave. But as she saw John trying to get Violet to go with them, he stopped them in their tracks. "Not her. She stays."

Violet looked down to see Sweet Tooth's hand gripping her arm, not letting her go with them. She was speechless as she looked over at John with a pleading look in her eyes. She couldn't take down the clown on her own, even with her judo and karate training but she was getting angry with him touching her arms.

"What? But you said-" She tried to explain to Sweet Tooth of their deal, but he interrupted her yet again by laughing in her face. "NO! That was not part of our deal, Dragonfly. You still stay, remember?" He suddenly shouted at her, as she felt his grip getting tighter.

John froze in place as the clown stopped Violet from leaving. He turned to look at the clown, and shook his head. “Come on, man. Just let the lady go, she doesn’t want to stay here anymore.” He said, knowing fully well it wouldn’t convince the clown. He gave Quiet a look, and the woman seemed reluctant, but ready to help. They’d need to team up, he supposed, especially if they wanted to get out of here in one piece, altogether.

“Well, if she ain’t leaving, then we’ll just have to bust her out.” John said, as he threw a well placed punch at the clown, but it hardly made the man budge. The man’s eyes widened in horror. Shit. He forgot the guy was a damn good fighter. Quiet shoved John out of the way, just in time to avoid the machete to the face. Instead, the machete got lodged in the floor. “Shit!” He shouted, as he looked around the room. The blonde was gone, and it seemed like it was only he, Quiet, and Violet for now.

As Sweet Tooth let her go after going after John tried to punch him, she managed to avoid the situation as she grabbed her bow and quiver. She notched a cool trick arrow onto the bow and aimed it at the clown, whilst climbed on a table. She then shouted at him, "Hey dumbass!" She said in Spanish, which made the clown turn around towards her. "This is for making me stay here!"

She then let go of the arrow and as soon as it hit Sweet Tooth's mask, it let out some kind of gas that would knock out a person, including some crazed clown.

John watched as Violet’s trick arrow hit Sweet Tooth, and knocked him out. Relief washed over him instantly, and ran after her as soon as she shouted for them to do so. “You are the most bad-ass woman I know!!” John shouted with a chuckle as he and Quiet made it to Evelin, his own car.

Quiet tossed him the keys, and John started up the car, glancing towards Violet. He wasn’t about to lose her, not when he was just getting to know her. Besides, without her, Quiet and himself would’ve been stuck there themselves. They might even have been dead already without her.

She got down from the table and rushed over towards John and Quiet. "Let's go! What are you guys waiting for?" She said to them as she managed to get out of the casino and to her motorbike Archangel.

“Hey, Violet!” John shouted. “Stay close, we don’t need to lose you when we just got you out of here!” He added, before he heard Violet call back at him.

"Already ahead of you, John!" Violet rode Archangel, her motorbike towards John and Quiet in his car, Evelin and stopped it to look at the two of them. She had to admit though that John did look handsome whilst he was driving his car. But she was nervous that Quiet was going to steal John away from her. But he wasn't hers. He will never be hers, right?

They all quickly pulled out of the casino, and started driving in the direction John had been driving in beforehand, eyes glancing over to the mirror to make sure that she wasn’t far behind. With that, he sped off out of Vegas, glad to leave the city behind. He never wanted to see a clown ever again. At least, not for awhile.

"We should get a motel. It is getting late." Violet suggested to the two of them, knowing that there was a motel between Vegas and the checkpoint. As she followed John and Quiet out of Vegas, she realised that there was a checkpoint a few miles ahead of their journey. She didn't know where they were going to, but after that whole time with Sweet Tooth, she was willing to follow them.

John felt pretty damn good after that. Mostly because now he had a pretty woman to look forward to talking with. Chances were, she’d be a lot of help on his journey to ‘New Chicago’. He just needed to get that package, and bring it back to Raven. It definitely sounded easier than it was. Who knew what would await them up North. If it were anything like that deranged clown, he really wasn’t sure how they’d manage. They would though. They’d have to.

Hearing Violet’s voice, John looked over towards her, and gave a nod. “Yeah! I know a place, just follow me!” He called back, as he sped ahead, but not too fast. With it getting darker out, they ran the risk of running into vultures, butchers, and even Holy Men, if they were even more unlucky. It wasn’t much longer of a drive, and John stopped at an abandoned hotel. It gave them ample opportunity to relax and at least figure out where to go from here. Especially since Quiet was an… unwanted guest in his vehicle he was only reluctantly allowing to tag along.

[harrison-abbott]

Semi Autobiographical Story

They told me I needed to go and see the Guidance Officer at 11:15. At that time, I was in maths class – so I had to tell the maths teacher that I had to go. He seemed perplexed. As did I, because I had no clue why I was being pulled out. So I went down the claustrophobic yellow corridors and all the way downstairs and then I knocked on the Guidance Officer’s door. She was a mid-thirties blonde women who gave an air of not knowing what to wear if you saw her at a party, or, had gone into this profession without any desire to teach children and only chose it for the money, or, most importantly, had no training in child psychology, and had no qualification in counselling or any other form of therapy. “Come and sit down, Billy,” she said to me. And then she brought out two bits of paper.

“Did you write this?” I blinked at the story that I had written in English class. I nodded, thinking it was a bizarre question because it had my name written at the top of it. She pulled out a red pen. As in, a marker pen. “What gave you the idea to write this?” she asked me. I told her that I’d written it as an assignment for English class because they wanted us to write a scary story.

“But what made you write this material, Billy?”

“I just made it up. You know … because the teacher asked us to do a spooky piece.”

She sat back in her chair and looked at me. Prickling all over, and when she spoke she used that reprimanding voice that adults do with people who are far younger than them; and I still hadn’t much clue what was happening. Then she said,

“Do you know what happened in Germany earlier this week?”

“No.”

Apparently some German teenage boy had walked into his high school with a gun and had killed several people with it. As she told me all of this – again – I still had no clue why I was here or what this event in Deutschland had to do with me personally. She waffled on for a bit. And then went,

“Well. If something did happen here, we would have to say that we did know about it. So we can’t ignore what you’ve written in this story. Now. Let’s go through it.”

And then she proceeded to mark the 1500-word odd story that I had invented. It was probably less words than that actually, maybe around 900. And it was fairly skimpy writing because I was only 15 years old when I wrote it. I think, if I remember correctly, it was about an alien that comes down to planet Earth, disguised as a human. The alien walks about a suburb, looking like a handsome man. Nobody knows who he is. Though he can speak the neighbour’s language, they find him a bit weird. So they call the police on him because they’re freaked out by his presence. And then when the policemen arrest him, he panics and gets violent and ends up killing one of them. The alien runs away and there’s a manhunt for him – and nobody knows that he’s not a real man.

Honestly, it was about as silly as that. It was just a horror story … I thought that was what they’d told us to do. Make one of those.

But here was this Guidance woman underlining different bits in the story – as if I had made mistakes on an exam – and then asking me why I had included each bit. It was quite baffling. And because I was so young I began to believe that I had done something especially wrong. I thought I was ‘in trouble’, and yet I was confused as to what the crime was.

She then asked me if I read in my spare time? Yes, I said. Then she asked me what I read. Hmm, well, I said, I used to read those Edge Chronicles books, and those Mortal Engines ones, and, umm the Phillip Pullman ones … oh, and I just finished In Cold Blood. And her face changed when I said that and she went, “In Cold Blood?” She then wrote the title down on her notepad.

Altogether the one on one meeting with her was surreal. Befuddled as to how to defend myself, I said at one point, “I’m not insane.” And she said, “I know, Billy. I’m just trying to figure out where these ideas came from. They’re quite offensive.” She finished the meeting by telling me she was going to phone my mother and tell me about this. And she ordered me to go and apologise to the English teacher – who had been shocked by the story – and had been the man that had passed it on to her. It was him that flagged me up for it.

So I was let go for now. With this acute feeling that I was something dangerous and disliked and that the teachers were suddenly afraid of me. In short, I felt like a creep. I got back to maths class and tried to concentrate on the sums. And later on in the afternoon I saw my English teacher. I knew I had to go and say sorry to him and that’s what I did. It was in front of the other schoolkids; and their ears twitched as they listened, or they stared, wondering what I was apologising for. The English teacher was a mousey man from somewhere in England, whom hitherto I had actually been quite friendly with, and we’d even talked about books a few times. And it was quite jarring that he had snitched me out to the Guidance Officer. Was a tough betrayal to know that. “Okay, Billy,” he said, not looking at me, “Okay.” He was obviously keen for me to leave and take the attention away from him. [A few days later I saw him again, somewhere else in the building, and he flatly ignored me, when he obviously knew it was me, and walked past with a nervous expression.]

Yes. The Guidance Officer called my mother about the whole thing. And my mother stuck up for me, because I had written a creative story, and had done nothing wrong. Though I never knew the exact transcript from the phonecall, mother said that the Guidance woman got very irate and said things like, “Can you see the types of things he was writing here!” But, my mother was, quite rightly, on my side. [During the phone call the Guidance lady told my mother that I had read In Cold Blood. Mother said, “So what?”]

The incident did leave me damaged for a long time. Left me with the notion that I was dodgy or that I unnerved people.

There are similar examples from that particular high school which I’ve written about before. Perhaps I was a bit unlucky that I went there. I find it telling that I left high school early – and a couple of years later went to university, instead, where things were far different, and totally flourished there as an academic.

Nowadays I still look on this tale as being a bit odd and unfair. I was not an alien going around a sunny suburb killing people. That was fictional short story. Jesus. But at the same time, it did kinda plant an idea in my fifteen year old head that went, ‘Hey, maybe I could be a writer one day.’ And … there you go.

[wonderland-smile-stories]

~ Chapter 6. 02 ~

I apologize in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes and how poorly written this fanfic is. English is not my first language and together with my dyslexia ass things can go wrong I'm sorry.

I lean my head against the wall letting out a sigh. I need to be alone, after what Ji-su told me earlier today.

I hadn't seen Miss Im yesterday evening. The kids and Mister Han were okay and here, but she wasn't. I wanted to ask Ji-su or Jae-heon about it, but they were both already asleep when I came back from guarding the door.

In fact, everyone was already asleep except Eun-hyuk, Jae-hwan who had to go take over guard duty from me, and Sang-Wook.

I think.

I hadn't seen them sleeping with the others, but he didn't seem the type to sleep among them. My best guess is that he's somewhere on the first floor sleeping.

I didn't want to sleep now. I was tired of everything that had happened, but I was scared I would have a nightmare again.

So I just sat in the hallway all night. I finally found Ji-su the next morning. Her face changed when I mentioned Miss Im and asked where she was.

She was hesitant to tell me, but eventually, she did. She had turned. When we went downstairs she had turned in the bathroom. Ji-su told me that she didn't hurt anyone and that she was actually harmless to others.

I could feel myself choking up while my eyes began to burn from the tears that wanted to come out. I wanted to know more.

I wanted to know what happened and if she wasn't in pain, but looking at Ji-su I could tell that she didn't know much as well.

The only ones I could ask were Mister Han, Hyun-su, or the kids. I didn't want to ask the kids. I don't even think they let them see her.

Mister Han was busy making sure every entrance was secure and safe, so I didn't have to change to ask him. The only one who was left was Hyun-su, but he had left this morning to go upstairs.

Just like me, it seemed like he didn't sleep well or at all. I wanted to yell at Eun-hyuk to give him a break, but that would change nothing, so I just gave him a death glare when he looked at me.

I began to even get more angry when I found out that the residents gave him more work. They had given him a list of things that he had to bring with him when he came downstairs.

So not only is he risking his life for supplies so that we could survive, but now he's also risking his life for stupid shit.

After watching the door close behind Hyun-su I needed a break from everyone or it wouldn't end well for any of us.

“So this is the place you have been hiding.”

I looked up and saw Eun-yu standing in the closet doorway.

I shrug my shoulders before speaking up.

“It’s better for everyone if I sleep here. I don’t want to annoy anyone by waking them up if I have a nightmare.”

I asked Eun-hyuk if I could stay here at night. Like I explained to Eun-yu I told him that I don’t want to scream everyone awake. I know that they didn’t know about my nightmares, but I rather tell them than if they have to find out when I actually scream at night.

“I got scolded at when I wanted to sleep somewhere else,” Eun-yu said with a sigh before sitting down next to me.

It’s not like I’m having a room for myself. This was just a little walk-in closet that had some stuff in it. It had enough space for me to lay in, but that’s it.

"Why do you have that 'I'm angry.' look on your face?"

I look at Eun-yu with from brows.

"What are you talking about?"

She sat down beside me before answering.

"You always had that look on your face when someone makes you angry and you want to kill them." I rolled my eyes letting out a sigh.

"Because I am angry and want to kill people."

She nodded her head looking away from me.

"Is one of those people my brother?"

I looked at her with an 'are you kidding me look.'

"Don't look at me like that. You have my blessing to kill him though. Besides I understand why you would want to."

I pressed my lips together debating if she was serious or not about killing him, but I don't think she really wanted that.

"Yes," I answer looking back outside.

I felt her move beside me before answering.

"What?" She asked confused.

"Yes, your brother is one of them."

I could hear her click her tongue, but it was silent after that. Which was odd for Lee Eun-yu. I looked at her to see what she was doing, but she was just looking in front of her. I could see on her face that she was in deep thought.

I wanted to open my mouth to ask her what was bothering her when she beat me to it.

"So, are we gonna talk about those pictures?"

I turn to her surprised that she brought up those pictures. Only Sang-Wook and Eun-hyuk had seen them.

"How do you know about those?" I whisper.

"I found them in the office. I wanted to ask my brother about them thinking that they were his, but seeing that they were taking like the person was hiding while taking them I don't think my brother took them." She explains looking intensely at me and making me look away.

She is right about the hiding part.

"Besides my brother is maybe weird, but not this weird."

A little laugh escaped my lips before I shook my head looking at her.

"It wasn't him." I pause for a second letting out a sigh.

"It was Yoon-jae. He took them."

"That creep from 802?! I know that he was a pervert. That explains why that gangster killed him. I knew he had a good reason." She spoke looking away from me to think.

"That was not the only reason he killed him. There were pictures of little girls." A grimacing expression appeared on her face when those words left my mouth.

"Some were just normal pictures but others were them beaten up, tortured, and dead. He killed those innocent kids. I don't know how Sang-wook knew, but he did."

I wanted to talk with Sang-wook about it and thank him for what he did, but I hadn't seen him. Also, I don't know if he even wants to talk about it or me. He doesn't seem the person to talk much

"I took this from the security room. I didn't know if you would have wanted this or not. I had thought that maybe you would have wanted to destroy them yourself." Eun-yu took the pictures out, handing them to me after that she stood leaving me alone to think.

It felt wrong to hold them and I wanted to rip them apart or burn them the moment I had a chance.

Nevertheless, looking at them now I don't want to destroy them all.

The pictures of me with other people I actually wanted to keep. In times like this everyone can die in just a snap of a finger, so why would I throw something away that would remind me of them?

Besides the pictures of Eun-yu and the kids, there were also pictures of me with Miss An at the store. She was smiling at me while I gave her one of her favorite foods I had gotten from my job.

She didn't always have the chance to eat it because of her husband, so when she mentioned it one time I knew I had to get her some from my job.

In another picture, it was Ji-Su and I coming back from work with our guitar and bass cases on our backs and some takeout in our hands.

Even though it was late and we were exhausted we were still smiling.

Another picture showed me and Eun-hyuk talking while waiting on the elevator. Then there was a picture of me standing in front of Mister Han at his doorway. I must have probably helped him by bringing some stuff to his apartment.

All those pictures actually made me smile. The time I had lived here was the best time of my life. It doesn't seem much or just ordinary to everybody else, but for me, it was peaceful and I was genuinely happy for the first time in my life.

It's just sad that it didn't last long.

My smile disappeared when I took the next pictures. It was a picture of Miss Im. She had just come back from a walk with her so-called baby when I came back from the store.

We began to talk while we walked to the elevator. My finger moved over her face and I could feel a tear running down my cheek.

I didn't have much time to grieve when the sound of a whistle came from somewhere on the floor. After putting the photos in the pocket of my dress I jump up taking my axe from beside me.

Eun-hyuk had told me I needed to carry it around with me just in case something happened. When I came around the corner I saw Eun-hyuk running out of the security office with a bat and the others were standing all together on the other side.

I moved forward trying to get a glimpse of whatever the monster was. Slowly, a long-haired look figure came from around the corner. It was moaning and groaning, but it didn't seem like a threat to me.

Sang-Wook was about to take a step forward when Miss An stopped him.

"It's my husband. I have to do this." She walked toward him with the steel pipe tightly in her hands.

"Pull yourself together, Kim Seok-Hyeon." It was the first time I heard that tone in her voice.

She wasn't afraid of him like she was before.

"Kim Seok-Hyeon"

Her voice was louder than before when he came closer and closer.

"Pull yourself together!" She now yelled before swinging the steel pip at him.

For a second I thought that it didn't affect him, even when that horrible sound went through me when the pip made contact with his head.

It did stop him from moving.

"You're back." Her voice sounded cold and without any regret from hitting him.

"Do you have any last words?" I could hear him breathing hard, but after a while, a voice came through the mop of hair.

"Please kill me. And."

It took him a second to say it and the word that came out of his mouth was a surprise and one I had never heard him say before.

"I'm sorry."

Miss An. Let out a cry before swinging the pip down at him. This time it did hurt him. A shiver ran down my spine when I could hear it go through his head.

Even when he fell down on the floor Miss An didn't stop. I had seen and heard a lot of horrid things these past couple of days, but for some reason, a chill ran up my spine when I heard her hitting him.

At some point, I had closed my eyes turning my head to the side. She's killing her husband. Yes, he was a horrible person who deserved to die like this, but still, it made me think.

If I could end up like this in the future. Just because I have some control of it now doesn't mean I will forever.

Just yesterday I attacked Eun-hyuk without actually trying or realizing it. Could the people here easily kill me as Miss An could kill him?

Would it be one of the residents of don't really care about me? Or Eun-hyuk, he is serious about protecting everyone, so would it be easy for him to kill me?

If they really had to would Ji-su or Jae-heon do it?

Mister Han?

The kids?

Or Hyun-su....

Would he kill me if they asked him?

Or.... Could I kill him if he turned and hurt someone?

'I can guarantee they will kill you the first moment they have a chance." My hands turned into fists when I heard the voice again in my head.

Shut up.

'Just wait and see. They are just the same as the people in the orphanage. Only thinking about their own wishes and desires without caring who gets hurt in the process.'

I snapped out of my thoughts when I felt someone brushing past me making me open my eyes.

To my surprise, Hyun-su had returned.

He was looking down at the scene just as intently as I was.

Is he thinking the same things as me?

My eyes followed his figure while he wobbled back to the room. To be locked up and alone.

Previous Chapter ~ Next Chapter

[enasallavellan]

Enasal Lavellan Reboot - Ch. 5

Enasal learns her role as Herald of Andraste and struggles to understand the Common language.

But don't worry, Varric's got this under control.

If you like what I've written, consider reblogging or commenting - I love to hear from ya'll!

The following days were a flurry of activity as the Inquisition laid claim to Haven. The sky was filled with birds delivering letters, soldiers trained and blacksmiths hammered metal on their anvils. Amidst the hustle and bustle, Solas was usually busy with his own pursuits, so she didn’t see too much of him. But Varric seemed to always have time for her - even waving her over to sit with him while they watched all the people going this way and that.  

She liked Varric - he answered all her questions but never made her feel stupid for asking. 

On that particular afternoon, they watched along with curious onlookers as the Commander came out of the chantry and hammered a large piece of parchment to massive doors. Enasal decided that it must be very important, so big and eye-catching as it was,. “What’s it say?” She asked, leaning forward. 

“Can’t tell from here.” He said, “Go check it out.”

She shook her head, boosting herself up on a parapet.

He let the silence stay for a bit before saying, “You have that contemplative face.”

She looked up, “Contemplative?”

“Thinking really hard.”

“Actually…” She shifted her weight, “I wanted to ask you something.”

He waved his hand, “Ask away, kid.”

She swung her feet a bit, head tilting side to side as she thought, “What’s a…” She could barely recall the word, much less pronounce it, “En… something. Like, Cassandra had this book - a really big book - and she was talking about how it was reborn, and that chantry man wasn’t happy too about it.”

“Ah.” He leaned back against the wall, “You mean, ‘inquisition.’”

She nodded.

“Fancy talk,” Varric remarked with a chuckle. “People in charge like those sorts of words. It makes them feel smart.”

“But what does it mean?” She pressed.

“Basically, a big group that tries to figure out who did something, make them stop doing the thing, punish them for doing the thing, and then fix whatever thing they broke.”

“And…” She rested her elbows on her knees, looking at him, “They called it a….”

“Inquisition.” He repeated.

She snapped her fingers, “That.”

Varric chuckled, “You’ll pick it up.” 

She sat back up, drawing her knees up, “I hope so.”

She felt a tap on her ankle, and Varric smiled up at her, “Try it. Inquisition.”

She squinted at him, “En… en cah… something.”

He repeteaed it speaking slowly, “Inquisition.”

They went back and forth in playful repetition until Enasal seemed able to manage all the vowels and hit the consonants without stumbling or fumbling. She found herself oddly proud when she said it correctly - it might have had something to do with Varric reaching up to jostle her a bit, grinning ear to ear, “Knew you could do it.” 

She fell quiet, trying to bite back a smile, but the grin was easy to see. 

The people passing by didn’t approach her. Those that passed by would often smile and bow their heads, some saying simply, “Good afternoon, Lady Herald.” It was a nice change, and she found herself able to offer a very small smile in return.

Varric chuckled, breaking the silence. “I heard that Curly got on his men about giving you some space. He made sure they spread the word.”

Enasal tilted her head to the side, “Who?”

“Curly.” He gestured to the chantry door, “The grumpy commander.”

“He is grumpy.” She said, drawing her knees up again. “I was… kind of worried I did something wrong again.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Varric reassured her, “Stop assuming you did.”

She fussed with a particular curl that decided to stick out of the general halo of her hair, “I mean… everyone wanted to kill me a few days ago.”

He nodded, lips pinched together as he tried not to laugh, “You’re not wrong… okay, I’ll give that on to you.” At noticing her fussing with her hair, he reached over and mussed the curls.

“Varric!” Enasal protested, batting his hand away. “They’re already fuzzy enough without you doing that!”

“You mean frizzy.” He suddenly grinned, leaning in and whispering “Here comes trouble - want to have some fun?” Before she could answer either way, Varric threw his arms wide, crying out, “Seeker!”

Cassandra frowned at him, “Hello, Varric.”

“Seeker, how are you on this fine, bitterly cold-”

“Herald.” Cassandra interrupted, “We need you in the chantry.”

“Seeker, I’m hurt that you’d ignore me,” Varric said dramatically, placing a hand over his chest. “Right here, like a knife.”

Cassandra rolled her eyes, dismissing Varric’s theatrics. “Herald, if you please.”

Enasal hopped off the wall and followed Cassandra. The silence between them wasn’t at all like with Varric. This quiet was awkward and prickly, like a porcupine chittering and swinging its tail at a predator.

“Does it trouble you?” She asked suddenly, looking straight ahead.

“No, I think I’m okay.” Enasal said, chewing on her cheek as planned her next sentence, “Varric said that the commander told off some people so they’re not really getting too close”

“The mark.” She said shortly.

“Oh,” Enasal looked down at her hand, the mark’s symbol etched on her skin. “Some. But it doesn’t hurt. Well, most of the time it doesn’t hurt. But it... feels weird. Like an itch that doesn’t itch.”

Cassandra nodded, “We will take any victory we can .”

Enasal slowed to a stop. 

Of course, they needed to take every victory after their complete failure to seal the breach.

Well, her complete failure.

She felt hot tears forming in her eyes, and she looked away from Cassandra, trying to blink them away. She hated crying, hated how easily she cried. Shiral always scolded her over it, telling her she was too old to be so sensitive, to stop acting like a baby.

But Cassandra had clearly seen it and busied herself with adjusting the strap of her gauntlet. “You did all you were able.”

“But it wasn’t enough.” She felt a tear start down her cheek, and she roughly wiped it away, “All those people….”

“They will not have died in vain, Lady Herald. We will fix this.”

Enasal swallowed, shaking her head.

Cassandra hesitantly patted Enasal’s shoulder, “What is important at this moment is that the breach is stable.”

She nodded vaguely. 

“Solas believes that a second attempt might succeed, provided the mark has more power.”

Enaal looked up at her in surprise, “Solas thinks so?”

“If he is as knowledgeable as he claims.”

That gave her some hope, “You said we needed power?”

“An immense amount.” She said, “Solas believes it will require as much power to close it as it took to create it… maybe more.”

Enasal realized her fingers were fluttering - an old nervous habit that her sister could never stand. She clenched her fists to still her anxious hands. “Is there some sort of plan or something?”

“There are many plans - each more desperate than the last.” Her frown deepened as she neared the door to the back room. “You will have a team of advisors to assist you - myself included.” 

“Assist…me?”

“Yes.” She said, opening the door, “Our Herald - you.”

The Commander and Leliana looked up from the map they were studying, accompanied by a woman Enasal hadn’t seen before. The woman wore clothes that seemed to be spun from gold and hair done up with impressive perfection. From over a board stacked with paper, she smiled warmly when she saw Enasal, “So this is she.”

“Yes.” Cassandra said, “This is Enasal Lavellan - the Herald of Andraste.”

Enasal winced at the introduction. She didn’t understand why she needed a name in the first place, much less why assumed her clan’s name was a fitting choice.

The other woman gave a graceful nod, “Andaran atish’an.” 

Enasal perked up, “You speak Dalish?”

“Unfortunately.” She said with a laugh, “You’ve just heard the extent of it.”

“This is Lady Josephine Monilyet, our ambassador and chief diplomat.”

Enasal nodded, “It’s good to meet you.”

“An honor, Lady Herald.” She said, “I will be assisting you when dealing with more delicate matters - communicating with other nations and their nobility in a way that fits their… unique views.”

Leliana nodded, “Which means she’ll write the words pretty enough that nobility will think we’re doing them a favor by allowing them to join our cause.”

Josephine smiled, “And I assure you, Lady Herald, I am very skilled with a pen.”

Cassandra continued, “And you remember Leilana, I’m sure.”

“Like our diplomat, I will be handling delicate subjects as well - but my position will involve a degree of-”

“She’s our spymaster.” Cassandra interrupted.

Lelians sighed, “Tactfully put, as always, Cassandra.”

Cassandra seemed to be growing tired of the proceedings, gesturing to the Commander, “You might remember Commander Cullen.” 

“I thought your name was Curly!” Enasal blurted out.

Leliana covered her mouth to stifle a laugh and Josephine hid her face behind her clipboard.”

Enasal felt a breath catch in her throat when he rested his hand on the pommel of his sword, fingers irritable, tapping its surface. She had made him mad.

“I’m sorry.” She said quickly.

“Varric’s doing, I’m sure.” Cassandra grumbled, “He prefers creating his own names for people over using their own.”

“Either way,” Cullen bowed his head politely, “I’m pleased to see you’re doing better. 

Again, her eyes drifted back to the hand resting on his weapon, trying to figure out how fast he could draw his weapon and cut her down. It wouldn’t take much for him to shift his grip and strike.

She nodded, “Yes - I mean, no. But yes - I mean...” She rubbed her face, “There hasn’t been any more crowding. Thank you.”

He smiled, one side of his mouth higher than the other. Enasal couldn’t tell if he was smirking or if his mouth just had a quirk in it, “Good.” 

“Thank you.” She said quickly.

He nodded, “I’m actually rather impressed.”

She squinted at him.

“I’ve known hardened soldiers to fall to less than what you faced.” He said, “And you didn’t hesitate. Despite how things began, you fought alongside us. That’s commendable.”

Enasal’s thumb ran along her fingertips as she tried to decide what to say. This was a room full of very important people; military leaders, spies, and no-doubt nobility - they all had a certain dignity about them, a confidence that made her want to trust them.

And there she stood; eyes down and trying desperately to stop fidgeting, so much she almost forgot they were all looking at her. She swallowed again, but tried to smile, “I suppose I’m lucky to be working with you all.”

“We have no time to waste.” Cassandra turned to Enasal, “I mentioned your mark needs more power—”

Leliana immediately responded, cutting her off. “So we’ll need the help of the rebel mages.”

Enasal nodded along. Even if she wasn’t making decisions, she could at least pretend she understood what they were discussing. Leliana said with such conviction that it seemed they were all in agreement.

But it turned out they weren’t.

Cullen frowned, and his hands instinctively rested on the hilt of his sword again. “And I still disagree. The templars could serve us just as well.”

Templar - another word she’d have to ask Varric about.

Cassandra leaned on the table towards him, “We need power, Commander. If enough magic is poured into that mark-”

“It might destroy us all,” he countered firmly, setting his jaw. “Templars could suppress the Breach, weaken it, so—”

Leliana jerked her chin up defiantly, “Pure speculation.” 

Enasal put her finger up as if to say something, but nobody noticed. Cullen continued to stare Cassandra down., “I was a templar; I know what they’re capable of.”

Josephine continued to write, “Unfortunately, neither group will speak to us yet. The chantry has denounced the Inquisition.” She forced a weak smile, eyes going to Enasal. “And you, specifically.”

She launched her shoulders, “Why me?”

Josephine motioned out the window, “Some are calling you - a Dalish Elf - ‘The Herald of Andraste,’ and that frightens the chantry. The remaining clerics have declared it blasphemy -”

What was blasphemy?

Leliana nodded, “And we heretics for harboring you.”

What was a heretic?

Cassandra huffed, “No doubt Chancellor Rodrick’s doing.” 

Josephine was scribbling on her clipboard, her hands flying across the page, “Which limits our options. Approaching the mages or templars is currently out of the question.”

This time, Enasal waved her hand until the others looked at her, “Sorry, sorry, but...” She worried her hands, “How am I the Herald of Andraste?”

“People saw what you did at the temple,” Cassandra insisted, “How you stopped the breach from growing. They believe the woman in the rift was Andraste.”

Leliana nodded in agreement, her eyes studying Enasal intently. “Even if we tried to stop that view from spreading—”

“Which we have not,” Cassandra interjected

Josephine flashed a warm smile, “The point is, everyone is talking about you.”

She didn’t like that.

She didn’t like that at all.

Cullen spoke up, again with that smirk-or-maybe-smile. “It’s quite the title, isn’t it? How do you feel about it?”

She rubbed her arms, “Oh, I… I’m not really sure.”

“Understandable - a lot happening all at once.”

She dared a look up at him, nodding before looking away.

��Herald.” Leliana said, “People are afraid. They’re desperate for some sign of hope. For once, you are that sign.”

“And to others.” Josephine added gravely, "A symbol of everything gone wrong.”

Enasal swallowed as she thought back through her most recent past. She had traveled so far, killed demons and sealed rifts, been jerked back and forth between life and death and now? Now, she had made very powerful very people angry - Shiral always told her the human chantry was especially dangerous.  

She looked from one to the other, voice trembling as she asked, “Is the chanty going to attack us?”

“With what?” Cullen asked, examining one of the maps, “They have only words at that disposal.”

“Yes, Commander.” Josephine said with a shake of her head, “And they may bury us with them.”

The others began to argue again, but Leliana had fallen quiet. Her attention was fixed on the map, fingers drumming a restless rhythm against its surface. Finally, she stood, voice cutting through the fighting, ““There is something we could do.”

Enasal jumped at the chance to participate, “What?”

Leliana pointed decisively to a spot on the map before locking eyes with Enasal. “I’ve been in contact with a Chantry cleric named Mother Giselle. She has asked to speak with you. She is not far, and her assistance could be invaluable.”

Enasal’s worried fingers pinched at the loose skin of her knuckles before catching herself and shaking her hands out. She wanted to be involved, but she wasn’t sure about actually making the decisions. So she put off giving a definite answer, instead asking, “Where exactly is she?”

“In the Hinterlands, near Redcliffe.”

“And how will this help us?” Cullen asked.

“By giving us a foothold.” She said, “The Inquisition needs to be seen as a cause that will help the people - and having someone in the Chantry on our side will help give us some legitimacy.”

Cullen raised his eyebrows, “That’s actually a good idea.”

“I have my moments, Commander.” She said tersely.

Cullen’s hand instinctively found its way to his pommel, but as he turned to Enasal, he quickly put them behind his back again. “Look for more opportunities to expand the Inquisition’s influence while you’re there.”

Josephine nodded in agreement, “We need agents to extend our reach beyond this valley, and you’re better suited than anyone for that.”

She pointed to herself, “Me?”

Josephine underlined something with a flair, “You are the Herald of Andraste.”

Enasal rubbed her arms, “I mean… I don’t know.”

Cassandra leaned toward her, “We would not send you if we doubted you.” 

She swallowed, nodding silently.

“In the meantime.” She said, returning to one of the maps, “We will think of our other options - you will not make this decision alone.”

A sigh of relief escaped Enasal, a weight lifted off her shoulders. “Thank you.”

The other continued talking, discussing maps, troop placements, and possible alliances. Enasal stood awkwardly by the door, unsure of what came next. “Um… excuse me?” She asked tentatively, “Did you need me for anything else or…?”

Josephine looked up, “No, Herald. Please, go rest. You must be tired.”

She was tired.

Deep down into her bones.

But she wanted to talk to Varric first. Her nerves were so bundled up and tangled together - she wouldn’t be able to sleep like that.

When she had left, Leliana glared at Cullen, “You are a man of good standing, and men of good standing do not stare. How do you think that makes her feel?”

“I’m concerned!” Cullen snapped back, his worry etched on his face. “Did you see how thin she was? Maker’s breath, her skin must be sticking to her ribs!”

“He’s right.” Josephine sighed, already drafting a missive, “Poor girl. Do we know how old she is?”

“She claims to be twenty-five.” Cassandra said.

“Twenty-five?” Cullen asked in surprise.

“So she says.”

He rubbed his forehead, shaking his head, “To be as small as she is… she went without food for long periods of time… on many occssions.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “Her whole life most likely.”

“Did her clan offer her no help?” Josephine asked.

“I doubt that.” Leliana shook her head, “She’s obviously not used to being around people. Perhaps she left on her own or perhaps she was sent away, but she seems to associate with her clan very little, if at all.”

“I cannot believe I’m saying this.” Cassandra sighed irritably, “But I believe Varric has been good for her.” She wrinkled her nose.

“I’ve noticed that.” Leliana said, “He’s taken her under his wing.”

“He does that.” Cullen said blandly.

With a deep sigh, Josephine nodded, “I’ll make sure the tavern takes special care with her meals.”

“Good.” Cullen bent back over the maps. “Frankly, I’m not sure how she’s even functioning.”

Outside the chantry, Enasal had finally found Varric near his favorite fire - the one right by a branch in the path, all the better to find people to talk to. She hurried over to him, huddling close to him and shivering.

“Good to see you’re still alive.”

“Yeah… hey, can you help me with some more words?”

He chuckled, “Anytime.”

“Okay, so what’s blas... blas-pha... phe-?”

“Blasphemy.” He supplied, “It’s when someone does or says something the chantry doesn’t like. A matter of opinion if you ask me.”

“Blasphemy.” She repeated, then asked, “And what’s a herik-tic?”

“Heretic.” He chuckled, “That’s the person who does the blasphemy.”

“What’s a templar?”

“Ah, the templars!” He rubbed his hands together, “A complicated bunch.” He crossed his arms over his chest, “They’re supposed to protect mages in circles - do you know about the circles?”

Enasal nodded, “A little.”

“On paper - that’s just another way of saying ‘how it was planned’ - they’re supposed to protect mages from demons and protect the outside from mages who like to set people on fire.”

Enasal nodded, “But… since you said it like that, I’m guessing it’s different in real life.”

He nodded, “A lot of templars get real power happy. They think mages are cursed by the Maker - or they just like pushing people around. They’re tasked with hunting down mages that escape from the circle or try to avoid being taken, and I’m sure some of them enjoy it. Mages get beaten, killed - sometimes worse things happen.” He jerked his head in a vague direction., “In Kirkwall, they started rounding them up by the dozen to make them Tranquil.”

She squinted her eyes, “Tranquil?”

“Cutting their ties with the fade, no more emotions, no more magic.” He shook his head in a pitying sort of way. “But mages in Kirkwall started to rebel, and next thing you know things start blowing up.”

Enasal was quiet as she digested the information.

“Cullen said he was a templar.” She finally said.

“Curly? Oh yeah, I knew him in Kirkwall - was kind of a piece of shit.”

Enasal nodded, “So he is dangerous.”

He shrugged, “He did some pretty bad things. Then again, I heard from a certain Nightingale that he was in a circle where half the mages were turning into demons. Watched a lot of people die. So, Curly and magic don’t mix well.” Varric pointed to his mouth, “Did you notice the scar?”

She shook her head,   

“Well, it means one of two things. Either there were no healing mages nearby when he got it, or he wouldn’t let them near him.” He frowned, “I’d guess the latter.”

“I didn’t notice.” Enasal said, “I was too focused on trying not to look terrified.”

Varric threw his head back and laughed, “While I wouldn’t say I’m friendly with the man, he seems to be trying to do… I don’t know, something mildly decent with his life.” He shrugged, “That and he’s too serious for his own good - but I don’t think he’d hurt you.”  

She nodded slowly, whispering, “He’s so big.”

Varric burst out laughing, “Compared to you and me, everyone is.”

“Yeah, but…” She said, fussing with her hair, “I didn’t know humans could get that big. I mean, if he wanted to, he could kill me, just like that.” She snapped her fingers.

“Maybe.” Varric said, “But I don’t think he will. He got everyone to give you space, didn’t he?”

She thought about it, then nodded, “Yeah… yeah, okay.”

Varric crossed his arms over his chest, nodding slightly as he said, “I have an idea.”

She tilted her head to the side, “About?”

He grinned, “Nothing like a game of Wicked Grace to help you get to know everyone a little better.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“That’s fine.” He said, “You’ll learn.”

She drew her knees to her chest, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

She glanced at him and shrugged, “People… tend not to like me very much.”

“Who doesn’t like you?” Varric laughed, playfully jostling her, “Because everyone I’ve talked to likes you.”

“They don’t know me.” She said softly.

Varric shook his head, “Okay, I’m not sure where you got that idea but it isn’t true. So take that thought out of your head and throw it somewhere.”

Enasal switched subjects, “Well, we’ll be going to the Hinterlands soon, so-”

“Ah, one night won’t kill anyone.” He said, “Might take me a few days to get everyone pinned down at the same time, but it'll be a good time - I'll let you know once the day's set.” Without leaving any room for argument he put up his hand in farewell and walked toward the chantry.

Enasal shook her head and sighed. Even with the Commander’s efforts to keep her crowded, all the activity in the area still put her on edge. Swords clashing and men yelling in the training yards, noise and music coming from the taverns, people walking this way and that and talking, talking, talking.

And she was so cold. This coat didn’t seem to keep her as warm as her long covers did, lined in fleece or not. She wished for halla wool, but knew the chance of getting it outside the clans, not to mention all the way out here, was practically impossible.

Maybe Josephine was right. Maybe she should go rest. She could build up the fire and burrow under the blankets, nice and cozy. She was actually becoming quite fond of beds. The mattress was certainly an improvement over her bedroll - even if  a few people had apologized profusely about it being ‘just straw and linen.’

To her, it was one of the best things she had ever seen.

She didn’t even bother with the fire when she returned to her room, instead curling up under the heavy blankets with a contented sigh.

Within minutes, she was fast asleep.

Read the full fic from the beginning at my A03 here!

If you’re willing and able, feel free to donate to my ko-fi or drop a tip in the jar to help me afford my many medications to keep the crazy at bay!

Credits:

Artwork of Enasal drawn by the talented @vahingoniloinenlapsi

I used Project Elvhen on Ao3 to help with the 'Dalish'.

[brainwasheddd]

New to New York

warnings: hospital (ish), mention of flashbacks and panic attacks, this bitch got trauma for days, but i promise this one’s not too angsty. also a lot of cursing

A/N: this is mostly to introduce the character and how he got to the tower and it has a lot of loose ends. there’s gonna hopefully be multiple parts if people like this. Also! I know a lot of this isn’t exactly how ASL works, and definitely isn’t how you write it out (trust me, i know sign pretty damn well) but for reasons of Plot Development™ just ignore that- also also i know this is a long ass author’s note but i did not do a bunch of editting because we die like men (/j) so i’m sorry that this isn’t my best work like,, at all. I was just really excited to post it. excuse the shitty title we all know i suck at naming shit

tags: @love-pyramus @simonrriley @cchloeprice @goddess-of-night @yourknightinshiningplastic @himbos-hotline @christian-sings-the-eulogy @marstonjohn (ask to be added/removed!) ((also you motherfuckers keep changing your names (/lh) so sorry if you weren’t tagged correctly))

Word Count: 2,748

reblogs are very much appreciated

Andrew woke up in a hospital room. And, of course, momentarily freaked the fuck out. 

Okay, what the fuck. What the fuck. Where was he, why was he, what happened? The first thing he registered was a dull pain in his leg. He flipped the blankets to find it in a cast. He took a shaky breath, running a hand through his hair. Okay, fuck. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay. He was okay. 

What. Happened.

The door to his room opened and oh my god that’s what happened. Tony Stark, the Tony Stark, walked in, and the memories flooded back to him. Flying to New York. The new job. Overhearing something. Then the fight downtown. He shook his head. What time was it? All of that didn’t take more than 24 hours, but who knows how long he was asleep. God, today has been the longest year of my life.

Stark was saying something. His lips were moving at least, but nothing was coming out of them. Andrew just stared at him confused. He reached up to his hearing aid, trying to turn the dial. It was stuck. Shit.

Andrew opened his mouth to speak, but a familiar feeling came up instead. Like his words were a sticky syrup that had been put in the freezer and was now stuck, a sludge in his mind, unable to escape. Double shit.

“Do you know ASL,” he signed. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He hated this.

Stark held up a finger and exited the room. He came back with another man, one Andrew seen at the fight but hadn’t a clue who he was. 

“Hey. My name’s Clint. I work with Tony. I’m gonna translate for him, okay?”

Andrew just nodded. He looked up at Mr. Stark. He looked angry. Andrew didn’t like that. Cold. He had to put up a defense. Unfortunately for the men trying to get some answers from him, that defense always involved deflection. And heavy sarcasm.

Mr. Stark started saying something. Andrew paid heavy attention to his body language. Yeah. Definitely angry. Probably at him. He looked back at Mr. Clint. 

“Translation: Can someone tell me why this child who apparently forged documents to become a Stark Industries employee ended up fighting with the avengers today?”

“Not a child.” Andrew signed back.

Mr. Stark just rolled his eyes before saying something else. Mr. Clint said something back to him. Andrew wished to himself that he knew how to read lips. Before he could ask Mr. Clint to tell him what was happening,Tony was storming out.

“Sorry, he’s stressed out. Our teammate got hurt on the mission and he had to deal with a slight” he hesitated before continuing to sign. “Hiccup relating to work.”

Andrew took it he was the hiccup.

“Let’s start over. Are you hearing or deaf?”

“Depends.” Not a lie.

Mr. Clint gave him a pointed look. “Can you talk at all?”

God this conversation was draining. “No talk,” he signed simply. Those were the first two words he learned in ASL, actually.

“You fought damn well today. Seemed like you had some sort of fire weapon on you. Wanna explain that?”

Andrew answered simply by raising his middle finger and doing his favorite party trick. Fire came out of the top of his finger like it was a candle. Andrew kept a straight face, secretly relishing in the man’s baffled look.

“Okay. So not a weapon, you can just do that. How?”

“I don’t know, must be magic,” Andrew signed back sarcastically.

“Got it.” He replied, exasperated. “So why are you here? Tony says you came from another state. Family troubles?”

No no no no no. Andrew shut his eyes. No. He couldn’t flash back now. He took a breath. Okay. 5432154321 54321 5 4 3 2 1. Okay. No. “No.”

“Don’t want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“…”

“…”

“…”

“Can you go?”

So Clint left. In the hallway, Stark was pacing impatiently. “What did he say?”

“Not much. He’s a sarcastic little shit, and he kinda shut down. I think he’s just scared.”

“I didn’t know you can be sarcastic in sign.”

“Have you seen me and Parker talk?” Clint retorted. Then something lit up. Maybe that would work. Peter was pretty fluent in ASL, and he and the mystery boy were about the same age. Maybe he’d be more willing to open up then. “Speaking of Peter, when does he get off school?”

***

The next time Andrew woke up, there was a boy sitting criss cross in the chair beside him. He had curly brown hair and deep brown eyes with a light sprinkling of freckles. If nothing good comes out of this, at least I get to wake up next to a random attractive guy. Even if that guy tries to murder me.

“Hi.” the boy signed.

“Hi.” Andrew signed back.

“My names Peter. Peter Parker. Also I’m spiderman.” 

“Why would you tell me that? Isn’t it secret?”

Peter looked nervous. “Yes, but I figured if I want you to be honest with me, I should be honest with you.” Oh, Andrew thought. So it’s just another trap to get me to talk

No. Stop. He was having those thoughts again. He was refusing to trust someone over nothing. Okay: logic. Avengers are the good guys. Spiderman is a good guy. And he was getting a good sense from him; warm. They weren’t Hydra. They weren’t out to get him. And so long as he didn’t mention CPS or anything of the sort, he should be fine to talk to the guy.

“Hey, are you okay?” Peter signed quickly. Andrew blinked. How long had he been zoned out?

“Fine. Tired.”

Peter didn’t look like he believed him, but he moved on anyway. “What’s your name?” 

Andrew took a breath before he signed back. “Andrew Aguilar.”

The corner of Peter’s mouth turned up. It was kind of cute. “I like it. It has alliteration, like mine.”

“Assonance” Andrew corrected.

Peter looked confused for a minute. “You’re such a nerd,” he signed back.

Andrew smiled. His judgement was right; it seems Peter could be trusted. He was funny, at least.

“So, why are you here?”

Maybe not. Andrews face fell back to the glare it was at before. Peter quickly corrected himself.

“You don’t need to give all the details if you don’t want. But I’m curious. Mr. Stark said you fought with the team downtown, is that true?”

Andrew nodded.

“So you have powers?”

Instead of responding, Andrew motioned for Peter to give him his hand. Peter obliged, but in a split second pulled away, his mouth moving in what Andrew assumed was an “ow.”

Once Peter recovered from the burn (that was being dramatic, Andrew had made sure not to hurt him badly. He barely got to the temperature of a ceramic mug filled with tea, it was more the shock than anything), Peter started signing fast.

“That’s amazing. I mean, that was what, half a second and already that hot? Imagine how hot you can make it with more contact- how does your body put up with it? You must be enhanced in some way, too, like, can you get burned? Do you have thicker skin? How-“

Andrew waved his hand in front of him to grab his attention. “Slow down. And you call me a nerd.”

“Sorry. It’s just cool, seeing another person like me.” Andrew raised an eyebrow. “I mean enhanced. Like, I’m Spiderman, right? So besides being awesome, it comes with all these side things, and some of them are cool and helpful, and some of them are just weird. Like I stick to things so I can climb, but sometimes, when I’m tired I can’t shut it off, and I end up ripping pages out of books.”

Andrew nodded. He understood that. That’s why he created the hearing aids, after all. So when he was tired (or throughout the day, to conserve energy), he could block out the sounds he didn’t want to hear, but his stupid ears picked up anyway.

“Sorry I’m rambling.” Andrew shook his head as if to say it’s fine. “So, Mr. Aguilar, where are you from?”

“Arizona,” he signed.

“Woah,” Peter signed back. “That’s far. I’ve barely been outside the city a few times, never outside the state except to visit my boyfriend’s family in Tennessee one year.”

Boyfriend. Oh. Andrew felt his shoulders fall slightly, but he quickly tried to hide it. “Yeah. It’s pretty boring there. Hot. More hot. Pretty much it.”

“You have the Grand Canyon!” Peter tried and failed to sign grand canyon without finger spelling, instead saying ‘really big valley.’ Admittedly, a good chunk of the state was a really big valley, just not the one Peter was trying to reference.

Andrew suppressed a laugh and shrugged. “Never been.”

“Really?” Andrew nodded. “So what made you come all this way?”

“I got a job at Stark Industries as a chemist. Figured not needing a bunson burner was a plus.”

Peter frowned. “You’re like 16.”

“17,” Andrew corrected. “I may have forged a few documents.”

Peter raised his eyebrows. “And it worked?” He signed skeptically.

“Surprisingly yes.”

“So, you have family here or something?”

“Don’t really have family much of anywhere.”

Peter frowned. “Then where are you staying?” 

“Well, my plane arrived about an hour before my first day at work. So I came to work. And now I’m here. I hadn’t really thought of where I’d go after this, I guess I’d just figure it out, you know?” He probably shouldn’t be saying (or signing) this. He just admitted that he, a 17 year old from across the country, was homeless in New York in the middle of winter. But he didn’t think Peter had the power to send him back, and that warm feeling was still there. Peter was still trustworthy.

Before Peter could give a response, another person came throw the door: a average sized man with black hair streaked with grey and glasses. He was wearing a lab coat, which totally definitely didn’t freak Andrew out at all. Peter and the man exchanged a few words before he turned back to the boy in the hospital bed. Andrew used this time to assess the new guy. He stared at the wall. Warm. But as soon as he looked back at him and the fucking lab coat he felt an icy flash. He closed his eyes. Breathe. Okay. 

He called these false flashes. When someone reminded him of a different memory, his signals would get clogged and mix up. He calmed himself down, but before he could try and assess again, Peter was waving for his attention. 

“This is Dr. Banner. He patched up your leg while you were out. He has some questions for you, can I translate for him?”

“Can he lose the lab coat?” He signed back, careful not to look at Dr. Banner. Peter said something to the man, who gave Andrew a puzzled look, but complied. As soon as the coat was out of sight, Andrew looked at the man again, as a new person. Warm. Okay. Good. He was good. “Alright,” he signed to Peter.

Dr. Banner talked to Peter, who dutifully translated to sign. “He wants to know about your hearing. What causes you not to be able to hear right now? He says you told Clint whether you were hearing or not ‘depends.’ What did you mean by that?”

Andrew thought for a minute before he responded. “I have hyperacusis. I can hear literally everything around me really loud and from far away, so I have hearing aids to block out noise when needed. They’re on the fritz right now, so I can’t hear anything.”

“Why don’t you just take them out?” Peter signs, apparently saying it aloud as well. 

“Too loud. I get too overwhelmed and just shut down completely.” Andrew replied. He never takes out his hearing aids, even when he wants to hear far away. Even at the highest setting, they let him focus on the sounds he wants to hear. Without them, he’s attacked by a cacophony of sirens and voices and electronic whirring and he just couldn’t handle it. Even the thought of it made his skin crawl.

This time translating from the doctor, Peter signed “What if we get you noise cancelling headphones for a bit? They don’t cancel out all the noise, so you’d be able to understand us somewhat, and we can work on fixing those for you,” he pointed to the hearing aids at the end of the statement.

Andrew nodded. “That would be okay.”

Dr. Banner left the room and was back with a pair of large black headphones, which he handed to Andrew. 

Andrew braced himself before pulling out his hearing aids. Sure enough, the sounds around him attacked, and he rushed to put the headphones on. Once he calmed his breathing, he tried to listen. Sure enough, he could still hear. It sounded close to level two on his hearing aids; the noises were very muffled but definitely there, and noises closer took precedent. He could make out footsteps on floors above him, and what sounded to be an elevator. The whole building had that distinct whirring that seemed to follow all forms of technology. The headphones weren’t as advanced as his hearing aids, so he couldn’t focus in on certain sounds with them. He’d just have to deal with the sounds surrounding him until he got his hearing aids back.

Peter waved. “Are they working?” He signed.

Andrew nodded. “Try speaking,” he signed.

“Hello?” Peter said out loud.

Andrew nodded again. He signed, “I can hear you, but not too well with all the other sounds. You guys can talk, but I’d like it if you still used ASL as well?”

Peter repeated what he said back to Banner, who nodded and began to speak. “Okay Andrew, I have a few more questions. Why can’t you speak?”

“I’m nonverbal right now,” Andrew signed. “It happens when I’m stressed out or hurt or sometimes out of nowhere, so I sign instead.”

Dr. Banner nodded. “Alright. Is your leg still in pain?”

“Not much, just a dull hurting now.”

“I’m going to have you stay here and sleep tonight, and we’ll see how you are in the morning,” Dr. Banner said, standing up. Peter followed him, waving goodbye. 

Andrew was left alone in the room. He didn’t want to fall asleep, not in a place he didn’t know, but he was so tired…

Needless to say, he was asleep in less than 10 minutes.

***

“Alright kid, what’s the deal?”

Peter tapped his knuckles nervously. The other guy seemed pretty closed off, and it felt wrong to tell everything about him to Mr. Stark. But on the other hand…

“I hadn’t really thought of where I’d go after this, I guess I’d just figure it out, you know?”

He was alone here. No home, no family, nothing. They were the same age, and he couldn’t imagine the tables being turned. So, for Andrew’s own well-being, he told Mr. Stark.

“He’s harmless, but he doesn’t have anywhere to go. No family anywhere near here, no place to live. He just got to New York this morning. Can we keep him?”

“He’s not a puppy, Peter. He forged documentation to get a job here, not to mention he started fighting alongside us out of nowhere. If anything, we should be turning him in to SHIELD-“

“It’s not like he was fighting against you!”

Tony sighed. Peter was giving his best puppy dog eyes. “Still, we know nothing about him, not really. We’ll send him on his way as soon as he’s recovered.”

“We know he’s enhanced,” Peter retorted. “You really want some enhanced kid with no clue running around New York by himself? He’s gonna get himself killed.” Or worse.

He had him there. “Okay. Okay, he’s staying. You got me, kid.”

Really, he was never going to just kick him out in the first place. He would’ve set him up with a place to live until he was on his feet. But Peter made good points- the boy was just a kid, after all. And not everyone can burn a building down with their mind.

I guess a new hero just got added to the tower, Tony thought to himself. He just hoped it would end up okay, for both parties.

[artiificiial]

I have a few headcanons of Ring I would like to share if you don't mind.

1) mans is like four feet tall, they are not tall in the slightest and they are a-okay with it.

Sometimes they'll even use it to get out of fights with drunk people "you wouldn't hit a short lil guy huh 🥺🥺 I shouldn't even be a threat to someone as tall as you🥺 I'm just over here making balloon animals tryna bring some joy to the world" they are actively sneaking to the back in order to steal some item they need for a quest. With the chain I might place them a couple inches taller than Four but not by much, and even then I'm willing to hear out ppl who say they're smaller.

2) they can't talk. I don't mean in the non verbal sense, but everytime they talk little jester bells ring. Either the chain can't understand what they're saying but nod along anyway to make them feel included, or only the chain understands them (maybe their Zelda as well), leading to something like this

"you need anything from the shop, Ring*

*bells jingle*

"I don't think they'll have that but I can see"

3) For as much as they can talk, Ring is very expressive when saying anything, like 'you need to move before you get hit' kind of expressive. It's even worse then they're telling a story, suddenly they're hands are moving so fast you can barely make out what's a sign and what's a random hand movement, all the while bells are ringing a mile a minute.

3a) they do the hand-flaps, they stim. They don't really do it in public or when they preform, but if they feel particularly comfortable around you it's pretty common esp when they're excited.

4) (another non serious one) when you squeeze them they make a chew toy noise

5) I'm kinda tempted to say that they can't juggle, bc the idea of a non-juggling jester is funny. I also like the idea of him not being able to do fire performance work (make it extra angst and make it be because of his parents dying in a fire)(maybe even have it be because fire reminds him of Ganon or a near death experience)

6) any link: oh hey you're not busy

Ring, putting on his daily make-up: actually __, I am busy

I think that's it

hii sorry i took long to respond, i wanted to gather all of my thoughts. while reading this i was totally giggling and kicking my feet, i enjoyed reading your thoughts on Ring!

1. Ring is quite small, I just never put much thought into how tiny he is. I love the idea of him being slightly taller than Four though because Ring wields the master sword on his journey and if I remember properly Four was too small to wield it!

Ring most definitely would use his stature to wiggle out of things! He often uses peoples ignorance to his height/occupation to get the jump on them! Cause I mean, you wouldn’t hurt a wee jester would you? (also I drew this before I saw the ask but I think it fits perfectly)

(more under the cut!)

2. Oh actually! Ring used to be able to speak like a normal person but during his first adventure he was cursed to only sound like a bell (in relation to the fact that a part of his “game mechanics” would be rhythm game based!) so the only people who can understand him are the other cursed beings of the ganon-ified Hyrule Castle. Ring does do sign language and it’s how he communicates with those who weren’t in Hyrule Castle at the time of Ganons corruption!

I like to think Ring was originally embarrassed of the fact that he sounded like a carillon when he was trying very hard to speak real words that he opted to just not talk! Which I realize now has angst potential (that one tiktok audio that’s like “why don’t you speak? does nobody ask you why?” or smtn)

(It would be funny if Hyrule/Time could understand Ring since he very vaguely sounds like a fairy— I’m p sure they sound like bells?? I can’t remember)

3. Yes yes yes!!! Even before he lost his voice he was pretty expressive! When making Ring I combined a little bit of everything when it came to clownage and a part of why he’s so expressive is due to pantomime! (I used to study it and boy was it difficult to act out! Having to tell a story with nothing but your expressions and actions!) Another part of his “game mechanics” would involve pantomime and having to interact with objects that were invisible! (think of that one scene with mr mime in detective pikachu) Also you’re so right about the stim!

4. I actually have a drawing somewhere of Ganon squeezing Ring like a chew toy and it making the sound

5. I agree it would be funny if Ring wasn’t able to juggle/do fire work, but imagine if like, Ring used his clown skills.. in battle. Like the chain is fighting a gaggle of lizafos or smtn and Ring like.. juggles something at them? or even breaths fire at them??

Warriors: That was a slick move, do you own a fire rod?

Ring: Do I own a what

Surprisingly Rings parents (at least his mom, I never made his dad) is okay! Ring pulled the sword when he was very young and the king removed him from the circus to be raised as a knight but the circus still visits as often as they can! I was looking through his notes and the only things I have listed as his fears are “tight spaces, loud noises, and the dark”

6. Ring is that one vine of the granny doing their eyebrows in the floor length mirror.